What was the best film you watched this week? (28/05/2018 - 03/06/2018)

We are lucky (?) enough to be alive during a time where two new Star Wars movies have come out within six months of each other. It goes without saying that not everyone has watched Solo yet but not everyone has watched The Last Jedi either. Please do not be that person who spoils either movie for someone else.

The way this works is that you post a review of the best film you watched this week. It doesn't have to be a new release, just any film you have seen over the last seven days that you feel is worth talking about. Here are some rules.

1. Check to see if your favourite film of last week has been posted already.

2. Please post your *favourite* film of last week.

3. NO TV SHOWS!

4. ALWAYS use spoiler tags. Report any comments that spoil recent / little-known films (e.g. A Quiet Place, Avengers: Infinity War) without using the spoiler tag.

5. Comments that only contain the title of the film will be removed!

Here are some great comments from last week's thread:

• I revisited Brian De Palma's The Untouchables. It really held up. I think it's one of the greatest gangster films ever! Brian De Palma might have directed his masterpiece with The Untouchables. Crime films reached their peak with movies like The Godfather, Gangs of New York, Heat, and The Untouchables. L.A. Confidential (1997) certainly was influenced by The Untouchables. The deep dive into the mindset of good law enforcement is commented on in this movie. It's style is reminiscent of the aforementioned movies, while creating an atmosphere all its own. The Untouchables goes full noir style police work. You get to watch what Eliot Ness had to do to catch notorious mobster Al Capone. Visually, The Untouchables contains some of the most memorable and skillful cinematography ever captured on film. The opening alleyway raid is so tense right off the start. The scene in Sean Connery's apartment is so suspense and nerve racking as we get long pans up and down his hallway. The finale at the train station's stair is as violent and exciting as any shootout. The camera is always showing emotional close ups or characters in the foreground speaking while we get the reaction of someone in the background. Endless clever and creative camera work is on full display throughout The Untouchables.

• Stations of the Cross - What a bizarre damn movie. It's a German movie directed by Dietrich Brüggemann that's a quasi retelling of the final days of Jesus as told through the trials of a young girl named Maria (which is already setting up the loaded biblical narrative). Anyway the movie continues through a series of static shots in which all the action takes place in one certain setting (a random section of a park pathway, the school library, a dinner table) and each section is punctuated by a short chapter heading describing what section of the biblical narrative we're in. I don't know what to make of it quite honestly. It's a really difficult movie to parse through because even though the narrative is relatively simple, thematically it elves into the power of religious Catholic ideology and how it can poison the mind of a young girl to the point of suicide, where she sacrifices herself because she believes God has spoken to her and has told her that he will save her baby brother in exchange for her life. However, this point is not even conceded by her own mother who essentially eggs the entire thing on in a incredible display of pure ideology. She's a terrifying figure in this movie. It's like a modern version of a horror antagonist like Kathy Bates' Anne Wilkes or Nurse Ratched. It's all the more terrifying because it's not showy. The mother is performed by Franziska Weisz with such an understated ferocity and unyielding religious dogmatism. It's a really wonderful performance that plays with the ground between fiction and reality. It's not a simple movie, you may be slightly bored by the way it is shot since the entire thing plays out more like a moving painting rather than a play. When the camera does finally move it's more than a shock cause you realize there's someone alive operating the camera, but it will give you and your friends some real good conversation material.

• Nil By Mouth - written and directed by Gary Oldman (his only one so far), this very gritty film centers on an extended South London family coming apart at the seams. The fantastic Ray Winstone is Raymond, who provides for his family by running an illegal liquor supply business with his childhood mate, Mark (Jamie Foreman, who was the out of control drug boss Duke in Layer Cake). Raymond's sad sack wife, Valerie (Kathy Burke, who was wonderful as Connie Sacks in Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy) puts up with his drinking, drug use and being out all night carousing at strip clubs because she unfortunately loves the big lug and possibly fears no one else would want her. The spark that blows the family finally apart is Val's brother Billy (Charlie Creed-Miles, seen at the beginning of The Fifth Element, which was directed by this film's co-producer, Luc Besson) who has a £60 ($100) a day heroin habit that is driving him to steal from everyone, including Raymond. Helping him pay for this is his clear-eyed but still loving mum, Janet. She is played by Laila Morse, who made her film debut in Nil By Mouth and who happens to be Oldman's sister in real life. There's some real acting talent in that blood because Janet is the grounding force of the film, knowing her children's faults while still loving them unconditionally. This is not a film that is easy to love itself and the drug scenes are realistic enough they could cause relapses. There is not a false note in the movie, especially in the way the characters interact. It feels like Oldman pulled back a tattered curtain on this teetering on the edge of dysfunction family to show something honest and real. FYI - the characters speak in a very thick South London (Cockney?) accent and I had to resort to using the subtitles to follow it. Said subtitles aren't always great as I noticed many words were dropped, usually expletives. Speaking of which, this is R-Rated for a good reason and heaven help you if the word "cunt" offends you. It is probably uttered a good 500 times by both genders.

For further expansion of the rules, please read this link.

Have fun and play nice!

Submitted June 03, 2018 at 10:33PM by GetFreeCash https://ift.tt/2J8WYsM