[Film] Film 2015

Beach Hut · Feb 28, 2015

Not something I do often but went to the Odeon with Mrs Hut and saw The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Watched the first one on DVD and have to say thoroughly enjoyed it, much better that the first one.

Mrs Hut was positively swooning over Richard Gere

Meade's Ball · Mar 7, 2015

I had one of those mornings in which an on-edginess had a bit of a grip on me, so every corner i turned as i strolled in the sunny weather through the shut down on the weekend city i was slightly convinced that that which will kill me, or at the very least some dribbling-poison-stinged 2ft hornet, would be awaiting. It's not often such a series of panicky thoughts take a hold of me, but today seemed to be one of them. Anywho, the girlfriend has gone back to Spain for a week or so, so i took it upon myself to catch up on some cinema. She doesn't necessarily get in the way of it, but sometimes it is difficult to convince her to see something ghastly or truly depressing if she's not at her happiest. Today i'd already decided to go for It Follows, which my friend, not a horror aficionado, had seen twice. Christ on a bycocles it was a good horror for the first time in a long time, but might have seemed more scary due to my slight state of fragility.

I thought of other films at times whilst watching it, including the Shining, Drive for some of its synthesiser music, Ringu, Denzel's Fallen, Saw, thankfully only for a short spell, a Larry Clark film with its unsettling fascination in the developing form, and even a couple of the teen-horror classics in the form of Nightmare On Elm Street and Friday the 13th. Quite a heady brew. The look and feeling of the film has that constant teenage sense to it of confusion, sex, languidness, boredom, chitchat and disconnection from the adult world. Adults are barely in it, only appearing as versions of It.
Overall, i became more tense throughout. There were a couple of conventional shocking moments fitting to the genre, but it's the music and exaggerated sounds and growls, the sometimes dreaminess and innocence of the scenes with lurking evil beneath the surface, and the plodding nature of the camerawork which moves as fast as the idling but purposeful It does that ground into me.

A very creepy hour and fifty minutes, but i think it scared me out of real world anxiety, thankfully. Saying that, i haven't heard any creaks or knocks at the door or seen any fully naked men in their 50s on a neighbour's roof staring at me as i flee for my life.

Acker79 · Mar 7, 2015

Big Hero 6
I liked this, despite the fidgety audience of young children, including the creepy girl in the seat in front of me who kept turning around and staring at me.

Shaun the Sheep
I came over all sleepy, and 'rested my eyes' (seriously, I closed my eyes and listened, which isn't great for a silent movie, but it got lots of laughs from the rest of the audience.

Kingsman: The Secret Service
Generally I liked it. Didn't think it was as good as Kick Ass, but still a fun film.

vegster · Mar 7, 2015

Beach Hut said:
Not something I do often but went to the Odeon with Mrs Hut and saw The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Watched the first one on DVD and have to say thoroughly enjoyed it, much better that the first one.

Mrs Hut was positively swooning over Richard Gere

Hope she did not embarrass you by bashing one out while you were there ?

Pogue Mahone · Mar 7, 2015

Went to see Chappie tonight - my son loved the two previous films by the director (I saw District 9, and thought it was quite fun).

Utter shit. My son thought so too. Under no circumstances should you waste your money on this garbage.

Meade's Ball · Mar 8, 2015

Second film the girlfriend didn't want to see recently, when i told her it was the disappearance of a woman into Alzheimers. Fair enough. Not to everyone's tastes, of course, but Julianne Moore and bagged the Oscar for Best Actress in playing that role, so i thought i best see it. The truth seems to be that she is an endlessly good actress, Moore, and whilst this isn't a very good film overall, she certainly has the potency and depth to carry it through from start to finish. The film is Still Alice, and Moore plays Alice, a respected professor in speech and language sciences, who has the symptoms of the disease thrust into her upsettingly quickly. Her family members are effected also, but they are clearly support actors, apart from maybe Kristen Stewart as per usual as her tortured young self, for Moore to disturbingly shine. Some very corny moments - it seemed the equivalent to a TV movie in its formulaic way - but the sad loss of memory and function prodded an emotion or two buried in my congealed innards, so it was a sometimes striking watch for me. Glad Moore was duly awarded.

