Moonfall (2022)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: The moon is out of orbit and will soon crash into the earth. It’s also not a rock but a spaceship.

This movie is fucking stupid. There’s no denying it. I mean, just look at it, how can this not be incredibly dumb? Luckily it knows how dumb it is and never really tries to be more than that. It’s not aiming to win any awards, which is good as it’s definitely not going to.

It’s also quite fun though. It’s ridiculous, I kind of want to watch this with someone who knows a lot about science, just to hear them get annoyed. There are so many instances where you want to shout out “that’s not how science works!”. But it’s so ridiculous that you just kind of roll with it.

It’s not really a film meant for analysis, which is good because if you do that it is lacking. I don’t mean in terms of intelligence (because that’s obvious), but the story is a bit meh. I’m not asking for fantastic storytelling, but when an entire sub-plot can be excised that says something. There’s a whole section about the guy’s son (along with her daughter and nanny) driving to get somewhere. A complete waste of time, doesn’t influence the plot at all and would not be missed if it wasn’t there. Those two characters aren’t particularly fun to watch either, they’re kind of bland. The only thing it adds is some car chases which the lowered gravity makes a bit more unique. Although those chases only happen because they happen to meet the same bandits 3 times.

It’s also aggressively American. Despite it being possibly the end of the world, we only really see how it affects America. Think back to Independence Day and the sequences of world landmarks being blown up, yes it was cheesy and a bit silly, but it showed that it was a worldwide event. This briefly mentions over countries in passing, but we don’t see it. For some reason, only America is considering how to stop this (although their solution is to nuke the moon, which is actually something they genuinely considered doing in real life, not even lying). It would have been good to see it as a multi-national collaboration, especially since they could cast actors who are unknown in the US but famous in other countries for quick cameos etc just to increase the visibility of the film in those countries.

A big upside is how it looks, it looks incredible. There’s a lot of effects work going on here and it never looks too fake. For some reason, there are conversational scenes that do look fake though. It’s weird, they can do massive grandiose scenes, but then you have two people talking and you can tell it looks like it’s in front of a green scene. How can they mess up something that simple?

So in summary: don’t pay to see this, wait until netflix, then get drunk as hell and watch it.

Nightmare Alley (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Synopsis: In 1940s New York, Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) joins a travelling carnival and meets Mary Cahill (Rooney Mara). Together the two of them set up a fake psychic act to con people out of money in this neo-noir thriller by Guillermo Del Toro.

This was not what I expected. I knew it would be dark, and I knew it would be impressive. But I thought it would be fantastical and strange. It’s not, it’s incredibly grounded, in fact, it’s downright sceptical towards a lot of the tricks of the trade, James Randi would be proud. The story isn’t as focused on the carnival as the advertising would make you think. Most of the characters are only that prevalent in the opening. Now in the past, I’ve talked about how I dislike that kind of thing, how losing all your characters after the opening can make it seem like it was pointless. But it worked for this. Even when the characters aren’t on screen, their presence is felt in the actions of the main character. So they never really feel like they’re not there.

Plus it helps that the rest of the film is incredibly compelling. This is essential a Del Toro film noir, and I love what he did with it. He’s perfect for that genre and it makes me wish he did more. His visual style suits it so well. There’s a dark beauty to the visuals and the lighting makes everything sharp and impressive. The music is good too, but it is probably the least memorable part of the film. Everything else is a 8/10 but that’s just a 6. Across the board the performances are fantastic. As much as I’ve enjoyed Bradley Cooper as an actor, this is probably the first time I’ve seen him in something and been truly lost in his performance. It baffles me how this film has been nominated for so many awards, yet his performance hasn’t (as of the time of writing anyway).

I should point out that this is a remake of a 1947 film starring Tyrone Power (whose daughter Romina makes a cameo in this), which itself was based on a book. I don’t know how much it changes from those two source points, but I want to know. Because of this film, I want to see the original, I want to read the book. The original was not a financial success, only finding acclaim afterwards. Sadly it looks like this might do the same. It’s a shame as this is probably the best-made film of the year so far. Seems like one of those films where people who see it like it, but not enough people see it. I’m hoping it makes it back on streaming etc as this deserves to be successful. If you sit down and watch this you’re going to like it. You might now enjoy it, but you’ll like it. This isn’t a happy film you watch with your family, this is a film you watch on your own like you would read a book. You set time aside, turn the lights off, and sit in the dark as you let the world take you in. Set aside something afterwards though, the ending is brutal. Well not the ending itself, but the inevitable aftermath. You know what the ending means, you know what it will end up leading to for the character, and so does he, but he can’t do anything about it. He has to just resign himself to his fate, and as an audience, so do you. It’s bleak, but really the only way this story could end.

This could be the final week this film is available for viewing at many cinemas across the UK, so get to it as soon as you can. I say it a lot, but this truly deserves a cinema viewing if you can.

Black Medusa (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Synopsis: By day Nada (Nour Hajri) is a reclusive young woman in a boring office job. She doesn’t speak. By night she picks up men in Tunis’ vibrant nightlife. Here too, she doesn’t speak. She listens to their stories. She goes home with them. And then she kills them.

I’m still uncertain about this. It’s definitely not an easy watch, it’s certainly not cosy, but what it is, is intriguing. It’s one of those films which you watch and you think “maybe I should turn it off” but if someone grabs the remote you tell them to put it down and live the film on.

This film is nothing if not incredibly brave, not many films would start with the main character raping a stranger with a broomstick (the last Spider-man film excluded, obviously). This takes an unflinching look at the character and her actions. It doesn’t condemn her, but it also doesn’t focus on giving her too much of a tragic backstory (there’s a moment early on in flashback but it’s not one that’s focused on throughout the film, it’s a relatively brief moment). It’s not “she is evil”, or “she is good”, it just says “she is”. We’re not asked to judge her, we’re just asked to observe. There’s a cold, emotionless feeling to the killings. We don’t focus on the faces of the victims, sometimes it’s not even on her, we’re watching from a distance, in the dark. It’s strangely compelling.

From a technical standpoint, a lot of this is wonderful. There are some great long shots. The camera staying still as the characters walk towards it from the far end of the street, really highlights how empty the streets are in a way that a more traditional tracking shot would not have. The sound too, the way they use silence when she’s walking down a street really highlights the emptiness of the location. There’s a scene where she kills someone in a house and it is so artfully done, there’s no music, no dramatic cuts. Just the sound of the knife hitting flesh, and shoes squeaking on the floor, to a static camera.

This film isn’t for everybody, for starters, it’s subtitled which may put some people off. It’s not too big an issue but there are a few moments where the subtitles aren’t placed greatly, they linger long after a character has spoken. I know that was probably an outside company that did that, but it’s still not great and does harm your enjoyment. It’s also in black and white, but sometimes that worked for it, there’s a scene in the woods where it’s incredibly bright and striking, in a way we don’t associate with black and white movies often, the character is truly happy, and we can tell from the lighting. But then it almost instantly changes and becomes a lot darker. The way they did it could not be done as effectively if it was in colour.

But then are times when the lack of colour hurts it, where so many things take place in shadows that you can’t really tell what’s going on. It does feel like it could be a bit more straightforward in some ways too. It’s a relatively simple story but it’s being told like an art-house student film in terms of how long the cuts are, and what it refuses to show you.

As frustrating as it is enjoyable. You will be annoyed at what you’re watching, but you won’t be able to turn away. It’s fascinating and unique. Plus the sounds of the stabbings were wonderful in how “wet” they sounded. As fascinating as it is though, I do wish it was better. I wish there was more character work, I wish there was less stuff there only for the sake of “well this is ART”. Ultimately, I wish it had a point to it.

Licorice Pizza (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: A coming-of-age comedy-drama about a romance between a 15-year-old boy and a 25-year-old woman.

I can sense this is one a lot of people will read and disagree with me about. I just never got past the general concept. It just doesn’t sit right with me. The film ends with them getting back together and it making them happy. It’s presented as a good thing. The whole thing would have been improved if there was even a hint of uncertainty about the whole thing. I don’t like stealing endings from other films, but if they just redid the ending of The Graduate it would have improved it a lot. Add some uncertainty, make it clear to the audience that these people are making terrible choices. I’m not sure why they’re those ages either. Her character is so immature and he is starting businesses all the time so nothing would have been lost if you cut the difference and made them both 20.

