Tag: Review

Napoleon (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: The (partial) life story of a French Emporer

Napoleon is a strange film, and one I’m not entirely sure needs to exist. For something like this to exist it needs to be either educational, overblown, or relevant. This fails on all three counts.

The educational: the accuracy of it has been called into question multiple times. This was going to be obvious from the first time you see the tagline: He came from nothing, he conquered everything. He didn’t come from nothing, and it’s weird to say he did. For starters, his dad was an aristocrat (not to be confused with an aristocat. who are pets who get to sleep on velvet mats, naturalment). It puts him present at the execution of Marie Antoinette when he was actually on a battlefield at the time. It also shows him firing at the Pyramids in Giza, which never happened. These are such needless lies too. But they call into question the accuracy of everything, did Napoleon mastermind a victory over the English at the siege of Toulon? Did his marriage fall apart because of fertility issues? Is there even a country called France? These are all things presented as true within the film, but so are proven falsehoods, so it’s hard to tell.

It has been accused of being anti-French, but what else would you expect from a Scott? You know, because the director is Ridley Scott, and Scotland is part of the UK, who have famously nearly always been at war with France? I know, the joke would have worked better if the film also involved Britt Eckland (if I spelt it Brit), Robert Englund (if I spelt it England), or Kerry VonFuckTheFrench (if I spelt it Kerri).

It’s not just the French who are annoyed at this movie; idiots are too. Accusing Ridley Scott of making a film that discriminates against white men by showing one of them as a bit of a dick and he had a wife who cheated on him. The wife part; yes, she did cheat on him, but he cheated on her. He ended the marriage just because she couldn’t get pregnant, and impregnated a teen. The wife ended up dying alone and in pain, what a bitch. And of course, it shows him as a bad person, he was a military leader responsible for the deaths of thousands. Something that’s not in the movie is the siege of Jaffa, where Napoleon allowed/encouraged his soldiers to spend two days massacring and raping the inhabitants of Jaffa (a city in now-Israel, not the chocolate and orange treat that’s a cake for tax purposes). Most European leaders in history were dicks, and most of them were white men, both of those things are facts. So if you want to watch a movie about European history, you’re going to have to put up with a white man being terrible. So we can either not make historical movies, we can make historical movies about non-Europeans, or we make Henry VIII a black woman. Maybe then the internet will stop complaining. In response to the historical inaccuracies, Ridley Scott has said that historical accuracy isn’t important. I’m hoping he continues this point of view when I release my new film “Ridley Scott once bummed a hedgehog”

The overblown: it’s all a bit dour. There’s not much on the excess of emperors. It’s a Ridley Scott film so there are some fantastic shots in it. I’m normally not a fan of animal deaths in movies, but I’m very glad his horse got shot with a cannon in this because it means I could make a joke about how his horse was Napoleon Blown-Apart.

I’m not going to though.

The horse death does give me an excuse to talk about the violence. It’s incredibly violent, in a good way. You can tell this from the opening scene when Antoinette is executed. Usually, when you see that on screen it’s a clean cut and the head is held up like a mannequin head. When her head is held up here it’s dripping blood and bits of skin, it’s horrific, but does a good job of reminding you that this is an actual human head that just a few seconds ago was full of life. Whilst the visuals are good, the audio is a bit meh. Not in terms of music and sound, but the accents. Nobody has a French accent. This would be okay if it was all taking place in France or if every character was clearly defined, and it’s fine for small scenes. But when there are scenes of characters from multiple countries it can be a bit confusing. This is best highlighted in battle scenes which just consists of people with English accents and nondescript outfits charging at each other, with no idea of who belongs to which side. I haven’t seen fight scenes this confusing since the last Transformers movie I watched where action scenes were just chunks of metal rolling around. (I think it was the second one).

