Tantai Jin Apologist

Just got back from seeing They Will Kill You. Huge amount of fun, lashings of gore (how did that only get a 15 cert like damn), great fight choreography.

Also some amazingly good cinematography going on. Well-framed shots, & good lighting & use of colour. I feel like it overdid dolly zooms (this is where the subject stays in place but the background seems to woosh forward or backward) maybe a little but eh whatever. They did not have to make such a hammy, ridiculous, horror-comedy film look this good, but I appreciate their doing so.

Wake Up Dead Man was so good! A little slow at the start, though that's mostly because I hate religion. And ngl I was still expecting standard film pacing, which is a mistake in a Knives Out film & I really should know better at this point lol. I'm currently chilling in a Tim Hortons afterwards, enjoying a pistachio & white choc latte, & picked up some timbits for later.

I definitely need to rewatch at home to catch everything I totally missed. Though I feel this won't be one I'll watch over & over like the previous two.

First time I've been to the cinema since before covid (last film I saw in the cinema was Rise of Skywalker, which would put anyone off wasting money on cinema tickets, especially considering how much they cost nowadays). To be fair, there's been stuff since that I might have been interested in seeing, but the cost of tickets means I have to be sure I really want to see something, & have money to burn that I'm willing to make a risky bet with. And have the time. This was the first time all those things have applied.

Also today I checked out a vintage kilo sale on my way to the cinema, but didn't see anything that interesting.

OMG so the Watership Down film is getting a fancy rerelease including a 4K version & with a bunch of special features?? Fuck yeah!

Newly recorded audio commentary by film and animation experts Catherine Lester and Sam Summers

Vintage audio commentary by director Martin Rosen and writer and filmmaker Chris Gore (2003)

Defining a Style (2005): short featurette about the film’s aesthetic

A Conversation with the Filmmakers (2005, 17 mins): Archive featurette in which director Martin Rosen and editor Terry Rawlings discuss the production history of the film

Storyboard comparison (2005, 15 mins): a look at four sequences from the film Super 8 version of the film (20 mins)

Humberstone Super 8 footage (3 mins): Footage shot by Arthur Humberstone, one of the senior animators on Watership Down

Designing Watership Down (2024, 5 mins): a gallery containing some of the materials related to Watership Down courtesy of The Arthur Humberstone Animation Archive

Once We Were Four (1942, 9 mins): a bunny quartet face an onslaught of badgers, bombs and birds of prey in this black comedy masquerading as a nature film, directed by Mary Field

Rabbits or Profits? (1969, 15 mins): public information film providing a potted history of rabbits in the UK

Bolly in A Space Adventure (1968, 5 mins): a short Halas & Batchelor animation about the adventures of Bolly and his friends on imaginary planets, featuring animation by Tony Guy, animation director on Watership Down

Make Believe (1948, 17 mins): Anson Dyer tells 'The Tale of Ronnie Rabbit' in this documentary showing the various stages of making a cartoon bunny

And there's a poster, postcards & a booklet! Ooh & apparently an enamel pin badge if you order direct from the BFI? I was gonna get it from HMV because I stumbled on this rerelease while browsing their website & I like being able to go into physical shops to pick stuff up, but I just checked the BFI's site to see if they had additional info & ooooh badge!

I need it!

EDIT: I notice they've also bumped up the rating. Yeah that was never gonna get a U certificate nowadays lol

Holy shit. I expected Glass Onion to be good, but I didn’t think it would be able to top Knives Out!

But it did, & by a huge margin like damn.

The things you find on a random search when you’re about to watch the RDJ Sherlock Holmes film…

Sherlock Holmes! Vs dinosaurs! And Gareth David-Lloyd plays Watson.

Well obviously I had to watch it, & tweeted my commentary as I watched. Far too lazy to do a proper post, so instead I’m just gonna c&p my tweets into a post. It’s not comprehensive as I didn’t bother mentioning everything, but it’s a summary of the main lulz.

OK so I’m gonna give that bonkers-looking ‘Sherlock Holmes Fights Monsters With Ianto’ thing a watch now.

Arrgh! They’re trying to represent a boat being attacked by shaking the camera around on a clearly perfectly steady boat!

I can put up with all sorts of wooden acting & clunky dialogue, but dodgy camerawork does my head in. #exfilmstudent

1st actual scene with Holmes & Watson & they’re hamming it right up. Not even trying to take this stuff seriously. I like.

I don’t think the look on Watson’s face while Holmes is making him look stupid is acting. 'Oh god why am I in this film?’

LOL the ’T-rex’ is about 6 feet tall.

And suddenly! random comedy Irish person with squeaky voice runs past. I think a monster stole his Lucky Charms.

Why do we have to stake out this place? Oh the monster is stealing copper wire. But of course!

Fortunately Holmes is impervious to T-rex bites.

“What’s the purpose?” “Well, he needed money to buy the dinosaur, & the dinosaur to steal waterworks." #wellobviously <-- [In case you’re wondering, yes that is a direct quote.]

Weirdly the CGI isn’t that bad. It looks a little off in how it fits into the scenery, but is not awful in itself.

I spoke too soon. Suddenly a bunch of huge explosions go off for no apparent reason resulting in bad CGI fireballs.

Nothing even seemed to cause the explosions. The director just went a bit Michael Bay or something.

OK they’re in a castle cos Holmes recognised a stone found in a corpse & this castle is the ONLY place in the country where it can be from.

It turns out he conveniently grew up near this place & spent his childhood researching EVERY individual stone.

In the castle they find… an Iron Man suit. Because why rip off just one RDJ film franchise?

It’s obviously not an exact replica or anything, but same sort of thing.

Oh look the random woman that Watson encountered & went googly-eyed over earlier in the film is back. Surprise.

Oh & turns out it’s Holmes’ brother inside the suit. This isn’t a spoiler considering the near constant references to him.

'Yeah I have this brother & a bunch of bad shit happened to him which I’m going to make random cryptic references to.’

Sherlock Holmes’ brother is in his Iron Man suit on his way to attack London in a flying metal dragon with glowing eyes.

I just can’t with this film.

LOL well that was all rather random. And very very bad. I expected it to be terrible & it surpassed all my expectations.

And no they never explained why the monsters or what purpose they served or where they came from or ANYTHING.