Tag: review

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Life

I took a break from building the Lego monster to visit Rochester cinema and watch the film Life. I rated this film on IMDB and you can see a guide to my ratings within this communication.

I spent a lot of this film wondering what to write. I’m still not sure. One of the ways I interact with films is to consider what I write here. It allows me to collect my thoughts and experience the film as something more than just a cinema trip. I am nearly at the point when I am going to take a pad and pen into a film to note down my thoughts as the film rolls. What is written here is normally a collection of illiterate thoughts after the fact. My musings are filtered through the cold process of entropy increasing. Occasionally I add an extra thought here or there when I realise I’ve missed an important point I wanted to make, hence a note pad would be a good idea. I don’t want to write notes on my phone because that’s likely to get me kicked out or would, at the very least, be quite anti-social in the darkened environment of the cinema.

You know what? I’m still not sure what to write. There are some science issues and orbital mechanics things that annoyed me a little but I don’t think they spoiled the film for me. Overall it was quite a good watch. This was essentially Alien but on the International Space Station. It wasn’t really as suspenseful as Alien, but then I do love Alien and Aliens. I did find this ultimately quite not-frightening.

Right [collects thoughts]. This film was fine. I like space stuff and this film had space stuff. Yep, that’s it. Fine.

Now, some bits a pieces with potential SPOILERS.

The ISS had to “catch” the mars probe? Not going to happen.

The life form was very aggressive, I don’t think this type of life form could exists on a planet. It would have to compete for food and resources and it would use them all very soon. Oh, shit, like humans on Earth. Wow! perhaps I missed that metaphor.

The Martian soil didn’t float about.

They found a single microscopic cell out of all the junk they brought in from the probe.

The Soyuz launched to boost the ISS to “deep space” would not have enough fuel. The film mentioned “deep space” a few times as though it’s easy to get there. It’s not. The energy required is immense. We have never, so far, sent a human to deep space. We haven’t even sent a human out of the Earth’s gravity well. We have sent some probes out beyond Earth’s grip but nothing that could sustain human life. I guess the film was set in the future so maybe they can have that one.

The Soyuz docked at a closing velocity that would have destroyed both machines.

There are probably other issues but I don’t want to come across as petty or pedantic. I am both. This film was largely: fine.

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Kong: Skull Island

I took a birthday trip to see Kong: Skull Island at the Rochester Cineworld Cinema. If you don’t know me by now, then you’ll never, ever know that I rate my movies on the IMDB website, but there’s a catch. I explained my rating system here, but I think scores have been creeping recently so I may have to redefine the system. Watch this space. When I decide my score I tweet it, which leads to a quite nice embedded format:

I had originally scored this as a 6, but upon reflection it didn’t deserve to be rated that highly, hence my change of mind.

Because, this film, was, shit.

SPOILERS ahead.

The script was appalling, lazy, stereotypical bullshit. Samuel L Jackson’s eyes got too much screen time. The film makers can’t count helicopters.

The monsters looked brilliant. I’m not really aware of the mythology around the Kong character but in this film he seemed to be more of an accidental benevolent monster type thing rather like Godzilla than all out terrible monster. I guess it’s OK because he fell in love with Brie Larson, who didn’t get smashed to death inside Kong’s hand while he ripped the brain out of a two legged lizard thing. It was irritating that Brie Larson seemed to spend all her time with a bag strap over her chest to enhance her breasts, this wasn’t needed, it seemed sexist to me.

The characters were terrible. War mad generals, smooth calm SAS member, crazy scientist with stupid theories, tribe who don’t speak. It was lazy terrible bullshit.

I can suspend my disbelief for gigantic monsters on an island surrounded by a perpetual storm. That bit was fine. The rest of this was bollocks.

It’s the little things. Little things that shouldn’t be things I have to write about. Like helicopters that materialise from nowhere. On the ship travelling to Skull Island there were, quite clearly, one Chinook, one Sea Stallion and four Hueys. All of a sudden when they take off to head to Skull Island the Hueys had babies and there were eight of them!! I have no idea where they came from. I also don’t know where the helos at the end of the film came from unless the US Navy had a task force nearby.

