Tagged “film”

With Clair off having fun in Skye, the boys (me and Rudy) have been spending some quality time together. On Friday night we watched Dune 11. Rudy wasn’t too bothered but I really enjoyed it. It looks absolutely stunning, especially the all-white gladiator scene. And I thought the heavy, growling soundtrack marked a return to form for Hans Zimmer. While watching I munched on a paneer palak from local heroes Kebabish which, let’s be honest, is inifinitely better than popcorn.

On Saturday with the sun shining and some post-curry guilt, we set off early and walked up Drumgoyne Hill. It was steep but really good fun.

We even made it home just in time to watch Celtic beat Rangers to (just about) clinch the league title.

Just had a memorable midweek night at the cinema with Craig and Jason.

Opus presents Ryuichi Sakamato at the piano in the final year of his life. It consists of him playing twenty pieces one after the other and is beautifully shot in black and white by his son, Neo Sora.

I found the film’s style and starkness to be quite unusual at first, but once I got into its rhythm it was very immersive. The music and playing were at times just mesmerising and given the circumstances it was quite moving.

It was great to unexpectedly bump into Liam, too. I might have known this film would be up his strasse!

Clair and I loved this story of Viggo Mortensen’s Ben Cash and family temporarily leaving their off-grid existence in the Pacific Northwest to enter civilisation. It poses some interesting questions about parenting, lifestyle and morality but mainly, it’s just a lot of fun.

Judging by his movie review for The Guardian, Mark Kermode seemed to like Captain Fantastic too.

Enjoyed this funny and touching film about a Syrian asylum seeker searching for happiness on a remote Scottish island.

I’ve just finished reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Isihiguro.

Afterwards I was also keen to see the film, which I enjoyed. It featured great performances by Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield in particular, and a haunting score. Although I enjoyed the book, I found it a little slow-paced and so watching the film helped bring it all together (despite taking a few liberties with the plot).

Lastly, I enjoyed this short interview with the author in which he interestingly remarked that the sci-fi element was just a device to support the primary topic of managing friendship and loving relationships within our short lifetimes.

One of several fantastic films from Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) described as “Love letters to black resilience and triumph in London's West Indian community. Vivid stories of hard-won victories in the face of racism.”

This one tells the story of Leroy Logan, a young black man who joins the police in an attempt to effect change “from the inside” as a consequence of seeing his father assaulted by police officers. He is faced with both his father’s disapproval and institutional racism within the police ranks.

A brilliant and powerful film which left its mark on me.

The others in the series – especially Education, Lovers Rock (don’t miss if you love reggae) and Mangrove are also highly recommended. Wonderful soundtracks, too.

via @mrtomchurchill

I watched Netflix’s documentary The Social Dilemma the other night. It’s been generating a bit of a buzz, and its subject matter – the effects of social media – is one I’m generally interested in. However, I wasn’t a fan.

While I totally agree with the sentiment that Facebook and Google (amongst others) don’t act in our best interests, there were more than a few aspects of this film that didn’t sit quite right.

Firstly, Netflix themselves are no angels (their CEO once said “sleep is our main competitor”) so for them to suddenly dress this up as “breaking news”, act as heroic whistleblower then make it all sexy with that typically shiny Netflix aesthetic, felt really disingenuous and nasty.

Secondly, why is it all former employees of Google and Facebook (with the exception of proper commentators like Shoshana Zuboff) that are “breaking the news” to us? It stinks of “I took the big pay cheque from a company doing bad things, now I’m taking Netflix’s pay cheque to rat on my former employee, even though Netflix do bad things too”. I trust some of these guys, and Netflix, about as far as I could throw them.

I like the social connection aspects of Facebook and it’s been handy over the years, but (lovely birthday messages and event planning aside) I wish I could bite the bullet and get off. I’d also love to see more people have their own websites/blogs – their own home on the web – and for there to be modern means of cross-communication between those. I reckon too many people have come to think that Facebook and Google are the web. They’re not.

You can have your own home on the web where the content you publish is not fodder for an algorithm that pushes you stuff and sells your data to the highest bidder.

I watched Tenet again last night (in IMAX with Jamie) and second time round it all made sense.

My initial viewing was good but really confusing; but this time I knew what was going on and loved it! Based on the plot, it actually makes sense that you need to see it twice, too.

This film has its flaws, no doubt, but for sheer invention, visuals you’ve genuinely never seen before, combined with the overall look, sound and mood, Mr Nolan has me hook, line and sinker and TBH I will likely never tire of watching his films. I expect to revisit this one roughly another ten times in the next year!

Footnote: I’ve been enjoying some internet rabbit-holing to squeeze out every last nuance of the plot I might have missed. Here are some great articles and resources which have helped (with the usual “heavy spoilers” caveat):

• Adactio’s fantastic review and insights
• Vulture’s humorous plot appraisal
• Transcript on Scraps from the Loft. It’s neither official nor 100% accurate but does a job.

Clair and I just watched The Farewell, a comedy-drama film written and directed by Lulu Wang starring Awkwafina and Zhao Shuzhen, and really enjoyed it. Interesting/difficult subject matter and really nicely done. If you need a break from grisly murder cases etc then I can heartily recommend it.