Film Club
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63 topics in this forum
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Gladiator [RSC Film Club 11]
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 8 replies
- 2.3k views
This month we are celebrating the work of Sir Ridley Scott, as suggested by @djw180 and @Spinnaker1981, with the winning film being another DJ nomination, Gladiator. Released in the year 2000 it stars Russel Crowe in an Oscar winning performance, with support from Joaquin Phoenix, Derek Jacobi, Richard Harris and the legendary Oliver Reed in his final role. Gladiator was a huge success on release, winning the Oscar for best picture, and a nomination for best director for Ridley Scott, one of three in his career (Thelma and Louise and Black Hawk Down being the other two). It is the last great Hollywood swords and sandals epic, telling a classic tale of betray…
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The Duellists [Film Club Extra 04]
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 3 replies
- 2.1k views
We're getting a double dose of Ridley Scott action this month as, well, we've all seen Gladiator and there was a cry for a second, lesser known, slice of his filmography. That comes in the form of his debut feature film, 1977's The Duellists, nominated by myself, and seconded by @Sinister. Set in Napoleonic France, this film is based on a Joseph Conrad story, who is the author of Heart of Darkness, the inspiration for Apocalypse Now, among many other amazing books. It is the tale of two men obsessively fighting over their honour over the course of decades. It is an absolutely gorgeous looking film, with Scott taking inspiration from Stanley Kubrick's Barry …
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The Killing of a Sacred Deer [Film Club Extra 03] 1 2
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 37 replies
- 6.4k views
I'm gonna be selfish here, and throw this film in as an extra for Halloween simply because I can't stop thinking about it since I saw it a few weeks ago and would really like to hear your guys' opinion on it. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a psychological horror/thriller from Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Favourite), a Greek filmmaker who has fast become one of my favourites. The film stars Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman as Steven and Anna Murphy, a seemingly perfect couple. They are both medical professionals, they have two bright young children, and live in a luxurious home with all the trappings that entails. But Steven has a strange relationship wi…
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Dune [RSC Film Club 08]
by LimeGreenLegend- 2 followers
- 18 replies
- 2.2k views
This month's Film Club genre is sci-fi war films, nominated by @Squirrel, and that comes in the form of warring families of nobles battling for control of a desolate desert planet, and its valuable resources, in David Lynch's Dune, picked by @djw180. A critical and commercial failure on release, with Roger Ebert naming it the worst film of 1984, Dune has gone on to garner a cult following since then, with more recent reviews being generally more positive. Featuring an ensemble cast, including Sting, Patrick Stewart and Max von Sydow, and directed by master of the surreal, David Lynch (Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Mullholland Drive) you know that the film will …
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Mad Max: Fury Road [RSC Film Club 05]
by LimeGreenLegend- 8 replies
- 2.7k views
This month the film club is hitting the road, with the theme being road movies. The winner, nominated by @Squirrel, is Mad Max: Fury Road. This is a sequel/reboot of the legendary Australian film series, the fourth entry, and the first in thirty years. It was written and directed by the creator of the original films, George Miller (Happy Feet, Happy Feet 2, Babe: Pig in the City) and stars Tom Hardy (Bronson, The Dark Knight Rises) as Max, replacing Mel Gibson in the role, and Charlize Theron (Monster, Prometheus) as Imperator Furiosa. The plot sees Max helping Furiosa in her attempt to free the enslaved wives of tyrannical ruler of the wastes, Immortan Joe, which…
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The NeverEnding Story [RSC Film Club 07]
by LimeGreenLegend- 2 followers
- 17 replies
- 4.1k views
This month we are stretching our imaginations to the limits as we explore the worlds of fantasy. The winning film is The NeverEnding Story, nominated by @Spinnaker1981, directed by Wolfgang Peterson (Air Force One, The Perfect Storm) in 1984. A film about the power of the imagination, the importance of self-indentity and the awesomeness of books, The NeverEnding Story can rightly sit up there with Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal in the pantheon of awesome 80s puppet fantasy movies. I haven't seen this since I was very young, and I can't remember much about it, but I do remember being traumatised by what happens to Artax the horse, and having the theme song…
