Tag: Rochester

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Spider-Man: No Way Home

Yesterday I went to see this film. Given the omicron variant is being a bitch I had to balance out all the variables. I booked the largest screen/auditorium and made the the seats were definitely spaced from other vectors, facemasks were worn. A group of young men were there not wearing facemasks and I don’t think they were all exempt but there’s no folly like the stupid invincibility of the young. Wearing a facemask actually show that you care about others, you are reducing your airborne vectors, you are being considerate. These young men, quite clearly, aren’t aware of that or just don’t care. It’s easy, I think, to want to think about others and do your best for them. I really should remind myself that the tories have one a majority the last few general elections when the alternative was a society trying to help people.

It was dark, cold and foggy on the drive to the cinema and with roads closed near the village the journey was a bit longer than hoped for. The tide looked low on entry to the cinema. I could see all the mud flats and they were covered in seabirds having a rest from attempting to fly with almost zero visibility. After watching the film I rated it on IMDB and there is a communication that covers all the rules for the ratings here. I then tweet my result and because I have re-installed twitter onto my phone I could do that straight after the rating rather than having to use the PC to send it.

I didn’t hate this film. But I didn’t really enjoy it. But I was happy to see how the story was resolved and how they would figure certain aspects out. I don’t like superhero films and stories because it always ends up – who has the bigger fists wins – and that’s a lazy trope. It’s toxic masculinity class 101. Anyway, this film was mostly dull. I don’t like Dr Strange as a character and I didn’t really like most of the plot. It felt as though they had run out of ideas and just needed to bring back all the baddies because being creative is too hard.

From here on there be spoilers.

This is a film about selfishness. Utter selfishness. Peter Parker could have fixed it right at the beginning by not changing the spell every few seconds. Dr Strange could have stopped the spell and then re-started it but apparently the rules in this universe don’t allow for that. Peter Parker was selfish at the beginning and then ruined many people’s lives and cost millions of dollars of damage. He could have fixed this at any point by hitting the button on the McGuffin. The problems created in this film are so easily stopped. Press the fucking button.

The reason he doesn’t press the button is this universe Peter Parker believes that people should be given a second chance, that they have the chance at redemption. What christian wank this is. Just accept christ on your deathbed and say you are sorry to the imaginary man in the sky and you are redeemed and accepted into heaven. Parker wanted to fix these terrible people without their consent. I’m not sure what was meant to happen after that? Were they going to live in his universe? If you had the amazing power of being a bad superhero do you think you could go back to living in the suburbs? I’m not sure that would end well. The reason these people become bad is that they are egotistical cunts.

What was the end game? It seems Parker came up with a plan but with no idea how to resolve then ensuing issues. This is another classic modern trope taken from the real world examples of Iraq and Afghanistan. If you look back at the end of WW2 there were plans put in place to rebuild Europe and Japan. There was never a plan for Iraq and Afghan. Right, ok. This has gone political. I probably need to stop. Look, the thing is, Peter could have hit the button at anytime and fixed it all. He didn’t. He’s a selfish prick.

I was hoping we could see some Miles Morales, but it didn’t happen. I feel that the script could have been loads better with the other spidermen. I felt stale and slow. It didn’t really work. Perhaps the writers need to watch some buddy movies, or some where they get the team together.

So, this is communication 1998 and I’ve been writing a few things that happened in each year as I get through the publishing of communications. The last few have been interesting as nothing of note has stuck out at me on the wikipedia page and I so there’s this blank area when I wasn’t really into news as such. I just didn’t take that stuff in. Anyway, here are some things that happened in 1998:

  • Andrew Wakefield’s lying study into MMR vaccines and the lies told by the media of the day launch the anti-vaccination movement.
  • The second Congo war starts, it will leave 5.4 million dead.
  • Google Inc is formed.
  • An oil pipeline in Nigeria explodes killing 1,082 people.
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Ghostbusters: Afterlife

There wasn’t much choice at the cinema when I looked to book a ticket. Eternals was on along with some films I had already seen but I am not going to bother with Eternals. I don’t like superhero films and if I want to watch them I’ll do it on a streaming service. Ghostbusters: Afterlife was all that was left, but that doesn’t mean it was a poor choice, I wanted to see this. It was dark and stormy so I couldn’t see where the river water was for a tide report, but there were some reflections of lights high up the mud bank and, more telling, there were sea birds just resting all over the place, floating around, and I think they were taking shelter from the storm.

