What's the Latest Thing You Saw at the Cinema?

I think reactions to Melancholia are very subjective, more than it could be reasonable expected. My brother, who is similar to me - we're brothers, after all -, found it insincere and snob, almost arrogant; I was deeply touched, and didn't dislike its disturbing atmosphere. It must be the nihilist in me.

I've just come home from seeing Marco Tullio Giordana's Romanzo di una strage (Novel of a massacre), which is not something in Rob Zombie's style but a very striking, extremely detailed and documented account of the days before and after the bombs at the Bank of Agricolture, in Milan, on December 12th, 1969 (14 dead and 80-odd wounded), for which a small group of anarchists were accused and prosecuted, one of them died out of a window of the Police Headquarters. It turned out the thing was very likely done by fascists with substantial help and protection by State Secret Services (and some head turning and eyes closing by politicians).

All the main roles, especially the vertexes of Politics and Institutions, are impressively depicted, and I found the dark, oppressive climate of the days again.

I don't know if it will distributed in the UK or the USA, but it's a very interesting show for those who think that Italy is just cypresses, Tuscany and genial people who gesticulate when speaking (of women).

M.

Pirates

Typical Aardman genius. Really enjoyed thi, and looking forward to the DVD so I can see all the detail that I missed first time round.

M

The Hunger Games

Lots of good reviews. Flack from lovers of the books, which I haven't read.

Certainly worth a watch, and I will probably get the DVD in due course.

Dystopian future. Certain regions attempted to rebel 100 previously, and since have been forced to supply two children per region to compete in 'The Games', last man standing wins, no runner up.

The lead actress was the main protagonist in Winter's Bone, my film of 2011, and here she supplies another good performance, although in a less challenging setting.

M

Avengers Assemble

Watched this last night, and throughly enjoyed it.

If you like these sorts of films then this will float your boat. I am very pleased to see Joss Whedon getting the success he deserves, both with this and The Cabin in the Woods.

This film is full of Whedonesque dialogue, and is very funny, without pulling away from the drama.

That said, this is a super-hero film, with characters write large, and little in the way of shading - as you would expect.

The story is linear and straight-forward, and so that gives space for the heroes to have there moments, both to help you re-connect with their characters, and for them to knock some edges of each other.

If you enjoyed Thor, or Iron Man, or ..... then this will appeal. I enjoyed this as much as Thor,

M

Avengers

Agree with M - highly entertaining superhero flick. Many memorable scenes, but particularly loved the fight between ironman, thor and cap, where they believably appear to match one another. The true star is the Hulk, IMO - with some classic moves he had the audience in stitches.

EJ

Prometheus

Can ANY film survive such a weight of expectation?

I never looked upon Alien as anything other a horror film is space, many people seem to think of it as a 'classic', rather than 'just' a good movie.

I was suitably frightened by Alien, I enjoyed the militaristic Aliens, and then things dived - at least for me.

So what of Prometheus?

I enjoyed it. It is neither a full blown horror film, nor a military exercise - at least not on the level we are watching it.

There are certain characters and dialogue I would have cut, but I was engaged by the film, and will watch it again.

The film IS worth seeing on the big screen for the spectacle. Does it address fundamental philosophical questions? Of course not.

M

We watched it earlier - average at best. Ridley can do better than this.

Hi Rackkit,

I'll come back to this a bit later, after more people have had a chance to watch it - and so I don't spoil it for them with detail.

M

I haven't seen it and I'm tempted to go to the cinema to see the film, however call it an age thing and I'm not that old but lately films seem to disappoint rather than excite I feel as though Hollywood has run out of originality and churns out films knowing they will almost certain guarantee a return from the box office. I'm have tempted to wait until the Blu-ray comes out and then sit and watch it then. 

Hi Neill,

Is that just getting older? There are a limited number of stories, the difference, it seems to me, is in the freshness of the telling.

As with all things Scott this film has powerful visuals, somewhat let down by the narrative, dialogue and a mountainous weight of expectation.

I feel it is still worth seeing on the big screen.

M

Think I hit the wrong button there no idea if I just reported to mods, apologizes if I did. 

The stories just seem like the same old thing rehashed time and time again, I can remember a few years back Barry Norman saying that the comic book movies would kill the cinema and he's not far wrong. 