It might have been easier for me to enjoy it if the two leads were likeable. They’re not, at least not when they’re with each other. They bring out the worst in each others characters, it makes Cooper Hoffmans character (Gary) seem more of an insecure incel-like asshole, and it makes Alana Haim’s character (Alana) seem more petty and stubborn. The two are never less likeable than when they’re with each other. There’s a moment where he tries to get her an acting gig, telling her “if they ask if you can do anything, say yes, always say yes if they ask anything”. They ask her if she would be comfortable doing nude scenes, she says yes. He’s annoyed. He explains later “oh, so you won’t show me your boobs but you’ll show the whole world?”. It just shows that he’s not mature enough for this kind of relationship, which is to be expected because, you know, he’s 15. But her reaction, of leaving, then coming back and flashing him, means he wins. His insecure way of dealing with things got him what he wanted. It would be like if a film showed the main character sulking because the restaurant wouldn’t give them a free meal, and then the restaurant acquiesces. Nobody learns a lesson, and everybody seems a little bit less likeable.

There are also moments where she’s needlessly needling him, just verbally poking him and exploring his biggest flaws just to annoy him. This isn’t cute, it doesn’t make her fun or playful, it makes her seem really manipulative, honestly considering the age it seems kind of abusive.

When they’re apart from each other, they’re much better. Her anger is aimed at more just causes, his determined nature and optimism make him seem more like a teenage wheeler-dealer than the sad sack he is when he’s with Alana. When they’re dealing with other characters they’re a bit more tolerable. The trouble is they meet other people far too often, and it branches off into plot points that only happen very briefly. For example, Gary is shown at the start to be a former child actor. Alana accompanies him to a performance (because he needs to be accompanied by an adult) and he hits the main performer in the back of the head. In this section, there’s tension with another child actor (played by Skyler Gisondo), but then he’s never seen or heard from past that section. Characters just flit in and out of the film without rhyme or reason. It feels like an ensemble piece that has been half-written and is going to complete the other characters arcs soon.

On the plus side, it has a very unique look to it. The moments where the couple meets with historical characters are quite fun, and the soundtrack is among my favourite of the year so far.

It feels not enough like a compelling story, and more like a 15 year old lying to his mates about what he got up to over the holidays “I dated an older girl, went to new york, played pinball, and sneaked a beer” A lot of people will like this, they’ll find it charming. Just wasn’t for me, I wasn’t charmed, and I found the narrative lacking. I’ve seen some people say “well you’re not watching the movie correctly if you’re looking for a narrative”. Possibly. The only Paul Thomas Anderson film I’ve seen before was Inherent Vice, and I didn’t rate that too highly either. Maybe I just don’t vibe with his style of film-making, it happens sometimes.

Scream (2022)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: Twenty-five years after a streak of brutal murders shocked the quiet town of Woodsboro, Calif., a new killer dons the Ghostface mask and begins targeting a group of teenagers to resurrect secrets from the town’s deadly past. Brought to you by the directors of Ready Or Not.

So far, this is my favourite film of the year. Belfast was technically better and is definitely more important, but this is the one I’m more tempted to see again soon. Fun fact, this is actually the first Scream movie I’ve seen at the cinema. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to watching it again with the knowledge of who the killers are. This is a film that’s REALLY going to benefit from repeat viewing. This franchise is a horror, but at its heart, it’s also a detective franchise. The audience looks at clues and tries to figure out who the killer is. It’s Poirot with pointier sticks. There are a few moments where the reveal doesn’t line up with what we’ve seen in terms of the strength and body mass of the killer. But it mostly works, it even sets up enough red herrings to catch you out. It mentions Billy Lomis from the first film quite a lot, treating him like the main killer, I felt certain that was to set up that Stu Macher would either return, or otherwise be involved in the reveal, with the motive being annoyance that he was forgotten and everybody focuses on Billy instead. Spoilers, that doesn’t turn out to be the case, but if I write a script based on it, that’s what I’m going to be aiming for, so spoilers for that.

By this point, the filmmakers know what the audience expects, and it plays with that. The opening scene has the usual violence and stalking that this franchise is known for, but the person survives. It’s clear that the directors, Matt Bettineli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, know the genre, and the franchise. There’s a shower scene where every few seconds it plays out like a jump scare is going to happen. The camera angles etc in scenes where someone opens a cupboard door mean that you expect something behind it, even if it is just a harmless character and the scare is fake. Instead……..there’s nothing. It repeats this trick more than once, and I love it.

One thing this film does which most horror films fail to do, is make the characters likeable. So often writers decide that everyone wants to cheer the deaths, and the best way to do that is to make the characters so annoying that when they get killed brutally, we’re happy, it’s cathartic to see them killed. But that means we have no emotional connection, and we’re spending most of the film stuck with characters we can’t stand. In this, even though the characters are snarky, sarcastic, and make stupid decisions at times, they’re all likeable. So when they die we’re actually sad. You’re not going to cheer the deaths in this unless you’re a sociopath, which a lot of horror film fans are.

Well, maybe not sociopaths, but a lot of film fandoms are quite toxic and hateful, incredibly resistant to any chance, or any role being played by a woman or someone non-white. This film takes aim at that and does so in a way that’s as sharp as the knives Ghostface uses. This will undoubtedly annoy certain people, but I don’t want those kinds of people to like the same films as me anyway, so fuck ’em. The killers reveal is both stupid and genius, and again, I’m sure will annoy a lot of people but I loved it. But I loved this whole film, it does so much so well. The performances are great, it’s very funny, and has a great selection of music on the soundtrack. On that note, this has the BEST use of Red Right Hand in the franchise, not the whole song, but the metallic sound effect the song uses.

So if you like the franchise, go see this. The kills are brutally simplistic (at one point he just stamps on someone’s ankle), the script is smart, and it looks beautiful. A lot of franchises have done “re-quels”, few have done it as masterfully and as true to the spirit of the original as this.

The 355 (2022)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: Spy shit happens. But with women.

I was looking forward to this, it looked stylish, slick, and fun. It had a great cast so it’s sure to be good. There’s one thing I didn’t notice before seeing it, something which would have affected how I went into it: From the director of Dark Phoenix. Obviously, that’s not all the director has done, he also wrote the 2015 Fantastic Four movie. If I knew that, my expectations would have been much lower, and I wouldn’t have been quite as disappointed.

It’s just so bland. It basically seems like the kind of film that post-2018 Bruce Willis would star in and go straight to streaming services, and not even one of the good ones. This is basically “What if Mission Impossible: But Vagina?”. It’s bringing nothing new to the table, nothing fresh, nothing exciting. It seems to want to have its cake and eat it, mocking James Bond films in one sentence and then taking a military plane to a gala the next, all in new clothes, new wigs, and futuristic tech.

It’s a shame as some of the performances are good, but if you came in after watching the trailer, and wanted a film of all these bad-ass women teaming together, you’re going to be disappointed. They spend a lot of time not liking each other, and one isn’t even introduced until the closing section. It NEVER feels like a group movie, it feels like a Jessica Chastain movie, featuring four other people. The narrative is focused almost entirely on her. So when she’s in conflict with another character, WE’RE in conflict with them. It would be like if the first Avengers movie focused entirely on Iron Man, and was also the first film in the franchise, oh and if it ended with “we probably won’t see each other again but we might”. The ending is in the trailer btw.

That’s how the trailer ends, an image they’re hoping will stick with you, so you know all 5 of them will end up on the same side, and alive. In the film it’s almost entirely pointless, the guy has been drugged and is about to be taken to a foreign prison. So why did they need all 5 of them there? By this point, he’s the head of the CIA, and they’re escaped criminals from different spy agencies. If one person sees them enter the house, alarm bells will ring.

It also spoils that his character didn’t actually die at the start. Although we know that anyway, if a character is killed but we see neither the death nor the body, they’re not really dead. And if they’re the main character’s partner in a cop/spy movie, they’re secretly a double agent who has betrayed them. So it’s not really a shock when he comes back, it’s expected. It would be more of a surprise if he was still alive. That’s the basic rule for spy films.

