PODCAST: Film Focus Episode 36 – Theme Songs In Superhero Films

Howdy ladies and gents of the internet, as some of you may have seen, last year I started a film podcast entitled Film Focus and on this podcast, I talk about various topics in film and reviews as well on a biweekly basis. As for the latest episode, it was actually done a few weeks ago and the topic was on theme songs in superhero films.

Anyway here’s the episode 36:

In this episode, I cover theme songs in superhero films and their importance not only to the characters they represent but also how they enhance the overall film experience when you have memorable themes. So from the John Williams Superman theme to Danny Elfman’s Spider-Man theme to the recent theme from Batman V Superman/Wonder Woman by Junkie XL, I cover some of the most recognisable and less notable themes that I feel should be talked about. Now I should have uploaded this podcast episode weeks ago but I got super busy and then forgot until now. Scheduling around work has become a tad complicated and tedious. Hopefully, the latest episode will be done soon.

As I mentioned before I’ll cover a different topic or review in each episode and since I don’t have much in the way of listeners or promotion, I’m here to spread the word about my podcast. 🙂

You can find my main site on Soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/film_focus

Or if you’re on iTunes subscribe and rate me on there: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/film-focus/id1114233892?mt=2

So if you have some spare time on your hands and would like to listen to the ramblings of a passionate/strange man then please check it out, and share it with your friends if you can. Also, you have any feedback or if you’d be interested in joining on future episodes be sure to let me know, until next time, laters! 😀

 

ONE PARAGRAPH REVIEW: The Hitman’s Bodyguard

Howdy ladies and gents, it’s time for my second review of a recent film in the form of The Hitman’s Bodyguard, a film I wasn’t too interested in watching until recently when certain reviewers convinced me to give it a go.

The plot can be summed up as the following: “The world’s top bodyguard gets a new client, a hit man who must testify at the International Court of Justice. They must put their differences aside and work together to make it to the trial on time.” The plot wasn’t bad but felt incredibly familiar to other comedy films I’ve seen. The plot tries to be a little more serious with the emotional material relating to the two main characters but also with the political material, it doesn’t quite work because the film’s largely focused on humour and the tone is fairly silly and over-the-top, some of the more heartfelt or realistic moments don’t resonate because it doesn’t gel with the rest of the film. That being said the film’s silly nature is what makes it fun to watch, and while I could predict how certain events played out, it was still a decent time. The cast was good. Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson were really good as Michael Bryce and Darius Kincaid, both of these characters have different personalities, styles and ways the take out their enemies and seeing their worlds collide was fun. Reynolds and Jackson were essentially playing themselves or at least versions of characters they’ve played in other comedy films, but luckily their chemistry and screen presence elevates their characters. Elodie Yung was good as Amelia Roussel, she had a key part to play and I enjoyed how much screen time she had and anytime Salma Hayek is involved I am there, I love that woman and she was very fun as Sonia Kincaid. Hayek is so aggressive, sassy and crazy in this role and its fun to watch her rant and rave. The only person that didn’t leave an impression was Gary Oldman as Vladislav Dukhovich, this character barely did anything and could have been played by anyone and Oldman was wasted in this role. The action in the film was pretty good, there was some really fun and creative material that went into the hand-to-hand combat, gunfights and the car chases, the latter being my favourite with the chase sequences being shot very well. In conclusion, The Hitman’s Bodyguard was a basic yet decent film, it does nothing new but the chemistry between Reynolds and Jackson, along with some ridiculous humour and good action scenes keep it from being completely forgettable.

So have you seen The Hitman’s Bodyguard and if so what did you think of it? Leave your thoughts in the comments below and I’ll see ya on the next review, laters! 😀

 

ONE PARAGRAPH REVIEW: Atomic Blonde

Howdy ladies and gents, so today I went to the cinema for the first time in like 2-3 weeks and I’m finally getting around to playing catch up with certain films. And with that out of the way, I’m ready to give you a mini review for Atomic Blonde.

The plot can be summed up as the following: “The story revolves around a spy who has to find a list of double agents who are being smuggled into the West, on the eve of the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989”

