What have you recently watched?

[Dead Kid]

I checked out a few clips of her, just not my vibe. Will keep it in my mind as something to watch in another decade or with someone else though.

As far as older films go, I can't think of any actresses who've topped Ingrid Bergman in Notorious for me. Sassy as.

[Dubpunker]

Awesome!

[Max]

I checked out a few clips of her, just not my vibe. Will keep it in my mind as something to watch in another decade or with someone else though.

As far as older films go, I can't think of any actresses who've topped Ingrid Bergman in Notorious for me. Sassy as.

She was supposed to be the next Sophia Loren or something like that but it didn't really work out for her. She's still a working actress though. Anyways it's a great movie, well worth seeing. I saw it at the Embassy in Wellington which is probably the ideal

[Dead Kid]

I watched Color Out of Space and thought it was great. And in moments when it wasn't so great, ol' Nic Cage was at least giving me some good laughs.

[Kerry]

Shat my pants approx. 11 times. Was bleak as hell but overall really good I thought. 7.5/10.

[Max]

As a chess geek I can report that they got most of the chess details right, and there were a lot of chess in-jokes, but also a lot of clunky technical term dropping to try to sound impressive (e.g. "he left himself so many backward pawns, and was open to forks before I beat him with a rook and knight combination"). It's good, but certainly not without faults. I hate the whole "sassy Black BFF" schtick, aka the "magical negro". Truth be told, Beth is a selfish little bitch who doesn't know how to treat her friends.

[Drax]

This Mad Max knockoff is fuckin stupid/sweet. Starring:


RUSTLE CROWS


O.G. DOCTOR EVIL


MELBOURNERS

[Max]

Revisited the original Logan's Run movie (they've been threatening to remake it for years now). It actually hasn't aged too badly. A misconception about science fiction is that it attempts to predict the future; actually it's more of a commentary on the era in which it was produced. In the 60s and 70s there were all sorts of doomsday scenarios around over-population. The story envisages a society in which everyone is executed at age 30 (with the promise of "rebirth") in a quasi-religious ritual attended by cheering crowds called "the carousel". The carousel scene in the opening minutes is still spectacular and still extremely creepy (it was recycled for the TV series, which used different actors and fizzled out very quickly). I guess it can be seen as a critique of 70s hedonism, worship of youth and vanity (cosmetic surgery features prominently in the plot), consumer culture, apathy and unquestioning acceptance of authority. The "sex teleport" reminds me of Tinder dating; at least he accepts it when she says no.

Why the two leads (Michael York and Jenny Agutter) have British accents in a sealed off all white monocultural community somewhere near the ruined city of Washington DC is not explained. Jenny Agutter is the eye candy, not that she's a bad actress, and this being the 70s there's a gratuitous topless scene. Farrah Fawcett was an excellent actress but I guess that wasn't appreciated at the time and she doesn't get a lot of screen time for her dumb blonde role. Peter Ustinov does most of the thespian heavy lifting as an old man who for some unexplained reason survives in the Capitol building outside of the community. There's also a fun cameo from Roscoe Lee Browne as a robot. The setting is interesting but the plot rapidly goes downhill to the point of becoming nonsensical.

[dave-brown]

Season 8 of the Simpson's.
It's the best season

[Kerry]

Jurassic World. Lasted 15 mins after gobbling a sleep lolly. What I saw was quite simply outstanding crafstmansship in film.

[Kerry]

Been enjoying Adam Curtis's new doco miniseries.

[dave-brown]

Jurassic World. Lasted 15 mins after gobbling a sleep lolly. What I saw was quite simply outstanding crafstmansship in film.

Lol

[Kerry]

Finished The Americans the other day. Fell in love with Keri Russell. Upset that it's over.

[Max]

Paul Newman, professional grouch Ed Asner, Wiseguy Ken Wahl, Pam Grier.... what could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot actually. Creeped me the fuck out when alcoholic chain smoking 60 year old cop Newman hits on hot 23 year old Hispanic nurse Rachel Ticotin with dialogue so corny it would put George Lucas to shame. There were lots of pointless scenes like Newman delivering a baby... do cops do this as part of their regular duties? Really? What makes them more qualified to do this than a family member? And what was the point of the transvestite attempted suicide scene? I guess it was supposed to be a gritty police drama originally but it just seemed really unfocussed. I felt bad for Pam Grier, she deserves better than junkie hooker roles, but I guess her career was on a bit of a low ebb. The residents of The Bronx were unimpressed with the film, calling it racist, and they were probably right.

[Dubpunker]

The White Tiger (Netflix) 8/10

[Dubpunker]

[Max]

Watched "A Way of LIfe", a "making of" documentary about the movie Quadrophenia. I just like that movie better every time I see it, and like it even more when I learn about the circumstances they made it. Sure they got some period details wrong (1970's cars show up in a movie set in 1964) but they had a limited budget and it was a conscious decision not to obsess over things like that.

