Entries tagged with movies

Entry tags:

christmas,
movies

Chritmas Movies from another point of view

We've been watching a lot of Christmas movies recently. Christmas is just a setting. They each have their own genre, but the genre is entirely dependent on who the protagonist is. Tell the same story with a different protagonist, and we end up in a very different genre.

Some are more obvious. Miracle on 34th Street is a whimsical family movie, but also a courtrooom drama - especially from Fred's point of view. It's a Wonderful Life is only a Christmas movie from the Angel Clarence's point of view. For George, it's an episode of The Twilight Zone, and for everyone else, it's a soap opera. Others are less obvious.

A Christmas Carol (any version)

Marley has his own redemption story, What is Marley's reason for appearing to Scrooge? He realises he can make amends. This is more strongly hinted at in the original story, where Dickens tells us:

"The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s Ghost; ... The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever."

Marley realises he's in a position to do some good even as a ghost. This is possibly his only chance. He's close enough to Scrooge to provide a warning and maybe was involved in persuading the other ghosts to intervene.

As a result Marley saves 3 souls. Scrooge, obviously, then that Tiny Tim, and - as we see, the death of Tiny Tim destroys Bob Cratchet - so Marley saves a third soul there.

Home Alone

This one is obviously intentional. From Kevin's point of view, he makes a wish, and his family disappears. He makes another wish, and the family comes back. He has no idea about the power outage, or the set of contrivances that resulted in his family flying to Paris without him. We see them losing his ticket and getting an airport shuttle to the airport, but Kevin doesn't. Of course it could taken as a fantasy from a more objective point of view as well. It's a staggering coincidence that all this happens when Kevin makes a wish.

Old Man Marley is in his own movie. It's probably a short arthouse film about a man whose pride has left him estranged from his family.

Harry is Wil-e-Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

This should really be Sally's story. She's the one who has most character development. Here she's in a comedy drama about personal development. A similar structure to something like The Devil Wears Prada.

Sally is shy and awkward. She's smart but kept down by a cruel and unloving father figure, who essentially treats her as a slave. She has a vision and realises that the dear friend, Jack Skellington - who she is in love with but he's oblivious to her affections - is going to make the worst mistake of her life. She needs to fight against her insecurity and do what she can to prevent the disaster. Talking doesn't work. Jack is too focussed on the task at hand. She comes up with a cunning plan to create a thick fog but that's foiled. Ultimately she has to use all her wits and guile to got to Oogie Boogies lair, rescue Sandy Claws, and save both Jack and Christmas.

Sally is by far the most proactive character here, and she's the one who actually has to develop. Sally at the start of the movie wouldn't dream of going to Oogie Boogie's lair, but near the end she does, not because she wants to but because she has to take the risk.She ends up a lot more confident, and gets recognised by Sandy Claws as the only person with any sense,

As

flickums observes, this point of view deals with a bit of a plot issue in the main storyline. There isn't a romantic subplot between Sally and Jack. He's not interested, at all. In the story of Ragdoll to Riches, that subplot is definitely there,

The Mean One

This is a more obscure movie - the premise is How the Grinch Stole Christmas, retold as a horror movie.

However, it has all the hallmarks of a Hallmark Christmas movie.

Successful careers woman returns to a small town. The town has lost its Christmas spirit, but she joins up with an awkward but harming local and together they save Christmas. It even has a friendly jolly man with a beard who helps them out, and the Santa archetype is common in these movies,

Die Hard

This essentially defines its own action movie subgenre. However, Hans Gruber is the anti-hero of a slasher movie. The same genre as Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Hans is part of a group with a plan for the holidays. It's not a very festive plan; it involves robbery and murder to cover their tracks. But it's a plan. And at this point they think they're in a third genre of film - a heist movie. They have an elaborate plan that involves other people reacting in predictable ways. Unfortunately they aren't sympathetic enough to be in that sort of movie.

Things start going wrong when one of the group turns up dead, with a message, "Now I Have A Machine Gun. Ho. Ho. Ho", mocking them. As is typical, they split up and try to deal with the menace. They never see him until they are about to die. As far as the criminals are concerned this is a supernatural monster that won't stop until they all die.

John McClane here is a bogeyman, similar to Jason Voorhees in the later Friday 13th Films or Michael Myers from Halloween.

Entry tags:

movies

Paddington - greatest reboot ever

I saw Paddington in Peru last night. Rewatched Paddington 2 recently, and was semi-watching Paddington a week or so ago.

I consider this, completely unironically, the best reboot the movie industry has ever achieved.

The movie industry loves to reboot old shows. New ideas are risky. Established IPs comes with a baked in audience. Unfortunately the makers often seem to miss the point entirely. So we have the dreadful Avengers Movie where they simply miss the lighthearted comedy and charm of the original, or M Night Shyamalan's awful adaptation of The Last Airbender. Sometimes they end up with something that's decent. 1993's The Fugitive was a solid action thriller but only had a few similarities to the original TV show. Josie and the Pussycats was an enjoyable parody but was a very different take on the show.

Paddington though is different. Aside from shifting to a contemporary period, there's no real attempt to make anything super-modern. Sure, Jonathan Brown likes his technology, and Judy Brown has ambitions for a career, that wouldn't have been something encouraged for a girl in the 1950s but that's just a minor update.

There's no attempt to push too hard with the humour. Nothing wacky happens. Characters are larger than life and eccentric but not wild or whacky. There's no attempt to make the dialogue too clever. The only attempt to make a character "cool" is for a joke about Jonathan wanting to be called J-Dog. An affectation he drops in the end when he realises he likes Steam Trains.

