Tag: Raya And The Last Dragon

Encanto (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Summary: A tale of the family Madrigal who live in a house that has blessed every child in the family with a unique gift — every child except Mirabel.

I had heard many people talk about this, and almost all good things. So I went in with high expectations, and this was good enough to meet them. In the last few years, Disney has released Moana, Big Hero 6, Raya And The Last Dragon, and Zootopia, so it’s fair to say they’re on one hell of a roll, the only major blot being Ralph Breaks The Internet (and maybe Frozen 2, I haven’t seen it so can’t judge). It may be too soon to judge but it does seem like they’re making progress to reclaim their crown from Pixar. While I don’t see that happening, the gap is closing, and not because Pixar is getting worse, but because Disney is getting a lot better.

Everything about this is really good, mostly non-American cast (US, not the continent), and I’m only personally familiar with two of the people who did the voices: Stephanie Beatriz and John Leguizamo. I like that Disney are going that route now, casting people who are true to the character rather than just getting random sitcom performers to do “ethnic” voices. All are really good, but Jessica Darrow needs highlighting as someone who really deserves to have her career made by this.

In terms of performances, this is really a showcase for Beatriz (it’s helped that in Mirabel, Disney seem to have created a visually interesting character they can market the hell out of). You never feel you’re listening to a 41 year old pretending to be a teenager, her vocal performance has the perfect mix of youthful exuberance and teenage angst/depression. This is doubled when she sings, I’m still not entirely sure how she nailed some of the rapid vocal tracks for the opening song.

About the opening song, it really sets the tone. On the surface, it’s happy and joyful and danceable, but when you listen to the lyrics you get a slight sense of sadness and “I don’t belong”. Her panic when the kids ask what her power is and she tries to distract them, her clear envy of her “perfect” sister, and then it’s capped with how casually her sister says “oh she didn’t get one”. It’s the first sign that this film has the potential to break you.

It lives up to that potential, and then some. Everybody is talking about We Don’t Talk About Bruno, when really they should be talking about Surface Pressure. It’s not as catchy, but a lot more emotional and has great storytelling. The reaction to it will break, just the words “i think you’re carrying way too much”.

On the subject of music, it’s clear from this and In The Heights that Lin Manuel Miranda is REALLY good at natural music, especially for opening numbers. He adjusts the universe so that it’s not the characters making the music, it’s the world. It adds a sense of playfulness to the whole thing and elevates a very good film to a great one.

It’s not perfect, there are a few moments (as in, 3-5 second bits) where the music doesn’t flow as naturally as it could, some of the characters could be better developed, and it would have really helped the ending if we saw more of how the non-family members live in that town.

But overall this is a great film about emotional abuse, parental pressure, and feelings of worthlessness. Probably the most emotional film I’ve seen this year, but also the most joyful. Strange how it can do both so well.

2021 Film Awards

On By troubledproductionsIn AwardsLeave a comment

So we’re two months in, and it’s time to finish the summary of 2021 films in the way I usually do: randomly bitching and praising shit nobody has heard of. Some really tough decisions made, and some really easy ones. You might disagree, ask me next week and I might disagree with my own choices, but I had to make them, and here they are. Side note, there’s no “worst film” this year, there were a lot of bad films, but truth be told nothing felt quite bad enough to earn that.

Best Looking:

Blithe Spirit

One of the few things this film did well. It has a great colour scheme so that the visuals really pop. If the film itself was as good as it looked, it would have been one of my favourites of the year.

Censor

Almost entirely due to how the final third was directed, film geeks will love what they did with it in terms of how it looks. One of the best examples of using visuals to tell a story.

Come True

Just to warn you, this film is going to come up A LOT in this. I just loved the blue colours over everything. It perfectly matched the music and made the whole thing feel like you were watching it on a CRT monitor. Really unique and I love it.

Cruella

Striking colours, combined with great costume design. The visuals for a lot of this film consist of dark or boring backgrounds, then bright and stunning foregrounds/clothes to create striking images that you’ll love. There’s something weirdly retro too, makes you think of the time period, and is perfect for story.

Godzilla Vs. Kong

Purely for the sense of scale, this series has been a great showcase for spectacle cinema, and this is no exception. There are obvious plot issues, but I can’t deny how much I loved just sitting there staring at this film.

Love and Monsters

Yeah it’s a surprise to me too, but I love the director brought the world to life. You don’t watch this and feel you’re watching something obviously fake, the CGI is pretty damn good for a film like this. Everything looks and feels like it belongs in that world. It’s so good that sometimes you don’t really notice it, you’re not sitting there going “wow, look at that creature”, the creature is just there, and fits so well into it that it can pass you by.

