Last movie watched...

[Tjm86]

I've been trying for years to remember the name of a play that was centred around that idea, everyone else hamming it up really badly and one actor playing it straight.  It's driving me nuts!

[CrazyFoxMachine]

The Suicide Shop (2012)

Utterly beautiful visually but morally blank. A digitally animated semi-musical set in a shop that caters exclusively to suicidal customers (surely not a growth industry in the long run) only the morbid family that run it birth a child that's determined to make the world happy, which he does through the medium of pimping out his sister. OH WHAT LARKS.

Again - stunning to look at, really snappy and characterful animation, gorgeous backgrounds but shallow and stunningly tone-deaf in its construction. Aiming I imagine for the camp gothiness of Nightmare Before Christmas but falling short by a long, long way.

[DrRocka]

Daddy/Daughter date tonight, so I took Small Rocka to Beauty & The Beast. Mocketh all ye like, fellow squaxx, but both of us absolutely loved it. Kinda like Les Mis without the relentless misery (and lot more Stockholm Syndrome). Emma Watson nailing her role and the whole cast having a ball.
Say what you like about Disney, but when they deliver a great family film, they do it properly.

[JamesC]

Daddy/Daughter date tonight, so I took Small Rocka to Beauty & The Beast. Mocketh all ye like, fellow squaxx, but both of us absolutely loved it. Kinda like Les Mis without the relentless misery (and lot more Stockholm Syndrome). Emma Watson nailing her role and the whole cast having a ball.
Say what you like about Disney, but when they deliver a great family film, they do it properly.

Good for you. I have lots of goodwill towards the animated version ((always really liked the design of the beast).

[Apestrife]

Drive. Probably for the 10th time. Still amazing. Love how he (the driver) morphs into a movie monster.

[Radbacker]

Ghost in The Shell, well it was okay I guess, stunning soundtrack and looks stunning and certainly easier to follow than the original anime but I think it kinda misses the point of it a bit, kind of like the best actiony bits of the anime but misses the heart or soul .  Also finishes all of a sudden but IIRC the anime does that too, its been a while since I watched it, it was never my favorite (nothing can top Akira IMHO) but still enjoyable, those that absolutly love the original may not like it too much though.

CU Radbacker

[Spikes]

Denial.

A film based on the real life events and centres around the libel case brought against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, by that most wretched and odious individual; The Holocaust denier David Irving.

Without giving away the ending    It's always worth repeating this particular undeniable fact; "The English court found that Irving was an active Holocaust denier, anti-Semite, and racist, who "for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence". In addition, the court found that Irving's books had distorted the history of Adolf Hitler's role in the Holocaust to depict Hitler in a favourable light."

Very good performances in the main, and a film that stands as a timely reminder that these people are still out there, and are still pushing their corrupt ideology.

[Hawkmumbler]

Bubblegum Crash was an attempt to conclude the brilliant Bubblegum Crisis series 6 years too late. A three episode OVA made from recycled footage, low quality new footage, obnoxiously basic story telling and a complete miss-characterization of the four leads. Utter dross, hardly worth the 50P I paid for it at CEX.

And the dub, FUCK ME the dub!!!!

[HdE]

Not long back in from seeing Ghost in the Shell. And you know what? It ain't bad!

I'll try to compose a proper revieew and post it on my Youtube channel tomorrow. But for now, I'll say this:

The film does a lot that isn't strictly necessary. And it feels hollow in comparison to pretty much anything else in the franchise. It has glaring issues, like the twist in the end, which I wanted to believe wouldn't be a problem, but is actually properly 'Hollywood dumb.' And it commits a grave sin in reducing its iconic central character to a much weaker shadow of what she SHOULD be.

BUT...

That said, taken as its own thing, free of preconceptions the franchise may have already instilled in fans (and yes, if I can do that, anyone can,) it's pretty damned solid. Some of the action is neat. And even if it does make a couple of characters gun slinging tough guys when they've never been portrayed that way in the material that came before it, the sceneswhere it does that WORK. One of them is even the coolest part of the whole movie for me. Most of the nods to the previous anime work, and the really pleasant surprise for me is that, rather than being a hodge-podge of the best bits from the 'real' Ghost in the Sell, it really is its own beast.