Paddington as a character is unchanged. He's extremely friendly, somewhat accident prone. Very naive, and thinks the best in everyone. He doesn't have an ounce of meanness. The most brutal he'll be is to give you a hard stare. And this is why it's so charming. His naivety and clumsiness tend to drive the plot. His politeness and good nature mean we root for him and everyone else does as well. It's somehow believable that he can make an entire prison population into better people.

Ultimately, like the books, it's wholesome. It's all about acceptance, kindness and just things going well for good people. It offers a sense of justice and fairness that we need.

Entry tags:

movies

"It's a Dinosaur"

So says Jurassic Parks's Dr Alan Grant, demonstrating why he's such a well-renowned paleontologist.

Having rewatched it recently I rather feel Jurassic Park is underrated.

Sure, it was well reviewed, became the highest grossing movie, revolutionised movie special effects, won 3 Oscars, a Bafta and a slew of other awards, and made Dinosaurs the biggest thing in popular culture for years, but that was then. Since then it's fallen by the wayside. It took until 2018 for the US National Film Registry to add it to its list of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" movie.

Without the big screen treatment, people forget what it was like. Back then it wasn't just a movie. It was an event. We had the opportunity to rewatch it and felt this was an opportunity to try out 4DX.

Aside from a brutal death near the start, this is actually a bit of a slow burner at the start. We have a lot of build up buit we're following Alan and Ellie. It's not until quite some way into the movie until they see a dinosaur. And then we see it! It's a Brachiosaurus and, in a cinema, that thing is huge! It fills the screen and it's miles away! The first time seeing this is an experience. Especially in 1993, when we've never seen a dinosaur look so real.

Things calm down after this. We get a whole lot of exposition and we go on a car ride through the zoo. But we don't see any dinos until we meet a sick Triceratops. That's not what we came to see though. We came to see the big guy himself. T-Rex. Even in a regular viewing, this segment is fantastic. The base the speakers can give when the water shakes is something you can only feel in a cinema. But this part might as well have been made for 4DX. We shake! We thump! Every time Rex does something we feel it!

The rest of the film is really good. Speilberg knows his craft. We get plenty of action and drama, and tension, and that iconic "Clever girl" moment. There's the fantastic John Williams score. Now sure, it has its hokiness. "It's a Unix system. I know this!", but those moments really don't detract.

Watching it again on the big screen took me back all that way to when I was a teenager. Seeing those dinosaurs for the fist time.

If you get a chance to watch it at a cinema again, give it a shot.

Entry tags:

movies

A waste of Timecop.

I saw the Van Damme masterpiece Timecop a few days ago. On reflection, this movie feels like a real wasted opportunity.

I guess I should warn about spoilers but if you haven't seen this after 30 years you're probbly not going to.

It starts of pretty well. A time traveller holds up a squad of confederate soldiers transporting gold. Afterr that it declines. We have a scene in the Whitehouse where the government discuss setting up a time enforcement agency. The scene serves no story telling purpose. The basic premise has already been explained by the movie's title. He's a cop who travels in time - a Timecop if you will.

So after another scene where we establish the character of Max, and then create motivation with the bad guys killing his wife, the movie proper starts. And we get an enjoyable scene just after the wall street crash, where Max tracks down someone who's using knowledge of the future to make a killing on Wall street. We get a gunfight in the stockbroker building and Max arrests the bad guy. All good fun.

After this is where it all seems to lose the plot. We don't have a lot of fun with time travel after this. It becomes a pretty dumb action movie with Max chasing after a fairly non-descript villain and time travel not really being particularly relevant.

Time travel needs to be more than just a backdrop. Good time travel movies use the device in interesting way - either to take our characters to an interesting time to have adventures there, or to have complex dilemmas caused by time travel itself.

Couldn't they have done something a lot more interesting with the premise? It would have been more fun to chase a bunch of villains through different times. Instead, the bulk of the action happens in 1994. This is not what we want in a movie with "Time" in its name. If you're going to have time traveller s in the present they need to come from a more interesting time than the near future. Terminator had a time traveller from a bleak future where Humanity was fighting a war against robot opressors. Timecop is the near furture where not much has changed except cars look weird.

The movie had a spin off TV series. I never actually saw it but at least it had a bit of fun with the premise. We have a villain going back in time and taking hte place of Jack the Ripper, and another that wants to help Germany win WW2. Unfortunately the series was very by the book and was cancelled after 9 episodes due to being a bit crap.

The villain in the movie wants to get rich and become president. This is a very boring motivation. It lacks ambition. Ruling the world would be fun. Changing history because of some weird ideology would be good. Money? There are any number of silicon valley startups that are household names, that would have offered hundreds or thousands of times profit. If you have a time machine, you don't need to be evil to be rich! Worst of all, we find out out this in the first 30 minutes or so. There's not even the mystery to keep us entertained.

This is an idea that could work. It's never going to be an Oscar worthy film, but it's certainly something that should mke a good action movie. Maybe it's time for a remake.

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Lousy Smarch Weather

Today's weather: Rain. Lots of rain. All the rain!

But that didn't deter us. We had tickets booked for Universal Studios and by golly we were going to go to Universal Studios! And we did. We even got to sit at the front of the carriage of the shuttle/bus/road-train thing which was a mistake because it doesn't have front windows and it was raining.

So, Universal Studios is a theme park next to the Universal studio complex. There are rides, including the studio tour! Since there was no wait time on that, and it was the one thing I really wanted to do, that's where we went first!

Our guide was Joy. My god was she enthusiastic! Our driver was Mark. Joy was extremely enthusiastic about Mark's driving skills. So we enthusiastically set off. Part of the tour was simply showing some of the town sets. These get re-used a lot apparently. There was a Wild West area, Mexico, and "Little Europe" - a set that can fit in for pretty much any European country just by changing the language used for road signs. It was also used for The Good Place. Wouldn't have recognised it if it wasn't pointed out although I might have recognised the station.

