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First movie weekend of the year. I started with The Favourite which I actually enjoyed. I find the director a bit hit and miss (The Lobster is great but Killing of a sacred deer is tedious) and here most of it is great, sometimes it got a tad tedious or the soundtrack got a bit annoying (just too repetitive) and the use of crazy fish eye lenses just reminded me of Az, Mushy and me back in the day when we got excited about those lenses - they look silly in a film. I think the cast are great and it is very funny at times but it is certainly not something for everyone.

Welcome to Marwen. I'd heard great things about the documentary this film is based off so was intrigued by this. The visuals are bizarre at first but after 10-15 minutes I got used to it, the CG dolls with the actors faces integrated were something I really liked by the time the film finished. The story is both sad and heartwarming with the dream sequences varying between enjoyable and weird. The cast were superb with Steve Carrell being excellent as a guy suffering after a traumatic near-death experience. I really liked it overall but again it's not something for everyone. I'll certainly make an effort to watch the documentary now.
 
Watched Dumbo last night for the first time in years.

I always thought I had a heart of stone, as no film has ever made me cry... Last night confirmed I am human after all.

When he visits his caged up mum and she sings to him, that was it - definitely Disney's saddest ever moment for me, forget Bambi. Absolutely brutal!

Tim Burton can get in the bin. No way I'm watching the live action version.
 
3 from the last few weeks...

Spiderman into the spiderverse - Birlliantly done - but the simpsons already did spiderpig! reting: *****

Bumblebee - Quite enjoyable, but not quite as goiod as I was expecting - rating ***1/2

Ralph breaks the internet - Gloriously geeky! - rating *****
 
Went to see Spider-man: Into the spider-verse again, this time in 2D. The weird comic book mis-print style is a lot more apparent in 2D and felt a bit distracting at times. Apart from that it was still incredible and this time I had time to stay and watch the post-credits scene which was quite amusing.

Stan & Ollie, I was looking forward to seeing this. I haven't seen much of the comedy duo's films but was surprised that just simply dancing in a cowboy scene was so funny back in the day. Aside from the dated dancing for lolz their actual comic timing with the skits is amazing and Reily and Coogan absolutely nail it. The film is nice and goes along at a reasonable pace, worth seeing just for the two leads being great.
 
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is a really weird, fun and in depth interactive movie on Netflix. It has the usual Black Mirror stuff this time, but the thing that modern technology has caused is questioning choice and conciousness. It's a really fun and insane movie, along with the interactive aspect being amazingly weaved into a crazy movie. Would recommend if you want some weird stuff.
 
Went to see The Favourite last weekend. The core cast are stellar and delightfully bitchy. I'm always a fan of movies that show historical figures to be regular awful human beings rather than some idealised version.

peep said:
The use of crazy fish eye lenses
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Yeah, I didn't get that either. Every shot took me out of the scene while I tried to work out what the point was.
 
jayjay said:
Went to see The Favourite last weekend. The core cast are stellar and delightfully bitchy. I'm always a fan of movies that show historical figures to be regular awful human beings rather than some idealised version.



Yeah, I didn't get that either. Every shot took me out of the scene while I tried to work out what the point was.
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I want to see it, but I just can't with that bloody Colman woman. Such massively overexposed mediocrity.
 
Shoplifters - My favorite film of 2018. One of my favorite explorations of the idea and concept of family on film. Find a way to see this one.
Roma - Probably the best film of 2018. It's a masterpiece, despite being a very small and personal story, it's shot on such a massive scale. It's on Netflix, so go check it out.
Minding the Gap - A very personal documentary on domestic violence in the US, from a filmmaker who started the film as a young teenager. It's on Hulu.
Eighth Grade - Finally, there's a film that understands social media and the current youth. Also the funniest movie I saw in 2018.
The Favourite - Yorgos Lanthimos did it again with this one. All three lead actresses are fantastic, and it's just fantastically shot. As for the fish eye lens, I didn't mind too much, but it did take me out of the movie.
If Beale Street Could Talk - Barry Jenkin's follow up to Moonlight isn't quite as good as its predecessor, but it's a very ambitious film that portrays human connection in such intimacy with the audience. Also, Brian Tyree Henry, from the amazing show Atlanta, gives one of the best performances of last year.
 
