Brace brace brace! Heads down! Stay down!

Sully (2016)

7.9/10 on IMDb
82% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: It's alright
Watch it if you: Are a fan of Tom Hanks; Are not expecting a big action-focused, overly-dramatic movie

Sully tells the true story of Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger's decision to make an emergency water landing on the Hudson River when a flock of Canada geese strikes the plane he is flying. Miraculously, all 155 passengers and crew survive, yet while publicy praised a hero, Sully's reputation and career is privately scrutinised by the airline's insurance company, and Sully soon finds out that his entire life may be judged by just 208 seconds.

If this sounds familiar, it's because it sounds a lot like Flight (2012), which, personally, was not that great (but I don't particularly like Denzel Washington so I may be a bit biased there). At first, the concept seems similar, although they can be quite a bit different.

I think what struck me firstly was just how real it all seemed. The acting was not overly dramatic or anything like that; it was actually just really subtle, and obvious props have to go to Tom Hanks for being one of the greatest actors of all time. Seriously, he is just amazing in everything he does. I'm actually not sure if the movie would be as enjoyable without Hanks. Like it would still be a decent film, but Tom Hanks is really the selling point here. In fact, the movie may seem a bit slow and boring to some if it weren't for him.

The other actors did quite well though. For example Aaron Eckhart did a great job as the First Officer, but even just seeing little glimpses into some of the passengers' families, and even seeing the view of the radio operator was pretty good. Those things kept this film grounded in reality, and the subtle performances by all of them made it more realistic. The only thing not realistic about this film (which I hate in every movie) is the whole having-a-bad-dream-and-waking-upright-and-breathing-heavily cliché. It's really annoying, but it's just a tiny part of the film and I'm frankly just being fussy here.

I also liked how the film didn't straight up do a chronological story. Instead of having the pre-flight backstories first, then the accident, then the aftermath, the story dives straight into the aftermath. At the start of the film, Sully is already having PTSD flashbacks as the crash has already happened. You don't get to see the actual crash until later in the film, and even then, you only see snippets of the accident a little at a time.

I thought that was pretty clever. It allowed for something different, exciting, and allowed us time to get surprised. It also broke up the lengthy dramatic scenes and added to the emotional turmoil both we and the characters were feeling (I think I teared up at least five times in the movie).

Clint Eastwood directed this film and I haven't seen too many of his movies, but of the ones I have seen, some of them can be a bit slow and dragged out. This film does seem a bit dragged out too (even though it's his shortest film yet at 96 minutes), but it's not as bad as some of his other films.

So in the end, I thought this was a pretty decent movie. It was good, but not great. Definitely not anywhere near Oscar-worthy, although this year in movies is pretty bad so I think it would get nominated, depending on how the rest of the year goes. The film can be a little boring at times because you might feel like you are just rewatching the same thing happening again and again, but Tom Hanks and the subtlety of the actors and the writing really sell the movie, and I think the best part of the film is towards the end.

Marriage is buying a house for someone you hate.

The Nice Guys (2016)

7.5/10 on IMDb
92% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: It's alright
Watch it if you: Want a subtle comedy poking fun at movie cliches; Are interested in a buddy cop movie that's not trash


I have been looking forward to this movie since it came out, but unfortunately that was around the time of some heavy assessments, and by the time I was free to watch it, it was no longer screening. Alas, since I don't torrent movies, I had to wait for it to be available to rent, and even then it was all rented out at the Hoyts Kiosks for the first two days. At long last, we managed to get our hands on it.

It's great that there's a good original film out, but unfortunately the marketing suffered quite a lot, and so I don't think many people ended up watching this, and the movie was quite a flop.

The film is a great buddy cop movie (how long has it been since the last good one?), starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe as two very different private investigators looking into the mysterious disappearance of a young lady.

The plot is very intriguing, which is always a plus, but you end up realising that that's not the point.

In fact, the movie focuses more on trying to break down a lot of movie stereotypes and cliches, as it presents a more realistic crime-fighting movie. While the film's humour is really slapstick, it's also quite subtle in this way as you see funny stuff happening without anyone batting an eye (for example, in a struggle involving a gun and misfired bullets, random passersby may get hit; also, when you punch a glass window, you will probably bleed... a lot). So it's not the laugh-out-loud type of humour, but it's still quite a hilarious movie with a lot of very great small chuckles in there.

Ryan Gosling is the source of most of the slapstick here, and he was great in this, as was Russell Crowe. The surprise, though, was Angourie Rice, who played Gosling's daughter. She was surprisingly a good addition to the duo, and wasn't at all an annoying teenager that tagged along unnecessarily.

