The re-opening of the New Farm Cinemas (previously known as Village Twin) seems to have really shaken up our local cinema industry. I've noticed a few changes going on and thought I'd give Brisbane residents an update on what is happening around town. Apologies to my readers who live elsewhere, this is not relevant to you.
So we have a new cinema in town which is pretty exciting! New Farm Cinemas is the new name for the iconic cinema complex on Brunswick Street at New Farm (on the corner of Moray Street) which was established in 1921 and was part of many people's childhood. Having been closed for many years, it has finally been dusted off, refurbished and re-opened a few weeks ago. They are still building 4 of the cinema rooms but 2 are open. I haven't been yet, but the styling looks great, they have bean bags, and the prices are very attractive. General tickets for adults are $11.50 and they only charge $2 extra for 3D (most cinemas charge $3). Cheap day is Tuesday where all tickets are $7.50. A range of concessions are available. However, deal of the year has to be joining the "Purple Club" which costs $16 per year but gives you the ability to buy tickets for $9.50 for you and a friend all the time, plus a free ticket on joining and special offers. With a Lounge and Café selling pizza, light meals and sweet treats from local gelato bars plus my favourite ever brownies from Dello Mano, this place cannot go wrong! Look forward to the range of movies showing expanding when all theatres are open.
http://newfarmcinemas.com.au/
The opening of this cinema seems to have injected some competition into the market, unless it's just coincidental that it opened its doors and a bunch of other places have dropped their prices? Of course, there have been other discount options around but most of those are suburban or at South Bank so they don't seem to have prompted the same amount of competition. Let's see what else has happened around town?
The biggest change I've seen is that the Palace Cinema chain has dramatically slashed prices and shifted discount day from the universal Tuesday, to Monday. At Palace Barracks and Centro (also at New Farm - hmmm), Monday night prices are now $7 for all films. On other days, adult tickets are now $11 and concessions $8. This is a pretty big reduction given they were charging around $17 per adult ticket prior to 31 July (from memory). Palace Cinema Club now only costs $8 to join per year, which gives you $8 adult movie tickets at any time plus 1 free ticket a year.
http://www.palacecinemas.com.au/
I was at Dendy Portside (Hamilton) the other day and noticed a large sign promoting cheaper ticket prices. Their website is still showing Adult ticket prices of $18, but I swear they had a sign up saying all adult tickets were now $11. You can join the Club Dendy program for $18 for 1 year or $24 for 2 years, which gives you tickets at $11.50 all the time plus discounts at local retailers and a frequent movie card which gives a free one every 5th movie. Tuesday is cheap day at Dendy. If you are thinking of going there hoping for $11 tickets when you are not a member, it may pay to phone ahead and check, because that sign I saw might have been just for the day I was there (a public holiday). However, I'm sure it's not going to take them long to catch on to what everyone else is doing.
http://www.dendy.com.au/Page/Home
The cheapest chain in town has always been Cineplex, who own South Bank Cinemas, Balmoral, Hawthorne and Victoria Point. No changes here, as they were already pretty good prices. Tickets prices here depend on when you see the film. Weekends and weeknights after 6pm are $8.50, Sunday after 4pm is $7.50, cheap Tuesday and any other weekday before 6pm is $6.50. Then there are concessions on these prices for students, seniors and children. Balmoral and Hawthorne cinemas are smaller and more intimate so you may want to skip seeing the latest 3D blockbusters here but they are good for small films and arthouse stuff. Southbank has the giant 35 metre screen in Cinema 5 for all the blockbusters, but it gets pretty popular. Parking is a problem so catch public transport if you go. It's also been messy and dirty on our last few trips. Victoria Point is by all reports pretty nice and has decent screen sizes, but it's way out of town unless you live in the Redlands area!
