Tag: review

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The Predator

This glorious afternoon I opted to stay in a darkened room and watch a film. The room was screen 7 at Rochester Cineworld cinema. You see, when you have a subscription you need to make sure you go enough to make that worth while. I could have stayed at home and learnt the songs for the next Disaster Area gig but I chose not to.

I failed to notice the state of the tide on the way to the cinema and it is quite unlike me to do that. Ever since I started mentioning it I have been a little obsessed although it is a quick and easy way to connect with nature, the sun and the moon. The tide was low when I left the film.

I rated this film on IMDB using the system explained within the words of the communication called IMDB Ratings.

This film was quite terrible. I only stayed until the end to see what would happen. I’m a big fan of the original movie Predator. It had Arnie and an alien and a misfit group of hard-core homo erotic troopers who all died one by one until Arnie had beat up the alien enough it decided to nuke itself out of existence.

This film had a misfit bunch of soldiers who were all bad men and heading to prison [I think, I’m not sure why they were all in the same bus]. There was a chap with Tourettes so that rude things could be said and blamed on Tourette’s syndrome when really he just said the toxic-masculine bullshit that the script writers really wanted to say. I’m pretty sure he had some stuff to say about “eating pussy”. It’s a shame because the actor playing the Tourette’s chap is really good and could probably pull that character off in a serious film.

There was a kid with ASD or high functioning autism. He seemed to cope pretty well when all the guns started going off. There was a brilliant throwaway line that autism is the next evolutionary level to let the movie goers know that this kids was the future.

There was a female scientist, a kind of Tia Carrere clone, who apparently:

“wrote the book on evolutionary biology”

I always thought that was Charles Darwin. When we first meet this actress she looks EXACTLY like a make-up advert with her head turned 1/4 on and hair flawlessly flowing down her shoulders. It was pissing ridiculous.

I looks as though the script writers just had gaps in the script with the words “insert science sounding shit here”. On that train of thought apparently a helicopter can “track another helicopter’s frequency”. Jesus.

It was disclosed that the Predator had been before in 1987 and another year. Predator 2 was in 1990. I’m not sure what year they said because they then claimed that it was coming to earth with an increasing frequency which is a pretty spectacular claim to make given just three datum points. Also, the predator was being chased to Earth and crash landed so I’m not sure that “intention” could be claimed.

This movie was enough for conspiracy dicks. It had secret aliens, a massive under dam base where thousands of people work on alien artifacts and secret government organisations run by a young man who seems to have extrapolated way too much from the limited data available. Also, this movie had

GUNS

Now, I know the original was full of guns and macho bullshit but it was an Arnie film. What the fuck did you expect? In this film it shows the American obsession that violence can cure anything. The gun can kill all things and rectify the problems facing the country. Got an alien dog running at you which doesn’t go down with a couple of bullets? Just shoot more bullets at it. This movie does not celebrate genius or alternative thinking. It celebrates a culture fantasising completely over small arms, and sometimes bigger weapons.

Arnie used his ingenuity to harm the Predator enough. This movie uses guns.

So, the primary female character explains at one point that the Predator left her alone when she was completely naked in the decontamination room. Does this come back to be used? Does this have any explanation later in the film. No! Because, fuck you. Don’t expect us to tie together all the plot points or even let this film make sense.

Save you money. Find Predator with Arnie on a streaming site and watch that. It’s awesome.

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Ant-Man and the Wasp

Earlier today I went to the Cineworld cinema in Rochester to see the film Ant-Man and the Wasp. I’m not really into superhero movies, they bore me and are too outrageous. I was curious to see what I would think of this one. There are some administrative duties I must attend to first though. The tide was pretty full when I got to the cinema, maybe just before high tide. On the way out the river was definitely flowing towards the see and the tide had turned. I rated this movie on the IMDB website and there’s a guide to those ratings within this communication which was written over four years ago!

Well, as you can see I rated this film well. I would watch it again. It had just the right amount of character and humour to make everyone likeable, even the Ghost. I don’t have any real problems with any of it. I recognise there must be many plot holes and don’t get me started on being able to shrink smaller than the molecules of which you are made but I liked it all.

The were even TARDIGRADES ffs. Those little beasts are mean motherfuckers! I really did enjoy this film. Well worth a watch.

My main criticism would be that the Ghost character could have been more developed. I would like to see a film with just her in it. The Ghost was played by Hannah John-Kamen who also stars as Dutch in Killjoys. As a superhero, whether good or bad, the Ghost had a wonderful costume and interesting back story.

If you do see this film, make sure you stay around to see that little bit after the first set of credits. It tied in very nicely with another film. Very interesting.

