Rate the last film you watched...

[redheart]

Peninsula : Train to Busan 2...enjoyable enough romp.. Does quite a lot with a budget of $16m. Lee Jung-hyun is lovely. Enjoyable whilst watching but instantly forgettable    6/10

 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014). I had to watch this with my young son. Difficult to rate because I am not sure that it was a film rather than a serious of set pieces etc. Twas enjoyable enough if you accept it for what it is.

[Mook]

Manhunter, the original version of Red Dragon from 1986.

 

Didn't think much of this to be honest, the main detective in it was laughably bad & the shit 80s soundtrack tended to kill some of the more dramatic moments stone dead. The red dragon guy was good though. 4.5/10.

[M_B]

Color out of Space - 5\10

 

10\10 however if you are a Cthulhu RPG\H.P.Lovecraft fan. Nicolas Cage seemed to base some of his acting on Donald Trump at one point.

 

 

[Pidge]

Over the last 6 weeks I've been chipping away at the MCU films on Disney+. Finally watched Black Panther. For the first two acts I think it might genuinely have been my favourite one, but then it slipped into the typical MCU final act of endless, meaningless, CG "action" and accelerating nonsense instead of escalating the drama. 

 

Dragged it down to a 6/10. So much potential for such a bland ending.

[Carvalho Diablo]

On 27/08/2020 at 11:48, Stickman said:

Tenet

 

Exhilarating, self-indulgent, unintelligible, non-sensical, up its own hoop bollocks.

 

5/10 The Crew Kodi

[Section_31]

Saw a film called Sorry we Missed You a while back, Ken Loach film about an Amazon style delivery driver. I loved I Daniel Blake but thought this was shite. The main character isn't remotely likeable and brings most of the shit on himself.

 

It's also got easily some of the worst acting I've ever seen. The young lad and the wife must have been recruited from some local amdram group or something though and told to do improv, absolutely shocking stuff.

 

5/10.

[Mudface]

Not sure if this belongs in here, the 'rant' thread or the little things that annoy the shit of you... The last series of True Detective was terrible for muddy dialogue as were several BBC series recently- Scrooge in particular was impossible to make out for large parts of the first episode.

 

Watching films at home you can occasionally understand that they couldn't possibly test on all possible sound systems, but it's inexcusable not to be able to hear dialogue for TV series and in the cinema. Nolan has past form for this with Interstellar- where he apparently actually said he wanted parts of the film to be unintelligible, which is ridiculously arrogant. Bane in the Dark Knight Rises was also a real chore at times, but then Tom Hardy speaks like he has a mouth full of marshmallow at the best of times. In the comments, quite a few people point out that they thought they had hearing problems, but then have no difficulty with older films which often have crystal clear sound in comparison.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/03/tenet-dialogue-christopher-nolan-sound-technology

 

Quote

 

Hard to pardon: why Tenet's muffled dialogue is a very modern problem
Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster is already infamous for its barely-audible exchanges. As sound technology advances, why are films getting harder to hear?


You what? … Robert Pattinson and John David Washington mumble away in Tenet.

There is a wonderful exchange in Christopher Nolan’s latest film, Tenet, between Robert Pattinson and John David Washington. “Hngmmhmmh,” says Pattinson. “Mmghh nmmhhmmmm nghhh,” replies Washington. Marvellous.

This is how much of Tenet sounded to viewers in cinemas. The film’s dialogue has been criticised by reviewers and audience members for often being impossible to make out. Given how hard Nolan’s blockbuster would be to understand even if all the dialogue was crystal-clear, it is curious that the director has made it doubly difficult to hear the story of a screenplay he supposedly spent five years writing.

But it isn’t just Nolan’s films. It’s a much-repeated claim that movie dialogue is becoming harder and harder to hear. What is going on?

Mathew Price is a production sound mixer who has worked on The Sopranos and The Marvellous Mrs Maisel. “When they take the sound we record on set and kind of undermix it, it feels like, ‘What did we try so hard for?’” he says. Price believes the problem is partly that modern directors have so many more tracks to play with, causing “track overload”, the result being that “the dialogue gets short shrift a lot of the time”. When he watches films or TV shows at home, he turns on the subtitles in case of clarity issues – he is far from the only one – and will limit the TV’s dynamic range. (On home TVs the dynamic range is more extreme than in a cinema: this is why you often have to turn up the volume for dialogue, then down again for action.)

Is it actually a modern phenomenon? Sound engineer Ron Bochar, who was nominated for an Oscar for his mixing on Moneyball, thinks so. “Think about it: the first few Star Wars [films], we heard them all. We heard all the lines. Listen to Apocalypse Now – you hear everything.” Price agrees: “If you watch old movies, you might hear some sound effects here and there but now they go nuts: somebody’s walking across the room in a leather jacket, you hear the zippers clink and the creak of the leather and every footstep is right in your face.”

