What Films Did You Watch Last Week? (30/07-05/08) closed

Welcome back to another week of the BEST & WORST edition of 'what movies did you see last week?' thread. For those who haven't been part of it before, basically your hosts (us) posts our weekly movies and you can comment on those and list your movie for the same time frame. We will get back to you on yours and you can talk to other users here about their films. It's a great place to talk about film.

FIRST TIME MOVIE VIEWING

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018, Christopher McQuarrie)
Cinema
Well what can I say.. Tom Cruise delivers. He does so many great stunts himself whether it be parachuting, bike riding, car driving, Helicopter piloting... the man goes the extra mile to entertain. This film retreaded a few plot-lines from previous films but it didn't matter as it was entertaining throughout and the best of the series by far I would say.
7.5-8/10

Goon: Last of the Enforcers (2017,  Jay Baruchel)
tv
I enjoyed the first Goon even though it was a strangle blend of tones that did not always work. It was a pretty good homage to the classic 77 film Slap Shot. This sequel is less of a character study and more straight forward but is almost on par with the original. The worst part of the first film was Jay Baruchel's character and the same can be said here bu thankfully it is a smaller role as he was busy with directing duties this time.
5.5/10

Cadillac Man (1990, Roger Donaldson)
tv
This is an odd bird film with a good cast. It is a bit of a mess but watchable enough
4.5/10

REPEAT MOVIE VIEWING

Husbands & Wives (1992, Woody Allen)
blu ray
This is a well written and sometimes difficult to watch film about marriages. Top flight performances with a different style of camera work for Allen that is more roaming single camera than classically framed.
7.5/10

All About Eve (1950, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
blu ray
Superb drama where we see an ingenue (Anne Baxter) who insinuates herself into the company of an established but ageing stage actress (Better Davis) and her circle of theatre friends.
Wonderfully written, cast  and performed.
7.5/10

Hugo (2011, Martin Scorsese)
blu ray
A wondrous blend of fact and fiction as well as an ode to one of the early French cinematic masters. Tremendously well crafted film but does have a couple of slower patches. This time around Sasha Baron Cohen did not bother me as much as last time but the score remains the same.
7/10

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001, Steven Spielberg)
blu ray
Stanley Kubrick long had this film in gestation and after his death Spielberg put the film into production. The film drew plenty of criticism for what was perceived as an uneven mesh of the two iconic directors sensibilities. However according to Spielberg himself many of the parts which people assume he did such as the more uplifting ending were actually all set out by Kubrick in advance. He also mentioned that the first 45 minutes was all Kubrick as well and that is actually my favourite part of the film by a large margin. After that the visuals start to feel very much like a plastic version of Blade runner and many scenes are played to over the top. I personally think the film should have finished underwater on more of a down note. Revisionists try and argue that the more uplifting secondary ending that followed it is also a down note but I don't see it.. I think they are reaching. Despite the effects not holding up too well at times and the Williams score being more emotionally cheesy than I remembered, I think I enjoyed this more on this second viewing and the score went up a couple of points.
5.5-6/10

Firestarter (1984, Mark L. Lester)
It had been a while since I had seen this Steven King adaptation and I enjoyed the first half more than I had remembered. The film however drags  a little long and becomes repetitive in the second half.
5/10

Nick of Time (1995, John Badham)
tv
This little thriller set in real time sees an every-day man (Johnny Depp) who is forced into a situation where he is told to kill a politician to save his kidnapped daughter.
I did not like this as much this time.. the plot is too ridiculous and the direction a but messy. Depp and Walken are both good but the kid is annoying as all hell.
4/10

WEEKLY AWARDS

BEST FILM: Mission: Impossible - Fallout
BEST ACTOR: Haley Joel Osment - A.I.
BEST ACTRESS: Bette Davis - All About Eve
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: George Sanders - All About Eve
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Juliette Lewis - Husbands & Wives
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Robert Richardson - Hugo
BEST SCORE: Howard Shore - Hugo
BEST SCRIPT: Woody Allen - Husbands & Wives
BEST DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese - Hugo


10/10 - Perfection (or as close to it as possible)
09/10 - An Excellent film
08/10 - A VERY Good film
07/10 - A Good film
06/10 - A Solid film
05/10 - An Average film
04/10 - Below Average film
03/10 - A mostly bad film
02/10 - A mostly terrible film
01/10 - Awful through and through
00/10 - Not only awful but offensive too