The Film Review Corner

[Mossy Toes]

I was disappointed by Moon. I never felt that it went anywhere.

I can see why. The big reveal comes along quite early, and from there, well--it's mostly working through the emotional process of various stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, etc. I liked it for that nuanced portrayal on top of everything else: it didn't feel the need to one-up itself with big twist upon big twist, but instead tried to work through some of the ramifications of the situation it posited.

[Chun the Unavoidable]

Nice to see good old-fashioned models whizzing around, too - very Space 1999!

[Mossy Toes]

I... I may have wept four or five times while watching Mad Max, and it wasn't only because I had to watch a 3d showing of it.

May we all rock as hard as Coma Doof Warrior. Amen.

BRB updating my avatar.

[Xisor]

I... I may have wept four or five times while watching Mad Max, and it wasn't only because I had to watch a 3d showing of it.

May we all rock as hard as Coma Doof Warrior. Amen.

BRB updating my avatar.

Yeah, I've been listening to the soundtrack this week since seeing it. Chapter Doof and Brothers in Arms are immense pieces. I've got the strings echoing in my head too. Vexing, but also a little... what do the kids call it? Epic?

'Oh, what a day, what a lovely day!'

[Mossy Toes]

Yeah, I've been listening to the soundtrack this week since seeing it. Chapter Doof and Brothers in Arms are immense pieces. I've got the strings echoing in my head too. Vexing, but also a little... what do the kids call it? Epic?

'Oh, what a day, what a lovely day!'

Brothers in Arms, whew! To say nothing of the non-stop barrage that is Chapter Doof! I've been compelled to change my twitter username to something including "Coma Doof Warrior" (ok, in respect for the various Debater's Lounge threads going on, I admit: my username is ironically "SJ Coma Doof W," paying tribute to the notions of SJWs & Coma Doof Warrior simultaneously)

Have been listening to the soundtrack these past few hours too, myself. A creditable soundtrack, though honestly my passion & favor for the film might be crediting it higher than I otherwise might rank it.

[VictorK]

Vexing, but also a little... what do the kids call it? Epic?

You know what, this is a good point. And a good chance to get on a soapbox and hijack the thread a little.

Mad Max is EPIC. Everything about it is big, brash, bold, and beautiful. I think it's a very good example of how the stakes don't have to be DA WORLD to craft a story that is really engaging and, yes, epic. I feel that Warhammer's End Times really forgot this lesson. In their mind, the epic story of Mad Max is already over: it ended with the world. End Times was that vapid movie Michael Bay would have made about the world ending, good guys fighting over gasoline (sorry, guzzoline) and the nuclear exchange and etc. etc. But Mad Max knows that's not the best part. Fury Road is the best part, and you don't have to hold the audience's hand to tell them what the stakes are.

I think a lot of geeks/nerds disagree with me, given the endless market for the shallow epic. But I think after being around this stuff for a few years that you're going to locate real, enduring 'epicness' and 'stakes' in character interaction. Furiosa just wants it so hard, and watching Max come alive is worth all the screaming deathbuggys in the world. Locate that struggle in a world that, for all its insanity, is treated seriously (which is a function of internal logic, not trying to be important. The 'seriousness' of the world means treating it as its own: whenever it engages too much in the real world, either with tongue-in-cheek referentialism or as a crusading critique of reality, it's going to fall down), and you've got yourself a true epic.

[David Earle]

Mad Max: SWEET LORD WE'RE AN HOUR IN AND THIS ISN'T SLOWING DOWN

Loved it. Also caught a trailer for Crimson Peak, which looks awesome. Del Toro Bathory with a touch of Bloodborne to it.

[Chun the Unavoidable]

Witness me!

What a glorious orgy of hot metal and boiling guzzoline Mad Max: Fury Road is. Next to no plot, but some of the best -and most bonkers- action sequences I've ever seen. I enjoyed various aspects of the three originals, but this one is pure entertainment from start to finish, revelling in its joyously mental ideas. True to itself, too, rather than any -western- film industry standards. It doesn't have anything its oh-so-quotable dialogue, but this one is up there with Aliens for my all-time favourite action film.

Not mediocre.

[Vivia]

Well, this one is late, but it's never to late for now. Most of the pictures I watch there is nostalgia involved, it can't be helped because I have watched quite a lot of film.

