What Did You Watch Today? 2021

[Baddar]

Before I Wake

Another that I watched on Netflix with low expectations but ended up quite liking. Some cheap jump scares but it was still a good watch.

[Gongsun Zan]

Episode 5 of Gangs of London

Holy fucking shit, easily one of the best action sequences I've seen on TV. 

[Hobo]

Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)

I got this for my girlfriend for her birthday a while ago because she loves RW Fassbinder. So, we decided to watch it over Lockdown. It's unrelenting misery (which is standard for Fassbinder) with a completley mad near 2hr epilogue that takes place mostly inside the main characters head and is the directors interpretation of the novel the series/film is based on.

It's got General Oroumov from GoldenEye in it too!

[GA!]

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Season 4 - SHITE

[lanky316]

I liked the cameo... Yeah that's about it.

[ROC]

To tie in to the literal very first page on this thread, I've been watching movies I likely have reviewed in this very thread 15 years ago (we're all old). Here are two of them:

The Rules of Attraction (2002) - 8/10

There's a lot in this movie that with 2021 hindsight is unnecessarily cruel (sexual assault just being passed over topping that list for sure) and yet all of the dark comedy still works (Fred Savage with a semi playing the clarinet, "My wife left me for my T.A.," the doctor trying to kill an ODing Jay Baruchel, etc). Great soundtrack, too. We miss the era of Shannyn Sossamon.

The Girl Next Door (2004) - 7/10

Ah yes, the first movie that EWB (shout-out to Numbahs and Beatnik) single-handedly got me to see. And I'm genuinely surprised this also held up especially given that if your hook for a teen comedy is sex or porn in the 2000s, it sours like milk (remember Sex Drive?). I think it's the stunningly loaded cast that makes this work, complete with villain Tim Olyphant, big hog Paul Dano, and yes, height of her powers Elisha Cuthbert, genuinely able to immediately make folks buy the premise. And then it's kind of four movies in one and gets wild by the end but hey, it's a ride.

And then I watched Lucy (2014) and I hated it so there's that.

[GhostMachine]

On 14/01/2021 at 14:08, GA! said:

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Season 4 - SHITE

A-FUCKING-GREED!!!!

[Maxx]

The Little Things
If this didn't have the cast it does, it wouldn't have gotten any attention.  Apparently it was written in 1993 and it feels like it, very dated type of crime thriller.  Denzel is Denzel, Leto puts a lot into his performance but there's not much there to work with.  Rami Malek can't play a typical leading man role, his mannerisms and look just aren't right for it at all.   This probably would have been better a mini series to give it more time to let everything unravel. 

[Kaney]

Watched Seven Samurai for the first time today. Was worried it wouldn't live up to the hype and especially given the length of it but yeah, very much enjoyed it.

Think next up on my list of classic-beloved-films-I've-never-seen is Casablanca. Or Citizen Kane maybe.

[Mick]

Latest episode of The Stand. 

 

Spoiler

Wow, has this just become awful. It's not the actors fault, the production values are actually quite good, but the overall vision of this is just...lacking, compared to the source material. The Stand is one of my favorite books, and this really isn't doing this justice at all with all the changes they've made. 

 

[GhostMachine]

On 02/02/2021 at 17:38, Kaney said:

Watched Seven Samurai for the first time today. Was worried it wouldn't live up to the hype and especially given the length of it but yeah, very much enjoyed it.

Think next up on my list of classic-beloved-films-I've-never-seen is Casablanca. Or Citizen Kane maybe.

As far as classic Japanese films go, please tell me you've seen Throne of Blood! If you haven't, I very highly recommend it. One of my favorite Toshiro Mifune movies, AND its MacBeth set in Feudal Japan.

[Monkey D. Lars]

On 02/02/2021 at 23:38, Kaney said:

Watched Seven Samurai for the first time today. Was worried it wouldn't live up to the hype and especially given the length of it but yeah, very much enjoyed it.

