Be Excellent To Each Other

Went to see Bohemian Rhapsody last night. What a great film. Rami nails the part of Freddie, he looks the part, and captures his mannerisms.

A fantastic sound track (if you like Queen), and the story is told really really well. I did not realise what a sad, lonely man Freddie was.

I have to admit, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, when he composed and played the first part of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Hotel Artemis is great. Slightly cyberpunk-tinged thriller where a group of shady criminals are thrown together at a secret hospital for miscreants during the worst riots that near-future LA have ever seen. Naturally, things go to shit. Had a micro-budget but wears it well, and the cast is amazing (Jodie Foster, Dave Batista, Sterling K Brown (in lots of things but I know him as the dentist from B99), Sofia Boutella (the French agent from Atomic Blonde), Charlie Day, Zachery Quinto, Jeff Glodblum...)

The relentless ads for this on the In the Dark podcast put me off, but think I'll give it a look based on the above.

I watched POSSUM last night which is a really weird film, it basically only stars two people, including the incredibly intense Sean Harris.

It's a psychological horror type thing (there's no gore in it), but I'm not entirely sure I worked it all out, so will watch it again.

The music and 'sounds' as it were, are by The Radiophonic Workshop and are extremely effective and unsettling.

Only 83 minutes long, worth checking out I'd say.

The Incredibles 2 was alright. The first hour is surprisingly slow and not that interesting but then it all kicks off and there’s 50 minutes of good stuff. Some of the fights against different superheroes were really fun to watch - especially Void Girl vs anyone she fought. I’m glad old Saul Goodman and Mike got some voice acting in it, I’d like to see them both do well. But as for the film it’s pretty good but I was a bit disappointed it wasn’t much better than it was.

The Night Comes For Us: liked The Raid but thought it wasn’t brutal enough? Want more Indonesian brawling with some of the same cast? Netflix has you covered. It was fucking great.

After finally wearing out the Greatest Showman, this week the kids watched 'Pan' many many times. What could have been an interesting concept (how did Hook become such a baddie) turned out to be a totally uninteresting and irrelevant, pointless origin story that I really don't think anyone in this world needed.

Peter's flying was weightless and graceless, and he seemed annoying and without charisma or character. There fighting in the finale was poorly choreographed and looked crap. The final third was super awkward and weirdly paced. Stupid giant skeleton birds. Very little sense of 'magic'.

Hugh Jackman appeared to be having fun though, and the guy that played Smee nailed it. Cool special effect used to show the native folk die but without gore and the trampoline fight looked neat.

Oh, remember when A Knight's Tale used modern(ish) music in an unexpected way, and it was kinda cool? Well, not here, the strangely placed Smells Like Teen Spirit and Blitzkrieg Bop stood out like dog's balls. To be fair though, it got the boy interested to hear the actual version, which I guess is something.

The kids enjoyed it. Recommended to parents as a distraction while you go off and do something more rewarding, like going for a 90 minute poo.

If you really want more Peter Pan and the original Peter Pan isn't enough Peter Pan for you, get your Peter Pan fix by watching Hook instead.

Last night I watched NOCTURNAL ANIMALS on Netflix which is fucking fantastic. Starring the always excellent Jake Can't Spell His Last Name and Amy Adams, the splendid Michael Shannon and generally just a really good cast.

It rolls three timelines into one, but one of them is make believe (the film makes this entirely clear right from the off), which sounds like it'd be crap but it totally isn't, especially as it dawns on you what the pretend one is about.

This film carries a genuine emotional heft and I would highly recommend it.

The Rotten Tomatoes score is very harsh and I put that down to stupid people being stupid.

905/1000

Hmmm, I'm not really sure she got it.

I was amazed that in a movie with Michael Shannon and Jake Gyllenhall, it was that lad who played Kick Ass who gave the best performance.

Holy shit! I didn't even realise it was him.

What a fucking good film though.

At the weekend I watched recent indie darling film Sorry To Bother You which is an 'absurdist dark comedy' with a synopsis as follows:



It starts off pretty strong by being amusingly off-kilter and the 'white voice' shtick is pretty funny stuff but it kind of goes off the boil a bit as it continues and by the end I was pretty 'meh' about the whole thing. I certainly don't think it earned all the gushing praise it got.

I've been enjoying the soundtrack by The Coup, which has some definite outkast vibes. Fun hip hop.

Watched "Isle of Dogs" over the weekend. What a great movie - not at all what I was expecting, and somehow absolutely captivating.

Albeit slightly weird.

That's Wes Anderson for you.

