This is more of bonding movie between estranged friends set in sci-fi world. Cast is good, but pace is very slow. About 3 people with troubled dynamics between themselves go on for a space-watching trip and end up getting first contact to a intelligent species. There are no aliens and the movie is about them trying to fix on radio frequency and initiate communication. A quite low-budget sci-fi, but not a bad way to kill some weekend night time.
I was feeling a bit festive yesterday so I went upstairs, closed the door and put on some films.
Friday the 13th Part 2
The first one that actually has Jason as the killer although without the hockey mask. A decent slasher film, nothing really special. I don't know how they managed to get a franchise from the first two films, they aren't terrible, but just not really great either.
6/10
The Wind
Another horror although this one a bit more of an atmospheric one. The description described it as being like The Witch, it is a period piece and it does have a spooky goat. Although it's nowhere near as good an actor as Black Phillip. It was very good and got me good with a jump scare, some of it was very eery and I had goosebumps a couple of times. Which usually doesn't happen to me with films, normally that only happens with games. I didn't really understand the end to be honest, but up to that it was excellent.
8/10
The Jungle
Daniel Radcliffe stars in a true story about some lad lost in the jungle. There are no singing bears or talking snakes. Not that there are bears in the jungle anyway I think. It's all a bit harrowing and disgusting really. It was enjoyable and the bit at the end where it tells you the true story of what happens adds a nice twist. Overall very well done if hard to watch at times.
7/10
Anaconda
I've not seen this since it first came out when I watched it with a couple of mates. J-Lo back when she was still Jenny from the block and somehow she looked older then than she does now. There's one scene where she's very clearly quite cold, which is just bad acting in the jungle heat. She should have looked at the performance of Jon Voight and saw how a real actor controls his nipples in every scene. It really shouldn't work as well as it does, but it's a very watchable film. Voight is fantastic hamming it up. Fair play to Ice Cube walking about the jungle in a pair of Converse.
Another horror although this one a bit more of an atmospheric one. The description described it as being like The Witch, it is a period piece and it does have a spooky goat. Although it's nowhere near as good an actor as Black Phillip. It was very good and got me good with a jump scare, some of it was very eery and I had goosebumps a couple of times. Which usually doesn't happen to me with films, normally that only happens with games. I didn't really understand the end to be honest, but up to that it was excellent.
8/10
The Jungle
Daniel Radcliffe stars in a true story about some lad lost in the jungle. There are no singing bears or talking snakes. Not that there are bears in the jungle anyway I think. It's all a bit harrowing and disgusting really. It was enjoyable and the bit at the end where it tells you the true story of what happens adds a nice twist. Overall very well done if hard to watch at times.
Not sure if I'd actually recommend The Wind. I enjoyed it, but I can see people finding it fairly boring or confusing. I'm still not sure what a lot of it was about, but enjoyed it anyway.
Astronaut Roy McBride undertakes a mission across an unforgiving solar system to uncover the truth about his missing father and his doomed expedition that now, 30 years later, threatens the universe.
I tried to like it, but I just could not, thought it dreadful.
Astronaut Roy McBride undertakes a mission across an unforgiving solar system to uncover the truth about his missing father and his doomed expedition that now, 30 years later, threatens the universe.
I tried to like it, but I just could not, thought it dreadful.
Not sure if I'd actually recommend The Wind. I enjoyed it, but I can see people finding it fairly boring or confusing. I'm still not sure what a lot of it was about, but enjoyed it anyway.
This genre-bending anthology takes place during a series of world-wide blackouts, after which millions of mysterious cosmic anomalies appear everywhere across the planet. While many flee from the objects, the real terror sets in as people are drawn toward - and into - them.
FFS dont bother , 90 mins of my life I wont get back !!
Avoid at all costs
It was not without merits and the actors did a fine job but it was very loud with very little substance. Def the work of an American hipster director who wanted to channel Eastern European cinema .
WWE propaganda film. It's ok if a bit wishy washy and the whole "WWE didn't pick you so it's the end of the road for you" bit was a bit much. Overall not bad and swerves a fair few cliches along the way.
