Tag: imdb

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The Vigil

Because the cinemas are so quiet at the moment it is actually quite nice to go there. They’ve got themselves sorted for Covid quite well with hand sanitiser, face masks, wipes etc. The cinema I go to has a 5 people only in the toilets but you can’t actually see in the toilets to know if there are 5 people so I’m not sure how that will work on a busy day. A lot of the current crop of films out are reissues. The cinemas or film companies are trying to get the world used to the cinema again by getting us to see our “favourite” films. Amusingly a lot of these films are ones I couldn’t be bothered to see again. They are pushing Inception quite a bit ready for the release of Tenet but I hated Inception and won’t be going to see Tenet. I’ve just tried to create a hyperlink to my review of Inception but that term doesn’t exist on this site! I’ve just looked up when that film came out and it was in 2010 which is before this site existed, my dark ages I guess. I can tell you that a friend recently asked if Inception was brilliant or bullshit and my answer was “bullshit”.

The state of the tide of the river Medway was high. It wasn’t completely high tide as I could see some mud bank on the eastern side, the river was also flowing seaward quite fast and so I think the tide was waning. There are times when the river looks still, times when it flows the “wrong” way and times when it looks too fast. These coincide with whatever the tide is doing at that time, but with a small delay the further upstream you get.

River Medway
River Medway – I was going to walk further along for the picture but it was near film time.

After watching this film I rated it on IMDB. There’s a whole convention about what the ratings actually mean and descriptions of such are in this communication. When I can then access my PC I tweet the IMDB result. I gave up Twitter on my phone and so I now only check it when I can access the flight simulator. The result is below:

So, things. I considered walking out of this film but thought it would be a little rude so I stayed until the end. This film was a “horror” and I’m not really into that. Once you give up all belief in supernatural you can then logic away the scary shit and just watch the film for giggles. I can remember being a teenager and seeing The Omen, Poltergeist, Amityville and so on and they really disturbed me. There was something about those films that really shook me deep. I think I knew they weren’t real but the playfullness of the filmmakers affected me, which I guess is the point. While watching The Vigil I had the following thoughts:

I am bored and this film is boring me.

This guy is getting paid USD400 for reading Psalms and he is failing to do that. He made an agreement but isn’t holding up his side of the bargain. I don’t know what the rules are concerning a Shomer but he’s not doing anything. A Shomer is there to read to the corpse and ease the spirit on its journey. How long does this journey take? If the Shomer stops reading for a toilet break is that allowed? Must the reading be constant? What are the rules? Overall this seems a silly idea to me. Anyway, the main character isn’t doing his job.

Overall I thought this film was poor. It could have been really good. But it used the sound and music to increase tension when it would have been harder but more rewarding to really explore the relationship between this character and his religion and the traditions it has. I can’t decide if this film was a cheap attempt at horror or a real exploration of the psyche!

This Shomer has left his protected bubble of Hasidic Jews in New York. We learn why he left I guess and he is part of a support group for people who leave this oppressive regime. He suffers guilt and problems stemming from a traumatic incident along with leaving the community. We learn that he has seen things and takes tablets to help him control his visions. So, this film is about the psychotic breakdown of a man leaving a religious organisation and the mess that the Hasidic caused him. He is troubled by his own demon and it comes to him while he is [not] doing this Shomer job. I might read a little more about this film and, if I’m lucky, it will be a metal breakdown rather than a horror movie. I won’t be letting you know though!

If you want to know some more about strange religious behaviour then just read an article on the Eruv. It’s a piece of string that “extends” the boundary of your property so that you can go outside and do things on the days when God insists you stay inside your property. Why God allows this loophole is beyond me, it’s all rather made-up.

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Unhinged

I rated this film on IMDB, there’s a communication with a list of how the rating system works. I tweeted the result.

This film was terrible. I hated it. I considered walking out but was curious how they would end it. It was utter shit.

I think the lesson here is how we blame the wrong people for the things that go wrong. Woke up late? Your fault. Lost job just before retirement payout? Likely the fault of the regulations that are written by your government. Addicted to opiates? Likely the fault of the government. The media spin everything so our anger is misplaced. It keeps the masses quiet. Why don’t Amazon pay any tax? Because of the laws of the land. Why don’t companies pay fairly? Because of the rules of the land. Why is your MP fucking useless? Because individual people are selfish and vote without any form of altruism. Best I stop this before I end up in a downward spiral. This film was shit.

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Back To The Future (35th Anniversary)

So, I wanted to get out and go somewhere and I normally return to the darkness of the film theatre as an easy escape. There isn’t really a lot of films on at the moment because all the major studios have delayed release of all their films due to the SARS-Cov-2 issues. So, in a sensible move, the cinemas around here are showing classic films to get us to visit. Today, as of writing, the following films are available to watch with my comments after each:

  • Back To The Future (35th etc) – seen
  • Back To The Future II (2020 reissue) – will watch at home
  • Dark Waters – seen
  • Dreambuilders – don’t want to see
  • Goodfellas: 30th Anniversary – maybe
  • Harry Potter II RE – don’t care for these movies
  • My Spy – already seen on Amazon Prime
  • Onward – absolutely not
  • Proxima – seen
  • Sonic The Hedgehog – seen
  • The Dark Knight (2020 reissue) – can’t stand Batman films
  • The Empire Strikes Back: 40th Anniversary – maybe
  • The Greatest Showman – kill me now
  • The Shawshank Redemption (2020 reissue) – maybe
  • Unhinged – really not sure about this isn’t it just Falling Down?

So, there is plenty to see and that’s just today. Tomorrow there’s a different selection of films going on. I might go again at some point. I’ve been going to early showings assuming that the cinema is cleaner than after a few crowds have been in. I’m not sure about the whole opening doors to the toilets thing but I guess if everyone uses hand sanitiser that shouldn’t be too bad. To be honest in the film yesterday there were only five people in that particular screen and I think we all pretty much enjoyed the film.

Earlier in the day I had been down to the river at Peters Village and seen that the tide was quite low. When I checked the tide charts supplied by Wolfram Alpha I could see that the tide was turning and by the time I went to the cinema it would have been around 75% of high water for that day. Sure enough on the way in to the cinema as I drove along the esplanade I could see that the tide was indeed getting towards its highest. There were no mudbanks to be seen.

After watching the film I rated it on IMDB because that is a thing I do for cinema films and there is a previous communication detailing the ratings process here. I then tweet the result on my rarely used (for now) twitter account.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing this film again. It was great fun. There are so many aspects of the film that are well thought out and delightful little touches that it was as if I hadn’t seen the film ever before. I couldn’t tell you when I last watched this whole thing, but I can tell you that it was still excellent and it did make me wonder why films weren’t made like this anymore. Maybe they are and I just haven’t found them, or maybe they are and I’m struggling with confirmation bias, but this was a well scripted, well made film where every little bit of it just seems to work really well.