Super simple verdict: Not brilliant, but most definitely not bad.

I'll go into more detail on Youtube tomorrow, as time permits.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Watched Young Offenders for the second time in a month with my family yesterday and they loved it. Really can't recommend it higher - gets the mix of melodrama and hilarity just right.

[Tiplodocus]

BLADE RUNNER  - The Final Cut.

It must be twenty years since I last saw this and while visuals and soundtrack are still amazing, I was surprised that Deckard is so rapey and that there is zero chemistry between him and Rachel. Really, they spend about twenty minutes together - even less in screen time. Is there a cut where their relationship seems remotely real?

[SIP]

BLADE RUNNER  - The Final Cut.

It must be twenty years since I last saw this and while visuals and soundtrack are still amazing, I was surprised that Deckard is so rapey and that there is zero chemistry between him and Rachel. Really, they spend about twenty minutes together - even less in screen time. Is there a cut where their relationship seems remotely real?

It's a replicant thing 😉

[Professor Bear]

Greetings, people of the future - I speak to you from the far-off historical period you refer to as the 1990s, which is the only explanation for Beauty and the Beast and Power Rangers being in cinemas, barring some time-looping catastrophe befalling mankind and we've gone back to a lady PM inexplicably backed by the entire spectrum of the British media, the Middle East on fire and America and Russia at it again.
Beauty and the Beast is not as slick as the cartoon version, with Belle in particular being less animated than her cartoon counterpart.  Realised in live actors, some of the problems of the original story become more apparent, too - and I don't mean the obvious bestiality jokes, I mean what a repugnant snob Belle is and how she looks down on her neighbors for being uneducated.  In this context, there's a sense that the real story is Beast taking her down a peg or two with what are clearly textbook abusive boyfriend controlling tactics, and I guess this sadomasochistic element is at least in keeping with the folklore roots of these kinds of fairytales.  Some of the songs weren't as good as the cartoon version, too - Angela Lansbury as Ms Teacup or GTFO, film.
Power Rangers is neither bad or good enough to be memorable.  Obviously with this amount of cash thrown at it, it looks nice enough, so you get a quarter of a billion dollars' worth of competence if not much else.  The CGI robot fights owe more to Ultraman than Super Sentai, the messy mecha designs and angsty teen leads owe more to Genseishin, and the 90 minutes you have to wait until any of that appears onscreen owes more to a poor creative decision for a modern superhero movie.  This is shorter than most superhero flicks, but it's still just shy of two hours long and all the good stuff happens in the second half of the third act.  As with most YA media these days, there's also so much recycling of elements from other things that I don't even know if some of it is a deliberate nod of the head or if the writers just have a limited pool of influences - there's a bit where the Zords are being pushed into a big fiery pit and I wondered "is this a reference to when Rita destroys the Zords by casting them into a fiery chasm in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers season 1, episode 20 (Green With Evil pt4)?"  On balance, I figured it was just some stuff that was happening.
Also, I missed where that thing originated where characters put their hands on a glass partition of some sort and make a sad face to someone on the other side because they cannot touch, but I'm seeing it everywhere now - is it a Wrath of Khan thing, or was it in some big YA movie like one of the later Twilights I couldn't be arsed watching?
Anyway, fuck this 1990s throwback shit, as tomorrow I'll go see Ghost in the Sh - actually, never mind.

[HdE]

Being a bit cheeky by sharing this here, but I made good on my threat of a Youtube review of the Scartoko Johannsunagi version of Ghost in the Shell.

'Ere ya go:

https://youtu.be/LE_fScHwAa4

[Steve Green]

Free fire

very good - great cast, breezed by and has one particularly memorable scene + a fair few wince-inducing moments.

I'm not sure what the typical attendance for my local Curzon is, but there were only 2 other people in the screening at 6:45 - there's an Odeon next door which might have got the more casual punter.

Recommended anyway.