After seeing this film I rated it on the IMBD website and there is a guide to the rating system within this communication. I flip-flopped between a six and an eight because as much as I enjoyed this film and it gave me the “feels” I wasn’t sure I was going to see it again. But, let’s face it, for a film to make me happy and smile thirty five years since I watched the first version, it deserves a decent score. I then tweeted my score.

I really enjoyed this film. It felt like it was paced quite slow to start with but I think that’s because modern films are paced too fast in case the audience decide they hate the film. Making people wait for the “action” is perfectly good. There doesn’t have to be loads and loads of action all the way through the film. We don’t need films to keep racing to the lowest denominator of the public. There should be room for improving society and not just destroying it all the time.

I smiled at many points in this film and laughed [inwardly – I’m not a freak] in the right places and sometimes in this wrong places. The person three seats along my row seemed to laugh too loud and too much, but you know what? Each to their own. It’s better than the narcolepsy person I was near for one of the Matrix fims. I’m going to try and give little away about the film but that also means I can’t really talk about the ending. I will say that I loved the effects of the big-baddie, I thought they looked really good. The voice was interesting and in the credits it mentioned that Shohreh Aghdashloo had been the voice and that didn’t surprise me. She has such a unique voice and accent it really works in this situation.

The touches of music that plinked away in the background were perfect and hinted at the original film enough that I’m considering getting the soundtrack in digital form. The Ghostbusters OST was the first album I ever bought with my own money. I can remember my mum asking me to make sure I wanted it as it was quite a bit of money. Clearly I wanted it. If I want something then I always want it. I think.

I enjoyed this film a lot. It is nostalgic. It is lovely. It is worth seeing.

Comms#1992 and we get closer to the millennium each week. I wonder what number 2000 will contain? I’m not going to plan this, I’m just going to let it happen. Now, I’m one of those who can count correctly and so in terms of years I recognise 2001 as the start of the third millennium because that is very clearly when it starts. Here are some things from the year 1992 C.E.

  • The Maastricht Treaty is signed.
  • 263 die in a coal mine disaster in Turkey.
  • The LA riots following white cops being acquitted of beating a black man when a video clearly showed them doing so.
  • The Balkans are going to shit.
  • The first text message was sent.
  • The Fulham Five first lived together.
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Last Night In Soho

So, I used my last night of freedom in this mini-break we have from work to go to the cinema to watch Last Night In Soho. It was directed by Edgar Wright who also directed Baby Driver which I reviewed here. Driving along the south run towards the cinema I noticed that the tide was very low, I couldn’t see the mudbanks because it was dark but I could see the white of the seagulls standing on top of the mud all the way to the centre channel of the Medway. I don’t recall checking what was going on with the river levels when I left I was puzzling out what I thought about this film.

After watching the film I rated it on IMDB, there’s a whole thing about the rating system and that’s covered in this communication. Then, eventually, I tweet the result to my fans but not from my phone as I’ve had Twitter removed from my phone for a long time now. The only “scoial media” type app I have installed is Reddit and that’s only for times when I need distraction from the happenings around me because I’ll get too annoyed if I actually pay attention to anything.

I’ll try not to give too much away about this film but for the first 75% of the film it was heading for an EIGHT out of ten. I really enjoyed it and thought I might watch it again to see all the subtleties between each decade of happenings. Essentially a girl moves to London and experiences visions from the 1960s. I thought this premise worked really well and I liked the whole [first 75%] of the film. The music was great, the look and feel of London in the 60s was fantastic and the experiences of a Cornish girl heading to London were reasonably accurate but I’m not sure the “big city” is that much of a “thing to worry about”. Maybe I’m wrong because I grew up near London and regularly went there in my teens, I guess I also have to factor in that I am a male and places feel different to us depending on what sex we look like.

When people talk about the swinging sixties I tend to remember what my mum once said and that was “it was still a bit shit everywhere”. While there might have been an amazing scene in some cities most of the world was still a bit shit. The image of Carnaby Street and the Kings Road garnered feelings of freedom and liberation and I suppose while that’s true the men in charge were still assholes. I did like the fact that many of the male characters in this film were creepy as fuck. I guess that is what the world is like even now and the experiences of women were shown to be generally quite awful.

My problem with this film started in the last 25% of the run time. I had positively enjoyed the film until then, wondering whether the main character was crazy or experiencing some weird time displacement. I was hoping this would turn out to be a film where the mental health of the main character grew to be known and helped to be minimised with care and compassion. But, no. This turned into a plain horror film. I don’t care for horror films because they are clearly bullshit and the tricks they play on you are trope-like and mostly boring. Every now and then a film will come along that will be surprisingly different but then that spawns a load of shit.

