Posts Tagged ‘Review’
26
Mar
Posted by vagrantesque in Movies. Tagged: affleck, batman, ben, cavill, comics, dawn, dc, Film, gadot, gal, henry, justice, Man, Movie, Review, snyder, steel, superman, woman, wonder, zack. Leave a comment
Wow. There are an awful lot of different opinions circling around this movie at the moment.
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Starring: Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Jessie Eisenberg
Director: Zack Snyder (Man of Steel, Watchmen)
Rating: M
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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a whole lot of things, but to me, what’s most surprising about the Warner Bros/DC Comics take on “shared universe” filmmaking is that it isn’t primarily a prequel to the upcoming Justice League movies, or primarily a sequel to Man of Steel, or even primarily a new take on Batman. What it is, more than anything else, is a Zach Snyder movie. If that makes a chill run up your spine then I understand your trepidation. If that makes you intrigued, read on. Continue reading →
19
Mar
Posted by vagrantesque in Movies. Tagged: animated, bateman, bunny, cg, Disney, elba, Film, fox, ginnifer, goodwin, hopps, idris, jason, judy, Movie, nick, rabbit, Review, wide, zootopia. Leave a comment
Can’t believe this is my first movie review of the year. What a crazy three months it’s been.
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Starring: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba
Director:s Byron Howard (Tangled), Rich Moore, Jared Bush (Wreck-It Ralph)
Rating: PG
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Well Disney, that’s five in a row.
The so-called “third golden age” of films from Disney’s main animated studio is still going – at least for another year or so – because Zootopia is pretty fantastic. A cocktail of painstakingly realised world-building packed with culturally relevant sight gags, Zootopia sells a vision of an idealised world with an all-too-familiar undercurrent of ugliness bubbling underneath. It’s one of the sharpest allegories for real-world social issues I’ve seen in an animated movie, and while occasionally a little overzealous in its desire to ensure its message gets across, Zootopia never halts its refreshingly-paced plot or sacrifices the believability of its colourful characters to do so, making it a quality movie for all kinds of audiences. Thanks to co-directors Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Jared Bush alongside a suite of animators at the top of their game, the House of Mouse has extended its hot streak.
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20
Dec
Posted by vagrantesque in Movies. Tagged: 7, abrams, awakens, bb8, episode, Film, finn, force, han, jedi, jj, kylo, leia, lightsaber, luke, Movie, part, peeta, ren, Review, rey, seven, sith, star, wars. Leave a comment
It’s a bit difficult to review a movie with this much weight riding on it, so soon after seeing it. The gap between the midnight screenings and the ideal start time for my year-end countdown posts is mere days, so I had to get cracking. But believe me, I’ve been mulling this movie over in my mind almost every second of that short time.
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Starring: Harrison Ford, Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac
Director: JJ Abrams (Star Trek, Super 8)
Rating: M
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Say whatever you want about 2015 in movies – If Star Wars was good, the year was always going to be remembered fondly. In fact you might even argue that it didn’t have to be good, only better than those endlessly panned prequel films. The carefully timed, Disney engineered hype cycle for Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been lengthy, intense and omnipresent, and the, ahem, force of that hype has been looming over the movie, waiting to crush it like it did The Phantom Menace way back in 1999.
Within that unenviable context, what director/superfan JJ Abrams has done with this mega-franchise is astounding.
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1
Dec
Posted by vagrantesque in Movies. Tagged: 2, Film, francis, gale, Games, hunger, ii, jennifer, lawrence, mockingjay, Movie, one, part, peeta, Review, two. 1 comment
Nothing like a few gigantic rapid-fire movie releases to get you blogging again. I couldn’t let this series go without a lengthy review, of course.
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Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Julianne Moore, Natalie Dormer
Director: Francis Lawrence (Constantine, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1)
Rating: M
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I feel a little conflicted when it comes to The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II. Every movie adaptation mega-saga has to end, and now The Hunger Games has joined that club. The second half of Suzanne Collins‘ bestselling finale novel Mockingjay has completed its transition to the big screen, and I have a funny feeling the lasting impact of this film will divide opinions just as much, if not more, than that sucker punch of a book did back in 2010.
Filmgoers who haven’t delved into Collins‘ vehemently anti-war pages will likely find themselves a little shocked at how depressing this final chapter can get, even despite the film’s much higher action emphasis than that of its predecessor, Mockingjay Part I. Meanwhile those who have read the trilogy may find that, despite some crucial scenes that don’t quite land in the same way they did on paper, Francis Lawrence‘s closing vision for this wildly popular series successfully achieves what it needs to.