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The Festival

Went to the cinema at Rochester last night to see The Festival. I arrived a little before time because I wanted to complete some more steps towards my daily total. Earlier in the day I had needed to buy some work shoes and I visited that Mecca of shopping: Bluewater. Before buying the shoes and doing a classic man-shop: walk to the shop, try a single pair of shoes, buy them, walk back to the car; I walked around the shopping centre thrice.

Medway Views
Medway Views

You can see that the view is just lovely and the light was nice last night. Plenty of sunshine to round out a cooler day that we’ve had all summer. The tide was also quite low with the mudflats showing to the edge of the river. I rated this film on IMDB and there’s a communication explaining the rating system.

This film was OK. There were some wonderfully grossed out moments that made me chuckle out loud. The basic plot is that an incredibly selfish chap gets dumped by his girlfriend and goes to a music festival as part of his recovery I guess. Over the course of the festival he learns just what a selfish prick he is and tries to make amends for that.

The set-up of him slowly learning all the things he did while he was high on MDMA was quite funny. This film is your usual “teen” gross humour and situational comedy taking the worst of human behaviour and placing all that in a single person or weekend. It’s relate-able to everyone I think because we’ve all grown up. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never been to a festival, many of the set pieces in this film can be found in our collective pasts. I guess that makes it quite clever.

I’ve been to five festivals over the past six or so years and I would say that I have had a wonderful time at all of them. Even the muddy one. I mean, yes, I broke down in tears after my car got stuck in the mud and I was worried about it, and the walkways were ten centimetres deep with mud, but overall I had a good time.

This film encapsulates a sense of growing up and mini-experiences that we’ve all had. Well done.

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The Spy Who Dumped Me

Yesterday I drove to end up on a vector almost directly north from where I had started to end up parked near the Medway river to watch a film. It was a choice of this, The Spy Who Dumped Me, or The Festival [not that fussed] or The Equalizer 2 [even less fussed], also, Mila Kunis is in The Spy . . . . Yesterday I utterly failed to observe the state of the tide sorry about that. As is custom I rated the film on IMDB and there’s a communication explaining the rating system.

Look, this film is not great. It’s not that clever and I still am not sure who was a good person or not or on the side of whatever side was meant to be good. I’m not entirely sure the film made sense, I don’t know why the object was left where it was etc.

But, let’s ignore all that. This was a reasonably amusing film with some almost laugh-out-loud moments. It also has Mila Kunis. I don’t think there needs to be anymore explanation.

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The Meg

This afternoon I traveled to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester to see The Meg. The tide was high and the Medway looked nice and pretty as I drove by various parts of it. I rated this film on IMDB and you should read about the scoring system in this communication. Here’s my tweet showing my score:

Well, what can I say about a film that is almost an exact remake of Jaws? It’s not exactly Jaws but it’s pretty close. Firstly, before I give spoilers about the film, I want to make a point about one of the adverts. It was for Facebook and it was trying to say that Facebook is sorry for the way they have allowed selling of data and fake news type things. They are trying to rebuild the trust in the company. Look, I don’t want to seem stupid, but Facebook makes its money from advertising and selling your data. If they full stopped your data being used then the company would have to find another income stream. Anyway, they say that they want Facebook to get back to doing what it was originally for. Keeping in touch with families and friends.

Except that’s not what Facebook was originally about. I mean it is for most users but Facebook started as an online way to rate the attractiveness of students at a university. Just saying.

So, the film? It was a pretty good fun film. There were, of course, many moments where I thought it was absolutely bollocks but those were easily ignored because the story was kinda OK.

So, the idea there is a thermal layer below which more species lurk is pretty fine, placing it so far down isn’t though. Ships and submersibles can’t get there. Also, there’s a massive issue with the nuclear submarine at the beginning being so far down, they can’t get there. Along with the idea that they were attacked above the thermal layer by a Megalodon which couldn’t get above the layer or the sub was below the layer but no-one at that point knew about the layer. That occurs in the first few minutes. But, let’s ignore that shall we?

When they track the Meg attacking boats they decide to go and investigate in their own boat. But they had a HELICOPTER on the research platform. Strange choice really.

Their ship can travel faster than a Meg through the water, this seems pretty poor. I love the fact that they had twenty minutes to get to a shallow area to trap the Meg and in those twenty minutes they managed to rig up many extra gadgets to try and kill the shark.

How come when they got to the shallow area it was really deep for the underwater shots?

How come you can see really far in water? Pretty sure you can’t.

Anyway, I still enjoyed it. Those you expect to die, do. Those you want to live, do. They all seem pretty happy at the end of the film even though there has been massive death and destruction. I guess we ignore all the pain.

Right at the end of the film they projected the French word for the end:

Fin

I laughed. I didn’t notice anyone else laughing. Oh well.