The other rule for spy films is that the action set pieces need to be entertaining. This fails that too. The geography of the fight scenes are confusing, the editing is too choppy (although there’s one piece of editing which is GLORIOUS where it cuts from someone being hit to a knife chopping a tomato), and they’re all ultimately rather boring. The characters don’t showcase themselves through the action either, there’s no uniqueness to the way people fight so everything looks the same. There’s no storytelling through the fight scenes, they’re just fight scenes. Compare that to the action scene in Shang-Chi between Shang’s parents, that was a fight that told us who they are, and developed their relationship through action. This, the only story is “shit gets blown up”

I mentioned in my review for Belfast that I thought the secret screening was this. I am very glad it wasn’t, I would have been disappointed to have seen this early. I’ve already forgotten most of it.

Belfast (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: A semi-autobiographical film that chronicles the life of a working-class family and their young son’s childhood during 1960s Northern Ireland.

I will never go into a film as blind as I did this one. I’ve sometimes gone into films not knowing much about them, just watched a single trailer etc. A few times it’s just been the synopsis. Sometimes it has just been the title. This I didn’t even know that. It was a secret preview screening, I worried it was Cyrano, but assumed it would be The 355. I think this was quite unexpected, as when the title card came up there was a general feeling of “not what I expected, but I’ll take it”.

That was a great way to watch this film. It’s a coming of age story, and in life, you don’t know what’s coming. We don’t live in a horror story, or a romance story, we live in our own stories, the genre defined by what we see in front of us. What is coming is unknown, but we can make guesses based on what we’ve seen. It’s great to watch such an uncertain time period unfold through the eyes of a child. We see him play in the streets with childlike wonder, then shit starts going down. Considering when and where it was set, it’s not completely surprising, but it’s unsettling to see that kind of sudden terror interrupt something so innocent and pure.

That being the way to open is PERFECT. Then when more things like that happen they also stick in your head. This affects the way you watch the film. Even when nice things happen, even when there are moments of pure joy, the potential for sudden explosive violence is in your head. The fear that at any moment everything can go wrong is always in the back of your mind. That must have been what it was like though, so that alone does more to put you in their shoes than anything else similar but lesser films have done.

This feels like the most personal film in the career of Branagh, you can feel the genuine heart and love he has for the subject. The whole thing feels like someone is telling you a story, and the film is just in your mind as you try to picture it. He directs it beautifully, lending every moment a real intimacy.

The performances are great too, not just individually but how they interact with each other. The cast has such great chemistry that it’s easy to believe they’re all family. The one downside is that perhaps Dornan and Dench are too recognisable for this to be as effective as it could be, but that’s a minor quibble. The people you won’t know pull you in brilliantly. I didn’t know who Caitríona Balfe was before this but I probably should have (truth be told for most of the film I thought she was Cate Blanchett), I have seen her in things but she’s never stood out to me before now. She’s great in this, the torment she’s going through echoes through every moment of her performance. The true star, though, is Jude Hill, who gives a remarkable performance for someone so young.

So in summary, go see this. It’s a wonderfully personal tale and one that deserves to be seen.

2021 In Film: Day Eight (The Amazeballs)

On By troubledproductionsIn Review, Year round upLeave a comment

And so we’ve reached the last round-up of the year. This, and the last one were the most difficult to separate. There were some great films in the last blog, and I will admit there are some here that some people will feel are more flawed. This one is all about “Do I consider these among the best films I’ve seen?”. Entirely subjective, but I never really claimed to be anything else.

Come True

We’re starting off with a good’n. I haven’t properly decided on the awards yet for this year, but this will probably win the one for best film. This is astounding. Everything about this works. I’ve had to cut down on unessential items this year, yet I still got both the blu-ray, and the soundtrack for this. Without a doubt, this is the most astounding film of the year. I remember this being on a big screen and completely involved in it. In reality, I watched it on a laptop while building work was going on a few doors down. That’s how good this film is, it makes the screen you’re watching on feel bigger.

It is possible I’m mad.

+ The general feeling of the whole thing. Incredibly tense.

– Might be a bit too strange. Plus, the title is such a common phrase that finding any cool t-shirts etc on redbubble (other websites are available) is difficult.

Best Moment: The ending. Incredibly tense which both makes sense and yet also doesn’t.

Worst moment: Not a specific moment, but there are a few times where the film seems to be repeating itself.

Best Performer: Julie Sarah Stone. One of the best performances of the year.

Best Line: “what if you’re wrong?” Means nothing with no context, but in the context, holy shit.

Original review here

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Am I being too generous to this? Probably. But the way this film made me FEEL is incredible. It made me feel warm inside like glitter was exploding inside of me. It just WORKS. I saw it twice at the cinema, and still feel that wasn’t enough. Probably the warmest a film has made me feel in a long time. It’s very funny, and the performances are amazing. I was concerned when we got near the end and three of the original Ghostbusters turned up. I worried it would be “it’s fine, the old men are here now, they will save the young people and the women, because they’re just better”. But it doesn’t, they work together, and there’s a moment which gives us one of the sweetest moments of the film which I won’t spoil here

This is in a weird situation with me, because I both want to see more, but also REALLY don’t want a sequel to tarnish it. This is the perfect mix of humour and heart, and unless the writer has a sequel he NEEDS to make, it won’t work. This is a deeply personal story to the creators, and you can tell. This is a film they NEEDED to make, and is all the better for it.

+ Absolutely lovely. This should be a film that does for kids today what the original did for kids in the 80s. It has so much heart that you can’t help but fall in love.

– Lacks a certain playfulness at times.

Best Moment: The closing section, was built up to wonderfully.

Worst moment: All the unsubtle references to the original.

Best Performer: McKenna Grace. I’ve been talking about how great a performer she is since 2017, and she keeps proving why I was right to do so. And it’s not even just me thinking “oh, I like that actor, I’m going to compliment her performance”, her hair is WILDLY different in this, so I didn’t even recognise it was her until afterwards when I was looking at the details online.

Worst Performer: Bill Murray. Mainly because it feels like his character feels like the only one that hasn’t changed at all since the original.

Best Line: “how is a hamster like a cigarette? They’re both harmless until you put them in your mouth and set them on fire”.

Original review here

I Blame Society

Okay now, this is going to be divisive. It’s not just “not for me”, a large number of people will HATE this movie. But this is absolutely perfect for me. Funny, bloody, and incredibly smart. I wish more films were like this. I crave originality in film, and this has that in buckets. I can tell I liked this because I was really fucking annoyed that I didn’t write it. If you told people that I wrote a film that was released last year, they would have guessed this one. Everything about it seems like it was made for me.

+ They manage to make a killer likeable.

– Some people won’t like the filming style.

Best Moment: Hard to say as it flowed together. The death on the hill is an absurd highlight though.

Worst moment: The ending might be seen as a bit underwhelming.

Best Performer: Gillian Horvat, obviously.

Best Line: “There are benefits to killing a bad person, if you get a good movie out of it that’s an additional advantage”

Original review here

Love And Monsters

Quite unexpected. I thought this might be typical YA film. One of those films you ignore if you’re over the age of 14 because you assume it will be trite bollocks. It wasn’t until a few people recommended it that I thought I should give it a chance. I’m very glad I did as this is one of the best YA films I’ve seen since I Kill Giants. Available on netflix and well worth a watch. Has a fun energy to it, a lot of heart, and is very funny. It also teaches a lot of important lessons. Not the usual stuff you get in films like this: “just believe in yourself and you’re sure to win”, “the underdogs will always win every sports game”, “all bullies secretly want a hug”, “if you do drugs once, you’re going to die!”. The lessons from this are ones that even adults need: just because a woman rejects you, don’t be a fucking dick about it.

+ How damn fun it is.

– Really needed better marketing

Best Moment: There’s a scene between Mav1s (a robot) and Joel (the lead) where her battery is about to die. It’s weirdly sweet.

Worst moment: The crab fight goes on just a minute or so too long

Best Performer: Ariana Greenblatt. A performer to look out for in the future.

Worst Performer: Dan Ewing. Not quite the swaggering dick he needs to be. He’s an 8/10, could go slightly further.

Best Line: I did have your typical upbringing, but then the world ended.

