Tag: review

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The Judge

I went to the early showing of The Judge today. Actually it was the only showing at Rochester cinema and just happened to be at 10:25. As with other films I have watched at the cinema which can be seen here and here I rated the film on IMDB. See this page for a discussion of my ratings.

So, I liked this film and I rated it an eight accordingly. I don’t often go to see dramas be they courtroom or family. I just don’t like seeing stuff that reminds me of real life. That’s why I go to see science fiction or action movies, I don’t have to reflect upon my own life. This film explored the reunion of a estranged brilliant son and his family and dad after the mother dies. The dad is a judge. Hence the title.

If we ignore the actors and their star attraction I just liked the complex nature of the back history and how the story was weaved together. It doesn’t really matter what happens and the outcome of this film. It’s really about families and what they are, how they work, the tragedies and the loves. There were a few funny moments that lightened the mood but it is not a film I left feeling happy. It made me realise that life’s a bit shit really. The times when you are cradled in your parents’ arms and truly happy and safe are short. The times when you are carefree and crazy are short. The times when you hold your own children close to your heart and feel true love are short. Life is constantly changing and you have to keep up. You have to make the most of every moment and treasure all those little moments you are given. One day, there’ll be no more me, so I should do the best I can while here.

Went a bit heavy there! Look, films are an art form and art is meant to make you emotional and affect your emotions in some way. This film affected my emotions [normally quite easy to do though], but more importantly I loved the story and wasn’t bored. My mind didn’t wander. I just paid attention. This is why I gave the film 8/10. I probably won’t watch this film again, but I did like it.

This was filmed somewhere in the States and it looked like a really nice place to live. If I searched the interweb thingy I could probably find out where. I loved the river, the bridge and the weir and white water. It is somewhere I would like to visit, although there are still many places like that in the UK where I haven’t been. I nice restaurant next to a rushing, rapids section of a river should be easy to find over here. Oh, an we don’t have tornados in the UK.

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Elephant – White Stripes

This was the second album by The White Stripes that I owned. I really like the first one I owned and I guess it’ll be written about eventually in this place.

This album is much the same as the other one. I haven’t really played it a great deal in the last ten years but I really do appreciate the barebones sound and writing. I think it shows that every now and then the popular taste in music comes full circle.

One thing I would say is that this is the album with Seven Nation Army blasting off as the first song. It’s a great song with an amazing riff that has been ruined by every sports ground ever since.

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Electric Ladyland – Jimi Hendrix Experience

Look, I am perfectly aware that this is a classic album. I’m also perfectly aware that it’s hard to criticise things that are considered classic. For instance; I’m not that keen on The Beatles, they don’t really do much for me. I feel much the same way about this album. It’s OK. I can see that it’s considered a classic and I can even see why but it does little for me. I don’t really play it often.

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Fury

Last night I went to see Fury. It’s a film about a tank crew in the Second World War and their movement through Germany in the last few months of the war. As a film it was OK. I rated it an 8 on IMDB, as ever, see this page concerning my ratings. [check out the bottom of this communication but avoid the spoilers]

So, overall this film was an acceptable piece of Hollywood film-making. I probably will watch it again one day, not because I seek it out, but because it is on TV and I don’t change the channel.

The film seemed realistic enough [although I have never been in a tank, nor war] and I liked the way they tried to portray the cramped conditions inside the tank. This was a bit like Das Boot in that sense. As in all war films there was lots of death and strange behaviour because, let’s face it war is fucking weird.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOLLOW

I didn’t like that the young boy, whose progress we follow [apart from the first ten minutes] survived. I guess someone had to survive to tell the story. I have no idea as yet if this was based on any real story, I doubt it as it never said so. I don’t like happy endings, I prefer more real endings. When the boy was discovered underneath the tank I am sure an SS member would have shot him there and then. I realise that the SS member was young and that he was in shock too but given their fanaticism he would have alerted the rest of his troop, especially given the amount of dead they had. The Americans had murdered plenty of Germans earlier in the film and I am sure they would have killed the Nazi scum, as the Brad Pitt character already did at the beginning of the film.

I didn’t really understand the breakfast scene in the middle of the film. Or rather I did understand it but it told me nothing new. It showed that Brad Pitt was a caring leader [who knows the bible] as well as being tough, that he had “morals” [he quotes the bible] and that this crew respected him. Problem is that they didn’t do as he told them. They flouted the boundaries he set down much like naughty children. Was this scene purely for the “kid” to have sex? And then to see his love destroyed and killed by a mortar shell? I don’t know. This scene felt most like the French plantation scene in Apocalypse Now! and that was cut from the cinema release. I guess this twenty minutes would have made Fury too short had it been removed. It served nothing. Added nothing. Told me nothing. Pointless.

 

 

 

 

Addendum:

I’ve changed my rating to a 6/10 after writing this review. I clearly didn’t like certain aspects of it.

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Gone Girl

Gone Girl. In all honesty I haven’t decided whether I liked it or not. Last night I rated it as a 6 on IMDB.

