Please do not feel obligated to read all of this. Writing this was mainly a reminiscence exercise for me. I do hope however that I have formatted it in such a way that you can skip down to a certain film title that you are curious to hear more from me on. Hopefully you’re also one of the people who I mention when discussing this particular cinema outing, so please have a look for the film we saw together and you’ll be able to think back to it yourself.
CTRL + F and the Find function are your best friends here.
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Sentimentality is fascinating. At some point, all of us grow an attachment to certain objects and we dare not throw them away. For many people, this manifests itself in the form of a memory box; full of the small little bits of junk, souvenirs, mementos, and little trinkets that they treasure. For me, my blue lockbox is my own trove of my small and treasured keepsakes.
This piece has been on my mind for a while now because it’s a nice experience to take others through your personal box and recite the stories and memories associated with them. It is something which is very contextual and not all memories associated with them are good. To others, these are just scraps of paper and meaningless items. Sometimes I think “if there was a fire in the middle of the night what would be the first thing I would grab?”. First thought would probably be Goo Goo, my childhood toy rabbit and my box a close second. This entry is also my way of backing up what I have managed to collect and to get those stories down in a form that can’t be lost.
Memory is another weird thing. All these objects in my box assist with recall of the event or time when they grew in their significance. As much as I am fascinated with remembering, I manage to somehow astound myself with how easily I can forget too. I often remember something important and think to myself “how could I ever have forgotten that?”. A thought that you promised to never lose arrives as quickly as it leaves, most likely shoved out by something new. This often happens when I’m rifling through the box.
There is simply too much stuff however to go through in one entry (or to read in one go even), so this time we’re going to be focusing on the film tickets. I think I got the idea to start collecting them when my friend Sam showed me his ticket wall in his room; I never started presenting them that way and just kept them in the box in a small plastic wallet. Some of the ink has faded which makes the text hard to read but I have managed to categorise them. I only started around 2012 as this was the time when I started to go to the cinema independently – so there is a lot of mid-teen boy films in here. Apologies in advance.
So, let’s start from the beginning. Honestly, going through them I was pleasantly surprised with how much I can remember, so I am really pleased with these being an impetus for content! Plus, it brought back many the pleasant memory of going to the cinema with friends.
19.07.2012 | The Dark Knight Double Bill
This was at our local cinema in Middlebrook. I think Sam spotted that, in anticipation of The Dark Knight Rises, they were doing a screening of the first two films in The Dark Knight Trilogy. Now this was exciting, because as I mentioned before I never went to the cinema independently before and only ever got to see Batman Begins and The Dark Knight on DVD or chopped up on TV. I remember my first time watching The Dark Knight at Sam’s birthday party I had to be reassured it wasn’t scary and the Joker’s pencil trick wasn’t that shocking as I was quite squeamish at the thought of a pencil being slammed into someone’s brain.
Anyways, I was hyped to see these films on the big screen. I recall this was the birth of a running joke we have where we simply must pronounce ‘Vue EXTREME’ with an appropriately extreme demon voice. This still tickles me to this day. But the big thing was that we got to see these movies on the big screen! It felt like an amazing opportunity – a second chance to catch-up on what we missed the first-time round. Even more incredible was the fact that there weren’t any trailers before the film started since it was a re-release. So good. I remember us nudging each other when our favourite parts came up – the Tumbler Batmobile appearing, the “nice coat” quip after the first “I’m Batman”. After the first film finished, we had a 30-minute break where we rushed to McDonalds. Sadly, we had to wolf down our food or chuck it since they did not allow it in the cinema. I still think about that poor, wasted burger to this day. However, the adrenaline kept us going as The Dark Knight was the cherry on top of the evening – the Batpod ejector sequence, the truck flip, the hospital explosion – all the way to the final lines of the film. Absolutely hype – and a full cinema sound system to enjoy Hans Zimmer’s soundrack with too. Loved it.
20.07.2012 | The Dark Knight Rises
Now I believe that The Dark Knight Rises midnight showing followed right after The Dark Knight Double Bill, but since we were all young then we didn’t have the mental energy to see it. Honestly, I do not really remember going back to the cinema the next day to see the film proper, but apparently, I did! I was also hype for this film too, watched all the trailers, quoted them at school during lunch. I remember avidly following /r/thedarkknightrises for theories, new news and discussion after release.
Any news on a new teaser trailer was eaten up by me instantly – imagine my joy when we had a family trip to see the latest Harry Potter film at the time and The Dark Knight Rises teaser trailer appeared. Now my main takeaway from this film as my impeccable Bane impression, of which I used to hold my empty pint glass of water to my mouth and perform to the applause of the Xbox Live party I was in this weekend. In fact, I still do it to this day.
07.08.2012 | The Dark Knight Rises
Look, I loved the film so much I saw it twice! Consider The Dark Knight Rises our first entrant into the Two View Club!
28.09.12 Looper
I think it was Sam’s idea to go and see Looper at the time. I believe the main driver behind going to see it was that it seemed like a cool movie – interesting concept and aesthetic. The idea of a hitman having to go up against his future self was the right amount of silly to rope us in. It had a great vision for both the near and far future, as the film touches on both quite well. I do also remember it getting a bit of buzz on Reddit too, which I had just discovered and had opened my world up at the time.
Looper is not your average time travel movie, it mainly uses time travel as a fun device well weaved into the core concept. It isn’t too cerebral, there’s a moment where Bruce Willis as Old Joe says that they’re not going to get involved with straw diagrams. The time travel is just a means to an end for this character, their motivation being an emotional one. Another strong memory with this film is that the director Rian Johnson recorded his own commentary and uploaded it on Soundcloud for moviegoers to listen to at their own discretion during the film. Not seeing the need to view it twice, I listened to it at home and like most commentaries I found it entertainingly insightful. I remember his note on the revolver landing in the ground with its barrel sticking into it, and how Joseph Gordon Levitt wanted to redo the scene, but Johnson found it perfect and kept it in.
Looper is one of those films that is fun to watch, and the more I think about it afterwards the better it gets.
26.10.12 Skyfall
Ah Skyfaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall! I remember watching the teaser for this on repeat. Intrigued by the visuals and trying to muster up as much prediction as I could on the plot on what was in the trailer. I was mega excited for this film because I really enjoyed Daniel Craig’s Bond at the time. The intrigue around what Skyfall meant to the character also had me hooked. Adele’s bond theme was all over the radio and was exceptionally good at that. Plus, the premise of a bearded Bond! I think one of my strongest feelings associated with seeing this film was the death of Judi Dench’s M. It’s strange, because she had always been a staple of the series for me since I used to rewatch Pierce Brosnan’s Bond films on VHS back in the day, mainly skipping to the action-packed gadget sequences. This was a thoroughly enjoyable moviegoing experience for me, what a treat of a Bond film.
10.02.2013 | Wreck-it Ralph
Wreck-it Ralph was another movie that turned up on my radar thanks to Reddit. /r/movies loves Disney Pixar films and the one intriguing thing about this film was its videogame premise. It is funny, because as soon as the initial trailer came out everyone on every forum was fawning over the homages it was making to the word of videogames – specifically featuring characters from popular franchises. My thinking was that this film would be a love letter to retro-videogames and characters, as they were featured very prominently in the promotional material. It showed that they were more than just cameos, and that the jokes would revolve around their traits that you would only manage to get if you played the games. Sadly, when Ciaran organised a viewing of it at our local cinema it turned out to be quite underwhelming. What I can remember is that the first act is fun and has all these interesting callouts to its inspirations, but it trails off on its own typical Disney adventure in the third act in the Candyland setting with a very unfaithful and dated interpretation of videogame ficiton. I think in this case it was a mismanagement of expectations.
24.05.2013 | Star Trek Into Darkness
I really have no idea why I went to go and see Star Trek Into Darkness. My memory is blurry on whether I had seen the first entry in the rebooted franchise at this point or not. Either way, I do remember enjoying the movie quite a bit. I know that the reception was not as positive as the first one, but it remains an interesting sci-fi action adventure.
Star Trek was always one of those monolithic geeky things that was synonymous with ‘nerd culture’, but it had always evaded me really. In general loads of the material just seemed overwhelming, and it’s one of the early examples of how people would say how good it was, but it took 24, 1 hour long episodes to actually get to the good content of The Next Generation or Deep Space 9. I did watch a lot of internet review shows who talked about Star Trek, so I did understand the whole culture surrounding it, but I think that was the best thing about the JJ Abrams reboot, how it managed to inject a load of adrenaline into the concept.
I used to watch Red Letter Media’s Half in the Bag review show back in the day, and I remember this is one of the films they reviewed with Rich Evans. I also knew the relevance of one of the characters screaming “KHAN!” as Kirk’s scream was essentially one of the earliest memes in pop culture.
Also, extra points to the Star Trek reboots for their warp speed sequences. It is a really dynamic and a cool effect.
27.05.2013 | Star Trek Into Darkness
What is even more confusing is the fact I went to go and see this movie twice. What the fuck, I blame Sam for this. It was only 3 days after seeing it for the first time. Regardless. welcome to the Two View Club!
19.07.2013 | The World’s End
Edgar Wright solidified his place as one of my favourite directors with Scott Pilgrim vs The World. I found him to be such a fun director to follow, because not only was Shaun of the Dead one of my favourite comedies back in the day, but he had this interesting sense of humour in how he put his films together. Craft and scripts – his style was snappy, witty and multi-layered – the sort of dialogue you wish real life had to make itself more entertaining.
The path of Edgar Wright also had a bite of real inspiration to him. Back in the day I helped some friends like Sam, Ciaran, and Ross in making some short films, which were always fun to be a part of. I always liked a video of Edgar Wright as a teenager appearing on TV showing a film he had made with a mate. It helped ground him well as a down-to-earth film maker but who has an incredible vision.
So, when it came to seeing The World’s End, we knew we were guaranteed for a fun one. Obviously, a lot of the hype for this film came around it being the third entry in The Cornetto Trilogy. I was kind of annoyed that the trailer ruined the fence jumping joke for this chapter, but it’s also a reminder of the kind of vision I appreciate from Edgar Wright – dedicating three films around a lose theme of genre parody, pastiche and homage with recurring jokes.
I don’t think by this time I had seen Hot Fuzz, but I do hold The World’s End in quite high regard. Main things I remember about this film was the opening track, which is a banger, the pleasant surprise appearance of Pierce Brosnan and the bathroom scene featuring the reveal of the aliens in the town, which is an amazing blend of slapstick and action.
Although not in the film, another big memory associated with this trip was meeting up with Sam and Ross who I was seeing the film with outside of the cinema. Sam arrived wearing his white with black text Arctic Monkey’s shirt, and Ross arrived soon after wearing his black with white text Arctic Monkey’s shirt, which I found hilarious due to their mutual embarrassment. I think they actively tried to avoid queuing at the same kiosk for snacks. There is a lesson here: always coordinate outfits 24 hours before any outing.
30.10.2013 | Thor: The Dark World
I didn’t catch the first Thor film in the cinema, I borrowed the DVD off a classmate called Jack in school. Out of all the original Avengers roster I found Thor to be the most boring – in fact Iron Man was the only character that interested me. Being a fan of the comics too, I did not find Thor to be that interesting of a character there either. Going to see the film with Ciaran was at this point just homework and avoiding FOMO so we did not miss important context for future films. A lot of people give this film flack, but it was simply competent and just slightly formulaic in its execution. Christopher Ecceleston was wasted as a villain for sure. I vaguely recall some funny moments (like Mjolnir on the coat hook) – but my main takeaway from this film was saying “I told you so!” to Ciaran when the Aether was confirmed as a reality stone – all but confirming that was the direction these films were going to go in.
06.12.2013 | Gravity 3D
Gravity had loads of people talking about it, especially around the 3D effects, so obviously I had to go and see it. I don’t think I could find someone else to go and see it with at the time, so I decided to go on my study day (I had just started my course at college so I had Friday’s off). I got the train over to the cinema and got my seat in an empty cinema screen. And the movie was ace – a nice, self-contained story with amazing 3D visuals and sequences. A nice emotional backstory for Sandra Bullock’s character too. It really helped capture the cold isolation of space, and the intensity of its action moments – really gripping.
I watched the film again recently on TV without the 3D effects and I still think it’s very enjoyable, but it’s a shame that the majority of people who will see the film now won’t be able to appreciate the 3D visuals. It was remarkably interesting how the craft of the film took 3D into account so much.
18.02.2014 | The LEGO Movie
When I first heard that they were producing a film around LEGO I was not entirely sold on the idea, but this film very pleasantly surprised me in how creative and funny it was. I went to go and see it with my friend George and we both ended up impressed and laughing aloud at many of the film’s great jokes. I think that the craft of the film is excellent too, with the method in animating the minifigures with CGI appearing as perfect as a stop-motion I used to watch. I found it really entertaining, as I used to watch LEGO animators like forrestfire101 back in the day, and the film is a wonderful homage to those memories. One of my favourite details is the fingerprints on the pieces that they implemented to really make it seem like a handmade production.
When I was younger, I had a whole LEGO movie series planned out in my head, and maybe one day I’ll make it if I have the time and money (and boredom). The great thing about this movie is that it realised the playfulness of LEGO, how you have so many characters from different intellectual properties and you can mash them together for all sorts of great adventures. Another excellent thing about this movie is that the jokes land well, both for the kids and adults. And of course there’s so much love put into the project – my favourite bit was how they directly referred to the block numbers of the pieces, which I used to pay extra attention to when I was playing with my hand-me-down pieces when I was little.
