Movies 2: Electric Boogaloo

£2 to see a film!? My nearest cinema is 3 times that even with a student discount. Is the popcorn similarly cheap? The last film I watched was John Wick which I watched on Sunday, it was really good, there's a plot line to it but its major selling point is all the fights. As an amateur martial artist it's always fun watching well choreographed fights and being able to recognise all the different techniques and their names, even occasionally thinking (wrongly) "I could do that". I'm in no real hurry but I'll definitely watch the sequel for more gun slinging, face punching action.

ZeroJones wrote:

I went to the cinema and saw The LEGO Batman Movie again. It was as pretty-good-but-not-quite-as-good-as-The-LEGO-Movie as it was the last time I saw it

Weird- I watched the LEGO Batman Movie for the first time tonight! Wanted to watch some Batman to pay our respects to the big man Adam West and we hadn't seen this, so watched it with my family while we had pizza. I enjoyed it, a good send-up of various Batman tropes. My only issue was that it portrayed King Kong amongst the villains. At his very worst, he's tragically misunderstood. A lot of the time, he's the hero.

Drunkalilly wrote:

ZeroJones wrote:

I went to the cinema and saw The LEGO Batman Movie again. It was as pretty-good-but-not-quite-as-good-as-The-LEGO-Movie as it was the last time I saw it

Weird- I watched the LEGO Batman Movie for the first time tonight! Wanted to watch some Batman to pay our respects to the big man Adam West and we hadn't seen this, so watched it with my family while we had pizza.

That is bizarre - it was pretty spontaneous from me, because I was hoping to see Wonder Woman again. Also, RIP Adam West: his work will be remembered for a long time to come.

For Adam West fans, as well as the obvious 1966 Batman film I strongly recommend "Return to the Batcave", which is half a dramatisation of the making of the 60s Batman show told through flashbacks during a modern escapade with West and Ward. Silly but also brilliant and insightful.

Watched a little film yesterday, I think I caught it once or twice before.
Transformers, 2007

This is just a nice, solid film. The effects hold up a decade on - Bay and his team have nailed practical carnage mixed with CGI robots - and shoehorned as it might have been the little love story is cute and well-realised. The scenes where they're driving in Bumblebee and he's playing songs and breaking down in front of romantic sunsets and so on are really well done. I can understand why this is the film in the series that's most respected by normal fleshlings. For me, though, it's an okay pilot that needed more: more transformers, more action, more bits and bobs from the comics and cartoons, less human characters and more metal ones.
4/5

LEGO Batman last night, dam is it good or what?

Transformers: The Last Knight

I enjoyed it. It was big and dumb and over-the-top, but it looked incredible and the jokes made me chuckle and the message about helping refugees and immigrants even when the authorities call that a crime was a valuable one.

It's another long film, though I felt everything contributed to the forward momentum much more than in the previous film. Maybe by my second, third or fourth trip to the cinema I'll be noticing where it slows a bit more, but I couldn't see an obvious weak link here other than the fact the continuity with previous films is a bit whack.

Honestly, though? My ideal Transformers film now would go smaller, not bigger. I know that won't happen with the way this one teased a sequel, but for my money the best action in this series has been a small number of robots having cool fights for understandable stakes. Prime fighting three Decepticons to protect Sam? Fantastic.

Spoiler:

Bit much.

Overall though, I enjoyed it and I'm up for more. I love the smart and interesting comicbooks, but I also like seeing robots explode eachother.

Terminator 2 is coming back to (selected) Cinemas in 4K 3D which gets a big from me but not sure we will ever actually be able to see it as there are hardly any Cinemas with a 4K resolution screens along with 3D capabilities which are why when a film like Underworld: Blood Wars comes to your living room, someone like me has to make the choice 3D or 4K as they don't do the two together.

Now Cameron is doing the two together, we of curse saw Titanic 3D come out to buy, I'd love to see T2 in 4K 3D but the market for either format is small and putting them together is even smaller that we will likely have to make the choice 4K or 3D when is comes to watching it in our homes.

The best film ever, but I'm not sure I want to see shoehorned in 3D. LOVE the fact I'm going to see it in the cinema though.

Titanic was great when I saw that in 3D and the same team are handling T2. I hope we do get to see it in Cinema but at the moment it is only slated for a handful of Cinemas that can do 4K 3D but if they have any sense they'll roll out in regular 3D or 4K without 3D, so everyone can see it in the Cinema.

I'm more interested in the 4K as it wouldn't have been filmed in it, unlike now where Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is filmed in 8K, sure it would have been filmed knowing Cameron better then what home TV's could do at the time but from what I've heard about Ghostbusters which is a little older, the 4K UHD isn't that great as the resolution bummed shows up the limitations of the film which is rather grainy and I hope T2 isn't like that.

Saw your Spider-Man Homecoming yesterday, then.

Brilliant film! It's crazy to think this is the sixth live action Spider-Man I've seen in the cinema, seventh if you count Civil War. I think it's the best yet, as a lifelong fan of the character and the comicbooks. It has a great sense of heart and fun, and Peter is so perfect. He's funny, but not cocky. He's unlucky and struggling, but he's not mopey. He does mix with Iron Man and co, but for the most part he's just a kid who fights crime in New York.

There are loads of characters and villains from the comics in here, and thought hey're re-jigged and reimagined for the 21st century and the MCU, I think it all worked really well. Because Tom Holland's Peter Parker (and Spider-Man) is so perfect, the changes all feel like they fit.

Here's hoping Marvel and Sony can stick with the character long enough to see him grow up this time, before we get another reboot.