Original review here

Luca

Inside Out made you relive your childhood, Soul gives you an existential crisis (more on that later), and now Pixar are asking…………..what if two children had a fun summer together and competed in a bike race. Oh, but those children are also fish monstes. It’s Pixar. Of course this is going to be great. This is……..it’s beautiful. Absolutely stunning to watch. The look, the story, the characters, it’s all *chef kiss*. The plot is not great but it so damn emotional that it doesn’t effect it as much as it would lesser films. When you look at the backgrounds for this you almost forget that it’s animated. It looks so wonderful it gives you nostalgia for a summer holiday you never went on. You can almost feel the summer breeze on your skin as you watch it. I highly recommend everybody watch this. It’s weirdly underrated by people, haven’t seen many people talking about it. But it’s among Pixar’s best.

+ The fact they used actual Italian voice performers.

– The plot is kind of basic. Controversial opinion, Pixar plots aren’t great.

Best Moment: Finding out Albertos history.

Worst moment: The opening under the scene, not as essential as the rest of the film.

Best Line: “Sea monster!” Out of context, that means nothing. But those two words changed the film. It moved it to another level.

Original review here

Mouthpiece:

And here it is, the other film I’m annoying people with by constantly mentioning. This is astounding. This is art, with one of the best scripts I’ve ever seen. Technically, it’s “okay” for most of it, but there’s really not that much you COULD do with this. But the script is incredible, and the performances across the board are so perfect you forget you’re watching a film. It’s really annoying to me that I can’t find this on DVD, it is available on Amazon Prime, but I don’t want that. I want to contribute financially to the makers of this. They don’t deserve this film to be lost on a streaming service, they deserve me walking up to them, handing them money directly and saying “thank you, thank you for providing what you have. But also fuck you because I wish I thought of it first”

+ The core performances. Physically and verbally, damn near perfect.

– Doesn’t hit quite as hard emotionally as it could. It should wreck you, it just makes you feel bummed out.

Best performer: Both of the leads. They’re the same person and they work in tandem beautifully. This is performance as art at it’s very best.

Worst performer: The florist. She has a total of two lines but feels like the only performer working at 90% as opposed to 100%. Incredibly harsh but it would be like putting a fifty pound note among a briefcase of cheques for a thousand pounds.

Best moment: Where the two versions of her are fighting to be the one to give the eulogy. It takes place in an empty church, no music, just the sound effects and the visuals of them not just fighting each other, but also fighting against their own inabilities to do what needs to be done. Incredibly powerful and moving, ends with the two of them embracing each other and walking up together. I changed this moment about 4 or 5 times while watching the film, it’s full of so many great moments like that.

Worst moment: “hi, it’s your Auntie”. Mainly because you’d lead with name not relationship, wouldn’t you?

Best line: That sex face might be confused with your “where’s my other sock?” face.

Original review here

Raya And The Last Dragon

Disney films normally start with the main characters parents dying, this one starts with what is the closest disney have ever come to genocide since they declared war on Guatemala. That may not have actually happened, could have just been a fever dream.

This is possibly the closest to being in the last blog, it’s teetering between the two and an argument could made for it in either direction. I love that this film exists. I love the performers. I love the way it looks. I love the story. I don’t love every moment, but the moments I don’t love are overshadowed by the moments I do. And by the Awkwafina, who completely owns her character. It’s strange, as the animated character doesn’t look like her really, but the way she moves and her facial expressions are so her that it’s perfect. It’s her character that JUST pushes it into this blog. But it thoroughly deserves to be here.

+ The world-building.

– Story is a little basic.

Best Moment: When Sisu becomes human. Adorable.

Worst moment: The babies. Bit unnecessary.

Best Performer: Awkwafina. A genius.

Best Line: “it should have been this big inspirational moment where humanity united over her sacrifice, but instead, people being people, they all fought”.

Original review here

Soul:

Does this count as a kids movie? I think showing this to a kid would basically be torturing them. Unless you want kids to have an existential crisis. It’s tough deciding what’s the better Pixar movie from this year, this, or Luca. They do different things. That’s a kids film aimed at kids, this is one they may like, but the parents will understand more. I feel this is definitely more important and essential, and at times funnier.

+The sheer emotion.

-Is it suitable for kids?

Best Moment: The flashbacks. When Joe looks back at the simple pleasure he’s had in life, and how 22 viewed their brief interactions on earth. It’s incredibly sweet and made me ugly cry (or how I call it: crying. Get it? Because of my ugly face)

Worst Moment: The ending credits. Weird I know, but Pixar is known for being creative, so the standard credits here were a little bit of a let down as they had a lot of opportunity to do some really interesting stuff.

Best Performer: Rachel House. One of the few voices I didn’t know, yet provides the most unique vocal performance. There were a lot of choices for this, but she JUST edges it out for how much fun she seems to have.

Worst Performer: Richard Ayoade, it’s too, I don’t know, Ayoade? So it just feels like him as opposed to a character.

Best Line: “I’m Just Afraid That If I Died Today My Life Would Have Amounted To Nothing.” Oh I felt that. I FELT that.

Original review here

Sound Of Metal

I REALLY wish I got to see this at the cinema. It deserved that. Definitely deserved better than just being thrown on Amazon Prime. What this film does well is represent deafness. It’s not inspiration porn. It’s not “look at these poor people, pity them”. The way it lets you into their world is fascinating. The first time it does subtitles is when he’s learning sign language. So before that, he was an outsider, and the film made you feel like that by having YOU as an outsider. You knew people were signing to each other, but you didn’t know what. But once he starts engaging, YOU start understanding too. This means you really feel it when he turns his back on the community, you feel that pan and betrayal.

+ The way the audio editing puts you in his place.

– It could do a better job of letting you seee what his world was like before. You get a quick few minutes, not enough to gauge who he really is.

Best Moment: There’s a moment where he starts to finally socialise with other people from the deaf community. It’s incredibly sweet and lovely, great to see.

Worst moment: See the worst moments are also the best moments, so this is weird. When he gets the implants and the sound is incredibly distorted. It’s incredibly difficult to get through that part without feeling physical pain, but that’s kind of the point.

Best Performer: Oh this is tough. Olivia Cooke and Paul Raci are great, but Riz Ahmed? He deserves the plaudits he got.

Best Line: “what i need is a fucking gun in my mouth”. The desperation in his voice, the whole scene builds up to that moment. The frustration and helplessness. It’s almost like he’s going through the five stages of grief, and has reached the anger phase.

Original review here

Spider-man: No Way Home

It is possible I’m being overly generous to this. But then I think, I did see this twice, and I wasn’t bored whilst watching it the second time. And it’s a looooong film. But it never felt as long as it actually is. That’s what JUST pushes it over Shang-Chi, it uses the time it has much better. I’ve watched Shang-Chi online since and I did find myself tuning out for sections. This is possibly better second time around because you have the anticipation, you know what’s coming and you’re all for it. Plus it has actual emotion, the main death is brutal from an emotional standpoint.

This film is also a lot of fun. There’s something so joyful about the interactions between MJ, Ned, and Peter. That’s the dynamic I’ll miss most.

+ It resets him back to a friendly neighbourhood Spider-man.

– It closes off the Vulture arc. He now has no leverage, so what was the point of his ending?

Best Moment: The three Peter Parkers standing around chatting shit before the final fight.

Worst moment: The Venom moment seems a bit too much of a sequel-bait. But without Tom Hardy because he’s a good guy.

Best Performer: Tom Holland, he nails the rage when May dies.

Best Line: “I was in the Avengers” “is that a band?”

Original review here

Sweat

You’d expect a film about a Fitness Influencer to be fun and jolly, very lightweight. This isn’t. This goes deep into the nature of fame and fandom, whilst also discussing how we treat victims of sexual harassment. When she mentions being sexually harassed her family turn against her, saying “you can’t judge him, maybe he was a nice guy”. She’s felt alone lately anyway, and that just confirms that even when she’s with people who know her, she still has nobody to talk to. That’s the core theme of the piece, that everybody knows her, but she is still isolated from everybody. It’s a strange dichotomy, one that is backed up by the way it’s filmed, close up, but handheld so it almost feels like you’re stalking the main character. It’s a genius method of telling the story.

+ The detached intimacy to the filming style.

– Doesn’t really have a set story it’s telling, is more slice of life, which may put some people off.

Best Moment: The dinner scene. Says so much about her.