Some of the sets were just facades, but we had a whole crashed plane set that was used for War Of The Worlds.

We also had some set pieces. Amity Island, where Joy's "boyfriend" George was diving. But poor George got eaten by a mechanical shark. Poor Joy was heartbroken for several seconds. There were a few set pieces like that. The Mexico set they could make it rain. Since it was pouring with rain, that didn't make a lot of difference. But they also caused a flash flood! All very impressive.

The other aspect of the tour are two action rides. The "tram" (an open bus with several carriages) pulls into a studio building, and we get a 3D action sequence (3D glasses provided) with hydraulics to shake us all about! First one was Kong, where we were in the middle of a fight between King Kong and some dinosaurs. The other was a Fast And Furious ride - it even started with several women who didn't pack enough clothes. they were ushered away, we had a rather cheesy expositional sequence with Vin Diesel and other F&F cast, before we were launched into an exciting car chase!

So we finished the tour and looked at ride times. Because of the weather these were all pretty darn short. Jurassic World ride (which is mostly outside, and a "splash" ride) had a 5 minute queue. Figured I was already wet so why not! Plot is a basic tour of the park goes wrong, so it's a pleasant cruise round the herbivore pens, then everything goes haywire and we get attacked by dinosaurs before, for reasons that don't need to make sense, we do a dive and splash into the water.

flickums was happy waiting in the Jurassic Park cafe, and let me go on another ride that she's too wussy for. Revenge of The Mummy. A really good roller coaster that starts off in the dark, then goes backwards!!! Neither ride had a queue so I didn't feel too bad about having Flick wait for me.

We were already there so decided to have lunch at the Jurassic Cafe. Flick ordered a turkey leg platter, which, appropriately for the cafe, looked as big as a dinosaur leg!

I managed to persuade Flick to go on the Transformers 3D ride. There aren't any drops and this was confirmed by several sources. This didn't stop it from being a really intense ride! Riders are in cars that zip about and zoom around with a really solid impression of flying and racing around. Presumably it's mostly fairly stationary aside from the tilting and shaking, and we're just shuttled between screens but the illusion is absolutely incredible and really feels like we must have travelled miles at extreme speeds! Definitely the most exciting ride I've been on this holiday!

We then went for the less intense King Fu Panda ride. This was essentially a movie with tilting vibrating seats. Good fun though and quite nice to have a sit down.

We weren't intending Kung Fu Panda to be our final ride, but next we went for the Secret Life Of Pet. Unlike the others this seemed to have a really long queue. That spent long periods not moving at all. After a while we started questioning why we were even there. We hadn't seen the movie, and there wasn't any particular selling point. Decided to bail on that one.

At this point we were getting Flash Flood warnings on our phones (In America these are automated broadcast messages)

We were going to go to Waterworld - the water based stunt show and call it a day, but turned out it was cancelled, ironically because of the rain. Decided to call it a wash - in every sense of the word - and head back to the hotel.

Managed quite a haul in the shops. Flickums bought a "Bort" keyring. Sadly we didn't see any calendars with the month of Smarch. I picked up a wallet for Flickums because it was half-price. Somehow it was even less than that. No idea what happened there. We also acquired socks (matching His And Hers Frankenstein/Bride Of Frankenstein socks), T-shirts and a cuddly Toothless, who I plan to train. That last one was a last minute impulse purchase I decided I wanted just after we left. I dashed back in (fortunately we had a re-entry hand stamp that we went for mainly out of a sense of irony), and bought it. Flickums had made good use of the time making her own purchase of a pancake. I was offered a bite. It was hot, and delicious!!!

So a few other notes; there's a "Springfield" area with a lot of shops and restaurants based on Simpsons shops. There's Moe's bar, a Krusty Burger, a Kwik-e-Mart (the gift shop) and others. There's also a Harry Potter area that we avoided because we're not that fond of JK Rowling right now.

At the time we left, despite it still being relatively early, very few people were still arriving. Quite a number were leaving.

Entry tags:

And the award goes to...

Something of a recovery day today. Had a decent enough sleep but feet are tired. So we went to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

Didn't have the right change for the bus, so the driver let us off the final 50 cents. They're remarkably relaxed about paying for buses here. The return trip, we were directed to enter at the rear and didn't even have a chance to pay. I'm feeling somewhat guilty about all this, and have since decided to buy a 7 day card. LA transport is now getting a couple of days free from me so at least Karma is balanced.

The museum has a very expensive trendy cafe on the ground floor. We stopped there for some overpriced drinks before going in, on the pretext that we had timed tickets. There was a nice selection of cocktails but it was 11:30 am and I wasn't in the mood for booze. So we went in. Saw various displays focusing on some specific films, including The Godfather. Some actual Oscars were on display, as well as some of the outfits that have been worn on the red carpet. One room, on two floors had a matte painting of Mount Rushmore from North By Northwest.

They had a very nice collection of costumes, including one from Mirror Mirror, another from Mary Queen of Scots, and best of all, the Goblin King's outfit from Labyrinth.

I think what really got me excited was the selection of props. Several from the Dark Crystal, a costume from Black Panther, the two main droids from Star Wars, Terminator's head, and the miniature that was used as the Cobblepot mansion in Batman Returns.

Final part worth mentioning was a 3 screen montage of scenes from sci-fi movies, arranged as sets of thematically similar ideas. So we had a spaceship chase scene from Flash Gordon, juxtaposed with the opening shot of Star Wars. Lots of shots from some great movies, including Destination Moon, The Time Machine, and Forbidden Planet; as well as some not so great ones that had nice effects.

