We watched Lockout starring Guy Pearce. "Based on an idea by Luc Besson." Mrs. A said "This is just Escape from New York in space!" The French court agreed with her, to the tune of nearly half a million euros.
I've always said that to make any bad idea interesting all you need to do is add the words .... "in space!" Try it.
Marky Mark isn't that bad, and his movies make lots of money. Shyamalan? He's inexplicable. His movies suck and lose piles of money. Dunno why he still has a career.
Finally saw Solo. It probably helped that I went in with super low expectations but I ended up enjoying it a lot. The fact that it's a Han Solo/Lando Calrissian origin story is actually the least interesting aspect of the movie for me, and as I expected it had this annoying habit of providing explanations for things that never really needed explanations, like where Han got his last name or his blaster. But I enjoyed the fact that it's a different kind of Star Wars movie, one that doesn't focus on Jedi, the force, or the high-level power brokers of galactic politics. It's just about the workaday lives of smugglers and small-time crooks scraping by on the fringes of this universe. That, IMO, nicely enlarges the canvas, and opens it up for different kinds of stories to be told. Hope they continue that. Also I think people complained that the movie is ugly and dreary-looking, and I guess it is, but that worked for me because it fit the criminal underworld theme.
You guys, you need to tell us what movies you've watched more often. I saw A Star Is Born. I quite liked it. I was surprised at the chemistry between Cooper and Gaga. Because of my excellent taste in music the tunes in the film were kind of a slight irritation. But I think Cooper did really good. He's growing on me, in general (not that I ever disliked him). I've never seen the original with Audrey Hepburn. I want to now. Before that I saw Cold War. Again the two actors had great chemistry. There's a graveness to the male lead's face, one of those qualities actors either have or don't, but can't manufacture, which one can't miss, and stuck with me. It's visually beautiful but the unfolding is painful and the hopelessness of the story hits you, so you need to be in the mood for it. I'm off to see First Man.
I concur with what has been said above regards to Solo... It was really enjoyable because it was a film with much lower stakes and wasn't about defeating the Sith and the Empire or saving the Rebellion as every film as they all have been. Solo and Rogue One are leagues apart from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi; this latest trilogy has been quite shocking in how much potential was wasted to explore the galaxy in that power vacuum once the Empire was finally defeated at the end of ROTJ. I'm still in two minds about that whether to bother, so fill us in what it's like. One part of my brain thinks "acclaimed film with excellent reviews" and the other part thinks 'Groan... Another space exploration film." Venom - distinctly average, interesting concept but shame it got snubbed by the recent film Upgrade, to which then it wasn't anything new. Fun at timest but a ludicrous villain and cookie cutter climax does spoil it a bit. I'd give it a 5. Bad Times at the El Royale - this one is a 10, shame it's doing so poorly at the box office, but I don't think it was very well advertised. The plotting was beautiful and nicely interwoven and highly Tarantinoesque in style, but mercifully without all the weird and nonsensical diversions.
OK, so, First Man... I have mixed feelings about it. Ryan Gosling as a quiet man on a quest to land on the moon meant I was going to see this regardless of the reviews (I am alluding to the man’s acting, which I think is underrated. Gosling can be so good). The scenes set in space are mostly beautiful. I’m convinced though, that there is a handful of directors out there which would have made of Armstrong and his story something that isn’t so immediately forgettable. Chazelle’s issue for me, put simply, is that his films lack depth. I found LaLa Land thin and insipid, so wasn’t expecting a miracle with this. Claire Foy is very good. Gosling, usually hugely convincing as a brooding introvert, or pretty much anything else, didn’t grab me as he had many times in the past, save for the scene of his daughter’s funeral. I can’t say it isn’t entertaining and don’t doubt it was thoroughly researched, but to me it definitely is a ‘meh’ film. The reviews for Bohemian Rhapsody are quite disappointing, but I think I might go see it.
Yeah, Solo and Rogue One are my favourite Star Wars movies. 9/10 I thought Venom was pretty decent. The villain wasn't great but I didn't think he was "cookie-cutter". Climax was fine. 8/10
Y'know how Jackie Chan's characters are frequently named "Jackie," in a tacit acknowledgement that what Mr. Chan brings to the screen is very entertaining, but doesn't really include the ability to convince audiences that he's someone other than the great comic martial artist? Perhaps Woody Harrelson should consider adopting a similar policy.
