Nocturnal Animals

Last night I moseyed to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester. I went to the Nocturnal Animals. When I booked this film I didn’t know anything about the film, I hadn’t seen a trailer and so took a punt with this one. There were two possible options for a film to see, Nocturnal Animals and The Accountant, upon inspecting the IMDB critics scores I decided to see the better one. I pay no attention to the scores given by cinema goers, oh the irony, it is clear that the public have no idea what is good for them as recent events will attest. Whenever the shout for power to the people is raised you just have to remember that Mr Blobby was christmas number one once. So, here’s my IMDB rating:

As is expected you should see this communication for an explanation of how my scoring system works.

I enjoyed this film. It was the second recent film to be set in West Texas and I’m now not sure if it is a place I would want to visit. Everyone out there seems strange. The opening of this film was interesting especially as I didn’t know a thing about it. The film was billed as a stylish and absorbing psychological noir thriller. I’m not entirely sure it was all that. It seemed more to be about a very sad woman who hates her life. The film was clever but not brilliantly so and the book that the main character reads comes to life in the film we see.

I’m going to do my best to not give any spoilers as I write this. There wasn’t any particular part of the film where I thought it was stupid or wanted to moan about it so that’s a good thing. I need to try and see real films more often, I think I have seen too many action or super hero films and they are a strange distortion of the cinema world. I don’t mind science fiction so much but they often do too much, they bend the rules so far [fine] and then SF films tend to do something silly and break the rules. I’m not sure that makes sense, whoops.

I probably would watch this film again. Amy Adams is pretty good and manages to show emotion without a great deal of verbal communication. The naked bum was a major motif throughout the film and the graphic matches were well done. It was a well made and constructed movie. I would like to think I would spot more “clever” stuff the second time around. Assuming there is a lot of clever stuff.

At one time the writer says that all writers write about themselves, what else can they know. It turns out this film director, Tom Ford, used to be a fashion designer. The film clearly states that this world and the world of art is superficial and bollocks. That seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Storks

Drove the short distance to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester. As it’s half term it was time to see Storks. Below is my rating on IMDB, but it is traditional that you first read the scoring system placed in a communication here.

So, it was a kids film. Not a great one at that. A touch annoying in places. The wolves were the coolest part of the film.

 

So, the main bird touches the girl [I don’t do character names] and sees her future. We see her at school, learning, getting a degree and it bloody well ends with her getting MARRIED. The film seemed to imply that the ultimate goal for a girl was to be MARRIED. Since when do women have to be married to be valid members of society? Perhaps she could have been president? Perhaps she could have been winning a Fields Medal? This little section of the film irritated me. It stereotyped women. I was possibly wound up by the trailers for Disney films which reinforce the feudal ideal where you have to be *born* to the right family to have worth. Fuck them all.

Hell Or High Water

What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than watching a classic tale of cowboys robbing banks. But, I get ahead from myself. I went to the cinema. I watched a film. Possibly the best bit was using a new bridge to get there, see this communication. I had tweeted the following:

Well the new journey was about 11.5km. So it’s a shorter distance and has some lovely corners with adverse camber and brows of hills, however if you get stuck behind someone slow it’s incredibly boring. The normal route would include some motorway and nice accelerating corners, this new route was good as long as there’s no traffic.

You should refer to this communication if you don’t know how my rating system works. This is the first 8/10 for quite a while! It was a good film.

The story was a classic cowboy story with two brothers robbing banks. The horses were replaced by cars but all the other elements were there. The music complimented the filming wonderfully and the acting was great. The pace was suitably relaxed. I really enjoyed it. There’s a lot to worry about with the modern audience if they can’t cope with a film of this pace. I’m not saying they can’t cope just that most films aren’t like this one. Perhaps modern superhero films could learn something from this film.

Suicide Squad

I don’t often do late night trips to the cinema but Suicide Squad was a film I was interested in and there was only one showing at Ashford Cineworld last night. That said, by late I mean 21:20 hrs and not midnight or something, I am definitely not 18 anymore! As has become custom I have rated this film on IMDB using my wonderful rating system which is explained here. I also then shared this rating on twitter to my one point six two million followers.

