Tag: Abigail

2024 Film Awards: Day Four (The Visuals)

On By troubledproductionsIn AwardsLeave a comment

Best Looking

Nominees

Poor Things

This will be divisive. The shots themselves are undoubtedly beautiful. But the weird fish-eyeness may put some people off. You’ll either be nauseous or entranced. but either way, they will affect your opinion of the film. I won’t lie, they are fucking weird, but so is the film, so it works. There’s a dreamlike quality to a lot of the shots, especially the exterior ones.

The Holdovers

Just watching the trailer gives you an idea of why I like the visuals. Yes, they’re not particularly stunning or incredible. But they really sell the period the film is set in. You can show someone this and tell them it’s from the 70s and they could believe you. I know it is something that just involved a filter and changing the lighting a little bit, but it was really effective.

Sometimes I Think About Dying

Sometimes beauty comes from bright colours, sometimes it comes from fluid motions, and sometimes it comes from making every shot like a painting from the 1800s. This is in the last category. Yes, there’s not much colour, but the use of greys, the use of blank space and desolate backgrounds, it’s art. No, it’s not complicated, but it’s stunning in its own way. This film is why “mise en scene” is talked about.

The Wild Robot

I’ve mentioned in a few of these about how sometimes the visuals match the story and enhance the viewing experience. I’ve mentioned mise en scene, I’ve talked about specific camera techniques etc. With this? All I can say is “Ooooooo, pretty”.

The Substance

Every film released this year was in focus, that’s an obvious point to make. But somehow, The Substance seemed more in focus. Striking visuals

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

It’s weird how something with so few colours can look SO good. I personally was not a fan of this movie. But it would be a lie to say it didn’t look absolutely sublime. Every inch of the screen is permeated with love, care, and artistic flair. Hey, I made a rhyme, and it was not even intentional. A lot of films (and video games, mainly video games) use dusty brown colour palettes as an excuse to look blander than a toast sandwich. Furiosa shows that up for the bullshit lazy excuse that it is. You can use that as the basis for your visuals, and still inject beauty, still inject moments of colour. Essentially, you CAN make it so it’s not fucking ugly.

Winner

I Saw The TV Glow

Much like Schoenbrun’s previous work (We’re All Going To The Worlds Fair), there are times when TV Glow makes you feel like you’re in a lava lamp being hypnotised. The bright colours, the cinematography, it’s absolutely stunning. It’s not just beauty for beauty’s sake, the ethereal nature suits the story too, enhancing the illusion the film is trying to sell.

Best Music

Side note, I’m not doing a “worst music”, but if I did, The Fall Guy would have won because of how often it played the same song by a band that f*cking sucks.

Madame Web

There’s a total of around 19 seconds where Madame Web is a good film. The music is 10 of them; when they play The Cranberries, and when they play Yeah Yeah Yeahs. That’s literally half of what is good in this movie, those two song choices.

The Iron Claw

A film’s soundtrack is not just “songs we want you to listen to in the car on the way home”. Sometimes they set the mood, sometimes they describe the characters, and sometimes (like in The Iron Claw) they PERFECTLY encapsulate the era. The visuals don’t really give away the period (outside of buildings which no longer exist), but as soon as you hear the soundtrack you know when the film is set, and you also KNOW it’s the United States, specifically one of the southern states. It would be like if a movie was soundtracked entirely by Blur, Oasis and Pulp, you’d know it’s 90’s England.

Sometimes I Think About Dying

For most of these, I have described the soundtracks as “the use of pre-made songs that have been chosen”, and haven’t delved much into the score. Obviously, that’s about to change, otherwise, that would have been a f*cking weird way to start this entry. Mute YouTube, then watch the trailer for SITAD. I can guarantee you know how it sounds just from the visuals. That’s not a criticism, by the way. It would be weird if this used joyful summer sounds. The music is PERFECT for this.

Winner

I Saw The TV Glow

Much like Worlds Fair, Glow is enhanced by the music choices. It’s not a soundtrack that will stick with you, there’s not really many songs that you’ll remember when its over. But while the film is playing? Alongside the visuals? It’s gorgeous. You can tell every song has been deliberately chosen to enhance the viewing experience. One of the few films I can imagine releasing its soundtrack on cassette and it wouldn’t feel like a gimmick.

