Tag: cinema

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Thor – The Dark World

This is a really enjoyable film. It is funny, predictable and grand. Finally, superhero films have grown up.

I went to see this film in 3D as the showing time suited me better than a standard 2D showing. I don’t normally like 3D films as the 3D effect adds nothing to the enjoyment of the film for me. It’s a rather pointless gimmick [I am planning to write about my response to 3D at another time]. I was generally quite impressed as there weren’t too many gratuitous 3D shots and nothing in the film seemed out of place.

I like the CGI and battle scenes. Normally CGI battle scenes seem too busy and too much blurring. I struggle to make sense of what is going on on-screen. Thor did this well with sensible battle scenes and nothing over the top. A battle recently didn’t like was Superman’s final fight in his latest film. I like the fact that the people of Asgard use swords to fight, even with all their tech, it allows for good scenes in films. The final destruction was well done and not over the top as most films tend to make it.

The plot line doesn’t really matter. Once you invent “gods” and mythical creatures you can do anything you want in terms of plot [much like Doctor Who] and creatures [much like Doctor who]. The last part of the film and the epilogue just go to show you can just make-shit-up. Five infinity stones? Wow, they suddenly appeared from nowhere and can now be used for future films, clever but not thrilling. By the way, I don’t read graphic novels and so have no idea if these are in the books.

The cast was stellar and hammed it up brilliantly. Nice to see an old version of the Doctor in there and also nice to see Rene Ruso pop up, I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen her in anything since Lethal Weapon 3.

This film was good fun and well done. I laughed out loud many times, on occasions by myself, but I don’t care.

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Gravity

I went to see this film and was rather excited about it. When I go to the cinema I generally don’t watch the trailers. Most trailers seem to give too much away about the film and if you see them once then you don’t need to see them again. If it is a film of which I am already aware and am looking forward to then I won’t watch the trailer and I will continue to read my book (on the Kindle app). Occasionally there’s a trailer that makes me look up and Gravity was one like that. Firstly it’s in space and I like space stuff. Secondly it was directed by . This was enough to make me very excited. Since I first saw the trailer I have avoided seeing it advertised since, I don’t want to know any more about the film.

I was rather worried that my expectations for this film were going to be too high. I have seen a number of films where I have been overly looking forward to them and have ultimately been disappointed as the film didn’t live up to expectations.

I needn’t have worried.

The opening shot was awesome [literally]. The rest of the film was beautifully filmed. It looks just stunningly gorgeous. I even decided to see it in 3D and in the past this has tended to remove something from the film but this was really well done. I won’t write too much because the trailer is so minimal and I don’t want to give anything away up in this section. Basically, apart from some simple scientific issues, this film is absolutely brilliant. I’d even go see it again. I am happy with the scientific short-cuts, as the film would not have worked or flowed as well if it had been truly simulated.

Go see this film. I dare you to be disappointed.

SPOILER ALERT

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of errors I picked up on. You can’t get out of a space suit in about a minute. It takes about an hour to get the whole thing on so this was a little imperfect. When returning to Earth the astronauts have their backs to the ground, Bullock’s return was filmed in such a way as to imply she was heading face down, or facing the direction of motion. There’s more analysis over at Phil Plait’s blog pages at Slate.com

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Ender’s Game

Wow!

I have bought the book but will read it after seeing the film. I’m currently working my way through Ringworld by Larry Niven. Back to the film:

It was ace. I really enjoyed it. I didn’t know a great deal about it before I went. I’d had a small synopsis from a friend and so went with a complete open mind. I loved it. The visuals were really good and the story was rather excellent. Go and see it.

I’m trying desperately to not give anything away but for me there were two moments when my jaw hit the floor. I guess if you’ve read the book you’ll know what these are.

It was great.

 

I don’t like the descriptions by the press of it being Harry Potter in space. That’s not what it is about. It’s a story with a wonderful political background and reflects on the politics of the time. Whereas Harry Potter is just the latest in a long line of book series that sell lots, it a generational thing. Every generation has “their” Harry Potter, or Famous Five, or Swallows and Amazons. My main issue was that Ender looked like a young Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory and I had to work hard to remove that thought as I watched.

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Escape Plan

This film was better than the trailers would make out. It was quite good fun although had one MASSIVE and annoying misunderstanding of science. Stallone and Schwarzenegger were both quite entertaining and the whole film worked well. If you want 90 or so minutes of fun and a little plot then it’s well worth the time-investment.

SPOILER ALERT – Do not read any further unless you want to know!

The idea of a prison owned and run by very rich people is sensible enough. Prisons are already run by profit making private companies so I don’t have any issues with that. The main premise of the prison was to keep these people out of society (and to gain information from them). But, this seemed a little expensive. If these people are as bad as thought then it would be massively cheaper just to kill them. There’s no point in keeping them alive (unless you need some information from them and that could be done much cheaper). Is it more morally right to keep people detained without trial instead of killing them, when the bottom line is profit I don’t think so.
It would have been nice to see Stallone’s partner suffer a little more with dirty objects as the film made it quite clear he was very OCD about dirt.
Generally the film was quite accurate to reality. A prison on a ship, done that, there were prison ships on the Medway during the Napoleonic wars. A constantly moving ship in the ocean? No problem with that. Do the prisoners know they are on a ship? Happy that it could be kept from them although every ship I’ve ever been on vibrates with the thump of the engine. It has been a while though.

