Watching "The Platform".
How the Hell does this pile of crap have a decent rating?

The acting is atrocious.
The plot is already razor thin and the development is infuriatingly mundane.

Repetition might be a form of comedy, but it makes for extremely lazy dialogue.
It's also guilty of shoe horning in a very dreary and childish political ideology which is likely the root cause of its rating.
A damning indictment of any critic would be any acknowledgement of this as a positive in their review.

Political

It's like a writer accidentally turned in his ten year old's social studies homework instead of a script and they just worked around it.

The Platform - 0/4

Like being patronised by a Spanish imbecile for 90 minutes.
Appalling rubbish.

I disagree Seanny but I still love you

It was Communist propaganda dressed up as a parody of Communist propaganda.
If Vincent Canby got his hands on this thing he would have ripped it to shreds.

1917

8/10

1917 is phenomenal. The technical achievements of that film are ground breaking and mind blowing

I'm currently watching Uncut Gems.
Very early on it sets up a lot of connected situations to be anxious about as the film progresses.
I don't gamble and I don't trust people with my money so this film is torturous.

I am enjoying the performances, I just can't see any way it ends happily.

Hope you had a pot of coffee before the viewing cuz it's great but exhausting

Actually I drank 2 tall cans of Relentless energy drink and nearly had a fucking panic attack. That isn't a joke.
That film is a painful exercise in the unparalleled pace of the highs and lows of high roller gambling addiction.

I saw a Mark Kermode review that said it invoked Bad Lieutenant the old Abel Ferrara film and I would agree if not for the fact that the newer Bad Lieutenant is actually more frenetic and a better example of addiction as a whole.

Uncut Gems was an incredible film though, one I will not forget anytime soon. No matter who says what, that ending was world class. Completely perfect as a story, the realism could cause every viewer to hate themselves a little more.

As for performances it was all beautiful. Not one aspect was misused or misappropriated in any way. The absurdity of it was so close to real life I would bet good money that a substantial amount of improvisation was allowed.

Adam Sandler is one of my heroes. I realise how unpopular that opinion is and I totally understand it. I just see the world class actor hiding in between silly comedies and I imagine how much more he has to offer.

I honestly think he will win an Oscar one day. He has it in him.

4/4 by the way

I forgot to say how good the woman that played his girlfriend was, Julia Fox.
She was about as realistic as a person can be on camera and her contribution made the whole film much more upsetting in so many ways.

I hope she gets to work with more directors that actually know what acting looks like. She was equal to Sandler in this.

I think the Safdie brothers are reinventing what thrillers actually are.
I bet their magnum opus kills people.

American Sniper 7.5/10

Love & Basketball.

I enjoyed it.

7/10

Bad Therapy - 6/10 - Odd, but I did not hate it
Fantasy Island -7/10 - Pretty good, a few twists I did not see coming
I Hate Kids - 6.5/10 - Very odd, but I enjoyed it. Starring Titus from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

I'm finally watching my copy of Seven Samurai. I bought it last year and it has sat there intimidating me ever since. Three and a half hours is a long time.

Anyway I'm 75 minutes in and so far it's very funny. I wasn't expecting the comic element to be so prevalent and it has worked a charm in warming me up to the Samurai themselves.

This opening act is the archetype for all films that build teams early on by introducing each member individually.
It's sets the social/political climate in rural Japan firmly against the Samurai as a preferred defence and establishes a "hero we need rather than the hero we want" attitude to the townspeople.

It's extremely enjoyable storytelling at its heart. The aspect I am most enamoured with is how easily the tone adapts as the imagery flits from sombre stoicism to jovial comedy and immaculate violence.

This is shaping up to be every bit the classic I was promised.

The second act is the Seven Samurai preparing the farming village to defend themselves against the bandits.
It's around an hour of more intense, revealing social commentary driven by the Samurai's integration with the villagers who's perceptions of them are at odds with their reasons for being there.

It's all moving along nicely, the wit and charm are still in full effect though there are a couple of scenes involving women that are vividly unsettling and I still don't understand one of them in the slightest.
It threw me off.

Oh man, just as I wrote that something happened that made me realise how hard going this last hour is going to be.
Bodies are going to rack up fast.

There's the world famous solo mission trope where a character proposes an insanely daring act of war and them re-emerges later after cutting a swathe of unseen destruction.

Respect for keeping it realistic though. It wasn't one against a hundred and nothing blew up.

That's where Hollywood goes wrong with the adaptations. It tries to one up common sense too often. You can see this film was written not to be like 300. It's not the story of insurmountable odds, it's the story of a carefully plotted strategic defence.
You're getting a whole hour to resolve this issue where nowadays it's all told in an epic final showdown.

