Tag: Wolf

A Kind Of Kidnapping (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: A young, broke couple kidnap a sleazy politician who decides he can spin the story to his advantage.

I wanted to like this, I really did. If you can, check out the absolutely SUBLIME television series How Not To Live Your Life. From that, it’s clear that Dan Clark has a lot of talent, not just for the absurd, but also for finding humanity, with an almost Seinfeldien level of talent for making you root for characters who by all rights you should dislike. Plus, I love a good political satire, and this looked like it might be that. Alas, it was not to be.

I’ll start with the positive, Dan Clark is a hell of a director. He could have gotten away with this being low-budget and grim, but it’s really slick and has a big-budget feel, albeit one of those big-budget films mainly played in theatres that cater to cinema snobs. The performances are all pretty solid too. Leila Hoffman isn’t in it for long but shines when she is in it. Patrick Baladi was born for this kind of role, he has Thick Of It face. He’s perfect to play a slimy opportunistic Tory wanker.

Now onto the bad; it just feels a bit too mean-spirited. We know politicians are shits, so if the sharpest your satire gets is showing us that, it will feel a little weak. Good satire should be an explosive firebomb of inspiration, this is more like a pathetic discharge of a mouse coughing. It’s not telling us anything we don’t already know, and it doesn’t offer any glimpse of an opportunity to change anything. If anything, all this has to say is “The ruling class are shit, deal with it”. The pacing is a bit odd too. The moment where Baladi’s character doesn’t want to go because he realises it’s good for his career possibly should have come earlier. It’s the main gimmick of the film and it doesn’t occur until a third of the way through the runtime.

This wouldn’t matter if the rest of the time was well spent, if a holiday is good enough, you don’t mind the queues to get there. But the other two-thirds of the runtime feels kind of wasted. There’s not enough in there that wasn’t in the trailer.

Don’t get me wrong, this does have some cracking dialogue; my personal favourites:

“Japs Eye is not very PC, in fact, it’s pretty racist”

And, this is the only film to have “if you do that again I’ll put a bullet in your dick” as a threat.

I like the dialogue, I like the concept, I like the performances, I like the direction, but the film didn’t really do it for me. I can tell they tried though. There’s a lot you can say about this, but you can’t say it’s low effort. I’ve given negative reviews to a lot of films, but this is one of the few I’ve felt genuinely guilty about writing. That’s probably because when I shit on something like Assassin Club or Wolf, I don’t see myself in those films. They’re not the kind of scripts I would write, or the mistakes they make are ones I would never make. But this? A sweary political satire that kind of lacks focus and passion? I could do that. This feels like something I would do, so I see any issues more easily, I take them more personally out of my own personal fear of failure.

My Own Personal Hell-oween: Day Two (Wolf)

On By troubledproductionsIn My Own Personal Hell-oweenLeave a comment

Back in the day, I listed this as one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. It’s kind of become shorthand for “terrible film” in these blogs. I had hoped to have never had this darken my brain again, but needs must. But maybe I exaggerated how bad it was, maybe it’s not actually too awful and now I’m watching it with low expectations I will enjoy it, maybe even really love it. After all, I hated Supalonely back when I first heard it and now I love it more than I love myself (admittedly that’s not hard).

