Tag: film

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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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Storks

Drove the short distance to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester. As it’s half term it was time to see Storks. Below is my rating on IMDB, but it is traditional that you first read the scoring system placed in a communication here.

So, it was a kids film. Not a great one at that. A touch annoying in places. The wolves were the coolest part of the film.

 

So, the main bird touches the girl [I don’t do character names] and sees her future. We see her at school, learning, getting a degree and it bloody well ends with her getting MARRIED. The film seemed to imply that the ultimate goal for a girl was to be MARRIED. Since when do women have to be married to be valid members of society? Perhaps she could have been president? Perhaps she could have been winning a Fields Medal? This little section of the film irritated me. It stereotyped women. I was possibly wound up by the trailers for Disney films which reinforce the feudal ideal where you have to be *born* to the right family to have worth. Fuck them all.

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Hell Or High Water

What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than watching a classic tale of cowboys robbing banks. But, I get ahead from myself. I went to the cinema. I watched a film. Possibly the best bit was using a new bridge to get there, see this communication. I had tweeted the following:

Well the new journey was about 11.5km. So it’s a shorter distance and has some lovely corners with adverse camber and brows of hills, however if you get stuck behind someone slow it’s incredibly boring. The normal route would include some motorway and nice accelerating corners, this new route was good as long as there’s no traffic.

You should refer to this communication if you don’t know how my rating system works. This is the first 8/10 for quite a while! It was a good film.

The story was a classic cowboy story with two brothers robbing banks. The horses were replaced by cars but all the other elements were there. The music complimented the filming wonderfully and the acting was great. The pace was suitably relaxed. I really enjoyed it. There’s a lot to worry about with the modern audience if they can’t cope with a film of this pace. I’m not saying they can’t cope just that most films aren’t like this one. Perhaps modern superhero films could learn something from this film.

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Suicide Squad

I don’t often do late night trips to the cinema but Suicide Squad was a film I was interested in and there was only one showing at Ashford Cineworld last night. That said, by late I mean 21:20 hrs and not midnight or something, I am definitely not 18 anymore! As has become custom I have rated this film on IMDB using my wonderful rating system which is explained here. I also then shared this rating on twitter to my one point six two million followers.

This film was terrible. I did stay in the cinema until the end though. Now as a slight warning I should inform you that I don’t like the Batman films. I don’t really like Batman. The recent Superman films weren’t very good. When you look at the Marvel cannon there are only two or three good films in there. The problem is there are a lot of super fanatics of these comics and trying to create a film for them doesn’t work. The comic translations just seem to leave me cold.

In this particular film I thought Harley Quinn was tame, she could have been a lot more crazy. I didn’t like the Joker or Batman. I didn’t think any of there characters were any good. The fight scenes were boring, nothing special, all been seen before. I spent the first thirty minutes of this film hoping for it to be good but thinking constantly that it was shit.

There, this film was shit.

Addition: Something I thought while watching this film but forgot to write down is that great songs do not a great movie make. The soundtrack put this film to shame.

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Morgan

Took a little trip last night to see the film Morgan at the Cineworld cinema in Rochester. I haven’t been to the cinema as much as I would want recently because there just haven’t been the films on that encouraged me. This choice was more of a “I’m not that fussed but I’ll go anyway and see what it’s like”. As is custom I rated this on IMDB and you should read this communication about my system.

So why did I rate it as a 4? Because it wasn’t that good that’s why. The first forty five minutes were boring and nothing particularly special. There was lots of exposition from the usual cast of terrible scientists. I didn’t find Morgan particularly creepy although I thought making it wear a hoody all the way through was quite a good touch.

Perhaps I’m just too old to find these kind of stories interesting or new? It felt like a film I had seen too often and there wasn’t anything that was new or interesting about this one. I would recommend you watch Blade Runner instead. It’s the same overall story but just done in a far better way.

While watching Kate Mara in House Of Cards I always thought she was pretty and sweet but her face seems incapable of any form of expression, which, as it happens, was probably the perfect thing for this movie but it distresses me about her. I do hope she can smile or frown and I am sure she can but I haven’t ever seen evidence of that.

