Suffocate Peon

Sean has a good jaw line but he ruins it with the whole i'm gonna rob your house when you're on holiday but get the date wrong and realise you're in then escape out of the bathroom window and hot wire a car to escape look.

The Accountant spoiillers lol I put this on and my dad, who'd seen it before, was watching something else on his tablet on the sofa, and he noticed I kept on winding the film back, and became aggravated or actually genuinely pissed off at my perceived criticism of the film's confused way of telling its story. Like, the the main character, the accountant splits his work up with ordinary work and criminal work, and he has a mysterious woman on the phone who he hires to find jobs for him and act as his all round aid, so when she phones him up the first time and targets a job that's presented in a thriller-ish way, you expect it to be a criminal job and not an ordinary job, and really I'm still confused at what they were trying to do there. As a reviewer said on a podcast, why doesn't he just do legit work for good causes? He's pretty modest with his money (except the armoury of weapons, but then he only needs them for the dangerous stuff), and seems simple enough to earn enough through the pure accountancy challenges, nor does he have a family to support and doesn't appear to be saving up money for a holiday to Disneyland. Like, the film completely fails to make sense of his need to do dangerous criminal work besides that his dad toughened him up as as kid and he befriended an ageing veteran criminal in prison who showed him the ropes, both funny clichés it decides not to avoid. Still early on, it jumps around a bit, from character to character, and then suddenly we go all the way to Switzerland, so you think; wow, this is an international thriller, this accountant is hired by criminals and has just targeted a scientist specializing in robotic arms, who is a pretty big deal, on the front of magazines big, how does this next bit play into things? So Switzerland, to a car park, you're shown a man briefly appear like he can't find his car, then he's like; 'goddammit there it is'. Was his car moved or did he just forget where he parked it? He opens the passenger door and climbs over to the driving seat, I assume because the car is so closely parked to a wall that he can't open the driver door. A second later another man opens the passenger door and climbs inside. 'What the fuck do you think you're doing? Do you know who I am?' says the first man. If this happened to me I'd probably be scared, but I'm not a millionaire CEO of a company who it's revealed this guy is, and it's just an odd thing to say. If it's just a random criminal who is trying his luck then he wouldn't know of the power of this man. But if it's a skilled criminal who picked him out then it was obviously intentional, so..er, yeah they know who you are, that's the point. CEO man says something about the criminal's employer must know his kidnap insurance and then the criminal reveals himself to be a hitman, a man hired to give a message, apply pressure, and be threatening with it. Two new characters introduced, new information about the dodgy, morally dubious practices of man 1, as hitman punches him a few times. The point of the scene, as you wouldn't know, is to set up the hitman as a major recurring character, sort of like Bourne when you had the hitman played by Karl Urban. The information is irrelevant, the CEO guy being threatened is irrelevant, so it's purely a stand alone, self contained scene, that's used to show the personality of the hitman, and the kind of work he does. Perhaps, in retrospect, me knowing this now like the writers knew it then, it could have been different, like you show the hitman first, and you cast in shadow the threatened guy. Like in Splinter Cell the game, from...2002? Where you're in a car park and a guy takes a leak in a corner and you sneak up and grab hold of him and Michael Ironside says some stuff in a cool way, and you feel awesome. Or like in Leon, where he takes put all those guys out in the beginning, like a ninja, because besides it being cool and cinematic if you're delivering a threat you've got to be frightening, show you're to be taken seriously. And besides it being more frightening to be holed up in a room with a gun, heavily breathing and you feel the cold metal of a knife press against your throat, the hitman invisible to you, it's also beneficial living a quiet life in New York not to reveal to gangsters and rich powerful people your identity. So, here's how that scene should have played out; establish the hitman is important, but give him mystery by not revealing his exact features. Make sure he's the focus, not the guy being threatened, make sure the detail he provides is as irrelevant as it turns out to be. Would a hitman even sit next to a guy in a car and then plant his gun down? The guy is a CEO, he might have spent years training in ju jutsu, in his free time. Reveal your face? Maybe the CEO doesn't like being threatened, maybe he sends out a hit on you. All you get from the scene is that the hitman is played by a fairly well known actor and as such might be important, and that he's cocky and knows how to karate chop someone in the throat. Ultimately though, you don't come away thinking he's frighteningly sharp and tough, so if he has more scenes where he inevitability comes up against Affleck, then it's not an exciting proposition. Despite all this, as Mark Kermode says, it's a mess but an enjoyable mess. It just completely fails to wring out as much from its attempts at suspense, and excitement as it could. But the film is nowhere near as boring as this review, or as badly written, that you can be sure of.

Assassin's Creed Saw this the other day, got in ten minutes after it was scheduled to start, where there was just a black screen and about 20 people in their seats just...waiting. We waited a few minutes, before my brother went to ask for it to start, and it did with no trailers, adverts, this film is rated etc, it was quite nice actually to not be fatigued with stuff before you get to the feature. But it didn't fill the screen, it was windowboxed, which is more offputting than I would have thought, and then I sat, distracted -can it be switched, this was on the biggest screen usually used for 3D- thinking when would be the best moment to ask for it to be fixed, so I went just as new characters were being established, then struggled to understand who key characters are. But I got the gist of the film ! I was just a bit pissed I couldn't get into it fully. I think Mark Kermode makes out that fans of the game are critical of how the modern day stuff is presented in terms of the metal arm that hoists him up, but I think the issue is more that you get the impression from the trailers that most of the film will take place in 15th century Spain, but it's more like maybe 20% of the film takes place there (or feels like it), and it's the way it's horribly and jarringly done, so you're always taken back to Fassbender in his metal arm when you just want to be immersed for just a few minutes in this genuinely beautifully shot world. Fassbender is sliding down tiles, cut back, doing a wall jump, cut back, leaping down a hole, cut back, climbing up a scaffolding, cut back, it's like if you thought Paul Greengrass' hyperactive camera work and editing was bad then this is like the next step. The pattern follows so instead of being involved in the suspense, the action, you're half there, half waiting to be pulled away. That's the frustration, and with the choppy editing it just reduces those assassin scenes into being secondary, and I don't think you have to be a fan of the game (I'm not, I only played the second one for a few hours so I'm not invested in the games) to be disappointed at how they approached it. It's deliberate, I know, they want to remind you you're not really there, but ultimately watching an assassin in 15th century Spain is more appealing and is its unique selling point, and you can re enforce it with other scenes, but I think they got the balance badly wrong here. It's weird when a film keeps pulling back to Fassbender simulating actions as though it needs them to sell the 15th century action, as opposed to a necessary element they needed to sell the credibility of the whole concept. What could have been a cool visually stimulating filmic flourish becomes ruinous. I think it would have been more effective allowing the assassin parts play out for chunks and then just as you forget, pull it back in the most interesting way. So every 10 minutes, rather than 10 seconds. I can see why it got a kicking from critics, the mixture of a far fetched story that can be reduced to getting hold of an item which will do such a thing, coupled with how serious it takes itself. It flies through its running time, but it tries so hard to be dramatic based on what you're told rather than what actually occurs during the film. It's really stunning visually though, throughout, but I think you've got to be really into the modern day setting to forgive that it's undermining its potential to be uniquely thrilling. I need to give it another watch with subs. Probably a 4/10, meaning a 'disappointment'. There's got to be a difference between expecting something to be what it didn't choose to be, and being disappointed it didn't fulfill the brilliant aspects it had in its grasp.

Love that second one, Larry, it's pretty seamless and works in ways i can't explain. new character design Colour tests, pretty conservative considering the stuff in here, but...the red scrawl, I'm trying

David Brent: Life on the Road This was agonizing to watch, it's basically 90 minutes of Brent being embarrassing and pathetic while everyone around him looks on with horror, interspersed with interviews of those people saying how much they hate him. The Office had the same dynamic, but I don't remember anyone openly saying they hate him, I think it was more subtle and had more balance. This was just nasty and unrealistic anyone would sink to such depths of insecurity that Brent does. I never liked The Office originally because I found Brent too obvious, but rewatched it a few months ago and really appreciated mostly everything else about it. Brent has always had a crutch to fall back on, a person who is either as annoying as he is or someone so harmless they feel no hate, and here it's a similarly try hard funny guy in the office and the chilled out rapper he's funding, who take Brent's offensive language in his stride. Mostly.. Also in The Office, Brent talks to an interviewer, but essentially to camera, which is his moment to philosophize, but allows you to enjoy his deluded arrogance without the hatred from others piling on. It frames the show as he sees the world/himself, which informs what he does. I mainly found the other character moments funnier in The Office. There is funny stuff in here, but I couldn't laugh, it just needed balance, maybe when he's around his band he isn't always embarrassing, and he can get on with them like a normal person 50% of the time rather than 0% and there's another way humour can be found without always going for the extreme angle. It's the same thing in every scene, there's no laughs without surprises...5/10 Mad Max: Fury Road I was nervous, who wouldn't be? Going to my first MMFRA meeting. What if I was the only one there? What if it was just a setup and a pummelling awaited me rather than solidarity? Ear pressed to the door, maybe it wasn't too late to go back, maybe re-watch the thing again. I knock, quietly, hesitantly. My feet paralysed by fear. The door swings open. 'Come in'. I think to survey the room, but there's no need, it's packed. Not packed with thugs wielding bars, but people of all ages and shapes, and within the diversity was a similar anxious-ridden expression, pulverized by shame and regret, ostracized by their peers. Oh the sense of relief. The best case scenario I thought would be another lost soul to connect with. We'd hug and hold each other tightly like we were the last remaining humans in existence, feeling no need to share our criticisms, this would transcend that, an acceptance amplified by the silence of solidarity, and then we'd leave refreshed and possibly changed. 'You're a bit late and we've already spent 9 hours hearing everyone elses stories, but there's always space for another voice'. Emboldened, I skipped to the last remaining seat available, I think without my feet touching the floor. I paused, basking in this moment which felt mine...and, channelling my inner Ethan Hawke, my left foot followed my right on to the chair, towering above everyone. I turned and felt no embarrassment, and I just said it, no, announced with pride: 'I did not love Mad Max: Fury Road'. Fuck off, I said 'did not love'. Tunnel Often when I watch a Korean film I realise it isn't doing anything different but massively enjoy it anyway and then check out online opinions from film watchers on various film review sites, where the harshest critique will be that it's a sub standard by the numbers genre film, 5/10. For me, and I've said this so many times I ought to copy and paste it to save time, Korean genre films are superb even when they're samey. They're manipulative but feel like they earn the emotional drama, they're stuck firmly in their genre but do it with real class and care, and thoroughly. Tunnel covers so much and throws up dilemmas every 10 minutes that for a film that could have felt claustrophobic and stifling, it knows when to employ a bit of humour and look at the collapse from another angle. It's not even really a saturated genre for me, I know there's been a number of these but I've only seen Daylight with Sylvester Stallone, which is good as trashy later night viewing but that's about it. Korea genre films quality isn't in the writing in terms of the dialogue, or colourful characters, its in the execution of how they construct a thriller, they're experts at it. They take the spectacle of Hollywood and feel good manipulation if need be, and establish this is a genre film meant for entertainment then do it with so much heart, sincerity, emotion. They bridge the gap of serious art-house drama and flimsy Hollywood throwaway trash. There are moments in Tunnel which don't make sense, such as reports coming out on the news which are fun to see as they shape the narrative but you have to wonder about the trapped character explaining away all the little incidents he encounters which allows the reporters to seemingly know so much. The film wants you to overlook the way it wants to streamline the experience and I did. In something like Buried, you'd hear ever word spoken, but this wants to cover different angles with speed and clarity, and not get bogged down. I understand people not taking to Korean thrillers, but I'll never stop singing their praises when they're as enjoyable as this. 9/10 my film of the year.../easily pleased Valley Uprising Very enjoyable history of Yosemite and rock climbing's ascent (sorry) into the increasingly popular extreme sport that it is today (where it's being considered as an Olympic event for Tokyo 2020). I know little of rock climbing so I hope it's accurate, and the rivalry (always a rivalry) as depicted was between two contrasting personalities and not several, with individuals conveniently left out. Not that it'd alter my fondness for it, I love its presentation through footage, photographs and narrated by the climbers interviews. It's seamless and rips through the decades with ease. Perhaps a 9 rating is too high, but I think anyone would enjoy this. It covers the culture of the 50s, 60s and 70s without getting bogged down and covers the change in attitude of the park wardens on patrol, which make for accessories in exciting GTA-style escapes. Maybe at the start of the film some people are thinking that spending every waking hour climbing in death defying climbs is a bit crazy, but by the end it's the park patrol guys who appear mad and divorced from reality. I love how it transitions too. I knew of Alex Honnold and was hoping for some of him in this, and wasn't disappointed. The way it covers the earlier forms which was more like engineering complex ways to scale a wall to pure climbing unaided to the same climbs that took years, weeks to do now being completed solo free in hours was very satisfying. The image of Alex Honnold meticulously manoeuvering up a vertical rock face 2500 feet up is still astounding to me after weeks of looking at his videos, and the way it's juxtaposed here with the earlier climbing makes it even more impressive, when it hits there's a moment coupled with an interview that's so hard to watch. You actually hear the struggle which with Honnold you never do, and the way he expertly and perfectly performs an action to move his body weight over is remarkable. It's like watching the impossible, like an illusion. 9/10 Imperium Reading the IMDb message boards of this after it ended, they're impenetrable, positing that the film is 'anti white'. I've never really understood it when people insinuate a film carries a message as based on simply what occurs in the film, in terms of the characters in the world. Like, people pulling back and suggesting that a director is racist because his films only feature white people. Or a director is a misogynist because his film features violence on women. Brian De Palma was accused of this.. Daniel Radcliffe can't slip into a role, he just stands out, and not in that star presence way, but the Keira Knightley incapable of coming across as human way. They're not even too pretty, because they both look odd, but can't help but seem so unconvincing and like her in Domino and him in this, a kind of grittiness is required. They're incapable of it, and he tries, he looks good with a skinhead. The digital cinematography really doesn't help, it's so soft and bland. This film wants to tell a story and thinks that is enough, when the very best films dealing with a subject will look to be far more powerful and extraordinary in their depiction. Imperium, it can and will be argued is scary in other ways, like the normalisation of white supremacy in middle class suburbia, that it's not confined to the underground. But it's the director's job to be striking. Romper Stomper allows you to live among neo Nazis and couldn't feel more real. It mostly rejects being clichéd or didactic with its dialogue, it's fluid and has so much more integrity, you don't for one second think you're watching actors in a production, it's grimy and horrible throughout. Imperium completely lacks the visual power to be effective. So it tells its story and comes out on the other side with a message, all neatly tied up in the end. None of it is remotely remarkable or memorable. But it flies by and is passable enough. 6/10

Star Wars Rogue One long rambling thoughts

Watched I Am A Hero, another Asian zombie film from this year. Based on a manga I know nothing about, so can't compare and say the usual 'nowhere near as weird, they've excluded all the interesting stuff!' I probably preferred it to Train To Busan because my expectations were lower and it doesn't look impressive when you skip through it. It's got a better script, and feels like it could go anywhere even if it essentially follows the same path as every other zombie film. It doesn't take itself seriously at all, it has a laid back televisual style which gives it a charm but works against it being truly engaging. It's in the mould of Zombieland but also plays out like an ordinary episode of The Walking Dead. Like Zombieland it finds humour in the different types of zombies, so you've got the ordinary ones like the office worker waiting for the train or the consumer trying to walk into a clothes shop, but also a high jumper athlete. It feels like a videogame at times. He's like a Dead Rising boss. The cinematography is so bland and soft and the use of CGI in parts so awful, but it's impressive in other ways, the way the zombies move, the brilliant gore, (it's very gory), or the -what feels like-long takes of the lead character as he makes his way out into the streets, surrounded by chaos, which are scenes I never get bored of in any disaster film. I think some might find it underwhelming or unsatisfying, it seems like the director and cinematographer are treating it as another episode in a TV show while the effects crew are doing very cool things. It humbly ambles along in its light PG-13 kind of way, then might do something gruesome and vicious that barely registers. Just looked, and it's from the director of Gantz and the cinematographer has done nothing except as a camera operator on a few things. The other manga adaptations I've seen like Parasite and Attack On Titan take themselves so seriously, all dark and moody and quite dull. Especially in Parasite's case I thought; this looks pretty and cool, but could you be more fun too. There are funny ideas in I Am A Hero but maybe not the execution or balance of tone. It's enjoyable enough.

