The Last Five Years

Interesting concept for a musical, it takes the titular last 5 years of a relationship with each scene/song taking place at a different point in the relationship. The couple takes turns singing, her songs start at the end of the relationship and work backwards to the beginning while his songs go the opposite way, timelines meeting in the middle for the wedding. Unless you've read the description, there's no real set up for that, so going in blind is confusing for the first several songs.

As for the quality, watching it on my iPad on an airplane sharing earbuds with Mrs. O'Five probably wasn't the ideal conditions, but I enjoyed it overall. The music is good, the cinematography is not. I get the feeling most of the songs were done in a handful of takes, so there's a lot of long shots and the camera or the singers sometimes get lost or you can tell the cameraperson is running after them.

Anyway, if you like musicals, you could do worse.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

I feel like a fuddy-duddy, but I didn't get much enjoyment out of this movie at all. I like the Colin Firth mentoring a streetwise kid on how to be a gentleman spy stuff, but then it would dip into dark places that would make Craig Bond wince, then go into over-the-top stuff that Austin Powers never dreamed of. I read that Vaughn wanted to redefine the spy movie like Spielberg redefined the serial adventures of his youth with Raiders, but he really missed with it. And its not like the serial adventures were still going strong in the 80's with a hundred better takes on it already out like we have with spy movies.

START SPOILERS

We're talking about a movie where a bunch of rich people's heads explode in brightly colored smoke in time with the music being immediately followed by a mother trying to break into her bathroom with a meat cleaver to murder her toddler. It's an insane whiplash.

My biggest issue was the final test for these gentlemen spies-in-training. They were given a dog at the beginning of training and told to take care of it. Every lesson we see is about building teamwork between the students. The final test is they're given a gun and told to shoot their dog. Of course, our hero doesn't do it. So he fails.

Sure, the guns had blanks, but it still holds that refusing to shoot the dog you were told to take care of is a failure in this gentleman spy organization. What kind of lesson is that? Where would he have learned that in the training? The last time I saw an organization that gave you a dog and forced you to kill it was HYDRA, and they're the bad guys.

END SPOILERS

Anyway, I didn't like the movie, thought it failed to do anything it set out to do. And this one I saw at an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema while drinking with a bunch of people who did seem to be enjoying it, so it wasn't the environment.

Jupiter Ascending

My wife and I went to another Alamo Drafthouse to see this to wash the dirt off from Kingsman. We were both pleasantly surprised. After hearing about it and how most people I know who saw it enjoyed it, I took it upon myself to not abandon it as I did John Carter and Edge of Tomorrow, movies I was sure I would have liked but didn't see in theaters which I ended up enjoying a lot and feeling bad for waiting for Blu-ray.

I found it intriguing and engrossing. I want to see more of the world the Wachowskis created for this, unfortunately due to what seems to be WB losing all faith in it last summer and delaying it till winter (you can't tell me they delayed it 9 months to finish the effects and couldn't have waited an additional 3 to keep it a summer movie) and then not promoting it properly, the franchise is dead already. I love me some comic book movies, but I also love me some original IP. It's a shame this isn't getting more love. Because I love it.