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Mission: Impossible – Fallout

My last movie review was a break from tradition and I’m not sure whether to return to a particular format or not. You should probably see this communication on my rating process. I went to Rochester cinema to see Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Now it had been on my radar that this one was the best in the series or something like that. I don’t read proper movie reviews, unless I see a film that has me really confused, or where the score on IMDB was a lot different from the one I gave it. The metascore on IMDB for this Mission: Impossible is 86. That’s an overall review of 86% by critics. So, I have for you my score out of 10:

This film was utter shit. I got really bored. I would have left the cinema if it hadn’t been for two people in the row of seats blocking me in, so that places this film along with Van Helsing on my scale. I spent quite a lot of this film silently screaming:

I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON

I think there might be people who could explain to me what happened and who was dealing with whom and what the politics were and why they were in Kashmir. There were two bombs in the same village? Because there’s a glacier there? I don’t understand. This film was, and I say it again, utter shite.

There was an opportunity for it to be good. Just one though. SPOILER ALERT. Right at the end when the sun shines on Ethan’s face, if that had been the bombs I would have applauded. I would have stood up and cheered. But it wasn’t and so this film was bollocks.

A couple of things I noticed though. Firstly, the helicopter used above London had the registration G-DEUP which I thought was funny because it sounds like giddy-up. I sniggered and nodded at this.

You can buy the helicopter! Click below.

Then there’s the case of the identical women. There was a woman trying to kill Ethan or the baddie, Ilsa Faust. I’m not sure. Then there was the only woman Ethan loved, Julia Meade-Hunt, his wife I think. To me these people looked the same. I couldn’t tell them apart. I was somewhat surprised when they both appeared in the same frame.

I’m not going to say much about the indestructibility of any of the characters except, THEY WOULD ALL BE DEAD after the first impact.

Last thing, microwave transmitters don’t work that way. The film just says microwaves because it sounds like science. They could have said things that really do work but scriptwriters don’t generally do science.

I should suspend my disbelief and that would be fine if the script or story was any good. I love a well made science fiction film. I can cope with FTL travel and time jumps and interplanetary travel. I can cope with aliens. I can even cope with mystical powers and magic. But the story still has to be good enough so that these things don’t really make it onto the radar. Pretty much every stunt in the MI film would have killed Ethan and so it didn’t do well with the story line part. I am still not really sure what happened or why.

I looked at a few of the IMDB reviews from critics to understand what they liked and the three I read all stated that this film was a great summer blockbuster. They did not say it was a good film, just that it was the best action movie for a summer release. Well, that explains a lot I think, it gives you the level of shit this film is.

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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Last night I went to see the latest Jurassic Park film. I travelled to the Cineworld Cinema in Rochester. The tide was low, I could see the whole mud back. The place looked quite picturesque in the dimming sun. As is my custom I rated this film on the IMDB site and you should read the rating system within this communcation.

Do you know what? I just tried to settle down and watch this film and enjoy it. Yes, it was terrible. The plot was shocking. The script was poor and everyone can outrun a volcano. They did get Jeff Goldbloom in for a couple of shots in the studio but they left the action to the younger actors. I just tried to enojy it as an action film and not be too picky.

There must be some form a rule that indicates that sequels are really bad, except for the Godfather and I haven’t seen those movies. This is film number 5 is the series and it was as you would expect for the fifth film in a series when there is only one plot.

Was it film four when they designed a new type of dinosaur? It wasn’t long before the capitialist pigs would take that dinosaur and then try to create an army with them. There was a lot wrong with this film. But I suspended an awful lot of disbelief and managed my best to enjoy the experience.

I remember seeing the first film in Harlow and it was an utter rush. Spielberg did an amazing job creating a world where dinosaurs exist. The original film made me so excited and scared I loved it. Unfortunately for kids these days they get to follow it up with tripe.

Oh, why were there kids under the age of 10 in the cinema when it’s a film that finished at 21:45?

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Solo: A Star Wars Story

Today I went to see Solo. A film from the Star Wars universe but nothing really to do with the Empire and the Star Wars films. It was set before Han meets Luke is Mos Eisley. I went to the Plaza cinema in Workington and it was a very pleasant experience. The cinema was a good multiplex with decent prices. I liked it. I now need to include some form of information about the tide and I am afraid I have no visual information about it. I can inform you of what it was like at a similar time the day before:

This was the view over the River Esk slightly further down south. Just north of the Eskmeal Ranges used by the MOD to test rockets and shit out to sea.

As is customary I rated the film on IMDB and you should know by now to see this communication with information about the rating system.

So, there we go! A resounding 8/10. That’s pretty good for me. I went to see the film without any real expectation and I just wanted to be entertained. I struggled at the beginning because it seemed to be Oliver Twist for the first fifteen minutes but things settled and I enjoyed the remainder of the space romp.

