movies

[Darkweasel]

Not really getting the universal love for Guardians tbh. I enjoyed it but nowhere near as much as everyone else seemed too. The action sequences in the first half all seemed really sterile to me and the only part I remember laughing at was the bit about the false leg. Luckily it picked up a lot in the second half.

[Applecore]

I think for me, I knew something about each character/team going into their films - whereas with Guardians, I knew absolutely nothing except for the fact that one was a talking raccoon and another was a tree. So where Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Incredible Hulk were great introductions to these versions of the characters, I still had an existing impression of who they were.
Guardians I went in more or less completely blind and it got me invested in the characters and having an absolute blast the entire time. A lot of films of its type, where they introduce multiple characters for the first time and still have to tell a story, have to sacrifice either character development or storytelling in favour of one or the other - I thought Guardians got the balance absolutely bang-on.

[Darkweasel]

Yeah, I can get that.

[some_thing_wild]

Guardians










All the others.

[Potato-Jim]

1. Captain America - The Winter Soldier
2. The Avengers
3. Avengers - Age of Ultron
4. Guardians of The Galaxy
5. Iron Man
6. Thor
7. Iron Man 3
8. Captain America - The First Avenger
9. The Incredible Hulk
10. Iron Man 2
11. Thor 2


Actually looking at this list, a lot of it warrants re-watching. The majority of these films were pretty good. How are we all feeling for Ant Man/The Civil War?

[Haldamir319]

Civil War should be ace - it's the exact same writing/directing combo that brought up Winter Soldier.

Ant Man I'm warming to. The main trailer was actually pretty decent looking.

[Haldamir319]

I think for me, I knew something about each character/team going into their films - whereas with Guardians, I knew absolutely nothing except for the fact that one was a talking raccoon and another was a tree. So where Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Incredible Hulk were great introductions to these versions of the characters, I still had an existing impression of who they were.
Guardians I went in more or less completely blind and it got me invested in the characters and having an absolute blast the entire time. A lot of films of its type, where they introduce multiple characters for the first time and still have to tell a story, have to sacrifice either character development or storytelling in favour of one or the other - I thought Guardians got the balance absolutely bang-on.

On the flipside, I went in knowing quite a bit about them (I've got a few trades, read more single issues) and loved it - Groot and Rocket were spot on. Here's hoping Bug and Mantis get added down the line!

[Bisset]

Watched Interstellar at the weekend. 2 and a half hours of nothing happening followed by 20 minutes of me sighing in despair at the end. Tragic.

[Darkweasel]

I thought Interstellar was great apart from the last twenty minutes.
After we go all weird and fifth dimensional, the film should have found a way to wrap things up quicker and more effectively.

[AnnihiSlateR]

Amazingly I think we agree for once. Though I'd argue that once they came out of the wormhole was were it stopped being good. All the stuff on the other planets was just dull, and it almost felt like it was going to redeem itself before it just gets silly with the book case thing, and the coda.

[JamieH]

Just watched Montage of Heck. I would really call it a documentary like it's advertised as since it's just a tonne of clips put together, hence the name I guess.. but I was expecting there to be a bit more to it than that. There was a handful of short interview scenes in it, but hardly any. My main problem with it was the end, a clip of Courtney Love talking about Kurt's overdose in Rome, a clip of Nirvana at MTV unplugged then some text "A month later Kurt took his own life", credits. If you are going to make a two hour movie about Kurt Cobain, surely there should at least be something about his suicide other than a little bit of text?

It was alright I guess.. but meh, don't see why people are loving it so much.

[someone else]

Watched Exodus: Gods and Kings - tribe wanders in the wilderness for 40 years, watching this film will give you a similar feeling as its a slog to get to the promised land (the end credits) - dull, pompous, humourless.

[Darkweasel]

It Follows

After a date with her boyfriend takes a slightly unexpected turn, a girl wakes up tied to a chair in an abandoned warehouse. The boyfriend tells her that something is coming to kill her. Nobody else will see it, it will change its appearance, it will always walk slowly towards her, always find her, and never stop. Having sex will alter its course and make the partner its next target, but eventually it will always come back to her.
She tells her friends the unlikely story and they all rally around to try and help but the girl becomes increasingly desperate and somehow everything leads to a bizarre Hollow Man type of confrontation in an indoor swimming pool.

Firstly, there are so many flaws and possible loopholes in the overall premise, that it's best not to pull at that little thread and just go with it. But I'm afraid even doing that won't change the sense of dissatisfaction felt by the end.
In fact, the opening scene encapsulates the entire film perfectly in a five minute minute nutshell. An atmospheric, scary, and gripping start eventually giving way to disappointment and indifference from having seen too much.

Two of the film's set pieces are so terrible that they deserve special mentions. A beach scene is actually going really well until a comedy invisible hair-pull ruins any sense of atmosphere it might have had ("don't let it touch you" is the clear warning, but apparently it's okay with hair. And later, legs), and the climax in the aforementioned swimming pool is so utterly stupid that I had to watch the beginning of the scene again to make sure I hadn't missed something. I hadn't.
I know the film is about teenagers, and teenagers make stupid decisions. But seriously, if that's the best they could come up with then frankly it's a miracle they hadn't already drowned in their own cereal bowls.
Oh, and why "It" appears as a rapey mother with slimy ladyparts, or stood on the roof of a house disguised as an old man, God only knows.

The film is strewn with heavy handed sexual metaphor. Coming of age, the end of innocence etc. all handled as clumsily as the rest of the film. Blood in the swimming pool, a broken swimming pool skin, and of course the "It" is the perfect sexually transmitted disease, with the sexual act itself seen as freedom. This freedom, of course, still ultimately held captive by the loss of innocence which can never be recaptured. All very clever at a certain level, but the film's lack of adherence to its own rules, plus its other shortcomings undermine any hint of actual intelligence it might have possessed.

The soundtrack was another sticking point for me. An almost overpowering 1980's style synth score which worked perfectly during some scenes but destroyed many others. At times, I found myself completely immersed in the imposing, intensely claustrophobic atmosphere it was creating. Many times during the film, the score became the real star of the show. A character unto itself.
However, there were just as many times when I wished it would just fuck off forever as that character became more like an irritating comedy sidekick trying desperately to take over the main role.

The acting is pretty much what you'd expect from a relatively low budget supernatural horror film. Lead girl, Jay (Maika Monroe), is excellent and definitely one to watch for the future but the rest of the cast is patchy at best.
Overall, I was fairly disappointed, but not enough so that I couldn't recognise the film's better qualities. One of those films which might actually benefit from having a sequel.

6.5/10

[Soze]

Amazingly I think we agree for once. Though I'd argue that once they came out of the wormhole was were it stopped being good. All the stuff on the other planets was just dull, and it almost felt like it was going to redeem itself before it just gets silly with the book case thing, and the coda.

I actually warmed to it more once it started getting silly. It had been dreadfully slow and po faced up until that point, the completely left of centre resolution was more to my tastes! The entire film needed a spell in the editing room, it blathered on for far too long without going anywhere.

[Ghost]

Didn't realise Nigel Terry who played King Arthur in Excalibur died the other day.
That's a great, unique film.