Film you recently watched: part 3

Watched "Unforgivable" on Netflix on Saturday expecting some lame Sandra Bullock cr*p. I was tired and fully expecting to be asleep within the hour.

It was a very very good film. I have no problem recommending it and have completely turned 180 on my views on SB's acting.

 

Spider-Man: Far From Home.

Good, but being hugely overhyped and overrated by the Marvel super-nerd freaks. That fan base is like some weird cult.

 

**fixed**

 

The bank Job.

Second one this week which has had English geezers jemmying open safe deposit boxes.

This one has lots of stereotypes. Broody leader geezer - balding with stubble - leather coat and a black roll neck jumper. You know, the uniform. He's married to a blousy blonde "'E's not wurrff it!" woman wiv an 'art of gold. Cant remember her name. Probably "Bev" or something similar. Oh and the nippers of course.

Then there's laughably ludicrous Trinidadian kingpin Token X or whatever name they gave him. While trying very unconvincingly to appear menacing, whilst proving what every viewer already knew: - that all that 'racial equality' stuff is just cover for the usual druggin' 'n' pimpin' which black people always appear in these films doing.

Then there's some utterly evil, pervert ****ie bow Lords of the realm (Con. undoubtedly) who have been caught doing their dirty deeds on film - the usual stuff those people like from their schooldays - oh matron beat my bum and that.

Also on the evil stereotypes team, oy vey!, it's the very-Jewish smutty porn King of Soho, who pays off bent cops, wears big glasses and a fur trimmed coat and chops bits off his captives. He was also responsible for KILLING DAVE!!! - a member of the good Bank robber team who loved his old mum and supposedly, although he didn't look the type, had a 12" pingón.

Anyway they noisily burrow into the bank vaults, passing under a fried chicken shop, which is staffed and patronised by the world's thickest people. With the Lloyd's bank next door, the chicken shop shaking to its foundations by the roar of pneumatic drills below, they shout to each other above the roar wondering what on earth it could be? Yes I wonder. A mystery really.

When the loveable burglers get in to the vault, very understandably and believably, without cracking open a single box, they decide they will all leave and go off for "a rest" and "a sleep" and "to let the dust settle". Just what you'd do.

Fortunately this vacation of the stage also allows for some vital plot development conversations to take place.

Enter another stereotype. Public school, pinstripe Tim, from the shady special services. Tim's really tough and smart and powerful. He's pulling all the strings and only has to snap his fingers. Underlings cringe beneath terrible Timmy's wrath. He's almost like some sort of a god. It's great to find there are public schoolboys like this, because I always found them to be chinless, cowardly, semi-imbecile creatures, barely capable of doing anything for themselves.

Oh and women too of course, there's some posh totty, jolly hockey sticks, Joyce Grenfell type girl, who's a go between and travels between slick Timmy and the grubby railway arches where us poor hang out. She pretends to be into all that hopeless hippy peace and love stuff and in order to fit in convincingly with the underclasses, buys a bracelet the says it. "Huh! Peace and love! Huh!" says public school Timmy scornfully as he loads more bullets into his big phallic pistol.

Well, in the end it all worked out all right it seemed. At the end, there were a series of fast moving and tiny, white writing on a black screen, explanations of how they'd managed to resolve it, but I couldn't be bothered to read it. I think everyone got all their dirty photographs back and managed to suppress them, Dixon of Dock Green caught the corrupt cops and had 'em "banged up", evil old Fagin in the fur coat got kicked in the face and body by stubble man (well he KILLED DAVE!) and also probably got prison as well. Muhammed X the Hawain shirted Trini drug runner, who pretended to be worried about black rights and outraged sensibilities by openly ROMPING with white women, has his house burned down by the colonial authorities, which is a jolly good lesson to him and all other uppity natives.

Public school Tim disappears back off into the shadows, with a final polish of the Luger, a tilt of the sunglasses and a dismissive put down for heartbroken Joyce Grenfell.

Stubble man and 'er indoors and the nippers are now away scott free and have a yacht and a deserted tropical beach and everything. So everyone was happy.

(Parp!) FIN


Rating: 3/10

 

Netflix Movie ‘Don’t Look Up’ was tonight’s festive treat. Mixed reviews from our household. I appreciated the social commentary on denial culture, and there were plenty of humorous moments but sometimes the tone felt a little bit off. 5.5/10

 

I also watched Don't Look Up tonight. I liked it. It's basically two and a bit hours of ripping on what a bunch of complete ******* idiots inhabit/run this planet and the dark path we're on. As outlandish as some of it seemed, it was also scarily close to being quite realistic for the most part.

7.5/10.

 

Watched Last Train to Christmas last night, I liked it, clever idea.

 

Very entertaining film with a great cast and some genuinely laugh out loud moments. Di Caprio is excellent channelling the Leonard character from The Big Bang Theory and Mark Rylance entertaining as the Elon Musk-like gnomic tech wizard.

It falls into thinking that only the US can lead the response to a World crisis, but to be fair, it’s that thinking that is also the target for its satire.

