44. Black Crab
In a near future Sweden, a huge but unexplained war had broken out - with atrocities being committed on both sides and the population desperate and starving. Noomi Rapace plays a former speed skater who is tasked, along with a small unit of fellow soldiers, with skating across the frozen sea of the northern Swedish archipelago to deliver an ominous package to the government in order to end the war once and for all. Some fantastic cinematography and very tense action set pieces can't quite rescue this from being only above average. Worth a watch, but not as great as it could have been. 6

104. Godzilla v Kong
I enjoyed this more when it was one of the first big screen movies to come out after lockdown but it's still pretty fun. Very colourful which is nice. I think watching it closer to the smaller stories of the first Godzilla and Kong movies makes it feel more of a let down that they let it go full Marvel in terms of big silly story. Had some good smashing though.
[6]

Vacation Friends

Silly and fun comedy about an upright young couple going on holiday and making friends with a carefree, crazy couple who teach them how to let go. Hijinks ensue. John Cena is the loveable overgrown puppydog. Films light-hearted enough to pass the time and I laughed a good few times.

Vacation Friends 2

A meh sequel. Wasn't bad but felt lazy, a bit unnecessary and the inclusion of Steve Buscemi did little to elevate it above average.
Still laughed a few times.

Virtuosity (1995)

From the director of The Lawnmower Man comes a beautiful mid 90s tech VR thriller. Denzel finding his feet as DENZEL and Russell Crowe having the time of his fucking life in a complete headfuck of nonsense.

Loved it.

[8]

46. Skyscraper
Now I've seen a lot of terrible films in my time and have enjoyed many a movie that was so bad it was good. This is definitely one of these - the only thing that makes it even vaguely watchable is the Rock and his presence, plus the fact that he only has one leg, for reasons, makes this a treasure trove of absurd unintentionally hilarious nonsense. Pure, unadulterated bullshit - watchable, but only just. 4

Solid remake. Denzel on form.

You absolutely do, Jamie loved it.

Got an IMDb/justwatch link cos that's ungoogleable

It is indeed, fuck knows why I put Minute

Olimite wrote:

djchump wrote:

TMNT Mutant Mayhem Fucking amazing - was expecting it to be kinda good, but was pleasantly surprised that I found it incredible fun! Entire cast is firing on all cylinders and loads of the jokes landed with full on laughs. Jackie Chan and Ice Cube in particular, but just everyone was having fun there. Soundtrack is also incredible - not just the obvious nostalgic hiphop needledrops, but the score itself, so it was no surprise to see it was Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross when the credits rolled. Fantastic all round and managed to distinguish itself nicely from Spider-Verse in both content and style. [9.5]

I thought it was ace too. Some really great characters beyond the obvious ones. I kinda hope they leave it there but unless it tanked there will inevitably be a sequel.

I heard on a podcast that while the box office wasn't great it has sold a ton of new turtle toys (similar to Hasbro and rise of the Beasts) so a good chance of a sequel.

hylian_elf wrote:

So my visit to the Prince Charles Cinema for the 30th anniversary 4K rerelease of Jurassic Park didn't go as well as I had hoped. Firstly, this is my second visit to the PCC and I'm not a fan of the downstairs screen. It's a declined hall rather than inclined and there was a mahoosively tall person sat in front of me blocking a not-insignificant chunk of the screen.
Secondly, while it was nice to see a father bring his young daugher to see it and possibly relive his younger day (as I would love to do with mine), the twat was talking fairly loudly (as was his daughter but not so much) throughout to his daughter to explain what is going on (I assume anyway, he was talking in a foreign language) and he would also laugh out loud at everything and I mean everything every 5 minutes or so. Fucked it.

34. Jurassic Park - 10 Sep
4K rerelease although some shots/scenes didn't/couldn't quite get the treatment and looked old and grainy with washed out colour. Still a classic and the best Spielberg, the ultimate popcorn movie. The iconic scenes will never get old.
[9]

35. Past Lives - 10 Sep
Two childhood friends who were separated due to one emigrating from Korea to Canada decided to look each other up and meet up in their adult lives. An enjoybale sentimental and touching romantic drama.
[8]

Yea I find that with the PCC too. I always get someone tall blocking my view.
Plus it seems that people are getting more and more selfish and forgetting basic etiquette when in the cinema.

It's why I avoid going there now, other people just ruin everything

Curzon Soho was glorious on the other hand. Lovely cafe and bar. Screen 1 was nice. Picture and sound were on point. The picture in PCC was slightly bent during ads and trailers. Not sure if they fixed it for the actual film, couldn't really tell so it’s ok I suppose!

Love PAHR, great movie!  I have the Criterion edition.

Barbie
Ah that was fantastic! 
Obviously hitting the themes of feminism, empowerment, body standards, patriarchy, toxic masculinity etc - but also lots of other stuff (growing up, motherhood/parenthood etc) and absolutely hits the right comedy tones for me, with a whole bunch of jokes landing right in the bullseye and laughing out loud and offset by heartfelt reals. A lot of it down to great performances all round - Robbie and Gosling hitting it out of the park, and Liu working well as Gosling's tertiary foil. Not just daft comedy, some real heart in there from Robbie in places. Laughs and tears, great stuff.