While the film does try to dismantle common movie tropes, the last fight sequence is where it becomes completely not realistic, and it's really clever and funny here. It's comparable to in Hot Fuzz where, after a movie of stelling the viewer that it's 'not that kind of movie' and where 'real life doesn't happen like that', the last fight sequence brings out all the stereotypes and cliches you've ever seen, and it's hilarious at how unrealistic all of it gets.

In the end, this is a fun movie with great music, taking us back to the 70s, and bringing us an interesting and original story. I'm not sure if it's worth the 91% score on Rotten Tomatoes, although I do understand why it would have that rating; Rotten Tomatoes is full of critics and they would all appreciate this type of movie. I think in this case, the average rating of the critics (7.5/10) is a better indicator of the movie's quality. So I would still recommend this film; even if it's not as great and amazing as I wanted it to be, it's still pretty good.

St Ives Medieval Faire

The St Ives Medieval Faire is on this weekend, and though I'm not going I went last year and would recommend it for anyone interested! For some reason I never posted this blog but it's been sitting in my drafts for ages so here it is:


In the middle of last year, I went to the Winterfest Medieval Faire over at Parramatta, and then I found out about the St Ives Medieval Faire, and boy oh boy it was so amazing! Seriously, Winterfest was so plebeian compared to this monster of a fair!

At Winterfest, they had some really exciting stuff, but this St Ives Medieval Faire had all that AND MORE.

The entire grounds were like triple the size of Winterfest's, and they would have multiple events happening at the same time; it was so big that I really wished I could have gone both days so that I could have looked at every single thing.

Anyway, since I wrote this a bit after the actual event, this blog will mainly be a picture blog with not so much narrative and detail.


So at the beginning of the fair they have the grand parade, where all the re-enactors come out in the groups, and they even have a king and queen overseeing it all!

You can just sort of make out the King and Queen sitting down

Knight in Shining Armour
(which just means he's super inexperienced)

The Grand Parade

Re-enactors

One really really cool thing they had that Winterfest didn't was a trebuchet demonstration.

Dat waste of watermelon.

They also had some really cool combat displays. We couldn't see all of them, but we saw the Kingdom of Heaven combat where they did like a knockout/round-robin thing, and then after that just did a huge melee. It was so funny; the re-enactors will fully dramatise their deaths and literally collapse straight onto the floor when someone hits them on the head. It was a load of fun and I wish we could have seen more of this.

After the combat, there was a bit of time to kill so we walked further up the field (away from the main area) and sat down waiting for the pike and musket display. To our surprise, the pike and musket group started marching right towards us and even stopped right in front of me to do a test display! It was so cool I was literally like less than 5 metres away from them when they fired their muskets; it was such a shock to the system because it was, firstly, super loud and, secondly, very unexpected.

Re-igniting my desire to be one of the Three Musketeers

They even had a Medieval Tavern, with a huge roast as well (but unfortunately we couldn't eat any of that pig; I think they sold it all pretty quickly (or maybe they just ate it themselves)).

They had archery demonstrations as well:

They also had a larger area of stalls and re-enactment villages. They split the area up by time period, so you could see how different time periods had different ways of cooking, playing music, accessorising, living, etc. It was pretty cool.

Blacksmithing

Medieval games

Sleeping quarters

This one group even did a musical demonstration for us:

(Sorry, it's vertical)

These are instruments!
How crazy do they look; they look like they will make soft noises but they actually make pretty loud, cartoonish-like sounds!

There was a heap of fun stuff around the fair:

Then, lastly, they had the great joust. It was a lot better to watch at this fair because there were actual seats and you could get a pretty good view of the entire jousting area, which was also really big. They also did a mounted melee as a warm up before the joust, which was a continuation from the previous day (we went on Sunday and they do the joust on both days of the fair).

Mounted melee

Jousting knights

Well that is pretty much it. As I said, I wasn't able to look at every single thing (they had way more combat displays, they had market demonstrations on how people lived in the Medieval period, such as their fashion, make up, eating, etc.), but I'm super keen on returning for perhaps both days some time!

If you must blink, do it now.

Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)

8.3/10 on IMDb
97% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: A must-see; Watch it in cinemas; I'm buying the DVD
Watch it if you: Are a fan of great animation or stopmotion; Want to watch a visually brilliant kids movie with darker themes; Are a fan of other Laika movies
I saw the trailer for this film ages ago, and I proceeded to forget about it and dismiss it pretty quickly, but I was surprised at how good the reviews were for it, so I decided to go watch it while it was still (only just) in cinemas, and while I was having some down-time from assessments.

