Film 2013

[Meade's Ball]

Just Watched it on Blink Box ( 3 Tesco points) I thought it was very good, like most French films, very good atmosphere, better than any Hollywood equivalent. Million Dollar Baby springs to mind. 7.5/10.

I thought it was quite good when i saw it. I had a difficulty in liking the characters, which as much as one might argue that you're not supposed to like the people you're watching you can argue back that you have to have either thorough respect or a tad of empathy or complete revulsion for you to begin to connect, and the Hollywood scene in the middle with her bravely recreating her movements a bit cornily, but Jacques Audiard is a bloody good filmmaker and his slight disappointments would be classed as a monstrous success for most directors.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

On a freezing afternoon, I went for a look at SIDE EFFECTS today. I quite like Jude Law, and I liked him in this rather unusual and original tale.

This film won't trouble the Oscars, even for those members of the academy with a memory long enough for them to recall this next February.

But it was ok. 6.88/10

Really fancy this. Been well reviewed....well up to this point anyway

Trainspotting II is a mouthwatering prospect. I've already got the soundtrack at home, purchased in 1998:

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Wow!! Just back from preview at the Duke of Yorks and happy to report that Trance is the stunning bast ard son of Inception and the London segment of Trainspotting with a pumped-up soundtrack to die for. If you only see one film in the next month, see this one. To think that the director was juggling the editing of Trance at the same time as being full-on with the masterpiece that was the Olympic opening ceremony simply beggars belief. Danny Boyle is a God-like genius. We are not worthy. Fact!

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Quartet is a lovely film. It is the big sleeper in the US now rising slowly up the box office charts, now at 12 after 10 weeks with word of mouth from a limited theatrical release. Highly recommended. 8.1

 

[Stat Brother]

Wow!! Just back from preview at the Duke of Yorks and happy to report that Trance is the stunning bast ard son of Inception and the London segment of Trainspotting with a pumped-up soundtrack to die for. If you only see one film in the next month, see this one. To think that the director was juggling the editing of Trance at the same time as being full-on with the masterpiece that was the Olympic opening ceremony simply beggars belief. Danny Boyle is a God-like genius. We are not worthy. Fact!

Yeah he was doing the Olympics Thurs - Sat, and Trance Mon - Wed.

DB does a great interview with Mayo & Kermode this week.

 

[vegster]

I managed to catch The Spirit of '45 at the DoY's on Sunday. Not really a film, rather a documentary on the rise and fall of the Labour Party, social justice and the nationalisation of Britain's key infrastructure. It is pretty pro socialist yet it does help you realise that maybe, those of us born between the 50's and the 90's, may well have been the golden generation that were incredibly lucky. Archive footage and interviews show how Britain changed so fast for the better in the late 40's.

One particular quote that resonated was of a man who was one of a family of 8 living in a squalid 2 bedroom house sleeping in flea and louse ridden blankets who lost two brothers at a very young age due to disease. " At that time in the late 30's we had the Empire and we were the most wealthy country in the world yet most people lived in squalor ? "

I myself was unaware that Doctors would charge you for a call out if someone fell sick and often it came down to a choice of calling a doctor or having enough food for the family to eat for the week. It certainly gets you thinking that some parts of our society infrastructure should be nationalised for the good of our society rather than for the good of shareholders.

One elderly gentleman said words to the effect that " If I was an American, living in the most wealthy advanced country in the West, I would be ashamed that my country can't offer free medical care to it's most vulnerable people"

Powerful stuff, no rating for this though, you can't rate ideals.

 

[Meade's Ball]

A doublebill for the Meade last eve. This was basically down to Trance being on at 8.30 and the hours betwixt work and that having to be filled with something boozeless. So, i did Paperboy, perhaps half-hoping for the computer game spin-off and 90 minutes of that pesky dog chasing our news deliverer on his rickety bike. No such luck. Instead, is a film that wants to be something, but doesn't manage it. It wants to be sultry and mildly political and carry a thrill or two, but each of those are really not brought to the fore effectively and the knitting of any sort of web of intrigue is done cackhandedly. Zac Effron has a mostly non-speaking sitting-in-the-same-underpants role to play, and perhaps surprisingly Nicole Kidman is the better acting member of the troop. But no one does it better than Macy Gray in this really. I left it with a feeling of gah, my new meh.

Trance was alright. If you are looking for a story that makes much sense, then don't bother. Danny Boyle doesn't really allow you any time to stop and think about it, the music pumping almost non-stop, sometimes concealing the dialogue, and it's all the better for it. James McAvoy is a little charmer in it and he can win you over, or certainly so my girlfriend says. The camerawork alters as it always does with a Boyle film, and doesn't permit a sense of boredom to build at all as a dream world and real life are layered on top of each other. It was good fun. But ruddy ridiculous.

