Be Excellent To Each Other

Tyrell was a replicant too?

Was he?

Leaked spoilers from the sequel to Rogue One: http://m.imgur.com/gallery/sZQUt

Heh.

Blade Runner was a bit pants. Not Harrison's best work.

I only watched it for the first time a few years back myself. Although it felt weirdly familiar, perhaps because I'd seen clips before.

Still loads of famous films I've not actually got round to though.. the Jurassic Park films for instance.

And the theme tune is back in my head!!! dammit

One of the Celebrity Mastermind rounds was Jurassic Park.

John Humphries did NOT ask "How does the theme go?"

My two most recent watches:

THE BOURNE IDENTITY - I have never seen a Bourne film before, so figured I should finally get round to watching the 'original' trilogy. I thought it was very good although the violence had that somewhat neutered PG-13 vibe to it. (This was the first film to be rated 12A by the BBFC, fact fans.)

Anyway, decent enough popcorn entertainment, and I will definitely watch the other two in due course. (I know there is a fourth film that doesn't have Matt Damon in it, and the more recent 'Jason Bourne' which I might watch at some point.)

CREED - I really liked this, and you can always rely on Stallone for a very binary experience, things which are GOOD and things which are BAD, you could represent most of the emotional journey of his films with 1s and 0s.

The fights were as ridiculous as ever, with enough crunchy punches landed in a single round to kill someone stone dead, and the Liverpudlian baddy boxer was highly entertaining.

It's certainly not high art, but very watchable and didn't feel overlong despite weighing in at over two hours.

I think 2 and 3 are better. Not seen the 4th with Jeremy Renner, but have seen the latest with Matt Damon, which was good but very stripped back narratively and I suspect I might need to watch again.

I just finished watching the second one and if anything I'd say it's a step down from the first, with MORE ACTION but less character and plot and brains.

Also, it seemed to have a very bad case of that modern 'shaky-cam' affliction and enough quick-cuts in relentless succession to give me a bit of a headache and wonder quite what was going on sometimes.

Plus there were enough logic and plot holes to drive a bus (or indestructible Russian taxi) through, with near-impossible events occurring whenever required to drive things along, and entirely probable events being ignored completely when inconvenient.

Extra points for Judge Dredd as a Russian hitman though, but minus points for using the same Moby song again over the end credits.

It didn't help that Bourne was by himself for most of the film, and there's not really any baddie either, or at least no one you really want to see get their comeuppance.

The ending of the first film put a big smile on my face and my immediate reaction as the credits rolled was, 'Yay, that was a good flick', for this one it was, 'Huh, that wasn't great'.

I'd say the first film was maybe a nice solid 7.5/10, I give the second one 6/10.

The shakycam is a Paul Greengrass thing, who directed the second and third, and also most recent one.

https://vimeo.com/176053995

I like all the films, but yeah there's something special about the first one.

Edit: Extreme Ways is like the theme tune. Pretty sure all of them use it.

Yes I find that very offputtting, and the video you've linked to there explains exactly why.

Since when was it considered a good idea to not be able to properly see what's happening during an action sequence?

As for the Moby tune I kind of guessed they'd adopted it as the theme tune, but it's not exactly fucking Star Wars is it? They could have used a different, but similar, Moby tune.

I'll watch the third one for completeness, however if it's 'the second one, but more of it', I doubt I'll be hugely impressed.

Supremacy was an above average film, so if Ultimatum manages the same it'll pass a couple of hours on I suppose.

I agree with Lewie, the original was special. It was rather simple and straightforward, shot nicely and weaved a memorable action yarn.

The sequels however, whilst watchable, are just horrendously directed. The shaky cams (was this around the start of films where you couldn't see what the fuck was happening?) make the action sequences a pain to watch.

Not only that, but where the first films ditches most of the bollocks from the (terrible) books the sequels feel the need to cater more to the book readers.

2 is alright, 3 is a bit better, Legacy is alright and the latest has some good action sequences but is otherwise hot garbage. Any remnants of the quality, pacing and direction from the first film eroded away to nothing by the end.

I think the shakeycam is pretty effective at times, but it is a little overdone. Could have done with being reigned in a little, and just used for effect when things are getting especially hectic, rather than being the default shooting style for action sequences.

