Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Hercule Poirot the famous detective is taking a holiday train trip on the way to another crime. During the 3 day trip a murder is committed. The train then gets derailed by snow in the mountains. During this delay to the next station Poirot must find the murderer.

Upsides
Some laughs - my theatre often laughed out loud
Character introductions - especially Poirot and Booker

Downsides
Some of the detecting at the end

and



!SPOILERS!

There is no way all 12 people would be able to believably act as if they did not know each other if they were recruited beforehand






P.S. I had not read the book before seeing the film, I liked it so much Hercule Poirot will be the net mystery books I read

Snow (2004)

A Santa Claus origin story "Snow" follows Nick Snowden on the week before Christmas. Nick is the next Santa and is preparing for the big day. Sandy works at the San Ernesto zoo. The zoo just got some new reindeer but one of them belongs to Nick. Nick leaves the North Pole to get the reindeer back before Christmas.

Upsides

Fun characters - Hector is awesome
Good special effects - the animated reindeer doesn't hold up, but the mirror looks really good
New Santa origin story
They made a sequel

Downsides

It ends with a couple questions - Can Nick understand NFRs too? What if there is no son in the family? Can people still find the workshop if it isn't the week before Christmas?

The sequel isn't as good

Bladerunner 2049 (2017)

Bladerunner 2049 is a sequel to a 1982 film based on a 1968 sci-fi book.

Upsides
It lives up to the first film well
It continues to make you think after it is over
They never answered whether Deckard is a Replicant
Scale

Downside
The music of the first film was iconic and different - they only used that style a few times




P.S. I still like the book "Do android's dream of electric sheep?" by Philip K Dick better.

P.P.S. The book and film are set in the same world but the story and characters are very different

Justice League (2017)

Justice League is the DCEU's answer to the Avengers of the MCU. Justice League Picks up right after Batman v Superman. Batman recruits the people in the video files. He visits Aquaman first but is unable to convince him to fight. Diana works to recruit Cyborg and is also turned down. Batman then finds Flash and recruits him. The villain is from Diana's history so she explains the goals and past of the people they are fighting.

Upsides
Much better than Batman v Superman - the story makes sense
Barry Allen is really funny - I was worried because his character is so well established on TV but the differences are big enough to still be the Flash and not feel like a copy


Downsides
Tries to be a team up story as well as Cyborg's origin
Superman's character isn't consistent with the previous movies
They don't call Barry, Flash or Victor, Cyborg

Lego Ninjago (2017)

"Lego Ninjago" is a mostly animated movie about LEGO. It follows a 16 year old and his friends in the city of Ninjago. Lloyd is a kid who doesn't fit in because his Dad is the city's bad guy. Lloyd only has a few friends and together they protect the city from Garagamon (Lloyd's Dad). The film is about talent and the influence and importance of family. Lloyd becomes a leader through the film as his friends learn to work together.

Upside
Some good action sequences
One good joke for the adults - paraphrase  all outta bubble gum quote from "They Live"

Downside
Very Power Rangers - teenager heroes, driving mechs, identified by colours
The theme was very superficially explored
The live action scenes felt unnecessary and unrealistic

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) !Spoilers!

The following synopsis contains major spoilers. Skip to the Upside/Downside to escape spoilers.


Eggsy is enjoying his life as a Kingsman while living with his girlfriend. Everything goes sideways when a drug cartel decides to take out Kingsman. The small organization hasn't had time to rebuild since the first film and now only Merlin and Eggsy are left. This leads to emergency protocols that take them to Kentucky to meet the Statesmen. The Statesmen are the American version of Kingsman, but with drink code names. The drug cartel poisons all its users, taking them hostage against the leaders of countries around the world. The United States is forced to decide how to proceed. The President wants to let all the infected illegal drug users die, including his aid. The small Kingsman force joins the Statesmen to fight the cartel. They travel the world following the girlfriend of  a henchman until they reach the antidote. They lose the antidote and have to get to the boss of the cartel. Then death, fighting, betrayal until the world is saved. Statesmen and Kingsman officially join together and Eggsy marries his girlfriend.

Upside
Slow motion moments in fights are really well done
The 'dinner with the parents' scene
The Whitehouse scenes were all very enjoyable

Downside
Some fight CGI was really obvious on the big screen
It felt like more swearing than the last one, also the gore starts right away
My favorite character dies

The Dueling Machine - Ben Bova

The Dueling Machine is a scifi story set in political tensions between three areas of settled planets. The Terran Alliance runs the space police force Star Watch. The Acquitaine Cluster and the Kerak worlds struggle for superiority. The Kerak dictator discovers a way to use the dueling machine to create political instability in the Acquitaine Cluster and make it easier to rearm the borders for war.

