Film – Page 26 – Fooyah

April 21 2014April 21 2014

Noah

“Woo hoo. Father, woo hoo.”

These were my first words I ever spoke on stage when I was 11 years old. I had previously played the villain in a version of Cinderella for my primary school but this acting job was at a “proper” dramatic society show.

I think I played Japeth, the son of Noah, in the stage play Noah by Andre Obey. I vaguely remember that I stood off-stage-left when I spoke these words. Those words are pretty much all I can remember of that experience. I was in other productions, maybe more later, but this was my first. The programme is probably somewhere in my loft or at my parents’ house. I had a couple of folders where I kept mementos of all my appearances and shows in which I was involved.

As for the film I saw in the cinema, it was shit.

April 11 2014April 11 2014

The Winter Soldier

The full title of this film is:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I just couldn’t be bothered to title this communication properly. I’ve rated this film as a 6 on IMDB. I went to see this at Rochester cinema, my regular Cineworld venue, curiously most films I’ve seen there recently have been in the odd-numbered theatres, whereas last night I was in screen 2. I had to turn left going into the main corridor which was a little strange [left being even screens, odd being right].

I enjoyed the film. It was a good superhero film. It’s not my favourite genre as I find that the universe tweeks to create the film normally surpass by suspend-disbelief barrier. I am always willing to accept a tweek or two to a universe rules to allow a film to tell its story. Faster-than-light travel, instantaneous communications, super-strength, people flying, gods etc. Superhero films sometimes require too many tweeks to force the story and it ruins the overall effect, for me.

Overall, the plot of the film was (just) believable. I’m not one for massive conspiracies, mostly because organisations are made from humans, but the ideas behind this film seemed reasonable. The action scenes were fine, nothing stunning, they just seemed to be going through the motions. I say this with a caveat: a well made action film looks seemless and as though it’s going through the motions, whereas a poor action film highlights how hard it is to make a seemless action film. I say this because I quite like a well-made bad film, they are cute and funny, but there is a big difference between a good bad film and a bad film. Hmmm, not sure I can explain it very well, I’ll have another go another time.

I felt that this film was not just an action film. It was a story of the last 15 years of world politics [I might be reading too much into this]. A massive new Washington DC organisation [DHS] wants to protect the world from the people who disagree with they way that the World Council [USA] runs things. This is to be done using the Insight program which will eliminate all threats before they actually happen [Iraq and Afghanistan]. This is ultimately a BAD thing and so the freedom fighters [liberals] try to make sure that the system fails. This film is a critique of US and allies’ policies over the last fifteen years.

Look, this film was good fun. Worth watching. It felt quite long, which isn’t a bad thing. I like getting my money’s worth when I see a film, as long as it all fits together and this one does. Overall I would recommend this to other people to see.

Laughing
I sometimes [and only sometimes] laugh out loud in the cinema. It would appear that I find some things funnier than other people as I am the only person who laughs out loud. Is it right to laugh when no-one else does? I don’t really care. I’m not going to change, especially when I laugh at a reference to another film that others don’t seem to get.

Flinch-Gasp
Years ago when I saw The Passion Of The Christ I could hear others in the cinema flinching and doing that intake of breath whenever Jesus was beaten or whipped or whatever else happened to him. I was quite unmoved by this for the following reasons:

It was a movie and so NOT REAL
The story of the passion is not mentioned in the bible, and so is just tradition.
Jesus (most probably) did not exist and so neither did his suffering [the contemporary documented evidence for the big JC is non-existent]

Recently when I saw 12 Years A Slave there was the same phenomenon when the people were being whipped. This time I understood and agreed with the sentiment a little more. At least there is documented evidence for this appalling behaviour. I didn’t really do the gasping flinch though.

In the movie last night we see a scar on the Black Widow of where she was shot. Someone did the flinch-gasp. Seriously? In a made up film about a made up universe where a superhero gets shot and recovers someone thought the sight of a scar was enough to warrant making a flinch-gasp? Arrrrgh.

Other People
Why go to the cinema to eat? It is something I don’t understand, especially when the food substances are wrapped in noisy packets. I think that Sartre was correct:

L’enfer, c’est les autres

April 9 2014

Divergent

This film was a good watch. I enjoyed it although I am slightly wearisome with the dystopian future that we see. There are many stories from film and books that have this sort of future Earth. It seems quite clear to me that we are going to ruin the planet, our fiction and imaginative writers can only see bad things in the future. They look at society now and extend and widen the gaps and you end up with the world of Divergent or The Hunger Games. Wherever we look the goodness of humans is outweighed by the selfishness and greed of the few who “lead”.