Dolemite Is My Name Eddie Murphy portrays real-life legend Rudy Ray Moore, a comedy and rap pioneer who proved naysayers wrong when his hilarious, obscene, kung-fu fighting alter ego, Dolemite, became a 1970s Blaxploitation phenomenon. Great acting, banging soundtrack and a pretty well made feel-good movie. My only gripe is that they just skim past the struggles and bask in the victories. If they balanced it out a bit more, the lead characters arc would have been served better 7/10
One Cut Of The Dead
Things go badly for a hack director and film crew shooting a low budget zombie movie in an abandoned WWII Japanese facility, when they are attacked by real zombies. For the first 30 minutes, I was really worried that this would be one of the worst films I've seen this year but once act 2 begins, it quickly became one of my favourite films this year. Funny, heartfelt and just an all-round blast. Working on film sets myself, the little nuances really hit home. Thank you @Mrs Smoker for the send. Great movie 8.5/10
Teenage coming-of-age story where the bodily changes are a lot stranger than normal. Despite her attempts to reverse what is going on Mia is eventually forced to accept nature is unstoppable. A fantasy drama with an extremely weird twist which needed a far larger budget to get across the message but is vaguely interesting in concept.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker A bit frenetic but it ends the space opera nicely and pretty much brings all of the storylines together. As with all such films a healthy ability to suspend your disbelief is required but that has always been the case with this trilogy of trilogies. I enjoyed it for what it was rather than for what it wasn't. 7/10
Daniel Ins't Real
A troubled college freshman, Luke, suffers a violent family trauma and resurrects his childhood imaginary friend Daniel to help him cope. Coming of age possession film. At times, this felt quite slow paced but stick with it and you'll get a very original horror movie with some fantastic imagery. Definitely worth a watch 7/10
Was on some flights which meant I watched more movies over 32 hrs than I did for the rest of the year.
Ad Astra: Mediocore sci-fi setting for a medicore father/son story. 4/10.
Raiders of the lost ark: It was fun, but can't believe this spawned a million sequels. 6.5/10
Re-watched Annihilation, this time with functional headphones. Still think it's good (despite the impossible science), not sure why it got such negative feedback here. Maybe it's a disliek of the story outside the literal bubble of sci-fi within the film? 7.5/10
Re-watched The Last Jedi. Again, I have the same reaction as I did 1st time. Everything that doesn't involve the force-sensitive characters is awful. The casino scene is shit, like a different movie, and the ending is so bad it could be played for laughs. No explanation about why the Admiral is so guarded.
OTOH, the Rey-Kylo scenes are good.
And I am mystified by people who thought Luke's ending wasn't grand enough. He makes a grand entrance, saves everything that's left of the Rebellion, is shown to use new powers nobody else in the films has shown, and gets a death in front ot the twin suns. It couldn't be more fitting.
It's a 2/10 movie coupled to a 8/10 one, so I guess 5 overall.
Werner Herzog's Meeting Gorbachev was an interesting look at someone who came across mostly as naive and idealistic. Didn't press him on one thing I was interested in - he decribes the failing planned economy of late Brezhnev, and then talks about perestroika, but doesn't look at the failure of that at all. The sequence of consecutive funerals in 80s Moscow as funny, as was senile Brezhnev. Lots of stuff on disarmament.
The Lighthouse. Loved the way it looked and the Romantic allusions. Thought the interactions between the characters almost completely didn't work. It was too long, and the tension, that was built through its visuals, was constantly abating during the dialogue. The VVitch was 20 minutes shorter and travelled much further. If you're going the esoteric route then for me the thing has to snap a bit more. The film is at its best when it's mimicking silent cinema; revealing itself through starkly composed photography. There is some great surrealist stuff that had me thinking Maddin or early Lynch. Overall though it amounts to little more than a bunch of playful allusions. And I can do inconsequential fluff, but at almost two hours it's pushing its luck.
Re-watched The Last Jedi. Again, I have the same reaction as I did 1st time. Everything that doesn't involve the force-sensitive characters is awful. The casino scene is shit, like a different movie, and the ending is so bad it could be played for laughs. No explanation about why the Admiral is so guarded.