Best Effects/CGI

Immaculate/The First Omen

Yes, I’m lumping these two together again, because there are moments for which I genuinely can’t remember which of the two they come from. So take this entry as if the two are a double feature counted as a single film.

The deformed fetuses are horrific, which considering what they are, is good. This has some truly wonderful body horror. When she witnesses the birth of something……well it’s not right, it looks awful, in a good way. There’s something truly unsettling about how the demonic hand comes out of the woman.

Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes

The modern Apes movies have always looked spectacular, and there were concerns this wouldn’t match it. Thankfully, it does. The original Superman movie was advertised with the tagline “You will believe a man can fly”. In this? You will believe an ape can speak basic English. You can make criticisms of this movie, but you can never say that the visuals took you out of it.

Abigail

Horror movies, particularly ones aimed at the audience Abigail is aimed at, need to make sure the kills are good. And how do you do that? By making them look good. If they look silly, or too fake, the audience is immediately taken out (unless the film leans into it). Abigail has some fantastic deaths, and the blood looks REALLY good. It doesn’t just look like water with food colouring, it looks thick, it looks heavy, it looks, well it looks fucking gross. So when you see someone covered in blood, the horror of the moment truly hits you, as opposed to making you think “That’s good makeup”, you think “Oh shit, that’s a lot of blood”.

Sting

Almost entirely due to how good the spider looks. Spiders are tricky to make look real when you increase the size because the way they actually move is weird as hell so when you see it close up there’s something “off” about it, and not in a scary way, in a “this looks stupid” way. Sting somehow manages to look real. I’ve said it before, there is an inkling of a GREAT movie under the surface here, and the visuals are a part of that.

Winner

The Substance

I was thinking twice about having this as a category. What made me decide to go through with it was knowing that The Substance was going to walk away with this award, and I feel I need to show this more love than I have done. In a film about beauty, it’s magnificent at showing ugliness. Not just the big moments, like the giant headf*ck at the end. But also the withered body parts that look suitably gross. The key moment is the first time she takes The Substance, where her back seems to rip apart. This could look painless, as if it’s just something that’s happening like someone opening their mouth. But the makeup up etc means that every inch of that back opening up looks like absolute agony, as it should.

Worst Effects/CGI

Nominees

Alien: Romulus

As much as I hate to give this a negative mark, the Ian Holm head is too off-putting to not mention. Apparently, they have fixed it for the Blu-ray release, but I haven’t got around to watching it yet. Also, I’m not rewarding them for fixing a mistake that shouldn’t have existed in the first place. Films shouldn’t need patches.

Hellboy: The Crooked Man

I’ve said it multiple times; this movie looks like low-budget porn, and the makeup is a big part of that. It looks like they didn’t have enough time to get it done properly, so it looks cheap and weird. Like it’s the base for a shot they’re going to improve later, rather than the finished shot.

Kraven The Hunter

There’s a scene in this movie where it looks like they CGI’d moving lips and blinking eyes on a still image to insert some ADR. It looks exactly as good as I made that sound. The rest of the CGI isn’t much better, with inconsistent effects, cartoonish blood, and “character in panto” levels of makeup, but the “look at what you became” moment is unforgivable.

Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire

When you want to make something look large, it’s not enough to just have low-angle shots for the whole thing. You need comparison, you need the giant monster to stand next to a building or a human, so you can truly be awed by the size. That’s where this movie fails, it spends most of the runtime with the monsters just standing around each other, so they don’t seem particularly impressive. It’s only in the final third when they start to fight in populated areas that you begin to get a sense of scale.

Winner

Argylle

I assumed the bouncing cat would be the worst CGI moment of this movie. Nope. There are multiple moments which look faker than a shop assistant’s smile. I know some things are difficult to make real, and that there will always be something that looks wrong with some moments. But when a close-up of a face looks fake, you’ve done goofed.

Best Stunts/Action Scenes

Nominees

Alien: Romulus

Normally, I reward action scenes based on speed. Romulus is different, the best moments aren’t really fast, but they’re SO well-crafted that I have to commend them. Some action scenes in movies are like smashing a snooker ball into a group of others, and watching them move. Romulus is more like dominos, you spend a lot of time watching them carefully be set up and positioned, and then they finally come down, it takes a while, but it’s immensely satisfying to watch them fall.