  • I am really hoping this film is better than I remember it being. There is a small chance that is the case.
  • “History is the truth they want you to remember. Legends are the truths they pushed too far. Myths are the truth they want you to forget”. Yup, the best way to make sure people forget something is to turn it into a myth so that everybody talks about it all the time.
  • “There is truth in all things” I KNEW my therapist was right and that everything is my fault.
  • I have never seen a person look so uncomfortable playing fetch with a dog.
  • Oh, the dog is called “boy”. Evidently the budget for this film didn’t extend to “dog namer”.
  • Come on Lee, don’t be negative, the film might still be good.
  • Oh fuck off. They cut mid-scene while a kid was about to stand up. Why? That’s an incredibly unnatural place to cut unless you’re REALLY good, and these guys aren’t good. They didn’t even check the colours are the same, it goes from a dark brown to smoked out colour. I’m not even joking, I’ll post two shots here, they happen practically next to each other.
  • That, that is unforgivable. There is no excuse. No editor who gets paid should put those two shots together and think that’s acceptable. A first year student film wouldn’t get away with that.
  • First death of the movie, the child (going by how this film named the dog, he’s probably called Child) gets killed off-screen. That was when the film lost me when I originally saw it. It seemed too obvious that it was done for lack of budget and because they lacked decent CGI.
  • Although considering how badly they fucked up a “person stands up” scene I hate to think what they’d do with CGI.
  • It’s fine though, they used sound to convey the death. Well I say death, it sounds like when my dad eats KFC.
  • Our first introduction to the main characters, one with his face mostly covered, both walking away from camera.
  • Well, they walk away from camera until they need to talk, when they need to talk they stand still because this film couldn’t do tracking shots. I remember that being an issue throughout this film, the static camera during dialogue scenes.
  • Oh, we have slight camera movement. Slight. Still not slight enough to not realise how unsteady it is though.
  • A standard dialogue scene, this should be impossible to be bad. It’s just people talking while standing still, how can that be messed up?
  • Oh, that’s how. These are characters we haven’t met yet, and yet when they start talking, the camera is never on them. It always cuts to them halfway through their line. It’s like they were filming it live and the guy on the board had slow reactions. They also randomly cut to other people for about a second.
  • “it feels strange being this far away from the wall” The one that Mexico will pay for?
  • Why does that guy look like he has spunk on the front of his armour?
  • “keep your eyes open” oh thanks for that, I was just going to walk around carrying this big spear not looking where I’m going.
  • Lens flare keeps appearing and disappearing mid-shot. JJ Abrams would have an anger wank.
  • “We’ll rest here”. Erm, you’ve been standing still, sitting down and eating in that spot for the last 5 minutes. Is that not resting?
  • “we don’t want the gods to curse us with snow” As someone who is currently watching this film, I know all about curses.
  • “it’s not the fighting I fear, it’s the unexpected” how about unexpected fighting?
  • I don’t remember any of these characters names so I’m just going to refer to who they look like poundland versions of: Zack Gibson, Generic bald man, Michael Douglas, Karen Taylor, Nick Helm.
  • They get attacked by the natives. Oh no, the invading army is being attacked by the people they are there to kill, this is such a horrible thing to happen.
  • Phew, the invaders one, massacring the people who call this country home. Yay?
  • Drone shot. That’s almost film-making there.
  • Oh, and now we have bad ADR.
  • “I am Germanic, not Pict” “you seem to know a lot about Picts for someone who’s not one”. Because nothing is a better sign of guilt than “knowing something”.
  • “footprints of animals, wolves, men” Manbearwolf!
  • “you can’t trust a Germanic”. Just say German. You’re speaking in modern English, you don’t care that much about anachronisms.
  • Also, that’s racist.
  • “when you look at me, what do you see?” Well I can’t get past that eye make-up to be honest.
  • “but when we draw swords” You’re supposed to be soldiers, why are you sitting around drawing pretty pictures with crayons? This is why the Roman empire failed.
  • A shaky cam shot of the fucking moon. Could you not get a tripod for that? Seriously.
  • “why would it tear them apart like that?” YOU’RE TEARING ME APART LISA!
  • “looks like the claws of a wolf” “what wolf walks on two legs?” Wolf from Gladiators?
  • “it was so fast and horrible” title of my sex tape.
  • “we take this down for the glory of Rome, for our glory”. Oh honey, you ain’t got no glory if you’re in this film.
  • Battle-trained soldiers there standing in that well-known formation of “all facing in the same direction, with the shields being held to the side, leaving your stomach exposed”.
  • This is such an exciting scene, people standing around, doing nothing.
  • “hunting is our speciality” mine’s risotto. Some may argue it’s less useful, but out of me and every Roman soldier, I’m the one with a high score on Pac-Man.
  • Wooo we get to see The Orb. Or in technical terms “stand in a circle”, via flashback. I mean, there was a battle scene earlier that you could have demonstrated it in. And it would have been much more natural than “remember when we used The Orb before and it saved us?” like some lame clip show episode.
  • They’ve been standing in the dark now for at least 10 minutes. It’s a sub-90 minute film. I’ll leave it up to you to ascertain whether I thought that was a good use of time.
  • The “werewolves” move too fast to be seen, only made clear by camera swooshes that are too quick for any of those trained soldiers to see them. Except for when we actually see them, when they’re just running back and forth like drunk students.
  • There is no way they are fast enough to drag someone away without you being able to slice at them.
  • Phew, they’ve stopped standing around in the dark. They’re now walking in the dark.
  • “A little bit of snow and that thing is still out there”. Wouldn’t snow on the ground make it easier to track something?
  • It’s now daylight, they’re still standing around. Have they been like that all night?
  • Her make-up is doing a stunning job of staying streak-free during all this.
  • “there was more than one, I swear it”. Well, yeah. We saw three of them at the same time. Was there any doubt there was more than one?
  • “That’s not the Roman way, we offer peace first, war second”. By peace they mean “allow yourself to be ruled by us”. So it’s not really peace, just a decision on how to accept invasion. If I went up to someone and said “Give me your money or I’ll shoot you in the face”, the fact they handed over their money and I didn’t shoot them does not make it a peaceful transaction.
  • “I thought I saw something in the trees”, yeah they’re called leaves mate.
  • “if we can train them to fight for us, or unleash them on our enemy” I’d argue those two things are very similar.
  • “that thing took us all on and we barely survived” and you think you could train it? Are you an idiot?
  • “I’d say the gods are angry”. Why, have they been watching this film too?
  • Apparently being sent to Britain was basically a punishment as it was such an awful and desolate place. Thus proving that the Romans made it to Rochester.
  • “who would live here?” SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS
  • “He knows something” *five seconds pause” “I do”. Well that was worth the wait.
  • One of the women strip off and we have one of the few things worth watching this film for. No, not those, you perverts. The make up. She has scratches on her back and they look magnificently brutal and real.
  • “there is an evil in the black forest” That’s just what they tell you to keep you away from the gateau.
  • “More ramblings from the old man, should have killed him”. And how does that tie into the “we offer peace” thing?
  • “then why did you choose to be here?” “I didn’t, the council chose for me”. Bloody council, did they catch you putting the bins out on the wrong day again?
  • “this is insane” he says crying, then immediately is back to normal.
  • “What kind of a man are you?” A twat.
  • “these things move so fast” they don’t though, we’ve seen them.
  • Oh good, more standing around. This time with added spittle on beard.
  • No idea what frame rate they were using but some of these shots are jerkier than Jamaican chicken.
  • I think not-Michael Douglas died. He got separated from the group. Because that’s something a highly trained group does when they are walking slowly, lose people.
  • “he was hurt by the thing when we were in the orb” that was ages ago though wasn’t it?
  • Oh good, bourne-style shaky cam of someone standing still. Exciting!
  • “You don’t want to do this?” what’s that, watch this film? I’m well aware of that thank you.
  • That snow cleared up fucking quickly by the way. Almost fully green scenery now.
  • Wth is that accent? That could be said at almost any point during this film by the way.
  • “you have always been the better soldier” if only we saw some evidence of that. Like start in Rome, with him getting a commendation or something, then land at the English shore after hearing reports of violent attacks on the soldiers stationed there. Despite being the invading army, it nearly always feels like they’re on home turf in this film. Probably because they all have English accents.
  • They’re not werewolves, they’re just naked people. Not even hairy.
  • “they want us to turn” It’s normally bears that do that (or otters, or cubs), and usually only with consent.
  • Oh no, thingy died. He was stabbed by what’s his name.
  • Thankfully it’s near the end so I should mention the other things that have been prevalent throughout: bad performances, different background audio between two shots set in the same scene, heavy breathing.
  • The surviving Romans are all banging. Not in a sexy way.
  • We finally get our first clear shot of a werewolf. It’s a normal person, only with dirt, and bad fake teeth. And they’ve gone from “we’ve stabbed them but we can’t harm them” to three of them being killed in quick succession really easily.
  • And the bald guy is now dead. That’s all the men dead now.
  • Ohhhhh I remember how this film ends now. It turns out women can’t become werewolves so if they survive the bites they’re fine. Neat idea, never explained.
  • “we do not fight with wolves”, smart, using swords is a much smarter idea.
  • Yup I was right, the women don’t turn. This is explained off camera, because the camera is far more focused on seeing people have this explained to them than have us see the person speaking it.
  • And this ends with a knife in the head. Sadly not in mine, so I will still remember it exists.
  • The cast for this film included the director and the editor, explains a lot. Helps contribute to the “student film” feel of it, only this was not student, this was a professional film. And it fucking sucked.

