Category: Year round up

2023 In Film: Day Ten (The Amazeballs)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Barbie

Ups: Very funny

Depressingly relevant

Creative

Unique look

Downs: The final third is a little messy.

A lot of the supporting actors are wasted.

It’s going to lead to studios learning the wrong lesson. They’re going to think “let’s make movies based on toys”, rather than “let’s have movies which are well written”.

Best Moment: America Ferrara’s monologue about womanhood. Absolute perfection.

Worst Moment: The chase scene in the office is a bit drab.

Best Performer: Ryan Gosling. Robbie is good, but if she didn’t have Gosling to bounce off, it wouldn’t work.

Opening: Essentially 2001: A Space Odyssey but with Barbie instead of a monolith, showcasing how she was the first doll that wasn’t a baby. The kids respond to this by throwing away their old dolls. Somehow, this was described in at least one review/commentator as “children say they want to kill all babies and then massacre them”.

Closing: Barbie goes to a gynaecologist. Again, some reviewers misconstrued this scene and said it was her “getting a sex change/having an abortion”. This is why media literacy is important, it stops idiots. It could have ended slightly more powerfully than it does, but it works.

Best Line: The aforementioned monologue.

Original Review here

Bottoms

Ups: Hilarious.

In your face.

Fun performances.

Downs: They never really feel like outcasts. They say “We’re at the bottom” but it never feels like it.

More could be done to set up the school rivalry.

The dickhead jocks never get their comeuppance

The use of music at some points could be better

Best Moment: The final fight. Violent, stylistic brilliance.

Worst Moment: The falling out between the characters feels a little fake.

Best Performer: Ruby Cruz

Opening: The main characters at a fair. Sets up their characters well enough, gets some jokes out the way quickly too.

Closing: A tree bomb explodes, disappointing a local goth who is displeased about the gimmick infringement. Such a hilarious coda.

Best Line: “Let’s do terrorism”

Original Review here

Godzilla Minus One:

Ups: Visually stunning.

Has a purpose.

Mature.

Godzilla is terrifying.

Compelling story.

Downs: Bit too unsubtle.

There are a few moments where the effects are a bit too “man in suit”.

Hard to see it appealing to casual movie-goers

Best Moment: The attack on Ginza. Especially when it ends on a nuclear explosion.

Worst Moment: Shikishima receives a telegram, only because it kind of telegraphs the ending.

Best Performer: Ryunosuke Kamiki.

Opening: Godzilla attacks an island. I like that we got to see him early, and the scene is BRUTAL. This is not a monster who is aiming for balance etc, this is one that wants to kill humans.

Closing: Godzilla flesh starts to mutate. I really hope we get a sequel.

Best Line: Is your war finally over?

Original Review here

John Wick: Chapter 4

Ups: Some great fight scenes.

Donnie F’ing Yen

Keanu Reeves continues to kill it.

Good world-building

Downs: Bit too long.

Requires you to remember too much from the previous films.

Lacking “THAT” scene.

Best Moment: John in a hotel. Mainly because of how it’s weirdly shot and I loved it. Was like a video game at times.

Worst Moment: The Continental being destroyed could have been done better.

Best Performer: Keanu Reeves

Opening: John travels to Morocco and kills the elder. Unless you’ve seen (and can remember) the previous films; this meant nothing.

Closing: It ends the only way it could. The place it’s been heading to since the first film.

Best Line: “You arrogant asshole”.

Original Review here

Missing

Ups: Very original idea.

Ties into Searching brilliantly.

Incredible twists and turns.

Great performances.

Rewards a second viewing

Downs: The gimmick will be hated by some people.

Best Moment: The twist, it’s so good.

Worst Moment: There’s a death which seems out of place.

Best Performer: Storm Reid

Opening: Camera footage of a 6-year-old June with her father James, who died shortly after the video was made. Very good, and when you learn the context later, so much better.

Closing: The story has been adapted into a Netflix show. Weirdly funny and feels so true.

Original Review here

Past Lives

Ups: Very sweet.

If you let yourself into it, it opens itself up to you beautifully.

Stunning shots.

The leads have great chemistry.

Downs: Might be a bit too slow for some.

Not much happens.

Best Moment: The diner scene, it says so much about the relationship between the three.

Worst Moment: The title drop, seems like it was only there to get the title in.

Best Performer: Teo Yoo

Opening: The two main characters meet as children before leaving each other. Very sweet.

Closing: Essentially “we’ll see what happens in the next life”.

Best Line: You make my world so much bigger and I’m wondering if I do the same for you?

Original Review here

Polite Society

Ups: Great twist

Fun fight scenes.

Likeable characters

Good performances

Downs: The twist may put people off

As good as the stunt scenes are, there are none that stand out as “best scene ever”

Best Moment: Torture wax.

Worst Moment: The school fight scene might be a bit too silly for some.

Best Performer: Priya Kansara

Opening: She introduces herself, fun, and gets her character across well.

Closing: Not saying, the entire final third of this is a huge head-fuck, I love it.

Best Line: The gods whispered to the warrior, ‘You will not withstand the fury.’ The warrior whispers back, ‘I am the fury!’

Original Review here

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

Ups: The animation.

Best use of the multiverse in cinema this year (ordinarily that would be damning with faint praise, but lately?)

Has one of the best villains in superhero movie history

The different Spider-men are all great

Emotional

Downs: The soundtrack isn’t as memorable as the first one.

Ends on a cliffhanger

The studio treated the animators like dicks apparently.

Best Moment: The explanation of canon events.

Worst Moment: About 5 minutes from the end where you realise they don’t have enough time to wrap the stories up.

Best Performer: Shameik Moore.

Opening: Gwen Stacy fights a version of the Vulture from a universe made to look like an Italian Renaissance painting. Visually interesting, and very cool. But some people might have preferred it to start with Spider-Man

Closing: Miles is in trouble, and Gwen is establishing a team.

Best Line: Almost everything Hobie said

Original Review here

2023 In Film: Day Nine (The Almost Amazing)

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Aftersun

Ups: So many sweet moments.

So very sweet

Nostalgic

Downs: A lot happens off-camera and goes unsaid, which some people might not like.

Some shots could linger a bit longer

Could do more with the present-day sequences.

Best Moment: The Losing My Religion scene does a lot for something so simple.

Worst Moment: When the dad is talking about his 11th birthday. It’s a very poignant scene, but I don’t like how it was shot. I get why Charlotte Wells did that, but it just didn’t work for me.

Best Performer: This is tough. Both leads are perfect. Ordinarily, I’d give it to Frankie Corio because Paul Mescal got enough attention, and I’m always more impressed by a younger performer. But I’m going to break from tradition and give it to Paul Mescal because of how much depth he has to give every scene. He’s not just a dad, he’s a dad who is trying to give his daughter a memorable holiday while he’s suffering from depression.

Opening: Home video of the dad dancing, being recorded by his 11-year-old daughter. We know this as she points out her age, which is a very smart way of getting her age out there. The footage then freezes and starts going weird. Artfully done. It did make me think the whole film would be found-footage style.

Closing: Calum says goodbye to Sophie at the airport then shuts the camera off. I know that sounds boring and meaningless, but in the context of this, it’s incredibly powerful and will bring a tear to your eye. Then a slow pan of the room current Sophie is in as she watches the videos.

Best Line: “I just feel a bit down or something. Don’t you ever feel like you’ve just done a whole amazing day and then you come home and you feel tired and down and it feels like your bones don’t work. They’re just tired and everything is tired. Like you’re sinking”

Original Review here

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret

Ups: Very sweet.

This could so easily be creepy, but is skillfully directed so that it’s not.

Funny.

Surprisingly timely

Good performances.

Downs: Will put off certain audiences.

Changes a few things from the book which might annoy some people.

Best Moment: When she finally speaks to Laura. Very sweet and allows Laura to showcase her character more.

Worst Moment: The grandparents visiting doesn’t seem to do that much in the script.

Best Performer: Abby Ryder Forston

Opening: Margaret gets back from camp and finds out she’s moving house. It might have been nice to see more of her settled before the move, as at the moment all we see is “moving anxious Margaret”

Closing: She gets her period.

Best Line: I’ve been looking for you, God. I looked for you in Temple. I looked for you in Church. I didn’t feel you at all. Why? Why, God? Why do I only feel you when I’m alone?

Original Review here

Creed 3

Ups: Better fight/action scenes than some big-budget blockbusters

Emotional

Compelling story.

Downs: Rushed middle section.

We don’t get to see Damian as the champ (or the reaction to him)

Best Moment: The final fight. Incredibly creative with how it’s shot. Really helps you understand what being in that situation is like.

