[LugBug1]

Blair Witch 2016
 
I loved the original and so was looking forward to this. Similar lay out with the original as the creepiness and tension builds up but with a few added twists that keep you guessing. As the climax approached I got less scared however.. Things such as the constant night and house that seems to belong in some kind of haunted other dimension? I feel it would have been a lot more effective without the extra supernatural aspects which would have kept the witch a bit more real and scary. Having said that, the witch is very scary! 
 
All in all a well rounded quality horror film that can stand on it's own. 7.5/10
 

 

[WraithApe]

 
Mother Joan of the Angels - 7/10
 
A slow burn, minimalist dramatization of events surrounding the Loudun possessions, where a convent of nuns in Loudun, France, in the 17th century, were said to have been possessed by demons. A local priest, Urbain Grandier entered the convent with the aim of exorcising the evil spirits, and was deemed in the witchcraft trial that followed to have been possessed himself, convicted of sorcery and burned at the stake. The film picks up at this point, with Father Jozef following in Grandier's footsteps, to attempt the exorcism of the mother superior, Joan.
 
Despite a certain eerie quality, this isn't really a horror film so much as a character study and a meditation on systems of belief; Catholicism in particular. The transfer of possession which occurs could also be seen as a transfer of faith; Josef losing his at the same time Joan's is restored. Mieczyslaw Volt plays the lead role of Jozef (and also a Rabbi, in an interesting conflict of faiths, where he literally comes face to face with himself!), but it's Lucyna Winnicka as Joan who steals the show with a subtle and convincing performance as the possessed nun. Stylistically it's incredibly bleak, which has a certain appeal but is also possibly its biggest drawback - it can be a difficult watch at times. The lead character, the camera work and several scenes in particular all reminded me of Andrei Rublev, and I don't think it's a huge stretch to think Tarkovsky may have been influenced somewhat by this film.

 

[SHAMuuu]

Rebecca (1940)

A masterpiece 8.5/10
 
I've seen it before, but its fading lingering effect amplifies once viewed again to the same heights as first viewing.

 

[oqvist]

The Light between Oceans. Well acted drama that pulls all kind of strings 4/5 despite not watching it on my plasma not VR. 
Acting was rock solid.

 

[mutabor]

From reviews everywhere Moonlight ( 2016) movie about a black gay looks like a masterpiece of world film making because it scores 10/10 from many professional critics. Looking forward to immerse myself in the last word in Art ( from big letter).
 

 so excited for this movie, it's got one of the highest critical ratings of all time

 

Barry Jenkins' Moonlight is a deeply personal, deeply expressive film, unlike anything I've ever seen before. 
 

 

It's so good it may restore your faith in cinema. 

 

[tdockweiler]

Saving Private Ryan - 7/10
 
Possibly the most overrated war movie there is. Somehow I can barely get through this one anymore because it's so boring.
I like some of it's themes, but the story I find too hard to believe. I know it's totally fiction, but I highly doubt the military would have so many people risk their lives just for one person.
 
The D-day sequence is nothing special and the only thing unique about it is that it's so gory.
I'm sure it's fairly realistic.
 
Best scene easily was the last one.
 
I really hate the Steamboat Willie/Upham part of the script.
Somehow it just really annoys me. Letting him go was a huge mistake and I'm not sure what I would have done in that situation.
No, I wouldn't shoot him if he had surrendered!
 
Then the guy who randomly says bible quotes before killing people....
 
Then I also cannot stand that last sequence where Tom Hanks is down to his last few bullets and then the tank explodes..
 
Too bad not much thought went into the script. There are very few scenes that require much thinking from the audience.
I know this is meant to be entertainment and an action movie, but still...
 
Anyway, i've seen this one about half a dozen times now. It seems to get worse the more you view it.
I do remember liking it in the theater when I first saw it.
 
BTW another movie I watch that has a D-Day landing scene is "The Longest Day". That's a pretty terrible war movie, but it's entertaining and I watch it over and over again. They make war look as if it's just like a walk in the park. You get shot and just fall over. The idea that "war is hell" is really nowhere to be found in that movie. Maybe when the paratroopers land in the middle of a village occupied by germans. It's also entertaining because you have some of the worst acting in movie history.

 

[WraithApe]

  Saving Private Ryan - 7/10
 
Possibly the most overrated war movie there is. Somehow I can barely get through this one anymore because it's so boring.
I like some of it's themes, but the story I find too hard to believe. I know it's totally fiction, but I highly doubt the military would have so many people risk their lives just for one person.
 
The D-day sequence is nothing special and the only thing unique about it is that it's so gory.
I'm sure it's fairly realistic.

 
Nothing special? I think it's the only thing that is special about this movie. If the whole film had continued in the same vein, Spielberg might really have had something - instead it spirals into his familiar pattern of schmaltz and sentimentality. Few other films I've seen capture such a sense of unrelenting chaos and epic scale like the Normandy landing scene of SPR. It cost more than entire budget of many other films to shoot and used over 1500 extras! I thought it was a really bold opening and the promise of something special that the rest of the film sadly failed to see through.

