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

you said:

Nope.

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Good post. One of your best, for sure!

joxer said:

Germany and humor = oxymoron, right?



I've caught another attempt thanks to a sequel it spawned.

Lammbock tells a story about two friends in pizza delivery business, but it's a cover, they deal pot inside those pizzas. Except that, nothing in their life works. In the sequel Lommbock they're reunited and of course nothing works again except the pot.

Both movies are decent, a bit silly, not very funny though, but still not a waste of time. In fact are so exotic they deserve being watched. If you find them, give them a chance. If not, don't worry, you didn't miss anything essential.

If you're sick of mainstream rubbish or are exotics collector, import them right now. Note that DVDs do not come with english subtitles which means googling for fan subs!

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I gotta watch these. I tend to find pot movies entertaining (loved the first Cheech and Chong movie) and my German is decent. Next time I go to Germany I'll try to find them. Never heard of these films, so big thanks to you!

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. I have very fond memories of seeing this when it came out. It has aged pretty ok and i still enjoyed it. It's of course incredibly immature, not always in a good way but for the most part its quite funny and feel-good. I had no idea it would remind me so much of The Mighty Boosh TV-series which i watched rather recently. 6.5/10

2001: A Space Odyssey. Seen it before and i quite enjoyed it back then, I wanted to know what i would feel about it now, 20+ years later.
The lighting in this movie is phenomenal, tons of beautiful scenes. The special effects are really great, and most of all, they're very tastefully done. No complaints at all. In '68 the effects must have been out of this world.
I feel that its a movie that is partially an absolute masterpiece, up there with the first Star Wars, Blade Runner etc, but unlike those movies this is also partially absolute crap. First part is 10/10 no doubt, last part is like a 2/10.
They went through such effort, building up everything, introducing HAL etc (such a great plot there!) - but there's just soooo little actual plot! It's like you get a tiny taste of something really incredible and interesting and then it just ends in a really bullshit way. 7/10

Green Book 6.5/10

Nice and pleasant - and obviously nothing like what really happened.

Widows 5/10

Implausible nonsense for the most part, but there are some decent moments in there.

Lifeforce 6/10

Never watched this one - but I liked it. It was, of course, a little silly - but not too bad.

I tried watching a movie yesterday called, "Keeping up with the Joneses". I stomached maybe twenty minutes before I gave up on the thing. I was lured in because the lead from Mad Men is in it, but he wasn't enough to keep me watching this mess until the end.

Velvet Buzzsaw



Pretty good. Very good production value, and great acting.
The only thing that dragged it a bit was the actual plot.
Not very original or creative in my opinion.
Even though I did like the message of the film.

The trailer though made it out to be much more weird and interesting imo.
It could have been much more than what it turned out.

And apparently it was made by the same guy that wrote and directed Nightcrawler. I found Nightcrawler much much better. I absolutely loved that one.

Watched an interesting documentary about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. The main focus is the mother bear, who ruled things with an iron fist, but also fought fiercely to protect them against everything from mafia thugs to feminists. She would even arrange beatings for abusive husbands. Really interesting character.

danutz_plusplus said:

And apparently it was made by the same guy that wrote and directed Nightcrawler. I found Nightcrawler much much better. I absolutely loved that one.

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I hated it. That movie suggests it takes sociopath tendencies and leaving dead bodies behind to succeed in a small private business. In another words, completely misplaced - it needed to be about becoming CEO of a giant company to work for me.
It has it's moments like underpaid subordinates, fake news and blackmails, but…
Can't suggest it to anyone sorry.

Didn't watch Velvet Buzzsaw yet, but will try to as soon as possible. The story setup seems interesting.

I like it, but yes the trailer promised so much more. After some googling, apparantly each death of a character is fitting to the way that person lived through life. Completely missed that.

I watched a documentary last night, "Won't You Be My Neighbour" , what a fascinating look at the life of Frederick Rogers. I still recall seeing him speak before the Senate in nineteen sixty-nine, after all the accountants and executives failed to impress the senators, Rogers did it with a simple ten minute speech from the heart. Oh, and he walked away with twenty million dollars for his time. Not too shabby!! So far this is easily my film of the year!! Truly, if you want to see a person depicted that knew how to reach children, and never sought to hurt them, check out this documentary.

joxer said:

The Keeper of Lost Causes
The Absent One
A Conspiracy of Faith

These three danish detective thrillers are based on Jussi Adler-Olsen's novels.
The first two are used basically to characterize main cast and are slightly above average products. Victims survive when it'd be better they die. Or accomplice dies so the movie doesn't have to address how the court dealt with it. Stuff like that, classic Hollywood. Or should I say - modern Hollywood? Dodging the hot potato.

But OMG the third movie. A Conspiracy of Faith strips down everything and everyone, proves what's supposed to be holy and valuable is most probably rotten, goes into phylosophical debates of highest quality on screen. It's not just the dialogue but also people's behavior and mindset. Not everything is shown and drawn, it's not Hollywood's movie for imbeciles and what's not shown nor said is unbelievably powerful. It will probably stick with you some time after you finish the movie. On top of it, the villain's reasons where and from whom to pick the prey and later dodging the police net without an error is absolutely brilliant.

