Film The Redcafe Movie review thread

If Beale Street Could Talk. A 2018 American film by Moonlight director Barry Jenkins, about Tish (KiKi Layne) and Fonnie (Stephan James), a young black couple in early 70s Harlem. Fonnie has been falsely accused of rape and imprisoned, just before Tish finds out that she's pregnant. The film follows Tish and her family as they deal with the news and try to prove Fonnie's innocence, with a lot of long flashbacks that depict the development of Tish and Fonnie's relationship.

It's a really good film. V_e_r_y_ _s_l_o_w, and maybe a bit too slow sometimes - but the film got its own rhythm, and once you're sucked in, you find out that it stays perfectly on its beat throughout. Gorgeous, intentional, and meaningful camerawork throughout, and great acting. 8/10
 
We started watching it a while ago and gave up fairly early on as it was so slow. Might have to try again.
 
Where Hands Touch (2018 film)

It is a love story between Mulatto girl whose mother is German and Hitler Youth boy.
But the real hero for me was the mother of the girl who teaches her children to see all people as the same.
Difficult to watch at times as to be expected as it was set in Nazi Germany.
But well worth the time.

8/10
 
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Wibble said:
We started watching it a while ago and gave up fairly early on as it was so slow. Might have to try again.
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It might help that I had to watch it in parts. I watched the first hour and thought it was too slow, then the rest in two more sittings and then it really clicked for me. I don't know if it would have been the same if I would have been able to finish it that first time.
 
CODA was just beautiful. One of those rare movies where the entire cast is on their A-game. The emotional scenes are extremely touching without being too mopey. Easily my favorite movie from last year. 9/10
 
Cheimoon said:
Starbuck. A Quebec comedy from 2011 about David (Patrick Huard) who's a bit of a failure in life, and then finds out that the sperm he used to donate has been used for hundreds of children, who'd now like to meet him. In the meantime, his girlfriend has kinda left him and now discovers she's pregnant.

The story is a little silly and the movie stalls a bit in the middle section - but otherwise it's quite good. A lot of the dialogues are hilarious (but I'm not sure how that comes across if you don't get the French), and Patrick Huard is good as always (in the films where I've seen him, anyway). Quite a lot of nice/moving scenes, too, where David secretly starts encountering his children. 7/10 for comedies.

This looked interesting to me at first, but then received horrible reviews and hence I have not seen it yet. Maybe I should bump it a bit in my list!
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The Midnight Sky, the reviews are very mixed, TBH most are not good, but I enjoyed it
 
The King's Man

Tonally all over the place. Story is a mess. Fight scenes were okay but not as impressive as the other two movies in the series. I didn't like the addition of characters who were clearly just there to set up future installments or act like red herrings.

4/10

I thought Matthew Goode's character was being set up as one of these red herrings with the way he was acting quite shifty, but didn't think he was the main bad guy because the antagonist's thick Scottish accent was absolutely perfect. I genuinely was spending the whole movie wondering which proper Scotsman was playing the role, without thinking for a second it would be the soft spoken posh guy from Devon who it turned out had absolutely nailed a rough central belt brogue

I mean, the deception is just lazy writing but the accent was brilliant.
 
The King’s Man

Ok film and preferable to the first two even with a quirky Samuel L Jackson in the first. Not disappointing if you don’t expect too much.

5/10
 
Not a movie but ended up watching The Puppet Master on Netflix last night. Similar to the Tinder Swindler, but more dark and depraved.

A pathological liar (and probably psychopath) called Robert Freegard pretends to be an MI5 spy, over a period of 10 years, basically milking gullible people and then women into paying for his life. I don't want to give too much away, but if you enjoyed Tinder Swindler, I think you'll enjoy this.
 
Passing. A 2021 film by Rebecca Hall about two mixed-race (rich) women in 1920s New York, one of whom (Ruth Negga) passes as white and is married to a white racist, while the other one (Tessa Thompson) is married to a black doctor and lives mostly in the black community (but occasionally passes as white). They are high-school friends who meet again by chance, and then the former gets jealous about the latter's freer life - and further complications, which I won't get into as that's really what the film is all about.