I'm so glad I ended up watching this, as I was blown away by the uniqueness of it. It's great having an original film that pushes the boundaries, not only in the way it does its storytelling, but also because it's fantastic stopmotion. I find it amazing that the artists and animators behind this are so dedicated; they could easily have done this digitally, but no, they decided to actually build the set pieces, the costumes, the figurines, hundreds of faces for each character, and so on. That is amazing, and for that reason I really think people should go watch this while it's still in cinemas. It's really good to support these small studios who have such large budgets; if you stick to torrenting or only watching huge franchise films in the cinemas, then you get less original and creative movies, and more generic blockbuster remakes/reboots/sequels.

As I said, I forgot about the trailer so I really had no idea what the film was about, but I can honestly say that the first 20-30 minutes were very very solid. They completely sucked me in and I can't find a single fault in that introductory section. I knew from the start it would be an amazing original story; the premise is fantastical, magical, surreal, and really unique.

The fact that it's a stopmotion film made it even more special. This film comes from the studio and the animator of Coraline, which was amazing, so you know this is going to be great. And, it definitely was. In fact, the way they did this was way better than Coraline, in my opinion.

After the first 20-30 minutes, when we meet the monkey, that's when things kind of plateau for me. I mean, the film is still amazing, but there were a few things they added in that I think could have been left out on the drawing board.

Firstly, I think the film was marketed towards kids (and you can tell because all the trailers ahead of the film were for kids movies), and they tried to pander to kids by adding in a few dumb jokes, but I think the bulk of this film is really quite mature and dark, and I'm not sure if kids would be able to appreciate the film until they get a bit older. So, as a result, some of the jokes sometimes feel a bit out of place (I think I chuckled at maybe 2 of them, 3 tops, and it didn't help that the cinema I was in was almost empty). For example, the film doesn't really explain much of what's going on; it trusts you to make inferences along the way through the visual storytelling (similar to Mad Max: Fury Road). I think this was a great move on their part, because it's great to have a movie where not everything is explained to you, rather, the story builds and builds and builds and it does NOT dumb down and spell things out for you. I think this was a good move on their part, as it makes for a good film, but once again, I'm not sure if the children would really understand it. I think it's more a film geared for older children, e.g. 8 and above.

Secondly, the pacing began to slow down after the first 30 minutes, and while it's necessary for the dark and sombre tone, I'm not sure if the kids could sit still during these moments.

Thirdly, I have a teeny gripe with the voice acting. Don't get me wrong, the voice actors were great. In fact, Kubo was an amazing protagonist; the actor (Art Parkinson, who playes Rickon Stark) was really believable and I just loved the way he said things sometimes, especially the opening line (which is the title of this blog). I also really loved Rooney Mara as The Sisters (who, by the way, looked awesome; their costumes were my favourite in the film). And, while I think Charlize Theron and Matthew McConaughey were great in their voice acting, I just didn't think their voices matched the actual characters. The monkey and the beetle looked so bizarre, and they looked like they would have completely different voices. I must admit though, that I think it's just me, because I had an issue with Elsa from Frozen as well; she just looked too young to have a voice like Idina Menzel's!

In the end, I definitely did NOT realise what this movie was going to be like, and for that it was great. The premise is intriguing and fantastical, the storytelling is so unique, and the film is overall really clever, deep, and sweet. Unfortunately the marketing wasn't that great, so there weren't a lot of people talking about it, but please go see the movie in some legal sort of way to support these small studios and so we can have more amazing original films like this!

A few side notes:

If you want to know what the two strings are, then you have to watch the movie :P (but in all honesty, the storytelling for the two strings is great; it's really clever how the title of the film is kind of like a secret known only to those who watch the movie)

I don't want to marry just any Tom, Dick, or Hassiem

One day on the bus home from Uni, for some reason I wasn't reading, and so I stared out the window and saw all the pretty Aladdin banners hanging up near Hyde Park, and I just thought to myself, "Hey, how come I haven't bought tickets for that yet?"

I'm so glad I ended up buying tickets. I knew from The Lion King Musical (which I blogged about here, although most of the pictures are gone by now), that this was going to be amazing, but I was so unprepared for just how great it was.

Our seats were in the Dress Circle Seating, Row L, which is the first row of the second section upstairs, Seats 20 and 21. I was really confused booking tickets because at first the website shows a plan that looks like everything is on the same level, but then when you proceed, they show you a plan that shows an upstairs and downstairs section. I grabbed my tickets from The Lion King Musical, and just tried to find seats in the same area.

