Kingsman

Used up the last of my 'Groupon' vouchers and booked half a day off for this one..
And, as it turns out it was worth it.

Colin Firth (Harry Heart), Mark Strong (Merlin) and Michael Caine (Arthur) are three members of an elite organisation called The Kingsman. They operate out of a tailors shop in the posh end of London and are basically a cross between MI6 and MIB. After the death of one of their team during an operation abroad, Harry enlists 'Eggsy' (Taron Egerton) into the Kingsman selection program.
I loved this. Which wasn't surprising really considering if was from Matthew Vaughn (Kick-ass and X-Men:First Class). This is Bond, with a 15 certificate.
There's some truly memorable action scenes involving multiple exploding heads, Colin Firth in an outrageous church fight (that has to be seen to be believed!) and a beautiful deadly assassin with killer prosthetic legs.

The film romps along at a cracking pace and is only let down at the end by an inappropriate scene that felt as though it had been tacked on to appeal to 'the lads' and justify its 15 certificate.. Luckily it didn't spoil it too much for me and that's why I rated it  ****..

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Ex Machina

Stuck in Hereford this weekend so to make it bareable I took a walk around the centre and cathedral, ending up in the Odeon (as you do).

There's been a lot of hype surrounding this one, mostly positive I might add. And rating Sunshine in my top ten films of all time I had high expectations.

It centers around Oscar Isaacs Nathan, an Internet billionaire who invites Caleb (Domhanal Gleeson) to his home after he wins a competition. On arrival at Nathans home it turns out Caleb is there to perform a Turing test on an artificial intelligent robot Nathan has created (Alica Vikander)..

Filmed in Norway the scenery is truly gorgeous. Put it this way if I was a slightly unhinged, upside down headed, multi billionaire philanthropist I'd live there.  The house is also beautiful and what's more its a hotel! (So once my lottery numbers come up I'm off!!)
The three main leads are superb and Alicia Vikander is particularly disturbing.. To be honest I've got a bit of a soft spot for the swedish stunner. Even without a full body of skin I could see how Caleb gets sucked in.. Double Negative should be commended for the outstanding CGi.

I really enjoyed this one. It's quality intelligent sci-fi and one I shall definitely try to see again..

Rating: ****

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Selma

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Birdman

This was an odd one. 

I haven't seen Michael Keaton since the Robocop re-make last year and this film was being heralded as his return to form..
The basic plot is Mr Keaton's autobiography if he'd decided to retire from movies and spend his lifesavings directing and staring in a Raymond Carver adaptation.

To be fair all the performances were excellent. To the point where they all seemed to be trying to out act each other (in the film AND in the play). It's an actors movie and actors will love it. To me it seemed a little too "Emperors new clothes" and I feel like one of the kids pointing at the naked man..

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American Sniper

After grabbing a sub and a haircut I met Graham for the 11.40 showing of this one..
Based on the true story of Navy S.E.A.L. Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper), who became America's most successful sniper during several tours in Iraq.

At over 2 hours long it's a tour in itself and for me it could have done with being trimmed down a bit. Both Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller (Taya, his long suffering wife) are both good and the film is more about the effects of war than actual war itself.
It was a solid ***1/2 Stars for me..

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Taken 3

After a busy morning at A&P we got to Cardiff in good time.. Enough time in fact for Graham and I to catch a film. There was two films on Graham's radar, American Sniper and Taken 3. In order for us to make it back home in time to demolish a curry and Graham's expensive bottle of Rioja we opted for a 3.40pm Taken 3..

Now, I think we're all in agreement that the first of the Taken trilogy is awesome. That's a given.. Taken 2 on the other hand was the other end of the scale.. To the point of embarrassing.. I put this all down to Mr Megaton (he of Transporter 3 fame) and his general disregard for coherence mainly..

So it was with a heavy heart I find out he's taken the helm once again.. Now I'm willing to give everyone a second chance (or third,fourth and fifth in the case of Mr M.Knight Shambolic-film-athon) and so I grabbed a bottle of water and took my seat.

Taken 1, they took his daughter, Taken 2, they took his ex wife (and.. um.. Him!) and now Taken 3... they're just taken the piss..