Worst Moment: The shop theft. It’s a good moment, but it’s repeated too much.

Best Performer: Phylicia Rashad.

Opening: Flashback to a young Adonis Creed watching his friend Damian win a boxing match, then Adonis beats the crap out of some guy. Gets you hooked in, lets you know of the characters’ relationship etc. But it’s a little hollow. There’s nothing gained from watching the moment again, it’s all very surface-level.

Closing: Adonis boxes with his daughter. It’s a very sweet moment but I feel that relationship could have been fleshed out a tiny bit more.

Best Line: The higher you get, the harder it gets.

Original Review here

Scrapper

Ups: Great performances

Likeable characters

Funny

It’s nice to see a British working-class movie where people are happy.

Probably the most creatively shot movie of the year

Downs: It’s a bit strange that nobody at the school questions the fact that her uncle is called Winston Churchill, or how she’s paying for everything. She is shown making some money, but will that be enough to cover all bills?

Characters don’t develop that much.

It doesn’t feel like some of the characters are taking the situation as seriously as they should.

Best Moment: When Georgie and her dad play a game at a train station where they imagine what other people on the station are saying. They do this for a few minutes before someone on the other side says “we can hear you, you know”.

Worst Moment: The revealing voicemail, feels slightly underwhelming.

Best Performer: Lola Campbell

Opening: An almost empty house, and Georgie marking off where she is on the stages of grief chart.

Closing: The two enter a truce to get to know each other. Sweet, but could be better. It’s not helped by the fact the conflict between them doesn’t feel that divisive.

Best Line: “we were just making sure all these bikes are road safe. Oh, yours isn’t by the way” A great demonstration of her quick thinking but also her childish nature that she thinks it will work. I mean, it does, but still.

Original Review here

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Ups: Looks fantastic.

Funny.

Great anarchic energy.

Downs: The constant pop culture references can get tired quickly.

If it’s not followed up then it will be a huge disappointment

Best Moment: The “What’s Up” scene.

Worst Moment: The horse mutation. Only because it feels really weak compared to the rest of the mutation effects.

Best Performer: Jackie Chan

Opening: The genesis of the turtles. It’s somewhat standard to see a father figure/creator get murdered in the opening of a kids’ movie, but it’s rarely as cruel as it is here.

Closing: The Turtles go to school and get to live out their dreams of being normal teenagers. But Cynthia aims to bring Shredder to defeat them.

Best Line: “Our dads definitely not a giant rat”

“That makes me think he is a rat”

Original Review here

The Blackening

Ups: Hilarious

The characters all feel real

Downs: Needs a better soundtrack

Jermaine Fowler feels a bit out of place.

Could be more violent.

Best Moment: The group answering the question about Friends.

Worst Moment: The reveal. A bit weak and predictable

Best Performer: Grace Byers

Opening: Standard “characters we don’t know get kidnapped/killed” horror opening. It comes back later and is a major plot point so it works.

Closing: The fire department sprays the survivors with a hose. Made me laugh a lot.

Best Line: You got Rosa Parks on your shirt, right? Would she be sitting down right now?

Original review here

Totally Killer

Ups: Her mum actually shows some decent self defence skills. Makes a change from the usual female survivor we see in films like this.

Some really fluid camera work.

Incredibly satirical.

Great soundtrack

Not enough horror movies use Banarama

Kiernan Shipka is actually really good

Downs: The editing is a bit choppy.

The reveal of the first killer would have been better if we knew more about them.

Wastes some potentially interesting ideas.

Best Moment: There’s an action scene on a centrifugal force fairground ride. Haven’t seen anything like it before and it’s incredibly creative.

Worst Moment: Conversation with her and her mother at the start, mainly because of the editing.

Best Performer: Kiernan Shipka

Opening: Narration setting up the story of the original murders, we don’t see the murders, but we do see the crime scene reconstruction. An effective way of doing a scene like this on a low budget and not having it come off as cheap.

Closing: Lauren hands over a notebook listing all the things which are different because of the time travel. Really cool and a way to do the “what happened to everybody” cliché in a way that’s original

Best Line: “Just think. Maybe if she did do blow jobs, she’d still be alive.”

“yeah, let’s not make that the lesson”

Opening Review here

Wonka

Ups: Some great jokes.

Looks fantastic.

Sense of playfulness.

If you’re a fan of British comedy then spotting people you recognise becomes the greatest game of “Where’s Wally” ever

Downs: Chalamet can’t really sing like he needs to for this.

Some cast members feel underused.

Best Moment: The “reveal” of the secret ingredient his mum put in chocolate. Yes it’s obvious and trite, but it’s so damn sweet.

Worst Moment: The reveal that he can’t read seems like it’s just there to explain him signing the contract.

Best Performer: Calah Lane, she’s the beating heart of the whole thing.

Opening: Wonka sings a song about his hopes and dreams. Sets the tone perfectly; funny, charming, and weird.

Closing: The factory is built. Meh. But then the credits show what happened to everybody, and it’s done delightfully.

Best Line: May I present, Willy Wonka’s wild and wonderful wishy-washy Wonka walker! Please, don’t make me say that again.

Original Review here

2023 In Film: Day Eight (The Very Good)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Anatomy Of A Fall

Ups: Genuinely compelling.

Likeable characters

Flows beautifully.

Downs: Feels a bit too ITV at times.

Best Moment: The courtroom scenes themselves are sensationally tense.

Worst Moment(s): A moment that’s not there; the year between the event and the trial. I’d have liked to have seen more from that.

Best Performer: Sandra Huller

Opening: Sandra’s interview keeps getting interrupted by her husband playing a flamenco cover of a 50 Cent song. Rather damn tense, but doesn’t really set up the genre until later.

Closing: The court case is adjourned. It does seem to end rather quickly, with no idea of what happens next.

Best Line: Sometimes a couple is kind of a chaos and everybody is lost. Sometimes we fight together and sometimes we fight alone, and sometimes we fight against each other, that happens

Original Review here

Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3

Ups: Genuinely emotional.

Funny.

An utterly detestable villain

Good cast chemistry

Downs: The music isn’t as good as the previous entries.

Some issues with the tone.

It really is time that the MCU started advancing its overall narrative.

Best Moment: The hallway fight scene. One of the best action set pieces in the MCU

Worst Moment: The post-credits scene is a waste of time, even by phase four MCU standards.

Best Performer: Chukwudi Iwuji

Opening: The group are attacked at their new headquarters. Standard Guardians opening, but not as good as has been done before.

Closing: Everyone goes their separate ways; still alive. Because Marvel isn’t going to kill any characters now.

Best Line: Someday I’m gonna make great machines that fly. And me and my friends are gonna go flying together, into the forever and beautiful sky.

Original Review here

Holy Spider

Ups: Shockingly violent.

The police officer going from “I’m a sensitive nice guy” to “Well what if I don’t want to leave? Slut” is painfully real to see play out. His wife blaming the women is also up there.

Ali Abbasi NEEDED to tell this story.

Downs: Some of the subtitles haven’t been translated properly.

The editing isn’t too great in some places.

Best Moment: The brief look of pride on his son’s face when he’s talking about strangling people

Worst Moment: When she runs for safety, it cuts too quickly to really be effective.

Best Performer: Mehdi Bajestani

Opening: “Every Man Shall Meet What He Wishes To Avoid”. Then a naked woman doing her hair, with her back covered in bruises. Few more random scenes, then footage of 9/11. It does everything it can to cause emotions.

Closing: He gets hanged. He thought he was going to get away with it but turns out his friends had sold him out. I like the fact that he died afraid, and the irony of him being killed by lack of oxygen is nice to see. That should have been how it ended, as it was, it carried on to her on a couch watching videos. Disappointing. Or so I thought. But then she watches videos of his son, and he’s talking about how he plans to continue his dad’s work; demonstrating how his dad killed them, like he was doing something great. Demonstrating on his sister. Thankfully just a soft recreation, not actually killing her. But it’s still horrific to watch in terms of what it implies about societal bullshit.

Best Line: “Prostitution is a societal problem. You don’t sell your body on the street unless you’re poor and desperate”. I think that line actually leads a bit of nuance to the guy’s belief and helps you realise that he has a genuine reason for wanting to end prostitution.

Original Review here

Joy Ride

Ups: Very funny

Utterly filthy.

Great performances.

Unapologetically Asian.

Downs: Some scenes go on a bit too long.

Some side characters feel wasted.

Best Moment: The video recording from her birth mother.

Worst Moment: The WAP scene, it drags ever so slightly towards the end of it.

Best Performer: Ashley Park

Opening: The two characters meet. A sweet and funny scene that showcases their relationship, and give the parents some depth two. One set are nervous and fed up of not being thought of as American, and the other set of parents just want a friend for their daughter. It also features a racist being injured and sworn at.

