Does it?
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Film The Redcafe Movie review thread
- Thread starter golden_blunder
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Anyway, reviews.
Slow West.
Just great. Really enjoyed it. Great cast, beautifully shot, lovely soundtrack (which you'd expect from the bloke who made it) and a really simple but effective narrative about two men looking for lost love, with only one of them aware of what he's searching for.
Speaking of metaphors, there's loads of dark humour throughout with a hilarious use of metaphor in the film's finale. A laugh coming straight out of leftfield.
Anyway. Watch it. It's very good.
8/10
And now for something completely different...
Minions
Enjoyed this almost as much as Slow West. Although it obviously pushed very different buttons. Kept me chuckling away from start to finish. Great mix of slap-stick and witty one-liners, with the minion's gibberish language consistently funny. Cracking soundtrack too. Full of classic tunes from the 60s. I also thought the animation (is it CGI?) was a step ahead of any other I've recently watched. Fur and textures looked crazy life like.
7/10
Slow West.
Just great. Really enjoyed it. Great cast, beautifully shot, lovely soundtrack (which you'd expect from the bloke who made it) and a really simple but effective narrative about two men looking for lost love, with only one of them aware of what he's searching for.
Speaking of metaphors, there's loads of dark humour throughout with a hilarious use of metaphor in the film's finale. A laugh coming straight out of leftfield.
Anyway. Watch it. It's very good.
8/10
And now for something completely different...
Minions
Enjoyed this almost as much as Slow West. Although it obviously pushed very different buttons. Kept me chuckling away from start to finish. Great mix of slap-stick and witty one-liners, with the minion's gibberish language consistently funny. Cracking soundtrack too. Full of classic tunes from the 60s. I also thought the animation (is it CGI?) was a step ahead of any other I've recently watched. Fur and textures looked crazy life like.
7/10
I don't even care about metaphors or character studies. For me, a film has to have some kind of you know... a story... at least to some level. If I'd want to hear a commuting (is that even a word) idiot talk in the car for an hour I'd just start carpooling.
The aftermath of a builder who's got his mistress pregnant is just not really doing it for me storywise, sorry. If it was done well or kept you in tension like phonebooth I would't complain. But this was just plain boring.
The aftermath of a builder who's got his mistress pregnant is just not really doing it for me storywise, sorry. If it was done well or kept you in tension like phonebooth I would't complain. But this was just plain boring.
Yes, honestly, it does. The whole "solid foundations" thread ran through the movie and made sense of what seemed on the surface like an absolutely terrible decision. It was a better film for that metaphor IMO.
That's so fecking 6th form, though.
Which is still a refreshing change from the primary school simplicity you get from most movies released by the big studios these days. A mentality that sees Interstellar and Inception lauded as being intellectual cinema ffs.
And that's coming from someone who like a bit of primary school simplicity every now and then (see above)
The scene with McConaughey and the videos in Interstellar is more affecting than anything in Locke. By a large, gaping chasm of a margin. And I'm not particularly a huge fan of Interstellar.
The "metaphor" you mention in Slow West, incidentally, is how to do a clunky metaphor. With a large part of your tonge in your cheek.
The "metaphor" you mention in Slow West, incidentally, is how to do a clunky metaphor. With a large part of your tonge in your cheek.
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That was a gripping moment indeed, especially when you have a daughter aswell.
There must have been a ninja cutting onions somewhere in my room, weird.
Locked didn't really do emotionally over-wrought scenes, although I found the bit when he told his wife what was going on was quite affecting. She acted the scene very well. The hurt was palpable. Plus some of the stuff with his son got to me as well.
The scene where he said goodbye to his daughter in Interstellar moved me more than the video stuff. It felt tangible and real, so played on my dad heart-strings. I started to emotionally disengage from Interstellar as soon as it started getting silly so the earlier scenes were more powerful. To me, anyway.
Don't you dare take cheap shots at Interstellar and Inception you bastard!
Sorry, man. I can't help it. I actually enjoyed them more than you'd think from my constant slagging them off.
Anyway, go see Slow West. It's great. Best western in ages.
Does it have space ships, Pogue? If not, I'm watching Cowboys and aliens.