This started really well. The film's esthetic closely follows 1920s cinema, meaning it's filmed in the kind of pale black and white you can see in films from that time, and the acting is a little theatrical as well (but very good). Also, in the beginning, the understated dialogue, slow pace, and gradual increase of points of interest and tensions works very well. About halfway through, though, I felt the film had really spent itself. The slowness and (very) gradual plot development at that point turned into a bore, undermining everything; and what I think was meant to be subtle really wasn't. The last 30 min, I found myself looking at the clock every 5 minutes hoping more time would have passed. I felt the ending was also rather disappointing: very dramatic, but too inconclusive on too many fronts in ways that I think are not properly presaged or resolved by earlier developments.

I was reading about this on Wikipedia and saw it received mostly raving reviews - but I thought this negative review (watch out: spoilers) from the Guardian captures my thoughts pretty much exactly (but worded much better). A film I really looked forward to that rather disappointed in the end. 3/5 (I figured I'd switch to x/5 without half points. Requires less thinking!)
 
Has anyone seen the Texas Chainsaw Massacre film on Netflix? It got a surprisingly good review in the guardian and I love the original. The sequels sacked bigly though.

@Dirty Schwein
 
Jippy said:
Has anyone seen the Texas Chainsaw Massacre film on Netflix? It got a surprisingly good review in the guardian and I love the original. The sequels sacked bigly though.

@Dirty Schwein
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I really want to see it but currently having house renovated so can't watch anything for the next month or so :(

I'll try get to it asap!
 
Dirty Schwein said:
I really want to see it but currently having house renovated so can't watch anything for the next month or so :(

I'll try get to it asap!
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The timeline sounds a bit screwy, like he'd be a pensioner, but the trailer defo made it look worth watching.
 
Jippy said:
The timeline sounds a bit screwy, like he'd be a pensioner, but the trailer defo made it look worth watching.
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That's what trailers do. Then you watch the film and usually they're awful.

Just realized Fede Alvarez was involved with this. Ok, I'll definitely give it a shot.
 
Dirty Schwein said:
That's what trailers do. Then you watch the film and usually they're awful.

Just realized Fede Alvarez was involved with this. Ok, I'll definitely give it a shot.
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:lol:Yep. I had a student job in a UCI cinema and the two minute trailer for the X Files looked really cool, but the movie stank.

The spooky ghost town In this film kinda has The Hills Have Eyes vibes.
 
The Girl Who Got Away

A female serial killer escapes from prison to go after the one victim that got away.
Was not expecting much, but I enjoyed this, the acting was decent , the story was good.
More of a psychological thriller, not really horror.
Good twist at the end.

6/10
 
A suite of 3 Bond films to watch on a winter weekend.

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service. (1969)
2. Spectre (2015)
3. No Time To Die (2021)

In these films the women are integral to the story.
Appropriately the beautiful We Have All the Time in the World by Louis Armstrong plays over the closing credit of No Time to Die.

9/10
 
Red Dreams said:
A suite of 3 Bond films to watch on a winter weekend.

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service. (1969)
2. Spectre (2015)
3. No Time To Die (2021)

In these films the women are integral to the story.
Appropriately the beautiful We Have All the Time in the World by Louis Armstrong plays over the closing credit of No Time to Die.

9/10
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Excellent choices, all 3 very good.
I agree We Have All The Time in the World was a good choice for the end of No Time to Die.
OMHSS is a very under rated Bond Film.
 
Spider man: No way home
I liked it, laugh out loud funny at times. The action in Marvel films always seems pointless though. No matter how many punches/cars/astroids the characters throw at each other, it never seems to really do anything unless the plot demands it.

Also, unlike imdb I thought Godfather 2 was substantially better.

8/10
 
Scream 2022. The same rehashed, "but this time its totally different", movie youve already seen four times before.
 