 

[Meade's Ball]

Went to see Harry Hill last night, which in the second half was hilarious, but the friend i saw it with, Sir Charles, couldn't make it to Hammersmith afore 7. So, i thought to myself, what is on at the Hammersmith Cineworld that i can see half of and then meet Sir Charles. To my great fortune, the listings told me of Identity Theft. I presumed it would start officially at 6 and i could leave at 6.56. Sadly, it began at around 6.10, although the sadness truly set in within 4 minutes of this utter hogwash with the thought that trailers and adverts for an hour would have been better. Gee shittakers, what a continuously dreadful "comedy". There were probably around 38 people in the theatre and not a pip of titters came out in the 46 minutes i sat through.
I thought i'd tell of us and throw out there a request from the beshamed who sat through it all to tell me of the ending, but i just don't want to know of any more of it. I'm squeamishly squirming at the image of me being there at all. Hopefully, Melissa McCarthy, a groaningly unfunny lonely fat person whose evilness is cured by their outrageous comic ways, is embarrassed by this, whilst Jason Bateman as the permanently annoyingly everyman should give the effing fluck up and find another rung for his ladder of normalcy.
Me no not enjoy.
But Harry Hill was funnier and funnier all the way through.

 

[Acker79]

G.I. Joe: Retaliation 3D
I liked the first film. It was silly, but knew it was silly and so it worked. It was fun.

This one did not have that same self awareness. Dwayne Johnson and channing Tatum had a bit of fun between them in their early scenes, but the film itself then went on to lose that and try to become a serious action film, which just didn't work with this one.

It just failed to find the fit tone and realism level (if it wanted to be serious it needed more realism, if it wanted the cartoonish gadgets it needed to be more tongue in cheek). It just didn't know what it wanted to be or do or say. It tried to present one of the female characters as a strong feminist type, but does s after she has dressed up and flaunted her body to distract a man, and then followed up her talk about how she wanted to prove her father wrong when he said women don't belong in the military with the guy she was telling this too then complimenting her on her womanly looks. No all this was done with seriousness and complete ignorance of the juxtaposition. Avoid it.

 

[Meade's Ball]

I'd been accused by my girlfriend of heading to Spring Breakers to refill my wankbank, so i took her with me to have her, i suppose, inspect my centrespot to see if i'd grown hard over virtual nudity of some young pouting chick from Bandslam. Thankfully for all involved i didn't really get any kicks out of it. I say thankfully in terms of not having to hide any arousal or great enjoyment of the film in front of the girlfriend to have to explain myself. It was a silly affair, quite full of nawks and gangsters and the vapidity of a nationwide lust for cash and a belief that that is the path for everyone. Some bits were horribly discomforting, and others unnecessarily vulgar to the extreme. There's dialogue near the start concerning a small robbery and treating it like it was a computer game, and that's as much telling us as viewers to oversee most of it from an aloof position staring down on the fatuous and all their permanently childish habits, whilst giggling at the pastiche of gun-happy nude murderesses to follow.
James Franco as the drug-touting wigger had a horrible feel to him, but tickled me when he sang Britney Spears out of tune for about 3 minutes as his "bitches" dance with shotguns, pink balaclavas covering their heads.

Overall, largely unpleasant, and faux artistic in the main. I wonder what it says about me that i had not a huge appetite for the graphic teen fleshiness of it, but i honestly had a strong lust for some cocaine during the drug orgy that dominates large spells of the film's first half.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

In The House - love my French cinema, but this left me underwhelmed.

5.98/10

 

[Acker79]

Oblivion
I didn't hate this. Apparently it has taken a bit of a critical pasting in the US, but it didn't seem bad enough to me to warrant any particularly vociferous complaints. Sure, it it a bit simple, with an easily guessable twist, especially if you have seen the trailer, but for a desolate future it looks good and feels good. Probably not one to make any effort to catch, though

Scary Movie 5
When you've watched the likes of epic movie, meet the Spartans, breaking wind part one, stan helsing, the scary movie franchise doesn't seem so bad. One of its plus sides is that it picks one or two films to base it's spoof story on, and fits the jokes around that rather than basically stringing together a bunch of jokes about films like some sketch show. The film in question was mama (though filmed with lots of security cameras mocking paranormal activity) for the main. There was a sub plot spoofing black swan, but that seems a little dated already.

Not great by any stretch of the imagination, but I have seen worse. There are a couple of laughs, but also entire swathes of offensive stereotype based jokes, or just the sort of toilet humour slapstick that one would expect for such films.

 

[Meade's Ball]

Maybe one of the mistakes we often have of life is high hope. And how easily those can be dashed. For The Place Beyond the Pines i had small dreams of a decent picture that both reminded me of Blue Valentine, the director and main star's last joint adventure which i about 98% liked, and given something new and full of feeling with a splash of adventure sprinkled on the top. Sadly, from about an hour in, it was just constant recollections of the 2% i didn't like of Blue Valentine. A triptych is always hard to pull off, looking to weave three connected stories, or characters really, together whilst keeping them individually interesting enough, and while the story is mostly consistent, and a bit obvious, even with a flip 15 years into the future in the final part, i regretted the change, lightly wishing the first part had just been extended. Some of the reason for that may be in the departure of Ryan Gosling. And being replaced by Bradley Cooper, a repetitively powerless actor. But i think that was only one of the factors. The corniness of chapter two completely denounced the general efficacy and sometime thrill of part one and the future tale of the two leads' children, played by "youngsters" who look absolutely nothing like them, was painfully obvious and untwisty.
I remember warmly the first hour. And then feel a little savaged by the rest of it. If the scores were of 7 then it went from a 6 to a 3. A lesson twice in thinking something would be rather good both before watching and in the first 40% of it, and then being bludgeoned by a dream becoming drab.