The seats I ended up buying were pretty great. They cost $135 each (not including postage and handling), and while it would have been great to sit in the last row of the first section upstairs, that seat (off memory) cost about $165. So I don't think it's worth paying and extra $30 for a seat that's just a few metres more in front.

Our view of the stage from our seats, although the stage looks closer in real life
The $30 you save by not buying such a seat can go towards a souvenir. In this case (as I always like to do), I bought the program for $25.

See how pretty it looks!

A few people have asked me how I would compare The Lion King Musical to Aladdin: The Musical, and I think they're quite different. Basically, The Lion King Musical had a lot to work off from the movie, both plot-wise and music-wise. Therefore not much was new, but the amazing thing that stood out was the costuming and the prop designs. Those were incredible and absolutely genius.

On the other hand, Aladdin: The Musical's focus isn't the costuming or set pieces. Don't get me wrong, the costumes are still amazing (and colourful and sparkly), and the set pieces were still very clever (the buildings are resizeable depending on their positioning on the stage), but it wasn't as amazing as The Lion King's standards.

What was fantastic about Aladdin was that they altered some plot elements of the film to fit the stage better, changed the dialogue, added new songs in, and just had an amazing overall performance quality. In all honesty, I was on the verge of crying at how amazing the Friend Like Me piece was. Not only was the Cave of Wonders beautiful, but the performance was so epic, and the set was just beautiful.

So The Cave of Wonders definitely had to be my favourite scene of the entire play. But, other favourites were Arabian Nights and Prince Ali.

Unfortunately A Whole New World wasn't amazing, but I think it's just because we were so spoilt by the large-scale spectacles that this toned-down and very simplistic piece paled in comparison. As it stands on its own though, it was still a great song.

Can we please just talk about the actors though? Specifically Ainsley Melham, the actor who plays Aladdin (and also one of the Hi-5 members).

He was perfect.

Not only is he good looking (and yes, even though you're sitting in the second level, his constant wearing of a vest means you won't miss out on his muscles), but damn can that boy sing.

When he is singing One Jump Ahead, he's literally running and jumping around the set dodging the guards. AND HE CAN STILL SING PERFECTLY.

I know this isn't too much from their normal dancing and singing at the same time, but you can still hear the effort in his voice, so it's super realistic that not only is he tired from all that cardio, but he's also singing well despite being tired.

They must all be so super fit, and even just little things like sitting down on an unsteady magic carpet platform and singing with such control of their voice.

Genie was great in this too. I loved how they changed his character so that it wouldn't be like Robin Williams' portrayal, since no one would ever be able to emulate him. This genie was almost like a street genie filled with sass.

A lot of the change in dialogue happened with the genie. They've included all the great uses of fourth-wall breaking and anachronisms, but they've changed it to fit this current decade, including referencing memes and even referencing Australian culture! That stuff greatly resonates with us as the viewers, since it's more relatable and personal, and you get that they're actually trying to connect with you.

Lastly, some additional random thoughts:

The costumes were great in this; they had more than 300 costumes, and they used 500,000 Swarovski crystals, with one pair of trousers containing 1,428 Swarovski crystals

I love how they made the sword fighting match to the beat of the music

And they included tap dancing! I love me a good tap dance.

Love the references to other Disney movies

Aladdin's friend Kassim was also pretty hot, and his singing voice was fantastic

Jafar's singing voice was great too

The actors for Genie and Iago were great too (I didn't realise Iago was an Asian actor!)

There's plenty of jokes for the adults too (e.g. rising swords instead of blatant erections)

Overall, I cannot recommend this enough. I know it's pricey, but if you are on the fence, then it's definitely worth it! The production value is amazing, and it's a joy ride, the whole way through.

The Room: The Hayden Orpheum Experience

This isn't a movie review so much as an experience review, because I would never recommend you to watch this movie at home by yourself, but I would definitely recommend for you to watch it at Hayden Orpheum if you love hating on terrible movies.

Why?

Because the whole movie experience revolves around just how shit the movie is.

Case in point: here is the trailer for the experience.

It's "The Citizen Kane of bad movies"
I'm actually quite surprised that it got such a good rating of 33% on Rotten Tomatoes, because I can't imagine that 7 of the 21 reviews thought it was at least a 6/10. But reading the reviews shows that the ones that have rated this movie as 'fresh', have only done so because it falls under a case of "so bad it's good".