Did this ever come up here? There was a story revolving around this: Basically, his account has been taken down now, but a guy discovered something hidden in this part of the track that no one knew about except Goodall for 20 years, who confirmed it via twitter. The guy put up a bass version to make it more clear, once you hear it you can't unhear it. Can anyone notice what is it is?

I remember watching Zodiac a few years ago and being bowled over by how perfect it was, i don't think Fincher has been or ever will be as inventive as he was with Fight Club, but i really respond to police procedural serial killer mysteries, Memories of Murder (Fincher was inspired by it) amazed me too in how it builds and builds, year after year, through a decade or longer. I guess it's like a tv show, but you get that exhausting 3 hour experience. I love the scenes where it took advantage of you not knowing who was the killer, so much tension and dread. One of the few films I've watched in the last few years I had to give a ten, i think it's a masterpiece, and I hate that word, and its use, especially when applied to Kanye West albums, so i won't say it. I think it's perfect though.

Love & Peace, new Sion Sono film. It's probably more fun to try to describe this film than watch it, there isn't really a story, just happenings linked together, that's stretched out past the point of boredom. Lots of gurning from the lead character, Sion Sono's films are expressive, people don't act like functioning adults, so while they can stretch out scenes they can also be mesmerizing at the same time. I didn't feel the joy of it though, the songs are pretty terrible, and it needed to be squashed down, overly long films don't fit with his punkish youth, of the 2 minute punk track, of his poems, it's not raw and amateurish, it's slick and mainstream.

There's maybe a tolerable short film in there, I watched it while browsing the internet, my new worst habit, but that didn't mean i couldn't engage, it was nice as background then became annoying. The 1989 cartoon is 88 minutes, this is 117 minutes. I didn't think he'd make something after War Horse which I disliked more, but that film was more watchable despite its Hovis advert aesthetic. I don't think kids will find BFG enchanting, it's never funny or interesting beyond the opening. I'd think they'd get restless. Hunt For The Wilder people This is wonderful, within 20 seconds -as it basically begins as Housebound does- I was sold on the film, and like that film it wrings as much comedy from every character that pops up. I wouldn't know what defines New Zealand comedy, but the depiction of the police or child protection services in these two films i find so effortlessly funny. Always this clash of personalities, of those too intense, and those too blasé, of those who talk too much, and those too cool to talk. 8...probably my film is of the year so far. I haven't watched anything dramatic or much foreign stuff yet (always just stick to what's easy unfortunately). Of all that I've seen, i'm not fond of this year. Supersonic Thought I'd watch this, I'd seen Amy and Montage of Heck recently, about a woman and a man (respectively) and thought I'd give this a go about two men who were brothers and sang songs. 'Oasis' had completely passed me by, I have no idea how, I guess I was too immersed in videogames in the 90s and my parents had banned Top Of The Pops in the house? I dunno. You get a real insight into how stupid they are when they're being filmed dossing around trying to one-up eone another, the brothers equally envious of eachother. He can write but I can sing but I've lost my voice and he's started to sing I'm going to find a pen and some paper and start scribbling away or else I'm stood there with a tambourine. Of course I'd heard of Oasis. They were the biggest band in the solar system in the summer of 96. I just thought I'd try to pretend to not know of them, give it my all, live it large, live for the day. I did know of them and always found them dirge. You listen to Live Forever and do think; great song! You listern to Wonderwall and think; great song! And so on. Great in an anthemic sense, but still ...dirge. Same mid tempo dirge, anonymous drumming, anonymous guitars, anonymous bass, bland empty lyrics and overrated vocals. There's something there despite all that. I didn't connect with Oasis, no one ever told me not to look back in anger. I've never smoked. I went to Maine Road football ground once, but support Man United. Erm. I have two brothers. I grew up in Manchester. We fought over how could you delete my Perfect Dark save file? The modern day Noel is funny, probably the best interviewee out there. The footage in this film is insane how it provides video for nearly every bit of narration. It's all very seamless, with drawings and newspaper cut outs filling in the gaps, this is the standard for the music documentary now, allows you to be fully immersed in their world at the time, so you never pull away and see them as they are now...mostly the same, but less pale. When Noel talks about phoning home to ask about Liam being in a band and there's the, or a moment captured where Noel's brother is like; 'mam! Noel is on the phone'....with some footage of Noel talking on the other end, that's one of cinema's highlights this year. It is good, I just don't get Oasis. 7 tho !

In the UK we feel like you've one-upped us in the embarrassment stakes, we voted for brexit and no one has any idea what they are doing, then you voted Trump and re-directed the world's laughter towards yourselves. We view America as kind of like that George Carlin quote: 'When you're born into this world, you're given a ticket to the freak show. If you're born in America you get a front row seat.' Another thing is how broken the system is whereby in the UK we're going head first into a decision that the country collectively doesn't want, while those who voted out did so out of protest based on gut feeling and vague reasons, and similarly watching Trump look like a little lost boy sat next to Obama his manner has the look of someone way out of his depth and knows it and didn't want it. It's like democracy is so broken it's like a large ship that the entire population is on, and we can't ever stop and re evaluate what we want as a society, the ship's direction is already set, and can't be altered, because there was a vote and that's that. Captain I see an ice berg ahead.. People here in the UK are so opposed to a second referendum because DEMOCRACY, even if everyone made their decision based on lies and misinformation because it's extremely complex and the people can't decide this. 'You can't have a second referendum because ..riots !' Good, we need to just stop, for a bit, and actually fix all the broken elements that combine to make these things happen. The two big things being the media that prints lies, and the voting system that essentially only allows two choices, where you pick the least worst. Both countries should have general strikes where everyone demands certain laws to be passed based on those two mentioned things. But of course we can't come together and demand these things because we're all so divided, because the media is so successful at directing your anger away from the corporations -siphoning off billions into tax havens- and towards the 'other' whose crime is to simply exist and take from a seemingly decreasing pot of resources (in the UK immigrants actually contribute £2 billion a year)...the media owned by the elites, sat above us all laughing their heads off. So everyone gets angry but the cycle continues. They'll be progress, but it'll be so slow as to simply disenfranchise the people who can't be fucked waiting forever for little change. Large strike action is the only hope I have, everything else is crumbs. Leonard Cohen has just passed away and his track Everybody Knows said it too long ago; we all know it, and they'll be no change unless it's forced. As Carlin also said about choice:

Hah, they're just rambling thoughts over the last year for my letterboxd. I usually check this thread for any reviews of films I've recently seen, always those opinions before professional reviews. So that's its purpose, offering thoughts on a film someone might be keen to read another viewpoint on, now or in the future. Just because they're long reviews doesn't mean I think they're any good ! My account is going to be suspended through inactivity and not donating, so i thought i might as well put up the lot. Like; noooo, I'm not inactive, it's just not really possible to be really frequent on multiple forums ! I'm disillusioned with electronic music and, living in England, I've spent more time on a British forum that focusses more on all the UK politics around the EU referendum, and before that the general election.

