#Belfast Movie

[billdecker]

✨ a film for every year of my life ✨ | Belfast (2021) dir. Kenneth Branagh

I wouldn’t worry about it, the Irish were born for leaving. Otherwise the rest of the world would have no pubs. Just needs half of us to stay so that the other half can get sentimental about the ones that went. All the Irish need to survive is a phone, a Guinness, and a sheet music to Danny Boy.

#belfast #belfast 2021 #belfast movie #jamie dornan #catriona balfe #jude hill #kenneth branagh #filmgifs #moviegifs #filmedit #movieedit #perioddramaedit #periodramagifs #perioddramagif #i made a thing #mine: films #bdyearfilms #dailyflicks

[brian-in-finance]

Video 📹 from Instagram

Remember… growing up in Ireland, our town did not have a movie theatre so we had to travel. — Caitríona Balfe

“that film” was Belfast.

#Tait rhymes with hat #Good times #Belfast Movie #British Academy of Film and Television Arts #BAFTA #75th #EE British Academy Film Awards #EE BAFTAs #Host #Rebel Wilson #Royal Albert Hall #13 March 2022 #London #Campaign to Shorten Awards Season #Belfast #Instagram #My screenrecording

[ratleyland]

For the ones who stayed

For the ones who left

And for all the ones who were lost.

I seriously recommend this movie.

#belfast #Belfast movie #coming of age movies #historical movies #drama movies #black and white movies #jamie dornan #caitriona balfe #ciaran hinds #judy dench #colin morgan #lara mcdonnell #jude hill #netflix #netflix and chill #movie #movies #movie nerd #movie night #movie review #movie poster

[justframes]

Belfast, 2021 Dir.  Kenneth Branagh https://www.reviumexico.com/

#belfast #Kenneth Branagh #jamie dornan #Caitríona Balfe #Jude Hill #Judi Dench #Ciarán Hinds #2021 #belfast movie #cinema #2021 movies

[grigori77]

2022 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 2)

20.  THE WOMAN KING – While Wakanda Forever was making a bit of a pig’s ear of things, this action-packed historical epic from The Old Guard director Gina Prince-Blythewood tackled broadly similar material and pulled it off without a hitch.  I’ve been fascinated with the intriguing story of the Dahomey Amazons for a while now, even before I got into Black Panther and the Dora Milaje they inspired through the MCU, so when I heard there was gonna be a movie about them I got REALLY excited, so I was already pre-programmed to love this movie. Y’know what I’m like around strong woman … anyway, the story here is of the Agojie, the all-female warrior elite of the West African sovereign nation of Dahomey, circa 1823, when king Ghezo (John Boyega), new to the throne and determined to bring his people out from under the oppressive shadow of the slave trade, begins to clash with their aggressive neighbours and the Portuguese slavers who stoke the flames of war in order to grease the shameful wheels of their business.  Boyega is, as ever, a noble and charismatic presence in the cast, but OF COURSE this film is dominated by the Amazons themselves – Viola Davis, it turns out, was BORN to play the role of Agojie General Nanisca, the army’s commanding leader, who’s forced to confront a troubling ghost from her well-buried past in the form of a new recruit, Nawi (The Underground Railroad’s Thuso Mbeda, a fiery and intense focus for the story’s driving narrative), a wilful young girl who dreams of becoming a mighty warrior rather than facing a life of drudgery in an ill-made marriage match; Captain Marvel and No Time To Die’s Lashana Lynch, meanwhile, essentially STEALS THE FILM from everybody else as genuine force-of-nature Izogie, a badass veteran fighter whose irreverence is matched only by her ferocity, and Sheila Atim (also from The underground Railroad) brings focus and stately grace to proceedings as Amenza, Nanisca’s close friend and trusted confidante. They’re a fierce and intimidating lot, raising merry hell in a series of explosively blood-soaked set pieces that stir the blood and whiten the knuckles, while the screenplay from Dana Stevens (Life Or Something Like It, The Nightingale) wears its standard historical adventure tropes on its sleeve, turning what could have become tired, rote cliches in the hands of a lesser writer into comforting strengths for all their familiarity.  Certainly Prince-Blythewood is on fine form here, clearly having as much fun crafting a stirring epic actioner as she did with her Netflix-based breakthrough, further cementing her status as an emerging blockbuster director of genuine promise.  I look forward to seeing what else she’ll deliver when the incoming sequel to The Old Guard arrives …