This does have the potential to be a good movie, and there are times when it does live up to that potential. But it mostly doesn’t. The pacing is weird, skipping over important details way too quickly. His first exile and escape took place entirely in my quick pee break. But this is a moment where he was exiled and completely hopeless, yet he escaped by commandeering the people who were supposed to be guarding him. That’s a classic moment of historical farce, which with the right build-up and setup could have been incredible. There are multiple moments of that. It’s both too short to go into things with as much detail as it should, but also too long to hold your attention. I would say it’s wasted potential, but really, I expected nothing less. Every worry I had about this turned out to be correct. And really that’s the most disappointing thing, well, that and the fact that I still can’t stop singing the name to the tune of Linoleum by NoFX. The film also doesn’t contain a scene where goes around San Dimas eating ice cream and helping two kids with their history presentation. Bullshit. *storms out review*

Wait

*comes back in*

I forgot my chocolate, I’m still angry.

*storms back out*

Thanksgiving (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: A year on from a black friday tragedy (that the town doesn’t really feel haunted by), an axe-wielding killer is killing people, sometimes with an axe.

It may not seem like it sometimes, but I do genuinely love horror movies, they’re often on my list of favourite films. But they’re also my least favourite. Horror is all about personal taste. To some people, a certain film may be the best film they’ve ever seen, to some, they just won’t like it no matter how many positive reviews they see; it’s just not their type. It’s a lot like comedy in that sense (or porn, actually, now I think about it).

I know that some people love this film, and I can see why. It’s gory, has some very creative kills, and is unique. But it’s all just so miserable and pretty much every single character is a prick. You don’t really want to see anybody survive. All you want is for someone to appear and beat everybody on-screen to death with a shit-covered hammer. This is a common problem in horror movies; characters are so unlikeable that you cheer when horrible things happen to them. But they’re also characters who we have to spend all our time with, and that 90% of time spent being annoyed isn’t worth the small catharsis.

I try not to go into spoilers too much in my reviews but I feel I have to do so here to demonstrate a logical issue I have with it. It’s mentioned early on that nobody involved in the riot at the start was prosecuted and the police couldn’t do anything. The killer turns out to be the local cop. Now call me crazy but I don’t think it would be that difficult for a small-town cop to invent a reason to arrest or kill someone. Literally, all he’d need to do is say “They were speeding, they got aggressive so I had to shoot them”. Yeah, it wouldn’t make the deaths echo as much as they did, and it wouldn’t be as cinematic, but it would be a lot more effective, and he wouldn’t need to wait a year to do it. He could even pull people over and say he needs to check their car for drugs etc, then subtly cut their brakes. I know I’m expecting too much from something dumb, but if something is dumb it can at least have the decency to not be so utterly miserable throughout.

From a technical standpoint, it’s all fine. The performances are standard for a horror film, with Patrick Dempsey being the only obvious standout. It’s not helped by how generic a lot of the characters are, to the point where a climactic final scene involving finding dead bodies left me trying to figure out who those people were.

In summary, I get why people would be into this. But for me, it was a case of “too bleak, stopped caring”. The closing credits were pretty fun though.

Anatomy Of A Fall (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A woman is suspected of her husband’s murder

I didn’t really know much about Anatomy Of A Fall (Aoaf, pronounced Eye-aff) when I watched it, when I came out of it I assumed it was a short movie, around the 100-minute mark. It’s actually 150. That says a lot about how incredibly paced this is. It’s odd as really you can sum it up quite quickly; a woman is accused of killing her husband. That’s it, we get a quick set-up, the death, and then the court case. I genuinely have no idea what the 2 and a half hours came from, despite not much really happening, nothing felt like it took up a long period of time. It says a lot about the talent of Triet that this works as wonderfully as it does.

He’s helped by terrific performances from Sandra Hueller and Samuel Theis, who have a chemistry which makes you think they’re constantly one sentence away from either murder or marathon sex (that’s sex that goes on for an extended period of time, not sex with/using the chocolate bar now known as a Snickers).

The look and general tone reminded me of a Nordic noir, but that might have just been the snow and the lighting. It also reminded me that I know next to nothing about the French legal system but it seems interesting.