I’m not going to go into detail. I enjoyed the film and I liked the action sequences. Could it have been better? Yes, loads. But it was good enough. I think what makes it survive a roasting here is that it didn’t have anything to say about the Darth Vader issue. It’s not a prequel and it doesn’t mess with the original films. I enjoyed it.

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Avengers: Infinity War

After hearing from plenty of people that Infinity War was really good I thought I should go and see it. Even when I have said “I don’t like superhero movies anymore” they still seemed insistent that this film was worth it. So I went to Rochester to see Infinity War. The tide was waning but still quite high at 19:00 last night.

Rochester
Rochester

Once I came out of the film I rated it on IMDB, as is my custom. I had to think a while because I was thinking about what single number could offer my sum total of thoughts and sometimes that’s a hard thing to do. There’s a communication somewhere about what these numbers mean.

There are two versions of this review. The first, tldr, is below:

Whatever.

 

The second is more subtle but will make a mild attempt to expand on my thoughts in the tldr version:

The first ten minutes had me confused that I was watching the wrong movie. It started with a fight off world straight away and I was a little lost. After that the pattern was

  1. Have a scene with a few quips.
  2. Have a big fight.
  3. Repeat.

Thanos seems to have a rather Malthusian view of the universe and I have to say I agree with him. I would go further than halving the population though because EXPONENTIAL GROWTH. He sets out with a good plan.

The glove is just a glove.

About three of the male characters had beards and I COULDN’T tell them apart. I think that one is on me, I really struggle with faces sometimes.

Is one of the stones the All Spark from the Transformers movies? Have I spelt that correctly?

I don’t think nano-tech works the way the film shows it happening.

Were the dog things from Resident Evil??

Bashing people into buildings is really important.

Also, this film shows us that hitting people is important and fighting is the solution to everything.

I could have quite happily left this movie as I didn’t care about anything in it.

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Deadpool 2

Yesterday evening I journeyed to watch Deadpool 2 at the Cineworld cinema in Rochester. The tide was very definitely low, I could see deep channels in the mud banks along the edge of the river and I was reasonably surprised at spotting them, they aren’t something I’d noticed so much before.

It is customary for me to rate films I see on IMDB and then tweet the result. You might want to read the comments on my rating system contained within this communication.

Look, I’m really off superhero movies. I just do’t find them interesting. You could say I’m continually searching for the ONE that breaks new ground. The one that merges three genres and everyone goes “holy shit! That is the film we were waiting for!”. I haven’t seen that film yet.

This Deadpool film was much like the first. It’s a superhero film with naughty words and some gore. It’s not clever and it doesn’t make it grown up [says the man who swears too much]. I’m not even sure the plot was up to much. There was some time travel aspects and trying to keep that in line is hard work and this film fails at that. Yes, I guess I laughed sometimes, but I think that’s only because of the swearing and sarcasm. This isn’t a good film in the genre of “film”, this is just the naughty boy in the corner.

At one point the word “cunt” was used in this film. I had thought at the beginning that I better hear that word at least once for this to be a decent film and they managed it. This usage of that word didn’t elevate the status to decent though. What surprised me was the gasps of surprise in the rows behind me when cunt was used. I don’t understand why people are shocked when they hear it. I guess the social-causing aspects of this film make it interesting. But not good.

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3TEETH – Electrowerkz

Yesterday I definitely wasn’t on a road trip and I definitely tweeted this.

In reality I was on a fast train into London town. I had just completed a live range at MGS and got changed quickly to see the LA band 3Teeth at Electrowerkz, that lovely quiet, beautiful little venue in The Angel.

The support band were called Creepiing. They were a bit shit really. They had one good song and another one that was borderline OK.

Creepiing
Creepiing

Unfortunately for them, Creepiing, just weren’t that good. The crowd gave them a good reception though.

The headline band were next and for just over an hour they played a solid set. The music is dark, slow and menacing. It’s a very good blend of heavy chugging riffs with keyboards and sampled sounds. The vocals, although distorted, are clear and understandable.

3TEETH
3TEETH

There are a couple of things I want to mention though. Most of the songs are heavy and slow so there weren’t really any upbeat songs to get your dancing shoes moving. I know slow is their style but overall the evening needed some bounce. It’s always seemed important to me that bands look like they are having fun and can enjoy the moment. 3Teeth managed that well. The little chats in between songs were personalised and friendly with plenty of smiling from the lead singer. The guitarist was a pretty happy chap too. The keyboardists didn’t really raise their faces much, but perhaps that’s because they are keyboardists.

The gig was rated 6 on a scale of something.

