Movie Recommendation Thread

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Voros said:
Watched The Villainess last night on Netflix.

A Korean ultaviolent action thriller with the usual over-the-top melodrama elements delivered with the endearing sincerity of a Korean film (something I actually really like about their popular films). The actors deliver the melodrama in a nicely understated style that makes it all the more effective.

Pretty stunning action sequences as the trailer suggests but the story and characters pull you in as well. I take it as a given that Korean films will be overlong, they regularly push past the 2.5 hr mark but this one feels relatively tight and concise.

One word of warning, while the fight scenes are very bloody there is also a very disturbing incident late in the film that may be too much for those who are not jaded exploitation fans who have seen the likes of the notorious HK Cat II film Run to Kill.

I wonder if BedrockBrendan BedrockBrendan has seen this yet and what his opinion of it is.

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I haven't seen that one yet. It is one I hope to get to. I don't usually see that many korean movies (my wife loves korean films and television shows though), but this one did catch my interest. If it is on Netflix I will try to check it out (though I have about 4 movies to watch this week).
 
Watched a movie called What Price Honesty? on Prime (I should have a review of it up at Shaw Brothers Universe this month). I hadn't seen this one before and it turned out to be a genuinely pleasant surprise. It isn't an extravagant movie, it is fairly simple in terms of presentation but it does a good job of pulling you into the moral crisis of the main character (and of painting a believable world of characters steeped in corruption around him). It is a wuxia featuring constables. The main character is trying to enforce the law and be just when all of his superiors are taking bribes, working with criminals (often skimming off of their earnings and letting them go), etc. I won't spoil the details, but something important happens a little toward the middle which sends everything in a cool direction. The thing that engaged me about this movie is it really gets you to question if you could do what the hero does. In a lot of wuxia and kung fu films, even if the hero dies and gets dismembered by the end, there is enough glory to make that an easy answer. It also handles the characters very well. Definitely recommend it. It felt like a bit of a hidden gem.

If you have Amazon Prime you can see it HERE.
 
I never expect much from a TV movie, but Tom Selleck makes a good cowboy and you can tell he loves every minute of making a Western, and Mark Harmon is perfect as a smooth-talking SOB. Pretty good stuff. And Virginia Madsen is always welcome in my house
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Dumarest said:
In French or with subtitles? I seem to recall the English subtitles were interesting because the translation was not exact, especially in the beginning when he is composing his poem whilst dueling and making a fool of a fop, and the translator was making things rhyme in English and frequently the translation was nothing like the French.
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It's particularly painful in this movie.

The translator here was Anthony Burgess. (The same guy who wrote A Clockwork Orange.) Burgess had, several years before the film was made, "translated" Rostand's play. I put "translated" in quotes here because his translation was accompanied in print by a lengthy introduction where he explained all the things Rostand did wrong and exactly how he had rewritten the play to fix these "errors".

He did the same thing with Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, having decided that the end of the play -- yes, the ending so famous in Western Literature you almost certainly know it even if you've never read or seen the play -- was completely inadequate and needed to be completely rewritten. The man's ego knows no bounds.

Because he was the only living, prominent translator of the play, however, he was hired to do the English subtitles for the movie. And he used his rewritten version of Rostand as the basis for his "translation" here, too. Obviously, the fact that the film existed limited his ability to radically rework the narrative structure. But it didn't stop him from just copying in his versions of lines even when the actors in the film are saying something completely different.

Beautiful movie and I, too, highly recommend it. The subtitles are a travesty, though.
 
Voros said:
Watched The Villainess last night on Netflix.

A Korean ultaviolent action thriller with the usual over-the-top melodrama elements delivered with the endearing sincerity of a Korean film (something I actually really like about their popular films). The actors deliver the melodrama in a nicely understated style that makes it all the more effective.

Pretty stunning action sequences as the trailer suggests but the story and characters pull you in as well. I take it as a given that Korean films will be overlong, they regularly push past the 2.5 hr mark but this one feels relatively tight and concise.

One word of warning, while the fight scenes are very bloody there is also a very disturbing incident late in the film that may be too much for those who are not jaded exploitation fans who have seen the likes of the notorious HK Cat II film Run to Kill.

I wonder if BedrockBrendan BedrockBrendan has seen this yet and what his opinion of it is.

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Finally got to see it (I think it came down from Netflix very shortly after this message, so I ended up getting the bluray). I enjoyed it a lot. Put my thoughts together on it HERE.
 