This film was terrible. I did stay in the cinema until the end though. Now as a slight warning I should inform you that I don’t like the Batman films. I don’t really like Batman. The recent Superman films weren’t very good. When you look at the Marvel cannon there are only two or three good films in there. The problem is there are a lot of super fanatics of these comics and trying to create a film for them doesn’t work. The comic translations just seem to leave me cold.

In this particular film I thought Harley Quinn was tame, she could have been a lot more crazy. I didn’t like the Joker or Batman. I didn’t think any of there characters were any good. The fight scenes were boring, nothing special, all been seen before. I spent the first thirty minutes of this film hoping for it to be good but thinking constantly that it was shit.

There, this film was shit.

Addition: Something I thought while watching this film but forgot to write down is that great songs do not a great movie make. The soundtrack put this film to shame.

Morgan

Took a little trip last night to see the film Morgan at the Cineworld cinema in Rochester. I haven’t been to the cinema as much as I would want recently because there just haven’t been the films on that encouraged me. This choice was more of a “I’m not that fussed but I’ll go anyway and see what it’s like”. As is custom I rated this on IMDB and you should read this communication about my system.

So why did I rate it as a 4? Because it wasn’t that good that’s why. The first forty five minutes were boring and nothing particularly special. There was lots of exposition from the usual cast of terrible scientists. I didn’t find Morgan particularly creepy although I thought making it wear a hoody all the way through was quite a good touch.

Perhaps I’m just too old to find these kind of stories interesting or new? It felt like a film I had seen too often and there wasn’t anything that was new or interesting about this one. I would recommend you watch Blade Runner instead. It’s the same overall story but just done in a far better way.

While watching Kate Mara in House Of Cards I always thought she was pretty and sweet but her face seems incapable of any form of expression, which, as it happens, was probably the perfect thing for this movie but it distresses me about her. I do hope she can smile or frown and I am sure she can but I haven’t ever seen evidence of that.

Mild spoilers: when escaping the “room” Kate Mara manages to climb up a shaft to a window and kick that window out. If Morgan was so intelligent why didn’t she do that much earlier. How did Morgan know how to drive?

It turns out this film was produced by Ridley Scott who made Blade Runner. Hmmm.

Pete’s Dragon

Went to the cinema beside the tidal river Medway to watch Pete’s Dragon [tidal rounds down the number of cinemas to one]. As is the custom I rated this film on IMDB and readers are directed to this explanation of how that rating system works.

I have a long history with this film. It was the first film my father took me to see at the cinema and I cried my eyes out for ages at the end because the dragon leaves. I can remember nothing else about the story, just that the dragon left and it hurt. My dad explained that he was leaving to help out other children now that Pete was sorted. I don’t remember what was wrong with Pete. I do remember that the dragon was a cartoon creature who could disappear.

So to the new version of this film. SPOILERS THERE BE.

It starts with a car crash where the parents die. What the fuck?? You know, it’s done well but fuck, what a start. Shortly after that we meet the dragon. I am going to suspend my disbelief about dragons, I don’t like the aerodynamics or mass to wing area ratio etc. The dragon was very well done. Not a big scaly thing but with fur (poor aerodynamics) and magic and smiles.

This is quite a good film. The rest of the story isn’t up to much. The way I interact with films is to imagine what I am going to write on this website. That way I am always thinking about what is going on. I am not quite at the point of writing notes during a film but I did consider it today.

After the initial car crash nothing really stuck in my head about what to write. It ended up being your standard film about a creature captured by men. You know:

Let’s kill it.

Let’s look after it.

That sort of thing. It feels rather harsh to have taken children to a film that made me sob when I was younger and one of them was affected similarly. But it didn’t last long. The ending of this movie seemed more positive than the one I remember!

Overall, apart from the horror of the first few minutes this was a good film.

