h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, opinions vary.

I'm glad you liked it. I didn't think it was actually bad, just disappointing in the way it underused what I thought were its best features.

"Spy" - can't remember when I last laughed so much. Highly recommended if you like spoofs, do ensure you stay seated for the second ending "morning after". BTW - have the rules about an erect penis being shown on film changed without my knowledge?



"Big Game" - a coming of age film with a twist, loved the portrayal of the POTUS as being an ordinary man instead of a superhero without his security team and very impressed with his young saviour's command of English.

GB

The Man from UNCLE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K4Iv_N9Nno

What a disappointment!

Probably down to me though because it seemed to bear little relation to the 50 year old TV series.

PP.

I thought it might be. I couldn't see any of the flavour of the old series in the trailer either. Thanks for saving me a long and expensive trip to the cinema that was showing it in the original English.

We saw Mission Impossible (Rogue Nation) the weekend before last. It did what it said on the tin and was a bit of fun. I don't agree with some critics that it was a Tom Cruise show-off film.

Monday night I saw "Irrational Man," a Woody Allen production starring Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix. Prior to the end, I thought it was going to bear a resemblance to Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors." Let me just say that it was clever, thought-provoking, and inventive.

Of course, I like Emma Stone in *anything*.

Last night I saw "Shaun the Sheep." It was very droll and a lot of fun!

Mr Holmes. Both of us fell asleep! Oh dear.

Self/Less. this body-swop thriller ticked every box for me. Recommended.

The Longest Ride. I don't know how the son of Clint Eastwood (and the spit out of his gob, as my mother would say) has slipped my attention before. If you can stand the American passion for bull-riding then you'll enjoy this story, it's a great date-night movie and you'll need a couple of hankies. Alan Alda was a true delight as we learn about his life through his letters and the links between his love and the young couple who save his life (and letters). I wish I'd read the book first but it's on my wishlist now. Recommended.

GB

I saw "Straight out of Compton" last night.

It is on my short, select list of movies so dreary that you want to jump off a bridge after seeing. Others on the list include "The Walk," "No Country for old men," and "Sanctum."

If anyone goes to see "Legend", keep an eye out for me.

I did a day as an extra, we filmed a scene in a white goods shop so I'm looking at cookers, fridges, washing machines with mangles etc, wearing a horrible green wool outfit and a hideous pink hat.

They also shot all the extras walking against a green screen for various 60s street scenes, so potentially I could pop up anywhere.

Last night I watched a DVD of Kurosawa's "Dodescaden." An affectionate look at people of a slum near Tokyo. They have little or nothing, but their imaginations are in full swing. One character imagines himself to be either a railroad conductor or a trolley. Another plans a new house with his son. There's an unfortunate young woman who seems about to keel over from overwork as she earns money from tying plastic petals together to make flowers. She's supporting a sick aunt and a husband who seems not to be doing anything. She also cooks all the meals, etc.

Primal Fear - an old film Ian recommended, which he found on DVD, very good it was.

Trainwreck. We saw this at the Senior Screen this week as it was the only option left. It's soft porn, with only one visible joke which made everyone laugh, the old towel-covering-tent-pole post coitus turn around. The trainwreck in question is the heroine whose favourite pastimes are having sex with as many men as she can, boozing and smoking dope. She manages to have a job of being a reporter and is sent to interview her pole opposite, a healthy-living sports doctor. After she seduces him they end up in a relationship to her utter puzzlement she keeps going back even though he makes her feel guilty about her lifestyle. In between this is her relationship with her younger sister who has a wholesome life with her husband, stepson and baby to be. They no longer have anything in common, except for their seriously-ill father whose care is costing mega-bucks. As this is an American comedy, a lot of the humour flew right over our heads and the constant appearances of basketball stars, no doubt instantly recognisable across the pond, meant nothing to us. The only star I recognised was Chrissy Evert, who appeared on some kind of panel show, which again, "whoosh" at all the Americanisms. I have to admit to a Madonna/Angelina Jolie moment when the heroine was first introduced to her step-nephew and he tried to explain to her the workings of the solar system. He was seriously cute and I'd have adopted him on the spot.

GB

This past week I saw "Phoenix" and "Driving lessons."

In "Phoenix," a woman who emerged from the WWII concentration camps had a disfigured face which needed to be rebuilt. After she recovered, she went looking for her husband who, as it turned out, had betrayed her by telling the Nazis where she was. He divorced her without her knowledge. He assumed she had died in the camps. After she found him again, he proposed using her to pretend she was his wife, as a tool to get the money she was promised and split it with her. He did not recognize her, so it was a great surprise to him that her signature matched. This was a hard movie to watch, as almost everything she did was against her own best interests.

"Driving lessons" starred Ben Kingsley as a Sikh refugee in Manhattan who drives a cab and gives driving lessons. Patricia Clarkson is a just-separated woman whose husband used to do all the driving, so now she needs to learn to drive so she can drive out to Vermont to visit her daughter [played by Grace Gummer, one of Meryl Streep's daughters]. A nice movie. If you like Patricia Clarkson, you'll want to see it.

We saw Absolutely Anything at the senior screen. This is the usual Simon Pegg fare, think Bruce Almighty meets Hitchhikers with some Monty Pythonesque slapstick thrown into the mix and you won't be far off the mark. We enjoyed it and glad we stayed long enough for the clip of Robin Williams (the voice of the dog) at the recording mike he was a genius and is much missed



We watched Survivor on DVD, a spy thriller with Pierce Brosnan as a hitman it's a bit like James Bond in reverse and you never quite know what's going on, or who is on which side. Worth watching.