 

[SHAMuuu]

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
 
8/10
 
nice little escapism flick.

 

[Hutnicks]

  Saving Private Ryan - 7/10
 
Possibly the most overrated war movie there is. Somehow I can barely get through this one anymore because it's so boring.
I like some of it's themes, but the story I find too hard to believe. I know it's totally fiction, but I highly doubt the military would have so many people risk their lives just for one person.
 
The D-day sequence is nothing special and the only thing unique about it is that it's so gory.
I'm sure it's fairly realistic.
 
Best scene easily was the last one.
 
I really hate the Steamboat Willie/Upham part of the script.
Somehow it just really annoys me. Letting him go was a huge mistake and I'm not sure what I would have done in that situation.
No, I wouldn't shoot him if he had surrendered!
 
Then the guy who randomly says bible quotes before killing people....
 
Then I also cannot stand that last sequence where Tom Hanks is down to his last few bullets and then the tank explodes..
 
Too bad not much thought went into the script. There are very few scenes that require much thinking from the audience.
I know this is meant to be entertainment and an action movie, but still...
 
Anyway, i've seen this one about half a dozen times now. It seems to get worse the more you view it.
I do remember liking it in the theater when I first saw it.
 
BTW another movie I watch that has a D-Day landing scene is "The Longest Day". That's a pretty terrible war movie, but it's entertaining and I watch it over and over again. They make war look as if it's just like a walk in the park. You get shot and just fall over. The idea that "war is hell" is really nowhere to be found in that movie. Maybe when the paratroopers land in the middle of a village occupied by germans. It's also entertaining because you have some of the worst acting in movie history.

The Longest Day has the sole advantage of being historically accurate though. The dialogue very much taken directly from C Ryans interviews for his book. Not all the beaches fared as badly as the Americans did during the invasion so walk in the park scenarios did happen. Corny at times, sure but the overall take on the "Day" is much better and comprehensive.
 
The problem with SPR is nonsense like the machine gun nest. Not your mission to take it out and it represented an unacceptable risk to the overall mission. The Air Force, in fact did not have anything better to do than attack positions like that (It is actually a radar site). You'd call it in and let them decide what to do and attack only if they ordered you to. You'd also have shot any survivors out of hand no question about that and if the Hank's character had the experience they claimed it would have happened immediately without any discussion. Same with the stuff in the town about Caparso trying to rescue the kids in the bombed out building.
 
The overall picture painted by Speilberg begins to take on an obnoxious inconsistency as the characters get more developed and the end result is just an unbelievable mess that makes you wish you had walked out after the landing.
 

   
Nothing special? I think it's the only thing that is special about this movie. If the whole film had continued in the same vein, Spielberg might really have had something - instead it spirals into his familiar pattern of schmaltz and sentimentality. Few other films I've seen capture such a sense of unrelenting chaos and epic scale like the Normandy landing scene of SPR. It cost more than entire budget of many other films to shoot and used over 1500 extras! I thought it was a really bold opening and the promise of something special that the rest of the film sadly failed to see through.

 
Someone once said Speilberg is not a film maker he is a confectioner. SPR really nails that down as he draws you in with the promise of a hard hitting film (Big Buck version of The Big Red One) then proceeds to take the sting out of it with an almost Mayberry like take on the exposition of what in fact is a very ludicrous  story. Bait and switch was never done any better.

 

[WraithApe]

 
Apartment Zero - 8/10
 
Adrian LeDuc is an eccentric loner who runs an art-house cinema and lives in an apartment complex in downtown Buenos Aires. His business is struggling and in need of some extra cash, he decides to rent out a room in his apartment. This leads to him taking in a boarder in the form of mysterious and charismatic Jack Carney. The film explores their burgeoning relationship, as it spirals inexorably into ever darker territory. Adrian is played by a young Colin Firth and I have to admit I had no idea this guy was such a good actor! I know his face from a host of British dramas I've never watched (costume dramas mainly), but the uptight, severely repressed and borderline Adrian is played to perfection by Firth. Equally good is American Hart Bochner in the opposite lead role. Jack is a coiled spring - exuding a menace and ever-present threat of violence beneath his charming, taciturn exterior - referred to by the perceptive LeDuc as his 'mask'. Together they make for a very odd couple.
 
As with the actors, Martin Donovan is not a director I'd come across before either, but he's clearly a film buff. The movie is very cine-literate, full of references (not least a clip from Touch of Evil). It trips the scale from Compulsion to Repulsion, and also owes a big debt to Lynch I think - not just in terms of the look and mood of the film, but also in the way it's populated with fringe characters who are all in some way alarmingly off-key. Adrian even bears a passing resemblance to Henry Spencer!
 
