Films The Official bit-tech Movie Thread - What have you seen lately?

^ The original Predator is one of my all time faves. I like many self-indulgent 80s-era action flicks, but IMO it's a cut above the rest because it just ticks so many boxes: the casting, chemistry, setup, pacing, cinematography, atmosphere, mystery... the list goes on. The design of the creature itself is iconic, an absolute masterwork; for me it is easily the best "humanoid alien" creature design ever to grace the big screen. I love Predator 2 for many of the same reasons, and whilst Predators isn't great, I can acknowledge its strengths. Have yet to see Prey or Badlands...

Spawn (1997): 5/10
OK...so I'm almost 30 years late on this one, but I've been meaning to watch it for a while, and only recently got round to it (in two sittings, at that). I don't need to go into much detail because most will already know that the good bits are good--Leguizamo in particular--and the bad bits are truly awful. Regardless, I think it's worth watching just so you can decide for yourself.

 

Digger

Basically Warner Brothers wishes this was Mission Impossible 9 rather than a stage play on film that Digger turns out to be. Shot on Vistavision and failing to fill the whole screen in my cinema, Cruise makes sure he stays away from his usual movie star coasting and basically goes for the dislikeable oil baron and this performance reminded me more of Collateral even though there was no fat suit makeup for that thriller. It's a black comedy which has shades of Nicolas Cage's The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent in its structure and it dumps the short score at the end in favour of animal noises over the end credits. It's black comedy, very few jokes, but the film starts and ends with Cruise and the setup of the film from the trailer gets more involved and more interesting. Towards the end it loses its way as it changes and leaves the audience to make up its own mind though the environmental message is worn on its sleeve. It was a risk that hasn't paid off, there were less than 20 people in the 300 seater cinema for a 5pm opening weekend show, so they'll have to make it back on streaming unless more people give it a try.

 

Oh **** I forgot that was coming out! I really wanted to see it for exactly the reason you mention - Tom Cruise doing daft antihero stuff. I loved Collateral, loved Tropic Thunder. I know Tom Cruise is a colossal choad in some respects but I just don't care, he's a superb actor and everything he does pops with the energy of someone in love with their craft.

Gonna try and get to this if my local is still screening it.

Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is also still on my watchlist.

 

If you even remotely enjoy the chaotic energy of Nic Cage then this is a must watch! Its a proper weird, action packed and funny!

 

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die. (Netflix) A dark comedy with the same surreal weirdness of 'Everything Everywhere All At Once' and a sprinkling of 'Mrs Davies'. Sam Rockwell does what he does best as the mad (or is he?) character crashing into an evening diner attired in a plastic rain coat and circuit boards, claiming to be from the future and out to save humanity before AI causes everything to go tits up.

The threat, he explains, is a big bad AI which is about to go live this evening on the computer in a suburban bedroom of a 9-year old boy computer genius, and he has been given a USB stick with code to neutralise the threat --all he needs to do is plug it into said computer. He claims to have tried it 127 times before, failing each time (glosses over the casualties here) upon which he presses a button and zaps back in time to try, try again (hey, if at first you don't succeed...). People think he is wearing a bomb and that the trigger (actually for the time-rewind device) he holds will set it off, and that this is a hostage situation, so they try to humour the madman. He picks some customers from the diner as his "team" (some he rejects as he claims they were useless the last 100 times; some he picks as he hasn't yet tried them before; some join his quest to save the world voluntarily, for reasons, as it turns out, of their own), and off they go to Save The World. Utter weirdness ensues...

The film is hugely and darkly entertaining with some clever inventions and plot twists (I especially like the company that specialises in cloning children who have been killed in school shootings --all paid for by insurance and government grant, of course. The film is worth watching for this sub plot alone). Skynet was never like this. Highly recommended.

 

Loved this movie, a small highlight was in the diner when he gets a volunteer but he rejects them outright , but there are many more, Sam is a great lead, especially when a film calls for qwerky!