Before the encore the crowd were doing what seems to be an industry standard now of chatting “one more song”. I find this really irritating. Why stop at one more song? Why not ask for a whole album? “We want more” seems a more appropriate chant to make, thereby not limiting the band to just one more song.

My favourite encore chant was “We want Moore” when I saw Gary Moore back in the day.

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Rampage

Went to the cinema this evening to see Rampage. Now, I hadn’t seen any of the trailers – I don’t tend to watch them. All I had was the film poster. Before the film I went for a walk along the wharf, not a Worf that would be weird, and noted that the tide was neither in nor out. There was a low level bubbling sound from the mud banks slowly draining their contained water, it was a relaxing sound.

Tidal Medway
Tidal Medway

As is usual I rated this film on IMDB. You should see this guide to the system within this communication.

It was a terrible film and got worse as it went on. I didn’t even notice one of the main plot points although the camera shot at that exact spot struck me as strange but I didn’t work out why they had done that. I had to ask my neighbour at the end of the film how the antidote got into George.

Chicago didn’t look a whole lot different at the end of the film. Still a trashy place.

The tide was in when I left. The water level was higher than two hours previously.

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Ready Player One

Foremost, be warned I am struggling with this one. I have spent the last 18 hours wondering what rating to give it. I’m concerned I’m in a bad mood but don’t think so, I’m just puzzled by this film. But first, there are routines to get through.

I went, on a glorious sunny day, to sit in the dark at the Cineworld cinema in [not] Rochester. I now comment on the tide, as the river is tidal, at this point. The tide was in and I took a pretty picture to confirm that. If you look carefully you can see the historic Rochester castle and cathedral.

High Tide Rochester
High Tide Rochester

I rated this film on IMDB and you should read this communication about the scoring system. This is where the controversy starts I think:

So, I should now go ahead and explain my rating and thoughts.

Bad Thing

This film started by playing “Jump” by Van Halen. This is a good song, it’s iconic, but I was instantly reminded that a good soundtrack does not make the film. Suicide Squad was a shit film but had a great soundtrack of classic 80s songs that everyone knows. So, let’s ignore the music.

Bad Thing

I don’t think the voice over was necessary. Films are made better without exposition. Build your explanations into the film, release the details slowly. Make the audience earn the story. Let’s ignore that.

Good/Bad Thing

There were so many 80s cultural references, along with a glaring one from 1991 and Terminator 2, that these were unsubtle. They were rammed into your retina. I guess I missed many as I’m not a massive 80s whore, but my mate Pom would get more. I think he’d like that part of the film. This film is like a greatest hits of popular culture.

An Aside

If pop-culture is the stuff that is popular does culture mean all that upper class shit that critics like? The stuff that isn’t popular? Should that be called culture?

Impressive Thing

The CGI was hugely impressive. We have been at the point of photo-realism for years now and there are many parts of films that are CGI but I don’t think people realise. It’s a cheap way to lend credibility to a film by adding small details. So, the virtual world looked and felt fantastic. Well done [although it’s not outside the realms of technology or new].

Annoying Thing

The avatars of the characters were remarkably like their IRL characters. Their facial features were quite Cameron’s Avatar like. This is probably to avoid the uncanny valley. The oriental characters were played in-game by oriental builds. The large kid chose to be an over-modded large character and the lead turned out to be white kid. They all played their own gender and they all kept their real life features. This was bollocks. It was Hollywood.

More Annoying Thing

All the clan in the game came from pretty much the same area of the USA?? What utter rubbish. The idea that online players in this game would be anywhere near each other was appalling.

While We Are At It

The girl didn’t think she was “pretty” in real life. She didn’t want to meet the lead character. Well, it turns out she IS pretty. All she has is a birth mark that covers here eye. IT’S NOT EVEN A BAD BIRTHMARK. What bollocks, this was very annoying.

Slums

The futuristic slum area was essentially just a trailer park made futuristic. Do you know what? I’m happy with that. I liked it.

VR

There has to be a point where developers decide whether to include force feedback into suits and movement or not. I suspect it will go ahead because: porn. So, the IRL people have walkways so that their movements are mimicked in the game. But, how does the flying and dancing work? What about INERTIA? Why are people in the streets playing the game? Are they walking form one place to another? Can they see the real world while they are in the game? I don’t understand.

Being in a computer game doesn’t give you superhuman reactions. You just can’t run, race, fight, fly, drive at those speeds and still react as a human. It might be that the apologetic is that the game avatars have extra modifications that allow them to react within the game to threats. This I guess is a good explanation but the speed of the gaming and fight scenes along with the driving section was implausible.

Beating The Game

When you are facing a bigger opponent in a game and you are going to lose all your coin why don’t you just quit and leave the game. That makes sense to me.

