What I've Been Watching: The Catch-All Film Thread

Carnifex said:
Last night I watched a film I've seen probably a dozen times or so in my lifetime: A Clockwork Orange. I put it in the category of one of those few films that either equals or perhaps surpasses the fine book, a masterpiece today as it was decades ago. Also it served as a palate cleanser to clear out the memory of a terrible film I'd seen a few days ago, It.
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Yep - there's that lad Malcolm McDowell again, and this time teamed up with Kubrick. Now you're cooking with gas!
 
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I won't be repeating old surebets and 6 days passed so you probably watched at least one of my previous suggestions.
Time for some new ones.

Bloody Hell - a rare fish, lowbudget horror that is not stupid and plays with the destiny vs coincidence setup. You'll be following a story about one guy who went loco, a girl that cannot be free until she meets him and a family who believes family is above everyrithing, even morals and ethics, even humanity. Add to it a dose of dark humor and it's a mustwatch.

Three Kims - three martial arts trainers, each of different style, all named Kim, set their eyes on a beautiful girl and are trying to… well… seduce her. A sort of. There will be fights, there will be comedy. A nostalgic movie that deliberately feels like HK classics is not as good as those old ones, but is not worse either. A treat for martial arts movies fans.

The soul - one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen, starts as whodunnit, switches to drama (the protagonist has cancer in terminal phase), shifts to scifi and finalizes as a thriller full of twists and turns. Before the thriller part sadly it's very slow, but the thought provoking ideas of this story and hidden critic on chinese censorship makes it a tasty meal for any scifi fan.
 
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joxer said:
Nobody (2021) - a grinding reality where every week feels the same, similar to your own life, suddenly shifts into a sheer madness for the protagonist here. Of course there is a twist on how and why, there will be action and blood while bodies will pile up. A mustwatch pic proof there is still hope for Hollywood.
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...Michael Ironside has *really* put on some weight!
 
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I like the first half of Clockwork Orange but the second half loses all its fun. :p

I'd really love to see the proper Kubrick cut of Eyes Wide Shut. Apparently Kubrick demanded he must have control over the final cut but then he mysteriously had a heart-attack and an edited version was released with over 20 minutes of footage missing.

As with Clockwork, It's the first half of EWS that's the most fun then it sort of drags on for an hour too long. I wonder how the missing footage might change that.
 
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The bus scene IMO was the weakest one if you ask me, but the reason me not caring about it is I've recently watched a few titles with bus/tram/train brawls.
An example: Master (2021):



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To add salt to the wound, to some, I cannot wait to see Cliff Walkers.
Finally someone dared to make something that feels like one of the best murder scenes in film history: Hitchcock's oven scene.
This time it happens on a train.



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Not enough days passed from my last suggestions so won't be recommending something today. Maybe next weekend.
 
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danutz_plusplus said:
I also saw Nobody. I found it pretty average. And aside from the fight in the bus, which was cool and intense, I found the rest of the action pretty boring. Odenkirk was decent, but he's way too latented an actor for that kind of role.
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Just finished watching that. I thought it was pretty good until the final 15-20 minutes when it went full-on John Wick. Prior to that, it surprised me in a positve way.
 
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JDR13 said:
Just finished watching that. I thought it was pretty good until the final 15-20 minutes when it went full-on John Wick. Prior to that, it surprised me in a positve way.
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It's not bad, by any stretch. Technically it's good, but I had issues with caring for the main character since he was basically unbeatable. That's why I liked the bus scene, since he actually took some significant damage in that one.

Also, did I misunderstand the triggering factor to the whole beef between him and the russians? He tried to recover the stolen things from the two thieves, and in the end he still felt like taking on someone else and beating them to a pulp? He actually says to himself, "please open the bus doors and let them on". Which is why he started the serious fight with the Russians in the bus? I'd like to believe he could've saved the girl on the bus, without killing or seriously hurting them. Especially since he's the badass he's been made out to be. But he actually felt to me like he was out for blood.

And after killing the brother of Yulian, he behaved like he's the one that was wronged. And went on the rampage. The whole motivation felt a bit off for me.
 
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Edited your post. Please use the spoiler tags.
 
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Myrthos said:
Edited your post. Please use the spoiler tags.
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Oh, sorry. I guess I thought that for this type of movie plot details aren't exactly important. I mean you can't really be spoiled for John Wich with plot details, right? Since it's all just an excuse for gunfights. But fair point about it still being a spoiler.
 
