Tag: film

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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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Ratchet And Clank

Tool a trip to see Ratchet and Clank [The Movie] at Rochester Cineworld. I’m feeling somewhat let down by this film. Anyway, before looking at a Parish Rating you should read this communication about my rating system. As is custom I have also shared my rating using twitter.

This film was a disappointment. Especially after playing the game quite a bit!

The game is brilliant. It’s just about my level of intelligence and playability. I really liked “A Crack In Time” or whatever it was called and I thoroughly enjoy and love the latest game.

The game is based on the film which is based on the game. The problem is that the game is much much better than the film. I wouldn’t recommend any one to see the film. Such a shame really it could have been brilliant.

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Money Monster

Last night I traveled to the Odeon cinema in Royal Tunbridge Wells, or rather on the outskirts of RTW. The Odeon website doesn’t list this cinema as Royal Tunbridge Wells, it’s listed as Tunbridge Wells which is a little confusing because there’s also a town called Tonbridge close by. Have a look at this map and see the naming conventions in Kent:

I tweeted my rating of 6/10 on IMDB, you should read this communication about my rating system.

I felt remarkably not bothered emotionally by this film. From the trailers I thought it was going to be an expose of how companies and banks and the entire financial system is designed to screw the normal person out of money. I thought it would be something along the lines of The Big Short. But no.

This film was based on a fictional fraud committed by your classic British baddie. There be spoilers ahead. A young but not very clever man invests his inheritance in a company and then loses it all, or most of it, these being shares and all rather than an investment fund as far as I can tell. This annoyed the man and so he decided to take a TV show hostage to figure out what went wrong.

The company was claiming it was a software “glitch”. Others were more cynical. It turned out to be fraud and dodgy stuff. It wasn’t a glitch.

In the end the stupid guy gets shot dead.

Then, the world goes back to normal. Every just starts again. People stop watching this live drama and go back to being people. No-one GIVES A SHIT.

This was an odd film. In the end NOTHING had changed. The world kept going. Someone had died. People went back to being money makers and shakers. The TV show went on.

This was more a film about a TV show than about people and financial crises. A shame. It could have been great. Instead it got a 6 on my scale.

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Captain America: Civil War

You know me by now. If there’s a big film then I’m likely to see it. Except for Batman V Superman that I couldn’t care about. I’m not that big on superhero films and I can’t quite figure out why. I remember the “first” Batman by Tim Burton and leaving thinking “meh” or whatever the early 90s version of “meh” was. I think now I recognise it as brilliant but not so much back then. Perhaps it’s Batman films? I don’t enjoy them.

Avengers Assemble was different, it had a good script, good action and a good director. I really enjoyed it. Some of the other superhero films have been OK, mostly the Marvel ones, although I don’t like the Spiderman films either. Perhaps it’s a solo-crime-fighter thing? I am very not sure.

So, to this. I watched this at Rochester Cineworld and rated this on IMDB. You should see this communication about my rating system, which I broke for God’s Not Dead 2.

I guess there needs to be a slight explanation as I feel this could be controversial, not that I care. The film was OK. Nothing special. Really, I mean that, nothing special. I enjoyed one bit and that was the fight scene at the airport. I only like that because there was humour. My overall impression was that there was too much fighting, one on one. Yes, I know it was called Civil War and war involves fighting, but there was too much in this film.

That’s it really. I don’t have a lot else to say. Except this should have been called Avengers 3. It was mostly an Avengers story.

Tony Stark would seriously want more regulation? Seems improbable, he’s an arse and totally self-interested.

Why, when fighting Ironman, do people swing at his chin? Why use a fist. I don’t understand.

Also, every time Ironman lands his body would be broken apart inside the suit through the deceleration.

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God’s Not Dead 2

This is Part Two of Bullshit Saturday. Part one is here.

While looking through the cinema listings in the afternoon of Saturday 30 April I booked a ticket to see Bastille Day and then looked what, if anything, to see in the evening. If I didn’t find a film my plan was to listen to some live music in Maidstone. I had decided to leave Captain America for a few days and had a look at the Bluewater listings.

Oh goodness, they were showing God’s Not Dead 2. I got very excited. I had heard a lot about this film and thought it would be brilliant to actually see it. So, I booked a ticket.

As you can see I was excited. Now, there needs to be some explanation.