Boy Kills World

This came SO close to winning. The TV Show fight at the end is worthy of mention on its own. But there are so many other fights which come close to that. It’s especially remarkable considering its a directorial debut. It’s not just that they’re well-crafted, they’re inventive too, in an obvious way. By which I mean, there are things done that you haven’t seen before, but once they happen you think “Well now I’ve seen it, that was an incredibly obvious thing that should have happened before”. Boy Kills World was criminally under-advertised and undersold, and I highly recommend checking it out. Part of that is how funny it is, how sweet it is, how good the performances are. But none of them would matter if it wasn’t for just how damn entertaining the fights are.

Abigail

Mainly because of how the scenes perfectly blended the violence of death with the beauty of ballet. There’s a simple elegance to Abigail (Simple Elegance Of Abigail would make a grand album title btw) that helps it to stand out in the inevitable sea of clones.

Deadpool And Wolverine

The Deadpool franchise has always had excellent fight scenes, and DAW is no exception. From the moment the beats of Bye Bye Bye kick in and he’s beating people to death with a skeleton, you know you’re in for some inventive shit. The multi-deadpool fight could (and should) have been a lot better. But when the action scenes of DAW are good, they’re incredible and well worth checking out.

Gladiator 2

Have any of you played Condemned? I remember the first time I played that and beat someone with a crowbar. I was used to “hit thing, it falls down” standard physics in video games. But that’s the first time I remember thinking “fuck, that must have hurt” after hitting someone with a weapon. The hits had weight to them, meaning you felt every impact. That’s what Gladiator 2 does. Yes, the sharks are f*cking stupid, but the man-to-man fight scenes all feel spectacular, making you feel as if the lives of any of the characters could be ended in a single moment. It really helps to sell just how brutal and inhumane gladiator fights were, and why it’s a good thing Netflix didn’t make this movie otherwise they’d hold them for real, completely missing the “wow, look how horrible this is, and how horrific a society that allows this to happen would be” point of the movie. Yes, that was a Squid Games reference.

Winner

The Fall Guy

It’s a movie about stunts, if they messed up the action scenes then it would be a complete failure. What I loved about it was how practical the stunts were. David Leitch is tremendous at fight scenes (as anybody who has seen Bullet Train and Atomic Blonde can confirm), but action scenes involving non-humans are much harder. You can fully control a person, if you tell them to move backwards, you have a general idea of what their body parts are going to do, and they’re unlikely to suddenly do a backflip into a nearby fridge. Vehicles are different, a slight variation in speed or ground level can completely change how it reacts. So it’s amazing that Leitch managed to do what he did here, with every piece moving like a finely controlled part of a system. Also, they broke a world record for most cannon rolls in a car. I can’t watch a film that has that level of dedication, and not reward it.

Worst Stunts/Action Scenes

Nominees

Bad Boys: Ride Or Die

I wish the action scenes were better, I really do. But truth be told, they’re bland. I’m assuming they are anyway, I can’t remember them. As good as this franchise has been, it’s always been focused on the dialogue and plot rather than the gunplay. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it would be nice if some of the creativity in some of the shots was extended to the action.

Lift

There are many reasons why some action scenes fail. Sometimes it’s the performances, sometimes it’s the choreography, sometimes it’s the CGI. My issue with Lift is much simpler; the idea of the scene itself is too stupid. I’m talking about the “plane flying upside down” moment. It’s a scene so ridiculous (and not in a fun way) that it’s almost impossible to enjoy.

Borderlands

My main issue with the action scenes in Borderland is just how dull they are. There’s no creativity or skill to any of them. They’re also shot with the idea of “we need to see these actors” rather than logic, so characters supposed to be in disguise walk around without masks. There’s no sense of storytelling to them either, they’re just a series of action scenes with no connective tissue.