I’ve already bought the box set on Blu-Ray along with the Indiana Jones trilogy and Star Wars (1-6). I will be watching the next few films in this particular series over the next week or so and I can’t wait. I honestly can’t remember much and am pretty sure that the last time I watched the third film would have been in the cinema when it originally came out. We’ll see what I think of it!

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The Hunt

Yesterday I decided to head to the cinema although it was probably not the best idea to be in a room with lots of other people outside of my normal encounters. But still, I went. I do think was silly but because there’s so much going on in this country which is “normal” I don’t think the national psyche has changed to minimise the effects of the virus. I do think that our government aren’t doing enough, but I also think they are stupid and completely the wrong people to be in charge in a time of crisis. Try to think of who, in our current political system, you would trust to run this thing? I can only think of a couple: Lammy and Clarke. Polar opposites there I guess.

Anyway, back to the format. I made particular note of the tide as I drove along the riverside road because it’s important here. The tide was nearly highest and there were fishermen on the banks which was nice to see. I don’t think they’ll find any toilet roll in there though. On my return to home the tide was still pretty high or close to high tide and there were fishermen on the river banks near Peters Village also.

This film puzzled me and I eventually settled on a score on IMDB. There’s a rating system here. I then tweeted this result.

I had heard about this film from plenty of US based podcasts because stupid right wing christian people were freaking the fuck out about this. As far as I know the release was delayed. This sort of thing can only help the final outcome of a film. A little controversy goes a long way.

I think I need to write two reviews. Firstly if this film was written as a comedy and by centrist or left wing people then it is hilarious. It’s a funny look at the divisions in society and the idea that we should take revenge on those who disagree with us. This film takes the standard idea of a Battle Royale and places it in the USA with right-on lefty people hunting down right wing people who have loudly disagreed with the sorts of things that they do.

This film is the same as the Hunger Games or The Maze or any other future dystopian type film. It’s a fight to the death. It’s funny. I don’t think it’s clever or intelligent or sensible but it is funny. It’s also quite bright and cheery.

If this film was written by someone with right wing tendencies then it’s fucking terrible. If someone wrote this as though it was a real piece of work that might be true in the future then they need to chill the fuck out. It’s still funny. I still think it’s bright and cheery. But it shows a dark view into the mind of those on the right as if they think this could happen.

You know what? I enjoyed this film and I might even watch it again sometime. I suspect I will have to change the rating to an 8/10.

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Dark Waters

I’m listening to the radio as I write this and they are discussing the leading of petrol, the addition of tetraethyl lead, to help reduce knocking and also allow the fuel to run smoother. As science and others learnt that the lead was dangerous to humans and the environment many people fought back and said all the lead was natural. It wasn’t. But invested parties kept saying that the product was safe. They kept saying that they didn’t think their leaded petrol made any difference to the world. It’s one of those situations where you realise that companies and governments don’t do jack-shit for the people until forced to. It was DuPont who invented this. A side point – the chap who invented the leading of petrol was also responsible for the invention of CFCs – amazing.

I went to see Dark Waters at the Rochester Cinema which nestles next to the tidal part of the river Medway. I happened to notice that the tide level was very low. It was clear because of the mud banks being completely exposed and the rivulets were obvious. I did notice a shopping trolley in the mud and, had I had more time, I would have taken a photograph of it for this publication.

After seeing a film I then rate it on IMDB using a rating scale all of my own invention. You can read how that scale works on within this communication. I suspect that the rating for Dark Waters will be a surprise for some as I haven’t followed my system and am even considering changing my system to fit this score. I don’t want to see this film again but I really enjoyed it, that means it gets a 6 by default. But, I do think that all people should see this film and so I’ve decided to score it a 7.

I really enjoyed the film. It was very educational and full of anti-hope. This is one of those films that everyone needs to see and take on board all of the lessons of capitalism. Over the last ten years I have become more and more convinced that our capitalist governments aren’t doing the best for the people. They do the best for their own interests and it’s quite frustrating to realise that. Watch this film and try to defend DuPont. It’s a bit like watching The Big Short and then trying to defend capitalism. I am convinced that we need to change our society full-scale t omake it work for the people. To make it humanist.

I don’t think this government and management style is going to change peacefully. I think in two hundred years it will be different but largely because anthropogenic climate change will have ruined the planet and kills around eighty percent of humans. The remaining humans will be working to sustain what is left and priorities won’t be economic growth and making money. I’m hoping the priorities will be looking after the Earth and people. I’m glad I’ll be dead.

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Sonic The Hedgehog

Yesterday I took a half term trip out to see Sonic The Hedgehog. I know Sony spent a ton of money [or someone did] to change the look of the creature and I was curious to see what the film ended up like. Sonic The Hedgehog forms a massive part of my history, I played it a lot in 1991/2. I was in my first year at university and Big Jim had just moved into halls. He owned a Megadrive AND a television which seemed impressive, none of the rest of us had such stuff. Jase had a TV and I remember watching Rumpole with him on a tiny screen but everyone else relied on the communal television.

Big Jim never locked his door and he was happy enough for us to play his Megadrive when he wasn’t around. There were quite a few nights when I would get a bottle of wine, a few CDs, and head down across to Jim’s room to finish Sonic The Hedgehog. This was in the days before save-games on consoles and so every game was a fresh start. I can’t remember which level of Sonic it was now, but there was one where you would gain four or five lives every time you did it [100 rings]. This meant that the aim was to die before the end of the level and go back and get more lives. It was the only way to ensure you had enough lives to finish the whole game.

It would normally take about three hours, a few CDs and a bottle of wine to get the game done. It was good fun. It was also the start of my downfall I guess? I bought a Megadrive in my second year of university and that probably had the effect of ruining at least two of the educations being paid for by the state. It’s OK though. I realised my mistakes and have been paying it back to society for the last thirty twenty five years or so. It was worth it and without the Megadrive this site wouldn’t exist in this state.

The weather wasn’t great on the drive to the cinema but I did remember to look at the river to gauge the state of the tide. It was pretty low as all the mud bank was visible. Upon leaving the cinema the tide was lower as a boat that was floating earlier was then resting on the bottom of the river. So I left the cinema pretty much at lowest tide [not checked online].