19.  THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH – this adaptation of one of my very favourite William Shakespeare plays is a particularly notable milestone in cinematic history, because for the very first time, writer-director Joel Coen has made a feature film without his ubiquitous filmmaker brother Ethan having anything to do with the project.  That being said, Joel’s always been such a dominant force on the DIRECTING side of the Coen Brother’s output that, if you didn’t know this, you’d never know Ethan was absent on this one, because it’s still EVERY INCH a Coen film. It’s also Denzel Washington’s first time working for either Brother, but he’s SO magnificent as one of the greatest fictional villains OF ALL TIME that you won’t have any idea WHY they never worked together before.  He’s absolutely MESMERISING as Macbeth, the doom-courting Thane of Cawdor, who decides to murder his way to the throne of Medieval Scotland after receiving a very tempting prophecy from a trio of creepy-ass witches right after a decisive battle sees him get one hell of a royal promotion – Washington sizzles and sears in every scene, whether he’s smouldering with pregnant understated menace or exploding with un-righteous fury as Macbeth is haunted by gruesome ghosts or egged on by his scheming, ambitious wife.  Coen-regular Frances McDormand matches him in every scene as the DEFINITIVE Lady Macbeth, particularly as she crumbles spectacularly once the guilt of what they’ve done starts to weigh her down; Brendan Gleeson is typically grand yet cuddly as ineffectual ill-fated King Duncan, while Harry Potter star Harry Melling continues to prove that he's grown up into a truly DYNAMITE star-in-the-making as his untested but prematurely put-upon son Malcolm, The Boys’ Alex Hassell is obsequious but complex as duplicitous young nobleman Ross, and Straight Outta Compton’s Corey Hawkins makes for a suitably strapping and dynamic Macduff (ALWAYS my favourite character in the play and EVERY adaptation).  Joel Coen has once again dropped a blinder on us, solo-effort or not, making Sakespeare’s text breathe in fresh and interesting ways while he weaves a beautifully bleak and haunting visual spell, unleashing compositions on us that recall the subtly unsettling weird mundanity of American Gothic art or the surrealism of German expressionist cinema, especially in the film’s very unusual interpretation of the supernatural, as well as framing the story’s bloody and decidedly non-glamorous violence with an almost clinical detachment which perfectly complements the gorgeously stylised world he’s built, all of it topped off with an unsettlingly lowkey atmospheric score from regular Coen collaborator Carter Burwell.  Thoroughly deserving all the immense acclaim it’s had heaped upon it, this definitely proved to be one of the year’s early surprises and one of its most downright exquisite works of art.  Most important of all, though, Joel’s taken what’s always been a definitive Shakespearean villain and turned him into one of the all-time GREAT Coen protagonists ...

