You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Teen angst’ tag.
What’s it all about?
As the war of Panem escalates to the destruction of other districts, Katniss Everdeen, the reluctant leader of the rebellion, must bring together an army against President Snow, while all she holds dear hangs in the balance.
Why did I want to see it?
I had worked my way steadily through the first three films (although I think I only saw the first one at the cinema) and as Mockingjay Part 1 (which I reviewed here) ended without proper conclusion it made sense to watch the last part. As I had never made it past the first few chapters of Catching Fire I had no idea of how the story would be resolved and I just wanted to find out.
What did I think of it?
Not a bad film at all, although I think that it suffered from both the law of diminishing returns and from being one story split into two. It was interesting that the film reverted back a little bit to the first two in the franchise and introduced more Hunger Games type obstacles for the characters to overcome, and I liked the complexity of the adult characters, especially Coin and Snow. I think it’s fair to say that they both got something close to what they deserved.
Jennifer Lawrence is of course excellent as Katniss, with my only quibble being one that I think I have raised before, namely that she seems too mature for the role. What I mean by that is that her reactions to the events of the story work for someone much younger (or at least more immature), and that jars occasionally. And the wholelove triangle thing is still deeply annoying, but at least it gets resolved.
So I enjoyed it, am glad I saw it but don’t think this is a series that I will revisit.
Dazzling details:
- Directed by Francis Lawrence
- 137 minutes long
- 12A for moderate violence, threat
I’m catching up on reviews from films seen over the past couple of months, so these may be a little shorter than normal. When I get back into the habit of reviewing within a couple of days of watching then normal service will be resumed. Until now it’s basically what I can remember!
Watched: 26 May 2016 (DVD at home)
What’s it all about?
Katniss Everdeen is in District 13 after she shatters the games forever. Under the leadership of President Coin and the advice of her trusted friends, Katniss spreads her wings as she fights to save Peeta and a nation moved by her courage.
Why did I want to see it?
I’d watched the first two films having failed to get further than the original book in the trilogy, and just wanted to see how it would turn out.
What did I think of it?
I quite enjoyed this; it was well done though very clearly a bridging film into Part 2 where all will be resolved (I assume) so it did suffer from that a tiny wee bit. Something didn’t quite gel for me though; I can’t decide whether it was Julianne Moore’s hair, Donald Sutherland’s moustache-twirling villain or Stanley Tucci’s teeth. If I’m honest I think it’s actually Jennifer Lawrence herself. Don’t get me wrong, I think that she is a really good actress, but I think she’s just too old for the part. Most of the reactions she had seemed more fitting to a much younger girl. But like I said, it was enjoyable, mostly due to the presence of Elizabeth Banks and Woody Harrelson, and of course the still much-missed Philip Seymour Hoffman. And I will get around to watching the final part if only to see whether the (slightly) tedious love triangle is resolved. Personally I hop she rejects both Peeta and Gale and runs off with Natalie Dormer’s character, but that’s just me.
What’s it all about IMDb?
Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark become targets of the Capitol after their victory in the 74th Hunger Games sparks a rebellion in the Districts of Panem.
Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if you haven’t seen The Hunger Games, but that raises the question of why you would watch Catching Fire if you hadn’t seen the previous film. So says the woman who saw Return of the Jedi before The Empire Strikes Back and was totally confused about the whole Luke/Vader/Dad thing.
Don’t judge me.
Why did I want to see this?
Because I wanted to know what happened after THG and had tried and failed to read the book (mostly due to the law of diminishing returns).
What did I think of it?
Even though it’s very much more of the same I really quite enjoyed it, though it’s really pretty much a bridge between the original and the final two-parter. I have trouble sometimes with Katniss’s emotional approach to the world but wonder if that’s because as a character she’s meant to be much younger than Jennifer Lawrence (who plays her, duh, as I’m sure you know) and so her apparent naiveté jars a bit despite her best efforts.
The romance stuff is also mildly annoying but that’s because I am Team Peeta and it just seems obvious to me who she should end up with. But the set pieces were really well done and the new characters were nicely introduced so it was a fun watch (if seeing people try to hunt and kill each other can be said to be fun, but you know what I mean).