Oh, the Hueys had tape players and speakers. I can’t quite decide if this was an homage to Apocalypse Now! or just a plain bullshit rip off. The shots were almost exactly the same.

If you want a film with rebellious music, at least make the music decent. There was a ton of decent stuff around in the 1973 setting.

The two chaps who had crashed on Skull Island in the opening sequence made a boat out of aircraft parts. The team spent about a day turning this hulk of 29 year old metal into a working boat by turning some bolts and waggling some leavers. They made a metal thing work smoothly after 29 years in a humid environment. They must be geniuses. Oh and then, when they get the engine running it pops away smoothly and quietly in the background. Let me tell you that there are NO aero engines that run “quietly” in the background. That engine would have been producing in excess of 900bhp and no silencing. The makeshift boat would have torn itself apart.

According to the Wikipedia page I missed the post-credits scene where other monsters are revealed to the viewer. I don’t care.

If I wanted to be very extremely generous I could claim that the film was a complete metaphor for the USA’s battle against terrorism with Kong representing the terrorists. But I don’t want to be generous with this film.

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Gojira – O2 Forum

I don’t understand the Sunday night gig thing. I do know that the law changed a while back to allow dancing and music for public entertainment on Sundays but I don’t understand why so many gigs are now on Sundays, in London. Can’t the cities in the rest of the country have the Sunday gig? Sunday nights out are a big inconvenience.

First band up were already playing when Smith and I got into the venue. They were called Car Bomb and they were shit. Some of the crowd really liked them, but I couldn’t get on with their music. There didn’t seem to be any method or pattern to it at all, there wasn’t really any good riffing or beat.

Car Bomb @ O2 Forum
Car Bomb @ O2 Forum

There’s a possibility I’m too old for the newer styles of metal like core-metal and nu-metal. Code Orange were the next band. They had a drummer singer and a bassist who ran around and got the crowd going but who didn’t sing. There was also a female guitarist but I’m not sure if mentioning that is sexist or not. They were much better than the first band and they actually had some songs that had a good rhythm. I’ve got written down that they were core-metal with some good riffage. I don’t think this is my thing.

Code Orange @ O2 Forum
Code Orange @ O2 Forum

And we come to the finale. Gojira are a French metal band along the lines of Mastodon but less pretentious? I have listened to some of their stuff and think it’s better than Mastodon.

Gojira @ O2 Forum
Gojira @ O2 Forum

The sound was BIG. The light show was excellent. There was a video backdrop and it fitted very well with the songs and general atmosphere. The crowd was heaving and packed.

More Gojira @ O2 Forum
More Gojira @ O2 Forum

This was a good gig and it was nice to get back to the heavy metal sound.

Unfortunately I felt incredibly rough during the show and I left early. It had been a long weekend with lots of travelling. I feel bad for leaving Smith there, but I needed to get into fresh air and home. At least I saw the first half of the show. Gojira seemed overwhelmed at the support they had in London.

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Logan

In an unusual move I went to the cinema this morning to an 11:00 showing! I’d already had a run so I figured why not? I won’t embed that here, you can search my Twitter timeline if you want to see that. As is usual I rated the film on IMDB and for an explanation of the rating system you should read this communication.

So, I enjoyed the film. It was pretty violent and very well done. It wasn’t that violent given what I have seen in the past but I guess for a 15 it was impressive.

 

WARNING there are SPOILERS from HERE.

 

I don’t like superhero films. Or mutant films. Most of them are rubbish. This one was good but not brilliant. I’ve seen people raving about it and I think that’s mostly the rubbish they’ve been fed over the years colouring their view. 

I need to add that the whole idea that the kids would be safe once they “crossed the border” was odd given that the company chasing them was perfectly happy to blow shit up in Mexico and the USA and so probably wouldn’t mind popping into Canada. 

It was lovely to see Richard E Grant being evil.