Mild spoilers: when escaping the “room” Kate Mara manages to climb up a shaft to a window and kick that window out. If Morgan was so intelligent why didn’t she do that much earlier. How did Morgan know how to drive?

It turns out this film was produced by Ridley Scott who made Blade Runner. Hmmm.

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Pete’s Dragon

Went to the cinema beside the tidal river Medway to watch Pete’s Dragon [tidal rounds down the number of cinemas to one]. As is the custom I rated this film on IMDB and readers are directed to this explanation of how that rating system works.

I have a long history with this film. It was the first film my father took me to see at the cinema and I cried my eyes out for ages at the end because the dragon leaves. I can remember nothing else about the story, just that the dragon left and it hurt. My dad explained that he was leaving to help out other children now that Pete was sorted. I don’t remember what was wrong with Pete. I do remember that the dragon was a cartoon creature who could disappear.

So to the new version of this film. SPOILERS THERE BE.

It starts with a car crash where the parents die. What the fuck?? You know, it’s done well but fuck, what a start. Shortly after that we meet the dragon. I am going to suspend my disbelief about dragons, I don’t like the aerodynamics or mass to wing area ratio etc. The dragon was very well done. Not a big scaly thing but with fur (poor aerodynamics) and magic and smiles.

This is quite a good film. The rest of the story isn’t up to much. The way I interact with films is to imagine what I am going to write on this website. That way I am always thinking about what is going on. I am not quite at the point of writing notes during a film but I did consider it today.

After the initial car crash nothing really stuck in my head about what to write. It ended up being your standard film about a creature captured by men. You know:

Let’s kill it.

Let’s look after it.

That sort of thing. It feels rather harsh to have taken children to a film that made me sob when I was younger and one of them was affected similarly. But it didn’t last long. The ending of this movie seemed more positive than the one I remember!

Overall, apart from the horror of the first few minutes this was a good film.

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Bad Moms

Took a trip out to the riverside down at Rochester last night. A good way to avoid the heat is to go to the cinema. Two hours in a nice air-conditioned room being entertained. I went to see Bad Moms and rated it afterwards on IMDB, please see this communication regarding my rating system.

Right, this wasn’t a critically acclaimed film. But I laughed at points and I didn’t hate it. It has Mila Kunis in it! I haven’t seen any of the other “Bad” series, I don’t even know or care if they are made by the same people, but this one cheered me for a short while.

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David Brent: Life On The Road

I took at trip to the West Country and that meant I needed to go to the cinema. I went to the Vue cinema in Plymouth. It was quite nice, although there were long queues for the concessions, mind you it was a Saturday. I watched David Brent: Life On The Road and as usual I rated it on IMDB, a ever you should read this communication about my ratings system.

So, this film was hilarious and excruciating at the same time. I found it really funny but I also found the original series very funny but also much like watching a car crash. David Brent is an amazing character, someone who really shouldn’t be. I would not be surprised if there are many like him!

I know there is a soundtrack but I’m not sure I would buy it. I love the songs as a one off but to listen to them more than that would be sadism.

Overall, this film is worth seeing if you are a fan of The Office. If you’ve never seen The Office then you will be in for a shock and may not find it that funny! I laughed out loud, a lot and I never really laugh in the cinema [except when no one else does].

A couple of extra things that have come to me. There was an advert for beer. The advert reckons beer goes with any food type and it was a general purpose “drink beer” advert, I thought it rather strange. Also, the were about four adverts telling people to look out for rivers and the sea, to take care around water. This is an admirable cause [especially given recent events] but I don’t think I see these in Kent.

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Star Trek Beyond

Last night I went to Cineworld, Rochester to see Star Trek Beyond. It was a curious start to the film as the cinema showed trailers that were all kids’ animated movies and then the classification certificate showed up and said we were about to watch the BFG. After five minutes they had started projecting the correct film. I rated this on IMDB, as usual and here’s a communication that covers my rating system.

Now, you might think a 6 is a little low but film enjoyment is subjective so fuck off.