The machine itself is a type of virtual reality dreamscape in which two opponents duel to the death in a program created by the participants. These duels are used to end verbal disagreements before turning to physical confrontation in the real world.

Upside
Character descriptions
I found the distinction between ground cars and flying cars very interesting

Downside
The narrative changes perspectives, often without a chapter break to differentiate
The story seemed to be concluded but to clear up the political tensions another element was created to be resolved after the initial problem was resolved

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

Valerian and Laureline are government agents on assignment to recover stolen property. They return the property to the City of a Thousand Planets to be used in another assignment. They are given security of the Commander and work to protect him from an unknown force causing problems in the City.

Upside
The design - different planets and alien species all different and visually interesting
The opening sequence - introduces the systems of the City while amusing the audience with alien first encounter handshakes
The largest group of nonhuman beings have a very well developed society that is explained in a way that allows the audience to accept the information slowly and not miss anything important

Downside
The love story between Valerian and Laureline never seemed real. It was always a kind of joke they mentioned so when the stakes were raised and their love decided the outcome it didn't feel genuine that they would get emotional and serious. This also made the end unsatisfying.

Not sure this is a downside but I was drawn to the smaller characters more than the protagonists. They made more of an impact by the way they were introduced and were interesting whenever they were in the scene.

Cars 3 (2017)

Cars 3 follows McQueen after a crash that threatens his racing career. He works with a trainer and travels the country trying different ways of training to get up to speed for the first race of the season. He agrees to retire if he doesn't win the race.

Upside
The short before the movie LOU
Better than Cars 2- supporting characters are back to support, Sally is back
The new characters are well developed
Back to the mentor/friend relationship that worked so well in Cars

Downside
Chick Hicks is back but not voiced by Michael Keaton, unfortunately I found this distracting
Radiator Springs didn't have much to do with the story

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

First published in 1932 "Brave New World" depicts the realities of a future utopian society. The story is set in London and follows upper-caste members of society as they deal with societal expectations. They are conditioned to be comfortably numb to life's troubles and when they feel too much they can take a pill for that. It is a dark look at what a society loses when individuality is removed "Everyone belongs to everyone else".

Upside
The debate between a Leader and an Uncivilized person about art and God near the end of the book
Most of the reactions to the unknown are grounded in reality

Downside
It starts very technical which can be hard to follow
I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't this

Wonder Woman (2017)

Wonder Woman shows the origin story of Diana Prince who was introduced in Batman V Superman. With only a slight tie in to the present, the film takes place during WW1. This is the perfect origin film, it has story and character development but is pushed along by a strong plot.

The young actress playing Diana as a child captures your attention whenever on screen. Chris Pine is great at bringing humanity to a superhero film. Most characters are introduced through comedy, which makes even the minor characters memorable.

Upside
Beautifully shot - fight scenes are dynamic throughout
The acting
Space for plot within character exploration

Downside
I figured out a major twist before it was revealed
Watching the credits anticipating an end credit scene that never came (Marvel has trained us too well)
It is very long 2+ hours - they do use the time well though

The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien

"The Silmarillion" is the mythology behind "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings". It follows the time of the elves and the time before. The creation of Middle-earth and how it came to be the way it is in the time of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. It follows various important characters and their families as they live in Middle-earth.

Upside
Details on stories only referred to in Tolkien's other works
A better understanding of Elves and their cultures
Getting to know the land of Middle-earth and why places are named the way they are
Explanation of alliances based on families

Downside
Personally when characters have multiple names because of language translations I can get confused
Hobbits are barely mentioned
The creation of tree Ents is mentioned but I wanted to know more

The Circle (2017) !Spoilers!

For less major spoilers skip to last paragraph.


The Circle follows Mae as she starts work at the new tech company The Circle. She learns that "Sharing is Caring" means everything. The weekend optional activities on The Circle campus become necessary and she soon stops going home at all. As she becomes more integrated into the company community she loses touch with her friends, including the one who got her the interview. When things at home take a turn Mae turns to solitude of a night kayak trip. She is capsized and rescued by connection through The Circle. As a result of this rescue she is convinced that when people are watching she is her best person. Mae then decides to go transparent and live stream herself 24/7. This further sharing of information pushes even her family away. As a test of a new program The Circle attempts to find an old friend that Mae had pushed away. This results in an accident that causes his death. Mae returns home and unconnected, as she reconnects with those she pushed away she decides that The Circle needs to change and that she can do it. She returns to the campus and her transparency. She finds a way to change the way the company is run and because she is transparent with millions of watchers her ideas are heard and implemented quickly.