Well this thread is quiet. I haven't been to the cinema in a few weeks. Today I watched a film called The Land of Steady Habits on Netflix, which I wouldn't particularly recommend, and before that I'd watched Meadowland, which is very good but very sad. Wildlife is next on my list.
There was a double bill screening of Fantastic Beasts and it's sequel at my Cineworld that I went to. I sort of avoided seeing the first film in protest but finally caved in as I heard it was quite good, and I tend to get like that regarding popular films that everybody else has seen. And Fantastic Beasts was a really good film and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Which was what highlighted the flaws of The Crimes of Grindelwald. This is classic film padding that happens when successful franchises milk audiences for all they're worth. JK Rowling and Co. I believe have already expressed that they want to string this out to a five-film arc, and I'm sorry to say it 100% shows here. The film could easily have been half an hour shorter and all the better for it. Instead the first Just when we are about to find answers, the film stops the audience to exposit for 15 minutes some hyperconvoluted subplot that has no impact or pertinence to the story in question at all other than to avid Potter fans. My brain was screaming to shout out "Nobody cares! Nobody cares!" I could tell that it's only purpose is to stall out what the main plot really is about, which revovles around discovering the lineage of a key character who we all know must be related to someone of importance in the world of Harry Potter. However, I found that I just didn't care at all, before the final reveal and after it. I didn't care about the character at all. There had been no attention given to characterisation to give me the opportunity to care about the quest of this character. I was simply expected to care about him just because we're told to do so by the writers, and I just really dislike that. Perhaps it was simply tiredness from seeing two films back-to-back, or that I had enjoyed the first film a lot that it exacerbated the comparison in my mind. Some people I spoke to who've seen it also really enjoyed that aspect of the story, and perhaps now that I'm writing, I'm a lot more critical of storytelling. Now I hold my hands up and say that I am an absolute sucker and easy prey for filmmakers when it comes to the most popular film franchises because I lile to talk about popular films and can't bear the prospect of missing out. So I guess that doesn't give me much licence to complain, but I will still do so anyway! I do agree that successful franchises grow lazy off the back of their own success; they expect the audience will lap up anything (and generally they do, myself notwithstanding!). The overall mood in the cinema was positive and those I have spoken too since liked it.
It looks like I'll need to wait to be able to stream Wildlife. My local Curzon showed it for a couple of weeks when I couldn't make it, then it was gone. I still haven't managed to catch Bohemian Rhapsody, either. BUT... I saw Shoplifters yesterday. I'd seen I Wish and Like Father, Like Son before that, so this is my third film from Hirokazu Koreeda. I love this director. Shoplifters probably isn't as gentle as the other two (which I guess wasn't my luck, since I am a little tender at the moment so would have been fine with pure gentleness), but also just like the other two it's very beautiful and intimate story-telling. My Netflix update - The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: yes. This won't be my favourite from the Coen brothers, but yes still. They've also just added Arrival to the library which I'll most definitely be watching again. Not right now though because it stayed with me for days when I saw it a couple of years ago, and I'm not in the mood for sadness at the moment.
