Film The Redcafe Movie review thread

Anabelle was so unbelievably bad. They used the tension/shock horror trick over and over again until I got weary of it. There was one scene where they did it like ten over times, just recycling the same sequence and scaring the lady repeatedly. You thought she would have learnt her lesson the first time but she's always approaching the door/window/doll/dubious object/strange noises slowly and getting scared out of her wits in the process. And then she will scream her head off before she meets the next door/window/doll/dubious object/strange noise and forgets what happened earlier on.
 
Just bumped into Mark Kermode in Soho. Top, top guy (I'm sure there are plenty on here who listen to his podcast), this has pretty much made my week.

Also, if my hair looks like that at his age I'll have won at middle age!
 
And while I'm here...

Gone Girl - Wasn't a fan. Read the book a while ago, enjoyed it until the ending though it's no more than trashy pulp. Was then looking forward to the film solely because of Fincher, as well as hearing the ending of the book had been changed (it hadn't). Knowing the story already and having to spend the entire film in the company of completely dislikeable people I couldn't enjoy it, there was nothing that gripped me. The two leads are great, Fincher shoots it well... but I was just bored. Shame, waste of talent.

Guardians of the Galaxy - Finally saw this at the cinema, had a pretty hectic couple of months so missed it on first release. Great fun, perfect soundtrack. The first superhero movie I've enjoyed in too long.

Dial M for Murder - Fun, slightly below par Hitchcock.

Chinatown - Hadn't watched it in about a decade. Perfect detective film.
 
22 Jump Street (2014)

I can't stand the non fat version of Jonah Hill but this movie had me in stitches anyway... Tatum was really really good, so was Ice Cube. Funny shit.

7/10
 
ThierryHenry said:
Dial M for Murder - Fun, slightly below par Hitchcock.
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I watched this again recently and didn't make it to the finish. The whole movie falls apart because of a simple implausibility.

Ray Milland decides to kill his rich wife, Grace Kelly, and recruits a seedy ex-college classmate to do the deed. The plan is that the killer gains access to the couple's apartment by using a key left hidden in the common stairway, and murders Grace while Milland is miles across the city with a secure alibi. But Milland needs his own key, so the key he leaves for the killer is his wife's, stolen from her handbag. This is an awkward business at best, and gives rise to a lot of complications which eventually lead to his undoing.

The audience is asked to believe that in all the months of meticulous preparation for the dastardly act, it never occurs to Milland that making a copy of his own key and giving it to the killer is a better and simpler idea.
 
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The ending scene is just as bad. Can you imagine the police trying to build a case around the fact a man opened his door with a spare key under the stairs? :lol:
 
Where The Devil Hides
Awful awful film. About 6 girls who were born on the 6th day of the 6th month and a prophecy says on their 18th birthday, all will die apart from one, who will become the devil. It's bloody awful. Shit story, shit acting, shit dialogue, shit directing, shit everything. There were two jump scares that got me, but that was because they were SO randomly placed and made no sense to the plot what so ever. Deb (from Dexter) was in it and man it's sad to see her stoop to such a shit film. Colm Meany was the only good thing about this pile of shit 2/10
 
Will Absolute said:
I watched this again recently and didn't make it to the finish. The whole movie falls apart because of a simple implausibility.

Ray Milland decides to kill his rich wife, Grace Kelly, and recruits a seedy ex-college associate to do the deed. The plan is that the killer gains access to the couple's apartment by using a key left hidden in the common stairway and murders Grace while Milland is miles across the city with a secure alibi. But Milland needs his own key, so the key he leaves for the killer is his wife's, stolen from her handbag. This is an awkward business at best and gives rise to a lot of complications which eventually lead to his undoing.

The audience is asked to believe that in all the months of meticulous preparation for the dastardly act it never occurs to Milland that making a copy of his own key and giving it to the killer is a better and simpler idea.
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Sometimes even the best laid schemes can be undone by a simple oversight. Its a plot hole, and a minor one at that. There are movies with far bigger plot holes than this and they get rated higher for its "realism, meticulously crafted plot" etc.

I think Ray Milland was truly a magnificent bastard in it. The murder scene was probably one of the best I've seen. At the time of the actual murder attempt, he was on the phone with his wife before she got attacked and left it hanging. The camera just zoomed in on his face which showed variety of emotions while she was screaming for help and ending with disappointment when he realised she survived the attack. The subtlety in it was really well acted out. I was rooting for him throughout the movie. His plans were constantly undone but he was quick on the draw, framing his wife after she survived and mentally punishing the guy who cuckolded him.
 
thepolice123 said:
Sometimes even the best laid schemes can be undone by a simple oversight. Its a plot hole, and a minor one at that. There are movies with far bigger plot holes than this and they get rated higher for its "realism, meticulously crafted plot" etc.