Best Performer: Magdalena Kolesnik

Best Line: “What’s wrong with the fact that I admitted that right now there’s no one in my life who loves me? Does that mean that I’m weak or pathetic? In that case I want to be weak and pathetic because that’s when I’m myself. When I’m the Sylwia from the posters I feel very lonely and I’m just tired of pretending that I’m better than I am. I’m tired of wondering that I’m not good enough. I want to be weak and pathetic because weak pathetic people are the most beautiful people on earth”

Original review here

The Columnist

Deeply uncomfortable to watch. It feels too real and true to be comfortable watching. But it’s so damn entertaining and brilliant that it’s worth going through the uncomfortable truths to get there. A film I loved so much that when it was being shown on Channel 4 over Christmas, I messaged people I knew and told them to watch it. This film deserves to be seen by more people. The bloody nature of it will divide people, as will the fact it’s not in English (people are still weird about subtitles, which is weird as they’re obviously the best way to watch almost any film).

Sadly I feel the people who most need to watch this film will be the kind of people who won’t want to. Sucks for them as they’re missing out on one of the highlights of the year. Not just in terms of the blood and the humour, but the performances too. Everybody plays their part perfectly. Katja Herbers is the main focus, and is the one you’re most likely to know due to her performances in The Americans, The Leftovers, and Westworld, as well as being nominated for a Critics Choice award for her role in Evil. Claire Porro is up there too though, and she doesn’t even have a wikipedia page. But she brings such a mischievous energy to her performance that you have to love her. I really hope I see more of her in the future as she’s got a lot of potential

+ An essential look at something which is both everywhere, yet not highlighted enough.

– Could possibly go a little deeper with the satire.

Best Moment: The murder montage.

Worst moment: The ending. It’s in the trailer.

Best Performer: Katja Herbers. She’s perfect in it.

Best Line: “why couldn’t you just be nice?” “I’m a person. If you call me a fucking whore, a stupid bitch, a paedophile, I feel that. It keeps me awake, DO YOU GET IT, THAT Other people have feelings. I don’t deserve this. I’m not a nazi, not a psychopath, not an enemy of the people. The fact that I have another fucking political opinion doesn’t mean I’m not a person. I’m not a monster, I’m Femke, just Femke, just a woman who writes for a newspaper with a different opinion to you. I don’t deserve this. You are what is wrong with the world. You and your whole army of losers with a laptop.” All the better because it leaves the person completely speechless. You feel her rage, her anger, and importantly you feel that despite her being a serial killer who is currently pointing a shotgun at someone, she still feels scared, she still feels powerless in this world.

Original review here

The Mitchells Vs The Machines

Again, went in with low expectations. I expected to be typical “technology bad, polio good” BS. But it’s actually a lot more nuanced than that. I was sold from the opening lines “Every family has its challenges. From picture day to picky eaters. For my family our greatest challenge? probably the machine apocalypse”. The film then continues with that wit and weirdness

+ A family film featuring a lot of conflict, where one of the characters is gay, but that’s NOT the cause of the conflict. Such a relief, and I’m glad that things like that are now normalised in most places, only seen as an issue in uncivilized backwards places full of people using their medieval religion to persecute homosexuals. You know, Texas.

– Quite cliche in parts.

Best Moment: When the mother tears through the robots. Could be seen as cliche in other films, but it’s just badass and earned enough to work.

Worst moment: The ending, the world doesn’t seem to have changed that much, which considering what happened is a bit strange.

Best Performer: Eric Andre.

Worst Performer: Doug The Pug. Because they (presumably) paid a lot for a celebrity pug to make dog noises. Why? They didn’t even seem to mention it in the promotional materials, so it’s not as though it was for publicity purposes. And even if it was, who pays to see an animated film because of which animal did one of the “voices”?

Best Line: “It’s almost like stealing people’s data and giving it to a hyper-intelligent AI as part of an unregulated tech monopoly was a bad thing”

Original review here

2021 In Film: Day Seven (The Very Good)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Annette

This is weird, and will probably be the most divisive one on this list. You can’t really be ambivalent towards this, you’re either going to buy into it and love it, or absolutely detest every second. Not just because it’s a musical, but because it’s a musical by Sparks, who are an acquired taste in terms of music. Plus, one of the characters is played by a marionette puppet. But for those who like things like this, you’re in for a treat. It may be a bit overambitious at times, trying to do way too much and not really closing all the doors it opens. And I’m sure if you sat down and analyzed it, parts of it may collapse. But just sitting back and having it wash over you is a genuine treat, and I really hope there are outdoor screenings of it in the summer.

+ The general flow it has, the music and visuals work together perfectly.

-There will be a lot of people that this film simply would not work for.

Best Moment: The opening, I watched/listened to it about 5 times.

Best Performer: Adam Driver

Worst Performer: Would it be unfair to say a puppet?

Original Review here

Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar

Yet again, another weird film (trust me, there’s a lot of very weird shit in this list). If you go in expecting Bridesmaids, you’re going to be, well maybe not disappointed, but very surprised. The friendship between the main two is wonderful to watch unfold and will cause many moments that will make you smile.

For some reason though, this feels a bit like a film version of a sitcom (I would definitely watch a sitcom version of this if they ever made it by the way). The way that even the background characters feel fully developed, like they can say one line and somehow you already know what they’re like. Plus they’re so well defined that they can be used for different types of jokes. There’s not really one kind of joke, so even if you don’t like one, they’ll be one soon that you will like.

+ The weird insanity to the whole thing. But it makes sense in the world the film has created.

– You may find the characters annoying.

Best Moment: The drugged/drunken night. Weird and very funny

Worst moment: The introduction to the two main characters. It’s not that it’s a bad scene, but it probably could have been done better.

Best Performer: Jamie Dornan. Finally released from the shackles of 50 Shades (there must be a bondage joke there)

Worst Performer: Kristen Wiig. She’s good as Star, not so good as the villain.

Best Line: “All of our stories are from the past. We don’t have any stories from now”. Surprisingly deep line.

Original review here

Black Bear

Doesn’t have the usual Plaza-snark that you’d expect. The way this film pulls the rug out from underneath you is spectacular because really it means what you’ve seen isn’t real, it was part of a film within a film. In a badly written film, this would annoy you and would seem like a waste of time. In this it makes you feel like you’ve been turned around, you have to recalibrate everything you’ve seen with your new perspective, going back over what you’ve already gone through with your new knowledge. Your brain never settles when watching this, it’s always juggling the many balls of this narrative in the air, trusting you are paying enough attention to not drop them. It’s a film that rewards paying attention, and assumes you’re not an idiot. I’m all for films like that.

+ It’s strange, and it’s new. You’re not likely to see something else like this all year.

– Might be a little bit esoteric for some.

Best Moment: When Plaza’s character finally snaps. Weirdly cathartic and feels like that was what the film was building towards.

Worst moment: The opening. Only seems to exist for the purposes of the ending. Doesn’t really achieve much.

Best Performer: Aubrey Plaza. Plays something completely different to what you’ll expect from her, and it works.

Worst Performer: Christopher Abbott, doesn’t really seem to have the chemistry with the two female leads that it needs

Best Line: No, it’s not that I can’t *stand* that you have the thoughts about the world. It’s that I can’t stand the thoughts about the world that you have.

Original review here

Censor

Essentially a love letter to 80s horror. If you’re a fan of those type of films you’ll appreciate this. I feel it would make a great double bill with Malignant. I’m not sure it would play as well to non-Brits. Did America have the same Video Nasty scare as we did? They had some moral panics but they were mainly against the backdrop of religion. It wasn’t about religion here, it was about the Conservative government having policies which increased poverty and therefore led to increased crime, so they needed a scapegoat and distraction (good thing they never did that again, right? *nervous laugh*), and picked horror movies. This is set against that backdrop, featuring the people responsible for deciding what was safe to watch (but that wasn’t censorship of course, only woke snowflakes do that).

Yes, on the surface it is just about a woman and her sister, but it goes so much deeper than that, and I admire it for doing so. This could easily be a cheap slasher, but what Bailey-Bond did with her writing/directing makes it so much more. It’s an experience, and one you’re going to love.

+ The general feeling. Hard to explain, but it FEELS like it’s from another time.