Uncle Spielberg · Mar 9, 2015

I assume the film was It Follows MB ?

Meade's Ball · Mar 15, 2015

Yesterday morning i had the perfect plan to go for a reasonably long cycle, pick up the gift i'd ordered from John Lewis at a Waitrose around a mile away, before coming home to rest and watch a film prior to travelling south to my niece's birthday celebration. All went to plan until i got home, prepared to wrap the gift, which was a lot heavier than i'd expected, when i realised they'd given me the order put in by a "Mrs Jean Grande". Now, the codes were a little similar, Mrs Jean Grande's and mine, but the girl searching for the present had looked at the card i'd ordered with and i'm nominally no Mr Jean Grande. Curses. I had to cycle back to the Waitrose, assure them i was no Jean Grande and tell them to get my niece's gift out of their backroom. Once they'd found it, misplaced, they said, i had it, cycled home and found no room for a film. It still irks me now, that blunder and newly born mistrust in the normally respectable workers of Waitroses hindering my carefullu mapped-out plan to included film.
Today, i thought i was being rewarded, partly by fate, when at 10.53, with the film Hyena to start in around 90 seconds, i was the only person in the Hackney Picturehouse to see it. What a beauty that would've been, to sit without the possibility of interruption through a film in a most comfortable seat. I could've stripped if i'd wanted to or talked all the way through to the large Galaxy bar i had next to me, predicting who would next be chopped up by the Albanian gangsters in the film. Annoyingly, a couple walked in and beclothed and entirely unconversational with chocolate i had to remain. I wondered if the couple were the Grandes, but i suppose i'll never know.

The film i quite liked. Bad cops, pretty much a law unto themselves, each night bulging their paunches with booze and the drugs they've violently thieved to sell, find a new set of machete-wielding thugs to deal with - The Albanians, who are almost, in cinema, as terrifying as the Arabs, at the minute. The leader of this task force, a slightly better version of his brutish underlings, is who we follow, and retrospectively foolishly feel and hope for, most likely because he's not as bad as the Albanians. There are cliches in the film, but the music in it, accompanying the slow motion slightly homo-erotic camaraderie of these bent cops, really drives you along with the narrative and grinds you with emotion, as does the lead performance by Peter Ferdinando. Some body-hacking corrupt burnt-out nostril with cocaine thrills.

Mr Jean Grande

vegster · Mar 15, 2015

Meade's Ball said:
Yesterday morning i had the perfect plan to go for a reasonably long cycle, pick up the gift i'd ordered from John Lewis at a Waitrose around a mile away, before coming home to rest and watch a film prior to travelling south to my niece's birthday celebration. All went to plan until i got home, prepared to wrap the gift, which was a lot heavier than i'd expected, when i realised they'd given me the order put in by a "Mrs Jean Grande". Now, the codes were a little similar, Mrs Jean Grande's and mine, but the girl searching for the present had looked at the card i'd ordered with and i'm nominally no Mr Jean Grande. Curses. I had to cycle back to the Waitrose, assure them i was no Jean Grande and tell them to get my niece's gift out of their backroom. Once they'd found it, misplaced, they said, i had it, cycled home and found no room for a film. It still irks me now, that blunder and newly born mistrust in the normally respectable workers of Waitroses hindering my carefullu mapped-out plan to included film.
Today, i thought i was being rewarded, partly by fate, when at 10.53, with the film Hyena to start in around 90 seconds, i was the only person in the Hackney Picturehouse to see it. What a beauty that would've been, to sit without the possibility of interruption through a film in a most comfortable seat. I could've stripped if i'd wanted to or talked all the way through to the large Galaxy bar i had next to me, predicting who would next be chopped up by the Albanian gangsters in the film. Annoyingly, a couple walked in and beclothed and entirely unconversational with chocolate i had to remain. I wondered if the couple were the Grandes, but i suppose i'll never know.

