Be Excellent To Each Other

He's been on top form over the last few years.

Source Code, End of Watch, Prisoners, Enemy and now Nightcrawler.

All fantastic films, almost entirely held together by his acting (and in the case of End of Watch, his chemistry with co-star Michael Peña).

All worth a watch if you've not seen them. Particularly Enemy.

Spoilers on Enemy:

End of Watch is amazing.

It's basically a movie version of Southland, you should definitely give that a go since you liked End Of Watch.

I shall, ta.

I watched Automata last night on Netflix. It's a film about robots developing higher intelligence and becoming 'alive'. It tries to be a bit I, Robot and Blade Runner but really doesn't have any characters or enough story to drive it for the 1h50m it lasts. It means well but it can't be escaped that it's really tedious to watch. Which is a real shame.

I took Mini Fop to Big Hero 6 yesterday. Ghibli-beautiful in places. Some genuinely funny gags, largely at the expense of Baymax, the big Michelin Man-style robot.

I felt like there were nods to anime/Manga that I didn't fully understand because they're not really my fing. I also felt that didn't matter.

I blubbed. My wife blubbed. My daughter loves Baymax.

If you have a child, it's mandatory you see this.

If you don' have a child, don't rush into it. They're very expensive, your life is no longer your own, and you really are in it for the long haul. Make your choices.

Yeah. It had some interesting elements, but it just didn't go anywhere with them. Wasted potential.

What age children is it good for? Looks like it might be aimed a little older than my 3 and 3/4 year old.

Minipaz enjoyed it and she's a month off 4.

To give more detail (now I'm back at my desk), although the movie is aimed at older kids, there is much to enjoy in it. There's a huge emotional climax about a third of the way through that might go over a younger kid's head and the motivations of the villain might remain a mystery.

But cool robots and flying about and cute Baymax.

Mini Fop is 3 years old. Some 'moments of peril' for sure, but nothing scarier than in something like Book of Life, say.

Unless your daughter has an innate fear of cartoon nanotechnology, she should be fine.

Cool. She has seen Book of Life and various other films. She's a regular at the cinema. Oddly, the main things to terrify her have been the nasty cat in Sleeping Beauty (?) and Ursula (and the chef) in The Little Mermaid.

And the fox from the recent Peter Rabbit show, but he is a sinister mofo, so I agree with that.

MiniPaz was scared of the Chef too.

And the geese in Aristocats.

The only thing that seems to have terrified Mini Fop was Far Cry 3.
Which is fair enough.
She woke up from her afternoon nap right towards the end of a mission, with no save point in sight.
I had to see it through.

Actually, new Scooby Doo seems to have upped the scares significantly since we were young'uns.

I watched a movie!

"John Dies At The End"

I read the book, which was very entertaining, and am halfway through the sequel, which is better. They're kinda Charles Stross Laundry stuff meets stoner dropout comedy.

Anyway, the movie clearly didn't have the budget for the effects to do as much as they would like, but they gave it a good go. The guys playing Dave and John were good, and seeing some of the bits from the book made me very happy. It does, however, cut about two thirds of the book out, which I guess was necessary, but makes things feel a little disjointed and rushed at times. That might not happen if you haven't read the book.

It's not the best movie ever, but I liked it. Also towards the end it has a spectacularly gratuitous star on the Craster scale (that was, admittedly in the book).

I saw Big Hero 6 the other day and I have to say it was something of a disappointment for me. The trailer we saw many months ago had nothing to do with the film whatsoever. That it was ultimately just a superhero film was a little bit dull. Not a particularly interesting one at that.

Though I did like the methods of movement with the microbots involved. Very good there.

Never as funny, creative or heartwarming as the likes of Tangled for me. Just a kids film.

I also saw Kingsman which had moments of excellence but was marred slightly by an obsession with swearing all the time, being excessively violent and somewhat bawdy. Seemed a bit of a mess really. Not an entirely unenjoyable one but a mess all the same.

ex machina was cool but the ending let it down along with some stupid explained whispery stuff.

I did watch that there John Wick last night and thought it was very good but not great.

IN THE PLUS COLUMN - Proper action (i.e. swearing and blood and headshots and breaking bones and stuff, none of this neutered PG-13/12 crap), the correct length being in the 90-100 minute zone, very lean and businesslike screenplay, moved along at a right old rate of knots, very well shot, action sequences were quite exciting. Story had a beginning, a middle and an end. Great soundtrack. Cool cars.

IN THE MINUS COLUMN - Pretty weak cast I felt, Keanu was good but the bad guys weren't really super mega-bad enough. Since we're allowed to have Russian baddies again after all that getting along together rubbish phase we went through, let's have it done properly. The Equalizer (the new one with Denzel) had far better psychotic Russian baddies in it. On top of that the supporting cast, despite being of a largely high calibre, weren't given much of a chance to shine IMO.

And then you've got the fact that John Wick is effectively indestructible and is introduced as such, so there's never really much of a sense of 'How's he going to get out of this then?', it's like he's superhero but in human form.

Don't get me wrong, it's a fine Friday night action film but in terms of a kinetic, exciting action film, I'd say I'd prefer something like The Rock.

