Film 2016

[herecomesaregular]

Recently started using bittorrent but only to download films I've wanted to see but have had trouble finding or are just too darn expensive. Downloaded all the 3 Harmy Despecialized Star Wars versions (superb although 20gb each), the Bluray of Jason and the Argonauts (mostly only available on Region 1 but such a classic), Chronos as I like Ron Frickes work and the forgotten Disney sci-fi The Black Hole, still not on bluray, featuring a great score by John Barry. hey it's illegal but worth it sometimes.

 

[Acker79]

10 Cloverfield Lane
I largely agree with Meade's Ball about this one. I, too, have only a vague memory of Cloverfield, what I do remember is not enjoying the handheld camera stylings, and generally feeling the film was overrated. So I went in with low expectations, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I shouldn't really, I usually like John Goodman and the films he's in. Yes, even Blues Brothers 2000. The story did go in directions I wasn't expecting at times, which is a good thing in this instance.


High Rise
Ben Wheatley is a director who is often a bit of a critics darling, but I personally have only really enjoyed Sightseers/. So, again, I went in with low expectations.

I have to be honest, I don't think I really understood everything. I understood the general themes, and overarching story, but I feel like this is the sort of film that will be the subject of discussion in film studies class for years to come, and if I were to ever see any of these discussions I would think 'oh, yeah, now that makes sense'.

Despite this, I still walked out feeling like I had enjoyed the film quite a lot.

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

Allegiant - 6/10

Rather disappointing all in all. I really enjoyed Divergent but instalments 2 and 3 have fallen quite flat.

I think that's incredibly kind personally. A muddled plot, poor acting, strange concepts that never really go anywhere, pathetic bad guys... A 3/10.

 

[Meade's Ball]

I've stopped going to Hackney Picturehouse on a weekend morning as the prices rose and i no longer found it to be a reasonable bargain - i can travel to a Cineworld somewhere and use my card, or even use that to get into the glamorous Picturehouse Central for a fiver and be given free water. So, i planned to give up my Picturehouse membership later this year. Anywho, t'other day i saw and opened an email fromPicturehouse saying they had a free screening this morning. I thought, well ok i will go to Hackney for this. Unfortunately, sold out. My next nearest one, just about, is in Stratford. I thought, oooh i could go for an hour and a half morning down streets of London i've not been to before and see the same film, Disorder, for free. So, i went for it. Now, i am a bit stressed at the minute, and get addedly pernickety about things. I also forget that i don't like confrontations and that picking at things might just cause one. I was sat in a slightly uncomfy seat, about 10 minutes into the film, when a latecoming couple arrived, and chose to sit in the two seats of front of me. About 5 minutes later, in spite of the fact that i couldn't hear them whispering but could see that they were, i asked them if they "could talk once the film was finished" and "to shush for now". I am used to life in Hackney and Central Picturehouse, and i suppose i wasn't quite ready to be to told, in response to my utterance that these two were a distraction, that i would be shown, aggressively, "what a real distraction was" and to "shut the f*ck up*. I'm now sat in this cramped seat, for another 80 minutes, a bit anxious about what might unfold. Nothing did, of course, and i very deliberately hung on in there to not look entirely cowardly when the film ended, but still, what i remember of the film is less than the incident, which wasn't that dramatic, but had me a bit on edge as i went through innumerous outcomes.

So, the film. Twas a French film about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or was mostly about that for a long spell, suffered by on leave from the military Mattias Schoenarts, doing his muscular, unhinged, sweetness behind the glittering eyes routine. He is making ends meet by doing armed security work, whilst his mind starts to pound, accompanied by house beats, making him seem rather unsuitable for doing that job and suspecting anyone. He ends up guarding Diane Kruger and her son, having been hired by her husband, a Lebanese businessman, who it seems makes his money in not entirely licit ways, dealing with one of dangerous Arab types. So, we have Mattias, forming an unhealthy bond with them, of thinking he has one, whilst some of his fears may or not come to fruition. The film gets violent. I am not averse to it, apart from in real life when someone says something back to me from my minor gripes, and i suppose it is ok to be there as the film wasn't delving into the necessary depths to really be a psychological drama on its own.

