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

Oh and on Man of Steel the following link perfectly, brilliantly, expresses all my issues with the film. It is great.

Dont read if you have not yet seen MOS as it contains huge film ruining spoilers.

http://thrillbent.com/blog/man-of-steel-since-you-asked/

FB

[Doesn't read]

A few hours form now, I will have seen the film.

We saw The Big Wedding at the Senior Screen and the opening scene had us rolling in the aisles. From then on there were plenty of laughs and Robert de Niro, always worth the entrance fee for me, was brilliant as the laid-back character clueless to the devastation his behaviour causes. We'd read some dire reviews of this but chose to ignore and glad we did. It's a great date movie. 9/10.

Zero Dark Thirty, on DVD last night, not a date movie. I couldn't watch a lot of it, it's stomach-churning stuff. It gave me a headache and made me depressed, exactly the opposite effect I want from a film. I can't imagine why my partner declared it a "good film" but vive la difference. He gave it 8/10, me, I wish I'd had an early night.

GB

It's amazing how you can trash almost a whole city in one scene, and then show everything nicely rebuilt in a later one....with no explanation for how fast the rebuilding happened. In particular the Daily Planet building.

There was a pervasive atmosphere of overkill in "Man of Steel." I lost any sense of wonder at the special effects because there were so many of them, and they flashed past my eyes before I could really take them in.

I'm in dire need of distraction so I picked up Pitch Perfect because it was cheap in Tesco. Whilst probably not everybody's cup of tea, I loved it. Fun musical numbers, great performances (both acting and musical) from all involved and really, really funny.

Rebel Wilson was particularly great and Elizabeth Banks is cropping up on my radar a lot at the moment. She's got a great role in this.

Mr Poppers Penguins.

At last, a Jim Carey fillum I can actually watch without cringing. Some lovely funny moments, and technically fabulous live(?) penguin action.

Tonight I watched The Troublemaker - "sequel" to Predator: "Predators", and very good it is too. A film made for fans by fans.

Meanwhile here are my (belated) collected thoughts on Man of Steel:


So superman... Was well...a bit rubbish.

*********************

I've not seen a film in a long time that so lacked any emotional resonance ( in spite of all the gurning and shouting) I realised part way through as I was watching that I didn't care. And it was the strangest thing.

Seen in microcosm of when Kent Snr 'goes back for the dog' - we have superman screaming but I didn't feel it. Compare that to previous incarnations when a dicky ticker is what does him in - and we have some actual drama - Superman the indestructible demi-god can't save us from our own human frailty of our fragile bodies or rather that is now what he must do, take care of us. In man of Steel we have a contrivance of a scenario where super-powers actually would have made a difference, in order to progress this plot idea of 'it's too dangerous to reveal himself yet' - and cue the melodrama of shouting directly at the camera as a substitute for actual emotion. And what this misses then is the catalyst for why Superman cares for people.

There's a parallel to this feeling of detachment when the final reel kicks and and millions perish to the uninspiring computer game of Injustice: Gods amongst us. BAM down goes another skyscraper screams silenced by collapsing masonry - but this superman does screaming and shouting as synonym for emotion - and frail humans are not to be seen apart from the tableux moment of tension involving the three reporters. At least they did not commit the Promethean sin of
'large object falls at you run in a straight line' - so they had some common sense at least.

Also it turns out, that the Kryptonians are a giant synonym for The Nazis. Especially the bald one and the sociopathic woman - who made that weird 'we have no morality' monologue.

As if the cliche and confused temperament of the film wasn't bad enough I'm fairly sure they borrowed the basic structure of third act from The Matrix Revolutions, computer animations hitting each other while building fall over.(see also transformers 1 through 3)


Finally, how did Lois Lane get to grand central station so fast? (or why was she on the bomber? Just to fall out of it?)
I have an open bet she's secretly a teleporter - and will pull double duty in the next X-man movie

Oh wow. I guess if I was curious about that then the film really wasn't holding my attention.

Prepared to be underwhelmed and possibly perplexed but certainly disappointed.

P.S

One of my friends at work mentioned to me how they wish they could have seen more of the relationship between Jor-el and Zod, even in Jor-el keeps turning up even though he's dead. (oops - spoliers!) - but as it happens I feel they've thumbed another zit of annoyance I had with the movie.

Superman is not the protagonist: things happen TO him.
Contrast that with oh say I don't know, Batman - and for all the flaws of that series (and there surely must be some) - the films are actually about how Bruce Wayne engineers the persona of Batman and how that is challenged and sculpted by the events that unfold after he steps off the plane and tells Alfred he's had an idea..
The main rivalry in this film is between Jor-el and Zod - it is to spite Jor-el that Zod goes to Earth (I WILL FIND HIM!!) and for the single-minded devotion to reforge a new Krypton with the oh-so-handily contrived world terraforming spider robot but that's window dressing to blow the special effects budget - the emotional motive is to revenge a perceived wrong by exterminating Jor-el's son.