22.02.2014 | The LEGO Movie
And I enjoyed it so much, I ended up watching it again 4 days later! Welcome to The Two View Club!
14.04.2014 | Captain America: The Winter Soldier
The thing is about Captain America: The Winter Soldier is that I already knew one of the big twists in it, and I think it was also revealed in the trailers which is a shame (I checked back, they’re a bit coy with it). I know so many people rave over this movie, and I enjoy it a lot too. I think my favourite thing was seeing the power of a character like Captain America employed in a modern day, militaristic setting. The fight choreography during the street fight is amazing – especially the knife flip.
22.05.2014 | Godzilla
Ah Godzilla – before I saw the teaser trailer on /r/movies my only exposure to it had been the Nostalgia’ Critics review of the Roland Emmerich Godzilla film (with Matthew Broderick, who I can’t fucking stand, the casting of loads of The Simpson’s voice cast, and a weird Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel parody), and the legacy of the Tokusatsu special effects work in other things I watched. From what I remember, Brian Cranston was extremely popular at the time thanks to Breaking Bad, and his character in the film is excellent in the short time we get to see him. I went into this Godzilla film expecting great visuals, sound design and mind-numbing destruction and I am glad that is what I got. It is interesting because that was solely the focus of Godzilla, yet western film making very much seems to be obsessed with adding a human element to it. In this film, I suppose it uses the human point of view to help us understand the scale, and they’re very careful with the reveal of the giant creatures because once you get that wide shot of them fighting and show their full scale it’s hard to reset perception. As we head through the film, there is absolutely a sense of absolute dread at how small humans are and how chaotic destruction can cause so much death – which got me thinking quite a bit on natural disasters and the desolation they bring. I am certain that is the point of the character of Godzilla too.
06.06.2014 | X-Men: Days of Future Past
I have always found X-Men a bit wank to be honest – it didn’t help how they were one of the first superhero films to have a blockbuster adaptation. If you go back and watch the first film in the series the action is so bad and has not aged well at all. I also always found the series lacked more fun elements to it since it constantly got mired in the social discussion on the existence of mutants. Don’t get me wrong, it is absolutely an integral part of the X-Men mythos, but my immature mind could never follow it.
Now, I really enjoyed X-Men: First Class, as that film was riding high on my like of Matthew Vaughn following Kick-Ass – and it’s follow up had a really interesting premise purely because of the size of the cast. I remember seeing the pictures from Comic-Con of the cast of the original films combined with the cast of the reboots – this was pre-Infinity War levels of ensemble casting so it was very exciting. I remember Reddit was having a field day with this one too, people saying how cool the future Sentinels looked and how shit Quicksilver’s design was (although they all ate their words when they saw Evan Peters in action and they never shut the fuck up about him since. Personally, I think it was a good sequence but not THAT good.).
I remember finding it interesting how there were two Quicksilvers, the X-Men’s Evan Peters and Marvel Studios’ Aaron-Taylor Johnson being set up for the next Avengers. I think this is a prime example of how at this time, studios were beginning to respect audiences’ intelligence and trusting them to understand the basics of intellectual property rights and studio dealings on characters – there were two different adaptions of the same character at the same time, and the politics and legal proceedings were fully understood by the audience – which is mind boggling to try and imagine them allowing this ten years prior.
14.07.2014 | Boyhood
I remember there being loads of chat about Boyhood over the fact that it took 12 years to make. I also remember discovering another film series – Up! Which follows the same group of people every 7 years from childhood. I think that the duration of the production did help it create an incredible sense of temporal scale and weirdly managed to capture some really hard hitting things for the audience who were the same age as its lead. I was only a few years off from his age so seeing things from the early 2000s like the Harry Potter book launch or Halo 2 gameplay really hit me at points. Although to be honest I found the lead to be a bit emotionally distant, especially as he gets older. For instance, the scene in which his mum is just having a breakdown, sobbing in the kitchen and he’s just there looking at her. Like give her a hug for Christ’s sake!
A couple of things I remember about going to see it was that it was at The Cornerhouse in Manchester, so we got a group of us together to go and see it. The other thing that I remember from that day is when we were all walking down the high street and I spotted someone who looked exactly like me and he spotted me back – we both knew exactly what was up and nodded at each other. Honestly one of the funniest ‘TV show’ moments of my life looking back.
08.08.2014 | Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy! If the previous films on my list have been any indication, I was following the Marvel films quite intently. One of my new college friends Georgina invited me to go and see it with some of our other friends (at the time they were mostly hers though, so I felt a bit nervous). I remember this was one of the new, vague comic stories that they were adapting as I followed the Comic-Con news. I was intrigued by it – Hooked on a Feeling was one of the songs most strongly associated with Guardians of the Galaxy when it came out and you heard it everywhere it was promoted.
Georgina and Co. brought me along and I enjoyed it – especially with all the nods and visits to the weirder part of the Marvel universe. Seeing Thanos on his floating rock chair was cool I guess, and Benicio Del Toro as The Collector was a treat.
One of the strongest memories I have associated with this movie was its post credit’s scene. Now by this time we all knew to wait until the end of the credits to watch the tease for the next movie – and during the credits Georgina was confidently telling me (as she had been informed of the post credits scene somewhere) that you would only get the reference of the post-credits scene (and I can hear her voice and intonation very clearly in my memory) if you “liked really bad 90s films”. So when Howard the Duck appeared in a cameo within The Collectors’ collection, asserting his place in the MCU, and I then told her “well Howard the Duck is actually a Marvel comics character” (like honestly not to put her down!), all of the group started to tease her for it! Honestly, it was pretty funny how she got it wrong but she still feels embarrassed about it after how much they teased her but I really don’t think she deserved it.
23.08.2014 | Doctor Who – Deep Breath
Ahh…Series 8 of Doctor Who. This was after The Day of the Doctor 50th Anniversary Special when the BBC started to realise they could start showing their Doctor Who episodes in the cinema.
God I remember the announcement that Peter Capaldi was going to be The Twelfth Doctor. I remember narrowing down who would be an amazing fit in my head and to hear his name, and then his reveal, was amazing. I loved The Thick of It to bits and knowing that one of my favourite actors was going to be one of my favourite characters was elating.
All the press material, his outfit reveal, heck even the casting – suggested that he was going to be a darker Doctor. His eyebrow only cameo in the 50th anniversary episode got me so hyped. I had this expectation that Steven Moffat would realise that the people who have been watching Doctor Who for years were mature enough to accept a darker lead character and have that reflected in the scripts.
It is an awful shame what happened to Peter Capaldi’s run as The Doctor. I suppose it is a discussion for another entry, but I remember feeling really dissatisfied with this episode. Instead of celebrating Peter Capaldi’s new interpretation of the character (what little we saw of it considering he was a confused, meandering man for most of the episode), it was fixated on trying to comfort viewers, and Clara (through a really awful audience insert) that Matt Smith was gone but they were still the same character. Like seriously fuck off mate, deal with it. It’s the facts of the show. Matt Smith should not have had a second of screen time in Deep Breath, he had had his goodbye in the last episode, and it was a good one! Also, Clara went into his whole-time stream and already bloody knows that he’s going to change. What a stupid fucking episode.
God the annoying thing about this episode was the opening, how basically the premise was (admitted by the Moffat himself) thought up because they thought it was cool to have a T-Rex in Victorian London. Oh, let’s not even start about the weird ambiguity over The Doctor killing The Clockwork Man and the obvious tease that The Master was now a woman at the end. We didn’t even get a decent TARDIS redesign.
The only redeeming thing I can think of about this episode was the flashes of The Twelfth Doctor being angry and the possibility of what could have been. And his costume too.
After the screening there was a Q&A with Steven Moffat and it was dogshit too. I should not have bothered going to see this episode.
10.11.2014 | Interstellar
Being a 16-year-old boy, I was clearly a huge Christopher Nolan fan, so I was following production of Interstellar very intently. It’s great when one of your favourite directors is adapting an IP that you love but when they’re set free from creative restraints and are liberated to set out and do whatever they want it’s exciting. The premise of Interstellar sounded so grand and epic I was very much looking forward to getting into the cinema and soaking all of it up – and boy I did.
I went to go and see it with Georgina, and the main thing I can remember is just how the film takes you on a journey. There are many chapters and scenes in the movie and where you end up makes you feel like so much time has passed and so much space has been traversed.
I think the thing that Interstellar does especially well, beyond the amazing visuals, beyond the incredible score, beyond the great set pieces, is the emotional core of the characters. Now recent films of Christopher Nolan (*ahem Tenet *ahem*) have made me think more about his approach to emotional storytelling, and I cannot help but think back about the video message catchup scene in Interstellar to disprove any sweeping statements on his lack of ability in this department. Like most life in a day sequences in film, this one just rips your heart out and stomps on it – I mean Georgina cried, so that has to be something – normally she’s as cold as ice!
I think another big moment in that film that does it for me is the black hole scene, when Coop sets off into it. I remember watching it and being so gripped, that I felt so curious and full of wonder, yet also incredibly afraid at the same time to see what was going to be on the other side. I do not think another film has made me feel all those things in the same way. Then when he ends up on the other side in the tesseract, I had never been so wide eyed and amazed by the concept, whilst also sharing the frustration of Coop at not being able to reach out to his daughter, full of regret and existential rage.
It also deals with such big ideas as well, and totally earns the right to discuss them – survival of humanity, the human function of love, physics, time travel – it’s really quite something. Oh, and the robot designs are fucking cool too and I was so glad that none of them turned evil.
03.01.2015 | Birdman
God looking at the next film I was on a fucking roll with my cinema trips. This one was another movie trip with Georgina, and George joined us too. This was at The Cornerhouse cinema in Manchester, the same place I went to go and see Deep Breath, Boyhood and a couple of short film competitions. The only thing I really knew about this film was that the casting of Michael Keaton with the premise of a down and out actor who used to play a superhero was very on the nose, and that the whole film was apparently done all in one take! I did not believe it at first, but I was just blown away by it.
There is so much to love about this film, the hilarious dialogue, the cinematography, the soundtrack! One of my favourite moments is when it syncs up twice with the drummer on the street and later in the theatre.
My theory on the single take approach was that it’s the most faithful to a play: lots of movement and planning and coordination with the backstage set, long takes and run throughs that require rehearsal and capture unique one off performances. All this having a ‘live’ element to it. The whole thing really helps you appreciate how much of an incredible feat this film is.
16.01.2015 | Whiplash
Whiplash somehow caught my attention from a trailer that was suggested to me on YouTube during the time of its film festival run. It was a visually warm looking film reminiscent of the colour palette of a cymbal – which had a trailer going from a cosy tale of a talented drummer to the force of nature of JK Simmons throwing a spanner in the works. I remember being visually intrigued by it from the fact it featured drums. I played the drums in a band with Sam, Ross, and our friend Danny who I haven’t mentioned yet. I never neglected to mention it to anyone. Anyways, the trailer goes from this bouncy tale of a young talent to this intense, physically exhausting, painful story of emotional abuse.
I don’t really know why I felt such a personal magnetism to this film. It wasn’t anything to do with the themes (Sam only emotionally abused me once or twice as the lead singer of the band, nowhere near as bad as Whiplash), but maybe it was the authenticity of its perspective from behind the drum kit. The technicality of a role in music that is often overlooked in favour of other parts and the dynamic nature of it all had me hooked.
I was very much disappointed to see that the film was not going to get a UK release until January 2015, but I kept a close eye on it and eventually the day came. I was due to go see it on a college night with my friend Luke – however during the day Ross told me that he had seen a pirated version of it and immediately after I requested he didn’t spoil it he (unknowingly to me, which I really had no idea of either way) joked that the main character Andrew has a heart attack during the end and dies. Now if you have seen the film or the trailers even you would recognise some incredibly intense, perspirant shots of Andrew on the drum kit screaming. So, for a select few hours I was angry at Ross for potentially having spoiled the movie.
I remember feeling absolutely blown away after seeing the film, that finale – incredible. Even more so that it lets the drums really shine. The absolute perfect ending to the film, and it’s not even a happy one at that.
23.04.2015 | Avengers: Age of Ultron
Avengers: Age of Ultron! This film had so much hype around it – it had to top the incredible feat that was the previous crossover film and deliver so much more. I think this was the most exciting thing about it – back then I suppose people where nowhere near as cynical over what could be, and we were all so excited and the possibility of what this film could have been was really astounding.
I went to go and see this on midnight release with friends Adam and Aimee and remember constantly making a case for comfy trousers when going on cinema trips like these. I basically turned up in my pyjamas.
Age of Ultron has a lot of great moments for it – but in hindsight all the quips are too annoying. The stupid jokes just really take you out of it, and it went too far in this film. Also, it spent way too much time setting up all the other films and spin-offs that were going to be made in the universe.
15.05.2015 | Mad Max Fury Road
Everyone had been raving about Mad Max Fury Road, so I figured why not and went to go and see it with Sam. Now this was an intense moviegoing experience, as it’s basically mental action for a couple of hours. The film is crafted in such a way that you are just overwhelmed with how much is going on.
I did not really allow myself to enjoy it as much as I could. The whole world they built, whilst incredible to view, is just crude, and gross and disgusting for me to admire anything in it, even the stories. I know I probably shouldn’t overthink it for a film such as this, with it’s incredible set pieces and visuals, but a world which is just full of horrible things happening to people all the time just makes it hard for me to get engrossed in it.
Oh yeah also in the first 30 seconds of the film, with the beautiful desert hills shot – some bellend took a photo to send to his mate – turn your fucking phone off. Fuck off. Prick.
