Last Film You Watched

[Santi]

A teenager, discovering himself, with great trauma that must will face. Very nice, very well done, good relation image and music.

English + sutitle spanish

[Ian]

The Final Girls. Tediously unfunny, unscary supposed spoof/homage to 80s slasher movies that fails on every conceivable level being neither funny nor scary, with the "humour" being very much of the sneery-sneery clever-clever variety so beloved of the modern age. Frankly, you'd be better off just watching some random 80s slasher, as not only would they at least have blood and gore and (probably) boobies, all of which this movie studiously avoids despite the source material its supposedly referencing, but it'd probably be better written and acted too.

[DMt.]

So, er, you didn't like it, right?

[You'll have to excuse me, I just showed my ladyfriend Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and am still under the influence...]

[fish]

So, er, you didn't like it, right?

Don't you wish he'd just say what he really thinks.

[Ian]

I was worried I may have been a bit unclear there.

[fish]

The Book Thief.

Geoffrey Rush, Emily Watson.

Outstanding wartime drama.

[Santi]

...downloading...

[DMt.]

Interstellar, Directed by Christopher Nolan, Hoyte van Hoytema DoP.

So, OK, some tiny fraction of a % of Hollywood films can still be good.

But only that. Am I right, Sir?

[Ian]

Bad Dreams. A young woman wakes up from a 13 year coma caused by a mass murder/suicide in a crackpot religious cult, only to find herself haunted by visions of the dead cult leader, who still wants her to join them... and then the people around her start dying in bizarre "suicides". Jennifer Rubin is an attractive heroine, Richard Lynch is creepy as the cult leader and Harris Yulin (Quentin Travers from Buffy) always adds a touch of class, and while I also appreciate the fact that while the film initially seems like an Elm Street rip-off it actually turns out to be something else entirely, this was still not much more than pretty average.

[DMt.]

The two Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes films with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law.

Though I rather like Downey, I couldn't see him as Holmes, and have no brief for Guy Ritchie; this bias would probably have kept me from watching, were it not that they were recommended by the same person who lent me the excellent Interstellar. My lady friend and I watched them back to back, and they were a lot of fun in a rather music-videoish sort of way. Lots of high-speed camera slo-mo violence and roller-coaster thrill-a-minute screenwriting!

Downey's Holmes [not a bad English accent there, matey] is played as a much more roughneck, even louche character than we're accustomed to, often wibbling to and fro over the genius/madness line; but it works.

[Ian]

The Brood. Art Hindle and Oliver Reed star in this creepy-as-hell late 70s horror-thriller from director David Cronenberg (The Fly, Videodrome, Scanners). Hindle is a father increasingly concerned for the safety of his little girl with her unstable mother, who is undergoing "radical" psychotherapy with a renowned shrink (Reed), who he reckons is a self-promoting quack. When his wife's parents are brutally murdered by a bizarre deformed child/dwarf/creature, his concerns continue to grow - and the terror is just beginning... Seriously messed up creepy weirdo 70s horror that I've never seen before, and absolutely loved to bits!
My face during and after the climax:
Cracking stuff!

[Ian]

Spectre. It was alright. Last half hour is pretty exciting, and Lea Sedoux is the hottest Bond girl in 26 years, but it's far too long and there's far too many long stretches when you're going "Get on with it!" The plot is eerily similar to the most recent Mission Impossible too, which I thought was a better film to be honest.

[Ian]

The Addams Family. Amusing early 90s comic updating of the classic 60s show. Slight but fun, buoyed by the absolutely spot-on casting. Christina Ricci steals the show as Wednesday.

[Ian]

A Christmas Horror Story. Santa turns action hero when a virus turn his elves into demonic little zombies; three teenagers break into their school basement on Christmas Eve - the site of a gruesome double murder exactly one year before - only to find they can't leave; a family incur the wrath of the anti-Santa, Krampus; and a couple lose their little boy in an icy forest but find him and bring him home again - or have they let a cuckoo into their nest? William Shatner adds some appreciated oldskool class (the cast is otherwise completely unknown to me) as a radio DJ trying to maintain Christmas cheer as his small town begins falling apart around him in this mildly diverting festive-themed modern horror anthology. Not bad; the Santa and changeling stories were the best.

[Ian]

Turbo Kid. In a post-apocalyptic future (1997, amusingly, seemingly in a nod to T2) a young lad gets by reading comic books and trying to avoid trouble, only to be forced into a fight when he meets a new girl who is then unceremoniously abducted by heavies working for a local tyrant (Michael Ironside). A not entirely unsuccessful attempt to make a 1980s movie in 2015, there's some fun to be had in Turbo Kid - especially the Bad Tasteesque wildly OTT blood and gore - and the dippy chick is cute in a weird sort of a way, but it never really manages to turn into anything particularly special. You might as well just watch a real 80s movie, really.