Some digital collages using/re-using/cutting up those above character designs

Hellavator I don't recall downloading this film, I don't know how it ended up in my film folder, I can only surmise that I rapid torrented it along with others and furthermore I don't know why I picked it out of the hundreds of other films I could have watched. That's my review; I don't recall, I don't know how, I don't know why. It's a sci fi that starts off in a tunnel, and then moves to an elevator, which stops off at each floor, an attendant describes how 'this is the community' for something or other, more people step into the film every few minutes and it kind of has this whizzing camera work that tries to represent its characters as strange and offbeat. It feels very 90s, rather than a product of 2004, it has Jean-Pierre Jeunet-inspired green and yellow cinematography and the sensibility of an MTV music video, it's cyberpunk and trashy and I loved all that about it. I was mesmerized by it but also quite bored, the more it drags scenes out though the more I was lured in by its charms. It's initially hard to engage with because it doesn't care to lead you in, establishing its protagonist. Something happens and it's not hard to know what, but I was thinking it might just go through every floor of whatever place this is, introducing as many weird characters as it could imagine, building the world as it does, and that I'd be fine with that. I loved its direction and style, can't overstate that enough. 7/10 The Nice Guys Really liked it, kind of wish I didn't watch the trailer last December, I was waiting for so long for a certain moment to happen I was wondering if it had been cut. I was waiting and waiting, actually. I loved the dialogue and chemistry between Gosling and Crowe, how Crowe's violent treatment of Gosling's character (i don't recall any name from this film except Amelia..) and subsequent pleading for help leads to Gosling being short and snappy with Crowe for the duration of the film. Ryan Gosling is such a fantastic actor. His physical comedy is so well timed and performed, the way he screams in a high pitched squeal is really funny, and shows a kind comic range; searching for ways to use his voice to be funnier. Crowe doesn't bring nearly as much in comparison, he's pretty muted really and allows the hysteria of others to bring the humour. And I'm not sure how they do it but only Ryan Gosling and Tom Hardy [for me] have this ability to elevate a scene with the way they approach it, the way they deliver lines, their timing, their movement. There are other great actors but there's always that sense they're going through the motions, as easy as they find acting, doing their thing as they always do. Gosling and Hardy make any film they're in so much more watchable, they inject their performances with what seems like improvisation and an unpredictability, each scene they're in feels like their first take of their first film, ie, their style and approach is always fresh. They don't settle into the landscape of the film, they stand out, just give off a different energy. Read/heard some criticisms about the casting not suiting the characters or the film, like if Robert Downey Jr had been in the Gosling role it would have worked more because he can pull of self loathing better, but it's not like Gosling can't do it either. I find Downey Jr insufferable and obnoxious and it wouldn't allow this film to be different to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Gosling and Crowe are this film to me. I'd love a sequel, and I'll try to avoid the trailer next time. 8/10 Now You See Me 2 Annoying nonsense, and I liked the first one. But enjoyable enough, and nearly worth an extra star for an amazingly audacious scene involving the group attempting to hide a single card while being frisked. They're flicking it from their palm to the back of their hand, sliding it down their jacket, throwing it across the room while another of them is somehow able to catch it, all the while not one of the 8 or so guards and suspicious boss spot anything. It uses its stupidity to its advantage, it's best not taking any of it seriously, because as soon as you do, it all gets flipped around anyway. There's about a dozen twists and reversals in this film, it's not worth becoming too engaged with the reality you're being sold because its all a ruse, it uses the tricks of magic to do anything implausible that it likes without making any sense. You'll have a meltdown trying to unravel this film. I did find it witty in places, Woody Harrelson's character has a mischievous twin who turns up with poodle hair. It sets that tone, we're going to do this because it's fun. 5/10 Money Monster I thought Josie Foster's previous film The Beaver was offensively awful, my hate towards it extending to those who even just tolerated and found it okay, and whose judgement I'll always call onto question if they rated it the same as more credible film/anything I patently have affection for. It took an unusual idea and went sentimental rather than weird, which doesn't sound so offensive when put like that, but it was, I'll just need to endure it again to remind myself of it to properly do its terribleness justice, the banality of its execution jaw dropping at the time. Money Monster is the kind of thriller I like, but it needed to do a lot more for the doubts surrounding 'this is the director who put her name to The Beaver' to subside. Phonebooth for instance I thought was fantastically directed, that the director also gave the world Batman & Robin didn't matter when he made such simple scenes as a man clinging on to a public pay phone like his life depended on it with mounting pressure outside for him to give way, a prostitue, her pimp being well cast and directed, the scenes convincing, the threat real. I enjoyed Money Monster but I think it shows the limitations of actors who sometimes direct. They copy the set modern thriller style and it's fun but not particularly tense, a lack of an individual boldness that sets their film apart from the average. Phonebooth didn't end well, and a great director might not have been able to make something great out of Money Monster's story, unless they were able to bring it up a level. Foster has gone for something light and lean. It's maybe better than but essentially on par tonally with stuff like Man on a Ledge and Now You See Me. There's plenty of articles and interviews in the Guardian suggesting than there's a lack of actors emerging from working class backgrounds as there were in the 70s and 80s, theyre unable to finance their passion enough to finally make it, those who do generally having connections and rich parents. The middle class/posh British actors still give their all in every role, and some like Juno Temple are always quirky and watchable, her timing and delivery can light up an ordinary scene and a flagging film. Rebecca Hall too is always great, but there's something missing that no amount of extreme concentration and intense delivery can provide. She says lines like she means them, but in Money Monster Jack O'Connell says lines like he's lived them. It's so jarring in the best possible way to see him crowbar his way into a film of such big Hollywood stars and deliver reality like his character is meant to, it's perfect casting. George Clooney can deliver lines the right way, as can Julia Roberts, with intent, dedication, warmth, subtley, but never with the natural convincing rage as Jack O'Connell's character. It is intended for his character to represent harsh reality and Clooney's and Roberts' to represent the privileged and out of touch, but as a whole it contributes to films increasing unreality when every film can feel like such an expensive pristine production. I don't know what Jack O'Connell's background is but tonally he offers something different from a lot of other young male (or female) actors working today. Starred Up made me an immediate fan, how difficult it would be for a posh actor to pull that off. It felt in the same vein as the young performances of Tim Roth and Ray Winstone in their early breakthrough roles dealing with troubled teenagers, anger bumbling inside them waiting to spill over into the scenes. Vague potentialy spoilery stuff about the story.. Don't know what else to say about the film really, it's obvious where the plot is leading, and it gives clues as to what it's all about and is more complex than pure villainry, but I can't say I was gripped, I didn't care whether Clooney lived or died, and didn't think for one second Kyle would detonate the bomb, but then it was clear it wasn't about that, not for the film, not for Kyle. The film ends up being taken away from him, as the host and director take control, with him looking crestfallen in the background, interjecting frequently to yell loudly and angrily that they're dodging the issue again of what actually happened to his money. At points its like he's barely listening to what anyone is saying, but if they veer into bullshittery territory it sets him off again. In the end there's no message, the down trodden suffer, the elite distract, the middle/upper class are sad for a few minutes but carry on as normal, not as deeply affected by the entire life-changing event as their tears would suggest. 6/10 Love Actually I've never got to the end of this film, watching on tv at the moment with one hour five minutes to go I'm classifying it as watched. I like the way its structured, switching to an never-ending number of recognizable actors doing things so that at no point does it allow you to make sense of the bludgeoning saccharine blandness and give any indication when it might finally end (is it Christmas yet?). January Jones has just turned up and now Kim from 24 must have entered the same shack to escape the cougar she's been running away from. Unusual for this film I don't recognize the third girl. That scene aside, it's so unbearable, bit of a breather now that the adverts have come on. It looks like shit although everyone glows. It's going to take weeks of intense Autechre listening to cleanse my soul of the tepid piss that this film is aurally violating my brain with. 1/10 Green Room -------------SPOILERS--------------- I was looking forward to this having read its premise, it seemed so different as well as exciting, exactly the type of film that wouldn't fail to entertain me. That it didn't i think comes down to me not clicking with the way this director tells a story, I didn't like Blue Ruin either past the promising setup. I thought that ultimately he wanted to get to certain violent moments and forced the characters to do stupid things in order to achieve it, i didn't believe in the motivations or actions. But i think that film has more reason to contrive because it's about revenge, whereas this film is about survival and yet at some point it is like you're just watching a revenge thriller. I watch more Korean revenge thrillers than anything else and at the core of them is the theme of betrayal, which i find engaging and allows the actors potential to really express themselves, which can be overwhelming at times. I think this film begins incoherently, but it's about a young band so the messy storytelling is maybe fitting. I had an idea in my head of how it'd play out, how neo nazis would be portrayed, but apart from when the young band are on stage singing a track to rile up the crowd the villains in the film aren't distinctive from any other type of villain. I wanted to feel more of that threat of being in an environment of those kind of hate-filled people, such as in This Is England, or The Believer. Neo nazis are better portrayed in Hanna, and in terms of a prestigious actor given a scary big boss role, I watched Sexy Beast before this for the first time, both Ben Kingsley and Ian McShane are genuinely terrifying in distinct ways as people you wouldn't even want them to ask you a question for fear of them insinuating you're lieing when you give your answer. I don't think Patrick Stewart has any such stand out scenes of intimidation, threat, memorable lines of dialogue, vivid imagery. There is no film here that can play out if you pick apart things that could have been avoided to prevent the amount of bloodshed that ensues, but it didn't stop me from thinking of them, it was never clear why all this had to happen to save Werm, and then you realise it was really to make sure the heroin bunker stays hidden, which was less of a revelation and made me just think; why not move the murder to elsewhere and give up Werm? If they're scared of the scene being thoroughly investigated which risks the bunker being discovered. It doesn't make sense. Neither does allowing Daniel to go in there, even though they sort of know that he was secretly seeing the murdered girl and when he sees her lying dead on the floor is likely to switch sides. It never made sense why the big man guarding the band inside the room is asked to give his gun over to a bunch of increasingly scared punk kids, nor when they're given the gun minutes later they're persuaded to give it over to the voice of the bar owner outside the room. Yeah they apparently buy the reason of 'police are coming, hand over unregistered gun', but it seemed suicidal on their part. I enjoy Korean and Japanese thrillers which can be described as nihilistic and violent, but for me they're never nasty with it, it's not the number of people being sliced by a sword, or the amount of blood that matters, it's the shots of deep gashes, bones being snapped that a director chooses to relish in a gratuitous way where it becomes unpleasant for me, and I thought this film crossed that line. Dogs ripping apart at the necks of key characters felt like something from an uncompromising British horror film. The film didn't ratchet up the tension, didn't allow me to get to know each member of the band more and grow to care about them being against such insurmountable odds while being confided to this space, which would be key to how engaged I become. There's no escapes, chases, no desperate attempts at hiding. I don't think there are strong characters, or strong moments, i think people respond to the tone of the film being more bleak than maybe an average director would bring to it but there isn't much quality there at the script/ideas stage to make it standout. 4/10 God of Egypt This film is silly and if it didn't deliver on its silliness in a way that is fun then it'd be bad. It deciding to be silly doesn't make it automatically bad if that is the intention. The impression I get from critics is that they don't realise this. For me, the worst thing a film can be is boring. I've enjoyed plenty of so-called outright awful films because I don't go into them with expectations, i take whatever i can from them. I don't mind things that are tacky, and naff, i prefer creative amateurism to dour professionalism, but the key is the tone. I didn't find this so witty I laughed, but I'll take an attempt at back-chatting type dialogue over po faced characters. It is a series of locations and ideas and characters and mostly tame jokes, but there is real relish on the director to embrace it rather than be embarrassed by it. There's many who adore Speed Racer and Jupiter Ascending for the same reasons. I actually found this more lighter and more cohesive even if it could be edited down. The CGI is not great in places, and the fight scenes don't flow too well, with the camera swooshing around certain attacks jarringly. This film is more of a b movie despite its budget because it doesn't even try to convince you of its seriousness. I grew up with 90s videogames like Earthworm Jim, cartoons like He-Man, films like Commando. I'd like a return to fantasy like Krull which has a magic and mystery to it, and a dirty real quality to it with sets, puppets, prosthetics, but we never will. This kind of high energy style doesn't make me lament the 80s childrens films because it isn't directly comparable really. This is sleek shininess in the same vein as The Immortals which I also liked for some of its visual ideas. A film isn't stupid if it doesn't try to be smart, it is stupid if it tries to be smart and fails. I watched this after Midnight Special and just wondered about the difference between reactions between the two films, somehow one is more sillier than other. One has light beaming out of the eyes of an otherworldly kid and the idea of something else hanging above Earth, the other has gods who transform into metal birds and a giant space worm that on a nightly basis hassles the God of creation stationed on a boat in space into a battle. Midnight Special taps into people's nostalgia for Close Encounters and E.T. as Super 8 tried but like that film I think it fails. It shies away from going all out with ideas lest it jeopardize how serious you might take it. Repetition is used to lengthen it, it's very predictable from the beginning how it will end, the style and tone is set, there are no curve balls, nothing new of interest throughout its duration. I suppose one tries to be emotionally engaging and the other aims lower, and your reaction depends by how invested you are by the essence of the idea. With Gods of Egypt there is no core emotional idea, obviously, like there isn't in most videogames where you jump on enemies heads to kill them, but i prefer it's much more entertaining, varied, full-on approach to film making and I realise it is a deliberate approach, not some kind of failure. Obviously people might just think it's attempt at being fun and silly and entertaining falls flat because they think it is none of those things, and it is instead boring and badly shot. I don't think it is but it should be rated on that level, in terms of what it is trying to be. Jon Carter of Mars suffered the same response, i listen to Mark Kermode or used to so just noticed the lack of consistency in ripping apart certain films but not others. Like this and Jon Carter but not, say Skyfall, and Spectre. Clear British bias but also overlooking a film's severe plot holes and terrible logic because it presents itself in a more serious way so maybe you don't look that hard. Jon Carter is nor more illogical than Gods of Egypt really. It's quite odd, leaps made in the screenplay to make sense of why and how and what is happening but never really indulging in it to a degree where it stops dead all the momentum of the overall story and becomes tedious. I just go along with whatever, I can find a hundred things in life, society, politics that makes no sense whatsoever, a film such as this can't offend me. I didn't like it that much to write all that, but, yeah. 6/10 Grimsby I thought this was embarrassingly bad, basically coming up with a series of the most gross-out, repulsive scenarios and then writing backwards to try to engineer a way to make them happen which is in no way realistic or convincing. Its not the kind of comedy that makes me laugh, more like a car crash to witness what I can't quite believe people considered funny. It seems like its makers think a comedy movie needs to up the ante from a regular TV comedy and one way of doing that is with one-off ludicrous scenes. I mostly like dry, witty, sarcastic, understated comedy. Throw away lines not intended to be hilarious make me laugh most due to them seemingly just slipped in there innocuously. I never thought I'd watch something so soon after being violated by Dirty Grandpa that makes that film seem less alone in its repulsiveness . 1/10 Midnight Special I seem to be in the minority with this, I thought it was pretty bad. It might have echoes of Close Encounters to those who gelled with it, but for me it was like a mash up of The Knowing and Tomorrowland. For a film where so many elements have been explored in other films it's so light on plot details to make it interesting, it lacks any mystery because it spells out how the boy is special early on, i felt no connection between Michael Shannon's character and the boy, and perhaps I would have if the boy wasn't so zoned out all the time and Shannon's mate didn't tag along for no reason whatsoever. I don't like films with extended climaxes that drag the suspense out, and this film feels like one big climax that doesn't deliver. I think it takes itself more seriously than any film I've ever seen. Lots and lots of scenes of characters staring into the distance, whispering about how serious this all is. I didn't believe any of it, nor care for any of it. I am kind of unsure what people like about it, i think it's all style and no substance, which would usually be enough for me if it was at least fun and varied rather than drawn out and boring. The Knowing at least had an epic plane crash and visually epic surreal scenes of wildlife escaping forest fires, it was unsettling the ways numbers could be linked to natural disasters goes back decades. And when aliens are introduced it's pretty mysterious and exciting because it never suggested it. Tomorrowland too has some good ideas that it can't wrestle into a cohesive whole, but it has fun too. I tried to watch this for the pure escapism of it, but it just made me fall asleep more than once. 3/10 Ghostbusters I didn't care for this at all. Maybe I wasn't in the mood, maybe I'll never find the perfect time to watch a film about colourful ghosts. I guess I just don't even understand their threat. They're ghosts, so what? What's the issue? I have no nostalgic connection with the original, I vaguely remember bits of it, but Hollywood is scraping the barrel to the point where certain films just can't be remade, at all. It will never work. Maybe the only ones who can judge are children oblivious to the original. I liked Bridesmaids, and Spy, but here found the same actors simply annoying. It didn't work for me here like it did there. I think because the four don't bounce off each other, they have no rapport, they're too alike, there's no friction. The only time the film aproaches actual comedy is with Chris Hemsworth's character and how he interacts with them. His hipsterish stupidity finds new ways to infuriate them. His jokes were the only ones that weren't signposted. Paul Feig is a terrible film director, the locations he chooses to shoot in, his set design, the over lit cinematography, the framing, he has a bland style that is more television than cinema. Feig's writing and directing are of the level of a sketch show or a comedy skit for a charity fundraising night. The original Ghostbusters is one of the grimiest, natural looking films, which helps the believability when depicting ghosts. It is of its time, but remade it's just like any other modern action cgi blockbuster set in New York, most notably the recent Pixels. 