The Recommended Movies Thread

[sandman67]

Now for a robot flick that actually is worth watching (unlike the melty-man-splat-scene and funny ad free remake of Robocop)

THE MACHINE

A small budget Brit sci-fi flick about man's relationship with an AI robot, the interface between man and such a machine, and how science+military usually ends in disaster for all concerned.

A scientist whose daughter is dying of an incurable condition desperately seeks that grail of all computer scientists - true AI. He works at an MOD base which experiments with prosthetics on war veterans, including brain implants for soldiers whose brains are damaged by conflict. When he finally makes a breakthrough his new AI brain is fitted into an android, and thus begins a journey of exploration and development that will inevitably lead down dark paths, as there are other things that go on at the MOD base....and they aint good.

I really liked it, despite some critics saying it just rehashed old ideas. Bullshit. Yes there are obvious influences from other earlier flicks such as the classic Blade Runner and the classic manga cartoon Ghost In The Shell. But the film treasures these inheritances, and runs with them rather than just rehashing them and lobbing them on the screen like Hollydud usually does. The android interactions are actually moving, and at one point I found my heart strings being proper thrummed. That is the magic - its actually moving and the watcher, well at least me, feels connected to "The Machine". Its also quite a sinsiter film - the feeling that something isnt right about the base builds way to the end of the first act, and even then there are still disturbing elements that just keep running. The acting is great, and the eye candy care of some artfully applied and not overdone CGI is top notch - the "dance" scene is a wonder to behold in hi rez.

I strongly recc it if like me you are a Blade Runner fan, and its out and about at all the usual places in lovely hi rez copies.

Three solid cheers and a definite solid gold keeper.

[richard]

Spot on SM

My kind of movie and the finale is superb

Quote of the movie for me is 'You're the future. She'll need more from you than from me in her new life'

[GLCQuantum]

Just a heads up this one, as it's a movie that I've been looking forward too.

The new disaster movie showing the horrors that were Pompeii is out in High Quality copies.



Downloads here: https://yts.re/browse-movie/pompeii/All/All/0/latest

[blue05]

Just a heads up this one, as it's a movie that I've been looking forward too.

The new disaster movie showing the horrors that were Pompeii is out in High Quality copies.



Downloads here: https://yts.re/browse-movie/pompeii/All/All/0/latest

more like a TV movie sadly

[GLCQuantum]

Just a heads up this one, as it's a movie that I've been looking forward too.

The new disaster movie showing the horrors that were Pompeii is out in High Quality copies.



Downloads here: https://yts.re/browse-movie/pompeii/All/All/0/latest

more like a TV movie sadly

Shame! Still looking forward to it anyhow as I know that an incredible amount of research went into the movie to make the setting and scenario more accurate than has ever been possible. Of course, a 'heartwarming' romantic plot has been thrown in (due to the famous, perfectly formed casts of the embraced pair that was dug up) just for the Hollywoodized dumbnuts, to increase ticket sales. On the odd occasion though, the silly storyline thrown in the mix actually works... so you never know.

[GLCQuantum]

Just finished watching Pompeii and... I liked it! I am a volcano nut though. When volcanoes want to vent their anger, they unleash the most awesome spectacle. Amazing beasts!

The storyline used to lead up to the main event is certainly no Gladiator (though some parts of the movie are blatant rip-offs of it), but it does the job just about.

[sateeb]

Just watched a "one off" special called Hacks(2012). Brilliant satire on the News of the World phone hacking scandal written by Guy Jenkin (Drop The Dead Donkey

bayproxy.in/torrent/6925422/Hacks_1x01_HDTV_XviD-FoV_[eztv]

[sandman67]

CITY OF GOD

A little gem from Brazil released in 2002 I missed out on when it was released, but well worth a watch if you dont mind subtitles. Its sort of Boys In The Hood crime biopic without any of the bling, but unlike Boys is actually based on the semi-autobiographical tale of one of the writers who grew up on the mean streets of the slum favela known as The City Of God.