http://www.cineplex.com.au/index.php
The Schonell theatre at St Lucia (inside the Uni of Qld campus) is a great idea if you've missed a movie on its first release and want to catch it before it goes to DVD. There are 2 screens, relatively small, but that's OK as they generally show arthouse/indie fare that doesn't need a big screen and ear-punishing sound. It's fun to go here for a movie and pizza from the iconic Pizza Caffe. Tickets are $12 for all sessions, $6 UQ Students and $8 for concessions. The best deal is the Movie and Pizza deal available from the Caffe. For $25 you get 2 movie tickets and 1 pizza. Or for $50 you get 2 movie tickets, 2 pizzas and 2 glasses of wine. You may to have to pay for parking though and prepare to get lost!
http://www.schonell.com/buy-tickets
Blue Room Cinebar at Rosalie doesn't advertise the ticket prices and seems to have remained a relatively expensive 'premium' option. An advertised gift card for $46 seems to get you 2 tickets to a movie - that's $23 a ticket. Way out of touch with the others but nice if you want that "Gold Class" experience I guess. You can get food and drink served in the cinema here.
http://www.blueroomcinebar.com/
This leaves only our 2 big chains which are Event Cinemas and Hoyts (Redcliffe, Stafford, Sunnybank). Neither of these are feeling the pressure yet, probably because they are suburban based (apart from the Myer Centre event cinema). Ticket prices are still $17.50 for adults at Event and $16.50 for Hoyts. If you have to attend these cinema chains because they are your local, I would recommend that you join their Reward programs and try to take advantage of any deals they offer. Both clubs have a 'movie of the week' which usually costs $10, which is a good saving if you are happy not to see a movie when it first comes out. These movies are usually ones which have been out for a few weeks and are on their way out. RACQ members can also buy discounted Event Cinema tickets for around $11 and there are now e-vouchers that can be bought from RACQ online, but these cannot be used Fridays and Saturdays after 4pm. I also understand that Telstra and Optus both offer their mobile phone customer discounted tickets for Event Cinemas or Hoyts, check with your provider if you're not aware of these.
So there are still some expensive nights out to go to the movies, but if you are willing to travel a bit further or go on certain days/nights, then it should be affordable to go to a movie. Keep this information above in mind and you should be able to take advantage of discounts and avoid paying full price, which is pretty out of reach for many families.
Sunday 17 August 2014
Movie #23 - Lucy
Lucy is a new film continuing on the concept of 'what if we used all of our brain's capacity' which has been explored previously in the films Limitless and sort of in Transcendence as well. The first thing you need to do to enjoy this movie is suspend disbelief, because the idea that humans only use 10% of their brain capacity has been proven to be a myth. We use all areas of our brain on a regular basis and there is no area that cannot be damaged without impairing our performance. Can we get smarter by training our brains? Definitely, but the idea that we can increase 90% is false. So, the idea is flawed but if you just go with it, this is a really fun ride.
Lucy is a young American girl (played by Scarlett Johanssen) studying in Paris and partying her time away. She meets a guy in a bar who after a week, takes her to a hotel where he has to deliver a briefcase as a job. He's too nervous though, and asks Lucy to do it, but she refuses. He then handcuffs her to the briefcase and forces her to go inside and ask for Mr Jang. When a bunch of dangerous looking gangsters emerge from the lift, you know Lucy is in a lot of trouble. We discover that the briefcase contains a powerful new drug which is expected to become the new drug of choice. In a nasty development, Lucy and a group of other unwilling participants have a packet of the drug inserted inside their bodies and are then sent to a different city of the world where they have to meet up with a distributor. However, on Lucy's journey, she accidentally ingests the drug and things start to get pretty crazy as her brain increases in capacity at a rapid rate.