4/10 Where To Invade Next? I loved this, I've wanted to see a film like this for a while now, Moore's jaw dropping disbelief at the sheer difference between the compassion shown in any country he visits and the way it works back in USA was consistently funny. I did know about a few of the more surprising details beforehand which maybe lessened the surprise, but there's a few in there I could never have saw coming, and his access is fantastic, not just the Norway island prison that allows its prisoners some responsibility and dignity but also their maximum security prison which is almost just as unimaginable. The cuts back to the USA's treatment of its prisoners is startling. It is blunt, Moore admits to picking 'the flowers, not the weeds'. I have no problem with that, as like he says, 'it's not about their country, it's about America'. It's for Americans, i don't mind his slow sarcastic deliver, which I took as a means to poke fun at the way the right wing media of America treats the word socialism as something laughably evil. I think the film has to be take in that context, of a media that will never cover the possibility for progressive change. It is not just naive idealism, it is not simplifying, it is not ignoring all the other problems a country might have. It is explicitly pointing out that it is about priorities, and that it is possible, economically. Americans work more hours but aren't as productive, children do more homework but aren't as well educated. There's an interview with a father of a teenager murdered by Anders Breivik who they both agree is 'scum', but a better description would be utterly mentally deranged, warped, ill, but the father insists he does not want Breivik dead, does not want revenge. I thought at that point the film might touch on the story of the five year old girl killed in Norway by two 6 year old boys whose act was taken as a collective failing of the community as a whole, rather than as a sign of their evil. The murder happened a year after James Bulger's and while there are differences in that in Norway the 3 kids were playing together, and in the UK the two older kids kidnapped a much younger child and led him away from his mother, it's that they chose to forgive than continue to dredge up the story every few years in order to prey on people's anger and fears that is the real difference. Even now UKIP's deputy leader on Question Time 'makes no apologies' for wanting to bring back the death penalty for child murderers, while in Portugal police officers who are so passionate about the issue they wanted to speak directly to America in saying simply that with the death penalty you can't have human dignity and that is the most important thing. Watching the Norway section it's like they try to flood criminals with so much kindness, respect, humanity that it is like entering a parallel universe. The film does feel like it's presenting some kind of utopia, but it's just nice to see common sense, progression, forgiveness even if it doesn't paint a full picture. I think the film is timely given that Moore said the reason he didn't visit/invade the UK was because he felt there was nothing to learn from us, timely given that by all accounts if we leave the European Union we'll descend further into imitating America. Moore goes to Italy, France, Germany, and then skips UK to instead go to Slovenia to greater understand their free education system, he talks to those at the bottom, students, those in the middle, teachers, those at the top, CEO's and prime ministers. His scruffiness, wearing the clothes fit for a hovercraft ride on swamp works as appearing like a man from another world, insisting on planting his big American flag everywhere he steals an idea adding to his outback weirdness, I'd like to think he brought half a dozen of them with him. 10/10 Captain America: Civil War I thought this was excruciatingly boring, Winter Solider for me was the point of almost no return for super hero films, and I can't decide if I hated this more or less, certainly if you interchanged scenes between the two I wouldn't be able to tell which scene is from which film. While lighter in tone i found it just as po-faced as the Dark Knight Rises. Deadpool, while far from perfect, was like an injection the genre needed for me to get through one without being numbed by it. It had a Family Guy-like attitude to jokes, throwing everything at you with little regard for taste, it felt like a grimey gangster B movie, with crap special effects. Winter Soldier and this doesn't make sense to me, neither action nor plot, the experimented on soldier committing acts of terrorism wearing some mechanized suit, engaging in hand to hand combat with the super heros out to stop him/them/whoever. That's not a scenario that excites, it's more slick and well put together than something like the Dare Devil film, so not out right bad in that regard, but in terms of it all washing over me with its sheer pointlessness it's pretty bad. And that Winter Solider is so polarizing, some fans of it might be surprised some found it tedious, at least shows not everyone thinks the same way, that simply extracting superheros from their own world and planting them into this doesn't necessarily work. Not everyone gives a shit about seeing Iron Man square up to Ant Man. We had one Deadpool film, and people already are wary of the idea of too many copy cat superhero send ups running the idea into the ground and ruining the so called purity of Deadpool, as though it went far enough, or was completely free from the blockbuster template. But we've got two Captain America's that are essentially the same which include maybe 58 scenes of the superheros stood around glumly moralizing about how every time they have a scrap they blow a building up and civilians die. But not at the airport where they have their longest fight yet, an abandoned airport presumably. I much prefer the ludicrous nihilism of Deadpool to this heavy handed dour approach. Nothing connected, while fans are seemingly more eager than ever to see this fighters megamix I became past it 8 films ago. Doesn't help that it's a long long film, the switching from fighting to Serious Taking seeming never ending, my mouth was dry, i nearly choked on a sweet, i just wanted it to end by the airport fight, but knew with no baddy involved it was unlikely. 2/10 Room Somehow I didn't know what the circumstances were to the enclosed space setup of this film even while I was way into watching it, a comment I'd heard about the film threw me off a little bit. I gather everyone knows, anyone who has watched the most revealing trailer of all time for this film will know too much, anyone who has read the book will know ultimately what the film is all about; a mother and son relationship more than anything else. Like Beasts of the Southern Wild I don't get on with children talking whimsically stupid-cute in a false manner, so it was really the tension derided from not knowing why and how it plays out that I found most compelling. When listening to the writer and director talk about the film, they gave the impression that the only way they thought people would see the film is if the marketing focused on the mother and son relationship because the enclosed space might be too hard to take. But the claustrophobia of the situation while initially uncomfortable is ultimately more effective than the cloying sentimentality. I resent that a film such as this has to be sanitized in order to be palpable, that there's little conviction in wanting to put an audience through something grim when the inevitable release would make it more worthwhile. I think a film is better to earn it, it'd be more satisfying to have the nightmare prolonged for longer, it loses its power the more it panders to the relationship over the captivating struggle of the situation. I found the kid obnoxious, I didn't connect to him at all really, the situations and direction made me care more than anything he was doing. 6/10 Legend Tom Hardy is my favourite actor, he's so enjoyable to watch in this that it matters little that it's a typically shiny biopic that fails to go into any detail at all about what their gangstering was all about. It's deliberate, LEGEND, scenes play out not like they're happening for the very first time in front of your eyes as you witness something unflinching and grim, but as the 100th retelling of the version of events that romanticizes them. As Ronnie Tom Hardy looks like too much make up has been applied and talks like he's not in the same room as everybody else, as Reggie Tom Hardy is assured and real. Watching him as Ronnie insult or attack somebody for no reason and then him as Reggie completely lose it, more than once, screaming at his twin/himself was a lot of fun. In small roles or supporting roles, Hardy usually elevates a film with his presence alone. I'm not exaggerating, I caught a bit of Layer Cake the other week and saw Hardy just stood in the background of a room doing nothing, he does standing around with an assuredness better than anyone else he shares the screen with. Every other actor might be trying too hard and coming across a bit naff. Struggling to get through Rock N Rolla and he turns up and within about 20 seconds gives a proper sense of a person who lives that moment he has on screen like it's real. And it's a completely jarring, farcical and terribly written part of a terrible film, but he captures it so well it's a real sudden jolt of actual quality. In Lawless, again, so unexpected, so unexplainable how some mumbling can be so effective, but contrasted against Shia's relentlessly highly strung pissed off at the world act it's more about the timing of his delivery i think, the pauses, he asserts himself on the screen. The one role I didn't like him in was The Revenant, I think because he talks too much and too fast, and that doesn't suit him. In The Drop, too, that film is about as underwritten as a film can be, but his performance makes it what it is, the looks he gives in certain moments that suggest a kind of mischievousness, there's a warmth and likability to him that other currently great male actors lack. And this film shows two sides to his acting, because as Ronnie he hams it up terribly, he's a cartoon comedy character, but as Reggie he treats it more seriously. And that last scene, wow. 6/10 The Big Short So their conscience said it was wrong, but their instinct was to exploit it rather than draw attention to the inevitable crisis that would ensue. As characters you follow as they go down this rabbit hole of unending corruption, which at every point their sheer disbelief and disgust is clear to see, they still intend too capitalize on a failing system for their own end. Mark Kermode described it as a black comedy, but I didn't get that sense from it. It's more confused and conflicted, and while I got something out of the film, it was hard to really engage with these loathsome people that it mattered little they at least had a conscience. Is that being dense? Was that the point? 6/10 Victoria Watched on the basis of David Chen's praise on the /filmcast, it's set in the early hours of a German city over a period of 2 hours 20 minutes, beginning with a Spanish girl dancing in a night club, and playing out in real time in one long take. She leaves the club and starts talking to 4 guys fooling around on a car they try to claim is their own. It can be pretty mesmerizing and even magical in the ways it manages to bridge the gaps in between the dialogue, the way the camera follows as two of the characters ride a bicycle, i was less being made aware the camera operator would have to catch them up and more feeling the sense that these characters exist in this world and are going to move through it and you're just following them. But the more I watched the more I was made aware of it and its limitations, especially in terms of who the camera follows, and with it being over 2 hours and given how in awe David Chen seemed to be at some of it, my attention became less on the characters and more on the expectation and excitement at what it'd be able to do, which I don't think it quite lives up to. I really wish I loved this film because those early parts are so convincingly real but i think it could have taken more care in how it developed, it began to feel less like something that feels realistic and instead more acted in terms of the situations. The film is ambitious in moving from place to place, and i don't think the one take is a gimmick or should be considered a gimmick, i think that is a tedious criticism leveled at the film by critics who are so quick to point out 'without the stunt, there's not much of a movie'. I'd love more filmmakers to be bold in their approach to telling a story, and long takes are a brilliant way to break the pattern you expect. With Victoria it's more the cumulative effect of it sustaining its run and the more I got into the film the more it needed to do for it to impress, and for that it's less effective than a film like Children of Men subtly sneaking in a long take half way through the film where characters die and dangerous stunts happen in front of your eyes and the way it doesn't draw attention to it made it so engrossing for me. The action set piece at the end gets more attention but i found the middle sequence more effective i think because i was less aware of it occurring, it comes out of nowhere. I'm trying to think of others now..the long tracking shot of Fassbender running in Shame is another favourite. And the long take in True Detective was unbelievable in its unexpectedness and escalation, and also felt very GTA. Best going into this film knowing no more. 6/10 Star Wars: The Force Awakens I think this avoids being bad more than it tries to be great. My enjoyment was affected by having to see it in 3-d, which I don't like because you can't take in the whole scene, and then there's the dull colours. I rest the glasses on my head as they slowly slip down, and finally can see the whole screen. The most surprising thing about this was probably how restrained Abrams is, I despised his Star Trek for how nauseating and shiny it was, it seemed like he directed without getting to the essence, it was all surface prettiness. Abrams seems more keen to honour Star Wars than he was Star Trek, mostly because Star Wars is his favourite, and some felt Star Trek needed to be energized and turned more Star Wars-y to suit a modern audience, whereas Star Wars doesn't really need it. Star Wars was never a childhood film for me, I knew of it but never watched it until catching bits on tv. I am always in awe of the design and the scope of its world. It's so rich with potential, it's just..very little in this was all that exciting or seemed to delve into the wider world. The ..space pirates aboard Solo's freighter was like something out of Red Dwarf but still I'd have preferred more of that, inferences of past misdeeds, more 'how are they going to get out of this' scenarios. The film didn't drag at all, and I wish it was longer and was actually packed with one set piece after another as it was described before I saw it but which doesn't seem to fit the film I watched. It seems like modern blockbusters can't create characters as well as they used to, and this film tries to address that, a return to proper light sabre fights that are a bit messy and tough and not the sleek martial artist duels of the prequels. But without the aid of copious amounts of cgi the action fails to be memorable or noteworthy, not that the set pieces in, say Crystal Skull are anything but noteworthy for all the wrong reasons. Just because this film is more coherent and focusses on vibrant characters rather than dull politics like Phantom Menace doesn't necessarily mean for me it's better, because I'd rather a film tried and failed than not try at all. I take the good stuff and forget the rest. i think the pod race from Phantom Menace is better than anything in this film. I suppose everyone keeps saying the sequels and spin offs will be more interesting, but I don't know if they will allowed to be. Despite how just okay I think this is, I won't get bored of a Star Wars film every year if they get the right balance between characters and cgi as they do here. (Snoke aside) I just hope they discard the story, and focus on very specific situations that are rooted in a reality and that feel like they grow naturally as opposed to always being about just getting one to character to another location, so he can do such a thing, and then go elsewhere, and on and on, because it's their destiny. 5/10 The Client [Korean film] The setup - man returns home to his flat to find police investigating a blood soaked bed and he is the prime suspect in the murder of his girlfriend, the only thing is...there is no body - is compelling enough for me that the film didn't need to be particularly well directed in order for me to get a lot out of it. It feels more like watching 3 episodes of a very good tv show than a film, it's not cinematic or dramatic or moody, it lacks visual flair. While Oldboy represents the absolute peak of creativity in the thriller genre to come out of Korea, there is largely a homogeneity to the film making in these films that have so much going for them they ought to try to be more outstanding. The Client is an example of a director giving themselves entirely over to the writing, instead of using it as a springboard for their own visual ideas relating to the material. It is a court room drama for parts of it, so there is a limit to how creative it can be anyway. It kept me guessing until the very end as to whether the boyfriend is guilty or not. The film asks questions about allowing how you perceive someone's behaviour in extreme circumstances to affect your judgement of them - the boyfriend is considered too restrained and cold. It's also interesting, regardless of the truth, if whether a man can be found guilty of homicide if no body is discovered. The film is smart and deceptive at the right points to leave you considering all the possible circumstances. The acting is terrific, the defender is intelligent and refreshingly laid back in his manner, this too feels like a tv show approach, he has no demons, he's not taking the case to prove anything, you get the impression he could walk away with ease, so it's free from cliche in that regard. The actor who plays the accused boyfriend is the stand out performer, he's very convincing as a man who has lost his whole world. I find Korean and Japanese films really hit the mark when it comes to capturing a genuine kind of melancholic emptiness that I really respond to. These genre films can be completely far fetched action thrillers and then hook me with a turn towards emotional drama, purely because of the performances and what they're giving, how much they seem to mean it. I feel inclined to engage more with a film when the actors are giving so much. The films can be slight twists on familiar subject matter and yet they still do it with such sincerity and passion, as though it's the first film to explore themes of betrayal and not the hundredth. 8/10 Elephant (possible spoilers towards the end) This felt like a wasted opportunity to me, I loved the direction, the over the shoulder long takes of characters walking through the mostly empty school, it's really effective in creating an uneasy vibe and tone. I was very on board with its odd way of shooting everyday situations and elevating them. Early on I did wonder what approach it would take and thought it might concentrate on a group of teenagers who started their day like any other day, and that the killers would be always in the background, not given any attention. It would move the attention away from the killers in a way psychologist experts say the media should neglect to show the face and mention the name of any killer who commits these kind of notorious killings. This would at least allow the audience to connect with the teenagers and feel an increasing sense of anxiety at the inevitable massacre that is about to ensue and whether they're among those who were killed. Or perhaps the film decides to end before the moment the shooting begins and the audience is left on a cliffhanger of sorts, whereby you're dreading but anticipating carnage and like Funny Games calls into question your own appetite for violence. The issue is that this film isn't engaging enough from a character/dialogue perspective so I just wanted to see something, anything happen that might engage me. The film doesn't move beyond being ambient, the characters are not developed, it's not even trying to make you engage with them, it only works on an artistic, pure level. The film presents different teenagers whose name appear on screen, as though to say: this was their day, but you don't actually learn anything more about them other than their name. When the film chooses to move on to the actual killers, i didn't think they were handled with any nuance, they're cartoonishly drawn, which given that it's based on real people it doesn't live up to the responsibility required. For all the sense of realism in how the normal teenagers are presented with their awkward banal mumbling improvised dialogue, when it's applied to the killers it feels clumsy and flippant even. It undermines the level of nihilistic angst the two killers obviously felt, and it betrays the opportunity to delve any deeper. It's more necessary to ask what drove them to suicide than to murder, for the massacre is just the way they chose to commit suicide, and the film can't even get that right; both killers took their own lives, one after the other. It initially seems flimsy and then just appears deliberately absurd. I very much doubt they just one day, stripped naked, jumped in a shower together, said to each other; 'gee, we're going to die today, aren't we? I've never kissed anyone, have you? Lets kiss.' I watched Bowling for Colombine afterwards, and Matt Stone said for me the most perceptive thing about the area, the school, from the position of someone who had gone through that process and who knew how it felt, as he said, to have it drummed into you that if you fail at school you're a loser and a loser forever, whereas as he said the opposite is true, that's just when you escape and begin your life if you want to, however you want to. And it's that the two killers couldn't see beyond school that is the tragedy, couldn't see beyond the bullying, their constant need to reassert their dominance, masculinity and stature, that they couldn't let it go, think of their future, and had to swear by their revenge fantasy. It's beyond sad to end your life because of others, it's like, they got off so much on the impact they'd make while ignoring the consequence would be ending their lives, because it mattered more to feel empowered for a limited time than to live another day in their life. I can't imagine what it takes to get to that point of no return, but the decision to die seems like it came before the decision to kill, it's like it was liberating for them, because for once there are no consequences for their actions if there isn't going to be a tomorrow. No one knows what goes through the minds of kids who commit to these all or nothing killings, but the film chooses to reduce their intelligence, they're no smarter than Beavis and Butt-Head, they're not far removed from going huh huh cool at everything they come across. The film does elude to, via the dialogue of one of the killers, to the principal ignoring the teenager's pleas for help from the bullying they faced, but it feels too slight, it's just thrown out there weakly. And I don't think enough is implied about how in a situation like this there is a disconnect between how the bullied sees things and how others do, and I think these issues escalate when the problems of others are brushed off and trivialized, because what is a nothing issue to you might be the end of the world for someone else. The other pupils and teachers just can't comprehend why any individual would commit an act like this, the various warning signs (which are not included in this film, such as the crazed essays written for school assignments) were not treated with the seriousness they should have been. As Marilyn Manson said in Bowling For Columbine, asked what he would say to the two killers if he had the chance, he said he wouldn't tell them anything, he would listen, as that was something no one had obviously done. I'm not sure what Gus Van Sant was trying to express, the lasting impression is him wanting to pick at the absurdity of these kind of massacres, there is a scene where a newly introduced teenager simply wanders the school after the shooting begins, towards the gunfire rather than away from it like everyone else escaping through the windows to reach the outside. His life seems to mean nothing to him. His indifference to the situation reminded me of a story of another shooting committed by a teenager who didn't end his murder by suicide, he just sat on the road outside the school's grounds and was talked to by an officer., who asked what he had done and the teenager described what happened, the officer asked why, and he said he didn't know, like; why not? The families of the murdered loved ones said he was evil, he turned up to sentencing smirking, slouched, unbothered, said he was glad he caused them so much pain, was looking forward to jail. It sounded like being in a terrifying state of existential depression, where nothing moves you and it's so unnerving and upsetting you do something extreme just because. I think it's in the public's interest to be exposed to the inner workings of serial killers rather than just be bludgeoned by the sensationalism that occurs in the media, if the aim is to increase peoples open mindedness rather than prey on their emotions. There's a chilling coldness and detachment from the reality of the situation in Elephant, none of the urgency and panic and screaming as you would expect, on one hand the visual direction -extreme close ups, long takes- allows it to feel real, yet the actions of some characters does not. The film's directional style decides how everything unfolds and it just continues as it began, from ordinary day to extreme situation, the tone stays the same. I've just remembered..there is a scene where one of the killers plays the piano while the other plays a fictional FPS game, where he inevitably shoots digital people, and it's hard not to respond to that kind of scene cynically, hard to take Van Sant seriously, like; he can't possibly be making that link so bluntly with a straight face. Both killers in real life committed suicide, one after the other, and it'd be fascinating to wonder how they felt before that moment, because they're not the first to do this, but some are mentally ill or just have a breakdown one day, whereas theirs was planned and pre meditated, and being two of them, who lead and who followed, and how does that friendship even play out? The film doesn't explore that, instead preferring to be more theatrical, and in certain moments confusing and illogical. 