– May be too slow for some.

Best Moment: The ending section. It’s what the film was building towards and it doesn’t let you down.

Best Performer: Niamh Algar. A perfect conduit for the writing of Bailey-Bond

Best Line: “if it’s the nations sanity they’re worried about, why don’t tey stop slashing social services?”

Original Review here

Freaky

Adored this movie. To be expected though as I loved both Happy Death Days. This isn’t quite as good as them, but I feel part of that might be due to the fact I have actual expectations for this, I didn’t for Death Day. This is better in some ways, the kills are much bloodier, it’s more straight-forward, and it has a stronger supporting cast so comes off more as an ensemble piece. There are some things that don’t quite work though. It goes on too long at the end, and we didn’t see enough of Vaughn as Vaughn so that Kathryn Newton’s performance could make references to his physical quirks.

+ Genuinely captivating story.

– Messy script at times.

Best Moment: The woodshop teacher death.

Worst moment: There’s a joke that’s somewhat uncomfortable to hear, and it’s from someone we’re supposed to like, but it’s hard to like when you see they’re a little bit rapey

Best Performer: Kathryn Newton.

Worst Performer: Well it’s not that Vince Vaughn isn’t good, he is, he’s great at it. But there are times where he’s playing his role just as a teenage girl, and not specifically as Newton’s character.

Best Line: Your touch makes my pussy as dry as sandpaper. I can’t wait to kill you

Original Review here

Free Guy

This is fun. It would be hard to imagine hating this movie. It’s funny, goes slightly deeper than you thought it would, and features more than enough shout outs to keep you happy. Could it be better? Definitely. But considering the synopsis, we should be thankful it’s not A LOT worse. It’s available on Disney+ in the UK so if you live there you should definitely watch it next time you need something to do. Unless like, the thing you need to do is heart surgery, then maybe get that done first.

+ Genuinely nice. It’s not a depressing film that’s all about importance and meaning in life (although it does touch upon existensialism at some points). It’s just a fun watch with nice people trying to get nice things.

– The section where he loses his memory and then gets it back is completely unnecessary (although you do get some cool visuals). Quite a few moments here don’t seem to have a reason for existing, and they pull the momentum to a halt.

Best Moment: Millie realising Walter/Keys likes her. Wasn’t pushed too heavily before that so when she starts adding it together, you do too.

Worst moment: Guy reuniting with Buddy. It feels weird that that’s the big emotion they ended the film on, rather than Millie and Walter.

Best Performer: Jodie Comer.

Worst Performer: Lil Rey Howery. For some reason I just didn’t buy his performance here.

Best Line: “what the shit?” – Chris Evans. If you’ve seen it, you know why.

Original Review here

Halloween Kills

I’m well aware I’m rating this a lot higher than most people have. For some people this film is now shorthand for “disappointing sequel”. I loved it. I actually think I might prefer it to the first one (by which I mean the second one, which is the eleventh one). As much as I did like Halloween (the new one, fuck I wish they gave them different titles), it didn’t do too much that I hadn’t seen before. As a film-watcher I loved it, but as a writer it didn’t do that much for me. There was nothing in there to make me go “oh, okay, that’s new”. But this does. Just the general notion here of looking at HOW a town deals with a tragedy, how the paranoia and panic can cause catastrophe. There are more than a few moments in this film where I was sitting there thinking “It would be such a good idea if they did x”, and then they did it.

+ The brutality of the kills. This isn’t a Michael Myers you can stan, this is one who lives up to the description of pure unadulterated evil.

– Doesn’t stand out on its own. While watching it you’re well aware it’s setting up the third one. Plus there are hints they’re going in a slight supernatural direction. Fuck I hope not.

Best Moment: The flashbacks. Technical brilliance.

Worst moment: This may change depending on how the next one starts, but I feel the ending of this where Michael fights back and kills everyone quickly, that should have been the opening of the next one. Then you put the credits where the ending was here.

Best Performer: Jamie Lee Curtis. Putting anybody else would be sacrilege.

Best Line: There’s nothing in that man but pure evil

Original Review here

Minari

A film that is somehow both underated and acclaimed. It did well at award season, but I haven’t seen that many people talk about it for some reason, not compared to other films. Parasite left a much bigger cultural impact than this did, I’m not sure if non-film people would even be aware of this. That’s a shame as this is such a good film. It’s hard to explain why it’s good it just is. It’s an experience watching it. You’re not sitting there going “oh this is where the narrative is going, that was really good sound design, ooo I like that shot”, you’re just taking it all in. It’s the cinematic equivalent of floating down a lazy river taking in the sights.

+ How believable most of the characters are

– The sister seems a bit underwritten. You could take her out and it wouldn’t change much.

Best Moment: The racist kids. They start off saying horribly offensive things, then start getting on with the kids, because that’s what kids do. Meanwhile the adults are pretending to be nice, but are actually super racist.

Best Performer: Youn Yuh-jung

Best Line: “There’s a Korea smell” “you’ve never been there”

Original Review here

Nobody

I really struggled where to put this one. Part of me wanted to put it in the next one. I did really enjoy it, and have since watched it again and it still holds up. I did really enjoy it. Any other year this would have been up there. But there were A LOT of very good films this year. And do I see it as being as essential as the others? Sadly, no. The villain is just too underwhelming, the plot is too basic, and the ending is a bit flat. Still well worth a watch though. It’s incredible what they made here, and is well worth your time.

+ The fight scenes. So well done.

– Underdeveloped side characters.

Best Moment: The bus fight. Not as bombastic as the one in Shang-Chi, but more impressive considering how long some of the takes are.

Worst moment: The ending, a bit meh. Not the final fight scene, the very end, the last two or three scenes.

Best Performer: Bob Odernkirk. Obviously. Especially since he did most of his own stunts.

Best Line: Give me the goddamn kitty cat bracelet, motherfucker!

Original Review here

Nomadland

Yet another film scuppered by the year it came out. Most other years this will be ranked among the best, but there were SO many great films this year that hit the emotional beats this one did, and better. This is really good, and available on disney+, so if you have that service you should definitely check this out. So why is it here and not the next one? It’s a little unfocused, little too lacking in narrative for me to feel a real personal attachment to it. There are moments where it will break you, but that momentum isn’t there for the whole thing.

+ Provides a look at a life often unexamined, feels very real.

– Feels very Oscar-bait.

Best Moment: Sharing stories around campfire after Swankies death.

Best Performer: Frances McDormand. Damn she’s good.

Best Line: I can’t remember the exact line, but there’s a moment where a guy is talking about his sons suicide, and how he loves the road because you always see everybody again, so he keeps travelling because it helps him think he’ll see his son again. That will BREAK you.

Original Review here

Pig

Nicholas Cage gets his truffle-hunting pig stolen. That’s it, that’s the film. This should be awful. With that synopsis, you’d expect it to be something like Taken, just a ridiculous action movie. There’s a scene where he walks into a fight club full of people who hate him, normally that would be a precursor to him just beating the shit out of everyone to prove his manliness. For this? He just stands still and lets everyone punch him in the face. That’s what this film does to you, and it’s great. This is one of the most intimate and personal films of the year, and I love that Cage is now doing things like this.

+ It’s basically art. Beautiful to watch everything happen.

– Some aspects are a bit unexplored.

Best Moment: Him sitting down with a chef he used to know. So tense and beautiful dialogue.

Best Performer: Cage, easily.

Worst Performer: Alex Wolff, just seems a bit of place.

Best Line: “They don’t even know you because you haven’t shown them.”

Original Review here

Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings

This has one of the best villains in the MCU. Most of the villains so far have been “Same as hero, but evil”, yet they’ve still lacked the personal touch that this one had. This also manages to balance the humour and action well, you don’t get many “let me pause this fight so I can make a joke” moments. With the bus fight it has one of the strongest action scenes so far. So why isn’t this rated higher? The third act. You have this beautiful story about family and legacy, a deeply personal tale where we connect with the characters involved and have an emotional connection/investment in. So how does it end? CG big battle where one or two equally powered people square off.

+ Nice to see how they deal with the “Mandarin” from Iron Man 3.

– Awkwafina gets too good at archery way too quickly. Is it just so she has something to do?

Best Moment: That bus fight.

Worst moment: The entire third act.