18.08.2015 | Mission Impossible Rogue Nation
Mission Impossible is a franchise that I have a long attachment to. I was really into spy stuff and sneaky missions from a young age, and the MI franchise is one which very much embraces its grounded silliness and action set pieces. One of my strongest memories associated with it is the iconic CIA heist sequence where Tom Cruise is hanging and being lowered down into the room. Unbelievably tense and oh so fun to watch. As a kid it was just so cool to see – the masks, the gadgets too – the exploding gum!
Over the years, my respect for the franchise has grown, because it’s evolved so far beyond its roots as an adaptation of the TV show, into a series where each film has its own unique strengths. The first Mission Impossible film has the more restrained, tense thrills, whilst the second is a bit of a sillier action flick. That one is my least favourite. The third is a stressful thriller. The fourth is more fun under the direction of Brad Bird, bringing a second wave of creativity in the second set of three films. The fifth, directed by Christopher McQuarrie was out at the time and I didn’t want to miss it.
I found the premise of Rogue Nation really interesting, with an organisation dedicated to being the antithesis to the IMF , the hero organisation of the films. I think I recognised that there appeared to be a trend to have this in spy movies, as Bond had it’s go at this at the time with Spectre. I can’t remember when, but I saw the headlines of Tom Cruise hanging on outside of a plane as it set off – and the video was there to prove it, so I knew what kind of action I was in for.
The film delivers on what you expect from a Mission Impossible film, but I think that stylistically it does not get as brave as I would have liked. My highlights from the film were the Opera sequence and motorcycle chase – really intelligent and thrilling sequences.
24.09.2015 | The Reflektor Tapes
Arcade Fire’s Reflektor is an album that I have a bit of an attachment to, whether I like that or not. I listened to it all the damn time back around 2013. Conceptually it was quite ambitious, being a double album centred around the theme of duality and Orpheus and Eurydice. The sounds they brought into it gave it a real ‘night time’ vibe and an interesting atmosphere to explore. The performance side of it was also very intriguing, with the huge papier mache heads and showmanship they had tied into their live shows during this phase.
So when they announced that they had made a film called The Reflektor Tapes, I figured “Hey, this should be interesting!”. I was expecting a pretty insightful documentary on the background of the recording of the album – something close to LCD Soundsystem’s Shut Up and Play The Hits. Which also features Reflektor producer James Murphy, another selling point for the film as I was a huge LCD Soundsystem fan.
So, me and George dished out £8 for the cinema ticket to go and see it at Manchester. And boy, was it a stinker! The film is one stupidly nonsensical foray into film making with a weird, unstructured collision of visuals associated with the album, often over noise. Occasionally there are silly statements from the band members on the faux-spirituality of the album and some recordings of the concerts and recording sessions – but not for too long, since as soon as it picks up any momentum it snatches you away. Also, the music videos are just slapped in there which we could have easily just watched online. James Murphy does not even appear in it properly, just in the background of one of the video snippets looking tired.
I think me and George left the cinema in equal agreement that this experience had left a dent on our physical, mental, and spiritual health. When he arrived home he sent me the below message, which just about sums up our thoughts:
“a guy tried to mug me and I just told him that I just saw the reflektor tapes and he said “Jesus christ, you’ve been through enough today” and left me alone”
17.12.2015 | Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
We were all so hopeful back then, weren’t we? I saw this film at a midnight showing – which is an adequate representation of my hype behind it. Without going into the details too much on the plot, the trailers, the discussion – quite a few people, including myself, were excited about it for one other simple reason – this was going to be the start of our proper Star Wars trilogy.
I remember my Media Studies teacher Mr Stayte talking about how he and his brother were anxiously waiting for The Phantom Menace trailer to buffer when it was first released in the early days of the internet trailer release. I have the opinion that there is a considerable amount of ownership and coveting of certain cultural moments, like with films, music, television. That generations cling onto something as definitive proof that their time was great – that their time was different and that their time was better than now/the future.
I think that for a lot of people the release of a new trilogy of Star Wars films was going to be the moment that they could cling on to. The proposition was very exciting: the reprisal of the cast from The Original Trilogy, a continuation of the good part of the story with a mindfulness around what made that great, practical effects, simplicity in its action and adventure in combination with the new talent that was associated with it. Daisy Ridley, Jon Boyega, Oscar Isaac…the stewardship of JJ Abrams and Disney who have proved themselves as knowing what they were doing with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We were confident that even if the film wasn’t as excellent as the originals we had grown to love, they would still be competent. And that is exactly what this film was: competent. It gave us something new, official, and the launch of an exciting cultural milestone of OUR Star Wars films. These were films that we were all mature enough to respect, understand and appreciate, and films that were made to be respected, understood and appreciated.
I remember leaving it feeling great about what I had just seen. I did enjoy seeing the film but to be honest I have not really gone back to watch it again. It felt more like an episode of a television show – I got what I wanted – seeing the development of the story, and my curiosity had thus been satiated.
05.01.2016 | Joy
I literally had no interest in seeing Joy whatsoever (which somes up my worldview quite well). I did not even know what it was about. But my friend Matt wanted to go and see it and at this point I now lived five minutes away from the Vue in my local university’s town, so I figured “Why not?”. That, coupled with £5 cinema tickets, is the reason why I went to go and see so many films in 2017/18.
What I can remember from the film is that it had a good cast. Jennifer Lawrence was alright in it. The story was kind of interesting but the most I can remember from it in terms of drama was her having an argument with a dude who stole her design or something so she cuts her hair short and confronts him and then it starts snowing and she wins? I don’t really remember – but it’s definitely not an awful film, just pretty weak Oscar bait.
26.03.2016 | Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
One day, Ross and I were hanging out in Manchester one day – I really can’t remember the reason why, but it was a fun day out. However, we kept on seeing different Batman v Superman promotions EVERYWHERE – the licensing team had gone crazy and had a partnership with what seemed like everyone. So, it quickly became a running joke during the day that we would go and see it. I was not serious at first, and I don’t think Ross was either, but just by chance we happened to walk near a cinema and had some hours to kill.
To be completely honest I must admit that I was a little bit interested in seeing the film. The third trailer for the film had me hooked in the first couple of seconds with its preview of the Batman fight scene, and oh boy was it exciting. It looked to be an interesting take on the character – the brutal, fast moving fight choreography was something I had never seen Batman do on the screen before, so when we paid for the tickets I was honest and mentioned that was really the only thing I wanted to see in the film.
I do not think the film deserves anywhere near as much flack as it got – it has lots of interesting ideas. The performances from Ben Affleck and Jeremy Irons were fun to see. The music was great too! Every now and then I find myself going back to watch the highlights of it on YouTube, because I think it did do a lot of things right.
29.04.2016 | Captain America: Civil War
Another midnight screening for a Marvel movie. This is getting shameful at this point. Civil War was another one I was excited for, evidently and it was jam-packed with loads of exciting propositions. The Avengers fighting each other in an airport? Cool! Spider-Man in the MCU? Ace! Black Panther and Ant-Man joining in too? Wow!
Civil War is essentially Avengers 2.5, which wasn’t so much of an issue for me but I know some people don’t particularly like how Captain America was robbed of a proper third film. Either way, I was excited to see the Civil War storyline adapted from the comics as it was always an interesting proposition.
I like the grounded action of this film, and the practical stunts and hand to hand action featured is a nice niche that the Captain America films found itself doing well. Besides that, it was also good to see some permanent damage done to these characters – both development wise and physically. Although I wish the trailers were a bit coy with what was going to happen. I had the Spider-Man reveal spoiled for me so wish that were saved for the film, and then the trailers straight up showed something was going to happen to War Machine. Come to think of it, nobody really died in this film so there was not much of an impact.
12.08.2016 | Suicide Squad
It seems that I was on DC Extended Universe binge at this point. I think that I went to go and see Suicide Squad for a much watered down, yet similar motivation that I had for seeing Batman v Superman. Georgina asked if I wanted to go and see it and I believe hers was out of morbid curiosity to see the film that so many people had negatively been reacting too.
I didn’t like it much, the tone was just weird, especially with its overuse of music to try and have a Guardians of the Galaxy copycat. I suppose guess it makes it kind of poetic that I saw this with Georgina again.
30.10.2016 | Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange really had my interest piqued from its teaser trailer. In fact, it had me super excited ever since his name drop as a teaser for the fans in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
What I was sold on from the trailers was trippy visuals, a cerebrally unbound, psychedelic exploration of this part of the Marvel Universe. I wanted them to let loose and shake the principles of our perception to their core. I suppose I did get this from that short sequence when he gets sent on a mind trip.
After that though it basically becomes a bit of a typical Marvel origin story. I was not particularly pleased with how it tried to emulate the charisma, wit and personality of Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark with Steven Strange too.
The visuals were great, but they ended up getting a bit formulaic and showed us the same visual gimmicks, on a different scale each time mind you, but it wasn’t anywhere near as wild as I wanted it to be.
Also, the humour was really off – I don’t know what it was exactly – might have been Benedict Cumberbatch’s alien-to-my-ears American accent, or the lack of chemistry between the cast – but something just didn’t land right with the jokes.
I remember trying to drag Ciaran along to come and see it but I think he was knee-deep in coursework at the time and wanted to see it in 3D, and Doctor Strange is one of those films which has slightly prolonged visual sequences which were obviously made for those who were wearing 3D glasses.
17.12.2016 | Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
God it is gross how many films I had seen in a row which were sequels or spin-offs or adaptations. Probably a conversation for another time but I sometimes look at the map of the media I consume and how I got to watching something to then realise just how unchaotic it all is. It almost makes me want to vomit.
Rogue One had me interested from it’s position as a ‘genre movie’, more specifically that of a heist. Also it was unafraid to flaunt how it was one of those ‘you know how it ends’ stories and from my track record I knew I quite liked those (Halo Reach being the strongest example that came to mind).
Looking back at it, my first thoughts were that I felt the film had too many characters for its own good. It was deservedly proud of its diverse ensemble cast but I really don’t believe it did much with them. I almost feel like they wasted Donnie Yen, as all I can recall about his character is that he has some quaint connection to the force that we haven’t seen yet before in Star Wars mythology, and opposed from a dignified death and a few action sequences – that’s it.
I do not think anything new can be said from me with the Darth Vader sequence at the end of the film – it proper shit me up in a good way when I was in the cinema. An amazing grounding of the threat that this villain was after so many years of trivialising him. A good reminder and use of modern film making techniques to help prop him up as a massive threat, making up for the lack of ferocity he demonstrated in The Original Trilogy.
24.01.2017 | La La Land
Ah La La Land (or rather Ooh La La Land??!!). As you probably know as a reader of this article, I was a huge fan of Whiplash. So, when I caught wind via a YouTube trailer that Damien Chazelle’s follow up was a full blown, original musical full of colour, energy, catchy songs and ambition…I was absolutely buzzing.
I think that La La Land was an example of how I had found a director I was fond of and was eagerly keeping an eye on their future work. Seeing so many people celebrate La La Land was so exciting because it gave me a strange sense of pride for Damian Chazelle. He drew from his own experiences and musical backstory to help tell his stories and it was exciting to see his projects grow in scale and exposure.
I remember the excitement I had from seeing the trailer, seeing that it was from the director of Whiplash, and just how positive the film seemed in comparison. The visuals, the epic joviality of it all, the steadiness of some of the shots and the musical riffs! I had the build-up from ‘Someone In The Crowd’ stuck in my head until I saw the film, and finally seeing that song got me so buzzed – I loved it so much.
I don’t think I have the ticket recorded here, but I definitely went to go and see La La Land twice, maybe even three times I think? Either way, it’s a very proud entrant into The Two View Club!
Great, just got back in between that last paragraph from a La La Land musical number binge. I think the bit that really got me so excited when seeing it was the opening number ‘Another Day of Sun’ when the back of the truck is opened up to reveal the band playing inside. It just elevates the whole thing from an amazingly choreographed and planned sequence to something truly magical. The reality of the film is colour coded, vibrant and contains that right amount of wonder that makes the story, or setting rather, so captivating to be a part of for two hours.
27.01.2017 | T2: Trainspotting
I believe the first time I watched Trainspotting was when I had a day off from school since I was ill, or for some other stupid reason. Sam had probably seen it by this point and recommended, and I had seen lots of other people talk about how good it was online. Somehow, I stumbled across a full version of it on YouTube, unedited and uncensored.
I remember watching it and recognising a lot of scenes that I had seen referenced on ‘Top 10 British Movies’ lists – you know, the kind where they get lots of irrelevant comedians to opine on films for a good hour. Come to think of it, this probably helped improve my world sense a bit.
So over the years my appreciation for the first film stewed a bit, with the occasional visit back to a clip that I remembered. I also kept seeing rumblings and talks about a Trainspotting sequel. It seemed like a bit of a pipe dream however, the sort of film that would ultimately fall apart due to personal or creative differences, but remarkably in the lead up to 2017 they confirmed that the sequel was in the works after Danny Boyle had verified a script as good enough.
When the first trailers came out, I was excited. I did keep seeing promotional material for it though. But beyond that the imagery was very interesting – both evocative of the original but in a much higher quality – seeing the wrinkles of the cast in their current day form in such high definition was surreal – alongside the new cinematic tools like CGI and superimposition which weren’t used in the more practical first film.
The main thing from the trailers, and ultimately from the film was it’s use of music – Born Slippy, Radio Ga Ga, Silk by Wolf Alice – all really great tracks which elevate the film.
I was thinking if they were going to be able to pull off a film like this, a rock solid sequel to a national and cult favourite – but frankly they knocked it out of the park. Not only was it faithful to the original in tone but didn’t go to far in gratifying fans and not telling a new story. It manages to wrap up a 20 year story – making it feel like an impossible fever dream and satisfyingly crafted, hilarious yet melancholy follow-up.
I went to the cinema to see it with Sam, Ciaran and our friends Alex and Georgia. Afterwards I remember Sam fondly talking afterwards about how brilliant of an anachronism it was during the sequence in the car when Sick Boy and Mark are both using Snapchat filters, which was both hilarious and a great little commentary on the technologie du jour.
04.03.2017 | Logan
As soon as everyone saw the teaser posters for Logan, we all knew we were going to get something different than what we had seen before. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine had been messed around for a couple of years – a victim of the growing pains the superhero genre went through in the early 2000s and being part of a sub-par franchise in the form of X-Men. One element of the character that I feel was drastically watered down was the violence and ferocity of the comic book character. There is only so many creative ways to avoid showing the true damage he can unleash with his sharp metal claws. Instead of respecting the audience and letting loose with its violence, previous entries in the franchise featuring the character always underwhelmed.
However, for Hugh Jackman’s last film as one of his most iconic characters, it was another instance of the superhero genre being elevated to another level. Not relying on using the normal toolkit of tricks at their disposal (crossovers, bombastic action, fanservice), but through a (and I hate using this word) ‘gritty’, emotionally mature and introspective character study of an old man with metal claws, which absolutely respects it’s audience.
The teaser trailer featuring Hurt by Johnny Cash (a cover of the song that so many people on Reddit rave about on a regular basis) really sums up the different kind of excitement it gave me. At the time, I was really impressed with how they were handling the X-Men franchise with all its oddities and spin-offs: primarily with Legion and less-so with Deadpool. It was so exciting to see this is what that world had become, divided up and split at the ends – each one with it’s own unique exciting take for different people to enjoy.
The film really does tell a great story in a world in which everything has gone wrong. It is crazy to think that this is a character that has canonically travelled in time to prevent a dystopia just two films ago. The violence and helplessness of all the characters really exacerbates the brutality of its setting yet lets the sweeter emotional moments glisten like gold dust.
Overall, I think the film really had a brilliant role to play in showing the role that superhero films can play in modern day cinema. Yes, it is a spin-off of a wider franchise, but it succeeded in being something beautiful on it’s own.
28.03.2017 | Power Rangers
Right here we go. Fucking Power Rangers.
A bit of background – I actually love Power Rangers. I really do. Notice that this is in the present tense. Back when I was around about 14 I really got back into it. I started off rewatching my old favourites – Ninja Storm, Dino Thunder, S.P.D. etc. I loved it – the creative workarounds of the low production values, the martial arts, the over the top action and melodrama. It is hard to pin exactly why it’s so good, but I can tell you for sure that the 2017 film managed to get it completely wrong.
The film was not a love letter to everything that made the original show so iconic. Not only did it take so long to get going to what the show was all about, it spent too much time trying to be a generic teen superhero movie. It put a lot of its resources and time into developing the characters when in the show the characters where anything but superficial templates for us to vaguely relate to – they were the 5 extreme corners of a pentagonal personality graph.
It took itself way too seriously, overdelivering on the parts which the show was nowhere near associated with. And by the time they finally morph and become Power Rangers it’s the third act of the film, the CGI looks shit, and the martial arts aren’t even present nor impressive.
It was so frustrating to see because everybody was so excited for it based off the trailer material, but these people were not even fans nor understood what the original show was at its core. The original show was essentially glorified toy commercials based off old Japanese footage (we’ll get on to that in a second). But what everybody wanted to see from this film and took away from it was a full length version of the Power/Rangers short film produced by Adi Shankar (which, by the way, is fucking dogshit too and another laughable attempt from the producer to do gritty, edgy remakes of everyone’s nostalgia inducing franchises). The audience were buzzing about the idea of the characters being treated in a dark and gritty way.
God the weirdest part of the movie has got to be when the Megazord steps on a Chevrolet Camaro looking identical to Bumblebee from the Transformers franchise, and Jason says “Sorry Bumblebee!”. I remember me and Ciaran just looked at each other in hilarious shock. Look, people can shit on Transformers all they want, but this film really does not deserve to in the manner in which they did so, considering how awful it is itself.
Back when I was 14/15, I decided to dip my toe in the water of Super Sentai, the original series in Japan that Power Rangers was adapted from. Well I say was adapted from; it still is. More specifically the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers series was adapted from Zyuranger, the dinosaur themed team. Dipping my toe in was one of the best decisions I have ever made, as I decided to watch the entire series of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, the 35th series in the franchise. Yes, the 35th – the Super Sentai franchise is 20 years older than power rangers, and is a big part of Japanese children’s television. Thing is though, the action of Japanese tokusatsu (this kind of genre of live action/special effects tv/film) is so much better than its watered down adaptation in the west.
Gokaiger is a fantastic series to watch. I have since introduced it to 3 friends who have watched the entire series with me. It’s an incredible mix of live action fight sequence, sitcom, stunts and anime plotlines. There’s really nothing quite like it. And this is just a single 50 episode run of the franchise which has a new entry every year. I really don’t think that the words I’m writing here for Super Sentai are enough, so I will most like expand on my thoughts at a later date.
Ciaran was one such friend who I managed to watch the entire series of Gokaiger with, and it was such a special experience to share with him. There had been so many serious discussions with him about what made the program so addicting to watch. It was these short but consistent discussions on the series which led us to both go and see the Power Rangers film together, because even though I had my apprehensions, I was still going to go and support the team. And oh boy, was that film a stinker!
07.05.2017 | Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
I went to go and see it with my friend Ella in July 2017 and I remember a lot of people raving about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’s opening sequence with Mr Blue Sky. That scene was just okay? I also suppose the rest of the movie was just okay too.
I think the reason why I liked the first film was that it was different and new, and of course tied into the larger story of the universe. The second was on a bit of a bigger scale, but it also featured what we had come to expect – funny awkward comedy sequences, dialogue, and imaginative sci-fi concepts.
The humour does not always land, but when it does it is hilarious. Personal favourite is the Drax laughter bit when Mantis senses Quill’s feelings. I think Dave Batista is hilarious in his role.
I am also glad they got their Avengers-esque hero shot in the final sequence, which was long overdue.
01.07.2017 | Baby Driver
I was overly excited to see Baby Driver. Not only was it another film from Edgar Wright, who as you know from my previous passages on his films is one of the most enjoyable directors around nowadays, but also because it was an inspired idea marrying music, cinematography, editing and action together to create a wonderfully choreographed piece of cinema.
The few moments I can remember were the opening walk to the coffee shop with the lyrics of the song magically appearing as part of this musical world that Baby lives in. And the laundromat scene with the colours in the dryers flying around! The coordination of colour throughout the film along with all the little details make it a quirky but hugely fun crime adventure movie, with threatening presences from the cast of criminals too.
My biggest takeaway from this film was the unexpected direction of the plot with the characters it played with. The handbrake turn into Jon Hamm becoming the main villain for the latter half of the movie helped keep the film fresh and break away from any preconceived expectation I had. I went to go and see the film with Ella and Georgina who was visiting me at university this weekend and it was a blast to see, with the perfect director attached to it.
10.07.2017 | Spider-Man: Homecoming
A new Spider-Man trilogy! I really enjoyed this new take on the character that we got to meet in Captain America: Civil War. For the first time we got to see a believable teenage Peter Parker, with all his insecurities and drama, played amazingly well by Tom Holland. When the first poster for the film came out it really had me buzzing. Ciaran sent it to me instantly as it seemed he had a penchant for yellow jackets, just like me – it showed the character relaxing with a view of the city in the background as he listened to music. This was a really amazing concept image for the film, as it showed a more lax, downsized and chilled adventure than ones we’ve seen the character go on before.
And that is what we got – a great cast delivering a great entry in the Spider-Man adaptation saga. The villain was also interesting, with Michael Keaton playing another avian in yet another on-the-nose casting choice. It is quite interesting how stories always must intertwine the villain arc with the personal story of the hero – otherwise what kind of stakes would we have?
I’m a bit ambivalent with the presence of Tony Stark in this film, as the Spider-Man films to date seem to be running the formula of giving him a mentor character when I really think he should shine on his own. Also, we were all conned when the trailers featured Spider-Man and Iron Man side by side, which simply was not featured. This is a topic for a whole other piece on trailer faking.
30.07.2017 | Dunkirk
As a Christopher Nolan fan I obviously headed out to see his latest film at the time – it was always a joy to see what he was doing next. Following the space epic that was Interstellar, Dunkirk followed, which was his take on a war movie.
I was back home at the time for my birthday and decided to go and see this with my mum. She was mainly interested in it due to Harry Styles’ presence, which I found kind of funny. We were part of different fandoms and bonding together over the same thing.
I like the subtlety and minimalism that covers the whole film – the landscapes and the action as well. Something of note that I found was a gripping detail in that you don’t ever see the enemy – they aren’t humanised and are characterised only by the danger that they bring to the characters. The three separate strands of the story show how our side face this force of nature, and once you start to understand how time works in this film with the three concurrent narratives that oft overlap, you see how it’s an effective way to cover scale of the story or event whilst maintaining dramatic tension.
My personal favourite part of the film is the dogfighting sequences. The dialogue is not too chatty – it’s to the point and simple yet incredibly thrilling when combined with the music. Tom Hardy’s RAF pilot chasing up on the German fighter is one of my favourite lines from the movie with “I’m on him.”.
The ending of the film has a haunting, optimistic quality to it – bittersweet almost the imagery of the burning Spitfire and Hans Zimmer’s sample of Nimrod by Elgar. I try to suppress any feelings of pride or patriotism that it is meant to make you feel but it does evoke some of that from you when you see it. Dunkirk is a well-crafted, intelligent war film with great action and enough emotional depth for me to describe it as ‘a true film of spirit’.
31.10.2017 | Thor: Ragnarok
See, Thor: Ragnarok had me interested from its choice of director and collective acknowledgement that the second film was not brilliant. So, when they took the obvious course for a title with a Norse mythology connotation, I was interested but still felt that going to see it was ticking a box on the to-do list. But as they had more and more Comic-Con showcases and they changed the logo to a retro, 80s VHS aesthetic my interest continued to be piqued. Then, the trailers came along with Immigrant Song playing alongside snapshots of short-haired Thor, fun set pieces, colourful, retro space age settings had me sold! It was the intrigue of going to the weird side of this ridiculous world that we were continuing to explore. Oh, and The Hulk was in there too!
It was a fun film, a standout of the recent MCU releases at the time and it was a nice sign that Marvel were beginning to respect their directing talent more as opposed to mandating a creative vision. The thought of Edgar Wright departing from Ant-Man had me disappointed that the films were becoming creatively unexciting, but seeing Taika Waititi’s brand of awkward-funny dialogue and an imaginative take on a superhero coming of age story made it my, and a lot of others’, favourite Thor film to date.
18.10.2017 | Blade Runner 2049
Around 40 minutes before I got to the cinema (which was 5 minutes away from my flat) I had just finished viewing the first Blade Runner that I had borrowed from my university library. Blade Runner felt like one of those essential films that I felt like I should have watched ages ago. I remember Sam saying that he watched it one of his A-Level classes and had of course seen the buzz online around the film and the announcement of its sequel. The first I had seen of it was the trailer showing the title and logo reveal alongside the shot of Officer K walking with his cool coat. (Side note for the coat – it’s a perfect example of one of those items of clothing that looks very cool and everybody in the audience knows it is, but as soon as you take it out of the aesthetic and world of Blade Runner 2049 it looks neckbeardy as fuck).
I was watching the first one in October, as the sun was setting around 5pm. And I think the film is very fitting for this gradually reducing level of lumens. It’s very steady and sleepy, even during its most intense moments. It’s almost dreary, but it lets you find whatever warmth you can find in this dark, grim futuristic dystopia.
These films play with light in an incredible way – as a flat we went to go and see the first film in Canada Square Park in the open which was a great experience. I remember seeing Tyrell’s office glowing amazingly in that sequence which was fantastic.
I hadn’t heard of the 2049 director Denis Villeneuve before seeing the film, but by god did it put him on my radar, and he was pinging very rapidly now. The sequel is an incredible accomplishment. Not just as a sequel which lives up to, surpasses even, the first film but stands on its own perfectly. You could see the film without having seen the original and have neither experience ruined – in fact, both are enhanced by each other.
Yet another topic for another time, but there is something to be discussed around revivals and long-awaited sequels or continuations of monumental works which often fail to meet the expectations of their fanbases. Fortunately, Blade Runner 2049 does not fall into that category.
The amazing visuals from Roger Deakins, who finally won an Oscar for it, blew me away. I suppose it goes in hand with the worldbuilding in how we get to see more of this realm 30 years on from when we last saw it. Seeing what has changed, seeing how it has got much worse, seeing it during different times of the day and venturing beyond the cityscape of the first film – it was an absolute treat for the audience, and dream-like for the fans of the original. Particularly extreme examples of dystopian imagery are the rubbish filled wasteland on the outskirts of LA, or the remnants of a sandstorm soaked, hedonistic, debauched and abandoned Las Vegas.
One note I feel I should mention that I love about the world of Blade Runner is that the Off-World colonies continue to be an elusive presence. It’s a place that is referred to many times and is integral to the state of the world in the films, but the film isn’t about the exploratory exploits of humanity, it’s about what we left behind when we went to the stars.
