films you've seen recently and would NOT recommend

shakahislop

Well-known member
saw this film called West is West recently coz some plonker selected it (anonymously) for the film club i'm in. quite an amazing mixture of being annoying, boring, bad, inaccurate, nationalistic and popular. not sure what state it's in these days but i've got to say that slowly i'm starting to think that uk films from about 1990 to about 2010 were universally bad, almost an aesthetic that i define myself against, the absolute pits
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
i'm no expert but they seem to either be these patronising ken loach things (can of worms i know but the last one of his i saw was like the guardian had grown a body and come to life) or these senile love actually type things
 

forclosure

Well-known member
saw this film called West is West recently coz some plonker selected it (anonymously) for the film club i'm in. quite an amazing mixture of being annoying, boring, bad, inaccurate, nationalistic and popular. not sure what state it's in these days but i've got to say that slowly i'm starting to think that uk films from about 1990 to about 2010 were universally bad, almost an aesthetic that i define myself against, the absolute pits
i can honestly say they were not maybe because you keep going back to a certain kind of british film that was acclaimed by critics
 

forclosure

Well-known member
@shakahislop East is East/West is West weren't even critically acclaimed like that but they were popular i'm not saying i'm a fan of them but they for a lot of people they do kind of capture something, not only that but it's still an uphill struggle for Asian people in this country to get any kind of major funding for their movies

same goes for black directors

honestly i'd expect this kinda massivly broad strokes ting from luka or craner more than you
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
Ah I remember the film East is East but I quite honestly didn't make the connection until that last post. Which ultimately says nothing about the film but it reveals I'm a bit slow.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
@shakahislop East is East/West is West weren't even critically acclaimed like that but they were popular i'm not saying i'm a fan of them but they for a lot of people they do kind of capture something, not only that but it's still an uphill struggle for Asian people in this country to get any kind of major funding for their movies

same goes for black directors

honestly i'd expect this kinda massivly broad strokes ting from luka or craner more than you
i mean there are obviously going to be some good films made in a country in a 20 year period. i just haven't seen them. i haven't checked but there is no way that that West is West one was made by south asians. ok fine now i've checked, and it directed by someone called Anthony De Emmony. the scenes in pakistan were totally ridiculous to me.

i guess one strand that i'm trying to get at is that there are loads of popular films that loads of people watch in the uk which basically rewrite history to make people feel nice about it. it's not that surprising that it happens, but it is a bit surprising to me how often it happens, if you see what i mean.
 

forclosure

Well-known member
i mean there are obviously going to be some good films made in a country in a 20 year period. i just haven't seen them. i haven't checked but there is no way that that West is West one was made by south asians. ok fine now i've checked, and it directed by someone called Anthony De Emmony. the scenes in pakistan were totally ridiculous to me.

i guess one strand that i'm trying to get at is that there are loads of popular films that loads of people watch in the uk which basically rewrite history to make people feel nice about it. it's not that surprising that it happens, but it is a bit surprising to me how often it happens, if you see what i mean.
yes i do but that's not unique to the UK

American,China Russia they all rewrite their histories aswell through cinema and its why its always been an effective propaganda tool

Red Dawn is a hallmark of it as far as 80s cold war bullshit but there's definitly people who thought Russia invading America was a real possiblity
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
i saw the new top gun. really good flying scenes at the end, and it does make hollywood great again, just by following a quite classic old hollywood model (but id say the new jurassic world film does that too, its just that its not got enough dinosaur action or dino antagonists) but after a while i was bored of seeing that same bright cruise smile and bearing witness to his delusions around his age, and then thinking tom should really just let miles teller and hangman and these younger actors take over the show as their storylines and characters are actually a lot more interesting (or maybe this is the start of a new franchise). the dramatic stakes are low AF, and while i suppose its good it isnt all team america, its also a bit weird that the enemy they are bombing isnt named.

