theunderstudy Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 Devil is definitely more interesting in parts than other Shyamalan films (albeit not strictly his film) but I wouldn't describe it as anything above "fine". It's not as laughably bad as Lady in the Water or The Happening. Not sure if I put in here before (didn't notice it on a quick skim) but I think Top Secret! is very underrated Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 4 hours ago, VILLAMARV said: Tried to think of stuff that imdb has rated under 6.5 as my barometer of underrated... Gigantic (2008) - Matt Aselton - Lovely film with a great cast that imo just deserves loads more credit. The Objective (2008) - Daniel Myrick - Surprisingly watchable fairly low budget army thriller that seems to have been a bit marmite-y when it comes to audiences. The Box (2009) - Richard Kelly - OK if anything here will raise designer's eyebrow in a curious spock manner I reckon it will be this one. Ambitious perhaps. MrsVM says it's drivel. Undoubtably better than it's 5.6 imdb rating to me. Nice bit of old school storytelling that goes a bit bonkers. Devil (2010) - John Erick Dowdle - I think this just suffered from Shyamalan becoming a victim of his own success myself. Neat little suspense horror thriller (like 80mins little) that is well paced with the odd low budget line perhaps but I'm not sure what there's not to like about this one. Antiviral (2012) - Brandon Cronenberg - Slow paced, moody dystopian concept film that portrays grimness really grimly. Promising directorial debut though I thought. I agree with the John Carter shout. Chronicles of Riddick springs to mind in a similar sort of cgi space fantasy vein. The box I was hugely dissapointed in. Great premise for a film and saw the twilight zone episode. But that film was bad. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 13 minutes ago, PaulC said: The box I was hugely dissapointed in. Great premise for a film and saw the twilight zone episode. But that film was bad. I haven't watched the box but I watched Cube the other day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fightoffyour Posted March 16, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted March 16, 2023 On 23/03/2022 at 09:26, fightoffyour said: The World’s Fastest Indian Still this, if anyone hasn't seen it. Anthony Hopkins plays a New Zealander who rides an Indian motorbike and wants to break a landspeed record, travelling to the Utah salt takes to try and do so. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KentVillan Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 Waking Ned. Streaming for free on Prime. Did get good reviews at the time, but barely anyone has heard of it afaik, and it didn’t do much at the box office. Irish film, gentle farce comedy with lots of great actors… highly recommend. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 Devil in a Blue Dress with Denzel W. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Designer1 Posted March 16, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted March 16, 2023 51 minutes ago, maqroll said: Devil in a Blue Dress with Denzel W. Don Cheadle was superb in that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuwabatake Sanjuro Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 Underappreciated low budget film from Steve Buscemi back in 96, phenomenal casting. Not an overly ambitious story but a great representation of barfly characters. Pity Buscemi hasn't directed more as I've liked anything he ever touched, especially Pine Barrens (this has a similar sort of pace and desperate humour). 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hogso Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 Lawn Dogs Heavenly Creatures Happiness I don't really know if these three movies are underrated, but they are movies I don't often hear people talking about, yet I really fondly remember numerous scenes from each, and would gladly watch any of them at any time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 Box of Moonlight with John Turturro and Sam Rockwell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theboyangel Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 51 minutes ago, maqroll said: Box of Moonlight with John Turturro and Sam Rockwell. Speaking of Sam Rockwell, Welcome To Collinwood was brilliant yet never got the acclaim it perhaps deserves. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted March 16, 2023 Author VT Supporter Share Posted March 16, 2023 The Craft. 90s-tastic teen witches fun. Blade. Effortlessly cool, extremely silly, rubbish CGI, but sooooo much fun. Snatch. Legitimately one of the best films since 2000. Extremely funny, brilliant characters, fun twisting multiple narrative. 300. Once you realise that the entire thing is done from the perspective of someone telling the story and exaggerating everything, and it's basically a completely faithful adaptation of Frank Miller's comic, it's excellent. And speaking of Snyder... Watchmen. It's about as good an adaptation of Watchmen you could do in a film. It's shot beautifully and has some incredible sequences. The opening titles set against 'the Times They Are A-Changing' showing the alternative history the film is set in, the various 'reminiscing' sequences at the funeral, Rorschach's capture, Rorschach's psych exam and memory of the night he lost it, and best of all Dr. Manhattan's origin are all brilliant bits of filmmaking. Zodiac. It's just incredible. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VILLAMARV Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 20 hours ago, PaulC said: that film was bad. FWIW, MrsVM agrees with you in the most emphatic way possible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarethRDR Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 I can't remember the reception it got at the time, but I don't think I've ever had a conversation with anyone about Pandorum since I saw it at the cinema; I absolutely loved it and would happily recommend it to anyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolta Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 16 hours ago, Chindie said: The Craft. 90s-tastic teen witches fun. Blade. Effortlessly cool, extremely silly, rubbish CGI, but sooooo much fun. Snatch. Legitimately one of the best films since 2000. Extremely funny, brilliant characters, fun twisting multiple narrative. 