Winner

Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire

I’m actually not going to talk about the issues I have with size this time. Instead, I’m going to focus on one moment; when the titans etc are fighting on the beach near the end, smashing into buildings and destroying them. This should be epic, we should feel terrified for the people in those buildings. We should notice that there are people who’s lives are being ruined because their home/place of employment is being destroyed. Essentially, it should feel like this fight has an impact. It doesn’t. It feels like if you and I were having a punch-up in a model village. Yes, one of us will fall on a house, but we won’t feel any guilt for the people in it.

2024 Film Awards: Day Two (The Genre)

On By troubledproductionsIn AwardsLeave a comment

Funniest/Best Comedy

Nominees

Abigail

A horror comedy with a focus mainly on comedy. The assumption that any root vegetable would work instead of garlic is hilarious. The deaths are darkly funny, and the characters are human enough that the jokes work. You won’t put it on if you need a comedy, but you are going to laugh regardless.

American Fiction

This got a huge laugh from me within a few minutes. When a very white woman says she’s not comfortable reading a book with racial slurs in, and is told by her (black) lecturer she’ll get used to it; with as much disdain as he can possibly manage. The laughs keep coming, and keep getting more inappropriate.

Deadpool And Wolverine

Yes, you can argue that Deadpools shtick is getting a bit old at this point, that the main reason you associate “red” with Deadpool isn’t because of his suit, but because that’s the colour of the flag associated with any man who says that’s his favourite character.

Seize Them!

This is not a great movie. It’s certainly not an intelligent movie, but it is funny. Sometimes all you want in life is a dumb distraction with jokes about cleaving people’s arses off and then shoving them up whatever remains of their arse. I respect a film that ends with a joke about a fatal wanking accident, perfectly sums up what the film is about.

The Fall Guy

Ryan Babygoose is a treasure and must be protected at all costs. His role in Barbie helped showcase that he’s actually pretty good at comedy, with great timing. That reputation continues with The Fall Guy; where his previous reputation as a leading man is combined with great dialogue and (lets face it) incredible stunts. You won’t remember many lines from it, but you will remember that you were thoroughly entertained.

Wicked Little Letters

America thinks of Olivia Colman as an Oscar-winning actress, which she is. Yet to British comedy fans, she will always be Sophie from Peep Show; a foul-mouthed ball of disgust and anger. It’s great to see her slip back into these roles, and part of that is due to how much of a surprise it must be to American audiences. Truth be told, Wicked Little Letters doesn’t reach the heights it can, but it is comedic enough to be worth watching. It’s not Olivia, the supporting cast get their laughs too; backed up by a very believable script.

Winner

Boy Kills World

Obviously the voice of Archer was going to suit a voiceover in a comedic action movie. Skarsgard has tremendous physical comedic reactions, but it’s really H. Jon Benjamin that makes it work. Part of that is his performance, but the script is tremendous. Voice-over is sort of an easy way to get laughs because you don’t have to worry about other characters hearing them, so you can say whatever without it affecting the script. At times it’s ridiculous, but it’s always entertaining.

Worst Comedy

Dear Santa

The main issue here is one of tone. It feels like they had two or three different screenwriters and none of them could decide what kind of comedy they’d make, and they made no effort to talk to each other to make a cohesive script. It veers from “this is a joke for 15 year olds” to kids comedy sometimes in the same scene.

Red One

Again, a question of tone. Christmas movies are allowed to veer a little young, but this takes the cookie. I don’t mind dumb, but this is borderline insulting.

The Whip

The script is fine—it’s the strongest part. But the performances (one in particular) are distractingly bad. There are also some really weird directorial choices that take audience members out. The most egregious example is when they walk past the place they plan to rob just so they can do the “turn around” reveal. From our point of view, it’s a reveal, but from the characters? It was in their periphery for most of the conversation.

Unfrosted

Just because you have a successful television show doesn’t mean your success will translate to film. None of the four cast members (nor co-creator Larry David) have managed to transition to film with much success. Unfrosted doesn’t break that streak. It wants to be Airplane, but is more like an air crash. It has too many different comedians all vying for space, with none of them doing enough to stand out. It is REALLY funny, but it’s also too forgettable for me to really recommend.

Winner

The Garfield Movie

Speaking of successful television that has not managed to transition to movies; Garfield. Part of that is down to Chris Pratt. He’s trying too hard, he’s not sardonic, he’s happy. The whole film is actually far too happy. It reminds me of the casting call for Artemis Fowl which described him as a happy child who spreads joy. There’s weird sci-fi elements that don’t suit the franchise. It feels like nobody involved actually wanted to make a Garfield movie.