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I got talked into watching the most recent Terminator flick, the Dark Fate one. I don't even know where to begin with this, for like the first hour you cannot even fathom what's going on, there's hardly any actual dialogue at all between the featured actors. In the end I'd call it a below average flick, and not one I'd ever re-watch. Gone indeed are the glory days of the first two terminator films, which are quite fine.
 
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danutz_plusplus said:
It's not bad, by any stretch. Technically it's good, but I had issues with caring for the main character since he was basically unbeatable. That's why I liked the bus scene, since he actually took some significant damage in that one.

Also, did I misunderstand the triggering factor to the whole beef between him and the russians? He tried to recover the stolen things from the two thieves, and in the end he still felt like taking on someone else and beating them to a pulp? He actually says to himself, "please open the bus doors and let them on". Which is why he started the serious fight with the Russians in the bus? I'd like to believe he could've saved the girl on the bus, without killing or seriously hurting them. Especially since he's the badass he's been made out to be. But he actually felt to me like he was out for blood.

And after killing the brother of Yulian, he behaved like he's the one that was wronged. And went on the rampage. The whole motivation felt a bit off for me.
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I think you did misunderstand somewhat.

After the bus fight (he didn't kill anyone btw), he didn't do anything else until they went after him at this house. Only after that did he go on the rampage.

As far as not hurting anyone on the bus, perhaps, but I think that's overanalyzing things a bit. It seemed highly unlikely that those guys were going to let that girl go without a fight.
 
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JDR13 said:
I think you did misunderstand somewhat.

After the bus fight (he didn't kill anyone btw), he didn't do anything else until they went after him at this house. Only after that did he go on the rampage.

As far as not hurting anyone on the bus, perhaps, but I think that's overanalyzing things a bit. It seemed highly unlikely that those guys were going to let that girl go without a fight.
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Might seem a bit weird to have a debate on this simple of a movie plot, but I'll go along a little more. :D

Indeed, no one died directly on the bus, but the degree to which he kicked their asses was kind of insane imo. And this only because he was a trained killer. I believe even the law judges you differently if you're highly trained and do that sort of damage to civilians.

And as I said, him wanting them to get on the bus and his general behavior did feel to me like he was out for blood.

So when someone dies because of his bloodlust and him not wanting to temper his obviously high skills in combat, it feels strange for him to claim ignorance. Technically, I believe he could've knocked them all out very fast, swift and causing as little bodily damage as possible.

All of this put together made it a bit hard for me to empathize with his position when he then behaves like they came for his family out of nowhere, when his own actions caused that. Indeed, there was no going back from what he did, but if he would at least accept his responsability in all of this I could have empathized with him more. But no, his next action was to go and burn their hole money operation just out of spite. That does not seem like a person wanting to keep his family safe. By taking on the whole of the Russian Mob (which is effectively what he did when he burnt all of their money). Does that seem like someone who cares for his family, or was it all just an assault on his ego, that they came to his house?

Sure, it all made for some fun situations. But the core of the motivation was a bit weak imo. At least compared to how John Wick did it (at least from the little I watched of the first John Wick) where the whole trigger is some bad guys hurting his wife's dog? If I remember correctly. Anyway, that trigger felt a lot more innocent and you could more easily get behind.

Anyway, I feel I've spent way too much debating this movie, and it's not worth it. But these are my 2 cents on the plot.
 
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JDR13 said:
I'm not sure how you're able to enjoy any movies to be honest. :lol:
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It's from movie to movie honestly. :D

Some movies, for some reason, I nitpick, others I tend to be able to suspend my disbelief. It's all a factor of many things. How I feel in that moment, how the movie grabs me, etc. For some reason I didn't get the connection between the situation with the two thieves and what later on happened on the bus. So that made me dive deeper than I maybe should have.
 
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danutz_plusplus said:
Some movies, for some reason, I nitpick, others I tend to be able to suspend my disbelief. It's all a factor of many things. How I feel in that moment, how the movie grabs me, etc. For some reason I didn't get the connection between the situation with the two thieves and what later on happened on the bus. So that made me dive deeper than I maybe should have.
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I do that myself sometimes until I accept that it's not meant to be analyzed in the same way as real life.

Fwiw though, I think a lot of what he did was connected to his past. He alluded to pretending to be someone else for a long time.. as if his real self had been bottled up. The way I see it, the thieves were a catalyst.
 
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JDR13 said:
I do that myself sometimes until I accept that it's not meant to be analyzed in the same way as real life.

Fwiw though, I think a lot of what he did was connected to his past. He alluded to pretending to be someone else for a long time.. as if his real self had been bottled up. The way I see it, the thieves were a catalyst.
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Yeah, could very well be he was a sociopath all along, and not meant to be empathized with. :D
 
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