If you take anything from this it's that bamboo spears actually look scary as shit when wielded even by the caring hand of a film extra told not to poke anybody important.

The villagers in this are ruthless and well coordinated. Everyone is much more defenceless in Hollywood. These guys catch a bandit coming off his horse? 20 different bamboo poles go up his ass.

There's a bloke in this with a sword almost as big as he is. In battle it should leave him comically unbalanced, much as his mind is, however he is an artist with that big bastard.

He's also fucking hilarious.

Seven Samurai - 4/4

This film is rightfully a treasure trove from which film makers still take the shiniest pieces.
It's extremely reassuring to see a film with a perfect score that actually deserves it.

JoJo Rabbit. 8.5/10. What a wonderfully weird movie.

JoJo might be 2020 film of the year

Had to turn down the volume a bit because my neighbour downstairs is Jewish. Lol too many "Heil Hitlers", especially when the Gestapo go looking through JoJo's home

A Hidden Life 8/10

A film about Austrian conscientious objector, Franz Jägerstätter, and his refusal to swear an oath to Hitler.

It is a (very) slow, quiet and intimate film; full of Austrian scenery porn. If you are looking for action, you will not find it here, but for the patient it is a lovely (wrong word to use), if sad, experience.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qJXmdY4lVR0" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I'm probably going to watch some other films by Terrence Malick.

Terrence Malick is a dreary bastard

X-Men: Dark Phoenix - 7.5/10

Dunno... after the turd that was X-Men: Apocalypse, was not expecting much from this... especially with, y'know, all the bad reviews and reception it got..... but.... I didn't mind it. I was entertained.

I sincerely hope Sophie Turner retires to pump out bairns for Harpo Jonas or whatever his name is.
She has had more than a fair chance at acting and she can't do it.

The lad Joffrey was the one we wanted to become a star. Now he's a dentist or something.

After a quick Google it looks like he's lined up to act in a couple of projects. One this year.

Good lad.

Just read that in the comics, Cyclops/Wolverine/Jean Grey are in a 3-way relationship now. Disney should make a movie about that.

Weren't they always?

Unless you mean like that film with Lara Flynn Boyle and Stephen Baldwin

They were in a "love triangle" before, but they were never all consentually banging each other.

Cyclops loves getting fingered up the bum by Wolverine.

Why are you reading erotica?

Have not read any Marvel comics in a long time..... Just briefly skimmed an article about it....

Kinky get

Anchorman 2.

Funny but 1st was definitely better

Never saw Anchorman 2.... I remember not caring for the first one, while everyone else was going crazy about it and saying it was hilarious..... I do feel like I should give it another shot, though, because I think when I watched it I was definitely "more pretentious" about my comedy

Anchorman is a strong comedy, Anchorman 2 was pretty disappointing.

Milk was a bad choice

Anchorman definitely had a big impact on pop culture. People used to quote Brick a lot.

The second one was pretty good until the second half. It lost all its steam from the first half and just becomes ridiculously unfunny.

They just repeated the same jokes from the first one and made all the characters extreme parodies of themselves.

Read about a website that has fuckloads of new movies on it in HD.
Watching "Good Boys" then "JoJo Rabbit". Also just saw all of Rick and Morty season 4.

www2.f2movies.to

Good Boys is funny as hell.

Boy kissing a sex doll

You been druggin your whole life?

Dunno if I will be able to watch another comedy after this.
The laughs are too big, too regular.

They don't have Mom and Dad Save the World, so why are you even wasting my time?

They have Joe Dirt 2

Good Boys is a lot of fun, would definitely recommend and will likely watch again.

Re watching Joker. On the first scene with his psych. Already feeling uncomfortable.

Good Boys - 8/10

Was entertaining. Slightly uncomfortable @ all the profanity by young children

Did you not swear as a twelve year old?

I don't swear as a thirty-four year old.

Bollocks.

Yeah, I guess.... I say Damn/Dammit/Hell..... anything else seems superfluous and unnecessary....

You and Bob Backlund

What do you call a penis and or a vagina @lockjaw

Wang-doodle and hoo-ha

Durante la Tormenta/Mirage (English title) - 8/10

Felt it could have been condensed and that one of the big reveals was painfully obvious from the get-go... but overall enjoyed it....

Wang-doodles are supposed to be great dogs for families.

Everybody Wang Chung tonight

this seems unlikely

Who are you to doubt the word of Jaw?

I DOUBT

INFIDEL!