5/10 Ronaldo The best moments in this Ronaldo film are the ones that feature Lionel Messi, which is the last thing Ronaldo would want anyone to take away from his film. Messi at the World Cup scoring wonder goals, Messi at the Ballon d'Or, just stood over on the other side of the room, which causes Ronaldo's son to freeze in awe at the impossibility that he could be in such close proximity of the greatest player who ever lived. I was slightly in awe too, Messi remains a mystery and having been bored senseless for most of the film's duration for him to just appear made me sit up and widen my eyes. Or maybe young Christiano was just naturally shy... but it's amusing to think that he would only see his dad as just his dad and not as a goal scoring Galáctico and reserves his true amazement for that other player who he only ever sees on telly, and probably secretly shares dribbling clips with his friends at school. Not like that is a humbling situation for Ronaldo, who probably views being humbled as a sign of weakness that must be attacked. In fact, given that it's his film it's a little surprising that he allowed any footage of Lionel Messi to appear in it and possibly upstage him. Ronado is mature enough now to say that he views Messi as a human being rather than an enemy (or rival), but that he needs to say it probably tells you that his obsession to be the greatest on Earth and have it made official by the Ballon d'Or is so unusual that he probably has strong feelings against anyone who will prevent him from achieving it. It has been to the detriment of his game too, because to be that prolific you have to sacrifice creativity, surprise, beauty, elegance, all the things that keep the game of football so compelling to watch, the sheer range of goals that can be scored, the sheer range of incidences and situations that can arise in a match. You can watch a run of the mill game like any other, and then out of nowhere a moment of improvisational genius hits a player who is about to receive the ball, he's calculated all the space that surrounds him and the players who inhabit that space, and he knows that his first touch will move the ball into a space that will allow for a shot to be taken, despite the improbable distance to goal. They execute the move with such clarity of purpose, such out of the blue brilliance, they're worth more than a 100 tap ins. The willingness from anyone to reduce the game to purely goal to game ratio stats undermines what's great about football. At the same time people really admire Ronaldo's desire and worth ethic, but I think there's loads of players who are better at football than Ronaldo. They're not as obviously effective or prolific but at their best can dribble in and out of tight spaces, or recognize space around them and manoeuvre the ball in such a way they always keep play ticking along for their team, or they can dictate the temp of a game, be at the heart of every move, be at the centre of stopping every opposition attack. Players with unbelievable passing accuracy, every through ball is measured and weighted to perfection, they feel the ball intuitively, they can sense the movement of play, can subtly adjust their position to close spaces, have a wider sense of their position on the pitch at all times. Players who don't score but stitch their team's play together, always there to receive and pass, and when they're not there to do the basic essentials the team collapses into individuals. Players who make everyone around them better. Players who don't score goals often because they're more generous and want the team to do well firstly but who can score a wonder strike if their team needs them at that moment. Anyway the film is empty and boring, and spends more time on other things than the football, like Ronaldo relaxing on a sofa with Ronaldo junior for about the 5th time, or Ronaldo on a plane singing along to a Rihanna song, and while that might have been included to show the personality of Ronaldo, it just disappointed me more that he'd have the musical taste of an 11 year old girl. Some find Jorge Mendes, Ronaldo's 'super' agent the star of the film. I found him unpleasant, he's aggressively sycophantic and hyperbolic, he came across as more of a Mafia boss than an agent actually. Ronaldo didn't seem to mind but I wouldn't be able to be around someone who openly lied to me for too long, because their opinion would become meaningless. For Ronaldo, he basks in it, he clearly needs that constant boost to continue the drive he has to be the 'best' as he sees it. It seems more like a curse though, i didn't finish the film and want to be Ronaldo for a moment, his is a film that made me think what it must be like to sacrifice that period from around 18-25 where you dig a little deeper into your interests and passions and form a personality that has quirks and contradictions, because I often wonder if to be the very best you have to be so focussed and single minded things like the outside world don't exist. Raheem Sterling doesn't know who Ricky Gervais is, and Michael Owen has watched 8 films in his whole life. Asked about the Fifa corruption scandal, Ronaldo responded: "Do you want me to be honest? It doesn’t worry me at all. I do my profession, my job, I give me all for my club … the rest doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care what happens on the outside.” Ronaldo is then asked what subjects are on the agenda in the changing room: “About music, about women, about fashion, about shoes, about suitcases/bags, about jewellery, about haircuts … any more you want me to list?” That isn't a person I'd want to be... I read a suggestion that Tarantino's The Hateful Eight is a vanity project just because it is 3 hours long and features lots of talking. I'd say that was just indulgence, or committing to an artistic purity. And I read an article about vanity projects that defined them as basically actors making a film that they also star in, as though the fact they take full creative control and have a say in how they're portrayed despite playing a character as part of a story is vain. If anyone is as confused by what a vanity project is as I am, then watch this film. 1/10 Bone Tomahawk One of the best film titles of the year, one of the best posters too perhaps, it couldn't possibly live up to my expectations based on just these two things could it ? No..but i did really enjoy it, and would put it above Slow West because it feels like it has more substance and weight to it, even if it's a similar story of traveling long distances on horses, camping, encountering potentially dangerous strangers, all in order to reach a destination. It tries to be more hard hitting than it manages to be with its opening murder and BONE TOMAHAWK asserting itself on the screen, as though that is meant to set the tone for the rest of the film. It takes a while to get going, settling into a slump of telling rather than showing, and establishing a slow pace that feels unnecessary. It's trying to establish the characters motivations but I don't think it really works, I don't think Patrick Wilson is particularly good in this film, and I spent the whole time more invested in trying to work out where I know him from than caring about his pretty awful character; I'd be surprised if many people who watch this film are really rooting for him at any point, and even though all the characters are given time to impress upon you their personality and quirks (maybe one of its strengths, I did really like spending time with the other 3 well realised characters), it still feels like it is Patrick Wilson's character's story. It's clear from early on that its slowness owes to the fact the director also wrote the film and can't face cutting out anything. But for this film to be more compelling for me it needed to cut out most of Patrick Wilson's character's relationship with his wife - which didn't contribute to understanding his deep love for her, they seem more like strangers at first, and he seems more motivated by his need to be a hero than anything else - and his struggles with his infected leg, which didn't make me warm to him more, it felt like it was just used to add some real gruelling pain and a dose of harsh reality to the otherwise pleasant trip they embark on. It is effective in doing that, but it is a thriller that isn't thrilling and needed to be slimmed down i think. Where I do think the writer's indulgences improve the film are in Richard Jenkins' portrayal of an old loyal widower to the sheriff (who is completely unrecognisable in the role), who often rambles on about past memories and what he can't wait to do the moment he arrives back home, he gives a wider sense of the world they live in, and gives the film a realism. Kurt Russel is fantastic as always, and it's great to see Matthew Fox in a film again, i do think he was fantastic in Lost, even if he doesn't have the greatest range he does do some of my favourite intense stares. I wish there was more of him in the film, actually. It falls short for me with the action which if you were to finish the film and then go back and know how it all plays out in the end, ask yourself how would you want certain moments to occur. I think it tries to create tension through the hopelessness and stupidity of the main characters, rather than the sheer brutality of the cannibalistic tribe being too much for them. Some characters are completely wasted, and the tribe don't seem to understanding hunting or the concept of guns, choosing to simply leap out into the open, appearing from nowhere but also a good distance away for your consideration, like a videogame. It was like all the action was skewed in favour of the characters when it meant keeping them alive. I hoped that an infamous Indian killer and sheriff played by Kurt Russell with a beard would offer a lot more. When it matters it's poorly conceived and not effective and believable enough. 6/10 Straight Outta Compton In one way I'm the perfect audience for this film in so far as I don't know any of the details of the story, nor have I listened to NWA's music. So it was all new for me whereas fans would enjoy how accurate a portrayal it is or isn't. It's extremely long and slickly presented in that modern movie production way rather than it capturing the spirit of the times, and that's my main issue with the film and biopics in general. They're always a romanticized view of the past and it can be hokey and cliched, and precious with it because the weight of responsibility to accurately portray these people, some of whom visited the set every day affects its raw spontaneity. I got more out of the post-film reading about all the details they left out, and that's my other issue with biopics, how can I fully engage with something where in the back of my mind I'm always wondering, how faithful to the truth is this ? Because I don't want situations altered for 'dramatic effect', I understand why, but I want warts an all, I want to know that Dr Dre attacked a television host 'because he felt dissatisfied with her news report about the feud between the remaining NWA members and Ice Cube', and 'began slamming her face and the right side of her body repeatedly against a wall near the stairway' and that Dr Dre later commented "People talk all this shit, but you know, somebody fucks with me, I'm gonna fuck with them. I just did it, you know. Ain't nothing you can do now by talking about it. Besides, it ain't no big thing – I just threw her through a door." Even if I understand why he now deeply regrets his actions and wouldn't want that side of him being portrayed in this film. Good response by Dee Barnes here though, gawker.com/heres-whats-missing-from-straight-outta-compton-me-and-1724735910 I'm less bothered about the drama and machinations of the various falling outs and want to instead spend half an hour dissecting the origins of the NWA' debut album cover, that's very briefly flung across the table in one scene. Because it's always disappointingly tedious when a group that creates something special throw it all away with little thought because of arguments about contracts and royalties, though i do understand why. Biopics tend to show the human behind the artist, but i don't care about the human who, say, had substance abuse issues and women issues /cliche, I care about the creative process. We're all humans with issues, it doesn't make the story a universal one by talking about these things, it makes it ordinary. The extraordinary bit is the music. And when the film does spend time with the members in the studio coming up with rhymes, it's all too easy and straightforward, there's no insight to the problems solved on tracks. Once Dr Dre convinces Easy E how to say lyrics like he means it, it's like every album seems to write itself. It just manages to demystify the creative process, you build such expectations of something radical as being heavily thought out and deep in meaning when it can just be the most natural thing in the world for the artist creating it, and it's the outside world who find it most strange and are in the best position to emphasize how refreshing it is. 5/10 Knock Knock spoilers probably Sometimes I watch a film and half way through wonder what the director thought there was enough in the script that made directing it worthwhile. Sometimes I might have that feeling that then gives way to more positive thoughts because of the strength of the direction, the atmosphere, tension, the enjoyment of watching a small group of characters interact and enjoying the dynamics of their interactions change depending on how the situation alters. For a simple idea that's contained in one house for the entirety, why not be more creative with it. I generally like single location films precisely because I enjoy it when you can see a director trying hard to give energy a momentum to scenes, and usually dialogue focusses on more interesting subjects and ideas because it's not used to drive the characters to another location. Like, my favourite episodes of Red Dwarf are ones like Marooned, not the ones where they go on an adventure. I loved Panic Room while others were unnecessarily harsh on it. I loved the cgi fly-throughs of the house, its sleekness and tight execution. The two girls' justification for their craziness is weak, like yes if you're as stunning as Bel is in this film and strip naked and physically force yourself upon a man, any man, he'll likely relent. I didn't buy Keanu going further but nor can I go along with their tired moral righteousness which combined with his hopelessness and awful acting didn't leave me with anyone to root for. It did surprise me that for all that is asked of Keanu he came across at his most awkward when talking about his passion for music. Maybe he was trying to come across as authoritative. Just a waste of a film. Maybe others will find Keanu's acting more hilarious than I did. I liked where some of the lines are being spat out like bullets with no pause inbetween, it does become fun to see which ones he gets less wrong. I just forgot to laugh as he was saying them. 3/10 Flu [Korean film] I loved this, it reminded me so much of The Tower, which also did its own take on the Hollywood disaster film, this delivers almost everything I wanted from it. Unlike The Tower, whose characters i can't picture or remember at all, there's half a dozen in this film that simply stand out with their personality, both heroes and villains, and who I'm sure I'll remember for a lot longer. It delivers such warm comedic romantic tinged action from the beginning, it's so comforting with it that like The Tower (which has possibly the most infectiously lovely opening of any film ever) allows you get invested before the inevitable terror ensues. I didn't watch this for so long because i was put off by the possibility of a dour gruel, so even if it's bright and mainstream that's what I wanted. Zombie and flu outbreaks are perfect for large scale scenes of chaos in cities and this film delivers on that in ways that are at times truly remarkable. There's some dodgy cgi but even that had an endearing quality to it because there's a flavour to Korean thrillers that I'm not yet tired of. Koreans apparently demand their films make them cry by the end, and this film explores new realms of melodrama I didn't know existed. It is immediately manipulative casting such a cute young girl at the heart of it who throughout is seemingly left to her own devices, and the film introduces various villains who are inserted as kind of harbingers of unjustified selfishness, but it's all done in a lively manner that manages to be consistent in tone and just really enjoyable. I think it complements something like Contagion well, because they couldn't be more different. There won't be a more understated alternative look at a flu outbreak than that film, but I prefer this film's more large scale blockbuster approach. 9/10 Maggie Pretty disappointing, the trailer is very misleading in implying that there is a central dilemna at the heart of the film, the words that flash up like 'cure her', 'save her', 'kill her' generate lots of possibilities in the imagination of the viewer, but there is no option to 'save' or 'cure her'. There is only the inevitability she'll die, but not how. The only options are send her away to die a horrible death (quarantine where apparently they throw all the infected into a cage together at different stages of their transformation which sounds like the kind of unnecessary madness that belongs to a different film) pretend to kill her but really keep her locked up in a secret shed in the forest, or kill her, or run away with her...at a distance. There is no stand off with the police, no attempt to escape that the trailer implies. The film goes nowhere. By the end I wished that the beginning had been stretched out longer, and the middle condensed to leave a good 30 minutes of not knowing where it will go. It has a continual air of foreboding, like Schwarzenegger is in the hospital before his daughter has even been sent there, so there's less engagement in the drama of her being captured, you're supposed to be swept along by the direction, which is sentimental and portentous. You're not really in the moment, watching things as they happen, it's like you're being shown them happening, there's a detachment there. It tries too hard to capture the beauty in everything. It takes a more humane approach to the infected that you're not used to seeing, i wouldn't go near a loved one when they're nearing the dangerous end of their transformation, I'd quickly leg it when they tell me they can smell meat,...and I wouldn't just let them wander around as I have a nap in the dining room..but that's just how films have conditioned me to respond, you full expect Maggie to bite at some point and yet there's still no real tension to any of it, it's all so flat. Eventually, as the film slowed down to almost a stand still, I began hoping Schwarzenegger would be bitten, the film would zoom through his transformation and him and his daughter would roam the Earth together, setting it up for a sequel. The ending is a lot more boring than that, or touching and beautiful depending on how sentimental you are. It's a character driven film that sold itself as being a tense thriller with a moral dilemna at the heart of it, but I don't think there's much or any character development in there. It's at best a feature length episode of The Walking Dead with more impressive direction and better acting. It even has the standard lets go into an abandoned store and wonder around in the rooms at the back as there's not likely to be a zombie especially waiting months on end for his moment.. I actually found the pilot episode of The Walking Dead all those years ago to be more affecting and impressive in its vision to try to capture the kind of haunting sadness of what it means to be a zombie wasting away. Despite this film spending 100 minutes focussing on a teenage girl going through the process, only when she loses her finger did it unsettle me, and that is early on. The quietly crawling harmless zombie with no legs from The Walking Dead pilot still remains a memorable moment. I think it's a 5 that i give 6 because it has a nice mood to it. 6/10 The BFG One of the most boring films I've ever seen. I think I am dead inside. I found no reason for any of it, the bfg was annoying rather than endearing, the dialgue offers nothing, the effects are standard Harry Potter fare. I have a real problem with CGI chosen for the BFG rather than Mark Rylance in prosthetics and camera trickery, green screen and editing. I know it's Mark Rylance in mo cap acting, but...still it just makes it boring. I want to watch a film and be like; that's a giant there, how ugly, urgh. Not be like; CGI, more CGI, some more, aren't they shiny. When did CGI stop trying to look real? The only good CGI is the stuff you don't notice. It can't be a feature like this. It misses the point. 