18.  DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS – Okay, maybe I am being A LITTLE hard on this year’s MCU offerings, I’ll admit this one IS pretty great.  It’s not perfect by any stretch, but there’s no denying that it’s a PROUD example of its breed, and if I’m honest in some ways it’s certainly better than its titular character’s FIRST feature in the franchise canon.  Ultimately a HUGE reason for this undeniable success is the triumphant return to the Marvel stable of Spider-Man’s original big screen shepherd, Sam Raimi, who MAGNIFICENTLY makes up for the shortcomings of his frustratingly muddled and underwhelming third entry for the Web-Headed-Wall-Crawler with this far more solid effort.  Sure, it has its flaws and once again there are points where it’s clearly trying to do too much, but this time round Raimi manages to rein in the excess JUST ENOUGH to keep things consistent and coherent throughout, and the end result is one of the MCU’s darkest films to date.  2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home saw Benedict Cumberbatch’s former Sorcerer Supreme tackle the Multiverse for the first time, and now he’s got his hands full dealing with the aftermath as the emergence of ‘Verse-hopping teen America Chavez (The Baby-Sitters’ Club’s Xochitl Gomez), a young superhero with the ability to “punch” through dimensional walls sets all his hard-earned efforts to repair the damage spinning into chaos.  America’s been targeted by the Scarlet Witch herself, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), who wants to use her powers to tear through the walls between worlds so she can be reunited with her “lost” children after the tragic conclusion of Wandavision, but Strange takes issue with her methods, foreseeing nothing but darkness and ruin across the Multiverse should she be allowed to pursue her insane plan, which sets them at loggerheads with the fate of all existence in the balance.  Raimi’s presence in the director’s chair in lieu of original Doctor Strange helmer Scott Derrickson makes sense when you realise this is the MCU’s first true, full-blooded HORROR MOVIE, Marvel wisely bringing one of the greatest directors in the genre’s history onboard to usher in a pervading atmosphere of pregnant dread, chilling suspense and jolting terror to many of the set-pieces while one-time Avenger Maximoff has been ingeniously recast in the mould of a genuine horror movie MONSTER, frequently triggering some of the film’s most ruthlessly effective jump-scares.  As a result, while this movie does (just) pull its punches enough for its PG-13 rating, it’s DEFINITELY NOT one for the kids, and while it’s certainly got plenty of the ubiquitous MCU heart, spectacle and winning sense of humour, this is sometimes pretty dark, hard-hitting stuff.  (A good yardstick for you – remember that What If? Marvel Zombies episode?  It's very much like THAT.)  Cumberbatch is once again on TOP FORM as Strange, treading an admirably fine line between hero and prick as the erstwhile Master of the Mystic Arts navigates the murky waters between what’s right for the greater good and what he knows in his heart should REALLY be done, while Gomez is a phenomenal find for Kevin Feige and the other MCU bigshots, emotive, effervescent and often downright lovable as a simple teenage girl trapped by her unavoidable circumstances in the eye of a veritable hurricane of fate, and it’s wonderful to see Rachel McAdams return in more than one form as Strange’s one-that-got-away, Dr Christine Palmer, who brings an important grounding element to her scenes as the one entirely human anchor for the audience to experience all this craziness through, as well as the ever-reliable Benedict Wong as, ahem, Wong, once librarian at Kamar-Taj but now the CURRENT Sorcerer Supreme (because Strange got Blipped for five years), who’s just permanently done with all his shit, and always down to remind him not to be such a PRAT; there’s also a phenomenal who’s-who of supporting turns and cameos from new and returning faces I’d be painfully remiss in spoiling for anyone who wants to experience some of the Multiverse’s ingenious twists and turns, although I can say that’s it’s one of the film’s biggest momentary joys that Raimi even found time to get his old mate Bruce Campbell a fun little role in this too.  The real runaway star of the film, however, is Elizabeth Olsen, who does a beautiful job of taking a heroic mainstay in the narrative of the MCU and, through some VERY clever screenwriting and character development, twisting her into something dark, dangerous, sometimes genuinely terrifying and ultimately heartbreakingly tragic in her paradoxical sympathy (I swear, your heart breaks for Wanda even when she’s scaring the wits out of you).  Sure, at times this is glaring by-the-numbers MCU and there are times when it doesn’t quite work, but there are also moments of downright GENIUS on offer here, from some elaborately inventive action sequences (a scene involving music as a weapon is beautifully conceived), while the skill of everyone involved is certainly great enough to keep things on the right track and paper over the cracks when they DO appear.  Certainly Raimi’s firing on all cylinders here, producing what’s most definitely his best film since the heady days of Spider-Man 2, and it certainly does an admirable job of establishing the Multiverse in the MCU in the interests of opening the franchise up to much wider scope in the interests of moving forward into its future.  Maybe bringing him on again for another entry somewhere down the line might be a smart move for Feige and the boys if THESE are the kind of results he can deliver …