Agreed. And the handheld cams work well for some of the driving scenes but when you contrast the simply shot, easy to follow fight sequence of the first film (when he fights that guy at the Paris apartment with the pen) with the fight with the bible in Bourne Ultimatum (which just becomes a blurry mess with tight camera angles that are far too close to the action) you realise that the later directors had no restraint using the shaky cams to the detriment of the films.

Alas, out of the cinema now, but here's my review for when it shuffles round for your consideration on the small screen....

So I saw that Japanese anime film wot got five stars in Empire, called 'Your Name' last night. (No, not 'Your Mum', you wags, 'Your Name' or Kimi No Na Wa in the native tongue.) Man... it's just... stunning. Here's the gist of the premise if you don't know. Two final year high school students live very different lives many miles apart. Taki dreams of being an architect and works shifts in a busy restaurant in the evenings. Mitsuah chafes at the insular village life she lives and her obedient role as the mayor's daughter. Neither of them have met, or are aware of the other's existence. Suddenly, a few times each week, upon falling asleep they find themselves waking up in the body of the other. Believing it to be an unusually realistic dream at first they quickly discover that they are in fact really living each other's lives, with hilarious consequences. Upon waking the two are mysteriously unable to remember the other's name, though the details of the hyper-realistic 'dream' are generally remembered. Though their attempts to contact the other on social media fail, they manage to leave messages to the other written on their hands. Quickly, ground rules are laid down. No touching of oneself. No wild-spending of the other's money. Restaurant shifts must still be worked. And so on.

Meanwhile a comet approaches Earth, one that will harmlessly pass by in a beautiful visual display, eagerly anticipated by everyone. And as it approaches, the mystery of the body-swapping deepens into something
more troubling.

I found this to be a spell-binding film. For a start, it's such a pleasure to see a film that has carefully thought out the ramifications of the dilemma the two characters are in, and that takes such pains to ground the entire adventure in reality. There's no real explosion of fantasy in the film. Even the beautiful comet is approached with a sense of realism, with references to roche limits and Shoemaker Levy. Instead the film relies on the most jaw-droppingly beautiful 2D animation I've ever seen. Everything from sliding train doors to the folding of paper, a bowl of ramen to the sun filtering through a Tokyo skyline, is just exquisite. The colour palate, the smooth fluid movement, the unaffected gestures of people, the shifting glow of light... this is definitely a film for blu-ray. Instead of showy set-pieces, the magic is imbued through a sense of almost dream-like hyper-realism. Everything just seems so... there. Even the glow of a smartphone. There's a magical-realism in this film, both in plot and visuals.

The film mixes Shakespearan farce, teenage romance and a real post 03/11 anxiety. The fingerprints of the Tohaku earthquake are all over this film. At the same time it's all quite understated, and in the main all the characters actions are quite plausible, at least apart from the behaviour of one supporting character in the final act. The music's great too. Rogue Squadron Schmogue Squadron, out of all the movies I've seen thus 2016, this one wins film of the year. Thanks to the blend of compelling memorable characters, beautiful animation, atmosphere at times redolent of the most magically strange dreams and a gripping mystery, I cannot consider this anything other than a modern classic.

5/5

And from Pete's high-art style cinema to Hollywood mainstream fodder I watched the third Bourne film last night, ULTIMATUM. (That does sound like an excellent film BTW Pete, I'll keep an eye out for it.)

So as for BOURNE#3. It was definitely better than the second, but not as good as the first.

The shaky-cam appears to have gone up another level (or maybe I'm just noticing it more), to the extent that even when two people are simply sat at a table talking, the camera is all the fucking place, like they couldn't afford a tripod, or something, and the cameraman is trying to play Angry Birds on his mobile at the same time.

The action/chase sequences were well done in the main (shaky-cam aside), although the one in Tangerine went on for too long as you knew exactly how it was going to end up and after what felt like several hours I was like, 'Oh come on just find each other already, asshats'.

At least this time there are identifiable goodies and baddies (beside Bourne himself), and yay for having Paddy Considine in it.

I won't even begin to list all the stuff that made no sense or was borderline impossible, or dwell too much on the fact that Bourne himself appears to be rather shit, invariably managing to get himself spotted and chased by every local copper in a Fiat Uno within about 15 minutes of arriving anywhere on the planet.

