The Recommended Movies Thread

[richard]

Sorry, I'm not a cinema fan. I prefer a good movie at home with my earphones on. I can then pause it and go for a pee or a sandwich or ice-cream or another vodka and tonic

Also with a complicated entwined plot I can easy rewind to cover a patch where I was either nodding off or was otherwise distracted

[sandman67]

As readers of the thread will know by now I have a big love for Korean cinema. IMHO it combines the best elements of both Chinese and Japanese film making - beautiful cinematography, wonderful characterization, and excellent intelligent scripting. Whether its fantasy martial arts flicks like my faves SHADOWLESS SWORD and THE DUELIST, historical epics like THE DIVINE WEAPON, or off kilter quasi horror whodunnit films like OLDBOY and BLOOD RAIN, Koreans just seem to hit the nail on the head 9 times out of 10.

Anyways....not a new film, but one I think my chums here will enjoy

JSA: JOINT SECURITY AREA

This modern day whodunnit drama is set in the strange and dangerous world of the border no mans land between the two Koreas. When an incident at a N Korean border post leaves two N Korean guards dead, one wounded, and a S Korean soldier similarly wounded the UN sends in a neutral investigative team to sort out what went on in the hope of defusing an otherwise incendiary situation. At first it seems like the S Korean was captured in no mans land, and in his escape shot and killed the N Koreans. Then the investigators start to notice inconsistencies in the stories being told by both sides, and even worse the evidence at the scene directly contradicts the same stories and may suggest some form of cover up. Given only a short time to resolve the matter the team struggle to find the truth, which when it does come out may just be more explosive than the incident itself.

Its wonderfully scripted, allowing you to slowly gain a picture of what went on, using RASHOMON style revisits to the incident over and over, each time getting closer to the truth. There is also a clever bit of deception, as two thirds of the way through when all seems to be clear there is still one small detail that does not fit....and that only gets cleared up right at the end. Even though its mostly shot inside each sides bases, there are still beautiful exterior segments that are cinematic art. Its smart, well scripted, beautifully filmed, and a cracking story.

It came out a good few years ago, so should be easy to find for download. However, if you just fancy a watch theres a good quality copy at

One for a quiet night in and a session of exercising the brain as well as the eyes.....

[sandman67]

THE BOURNE LEGACY

After Matt Damon turned down re-appearing as the ultimate super assassin for a fourth installment the makers instead decided to take the franchise in a new direction. Stylistically its the same sort of high adrenaline, high drama spy flick, but the story arc is a whole new one that dovetails into the events of the last film in the Damon trilogy - the one where he is in Moscow and New York.

This film concerns the events that Bourne's rebellion sparks, in that all of the black programs that had anything to do with the Blackbriar one that spawned Jason are now being rapidly closed down in an "aggressive" manner - one which includes wiping out the spy/assassins they made, and all the staff associated with the programs. This whitewash job sees one such program that uses chemicals and medicines to artificially enhance a soldiers capabilities closed down "with prejudice". Unfortunately, one of the operatives escapes the sweep, and now he has to urgently find new supplies of his drugs or he will die. The overseer's soon learn that he is still alive and has gone rogue, and so begins the thee way chase that takes up most of the film.

Its very good, but the nature of the three way chase does get confusing at times, requiring a rewind or three to get back to the shot that has the name of the agency concerned so you can keep track of who is stitching who up. The chases are excellent, action kinetic, and its clever dovetailing into the main trilogy works very well. Its also well acted by all concerned.

Top notch stuff, and well worth a download for fans of the genre. Out and about in DVDRIP formats all over the shop

Three cheers and a keeper.

[richard]

THE BOURNE LEGACY

BRILLIANT movie and a good Bourne 4

Matt would have never fitted the role anyway. (little boy IMO)


Lets hope there is more to come

[sandman67]

Just a quick post especially for MrP and all fans of Asian Cinema

MrP asked for sources of Thai cinema

Check out the following

- Queens of Langkasuka (in Thai and no english subs)
NB: For the english dubbed version of the above excellent epic fantasy you need to look for the completely tastelessly renamed (by the Thai company who made it believe it or not) TSUNAMI WARRIORS...... ouch!

and also take a sort through the excellent youtube archive

http://www.youtube.com/user/AsiaTubeFull/videos?view=0

Cinema from all over Asia, including Thailand, fully subbed in English. Not much in the way of kid friendly stuff, but plenty of cinematic lovliness for us bigger kids.