Closing: Simple “one year from now”. Nice, and doesn’t sequel hook.

Best Line: My vagina is the devil and she’s here to stay!

Original Review here

M3gan

Ups: Very funny

Has a superb Chekov’s Gun involving a giant robot.

Weirdly sweet at times.

Downs: There’s a few moments where the editing is a bit off. Most of the time it’s fine. But there’s a moment in the office where it’s a bit sudden and disorientating.

Best Moment: When M3gan is being disconnected. You know what’s going to happen, it’s obvious, but it’s still incredibly tense trying to figure out WHEN it will happen. It’s the cinematic equivalent of Buckaroo, only with slightly more death.

Worst Moment: The bits which aren’t in there. Like, what happened to certain people? And what impact does this have on the company?

Best Performer: Violet McGraw. Although I did think she was Ava Acres until about five minutes ago.

Opening: A very cutesy/disturbing advert for a fictional toy. Followed by a car crash which kills the parents of Cady. Her parents are actually shown as fully realised characters, so it doesn’t feel like it’s wasting time.

Closing: The not-Alexa turns itself on, implying M3gan is now in that. That’s how you do a sequel hook: there’s potential for it to continue, but it still feels like a complete story. It CAN have a sequel, but it doesn’t NEED one. Although I will be curious how they’ll have an excuse to keep the same design for M3gan if they do continue. Her look was a big part of her charm.

Best Line: Cady, you lost your parents. The worst thing that could’ve happened to you in this world happened. And it is so unfair, and there is nothing anyone can say to make sense of it. Not even M3gan. I am so sorry. I should’ve talked to you about what happened. I didn’t know what to say, so I did the only thing I knew how to do. But she’s not a solution. She’s just a distraction. I can’t promise you that these feelings you’re feeling are ever gonna go away. But I can promise you that you’ll get through it. We both will.

Original Review here

Quiz Lady

Ups: Funny.

It’s nice to have something just designed to make you feel warm and fuzzy.

Good subversions of the expected character types.

Downs: Predictable.

Could do more.

Doesn’t use the music available to it in the best way.

Best Moment: The quiz show itself.

Worst Moment: The Ben Franklin-themed hotel seems like an idea that was hilarious on paper but didn’t really add anything on screen.

Best Performer: Awkwafina.

Opening: Anne sits down to watch a quiz show in 1996 as an argument goes on around her. Her older sister is on the phone nearby and reaches for the remote. I assumed she was going to turn the volume down so she could talk on the phone, but she turned it up instead so her sister could hear it. It’s weirdly sweet. Helps that the child actress they got looks SOOOO much like Awkwafina.

Closing: Ends exactly how you think it would end. But then you get a “what happened to everybody” montage which is hilarious.

Best Line: “Linguini became a social media star, making $200k per post. This makes him richer than most families and proves capitalism has gone too far”

Original Review here

Rye Lane

Ups: Very believable relationship between the two leads.

Adorkable

Very creatively shot

Downs: The traditional third-act argument doesn’t feel real, and the grand gesture feels underwhelming.

Best Moment: The dinner with Dom’s ex.

Worst Moment: The argument.

Best Performer: David Jonsson

Opening: The meet-cute. Happens very early on and I’m all for it. Actually, that’s another point, this film is remarkably paced.

Closing: They end up together. Obviously.

Best Line: So apparently there are two types of people in this world. The ones who wave at boats, and the ones who hate joy.

Original Review here

The Creator

Ups: Looks incredible.

How was it done on this budget?

Gets you asking questions.

Downs: Missing THAT iconic needle drop.

Important plot points are glossed over too quickly.

Best Moment: The reveal that the disaster that wiped out humanity was human error, not AI. Changes everything.

Worst Moment: 3 seconds later when you realise that the reveal has changed nothing.

Best Performer: John David Washington

Opening: Newsposition. Goes from real news to fictional seamlessly and makes the world seem real.

Closing: The two main human characters die but the world is saved. Cliche but works.

Best Line: Go make love to yourself. Go make love to your mother.

Original Review here

The Marvels

Ups: Fun.

Iman Vellani is a delight.

Perfect chemistry.

Good visuals.

FINALLY starts to set up the next stage.

Downs: Villain is defeated too easily.

Wastes the swapping gimmick.

Best Moment: “Memories”. Just absurd.

Worst Moment: The singing planet. Mainly because it could have been sooooo much better.

Best Performer: Iman Vellani

Opening: Standard “villain finds weapon” opening.

Closing: Confirmation of X-Men/young avengers.

Best Line: Okay, no more touching shit. Especially glowing, mysterious shit.

Original Review here

2023 In Film: Day Seven (The Good)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

A Man Called Otto

Ups: Very sweet.

Genuinely touching at times.

Downs: Tom Hanks doesn’t make a believable grumpy old bastard.

Some characters seem a bit pushy, I’d be annoyed at them too.

Occasionally a bit too “old man yells at cloud” with how it treats younger people.

Best Moment: There’s a seasonal transition that is the most perfect I’ve ever seen. It’s a standard shot that I’ve seen many times. But in this, it’s done so seamlessly (and during a scene in motion) that it stands out.

Worst Moment: Marisol laughs when she finds out Otto nearly died because his heart is too big. I get why it’s funny, the irony of a grumpy person having a big heart etc. But for her to react so openly makes her appear slightly callous.

Best Performer: Mariana Treviňo. Her character could be annoying if played badly, but Mariana plays her with an infectious warmth.

Opening: Otto tries to kill himself. Well, he’s at the shop buying the stuff and gets into an argument. It’s an effective way to demonstrate the character, but again it feels a bit “grrr, young people are useless today” because they’re bound by corporate policies they can’t control. News flash to every person out there; the teenager behind the till at Mcdonald’s is not responsible for the prices or the menu, so don’t yell at them about this, if you do, you’re a prick.

Closing: Otto dies, leaving the house to Marisol and her family. It is very sweet and lovely, although maybe he should have left something to his lifelong neighbour who is about to incur huge medical expenses in the next few years due to an early diagnosis of Parkinson’s.

Best Line: “Your father doesn’t support you just because you’re trans? Then he’s an idiot”. It’s nice that even though the character is fueled mostly by anger, he is still pro-trans rights.

Original Review here

Air

Ups: 2 hours, but doesn’t feel it.

Incredibly well-written.

Downs: There’s no dramatic tension because we know how it ends.

None of the actors feel like they’re pushing themselves.

Distracting amount of swearing at times.

Best Moment: Where Matt Damon is telling Jordan’s parents about how his life will go. How the public will both worship and resent him.

Worst Moment: In that same moment where we find out about his fathers’ death. Such an important part of his future life is underplayed.

Best Performer: Matt Damon

Opening: Nike are nearly closing down their basketball shoe division. It’s weird to think of Nike being shown as an underdog.

Closing: Standard “what happened next”.

Best Line: Damon’s entire speech to Jordan’s parents.

Original Review here

Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania

Ups: Kang looks like a formidable villain for the next stage.

Some good visuals.

Funny

Kathryn Newton is a good addition to te MCU

Downs: M.O.D.O.K

Inconsistent CGI

The MCU REALLY needs to start moving forward.

Best Moment: How Kang gets Scott to help. Spectacularly brutal.

Worst Moment: M.O.D.O.K . Words cannot exaggerate how stupid that looked.

Best Performer: Kathryn Newton

Opening: Opens with Janet meeting Kang. Nice way to get people excited for what’s next.

Closing: Everything is fine, but it might not be. There’s an ominous feeling that Scott can’t shake off.

Best Line: “Oh, you’re an Avenger. Have I killed you before? They all blend together after a while.” Really sells Kang as a threat.

Original Review here

Champions

Ups: Funny.

Has more heart than you’d expect

Surprisingly subversive at times.

Actually cast actors with Down syndrome.

Downs: Doesn’t have that little extra something to make it stand out

Too predictable at times.

May come across as patronising to some.

Best Moment: When we find out why Darius won’t play for Marcus. Some great character stuff.

Worst Moment: The NBA coaching sub-plot

Best Performer: Madison Tevlin

Opening: Marcus gets fired from his job after shoving his boss. Good way of showcasing both his talent and his anger issues.

Closing: A chumbawamba sing-along. Fun.

Best Line: Your heart’s a long way from your knee. Suck it up!

Original Review here

Elemental

Ups: Very sweet.

Good pacing

Downs: I get what they’re going for, but if you’re pushing a story about tolerance, maybe don’t have one of the people involved be a constant threat to the other one. “People who are different from you can kill you” may give out the wrong intention.

