Be Excellent To Each Other

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

There was also the subplot.

As I said, a bit too much story.

'Dallas Buyers Club' this evening, it's a very good film but even then kind of overshadowed by the towering magnificence of Matthew McConaughey's performance (and Jared Leto is solid too, as is the rest of the cast).

On Netflix UK, well worth a watch I'd say.

9/10 - It's one of those films where you know how it ends because it's based on real life stuff, but still worth experiencing the journey to see how it gets there. *



* For those who don't know it's about a guy called Ron Woodroof who was diagnosed with HIV in 1985, when of course HIV was supposedly just for gays and drug addicts, but this chap was a lady-loving (and dreadfully homophobic) cowboy type. Frustrated with the glacial progress of FDA approval for HIV drugs, he went outside the system to find alternative drugs and started supplying those drugs to his 'buyers club'.

Whiplash was brilliant. Best oscar nominated film so far.

I was halfway through that when my NAS died. I was thoroughly enjoying it up till then!

I'm probably about the only person who just thought Whiplash was good but not something I found truly exceptional. But then given my reputation...

Anyway over the weekend I watched Midnight Man which is about a martial arts teaching cop who gets involved in the affairs of some chinese mafia or something. Family put in danger etc and excuse for some people to hit each other. It's dreadful but is exactly the sort of film I seem to find enjoyable. Despite it being a straight to video type thing. I couldn't recommend it to anyone else unless you find you really like bad american martial arts movies.

Then I watched The Last Dragon (1986) which is about Bruce Leroy - a black martial arts student who dreams of becoming like his hero Bruce Lee and thus be a true martial arts hero. His teacher sends him on a quest to find the master that will give him this knowledge. Along the way he is threatened by Sho'Nuff - the local black martial arts gang master (who dresses as a shogun might) who wishes to fight Bruce to prove who is best. It's an utterly ridiculous and far fetched film that is more toward the family friendly market and is an absurd showcase for the music of the Motown label that was under Berry Gordon's control at the time. Ridiculous, badly overacted, fantastical and makes very little sense. A better film than midnight man by far but I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much.

I've just watched this - it's a very good movie, Matthew McConaughey's performance was very strong. It pushed me to quite a long way along the film before I could reconcile my dislike of the main character into someone I could sympathise with, which was a good thing. The tinnitus effect was as disorienting as it was intended to be, but because I am not very well at the moment it kept making me feel unwell, to which point it felt overused a tad.

What Maisie Knew. 'Undeniably hard to watch', I'm sure I read in a review, and that's not the half of it. A custody battle, beautifully seen through the eyes of the 6 year old daughter. Damn near tore my heart out. If you're actually a parent you might have some short-term 'my, but we're good parents', but at the cost of a probably disproportionate sense of your heart being removed. Lovely film but, ouch.

That sounds excellent, and having just checked it's on Netflix UK, so I'll add that to my watch list

Check out 'Blue Valentine' if you haven't seen it already, utterly crushing at the end.

I watched Big Hero 6. It was pretty dull.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll stick it on my list!

The new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film isn't as bad as you might think.

It's certainly not great, but it's pretty funny and has some awesome bits.

completely misread that. And thank Christ it was a misread.

Well, it does have Megan Fox in.

Don't understand why so many people hate Megan Fox. But I've only seen her on Transformers, so i'm not the best one to judge.

I wouldn't say it's the same sort of film, as it were, but there's a similarity in there to what you were saying about What Maisie Knew (which I'll be watching tonight).

Also, it has Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in it, if you like that sort of thing, I quite fancy them both to be honest.

I watched this a few weeks ago, as it happens. I had read the Henry James novel when I was at Uni. Well, no, actually, I read part of it, because goodness me I HATED that book. Henry James cannot end a sentence. Each sentence is about twenty rambling pages long, it was painful.

Being set in the modern day kind of tore the film away from the bad memories of the book, for me. The film was great, though. I'm not a parent (so obviously do not understand anything about anything) but I was the child of bad parents, and pretty much a custody battle to get rid of me, so maybe I see it from a different angle, but I found the film particularly warm due to the other adult characters in it. Love can come from many places, and I had a nice little cry (I'll cry at a Fruit Pastille commercial, however, so don't take that as any measure).

Who broke Grim...?

But also....





Ultimately it was optimistic, the love of good people is far better than the fakery and destruction of shit parents, it doesn't have anything to do with them being biological parents - what a child needs is within the gift of any good person, and if the parents aren't up to it, then the child may very well be better off elsewhere.

As the film went on you see the light of Margo and Lincoln massively eclipse the darkness of Susanna and Beale, and from fairly early on I was like, 'Maisie really would be better off with these two.....'

