Film Shapes

This was part of the Revelation Perth International Film Festival  and I caught it at the Luna Leederville last Saturday. It'd been quite a while since I'd been to that cinema but it hasn't changed a hell of a lot. Wide, fairly flat auditorium with a small screen and 'the best choc bombs in town' (with TM and thanks to Merv). Suburra was apparently the name for a suburb of ancient Rome, a crowded, red-light district. An apt name for this film as it throws together dirty politicians, junkies, mafiosi and even the papacy in a massive shit-fight. It's basically a rainy, modern-day Westeros with Sofia Coppola DJ-ing. The film places events around the time of the (fictional) Pope's resignation and one of many moments of turbulence in the Italian parliament (there's even a bunga-bunga episode that advances the plot). A waterfront land bill is moving ahead at the behest of 'the Southern families' and mafia money is greasing the political wheels...

So another cheap flick thanks to Reading cinemas in New Lynn. This one left me a little more satiated than the last. [Incidentally, I've since heard and read numerous scathing reviews of X-Men: Apocalypse. Some folk hated it. I felt more lethargy that hate]. The Nice Guys . Can't really suss out the title. In fact, it may be the worst thing about the film. I enjoyed this a lot. It put me in mind of a bunch of other films, such as The Big Lebowski , L.A. Confidential , even Chinatown a little but mostly Kiss Kiss Bang Bang , also by Shane Black. Actually, he's just gone and remade his earlier work, transplanting Crowe for Kilmer and Gozzle for Downey Jr. Remade 10 years later but RESET about 30 years earlier. Wuzzannhhh? Well, it's the same odd couple, buddy action comedy thingy but with a nice greasy spoon of 70's U.S. politics underwriting it all. It's set between the oil crises, birds are dying due to air pollution, hippies protest, killer bees appear i...

First film in a NZ cinema. Check. Good price at a tenner and no complaints with the premises (aside from an electrical ticking noise in my left ear and, in fairness, that may have only been in MY left ear). OK. X-Men: Apocalypse now. Honestly, I've seen so many of these kinds of films at the cinema in the past decade or so, that I'm feeling a bit jaded about writing this up. No reflection on the film itself, it's a perfectly fine super hero/mutant/special powers blockbuster type thingy. I don't know, maybe I need to watch something less....less....ostentatious? Less ubiquitous? I'll sort that out soonish. So, notes then, eh? And these are the notes I made right after watching the film (except for the last one). Possible spoilery notes, please beware. Psylocke big winner - slinks away not joining the victorious xmen. Nice way El Sabah Nur recruited - not magic, just promises of power and revenge. Of course, Jean Grey is the match winner using the Phoenix...

First film in Australia for a few years, so let me get this off my chest. Here are some things Japanese (multiplex) cinemas  don't  have that Australian ones do: Dirty screens. That seems to be the simplest thing to sort out. Clean the fucking stains off the screen or disable the cockends that are lobbing stuff at it.  Twats talking on their mobiles during the film. Same twats fiddling with their BRIGHT mobiles during the film. Little kids talking to mummy about scenes in the film. Loudly. Big kids showing off loudly (admittedly during the credits, but still, grow up fuck-knuckles). Pronto, onto the film proper. This is the third Captain America film by my reckoning but it actually operates as a pseudo-Avengers film. This isn't a bad thing. The first two C.A. films were quite dissimilar in my opinion; a boring, patriotic origin story, followed by a 1970s style, paranoia-filled thriller. You can guess which I preferred. A third o...

Short review, this one. For no real reason, other than I saw it more than a month ago and it's kind of drifted from the house of fog inside my brain. It has the distinction of being the last film I saw in Japan (possibly last in both senses of the word). I reckon I'll miss the Japanese cinema-going experience, but more of that in future entries. So, The Martian . Not brilliant, but comfortably watchable. Light and simple with some sombre moments. And some funny ones, mainly from Damon, who holds it together (and he has to as he's on screen for huge chunks of the running time). The procedural stuff on the planet and at NASA was quite cool. It lent a little faux authenticity (oxymoron?) to the film. There was one show-stopper. A great passage to Bowie's 'Starman' - basically a music video with a stonking budget and more than a little poignant coming so soon after his death. One more thing to note. The 'language of cinema' showed it's weary fe...

And here are the ten worst films I saw (for the first time) in 2015. Shite. 1. Valhalla Rising (2009) Mads Mikkelsen couldn't save this excruciatingly boring steamer. 2. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011) Laughably crap, this contains a scene where Ewan McGregor disarms a would-be assassin by casting his fishing line at him. And that's a highlight. 3. Jupiter Ascending (2015) Absurd but dull, even with  Eddie Redmayne  doing what he did. Let's have that Oscar back, thanks. 4. Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) Pedestrian stuff with Charlize Theron seemingly trying to out-chew Redmayne. 5. Hercules (2014) Lovejoy, you have some explaining to do!!!! To be fair, I wasn't expecting a classic. 6. Lucy (2014) Euro-trash + Scarlett = arse grapes 7. Chappie (2014) Neill Blomkamp shows he may just be a one trick pony. 8. Maps to the Stars (2014) Most of my bile regarding this was produced by that cockroach shit paste kid, but also general disappoint...

Here are the ten best films I saw (for the first time) in 2015. Some crackers missed out as well. 1. Whiplash (2014) A real visceral event - a boxing movie dressed up as a music film. The first film in a long time that made me feel like I'd been out running. In a good way. 2. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) See previous blog entry for reasoning. Just a great silver ball of fun. 3. The Act of Killing (2012) Hard to watch but rivetting nonetheless. 4. Her (2013) Odd and engagingly endearing. And disembodied Scarlett. 5. Ex Machina (2015) Clever little three-hander with everyone on form. Great disco scene. 6. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) Better than the first one with standout turns from Bettany and Ruffalo. And corporeal Scarlett. 7. Nightcrawler (2014) Creepy Gyllenhaal and a great script. 8. Frank (2014) Slow, but unusual and affecting. 9. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) The Coens abide. 10. Blackfish (2013) Have some of that, puny humans!

I saw this at the usual HAT Kobe 109 cinema, joined this time by my sister and her boyfriend, over from Aus. A non-film related highlight entailed said boyfriend re-entering the wrong screening after a mid-film 'horse-watering'. Apparently, the blurry screen and sea of 3-D wearing heads gave it away. Fnarph. To the film. I can't remember the last time I was so chuffed to be in the cinema. The warm glow of nostalgia and comfort began pretty much right away and remained for the duration, irrespective of any extant critical faculty. Yep, I didn't (still don't) care that The Force Awakens is, by and large, a remake of A New Hope , huge metal ball in space included. And I didn't mind that there were constant 'lifts' direct from the original three films, from word-for-word dialogue to the iconic screen wipes. These elements were mixed satisfactorily with new ingredients, namely the characters of Rey and Finn, played with great verve by Daisy Ridley (l...