Noah

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Michael, Tyler

Write Up.

Oh man, it's just solo... gah, I dunno. I'm so conflicted about this one.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Jess, Jim, Aaron, Andrew, Tom, Leo, Paul, Ant, Xoe

Marvel keeps churning them out and as long as they are as fun and well put together as this, we'll keep watching. And this one shakes things up a bit. Certainly for anyone watching their television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been keeping concurrent to the film releases so far.

The first Captain America was aping a ripping old school war yarn, and made great use of the idea of the character as a propaganda. And then had the most melancholy ending of any of the films so far. For my money, the most effective romance in the series. And to see how they conclude it here is a bit of a stab in the heart. Ouch.

They put the Cap through the ringer in this one and conceive of a threat that manages to be a great evolution and at the same time reference to the first film. The black and white hero and villain world Cap is used to has gone and this film follows him coming to grips with a world that's not so easy to deal with. Marvel does a 70's conspiracy thriller! Hence the casting of Robert Redford I suppose.

Scarlett Johansson is our second lead here and this is the most revealing the Black Widow has been as yet. They make a great team up. It's also the most Nick Fury has had to do. And they introduce The Falcon, but really he didn't make much of an impression. But the people they did bring back from the first film make for some interesting surprises. 

The action is pretty great and comedy directors Anthony and Joe Russo equip themselves well with the blockbuster Marvel style as well as the great paranoid thriller aspects. But it's funny as well when it needs to be. This one defiantly had one a slightly more interesting story to tell, perhaps just by virtue of the big picture story beats it's progressing, but even so although I was getting sleepy watching a late session but the film keeps moving at quite a pace even through the exposition and tricky plot twists, enough to keep me interested through to the big climax. Much fun.

The Lego Movie

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Jess, Jim, Aaron, Andrew, Tom, Leo

Yes! So great. I loved this from beginning to end. So much fun, so hilarious, so beautiful, a delight. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller seem to have a knack for taking concepts that seem like really stupid ideas for a movie and not only making them work but actually be worthwhile too.

Their humour is irreverent and always skirting the boundaries of self-referentiallity. Always a little off-kilter and unexpected too, which is probably what I like the most. And they got a great cast to perform the various franchise-licenced characters.

Animal Logic have once again blown my mind with their shaders and sumptuous digital lighting. They nail stop-frame animation style too and there are many great details to bee seen and some creative techniques. I don't even want to know how hard that ocean was to simulate. But it's amazing.

But all this would be for nothing without a good story. And they've managed find a great central conflict for lego, namely do you build exactly what's on the box, or use the pieces to make whatever you can imagine. And the world they build (literally) out of that premise is a fun one indeed. Sure to be the first of many repeat viewings.

Romeo & Juliet

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes

Now we get a traditional take on the story. It was pretty good too. Stand outs were Damian Lewis as Lord Capulet and Paul Giamatti as Friar Laurence. I also liked that Lesley Manville wasn't a complete over the top maniac playing the Nurse. The young cast equip themselves alright, although I don't really see Hailee Steinfeld as Juliet. And if you're doing a film adaptation you should really attempt to make the sword fights a little more enthralling and cinematic. But the adaptation made the scenes really flow well. Changed up the ending a little... heh.  Anyway, wasn't bad.

Divergent

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

Hunger Games lite.

Shailene Woodley, who was so great in The Spectacular Now, gets her first big lead. And it's amiable, enough, but there's not really anything here that hasn't just been done (usually better), by the same company no less. This film focuses far more on the romance side of things, and having just watched The Raid, the action seemed a little piss-weak. Some interesting production design though. I don't know where the story goes from this point, or if we'll see more, but this feels very much like the first film in a series. I'm hoping it gets a resolution and it gets better and uses the talent involved to their full potential.

The Raid 2

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

The Raid was an intense fast-paced action-packed thrill ride. A beautifully crafted action film with a simple set up and ample pay-off. A joy to watch.

The sequel however, is just simply epic. It breaks free of the simple confines of the original and spans generations and various warring clans from around the world. And though it does take quite a while to understand what exactly is going on and what is being set up, once the dominos start toppling, there's no stopping it. The character work here is wonderful and then of course there's the insane goretastic old-school action. Beauteous.

Gareth Evans really stepped up to the plate and delivered. Across the board, the cinematography, edit, production design and acting, and yes the action, all are honed with great care and the finished film is very satisfying indeed, despite the very slow burn. In truth I didn't even realise the film was 3 hours long while watching it. Great stuff. And some thrilling camera moves too...