'Ohh, the CGI is fantastic!' No, it's already failed. CGI is not exciting anymore. What if it was just a conputer animated film? Cg girl talks to cg giant. What's the difference? I don't know. So much CGI prettiness is like looking at a cg studio's showreel. It doesn't evoke anything. Human boy/girl talking to cg animals, monsters, giants feels so hollow and jarring. It doesn't work. Exceptions are few, King Kong worked because he looked real and was convincing, Golem worked because he had such character, the voice is incredible and you accept that there is no other way to create him. The BfG here has that typical CGI skin and hair that's become standard. Not convincing at all. I am dead inside, but I don't think it works as a film. It never ends. There is no story. Things happen. Then stop, then happen again. Crap review, but it's a crap film. Probably more CGI in this review than there is in the film. 2/10 Finding Dory Finding Nemo is one of my favourite Pixar films, I felt like a kid watching it for the first time, I thought it was so sharp and funny and the ocean was the perfect fit for computer generated graphcs, giving the ocean an actual 3 dimensional depth that 2d traditional animation can't match. I thought the way they could eke out so much comedy from each type of fish was inspired, it had that Family Guy quality of anthropomorphizing animals, giving them larger than life personalities in a way that was full of joy. It's not that easy, I've seen Shark Tale. Sometimes they spin your perception of them for laughs, like the turtles, the great white sharks. I think it was so different and so beautifully put together, seamless and effortless throughout that makes it something of a classic. I was ambivalent about this sequel. I wanted to watch it, but wasn't excited. I think Toy Story 2 was the only sequel they should have made, as an exception, because the magic of Pixar is introducing you to a new world each time. So with Dory there's a large amount of familiarity, it replays parts of the first film, while adding new details about Dory's upbringing, then jumps a year ahead. It evokes moments from the first film as a bit of call back but it's anticlimactic whereas the original swept you along and surprised and delighted, like when Nemo strays into the vast nothingness of the ocean and you see the scuba diver approach it's wonderful. You get a sense of scale for the first time, you feel the jeopardy, so when Dory does the same here in exactly the same spot you expect the same thing to happen again. Like Monsters University, it's a smaller film, with funny moments and is fine in itself but lacks the drama and ambition of the originals. It feels so pointless. Will kids who loved the original aged 8 care about the sequel now in their early 20s? And if it's for kids fresh to it couldn't they just watch the original instead? Pixar need to value that originality will sustain them in the long term. Ultimately kids will always want to see their films but I thought their success was defined by the broad age of audiences who went to see their films, they risk losing the adults who will slowly lose interest. I think The Good Dinosaur is the worst Pixar film I've seen by far, so new worlds don't always guarantee quality. I think there's been more interesting well put together cg animations over the last 6 years or so that don't match Pixar's best but are on the level just below. Having a glimpse at their future slate, Cars 3, Toy Story 4, The Incredibles 2, I think it's such a shame they've messed up their body of work. Because this decade will be largely defined by sequels from them it doesn't allow them to go forward. They established such a gold standard for creativity, ideas, animation, that they weren't just innovators but great storytellers, every few years challenging themselves to tackle new creatures and animals, the fur on a monster or the movement of fish in the oceans, each film whether you personally connected with it as much as another held such value. That value sustains the film for decades based on the originality of its world and inhabitants. I love the variation of their films when you look back, I think the diversity and contrast benefits each film, allows you to appreciate it more. 7/10 Rogue Sam Worthington gets eaten by a giant crocodile but it's pretty darkly lit, and it's over too quick to be able to really enjoy it. Oh yeah, spoilers. 3/10 Being Ginger I had a review written, and strayed elsewhere and letterboxd didn't hold it. It's an opportunity to try to be more succinct, to not comment on myself commenting on what I'd written as I am doing now... which helpfully mirrors how this film plays out, not as an exploration of the perception of 'being ginger', but as a vehicle for the filmmaker to self-loathe his way through the entire thing. It's not an attractive trait, and he's aware of this projection of his self hatred on to other ginger haired men and women he considers ugly. He's aware of the contradiction of feeling insecure about his appearance yet choosing to be on camera thoughout, he even gets a date and only sets his camera up to capture him, because 'it was placed too close and then was too awkward to alter it...and then the battery ran out'. Others might find this amateurish incompetence endearing, because it makes for a more personal film, but it drags despite its short length, it's filled with pointless empty scenes of him sat on a bench staring into the distance, contemplating his ugliness. Wait, is that a bald patch I see. At one point he stands wearing a board with 'looking 4 someone who likes gingers' written on it and all I could think of was John McClane in Die Hard With A Vengeance. A Scottish lad offers him the solution of dyeing his hair, to which he replies 'I don't want to, I want to be myself'. The random passer-by carried the intensity of someone who'd nut you if he'd have to put up with your insufferable indecisiveness for too long, because he's reveling in it too much. He's not so hopelessly awkward where he doesn't have the courage to stop a random girl or bunch of girls and ask the most humiliating question about his hair colour. He can show his film and speak to a room full of people about a sensitive subject personal to him, because by doing that he's being accepted and that overrides the anxiety of doing such a thing. On his website is more of the cartoons of little social situations he's found himself in which really work as funny moments he can share, but there's few of them in the film, which it could have benefitted from to lighten the mood and poke fun at the disproportionate reaction to ginger hair as though it's toxic that he's encountered. The film deals more with his own battles with the physchological scarring he's not recovered from since how he was treated at school. He once tracked down a teacher he had who made him a figure of fun, and rewatches the interview with him. He switches it off half way through, so it serves little purpose for the audience. 4/10 13th Bought a month of Netflix just to see this, such is the subject of interest to me. While it's good, it's ultimately weakened by it not being such a revelation if you've seen The House I Live In (difference between crack and cocaine), the few sections of Michael Moore's documentaries Bowling for Columbine (whites fear) and Where To Invade Next? (free labour in prisons) where he addresses it briefly but effectively. I thought like other Netflix documentaries this lost its way towards the end, starting off hard hitting but settling into its slick presentational style of talking heads who can state and re affirm but maybe not really get under the skin of a subject like a narrator can going in depth coupled with the always powerful footage. There were things I didn't know, ALEC, an advisor of the president recorded stating how to twist perception and criminalize groups, the lesser known leaders of the civil rights movement being murdered and the revelance of a generation of leaders being nullified. The film acts as a revelation to those previously oblivious to the central idea, and as a way to energise people into action. It's important and necessary given the reach it will have. However someone responds to this film depends on how incredible the central revelation is, it was a real mind-blown moment to me watching The House I Live In, not how unfair the system is against black people when it came to drug possession offences but how it was an actual ploy to deal with a black population they don't know how to deal with. Just pulling back, and seeing it so crystalized, it's staggering to think of people being monetized in this way. It's the stuff of sci fi, it is The Matrix, human batteries. It's so extraordinary it's like a conspiracy. It wouldn't have served the cohesion of the film, but I would have liked some analysis of hip hop instead of just tracks being played. I would have liked more analysis of who pressured Nixon and Reagon to pursue the criminalisation of drugs, and some history of drugs. The film highlights that these were popular positions to take with the public, but the overall plan by the establishment to lock up those they feel threatened by, that angle is one that is powerful and under explored. The film even lets it be known that Bill Clinton, despite making the situation worse, admitted recently his 3 strikes bill was a mistake, but by phrasing it as such is like implying it was an honest mistake, and he and those advising him didn't realise the consequences. It's sort of a cop out, but maybe not so easy to know where the exact truth lies. 7/10 De Palma Wonderful way to present a documentary, De Palma simply sat in a chair, talking about the details of each film he directed, he's easy going, affable, doesn't take himself or his films too seriously. He's at the age where he's free of ego, of having to prove himself, he's just honest, so when he says every other version of Carrie he watches pleases him because he sees all the mistakes that he avoided, there's no boast or arrogance attached to that, he's just talking simply as a director about the craft of movie making, rather than as the director of Carrie feeling the need to put others down to big himself up. I loved its approach. I love hearing about the thought process and choices that go into creative things. They're often hard to find though, these guys aren't neurotic and full of self doubt as to pick apart their films. Every director will say, 'I can't watch my films, all i see are all the things I could have done better'. But try to find self analysis's, they're rare*. They move on to the next thing. De Palma, now retired from Hollywood, rediscovering the essence of his cinematic language pursuing personal projects, is able to reflect on his career openly like this. *The very best already do so much at a higher level before they're even aware of what else they're doing better. So much is natural, unconscious, but he's pretty effusive nonetheless in explaining how he's always trying to approach scenes in new ways. This ought to be the standard for every director documentary, it'd be neat if there were a series of them. I think people can dislike the self importance of creatives talking about the creative process, but I am always eager to, especially what drives them. There's something underwhelming about learning classic films were created in such a matter of fact way under tight conditions, and weren't everything the director wanted them to be. It was nice to hear De Palma say Carlito's Way was as good a film as he can direct. 7/10 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy I'd have had no chance watching this sat in the cinema, without the aid of subtitles. It'd be like reading a book while tied to a chair, the page turning before you've read it all, unable to stop, re-read, properly digest who is who, and when it's occurring. I can't comment on the book, or the BBC version, this was my first taste of Tinker Tailor and I found this tells more than it shows. It can become so dense and talk-heavy that you don't share their eagerness to discover the mole, because it's not laced in drama and jeopardy, and the most I was engaged was by Tom Hardy's character, whose scenes sit roughly half way. He's more human, vulnerable and honest, and to me acted as an anchor for the plot. But from there it just continues to stall, rather than heating up, each character given their moment but it making less sense as it unfolds. I like slow, talky, dense - police procedurals are my favourite films, and this was so exquisitely shot. But there's a reason it's took me 5 years to muster the enthusiasm to watch it, and that's because I knew it'd be a workout, demand my attention more than it rewards it, be 2 hours but feel like 3, and a disappointment would linger that all the elements are there to love it but I'd still fail to. I took the plunge purely on the basis of seeing another, slightly different Tom Hardy performance. It is obviously Gary Oldman's film, he's really measured, says so much while saying literally nothing, while still being difficult to read. Is he someone you don't mess with it, or someone who just demands your respect. The way he's been shot, the way he holds himself on screen, it's a fantastic cinematic creation that with every watch will reveal more of his subtle facial movements that will unravel more of who he is. It's one of the most perfect bits of casting I've ever seen. 7/10 Law Abiding Citizen Flicking the channels on tv, I caught the scene from Butler taking his stand towards the judge onwards and tried to catch up. Once the first act of extreme violence occurred in the cell it took me by surprise, I had this film down as more silly than that without a harsh brutality, i thought; either it's gratuitous and simply nasty or it's taking itself seriously. I was surprised by the direction and cinematography too, the heaviness and icy coolhues, I can't help but find it somewhat slick. I watched the first half in the morning, the trailer, and read reviews. I think the entire film is actually condensed in the trailer, like every key shot to piece together the plot and its turns. Trailer makers put all the extreme visual moments in there that when jumbled together quickly give the impression of so much more, you hear the key lines and your imagination spirals out of control, oh my he's going to take on everyone ! No he's going to kill a few people and blow up a few cars. But you see the helicopter fly over repeatedly ! His vengeance must be on a vast scale, it must. I never learn my lesson too, I always come away thinking; there's more to that film. I know there was Death Wish before, this isn't the first, but I'm just going to say it...with embarrassing preachiness: I'm uncomfortable with this trend of nihilistic revenge thrillers that paint murderers as unfathomably evil who are given an easy ride by the justice system, that genuinely plays into some peoples twisted thirst to see harsh punishment be dealt out. This is further true by the home invasion at the beginning, this really taps into white middle aged American's engrained fear of being invaded, and that such crimes are so rare won't matter. It's only a movie, but its pretty dangerous to stoke this fear I think in the times we live in, creating the vicious cycle of more gun ownership and more incidental murders, either accidently, through act of passion, or through an imagined fear. You only have to read a few comments below wherever this film is streaming to get a glimpse of the kind of language used that is reflective of a type of worrying thought process. This film takes an unbalanced viewpoint, so when it comes to human rights what might benefit the majority will be twisted into just benefiting the few, wihich the right wing rags like the daily mail cling on to, relentlessly, to always spin it that way, to prey on your fears, make you angry, setting in motion the eventuality of trying to erode everyone's basic human rights, reports written as though they're by a middle class woman with the concerns of the middle class woman who is reading it, with the old white man of the establishment above pulling the strings for his own gains. It's dangerous rhetoric, and insidious. Setting the agenda, if not telling people what to think about a subject they set what the subject will be. And people can't escape that bombardment, of what becomes an issue and what doesn't, knawing away at them. Highlighting problems to instigate a kind of negative thinking that is about deduction, you take away the poison, our problems go away. Rather than tackling the symptoms, root cause, inequality, the kind of individualistic competitive society these violent people are bred in. I'm getting so preachy and righteous what is wrong with me. It's just a film. 4/10 Primal Fear I've seen bits of this before, but Edward Norton. So it was on last night and I missed the first 20 minutes but Edward Norton. I kept watching and there was stuff between Gere and Linney and with it being 90s with court scenes it has the soft warm orange hues of a TV movie, except ..Edward Norton. In the first performances of an actor, their debut TV or film role, you can see a precociousness to them, a spark, an energy, their face lights up at the sheer joy of being just in something where all eyes are on them. I even got that vibe from Seth Rogen in Freaks and Geeks, like he was just one of the actor's mates and was asked to turn up one time, overjoyed at it all. 6/10 The Neon Demon This film will be so polarising, no one agreeing on whether it starts strong or ends strong, nevermind whether the whole film is any good. I liked the opening more personally, I like unnatural awkward acting because there's something off and unnerving about it, she the only human among these sentient beings so obsessed with her natural beauty they just stare at her for what seems like eternity, their admiration spilling over into envy. But I liked Ridley Scott's The Councelor for very much the same reasons, for long static shots with glorious cinematography capturing these stilted dialogue scenes that don't flow well but there's a tangible sense of menace bubbling under the surface that always has me gripped. I'm a sucker for that. This film utilises those long pauses for the tension and threat they bring, her first big fashion shoot captured so creepily. This style of film making really appeals to me, it's like in a TV show even without the unsettling atmopshere, like Boardwalk Empire, with a bunch of gangsters sat around a table trying to come to some sort of agreement about one of them always stepping out of line, it doesn't need to escalate to deliver, just the expectation of it, the threat of violence lingering in the air, anyone ready to explode at any second, compels me so much. ​​​​​​i thought there was a chunk past the hour mark where it drifted along, adding in something superfluous and so unneccesary it was like Refn felt the film needed more colour to its bones, but it was so achingly slow that 20 minutes was starting to feel like hours and it was losing me. It's clear from the beginning and how it progresses where it's ending up, so it throws in a curveball but still ends where you expect, except instead of escalating it stalls, and consequently I wasn't as engaged when something finally happens. It was a bit disappointing as a whole, Refn got the symbolism and I liked the end, but the ..misdemeanor prevented it from being as great it could have been. Something like Black Swan blew me away by its finale because it was tightly edited and measured enough with its increasing insanity, I love films that leave you breathless by the end, there's twists and turns in that but at no point did it seriously lag and you start looking at your watch and combing your beard. Black Swan kept me glued to the screen and once The Neon Demon lost me the thrill is over and I'm more just admiring it. 7/10 Train To Busan I had higher hopes based on the reviews it was getting tbh, but I still liked it. But throughout I was thinking; probably a 6, and then maybe a 7 based on how moving the last 20 minutes are. While not a zombie film, I thought The Flu was better, an outbreak Korean film with plenty of chaos. It's bigger in scale, and is more moving i think, the way it escalates took me by surprise. This is the director's first live action film, his previous films are adult animations that focus on social commentary. I think this could have been darker. It was a bit blunt how it just brings up selfishness in Korean society, even if they allude to it throughout with the protagonist's job and neglect of his daughter. It was a bit convenient at times, they're quick to use paper to cover up the windows early on but don't think when they're struggling to close the door to use their clothes or bags to cover the glass. And then at the end when the father can't take care of just one zombie, it being the mega bastard main villain that he is, and is dumb enough to put his hand over the zombie's mouth. For any outbreak film, for me the bigger the scale, the more areas we see the better. Basically the whole film is on the train, in train station, on train, on train tracks. The trailer can paint a bigger picture and then you watch it and it's a small inclusive film. I'd have liked more walking into the unknown areas, I'm always fascinated in these films what is happening elsewhere, I found the ending maybe the best bit. 7/10 X-Men Apocalypse Kind of surprised this is being given such short shrift by critics and film watching people on letterboxd and podcasts. I don't think there's much separating the last 3, except that by now the novelty is wearing more thin. People would be raving about the QuickSilver scene in this had they not seen something like it before. I love the X Men universe as depicted in these films, I wouldn't put X Men 2 as the best, I remember being bored senseless by the end at the cinema, I think they've lightened up since for the better. I don't know which is my favourite, I think they all contain brilliantly realised characters and scenes that surpass anything in the Iron Man, Avengers, Captain America films. The world of X Men is richer, the idea of this school for gifted children, the outside world treating mutants as an 'other', Charles being full of optimism and hope he can change attitudes and live in unity, Erik being full of hatred and revenge, scarred by his treatment of people and fearing it will always be him against them, i find that so much more real and compelling than the counter terrorism tedium of the last two Captain Americas and the insufferable obnoxious bollocks of Iron Man. Just watching Magneto rise up like a god, arms open as he does and manipulate metal..that alone is brilliant to watch. I think just the way each character controls their power, harnesses, utilities it, the way they know and challenge their limitations, makes it always more compelling from a superhero standpoint. I thought Magneto's scenes in this again were superb, Fassbender elevating it. Each X Men film can pull something like this out, they always have that richness and potential. You could see the absolute fear in the eyes of Erik's co workers as they realised the havoc about to be wreaked upon them. I loved what he could do with a single coin. I think even though X Men is an assemble of characters each with specific gifts, the films don't allow the plot to get in the way of that like in other superhero films, it always bring it back to each individual character and their power. ​7/10 Housebound ---------------VAGUE SPOILERSSS--------------- This was absolutely brilliant. If every film was as well thought out and as complete as this, there would be no reason to hesitate when deciding what to watch next. It has been sat there for a year, only once it was recommended did I try it. Within 5 minutes I was sold on the wit and warmth of the characters and clash of personalities between mother and daughter, who are perfectly cast for their parts and whose bickering could entertain me for the film's duration without the need for it to deviate. But it does, switching from genre to genre, leading you to places you could never have guessed, and works because it carries the wit with it, and it's just so enjoyable. The quality of its execution and its originality combined to leave me at the end credits feeling like this is a classic. Its so packed with ideas there's only a moment of disappointment at the film spinning off into a new unexpected direction, leaving the supernatural behind. I loved it, and unfortunately to heap praise on it to persuade others to watch leads to expectations about what the film might possibly contain, when it is at its best when entirely surprising you in how it unravels. 8/10