HTTYD: Hidden World: Went to preview screening of this today, not posting spoilers but film is fantastic and a worthy continuation of the series. Story is fantastic with a lot going on, need to re-watch on official release in order to fully unpack everything. Anyone else whose also seen it and wants to talk spoilers, feel free to PM me.
 
Edward M said:
Eighth Grade
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I really want to see this, if it got a UK release it was totally buried and I missed it. Hoping I can find it soon though as I feel like I first heard about it ages ago.


I saw Vice on Friday. I was looking forward to this as I like the cast and the director. As expected the cast were excellent and the story is pretty interesting if a bit horrifying. However the way it was edited didn't sit well with me whatsoever. The film was all over the place, felt like an incoherent drunk ramble. The film has a long run time but so much of it could have been cut or trimmed down. So overall I'm a little torn with this film and I don't think I can recommend it?
 
Glass,

Went in with reasonably high hopes I enjoyed both Unbreakable and Split, this however is pretty terrible. I feel like the director has just merged his two best films to create a trilogy and it just doesn’t really work. The trilogy is an afterthought and it really shows, the film sets itself up for a climatic ending which it never actually achieves, there are plans for this big final showdown, but the film doesn’t actually get there. The director then spends the last 30 minutes desperately trying to link Split and Unbreakable which I don’t think were ever meant to be properly linked. Can’t help but feel like this was only pulled together because of the relative success in Split. 3/10
 
Bohemian Rhapsody

It's a mess of a film, let's face it. Rami Malek was fine, but, yet again, doing an impression is supposed to pass for acting. The rest of the cast were mostly f**king awful, especially the rest of the band. The whole thing was just horribly sanitised and focused on really weird things. Why was the "girlfriend" such a massive focus of the story? The dialogue was badly-written as well. The music sequences were decent I guess.

I'm at a loss as to how and why it's got all those award nominations.
 
gavin said:
Bohemian Rhapsody

It's a mess of a film, let's face it. Rami Malek was fine, but, yet again, doing an impression is supposed to pass for acting. The rest of the cast were mostly f**king awful, especially the rest of the band. The whole thing was just horribly sanitised and focused on really weird things. Why was the "girlfriend" such a massive focus of the story? The dialogue was badly-written as well. The music sequences were decent I guess.

I'm at a loss as to how and why it's got all those award nominations.
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Plus they butchered the timeline of events so much, if you know any of the actual time of events you are left scratching your head. Agreed with your comments as well.


That said, I'm currently attempting to see every Best Picture film, and it's a bit of a struggle so far, I'll run through what I've seen so far.

A Star is Born - Saw when it came out, loved it, if not a bit too long
Bohemian Rhapsody- See above, Gavin opinion is perfect
Black Panther- Tbh it's a joke it was nominated. It's no better than any other comic book movie. I know why they nominated it, but feels a bit pandering to me.
The Favourite - This was my most recent watch, and so far the best of the ones I have seen I think. All 3 actresses are beasts in this, and Emma Stone is just life. I just wanna be friends with her and get that eye roll that she has or the "you're a ****ing idiot" look that she does so well. Anyways, very enjoyable and well done. Not a fan of the fisheye though.

The rest will come over the next week or two
- BlacKKKlansman is playing at a theater not terribly far, so probably this weekend
- Green Book may be tomorrow night, the one I'm looking forward to most
- Vice, if there is one I skip, it would be this.
- Roma, Netflix, so obviously I can watch whenever, but I need to be in the mood for subtitles.

Anyways, a few others I have seen since the calendar turned. My goal is 75 for the year, hope of 100, but not trending well right now.

Bumblebee - Hey, it's the 80s, member? It actually was an enjoyable Transformers movie with a bit of depth, but totally made me feel like I was watching the cartoon at moments. The ending can **** right off though.

