La La Land

What just happened..?!

Ok, let's just fill in some history with this film...

I wanted to see it because:

A) Damien Chazelle directed it. I loved Whiplash.. No, really loved it..

B) It's got 14 Oscar nominations... 14 !?!

C) Everyone loves it.. And I mean EVERYONE..

I didn't want to see this film because:

A) It's a musical.

B) It's a MUSICAL..!

I've seen a large number of Oscar fodder recently. Hacksaw Ridge, Moonlight, Silence, Manchester By The Sea,  Hidden Figures, Hell Or High Water and of course Arrival.  

At least 50% of that list has been hard work. Well acted ? Yes. Entertaining ? No..

I 'had' to watch this one.  Seeing this will mean I've seen all the films in the 'Best Achievement in Directing' category in this years Oscars, for starters. So here goes..

I sat down in, basically an empty auditorium..  Me and maybe 5 others.. After 10 minutes in I hated it. 10 minutes and 2 musical numbers already.. I was soooooo close to walking out.. Soooo close..

But I didn't.. I stayed.. An then, about halfway through I realised I was enjoying it.. Yes, actually enjoying it... By the final number I loved it..

I don't know what happened.. This is a first for me..

****

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Hacksaw Ridge

More Oscar bait..

This is Mel Gibson's latest directorial effort and is based on the true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a contentious objector who signs up for the Medical Corps during World War Two.

This was a film of two very different halves.. The first sees Doss's very religious upbringing in the US and in the second he joins the Army to fight in Okinawa, Japan.

It's this second half that the film really picks up. The action was visceral and bloody.  Although some times I felt it, and the acting encroached on to 'Tropic Thunder' territory (if you know what I mean?)

It was nice to see Vince Vaughn in a role whereby he doesn't play a complete dick.  As Sgt Howell he has all the funny lines too.  Also Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) put in a good, (singular) performance as Doss's father. An alcoholic WW1 veteran who happens to be alcoholic because he's a WW1 veteran.. (Is it just me or is Hugo morphing into Kevin Costner..?)

Anyway, overall the action more than compensated for it's shortcomings. 

***1/2

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T2 Trainspotting

After (nearly) twenty years Danny Boyle and the boys have returned to Edinburgh to carry on what they started.
"Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) returns to the only place he can ever call home. They are waiting for him: Spud (Ewen Bremner), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), and Begbie (Robert Carlyle). "*

This was my first showing in the Super Screen at Cardiff Cineworld and I wasn't sure if I would see the benefit with a movie like Trainspotting..

I was wrong..

It was a Blast!

I sat near the front, and in the centre of what, was not only a Super Screen but also Super sound too!

This film contained all that I remembered from the first one.  Funny, moving, unsettling.. Luckily age has definitely had an effect on the characters (I was quite relieved in the case of Begbie!)
I could go on but that would result in plot spoilers, only to say that it was a welcome breath of fresh air, amongst all the depressing movies of late..

****1/2 Best film of the year so far (which isn't that difficult really..)


* Thank's IMDB

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Split

Another busy time in the foyer, forced me to show my phone ticket at the door to get in to this one.. 

M.Night.Shamalangadingdon continues his crawl back to respectability with this latest offering..
Written and directed by him, this one centres on a star performance from James McAvoy as Dennis / Patricia / Hedwig / The Beast / Kevin  / Barry / Orwell / Jade (and 15 other personalities not mentioned).  At the beginning of the film he kidnaps 3 girls and, as the film continues it becomes apparent that they haven't been picked up to attend a posh party..

Now, over the years I've given a lot of my free time to Mr M.Night.  Mainly down to his excellent debut (Sixth Sense) and enjoyable second feature (Unbreakable).  The films that followed generally took a downward spiral in regards to quality (the low point being The Lady In The Water).  Every time I'd 'give him the benefit of the doubt' and hope that he'd produce another Sixth Sense..
This isn't it.. Fortunately it's not Lady In The Water either.. It's something in between.. Marginally better than 2015's The Visit it also benefits from a brilliant (and slightly creepy) performance from Anya Taylor-Joy, seen in last years Morgan. She's one to keep an eye on..

