Films

I saw Thor Ragnarok last night - IMO the best Marvel film ever made - absolutely hilarious - if you can, it's worth a watch.

I'm currently watching the new version of Jumanji - it's pretty dire, not unexpected of course, the guy only does well in comedies, and I don't think this is intended to be, it isn't one IMO anyway (and I find most thing hilarious).

edit- okay, maybe they do think it's a comedy, it briefly had killer squirrels in, killer squirrels are always intended to be funny, being closely related to the monty python killer rabbit.

Anyone else got any film comments?

 

I watched the first Thor movie, but mainly for the brief glimpses of Idris Elba, and quite liked it. I have a 17 year old son, so have been forced to sit through most of this genre of films. Mr Justy, on the other hand, is only satisfied if he is watching something subtitled and preferable black and white and bleak as hell.

I chose The Levelling to watch on Christmas eve as Mark Kermode bigged it up massively. It wasn't very christmassy, being a bleak British film, about a suicide, set on a run down dairy farm on the Somerset Levels after the floods. Mr Justy didn't enjoy it, despite it being right up his alley, but i found it very moving and affecting.

We just watched Wonder Woman en famille, and i have to say, for that sort of film it was excellent.

I know people don't usually cry at blockbuster Hollywood action movies, but the whole powerful woman saving the world, while a man clung to her and told her he loved her was just a bit emotional for this feminist. Cant believe how long it's taken to get this far. And it is now the highest grossing film in the DC universe of films.

 

I loved Fantastical Creatures and where to find them.

This is related to the Hogwarts world but not of it. The creatures are fabulous and I found it to be very funny.

Edited to correct the spelling of creatures - predictive text!

 

I was pleasantly surprised by Wonder Woman! I liked the casting for Ares, the god of war - not who I would have expected to have been picked.

 

I watched "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" on the airplane, and it was pretty good. Stunning visuals and special effects. The only annoying part was that the two main characters were basically a couple of horny teenagers who had somehow been entrusted with saving the galaxy and such

 

I liked the action, but the retro-ultra-feminine costuming in the 1940's was really off-putting. It was like they were saying that women can kick ass ... as long as they know how to look pretty and act girly when they're expected to.

 

I recently watched Synecdoche, New York. It was amazingly beautiful, clever, ironic, so well acted. But it was very very depressing. I really felt like suicidal after watching it.

 

We only discovered Arrival (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543164/) recently. An alien invasion movie with almost no action, and a great female lead, I can't recommend it enough.

 

Yep, that was a brilliant film. I loved it.

 

One of my favourite films (& not at all recent) is Amelie.

It's a little quirky and Amelie gets annoyed with one of her neighbours who is just horrible to his assistant in his greengrocer shop. The assistant is a little different & his boss calls his names and verbally abuses him all the time.

One day Amelia gets hold of this guy's keys to his flat and strikes back. Over a period of time she does many things....one of which is to buy a pair of slippers in exactly the same style but a size smaller and substitute them for the ones under this bloke's bed. There are others but I don't want to give the whole thing away.

It is a little girly in places but I really have to respect the kind of mind that dreamed up some of her acts of revenge.

 

The best film I've seen in a while was 2016's "Hell or High Water" with Jeff Bridges and Chirs Pine. Speaking of "Arrival," that director's previous film, "Prisoners" (2013), was also unexpectedly good.

 

Mr Justy's favourite non subtitled film.

Great movie!

One of my favourite films of all time is Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind - not recent but very funny, quirky and romantic in its way, but not a girly film.

 

I watched "Bright" earlier - supposed to be available on NETFLIX if anyone's interested.

It's basically a buddy cop movie, with Will Smith paired up with a rockie Orc - yep, Orc.

It's main good point is Will Smith gets his arse kicked for 90 minutes pretty much continuously - if that isn't a selling point I don't know what is

There's Orc gangs, gang gangs, Elves, a magic FBI, wands that blow up the immediate area if touched by an unauthorised user - it's one of them.

It's okay, I managed to watch about 50% of it in between flicking through other things - which is pretty good for me ATM.

 

This reminds me of what was either a failed TV pilot, or a very short lived series of the late 70's or early 80's which took place in a sort of alternate universe Los Angeles where werewolves, vampires and other supernatural creatures were commonplace and were regarded as nuisances by the LAPD. It probably revolved around a police detective, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was called. I think it had a fairly sardonic sense of humor. Several movies/series have done variations on this idea since then.

 

Yep - there's been a few, thought they were later than that though, cops paired up with dinosaurs, cops paired up with vampires - oddly when I spot one on a film channel or somewhere else and do a search they all seem unavailable to download.

And I'm persistent, I spent years looking for "The Fantastic Journey" (unrelated) coz I remembered it from when I was kid, but mainly coz I couldn't find it, anywhere, no one else remembered the opening sequence, or anything else about it, I couldn't even find the series name, hunts for every sci fi series ever made, anywhere, unsuccessful - eventually found it and pulled it from youtube lol.

I just hate it when I remember something and the entire universe says "nope - didn't happen", I will do a seriously inappropriate amount of work to prove I'm right

edit - oh FFS, just thought, cops paired with dead cops, made me think of Randall and Hopkirk, so now got to download that and see if it's worth watching

 

Spirited Away from studio Ghibli - classic
Iron Giant ( also animation)
Currently going through Hitchcock collection of DVDs and catching up with " handmaid' s tale" on all4 - not a film but great nonetheless.

 

I would, but it only seems to be available in french, fair enough with english subs, but my brain just isn't up to that level of processing

It was too much hard work for me, the "language" appeared to be internally inconsistent, it kept stalling my brain, and I had to repeatedly go back to re-reference bits.

Completely ruined it for me. (You'd think they would have at least taken the time to sort out the central premise of the film and make it consistent with itself).

 

How so?

 

The ink/smoke shape fragments, given an initial meaning, when later repeated, given a different meaning. They were supposed to be building a map of the language, such things make a mockery of the process, and upset my brain.

I know some people will just see the shapes and not give them any thought, but my brain doesn't work like that, it picks up inconsistencies automatically and bugs me with them.

Given that the language was supposed to be based on a book she had written in the future, it's just laziness that the main special effects were inconsistent with the main story.

Don't get me wrong, I know it's made up, but many authors go to a great deal of trouble to make imaginary languages internally consistent.......

 

I watched " United 93", the story of the 4th highjacked plane on 9/11 that didn't reach its target.
I have no idea of this film's appeal. Have watched it at least 5 times. Always a benefit these days because if concentration goes, it doesn't really matter.

Part of it might be 'the story' of what we were doing that day. I was writing an assignment, and a news film came up as a screensaver I think. Mr Binkie had flown to US the previous day, son had left to drive back to uni an hour before, daughter was probably teaching.

There's something about the story that fascinates me. The skies above US being closed, international flights turned back, inability to get defence planes into the air, unarmed defence planes being sent up. Mr B got stuck in Houston for days, was recalled from a golf course ( and he definitely doesn't play golf) to take a flight home when it suddenly became available, and the touching on the story that anyone could have been on that plane. How would we react? All unreal like a film.

But it was real. The never to be forgotten shock of planes flying into the 2 towers, the heroic firefighters........am actually beginning to feel embarrassed at enjoying watching it. Very odd mix of fantasy and reality.

Maybe it's because I fly more these days because son lives in NY. No idea really.