Reel Heroes

Don't think I've mentioned these before but the awesome Manface bought me these for my birthday one year;

• Serenity (2005)

• Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010)

Apologies, broken laptop, crappy Blogger app and too lazy to use coding means you only get crappy images from my iPhone camera now! I am so good to you.

These are the 'Reel Heroes' comic cover editions of two of my favourite films and they are fricking gorgeous! 

Wipe Yourself Off Man, You Dead

So, as quickly as it all began it stops again!

I have a few things to tell you about. I went to see Muppets Most Wanted (2014) and The Double (2013).

One was awesome. One sucked. Will hopefully tell you about that soon. I also got to see Rush (2013) in the wonderful world of home cinema. 

However my dear old friend Sonny the laptop, after five long years, decided to quite spectacularly catch fire and writing blog posts on mobile is painful!

Otherwise I would have embedded this awesome clip into the title, but I am too lazy to work out if I can use coding within the Blogger mobile app, and even so I can't be bothered to use coding on a mobile phone for every link I want to embed and every bit of style I want to include. 

So, look forward to nothing but short, completely un-interactive posts about drivel for a while. In the meantime I will either attempt to find a blogging app that doesn't completely suck, or sing on street corners until I can afford a new laptop. 

Laters taters!

Edit: As you can see, I have  new laptop and the compulsive in me couldn't bare to let this post stay with no direct links or without that clip embedded into the post. Yey for me!

Judging a Film by It's Trailer! - Friday 11th April 2014

Welcome to your second week of Judging a Film by It's Trailer! Let's see if we can make this one out on time shall we!

So in case you didn't tune in last week, here's the deal;

Using the list courtesy of Launching Films, I watch the trailers of all the movies (hopefully, if not as many as I get to in time) being released in UK cinemas on the coming Friday. Give my basic thoughts, and categorise them into Green, Orange and Red, dependent on my desperation to watch them. The categorisation is pretty basic, but I'm only watching the trailers so that's the point. Snap decisions based on often badly constructed representations of the final product. Woooo for badly informed choices!

If you want intelligent review, step away now.

Friday 11th April 2014

• The Quiet Ones
• Calvary
• The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears
• The Lunchbox
• The Last Days on Mars
• Khumba: A Zebra's Tale (3D)
• Half Of A Yellow Sun
• The Raid 2
• Pioneer
• The King And The Mockingbird
• Willow And Wind (Beed-o Baad)

Lets get to it then shall we!

An Ode to the 80s Cinema

Or Showcase Cinema, Bristol Avonmeads.

Photo from Geograph.org.uk

This is a really random post, but I just have to talk about how much I love this hideous, eyesore of a cinema.This Showcase cinema is probably one of the most neglected (by cinemagoers, not the staff or management) cinemas in Bristol or my whole area really, and I absolutely adore it! Here is why;

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) Review

Or, I don't know what the bloody hell is happening, but it's a bloody good ride. 

You can watch the trailer here.

So, there's me getting all smug that I'm up to date with my film reviews for the first time ever, when I realised I forgot to review my favourite film so far this year!

I am one of those dirty millennial postmodernists so of course dear old Wes Anderson is pretty much my God, and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) marks a return to top form. 

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed Moonrise Kingdom (2012). The perils of young love were adorable and I loved the way their relationship blossomed, all over the backdrop of a young scout taking his badges far too seriously. It was perfect, and it was totally Wes. 

However it didn't quite feel right. Wes's films are snappy and full of lunacy and move so quickly from one moment to the next that we don't have time to question the bizarreness of it all. That's the fun of his dialogue. It all comes across as people talking to themselves in the mirror, reacting quicker than their brains can process speech as it is practically all a train of thought. 

Moonrise Kingdom was much slower and more indulgent. Which was a nice change of pace but not where his best filmmaking functions. I got the impression he came across this kid, Jared Gilman, fell in love with him, and just wanted to see where it would go. I can't blame him, Gilman was amazing, and Moonrise Kingdom is still far better than most films out there, but it was never going to be my favourite.

Grand Budapest however was just perfect. So much so that I came out of the cinema just plain loving it. I couldn't pick out any individual bits that made it perfect. It just was. It's not very often I can go into a film and completely suspend all disbelief. Anderson is the only director I have known to get me to put down my analysis hat and just let me go along for the ride. 

Judging a Film by It's Trailer! - Friday 4th April 2014

This is what I am hoping will be a weekly fixture, though I'm not going to commit as I know it won't happen. I watch the trailers. Give my basic thoughts, and categorise them into Green, Orange and Red, dependent on my desperation to watch them. The categorisation is pretty basic, but I'm only watching the trailers so that's the point! Snap decisions based on often badly constructed representations of the final product!

If you want intelligent review, step away now.

So this week British Cinemas get to be graced by the following gems. Lists courtesy of Launching Films.

Friday 4 April 2014

• Divergent
• The Double
• Haunter
• Honour
• Main Tera Hero
• The Motel Life
• Noah
• Rio 2 (3D)
• A Story of Children and Film
• Tom at the Farm
• Visitors

Lets get to it then shall we!

Dead Man (1995) Review

Or, are we dead yet?

You can find the trailer here.

I had never heard of Dead Man (1995) and I am amazed such a film has managed to slip under so many people's radars.

Here is your IMDB synopsis;

Dead Man is the story of a young man's journey, both physically and spiritually, into very unfamiliar terrain. William Blake travels to the extreme western frontiers of America sometime in the 2nd half of the 19th century. Lost and badly wounded, he encounters a very odd, outcast Native American, named "Nobody," who believes Blake is actually the dead English poet of the same name. The story, with Nobody's help, leads William Blake through situations that are in turn comical and violent. Contrary to his nature, circumstances transform Blake into a hunted outlaw, a killer, and a man whose physical existence is slowly slipping away. Thrown into a world that is cruel and chaotic, his eyes are opened to the fragility that defines the realm of the living. It is as though he passes through the surface of a mirror, and emerges into a previously-unknown world that exists on the other side.