Two quite different films and audiences at the Kino this weekend.
On Saturday I went to see The Fault in Our Stars a film I went into knowing absolutely nothing about (I am making a point to try and go to see all of the English language films shown at my local Cinemaxx which has led to some interesting discoveries and some pretty enjoyable evenings). I guess I should have guessed what was coming by the fact that I seemed to be sharing the theatre with around a hundred teenage (I would guess 14-16 years old) girls. The film was a pretty predictable romance about a young girl and boy who find love when they meet at a support group for children with cancer. William Dafoe pops up as an embittered author hiding away in Amsterdam and has some brilliant but nasty lines. Overall not a bad film, but one I would find difficult to recommend to anyone not in the target audience. I won't be running out to buy the book upon which the film is based.
Tonight was my second visit (unusual as Cinemaxx normally only screen one film in OV) this time to see the latest Tom Cruise vehicle Edge of Tomorrow. Based upon this and his other recent output (Jack Reacher, MI:4) he seems to be back to some sort of form in his choices of films. Alongside the original Resident evil film, Edge of Tomorrow is one of the very few films that somehow manages to capture something of the feel of playing video games, here that ability to replay the 'game' once you have died using the new knowledge gained to allow you to progress further. Doug Liman manages to make use of this device in an interesting and fun way delivering an above average (if not brilliant) sic-fi action film of a kind that wouldn't have looked out of place in the 1980's. The audience for this film comprised mostly early-mid 20's males.
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