This is where the similarities between Limitless and Lucy start to end, because in Limitless the extra brain capacity is mainly used for personal gain, whereas Lucy has two missions in mind: revenge against the gangsters and sharing of the knowledge of what is happening to her with a scientist (Morgan Freeman bringing his typical gravitas to the movie). What I really liked about this movie was the visual style. It was written and directed by Luc Besson, the man who has given us such visual treats as The Fifth Element, Leon: The Professional and The Big Blue. The visuals are kinetic and beautiful at the same time. There is a lot of nature documentary style stuff inserted between scenes which seem designed to add more weight to the science of the film (even though we know it is actually not scientifically accurate). One person at our screening thought they were in the wrong film during the opening scene of an early human drinking water at a riverbank, and given the timing of this film being released at the same time as Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, it's quite understandable!
What could have been pretty silly is just anchored enough by Scar-Jo's performance as a woman dealing with an extraordinary situation in a kick-ass way. It is an interesting parallel role for her following her voice role in "Her" which both dealt with an expanding consciousness. However, her playful, sexy character in Her is a far cry from the increasingly less human/business like revenge seeker in this film. She's backed up well by Mr Freeman as usual. Without them, this would have been dumb but for some reason I really liked it!
Lucy is a young American girl (played by Scarlett Johanssen) studying in Paris and partying her time away. She meets a guy in a bar who after a week, takes her to a hotel where he has to deliver a briefcase as a job. He's too nervous though, and asks Lucy to do it, but she refuses. He then handcuffs her to the briefcase and forces her to go inside and ask for Mr Jang. When a bunch of dangerous looking gangsters emerge from the lift, you know Lucy is in a lot of trouble. We discover that the briefcase contains a powerful new drug which is expected to become the new drug of choice. In a nasty development, Lucy and a group of other unwilling participants have a packet of the drug inserted inside their bodies and are then sent to a different city of the world where they have to meet up with a distributor. However, on Lucy's journey, she accidentally ingests the drug and things start to get pretty crazy as her brain increases in capacity at a rapid rate.
This is where the similarities between Limitless and Lucy start to end, because in Limitless the extra brain capacity is mainly used for personal gain, whereas Lucy has two missions in mind: revenge against the gangsters and sharing of the knowledge of what is happening to her with a scientist (Morgan Freeman bringing his typical gravitas to the movie). What I really liked about this movie was the visual style. It was written and directed by Luc Besson, the man who has given us such visual treats as The Fifth Element, Leon: The Professional and The Big Blue. The visuals are kinetic and beautiful at the same time. There is a lot of nature documentary style stuff inserted between scenes which seem designed to add more weight to the science of the film (even though we know it is actually not scientifically accurate). One person at our screening thought they were in the wrong film during the opening scene of an early human drinking water at a riverbank, and given the timing of this film being released at the same time as Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, it's quite understandable!
What could have been pretty silly is just anchored enough by Scar-Jo's performance as a woman dealing with an extraordinary situation in a kick-ass way. It is an interesting parallel role for her following her voice role in "Her" which both dealt with an expanding consciousness. However, her playful, sexy character in Her is a far cry from the increasingly less human/business like revenge seeker in this film. She's backed up well by Mr Freeman as usual. Without them, this would have been dumb but for some reason I really liked it!
Saturday 2 August 2014
Movie #21 - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
The sequel to the recent "re-imagining" of the Planet of the Apes franchise 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes', this movie is set around 8-10 years after the first film. The virus released at the end of the last film has spread and killed many, and wars as society broke down have wiped out many more. The apes who emancipated themselves in the last film have retreated and set up their own community in the hills of San Francisco, a safe and prosperous place where they can avoid human contact. A small band of humans, resistant to the virus, have survived and built a fortress to keep anyone else out, but they have no electricity. They need to get a hydro electricity plant running again.
So sets up a strong film that follows on from the almost as strong first film. Where the first one explored the moral issue of testing experimental drugs and how we treat animals, this one is more concerned with themes of family and how there can be bad apples in every bunch even when you think you know who is the 'baddie' and who is the 'goodie'. People and apes can certainly be both.