I won't say you need to watch the first two titles. I did and these are nice work but don't expect anything special. Still, if you're fan of the genre, put them on. But.
A Conspiracy of Faith surprised me unexpectedly - it is a masterpiece. Watch it whenever you notice it somewhere. Make sure that happens before you die!

Note that the fourth movie with same leads based on the next book from the same writer, Journal 64, will be released later this year. I cannot wait to watch it.

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The fourth movie, Journal 64… It's now streamed, Chien would say.
Not worldwide though so some will need patience till it does.

And whatta movie. Those who watched Longmire, specificaly the third episode from the third season, will notice a mild similarity at certain point, but unlike Longmire who just documented sins of the past and it's consequences, Journal 64 reckoned with the past that destroyed people's lives but also with corruption in present and de facto neonazism. And again I have to say Hollywood forgot how to make movies like this or just isn't brave enough any more.
Remember that this is not whodunnit, you'll know who soon after the movie starts, and then you'll learn why. What you won't know is what will happen with that knowledge - it's the major point of all these stories.

For this yet another masterpiece from Denmark I have to suggest buying it, in fact all four movies, for your home DVD collection when available.
Make sure you don't die before watching.


EDIT:
I've actually googled for Sprogø and "institutionalization" there as I've never heard about it before. And it's real. Names in the movie (and the book) probably aren't, but… If one needs to be spoiled what's it about as it's connected to the movie story:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Sprogo---The-Prison-of-Women-For-Being-Women&id=4027318
Horror.

EDIT2:
Seems there won't be another Department Q movie, at least not with the same cast.
Which is a shame as there are three more books in series: The Marco Effect (US) or Buried (UK), The Hanging Girl and The Scarred Woman. If I lived in Denmark I'd write now a protest note to DFI (Det Danske Filminstitut).

Alita - Battle Angel. Good cyberpunk fun. Didn't like that it ends in the middle of the story, but other than that it was great. 8/10

Does this mean there will be a part two ?

vurt said:

Alita - Battle Angel. Good cyberpunk fun. Didn't like that it ends in the middle of the story, but other than that it was great. 8/10

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In Hollywood, all you need to look at is the box office. Noting is more predictable than that in terms of whether there's going to be a sequel.

you said:

Does this mean there will be a part two ?

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Hard to say. As i understand it hasn't been doing too well. We'll see how it goes in China..

So yes Darth Tagnan is correct.

If you're searching for an outstanding horror among shovelware, don't miss the creepy Aterrados. It has no eardestroying "jumpscares" and evolves around idea that the reason we're not seeing something that's supposed to be somewhere due to moving/throwing objects is only because we're not standing at the right spot.
Can't recommend watching it alone with lights off past midnight.

And do it asap. Because hollywood is already preparing the silly remake.

Alita was clearly set up for a sequel. The ending was extremely abrupt and fairly anticlimactic. The middle of the movie is actually the highlight. It was pretty good but the characters fell a bit flat in my opinion. I hope they make the sequel.

I watched, "Why We Fight" last night, a film about Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex as he was vacating the office of the president. Quite a learning experience, most of the information presented I'd heard before from other sources, and I've been a fan of that speech that Ike gave since I was a child. They should really show this film to anyone volunteering to serve in the US military.

Carnifex said:

They should really show this film to anyone volunteering to serve in the US military.

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What about anyone volunteering to serve in, let's pick a random country, China military?
Okay that wasn't random because of vurt's post above about some heavy marketed bigeyes gimmick I don't care about really:

vurt said:

We'll see how it goes in China..

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It wouldn't be me if I stopped just there. A new chinese scifi movie is on it's way to "conquer" the world. The Wandering Earth is about an imminent danger to our planet where the only solution possible is - moving the Earth elsewhere. Yes, the whole planet.
You can google for it's earnings and learn it's already highly successful, but when it comes to USA… My bet is USA will either ignore or plain hate it.
You see… To displace a planet, China can't do it alone. They need help from everyone. And they do get it from everyone. Except from USA.
No, the movie apparently doesn't directly say Trump refused or something, it's just that among different nations and different ethnicities that appear throughout the movie in the "joint venture" there isn't a single american. Another no, I still didn't watch the movie to confirm this, but eventually I will.
If the rumor is true however, my best guess "diversity" sjw shills will have a bit different attitude towards this one. Can't wait to see the rage.

EDIT:
Forgot to add again. China heavily censors their movies for different reasons, usually even a hint of criticizing the current government is a huge no no. It's not uncommon that a movie ends up in postproduction hell, the recent example is Berlinale where China pulled one movie off the program so noone could see it and another was "blessed" to appear two years after it was made and god knows after how many cuts, alterations and reshoots.

As you might guess while I do watch asian movies and series like crazy, I'm kinda avoiding chinese products. Not everything of course, when something is banned there is always a fresh idea to fool censors as the not stupid audience knows what it was about really. Because censors are not artists and will never be. And because if censors weren't so stupid to work on anything else, they'd do some proper job.

I saw Climax.

Very unique. Quite fun. A bit easier to watch than I was expecting from this director. Well worth checking out!

joxer said:

If you're searching for an outstanding horror among shovelware, don't miss the creepy Aterrados.

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Yeah, that was pretty good.

What should I watch next?

Could I watch Conspiracy of Faith without bothering with the first two?