I can’t decide if it’s one of his best, or a brave misfire, so to speak. Need a second viewing to decide.

Yes fucking please. I’m on it.

Did I ever mention I watched Mile 22 with Marky Mark but also The Raid’s Iko Uwais? Iko does his thing (dude has skills) but you’ll never know because the direction is fucking awful. I had a headache just watching this bollocks with the terrible editing. It’s Taken 3³.

Marky Mark is normally acceptable to watch but they’ve created Walburg³. It’s like Michael Bay saw his character in The Departed and tried to create his own version but it turns out to be this abomination. Obnoxious, rapid fire, bullshit spouting nonsense; he’s literally unwatchable.

So after this awful attempt at cloning Marky Mark they then attempt to recreate Heat’s signature street battle and then immediately after The Raid’s high octane apartment complex scenes with Mike 22’s standout action sequence. And yes, they fuck it up in the edit. There’s some joy to be found but it’s ruined.

Outside of the action sequences the story is the worst kind of trash. You’ll laugh your ass off at “the twist” or just sit there baffled like I was.

2/10 for some decent action amongst the shit.

I've not seen any of the Mile films since the one with Eminem. Will I still understand the story?

Imagine having Kim basinger as your mum. That's be weird.

I've not seen it but a friend called out this piece of nonsense from it. Sounds ludicrous.

Link to tweet

This guy was not kidding. Holy flying fuck.

I turned it on for 5 minutes to see what it looked like and now I’ve watched an hour and I might be late to bed.

If anything, it might be too brutal. There's some knife work and limb-snapping that's flat out wincing to watch. They must have gotten a great deal on job lots of fake blood and rubber machetes.

Did you watch it all after? My favourite scene, I think, is in the second half:

There’s a LOT of CGI blood, it’s more noticeable in the pool fight and the fight with Arian than the rest of the film but I thought the CGI blood was done well. I prefer fake blood effects but there’s not a lot to complain about when, say, someone has a knife pushed through the side of their mouth. The violence did feel a little gratuitous but I’m not going to moan about that in a kung-fu flick cause that’s what I came to see!

The Operator was sexy as fuck! Loving the one-armed costume straight out of a cosplay convention. It’s nice to see women slug it out as good as the men. Talking of gratuitous, “that death” was gratuitous as they decided:



But my fave fight was the insane



Actually since that was too similar to the scene in The Raid I’m going for



No, actually that was like the fluorescent tube scene in The Raid (turned up to 10), so I’m going to finally rest on...



Best fighting film I’ve seen since The Raid. Kevin out of 10.

Sorry two more observations:

1) I can't stand that Bollywood thing that they do when they shake the camera in post when people are shooting. Urgh. Give it a fucking rest.

2) I loved the blood squirts in some of the latter half fights which could have been straight out of Shogun Samurai.

As titled.

Wow, that was good. The last fight was pretty tense viewing. Highly recommended.

The Raid will be high up on my list to watch soon.

I didn't bother watching Ready Player One because most of you said it wasn't very good.

Most of you are wrong. It was lots of fun! A fucking Firefly class starship drops off a gundam, FFS!

Obviously it loses points because the Pulse Rifle doesn't make the right noise, but hey ho.

I loved it. Not every film has to be worthy

We are the island of the right

Extremely right

I agree with Grimm. It was a great film

They shall not grow old.

Fucking hell, what they have done to the old footage just makes it all too much. Absolutely distressing, but you must watch it.

The Meg is one of the most Jason Stathamy films I’ve ever seen.

I know it's only a trailer but Detective Pikachu looks ace! And, y'know, Ryan Reynolds.

It does indeed! I wasn't expecting that at all.

I had thought it was going to end up as a sweary violent 15 or something there... not least because Ryan Reynolds

That's.... IDGI.

I mean I get it, that it's a reference to True Detectives, but I don't get it.

Yeah it does.

I saw someone say that this could be the highest grossing video game move ever... Which made me think, I wonder what IS the highest grossing video game movie ever?

Tomb Raider maybe? Silent Hill? Definitely not Street Fighter.

Would anyone like to guess before I Google it?

Resident Evil?

Dragonball Z?

Pixels? Or does that not count?

Good point. It's not a video game adaptation is it so it might not make the cut.

OG Tomb Raider, I hope. But it's probably the Angry Birds Movie.

If Pixels counts then Wreck-it Ralph counts.

I remember it being advertised but never saw it. Was it that popular you reckon?

I recall reading that it was breaking records, so it couldn't have done badly.