Wrapped up the time with an expensive but very tasty meal and a visit to the gift shop. Nice to actually have some time to just chill after the last couple of very busy days.

Entry tags:

christmas,
movies

The two Christmas Romcoms

I've been watching a lot of corny Christmas Romcoms recently. There's something extremely comforting about how predictable and corny they are.

I have also decided that The Princess Switch wins the award for "World's Most Christmas Romcom".

There's are two solid formulas.

The "Prince" formula" - The lead is typically some well known actress with a relatable but aspirational middle class job. They've recently ended a long term relationship and do have a very good looking male best friend who is, out of necessity unavailable, so the plot can happen. A possible alternative is that they're in a relationship but the significant other is absolutely awful.

They travel somewhere exotic over Christmas. Usually somewhere with snow and castles. Often some vaguely European monarchy where everyone speaks with an English accent. Britain itself is also an option here. It's exotic to Americans, and it does have some very nice castles and country houses.

The lead will then encounter the romantic interest in an awkward way but neither is really paying attention. Typically this involves almost being run over. Here we learn that the romantic interest is either. A high ranking member of the aristocracy. It's essential that the Prince has no idea who the person really is. The Prince is well meaning but a little bit aloof. The lead has to show him the importance of charity and to get to know the common people. Meanwhile there's a villain out to find out who this person really is.

The film ends with them going their separate ways, the prince learning who she really is (can happen in either order), realising that he loves her and they get together at the end.

Then there's the "Princess" formula - The lead is not a literal princess, but a very well off, highly sheltered woman engaged to someone that's completely unsuitable. They're a little disillusioned with their life but don't know how to fix it.

They end up, for extremely contrived reasons, in the company of a very good looking single father, typically a widower of 2-3 years. The daughter (it's nearly always a daughter) immediately takes a shine to the woman. As in the "Prince" plot, he has no idea who she really is. The daughter might or might not.

She tries to help out but is completely inept at anything resembling household chores. Over time she learns these essential life skills realises she prefers this life and falls for the romantic lead.

In either plot there has to be some sort of "Cinderella" scene where we learn how well they all scrub up.

The Princess Switch is a particularly impressive one because it pulls a twofer! It's a prince and the Pauper plot, so Vanessa Hudgens plays both a wealthy sheltered duchess, who falls for a single father, and a middle class career woman lying about her identity to a prince. It has the Cinderella scene, and it has the exotic location. Clearly then this manages to tick all the boxes!

Crossposts: https://luckykaa.livejournal.com/641760.html

Entry tags:

movies

Robin Hood (2018 version)

I really think that movies should have their own titles. At least Kevin Reynolds had the decency to put a "Prince of Thieves" subtitle on it. Anyway, this one is called Robin Hood, sharing the name with the 2010 version, the low budget British 1991 version, the Disney animated version, and two silent versions as well as the BBC TV series. And the other BBC TV series.
( Spoilers... )
The whole film felt like a video game. The production values were pretty crummy. The costumes were extremely modern, and often obviously machine stitched. The CGI backgrounds looked pretty fake. The action scenes were perfectly enjoyable, if ridiculous and implausible. Certainly a good one to watch for a bad movie night.

Crossposts: https://luckykaa.livejournal.com/629769.html

Entry tags:

movies

Blade Runner 2049 review (Spoiler free)

My butt feels so numb!

Crossposts: http://luckykaa.livejournal.com/621477.html

Entry tags:

brighton,
movies

Too much Sussex, too little time.

Three day weekend -

flickums and I thought let's visit Brighton!!!

Manchester is a little less convenient than Leicester or Sheffield (or even Brussels, really), since the Manchester service goes to Euston and that means either a walk to St Pancras or a tube ride to the cancelled Southern service. Still, the walk to St. Pancras is not too bad and it's signposted. We arrived. We were picked up by my lovely parents. We flumped.

Friday we went into Brighton, possibly a bit later than ideal, and trolled around the charity shops. Then to the pier where we had crepes. Tasty crepes! Wandered up the pier, and were a little tempted by the vintage photo place. Then got a call from friends and met up with them. Which was lovely, although that did mean we didn't have a lot of time to do more stuff on the pier. Had a quick zip around the North Laines, but had promised to return home in time for dinner with our hosts.

Plan was to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 on Sunday, but time was limited, and we had more Brighton stuff to do, so Flickums suggested we catch a late night showing. I was up for that. We did get back quite late, but sleep is for the weak!

Sunday was where we did the chunk of Brighton we didn't have time for. Started off at Kensingtons Balcony Cafe, where I had the pancakes and bacon with maple syrup, and, oddly, scrambled eggs. Flickums had a hefty meal of chips and egg and bacon.

Next stop was the Lego store. We got a bit carried away. I bought Flickums a princess Leia to go with her Artoo bag. She made me a Lego Neil. So I made a Lego Flickums. Then she bought me a Batgirl keyring. And a bagged Batman minifig (which turned out to be King Tut).

Made our way to the Pier. Went to the vintage photo place. Flickums was not a fan of being a pirate wench so I suggested she can be a pirate captain instead! Nice selection of photos. The place only accepted cash payment which felt a bit fly-by-night. We killed time waiting for the photos to be done, by visiting the "Horror Hotel" ghost train on the pier. It wasn't very scary. Spent the rest of the hour killing time. Felt the urge to visit Devil's Dyke just because, but had to stop short because we were taking parents out to dinner.

Pub/Restaurant was a bit rubbish. We arrived. We weren't shown to our table. It was in a different room. they'd run out of most of the menu items. Felt the attitude was a bit off and the lack of food was annoying, so we went to the other pub across the road. It was all a bit rough and ready but at least the lady at the bar showed us to our table. The food was very tasty. I had a roast beef. My mum had the roast beef. My dad had the roast beef. Flickums had the roast lamb, because she's a rebel who plays by her own rules.

