If you're a newbie to Wes I recommend The Royal Tenenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom. The Grand Budapest Hotel was raved about by a friend of mine but I haven't seen it yet. It's supposed to be one of his best so far.

I saw Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby last night in 3D and really enjoyed it. I'm a big fan of his anyway but did a great adaptation of the story and the sets, costumes and make up were amazing. The reviews online either love it or hate it so I think it's like marmite.

I also thought the use of modern music was good too.

I read afterwards that Toby and Leo have known each other since childhood in real life. I thought they acted great together and Carey Mulligan was beautiful as Daisy. Isla Fisher wasn't in it long enough but that's my only complaint. There's only so much you can take from a book and put in to a 2 hour film.

I think I've seen the first of those but certainly not the second.
I'm hearing good things about The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which I might also track down.

Mark

Captain Phillips

One sided biased piece of pro US propaganda with the habitual but completely unnecessary shaky cam from Greengrass.

Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Unfortunately it's a shambles, and I liked the reboot much more than the previous trilogy

You know those films where they've had to patch a changing script and footage they'd already shot together? It feels like one of those. Almost everything goes into the final scenes, meaning the void is filled with ham and cheese and some of the worst-handled franchise-building you've ever seen. Some of the characters you've heard about only appear in this to set them up for future movies, they're just crowbarred-in cameos.

Remember the Schumacher Batmans? Whole lot of that cheesiness going on, with extended talky bits reminiscent of Iron Man 2. Just like that film, you're watching a thinly-stretched ad for what's coming next.

Oh, and I didn't watch it in 3D, but it's quite obvious that was supposed to be the main audience, making some of the action totally weird and stupid. There's an awful lot of bringing an object into view n'all. Everything about this film says 'squeezed in'.

Did you stick around until the end of the credits?
Because apparently there's a clip of Days of Future Past right at the end of them.

Mark

Yeah, that threw me a bit lol. I can't imagine anything will come of it too soon though, if ever. It's seemingly got nothing to do with Spidey either

Yeah. I think Marvel threw a lot of money at Sony and said 'show this after Amazing Spider-Man 2?' And Sony said YES!

Mark

http://variety.com/2014/film/news/the-s ... 201158216/

AKA Getting geeks hopes up for no other reason than a side-deal

Johnny Depp's latest Transcendence is pretty much being labelled as one of the dullest films ever so far (I liked the themes it plays with in the trailer)

On the Spidey-X-Men front...

http://schmoesknow.com/spider-man-produ ... ver/21596/

Arad's remarkably cocky for a man who will latch on to anything vaguely popular, and who has often been the producer on films that sunk their respective franchise. Spidey 2's a mess compared to what it should have been.

I personally couldn't give a crap about an X-Men - Spider-Man crossover.
I do think it's as he says, for the crossover to happen, both Marvel and Sony will have had to run out of ideas, and for the foreseeable future at least, that ain't gonna happen.

Mark

I'd love to see Spidey's comic persona play off the X-Men - it's the one thing that's remained consistent in his two films so far. Sadly we'll never get to see it with Jackman/Wolverine, that could've been gold.

Yeah, I don't think Jackman is for the role of Wolverine for very much longer.

Mark