The Forrest

I vaguely remember seeing a trailer for this, and I like J-Horror, so I gave this a go. However, there is a very obvious problem with this movie.

One sister of a pair of twins (save on casting!) realises her sister is in trouble. The sister in trouble, Jess, decided to go walking in Aokigahara Forest, which is known for people going in and committing suicide... so did Jess do that? Sara, the other sister, goes into the forest, with a guide and a random stranger she just met, and guess what happens... did you say supernatural stuff that makes her doubt everything around her? Yep, that's the one. And by the end I think we get some kind of twist, but it's a little bit of a mess.

Okay, let's get to it. This movie so clearly wants to be a Japanese Horror movie... however, it isn't even slightly a Japanese Horror story. One of the key features of JH is atmosphere, and this movie completely fails to do that. There are a number of spooky moments with sort of jump scares, and not one of them got to me even slightly. Leave it to the professionals... or at least actual Japanese... guys.

There are two other movies based on the same idea of the forest, so guess what's up next?

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Step UUUUUPP!

We're stepping up once more, and with this the title worked so well because they had a two/to to play with.

We start again with someone, a young woman in this case, in the urban street dancing, and to not be shipped off to Texas joins the MSA, so we back in there. However, rather than about the MSA dance, although there is one, it's more about The Street competition. She's thrown out of her crew, so starts her own. Fortunately there are a group of MSA students that want to funk out, so they get together, then it becomes about the MSA not wanting anyone involved in the Streets, and the other crews not wanting them in the Streets. But, at the end, it's a big dance off, because of course it is.

Again we get a lot of professional dancing. And I don't care how great you are at improv dancing, there's no way you're ready to dance like that in the rain without practicing. Still, this was more "urban" dancing, so I was willing to accept the good styles, especially if, as I think, they got actual dance crews involved.

Also again, we get a racial connotation where by the two main leads are in sort of interracial relationships, but come together to stay in their own race. Really, movie? Can't we get past that? Well, we could start with not having the two main leads as white, that would help.

Better than the first one, I will go with, so clearly every movie is only going to get better!

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TP 2.1

Already we are onto the second season, with a change of the main cast. This is considered one of the better episodes, and it does works well. It's The Blue and the Green.

We start at a school as we introduce the main plot of the episode, and a new Tomorrow People. Despite that TP are supposed to be young, we get the rather adult Elizabeth M'bondo. She breaks out at the end of the first episode, and by the start of the next episode she completely accepted it and we settled down the main story. Which is one of the school boys has painted a picture which can make people crazy, because it turns out he's an alien and needs violence energy to hatch properly. Which takes five episodes to play out, but they do keep things going. We also get a replacement for the human friends, with Ginger's younger brother Chris as the new hard man.

One aspect that's quite different here to other series is that the TPs work out how to help the aliens rather than stop them. The aliens need violence, but the TPs aren't going to kill them to stop them, so have to allow them to get the energy. And yet getting the energy would leave people dead, so how can the TP get out of it? As it happens, there is some useful footage from people being in nuclear tests where they were lying down all over streets, so they are able to put everyone to sleep and act out violence in their dreams. Which works, huzzah!

Listening to the commentary, this is clearly the one they did first as Nicholas and Peter are here to begin with, and Phillip comes in with episode five. They have fun mocking each other but do have fond memories of it all. It is a decent episode, based on a historical moment, and shows off nicely how different the TPs can be.

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The Accounterant

Action! Accounting! Average!

Ben Afflick is a man with a disability with other heightened senses... senses for maths! And he also grew up with a gun, so when the money trail comes to an end, he grabs a rifle instead. Which makes all this sound rather more exciting than it is. This is just... generic. Nothing exciting happens, and the point of him being an accountant just means he gets the clues himself as opposed to someone else handing them to him to work out. Then the action sequences happen, because we need to have plenty of those.

It's hard to say more beyond all that. It's competent enough, but nothing surprising. Yes, there are obvious Daredevil parallels, but that just shows up how superficial both stories can be treated. There's no ninja with sais here, just a tiny diminutive Anna Kendrick.

Frankly, just go check out Seth McDebit instead.

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Ever The Land

The movie that was supposed to be on after the earthquake was delayed, so clearly no-one wanted to go into town. Anyway, it was moved to last night, and ended up wrapping up the 2016 Film Society screenings. This was in one of the previous film festivals, and fortunately screened now. It's Ever The Land.

Tuhoe is a Maori tribe in the North Island, and, like other tribes, were screwed over by the Crown. As part of them getting a settlement, they spent $15 million on building a building that would be used for their own purposes. We follow various people involved in building the building, from the architects to the builders to the Tuhoe overseeing it, to the Tuhoe helping work on it. The building is part of the Living Building Challenge, to ensure it is minimally environmentally impactive (although we're never told if the building ultimately meets the challenge or not). We end with the Tuhoe settlement with the Crown and the opening of the building.

This is one of those observational documentaries, in which the camera runs and they capture footage, but there is no talking heads to explain anything. So we pick up what we can, although there is helpful (actual) radio broadcasts that explain a few main points. This also means that we get natural audio, so if there is noise going on, or it's over a phone, the audio can be quite hard to pick out.

Overall, it's a good movie, and the building is impressive... but if I'm being honest, it looks a bit dull.

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Step UUUUUP!

I like some good dance choreography, so let's go for the set of movies that is set up on that idea. First up, first step.

The story isn't that amazing. A guy from the wrong side of the tracks ends up interacting with the right side of the tracks. While doing so, he, of course, falls for a girl and ends up having to weigh his street background with the more upscale lifestyle. And, conversely, she has to weigh up being a proper girl with being attracted to this bad boy chap. All while dancing to a show case moment.

What was more interesting/notable to me was the racial aspect. In that while the street is given as a multitude of black people, the 'hero' of the picture was a white guy, Channing Tatum in this case. Phew, because as it happens the hero girl is also white, so we don't need to deal with any interracial aspects. Managed to dodge that bullet. As it happens there is an interracial couple amoungst the b-plot characters, but she soon realises that he is a dick, and falls instead for someone of her own colour. Whether or not the movie intended to present this picture, it's there for people to read, and just made me sigh into my hands.

But, hey, we are here for the dancing. There is a lot, and it's done well. That said, it was clear these were well choreographed pieces with lots of rehearsing from the actors, so in character wasn't quite believable that they were that good, but that didn't seem to bother anyone involved. Basically, it all felt too polished for the story the movie was telling...

So far, not an impressive start to the series. Let's see where we go from here.

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TP 1.3

Speaking of stories where nothing happens, we have The Vanishing Earth.

There are disasters around the earth, and Ginge gets kidnapped... and that's the first episode. If you don't care about the saps, this is a long way of nothing happens. And in the second episode, the TPs looks around the fair.... and so it isn't until the third episode that the story actually kicks off, and then in the last episode there's a tremendous run around that feels like they had to pad more out.

There are a couple of notable performances in this. Nova Llewellyn is quite the looker, and she gets paraded around in mini skirts and a leotard outfit. Kevin Stoney stands around watching everyone, doing his inimitable eye brow action. And then there's John Woodnutt as Spidron, dressed up as a KKK member.

The start of episode two is an early example of the long reprise, but there are far, far, far worse moments to come. Ultimately, this is one and a half episodes of story spread out over four episodes.

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