The music is a little weak.

Very predictable story.

Best Moment: When Ember is taken to see a flower, incredibly sweet and gorgeous to look at.

Worst Moment: The whole leak sub-plot feels first draft.

Best Performer: Mamoudou Athie

Opening: Bernie and Cinder move to Element City. Very cute, but nowhere near as good as similar scenes you’ve seen before.

Closing: Wade and Ember move to a different city. Again, very predictable, but sweet.

Best Line: The shop was never the dream. You were the dream. You were always the dream

Original Review here

How To Blow Up A Pipeline

Ups: Incredibly important.

Well-written characters

Best website.

Downs: Needs to be shorter.

Weak music

Doesn’t focus on the wider implications as much as it should.

Best Moment: The conversation about what they’re about to do. Feels genuine, and says a lot about how society treats revolutionaries.

Worst Moment: The explosion itself. Its not that it’s bad, it just doesn’t feel like something that everything has been building towards.

Best Performer: Ariela Barer

Opening: A woman is nervously walking down a street, making sure nobody notices when she lets the air out of a tyre. She then places a leaflet on the vehicle explaining why. I checked, and the leaflet is fully typed out. I appreciate that. We then see a small group of other people preparing in different ways; some clone their security cameras, some throw their phones away etc. Very “heist”.

Closing: The pipeline is blown up; a few members of the group take the fall. A very dark ending considering what we know is going to happen to some of them soon.

Best Line: “But by the time the market solution does shit, billions will be dead……we need to start attacking the things that are killing us”.

Original Review here

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish

Ups: Some of the best sound design you’ll see (hear?)

The best Shrek film since the first

Provides a good sense of existential dread for a kids’ film.

Downs: The suitcase of villainy is a bit overpacked.

Two of the voices seem a bit too similar.

The physics doesn’t work sometimes.

Best Moment: The death montage

Worst Moment: The sequel hook.

Best Performer: Harvey Guillen

Opening: Standard fairy-tale opening about wishes. Doesn’t inspire hope.

Closing: A sequel hook. Eugh.

Best Line: “You’re not gonna shoot a puppy, are you?”

“yeah, right in the face. Why?”

Original Review here

Renfield

Ups: Fun

Bloody

Clearly made by people who have researched the mythos

Dracula looms over the film even when he’s not physically in it

Downs: Could go further

Predictable at times.

Needs stronger supporting villains

Best Moment: Renfield disposing of gang members in a restaurant

Worst Moment: The ending.

Best Performer: Awkwafina

Opening: A retelling of the Dracula myth.

Closing: A group of dead people have been brought back to life. Because who wants consequences in their movie?

Best Line: You know when something crazy happens and someone’s like, “It’s okay. I’ve seen way worse?” Everything I saw you do today is gonna be my “way worse.”

Original Review here

Return To Seoul

Ups: Very sweet.

Park is incredible.

Truly emotional.

Cool music, reminds me of 27

Downs: The sound is a bit off at times. Particularly in the restaurant scene. Feels like they forgot to put in background noise for a lot of it.

Given a UK release in the same year as Past Lives

Best Moment: An employee has found her mother. Top work from everybody involved performance-wise. She is never more vulnerable than at that moment.

Worst Moment: When she’s dancing on her own in a bar, it’s written and performed brilliantly. But it’s shot via a lot of close-ups so you don’t really get her sense of social isolation. Not the “worst” moment per se, but the gap between what it could have been and what it is is quite huge.

Best Performer: Ji-Min Park

Opening: K-Pop on headphones being listened to by a hotel worker who is then interrupted by a customer who wants to check into the hotel, rude I know. A quite cute moment between two people ended with “But you’re French!”. Good way of showing her cultural identity and confusion. And it’s a very cute moment between the two characters.

Closing: She sends an e-mail to her mother, getting a “This e-mail address is no longer valid” response.

Best Line: “You’re A Very Sad Person”

Original Review here

Saw X

Ups: Bloody.

Has one of the most despicable characters in the history of the franchise.

More mature than it needs to be.

Rewards patience.

Downs: It’s a prequel, so all sense of tension is gone from certain scenes.

Not as cathartic as other entries

Pointless.

Best Moment: The bone marrow trap is deliciously disgusting.

Worst Moment: The conclusions to most of the traps. They feel too timed-based. So many of them nearly make it and if they were given 5 seconds more would have completed it. This goes against Jigsaws’ modus operandi of testing people; technically they did pass the test and proved how much they were willing to sacrifice, but because they were slightly slower than Jigsaw thought they should be, they die.

Best Performer: Tobin Bell

Opening: Kramer is at a cancer support group. An incredibly mature and bloodless way to start, almost like a proper movie.

Closing: The main villain is left trapped in a room, presumably to die. Shame, she’s truly detestable and it would have been good to actually see her comeuppance rather than just know.

Best Line: This is not retribution. It’s a reawakening.

Original Review here

Scream 6

Ups: It doesn’t miss Sidney as much as you think it would.

New York changes it, turns it into a completely different type of slasher.

Disgustingly brutal kills,

Downs: The online conspiracy that Sam really killed everyone doesn’t ring true.

So Gale can do research on finance records of dead people but isn’t a good enough journalist to realise family connections? BS

Worst reveal in a Scream movie so far.

Gale’s character seems to have relapsed into her Scream 1 version

Best Moment: The subway scene. A perfect use of location.

Worst Moment: The reveal. Have you seen a movie before? Then you’ll be able to guess at least 2 out of the 3 killers. It’s far too obvious.

Best Performer: Melissa Barrera

Opening: A professor is killed by Ghostface, who then immediately unmasks. Genuinely shocked me.

Closing: Somehow everyone survives. That’s a big issue with this film is how unscathed the main characters remain throughout.

Best Line: “Not every movie needs a post-credits scene.” as a post-credits scene

Original Review here

2023 In Film: Day Six (The Fairly Good)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

These are films I did like, but there were a few things that just put me off needing to see them again anytime soon.

Blue Beetle

Ups: Good performances

Almost every character is a highlight

Unashamedly Latino

Some great body horror moments

Downs: Formulaic story

Some people may be put off by the random non-English parts which aren’t subtitled.

The superhero sections are the weakest parts.

Some strange sound mixing.

Best Moment: The backstory for Carapax.

Worst Moment: The parts involving Rudy on the island at the end. He’s great and played brilliantly. But his parts feel rewritten as it’s difficult to get a good grasp on where he is at certain times.

Best Performer: Adriana Baraza as Nana. Although I’m quite fond of Belissa Escobedo

Opening: Victoria Kord finds the Scarab. A relatively weak opening tbh, “Look, we found a thing” doesn’t launch into “high octane opening credits” as much as the film seems to think it does.

Closing: The neighbours help the family rebuild. Very sweet and wonderful, but it doesn’t really feel earned. We haven’t seen any of the neighbours before so their coming around at the end feels a bit odd. If we met them before or had a sense that the family members helped them it might work better.

Best Line: “Batman’s a fascist!”

Original Review here

Chicken Run: Dawn Of The Nugget

Ups: Some genuinely unsettling scenes.

Downs: Still bitter about recasting.

Best Moment: The eye scanner joke is ridiculously silly and I love it.

Worst Moment: The chase towards the end is sometimes too convenient.

Best Performer: Josie Sedgwick-Davies

Opening: Rocky sums up the first movie. Smart move as it’s been a while. Then we find out where the characters are. Effective way of catching people up, and good character work. Could do with more jokes though

Closing: Everything is fine, the chickens now continue their liberation techniques across the land. Would have been nice to see more of those raids in the credits. Could have had some funny moments.

Best Line: “You can’t right all the world’s wrongs”. Perfectly sums up her character.

Original Review here

Killers Of The Flower Moon

Ups: Incredible performances.

The best ending I’ve seen in a long time.

Beautiful to see.

A story that needs telling.

Downs: Sooooo long.

Some characters are underutilized

Too white-centric

Best Moment: The ending.

Worst Moment: All the “look at this random thing” insertions.

Best Performer: Lily Gladstone

Opening: A quick history of the tribe and how they made their money.

Closing: A standard “what happened to them?” epilogue, created like a radio show. It’s incredibly creative and one of my favourite moments of the year.

Best Line: “” Mrs. Mollie Cobb, 50 years of age, passed away at eleven o’clock Wednesday night in her home. She was a full-blood Osage. She was buried in the old cemetery in Gray Horse beside her father, her mother, her sisters, and her daughter.” There was no mention of the murders””

Original Review here

Next Goal Wins

Ups: Funny

Has genuine heart

Unique story

Downs: Needs more football.

Too many pivotal moments were in the trailer.