Overall, it was ok. I found the ending rather ridiculous, unless it is an imagined end by Mattias in his unhealthy mental state, but the acting was ok and it was alright, going a bit Peckinpahish, i felt, which Jacques Audiard does in his latest, Dheepan, which also was hit and miss, but better than this.

Off to distract myself to sleep now.

Oh, i am going to try and see Son of Saul this week, which i saw at the film festival last year and thought an incredible watch, but on the 35mm print that the director says makes the film better. If it's on down in Brighton, or anywhere anyone is, try and go for it, i'd say. Not on a first date, though. They might think you a bit Taxi Driver.

 

[Acker79]

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Generally I love superhero movies. I loved and hated Man of Steel in equal measures. Due to the time I logged onto the cineworld website, I ended up booking a ticket for the double bill of Man of Steel and the midnight premier of Batman v Superman. It was quite tiring, so I'm not completely certain how I feel about it, and how much is tiredness etc.

I'm similarly conflicted about the sequel.

There are issues with plot, character motivation, etc. It may have dragged in places (I could have just been tired, but at 2.5 hours, I suspect it was a little too long). A little over stuffed.

Yet, I still feel like I really enjoyed it. I would have liked a larger role for Wonder Woman, and there are some things in the end that it would spoil to say too much, decisions that I would like if I didn't think it was going in a certain direction.

I suspect it will follow Man of Steel for most people. If you liked that one, you'll enjoy this. If not, you're not likely to enjoy Batman v Superman. Perhaps it is directed too much for comic book fans and not enough for film fans, and my being a fan of films and comics explains my conflicted feelings.

 

[Acker79]

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
I ended up booking a ticket for the double bill of Man of Steel and the midnight première of Batman v Superman. It was quite tiring, so I'm not completely certain how I feel about it, and how much is tiredness etc.
...
I suspect it will follow Man of Steel for most people. If you liked that one, you'll enjoy this. If not, you're not likely to enjoy Batman v Superman. Perhaps it is directed too much for comic book fans and not enough for film fans, and my being a fan of films and comics explains my conflicted feelings.

I have now seen it again, though still a little tired, this time in 2D, so easier on the eyes.

I enjoyed it more on second viewing. There are still a lot of flaws, but they didn't annoy me as much. I think there are a lot of things that will make more sense when we see where the story goes with the upcoming Justice League movies, but for me, if you need to watch the next film for this one to completely make sense, this film has failed (except in cases where the story is clearly split over two films - Kill Bill, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, etc).

 

[Meade's Ball]

If anyone recalls, i said last week to try and see the 35mm print showings of Son of Saul, the Best Foreign Language Film of this year's Oscars. I'd seen it at the London Film Festival last year and the director had said to do so, telling us that the big-screen digital print was good, but not how the film was meant to be. So, i told 3 colleagues at work about a showing last Wednesday, and they agreed to join me for it, after an agreeable stroll from work down to Brixton. I had urged them to decide immediately, as filmlovers, i said, were bound to snatch tickets by the handful. Once they said yes, i rushed online to book, to find that 6 tickets had been sold. 6 tickets! Beezlebub cries out!! On the evening itself, perhaps another 4 or 5 had sold, and the theatre was near-empty.
Now, when i persuade others to see a film, and they accompany me, i then get a little anxious that my judgement of a picture mightn't be even lightly shared by them. That anxiety is mostly active at a film's end, when the lights go up and an uncomfortable silence weeps between each of us. Luckily, though, when someone dared speak, they all agreed of the brilliance of the film. It was even better in this 35mm format too. Gritty and cracked and shrunken into agonising and tension-filled close-ups. The start of the film brutally introduces you to the surroundings of a concentration camp, and the duties of those allowed to temporarily survive - persuading the newly-arrived jews to strip and enter the shower-room, listening to their hollers and falls into death, pillaging their clothing for anything shiny to hand to the Nazis, and piling up corpses. From then on in, with Saul, on his mission around camp to bring right to a situation, the horrors are slightly more blurred, but the sound of them, and the machinery of this large engine of death, rattles and grinds cruelly.
An amazing film and an amazing performance by Geza Rohrig, whose face you absorbingly read, and then lurk behind as he scuttles and scurries around Auschwitz with the chaos but determination of his thoughts. I hope many more than 12 or so people go per screening.