So, this was a pretty standard film given the current fashion for trilogies of YA Fiction. It starts with a young girl who doesn’t fit. She then cheats the system and uncovers a massive conspiracy which she then defeats. She gains quite a bit of street-cred on the way. That, is pretty much it. There’re a few set pieces to show the world of in all its glory. Overall, it was enjoyable and fine. It was not brilliant. For a dystopian future world I still think Blade Runner is the best, or Akira if you like that sort of thing.

YA Fiction. The first time I saw that I had to look it up. Apparently it stands for Young Adult fiction. I think it pretty much covers all those stories that are aimed at teenagers but are actually read by adults on the daily commute (but with a different dust jacket). Isn’t it weird that books aimed at teenagers contain the elements of “not fitting” and “breaking the system” and “following your heart”.~

I rated this film a 6 on IMDB, but to understand what this means you need to read my communication about film ratings.

March 13 2014March 25 2017

Need For Speed

I rated this film on IMDB as a 4/10 using my new guidelines to rating films, discussed here.

This was a bad film. Let me try and explain my choice of words there. The script was bad, the acting was bad, the racing was comical, the plot was appalling and the geography was bad. The scenery was gorgeous and Michael Keaton was brilliantly over the top. Otherwise, this was in general a bad film. I wanted it to end after about an hour and it didn’t, it kept piling up the turds for another 70 minutes! Yes, this is a long, tedious bad film.

I shall now go into some more detail. Like most things in life we like to focus on the bad things and rant and moan and yet don’t commit the same dedication to the good things. My good reviews on this site are probably pretty short, while the bad ones just let the venom flow.

I fully understand that this movie is based on a game franchise and I have played a version of the game [Carbon I think] which was quite good fun. I’m more of a circuit racer than street racer as I don’t like the unpredictable. It’s why I never really got on with Mario Karts as I hated being in the lead and then some crappy mushroom hitting me and making me last. If it’s a driving game then I like driving and not being t-boned from out of nowhere.

The characters were pretty one-dimensional. There was a successful racer, Dino Brewster, who had left town and raced at Indy but was a bit of a cock. Well, those people exist. The reason he left town was because he was better driver at the time than the main character, Tobey Marshall. There’s a race. There’s a failing company and a last chance at redemption and getting the company going again. It seems that Tobey isn’t very organised or clever. He wins a race. There’s a death. Tobey goes to jail. Tobey gets released and immediately jumps bail to enter a race on the other side of the country. Oh god, it’s bad writing this, making me relive the film. I’ll cut to the chase and keep it simple.

They don’t where seat belts while racing. Now, you can’t get decent feedback from the car unless you are tucked in nice and tight.

Every corner requires oversteer. This isn’t the fastest way to get around a corner. Yes it looks flash but to win you need to go fast and sliding isn’t fast.

Geography. One moment we are in Detroit and then we are in the Grand Canyon [looking remarkably like Pixar’s Cars scenery] and then they are flown by helicopter to the Bonneville Salt Flats a mere 500 miles away. Really? Maybe I’m being too much of a realist?

The cars were quite nice but let down by deliberately jogging the camera while racing to make you think they were going faster than they really were. You know the simple tricks to make you worry about the speed limit:

Camera down by the road
Shaking
Endless gear changes
Filming close to increase the pan speed
Smoke from spinning wheels
Noise

Curiously most of the cars in the final race were European. There was a Saleen and possibly another US car but it seems that we Europeans have the best aesthetic appeal when it comes to cars.

The Ford-Shelby Mustang was interesting but then if you are renovating a car you don’t fit it with a HUD or Recaro seats, you make it like as it was intended to be. Oh, and the JUMP!! The Mustang was clearly heading for a major front axle bend when it landed. It’s like the old Dukes of Hazard when their car would launch and then obviously land at such an angle as to break the car in half and then in the very next shot Luke and Bo (?) would be seen driving normally.

If you have a USA Police Car chasing a Koenigsegg then, let’s face it, the Koenigsegg is going to win and at the same time it will speed away from the police, especially around corners. The film had police cars easily keeping up with the Koenigsegg. That’s not really how it works.

I’ll explain the biggest problem. I didn’t LIKE any of the characters. They were pretty much all arseholes.

It’s interesting now that when I see a film I form sentences that will eventually appear on this website. I try to remember my thoughts as the film develops and then commit them to this website. How did this film go? I remembered a lot and I’ve had to try and stop myself from filling pages about how bad this film was. If you want a car chase watch The Blues Brothers.