The other thing that seems to put me off going to the cinema is rather annoying people sitting next to me. However I think you've talked me into this and I may head off and watch it. 

Neill,

This is getting a VERY mixed bag of reviews. I think that there is some good stuff in the movie, especially the visuals. It is not a Rosetta Stone for the Alien series, nor is the writing as cohesive and consistent as I would like; a curate's egg, but the good was enough for me to want to re-watch it.

To see it at its best I think the big screen is needed.

To me Alien was a horror movie, this is science fiction.

M

That is probably just about the best quote i've read so far that sums the film up.

The most memorable part for me was the first part. It felt like we were about to see something really fresh and though provoking...and then the rest of the characters came along (all 17 of them) and ruined it. 

****** SPOILER ALERT ******

Neill,

I'd HATE to persuade you to see a film that you then find disappoints. I am therefore writing this.

Part1 - considers wider aspects of the film, without discussing 'major' specifics, although I will reference the trailers;
Part2 - Goes into more detail.

I'll leave it to you to decide which you want to read, if either.



Part 1

I'd like to state what I find attractive about this film up front, before I deconstruct it and get critical. I like the fact that it is ambitious.

As enjoyable, and internally consistent, as Alien and Aliens are, they are small in scope; and could be easily re-written within a different milieu.

Prometheus is a Science Fiction film, and while there are specifics that I don't like there is enough grist in there to keep me interested.

The film opens showing an Alien, no not a xenomorph but a bipedal humanoid, who drinks a substance, denatures and falls dead into the water, as an object moves off into the distance. This has been interpreted as the seeding of the Planet Earth - is it? Seems to me to be a waste of a life 'just' to get at some DNA into the biosphere. But this does set up the central question of the film: Why are we here, where did we come from.

This opening immediately sets up the fact that this movie will not, ultimately, answer that question - just feed us into the question of 'where the hell did they come from'.

The film then moves very efficiently through the discovery of some cave paintings to a fully operational, and populated, spacecraft, The Prometheus.

We are now introduced to one of the three well handled characters in the film, David. These three are the most essential, and so the issues with other side players, although clumsy, can perhaps be, to some extent, overlooked.

Does the behaviour of the grouping detract from the film? Yes.

This is a very well funded operation that I would expect to have the best of the best, some of these characters were written for another movie completely. But as much as some of the specifics irritate the humans are generally given so little screen time that their impact is reduced.

What I have been left with is the visual impact of the film, plus a desire to piece together a narrative from the pieces that were delivered that satisfies.

Personally I feel that the moments of horror were grafted onto a more interesting film, to add tension, with the exception of ....



Part 2

I'd like to list some of the specifics that annoy, which include:

1. A geologist that has an attitude that would almost certainly bar him from the expedition;
2. A Captain who views himself more as a bus driver, and happily abdicates mission responsibility;
3. The identification of the two archiologists (?) as the mission leads, within an alien and hostile environment;
4. The laughable handling of the Alien artificats, and their cavalier treatment;
5. The fact that the 'site' was found with a simple fly over, rather than following some scans, for instance;
6. That David is able to just speak the alien language;
7. Following stasis, and being violently sick, the group are just as keen as mustard to go searching an alien landscape with a small window of available time;
8. How did David know the Engineer was after Shaw?

I could go on, but I feel this is all badly written detail that could have been handled with a better script. Yes it detracts, but the larger edifice is interesting, and stunningly visually delivered.

For me this film revolves around the android David. When he asks 'Why did you make me?' that hit at the core of the movie, and what was delivered was ambivalent in its message at best.

David has been programmed, and trained, to understand foreign languages and writing; and as such is the medium through whom Scott delivers our understanding of what is happening, but is he trustworthy?

David seems to me to verge on both the sociopathic and phsycopathic. Whilst maintaining a subservient demeanor I believe he is pursuing purely personal goals, and continually takes the initiative with no consideration of the humans; such as opening the chamber where the vessels stand before an enormous humanoid head.

We are given some independent information, such as the holographic images of the aliens, but for me this just raises more questions, they looked panicked, so where were they running to? And why? Why would they want to go into a chamber that, on one reading, simply contained the substance that it is later implied is the bio-weapon for our destruction? This substance that appears to morph the worms we see in the soil into something that appears more advanced?

Why were those vessels lined up in front of that enormous head?