The music from Hans Zimmer was also phenomenal, continuing on from the seminal work from Vangelis. This was an extension of a soundtrack that already stands on its own as a masterpiece without the film accompaniment of its production. The music amplifies the sensitivity of the film’s softer, more emotional moments whilst amplifying to the max the sheer intensity of the drops of the plot. The furnace scene comes to mind – a steady, slow, intense scene which immerses you into the shoes of the character of Officer K, letting the audience share his discovery as they have the same foreknowledge that he has. When he finds that one object which completely flips his world upside down – hearing the soundtrack blaring through the speakers in the cinema was one of the most vivid cinematic experiences I have ever had. Incredibly crafted on all fronts.
None of the above would have even been possible without the plot. For a film that is inheriting so much pressure, 30 years’ worth, and still being able to deliver on it is a feat that we really should not ignore. The plot manages to be a steady, breathy, and patient conduit for the above elements whilst perpetuating the key questions of the first film’s ending, whilst simultaneously rendering them irrelevant and maintaining the enjoyability of it’s predecessor.
2049 manages to magically dance around the complications that the questions of the first film ask it’s audience and made the story all the more stronger for it with appearances from the previous film’s cast, using it’s pieces well as emotional echoes of a long time ago.
All of this, whilst also letting Officer K be an incredibly strong and interesting protagonist in his own right; balancing the predictability of his role as a protagonist with the motivation and emotional stakes to tell an intelligent yet resonant science fiction story.
The steadiness of the film does contribute to its near three-hour runtime, but I think that a piece of cinema of this calibre deserves every second of it. There is a case that for long-awaited follow-ups, a three-hour continuation is more than deserved to fulfil the expectations in terms of how much of a meaty chunk the film is. Satisfaction is a delicate act, and you must walk the line between disappointment and overkill. This film is a perfect example of how to walk the line and provide a three-course meal as well as delivering on its promises, some of which were imposed upon it by the legacy of its predecessor. It is something that I’ll probably touch on again, but the first example of the opposite example is the case of Twin Peaks Season 3.
Overall, I think that Blade Runner 2049 is a hugely enjoyable, intelligent, wonderfully crafted and most of all, respectful film as well as a more-than-worthy follow up to the original, if not better. Come to think of it, I think my excitement from seeing Blade Runner in the park in Canary Wharf mostly stemmed from the conclusion that I would have a perfect excuse to rewatch 2049.
25.10.2017 | The Death of Stalin
The Thick of It is one of my favourite series of all time. It is infinitely rewatchable for me. I remember seeing it for the first time on SeeSaw, a free online television initiative that was run by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 back in the early 2000s. it’s crazy to think that something like that ever existed, but it was from the golden age of the internet. One of the reasons why I loved the show, and bear in mind I was around 12/13 when I first watched it, was the sweariness of it. But beyond that, there is an incredibly witty, sharp and biting satire of government which has made the series age like a fine wine.
Armando Iannucci was soon to be a name I attached with the series, with his appearances on Have I Got News For You always being a pleasant surprise to me. And recently his name by association has turned many projects into gold dust – one of which was The Death of Stalin. It was really exciting to see his international recognition consolidate over the years and seeing that with Veep and the release of his second feature length film was fantastic to see.
When the trailer first arrived, the thing that grabbed me the most besides the creative team behind The Thick of It being attached was the ensemble cast: Steve Buscemi, Jason Isaacs, Jeffrey Tambor – seeing these characters riff of each other was an exciting prospect. One of my favourite lines from the film being “All of you can kiss, my Russian ass”.
When initially deducing the subject matter of the story from its title however, my heart skipped a beat. Although I’m always one for seeing creatives diversify beyond their comfort zone, for a few seconds before seeing the first comedic beat of the trailer I was curious to see if this was a serious tale or the same brand of satire I had grown to love from the team. However, when seeing the film I learned it was actually a horrifying mix of both.
I would describe this film as a historical horror satire. It presents Stalinist Russia with all its ugliness and horror. Families torn apart from the purges, gulags, and rapists. It is all touched upon. It’s so strange as once you adjust to all of this you feel like you’re walking a tightrope of facing the terror of this grim reality, which millions of people were subjected to, and enjoying the bantering, inner scheming and insults of the USSR politburo.
The whole episode is a Russian version of The Thick of It’s Spinners and Losers special, and seeing these personalities zooming around like pathetic idiots trying to outdo each other and stay alive is made all the more exciting by its cast.
It’s interesting because this group of men all had blood on their hands, but once you adjust yourself to the scales you grow to like Buscemi’s Kruschev as the protagonist of the story over Beria, who is the abhorrent villain, played to slimy perfection by Simon Russell-Beale.
Jason Isaacs is another absolute highlight for many, presenting a Yorkshire accented General Zhukov – the bloke of the cast who adds a laddish levity to any scene he is in. Seeing all these British comedic tropes and wit injected into this grimly stark reality works so well.
There’s also a funny story behind this trip to see the film – I had booked to go and see it with my friends Dan, Olly and Luke in Manchester, which was around an hour away on the train from our university. However, when I reassessed our ticket times of the viewing on the day of the film, I realised that there would be no train back after the film had finished and we would have been stranded.
Now not unlike the quickfire planning of a political operative from The Thick of It, I rallied the troops. First, I checked with the cinema if we could change the timings of our tickets. We could if we got to the cinema for an earlier viewing. Great, but we needed to set off NOW to get the next train to Manchester. I told everyone to get to the bus station and finish their day early to make it. We did, but we needed to catch a direct bus to the train station – which arrived just as we did at the bus stop. Okay, so far so good, Luke nearly didn’t have the change for the bus but I covered him. Still good. We make it to the train station in time to…miss the train. However I use my in depth knowledge of the North West’s railway lines to get us to Preston and then catch an earlier train to Manchester from Preston that wasn’t shown on the scheduling app. Excellent, but we still needed to walk to Manchester Print Works from Piccadilly to get to the cinema, and it was a bit of a walk so we were guaranteed to be late. But just as we are mapping out a route, we see one of the green metro buses arrive – which are a) free and b) get us just outside our destination.
We fucking made it! We got to the cinema, changed our tickets successfully and even got snacks, all to start the film and see some trailers beforehand. We were all fucking buzzing that the stars aligned to let us see this movie. Honestly, this was one of the most thrilling cinema trips of my life. I was discussing this with Dan recently, and he reminded me that on top of all that, the cherry on the cake was that after the film finished we even had time to have a comfy meal at Pizza Hut.
06.11.2017 | The Death of Stalin
And this film even managed to make it into The Two View Club!
The second time I saw this was with my flatmates Sam and Ciaran, and with Luke again at The Dukes in Lancaster, where our university was and were Ian Martin, co-writer of the film and swear consultant on The Thick Of It lived. There was a Q&A afterwards and I remember asking a question but do not remember what the question was, but it was fascinating to meet him in person and speak to him.
13.11.2017 | Boy
This was yet another trip to The Dukes cinema in Lancaster, also another Taika Waititi film. I remember there being an impetus for wanting to go and see it but I just couldn’t remember what it was. I do remember wanting to go and see it with a girl I liked at the time as a date, but she couldn’t make it.
A funny story was brought back to my mind by my friend Eddie recently when discussing this. Neither did any of us know, but I was sat a few rows behind Eddie at The Dukes. During the film he heard my cackle and knew instantly that I was there, so we had a laugh about it after the film had finished.
Boy is another coming of age story, a genre which Taika Waititi does very well. He has this natural talent for the strange, awkward yet grounded comedy that we often find ourselves in in real life. It’s slightly heightened above normal reality, but you could attribute that to the imagination of a child which he understands so well.
It is an interesting story of gradual loss of innocence and disillusionment in your father figure. And handles that small-town quirkiness very well.
14.11.2017 | Blood Simple
2017 was great time for me and television. It was when I had just discovered the Fargo saga. It was an offshoot from my love of Legion which was also spearheaded by showrunner Noah Hawley but was based off the world in the American Midwest that The Coen Brothers had established in their 1996 film.
From then I had been on a bit of a Coen Brothers binge after watching the film. They have this talent for making great films which are always entertaining – whether it’s through the tension that they so expertly craft or the unique humour that they paint with their characters’ dialogue or the structure of the plot itself. No Country For Old Men and The Big Lebowski each being the first examples that come to my mind for those aspects, respectively.
So when Blood Simple, a re-screening of The Coen Brothers’ 1984 feature film debut was being shown at The Dukes, I saw this as a perfect opportunity to have a unique cinema going experience that I would most likely not get the chance to have again.
Blood Simple is a classic Coen Brothers tale of something small escalating into a wildly grave situation. Featuring murder, money, sex and a sleezy private detective getting involved. The cinematography is somewhat familiar after viewing their later films and you also see a lot of tropes that you will recognise from their work. Namely the casting of Frances McDormand, rolling shots of nighttime roads and a private detective driving a VW Beetle.
I really enjoyed this watch, and although it’s not their most stunning work it hits the spot of a Coen Brothers fix. It is also a joy to watch old films in the cinema with its grainy visuals and warm sounds. It’s almost like time travelling. Also getting the chance to see where they started out was hugely entertaining with the benefit of hindsight.
16.12.2017 | Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
I honestly do not think I can say much about The Last Jedi that has not already been said by someone else. Some opinions were absolutely more valid than others and it’s quite hard to have a proper dialogue on the film with someone on the internet without realising their opinion isn’t coming from a sensible part of their brain. But it has been a film that me and my friends have talked about a lot.
My anticipation for the film was not as strong as that of The Force Awakens. But I still had quite a lot in me looking forward to it. In the same way that we were excited for the first film of the new trilogy, I was excited to have a film that would be our generations’ The Empire Strikes Back. I wanted the franchise to continue to surprise me, and now that we had this exciting new cast of characters, I wanted to see more collisions between the old and the new. My big questions were around Snoke’s identity and what Luke has been up to all this time.
The trailers had me interested and I felt there was a darker tone within the film. I was also curious to see how they handled the death of Carrie Fisher and her character’s presence in the film as Princess Leia.
To sum up my thoughts, I think the film has great highs and low lows, and overall I found it to be a very jumbled up experience because it tried to accomplish so much in its long stretch. So much so that it struggled to keep a decent momentum with its pacing. To me, The Last Jedi is a bad example of a film that tried to accomplish so much in such a short time and is very inefficient with it.
I’ll probably raise a positive example of this for another film I saw close to this one a few paragraphs down, but there were such high expectations of what we were going to see that the film left us unsatisfied at points. There are plenty of stretches of The Last Jedi when you’re put into a scene that you aren’t 100% invested in and wish you had been switched back to another of the three storylines that were happening at the same time. A scene comes to a close and you think “oh great now we get to see what Rey and Luke are up to!” but you’re taken to a thread which definitely isn’t as interesting as what you wanted to see, and the film does a bad job at gauging what the audience would have wanted to follow at that point.
This is just a basic point as there are some other issues for sure. I think I left the film confused, slightly unsatisfied and internally divisive on it. I remember a friend called Michael (who was a big Star Wars fan) had posted a Snapchat review of the film at midnight and his first point was that the film was divisive and will be talked about for a long time. He was 100% right and this stuck with me before and after I saw the film.
The film has been torn to shreds, not in a negative review way, but from an analytical standpoint. To me, those high highs and low lows could be listed, and these are my favourites that come to mind:
Highs
- The throne room fight sequence! Incredible… the music, the set design, the fight choreography! Amazing to see in a Star Wars film. The shot that holds in the centre of the room is so refreshing to see in a Star Wars action sequence. I also like the enemy design a lot too, really cool to see the artistic variation).
- The lightspeed kamikaze flight was visually stunning and the films bloody well knows it when they gave it the silence it deserves. It was fantastic seeing a visual like this in a Star Wars film – so artistically principled. Confident, stark, and minimalist. The sequence delivered high concept, art worthy science fiction visuals that need to be featured in Star Wars more.
- It was an overly familiar introspective force premonition scene, but the vision sequence experienced by Rey is genuinely nerve wracking. The silence and the set design – I have never been so afraid of a hole in the ground. Rey’s lineage ultimately being unimportant and inconsequential was something I felt the saga desperately needed, to make the initial steps towards ending the plot on the note that true strength lies in who you are, not who you were destined to be. But I suppose we’ll get to that subject later…
- Subverting expectations with Luke – a lot was resting on this film to do Luke right, and regardless of what you think with the way they handled him overall, I’m glad they chose to subvert expectations with his presence in the film. I just wish we spent more time with him. The film did make the nods to the path he had taken and pre-empted the reaction to it, with his line about saving the day with a “laser sword” coming to mind. It was nice to see that after all the experiences this character had gone through, he was still a bit of a teenager at heart.
- Luke’s death, although I felt it was too soon (when is death not too soon?), was handled perfectly. The music, the sunset, the acting from Mark Hamill’s face: a fantastic send off for one of cinema’s greatest heroes.
Lows
- The Canto Bight storyline felt like a strange box ticking for an ‘adventure’ sequence in the film, which ultimately pulled the screen time away from things the audience were much more invested in. Yes, Star Wars is about showing us more of this universe, but the chess pieces of this film weren’t set up right from the beginning. Also I really don’t understand what the point of DJ was (played by Benicio del Toro). The moral of the story is do not trust people? The universe is full of shades of gray? It would have resonated better if it actually went anywhere.