March 5 2014March 5 2014

Trap Door

Amazon have upgraded their Prime membership [and charge more at the same time]. I think this has something to do with them buying LoveFilm and then rebranding the who shebang. Fair enough.

The streaming video service is now called Prime Instant Video. If you have a Prime subscription it now includes a number of free films and videos over the internet to a device with the right software. My television has the right software and so I can now watch this streaming service using the following devices in my house [if I wanted]:

Television
Tablet PC
PS3
PS4
iPhone
Tablet

It seems ridiculous that so many devices can be used to bring entertainment to me. What a wonderful world.

I’m not sure I’ll spend a lot of time watching streaming video, but if I do I will let you know. My boys, however, will watch this and we found ourselves browsing the free kids’ section over the weekend. The usual kids stuff was there:

Peppa Pig
SpongeBob Squarepants

We also found that the programme Trap Door was available. This was good news for me. I can remember watching it when it first came out. It was, for a while, my favourite programme and I really enjoyed it.

I have just checked and this show first came out in the mid-80s and so this fits in where I thought it did in my life [I was slightly worried that it might have been an early 90s thing, which would mean that I loved the show when I was at university, quite likely but worrying].

This show is worth watching. It’s short. Funny. Well scripted. Apart from the resolution I don’t think it has aged.

Give it a go.

February 28 2014April 11 2014

IMDB Ratings

I am considering re-adjusting my IMDB ratings. When I see a film I tend to give it a rating on IMDB [btw – I remember IMDB when it was a little web project at Cardiff University]. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I need to change my scoring system for these films and I am actually considering using even numbers only.

I have been worrying about what the difference between a 5 or a 6 might be. Also, Restricting the scoring to just the even numbers will mean that I have to consider the film and try to be more realistic. If I currently give something a 6 or 7 what does that difference show? What would be the difference between a 3 or a 4? I just don’t know. The scale of 0 to 10 seems too big for these things [especially as I’m not taking the mean of lots of scores].

I also think there is a human tendency to give middle of the road scores when we think something is average or even below par. If you have seen Come Dine With Me, you will be aware [or will be after this] that when the contestants don’t really know how to score a meal or want average then they tend to plump for a 6 or 7. Their words describe an evening that is probably below par but their score is one that is not meant to offend [6 or 7] but is really rather damning. I want to call this the “Come Dine With Me Fallacy”, which would mean that sub-optimal experiences receive scores that are perceived as “average”, rather than risk offend or come across as a nasty [but realistic] person.

So, at some point in the near future I am going to adjust my IMDB ratings. I will only use the even numbers [thoughts: I need to check if I can score a zero].

Have returned: I can’t score a zero on IMDB. That is not good. So, the default scoring system means that even the poorest film ever made will receive one star. This causes some problems. But I shall try to get around that. So, my new system goes:

10 Stars – I loved this film, I would pay to see it again in the cinema and maybe buy it to keep [Apocalypse Now, Star Wars, The Fifth Element].
8 Stars – A good film which I ~~certainly~~ probably will watch again [The Rock, Independence Day].
6 Stars – While it was enjoyable at the time it is not a film I will spend the time to watch again [The Railway Man, Hunger Games], this might include films I think were really good critically but not ones I’d see again.
4 Stars – I only got to the end of the film to see what happened but I’ll admit it was poorly made and rubbish, maybe this is a good “bad film” [Titanic II]
2 Stars – [lowest possible score] I gave up watching this film before it had finished. I hated it [Sharknado]. I left the cinema [I would have left the cinema had someone not been in my way – Van Helsing].

I shall update this or write a new communication once I have updated my scores using this crib sheet and let you know which films I struggled to pigeon-hole.

Addendum

I have just started looking at my IMDB ratings and have decided that I will use the above scoring system BUT please understand that I am now using the “Will I watch again?” criteria and this is a personal thing, very subjective. I am able to spot a “good critically acclaimed film” but think my ratings should reflect my intentions about the film and not what I think the wider world will think (1st March 2014).

Further Addenda

I have just realised that this means that any film I enjoyed but won’t intentionally watch again ends up being scored a “6”. Oh, the irony, given I complained about the “Come Dine With Me” fallacy earlier. But, in my favour, I have declared that my scoring system will be 2,4,6,8,10. This means that a score of 6 is the mean and median of the scoring values. When reading my film scores you need to understand my system which I have at least tried to communicate here.

