Christine's reviews

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I'm not sure why you think that. I also grew up loving the Lethal Weapon series (my mom was quite fond of Gibson back in the day). Besides those, I like The Man Without A Face, Forever Young, Signs, Conspiracy Theory, and Chicken Run. I also recall liking Ransom, but I don't think I've seen it since it was in the theater.
That's true. We did do that Signs commentary -- but that also stars Joaquin, so.....



I think I'm going to be the odd one out with Fury Road because I was kind of underwhelmed. It was decent but aside from the action there was really little of interest - there was no story (it seemed like a remake of the last half hour of MM2), the script was pretty bad, most of the acting was kind of poor and there was little to latch on to as far as characters are concerned. Add to that some really cheesy scenes like the one where Theron collapses with the overbearing orchestral score playing to try to get some emotion out of the 45 seconds that wasn't a car chase and I was actually kind of frustrated by it by the end.



Mad Max Fury Road directed by George Miller

I only have three words for Mad Max Fury Road, oh my goodness...well that's a toned down version of what we were saying as we left the cinema...

George Miller has overseen a mighty revitalisation of his Mad Max series. One in which he has taken the core of the original Max and breathed into it all the technical capabilities the 21st century has given to filming especially the abilities to shoot using digital cameras that can really get into the heart of the action. He's kept any cgi to touch ups and very long shots. These vehicles have weight and are real cobbled together junkyard monsters. These guys are stuntmen and acrobats. This is a film that feels visceral and will have you ducking in your seat as the clash of metal fills your ears.
Tom Hardy as Max is almost mute, in fact the whole film is, but you don't miss speech when your whole vista is filled with such visual treats as a guy suspended on the front of a wagon playing heavy metal guitar as they go into battle!

I'd say Charlene Theron as Furiosa has more of an emotional range than Max as its her story really which is the basis of the storyline. She plays it beautifully too, tough yet vulnerable. The women are great in the film, from the girls who are set free from their horrendous chasity belts to the grizzled older warriors they meet on the way - some of whom I recognise from Aussie soaps from way back..nice touch.



I've avoided reading anything about this film so I could watch it with no prior knowledge. It did strike me half away through that the warboys who are the young men born post apocalypse who are being bred to fight and are promised to enter Valhalla are chillingly comparable to the youngsters who are going to fight today for ISIS. It's a comparison that has to be deliberate, and is actually quite heartrending when you see the youngster Nux realise what he's been promised is all a sham.

This is an immense piece of entertainment that will keep you on the edge of your seat for two solid hours without you even thinking about the time. It's one long breathtaking car chase and I loved it! Miller has done a splendid job, I couldn't pick one hole in it
4.5/5
Need to see this Thanks for your review Christine
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San Andreas directed by Brad Peyton

This is a sprawing earthquake disaster movie that takes us from the Hoover Dam - a magnificent setting for an earthquake scene - down to Los Angeles and up the coast to San Fransisco following the San Andreas fault. I love disaster movies - Twister, 2012, the old Airport films, The Towering Inferno, Backdraft anything like that with mortal terror will find me at the cinema..the only place to see films like that. I'd hate to see a secret filming of me in the dark at the cinema as I'll be flinching and ducking out of the way and chewing my fingernails no matter how corny the scenes are!

After setting Dwayne Johnson's credentials as Ray the gutsy helicopter rescue pilot in a risky clifftop rescue, he then gets sidetracked from being sent on a mission to aid at the earthquake site. He effectively abandons his post when he finds out his wife and daughter (separately) are in danger zones. Luckily for daughter Blake she teams up with English tourist brothers Ben and young Ollie as they try and make their way to somewhere Ray will find them. Ray uses every means possible - helicopter, plane and boat are expertly involved as the man mountain who is The Rock never loses faith. You see him striding towards you then you know everything will be alright!


Paul Giamatti stars as Caltech seismologist Lawrence, who serves the usual disaster movie role of decent man doubling as scientist. His constant wide eyed concerned looks letting us know the gravity of the situation just in case we can't take in the catastophe with our own eyes.


When I was a little tomboy watching films with my Dad and getting frustrated cos women in films always fell over when they were running away, I used to think I'd like to make films when the woman is the one chopping her way through the jungle and rescuing the men. Something is happening recently in the female stars of the blockbusters, in that they've become those women and in mainstream films. The daughter Blake, is resourceful, strong and dependable. OK she looked hot too, and the young man Ben was a little dumbstruck but you can't have everything at once

San Andreas nominally stars Dwayne Johnson but the real stars are the cgi masters who created the horrifyingly realistic total collapse of downtown San Fransisco on the big screen. I was entranced. While I was watching that devastation seemed utterly real and when I left the cinema the first thought I had was for the people of Nepal and felt guilty I'd been enjoying myself watching a pretend scenario when theirs is all too real

edited: always forget the rating!
6/10 - as hokey as you like but with great cgi



I always enjoy your reviews Christine. You know how to write from a personal place and I enjoy that very much. I don't enjoy disaster movies like you so I will probably skip San Andreas. Plus I would more than likely just be drooling over Daddario like that character and I don't want to disappoint one of my favorite MoFos.
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I loved Mel Gibson so much back in the day. Loved the Mad Max movies mainly because of him. So I'm still not sold on whether to see the new one.

