At the Movies – Page 72 – Ponderous Personal Projects

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 [2015]

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2

Francis Lawrence

4/6

Ok, that wasn’t so bad. Too long, though.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 [2014]

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1

Francis Lawrence

3/5

Difficult one to rate. It’s definitely a lot better than the previous outing, but that was so boring it took a while before the attention center turned on. The latter half was pretty good, at any rate.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire [2013]

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Francis Lawrence

2/5

About 25 minutes worth of material stretched to 145 makes catching fire a weak followup indeed, not in any way helped along by an apparent committee-written script. Is this really literature adapted?

Minor issues they may (or may not) be, but when paired with some truly offensive CGI, Lawrence’s first foray into the Hunger Games universe lands firmly in the book of challenging watches. Bad omens.

The Hunger Games [2012]

The Hunger Games

Gary Ross

4/6

Pleasantly surprised by movie not being terribly horrible, despite idiotic concept. What I don’t understand is this: now that these two people have won the thing, what are the next three movies going to be about?

Only one way to find out, eh?

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance [1962]

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

John Ford

4/6

An entire movie told in flashback. That wouldn’t work in 2016.

My favourite bit is how they made this guy 40 years older by giving him hair.

Matiné schmatiné

Jeg fikk plutselig lyst til å stikke og se en matinéfilm på den lokalen kinoen, men akk og vé, det var ganske sørgelige greier på programmet. Et par interessante filmer er på skjemaet, men bare seinvisninger. Mens jeg bladde gjennom programmet fikk jeg den snikende følelsen av at tiden var svært underutnyttet. Hvorfor lar de salene stå mørke?

Jeg bestemte meg for å sjekke…

..der tok jeg feil, gitt…

Battle Royale [2000]

Battle Royale

Kinji Fukasaku

3/6

Yes, yes, very offensive and all that.

Star Trek Beyond [2016]

Star Trek Beyond

Justin Lin

4/5

Score only valid if you like intense action start to finish. But what’s G’Kar doing in Star Trek all of a sudden?

Identity [2003]

Identity

James Mangold

4/6

Attack on Precinct 13 meets And then there were none, dresses up in fancy modern rewind-editing, and turns into something unexpected. Not bad. And I am partial to John Hawkes, as you know.

Project Almanac [2015]

Project Almanac

Dean Israelite

2/5

Ok, so a bunch of kids find some kind of time machine or something in the basement, and things start going to hell. That’s ok by me. The thing is, when you get to be as old as I am, you start thinking thoughts like “so, okay, his dad was a top secret government scientist, fine, but why would the government store their time machine in some fucking employee’s basement?”.

And that sort of spoils the fun slightly.