I did a collection of character designs and put them into flash, as a memory game. It took 3 years to finish (on and off...) http://a-r-v.deviantart.com/art/13-7-69231-638072621 Other styles/colours of the designs that I decided not to use: Thanks,

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS Avengers: Age of Ultron (i realise how obnoxious it is to repeatedly say 'rich obnoxious guy', but i despise Robert Downey Jr.'s smug face which honestly makes me feel sick. I didn't realise I could hate a face more than Jack Black's but then I saw 3 hours of him as a panda and my hate softened somewhat.) Joss Whedon has the knack of taking the simplest plot and inserting loads of psychobabble into it that is so convoluted and confusingly put together it gave me a headache in this film. I tried to make sense of it on the car journey home, it felt like I had to pull apart each section of the film and just let it sink in somehow. The plot is, i think, rich obnoxious guy on a whim creates AI in about 20 minutes and it, like in every other instance of AI creation in the history of everything ever, decides to go mad, try to murder him and friends, but essentially exists on the internet, makes many more robots somewhere else in the world, and continually jumps inside of an ever improving ultra robot, and then there's this AI called Jarvis who is Paul Bettany so it's like being transported into the horror that is Transcendence for a bit, and he's good, and Thor has a dream that is like that rave sequence in Matrix Reloaded, and he visits some professor who takes him to some black pool in a cave, and he has a swim and continues the dream because he feels like it was leading somewhere cool and it was; the end of the world, and something about 4/5 pearls more powerful than anything in the universe, and despite mad AI robot going mad, rich obnoxious guy wants to have another go at creating AI but more friendly this time, because I forgot to mention his reasons for creating this AI is because he had a dream that all his mates died but he didn't and despite him knowing this was a nightmare directed by a witch who controlled him momentarily so isn't worth worrying about he goes ahead anyway, no actual explaining this to his mate, but instead saying that he wants the AI robot to do all the fighting while they're relaxing on beaches. Captain America returns, as does witch, and fight ensues, because they reckon that rich obnoxious guy can't tell the difference between destroying the world and saving it and any AI he creates is made with his personality defects, like 'where do you think mad AI robot gets it from?'. Thor returns with pearl, smashes hammer in AI mad robot in coffin and Jarvis is sort of there because rich obnoxious guy reckons his influence can override the lunacy of the AI's natural instinct. I mean, my mind is fried at this point, i can barely take anymore. Paul Bettany leaps out, starts fighting, realises he's alright really, hangs in the air for a bit, looks cool with his red face, and is a goodie from then on. Mad AI robot still exists remember in other robots, big action set piece that is like I Robot happens. People like this? There's not enough action to make it worthwhile, and what action there is is not able to be enjoyed because you're exhausted just trying to comprehend it. It is shit that gets a 5 because Hulk. It is no more sophisticated or coherent than the Transformers films, minus the sexism and homophobia. Hawkeye has this genius idea to keep his family in the countryside a secret while being an agent, as if his employers wouldn't know this stuff. Turns out Samuel L Jackson did because he turns up in a barn and says some things. Maybe he was having a secret affair with Hawkeye's wife and ran to hide in the barn when he realised Hawkeye was back earlier than expected, and when rich obnoxious guy enters the barn Jackson convincingly switches into All Knowing Leader of Men who in a film can just appear from behind some hay stacks but which such a thing in real life would be a bit unnerving. Did none of them, on alert, hear his chopper landing? Personal side to Hawkeye intended to make you care for him, I did not. Great idea to return to your home with pregnant wife and young kids and risk being attacked though ! I liked the beginning and that the avengers met some resistance in the form of other ability people who hated them. The more grounded it manages to be the more i liked it. 5/10 SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS The American A film about a contract killer (but wait..) can only disappoint when you get to the 40 minute mark and realise he's spent the last 30 minutes building a weapon for another contract killer, and they're trying it out, the director showing every footstep of their walk covering the distance required to test the weapon's range. The other contract killer makes some suggestions to improve the weapon and at that point I could see the end of the film approaching but what a slog it might be to get there. He talks to a priest, he shags a girl, he builds a gun, he's the most unconvincing contract killer (but wait..) ever, played by Clooney, his eyes always seeming like they're weeping. It's essentially a character study where he's not portrayed any where near as intriguingly as he should be. I think Clooney acts more in about 4 scenes in From Dusk Till Dawn than the entirety of his career since. This is not a subtle performance, it's meek and undeserving, he's just turned up here and spoke the lines and emoted a bit. Something like The Drop with Tom Hardy shows how a subtle performance has layers to it that unfold as the film does, that can be more compelling than the underwritten script. This film needed that. There's one bit which was just baffling, Clooney can't pluck up the courage to ask why his girlfriend has a gun in her purse, so in order to avoid the obvious embarrassment asking a question would cause, he's willing to shoot her. His paranoia is not justified, regardless what the film wants, the script is not there. Besides, she's a prostitute, did he not consider that she has it to protect herself? Maybe he's just dense. She even says, look all these prostitutes being murdered. Nothing from him. Overall it's sort of poetic I suppose, and I can see how it'd polarize people, or rather some will be willing to adore it's restrained quality but it feels so familiar, so obvious, stylistically muted and palatable, it's a million miles away from a proper riveting portrayal of what it means to be a hitman, it doesn't dig deep, it's not visceral. Some nice landscape shots (can someone not ask to see his photos just once?), Clooney moping around in his suit, looking a bit fed up and paranoid. The priest character the predictable lone voice of reason, his heart is so warm because he has God, Clooney's is so cold because his job doesn't allow him to form relationships. 5/10 SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS Hostel Hostel [and part 2] has been suggested as a film I must watch for about 3 weeks, and finally I accepted the inevitable and watched it, and liked it more than I thought I would, given I didn't like Cabin Fever and have a low opinion of Eli Roth which he might not deserve. I thought it would be trashy, senseless, tacky, but i instantly liked how it was shot on film, with a soft colour palette to it, and solid framing, and despite the maybe poor dialogue in parts from the 3 central characters (especially from the Iceland guy who is basically Neil from The Inbetweeners....before that show existed..) I thought there was a kind of relaxed easy going air to it, felt more 90s Wes Anderson than 00s. I thought there was more to it than the below average slasher horror, that Eli Roth somewhat justifies having his name above the titles of his films, and being considered an auteur. I know he's well versed in horror, i just thought it didn't reveal itself in Cabin Fever, whereas in this it does. I thought the 2 main characters were more well rounded and realistic than I expected, constantly showing compassion for their missing friend and our how their holiday stops dead until they find him. The actual gruesome torture porn parts are the worst moments, and needless and at odds with the soft tone of the rest of the film, but maybe that's the point. It's less scary and more absurd, but there's still tension as to a character's fate because of the way it's willing to be so gruesome you don't know how far it will go. And after watching Tusk not too long ago, i had the memories of that lingering when any character is at the mercy of a psychopath. It also reminded me of The Evil Within an awful lot, i greatly enjoyed the tension in those scenes and questioning his decisions in how he escapes. Like, he chooses to ditch his armour and hide under dead bodies of a trolley that is being transported seemingly deeper into the dungeon, the tension in not knowing where he'll end up, and despite him being the most unlikeable of the 3 leads he's the only one left and I was rooting for him. When it gets going there's so many examples of Roth inserting little details, like the man insisting on his victim not speaking the same language as him so it's less uncomfortable, but the victim being bilingual freaks him out, he leave the room to speak to one of the henchman only to return with a gag, which leads the victim to almost swallow his own sick when the chainsaw is raised inches away from his eyes. It's effective, and for me I didn't need to see chopped fingers. Also, it's more interesting to me of people paying for victims to torture than a lone psycho, and also more frightening, and at this point in the film it's not made clear and you're as unaware as the victim is. I think the truest example of it's awareness of its own absurdity comes in the form of those children who pop up like they're on trick or treat night asking for some sweets, but who Roth has them beating the living crap out of those henchman towards the end, literally caving their heads in, while one kid sits guarding all the sweets, doling them out as encouragement. Another funny moment is when the main character stops his car at the sight of the two girls who'd sold his friends for drugs, and if that isn't enough to make him angry and compelled to run them over, he notices the guy who recommended the hostel in the first place, and off he drives smashing them into his windscreen, to which the natural response is, 'they probably deserved that', but who moments later are viciously run over by the pursuing henchman in their car, to which the natural response is 'they didn't deserve that !' [i don't know any of the chatacters names nor how to correctly describe them, you'll notice] 7/10 SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS Vengeance is Mine Hmm, this has been on my to watch list for a while, and when I finally saw that it was in Bong Joon-ho's top 10 favourite films, and could just about squeeze it in I thought I'd try it. It starts promisingly as it portrays the killer as being pretty flippant and cool, and recounts the 78 days he was on the run, killing on the way as he did. His murders soon after are messy, pointless, flat, badly shot and not impactful. I was hoping for something stripped down, nihilistic, harsh, bold, that would maybe shock me as depicting real murders probably should, but the potential is wasted. I didn't find much horror in them. For all its running time I never got to know the real him, in moments he just comes across as a prick, not taking things as seriously as those around him, it's almost jarring. The film is mostly about relationships between different men and women, the most convincing and engaging one between the killer's wife and his dad. That is the film at its most real and its their interactions that kept me going. I saw a review that referenced I Saw The Devil, citing that Vengeance is Mine is the more complex film that portrays a killer with more nuance and depth, but what they mean to say is one film is an exciting thriller and the other is a slow burning drama. I think ISTD tries to portray a serial killer in a visceral way, it's pure visual directing that tries to put you in the shoes of the victim, feel as helpless as they are. It being a thriller doesn't make it less worthy. It was disappointing, I don't understand the title and how it makes sense, he only harms defenseless innocents. The film mostly takes place in rural areas, you see a train and captions detailing his frauds taking place, but you don't see him travel. It doesn't have that momentum, movement or tension that I hoped a story of a man on the run for 78 days would have. I think the time period it was filmed in defined the film more than it should. 6/10 Toy Story That Time Forgot Feels like an extended commercial rather than a short, especially the way it inserts loads of new characters and weapons and items and furniture, and all the pauses inbetween are for the ad breaks for the new character's figurines in question...the 'moral' of the story being that kids should ditch their videogames and return to their inanimate toys that can spark their imagination like nothing else. Except it seems more like, return to these particular toys and buy some more. It's a bit overloaded in that way, though some of the character design is okay, especially the evil beaked things. Also reading other comments was a reminder that this was released at Christmas, and it really doesn't feel Christmassy, except that at Christmas as a kid you got loads of toys. Surprised that some like this more than the Toys Story of Terror short, as while they both recycle ideas I think Toy Story in general is at its inspired best when the toys wonder and interact with the big outside world, rather than with other toys in a bedroom. This is why I didn't take to Toy Story 3 all that much. 3/10

