Recently Watched Films

Just upgraded my copy of this to blu-ray. A great neo-noir from Robert Altman. 

Sometimes pushes into the 'so bad it's good' area, but with a cast of recognisable British stars including the ever underrated Bill Nighy, it's also got a relatable charm for the Brit viewer like me, with some darkly comic parts underlying what is basically a strange romcom. I've seen it before some years ago, but it stands up to the occasional revisit. 

What a complete fuck up, from start to finish. I knew Woodstock '99 was a bit of a mess, but not quite how big of a mess it really was! This was just destined to be a disaster, through bad planning, an unsuitable venue, a poorly thought through line-up, which in turn attracted an audience with a large proportion of complete cunts, and then there were cunts on stage too. Nobody comes out of it really clean.

Pretty good one from Roger Corman, though very short and heavily reminiscent of House of Wax. 

Michael Bay, it would not be unfair to say, is one of modern Hollywood's genuine hacks. This however is a solid 90's action flick. Potentially his only film worth a damn. 

Not seen this in years. Forgot what a lot of fun it is!

The sheep farming version of Grumpy Old Men. I don't know how this translates to a non-farming audience, but we loved it!

The idea of this is intriguing, but I was also bored. 

Black Widow (2021):

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3480822/

Not what I had hoped for, but it´s Marvel, so of course there are some pretty great fight scenes and incredible SGI.

sign language guy was absolutely terrible, but other than that I liked this one

Basically Hitchcock with the sleaze amped up. Quite a mindfuck of a movie beneath that though. Not de Palma's best but solid. 

Very good quite unknown neo-noir movie. It's based on the first novel in a fairly long novel series, but this is the only one that ever made it to film and serves as an origin story for a black PI working in 1940s LA. The atmosphere to original noir movies is pretty much spot on, while also treading the kind of ground original noir would never have touched. A hidden gem.

Re-watches:

One of Fritz Lang's most famous English language movies and remains one of the few movies I know of from the time period to still carry higher than a PG age restriction. Infamous for the scene where Lee Marvin disfigures Gloria Grahame by throwing hot coffee in her face, The Big Heat certainly pushed boundaries in the 1950s even if its violent scenes seem tame by modern standards, though I still jump like hell during the scene where Glenn Ford's car is blown up with dynamite. 

A less well known noir but one I'm really quite fond of. It twists the genre a bit by having a female lead and using James Mason's character in the usual femme fatale role.