Best Performer: Awkwafina. She’s a genius.

Best Line: The first time I witnessed pure artistry. 1968. Planet of the Apes. I was sitting in a cinema next to my mum watching mastery unfold before my very eyes. After the film, I asked her, “How did they get those monkeys to do those things?” And she patted me on the head and she said, “It’s not real, pet. It’s just acting.” That’s when I knew. If they can teach those monkeys to act that brilliantly, just imagine what I could bring to the world.

Original Review here

The Father

This is the one I’m most likely to regret putting here. This is superb, the performances are incredible and the way it puts the audience in the shoes of what Hopkins character is going through. I just feel the directing could have been a bit stronger. Zeller is so determined to pull the rug out from under you, he never grounds you. I know it was done the way it was to put you in Hopkins shoes, but there are times where it’s a bit too unsubtle and you are fully aware of what’s going on, even when you’re lost you’re using context clues to put together the truth, and I’m not sure the character is doing that. He is seeing everything as the truth, so we’re not fully in his shoes, we are always observing him, not being him. Yes, I am aware this is needlessly picky. It’s an amazing film, you do need to see it.

+ Great gimmick.

– It feels too much like a play, doesn’t make use of the move to cinema.

Best Moment: The ending, it will break your heart and tear you to pieces.

Worst moment: The slap. Shocking, yes. But doesn’t achieve much besides that, plus we’re not sure if it actually happened.

Best Performer: Hopkins. It’s strange seeing someone usually so strong play someone so defenceless.

Best Line: “I want my mummy” Trust me. It’s brutal.

Original Review here

The Suicide Squad

You may notice a theme here, brilliant films with one flaw that’s too big to overlook. This has the same issue which a lot of similar films have had: the villain. Starro The Conqueror is great, and incredibly disturbing. But Peter Capaldi is wasted. He’s barely given anything to do. What he is given, he does brilliantly, which just goes to highlight how underutized he is. This would be like getting Jimi Hendrix to record guitar for your album and getting him to just play one note. The worst part is this means he can’t be used again in the DCEU. A bit like Idris Elba in the MCU, they had a great actor and they wasted them. Still definitely worth a watch though. It’s funny, incredibly brutal, and a pure joy to watch. From the opening section you’re put on your backfoot, the film constantly revealing itself to you piece by piece so you have enough to know what’s happening, but unsure of what will happen next.

+ I appreciate how dark the reveal is. What Starro has been doing (well, what the government made him do) is horrific and will shock you to your core.

– Basically ignored Birds Of Prey, waste of certain talent.

Best Moment: Peacemaker and Bloodsport killing the members of a camp. Brutal, in an incredibly funny way, and the pay-off is hilarious.

Best Performer: John Cena. He NAILS every aspect of Peacemaker here, and you can tell he’s loving it.

Best Line: “I was happy in space, looking at the stars” INSTANTLY makes the character sympathetic.

Original Review here

Together

This is a difficult watch. At the time of writing, COVID-19 is still a thing, and restrictions are about to be lifted because the PM wants more friends. So watching a film about the pandemic is awkward. I want it to feel passe, I want to actually have to explain parts of this to people, for it to be so irrelevant that it loses something. But it’s not, it’s real, far, far too real and it hits too close to home to be comfortable. But that’s a good thing, this won’t start the fire for revolution in somebody, but it might put some flammable material down and hand a lit match over, telling them they’ve got everything they need, the decision belongs to them.

+ Very very funny, until it’s suddenly not.

-Not timeless.

Best Moment: Horgans massive rant against the government response.

Best Performer: Both Horgan and McAvoy. Absolutely perfect together, they have a natural chemistry I want to see again

Best Line: “are you okay?” Simple, but so perfectly placed.

Original review here

Willy’s Wonderland

Nicholas Cage has gone from “big action star” to “I’m just gonna do the weirdest shit possible” and I am all for it. This is basically a horror film version of Five Nights At Freddy’s (the second film in the last few years that can be described as that, the first one being the Banana Splits film). This isn’t the best film you’re likely to see, but it is one of the most fun. The passion and energy the creators have is visible in every frame, you get the feeling that nobody here is doing it for a paycheck. The story is, well it has a story which is more than be said for a lot of similar films. A good story too, the characters are well developed, their motivations make sense etc. Overall it’s a lot more professional and maturely made than you would think a film with this subject matter is.

+ It’s Nicholas Cage kicking the shit out of robots.

-The animatronics look a little fake at times, and the shakey-cam style is annoyingly overdone.

Best Moment: Super Happy Fun Room. They literally kill a child, that rarely happens in films.

Best Performer: Nicholas Cage. He delivers an utterly captivating performance without saying a word.

Best Line: He’s not trapped in there with them. They’re trapped in here with him.

Original Review here

2021 In Film: Day Six (The Good)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Cruella

I will freely admit this film is a bit bloated, but it’s still a lot of fun. Probably the best of the live-action Disney villain explorations (okay, that’s not saying much I’ll admit). It all depends on what they do next though, a sequel could make or break this. There’s a huge gap between the Cruella of the 101 Dalmations film and the Cruella in this, and I’m not entirely sure how they can manage to bridge the gap. They somehow need it for a character we support and like, to become a puppy killer. Or they could just leave it, that would probably be the smartest choice in terms of avoiding watering down this film.

+ Slick, stylish, and just a pure joy to watch.

– Doesn’t have the best use of music. Sometimes uses songs just for the sake of using them.

Best Moment: Cruella’s roaring rampage of revenge. Great fun to watch.

Worst moment: Almost all the bits with her friend from school who is now a journalist. Feels like it’s building up to something big, but never really happens.

Best Performer: Not going to go with Emma Stone. I know most people would, and she is really good. But to me, Tipper Seifert-Cleveland was more important. She set the tone early on, dropping the baton for Stone to pick up.

Worst Performer: Jamie Demetriou, his performance seems a little out of place for this movie.

Best Line: “you killed my mother” “you have to be more specific”

Original review here

Here Today

The first of three dementia-based films I’ll mention in these round-ups, all three having incredibly different tones. On the downside that does mean that you’ve seen a lot of this film before, but it has moments of Billy Crystal being incredible and those moments are soon forgotten. There’s great chaotic energy to the whole thing. It’s great to see Billy Crystal lose control. He’s normally so in charge comedically that it’s jarring to see him lose it, but it’s perfect. There are moments where it feels like it’s going into rom-com territory, and that’s when it’s the weakest. Also when it goes into the “look, a young cool black person has come in to shake up the white establishment” tropes a bit too often. But it has so much heart that it’s forgivable. Like I said, there are three films about this topic out this year. They are all very different, and The Father is technically better, but this one feels more personal to the writer.

+ A film about this topic shouldn’t be this funny.

– There’s a plot point that seems to have been dropped and could have provided a lot more emotion if it was properly explored.

Best Moment: The 180 his family do when they find out the truth, believable and completely heartbreaking.

Worst moment: The very end where he has a vision of his ex-wife sitting nearby. A bit schmaltzy and silly, doesn’t really gel with the rest of the film.

Best Performer: Billy Crystal. He owns this film.

Original Review here

In The Heights

Magic. That’s the best way to describe this. It truly transports you to a different place. This is the first straight-up musical I’ve seen since 2016’s La La Land, and I much prefer this. For starters, the characters are more likeable, the standard of songs across the board is better (although La La Land did have some crackers), and the choreography is consistently solid. I know normally it’s expected to compare musicals to other musicals, or to compare films by minorities to other films by minorities (algorithms consider Boyz In The Hood and Spiral the same, despite being wildly different they’re both “black movies so if you like one you have to like the other, right?”). This? This is more like The BFG from a few years ago, which anybody who knows me knows I absolutely love. It has that same sense of warmth and love to it. But there’s also a darker edge, it’s a film about worry, about family, about legacy. But it’s wrapped up in sun-kissed songs so delightful that you don’t notice how dark the subjects they’re talking about are.

+ The warmth and magic this fills you with.

– There are moments where the song just seems to be there to delay the narrative.

Best Moment: The opening song, a great way to introduce the characters.

Worst moment: There’s a song near the end which could stand to lose a verse or two.