- Admiral Holdo withholding information – I was so confused when Leia died and force powered her way back to life. To be completely honest I was fully well to accept that this was how they would handle Carrie Fisher’s death in the story but when she started flying through space I admit I was a little bit in disbelief. It was very strange to see and accept but when she was alive, I was thinking “interesting…” more than “thank goodness Leia is alive!”. The thing is, when command had to be handed over to Admiral Holdo it created the whole internal politics thing inside The Resistance and it made my eyes roll when Poe was planning a mutiny. First, why didn’t Holdo just tell Poe about the plan? Also, when there was talk about spies in The Resistnance with whole atmosphere on intrigue and someone leaking information to The First Order I was thinking “curious, I’m interested to see where the spy plot point goes” but it is not really mentioned again. I also found the whole internal political storyline frustrating because it’s something that doesn’t happen in Star Wars. We should spend time in this universe focusing on anything but petty squabbles, infighting and arguments. This is something that is more suited for Star Trek (which handles it much better too).
- Captain Phasma was awfully misused in this film, and her death was ultimately meaningless because it was revealed that they were created to sell action figures of her. Also, I’m sick of tired of the Star Wars ‘sneak onto an imperial ship/facility and not get caught’ sequences. They’re present in every single film of this trilogy and its fucking eye-rolling.
02.01.2018 | The Disaster Artist
The Room is one of those funny remnants of early internet subculture that transformed into a mid-2000s meme well enough to maintain its popularity. It is pretty much a revered internet legend at this point.
The thing is about The Disaster Artist, when I went to and see it at The Dukes, is that it’s main comedic tension is from the realer than real character of Tommy Wiseau – whose funny laugh and strange mannerisms are meant to bemuse the audience for most of the film. His function is then demonstrating how this elusive personality can create something like The Room when they are stubborn, strange and have enough money.
After reading the book the film was based on, it was more or less all of the above, except also sharing more detail on the interesting side of Greg Sestero’s story and his career as a Hollywood actor. It is a lot more introspective. Friendship is an equally strong theme in the book than in the film, however the book is a lot funnier to me. When watching the film, I could not help but feel like I was just watching James Franco do an impression of Tommy Wiseau for a Funny or Die/SNL skit and trying to attach to that was very strange.
The film also encourages all the suspicions one has when watching a book adaptation, and the presentation in the film walks this weird line between you thinking “that was absolutely not like that, was it?”. The book manages to make the gospel of The Room seem a lot more believable and dumb-striking. They are both interesting to take in as you can corroborate which parts were true, and that makes their absurdity a lot funnier.
The Disaster Artist is good, and I recall quite funny at points. Although the only thing I can vividly remember laughing at is James Franco’s laugh.
About The Room however, I did watch the film once with a mate and it was more boring if anything else. Maybe it was due to overexposure to it prior to viewing, but it seems like everybody liked to pile onto it for being one of the first really bad feature length films – whereas now plenty of these are within a 5 minute reach of anyone who has an internet connection.
17.02.2018 | Black Panther
As mentioned before, I was loving the fact that they were expanding the Marvel Universe more and more and seeing Wakanda in all its might after being teased in Captain America: Civil War was super exciting. Overall, I think that this film is badass and it was amazing to see a hero such as Black Panther celebrated for what he meant for so many people. The representation of a pan African nation was also incredible, with fantastic care taken to represent the diaspora of design and culture during its runtime. Seeing the genre of a regal political drama take place in such an amazing setting was brilliant to see, and although the CGI gets a bit weird in the third act, the film is a phenomenal success, so much so that I’m fairly sure that I saw it twice! So welcome to The Two View Club Black Panther.
And of course, I must mention the soundtrack, which was really put on my radar by both the film and it’s review by TheNeedleDrop. My favourite track is Ops, with a fantastic bassline that is sadly underrepresented in the film itself, although it’s amazing in the trailer and is hype as fuck.
Waking up to the news a few months ago at the sudden death of Chadwick Boseman was shocking. It is such a shame to see a talent such as his get taken from this world so soon. I am immensely proud of him in a way too, as his impact on the world of cinema with his talent will last forever. It was also incredibly disrespectful for anyone to show a prioritised concern for the Black Panther franchise over thoughts for Chadwick after his death, which threw more fuel onto my burning aggravation at obsessive superhero fandoms.
20.03.2018 | Lady Bird
Lady Bird seemed like one of those interesting adolescent films that I knew would call me out every now and then for stuff I did when I was her age, which is kind of semi-true. It seemed pretty formulaic in hindsight – girl is unique, girl acts out, girl cuts of ties with her nice friends to join a new group of nasty friends, nasty friends treat her badly after a while, then they reset and go back to the beginning. Which I kind of found annoying for this film since she spent a good chunk of her final year of school treating her best friend like shit.
Which I suppose is a big gripe I have with my memory of this film, is that the main character is unsufferable. That was what I suppose I felt called out for. She acts out against her family, tries extremely hard to be a certain type of annoying. I know that is what adolescence is about but looking back at it, we were all very annoying as teenagers. Oh, also this was when I started seeing Timothee Chalet Girl in everything and when he started to piss me off.
The film had its funny moments too, which deserve credit, but what stuck with me the most was the final scene with the underwhelming experience of college after drinking too much. Too real. And when she finally manages to get as far away from her home and family as she wanted to, she starts to miss it and makes the phone call to check in with her mother.
26.04.2018 | Avengers: Infinity War
It was so surreal how excited I was for Avengers: Infinity War. A clear indication of this was the amount of Marvel films leading up to it that I have written about above. After I booked my midnight screening tickets, I kept getting occasional jolts of anticipation to when I was going to see it. It was going to be such a special experience. In a time when we can pretty much get everything we want fast and quick; Infinity War was an event that I had been looking forward to for a good part of my life. I started watching these films when I was 12 and now, I was 20 years old and finally going to see the story that I never thought I would ever see on screen.
Seeing all these characters together, with all their combined storytelling weight, was something that me and Ciaran would sit in the back of the car chatting about whilst one of our parents would drive us to the cinema. It was stuff that we never would have imagined would be executed on screen as well as this, and seeing Infinity War was a surreal experience since it was so much fanservice crammed into one movie – seeing all these characters sharing a screen, talking to each other and interacting like a play session with a 8 year old’s action figure collection colliding in a smart, well-choreographed and paced film.
I remember in the lead up to it I had loads of dreams about what was going to happen in it. I was hoping that the Marvel Netflix characters would turn up (they did not!) but they did in my dreams. Often in very strange and nonsensical scenarios – where Jessica Jones just turned up to a house party at Tony Stark’s place. But this is another indication of how excited I was for it on every level of consciousness.
I had avoided all trailers for it, which I really do not regret. One of my favourite moments in the film was when I saw a bit that had been spoiled in the trailers. Two moments in particular being when Spider-Man enters the film with his arm hairs rising after sensing the big ship in the middle of New York and The Guardians of the Galaxy meeting Thor. There are so many more amazing moments in the film that I love – Captain America’s entrance, the Wakanda reveal, Thor’s arrival in Wakanda and so much more. It was an incredibly rewarding and fun movie to see. I loved it.
One of my favourite things about the film is that point on pacing, and it is often one I raise in comparison to The Last Jedi. This film is so well packed, paced, and positioned to take you through the story snappily, and succinctly in a satisfying way. For instance, there are around three main threads to the story that come together – Thanos, Space with Doctor Strange and Spider-Man, Wakanda with Captain America and the earth based Avengers, and the second space storyline with The Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor.
Now as I recall, it might be because all these storylines are equally entertaining and exciting, but the film manages to spin the plates incredibly well. I was watching the film and thinking “oh shit we still haven’t seen The Guardians of the Galaxy yet!” and as soon as that happened it cut to SPACE. I remember getting so excited and wriggly in my chair.
My final favourite part of the film is the closing moments, and it is not so much a cliff hanger but more of a sheer drop. I think that seeing all these heroes win all the time was grating on people, and the film series needed a proper villain sometimes. But that final moment when most of the characters you loved had just died over a dead silent soundtrack – was quite haunting. I was loving it however, in an “oh no you didn’t!” way. Shit just got real and I was so happy to see it finally happen. The soundtrack coupled with Thanos smiling on his new universe he created was so good too, with the final shot of him on the porch and the heart-breaking, melancholy final musical release of the film. It’s fantastic, gives you a false sense of closure, and makes your heart twinge quite a bit.
And you know what? I loved the film so much, that I went to go and see it the morning after. Oh, and again when Ciaran had finished his coursework. Welcome to The Three View Club!
13.07.2018 | The Incredibles 2
Continuing even further with the superhero theme, I went to go with the university Comedy Institute crew to go and see The Incredibles 2. Now since seeing The Incredibles, I had seen some of Brad Bird’s work on The Simpsons, and his excellent take on a Mission Impossible film.
I really enjoyed this film, especially since it followed on directly from the ending of the last. The world of The Incredibles is an interesting and hilarious mish mash of sixties future-esque design and family sitcom. The difference in animation this time was also fascinating to see. It is an interesting experiment to wait so long to produce a sequel to the film, as seeing it at the age we all were made us feel like 2006 kids again. Personal highlight of the film is the cookie scene with Jack Jack!
My friends also reminded me of Bao – the animated short that opened the film. It was so strange to see so many people not understand it and see it not resonate with people because it nearly brought me to tears. It might be because of the relevance to Asian upbringing and parenthood – but the theme is more or less universal: you can put a lifetime in love into something knowing full well that it will never be completely returned and has to be let go someday, which is an incredibly hard truth to face. The first thing I had to do was message my mum and let her know I loved her.
28.07.2018 | Mission Impossible: Fallout
Now I had felt the Mission Impossible films had been on a bit of a winning streak recently, and this film was no exception. I couldn’t help but watch the wonderfully crafted trailer for the film – the visuals, the tone, the grounded action – it definitely looked like something very different from previous entries, which only increased my respect for Christopher McQuarrie as a director since he had directed the previous film and was clearly taking it in a different direction for his second outing, whilst still retaining its modernity and sharpness.
I also was following the whole hullaballoo around Henry Cavill’s moustache at the time and was also intrigued by his presence in the film. In the trailer it shaped him up to be an antagonist, although I was unsure of what capacity this would be in. However, it does become quite clear in the progress of the film, and quite early on. It is revealing of the type of film that the Mission Impossible franchise knows it is – all about the action baby. You know exactly what you’re getting when you buy your ticket, and boy did this film deliver.
Probably one of the few movie sequences to make me gasp when seeing it in the cinema, and a reminder of how the big screen is such a grand and immersive experience, is the HALO jump sequence – all in one take and continuous from the plane. It was an unreal experience combined with the music, which, might I say, is excellent. Lorne Balfe, who had earned his stripes with me with his soundtrack for Assassin’s Creed 3.
Also, the film also toys with the idea of a darker tone compared to previous films – the intro being indicative of this. Not only being visually shadier, but when they trick the audience into thinking the team had failed – my heart dropped! But of course, it was one big scheme, and you get kicked into the thrilling intro sequence, which always showcases the contents of the film but sets you up well on what to anticipate. The music and theme for this film is magnificent, often returning throughout the film with its unique, impending doom that it conveys so well.
One of my other highlights for the film is the amazingly kinetic fight sequence in the bathroom, a funny combination of slapstick and brutal choreography from all three people involved. Bravo.
13.08.2018 | Ant-Man and The Wasp
This was another film that I went to go and see with the Comedy Institute gang. Honestly, I felt a bit weird about the first Ant-Man – as to me it missed the opportunity to really own its unique take on a heist movie. The humour fell a bit well, not blunt, but unsharp sometimes. Not as sharp as it could have been with Edgar Wright at the helm. I thought it was a great tragedy that he did not get to fulfil his vision with the first film. But nonetheless Ant-Man was a competent film.
I think that the film definitely showed it’s comedic chops, I think the music and the visuals from the school sequence was one of the funniest sequences from the MCU I’ve seen, still makes me laugh seeing a mini Paul Rudd downsized like Fourvel from Comedy Bang! Bang!.
The film is a nice, self-contained adventure set in San Francisco, and it was almost refreshing to see one location get the same treatment as other films treat one location.
And of course, I was very invested in the film from the involvement it had in the On Cinema at the Cinema universe, with the cameo from Gregg Turkington in the first film and then the appearance of Tim Heidecker in the sequel making me howl with laughter.
Overall, a fun break from the high intensity of the surrounding films in the MCU.
15.08.2018 | Mission Impossible Fallout
This film was definitely well worth seeing a second time too, which I did and made it part of The Two View Club!
06.09.2018 | Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
I was back at home for this time of 2018, since I had finished my degree and was about to move to London to start a new job. Back home there is not much to do so it was time to spend some quality time with Mum and go and see the new Mamma Mia film. It was so strange that they decided to have a sequel, but I find with these sorts of films it is best not to overthink it.
Come to think of it, I mentioned my cinema trip to see the film in my article on my favourite ABBA songs, so I was in the mood for their music around this time. It’s funny because I went to go and see the first film when I was smaller in the cinema with my parents, mainly at their behest but it was an experience which has aged like a fine wine in my mind. So, it only seemed natural that I go and see the follow up with my mum again.
I really did enjoy it, and amongst a load of varying experiences in the cinema it was great to come back and see something fun like this again. Funnily enough, I think that Peter Rosenthal’s review for The Onion’s film standard summarises my thoughts on this film and its detractors quite well, whilst also being a video that always makes me laugh so much.
16.12.2018 | Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse
I recall seeing the headlines for this film and the main takeaway most outlets were getting was that fans would be getting yet another Spider-Man film alongside the live action MCU outings. The distinction of it being animated however most likely inhibited expectations from most people on what the film could deliver on. Surely, no animated take on the character could match to the live action kineticism of the character? Wrong!