When television became commonplace in the mid-20th century and challenged cinema’s dominion, cinema needed to distinguish itself; it needed to prove that it could justify people leaving the comfort of their homes. It did so partly by becoming bigger and louder. In an era – and a pandemic – in which home streaming dominates, cinema may be forced to pull out the stops once more. “I think we’re bombarded,” Paul Markey, a projectionist at the Irish Film Institute, says of modern films. “The more expensive movies have got, the more of a bombardment they become on your senses.”
For Bochar, the priority is dialogue. Working with other editors, his job is to layer a film with multiple levels of sound. As he adds layers he has to make sure he can still hear the words. “The first thing I do is create a solid dialogue track, and then everything else has to come up to it and not exceed it,” he says. “Somebody wrote the words and actors are saying those lines, so there’s got to be some priority.” He doesn’t know any re-recording artist who would deliberately obscure a story point.

Sound effects and music tracks exist on faders that can slide up and down. This means that even “a crazy, batshit scene” with numerous layers of sound is easy for a mixer to control. “It really isn’t a mystery. We know how to do it.” This means that Nolan’s use of noisier Imax cameras in Tenet would not explain the problem, as some have suggested.

To complicate matters, there is a disparity between the environment in which the director hears the final mix of a film and the one in which it is screened. Markey says Warren Beatty watched a screening of Bonnie and Clyde when it came out and couldn’t understand why the sound of the bullets was so quiet. The projectionist was turning the volume down. Beatty realised that projectionists, not directors, have final say on a film. Markey says that they could, for example, raise the volume of the dialogue specifically, but they never do – it would mean having to readjust it for every film.

As with most problems, every department assumes that another department is to blame. Although many viewers claim that films are getting louder, Bochar says that the opposite is the problem: “All of us in the industry will tell you point-blank that generally every single cinema is playing it lower than it should be.” A studio’s reference level tends to be around 85 decibels, or 7 on the Dolby scale, he says. But cinemas will often play the film at 4 (around 75 decibels). The Irish Film Institute has been playing Tenet at 4, Markey says, because the recommended level will not always correspond to the cinema in which the film is showing.

In Nolan’s case, Price and Bochar are confident that the director does it intentionally. In a 2019 Reddit AMA, sound designer Richard King – who has worked with Nolan on seven films, including Tenet – said: “He wants to grab the audience by the lapels and pull them toward the screen, and not allow the watching of his films to be a passive experience.”

It’s hard to imagine that Nolan is unaware of the criticism. Price suspects the director wants to make the audience work harder to understand the dialogue; he thinks Nolan believes this will make the film a more immersive, engaging experience. But, Price says, “I think he is the only one in the world who believes that.”

 

[Juniper]

Tenet 6.5/10

 

I understood it and predicted quite a bit of the ending about half way through but it was just too messy. 
 

A hell of an attempt and quite the film but it was just too disorientating.

 

Theres just too much jumble in this film, from the plot to the dialog. It’s decent and a brilliant idea but it’s execution just lets it down.

[skend04]

The Peanut Butter Falcon 

 

What a great little movie, perfectly cast with a sweet story. There need to be more films like this,  that just leave you smiling throughout. 8.5/10

[Anubis]

Mulan (live action version) - 6.5/10. Crouching Tiger Hidden Mouse for kids. Never seen the cartoon version so I’ve no idea how it compares, but it’s reasonably entertaining but by the numbers and a little uninspiring in the action sequences department. Nice for little girls to have an action hero to inspire them, though.

[lifetime fan]

The Commitments. 
 

8/10. Funny, sad and a great watch. 

[Jose Jones]

Contratiempo (the invisible guest)

 

Spanish mystery/thriller thing on Netflix. Posh twat gets found in a locked hotel room with his murdered mistress and claims he’s been framed.

Not bad, probably worth your time.

 

7/10

[Pete]

Dolittle starring Robert Downey Jr.

 

it was the Mrs birthday yesterday and this is what she wanted so we watched it.  Bit shit really (few funny moments)and RDJ’ decision to go with a welsh accent? Bizarre! 
 

4/10 

 

[Jairzinho]

Tenet. 3/10. Shite, and half an hour too long.

[Bob]

On 30/08/2020 at 06:52, Paul said:

Tenet - Unscorable. Looks great and the action scenes are ace, but the whole thing is just bewildering (and it’s not helped by much of the dialogue being unintelligible due to more Bane-esque - and timely, I suppose - mask wearing). Nolan literally tells the audience we won’t understand and he’s right! Certainly his McGuffin will fuel the internet for years to come as people try - and fail - to explain it all. 
 