In this one Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is living on his own in a small apartment. He jogs around the block and still gives his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) embarrassing, age inappropriate gifts for her birthday. His ex, 'Lenny' (played by the ever gorgeous Famke Janssen), is having marital problems at home with her current husband Stuart (Dougray Scott) and, as it turns out still has the hots for Bry. Throw into this a Russian gangster, his evil henchmen (one of which is local Cardiff boy Andrew Howard) and his quest to retrieve some money he's owed and you have all the makings of an action thriller..

Or so you'd think...

OK, let's start with the action. What Mr Megaton has done here is to take the 'shaky cam' principal and turn it up to 11.. I'm starting to sound like my parents when they used to tell me "it's too loud" and perhaps I am out of touch with today's action movies.. But surely when you can't tell what the hell is going on that can't be good film making can it? There was a particular car chase when I lost the will to live.. It was so poorly directed I still have no idea what happened despite going over and over it in my head.. I know how it started and how it ended.. But the actual chase?!? You want to see how to do a good car chase involving 'shaky cam' watch The Raid 2.

The dialogue was .... just ridiculous.. 

I think perhaps I've seen too much.. Maybe I need to step back and not over analyse these popcorn movies. Just take them for what they are.. 

But popcorn doesn't have to be rubbish. The aforementioned Raid 2, Equaliser and pretty much any Marvel movie are all popcorn but far,far better.. 

*** there now follows Spoilers ***

OK, there are three things that really bothered me..

1) The main henchman gets shot in his bare, tattooed chest... twice... and doesn't bleed..??

2) Bryan steels a Porche and manages to chase down a jet about to take off and, take out its front landing gear..?!

3) There's no blood (see point 1) but it's OK to torture someone by waterboarding them.?!?

Overall a disappointing *1/2 star movie.. It has no redeeming features that I can think off.  Although it wasn't quite as offensive as Die Hard 5..

The Theory Of Everything

It's a funny thing. Several years ago I would have considered this time of the year as boring.. You never see any big blockbusters and it used to be renown as the dumping ground for movies that only just narrowly managed to avoid the 'straight to DVD' pit.. Now, either the quality is improving or my tastes are changing for the better.. Which ever it is I find myself spoilt for choice with the likes of 'Birdman','Foxcatcher' and 'The Theory Of Everything' all out at the same time.. 

Unfortunately though, this is Hereford and my choices are limited to 'Hobbit 3' (again!), 'Woman In Black 2' and 'The Theory Of Everything' (due to my shrewd ticket buying scheme 'Taken 3' is not an option)

Anyway after Liz declined my offer to spend a romantic evening 'Laura free' watching 'The Theory Of Everything' because "8.30 is too late.." (?!?) I thought 'sod this' and grabbed a ticket in a packed 2.45 pm screening.. I couldn't book tickets online with my 'Groupon' voucher so I joined the long queue... "How many?" said the attendant. "Just the one please".."Just one? You're going to see this film on your own? Weirdo!" his face said... "Can I have one in the center section on the end please". "I've stuck you as close to the back as I can.. Next!". Eh..? Inside the screen I stood around (looking like a middle aged man going to the cinema on his own)  until the lights went down and then grabbed an empty seat in the second row from the front.. What a fuss..

Anyway, on with the film. Everyone knows who Stephen Hawkins is. We've all heard of him. He's even appeared on the Simpson for Christ sake! But I for one didn't know anything about his younger life. Where he came from etc.. 

This film is a standard biopic. It starts in the sixties when he was at college and when he met his first wife, and progresses right up to the modern day.. And I found it deeply moving.. Eddie Redmayne's performance is truly outstanding.. To a point you forget it's an actor playing the part. It could almost be a documentary. Credit to Felicity Jones who plays Jane Wilde, the girl who falls in love with a man and has to watch him deteriorate over 30 years.. It's genuinely heartbreaking..

Overall an excellent film and a great start to the new year..

****.

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Review of the Year 2014

Last year I managed to see 85 films. None of which reached the dizzying heights of Gravity (except of course Gravity which I managed to see again in january..)