Malignant

There were so many times watching this where I thought “yup, that would make a good poster”. Just let down by one of the special effects not really working for me.

Raya And The Last Dragon

The way that Sisu is animated is glorious, a solid character that flows through the air like she’s swimming. I love the way this looked, the little references to Southeast Asian cultures, the amount of water (which is notoriously hard to animate) which looks gorgeous. I just love the way this flows visually. Because of how similar they were I had to choose between this and Luca, this JUST inches ahead due to the building designs.

Soul

Mainly for the use of space, well, lines really. The fluid nature to the animation is reminscent of classic disney at its best. The whole thing just feels like an otherworldly dream. You look at it and you can almost hear the music.

Winner:

Last Night In Soho

Yes, the neon look is great. And the final sequence is a masterclass in visuals. But the day-to-day stuff is great too. The lighting is done in a way that looks natural but has a sharp focus, almost like a spotlight. And the scenes in the club are full of visual beauty.

Most Disappointing

A Quiet Place Part 2

This is where they’ll be a big difference between “Bad” and “disappointing”. Just on its own, this might have been an okay film. But as a sequel to one of the most unique films (horror or otherwise) of the last few years, can’t help but feel this is a poor effort. The new characters don’t feel like they’ve always been a part of this world, and the shadow of the dads death from the first one doesn’t hang as heavy over it as it should.

Antebellum

I had really high hopes for this based on the trailer, particularly one completely bad-ass moment of her running through a warzone. It just didn’t work for me though. The pacing was way off and it has no idea how to keep the momentum going. I feel you could edit this, take out some of the fluff, change the order of some scenes around, and you could get a really good film. But starting on the plantation for about 40 minutes, doing a near thirty-minute flashback to her before she got there, then going back to the plantation makes the whole thing feel disjointed. Tbh you don’t need to know that much information about her before she got there, just a few minutes to establish her life and who she is, then have her wake up in the plantation, look at the horror around her, then credits. It has nothing to say about the past, and as such says nothing about the present. A lot of it is just misery porn.

Lucky

I was fully on board with this for a lot of it. Sure there were a few moments where I felt “ouch that’s not good”. Bad music choices, the visuals looked too fake and stupid. And then the ending happened, and shat upon all the goodwill I had. It’s a shame as the concept was promising, and it had some good scenes. But it set up questions it had no intention of answering.

The King’s Man

Not exactly a bad film, but nowhere near as good as the previous ones. I really hope they do a sequel to this one because otherwise, it’s completely pointless. It didn’t set up the other two films or answer any questions we had. It’s just to set up something else, it feels like this is Iron Man, and the original 2 Kingsman films are Infinity War and Endgame, like we’re missing a lot of stuff in the middle. It’s nowhere near as stylish as the other two, with no real stand-out scenes.

Black Widow

I avoided spoilers for this, I assumed it would be game-changing. Nope. It just sets up a new Black Widow, something that could have been a tv show. In Taskmaster it features one of the most underutilized villains in the history of the MCU (and all feels way too similar to what they did with Ghost in Ant-Man And The Wasp), I suppose the real villain is Ray Winstones character, but the true villain is his acting coach. Not quite as dull as Eternals, but I had much higher expectations.

Winner

Wonder Woman 1984

I remember talking about this with someone before it came out, I mentioned how this reminded me of Thor: Ragnorak and was looking like it was going to be a technicolour ball of fun, as it is it’s just technicolour bullshit. It’s turned a strong independent female character into “I just need a man”. It’s not even an original story, it’s just another soft adaptation of The Monkey’s Paw, which has been done much better in other media. Also, I genuinely can’t remember that much about Kristen Wiigs character, she’s ridiculously underdeveloped, she’s given barely anything to do once she becomes a villain. It still looks good, but the script is diabolical. This is a BIG film, released just over a year ago, and featured a cameo from Lynda Carter, yet nobody talks excitedly about it.

Best Performer

Amy Nostbakken/Norah Sadava in Mouthpiece

Cheating a bit as it’s two performers, but they’re both playing the same character so I’m counting it. For a lot of these, I’m counting things like believability, facial expressions, dialogue delivery etc. They do all of those things well, but sold this for me was how unbelievably in-sync they are throughout. This goes beyond acting into performance art. The way they physically interact with each other is almost ballet-like in its precision and use of space

Riz Ahmed in Sound Of Metal

I mainly know him from Four Lions, he was in Nightcrawler but that was mainly Jake’s film let’s be honest. This? This was incredible. I didn’t know he had this in him. The pain, the torment, the frustration. His character is suffering, and his performance lets you know that.

McKenna Grace in Ghostbusters Afterlife

If she’s in a film I watch, she’s likely to be nominated in this category, every year. That’s how good she is. It’s not bias either, I didn’t recognise it as her while I watched this, all I thought was “I have no idea who that is but she is absolutely nailing every piece of dialogue here”. The way she delivers bad jokes makes them funny, her comedic timing is impeccable, and she’s talented enough that she carries the emotional setpieces too. She’s in a film with Paul Rudd, and outshines him.

Magdalena Kolesnik in Sweat

All the way through she gives a good performance, but the scene near the end where she’s being interviewed and she just breaks down completely. She’s helped by some tremendous dialogue which she conveys beautifully. But there’s a moment in the end where she realises that it was pointless, that nobody cares, that she just needs to smile and get back to work. It’s heartbreaking, and she nails it.

Katja Herbers in The Columnist

The second foreign language performer to be nominated here, both fully deserved. This one slightly edged it out because of how wordless some of her best moments were. You could tell her character was trying to hide her annoyance. It’s a difficult role to do as she has to be likeable, but also a serial killer. So she has to have that weird mix of danger and sweetness. It’s a testament to both her performance, and to the writing, that it works as well as it does.

Billy Crystal in Here Today/Anthony Hopkins in The Father

This is going to be tricky making this work for both but the reasons they work are so similar for both I feel okay consolidating them into one. So here goes: Normally they’re actors who play characters who lead a film, in control of every scene. So to see them play somebody so vulnerable is devastating. It’s so unlike them that it really hits home their situations.

Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman

Read a review which said she looked “like bad drag”. Fuck off. Besides, the important thing is how good she is in this role, and she’s great, her body language in each scene showing who’s in control. You can tell she’s instantly changed a situation to her advantage just by the way she’s standing. Plus she has an unsure confidence, she has to believe she’s doing what’s right, but there’s a part that’s not.

Rebecca Hall in The Night House

She’s always had a lot of promise but somehow manages to find herself in slightly disappointing roles (Iron Man 3, Godzilla Vs. Kong, Dorian Gray), in this she lives up to the potential you always knew she had. She plays a character dealing with intense personal loss, and that loss is written through every fibre of her performance. So even in the horror moments, you are always fully aware that this is a character tinged with sadness and regret. It’s the kind of performance that would be talked about for oscar nominations if they didn’t hate horror movies for some reason.

Niamh Algar in Censor

Occasionally you get a performer who you truly feel is representing the directors vision, and I feel Algar is doing this here. Her performance feels like it suits the character, the film, everything about it. I really hope her and the director work together in the future as they compliment each other wonderfully. She looks broken throughout and it’s amazing to watch. Even when she’s saying things she’s certain about, her face still seems unsure. It’s perfect for the character and I want to see her in more stuff.

Thomasin McKenzie in Last Night In Soho

This could not have been an easy performance for her to deliver, the emotional range needed is off the charts, and she had to do it all in a Cornish accent, and how did they even explain that accent to someone from New Zealand? Have to say, I never noticed though. I knew I recognised her from somewhere, but I couldn’t place where and I assumed it was some random Channel 4 show. The fact that she is this good, and is only 21 is terrifying and exciting.

Winner

Julia Sarah Stone in Come True

Already known to cinephiles in Canada due to her award-winning roles in The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom and Wet Burn, this is the first I’ve seen of her and I now want to see more. Her performance is utterly captivating. This is without a doubt one of the best performances I’ve ever seen in my life. Her performance is seen in every moment of her performance, from her body language, her facial expressions, everything is filled with little nuances that sell her character.

Worst Performer

Ray Winstone in Black Widow

You’d think he’d be great at this, he’s basically a mob boss with access to superpowered beings. But his accent is SO bad it’s laughable. It’s so hard to take him seriously as a threat when his accent his travelling more than someone who doesn’t understand the rules of basketball. I haven’t heard accents this bad outside of someone being slightly racist.

Leslie Mann in Blithe Spirit

Again, the accent. I can’t tell what nationality her character was supposed to be, was she supposed to be British and couldn’t quite manage it, or was she just supposed to be posh and her mind automatically leant slightly British?