17.  HELLRAISER – I’ll admit, when I first heard they were making a new soft reboot movie adaptation of Clive Barker’s classic cosmic horror novella The Hellbound Heart, which of course spawned a much beloved cinematic franchise (even though it ultimately went off the rails after the third instalment, albeit with a few decent blips in the interim), I was deeply sceptical.  Then I heard that it was going to be directed by David Bruckner, who did such a phenomenal job with the spectacularly creepy horror flick The Ritual, and I started breathing a little easier.  Then I heard about some of the casting choices, and it sounded like they were definitely heading in the right direction … and then I saw the trailer, and THAT had me frothing in my excitement.  Needless to say when it finally arrived I POUNCED, and it did not disappoint me in the slightest, as you can see. XD  Thankfully this has followed the smart move of taking things RIGHT BACK to the start, although this time round they’re trying things a little different, introducing a new, richer narrative take that expands on the established mythology while also carving a fresh path for the future.  That being said, the classic ingredients are still present and correct – the lethal puzzle box, the Faustian pact, the Cenobites, it’s all there, and all handled exquisitely.  Odessa A’zion (Fam, Grand Army) makes for a plucky and determined but also compellingly vulnerable lead as Riley, a recovering drug addict who stumbles upon the cursed box after one bad night drives her to do something really stupid, but then things go from bad to worse when the device is triggered, the Cenobites come calling and her brother Matt (13 Reasons Why’s Brandon Flynn) is taken. Now she must solve the mystery behind the box’s ever-evolving puzzle in an increasingly desperate bid to find her brother and save her soul from unknowable, nightmarish torments, tumbling headfirst down a dark rabbit hole of twisted conspiracy and demonic vice spearheaded by monstrous nihilistic playboy Roland Voight (Goran Visnjic).  Your heart genuinely hurts for A’zion as she goes through hell, but she’s got some impressive steel in her when things get hard, while there’s interesting supporting turns from Adam Faison as Matt’s sweet, straight-laced boyfriend Colin and Drew Starkey (Love, Simon and The Hate U Give) as Riley’s twitchy enabling lover Trevor; Visnjic, meanwhile, brings his inherent edgy dark side to the fore as a suitably despicable, entitled villain, and the Cenobites are a spectacularly nightmarish bunch, especially Sense8’s wondrous Jamie Clayton, who brings us an intriguing and strangely sensuous new take on fan-favourite Pinhead.  The horror elements are, interestingly, somewhat stripped back throughout much of the film, Bruckner again clearly preferring to value atmospherics and plot-based intrigue over gruesome shocks and cheap jumpscares as we follow Riley while she delves into a suitably labyrinthine mystery, although when the film DOES decide to get scary it sure don’t pull its punches, delivering some truly twisted moments that are sure to please the hardcore faithful.  Gods know I was impressed throughout – no only is this a PHENOMENAL step back in the right direction for a franchise that’s been flagging for far too long, but it’s also a glorious tribute to the undeniable horror master who birthed the original.  Clive deserves to be proud, from the looks of this his baby is in very safe hands indeed.