BedrockBrendan said:
Finally got to see it (I think it came down from Netflix very shortly after this message, so I ended up getting the bluray). I enjoyed it a lot. Put my thoughts together on it HERE.
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Nice review thanks. I agree about the opening fight scene and yes the switch in perspective does take place when she is smashed into the mirror. For a Korean film this was fairly short, lots of Korean films push the 2.5 hr mark. I do find it interesting how much their genre films mix in a large dose of melodrama, when done well as it is done here it can really add to the film as you're more engaged with the characters.
 
Voros said:
Nice review thanks. I agree about the opening fight scene and yes the switch in perspective does take place when she is smashed into the mirror. For a Korean film this was fairly short, lots of Korean films push the 2.5 hr mark. I do find it interesting how much their genre films mix in a large dose of melodrama, when done well as it is done here it can really add to the film as you're more engaged with the characters.
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I enjoyed the melodrama here. I also enjoyed how they borrowed a lot but the end result still felt new.
 
Watched The Thousand Faces of Dunjia last night. It is produced by Tsui Hark and directed by Yuen Woo-Ping. Hark also wrote the script and the movie is a remake of an earlier Yuen Woo-Ping movie. Initially I was thrown off and had a little trouble getting into it. But once the characters were all established and the plot got underway, I enjoyed it. It has a lot of humor and a lot of CG (the former surprised me as I was informed there was very little humor going in). I like the characters. I like the setting and world they create. It is basically a blend of wuxia with science fiction elements and has the scale of an anime. A lot of the movie reminded me of Men in Black (there are creatures in the movie that look and behave like spirited beasts but are explained as aliens). I think a lot of people will object to the heavy use of CG but this reminded me a bit of the Swordmaster where the CG is used to create an evocative setting (everything from massive CG cities to subterranean CG environments and monsters). One thing I liked about the movie was how it brought artifacts into play. For example the Qingming Festival scroll makes an appearance (and is plot relevant). There is also a really cool looking ancient chinese earthquake detector. This is the kind of movie, largely because of scale, where characters can die, come back, etc. So that undercuts some of the dramatic moments. But given the genre and setting it also is to be expected and makes sense. Some of the story is a bit hokey, and the plot is a 'world is going to end' type situation. But it was fun adventure. Certainly would make a cool campaign setting.

Also saw, Sifu Vs. Vampire (probably going to do a podcast review of this one). I really enjoyed it. It is basically a silly vampire movie with lots sexual humor (and it isn't prudish about these jokes at all). If you take your vampire movies super seriously it might not be your cup of tea. I liked the humor. I liked the special effects. I enjoyed the wide range in tone (this is the kind of movie that snaps from a whacky dick joke scene to a tender romantic moment). If you liked the Mr. Vampire movies or Encounters of a Spooky Kind, this is probably worth seeing.
 
I saw Pacific Rim: Uprising tonight.

Best. Movie. Ever.

It's pretty much the exact same movie as the first, but why change a winning formula?
 
Finally saw Thor: Ragnarok. Entertaining, but tries too hard to be funny all the time.
 
Apparition said:
I saw Pacific Rim: Uprising tonight.

Best. Movie. Ever.

It's pretty much the exact same movie as the first, but why change a winning formula?
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Isn't that what Mike Love said about Pet Sounds?
 
Just watched A Dark Song. Very low budget, Irish-made independent horror movie. Has to be the single best representation of real occultism in movies. Tells the story of an ardent women who rents a remote house and employs an experienced occultist to carry out a ritual to summon her guardian angel in order to speak to her dead son. The ritual takes weeks and is an actual representation of the Abramelin ritual carried out by Aleister Crowley. The movie is driven by dialogue rather than the usual violence seen in most horrors these days, but there are still a few moments and the whole atmosphere is as claustrophobic as...well...hell.

If you have a mind to run some scenario involving realistic occultist magic, like Call of Cthulhu, World of Darkness or Kult, then this is a great movie to reference.
 
Trippy said:
Just watched A Dark Song. Very low budget, Irish-made independent horror movie. Has to be the single best representation of real occultism in movies. Tells the story of an ardent women who rents a remote house and employs an experienced occultist to carry out a ritual to summon her guardian angel in order to speak to her dead son. The ritual takes weeks and is an actual representation of the Abramelin ritual carried out by Aleister Crowley. The movie is driven by dialogue rather than the usual violence seen in most horrors these days, but there are still a few moments and the whole atmosphere is as claustrophobic as...well...hell.

If you have a mind to run some scenario involving realistic occultist magic, like Call of Cthulhu, World of Darkness or Kult, then this is a great movie to reference.
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Watched this on your recommendation, and thank you! It's a very solid movie. Looking back on it, it is impressive how is maintains such a methodical pace without ever feeling slow.