Thai films are not that easy to fnd usually as they are posted by Thais, so the titles use Thai script not English script. Get your Thai kids to do teh searches for you.....but they are pretty certain to have no subs.

[sandman67]

well, Christmas came early for me, as thanks to a Chinese leak of the film onto the net I just watched the much anticipated collaboration between the Wu Tang Clan rapper RZA and Quentin Tarantino

THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS

This is a sort of tribute nod to the classic 70s Hong Kong made Shaw Brothers kung fu fantasy flicks, complete with the eye popping colour, the insane wire fu fights, the bizarre martial arts weapons, and even like those films throws in nods to the earlier spaghetti western genre in the very Man With No Name like characters of The Blacksmith and Jack Knife. In fact... think CROUCHING TIGER meets THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY.

In sleepy Jung Hu village all is not well. Warring clans of criminals, each with their own style and trademark weapons, rule an unruly roost, with the local travellers inn come knocking shop slam right in the middle of town. Servant to all is the village Blacksmith, a quiet man made to manufacture weapons as a way to buy his girl out of slavery and a way out of the village for them both. When the leader of the dominant Lion Clan is bumped off by his own men after agreeing to look after an imperial gold shipment all hell breaks loose, with revenge and skullduggery at every turn. And just as all this happens a mysterious westerner drifts into town, the enigmatic and deadly Jack Knife......

Its really top quality CGI & wire fu spectacular madness on a grand scale....but here is the kicker. Originally it was to be four hours long split into two films. Then the excremental arsehat Eli Roth got involved...yes the man who brought that abortion HOSTEL into the world....and he cut the hell out of it to get it down to 1hr30m cos Eli thinks his snuff porn metal head fans only can concentrate that long...and in some places those cuts do show. That said its still gotta be one of the best martial arts flicks for a long time, and Im pretty damn sure that in a year or less Quentin and RZA will take the project back off snuff porn boy Eli and recut it, as he did with Kill Bill, back into a longer and more complete format and re-release it as a Directors Cut with probably at least another hour thrown back in. I live in hope.....

If, by some weird chance old snuffy boy Eli ever reads this .... you never know with a narcissistic arsehat like him... I want you to know this you glassy eyed soulless hair club for men piano toothed f*ckwad. You my chum are not only the worst filmmaker this side of Uwe Boll, and so over rated its beyond belief, you are also the sole proof alive that it is possible to stack dogsh*t six feet high. For the cutting hell you did to this classic you deserve to have me go Fargo on your sorry ass, and feed you feet first slowly into a frickin woodchipper. Hell, I can even film it - Id win a Palm D'Or and Special Oscar for Services To Film Making methinks.

Anyway,,,,back to IRON FISTS.

Its out now in a very watchable WEBRIP format, albeit with Chinese hard subs on the bottom of the screen. Its so damn tasty that when the DVDRIP comes out I will be dropping that copy and substituting it out for the one I have....

My recc of the month methinks.... a solid gold keeper all the way, and an easy three cheers.

[sandman67]

THE ASSASSINS

One of the problems Chinese film makers seem to run into sometimes when making historical epics is that they fail to understand that for a western audience Chinese history is extremely complex and mostly unknown. So, when they fail to add some sort of opening statement explaining the setting and context of the film it ends up as just a dress drama pot boiler which is largely unintelligible. WHITE VENGEANCE suffered very badly because of this, and what could have been a great film became instead an obscure and overly pretentious dull as porridge mess.

THE ASSASSINS is pretty much the same. Despite being, as usual, visually spectacular and beautifully filmed, and I suppose well acted by all concerned, it really doesn't make any sense to a non Chinese viewer as the plot it involves is pretty obscure and isnt fleshed out in its wider context. It tells how a government minister Cao Cao sets out to usurp the weak Han emperor and bring stability to the otherwise fractious and plot raddled court and empire. But it never explains how he got to that point, or what was going on in the empire at large to trigger his insurrection. And so it fails...and does so spectacularly.

Maybe if you are a fan of the genre Id say give it a watch, but otherwise its not worth the effort, especially as most copies online use machine coded translations of the Korean subs to make English subs that make absolutely no sense at all.

Up to you.... as a mark of its lack of merit I binned it after watching it, which for a Chinese film is a pretty rare occurrence.

One cheer for effort.