Drunkalilly wrote:

On that note, my prediction for how the film ends:

Spoiler:

NAILED IT.

I'm hearing extremely positive things on Twitter about the film, too. I'll have to get myself off to see it at some stage.

I'll be off to see it on Tuesday.

I also saw Spider-Man and it was Amazing.

I watched Pixels as well one night, wasn't as bad as people say but it was on in the background whilst on I was on the laptop.

My sister had pixels on last weekend. What I saw of it didn't seem awful, just painfully average.

Whew, I saw three films over the weekend! Madness.

Spider-Man: Homecoming: Awesome! Tom Holland is my favourite Spidey yet - he's believably geeky and unsure of his place as a superhero as a burgeoning Peter Parker should be. The supporting cast was excellent as well, and I'm dead impressed that both the writers and Michael Keaton managed to take an arguably B-Tier at best villain in The Vulture (fuck that age shit, glad they ditched that for Homecoming) and made him into one of the most compelling villains in the MCU. I mean...

Vulture spoilers:

I'm excited to see where Spidey goes next in the MCU - so glad he's part of the Marvel gang now! I don't mind the X-Men being their own thing (reckon they'd make the film universe a bit TOO busy) but I hope Marvel get involved with the Fantastic Four and do them justice next.

Wonder Woman: After the colossal shitshow that was Man of Steel, the entertaining car-crash that was Dawn of Justice and... whatever the hell Suicide Squad was, I can't say I've enjoyed my time spent in the DCU. But christ, well done Wonder Woman. Man of Steel was full of long, boring fight scenes - Wonder Woman had me gripped as she battered her way through German troops. BvS was riddled with plotholes and the characters made no sense - WW had a great pair of performances full of heart from Gal Gadot and Chris Pine. Suicide Squad... let's not talk about that.

I actually hope she gets more of a front and central position in the Justice League... although I don't trust the main series' writers to do her... ahem... justice anymore.

Baby Driver: See this movie now! Oozing with style - this is Edgar Wright all grown up. It's still full of those little Edgar Wright touches - a fucking amazing soundtrack, snappy editing and some neat background details that'll have you going "aw, look at that" on repeat viewings.

I've not watched an action film in a hot minute, but I was dead impressed by the choreography of the car chases and the intensity of the gun fights in this. I think the best thing this movie does - besides delivering a surprisingly compelling storyline from the usually light-hearted Edgar Wright - is that it feels like one big music video. Each scene is edited to be in time with the beats of whatever track Baby is listening to as he carries out his latest heist.

This feels like the film Drive wanted to be - except Baby Driver does it with some great performances (Jon Hamm outshone Kevin Spacey, to give you an idea of how great the supporting cast was in this) and brims with class.

Got to see Despicable Me 3 (or Despicable M3, as its own title sequence suggests - can neither confirm nor deny, but when we get to Despicable M6, I will be able to agree... terrible road) just. Not bad, not great - the villain provides some spark and some laughs but it felt a bit meandering in places. DM2 is the best one, in my humble, unsubtle and often wrong opinion.

And Megamind is better than all of them. Word to Jay enjoying Wonder Woman, too - all o'y'all should see it, if you haven't already done so.

I've only seen Despicable Mes 1 & 3, not 2 or Megamind. (or the minions theme). I quite liked the first one, thought it was beginning to grate by the third.

I'm looking forward to seeing Apes and Dunkirk in the not-too-distant future. Both are sounding extraordinary, according to people whose opinions I trust and generally concur. I love monkeys, and Nolan has yet to make a bad film.

I saw an advert before a youtube video today for The Darkest Hour, a film about Churchill starring Gary Oldman. It looked bloody excellent, and I was excited to see it . . . it's out in January. I do wonder if it's all but finished and they've delayed it so as not to clash with the release of Dunkirk (this seemed to be set around the time of those events).

Megamind I recommend, very much: it was much more fun and funny than the original Despicable Me, both released in the same year. Anyway, none of this matters, because your friendly neighbourhood Zero-Man saw Spider-Man: Homecoming today.

What I was lead to believe would be a brilliant film was merely a very good one. The Spider-Films have slowly been approaching what I think of as the real Spider-Man: a scrawny (ish) kid who cracks wise to cover his fear, who messes up or gets messed with but still keeps fighting because of his cast-iron sense of responsibility. This is the funniest film I've seen in ages, never mind the funniest superhero film. There's one scene in a parking lot that had me doubled up with laughter. The villain is suitably threatening and close to the hero, which feels good but somewhat deliberate, so as not to tread on the toes of Marvel. I also thought that it was hard to tell what was going on in places - maybe it's my age, though.

Just saw Dunkirk and War For The Planet of the Apes. Both excellent films, though I think the second was ruined by a combination of following the former and being oversold to me.

I've just got back from Cars 3, it was great

Oh. I thought it was poor.

Cars 3 (some Cars 2):

I've no interest in real life Nascar, but I enjoyed Cars and Ricky Bobby. I don't care about boxing but I like Rocky, and so on. I think the sport is just a lens through which to show a character drama, and it was done fairly well.

I've not watched Cars 2 or 3 yet . . .

Aye, I'm no racing fan, but I felt that Lightning and crew were lovable enough that I still cared about the race.

Definitely recommend 3 for you Drunka, I'd say seeing 2 doesn't really matter as it didn't seem to be at all relevant to 3.

Fair, lads - just found myself unable to invest.

Anyway, credits have just rolled on Attack The Block, which I totally did not buy to see Jodie Whittaker acting near aliens. It was pretty good fun though, old as I am, I sometimes needed a translation of the dialogue.