The Upside - Kevin Hart is only screaming for 48% of the movie, and Cranston does a fine job.

Glass - Had a Shamalamadingdong binge of Split and Unbreakable before, and I really did enjoy this. Obviously he has to be weird, but it worked.

Favourite - above.

So I'm at 4, not a good pace.


Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 
I never ever go to the cinema or really watch movies that often really but I went to see the new Dragon Ball movie twice because it's Dragon Ball and DB is life and I wrote a spoilery review if all 3 people who like DB here care, thank you, byeeeee!
 
Thekingin64 said:
HTTYD: Hidden World: Went to preview screening of this today, not posting spoilers but film is fantastic and a worthy continuation of the series. Story is fantastic with a lot going on, need to re-watch on official release in order to fully unpack everything. Anyone else whose also seen it and wants to talk spoilers, feel free to PM me.
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Film now out publically in UK so went to 1st public showing this morning. Just as fab as it was on preview showing, will be back again tonight!
 
Had quite the bumper weekend. Started with Escape Room in 4DX. The 4DX effects were a bit lame, but I went in expecting that with this one. The film itself has a great concept, essentially a mix of several other films with the premise of "watch people try to escape death traps, fail and die in gruesome ways" but mixed with the new fad of escape rooms (something I enjoy doing from time to time). It was fine, there were some interesting moments along the way but the characters were all so annoying in their own ways. On top of the annoying characters the ending was silly and...
sets up a sequel that isn't needed
. Meh?

Mary Queen of Scots - Thought this was excellent, the production on this was fantastic, the pace kept it interesting and never lingering too long. The cast were perfect, the whole thing is just great.

Green Book - This was more enjoyable than I was expecting, just a really good road trip drama that is very entertaining.

Glass - This film drags out a 30 minute plot into something over 2 hours and is just tedious and dull. James McAvoy playing 12 different personalities is still fun to watch but everything else is just boring.

Can you ever forgive me? - I usually find it very hard to enjoy films with horrible characters but this was still a delight to watch, Richard E Grant and Melissa McCarthy are just brilliant together and their odd friendship is fun to watch. I really liked this film.


Also watched the new Nextflix film by the guy behind Nightcrawler, Velvet Buzzsaw - Oh this was a weird one. I didn't like it, I think the concept of evil paintings killing people in ridiculous ways was great (the vfx team did a fab job) but the film is so slow and all the characters are annoying stereotypical portrayals of snobby art people which was just a big turn off the whole way through.
 
gavin said:
Bohemian Rhapsody

It's a mess of a film, let's face it. Rami Malek was fine, but, yet again, doing an impression is supposed to pass for acting. The rest of the cast were mostly f**king awful, especially the rest of the band. The whole thing was just horribly sanitised and focused on really weird things. Why was the "girlfriend" such a massive focus of the story? The dialogue was badly-written as well. The music sequences were decent I guess.

I'm at a loss as to how and why it's got all those award nominations.
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?!?!?!??!?!!

I thought it was brilliant and I went into it with low expectations (actually I didn't even want to watch it). Maybe that's because I knew little about Queen to begin with, but I did think it was great.
 
Saw Alita: Battle Angel last night in 3D IMAX. I'd never even heard of the manga before this film was being talked about so have no frame of reference as to whether the film sticks to the source material or not. I really enjoyed it, it is a long film but I felt like a lot happens and it never gets dull. The visuals are amazing, even if the cyborgs with just a human face are pretty disturbing to look at sometimes.
 
Lego Movie 2

I'm generally a fan of the lego movies as I loved lego as a kid, admire the animation style, and enjoy the humor so these movies are usually an easy sell for me. I really loved the first one and while nobody was expecting the sequel to be as good as the original it still exceeded my expectations. There's SO many references and quick jokes that are easy to miss. It also turned out to be a musical which was weird at first but the songs were fun enough. The story is kind of all over the place and the whole thing is so over the top but the overarching theme/message is nice enough. If you tend to like the other movies you'll probably enjoy this one.
 
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