Film The Redcafe Movie review thread

Plane films:

Allied - Pretty average spy/war drama that is basically ruined by the trailer (though I'm not sure how else they could have promoted the film). The whole crux of the film is "is she/isn't she" yet that drama only takes up the last half of the film, so you basically spend the whole film waiting for the drama you're expecting to unfold, and when it does, it's not really that interesting or suspenseful.

Kubo and the Two Strings - Really enjoyed this. A gorgeous film with stunning animations and tells a simple enough story in a fun and exciting way. Would easily rank alongside Moana as the best animated film of last year.

Passengers - Not half as bad as I was expecting, and I actually quite enjoyed it. It's a good looking sci-fi, with some decent(ish) moral quandreries, and whilst it may lose its way towards the end, its still decent enough to have kept my interest. Not amazing or anything, but not terrible.

The Salesman - Very good. A revenge/drama set against the interesting backdrop of life in Iran in view of arts, culture and society. The writing is great and the acting is all top-notch. I liked the Death of the Salesman parallels, but I can see how some people would find it a bit much.

Birth of a Nation - Controversies aside, you have to say, as a first time writing, directing, acting and producing job from Nate Parker, it's a pretty remarkable effort. Yes, slavery has been done a bit recently, and better in 12 Years a Slave, but this is still a worthy effort in my view. Hard to watch at times, as it does capture the every day life and brutality of slavery, but it certainly kept my interest and I ended up taking a lot away from it.

Queen of Katwe - Standard Disney true-story retelling of a Ugandan chess prodigy. It's exactly what you'd expect from a Disney upliffting story... and whilst some of the acting is dodgy (though not from Oweyelo or Nyongo'o, who are as good as you'd expect) it doesn't ruin what is a fairly pleasant viewing
 
Lion is a moving story about the transendent power of Google Earth don't be evil. It's depiction of ugly brown trafficking of brown people and the noble white trafficking of brown people (and the burden this places on suffering, white, middle-class women) feels as authentic and worthy as any Oscar nominated film should. Rooney Mara is fecking annoying and she's fecking annoying in this film in that annoying Nicole Kidman way. Nicole Kidman is also in the film and in a wig. Lot's of pianoy music is played so you know when to feel sad, like when one white woman cries because of her crappy brown kids or when the other white woman says "don't blame me" to the brown kid who upset her. Heartbreaking stuff. Oh have you heard about this new thing called Google don't be evil? it transforms nightmarish slums of poverty, sexual exploitation and death into bright a breezy community centres.

I thought the first half was fairly interesting and it's very watchable but the focus of the film; it's sympathies and moments of catharsis, felt skewed to feck. It's almost as if an interesting story about suffering, guilt and identity was picked up by a cynical butcher who thought he was a filmmaker.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Birth of a Nation - Controversies aside, you have to say, as a first time writing, directing, acting and producing job from Nate Parker, it's a pretty remarkable effort. Yes, slavery has been done a bit recently, and better in 12 Years a Slave, but this is still a worthy effort in my view. Hard to watch at times, as it does capture the every day life and brutality of slavery, but it certainly kept my interest and I ended up taking a lot away from it.
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I liked this film. It doesn't have Mcqueen's artistry or ability to lens a scene but I found it a more interesting film than 12 Years a Slave. The slavery is grim and ugly, which feels a more suitable tone and a more realistic depiction of the situation than the melodrama often found in films about the slave trade. I liked that it showed the uprising as brutal and ruthless, suggesting that it's motivation owed as much to earthly fury as spiritual deliverance. And it's lack of conciliatory messages is refreshing and as it should be for such a story.

The rapid rise and even quicker fall of the film due to everything other than the quality of the film itself raises the type of interesting discussion I never want to have with anyone.
 
Moonlight (2016)

nice one. But surprised it won all those awards. (well, if a shit movie like Arrival got nominated, then the level of the competition is not the best probably)

Enjoyed the movie, good stuff.

7/10
 
Fast and Furious 7- FFS I couldn't even check my brain at the door for this pile of shite. These are just street racers right? Nothing makes any sense in this series.
 