Winner

Lebon James in Space Jam

He can’t act. At all. His character admits that in the film, doesn’t make it better.

Best Soundtrack

Come True

Has one of my favourite songs I heard in 2021. If you listen to this you can instantly tell the tone of the film. Is great to listen to. But even outside of that song, it’s great. Haven’t heard a soundtrack this creepy this It Follows.

Soul

One of the best examples of music syncing with animation in a while. The whole thing plays like an art piece, the animation moving with the music in a wonderful flowing motion. Not quite sure how it would work independently, but it is marvellous as part of something bigger.

Nobody

Following the John Wick rule of using older music, and just like that it worked. It gives the violent scenes an air of beauty and class they wouldn’t have otherwise. Not exactly a soundtrack I would go out and buy, but it suits the film perfectly.

The Suicide Squad

Not quite as good as the others on this list at matching the tone of the movie, but the choice of songs is amazing. Probably one of the ones I’m most likely to listen to on its own.

In The Heights

Another musical, but very different from Annette. I’m not sure these would work on their own, not exactly the kind of soundtrack you’d show somebody who didn’t know the film, you’d needed to have watched this to truly get the songs I think. But once you watch it, you’ll love the music. The best one is probably the opening one, it does a great job of telling you who everybody is. This film had the advantage obviously of coming from an already established musical.

Last Night In Soho

Edgar Wright is one of those directors (similar to Gunn actually) who knows what songs to pick to make a great soundtrack. Definitely the case here, obviously the key musical motif is Downtown, but the rest of the film has songs that suit it too. They’re great at setting the tone.

Winner

Annette

Musicals normally have a sense of playfulness, except for adaptations like Les Miserables. This is dark, but in a beautiful way, and the music suits that. The opening number is probably the scene I’ve watched the most on youtube this year, when I watched it originally I rewound it multiple times because I wanted to feel the magic again. Part of that was the song chosen. It’s dark, but also playful, a Sparks song about how the film is starting, starring the cast, and the musicians. There are other really good songs throughout, actually I can’t remember any dialogue, in my head it was all music. Such good songs, there’s one where Adam Drivers character is just going on a rant on stage, and the audience are booing him and telling to go away, all in the medium of song.

Most Surprising

Mouthpiece

Assumed this would be one of those “oh it’s very well made for a low budget foreign indie film”, but this is genuinely one of my favourite films now. The emotion, the performances, the originality. I loved almost everything about it. Not going to go too much into it as will mention it later.

Love and Monsters

Probably not the best film in this category, a lot of the others I expected nothing and was surprised by them, this, I expected it to be quite bad. If it wasn’t for someone messaging me telling me to watch it I would have avoided it. This is much better than you may think it would be by looking at the poster. Heatwarming, funny, and just overall brilliant

Come True

Went into this knowing nothing, came out with one of my favourite films I’ve seen. Won’t be talking about it much in this one because I talk about it A LOT in other categories.

Winner

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Some of these I went in blind and surprised me that way, some I thought were bad, but then checked them out after being told otherwise. This? I went in thinking it would terrible. The early reviews were very negative, and lets be honest it looked like it could miss the point of the originals completely. The first few minutes I was still unsure, it wasn’t until McKenna Grace’s character was on screen and started talking that I started to realise this could be good. It was better than that. Others in this category are better, but none have had such a big difference between expectations and reality. Loved it.

Best Character

Mav1s – Love And Monsters

Not in the film for very long, not even human. But gives the film some more humanity in its actions. Provides emotion, depth, and some very heartwarming moments. Very reminiscent of Baymax.

Red Guardian – Black Widow

The film was disappointing but it was never down to him. His character was funny and added a weird sense of pathos to it. I know the MCU is moving towards focusing on Yelena moving forward, but I’d much rather see more from him, weirdly I’d actually really want a prequel focusing on him.

Christine – How To Deter A Robber

There’s something so goofy and loveable about her. The moments where she’s on-screen are among the best. Essentially the type of character that Anna Kendrick would play.

Peacemaker – The Suicide Squad

There’s a reason this character got a spin-off. A sociopath who believes he’s a good guy. He is basically America personified.

Winner

Podcast/Phoebe – Ghostbusters: Afterlife

With just one of these characters, the film would be good, with both of them it’s amazing. The chemistry between them brings to mind classic 80s films like The Goonies. They’re just so perfect together that I had to include them both. They’re both great for the same reason. Incredibly well written and very funny. But the jokes they make don’t detract away from the tension, they’re not cracking wise while staring death in the face, they’re also not making jokes that kids wouldn’t make. They’re goofy jokes, which reluctantly raise a smile.