The best bits were actually the supporting characters: Donald Sutherland (obvs), Philip Seymour Hoffman (ditto) and Stanley Tucci (double ditto) being the standouts for me. But everyone deserves an award for acting seriously in some of the most ridiculous costumes known to man (looking specifically at poor Elizabeth Banks here).
I will definitely be watching Mockingjay to see how this all pans out.
What’s it all about?
A hapless young Viking who aspires to hunt dragons becomes the unlikely friend of a young dragon himself, and learns there may be more to the creatures than he assumed.
Why did I want to watch it?
Dragons. Vikings. Animation. Coming of age. Finding yourself.
Also feeling left out as everyone said how good it was and how good the sequel is and how you can’t really enjoy the second without having seen the first and did I mention dragons?
And feeling guilty because I think the only reason I avoided this was being fed up as it was used in my local Odeon to explain the facilities for those with hearing or sight impairments and I got overkill from seeing the same clip of How to Train…over and over again.
Totally irrational and completely my loss.
Also Silvery Dude gave me that look.
What did I think of it?
Kicking myself that I hadn’t watched it before. Love Hiccup and now want to known as Astrid. Father/son stuff very moving. Thrilled to discover that Gerald Butler is not only King of Sparta but Viking head honcho. Dragon designs very cool, Toothless lovely and Big Bad properly nasty. Beautifully animated and great fun. Emotional without being sickly.
Looking forward to the next one, don’t intend to wait as long.
I feel slightly disappointed that this didn’t have a colon and a subtitle, like Thor or Captain America or similar. Still….
What’s it all about?
IMDb gives us one of its special synopses:
Peter Parker runs the gauntlet as the mysterious company Oscorp sends up a slew of supervillains against him, impacting on his life.
Which I’m pretty sure (and I only saw this a couple of days ago) isn’t quite how it works out, not until the second half of the film anyway. The first half has much more to do with character development stuff interspersed with Spidey being a hero, which means lovey-dovey nonsense with Gwen, angsting over missing parents and the loss of Uncle Ben with Aunt May and bonding with Harry. Then it all kicks off.
Why did I want to watch it?
I enjoyed the first one (more or less), the trailer looked cool and it had an interesting cast. Plus, you know, superhero stuff.
What did I think of it?
This could have been a really good film but I certainly felt (and the Book God agreed with me when we compared notes afterwards) that the pacing was entirely off which made it fine but not great. The character stuff was well done with good chemistry between the main players but those parts were so sloooow, especially when compared with the whizz-bang blink-and-it’s-gone action sequences, and as is the tendency with these films there were too many villains. Rhino appears not as Rhino right at the beginning (Paul Giammatti wasted a bit with a dodgy Russian accent and being mostly a teaser for (presumably) the third film), Electro looks and behaves like Dr Manhattan from Watchmen and there is insufficient Green Goblin. There is lots of Harry Osbourn which I enjoyed because I have liked Dane DeHaan since seeing him in the excellent Chronicle (though I get the impression not everyone likes him and he is a tad whiny but so would you be with that father and that legacy) but not enough Goblin which presumably is also a set up for the third film, and there is the villain’s villain Colm Feore (also a favourite).
Meanwhile we learn all about what happened to Spidey’s Dad though I’m still not sure how he paid for Roosevelt but that doesn’t matter, the important thing is he’s a good guy so that’s all OK then. And Gwen is lovely and bright and blonde with fantastic clothes and then the Thing happens which I knew would happen at some point because it’s canon but I just didn’t expect it then.
And it ends mid-scene which is annoying and possibly manipulative but I’ll still probably go and see the next one because, well, Andrew Garfield.
So quite good fun, could have done better but enjoyable evening out despite bad behaviour from sections of the audience. For example who on earth thought it was OK to take a little kid to what was obviously going to be a very noisy 12A picture (and had to leave with said crying child 25 minutes in after the tutting and glaring of fellow patrons became impossible to ignore)?
What do out friends at IMDb think it’s about?
Young Ender Wiggin is recruited by the International Military to lead the fight against the Formics, a genocidal alien race which nearly annihilated the human race in a previous invasion.
What do I think it’s about?