 

Just watched it too, really enjoyed it. It’s a great commentary on the state of the world right now and sadly doesn’t seem far from being realistic.

 

Would have been quicker to watch the film

 

Wrath of Man, the new Guy Ritchie film on Amazon. Started of awfully, terrible acting and dialogue, but as far as mindless action films go it got better the longer it went on.

Spoiler: Not really a spoiler but just in case

It was annoying that one of the scenes was a direct rip off from the opening scene of Heat

 

Don't Look Up

I quite enjoyed this film. The idea was very good, but I thought it could have been executed better.

The best thing it does is show up the vacuousness of, especially the US media, but we're not far behind. I especially liked the death concert in the film and the comical lyrics in the songs.

It is supposed to be a satire on global warming. I would say, like most Holywood films, it is too concentrated on the great United States and there's almost nothing to be heard from the rest of the world, even though the whole planet is to be wiped out.

Whether it will change anyone's mind I don't know. Maybe if it had been done better.

7/10

 

White House Down, a bit far fetched but still an enjoyable watch.

 

Apparently the combined transfer budgets of Arsenal and Chelsea are more than is spent globally on planetary defence.

 

Well, it did give me a new acronym to use for the delicious Dr Maggie Aderin-Peacock I suppose...

A.I.L.F.

 

Always felt that Richie was an overhyped one movie wonder but I actually really enjoyed this. Totally dumb but Statham can carry any old ***** these days and this is a lot better than his usual crap.

 

Watched "the 2 Escobars" on iplayer storyville documentaries series. Really quite crazy how Columbias football was influenced and ran by the drugs warlords and well worth a watch.

 

That's the one available to stream isnt it? Not the one in the cinema?

I watched it as my son wants to watch the new one so we watched far from home together first. It's awful. Cliched and dumb storyline, spiderman crossed with a dumb high school romance romcom. But not a good one, one of those high schools films with no name actors. Its abysmal.

 

I watched it and loved it. But then again, I love pretty much everything Adam McKay is involved in. Jonah Hill as the Don Jr type character was sensational. ‘Last man on Earth, don’t forget to like and subscribe’.

 

I actually meant No Way Home! I've seen Far From Home as well though, and that is indeed complete crap.

 

I second that. A grim story but a worthy watch. I saw this then the Lost Daughter and finally Dont Look Up (loved The Trump and Apple parodies), all over the new year weekend. All worth the monthly subscription imho.

 

‘Mr Jones’ (on Amazon Prime). Can watch on YouTube.
86% rating on RottenTomatoes

Very good bio of of a young Welsh journalist in early 1930’s who interviewed Hitler and in Russia discovered and reported on Stalin’s ‘Holodomor’ deliberate genocide starvation in the Ukraine and Ukrainian speaking Russia killing an estimated 4 million.

Good acting and cinematography, it won awards and gives an excellent expose of how ‘fake news’ influenced and split political opinion and actions at a time when many people wanted the socialist revolution to work and sweep across Europe ..

Fake news worked then, it is still working today..
Stalin then and today Putin vs Ukraine are very much topical atm.

 

Strictly speaking she's an engineer - that's why she's good as a double with Chris Linott - his 'expertise' is using the equipment designed by 'her'.

 

Con Air starring Nicholas Cage.

Bit of a patchy review as I missed the start, fell asleep several times during the film and switched it off because it was rubbish before the end.

Nicholas Cage is a criminal, except not really, he's actually a hero army person and only killed someone because they insulted his wife. Understandably he's being released and will see his daughter for the first time. Oh tie a yellow ribbon. It's all very saccharine.

Only trouble is, he has to get a plane with loads of other crims home. The whole gamut of the twisted and evil as seen through the eyes of the great US public:

Most are of course black and a good proportion of the remainder are Hispanic, bald-headed, native American or transexual. Proper nasty. Most memorable is a black fella called 'Pinball' who gets jammed in the landing gear and frozen to death, with a permanent Eddie Murphy smile.

There is also a psycho hannibal lector type one, who is very mild and looks a bit like a cross between David Mitchell, Hitler and Richie Cunningham out of Happy Days. At one point, by a pure stroke of luck, he finds a little girl having a doll's tea party all alone in the middle of the dessert amongst a load of wrecked planes. As you do....

Worst of all though, is a terrible man who is called 'Diamond Dog' or something equally ridiculous. He is a 'black militant', but really of course, as with last week's Hollywood offering, his nonsense about inequality and racism is mere cover for more of that pimpin', murderin' and rapin' what black people always do. Some liberals and even Liberal newspapers had sympathised with him sighed the hero characters. Awful. White women can't walk the streets in safety without being ravaged, ravaged I say! by these sorts of people.

Anyway, the crims take over the plane - predictably, despite searches, as soon as the wheels are up, they're all coughing up knives or assembling pistols.

The leader, Cyprus the Virus, seems quite a likeable man apart from he set fire to someone - but he was only a Latino and so (predictably) a sunglasses wearing drugs lord.