And yes, I know Mel is kinda crazy now, but I loved his older films…and will still watch them.



I have to return some videotapes.
Also on Mad Max I might just be the only person that hated it... I felt like getting up and leaving an hour or so in.



I always enjoy your reviews Christine. You know how to write from a personal place and I enjoy that very much. I don't enjoy disaster movies like you so I will probably skip San Andreas. Plus I would more than likely just be drooling over Daddario like that character and I don't want to disappoint one of my favorite MoFos.
she is a very attractive girl with mesmerising eyes. I thought she seemed a few years too old to be a very convincing young college girl though



I have to return some videotapes.
she is a very attractive girl with mesmerising eyes. I thought she seemed a few years too old to be a very convincing young college girl though
Have you seen True Detective? She is very very very attractive in that. Her eyes are definitely a ++++++



Have you seen True Detective? She is very very very attractive in that. Her eyes are definitely a ++++++
Kristen Stewart has mesmerizing eyes...it's her one redeeming characteristic.




she is a very attractive girl with mesmerising eyes. I thought she seemed a few years too old to be a very convincing young college girl though
Much too old. I was surprised to see her cast as that.



Have you seen True Detective? She is very very very attractive in that. Her eyes are definitely a ++++++
I did see that but didn't realise till you said that it was the same girl.



Much too old. I was surprised to see her cast as that.
I'm guessing she was supposed to be 18-21, well that's when our kids go to university so I suppose US kids must be about the same age. Maybe she was supposed to be a mature student, but from her mannerisms in the film I think she was supposed to be about 20.



Great review of San Andreas, Christine. I also love disaster movies so I'm very much looking forward to seeing it. I even thoroughly enjoyed Into the Storm.



I'm not a fan of disaster movies or The Rock. Plus I've been through enough earthquakes to not want to watch a movie about one. Even minor quakes are pretty scary.

But your review was an interesting read.



I'm not a fan of disaster movies or The Rock. Plus I've been through enough earthquakes to not one to watch a movie about one. Even minor quakes are pretty scary.

But your review was an interesting read.
I was thinking of you and Funny Face when I watched it and thought maybe it wouldn't be a very appealing film for you. I'd be quite scary seeing my city cgi razed to the ground and we aren't even in an earthquake zone so I don't blame you!



L'il Quinquin (P'tit Quinquin) (2014) directed by Bruno Dumont

A French murder mystery originally aired as a four part TV series in its home country but released now as a 200 minute film. It's an absurdist black comedy. One of those films where everything is slightly 'off' . Farcical scenes play out as normal life, with no comment made upon the most ridiculous things going on in the background.

The film is set in the Northern French countryside, a land of small villages and close knit people who don't take that kindly to strangers - I know I've been there a lot! It opens with the little lad of the title and his mates witnessing the discovery of a macabre murder. A dead cow has been found with human remains inside. Arriving at the scene is a pair of the unlikeliest looking Policemen you've probably ever seen - Commandant Van der Weyden and the gormless Lieutenant Carpentier. Further atrocities occur which has the pair chasing around around the village to very little avail.




In that very French dumb contempt for authority, the villagers only impart the information they feel like telling to the police who become increasingly frustrated. It's the school holidays, so Quinquin and his friends hang about on the sidelines on their bikes causing minor mischievousness and adding to the chaos.
Quinquin isn't a particularly lovable type of child character, but he has an unusually delicate and touching friendship with the daughter of the farmer next door. The girl is a calm sweet child who makes you think that whatever else Quinquin has in his life (and he's not got much) he'll have her love and he is a better person for knowing her. It's strangely tender this innocent childhood friendship.



All the actors are either non professionals or ordinary village folk, which lends the film a delicious awkwardness. The Commandant is played by Bernard Prevost, a man who either has facial tics or is extremely able to fake them. He can make ten expressions for everyone else's one, particularly his eyebrows which seem to have a life of their own! The director loves people's faces, the camera has a lot of close ups but I never felt he was making fun of anyone despite some of the farmers having the most deadpan lugubrious faces you could ever imagine.

The film isn't all surreal silliness, the director is making a wider point I think about the narrowness of attitudes in some areas of France. There's some ugly scenes of casual racism that lead to tragedy when the children of the village confront a couple of black kids who are on holiday.

Carpentier's several referrals to the unfolding events as being the work of 'La Bête Humaine' ( the human beast as in the Zola story) and also as the 'devil incarnate' only hints at a darker underbelly of human nature. The underlying marital infidelities, jealousy and goodness knows what else is going on in the village is kept as tightly closed as the villagers mouths.
This is an unusual film which I felt ran out of steam a little towards the end, but that might've been me getting tired watching for so long. It would've worked nicely as a four part TV drama.

7/10

trailer:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ_-U6msBio