I stand by my original review

2019 Film Awards (lost blog)

On By troubledproductionsIn Awards, Year round upLeave a comment

So I’ve now run out of films to review and might not be able to review any for quite a while. So to make up for it I’m going to be doing other blogs to fill in the time. This is a blog that was half-written but never posted as I realised it would be a bit weird to post a blog about the best films of 2019 in March of 2020, it felt a bit late. It felt like a shame as some of the films deserved me gushing over how brilliant they are, so now’s the time. Simple enough, I just needed to complete the half-written blog and post, easy. Well, it would have been if I didn’t delete the original like a fucking dumbass. So keep in mind a lot of this is based on films I haven’t seen for over half a year.

Most Disappointing

Killer Kate

I thought this would be fun. It looked fun, and it had a short run time, which for a film like this is usually an indicator that it will move at breakneck pace. The opening scene is a discussion between the killers, and it’s dull. The actual plot doesn’t kick off until way too far into it. Nowhere near as fun as it should be.

It Chapter Two

Far far too long, not enough Pennywise, and it had too many flashbacks of characters we knew were going to survive. It’s a shame as I genuinely love the first one, and I thought I enjoyed this. But the more distance I have from this film, the more the flaws are apparent.

Brightburn

I sent the trailer for this to someone I used to work with, that’s how much faith I had in this film. That faith was totally misguided. This film just did not work. The story was boring, it was too in debt to the Superman mythos to stand out on its own, and it wasted a brilliant premise. On the plus side I’m interested to see what happens next.

Ma

The trailer made it look better than it was. The issue is that it was building towards something we knew was happening. We were waiting for something to happen and to see how it would develop, instead what we were waiting for turned out to be the end. It would be like if Halloween only featured Michael Myers in the last 20 minutes.

Winner

Wolf

“It’s a werewolf movie set during ancient Roman times, this is going to be great”. Spoilers; it was not great. Yeah, you’re going to be seeing this film getting mentioned a lot in this blog, and there’s a reason for it.

Best Music

Wild Rose

I don’t really like country music, but I loved it in this. “Three chords and the truth” is how the character describes it, and when she sings, you believe it. I’ve watched the film once, about a year ago, and I still find myself occasionally singing the main song from it.

