Tag: cinema

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Hacksaw Ridge

I went to the cinema by the river Medway [Rochester] and watched Hacksaw Ridge. I rated it on the IMDB website and as ever you should read this communication about my rating system.

My general overview is that I won’t watch this film again. I enjoyed it but I am thoroughly depressed at man’s ability to kill and destroy each other. I do understand that at times it is necessary to do these things but I wish it wasn’t.

If you want to see a boot camp sequence then you only need watch Full Metal Jacket. There was a lot of soap opera joyness about the USA scenes. I will say that Hugo Weaving was fantastic as the father, he really showed the horror of coping with war. I am not sure that his friends would have been buried in the hometown but I could be wrong.

When we get into battle this film blows you away and I almost cowered waiting for the calm. The noise and assault was impressive. The battle scenes are brilliantly horrific and scary. Fuck war.

This was a “true story” and the interviews at then end played out some of what we saw. This is worth a watch.

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The LEGO Batman Movie

I tried to coast the car as far as possible to Rochester cinema today, but there are too many uphills in the way and I had to use a fair bit of fuel. I do tell myself that all journeys that start and end at home are potential energy neutral [given particular losses for downhill and energy conversion] but still, hills annoy me. I also don’t want to be a particularly sad Prius driver, I do like power mode. I went to see Lego Batman and I rated the film on IMDB, perhaps I could trouble you to read this communication about the rating system.

Well, overall I would say I was largely not affected by this film. The opening was good, I liked the Batman character and his voice-over. but I think I’m too old for these films now. It all seemed just a little too busy. There was always so much going on in the film and on the screen it was hard to keep up with the characters and potential jokes that were happening. I am positive it was funnier than I thought, but I only smiled a couple of times.

While I guess this film was inevitable after the Lego Movie, I think Batman has been done to death. Putting it in Lego didn’t change or improve it. If anything it possibly messed up the Lego brand a bit. This film could have just as easily been live action or animated [not Lego] and it would have been the same. There wasn’t any reason for it to be Lego.

I didn’t leave the cinema amazed with what I had just seen, I left feeling “huh”, or whatever letters spell the equivalent of a “shoulder shrug”. It is quite possible that I just don’t like Batman. I remember seeing the Tim Burton version and thinking “whatever”, I do now recognise it as great though. All versions since have left me cold and irritated. I’m just not made for Batman.

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T2 Trainspotting

18. It was a proper 18 film. These are quite a delight because you get proper violence and language and sex. These films are grittier and more interesting than those certified below 18. When I think about it, you don’t get many horror films that hit the 18 mark anymore, I wonder if that’s because the market for those types of films is really teenagers. I’m pretty sure that some films change certification over time. Alien was an X on release [over 18] but is now a 15 on DVD release, people’s sensitivities get less as society evolves.

So, I went to the cinema at Royal Tunbridge Wells, it’s an Odeon, or the one I went to is, there may be other cinemas available. The cinema has an Italian restaurant on the mezzanine floor, which was nice and saved having to go to a big-chain-edge-of-town restaurant. Here is my rating which I score on IMDB and you should read this communication if you don’t get how my system works.

I really enjoyed this film. It was funny, touching and terrifying at the same time. I thoroughly liked the original and this is a good follow on. T2 shows how films can be sequels without just re-running the original film. There were plot points that were similar but you can watch this without knowing the original.

The film looked great and the soundtrack was excellent as expected.

It is quite scary just how much the actors have changed while also looking exactly the same, the cutting from one film into another deals with this brilliantly. There is liberal use of the word “cunt” by Begbie and at times I almost needed subtitles for him.

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An IMDB Ratings Update

Many of the communications within this domain are based on films I have seen or television episodes. Whenever I go to the cinema I rate the film on the IMDB website. You should see this communication which will explain my scoring rationale. A good thing about the IMDB site is that you can download your data.

So, here’s an idea of what how many times I have used each score.

