Friday 11 April 2014

A Lesson in Criti-quette

"Life is just pain and piss, it's nothing that I will miss"

Welcome back for some more of my self-satisfying typing words. And GIFs. The GIFs are the best part really. Especially when I get a great one with an hilarious caption. Like The Exorcist one about sprouts. That was genius. Told you it was self-satisfying.

So in this blog I will be critiquing some films that I felt could/should have been good only for them to fuck it up somehow. And I will tell you what that "somehow" is, hopefully without spoiling too much on you. I say "critiquing" but I mean "complaining". Something I never do so bear with me while I try spew my hatred out.



Man Of Steel
I believe I mentioned before in my end of the year awards that the fighting looked terrible and I finally figured out why. I was watching the supremely better Blade 2 and we all know the fight scene early on when the vampires break into Blade's hideout and he fights Nyssa in front of all the lights. Well, the fighting bodies in that were quite rubbery like they were in Man of Steel. So what's the problem? Blade 2 was made over 10 years before Man of Steel meaning there was no excuse for Superman to look like he was fighting elastic bands in 2002. Technology and the budget of Man of Steel should have been advanced enough to make it look better and somewhat real. With technology as advanced as it is there really is no excuse for the effects to be so bad in a film this big.
Avengers had a similar budget and more action on screen and still made Hulk Man look realistic next to everyone else. As realistic as a giant green monster can look. Plus the writing was just bad in Man of Steel. Joss Whedon should write everything. With Guillermo del Toro. Can you imagine how badass the female characters would be with those two writing them? No more Christopher Nolan style "I want to strangle that woman and not in a good way" characters.



The Hunger Games 2: Even Hungrier
The first Hunger Games was a movie. That's about the best that can be said about it. But we'll always have the memory of hunger man throwing the bread at hunger girl. Out of context it is hilarious. What a hungry bastard. So I had heard good things about the sequel. Still not good enough to make me pay to see it but I illegally downloaded it acquired it by legal means and now realise that anybody who thinks it was in any way decent should immediately look into self-castration, whether by chemical or other means. I honestly don't know how it got such good reviews. I suppose one good thing about the film is that there are no troughs. There are no peaks either. It just kind of plateaus for the whole run time. If the film was a person it would be coding (medical speak) and it should have been put out of its misery long before it reached the halfway mark.
The first half is about the hungry fuckers parading around the place and travelling on a train and the second half is about the hungry fuckers parading around a jungle. Some people die, mostly off camera so what's the point? There was something about killer fog but it was like the simple sibling fog of John Carpenter's or Stephen King's Mist. It's pretty much what I expect from a film aimed at kids and older people who wish they were younger and try desperately to fit in with the younger generation but no amount of selfies or planking or 4-starring shit like this film will miraculously make you 19 again. But still look into that castration thing. All the kidz are doing it. Trust me.



The Wolf of Wall Street
The Wolf of Wall Street tells the story of a 70 year old man and his desperate attempt to win an Oscar with a porn film. If you took out all the sex and drugs in this film it would be a movie about a young stock broker meeting Matthew McConaughy for the first time. And then the credits would roll. Now you may think I'm just nit-picking but can you honestly say that it genuinely felt like a Scorsese film? I sat through the whole film and I actually forgot who made it until Scorsese's name came up at the end. Anybody could have been the director. It was as if he took from all his past films and stuck them together and made something resembling a Scorsese film. There was none of that Scorsese feel like you get watching Goodfellas or Taxi Driver. And for a man who lived through the 80s you'd think he would have gotten the look of it right. But then...


I'm glad DiCaprio didn't win an Oscar for it either because the man has done and will do far better work. But his battle with the steps is still one of the best scenes I have ever witnessed. I think I have typed the name Scorsese enough times tonight.


Dredd
I'm not gonna bash Dredd. I actually enjoyed it. I will just say that lady Judge was pointless and it was in no way better than The Raid. I don't care if it was written before The Raid. The fact is I didn't get the same adrenaline rush I got watching Dredd as I did watching The Raid and still get after seeing it many times. Something I thought was well done in Dredd was the slo-mo. Many films use slo-mo just for the sake of it *cough* Snyder *cough* but in Dredd they actually have a reason for it and it just adds to the spectacle. If they do make a sequel I just hope they stick with the formula that made this one the Robocop remake we should have gotten.



"Life is just pain and piss, it's just... temporary"

I think I've insulted enough of you now. Especially if you liked the second Hunger Games film. But you did deserve it.
My recommendation:
Battle Royale
Seems obvious considering. It's what The Hunger Games could have been had it been Japanese and/or good. They should have just put "Beat" Takashi in it. He instantly makes everything 100% better.


If you have any problems with what I have said then we can fight about it. Either in the comments or on the streets. But I promise you, you will be either of these people in that fight: