Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

-   Shifting gears (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifting-gears/)

-   -   The English Movies Thread (No Spoilers Please) (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifting-gears/55910-english-movies-thread-no-spoilers-please-647.html)

It has Gemma Chan?! Sold.

Another recco is 'I Saw the TV Glow' available for rent on Amazon Prime. Heard amazing things about this movie, yet to watch it though.

Deadpool Vs Wolverine:

The two actors with their fake real life rivalries were always fun. Putting them together in a movie playing deadpool and getting back wolverine was just too good to pass.

They really did throw the kitchen sink at it. So many cameos, so many nuggets of comic book nerdiness around, just a wonderful fun movie.

Good music, good fight sequences. Watching it loud and large is the way to go :) IMAX!

And was interesting to see PVR folks not letting kids inside. Remember watching the first deadpool movie and was shocked to see parents bringing little school kids to watch it thinking it was a generic marvel movie.

4/5 for me.

Any good recommendations on Prime/Netflix/Hotstar to watch. Action or Comedy or Genre please.

Watched the below over the last two weekends and felt disappointed...

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes - Disney+ Hotstar
Nothing exciting or thrilling as earlier parts or rather that's what I felt. You would be waiting for something big to happen but the movie ends by then.

The Beekeeper - Amazon Prime - Lionsgateplay
Need to keep the logic thinking out before watching this. A man, single handedly rampages into a weekend retreat where the US President is holding up and escapes just like that after killing her son! I couldn't fathom that much. Had really liked the transporter series of Statham years back.

Wrath of Man - Netflix
Another Statham movie and another disappointment (in parts).

Recently watched and recommended:

Netflix:
Crime Comedy: The Monk (Series)
Comedy: Turn Up Charlie (Series)
Crime/Thriller: The Pale Blue Eye (Movie)
Suspense: Red Eye (Movie)
Sci-fi Action: Godzilla Minus One (Movie: One of the best Godzilla movie)
Romcom: Hit Man (Movie)
Mystery comedy: Confess, Fletch (Movie: Very underrated. Gem
Action: The Gray Man (Movie)

Prime Video:
Action Comedy: The Boys (Series)
Comedy: Clarkson's Farm (Series)
Action Drama: Those About To Die (Series: if you liked Rome or Spartacus)
Action Comedy: The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare (Movie)

Disney+Hotstar:
Drama: The Bear (Series)
Crime Drama: Will Trent (Series)

And the most amazing part is how it was shot. On a Sony FX3 which is pretty much an 'indie' camera. When it came out people said it could probably change big budget filmmaking forever, considering the director Gareth Edwards shot it in guerrilla style so you don't need massive budgets to shoot a big sci-fi movie.

From the an article on the cinematographer:
“Our whole plan was just to go to the greatest locations in the world, because the cost of a flight is way less than the cost of building a set.” Considering the budget of just over $86 million, the filmmakers utilized guerrilla filmmaking methods by having very few crew members and natural lighting on set for select on-location scenes, and limited sound recording.'

You can read an interesting piece on it here:

https://artlist.io/blog/inside-the-creator-film/

And if you liked The Creator, check out Gareth Edwards first movie 'Monsters' from 2010. It was even lower budget than this but how well he made it with a skeleton crew and almost everything done by him, including shooting and doing the CG.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol6j9xlQN1w

Sleeping Dogs (murder mystery with a different twist) - Lionsgate Play. If you have a Jio Fiber connection it’s free via the Jio TV+ app or through the Lionsgate Play app.

Russell Crowe is too good and well supported by a very able cast. I would call it a must watch.

Cheers

If you like old-school fun/TP not too much else, Beverly Hills Cop - Axle F (Netflix) Good to see Eddie Murphy being himself, and playing his age in the movie.

Similar fun is Bad Boys - Ride or Die (Amazon Prime)

As a series, definitely try out The Umbrella Academy (Netflix). One of the most brilliantly consistent sci-fi/superhero shows out there, the last and final season just dropped and we haven't seen but the first three are outstanding.

A different style of superhero show but really well made, only its a bit more drama but comes together brilliantly - Supacell (Netflix).

A bit more family friendly is the new YA mystery series A Good Girl's Guide To Murder (Netflix) - very well made little mystery set in a British town.

