Film The Redcafe Movie review thread

Natural Born Killers - Yeah, that's one of the worst films I've ever seen.

Simple Men - This was the most fully realized slice of 90's cool I've seen from Hal Hartley so far. The droll wit and romanticism was firing on all cylinders. A perfect autumnal movie.
 
Natural Born Killers is indeed an awful piece of trash. Not in an interesting way either.
 
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The wider internet is great for the old stuff but for most of the new releases I rely quite heavily on redcafe recommendations, rather than waste time with the film-blog aggregator sites. The schlock-horror meisters do a particularly good job of filtering the wheat from the chaff.
 
The World of Kanako (2014 Japan)

On my around the world noir kick, this one from Japan was a very interesting blend of Asian neo-noir with a few of what I thought of as Gaspar Noe like cinematography touches. I loved this movie but crime noir psychological thriller types are my favorite movies so not sure if this would be as appealing to non-noir aficionados. One thing I love about Asian noir (Japan, Korea and now China all share this trait) is they are completely divorced from the stupid Hollywood formulas. One reason I can't even sit through 10 minutes of Marvel movies is they are soo predictable, formulaic plots where even the "plot twist" is predictable. Most of the Asian noirs I am currently watching are just far superior filmmaking than the tripe that Hollywood has been producing recently (and will keep producing since the 12-22 year old males are the biggest economic driver still of entertainment).

Definitely recommend this one to all noir fans ( @Jim Beam you might really like this one)
 
sullydnl said:
Natural Born Killers is indeed an awful piece of trash. Not in an interesting way either.
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It was seen as radical in its day and caused such a shitstorm back in the day. It's not aged well tbh.
 
Grinner said:
I'm a fan too. I like everybody chipping in really. I've found some excellent films from people here that I would never have seen otherwise. This is a great thread.
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Absolbloodyexactly. This is the first place I visit if I'm looking for something to watch.

Have enjoyed both Good Time and Midsommar (last night) off the back of this thread recently. "Wicker Man for the skinny jeans generation" indeed. :lol: The Mushroom trips in that film were spot on (I imagine).
 
Monster House
Three teens discover that their neighbor's house is really a living, breathing, scary monster. Decent gateway horror animation for kids and fun enough for adults 6.5/10
 
Broken Arrow- Watched it about it about 8 times over the years. Never seems to get better each time.

Haven't seen for a few years but will probably watch again if I'm bored and it's on tv. So crap can't remember the whole plot but each time I watch it I think I'll remember the plot but can only remember one bit each time.
 
Joker (2019)

Had sky high expectations for this one and had a feeling this would dissapoint me. Oh boy, was I mistaken. Phoniex, what an actor! He has poured his heart and soul in this movie and it shows. I'd say his rendetion of Joker is on par with Heath Ledger's. Without a doubt one of the best superhero movies ever made. This is what DC is good at, not making slapstick family friendly movies like Marvel. Hope they stick to it and not try to emulate Marvel.

10/10
 
Snowman

Bloody awful disjointed sh1te..................and still partly entertaining............... 4/10

The Ritual

Decent horror which leaves you wondering 6/10
 
Ready or not - Rich people are weird and do weird things. Girl marries into a rich family who have a tradition that the person joining the family has to play a game the night of the wedding. In this case it's hide and seek but the family are actually going to kill her. It's a horror comedy that has plenty of gore but no real moments of tension. The jokes however are pretty good and i did laugh out loud a few times. It's dumb fun and clocks in well under 2 hours, worth a watch.
 
I watched the Maradona doco. It plays as a gentle paean to a sweet kid born to shit, who was a little bit naughty and a footballing prodigy. It gives a brief chronological account of his life, before focusing in on his time at Napoli. Despite a great line about football as deception, there are few fresh character insights and most of the footage in the film is widely available on youtube. But what is shown is well cobbled together and I found it very moving.

When it comes to the football the film is very much show don't tell and it works a charm. He was beautiful. I was less sold when the film later focused on the personal drama. As is often the case with kids from the gutter and catapulted by their talents to celebrity and excess, the authorities, the media and the thugs will eventually get their pound of flesh. But I don't see too much tragedy in his story, just a life well lived - if occasionally too well lived.
 
dumbo said:
I watched the Maradona doco. It plays as a gentle paean to a sweet kid born to shit, who was a little bit naughty and a footballing prodigy. It gives a brief chronological account of his life, before focusing in on his time at Napoli. Despite a great line about football as deception, there are few fresh character insights and most of the footage in the film is widely available on youtube. But what is shown is well cobbled together and I found it very moving.

When it comes to the football the film is very much show don't tell and it works a charm. He was beautiful. I was less sold when the film later focused on the personal drama. As is often the case with kids from the gutter and catapulted by their talents to celebrity and excess, the authorities, the media and the thugs will eventually get their pound of flesh. But I don't see too much tragedy in his story, just a life well lived - if occasionally too well lived.
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Have to agree. I was a bit blown away by all the on-the-field footage & how well it was restored, I’ve never done a deep dive regarding Maradona on YouTube, so it was all new to me.

There were passages of the documentary that were ‘Chernobyl’
 
Blood in Blood Out (1993)

Great crime flick. This was on my watchlist for years, finally got to see it.
 
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Very good.
8/10

Diabolique (1996)
Very bad.
3/10
 
In the Tall Grass

Stephen King is the sort of guy who seemingly get's 50 ideas for a story every day of his waking life. I imagine this one was as simple as pulling up outside a field of tall grass and going "ooh what if someone walked into that and could never find their way out ... and also there was some evil shit going on too just because..."