The Circle is a scarily relevant film about privacy, secrets and safety. The Circle started with having one account using your real name, so there aren't different passwords and security for everything you do online. In the film they liken it to needing a different vehicle for every errand you do online and now just needing one. All interaction is filtered through smiles and frowns and participation meters. It becomes cult-like in the fanaticism of those inside, to the point of suggesting mandatory signup so voting can be done through The Circle platform.

Upside
Very relevant and thought provoking - this could be reality just months into the future
To me it felt similar to "1984" though the plot is quite different

Downside
The ending felt wrong - I think the end would come across better in a book than it did in the film

Aliens in the Attic (2009)

Aliens in the Attic is a family summer movie. It centers around a group of cousins on the first day of vacation. They find some aliens that are trying to invade the world from their lake house. The cousins work together and save the planet without telling the adults what is going on. The oldest girl is busy with her boyfriend for much of the film but once she finds out what is going on is quickly on board. The youngest is understandably scared of the aliens but also befriends one of them. The friendly alien then helps the cousins stop the invasion.

Upside
quoteable
very cool anti-gravity fight
the why don't they call for help conundrum is solved smoothly

Downside
The main character had bad grades on purpose because he was trying to be cool, he uses math once in a fight and now wants to be smart again - the lesson is super obvious
characters often state the obvious
the twins are basically one character and don't even have names for most of the movie

Total Recall

This is part of a paper I wrote focussing on visual effects.

Both “Total Recall” movies are full of visual effects. They both use a lot of holograms. Holograms are part of the world of the original 1990 movie. They look old and grainy compared with the world which is how you can tell they are fake. The tennis hologram is very 2D when Quaid walks through it. Later in the story there are better holograms that are known as holograms because they have no shadow. All these holograms have no logical source. Holograms allow Quaid and Melina to win a fight in the reactor by using them as distractions. The holograms generated by the watch are opaque and look real which is why they work as distractions.

 In the 2012 remake holograms are interactive rather than only mimicking movement. They are 3D and have an obvious source. The hologram at the piano has to render before playing and is semi-transparent. Holograms are also used in advertising. There is at least one sign in the Asian part of the city that Quaid walks through before it re-renders behind him. Holograms are also used instead of screens. The holograms in Rekall are interactive to touch and display information. Other uses are in the info backpack after the small cameras were launched in Rekall to display all the camera views. They are used again to display Quaid’s memories for others to see and decode. Whenever there is hologram technology that is supposed to look futuristic it is blue. The only hologram that looks real in this movie is the technology that disguises Quaid as an old Asian man at security.

Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins is a series of books, a Disney film and a stage musical.

The series of children's books by P.L. Travers consists of 8 books written 1934-1988. Mary Poppins is a magical nanny who takes the Banks children on adventures.

Upside
There are 8 of them
If you know the movie, there is still plenty of new adventures in the books

Downside
They are darker than the Disney film, Mary Poppins' magic isn't so whimsical
There are 5 Banks children by the end of the series, including twins, which can make remembering characters difficult-especially if you are used to Jane and Michael from the film

The Disney film Mary Poppins was released in 1964 and received 13 Academy award nominations. The film is based most on the first book of the Mary Poppins series. It is a musical with songs written by the Sherman brothers.

Upside
Bert-the books have a few minor characters instead
The music!
dancing animated penguins - a new system of filming with a yellow background (like greenscreen) allowed this to work

Downside
Accents - Bert's accent is listed as one of film's all time worst (because it changes throughout the film)
Random magic - the moment on the roof when Bert gets swung out off the edge has always bothered me because he isn't magical so it doesn't make sense that it would happen that way

The stage musical is based more directly on the series of books than the film. It includes dancing with statues in the park which happens in the books but not the film. As a musical it uses some of the songs from the film but also changes them. Verses are changed to be more accessible to the stage story. Listen to the difference between Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in film and stage(at 3 minutes).

Upside
Live entertainment
Mary Poppins actually flies! (at least in the production I saw)
The clean up song was so cool to watch with the props in the kitchen tidying themselves up
Miss Andrews, Mr Banks' childhood nanny is a great antagonist

Downside
Different music
More characters

Mary Poppins is one of my favorite films so I also recommend Saving Mr. Banks. Although not entirely accurate, Saving Mr. Banks is a biopic about P.L. Travers during the making of the film.