A weird little thriller movie is Bad Samaritan (Amazon Prime)

If you like the Harlan Coban brand of story (they're pretty much all the same in the end!) there are series: The Stranger (Netflix) , The Innocent (in French) (Netflix), Harlan Coban's Shelter (Amazon Prime)

If you like legal thriller/drama, highly recommend the series The Lincoln Lawyer (Netflix)

They've just remade it in India as 'Gyara11/Gyara11', but see the brilliant original Korean mystery drama/thriller Signal (Netflix) - very strange show about 2 detectives solving crimes, communicating via a walkie talkie that connects across time from 20 years ago!

And for mindless ROFL laughs and TP, the 2 Adam Sandler Jennifer Aniston movies Murder Mystery and Murder Mystery 2 (Netflix) . At one time they were the platforms highest viewed movies.

Have a great weekend!

Two indie horror gems to see this weekend.

1. You'll Never Find Me



Rating: 7/10

A rainy, stormy night. A man, alone in his cabin, hears a knock on the door. A woman, drenched and afraid, walks in, asks for shelter. His mobile house is in the middle of nowhere. So how did the girl end up there? And why?

And then we spend close to 90 minutes trying to figure out just who is the one in danger. A darkly delicious little gem that will give you a slow-burn delight. No jump scares, just little, strange things that will keep making you uneasy and will keep shifting the dread from one to the other. As is the case with these movies, the ending is the real test. Hence I give it a 7/10 since I had thought of very many other things, but still a great little movie to watch if you like good, smart, atmospheric 'horror' and not gore/jump scares. It's literally just 2 people in a cabin on a stormy night!


2. Caveat



Rating: 9/10

An absolute delight for horror fans if you like your horror slow, dark, moody and full of dread. Really spooky location, literally just 3 people and a simple idea - a man, who is recovering from a bad accident that wiped out his memory, is asked by the only man he remembers - his friend - to help look after the friends sister, who lives alone in their old country home and is prone to having episodes of a certain catatonic nature. So the guy reluctantly goes, since he has nothing else he remembers to do. And then the caveat - he has to stay within certain limits of the house, and how he has to do it - I'll not spoil the spooky surprise! - but it just makes you uneasy from the get go!

The movie is pure atmosphere, very very smart direction and incredible cinematography. And some very smart little jump scares too, apart from the bizarre situation and the characters making it really good as a horror film.

If you like 'The Others' style of horror, you'll love Caveat.

And watch it - the same director's newest has just released outside India - 'Oddity' which I'm hoping will hit streaming soon. If 'Caveat' is anything to go buy, I'm sure 'Oddity' will be awesome too.

The Instigators



It has Matt Damon - so you expect Jason Bourne kind of stuff

It has Casey Affleck - so after Ocean's 11 and Manchester by the Sea, you would expect some kind of quality


Sorry folks, its is a very flat plot which sees them involved in a half-baked, badly planned heist which obviously goes wrong and their resultant escape which results in a bit of slapstick.

• For a one-time stress reliever, not to be taken seriously with some crazy dialogue - 3/5
• For a thriller with a plot and suspense - 1/5
• For the sound of a BMW M340 being thrashed and later trashed 5/5

Its a bit like those cheap Bruce Willis movies that he hastily made before his disabilities took over.

Road House (2024, Prime)

Been avoiding this movie because i was wary of remakes. But watched it yesterday and boy was it a good ride :)

Jake was good as the smiling bouncer and Conor really hammed it up as the bad guy. Overall a good watch to while the time away.

3.75/5

Boiler Room (2000, Prime)

A murky look into trading. A pretty good cast and tight script makes this a good watch.

3.75/5

Trap (In theatres)



Rating : 0/10

Why? Why did we go and see this movie? M. Night Shyamalan. Even though he had given us enough proof that his best is behind us. ‘Split’ was only the genius of James McAvoy. ‘The Visit’ was okayish with a few decent scares. ‘Servant’ was also okay in the first season but nothing that Shyamalan was capable of. ‘Knock on the cabin door’ - forgettable. Still we felt the idea was intriguing and maybe he’ll swing one back and make a comeback.

Boy were we wrong. In the first 10 minutes you know what it is. And then the darn movie is a thriller set within a musical concert! So every time there is some element of thrill, we cut to literally a song or performance. If that wasn’t bad enough, the singer playing a pop sensation like Taylor Swift/Olivia Rodrigo is played by - wait for it - Shyamalan’s other daughter (who is not the director daughter who recently made ‘The Watchers’) Now I’ll not get into the nepotism debate here but dad here gave her a major role! She’s in 80% of the movie with 0% acting ability!