Then, of course, at last, today i saw the Batman V Superman film, and i have to say i wasn't largely impressed. Such a miserable affair that i longed for the inane campness of 60s Batman at times. The set pieces were sometimes good, but lost meaning at the end as they seemed to be thrown on top of each other, and with new fighters involved, both good and bad. The performances were ok, i suppose, with only Jeremy Irons bringing anything to proceedings. Zack Snyder, though, is the general master of making large and loud films, but without being able to capture any sense of feeling within them, or the musclemen he parades. I see he's in charge of the Justice Leagues, which this nonsensically - "it's just a feeling i have", says Bruce Wayne, governed by endless dreams - is a stepping stone to, and they best not be yet another run of universe-threatened fare without heart or meaning. I wonder if DC and Marvel are now purely looking to out-depress each other. If that's their aim, it's working.

 

[Acker79]

I see he's in charge of the Justice Leagues, which this nonsensically - "it's just a feeling i have", says Bruce Wayne

On second viewing I think his "it's just a feeling I have" was meant to be a reference to his batconversation with Lex Luther (which had taken place prior to the 'feeling I have' conversation, but was intercut with it, just to confuse things) rather than just Bruce having a feeling. Can't really defend any of your other points.

 

[StonehamPark]

Batman Vs Superman

I believe that I saw this last night at Cineworld at the Marina.
Please let this all have been a bad dream and wake me up immediately, so I can watch the film and it not be horrific.

 

[Easy 10]

Deadpool

Ridiculously violent. Tremendous fun. My quibble would be the jumping around between the intense (and gloriously fun) action scene from the start, and blending this with the back-story until the whole thing "caught up". I found myself irritated by that, and was just waiting for the inserted back-story bit to finish before we could get back to the fun. That aspect didn't work for me at all. Keep it linear, it would've been far better.

That said, the smart-arse quips, purile humour and totally OTT violence won me over. One of the best films I've seen in the last year or so.

8.9

 

[Jimmy Come Lately]

Something that may be of interest to NSC's cinephiles: on Monday at Duke's at Komedia there's a screening of Nina Forever followed by a Q+A with the directors.

This is likely to be a rare chance to see it on the big screen, as I'll be frankly astounded if it gets a distributor: not because it's a bad film, just because I can't see how you'd market it. At its core it's an indie film about relationships, but it continually undercuts any angsty navel-gazing with absurdity, but it's not funny enough to sell as a comedy, and one of the main characters is dead but it's definitely not a horror because there are no scares... just lots and lots of blood. Oh, and there's a lot more nudity than you usually get in non-porn films, but the presence of the dead girl tends to counteract any eroticism. There's a constituency out there that this specific cross-genre combination will appeal to, but I don't know how a distributor would find them and sell a film to them.

A brief review: Fiona O'Shaughnessy, who I loved as Jessica Hyde in Channel 4's Utopia, is even more fun in this as Nina, the dead ex-girlfriend who won't let Rob (Cian Barry; going for "everyman", I think, but ending up a bit nondescript) move on with new squeeze Holly (Abigail Hardingham; mesmerising whenever she's on screen). Nina's is a very, um, hands-on haunting, and she knows exactly how to make the situation more awkward as Rob and Holly by turns try to ignore her, plead with her and accommodate her. It's filmed in a matter-of-fact style that really grounds the supernatural elements, and the relationship between the two female leads as they tussle over Rob is a joy to watch.