Bad Moms

Took a trip out to the riverside down at Rochester last night. A good way to avoid the heat is to go to the cinema. Two hours in a nice air-conditioned room being entertained. I went to see Bad Moms and rated it afterwards on IMDB, please see this communication regarding my rating system.

Right, this wasn’t a critically acclaimed film. But I laughed at points and I didn’t hate it. It has Mila Kunis in it! I haven’t seen any of the other “Bad” series, I don’t even know or care if they are made by the same people, but this one cheered me for a short while.

David Brent: Life On The Road

I took at trip to the West Country and that meant I needed to go to the cinema. I went to the Vue cinema in Plymouth. It was quite nice, although there were long queues for the concessions, mind you it was a Saturday. I watched David Brent: Life On The Road and as usual I rated it on IMDB, a ever you should read this communication about my ratings system.

So, this film was hilarious and excruciating at the same time. I found it really funny but I also found the original series very funny but also much like watching a car crash. David Brent is an amazing character, someone who really shouldn’t be. I would not be surprised if there are many like him!

I know there is a soundtrack but I’m not sure I would buy it. I love the songs as a one off but to listen to them more than that would be sadism.

Overall, this film is worth seeing if you are a fan of The Office. If you’ve never seen The Office then you will be in for a shock and may not find it that funny! I laughed out loud, a lot and I never really laugh in the cinema [except when no one else does].

A couple of extra things that have come to me. There was an advert for beer. The advert reckons beer goes with any food type and it was a general purpose “drink beer” advert, I thought it rather strange. Also, the were about four adverts telling people to look out for rivers and the sea, to take care around water. This is an admirable cause [especially given recent events] but I don’t think I see these in Kent.

Star Trek Beyond

Last night I went to Cineworld, Rochester to see Star Trek Beyond. It was a curious start to the film as the cinema showed trailers that were all kids’ animated movies and then the classification certificate showed up and said we were about to watch the BFG. After five minutes they had started projecting the correct film. I rated this on IMDB, as usual and here’s a communication that covers my rating system.

Now, you might think a 6 is a little low but film enjoyment is subjective so fuck off.

I saw this in 3D and I don’t like 3D. It adds nothing to a film. If you have good cinematography then you get depth of field from your standard projection, you don’t need 3D. It’s a big bad gimmick. My reaction to this may also be because I have a low 3D perception in these films, I seem less affected by 3D effects, they don’t really stand out much with me.

This film was OK. It had good effects and humour in the right places. I didn’t really like the action sequences. I think they suffered from Transformers Syndrome – too much shit going on at the same time. Just because we have CGI doesn’t mean using it more and more makes a film better.

Here There Be Spoilers

I didn’t like the bad character being human. And a war mongering human at that. A man so annoyed at peace after the wars that he wanted to destroy the human race. Fucking bullshit and lazy.

PHYSICS
We just have to assume that everyone has access to inertial drive technology. I can suspend my disbelief for physics, you get to break a couple of rules. I do wonder if the 5 Year Mission is relative to the Enterprise or to a Base station, given time dilation.

BREAKING THINGS
The Franklin, constructed in space and not meant for atmospheric travel works perfectly well after fifty years on an alien planet? Bullshit. Also, when they drop the Franklin off the cliff top they accelerate and then hit some rock towers on the way down. The ship absorbs these perfectly well like it was designed to smash through rock and mine diamonds. Hated it. The ship would have been torn apart from the first load of rocks. The Franklin hits about four of these mounds and just carries on with no problems. Utter crap. Curiously there was someone in the cinema behind me who was gasping whenever it hit the rocks, this I found amusing. It’s a Hollywood movie, of course they’ll be ok. It reminded me of the people gasping and crying at The Passion Of The Christ, such bullshit.

The Franklin then crashes into the Star City and everyone seems to survive. An entire quarter of the city is evacuated with absolutely no problems. The Franklin seems to be built like a brick-shit-house.

FIRE
When Kirk returns to the disk to collect the magic weapon the whole thing is on fire but he considers it safe to enter and wander around. Bollocks.