Please remember to see my previous explanations of how my IMDB scoring system works.

Was this film a comment on the rabid invasiveness of the media upon private lives? Was this film a comment on sociopaths? Was this film a comment on poor little rich girl who liked a bit of rough to get back at her parents?

POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOLLOW

(I haven’t worked out what I’m going to write yet and although I could come back and edit that header I won’t, mostly what you see is the train of consciousness of me)

Overall, this film was neither of those. I have no interest in reading the book, although I probably wouldn’t have read it before seeing the film. I think we end up coming back to the main crux of the problem. After a while neither of the main characters were likeable. The wife was appalling and the husband annoyed me. To make a film effective you need to create characters that people can empathise with. In this film there is the poor little rich girl with a trust fund who has degrees from Harvard and the writer for a men’s magazine who has a smooth patter approaching someone at a party. They live in a big house in the middle of shit-ville. They have a cat. He owns a bar.

Would this film be made if the main characters were scum bags living in a trailer park? Why doesn’t film (or TV) show us real life with normal characters? Where are the films that represent normality. People who have lost their homes or struggle to make ends meet. People who love and laugh and cry. People who form MOST of our society. People who have friends and family and tragedy but humility? Soap Operas do not count. Look at what happens in soap operas. Look at the tragedies that befall a single person. Look at the terror and strife that happens to all. Where are the happy and comfortable couples? Television and cinema thrives on scandal.

My friend would tell me these films exist but I chose not to see them. I would argue they don’t show them outside of London art-house cinemas. I would also argue that for the majority of the time I see films that are clearly escapism. I see sci-fi and trash action movies. I don’t often see humdrum films. Maybe I should.

Well, there you go. It turns out I didn’t like the film.

Gone Girl was written by a writer about a clever writer who had a mum who wrote children’s books. The husband character was a writer. Say no more.

 

Added extra [06:24]

WTF was up with the Doogie Howser ex boyfriend guy? Who was he? What kind of relationship was it he had with the wife? ANOTHER rich spoilt brat enjoying life. There’s about 5 minutes of him in the film but was he controlling or was the wife? WTF? How? Who? Where? Actually, I’m glad there wasn’t any more of him in the film, it was over two hours long anyway.

Again I arrive at the conclusion that rich people suck. They mostly don’t pay taxes, don’t give a shit about those who work hard and they aren’t likeable. Stop making films about privileged twats.

Right, time for me to calm down and to go and do some work for the day.

Please let me know if you watch this film and actually like any of the main characters. I’ll let you like the police investigation and the sister, these seemed to be the only two main people who had any decent morals, approach to life.

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The Equalizer [sic]

I have just got in from watching The Equaliser. There are probably going to be spoilers in here so if you think you might watch it and yet don’t want to know any more than the trailer tells you then feel free to pop back another time.

Overall I rated this film a 6. As with all my ratings you need to refer to this previous communication.

I enjoyed this film. It’s hard not to like a film that opens with warnings of graphic violence on the ratings certificate. I often remember a friend saying

It’s good to see a proper 18 film now and then

this may have been in reference to Ong Bak.

The Equaliser:
A good action movie. The opening was pretty good and set the mood. I liked the slow pace of it. The problem was that the initial killing sequence was over the top and from there the only place to go was to make it more “involved” and more elaborate deaths.

I kept trying to remember the TV series I watched with my dad. I’ve a feeling there were adverts so it may have been on ITV (shock, horror). Edward Woodward played a man with a mysterious past who helped people in trouble. He would do so in a menacing way and with lots of guns, did he have a secret wardrobe full of weapons? I’m pretty sure that he was rather low-key and sinister in that English way.

In this film version there wasn’t any real subtlety. The first killing was five men brutally executed after a slight altercation about nearly $10,000. Oh, and it turns out these people were key players in the Russian mob. After that the Equaliser can only go on and root out all evil that plagues modern Boston and Russia.

There wasn’t a need to make this a nasty, violent film. It would have been better if the first story in this inevitable franchise was a low key story of a man helping those in his neighbourhood. It could have been a slow-burner of a film and then about three into the series we could have had the decimation of all the mobs running the East Coast.

This film, while enjoyable, missed the point of the Equaliser and I think they also missed a trick. It could have been better.

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A Most Wanted Man

I really enjoyed this film. It showed the gritty realism of being a spy and trying to make the world a better place. Of course the gritty realism just means that there weren’t lots of car chases and vodka martinis. I’ve gone off Bond a lot since Casino Royale but this showed a certain story telling class as you would expect with a film with involvement from John Le Carre.
I think this was PSH’s last film. To be slightly honest I’m not surprised as he drank and smoked his way through the entire film. I liked the way that the film never left Hamburg. It was pretty much entirely from the point of view of the PSH character. This was an intelligent film, well worth a viewing.

My IMDB tweet will appear here when I can get the embed code.

