Film 2013

[Brightonfan1983]

Side Effects

Finally got round to watching this tonight, and I thought it was fantastic - Best American film in years. Stunning performances all round, fantastically shot, great storyline and twist.

8/10

I didn't buy this as much as I wanted to. The Katherine Zeta Jones/Jude Law combo lowered my expectations and sadly they were reached. 5 or 6/10

I've just watched "Now You See Me". Am still waiting for a film about magicians to enthrall me as much as The Illusionist did, and this, with its smug cast and overly CGI-ed set-pieces, bored me. 3/10

 

[Acker79]

Am still waiting for a film about magicians to enthrall me as much as The Illusionist did, and this, with its smug cast and overly CGI-ed set-pieces, bored me. 3/10

The charming cartoon illusionist or the ed norton illusionist?

The prestige is one of my favourite films, gets better with every watch as you constantly find something new to it. However, it seems of my friends, those who saw the ed norton illusionist first seem to prefer that and find the prestige less fulfilling. I saw the prestige first, and feel like the illusionist doesn't hold a candle to it.

 

[Brightonfan1983]

The Ed Norton one - I saw it before The Prestige (which seemed too 'fantastical' by contrast), so funny you should say that.

 

[keaton]

The charming cartoon illusionist or the ed norton illusionist?

The prestige is one of my favourite films, gets better with every watch as you constantly find something new to it. However, it seems of my friends, those who saw the ed norton illusionist first seem to prefer that and find the prestige less fulfilling. I saw the prestige first, and feel like the illusionist doesn't hold a candle to it.

The cartoon Illusionist is lovely (same bloke who did Belleville Rendez-vous). And The Prestige is a brilliant film, and yes everytime I watch it seems to get better

 

[albion534]

Insidious 2 looks like it'll make me crap my pants

 

[Stoo82]

double post

 

[Stoo82]

Elysium

Worth a watch. I thought the writing was below par along with Jodie Fosters acting, in part due to the poor writing. I am sure there are two lines which the words I heard were different to what was coming out of Jodie's mouth, poor editing. Matt Damon was good for the role he played, although it was a basic. His love interest was hot.

Story was good and believable and there was plenty of action. I thought the angry South African man was a bit over the top although I could understand why he was like that; it was all just a bit fast on his part, again poor writing.

Go see it, but don't expect much other than a average story with some dodgy writing. 6/10

 

[Brightonfan1983]

Saw World War Z last night, really enjoyed it. Brilliant effects, very scary moments, top class set pieces, an understandable storyline and Brad Pitt is excellent. 8/10

 

[Acker79]

Saw World War Z last night, really enjoyed it. Brilliant effects, very scary moments, top class set pieces, an understandable storyline and Brad Pitt is excellent. 8/10

Coincidentally I got round to watching this and thought it was bloody awful! In fact it's one of the worst films I have seen in recent years.

World War Z

Possibly the dullest & least imaginative zombie film I have seen, terrible premise. Horribly bland characters which induce absolutely no empathy. Very poor science fiction. Two hours long and mainly consists of tedious & predictable chase scenes or cheesy American drivel - with no real narrative apart from changing location several times. Lazy camera work & general cinematography. Decent performance from Brad Pitt though.

2/10

And Doctor Who as a WHO doctor.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Rush.

I'm keen to hear people's reviews of this. Looks good.

Saw it at Duke of York's this afternoon. Absolutely stunning film with two superb portrayals of James Hunt and Niki Lauda by Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl respectively. The plot you couldn't make up and there are moments of unbearable tension and 'speck of dust in the corner of the eye' poignancy. Oh, and lots of cars zooming around loudly. Very highly recommended. 9/10.

 

[Meade's Ball]

Saw Rush in the afternoon of a gameless yesterday and certainly did enjoy it. I generally have it in for director Ron Howard, mostly for his Richie Cunningham days and his constant bowing to a strange, 4ft 7 middle aged man who'd hang around with the kids at his school and lived in a flat above his garage, and the praise i'll offer Rush is somehow in spite of him. But, really, a director of his experience is really there to be in with the hiring of experts around him so all he needs to do is tell the story, and in this case it's the work of the cinematographer that really stuns, with a little of the music from Hans Zimmer. The look of it is amazing. In Tinker Taylor of a few years ago there was the 70s captured in a dull and smoky brown and yellow, as if they were the only two dyes of the time in existence, but in this there's the hazy element of the past as a canvass, but one greatly dramatised beneath by beautiful colour and glittering dawn sunshine.
The actors were ok, reading a script of sometime corniness and acting out some stereotypes of heroes of different types, and the story went along appealingly enough capturing a mix of unbreakable rivalry both between these two wannabe titans, each looking to prove people wrong in different ways but with the same result, and how the women they loved paled into insignificance in comparison to their desire for perfection in their cars - the engines often purring and hammering sexually. But it was the delicate yet piercing and changeable control of the visuals that really caught the eye and mind. Really something to watch.
I was pretty much always on Lauda's side in the film, maybe psychologically envious of the monstrously godly cockwarrior Hunt.