16.  BULLET TRAIN – The award for the year’s most spectacularly OTT blockbuster went to the latest magnificently bonkers darkly comic action-packed thrill-ride from hot shit stuntman-turned-director David Leitch (the first John Wick, Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, Hobbs & Shaw), which has a title which tells you pretty much all you really NEED to know about this going in.  Convinced? Then just go and WATCH IT, you won’t be disappointed, and there are plenty of neat little twists and turns in this that mean this is best watched going in good and cold (ESPECIALLY if you haven’t seen any of the trailers yet).  Still with us?  Well all right then … adapting Japanese author Kōtarō Isaka’s popular black comedy novel Maria Beetle, it follows a disparate collection of contract killers and a professional thief onboard a speeding Japanese bullet train who are brought into frequent violent collision by a series of bizarre events and the deadly machinations of a brutal legendary crime boss known as The White Death.  Brad Pitt is already well-established as a bankable action hero who can easily pull off the physical requirements of his leading man role here, but once again he shows us that what he TRULY excels at is COMEDY, winning us over with brilliant hangdog exasperation as Ladybug, the thief in question who’s long suffered from BIBLICAL levels of bad luck, hired to go onboard purely to steal a briefcase full of money, only to find his personal curse keeps throwing him into increasingly crazy confrontations while he’s desperate to just GET OFF THE TRAIN and deliver his ill-gotten cargo; Kick-Ass’ Aaron Taylor Johnson and Atlanta’s Brian Tyree Henry, meanwhile, are an unapologetically chaotic pair as Tangerine and Lemon, “twin” British hitmen who’ve been charged with rescuing The White Death’s son (Percy Jackson’s Logan Lerman) from kidnappers and returning him to his father, although their constant bickering quickly lands them in much deeper shit once Ladybug’s stolen the case-full of ransom money they liberated while they were at it; then there’s the Father (Snake Eyes’ Andrew Koji, hard-bitten and magnificently vulnerable throughout), who boards the train with the intention of killing the person responsible for putting his young son in a coma, only to fall foul of the devilish machinations of The Prince (The Kissing Booth’s Joey King, manipulative and frequently downright CHILLING in her sociopathic Machiavellian brilliance), a mysterious young woman plotting something truly TERRIBLE when the train reaches its destination; and finally there are excellent supporting turns from the likes of Deadpool 2’s Zazie Beetz, Michael Shannon, Sandra Bullock (wonderful as Ladybug’s much put-upon handler Maria) and the legendary Hiroyuki Sanada in a variety of rich and meaty roles I really couldn’t begin to get into because of, y’know, SPOILERS … needless to say Leitch and his crew are on comfortably firm ground to bring more of their patented overblown mayhem to bear in a series of explosive and frequently batshit mental set-pieces that also play beautifully into the film’s jet-black sense of humour – this is a story that SHOULD NOT be taken seriously for a second, and the hit-rate for the substantial procession of quickfire gags, skits and ingenious call-backs and references is one of the highest I’ve ever seen in an action comedy.  The end result is a work of pure mad genius, and despite the critical detractions (and somewhat surprising accusations of whitewashing given the author himself gave the adaptation his full blessing) this is about as close to perfect as an action movie can get, a precision-crafted masterpiece you need to pay close attention to since there’s so much going on and it’s all so intricately important because every brilliant little detail ALWAYS pays off in the end. This is BY FAR the most fun I had at the cinema all summer, some of the most fun I had with a movie ALL YEAR even, and I can’t recommend it enough.

15.  DC LEAGUE OF SUPER PETS – My animated favourite of the summer is a pretty interesting beast (yeah, I know, cute choice of words in this context, ha ha ha, etc).  I’m sure it was originally conceived as an amusing little distraction for DC Universe fans while their favourite properties’ futures are in such great upheaval on the big screen, but ultimately I think this is actually the one DC flick I’ve come across that most perfectly GETS the overblown hilarity at the centre of the whole property.  Certainly Jared Stern (who co-wrote The Lego Batman and Ninjago movies, here marking his second feature as a director after his debut with Netflix romantic comedy Happy Anniversary) understands this better than some, having expertly lampooned (and somewhat perfectly captured) the inherent truths behind the classic core members of the Justice League of America and their encompassing universe in a 105-minute animated comedy adventure that focused everything through the simplified viewpoint of Superman’s beloved pet dog Krypto. Dwayne Johnson (who got his own major DCEU debut when Black Adam hit our screens in the Autumn, for what it was ultimately worth) is a fine choice for the vocal role of the super-pooch in question, who finds himself suddenly de-powered and forced to enlist the help of a quartet of rescue pets who’ve just been “gifted” with superpowers by a tiny fleck of orange Kryptonite – Johnson’s Central Intelligence co-star Kevin Hart is Ace, an independent but loyal boxer dog who becomes super-strong and indestructible, I Love You For That’s Vanessa Bayer as PB, a Wonder Woman-fangirl potbellied pig who develops the ability to grow or shrink to insane degrees at will, Natasha Lyonne as Merton, an incredibly old, extremely near-sighted box turtle who inherits super-speed, and Rogue One’s Diego Luna as Chip, a neurotic squirrel who’s granted lightning powers – acquired by Lulu (Saturday Night Live legend Kate McKinnon), a megalomaniacal hairless guinea pig obsessed with Lex Luther (legendary stand-up comic Marc Maron), whom the shard grants terrifying telekinetic abilities which she uses to imprison the Justice League and kickstart her own plans for world domination.  Yeah … sounds pretty bonkers, right?  Thing is, anyone who really knows DC Comics knows how this really is pretty par for the course with a lot of DCU backstory, which is definitely something Stern and his regular co-writing collaborator John Whittington totally understand and definitely ran with here – the inherent batshit craziness of the premise is milked for all the comic genius it’s worth, with the film paying delightful homage to the JLA, the titular pets themselves and a whole raft of other brilliant little winks, nods and easter eggs along the way, while also ruthlessly lampooning the DC Universe with utmost love for the property itself.  The voice cast are all ON FIRE here, with Johnson and Hart again hitting it off magnificently as a thoroughly entertaining canine odd-couple, while McKinnon consistently steals the film right out from under everybody with her unabashed comic genius, and Lyonne is an absolute delight all on her own; the Justice League, meanwhile, are brilliantly realised in a delightfully skewed comedic take that nonetheless does them all (ahem) justice, pitched to perfection by the likes of John Krasinski (Superman), Jemaine Clement (a cracking piss-take on The Water Guy, Aquaman) and, best of all, Keanu Reeves (a glorious deconstruction of Batman at his broodiest).  The animation is some of the best CGI work I’ve seen from the Warner Animation Group to date, the set-pieces are definitely pitched for laughs but surprisingly well-done in pure action terms, and the humour levels really are full-on OFF THE CHARTS here, but Stern and Whittington have also wisely injected a whole lot of emotional heft and pure HEART into the film too.  The result is an animated feature that’s a thorough joy to behold, keeping you gripped, entertained and stuck in the feels right through to the end.  This is definitely a film anyone trying to make a GOOD DCEU movie NEEDS TO WATCH, because it’s about as true to the Universe as I’ve EVER seen a movie get … even while mercilessly spoofing it …