Now, the odd scored films are a worry and definitely against my general rules. The film that scored 9 was The Imitation Game and the shittiest film that scored a 1 was God’s Not Dead 2.

The mean score of my ratings is 6.36 and this compares to an IMDB rating mean score of 7.05. I don’t know what this tells us.

The top of the table is here:

I’m not convinced that the TV Episode and TV Series scores should be in there, but can’t be bothered to remove those rows from my spreadsheet. Now, I know you want the list of the bottom films so here they are:

A couple of religious films at the bottom, possibly not a surprise, but then maybe they could have made good religious films instead. I’m not against religious films, they are just badly made. And then there’s the Sci-Fi. It’s a shame that some Sci-Fi is terrible, but terrible exists in all genres.

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Silence

I sauntered out to Rochester cinema last night to see Silence. I have, of course, rated this film on IMDB and you should read this communication about my rating scale. I went to see a showing that had the programme start at 20:40. This was a late night for me!

So, this was a long film, but didn’t actually feel that long. I enjoyed it a lot. I would recommend you see it. I am not sure I would watch it again, but it deserves an 8 on my scale. It is a thoughtful, slow, beautiful film with lots of torture and suffering.

I was mildly amused at the beginning of the film as right at the point that its name glares across the screen SILENCE there is no audio from the film but the doors to the auditorium were open and the noise of people outside in the foyer filled our room.

Having done a little Wikipediaring I have found that this is based on an historical fiction novel about the treatment of Roman Catholics in Japan during the 17th century. You will not be surprised to find that I do not understand that people would rather die through torture than recant their belief in a [possibly mythical] Jew from the middle-east who was likely a naughty boy. However, this is what they did and they died for their faith. As have many before and since. This, I can’t compute.

This film is worth watching. I will be watching Ghost In The Shell today because there is a live action version out soon!

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Passengers

I’m a sucker for a space film. I love the possibilities, the stars, the tech. It just can look sooooo cool. Quite often these films leave something lacking and aren’t that good. I saw Rogue One and yesterday I watched Earthrise from Amazon Prime.

Because I watched this at home it doesn’t get an Official Parish Rating. So it was with a nerdy interest in tech and space that I went to see Passengers, I wanted to see stunning vistas and how the film-makers had dealt with the ravages of space travel. As is custom I rated this film on IMDB and you should read my guide to the rating system.

It was a perfectly enjoyable film and worth seeing, it had just the right amount of humour but I do feel that the moral issues could be covered more comprehensively in a separate film. This wasn’t a film about morals though. It was a space action thriller and as such it functioned perfectly well. Now, after here, there be dragons.

I had some minor issues with it, but not as many as with this film. So, if we allow hibernation, then we just need to look at the rest of the film to see what liberties they have taken. Mind you, coming out of hibernation looks a lot like CPR, so the travellers were more dead than deep sleeping.

The artificial gravity system seemed to be based mostly on centrifugal force [YES, I KNOW – this is why I don’t allow comments on this site]. The idea that a spinning thing in space would stop spinning when the power is switched off doesn’t quite ring true, momentum and inertia etc. But, then this does allow some pretty good visuals.

Why would little things go wrong if the spaceship was dealing with a big problem in the reactor core? I’m not sure this part of the film rings true. It bothered me a little. But, I was willing to let this go.

The swimming pool. I’m pretty sure that if the gravity was provided by the rotation of the ship then the stars outside the window were rotating the wrong way. I’ll probably have to take a few more looks at this scene but it upset something in my head and I spent a while moving my hands around in the air trying to get rotations correct. The hemispherical window was an awesome idea though.

Only one medi-pod for a ship that size? Bullshit.

When gravity suddenly turns off (?) most things will just stay where they are unless there is an impulse to them. The water in the swimming pool would have rode up the sides of the room when the spinning stopped. The sleeping characters would have moved very slowly if at all as they don’t have any forces acting on them. I refer you to Newton’s First Law Of Motion.

There are other bits and pieces but they are largely inconsequential and do not show off my understanding of sciencey shit. I do think that a film covering the morals of “living murder” would be very interesting if written by someone talented.