 

[shaolinpunk]

The first reviews are appearing for Gravity, and it seems that may be worth a cheeky trip to the cinema (and in 3D)

This is from the Forbes review:

"Gravity is the most compelling, moving, frightening, and jaw-dropping cinematic concoction of the year. It is a glorious example of why we go to the movies and why the theatrical exhibition system is worth fighting for. It is a glorious counter-argument dropped square on the head of those who would proclaim the death of cinema, as it best encapsulates what the movies, movies seen on a giant screen in a dark theater, can do and what they can deliver better than any other art form. It is a glorious… well, it’s just plain glorious in every conceivable way, arguably as close to a perfect film of this scale that I can recall.

Gravity isn’t just the movie of the year. It may-well be go down as one of the best movies I’ve ever seen."

 

[Meade's Ball]

The first reviews are appearing for Gravity, and it seems that may be worth a cheeky trip to the cinema (and in 3D)

This is from the Forbes review:

"Gravity is the most compelling, moving, frightening, and jaw-dropping cinematic concoction of the year. It is a glorious example of why we go to the movies and why the theatrical exhibition system is worth fighting for. It is a glorious counter-argument dropped square on the head of those who would proclaim the death of cinema, as it best encapsulates what the movies, movies seen on a giant screen in a dark theater, can do and what they can deliver better than any other art form. It is a glorious… well, it’s just plain glorious in every conceivable way, arguably as close to a perfect film of this scale that I can recall.

Gravity isn’t just the movie of the year. It may-well be go down as one of the best movies I’ve ever seen."

I'm off to that for the gala at the London Film Festival. Should be good that. This year i have 20 films to see, and hopefully not all of them depressing, but powerful eastern european rape dramas.

This week was a mixed bag of cinema visits, one being surprisingly sweet and the other being an eclair with a turd in the middle, and no toffee on the outside.
I enjoyed Jasmine Blue, Woody Allen's latest with Cate Blanchett her usual excellent self. For a comedy, which it sometimes was, it had an incurable sadness to it, lengthy moments when the laughter stopped and the darker memories of Jasmine and her life with her nefarious husband were exposed. Allen gets the blend of theatrical humour and grim psychological difficulty for Jasmine just right and critics are right to call this a return to form at least this once. Good enough stuff.

The utter turd of a snack was Insidious Chapter 2. Not a single fright and an utter nightmare to sit through. Dogshit. Also, i made the self-promise to only go to a Cineworld early on a weekend, changing my regular Monday night venue to either the BFI, Barbican, Rio, Renoir or anywhere where people don't just go to watch a film and talk all the way through it like ****s.

 

[Meade's Ball]

My Monday-evening mission to avoid cinemas without the babbling ignorami that Odeons and Cineworld tend to be partly-populated by began with a journey to the Hackney Picturehouse to witness Prisoners, with the boggle-eyed Jake Gyllenhal and the always-acting-as-if-in-a-musical Hugh Jackman. On this occasion, the only natterer in the theatre was an odd chap who kept laughing through it, despite it being a completely uncomical tale of child abduction and taking the law into your own hands. He said mid-chuckle at one point to no one in particular "Gee this is one funny film." Strange.

The film itself was good. From the director of Incendies - 2010 - which i rather liked too. It's a cold feature, the days that pass in the narrative icy ones in glaciered Pennsylvania, in which beneath the greyed-out surface lies an unpleasantness, a dread that could approach anyone in comfort. In Jackman's case it's the taking away of his young daughter and her friend by persons as yet unknown. When the likely culprit, played by a notably creepy and puffed-faced Paul Dano that any of us coming across him would suspect of such a theft of human life, is released by the police - led by Gyllenhaal who, as per all film detectives, has never not found a missing person for all his years on the force - Jackman decides he needs to do what he needs to do.

At the film's opening Jackman is out with his son hunting, and this seems a sign to me that the message overall of gun-wielding men deciding what's best and acting outside of the law in times of need is apparent. I imagine there'll be some of the American audience who only think: he's doing the right thing by holding this freak captive until he tells him where his daughter is. But us over here should more largely be on the side of the police investigation, even with that itself being imperfect with its sometimes unpleasant psychological bullying.

It's 2.5 hours long, but the suspense is well-held and the altering suspicions of who the snatcher is well-weaved. The look of it was fine, of a world the colour of chipped cutlery, of space and bodies buried anywhere you dig. Gyllenhaal was good as the sort of obsessed detective whose top buttons are always done up as a partial ode, one would think, to Monk. Jackman is brutal enough as the inflexible strongman on a mission, but as ever he's just a bit obviously acting rather allowing a character to be itself without him. Melissa Leo, who i liked greatly in Frozen River a few years back, is growingly effective throughout.