It’s not as gratuitous as a lot of similar films have been. It’s not about the shocking death, but about the shocking nature of the human condition. It’s more about relationships and fractured romance than it is a mystery. I don’t really remember being transfixed into the mystery of whether she killed him or not. Really the only part of my enjoyment of this film that depended on the truth was whether it would match with the ending. If she didn’t do it and was free then that’s fine, if she did it and ended up being found guilty that would also be fine. But if she did it and got away with it, or didn’t do it but was convicted anyway, then I would have soured on it. Thankfully, the ending does play it true and wraps it up nicely too.

I mentioned earlier that Aoaf reminded me of a Nordic noir series. But that’s not a good indication as to whether you’ll like this. Really, the closest I can think of is Gone Girl, and I mean that as a compliment. The central relationship is certainly more believable in this. It’s nowhere near as tense or as compelling. But that’s only because Gone Girl is superb. This is just very very good. I’ve only just touched on all the wonderful building blocks that go towards the creation of the house of Aoaf. The honest look at depression, the way it handles media intrusion on celebrities’ lives, the balance between art and realism when it comes to violence, and the incredibly well-made scientific analysis made on screen. I have never been as comfortable yet also entranced as I have here.

Return To Seoul (2022) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A 25-year-old French woman returns to South Korea, where she was born, for the very first time.

2023 has definitely been a year of pairings; films made separately but would make good double bills; Aftersun and Scrapper, Assassin Club and Film-maker Shits On Audience, and now, Past Lives and Return To Seoul (RTS; pronounced Real-Time Strategy). They both deal with Asian (specifically South Korean) born women who have lived most of their lives in another country (France with RTS, and USA for PL), and the personal cultural schism they go through, trying to work out their identity between the country that birthed them and the country that raised them. Whereas Past Lives focused more on romantic and personal loss, RTS focused more on family loss and not being in touch with your roots. There are some nice moments where the film explains the cultural differences between France and Korea. Highlights how while biologically she is Korean, culturally she is completely devoid of her birth nationality. The focus on family loss hits hardest in a scene where she tries to talk to her father but needs an interpreter. It’s absolutely heartbreaking and played perfectly by Ji-Min Park.

Park is fantastic in this, she really knocks it out of her surname. The difference between her at the start and her in the years afterwards is astounding, feels like a completely different person, and all of that is down to her performance.

I will say that this is kind of frustrating but in a sort of good way. We, the audience want answers and an explanation. But so does she. So thematically it makes sense, but it doesn’t mean it’s not a frustrating watch for the audience at times.

It’s good to listen to though, the music is really good. Reminds me of the hard-to-google band 27. In that way, it is better than Past Lives, but in almost every other way it doesn’t compare. Which is a shame. If this came out any other year it would be incredible, but it does suffer from being released so close to something superior. Don’t get me wrong, it’s worth watching, and it is available online for those with a Mubi account, and if you’re a fan of cinema then you really should have one, so many of my favourite films have come from that. There are a few moments where I feel it had no focus and they were just making it up as they went along, and other moments where you feel they could have gone further (especially considering the chemistry between her and a hotel worker). In summary: if you’re a casual movie-goer you’re not going to like this, if you have ever used the phrase “Dutch angle” or “establishing shot”, then this is the film for you.

Dream Scenario (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Nicholas Cage suddenly appears in everybody’s dreams. Well, a character who in this film is played by him. Which isn’t anywhere near as interesting.

This shares two cast members of Mouthpiece, which is always a good sign as it gives me a chance to talk about how much I love that movie. It’s one of the most creative and brilliant movies I’ve ever seen. Dream Scenario? Not so much. It has a great concept: “What if a random man starts appearing in everybody’s dreams?”, but it doesn’t seem to know what to do with that concept. It raises some interesting questions but then has zero interest in answering them. It kind of feels like a lot of it is filler until they can think of a better scene. It also feels a bit unfocused. Is it attacking cancel culture? Memes? The capitalist desire to exploit wonder for adverts? It attempts to talk about all of them and ends up not discussing any of them.