[10]


Sakra
Donnie Yen period wire-fu wushu film from last year. Skipped most of the story because no subs and looked pretty dull. Action is great though - uses some modern VFX and techniques to really amplify the speedy wushu style leaping about like a daft ninja larks, doing some things that I've not seen before and doing it well. Definitely taken some notes from videogames and anime in places, but it all lands in the hyperkinetic magical punchy-kicky-jumpy fun.

As a whole film, probably a [4]
Skip to the fights [6]
Skip to the fights, as a fan of the wire-fu genre [9]

Quick run down of movies watched so far at the Toronto International Film Festival...

Lost Ladies

Indian film about two brides who inadvertently get separated from their husbands after their wedding. (Thanks to some shenanigans involving busy train carriages, and identical wedding veils.) I wasn't expecting a fair deal from this but it was fantastic. Funny, heartwarming, and resolutely (but gently) feminist. Its depiction of rural India allows for a slightly different version of the country than the one I'm used to seeing in cinema.

It's a romp, complete with a glorious scene chewing turn from a corrupt cop, and utterly delightful. It will probably disappear without trace, but with the right distributor I can see it breaking through to the mainstream - it certainly deserves to.

[8]

They Shot The Piano Player

Animated docu-drama about the disappearance of jazz pianist Tenorio Jr.  This ought to be great - the visuals are every bit as vibrant as the music, and there's an interesting story to be told. Somehow though, it's less than the sum of its parts. Surprisingly it's hindered somewhat by having Jeff Goldblum narrate the thing - playing a fictional character called, erm, Jeff. Goldblum's distinct verbal style is oddly distracting, and the conceit of having a true story told by a fictional character makes everything unhelpfully distant. The film's also sadly unfocussed - is this a movie about the Brazilian Bossa Nova scene, Tenorio Jr, or corrupt South American Governments, and the USA's complicity in their actions?  Each represents an interesting tale to tell, but the film never quite tells any of them properly.

What should be a gripping mystery, or an enchanting account of a burgeoning musical scene, is instead oddly turgid and dull.

[4]

Woman of the Hour

This is an interesting one.  It's Anna Kendrick's directorial debut.  All of the women in the group I went with thought it was extraordinary, but the men were less enthusiastic. It's the true story of serial killer Rodney Alcala, who whilst actively continuing his murder spree took time out to appear on "The Dating Game".

Kendrick's direction moves the focus away from depictions of the crime themselves (though you're left in no doubt as to what's happened ) and instead focuses on the victims, and on depicting Alcala as just one end of a spectrum of shitty male behaviour. Every woman I've spoken to who watched the film described it as intensely disturbing, by virtue of recognising so many of the situations that arise within it. One of the men I was with conversely felt actively put out by its depiction of men. I merely quipped that even when directing a serial killer movie, Anna Kendrick stills finds a way to play a character that is clearly just Anna Kendrick.  Still, it's an interesting take on the true-crime genre, which for once has something more interesting to say than "Killing is bad but let's enjoy watching some more killings shall we?"

At the end of the day, I guess the point of a movie like this is to get people talking, and it certainly had that effect.  I gather Netflix have picked it up after a bidding war following the premier so most of you will get a chance to watch it in due course.

[7]

Mountain Queen

OK, for a variety of long winded reasons I didn't get to see this one, but my wife did, and rates it as her favourite film so far, so I thought I'd give it a nod.  It's a documentary (still apparently a work in progress, here seeking funding) about Lhakpa Sherpa, the first Nepali woman to summit and descend Everest, and the woman who has made the most ascents of Everest - all whilst funding it by working in a Whole Foods store.  By all accounts, it's an incredibly inspirational, and beautiful, documentary.

The End We Start From

Jodie Comer stars in this adaptation of the novel of the same name. It's an odd addition to the "apocalypse movie" genre. The film focuses on a woman who gives birth at the exact moment that London, and much of the UK, succumbs to a massive catastrophic flood. She flees the disaster with her husband and baby, encountering the best and worst of humanity as she goes.

This is probably not the film you're imagining from that description. It's quite slow, episodic and lyrical. The focus is entirely on the emotional impact on the individual, rather than on spectacle. In the Q&A afterwards the director commented that she had been worried when it was announced that the book was to be a film as she was worried a movie adaptation would lose the gentle poetry of the novel. I've not read it, but I suspect she's succeeded in keeping that intact. This is not the Michael Bay version, for better and worse.

Many, I think, will be put off by the pace and tone of the film - it is very much an arthouse apocalypse -  but it has a quiet beauty and Comer is predictably extraordinary.(Katherine Waterston is also fantastic, and the film feels buoyed by the scenes she's in.)

[7]

Monster

I know some of you are eagerly awaiting this one.  You won't be disappointed.  Kore-eda has already established himself as a great director, and particularly as an accomplished director of children.  Monster follows one child in particular, Minato - a boy whose odd behaviour leads his mother to challenge his school. Is he the victim of abuse from his teacher, a bully himself, or is something else going on entirely?

The film's structure encourages questions for much of its duration, returning several times to the opening fire and retelling events from the perspectives of different characters. It benefits from knowing as little as possible before going in, so I'll leave it at that, and simply say that it is ultimately beautiful, heartbreaking and wonderfully human.

(Avoid reviews, not only because of spoilers, but because at least a couple I've read since watching the film utterly misunderstand the events of the movie, and in particular its conclusion.)

[9]