Life (2017)

Director: Daniel Espinosa
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare, Olga Dihovichnaya. USA. 1h 50m

The lack of originality in this horror sci fi is quite disturbing, not only the story pretty basic, but it could have lead to some riveting situations, but the set up is like a b movie horror, if there was a trail of blood leading to a room of screams the cast would trip over each other running into sudden death. But there is a blinding moment at the “oh fuck” ending which really hit a personal nerve with me otherwise the film would be a total disaster.

An unnamed interstellar mission uncovers a basic life form in some soil samples from Mars. The probe is recovered by the International Space Station and their 6 member crew manage to revive a cell sample, which quickly evolves into a multi celled organism which American school children name Calvin. I can only imagine it started out as a piece of space Slime Mold (Check out the docu film Creeping Garden for a ton of info)  An accident in the lab causes Calvin to become dormant, so Hugh Derry (Bakare) tries to shock Calvin back to life, this obviously pisses off Calvin who crushes his hands an in his hostile frame of alien mind then roughs up the doctor and starts smashing up the lab. At one point he breaks into a small cage and eat one of the lab rats,  and starts to grow larger. Despite initiating safety protocol, which means isolating the doctor and Calvin, the team still decide to enter the room in order to save the doctor, (DOH!), Calvin then see this is a free lunch. This is probably one of their more imaginative attacks, as he enters the scientist body and eats him from the inside out,  but upon reappearing he is larger, which is a pretty big indication to the fact that Calvin just consumes and grows. So after eating Ryan Reynolds our boy Calvin then decides to go on a murderous rampage  in and around the ship.

Bright (2017)

D: David Ayer
S: Will Smith, Joel Edgerton. Noomi Rapace  USA. 1h 57m

Described as the worst movie of 2017, I had to check this out, maybe it was a PR stunt but it worked, it got me looking and I was pleasantly surprised, while constantly looking for the loopholes, terrible acting and a story that I couldn’t understand I found the opposite and was a bit more confused about why this is was coined as being so bad when I was tempted to watch it again….

Not quite realising how long the film was going to be, as a lot of current films are getting shorter for the attention span of the masses, this is a bit of an marathon, being just shy of 2 hours, but it does use all that time quite wisely while being a sort of fantasy rip off of Alien Nation (1988). Instead of aliens descending upon us, this is an alternative reality where Orc’s, Elves and other mythical beings exist. Daryl Ward (Smith) is a know it all police officer who’s been teamed up with a pariah Nick Jakoby (Edgerton) who’s an “unblooded” Orc, we learn that this makes him a bit of a hipster, who’s from a long line of other hipsters who basically don’t kill, this gives him a bum status with all the other Orcs but the humans refuse to accept him as Orcs are famed for having accepting the “darker” more evil path as part of their nature so they can’t be trusted, in the locker rooms men boast about being Orc slayers.

Justice (2017)

Director: Richard Gabai

Starring. Jackson Rathbone, Stephen Lang, Nathan Parsons, John Lewis  USA. 1h 32m.

Westerns often have lawless towns that are soon put on the straight and narrow once a righteous man is found to run the bad guys out of town, these bad guys, usually idiots are under the control of a bad guy with some political ties.. but the righteous man usually still kicks their asses.. there you go I summed up this film. It’s not often that a film pile drives itself into the biggest clichés of a genre, the only thing missing from this was some injuns and a spittoon.

Starting off in the quiet sacred space of a church, Rev. Thomas McCord (Rathbone) busies himself with reverend stuff when a hooker strolls in looking for salvation, getting rather close the mayor walks in seeing their embrace starts hollering and the burns the church down with McCord in it. later on a tougher older brother James McCord (Parsons) waltz into down, freeing slaves and is generally an all-round American hero without a spandex suit. He finds that his brother has died in a tragic accident but isn’t biting on that schit and begins his own investigation while staying with an ex prostitute and some of the kinder people in town he goes head to head against Mayor Pierce (Lang) and his slow witted henchmen led by Reb (Lewis). The is a struggle as the Mayor and Freedom fighter tussle about who’s the alpha male until a bloody showdown, in the meantime the born again prostitute finds a higher level of repentance.

There’s little atmosphere in this film, and nothing builds as the movie progresses, the actors just move through their steps and lines as if automated. Lang strangely bothered to appear but didn’t really deliver a performance, nothing in par with anything he’s done before, but with so little hope that this was going to sell why waste your talent, to be fair, if you’re going to do a job, do it right! He does bring in a whole smooth callous mayor, but most of the animosity is between James and Reb, they spend much more screen time at each other’s throats.