I did see some corkers mind. And mainly down to the Odeon and its screen unseen Monday's.. Nightcrawler and Whiplash are two of my favourites this year.. Whiplash would have been film of the year if not for 

a) I saw Gravity in the beginning of the year

b) I saw Blade Runner at the end of the year and

c) it's not officially out until 16th January 2015..

Thinking about it, my favourites this year have all been non-blockbusters. 'Locke', 'Tracks' and 'Dallas Buyer's Club' were three surprises I wasn't expecting. I can see myself turning into a movie snob and shunning the multimillion dollar, budget busting fodder I used to be so fond of.. If Michael Bay's going to keep spewing out thankless, soul destroying roadkill like Transformers 4 then what do you expect... 

OK, talking of Transformers let's start with toilet end of the brush... so you speak.. 

And, despite what you may think Age Of Extinction wasn't the worst film of the year. That honour goes to Mr Lutz and the little gem that was 'The Legend Of Hercules'(not to be mistaken for the far superior Dwayne Johnson one) . If you want to know what I thought of it you'll have to follow the link as I've managed to push the memory of that film deep, down into the dark recesses of my soul so that it'll never bother me again.. Close on its heels were Sabotage, Transcendence and the afore mentioned Transformers.. Although in the cases of Sabotage and Transcendence I think I was more disappointment really because I genuinely expected more from both directors and certainly the cast..

The best comedies this year were thanks to Phil Lord and Chris Miller. Both 'The Lego Movie' and '22 Jump Street' were hilarious. Also I was lucky to catch 'What We Do In The Shadows' which had a very short run but was equally as funny.. Let's not forget Wes Andersons latest (and some would say funniest) 'Grand Budapest Hotel' and 'Bad Neighbours' (although I think I may have been on my own with that last one!)

'The Zero Theorem', 'The Double' and 'Under The Skin' were my 'weird trilogy' this year. I enjoyed them all, mainly because they stood out amongst the rest of the ordinary films I saw.. This was definitely Scarlet Johansson's year. As well as excellent support in 'Captain America:Winter Soldier' and her staring role in 'Lucy' she also showed that she wasn't just Blockbuster fare after driving around Glasgow in a transit van.. Unfortunately I missed 'Her'.

Talking of Superheroes the highlight was 'X-Men:Days Of Future Past'. It was good to see Bryan Singer back on form and back at the helm of the X-Men franchise (which I managed to see three times) . 'Guardians Of The Galaxy' was surprisingly entertaining and 'Captain America:Winter Soldier' has helped built up the anticipation for this year's 'Avengers:Age Of Ultron'.

'The Amazing Spider-man 2' followed on from the first 'The Amazing Spider-man' in that it was equally rubbish (despite looking forward to it after the trailer).

I only managed three foreign language films this year and to be fair I enjoyed them all. The best, of course didn't really require any language as the action spoke for itself..

Once again the autumn showing made up for the 'meh' spring/summer offerings. Most notably Mr Finchers 'Gone Girl' and the excellent 'Nightcrawler' which I really enjoyed. I'm not sure if the fact that I saw it three weeks before its official release helped and that I felt part of a special VIP group.. 

The Christmas movies this year were rubbish. I saw Ridley Scott's 'Bladerunner' at the beginning of December and then 'Exodus' on boxing day and it was quite sad to see how far he'd fallen since 1982. I'm a Ridley fan, Christ I even watched the 'car crash' that was 'The Councillor'.  So let's hope he improves with The Martian in November.

If I was going to list a top 10 films (excluding Gravity & Bladerunner) it would probably be the following:

10 - Under The Skin
 9 -  Godzilla
 8 -  Edge Of Tomorrow
 7 - The Raid 2
 6 - Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes
 5 - The Lego Movie
 4 - 22 Jump Street
 3 - X-Men:Days Of Future Past
 2 - Nightcrawler
 1 - Whiplash (I know it's not out yet... but it's my list..)

Overall it's generally been the smaller, quirkier, off the radar films that have been the best in 2014 (in my opinion). It'll be interesting to see how the blockbusters stand up this year. I'm looking forward to Marvel's aforementioned 'Avengers 2' and 'Antman'. There's also 'Tomorrowland', 'Jurassic World' and 'Mad Max' to get excited about..