Monday was our final day. Wanted to see Big Brother and his girlfriend and his kids. They came and caused chaos as they do. We then went to the fair. Flickums was a big fraidy-cat on the spinny thing, but did enjoy the dodgems. She won a Husky. I won a Rubik cube and a slinky for my niece.

We made our way to the station crammed into brother's car (it's a big car but the seat that isn't occupied by a car seat is a little small). Met up in London with

tictactoepony and

masterofapath and played a card game - "Knock Knock, where you have to host a Hallowe'en party and accept or reject guests. Masterofapath won considerably.

Caught the train. Collapsed at home. Nice to be back.

Entry tags:

movies

This Hokey Island.

Am I the only sci-fi fan that thinks This Island Earth is a load of rubbish?

It is the epitomy of 1950's B-movies (although I don't think it actually was a B-movie). It has the heroic scientist (Played by Rex Reason - even the actors have puply names!), preachy moments, a rubber monster attack, and some really bad physics. the end seems to be very rushed, with the protagonists not actually doing anything. It was impressive in 1955, but seems extremely dated.

The Day The Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet and even When Worlds Collide all managed to do better as serious sci-fi, with a more solid plot, a clearer message, and better special effects.

That said, I do think it is a must see, because it is one of the cult classics. It is quite frequently referenced in comedy, and everyone should know what an interesitor is. I do actually like it, but mainly for the hokiness of it.

flickums has never seen it. I feel she should. I could pick this. Since watching the Princess and The Frog, I have earned the right to insist on one cult sci-fi movie. I could go for this .

Now, there is an MST3K version, and I'm sure it's very funny, but it seems somehow wrong to start with that. It does chuck out 20 minutes of the movie. And it seems I'm the only nerd (Apart from MST3K's Mike Nelson) who seems to think it's a bit rubbish. It seems a little unfair on a highly regarded film to start with a cut down riffed version. And mainly that we lose a chunk of plot, from the bit that feels rushed! It should be up to Flickums to form her own opinion. But then I'm a bit reluctant to recommend a film that I think is hokey rubbish.

Entry tags:

movies

Movie catchup

I've seen a lot of films recently. I should really start logging them properly. Some mini reviews of movies I saw at the cinema this year:

Split: Best M Night Shyamalan movie since Unbreakable. They've been taking a strady downard trend in quality since the start. Surprising to see a good one. Although there is the usual attempt from Shyamalan to be "artistic" all the time. James McAvoy should be nominated for best actor, best supporting actor, and best supporting actress in this, purely because it would be hilarious.

Assassin's Creed: I always thought the premise of the game was a bit dumb. It doesn't make any more sense in this. What was fun was the parkour stuff, which the movie doesn't do very well. Found the whole thing boring and confusing.

Lego Batman: I think this was our Valentine movie! Hilarioulsy silly. It's very Lego movieish. It knows how silly every aspect of its premise is. Lots of fun. Needs to be rewatched with a finger on the pause control.

Kong: Skull Ilsand: Looked to be a film about a giant ape swatting helicopters. Turned out it was a film about a giant ape swatting helicopters! Although apparently I miussed the subtext where Kong is actually Donald Trump or something.

Logan: I liked this fulm. Flickums didn't. I thought it was a nice end to the X-Men series, and it's nice to do things a little different. Less action packed than any o fthe others, but still with plenty of action.

Power Rangers: Way better than I expected. This was a super-hero origin story, which - I may be mistaken - I don't think the series really had. More a case of "We need 5 teenager. You'll do!". A decent bunch of nods to the original. Rita Repulsa actually seemed like a vaguely challenging villain. Nice that they included an autistic kid. Some review apparently said it was played for laughs, which I really didn't see. Not all that sure he really had the mannerisms right, but maybe I'm being too stereotypical.

Now I really must think back and work out what our movie nights have included. There have been a lot of these.

Entry tags:

movies

The Devil Wears Prada

I seem to be the one in the relationship who likes "Chick Flicks". A lot of films are unfairly maligned by this label. I thought Mean girls was great, Clueless is hilarious. Last night's movie was The Devil Wears Prada. Not everyone's cup of tea but certainly one of my not-so-guilty pleasures.

Oddly, I only watched it because it was an in-flight movie option. When flying, I always go for the films that seem interesting but I probably wouldn't otherwise watch. A tiny screen is not how to get a full cinematic experience.

The part that hooked me, and pretty much every critic was the speech from Miranda (Meryl Streep) about how the fashion industry affects everything people wear. It's possibly a bit of an exaggeration, but there's a lot of tuth to it. The black jeans I'm wearing right made it to Next's product line because a few years ago someone decided black jeans are cool. Even the fact that I wear boxers was influenced by a Levis ad (probably more of an advertising decision than a fashion decision but it's all part of the fashion/publishing/popular-culture empire). Surprisingly, this was actually removed from an early draft. Meryl Streep insisted it was put back.

I have some issues with part of the message this seems to be pushing though. Essentially, Andy's friends are awful!
( Spoilery part )
I feel I'm being too critical. I enjoy the film. Meryl Streep is excellent, and I rather like Stanley Tucci. I just wanted Andy to ditch that loser boyfriend for good.

Entry tags:

movies

Nana nana nana nana Batman...

Saw Lego Batman last night. That was a silly movie!

Like most good kids' movies it works on a lot of levels. On one hand, there's some silly gags and jokes that will work if you haven't even heard of Batman. Mainly it's a good natured satire of Batman, with a pile of romantic comedy tropes thrown in for good measure.