I think Ray Milland was truly a magnificent bastard in it. The murder scene was probably one of the best I've seen. At the time of the actual murder attempt, he was on the phone with his wife before she got attacked and left it hanging. The camera just zoomed in on his face which showed variety of emotions while she was screaming for help and ending with disappointment when he realised she survived the attack. The subtlety in it was really well acted out. I was rooting for him throughout the movie. His plans were constantly undone but he was quick on the draw, framing his wife after she survived and mentally punishing the guy who cuckolded him.
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Really! You wanted him to kill poor Grace? You're a bad man.

Never trust the police!

I do think the business with the key was too flimsy to bear the weight of the entire plot though. Which it did - there wouldn't have been a movie without it. I agree that Milland was excellent. The other characters were fairly bland, but he was the dark, shiny heart of the film.
 
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Will Absolute said:
Really! You wanted him to kill poor Grace? You're a bad man.

Never trust the police!

I do think the business with the key was too flimsy to bear the weight of the entire plot though. Which it did - there wouldn't have been a movie without it. I agree that Milland was excellent. The other characters were fairly bland, but he was the dark, shiny heart of the film.
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The adulterous pair hardly covered themselves in glory either. Not once did Mark show a shred of conscience, pretending to his friend, smiling at his face but bedding his wife behind his back. What a douche. The fact that they will probably take all his money and sail away into the horizon is quite a sickening thought.

Then again if I were ana assassin I would find it hard to kill Grace Kelly. :lol:
 
Glengarry Glen Ross 9/10

Finally managed to watch this a after hearing nothing but great things and it sure lived up to expectations. Fantastic characters played by fantastic actors with great dialogue throughout. Lemmon gives a absolute acting master lads in this film. The sort of film you want to watch again even though you only just seen it.
 
Dark City (1998) :

Watched this for the first time last night. Starts off like an old fashioned film noir and it was touch and go whether I'd continue watching after the first twenty minutes but thankfully I persevered as it turned into a very enjoyable slice of sci-fi by Alex Proyas who creates a very believable world. I rarely watch a film twice but this one is definitely getting a second look soon.
 
BigDunc9 said:
Glengarry Glen Ross 9/10

Finally managed to watch this a after hearing nothing but great things and it sure lived up to expectations. Fantastic characters played by fantastic actors with great dialogue throughout. Lemmon gives a absolute acting master lads in this film. The sort of film you want to watch again even though you only just seen it.
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The problem for me is that I wanted to watch a film and not an (over) acting class.
 
Print the Legend - 6.5. A perfectly good, and at times really interesting documentary on the rise and evolution of 3D printers, that suffers the fatal flaw of at no time enlightening you on the point, purpose or even workings of 3D printers. The makers have fantastic access to all the major players in the industry, specifically following the fortunes of 2 competing start up companies from inception to success, but it gets too wrapped up in the fairly dull personality flaws of geeky white males and a weird forced subtext about Steve Jobs that it completely omits what the fecking point of these things are? None of the geeks seem to know or care, and naturally assume that the amazing technology itself is worth billions of dollars in the consumer market just because it's an amazing technology. Yet all we're shown is that they make small plastic trinkets and miniature models of shit restrictive to the size of the machines themselves (which aren't huge) at the expense of about £2k. Which seems pointless.

The only person with any consumer nouse is the villain of the peice, the guy who worked out rather quickly that gun parts could be made, and was instantly shut down by the government and demonised by the sensible world. It'd be really easy to side with this, and the doc, in painting this guy as a warped dangerous deviant if he weren't the only person in the whole thing with any idea of how these things could actually be useful as expensive household products. Because no one else had any clue. And since they were all quite samey, awkward, young white males, fretting over how many of these things they could sell, and the technology itself was a sort of bland McGuffin, I was just left thinking...meh.
 
Wibble said:
The problem for me is that I wanted to watch a film and not an (over) acting class.
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While Alec Baldwin is a bit ott (but it goes well with his character), there are a few understated performances in the film I think, Lemmon especially. I don't think 'overacting' is really something that can be said about it, I agree you feel the acting though, it's very much an actor's film if that makes any sense. But it was the risk with that kind of film.
 
While a little of the script sounds stagey & ridiculous (I'm particularly thinking of Pacino talking about trains - outta nowhere, ill-fitting and plain odd to think that someone would speak like that), the film is very good, I think.
 
It feels like the stage play it is with most of the cast making sure the audience in the back of the top circle can hear them.
 