14.  BELFAST – Kenneth Brannagh’s an interesting duck.  As an actor, I love his work, he’s consistently impressed me over the years, blowing me away with some truly spectacular performances, whether in his favoured territory (essaying Shakespeare) or doing something fun and different (such as The Road to El Dorado), or even just providing some solid support to other stars in a smaller role (Dunkirk instantly springs to mind); as a director, on the other hand … yeah, the results have been mixed at best.  For every masterpiece like Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Thor or Murder On the Orient Express, he’s also brought us dreck like Dead Again, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or (gods help us) Artemis Fowl, and a fair amount in the middle ground that’s either kinda meh or actually not too bad if you just go with it (Hamlet, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Peter’s Friends are certainly ones I actually kinda liked).  Approaching a new release, therefore, is always a trepidatious business, you never know what you’re gonna get … so you can probably imagine my surprise when his OTHER latest offering (JUST preceding the pretty decent Death On the Nile) ACTUALLY turned out to be the very best feature I’ve ever seen from him.  Then again, this is BY FAR his most personal film to date, Brannagh going RIGHT back to his roots with a semi-autobiographical story which is HEAVILY based on his own personal experiences as a boy growing up in the titular city in Ireland at the height of the Troubles, specifically the August Riots of 1969.  The film is told largely from the point of view of nine year-old Buddy (newcomer Jude Hill), the younger son of a small working class family living on a mixed denomination street, who find themselves in the middle of a powder-keg when anti-Catholic resentment starts to boil over in their neighbourhood.  His dreamer “Pa” (Jamie Dornan) is looking at the possibility of a brighter future for him and his family if they move abroad to greener pastures, but forceful and pragmatic “Ma” (The Beauty Inside and Ford V Ferrari’s Catriona Balfe) just wants to stay put, and both are forced to make hard choices that directly affect the family’s future as the Troubles start to impact their lives as a whole.  Dornan and Balfe are both exceptional throughout, Balfe in particularly shouldering a lot of the film’s heavy lifting with spectacular skill and undeniable talent, while Dame Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds warm our cockles and pluck at our heartstrings in equal measure as Buddy’s grandparents, two people who are clearly still deeply in love even in the twilight of their time together, and Merlin’s Colin Morgan brings a charged menace to proceedings as the film’s nominal villain, Billy Clanton, an up-and-comer in the local sectarian movement who wants Pa to join The Cause.  Buddy’s the undeniable beating heart of the film, though, Hill instantly showing he’s gonna be a star in the future as he essentially brings a young Brannagh to life, a deeply imaginative boy who loves movies and science fiction (especially Star Trek) but is struggling to find his place in the world and what’s going on around him.  The director shows as much skill with his writing as he does behind the camera, weaving a compellingly rich tapestry out of a deceptively simple storyline and bringing some genuinely palpable, fully realised characters to vital breathing life (although I guess he had STRONG inspiration to draw from), as well as paying frequent, loving respect to all the massive influences he’s drawn from over the years, from the films he grew up with (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and One Million Years BC among others) to the music his parents taught him to love (the soundtrack includes several gems from the great Van Morrison).  The resulting film is a powerful and rewarding experience, a clear labour of love which is equal parts dramatic, moving, heart-breaking, warmly funny and deeply inspiring.  Brannagh wins our hearts by wearing his on his sleeve.

