Cinema - Latest Comments

Page 5 of 25 : Previous : Next :

Member	Movie		Comment / Review
Magic Marmalade 6th Jun 2024		The Golden Child (1986)	Rated 5/10 This has aged badly. Haven't seen it since I saw it in cinema as a young'un - I thought there was more to it, and more of it than there was - I though Charles Dance had more to do here than is the reality. ...So one of those where time makes me mis-remember how good a movie is, or was. Very thin, clunky dialogue, wooden acting - even Eddie struggles with the comedic timing here (probably knew the script was painful even as he was doing it) Not to mention playing fast and loose with what I take to be Buddhism and using artistic licence to add some other hocus pocus to it is not something you'd get away with now - people just know too much about such things to know the person writing it doesn't. A little bit wee, a little bit poo. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 5th Jun 2024		Chinjeolhan Geumjassi (2005)	Rated 8/10 Not what you'd expect... ...At least, not what I expected. Given the name, and the cover images of a masked female assassin looking type, I had been led to believe this was something along the lines of a Samurai swords twirling, blood splattering, heads rolling Kill Bill type of movie. Instead, it's a more slow-burn revenge tale, with more sedate cinematography, intricate plotting, and story-telling that takes it's time, all set to a classical score and some wonderful photography. The basic plot is a (then) girl is forced to accept blame for killing a young boy she kidnapped for ransom, by means of having her own child abducted by the man who coerced her into confessing, over time, she builds a plot to take revenge as she works her way closer to the man, who it seems is not unused to child abduction. The subject matter is naturally a little tough, and there is a lot of violence (torture etc.) and some sex scenes, but an "action" thriller it isn't, and in fact, it's all the better for it. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 4th Jun 2024		Mannequin (1987)	Rated 7/10 Cheesy, Creepy (now), but fun still. (I can even forgive the Starship mega-hit soundtrack song...almost) 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 4th Jun 2024		The Remains Of The Day (1993)	Try as I might, I always get this muddled in my brain with Howard's End - Doh! But this is an absolute masterpiece of depiction of tortured, unspoken, unacknowledged love - It's always there between Hopkins' and Thompson's characters, like a thick, heavy fog of love, and both pretending they don't see it, because they feel they can't due to circumstance.
Juke Jules SUBS 3rd Jun 2024		Werk Ohne Autor (2018)	Trailer, accompanied by Klaus Nomi singing "Cold Song" (Purcell), on a forgotten island [YouTube Video]
Magic Marmalade 3rd Jun 2024		Dobermann (1997)	Rated 7/10 A kind of French attempt at a Natural Born Killers style movie... ...And a fairly decent stab at one too! Of course, NBK is, in the true sense of the word: inimitable, but this has the energy, and frenetic pace and wild visual and storytelling sensibility of that, about a semi-legendary bank robber / outlaw and his squeeze, and their merry band of nutty men, going up against a police unit, headed by a sadistic, psychotic copper, who is the real villain of the piece. After only a brief, obligatory introduction to characters and situation, it pretty much jumps straight in, and bangs along until the end in a nutty, extreme cartoon violence way. Not sure it all works, but it sure ain't boring! very good indeed. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 31st May 2024		A Simple Plan (1998)	Review When you're in a hole... Stop digging. This particular hole though, is ostensibly the the opposite: finding a huge bag of cash in a downed plane in the woods ought to be a good thing, surely? ... And the hole the three men in this movie begin to dig from this moment on is everything you'd expect; after all, who hasn't imagined this scenario, and further more, thought through the implications and possible bother that comes with it. And that's the basic plot, and the inevitable story that proceeds from it. Very simple, very elegant, and brilliantly executed. Although this premise is perhaps not new, what this movie does excellently is not make it a gangster flick, it action movie, or reservoir dogs style affair... The money is just circumstantial, the real story is centred almost exclusively on the three characters, and how their dynamics shift in relation to each other over time. And this is why it took me so long to finally see it, as I was under the impression it was more of a cheapo, straight to DVD heist movie, when in fact it's more of a three man stage play character study... (In fact, there's a very strong influence from: Of mice and men, i detected) ...A very Fargo-ish vibe, albeit played more straight (minus Coens' signature humour), and I know there are many who already appreciate this movie, but I feel this has the potential to undergo the Shawshank effect, and will only become more generally appreciated over time, principally through word of mouth. Truly brilliant. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 30th May 2024		Mulholland Falls (1996)	Rated 6/10 Feels like a made for TV version of an L.A. Confidential style movie... (Being that this was before that movie, it s prbably better to be considered a prototype of that) ...Yet it's strangely unsatisfying. The reason, I think, is that it is, as said, more in the look, style, and feel of a TV drama, in terms of production - like Columbo does brutal police violence intrigue mystery. As such, it doesn't really fit anywhere - too volent for TV audience this would be otherwise aimed at, yet decidedly uncinematic. I think a look at the cast list for this, at the time it was made probably tells you a story on it's own - as now it seems, as the DVD cover blurb says: "stellar cast", was at that time, a group of actors who either two to ten years earlier or later might have been considered "stellar" but at the time were somewhat in need of work... any work. It really goes off the rails at the end, as the finale is frankly absurd, and ridiculous. Viewed as (if you can square your brain to it) a brutal TV drama, I suppose it is mildy interesting and enageing, slow paced and draggy though it is, but if you expect "cinema" it will suffer greatly under this definition, in your perception of it. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 28th May 2024		Suspicion (1941)	Rated 6/10 Nearly but not quite. Not sure if the idea of the morally ambiguous other half movie was new at the time, but certainly it's been done plenty of times since... and better. As with Monolith's comment, the ending is a bit contrived and hokey, but the real problem is Cary Grant.. I don't blame him or his acting, it's just the character he was asked to play, and evidently, how he was asked to play it (obviously, in order to make the whole premise of the story work at all) - Charming yet obnoxious... And I don't buy the forced way he does the obnoxious bit, as it feels unrealistic for someone to behave this way, especially towards the maid - very over-deliberate, and on the nose. Feels clunky and untrue. But really, he is only the support, and his character the essential plot device to enable the titular "Suspicion" to be played out excellently by Joan Fontaine. I saw that Tarantino loves the end shot, for it's ambiguity, and I agree, but get the feeling that's more likely what Hitchcock's initial inspiration was for this whole film - what he initially saw in his mind, then built the rest of the movie around, and towards that. Doesn't quite get there for me. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 28th May 2024		Jumper (2008)	Rated 7/10 This movie has gotten a lot of unfair flack since the time of release... ...But my opinion is that it's actually a quite entertaining, well thought out and executed slice of teleporting combat action. The only decent movie Hayden Christensen has ever been in too. :) ✔︎ Helpful Review?
alexlincs 25th May 2024		Burning An Illusion (1981)	One of the locations is The Bouncing Ball in Peckham.
Magic Marmalade 24th May 2024		Броненосец Потёмкин (1925)	Rated 7/10 One of those: "You must see this before you die, explode, or otherwise spontaneously humanly combust" movies... ...Often listed among the greatest ever made etc. blah blah, and so on and so forth. Having finally gotten around to seeing it, I can see it was good, dare I say, even revolutionary for it's time - a silent movie which is more an historical dramatic diagram of particular events than a a movie proper, or drama in the modern sense, but it was just more interesting than engaging for me. Difficult to imagine now, a story about a Russian battleship crew, who, neglected and oppressed by their superiors are pushed into mutiny, and turning against their military overlords, and who's tale inspires the local population of Odessa to rise in support of them, in a Dunkirk style , small boats salvation... ...Before the hierarchy turn on the lot of them, in order to put down the uprising, in a Peterloo style historical civil / war crime. I read somewhere once, that Russians used to be like this... not putting up with this kind of oppressive nonsense from their betters... ... Or maybe that was some other country? 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 24th May 2024		Every Which Way But Loose (1978)	True, but that's a very different kind of movie! :) (Besides, he does kind of win out in the end - but let's not spoil every movie we can think of - he he) Interestingly, Cannonball Run (original) is one that's somewhat difficult to find on DVD or streaming these days - like Cocoon, the sequel is readily available, but the first is a bit sticky to locate.