An adaptation of a very popular science fiction novel by the no longer so popular Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game tells the story of, well, Ender’s Game. Which is a set of war games designed to train the next generation of military leaders after Earth was attacked by alien bug-type nasties, an assault which we only survived through the heroism of one individual. It’s all gone quiet but we are getting ready for a future attack on the get them before they get us principle.
Why did I want to see it?
I’ve heard so much about the book but had never read it and I was intrigued to see the film because I thought it looked really good from the trailer. And there was a bit of me that was determined to see something that people were telling me I shouldn’t (more of that anon).
What did I think (featuring best and/or worst bits)?
I think Asa Butterfield is really very good indeed; I loved him in Hugo and he has such a distinctive look that my eye was drawn to him whenever he was on screen, even when he was sharing said screen with crusty old Harrison Ford, looking pained at what he was putting these kids though, though of course still forging ahead because it all needs to be done. Even though it doesn’t. The cast were uniformly good, the special effects were excellent and having gone in with no preconceptions I enjoyed it. I deeply dislike the personal views of the author, but this was the work of a number of people and didn’t seem to endorse or reflect his views in any way. I understand why some people felt they needed to avoid this but like I said before, I really don’t like being told what I should think about something, an attitude which has led to some unfortunate experiences (sitting through the tediousness that is Cronenberg’s Crash a case in point, and due entirely to the Daily Mail)
Conclusion
Ender’s Game should have done better at the box office but everyone seemed a bit embarrassed by the whole Scott Card problem and it wasn’t properly publicised. A smart film trying to say something about the impact of a military society on young people. As others have said it has echoes of Starship Troopers (without that film’s gleeful destruction of monstrous bugs and the inclusion of Doogie Howser as a fascist). But you can’t have everything.
So Brick is a film I’ve been a ware of for a while; a couple of people whose views I respect had spoken highly of it, but it was only when I saw Looper last year where, being impressed by the output of director Rian Johnson and star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I decided to seek this one out.
It’s an odd little film. Set in high school, it has the appearance of a slacker movie but the dialogue and plot of a Hammett or Chandler story from the classic days of film noir. Our hero (and I’m not at all sure that is the right word) is Brendan, who gets a call from his distressed ex-girlfriend who has got herself into trouble and needs his help. When he tries to find out what’s going on she puts him off, but then winds up dead and he decides to get to the bottom of what’s happening, and to exact revenge on her behalf.
It’s a film that manages to be fresh and all too familiar all at the same time. It’s every Humphrey Bogart movie you have ever seen except with drugs behind the bike shed and skipping classes instead of private eyes and dumb broads. It has bad guys too thick to know they’re being manipulated, a femme fatale, a criminal mastermind, a brainy sidekick, manipulation from the school administration and a hero who is constantly getting beaten up as he struggles to get to the truth.
I particularly liked Lukas Haas who is always worth watching and who is great as the drug dealer with not a bad empire for a young man who hasn’t long left school. And Gordon-Levitt is always a delight.
But.
I really wanted to love this film but I found it just too cold and detached for me. I’m really glad I saw it and I admire the intention and execution but I really wasn’t rooting for any of the protagonists, and I think that’s because hard-boiled dialogue from the mouths of teenagers just didn’t gel for me, I was always to conscious of the technique to become immersed in the film. Which is a shame.
If you love the old black and white Universal horror movies from the 1930s as I do then going to see Frankenweenie was a no-brainer. Tim Burton’s stop-motion animation is an extension of a short film he made many years ago which I know I have somewhere on one of the many versions of The Nightmare Before Christmas which I have kicking around (can’t help it, its one of my favourite films) but haven’t watched for an absolute age.
It tells the story of Victor Frankenstein who, when his beloved pet dog Sparky is run over by a car, brings him back to life in classic style as part of a school science project but then has to keep his existence a secret from the townsfolk of New Holland lest they burst out into classic pitchfork wielding mania as they do. And of course if you know anything about the old horror movies you can see most of where this is going to end up, but its the fun of getting there which makes this such a fabulous film. I spent most of the movie grinning with delight as I spotted loads of references and in-jokes and I’m sure there will be more to spot in the DVD, because oh yes this is in the must buy list.