MOTORBIKE
Why? A motorbike that works perfectly after 50 years on another planet. Why? Why not a speederbike. Why not anything else? Also, Kirk can see a route down to the base through the caverns and chasms? Hated it.

STAR CITY DESIGN
Why would you design a spaceport that has a large tunnel for the starships to travel through to get to a docking area? The docking area would be somewhere to minimise potential damage to the Star City. Also, why is this tunnel only just wide enough for the Enterprise. There are surely going to be larger ships? Perhaps they have a Panamax type system. Seems very silly to me.

FUCKING USA NAMES
The Enterprise sums up the “American Dream”. Star City was called York Town and the other star ship was called the Franklin. Of these possibly Franklin is the only one with any merit but is really USA-centric. There are other greats of invention and leaders of countries. The arrogance to consider your names will be the names of the future.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into this whole film?

 

And . . . . calm.

I have tried to find my other reviews for the first two Star Trek films on this site and I can’t find them. I possibly didn’t write about them, I don’t know! I can remember reading a lot about the first reboot to try and make sense of why I didn’t really find it brilliant. Much like my issues with Prometheus.

The Jungle Book

Busy cinema week for me I guess. Took another trip to Cineworld, Rochester. This time to see The Jungle Book. I rated this on IMDB, always look at this communication to explain the system I use.

I have to say that I hadn’t seen the other films. I knew the songs but most Disney stuff is not on my radar. There are many “classics” that I just don’t know. I watched some Disney films over the last year but I wasn’t really that impressed.

This film looked bloody gorgeous. It was worth seeing just to marvel at the animation. The animals are spectacular. It was brilliant.

The story was largely dull, not really something that I thought was brilliant. I was concerned that the animals seemed quite happy to forgive their jungle being burnt down. The overall story is that man is superior. So sad really. Humans may be in charge but we are also fucking the planet over rather well. Sod all this Brexit stuff, we have a much bigger problem to work together and minimise but the current political system won’t allow that.

I was really impressed with the Apocalypse Now! references and I wanted to laugh out loud but I don’t think that would have been understood!

I wasn’t that surprised that some of the songs were kept in the film but would rather they weren’t. Although they may have been the only songs in the animated film, I don’t know, I’ve not seen it.

Ratchet And Clank

Tool a trip to see Ratchet and Clank [The Movie] at Rochester Cineworld. I’m feeling somewhat let down by this film. Anyway, before looking at a Parish Rating you should read this communication about my rating system. As is custom I have also shared my rating using twitter.

This film was a disappointment. Especially after playing the game quite a bit!

The game is brilliant. It’s just about my level of intelligence and playability. I really liked “A Crack In Time” or whatever it was called and I thoroughly enjoy and love the latest game.

The game is based on the film which is based on the game. The problem is that the game is much much better than the film. I wouldn’t recommend any one to see the film. Such a shame really it could have been brilliant.

Money Monster

Last night I traveled to the Odeon cinema in Royal Tunbridge Wells, or rather on the outskirts of RTW. The Odeon website doesn’t list this cinema as Royal Tunbridge Wells, it’s listed as Tunbridge Wells which is a little confusing because there’s also a town called Tonbridge close by. Have a look at this map and see the naming conventions in Kent:

I tweeted my rating of 6/10 on IMDB, you should read this communication about my rating system.

I felt remarkably not bothered emotionally by this film. From the trailers I thought it was going to be an expose of how companies and banks and the entire financial system is designed to screw the normal person out of money. I thought it would be something along the lines of The Big Short. But no.

This film was based on a fictional fraud committed by your classic British baddie. There be spoilers ahead. A young but not very clever man invests his inheritance in a company and then loses it all, or most of it, these being shares and all rather than an investment fund as far as I can tell. This annoyed the man and so he decided to take a TV show hostage to figure out what went wrong.

The company was claiming it was a software “glitch”. Others were more cynical. It turned out to be fraud and dodgy stuff. It wasn’t a glitch.

