Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Catch Up: TV and Film

In the last week and a half I've gorged myself on a fair amount of movie and TV entertainment goodness. What this means is that I will now proceed to give my thoughts and opinions on them, because I know you all really want to hear them.



Let me start with Pacific Rim, a film that my friends and I had guarded expectations about. The basic premise as you all know is robots versus monsters. There is really little else to the movie outside of the premise. There is some romantic angle and tropes like the stern commander and cocky rival but that is all pretty much just seasoning on the meat. This is a movie about robots, versus, monsters. I had made a point of not watching any trailers leading up to its release. The notion being I didn't want to become hyped or disinterested in it. I now like to avoid movie trailers so I don't take the snippets I see and start creating this own story in my head and become disappointed with a movie when it fails to be what I imagined. Anyway, what did I think? Well quite frankly I really enjoyed it, for what it is, and what is it is the best real life version of a kids Saturday morning cartoon or anime. It's robots versus monsters. If you go into looking for something deeper or more developed than this then you'll leave disappointed. If you just want to go and see cool visuals and nicely choreographed epic fight scene you'll enjoy it.




Monsters University was seen the day after Pacific Rim, so I went from seeing a kid's idea done by grownups to seeing a teenage/young adult genre warped for kids. Monsters Inc would probably rate up there with me in the list of Pixar movies so I was looking forward to the sequel which was really a prequel. Comedic movies are always a little hit and miss because if you're not laughing at the jokes then it sort of defeats have the impact of the movie. Pixar have shown a great track record of being able to blend humour for both the kids and adults and I don't think this any exception. The story is pretty good and it's sometimes fun to go back and see how established characters first meet each other. The new characters introduced where interesting but Nathan Fillon's voice just kept knocking me out of my story, that character and that voice just didn't mesh in my opinion. Charlie Day however pretty much stole the show for me in his turn as Art. Overall it was a good movie but not a Pixar classic



Next up, End of Watch, as movie I'd originally wanted to see at the time of release but never managed to find anyone else who was interested. I liked this too but I was little disappointed. It had the buddy and brotherhood element that all good cop shows and movies have, though I wonder if this actually exists or is just a trope of the genre. Jake Gyllenhaal was good in it and I think I might actually be growing into a fan of his depending on his next couple of movie choices. Michael Pena was equally impressive, not to sell him short on with his performance. It wasn't perfect, I mean the handheld gimmick now that I look back on it was a bit annoying but whatever I'd actually forget about it till just now when I was reminded. It wasn't as gritty as I might have hoped, I mean you see the tag for Training Day and you have mental image in your mind but it was good. I'd recommend it, but I wouldn't preach it.



Similar to End of Watch, Stoker was a movie I missed out on at first release but was something I was anxious to see. I think I had maybe seen one trailer in passing and something about it must just have hooked me. Actually thinking about it I think I only read the synopsis for the movie when I was looking through the film festival brochure. I literally had no preconceived notions or nothing about this movie. And yet it had been building up quiet hype in my head. This was ultimately its downfall because the film failed to live up to my loft and fabricated expectations. Part of the problem is I am just a huge fan of the mystery/thriller/suspense genre in film and movies so whenever something comes along in that wheelhouse my expectations are raised. I'm the snark who just sits back, folds his arms and says 'go ahead, but I'm not easily impressed'. Perhaps without expectations I would have been fine with it but I'll never truly know.



The last bill on the docket is House of Cards which again was something I had been looking forward to and this series did not disappoint. Kevin Spacey is very charismatic as Frank Underwood and I loved his character breaking the fourth wall, a technique I just love when done right. The influence of David Fincher is clear from an aesthetic level and again I am a big fan of his visual style so this was nice carry through throughout the series. The characters too were equally rich and interesting with all the major ones having a chance to shine and evolve over the course of the series. There was one major gripe in that they took a clich d approach to wrap up a plot but overall I found it a very enjoyable series and I look forward to the next one. In particular I hope to see more of the relationship between Frank and Claire as well as Frank's relationship with Zoe.



Alright so that is me switching off for another night. See you tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel.
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