Top notch films
 

I thought I'd just share my recent viewing with you rabble.

Tower Block - stars Sheridan Smith from Two pints of Lager. It's a gritty low budget Brit movie I loved it - not a film for soft arses.. Tower Block is available on Sky.

The other film I saw today was "The raid" £6.50 DVD on Amazon. Set in Jakarta. If you like action movies this may be THE movie for you. A word of warning though. I'm no spring chicken and I'm no newcomer to witnessing violent movies but this film was a bit of a stretch - even for me.

I've dug out my copy of "The Dragons Touch" for night time reading.

I haven't watched a "new' film that was actually good this year. In saying that, I watched Schindlers List and Silence Of The Lambs recently and they were both fantastic!

If you liked the raid which was very good then you would like the new dredd

I will tell my son and my brother to watch The Raid for they like action films. I like some of the Tom Cruise ones etc.

I recently recommended my brother the action-packed Spaghetti Western Django Unchained for the heroic drama, the guns and the bloodshed in it. He was giggling at my stereotyping of him as a man. :D

I watched The Pianist again lately. No racing cars and glamorous type of gunnings in it, but simply a top notch film. :notworthy

The Pianist is fantastic!
Hard to watch in parts and the bit towards the end when he plays the piano in front of the German officer always makes me get a lump in my throat :o

Someone on hear recommended 'the words' and also 'the art of being a wallflower' both were great in very different ways...but apart from those not much has really moved/surprised me and I watch loads of films :freak3:

Horror/scary films in particular have been total rubbish over the last couple of years..I cant think of 1 good one of the top of my head!

Yes. Deeply moving film with the accounts of suffering, humiliation and remarkable resilience. I would have liked to meet the likes of Szlipman and Frankl in person.

His desperation for that tin of gherkins/gourds sticks with me, even before that German officer gets in there. Brilliant story-telling by Polanski and superb acting by Adrien Brody. His Oscar was well-deserved.

I look forward to see these films. :)

lol the raid was absolute sh1te! and so is Dredd.

I also loved The Pianist. If you want to see something similarly moving but much earlier, and which never seems to get shown these days, try Jean Renoir's 'La Grande Illusion' from 1937. It's in French / German with subtitles, set in WW1. Just possibly the best war film, but with no 'action' in it.

Or of course there's the original 'All Quiet on the Western Front' from 1930, Kubrick's 'Paths of Glory' from 1957 and 1945's 'The Way to the Stars'. But Renoir gets me every time.

Thank you for your review.

You live in Swindon thoigh so I'll ignore any comments on quality if that's okay with you :norty:

No I don't live in Swindon actually.

Anyone who enjoyed the Raid is simply too easily pleased in my opinion. It was painful to watch for about 95% of it to be blunt. Woeful "acting" if you can even call it that, absolutely ridiculous plot. As for the action/violence, I thought that was pretty tame too. Could name so many better films to watch than that piece of cack. IMDb rating 3.8/10 :lol1: nuff said.

Skyfall is top notch, another vote for Django Unchained as well, Tarantino very rarely fails to entertain...

since we have mentioned films with subtitles, (for the non German speakers)

I have mentioned the film before, but always deserves a mention

The Lives Of Others

a wonderful touching thought provoking film

Thanks to Osimabu and Hodgy0_2 for some good films suggestions. It doesn't matter how old they are, or if they are with subtitles. Please watch (if you haven't yet watched them) La Vie en rose and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly for some top quality biographical work in French with English subtitles.

If you're happy with subtitles, or understand Portuguese then I thoroughly recommend both Carandiru and City of God. Two very different types of Brazilian films, but both gritty and compelling to watch.

The Man With The Iron Fists is worth a watch. Opening sequence is a tad gruesome, as are most of the fight sequences. QT does have something to do with it, which probably explains the gore aspect of it.

A bit old, but pan's labyrinth is rather good.

Even older and more quirky, The City Of Lost Children. Very marmite like, but I did enjoy it.

Both good films in their own right although Dredd is best watched in 3D. You didn't like them, fair enough, doesn't make them sh1t though :thumb: I prefer Dredd for lots of reasons but I am a 2000AD fan.

One of my favourite films of recent times :thumb:

I watched this last week, I happened to come across it on Navi X and it sounded worth a watch, I was suprised how good it was with such a low budget.
Great to see how a British film on a shoe string can be so good!

Django unchained is also amazing! I thought it was going to be totally hyped up but, nope!
It was a very deep film.

I know its a matter of opinion but I really cant see why any one would enjoy Dredd even in 3D, wow its 3D it must be good :rolleyes: and more so if they are a 2KAD fan, it was utter poop :) Raid good? bleh no way in hell was it even average :lol1: I guess its more about the eye candy these days rather than the substance. The cinema used to be an event for me, that you would talk about for days afterwards after seeing a decent movie, now that hardly exists. The ones which kept me talking a far and few between now.

Tyrannosaur

Great film, really caught my attention

I watched a brit film called Wild Bill last week. Think it was on NetFlix. That was pretty good. Quite gritty.

Jods, I drink with Sheridens old man. Chap called Colin he's a proper character.
My other half went to school with her and says she was talented from the off.

Films I've seen this year. Django is excellent my favourite so far has been Lawless with Tom Hardy. Such an awesome actor. This year is set to be a good year for films.

Sheriden is pretty fit too, nice legs n rack on her :norty:

Yeah big fan of 2KAD and Dredd did hit the right notes, lots more can be done with that. It was a little more 'real worldy' but kept pretty well to the comics at the same time. The reason I mention the 3D was as it was pretty much made for that and I did think it looked impressive, not just faddy usage.

OK the raid was slightly different in that you could switch brain off and just watch some ultra-violence silliness. Maybe not an award winner but it did what it said on the tin pretty much for me.
I didn't go in with high expectations. I didn't go to the cinema to see it as it didn't qualify for that :)

And with ref to that last point of mine above and also to your point about how a night at the cinema used to be a bit of an event with films really making more of an impact; I agree, it's not what it once was to go and see a film. Even the so called build up for films doesn't seem the same anymore and I am indeed with you that it's not often I'll be really excited by a film.

Studios don't really take risks anymore and this has kind of messed things up a bit imho. Even the big brain dead blockbusters aren't anywhere near the fun of the good old days when films like Predator and Robocop were around.

I'm also a big fan of the Evil Dead films and they are about to release a remake of that too, now that is a crying shame.

Feck, just remembered they are releasing that remake of Robocop, oh dear.:cry:

Stroker looks like it could be quite good though :)

Yea the remakes/reboots of Evil Dead n Robocop is sacriledge, I bet both will be completely cack too :(

I thought Django was good, but a bit long.

Films i've enjoyed at home recently were 'Devil' and 'Buried', both films you could only watch once but worthy of a viewing.

Watched Zero Dark Thirty the other night which was above average but not fantastic. Worth a watch though. Just a bit slow to start.

Ive just watched Argo. Not usually into true stories but this was pretty bloody good.

Just watched The last king of Scotland. Now that was eye-opening in brutality.