How do we view Scorsese. For me he is one of only a few living master filmmakers. However, similar to Woody Allen, he has a handful of great films in amongst a lot of well made but middling work. Taxi Driver - yes. Raging Bull - Yes. Goodfellas - Yes but a third act narrative slump. Gangs - glorious but an inconsistent, overblown pantomime. King of Comedy - De Niro tour de force, silliness round the edges. Much of the other good stuff is rather bloated; Wolf of Wallstreet although fun is just Gordon Gekko in a fat suit. Is he just the try hard, nearly great artist, the Athletico Madrid of cinema? So why should he get a seat at the top table with the Welles' and Bergman's and Ozu's?

O ye of little faith...

Silence sees two 17th century Jesuit priests travel from Portugal to Buddhist Japan to find their spiritual mentor, or the Conradian conceit. What they find is a hidden community of Christians and a government hostile to the word of Christ. The film doesn't play like any other Scorsese flick. Yes It looks and sounds incredible but the colours are muted and the music restrained.

It's a film that is interested in faith in the traditional sense. A faith that treats doubt and disbelief as part of the equation. Scorsese is not afraid to ask where principle ends and harmful belligerence begins. A theme repeated throughot the film is the focus on the seductive quality of totems and ritual, highlighting the communicative powers they possess. This is something the Japanese officials know only too well, having created their own ceremonial display of apostasy, by commanding villagers step upon metal plates depicting Christ. Through these observations the film intelligently and honestly challenges the link between earthly material worship and divine reception. In one brilliant and brutal scene an official who mockingly encouraging the preist to step upon the image of Christ, characterises it (somewhat convincingly) as mere "formality".

There is a wonderful recurring fool character who is shown continuously asking for confession in order to absolve his constant sinning. He starts out as an almost comical drunken wretch figure before becoming a foreboding premonition of the priest's own weakness. It's a subtle stroke of genius and called to mind Coleridge's Albatross. And the voiceover which I initially feared, ended up creating a beautiful contrast between the cacophonous mind and God's stark silence.

Early on it looked like some Ozu mannerisms, the misty water banks of Mizoguchi and the horizontal compositional lines of Kurosawa. However what I'm reminded most of are the Kon Ichikawa films Fires on the Plain and The Burmese Harp, both in terms of theme and the way it patiently poses it's questions. It's still very much its own film though.

I think it is an astonishing film. Smart, deftly directed, rich in religious, philisophical and human concerns. The type of film I always thought he could make but wouldn't. Oh he just did. feck off to you all.

The Academy nominates Hugo, The Avatar, WOW, The Departed and then sleeps on this masterpiece. Ok then I think it's his best work.
 
I like Scorsese but at no point whilst watching his film have I ever felt there's a master at the helm.

Have you seen The Last Temptation of Christ? It's far from perfect but definitely in my top 3 Scorsese. He might just up his game when religion is involved.
 
Not for a long time . I remember liking it but finding the desert sitting thing very boring. I barely remember it though and it's surely worth another look. Kundun I really like.

I also watched Prevenge. A very likeable prenatal horror and comedy. It's really funny and has an unsettling vibe that is very effective. Something of Sight Seers about it but Lowe has her own unique style. It's visually impressive, is well paced and has an overall solid construction. A first time female, pregnant, written and directed film is the type of thing we have to love in these Trumpian days. A silly distraction because it's really good regardless of how it was made.
 
I think Scorcese is a masterful creator of scenes, ambiance, setting, scoring, editing etc, Nearly everything you need to be a supreme director (and more than a lot have) However he’s often a really shallow story teller.

He’s made some greats, but he’s also been over-feted for some fairly uneven blokey films, 'cos a lot of people seem to think presenting twaterry without comment is high art. Raging Bull, for example, is a shallow film. Beautifully shot, made and acted, but essentially a plotless two hour paean to a dull, violent, uninteresting man with a completely incongruous comedy scene tacked on the end without any attempt to show how this change in him occurred. Wolf Of Wall Street is this on steroids (or quaaludes) and Casino is almost a Guy Ritchie film - cartoon characters making hard man speeches to a sexy soundtrack (It’s certainly Snatch to Goodfellas’ Lock Stock) ..They’re all utterly empty to me. Fun, but empty.

He also hasn’t made anything truly great since 1990 - Though Hugo came close & The Aviator isn't bad - and yet pretty much everything he’s done in the last 20 years has been nominated for the top awards. Even what is probably his greatest film (Goodfellas) is still at best merely the 3rd greatest in it’s own genre.