He’s gone a bit too “Emperor’s new clothes” with this film, for me. I think I enjoyed it, but it’s the least immersive blockbuster I’ve ever seen. It’s almost like he wants to stop you getting drawn into the narrative, which is fucking bizarre. He definitely needs to pause and take stock of his career to date and where he’s going with it after this, as I’m pretty certain it will bomb as word of mouth gets out in a Covid-hit cinema landscape. 
 

There’s so much to admire about an auteur director making original stories on this scale in modern cinema. However, he’s over-egged it this time. As my Nan would’ve said, he’s far too clever for his own good. Even his own characters seem confused, with John David Washington - who I think has huge potential as a film star and is very charismatic - just looking bewildered throughout. 
 

I think he needs to change tack completely for a bit and certainly ditch his whole time schtick as he’s totally done it to death with Tenet. The irony is that Dunkirk seemed to be the start of a new, more interesting stage of his career. This though has taken him so far up his own arse, he might not ever escape. 
 

Having said all that, I still think I enjoyed it and I’ll definitely watch it again. Like I said, unscorable.  

 

Don’t disagree with much of that, other than me definitely not enjoying it while you did, but my question to you as a follow up is did you care about any of it? That’s what left me feeling it was shit more than anything else. I can cope with not really understanding it if I had investment in either the characters or the outcome, but I never at any points did.

[Bob]

I watched zodiac on Friday night and absolutely loved it. I didn’t know much about the story other than having watched “summer of Sam” many years ago and knowing the zodiac killer existed but I thought this was great.

 

i really like Ruffalo and thought he was great recently in Dark Waters and was boss in Spotlight too, and he was ace in this.

 

right up my street and a pleasure to find a genuinely good modern(ish) film on Netflix.

 

8/10 

[Carvalho Diablo]

6 hours ago, Bob Spunkmouse said:

I watched zodiac on Friday night and absolutely loved it. I didn’t know much about the story other than having watched “summer of Sam” many years ago and knowing the zodiac killer existed but I thought this was great.

 

i really like Ruffalo and thought he was great recently in Dark Waters and was boss in Spotlight too, and he was ace in this.

 

right up my street and a pleasure to find a genuinely good modern(ish) film on Netflix.

 

8/10 

There's a 4 part series you might like called The Most Dangerous Animal of All, based upon the Zodiac.

[Bob]

1 hour ago, Carvalho Diablo said:

There's a 4 part series you might like called The Most Dangerous Animal of All, based upon the Zodiac.

What’s that on mate? Where will I find it?

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Bob Spunkmouse said:

What’s that on mate? Where will I find it?

If you have Kodi you'll probably find it on either Fen or I think there is a new one called The Crew.

 

I use a paid for cheap TV service for all my TV shows. I can download it so if it helps I might be able to download and make it available somewhere.

 

Edit:

Part One of Four...

 

[Strontium]

7 hours ago, Bob Spunkmouse said:

I watched zodiac on Friday night and absolutely loved it. I didn’t know much about the story other than having watched “summer of Sam” many years ago and knowing the zodiac killer existed but I thought this was great.

 

i really like Ruffalo and thought he was great recently in Dark Waters and was boss in Spotlight too, and he was ace in this.

 

right up my street and a pleasure to find a genuinely good modern(ish) film on Netflix.

 

8/10 

 

I think I would have enjoyed that film much more if I could have heard the dialogue.

[Carvalho Diablo]

29 minutes ago, Bob Spunkmouse said:

What’s that on mate? Where will I find it?

Might be Netflix mate, not too sure. I watched it on The Crew - Kodi - Real Debrid.

[Guest]

 

17 minutes ago, Fluter in Dakota said:

If you have Kodi you'll probably find it on either Fen or I think there is a new one called The Crew.

 

I use a paid for cheap TV service for all my TV shows. I can download it so if it helps I might be able to download and make it available somewhere.

 

Edit:

Part One of Four...

 

  Hide contents

 

 
 

 

 

Part Two of Four...

[Guest]

Part Three of Four...

 

Part Four of Four...

 

[Mudface]

Sunday, Sunday...

 

The Departed- 8/10. I saw the Internal Affairs original some time back, that was stunning, this was nearly there. It just didn't have the tension of the HK film, still very good though.

 

Shutter Island- 8/10. Di Caprio and Ruffalo are superb actors. I watched this fairly soon after it came out, and the last line is still an absolute killer.

 

Prisoners- 6/10. Really annoyed about this. The first hour or so is absolutely brilliant. Then there's an hour and a fucking half of obvious red herrings and utter gibberish (the 'maze'). Even after all that nonsense, they have to leave it on a cliffhanger. No surprise it was done by Villeneuve, the fucking crook.

[Numero Veinticinco]

Prisoners is an EASY 8/10.