Tuesday 23 August 2016

Against the Crowd Blogathon


Hosting this annual Blogathon is Dell on Movies and KG's Movie Rants. I'm new to KG but I've been reading and following Wendell for a while now thanks to Thursday Movie Picks. This is actually the first time I've joined in on a Blogathon and hopefully it won't be the last. 

Everybody Loved But I Hated…

Lost in Translation

Rotten Tomato: 95%

When this film came out, there was a buzz about it, awards buzz. Sofia Coppola’s second feature film after The Virgin Suicides (which I loved). She also wrote the script, which is usually a sign of creative growth, but for me this was step to the side rather than forwards. I begged someone to go with me to see this but then regretted it. The wishy-washy nature of the film irritated me, the two characters waft around the hotel for too long and only seem to venture out into the city much later on. Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) has friends in the city right? Then why has she been moping around the hotel? I’m a big Bill Murray fan but I felt like he was out of touch in this film. Maybe this was the point of the film but I didn’t enjoy it.

Quite irritatingly I was told by a close relative that I didn’t understand because I was too young. I was fuming after this comment, especially at how ignorant it was. Fair enough, I was 14 years old but I used to watch all kinds of films and I don’t believe you have to a certain age to understand that this. As I got older I watch it again and I felt exactly the same so the person who said that to me was wrong. It is possible to feel out of place and lonely no matter what age you are. I was not connected to this film as I was to Coppola’s other films, this, to me, felt like a ‘try hard’ attempt at being profound but this was a fail for me.

Everyone Hated But I Loved…

Jupiter Ascending

Rotten Tomato: 26%

The Wachowski Sisters are innovators and they are brave enough to try anything really. First there was The Matrix but alas they followed this with terrible sequels, then the misfire Speed Racer, then the ambitious adaptation of Cloud Atlas which I thought was amazing. I thought this was the sign that they were back on top of the world, but it wasn’t treated kindly. They hit new heights with Sense 8, a show I’m still obsessed with, and in the same year released Jupiter Ascending. 

As each trailer was released it gained less interest, mainly because it became more complicated and slightly ridiculous. I laughed quite a bit at the film, thanks to such great lines from Sean Bean ‘Bees don’t lie’. Of course it was smashed to pieces by critics and everyone else BUT it’s so bad its good. Looking at as a Space Opera with lots of ‘special effects’ you can enjoy it a whole lot more and embrace the ridiculousness of the whole thing, including Eddie Redmayne who acts as if he wants us to take away his Oscar. Who can resist Mila Kunis trying her hand at something weird and different or Channing 'all over your' Tatum as a wolf dog man splice who has rocket boots? Or the fact that all the 'big' villains are English, nothing gets more stereotypical, but its still enjoyable. You don't have to think when watching this. The story is all over the place in terms of plot, character, sci-fi and just credibility BUT it doesn’t matter when the film is just fun to watch. You can actually lose yourself in this film and from time to time, that’s not a bad thing.