The Avengers: Age of Awesome

Australia truly is the Lucky Country. Because the new Avengers movie is now screening, a full week before the Americans will get a hold of it (which I find really weird, but I'm not complaining). I stayed up until midnight watching it last night, and now I'm going to give all my non-existent readers the verdict.

Clocking in (I hate that cliche) at 141 minutes total runtime A2 sounded a bit long to me. As such I was surprised to find how quickly the time went; it really is a credit to the pacing of the film. Action sequences blended seamlessly with touching and witty dialogue (lots of witty dialogue) along with the sense of teamwork and friendship which was missing up until the end of A1. The way the Avengers fight now is streamlined and highly co-operative; Cap and Thor in particular make use of their similarly indestructible weapons to take out scores of enemies in a single shot (you see a bit of that in the trailer too).

It's pretty safe to say that everyone has levelled up, to the point where I think the team could make mincemeat of the Chitauri now. Which is good, because Ultron is a hard son of a b*** to take down.

I know there was concern that the trailers for this movie trailed too much, that they would be spoiling the movie. How wrong we were. I would say about 75% of what's in the trailers shows up in the first half hour of the movie; and the rest keeps rolling the punches.

Ultron is amazing. No other way to put it.

My only complaints are that a certain romantic situation didn't seem to work. Just not the right chemistry. And after watching all the credits roll, although Joss Whedon did tell everyone that there wouldn't be a post-credits scene, he wasn't lying. I guess that's not a bad thing; but it is a break from tradition. Plus one other thing which I won't tell you about because it's a spoiler. Suffice to say you'll understand when you watch it.

All in all, a brilliant follow up. I look forward to the memes.

Poster credit: legionofpotatoes

Kingsman: The Secret Service - My Birthday Treat

As you may have guessed, it was my birthday just the other day (providing it doesn't take me a week to finish writing this) and of course I went to see a movie. First I wanted to see Mortdecai, but that's been copping a LOT of flak lately and I wanted a surer bet for my birthday treat.

So here we are with Kingsman: The Secret Service, and what a service it was. A service to spy movies without number (or logic for that matter) and a modern twist on a classic 007 format. The plot is simple: our protagonist, lovable tough-boy Eggsy, through an old friend of his dead father, winds up training to be a gentleman spy for an organisation called Kingsman. Meanwhile a lisping Samuel L Jackson as Valentine and Sofie Boutella as his sword-footed assistant Gazelle take the mantle of Bond-Villains, for what I found to be a thrilling and entertaining ride from start to finish.

There's comedy, action, drama and morality all mixed up together; which suits me down to the ground. Who ever said that movies need to stick to one genre anyhow? So many memorable scenes and wonderful actors. You could watch the whole thing just for Jackson's lisp. I'd go again to see the church scene. Just wow. Not to mention the swords on Gazelle's legs AKA the most badass thing I've seen in years.

I don't give a shit about Fify Shades. Kingsman for the win!

Romance - 1 Bowl of Popcorn
Comedy - 3 Bowls of Popcorn
Drama - 3.5 Bowls of Popcorn
Action - 4 Bowls of Popcorn
Creepiness - 0 Bowls of Popcorn
Adventure - 4 Bowls of Popcorn
Mind F*** - 0.5 Bowls of Popcorn (for that one scene)
Sci-Fi - 2 Bowls of Popcorn (for the gagets)

Poster credit: http://www.sundaydogparade.com/2015/01/kingsman-secret-service-poster.html

Some real advice for once

I guess I should apologise for my earlier outburst regarding Gone Girl. I was really disappointed by the movie after hearing so much about it. Thus my initial reaction was somewhat unfair.

So to clarify: Gone Girl isn't that bad. However it is not what you'd call a cinematic experience. In fact you'll probably enjoy it more if you just rent the dvd and watch it with added toilet breaks.

On to more important things!

Number 1: Dracula Untold. It's not crap. Just a little cliche is all.

CGI is really nice and Lord Tywin makes an awesome vampire. Looking forward to the sequel (Dracula Retold?).

