What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Justin101

I meant for the consumer, not legally.

Oh, that's different, and a morally dubious way of 'promoting' a new format.

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I must admit that John Wick Chapter 2 is not high priority for me. I enjoyed the first film but it's instantly forgettable. Action for the sake of it without a gripping storyline.

I can wait until it's a fiver at Asda.

Or less.

John Wick (and the sequel) is odd because I've no idea what it is that makes me enjoy and appreciate them much more than something like The Expendables films or other action movies which are light on plot and heavy on action sequences. It could be because they take themselves very seriously, are made to look very realistic and do not contain any 'zingers' like the Stallone/Schwarzenegger/Van Damme action movies from the 1980s and 1990s.

[Cinematic Shocks]

American Made (2017)

***1/2 out of *****

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

Oh, that's different, and a morally dubious way of 'promoting' a new format.



John Wick (and the sequel) is odd because I've no idea what it is that makes me enjoy and appreciate them much more than something like The Expendables films or other action movies which are light on plot and heavy on action sequences. It could be because they take themselves very seriously, are made to look very realistic and do not contain any 'zingers' like the Stallone/Schwarzenegger/Van Damme action movies from the 1980s and 1990s.

Taking themselves seriously is not something that can be said of the example you mentioned - The Expendables series.

The amount of times Arnie and co riff on themselves and their old films makes them a hoot. They are practically comedies.

Take this line from the second film for example

Barney Ross (Stallone): I've heard another rumor, that you were bitten by a king cobra?
Booker (Chuck Norris): Yeah, I was. But after five days of agonizing pain, the cobra died.

or this

Trench (Schwarzenegger): I'll be back.
Church (Willis): You've been back enough. I'll be back.
[leaves]
Trench: Yippee-ki-yay.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Cinematic Shocks

American Made (2017)

I saw this at the cinema last week knowing nothing about the real guy who inspired the film, but quite a bit about the politics in North and South America at the time, and the expanding drug trade at the time. I thought it slotted in very well with films like Traffic, Blow and Salvador, giving another viewpoint on the extremely complicated world in which the CIA's involvement in Colombian drug dealers and rebel armies from across the political spectrum overlapped at the centre of a bizarre Venn diagram. There is an element which also links to Sicario, with the word "Medellin" being explored in a lot of detail here giving a greater understanding to what is currently happening with violence by drug cartels in Mexico and elsewhere.

It's strange that what many would consider the film's biggest selling point is also a major negative, with Tom Cruise basically playing Tom Cruise, donning aviator sunglasses and looking like an older version of Maverick! However, the frenetic direction, fluctuating undercurrents of threat and absurdist comedy and neat storytelling makes this something more than a Tom Cruise vehicle and something which sits alongside Edge of Tomorrow (the previous collaboration between Cruise and Doug Liman) in entertainment value.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Taking themselves seriously is not something that can be said of the example you mentioned - The Expendables series.

They are extremely different films, and I think I said that I prefer the serious action movies to the more comedic ones. It could be because John Wick feels like a comic book/superhero movie, so is similar in tone to something like The Crow or Sin City in tone which makes the films, for me, more enjoyable than The Expendables and the Fast and Furious sequels.

Actually, having said that, I don't mind things like Commando, Predator and the Rocky movies, but it'll be interesting to see how I react to True Lies, film I bought recently and haven't seen since it was released for home viewing in 1995!

[keirarts]

American made

Tom Cruise is somewhat off-putting to some people. Mainly due to his connection with the cult of Scientology and some erratic public behaviour that leads a lot of people to think hes somewhat off the deep end. However he's still a great on screen presence when used correctly and here he's pretty much in his element. He plays a bored TWA pilot Barry Seal who gets roped in by the CIA to take pictures of communist rebel bases in South America. His cocky can-do attitude soon gets him neck deep in the cocaine trade, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Pablo Escobar and running guns to the rebels in Nicaragua. The whole affair ended up nearly sinking the Reagan white house and the film does a solid job of showing how things went so badly wrong.
I have to say I enjoyed this a lot. As I said above, cruise is actually well cast in this. The film has a similar arc to films like Blow & GoodFellas. Its appealing to Hollywood and unsurprising as the whole idea of money and power corrupting is universal and was essentially true in all these stories. Director Doug Liman does a great job with the material. Its both funny and tragic, sometimes in equal measure and brings a nice visual style to proceedings. The opening Universal logo is the one used in the late 70's early 80's and Seal's narration, through archived video footage is a nice idea. Overall this is one worth checking oiut if you get the chance.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

They are extremely different films, and I think I said that I prefer the serious action movies to the more comedic ones. It could be because John Wick feels like a comic book/superhero movie, so is similar in tone to something like The Crow or Sin City in tone which makes the films, for me, more enjoyable than The Expendables and the Fast and Furious sequels.

Actually, having said that, I don't mind things like Commando, Predator and the Rocky movies, but it'll be interesting to see how I react to True Lies, film I bought recently and haven't seen since it was released for home viewing in 1995!

I misread what you said, thinking the Expendables were taking themselves seriously.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I misread what you said, thinking the Expendables were taking themselves seriously.

Ha! Those films are to serious action films what Airplane! is to disaster movies.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Maniac (1962)

The rape of his teenage daughter instigated a violent, maniacal retribution on the perpetrator for which Georges (Donald Houston) was incarcerated in an asylum for the insane. When a stranger (Kerwin Mathews) enters a quiet, French town and is seduced by a sensuous married woman (Nadia Gray) he unwittingly finds himself at the centre of a storm of sex and murder for which he has been carefully groomed to take full blame.

An reasonable Hammer programmer which crawls along to begin with following a rape / revenge pre-credits sequence but picks up in it's final third with a twist you won't see coming.

Kerwin Mathews fresh from his Harryhausen exploits makes for an affable lead, (although the way he flirts with the daughter (Lilianne Brousse) before swiftly moving on to her mother comes over as decidedly strange, if not predatory) and Nadia Gray a fiery femme fatale. Even though it was filmed in black and white, it's sun baked French coastal setting firmly removes it from Hammer's Technicolor Gothic horrors of the period. Although more thriller than horror, Maniac certainly veers into frights with the blow torch sequences, but is never as chilling as Psycho (1960) the Hitchcock film on whose coat tails this B-movie definitely rides.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

Ha! Those films are to serious action films what Airplane! is to disaster movies.

Some of the 'serious' Airport films are just as funny as the Airplane ones.

Witness Charlton Heston entering the plane in flight via the cockpit in Airport 1975 (1974).