After seeing the film I rated it on IMDB using a system I developed many years ago. This rating will probably cause some consternation amongst readers of this site, but I don’t care. I then tweet the result and here is that tweet:

You know what? I quite enjoyed this film. Yes, it was a kids’ movie, no, there wasn’t really enough adult humour, but overall it was quite good fun. You could watch any kind of kids/alien/monster film and it would be the same as this. Pretty sure I saw Monster Trucks a while back and it’s exactly the same. Alien thing befriends humans and then solves some puzzle or problem while being chased by the evil government. I think there was the possibility of more “Sonic” specific ideas that could have been placed within the film but I still enjoyed it.

I need to talk for a short while about Dr Robotnik. I wasn’t really aware of who was in the film before I went to see it and after a short while I recognised the facial contractions of Jim Carey being Jim Carey and I thought it was him but at the same time I didn’t recognise him. While watching the credits I had to wait quite some time before Jim Carey’s name came up and I was starting to worry that maybe it wasn’t him. It was. This film has Jim Carey being Jim Carey and it was glorious.

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Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn

Another Sunday another storm. This time one that rained on Kent but without the winds. Last weekend was windy too. I got out the house by going to see Underwater last Sunday which ended with me feeling I had intimate knowledge of Kristen Stewart’s stomach. Today, there wasn’t a lot on that I wanted to see so I took a trip to Rochester cinema to see Birds Of Prey.

The tide was ebbing just above half tide I reckon on my way in. There’s a natural fascination humans have with the water, the way the boats rock and nestle on the water, I like it. I am always amazed at the complication we humans have made on this world and the machines were are able to create. Such ingenuity.

After watching the film I rated it on IMDB. This scale has been discussed within this communication and it would be wise for you to read it. This film troubled me while I watched it and I considered leaving many times. I posted my rating to Twitter.

I hated pretty much every moment of this movie. It was shit.

While waiting for the adverts and trailers to be over I have been reading a book on the Kindle app on my phone. It saves me having to see the same trailers over and over if I go to the cinema often. Most adverts are also quite terrible. It’s a shame we no longer have cartoons before the main feature in the theatre. I’m currently reading a book about the development of the F-16XL.

General Dynamics F-16XL

This aeroplane was developed to increase the capabilities of the F-16 Fighting Falcon. I’m only two chapters into the book at the moment and it has covered the approval process along with the design process. I’m still waiting for the first flight. I’m reading a book published by NASA. It’s very interesting and allows me to learn stuff during the dead time at the cinema.

In the past I’ve read books covering the development programme of the X-15 and how the pressure suit was developed. These were both quite fascinating and I’m looking forward to finishing this book as there are still others I want to read. You should have a look at the books published by NASA. They are free and damned interesting.

Glimmer Of Hope
Glimmer Of Hope

Just there is a sliver of lovely blue sky showing promise for future days. This was the view as I returned to the village.

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Underwater

Rather than sit hunkered down in my house away from Storm Ciara I thought it would be better to spend the time in the cinema. So I went to the Cineworld at Rochester to see Underwater. I hadn’t even heard of the film before I booked the ticket but I watched about ten seconds of the trailer and it looked like an underwater adventure/action movie so I could cope with that. There wasn’t anything else on at the cinema I wanted to see.

The roads were covered in detritus of the storm and the river was rather unsettled in the wind, there were waves and everything! The tidal state was quite low, it would have been more fun with water spray had the tide been higher as some might have even made it to the road. I’m reminded of a time I went to Hastings and the sea was raging. The waves were crashing over the sea wall in spectacular fashion. I think this was the time that my dad had a job interview and we drove there. I was in charge of navigation and the M25 wasn’t fully open, the date should be easy to figure out from that!

Stormy Medway
Stormy Medway

I ought to get on to what I thought of the film. But “The Prologue” never gets started [classic Up Pompeii reference there for you]. I rated this film a little while after watching it. I normally do this while walking back to the car but I wasn’t sure. After a little while of thinking about it I gave this film a 4. There is a whole communication that underpins the numerology of the scoring system and you can read that here. Can you believe that on the day of the Oscar ceremony I went to see this film!

The trailers were the first warning. There was lots of trailers for horror movies. I don’t care for horror movies. They just aren’t any good. Once you accept that the supernatural doesn’t exist then horror movies are just shit. Movies with dolls in them are the worst. What a load of shit. I guess people like being scared in a safe way. Like rollercoasters. Anyway, I digress:

It wasn’t a good film. I’m not even sure it was enjoyable. I didn’t care for any of the characters. It’s most important that we ignore any of the physics involved now, I’d already decided I wouldn’t get annoyed by poor science. I didn’t at any point want to walk out so I guess there’s that.

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Parasite

I had a spare evening and rather than rest, go to bed early and generally refresh myself I decided to go and see a film with the programme starting at 20:00. This meant it was going to be a late night and I don’t really do well with late nights, I know my limits and I adjust what I do accordingly. Anyway, a chance to get to the cinema isn’t to be missed and it also forces me to write these communications for my limited audience.

My journey to the cinema was uneventful, I listened to Skeptics With A K podcast as I drove and they talked about companies offering reviving IV drips. Although I didn’t consciously look at the tide state and note it where it was I did so unconsciously – such is my routine. The tide was low and the river was quite flat – I could see lights reflecting in straight lines over the water’s surface, there was little wind. The weather is all rather grey over here at the moment with a few more days of grey forecast.

After watching a film I then rate the thing on IMDB.com, it’s a movie website thing and I’ve been looking at it for about twenty five years. There are rules about my rating system and before anyone gives me grief it’s worth reading those rules within a communication. I then normally tweet the result although if you look back through past reviews you will see a point where that didn’t happen.

So, yeah, it’s an OK film which I’m not that bothered about seeing again. I’m curious because this movie has rave reviews and I’m just not sure why. I mean, I enjoyed it, but I didn’t think it was awesome. I think I’m missing something on a higher level. Maybe my basic brain isn’t quite tuned for what this film produces.

I can see that there was some commentary on the class struggle but it wasn’t massive and I’m confused. When this happens I tend to spend some time reading real reviews about the movie and discussing it with people whom I trust. I will be reading some trusted review sources soon and I hope they will explain to me why this film is considered so good. It had a massive critics rating on IMDB and my scoring is way off theirs! So, I won’t be updating this communication with extra gumpf about what I found out because these reviews should be pure emotion and what I thought not what I think after trying to understand other points of view.

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1917

Yesterday I had a “spare” couple of hours. So I went to see the film 1917. Formalities first though. The tide on the river was in the middle. I could see mud flats glistening in the setting sunlight but the level wasn’t much lower than the edge of the flats. Part of me wishes I had stopped to take a photograph because it was scenic with the falling sun and reflective water and mud.

After watching the film I rated it and tweeted the result. There’s a whole communication here discussing the rating system and it’s here.