You guys have been talking about it for a little while on here, and I thought you were all talking about that Seth MacFarlane film 'A million ways to die in the west'
I'd seen the trailer for Slow West, and I'm a bit in love with Michael Fassbender, so it's definitely on my list. I also like Ben Mendelssohn and I thought Kodi Smit McPhee was good in The Road back then so I'm curious to see what it's like. But no release date for France yet.
The stuff about watching football? I'd imagine that was more the relevance than the script, 'cos from what I remember, it was clunky as shit. Without Hardy & Coleman in the leads, it would've been interminable. At least 70% of the dialogue is about concrete pumping pressure FFS.
My problem with Locke is basically shown up by Slow West. Locke feels like a deliberate film school project to try and make an entire film set in a car. It's almost cynically enginnered to be a festival favorite, with family trouble, parental issues, blunt symbolism etc, all ticked off before the writer googled a lot about concrete pumping pressure to fill in the gaps. Slow West on the other hand, feels loved by it's creator. It's humourous and lived in, and made by someone who isn't trying to tick off the kind of things that'll win him applause.
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It's got some lovely shots of the night sky. Will that do?
Not the football stuff - which was a bit clunky - just the whole thing about trying to keep his shit together when he's broken his wife's heart and trying to save his relationship with his son, all over the phone. It got to me, anyway.
With different leads it might not have worked but that didn't happen and I found it an engaging and interesting little move. By no means one of my favourites but I definitely enjoyed it. It dared to be different and it worked. Kind of.
By the way, wasn't Olivia Coleman playing his lover? I think it was someone else that played his wife.
It's the one with Fassbender in it, right? Good to hear you liked it, will watch it soon and report back.
Yeah I think you're right. I didn't hate Locke, fwiw, I just didn't think it lived up to the art house hype. It struck me as a very 'luvvy' project, from the heavy metaphores to the Burton/Hopkins mashup accent he didn't need to do!
"Listen boyo, you make sure them foundations are sturdy, you can't build anything without solid foundations see"
Is Olivia Coleman the one from Peep Show? If so, then yes, it was definately her playing his lover.
Aye, fair enough. One of those films that might not have survived high expectations. I watched it knowing very little about what to expect and it struck a chord.
Speaking of high expectations I hope I haven't over-hyped Slow West. It is great but I don't think anyone should go in expecting Citizen Kane! It's actually very very rare that I see a film after reading rave reviews and don't feel a little disappointed. I really need to read less reviews, or watch films as soon as they come out.
I was expecting something a lot more po-faced. I was pleasantly surprised it was so drole (well, occasionally)...
"But the concrete Ivan! The concrete, man!!! *bursts into tears*"
Ok, another. And this one probably benefitted from low expectations.
Chappie
You know, it's not bad. I knew Die Antwoord were in it but didn't know how big a role they'd have. The characters they play aside, they seemed to have a big influence on the look and feel of the movie. The whole scuzzy neon punk thing they have going on, which you could see in the costumes, the graffiti, the set design. Everything.
Which means a lot will depend on how much you like them and they do divide opinions. I think they're great (and am a little bit in love with Yolanda). They were basically playing themselves (or the version of themselves they play on stage anyway) so they weren't stretched as actors but put in decent performances anyway.
The story was predictable enough but no gaping plot holes, solid special effects and the whole thing rattled on at a decent pace. The villains were all fecking ludicrous, mind you. Hammily over-acted and comppetely unbelievable. Which would be the main negative. It was all very silly but good fun, despite itself.
6.5/10
Chappie
You know, it's not bad. I knew Die Antwoord were in it but didn't know how big a role they'd have. The characters they play aside, they seemed to have a big influence on the look and feel of the movie. The whole scuzzy neon punk thing they have going on, which you could see in the costumes, the graffiti, the set design. Everything.
Which means a lot will depend on how much you like them and they do divide opinions. I think they're great (and am a little bit in love with Yolanda). They were basically playing themselves (or the version of themselves they play on stage anyway) so they weren't stretched as actors but put in decent performances anyway.
The story was predictable enough but no gaping plot holes, solid special effects and the whole thing rattled on at a decent pace. The villains were all fecking ludicrous, mind you. Hammily over-acted and comppetely unbelievable. Which would be the main negative. It was all very silly but good fun, despite itself.