The fact we don’t really find out why this is happening also means it’s kind of narratively unfulfilling. I have a feeling it’s something to do with the technology later shown which allows advertisers to enter dreams, but that implies an issue of consent which was never there in the start. It also would be an incredibly risky advertising strategy “Hey, we made a guy appear in people’s dreams and kill them, buy our product”. Nobody seems to make the connection between the two either, and if the capitalist aspect was taken from the narrative it wouldn’t cause that much difference. The only change would be you’d no longer have the ending of Cage appearing in his wife’s dream in a giant suit and saving her from being sacrificed, this shows that he………is willing to dream about her? I dunno. I feel it would have said more if she just happened to have that dream, showing that no matter what, her opinion of him hasn’t changed.

The lack of agency and control that Cage’s character shows also means the reaction to him is a bit weird. When he starts attacking people in their dreams EVERYBODY takes it seriously and blames him. I could understand a loud section of the internet doing so, but it feels like there’s not a single person who says “Wait, this is stupid” and defends him. I don’t object to the fact that if this happened in reality, people would blame him for it, but I find it hard to believe there wouldn’t be people just as passionately defending him. People will defend anything on the internet: the right to murder people just for being trans, sexually assaulting women if they wear skirts, microwaving tea. Cage is the only sane man in this movie (which is usually the complete opposite of what happens), with every single other character lacking any sense of realism. Remember that scene in Friends where Phoebe is annoyed at Ross because he did something rude but in the end, it turns out it only happened in her dream? That’s Dream Scenario. The big difference is that in Friends, when Phoebe realised it was a dream she forgave him and thought of herself as being silly. The idiot character in a sitcom populated by not-smart characters is STILL MORE LOGICAL than ANY other character in this movie. It does have some really sweet moments and some horrific ones. But that’s all they are; moments. There doesn’t feel to be the momentum required to carry it through. I will say this though; it does have the best fart joke I’ve seen in a while.

It’s annoying as I REALLY wanted to enjoy this, I love weird things (probably because I am a weird thing), and Nicholas Cage is entertaining as hell. It looks good and has some really good supporting performances. It’s just, how can I put this in a way that makes sense? The only way I can describe it is it’s like when you’re English and watching an American sitcom and you hear jokes about certain basketball players or shops, you sit there like “I’m sure I’d appreciate that if I got the reference”. That’s how it feels watching this, you’re left with the feeling that scenes, dialogue, and character motivations are all references to an obscure film you haven’t seen.

Slotherhouse (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: Emily (Lisa Ambalavanar) adopts a sloth as a mascot to win a school election against alpha mega bitch Brianna (Sydney Craven). So far, so Mean Girls. The sloth then starts killing everybody.

As I settled down to watch this, I had one thought in my mind “When will that dickhead outside stop revving his car?” he eventually stopped and not because his car mysteriously exploded, and I had another thought “I hope this isn’t too serious”. The concept for this, a killer sloth, is ridiculous, and there was a slight concern that it would take itself too seriously. If they don’t lean into the inherent silliness of the concept, then it’s doomed. Thankfully, the film seems aware that it’s kind of dumb, even lampooning its own title by having a character say it out loud and being met with an awkward silence.

Sometimes the stupidity works against it. Yes, it is a stupid premise, but there are moments where the characters are treating it as such. Airplane worked because the characters took it seriously, it doesn’t seem like they are in this. The death of Mayflower (a character, not the ship populated by colonists whose ancestors would then complain about immigration) in particular goes on way too long due to the characters not taking it seriously. They make jokes, insult the soon-to-be dying, and just generally seem like they’re having fun.

Another downside is that some of the side characters are seriously one-dimensional. This really hurts the death scenes that take place in the montage because you’re not entirely sure who these people are. There is also an issue of “how exactly is the sloth hiding all these bodies?” I’m more forgiving of certain things in films like this. I’ll allow certain cheap looks or plot mistakes purely because it’s not meant to be taken seriously, that being said, the montage massacre doesn’t really acknowledge the sheer amount of deaths. You get a few “where the fuck is [character]?” messages but there’s no fear or consequences. Nobody is panicking about the missing characters. This is particularly strange as one of the main plot points is a leadership vote going on, so you’d think if a character is obsessed with making sure they get all the votes possible, they’d notice if their friends suddenly went missing.

