Be Excellent To Each Other

The Courier: knowing this is based on real events (I did not: this guy here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greville_Wynne) helps, as it explains the turn to "oh, well, it's going to just be *this* story, and a bit of a lack of drama as a result - stick with truth and you just can't get the same tension. It's nicely done, though, and Cummerbund is vg.

Zola: luminescent. A bit strange, but incredible. The performances, four main ones I'd say, are extraordinarily good, though if those particular US accents don't do it for you, you might be very annoyed. I thought it was fabulous, and I think the rest of the audience did too.

Watched the Hubble 3D movie at the Science Museum IMAX yesterday. Absolutely spell-binding and mind-blowing in equal measure.

Leonardo DiCapricorn's VO is only occasionally distracting.

The whole thing makes this whole universe palaver slightly less unfathomable but also wholly more unfathomable. Travelling between galaxies in the film and through the nebula, as captured by the Hubble, is mind-bending.

Well worth 45 minutes of your time and the 3D aspect is used brilliantly.

People Just do Nothing: Big in Japan. Never seen the comedy, still enjoyed this, so I imagine fans would have a great time. Farce with a sweet heart.

Reminiscence: Aims for detective noir and sometimes hits. An apocalyptic background just for the sake of the background, and so I could feel clever having noticed the hints, before they just explained the whole thing anyway. I laughed at some of what I think was supposed to be portentous and meaningful dialogue. One outstanding action scene, another that's pretty good. With hindsight, I think someone other than Huge Ackman would have been better.

All The President's Men: Have had this on my watch-list for ages but a nudging from my brother over the weekend made me sit down yesterday and finally watch it.

A great movie, not particularly exciting, but thrilling in its own way and really goes out of its way to show what proper journalism was like - sometimes it feels like most journalists today are happy to just grab a couple of quotes from the twitters and call it a day, but Woodward and Bernstein (Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman respectively) really gave everything they had to bring the story of the Watergate scandal into the public conscious. I'm sure they weren't entirely altruistic about it, of course, but still.

My only criticism of the film is that it ends very abruptly because of a stylistic choice in the way they get across the ramifications of the scandal becoming public - it kinda works, but just kinda made me think "oh, that's that then."

Pig. Can it really live up to the hype? How can Nicholas Cage living with a pig and then things happening be any good? But it is, very good.

If you haven’t seen The Post, it’s a great companion to this.

Blood Red Sky

A German language (with some English) film about a reluctant vampire travelling from Germany to the USA via airplane in an attempt to be cured.

The flight doesn't go as smoothly as the vampire hoped.

Its on Netflix, and I really enjoyed it, it's an interesting take on Vampires, I thought it was well acted (Dominic Purcell is in it - from Prison Break and The Flash/Legends of Tomorrow - but even he is okay) and written, and maybe a little cheap on the special effects, but I don't think it suffered as a result of it.

Well worth a watch if you like that sort of thing.

Oh, I wouldn't watch the trawler, slightly too spoilery imo (as seems to be way with Netflix)

I have indeed seen The Post and yes, it is superb.

It absolutely boggles my mind that we live in a time when scandals come out seemingly every month that are just as bad, if not worse than Watergate/the Pentagon Papers (such as ol' Donny basically spearheading a literal coup attempt on the Capitol) but there never seem to be any serious repercussions for those involved any more.

Has anyone seen the People Just Do Nothing film (Big in Japan)?

Ive been rewatching the tv show and series 1-3 are just gold, so I'm kind of excited for the film but there's no release date for out here yet.

Dude. It's on THE SAME PAGE. Yes; I enjoyed it and haven't even seen the TV show. Cast interviewed on (not)Kermode & Mayo this weekend and they were great on that - just effortless at the roles they're playing.

Ahhhhh, oops! I totally missed that.

Good to hear that you enjoyed it although i am curious to why picked that if you’d never seen the show.

They do seem like a fun bunch both in and out of character.

I've an Odeon Limitless membership, so have seen lots of films and lots of trailers, and the trailer for that looked great (and didn't get dull on repeated viewing). Plus here in NI it was a quiet showing. Ticked all my boxes!

Candyman. The Candyman *can* - be reimagined as having something to say about racial injustice. I don't remember the original well enough to pick up on the homage paid, which I'm sure is plentiful. Vanessa Williams is back as mother, but I had to check afterwards that she could really be that old - testament to my age changing my perspective, perhaps, but also, she looks fantastic. Left me watching the credits (which use a paper cut-out puppet animation to add more to the subject), slightly spaced out and feeling that, as ever, I really haven't sorted out my feelings about this.

Herself. Screen unseen. A woman leaves her abusive partner, solving one problem and unleashing a whole lot more. Harrowing in parts, lovely in others. The kids are particularly great.

I don't remember much about the OG Candyman apart from Virginia Madsen in the bath

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings. Starts quiet and backgroundy, then bursts into very cool action. Maybe a bit baggy in the middle, and the end is sort of standard, but I really loved it. I say no more, I spoil nothing.

The Champion of Auschwitz. Polish Sports Drama, with occasionally odd subtitles (slight mistranslations, I think). It's a graphic and harrowing portrayal of Auschwitz, which kept returning to the horror whenever I thought it was just going to put the boxing (inmate fights others) at the forefront. I wasn't sure where they could go with it - full schmaltz or token "this was good, but yeah, it was horrible" seemed the only way out, but this story based in reality does a really neat trick of pulling a bit of heart out of horror.