Rocket is the outsider, standing apart from his mates who start their crime careers small, robbing stores and delivery trucks. His elder brother, one of the gang leaders, makes the mistake of taking along the psychotic wannabe kid Lil Dice, who turns a simple smash and grab into a slaughterhouse. The elder kids run, leaving a vacuum that Lil dice and his sidekicks fill. And as these crazy kids grow, moving into taking over the growing drug trade, so they bring hell on earth to the once peaceful favella. Rocket, trying to get away, strives to be a photo journalist, and makes his break cataloging the decades long gang war sparked off by Lil Dice. But with Lil Dice and his psycho crew, just living in the favella is a game of russian roulette....can Rocket survive and escape?

Excellent plot driven drama, nobly acted by complete amateurs who actually lived in the favella used for the sets. A great little crime flick and solid drama from start to end, gritty and grimy with no frills and bling.

Out and about in fully subbed DVDRIPs, and a solid recc for an evening in. Three cheers....

[GLCQuantum]

CITY OF GOD

A little gem from Brazil released in 2002 I missed out on when it was released, but well worth a watch if you dont mind subtitles. Its sort of Boys In The Hood crime biopic without any of the bling, but unlike Boys is actually based on the semi-autobiographical tale of one of the writers who grew up on the mean streets of the slum favela known as The City Of God.

Rocket is the outsider, standing apart from his mates who start their crime careers small, robbing stores and delivery trucks. His elder brother, one of the gang leaders, makes the mistake of taking along the psychotic wannabe kid Lil Dice, who turns a simple smash and grab into a slaughterhouse. The elder kids run, leaving a vacuum that Lil dice and his sidekicks fill. And as these crazy kids grow, moving into taking over the growing drug trade, so they bring hell on earth to the once peaceful favella. Rocket, trying to get away, strives to be a photo journalist, and makes his break cataloging the decades long gang war sparked off by Lil Dice. But with Lil Dice and his psycho crew, just living in the favella is a game of russian roulette....can Rocket survive and escape?

Excellent plot driven drama, nobly acted by complete amateurs who actually lived in the favella used for the sets. A great little crime flick and solid drama from start to end, gritty and grimy with no frills and bling.

Out and about in fully subbed DVDRIPs, and a solid recc for an evening in. Three cheers....

+1 (Admin/Mods there's a phone call for you... It's 2010 asking when you'll be home. And could you Pur-leeaze move in with Present Day and add a like function)

[Homer]

Kill Your Darlings - 2013

Alan Ginsberg (played by Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame) goes to Columbia University, meets writers who will become leaders and giants of a new writing movement, the Beats. Becomes one of them. The end. Oh, one of his friends is accused of murder, and he discovers he's gay. The end.

Not recommended unless you're interested in college life in 1944, how the director visualizes the writers creative processes, or why on-line commenters referred to Radcliffe's performance in one scene as 'Hairy Pooper'.

[richard]

Hey, got into a number of movies involving Billy Bob Thornton. A real character actor who shunned the blockbuster stuff

A bit slow but IMO great acting, complicated plots and fitting music in all of the following:

Bad Santa 2003
A Simple plan 1998
Sling Blade 1996
The man who wasn't there 2006

Google for a run down on them

[sandman67]

NO GOD NO MASTER

An entertaining police drama set in the early days of the pre-FBI Bureau of Investigation. Its 1919, and New York is teeming with Italian and Russian immigrants, all seeking work when workers rights were a pipe dream and unions in their infancy. When a series of package bombs start to be delivered to prominent members of the New York elite, William Flynn, the agency's bomb and Anarchist expert is called in to track the terrorists down.

I like these historical police dramas as they dont rely like modern ones on all that CSI guffins, and this one while relatively low budget is a really entertaining "Untouchables" style re-write of history. Its well acted and scripted, and filmed really well given the low budget, with nice warm sepia tones that lend themselves to the period.

Well worth a watch in my humble, and out and about at the usual suspects in DVDRIP formats. Three worthy hurrahs, and while not a keeper definitely a watcher.

[Homer]

Young Adult

30-something Mavis (played by Charlize Theron) is unlikeable. "Psycho prom queen bitch" unlikeable, as one character put it. She hasn't changed much since high school, hence the title, which also refers to the type of novels she writes. Malaise, perhaps depression, immaturity, always speaking her mind and the utter conviction that she's better than everyone are her personality high points.

Out of the blue she decides her high school sweetheart is just what she needs to fix her life. He is happily married with a new baby. Things do not go well.