So, what did I think of the film? I really enjoyed it. As much as someone can enjoy entertainment where the slaughter of millions of people is involved. The themes of “what is right”, “how sacred is life”, “who has the right” have been playing over in my head for the last year or so and I’m am no closer to any answers to my personal philosophy but ultimately I am aware there are no ultimate answers to those questions.

This film was technically magnificent. Beautifully shot. Amazing. The story felt a little “Saving Private Ryan”, but it was different enough to stand on its own. Whether the events in the story happened I do not know but this film displays the shock and horror of the war. I should have rated this film an 8 but in reality I don’t think I will watch it again, so it must settle for a 6.

I was temporarily distracted during the film and there was a strong smell of perfume near where I was seated. I am sure that it was one of the brands SJR used to wear and the smell of it took me back to the early 1990s. I’m not sure of the brand but there were two she used to wear and one was Poison by Dior. It is a curious thing how smells can have such an effect on memory. I wonder what the brain chemistry is for that?

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Jojo Rabbit

I guess I have to start the new year as I mean to carry on and along with eating too much I have been to the cinema. Along the way I remembered to look at the tidal state in the river and to be honest I couldn’t really tell where it was. I think this means that the water wasn’t that still and I couldn’t make out the reflections from the opposite bank in the water. I did see a fire on one of the boats moored just off the mudbank. I think it was deliberate as it was still burning when I left. In the dark it looked as though it was the boat with a boat on it [which potentially makes it a ship].

I rated this film on IMDB and then tweeted the result. I’ve had a bit of a rationalisation of social media recently and might write about that here along with my latest bit of tech, there, that’s a teaser. Before you moan at my film rating you should read this communication which deals with how the system works. Here’s the tweet:

You know what? I enjoyed this movie. It was funny, colourful and perfectly ridiculous at times. Framing the war through the eyes of a child with his imaginary friend worked really well. I pondered scoring this film an 8 but decided I probably wouldn’t see it again and therefore it can’t have that rating.

The young actors in this film were amazing. The colour and brightness of the film worked really well to show the real life of Germans during the war. I’m not trying to suggest that this film has documentary ambitions but it does humanise the German working people rather than demonise.

It’s all well worth watching although I’m not sure I’d let young children see it even if it was a 12A.

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2019 Moovies

I’ve had an email from Cineworld letting me know what good value it is to pay them money each month and enjoy “unlimited” cinema. They dressed it up as “you did this last year” but basically they want me to keep paying and I am most likely to. I don’t think there’s been a year when I didn’t make my money back on my subscription. There have been odd months which have been barren but I’ve tried to make it up when the films are worth seeing.

2019 Moovies
2019 Moovies

Some things to note. I have seen more films than this because I definitely watched one in Boston at Feb and one in Bluewater when I was off work. I may have seen others but I can’t remember where or when. So this year was at least 46 films, which is about one a week. I’m happy with that. If you click on the menu above and then personal and film it’ll take you to all the movies I’ve reviewed.

Here’s to 2020 and the films I watch then.

Addendum: The eagle-eyed amongst you might notice that my favourite movie snack was hotdogs. This is because I am not a good vegetarian and if I want “dinner” at the cinema then hotdogs it is.

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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

It had to happen at some point. When a new Star Wars film is released I get the jitters and need to go, no matter how cool I think I am going to take it and wait. An opportunity came around pretty quick to see this one, so I took that chance and went yesterday to see the last of the Skywalker films [Pom and others who care, don’t read this until after you’ve seen the film].

I say a 4 o’clock-ish showing of the film as we finished work a little earlier than normal. The tide on this stretch of the Medway was about halfway but I don’t know whether it was ebbing or flowing. I could see half of the tidal flats reflecting the street lights from the opposite shore and the reflections broke up where the small waves lapped at the shore.

After watching the film I rated it on IMDB and then automatically tweeted the result. There is a whole communication covering how the rating system works and it is located here back in Feb 2014. This pretty much explains how I score certain films and what my criteria are. If you don’t like my score then perhaps read on, to see why I rated it as such.

I guess it’s time to explain why I rated this a 6/10. Apart from the fact that I probably won’t bother to watch it again.

THERE ARE POSSIBLY SPOILERS AHEAD. I haven’t written this yet so I don’t know, but it’s likely.

I enjoyed this film. I pretty much came out and thought to myself “It was OK”. That’s all. It was just OK. Nothing special about it. Much like when using the force I have learnt to let go of my feelings for this franchise.

Look, there were massive planet scapes, space battles, people dying, it all looked remarkably gorgeous. The planets were detailed although the production designers don’t seem to realise that planets can have all forms of terrain and weather, it’s how planets work but different planets are distinguished by their climate and flora. Just look at our [slowly burning] planet, we have all forms of weather and land type. Planets can be a mixture.

There were plenty of times when if I thought too much about what was going on I would be a little “What?”, how does that work, but, again, I’ve learnt to let go.

There is one thing I will say that annoyed me. Right at the end when all the rebellious little people turn up to help out they drop out of light speed in the cloud and I thought the whole point of that planet was to hide the fleet and you had to have the route fully mapped to be able to get into the secret area.

Richard E Grant was great.

Maybe my reaction to this film is more to do with where I am emotionally. It’s been a tough few months for me and I’m kinda divorced from a lot of feelings at the moment. Star Wars hasn’t affected me much. Even seeing the Emperor back didn’t do much for me. Who knows?

Then, there’re the general themes involved with this film. Much like a lot of our films and too much of the Disney stuff this film manages to further the ideas of family dynasty, family honour and christian dealings with sin. I’ll expand.

Too much of our society is obsessed with ideas of you being more than just you. It’s about the idea that you are who you were born to. Your history and family in the past is important. It matters if your father was Mr Boss, it matters which school you went to, it matters what your grandfather did. Why else do you think we have that shitty programme called “Who Do You Think You Are?”. It’s a BBC show about people’s family trees and what their ancestors did. It reinforces the notion that you are more than just you, you are also your family history. You have legitimacy because of what people who died before you were born did. I guess this is to be expected in a constitutional monarchy where our literal head of state depends on who their father is. This bullshit is reinforced by almost every aspect of our society and I fucking hate it. This film furthers those ideas.

Some powerful people seem to care about honour. Which i think is probably defined as caring about what others think of you. Currently it seems that a lot of our “leaders” don’t care about honour. They don’t care about what others think of them because they can get away with everything they say. If you think that’s extreme then be aware that the UK just voted for a known liar and racist to be its prime minister. People are selfish cunts.

