Film Diary

16 May 2016

The East, 2013 - ★★★

An interesting premise that doesn't quite manage to reach it's full potential but is different enough to remain engaging.

May 16, 2016 at 08:01PM

15 May 2016

John Carney knows how to make music come alive on the screen. There are multiple moments where songs just come alive with a visual flair illustrating what makes them sound so good. He did it in Begin Again and that's pretty much all that happens in Once. Sing Street is closer to Begin Again (a film I liked a lot more than others) than Once but also has similarities to something like We Are The Best. Unfortunately I had the same problem as I had with Begin Again in that I personally didn't like the songs enough to be completely swept away but the fact that I still understood the sentiment warmed by heart and made me smile and cry in a happy sad sort of way.

May 15, 2016 at 04:10PM

Chappie, 2015 - ★★★

Tonally this is all over the place but I quite enjoyed it.

May 15, 2016 at 04:00PM

Captain America: Civil War, 2016 - ★★★★

It's hard not to think about Batman V Superman throughout Civil War. I can't help but feel that the reason Marvel's latest is being heralded as their best is partly down to just how bad Dawn Of Justice was. The two films share many similarities but Civil War understands nearly everything that BvS:DoJ got wrong and is executed with love care and attention. There are some problems though, the story is quite weak and Captain America remains the dullest Avenger. I struggled to remember the Winter Soldier storyline or the importance of the friendship with Bucky so the emotional drive was missing for me. Perhaps it doesn't matter how we get to the central fight but it feels nearly as ridiculous as BvS and certainly feels like they could easily resolve matters just by talking to each other. But that airport fight is just fantastic, with all (twelve?) characters working together brilliantly whilst retaining their own identity and the tone of their individual films. It's the two new characters that stand out as the most interesting things in the whole film and has piqued my interest in their upcoming films when I previously had little interest; compare this to BvS where the other characters were bluntly introduced like a paid for piece of product placement.

So everything continues along and is a huge amount of fun but once again the climatic scenes don't work. The final battle is another tedious punch 'em up that reminded me of Iron Man 2. It's a shame that so many of the Marvel films fall apart towards the end. Again, the reason for the bust up feels completely unmerited and could've been sorted out with a calming conversation but I guess Captain America: Coffee and Chat doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

May 15, 2016 at 03:58PM

08 May 2016

Henry V, 1989 - ★★★

I didn't realise I'd seen this before and apart from Emma Thompson's first scene I didn't remember any of it. I think I'm just going to have to admit to not getting the history plays. This may be regarded as one of the best Shakespeare adaptations but apart from the battles it's far to theatrical for my tastes. The Agincourt sequence is spectacular but by this point I'd already lost interest and it was only when Thompson returns again at the end that I regained interest. I'd happily watch her scenes over and over but it does make me think if the best scene in a film is one that is arguably entirely redundant then something isn't quite right somewhere.

May 08, 2016 at 05:25PM

07 May 2016

Midnight Special, 2016 - ★★★★

One of my most anticipated films of the year and I was left feeling it was satisfyingly good rather than great. Somebody once said that you could probably dispense with the first 20 minutes of most films (which is usually just setup) and jump straight into the story which is exactly what Nichols does. This is a mystery and you're constantly trying to discover what's going on and yet it's never frustratingly unclear. A fantastic soundtrack helps everything along. There's something missing though, the finale isn't bad but it always felt like everything was leading to something really special and on paper it is but in delivery it falters. The end credits feature a "a kind of bastardized version" of the title song by Ben Nichols' band, Lucero which was a great way to end (even if I was the only person left in the cinema to hear it).

May 07, 2016 at 08:56AM

02 May 2016

American Sniper, 2014 - ★★★

Competently made and easy to watch but also feels like a series of missed opportunities to explore much more. I'd forgotten it was based on a true story which perhaps explains why it steers away from the darker more interesting stuff. A muddled ending is literally unfathomable, requiring a trip to Wikipedia to find out what happened.

May 02, 2016 at 05:20PM

Love Is All You Need, 2012 - ★★★½

There's lots of familiar elements here: Danes squabbling at a family gathering, a stunning mediterranean(?) setting, Pierce Brosnan and a title that isn't that far removed from a pop song. However this is quite different from Festen, Melancholia or Mama Mia and ends being a much nicer tale than the total devastation of Festen and fortunately Brosnan doesn't start singing. The central story is satisfying but I was left wanting more from the secondary characters.