6.5/10
For a second I thought I was on the Coleman thread and this Olivia Colman was his wife, who was also on Peep Show.
I like the ambition of Interstellar, even if the film falls short for different reasons. Inception was excellent.
Intellectual cinema, well, that could be anything really. The Lion King is a watered down version of Hamlet, after all.
I was just getting at this whole "a thinking man's blockbuster" thing. Which winds me up no end, because the more you think about both those movies the more ludicrous they really are. I don't have a problem with brain-off popcorn moves. I quite like them, once they work within their limitations. I'm ok with switching my brain off and ignoring plot holes as part of an exciting roller-coaster of a movie. It's the combination of big budget silliness with overt pretentiousness that does my head in.
I think expectation is actually Blomkamp's main problem. He's not really a very 'intellectual' filmmaker, but because he made perhaps the definitive dystopian allegorical film - about a subject that's very, erm, black and white (!) - he's expected to follow it up with similarly profound films, about things that aren't so easily distilled into noble good vs hammy, bearded evil. He's trying, bless 'im, but perhaps he shouldn't, because he's probably more of a Besson like silly sci-fi action guy. Elysium and Chappie are terrible as profound statements on healthcare and A.I, but aren't devoid of merit as bonkers blockbusters.
I didn't think Die Antwood were that bad as themselves tbf. Though since Die Antwood, the band, seemed to exist in-Universe, I could never work out whether they were supposed to be Die Antwood, or whether they were just fans of another version of Die Antwood, that just happened to exist, with the same names, and voices.....Yeah, this is basically the kind of shit I probably shouldn't be thinking in a Blomkamp film, but...but...well, he made District 9!
I didn't think Die Antwood were that bad as themselves tbf. Though since Die Antwood, the band, seemed to exist in-Universe, I could never work out whether they were supposed to be Die Antwood, or whether they were just fans of another version of Die Antwood, that just happened to exist, with the same names, and voices.....Yeah, this is basically the kind of shit I probably shouldn't be thinking in a Blomkamp film, but...but...well, he made District 9!
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Yeah, agree with the Besson comparison. Both got a really cool visual style (IMO) but very little substance.
I can never bring myself to dislike 5th Element, despite the fact it's clearly rubbish, because it's got so many cool little visual ideas.
District 9 was the film Blomkamp was born to make, the rest has just been very average. He's been a one hit wonder so far.
I had the same thoughts. The whole movie was like some kind of extended promo for all things Die Antwoord. Blonkamp must be a huge fan. Thankfully, I am too. Not that I spend much time listening to their music. I just think they're cool as feck. If you don't, then I reckon the movie's not for you.
Locke is terrible, sorry Pogue.
It's why Nolan manages to succeed -- he compromises. He gives his audience just enough blockbuster, but also gives the critics enough so that they don't write his film off as "just another blockbuster".
He's succesful alright. Just not my cup of tea.
A bit caricatural, the only way to be entertaining isn't a 'brain switch off type of blockbuster', a good scenario with somewhat challenging concepts (which Nolan films are) can be just as enjoyable.
In theory yes but once you start engaging your brain it's impossible not to start obsessing about plot-holes, or other silly moments, that spoil the whole movie. For me, anyway.
I'm still waiting for that perfect balance between art and entertainment. I don't think Nolan's found that sweet spot yet IMHO.
The Room
It's film making at its finest. The cinematography is outstanding, visually stunning, a very deliberate pace woven in with a absorbing film score.
Your post reminded me what a great film that was!
Entourage
I was a huge fan of the show and watched all the episodes and was gutted when it ended so was very excited to see this but due to work etc. I only got around to it yesterday.
I think it was great and it really was just like an extended episode which was good. That was all I wanted from it. Would have liked to have seen more 'classic Ari' moments but I loved the ending. That was a great way to go out!
7/10
I was a huge fan of the show and watched all the episodes and was gutted when it ended so was very excited to see this but due to work etc. I only got around to it yesterday.
I think it was great and it really was just like an extended episode which was good. That was all I wanted from it. Would have liked to have seen more 'classic Ari' moments but I loved the ending. That was a great way to go out!
7/10
As a standalone film, Entourage is probably a 4 or 5/10 imo. But yeah, for fans of the show, it's easily a 7/10. I enjoyed it too, some excellent cameos.