I saw this in 3D and I don’t like 3D. It adds nothing to a film. If you have good cinematography then you get depth of field from your standard projection, you don’t need 3D. It’s a big bad gimmick. My reaction to this may also be because I have a low 3D perception in these films, I seem less affected by 3D effects, they don’t really stand out much with me.

This film was OK. It had good effects and humour in the right places. I didn’t really like the action sequences. I think they suffered from Transformers Syndrome – too much shit going on at the same time. Just because we have CGI doesn’t mean using it more and more makes a film better.

Here There Be Spoilers

I didn’t like the bad character being human. And a war mongering human at that. A man so annoyed at peace after the wars that he wanted to destroy the human race. Fucking bullshit and lazy.

PHYSICS
We just have to assume that everyone has access to inertial drive technology. I can suspend my disbelief for physics, you get to break a couple of rules. I do wonder if the 5 Year Mission is relative to the Enterprise or to a Base station, given time dilation.

BREAKING THINGS
The Franklin, constructed in space and not meant for atmospheric travel works perfectly well after fifty years on an alien planet? Bullshit. Also, when they drop the Franklin off the cliff top they accelerate and then hit some rock towers on the way down. The ship absorbs these perfectly well like it was designed to smash through rock and mine diamonds. Hated it. The ship would have been torn apart from the first load of rocks. The Franklin hits about four of these mounds and just carries on with no problems. Utter crap. Curiously there was someone in the cinema behind me who was gasping whenever it hit the rocks, this I found amusing. It’s a Hollywood movie, of course they’ll be ok. It reminded me of the people gasping and crying at The Passion Of The Christ, such bullshit.

The Franklin then crashes into the Star City and everyone seems to survive. An entire quarter of the city is evacuated with absolutely no problems. The Franklin seems to be built like a brick-shit-house.

FIRE
When Kirk returns to the disk to collect the magic weapon the whole thing is on fire but he considers it safe to enter and wander around. Bollocks.

MOTORBIKE
Why? A motorbike that works perfectly after 50 years on another planet. Why? Why not a speederbike. Why not anything else? Also, Kirk can see a route down to the base through the caverns and chasms? Hated it.

STAR CITY DESIGN
Why would you design a spaceport that has a large tunnel for the starships to travel through to get to a docking area? The docking area would be somewhere to minimise potential damage to the Star City. Also, why is this tunnel only just wide enough for the Enterprise. There are surely going to be larger ships? Perhaps they have a Panamax type system. Seems very silly to me.

FUCKING USA NAMES
The Enterprise sums up the “American Dream”. Star City was called York Town and the other star ship was called the Franklin. Of these possibly Franklin is the only one with any merit but is really USA-centric. There are other greats of invention and leaders of countries. The arrogance to consider your names will be the names of the future.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into this whole film?

 

And . . . . calm.

I have tried to find my other reviews for the first two Star Trek films on this site and I can’t find them. I possibly didn’t write about them, I don’t know! I can remember reading a lot about the first reboot to try and make sense of why I didn’t really find it brilliant. Much like my issues with Prometheus.

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The Jungle Book

Busy cinema week for me I guess. Took another trip to Cineworld, Rochester. This time to see The Jungle Book. I rated this on IMDB, always look at this communication to explain the system I use.

I have to say that I hadn’t seen the other films. I knew the songs but most Disney stuff is not on my radar. There are many “classics” that I just don’t know. I watched some Disney films over the last year but I wasn’t really that impressed.

This film looked bloody gorgeous. It was worth seeing just to marvel at the animation. The animals are spectacular. It was brilliant.

The story was largely dull, not really something that I thought was brilliant. I was concerned that the animals seemed quite happy to forgive their jungle being burnt down. The overall story is that man is superior. So sad really. Humans may be in charge but we are also fucking the planet over rather well. Sod all this Brexit stuff, we have a much bigger problem to work together and minimise but the current political system won’t allow that.

I was really impressed with the Apocalypse Now! references and I wanted to laugh out loud but I don’t think that would have been understood!

I wasn’t that surprised that some of the songs were kept in the film but would rather they weren’t. Although they may have been the only songs in the animated film, I don’t know, I’ve not seen it.

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