Childs Play

For two reasons: 1) the new version of the classic theme. 2) The Mark Hamil song that manages to be both kind of creepy, and like it comes from a kids TV show.

Us

Almost entirely because of the really good remix of I Got 5 On It. Although the use of Les Fleurs was damn near perfect.

Winner

Rocketman

It’s a shit load of Elton John songs, so of course it’s going be good. Taron Egerton is REALLY good at capturing his voice.

Best Looking

Pokemon: Detective Pikachu

This film should have more uncanny valley moments than it does. Plus the visual world-building is a sight to behold.

Rocketman

It’s not easy to do a film about Elton John. You need to make it look flamboyant without being distracting. This film manages it. It turns out Dexter Fletcher is really good at this, genuinely wouldn’t have guessed.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

Yes, I didn’t like the film, but the look was perfect. It genuinely felt like it was from a different time. The atmosphere it created was near perfect.

Joker

The world design for this was picture perfect. This is a gotham that NEEDS Batman. This isn’t a neon-dreamspace you can sell with McDonalds toys. This isn’t “avoid the bad areas”, EVERYWHERE is a bad area with a few exceptions of where the rich live.

Knives Out

Purely for the number of times I watched this film and thought “that would make a cool poster”, it also has one of my favourite closing shots of all time.

Toy Story 4

There were a few moments here where I thought “hmm, they look slightly plastic” and then realised that the characters are plastic, they’re toys. I was so taken in by the animation that I occasionally forgot that. Plus they made rain look real, which is REALLY hard to pull off in this kind of animation.

John Wick 3

The action scenes in these are usually the highlight of the year in terms of how well designed they are, this was no exception. The choreography is again great, and the world they take place in really suits it. The colours, the set design, the cinematography, all of it adds up to some superb visuals.

Us

The colour schemes, the visual foreshadowing, all of it was just so damn magnificent.

Winner

Ad Astra

Normally “a good looking film” means it’s visually busy and crammed with intricate details, this is the opposite. The use of space (lol, pun) in this film is masterful. It genuinely confused me how this film didn’t do better. You watch this and you really feel his isolation. Everything seems so empty and hopeless. I love it.

Worst Looking

Hellboy

Almost entirely for the woeful CGI in one of the final scenes. I’ve genuinely seen better in PS2 games.

Wolf

The make up in one moment of this was AMAZING. They genuinely made it look like the actress had been savaged by a werewolf, the scars looked real and they looked aged. If this was just a “worst make-up” award this film wouldn’t be listed at all. But this is “worst looking” in general, so that’s make-up, visual effects, directorial choices, and editing. It’s that last one where this REALLY fails. There are scenes where it cuts to a character every time they speak, no matter how short what they say is. That line about the bad editing for Bohemian Rhapsody? It could easily be used here, except I don’t want to find an example of it, lest I accidentally watch a single second of this turgid piece of crap ever again.

Winner

Captain Marvel

No, this did not look worse than the others in this list. But I believe it’s a worthy winner because a film with a budget this big should not have CGI as ropey as this. It’s shameful how bad it was at times. It sucks but expectations to have to be taken into account for things like this. If you went to an open mic comedy night and one of the comedians there stumbled over their words and had to rely on notes, you’d still find them funny. If, however, you paid through the nose for a gig at Wembley Stadium and the comedian did that, you’d consider it money wasted. That’s why even though it’s not the worst, it “wins” the worst.

Best Performance

Rocketman: Taron Egerton

He didn’t really look like him, but his performance completely encapsulated the character.

Wild Rose: Jessie Buckley

The whole film is anchored on her performance, and she carries it expertly. It helps that she has a good singing voice, but her non-singing vocal performance is also to be commended. Her emotions and worries are there for us all to see, as is the characters attempts to hide them.

Joker: Joaquin Phoenix

What can I say about this performance that hasn’t been said already? Absolutely nothing considering how much the awards wanked over it. There’s a reason for it though; his performance is utterly compelling.

IT Chapter Two: Bill Hader

I was genuinely surprised by how great his performance is in this. He’s sharing the screen with Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, and Bill Skarsgard. His performance outshines all of them. It is mostly comedic but the emotion he gives it really elevates it.

Winner

Us: Lupita Nyong’o

Everyone in this plays their dual roles perfectly, but Lupita carries it off best (with Winston Duke as a very close second). It’s not just her movements and vocals that show the difference between the two, the way she holds herself is different too. You can have pictures of the two of them sitting in a chair and figure out which one is which.

Worst Performance

Wolf: Everyone

It’s hard to narrow it down to a single performance in this, they were all so bad. Such a talented cast too, starring the writer/director, the editor…..okay I see what they did. Even as a film student I wouldn’t have pulled that shit, I got actual actors (and paid them in cake), so there’s no excuse for a feature film aiming at cinema release to pull this shi.

