Robots - Jack Whitehall “comedy” on Prime. A spoiled man child has an illegal robot do all his dirty work for him, including picking up women. Hilarity does not ensue [3]

Kingsman: The Secret Service - Matt Vaughn at his directorial best in a story about a kid from the streets joining the secretest of secret organisations. Super stylised action movie with the church scene still one of the best choreographed fight scenes put to screen, even more so due to Firth being the man in the middle of it all [10]

No I really enjoyed that Robots.

19 movies watched.  I'm really lagging this year.


19. Return to Seoul - 9 July
A Korean adopted by a French couple as a baby ends up in Seoul as a grown woman, and tries to locate her biological parents, ending up stuck between two cultures and two worlds, searching for her true identity.  The lead is a revelation as a first-time actor and the story is highly emotional and affecting.  Moments of briliance throughout with some very nuanced acting, the movie as a whole was only slightly ruined (for me) by some of the narrative choices/direction.
[8]

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning (Part 1)
This is, for my money, a definite step down from Fallout, whilst still a Good Time.  The writing leans far too heavily on people repeatedly restating what's going on, and by having an amorphous AI entity as its villain, it lacks a bad guy with the physical oomph that Cavill brought before.

The women in this film are easily the more interesting characters, and yet it's clear that it doesn't quite know what to do with them.  Rebecca Ferguson is wonderful but criminally underused, whilst Vanessa Kirby gets a little more to get her teeth into than last time, but still feels a bit one note.  Pom Klemtieff manages to pretty effectively erase all memories of Mantis from her CV, but really, it's only Hayley Attwell who really gets to do much. Fortunately she's great, and threatens to steal the movie from under Cruise's nose. 

Ah, Cruise.  Does he run?  Yes, of course he does. And jumps off things.  And through things. And hits people, and falls over - appearing only to falter when faced with the challenge of the hit and miss comedy sequences. Meanwhile Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg are... there.

Of course, none of this matters. What matters are the action scenes, and these are, mostly, fantastic. Cars will chase, motorbikes will jump, stuff will explode, and a whole section appears to have been lifted wholesale from Uncharted 2 (very successfully).

So, yeah, not the best M:I movie - though quite where I place it in the pantheon will ultimately depend on whether Part 2 delivers. (Yes, it's another half finished bloody movie, which is all the rage at present.). It is, none the less, exactly what anyone - including me - hopes and expects to get from this sort of film. Just not the surpassing of those expectations that Fallout delivered.


Hatching

Odd little Finnish horror flick.  Be warned, this is one of those horror movies that's About Something - much more so than it is about actual scares. That said, having embraced that sub-text, it delivers it with aplomb.

The central character, Tinja, is a teenage girl who finds a strange egg in the woods, and decides to hatch it.  For a while it's hard to know who the monster in the film will prove to be - the monstrous bird that emerges, or Tinja's mother - an awful, controlling woman who is fixated on documenting her supposedly perfect family online.

There is something slightly off kilter about the tone of the film from the outset, and plaudits definitely ought to go to the people responsible for designing Tinja's gloriously grotesque bird buddy.

As I say, it's not a particularly scary film, and most of the truly awful stuff happens off screen, but it's still pleasingly nasty in places, and makes its point remarkably effectively...

Spotlight Thought I had seen this, but it seems not. Tale of catholic child abuse cover up in Boston exposed by investigative journalists. Top rank cast make the 2hrs fly past. An important film that is extremely well made.

It's really good. A colleague described it as the paedo Zodiac and it fits.

Scream
My favourite slasher movie.
In fact one of my favourite movies in general. Love it.
5 knives out of 5

Scream 2
Decent enough sequel and returning cast.
The movie (and franchise) really misses Jamie Kennedy when gets offed.
3.5 Knives out of 5

Scream 3
Oh my god what is Courtney Cox doing with that hair.
1.5 Knives out of 5

Bodies Bodies Bodies
Fucking awful.
At one point I found myself shouting "shoot her in the face" after an annoying prick of a character went on some ear bleeding rant about their blog.

I wanted everyone to die painfully by the end. Maybe that's the point but it sure doesn't make for an entertaining movie.

Ha, yeah I didn't like it that much either. But not because the characters are obnoxious (I think that's the point of the film) but because I think the film is meant to be kind of a rug pull sort of movie but I don't think anyone is so stupid to believe what its trying to pretend is going on for one second.

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

Neighbours knocked on the door thinking something bad was happening because of the rumble from the subwoofer.

Achievement unlocked.

@Shabby yesss mate I like the new Godzilla flicks. Perfect popcorn monster movies.

Its just not that great a film as a first time watch these days.

20. Running Out of Time - 15 July
Stylish cat-and-mouse movie acted out between a criminal who has 72 hours to live and an intelligent cop who is stuck in a clerical role. Calssic Hong Kong action thriller.
[8]

poprock wrote:

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

Neighbours knocked on the door thinking something bad was happening because of the rumble from the subwoofer.

Achievement unlocked.

Everybody needs good friends.

Three Thousand Years of Longing

Swinton and Elba clearly enjoying themselves in the tale of the Djinn from the bottle. A film of two halves where the first half is much stronger than the second. I wish for a little bit of a better script. [6]