That's probably a bit harsh (it sounds it reading it back) he's certainly a great, but like Nilssy, I've never quite gotten why he's so great. Silence does look very worthy though.

dumbo said:
I also watched Prevenge. A very likeable prenatal horror and comedy. It's really funny and has an unsettling vibe that is very effective. Something of Sight Seers about it but Lowe has her own unique style. It's visually impressive, is well paced and has an overall solid construction. A first time female, pregnant, written and directed film is the type of thing we have to love in these Trumpian days. A silly distraction because it's really good regardless of how it was made.
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Really wanna see this. Love Alice Lowe.
 
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It's surprisingly good. We know her as a proven comedy performer but some of the shot compositions and editing decisions make the film look like an experienced director's work. It has the confidence of something like Shaun of the Dead - although stylistically very different. The direction and performances, more so than the story or central conceit, is why it works so well, at least for me.
 
dumbo said:
Not for a long time . I remember liking it but finding the desert sitting thing very boring. I barely remember it though and it's surely worth another look. Kundun I really like.

I also watched Prevenge. A very likeable prenatal horror and comedy. It's really funny and has an unsettling vibe that is very effective. Something of Sight Seers about it but Lowe has her own unique style. It's visually impressive, is well paced and has an overall solid construction. A first time female, pregnant, written and directed film is the type of thing we have to love in these Trumpian days. A silly distraction because it's really good regardless of how it was made.
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I think it's probably his most resonant work, loads of Noo Yawkers in the desert felt a bit jarring at times though and Keitel was hilariously miscast but Dafoe's performance was truly brilliant.

Scorsese's an excellent craftsman but I think he lacks the subtlety and understatement that I personally associate with truly great film directors.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Passengers - Not half as bad as I was expecting, and I actually quite enjoyed it. It's a good looking sci-fi, with some decent(ish) moral quandreries, and whilst it may lose its way towards the end, its still decent enough to have kept my interest. Not amazing or anything, but not terrible.
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Agreed, the first hour or so wasn't as bad as I expected.
 
Am I the only one who is a sucker for The perks of being a wallflower? Guilty pleasure and all that.

That soundtrack though :drool:
 
The Company of Wolves - Atmospheric, fairly enjoyable...an admirable effort but just a bit too slight in every department. The special effects looked really cheesy and dated, especially since the werewolf transformations were made into such a big deal. It tried to appear dreamy but it mostly felt episodic, far from the twisted dream logic of similar works like Valerie and Her Week of Wonders & City of Pirates. I know it was pretty low budget but Terrence Stamp briefly appearing as the devil in seemingly is own attire felt a bit cheap.

The Night of the Iguana - A boozy and fun sun-drenched melodrama for the most part (Richard Burton and Ava Gardner were quite the pair) but it kinda trailed off eventually and got a bit incoherent and too Tennessee Williams-y.
 
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Went ahead and watched Chinmoku the 1971 Japanese adaptation of Shusaku Endo's Silence. Endo wrote the screenplay, so in theory it's a more faithful adaptation - although he apparantly disliked the changes the director made to the ending. The story certainly holds up to another viewing. It's very similar in many places but there are some subtle differences which are interesting to see. I'm glad I saw the Scorses version first, in particular I think his naive Padres work slightly better than the more prideful characters in the earlier version. Interestingly enough the torture feels more explicit in this film, whereas Scorsese holds back on the physical suffering. Something I really liked in both versions is the way that the less sympathetic, even cruel characters are often the most wise and reasonable. So often in cinema compassion and goodness are synonymous with being right but there is none of that false deck stacking here and every argument has to survive on it's own logic. A very good film and I got a lot out of it.

Think I may have to go and read the book now.
 
Mockney said:
I think Scorcese is a masterful creator of scenes, ambiance, setting, scoring, editing etc, Nearly everything you need to be a supreme director (and more than a lot have) However he’s often a really shallow story teller.

He’s made some greats, but he’s also been over-feted for some fairly uneven blokey films, 'cos a lot of people seem to think presenting twaterry without comment is high art. Raging Bull, for example, is a shallow film. Beautifully shot, made and acted, but essentially a plotless two hour paean to a dull, violent, uninteresting man with a completely incongruous comedy scene tacked on the end without any attempt to show how this change in him occurred. Wolf Of Wall Street is this on steroids (or quaaludes) and Casino is almost a Guy Ritchie film - cartoon characters making hard man speeches to a sexy soundtrack (It’s certainly Snatch to Goodfellas’ Lock Stock) ..They’re all utterly empty to me. Fun, but empty.