A few scenes just didn’t make any sense and the plot holes are frequent, in one scene there is a public discussion on breaking James out of jail, with half of the people saying they didn’t want a part of it, and wandering off, I guess to remain silent!? Leaving the rest to open discuss how they are going to perform an unlawful act, as you do.. in the middle of town?

Somehow the acting is on par with Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, and feels soulless and bleak while the films gets sentimental around the point of the big showdown that has been on the cards since the first 10 minutes, this finale is lacklustre and manages to bring the film down to a point of no return.

Overall this is just dull and boring..

Rating 1/10

R – Black Killer (1971), Appaloosa (2008), Bone Tomahawk (2015)
L – A-Z of Westerns Vol 1
5s – Stephen Lang

 

Choose (2010)

Director:Marcus Graves.
Starring. Katheryn Winnick, Kevin Pollak, Nicholas Tucci. USA. 1h 23m.

The preview and adverts for this made it look like a cross between Se7en (1995) and WAz, dark and broody, crazy serial killer, but this dabbles with the atmosphere it’s really there’s more daddy daughter bonding going on and detracts from the “fun”.

The young and wonderful Fiona Wagner (Winnick) is studying for her masters degree in Journalism and is struggling to deal with her mother’s suicide, bonding with her father Tom Wagner (Pollak) )is hard as he’s busy busting crooks but a new serial killer starts to bring them together, chuck in the expertise of her therapist and they morph into a crime hunting trio. Sadly Fiona does a lot of the leg work. The killer is deranged and places people in tricky situations, one is a layer who’s killed by his teenage daughter, she has the choice of killing him or being killed along with her family. Another case is when a pianist is forced to choose between losing his fingers or hearing.

March 2017 News

 

Holy cow I can’t believe it’s the end of the month and I’ve not posted a news article yet! GOOO ME.

A big month for the Irish, and I shall be attempting something a little special for St Patrick’s day, rather than another alternative Valentine’s day list. ← yeah this didn’t happen so it’s on the back burner but it will come, just be patient my lovelies

Last nights movies 07.11.2016

I totally aced my movie record last night, I got home from work early as I was feeling unwell and stayed up late feeling equally unwell and managed to fit in a ridiculous amount of movies…

I started the evening with Imperium (2016) – I had little faith in Daniel Radcliffe being a skinhead but as an undercover cop kinda skin he seemed a little more plausible. But there was this nagging feeling that he was out of place, a lot of people has issues with Tom Hanks  being a gangster in Road to Perdition (2002) but I had no problem with that but this… just didn’t gel right. Still it tells an interesting if predictable story, but it tells it well. Without being over dramatic and focusing in on being purely offensive for vulgarity’s sake.Undercover work never seemed to basic. Still it’s another film to portray racists as the ridiculous eejits that they really are, and couldn’t have come at a better time.. For now it’s sit comfortable at 6/10 but I’m still forming a formal opinion on it.

Stigmata (1999)

Director : Rupert Wainwright
Starring: Patricia Arquette, Gabriel Byrne. USA. 1h 43m

Patricia Arquette plays, Frankie a young hip hairdresser who works and salon  that also offers tattoos waaaaaay you before that was ever popular, she goes out clubbing with her friends and is generally having quite an amazing time before she starts getting gross bleeding wounds in her wrists and feet which then turn to my fan to a constant downer.

While her life of turned upside down she is soon made a pet  project by the experience tennis to father Andrew Keirnan (Gabriel Byrne) who also managed to play incarnation of Satan in the same year In the more efficient at end of days also starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.  the astute father, is deeply concerned about her situation  as he is the chief Vatican phenomenal investigator he is constantly dressed in severe back and designer spectacles,  he manages the coach her  through an unusual situation.

Hey do you know what’s scarier than not believing in god?

The film seems to take several different directions the narrative is never clear, at first it seems that this is a phenomenon that could just happen to anybody but it seems a mistake to have happened to Frankie as she is an atheist. There is no attempt to make this a spiritual journey Frankie goes through possession style torture and is under the watchful eye of the church you’re more likely to find more meaning of suffering by watching MTV.

