Films The Official bit-tech Movie Thread - What have you seen lately?

I swear the only reason it's required reading in school is that it ends pretty abruptly. You can make it to the last dozen pages and you'll still be unable to talk about it in class. "Did you read it?"

 

I recall reading the novel when I was in high school. It didn't hold my interest, and I can't really remember anything specific about it. Then again, I have a terrible memory and can't remember most things, but whatever.

The movie was ok. One thing that did impress me was how well Baz Luhrmann pulled off the over-the-top decadence. The party scenes were physically exhausting to watch, and by the time they finally ended the feeling I had in my stomach is exactly how I imagine most of the party goers would have felt the next day. The production design was dead on. Leonardo DiCaprio's accent, on the other hand, drove me absolutely nuts, ol' spor.

 

A Walk Among the Tombstones 7/10

Apart from having a daft title, it's a thriller/action movie that takes it's time to build up.
It scores pretty low everywhere but I quite enjoyed it.

 

DiCaprio is doing an awesome job in that role. The whole point is that Gatsby is a huge faker. The fake accent should be grating since Gatsby is "new money" trying to pose as old money.

 

John wick 10/10 loved it, Knew from the trailer it was a simple revenge action shooter. Did not leave disappointed, once the simple as hell plot was presented at the start and the action started it pretty much didn't stop and that's exactly what I wanted from this film.

 

Ex Machina - 8/10

I thought it was well acted and very engrossing, despite being fairly predictable. Every time you think "I wonder if...", or "y'know what, I reckon..." you'll be frikkin bang on. Still very enjoyable - I almost gave it the dreaded 7 out of 10, but it deserves better than that.

 

Has anybody heard anything good or bad about the new Mission Impossible movie that's coming out at the end of the month?

 

Inside Out 8.5/10

The characters are enjoyable and well designed. You do connect with both the emotions and the humans on an emotional level, Pixar have done a great job of that.

But... The film isn't particularly fun for the most part. The start and ending are both enjoyable, but the middle and majority of the film is quite sad and emotional. It's a fantastically well crafted tale of morals. It teaches kids how to treat others, and how all of their feelings are important to make them into an emotionally healthy human being and with that they're immensely successful.

I just found that my 4 year old was quite bored during some of the film, particularly the middle parts where the real story is happening. She found it sad as well, as did I in fact. But smaller children probably won't understand many of the concepts in the film because Pixar have outdone themselves with the representation of their core subject.

It's a fantastic film for kids, but not really for the younger children. I've always thought that pixar films were designed for slightly older children anyways, as they do tend to incorporate a lot of morals into the plot. It's incredibly emotional, witty and intelligent, even for the adults to be engaged with how they've personalised various aspects of the emotional development in a child. It's nice to see it occasionally switch from the main human character to one of the supporting humans emotions and it's also quite witty and well-thought out. I think it's the most intelligent and 'risky' film Pixar have made since Up. It's psychedelic and just plain bizarre in some of the representation. But it is a fantastic film, for kids and adults.

Also - The short film Pixar make to be shown before the film is this time quite a sad tale called 'lava'. It's a musical film, but it's quite sad. My 6 year old actually cried a little bit.

 

Pawn Shop Chronicles 6.5/5

Okay, so it's not a new idea, telling three stories turn to one, but i very much liked the acting and the charakters in this movie.
It's too long though, certainly.

 

Starred Up - 8.5/10
British film about a young lad going into real prison from young offenders. Great story and extremely well acted, quite violent in places but very gripping.

 

Minions 5/10 despite the family love for despicable me 1/2 this was no where near as good, not enough laughs, only 3 minions focused on for most of the time, in fact its despicable me 1 without the villain turning good and 3 minions as the hapless heros, in fact the whole intro start of the movie explaining why minions are bad for their masters was the best bit!

disappointed of course, however my 9 year old loved it.

 

Inside Out Goddamnit Pixar!/10

Being from the same production team as Up! I was kind of expecting some emotional moments, but if you've ever suffered from depression (or know someone who does) this one touches some extremely raw nerves.

Funnier and more engaging than Cars2/Brave/Monsters U were, which is nice. Lava is every bit as weird too, that song will be stuck in your head.

Also,

Spoiler

sure, let's have a main character crumble to dust half way through the film, everyone loves the sound of children crying solidly for next fourty minutes, it's not going to give them nightmares or anything right? It isn't quite Mufasa or Bambi's mum, but it's damn close.

Take her to the moon for me...

 

Bambi's Mum is my reason for not believing the "Age 0" Rating of Bambi and it's going to stay in the closet for some time still.
The Lion King is "Age 0" as well

Ah, Sleeping Beauty is "Age 6", hmmm I don't get it.

 

Ex Machina 9.5/10
Yup, I bloody loved it! It felt very much like Moon with a certain amount of unease and dread throughout but I thought it was better and more rounded than Moon.

Spoiler

I particularly enjoyed that the ending wasn't a standard happy affair. Ultimately Caleb was used by everyone involved and there was no happy ending for him but the AI was most certainly a success. I also felt a strange empathy for Nathan when we discovered what he had to do and go through to develop the AI, certainly made his excessive drinking and strange behaviour a bit more understandable. Was he truly a monster, the jury is out for me

 

My daughter had seen Bambi and Lion King (both repeatedly) while she was still 1 year old. Your kids must need toughening up some.

 

Too long, but still gets a 130% score! Wowsers, sounds like a must-see

 

Ant-Man - 8/10

I went in with sufficiently low expectations to be pleasantly surprised. I think they gave the concept of a man whose power is shrinking justice and brought it to its full potential. It helps a lot that the movie doesn't take itself too seriously. It's campy, it's action, popcorn and smiles.

Note: I had seen no trailers. I try to go into every movie without seeing trailers. I don't want any spoilers at all. I don't even look at the billings to know who is in the movies. This has tended to help my enjoyment of movies.

Spoiler

The ending bit seems very similar to Interstellar. I feel like they could have done that whole same thing without the daughter's echos and it would have felt at least a little more original.

 

Agreed on all counts, including the spoiler-tagged bit and the lack of trailers. This movie kinda snuck up on me, mostly because I was so busy in the run up to its release. I mean I knew it was coming, but kind of missed the all the promo stuff...

Also, the mid-credits and post-credits scenes both really worked

 

Mission Impossible Rogue Nation - 8/10

Pretty much what you'd expect from an MI film, a good way to relax, just sit back and enjoy the mayhem. If you don't like the other MI films or can't stand TC then don't go see it.

Although I do have to wonder at the couple who sat in front of me and the wife who brought their 3yr old (or so) son to this. He lost interest within about 15 minutes (although I admit I did expect it to be sooner) but whilst he could have been a real little brat he was simply bored and was as well behaved as he could be. He didn't disrupt the film for me and I kinda felt sorry for him, wasn't his fault he got dragged along to something he had no interest in.

 

That sounds like a whole different kind of film.