The film i quite liked. Bad cops, pretty much a law unto themselves, each night bulging their paunches with booze and the drugs they've violently thieved to sell, find a new set of machete-wielding thugs to deal with - The Albanians, who are almost, in cinema, as terrifying as the Arabs, at the minute. The leader of this task force, a slightly better version of his brutish underlings, is who we follow, and retrospectively foolishly feel and hope for, most likely because he's not as bad as the Albanians. There are cliches in the film, but the music in it, accompanying the slow motion slightly homo-erotic camaraderie of these bent cops, really drives you along with the narrative and grinds you with emotion, as does the lead performance by Peter Ferdinando. Some body-hacking corrupt burnt-out nostril with cocaine thrills.

Mr Jean Grande

Are you ok MB ? your review seems unusually lucid ?

Acker79 · Mar 15, 2015

Chappie
I liked it. There were moments that you see and you think "hang on a minute, how...", but equally there are some real fun moments.

vegster · Mar 15, 2015

I finally managed to catch possibly the last showing of Shaun The Sheep, managed to get to the Cineworld in the Marina at ridiculous 'o'clock with Mrs V. Well, what a delight. I had heard the reviews and had want to see this for some time and I was not disapointed, and neither was Mrs V as she dug me in the ribs regularly with her elbow as she laughed.

A brilliant visual comedy with nods to so many films and comedy genres, Aardman are renowned for this kind of stop frame film and the wonderful visual gags are a joy. As an almost silent comedy the visual gags and the story has to be strong and be able to be followed at all age levels and they do just that. If you have missed it get the DVD or whatever is the format these days. Failing that you may have to wait for a couple of years and it will certainly be shown at Christmas. Great British comedy and animation at it's best.

8.6

Meade's Ball · Mar 25, 2015

I keep buying the Vue special offer i get through some works rewards thingame, so it's £6.10 a ticket. The Islington Vue i don't like for the people that go there, but it's on my way home, and i appreciate its geographical convenience. I went there today to watch The Gun Man (aka The Gunman), starring Sean Penn. In a trailer before the film started, whichever film it was showed off about how it was produced by the producer of Godzilla - the film, not the actual giant lizard. Such a strange claim to fame. And i suppose a similar one is in The Gunman being directed by Pierre Morel, director of Taken. Wow, what a catch.

Penn had beefed up for this role, and as mighty as his veiny biceps might seem, he's not an action man, as Neeson has made himself into. He's a good actor, and looks lightly injured and determined and heartbroken, even at times alongside Javier Bardem, another usually fine performer, and bloody Mark Rylance there in a rare big screen showing, but this film doesn't find the right balance of action and emotion, both personal and political, to grip or greatly excite. Not a good film, but enjoyably silly here and there, with ace gunmen shooting endlessly at each other just a few inches wide of the target, hitting metal tubes that provide the sparkiest ricochet, and a laughable conclusion.
Even a good cast, as we saw with The Counselor with its stellar line-up, can't polish a turd into an attraction.

Captain Sensible · Mar 26, 2015

I haven't read this whole thread so not sure if it's been mentioned, but if you get the chance watch 'Under The Skin' starring Scarlet Johansson. It's a real head f**k! But even though you think 'wtf Is going on?', just keep watching. The film drags you in and keeps hold of you. The acting is very very good and convincing. Also she gets her kit off quite a bit, but honestly that's not the only reason to watch.
Best film I saw last year.

Nibble · Mar 26, 2015

The Drop with Tom Hardy, Gandalfini in his last role and Noomi Rapace.

I'm a big fan of Tom Hardy, Gandalfini is on predictable but fine form and Noomi Rapace is a little fox.
It's a strange film, a story that didn't really need to be told but a good character piece with Tom Hardy and truly fantastic performances from all the cast set this above the normal crime thriller. Hardy, at first seemingly channeling Rocky from the earlier films, bumbling but good hearted, a little too good hearted. As the film continues we see he is far from bumbling and more than capable of handling the unfolding situation. In fact he reminded me of early Brando, mumbling seemingly vacant but dropping clues here and there that he is far from oblivious and not someone to underestimate.