See this for Theron's performance. There is plenty of black comedy. One can laugh at Mavis's cluelessness, or you can agree with her and laugh at the simple, main stream, middle class mid-westerners she can't stand, or you can 'enjoy'(?) the cringe comedy, or you can laugh / cringe / gasp at her writing for what she knows will be her last novel in a series.

Because it's a Jason Reitman film, it's about the difficulty of personal change. There is a character arc and an ending but he doesn't make films with Hollywood standard arcs and endings. He's best known for his 2 preceding works, Juno and Up in the Air.

[Homer]

Monsters 2010 - by the director of the new Godzilla

Gareth Edwards was named to direct the $160 million Godzilla almost entirely because of what he did with Monsters. Watching Monsters, you'd never guess it was made for $800,000 and was Edward's first feature film. Godzilla is his second.

Synopsis, mostly from from Wikipedia: Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon re-entry over Central America. Soon after, new life form began to appear and half of Mexico was quarantined as an INFECTED ZONE. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain "the creatures". Story begins when a US photojournalist agrees to escort a shaken tourist to the safety of the US border. The photojournalist accepts the task because she is the daughter of the man who owns the company he works for.

Recommended as an average story made compelling by a newbie director with a background in visual effects. What keeps it from being a better film is the love story which is against all odds, against what we know about the characters and one with poor chemistry between the actors. That last one is weird, because they're married in real life.

[sandman67]

Ok...a couple of old and new out of last weeks watch bag

OCULUS
Im no big horror fan, but Mark Kermode is (and an expert), so when he gives a film a tip then I watch. He has good taste. But still.....Im just one of those people horror flicks just dont scare (or usually amuse either).

As Mr Kermode points out this is a refreshing break from the usual cattle prod / BOO! jump style Hollywood horror in that it instead uses atmosphere, a twisty plotline told half in flashback, and a very effective soundtrack to add the chills to the spills. Yes that ends up making it pretty mainstream, but it kept me amused, so must be an unusual example of the genre.

It all circulates around a haunted mirror which contains an evil spirit who kills the families who own the mirror, playing with their minds and sending them mad first so they turn on one another. Two kids who survive one such incident come together again years later to finally destroy the mirror, but one inisists they first try to draw the spirit out and use cameras to capture the action and clear their dead fathers name. Y can see where this is going to go wrong......

Not bad at all, and definitely worth a watch. Two cheers for effort and trying to do something a bit different. Out in spankingly clean DVDRIPs everywhere.



LORDS OF LONDON (aka Lost In Italy)
This one needs the Trade Descriptions Act in big leather bound edition lobbing at it. From the poster and trailer it portrays itself as a Ray Winstone gangster flick. But it isnt.

No.....its a gangster flick in the same way that the awful Guy Ritchie flick REVOLVER was a gangster flick. Cheeky wide boy geezers on the front - complex, painfully slow, dense turgid and obscure morality play just beneath the geezer gloss. Badly scripted and executed from the start, the only saving grace is the way its shot and the locations. See.... Revolver all over again.

Modern day East End bad lad gets popped in the first scene, then wakes up in a weird remote Italian hilltop village which appears to be stuck in the late 40s or early 50s. Why he is there, how he got there, and key to the story WHY he is there only becomes clear at the end. Spliced in occasionally is Ray going full nutball as the geezers now dead dad. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn.

Three....yes three..... Thbbbbbts! My rec is avoid and find a copy of Long Good Friday to settle down with and have kids in Marbella next door to Sexy Beast.



and to round out...a classic oldie

CONDUCT UNBECOMING
set in the steamy Raj this mystery whodunnit concerns two new recruits to a lancer regiment whose honor and noble history is unfortunately dogged by strange attacks on women by a mysterious swordsman. When the widow of the regimental hero is attacked, one new recruit is accused, and faces a court martial. His only chance of defence lies with his fellow new recruit, who rather than accept brushing the incident under the carpet to protect the regimental reputation, fights to see justice done.

Well worth a watch, and full of the old A listers like Michael York, Dickie Attenborough and Christopher Plumber.

Its available via torrents, or you can watch it in crisp quality over at VeeHD

Three rousing hurrahs for the old regiment!