Scariest/Best Horror

Abigail

Abigail is a movie of inconsistency. The heist elements at the start seem incredibly dated and ineffective. The horror moments? Now they’re pretty cool. I like when horror movies have an elegance towards them, especially vampire ones. Abigail is full of elegance, to the point where it feels like the movie isn’t so much happening, as floating through your consciousness. The scene where the titular character dances with a corpse is particularly creepy and wonderful.

I Saw The TV Glow

I was hesitant to count this as a horror movie. It’s not traditionally “scary”, but it has to be said there is something incredibly unsettling about it. The visuals, the music, it all adds up to something that will stay with you long after the credits roll. There’s something oddly ethereal about the whole experience, it’s akin to being hypnotised to sadness; draining you of any joy you have.

Late Night With The Devil

Yes, you’ll be able to telegraph every single story beat and twist. But you will still be unsettled by how well that cliches are pulled off. Yes, the scares are basic, but it’s effective. The old-school filter makes it feel like we’re voyeuristically viewing something forbidden. This isn’t a “watch alone at night and be terrified” movie, it’s a “watch with others and share that scared experience”, a bit like the parade of slashers that were released in the 90s, but much better.

Immaculate/The First Omen

I’m linking these two because they’re very similar. It’s highly unlikely there’s anybody who only likes one of them. They’re similar not just in terms of themes and styles, but also the scares. I recommend them both, but The Omen first because the way it ties into the first one makes it slightly more interesting; it also has one of my favourite jump scares of all time. Immaculate leans more into body horror, but not so much so that it’s defined by it. It’s difficult to separate them, but thankfully I don’t need to.

Winner

Alien: Romulus

There are different types of horror movies, there are ones which fuck your head up for days and mentally scar you (hello The VVitch), some are technically horror movies but are more entertaining than scary (Scream etc), and some are just hateful and gross (Thanksgiving). Then there’s Romulus, which is a masterclass of tension. There are times when it amps up the action and it becomes an action movie, but those moments are few and far between. Mostly, it’s slow-burn tension which leaves you on the edge of your seat. The Alien franchise is full of iconography which does half the job for you; once you see that familiar shape you’re already set up to be scared. The payoff still needs to be effective though, and Romulus pulls it off. The Xenomorphs are absolutely terrifying in this, coming off as something you don’t so much defeat as survive and escape from. THIS is the Alien we’ve been taught to fear, and with good reason.

Worst Horror

Nominees

AfrAId

This feels like they had nothing past the original idea. The idea is good, and is very timely. But the script itself is lacking. The trouble is, the characters can only exist within a horror movie. There’s no justification for some of the behaviour and character decisions outside of “this is creepy”. It’s trying SO hard to be a horror movie, that it ends up failing at being one because you can see the machinations too clearly.

Imaginary

This had so much potential. They could have gone literally anywhere with it, instead, they went so generic that if it was a meal it would be plain porridge. There are some neat moments, but nowhere near enough to justify its existence. It doesn’t play up the whole “child imagination” to its fullest extent. Think of Among The Sleep, how that managed to take childhood perspectives and fears, then transcend them to be fearful to adults. There’s none of that here.

The Watchers/Watched

Again, this had a lot of potential. For the majority of the runtime I was sitting there thinking “this is fine, nothing special but not too bad”. As it got to the end (as defined by cinematic language) I put my coat on and got ready to leave.

It continued, for a LONG time. The entire final third act feels tacked on. I remember when I saw Avatar 2: More Avatar, and there was a specific moment where you could feel the air get sucked out of the room. This was close to that, and the only reason it’s not closer is because nobody cared about this damn movie in the first place.

Tarot

It feels like every year we get a horror movie based on curses. They all have the exact same aesthetic, the same characters, and the same plot points. They’re essentially indistinguishable from each other. They’re usually all shit (this, Wish Upon, Truth Or Dare, which I’m double annoyed about because Truth Or Scare was right there). This is no different. They all have the same problem; characters who are so dimensional that they’re essentially Flintstones characters, lazy writing, generic soundtracks. There is nothing to make this stand out from any other similar films. I think even if you had the director at gunpoint, they couldn’t finish the sentence “you need to watch Tarot because……”

The Crow

I went in with low expectations but holy fuck! It couldn’t even match those. I thought it might be, at the very least, watchable. Barely.