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They Live [RSC Film Club 06]
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 10 replies
- 2.8k views
This month's film club is all about b-movies, and when you look towards the upper end of that genre you start seeing the name John Carpenter quite a lot. Director of classic genre films like Halloween, The Thing, Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from New York and The Fog, the film of his we'll be watching this month is the anti-consumerism manifesto that is 1988's They Live, nominated by @Pb76. In my opinion the best film ever made that stars a wrestler (sorry Dwane), They Live is based on a short story, Eight O'Clock in the Morning, by Ray Nelson, from 1963, and stars "Rowdy" Roddy Piper as John Nada, a drifter who survives by working day labour in downtown LA. …
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Rush [Film Club Extra 02]
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 9 replies
- 1.7k views
Our second Film Club Extra choice is the film Rush, suggested by @Beez, @djw180 and @Fido_le_muet to commemorate the life of legendary Formula 1 driver, Niki Lauda, who recently passed away. Directed by Ron Howard (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind), the film tells the story of the heated rivalry between Lauda, played by Daniel Bruhl (Inglourious Basterds, Captain America: Civil War) and James Hunt, Chris Hemsworth (Thor) in the early to mid 70s. This film was critically acclaimed for it's race sequences, which are shot to show the pure power and danger of the sport, especially in those days. The performances by Bruhl and Hemsworth were also well reviewed, both re…
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The Crimson Rivers [RSC Film Club 04]
by LimeGreenLegend- 2 followers
- 15 replies
- 2.8k views
On the 22nd of March 1895, at the "Society for the Development of the National Industry" in Paris, 200 people witnessed the very first projected motion pictures in history. This makes France the most important country in film history. Thanks to pioneers like The Lumiere Brothers, Georges Melies, and The Pathe Brothers we are able to see things on the big screen that we could never possibly dream of. France didn't just invent cinema, they also gave us cinemas, and, with the publication of Cahiers du Cinema in 1951, gave us the birth of modern film theory and criticism. The writers at this magazine knew their stuff. Two of them went on to lead the French new wave…
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Chicago [RSC Film Club 02] 1 2
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 42 replies
- 3.6k views
This month we're all singing and all dancing as we'll be watching Chicago, nominated by @Spinnaker1981 and @Danielle. The theme for March was musicals, and you'd be hard pressed to find a musical with a better pedigree than Chicago. Directed by Rob Marshall and based on the 1975 Broadway production, (which itself was based on a silent film from 1927, which was based on a 1926 play written by a journalist and based on real events) which was choreographed and directed by the legendary Bob Fosse, who basically invented jazz hands and was the man responsible for other classic musicals like Cabaret and the semi-autobiographical All That Jazz. Chicago became the fir…
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Gravity [Film Club Extra]
by LimeGreenLegend- 1 follower
- 17 replies
- 1.9k views
For those of you who wanted a second monthly slice of film club pie, here it is. @Con whittled down the nominations from this month to those he hasn't seen/finds most interesting and randomly selected a companion film to our main Film Club film, Aliens. That first selection is Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity. Starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, this is a story about isolation. Cuaron started off wanting to make a film about adversity and survival in hostile locations, and decided that space is the ultimate hostile location. The most startling thing about this film, for me, are the long tracking shots, unbroken sometimes for minutes, that really take …
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Aliens [RSC Film Club 03] 1 2
by LimeGreenLegend- 2 followers
- 44 replies
- 3.5k views
This month's genre is (after much debate) sci-fi thrillers set in space or on a different planet. I know. The winning film is Aliens, nominated by @Spinnaker1981, James Cameron's sequel to Ridley Scott's classic horror film, Alien, and considered to be one of the greatest sequels of all time alongside The Godfather Part II and T2: Judgement Day. Released in 1986, the film sees protagonist Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) returning to LV-426 with a group of space marines after contact is lost with the newly formed colony there. Cameron adopted the bigger is better philosophy for this film, giving us more aliens, more action and more gore than the first film, bu…