I listen to a number of podcasts, mainly while running or driving. My favourites are:

  • Scathing Atheist
  • Skepticrat
  • GAM Cast
  • Skeptics Guide To The Universe
  • Skeptics With A K

I have listen to these for quite a few years and they have enlarged my knowledge and appreciation of science and humanism. I also have learnt a lot about the politics of the USA.

Now, the Scathing Atheist is hilarious and rage inducing at the same time. There is also a lot of swearing and jokes about puppy rape. I love listening and recently became a Patreon. The guys who produce this podcast also make God Awful Movies. This is a weekly podcast in which they VOLUNTARILY watch christian cinema/films and take the piss out of them. It’s funny and opens up a new world of film and beliefs.

They have reviewed a number of films about the rapture and having listened to about twenty episodes I decided it would be a good idea to sit through a film, to understand just how bad they are. I watched Left Behind, click to visit the podcast page. I will admit that almost any film can be reduced to rubble when critically appraised it’s just that these guys stick with christian cinema [mostly]. Left Behind is a terrible film, it makes no sense. At all.

Gamcast episode 33 covers the cinematic marvels of God’s Not Dead 2. I listened to this and thought it would be good to see a film with a decent budget. However, it seemed unlikely that this would head out to Kent and as much as I like a day out in London I am NOT going to see christian cinema when I go there. It seemed I would have to wait to try and download this some time in the future.

I headed to Bluewater shopping centre and bought a pair of shoes in the time between arriving and having to endure watch the film. Now, I don’t like buying shoes or spending money on clothing and the such. It seems a waste. Yes, I do appreciate wearing clothes though. Anyway, new shoes were purchased. I headed to the Showcase cinema. Upon entering the auditorium it turns out some dude was in my seat. I’m not sure how that happens but he moved and sat next to me.

I was very curious as to the make up of the audience and whether they were there purely to take the piss and experience cinema shittery. The chap next to me seemed potentially mentally ill or possibly had a terrible headache, every ten minutes he would lean forward and rub his head, almost like praying, very odd. The rest of the cinema seemed normal I guess. There were about 30 people in the theatre, some families with teenage kids and some couples. I couldn’t get the measure of it.

So, I rated this film on IMDB and you should see this communication about my rating system and then return here to see how I broke the rules.

This was a bad film. The legal aspects of the film were bad. Everything was bad. I have also broken my system for rating films. But the lowest anyone can give is a 1 and so that is what I gave. Maybe I need to update my system, I don’t know.

Normally I would give you a run down of the movie and what I thought but instead you should go and listen to the God Awful Movie podcast episode covering this. Or see this tweet.

Also, you should go and buy the parody song written about this film. You can find it here. Or see this tweet:

This film did not disappoint. I honestly want to thank GAMcast and Scathing Atheist for giving the chance to experience this. I was really excited and it live down to expectations.

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Bastille Day

You know me. Always going to the cinema and this weekend there’s quite a good choice. There are definitely three films I fancy seeing and so I will spread them out. First up was Bastille Day, which was watched at the Cineworld Cinema in [not] Rochester. As usual I have rated the film on IMDB and tweeted about the result.

Now, this seems harsh according to the scale I have explained previously in this communication. To be honest this film wasn’t that great. It wasn’t a funny film, it lacked a chemistry in the buddy-buddy aspect and the action scenes were too long. The roof top running got boring. Nope, just terrible and potentially the whole thing was in bad taste.

Perhaps I was struggling to cope with made up stuff after having spent an hour in the delightful environment of mystical stuff. I’m not sure but this film didn’t deliver.

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Eye In The Sky

Took a trip to Strood to watch Eye In The Sky. You should know by now that I will have rated this film on IMDB and that there is a certain system and method involved which I explained here.

So, this is a film dealing with a hypothetical capture of fighters by the UK on Al Shabaab members in Kenya. Now, I have no idea about the types of technology used in this film. I don’t know how good camera zooms are on drone planes. I don’t know how good calculating collateral damage is and I don’t know how good communications are. The facial recognition bit seemed most unlikely to me, but then I’m not an expert.

This is a Reaper drone, the type used in the film. From looking at the photos on Wikipedia the film seems to have reconstructed the control room quite well along with the weapons and camera capabilities of the Reaper.

Initially this film is about the capture of some of the most wanted list of Al Shabaab. But the situation changes when the naughty people move suddenly from one house where the Kenyan army are waiting to another in an Al Shabaab controlled area of town. This changes the plans considerably. Also, once the beetle bug gets inside the house there is a clear justification for a Hellfire strike.