Finally, because expanding my thoughts is hard work and I’m not the best writer in the world, the Star Wars films justify the best of christian values by allowing people to ask for forgiveness just before they die and allowing them to enter heaven. Vader atoned [?] for his sins by killing the Emperor [not very well as it turns out] and he gets reimagined as a jedi ghost. In this film, Kylo turns good right at the last minute and gets redeemed. What a crock of shit. It’s like Blair getting baptised after causing an illegal war. Such a bullshit view of the world but one that is enforced in our common culture.

These films perpetuate and reinforce these ideas of society and being born into your position in that society. They help youngsters learn that they must accept their place. There is no meritocracy. Only hereditary privilege.

Addendum [040120]: Saw this film again yesterday with a friend and I think it impressed me even less. Something Phil Plait complained about the Star Trek movie [reboot] was that it suffered from “too much stuff in it”, I agree with these comments about this latest SW film, which has JJ involved.

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Jumanji: The Next Level

Drove the short distance to Rochester cinema earlier today to see the second (third) Jumanji film. I really enjoyed the first one and reviewed it in this communication. I’ve since watched the first (second) on TV and so this was a no brainer.

On the way to the cinema I generally try and keep track of what the tide is doing. The river Medway is alongside the cinema and it is the tidal part of the river, being downstream from Allington Lock. The tide was high and the river was looking pretty dirty from all the rain that has hit the county over the last week. There was quite a breeze too which means there were plenty of little waves. Also, on the river, there was a ship carrying a boat [or however you choose to define ships and boats].

Shipon a ship being fixed.
Boat on a ship. The boat is being fixed.

This brings me onto what I thought about the film. I rated it on IMDB and there’s a communication here dealing with the rating system. I then share the result on Twitter:

This is simple. I enjoyed this film and thought it funny. It was good fun and looked great. A lovely story, perhaps very cliched, and some decent slapstick. It was all great.

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Le Mans ’66

I took a recent trip to see a film. I decided I needed to get out and do something and I also wanted to go somewhere new-ish. So, rather than journey over the Medway to Strood I went a little further and made Bluewater my destination. Now, this could have been a terrible decision as it’s the end of November and therefore well into the Christmas shopping season, I don’t do well in crowded places full of people buying shit for a stupid human festival. I have no idea of the state of the tide for my film trip. I didn’t purposely look at the river to observe the tidal phase but I did see a boat on another boat which I will try and get a photograph of next time.

After seeing the film I rated it on IMDB and there is a guide to the rating system in this communication. Then my phone tweets the result as well, such is technology nowadays.

So, what did I think of the film? I enjoyed it. There was the right amount of humour [at least I laughed] and I liked the cars. I wasn’t aware of the life of Phil Hill although I had heard the name before. This film really highlighted his racing career and how he was as a human being. It clearly showed the idea of man and machine as one, racing as fast as possible. The relationship between Hill and Shelby was great to see, as was the battles they faced with the bureaucratic monster that is Ford. There were a few liberties taken with the real story and the film version, but I can live with that.

The race tracks looked bloody amazing. I’m really impressed how, with tons of cash, you can turn the race tracks back into their 60s counterparts. It was nice to see Willow Springs in real life having raced around it in games for many years.

This film highlights some of the main issues with filming racing cars or people driving fast. Firstly to make the scenes look as though they are happening fast the camera is placed down close to the road, this gives the impression of speed because we are accustomed to seeing the road move from a greater height. You’ll see this all the time when cars race in film and it makes me giggle a little when you know they are only doing 40mph but acting as though it’s 100mph.

The second thing is that directors would like us to believe that you can always put your foot down more and there’s always another gear to change into! This isn’t the case. Race drivers use all the gears all the time and will generally be driving as hard as possible. Now, there may be times when they “go EZ” but this still requires the use of all gears but generally they will change at lower revs and avoid full throttle but they are still driving fast. I blame it all on the Fast And The Furious.

Overall, an enjoyable film about those Yanks winning something four times but never before or since in the 87 runnings of the race.

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Terminator: Dark Fate

Last night I snuck over to the cinema at Rochester [it’s really in Strood] and watched the latest Terminator film. There’s a couple of things I need to cover here before I get to the actual review.

Firstly, the tide. The Medway river by the cinema is tidal and amusingly this area is on the will-be-underwater-by-2050 list. Anyway I couldn’t really see the water but I could see lots of white seagulls sitting on the mud flat dotted around being lit by the streetlamps. So my deduction is that the tide was low if the mud flats were exposed.

After I watched the film I rated it on IMDB but there is a guide to how that works and that guide is this communication. Once rated I tweet the result:

So, here’s the review. I really enjoyed this film. I laughed and I smiled and I thought it was good enough to watch again one day. There wasn’t a huge amount I could criticise about it, there didn’t seem to be too many plot holes or things to wind me up.

In my humble opinion the Terminator films only include the first two. Any Terminator films made after T2 have been terrible. This one bucks that trend and while it still isn’t as good as the first two I think it can proudly take third place [out of the three I recognise].

There were a couple of issues with the film but the problem was more the reaction created in me. I laughed out loud a couple of times and no one else did in the auditorium. I’m pretty sure that part of the film was meant to be funny but I’m the only one who laughed out loud. This could be a product of my current mental state, but I don’t know, I’ll react as I see fit. There’s a line about “driving faster”, that’s when it was just me.

My one minor criticism is that C5 Galaxys don’t start that quickly. There are procedures but I’m happy to ignore that because the filming inside the aircraft was amazing and I sat almost open mouthed at the beauty and poetry of that scene. This film took fight scenes, put them in places done before in other films but then showed those other films how to do it properly. Really impressive.

Linda Hamilton and Arnie were both great. Sarah Connor is delightfully grumpy, rightly so, and sounds like me when I’ve got a swear mood on.

I guess the one thing with Terminator films is that the humans need to win and there’s only so many ways you can kill a Terminator. That’s the limiting factor with Terminator films.

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Ad Astra

I went to the cinema. I feel bad writing this. I didn’t enjoy it. But let’s get the formalities out of the way first.

I went to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester. I went to an 18:00 showing and I was a little surprised at how empty the lobby was, normally on Saturdays it’s very busy. Maybe I was at that “just before” time when many are still thinking of going out. It was lovely and sunny and I made a mental note to check the state of the tide. It was high, nearly full. This pleased me as earlier in the day I had run by the river slightly further upstream and the river was low. I run pass the navigational section and then along the tidal section by Allington lock. Given I was running at around 11:00 and went to the cinema around seven hours later I expected a high tide.

As is also customary I rated the film on IMDB and then tweet the result. I pondered this for a long time and even had to check my own rating system which is explained within this communication. It’s weird looking things up on your own website. I often do it to remind myself what I thought of a film at the time or which bands I have seen and what I thought of them. Somewhere within these communications I mention that this might be a kind of diary.