alexlincs 24th May 2024		Every Which Way But Loose (1978)	@Magic Marmalade How about Kingpin? It was billed as a feelgood comedy by some and he loses the tournament. Also I think Clyde was also in Cannonball Run. It's a fun film and one I've always enjoyed
Magic Marmalade 22nd May 2024		Every Which Way But Loose (1978)	This has always been a bit of a comfort food movie for me, having seen it repeatedly on tv since childhood, but even back then, I always felt there was something odd about it, not like other movies... ...And I'm not talking about the presence of the orangutan: Clyde. No, this was something else indefinable, that has never really occurred to me until my most recent watch: I finally figured it out as being the fact that the "hero" Clint Eastwood, although playing a tough guy fighter, is actually a bit of a dunce, and a loser - well, maybe that's a bit harsh, but certainly less than the usual hero type character that you'd expect from him: He doesn't have the world figured out, is not the ultra-capable hero sort who can deal with anything, and not only does he not (spoiler) not win the big fight at the end, and also not get the girl, his victory in the end is actually learning a lesson about how foolish he has been, and being philosophical about it. That's actually quite remarkable when you think about it, as I can't (off the top of my head) recall any other movie doing that, where the hero is a more realistic failure in many aspects of his life, and fragile in certain ways, and doesn't win out or win the girl... ... quite enlightened, and ahead of it's time really, and possibly, being a more accurate reflection of the realities of the lives the rest of us outside moviedome live is what makes him uniquely relatable, and could go some way to explaining why this movie is generally quite well loved, and very popular. In addition, Sondra Locke's character is actually the one kind of in charge of the situation... (Never really liked her, felt she was a bit odd, but having read a few things about her online since she sadly passed, I realise she may have been a more remarkable woman than she was ever given credit for, and may be deserving of a little more love and respect than she got in her lifetime - but maybe that's just blowback from breaking up with one of the biggest Hollywood stars of all time) In all, rather than being dismissed as a cheap, dumb, throwaway movie that people (critics) always took it for, it might be one of the most refreshingly original stories out there - and certainly more progressive and enlightened than it is given credit for. Anyway, I love it - always have, always will, I just can't figure out why the ape was added to this story, I don't really think Clyde is entirely necessary, even if he is a fun comedic element of the story.
Magic Marmalade 21st May 2024		Airheads (1994)	Rated 7/10 Quite a cult bad-ish movie, now pretty hard to find a DVD of. Found the DVD of this a couple of days ago, and I haven't seen it since release, but had fond memories if it, so was pleased to watch it again. It's not aged entirely well, humour wise, but neither has it aged tremendously badly... ...It's hokey, goofy, dumb fun, taking the Mickey out of the kind of metal heads of the time as they stage a kind of Spinal tap-lite do a Dog Day Afternoon style ambush / hostage scenario on a local radio station just so they can get their music heard by the masses. It's a perfect companion piece in tone and style to Empire Records and the like, so if that's too dumb for you, you won't probably like this, but if you do, you'll like this as well, I'd say. The inexplicably over-rated "talents" of both Adam Sandler and Chris Farley are in this, but mercifully (by their own standards) are quite conservative performances, so don't grate too much... And what the hell is Steve Buscemi doing in this role?... who knows, but he is quite good. Bevis and Butthead also make a brief cameo. Charmingly awful and crap, but I still enjoy it :) 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 21st May 2024		1408 (2007)	Rated 7/10 "That room is f&$king evil" ...And you know, Samuel L. Jackson's hotel manager's assertion about that room in his hotel to John Cusack's paranormal investigator / debunker is pretty much on the money, as all of Cusack's personal trauma and hidden hurts become manifest when he spends the night in there in order to debunk it. Terrific realisation of the idea of making the room itself a character in the movie, a malevolent force of nature that persecutes it's occupants to death if they dare try to stay in it. A nice yet perhaps predictable twist at the end, which is that the twist isn't the twist... er sort of, but very moody, tense, and creepy. Will give many the chills. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 21st May 2024		Tais-Toi! (2003)	Rated 7/10 Quite a fun odd couple slapstick adventure. Jean Reno is a generally uncommunicative kind of John Wick style mob enforcer who has been involved with the mob boss's missus, and who gets bumped off by said mob-boss, angering Reno, who decides to get revenge on him, initially by stealing millions of his cash, and not revealing what he has done with it, but only as a pretext to creating the circumstances to get back at the boss. Depardieu is a hapless "bank-robber", thief, and simpleton, who never shuts up, and has an insufferably sunny attitude to everything... His incessant chattering being in stark contrast to Reno's silent deadly type. They both find themselves in prison, and sharing a cell, where Reno makes a break for it, only to find Depardieu has taken a very strong shine to him, as he interprets Reno's silence as listening to him, and now he can't shake off Depardieu while they escape, who is constantly clinging to him with dreams of a partnership his new "best buddy" in a prospective café / restaurant venture: "The Two Friends". It is fun, and a simple, but basic time honoured premise that is made the most of, except, oddly, I felt this wasn't quite as zany and cartoonish as the premise demanded... the performances are good, it's just I felt they didn't go "all in" as much as the story demanded in the presentation and tone. But good, nonetheless. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
