Re: Rate the last film you watched : Wed Dec 09, 2015 1:16 pm  

Virunga.

Fantastic documentary film following the Virunga National park in the Congo, and the efforts of external influences to destabilize it.

9/10

Re: Rate the last film you watched : Fri Dec 18, 2015 10:04 am  

Star Wars The Force Awakens

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OK, where to start!

It's a good film,

I like the new characters of Fin and Ray and surprisingly BB2 the new robot is a good addition and I can see it being a huge hit with fans as the original 2 were.

Some of the panoramic shots of fallen starships from the battles of 30 years ago are epic. When coupled with the appearance of original characters and some melancholy inducing lines it really throw us old uns back to 1978/9 and the original films.

I really enjoyed the film and it did reset the franchise back to the feel of the original after the disaster of eps 1-3 with their awful Jar Jar, Gungans, wooden acting and over reliance on cgi.

Many people will see this new movie as just a remake of ep4 'A new hope' and there is a lot of merit in that argument, for eg..
We have a hologram message hidden in a droid which finds itself lost on a desert planet.
We have a the female heroine taken prisoner and a bunch of the other heroes go to rescue her
We have the tall dark, sinister, helmeted villain with force powers and a deep voice who has a master we only see as a hologram.
Said villain tries to extract info from heroine but she resists.
There's a huge new Death Star that needs destroying and only X wing pilots flying down a trench can hit the identified weak area.

You get the picture!

Now there's lots more but that's the background premise of the storyline and I can't help but feel some regret that they've missed the chance to be more original, maybe they're setting up for that in the next 4 planned movies over the next 5 years.

There are a couple of real shocks, with the loss of a main and original character being one.

All in all I enjoyed the film and certainly think the franchise is better off without George Lucas whom I've always felt didn't know what to do with the monster he'd surprisingly created, had terrible judgement about which audience to pitch them at and sold out to the toy makers.

Re: Rate the last film you watched : Fri Dec 18, 2015 12:37 pm  

The Avenger wrote:

maybe they're setting up for that in the next 4 planned movies over the next 5 years.

2 movies planned actually - one in 2017 and the final in 2019.

Re: Rate the last film you watched : Fri Dec 18, 2015 2:59 pm  

I heard a movie a year until 2019

Re: Rate the last film you watched : Wed Jan 20, 2016 8:45 pm  

Creed:

The 7th 'Rocky' film may just be the best one. Strong performances from the whole cast, and some typically emotional Rocky moments, and very exaggerated boxing, but they were hot very well. Although, I will say it was difficult to take the idea of Tony Bellew being the pound for pound number one, and Goodison park being a 100k arena!

8.5/10

Re: Rate the last film you watched : Thu Jan 21, 2016 8:19 am  

The Hateful Eight - Wasn't a bad film but was far from a great film. Could easily have been 20 or 30 minutes shorter. I'd expect the sales of log cabin holidays to be up this Winter!

6/10

Re: Rate the last film you watched : Thu Jan 21, 2016 12:09 pm  

The Spy Game
An old film from 2001 with Robert Redford and Brad Pitt.

Very stylish and well acted, the plot is intriguing and there's a few twists.

8/10

Re: Rate the last film you watched : Thu Jan 21, 2016 7:40 pm  

The Revenant - great cinematography, soundtrack and costume design and top performances from the 3 main leads - Dicaprio, Hardy and Gleeson. The battle scenes with the Arikara Indians are brief but superbly put together. Beautiful camera work shows the Canadian wilderness in all its majesty.
Well worth a read on the subject in Michael Punke's novel - "The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge".

9.5/10 and will take 3 of the 5 main awards next month.

Re: Rate the last film you watched : Fri Jan 22, 2016 5:02 pm  

The Revenant

I've heard it described as tough to watch, and I can see their point. It is relentlessly bleak and there are some pretty brutal scenes in it. However it really is a superbly made film and absolutely beautiful to look at. Great acting all round too. DiCaprio is absolutely nailed on for best actor Oscar and it's a pretty good chance of several other awards too.

9/10

Re: Rate the last film you watched : Tue Jan 26, 2016 11:17 am  

The Big Short - a searing, withering critique of the financial crash and it's origins in the US mortgage market; told as a true story - and where it deviates from the true story, it breaks the fourth wall quite spectacularly through pieces to camera, explaining that's what it's doing. The cast is brilliant and the performances are as expected - with Steve Carell the stand-out. The story itself, despite attempts to explain the mechanisms by which the crash was allowed to happen, is still very complex and might bamboozle some people - I know I had to do a bit of Googling when I got home to satisfy myself that I'd fully understood.

All in all, a fantastic film - but I wouldn't recommend it for a date night; 9/10