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Before I Go To Sleep

This film was one of the very few “normal” films I have seen over the last while. I think by that I mean it wasn’t an action movie or science fiction. Those are probably my favourite type of film to see as they don’t require emotions or thought. They can just be watched and enjoyed.

I liked this film and I thought it was quite good. I rated it a 6 on IMDB, mostly because although I thought it was good a deserves an 8, I am unlikely to see it again, which means it is relegated into the “good but Parish won’t watch it again” category.

I liked the idea of this film. Although it would appear than someone paid Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman on a BOGOF deal. This is the second film of recent time when they have both played the leads, the other was The Railway Man. The story is a woman wakes every day unable to remember anything about her past. Each day she has to discover who she is and how she lives. Over time she uncovers what caused the injuries that made her like this.

I won’t say any more than that. I enjoyed watching it and the suspense it created. I liked the little “frights” the director added but gradually I am learning to calm my emotions to a Zen like status when I watch these films to remove the roller coaster. Overall, this was worth the watch and is probably far better than the trailer for some shock-horror-film where the evil thing is an ugly doll [I thought we had done all that with Chucky!].

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Lucy

I’m writing while the film is fresh in my head. I’ve got home, made a cuppa and am thinking about messing around on my new project DBL-MF. That can wait a short while as I give you my verdict on the latest Luc Besson film: Lucy.

It was shit.

It started well and I was quite excited at the prospect of a good film. The first twenty minutes or so were pretty good. They set the scene. Taipei looked pretty good and the baddies were Chinese, or rather Taiwanese, and I’m happy to let the island self-govern. There were some very odd cut-scenes and I’m pretty sure they were just there to make the film a little longer, they must have run out of film that was any useable. I was going to say “good” instead of useable but there wasn’t anything good and this film had Scarlett Johansson in it.

Girl gets duped. Girl gets super powers but a short while to live. Girl kicks ass.

This, on the face of it is a pretty good synopsis and could be made into a much better film. There was a ton of science mumbo jumbo throughout the film it made it almost unwatchable. I very nearly walked out, but it had Scarlett in it. Anyone else and this film would have made a distinct 2/10 on IMDB instead of the 4/10 I gave it.

Why, oh why, does the myth that we only use 10% of our brains keep reappearing in the popular media? Isn’t enough that we exist without belittling our capabilities! Fuck you wankers. This film could have been made without all that shit in it. Girl gets drugged, gains super powers, no explanation needed. See, it works. If this myth had been mentioned once I could have coped but the whole premise was what would happen when Lucy reaches 100%. Morgan Freeman quite clearly makes the point that we are just supposing about what might happen. just as well as this was a crock of shit.

Cut to more pre-made low definition scenes of animals mating.

Then we have the same issue I had with Transcendence. Why, when we make our brains really powerful (in films) does this allow us to manipulate everything around us? Why is telekinesis suddenly OK? I’m happy that we might become very intelligent, and we might even be able to feel more using our existing senses but control electromagnetism and material objects, more wankish writing. If we had ignored any brain stuff and just had girl gets drugged and then has super-powers this film would have still worked. In fact, it would have worked a whole lot better.

Finally, I’d thought I’d summarise:

I didn’t like it

Also, just in case you think I’ve been drinking, I haven’t. I’m just writing this within an hour of leaving the cinema and normally I write these the next day. This is the teacher equivalent of having a crap lesson and then writing reports on the kids you’ve just taught. It’s all deserved.

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Eject EP – Senser

It is hard to explain just how important this EP is to me. I know that it shouldn’t really appear in this series as it’s not an album but I don’t care.

Loud, hard, heavy, angry, sexy, violent, calming, soothing, political, gentle, vicious

Rock, rap, heavy, soft, crazy, DJ, mixing, scratching, chugging, funk, trance

Andy first got me into this in around my third year of university. I lived in Ongar road and he gave me a tape of new music he had found. He always found good music and passed it on to me. It sounded a little like Faith No More who, I felt, had messed up heavy metal a little by mixing in some funk and crazy stuff.

Senser had taken music I loved and turned it on its head. They had funk, metal and they even had a DJ dude who would scratch in the background. This stuff blew my mind. It has to be played loud and let the bass ring out. I do like rolling bass lines that play all the while other ditties are played around the steady beat of the drums and thumping bass. I think all my favourite bands have managed that [AC/DC, Dokken, Iron Maiden].

So, all of the four songs on here are great. Download it from iTunes or whatever your preferred music provider is. I especially love Eject (Over Zealous Mix) with the David Koresh quotes. You youngsters should look it up and see how religion fucks everything up and belief in crazy things fucks everything up.

I would say that the sound that Senser created, along with the Prodigy, allowed other bands to build and transform the heavier side of music leading to Rammstein and Slipknot.

This EP still sends shivers down my spine. If it can do that after about twenty years then I’d say it deserves all the merit I can bestow upon it.

No one knows when it’s going to happen. When they asked him, Jesus said even he didn’t know the exact time, but it’s going to happen. One of these days, and it could be any minute now, Christ is going to come back for us all and after that it’s going to be pretty awful around here.

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