Virus on the syfy channel last night, made in 1999 and unseen by both of us, it billed Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Sutherland plus one of the Baldwin brothers, I forget which, we thought it was worth risking and it was, I'd have called it sci-fi/horror as it's basic aliens creating a hybrid species of their technology and human body parts. It's gory and I was reminded of Stargate's replicators which were doing the actual building. Worth watching if you like the Terminator genre.

GB

Last week I saw "Black Mass," a dark film about Whitey Bulger with excellent acting all around. Career best performances for a lot of actors [like Kevin Bacon] whom you wouldn't suspect of great dramatic potential.

Monday I saw "Hotel Transylvania 2," one of the few Adam Sandler movies that didn't get undermined by Sandler's bad habits.

Last night I saw "The Intern," in which a 70-year-old retiree [Robert DeNiro] becomes an intern at a startup company run by Anne Hathaway. Quie entertaining .

Everest in 3D. You'll love this if you like snow, ice, the cold, frostbite, huge chasms, lots of slow climbing and loads of satellite phonecalls, not all of them correct. Not my favourite film of the year.



We saw Hitman Agent 47 at the Senior Screen. The announcer did warn us to put on bulletproof vests... apparently it's based on some video game, it's gory and we lost count of the body count 5 minutes in. OK if that's your thing, and there'll no doubt be a sequel or three.



Just got back from seeing The Martian in 3D.
I had seen the trailers, but I was on the edge of my seat and the special effects are mind-blowing. I actually thought I was in space and the astronaut who did an EVA without a tether?So brave, my heart was in my mouth and I could hardly breathe! If you see one film this year, you must go see this one. It's so much better than Gravity IMHO but Ian disagreed, he thought Gravity clinched it.

GB

I've been looking forward to "Everest," but it starts at 7:45 p.m. if I want to see it at night. That would have me driving home afterwards pretty late. I hate night driving....

The Scottish Play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgH_OnrYlCk

The landscapes were stunning.

Too many of the scenes were filmed in WOBllyvisION(tm) though and the sound was all in mmblsnd(Sctlnd).

Subtitles would have been handy (although I believe that copies of the script can be found at most good second hand shops).

Not recommended.

PP.

"Everest" turned out to be excellent, though it seemed to last forever.

"The Martian" was, as the guy at the ticket booth, out of this world.
I went in grumbling because the only showing that agreed with my schedule was a 3D version that cost fourteen bucks, but I came out convinced that it was worth every penny. It doesn't hurt that I like Matt Damon enough to feel pleasure watching him alone on the screen indefinitely. Plus, if I'm every stranded somewhere with just a sack of potatoes, I now know how to plant them and survive indefinitely.

Then there was "Pan," which I saw last night. Hugh Jackman is an immensely talented man who could *almost* make the character of Blackbeard the Piurate hang together with any sense of cohesiveness.
Garrett Hedlund is one of my favorite young actor5s. He is someone I've been expecting great things from for years, and I hoped going in that he would make the role of James Hook seem substantial. Sorry, the part was written like a cross between Indiana Jones and Han Solo, which Hedlund was able to furnish in spades. But there was no hint of the evil pirate captain he would become in later life. Rooney Mara is a young actress with great potential, but playing Tiger Lily did nothing to develop that potential. The initial scenes were in a World War II-era orphanage where Peter has been dumped by his mother. Blackbeard's ship comes in by dark of night and kidnaps orphans in his flying pirate ship. On his way back t6o Neverland, the RAF dutifully shoots at it, as if they assumed the Nazis were using pirate ship as bombers.... When the ship delivers its orphans to a huge mine in Neverland, they sing songs by Nirvana and the Ramones, which are form an entirely different era than the 1940s. This movie, too, was available in 3D [which in this case should stand for Dumb Dumb Dumb], but I was able to get the double-Dumb version.

I am still gobsmacked by the relentless incompetence of the movie's design.

Ok


Not ok.


They had flying pirate ships in the 1940's?

PP.

Thanks for your reviews paulh (I find them interesting and useful)

We saw The Man From Uncle last week, only because there was no other option for Tuesday morning as we'd seen the other two showings. I wasn't looking forward to it, seeing as how it had been slated here, but was prepared to JFM (judge for myself). We both enjoyed it, Ian didn't remember the original TV series but I was devoted to it (and probably still am). I was gobsmacked at casting Hugh Grant as Mr Waverly, but impressed by both the Napoleon Solo and Illya characters. Solo, spot on as an early James Bond-type, and Illya reminded me of a heart-throb Clark Kent. Once the memories of the TV series had been pushed firmly back in my mind I really enjoyed this - and I've never heard Ian laugh so much as he did during the destruction of the electric chair scene - I'll say no more. It was hysterical! I may buy him the dvd for Christmas just so we can share that scene again and again! I also liked the jumping back to other stuff going on, it certainly kept my attention and I liked the ending as well.



Paper Towns - again, the only option although if we'd known how dire this was going to be we'd have plumped to see The Man From Uncle again. It was all about a teenager and unrequited love, until she finally capitulates, then he walks away back to his original hopes and dreams. Is every teenager in the USA insured to drive everyone else's and their mothers' cars? And where do these no-limit credit cards come from?Some nice scenery but the motley crew of the teenager's friends and their snapshots of growing-up pains didn't raise our rating of "don't bother".

GB