The Big Lebowski:

Both Fargo and The Big Lebowski are films I watched at a time I was in bad place, so I couldn't quite appreciate them even though I loved them. The '90s were very bad for me and I had forgotten about TBL.

I love the mood of the film, I tend to love the Coen brothers for the home-cooked feeling they have in their work, the amount of work they put into details are amazing.
I have watched Jeff Bridges a lot, a LOT, my personal favourites are Fearless and Tron, sometimes Fisher King, he is solid as an actor, I don't think he can do a bad role. Seeing him as The Dude it's like he has never been anything than him all his life, that's the highest form of make-believe in my opinion. I feel the same for the actors in This is Spinal Tap, they embody Spinal Tap in body and soul.
Everything in the film is comedy, subtle and sometimes not so subtle. I was in tears watching the porno with Peter Stormare, omg. I don't know if anyone outside of Sweden knows this, but Stormare is a high art actor and a playwright, he studied in the Royal Dramatic Theatre, he was Ingmar Bergman's favourite, he has done Strindberg and Shakespeare. Seeing him in a phony blonde wig in a porno is priceless, it's comedy just writing about it.
My favourite in the cast is Julianne Moore, she has been a big favourite since the 90s. Her "vaginal" artist is so out there, I love when actors just utter words meant to sound outlandish with complete conviction. I can't believe she hasn't done more comedy because she was so great in 30 Rock.

I love the dialogue, it's wonderfully written and what makes the film work so well is how much love the Coen brothers have for these characters. Every line, everything about them is done with tremendous love and understanding. They aren't written to sound cool, they are real people, well, as real as they can be in a Coen film.

The Dude: He's fragile! He's very fragile!
Walter: I did not know that. Oh, it's all water under the bridge.

If that scene would have been written by other than Coens these characters would be come across as major jerks. I find it much more funny than I should. The scene with the ashes is another great moment.

[Chun the Unavoidable]

Rush: not sure just how factual this is, but it was very entertaining and quite touching in places. Captured the seventies very well, and gave a pretty gritty almost first person perspective to F1 motor racing as was.

[Pyroriffic]

I've gotten a bit behind in watching films and because of the sheer mortgage-level costs of having to go to the pictures these days, tend now to wait for stuff to Happen To DVD. Although I did buck this trend and go to see Mad Max: Fury Road. I've never felt so utterly exhausted after watching a film. It was frenetic, awesome fun.

Kingsman: The Secret Service was a case in point. I really fancied this when it was on at the cinema, but for one reason or another, never got around to it. I picked up the DVD the day it came out and my goodness me, it was worth the wait. Completely entertaining, funny without being overly so. Colin Firth was just brilliant. The whole thing was... James Bond the way James Bond should be. The music choices were outstanding, too.

I even missed Probably Mostly Iron Man Featuring The Avengers and Maybe Ultron. I don't think I'll fork out the vast sums of cash required for cinema viewing now until Episode VII in December...

[Athelassan]

I tend to forget how expensive most cinema tickets are these days. I'm extremely fortunate in living round the corner from a cinema where all films, all day, are a fiver (in fact, £4.99). It's not the fanciest cinema I've ever been to but it's fine and they get all the big releases.

Ath

[Vivia]

Five pounds! I would go more often if we had those rates. I'm really excited for Zoolander 2 and pay 120 sek for 3D.

Pitch Perfect:

I wasn't expecting much from this film, musicals aren't my thing, I'm happy I watched it. It's a great time for comedies with a female cast playing all sorts of questionable characters while being gross and weird. Films with flawed female characters still aren't the norm and I say bring on more of this so we can escape the dreaded "women are better than men", I especially liked Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson. It brought back memories of Bring it On and Mean Girls, a feel-good comedy with a touch cynicism thrown in. The vomit scene was unexpectedly laugh out funny. It isn't perfect, but it has its charm.

[Xisor]

Five pounds! I would go more often if we had those rates. I'm really excited for Zoolander 2 and pay 120 sek for 3D.

I'm feeling lucky to get a good 2d showing of anything at the AMC in Manchester. Mega cinema, but a but scruffy too. Means relatively cheap food and only maybe £7-8 for a regular showing with no notable downside. Decent place, and a great excuse to slip past my favourite (well, favourite in Manchester) burrito place too.

Of course, I have to fork out £5 to get the tram into town (& back) too, but it works well enough as am excuse for a day trip into town without seeming expensive and I get a good bit done.