IDK why im posting it in this thread, as its not like i WOULDNT recommend it, but its not the greatest thing of the last few months either.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
There is something I really don't like about Tom Cruise. I find him creepy, I hate scientology and there's got to be something odd about a bloke who is repeatedly determined to write himself into film after film as this invincible hero of perfect character. I mean is he so insecure after almost 40 years of being a Hollywood a-lister? What's wrong with him?
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
there is def something weird/deluded about him playing this grinning-all-the-time expert-pilot rebel. its a weird fit that you almost dont question as he seems so content/confident, but to be that age, to have not done the things most men are meant to have done by then (in the film i mean), and still be so (mostly) carefree (or maybe this is a sort of modern life-positivity thing), its strangely divorced from reality, even for a modern cruise vehicle where ofc, hes always the ultimate actionman.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah I hear that - the Ron/Tom comparison I mean. But the thing with Ronaldo is that his target is one that you can correctly identify and strive for whereas I feel that with Tom Cruise he's picked the wrong thing and however hard he drives at it he will never get to the right place. A bit like that fable with the wind and the sun trying to make a man take his coat off. However hard the wind blows it won't be warm like the sun.

Tom Cruise will never be a good actor and he'll never be the hero he pretends to be in films. He'll be a super rich midget megastar though which is not too bad of course.

And I feel Christian Bale is a bit cheeky there cos he's a cut price Cruise himself.
 
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version

Well-known member
I think whatever you do is not enough if you're that sort of person, Ronaldo will always want to win more titles and score more goals.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yesterday there was a film on telly called In The Name of the King or some such shite... it had Jason Statham, Burt Reynolds, Ray Liotta in a kind of historical fantasy drama based on a computer game so obviously it had all the signs pointing to it being great. For some reason I watched it... I'm trying to think back to why in fact but I can't remember. I guess I started and then thought that I should continue... but why every second was torture. Cos I gotta say, this was a truly bad film. Some of them in this thread are so bad they're good or maybe marmite type films where thing that made someone hate it might make someone else love it. But thinking back this is one of the worst films I've seen, it was really really boring and it seemed to be hours and hours long too, but god it was boring. Just uninspired and mundane it kinda trundled through uninteresting scene after uninteresting scene at the same medium pace until finally arriving at its destination and quietly fading out of my mind.

I mean, the Stath is normally watchable if only cos it's weird seeing the macho cockney diving champion mangle some historical dialogue or whatever but even he couldn't save the role of the farmer (called Farmer) with the incredible destiny - it turned out he was the king's son, I dunno if he changed his name to King's Son when he found out. Oh that was a SPOILER - oops sorry.

I can't even think of anything to say about this, it was just boring nothingness. I prefer Statham in that Shamen video, his character has more depth for one thing....

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IdleRich

IdleRich
The film was directed by this guy Uwe Boll, does anyone know much about this guy? It seems that he his an absolutely terrible filmmaker but a fairly effective amateur boxer. He challenged a load of his critics to a boxing match and when some agreed he faced four of them at an event called... Raging Boll. What I did like is that normally when you have these kinda celebrity boxing matches between mortal enemies they are normally fairly evenly matched and they dance tamely around throwing a few half-hearted jabs for a few short rounds and then collapse in each others arms saying that that intense gladiatorial experience has made them suddenly respect their enemy. This seems different and much better in that he seems to have been much better than them and really angry and he properly beat the shit out of them one after another. Though sadly not the ones he really wanted to face.

The bell sounds, and Kyanka circles Boll, waving his fists with cartoony exaggeration. The stone-faced director, who has been training for this evening for four months, lets his foe dance around for 15 seconds and then raps him on the side of the head. Kyanka drops abruptly, like a joke cut off before the punch line.
But he’s back up in a flash and taking another trip around the ring before Boll surges forward with a left to the body, then a right to the head. The webmaster crashes faster than an overloaded server. "You hit me in the face!" he says, glaring up at Boll. He climbs to his feet and prolongs the match by yo-yoing to his knees whenever the eager director threatens to take another crack at him. But Boll catches him off guard and hammers him with three solid punches. Kyanka sinks to the mat and stays there as the ref counts to 10. The fight is over in less than two minutes.
 

forclosure

Well-known member
The film was directed by this guy Uwe Boll, does anyone know much about this guy? It seems that he his an absolutely terrible filmmaker but a fairly effective amateur boxer. He challenged a load of his critics to a boxing match and when some agreed he faced four of them at an event called... Raging Boll. What I did like is that normally when you have these kinda celebrity boxing matches between mortal enemies they are normally fairly evenly matched and they dance tamely around throwing a few half-hearted jabs for a few short rounds and then collapse in each others arms saying that that intense gladiatorial experience has made them suddenly respect their enemy. This seems different and much better in that he seems to have been much better than them and really angry and he properly beat the shit out of them one after another. Though sadly not the ones he really wanted to face.
i'm more than familair with Boll because of the string of movies based off of games he made back in the 2000s, there was a really interesting article about his life that i read that was really interesting https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/03/game-over-uwe-boll-worst-director