Things I loved:
- the whole premise is excellent and faithful to the spirit of the old movies
- the science teacher with the impossible name, played by Martin Landau, sinister and inspiring at the same time
- Victor’s parents are lovely, and come through for him in a really positive way which I thought was just great
- Elsa van Helsing, a real Goth girl voices by Winona Ryder and her poodle
- the classic Bride of Frankenstein moment
- Colossus
I was mildly miffed that one of the main monsters in this (minor spoiler alert) was a cat, but I suppose if your undead hero is a dog then it was inevitable he’d have to face up to an evil moggy. Not as miffed about this as I was about a snow leopard being the bad guy in Kung Fu Panda…..
So, if like me you have watched b&w horrors since you were small, and your reaction to the original Karloff Frankenstein was “why are they being nasty to that big man” (as mine certainly was) then you will just loved this. I cried at the end (in a good way) and can’t wait to see it again.
One of my absolute favourite films of the year, (and the music’s good too….)
I have to confess up front I’m not a huge Spiderman fan (although I’ve recently come to love Marvel, I have always been more of a DC girl) and only managed to make it through the first and a bit of the second of the Sam Raimi versions which were after all not that long ago.
The big attractions of The Amazing Spiderman were the darker tone, sort of Batman-ish, and the really interesting cast, especially Andrew Garfield whom I’ve seen and appreciated in a couple of other films including The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
It’s been quite a few months since I saw this and quite a lot of the key plot points have disappeared from my ageing brain, but the good stuff is still in there:
- Andrew Garfield was very good indeed in the main role, playing younger than he actually is but managing to convince as a troubled teenager without desceinding into general poutty sulkiness like some (I’m looking at you Hadyn Christensen)
- Emma Stone was lovely and their romance was actually quite convincing
- The big bad was well done, and I though I don’t normally have much time for Rhys Ifans he was pretty good here
The only downside was insufficient Martin Sheen. But then, I always think there is never enough Martin Sheen.
So a good summer blockbuster re-booting the Spiderman story which I would watch again but probably won’t buy on DVD. Keeping an eye open for the sequel also, but definitely still prefer Batman.
The Book God and I decided to celebrate our wedding anniversary at the end of May via the traditional route of a movie and a meal. There wasn’t a huge amount of choice at the time but we had both seen the trailer for Snow White and the Huntsman on previous visits so we thought that we would give it a go, and I’m pleased we did because it was actually surprisingly enjoyable.
Yes of course the director couldn’t leave the traditional story alone and so we had a very different take on the huntsman from the one I remember as a child reading the fairy tale, and yes Snow White herself was a bit of a sulky teenager though to be fair you would probably be that way inclined too if you’d been locked up by the woman who had murdered your father and then usurped his throne (though whether the sulkiness was intentional or just a result of the part being played in her usual manner by Kristen Stewart I’m not sure) and yes the dwarves were being played by the obligatory cast of British character actors and didn’t have as much screen time as they should, and there was that fey bit in the middle with the woodland creatures, but there was also much to enjoy, namely:
- the Huntsman was great, I really like Chris Hemsworth (having seen him in quite a few things recently – Thor, Cabin in the Woods, Avengers Assemble), so much so that I was even prepared to overlook his dodgy Scottish accent – I can be sensitive about that sort of thing being a dodgy Scot myself;
- nice to see Snow White in a suit of armour getting to grips with sorting it out herself rather than relying on the admittedly cute if a bit vacuous childhood sweetheart of a prince
- it looked fabulous
But mostly for me it was all about Charlize Theron’s evil queen with her weird brother and her icy blondeness and her fantastic gowns and her general attitude of oozing horribleness (though at one point she seemed to be channelling Madonna in the video for Frozen). I will confess that there was more than one occasion where I actually wanted her to succeed. Of course that wouldn’t do but you know, very clear who was in charge. And what a cool Mirror Mirror.
And since then there has been all the scandal about Snow White and her relationship with the director and breaking R-Patz’s heart to the horror of Twihards everywhere so a bit of added value if you are a gossip fiend like me.
So a fun night out. Not one for the permanent collection but I can see myself being drawn in to watching this again on TV.
Bride of the Screen God 