It is painful to see a good actor like Josh Hartnett have to work off bad side-actors. But forget all that, that’s my personal opinion - the logical loopholes are head-scratchingly obvious. A teen pop sensation and no security in her limo?! They’ve laid a trap for a gruesome killer in a concert full of 12-16 year old girls?? Can’t pull my hair out more without spoilers so will save that. No spoilers but this movie is so bad it makes you question how it even got made.

I’ll still remember Shyamalan for the greatest low-key superhero movie ever made - Unbreakable, one of my all time favourites. The rest I’ll forget I think.

‘Trap’ was so bad we forgot it by the time we reached home. I suggest you do what we did instead - come home and watch ‘Sudden Death’ - one of those rare Van Damme movies which are not B.



Now THAT’S how you set a thriller inside a closed stadium.


Twisters (In theatres)



Rating : 0/10

As you can see, we’ve had a bad week at the movies :p

When ‘Twister’ came out my wife and I saw it in the theatres in our own cities - we didn’t know each other then - and were blown away by it. Both of us still remember the legendary cow blowing in the tornado, as well as the sheer visual power of the movie.

Twisters is like they took the same movie, watered it down and released it again. No real characters, no idea about who they are, no real danger or thrill, a confusing sub-plot and absolutely no visual thrill or scale. It’s like an AI assisted set of studio executives wrote and made it. Glen Powell who is a genuinely charming guy, is reduced to smirking and being a redneck genius with no real stake in anything. They wanted to make it ‘cool’ for the ‘youth’ so they’ve made him a YouTube vlogger ..who chases tornadoes. Whaaa?? Why? A man can have more drive in life. Daisy-Edgar Jones has a standard ‘sad’ backstory which does nothing for the character or the film. I thought she would be connected to Bill Paxton’s character from the first movie since she had a working ‘Dorothy’ in the first act of the movie but - no. And an unnecessary third ‘hero’.

But most of all - it is boring. And testament to that - not a single family in the hall we were in.

We came back home and watched the original ‘Twister’ again. And it is still so much fun! They should have just re-released it instead.

Damsel (Netflix)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13452446/

Liked the movie parts with Millie and the Dragon (Lovely voice acting). Horrible acting by Angela Basset and Robin Wright. Ultimately skipped parts with all humans.

Millie was amazing in this and carried her part believably well.

3/5

Kind of like Ram Gopal Varma's Kaun.no?

https://youtu.be/kO9uwkjOttg?si=a6zxCzWKk8UPQii8

RAM Trucks needed a new Ad Campaign. The original Twister movie was the best Dodge RAM ad ever.

Just saying.

Oh no, not like that at all! The premise may sound the same but 'Kaun' was a campy though fun thriller, very commercially structured, now that I think about it. This is something else, mainly by the premise of the guy being visited, sets up things very nicely. Try and see if you can.


Hahaha, you are right - that's why I said it felt like AI assisted execs wrote it. Everything is marketing and I have no problem watching a well made ad - some ads are pure genius. But this one was so bad that I didn't even register the Dodge RAM or its qualities in this one lol:

One Fast Move (2024)

Really liked the movie being a bike enthusiast, without giving away much of the plot it's about an estranged father-son duo who reunite years later after a life altering incident involving the son. The storyline revolves around their shared love for motosports and the underdog (the son) taking the competitors by quite the surprise.

overall it's worth watching but quite predictable. I would give it a 3.5/5

Deadpool vs Wolverine

OH MY GOD! Where do I even begin?
Just as I was losing hope in the MCU(Marvel Cinematic Universe), Kevin Feige pulls this trump card out from his sleeve.

Just as one would expect from an A rated Deadpool film, chock full of gory fight scenes, not-so-pg humor and Ryan Reynolds' humor, except this time complimented by Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine after a damn long time.

Watching the movie on the first day in IMAX3D with the recliners was another experience altogether.

Not to mention the numerous cameos that had the entire auditorium screaming, crying and cheering.

What truly set this apart from the traditional marvel films was that it didn't act as a trailer to the next movie and the end credit scene was related directly to the same film. Like my friend said, "bhai wheres the text that says Wolverine and Deadpool will return in 2026?"rl:

Overall, 4.5/5 movie. would definitely re-watch

Cheers
SB