---

Films! I caught the end of "Planet of the Apes" (proper one) last week. Is forgotten how good it is. How express the 'bad' prosthetics and makeup is, how heartfelt the storyline and how much of a twist the ending feels.

I mean, it's obvious, perhaps even back on release, but the film is so earnest in it not even being a possibility... it's all there. I wonder whether it was ever expected, at all - or if maybe it was always as obvious, or somewhere in between. You can see why it endures.

I love you, Dr Zaius!

[Vivia]

Today I went to see Minions, I thought that it would be a guarantee against anything bad when it was coming from the Despicable Me series. Was it worth the 130 SEK? No, absolutely not. A fun watch, but certainly not something to pay for.
One thing is for sure: the animation was superb, it's so beautifully rendered. This is as near as real life cartoons as we can get. Why is it we get the quality like Transformers Prime,The Clone Wars and Dragon Riders of Berk when there is technology like this for Minions? SW: TCW for sure should learn about creating fluid movements, blergh. I tend to hate CG animation because it generally are uncanny valley semi-noodle creatures, they're awful.

The minions are cute in small doses, I played the iPhone game a lot, but starring in their own film is a different thing. I thought Despicable Me was charming, silly and witty, though nothing special, and I expected the same here. No,instead it looked like the director took from the bottom of the barrel of clichés. Fart jokes, low-brow humour in general, predictable plot twists, bland and unfunny characters and dialogue. There is one cringe-worthy scene with the Royal Guard, it wasn't funny to make it 1968s groovy, I have no idea what it was. It was so-so funny in the first 20 minutes after that it went into over the top, there was no real explanation as to why.
After I saw the cast of Despicable Me, I was like that's so cool, Steve Carrell, Will Arnett etc, a bit the same when I have seen the cast list for old The Simpsons episodes. In this one I feel more it's "well, that's unfortunate". I recently read about Jon Hamm not wanting to star in a film taking place in the '60s and here he is starring in a film taking place in the '60s. Towards the end I nearly fell asleep.

'We also had the unfortunate pleasure of seeing the trailer for Ted 2. Good grief, that was embarrassing and awkward to watch. I have expressed my disgust about Mark Wahlberg being part of the Transformer franchise, well, I had forgotten about Ted. Max Payne, Planet of the Apes, The Happening, Transformers, Ted, that's an impressive list of bad films. I feel embarrassed for myself for ever thinking Wahlberg was a good actor. He is an awful, awful actor. He is in par with Vince Vaughn, I thought Vaughn had a unique position, but no.

[Major Rawne]

Why is it we get the quality like Transformers Prime,The Clone Wars and Dragon Riders of Berk when there is technology like this for Minions? SW: TCW for sure should learn about creating fluid movements, blergh. I tend to hate CG animation because it generally are uncanny valley semi-noodle creatures, they're awful.

Unfortunately it all comes down to money. TV shows don't get to have tens of millions spent on them in the way they are spent on feature length films.

[David Earle]

Viv, did Sandra Bullock do anything worthwhile? She was the only thing that had me interested in that movie, apart from CG Corgis.

[Xisor]

Viv, did Sandra Bullock do anything worthwhile? She was the only thing that had me interested in that movie, apart from CG Corgis.

I was shocked it was Sandra Bullock when the credits rolled. Also, no,I felt both her and Steve Coogan were wasted. Jennifer was better used, but not really enough.

I felt, personally, they missed a massive trick by making the three minions the main focus of the movie. A crowd of anarchic individuals was always funnier, for me,and being too... human was lost.

In essence, doing too much of a personal story killed the rampant almost anonymous personality of them.

Lots of funny wee bits, but a bit forgettable over all. Hell, the tea-drinking police had me in hysterics.

[Vivia]

David, exactly what Xisor said, wasted talents, all focus was on the minions and their antics. I was so surprised to see Bullock, she and Jon Hamm had excellent voice acting, they should definitely do more, but they had no material to work with in here. They had only unfunny lines in my opinion. This was a comedy then give them humorous lines.
There were plenty of nice things, I loved the setting of the 1960s, that's my favourite period of time. But in all it didn't make for a whole feature film.
And they failed with the corgis: the Queen's Pembroke corgis don't have tails as far as I have seen (they're soo cute)! I prefer the Cardigan:


Squee!

[David Earle]

My little Lina would get sad if I had truck with the Tailed Ones. Nub Crew 4 Life!