Hellboy: Sasha Lane

A bad accent can make you forget everything else about a performance. Does anybody remember Dick Van Dyke’s mannerisms from Mary Poppins? Or how he carried himself? No, because they were too distracted by the terrible accent. It’s similar here, it’s distractingly bad. At times it wanders into slightly Australian via New York. It was directed by someone who’s directed a few episodes of Game Of Thrones, so he MUST have been able to recommend an actual English actor. It was being filmed in the UK, so it’s not as though “oh, well it will be easier to get an American performer”. I’m not saying you have to be English to play an English character, but if you’re not then you have to put at least some effort into convincing us you are, and she doesn’t.

Winner

Killer Kate: Alexandra Feld

No matter how good she was, it would not have saved this movie; but it might have made it slightly watchable if her performance was tolerable. The trouble is that it is so wooden I don’t even have the energy to make an immature erection joke at the word “wood”. It reminds me of me when I try to act, not believable and with zero emotion. It’s so bad I’m convinced it’s a parody. I felt kind of nervous about writing this in case it seemed like bullying. But it is SO bad. I have no idea how she passed the audition, but the fact she was married to the writer/director must have had a hand in it (but for his sake I hope he got more than a hand out of it).

Best Character

Ben Is Back: Holly Burns-Beeby (played by Julia Roberts)

Over the last few years I’ve really started to GET Julia Roberts. I think it’s because of how great she was in the supremely underrated Secret In Their Eyes and Money Monster. She’s picking really interesting characters lately, and this one is no exception. A mother who has to stand by her drug-addicted son. Her character is one borne of frustration, anger, and love. The moment where she yells at the Alzheimer-riddled doctor who was responsible for her sons’ addiction is brilliant to see and really highlights the role of prescription drugs in drug addiction.

Happy Death Day 2 U: Tree Gelbman (played by Jessica Roth)

She is a big part of why this film works. She is so…human. Even her stupid decisions are ones which you understand her reasons for making. Her growth over the two films are a sight to behold. This is the best example of that character though. Underneath all the bluster and confidence is someone who is still haunted by her mothers death. When she has to make the decision about going back to her own reality and abandoning her mum in the present multiverse, you truly feel her pain.

The Day Shall Come: Moses Al Shabaz (played by Marchant Davis)

This is heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking. You are rooting for this character throughout the film, so when the inevitable happens it just breaks you. His motivations are clear, his relationships with the other characters make sense, and his actions always make sense. Every single decision he makes is based on a weird kind of logic. This is one of the few films where I wanted a happy ending, yes it would have felt unnatural, but damn this guy deserved a break.

Good Boys: All of them

I’ve said it before and I will say it again; these characters were so smartly written. They’re in that awkward age where you start making sex jokes, but you have no idea what sex is. It’s a tricky line to walk, if you write them as too young they seem like idiots, but if you write them as too old it seems unrealistic. This strikes the perfect balance between the two and is all the better for it.

Winner

Knives Out: Marta Cabrera (Played by Ana De Armas)

Her character would be quite easy to dislike if she was badly written. Thankfully the script injects her with just enough warmth that you are rooting for her throughout the film. Her character, more than any other in this list, is helped by the other characters reactions to her. Every time one of the family members talks to her they say “I wanted you at the funeral, but other people objected”, every single one. Plus, every time they mention where she’s from they say a different country, indicating that they don’t actually pay much attention to her. It’s almost as though they don’t see her as a nurse (and certainly not as a close family friend, no matter what they say), and instead see her as “the help” for the family. This is best showcased in a scene where a character is mid-conversation with her and hands her his empty plate, as if to say “go take that out for me”. The best part about these moments? They’re easily missed. They don’t have attention drawn to them, not explicitly mentioned, no reaction shots, nothing.

I Don’t Get It

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile

I just didn’t vibe with this. Part of it may have been because I was watching it on a laptop, which is never a good way to watch a movie and always requires a film to work hard to overcome it (so far the best example of a film doing it is The Last Word). I get some people would like this, but for me it was just a bit dull. I was never invested in the story or the characters. It spent a lot of time treating the audience like they didn’t know that Ted Bundy was a serial killer, and I don’t really get why.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

It seemed like almost everybody loved this film, except for me and about 2 people I know. I just found it lacking any form of coherent structure or purpose. So much of it felt like it was just padding, like it didn’t justify it’s own existence.

Crawl

I saw quite a few good reviews for this, oddly enough praising the things I didn’t like about it; how the characters were dumb and some bits didn’t make sense. Why are these seen as good things?

Joker

Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy this movie. But for it to get THAT many Academy Award nominations? No, just no.

Winner

If Beale Street Could Talk

I wanted to like this film, it seems very important and with a story that needs to be told. I just felt it wasn’t told in an effective way. For two reasons: the narration and the length. Some scenes had a natural ending point, and then decided to continue on for a few minutes long. The narration didn’t really add anything a lot of the time and it felt like it assumed the audience were dumb.

Best Scene

Alita: Rollerball

The rest of the film was nice, but the way these scenes were set up…I loved it. Was so well done, and you could easily follow the action because of how well directed it was.