He also hasn’t made anything truly great since 1990 - Though Hugo came close & The Aviator isn't bad - and yet pretty much everything he’s done in the last 20 years has been nominated for the top awards. Even what is probably his greatest film (Goodfellas) is still at best merely the 3rd greatest in it’s own genre.

That's probably a bit harsh (it sounds it reading it back) he's certainly a great, but like Nilssy, I've never quite gotten why he's so great. Silence does look very worthy though.



Really wanna see this. Love Alice Lowe.
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He's not so great because he made them in numbers. If he only made godfellas then probably he'll be remembered as one of the goats.

Kind of like ronaldo scoring for fun, you'll only miss him when he's done.
 
Sky1981 said:
He's not so great because he made them in numbers. If he only made godfellas then probably he'll be remembered as one of the goats.

Kind of like ronaldo scoring for fun, you'll only miss him when he's done.
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There's been plenty of directors who made a lot of films and still managed to say something through them. Akirawa Kurosawa, Jean Luc Godard and Orson Welles immediatly spring to mind.
 
Finally saw Get Out last night. That was some weird, disturbing, racist shit. Basically, the moral of the story is: white people are evil - kill whitey before he kills you. Dunno what the world is coming to. Jordan Peele is off his nut. Shocking how it's got a 99% rating on RT.
 
Man of Leisure said:
Finally saw Get Out last night. That was some weird, disturbing, racist shit. Basically, the moral of the story is: white people are evil - kill whitey before he kills you. Dunno what the world is coming to. Jordan Peele is off his nut. Shocking how it's got a 99% rating on RT.
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Are you sure you interpreted it correctly? I haven't seen it yet but I was under the impression it's some sort of satire.
 
VorZakone said:
Are you sure you interpreted it correctly? I haven't seen it yet but I was under the impression it's some sort of satire.
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Yup, it's satire or at least that's the guise it's going for. Just not very clever or maybe it's just me. Quite disturbing either way.
 
Kedi (2016)

Documentary about 7 wild cats who live on the streets of Istanbul. And also about the humanity of the people who look out for them. If you are a cat person, and even if you aren't, go and see it. 8/10
 
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter - filthy garbage, everything is terrible in it 1.5/10

Split - okay, but definitely not great, I liked The Visit more, McAvoy was very nice though 6/10
 
On Split:
So I really liked the monster aspect and am fine with the connection made to Unbreakable and the multiple personalities was fairly well performed. However the shrink parts were extremely ponderous and really fecked the pacing. If your premise is made up of such psuedo-scientific gibberish then surely it's best to minimise that terrible, overwrought expository dialogue. Superman can fly that's all you need.

I feel I may have missed something but what was up with that fecking horrible child abuse tangent? was it really just a way to add character depth - a reveal as to why she is socially withdrawn, and cheap plot device to provide her salvation from the beast. Mr Night is surely not that much of a feckhead is he?

I'll defend The Village, The Happening, even (parts) of Lady in the Water but much of this film was a real low point for the guy in my opinion. Shyamalan clearly has still to recieve that slap that may knock some editorial sense in to him. The guy has great ideas but he seems to be a fecking idiot.
 
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Man of Leisure said:
Finally saw Get Out last night. That was some weird, disturbing, racist shit. Basically, the moral of the story is: white people are evil - kill whitey before he kills you. Dunno what the world is coming to. Jordan Peele is off his nut. Shocking how it's got a 99% rating on RT.
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Are you sure the moral of the story is that white people are evil?
 
Man of Leisure said:
Finally saw Get Out last night. That was some weird, disturbing, racist shit. Basically, the moral of the story is: white people are evil - kill whitey before he kills you. Dunno what the world is coming to. Jordan Peele is off his nut. Shocking how it's got a 99% rating on RT.
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I didn't get that at all... It's about taking a situation that people are often irrational fearful of (meeting the inlaws) and playing it out in a world where it is actually a horrible situation. It's about turning sterotypes on their heads, about being the "minority" in situations, and how white liberal racism can actually be a thing, and the awkward conversations/confrontations minorities can face with people who really don't think they're being racist.