13.  THE BLACK PHONE – I see now why Scott Derrickson pulled out of directing the second Doctor Strange film – he had to get what was ALMOST the horror highlight of the summer out of his system. Adapting Joe Hill’s short story with his Sinister co-writer C. Robert Cargill, Derrickson’s comfortably ensconced back in the genre he clearly resonates with best, crafting a fiendishly complex and spine-chillingly intense suspense thriller out of a deceptively simple premise that, at least on the surface, has been reworked more than once before on the big screen.  The year is 1978 (that’s when I was born!), and a serial killer is stalking the suburban streets of Denver – the Grabber, a mysterious man-in-a-van who kidnaps teenage boys who are never seen again.  His latest victim is Finney (For All Mankind’s Mason Thames), who wakes up in a basement with a defunct payphone on the wall before being periodically visited by the mysterious masked killer (Sinister’s Ethan Hawke) who repeatedly tries to involve Finney in his wicked, sadistic mind-games … only for him to be warned of his fate and coached on how he might escape by the spirits of the Grabber’s previous victims, with whom he communicates through the broken phone (yeah, I know it sounds like a bonkers premise but it’s portrayed in such an ingenious way you never once fail to swallow it hook, line and sinker).  Meanwhile his younger sister Gwen (The Mandela Effect’s Madeleine McGraw) is trying to find him with the help of her wildly unpredictable psychic dreams, despite the consternation of her troubled father (the incomparable Jeremy Davies) and the deep scepticism of the detectives assigned to the case.  Hawke delivers what’s definitely his most unhinged performance to date, taking his charismatic, likeable leading man persona and tearing it to shreds by investing the Grabber with an air of unpredictable menace and sadistic malevolence that frequently chills the blood even though he spends essentially the whole film with his face obscured by an intriguingly malleable demonic facemask; the two young leads, meanwhile, are both an absolute revelation, with Thames bringing an unbearably palpable uncertainty and vulnerability to Finney which makes his ultimate manning up so deeply fulfilling, while McGraw is a sweet but decidedly salty (and sometimes VERY SWEARY) joy in a rewarding turn which steals every scene she’s in; in the supporting stakes, Davies is enjoyably complex, a drink-addled bad-dad who nonetheless has a good heart beaten down by powerful personal tragedy which ultimately makes us root for him, especially when he finally starts to open himself up to the possibility that Gwen might actually be onto something, while Sinister and It Chapter 2’s James Ransome delivers a delightful crackpot turn as a local conspiracy theorist who thinks he’s got it all worked out.  This is a beautifully written film, skilfully realised by a marvellous up-and-coming talent of literary horror and then further refined by a true master of the genre on the big screen, Derickson constantly defying expectation as he throws perfectly pitched twists and turns at us before finally bringing the film to its nail-biting, piano wire-taut climax.  Far as I’m concerned this is the best film he’s ever made, and with his track record that’s an impressive feat – I can only hope this is a sign of even greater things to come from him in the future …