Anyway Toyah Wilcox was a total crackup. Apparently they gave Sting a hard time on the set, most of them were working class guys and gals and recent acting school grads, he was more a pretentious middle class art school guy. The Police hadn't broken out yet. They told him "The Police is a fucking stupid name for a band", and when he sang them "Message in a Bottle" they told him it was crap. He couldn't dance, ride a Lambretta, or act. Basically he just wore silk suits and looked cool. When they found out his real name they sang "Gordon is a moron" at him, from the Jilted John song.

I guess he got his revenge by selling 50 billion records but I liked that they took him down a peg or two.

[Subcide]

Watched this the other night. Surprisingly engaging and enjoyable.

[Kerry]

Loved it!

[Max]

Aniara is what you probably imagine a Swedish movie about a giant cruise ship in space would be like. The main character is a minor crew member who runs a kind of VR machine that accesses people's memories and takes them back to an idealized vision of earth in all its natural beauty. It's a minor attraction on the ship, but when the ship is forced to jettison its fuel after a collision with some space junk it becomes essential to the passengers' mental health. Unfortunately it all gets a bit much for the AI and it commits suicide. So do half the passengers and crew. And this being a Swedish movie, there's some hot lesbian sex in there along with all the gloom.

[Drax]

This was some good trash horror. Source of the classic "garbage day" meme. The killing spree really is the highlight of the movie, but the whole thing is fairly cooked from start to finish. You don't have to see the first one.



Some legend uploaded it to YouTube in HD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F872Yvuad0M

[Max]

As usual I'm late catching on to the "cool" shows but Pen15 really is good. A couple of 31 year olds play versions of themselves as dorky 13 year olds alongside actual 13-15 year olds, set in a middle school in 2000 (aol and thongs and all that). Much more realistic than your typical high school comedy, dealing very frankly and honestly with weird hormone-induced behaviour, incompetent parenting, periods, masturbation, flirting on the internet and all that good stuff tween girls have to go through. Even though I'm a male x-er I found it very entertaining. Very well-written and acted millennial cringe comedy.

[Max]

Another trendy series that I was very late catching on to. It has an ensemble cast of 20ish actors playing high school kids who are heavily into sex and drugs and hip hop and decadent behaviour in general. I found it very grim viewing and lacking in humour. All the guys are misogynist assholes and all the girls are promiscuous. In reality most Gen-Z kids aren't actually like that, most of them are far more mature and better behaved than we were at that age. I think it's a Gen-X director projecting his own adolescent experiences and fantasies on to the current generation. Main takeaway for me is that former Disney girl and singer Zendaya is in fact a first rate actress.

[Nurgin Churgleburger]

https://watchdocumentaries.com/the-fog-of-war/

[Max]

Classic Aussie film, bleak and allegorical. The landscape cinematography is pretty stunning. Jenny Agutter did seem rather too posh for the role, maybe they just weren't confident enough to cast an Aussie actress. The first of David Gulpilil's 50,000 appearances as "the Aboriginal bloke" in just about every Australian movie ever made.

[Max]

Rewatched Sid and Nancy for the first time in 35 years. Gary Oldman didn't like punk music or his character and it shows. Chloe Webb is outstanding and she should have got more work after this. Johnny Rotten is totally misrepresented, they portray him as a clown and a buffoon rather than a sardonic wit, plus he has a scouser accent. WTF? I get that filmmakers have a little creative license and they don't have to be 100% historically correct, but living people should at least be portrayed approximately like the real person. Even treated as a work of fiction it falls short, it gets very slow and goes on for way too long. The soundtrack's not that great either. So 2/5 from me.

[Dead Kid]

I watched eXistenZ for the first time and loved it. It hits a sweet spot between Lynch surrealism, Gilliam goofiness and Cronenberg's own grotesque. Jennifer Jason Leigh is sassy as. The upside of the deliberately bad acting is some of the entertainingly awkward & offbeat dialogue that comes with that. Reading comments, it seems the goofiness and confusion throws a bunch of viewers off, but the ultimate message of VR desensitising people to reality etc. is gravely profound. At the same time it does a great job of subtly taking the piss out of video games.

[Drax]

Yep, it rules.

[Max]

Yep, it rules.

Surely not as awesome as Deadly Prey?

[Max]

Like season 1, The White Lotus season 2 will confirm all your worst prejudices about rich people. Only Jennifer Coolidge and Jon Gries are back from the first season, but the new cast are outstanding, F. Murray Abraham, Aubrey Plaza and Italian actress Sabrina Impacciatore being the standouts for me. No Sydney Sweeney, but if you're looking for hotties the local Italian actresses aren't bad.