This film was going to be rated 6/10 but I have given it 8/10 because of the major deaths that take place in the film. I though it was important to give those characters some honour.

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Hidden Figures

Last night I went to see Hidden Figures. It has been a while since I’ve been to the cinema as things are just a little busy at the moment. I’m sure I’ll catch up in the next month or so. I’ve had a recommendation to see Logan and given my general dislike of superhero films it will be interesting to see it.

I went to see Hidden Figures. It is customary for me to rate films on IMDB and I did so.

Perhaps you should read my reasoning behind my ratings, although I have to admit the logic is shifting slowly over time, as should be expected I guess.

Hidden Figures was a good film. It was about some of my favourite topics; space, rockets, maths, civil rights, humanity.

Quite a broad range of topics there, but this film managed them all. This was the story of three mathematicians at NASA. That doesn’t sound particularly impressive until you suddenly say BLACK FEMALE mathematicians at NASA in the early 1960s. Everyone should see this film, it has the right amount of everything, really worth while.

It stuns me to see how different people were treated. God, people can be fucking assholes.

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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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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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Holy Diver – Dio

I bought this on vinyl originally. The cover of the Devil chaining a priest and drowning him was probably quite shocking for the time. I probably bought it because of the cover and it was in the heavy metal section of the record shop. Back in those days we couldn’t pre-listen or try a song, only the posh shops did that. I bought records on the cover and recommendations of friends.

Ronnie James Dio’s voice is strange, I wasn’t aware of his history with Black Sabbath and I still haven’t listened to any of his stuff with them, but I can see how he could follow Ozzy. I’ve just looked up that the guitarist was Vivian Campbell which explains a lot. I first heard of him when he worked for Whitesnake and the 1987 album.

Holy Diver has lyrics, but I don’t really pay attention to the lyrics. For me music is the riff, rhythm and tune of the vocals. This is an excellent 80s rock album with a perfect combination of sound and feel. It’s great. I can imagine a crowd of 80,000 all jumping in time to the heavy crunching riffs.

I can remember once being on Imperial College Radio and commenting that I thought Rainbow In The Dark sounded a lot like Living On Video. I had phone calls objecting but I maintain I was correct, or at least correct about the keyboard riff.

Rainbow In The Dark

Living On Video

Do you know what? I was right! Yes, for some reason I have both. I think I bought Living On Video as a single before I developed my love for screaming loud guitars.

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High Voltage – ACDC

1976.

AC/DC.

Debut international album.

This album. Is. Awesome.

I’m not sure if I’ve gone into my relationship with AC/DC before. My attention to them was first awakened by the song “That’s The Way I Wanna Rock n Roll” off the Blow Up Your Video album. When I found out there was a back catalogue of about 12 albums I was so excited. All that music to be consumed.

This album is their first major release. I believe that the track listing is different in Australia along with the cover. I have owned this on cassette tape, CD and now digitally. I didn’t buy much AC/DC on vinyl because I couldn’t carry around a record with me to listen as I moved.

AC/DC are masters of riff driven rock with a dirty guitar sound, perfectly crafted rude lyrics and brilliant accompaniment to balance out the sound.

It’s A Long Way To The Top If You Wanna (rock and roll) – fucking bagpipes.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Singer – includes the lyric “yes I are”, which I maintain is lyrical genius.
The Jack – better live as the lyrics are truer.
Live Wire – AC/DC Live video opens with this song. It’s a great sing along tune.
T.N.T. – riff-tastic.
Can I Sit Next To You Girl – pace change in the rhythm guitars is great.
Little Lover – “Killed me when I saw, The wet patch on your seat, Was it Coca Cola?”
She’s Got Balls – Opening riff just floors me. Lovely bass work. Beautiful.
High Voltage – Still played. Still loved. Like every song here.

This is an album to horrify the elders. To rip fear into grown ups. The lyrics are rude without being offensive [kind of] and the sound is pure dirt. Put it on. Play It Loud. Really Loud.

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