Terence Stamp and Diana Rigg were fantastic in this film. The two lead characters managed to keep their eyes open in terror suitably long enough. This was a well made film but the crappy ending dropped the scoring down from an easy 8 to just a six and so this film gets lumped in with all the other sixes and there’s a lot of them.

I’d be curious to know just how good an Redruth accent the lead female had, @cornishpom?

This is comms#1984. Here are some things that happened in that year of our lord:

  • The USA and the Vatican restore full diplomatic relations.
  • The start of the Satanic Panic.
  • An explosion at a waterworks in Lancashire kills 16.
  • Liechtenstein finally grants women the right to vote.
  • Threads airs on BBC two and gives me nightmares.
  • Joe Kittinger becomes the first person to cross the Atlantic, solo, in a hot air balloon.
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Dune

I went to the cinema to see a film, a good one this time. It was dark as I approached the cinema along the wharf road but I could see lights flickering off the wavelet tops all the way close to the sea wall so I know the tide was in. How far I couldn’t quite tell but whenever I looked I saw streetlight reflections. This was Rochester cinema, which isn’t in Rochester, and my second trip this week although I suspect not my final trip this week.

After watching a film I rate it on IMDB and then tweet the result just so this communication looks quite good with an embedded tweet. I mean, you could head over to Twitter to see what I thought but now you are here, why would you?

This film was gorgeous. I already knew the story pretty well as I’ve watched the previous films and read a couple of the books. I’m sure that my friend, JH in Cornwall, gave me a copy of most of the books although I can’t remember how far through them I’ve read. I’m tempted to start again but I have too many unread books on my Kindle device thingy.

I wasn’t sure at first whether to rate this film as an 8 or 10. My reasons are that I don’t think I will pay to see this film again but I suspect that I will probably watch it again before the next film comes out. So, it gets a ten out of ten which is frankly what it deserves.

The whole look of this film is just absolutely gorgeous and the scale and vision is impressive. I guess it could be argued that given CGI and the skill of animators it is possible to make anything in a film these days but just to have the ideas of creating such things is still impressive to me. I really enjoyed this film and will one day make my kids sit through it all [ha ha]. I’m not sure they’ll be happy with the ending but I was very satisfied with it all.

When I entered the cinema I had to check which screen I was in as there were two teenage girls in the row behind me and I wondered what they were doing there. Dune isn’t really a teenage girl film I thought at first but then I told myself off and reminded my brain not to be too judgey about other people upon appearance. However, at the end of the film the two girls were not in the theatre so maybe they hated it, maybe they had to leave, maybe they just didn’t realise the film was over two hours long. I don’t know.

This is comms#1983 and so let’s see what things happened in the year I started secondary school:

  • ARPANET moves to the TCP/IP protocol.
  • Seatbelts become mandatory in UK for front row seats only.
  • Air Canada Flight 143 glides in to land in Gimli, Manitoba.
  • GPS is declassified for public use.
  • Kill ‘Em All is released.
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Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Well, I went to the cinema. It had been a while and I was starting to miss it. More importantly I was panicking because I thought I might miss Dune and the local cinema is showing it once a day, but it turns out they are only showing the David Lynch version so I haven’t missed the extravaganza. I went to see Ten Rings. On the way I noted that the tide was pretty low and discussed this with one of the children. I think they get mildly embarrassed or something when I explain what I’m doing noticing silly stuff.

After the film I tweeted my rating of the film, giving away what I thought of it. Although actually I think my position on the film is a little more nuanced.

I couldn’t leave the cinema as my children were with me, and if they weren’t I would probably have stuck it out. But, it wasn’t a good film. It was another Marvel film and mostly dull. We were the only people in the theatre and so spent our time checking out the view from different seats and generally having fun in the boring bits.

I will say this: this film is the biggest waste of Ben Fucking Kingsley I’ve ever seen. I hope he either fan-boy his way into the film or got fucktons of money.

Comms#1965, here’s what happened in that year:

  • The Gambia becomes independent from the UK.
  • 400+ killed in Chile after an earthquake causes dam failures.
  • What the fuck -the US launch a test nuclear reactor into low earth orbit.
  • 274 killed in a mining accident in India.
  • A 70mph speed limit is imposed on British roads.
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Free Guy

I took a trip to the cinema to celebrate the final day of freedom from work and I watched Free Guy. Before I let you know about this film there are certain aspects of the format that are required.

