Last Movie You Watched (2017)

[Vince W]

Alien: Covenant. An adequate entry in the Alien series, but not great.

 

[Prairie_Dog]

This weekend I watched The Girl With All the Gifts which is a fairly new take on the zombie apocalypse theme. The story revolves around Melanie a bright and resourceful little girl who also happens to be a second-generation flesh-eating "hungry." People became "hungries" when they were infected by a mutated fungus disease, and became zombie-like flesh eaters. Some children though were infected in the womb, and became symbiotically linked to the fungus, able to think and learn. These special but still "hungry" children have been gathered on a British military base for study in hopes of finding a vaccine to prevent fungal infection. This base is finally overrun, and Melanie and a small band of uninfected people escape and then set out on a journey that takes them to London.

This movie was pretty dark and has the gruesome and bloody scenes one expects from a post-apocalyptic zombie film. I guess it is most similar to 28 Days and 28 Days Later. It is a BAFTA nominated film, and a British Independent Film Award Winner. I found it to be an interesting take on the whole zombie film genre, as we have rarely had a protagonist who is a "monster."

 

[Windshadow]

watched a high quality print at a old scifi night at a small art theater last night and I was amazed at how good it was from a script standpoint and given its age the effects are not bad either... I was ten in 58 when I last saw it and I recall it gave me nightmares.

 

[Carl L. Sanders]

In the opinion of my wife and I, the Incredible Shrinking Man is the top SF film of the 1950s. Swell writing and acting.

 

[Vince W]

Wonder Woman. I don't know what it is about the latest crop of DC films, but they've all been very weak and tame. This is no exception.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Daughter Number Two and I watched the 2015 Fantastic Four. I had bought the copy we watched in a charity shop for a quid back when it was first out. I mean, how bad does a film have to be that you find the thing on sale second-hand in charity shops the week it is released on DVD? My curiosity wasn't piqued enough to actually watch the thing and it languished in my 300+ disc pile of unwatched movies till I mentioned this to my daughter who, being my daughter, is developing a great taste in crap films. And suddenly it became a MUST SEE NOW! movie.

The answer to the question "I mean, how bad does a film have to be...?" is 'Bad'. Very Very Bad. I think my moment of realisation of how truly awful the film was was the moment it dawned on me that the actor playing the teen Reed at the science fair was IT. He was our hero. He wasn't a stepping stone between the child actor playing kid Reed inventing stuff in his garage, and some other older actor playing grown-up, mature hero Reed. 'This speccy dweeb is our lead?' I thought, 'You're kidding me?!'. I'm sure the kid is a decent actor and I'm sure he is a nice person but he was woefully miscast.

As for the convolutions the script had to go through to get a black actor into the mix the less said the better. It would have been much simpler to dump the brother sister relationship (which played little to no significant part in the story anyway) and get rid of all the adoption bullshit they had to nail on to get it to work. The script had no problems with dumping other huge chunks of the 'canon' - why not this one?

Truly Bad.

 

[Hobbit]

Saw the IT remake last night.

Very good. The child actors are terrific, the actor playing Pennywise also. Despite the odd "we need to stick together - no, I'll run off on my own" moment, they've made a great job of it.

By splitting the book into two movies, they've made it work. All they have to do is avoid the terrible ending of the novel in the second movie - think they have - and it'll be one of the best adaptations of Steven King I've seen.

Spoiler

They've divided the story up into two. This movie is set in 1989, and is basically the first part of the story, when the children first meet Pennywise. The next movie will be in 2016, I think, when Pennywise will return..

Later Edit: Windy, they're about to release Shrinking Man on Bluray here, for the first time. I suspect that this and the availability of a copy for you to see is connected! One of my favourite childhood movies. I remember the book was much more sexual and grown up!

 

[Av Demeisen]

I have been watching the first season of Preacher. Odd but fun show. Lovely violence.

Edit: And poor Clive.

Spoiler

 

[Windshadow]

Saw the IT remake last night.
Windy, they're about to release Shrinking Man on Bluray here, for the first time. I suspect that this and the availability of a copy for you to see is connected! One of my favourite childhood movies. I remember the book was much more sexual and grown up!

a spanish version on BluRay is due here on the 14 of this month. but the imported BluRay have high ($30) prices here You may be right about it being something like a review copy, as the owner of the theatre has a son that reviews for one of the BluRay websites...
The Incredible Shrinking Man

 

[ArtNJ]

This weekend I watched The Girl With All the Gifts which is a fairly new take on the zombie apocalypse theme. The story revolves around Melanie a bright and resourceful little girl who also happens to be a second-generation flesh-eating "hungry." People became "hungries" when they were infected by a mutated fungus disease, and became zombie-like flesh eaters. Some children though were infected in the womb, and became symbiotically linked to the fungus, able to think and learn. These special but still "hungry" children have been gathered on a British military base for study in hopes of finding a vaccine to prevent fungal infection. This base is finally overrun, and Melanie and a small band of uninfected people escape and then set out on a journey that takes them to London.

