Be Excellent To Each Other

A fair description

It comes crashing to a halt at least three times as we are visited by Basil Exposition, given information a more skilled screenwriter could have woven into the script naturally. It was nice seeing Snoop Dog though.

I watched Fisherman's Friends - The Return of the Friends and Beast at the weekend. The first was exactly what you'd expect, and I thought they worked in a bit of jeopardy just about well enough to justify it. The reviews do not agree, and fair enough, but it was cheering. We all needed it, particularly after a fellow audience member fell ill, collapsed and had to be taken out on a stretcher. Though by the time they took him out, he was apologising and receiving an audience's worth of "don't you worry my love", "get well!" in return.

And Beast is Idris Elba and Sharlto Copley taken on by a rogue lion. It's competent, and a good excuse to show views of the savannah.

Is fisherman friends the sea shanty group. I saw them at a festival the other week, and they were awesome.

That is them! Now with two films about them.

I will look them up... They are awesome live.

And how is this the first I'm hearing of it??

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (the Nick Cage biopic) is surprisingly safe but nonetheless a good time and plenty of fun. I enjoyed it a lot and it had a few good laughs.

I was just annoyed it wasn’t more ambitious as the “plot” was fucking dire.

Everything Everywhere All At Once, now included with Prime Video, is a fever dream of a film. I loved it.

Both of those two are flipping awesome.

I was quite disappointed with The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent - it turned into a generic "actor forced to be the person he is in movies" story that I'd seen many times before.

Yeah but did Nic do any of the meme faces?

Lightyear was alright. It just wasn’t as much fun or had as much heart as the Toy Story films. Also, there’s a couple of sequences that weren’t fleshed out enough or had enough thought out into them for me. I dunno, it just lacked the sparkle of early Pixar films. Worth a watch mind, just don’t expect much.

Thor love and thunder is now on Disney+. It's no Ragnarok - I doubt anything else will ever match up - but it's great.

Turns out, the film I couldn't remember watching was Venom - let there be carnage

Clearly, quite forgettable. Plane viewing isn't the best environment, it was a dark (as in, dimly lit) film and for much of the time I was struggling to see what was going on.

Overall a bit of a shame as I really enjoyed the first one.

It rattles along at a pace, too. Not that the plot is taxing, but not being able to see it means you'll miss it and then, bang, it's over. It's not bad.

Not for a current film (that we know of)

https://twitter.com/westernwilder/statu ... 8464800769

This makes me so so so so happy pic.twitter.com/gB7H1gs9uP

— andrew hegele (@westernwilder) September 10, 2022

I watched a filum.

Elvis

It’s about…blah blah. Anyway, Baz Lurchman done did it and, frankly, I’m not a fan of his. Too shiny, too hollow, too basic. I’m pretty sure this Elvis guy had a crazy life but it goes “Shit Elvis, you’re being forced to go to the army to do die!” next scene “Heeeey I’m back guys! Imma sing my new sing song.” And Elvis doesn’t even get fat.

I reckon they gave this guys story to then wrong director. Anyway, if you want the bullet points of Elvis’ life then that’s pretty much what this is.

Oh and the less said about Tom Hanks the fucking better. Christ almighty. Weird voice. Weird fat suit. It’s too distracting. Like there’s no fat people in Hollywood that they could have asked? Would have been better off going with an actual chubster then dress Hanks up like this. Jesus. I swear to god, it’s stupid as fuck. I hated Hanks in this. Kinda ruined it to be honest.

Elvis totally got fat in the movie!

Thor: Love and Thunder wasn't as bad as I had been lead to believe. I went in with low expectations, but yea I though it was OK and Lady T really liked it.

We also recently completed watching the original trilogy of Karate Kid movies with the family. I had never got into these when I was young and that seems like quite a shame - they were good little films, enjoyable. It seemed a bit weird going 'back in time' and watching these after seeing Cobra Kai, but it totally worked and I'm glad I've now seen them properly.

I watched another filum!

Bodies, Bodies, Bodies

It wasn’t too bad for a horror/whodunit but it features a cast of instantly unlikeable dickheads. I suppose that’s one way to get you to wonder who’s killing these kids… so you can shake their hand. It’s slick, it’s modern, it’s got people who talk like they’re sending tweets back and forth or how I’d imagine a Dawson’s Creek remake would be like these days, but ultimately it’s a pretty fun film. It’s not Knives Out, mind.

If he did (he didn’t) he needed to be fatterer.

