CBGB

IMDB

First time viewed: Yes

Current Release: Yes

I don't know much about punk rock, but I did recognise some of the names of the people here and it does seem like a pretty cool story. Alan Rickman is always reliable. And they got a pretty good cast together to play all these famous young bands. I guess if I know more about the subject or cared more about it this film would be really great. As it is, I found it interesting but not amazing.

The Monkey King

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes

Stephen Chow's Journey to the West came out here not long ago and already we have another version of the Monkey King saga, this time Donnie Yen directs and stars. It's a spectacular looking production, although some of the cg and most of the 3D is less than stellar. Much like Chow's Journey to the West, the story ends where the journey begins. Unlike Chow's Journey to the West, this version follows the story I remember. With a few embellishments too. Although, to be fair, I only really know the story from the 70's english translation of the Japanese television series.

The action in this film isn't as fun as Chow's though, instead resorting to a lot of flying around in cg sky. But there's some fun stuff.

All Is Lost

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes

Robert Redford is on the boat and then the boat has an accident and he tries to fix it but it sinks anyway and he's all like "oh no all is lost" and that's the movie.

3 Days to Kill

IMDB

First time viewed: Yes

Current Release: Yes

Luc Besson continues to pump these out. Action thriller comedy thingys. McG directed this one. Nice to see Kevin Costner with something to do. Hailee Steinfeld and Amber Heard are a little stranded in their roles but they both get a few moments. Things work best with there's action and spy stuff going down, the emotional family stuff tends to get a little clawing. It's quite a fun film overall though.

Grand Piano

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Tyler

Eugenio Mira made one of my favourite real time single location thrillers with criminally under-seen The Birthday a few years back (with Corey Feldman's best performance ever) and he's made another here, with an even more outlandish premise and a great cast too. And boy does he put ALL the direction into this movie. All of it. Brian DePalma eat your heart out. 

The limited setting is like a personal challenge and we are treated an onslaught of different camera angles and movements and cinematic tricks and techniques to keep the pace up and the storying moving forward. It's kind of dizzying. 

What lets the film down is something that might not be a problem to anyone who's never been to a concert before. But really, that's not how concerts work, that's not how pianists perform and that's not what a difficult piano recital piece would sound like. I'm sure people at NASA would watch Gravity and think very simmilar things, you have to have some suspension of disbelief to be able to tell your story, but there are some pretty big problems with this premise that they have to change things as much as they do to make it work and it does annoy the piano recitalist in me. 

And if you're going to make a story about the hardest piano piece to play, you'd better have the hardest piano piece to play or not let the audience hear it. 

However the movie is just fun enough for me to be able to overlook that. It's really flashy directing but it really suits something like this and definitely worth a look, even if it was just for that. 

Non-Stop

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Tyler

I love my close-quarter thrillers. But despite the cast, this one was pretty meh.  Liam Neeson is just an action hero now, apparently. Director Jaume Collet-Serra is supposedly working on the Akira live action adaptation. I hope to god that falls through again.

There's some suspense and actiony moments but if you think about the plot from more than a minute it all falls apart. But people that think about the plot for more than a minute are not the target audience of this film. It's dumb fun, passes the time and is entertaining enough but pretty forgettable.

Oldboy

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes

Soul crushing. Why would you do this? The Original is just stunning, it didn't need a remake. But Spike Lee tried and just took all the artistry and style out of it, tried to simplify the story but messed up the structure and pacing and added in some gore because he couldn't pull off the emotional punches. And apparently was to afraid of Sharlto Copley to tell him to tone it back. This was as infuriating as when M. Night Shyamalan thought he could turn The Last Airbender into a film. So upsetting. But at least we still have the original.

Le Week-End

IMDB

First time viewed: Yes

Current Release: Yes

Could well be the next entry in the Before Sunrise series... A funny little relationship study with Lindsay Duncan and Jim Broadbent both in fine form. Jeff Goldblum always a plus. Great character writing and some wonderful scenes. You really get a sense of the length of this relationship. I just wish there wasn't the cliched grand declaration in front of strangers at a party right at the end. But I still enjoyed the rest of it.