It would seem that what we are being asked to believe is that these aliens, called Engineers by the humans, seeded parts of the Universe, including Earth.

This film implies that they then decided to destroy us, and that they were handling biological weapons to achieve this, when something went wrong in about the year 100AD.

Two thousand years later our intrepid group of explorers appear, and are fed into a situation by David, who also, from memory, plants the idea of these being weapons of mass destruction.


And so we come to the slightly lame ending.

Does the murder of the party by the Engineer add weight to the mass destruction theory, or did he just view them as vermin, or was he mentally unstable due to such a long stasis? Or was he worried that ....????

When he took off was he heading here, or just trying to get home?

The final moments of the film did nothing but undermine it. In fact I would say that of ALL the horror moments, bar the infection by David of Charlie, and the subsequent worm in the eyeball moment.

Leaving aside the Engineer what we were left with at the end was a human female that is possibly carrying some DNA changing infection in company with a very questionable robot in search of an older space traveling civilisation.


Conclusion

In my brief comments above I stated that:

I enjoyed it. It is neither a full blown horror film, nor a military exercise - at least not on the level we are watching it.

There are certain characters and dialogue I would have cut, but I was engaged by the film, and will watch it again.

To expand slightly, I enjoyed trying to piece together what I think the underlying narrative might be. I think there is an interesting story in there trying to get out, and I will re-watch it. There is a lot of detail that should have been cut, or re-written.

M

I'll be a litle briefer. OK film, slightly disappointing. I will watch it again, maybe DVD/BR.

I'm always amazed by people like M above, how you can get so much info out of 1 viewing?

I must be a lazy watcher as well as lazy listener and reader.

BigH

...I think the word your searching for is SAD

In all honesty I think I just wanted Ridley to knock the ball out of the park.

I remember seeing both Alien and Blade Runner on their releases and being blown away - and hoped for that rush again.

I suspect my frustration with Prometheus has made me cogitate more than is healthy.

Tony,

Did you go? What do you think??

M

M,

I guess i was expecting another B.R and ended up with Solaris/Andromeda syndrome and too many loose ends. It'll all make sense when they release the "Director's Cut" in a few years. Why do I keep on having recurring dreams where  David and Hal(remember him(it?) are playing chess. You're right: SAD!

KR.

Tony

In my city Prometheus is being screened only in 3D at the moment.

I'm waiting for a 2D screening because I find 3D far too dim (in brightness). 

Last cinema movie I saw was "Margin Call" which is about a stock trading firm in NY and their dice with margins. A mild thriller for adults which maintained a sense of tension throughout. 3/5.

I'm still waiting for some bright spark to, arm, turn up the screen brightness to compensate for the darkened 3D shades. It's like so bleeding obvious but nobody seems to say anything about.

Not that'm into the 3D thing anyway...

Thanks for that Mr Underhill my mind is now mad up and I'll watch it in blu-ray the Mrs would just ask a 101 questions when we leave the cinema she'll likely fall asleep in the house and I'll get peace to watch the movie and take it all in. 

Just a point of note most friends who have seen the film haven't given it a good review. 

Hi Neill,

From my comments it is easy to see why there is a negative vibe - hence my NOT wanting you to rush to the cinema on my brief comment.

Tony,

I like your 'Directors Cut' comment. The feeling I got was that the whole thing was rushed, and that much dialogue, that could cover some of the gaps, hit the cutting room floor. Hope so.

Rackkit,

Yep, I watch in 2D whenever possible.

M

Went to see the new print of one of the very best British (nay, very best from anywhere) films ever made:

Everything about it is wonderful - the Michael Powell direction, the lighting, the acting of Livesey, Walbrook and Kerr, the Powell-Emeric Pressberger script, the glorious technicolour... a couple of days previously, I went to see Prometheus, which, while entertaining enough and competently made, was very much a minor work compared to the mighty Blimp.

Kevin,

GREAT film.

Where did you see it?

M

Agree 100%. I'm an absolute P&P nut, can't get enough of them, especially the 1940s colour masterpieces, TLADOCB, AMOLAD, TRS and BN. I also love Canterbury Tales and I Know Where I'm Going (B&W I know).

Saw it at the Cuzon Soho - it's a really nice, crisp print, appropriately luminous. Well worth catching on the big screen if you can.

K