But for the fans, there was a whole load of references and in-jokes. Unlike a lot of comedies, it doesn't labour on the references. In fact they fly past at an epic rate. So we get a bunch of lego adaptation of scenes from every live action Batman, shooting with about half a second between each. A whole laod of villains shot through in about the same time. Lots of shots in the batcave where we see a lot of mementoes and the like. No idea what they all were. To get all the references you'd need to watch again. Ideally in slow motion.

Definitely a good film for fans!

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It was my last

flickums weekend until December :(

But it was a fun weekend!

Started off well. Got to the station with plenty of time to catch my train. Manchester has many stations. This was the wrong one. And the next available train looked packed and uncomfortable. I decided I could afford to splash out the extra on a first class upgrade, and get the train that arrived 2 minutes later. Arrived at Chez Flickums, and collapsed in front of the 80's-tastic "The Worst Witch" - which has those wonderful 1980's kids TV production values (i.e. it looked cheap as well and used Chroma-key a lot). Also watched Sky Captain. Sort of. Flickums was plying me with wine and had some alcohol herself. Stuff happened. Angelina Jolie showed up and the plane turned into a submarine. Yeah. Wasn't really paying attention.

Saturday did a quick bit of car shopping. I wanted to see if the convertible mini appealed to me and to flickums, but I think it's a little too small and impractical. Bought ingredients and spent the rest of the day watching Police Squad. Until it was firework time!

Sheffield had its big After Dark display! We got there nice and early and had the opportunity to wander around and eat toffee apples and candyfloss and then we got a space right by the fence so we could see the bonfire being lit! Sadly, no guy. On the plus side, no crimes against geek (Leicester burned Darth Vader last year)! Really wish I'd brought gloves and a hat though. Flickums offered to buy me a tea to warm me up. I negotiated this to a hot chocolate. I suggested we go for the queue that appeared to be a place that specialised in drinks rather than the burger van that also did drinks.

I chose poorly.

Or well.

I'm not sure. We were stuck in the queue for the best part of an hour, listening to the overly perky radio people say a few things that were incomprehensible because there was an echo. On the other hand, they had additional flavour syrups and the gingerbread squirt was absolutely delicious.

Fireworks were fun and funky! Fireworks are always nice to watch.

Getting home was an adventure in itself. Logistics of this sort of thing are tricky. Everyone wants to leave at once but there are very few trams. But we got home eventually.

Sunday was a day of relaxation and pumpkin cooking. I feel pumpkins should not just be used as lanterns! So I roasted some and made pumpkin pie out of some more, while flick played Final Fantasy X. Not sure about the roast. pumpkin. I think it was a bit bland and flavourless. It seems more there as a means to soak up flavours.

Pie was a great success though. Pumpkin pie has nutmeg and cinnamon and allspice and sugar and eggs and cream, so tastes of nutmeg and cinnamon and allspice and sugar and eggs and cream. I don't think the pumpkin really contributes to the flavour but the final result is very nice!

Also watched WestWorld. One of the better serious 70's SciFi films. 70's sci fi has a tendency to take itself too seriously, be rather slow paced and talky, and end rather abruptly. Westword does end rather abruptly, but on the more positive side, it does allow for a few funny moments. It's a little slow paced but not as slow as something like the Andromeda Strain, and there's some good solid tension in the relentless pursuit which is emphasised by the absense of music and just the quiet.

Then it was time to go home. This made me sad. And while there was an attempted coup by the tram, to prevent me from leaving by not turning up, I did get to the train on time thanks to Flickums being highly organised and having a Taxi summoning device.

Another month to Flickums. *sigh* :(

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Another awesome Flickums weekend

Friday:

flickums came. We went to the pub and played cineplexity. Once again Flickums whuppedmy arse completely by knowing about films. Ordered nice beer, and tasty food. It's a bit of a hipster pub so the food is well presented but not as good as the solid hearty fare of the Metropolitan. Also trendy pubs have this weird thing where the pile the food up. We returned home and went for a spooky halowe'en weekend thing of watching Ghostwatch. Kind of an odd bit of TV history in that it seemed a little undecided about whether it was a hoax or a drama. It was quite clever in a lot of ways and while the acting was somewhat mixed, I can understand why some people were taking in. And as flickums pointed out it does predate things like Blair Witch.Much hilarity was had by repeated mention of a "Glory Hole".

Saturday:

Finally resolverd the Ikea Wardrobe saga. I will probably go into more details in a later post. However, managed to hire a van for 2 hours from Hertz 247. Marginally cheaper than a full day from Easirent, and they do cover fuel costs.Since I have no car this did involve the epic trip from one end of the tram network to the other, which takes a while. On the positive side, this did mean I could return the wrong wardrobe, and there was no quibble at all about a refund. Celebrated by eating meatballs, then took the epic tram journey home. Hertz Ikea Van rental is pretty good when it works but Hertz seems to have a slightly odd issue with believing I am who I say I am (They sorted it over the phone so no real issue). Everything beign automated does make things fairly efficient. Type in the code, check the damage report is correct, and then you're free to go. Wish they had reversing sensors though. Fortunately a chap with a flat cap saw us out.

Went up to Huddersfield to see Cat and Frodo. Train was a little packed but we got seats. And were really pleased to get out at Huddersfield since this is where all the football supporters got on. Was an offer to get a taxi back woth Frodo but that was a miscommunication somewhere along the lines about finishing times. Still, we had directions by taxi. Although the house was hard to find due to some rather odd numbering scheme. Still, we found the place. Cat and Frodo's daughter seemed to take a shine to me. Ordered Pizza, but they forgot Flickums's. Frodo ran an RPG for us. RPG was based on Fallout. We all died horribly! It was a lot of fun though. Involved much running around and avoiding being killed by gribbly monsters.