Our two central characters are Caesar (Andy Serkis mo-cap performance again being a standout) who now has a mate, a son and another baby chimpanzee on the way; and Malcolm (Aussie Jason Clarke in what might be a breakout role for him) has formed a new family unit with his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) a vet Elli (Keri Russell from Felicity). Malcolm leads a small band of humans including his son and girlfriend into ape territory, hoping to ask Caesar for permission to work on the hydro-electricity plant and co-exist peacefully with the apes. Being very similar in outlook, Caesar agrees to Malcolm's request and even sets his community to helping get the job done so the humans can leave them in peace. But distrust on both sides causes a series of events which set in motion a war between human and ape.
I think the timing of the release of this movie could not have been more (accidentally) perfect than it was to make the film resonate more than it would have otherwise. While I was watching the film I felt very much 'in the moment' and concentrating on watching the events unfold, but immediately on walking out of the film I realised it was very coincidental how much it reflects real world events. Because in this movie I feel we have a representation of the current Israel-Palestine conflict - two very different groups, both of whom in the main probably just want to be left alone to live their own way and ignore the others, both with right on their side (or so they think), but because of a series of mis-communications and/or misunderstandings between one or a few people, they come to disagree and eventually to fight and each side feels the need to seek revenge/justice for their community. It's amazing how much in both the movie and its real world counterpart, you just want to reach out and say "Stop - can't we just talk this over and find a solution before any more lives are destroyed". That might be too much information, I hope not, but I'm sure anyone going to see this has a general understanding of the storyline arc of this series.
On a technical note, the CGI and motion capture employed provide some amazing visuals, especially in 3D. I felt so immersed in the film, with the producers wisely deciding not to use it to throw things at your face but instead just make you think that these apes are real, and really are riding horses, holding guns and other things that occur. Every bit is believable. The location is excellent too and the direction is very good from Matt Reeves (leveraging his experience with fast-paced action from directing Cloverfield but blending in the quiet character beats from the remake Let me In). There is no real standout performance in the human cast but all are at a high level so it doesn't matter.
I felt very strongly about this movie, I really really liked it and found it pretty thought provoking.
So sets up a strong film that follows on from the almost as strong first film. Where the first one explored the moral issue of testing experimental drugs and how we treat animals, this one is more concerned with themes of family and how there can be bad apples in every bunch even when you think you know who is the 'baddie' and who is the 'goodie'. People and apes can certainly be both.
Our two central characters are Caesar (Andy Serkis mo-cap performance again being a standout) who now has a mate, a son and another baby chimpanzee on the way; and Malcolm (Aussie Jason Clarke in what might be a breakout role for him) has formed a new family unit with his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) a vet Elli (Keri Russell from Felicity). Malcolm leads a small band of humans including his son and girlfriend into ape territory, hoping to ask Caesar for permission to work on the hydro-electricity plant and co-exist peacefully with the apes. Being very similar in outlook, Caesar agrees to Malcolm's request and even sets his community to helping get the job done so the humans can leave them in peace. But distrust on both sides causes a series of events which set in motion a war between human and ape.
I think the timing of the release of this movie could not have been more (accidentally) perfect than it was to make the film resonate more than it would have otherwise. While I was watching the film I felt very much 'in the moment' and concentrating on watching the events unfold, but immediately on walking out of the film I realised it was very coincidental how much it reflects real world events. Because in this movie I feel we have a representation of the current Israel-Palestine conflict - two very different groups, both of whom in the main probably just want to be left alone to live their own way and ignore the others, both with right on their side (or so they think), but because of a series of mis-communications and/or misunderstandings between one or a few people, they come to disagree and eventually to fight and each side feels the need to seek revenge/justice for their community. It's amazing how much in both the movie and its real world counterpart, you just want to reach out and say "Stop - can't we just talk this over and find a solution before any more lives are destroyed". That might be too much information, I hope not, but I'm sure anyone going to see this has a general understanding of the storyline arc of this series.