From the trailer we could see that the film was something special. Crafted with love, each frame and technique used to make it, from the script to the art, to the animation to the voice acting – oozes with a love for the character.
The opening sequence to the film was especially stunning and really primed my expectations for a fresh, modern take on the character with a sharp vision. The task of adapting the Spider-Verse storyline was gargantuan, and this film knocked it out of the park.
The opening sequence gets you so hyped up for a multiverse of creativity, style, colour, and respect for the characters involved. The chaotic multidimensionality is represented perfectly in its comic book art style, and just keeps getting bigger and snowballs into something amazing.
I cannot overstate that this is one of the few animated films I can think of that really blows me away. The time when Miles first swings on his own, just sends chills down my spine. A big part of this scene is the fantastic music. From the original score to the soundtracked songs – all perfectly chosen for this world we get to see. There is no way I can disassociate the warm sound of Swae Lee and Post Malone’s Sunflower from Miles Morales. I am so excited to zip around in the Spider-Verse suit as Miles in his PS5 game.
Amazing script. Amazing cast. Amazing style. Amazing art. Amazing everything! The best Spider-Man film, full stop.
16.03.2019 | Captain Marvel
I was looking forward to seeing Captain Marvel due to it being another entry in the MCU of course and getting to see how they brought the character into the universe they had built. As they were bringing more strands of the MCU together it was always exciting to see them overlapping. What I had gathered before seeing it was that the shapeshifting Skrulls were going to be in the film, who I had known as being pesky enemies of the Fantastic Four and of course the Secret Invasion storyline, which was a gripping prospect to imagine being tackled in the MCU.
Then there was also the intriguing promise of the 90s Marvel Universe being shown, with a de-aged Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg returning as agent Coulson.
Overall I found it a good film but not great. I feel as though it was a competent origin story to steadily set Captain Marvel up for future adventures. Honestly, I think a lot of this film was fine, but stylistically it did not have much to let it shine on its own. I’m looking forward to seeing more of the character but I wish they dialled up more of the fantastical trippy stuff, when Come As You Are started playing during the sequence when Carol was talking to the Kree AI it was a little bit exciting since it was such a cool and confusing experience on the screen, but the film seems to lack confidence in really doing anything with its crazier sides of its world.
Come to think of it, Lee Pace returning as Ronan the Accuser was a bit of a let-down too, as he ultimately had no consequence on the story. And Jude Law was underutilised too in my opinion. Overall, I got a lot of the Thor “space fish out of water” vibes from it alongside the reclamation of identity arc that the first film had.
I am pleasantly surprised with the direction they decided to take the Skrulls in the MCU. Ben Mendelson is in dire need of escaping his villainous type casting however, as it gave himself away as soon as I saw him, although this film did at least subvert it somewhat.
A good film, but not great.
24.04.2019 | Avengers: Endgame
So as mentioned before during my Infinity War section, I was obviously very hyped for Endgame. Although to be honest the realm of possibility and what could happen was a slight bit closed off since expectations were partially set with that film. However, I was still super buzzing to go and see it on midnight. Again I had avoided all the trailers, and arrived at my cinema for the 3 hours to wrap up 10 years of anticipation for me.
I found the film a bit jankier than the previous entry, which I think I prefer more than Endgame. I think that time is an important tool for when you are dealing with themes of grief and loss, which the film introspectively tackles for its first third. The 5 years later time jump really made people gasp – and I certainly did not expect it. The dread of losing so many people did need time to let itself be felt, and this film avoided the mistake of prior entries in the franchise in letting the loss be too trivial. Really letting the lack of action, quieter character moments and worldbuilding speak for themselves did a good assertion of the stakes, despite the fact that they had already lost.
Of course, it does pick up again with the re-entry of Ant-Man and the time-travel solution. The second act is full of seeing these new, unseen versions of our characters – at their lowest moments, working together to reverse the events. The time heist sequence is a nice homage to the foundations of what the franchise has managed to achieve and rewards fans quite well for being so committed to seeing the films. Retracing your steps is a fun exercise in reminiscing on the progress these characters have made, and again is a testament to how well they have managed to build a saga.
And the third act of course is where all the meat is. So much action loaded into it. As a fan, you honestly cannot really hate it because the only reason why you would want to go and see this film in the first place is for this payoff. The fight sequences, the scale, the small bits of fanservice, the grand return – it was so strange hearing people cheer for this stuff in the cinema – a British cinema too! How uncivilised.
It was really lovely though in a way, being surrounded by so many people on midnight who were equally as hyped to see the film as I was, and it was again an exciting moment for 11 year old me, sat in the back of Ciaran’s mum’s car, talking to him about the Marvel films coming out at the time and getting exciting for what is going to come next. I feel like I’m going to treasure those moments forever.
05.07.2019 | Spider-Man: Far From Home
The Spider-Man sequel felt like essential viewing again as an interesting denouement to the climax that was Endgame. This kind of confuses me a bit, as I am not entirely sure if I’m watching the live action Spider-Man films for the character or for the continued plot of the overall universe. Probably a mix of both but I think the split between the two motives might be getting a bit skewed.
Again, it is a funny film; with the coming-of-age drama continuing further. I really enjoyed the cast of Peter’s classmates, who have a fun comedic dynamic.
I enjoyed the MCU’s take on Mysterio. I think that these films are doing very well in accepting the challenge of adapting some of the more silly and ungrounded villains and bringing them to life in a believable (as much as you can believe stuff in movies), sharp, clever and grounded way.
And of course, the twists at the end with the return of J Jonah Jameson played by JK Simmons (an idea the whole fanbase has been obsessed with since 2012) and the hole that they’ve dug themselves in with Peter’s identity. Looking forward to the next one.
07.07.2019 | Pokémon: Detective Pikachu
During this stage of my life I was working in London, so whenever I got to go to the cinema it was the occasional trip after work to one of the places in the city centre where I could see the movie.
It probably warrants an article of its own, but I have been a Pokémon player since the first time I picked up my Game Boy Colour back around the very early 2000s. I owe a lot to these games, and although my following of it has slightly dwindled in the past few years, I always show up for the new and exciting experiences that they bring – Pokémon Symphonic Evolutions being one such occasion, and the Detective Pikachu movie being another.
I remember when the Detective Pikachu games were announced and my friend Dave telling about the trailer featuring ‘a dead boy’ and Pikachu as the detective on the case, which was a very funny image (but sadly the boy was only unconscious in the story). I was kind of bemused to see them do this with the mascot of the franchise but nonetheless following its transformation from a videogame on the Nintendo e-shop to full-fledged motion picture was interesting to observe.
Most videogame adaptations fail to capture the experiences that the successful videogames succeed so well in conveying, and I was really pleased to see the film tackle the world of Pokémon quite so well.
The rules of Pokémon’s reality often get quite mixed up across media but seeing this world full of these creatures in live action was fun. I always used to imagine how amazing it would be to live in the world of Pokémon, having the companionship of one of these weirdly cute creatures and world that seemed so vibrant, utopian and safe.
Seeing that come to life was very fun, and seeing how the filmmakers out some of my favourite creatures in the worldbuilding tapped into that part of my imagination that I had let go for some years now. Seeing the world realised in the film made this well worth seeing in the cinema.
This seemed to be the thing that I got most out of the movie, as besides that, the script and plot were competent enough to let the world show itself off – the twists and turns could be seen from a mile off bar a few slight deviations. It was also very surreal to see Bill Nighy in a Pokémon film. Hearing his voice even say the word Pokémon was very strange.
16.08.2019 | Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Getting to see this in the cinema was a bit of an odyssey on the day. I managed to get a voucher for a free film ticket at Vue Cinemas and thought “let’s go and see the new Tarantino film that everyone has been excited for”.
I would not really describe myself as a Tarantino fan, it’s just that his films get talked about so much they’re hard to avoid. I do have a special place in my heart for Kill Bill however, as there is something about those films that I find very enjoyable, probably a topic for another article.
So, I decide to go the Leicester Square Vue, which isn’t available to use the voucher on since it’s one of those super swish ones, which sucked ass. So, I decide to go to Piccadilly Circus, which is not showing the film today. Fabulous. My alternative is to head all the way out to Harrow, which was close to home but was quite late, so I got some grub and headed far out.
My thoughts on the film are not particularly anything new. By the time I was going to see it I had grown sick of so many people calling it a “love letter to the golden age of Hollywood” – and to be honest that is what I was jokingly repeating myself in a husky American accent when I left the cinema.
That is what it is too – it was like travelling in a hyperreal time machine which put us in 60s Hollywood. I am just thinking about the set design and detail involved – from the magazines to the cars, everything was painstakingly faithful to the era. It is all quite fun too, as we get to see what 60s showbusiness was like in all its chaos and horror.
I suppose I would also want to talk about Bruce Lee here too – his portrayal is quite strange. I think from Tarantino’s side it was done respectfully; I know from the Kill Bill films he has nothing but reverence for the kung-fu genre. However, I think the audience didn’t interpret it as such, and just laughed at the noises he made. The audience in my cinema seemed to have a less than superficial understanding of what made Bruce Lee so great – his outlook, his charisma and of course his skill. To them, it seemed that they were laughing because “haha Asian man makes funny noises!”. It made me a bit uncomfortable to know that this was lost on them.
The film is lengthy, but I think that it takes up the right amount of time to show you all it wanted to – a snapshot of this era with all the silliness and rough edges. The tone is handled brilliantly, with sequences featuring music of the era then going into prolonged, eery and creepy moments featuring The Manson Family.
The alternate ending too, I felt as though this was Tarantino’s personal catharsis for what happened to Sharon Tate. I knew that she was murdered but had no idea she was pregnant at the time. The whole brutal fight sequence at the end is this weird mix of gross uncomfortable cartoon violence and stress mixed with comedy. I found myself laughing and the ending ended on a strange note with Sharon Tate not having been murdered. It made me happy to be shown and given that thought, but then of course the escape from history evaporates and you remember that was not what actually happened.
12.09.2019 | NT Live: Fleabag
I kept seeing clips of Fleabag and the international acclaim that it kept getting. Of course, most people I knew had watched it and was telling me to watch it – not upfront but in how often they mentioned it.
Before seeing the NT: Live performance and still to this day, I have not seen the BBC series in full. So when I saw the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone – see the one woman live show which was an opportunity that would most likely not appear again as well as getting to see my first NT: Live performance (which I always say that I want to go and see but never do), I decided to get my tickets well in advance.
The fact that I still have not seen the show is not an indication of my dislike for it at all – far from it, I thoroughly enjoyed it. First, the fact that anyone can do a one-person show – writing and directing it is incredible to me. Secondly, to write a script that is so incredibly sharp, truthful, and witty is awe inspiring to me. Fleabag is one of those hilarious, self-deprecating stories that people find infinitely relatable, full of funny little sequences of reality that we all recognise which then on amplifies the laughter and tragedy we feel when we see it. Underneath the surface level comedy of the show is a deeply profound and introspective look at what it means to try and manage the challenge of being an adult.
07.10.2019 | Ad Astra
Around this time Ruwaida was in a very encouraging spirit to go and see lots of films and let me tag along. One such movie was Ad Astra. I had not seen that much for this film to set up my expectations, but I’m doubtful this was possible with conventional means.
I saw Brad Pitt’s tired face slapped all over the London Underground on my way back from work, but besides that had little exposure. Ad Astra is an interesting study of isolation, and the stark coldness of space travel. The tone was nowhere near as comfortable as I expected it to be, as my mind was set on a tale closer to Gravity or Interstellar. It stood apart from all of these well. This was all based off the typeface, however.
The film looks phenomenal and thematically it is closer to a war movie – many of compared it to Apocalypse Now in the way that Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee-Jones’ presences orbit around each other for its entirety. Thinking back, it did make me think of some of the more isolated and lonely moments in Halo’s story – with a fascinating cocktail of emotional resonance and the existentialism/distance that comes with being on the far side of the solar system.
23.10.2019 | Joker
Mentioning before that I appreciate it when franchises have a bit more courage in the films they make – seeing the story of Joker’s production was an overly exciting one. I am glad that Warner Bros. are taking a similar direction to what I mentioned with Logan – not being hindered by a shared universe and giving a great script and creative vision its time of day. Seeing a unique, individual treatment of the character in its own world and interpretation was fascinating when it was confirmed to be in the works.
With a lead in Joaquin Phoenix it was enticing to see that he was providing his take on the character of the Joker – a role that has been a treat to see actors of all kinds of calibre explore. What really hooked me was the aesthetic and visuals of the film – the first teaser make-up test of the Joker was fascinating – the music, the costume design, the make-up being different yet very creepy still – I could tell that it was something different.
Seeing so much conversation about the cinematic weight the film had was interesting too, probably a big factor in why we (Ross and Milly, now flatmates) wanted to go and see it at Genesis, a charming local cinema in East London. The discussion of the social messages associated with it. This was a new, prime example of what it means to be a comic book movie, and again elevated the meaning of the term to a higher level.
A twisted, grim tale of poverty, societal negligence, and mental illness and how it breaks someone into a force of nature was handled in the best way it possibly could have been, well maybe it could have done without the Gary Glitter.
One of my personal favourite things about the film is just how sinister it feels in the third act. The late-night talk show shooting and the fuzziness of the 80s television cameras works so well with the make-up. This was a gripping moment to see as you got to witness the combination of the voice and make-up, costume and demeanour that made Joaquin Phoenix’s interpretation of the character truly haunting. This builds to the final messianic sequence on the top of the police car.
One thing that I wasn’t sure on but I think I’m fine with now is the linking of the Wayne family plot – but I suppose those two characters are the counterpart to each other in the double helix that is Batman’s DNA.