My only significant gripe is my usual one with indie films: the ending is a bit meh. I don't know whether it was intended as a twist, but because the directors play absolutely straight with the audience rather than artificially concealing information, it becomes pretty clear where it's leading to before you get there. It's not a bad ending -- it's emotionally and thematically satisfying -- but there's no dramatic climax; and then the film stops.

Disclaimer: I backed the Kickstarter to fund their most expensive scene, so I'm not a totally objective reviewer. I have already received my Kickstarter rewards, though, so I have no financial stake in the success of the film.

 

[Meade's Ball]

Before I forget, and I wish I bloody did, I went to see Eddie the Eagle last evening. I should have guessed that it wasn't the film for me really. I thought, though, that I needed some warm-hearted pap with a couple of funny moments, but this was a painfully flat and flimsy affair. If I was meant to laugh throughout at the chinny gurningness of Eddie, then I am afraid it didn't tickle me at all. It actually made me angry with myself for going to it. The graphics were poor and the music got my goat and not a second of it made me smile or proud to be British. *growl*
Christopher Walken's cameo was the highlight, now that I remember.

 

[Hendrax]

Deadpool. Loved it. The way it was shot, bit like kick ass.

Best comic adaptation of the lot

 

[Meade's Ball]

A much better weekend of watched drama, apart from that agonising conclusion to yesterday's final scenes that deadened the spirits for an evening. Friday, filmwise, i saw, in the company of my younger brother and a half-filled theatre of agreeably silent film appreciators, Ran, the monstrously beautiful epic by Akira Kurosawa. Based on King Lear, it is the tale of Hidetori, the Great Lord, deciding to bequeath to two of his three sons the land that he violently grasped and ruled over for so long. The other son is banished for being too honest, powerfully saying that they themselves were the spawning of that violence, so the predictions of peaceful and loyal rule, respectful of their father, were to be exposed as painfully incorrect. What follows is treacherousness and deceit and outbreaks of war, as Hidetori realises his mistake. It is a loveless and ash-ridden climate, endlessly blackened and burnt under foot, but darkly beautiful, some of the scenes and their backgrounds stunning to witness. Apparently Kurosawa was looking to deliver a message on nuclear war, the film made in 1985 with such a world threat hanging over us, and there's that heavy feeling and look of devastation and fire. There are some bits in about two thirds in that lingered a little, but other than those few moments, it was brilliant and powerful. I was quite enthralled.

Today, i again took advantage of the girlfriend's Barbican membership to see one of their Sunday morning members screenings, which i tend to think are only occupied by those willing to be up and out by 10 on a Sunday morning and to see a film as the sun warmly shines outside. Only £6 and worth it. The film was Victoria, a film i couldn't get tickets for at the festival last year, so had a slight urgency to see this weekend with it being out. What was of interest mostly was in it being shot in one take, and whilst watching and knowing this, some of my thoughts here and there were of that. The first 10 minutes or so were quite dizzying, with Victoria, who we find to be a Spaniard newly living in Berlin, out at the end of the night dancing it away, and the camera dancing with her. With her meeting Sonne and his friends upon leaving the club there's the scattered dialogue and movements of a drunken group, all of them looking to share words in English, half the time, as their second language. Victoria is surrounded by this questionable foursome, and when watching we long for her to get away, to not be taken in by them. We find out that she's very much on her own in Berlin, working in an organic cafe, and probably wouldn't turn anyone away. For an hour or more we see them gallivant, devilishly breaking rules, and a romance begins to blossom, before crime and violence became a major player in proceedings, leading the seemingly innocent Victoria into a suddenly more horrid world.
The choreography of it all, for there not to be a single cut in its 2 hours, was amazing, and the performances were strong and emotional, of youngsters acting without forethought, and nights changing temperature and tone so quickly. Parts of the story i would have done different and more subtly, and one scene of Victoria on piano was quite ridiculous, but it was a really good watch, and fascinating to think of how they did it, how much rehearsal was done, how many times it didn't work and they had to start again, of how much of it was ad lib and how many of the lines clearly scripted, of how the actors were physically in tandem with the cameraman and whether they had to feel as if they were always in shot, and various others. Glad to have seen it.