Oh, Arcturus. The space ship sling-shots around Arcturus. I don’t have a problem with that per se, but the ship did seem pretty close to the star. It would have fried to a crisp and everyone would have been killed by the intense radiation. While this allowed for pretty visuals [based on the SOHO observations of our own sun] the radiation shielding would need to be metres thick. Arcturus is a pretty darn big star coming in at 25.7 times the diameter of our piddly little star The Sun. It’s also 36.7 ly away and the spaceship in the film had been travelling for 30 years and had just reached 0.5c so the film makers could have done some better sums here I feel although we don’t know if the time measurement is absolute [physicists would laugh at that concept] or relative.

Last thing: The company that owns the starship made x quadrillion profit we are told. I am pretty sure that Aurora [!] then explains that a quadrillion is “a thousand billion”. I may have misheard this but a quadrillion is a million million using the US naming system. Aurora was talking about a trillion which is a LOT less money.

Quadrillion [US] – 10^12
Quadrillion [UK, but not common] – 10^24

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Arrival

I sauntered out to the old haunt of the Cineworld at Rochester. I watched Arrival and, of course, I rated it on IMDB after watching it. You can see my scoring system explained in this communication.

This film was very good. I think the trailer somewhat over played the thriller aspect, but then that’s largely what sells I think. It’s nice to see an intelligent science fiction film. Something that makes you think and wonder. There’s too much dross and simple stuff out there at the moment. I’m not entirely sure I like the premise of this movie but it was a good watch anyway. It was the second film I had seen with a child’s death in it and I don’t like that kind of stuff, I’d rather not have those possibilities exposed.

The main thing we know about contact is how to communicate. What form or style of language will we use. This is important. For the best treatment of this read Contact.

Overall, this film is worth watching.

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One More Time With Feeling

Last night I went to Canterbury to the Curzon independent cinema there. I find Canterbury an odd place. The centre, where the shops are, is cut off by a Roman wall and a ring road from the reality of the rest of the town.

I’d not been to the Curzon cinema there before although I probably have been to those cinemas but too long ago to remember or be specific. The cinema was off a back street near the Marlowe Theatre. Inside it was quirky with an old fashioned book shop feel to it. People were drinking coffee and playing scrabble in the foyer area. The screen room itself was wide but not deep and the seats were quite comfortable with some being sofa style!

I went to see One More Time With Feeling. A documentary film about Nick Cave creating and recording music since the death of his son.

It was mostly shot in black and white and it was a very touching movie. I know nothing about Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and I’m not sure I know much now. The interviews were interesting and partly an insight into the music making process but on reflection I’m not convinced they were very revealing. The film seemed to contain about 6 or 7 music videos. I’m not sure if the band were actually recording while they played in these scenes, I would like to think so but it looked a little too staged. The scenes and interviews in between the set-piece song videos were dark, amusing and pretty much what you would expect.

I was utterly compelled for most of the film. As a terrible song writer and someone who probably should spend more time using his creative side it was interesting to hear a musician talk about the process, but I’m not at all sure it was a major revelation.

To hear someone talk about the death of a child is horrible.

Anyway, this is worth a watch. It’s musically interesting and lyrically haunting. It’s a good film.

Judge for yourself:

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Nocturnal Animals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Doctor Strange

I sauntered out to Rochester cinema last night to see Doctor Strange. I have to admit the trailer didn’t really fill me with anticipation but it was recommended at work. Of course I rated this film on the IMDB and tweeted the result. You should probably read this communication about the rating system.

So, what did I think? It was alright. OK. Nothing special. Better than the trailer set out.

There were moments of humour.

I have some advice for film makers though. Just because your special effects can kaleidoscope a city that doesn’t mean you have to. I say that having never read any of the comics.

The fighting scenes were a little “Paul Greengrass” and could have been filmed better.

Oh, and the “mystic east” infuriates me. It just adds extra credence to those fools who peddle bullshit in the real world.

There, it was OK.

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