Magic Marmalade 21st May 2024		L'appartement (1996)	Rated 8/10 Er... It's complicated. In that this is a very convoluted plot about the relationships between a group of people who are essentially slightly obsessed to the point of what would now be considered stalking each other. ...But that's not to say this is a tone deaf movie, rather it uses this idea to show what a tangled web we weave, and the "no good will come of it" scenario. Quite in spite of the DVD tag line about this being smart, sophisticated, sexy etc. Giving the impression that it's a pose fest and a gratuitously cool and sophisticated sex rom-com type deal, this is actually more in tone and intent, a direct homage to a kind of Hitchcock movie: Romantic intrigue, mystery, investigation, obsession and drama... in fact it reeks of Hitchcock, from the sweeping drama of the musical score, to the characterisations and plot, right down to the cinematography at times, and so is best regarded as the kind of movie to watch if those movies by the master film-maker himself are your cup of tea. To loosely sum up the plot: Cassel's central character is a youngish go-getter playboy type, who encounters Bellucci's: Lisa, becomes obsessed with her, starts following her about, even though she has a suspicious jealous other half, who is also keeping tabs on her, he meets and gets with her, before she disappears from his life... years later, while seeing a different woman he picks up her trail again, and tries to track her down, leading him to an apartment where she once lived, only to discover another woman claiming to be her, living instead, he ends up getting involved with her, and she starts stalking him, all the while seeing another man, who unbeknownst to either, happens to be Cassel's best mate. Nobody is aware of the entre situation except the audience, and only as the film progresses, and little revelations are dropped in lightly, and judiciously, and the whole story unfolds. Quite masterfully done I thought... especially, as this is the kind of plot that Hollywood would make a complete mess of, by virtue of making it too busy, and frenetic in tone, and trying to hit the nail too hard on the head, if you see what I mean - In short, if done by Hollywood, you'd very quickly lose the thread of what's happening, but this keeps it's focus, goes along at a great easy pace, to allow you to keep up with it, and thereby retain your interest and sense of intrigue. It is one of the best Hitchcock homage style movies I've seen. Only one minor gripe is the use of contemporary music tracks at the beginning, which for me, jarred against the tone of the rest of the movie, and the score there... it really didn't need these. I rated it 8, but could easily have gone higher, and over time, I think I will rate it a 9 or 9.5. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
zabadak 20th May 2024		La La Land (2016)	Trailer :happy: [YouTube Video]
mikewn ● 20th May 2024		Casino De Paris (1957)	Added IMDB link...
alexlincs 13th May 2024		C'è Ancora Domani (2023)	This film beat Barbie at the box office in Italy. It's a drama in the style of a 1940s film but with modern ideas.
albert 11th May 2024		The Shining (1980)	Note that there are 2 official versions of the film, the USA version at 2hours 26mins, and the trimmed version at 1hour 55mins - cutting out a lot of incidental stuff but losing much of the ominous feel and slow built up of tension. After Kubrick's death the long version, now referred to as the extended cut, has become widely available on Blu-ray, 4K and some DVDs (I think it was always the version on Region 1 DVDs), and I recommend this as the one to watch. For artistic reasons Kubrick shot the film full frame, and it is best viewed without any matting. Unfortunately recent transfers present the film 1:85 (or wider) for a more 'cinematic look'.
Hapereb SUBS 11th May 2024		Gojira (1984)	At last Godzilla is back as the real asskicker he really is. He got the mean look back.
Hapereb SUBS 11th May 2024		Godzilla (1998)	In Godzilla movie Giant Monsters All Out Attack 2001 they mention this movie: "The New York attack was Godzilla, right?" "That's what all the American experts claim." "But our guys here have some doubts." IMO this is a good monster movie but not a Godzilla movie.
alexlincs 8th May 2024		Talk Of The Devil (1967)	@swbcfc Illusion of Happiness seems to be a collaboration name for Eric Woolfson and Peter Jeffries. Eric Woolfson I'm sure you know. Peter Jeffries was a British composer who went on to compose for "nudie" films. The track appears on https://www.discogs.com/release/3904933-Various-The-Electric-Lemonade-Acid-Test-Volume-4-An-Anthology-Of-The-Spark-Label-1967-1970 Woolfson was an engineer and songwriter for the Spark record label; however I don't think Talk of the Devil ever had a single release.
swbcfc 8th May 2024		Talk Of The Devil (1967)	I have a question regarding the soundtrack of this film, particularly the title track played over the opening credits. The composers are shown as Eric Woolfson & Peter Jeffries and the performer as Illusion Of Happiness, about whom I can find absolutely nothing. I would be grateful for any information regarding the song and it's performer, is this a pseudonym for a more famous artist ? Has it ever appeared on vinyl, CD etc ?
mikewn ● 6th May 2024		Let It Be (1970)	Should all of these DVD/video entries point to this cinema entry? The Beatles - Let It Be The Beatles - Let It Be The Beatles - Let It Be The Beatles: Let It Be [35MM Widescreen Stereo Edition]
zabadak 2nd May 2024		Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny (2023)	Review Independent review :read: ✔︎ Helpful Review?
zabadak 2nd May 2024		Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child Of Fire (2023)	Review Independent review :read: ✔︎ Helpful Review?

Page 5 of 25 : Previous : Next :