The Lego Movie

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes

Write Up.

Bluray is out. Listened to the commentary last night. There's really anything about the animation or the technical side of things unfortunately, but they have a bunch of funny actors there that's ok to listen to.

Under the Skin

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

Cut to 10 years later.... and Jonathan Glazer has another film! It's a kooky one too.

Scarlett Johansson is.... something and she's doing... something. It's about... something. 

It's creepy and has some awesome visuals. Cool sound design and music too. It's also really slow and esoteric. But I did enjoy it. And more importantly it gave birth to a great meme. I really just spent the whole film wondering which guys were actors and which were real. I should probably give it more consideration than this but I'll save that for another time when I'm less sick and more awake. Cool film to open Revelation Film Festival though.

Jersey Boys

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes

Well I didn't know a thing about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, nor had I seen the live show but I seemed to know all their songs. So this film was enlightening in that regard.

I dunno, I keep saying it and maybe I'm just being prejudiced against the man now but there's something about Clint Eastwood's recent films that just feel flat and hollow to me. It's a fine production, good tech specs (except maybe a little heavy on the colour grading) and I like the people in it but I just never care about anything that's happening in the story or to the characters. I'm not a huge fan of the songs, except for Can't Take My Eyes Off You. The ending is a really bizarre choice. So is having 3 characters narrate the film breaking the 4th wall. Might work on stage but it's a really dangerous thing in film.

And it wouldn't be a Clint Eastwood film without some questionable old age makeup.

If you're a fan I'm sure you'll enjoy the songs...

Dom Hemingway

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes

It's like someone thought, hey Jude Law would be funny swearing his tits off as a British gangster, lets give him a whole movie to do it! I'm inclined to agree for the most part, but it did get a little tiresome. I don't think it's as extreme and outrageous as it believe it is though.

The story is really simple, there's a bit of a redemptive character arc and some fun side characters with a good cast. Nothing to memorable but certainly entertaining enough while it lasted.

They Came Together

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

I'm a big David Wain fan and I'm glad to see his latest film puts his odd sense of humour on display. He does some things here that I don't think he would have gotten away with while working on those studio comedies. Really strange things. But funny.

This one is a take down of cliched romantic comedy tropes. It goes through all the stereotypical story structures and character types but takes a few of them to ridiculous extremes. It even has the random gross out poop joke and the catchy tie-in song from the soundtrack.

There's a great ensemble cast here, all playing up to their types, many of whom have played these kind of roles legitimately before.

You don't have to be a film buff to recognise the satire, they pretty much hit you over the head with it.  But thankfully its very funny whilst doing so. For people that love romantic comedies and for people who hate romantic comedies, this is a great watch!

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No

I've seen all the other versions, but never the original! Finally got around to it. What a great and creepy paranoid thriller. Love the noir high key lighting that creeps in over the course of the film. And the wonderful score. It's a really great slow build, I think we all know where it's going but the whole not falling asleep thing works so well. Just like in Nightmare on Elm St. I guess. There is a slightly more happy ending than I'm used to with one of these films. It's really just more a massive sigh of relief for the audience and the protagonist that someone finally catches on to what's happening. Don't know how I feel about the voice over narration, but I guess it work ok, as it's told in retrospect. So glad to have finally seen it, all cleaned up in HD too.

I Dismember Mama aka Poor Albert and Little Annie

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

More than anything else, I'm aware of the double feature trailer for this film. I've seen it a bunch of times from various sources and it's just ridiculous. But Finally managed to track down a copy of one of the films. This film came up in a recent conversation about "Fake Jan" from the Brady Bunch Variety Hour, who plays little Annie here.

Well, It's a pretty crappy movie.

The House on Sorority Row

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

Another 80's cult classic. I vaguely remember the remake from a few years ago but not enough that I remember what the basic plot was. This one seems to be remarkably similar to Black Christmas in that regard but it's pretty well put together and there are some triply moments towards the end where the tension and pace work really well. Glad to have finally seen it.

Night Creatures aka Captain Clegg

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No

Oldschool Hammer Horror. A lesser known one apparently but it's quite a fun little mystery. Well, In truth it's not much of a mystery either, they spell out what's going on but I'm not sure I'd classify it as a horror either. But it has PIRATES! And man, what a reputable cast.

Bloody Birthday

IMDB

First time viewed: Yes

Current Release: No

Oh I do love a good evil child film. And this one was really great! Using astrology as the excuse, these three kids are just plain no good and delight in killing anyone that gets in their way. That's really all there is to it! Great fun, well put together.

Night Train to Terror

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No

Oh wow. The most terrifying thing about this movie is the editing. Absolutely horrifying, across the board.

So we have God and Satan sitting on a train full of 80's pop rockers. This is the wrap around story to present 3 horror shorts about various souls that are sitting in judgment. One is about crazy doctors kidnapping victims for their insane asylum experiments, one is about a death cult and the last is about a guy that write about about god being dead and then all this other stuff happens. It's really hard to follow. Not just that segment, the whole thing. This could be because it appears that one or two of the segments are edited down from unreleased feature length films. Perhaps that explains the bizarre choppy editing too.

