Three Hours Of Excess

We've a busy week ahead so we thought we'd fit our weekly cinema trip in early and headed off to Ipswich today for a noon screening at Cineworld

I don't know about you but I've said and done one or two things that I am not exactly proud of when I've over indulged (and they're just the ones I remember). But, in Martin Scorcese's brilliant The Wolf Of Wall St, Leonardo Di Caprio (as financial crook Jordan Belfort) in a performance that redefines the term "wide eyed and legless",has shown my very worst excesses to be but minor indiscretions.

The film is based upon the true story of Belfort who, at the peak of his criminal financial activity was "earning" $50 million a year and, if we are to believe the film, squandered a huge proportion of it on drinks, drugs and prostitutes. After losing his job as a broker on Wall St in the 80's crash he started out selling penny shares and persuading small savers to part with their well earned cash for worthless stocks. Carrying on from the success he went on to sucker rich investors into the same mistakes (but with a lot more noughts on the amounts involved).

At three hours long you would expect the film to drag but there was so much excess in his business (dwarf throwing, naked bandsmen, and in-house orgies during business hours to name some of the minor ones) that it's surprising that Scorcese has managed to fit it all in. It's an entirely convincing performance from DiCaprio who is on screen for most of the film and speaks to us (a la Miranda) in a number of pieces to camera. In fact Di Caprio is so good and depicts the drug addled Belfort as such a charismatic leader that you almost side with a character who would have made Caligula blush.

I'm surprised that the film managed to make it onto the screen uncut - it holds the current record for f words and there's a hell of a lot of naked flesh but it's a film about excess and it has to be excessive for it to work. As a study of corruption and charisma it is a one off. 

There's a good supporting cast including Jonah Hill as Belfort's right hand man, Margot Robbie as his trophy wife and Kyle Chandler as his FBI nemesis. Matthew McConaughey gives an incredible cameo performance as Belfort's first Wall St boss but the film is all about  Belfort and DiCaprio is outstanding in the role. 
  

Crash Bang Wallop What A Picture

We went to Ipswich the other day to see The Hobbit part two which is subtitled The Desolation Of Smaug although I think 1000 Ways To Kill An Orc might have been a better name - I don't think it would be possible to slaughter any more of the poor creatures in a couple of hours. 

We went to an IMAX screening and it really does make a massive difference for movies of this size. The sound is immense and you leave the screening literally exhausted and with your ears ringing from the effects of the ceaseless crashing and banging.

I like Martin Freeman but I loved reading The Hobbit and I don't think Freeman looks anything at all like the jovial little burglar that Tolkein left in my imagination. I'm not sure that anyone who has read the book could picture Bilbo as he is portrayed here. That apart, the film is fairly faithful to the plot (sadly for Marion who hates spiders and sat for over ten minutes with eyes firmly shut and asking me if the giant arachnids had gone yet). 

Despite the multi million pound CGI I found some parts of the action scenes jerky but there is so much action in the film I won't complain. There's not a great deal to the story - Bilbo is the burglar who has been picked by Gandalf and the dwarves to steal the Arkenstone from under the mountain where it is guarded by the dragon Smaug. En route they come across plenty of danger resulting in spectacular fights and flights and, as it is part two of three, we end, as expected, with a cliffhanger and have to wait until next Christmas to see what happens next. 

Director Peter Jackson has thrown in a dwarf/elf/elf love triangle that would probably have JR Tolkien turning in his grave but there's nothing wrong with a bit of romance and it was a welcome distraction from the incessant fighting. The critics have been fairly harsh on the film but if you want a couple of hours of action I think you'll enjoy it.

The movie ends with local boy Ed Sheeran's excellent I See Fire. I can see a future trivia quiz question asking what links Framlingham to The Hobbit.

Catching Fire At Cineworld

After the sad and gentle Saving Mr Banks at the intimate Aldeburgh cinema on Tuesday we headed to Ipswich yesterday for something a bit more explosive and watched Catching Fire, the latest in The Hunger Games Trilogy on the enormous IMAX screen. 

The cinema foyer was packed - Hunger Games is a hugely popular franchise and Cineworld were screening the film in several screens. We stuck out like proverbial sore thumbs being at least twenty years older than everyone else there but hey, you're as old as you feel and anything with Jennifer Lawrence in has to be worth watching - we've been big fans since her breakthrough in Cold Mountain. 

The dystopian story continues and, in order to try and quash undercurrents of rebellion amongst the plebeian population of the districts, President Snow (wonderfully portrayed by Donald Sutherland) has decided to use Katniss (Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and their hugely popular love story by pitching them into another Hunger Games. This special event which is held every twenty five years pitches past survivors (winners) against each other and the aim is for the dissident lovers to come to a horrible end and subdue the populous. 