Sunday:

After a busy Saturday we just wanted to spend lots of time sleeping. That was fun. Eventually dragged ourselves out of bed an into Didsbury village where we acquired cheese fro baking, and then went to see Dr. Strange. Kind of enjoyed it. It's decent Marvel fare. Bongledooch is good, as ever, and there's plenty of action. So we saw that, went to the arcade and played lots of games invloving shooting. Apparently pirates had machine guns. Who'd have thought?

Returned home and watched Bram Stoker's Dracula. A film that I had a certain level of trepidation about; mainly because of Keanu Reeves playing Jonathan Harker. Actually it's not so terrible. Even though Keanu constantly looks like Ted "Theodore" Logan, and while - bless him - he tries to do a British accent it isn't exactly great, at least Jonathan Harker isn't actually all that significant a character after the Castle Dracula part. And it is a fairly faithful adaptation of the book (apart from the slightly odd reincarnation thing). Plus gorgeous costume (oscar winning) and set design (oscar nominated).

Sadly, as ever, I needed to send Flickums home at this point. But I get to see her again next weekend :)

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Another visit to Sheffield. It was a nice day, so we went to Haddon Hall, where parts of The Princess Bride was filmed.

We had a go at the "have a go" archery. I think I probably won on points.

flickums won on getting closest to the middle. Civic duty done, in case of outbreak of war with France, we went into the castle. It was a nice place. I think I'll buy it. The kitchen does require 400-500 years of modernisation, but the roaring log fireplace and extremly long narrow room were definite attractions.

After that we went to bakewell. We bought a tart.

I have never seen so many sweet shops in such close proximity. Also tea shops. Also a dog day out!

There was also some sort of event on. We saw morris dancers and there was a craft fayre, and bunting, and lots of people in costume.

We bought a bakewell tart. Still remains to be eaten! I was told it was better than Mr. Kipling's. Then the lady said she hopes I wasn't Mr. Kipling. I assured her I was from the noble house of Battenburg and therefore the sworn enemy of Kipling.

Movie watched:

Wargames; l because it's one of my favourites and it was a long time since Flick had seen it. It's very 80's but still a good film.

After Earth; Because flickums lost a bet. It really isn't a good film. It isn't even a particulatrly good bad film. It doesn't have the action that dumb films tend to have, or the ridiculousness that cash-ins tend to have. It's slow and a bit dull. It could actually have been an okay film. The idea that a kid has to go on a jounrney on his own across dangerous territory isn't an original plot idea but it's failry solid. The special effects are fine (set design was a little shoddy perhaps), and some of the scenery shots are really nice. But Shamalamadingdong insists on being artsy and isn't very good at it.

The Breakfast Club; Because I hadn't seen it. This follows Jennifer from Wargames, having gone a little nutty after almost causing World War 3. Okay. That's not the plot. It's about an 80's tastic bunch of kids stuck in detention, but it's better than it sounds.

And then there was Independence Day: Resurgence.

There's no way anyone will accuse Roland Emmerich of trying to be artsy. Or of lacking pace. And while the film is really pretty damn mindless and the premise is pretty daft, there's plenty of action. It was nice to see how the world has changed after almost being wiped out by alien invaders, and pretty cool that so many of the cast from the origial return (including Brent Spiner, and the guy who plays Jeff Goldblum's dad). I knew what to expect. I turned my damn brain off and just enjoyed it!

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Fun at the funfair

Another weekend of fun and frolics with

flickums.

Had spent the night at the parents'. So drove home at a snail's pace through traffic on the M25 and M1. Still, at least the Dartford crossing is less insane than it was. Arrived before flickums so couldp pick her up from the station, and we had the chance to eat pizza and watch X-Men: Days of Future Past.

We went to the fair on Saturday. Decided not to try the hang from a bar for 2 minutes challenge. Watched some other people do it. 2 minutes is a very long time! Had a go at a shooting range. I suspect corks are too light to knock a ring off a bottle. Went to a different shooting range and shot sweets off a shelf instead. Much more successful. Tried "The claaaw" to win a cuddly toy but it dropped the prize. Flick won me a prize though. It was a prize every time, and she won me a dragon.

We went on the dodgems. We went on the scary caterpillar roller coaster. One or the other of us may have been too wussy to go on the spinny thing.

We saw X-Men Apolcalypse. That was fun.

Sunday I ran my Spirit of The Century game. I really need to come up with more of a plot next time I run a game. And understand how the mechanics work. It was all a bit chaotic. Still, people had fun.

Flick had found Sky High in a charity shop so we watched that. It's a funny film. Not a must-see by any means but funny and doesn't take itself remotely seriously. Well worth the 99p.

Monday we went to Warhammer World. Flick seemed excited I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I was also a little uncertain if I was in the right place when we seemed to be heading through an industrial estate. It seems to be lots of Warhammer gaming tables and shops selling warhammer stuff. Also a nice restautrant/bar called Bugman's Bar. I had a lot of fun reading the descriptions in the menu. "A feast worthy of the Dwarf Kings of Old!". Was given a taster game with a staff member reffing for us. Fun although the set-up did seem highly luck based.

And then flickums had to go home. Which is something I really hate about this.

We need to live closer together :(

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Books, Games and Civil War

Left quite late.

flickums is apparently still under the delusion that I'm some sort of neat freak and wanted time to clean up. Then her train was cancelled. Then the train was loitering outside Sheffield forever. Ended up diverting to the station to pick her up, where I found the station at exactly the same time as flickums found me.

Saturday involved books. Part 1 was a trip to Sheffield Space Centre. I picked up yet another RPG book for a game that I'll never get round to running. It does involve skyships and swashbuckling though, and flickums hard sold me into buying it. Flick picked up the War Of The Worlds rulebook she was musing over for the past month or so. Then there was a book swap. This meant ditching some of my surplus books and acquiring a similar number of other books. There was a very large pile of books left afterwards. Also there was cake.