My Biggest Problem with this film:

The Coriolis effect does NOT, I repeat NOT make the water flow down a plug hole or toilet in a particular direction. If you understand physics a little you would know why. I’m not going to debunk that particular part of the film here. JFGI. Sometimes I hate script writers, ignorance is not an excuse for messing up the science.

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Machete Kills

So, I didn’t really have any expectations apart from quite a bit of gore. I knew nothing about this film apart from Michelle Rodriguez being in it. I think I expected some sort of pulp violence movie.

Guess what I got? A pulp violence movie. It was certainly refreshing from the high budget “action” films I had seen recently. The effects were organic. I think I mean cheap but that just added to the film. This was never going to be a movie with a budget of $100m. I really liked it.

The acting was good, adding to the overall atmosphere of the film. Everything was over the top. The effects, the action, the gore, all of it.

If you want 105 minutes of laughter and gore then look no further. I recommend this film to all who know what to expect. I’m really looking forward to the sequel.

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White House Down

Channing Tatum – Who? Am I that far away from popular culture now?

PROBABLY

So, I went to see this film because of my Washington DC visit earlier in the year. I really like seeing places I’ve been in films and on the big screen. It’s like seeing London in big films. I feel that slightly more personal connection with the movie because I can say “I’ve been there”.

You get what you pay for with this film. I wanted a brain dead action thriller. I got a brain dead action almost-thriller. The good things about the film: DC looks nice, politicians are the baddies. The bad things about the film: pretty much everything else.

The President doesn’t want to be president. Congress don’t want him to be President, but he is trying to secure a middle-east peace deal. OK, that’s fair enough. But, the rest was just poor and laughable terrible. The script was bad. The action was over the top and implausible. Oh, it was bad. But, as with my tweet rating of 5, it was bad done well, rather than being just a badly made bad film, it was a well made bad film!

It’s curious how some of the most recent American films have depicted disgruntled Americans as the baddies. Perhaps they are waking up to the fact that the greatest threat to USA peace and security comes from within the country and that external factors are small in comparison [US Government shutdown].

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Riddick

Riddick. Watch the first one. Don’t see this one. It’s the same film.

 

I was greatly annoyed at the sexism inherent in the script and screenplay. Katee Sackhoff starred in this film, previously known for playing the most excellent role-model “Starbuck”, Kara Thrace in the TV series Battlestar Galactica. Her first line in this film, as the only woman in the cast was:

Are you going to clean that up?

Seriously. A great female actor who’s been a force for strong female characters asks about tidying up the room? What a waste.

Also, there was a gratuitous boob shot. How disappointing. Just not needed. I really like Katee Sackhoff as an actress but she was let down by this film.

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Pain and Gain

About halfway through this film you start thinking that these people can’t be this stupid, then the film freezes and it says:

Remember, this is still a true story.

Well, in reality, in reality it’s a film based on a true story with a number of things changed just to make it more of a film. See the Wikipedia page.

Also, you get to the end of the film and it comes up with Michael Bay and you realise what you’ve just seen.

I felt sad that society has bred thick people who believe it is their RIGHT to have money and be famous. This film is a commentary on the state of society given the modern age of the X-Factor and get-rich-quick. People, you need to understand you have rights to nothing. You have to earn everything you want. You don’t deserve anything until you have put the effort in. Hmmm, think my morality drifted a bit there, whoops!

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The Lone Ranger

It, was, ok.

That’s pretty much it.

Oh, it had spectacular, implausible action, ugly cowboys, silver and greed. But it was still, just a little bit, ok.

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Olympus Has Fallen

As action films go this one is ok. It’s just like Die Hard but not done as well. Terrorists take over the White House and have trapped the President and some of his senior staff. Only Gerad Butler is there to save him.
The opening was sweet with a Christmas theme and the incident where Banning does the right thing is all well and good. Once the invasion of Washington DC started the whole thing became somewhat less realistic. It was nice seeing the views of DC again having been there recently. I recognised most of the places and the aerial views really made the layout of the city clear. I spent most of my time running around DC so I was quite aware of where things were, it was just nice to see a different view.
There were a few times throughout the film when I wanted to laugh out loud. The script was painful at times and it didn’t go smoothly. My favourite line was when a helicopter with people was taking off from the North Lawn and someone in the Pentagon said “it’s ok, we’ve got a tracker on board”. It’s a HELICOPTER. RADAR normally works quite well with big metal objects flying through the sky. What rubbish.
How you could fly an unidentified aircraft within 20 miles of DC and not get shot down for later questioning is something the film doesn’t address, but then it would mess up most of the film. It’s all rather silly.
Don’t expect anything sensible. Expect silly, get silly and suspend your disbelief. It’s not a complete waste of less than a tenner if you live outside London.

On a completely separate issue it really bugs me that the President ends his addresses to TV with God Bless America. I find it amusing that God blesses Americans and the land they stole from the indigenous peoples. The fact that God is on the side of the USA and not the Republic of Korea is even more amusing. I guess God is always on the winningest side! Read the US constitution and tell me where it mentions God!

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