There is some exciting music and lots of big bangs. Nick runs around a-la Bruce Willis in his vest, muscles all agleam and sorts everything out. Predictably. I don't know how exactly but he was doing kung fu and stuff on the other crims when I fell asleep.

When I woke up, they'd caught them all and were frog marching them over the tarmac. There was some more, where I suppose it went back to the sickly sweet meetup with the wife and daughter, but I couldn't be bothered and went to bed.

(Parp!) FIN

2/10 - ludicrous nonsense. A vehicle for Nick Cage to say cool things in a vest with flames behind him.

 

So we bit the bullet and "hired" the latest James Bond film last night and I have to say what a massive disappointment it was. With everyone saying it was action packed with an amazing storyline I was quite excited to watch it.

Obviously with any Bond film the opening is pretty awesome and this was no different. the moment the tomb exploded it kicked of big time for a good 15 minutes, then the budget was done for that hour as the film meandered between boring and way too long scenes. Again as expected there are more pretty amazing effects and explosions, especially the lift shaft one, but by then I was gone, lost to a boring and 1 hour too long storyline. Several times I got up to refill mine and Mrs Diamonds glasses and wander off to the toilet , (mostly due to boredom), without missing a thing. I suppose watching it in a cinema will heighten the effects but how does that make up for a crap story and hole filled plot?

Hugely disappointed and left harking back to the days when Bond films were some of the best out there and not just for the explosions. There are many more free films on Netflix and Prime which kick this one into touch.

 

Perfectly put. I picked up my tablet and started reading during the movie. Too long and extremely boring imo. My Mrs response was how do I know it sent me to sleep.

 

Spielberg's West Side Story. The old film has been one of my all-time favourites, but this is much better. It has moved much further away from the stage show than the old film, and there's much more depth to the story. The slum clearances around what was to become the Lincoln Center shrunk the gangs' territories, which increased the scope for territorial conflict. There was a greater sense of danger from the start, better picture and sound quality, more authentic Puerto Ricans and better orchestral playing (Dudamel with the Ney York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic).

In my opinion West Side Story is the only musical that can hold a candle to the prewar musicals of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and George Gershwin. When I saw the trailer I was worried that the focus would be on the drama rather than on Leonard Bernstein's great music and Jerome Robbins' choreography, but everything was brilliant. Saw it on Friday and I want to see it again ASAP.

Incidentally, why didn't Sondheim stick to lyrics? His lyrics for WSS were perfect, but I've never heard a note of his musicals that I've wanted to hear again.

 

But you do get to see Hugh Dennis

Spoiler

bite the bullet

 

Is this in cinemas? Couldn’t see it. Although I’m looking forward to 48 Hours which is in cinemas soon. Hopefully I won’t have to sit next to some smoker.

 

That was NOT Cuba in that film by the way!

First of all, if there were a load on posh white "yumas" dancing in glittery frocks and tuxedos in a Cuban venue, then there would be about 4000 Cubans hanging in the windows watching.

Second of all, they would not have a long and luxurious gunfight in the Cuban venue. Not even James Bond. I know the Cuban PNR (police) very well indeed and they would have had the whole place swamped before the first B of 'bang'.

 

I seem to have a habit of watching remakes without realising they’re remakes (found out afterwards) but watched The Next Three Days on Netflix last night. Not a new film (2010) but I enjoyed it, built into a decent crescendo of tension. Apparently the original is a French film called ‘Pour Elle’.

Watched one called Shot Caller on Saturday night, about a white collar guy who turns bad in jail. Passable but nothing great.

 

Two at the weekend: "Don't Look Up" which was ermmm.... 'alright' - I really think Armando Iannucci or Chris Morris should have had some input in direction/script editing but saying that Leonardo DiCaprio showed what a good actor he is and Mark Rylance also gave a good turn.

Second one was "Mother/Android" - a new take on the old trope of "...the androids (serfs/peasants) are revolting..." - the opening and middle part of the story are all pretty standard stuff - but the closing third really explores/adds some new intelligent 'stuff' to the 'trope'. The director (debut feature for Mattson Tomlin) really tells an engaging and interesting story without the need for the film to become a CGI wn&kfest. I was really hesitant to watch this because of the presence of the lead Chloë Grace Moretz, thinking she would be little more than eye candy - how wrong I was. CGM gave a very grounded/credible performance forming a very believable character who really dominates the screen, particularly in the final third of the story. I advise you watching this 'cold' knowing little about it'll add to the enjoyment of the film.

 

Got dragged to see Spider-Man; No Way Home tonight.

I’m not really a marvel guy. I’ve liked one or two of them, Thor was alright, The first Guardians of the Galaxy was fun, as was Dr Strange.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Spider-Man before. I thought this was an absolute mess. Boring, long and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why

Spoiler

he jeopardised everything to ‘cure’ his enemies. Felt like the movie should have been him rounding up the baddies and sending them back to their dimension/timeline. Instead he rounds them all up, sets them free for no apparent reason other than he feels sorry for them and ****s his entire life up.