If all you got is that white people are evil then I think thats a shame... its a brilliant film in my view. That is both clever, interesting and terrifying in equal measure.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
I didn't get that at all... It's about taking a situation that people are often irrational fearful of (meeting the inlaws) and playing it out in a world where it is actually a horrible situation. It's about turning sterotypes on their heads, about being the "minority" in situations, and how white liberal racism can actually be a thing, and the awkward conversations/confrontations minorities can face with people who really don't think they're being racist.

If all you got is that white people are evil then I think thats a shame... its a brilliant film in my view. That is both clever, interesting and terrifying in equal measure.
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Hmm, will need to give this another re-watch. Full-disclosure, fell asleep during the middle portion of the film for maybe 15-30 minutes or so. Apparently there's a "party scene" that I completely missed out on. Dozed off as Catherine Keener was hypnotizing Chris and woke up to some dude's cranium getting sawed open. Fecking hell.
 
Boiling Point - Due to it being Kitano's sophomore effort, I kinda expected it to be a rather middling effort, something that was done before he really found his style but it was just as accomplished as most of his later work, with the absurdness, subduedness and lovely framing already present. I might even consider it as one of his finest works. Hisaishi's lush score was absent but there was a nice stillness to it all instead.

The Doom Generation - This was really fun. Camp, trashy and vehemently nihilistic. Way more coherent than I've seen it being credited for in a couple of reviews.

Also, a perfect example of how useless Roger Ebert's reviews can be when it comes to edgy movies that deals with sex, 'consequences of their actions, moral position etc' and praising Natural Born Killers and Kalifornia. See his review of Blue Velvet too.
 
Pscholes18 said:
Fast and Furious 7- FFS I couldn't even check my brain at the door for this pile of shite. These are just street racers right? Nothing makes any sense in this series.
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I'm about 10mins into it and it's laughably shit already, so far Jason statham has destroyed a hospital all by himself. Vin diesel knew exactly how someone was going to race and that the guy would break his own car, and Iggy Azalea has popped up. This is already a 2/10 film. I'll watch it, see how good of a comedy it is.
 
Kong Skull Island.

I have seen all the other Kong films, did not read about this one or see the trailer.
I was not expecting the film I saw.
I thought the film was very good , the acting was excellent, some funny bits in , the fights with Kong and skull crawlers were decent and they gave me the creeps, they would not of looked out of place in a horror film.
The reunion with Hank and his family was a nice touch.
The music in the film was bang on.
The only let down for me was Samuel L Jackson , normally I like him but in this is was an arse.
This was not a remake for me, it was a standalone Kong film, the first of a few.
When you watch it and a recommend that you do, stay with it right to the end , the very end after the credits.

8/10
 
The Rift (2016)

An American military satellite crash lands in Eastern Serbia and a team of US and Serbian agents are dispatched to secure the remains of the satellite, but when they locate the crash site all is not as it seems.
Not good , badly acted , the script is just as poor and the ending was just daft.

3/10
 
pauldyson1uk said:
Kong Skull Island.

I have seen all the other Kong films, did not read about this one or see the trailer.
I was not expecting the film I saw.
I thought the film was very good , the acting was excellent, some funny bits in , the fights with Kong and skull crawlers were decent and they gave me the creeps, they would not of looked out of place in a horror film.
The reunion with Hank and his family was a nice touch.
The music in the film was bang on.
The only let down for me was Samuel L Jackson , normally I like him but in this is was an arse.
This was not a remake for me, it was a standalone Kong film, the first of a few.
When you watch it and a recommend that you do, stay with it right to the end , the very end after the credits.

8/10
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Is this part of a series with jack black in the first one? I don't think i managed to make it to the end of that one :/
 
One Night Only said:
Is this part of a series with jack black in the first one? I don't think i managed to make it to the end of that one :/
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No. Part of a new monster centric universe though which started with the last Godzilla film (2014?). Post credits scene in Skull Island shows some future plans.
 
Welsh Wonder said:
No. Part of a new monster centric universe though which started with the last Godzilla film (2014?). Post credits scene in Skull Island shows some future plans.
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Just read on wiki about planned sequels... Not fussed on the idea but heh, might give this a watch, wasn't the Godzilla film pretty awful?
 
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