Sorry, we missed you

Great film, really hits home how shite life is for some people and how vile the working system is.

8/10

Howl’s Moving Castle

Good, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as Spirited Away. Felt the last 10-15 minutes if the film were a bit eh and ruined what had been a good build up.

6.5/10
 
Encanto
Really enjoyed this. Looked fantastic, amazing songs, relatable theme. Just didn't feel it went as far as I expected in terms of the conflict 7.5/10
 
Gangster Squad. 2013 movie set in 1940s LA, where a new squad is founded (featuring Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie, Michael Peña, Giovanni Ribisi, and Robert Patrick) by the police chief (Nick Nolte) to halt the rise of mobster Mickey CoHen (Sean Penn) by any (violent) means possible. Oh, and there are also two women for good measure, Gosling's love interest (Emma Stone) and Brolin's wife (Mireille Enos).

It's not great. I tend to like gangster films, but this one had about zero depth. Basically, the plot provides the reason for a lot of shoot-outs and action scenes, and that's about it. There is virtually no tension, drama, or interesting narrative. The opening and closing monologues suggest the film aspires to be something bigger, but there really is nothing of the sort. Also, the final monologues suggests that we just watched a real part of LA history, but apart from that this squad, its members, and Cohen really existed, the actual events of the film are virtually all made up.

The action is alright though. Expect a dumb shoot- out movie, and you won't be disappointed (too much). 2/5
 
Uncharted - It was a decent flick. I've never played the games, although I've wanted to so didn't really know the setup besides the main character. Overall the movie seemed to be lacking something. I expected more.
 
Dirty Schwein said:
Encanto
Really enjoyed this. Looked fantastic, amazing songs, relatable theme. Just didn't feel it went as far as I expected in terms of the conflict 7.5/10
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I was impressed at how it stacked
up against the mighty Frozen films and Finding Nemo during half term. Refreshingly good and great soundtrack.
 
Taken - watching the movie again and FFS , the daughter is a spoiled brat. Would of left her on that boat, good God.
 
White Tiger [Netflix] : 8/10

Indian film that meanders between Hindi and English. Well made on all fronts.

If you liked City of God, you will probably like this.

Adapted from a novel. Great story, top casting, acting, & DP work.
 
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I watched two horror movies: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) and Wrong Turn (2021) and I think both are quite good.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is way more gory, but the main characters are a bit meh. Score: 7

Wrong Turn has the better characters and the story flows better. I was a bit confused when I figured out the movie has a different take on the concept, but now think it's quite refreshing: it makes the story a bit "smarter". Just give me a sequel.
Score: 8,5
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
The Village
Village sends blind girl into forest to find life saving anti-biotics.
0/10

Hands down the worse movie I’ve ever seen. It’s clearly trying to do a meta commentary on life, fear, state control and power blah blah blah.

But one more time… They sent a blind girl with no concept of life outside of her own village or what a pharmacy is… into the woods to find anti biotics. Get in the Fcuking bin.
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In school we had an English teacher that chose this film for us to study - not because of how shite it is but because she genuinely believed it was a masterpiece.
 
Unam333 said:
I watched two horror movies: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) and Wrong Turn (2021) and I think both are quite good.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is way more gory, but the main characters are a bit meh. Score: 7

Wrong Turn has the better characters and the story flows better. I was a bit confused when I figured out the movie has a different take on the concept, but now think it's quite refreshing: it makes the story a bit "smarter". Just give me a sequel.
Score: 8,5
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High scores for remade horrors!
 
Unam333 said:
I watched two horror movies: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) and Wrong Turn (2021) and I think both are quite good.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is way more gory, but the main characters are a bit meh. Score: 7

Wrong Turn has the better characters and the story flows better. I was a bit confused when I figured out the movie has a different take on the concept, but now think it's quite refreshing: it makes the story a bit "smarter". Just give me a sequel.
Score: 8,5
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Is wrong turn on Netflix?
 
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