So this film was better than I expected considering the reviews that ranged from good to okay. Now I’m not saying I base my film viewing experiences purely based the review of others, but if I’m iffy on a film than a certain amount of reviews can sway me, and Atomic Blonde was a film I was interested in because of the director and the action in the trailers, but after a while the more I saw of the film the less sure I would enjoy it. Firstly the story was pretty interesting considering the setting and its ties to real world events in the 80’s, however, I found that the non-linear style of storytelling wasn’t needed as much as it was and the plot did become a tedious, slow, needlessly complicated and predictable at points. As for the cast, they were strong. Charlize Theron as Lorraine Broughton was so cool, stylish, tough as nails and cold yet human on the inside and Theron sold the role well and looked so good in her many outfits. James McAvoy as David Percival was funny, quirky and charismatic and the role works primarily because of McAvoy’s charm. John Goodman and Toby Jones were good as Emmett Kurzfeld and Eric Gray, I also enjoyed Eddie Marsan as Spyglass, Sofia Boutella got to stretch her acting chops as Delphine Lasalle, and Bill Skarsgård was quite good as Merkel. But the best part of this film by miles is the action, good gravy, director David Letch, the cinematographer, stunt team and fight choreographer did a fabulous job. The action was intense, brutal, violent and hard-hitting with every punch, kick, stab, gunshot, car crash and more having an impact. The fight sequences were creative and badass, with such attention to detail with the use of props, a lot of movement and style, and some of those extended scenes all done in one take were insane. I will say that one of the sequences had the characters fighting longer than humanly possible which made it a little unrealistic, but otherwise, I enjoyed it a lot. With the 1980’s soundtrack, it worked for the most part, however, sometimes it felt like there was one song too many and there were also two songs with two versions which felt unnecessary. In conclusion, Atomic Blonde was a decent time at the cinema, while the story was a little tedious, I had fun with the cast and action scenes. Definitely worth a watch,

So have you seen Atomic Blonde and if so what did you think of it? Leave your thoughts in the comments below and I’ll see ya on the next review, laters! 😀

 

LATE REVIEW: Boardmasters Festival 2017

Howdy ladies and gents, today I am going to talk to you about the Boardmasters Festival that went down in Newquay over the past weekend. I was actually meant to write about this on Monday, but because the weekend was so long and I had to work soon after I just put it off. But I had to at least do some kind of review for it on the blog so here I am. 🙂

So yeah after the longest 9-10 hour journey ever via coach to get down to Newquay I got into the festival on Saturday morning with my friend and it was a lovely area. Even before the various stages were housed by the different artists, there was a lot to see, do and buy. With several stands for buying food, merchandise, and loads of other stuff, and then there were the different sound stages just blaring out music, benched areas for sitting and of course numerous toilet areas too. I just appreciated how well everything was placed in just the right area and there was a nice variety in the food you could eat, the places to chill, the places to go to the loo and a good distance between stages with the various musicians so the sound did overlap/overshadow each other.

When it comes to the musical acts I’m not gonna I only knew about 3 or 4 acts, everyone else was new to me. And do a degree I feel bad because about 90% of them were really good to bloody incredible. But at the same time, I liked coming into this thing completely blank as I had no expectations so to be blown away and discover all this music I didn’t know I would love was a magical feeling.

Firstly there was Kioko which my friend and I found while randomly walking around and their sound caught our immediately with their song “Deadly Roots”, and from there the rest of their set was just a delightfully cool and addictive. Next major act of interest was Will Heard, I have never heard of this guy, but he had such a lovely voice and a nice sense of humour, he also had a wonderful band and backing vocalists, and together they delivered an incredible session which was great for chilling and jamming. Heard and his people really brought the main stage alive. There was a nice variety of Heard’s music and it got a lot of people dancing, me included and it was so much fun. The next musician to catch me by surprise was Laura Mvula, she had such a beautiful voice and an incredibly engaging presence through her music and charisma, her music really touched the soul and like my friend said, it sounds like her music belongs on film soundtrack like maybe the upcoming live action Lion King film that Disney is doing, she’s that good. 🙂

Next highlight of the day for me was Lethal Bizzle, now I knew Bizzle would do well, but I had no clue it would be nearly as fun as it turned out. Besides one other act, Bizzle had drawn in the most people to the main stage area and I was in the middle of that when it all kicked off. Bizzle stepped on stage and asked the crowd to start up some mosh pits and what followed was a chaotic mess of energy, excitement and a loss of items from the crowd. I had the best time ever, but trying to avoid, the moshing, getting hit in the face and being shoved around left, right and centre was crazy. Bizzle had a great selection of all of his most popular material and some new material too and everyone had a great time, whether it was “Dude”, “Rari WorkOut”, “The Drop” or “Pow 2011” it was damn good, but of course “Fester Skank” was the highlight, that was just incredible, oh and can I just say I’ve never seen people so willing to throw shoes, shirts and hoodies out up in the air until that concert haha. And after that was The Vaccines, a band I’ve heard but never really listened to and their material was pretty good and a lot of the crowd going for sure.

And finally to close off the day on the main stage Jamiroquai came and bloody killed it. I saw them once before in Guilford at the Magic Summer Live Festival 3 years ago, so I knew how good they’d be live, but considering the awesome material that the band have crafted with Automaton I knew they’d have some awesome new live material and they did not disappoint. They started out with the opening track from their latest album, Shake It On which was a lovely way to get everybody jamming, but when they went straight into “Little L” I lost my mind. 😛 We also had the gorgeous sounds of “Automaton”, “Dr Buzz”, “Cloud 9” and some of the classic jams like “Cosmic Girl”, “Canned Heat”, “Love Foolosophy” and sexy new arrangement of “Emergency on Planet Earth”, to some unexpected jams like “The Kids” and “Supersonic”, the latter of which is one of my absolute favourite songs to chill to, and the fact they used it to finish out the concert was the icing on the cake for me.