Mystic River: Not the first time I’ve watched this but I’d seen it referenced in a YouTube video recently and felt like another watch.

Excellent movie, about 3 guys who used to be tightly knit as kids and grew apart, thanks to something that happens to one of them as a kid.

Tim Robbins plays the adult version of said kid, and (as ever) is solidly convincing as a guy that’s not quite right. The two other kids grow up to be a homicide detective, ably played by Kevin Bacon, and a small-time gangster who runs a corner shop played by Sean Penn.

A family tragedy with Penn’s character brings all 3 back together and thus the movie becomes a fine example of a detective thriller.

I loved this movie first time around, and even though I couldn’t remember a great deal, second time round was just as good. Penn is phenomenal, as is Robbins. Bacon isn’t given quite as much to do but is still on form, and the various supporting characters all bring solid performances too.

7/10.

We then watched Cop Car - a 2015 movie about two kids that find a seemingly abandoned cop car and take it for a joyride. This stars Kevin Bacon as the owner of said car, who (for reasons that I won’t spoil) is desperate to get it back.

The two kids, played by two kid actors I’d never heard of and can’t remember the names of, are amazing. There’s a genuine sense of child-like adventure and mischievousness to their behaviour, and there’s a few scenes where the movie grips you by the feels as you wonder if the kids are gonna be alright by the end.

Just under 90 minutes long, with 5 on-screen characters (1 of which is barely seen at all) and some beautiful shots, this is a tightly paced film that kept me on the edge of my seat - it reminds me of Spielberg’s Duel in that respect, although Duel is done much better.

Also 7/10.

Annette. Very odd. I enjoyed it - maybe I should say I enjoyed it periodically. Music and ideas by Sparks, and their sense of humour is intact - the opening number made me grin all through. At times it felt like someone with the keys to the film toy box and boy, are they going to use them. Brilliant in parts, if you can just go with it and accept it is going to do odd things. Especially the end. Though if you go to watch it and I've suggested the end is the oddest thing, and no one has told you that the kid is a puppet and everyone else is real, then you'll be very surprised.

The Nest. Spooky family drama, set in the 80s (so some gratuitous smoking and 80s music), with Jude Law though really Carrie Coon, playing his wife, is the star. You can watch it as a family drama, or it's a really spooky story with an old house in it, and I don't know that if you believe one version, anyone could convince you of the other. It does not tie things up in a bow at the end, but the ending was satisfying for me.

The Internship relies heavily on the Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson fast-talking schtick, but as I haven't seen one of these types of film for a while it was a refreshing change. A couple of laughs, some jarringly over-positive portrayal of Google, and a touch of Will Ferrell. Rose Byrne is very very pretty.

Overall a reasonable watch, but also quite forgettable.

It... might be good?

The one that they sold was the 7110 which did have a fairly high failure rate.
The one in the film was a modded 8110.

Space Jam A New Legacy is laugh out loud funny and far better than I could ever have expected it to be.

I have seen Road House for the first time ever.

The monster truck made everything better.

And Sonic trying to pin a murder on his sidekick.

7110 was one of my favourite phones ever. I loved mine, and I still regret smashing it up when I was having a fit of FURIOUS ANGER.

This sums it up. Me and Mini-Kov loved it. Some proper laugh out loud moments. The action was fabulous. Wong is still my fav sorcerer

I'll start posting these here again since I'm still writing them anyway.

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Last night's film was 'WORTH' which has recently turned up on Netflix. Starring Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci and Amy Ryan (Holly out of The Office), it tells the true story of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, and specifically the appointment of Ken Feinberg (Keaton) as the Special Master of the fund, with Camille Biros (Ryan) as his deputy, also added into the mix is Charles Wolf (Tucci), who lost his wife in the attacks and is offended by what he sees as the callous nature of the fund's formula, leading him to start a protest group.

The main story/arc of the film is that of Ken Feinberg, a decent man who genuinely wants to do what he sees as his service to help his country and the victims in their time of need, but he approaches it with the analytical mind of an attorney, producing a formula to evaluate the worth of each life, and not giving due consideration the personal stories of tragedy behind each loss. His early confidence that he will succeed in achieving his target of 80% of victim sign-ups (this is required to mitigate the risk of economy-crippling lawsuits) is soon knocked when he fails terribly, as Wolf's protest group gains more and more momentum.

Will Feinberg be able to grow and learn enough to change his approach to how the fund operates, and get his 80% of sign ups before the deadline, or will he fail and leave the victims at the mercy of years of expensive litigation with the airlines?

This is a fine film that somehow never quite soars, the performances are universally excellent (I'm a massive fan of both Keaton and Tucci), it's well written, solidly directed, respectful and moving, but I couldn't help feel that it should be more emotionally wrenching than it is.

It's perhaps a little too dry and too much like a procedural to really get under the skin like it should, although maybe that is sort of the point as the journey of the film is that of Feinberg from a policy/numbers driven man to someone who needs to connect on a more human and empathetic level with the victims.

Certainly recommended and very much worth a watch, but not everything it could have been - 661/1000