Think next up on my list of classic-beloved-films-I've-never-seen is Casablanca. Or Citizen Kane maybe.

Casablanca is great Kanery! Most films with Humphrey Bogart are good!

[Jimmy]

On 02/02/2021 at 22:38, Kaney said:

Watched Seven Samurai for the first time today. Was worried it wouldn't live up to the hype and especially given the length of it but yeah, very much enjoyed it.

Think next up on my list of classic-beloved-films-I've-never-seen is Casablanca. Or Citizen Kane maybe.

I only watched Seven Samurai for the first time year. It's absolutely phenomenal. I recently watched Ran, which I wasn't as in love with, and also watched Ikiru last year which I thought was breathtaking. I've still got a few Kurosawa's to get through, but would second the suggestion of Throne of Blood. 

Also both of those are great. I re-watched Citizen Kane before I watched Mank and loved it upon a re-watch; it still feels incredibly modern and forward-thinking, I'd definitely recommend it, it's an easy watch. 

[Kaney]

On 07/02/2021 at 19:30, GhostMachine said:

As far as classic Japanese films go, please tell me you've seen Throne of Blood! If you haven't, I very highly recommend it. One of my favorite Toshiro Mifune movies, AND its MacBeth set in Feudal Japan.

I haven't, Seven Samurai was the only Kurosawa film I've ever seen. Would be happy to watch something else though.

On 07/02/2021 at 21:16, Monkey D. Lars said:

Casablanca is great Kanery! Most films with Humphrey Bogart are good!

 

On 08/02/2021 at 08:26, Jimmy said:

I only watched Seven Samurai for the first time year. It's absolutely phenomenal. I recently watched Ran, which I wasn't as in love with, and also watched Ikiru last year which I thought was breathtaking. I've still got a few Kurosawa's to get through, but would second the suggestion of Throne of Blood. 

Also both of those are great. I re-watched Citizen Kane before I watched Mank and loved it upon a re-watch; it still feels incredibly modern and forward-thinking, I'd definitely recommend it, it's an easy watch. 

I watched Casablanca. I think through cultural osmosis I already knew pretty much the entire plot and the main quoted lines but I still surprised myself with how much I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[GhostMachine]

On 07/02/2021 at 16:16, Monkey D. Lars said:

Casablanca is great Kanery! Most films with Humphrey Bogart are good!

Humphrey Bogart is one of my all-time favorite actors. Casablanca seems to be a lot of people's favorite Bogart movie, but I'll take The Maltese Falcon, The Caine Mutiny, and Dark Passage over it any day.

[Josh]

Watched The Maltese Falcon recently. Several good performances (Peter Lorre is fantastic), but in the decades since this was made everything has become very cliche and honestly a clunky version of those cliches. But. This was the first or one of the first films to do these things. So I’d say it’s not so much a great movie as it is important.

[Benjamin]

Might be a controversial opinion, but my favorite Bogart film is Sabrina  William Holden and Humphrey Bogart being dumbasses over a pretty girl is better than anything he's been involved in (though Angels with Dirty Faces is a close second because that movie is gorgeous for its time).

I miss being able to watch old movies  

[Josh]

Is that the one where he’s one of three escaped prisoners helping a family? It’s got good stuff (Peter Ustinov is amazing), but I wasn’t thrilled with it.

[Benjamin]

4 hours ago, Josh Mulaney said:

Is that the one where he’s one of three escaped prisoners helping a family? It’s got good stuff (Peter Ustinov is amazing), but I wasn’t thrilled with it.

No, I believe you're thinking of We're No Angels, which I only found because it's been on my watchlist from like 2016 when I was at the height of watching old movies. Coincidentally, though, they were both directed by Michael Curtiz, apparently. Very different movies, however.

[RPS]

On 30/12/2020 at 09:59, DFF said:

Watched Soul today. Enjoyed it. Not on a par with the Toy Story / Inside Out top tier, but still very good. Enjoyed the score/soundtrack too. 

What did you think of the ending?