[Big Boy]

well, Christmas came early for me, as thanks to a Chinese leak of the film onto the net I just watched the much anticipated collaboration between the Wu Tang Clan rapper RZA and Quentin Tarantino

THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS

Thoroughly enjoyed it - thank you

[Homer]

Looper

Went to see the above at the cinema last night, so obviously not on DVD yet. However, a word of warning for anybody that might be thinking of downloading it when it is. The first 10 minutes is OK, and the last 5 minutes weren't too bad. However there's a 90 minute bit in the middle that had me wanting to poke my eyes out with a hot sword - it was abysmal.

Finally saw it. That 90 minute bit in the middle which BigBoy could have done without? My take on it was well put by one reviewer: "A mind-bending ride that is not afraid to slow down now and again, to explore themes of regret and redemption, solitude and sacrifice, love and loss. It's a movie worth seeing and, perhaps, going back to see again"

To each his own.

[Big Boy]

To each his own.

Certainly not my cup of tea, but I'm glad that you enjoyed it

[pharvey]

To each his own.

Certainly not my cup of tea, but I'm glad that you enjoyed it

Have to agree with Homer - I certainly enjoyed the movie..... Quite possibly as I had downloaded it before I read BB's comments (and watched it after the comments), and wasn't expecting much!!

well, Christmas came early for me, as thanks to a Chinese leak of the film onto the net I just watched the much anticipated collaboration between the Wu Tang Clan rapper RZA and Quentin Tarantino

THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS

Thoroughly enjoyed it - thank you

Have just downloaded a very crisp copy with no hard subs - looking forward to watching it in the next couple of days after the good reports.

Once again, thanks to SM for the heads up, and others for comments.

[Big Boy]

As to your chances of seeing it at the HH cinema.... the same one that we all complain about cos the asshat who runs it only shows western films with a thai soundtrack......

Best learn Thai then - that or hop on a taxi and see it in the next town along.

As I suggested, the 'asshat' isn't as bad as a lot of people make out. It is being shown in English and 3D at Hua Hin Cinema already - we're going tonight.

Sorry for going off topic again, but people like to criticise unecessarily, without checking fact first. again please.

[sandman67]

maybe he has woken up to the fact that he is missing out on a considerable captive and fluid audience at last. Some leopards do change their spots after all.....

anyways...back to business

Back earlier in the thread I reviewed the Hollywood remake of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Now, as we all know Mr Sandy does not care for this habit of Hollydud remaking European films just cos jocks and kegger heads are too thick to watch a flick with subs. When they are total scene for scene remakes (albeit with the standard dumbed down ending cos complex Euro endings are too open ended for said low IQ audiences) like REC it really galls me. I hadn't seen the Swedish made original, so had nothing to compare it to. But you do recall I generally gave it my three cheers and said it was a good crime flick, albeit with a lead female character that was more caricature than character. Yes it was a little extreme, but those faults lay with that overdone and over the top female lead....so I gave it the thumbs.

Well, I just finished watching the three original films in their proper Swedish ... and to say they are vastly superior is an understatement on the scale of "Stalin was a slightly naughty chappie." In every aspect the DRAGON TATTOO is a much better film - the characters are realistic and believable, the plots arcs are better explained, and the whole shebang doesn't end with a stupid jilted lover crapola scene. As the series progresses through THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE and on to the final THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST the crime film morphs smoothly into a very twisty and twisted spy drama that keeps you hooked till the end. Yes they do not have the massive budgets of the Hollywood one, and it does show in respect of some of the cinematography, but the acting, characterization, and plot development is much better done in the originals...and they are thus the real deservers of the three cheers. Even if you saw the Hollywood remake its worth checking these out as they are just that much better.

SO....

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - english dubbed =

You can find all three all over the place in dubbed and hard subbed formats. They were all made in 2009 so that will help narrow the searches down.

There is an unsubbed version of The Girl Who Played With Fire in original Swedish at - subs are easy to find via OpenSubtitles.com - download it and the subs and watch at your pleasure.

There is also a dubbed 10 part file of the Hornets Nest installment starting at

An easy Three Times Three set of cheers

[sandman67]

DREDD 3D

I was one of the loyal fanboys of the great and groundbreaking UK sci-fi comic 2000AD since issue 1, and so to me the character of Judge Dredd is pretty much sacrosanct. Back in 1990 during the sci-fi czaze they made a Judge Dredd film with Sly Stallone playing the inflexible lawman, and whilst it got almost every detail of the Dredd world right, the fan boys wept, gnashed their teeth and pulled their little hair out in droves. Why? Cos the story was non canonical, and cos Dredd removed his helmet (in the comic on the rare occasions he does you never see his face). Given that it was otherwise spot on, and threw in a mad mixed bag of true to strip references, I loved it....the fan boys said it wasnt Dredd.