I liked it. It has a Mystic River and Zodiac feel to it, and i liked the moments when sound said so much more than image. A good and tough mystery with enough turns to it to keep one enthralled whilst the murmur of foulness is loosely heard and felt throughout.

 

[shaolinpunk]

I liked it. It has a Mystic River and Zodiac feel to it, and i liked the moments when sound said so much more than image. A good and tough mystery with enough turns to it to keep one enthralled whilst the murmur of foulness is loosely heard and felt throughout.

I liked Zodiac (another Gyllenhal film) but that really started to drag towards the end. It could have done with chopping 30 minutes off the running time

 

[Meade's Ball]

It takes a performance to have one feel for a bent copper who is shagging at least 2 ladies married to men he pretends are his friends, and by jingo James Mcavoy pulls one out of the bag with Filth. At first i felt the film looked cheap and so TV-based that i was a little wincey, but Mcavoy appears straight away and his smart alec Edinburgh tones drag you through a tale of cruelty and pain and increasing madness with great humour and a guilt-inducing sense of empathy. Drugs, murder, sex, psychological abuse, tape worms, racist tendencies. It had it all to play around with. Enjoyable, unruly and caperish cop drama take on another Irvine Welsh book i haven't read. Just about suitably an 18.

 

[Beach Hut]

There is a film called Le Week-End out this Friday which looks very good

 

[Meade's Ball]

Well it was opening night for Meade in the London Film Festival, and it started well. Ok i doubt this will ever get much of a release, but it was a documentary about Alejandro Jodorowsky, who made the somewhat out-there 70s psychedelic western El Topo, and his memories of looking to make Dune, which ended up being made generally atrociously by David Lynch released in 1984. It was Jodorowsky's tale of how he put the sci-fi "classic" together and the artists involved and the actors who had signed up for it. It was mostly mental, it being memories of the 70s and how he chanced upon the company of Salvador Dali and Orson Welles to star as the evil aliens and how he persuaded his special effects guy to take part thanks to some rather mind****ing dope. I found it both amusing and enthralling, charmed by the persuasive, half-authentic powers of the now 84-year old Jodorowsky and the people he dealt with. Glad i saw it and extra fun for film fans with an appreciation of the golden era of the 70s.
Jodorowsky's Dune.

 

[Acker79]

Triple-bill for me.

Sunshine on Leith
Ignore anyone who compares it to Mamma Mia. It doesn't have that optimistic fun energy, it has a heft and depth that wasn't there for Mamma Mia. It is more like 'mike leigh does a musical, using the music of the proclaimers including their less jaunty stuff'. I still very much enjoyed it, though a few of the songs were lyrically repetitive. There were a fair few fun scenes, and the actors seemed to be enjoying themselves with the more upbeat songs, but there are also sad songs and low-key songs around serious drama.


Blue Jasmine
I'm not a woody allen fan by any stretch of the imagination, but it fit in to make a trebler, and early mutterings of an oscar nomination for Cate Blanchett, so I checked it out. If you're not much of a woody fan I don't see this changing your mind, but Cate was good, though I felt the ending was a little flat.


Rush
I think I was too movied out to properly enjoy this, as such I'm less enthusiastic than I otherwise would have been. I seemed hung up on the fact were told the story of two unpleasant people and are supposed to root for one of them to win, and it's played out against a backdrop of a "sport" I'm not particularly interested in.

 

[keaton]

Well it was opening night for Meade in the London Film Festival, and it started well. Ok i doubt this will ever get much of a release, but it was a documentary about Alejandro Jodorowsky, who made the somewhat out-there 70s psychedelic western El Topo, and his memories of looking to make Dune, which ended up being made generally atrociously by David Lynch released in 1984. It was Jodorowsky's tale of how he put the sci-fi "classic" together and the artists involved and the actors who had signed up for it. It was mostly mental, it being memories of the 70s and how he chanced upon the company of Salvador Dali and Orson Welles to star as the evil aliens and how he persuaded his special effects guy to take part thanks to some rather mind****ing dope. I found it both amusing and enthralling, charmed by the persuasive, half-authentic powers of the now 84-year old Jodorowsky and the people he dealt with. Glad i saw it and extra fun for film fans with an appreciation of the golden era of the 70s.
Jodorowsky's Dune.

Does El Topo get better? I had been wanting to watch for years and gave it a go a few months ago but only lasted about 40 minutes as I really couldn't be bothered with it.

I could be getting to that age though. I gave up on Meek's Cutoff after about half an hour as the completely inaudible sparse dialogue was annoying me.