What was the last film you watched?

[Kim]

Travelling By Map is a tried and trusted Hollywood staple though.  Imagine the Indiana Jones films, for example, if there were long sequences of Harrison Ford hanging around grubby aerodromes tutting and looking at his watch.

That would still be a be better film than Crystal Skull.

[Ruthie]

Interstellar.

A kind of shuftied re-make of 2010.  So many visual, thematic and audio references to other films that my inner geek was going mental with joy.  I really enjoyed it.  It didn't have the sheer Hubble-esque beauty of Gravity, but I thought it was a better film, because it played with all that inter-dimensional, metaphysical wotsit, and there was more plot.

I want to go and see it again.  I'd love to see it on an IMAX screen.

[citoyen]

We're thinking of going to see The Imitation Game tonight. It looks dreadful but as long as I can remind myself that it's just a bit of entertainment, not a documentary, it might be fun.

I'm pleased to say that it lived up to all my expectations. There were several eye-rolling moments but I can't deny that I enjoyed it. Having a decent local cinema makes a huge difference - I feel more inclined to forgive a film its flaws when the overall experience of cinema-going is so pleasant.

[Kim]

Interstellar.

A kind of shuftied re-make of 2010.

With Helen Mirren?  I'd watch that.

[Ruthie]

Tragically, no.  But Ann Hathaway is pretty good.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

The Drop

Brilliant, not to be missed, IMO.

[Riggers]

Interstellar.

My wife and I (after much badgering from our son, who insisted we must see-Interstellar-at-the-cinema-or-else-we'd-regret-it-because-it's-fantastic-on-the-big-screen-and-possibly-one-of-his-favourite-films) felt we'd managed a 'big thing' on Friday evening – rather than vegetate after visiting Sainsbury's – we 'had us tea' and ventured back out to visit the cinema.

Enjoyed the film very much. Concept of time distortion was very thought-provoking. Then again, anything to do with space is very thought-provoking. One has to be accepting to certain aspects of the film, but hey, who cares!?

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

We're thinking of going to see The Imitation Game tonight. It looks dreadful but as long as I can remind myself that it's just a bit of entertainment, not a documentary, it might be fun.

I'm pleased to say that it lived up to all my expectations. There were several eye-rolling moments but I can't deny that I enjoyed it. Having a decent local cinema makes a huge difference - I feel more inclined to forgive a film its flaws when the overall experience of cinema-going is so pleasant.

It did fail to give overt credit for the achievements of Bletchley to the USA.  (Although Turing was posthumously 'honored'.)  And they managed not to mention Poland. 

[citoyen]

It did fail to give overt credit for the achievements of Bletchley to the USA.

 

And they managed not to mention Poland.

Actually, they mentioned Poland twice! They even credited the Poles with stealing the Enigma machine, although they made it sound as if they were just couriers delivering it to the Brainy Brit Boffins who were obviously much better equipped to do the Difficult Sums part of the job.

I particularly enjoyed the way that having cracked the code, the Turing team was suddenly transformed from one small team of cryptologists within the much larger Bletchley organisation to being leading military strategists in charge of running the whole war.

(click to show/hide)

There was recently a bit in the Guardian (of course) criticising the historical inaccuracies of the film, the main criticism being the slanderous suggestion that Turing would have refused to dob in a known spy in order to keep his sexuality concealed. Which would be a fair point except for the fact that he did dob in the spy. (The other fact, that the real life Turing never even met the spy, let alone work alongside him, is a moot point.)

[Andrew]

Before I Go To Sleep - tense stuff. Colin Firth with a twist to the character he usually plays, Nicole Kidman doing neurotic so convincly that you'd think she was ( ), in a tale that nods more than a little to Christopher Nolan's truly excellent 'Momento'. Worth a watch.

Revolutionary Road - like watching a stage play. Perhaps not surprising given the director's, Sam Mendes, background. Kate Winslett is excellent (and denied an Oscar nomination) and Leornardo Dicaprio is very good, they play a young married couple in a real life v dreams debate. This is a strong, thoughtful and thought provoking film let down by a slightly weak script; at times it seems naïvely innane. Thematically similar in respects to Mendes' more polished 'American Beauty' it is none the less a film to look out for.

[IanDG]

Went to see the 're-mastered' Withnail and I at local cinema. Haven't done a good job in cleaning up the film, Withnail is still a foul mouthed scruffy drunk and their flat is minging!