Black Adam. The story of Black Adam (pronounced to rhyme with "Tarmacadam", I believe). The testosterone in the script-writers' meetings must have been off the scale, and it starts off as it it's going to borrow from movie genres all over the place, while dropping plot liberally in. It's also amazing how poor paid-for script can be in simple quips. "You and me". Um, yep, That said, there's an "um" that works really well, and no sarcasm. Team America World Police show up, though secretly by the sixth time I did remember their real name. The film flirts with dealing with the consequences of the ruination caused and the idea that they're there to "aid global stability", but really just mentions it so you know they care, a bit.
Slow-mo is used all the time, sometimes to good effect in pausing on great scenes, sometimes just to show off the expensive effects, and sometimes to make sure you can follow the action because they ran out of imagination in how else you might. Cyclone is underused but I liked her a lot. Falcon shows up, made extra cool and gaining a swagger that he shares around the cast, but losing many IQ points in the process. Bronholm has fun. Vibranium is rebranded. After a messy start which is like a workshop of "show not tell - you mean like this? Or this? How about we kick off music, no, wait, need some chat over the top of it", it all pretty much works and lands. Cast are good, plot worked for me, I enjoyed it. I saw it in an Impact screen, about which I knew nothing, but it means you get extra boom and reverberation around you, which fit this film extremely well. I liked it a lot more than the 4d "quit messing with my seat oh that's right it's meant to do that". And I paused afterwards to check my phone and was able to pay for a gent (70) taking his grandson (aged 30) to see the same film, because he only had cash and couldn't pay with that. Now I have cash, ho ho ho.

We watched the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film, cos my kids ain't no quitters (actually that's not true, they give up on stuff all the time). This is the one where most/some of the previous characters disappear, for the better, I feel; and the pirates go searching for the fountain of youth.

This one was actually quite good fun. I enjoyed it more than I was expecting to, although to be fair that's a low bar to get across because I was expecting to hate it.

The main thing I took form this, is that Keef's fingers are all bony and weird looking. Gross.

I really enjoyed the Chip n Dale film, very much recommended. Simple light hearted fun.

New Hellraiser's good. Mm.

We're taking the kids to watch Black Adam tonight, so last night we watched Shazam! (just in case)

What a fun film! Swings wildly from whimsy and childlike wonder to monstrous (but bloodless) violence in a very Marvel way. Worth a watch for those like me that skipped it due to the goofy marketing

Went to see The Banshees of Inisherin last night. A very enjoyable dark comedy about the break-up of a years-long bromance on a sleepy island that's so remote even the on-going civil war (it's set in the 1920s) passes it by.

It was great to see Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell together again and they both have the best lines, but even the stock characters (the village idiot; the sole policeman; the widow) had depth and humour.

The landscape shots, especially the overhead ones, looked stunning on the big screen.

How was Black Adam? Suitable for the kinders? Ours loved Shazam, so if it's on the same level, might give it a go.

It lacks the colourful optimism of Shazam, there's quite a lot of henchman murder, and the central story is quite grim in tone, but the violence is bloodless and (spoilers) it all turns out well. My kids (9 & 11) enjoyed it

Thanks. Yeah I think the vibe might not jive with the 6 year old.

I very much want to see this

Me too. It's very nearly In Bruges o'clock too. Possibly a little past, even

I watched a film!

Hush

It’s one of those Blumhouse Productions. Basically a deaf woman is pursued by a killer. It’s alright, I guess. Bit crap is my final judgment.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Really decent Netflix film about German soldiers in WW1. Spoiler: they lose. It tells of the horrors of war even when you’re the bad guys. Yeah, not exactly original themes but it’s well done.

Can confirm that The Banshees of Inisherin is incredible.

The Man from Toronto is a Netflix film with Woody Harrelson and Kevin Hart.

It feels like a solid B-movie, where Kevin Hart does his quick talking motormouth thing. It's reasonably competent, amusing in places. I wouldn't advise going out of your way to see it, but if you've got nothing much else to be doing, you probably won't regret it.

I saw a trailer for a film last night, and I am ALL IN* for watching it when it comes out. It’s like someone has actually made The Night The Reindeer Died, from Scrooged.



This, to me, looks like the most excellent of nonsense.

*_{Does not include actually going to a cinema as I they just really pop my anxiety, so I hope it’s not too long before it streams.}

That looks superb

Right?!

My Ma has just told me that Santa is Hopper from Stranger things.

And the more recent Hellboy. And The Red Guardian from Black Widow. He gets around does our Dave

Movie looks amazing. Some tellings put Santa on a similar power level to Odin, y'know

Haha! Oh, wow, that’s ace! I don’t think D would forgive either Russell or I for wearing one, though

This is out today! I’ve been super excited because I was 100% certain I’d seen it was going to be released to buy for streaming on the same day it was going to be released in cinemas, but either I read something with errant info or I was just wrong, because it’s not available anywhere and I’ve been looking forwards to it for ages

It does look amazing, and I'm seriously thinking of going to the cinema to watch it. If I do it will, I think, be the first Christmas film I've seen at the cinema since Santa Clause: The Movie.

I am also almost certainly going to see it, but decided not to wait till 6pm after middayish Matilda kicked out (if you've seen the stage show, it's that, with a bit extra, bit different, still lovely). But it seems to be everywhere round here (West of Ireland), so I'll find it next week.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Christmas movie at the cinema, but I have probably only been to the cinema about 10 times.

Is that David Harbour? *checks* ooh, yes it is David Harbour. I like him, this looks good.

We watched 'Predestination', a nice neat little time travelly story with Ethan Hawke. I don't want to say much about it for risk of spoiling it, but it's a good, tight story, well acted and interesting. Highly recommended.