Story Arc [SPOILERS]

White american kid takes on a corporation with his friends. He gets the girl. Wins riches beyond his dreams and frees the world. Such bullshit.

It was nice to see Hannah John-Kamen again.

 

Now, I’ve been writing this stuff down I can see that I just wasn’t impressed. Yes, there are great songs and brilliant references to other films but once you remove that stuff the overall story and ideas are just pretty poor.

Maybe you can understand my struggles.

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Isle Of Dogs

I took a trip to see the Isle Of Dogs recently and as is custom I will now comment on the level of the tide: It was out. The journey was long and winding, Bull Lane, Pilgrims Way, A229, M2, A2, Blackwall Tunnel Southern Approach, East India Dock Road, A1206 and then you are there. A rediscovered cool place of London. The bit that dangles like a testicle from the north shore of the river Thames.

Dangly Bits

I have spent a few lovely times here, I have also spent some shit times here. But that, I guess, is how life goes. It’s almost like I’m teasing you for future stories and communications, which I am, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get around to writing them.

I also went to see a film called the Isle Of Dogs, perhaps I should really have seen the film while on the Isle Of Dogs, I missed an opportunity there! I rated the film on the Internet Movie Database and you should probably look over the scoring system in this communication.

This film was an utter delight.

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Tomb Raider

Having ranted and raged about the entitlement in the film Peter Rabbit you might be interested to know that I’m going to completely ignore the quantities of privilege in this film.

I went to the cinema. We know the drill. I write something about the tide without even knowing when that started, but knowing it was a coded reference to the time of day within a movie review because I went when I shouldn’t have. The tide was middling. For a while I was the only person in the cinema and that would have been nice for the whole film but people came in. I think my record for a film is me and one other person, two sad gits together, not that we were together but you understand.

My routine in the cinema is to normally stuff my face with either ice cream or hot dogs [don’t tell the vegetarian police] and then I read a book on my kindle-phone app while stuff non-feature-film occurs on screen. I don’t watch adverts and I watch each trailer once unless it’s an important film [Star Wars, Blade Runner] in which case I don’t watch. Some trailers I watch a little of before ignoring them because I know I won’t be going to see it [Mama Mia 2]. The book I am reading currently is

Dressing for Altitude, U.S. Aviation Pressure Suits-Wiley Post to Space Shuttle – By Dennis R. Jenkins

It’s a free e-book from Nasa and it is quite fascinating. It’s technical enough to challenge my understanding and written well enough to keep me interested. I have read a book on the X-15 program mostly while waiting for films to start and that one was brilliant. Quite technical writing has also helped when I’ve been broken and unable to think about things properly. Having decent technical challenging data and writing restores the balance of logic in my mind when it’s been screwed over. I do still intend to write about the two main times I’ve been quite mental but getting that stuff down in text is going to be hard.

So, the film, Tomb Raider. I rated it on IMDB and now is where I point you to the communication discussing the rating system and then I normally comment that the scoring system is broken and I may get around to addressing that at some point.

I enjoyed this film. I didn’t enjoy the two women behind me talking constantly through the film but I still enjoyed the film.

Let’s face facts: it’s a film based on a best selling game. Therefore we don’t expect it to be great. We expect it to be clichéd and full of stupid action. Guess what? It is. It was a perfect film covering a good game series. It was probably better than the Jolie version and that’s saying something as I can be a bit of a Jolie fan.

In all honesty, if you want a decent movie in this genre then you should watch Raiders Of The Lost Ark. It does all the things that this film does but far far better. But. Indiana Jones isn’t female.

A couple of minor points that struck me in this. When Lara is riding her bike around London, which is looking lovingly cosmopolitan and resplendent, her chain/gears creak. I’m not sure if this was designed so that we know she’s cycling, I mean she is peddling, but no decent biker would put up with that creaking. They would fix it.

The next point is people in these movies seem to get punctured in many un-sexy ways and yet they don’t bleed out or get infected. It’s almost like they are fixed within minutes and able to run around at 100%.

Finally, Hannah John-Kamen was in this movie for about 3 minutes and it was lovely to see her in something where she isn’t playing Dutch. I am currently watching Killjoys on Netflix and she stars in that show.

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Peter Rabbit

I’m trying to realign my IMDB scores with the initial intention rather than score higher than where the films should be. I have been concerned with ratings-inflation for a while now and feel I am getting back to where it should be. There is a chance this one is going to be quite controversial but message me if you are bothered.

I went to see Peter Rabbit. The tide was halfway in the river and on the way in I guess as it was fully in on the way home. I rated this film on IMDB and you should probably see this communication which goes someway to explain how the grading system works.