On a technical note, the CGI and motion capture employed provide some amazing visuals, especially in 3D. I felt so immersed in the film, with the producers wisely deciding not to use it to throw things at your face but instead just make you think that these apes are real, and really are riding horses, holding guns and other things that occur. Every bit is believable. The location is excellent too and the direction is very good from Matt Reeves (leveraging his experience with fast-paced action from directing Cloverfield but blending in the quiet character beats from the remake Let me In). There is no real standout performance in the human cast but all are at a high level so it doesn't matter.
I felt very strongly about this movie, I really really liked it and found it pretty thought provoking.
Movie #22 - Sex Tape
Sex Tape is neither a bad nor a good movie. It's not good enough for me to recommend anyone go and pay money to see it at the cinema, but it's not bad that I'd say don't watch it on a Friday night on the couch. It's okay. It would be better if you hadn't seen the trailer for the movie, because that right there pretty much has all the funny bits in it. Of which there are a couple of really hilarious moments, but only a few. So if you want to skip the 90 something minute running time, just watch the full trailer and there you go.
The plot is pretty much just married early thirty-somethings have lost the mojo, decide to get drunk and film themselves having sex, accidentally send video to everyone who has a sync-ed iPad to their iPad, couple do whatever it takes to get the iPads back. Jason Segel (Marshall from How I Met your Mother) as Jay and Cameron Diaz as Annie have pretty good chemistry but even they can't save this movie which I think should pretty much be blamed on a lame script. Rob Lowe has some pretty funny scenes and in fact, most of the funny stuff happens when he's in it, but the rest of the time it's all just what I'd describe as.....awkward.
The point is pretty much "if you just remember why you liked bonking in the first place, you'll get the urge to bonk again" which is kinda dumb and it leads to some very unbelievable conversations toward the end of the movie. Jay looks over at Annie and says "This situation has shown me that you are kind, generous yada yada yada" and yet at no time during this movie have we seen Annie being kind or generous to anyone let alone Jay (who was responsible for the tape getting out with his crazy Frankenstein syncing program to all his former iPads which are just given away to friends, family and the mailman because Jay has such amazing taste in music everyone wants his playlists - What???). And then Annie says a bunch of nice stuff I've forgotten about Jay which is also stupid because he did none of that either in the last 90 minutes.
All I can say is I'm thankful for receiving free tickets to this movie and did not pay to see it, and my goodwill towards Jason Segel for all his previous good work (The Muppets, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I love you Man etc etc) just went down a notch. Eat a sandwich too boy!
The plot is pretty much just married early thirty-somethings have lost the mojo, decide to get drunk and film themselves having sex, accidentally send video to everyone who has a sync-ed iPad to their iPad, couple do whatever it takes to get the iPads back. Jason Segel (Marshall from How I Met your Mother) as Jay and Cameron Diaz as Annie have pretty good chemistry but even they can't save this movie which I think should pretty much be blamed on a lame script. Rob Lowe has some pretty funny scenes and in fact, most of the funny stuff happens when he's in it, but the rest of the time it's all just what I'd describe as.....awkward.
The point is pretty much "if you just remember why you liked bonking in the first place, you'll get the urge to bonk again" which is kinda dumb and it leads to some very unbelievable conversations toward the end of the movie. Jay looks over at Annie and says "This situation has shown me that you are kind, generous yada yada yada" and yet at no time during this movie have we seen Annie being kind or generous to anyone let alone Jay (who was responsible for the tape getting out with his crazy Frankenstein syncing program to all his former iPads which are just given away to friends, family and the mailman because Jay has such amazing taste in music everyone wants his playlists - What???). And then Annie says a bunch of nice stuff I've forgotten about Jay which is also stupid because he did none of that either in the last 90 minutes.
All I can say is I'm thankful for receiving free tickets to this movie and did not pay to see it, and my goodwill towards Jason Segel for all his previous good work (The Muppets, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I love you Man etc etc) just went down a notch. Eat a sandwich too boy!
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