Watched a few foreign (for me) Netflix movies.
Mirage (english dub/subtitles)
Compelling enough for its premise, also turns into a surprise murderer mystery mind fuck.
It’s a bit of a slow burn at the start, but by the halfway point, you will be on the edge of your seat.
Excellent for fans of Frequency.
Ares (english subtitles, no english dub)
Most other poker movies suck because they’re trying instead to be sports movies, and no sports movie about poker has ever been good. Ever.
I’m saying that because Ares is set in a dystopian future, when libertarians successfully privatized everything, including the human body. We open on New France, as epic and visually stunning as Blade Runner’s opening shots of a dystopian Los Angeles.
But this is not some hard sci-fi movie, so don’t boot this up if you want 2001 or even Hunger Games.
This is a boxing movie. And if you like boxing movies, this is fun. It has the window dressing of Blade Runner and the insistent need for violence of Raging Bull.
And as for the high-concept sci-fi window dressing, it is perfectly paired with a boxing movie. The hero needs to win these matches in order to help his sick younger sister. There’s your heroic motivation. The problem? He’s good, but he’s not THAT good. He needs an edge.
He finds it in a new drug that has killed everyone else–and yet he survives. A dose just before a boxing match can supercharges him, except he’s told it will overload his system and knock him unconscious within five minutes. Even Mohammed Ali still had to catch the guy to knock him out. What if he only had moments before he’d go from unstoppable to unconscious?
Don’t forget that in this privatized world, all humans can serve as lab rats. Our hero is not the only boxer on future-bound drugs. He will face unexpected challenges.
The movie is brutal and gritty. Not as well executed as something like Blade Runner or even The Raid, but it’s stunning in its visuals, production, and craft. And the ideas presented are interesting enough on their own.
There is no english language option, so brush up on your French or be prepared to read the subtitles.
Bonus: co-stars Ola Rapace, former husband of international star Noomi Rapace
Xmas Crossfire (english dub/subtitles)
If you loved Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang for more than Robert Downey Jr, this movie is for you. Relentless hijinks that never feel campy or too far from reality to stop feeling equal parts dangerous and funny. Watch the trailer. This is not a movie that relies on spoilers. It is a delight just to watch.
Perfect also for fans of early Guy Ritchie, eg Lock Stock & Snitch
Back to a couple of english-language movies:
Always a Bridesmaid
Netflix did me a solid and recommended I follow that up with this 2019 release. It’s what I kept hoping for from the Lawrence pictures. I wanted A Thin Line Between Love and Hate…from the POV of Regina King’s character.
I wanted a movie like the perfection that is Set It Off with Jada Pinkett, Queen Latifah, Vivica A Fox, and a young John C McGinley…but as a romantic comedy!
This is all of that in spades. It’s not a big budget blockbuster. It’s not even as large in scale as Crazy Rich Asians. It’s a quiet movie with heart.
The dialogue is the highlight. It’s hard to say if the script works so well on its own, because what’s undeniable is that the movie is so good in part because of the performances. It would be easy to get these scenes wrong, but it’s well shot, well acted, and well edited. I watch a lot of low-budget stuff and let me tell you, this is one thing that can make the movie, but almost no one is good at assembling a single good scene, let alone a coherent sequence into a good movie.
Bonus side character played by Yvette Nicole Brown.
The Wildling
This poor girl Anna, played by Bel Powley, grew up in this single room. It’s all she’s ever known. Her only visitor is Daddy, played by Brad Dourif.
Finally she is old enough to ask why she can’t go outside. He explains that outside, there are Wildlings. They ate all the other children, and she is the last. He will die to keep her safe.
Until an accident leads to Anna’s freedom. She’s taken in by small-town sheriff Ellen Cooper (played by Liv Tyler if you’re a fan of Leftovers/Aerosmith). The sheriff becomes a sort of foster mom for her, and her attempts to help Anna integrate into a normal childhood become a desperate race to understand and outrun her past.
Creepy, disturbing, moving horror with a great ending. 10/10 would watch again soon.
Something of a spoiler to say so, but I think @Trolly would devour this.
Just finished Mank. It was good. The first half was much better than good. It was a blast watching Fincher go meta and keep nailing perfect shots in the exact style of Citizen Kane. Second half fell off a bit, but still good. Oldman great as always.
Risky do you just watch movies and shows from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed?
I believe he also watches them in his sleep
Basically… 
I didn’t even list everything else I watched today
https://twitter.com/GameOfThrones/status/1334575278299877377?s=20
https://twitter.com/nblackfyre/status/1334576542412845058?s=20
https://twitter.com/Alex4rmThe714/status/1334586005077315586?s=20
Trailer is already out!!
Spared no expense
Superman vs The Elite
Time to put that HBO Max sub to use and rewatch one of the better DC animated movies.
Perfect for @CanadaMatt3004 and other fans of The Boys, this is like “What if Superman faced off against The Seven”
It would be hard enough just facing Homelander, but against the whole team ready to kill? Superman is probably toast. And yet he’ll still persevere for truth, justice, all that stuff!
I’ll check it out. I’ve really enjoyed the Harley Quinn series. One thing DC doesnt really do wrong is their animation products
It really is strange how good their TV and animated properties have been vs how terrible the live-action stuff has been. I now feel relieved when a DC movie is anything but awful.
Now that tabbaker has gone to sleep and will not shame me, I also watched this Arabic gem earlier.
The Worthy
Survivors of a global catastrophe defend one of the last sources of clean water from infiltrators.
Wow! The fact that this movie 1) exists 2) was shown in the Arab world is impressive enough, but it is actually a gem of a find.
Terrorists find a way to poison the water supply, sending the world into a global catastrophe that few survive. One of the last remaining groups holds watch over their store of drinkable water. When they take a chance on letting an outsider into their small compound, everything will be put at risk.
The director makes such excellent use of the natural environment, limited settings, and practical effects as an extension of the story that you’d never notice that this post apocalyptic movie had a budget of next to nothing.
How did I miss this thread for the entirety of COVID thus far? What else have I been missing…
In case you have not seen this as well
I watched Run. tonight. There’s not many good horror/thriller movies but this one is >6.0 on IMDb which usually means it’s going to be fairly top tier relative for horror/thriller movies. Def more of a thriller than a horror.
I give it a ~6.5/10 and for horror/thriller film scale it’s a solid ~8/10
The one thing I heard about this movie going in to it was to not watch the trailer. After I watched the movie I went back and watched the trailer. The trailer reveals the first ~90% of the movie, so don’t watch the trailer.
Also watched Possessor. I did not like this movie. Fairly slow burn without really any sort of payoff at all. My adrenaline was jacked after watch Run. and i went right in to this and it was putting me to sleep
I second Run. Tense from start to finish. I didn’t watch the trailer after reports similar to what you described.
We still have this on schedule as our Jan 1 watch party to ring in the new year!