and it came about as a result of him making this video where he announced his retirement
as far as i know he's not retired anymore but the part where he says he's made enough money to basically play golf until he's dead has stayed with me since i first saw it
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I like that he's tells everyone to go fuck themselves at the start but it sort of turns into a bit of a sulk, I mean who exactly is that aimed at, cos I didn't put any money to the kickstarter for Rampage 3 so is he annoyed with me? He says it is an important movie so maybe I should have contributed, anyone who didn't has let down the cinema, in fact they have betrayed art itself. I mean, in that video he laments the ubiquity of Marvel as I have often done, where he and I diverge is when he implicitly posits himself as the alternative and antidote.

i'm more than familair with Boll because of the string of movies based off of games he made back in the 2000s

He does seem to be the go to guy for video game adaptations. The views on them seem to fall into two groups a) those who haven't played the game he's adapted and thus couldn't give a shit b) those who have played and loved the game and who view his bastardised take as a disgraceful betrayal of something they love.

What was interesting with the boxing thing is that later on some of the critics chatted with them and it sort of seemed that he was genuinely interested in making good films and was mystified as to why he always got such bad reviews.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Licorice Pizza

boy what a fucking mess (warning: @IdleRich style long rant incoming)

essentially Paul Thomas Anderson making a Wes Anderson movie, with all the cloying whimsy and deeply uncomfortable use of people of color - who are basically absent, but when they do briefly appear are, in true Wes Anderson fashion, comic relief and/or tools to move forward the emotional journey of the white protagonists - that that implies, but set in PTA's favored shaggy 70s nostalgia, somewhere between the Robert Altmanisms of Boogie Nights and the stoned magical realism of Inherent Vice. only even Wes Anderson had the bare sense to not have his teenage protagonist in Rushmore actually get together with Olivia Williams at the end and present it as a sweetly triumphant love story.

yes, that is correct. this is a film about the love story between a 15-year old boy and a mid-20s Alana Haim, which ends with them overcoming various obstacles to get together in a way the audience is meant to uncritically applaud, with absolutely no kind of ironic distancing or other commentary to say that hey, maybe this is uncool. She spends the whole movie being pursued by and flirting with this precocious boy, which is totally valid - she tells him it's never happening, is a bad idea, questions their relationship, etc - some of it is uncomfortable, but seemingly meant to be, so OK. but then the climax is pure unadulterated romcom fantasy: they fight, realize they're meant to be together, rush to find each in full cliche "what are you waiting for? go after her/him!" style, kiss and head off into romantic bliss together.

except he's 15 and she is, as mentioned, an adult. Alana even has a conversation with one of her sisters - undoubtedly the best parts of the film are the entire Haim family, parents included, playing essentially themselves - in which she's like "is it weird that I'm an adult and I spend all my time hanging out with this teenager and his friends" and her sister is basically "nah dawg it's only weird if you think it's weird". obv the existence of patriarchy complicates any direct gender double standard but still can you imagine this conversation between two men in their mid-late 20s about a 15-year old girl? like, what the fuck are we doing here?

there's also an uncomfortable running gag where John Michael Higgins - a very white dude - speaks English in a cartoonishly mock Asian accent to his succession of Japanese wives. it's at least complicated by the clear implication that he is, even by the standards of the early 70s, a clueless/exploitative jerk, but his wives are essentially mute props to provide a laugh and move the teenage boy's story forward. They speak unsubtitled Japanese - quite a lazy way to suggest the difficulty of communication in a more general sense which you'd think PTA is above, but no - and so are essentially mute ciphers, like the silent Harajuku girls Gwen Stefani hauled around 20 years ago.

PTA is of course a master filmmaker, so everything is executed at an extremely high level, technical precision, etc, and the acting is generally very good, including Alana Haim. but again, what the fuck are we doing here? I'm the last person who wants to say uncomfortable or taboo material shouldn't be presented, but if you're going to present this adult/teen love story you can't just do it uncritically. Todd Solondz's Happiness for example, is a vastly more uncomfortable and disturbing film about pedophilia, but it's also a clear-eyed (and brave) attempt to critically engage with an extremely difficult topic. Whereas Licorice Pizza is a bildungsroman sweet love story about an adult banging a teenager, smothered in all that cloying Wes Anderson style bathos.

anyway yeah, fuck this movie
 
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