Trap

A movie that disregards its most interesting premise. It’s called “Trap”, it’s about someone who is Trapped, he leaves the building. It would have been much more interesting if he was actually trapped, and the whole movie took place in the building. It would be incredibly tense and dramatic. Instead, we get a film so generic that if it was a colour, it would be light beige.

Winner

Night Swim

This movie is fucking stupid, and isn’t even fun enough to make up for that. I know for some of these, I have written an entire paragraph. Night Swim doesn’t deserve that.

2024 In Film: Day Nine (The Almost Amazing)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Abigail
Ups: Good performances.
Some brutal kills.
Sweet.
Downs: Predictable.
Feels like it’s holding back a bit.
Best Performer: Alisha Weir
Best Moment: Abigail dancing with a corpse.
Worst Moment: The death of Dean. Mainly because it’s when the film is still refusing to show us who’s doing the killing.
Opening: Our group of heroes kidnap a child. Sets the scene well, and allows us to see who the characters are. Although there’s one character who’s character feels COMPLETELY different in the opening than she does in the rest.
Closing: Possible Dracula turns up, and is convinced not to kill Joey. Would be nice to see what happens to Joey next.
Best Line: The one about onions/garlic
Original review here

Deadpool And Wolverine
Ups: Hilarious.
A surprisingly sweet send-off to the non-MCU Marvel series.
Soooooo many references.
No TJ Miller
Downs: The multiverse is getting tiring.
Continuity lock-out is strong.
What happened to Domino?
Best Performer: Ryan Reynolds. He MAKES this character.
Best Moment: When he meets the others in the void.
Worst Moment: Not really “worst”, but the multi-Deadpool fight could have been better.
Opening: Deadpool gets rejected from the Avengers. It could have been made clearer that he travelled to a different universe (the MCU one) and then BACK to his own.
Closing: An adorable closing montage of previous non-MCU Marvel films.
Best Line: Welcome to the MCU, by the way. You’re joining at a bit of a low point
Original review here

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Ups: Funny
Has some pretty decent scares
Heartwarming
The Melody/Phoebe interactions are INCREDIBLY sweet.
A natural progression for the series.
Downs: Issues with pacing.
The “death chill” and the “trying to control all the ghosts the Ghostbusters have captured” feel too separate to belong to the same villain, and it’s a criminal waste of them.
Best Performer: Mckenna Grace, obviously.
Best Moment: Phoebe meeting Melody. It’s incredibly sweet and lovely. Not sure if it’s just the chemistry the performers had, or possibly just me imagining, but there did seem to be slight homoerotic undertones between them.
Worst Moment: The containment unit is broken. It’s mainly because it’s a huge deal, but it doesn’t feel like it.
Opening: In 1904, firefighters find a group of people frozen to death. Pretty good opening actually, sets up the villain and is incredibly creepy.
Closing: Peck is coerced into publicly supporting the Ghostbusters’ activities. It’s fun, but it might have meant more if he was in the movie.
Best Line: It’s not a sex dungeon. Would a sex dungeon have these chains?
Original review here

Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes
Ups: Fantastic effects.
Good performances.
Incredibly human.
Downs: Seems too interested in setting up sequels.
The closing third feels too derivative of the ending of the previous movie.
Best Performer: Owen Teague.
Best Moment: The flooding of the vault. Visually stunning.
Worst Moment: The initial attack, difficult to figure out what was happening at times.
Opening: The aftermath of the death of Caesar, a pretty touching memorial/funeral scene. Then a huge jump forward in time. I would have preferred a montage of different ape civilizations through the time skip.
Closing: Humans establish contact with other humans worldwide. This means we NEED a sequel.
Best Line: Are you familiar with the concept of evolution? In their time, humans were capable of many great things. They could fly, like eagles fly. They could speak across oceans. But now, it is our time… and it is my kingdom. We will learn. Apes will learn. I will learn. And I… will conquer
Original review here