In the end the stupid guy gets shot dead.

Then, the world goes back to normal. Every just starts again. People stop watching this live drama and go back to being people. No-one GIVES A SHIT.

This was an odd film. In the end NOTHING had changed. The world kept going. Someone had died. People went back to being money makers and shakers. The TV show went on.

This was more a film about a TV show than about people and financial crises. A shame. It could have been great. Instead it got a 6 on my scale.

Captain America: Civil War

You know me by now. If there’s a big film then I’m likely to see it. Except for Batman V Superman that I couldn’t care about. I’m not that big on superhero films and I can’t quite figure out why. I remember the “first” Batman by Tim Burton and leaving thinking “meh” or whatever the early 90s version of “meh” was. I think now I recognise it as brilliant but not so much back then. Perhaps it’s Batman films? I don’t enjoy them.

Avengers Assemble was different, it had a good script, good action and a good director. I really enjoyed it. Some of the other superhero films have been OK, mostly the Marvel ones, although I don’t like the Spiderman films either. Perhaps it’s a solo-crime-fighter thing? I am very not sure.

So, to this. I watched this at Rochester Cineworld and rated this on IMDB. You should see this communication about my rating system, which I broke for God’s Not Dead 2.

I guess there needs to be a slight explanation as I feel this could be controversial, not that I care. The film was OK. Nothing special. Really, I mean that, nothing special. I enjoyed one bit and that was the fight scene at the airport. I only like that because there was humour. My overall impression was that there was too much fighting, one on one. Yes, I know it was called Civil War and war involves fighting, but there was too much in this film.

That’s it really. I don’t have a lot else to say. Except this should have been called Avengers 3. It was mostly an Avengers story.

Tony Stark would seriously want more regulation? Seems improbable, he’s an arse and totally self-interested.

Why, when fighting Ironman, do people swing at his chin? Why use a fist. I don’t understand.

Also, every time Ironman lands his body would be broken apart inside the suit through the deceleration.

God’s Not Dead 2

This is Part Two of Bullshit Saturday. Part one is here.

While looking through the cinema listings in the afternoon of Saturday 30 April I booked a ticket to see Bastille Day and then looked what, if anything, to see in the evening. If I didn’t find a film my plan was to listen to some live music in Maidstone. I had decided to leave Captain America for a few days and had a look at the Bluewater listings.

Oh goodness, they were showing God’s Not Dead 2. I got very excited. I had heard a lot about this film and thought it would be brilliant to actually see it. So, I booked a ticket.

As you can see I was excited. Now, there needs to be some explanation.

I listen to a number of podcasts, mainly while running or driving. My favourites are:

  • Scathing Atheist
  • Skepticrat
  • GAM Cast
  • Skeptics Guide To The Universe
  • Skeptics With A K

I have listen to these for quite a few years and they have enlarged my knowledge and appreciation of science and humanism. I also have learnt a lot about the politics of the USA.

Now, the Scathing Atheist is hilarious and rage inducing at the same time. There is also a lot of swearing and jokes about puppy rape. I love listening and recently became a Patreon. The guys who produce this podcast also make God Awful Movies. This is a weekly podcast in which they VOLUNTARILY watch christian cinema/films and take the piss out of them. It’s funny and opens up a new world of film and beliefs.

They have reviewed a number of films about the rapture and having listened to about twenty episodes I decided it would be a good idea to sit through a film, to understand just how bad they are. I watched Left Behind, click to visit the podcast page. I will admit that almost any film can be reduced to rubble when critically appraised it’s just that these guys stick with christian cinema [mostly]. Left Behind is a terrible film, it makes no sense. At all.

Gamcast episode 33 covers the cinematic marvels of God’s Not Dead 2. I listened to this and thought it would be good to see a film with a decent budget. However, it seemed unlikely that this would head out to Kent and as much as I like a day out in London I am NOT going to see christian cinema when I go there. It seemed I would have to wait to try and download this some time in the future.