Avengers: On Your Left

Yes this film was all over the place, yes it closed off many other potential films which would have been interesting. But that moment, where everyone we love from the franchise starts making their return? Very satisfying.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood: Leonardo DiCaprio Acting

Okay that’s not exactly what happens. But there’s a moment in this film where DiCaprio’s character forgets his lines. But then gives a superb performance motivated by his own fear. It’s an incredibly powerful moment full of nuance and unsaid character motivations.

Spiderman Far From Home: Post-Credits

The scene which changed the arc going forward, and is without a doubt one of the most important post-credits scenes in the MCU. Not only is JK Simmons in this franchise, but Peter Parker’s identity has been revealed. A great double whammy and a genuine shock.

Us: reveal

When you realise what’s actually happening, and how widespread it is. I distinctly remember thinking “you magnificent bastard”. It was set up SO well and was an incredibly satisfying reveal.

Winner

Knives Out: Ending

Truth is, there are so many perfect moments in this that it’s hard to pick just one. If I had to narrow it down to one then it would be this bit. The first reveal is incredibly satisfying and goes against all your expectations, but the ending for this is sooo well done. The genuine reveal leading up to it is superbly written, and the closing shot might just be one of the most simplistically brilliant that I’ve ever seen.

Worst Scene

Childs Play: the ending

Okay, not the very end. But once everyone was locked in the toy store the carnage felt incredibly subdued, it should have been bigger. It felt like the whole film was building to this scene and it felt really neutered.

Stuber/Good Boys: fight scenes

I’m counting these as one because they do the same thing, and it has the same effect on both films. They’re fight scenes which just break up the momentum of the film, not only that but there are things done in the film which would kill someone if they actually happened. So when they’re just shaken off in this it reminds you that you’re watching a film.

I Love My Mum – Fake Cancer

Right near the end the mother character admits that she faked having cancer because she didn’t want her son to leave. Now already she was unlikeable, but that pushed her into being hateable and ruined any dynamic the two of them had.

Escape Room – The Opening

There were a lot of options from this film. I was tempted to go with the cliche “rich people are placing bets” ending. Instead, I went with this because it showed a character alive, then spent 80% of the film catching up to that moment, so any scenes where that character nearly died were devoid of any tension.

Winner

The Wolf – The Opening

5 seconds. That’s all it took for me to go from “this film is going to be amazing” to “this will be a steaming pile of shit won’t it?”. That’s a record (Hellboy came close with the narration though). Too much happened offscreen, the acting was bad, and the editing was woeful. Kind of like the film itself tbh.

Most Awwww-ful

Fishermans Friends

This is your typical British film, which means it’s incredibly heartwarming. Yes, you’ve seen it before, but it knows the best way to engage emotionally with you, and you’ll have to have a heart of stone to not feel affected by it.

Ben Is Back

This has a different kind of beauty, the beauty of love that a family has for each other. A love that involves you hating each other occasionally when they deserve it. But this means that when the sweet moments do hit, they hit a lot harder than they would otherwise.

Good Boys

This film is incredibly sweet in a way I didn’t expect. It really showcases that awkward age where you’re not mature enough to be a teen, but you’re not a kid. It’s a weird time in life and it’s refreshing to see a film approach it so honestly whilst talking about male friendships during that stage in life.

Stan And Ollie

A tale of friendship, of loss, and of age. It’s helped by the performances, but the film, in general, is just so touching that you’d have to have a heart of stone not to be affected. This was one of the first films I saw in 2019, so it set a kind of high bar for the rest of the year.

Winner

Wild Rose

This film shows the power of music, how it can change peoples lives and how much of themselves people put into their art. incredibly powerful and a real surprise highlight of the year.

Most Disgusting

Childs Play

Yes it could have gone further, but there were quite a lot of moments in this which did make me wince. Plus the scene where the guy in the costume sprayed blood all over a group of kids was disgustingly brilliant

Greta

For one moment and one moment only; someone’s finger being chopped off with a cookie cutter. Came out of nowhere and you REALLY felt it.

IT: Chapter 2

This film had many flaws. But it was visually well done, and some of the gore was incredible. This is mainly here for one other moment: the homophobic beating at the start. It’s…..it’s ugly.

If Beale Street Could Talk

The racism inherent in the American law system is disgusting, and this film highlights it incredibly well. To the point where you yourself feel beaten and trapped by the end of the film.

Winner

The Day Shall Come

The film alone is depressing, but when you read up on it and read the cases it’s based on, it becomes even more so. This is a film which should light a revolutionary fire underneath you, but because everything is so bleak and depressing at the end it just makes you wonder what’s the point; the system will win and will rig the game to keep certain people down, and it’s all legal. We’re fucked as a species.

Worst Film

Hellboy

This film lost me in the opening scene. It was trying so damn hard to be mature that it came off as childish. I’d have loved this if I was a 14-year-old boy, but when I was 14 I also thought that one day I’d be happy, so I was fucking idiot back then. It also features some of the most embarrassing CGI I’ve ever seen.