7.5/10

I took our 6 year old to watch Big Hero 6 last week - we both loved it, and now our 8 year old is jealous and wants to see it. Utterly brilliant stuff. Only tangentially related to the Marvel thingy, but better for it. Funny, blarty, warm, lovely, awesome.

Second Born was hugely amused to realise that the rich dosser chap was Snotlout from How To Train your Dragon.

22 Jump Street is pretty good.

21 Jump Street was pretty funny. Is it basically the same thing again?

Pretty much. But with different jokes

I didn't like it very much even though I enjoyed the first one.

I enjoyed 22 Jump Street a lot the first time. Second time less so. Difficult with comedies I think.

I didn't like either 21 or 22 Jump street, but I can't see how anyone would like one of them and not the other. They are very very very similar films. By design.

American Reunion was on last night, and I watched it, but couldn't work out how he became a sniper.

[/obvious joke]

Anyway, it was extremely similar to the other ones, and made me laugh without making me think. Also, a spectacular Craster Scale score.

I saw last year. It was a telling-close approximation of what life in your early thirties is like. I think those who didn't see the originals when they came out and were roughly the same age as the characters simply won't understand it.

Gah, I feel old.

Just saw Big Hero 6 with the child. Ace, though she kept on asking when Baymax would be on screen any time he was away. Also she calls him Beemax and gets angry if you call him Baymax, even though everyone in the film calls him that.

Selma - An important tale to tell without doubt. I can't say that I particularly enjoyed it mind you. I couldn't help feeling there needed to be a bit more impetus in the direction but it did feature an outstanding performance from David Oyelowo though. I felt there weren't enough stand out spectacular scenes ultimately.

Jupiter Ascending - Shallow with some very peculiar references to other things (27b/6 and Terry Gilliam's Brasil). It was ridiculously frenetic and the plot was largely incomprehensible and there were no real characters to latch onto. It was simply a load of crash bang wallop in front of your eyes without any particular sense of engagement.

It references David Thorne? Awesome!

After an abduction the princess says that it's in violation of code 27b/6 (which is apparently George Orwell's address so not necessarily David Thorne related)

Well that's a direct Brazil quote, pretty much. So they're referencing Brazil, which was referencing Osborne. Not really peculiar - if you're a screenwriter who needs to invent a number for a form, why not stick a reference in there? Other that or form TK421

I've never seen Brazil, it it worth watching?

Very yes.

It's like 1984 but batshit mental.

Director's Cut recommended!

12 Monkeys is also utterly essential if you've not seen that.

I've seen 12 Monkeys and it is awesome. Brazil dutifully added to Lovefilm list.

Get drunk first.

Just finished 'Calvary', it's a quiet film in a lot of ways and if you like ROBOTS and EXPLOSIONS then you'll find nothing much of interest here.

I'll take the lazy route here and defer to a review that seems to sum it up pretty well.

One of the better films I've watched of late, highly recommended - 9/10.

http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/art ... 674629.php

Just been to see Kingsman. Fucking superb. Perfect modern spy movie with classic Bond stylings. Loved it.

'The Raid 2' has just cropped up Netflix UK, now I didn't really like the first film (Raid Redemption) as it was just a load of folks bashing ten bells out of each other for no apparently good reason (IIRC I didn't even finish watching it).

This one however is far better, at two and a half hours it's arguably far too long for an action film (or indeed almost any film), but it does use that time to develop the characters a bit so this time around I did have more of an idea who everyone was, and why they were trying to kill the absolute fucking shit out of each other the whole time.

Beautifully shot and choreographed, the actions scene are superb, there's an awesome car chase, and by christ this film is violent so do be aware of that, (albeit Netflix UK seem to have the cut US 'R' rated version up for some reason, despite it being passed uncut at 18 by the BBFC in the UK, but there was only about 5 seconds cut so it's no biggy).

Better than I expected in all fairness, I was all for turning it off like I did the first one in the end if it bored me, but this was pretty cool.

8/10 - Bloody (literally) good fun.

You're so wrong. The sequel was great, but not as good as the first because all the plot and story got in the way of the action.

Objection!

I had no reason to care about anyone or anything that happened in the first one because I had no fucking idea who any of them were of what their motivations were - it just got boring and I turned it off before it finished.

Even the most awesome action movies and scenes need some meaning behind them, for example Commando has a really short running time but even that makes sure it establishes that Arnie is doing it all for his daughter, and that's why he has to kill butch Freddie Mercury at all costs.

I may however rewatch the first one now that I've enjoyed the second one.

Everything up to them getting out of the truck was all the set up it needed. I'd argue even the first one had a little too much plot.

In all fairness the version I got had seriously dodgy subtitles, almost to the level of 'Cabbage problem evil baby calming' nonsense at times, maybe I missed that critical bit of early exposition

It was mostly visual storytelling that I am referring to.

Coppers in the back of a van going for baddies is all I can remember.

And Rama praying and saying goodbye to his pregnant wife.

I vaguely recall, it didn't register at the time.

EDIT - I don't mean that in a dismissive sort of way, the subtitles were total garbage and yes I guess the overall situation was probably clear but for whatever reason it didn't get me invested.

Wasn't there something about corrupt cops too?

Iirc it was essentially Dredd but not in an SF setting?

I stopped watching because I was interrupted but I've not gone back to watch the ending. Which says something I guess.

Malc