Nymphomaniac: Vol. II

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes

Here's my write up of part 1. Man that's a long film.

Nymphomaniac: Vol. I

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes


Some typical Lars von Trier fare. Irreverent, controversial, interesting, hilarious and pretentious. A series of stories from our protagonist's life framed by their telling to an apparently asexual Stellan Skarsgård.

The stories are sometimes interesting and often funny in that black comedic way Trier loves. But the stilted and strange writing in the framing device really rubbed me the wrong way and the piece as a whole is not very cohesive. Actually it's a complete mess. Although I did like a few bits of it it's not something I think is worth sitting through again.

Now I'm aware that the version I watched is an edited down version (still covering 2 films at 5 and a half hours...) and not the Directors cut, it goes out of its way to tell you this at the beginning. I think it's the American cut that censored much of the sex scenes, although there's still plenty in it. Perhaps the full version is a little more worth while? But from what I saw here I don't think I'll bother.

Cheap Thrills

IMDB

First time viewed: No

Current Release: Yes

Watched With: Sam, Sean

Write Up.

This film is the best.

City of the Living Dead

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No

I haven't seen that much Lucio Fulci. I should work on that. This one's a doozy. They throw everything in. And of course it makes no sense but hey that doesn't matter really as long as there's some good gore.  This one has quite the drill scene... And a lot of maggots...

So I don't really know if there are zombies in this film or ghosts. Or ghost zombies. The rules are never really established and these zombies appear and disappear like ghosts. The don't seem to want to eat brains, they just want to squish them with their hands, which they do, repeatedly.

There's some Lovecraftian references, there's magic and fortune telling and the zombie ghosts commanded by this evil priest dude that looks a bit like Christopher Lee as Dracula. It's a confusing mess and has some hilariously bad dialogue but I guess that's part of the fun too.

Noah

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

If you ever wondered what Darren Aronofsky's telling of a biblical epic would look like, well you're in luck! To be honest I could not imagine what that would look like but now that I've seen it, well yeah that's exactly what Darren Aronofsky's telling of a biblical epic would look like.

It's the story of Noah that we all know, but Aronofsky pimps it out with beautiful visuals and fills it with a lot of really dark emotional turmoil. It's rather amazing and sometimes completely baffling.

I really love his version of the Watchers. Their stop-frame like animation reminds me of the rock gnomes from Return to Oz. So cool. And the seed from eden and the story of creation sequences are pretty stunningly told with a sort of timelapse photography style. Super cool.

I love the setting and the fable feeling of the whole thing. And just how dark it goes. It is a horrifying story and we aren't spared those aspects. It tends to lose me when it goes bombastic and adds in action. Especially so towards the end where a character is blatantly kept around in order to facilitate an act 3 climactic one on one fight. I get why he might be there to thematically re-iterate some points but I don't think it was needed.

Oh and Clint Mansell is just reusing his score from The Fountain. Kinda lazy...

It's a really odd one to nail down. To do this kind of mythological story in a realistic tone is always going to result is some slight goofiness by virtue of the story being told, but the actors all dig in and they try real hard to make things matter. Ultimately I think there's much more about the film that I like than I didn't. It's a great experiment and I certainly hope it leads Aronofsky to do more big budgeted fare. I think that's the most important take away from this exercise.

The Spectacular Now

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Tyler

Write Up

Such a great film.

Phantasm

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Tyler, Kate, Shane

Kooky low budget 70's cult horror fantasy that kicked off a very unusual series. I've only seen the sequels once before but I've seen this first one a few times and although it's very rough around the edges it has quite a few fun things in it. And a lot of left turns.

The Tall man is kind of iconic. As is that chrome ball of death. What the hell is that thing? Just bizarre. And I love how the sequels keep up with the series of twist endings. Cool theme song too.

Ride Along

IMDB

First time viewed: Yes

Current Release: Yes

Buddy cop comedy! Pretty straight forward. It was ok. I didn't find it all that funny though. I don't get Ice Cube. 

I, Frankenstein

IMDB

First time viewed: Yes

Current Release: Yes

Watched With: Kate, Lauren

Stuart Beattie's made another film. I don't recall gargoyles and demons in the Frankenstein story but this is hardly by the book. From the Underworld universe comes another light vs darkness, with an iconic character as our anti-hero. 

Aaron Eckhart is all angry and action man. There are many CG creatures. The story is predictable. Everything is Teal or Orange. That's pretty much all you need to know. It's not that good.