Films

The Host 2006.

... if you liked Battle Royale etc.

Didn't love Rogue one, it was alright but thats about it. Defo couldn't watch again unlike a lot of the other star wars films.

Arrival tho, best film I've seen all year. The soundtrack, the cinematography and the story were unreal was really sad at the end but loved it and the message behind it.

I thought I was going to see Arrival yesterday, turned out the missus had booked tickets to passengers instead. [spoilers ahead]

passengers gets a full house in sci-fi broken space ship in space and bog standard love story trope bingo. space walk to fix broken thing gone wrong, manual door override meaning certain death, big sucky hole in the side of ship, reactor on verge of meltdown. check check check check. man does bad thing, gets ready to propose, woman finds out bad thing, goes mental, ends up falling back in love with him like nothing every happened. check check check check check check fucking check.

the ending is fucking ridiculous too, there's about 100 things they could have done that fall in between the two options they agonise between at the end and all would have meant much less of an overall compromise.

pratt plays the lead well and visually it's done well and the story is ok its just been done a million times before.

sounds infinitely more interdasting than the arrivals.

I'm making my way through lots of films from the last few years and watched Gods Of Egypt last night. It's properly bad.

Off to see Why Him? tonight.
Have incredibly low expectations, and anticipate to be disappointed still.

Why??? Stay in!

It's certainly a tough watch. A story that needs to be heard though.

Movies at the parents, who don't like horror, "american stupid shit" <- gotta love my dad sometimes, he means the usual cop shooty movie so ended up with this:

Transsiberian, not bad, but I didn't buy the actions of the female lead. Still, not too bad.

Had to sit through home alone 3 for wee man, not a bad one in the list. Beware of Trump cameo in nr 2...

Hellraiser 2: Liked number 2, in this one the plot went a bit southish. Still the soundtrack is hair-rising awesomeness if you are into bombastic orchestral music, and it has a few fine scenes.

The brand new testament: Good start, then sags in the middle. The characters etc don't go somewhere, though the ending is nice. The previous effort of Van Dormael Mr. Nobody was much better script wise. Still, points for originality.

Next up,
'Hukkunud Alpinisti' hotell the book could be better, but I haven't read it yet. Belfast library doesn't stock any Strugatsky books...maybe I should buy and donate them, tsssssssss!

Assassin's Creed is really bad.
A new low for video game movies.

Watched Kung Fu Hustle, Bone Tomahawk & Predator yesterday.

Kung Fu Hustle is immensely enjoyable, many lolz, many kick-ass.

Bone Tomahawk's a damn good genre mashup, though a peculiar blend of painstaking attention to period detail and a horror thriller. Very good performances from the cast, Kurt Russell being spot on as the hard bitten, yet courteous law giver.

Watching Predator was a great blast from the past. Can't be long before they dust off that franchise and reboot it.

Sci-fi movies - I really enjoyed Europa Report, also The Expanse (tv series) is a great binge-watch

TX will put on list :)

The Handmaiden. Not one to watch with your mum in the room. Well maybe you're mum.

Passengers - I had exactly the same situation, and reached exactly the same conclusion.

However, I was a 3D virgin and the fact that I stayed awake throughout has made a convert out of me.

Scorsese's latest reviews are a bit meh, I hoped it would lead Neeson away from unlikely action hero roles.

I really enjoyed it but sensed I was in the minority in the cinema judging by the number of walkouts (full house reduced to less than half over the course of the film).

I find Adam Driver typecast into dorky new york comic roles so struggled to see beyond an iffy accent. However knowing Andrew Garfield basically just from Spiderman I was hugely impressed. Neeson's character is an afterthought but held up. Yosuke Kubozuka was a joy. Issei Ogata was hilarious. Lots of lovely images and palette from Rodrigo Prieto. The sound design was fabulous and rich as you'd expect from a film with a name like Silence. Scorsese's staging still wallops anyone else working today (save J.C. Chandor). It was long, but so's Casino and I found it far more rewarding than anything he's made for years (I watched Silence yesterday and in the preceding 10 days I rewatched every single Scorsese film in order so feel vaguely confident in that assessment). That said I'm desperately looking forward to The Irishman.

After watching every single Scorsese film, which one was your favourite?

Going to see A Monster Calls tomorrow night feel there might be tears...

Top Ten favourites:

1. Goodfellas
   
2. Cape Fear
   
3. The Colour of Money
   
4. The Departed
   
5. Hugo (!)
   
6. After Hours
   
7. Mean Streets
   
8. The Aviator
   
9. The King of Comedy
   
10. Shutter Island
    
    

Yes, no Taxi Driver or Raging Bull.

"Best" is another list entirely and I'd give serious thought to Silence getting charting at number 3 or above.

What a guy, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxYl93p0ksc

Have you seen Infernal Affairs?

The original Hong-Kong movie the departed is based on.

Very good as well.

Love it. It's weird, despite having made that (or at least co-directed) Andy Lau has made some utter shite - including the bizarre Revenge of The Green Dragons starring none other than Ray Liotta and exec produced by Martin Scorsese!

Catching up on stuff I didn't see last year and noticed Sing Street is on Netflix, it's great. Tunes aren't too bad either

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuWTcmjnEGY

Went to see Collateral Beauty last night, not actually knowing what it was about and that it got pied on rotten tomatoes but I actually like it. Kinda sad and quite emotional and in the end everything worked out. 6.5/10