Dark Phoenix

“surely this can’t be as bad as everybody says?” It can, and don’t call me Shirley (I make the most original jokes). A film so bad it taints the X-Men franchise (and this was a franchise that survived Last Stand and Origins). I think that’s the worst thing about it, it takes all the goodwill built up by Logan and flushes it down the toilet, and then blocks the toilet and makes you unblock it by hand, leaving you holding shit and shit-water and wondering what the point is.

Songbird

I can’t remember the plot of this film, and I don’t think the people who made it can either. It was apparently mostly improvised, and it shows. The scenes don’t move forward, don’t serve the overarching narrative, it was like watching someone’s holiday videos.

Killer Kate

I’ve said a lot of bad things about this movie, and will continue to say more, and for a good reason; it’s awful. It starts off with a way-too-long scene of the killers just sitting around talking in a manner which isn’t consistent with their later characterisation (and we don’t see them again until the 40 minute mark. We then cut to boring family drama for about 30 minutes before the horror starts. It’s not even good family drama which lets us enjoy the characters, so many of the scenes are not needed; I would love the makers of this film to explain the purpose of a 2-minute scene where characters flip through television channels. The entire film is full of moments like that, scenes which don’t advance the plot, aren’t scary, aren’t funny, and don’t tell us anything about the characters. Essentially, they’re worthless

Winner

Wolf

Obviously, this was going to win. I maintain this will remain the worst film I ever see at the cinema in my entire life. This wouldn’t even get a passing grade at a film school. I saw it for free and still want my money back. The acting, the script, the fact that they couldn’t afford tracks so every time that characters spoke they had to stand completely still even when they were supposed to be moving quickly to escape something. I forgive every bad word I’ve said about any film, because this film is the one that truly deserves my vitriol.

Best Film

Rocketman

Academy Award nominations for Bohemian Rhapsody: 5. Academy Award nominations for this: 1. That should not be the case. Everything Bohemian Rhapsody did well, this did better. It suited the artist better, it had a more unique visual look, it was more honest about the subject etc. Whilst we’re on the subject, how in the blue holy hell fuck did Bohemian Rhapsody win “best editing”. Look at it! That scene’s got so many cuts it’s being used to execute people in China. The Bohemian Rhapsody finale was about the performance, the finale of this was more focused on the personal. You learn a lot more about Elton John through this than you ever did about Mercury in the Bo-Ho. Also, it reminded me of how many great songs Elton John has done.

Toy Story 4

I can’t think of another franchise which has maintained this high level of quality four movies in. By this point of a franchise, the quality has got so bad that the next movie is a soft reboot. This continues the high benchmark that the first three have set. I’ve been nervous about the quality of these films every single time I’ve been to watch one, and every time I’ve been shown to be a fool (I’m used to that though). Normally Toy Story films wait until near the end to hit you with emotions, this goes the Up method of teabagging you with its emotional balls right off the bat.

Us

Films like this just highlight how stupid the Academy are for ignoring horror films so much. This film is a visual and thematic masterpiece. Is it as good as Get Out? It’s hard to tell, this had higher expectations thrust upon it because of Get Out, and the fact that it managed to not be hated despite that points to how strong a film this is.

Winner

Knives Out

I think this was the last film I saw of the year, and it seemed like 2019 saved the best for last. Warning, you will see a lot of mentions for this film in this blog. So if you didn’t like it, prepare for a lecture on why whilst opinions are subjective and as such can’t be right or wrong, yours is still wrong. A near perfect film that I REALLY struggled to find negatives with. Every so often I remember a moment from this film and think ‘damn that was impressive”

2019 In Film Day 1 (The Bad)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

This year was a bad year for film. I’m not sure if it was that there were more bad films, or more of the films I saw were bad, or even whether its just the ones that were bad were REALLY bad. I’d say there are at least three films here which are contenders for the worst I’ve ever seen. Normally for these, there are a few controversial choices. For this I’m confident there are none. There are zero which I feel bad about, zero that I feel hesitant about saying.

Black Christmas

I have not seen the original, or the first remake. As such I have no idea whether it’s a good remake or not. I do know it’s a bad film. The story is realistic for the first half and then goes supernatural in the final section. The universe within the film hasn’t set this up as being possible so it’s a bit out of left field (whilst also surprisingly being really predictable, I guessed it in the opening title card).

Original review here

+It made me think of this song

-It’s really white. We need a feminist horror movie and this isn’t it.

Bright Burn

Okay, maybe this one. The worse thing about this was the expectation. I wanted this to be really good, and this is just awful. It spends so much time in the shadow of Superman, that it never really stands out on its own merits. This is a big issue as anybody familiar with the superman mythos knows exactly what is going to happen, and it all unfolds exactly as expected, and that’s it. The entire film is just building up to a moment everybody already knows is going to happen. Because of this you’re never really lost in the film.

Original review here

+The performances are fine, and the ending teaser is brilliant.

-Doesn’t do anything fun with the unique idea it has. It’s essentially a student film idea on a large budget.