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The French Connection [RSC Film Club 01] 1 2 3
by LimeGreenLegend- 4 followers
- 59 replies
- 5.7k views
The first film for the RSC Film Club has been chosen, with The French Connection, picked by @Beez winning out over all of the other Best Picture winners. The theme for this month was Best Picture winners, with The French Connection winning in 1971, beating films like Fiddler on the Roof and A Clockwork Orange. It also picked up Oscars for best director (William Friedkin, who would later direct The Exorcist), best actor (Gene Hackman playing Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle), best adapted screenplay (Ernest Tidyman based on the book by Robin Moore), and best film editing. It received nominations for best supporting actor (Roy Scheider playing Buddy "Cloudy" Russo), best ci…
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249Rate the Last Film you Watched 2: Electric Boogaloo
Operation Mincemeat (2021) dir John Madden A WWII film focussing the efforts of British intelligence to trick Germany into thinking an upcoming major operation was going to happen somewhere else, so that they diverted defending forces away from the actual location. The basics are a true story. The characters are mainly the real people who were involved. It has a great ensemble cast. The main characters are two officers working for MI5, one from the navy and one from the air force, played by Colin Firth and Matthew McFadden, with Kelly MacDonald and Penelope Wilton playing their civilian assistants. It also features Johnny Flynn as the young Lt. Ian Fleming who narrates some scenes in a style that could well have been passages from his James Bond novels. You could, at a big stretch, almost class this as Bond film since it features characters referred to as M (head of MI5, Jason Issacs) and Q-branch (the gadget inventor, James Fleet). Simon Russel Beale also puts in a great performance as Winston Churchill. I have heard of Operation Mincemeat, knew the basics of it, that Ian Fleming was involved and what the outcome was. I don't think it's a spoiler to say the plan worked, as various characters in the film say that if it doesn't the allies won't win the war. The plan was to take the body of recently deceased man, a Welshman living rough in London called Glyndwr Michael, dress him in an officer's uniform, attach a brief case containing fake, but apparently top-secret documents, and then release it from a submarine such that it would wash up on a Spanish beach. Spain was neutral in WWII but under the regime of the Fascist, pro-n*zi, General Franco. So British intelligence knew that the contents of the brief case should find their way into the hands of German agents, before being returned to Britain, and thus the fake information would find it's way to Berlin. The operation they were planning for was the allied invasion of Italy, then Germany's ally. The fake information was one part of bigger plan to convince the Germans it was occupied Greece that was going to be invaded. The subsequent invasion of Italy is one of the lesser known parts of the war. Much is made, quite rightly, of the D-day landings, but that was not the first invasion of German controlled Europe, it was this invasion of Italy, nearly a year earlier. So it's nice to see a film about this aspect of the war, because there aren't very many of them. The film shows the meticulous level of detail the agents went to, creating a whole fake identity, Major William Martin, along with personal letters, a photo of a fiancé, etc. The plot does come across somewhat unbelievable at times and includes a completely unnecessary romantic sub-plot. Even if some of that is what actually happened, the way the films portrays this comes across as if the producers wanted to “s*x it up” and add these elements in because they thought the story of the planning and execution of the operation was not interesting enough. I was all set to give this a lower score than I did, but the last 30 mins or so redeemed it a little. What I found really interesting was, after the the plan had been put into action, the role British diplomats in Spain then had to play to make sure that the brief case of fake documents did indeed end up in German hands. Because after all the detailed and careful planning, it could have easily been undone by a Spanish official simply handing the brief case straight back to Britain, as was technically the correct thing for a neutral country to do, but not what they were supposed to do according to the pro-German Fascist regime in charge. There's almost none of the action you usually get in war films, until right at the end when we see an American infantry sergeant, a minor character introduced earlier, on board a landing craft, storming a Sicilian beach which was taken and held with relatively light causalities. All due to the success of Operation Mincemeat diverting German forces hundreds of miles away. 6 / 10- 2
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