Risks coming off as slightly condescending

Best Moment: The daughter reveal. It’s obvious, yes, but it’s done sooooo well.

Worst Moment: “We didn’t send you there to help them, we sent you there to help you” It feels a little weird

Best Performer: Kaimana

Opening: A priest (played by the director) welcomes us to the film, telling us what we saw is (mostly) true. Funny, and a good way of setting the strange tone.

Closing: Standard “what happened next”, along with footage of the actual people it’s based on. Very sweet.

Best Line: “We’ve worked too long and hard” “You’ve only just got here”

Original Review here

Oppenheimer

Ups: Great practical effects

Good ensemble cast.

The idea that someone’s career can still be ruined by accusations of communist affiliations is depressingly relevant today.

Downs: Might be too much to unpack for some.

The sex scene is a bit pointless, and cost the film a lot of money in some markets due to the use of religious text.

It’s so long.

Best Moment: The explosion itself.

Worst Moment: The sex scene. Just feels a bit out of place.

Best Performer: Murphy, obviously.

Opening: Oppenheimer poisons his teacher

Closing: The realisation of the effects the building of the bomb will have.

Best Line: You drop a bomb, and it falls on the just and the unjust. I don’t wish the culmination of three centuries of physics to be a weapon of mass destruction.

Original Review here

Piggy

Ups: A good look at the effect that bullying can have.

Doesn’t shy away from what it needs to say.

Unique

A very pink colour scheme. Like an anti-Barbie.

Downs: Seems to run out of momentum

Best Moment: When the bullies try to drown Sara. It’s at that point they go from “standard bullies” to slightly sociopathic.

Worst Moment: There’s one shot (when she goes in the water the first time) which is weirdly lit, to the point where it kind of looks cloudy

Best Performer: Laura Galan

Opening: The credits are intercut with food being prepared; pigs being hung on hooks, knives being sharpened, and animal bodies being hacked. It’s hauntingly quiet. We then get our first look at Sara; chewing on her own hair as very pop-punk music plays. Kind of weird that the first look at her face was covered up by the title card. Does a good job of showing her position in her social circles.

Closing: A blood-soaked Sara walks home before getting picked up by Pedro on his bike. I think it might have worked better without Pedro, the visual of her walking covered in blood could be iconic, so might have been a smart idea to end the film with that as opposed to a shot of two characters on a bike and then a shot of the local area. Would have been a better transition into the credits too.

Original Review here

Shazam: Fury Of The Gods

Ups: Funny

Levi is still perfect in this role.

The family relationship is much better defined than it was in the first one.

Downs: Helen Mirren is the wrong choice

Not as playful as the first one.

Bit creepy at times.

Predictable

Best Moment: A teacher being forced to walk off a building. Terrifying.

Worst Moment: The Wonder Woman cameo feels like an ass-pull to the extent I haven’t seen, outside of surgery videos.

Best Performer: Levi, obviously.

Opening: The daughters break into a museum and kill everybody there. A really good start actually, suitably creepy, and sets the villains up.

Closing: Wonder Woman cameo, the sacrifice means nothing.

Best Line: The message to the gods that was dictated by Steve.

Original Review here

The Night Of The 12th

Ups: Honest

Does a great job of putting you in the shoes of the characters

Good performances.

Downs: The lack of a conclusion could annoy people.

Jarring time skip.

Best Moment: The murder itself. It’s shocking and brutal without being exploitative or creepily sexualised.

Worst Moment: The cycling scenes are too long

Best Performer: Bastien Bouillon

Opening: A piece of text saying how “a lot of murders are not solved, this is one of them” so not as though you can claim to be surprised when the case doesn’t get solved

Closing: The crime is unsolved.

Original Review here

The Super Mario Bros Movie

Ups: Goes by quickly enough.

Jack Black.

The suicidal star.

A lot of great visual references to the series.

Downs: The jokes and script seem very “by committee”. With the exception of the aforementioned visual references, a lot of the dialogue and jokes in this could be used in any animated movie.

Some of the references feel a bit forced.

Best Moment: The Peaches song.

Worst Moment: The Mario Kart section, only because it feels unnatural in how they got to it. If Mario Kart wasn’t a thing, that entire section would not exist. It’s only there to make references.

Best Performer: Jack Black

Opening: Mario and Luigi have started a plumbing business, but it’s not going well. Simple start, and has some good references to the video game franchise.

Closing: The brothers now live in the Mushroom Kingdom, but work in New York, so commuting is gonna be a bitch.

Best Line: Peaches peaches peaches peaches

Original Review here

The Whale

Ups: Haunting.

Great performances

Sadie Sink looks a lot like Samantha Morton, which helps sell the relationship.

Downs: Hard to shake the feeling that the main character is supposed to be a figure of disgust.

It’s a little hard to give a shit at times.

Feels like it hates the main character.

Ellie’s characterisation feels inconsistent at times.

Best Moment: The reveal of why he likes the essay that much.

Worst Moment: The Thomas sup-plot feels like it doesn’t achieve much.

Best Performer: Sadie Sink

Opening: We see the main character and his condition is explained. Effective enough.

Closing: He (probably) dies, because that’s all this film thinks that character deserves.

Best Line: I need to know that I have done one right thing with my life!

Original Review here

2023 In Film: Day Five (The Okay)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

All Quiet On The Western Front

Ups: Some beautiful shots.

The best use of silence in a war movie

There are moments where the sound effects, the turning wheels, the sliding doors etc, almost seem like beats accompanying the music. Phenomenal sound work.

Downs: Bit too oscar-baitey

Weirdly anti-French.

Not really the right time for a film like this.

Best Moment: The scene with the dying French soldier. Haunting.

Worst Moment: The bits which were invented for the film.

Best Performer: Felix Kammerer

Opening: A few shots which I was pretty sure were paintings when I first saw them.

Closing: He dies, JUST before the war is over. Utterly pointless, and very in keeping with the story being told.

Best Line: All that’s left separating us from an armistice is false pride.

Original Review here

Apocalypse Clown

Ups: So funny.

Makes the most of the premise

Utterly ridiculous, in the best possible way.

Downs: Loses its way a bit in the middle.

Most of the performers seem to be doing tribute performers to other actors.

Best Moment: The creation of Funzo. Provides a heartbreaking backstory to what could be a one-dimensional character.

Worst Moment: The conspiracy theory section seems a bit of a pointless detour.

Best Performer: Natalie Palamides. Her character, as written, is already the highlight of the film, but her physicality is tremendous. Even the way she eats ham is notable. She is never not on.

Opening: “They say you should never give up on your dreams, but what if you should?” A nice happy way to start the film off, over scenes of destruction. Considering it’s a relatively small budget the scenes of apocalypse look pretty decent. There are large fires, derailed trains etc.

Closing: It wasn’t the apocalypse, a Garth Brooks concert created a power surge. Hilarious ending.

Best Line: When discussing how they accidentally set fire to their friends: “I thought it said laughter fluid”

Original Review here

Cassandro

Ups: Interesting story.

Downs: The editing is a bit choppy at times.

He gets loved way too quickly.

Best Moment: When a fan on a talk show thanks Cassandro for giving him the courage to come out to his father. His reaction is perfect, you can tell he’s happy, but also slightly envious that his father didn’t react the same.

Worst Moment: The moment where his mother dies doesn’t quite hit as hard as it could do

Best Performer: Gael Garcia Bernal.

Opening: Character walks into a run-down gym. Lots of locker room banter which is pretty much just “wanna fuck?” stuff. Then a match starts. It’s good at showing the location etc. There’s no glamour etc, just a grotty warehouse and dirt. He then watches an exotico match and is entranced by the reaction, especially after the unsatisfying feeling he had for his match. A really quick way of getting character motivations over.

Closing: He has a frank and honest discussion with his homophobic father. Incredibly powerful.

Best Line: “I needed you, at a certain point in my life I needed you, but now I don’t. And that’s okay”

Original Review here

Dungeons And Dragons: Honour Among Thieves

Ups: More competent than you’d think

Clearly made by people who were passionate about the project

A lot of fun.

Downs: The characters don’t take the threat seriously

The big bad isn’t pushed as a big deal so feels inconsequential.

Best Moment: The swooping transformation.

Worst Moment: How it takes so long for them to realise the villains’ plan

Best Performer: Sophia Lillis

Opening: Narration

Closing: More narration

Best Line: “I don’t want to see you die. And that’s why I’m leaving the room”

Original Review here

El Conde

Ups: It leans into the weird premise brilliantly.

There’s a sense of music in the way it’s shown, the actions flow very well.

Some very clever nods to cinematic vampire lore.

Downs: The black-and-white appearance may put some people off.

Far far too much narration.