Big Eyes I preferred the article I read about the real life story, and i preferred imagining what Tim Burton's film would be like as opposed to the one I watched. Biopics to me always seem precious, and films based on true events merely a run through of those events without illuminating them. The best scene in the film is when Margaret Keane starts seeing big eyes everywhere while at the supermarket. Imagine that, keep that image stored because the film won't improve on your imagining of it. It's actually not badly executed, but it's still all so soft and wet and meek and too brief to make a real impression. It should be her nightmare. I don't feel it. I didn't feel much, It didn't seem like Tim Burton's heart was in it. I think Tim Burton missed an opportunity to return to his BeetleJuice and Edward Scissorhands phase. I think the film should have been so incendiary and frenzied that the paintings would have been the dullest thing in it. I wanted the American suburbia of Scissorhands with the hands-on surrealness of Beetlejuice. When I read the article I imagined Walter Keane to be fierce and brutal and domineering and really expected Christoph Waltz to be both charming and sinister, but he's sort of unbelievably false and then laughably false, and not actually scary. He'll turn up suddenly in some of the film's worst scenes and switch from liar to tantruming liar. It's pretty hopeless sometimes. Christoph Waltz is so hollow and one dimensional and actually annoying by the end of it that it kills the actor's schtick dead, i don't think i can watch him do his thing again after this. The film is so blunt and he's the bluntest thing in it. Their husband and wife relationship is portrayed more evenly as I expected, Margaret jokes about how Walter is going to come up with a convincing lie about why he's painting children, she says 'oh you've painted yourself into a corner now', and he says 'you want heating this winter, help me out'. There's not enough tension or drama there. The article I read made me picture a scene where Margaret is literally holed up in the attic/basement painting for 16 hours a day while Walter is living a celebrity lifestyle, I imagined their lives contrasting to the point where it becomes so sharp it is comical and unbelievable, but it doesn't go there. I imagined a scene where he's surrounded by girls at the pool outside their house, and the camera slowly pans through the rooms and walls of their expensive house before reaching Margaret in her squalor. The film's reluctance to move into a more outlandish interpretation of the story doesn't mean it is subtle and well judged, just bland. I think Walter's face should have become more contorted the longer the film went on, his nose growing as the lie did, it becoming redder and sharper as he felt a stronger desire to grasp on to it. Him as an ogre, her as the princess locked up in her cell. Maybe that sounds rubbish, all told. Apparently, the court scene was more outrageous than as portrayed in the film, and when you've got Christoph Waltz, having got to the point he's representing himself, asking himself a question then running up to the stand to answer it, over and over, it makes you think, what else happened, and why on Earth would you back away from the full strangeness of the reality? 4/10 Tokyo Tribe This is a film where a grandma appears playing the decks and raps 'nobody is gelling any sheep tonight' and after checking other subtitles available you don't know if it is one misspelling or two or in fact none. Given that I've been looking forward to seeing this since August, it's a massive disappointment. I didn't find it all that much fun. When I read about the premise, I expected the last 30 minutes of Why Don't You Play in Hell? stretched over 90 minutes, The Warriors and Streets of Rage influenced but with rapping in between. I wanted it to be my new favourite film. I wanted epic street fights, 30 man brawls between all these gangs and then everyone would just stop and start rapping, and then fight again, rap, fight, rap, fight. End. Best film ever. The whole film feels like one big build up to a fight that never actually happens. There's a small scuffle. There's fights in between. But it doesn't deliver satisfying long fight sequences that are exciting and intense and I'm going to have to watch Rumble in the Bronx again for my street fighting fix. Or Big Trouble in Little China. The rhymes are really weak, music plays in the background throughout for about 50 minutes non stop, so it carries you through the film despite nothing actually happening. It just suggests something will, about 283 times. The film opens with one long shot, Gasper Noe-like in how it rises and swirls around, but really the whole film feels like one long shot, and in Love Exposure i found that quite captivating, the kind of drunk hand held style, but in this I grew tired of it. And both films feel artificially extended, there isn't enough content to justify the lengths. Visually it's both wonderful? and (wonderfully) garish, and shares some similarities with Guilty of Romance in the fluorescent hues. It didn't need to be ambling and indulgent, it needed to be pulpy and fun. It didn't need the near constant sexism and people trying to rape any woman in their sight, it only needed to suggest they were baddies and needed to be beaten up. There are fun moments, the man wearing a sideways mohawk, the cgi tank, the beat boxing girl servant. You could make it look like the best film ever in a cleverly edited trailer. I take whatever I can with Shion Sono, the surreal oddness can be enough sometimes, but being bored, struggling to stay awake in the afternoon and finding it tedious is the worst thing. 6/10

I've not seen that or even heard of him, that's going to be my next watch i think. Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession is another film about a pioneer who murdered his partner..i wouldn't particularly recommend it though..

Me too, and i thought Colin Farrell's acting in that film was pretty great, but not everyone agrees. With Locke it's somehow more disappointing if someone doesn't take to it, it's pretty polarizing when i don't think it ought to be.

Blue Ruin 5/10 I don't really get the praise for this, i thought the beginning and end are strong but everything in between was like an absence of anything. Also it just rubbed me up the wrong way that the protagonist seemed dim and monosyllabic in order to cover for the lack of a well written script as some indie films do. That goes for the film as a whole, i can only really think of two scenes that make up the middle and one failed to be remotely thrilling or exciting for me and the other I've seen so many times before. It's possible to even be offended by his nonchalant attitude to murder, I wasn't convinced by his motivation and he doesn't seem to grasp it either. I think people like that approach of the guy being so inept but I reacted to it like i was tired of seeing it, as though I'd seen 10 other identical films. I've not, but it just felt obvious and I guess I'm just tired of this kind of ambient moody independent approach to film making, I much prefer constructed bombastic thrillers that are packed with content, rather than this arty minimalist approach. (unless it's done well, this just doesn't do anything, it's not eerie and dark like Blood Simple which also had a simple plot with bizarre character motivations but tried to be as effective with imagery as possible) Also, I watched The Rover and while I didn't love it, i certainly found more interest in it than in this, given the seeming collapse of civilization there are some really convincing scenes featuring disheveled and strange people in hot and sweaty spaces. It kind of reminded me of The Road when you've got Guy Pierce doing the really intense stare like Viggo Mortensen does in the whole of that film. Those were my favourite moments. Expectations seem to influence people's judgement, The Rover is 'the slightly underwhelming second film from the director of the masterpiece Animal Kingdom', Blue Ruin is the hard edged thriller made for £500 that's emerged from nowhere that's just so raw and unrestrained. It just...isn't. The Guest 1/10 I thought this was clearly obviously dire and I can't fathom why anyone would think it isn't. I think Dan Stevens is shit and there's no substance to him. I don't understand the insistence that it's an 1980s throwback, just because it has some Carpenter esque music, when the film has a cheap modern digital made for tv look to it. I want it to look like an 80s film. It seems less like a homage and more like desperation to be sleek in the way Drive is, as the poster all but confirms. But Drive was actually directed by a proper visual artist, that film begins in a dark hotel room as the camera pans across the room as the square frame of the tv bursts on to show some basketball. The Guest's director doesn't seem to be working on anywhere near that level, the only inspired bit for me was when you see him running along the road at the beginning, but it lasts about 2 seconds. The only saving grace for me was the Brittany Murphy lookalike newcomer playing the daughter being more convincing than any of it deserves. I don't think it thrills or horrifies. It's slow, bland, boring, utterly stupid, and there's nothing of note that distinguishes it. Locke 9/10 I loved its simplicity, that it wasn't constructed to tell you why you should care, it just plays out and the story didn't need to be more interesting or go further for me really. I went into it thinking it might be he's told some bad news on the phone and has a breakdown, and that it's everyone throwing his life into a spin, so that it was the reverse and he's the one trying to be in control while everyone else is being hysterical, was refreshing. I found the situation very real despite it being Tom Hardy and all the visual tricks used to keep you engaged, it must be something to do with hearing a voice over a phone in a film, pretty much throughout i anticipated each call as though he was really dealing with a real person. Just the setup of him awaiting the inevitable questions i found compelling. Those with his son especially, and even though it's a bit cheesy how it tries to create this home life of them all watching football together, preparing food and wearing the football tops, it really captured something for me that felt real. I also liked all the stuff about concrete, that you get to see inside this mini world you never get to see, made real by how ordinary it is. Why Don't You Play In Hell? 9/10 I can't shake the last half of this film from my mind (nor do I want to), it's extraordinary. Half way through I began to realise Sion Sono is almost like the Japanese David O Russell (whose style I dislike), in that he often has the same kind of scene over and over, with the acting becoming more deranged and expressive, but while O Russell's schtick bores me Sono's films engage me more than the content deserves to. Even including Guilty of Romance, which i thought was tedious, all his films have that affect of sheer awe on me, like I can hardly believe what I'm seeing, though with that film it was more disbelief than awe. It's not attempting to shock for the sake of it, but his films seem so committed and energetic in their amateurish punk approach that they're nothing if not very effective. I found it hard to digest some of rapid series of events that happen in this film, like I was slow to register because what it was suggesting was so incomprehensible. I was ecstatic by the end. Transcendence 1/10 I could have enjoyed the stupidity of this film more if it wasn't directed in such a self important manner, even the title appearing on screen 5 seconds into the film does so in a way that is full of itself, like you're about to experience something momentous and truly epic. The film kind of has that Nolan infection of constant foreboding, every scene given such portentous weight it ends up feeling like one false ending after another, none of it making any actual sense to me, but I gather I'm supposed to be moved. There are long scenes of ambient melancholy giving time to wife and digital husband but it just shows up the film as being misguided, those scenes were flat and didn't work for me. It just tries to do things which are tricky to pull off convincingly and the almost non existent script makes the director's job harder. Watched in two sittings, twice while eating, i still got irritated by the boredom of it, and the dullness of the direction stands out more because of the promise of the story. The director treats the material with the severity of a funeral and kills all its energy. Bones Brigade:An Autobriography 10/10 I thought this was incredible. It was genuinely something special to hear Rodney Mullen speak because I never have, and when you've got someone who invented pretty much every trick in street skating before anyone else could comprehend of it, it'd be disappointing to hear him just say something like, 'yeah I invented this trick, it was nothing really', even if it was actually easy. It's more what skateboarding meant to him as a way for him to express himself, and how much he realises it and values it, it's how you want every sportsmen and artist to speak and very few ever do. Most just do what they do, and understand critics as people just having a go at them or reading too much into something they just naturally do. He pretty much bears his soul, speaking so deeply as though he's been bottling it up for decades and just lets it out for the first time. It highlights what it took to create these tricks, and to hear, again and again, the other skateboarders speak about it was so satisfying; i want them, especially them because they were there at the time, to really express the amazement at what he was doing. Aside from that, it's so comprehensive, the way the interview voices matches the footage is spot on, the sheer volume and depth of the footage is amazing as well. There's Tony Hawk at age 12 asking Rodney Mullen how to do a trick, doing it, then doing a thumbs up to the camera.

I think Sandler is brilliant in Funny People, not many like the film so don't care, but he's pretty convincing as someone depressed and sick of it all, how he speaks to Seth Rogen in a pretty blunt way, it's the deadness of it, it doesn't seem like he's acting. When Rogen plays a playlist to cheer him up and he snaps, it seems to touch on something real. I think comedian's bring an honesty, they don't go through the motions, and there's always potential to be mined. Carrell looks like he's terrific in Foxcatcher and he was suitably sleezy and unpleasant in The Way Way Back in a subtle way which was surprising, again there's a deadness to him, like he's unpleasant and knows it and can't help it and hates himself. A few glances say all that.

Any tracks you've done that you thought went unappreciated maybe? Calbruc and Iera spring to mind.. Or do you not care? Do you have a general interest to find out what tracks people seem to prefer?

I remember in an interview you said that Confield 'is like pop music compared to some of the stuff we had considered putting out', do you condense whole new sounds and whole ideas into single tracks and try to make that track as distinguished and individual as it can be, before moving on to the next track? Like try to maximise its quality? Bine for example is pretty unique on the album and in your output as a whole, and the darkest track on there imo, is there more like that? Like the other music of that period when making that album (or any album really), are there fully completed tracks that have not been released or are they covering the same ideas as the ones on the album? Is there a distinction between music and a track for you, like a point where it starts to take shape from the discovery and experimentation? Just wondering about the creation process because the strong contrast from one track to the next is one of the aspects I like most about your music, and your albums. Few do it as well, or as [seemingly] intended.