Films

[jump]

I somehow managed to watch enough 2020 films to do a top ten end of year list.

 

10.Onward, it’s Pixar by the numbers but still a decent family movie.

9. Tenet, pros it’s very Nolan-ish, cons it’s very Nolan-ish.

8. Wonder Woman 84, decent superhero romp although I scratch my head at some of the things that happen in it like did Wonder Woman technically rape someone(?!).

7. Invisible Man, it’s really just an excuse to watch Elizabeth Moss masterfully use the ruined make up method of acting.

6. Birds Of Prey, fun, looks visually interesting and has some cool set pieces.

5. The Hunt, highlight of the movie was figuring out who the main character was going to be at the start after watching people start to be killed off.

4. Borat 2, lacks the impact from the first film but its a better narrative and rather than just showing the ignorance of the average American it also shows genuine kindness.

3. The Trial Of The Chicago 7, it feels a tad too much like a play where it’s just people talking but it’s still compelling and some great preformces.

2. Scare Me, A really good indie budget film that manages to keep you engaged through out due to some fantastic performances.

1. Soul, Pixar at its best but it somehow manages to fit in Tina Fey doing black face again.

Edited December 27, 2020 by jump

[Gromite]

 

On 12/27/2020 at 10:35 AM, jump said:

I somehow managed to watch enough 2020 films to do a top ten end of year list.

 

10.Onward, it’s Pixar by the numbers but still a decent family movie.

9. Tenet, pros it’s very Nolan-ish, cons it’s very Nolan-ish.

8. Wonder Woman 84, decent superhero romp although I scratch my head at some of the things that happen in it like did Wonder Woman technically rape someone(?!).

7. Invisible Man, it’s really just an excuse to watch Elizabeth Moss masterfully use the ruined make up method of acting.

6. Birds Of Prey, fun, looks visually interesting and has some cool set pieces.

5. The Hunt, highlight of the movie was figuring out who the main character was going to be at the start after watching people start to be killed off.

4. Borat 2, lacks the impact from the first film but its a better narrative and rather than just showing the ignorance of the average American it also shows genuine kindness.

3. The Trial Of The Chicago 7, it feels a tad too much like a play where it’s just people talking but it’s still compelling and some great preformces.

2. Scare Me, A really good indie budget film that manages to keep you engaged through out due to some fantastic performances.

1. Soul, Pixar at its best but it somehow manages to fit in Tina Fey doing black face again.

Soul is a beautiful film, Pixar at their peak again.

On the flipside I thought Onward really didn't have much to it, not bad, just didn't have the depth Pixar manage to get into a lot of their films.

I really haven't seen many other films released this this, The Trial Of The Chicago 7 was a good watch though.

[charlierc]

Watched No County for Old Men and Love Actually for the first time this week... I think its safe to say there's a slight contrast between the pair of them.

[1986]

Done a top 25 for the year, based on UK release dates. I'd like to describe them all but I actually have to do some work atm. the top 10 is pretty nailed on but the rest could be shifted round a bit. Anyone seen these?

25. Clemency

24. The Decline

23. Rocks

22. The Assistant

21. Weathering With You

20. The Truth

19. A Whisker Away

18. Tigertail

17. After Midnight

16. Queen & Slim

15. Calm With Horses

14. Color Out Of Space

13. Da 5 Bloods

12. Saint Frances

11. Crip Camp

10. Lovers Rock

9. The Lighthouse

8. Portrait Of A Lady On Fire

7. Never Rarely Sometimes Always

6. Saint Maud

5. I'm Thinking Of Ending Things

4. Uncut Gems

3. Soul

2. Mangrove

1. Parasite

[Padjeq]

Quite the difference between Onward and Soul. The former felt slightly more childish, even with the latter's decent into a soft moomin looking world. The detail in both animation and backgrounds in Soul was breathtaking. Every so often they upgrade their process and the techniques advance. I'd say that's what we're seeing here.

Onward was one of the last films I watched at the pictures before lockdown 1. We opted for 4DX as we'd yet to try it. It was sad being the only 2 ticket holders in the entire screening of a kids film, and made tragic by the cinema employee who had to sit in a chair facing us, for the whole film, to make sure we didn't fall out and get crushed to death by the moving chairs (which actually happened to a man at Star City in the past few years). It was easy to pretend he wasn't there until the 4DX strobe lights would light him up like Max Cady on the 4th of July. Utterly chilling.