Crawl

I’ve actually seen some positive reviews of this, one of which called it one of the hidden gems of 2019. Weirdly, one of the positives they outlined, is a negative for me. They said they loved how the characters did stupid things as it made it fun, I hated it for the exact same reason. It felt like character stupidity was only there to artificially increase the run-time. It didn’t work as it’s still a short film, although I did feel every single one of the 90 minutes. I didn’t think a 90-minute action film could be so god damn tedious.

Original review here

+It all FEELS real. There are no CGI issues.

-Stupid character decisions.

Escape Room

This was deeply flawed, deeply. It’s a fine concept, but the film doesn’t suit the concept. Often with franchised horror movies, the sequels weren’t written as sequels, they were stand-alone scripts that a studio exec saw and just rewrote to fit into an existing franchise. That’s how this one feels, like a hastily written sequel made to fit into a franchise it doesn’t belong. For a stand-alone film that’s an indication of a terrible script. It’s worse than that, it’s a terrible script which wastes a great concept. A horror movie set in an escape room is a genius idea (but yeah you would struggle to differentiate it from the Saw franchise), and it’s worthy of a, at the very least, mediocre film. At this point it’s not so much even about the quality, I just wanted it to be interesting, and it didn’t manage that.

Original review here

+Good performances, especially from Nik Dodani.

-The film starts with a character trying to escape a certain room. That room doesn’t appear until near the end, so the whole time you’re watching it you know that character is safe. Plus, some of the “riddles” take WAY too long for the character to get there.

Hellboy

The creative arts has a problem with maturity. Often something is described as “mature” when really it just has tits, violence, and swearing (but never penis, never penis). Ironically this means it then comes off as immature. This film is the best example of it. It’s like a 14 year old drinking his first beer, talking about all the vegines he’s fingered until they’ve cum down their arm.

Original review here

+if you’re 13 you’ll love it

-if not it’s a piece of shit.

I Love My Mum

I can’t really say I was disappointed by this as I had low expectations. It’s a fun concept but the characters are just too annoying to carry the film. One of the main characters is incredibly easy to dislike, and it makes it hard to enjoy the film.

Original review here

+Some good lines

-Badly written characters

Killer Kate

I expected this to be fun shlock. Instead, it’s just bad. The writing is bad, the pacing is terrible, and the less said about the acting the better. It just feels low-budget. There’s not really a sense of drama or suspense to the whole thing. It’s not scary enough to be a horror, and it’s not funny enough to be a comedy. I’d barely qualify it as a film.

Original review here

+There’s a really smart piece of writing involving a pizza guy (yes, I know how porny that sounds)

-The lead performance is incredibly wooden

Red Joan

I assumed this would be interesting. I was incorrect. It wasn’t helped by the fact that Judi Dench is barely in it. Plus the characters’ motivations are muddled. She says she spied for noble motivations, but thats not what we see. From what the film shows us her motivation was lust. Not quite as noble

Original review here

+The modern day parts are great.

-But not long enough.

Songbird

This is way too improv-based. As such it doesn’t really have a structure. A lot of the scenes are just unfocused and don’t seem to have a point to them. It’s a shame as I like both people in it, but the film really needs a purpose.

Original review here

+It’s always nice to see Jessica Hynes in things

-Purposeless

The Curse Of La Llorona

I didn’t catch this at the cinema, instead watching it on a laptop at home. I’m glad I didn’t see it at the cinema as I would have been so annoyed had I taken time out of my day to walk down the cinema for this. This is a very Latin film made through a very white lens. It feels very American, like they didn’t fully understand the legend they were adapting. They’ve reduced it to a generic “thing goes woo” tale.

Original review here

+It is an interesting tale, albeit one that’s not in this film

-Incredibly generic

The Kitchen

Nowhere near as interesting as it should be. I think part of it is due to how badly written any characters except the main ones are. Characters appear only to be killed. There were times when people died and I didn’t even realise who they were until about 5 scenes later. Original review here

+Domhnall Gleeson is brilliant in it.

-The entire plot of the film, all the plotting and twists, is undone in 5 seconds.

Wolf

I’m going to get personal here. As some may know, I have a history of depression and anxiety. It’s always been there but sometimes it’s worse than others, it hit really bad in September. I was left in a state where I couldn’t really motivate myself to do anything, and it made writing really hard. I couldn’t even muster enough energy to go down cinema, and as such I missed out on a few films I wanted to see (Ready Or Not chief among them). Now I’m not saying this film is ENTIRELY to blame.

Original review here

+Great concept, and there’s one section where the make-up is amazing.

-Everything else.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Definitely the worst X-men movie (yes, even worse than Origins). The worst possible way to end the franchise. Made all the more disappointing by how good Logan was. There’s nothing specifically bad about it, all of it is. It doesn’t work in any way. Apparently the story it’s based on is quite a big deal, but it’s now had two really bad films based on it. Has it ruined it?

Original review here

+Everyone involved in it will someday cease to exist.

-The villains motivations are undeveloped.