I get the fact they have an English language version, but was it necessary for them all to have very British accents?

A vampire Pinochet after power isn’t as interesting as a vampire Pinochet in or rising to power.

Best Moment: Carmen flying. Yes, it looks quite fake, but there’s a real sense of playfulness and beauty to it.

Worst Moment: The execution of Marie Antoinette. Only because the scene of her head being held up looks fake.

Best Performer: Paula Luchsinger

Opening: A rousing military march being played on a record player over a black-and-white scene. Instantly sets up the military theme. Then a Margaret Thatcher sound-alike talks about a vampire comparing blood tastes. This leads into the themes incredibly quickly. Then leads into how vampire Pinochet came to power.

Closing: Thatcher and Pinochet survive. Literally, as opposed to modern Britain where it’s just their ghosts and horrific ideas that survive.

Best Line: If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.

Original Review here

Haunted Mansion

Ups: Funny

Smart characters.

Good starter horror movie for kids

Downs: Poor choice of opening.

Needs more memorable music.

Weird choice to release it in summer.

Best Moment: The police sketch artist, genuinely laughed out loud.

Worst Moment: When it’s revealed that Travis’s dad is dead, mainly because it seemed really obvious and surely everybody assumed that was the case.

Best Performer: LaKeith Stanfield.

Opening: Ben meets his wife. Kind of sweet, but not really needed and might have been better as a flashback later on.

Closing: Halloween party. Here’s where the lack of memorable music hurts it most.

Best Line: I know this place isn’t as warm as I hoped. But I’m gonna light a vanilla candle, and it’s gonna be a game-changer.

Original Review here

Napoleon

Ups: Bloody

Some great battle scenes.

Downs: Everybody has an English accent so it’s difficult to tell people apart.

Long

Historically inaccurate

Terribly paced.

Best Moment: The Siege of Toulon. Does a decent job of showing his strategic side.

Worst Moment: The first exile, seems to happen too quickly.

Best Performer: Vanessa Kirby

Opening: Marie Antoinette gets beheaded by a guillotine. She’s not mentioned again but I assumed she died. A good way of setting up Napoleons’ motivations. Also lets you know how bloody the film is going to be, it doesn’t shy away from the gore but it’s never gratuitous.

Closing: He’s exiled. It doesn’t really do a good job of selling that he was there for years. It does tell you, but it would have been better to show so that you truly sense the isolation and despair his final years consisted of.

Best Line: “You think you’re so great because you have boats!” hard to figure out why it’s hard to take this film seriously.

Original Review here

The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes

Ups: Some good character work.

Looks dystopian

It has the balls to kill a disabled child.

Brutal.

Downs: Terribly paced.

Wrong choice for the protagonist.

Needs a sequel, but won’t get one.

Best Moment: The bombing of the games. Comes out of nowhere and is genuinely shocking.

Worst Moment: The entire final section. It cannot be overstated how much everything after the games just KILLS the momentum.

Best Performer: Rachel Zegler

Opening: General Snow dies. Not the most exciting opening.

Closing: Coriolanus becomes a full-on asshole. Doesn’t really feel deserved.

Best Line: Corals dying words.

Original Review here

2023 In Film: Day Four (The Meh)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

A Haunting In Venice

Ups: Solid mystery.

Branagh is always good to see as Poirot.

Some of the deaths are very shocking.

Downs: Some of the shot choices are a bit weird. By weird, I mean shit.

The “maybe magic, maybe mundane” nature doesn’t suit a franchise like this.

Features some truly terrible editing.

Venice doesn’t feel alive.

Not enough clues were given to the ending.

Best Moment: The reveal. The build-up isn’t great but the reveal itself is a lot of fun.

Worst Moment: All the ghost moments.

Best Performer: Tempted to say Branagh, but gonna give it to Emma Laird. She has great potential.

Opening: Poirot has retired. Would have been nice to see more details of what he did during the war, it would have backed up his feelings of despondency.

Closing: Poirot has started to investigate again, leading to potential more sequels. It’s nice to see an excited Poirot again, but we haven’t seen enough of that character in this series for this to feel like “he’s back”. He’s always been “oh no, I’ve retired now” in this film franchise.

Best Line: Scary stories make real life a little less scary

Original Review here

A Kind Of Kidnapping

Ups: Funny.

Ambitious

Good music.

Downs: A bit too sweary at times

It’s too surface-level. All it seems to be saying is “politicians are bastards”, we know that.

Once you’ve seen the trailer you’ve essentially seen the entire film.

Mean-spirited.

Best Moment: The moment with Leila Hoffman. Shocking and hilarious.

Worst Moment: The sex scene is a bit out of place

Best Performer: Jack Perry Jones

Opening: Dramatic music as a taxi drives down a country road. Both suits the film and doesn’t. Then straight into the kidnapping. Threats of violence and foul language immediately.

Closing: One of the characters leaves after finding out the other one cheated on them; leaving a dickshot politician and his former partner tied together.

Best Line: “This isn’t America, you can’t just walk into a corner shop and ask for a handgun and a Wispa”

Original Review here

Slotherhouse

Ups: Moves quickly.

Leans into its ridiculousness

Surprisingly, a REALLY good soundtrack of unknown rock bands filled with youthful energy.

Downs: Some of the crowd scenes in supposedly busy shopping centres are too sparse.

The “I don’t like seeing animals get hurt” line is far too obvious and unsubtle

The characters could react to being murdered by a sloth.

Best Moment: The title drop. The fact it was met with silence and “dude, not the time” makes it hilarious.

Worst Moment: The death of Mayflower. Goes on too long. Isn’t funny enough to justify its length, and she doesn’t seem to be taking her impending death that seriously.

Best Performer: Bianca Beckles-Rose

Opening: A sloth kills a crocodile, or an alligator (I don’t know the difference without knowing if I’m going to see them later or in a while).

Closing: Everything is back to normal and they’re celebrating, a kind of bland ending. We then get a scene back in Panama of a tour guide with a group talking about how animals are dangerous. Felt a bit superfluous.

Best Line: “We’re all gonna die slow, horrible deaths at the hands of an adorable little killing machine”

Original Review here

Strays

Ups: Funny.

Good allusions to domestic violence.

Original.

Downs: Does anybody really give a shit about Dennis Quaid? This film treats him like a source of memes like Chuck Norris is, but I’ve never heard anybody mention Quaid in that way. Or in any way in a long time, if I’m being honest.

Repeats some of the jokes too often.

Very basic plot

Requires too many narrative handwaves for it to work.

Best Moment: The rabbit massacre. It’s brutal.

Worst Moment: The couch humping, goes on a bit too long.

Best Performer: Will Forte. He’s utterly detestable. No attempt to humanise or make him sympathetic.

Opening: How Doug got Reggie. Essentially he’s a pawn in a break-up revenge. Very sad.

Closing: The dick gets bitten. It’s incredibly cathartic.

Best Line: Why is Doug so great? Where do I begin? He loves being around me so much, he doesn’t even have a job.

Original Review here

The Equalizer 3

Ups: A fitting end to the franchise.

Incredibly violent

Downs: Drags slightly.

Best Moment: The explosion. Shows how horrific the aftermath of something like that can be.

Worst Moment: The photoshopped picture at the end.

Best Performer: Denzil

Opening: A lot of dead bodies. A good reminder of how violent this franchise can be.

Closing: An incredibly bad photoshopped picture lets us know one of the characters in this is related to someone in the previous film. Doesn’t add much to the story really.

Best Line: That’s a 3. You don’t want me to go to 4. I go to 4 you shit on yourself. You don’t want that. I don’t want that. They don’t want that.

Original Review here

The Flash

Ups: Genuinely touching (but not in a Kevin Spacey way)

Funny.

Some fun action scenes.

Nice to see Keaton again.

Some of the cameos in the multiverse sequence are fun.

Downs: Underutilized performers

Woeful CGI

The centrepiece of the whole thing suffers from severe continuity lockout. The Nicholas Cage cameo etc will only make sense to people who know the story of the cancelled Superman Lives film. Otherwise, it’s just a random Cage.

The DCEU is being reset, so it means nothing.

Best Moment: Him saying goodbye to his mum. That is EXACTLY how I would have done it.

Worst Moment: The Multiverse of Superman. Mainly because the use of dead actors in CGI is still a bit icky.

Best Performer: Sasha Calle. Miller leads, but Calle is the one I want to see again.

Opening: The Justice League stop a hospital from collapsing. Nice to see Gadot and Affleck again, but there are a few bits which feel a bit too comedic.

Closing: George Clooney

Best Line: These scars we have make us who we are, we’re not meant to go back and fix them. Don’t let your tragedy define you.