[jump]

4 hours ago, Padjeq said:

Quite the difference between Onward and Soul. The former felt slightly more childish, even with the latter's decent into a soft moomin looking world. The detail in both animation and backgrounds in Soul was breathtaking. Every so often they upgrade their process and the techniques advance. I'd say that's what we're seeing here.

Onward was one of the last films I watched at the pictures before lockdown 1. We opted for 4DX as we'd yet to try it. It was sad being the only 2 ticket holders in the entire screening of a kids film, and made tragic by the cinema employee who had to sit in a chair facing us, for the whole film, to make sure we didn't fall out and get crushed to death by the moving chairs (which actually happened to a man at Star City in the past few years). It was easy to pretend he wasn't there until the 4DX strobe lights would light him up like Max Cady on the 4th of July. Utterly chilling.

Yeah, Onward is like The Good Dinosaur where they seemed to came up with a premise of "Ooh what if the world was like this" but then stopped working on it. Also Soul had Pete Docter directing it (who also directed Inside Out, Up etc) who's arguably is Pixar's best director even over Brad Bird or John Lasseter.

Still an okay Pixar film is better than the average animated film, except for Cars 2 which is annoying as fuck.

 

[Padjeq]

27 minutes ago, jump said:

Yeah, Onward is like The Good Dinosaur where they seemed to came up with a premise of "Ooh what if the world was like this" but then stopped working on it. Also Soul had Pete Docter directing it (who also directed Inside Out, Up etc) who's arguably is Pixar's best director even over Brad Bird or John Lasseter.

Still an okay Pixar film is better than the average animated film, except for Cars 2 which is annoying as fuck.

 

Get upset when I think about Cars.

Why are they cars? The toys in Toy Story are toys, but not peopletoys. What cruel god made them this way? Cars is a big budget Shoe People.

[gary1979666]

I don't mind the Cars films - even the much maligned Cars 2 - compared to some of the non-Pixar offerings, it's not so bad.  

Onward was decent as you said, but a bit Pixar by numbers.  On second watch with the boy, I still enjoyed it.

Soul, however, was something else.  Incredibly well done and up there with Inside Out. 

[FloorFiller]

Wonder Woman 1984 is a terrible, overlong mess.

[jump]

41 minutes ago, FloorFiller said:

Wonder Woman 1984 is a terrible, overlong mess.

Yeah, it's a proper mess but I reckon you might be able to carve out a decent movie from it with a new edit.

It came out the same day of the London lockdown and I was tempted to travel to a place just outside of London where it was showing to see it as I was looking forward to it. Glad I didn't in the end.

[charlierc]

Usually I like watching the Oscar movies but it seems hard to find them at present with cinemas being closed. For instance, Sound of Metal is weirdly available for me if I have a trial on Prime US but not with my Prime UK account, which... OK.

Aside from the ones that were put out by Netflix, are any of them out yet?

[Padjeq]

12 hours ago, charlierc said:

Usually I like watching the Oscar movies but it seems hard to find them at present with cinemas being closed. For instance, Sound of Metal is weirdly available for me if I have a trial on Prime US but not with my Prime UK account, which... OK.

Aside from the ones that were put out by Netflix, are any of them out yet?

Only Judas and the Black Messiah, which is on apple.

Promising Young Woman is being held back for the cinema here. I'm glad there'll be incentives for people to return to the pictures.

Nomadland is coming to Star on Disney+ the end of next month.

The Father is seemingly not even out in america yet. I guess they suspended the 2 weeks at the cinema to be nominated stipulation.

One thing about this awards season is there's definitely good contenders which have been held back for the bigger show next year. Imagine this happened last year - they would've sat on 1917 for sure.

 

[charlierc]

On 3/18/2021 at 9:40 AM, Padjeq said:

Only Judas and the Black Messiah, which is on apple.

Promising Young Woman is being held back for the cinema here. I'm glad there'll be incentives for people to return to the pictures.

Nomadland is coming to Star on Disney+ the end of next month.

The Father is seemingly not even out in america yet. I guess they suspended the 2 weeks at the cinema to be nominated stipulation.

One thing about this awards season is there's definitely good contenders which have been held back for the bigger show next year. Imagine this happened last year - they would've sat on 1917 for sure.

 

Don't have Apple or Disney+ subscriptions - have considered the latter though, so Nomadland being part of it certainly helps attract me to it.

Interesting that Promising Young Woman is being held back for cinema release. Seems like the hype might well've been forgotten, and it's also odd given that it's been out in the US in some form or another since Christmas.

It's understandable tbf that this is a lot messier, both for these and for upcoming blockbusters. After all we basically lost an entire year and there's a jumble mix of films competing for only so many release slots in an ad hoc calendar.

