MOVIES ...

[ACMILAN1983]

Thanks for the feedback reza. Was Fault in our Stars good? I've been really tempted to watch it, but have hesitated feedback I've heard is kind of mixed. It's meant to be really good, but I hear it does fall into typical teen drama angst at times and can feel forced. I think also I need to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy it.

[maharaja]

I actually watched the fault in our stars last night. It is good, but it seems as if they tried too hard to make it heartbreaking. It has several culmination points, and just when you think that the film will end, they bring another sad scene and dialogue. But definitely worth of watching

[ACMILAN1983]

Thanks for the feedback, your comments about it trying to hard is very much in line with what I've heard about it feeling forced at times. As you probably gather from my comments on The Wind Rises, that's really not my sort of thing as I prefer more realistically and natural emotion in films. I probably sound like I hate emotionally charged films and stuff at this point, but really it's more that I think often passion is muddled with more subtle and grounded emotions that detracts from films. There are times for both, but I think creators have a tendency to get it all mixed up and messy.

Then there's just what I consider stupid. As an example, I watched a few minutes of How I met your mother yesterday and the scene was some wedding where the main character and some girl decided they would spend one evening together at a wedding and let passion take control and then never meet each other again. While I respect and understand some people will go for that and find it comedic, fun and romantic, it's a situation that I find absurd and the decisions are simply idiotic imo. From what is meant to be a passionate and romantic idea, I feel no empathy for these characters and instead cringe at the cheesy situation.

[ACMILAN1983]

I saw Gone Girl yesterday and thought it was really good. Affleck and especially Rosamund Pike were really good in their respective roles, while I'm always a stickler for a good thriller or detective/murder mystery. That said, the one downside imo was there are holes to pick apart the film, but these didn't affect my enjoyment. Would really recommend it to anyone who has an interest in these sorts of stories.

Also saw Back to the Future today on TV and must say that after all these years, it still holds up superbly well. The premise might be absurd, but it's still one of the most entertaining films you can find imo.

[reza]

[ACMILAN1983]

Film fans have had a great week of teasers for some major movies this week, so I thought it might be good to share some here and would love to hear opinions.

First of all there's probably the biggest one, a new trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngElkyQ6Rhs

I've got to say the hype around this is pretty crazy, but also kind of understandable. The first trailer teased some of the characters, whilst feeling familiar. This trailer continues to show the new characters (villains and good guys), but what was really cool was the feeling of nostalgia, on seeing the star destroyer, the classic characters while Luke is doing a voiceover with the slightly updated quote from Return of the Jedi and then at the end you have Han and Chewie just confirming the fan service. I'm excited, mostly because this feels like Star Wars, unlike the prequels imo.

Then there's probably the one that got me most interested personally, the first Batman v Superman trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwfUnkBfdZ4

I'm a big fan of Batman and a fan of Superman, so this one is kind of close to heart. What I really loved about the trailer is it doesn't show too much beyond things already known, but imo gave a really good feeling about the tone of the film. Speaking of which, this film looks seriously dark, which I love. I loved how there seems to be real conflict around Superman and no character seems to be considered black or white, everyone is flawed.

Superman is also kind of portrayed like a dictator, which is really exciting and the voiceovers are all over the place, with different views being seen all the time. On Batman, I loved how he looks incredibly menacing and is surely without doubt the most intimidating view of Batman ever seen on screen. Oh, and there's that quote at the end of the trailer!

There's also a new Ant Man trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdKf3MneyI

I admit to being skeptical about this movie with Edgar Wright leaving, and the first teaser didn't help. However, this one shows a little more and I liked the light hearted tone of serious action scenes (i.e. the children's train set scene), which gives the impression that while this is a superhero film, it will have comedy.

Then there was Terminator: Genisys (note: this trailer seems to give away major spoilers for the film):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGSxss7gWak

My note says it all about this trailer. It seems to give away way too much and there seems to be insane amounts of things going on in this film. I've not been convinced by this film at all until now and this trailer only compounds that feeling. It also feels like I've seen the film in the 3 minutes it shows. If there's still more to reveal, then this film is going to be nothing short of a mess.

There's also a new trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWsdx0vmYwY

It harkens back to the old Mel Gibson films and shows bits of the new ones. I don't have much else to add.

For anyone interested in manga and anime, there's a full live action Attack on Titan trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njH4Y1UBucw

Attack on Titan is a phenomenon in it's success and has grown to be hugely popular. The live action remake looks exciting and feels very close in tone to the anime, which is a very good thing.

Finally, it's a little older and most probably won't care, but it's been confirmed that the next Japanese Godzilla film is to be written and directed by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi. The names probably don't mean much to most, but Hideaki Anno is a hugely famous anime director, whose most famous work is Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is sublime in both it's quality and following. I'm hugely excited by this news, as I love Godzilla and Anno's work, so am interested in seeing what will be the result of this project.

[maharaja]

This week I decided to watch all six fast and furious films, before watching the new one. Damn these films are so idiotic, no wonder I didn't watch them earlier.

[maharaja]

Just to add to the previous post, sequel 5 and 6 are a little better. With some better plot and humour

[ACMILAN1983]

Not a fan of the F&F films, but I kind of respect that they've managed to change them from being all about cars to just being this crazy action film franchise.

[ACMILAN1983]

Been a while since there's been posts here, but with Comic Con recently new Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad trailers came out and honestly I think they look great. I'm really excited by BvS, which I think looks better and better the more we see of it, while Suicide Squad looks like what I expected/hoped for and we get to see Jared Leto's joker for the first time, which looks pretty good to me (although I'm not the biggest fan of his "look"). Also, Wonder Woman, Lex Luthor, Harley Quinn and Will Smith's Deadshot are all shown and I don't think any of them look bad at all. There's been some negative reaction to Lex Luthor, but personally it looks like a pretty nice and fresh portrayal of him.

Anyway, here are the trailers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WWzgGyAH6Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLLQK9la6Go

Also a cool Deadshot trailer was shown, which looked awesome in the leaked version I saw, but there's no official version of it.