Testing 123

Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1 - the title is too long, and so is the film...

Big Hero 6 - fun film

Dracula Untold

SPOILERS

Oh dear. A new angle on the Dracula story... which is that Count Vlad was really a nice guy!

I guess this could have worked out but, for me, it didn't. Mainly because as well as making Vlad basically good, almost everyone else is bad. I think only Vlad's wife, his son and the odd monk aren't essentially wicked in one way or another. He has some decent pals at the beginning but they get killed off early by the thing in the cave.

That was clearly designed to serve as a contrast, but it is so stark that nothing is believable. Also, it is just not credible that Vlad should have such a terrible past and yet be relatively undamaged by it.

There are plenty of other things wrong with the film too... and a few things that are good. Unfortunately one of the best things about it is that it's only 90 mins long.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes

It's amazing how convincing the ape characters are in this film. You just take it as read that apes can be more intelligent than humans after a while.

But the story doesn't really do justice to the visual effects. Aside for the moralistic tint (some apes are good, some humans are good, some apes are bad, some humans are bad) there's not much to it.

Disconnect

There are 3 films squashed together here. One looks at cyber-bullying, the second at identity theft and the final one at the sexual exploitation of young people. Two characters appear in more than one time-line, but only in minor capacities, so these are actually stand-alone stories being shown in parallel.

I think the overlapping characters don't add much to the stories. In fact, if anything, they detract from it by making the connections seem contrived...

Any one of the 3 stories could have made a decent film by itself. It is a shame that the writers didn't have the confidence to tell just one of them. By trying to tie them all together as somehow linked consequences of the internet age they fail to hit the mark with any of them.

For me the cyber-bullying story was the most compelling; the other two stories just started to feel like they were in the way after a while.

Plenty of potential in Disconnect. But it doesn't deliver.

How To Train Your Dragon 2

I guess there's a joke in here somewhere... How To Train Your Dragon 2 Do What?

Poor? Yes, a bit like the film. There are so few sequels that live up to the original; and this is yet another one. Shame, because I did really like the original a lot. So this only had to be half as good as that to still be good... but it wasn't.

And yet several people recommended this. So what did they see that I didn't? Maybe I just expected too much. Maybe it was almost OK. Dunno; I just didn't enjoy it... found it a bit boring TBH.

I'm Back

Hello again. OK, so I'm back. Turns out this is quite a good way to keep track of the films I have seen. Memory's not what it was... starting to forget.

So here's what I've seen recently. As best as I can recall...

Reconstruction - a bit odd but quite enjoyable.

Maleficent - better than I expected fairy tale.

Ender's Game - decent sci-fi story, more grown up than you'd think.

Violet & Daisy - excellent violet action, with a heart.

Hercules - not at all bad.

Calvary - great drama, starring Brendan Gleeson.

Deliver Us From Evil - don't remember much about this one.

Edge Of Tomorrow - fun romp with Cruise and Blunt.

As Above So Below - quite scary.

The Equaliser - good interpretation of the old TV series.

Sharknado 2 - very silly, lots of fun.

The Monuments Men - boring.

Lucy - awesome!

The Double - clever and thought provoking.

3 Days To Kill - predictable non-sense... OK if in right mood.

Bangkok Dangerous - the original, badass.

Lilting - lovely. Moving.

I Wish - can't remember; don't think I watched all the way through.

The Fault In Our Stars - moving and tragic. Better than I expected.

Dot The I - nice idea; didn't quite work... very dull in the middle.

Her

I have seen Spike Jonze's film Her described as a romantic comedy. But I didn't see it that way at all. I thought it was a good, serious, look at human relationships in a future where people communicate primarily via machines. After all isn't that where we are heading; with so many people glued to their smartphones all the time?

It was really well done. The setting is believably futuristic, without being obviously too sci-fi. The characters are complex and likeable. The plot evolves and we get to an acceptable conclusion.

Nice. Good film. I recommend it. (It's not a rom-com, guys)

And it set me thinking. What am I doing with my life, if not trying to communicate more and more via machines? And who am I communicating with? Nobody. Nobody, that I know at least.

I write this blog, post on twitter, comment on forums... I pretend that other people are reading what I write, but they aren't. Is anyone on the web reading other people's stuff? I don't think so.

It's like being in a world where everyone has their own radio station. We're all broadcasting, congratulating ourselves on being part of a great revolution that has democratised content creation. But no-one is listening to us, just as we aren't really listening to anyone else.

So I have made a decision. I am stopping this. Right now. I'm turning the computer off and going out to meet real people. From now on I'm going to talk to people face-to-face whenever I can. I'm going to do voluntary work. I'm going back to the real world. Goodbye.