Was the ending a little bit twee? Perhaps, but it was a story that needed it, we all know there are enough of these traumas being played out in real life with horrific consequences, so I'll settle for a happy ending here.

Redeeming features:
It was pretty
Gave Alan Tudyk a job
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

Not so good:
Everything else.

It wasn't exactly The Lion King, was it?

Yeah, on paper Big Hero 6 had plenty going for it, but I didn't find it particularly engaging.

I agree with Grim.... I smiled twice thanks to the big balloon but other than that it was utter garbage.

I thought it was ace.

I especially liked everything to do with Baymax and the surfer dude type chap when he had his suit on.

Just watched the latest Hunger Games Film, flat to say the least, guess they are saving it all up for Part 2

I agree with Grimm on Big Hero but I loved Hunger Games Part 3a. So much the time passed ridiculously quickly at the cinema. I was left wanting a lot more and was surprised when it ended but that's partly the fault of the pacing of splitting it in two. I could have sat through about 4 hours of that though.

Anyway last night I watched Chuck Norris in Forced Vengeance. Which was pretty terrible. Its big problem was that it was so incredibly dull and chuck's acting is so bad it's not even bad acting... it's just nothing. The fights are over very quickly with long sections of nothing at all between them. As much as I love martial arts films, this one was a failure.

Just saw Whiplash - man, that's some good stuff. There was the odd moment where I thought 'do I not know jazz well enough to get this?' but it really wasn't an issue. Fabulous.

Glad you enjoyed WMK, Hearthly - I totally went for the happy ending without thinking it was too much. There was quite enough sadness in there to allow it, I think.

I've watched some films y'know:

Birdman: I watched it a little while ago but forgot to mention it on here even though it's the best thing I've seen in for-ages. Mesmerising performances from everyone involved. And Emma Stone. Yes, Emma Stone. Man I love Emma Stone. She's got twenty-something woman nailed to a tea. I hope she gets something meaty to get her teeth into soon. I'd love to see her opposite Dicaprio in something. But she'd need equal, if not greater, screen time than him. Birdman was great though. There's other people in it too. They're good. Oh I remember that fucking guy from that Las Vegas film is in it and utterly superb. Who knew he could actually act; and real good too.

Dumb & Dumber To: Fucking hell, man. I don't know why this exists. It's a bizarre thing: I couldn't get my head around it. It starts off terribly. It's garbage, and then it starts drawing me in and I laughed a couple of times; then it's fucking terrible again; then it's funny; then the gags are drawn out rubbish and so on. I'm sure it's terrible but it isn't "quite" as terrible as I thought it was going to be. But it's stilll terrible. But then again it's sorta watchable too. But it's terrible. But then etc etc etc. Ok, I can't make my mind up about it. It's sorta bad but ok. It's definitely not good though.

Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Part 1: colon: God it's bad. It's so frigging deathly dull. It's also utter gobshite throughout. Without the focus on the titular games there's just fuck all going on for, what, over two hours? WHERE DO FILMS HAVE THE NERVE TO GO ON FOR SO LONG THESE DAYS!? I mean, come on, tightly focused storytelling is (or was) a staple of the film industry. There's no reason why this film exists except to milk the teats of teeny girls (presumably - I don't know who these films are for really. Kids?). Plus, it's too dark. The other films weren't this dark and I don't like it. And it's boring. Probably cause nowt happens that couldn't happen in 30-40 minutes.

The Interview: I can't remember if I mentioned this. Worse. Film. I've. Ever. Watched. Actually I think I did mention it.

Nightcrawler: Did I mention this? It's brilliant. Utterly brilliant. Actually I'm sure I did mention this. I'll just stop now...

I meant literally too dark, an' all. I turned the brightness up but it just made the screen largely grey.

Oh god I love Emma Stone.

I'll see your Emma Stone and raise you an Amy Adams in a see-through bra and knickers in 'The Fighter'. (Not sure if that counts on the Craster scale or not, but it must be close.)

So yes tonight's film was The Fighter which is a dead good dramatic family boxing type thing starring Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg, but also Amy Adams in her underwear.

MASSIVELY BETTER than 'The Warrior' which I thought was totally shit despite you thinking they'd be thematically similar films from the titles.

The Fighter is on Netflix UK and I much recommend it - 8.5/10.

The Interview is literally the worst thing I've ever experienced. I've been heartbroken, I've been miserable, I've been depressed. Still, nothing has come close to the time I spent watching The Interview. I would genuinely rather be tortured to death by the North Korean regime than ever sit through that film again. It so blatantly, mind-bogglingly fuck-awful that I honestly wonder whether it's been done on purpose. Not because I can actually think of any justification for it but more because I'm not sure I want to live in a world where people look at this atrocity and genuinely think, "Yes. That will do."