I headed to Bluewater shopping centre and bought a pair of shoes in the time between arriving and having to endure watch the film. Now, I don’t like buying shoes or spending money on clothing and the such. It seems a waste. Yes, I do appreciate wearing clothes though. Anyway, new shoes were purchased. I headed to the Showcase cinema. Upon entering the auditorium it turns out some dude was in my seat. I’m not sure how that happens but he moved and sat next to me.

I was very curious as to the make up of the audience and whether they were there purely to take the piss and experience cinema shittery. The chap next to me seemed potentially mentally ill or possibly had a terrible headache, every ten minutes he would lean forward and rub his head, almost like praying, very odd. The rest of the cinema seemed normal I guess. There were about 30 people in the theatre, some families with teenage kids and some couples. I couldn’t get the measure of it.

So, I rated this film on IMDB and you should see this communication about my rating system and then return here to see how I broke the rules.

This was a bad film. The legal aspects of the film were bad. Everything was bad. I have also broken my system for rating films. But the lowest anyone can give is a 1 and so that is what I gave. Maybe I need to update my system, I don’t know.

Normally I would give you a run down of the movie and what I thought but instead you should go and listen to the God Awful Movie podcast episode covering this. Or see this tweet.

Also, you should go and buy the parody song written about this film. You can find it here. Or see this tweet:

This film did not disappoint. I honestly want to thank GAMcast and Scathing Atheist for giving the chance to experience this. I was really excited and it live down to expectations.

Bastille Day

You know me. Always going to the cinema and this weekend there’s quite a good choice. There are definitely three films I fancy seeing and so I will spread them out. First up was Bastille Day, which was watched at the Cineworld Cinema in [not] Rochester. As usual I have rated the film on IMDB and tweeted about the result.

Now, this seems harsh according to the scale I have explained previously in this communication. To be honest this film wasn’t that great. It wasn’t a funny film, it lacked a chemistry in the buddy-buddy aspect and the action scenes were too long. The roof top running got boring. Nope, just terrible and potentially the whole thing was in bad taste.

Perhaps I was struggling to cope with made up stuff after having spent an hour in the delightful environment of mystical stuff. I’m not sure but this film didn’t deliver.

Eye In The Sky

Took a trip to Strood to watch Eye In The Sky. You should know by now that I will have rated this film on IMDB and that there is a certain system and method involved which I explained here.

So, this is a film dealing with a hypothetical capture of fighters by the UK on Al Shabaab members in Kenya. Now, I have no idea about the types of technology used in this film. I don’t know how good camera zooms are on drone planes. I don’t know how good calculating collateral damage is and I don’t know how good communications are. The facial recognition bit seemed most unlikely to me, but then I’m not an expert.

This is a Reaper drone, the type used in the film. From looking at the photos on Wikipedia the film seems to have reconstructed the control room quite well along with the weapons and camera capabilities of the Reaper.

Initially this film is about the capture of some of the most wanted list of Al Shabaab. But the situation changes when the naughty people move suddenly from one house where the Kenyan army are waiting to another in an Al Shabaab controlled area of town. This changes the plans considerably. Also, once the beetle bug gets inside the house there is a clear justification for a Hellfire strike.

This film follows the discussions between the UK Army, USA Air Force and politicians as the UK contemplates essentially assassinating five people including two UK subjects and a USA citizen.

Oh, yeah British people. You aren’t citizens. You are SUBJECTS. You are subservient to the Queen. God Save the Queen, fuck you.

The problem with the air strike is caused by a 10 year old girl selling bread just outside the wall of the target house and so she will likely die if the hellfires are released. I won’t give away the end, I’ll just say this. This film is worth watching. All actors are good. I didn’t like the US pilot and observer and I’d like to point out that not all men and women in the forces are that good looking.

At this point I wanted to write something like RIP Alan Rickman, but that implies that he is resting or his soul is elsewhere. That’s bullshit. So, perhaps I should say he’s dead. He was good.