Lee
Ups: Harrowing
Important
Some brilliant performances.
Downs: Could explain some things a bit more.
If we saw some of the characters more before the war it would make you feel more when you saw them later on.
Best Performer: Kate Winslet
Best Moment: When they find the trains. It’s……it’s not easy to watch.
Worst Moment: The bathtub photo. Out of context seems a bit strange.
Opening: Pre-war Frenchness. Really shows how nonchalant people were about the prospect of war.
Closing: The original photos. They really nailed them in the recreation.
Best Line: [Handing a knife to a girl she has just saved from rape] Next time, cut it off.
Original review here

Monster
Ups: Touching.
Good performances.
Once it opens itself up to you, you’ll be entranced.
Downs: Could do more to assist the audience in terms of telling you when the time changes happen.
Best Performer: Sakura Ando.
Best Moment: The mother going to the school, it’s the first time we see her anger, and we completely understand her character.
Worst Moment: The first time the film resets, mainly because it could be signposted better. If it handled that better, this would be in the “amazing” section without a doubt.
Opening: Minato is displaying odd behaviour that is consistent with abuse. When you watch it, it’s good, when you remember it later and understand the full context, it’s great.
Closing: Two characters run off together. It’s incredibly sweet and exactly how this story should have ended. This is why we CAN have nice things sometimes.
Best Line: If only some people can have it, that’s not happiness. That’s just nonsense. Happiness is something anyone can have.
Original review here

Sometimes I Think About Dying
Ups: Charming.
A minimalist directing style suits the themes.
Good performances.
Perfect score.
Downs: Some of the audio could be better. The music doesn’t feel balanced properly.
Best Performer: Daisy Ridley. If your lead character doesn’t say something for 20 minutes and you’re not frustrated, she’s doing a good job.
Best Moment: The murder mystery party. It’s nice to see Fran come out of her shell a little bit, and its very sweet to see her genuinely smile in a group setting. She then gets super dark when she describes her death.
Worst Moment: The cafe “date”. Mainly because the music is a big part of it, but it’s buried so low down in the mix that you can’t make it out. Shame as it’s REALLY well written.
Opening: Blue-tinged shots of suburban life. A real sense of melancholy to them. Weirdly beautiful. Some really well-written (in terms of font) opening credits. More films should show their personality through them.
Closing: She makes an effort to integrate; bringing doughnuts into the office. She then explains her suicidal tendencies and is met with wordless affection. It’s very sweet, and kind.
Best Line: “Do you wish you could unknow me?” “I don’t know you”. Jesus that hit deep
Original review here

The Fall Guy
Ups: Fun.
Gosling looks like he’s enjoying himself.
A lot of practical effects.
Great action scenes.
Downs: Wastes some talented performers.
Too much Kiss.
Best Performer: Ryan Babygoose
Best Moment: The drugged-up bar fight. Incredibly creative.
Worst Moment: The post-credits scene. The death of a character is fun, but the cameos stick out like a sore thumb and were shot in a “look, it’s these people!” manner.
Opening: Colt is in a relationship then injures himself. I like that it opened with him and Blunt happy, showed their chemistry and romantic selves early on which meant you actually wanted to see them together.
Closing: The film gets made and is a blockbuster hit. Funny, and the Momoa cameo is perfect.
Best Line: I’m just a boy in a neon suit, standing in front of a girl, reminding her that Notting Hill is her favourite movie. And she watches Love Actually every year of Christmas
Original review here

The Holdovers
Ups: Charming.
Funny.
It makes you nostalgic for memories that aren’t yours.
Downs: Why wasn’t this released at Christmas?
It’s not the best-paced.
Best Performer: Giamatti, but Sessa is close.
Best Moment: The Christmas dinner is very sweet.
Worst Moment: The original gang suddenly being removed from the plot. Felt like the writers ran out of ideas for them.
Opening: Basic setup. It’s not that notable. It introduces us to the characters ably enough but doesn’t make you NEED to see more.
Closing: He doesn’t die. Throughout this film I had that horrible feeling that it was going to end with the teacher dying and the student being like “But I will always remember the lessons he left with me” in some bittersweet fuck of an ending. Nope, he just steals an expensive cognac and spits it out the window in defiance. Nice.
Best Line: Stop crying. If they hear you, they’ll crucify you. Which would be ironic since your Buddhist.
Original review here

