Film Review 2023

[notdeadyet]

Law of Tehran

I never expected an Iranian film to be the best crime thriller I've watched in ages but it was. It got great reviews and really lived up to it.

Tehran detective hunting the city's biggest drug dealer. It's got that same documentary-type feel that The French Connection had and it's clearly a huge influence on the film. It's all shot on location and the poverty and depravation gives it a realness that stops it being just a run-of-the-mill police drama in a foreign language. The film doesn't gloss over the brutality of the Iranian legal system or government regime. The film just accepts that human rights abuses are just a day-to-day fact of policework. 8/10

The Northman

Art house remake of the greatest film ever made, Conan The Barbarian. Alexander Skarsgard is perfect as Amleth but it's also hard to not think of the Techno-Viking which kind of makes him hard to take seriously. Beautifully filmed and if you are into history or archaeology then there are lots of really nice touches with the props, especially for things most people wouldn't notice. The locations are stunning and the fight scenes are really well done. Skarsgard plays such a physical role really well too.

But I never made it to the end, it started well but the middle third bored me rigid. I stopped caring and couldn't be arsed with another hour of it. There is a great supporting cast but nobody is in it for more than a few minutes so hard to care when Amleth gets a bit moody about them. It's worst of all for the main villain who has such a small role that it's really hard to understand why he's even bothering to try to kill him. The timeline doesn't work either, he was a teenage boy when his middle-aged uncle killed his father. Now he's clearly a middle-aged man himself but the actor playing his uncle isn't much older than Alexander Skarsgard. And I never understood why he waited 30 years for his revenge.

I don't know if they were deliberate or accidental but there's also too many Conan references. The start is straight out of Conan. The same snake symbol is used by the baddies. The scene where he finds his sword in an ancient tomb. There are some clunky Shakespeare/Hamlet references too that don't really work.

Watch Conan The Barbarian, it's still the greatest film ever made. 5/10

[notdeadyet]

The Nun 2, silly and fun Gothic supernatural adventure. 70% Scooby-Doo, 30% monster vs superheroes. It's clearly made for kids and I think that makes it a lot more enjoyable than it would be if it had been made for adults as a slasher. Most of it seems to be shot on location in Aix-en-Provence and that gives it a bit of atmosphere rather than the dreadful over-use of CGI that most new period films rely on (there was a trailer for the new Branagh Poirot film on before it and it looked so CGI'd it was cartoon-like). Plot is ludicrous and there is a very obvious Chekhov's Gun right at the start but it's done well. It's actualy well photographed (and sadly they blew the one genuinely clever bit of imagery by having it in the trailer), there's lots of little visual references to classic horror like Don't Look Now and Exorcist so they clearly have an appreciation of good filmwork. 6/10

Milius (2013), a documentary about the life and work of John Milius. Utter shit, you might as well read his Wikipedia page and save 90 minutes. Probably the greatest screen-writer Hollywood ever produced and it's basically an hour and a half of superficial talking head soundbites trying to make the story all about them. No attempt to dig deeper into his character (the inspiration for the brilliant Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski), his often problematic philosophy (Zen Buddhist surfer vs libertarian gun-nut, allegedly the inspiration for Bodhi in Point Break) or his ability to write incredibly good scripts (Apocalypse Now, Red Dawn, Conan The Barbarian, the first two Dirty Harry films, Quint's monologue from Jaws, Sean Connery's monologues from Hunt For Red October). I love Milius's films but this was a dreadful wank-fest. Watch The Big Lebowski and it'll tell you more about him than this. The one positive in the whole film is learning where the title for Apocalypse Now came from. 1/10

[Divemouse]

Barbie. Laughed 3 times, did not feel empowered. Rising state of anger and panic all the way through. 3/10

[notdeadyet]

One Day Removals.

Quite an old film (2008) but I heard it get reviewed on a podcast today so gave it a go tonight. It is one of the funniest films I've watched in a long time. A pair of Aberdeen removal men end up on an accidental killing spree in rural Aberdeenshire. It's very low budget, some of the acting is a bit hammy but it's a brilliant black comedy. Apparently it's the only film ever made entirely in Doric as well. Very sweary. Deserves to be a real cult classic.

[MarkP]

One Day Removals.

Quite an old film (2008) but I heard it get reviewed on a podcast today so gave it a go tonight. It is one of the funniest films I've watched in a long time. A pair of Aberdeen removal men end up on an accidental killing spree in rural Aberdeenshire. It's very low budget, some of the acting is a bit hammy but it's a brilliant black comedy. Apparently it's the only film ever made entirely in Doric as well. Very sweary. Deserves to be a real cult classic.

Where did you find it? Just failed to find it on BTTV / Prime / Netflix.

[notdeadyet]

Where did you find it? Just failed to find it on BTTV / Prime / Netflix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8NbHYtlaS8

It's on the director's own channel so not a hooky version.

[Paulo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8NbHYtlaS8

It's on the director's own channel so not a hooky version.

About to throw the towel in here after 15mins

[Paulo]

About to throw the towel in here after 15mins

Gave it 30mins and turned that shite off

[smileydiver]

Barbie. Laughed 3 times, did not feel empowered. Rising state of anger and panic all the way through. 3/10

Ah, I loved Barbie, seen it multiple times. Ryan Gosling is hilarious in it, I love how he takes the p*ss out of himself and how the film pokes fun at society