[L CC]

Step Up 4 - With Some Additional Sentence.


A trial of parenting.
I thought she owed me, but clearly I am still paying for something.

[andrewc]

Saw "The Imitation Game" last week, well acted & entertaining, but some artistic licence with the facts!

Last night was "Hockney, Live from LA" , Screen 1 was full and there was applause at the end 

A rambling biopic from childhood to art school and then fame & fortune.  Lots of interviews with friends & family and excerpts from his own films and films others have made of him.   Lots of pictures....

He comes across as a nice, decent bloke.   Interesting facts, Hockney & his father were both concientious objectors & active in CND, he also describes his father painting a perfect straight line along the top tube of a bicycle , he gave up on cycling in LA though...

[mcshroom]

Don't know whether this counts as it's as much a documentary as a movie, but "Bicycle - a Great British Movement"

It will have limited appeal outside of cycling circles, but covers lots of stuff I found interesting, such as how Chris Boardman ended up on that bike in Barcelona, along with the journey that cycling has been on over the decades in the UK. I think a good guide would be that if you enjoyed the Cyclorama programmes that BBC4 did last spring then you'll enjoy this.

[Kim]

Also worth watching if you're from the Birmingham area, for the many repeated shots of Brum's half-decent stretch of Sustrans path, and footage of some contractors proudly applying loose gravel to the towpath under Lifford Lane.

[RJ]

Interstellar.

Went last night, with a scientific pal ...

Enjoyed the film very much. Concept of time distortion was very thought-provoking. Then again, anything to do with space is very thought-provoking. One has to be accepting to certain aspects of the film, but hey, who cares!?

Indeed - best not to poke too hard with the logic stick in some places. File under enjoyable, good-looking tosh - quality entertainment.

[mattc]

just got back from Interstellar. Other audience - 1 teenage girl, 14-15?


Definitely worth seeing (particularly on The Big Screen). Loads of good things, loads of flaws.

[L CC]

Get On Up

The James Brown biopic.
I'm a huge fan, so it would probably have had to be dreadful for me not to love  it.
I loved it.

[Andrew]

Gravity.

Nope. Like 'The Archers' with cgi... stay with me. Ever see a badly dubbed film? Where you have this mental image of the actors standing around a microphone delivering their lines? Well, that's how Gravity struck me in the first x minutes. Sandra Bullock grunting and gnar'ing into a studio microphone. Thereafter, the movie was doomed for me.

Special effects? Yeah, brilliant probably. It often just looked wrong to me. Zero gravity floating about scenes? Yep, sure, bet they were difficult and time consuming and demanding to do...  but.... the movie was, well, ordinary. An entertainment miss for me.

I'm not even sure what it was about. Or what it was telling me.

RTFM perhaps? Just as well the Chinese use the same colour coding as the Soviets, as the Americans. Christ, Bullock could have been operating a microwave, or setting the video recorder. Praps downloading a podcast.... of 'The Archers' no less.

Sorry, maybe it was technically brilliant but it was a ho-hum movie.

[Ruthie]

Andrew, if you watch the iMax Hubble Telescope movie, you'll see what Gravity was trying to add a poor story to.  Gravity owes much to this film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1433813/

Which is a wonderful documentary.

[citoyen]

Blue Jasmine

Strange. Not at all what I was expecting - and all the better for it. Some proper laugh out loud moments but pretty bleak overall - more Mike Leigh than Woody Allen. The reveal at the end, where the two timelines were tied up, was genuinely surprising and effective. Cate Blanchett is brilliant.

I've never seen A Streetcar Named Desire, so I don't know how it compares - how much is a straight lift and how much is original.

[Kim]

Avatar (yes, I'm hopelessly out of touch).

Visually stunning, with all the pace that you expect from a James Cameron action movie.  Though some of the alien life did make me think he'd rather have been remaking The Abyss.

But it's still Pocahontas vs The Space Marines with a plot so shallow it didn't begin to make sense.  Could try harder.

+20 points for CGI and motion capture
+5 points for Sigourney Weaver as Dian Fossey
-50 points for the white saviour plot, casual disablism and cultural misappropriation

[woollypigs]

Just right on time before the next three

[redshift]

...+5 points for Sigourney Weaver as Dian Fossey

…Wot?  Again?

[Kim]

...+5 points for Sigourney Weaver as Dian Fossey

…Wot?  Again?

Pretty much.  Once I worked it out it was hard to see her character as anything else.