There is some hilarious gore in each segment. And some stop frame animation in two of the sequences too. All the practical and visual fx are pretty cheap but kinda fun and charming because of that.

And then there's that damn 80's band that we keep cutting back to. Singing the same song over and over. To camera. Like a forgotten music video has also been spliced into the mix.

I just don't know what to make of this. It's definitely not good. But some of it is baffling and hilarious. The editing hurt my soul.

Transformers: Age of Extinction

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes

Another Transformers movie. Come on guys, you know exactly what this is. Probably the most frustrating blockbuster franchise I can remember. Not because it's flat out terrible, but because there's such amazing (and expensive) artistry on display that being completely wasted on films that don't have halfway decent script. This one is no different.

Once again, Michael Bay delivers non-stop big scale action. Well not quite non-stop, but I try to block out everything else. I don't think anything here remotely tops the insane set pieces and far better staging of the last act in Transformers 3. hey were so fun it made me giddy and almost able to overlock the proceeding 2 hours... Not quite here, but there's plenty of explosions and buildings and cars being smashed and only on a handful of occasions did I get really annoyed at the shaky cam.

And bless all you amazing artists at ILM and various VFX houses that have to make these ridiculous conceits as believable as possible. We're numb to the visuals by now but they are very impressive. The new earth-improved transforming style the evil robots use is pretty crazy, not sure if I buy into it as much but it is beautiful.

Now the main reason I was interested in seeing this was to check out the footage from the new IMAX 3D cameras. Unfortunately for this first screening I only saw the film at a regular 3D cinema, but I'll rectify that soon. Even so there are a lot of very noticeable jumps in visual quality. They shot 2D 35mm, Red Epic 2D and 3D and IMAX 3D and the grain is all over the place. Some is crystal clear and some is muddy as hell. But I think you can tell where it switches to the 65mm sensor. Anyway, I'll clarify that soon, but the digital stuff looked pretty great.

And the sound, as always, is bombastic and fun. It's very busy but I do like what they come up with. I believe Skrillex helped out on the sound design?

So in this one we get a handful of Autobots, the man-made robots that become possessed by megaton reincarnated, another race of bounty hunter robots that work for some unknown alien overlords, some dinosaurs, some other aliens and finally a race of super giant robots that transform into robot dinosaurs. And then there's all the various factions of human characters that no-one cares about anyway, I mean, really it's confusing enough.

I will say that the human characters this time, now that we have a fresh new cast, seem to be far less annoying and preoccupied with terrible jokes. (There are still plenty of terrible, baffling jokes that just fall flat but the ratio seems to be much smaller thankfully.) Mark Wahlberg is cool, and the girl from Bates Motel and the creepy but incredibly handsome Irish guy from What Richard Did are fine too. Stanley Tucci and Kelsey Grammar are the least annoying human villains so far and I always enjoy T.J. Miller, so his fate in this film was a little upsetting. They all really do the best they can with  the personality traits and relationship tropes screenwriter Ehren Kruger thinks make a character.

In regards to creating characters for the robots, they are pretty much relying on the visual design and stereotypes again. Inspired voice casting of John Goodman as the fat one, John DiMaggio as the gruff one and Ken Watanabe as the asian one.

Speaking of Asia, I'm hard pressed to think of a film that so is blatant in its attempts to simply make money. They really want to succeed in ever-coverted asian market. And the various product placements are hilariously unsubtle. I guess thats me overlooking the fact that this is just a giant toy commercial anyway...

There is a scene early on in the film set in a decaying cinema. Wahlberg's character checks out the old film projectors and throws a football around and T.J. Miller crashes into a mouton of film reels. The owner remarks how movies are just big blockbuster sequels these days. This scene hurt the most. It's like Michael Bay knows exactly the crap he's making and what it's doing to the film industry but is part of the machine himself now and powerless to stop it. I honestly think Michael Bay is a good director, just as I think his crew and all the artists and actors involved in this film have amazing talent.  It's upsetting that time and money and that wealth of talent has to go into making this.

So, much like the others, terrible incomprehensible plot, no characters to invest in, overload of action and amazing visual fx (except that suspension wire scene). Certainly less insulting and annoying than others. Feels like there's been a budget cut on this one, either that or I'm just totally numb to the spectacle, which is a real worry.

Evilspeak

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

A bullied nerd translates a satanic ritual using a computer, which becomes possessed. It's pretty cheap silly suff and pretty slow too. Not many surprises as they telegraph all the big events but things burn real good at the end. A handful of gore gags too. Fun music score too, but a very average film.

Hamlet 2

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Bri, Libby

Write Up.

Such a fun film, Steve Coogan is just great.

Rio 2

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

Pretty standard sequel to an average kids animation. They throw a lot of plots at the script to keep as many characters in as possible and then spread songs all over the joint in a hodge podge post modern nightmare of styles. You can do worse. But there's nothing lasting about this.

Annoying screaming kids in the cinema! And parents that just let them run around and in front of the screen! Doesn't help.