So to conclude the Saturday session I had at the Boardmasters Festival was hella fun and it was totally worth the trip with a great selection of artists, a great venue and a good sense of organisation too. I would totally recommend it if you’ve never been. 🙂

 

What I’m Currently Watching #34: Game of Thrones

Howdy ladies and gents, and welcome to What I’m Currently Watching where I give you a tiny update on what TV-based stuff I’m watching and give mini reviews/impressions on them. This is week 34, and today I’ll be giving you my late thoughts on the latest episode of Game of Thrones which will include spoilers! With that out of the way let’s talk about some TV! 😀

Game of Thrones (Season 7) “The Spoils of War”

Wow, just wow. That episode of GoT was frigging insane and yes I am primarily talking about the ending. This and the last episode has some of the best material of all of the series! But before I get to that let me talk about the other highlights. First and foremost the Stark kids are together in Winterfell! Hooray!!!!! I have never been so happy. It was a bittersweet reunion for Bran and Sansa, but seeing Arya come back to her home and finally see her sister again, that was wonderful. Both of them have been through a lot and don’t really know each other because of how their life experiences have changed them into hardened badasses in different ways. Their interaction felt a little cold, and yet so warm because of their connection as not only sisters but as a family too. And then seeing her finally see Bran was great, all of the Stark kids together, that was perfect. It is great to see them all together after all of the hardship they had faced individually, and it was nice to have Bran use his abilities of vision to highlight Arya’s plan to kill people, it not only allowed her to see how different and knowledgeable Bran had become but also allow Sansa to take Arya’s words more seriously after their first interaction. After that one of my favourite moments in all of GoT happened, the Arya and Brienne sparring session. I also enjoy Brienne and Podrick’s training sessions, but to see her actually put in the effort and duke it out with someone of a certain skill level is much better, so to see two of my favourite badasses going head to head was fantastic. Both had different skills and techniques, but were accomplished fighters and to see how Arya came in with such confidence and swagger and surprise not only Brienne, but also Pod, and Sansa and Littlefinger watching from above was sweet. Then we got to see these two proper go at it and to see Arya’s quick and elegant movements against Brienne’s power and force was awesome. I think I got a little turned on by the end of that exchange hahaha! XD But seriously it was kick ass, and clearly Sansa was shocked and possibly displeased with the way her sister had turned out, but clearly Littlefinger enjoyed every minute and I think that crafty man has some plans in that head of his. Jon and Daenerys’ moments at Dragonstone was interested with the discovery of the Dragonglass and the Children of the Forest carvings of the fight against the White Walkers, I thought Daenerys was gonna be cool and join Jon’s fight, but she’s still trying to get my man to bend the knee? Crazy bitch, she needs to cut that out. I also really hope that those two don’t hook up, they were getting too close to each other in that cave and Davos’ words to Jon didn’t help. If they do end up together then, cool, whatever, incest is a thing in this show, but I would like for them to know about their heritage before they form a romantic or sexual relationship.

Okay so let’s talk about that final act/last quarter of the episode with Daenerys’ attack on the Lannister and Tarly armies. I knew that Daenerys wouldn’t listen to reason and go into the battlefield eventually but holy crap, I didn’t expect her to literally just unleash the Dothraki and one of her dragons on the Lannister and Tarly armies. That was pure insanity! The way that whole thing was set up was wonderful, Bronn heard them coming from a distance and the build up with Jaime and Bronn having to get the soldiers set up as you could hear the Dothraki in the background. The tension and build up was fabulous, and the way the Dothraki just emerged over the hill like a legion of badasses was really cool, but then it was Daenerys and Droan flying in which turned the scene into a moment of TV to remember. From there what followed was just beautiful chaos. All of the stabbing, cutting, slicing, blood and death, there was death on both sides, but it was clearly a massacre for Jaime as Drogan just destroyed everything and everyone. The way the action sequences were crafted was incredible, the wide shots of pure fiery destruction were perfect. I was also glad that Bronn not only survived his encounter with that Dothraki after his horseback duel failed, but he also got to use the huge crossbow and damaged Drogan. Damn, that was a good win for him, but then the crossbow got destroyed, gutted. But Jaime, holy crap I thought it was the end for him when he attempted to take down Daenerys, the dude almost got eaten or burnt alive! Luckily he was saved, by who? I think it may have been Bronn, but I guess we’ll see next week!

Well, that’s what I’ve been watching. So have you seen or plan to watch any of these shows? If you have any thoughts be sure to drop a comment below and let me know what TV shows you’re currently watching too. Until next time, laters! 😀