You described it as "low-budget" and it it certainly is, but I just want to clarify that this is very well directed and acted movie. It's low-budget, but it doesn't feel cheap.
 
Baulderstone said:
Kudos on not being afraid to enjoy Prometheus. I can't really argue with most of the criticism, but I didn't care. I had fun watching it.
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Yeah, I agreed with almost every complaint, but it didnt change for me the powerful visuals, fantastic characters and just really engaging story. There's times I simply don't need answers. And the film was so original, so different from the other Alien films and Hollywood films in general, that it was refreshing. I watch a lot of Red Letter Media, and they sort of viciously tore into the film for close to an hour, but at the end, they still recommended it. And by the time they got to reviewing Alien:Covenant their view on Prometheus had completely changed, for many of the same reasons I love it.
 
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I like a lot of those movies too.

I'd note that I appreciate Dredd actually even more after watching The Raid, which is very similar in premise, because in gaming terms I can borrow ideas from both for a scenario - they are both really cool action movies. John Wick was also pretty good for full on action, but the premise was silly.

I like most of the Marvel movies (the Captain America series was probably the best, but The Avengers movie had the full ensemble), noting that the last set of DC movies that I liked was The Dark Knight trilogy (Man of Steel and Wonder Woman were ok, but nothing special and the ensembles were rubbish). Robert Downey Junior's take on Sherlock Holmes was actually fully entertaining. The best super movie of the last decade that had real substance for me, however, was Logan.

I loved The Witch because of the authenticity, which is similar to the reason why I liked A Dark Song (above). These are my two favourite horror movies of that ilk of the last ten years or so. Babadook was pretty scary too, but is more of a sort of dark fairy tale. For more camp theatrics, rather than Cabin in the Woods, I prefer Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell. Most other horror tales kinda bore me, to be honest - just another set of pretty teenagers getting butchered for the most part. I seem to like quite a lot of vampire movies recently too, but not any particular one that makes me want to include it on a 'best' list.

For scifi, I thought the Arrival of Denis Vileneuvre as a director of note puts a lot of hope in the potential of his upcoming Dune adaptation. Bladerunner 2046 was very competently delivered with an absorbing feel and acute tone, even though it wasn't a box office smash. However, if he can continue to take that approach to the Dune movies, I think it could become as well received as the Lord of the Rings trilogy by fans (unlike The Hobbit). I also liked von Trier's Melancholia as another thoughtful sci-fi movie, and looking back was probably the best of all his movies to date in my view. The Martian and Interstellar complete a set. Not wanting to get into another Star Wars debate, but I actually thought that Rogue One was a fully satisfying prequel of sorts to the very first Star Wars film - and it worked!

For comedy, I love the work of Taika Waititi - through Boy, What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt For The Wilderpeople and latterly Thor: Ragnorok (who saw that coming?). Death of Stalin is still fresh in my mind, but a brilliant dark satire, as was Four Lions. Wolf of Wall Street was also a guilty pleasure and a scream, it has to be said.
 
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Thor:Ragnarok almost made the list, as did the Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy, but while I've enjoyed all the Marvel films, I havent obsessively rewatched any of them yet. That also bespeaks to Logan, which was a fantastic film, but I dont feel like I ever need to see it again. All the ones on my list are films I can sit down and watch again and again. I havent really loved a DC film since the Dark Knight trilogy (but I havent seen Wonder Woman yet).

What We do in the Shadows also was a consideration, but while I find it astoundingly hilarious, there wasn't any underlying substance that affected me. I own it, and probably will continue to enjoy it for years to come.


Honestly, the more I think about it, the easier it would be to make the list a top 20, and then top 50, and even top 100. Babadook could probably be bumped for something else as well, if I thought hard about it. When did Watchmen come out? That should be on a top ten list for me.

Anyways, I went with the films that I not just really loved but in some undefinable way somehow felt "special." Manborg and Turbo Kid specifically fall into that category of jusst weird enough to be largely ignored by mass audiences but seemingly written specifically to tap into my 13 year old self.
 
...I think I've seen maybe a dozen movies at the theater in the past ten years...
 
There was s time I saw everything in the theatre. Would take a day and theatre hop seeing 3 films in a row. But now, with a big flat screen tv, and what seems like less and less time in the day to get things done, I just don't see the point.
 
I still love to see films in a theatre and do so whenever I can. Luckily there is a good theatre about three blocks from my house. So I see at least one film in a theatre in a month, sometimes as many as 3-4 times when there are a number of good films out.

