Movies you've seen recently (Part 2)

world needs more Merkels… well done docu and inspiring…

I’m going to assume that an actual documentary about Angela Merkel will be far more interesting than the fictional one about her becoming an amateur detective in Italy:smiley:

This is right after a post about My Dinner with Andre — for a hilarious moment, I thought it was in reference to that film. :slight_smile:

You are correct tho interesting find. :zany_face:

I also decided to watch based on recommendations in this thread, but I didn’t make it through more than about five minutes. They kind of lost me right off the bat with the incest joke, and the gags just seemed forced, juvenile, and stupid. I don’t know, maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood. I suppose I could give it another shot…

I started watching Fackham Hall last night and may finish today. (And after a couple of minutes, I figured out the title’s meaning; Fuck 'Em All.)

Farnham Hall pulled out a bunch of old sight gags and bad puns and wasn’t all that creative but I’m a simpleton and laughed.

*Fackham

I did not like the movie, by the way.

It makes more sense if you know that one of the writers was Jimmy Carr.

Welcome Sindarius.

Real Steel is a good movie. It’s got some fun sci fi robot fighting and good characters plus just enough heart.

The Birdcage
I have not seen this before. We’re all familiar with it so I’m not sure what to add in here. I did enjoy it and I liked the acting by Williams, Lane, Hackman, and Wiest. If you’re interested in delving more into the movie’s creation, Matt Baume has a video about the movie and its French predecessor La Cage Aux Folles.

My Blue Heaven
I showed this to my teen on Friday. I remember it being very funny when I saw it back in the 90s and I think it’s still decent but it wasn’t as funny as I remember. Steve Martin is a NY gangster in witness protection and Rick Moranis is the stuffy FBI agent watching over him. Carol Kane fans (i.e. me) will enjoy her role as Martin’s love interest.

Surf Nazis Must Die
Watched this over the weekend and it is exactly what it says on the tin. Low budget, not the best acting or staging, but it has its fun moments. When I was a kid, I used to ride my skateboard goofy-footed (a term I did not know until recently) so when the leader of the Surf Nazis says that people who surf goofy-footed are worthless and don’t deserve to live, it kind of hits a little too close.

Ghost Elephants

Highly reccommended.

Werner Herzog remains my favorite film make or at least in the top 5. I love his documentaries as much, if not more, than the feature films.

Ghost Elephants follows a very dedicated scientist who is trying to find and get DNA from at least one herd of very hard to find elephants. He believes they are related to the largest elephants in history and due to poaching, they have taught themselves to come out almost only at night.

He teams up with the local Angolan people and they track as much as they can.

Herzog loves passionate people and unlike many others he has filmed, this guy is pretty normal and reasonable.

  1. There is footage of dead and massacred animals in this film. Not a ton, but It is shown.

  2. I’ll spoil what basically happens.

He did find the Ghost Elephants, to to speak. His cell phone camera got footage of them. Unfortunately, the DNA arrow they shot at it missed or did not penetrate its skin.

It’s a wonderful movie and I can see it being the best documentary of the year. I want an update in a few years.

The first time I’d seen it was only a week or so after catching some mob documentary in passing. The doc covered the bomb-in-the-Cadillac real life incident, so when it was used in this film I knew exactly what was going to happen. Pretty nifty. As a movie, it’’s a little long, but very well acted and was an interesting view of Las Vegas in its “glory – gorey? – days”.

The provenance of this always fascinates me. Because of course it was based (very, very loosely) on the real life Henry Hill, also the central character of Goodfellas. How? Nicholas Pileggi, writer of the book and co-writer of the script that became Goodfellas, was married to Nora Ephron of various romantic comedies fame, writer of the screenplay for My Blue Heaven.

Yes, it’s weird that My Blue Heaven and Goodfellas have the same origin.

Agreed.

Also, I think it’s funny when Martin says “It’s a veg-e-table.”

Yeah there is a lot of romance animes I have not touched which I know I should also I do plan on giving myself depression by watching Cyperpunk.

The Final Destination 2009

This one features the race track survivors.

I’m slowly working my way through the films.

Remind me to never buy a car with a electric sunroof. :wink: The carwash scene and the movie theater fireball are the most creative.

I like how they show that people are constantly surrounded by hazards that we never notice. 90% of the time nothing bad happens. Unless death has drawn your number.

My only frustration is the lack of survivors in these films. The majority of horror films usually left at least one battered survivor. Figuring out who lives until the end is part of the fun.

The Final Destination films are creative and enjoyable.

7.5 out of 10

Huh, I’m a fan of the franchise, but this may be my least favorite because of the poor CGI, especially at the race track. But I’m glad you enjoyed it, it’s a fun bunch of films. I wish they’d kept Clear, I liked her.

The racetrack destruction could be done much more realistically.

What made me laugh was the trapped head in the cars sunroof. They got some great shots of her open mouth & jaw screaming as the water sprayed.

It was filmed in a way that was kind of funny and not horrific.

It helped that I kept remembering the Rocky Horror song Dammit Janet.

Same. I really enjoy the Final Destination series and when I rewatched all of them prior to Bloodlines I was astonished at just how much worse #4 was from the rest. The cgi and 3D effects were so bad.

At least the next two are great, so you have those to look forward to!