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23
Nov
Posted by vagrantesque in Movies. Tagged: 007, action, bond, craig, daniel, Film, james, m, Movie, q, Review, Sequel, spectre, spy. Leave a comment
We’re nearing the end of the year in movies, and that means my personal “big four” most hyped films are just about on screens. The first of these is 007’s latest outing. Let’s go.
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Starring: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes
Director: Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Skyfall)
Rating: M
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In my experience watching and discussing movies, I’ve come to realise that modern James Bond fans, diverse as they are, fall into two major categories: Those who like the movies despite their tendency to hit similar notes each time, and those who like the movies BECAUSE of their tendency to hit similar notes each time. The Daniel Craig era of Bond films has certainly courted the former type more than the latter, sporting a more rustic, sombre edge than the 007 movies of old, not to mention a tendency to draw inspiration more from Bourne and Batman than former incarnations of the suave super-spy.
In 2012 this trend arguably reached its peak with Sam Mendes’ Skyfall, my personal favourite Bond movie, and having achieved something quite surprising given his decidedly non-action back catalogue, Mendes and his crew have returned to make a very different kind of James Bond movie – one for the traditionalists. Spectre is sillier, grander in scope, packs more characters and “ticks more Bond movie boxes” than any of the other three Craig outings, which pretty much means that depending on what kind of Bond fan you are, there’s probably no avoiding either a palpable sense of disappointment or a refreshing sigh of relief. Either way, however, Spectre is a pretty fun time at the movies.
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21
Nov
Posted by vagrantesque in Music. Tagged: adelaide, australia, bgm, big, concert, generation, house, list, Music, opera, orchestra, Pokemon, Review, set, setlist, sydney, symphony. Leave a comment
Yep, another concert post! What a time to be alive.
I’ve lived in Australia for 17 years now, and been a tourist to these great shores before that. But last night marked the very first time I had the pleasure of entering the Sydney Opera House. My reason for doing so was not exactly standard for the venue, mind you, but it was certainly worth the wait. The long-hyped orchestral treatment of the music from the Pokémon series had finally arrived in our backyard, and the event did not disappoint.
It was a bit of a sore spot for me that I had never seen the famous Sydney Symphony Orchestra live in any capacity, not least of all because that meant I’d missed both 2011’s Distant Worlds concert (music from Final Fantasy) and 2013’s Symphony of the Goddesses (music from the Legend of Zelda series). But I was never going to miss this one, and there were very obviously hundreds of others who felt the same, because there was a real excited buzz in and around the iconic Darling Harbour venue. Continue reading →
22
Oct
Posted by vagrantesque in K-Pop, Music. Tagged: australia, baebae, bang, big, bigbang, concert, daesung, dragon, fantastic, gd, kpop, list, loser, made, melbourne, Pop, Review, set, setlist, seungri, solo, sydney, taeyang, top, vip. Leave a comment
The first of two concerts I’ll hopefully be writing about before the end of the year! This post got long…
Well what a treat that was.
In the world of K-Pop, there are few bigger acts than Big Bang (Is that the right way to write it? I’m never sure – Should it be Bigbang? Or BIGBANG, even? Let’s just go with the way that makes the most English sense). Debuting nine long years ago, the YG Entertainment flagship group has been consistently at the top of the K-Pop consciousness for a while, and has amassed quite a considerable reputation in the Western music world as well. Outside of PSY and perhaps Girls’ Generation, there isn’t a more widely recognised K-Pop name than Big Bang. Just about every solo release from the group’s five extremely busy members is met with pandemonium by fans, and when all five get together, well, that’s something else.
So it was a big enough deal when Big Bang announced earlier this year that they would be coming out with their first release(s) as a group since 2012. I never expected that in their subsequent world tour announcement, Australia would be included. Yes, the country ritually ignored by the big name Korean music labels, especially since the relatively disappointing – though still loud and passionate – attendance at 2011’s poorly-marketed K-Pop Festival. Yep, the arrival of Big Bang on our shores for the first time – for two rapidly sold-out shows no less (and a reactively added third) – is probably going to be pretty significant for Korean pop music fans down under going forward.
But never mind all that. Big Bang’s second Sydney show, which I was lucky enough to attend alongside five friends, was just a really good time.
Yep, it really happened.