[Matt42]

Anyone else watch nomadland? Not really sure how I feel about it.

typical Oscar film in that I wouldn’t call it a good or bad film. Very deep and brings up some interesting thematic points - but feels like it would work better as a novel (as it originally was), than a movie.

Nothing really “happens”. You’re just kinda following this woman around living an abnormal life.

[Tartan_Glasto]

Sound of Metal is on Amazon Prime UK and Promising Young Woman went straight to Sky Movies here. 

 

 

[pink_triangle]

On 4/30/2021 at 7:41 PM, Matt42 said:

Anyone else watch nomadland? Not really sure how I feel about it.

typical Oscar film in that I wouldn’t call it a good or bad film. Very deep and brings up some interesting thematic points - but feels like it would work better as a novel (as it originally was), than a movie.

Nothing really “happens”. You’re just kinda following this woman around living an abnormal life.

I found it quite dull, as you say not good or bad. I watched Palm Springs today which was much more interesting.

[jyoung]

On 4/30/2021 at 7:41 PM, Matt42 said:

Anyone else watch nomadland? Not really sure how I feel about it.

typical Oscar film in that I wouldn’t call it a good or bad film. Very deep and brings up some interesting thematic points - but feels like it would work better as a novel (as it originally was), than a movie.

Nothing really “happens”. You’re just kinda following this woman around living an abnormal life.

I enjoyed it a lot. I thought it felt authentic and captured the light and dark perfectly - never too high, never too low. There was a lull in the final quarter but it picked back up at the end. I didn't come out thinking it was incredible like with Parasite last year but I thought it had beautiful moments.

[Padjeq]

Went back to the pictures to see A Quiet Place 2. Last time I went there was September, so this might've been the longest gap between visits since i was about 6.

Got a question for anyone that has seen the film:

edit, nevermind: how do i insert a spoiler text?

Edited June 1, 2021 by Padjeq

[jump]

11 minutes ago, Padjeq said:

Went back to the pictures to see A Quiet Place 2. Last time I went there was September, so this might've been the longest gap between visits since i was about 6.

Got a question for anyone that has seen the film:

edit, nevermind: how do i insert a spoiler text?

Actually never mind, I can't get the fucking things to work myself lol

Edited June 1, 2021 by jump

[Padjeq]

30 minutes ago, jump said:

it's  [spoilers]Text you want to hide[/spoilers] without the spaces.

thank you

[spoilers]christ alive[/spoilers]

Edited June 1, 2021 by Padjeq

[Homer]

12 hours ago, Padjeq said:

Went back to the pictures to see A Quiet Place 2. Last time I went there was September, so this might've been the longest gap between visits since i was about 6.

Got a question for anyone that has seen the film:

edit, nevermind: how do i insert a spoiler text?

Was booked for Monday but the weather was so nice we sacked it off. May go tomorrow night as it's supposed to be a bit crap tomorrow.

[Homer]

On 3/17/2021 at 8:58 PM, charlierc said:

Usually I like watching the Oscar movies but it seems hard to find them at present with cinemas being closed. For instance, Sound of Metal is weirdly available for me if I have a trial on Prime US but not with my Prime UK account, which... OK.

Aside from the ones that were put out by Netflix, are any of them out yet?

Keep an eye on the cinemas. I've seen Sound of Metal, Nomadland, Judas and the Black Messiah, and, er, Kong Vs Godzille since they reopened. And the Anthony Hopkins one is out soon.

[Gnomicide]

If you do the lottery (or know someone who does) you can book free tickets to the cinema this Sunday. You need to go to cinemaweekend.co.uk to get your code, then book on the cinema site.

You just need park of your lottery reference. 

[jump]

The Tomorrow War is a load of shit. I was expecting something like Edge of Tomorrow or Oblivion that uses the premise better but instead I just kept thinking to myself why would a load of middle aged cannon fodder be needed to fight a war in the future rather than sending tech, battle data etc to the past to help prepare for the invasion instead. 

[charlierc]

On 7/8/2021 at 8:50 AM, jump said:

The Tomorrow War is a load of shit. I was expecting something like Edge of Tomorrow or Oblivion that uses the premise better but instead I just kept thinking to myself why would a load of middle aged cannon fodder be needed to fight a war in the future rather than sending tech, battle data etc to the past to help prepare for the invasion instead. 

I saw a trailer for it and for a movie that apparently cost $200million to put together, I thought the CGI looked surprisingly cheap. I might watch it just to kill a few brain cells at some point or another, but it does seem like there are much better movies in the same genre.