movies

(no subject)

, , 7 Comments

I saw Skyfall today!

Loved it. It was very ‘James Bond via The Dark Knight. And HOT DAMN THE CINEMATOGRAPHY. It was SO PRETTY. Ahem.

I’m really glad no-one spoiled it for me, because I didn’t know M was going to die and that came as an actual surprise. Also, how good was Judi Dench? Very good. I’m sad she’s not going to be in it anymore.

Did the old guy at the end call her ‘Emma’? Is that her real name?

Note on the ‘waste of good scotch’ line that caused controversy: that part of the film was EXTREMELY problematic and I don’t like it. And in order for me to feel remotely sympathetic towards Bond for the rest of the film, I had to write that line off as “that’s just the way he deals with violent death”. But what I hated more was that we the audience don’t get to react to Severine’s death- she’s shot so quickly you barely see it, Bond delivers his line and starts beating people up and…that’s it. She’s just written off, not even mentioned again, and I didn’t like that at all.

Anyway-

This film passed the Bechdel test I think! Helen McCrory’s character and M. Okay, they were kinda making statements to the whole room when they were talking, but they seemed to be pretty much sniping at each other too.

I know almost nothing about James Bond’s cast of supporting characters so I had no idea that Naomi Harris was playing Miss Moneypenny, but I liked her a lot. She had that whole “not putting up with any of this bullshit” thing going on.

(I am pretty distressed to see people at the above link furious that she ended up as ‘just a secretary’ – I haven’t got any job, let alone being a secretary, how insulting must I be to women?

Sorry. Got turned down for another one just before writing this.)

There’s probably a lot more to be said about this film- like how much it promoted a sense of British patriotism and stoicism and the symbolism of the bulldog, but that should probably be left up to people who actually know the Bond franchise. One last thing, though-

-the bits involving the Tube really reminded me of 7/7? I think that’s maybe what they were going for? Otherwise, why even use the Tube…

I don’t know. But if anyone’s ever up for writing fanfic for this film, I’d love to read something about what the average Londoner made of that day. Transport ground to a halt, shootings in government buildings, terrorists apparently everywhere- it must have been horrible. Wonder how many civilians actually died, both in London and all the other places Bond went? I’d love to see a film dealing with that, but it will probably never be…

world war z

, , , 5 Comments

Hollywood Executive 1: We have a book here called ‘World War Z’, it deals with the global impact of a zombie outbreak, features many different cultures and politics, explores the stories of many countries-

Hollywood Executive 2: Yes! I’m seeing, “White American Man Saves World From Zombies”

HE1: No, it’s not about-

HE2: Get me Brad Pitt on the phone!

HE: No, you’ve missed the point entirely-

HE2: There aren’t nearly enough movies about a man protecting his wife and kids from danger! We need to get Brad Pitt an adorable family! Is Angelina busy? Yes? Get me someone else!

HE1: But there’s a huge, diverse cast in this book-

HE2: WHITE AMERICAN MAN. PURE BOX OFFICE GOLD.

HE1: Look, can we at least get the actual zombies right-

HE2: PURE. GOLD.

(no subject)

, , , 0 Comments

I’ve just been talking about this on another forum- Avengers Assemble The Avengers comes out over here in a few days, but the UK release doesn’t have the Joss commentary. Or the 90-minute making-of (unless you buy it on Blu-Ray, from Sainsbury’s. In other news, Sainsbury’s still hasn’t delievered the exclusive-to-them copy of The Hunger Games that I ordered on next-day delivery two days ago). Or even the gag reel, apparently!

So you know what, I’m not buying it. I was looking really forward to it, but I’m not buying it. It isn’t bloody fair, to lose out just cos of living in the UK! There’d be an outcry if Doctor Who or Harry Potter was released in the US as only a vanilla edition…

If there was a way to watch it all legally on DVD I’d do it, but there isn’t. (Heck, I don’t even own a Blu-Ray player.) I’m just gonna download everything- film, commentaries, extras- burn it onto a DVD, knock up a nice cover, and watch that. I’ll make up the money by buying, I dunno, a stuffed Loki doll or something.

Brave

, 2 Comments

Hooray I finally saw Brave about five billion years after everyone else

It was really good. And it’s SO NICE to see a mother/daughter story, because man, there’s like none of them. (Thousands of father/son stories, of course…) Heck, I reckon even if I hadn’t liked this I’d have still been glad it actually existed.

But I did like it! I liked Queen Eleanor the best. Also Merida and her hair. (Her hair was practically a character in itself.) And I LOVED that she didn’t have a romantic interest. A lesser production team would have had her hook up with one of the suitors, and I’m so glad they didn’t do that.

Also I loved that there wasn’t a villain. Not Queen Eleanor, not the witch, not even the demon bear. (After all, he seemed pretty glad to not be a demon bear anymore.) Instead, there were just loads of people making stupid mistakes. Merida tore her mother’s tapestry, Eleanor burnt her daughter’s bow (and then instantly regretted it- I loved that), the king almost killed his own wife because he wouldn’t listen to his daughter, etc.

Yes. Good movie. Very good movie.

The Amazing Spider-Man

, , 3 Comments

Hey, I saw it!

I still prefer the Raimi ones- I LOVE the Raimi ones. But this was pretty good too.

What I liked:
-Gwen! I love Emma Stone and her Gwen was brilliant. And she got to do stuff and be all sciency. (Okay, we didn’t see her do that much sciency stuff, but still.) Please don’t let her die! Although I suspect it’ll end up that way anyway. Poor Gwen is doomed in every continuity.
-Andrew Garfield’s adorable performance
-Making Uncle Ben’s death even more heartwrenching, because if Peter hadn’t gotten angry and stormed off Ben wouldn’t have been out there in the first place. It was doubly Peter’s fault. Poor sod.
-Collllldplay. (Yeah, I like Coldplay. Sue me.)
-asdfghjkl was that Norman at the end? It was! (Wasn’t he lit in a green light? Gotta be him.)

What I didn’t like
-The sidelining of Aunt May. She’s so important in the comics and the original movies, but she was hardly in it! And at the end, where the Lizard’s going ‘You have no father, no mother, no uncle,’ I was so hoping the interrupting gunshot was Aunt May come to rescue her nephew. (That’s what Ultimate-verse May would have done.) But it wasn’t, it was Captain Stacey. Bah.
-On a similar note, (and Batman Begins suffers from this as well) both Peter’s parents were killed that night. Why does it only ever mention his father? Do we really need another father/son story, Hollywood? Why isn’t his mother just as important?

Also:
-If Norman’s dying, why is he spending all his money on funky glowing screens and holograms? IS THAT REALLY NECESSARY.
-Where was Jonah? He needs to be there. It doesn’t feel like a Spider-Man movie without him.
-And HARRY. Give me Harry so I can ship Peter/Harry some more.
-Can we have Karen Gillan as Mary Jane? Oh please oh please oh please.

I still think it’s missing the essential ingredients that made the original movies so great, though. The cheesiness, the crash-pow-comic-book-ness…plus the overriding theme of everyone just being good and pulling together and Spider-Man having help all the time and the villains never being entirely bad. (Except for Venom, I suppose.) I remember on my first day of Film Studies class, when we were asked to talk about our favourite movies, I said of Spider-Man 2, “It feels like it was made just for me,” and that’s a pretty rare thing, something I didn’t get with this movie. Still liked it, though.

«< 5 6 7 8 9 >»