Hardcore Henry

I actually spent time and money going to see Hardcore Henry. It was showing at Rochester and I had seen the trailer and was curious. It was an 18, which normally means decent violence and/or language. I rated the film on IMDB, click here to see my ratings profile.

Look, if a film has a unique thing to it, then that gets accepted very quickly and simple things like script and storyline still have to be good. A bad film is still a bad film when it is shown in 3D. 3D isn’t enough to make a film good. First person filming wasn’t enough to make this a good film. It was shit. I hated it. The filming was ok, the violence was of a dark calibre and yet the story and script were terrible.

As the New York Daily News said:

You could see Hardcore Henry or you could gulp down vodka, put on GTA, strap the TV to your face and fall down the stairs.

Feeling Agitated

I’ve been feeling agitated today mostly about the news that someone found out who his biological dad was.

So, I played Gran Turismo for a while and apart from a message from my niece about Game Of Thrones I just had stuff tumbling over in my mind. I did win two races, one at the Red Bull Ring short course and another on Deep Forest (reverse). I do like the Deep Forest track. The last race I did I came third! It was at Grand Valley Speedway and I would have one having muscled my way into first place however I braked too late for a sharp corner and went straight on.

So, here’s why I’m angry. I watched a film. Actually I’ve watched many films this break but I specifically watched two that I missed over the last year. They were both critically acclaimed films. The first I watched about two weeks ago:

My communication about IMDB ratings is clear on my scoring system but I have changed the rules. This film isn’t one I’ll watch again and it isn’t one I’ll buy. More importantly than that is the message of this film. You need to go and watch it. NOW. This film is about how a few journalists uncovered the Catholic Church SYSTEMATICALLY protected paedophile priests and helped them avoid justice. FUCKING SYSTEMATICALLY. The church KNEW about this and protected priests. The church KNEW that priests were sexually abusing kids, fucking young children, and SYSTEMATICALLY covered this up.

The message here is clear. If you are a priest in the Catholic Church and you fucked a kid in the arse then you get helped by your church to avoid prosecution and justice.

This message can’t be made loud enough to the member of the church. Every penny you give these assholes goes to help cover this up and keep priests from justice.

Yes my language is brutal. But then that’s what they did. These cunts fucked kids up the arse and got away with it. The church HELPED them. Fuck the church.

The other film I watched was The Big Short. I’m still angry.

This film explained the systematic fraud and cover up perpetrated by the banks prior to the GLOBAL economic crash of 2008. This film is odd at times, but it is brilliant. Again, it explains how people in privileged positions abused that position and how it was covered up by senior members and the government [not the church this time]. Who suffered from this? Normal people who were struggling. People who lost their homes, health and possibly lives because of the greed and stupidity of a few.

The people in power, the governments haven’t intervened to bring people to justice. They haven’t changed the rules. People have paid for this over and over. The current economy is fucked. Ordinary citizens are paying the price for our governments bailing out banks and the global finance system because the entire industry was fraudulent.

I think that’s the point. Both of these stories show how the privileged are able to escape the horrors of normal everyday life. The experiences that normal people go through don’t matter to those in positions of power and trust. Both of these films show that people are self-interested and care not for you and I.

Am I angry? Yes I am. I’m angry at the establishment perpetuating itself and those who suffer are those who can do little to change it.

Child abuse, financial crisis, NHS, tax havens, private trust funds, offshore ownership, PPI, privilege, railways, utilities – these are the things we should be angry about. These things should DOMINATE the agenda and news everyday until something is done. In a month we won’t care about Tax Havens again.

 

 

 

Read Private Eye.

Midnight Special

I had an afternoon at the flicks. I went to see Midnight Special at Rochester Cineworld. I have, as usual, graded this film on IMDB, please see my ratings guide here.

Now, a lot of the time I watch a film and I have parts of what I write here going through my head. It’s kinda how I experience the movie. I expect that I forget most of what I want to write as I don’t take a pad in to make notes. I do take my phone but suspect I’d get kicked out for having it on all the time. Also that would distract from the film.

