[Dr Kain]

Texas Chainsaw Massacre - We saw this just a little while ago at the Alamo Drafthouse. It was my first time seeing it ever and I'm honestly not sure what I think about it right now. It had some great moments in it. It was far different than the remake. However, I don't really feel like I was able to connect with any of the characters as they were just there to die. I appreciate what the movie did for those to follow, but I'm not sure I understand where all of the amazing love for this movie comes from. Now to be fair, I felt the same way with the original Halloween when I first saw it two years ago and now I absolutely love that movie, so it might just be that I need to think on it over time. As of right now though, I cannot say I was blown away. I am glad to have finally seen it, and there were some really good moments of suspense, but I feel like I missed something. Overall, I give it a 6.5/10 stars.

[Locke]

The thing about Texas Chainsaw Massacre is less the film and more how the film came to be. I know that that shouldn't impact on the movie itself, the movie should stand alone, but if you do ever inspire the interest to check some of the making of's of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it is not only fascinating but makes you see the movie in a different light.

[Locke]

Watched Age of Extinction earlier.

There comes a point in ones movie watching life where you realise you must start to appreciate films for what they are and not hate them for what they're not. Before Age of Extinction was released it was already being torn a new asshole and when it was finally released critics were quicker to pick holes in it than they were to find things they actually liked, all texts deserve to be engaged with, even if you don't like it. I understand this is a beloved, nostalgia goggled franchise, but I honestly have never enjoyed Transformers more than these live action movies.

So yes, to get the obvious out of the way, Age of Extinction is very, very silly but it's silly on such a grand scale and always tongue in cheek, that it is the best kind of silly, the most enjoyable kind. Bay never set out to make the next Blade Runner, he took a toy brand about killer robots that turn into other things and ran with it. With the way people rip into the guy for these films, you'd expect the original Transformers or their many iterations to be high art and not a long string of mostly trashy attempts to capture some of the more magic, bigger Japanese toy franchises from the past thirty or so years. With these films, gratefully, Bay says, "You're either in for the ride, or left behind - it's one or the other." Those critics who are still poking holes in the plot like anyone cares were left behind before the credits of the first movie, good fucking riddance, no one likes a party pooper.

The real surprise for the narrative is the tone, Transformers are literally on the brink of extinction (I guess hence the title and the use of Dinobots) and as the Autobots are backed into a corner, there eventually comes a point where the fancy ideology and morals have to be dropped just so they can survive. This leads to some shockingly intense and violent sequences but also gives Bay an excuse to take the brakes off all together - who knew he ever had brakes in the first place?

Simply put, Age of Extinction is absolutely gorgeous. Not only does it push the boundaries of what CGI can do, and the boundaries of sense all together, it just has a fantastic visual style. I know Bay is mostly remembered for explosions, of which this film has somewhere around 8000, but Age of Extinction is a genuinely well shot, well choreographed, well put together movie with style to spare. Is the film overlong? Yeah probably, but set pieces this good can carry any moment of dead air.

I mean, let's be honest, we're all here for the giant robots and so you'll fall in love with these effects. The intricate and almost unnecessarily complicated transformations of the Transformers are an absolute joy, each Transformer looks so complex but yet so streamlined with each one having a clearly defined visual identity, even if bullet cigars and metal trench coats push the word "ridiculous" to breaking point. Overall it's difficult to pick a favourite moment overall with so many great set pieces.

Our little ragtag group of Autobots who make their final stand are really really cool with the likes of John Goodman providing the voice for a cigar chewing, overweight, gun nut Transformer called Hound to Ken Watanabe providing the voice for a samurai Autobot named Drift who gets the honour of being both a samurai, a helicopter and a Bugatti Veyron. Fucking hell, Drift is like everything my teenage self loves in one thing, all he needed was boobs.

Then there is Optimus himself who goes from looking badass as a beaten up old lorry to getting a really cool new lick of paint (in the coolest way possible) before he grabs himself a sword, shield and rides on the back of a robotic T-Rex. Somehow he's still able to be badass when he's gotta share the screen with Drift, and that is no easy feet.

The only real disappointment robotwise was Galvatron. He plays a bigger and bigger role as the movie progresses but he's basically just sequelbait and his role in this film is artificial at best. I mean I guess props for setting up a dark Optimus Prime 2.0 with the mind of Megatron and one of the coolest transformation effects I've seen but I'd rather Lockdown got more room, who is really, really cool but also almost completely wasted. Galvatron would have been best left for right at the end or the next movie all together.