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BigDunc9 said:
Glengarry Glen Ross 9/10

Finally managed to watch this a after hearing nothing but great things and it sure lived up to expectations. Fantastic characters played by fantastic actors with great dialogue throughout. Lemmon gives a absolute acting master lads in this film. The sort of film you want to watch again even though you only just seen it.
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Al Pacino was brilliant in it. Ed Harris did a great job as well.
 
Archie Leach said:
You get the steak knives, Wibble.
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:lol:

Gone Girl:

First of all let me say that this is a very brave movie to make in today’s climate, it certainly is not misogynistic for me but at times it does sail quite close to the wind and there would have been an ungodly shit storm (bigger than the small one that is already surrounding it) from certain sections of the media if a man had written either the book or the script for this. As it happens if you look deeper beyond the surface of what is on display you can see this for what it really is which is a satire on a lot of the roles imposed on people within society by various outside forces. It would be impossible to say more than this without giving away too much, and there are parts of that satire which don’t work for me due to a certain deliberately trashy streak running through the final third of the movie as opposed to the more intelligent and restrained approach taken in the first two thirds. For my part I can see exactly why they chose Rosamund Pike for the role and whilst this is not for me an Oscar worthy performance (I have always rated her very highly as an actress) this is still a very good performance. I would have liked to like this more simply for the daring shown in choosing to make a movie like this in this era (it is a movie which in parts has been made at least twice before in the last 3-4 decades), however this sits for me firmly in the 7ish range that a lot of Fincher movies seem to occupy. Insightful in parts but whilst humorous throughout and certainly a lot more playful than it may originally seem it does for me lose its way a little in the final 3rd.


7/10



 
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Transformers: Age of Exctinction Half sequel, half reboot, all stupid. Up until about 2/3 of the way through this 9 hour film I was thinking it was silly but at least slightly better than all but the original. And then the shark was well and truly jumped even by the lowly standards of this series. More mechanical shark jumping another mechanical shark really. Some sort of gibberish introduced mechanical dinosaurs which fought Optimus Prime and then suddenly fought to the death for him. WTF? The worst part of all this that by the time the end titles started, 14 hours and 9 minutes after the opening titles, it became apparent that another sequel is on its way. Noooooooooooooooooooooooo. 1/10
 
See No Evil
A bunch of prison inmates are set the task of cleaning up an abandoned hotel only to be picked off one by one. Generic story, generic characters and just a boring b-movie slasher. Only thing that sets it apart is Kane from WWE who is the villain. Borefest.
 
I watched Divergent and Hunger Games: Catching Fire last night. I'd like to review them but I couldn't tell you which movie was which. They were both alright though. I think. Was the Divergent actress deliberately picked for her resemblance to Jennifer Lawrence? They're very similar films.
 
The Maze Runner: Formulaic and derivative adolescent sci-fi drama. There is nothing on display here that you won’t have seen elsewhere and it still manages to fall into the trap of over simplifying things to communicate with its audience who I can assure you are mostly more intelligent than they are being given credit for here. Still it does contain a few actors I like (Will Poulter being one) and the actors in general give decent performances, also the action is reasonably well choreographed and shot. It manages to keep its secrets well despite having to resort to slightly unrealistic plot twists and character behavior; however it lets itself down majorly in the last few minutes. Not hopeless and has a few moments of decent entertainment, but ultimately the derivative and unoriginal nature of most of what is on display as well as most of the plot twists let it down.


4.5/10
 
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After Hours

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. Absolutely fecking bizarre Scorsese film. Wtf.

Linda Fiorentino's tits/10.
 
Just re-watched "The Prestige" after many years and strangely enough forgot how good this movie actually is. Directed by Christopher Nolan and it's safe to say one of his best, which is saying a lot. 9.5/10 for me, would recommend it to anyone.
 
Sally Cinnamon said:
After Hours

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. Absolutely fecking bizarre Scorsese film. Wtf.

Linda Fiorentino's tits/10.
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I saw it when it was released I think and I seem to remember liking it but I can't remember much about it. The summary on Wikipedia made me doubt my memory as it sounds batshit crazy.
 
Annabelle

The film was decent enough, had a decent story behind it, the acting was OK but I was disappointed, I was expecting more.
the music was very good, gave the film a very atmospheric feel , but you could tell what was going to happen a mile off, it offered nothing new.
There was a few decent scary bit, that did make me jump, but that was about it.
It was not a bad film, it just could've been done better.

5/10
 
King Kong - heard so many average reviews had no real expectations for this film and was still pretty underwhelming. Everyone crapped their pants about Bryan Cranston biting the dust but honestly he was awful in this, his agent needs t get him into some premium roles instead of shitty remakes like this and Total Recall. Aaron Taylor-Johnson ably supports as an inanimate carbon rod.
 
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