I really enjoyed it overall, but more as proof that these characters can be done right if you let the creative vision thrive first and foremost.
19.12.2019 | Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
Right, so I’m not going to bother repeating the same stuff I said for the previous two entries in this trilogy. However, I will comment that although I did go to see this film on opening night, I did not see Solo: A Star Wars Story at all, nor express any interest in doing so. Which is not a good sign. Look at the energy I reminisced about when seeing the first film in the sequel trilogy and look at how much it has dwindled for the third.
Seeing this film on opening night was one of the most fun moviegoing experiences I have ever had. Both me and Ross were late for setting off to Genesis, so by the time we arrived we were 15 minutes past midnight. We were late for our original viewing in Screen 1, but Screen 2 was open, starting its showing in 10 minutes and was, more importantly, completely empty. It was raining heavily that night so I had my umbrella, and when we realised that we were the only people in the screen we just started running around (speedwalking, rather) to the front of the screen, sitting front and centre and swinging my umbrella around like a lightsaber.
One of the reasons why this viewing was so enjoyable was because we did not really have to worry about other people in the cinema, so we could do the stupid stuff mentioned previously. Additionally for me it also meant I could treat it like we were viewing it in our own private cinema and could potentially mention stuff like we were in our own living room, which I know is annoying on paper but I only ever do it when it’s on something extremely noteworthy.
But seriously, what a fucking mess of a film. The first 20 minutes are so rushed. At the very beginning you find out how Palpatine is alive. Now, I am vehemently against any film relying on its external material – whether it be a “The Ending of Star Wars: Episode IX EXPLAINED” clickbait article or the trailer.
We all knew that Palpatine was back from his iconic laugh in the first trailer for the film. It was extremely hard to escape this info. But the film on its own lazily brings him back, despite having no allusion to his return in the previous two films. It’s almost like it was expecting everybody to have known that the villain was returning and that meant they did not have to do much work to dovetail him back into the story. Alongside this, I later found out that the radio message that the opening crawl alludes to, which was broadcast by Palpatine across the galaxy, was only hearable in Fortnite. Yes, fucking Fortnite. Fuck off, what a fucking farce. And that’s just the opening crawl? Honestly, the issue with pacing turns up again here. The film keeps hip hopping around trying to disguise its rushed storytelling as development or progress but just feels unnervingly speedy. It feels like the final part to a poorly planned out film trilogy which has collapsed under the weight of expectation – expectation in this case simply being three adequately-structured films.
One of the advantages of having our own cinema screen at this point was both me and Ross looking at each other and agreeing that something just is not right with the film. It honestly felt like a weird-dream Star Wars film, that was so uncomfortably paced and nonsensical that only my dumbass unconscious mind would have thought up. It being akin to a dream feels like the best way to describe how surreal the experience it was. Remember the dreams I mentioned in the run up to seeing Infinity War and the crazy stupid impossibilities that I wanted to happen in the film…this felt like I was watching one of those.
The film had so much to accomplish, on top of actually dedicating some time to these characters’ dynamics – one of the key selling points of this film to fans that the producers poised was that this was an adventure they would all be going on together – they also had to wrap up their respective storylines and provide adequate closure for them, the audience and the 40 year saga they had shoddily latched themselves on to at the end.
I honestly hate what they did with Rey – I think she is a fantastic character, but in the end they did her dirty and made the most interesting thing about her the fact that she was a descendent of the villain from the first 6 movies, who has magically reappeared in the first 20 minutes of her third film.
They took the story of the sequel trilogy away from one of inner strength and potential coming from anywhere and anyone, to one of heritage and inheritance and (annoyingly) genetics. It made it a tale not of mysticism but one of science, veering too much on the everything-needs-a-logical-explanation-ism that has destroyed suspension of disbelief in the world of cinema.
Rey was ready to be the hero that the story can end with, who was living proof that anyone can be a hero – proof the one person in the audience watching it can be truly strong, despite not having any specific lineage or background associated with them. It was a closure that could have synced up nicely with that of the other characters in the saga – Finn (let’s not even begin to talk about his character’s shitty treatment in this film!), Poe…even the droids. It had an opportunity to make Star Wars a story that was no longer about a dynasty and leave it on an inspiring note – that of infinite possibility and opportunity in this fantastic universe. But no, they decided to tie all the strings together because people demanded an explanation to where her ability came from, and that weakened her own character – in every sense of the word.
Also, why did they have to make Ben and Rey kiss? There was some chemistry between them, I can give them that, but they really did not get enough time together to let something natural grow. I remember when the film makes it look like they were, and they don’t, but then they go back in for it and I shouted “oh fuck off!” very loudly at the screen.
Also, the Knights of Ren were WASTED in this entire trilogy. They were quite obviously alternate designs for Kylo Ren that JJ Abrams probably thought looked cool and decided to keep in somehow, yet no clear vision was planned for them. They just stand around and do extraordinarily little, eventually just getting killed. The film had a perfect opportunity to use them so well for a fantastic sequence, seeing as how they had a lot of natural momentum with their striking designs and presence. The film did very little to capitalise on this when they had been teasing themselves based off their basic features for two films already. What a joke.
Also, the Chewie death fake out disappointed me – it showed signs of a franchise that continued to fear exploring any complexity or nuance in its plot. This was exacerbated by the third sneaky infiltration mission onto a First Order facility in the trilogy. Fuck off, stop doing this. It’s getting tired now.
Overall, the trilogy got slightly interesting at points and the potential was interesting to think about, but overall, it ended up being safe and disappointing and seemed to displease a lot of people in the process. Not just the pissbabies but also people who like me, really did like the films growing up and drew a line at getting too angry at them, but it’s very hard to avoid feeling disappointed and disenchanted by it. Of a year of three endings (Avengers, Game of Thrones, Star Wars), it was a shame to see only 1 of the 3 live up to expectations.
24.12.2019 | Cats
At the end of 2020 everybody was going mental about Cats and getting a good amount of schadenfreude at seeing it get panned across the board. Obviously, me and Georgina had to go and see it since we were both back home for Christmas.
Now to be completely honest I think that the film had a lot of good stuff about it, but inherently it is just very strange. The CGI and scale and the rules of this feline reality simply confused me too much. How can Rebel Wilson shed her cat skin? Why are the children cockroaches? What is a jellicle cat? What is a political cat? Why has James Corden achieved such international acclaim? Why is Jason Derulo’s cat so horny all the time? Who is McAvity and why is he a wizard? Why is everything in this film annoying?
Truth be told, the music of the film is quite catchy at points. Skimbleshanks’ track being a solid highlight. And I do like Memory as a song, but Jesus Christ, can someone give Jennifer Hudson a tissue to wipe the snot off her face when she’s singing it?!
One nice thing I took away from this viewing though is that there was this whole furore about it but nothing really offending within. I also saw this in the row in front of us where there was this small girl watching the film with her mum, and she was really enjoying it, which was really quite sweet. So maybe the rest of us all just care too a bit too much?
06.01.2020 | JoJo Rabbit
Ruwaida brought me along to see this, which I was grateful for. First time I heard about JoJo Rabbit was the /r/movies headline which had the main takeaway that Taika Waititi would be playing Adolf Hitler in his upcoming feature, which to me is one of the least interesting and funny things about the movie.
JoJo Rabbit perfectly encapsulates the breadth and power of a young boys imagination, presented eloquently with a unique wit, all whilst showing how it has been weaponised as a tool for evil. Waititi’s signature bildungsroman penchant shining through again.
My highlights for the film are mainly centred around Johannes’ relationship with his mother, with that setting up one of the most heartbreaking moments of the film. Sam Rockwell also owns his part fantastically – whilst the rest of the supporting cast providing great awkward comic relief throughout.
15.02.2020 | 1917
1917 is an incredible feat – another Roger Deakins cinematographic challenge with the landscapes of war-torn Europe and an epic, real time journey captured all in one shot. Time is a deadly theme in this film and the tracking shot is more than a gimmick and one which is used effectively to demonstrate the journey the two main characters make across the battlefield.
The plot is relatively simple, with enough time dedicated to our two central characters to make the few emotional moments really sing (literally at one point). The empathy the film helps grow in the view is used very well with its main immersive feature of the one shot, and the scale of the threat is shown in all forms – from a hurried trip down the trench, across a precarious patch of no-man’s land aptly set up by Andrew Scott, and through towns, farms and a full blown assault to name a few in order to get us to the final destination of delivering the message.
The tragedy of the whole thing, as we see injured troops and dead soldiers from both sides is shown in a new light, as the job of the characters is to essentially convey a message, of which they have to go through hell to deliver in order to save lives.
The film is a great showcase of British talent, although explicably lacking in female representation, it is always a fun game to play to spot how many famous British actors you can recognise.
Overall, a fantastic film which serves as another necessary reminder on the nature of war and what it does to people, whilst also being a technical marvel.
26.07.2020 | | Tenet
Obviously, the past year has not been a great one for cinema. With lockdown damaging so many industries, it’s been so surreal not having the chance to go to the movies for so long – especially since 2020 seemed like a date attached to so many cinematic projects that were in the works or due to be released. No Time To Die and the production of The Batman had been two things I was looking forward to that were delayed by the pandemic. It is a massive shame as well that so many businesses rely on big blockbusters such as these in order to survive.
I am mentioning all of this before getting to the base level of anticipation I had for Tenet – which as you can probably tell I was very much looking forward to. Christopher Nolan’s latest film had been soaked in mystery since it started production, and finally seeing the key gimmick teased (I broke my no trailers rule since I know I can trust this director with not spoiling the entire film in the trailer) I was looking forward to seeing what he can do with it.
As I got closer to seeing it and as the film committed to its release – which was a pretty risky move considering people were still apprehensive to leave their homes at the time – I was looking forward to, whilst also apprehensive about, going back to the cinema. I was also quite nervous about how this film was going to turn out. One thing that makes Christopher Nolan films so enjoyable is that they are fun to discuss. Each one is strong enough to place in a list and these lists can vary greatly. I remember saying to Ross and Ruwaida (who proposed we go and see it at Genesis), that I was concerned that the inversion mechanic was essentially going to be a gimmick.
When I went into the film, I was looking forward to an espionage movie of sorts with the Christopher Nolan brand of style and sophistication. What I got however was a bit of a tricky one.
The visuals were stunning and the opening sequence highlights this very well. The opening sequence on its own is a dynamic, fast moving, and intense siege sequence multiplied by 11 with the intense, stomping, and badass score from Ludwig Goransson. I was buzzing at this point in the movie as you just want to sink your teeth into this situation and understand what is going on. Problem is, it is awfully hard to figure out what is going on with the dialogue.
Why were the SWAT team going to blow up the theatre? I still have no idea why that was happening.
When the film’s sound mixing calms down a bit, you get to hear some of the important background info, but more times out of 10 is there are important parts to the plan or the plot which just can’t be deciphered.
We go through a couple of additional set pieces, my personal favourite being the heist in the Freeport, especially with Goransson’s eponymous track behind it. Robert Pattinson being a particular highlight for me in this sequence and throughout the film. As I mentioned before, I was very much looking forward to The Batman and seeing his performance in this film just makes me a little bit giddy to see it.
Overall, seeing how Christopher Nolan executed the inversion gimmick left a lot to be desired, mostly because the film leaves you feeling stupid in trying to understand what is going on half the time, which the inaudible dialogue doesn’t do much to help you with.
The thing that this film really missed out on, and I often felt that it did poke fun at this quite often throughout, is the brainpower you need to understand the basic rules of this world. They cover it twice, but I wish they had an equivalent of the ‘pencil and paper wormhole example’ scene that they had in Interstellar. I’m all for respecting the intelligence of the audience, but if you really want them to understand and feel your action, then you have to make it as easy and simple for them as possible. I did leave the cinema thinking about the film a lot, but not in a good way – I was left still trying to register what was happening in the fight scene in the Freeport.
This is made even worse with the final action sequence (which looks incredible) being completely incomprehensible to me, both in the motivations of the characters, in the action (why and how are they blowing up that building?) and what they’re saying. The film really suffered because it failed to hold the audience’s hand a little bit more.
Some of the time travel elements also seemed quite predictable, which I think is almost a fault of the Christopher Nolan genre of film. I know now to expect everything wrapped up in a super neat little package, so when Kat mentioned an unknown woman diving off a boat, I knew instantly that would her in another timeline. It is that type of “oh very clever Christopher Nolan” set-up and closure that he has come to be known for.
05.09.20 | Tenet
I did go and see Tenet twice, so it made its way into The Two-View Club and this did help me understand the dialogue a little bit better, but even then it didn’t help with the overall issue. The only way I understood the dialogue better now was because I knew exactly what they were referring to and would be featured in the next sequence. Furthermore, the dialogue still did not assist in helping to understand the base complications of the film, it made it worse by adding more nuances and complexity to the espionage plot. Also, the dialogue is not entirely that great, with some of it being a bit silly (obvious example being “including my son” from Kat when she finds out all of reality might collapse in on itself).
To finish up, I think that Tenet is an enjoyable film to watch. Made better by the fact I had not been in a cinema for so long and had this energy of being welcomed back. I am not entirely sure if releasing the film at the time they did was the right decision, but cinemas I went to seemed to be practicing social distancing rules quite well. The film is one I would watch again for its action and visuals, but the dialogue and plot are a bit clunky, inaudible, emotionally lacking and not fit for purpose. I would say Tenet is not Christopher Nolan’s best film, but I am not prepared to call it his worst.
minutiae+musings 