Now onto the upside; it’s very fun. You may be dumbfounded, but you won’t be bored. I mentioned how underwhelming some of the side characters are, but the ones we do get a decent look at are amazing. I do have to commend how characters are introduced: by their social media splash pages, so you INSTANTLY know everybody’s personalities. It’s unsubtle as hell, but it suits the film style so it doesn’t look out of place. It would help if we were given their real names instead of user names, so we know how to actually refer to these people. But I do appreciate how smart the splash page stuff is. It’s fun, it’s inventive, and it suits the social media age that we’re now living in.

I also appreciate how real the sloth looks. I can’t say for certain but it looks like it was mostly in camera effects, so puppetry/animatronics instead of post-production CGI. It looks kind of goofy, but it does work. The sloth attacks have some actual weight to them and feel real. There are moments where it’s kind of unsloth-like in its movements, but it mostly just looks right. I also appreciate how it is a new idea rather than just another f*cking sequel or reboot. It also closes the film in a way that is definitive so it doesn’t NEED a sequel, but keeps it open-ended enough that there COULD be one, maybe sloths in space? Doing things that astronauts do (but doing it real slowly because they’re sloths).

Another highlight; is the performances. It is a weirdly British cast for a concept that is SO American, but at no point do their accents fail. To the point where I was going to point out how Tiff Stevenson is far too English to be in such an American film, then looked into the cast and turns out pretty much all of the leads are English. The best performer is without a doubt Bianca Beckles-Rose, who doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page at the time of writing. I can tell her performance is good because the character is essentially a stoner, and they can sometimes be the most annoying characters in horror movies because how they’re only used for stupidity. Beckles-Rose injects Zenny with enough realism that she feels like a fully fleshed-out character. This is the only thing I’ve seen her in but I would love to see her lead a rom-com or YA action franchise. I loved every single second she was on screen and I’m looking forward to see what she does next.

So in summary; watch this if you’ve got Paramount+, it’s worth a stream, and I think originality should always be rewarded. You might not think of it as the best film of the year, but if you get some friends around, get some drinks and some pizzas in, and watch it whilst being fully aware of how ridiculous it is, you’ll have a good time.

Five Nights At Freddy’s (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Mike (Josh Hutcherson) gets a job as a night security guard at an abandoned family entertainment centre with animals are that animatronic, sociopathic, hydromatic, why they’re greased lightning! Wait, not greased lightning, murderers, I’m always getting those two mixed up.

Should start this review of Five Nights At Freddy’s (FNAF, pronounced Fon-arf) pointing out that I really don’t give a shit about youtube culture. I watch Dead Meat and History Buffs etc, but the whole “hey guys, it’s your boy here” bullshit accompanied by atrocious camera cuts, overacting reactions to everything like “So I was playing Mario and OMG you guys, OMG you guys, I found a coin”. As such, I’m not really a part of what seemed to be a huge selling point for this movie; that it featured popular YouTubers. It is based on a famous franchise, but when I had conversations with the intended target audience the things they mentioned were the potential cameos. I’m glad that they didn’t cast them as main characters, but the fact that cameos are the main features of a film is a bad sign.

I’ll admit, I’m not that familiar with the franchise, but that shouldn’t matter. I’ve seen some comments about the negative review FNAF has got, basically saying “A lot of the negative reviews are from people who haven’t played the games”. Well, yeah. It has to be good enough to stand up on its own merits, it’s not a sequel, it’s a separate iteration, and the games should be irrelevant. You shouldn’t need to be a fan of the games to enjoy this film.