 

[Nibble]

Dark Skies: Borrows heavily from other similar films but has an 80's Spielberg feel to proceedings, kids with bowl haircuts darting about on their pushbikes, parental tension and monsters from the cosmos. Poltergeist, Close Encounters, Signs, Paranormal Activity, all are essentially ripped off to a semi-satisfying end. Some nice little jump out of one's seat moments. I enjoyed it.

Trance: James McAveoy once again proves he has the chinless screen presence of a leaf. Total piece of crap.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

"Spring Breeeeeak, Spring Breeeeeak". "This is all my own shit. This is all my own shit."

First visit to Duke at Komedia and boy what a fantastic facility that is! Like some millionaire's home cinema on a grand scale. We were on sofa seats with masses of leg room, great bar as well. As for 'Spring Breeeeeak' - some decent acting and quite a tour de force, if a little absurd, not that it didn't know it. 7/10.

 

[Meade's Ball]

A day off for perhaps odd circumstances i might one day write of had the benefit in the afternoon of jogging to a cinema and watching something less than happygolucky, but well made and greatly enhanced by the constancy of the music played. A Late Quartet concerned this successful foursome - two violins, a viola and a cello - about to begin their 26th year of 7-month tours of the world, impressing in every harbour. Christopher Walken, his hair still stood on end, gives a more measured performance as the mature lead and cellist. He's showing signs of early stage Parkinsons, so his life as an artist and leader of the troop will end, leading to a sort of subtle battle for power or repositioning with the remaining members, part-embedded in nostalgia and fearing change. Philip Seymour Hoffman is violinist 2 and presses for a step up for shared duties with his colleague. His wife, Catherine Keeler, has a certain affection for violinist 1, and is the viola player.
It must have taken a fair amount of work for the actors to look as if they could play, and i am not all that sure they achieved it, but it was a steady chamber piece that had light amusements and cinematically uncharted depths compared to some of the recent tripe seen. I love the Hoffman, but it was Walken that shines the brightest, not quite exactly as he is everywhere else. I quite enjoyed it. Good acting and the music continuously absorbing attention.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I'd been accused by my girlfriend of heading to Spring Breakers to refill my wankbank, so i took her with me to have her, i suppose, inspect my centrespot to see if i'd grown hard over virtual nudity of some young pouting chick from Bandslam. Thankfully for all involved i didn't really get any kicks out of it. I say thankfully in terms of not having to hide any arousal or great enjoyment of the film in front of the girlfriend to have to explain myself. It was a silly affair, quite full of nawks and gangsters and the vapidity of a nationwide lust for cash and a belief that that is the path for everyone. Some bits were horribly discomforting, and others unnecessarily vulgar to the extreme. There's dialogue near the start concerning a small robbery and treating it like it was a computer game, and that's as much telling us as viewers to oversee most of it from an aloof position staring down on the fatuous and all their permanently childish habits, whilst giggling at the pastiche of gun-happy nude murderesses to follow.
James Franco as the drug-touting wigger had a horrible feel to him, but tickled me when he sang Britney Spears out of tune for about 3 minutes as his "bitches" dance with shotguns, pink balaclavas covering their heads.

Overall, largely unpleasant, and faux artistic in the main. I wonder what it says about me that i had not a huge appetite for the graphic teen fleshiness of it, but i honestly had a strong lust for some cocaine during the drug orgy that dominates large spells of the film's first half.

I thought James Franco was brilliantly funny in this film. The scene where he is bragging about his 'shit' is great.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Saw Ginger and Rosie last night. Very predictable and why did they get mainly US actors to perform in a British film set in London? I presume it was a Brit film as it had the BBC and Lottery Funding logos at the start.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

"This is all my own shit. This is all my own shit."

"I gat blooo cooool aiiiid"

 

[Meade's Ball]

Sometimes you need some utter pap in life to in some ways chuckle heartily at what the people behind it meant to do. The review i'd read last week had the comment that "Gerard Butler is eerily devoid of wit and charisma." and by diddums that's so true. An atrocious actor without any sense of presence and normally impossible to watch, but in Olympus Has Fallen he fits in wonderfully to some unbelievably bad, but amusing action splunge. I haven't laughed at some dialogue like that for some time, particular tickled with Butler hamming: "Let's play a game called **** off. You go first!". It was all just god-awful tripe, and i had a reasonable couple of hours.