I didn’t really like this film. I will admit that I found it funny at times, but humour doesn’t make a good film. I will also admit that I have never read any Beatrix Potter and have no emotional attachment to Peter Rabbit or any of the rest of the folks.

This is likely to descend into a discussion about the role that film plays within our society and for that I apologise in advance. There is a argument that this is a kids movie, it’s meant to be entertaining, the deeper lessons from this movie don’t need to be analysed because it’s meant for entertainment and we love these sorts of stories.

After the opening credits I was quite distressed as four birds flew across the sky singing and my thoughts were “Oh, shit. No one told me this was a musical, I will hate it”. The singing didn’t last long and that went on to become a running joke.

If I was being generous then I would say this is a cute family film with some slap-stick violence. I’m not in the mood for being generous though. I want to look at this film through the lens of social change in influence.

The messages from this film are mostly about the acceptance of illegality, violence and lies. The two human characters fall in love even though the male lies constantly for ninety percent of the film. The female is unaware of how obvious these lies are and yet she fully accepts this man at the end of the film. The rabbits in this film are vermin, much to their consternation. They invade and steal property consistently throughout the film, it’s ok to steal if what you take is “definitely yours” by a thought process of seeing things and so wanting things.

The bullying by Peter on his family is pretty bad. He’s a tearaway character, acting on impulses with little regard for the welfare of those he drags through his capers. He only stops to think once the damage has been done and even then he self-justifies his actions as the proper course. He is an horrible character. He gets away with these things in the eyes of the audience because he is cheeky and winks at times.

This film showed it’s OK to fight and to electrocute people to get what you want. It’s perfectly OK and even justified to harm humans if you are an anthropomorphised rabbit. You actions are deserving of praise because you are stealing the food that grows in someone else’s property. They live in the luscious countryside of the Lake District and yet these rabbits couldn’t find food? I don’t want to defend property ownership entirely. I have massive issues with the few who own the majority of everything. But, I’m just looking at the messages in this film.

In the end the woman still falls in love with the liar even though she knows he’s a liar. The violence of the rabbits gains them acceptance in the human world and the man changes. Perhaps in some ways this narrative is about the struggle of the small and weak to gain recognition. But, I’m not convinced. The ambitious toff keeps control in the end, restoring the natural order of things where the british love being subservient to the higher born.

It’s curious the level of violence that is normalised in TV and film. It starts early with Tom and Jerry. Then it moves to the Tom and Jerry satire which was the Itchy and Scratchy Show. Stop and have a look at cartoons and superhero films and examine the motives behind them. Do they teach fighting is OK? Do they teach about a natural order of human behaviour with hereditary leaders making decisions for the rest of us? Do they reinforce the current standing of your class?

Perhaps it will always end up with a few families controlling this planet not matter where we start. Maybe it’s because humans are nasty, violent creatures who need to have a sense of order and place-in-society to function. The issue is that it’s always the little man who gets crushed by this.

Maybe this film is just a fun-filled family caper but I do suspect it’s more sinister than that.

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Red Sparrow

I went to watch Red Sparrow at the cinema in Rochester. I definitely did check the state of the tide and it was neither fully in nor fully out. I have no idea which way it was travelling. I rate the films I see at the cinema on IMDB and there’s a guide to the scoring system in this communication.  With the current score I believe I am shifting the scores I give back to a proper system. I’ve been worried that my scores have been creeping.

So, clearly I didn’t like it. I am going to sneak over to some reputable websites and read a few reviews of this movie because I found it mostly poor. I’m probably going to end up with spoilers in the following text so you may want to not read on.

The premise that Russia is using sex and honey-traps to entice people into betraying their country isn’t new or exciting. In fact the whole “training” section of this movie had absolutely zero effect on the rest of the movie. You could remove that entire section and the movie would still make sense. This means it was pointless. It wasn’t even insightful. It encouraged spies to be rape and get raped. It was pretty shit. All it did was set up the idea that our heroine wouldn’t sleep with just anyone. Oh, that and allow a gratuitous nude shot of the lead.

I got about 75% through this movie and ended up confused about who was going where to do what and I stopped caring. It seemed remarkable that the Russian spy agency wasn’t watching their own spy as she travelled around screwing them over. She was a famous person being a spy. This is utter rubbish. We all know spies blend in. They don’t stand out.

Who can open a bank account in another person’s name with just their passport number? Really?

This movie contained violence, torture porn, blood, and overall was a bit shit. I don’t recommend it.

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Coco

This weekend I took at trip to the local cinema [possibly not the closest, will check . . . . . yep, second closest, about two miles further than the Odeon in Maidstone] to see Coco. Here’s a picture so I don’t have to write about the state of the tide:

A Cold Medway
A Cold Medway

Today the weather is back to boring grey. I preferred the white and cold. At least now I can turn the heating off for a while!