 

[Acker79]

Zootropolis
I have heard a lot of positive reviews, some quite effusive. I did enjoy it, but I don't think it lived up to those raised expectations. Perhaps, though, that was because of the screaming children. Always a risk with the weekend afternoon showings, I had hoped I'd be safe as it had been out for a week and that was school holidays. Still, a generally fun film, if not the masterpiece some reviews had painted it to be.

 

[Stat Brother]

Zootropolis

We saw this today.
I thought it was excellent the attention to size and scale was very enjoyable.
I knew the sloths were a highlight, and yet I still wasn't prepared for how funny their scenes were.

A great family film and a solid 8/10.

 

[Acker79]

Hardcore Henry
I don't generally play first person computer games, partly because of my inability to aim weapons with game controllers, partly because the first person perspective always makes me feel sick (especially when I look around rooms). I was aware of this, but still went in to watch 'the first ever first person action movie'. It made me feel sick.

It was an interesting concept. The story was decent action movie, but as the main character doesn't talk (I assume to aid in the idea that the audience feels they are the main character). It didn't work for me. I didn't feel like I was the main character doing everything. Without that, I didn't feel like we knew or cared about the main character, so it was difficult to really connect with the film (made harder by the fact I had to close my eyes at several points to stop the camera work making me dizzy).

Still, what did watch of it was fun.


Midnight Special
I didn't know much about the film other than the trailers. I've seen some good press for it, but none that really explain the film. So I went in not entirely sure of how the film would play out. I don't know if the Hardcore Henry-induced sickness was still playing a part, whether I was in the wrong mood, but I just didn't feel the film. It wasn't awful, it just felt a little weightless, like someone had made sure to cut out any subplots or side story yet left it as a 2hr film, so it felt like there was a degree of emptiness to it.

But maybe I would change my mind on second viewing.

 

[SIMMO SAYS]

Acker79

The Missus & I went to see Midnight Special last night at The Brighton Marina.
I loved it up until the last ten minutes but still thought it would be worth a second view later on BluRay perhaps
My wife fell asleep 3 x times FFSake!

 

[Acker79]

Acker79

The Missus & I went to see Midnight Special last night at The Brighton Marina.
I loved it up until the last ten minutes but still thought it would be worth a second view later on BluRay perhaps
My wife fell asleep 3 x times FFSake!

I sometimes get set on seeing something at the cinema even though by the time I get there I don't really feel like it. It wouldn't be the first time I changed my mind on a second viewing of a film (most notable in my mind was Super 8 and Speed Racer).

 

[Acker79]

The Jungle Book
A 'live-action' version of the story leaning heavily on both the Disney classic and the original book. When Mowgli is the only non-cg thing on the screen, I don't know if it can be called 'live-action'.

But it is good CG. I forgot, for the most part, that so much of it was added in post-production, and that probably comes from the mostly-naturalness of it. Other than talking, the animals don't do anything unusual. The times that the CG didn't work as well for me were the two songs. Though they coincided with a bear floating in water (with water and wet hair being something CG hasn't quite perfected) and King Louis standing up and showing himself to be a gigantic Orangutan (or more specifically for this film, a gigantopithecus, though larger than realistic for a gigantopithecus), so I don't know if the CG felt wrong because of the singing, or because of the other aspects and the singing just being a coincidence.

The kid playing Mowgli was mostly good, and not especially annoying.

Generally just a good film all round, though don't expect it to be a light tune-filled kids movie. There is a darkness to it that might not be suitable for little ones. A few people had kids that looked less than 3 in the cinema, and had to leave at various points.