The tide as I drove into the cinema estate/area thing was very low. I could see the final edge of the mud banks and the boats moored close by were definitely below road level. I rated this film on IMDB and there’s a communication dealing with the rating system here. Now, I wasn’t sure how to rate this. I was border line between a 6 and an 8. This is the difference between me probably watching the film again and me not bothered about watching it again. I settled on a 6/10 for reasons given below but mostly because I’m in the middle on seeing this film again.

So, I really enjoyed this film. I laughed out loud and I loved all the contemporary references even though I didn’t recognise any of the YouTubers at least I was aware that popular Tubers exist. I will say that I think the trailer did a slight misjustice to the film and it didn’t pan out the way that I expected at all. I was expecting to be kind of bored but the film kept my attention and it worked. If you like computer games then I think you’ll love this film. I like computer games and I thought the film was really good.

Now for the – why is this a 6/10 and not 8 bit. As I left the cinema I wondered whether I would go and see this film again or download it to see if I can spot all the clever references that I know they put into it. My kids were trying to persuade me that it was worth an 8 and I would agree with them. I think the film is an 8/10 but the system I developed can’t be messed with and as I’m not that fussed about seeing the film again, it gets 6 stars from me.

This is communication number 1948 and so here are some things that happened in that year. I guess I should be planning what to do with communication number 2000 and also what do I do when I get past the current year IRL?

  • Railways are nationalized in the UK
  • The US Supreme Court rules that religious instruction in public schools violates the constitution. I want to point out that “In God We Trust” is nowhere to be seen yet.
  • The first motor race at Goodwood Circuit.
  • The Casimir effect is predicted.
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The Last Letter From Your Lover

After finally recycling all the crap from my garden at the Cuxton dump I went to the cinema at Rochester [not in Rochester, actually in Strood] to see The Last Letter From Your Lover. I noted the state of the tide as I drove to the car park and it was middling, I didn’t know whether it was going in or out but after the film it was definitely close to high tide, so now we know. After seeing the film I rated it on IMDB and then tweeted the result, there’s a whole system to all of that explained in this communication.

I almost didn’t go and see this film. I parked the car and pondered whether I actually wanted to see a romance film and I nearly went home to “waste” a few hours in the current Minecraft world that I have. But, I was here and I won’t have a chance to get to the cinema for a while so I decided it was going to be a positive experience. Upon entering the theatre I scanned the crowd [about 30 people] and I think I was the only man in the room – oh well. I’ve seen other films like that, when there’s been people not like me and me and I coped.

I enjoyed this film. It was a perfectly good piece of artwork and was a pleasant watch. While driving back home I was reminded of my maternal grandmother who went to the cinema quite a bit and she would have enjoyed this film. I remember chatting to her about a film she had seen once and she said it was a good film but there wasn’t the need for all the bad language. She wasn’t that much into swearing which was probably a generational thing? I swear a lot.

This film was focussed on the relationship between two couples spread over time and it was a kind of “love triumphs over all” message. I’m not sure I would have had that as my overall message, I’m not sure that’s a particularly healthy thing for people to think. I don’t think people should dwell too much on lost loves and I don’t believe in “true love”. I tend to think it’s just chemicals and we aren’t “destined” to be with someone, and we aren’t “soul mates” with anyone. I do understand emotional attachment though.

So, here’s my thing: for me the issue with this film was the inequality in relationships that has existed in societal expectations and the Law over the years. We see the 1960s couple at dinner and the MAN tells the wife basically to shut up with her intelligent ideas because she can’t know these things, she’s just a pretty woman. We see this couple argue over divorce and the law and society was so anti-female in those days that really I would make more of this in the film. I have massive issues with inequality that has existed over time and still does exist in our current society. I guess we kind of hope we are the best that we can be but just look around at how people are treated and you’ll see that it’s all a work in progress and sometimes that progress is negative.

Anyway, it’s a nice film. As this is communication number 1921 here’s what happened then:

  • The Jaffa riots kill about 100 people.
  • The province of Northern Ireland is created.
  • Between 100 and 300 people are killed in the Tulsa Race Riots.
  • Russian famine begins. 5,000,000 die.
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The Suicide Squad

My first real day after completing the sleeping system and so I must go to the cinema. There wasn’t a lot on really and so I almost flipped a coin between The Suicide Squad and The Last Letter From Your Lover, which I still might go and see. Driving along Chariot Way I could see that the tide was very much high, small waves lapping at the edges of the mudbanks and leaves poking through the surface of the river.

