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SMB Film Thread 2025

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natinnam said:
One Battle After Another - Decent enough watch, but all I thought about at the end of it was, what is everyone raving on about? Have I missed something, a hidden message, divine enlightenment? It's a 7/10 in my book, as I probably wouldn't rewatch it, one and done film.
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Had this on my watch list for over Xmas.
Your critique is similar to my thoughts having watched, and been totally underwhelmed by, Power of the Dog & Killers of the Flower Moon. I now have more limited expectations.
 
The Third Man (1949)

Joseph Cotten arrives in Vienna to find that his friend has been the victim of a traffic accident. He isn’t convinced by the official verdict, though.

Carol Reed directs this visual masterpiece with such flair that it’s rightly heralded as a stonewall classic. The Dutch angles, sharp use of lighting and shadows, and locations, create a moody, atmospheric film dripping with personality.

The story itself isn’t anything special, but some of the dialogue is sharp, and the acting is uniformly excellent. Cotten is solid, as are Trevor Howard and Bernard Lee. The problem is that Orson Welles absolutely owns the screen when he’s on it. He turns steady dialogue into something special, and acts with the entirety of his face and voice. You simply cannot take your eyes off him.

Loved it. There are several memorable scenes that really make this a genre standout.

9/10
 
Doogie Hauser said:
The Third Man (1949)

Joseph Cotten arrives in Vienna to find that his friend has been the victim of a traffic accident. He isn’t convinced by the official verdict, though.

Carol Reed directs this visual masterpiece with such flair that it’s rightly heralded as a stonewall classic. The Dutch angles, sharp use of lighting and shadows, and locations, create a moody, atmospheric film dripping with personality.

The story itself isn’t anything special, but some of the dialogue is sharp, and the acting is uniformly excellent. Cotten is solid, as are Trevor Howard and Bernard Lee. The problem is that Orson Welles absolutely owns the screen when he’s on it. He turns steady dialogue into something special, and acts with the entirety of his face and voice. You simply cannot take your eyes off him.

Loved it. There are several memorable scenes that really make this a genre standout.

9/10
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I've done the full works in Vienna: The Third Man tour (including the sewer), The Third Man Museum, and the saw film itself (probably for the 100th time) at a cinema that shows it every day.

Amazing thing is, all this goes on, and 99% of people in Vienna haven't a clue the film even exists. It flopped in Austria, and is only kept alive there thanks to a few Austrian anglophiles.

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Monty Pigeon said:
I've done the full works in Vienna: The Third Man tour (including the sewer), The Third Man Museum, and the saw film itself (probably for the 100th time) at a cinema that shows it every day.

Amazing thing is, all this goes on, and 99% of people in Vienna haven't a clue the film even exists. It flopped in Austria, and is only kept alive there thanks to a few Austrian anglophiles.

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The locations are stunning. I think that it’s a film that wouldn’t have the same impact in colour.
 
Doogie Hauser said:
The Third Man (1949)

Joseph Cotten arrives in Vienna to find that his friend has been the victim of a traffic accident. He isn’t convinced by the official verdict, though.

Carol Reed directs this visual masterpiece with such flair that it’s rightly heralded as a stonewall classic. The Dutch angles, sharp use of lighting and shadows, and locations, create a moody, atmospheric film dripping with personality.

The story itself isn’t anything special, but some of the dialogue is sharp, and the acting is uniformly excellent. Cotten is solid, as are Trevor Howard and Bernard Lee. The problem is that Orson Welles absolutely owns the screen when he’s on it. He turns steady dialogue into something special, and acts with the entirety of his face and voice. You simply cannot take your eyes off him.

Loved it. There are several memorable scenes that really make this a genre standout.

9/10
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A true 9/10 marra. Have you seen Orson Welles in A Touch Of Evil alongside Charlton Heston? Another 9/10 fillum.
 
riffraff said:
A true 9/10 marra. Have you seen Orson Welles in A Touch Of Evil alongside Charlton Heston? Another 9/10 fillum.
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That famous three-and-a-half-minute opening shot: starts with a bomb, ends with an explosion - no cuts in between.

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After Citizen Kane, everything he did was either butchered by the studios or cobbled together on a shoestring. There would have been a whole other history of cinema if people had just let him do his thing.

Doogie Hauser said:
The problem is that Orson Welles absolutely owns the screen when he’s on it. He turns steady dialogue into something special, and acts with the entirety of his face and voice. You simply cannot take your eyes off him.
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Peter Bogdanovich is great on the film in general and Orson Welles in particular. Welles called it 'the greatest star part ever written. They talk about you for an hour, then you appear.'

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Monty Pigeon said:
That famous three-and-a-half-minute opening shot: starts with a bomb, ends with an explosion - no cuts in between.

You must be logged on to see media items

After Citizen Kane, everything he did was either butchered by the studios or cobbled together on a shoestring. There would have been a whole other history of cinema if people had just let him do his thing.



Peter Bogdanovich is great on the film in general and Orson Welles in particular. Welles called it 'the greatest star part ever written. They talk about you for an hour, then you appear.'