It's a passable waste of the best part of 2 hours but not one of his better efforts. A better film in a similar vein is something like
Triangle
. Spoilering that because it gives away an element of the film that's not apparent from the trailer.
 
Rocketman - Not an Elton John fan by any stretch but thought he has had a colourful enough life to make it a good watch. The switching between a dramatic biopic and jukebox musical was a bit jarring and kept taking the wind out of the sails of the story. I think a straight up drama interwoven with some concert footage would have made it a better dramatic watch. A lot of care has gone into the look of the film and Egerton was pretty good as Elton but it fell short overall. 5/10
 
A Stranger Outside
A babysitter gets more than she bargained for when she finds herself trapped inside a house with a serial killer. The preview clip on Netflix was quite good, which convinced me to watch it. Unfortunately, that was the only good scene in the film. Bad acting, poor dialogue, stupid character decisions, the TV movie feel... it was awful and predictable. There were also constant fake jump scares, like at least 9 times a character would walk into their friend and the music would have a huge bass hit followed by the dialogue "Don't sneak up on me!". Utter garbage 1/10
 
oneniltothearsenal said:
The World of Kanako (2014 Japan)

On my around the world noir kick, this one from Japan was a very interesting blend of Asian neo-noir with a few of what I thought of as Gaspar Noe like cinematography touches. I loved this movie but crime noir psychological thriller types are my favorite movies so not sure if this would be as appealing to non-noir aficionados. One thing I love about Asian noir (Japan, Korea and now China all share this trait) is they are completely divorced from the stupid Hollywood formulas. One reason I can't even sit through 10 minutes of Marvel movies is they are soo predictable, formulaic plots where even the "plot twist" is predictable. Most of the Asian noirs I am currently watching are just far superior filmmaking than the tripe that Hollywood has been producing recently (and will keep producing since the 12-22 year old males are the biggest economic driver still of entertainment).

Definitely recommend this one to all noir fans ( @Jim Beam you might really like this one)
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Should watch one night in mongkok
 
CassiusClaymore said:
What would you bargain for if you got trapped inside a house with a serial killer I wonder? Probably just your life.
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Hard to say. The fact that she ended up getting more than she bargained for suggests she could have pushed for a bit more than just her life. I'm reminded of Seth Johnson's contract negotiations with Leeds, which I imagine is what this film is based on.
 
Species

90's sci fi horror starring Natasha Henstridge, her fabulous hair and her boobs. Scientists contact some aliens, the aliens send them info on infinite energy and some DNA strands. So they combine these DNA strands with human DNA, making a woman because they are more docile and stuff. They then decide to terminate it for reasons I forget, I think it wore socks with sandals or something, but it's grown into Michelle Williams who escapes, eats a woman on a train then gets off the train having grown into Natasha Henstridge, who's gone all horny and murderous. So Ben Kingsley hires a rag tag group of two academics, a psychic and an assassin to hunt her before she fecks everyone to death. It's a story as old as time.

The special effects are pretty decent considering it came out in 1995 and it's got early CGI. Henstridge is pretty good, coming across as both innocent and predatory. Setting her up for the career highlight lead role in Ghosts of Mars, the best film about ghosts on Mars you're likely to see. Michael Madsen is Michael Madsen, Marg Helgenberger is there she's just there to be a love interest and didn't have much to do, Forest Whittaker and Alfred Molina are pretty good and could have used more screen time. Ben Kingsley though puts in one weird assed performance, his accent is all over the place and his 1000 yard stare is out of place. There's a scene where I'm not even sure if Sil is controlling him or he's just massively predictable.

The story explores themes of like life and stuff. It also explores Natasha Henstridge's boobs and Michael Madsen's love of crouching, prepare to be confused as to why he's crouching. Why would you get up on a car bonnet only to then crouch? He loves a good crouching session.

7/10

The Man Who Shot Hitler and then The Bigfoot

Sam Elliott plays Sam Elliott, an old man who is a bit fed up with life and keeps thinking about ending it. He remembers that time he shot Hitler, then some government agents come and ask him to go kill Bigfoot because it's spreading disease in Canada and is heading for the US border. So Sam has to go kill it, despite being like 102. It looks nothing like Bigfoot but he kills it anyway. Then he gets reported as dead and his stuff gets buried, but he comes back and digs it up and just carries on with his life remembering stuff. Larry Millar is in it, I forgot he existed.

That's literally the plot of the fillm right there. He may not be called Sam Elliott in the film, but he may as well be. I didn't even have to break it down to sound slightly more absurd like Species, that's the actual plot.

5/10
 
Collateral (2004)

Another excellent Mann film.

8.5/10
 
:lol:

Sorry - I don't really know enough about films & filmmaking to offer deeper analyses.
 
The Joker - quite boring with an eye rolling "society, man" thesis at its centre. Phoenix sure does act a lot and a lot of very good actors come in to deliver one or two lines, which seems a wasre. DeNiro phones it in again. The discourse around it has been horrendous and all wrong; it's nowhere near a masterpiece and isn't a rallying cry for incels. It's just a bit shit.
 
R.N7 said:
Collateral is a fine thriller though Mann's taste in music remains rather questionable.
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Reminds of the part in Heat where Al Pacino character goes to hip hop club(I think Al Pachino might be the white guy in the scene) and this song is playing in the background

 
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