After watching this movie I rated it on IMDB. Actually I rated it the day after because there are issues with tweeting something when you have removed Twitter from your phone. I think that possible the scoring isn’t as raw as it should be but I just need to remember to follow the guidance I established in this communication. I guess I also need to point out that this film, The Suicide Squad, is different to one I watched in 2016 called Suicide Squad. Here’s the result:

I actually really enjoyed this film. It’s silly and funny and over the top. I guess it’s a bit like Deadpool but with more characters. The film had a very comic feel to it with flashbacks and floating graphics. It worked well. I’m not sure there’s a whole lot more I can say. This outcome is surprising as I don’t often rate superhero movies and definitely not DC ones. But, hey, it is what it is.

I published this without writing the whole “in this year” thing, so here goes. The year 1916:

  • Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control.
  • The toggle light switch is invented.
  • 4 people die of shark attack along the Jersey Shore.
  • Margaret Sanger opens a birth control clinic.
  • War and shit is happening and that’s pretty fucking depressing.
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Jungle Cruise

I took a small trip to see Jungle Cruise at the cinema. I could have paid to stream it on the television but I really like going to the cinema. I noted that the tide was very low in the river, all the mud banks were exposed. This was a metaphor for my low expectations of this film, even then, the film disappointed me a bit. I rated the film on IMDB, there’s a communication dealing with the scoring system.

I didn’t hate this film but I also didn’t think it was worth watching by the end of it. I know this is a film based on a theme park ride but maybe people should just stop making those. The premise was ok-ish: a plant to cure all diseases exists somewhere in the Amazon jungles and the protagonist has to find it, for reasons. Stuff happened including loads of supernatural bollocks. But, here are the things I found most annoying:

A lot of the action was filmed close up and without a steady camera and so it all blurred and I couldn’t really tell you what was going on during the action scenes. Maybe I’m getting old but there was a lot of CGI and fast moving cameras which took away from the actual action for me. Although I am prepared to say that I am definitely not the market for this film.

Why is the bad guy a German? In a submarine? Why German? Why not some mega-capitalist? Why German? Have we not accepted that perhaps not all bad people have Germanic roots. I kind of get it with Indiana Jones and the Nazis, because that was when the film was set and they were really bad. But this guy just seemed to be some low level German royal who wanted the plant-thing. Maybe I need to re-evaluate my approach to whoever the bad guys are.

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS by Metallica was the music that opened this film and also came along for a bit of easy rock half way through. Fuck this song. It is shit. What is happening in the world?

{SPOILER FOLLOWS} Why did the protagonist, who is motivated by saving the sick of the world give the only flower to a dead man she had fallen in love with? Where was her sacrifice for the better good? What an utterly selfish bullshit thing to do. Fuck this move.

I didn’t really enjoy this film. I was curious to see what the ending was going to be, and, of course, it was completely happy. Except for the German, obviously.

What happened in the year 1910 given that this is communication number 1910?

  • Slavery made illegal in China.
  • The Earth passes through the tail of Halley’s comet.
  • A boxing match causes race riots across USA.
  • 40,000 die in China of a pneumatic plague.
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Fast & Furious 9

I went to the cinema. I went to the Cineworld cinema in Rochester. I went to the cinema to see Fast & Furious 9 [fucking 9 of them! Can you believe that?]. While driving the approach to the cinema I noticed that the tide was high, the water was lapping around the base of the grasses on the mudbank so it was almost as high as can be. I wrote about why I was seeing this film in this communication. After watching this film I considered how to rate it using my rating system discussed here. Then I tweeted the result because that is what I do.

>

I guess I ought to explain my rating of 2/10. The system means that this rating is used when I walk out of a film or gave up watching or just hated it. I’m not sure I hated it and I didn’t walk out but I didn’t want to give this film a massive 4 stars as that would’ve been over-rating it so my excuse for the two stars is that I fell asleep and so this film was so terrible that it couldn’t keep me awake. Not that missing a few minutes in the middle of this film mattered really, there wasn’t any sensible plot as far as I could tell.

This film is what you expect it to be. Plenty of fighting with hands, guns and vehicles. Ridiculous stunts. Over the top sequences and general bollocks. It’s a Fast and Furious film. It’s going to be terrible. I could explain everything that was wrong with this film from the plot to the physics but there are two reasons I don’t want to:

a) there was so much wrong I don’t have the time or inclination to do it.
b) this film doesn’t deserve those words to be written about it.

My experience was one of being too warm, a short period of sleep, feeling cold, losing my facemask, general horror at the physics in the film and laughter at how pathetic some of the scenes were. Does Tbilisi have that much space or canyons close to it?

This is communication number 1899 and so here’s some information about what happened in that time period:

  • Marconi transmits a signal across the Channel.
  • The paperclip is patented.
  • Zeppelin builds the first successful airship.
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