Fast forward to 2012. Sandman sees that the Dredd franchise is being given a reboot. THE BEACH author Alex Garland is at the helm as scriptman. The director is new and edgy. Its in 3D and the reference is pathetically to be part of the title. I see the trailer and think..... oh no. This looks bad.

And I was right. To say it has little to do with the comic would be a kind understatement. The only thing in this they got right is .... Dredd never takes his helmet off. That and a few slight refences to the world of Dredd. Every other aspect of the film is wrong, and as wrong as can be. Instead of the world of the 3rd millenium this looks like its set in the NY Projects circua 2030. The cars - wrong. The Judge uniform, his bike, his gun...even his badge...wrong. The character of his sidekick in the movie Judge Anderson the psionic talent cop....wrong. Wrong Wrong Wrong....

This is not a Judge Dredd film. It is at best a second rate and paper thin sci-fi cop drama with a standard bug hunt plot (the bugs being drug dealers in a tower block), at best a sequence of totally f ing superfluous 3D splatter cam slo mo shots one after another. I am sick to death of 3D. Its not just jumped the shark now, its flogged the shark down to the bone, then drove a 16 wheeler truck backwards and forwards over the shark till its a red stain on the tarmac. The 3D shark is dead....move the hell on.

As a sci-fi cop film it is just about passable. As a Judge Dredd film its a bad joke, and sucks and blows harder than a didgeridoo player.

Up to you. I dropped it, watched it and trashcanned it in that order. Utter paper thin abuse of a franchise toss.

Three THHHHHBBBBBBTS for pretending to be a Dredd film. One cheer for being a mildly watchable sci-fi flick.

Out and about in HDTV RIP formats all over the shop like a dose of clap.



By the way.... you could always watch the real Judge Dredd film. The original Sly one.... in Hi Def as well

[sandman67]

LINCOLN

Steven Spielberg's latest historical epic about old Honest Abe can probably best be compared to SCHINDLERS LIST in that it is not a J EDGAR type full biopic of the mans life, but instead focuses down on the real crux point of his life when he truly collided with history and became, as his epitaph states, a man who belongs to the ages.

The film is about the few months when Abraham had to make the devils bargain between passing the 13th Amendment that would outlaw forever the stain of slavery, or ending the bloody conflict of The American Civil War as it ground into its fourth bloody year of industrialised slaughter. It shows an America now politically unfamiliar, one where the Republican party fought for what was right and the Democratic party were the bad guys; one where politicking was a rambunctious and confrontational affair of UK Parliamentary style slanging matches where wit and rhetoric came along with walking sticks and pistols, back room deals and nepotistic appointments made as pay offs for votes. A time of beards, stovepipe hats, grand speeches and lofty ideals when the unification of a house divided against itself lay in the hands of a rapidly aging and increasingly infirm man of iron morals and deep personal doubts who would eventually pay the ultimate price for his quest and die at the hand of a crazed assassin.

Beautifully staged and shot, and acted to the highest by an ensemble cast led by the character actor giant Daniel Day Lewis it is a masterpiece painted in muted shades of sepia propelled more by words than image. And there lies its one fault. At times it is by necessity stodgy and convoluted, and to any but a historian familiar with the names of the characters and factions involved a little confusing.

If you are expecting thrills and spills look elsewhere, ditto battlefields and bandstands. This is pure political drama and educational history made entertainment and art, tough going at times but compelling and a joy to watch. Day Lewis brings a giant of history to life with a glint in his eye, a quiet smile and a backwoods drawl, aging with stress as you watch him limp into history with a crooked back, and is a wonder to behold.

Out and about in crisp DVDSCR formats all over the net. Three hearty hurrahs and a solid keeper.



Also on Uncle Sandman's screen last night:

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES: The classic B&W Basil Rathbone version from the 1930s. Utter Sherlockian screen magic.

DREDD 3D - gave it another run through the tumble drier as it popped up on YouTube. Still came out stinking of cack. Trash. Needed a session of Optrex to cleanse my eyes and a glass of voddy and coke to take away the aftertaste of sick in my mouth.

LAYER CAKE - one of the coolest of the Cool Britannia period Brit crime dramas. Utter screen magic from start to end.