Waldo - Robert A. Heinlein !Spoilers!

The short story "Waldo", follows James Stevens and the circumstances which lead to his meeting with Waldo.

Waldo is a reclusive genius who is contracted to discover why a piece of standard technology continues to fail. In his research he discovers that the source of magic is another dimension. Upon this discovery he repairs the technology, creates access to clean and free energy and heals his body of its genetic muscle weakness.

Upside
The descriptions of technology are very vivid, especially the waldoes and Freehold
The description of the science and the analogies used to describe it are easy to grasp

Downside
The beginning is confusing
For some reason I found it hard to keep the names straight for quite a while

Nightfall - Isaac Asimov & Robert Silverberg

"Nightfall" is based on a popular short story of the same name published in 1941. The novel is broken into three parts: Twilight, Nightfall, Daybreak.

Twilight begins introducing all the main characters separately and their individual discoveries. Slowly the characters begin to meet and share information at the University which leads them to believe that their world of Kalgash with six suns will experience darkness on a global scale. This understanding leads the characters to Nightfall a year later and together for the event that will change the planet's understanding of the world. Never having experienced night the planet had never seen stars. In the darkness people panicked but the appearance of stars brought the population to madness. Daybreak is the experience of the characters as they regain sanity and move about the planet in a new society governed by crazies.

Upside
The premise of a whole planet experiencing night for the first time together and discovering the existence of stars
Sheerin is just an enjoyable character
It is really fascinating Sci-Fi as there isn't any Science that doesn't already exist on Earth
The forward by Asimov and Silverberg explaining that it is an alien planet but the translated to English terms so it would be easier for the reader to understand

Downside
Nightfall section lost momentum when it jumped nearly a year in time
The names are so different it really took me a while to get the characters straight
The reveal about Mondior at the end didn't have as much punch as I am sure it was supposed to just based on the fact I have read other similar reveals recently

Moana (2016) !Spoilers!

Moana is Disney's latest animated musical. I suspected it would be over-hyped like Frozen but I really enjoy it.

Much like Frozen, Moana follows a girl on a musical journey with a travelling companion and an animal. Moana, as the daughter of the Cheiftain is meant to be the next village leader. She is not satisfied staying on her island and wants to travel the ocean beyond the reef that protects the island. Her Grandmother encourages her to be different and follow her heart because following her head is frustrating. Moana discovers that her ancestors used to voyage and explore but no longer do because the boats stopped coming back.The darkness that was beyond the reef finally reaches the island. Moana realizes that something needs to change for anything to get better, she decides to find the demi-god Maui to get him to stop the darkness that he started by returning what he stole. Of course this isn't simple and things happen on the way. Even as she lay dying, Moana's Grandmother tells her to go to the ocean and find Maui.

The music is very powerful. Similar to Frozen's "Let it Go", these songs feel like they belong in a Broadway musical; this make sense with Lin-Manuel Miranda writing a few of the songs. After watching the movie I had the music in my head until I bought the soundtrack and was able to listen to it again.

Upside
The short before the movie
The music
The unique locations - the realm of monsters was especially cool looking

Downside
This is yet another Disney movie where a character dies-this time to come back as an encouraging ghost.
The pet pig that was so often in the trailers didn't really have anything to do

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

I am admittedly behind the times to only watch and review this film now, but I am not a big fan Wes Anderson and therefore put it off. What a mistake that was.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is a fascinating film that must be studied to be properly appreciated. For example, I noticed immediately the first time the frame ratio changed but not that every time period had a unique ratio until looking at it again. Also being set mostly in the 1880s the old style iris effect was used to end some scenes and focus on a single character. The way the camera moved was usually quick to lead you toward what was important rather than  focusing on every detail.

The story itself is straight forward but the way it is told is not. The story is in four times; a young lady visiting the memorial of an author and remembering his book; the author explaining how he got the idea for the book; the author listening to someone tell him the story; the story. Each of these time periods are visually distinct with colour palette and frame ratio as well as set and wardrobe that match each period.

Up Side
I enjoyed this movie as a visual experience and a study in editing. I liked the characters and enjoyed the little visual jokes. There are matte paintings, illustration/animation shots to push the style of the whole film.

Down Side
A lot of swearing and implied sex, also a naked women art piece and out right talk about sex.  But it is rated R so that is to be expected. Also there is a dismembered head at one point, it is shown briefly and doesn't look too real.