Thankfully, it’s a pretty easy film to follow, there are no moments where you feel you had to be a fan of the franchise to understand what was going on. There’s no doubt that it would improve things, though. Because there’s still a level of excitement for seeing characters and references on the big screen. I’m assuming that’s why fans of the game like the film anyway, as there’s not really anything else going on. It’s a horror movie without gore, without suspense, and without scares. The performances are good though, mostly. There’s one moment where Josh Hutcherson is a little too OTT and it feels like he’s “acting” rather than being, but when he’s a scared and withdrawn adult haunted by his demons, he nails it. Matthew Lillard is great as always, but his being seemingly cast as a throw-away character almost feels like a spoiler as to who he really is. Piper Rubio outshines all of them though. She’s only 8 years old but never misses a beat, even when she has to express some relatively complex concepts. I haven’t seen a child perform this well since McKenna Grace in Gifted. Her relationship with her brother, and her need for social acceptance, is a core part of the narrative of FNAF. The moments where it dwells on that are the strongest parts of the film (that and the animatronic work which is sublime).

A big issue is that you’re constantly reminded of better films. Willy’s Wonderland explored similar concepts a few years ago, so whilst watching FNAF my brain was like a politician who just voted to criminalise homosexuality, I just couldn’t stop thinking about Willy. I’m not sure if that joke works outside of the UK as I’m not certain “willy” is slang for penis in the US etc, but I’m sure now that I’ve explained the joke, that’s only made it funnier.

Like I said, when it’s not a horror movie, when it’s a family drama dealing with loss, that’s when it’s at its best. The horror aspects just don’t work. Probably because of the rating, it’s incredibly bloodless, with obvious camera cutaways obscuring what you want to see. This would be fine if there was an air of menace, but there’s not. The lack of menace isn’t helped by how it feels too written, there’s no grounding it in reality. I don’t mean in terms of “well this would never happen, robots wouldn’t be that sophisticated”, I mean it in a “these characters only exist in this film”, you don’t get the feeling anything has happened before the film starts. Put it this way; if you lived in a small town and there was a family restaurant that has been abandoned for years, you’d notice wouldn’t you? And if a bunch of kids went missing and the owner of the restaurant was accused, you’d notice, wouldn’t you? And if the owner of that restaurant then got a government job helping unemployed people back to work, that would be a story, wouldn’t it? But the main character has never heard of the restaurant before he starts working there, isn’t aware of children being kidnapped, and didn’t link it to his brothers’ disappearance. He also doesn’t seem to have done anything about the dead bodies that pile up, one of which is in his house and is a woman he’s had an intense legal battle with. But nope, nothing indicating he’s been accused of killing her, no indication about what he did with the body, we didn’t see the aftermath, so there is no aftermath. It’s lazy, and it’s an issue that could be easily dealt with if the screenwriters were paying attention. But who needs rewrites, right?

Killers Of The Flower Moon (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: In 1920’s Oklahoma the Osage people find oil on their land, local rich white people don’t like that, so make plans to marry them to gain access to their wealth, and then kill them off.

Some people are not going to like Killers Of The Flower Moon (KOTFM, pronounced Kot-fom) due to the length. I’ve seen some people online say that the length is necessary due to “every scene is vitally important” but that’s a crock of shit. There’s a way to get this to 3 hours without losing too much important details. I mean, it does have to be said that 200 minutes is a LONG time to spend in cinema, especially when you consider that if you add trailers, travelling etc then you’re looking at over 4 hours for one film.

Despite that, I think this is worth watching. It’s an engrossing viewing experience. Despite the length, not many people left to use the facilities or get food etc. Whilst there is some wasted time, there are not many moments where you can feel like you can turn away. It’s utterly fascinating to see, the visuals are beautiful and the story is one that needs to be told.

The story is another aspect in which some people might not be happy, accusing it of being anti-white because it truthfully shows how the law of the US treated non-whites at the time. But apparently, truth has a liberal bias and studios are only allowed to do historical dramas if it’s beautiful and doesn’t showcase the ugliness of the period.

Representatives of the Osage being murdered before they can appear before Congress? That’s accurate. The fact that Osage people weren’t deemed competent enough to manage finances so many of them married white people so that could access their own money? That’s accurate. Leonardo DiCaprio going out with someone over the age of 25? Okay that’s bending the truth a little bit.