There is some strong dialogue and good acting all round and it’s quite interesting but the film forms the basis for which the viewer has to fill in the blanks therefore you can make it is a spiritual all as supernatural if you wish. The storyline does make it watchable but it’s just not a great movie,  but possibly one of the better modern introduction to the phenomenon that we don’t actually see a lot of in these modern day features,  even with the rise of exorcism and possession films especially from the found footage genre, stigmata if often glazed over. It would be interesting to see someone address this is more gritty way.

 

 

Rating 3/10

R –  The Exorcist (1973), End of  Days (1999),  Matthew 18 (2014)
L – Selected Religious Films
5B – Gabriel Byrne, Patricia Arquette
Vs -Gabriel Priest vs Gabriel Satan
Post Discussion

Is it better when you pay?

I do often wonder if I rate movies higher when I see them in the cinema. There have been so many occasions where I’ve been in a cinema watching the end credits,  trying to gather my belongings while brushing off popcorn and I’m already planning the review and score in my head. I start to discuss the film with my buddy/buddies and it’s almost like a group hysteria we’re all generally hyper about the film. On the odd occasion we’re all bummed out about it. I’m not 110% sure on the social psychologies involved, it’s possible that there are group laws working between us, maybe if a group of 6 are positive about a movie then the 7th person will just fall in line??

But are you more likely to give a high rating to a movie just because you paid so much to see it?? After watching a film at the cinema and writing up the review it’s usually a very impressive review. If I feel the need to watch a film later on, say on DVD, sometimes by this time I’m more vigilant to bloopers and ”issues”.. I suppose it’s my fault for getting blind sided by the wow factor of the cinema or not being able to see the screen due to being so fucking short I dunno…

Let’s review the factors here.

Time : sometimes movies have to been seen “at the time” this is one of my biggest problems with modern movies, they aren’t always as timeless as past films, and lose their potency, the effects start to look dated and unlike the timeless films of yesteryear they have a see by date, this isn’t true for all flicks but you get the idea, once an affect has been mastered it’s used everywhere and starts get stale, I recently re watched League of extraordinary gentlemen (20??) and the bad version of the gian hyde looked like he had dropped out of a Sega game.

Cost : It’s not cheap to pop into the cinema these days, unless you have an unlimited ticket you’re gonna end up paying through the nose, 22 squid to see star wars, while it’s about 8 quid on a normal night, i mean after forking out that much cash to sit in a half eaten chair, it had better be worth it right.

Peer Pressure : as I mentioned in the intro maybe it’s just a social pressure, with loads of people bigging up the movie, maybe some people are more inclined to also big up the film?? This is where I generally get outcasted, as I have a knack of speaking my mind. I don’t care if it’s the unpopular opinion.

I’m not sold on the whole idea to be honest… If i paid a week’s worth of shopping to see a film and it was shit I’m gonna say so!! I’d like to think that everyone would!? Maybe even to the point where the cost actually adds to the argument.

So maybe it’s not necessarily better when you pay, but a matter of having a bigger reaction and using the cost to back up outrageous claims. After all if I saw a mediocre movie and was going to give it a bog average 5/10 then factor in that it had cost me £40 for the pleasure of watching it (yeah okay that’s also the price of drinks and a synthetic hot dog too but it all counts) i’m not going to merely give it a 5/10, it has robbed me of my money and forced me to eat a shitty hot dog, it’s not on a revised 2/10 for my discomfort. But then why not add in every crappy factor of the day, the member of staff who looked at you the wrong way, the noisy eaters and cell phone users, the crew filming the movie from the back of the cinema for thier “school project”, yeah it can go too far.

In all seriousness, I do think that the cost  can help sway a review or score as much as a scratched DVD can.

Last night’s movies 18-06-13

I really wasn’t taking much in last night, I’m not sure if it was the stormy humid weather or not but nothing was really sinking in.

So I tried watching Let Li’s Shaolin Temple (1982) it was okay but nothing like my favourite movie with the same name Shaolin Temple (1979) much better movie, still this one had it’s charms. The shepherdess was actually quite kick ass!

After dinner came Snowtown Murders (2011) A graphic and raw look at the 8 murders that occulted in a small Adelaide town. Reminiscent of lo fi British films like Dead Man’s Shoes (2004) or even some aspects of Gummo (1997) the movie often comes across as a documentary which enhances the brutal and horrific killings.

LAST NIGHTS MOVIES 22-05-13

LAST NIGHTS MOVIES 22-05-13

It turned out to be a night of sequels! Predictions were posted before watching, well they were written before watching, I had trouble posting last night. So I managed to watch Outpost 2 (2012) and Iron Man 2 (2010)…