By this point I shouldn't need to tell you but it's the human characters who are by far the weakest part of the movie, both in terms of action and story. I personally dislike Wahlberg anyway as I don't think he should be allowed to escape his past and make millions for having fun but I can't deny the guy usually brings a lot of energy to a lot of mediocre products. Here however the guy seems to forget somewhere along the way that he has a job to do and so although he may sweep up the audience in how much fun he appears to be having on set his story of an overprotective single parent who regrets past mistakes falls completely flat as he himself seems as uninterested in it as the audience is.

Who is he battling to protect? I dunno, she's so totally forgettable I've already forgotten her name. She's played by Nicola Peltz who is only memorable for looking more like a wotsit than a human being. The camera leers over her as the costume department do their best to accentuate her legs and breasts in a child friendly way. The camera is practically rammed between her arsecheeks for most of the movie, which I'm sure is bound to shock a few soccer Mum's while the seven year olds groan and wait for the next robot dinosaur shot. Wait what was her involvement in the story again?

On a more positive note is Kelsey Grammer, playing the downtrodden CIA bigwig Attinger. He seems too good for this kind of film but he doesn't ever put in a performance like he thinks the film is beneath him. It's amazing you can have such an endearing human villain when all the other villains are giant robots. Grammer adds a lot of depth between the lines for his character, meaning he never feels so much a villain as much as he does someone who got lost along the way. He's obviously made some very poor decisions but by the point of the movie he just seems to have lost all control, and is more drowning in mistakes, than making concious decisions to do harm. He is one of the only characters who really feels human here and not just an actor on a rollercoaster.

All films are made for the cinema, but very few belong there, and Age of Extinction is one of those few. Find your biggest and loudest screen, grab the 3D glasses, relax with some Ben and Jerry's and prepare for the cinema experience to be stretched to the limit. Bay never intended to push the boundaries of human thought, he just wants to push the boundaries of enjoyment, and my does he do that here. He does it to excess, as is the Bay way, and may he do it for decades to come!

[Dr Kain]

I refuse to support Bayformers ever again. I was tricked into seeing it three times in the theater and it just got worse with each one. Despite my issues, I had this little inkling that wanted to see AoE but then Michael Bay made that comment about people going to see it anyway and that little inkling said, "OH HELL NO WE AREN'T SEEING THAT ****!!!"

[Locke]

Rewatched Beautiful Creatures on Bluray.

To get it out of the way, the Bluray presentation is poor but I think most of that is down to the cinematography. It's a stylish movie, that has some good production design, but half the time scenes appear to be out of focus and the things that aren't are buried in noise. No shot looks quite the same, but each is as equally shitty. Overall I think the word I'd use is "flat", all the out of focus backgrounds, the heavy noise in the foreground, it just has no depth at all.

In terms of the movie? Well first, let's talk about characters. Ethan takes a long time to like but when you realise how real and lived in he feels, warts and all, he suddenly becomes endearing. Bella Swan - the most common example - is a character that was the centre of the universe in her story no matter what stage of her arc she was going through but Ethan is always no one and the movie never loses sight of that. The fact he doesn't become the Chosen One or whatever shit is what ends up making him so special. He's just an ordinary teen caught in an ancient battle between good and evil and he's forced to watch and be pulled to and fro spending the entire movie utterly helpless to change any event that plays out, or at least change them in any meaningful way. That may sound like a deathwish for a character but instead he becomes the anchor for the audience because of this and because he remains ordinary, the movie never loses us either. He's also acted well by the incredibly charming Alden Ehrenreich.

It's a shame then that Lena is a complete failure of a character. We'll get to the failings of the film as a story later but speaking right now of characters, Lena's premise is she - like Katniss Everdeen - is going to prove that girls can have the power in the Young Adult genre. However, as much as I dislike the Hunger Games, at least what Katniss goes through is real.

With Lena all the so called power she has is just pretence. The most we get is overly dramatic staredowns and contests to see who is the worst actress, it never feels like Lena is actually in a control. And yes, I am aware that is the whole point of the story, but it seems like such a bizarre creative decision to give women the power - something so rare in this genre - only to make it the whole premise that the power is then stolen from them. Why pretend? You're no fucking different!