Original Review here

They Cloned Tyrone

Ups: Really commits to the blaxpoitation effect

When he’s talking about wiping the blood off his brother, that shit hurts.

It made a scene of people laughing really disturbing

Downs: Little bit too dark to see things clearly at times.

Takes a while to get going

It could stand to be a little dumber

There’s a tonal conflict. It’s not sure whether it wants to be silly or a serious look at racism. It tries to do both, but the silly moments let it down a little bit.

Best Moment: Laughter in the chicken restaurant. It’s weird how a group of people laughing and enjoying themselves can seem so creepy and unsettling.

Worst Moment: A moment that’s not there, the clones exiting the church and meeting the news cameras. We get the build-up, and the news cameras already there interviewing them, but no connnecting moment.

Best Performer: John Boyega

Opening: Opens with credits made to look dated. I like the effort put in to make it seem like it’s front a different time. Then a discussion about how Michael Jackson is alive and works at a local shop “he’s black now”, putting the science fiction themes in your head. And then a convo about Spongebob. So in terms of time, it’s all over the place in a great way.

Closing: We finally meet Tyrone. Damn funny ending

Original Review here

2023 In Film: Day Three (The Not Great)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Dream Scenario

Ups: Unique concept

Good performances

Downs: Kind of dull.

Lacks purpose

Doesn’t seem to know where it wants to take the story

Best Moment: The fart joke.

Worst Moment: The sex scene leading up to that is kind of uncomfortable and not needed.

Best Performer: Cage

Opening: Cage’s daughter dreams of him standing by watching as she floats into the air. It’s a dream, surprisingly.

Closing: Cage transports into his wife’s dream and saves her, while wearing a giant suit.

Best Line: Do you think I could handle the emotional burden of having an affair?

Original Review here

Five Nights At Freddy’s

Ups: The central relationship between the siblings is fantastic.

The animatronics.

Intriguing narrative.

Downs: Feels too neutered.

The universe it creates doesn’t feel real.

How did Afton get a job after killing those kids? Even if you do the “he just changed his name and got fake identification”, the fact he looks like the main suspect in a mass murder case would have raised suspicion.

Constantly reminds you of better films

Best Moment: The fake-out death with Rubio’s character. You do wonder if they would kill a child.

Worst Moment: The reveal of the child murders. Mainly because that kind of thing would become a local legend, so people who live there would know about it, especially if the building was still there.

Best Performer: Piper Rubio

Opening: A security guard is murdered. Lets you know immediately what type of film this is; bloodless and without any sense of tension.

Closing: Everybody smiles and lives together. Oh, and the villain somehow isn’t dead because they want a sequel.

Best Line: “And you only have to worry about one thing. Keeping people out. And, and you know, and keep the place tidy.”

“That’s two things”

Original Review here

Good Burger 2

Ups: Some delightfully dumb dialogue, almost Airplane/Paddington-esque

Unlike the first one, it doesn’t have creepy Dan Schneider.

Downs: The characters haven’t developed since the first one.

Thinks the first one is much more iconic than it is

Very basic plot.

Best Moment: The “rousing speech” which is just Ed standing silently. Somehow, it manages to inspire everybody.

Worst Moment: The car chase scene, mainly because there are some really weird shot choices, random quick cutaways of glasses of water etc before they’re hit.

Best Performer: Kamala Fairburn

Opening: Ed opens up the burger place and starts a musical intro. I don’t want to be rude, but his voice isn’t suited for this. It then turns out he’s been dreaming and he wakes up being shouted at by Pete Davidson. Then see a scene of Dexter as an inventor who burns his house down demonstrating a fireproof spray. I think the fire scene would have been a better opener, it’s more engaging

Closing: Good Burger is reopened, and permanent ice has been invented. An obvious ending. The credit sequence of everyone singing We’re All Dudes is fun though. Especially since they seemed to get the crew in too.

Best Line: “He’s allergic to hippos”

Original Review here

Hypnotic

Ups: Well-performed.

Smarter than you’d think.

Keeps you on your toes.

Downs: Feels a bit too similar to other films which have been done much better

Hard to get emotionally invested.

Wastes potential

Best Moment: The rugpull. Superbly done.

Worst Moment: The post-credits scene. Feels a little optimistic setting up for a sequel.

Best Performer: Affleck

Opening: Affleck in therapy. Whilst watching this I thought this was a mistake, that they should have led with the bank robbery. But when the twist is revealed, I get why they did this.

Closing: The villain has survived. We thought he didn’t, but that was just because we saw a version warped by hypnosis. Not a surprise, but is narratively unsatisfying.

Best Line: I love you… don’t ask me why

Original Review here

Meg 2: The Trench

Ups: Some creative shots

If you like the first one, you’ll like this

Dumb, in an entertaining way

Downs: Doesn’t do enough to stand out

Should be bloodier

Doesn’t feel like a Wheatley film

Depends on you being able to remember a lot from the first film

Best Moment: The exosuit death. Shocking.

Worst Moment: The revelation of the villain, feels too obvious.

Best Performer: Shuya Sophia Cal

Opening: Dinosaurs killing each other.

Closing: The Meg might be pregnant. Sequel!

Best Line: After last time, y’all begged me to come back. “DJ, oh, we family, DJ. DJ, we need you.” Yeah, all right. Bet. But I ain’t stupid. I trained up, I learned how to fight, I learned how to swim, and I will never go anywhere without my survival pack

Original Review here

Talk To Me

Ups: Some good scares

Shows great potential for everyone involved

Downs: Doesn’t quite live up to what it could be.

Best Moment: Riley attempting suicide. Horrific.

Worst Moment: The possession party, only because they could be combined into one.

Best Performer: Sophie Wilde

Opening: A stabbing at a house party. Bit weird as doesn’t show enough to add to the story, it just introduces characters who never matter again. I got what they were going for, but didn’t work for me.

Closing: Mia is dead and finds herself summoned at a party. So we see what it’s like from the spirits’ side.

Best Line: “I let you in”

Original review here

We Have A Ghost

Ups: Has some funny moments.

Has heart.

Good cast

Downs: Odd sup-plots

Not enough funny moments to sustain it.

Best Moment: The TikTok response. It feels so real and how people would respond. It’s also one of the few “goes viral” moments in horror movies that feels legit.

Worst Moment: The Tig Notaro sub-plot, mainly because it goes nowhere.

Best Performer: David Harbour. Mainly because he does the whole thing without saying a word.

Opening: Static shot of a family running out of a house scared. Then the title card. It’s nothing we haven’t seen a hundred times before and it’s weird that THIS was how they chose to open it. A horror comedy has to nail the opening, and there’s nothing here which can be considered a joke or a scare in the opening. They then played the Jim Cornette theme song, which was the first laugh it got from me, and that was completely unintentional.

Closing: “Ernest” moves on. Expected, and very predictable. But handled so well. Annoyingly, it then moves on to another scene of the family moving house. That coda slightly broke the flow. It’s annoying as there’s a personal reveal that is nice to see and completes a narrative, so that’s needed. I just feel the place for it is wrong. If they swapped the scenes over it might have had a slightly better flow.

Best Line: “When your kids are little it’s easy to be a parent. They don’t see who you actually are, they just see the good stuff, what you want them to see. But eventually, as they grow up parts of yourself that you don’t like become harder and harder to hide”

Original Review here

Your Place Or Mine

Ups: I like the way she shoots phone calls. It does a standard split screen, but they’re all in sync.

Interesting idea.

Downs: Actors aren’t playing to their strengths.

The actors don’t share chemistry.

Everybody involved is capable of better.

Doomed by the concept.

Best Moment: The argument scene. Really creatively shot.

Worst Moment: The inciting incident seems too fake.

Best Performer: Notaro

Opening: “It’s 2003. How can we tell?” it then points to early 2000’s fashion choices made by the characters. It’s a fun opening. Even more so when the guy keeps interrupting sex to talk about short stories he’s written.

Closing: “They lived happily ever after. Just kidding, marriage is hard, but they had a good life”

Best Line: “Notes on parenting from someone whose only pet was a goldfish that died in a bong fire”

Original Review here

2023 In Film: Day Two (The Bad)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Films which I didn’t like, but I can at least appreciate brought SOMETHING to the table

Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom

Ups: Great chemistry between the leads.

Potentially good villain.

Momoa is still the best possible Aquaman.

Always fun to see Randall Park.

Downs: Feels pointless.

Boring story.

The villain is defeated too easily.

Best Moment: The trident backstory.

Worst Moment: The final fight, is so underwhelming.

Best Performer: Momoa

Opening: Aquaman is telling his story to his kid. Cute, and a fun introduction to the character.