"What puts "The Room" in a class of its own is its overabundant idiocy. While you're still gasping at one of the film's moronic lines or vagrant plot knots, another one rises up to smack you in the head." - Kurt Loder

So the experience begins with you walking into the theatre and grabbing a handful of plastic spoons from a big cardboard box. Some people are cradling piles of spoons in their arms, as if precious gems to them, but if you have small hands like me, it really doesn't matter (but more on that later).

Then the theatre manager is up on the stage introducing the film, seeing who the 'virgin Roomers' are and telling us what to expect. It's the only film where no one cares if you have your mobile phone on, because "it doesn't matter. The film's SHIT." Also, the bar's still open, but no matter how much you drink, "it doesn't matter. The film's still SHIT."

They also have a program for the 'virgin Roomers' to take so we have a rough idea of what to do, but it's so extensive that he tells us that, once again, "it doesn't matter. Just follow what everyone else is doing."

He invites people to go up on stage to imitate lines from the film in a bid to win a pair of movie tickets (but it doesn't matter, because all the contestants won), then we begin the movie.


There are two main activities during the experience:

1. Throwing Spoons
There's a small artwork in the film that's just a drawing of a spoon. Whenever it's in frame, you throw a bunch of spoons at the screen. But also as the film progresses you can just start throwing spoons whenever something is particularly shitty (but it has to be extra shitty because the baseline of this film is already very shitty).

If you grabbed a small bunch of spoons, like me, there's no need to throw your spoons sparingly, because when you throw a bunch of spoons, a second bunch of spoons will simultaneously hit you on the head, fall into your lap, or may even amazingly fall into your, spooncup-holder.

This is particularly the case if you sit near the front. We sat on the last row of the untiered section, so we had the great opportunity of having a very large open-floored area to gather up our next lot of ammo.

People will also often come down to the front of the theatre to loot the massacre of spoons on the floor. You can also throw spoons at them while they are doing this.


2. Heckling

When you are not throwing spoons, you are shouting at the movie. Honestly, about 90% of the movie was just yelling. Constant yelling.

The program mentioned above outlines all the things you can yell out, but it's best when people yell out random things. Thus the experience relies a lot on the crowd you are with.

Common phrases you will hear are:

"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU"/"WHERE THE FUCK ARE WE" every time characters whom you've never seen appear on screen, and every time they show a location shot that does absolutely nothing in our understanding of where people are located, but most particularly when the psychologist character is replaced by a completely different actor

"FOCUS" every time the camera goes out of focus, but when it goes back and focuses on a sex scene, you yell out "OH GOD! UNFOCUS"

"BECAUSE SHE'S A WOMAN" every time there are females on screen, everytime females are talking, and every time there is very blatant misogyny occurring

"SESTOSTERONE" every time you see the character Mark, played by Greg SestosteroneSestero

"DENNY"/"BYE DENNY" every time the character Denny enters and leaves the scene

"CANCER" every time you see Lisa's mum, since she off-handedly mentions she has cancer once, only for this fact to never be alluded to ever again

...and a whole heap more

The film is even funnier knowing that the man who starred in it (Tommy Wiseau) also directed it, wrote it, AND produced it. And he spent $6 million on it.

Also, it is completely not what you would expect. The poster and even the title makes it sound like some sinister psychological horror, when it's really the opposite of that. In fact, I walked out not even knowing why it was called "The Room".

I don't think I could go every time this movie was screened (it's shown every first Friday of the month), but I think if you live near the area and have nothing to do on a Friday night it's actually something you could potentially do semi-regularly. In between the terrible acting, out-of-sync audio, appalling accent of the main character, spoons hitting you from all sorts of directions, and just general side-splitting from the shittiness of the film, this was a pretty great time.

Also, if you read the IMDb trivia page, it is the most hilarious thing ever.

"Mark (Greg Sestero) is named after Matt Damon. According to Sestero, Tommy Wiseau misheard the actor's name despite his obsession with the actor."

"According to Greg Sestero's book, Tommy Wiseau insisted on having his bare bottom filmed. "I have to show my ass or this movie won't sell" was Wiseau's reasoning."

"The film's editor tried to convince Tommy Wiseau to cut the shot of his naked ass from the movie, on the grounds that the sight of it scared his wife."

"Entire scenes were out of focus because nobody bothered to check the lens."

"Post release Tommy Wiseau has claimed that this film was always meant to be a comedy full of so-bad-it's-good elements. The rest of the cast has cast doubt on this theory however."