May 02, 2016 at 05:13PM

23 April 2016

The Spectacular Now, 2013 - ★★★

I thought I'd like this a lot more than I did and perhaps on a different viewing I would get more from it. It just didn't click into place for me and Teller's character is an even bigger dick than Ferris Bueller. Maybe I'm just getting old.

April 23, 2016 at 05:58PM

22 April 2016

The Jungle Book 2016 -

This shouldn't work, and in many places it doesn't, but when it does it's absolutely wonderful. Opening on a traditional "hand drawn" animated Disney castle which segues into a computer generated jungle with a nod to Bambi reassures you that this is a director who
knows and loves Disney. Unfortunately the problems start straight away, the opening action sequence is too fast to work effectively in 3D and many scenes are too dark even in Imax 3D.

In the slower paced, brightly lit scenes the 3D looks fantastic and I'm starting to not instantly dismiss 3D as a format (although maybe only Imax). The next problem is perhaps the biggest, there is a disconnect between the voices and creatures; both are impressive but there's something uncanny about how they work together. I managed to adjust and got used to it and certainly by the time Baloo turns up it was no longer an issue. Or maybe it was just because Bill Murray is just so fantastic as Baloo.

Once the bear and man cub team up I was completely on board and loved what follows. During development I wondered if the songs would be included, the trailer hinted they would be and the musical references throughout tease the classic songs. It's probably no secret (or spoiler) that some of the songs do feature and the fact they work so well is one of things I loved so much about the film. To make songs work in a non-musical photorealistic animation (because this isn't really live action) is an amazing achievement. Versions of the songs also feature over the end credits which feature another wonderful piece of animation, I wanted to force the people leaving back into their seats to stay and watch.

There may not be much to the story (I remember being disappointed with the animated version when I watched it recently) but this is so much more than the technical showcase I was initially expecting. Great performances, numerous nods to Disney, oodles of charm and great music.

April 22, 2016 at 12:47PM

18 April 2016

Electricity, 2014 - ★★★

An impressively made film with an equally impressive lead performance. The special effects are used wonderfully to serve a purpose and presumably made with a low budget so put hollywood fare to shame.

Aside: This was shown on the now-online-only BBC Three and as a result I suspect not many people will see it which would be shame. It doesn't look like it received another on-air broadcast which I thought the BBC were supposed to still do, perhaps not for films.

April 18, 2016 at 08:07PM

Rango, 2011 - ★★★

Beautiful to look at and has more depth that lots of modern animation but the interesting setup falls apart so the story doesn't fully deliver.

April 18, 2016 at 08:00PM

10 April 2016

Goodnight Mommy, 2014 - ★★★½

Talented horror film makers often seem to fall back on the things they like doing rather than the things they seem much better at. This shouldn't necessarily be a bad thing but it often means that the final film has a split personality and it's unclear who it will appeal to. The first part of Goodnight Mommy is incredibly creepy, well made, atmospheric, slow and intriguing. The only real twist in the film is that it becomes a gory sadistic horror towards the end. Some people will like both aspects but I imagine most people will only like one part and be put off by the other. It's a shame because there's a lot of depth to the story, a lot of which I didn't realise until the next day and I suspect may be overlooked by people because of either the slowness or the gore.

Disclaimer: It was another late night screening and I'm getting too old and tired so some of the film may have been lost on me at the time.

April 10, 2016 at 05:22PM

Pitch Perfect 2, 2015 - ★★★★

No, you got too emotionally involved during the finale. I think this is a huge improvement over the already great first film. Fat Amy feels like a real character this time instead of somebody wandering over from a different film. There's none of the unnecessary gross-out humour that soiled moments of the first. The same problems do exist though; it's entirely predictable and many parts of the story make little sense but none of that really matters because it's all so much fun.

A bigger problem is the casual racism, not from the commenters who remain the real highlight but the unfunny, entirely unnecessary, comments made by the new(?)) Guatemalan Bella. The trip to Copenhagen also throws out a bunch of unnecessary stereotypes which just come across as tacky. I had no idea the Danes were supposed to have an obsession with eating fish and I've been to Copenhagen. It's more disappointing because the Danish Birgitte Hjort Sørensen plays the leader of a rival German group and could've had a word with somebody. Speaking of Sørensen, I was left almost as confused as Beca as that's not my Borgen's Katrine and it was disappointing that what could have been the only non-obvious plot point was just left hanging (surely the boyfriend hardly featured for a reason).

I enjoyed it a lot and the finale did move me (although I did wonder if that clap routine would be audible on a festival stage). One of the legitimate uses of Letterboxd Like heart, although I was also considering giving it more than 4 out of 5.

April 10, 2016 at 05:10PM