It was an entertaining enough film, and I can now do my GRAND BOURNE SCORECARD.

1 - 7.5
2 - 6
3 - 7

I just watched Sausage Party, consistently funny throughout, with such a rapid-fire assault of gags (spoken and visual) that it doesn't really matter that not everything works (and the hit rate is very high in all fairness).

The closing montage is indeed both absurd and hilarious, and I was very glad to see all the foods get to enjoy themselves after everything they'd been through.

Overall I would very much recommend Sausage Party.

Come on, hands up, who asked for another Jack Reacher film? Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is really, really tedious. For an action film, it's lacking in any decent action and Tom Cruise plays the same old Mission Impossible character that he's been playing since, wow, 1996 (Vanilla Sky & Eyes Wide Shut excepting). He's the new (but less interesting) Jason Statham.

Come on, Tommy CruCru, we know you can do better than this. Someone get this man a decent script to get his teeth into so we can have good Tom Cruise back.

Sausage Party is utter unmitigated shite, and barely raises a smile throughout.

Me! Me! I did!


Yes, yes it is. And Reacher loses the first fight he's in!

Clearly we like different things.

The first Jack Reacher was pretty bad except for Werner Herzog.

I didn't mind the first Jack Reacher film, but there were two awful bits -
- the slapstick fight with the two goons in the confined space in the house
- after finally getting close to the one of the main bad guys, dropping his gun and having a fistfight instead

As Captain America:Civil War was added to Now TV yesterday, I thought I'd give that a whirl. Although it was an entertaining film, particularly seeing the cameos from the lesser characters, it all felt a bit contrived, in particular, Stark's character change from previous films.

I watched the first 10 minutes and found it to be a bit too much with the swearing, I like South Park and always go for the uncensored episodes so not like rude swearing cartoons offend me or anything.

Just felt it was curse word overload and sort of put me off watching anymore

Also my son points to the box art on Kodi when he sees it and says "can we watch Sausage daddy?"

I disagree. The first five minutes would be quite good, if you'd never seen the trailer. As the trailer takes every funny bit from the first five minutes and fuck all else.

The remainder of the film is then increasingly tired repetition of the jokes of the first five minutes with a terrible story based around an incredibly poor message. It's like a short had been made of the first five minutes and then they'd decided to stretch it to a feature length using a random phrase generator to make the the other 75 minutes.

Well I liked it. I would say it was not as good as the first Bourne film, but better than the second two.

As such about 7.2/10, or 72%, or 720/1000 on the old ACE magazine scoring system.

The only thing I'd have liked was a bit more 'outside the supermarket' stuff and a bit less 'inside the supermarket' stuff, but at 80 minutes less the credits, I don't feel it overstayed its welcome.

Last night I watched HELL OR HIGH WATER which has Jeff Bridges and Chris Pine in it, you may know Chris Pine as the new Captain Kirk and Jeff Bridges as one of the coolest dudes ever to walk the planet.

They are the only really famous people in it but who the whole cast is very strong. And I quite liked the sassy waitress in one of the diners, as a lady of slightly larger virtues.

It's a great watch but I'm not quite sure it does enough to have the message ring entirely true, especially given what happens by the end of the film. (Also the entire plan itself doesn't stand up to a whole lot of scrutiny.)

Nonetheless it was a fine film, better than both the first Bourne film and Sausage Party, as such I give it 784/1000 on my new scoring scale stolen from ACE magazine which was first published by Future in 1987.

Recommended. Gets it all done in 1h40m as well, in an age when fucking Batman films grind on for more than two and a half hours and are fucking boring.

But what rating was it?

784.

Tonight's film was 'SULLY', directed by the increasingly insane and Trump-adoring Mr Clint Eastwood, who it turns out still directs a very good movie despite being nearly two hundred years old.

There are no real spoilers or anything here, since the whole thing is a matter of record, in that an Airbus A-320 did indeed crash-land on the Hudson river in 2009, and everyone survived.

The film deals with the event itself, fills in some backstory, and adds in some human interest, but is mainly focused on the NTSB investigation and the suggestion that Sully could have made it back to one of two runways instead of ditching into the Hudson.

