Star Wars: Ewok Adventures - The Battle for Endor

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Michael

Now this is the one that I grew up with. I love this as a kid and it could be nostalgia clouding my mind, but this one just seems like a much better film.

For one thing, it is a darker, especially the start. The action is on a bigger scale, so many lasers and explosions. Some cool new creatures and most importantly, no silly narration, instead the villains and Wicket all speak english this time, which helps a great deal.

I love the whole storming the castle prison break sequence.

Most importantly I just love seeing some great old school IML effects, as yet untouched by Lucas. You look at the names on the credit list and it's like a who's who of the leaders in the industry today.

I don't know if anyone considers these films in Star Wars canon or not but is it just me or is the old man in this the only person in the Star Wars universe to have glasses?

Star Wars: Ewok Adventures - Caravan of Courage

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First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Michael

Write Up.

I still haven't found that supposedly hidden Winnie the Pooh in one of the matte paintings. The search continues...

At least this time I'll follow it up with the "still not great, but much better than this one" sequel.

Chinatown

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

I ordered the bluray from overseas and it has finally arrived. David Fincher does a commentary track with the writer so I had a listen. Fantastic.

What does one say about this film? It's right up there as one of the all time greats in my opinion. I love it. A brooding Neo-noir that just gets better every time you watch. So much going on. The bluray shows off the beautifully shot anamorphic images and Jerry Goldsmith's hauntingly beautiful score, which I just learned from the extras he wrote in 9 days, replacing an original score he was unhappy with. Interesting, especially as it is now one of the most iconic scores of his.

Brilliant directing, one of the best screenplays ever written and a handful of iconic performances. Really draws you and and then packs a punch.

Fincher goes into great detail on why he loves the film and talks a lot about the psychology of it, which is fascinating. He also says a few things he would have done differently which is pretty funny.

So great to watch again, I expect I'll be watching it without the commentary soon too.

Get the Gringo

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

According to IMDB this was shot on the Red One. They managed to make it look a lot like HD video.

Anyway it's a welcome return from Mel Gibson, who is back in full wise cracking action star mode. The film keeps a good pace, there's a lot of bloodshed (so many grenades!) and it revels in how morally corrupt the entire affair is. And thankfully the plucky kid is great, not annoying.

The whole concept of this prison community is something I've never seen before, it's a great place to build  what would otherwise be another pretty typical crime action comedy. It also allows for a nice big raid and stand-off for the climax. Expect a lot of gunplay with nice juicy squib hits.

There's not much more to say about it, on the whole, very entertaining slightly grungier style of an early 90's action comedy.

Bel Ami

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

I don't know the book, didn't even read a synopsis beforehand, I do like going in blind. Theatre directors Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod have made a handsome looking debut film that, while it didn't do much for me, still had enough going for it that I found it engaging for the most part.

Basically, Robert Pattinson plays an asshole who sleeps with a whole bunch of women in his quest for more power and money. And it works. Perhaps not the most uplifting of stories but I really did love the bitter ending. 

You get a lot of classy talk and a fair few sex scenes that all wildly differ in tone and intent instead of just being gratuitous. Although you could doubt with the casting stunts the film pulls.

While I found the acting a bit bland sometimes and a real lack of drive, I didn't find much offensive about this one. It was a fun little number.

The Woman in Black

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

Well, after watching 3 Men in Black films in a row, it was only fair I gave the women a look too.

I didn't know the book or the play, or the original film version. I went into this one cold and it played wonderfully in the cinema.

This one oozes atmosphere. It looks and sounds great. I love the moor and the tides that cut off the house, the creeeeeeeeeepy production design throughout and the performances from the cast. Most of all though, I love the incredibly sustained suspense sequence that takes place the first night inside the house. It felt like about half the film was just that one night and each beat lead to something else, never letting up. Amazing. I could have watched that night continue for the whole film. The second night is much shorter but still pretty spooky, but it was that first night that really got me going.

I'll admit, I was expecting some big twist or revelation towards the end, I think the landscape of modern ghost stories just made this a convention, but now I think about it I really like how simple and straight forward the story is. The majority of the time goes to atmosphere building and freaking the audience out and it worked wonders for me.

The first great horror film of the year, I hope there are many more to come. Definitely give this a look on the big screen, where it needs deserves be seen.

Men in Black 3

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

Long time coming I guess. And after all the production trouble I heard about this one, I went into the cinema expecting the worst, despite the extravagant display put on for the premiere.

I was surprised I managed to enjoy quite a bit of it despite my grievances with time travel logic cutting into me like a thousand knives. Getting Josh Brolin to play young Agent K is a stroke of genius though. And the film gives you the chance to see Bill Hader as Andy Warhol and Emma Thompson give a wonderful eulogy.

Jemaine Clement is the bad guy this time around and much like the second film, though I like the actor's performance and the alien design work, the character just didn't do that much for me.