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I’ve got The Magnificent Ambersons to watch, but part of me doesn’t actually want to watch it, because it’s not his intended film.
 
Monty Pigeon said:
It's still a wonderful film.

Not sure how I feel about this, though.

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I don’t think I could get past the fact that it’s not the genuine footage.

I find the whole ‘lost film’ thing slightly tantalising and majorly annoying. Just the vague possibility of the footage being in Brazil is intriguing. Yet it’s probably lost, so the lack of closure feels cruel. It’s the same with stuff like London After Midnight and Hats Off.
 
Doogie Hauser said:
I don’t think I could get past the fact that it’s not the genuine footage.

I find the whole ‘lost film’ thing slightly tantalising and majorly annoying. Just the vague possibility of the footage being in Brazil is intriguing. Yet it’s probably lost, so the lack of closure feels cruel. It’s the same with stuff like London After Midnight and Hats Off.
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Metropolis may be the last great restoration. The first DVD version had intertitles explaining the missing scenes. Then they found a near-complete version in Argentina in 2008, and now we can see it almost as intended.
 
Halfway through the Springsteen film, finally streaming which is great for us with young kids who can only get to the cinema on work trips!
Absolutely class so far.
 
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno (2009) 7/10
Inspired by the conversation with @Doogie Hauser about lost films, I finally got around to watching this documentary about a ground-breaking film started by Clouzot in 1964, but abandoned after three months. It promised to be quite something, but the production was beset with huge problems and then Clouzot had a non-fatal heart attack. The documentary was conceived when the director got stuck in a lift with Clouzot's widow, and she revealed the existence of dozens of cans of film from the project.
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Solaris (1972) 9/10
Still an incredible film, but I enjoyed it less in HD. The shortcomings of some of the sets detract from Tarkovsky's vision. The outdoor scenes, however, are stunning.
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Offside (2006) 9/10
Earlier film by Jafar Panahi, who made my favourite film of this year, It Was Just An Accident. This one was filmed in during an Iranian World Cup qualifier, and features the attempts of female football fans to get into the ground, even though it was against the law for women to attend. A truly great football film.
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Monty Pigeon said:
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno (2009) 7/10
Inspired by the conversation with @Doogie Hauser about lost films, I finally got around to watching this documentary about a ground-breaking film started by Clouzot in 1964, but abandoned after three months. It promised to be quite something, but the production was beset with huge problems and then Clouzot had a non-fatal heart attack. The documentary was conceived when the director got stuck in a lift with Clouzot's widow, and she revealed the existence of dozens of cans of film from the project.
You must be logged on to see media items

Solaris (1972) 9/10
Still an incredible film, but I enjoyed it less in HD. The shortcomings of some of the sets detract from Tarkovsky's vision. The outdoor scenes, however, are stunning.
You must be logged on to see media items

Offside (2006) 9/10
Earlier film by Jafar Panahi, who made my favourite film of this year, It Was Just An Accident. This one was filmed in during an Iranian World Cup qualifier, and features the attempts of female football fans to get into the ground, even though it was against the law for women to attend. A truly great football film.
You must be logged on to see media items
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Offside is a lovely film.
Clouzets the feller who did the original of Sorcerer: Wages Of Fear iirc. Anything he does has to be worth investigating.
I’ve still no got round to watching the Solaris original. First NY resolution reet there.
 
The Sleeping Tiger (1954)

Dirk Bogarde tries to rob psychologist Alexander Knox. Knox offers him a choice: live in his house for six months while he tries to rehabilitate him; or the police will be called. What Knox doesn’t account for is his wife (Alexis Smith) started to become obsessed with Bogarde.

The set-up is utter drivel and doesn’t really make sense whatsoever. Instead the focus is on a psychologist neglecting his own situation and a person close to him losing control completely. Director Joseph Losey tries hard to inject some class into such a daft premise, and Bogarde is great. It’s strangely watchable despite the implausibility of it all.

6/10
 
Avatar 3 (Fire and Ash) 7/10
I thought it was good and so did my youngest. We went to the cinema over Boldon to see it in 3D on their 'super screen', which was excellent and a big upgrade from the normal screens. Better seats, picture and the sound and there was about 6 people in at the time so no knobheads munching, talking out loud or getting up to go to the bog every 2 minutes The film itself was good, 3 hrs long but at no point were we bored, slow start but the rest went quickly with lots of fight scenes that looked like the finale only for something else to happen. My oldest thought it was absolutely shite and couldn't wait to get out. I liked the other avatar films so I might be biased and I can see as many people giving it low scores as others have given high scores. Would I watch it again? No🤣, no need
Christmas Karma 2/10
Utter gash, anar it's Christmas but this was really ,really bad. It's another version of Scrooge but the acting is cringey, awkward singing and some painful scenes, some ill youngin giving a shout-out to the NHS and another where some stereo typical skinheads,one with an England flag on his t shirt beat up an Indian man and then say 1-0 to England. Why? Danny dyer makes a cameo as a taxi driver. Utter shite, even the bairn went to bed early. Thanks, what a waste of a couple of hours on Christmas Eve 🤣
 
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