I always saw Holdo's secrecy and stubbornness as a sign that she'd already made up her mind about the suicide mission, and that she'd decided not to tell Poe because he'd do what he always does, which is act impulsively. His way might have succeeded but it would have ultimately been costly. At that point there was no escape for the Resistance and they couldn't afford to keep wasting resources (as evidenced by Leia's reaction to Poe's "victory" in the first act), so Holdo rationalises that the best option is to evacuate everybody, draw the First Order's attention, and destroy their ships with just one of theirs.
I didn't like the Canto Bight storyline on first viewing at all. I thought it was superfluous and distracted from the main plot, I thought it looked a bit silly, I thought it was lacking quite a lot of what made the rest of the film so enjoyable. But a re-watch changed things. I worked out that it's crucial to developing Finn's greater understanding of the universe and arguably completes his arc. He's always a good guy in The Last Jedi but his priority is Rey, rather than the larger war they're part of. Rose showing him Canto Bight, and then stopping his "heroic" (read: pointless) suicide mission, gives him a lot more perspective and helps him get that message.
I'd still change it slightly if I had control of the story by having Captain Phasma track them to Canto Bight - she could chase them around just to add a bit of tension. That way, when her and Finn duel each other on the First Order ship, her arrival in the film isn't totally uninvited and doesn't force the audience to remember their connection from the beginning of the previous film. Gwendoline Christie was probably off filming Game of Thrones (she's in five episodes of season 7, which was filming at the same time as The Last Jedi), but she's an actual character in The Force Awakens, even in her brief appearances - in TLJ she's just a prop for Finn to fight.
Sharknado 6 - The Last Sharknado. It's about time.
This series is a gift that keep on giving. Each movie betters the "spectacularly bad that it's so good" record set by it's predecessor.
They have perfected "taking the piss" into an art form in this movie with tributes to Back to the Future, Planet of Apes...I can't even think of it all. The intrepid travellers go back in time to destroy the "first sharknado that spawned it all" and them time hop through various era from Revolutionary War, to Wild West and finally alter time and eliminate the menace of sharknado once for all.
Movies ends with a reference to some alligator apocalypse...which I'm eagerly awaiting now.
It’s one of those you need to see as a kid and then rewatch for nostalgia. I never get tired of it, but I’ve come to think the Last Crusade is superior.
Yesterday. What if everyone forgot The Beatles. An amiable first hour with likeable characters and good gags. After that I hated it. Kate McKinnon shows up and she is very shit on screen and Ed Sheeran shows up and is even shitter and then James Corden shows up.
Worst of all is that it's predicated on the idea that the Beatles' music is so intrinsically best that it would be received as such, regardless of the context. Another rock and roll whitewash, and penned by cnuty Richard Curtis. You love it.
Burning
A man reconnects with his old friend, who introduces him to a mysterious man she met on holiday. Mystery ensues. I watched this as someone here said it was better than Parasite, which is my film of the year. Expectations were high but not met. Very slow paced and meandering, which I'm ok with but in the end, it felt very empty. There's a lot of symbolism and metaphorical nuances when you dig beneath the surface and that stuff is truly amazing but it didn't work on face value because if you miss the deeper layers, you'll be left frustrated and it's impossible to get it all due to cultural differences. Symbolism for me is supposed to enhance the story, not be the forefront of it. Think this is one that would get better on multiple revisits 6/10
A terrific little film about the end of the fallout of the end of a marriage. Two absolutely captivating and believable peformances by Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver. And the writing was just spot on. Rarely do I watch a film where the dialogue is such so smooth and intelligent.
The Limehouse Golem - missed it when it came out but caught it over Christmas. A period whodunit whose twist was pretty obvious early on. The plot's mystery does not make much sense retrospectively; If the Golem wanted infamy and to be known for what they did then why did they do their best to cover their tracks throughout? Instead they relied on a series of coincidences (which they could not have predicted would happen) leading to them being unmasked whilst simultaneously avoiding/ignoring some major opportunities to put it on the record they were the Golem.
I am generally oblivious to such plot holes, especially in trashy popcorn flicks, but this just made very little sense.
It had potential but was let down by terrible plotting - 4/10