But are they lovers or is Katniss still in love with boy next door Gale? It's a question that leaves us guessing. Perhaps she loves them both. The film is visually stunning although I was a little disappointed that some scenes (the competitors' entrance chariot parade) were almost identical to those in the first movie. Josh Hutcherson is perfect as all round nice guy Peeta and Lawrence's Katniss is steely and tough but with a hint of vulnerability. 

I felt that Saving Mr Banks would have benefited from a 15 certificate rather than being PG and I feel that Catching Fire has possibly been over sanitised to reach a wider young audience. When you think about the subject matters - fighting to the death for mass entertainment and beating down a rebellious population  - it's fairly tough stuff but the director has definitely pulled his punches for the sake of gaining a 12. 

it's entertaining stuff; very colourful, plenty of excitement and with far more characterisation than your average blockbuster. Try and see it in IMAX if you can.

On Customer Service And A Marathon Matinee At Cineworld

Having been involved in finance all of my working life I am afraid that I am a bit of a pain when it comes to home bookkeeping and, thanks to the wonders of Microsoft Money, I can tell you how much we spent on clothes, food, holidays, football (you name it ) in any month or year for about the past fifteen years. However I have one credit card account that I don't check regularly as I got an unbeatable interest free and no initial fee offer on it about eighteen months ago and I've simply been paying the minimum back each month. But this month it's due to be repaid and the interest free offer runs out so I went online to reconcile the statement. 

To my surprise it didn't balance. I was £72.75 better off than I expected. So I trawled through the online statements and found that in November last year we were refunded £72.75 by ACHICA for some pictures that we bought for the room we we're doing out for the grandchildren. At one stage we had an apology from ACHICA notifying us that the pictures were not going to be delivered as they had run out of stock but we thought nothing of it as they arrived a day or so later.

So I wrote to ACHICA and told them that we owed them £72.75 from last November.I was interested to see how they would respond to this slightly unusual contact with customer service. They immediately sent an email invoice with payment instructions and we duly paid by return but that was it. "What else did you expect?" I hear you ask, "you owed them money and you paid it. What did you want? A flipping medal?" Whilst I know that is correct I just thought that someone in customer service somewhere might have written a note of thanks and maybe offered us a fiver off our next order - after all if I had kept quiet they would be £73 worse off. 

On the subject of customer service, hats off to John Lewis Ipswich. We bought Melody a lovely, and quite expensive, little babygro from them online in July (before she was born). When Melody wore it for the first time a hole appeared. We took it back today almost three months later and were refunded immediately with no quibbles. I was very impressed as the shop could easily have argued that we had damaged it ourselves but no, I left the store five minutes later with the card refunded.

We were in Ipswich as the Prius was due its 70,000 mile service. We had a good day and did a bit of shopping in the town centre before heading to Cineworld (where I discovered that I now qualify for senior prices). 

We saw Sunshine On Leith at 1 o'clock. It's one of those musicals with a story made up to fit the songs. After Mamma Mia and others in this genre, this time it's The Proclaimers turn to get the treatment. I love The Proclaimers so I knew that I would like the film. And I did, despite Peter Mullan's inability to hit the right notes the few times that he sang. The storyline about a couple of squaddies returning to Edinburgh after a tour of duty in Afghanistan is a double romance and it's great fun with some superb moments - Lets Get Married set in an Edinburgh pub was pure joy and the flash mob finale of 500 Miles was a truly happy, memorable and feel good movie moment. With the Edinburgh skyline playing a big part in the film I'd recommend it for anyone who loves that city and the Proclaimers or is a bit of a softie. If you want a strong story I'd give it a miss.

Straight out of Sunshine On Leath we were into the adjoining screen to continue our marathon matinee. I'm a fan of author Meg Rosoff. I've read three of her novels which are aimed at a juvenile audience but can still be appreciated by adults. I haven't read How I Live Now but it does contain Meg's trademarks of a degree of surreality accompanied by a fair deal of teenage sex and a healthy serving of angst. Saoirse Ronan plays American, Daisy, who is sent to spend the summer with her cousins in a glorious British countryside. The cousins are two teenage boys and a younger girl. Romance blossoms between Daisy and her cousin Edmond. The cousins' mum has to leave so they are on their own and having an idyllic bucolic time when suddenly World War 3 (which has been simmering in the background)  breaks out and the story develops into a dystopian apocalypse. It's a powerful film with great performances from Ronan and her co-star George McKay. It's clearly been filmed on a budget so the apocalyptic scenes are on a fairly small and slightly unconvincing scale but this is compensated for by great cinematography and a very touching story.