Things have changed recently. I no longer hear my own voice or see my website when I watch films. Rather I head Eli, Noah and Heath from the GAMCast. I hear them arguing and making jokes about puppy rape and fat people.

The GAMCast is a podcast I regularly listen to while running or driving. God Awful Movies takes three hilarious atheists and they poke fun at terrible Christian cinema. Sometimes they even take down a good Christian movie! You can find them here:

God Awful Movies

So, this film, Midnight Special. It was a nice science fiction kinda film. I enjoyed it. There were a few moments where I thought “what?” but on the whole the film held together well. The pace is nice and slow, the action and tension builds slowly. Unlike most modern films this one takes its time and ends up being quite satisfying. Well worth a watch.

There, you are. Not a great deal to say. I liked it. Perhaps you should read about films I didn’t like, I tend to write much more!

London Has Fallen

I feel ashamed. I was told not to see London Has Fallen but still I went. I went to see White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen a few years ago and they were both quite terrible films. They seem to make out that terrorists are superbly intelligent people able to undertake huge operations involving hundreds of people. In reality terrorists are rarely that clever or good at terrorism. So, as ever, I rated this on IMDB and you should read the guide to my system here.

This film was terrible. It replaced plot and intelligence with gunfire and explosions. It didn’t make sense. Perhaps I was hoping for too much realism and not hoping enough for shooting everywhere with guns that have a LOT of ammunition. Holy crap the Gerard Butler character and POTUS seemed indestructible. If you have ninety minutes of your life that you want to waste watching London get blown up while people mill around [the background people don’t react how I would if there were explosions and gunfire] then please watch this.

So, Morgan Freeman turns up playing the Vice-President. Which confused the hell out of me as I was sure he played the president in the previous film and I spent about five minutes trying to figure out what happened politically that would cause the President to swap places with his VP. Then I remembered: that was the other shitty terror film! I was in the wrong franchise!

[So I fucked up. The other film franchise had Jamie Foxx in it. I feel like I’m a racist old fucker now. Shit, damn and bollocks. I was still confused.]

There’s an MI6 man who is part of the CATERING for the wedding at the beginning and confirms that the EVIL MAN is present, at his own fucking house. The wedding is blown up and the USA is surprised that there’s a lot of civilian death. It was a WEDDING. It was clearly a WEDDING. There was a man on the ground who was catering for the WEDDING. The overhead views CLEARLY showed a marquee and many people around who wouldn’t have been there a week before. It was a WEDDING. Anyone with half a brain would have known it was a WEDDING, you know, where lots of people gather to celebrate and probably have not a lot to do with the evil man. The explosion was HUGE. And yet evil man and two of his sons survived? Really?

There was an MI6 safe house in London. Why would MI6 have a safe house in London? They don’t do domestic. That would be MI5.

“The President doesn’t go anywhere without a satellite overhead recording him”. Really? That’s some fucking observation system you have there! I’m impressed. You can manoeuvre a satellite to make it overhead of the President all the time? Haven’t you heard of orbital mechanics?

Gerard Butler makes a hand signal that is spotted by the satellite and interpreted correctly by the bods in the situation room? What? How? What? Seriously what? I laughed, out loud, by myself, in a packed cinema.

“The terrorists have hacked into all communications”.
VP calls Gerard Butler telling him a SEAL team are on their way.
Looks surprised when a SEAL team turn up too quick and then determines they are baddies because they aren’t SWEATING. Nothing to do with brown skin and a beard. No, this film isn’t racist.

The explosion at the end was HUGE. It killed all the terrorists but didn’t get POTUS or Butler? Really?

This film replaced any form of sense and fun and action with gunfire and bullets. Too much gunfire and bullets. And I quite like action films.

My lessons from this film are that white people are OK. Black people are OK. The British are incompetent. Brown people are bad, especially if they have beards or are over 50 and look distinguished. Pakistan and Yemen are really bad. POTUS knows how to handle ten different types of gun and is indestructible.

This is a terrible film and I need to stop pointing out the bullshit.