There's no doubt this film is ridiculous.  Luckily McAvoy and Taylor-Joy save it in my opinion..

Overall it's good to see Shamalangadingdon making an effort.

***

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Moonlight

Second Screen Unseen of the year and it's more Oscar bait..
This one is a 'coming of age' story about Chiron, a young black man played by Alex Hibbert(age 9), Ashton Sanders(age 16) and Trevante Rhodes (young adult)

First out the acting is superb.  Cottonmouth (Luke Cage/Mahershala Ali) shows up as the father figure/conflicted drug dealer and Miss Moneypenny (Spectre/Naomie Harris) is the mother/conflicted drug user.  There's fights.. Verbal confrontations.. Knowing glances.. Awkward moments.. All the sort of thing's you'd expect from a 'coming of age' drama. 

My problem was, it all seemed a bit cliche.. The trailer for this film reminded me of the trailer for 'Satan's Alley', the excellent Kirk Lazarus/Toby Maguire movie (google it)

It's films like this and the recent, depressing bout of Oscar fodder that make me yearn for 'over the top' escapist crap I sometimes subject myself to..

***
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xXx : The Return Of Xander Cage

Had a couple of hours to kill before tonights Screen Unseen showing so I thought I'd see Vin Diesel's latest throwaway piece of fluff..

And throwaway piece of fluff it certainly is. I'm not going to bother with a synopsis because, let's be honest no one cares.. Plot is just a device to string multiple action set pieces together.

I could go on about how stupid this film is but to be honest it's been a breath of fresh air..
Some of the action set pieces in this movie made the 'bomb removal' scene in Transporter 2 seem like it had been directed by James Cameron.. But in the end it doesn't really matter...

It was a fun ***1/2 star movie..

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Silence

Martin Scorsese's latest is Silence. Basically The Amazing Spider-man (Andrew Garfield) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) head off to Japan in search of Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) whose been taken..
In other words 2 vicars head off to Japan in search of another vicar..

This was an interesting one.. All performances were excellent as to be expected (particularly Mr Garfield) and it was an interesting journey, posing some equally interesting questions..
My only gripe is that it was too long.. Way too long at 2 hours and 40 minutes..

Still, I'm glad I saw it.. Another one to cross off my list..

***

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Hidden Figures

The first Screen Unseen of the year and it turned out to be Hidden Figures.
This one focuses on three black women working for Nasa in the early 60's during the Space race.

The one, constant factor with all the Screen Unseen movies is you know you're going to get a talking-point movie.. A movie that usually divides audiences.. I was with this movie from the start. The three leads put in excellent performances and it was interesting to note that this sort of segregation was going on only 50 years ago..!

Kevin Costner turns up (well, it is the sixties) and puts in his own contribution towards the civil rights movement.
Actually, I'm not being fair. This was a cracking movie and I throughly enjoyed it.

Overall a well deserved ****

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Assassin's Creed

First film of the year..
Worst film of the year..?

Ok, let's start with a synopsis from IMDB..
"Through a revolutionary technology that unlocks his genetic memories, Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender) experiences the adventures of his ancestor, Aguilar, in 15th Century Spain. Callum discovers he is descended from a mysterious secret society, the Assassins, and amasses incredible knowledge and skills to take on the oppressive and powerful Templar organisation in the present day." (Thanks IMDB)
This film had a pretty good pedigree too. Fassbender, Marian Cotillard, Jeremy Irons and Brendon Gleeson.. For christ sake, it even had Charlotte Rampling in it.. 