This movie was pretty dark and has the gruesome and bloody scenes one expects from a post-apocalyptic zombie film. I guess it is most similar to 28 Days and 28 Days Later. It is a BAFTA nominated film, and a British Independent Film Award Winner. I found it to be an interesting take on the whole zombie film genre, as we have rarely had a protagonist who is a "monster."

Movie was faithful to the books, and pretty good, but I thought it worked even better as a book. Manages to have more of a fairy tale vibe as a novel.

 

[uzeb]

I just watched ARQ a couple of nights ago. Pleasant Netflix surprise with this low budget time loop movie. Recommended.

 

[JunkMonkey]

The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - the best version (though I will admit to not having seen the 1993 remake. It would have to be bloody incredible to beat this retelling though.)

The final scene gave me horrors just like it did the first time I saw it, back when it came out. That time I didn't know it was coming, this time I did and it still got me. It got Number One Daughter too who was genuinely terrified at the end.

I love being a dad.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

Source Code. Way better than I'd expected from the trailer, which had put me off watching it until it recently appeared on Netflix. Doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense, but fun anyway.

Predestination. Even more entertaining the fifth time through.

 

[JunkMonkey]

The Martian War (Original title - Martian Land ) which I bought by accident (for 75p delivered to my door) in mistake for The Great Martian War (A mocumentary about the Martian Invasion of Edwardian Britain). Bum! So, Martian War. I'm knackered. It's an Asylum movie. No brain required (or available). It's not a great movie, in fact it's a pretty naff piece of junk, but by the Asylums' standards it's a masterpiece.

The plot is unfocused and all over the place and doesn't make much sense from one minute to the next. Most of the acting is one note (but then so are the characters so it's hardly ALL the actors fault - some of the dialogue is execrable) and some of the acting is okay. (The stand out was Arianna Afsar who did a pretty good job with a minimum of material.) The SFX are not terrible. All in all, the usual. Ho Hum. (Though there was some enjoyment to had wondering how many milk crates had been used to make one of the high tech sets. I haven't seen that many empty crates in one place since watching Doctor Who in the 80s. )

But there is one aspect to the film which was refreshing. The two young women trapped at the start of the show and who have to make their way through the course of the film from point A to Point B to do something important - are a couple. They're a lesbian couple. And nothing much is made of it. It's not played up for titillation. It's not polemical. That they are gay is not a problem for the characters, or anyone they encounter. It just is. They're gay - so what? Background stuff - and they both survive to the end of the film!

The Martian War is not going to win any GLAAD awards but Yaaaaay! it's a step!

 

[Windshadow]

I just Watched Hidden Figures on HBO this afternoon and what a great film. strongly recommended Not sure how I missed this when it was in theaters, but glad to see it and recommend it now.
This is both a wonderful ensemble cast telling a wonderful true story of early space flight and the period when the aerospace world was making the transition from human Computers over to electronic ones, but also the story of several women who were key players in that transition.

 

[Hobbit]

Saw it in the pictures. Whilst it's not strictly accurate in its depiction, it's a great feel-good movie.

 

[Windshadow]

Saw it in the pictures. Whilst it's not strictly accurate in its depiction, it's a great feel-good movie.

yes they played fast an loose with the time lines and moved what was mostly a 40s and 50s story in realty to fit the early 60s event of the Glen first USA orbital mission but they pushed all of the feel good buttons very well

 

[JunkMonkey]

yes they played fast an loose with the time lines and moved what was mostly a 40s and 50s story in realty to fit the early 60s event of the Glen first USA orbital mission but they pushed all of the feel good buttons very well

What? Hollywood rewriting history!? Say it isn't so!

Tonight I dipped my toe again into the waters of Korean Ghost/Horror with Wishing Stairs, set in a All Girl High School for the arts it's a tale of mild lesbian obsession, ballet, sculpture and psychotic haunting that reminded me of a sort of Asian Bunty story gone wrong. I came out of it slightly baffled.

 

[Carl L. Sanders]

The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - the best version (though I will admit to not having seen the 1993 remake. It would have to be bloody incredible to beat this retelling though.)

I prefer the '93 version; less stagy and faster paced. Both are well worth watching.
The Nicole Kidman one is a lesser effort, imo.

 

[Carl L. Sanders]

As for the convolutions the script had to go through to get a black actor into the mix the less said the better. It would have been much simpler to dump the brother sister relationship (which played little to no significant part in the story anyway) and get rid of all the adoption bullshit they had to nail on to get it to work. The script had no problems with dumping other huge chunks of the 'canon' - why not this one?

I quite agree.