GET HIM FRANKY D

Still as good as I remember. Also, having seen it before, Arthur comes off far more calculating than I had remembered. Seeing him backstage waiting to be called out on set and rewatching himself on stage, you can see his gears turning.

JoJo Rabbit - 4/4

A compassionate, intelligent, beautiful film. Comedy for the right cause.
Taika Waititi is the best thing to happen to comedy in a long, long time. A genius.

I was going to do a long review but it really is just a magical piece of film making from top to bottom.

I laughed my heart out, cried my eyes out and finished with a joyous melody.

Beautiful.

Taika Waititi after a string of bangers is now in that horrible situation where he will be judged more harshly on his work if it doesn't cut the mustard.
It happened to Alexander Payne with "Downsizing" so hopefully Taika doesn't go daft and waste a premise here or there.

It has to be said he has gotten his money's worth from every topic he has handled so far. I think making a comedy out of the Hitler Youth might be his finest achievement in terms of sheer audacity.

I love the man. I would follow him wherever he chose to take his next movie.

I think his next work is going to be thor 4

Oh yeah, sorry I got ahead of myself there.

I was already in for that one.

But yeah jojo was top shelf

It made me laugh a lot, built me up very well and took me off guard for the cry.

I remember watching "Leave No Trace" and thinking "Thomasin Mckenzie is a great actor" now I am glad she's a great actor who picks the right parts.
Sam Rockwell was the one that made me cry, he was his usual brilliant self. Pure talent for any genre, a gift for any actor sharing a scene because he will let others work. I bet Sam Rockwell is the best actor to work with on set. I can't imagine him being a dick at all.

The kid was great too btw.i hope Taika Waititi casts Ben Foster and Emile Hirsch someday.

Uncut Gems - 7/10


good acting but everything around it wasnt on par. Script is solid but not great. Casting was exceptional tho

There was ugliness, but there was great momentum.

I think i had i just picked it up ln a whim id have liked it more. Likely a victim of being overhyped

I'm a Sandler drama mark, so to me it was crack cocaine.

Going to check out a few films that look interesting.

Vivarium
Parasite
Colour Out Of Space

I watched "Altered" last night. Was pretty wild, good use of busget on practical effects.

Tokyo Gore Police was a real let down.
The Ninth Configuration was totally bonkers and had some incredible dialogue.

Now watching Knives Out.

Really enjoyed Knives Out

Ana de Armas is fucking gorgeous and should've been casted as Catwoman in The Batman

She's alright

I'm not getting a comedy vibe from this film about a son that rapes his father.

Am I watching it wrong?

It's def meant to partially be a "dark comedy"

It's satire, it's not comedic satire though. At least I didn't find it funny, just disturbing.
It was pretty angry and provocative, and definitely gross.

There are shorter, sexier versions on pornhub that star 20 year old "mom's". I think they are more popular.

If you want a really good laugh you should try an Austrian film called "Michael". It's bloody hilarious.

I've stuck "Vivarium" on.
The opening is pretty grim, nature is horrible. Hopefully this film gets good and weird, was too wary of spoilers to do much reading.

where is your rating of Knives Out

I stopped watching it, it was boring the tits off me after about an hour.
I don't like whodunnits as a general rule but this one looked fun. It was bearable until I realised I didn't care one iota who dun it and no number of twists could satisfy me after the first big reveal.

So yeah, not my cup of tea at all.
I think I prefer mysteries where you have to figure out the mystery yourself, that clearly wasn't the point of the exercise here.

It reminded me of the things I don't like about Steven Soderbergh, if that makes any sense to you.
Premise secondary to dialogue, dialogue that only works if it's smart or funny enough to pull you in.

I also stopped watching Sorry To Bother You for similar reasons.

I get hooked by a premise but the realisation of it is poorly executed for my taste.
I'm like a bit of gritty reality and you tend not to find that in these sorts of films. Too busy trying to be clever or make a point.
Great, but entertain me first mother fucker.

Now "Vivarium" is brilliantly creepy so far.
Treading a fine line...

This one is going to need a wee review I think.

I didn't like Knives Out at all either... Felt like turning it off throughout... Felt like it was geared towards ppl who are really into "Lin Manuel Miranda" or something... people who "love Hillary Clinton"... not for me

Taking notes, this is one of those films a few of you will want to see I think.

Really enjoyed Knives Out..... no opinion on "Lin Manuel Miranda" and apathetic towards all politicians.....

LOL, I think it's just one of those "if you like that sort of thing" films.
Everything looks good individually but together it's inert, like the drug from that Samuel L Jackson movie.

"Vivarium" is "my sorta movie"

Elements of "Johnny Bear" almost.