This film follows the discussions between the UK Army, USA Air Force and politicians as the UK contemplates essentially assassinating five people including two UK subjects and a USA citizen.

Oh, yeah British people. You aren’t citizens. You are SUBJECTS. You are subservient to the Queen. God Save the Queen, fuck you.

The problem with the air strike is caused by a 10 year old girl selling bread just outside the wall of the target house and so she will likely die if the hellfires are released. I won’t give away the end, I’ll just say this. This film is worth watching. All actors are good. I didn’t like the US pilot and observer and I’d like to point out that not all men and women in the forces are that good looking.

At this point I wanted to write something like RIP Alan Rickman, but that implies that he is resting or his soul is elsewhere. That’s bullshit. So, perhaps I should say he’s dead. He was good.

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Hardcore Henry

I actually spent time and money going to see Hardcore Henry. It was showing at Rochester and I had seen the trailer and was curious. It was an 18, which normally means decent violence and/or language. I rated the film on IMDB, click here to see my ratings profile.

Look, if a film has a unique thing to it, then that gets accepted very quickly and simple things like script and storyline still have to be good. A bad film is still a bad film when it is shown in 3D. 3D isn’t enough to make a film good. First person filming wasn’t enough to make this a good film. It was shit. I hated it. The filming was ok, the violence was of a dark calibre and yet the story and script were terrible.

As the New York Daily News said:

You could see Hardcore Henry or you could gulp down vodka, put on GTA, strap the TV to your face and fall down the stairs.

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Feeling Agitated

I’ve been feeling agitated today mostly about the news that someone found out who his biological dad was.

So, I played Gran Turismo for a while and apart from a message from my niece about Game Of Thrones I just had stuff tumbling over in my mind. I did win two races, one at the Red Bull Ring short course and another on Deep Forest (reverse). I do like the Deep Forest track. The last race I did I came third! It was at Grand Valley Speedway and I would have one having muscled my way into first place however I braked too late for a sharp corner and went straight on.

So, here’s why I’m angry. I watched a film. Actually I’ve watched many films this break but I specifically watched two that I missed over the last year. They were both critically acclaimed films. The first I watched about two weeks ago:

My communication about IMDB ratings is clear on my scoring system but I have changed the rules. This film isn’t one I’ll watch again and it isn’t one I’ll buy. More importantly than that is the message of this film. You need to go and watch it. NOW. This film is about how a few journalists uncovered the Catholic Church SYSTEMATICALLY protected paedophile priests and helped them avoid justice. FUCKING SYSTEMATICALLY. The church KNEW about this and protected priests. The church KNEW that priests were sexually abusing kids, fucking young children, and SYSTEMATICALLY covered this up.

The message here is clear. If you are a priest in the Catholic Church and you fucked a kid in the arse then you get helped by your church to avoid prosecution and justice.

This message can’t be made loud enough to the member of the church. Every penny you give these assholes goes to help cover this up and keep priests from justice.

Yes my language is brutal. But then that’s what they did. These cunts fucked kids up the arse and got away with it. The church HELPED them. Fuck the church.

The other film I watched was The Big Short. I’m still angry.

This film explained the systematic fraud and cover up perpetrated by the banks prior to the GLOBAL economic crash of 2008. This film is odd at times, but it is brilliant. Again, it explains how people in privileged positions abused that position and how it was covered up by senior members and the government [not the church this time]. Who suffered from this? Normal people who were struggling. People who lost their homes, health and possibly lives because of the greed and stupidity of a few.

The people in power, the governments haven’t intervened to bring people to justice. They haven’t changed the rules. People have paid for this over and over. The current economy is fucked. Ordinary citizens are paying the price for our governments bailing out banks and the global finance system because the entire industry was fraudulent.

I think that’s the point. Both of these stories show how the privileged are able to escape the horrors of normal everyday life. The experiences that normal people go through don’t matter to those in positions of power and trust. Both of these films show that people are self-interested and care not for you and I.

Am I angry? Yes I am. I’m angry at the establishment perpetuating itself and those who suffer are those who can do little to change it.

Child abuse, financial crisis, NHS, tax havens, private trust funds, offshore ownership, PPI, privilege, railways, utilities – these are the things we should be angry about. These things should DOMINATE the agenda and news everyday until something is done. In a month we won’t care about Tax Havens again.

 

 

 

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