I rated the film on the IMDB website and there’s a guide to the rating system within this communication.

I have to say I thought the film was far better than the trailers had made it out to be. I was concerned it was going to be a religious load of rubbish but it turns out to be a lovely touching film about death. Seriously, that’s what it is about. It tells the story of how Mexico copes with death. It allows the world to picture that death is coming for us all and we only live on in the memories of those we leave behind. Coco tells us how fleeting this life is and how ultimately useless our lives are if we can’t get to be with those we love.

Along with looking just lovely, it’s Pixar, this film made me laugh and smile and want to cry. It was very good.

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Black Panther

Yesterday I went to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester to see Black Panther. I left work a little later than I had hoped and arrived at the cinema fifteen minutes after the show start, but I was still there easily in time for the start of the film. That did mean that I didn’t have too long to read my book, which is what I do while waiting for the adverts and trailers to pass. I am currently reading a NASA book about the development of pressure suits. It’s called Dressing For Altitude and is on this page. I will admit that I failed to notice the condition of the tide this trip.

For a long while now I have rated the films I see on the IMDB website and I did the same with this film. I didn’t rate it straight away as I wanted the film to settle in my head, so I scored it this morning. I believe I have to re-align my rating system as it is failing the purposes of use. I seem to give too many films a “6” and initially the system was designed to differentiate more than that. There’s an explanation of the scoring system in this communication.

I think it is quite clear to me now that I don’t really like Marvel movies. I go see them as they are a nice way to observe the passage of time but I don’t think they are very good. It is true they are sumptuous and sometimes well scripted but superhero movies leave me flat. I’m always willing to let movies have a get-out-of-reality free card for a couple of things as long as the rest of the universe it creates is consistent and this one managed that. But my overall thoughts are “meh”.

Some things about this film were important I guess in this canon. There were many strong black characters who were fighting against the injustice of treatment against black people around the world. There were many strong female characters who were intelligent and fought well. So, there are good aspects to this film. A part of me thinks that if we want suffrage and racial equality then a superhero film isn’t going to change society but maybe it’s a start. Maybe Hollywood has to start somewhere.

I’m not aware of the original stories and so the following comments may seem harsh and too reality based but they are valid.

Why didn’t the tribes all drink the special purple juice to all be super-powered and therefore subjugate the entire white world?

Why was it necessary to have black tribes fighting black tribes, showing a constant rift in the collective power of Wakanda. I wanted more. I wanted the tribes to unite and over-rule the whites.

Riches for countries come from trade and education [once we got past the enslaving black people and stealing their natural resources]. Not apparently so for Wakanda. They had a city and flying machines but no-one knows about them.

It was nice to actually see Andy Serkis.

What does vibranium do?

Does nobody else notice the blue glow on the inside of the lips?

This film reinforces that to be great you have to be physically strong and fight well. Such bullshit in this modern liberal world where we recognise talent and brains [that’s my own little bubble, there are many twats out there who still celebrate the ability to hit people].

There was a lot about this film that was inconsistent. But, it’s a comic conversion and I guess I’m thinking about it too much.

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The Shape Of The Water

I journeyed to see The Shape Of The Water, and while I usually comment on the state of the tide during these reviews I am afraid I cannot this time. I went to see this film in Boston. That’s the Boston in Lincolnshire which gave its name to Boston, Ma. There is always tide but all I could see in Boston was canals. As is also customary on this site I rated the film on IMDB and there’s a communication here about the scoring system. I do still think it’s time to update the rating system but that’ll happen when I get around to it.

So, I should probably say what I thought about this film. I really enjoyed it. The word that kept running through my head as I watched it was “sumptuous”. Everything about this film looked lovely. The re-creation of the 50s worked well along with the well designed flats where the main characters live above a cinema, which seems to be an ideal place to live.

The merman was brilliant and the scene where we meet him and see his eyes and lids was lovely. The whole structure of the research facility was brilliant if rather cliche. It seemed very comic-book. The love story was fine as a love story. This filmed had me smiling throughout, it was nicely put together.

One thing really annoyed me and that was that for some reason the merman had to wait until the rains had come and filled the canal before being released to the sea. This is rather strange. I’m sure he could have been released straight into the river the other side of the dock gates. The whole idea of canals is that they generally are full all the time. That’s why we build them.

The cinema I went to was quite a change from the multi-plexes that exist in the south east. This cinema was in the centre of a town and looked as though it had a long history. The screen was quite small but I’m not one to be bothered by size. Perhaps a good thing was the GBP7.45 for a ticket.

As another member of the audience left he walked past me and declared:

“What a load of bollocks”

I do not share that sentiment, but masterpiece this was not.

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