So, here’s the rating:

I wanted to like this film, I like space films. But, I had to score the film 4 as I hated a lot of it and didn’t really care about anyone in the film. I stayed until the end but only to see what happened. I wasn’t fussed about it. It was more annoying than anything else. I don’t know anyone who takes my reviews seriously. I’m there as a curiosity, a method for people to know me better rather than expect followers to take me seriously. If you read this website’s homepage you will see this is really a vanity project. A thing I do for fun. I am going to explain some of my criticisms but I should warn you:

THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD

The space scenes looked amazing and I was really impressed with the quality of the graphics. This is possibly the only good comment I have about the film.

The entire voice-over on this film was shit. It was annoying and the film would have been better without it. It didn’t add anything to the film and it didn’t explain anything that a vaguely intelligent person couldn’t figure out. One day the director might come out with a version and remove the voice over, explaining it was put there for stupid people. I hated it.

WHAT WAS WITH THE PSYCH EVALS? I don’t understand what shit this was. You say a few sentences into a microphone and record your pulse and something somewhere declares you fit for spaceflight? I don’t think the writers understood humans for this part of the film. It was interesting that McBride was clearly fucking insane from the beginning. If you fall off a space tower and tumble to the point that you might die but your heart rate doesn’t go above 80bpm then you are a psychopath. I hated these parts of the film more than anything else. It was terrible.

I liked the [impossible] tower at the beginning. It looked pretty good. I liked part of the background stuff to do with space flight like the med centres and technicians everywhere. If Earth has a tower up to space then why are they still launching people into space using chemical rockets? I know rockets look cool but SPACE ELEVATOR. If the technology exists to build a fucking massive tower [searching for intelligence??] then it exists to build a space elevator.

The unintentional sky diving scene could have been better. If there was so much stuff falling from the space tower then the main character, called ROY ffs, would have been ripped to shreds during the fall. We didn’t see him steering away from the tower. We didn’t see him try to get away. What happened to the rest of the tower? Did the single switch Roy flipped save everything?

How do you go from being an outdoors technician on the space tower to being an expert in flight of every type of rocket later in the film? This man was essentially a “chap who fixes the tower”, even though they had robots doing this, and he was also someone who was a miracle worker with flying rockets and knew all the systems in every space craft. What shit.

We can’t send a secure comms link to Neptune from Earth? Why Mars? Just because I think. The director wanted to show spaceflight. I think he failed quite dramatically. I think it was meant to take nineteen days to get to Mars and yet the film was meant to show action. I don’t think he concentrated on creating the right things. Yes, I am being critical of an action film, No I am not a film maker. On the journey to Neptune we see the loneliness of space flight after Roy manages to kill everyone but that could have been built up all the way. It was all annoying.

The first time I got my phone out to make a particular note was when Roy was on the moon. Someone said something like:

“We need to get going soon because it’s nearly a full moon.”

Boring military person on moon.

Unless there is a lunar eclipse it is ALWAYS a full moon on the moon. The sun ALWAYS lights half the moon you stupid writers.

The Moon. Let’s talk a little about that. Roy takes a rocket trip to the moon like the Pan-Am flight in the film 2001. He launches using a chemical rocket and heads to the moon. I don’t know how long it took them but it is implied that is was less than three days, which was fine. But, when he gets to the moon it’s a major city with tourists and stupid shops etc. If everybody on the moon got there by chemical rocket then it would need thousands of rockets taking off all the time. The expense of getting that many people ot the moon would be prohibitive. I hated this part of the film. The journey for Roy looked exclusive but the moon was just a crowded holiday resort.

On the moon they make the first car chase explosion make a boom noise and then none of the others. Annoying.

On the moon the moon-car, which looks like the lunar rover from fifty years ago FFS, leaps over the edge of a crater and still lands safely. Gravity still accelerates objects on the moon and the buggy would have broken/spun/killed everyone. Annoying.

In the moon city everyone walked around like the gravity was a standard Earth Gravity but then outside everyone acted as though they were on the moon. WHICH IS IT?

I have one word for the space station rescue on the way to Mars. Shit.

Let’s blame the Norwegians for doing naughty animal based research on a space station. Really? I’m not sure the director or writer understands other countries.

Landing on Mars using a shitty bad graphic of a space ship leaned over at an angle. Terrible. It denies the complexity of landing anything. It was annoying. No one on Mars walked like there was a limited amount of gravity. Everyone walked like they were in a standard Earth gravity. Annoying.

Mars city had the same problem as the Moon city. Where did all those people come from? Why were they all there. How large was the infrastructure of the Mars city? It seemed full of empty spaces and large corridors. This is not how you build things in space, especially if you only have CHEMICAL ROCKETS.

Here’s an idea lads. Once we’ve built our expensive base on Mars why don’t we include a perfect sound-room for recording messages to space? We could really make a proper sound booth with egg boxes and everything. Who knows when we will need it? especially if we can’t record someone and use that recorded message as we’ve already scripted it. My desperation was high by this point. I hated a lot of this film.

It’s probably worth pointing out that if someone dies on a spaceship you wouldn’t push their body out of the airlock. This would put them into pretty much the same orbit as you and the body would come back eventually to hit you or another spaceship. It is a bad thing to have extra stuff floating around in space. You wouldn’t do it.

I have no idea how ROY manages to get into the spaceship on Mars. It isn’t really covered. I mean somehow he opened an external door just at lift off and then climbed UP into the ship while it was launching and accelerating UPWARDS. If the spaceshit accelerated at three g then Roy would need to lift three times his own weight up into the rest of the spaceship. Of course he manages to get on board but in the process the others are killed when the film gets the physics wrong again. The rocket stage gets ejected and so the spaceship would have gone from acceleration to zero g. The astronauts would have flown the other way in the spaceship because of their inertia. It was established that up was up when Roy landed the ship on Mars.

I honestly didn’t give a shit about the journey to Neptune or what happened when Roy got there. It was all pretty bad. Poor writing and lazy filming. Most of it had been done before but in a far better way. I mean, if you have to kill your father just to get over the feelings of abandonment then I guess you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.

So, WHERE WERE THE SURGES COMING FROM? What about the inverse square law. What? How was this all happening? Why was there so much data on other worlds? Were these worlds within the solar system? Couldn’t the data be sent by comms link? Why didn’t we see any film of people shaving in space? How do you have enough food for eighteen years in space? How do you keep warm around Neptune?

Oh god this film got worse towards the end. I wasn’t sure that was possible but it did.