On the other hand Michael Stuhlbarg as a 5th dimensional being is pretty great.

Once again, the film is filled with cameos that were fun to spot. The action worked fine and the fx and make up were really great as usual too.  Lord knows how much it ended up costing with all the reshoots and 3d conversion, there was a lot of stuff I remember from early trailers that were nowhere to be seen in the finished film. I'm surprised to say the 3D conversion was really well done, looked great on Imax. Does that make me a bad person?

Time travel folks. As soon as you introduce this kind of paradoxical infinite universe rewriting capabilities into your plot, all stakes become 0. No matter what goes wrong, you can always go back and fix it. The ultimate thematic and emotional point of this device is interesting, if a little convoluted but it's a pet peeve of mine and drives me nuts. 

Despite this, there was enough here that I enjoyed enough. It's not something I'd see myself revisiting a great deal, although I'm very intrigued to see the other versions, deleted scenes and commentaries on the eventual home entertainment releases. I'm sure Sony won't let them be as candid as I'd like but it would be interesting nonetheless. 

Men in Black 2

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

I saw this one once at the cinema and possible once more on dvd but I never really revisited it. I recall just finding it boring and really hated the way they just completely negate everything Tommy Lee Jones' character does in the first film.

Watching it again, right after part one, it held up better than I thought. It really was just more of the same and although it feels a bit sillier and kiddy in a lot of places, and my issues with the character reset remain, you can't deny it's not part of the same universe as the first film.

Much much more expensive looking. And for a result that isn't necessarily as thrilling. Lara Flynn Boyle as the bad guy doesn't really work as well for me. And Johnny Knoxville was just annoying. But we do get a brief glimpse of Patrick Warburton as an agent which is just delightful.

We also get a pretty funny retro sci-fi conspiracy tv show that handles the bulk of the exposition. It's pretty funny.

Oh yeah, Michael Jackson.

They tried to do a similar shift in perspective that the first film did so well, opening with that shot of the dragonfly and closing with the big galaxy pull out reveal. In this film we have a train station locker filled with terribly written joke sprouting plush toys in the making and a final reveal that just doesn't do anything. Frank the Pug returns and even sings Who Let the Dogs Out much to my dismay and the delight of kids everywhere. Too much kiddyness in this for me.They practically use the exact same macguffin as the first film too, which seems lazy.

But I do like the worm in the subway.

Men in Black

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

Been a loooong time since I watched this one. But I used to watch it so often I still remember all of it. It was a big risk at the time of release but one that paid off.

It also hit when I was right in the target audience demographic. And it had ILM and Rick Baker making aliens, it was a comedy/action and had a neat Danny Elfman score, all things I loved.

Watching it again now, I can see how expensive a risk this would have been, especially when there was nothing like it out there at the time and everyone presumed sci-fi and comedy would not work. It was also smaller scale than I recall, the climax is pretty simple, especially compared to the other two.

Will Smith's outfits before he dons the suit date the film pretty firmly.

So, groundbreaking fx work for the time and they hold up pretty well too. I love the casting of Vincent D'Onofrio as the bad guy, he's great. Most importantly though the unusual pairing of Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith works wonders. The perfect pairing of the wise cracker and the straight man.

Great to catch up with again and finally an excuse to watch it on bluray.

Beauty and the Beast

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

Write Up.

Went and checked out the 3D conversion this morning. Theatre full of horrible kids, but what can you do about that. They had the new Tangled short before the feature and that was really fun, very much felt like more of a Warner Bros. cartoon than disney, putting the animal side kicks, the horse and the chameleon, front and centre in a big crazy action sequence. And I got to gaze upon Flynn Rider's hansom mug once again. Sigh.

I believe Beaty and the Beast was Disney's first 3D conversion but they released Lion King first and only decided to give this a shot once that did well. I have a lot of the same comments about the conversion. The flat spaces of colour don't work in 3D and the lines pop out oddly. Especially strange when characters walk behind or interact with something that's a background element and they never quite seem to match up or just come off as strange. But the opening shots and all the split pane photography looks great.

Also I have to note that once again, I'm staggered at the economy of storytelling. I guess it helps when you can blatantly state objectives via song though.

Did I see Taran from The Black Cauldron chasing his pig in the opening number? That was totally him.  I can also see the seven dwarfs shot reused and the final shot of Sleeping Beauty redone as the final shot of this film.

I'll admit I did tear up a little. Perhaps not when you would think though. They put 3D converted character sketches through the credits and I stayed to look at them, they came out pretty great, probably because they didn't have straight lines so there was detail enough to get the depth from and also because they weren't moving so you had time to let the depth sink in. But right at the end Howard Ashman's little obituary comes up. Touching but very sad indeed.

Nice to see again. 3D didn't add much for in this film though, and I can always do without the screaming kids in the cinemas.