The Wild Robot
Ups: Pretty.
So damn charming and magical.
Good voice performances.
Downs: Parts of the story moved too quickly.
Some of the dialogue is pretty bad.
Best Performer: Lupita Nyong’o
Best Moment: Pre-hibernation saving of everyone.
Worst Moment: Longneck trusting brightbill. Happens far too quickly.
Opening: Roz wakes up and tries to help the animals around her. A task made difficult by the fact they’re all scared of her.
Closing: Roz is back at the factory, but has retained her memories. Lovely, and keeps it open for a sequel, but it is also still a definitive ending.
Best Line: When you grow up without something you… end up spending a lot of time thinking about it
Original review here

Abigail (2024) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Quick Synopsis: A group of would-be criminals kidnaps a 12-year-old, and don’t even do that right. Losers.

I’ve spoken before about going into some films completely blind, having not even seen a trailer. I wish I had done that for this. The more you know about Abigail, the worse it is. A lot of the film is spent with the killer in shadow, making you think the killings are being done by a hitman working for Abigails’ mob boss father. But if you’ve seen the trailer, you know that Abigail is a vampire, so you know what’s happening. To be fair, the title and the poster do that too. It’s a film called Abigail, and the poster features that character in a bloodstained dress, so even if you don’t know she’s a vampire, you do know that she is responsible for the deaths. So the whole “what is happening? It’s a secret” aspect of the opening half is wasted. I know we didn’t see a lot of Jaws in the film of the same title, but we were aware it was a shark. We didn’t spend half the time watching that film and being told it was hippo.

Once the truth is revealed, it’s a much better film. It’s still good before that, but it definitely feels like it’s holding back on you a little bit. It’s shot like a horror movie before the characters know it’s a horror movie. So the vampiric reveal doesn’t come as a shock, it comes off as “Well that’s what happens next in a horror film”. Compare this to say, From Dusk Till Dawn, which comes off as a heist movie for the first half, which means the vampiric shift comes off as a genuine shock. Here, you KNOW it’s a horror movie, so you’re expecting something similar to what happens. They could have played it off like a heist movie and it would have improved it. I’ll admit, that would have drawn comparisons to the aforementioned FDTD. But heist movies are cinematically different now than they were in the 90’s, they’re now more focused on straight lines, split-screen shots etc. So whilst it would have been similar in terms of genre shift, the styles themselves would be different, which would have lessened comparisons.

I’m overexaggerating slightly, I’ll admit. The sections before them are still pretty entertaining. That’s mainly due to the cast though. I’m a huge fan of both Kathryn Newton and Melissa Barrera, and they’re both given a lot to work with even before shit gets bloody. The characters feel real, which helps sell the believability of this universe. The core group all mesh together well, to the point where their interactions don’t feel like the script is just fleshing out doomed characters. Kevin Durand does look distractingly like an even dumber Elon Musk though.

The real highlight is Alisha Weir as the titular vampire. She is believably an ancient being, there’s no “yeah but that’s clearly just a child speaking, not a 200-year-old person who looks like one”. Her physicality helps too. Her movements (or her stunt doubles movements, I dunno) have a brutal elegance to them, so even when she’s killing someone there’s still an air of beauty and art to it. The ballerina aspect to her character allows some very unique action scenes, of her walking down a bannister with her feet in the ballerina tippy toe pose (I do know the name, it’s called En Pointe, but I’m using that in a pun later). There’s a scene where she dances with someone’s corpse that is very weird and artful, but it did make me sad as it reminded me of Bray Wyatt. The music selection is pretty en pointe (ballet pun! I told you that would come back), mostly consisting of classical music which you’d normally find in ballet performances, operas, and an advert for a Ferrari Pene Piccolo complete with steering wheel, tyres, and can go from 0-80 in 5 seconds which you’ll never manage because you’re only using it to take your kids to school 5 minutes down the road.

In summary; it is just a mindless horror film. But it’s one of the better ones. With humour, some great kills, one truly disturbing moment, and just enough heart to elevate it.