My last comment for now, I’ll probably think of more things during the day and I’ll add them to this page: It was fucking stupid to launch yourself from a radar spinning thing at a spaceship miles away and ACTUALLY MAKE THE SHOT, then when shielding yourself from the rings of Neptune with a shitty bit of metal the film fails to understand impulse and momentum. Every time a rock or thing hit the shield Roy would have slowed down. He wouldn’t have made it as far as his ship anyway. He would have died in orbit of Neptune. It would have made a better film.

Oh, the older couple next to me opening individually wrapped sweets slowly so the crackling noise was spread out over a long period of time, fuck off.

I feel slightly bad that I hated this film as much as I did. Just sitting here writing this stuff is making me remember more and more about the terrible bits of this film. I am going to read some positive reviews now to see if my mind can change. Anything written after this point is extra from later today.

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The Informer

To celebrate the last weekend of freedom before another academic year’s worth of work I had arranged a pretty standard weekend. A run, cinema, food shopping, thinking about lessons, rifle-related reading, reading, and the playstation.

At about mile three my right Achilles started hurting but I soldiered on and that was probably a mistake. I hurt today while walking. It’s annoying as I wanted to run again later this early evening but instead I might go on the rowing machine for an hour. i’ve got a busy few weeks and so can’t risk being immobile. I also like exercising and so need to rest the ankle for a week or so. Maybe I’ll be able to run on Thursday.

Oh, I also ironed all the shirts in the house ready for the next couple of weeks. It was a boring task, but oddly satisfying. While ironing I was watching 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown which is a regular watch, I like the comedy. I’ve also been watching The Patriot Act on Netflix which I like and makes you think about society and how it works. I can’t write too much about that TV show or this communication will end up in calls for revolutions around the world.

As I drove along Chariot Way I checked out the river. It looked to me that the tide was low. I could see all the river mudbank and all the grasses were visible. The boats all moored in the area were down low along with the water [it would be weird if they weren’t]. I was amazed therefore as I left the cinema to see that the river was even lower [possibly as low as it goes]. The level of the water was below the mudbank by quite some distance and it was clear that this was close to lowest tide.

tides at chatham end august 2019
Tides, Chatham, 31 August 2019

The film programme started at 17:50 and I came out of the cinema around 20:00. You can see from the chart above that this corresponds with what I observed. I asked for tide data in Chatham whic is slightly further down the river towards the Thames estuary because I’m not sure the data exists for Rochester or higher up the river. The tidal range at Allington, for example, is very large and the river only has what flows down from Maidstone at that point so low tide is possibly negative there! That’s something I’ll need to investigate.

I rated this film on IMDB after I watched it and I have to remind myself of the rating system so you should do that also. It’s in this communication. I then tweet the result. If you find the earliest movie reviews in this site then you can see that I just wrote the result as text. I think I probably wrote those communications before embedding was much of a thing in websites and stuff. Here’s the result:

This film was a satisfactory movie covering the tensions between those assholes in the FBI and the wonderful police in the NYPD. The Informer is a murderer who gets screwed over by the Feds and the local drugs cop helps him out. I think those aspects of the film were rather lazy and common within the film media. It could have been different and clever.

The Informer character is a violent man, but that’s justified in this film because he’s trying to get justice? Because it’s all self-defense? Because the Feds are screwing him over? Because it’s a film and needs prison violence to show how bad things are? I’m not sure I liked that aspect of the film. The ending was all very clever and so on and The Informer had it quite well planned. I kinda wryly smile when plans include lots of, what would be in real life, random acts that are required for the plan to work. I do know that when planning for things you can’t plan for the actions of other people. They do things wrong. Anyway, the plan seems to work well for The Informer.

So, let’s discuss the character should we? The Informer is a Polish chap who emigrated to the USA and then served in the Army a lot. This means he is a good man because to “serve your country” is the “best” that any US citizen can do. This is regardless of the facts that while in the forces you are treated like shit, once out of the forces you are treated like shit and those in charge will use you to maintain their positions of power. That’s all that the forces do. They maintain the power base for the white men in charge. I know I’m really into the air force and planes but I like planes. I don’t have to like what they are used for or what they do.

The Informer, once credentials have been asserted that he’s a bad motherfucker who did four tours in Iraq, then kills someone in a bar after they verbally insulted his wife. Now, some people are assholes, but it seems strange that this is glossed over. This man killed someone else. But that’s ok in this film because he was defending his wife’s honour [whatever that means]. There had to be a reason for him to be in prison in the first place and I guess that the writers thought this was the most “justified” way this character could be there. What pricks.

Two small things really irritated me:

In the opening credits there is a company the name of which I should have written down. I think it’s Imagination. This is the second time I have seen their logo and the second time it has irritated me. The company have used the Greek letter theta instead of an O in their logo. But the theta isn’t pronounced as an O in any language and so it’s just stupid.

The Feds were driving around in a Toyota Prius, which is good. But, we watch it move away at one point and before it starts moving we hear the sound of an engine starting. That’s not how the Prius works. It starts to move and then the engine starts. There, annoyances based on hybrid technology. I bet you weren’t expecting that.

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Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans

Another warm day means another period of time spent in the cinema watching glorious films. Well, they aren’t all glorious but some are. The tide was high on the way in and lower on the way out of the cinema in Rochester, UK. It’s a thing.

I then rated this film on IMDB and there is a discussion of the method for scoring films in this communication. You should read it to see why I would rate a Tarantino film lower than this one! I then sent a tweet.

I sat watching this movie thinking how lovely it was and laughing at the jokes. I’ve got a feeling that I will watch it again just because I enjoyed it that much. I suspect there are many layers to the jokes and the more I watch it the more I’ll see. It was good fun.

Having read about Boudica on the interwebs I like the idea that we have no idea where her final battle was. It was somewhere between London and Wroxeter which is a pretty large area to cover. Also, when you read about how the Romans treated her family it makes perfect sense that she became this fearsome leader of the tribes inhabiting Great Britain at the time.

This was a good fun movie with an excellent cast and great writing. It’s a who’s who of comedy.

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Angel Has Fallen

It’s always my plan on a very hot day to visit the cinema. It doesn’t cost me anything other than petrol, there’s normally a film on I want to see, and I get to spend two hours in a room with air conditioning. It seemed more important this time as the field out back was being harvested and I couldn’t have the windows open for dirt and dust.

So I travelled to Rochester cinema, where I tend to go because I pay a monthly fee and go as often as I want. The last time I went to avoid the heat I had to go to the cinema at Bluewater because there was nothing suitable to see at Rochester. I observed the state of the tide as I drove along the embankment and it was high, the water was lovely and still and it would have been a good time to take photographs of the area as the reflections were gorgeous. I didn’t have time for that as I arrived at the cinema pretty much as the programme started.