I’ve been to one K-Pop concert before – B.A.P’s Live on Earth tour appearance in Sydney last year, and it was a lot of fun. But this was next level. Yeah, that’s mostly because Allphones Arena is a much bigger and more technically impressive venue than the Big Top, of course, not to mention Big Bang has more money to put into a spectacular show than B.A.P does. The boys from YG have also been around for far longer, and have built their name up over a sizeable body of work. G-Dragon, T.O.P, Daesung, Seungri and Taeyang are walking legends in their field, and they wouldn’t have had to do much to send the beyond-feverish crowd into raptures. Yet if you ask me, they matched their much younger colleagues in just about every way on stage, turning what was already a major event into one hell of a night.
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28
Aug
Posted by vagrantesque in Music. Tagged: 1980s, 80s, Album, concept, girls, hyerim, jyp, Korean, kpop, lim, Music, Pop, Review, style, sunmi, synth, wonder, yeeun, yenny, yubin. Leave a comment
That’s it – It’s happening. I’m finally going to start reviewing K-pop albums. Perhaps not regularly, mind you, but any reason I may have had against doing so in the past is starting to look a bit arbitrary in light of how little content I’m able to get up on this blog these days. Sometimes if an opportunity appears, you have to take it. And people should know about such brilliance as this. People. Should. Know.
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Released: August 2015
Label: JYP Entertainment
Genre: K-Pop
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It’s not enough for the album to sound like the 1980s, it has to look like them, too.
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TRACK LISTING
1. Baby Don’t Play
2. Candle (feat. Paloalto)
3. I Feel You
4. Rewind
5. Loved
6. John Doe
7. One Black Night
8. Back
9. Oppa
10. Faded Love
11. Gone
12. Remember
1980s pop musical tributes may not quite be a dime a dozen at the moment, but they’re certainly in vogue. When someone as big as Taylor Swift decides to emblazon her polaroid-inspired album artwork with the title “1989”, you just know a trend is in motion. Synth hooks, big bass and full-ham electronic mixing are all back and you don’t have to look very hard to find them, as this entertaining 2014 list from Pigeons & Planes paints clear as day. And that’s amazing, because the musical quirks that define a “1980s sound” are pretty damn fun, particularly when used skilfully. Trend or no, I’ve always got time for a good 1980s inspired album.
REBOOT, the aptly named, long-awaited comeback piece from one-time Korean supergroup Wonder Girls, is a very good 1980s inspired album.
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26
Jun
Posted by vagrantesque in Movies. Tagged: anger, digust, emotion, fear, Film, good, inside, joy, major, Movie, out, picture, pixar, Review, sadness. Leave a comment
It’s a bit more difficult to see and review movies these days. Here’s a good one though.
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Starring: Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Mindy Kaling
Directors: Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen (Monsters Inc, Up)
Rating: PG
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It’s probably safe to say that the dwindling reputation of Pixar has been one of the most widely discussed trends, in one way or another, of cinema this decade. Following the superlative Toy Story 3 in 2010, the relatively run-of-the-mill (though masterfully animated) Brave attracted far more negativity than it deserved, simply because it wasn’t quite as memorable as any of Pixar’s previous non-Cars output. When Monsters’ University hit a couple of years ago, it’s comparative lack of originality hurt its perception, though I really liked it. The wonderfully original likes of Up, WALL-E, The Incredibles and Finding Nemo seemed like the product of a different Pixar era, particularly as Disney Animation Studios’ run of stellar recent films began to take over the animation spotlight. So it is shaking out as somewhat of a surprise (though it really shouldn’t be) that Inside Out is exactly the kind of film that Pixar fans have been waiting for. It ticks all the boxes – Unique, visually arresting, and above all emotionally resonant.
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6
Jun
Posted by vagrantesque in Movies. Tagged: charlize, Film, fury, hardy, mad, max, Movie, Review, road, theron, thunderdome, tom, warrior. 1 comment
Yes, this one’s kinda late, and kinda short. Also, a bit of background: I have not seen the first three Mad Max movies, but you really don’t need to if you’re interested in this new one.
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Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult
Director: George Miller (Mad Max, Happy Feet)
Rating: MA15+
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OK, wow.
If there’s been a bigger example of late hype pulling me into a film over the last several years, I can’t remember it. With next to no knowledge of Aussie director George Miller‘s acclaimed 30 year old Mad Max trilogy, other than the fact that it was kind of a big thing once, I went to see Mad Max: Fury Road based on pretty much word-of-mouth groundswell alone. And goodness, gracious, what a ride.
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Vagrant Rant 