Speaking of DiCaprio, the performances in this are superb throughout. Nobody is settling for a 9/10 performance, even those who only appear in a few scenes like Brendan Fraser or John Lithgow. DiCaprio is going to get a lot of the plaudits, as is DeNiro, which I don’t begrudge. But the real star of this is Lily Gladstone, who gives one of those performances which make you forget she’s not actually that person. Under lesser hands, the role of Mollie would appear either uncaring or too weak, but Gladstone provides her with enough strength and suffering that the character feels layered and real. She does more with facial expressions than some performers could do with a 5-minute monologue. I’m really interested to see where she goes from here, could be something special.

I’m not gonna lie, I went into this thinking it was fictional, or at most just a “based on many truths” thing. The fact that all of it is true is heartbreaking, and not just “this kind of thing happened” truth, it has actual dialogue from the time. I didn’t realise it was a true story until the very end. This is my lazy segue into saying how the ending for this is one of the best I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to explain without giving it away, but it’s incredible. Best of all, it’s not a “only Scorsese could do this” ending. There’s no big budget fight, no technical wizardry which would require years of experience to pull off. It’s something which anybody, from the biggest blockbuster down to a student film, could do, but it’s not something anybody could do well. It’s inventive, playful, and incredibly entertaining. It’s probably going to end up on my favourite moments from 2023. That alone means that this will end up being remembered for years, and deservedly so. There’s usually a gulf between “My opinions” and “Oscar winners”, but I wouldn’t be opposed to this sweeping up awards next year (and if it can do some hoovering and clean the shower too that would be great). Yes, it is a long watch, and it does underexplain some concepts (the Osage not being trusted to handle their own finances explanation goes by VERY quickly for something that explains so much of a character’s motivations), but it’s CINEMA at its best, and I’d much rather something like this than something bland.

Cat Person (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Margot (Emilia Jones) goes on a date with Robert (Nicholas Braun), who then starts to exhibit possessive and sexist behaviour when they start dating.

I was really looking forward to this, it felt like it would be a vitriolic critique of modern misogyny. I was so looking forward to it I caught a preview screening. So it’s with regret that I have to say that I’m slightly disappointed. It’s based on a short story, and watching it play out, that becomes evident. It knows what it wants to say, but doesn’t seem to know how to say it in a cinematically pleasing way. Part of that is due to the reliance on fantasies and dream sequences, moments where Robert is openly hostile and cruel. This seems to have been done to show the paranoia that women go through when they’re with men they don’t know that well, the worries that go through their heads when they’re in a car with a man. The issue with this is that it means that when he is hostile and cruel, it doesn’t seem quite as bad because she imagined worse. It’s like “Well, he only called her a whore via text, not as though he actually choked her like we saw earlier”.

There is one exception to this; the sex scene. Possibly the unsexiest sex scene of the year. It also features a piece of non-reality which I really enjoyed; her having an imaginary conversation with herself as a version of her stands by and observes the sex, asking her why she’s doing that. It’s a great look into her mindset and self-justifications, it clearly defines the boundary between reality and her mind, and it reminded me of both Fleabag and Mouthpiece (darn I love that movie). It’s almost as brilliant as my constant use of the word “and” in the last sentence was annoying. Almost.

It’s in this moment where we see the best of Emilia Jones, who is shockingly the daughter of Aled Jones. Yup, we’re now in a time where the daughter of the singer of Walking In The Air is an actual adult. Her performance in this is good, but the writing of her character lets her down, as does the fact it took me like 15 minutes before I realised she wasn’t Jenna Coleman.

It pains me to say this, but Cat Person kind of left me with the feeling that incels will watch it and it will justify their viewpoints. Much like how Unhinged left me with the feeling it would appeal to the darker vengeful side of humanity, I feel this will help back up the opinions of those who really shouldn’t have their viewpoints backed up. It’s easy to imagine them watching this and blaming Margot for what happened. Or to think there are times when she’s making up problems and acting off that. It doesn’t help that she seems to repeat the actions at the end, making it feel like she hasn’t gone through any character development.

