Last Movie You Watched.

Atomic Blonde. Edgy Cold War thriller with gripping action sequences, beautiful cinematography and a sense of colour. Surely this is director David Leith's Bond audition piece?

I saw it too ... plot gets muddled, but watching Theron kick ass (and take ice-baths) never gets old.

The Drop - solid 'heist-gone-wrong' crime drama with Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace and (in what was to be his last movie) James Gandolfini.

Dream House - tbh, I nodded off about halfway through this creepy thriller with Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz (a combo of being 46, having a few beers and the film not starting on BBC1 until 11:30 I guess, lol). But it's now on the iPlayer, so I'll give it another go some night.

I rewatched Dream House ... seem to remember Jim Sheridan, Craig and Weisz being so disillusioned with the amount of studio interference at the time that they refused to promote it. It was OK ... there's a longer, better movie in there struggling to get out.

Duel - Spielberg's early dusty, sweaty suspense classic. Dennis Weaver is terrific as the driver who unwittingly provokes a trucker into possibly the worst case of road-rage ever.

Duel is fantastic! I want to rewatch it but can't remember who I leant my dvd to.

American Made - the (allegedly) true story of Barry Seal, a commercial pilot recruited by the CIA in the late 70s to take surveillance pics of the Commie insurgents in South America, who also gets recruited by Escobar's cartel to smuggle coke back to the US. And then things get even madder ...

Very entertaining flick.

Logan Lucky - heist caper with Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Katie Holmes, Seth Macfarlane ... and Daniel Craig, clearly having fun as a American-drawlin', tattoo-covered bleach-blond jailbird.

A bit overlong 'n' leisurely, but still quite amusing.

The Limehouse Golem - gory Victorian London murder mystery with more than a hint of the BBC's Ripper Street and Hammer horror about it. With Bill Nighy and Daniel Mays.

American Made.

Not bad. It's just nothing special. A little unfocused and functional scenes create pacing issues. A pretty standard rise and fall kind of story.

IT - mostly found this unsettling, rather than terrifying (too many of the 'scares' are either too well-signposted or are set in broad daylight). But the coming-of-age-in-a-small-US-town stuff is very well done (the young cast are all excellent), and Bill Skarsgard is a suitably malevolent Pennywise.

Definitely up there with the superior Stephen King adaptations.

American Assassin - action thriller that moved at a fair old lick and was lent a touch of class by having Michael Keaton and David Suchet on board.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

IT - mostly found this unsettling, rather than terrifying (too many of the 'scares' are either too well-signposted or are set in broad daylight). But the coming-of-age-in-a-small-US-town stuff is very well done (the young cast are all excellent), and Bill Skarsgard is a suitably malevolent Pennywise.

Definitely up there with the superior Stephen King adaptations.

IT was ok but it's not as scary as it's touted to be. There were also a number of times I had flashbacks to the 90s version because it seemed better at times albeit limited to cheap special effects.

I still rate The Shining the best...

Blunt Instrument wrote:

American Assassin - action thriller that moved at a fair old lick and was lent a touch of class by having Michael Keaton and David Suchet on board.

Hadn't heard of this. Will need to check it out.

bitchcraft wrote:

IT was ok but it's not as scary as it's touted to be. There were also a number of times I had flashbacks to the 90s version because it seemed better at times albeit limited to cheap special effects.

It's quite a challenge to top someone as good as Tim Curry though. Despite the '90's versions' shortcomings Curry really made that adaptation worthwhile and was very effective at switching between humorous and scary which was perhaps the most necessary part of the character.

bitchcraft wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

IT - mostly found this unsettling, rather than terrifying (too many of the 'scares' are either too well-signposted or are set in broad daylight). But the coming-of-age-in-a-small-US-town stuff is very well done (the young cast are all excellent), and Bill Skarsgard is a suitably malevolent Pennywise.

Definitely up there with the superior Stephen King adaptations.

IT was ok but it's not as scary as it's touted to be. There were also a number of times I had flashbacks to the 90s version because it seemed better at times albeit limited to cheap special effects.

I still rate The Shining the best...

Ironically, Stephen King supposedly hates that adaptation.

FieldsMan wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

American Assassin - action thriller that moved at a fair old lick and was lent a touch of class by having Michael Keaton and David Suchet on board.

Hadn't heard of this. Will need to check it out.

There are a series of 'Mitch Rapp' novels by an author called Vince Flynn ... this is an adap of the first one, I think. They're presumably hoping for a franchise to develop.

Salomé wrote:

bitchcraft wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

IT - mostly found this unsettling, rather than terrifying (too many of the 'scares' are either too well-signposted or are set in broad daylight). But the coming-of-age-in-a-small-US-town stuff is very well done (the young cast are all excellent), and Bill Skarsgard is a suitably malevolent Pennywise.

Definitely up there with the superior Stephen King adaptations.

IT was ok but it's not as scary as it's touted to be. There were also a number of times I had flashbacks to the 90s version because it seemed better at times albeit limited to cheap special effects.

I still rate The Shining the best...

Ironically, Stephen King supposedly hates that adaptation.

Yes ... he got heavily involved with a TV adaptation of it, which was nowhere near as well-received.

Sometimes, I think his non-horror stuff possibly adapts better (Stand By Me, Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption).

I also liked Hulu's adaptation of "11.22.63".

The Quiller Memorandum.

Good cast, John Barry score but the real star is the West Berlin location filming. Segal plays Quiller with this knowing smile and it's a muddling film plot wise but oddly fun. Any appearance of Senta Berger is worth the admission fee alone.

Hilly KCMG wrote:

The Quiller Memorandum.

Good cast, John Barry score but the real star is the West Berlin location filming. Segal plays Quiller with this knowing smile and it's a muddling film plot wise but oddly fun. Any appearance of Senta Berger is worth the admission fee alone.

Been wanting to see this - Pinter wrote this, didn't he? John Barry scoring a non-Bond spy film would be interesting.

FieldsMan wrote:

Hilly KCMG wrote:

The Quiller Memorandum.

Good cast, John Barry score but the real star is the West Berlin location filming. Segal plays Quiller with this knowing smile and it's a muddling film plot wise but oddly fun. Any appearance of Senta Berger is worth the admission fee alone.

Been wanting to see this - Pinter wrote this, didn't he? John Barry scoring a non-Bond spy film would be interesting.

I believe Pinter did, yes. Based on a series of books, I read this one years ago. Don't forget Barry scored probably the biggest non-Bond spy film, The Ipcress File.
His score for Quiller only is about 30-odd minutes long, certainly under that when you exclude the title song and the instrumental of the 'Downtown' song.

Ashamed to say I haven't seen The Ipcress File. Can't seem to find a copy down under; the very reason why I have yet to see The Quiller Memorandum.

That is a great shame. Ipcress has a great many Bond alum working on it besides Barry -Harry Saltzman and Ken Adam chiefly. Quite an atmospheric film and for me a great way to see 'my London station' Marylebone as she used to be before all the changes. Then again the Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night is good for that.

Yes, I noticed Saltzman and Adam were involved. It's what piqued my interest, along with it being an example of the spy genre in the 60s. 

Hopefully there will be a rerelease here soon.

Kingsman : The Golden Circle - almost as much fun as the first one. And it's spy action funtimes which is out now, as opposed to 2019.