It should also be noted that this is the only real controversy around the film's depiction of events, with the NTSB asserting that they weren't an antagonistic organisation looking to find someone to blame (as the film suggests), but were merely concerned with getting to the facts of the case.

It was a very watchable film I thought, assembled in a solid, unflashy manner, with Clint clearly having instructed his cameraman not to simulate what a film would look like if they were stood on a giant jelly at all times. (I'M LOOKING AT YOU BOURNE#2 and BOURNE#3.)

The scenes on the plane in particular are very well done, and even though you know exactly what's going to happen it still manages to be surprisingly tense and thrilling. Indeed, I'd argue that it's because it avoids crazy camera angles and dramatic quick cuts and shaky bollocks nonsense, that the inherent amaze-balls of 'Oh by christ he's going to have to land a plane on a fucking river' is allowed to impress itself upon the viewer's mind.

Plus Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart are always watchable, and it had Walter's wife out of Breaking Bad in it.

Decent flick, and as such is awarded a mark of 804/1000.

I too enjoyed Sully, although I had no idea that Clint Eastwood was a Trump supporter. That rather taints many of his films for me.

He's a full-on government-regulation-is-evil libertarian, hence:

ie. a shoe-horned in wild subplot, bordering on a conspiracy theory, that somehow makes it all the fault of big govmint. More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sully_(film)#Controversy

In fairness to myself I did cover that in the very next sentence of my post.

That line of inquiry actually happened though, by all accounts - obviously the NTSB weren't as antagonistic in real life as they were in the film (they're famously neutral) but they most certainly did grill him about why he chose to ditch in the Hudson.

I don't remember there being a "it's all the fault of the gubmint" subplot though.

The NTSB were definitely framed as the 'baddies' of the piece though, and were portrayed as being out to get Sully, rather than objectively trying to get to the facts of the case.

It's a shame really as I'm not sure the tale benefited from having that angle added to it, I think the story stands on its own.

As such it is fair to conclude Clint put a spin on things that aligns with his own world view.

It remains a good film though.

I'm sure this has been well discussed before but I don't go to the cinema and just catch most of my films from Sky Movies.

Anyway so I saw Batman .vs. Superman yesterday, and despite a ridiculous running time, and being way too po-faced, I rather liked it. I mean, not that much, but it wasn't quite as dire as I'd been expecting.

They can put that on the poster if they like - "Not quite as dire as I'd been expecting."

I quite liked it too.

I'm guessing it wasn't too well received on here overall?

We watched it over three nights and found it quite enjoyable like that. I would definitely have been asleep long before the end if I'd gone to the pictures to see it.

I watched it the other day and thought just the same. It definitely does 'Big Bang finish' well (not the actual end of the film, but it builds to the big climactic moment, that is). Not expecting too much worked for me!

I quite liked it too.

Hell or highwater was pretty good indeed, and proves my point that the best action scenes aren't in action films anymore.

Watched "Elle" which is as twisted as a combination between Paul verhoeven and Isabelle huppert could be. Loved it

Ditto, it was okay. Goodish. Last third was mostly really fun.

They really should have cut most of the boring first third. Nobody needs a freaking Batman origin story in Batman vs Superman. And the absurd ending to the Bat/Supes fight is one of the worst things ever to happen in a movie. But the rest was fun!

Last night's film was 'PRIMAL FEAR' from 1996, starring Richard Gere and Edward Norton in what was apparently his breakthrough appearance, on Netflix UK at the moment.

Bit of a random choice, I just saw it in the list and decided to give it a watch because I like Gereton, and also it has Maura Tierney in it who was SO DAMN GORGEOUS in the 90s and TBH I still would now because I'm a reasonable man.

The film is set in a strange world that looks a bit like ours except no one has mobile phones and all television and computer screens are really big and chunky, and a woman keeps trying to smoke indoors. Gere drives an 80s Mercedes that has remote central locking because he pointed a thing at it and it 'plipped' but I don't think that was a thing on 80s Mercedes.

An archbishop is killed and altar boy Norton is the prime suspect, Gere is a hotshot lawyer who thinks his client really didn't do it and wants to get at the TRUTH which is like a sort of awakening for him because normally he cares about FAME and MONEY.

Overall I liked the film and will give it 802/1000 because I thought it was a bit less good than Sully.