I think it's nice to see the character of Vlad Tepes from a different perspective like this. He is seen as something of a folk hero in some areas of Europe (although other areas agree that he was a monster) so the concept of a 'good' Dracula is not quite as far fetched as you'd think.

Number 2: Nightcrawler. Only just hitting Aussie cinemas now. I have to admit I have more than a little crush on Jake Gyllenhaal but I'll be damned if he wasn't amazing in this.

Jake's character, Lou Bloom, is a creature to be admired and despised simultaneously for his ruthless cunning and positive attitude towards filming people dying for the local news. For me the movie brings up some of the serious ethical issues surrounding the media these days but there's a nice hint of comedy as well.

Certainly could've been shorter, even though it's just under 2 hours, the plot is so simple it could've wrapped up in 90-100 minutes easily. Once again nothing lost if you go for the dvd release instead of the cinema.




Dracula Poster by Jim Perez Nightcrawler poster by Ben Holmes

Check it: Heathers

I love this movie. It's a badass 80s teen-romance with a wickedly dark humour. The one liners are lovable (What's your damage Heather?) and Christian Slater pulls off handsome, witty, romantic, psycho with surprising ease.

So here's the lowdown: Winona Ryder is Veronica; a bit like Cady Heron from Mean Girls. She's been running around with the 80s version of the Plastics: the Heathers (yes all three are called Heather). But of course she hates them. Then there's the new kid in school, J.D. (otherwise known as the young and beautiful version of Christian Slater) who makes quite the entrance when he fires a gun at a pair of jocks who were hassling him. When Veronica and J.D. (that's short for Jason Dean by the way) meet, things go a little, haywire...

That's all I can say without giving the game away. I think it's a fun movie for both guys and gals. It's not immediately intellectual but there are some interesting comments made about high-school culture and the way we deal with teenage suicide (that's just if you really want to think about it though).

I'm going to rate Heathers using my "Bowls of Popcorn Scale" (which may be subject to change):

Romance - 4 Bowls of Popcorn

Comedy - 4.5 Bowls of Popcorn

Drama - 3.5 Bowls of Popcorn

Action - 2.5 Bowls of Popcorn (out of 5)

Creepiness - 2 Bowls of Popcorn

Mind F*** - 0 Bowls of Popcorn

Sci-Fi - 0 Bowls of Popcorn

The poster was designed by Adam Juresko, who has an awesome Etsy shop here

Ta,

Izz

Have You Ever Seen Donnie Darko?

I'm not going to lie to you: Donnie Darko is a cult movie. So there are elements that probably won't make a lot of sense the first time around. It's also got swearing and a little bit of religious debate (if that puts you off) in it. But it's still a good movie (one of my favourites).
Basically the movie's about a teenage boy named Donald "Donnie" Darko who narrowly avoids a freak accident due to a curious dream about a 6 foot tall bunny rabbit who tells him that the world is going to end in roughly 28 days.

Here's my advice:

If you like to have your head stuffed with then this is a great movie to watch (for instance, if you liked Inception). Make sure you get the directors cut and be prepared to watch it twice and/or Google an explanation.

It can get really deep but also adds some nice one-liners. I like to think that makes it a bit more watchable than Inception.


I'm going to rate Donnie Darko in terms of what's in it using my "Bowls of Popcorn Scale":
Action - 1 Bowl of Popcorn (out of 5)
Creepiness - 3 Bowls of Popcorn (give or take 1 depending on your tolerance)
Comedy - 3.5 Bowls of Popcorn
Drama - 4 Bowls of Popcorn
Mind F*** - 4.5 Bowls of Popcorn
Sci-Fi - 4 Bowls of Popcorn
Romance - 2.5 Bowls of Popcorn

That's all I can think to say at the moment. If my system of reviewing changes at any point in the future I'll edit this post accordingly. By the way credit for the picture goes straight to Peter Strain, who I believe has a website if you Google him.
Ta.
Izz