Best Performer: Logic dictates it should be Anthony Ramos as the lead Usnavi, but Melissa Barrera is truly the MVP of this, providing the real emotional core.

Original Review here

Last Night In Soho

This is a joy to watch. The colours, the music, it’s incredible to watch in terms of directing. The downside is the pacing. It’s a pretty big downside though. There are some incredibly repetitive moments, particularly in the middle section. It’s a shame as otherwise, this is a fine film, and if it wasn’t for how tiring that section this, this would be rated much higher. But it really killed all momentum the film had up that point. I would still say you need to watch this though, the performances are great (although Anya-Taylor Joy isn’t in it as much as the advertising may make you think), and like I said, it looks phenomenal. Plus these are the best written female characters he’s ever had in his films.

+ The truly inventive and unique visuals. Really makes you annoyed that his version of Ant-Man didn’t work out.

– The pacing. Kills it

Best Moment: The club set pieces.

Worst moment: Jack murdering Sandie. Turns out not to have happened so is only really there to confuse and set the audience/Ellie on the wrong path. It’s like telling a deliberate lie to someone, and then mocking them for believing it.

Best Performer: Thomasin McKenzie. Scarily good.

Best Line: “This is London. Someone has died in every room in every building and on every street corner in the city.” Really dispels the myth of London as a place where dreams come true, reminds you that it was pretty shitty for most of its history.

Original Review here

Malignant

When I came out of this I actually had to message someone “have you seen this yet?”, I needed other opinions, this film did a lot well, but the thing it did best was staying with you after it ended. After watching it, it will bounce around your head for a while. So why isn’t it listed higher? Mainly because of how uneven it is. There are some effects which just look a little bit silly compared to the rest of it. Plus the romance sup-plot does not work.

But what does work is almost everything else. It looks great a lot of the time, there were so many times when I was watching this and thought “that would make a good poster”. Most of the performances are good, and the music is solid. It’s also pretty f*cking weird, especially the third act which is just sheer glorious insanity. I’m doing a disservice to this by ranking it this low, I am aware of that, but the subplot really hurt it. You still have to see it. Plus it features both Madison Wolfe, and McKenna Grace, which means the odds of the two being in a road trip movie together in a few years time has increased slightly.

+ Even if you hate it, you won’t be able to turn away.

– The main “couple” have no chemistry at all.

Best Moment: The third act. It’s longer than most moments, but trust me.

Worst moment: When the thing is revealed, built up as really shocking and strange, but the budget lacks it down.

Best Performer: Annabelle Wallis.

Worst Performer: George Young.

Original Review here

Ninjababy

A refreshing pregnancy comedy. The main character, Rakel, never thinks for one second about raising it as her own, and the film never judges her for this decision. She recognises she is not in a position to do it, so it’s best she doesn’t. It helps that she’s played by Kristine Thorp, who I’m not familiar with (probably because I haven’t watched any other Norwegian comedy-dramas before). Thorp does a wonderful job of making her character likeable. Helped by the writing though, the way the character interacts with everyone around her is delightful.

+ The use of animation overlays gives it a unique visual style and cool punky energy.

-The music choices seem wrong.

Best Performer: Kristine Thorp, obviously.

Best Line: “Blood and suffering!” Never thought that line could be delivered in a weirdly heartwarming way.

Original Review here

Promising Young Woman

If I had to use only one word to describe this, it would be “harrowing”. I imagine this is a more disturbing watch to women, as they’ll recognise a lot of this. I am definitely watching this as an outsider, and even then this is a disturbing watch. It does so much right though. Films have a strange view of rapists. They’re nearly always shown as the creepy guy, or the sociopath, a stranger in the night who breaks into your house and forces themselves on you. They don’t often display them as the “nice” guys who help a drunk woman home and then take sex from them while they’re passed out. A lot of the guys in this film are not good people, even the background characters. At one point she gets cat-called, the standard “show us your tits”, she just stares at them and says nothing, their response to this is “fuck you”, obviously. Just shows how they don’t really want any sign of accountability.

Moments like that have led to this film being called “anti-men”. It’s not, it’s clearly not. It’s anti-rapist and anti-rapist supporters. If you think being against rapists means you’re against all men, that says a lot about you and your friends. The only way you can take this film as a personal attack against you is if you’re the kind of person who needs attacking. The kind of guy who makes sure the drinks his female friends drink have a little bit more alcohol in them than they think, in the hope they’ll be drunk enough to make bad decisions with you later. You’re not a rapist, you’re a nice guy. You’re her friend aren’t you?

Die in a fire.

Back on point, the ending of this where she dies (spoilers) is hauntingly long. Incredibly uncomfortable as it happens in real-time. This is apparently realistic, that is how long it would take for someone to die by that method. It also completely absolves the guy doing it of any innocence. To do something for that long is not a “spur of the moment”, you have to be a calculated scumbag to do that. So it’s so satisfying when he then gets arrested at a wedding. It did originally end with the murder, so glad they changed it. It now has a much more satisfying ending. not quite as realistic, but it means you end the film with some sort of closure.

+ Such an important movie, as some of the responses to it have proven.

– It’s weird for a near two-hour film to have this many underdeveloped themes and characters.

Best Moment: The opening, sets the tone perfectly.

Worst moment: Not really a moment, but the romance with Bo Burnham’s character feels underwritten, so the reveal near the end doesn’t land.

Best Performer: Carey Fucking Mulligan. Obviously.

Best Line: “It’s every man’s nightmare to be accused of that” “do you know what every woman’s worst nightmare is?”

Original Review here

Supernova

The second of three dementia-based films, and probably the one I’m least likely to go back to. It is still very good though. This one is more focused on the coming storm, somebody who knows what is going to happen and is scared of it. The downside to this approach is it means you don’t really FEEL what he’s going through. You don’t see what he’s fearing that much. Compared to Here Today or The Father, where you knew exactly what they were going through, here he mostly seems composed, with a moment every so often to remind you, but moments which are said rather than shown.

+ The relationship between the two.

– When the two aren’t on screen together, the film seems to lose a step or two.

Best Moment: The dinner party

Worst moment: When Tucci’s character is talking to someone about stars going out in a blaze of glory. Very unsubtle.

Best Performer(s): Tucci/Firth. They work so well together as a couple.

Best Line: You know what the hard part is? It’s that you’re… you’re just… you’re not supposed to mourn someone while they’re still alive.

Original Review here

The Night House

This really sucked me into it. I felt like I was inside the film and it was all happening around me, rather than seeing it on a flat 2D-screen while pet-watching for someone (for some reason my brain thought I saw it at the cinema, that’s how much it sucked me in). The director, David Bruckner, also gave us The Ritual, another highly recommended film. He’s a director you really need to keep an eye on in the future. He’s doing the next Hellraiser film, so it might be time for me to actually watch one of those.

+ The look. The whole thing looks like a damn postcard.

– Some may find it a bit dull. Plus, the “good guy” still murdered a lot of innocent women. And the film never really focuses on that.

Worst moment: When it reveals that her husbands suicide note saying “Nothing is after you” meant “there is a demon called Nothing, he is after you”. That’s just deliberately vague and unhelpful. Purely to drive the plot forward.

Best Performer: Rebecca Hall. Easily.

Best Line: “I was the depressed one, he was the one there helping me. Maybe I infected him”. Damn, that’s…..that’s worrying. It’s beautiful though in how it captures the thought process of someone with depression. You feel guilty about being depressed, and that you’re to blame for any bad things that happen to anybody. It cuts deep, too deep.

Original Review here

The Power

There’s a line in this “I grew up in Our Lady Of Grace, a children’s home”. Okay, not a great line, but the utter contempt on the face of the nurse opposite when she gave that line was great and summed up societies attitudes on children from them. Especially since it came straight after the nurse said there’s no link between poverty and health it’s just “people round here live like animals”. That’s what this film is, it’s a magnifying glass on injustice.

+ The general sense of dread

– The editing could be better in some of the ending moments. Plus the character seems to be written just to garner sympathy at times, could be better written.

Worst Moment: Screaming match at end, comes off a little silly.

Best Performer: Rose Williams. The physicality is incredible, and there’s something of the Natalie Portman to her

Worst Performer: Diveen Henry. Purely because for one line her accent wavered.

Best Line: “A place people die in should never be allowed to get that dark”

Original review here