I haven't read Lord Of The Rings, but I enjoyed the films.. I haven't played World Of Warcraft but the film was ok.  My point is you shouldn't have to read the book or played the game in order to appreciate it's movie..  In the case of this movie I'm assuming you HAVE to have played it because I didn't have a clue..
Now, I've seen the 'The Lawnmower Man' and 'The Matrix' so I can accept a man being plugged into a computer. (I saw the Matrix 6 times). Sci-fi is my favourite movie genre.. In the Matrix when Keano was 'plugged in' to the Matrix he went there... When he was unplugged he came out. Easy..
Here, Fassbender's taken in to a lab where he's hooked up to the machine that unlocks his genetic memories.. Before you know it he's in a cloth hoodie with nifty wrist blades and free-running across roofs in 15th Century Spain.. Then he's back in the lab... Jumping around strapped to a mechanical harness..  

According to my fit bit
 I slept during the film.
Which say's it all really..

Then its 15th Century Spanish parkour again. All the time this is happening the lab nerds are watching him.. (Can they see 15th Century Spain like he does? That's not explained) 
They tried to merge both time zones and I found it jarring and it just didn't work for me..  
*** the next sentence is may contain a spoiler ***
And another thing. At one point in the movie the 'Assassins' using bow's, knives and swords take on the security guards. During the fracas, one of the assassins gets shot with an arrow..?  Since when do modern day security personal use bows?

Perhaps I'm being a bit picky with that last point, but by that time I'd had enough. This was just rubbish.. 
Well at least it can't get any worse than this.. Can it..?

** Star Movie

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Review Of 2016

Here we are again. 82 viewings last year.
Bit of a mixed bag if the truth be told. Technically there was more good than bad.
And once again Autumn saved the year..
Ok, here goes..

The Good.

At the beginning of the year Star Wars: The Force Awakens was still around and I managed to get another 4 showings of that little doozie before it disappeared to a galaxy far, far away (or DVD as I like to call it.)  Never mind, I only had to wait 11 months for the next installment of the franchise.. Rogue One didn't quite reach the awesomeness of SW:TFA but I still enjoyed it. Let's not forget, it was also my first 6.00 am showing. An inspired bit of scheduling by Odeon. I got to see a film and then headed to work.. Not sure it's going to be a regular feature though as only 7 of us turned up..
Sci-fi provided me with most of my enjoyable viewings this year. Arrival was an 'Odeon Screen Unseen' and I was blown away by it (so much so I saw it an additional 4 times). When Super Hero's took on Super Hero's it was Marvel who won with both Captain America:Civil War and Doctor Strange streets ahead of DC's offerings (more about them later).. And Deadpool was in a whole different league..!

The Meh.

3 and 3 1/2 star movies made up nearly half of the movies I saw this year.. (48%) Including several Screen Unscreen's.  Perhaps I'm just getting too fussy.. There was more disappointments than expected this year. DC failed to budge Marvel's crown with their two blockbuster efforts. It made me yearn for the day's of Christopher Nolan.  That being said, after X-Men:Day's Of Future Past I was excited for X-Men:Apocalypse.  But Brian Singer couldn't maintain the quality.. It wasn't bad... just not good enough.. The same goes for Warcraft and Star Trek:Beyond..
With Christmas approaching I booked a midnight screening to see the latest from J.K.Rowling. I always enjoyed Harry Potter at this time of the year but unfortunately Fantastic Beasts didn't... quite... do it for me (it did improve on the second viewing though.)

And The Ugly..

Umm.. At only 12% of this years viewings in the 2 1/2 star bracket or lower I can't complain really.
Independence Day 2 and God's Of Egypt were to be expected. After Angels and Demons I guess so was Inferno. The Screen Unseens though, I wasn't expecting..

Ok here's my top 10..

10 - 10 Cloverfield Lane
09 - A Beautiful Planet
08 - The Beatles : Hard Days Night
07 - The Nice Guys
06 - Deadpool
05 - Hell Or High Water
04 - Captain America: Civil War
03 - The Revenant
02 - Doctor Strange
01 - Arrival