Closing: Atlantis reveals itself to the UN, something that won’t matter AT ALL as this iteration of the DCEU is over.

Best Line: No one hits my brother, but me!

Original Review here

Asteroid City

Ups: Unique look.

Fun performances.

Sweet at times.

Downs: Dull.

Far too Wes Anderson. I know such a shock for a West Anderson film. But if you don’t like his usual fare, this won’t change your mind.

Best Moment: The Montana/June subplot, because it isn’t really given enough time, and doesn’t seem to be saying anything that’s not said in any of the other plots.

Worst Moment: The conversation between the actor playing Augie and the woman playing his dead wife. Quite sweet.

Best Performer: Jeffrey Wright

Opening: Brian Cranston (playing a TV show host) introduces a televised production of the Asteroid City play. It’s at this point I realised what kind of film this is going to be, and how divisive it would be.

Closing: The quarantine is lifted and everybody leaves. Augie gets the address for Midge, and Woodrow receives a scholarship.

Best Line: We’re just two catastrophically wounded people who don’t express the depths of our pain because… we don’t want to.

Original Review here

Cat Person

Ups: It has some interesting themes.

Depressingly relevant.

Sometimes very funny,

Downs: Loses focus.

Since a lot of the worst things happen in her imagination, it doesn’t seem to ring true how terrible he is.

Best Moment: The sex scene. Fun, creative, and allows you a look into her psyche.

Worst Moment: The imagination spots.

Best Performer: Geraldine Viswanathan

Opening: She flirts with a guy at her work. Not really sure why. At no point did we see WHY she would be into him.

Closing: She meets someone at her work, thus repeating the cycle.

Best Line: Things have changed on the surface, which means they haven’t really changed at all

Original Review here

Dumb Money

Ups: Funny in parts.

Definitely has an audience.

Interesting story being told

Downs: But being told very badly.

Paced terribly.

Doesn’t do a good enough job of explaining itself.

Weird music choices.

Best Moment: Marcos quitting his job.

Worst Moment: Most of the editing decisions.

Best Performer: Paul Dano

Opening: I genuinely can’t remember.

Closing: A very depressing “here’s what happened to everybody”, but it doesn’t have the anger needed to be effective. It seems too morally neutral.

Best Line: “I like the stock”

Original Review here

Ferrari

Ups: Good race scenes.

Doesn’t sugarcoat history.

Does a really good job of showcasing the era.

Downs: Everybody’s an asshole.

Needs more Italians

Best Moment: The aftermath of the crash at the end. Really sells how brutal it is.

Worst Moment: The set-up to that. It foreshadows it way too obviously. Introducing another family just to kill them.

Best Performer: Penelope Cruz

Opening: Text telling us the company was founded in 1947, we then cut to 1957. Not entirely sure why we needed to be told that, and only that. Either give us more detail about the financial state of the company or say nothing.

Closing: The wife dies and finally the son can be recognised as a Ferrari and now runs the company. I think the film thinks that’s a happy ending.

Original Review here

Gran Turismo: Based On A True Story

Ups: Good performances

Interesting story

David Harbor is entertaining

Downs: Geri Halliwell is terrible

The theme of “it’s not like a video game” doesn’t mesh well with making all the races look like video games.

Best Moment: The section at the training camp.

Worst Moment: The crash, only because it’s a little weird.

Best Performer: David Harbor.

Best Line: You get extra points for that in the game?

Original Review here

It’s A Wonderful Knife

Ups: Some very creative shots, where she’s wearing red in a room that’s almost entirely washed out.

The town becoming more nihilistic due to a serial killer is a smart move.

Downs: A little too unsubtle.

Takes a while to become a horror movie.

Best Moment: Weirdo revealing they were going to commit suicide.

Worst Moment: There’s a shot of her exiting the house which is overexposed as fuck.

Best Performer: Jane Widdop/Jessie McLeod

Opening: An advert for a shopping/entertainment destination. Sets up comedy really quickly. Then a scene with the person from the video turning on a Christmas tree, in case you couldn’t tell this was a Christmas film from the title.

Closing: She goes back to her timeline. Somehow Bernie can remember from the other timeline but nobody else can. Maybe would have been better if they left it more subtle and hinted at a relationship starting rather than having her already remember, seems kind of cheap.

Best Line: “I wasn’t Clarence, you were”

Original Review here

Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerra

Ups: Some funny lines

Talented ensemble cast.

It’s always nice to see Carey Elwes again.

Downs: Lacks identity.

Doesn’t feel very Guy Ritchie

Jason Statham has never come off more Garth Marenghi

Best Moment: The moments with Hugh Grant.

Worst Moment: When we meet the two tech moguls, mainly because of how underwhelming it all is.

Best Performer: Hugh Grant.

Opening: Carys has been summoned and told to retrieve something that gets stolen. A weirdly subdued opening for a Guy Ritchie film. Nice to see him again though. Also, they explain why it’s called Ruse Du Guerre.

Closing: Fortune takes a holiday and invested his money in a movie based on the events of this film. It’s a decent joke but it goes on far too long.

Best Line: “money doesn’t make you happier.” I tell you what, Danny, it fucking does.

Original Review here

Pearl

Ups: Commits to the style

Great central performance

Clearly a lot of research has gone into it

Downs: No likeable characters

Runs out of steam

Best Moment: Pearl’s monologue near the end. Absolutely stunning.

Worst Moment: The scarecrow sex.

Best Performer: Mia Goth

Opening: Time-period appropriate music, sets up the themes well.

Closing: A very long single shot of Pearl smiling through the pain.

Best Line: Her entire monologue at the end, I don’t have the space to type it all

Original Review here

2023 In Film: Day One (The Awful)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Spoilers, but 2023 was actually a pretty good year for film. There was a lot of excellent stuff, much more great than awful, but tradition states we must start with the worst, and these are pretty damn bad.

65

Ups: It is good to see spectacle cinema again.

Fun idea.

Pretty good CGI.

Downs: Dull.

No sense of peril, obstacles are approached, defeated, and then forgotten in a few minutes.

Zero reason for it to be set 65 million years in the past rather than in the future.

Terrible title.

Best Moment: When Koa finds out the truth about Mills.

Worst Moment: The parasite nearly killed one of them. Completely inconsequential.

Best Performer: Ariana Greenblatt

Opening: Adam Driver’s character convinces his wife to let him go on a two-year trip to raise money for his daughters’ healthcare. She dies whilst he’s away. All of that information is delivered to the audience FAR too quickly. It would have been better if they opened with the crew members of the ship just sitting around joking, that way when they died we would actually feel something.

Closing: An asteroid hits Earth, killing most life. The audience feels NOTHING.

Best Line: “65 million years ago a visitor crash-landed on Earth”

Original Review here

Assassin Club

Ups: Good idea.

Made it very easy for me to pick “Worst Film of the Year”

Downs: Wastes so much potential.

Stupid character decisions.

Edited in a way that makes parts of it incomprehensible to watch.

Dull.

Best Moment: The subway fight.

Worst Moment: When a mysterious character is unmasked. Because it happens one scene after the concept of them was introduced, so felt like a waste of a mystery.

Best Performer: Henry Golding I guess.

Opening: He tries to kill someone, and helpfully explains his process to the audience, but is shot-blocked.

Closing: I genuinely don’t remember. I think he shot a woman. I stopped caring by this point.

Best Line: However they described the person in the worst moment section, only because it actually created intrigue.

Original Review here

The Pale Blue Eye

Ups: Some lush visuals

Downs: This could have been a chance to showcase some American talent, going with an almost entirely British cast is a strange choice.

Best Moment: The shot of the house burning down, elegant in its simplicity.

Worst Moment: The reveal, when you find out the whole film is balancing on an incredibly convenient coincidence in timing.

Best Performer: Toby Jones

Opening: With an Edgar Allen Poe quote, obviously. The last media I partook in that started like that was Eternal Darkness back in *coughs to obscure date*

Closing: The killer has been revealed. But the film then carries on for another few scenes where we get flashbacks about things we didn’t need to see.

Best Line: “I didn’t want them to confess, I wanted them to die”

Original Review here

Thanksgiving

Ups: Gory

Deliciously satirical

Creative kills

Downs: I hated every single character.

The villain makes too much sense.

Predictable.

Too bleak, stopped caring.

Best Moment: When the killer kidnaps them in the middle of a parade.

Worst Moment: The reveal, because it’s too obvious.

Best Performer: Patrick Dempsey

Opening: The store massacre. Bloody, chaotic, and quite fun. But also renders every main character too unsympathetic to give a shit about.

Closing: The killer’s body wasn’t found. Sequel!

Best Line: “Don’t slide into the killer’s DMs”

Original Review here