Finished the evening by going to see Captain America: Civil War. Started off as aprt of Team Cap. Felt that Tony was actually being the more measured, reasonable one this time. Disappointed by the lack of Peggy Carters.

Sunday we played Lego Indy then went to the pub for Sunday lunch.Then it was time for another Bad Movie Night. Flickums keeps vetoing my suggestions on the grounds that they're terrible. I still can't understand her logic. So, we saw The A-Team and Team America (thus combining into the ultimate jingoistic film, "The A-Team America"). The A-Team is a ridiculous film. Diverges from the original in that people actually get shot!

Monday was Bank Holiday, and involved playing board games. Finally unboxed Concept. Had a go at Wizard Of Oz Munchkin. Sadly there were three of us. It's a 4 player game. It ends too quickly with 3 players and never ends with 5 or more. Followed up with "Hey! That's my fish", which is a nice simple strategy game; then a game of Eight Minute Empire: Legends, which was enjoyable although not really the sort of game I really go for.

Finished up with Roast beef and Bride of Chaotica - one of the best Voyager episodes, or at least something that should appeal to a fan of classic Black and White sci-fi serials. Kate Mulgrew really seemed to be loving this one.

As ever, the weekend came to an end. Why must that always happen!?

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movies

Easter movie weekend

Visited

flickums for the long long weekend. Holly the evil satnav tried her best to get me stuck in traffic but I arrived there eventually. We spent most of the weekend watching movies. Many of them bad, most deliberatley chosen for that reason.

Thursday:

The Fifth Element: I love this film! So quotable. So gorgeous. So funny. Soi much action! Mila Jovovich with orange hair, kicking ass!

Friday:

Zootropolis. Disney's latest. So we have a rabbit voiced by Snow White from OUAT, who is the first rabbit ever to graduate from Police Academy. Despite finishing top of her class she gets put on traffic duty. She insists on being put on the missing animals case, and gets given 48 hours to solve it. She finds a con artist fox that she previously encountered ight have information and sets off to solve the case. This was really good. The jokes were perhaps a little predictable, and the plot was not that original - 48 hours combined with a couple of other buddy cop movies - but the main character was adorable. ("Ooh, ah, you probably didn't know, but a bunny can call another bunny 'cute', but when other animals do it, that's a little..."), but the animal society was really nicely thought out and the voice acting talent was great.

Star Trek Tribbles: Double tribbles. Trouble With Tribbles is still funny but it's a little heavy handed with the humour. Fortunately Kirk is po-faced enough that he does make a good straight man. DS9's followup "Trials and Tribbleations" is a lot more subtle with the humour, and throws in a lot of fan service, taking advantage of Dax having been around back then. We finally learn who it was throwning the tribbles at kirk.

Saturday:

Supernatural. Two episodes. Both silly ones. One about a lucky rabbit's foot, the other about a wishing well. Poor Ted Raimi. His characters can never catch a break. I felt sorry of the teddy bear with existential angst.

Bad Movie Marathon

Started with Flash Gordon. It's daft and campy and almost too self-aware to quite qualify as a bad movie. The special effects may be crappy but the actual creativity in the design is fantastic!

Followed up with The Three Musketeers. Pretty certain Dumas didn't have fleets of airships in the original story. Although several of the plot elements are, surprisingly, fairly accurate to the source material. Still convinced that Miulady De Winter should be a cat, though.

Finally, Masters Of The Universe! A terrible film, amusingly starring Tom Paris and Monica from Friends. I seem to have offended a few people by saying how bad it is. But it has nothing to do with the series! No Prince Adam, no Orko, the characters do not look similar to their cartoon counterparts. Change the character and place names, and nobody would realise it was based on the toy range.

Sunday:

Did role playing in the afternoon. Then followed up with an episode of MST3K. We went for "Time Chasers". A 1994 movie, made in 1990, that looks like it was made in 1982. It's about the world's most unattractive leading man, who builds a time machine in his plane, using a commodore 64 (which seems to be PC compatible). He tricks a blonde reporter and a representative of the evil company to come along so he can show off his technology and get funding (because self funding time travel is, apparently, difficult). He takes them to the future, then the reporter falls for him so they go back in time, to check out the 1950's, then go into the future again where it's turned into a dystopia. MST3K clearly cut a chunk out of this section because it's not all that well explained (and to be fair to the film the plot is at least mostly coherent). So they try to convince the head of Evil Company™. to not destroy the future. Evil Boss refuses and tries to have them arrested. Ugly Time Travel geek runs heroically escapes from cosmically inept security.

Ugly computer nerd and blonde reporter go back in time to try to convince himself not to give the demonstration in the first place. Evil Boss armed with a copy of the software, takes off after Ugly computer nerd, and shoots him down. And to be honest this part of the film isn't so bad. Anyway, after some running around the recent past, they escape back to the American revolution where they have a final showdown.

Forbidden Planet: An impressive film for its day. A lot of it still stands up pretty well. Special effects look a little dated, but not all that bad. The animated monster (animated by Disney Animator Joshua Medeor) still looks fantastic. Everyone loves Robbie The Robot. And, like Flash Gordon, you really get a feel that this is an alien world. Something that Star Wars never quite managed.

Monday:

Batman V Superman. Meh. I don't hate it. I can see that there was a definite effort here to make something worthy and thoughtful. The problem is I found it dull. I couldn't really work out what the film was really about except for a bunch of vague excuses to have Batman and Superman in conflict. The film is too grim even for my tastes. There's no levity and not a lot of character development. Lots of plot threads that don't really get a good payoff, and a feel that Snyder wants to turn Superman into the X-Men.