The film is set in Argentina in the late 80s, in the aftermath of the coup d'état which saw the installation of a military junta to replace deposed president Isabel Perón. The legacy of the 'dirty war', the right-wing death squads and Argentina's "disappeared", forms the backdrop for this film, but politics isn't placed front and centre; the film is more focused on escalating tensions between Adrian, Jack and his neighbours in the apartment complex. The atmosphere is paranoid, but electric; the humour jet black.
 
There are plenty of pitfalls for the unwary but if you're up for a dark ride, it plays out as a fascinating psychological thriller; a cult classic if ever there was one.

 

[Hutnicks]

Shepherds and Butchers (2016)   7.5/10
 
 
  A South African courtroom drama based on actual events. While technically not a brilliant film it covers an almost unfathomable topic of the death row system in that country. This is true life horror at its very worst and puts on display the systematic dehumanization involved in a criminal justice system gone amok. Acted well enough it drives home the absolute weariness participating in such a system brings to its functionaries. The film stops short in development of some characters and that is really a shame, then again it may be reflective of how in fact the system views its willing participants.
 
 One of the most ghastly films I have ever watched and definitely not a date night event.

 

[WraithApe]

 
The Equalizer - 3/10
 
Laughably clichéd good guy vs bad guys guff starring the normally classy Denzel Washington. What he's doing in this movie I don't know but he's the only thing that prevents it from falling off the cliff. The material is so far beneath him he must have needed a telescope to read the script.
 
Ex special forces agent turned life coach and all round nice guy, Bob (Robert to his friends), befriends a Russian call girl who is working for all round bad guy and gangster / pimp, Slavi. He promptly puts his quiet new life on hold in order to take down an entire Russian mafia operation for slapping around his new friend - which naturally he does, while barely breaking a sweat. Other than Robert, the film is filled with ludicrous stereotypes - the good guys: honest everyday folk, golden-hearted prostitutes and the bad guys: corrupt cops, who might as well be wearing 'corrupt cop' badges, juvenile delinquents in hoodies and a vast array of incredibly inept Russian gangsters who serve as semi-sentient punching bags lining the stairway of his righteous ascent to peace (through massive levels of violence).
 
This film oozes stupidity from every polished frame and a certain new incumbent would probably lap up its 'don't **** with hardworking Americans' message except that it doesn't paint his new best friends in the kindest light...

 

[Hutnicks]

 
 
The Equalizer - 3/10
 
Laughably clichéd good guy vs bad guys guff starring the normally classy Denzel Washington. What he's doing in this movie I don't know but he's the only thing that prevents it from falling off the cliff. The material is so far beneath him he must have needed a telescope to read the script.
 
Ex special forces agent turned life coach and all round nice guy, Bob (Robert to his friends), befriends a Russian call girl who is working for all round bad guy and gangster / pimp, Slavi. He promptly puts his quiet new life on hold in order to take down an entire Russian mafia operation for slapping around his new friend - which naturally he does, while barely breaking a sweat. Other than Robert, the film is filled with ludicrous stereotypes - the good guys: honest everyday folk, golden-hearted prostitutes and the bad guys: corrupt cops, who might as well be wearing 'corrupt cop' badges, juvenile delinquents in hoodies and a vast array of incredibly inept Russian gangsters who serve as semi-sentient punching bags lining the stairway of his righteous ascent to peace (through massive levels of violence).
 
This film oozes stupidity from every polished frame and a certain new incumbent would probably lap up its 'don't **** with hardworking Americans' message except that it doesn't paint his new best friends in the kindest light...

Jeebus I thought I warned you off that one. Asinine departure from original concept makes about as much sense as playing Russian Roulette with a Glock.

 

[tdockweiler]

Hamburger Hill - 5.5/10
 
I should have liked this more than I did, but I just could not get into it.
The combat scenes were not very well done or believable and half the running time is spent on listening to people talk.
I like the parts about the treatment of vietnam vets though. People risk their lives for their country and then get treated like dirt when they get home.
One soldier's girlfriend told him that she couldn't send him letters anymore because it was "immoral" (so say's her friends in college)!
 
Only really memorable character in the movie was the doc (played by Courtney B. Vance). I looked him up and he's still acting and will be in the new Mummy movie!
Don Cheadle is in this movie but only has 3 or 4 lines!
 
Anyway, there is some stuff in here that makes you think, but I'd rather read the book.
 
BTW back in the day I watched every Vietnam war movie I could find.
"The Boys in Company C" and "84 Charlie Mopic" are some of the better ones if I recall.
I also need to rewatch "The Siege of Firebase Gloria".
 
I can't stomach watching "The Deer Hunter" again! Way too depressing. The POW camp scene is amazing though. Sad to even think about that part.
"Casualties of War" too, but a real downer to watch. Michael J Fox is a very underrated actor.
 
I started Apocalypse Now the other day but turned it off. Not a fan of that movie but i'll give it another try soon.

 

[SHAMuuu]

Ghost dawggg 7.5/10