What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Gallows Hill (2013)

After a family is involved in an accident, they take refuge in a secluded inn where they free a girl locked in a basement without knowing she's an ancient evil spirit.

This is one of those films where the cover art and reverse blurb is totally deceiving. (See UK dvd sleeve below in comparison to it's original movie poster) Not so much in story line as in the setting. By mentioning Stonehearst Asylum and depicting an old house atop a hill on the sleeve gave the impression of a Gothic chiller, then there's the dvd title The House on Gallows Hill... instead what we have is a fairly typical possession film set in Colombia.

Although typical, Gallows Hill is a decent film if predictable. The main twist i saw coming a mile off and there is a feel of been there done that at times but there are one or two shocks and the odd moment that will have you on the edge of your seat.

What might surprise is that it's a British production with a half decent budget, good production values and actors you'll have heard of in Sophia Myles and Peter Facinelli. Despite my crushing disappointment over it not being a Gothic horror, the Colombian locations do give the film some originality.

All in all Gallows Hill should entertain you and is worth a watch.

[Paul Zombie]

Hot Pursuit.

Cooper(Reese Witherspoon) is a seriously uptight anal retentive cop with very little experience in the field. and has a boring desk job at her precinct.
But she gets her first major break when she is assigned the task to provide witness protection for Daniella riva(Sofia Vergara).
at first they cant stand each other, but when they both end up on the run from various crooks they eventually form a bond.

apparently this wasnt very popular with the critics, but i liked it. and although there is nothing really new here, in this love/hate
buddy type film, it is pretty well done and worth a view, with funny scenes like when they are disguished as a cow and pretend to be lesbians.

not perfect by a long shot, but definately raises a few laughs and your mood, and i award 70.5 out of 100.

[Demoncrat]

Am watching The Sting (1973)
as respite from blags n slags
Okay ... it's still crims ... but as tis a period piece, I will forgive myself most graciously . Bereaved con artist teams up with a long haul man to enact punitive justice. Just let it enfold in front of you ...

[bleakshaun]

Showgirls
A woman arrives in Las Vegas to make it as a dancer, she ends up befriending a woman who does the costumes, but has to work at a strip club. Luckily for her she finally works as a showgirl.
Defined as either the greatest movie or the worst movie. Plenty of boobs, uncomfortable sex scenes on par with The Room and terrible acting for a terrible script.
I liked it, maybe for all the wrong reasons.


Sent from my PRA-LX1 using Tapatalk

[iank]

Hard Target. Jean-Claude Van Damme is an army vet who tries to help a young woman (Yancy Butler) track down her apparently homeless veteran father, only to be sucked into the middle of a conspiracy involving ruthless mercenaries who are using homeless vets as prey for wealthy clients to track and kill in literal 'manhunts'. This early 90s action thriller is another of those movies I haven't seen since the early 2000s at least, and I'd forgotten what an awesome action flick it actually is, with an utterly insane climax and some quality scenery-chewing villainy from the great Lance Henriksen. Great fun.

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by bleakshaun

Showgirls
A woman arrives in Las Vegas to make it as a dancer, she ends up befriending a woman who does the costumes, but has to work at a strip club. Luckily for her she finally works as a showgirl.
Defined as either the greatest movie or the worst movie. Plenty of boobs, uncomfortable sex scenes on par with The Room and terrible acting for a terrible script.
I liked it, maybe for all the wrong reasons.


Sent from my PRA-LX1 using Tapatalk

Give it 18 months .... then watch it again . "I chipped a tooth ... on a quaalude"

[Paul Zombie]

Ted.

John bennett(Mark Wahlberg) is a grown man who lives with his foul mouthed teddy bear that came to life due to a childhood wish.
Both of them spend there time getting drunk and smoking pot. and John's long suffering girlfriend(Mila kunis) wants John to grow up and for Ted to move out.