Especially love to see horror films in a theatre where they are more visceral. Caught A Quiet Place recently, a solidly constructed monster movie with excellent performances from Emily Blunt and Millicent Simmonds. I like that they really commit to having 90-95 percent of the film take place with sign language and subtitles. Some may find the ending silly but I dug it.

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I posted a review of The Miracle Fighters, a 1982 movie by Yuen Woo-Ping. I am doing the series to lead up to a review of The Thousand Faces of Dunjia (which I mentioned in an earlier post). It is pretty much a martial arts comedy with some crazy Daoist Magic. The story is sort of there to support all the cool stuff that happens. It does linger on scenes from time to time, but it isn't about establishing a particular pace (it kind of reminds me of the first time I saw Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, a very different movie also by Yuen Woo-Ping). The Kung Fu performances are quite good. The comedy is laugh out loud at times, though you will have to give it some time to get to those moments. I think what works best though is that the Daoist magic feels like it is replicating the experience of stage magic, which works both for making you feel surprised and for the humor. It is one of those movies that I would have written off until I started paying attention to the magical surprises. One of the big stand outs for me is a character who lives inside an Urn or Wine vessel (not sure which one it is supposed to be and don't trust the subs to be accurate on this one). The character basically looks like a turtle in a clay vessel. I am not necessarily recommending this film, as I think the pacing is going to throw some people off, and there are some things about it that don't work that well. But it is worth watching for the magical displays, the humor and the final showdown at Demon City.

Here is the review: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-x2394-8f7803
 
Caught the Avengers Infinity War tonight and it exceeded my fairly low expectations.

I thought it would be an okay time waster but the cast, especially Josh Brolin as Thanos and Zoe Saldana as Gamora, lift the material considerably. Thanos is one of the few actually engaging and interesting villains I've seen in the Marvel movies, outside of the anti-heroish Loki of course. I don't recall being that taken with him in the comics so I think a lot of that can be credited to Brolin's performance. I think most movienerds already knew Brolin is the real deal as an actor (his Dad is also a great) but this film could make him huge.

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Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen also work wonders as Vision and The Scarlet Witch and bring some real chemistry and intensity to their very under-written romance storyline. Like Lee and Cushing in their genre films, they treat the often silly material with an earnestness and a display of actor chops above and beyond the call of duty. I assume a lot more romance and character material was shot but ended up on the cutting room floor (although i guess that metaphor doesn't make much sense these digital days). But you can see the actors bringing that background to their performances in often absurdly short scenes of characterization. I may be biased though as I was a fan of the duo in the comics.

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It does a decent job of juggling the huge number of superheros but I can't imagine what this film would be like for someone who hasn't been keeping up on the MCU movies or read comics as a kid, probably incomprehensible.

Most of the fight scenes are overlong, a bit muddy visually and bland but I'm the kinda weirdo that always enjoyed the X-Men issues where they hung out together out of costume and had minor misadventures and character moments, so for me it is the character stuff that keeps this really entertaining.

The ending is a nice twist, although I would guess most who are paying attention could see it coming. Nice cliffhanger ending and the final tease clip is for an underrated and cool superhero.
 
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Thanks to whoever first recommended A Dark Song... we watched it last night and were pretty much blown away by it. Best horror movie I've seen in a long while... even my friend, who doesn't much like horror, loved it.
 
Simlasa said:
Thanks to whoever first recommended A Dark Song... we watched it last night and were pretty much blown away by it. Best horror movie I've seen in a long while... even my friend, who doesn't much like horror, loved it.
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I watched that as well. It was fantastic.
 
Howard the Duck really isn't that bad. Better than many other movies George Lucas has produced, anyway. And I had a massive crush on Lea Thompson in the 1980s. Still my favorite fashion era.
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The director and writers of Howard the Duck did make the absolutely fabulous Messiah of Evil, one of the real gems of 70s horror.

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Dumarest said:
Howard the Duck really isn't that bad. Better than many other movies George Lucas has produced, anyway. And I had a massive crush on Lea Thompson in the 1980s. Still my favorite fashion era.
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I agree. It's a solidly passable '80s movie, and having Lea Thompson didn't hurt. I just think they would have an easier time getting a movie made if they drew attention to the comics and not to the movie. While the movie isn't abomination people like to paint it as, it's still perceived as such.
 
I think Howard the Duck is painfully boring as opposed to outright bad. I do think its infamous reputation is tied to the aburdity of its premise which was out of sync with mainstream culture in the 80s. In the 70s it would have fit in better with the stoner culture of the Cheech and Chong films and the like.
 
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