I had the long overdue pleasure of seeing Wreck-It Ralph on a long flight and was certain that the ceiling had already been reached that any sequel would be a disappointment... how wrong I was! I think Ralph Breaks the Internet is on a par, possibly even better than the first film, with a (literally) vast new world introduced in the form of the internet which is quite charming, believable and so much attention to detail, and with more weighty true dilemmas that made the first film so memorable. There have been so many outstanding animated films these past few years (Zootopia, Inside Out, Incredibles 2), the standard is just so high these days and the themes growing more mature. 10/10 I loved the Chronicles of Narnia films, and it seemed that The Nutcracker and the Four Realms would be following along a similar sort of vein. However, unlike the realm of Narnia, this one has less of a pulse than the tin soldiers that inhabit it. All the plot points you can see coming from a mile away. Tiresome, pointless exposition. Granted, it all looks very pretty, but the world is not a particularly interesting one that I found I didn't particularly care at the dangers that it faced. There is a puzzle that the FMC has to unlock that is the key to the plot; the reveal: ugh, such an eyeroll... 4/10 Green Book was this week's Secret Screening wild card, coming completely out of left field that nobody in the cinema seemed to have even heard of it (myself included), never mind expecting it. And it was mainly a comedy - not my first choice of genre, but I was pleasantly surprised. It follows the true tale of an African-American pianist (played by Mahershala Ali) playing concerts in the Deep South. Though race is an element, it's handled with outstanding subtlety, and never takes its eye off the main focus: the relationship between him and his Italian-American driver/bodyguard (Viggo Mortensen). They are a world apart in their culture and worldview, which makes for some hilarious banter, and the pair have great rapport. Mortensen is especially memorable here. Not what I expected to see, but a great surprise nonetheless, and one I might have otherwise gave a miss. 9/10
Just watched some 2014 piece of crap called Wolves, featuring Jason Momoa. Pretty much how not to do a movie, Spoiler: Spoilers Kid's the star quarterback at his high school, finds out he's a werewolf when he A) kicks the shit outta some other kid using superhuman strength, B) almost eats his girlfriend when horny=transformation, and C) murders and eats his parents. So he goes on the run, successfully, somehow. It's implied that quite a while has passed, but the TV is still running the stories about his parents' murder every time he looks up, so how long has it been? He's a babyface, but he's served alcohol without question at every bar he walks into. He finally wanders into Wolftown and finds a job with the most obviously hiding werewolf in the world except for the Big Bad, finds that it's good honest work, blah blah blah oh did we mention that this has all taken place in 24 hours since he arrived? Everybody wants him, he's just so fukkin hot... The big bad wasn't really bad but everybody thought he was bad so he became bad but it was really a character who almost never was on screen who was the big bad but even he didn't cause the problem because the guy who wishes he was Lance Henriksen thinks the best way to deal with a gang is by shooting all the minions til you're out of bullets but then the guy who wishes he was Dennis Hopper comes along to spoil everything for the kid who turns into Kris Kristofferson when he gets mad but that's okay because you're standing on an ANFO landmine and they all lived happily ever after. Also, I suspect it was in 3d originally.
Thanks, now I need to add Wolves to my watch list. No, really, I do. I love crap movies, as long as they are done with style, and some sort of self-awareness how bad they are. Take movies like Lavalantula and the sequel 2 Lava 2 Lantula. Crap movies, but I love them. We're talking lava-spiders here, in case you couldn't tell from the name. The same goes for movies like Piranhaconda, Dinocroc vs Supergator, Mega Shark vs Mecha Shark, , and so on. And not to forget the ultimate crossover: Lake Placid vs Anaconda. Brilliant. Not sure why I hated Sharknado, though. It should be one of those movies I really like. The dumber, the better. But this one was just bad.
Just seen Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse - I wasn't sure how I felt about this going into it... more Spiderman overkill, but I'd already been proven -wrong once before with Spiderman: Homecoming and had been reading it got some rave reviews, so had to go for it. The one thing that struck me most: this has got to be the best-looking film I've ever seen! Crazy, psychedelic visuals, vibrant colours, animations that could have dropped straight out of a comic book... I wish there had been an IMAX release of this at home, because it would have been even more awesome! I think I spent most of the film just marvelling at how beautiful the film looked. Oh, and the story? Well, that was also really good as well. 10/10 Mortal Engines, in contrast, was far less impressive. I haven't read the books, but I just didn't feel any rapport between the two main characters. Their alliance just felt forced from the very get-go, no good reason for them being together, and so I could never buy into it. And the thing with the green-eyed Terminator just felt so out of place from both a worldbuilding and plotting standpoint, such a huge distraction in the second act that we have to stop for lengthy expositions that drain the pacing and ultimately has little payoff. I felt like there should have been more emphasis on London and the Anti-Tractionists because that was where I saw the greatest promise. Because I did find the premise quite exciting and it did seem to start off quite strongly, but then quite literally the caterpillar tracks fell off after the opening act. From somebody unfamiliar with the books, I have no idea the reason for the animosity between the two conflicting sides apart from 'need more fuel' and it's never really adequately explained for me. The world showed early promise to be a suitable successor for Peter Jackson after Middle-Earth, but I felt like the execution was poor, and initial signs don't look good for it to get picked up for a franchise, which will be a shame. 4/10
Yeah, but this wasn't really "so bad it's good," the filmmakers were obviously trying for a solid B hit. Three-Headed Shark Attack, known here as Triple Head Jaws, was a far superior film, IMHO.