This film is absolutely hilarious and makes me laugh so much. and i love the fact that it sticks two fingers up to political correctness.
and the bear is so funny with his eye for the ladies, especially when Kunis comes home and finds him with four hookers.

and so funny when Ted goes for a job at the supermarket and the manager goes, You think you got what it takes? and Ted answers,
I'll tell you what I got. Your wife's pussy on my breath.

Very good indeed. And Family guys Seth MacFarlane did a fantastic job with this film. He really proved that not only can he make hilarious adult cartoons, but also make very funny movies as well. and i award 89.5 out of 100.

[Nostalgic]

Finally got round to watching The Last Jedi.
I don't want to start anything, but just to put this opinion in perspective, I like the original trilogy, hate the prequals & enjoyed Force Awakens but though Rogue One was the best film out of the whole lot.
Last Jedi is just awful, slow, awkwardly imbalanced (lots of comedy but little danger), badly acted (sorry fanboys but Hamill & Fisher were both wasted & I didn't believe they were the characters they were playing), no answers to questions from the previous film, just slow & crappy.

Not just the worst star wars film but one of the worst films I've seen in ages.
1/10

[Susan Foreman]

Originally Posted by bleakshaun

Showgirls

I saw that at a cinema in Portsmouth when it was first released

I entered the building and walked up to the box office, where a female cashier was working

CASHIER: *big smile* Good afternoon
ME: Good afternoon. How are you today?
CASHIER: *big smile* I'm good, thanks. Nice and busy, just the way I like it. And it's a lovely day out there. What more could you want?
ME: Absolutely, That's always the best way to be, isn't it?
CASHIER: *big smile* It certainly is. Now, how can I help you
ME: Can I have a ticket for 'Showgirls', please?
CASHIER: *frosty stare* £3.50

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)

I remember being unimpressed with this at the cinema, and even more so when I (I think) rented it from Lovefilm about a decade ago. There was something about the strange blend of scenes which are obviously staged and those which are much more like those when Sasha Baron Cohen burst onto the scene with the Ali G and Brüno characters on The 11 O'Clock Show, using a persona to expose someone's ignorance, bigotry, racism, homophobia, or other character flaws.

In this case, the main character is a small minded, sexist, racist, homophobic, cruel anti-Semite from a small village in Kazakhstan who, through arranged interviews or casual conversations with people in the United States, shows how some of them share (or happily tolerate) his views. The gun shop owner, for example, who cheerfully advises which firearm to buy for the purposes of killing Jews, either demonstrates a ridiculous level of anti-Semitism or a happy acceptance of racism if he thinks it may lead to money. That the titular character is played by a Jewish actor who pretends to be speaking Kazakh by blending Hebrew with a fake and hugely exaggerated eastern European accent (his 'producer', Azamat, makes the pretence even weirder by speaking Armenian) makes the character and faux-documentary even weirder and funnier.

I don't think I liked the cruelty I saw in some of the exchanges, with Baron Cohen being deliberately rude and offensive – the interview with the three feminists would be one example – in a scene which only shows how bigoted Borat is, not how those beliefs are shared or tolerated by the interview subject. Others, as he's demonstrated with different characters, most recently ones including Colonel Erran Morad, ruthlessly expose how gullible and bigoted (either through sharing beliefs or accepting them) some people in elected office can be.

Through his work on such TV shows as Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry Charles has mastered the comedy of discomfort, and whether it is the grotesque spectacle of a naked Borat wrestling his similarly unclothed and obese producer, or the dinner scene at the home of an Alabama minister, his wife is very understanding when presented with a bag of human excrement, but the moments when Borat tells a guest she would not be popular with men in Kazakhstan and when the dinner is abruptly ended when a black woman turns up at the door is both hilarious and cruel and very telling, respectively.

Before I ramble on much longer, I'll just wrap up and say I felt was much funnier than on any previous viewing and although I prefer it when Baron Cohen exposes the stupidity and bigotry of those in positions of power and influence rather than ordinary members of the public, this is still a very clever and bravely executed comedic film, and one which, in regards to the core fan base of the current US president, is almost as relevant now as it was 12 years ago when first released in cinemas.