300. Once you realise that the entire thing is done from the perspective of someone telling the story and exaggerating everything, and it's basically a completely faithful adaptation of Frank Miller's comic, it's excellent. And speaking of Snyder... Watchmen. It's about as good an adaptation of Watchmen you could do in a film. It's shot beautifully and has some incredible sequences. The opening titles set against 'the Times They Are A-Changing' showing the alternative history the film is set in, the various 'reminiscing' sequences at the funeral, Rorschach's capture, Rorschach's psych exam and memory of the night he lost it, and best of all Dr. Manhattan's origin are all brilliant bits of filmmaking. Zodiac. It's just incredible. Watchmen was awful. All pointless style and horrible tone, with a really in your face overuse of songs. I think Snyder is an abomination of a director tbh. Anyone other than him would have done a better adaptation. It might have looked consistent to the graphic novel, but that's just one facet. Everything else imo was terrible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarethRDR Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 With @Chindie on Watchmen (and 300), thought it was terrific. Though @Rolta's musings on the rest of Snyder's output aren't far wide of the mark, to be fair. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarethRDR Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 Also gotta give the Watchmen flick kudos for tweaking the ending and actually bettering the source material's giant-enemy-interdimensional-squid nonsense. For my money, at least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted March 17, 2023 Author VT Supporter Share Posted March 17, 2023 1 hour ago, Rolta said: Watchmen was awful. All pointless style and horrible tone, with a really in your face overuse of songs. I think Snyder is an abomination of a director tbh. Anyone other than him would have done a better adaptation. It might have looked consistent to the graphic novel, but that's just one facet. Everything else imo was terrible. Snyder isn't a good director by any means. He's someone who, given the right material and very specific remit, will bang out good solid movies with very moody dramatic cinematography. Give him good source material and he'll give you solid movies. Give him rough stuff and you'll get trash. Dawn of the Dead, solid zombie movie remake, nothing more. 300, good adaptation of an overblown comic fable. Watchmen...see below. That owl movie - apparently decent. Sucker Punch, trash. Man of Steel - solid Superman film with good cinematography, bit on the nose and indulgent. BvS - rough because the concept and scripts a mess. Justice League -another poor script but his cut is legitimately decent, if with the dumb 4:3 affectation. Army of the Dead - it's Aliens, but stupider. With Watchmen, I don't think Snyder 'understands' the layers to the story by any means. He just thinks it's a cool story and everyone rates it. But he makes a movie with a script that doesn't massively deviate from the source (bar the specifics of the ending, for which your mileage will vary) and he sets up his shots so slavishly close to the comic panels (helped by Dave Gibbons style being very much like a storyboard anyway) that it mostly captures the layers to the thing anyway. Even where he has to make original choices, like with the music, either by accident or design he chooses songs that are absolutely the cliché choice (an opening montage showing us an alternative American history? 'The Times They Are a-Changing'. Sex scene after an 'awakening'? 'Hallelujah' by Leonard Cohen. Vietnam War assault? 'Ride of the Valkyries') but they work for the context of the Watchmen - in many ways Watchmen is a satire of superheroes, it's meant to be a little bit on the nose, a little bit corny, a little bit 'knowing'. I genuinely think it's a really good bit of work. It gets looked down on because of the director and it being, rightly, a bizarre and over the top story that's consciously over serious in some respects, but it's genuinely good. I can't deny that that is entirely down to the fact the original source is superlative, but it's made perfectly well. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted March 17, 2023 Author VT Supporter Share Posted March 17, 2023 2 hours ago, GarethRDR said: Also gotta give the Watchmen flick kudos for tweaking the ending and actually bettering the source material's giant-enemy-interdimensional-squid nonsense. For my money, at least. I see arguments for both. The film is cleaner, narratively. It ties the whole thing together more simply without fundamentally changing much to some of the point. The comic ending wouldn't work in the film. It comes completely from left field and it's (intentionally) stupid, whilst still making the the deeper points of the story and the themes, but it needs the format of the comic, that ability for someone to stew on it, to go back and look again at it. In the film you'd just be like 'what the ****' and be taken out of things entirely. The only reason the TV show works with it is because it's able to investigate it from the perspective of the aftermath and with understanding of what's going on. But you do lose some of the depth to the story by changing it. The squid is this completely unknown enemy that immediately threatens humanity to the extent nations immediately unite in an 'Earth v whatever the **** this thing is that just **** all of us' moment. With the films ending you still the common enemy of Earth thing, but you know that that enemy was human, he was American... It's not quite the same. Also you lose the satire/parody element to it - of course the superhero comic ends with a huge ridiculous monster attack. But also the ridiculous monster is a distraction (literally and most importantly, figuratively). Alan Moore is saying to you 'here's the enemy. Look. It's big scary and stupid. But maybe the enemy is actually the boring clever people that you think are your friends'. And so on. It wouldn't work in film. And you get most of the effect with the choices they made. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacketspuds Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 Fisty McGee 3 - The Fistening. A classic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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