Even More Addenda

These are my latest (updated) scores using the system explained above. I don’t care if you think otherwise about some of the ratings.

Human Target appears twice because I rated an individual episode as well as the whole series.

February 16 2014February 16 2014

The Monuments Men

A Nice Little Film

These are the words I text Smith just after seeing this film. I really enjoyed it. If this film had a purpose then it showed man’s duty to protect culture and the importance that should be placed on it. It also showed camaraderie and dedication to a cause that is “just”.

You quickly forge the cast and the “big” scenes seem to just fit but I can see that they took a lot of work. The film had scenes from the Normandy Landings to Paris, the Battle Of The Bulge, St. Lo, etc. To get the “look” of the film right was a huge amount of work and probably un-noticed by most.

There were no overblown heroics and I had expected some time spent on “basic” training with the laughs thrown in but this was avoided too. As I said earlier:

A Nice Little Film

I now have some more places in Europe to visit. I have been to Bruges but I didn’t know that the statue of the Madonna and Child was there. Time to return I think. I will say one thing and I have to blame the culture of the 1980s: I was half expecting some of the cast to find or say they were searching for the “Fallen Madonna With The Big Boobies”. Such was the influence of ‘Allo ‘Allo on my childhood. Damn!

I did watch a trailer for this and I’m pretty sure that there were a few lines in the trailer that weren’t in the main film. That’s good. I hate seeing all the “big” bits of a film in a trailer and then the actual film fails to overcome my expectations. Comedies struggle with this, they put the funny lines in the trailer and then there’s nothing left for the main film. An exception to this was The Heat with Sandra Bullock. I didn’t see this at the cinema because it looked as though they had put all the funny bits in the trailer. I was wrong. This film had me laughing out loud ALL the way through. It was far better than the trailer.

Rant:

I really should try and avoid films the first few days that they are released. People in the cinema with loud sweet packets are REALLY ANNOYING. I nearly turned around and told these people to “fuck off”. Any food taken in to the cinema should be something that is quiet to eat or access. There is no need to take noisy packets of food into a cinema. It just shows what anti-social pricks you are. If you want to eat food while watching a film do it at home. You are probably too fat anyway and so shouldn’t be eating more food anyway.

End of rant.

February 12 2014February 16 2014

Robocop

I saw this at the local IMAX. I knew nothing about it when I went and only a vague memory of the original film and thinking it was a good film.

This film was a 12A certificate. The original was an 18 (and directed by Paul Verhoven). So, it was clear that there was not going to be the same amount of violence or language involved in the new film.

[Note: I have since watched the original again and the new film stinks in comparison to the old one (which I consider a classic, probably due to where it appeared in my lifetime)]

Overall, the new film was rubbish. There were some nods to the original but they were poorly done. The news-caster opening the film and being generally very republican and Fox News about it all was there in the original but more cleverly done 20 years ago. I don’t think the news section added a thing to the film whereas it gave a much better view of the future world in the earlier version.

The original film had more menacing corporate politics, more menacing criminals and a far better plot line. This latest version of the film was too politically correct. Murphy’s wife gave consent for him to be turned into Robocop in this film and knew about him. When Robocop tries to overcome his programming in the new version we just see him flash loads of video over his display. In the original you can see a man dehumanised and then struggle with memories and his inevitable return to humanity. His wife and child have gone. He’s left alone. The original film makes more of the “struggle” to overcome his computer identity.

To improve the new film there were certain aspects that needed to be included. Murphy spinning his gun after shooting is surely a pre-requisite. That and the ED-209 saying “you have 20 seconds to comply”. I missed these as I thought they were certain shoe-ins.

So, as a film for the latest generation who can’t cope with the 80s excess this is a very neutralised version. Less language, less nasty. It’s a shame, but then they probably wouldn’t make any money if it was an 18 certificate.

The final scene of the film, much like this final paragraph, was a waste of time.

February 6 2014February 13 2014

Lone Survivor

It’s an American war film made with plenty of US military backing.

It was interesting to see a war film in the cinema again after such a long time. It was ok. It was trying to play on the heartstrings. Clichéd it was. I got the idea that the SEALs were hard and “superhuman” from the opening and after that the action went on to prove it. The result of them following the rules of engagement was lots of pain and death, but we have rules of engagement for a reason.

Ultimately this film fails to deliver any critical view of a “just” war (hence the military backing) and just provides action based on real events with photos of people who are now dead as a coda.

Entertainment this is. Art or discussion forming it is not.