Even aside from all that Lena doesn't seem nice inside or out, anyway. Shallow maybe but Alice Englert is not an attractive woman but Lena isn't even a nice person anyway. She's mean, naive and stroppy, a cartoon parody of a real teenage girl where the negatives are magnified and the positives are hidden. Ethan deserves better.

This is especially problematic when the two leads coming together is supposed to be the main drive of the narrative. The romance is well realised, and moves at a nice natural, flowing pace but it doesn't count for much when you can't stand the female lead. Maybe to some extent this is intentional but a turd is always going to be a turd. It's basically a romance for the Tumblr generation, I couldn't think of much worse to say.

Luckily outside of them is the much stronger supporting cast. Irons and Thompson chew so much scenery between them I'm amazed there's any left to chew by the end. I can't tell if they two of them just don't care - especially Irons who only attempts an accent for about one in every ten lines - or if they decided to just have fun in their roles. Whatever they're trying to do, it comes off great on screen, even if the enjoyment gleamed from it was probably never intended, at least not in the shape it comes.

Ridley is probably the only character I genuinely liked from the get go. Rossum, at times, seems a little out of her depth but Ridley is one of the few female characters in the film who actually gets to use the power she is promised. And her flashback, and general character arc, is about the deepest the film gets. I'd have honestly liked a whole movie about her.

Narratively Beautiful Creatures is like a concert hall after hours, vast and empty. It constantly raises hot-button issues, usually with some urban fantasy guise, but it doesn't have anything to actually say about them. What this leaves is an incredibly shallow, pretentious movie, that is all exposition and no substance. This is a shame, as although most of the mythology here is clearly borrowed, some of it does seem to be going somewhere interesting. It never does, though.

Well, to the say the movie has nothing to say, would be unfair. It has lots to say when it comes to Christianity, it just has nothing nice to say about it. The movie takes every opportunity to insult the faith, I am not a Christian or of any faith for that matter, but I see no need to take sweeping stabs at any religion for insults sake. Faith itself is harmless, it's the people who follow it who are the issue, something the movie only ever half understands.

When it isn't offending every Christian in the theatre, it's offending everyone else in it as well, most notably in that it seems to believe being ordinary is much like some sort of fatal disease. I don't know why I ever praised this movie, but I'm going back to Twilight, this doesn't hold up to multiple viewings at all.

[KRX]

It appears I made a boo-boo. My real post is the one after Locke's.

If someone wants to delete this post, I'm cool with it.

[Locke]

That is my favourite part of the Transformers franchise - oh yeah it's "trash" trash that has entertained almost as many people as it has made in dollars times a million. I'm sure your piece of shit art film which opened in one theatre to two people is really enjoying that same level of success. He makes his movies, for his fans and we are legion meanwhile the critics continue to show themselves as sheep who do not know a thing about what they are talking about except for their own isolated, insular circles which they call "art".

[KRX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Kain

I refuse to support Bayformers ever again. I was tricked into seeing it three times in the theater and it just got worse with each one. Despite my issues, I had this little inkling that wanted to see AoE but then Michael Bay made that comment about people going to see it anyway and that little inkling said, "OH HELL NO WE AREN'T SEEING THAT ****!!!"

I'm willing to forgive Bay for that statement for a few reasons.

1). He's right. People are going to go see it.

2). The guy has been hearing the same criticisms over and over again for the past seven years. There's a point where he is going to get tired of them.

3). He's made it quite clear he makes those movies for people who are/want to feel like 13-year-old boys.

4). I don't really care.

I enjoy the movies for what they are. There was a time where I gave them more credit than they deserved, but I'm older and slightly less stupid, now, and I've realized they have their flaws.

I don't watch those movies because I want to be challenged. I watch them because I want bto see giant robots turning into giant machines and fight other giant robots. If there is some deeper message or challenging ideas in there, that's great, but that's not why I'm watching.

That doesn't mean I don't always want to be challenged. It just means that I know what I'm getting myself into when I watch a Transformers film, and I know how to enjoy it. It won't stop me from watching better movies. It just means that, sometimes, I want to watch a Transformers movie.

And that's okay.

[Locke]

Did my last post just get deleted or simply vanish?

[KRX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locke

Did my last post just get deleted or simply vanish?

It's probably above my last post. Go up two more posts, and you'll see what happened.