It is penned by the same author who wrote Mystic River , Shutter Island and Gone Baby Gone, Dennis Lehane so that should give you a clue as to the atmosphere of the film.
The bad guy Eric, played by the excellent Matthias Shoenaerts is a genuinely frightening, hugely intimidating character putting the viewer and the good guys on edge throughout. The climax is genuinely edge of the seat stuff, I really didn't know how it was going to play out.
An odd little film that adds up to more than the sum of it's parts.Very much worth a squizz, it's a great film.

Uncle Spielberg · Apr 8, 2015

Cinderella - A very enjoyable film, stunning to look at, true and faithful to the original, really rather lovely 8.1
While we were young - not all that, not a bad film, just not very engaging with a couple of annoying twenty somethings spoiling the good work from Stiller and Watts 5.6

Meade's Ball · Apr 12, 2015

The problem with Netflix is the sheer amount of bingeing one can't help but be a part of when everything is revealed at once. I've spent much of the weekend watching Daredevil - the new series and not the embarrassing Ben Affleck film that should have been enough to warn Batman producers that he is not made of superhero mustard - and increasingly enjoying it. It's not amazing, but it's there, and just dark enough to keep me amused. Anyhow, amidst watching this - i am too now even - i decided to take a break to go and see Force Majeure at the cinema. I called off my first visit to viewing it, and then the second, but the third was to be nearby in my local theatrehouse, and i went. I am so glad i did. A very funny and sometimes cruel black comedy. I hadn't seen anything by Ruben Ostlund, but i shall now - one of his is available on Mubi and another on Film Four this week. It had a feel of Lucas Moodysson and Michael Haneke put together. I really quite liked it, some moments hilarious.

Anyway, back to a couple of Daredevils now.

Acker79 · Apr 17, 2015

Hot Tub Time Machine 2
It was not good.

Acker79 · Apr 23, 2015

John Wick
Decent action movie that doesn't aspire to be more than it is, and is the better for that. It won't be held up as a classic or a point of reference/comparison too much, but a fun way to spend an hour and half or so.

Avengers: Age of Ultron
I really liked it. There was plenty of funny, the action was great.

It's not without flaws. There are more unanswered questions (and not the sort of teasing you with things to come but more the "hang on, if that happened how come this other thing didn't?" type questions. The character development isn't as strong, Black Widow is pretty much reduced to damsel in distress/"typical lady" role.

The flaws might be more of an issue on multiple re-watches, but based on one viewing I loved it.

Meade's Ball · Apr 29, 2015

Today i'm back from a second 10-day spell in Madrid. Whilst there, i saw Rayo Vallecano play and i would love to be a fan of their club. Absolutely brilliant. I left the match with a burned neck from a sunshine i will never be used to, and total admiration for the activity and endless singing of their supporters behind the one stand behind a goal. Anywho, to fill my time there i did watch Hot Tub Time Machine 2 on da download, and that was incessantly dreadful. Horrid.

Today, though, i had slight plans for Avengers Ultron yada yada whateveritscalled, but i think the weekend might now be the time to see it. I was put off the trip to see it by utter knackeredness and the pissing rain. So, i went as local as possible, and saw The Falling, which i kept tiredly calling The Feeling - i hate that band's hair. The Falling i managed to miss the first 70 or so seconds of. Maybe it would have helped to see that opening. I blame the very slow soya latte maker that was on duty at the cinema. Anywho, it was a sometimes amusingly bad and jumbled telling of the tale of a set of girls in the late sixties seemingly gradually possessed and fainting en masse, whilst of course going through that overwhelming suddenly sexualised part of teenhood. It did have an eerieness to it as it went, and i liked that the actresses seemed of the age they were playing rather than looking shockingly mature - although i have to say that some of them were quite bad at that acting lark, particularly in their fainting technique, which i think would have been part of the auditioning process - but the film didn't have a huge or haunting grip on me and a couple of the narrative manoeuvres were a bit nonsensical. Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones was pretty good though.

Uncle Spielberg · Apr 30, 2015

The Woman in Gold

Mirren on top form again, near the top of shortlists come awards time and a great performance from Reynolds as well. It also has a Hans Zimmer soundtrack. A very interesting story, told well with some emotional punch. All in all a very worthwhile effort

7.9

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[Film] Film 2015

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