Best Film

Mouthpiece

Oh, this is tough. I may regret this decision. Usually, I just list the films nominated and then put the winner. I know there were a lot of films in the best of the year blog, but when it came to what my absolute favourite was, in reality, it was between this and Come True. I felt it would be disingenuous to list films I know had zero chance of winning, pretending they had a chance, would be a waste of my time writing, and your time reading. It is really close by the way, for different reasons. Come True is a film-makers film, Mouthpiece is a scriptwriters film. In terms of look and technical prowess, Come True runs away with it. In terms of originality, this has it. Come True is better from an analytical and film student perspective, Mouthpiece is better from an emotional one. In the end, it came down to this: If I had to watch both, which would I watch first? And the answer is Mouthpiece, it hit me harder.

So, that’s it for 2021, a surprisingly strong year for cinema. 2022 will probably have more foreign-language and independent reviews, so look forward to these getting a lot more pretentious and finding more obscure stuff. Should be fun.

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

Raya And The Last Dragon (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

A Disney movie released straight to Disney+, the last time I watched a film on that that was supposed to get a cinema release it was Artemis Fowl, and that, that was not a good movie. I had heard rumblings that this was a good film though, so that was a positive.

After watching I can confirm it is really good. It just, it doesn’t seem very Disney. Well, it doesn’t seem very 2000’s Disney, 2020s Disney with a history of Moana, Big Hero 6 etc? That makes sense. Disney don’t always knock it out the park, but when they do the results often are spectacular. Truth be told it’s usually when they step out of their comfort zone that they come up with great stuff lately. When it seems like the writers just wanted an excuse for a holiday somewhere so told Disney they have an idea about somewhere exotic and warm so that they’d be flown out there for research. It’s when Disney stick to adaptations lately that they’ve failed (with one obvious exception) or when they’ve attempted sequels (Wreck It Ralph 2 is a terrible film and I will stand by that).

This? This is a thing of beauty. It’s a running joke that the most dangerous person to be in a disney film is a parent of the protagonist (doubly so if you’re being played by Sean Bean). This goes one further, it doesn’t just kill off the parent, it kills off most of the population. It killed off a higher percentage of the population than Thanos. Most kid films don’t start off with murder on this large a scale. It’s no just Thanos this film seems to emulate, there’s a moment near the end which is very reminiscent of the end of Guardians Of The Galaxy. Yes, Disney, we know you own Marvel.

While I’m on the subject, that moment near the the end I talked about? It should have been better. Spoilers ahead by the way. Basically the villains are things that turn people into stone, and this moment is the main group standing around as it envelops them and they start turning into stone, together. For whatever reason it didn’t really resonate with me. I just didn’t hit right. It may have been because there weren’t that many good facial expressions on the characters that really sold the “if we die, we die together”. You never really got the feeling that the characters felt hopeless, it seemed like they always knew the plan would work. Compare this to Toy Story 3, the moment in the incinerator where the characters didn’t speak, but you knew that in their head they accepted what was about to happen.

Moments like that are my main issue, there’s nothing bad about this film, but there’s a few things you’ve seen done better, or you feel the film is only operating at 90% of its potential.

I know this is something that will annoy a lot of people, but not the people who read this so fuck it: the representation of this film is fucking lit yo (how do you do fellow kids?). I can’t understate how important it is that this film exists and takes the care it does to properly represent other cultures. At least, I think it does that, I’m not actually from those cultures, so it could be woefully insensitive for all I know. But I haven’t heard any complaints about people from South East Asia about it so I’m thinking it did a good job. I mean, it is super depressing that it’s the first film Disney have made that’s based off South East Asian culture (and that they seemed to not differentiate between some of them), not as depressing as the fact that Kelly Marie Tran is the first actress from the area to lead an animated Disney film. She’s fucking great though. Although not the best part of the film. She is slightly overshadowed by Awkwafina as Sisu. She nails it, bringing a delightful exuberance and playful nature to the character. It’s helped by the actual character being incredibly likeable, a powerful creature with insecurities and lightness will always be appreciated by me and I love her.

So in summary. See it, obviously see it. There are times where it will slightly break you, but it’s worth it. The big downsides: it isn’t completely original in terms of story, plus I realised that Awkwafina, who voiced Sisu, released this a few years ago. So now my brain is thinking of an imaginary song about dragons called My Drag