Instead of watching all the adverts and trailers I tend to read a book using the Kindle application on my phone. I sit there, along, reading some sad technological book as I ponder the uselessness of the trailers in front of me. So far I have read/am reading the following:

  • X-15: Extending the Frontiers of Flight
  • Dressing for Altitude, U.S. Aviation Pressure Suits-Wiley Post to Space Shuttle
  • Elegance in Flight: A comprehensive History of the F-16XL Experimental Prototype and its Role in NASA Flight Research

I went to watch Angel Has Fallen and I was somewhat surprised at the number of “older” people in the cinema. I don’t know why this seemed more than normal, maybe because it’s a bank holiday weekend? After the film I rated it on the IMDB website and there is a guide to the rating system as the main thesis in this communication. In the greatest of styles, I watched the film, I didn’t stay just to see the end and I wouldn’t watch the thing again. So, like the last two films I’ve seen this ends up as a six.

This film was exactly what you expected it to be. Gerard Butler saves the President and there’s lots of killing, also there’s lots of near-dying. You know, when the hero is in a massive truck crash without a seat belt and then groans and wakes up with no problems at all. This film seemed to be co-produced by the GB vanity project, no problems there but it was obvious.

I liked the opening section where we see that GB, I don’t remember his character’s name, is struggling with headaches and pain, I assume this is from the military machine caring not for his safety and using his body hard, pushing him until he can do no more. The capitalistic society over the pond forces people to work as much as possible while wearing out their bodies, and then, when done, it cares not for helping these people. It was nice to see that the Opioid Crisis was hinted at in this film with GB popping pills through the introduction but none of the pushing by the pharma companies was mentioned and how they have created this crisis – READ A DECENT NEWSPAPER PEOPLE.

When GB was talking to his old friend about the training facility it was bloody obvious who was going to be the baddie in this film. This talk was terribly scripted. It could have come from the last speech by a Bond baddie just before he thinks he’s going to kill Bond. It was shit. Also, the opening fight sequence was clearly training and meant nothing. It’s such a trope that it was boring. Whenever I see helicopters used in films where they think private companies would use them you have to think, that’s a lot of money. Helicopters are expensive.

It’s nice to see Hollywood reacting to the world around them. The earlier mentioned Opioid problem mentioned and also in this one they mentioned Russian interference in an election. It shouldn’t surprise us that the socially liberal west coast town produces films which argue for the treatment of everyone as a person and try to tell the real story of the world around them. There are plenty of films with gay people, trans people, anti-war, pro-good-guy, anti fascist themes. It’s nice to see. I guess they hope they will slowly pick away at the public to become more socially liberal and treating all humans as if they were fucking HUMANS.

Apparently GB has had too many concussions during his career and then, in this film he probably suffers another eight or so. I would imagine that he would be having massive mental problems by now. Of course, the mental issues only really show when GB isn’t doing much. When he’s in LION mode he’s clearly the “best”. It’s almost as if getting hit in the head a lot or having explosions go off around you a lot mean that you might end up with damage. At the end of the film I would have expected GB to retire and slowly degenerate into a highly disabled person with no help from the state because that’s how things work in the USA.

There’s a comedic movie review podcast I listen to, it’s theme is kinda specialist [NOT like that] and they make me laugh. In it they discuss the “force-push” problem quite a bit. The idea that Obi Wan can use the force-push to destroy a droid from a distance but sometimes he has to fight in sword combat. Why not use the force-push all the time? Why waste the time doing close combat with higher chances of being injured? Just use force-push. Always go straight to the highest setting. It’s a bit like Power Rangers individually fighting before joining together as the large machine thing [I am unsure about the correct terminology now!]. Well, this film has its force-push moments everywhere.

GB is driving a truck at some point and we see film of him keep putting his foot down and then changing gear. Why not go as fast as you can straight from the start? Just drive the fuck away. I know a truck takes a while to accelerate but we see the gear changes keep coming and the truck accelerates more. Just drive fast. If I had police chasing me and I needed to get away I think I’d drive as fast as possible straight away. You go for the max setting as soon as you can.

There is another point where the bad people are shooting at Secret Service members in a corner and there must be a few thousand rounds exchanged before the bad people use a rifle launched grenade to kill all the SS members. This seems an obvious move from the beginning, why wait? Use the force-push straight away [I’m expecting an explanation about the force-push from Pom as he cares more about Star Wars things than I do].

In the film they make a hospital blow up. They flood the hospital with oxygen and use high pressure nitrogen and then SOMEHOW remotely ignite the lot. The hospital explodes in grand style and I couldn’t help but think that it was impressive how they managed to evacuate an ENTIRE hospital in about five minutes. Impressive stuff! But, I won’t be the first to point out that nitrogen is an inert gas. It doesn’t react with anything. It doesn’t explode. Also, oxygen by itself doesn’t explode. If you remember your fuel triangle you need fuel/oxygen/heat or source of ignition. There wasn’t a fuel in this film. If nitrogen is explosive then the entire atmosphere would burn, it’s around 79% nitrogen. Maybe they used the compression of the nitrogen tanks to cause the explosion?? I don’t know but this wouldn’t have brought down the hospital.

Nearly there, I promise. [definite spoiler in the next paragraph]

There were two female characters in this film. There is the FBI agent investigating GB. There is the wife of GB who we ONLY see in a motherly caring role. We don’t see the wife as anything other than the dutiful wife. The FBI agent, who seems hard-ass, is a reasonable character but she gets shot in the stomach and then shot in the face. This bothered me. Firstly films don’t tend to shoot women in the head, execution style. Also, the only decent female character gets killed, fortunately this is just after she’s uncovered the proof needed to resolve the film. Now, I am not bemoaning the role of women as a carer for children, but within this macho bullshit the only women are treated poorly. The females could have been much stronger characters. Although in reality this film is about the macho bullshit of GB and the bad-guy mate of his.

How did the bad guys manage to track Nick Nolte’s woodland place so quick when the FBI couldn’t do it? Computer magic, it was poorly written. There could have been other ways of doing this but the film glossed over it. Then, there’s the FBI using their facial recognition software on “every camera in the US”. This made me laugh, it’s a terrible idea. It would also take more computing power than exists. I mean, my iPhone doesn’t recognise me most of the time with face ID, how would they use “all the cameras”.

What a bullshit last fight there was. Such macho mano-a-mano crap. “I’m glad it was you” says a character. What a load of fucking shit. The final battle of the movie was basically a load of bullets and testosterone. I hated it. The film had kept me going quite well but the final twenty minutes was cock. The filming technique at times was close-up blurry and I don’t think it’s a good technique. It started with the Bourne Identity and the style it introduced and all it does is mean I have no idea what is actually happening in the scene.

My final thought: Nick Nolte was AMAZING.

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