My friend cottoned onto this when he said he wanted more of that relationship on screen and not just implied - but it pints to a deeper set of dramatic flaws with this film, IMO.
This may well be 'the best superman movie ever' but it is not contradiction to also say it is not a good film.

I give it a poor 2/5.

I went to see World War Z on Friday. Once you get over the yawny focus of Brad Pitt caring more about where his family sleeps that night than zombies taking over the entire planet, it's a decent film. I don't have a problem with zombies that run either (the running zombies in Dead Set made me realise that they are a lot scarier than the shambling, shuffling sort) and this made for some proper scary moments. The rewritten ending was good but the final scenes felt really flat. However, it was an enjoyable film and I'm thankful as it could have been a lot worse.

Unfortunately, many of the better movie choices this week are in places that aren't as easy to get to as the multiplex down the street from me. The only one I especially want to see is "Monsters University," which will be cheaper tomorrow than today, so I will wait.

I'm on the fence about "World War Z." I don't understand why the zombie genre [if there is one] didn't die out fifty years ago. Zombies are technically impossible. If they really did exist, chances are an effective way of protecting yourself from them would exist as well, so you wouldn't be able to fill 90 minutes worth of screen time shooting them and fleeing from them.

Terry Pratchett had a sensible approach: his highest-profile zombie [the lawyer Slant] has a dessicated, soulless way about him. He doesn't need to attack anyone, as he is well-paid and respected by the upper-class patrons who hire him. No stumbling, drooling forays for brain food.

Behind the Candelabra.

Too long and I didn't end up knowing any more that I was interested in.

My own fault for going really.

PP.

Zombie films just won't die.

I went to my local arthouse theater to see "The East" last night. The projector broke, and the management had to give all of us passes so we can see it another time.

Paul, you've kind of missed the point of zombie movies (and fiction, if the "it's impossible so why make stories about it?" angle is anything to go by ).

The zombies in zombie movies are not things that have been around for ages. They are new, they are scary, and they are relentless that's why there is 90 minutes of shooting and fleeing. Yes, in conventional fantasy zombies are a thing that is known, and as they are created by magic not too common. In the zombie disaster movie there is an event (usually unspecified, because of narrative mystery) which causes the dead to rise with the insatiable appetite for human flesh. There is no infrastructure to deal with it, because it's not something that anyone expected to happen. Discworld, however quirky it is, is still fantasy and thus distinct from zombie movies.

The last three zombiemopvies I saw were:

Warm bodies [2013]
Zombieland [2009]
Grindhouse [2007]

I don't go out of my way to see zombie movies, nor do I go out of my way to avoid them. If something interesting is being done with the premise, I'm apt to be open. The question now is, are there any interesting new twists in "War World Z" that would make it more worth seeing than some of the other movies that came out the same week?

It surely can't be better than Sean of the Dead?

I... don't watch zombie movies for twists and cleverness, and I don't know why anyone would (touching breifly upon the entertainment for entertainment's sake debate). The best zombie movies are about social commentary (i.e. Romero). I'm not terribly likely to see World War Z until it's on telly because I really enjoyed the book and the fillum seems pretty far removed from the book in terms of how it deals with the whole thing, and in a way that is not beneficial to the narrative in my opinion.

Best film I've seen lately was probably Despicable Me - a kids film that had me grinning and engaged throughout.

I think I may be regressing into a second childhood - yay!

"It surely can't be better than Sean of the Dead?" [PhilFogg]

I regret that I didn't see that one.Wish I had.

"I... don't watch zombie movies for twists and cleverness, and I don't know why anyone would (touching breifly upon the entertainment for entertainment's sake debate)." [Mr. Dreadful]

It's about sizing up the alternatives. A movie with some interesting twists is apt to be head and shoulders above the sort of movie where you know how it's going to end by the end of the first thirty minutes. From March through August, there are many weeks when the most desirable movie to watch is not really all that good. From October through January, by contrast, it's wise to see almost everything, because the studios trot out their awards contenders then. So, the movie year is extremely uneven. Unfortunately, I miss out on a few good ones late in the year, and have to split hairs in the middle. Well, that's life. There are summer blockbusters, which aren't always particularly good. "Man of Steel" could have benefited with better casting in the title role. Just my opinion, though.

Despicable Me is rather good, isn't it? We saw it the other day for the first time and it was great!

As for World War Z: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/wwz

Paul, I rarely consider intellectual content when choosing a film to watch. I think to myself "do I want to watch this?" If the answer is "yes" I go and watch it. Entertainment for entertainment's sake. If it also happens to be clever then cool beans, but I'm not going to be bothered if it doesn't.

"I regret that I didn't see that one.Wish I had."

You are aware that home entertainment is a thing, right?

last night I watched SE7EN in a short while I think I will watch Pulp Fiction.