As I said earlier; you can tell it’s based on a short story, there’s just not enough to it to fill the runtime. Characters drop in and out to the point where a lot of them don’t seem like characters, but plot vehicles. The exception to that is Geraldine Viswanathan’s Taylor, who is a delight whenever she’s on screen. To be honest, the little we do see of side characters makes it feel like they’re probably the most interesting characters to explore, instead we only see them when they make a quick plot-relevant detail and then move on never to be seen again.

On the plus side; it is occasionally very funny. And the aforementioned sex scene is incredible in how it gets the characters over. It also has good performances throughout, and it is a story that needs to be told, but it needs to be told better. It tries to be both a tale of sexual politics whilst also being a thriller, but in its rush to be the first, it fumbles to be an effective example of the second. It has good moments, but those moments just aren’t enough to sustain the runtime. If it was a short film, this would be brilliant, in fact, I feel this could be edited down to a fantastic 15 minutes, two hours? It just doesn’t have enough to sustain that. It does make you aware of the thought processes that women go through when dealing with men, so in a way, you can say that it’s effective. It’s just not good to watch.

Saw X (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: Bullshit medical charlatans con cancer patients out of their life savings, one of whom is the Jigsaw killer, smart move.

I have a complicated history with the Saw franchise (see my review for Spiral), I have all of them on Blu-ray except for Jigsaw which I have on DVD, I’ve seen 4 of them at the cinema, and I even liveblogged the (at the time) complete franchise a few years ago for Halloween. Yet if you were to ask me what my favourite 50 horror films are, outside of possibly the first one I don’t think any of them would feature. If I was to mention some of my least favourite moments in cinema, and another list of my favourite moments, the Saw franchise would feature a lot more in the first list than the second. It’s a franchise of wasted potential. I’ve insulted them a lot, but if I was asked to write and make a new film in any horror franchise, it would definitely be a Saw one.

Saw X (pronounced how a person from Boston would say “socks”) is probably the best Saw film yet. By which I don’t mean the most enjoyable, or with the best deaths/motives etc. I mean it’s the one that feels the most mature. When it comes to horror movies, people tend to use “mature” as a shortcut for “lots of blood, swearing, and nudity”, but to me, true maturity is in restraint (not restraints, that’s a different kind of mature content). It’s in trusting that the audience is with you, so you don’t need to resort to constant deaths and shock. I know a lot of people watch this specifically for the traps, but for people who are willing to wait and show a little patience, it’s the most rewarding one yet.

Saw X is also helped by how independent it is from the other entries in the franchise. Amanda Young being in it does mean that if you’ve watched the first three then you’d have a better understanding, but I don’t think it’s essential. It provides you with the very basic necessary details so even newcomers won’t be lost. The post-credits scene probably does require some background knowledge, but in a post-credits that’s allowed.

Now onto the bad; the ending is somewhat underwhelming in terms of catharsis. Saw has never decided to not take an opportunity to be cruel to those it feels deserve it (and in the case of Joyce in Saw 3D, those who don’t deserve it), so the fact that we are given one of the most despicable humans in cinema history should mean we are given a hugely satisfying scene, but it never really comes. If anybody deserves to be put through hell it’s some of the characters in this, but we’re denied it for some reason.

It’s also not helped by how utterly pointless it feels. There’s a moment where John Kramers’s life is in danger, yet we’ve seen him die in another film so we know he survives. This entry doesn’t add to the mythos, doesn’t change anything we thought was true etc. It just exists, like it was written without the knowledge of what’s to come. It feels like it’s just plugging in gaps which weren’t there to begin with. It feels more like a cheap comic book that would be released between movies than an actual movie which is a shame. It also has the same problem most of these have had; it feels very insular. You don’t get the feeling that this is a world in the grips of a mysterious serial killer. There are almost no indication that Jigsaw is being hunted by the police, no moments where he has to escape possible prosecution etc.

Really, this whole franchise was f*cked by the decision to kill John Kramer so decisively in the third film, it’s been spinning its wheels since then and it knows it. This brings me to my next point; they don’t really refer to him as Jigsaw that much in this. They do refer to him as Kramer quite a lot, and as someone who has been watching a lot of Seinfeld lately, it’s difficult to get past.