12.  KIMI – we were already getting movies about the COVID outbreak and the resulting chaos that the Coronavirus has wrought upon us around the world as early as late 2020, but for the most part it’s largely been small, under-the-radar indie stuff.  Now we’re starting to get BIG stuff, and the latest from Steven Soderbergh is one of the most impressive offerings I’ve seen to date.  Written by thriller cinema extraordinaire David Koepp (Carlito’s Way, Panic Room, Stir of Echoes), this is a spectacularly taut and blissfully streamlined suspense thriller that not only brings the impact of the Pandemic into sharp perspective, but also our growing overreliance on smart device technology and social media – altogether then, fertile ground for a socially-conscious filmmaker like Soderbergh, who essentially PREDICTED all the shit COVID just put us through with 2011’s terrifyingly prescient outbreak-thriller Contagion.  The Kimi of the title is the latest creation of the film’s fictional tech conglomerate Amygdala and its visionary CEO Bradley Hasling (Derek DelGaudio), an all-encompassing smart speaker which revolutionises the technology by taking the potentially controversial step of having live human moderators overseeing its operation instead of AI in order to cut down on potential voice recognition-based cock-ups.  The film’s main narrative focuses on one of these moderators, Angela Childs (Zoe Kravitz), whose long-standing social anxiety and agoraphobia have been immensely exacerbated by lockdown to the detriment of many aspects of her life. Then a routine review of some of her daily moderations uncovers something deeply disturbing – what sounds to her VERY MUCH like a break-in and the murder of a Kimi owner.  Under pressure from Amygdala to bury the information but driven by her own conscience and personal trauma from a similar incident, Angela decides to take matters into her own hands instead … this might be the best performance I’ve EVER seen Kravitz deliver (which is definitely saying something when we just saw her PERFECTLY embody one of my favourite comic book characters of all time), as she invests Angela with twitchy awkwardness but also fierce, unshakeable determination when faced with insurmountable obstacles, creating one of the most refreshingly compelling and resourceful lead protagonists I’ve come across in cinema, and since big chunks of the narrative are a one-woman show with many of her interactions with other characters playing out through phones and computer screens, this means she largely DOMINATES the film.  That’s not to say there aren’t other great performances in this – DelGaudio does a lot with quite a small part, while there are excellent turns from Byron Bowers (The Chi, Honey Boy) as Angela’s occasional casual friend-with-benefits, Terry, who wants to become something more to her, Devin Ratray (Blue Ruin, The Tick) as Kevin, a fellow shut-in neighbour, and Rita Wilson (Runaway Bride, The Good Wife) as Natalie Chowdury, an executive with Amygdala to whom Angela attempts to blow the whistle on her findings.  Soderberg and Koepp have crafted a spectacularly suspenseful thriller which expertly ratchets up the atmospheric dread of Angela’s situation from the slowburn scene-setting start to the fraught and harrowing climax, the film’s determination to keep its focus squarely on Angela meaning that we’re right there in the thick of it with her throughout all her anxiety, paranoia, terror and downright feral fight for life.  This is one of the best films either Soderbergh OR Koepp have delivered in a good while, and definitely one of the year’s top big screen thrillers.  Not bad for something which was inspired by and executed entirely in the midst of COVID.

11.  ENOLA HOLMES 2 – Back in 2020, while we were waiting for Guy Ritchie’s long-mooted but still conspicuously absent third Sherlock Holmes movie, we got a welcome surprise from another quarter – director Harry Bradbeer, taking a break from making TV shows like Fleabag with something a good deal more ambitious, and screenwriter Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials, Wonder).  Adapting the intriguing “AU” young adult novels of Nancy Springer, they brought her intriguing character to the fore, unleashing Sherlock and Mycroft’s previously unknown kid sister Enola Holmes upon the cinematic world in fine style in the form of Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown.  The resulting breezy, cheeky and enjoyably irreverent mystery adventure was, rightly, a major hit for Netflix when they released it in the middle of the Pandemic, so it was a no-brainer for them to order a sequel right away, and having had a ball on the first, Bradbeer and Thorne were HAPPY to deliver once again.  Better yet, the resulting sequel is JUST AS GOOD as its predecessor … after the events of the first film, Enola’s trying to carve out her own career as a sleuth-for-hire like her brother, but the inherent prejudices of Victorian society regarding her youth and, more importantly, GENDER are very much working against her … until she finds herself called upon to help a young matchgirl who wants to find her missing sister, and once again Enola finds that her seemingly simple case is, in fact, just the tip of a massive conspiratorial iceberg, one which also relates to her brother Sherlock’s own latest case, one which seems to be vexing him like none before.  Once again, it’s an absolute joy to join Brown on her adventures, the immensely talented ingenue perfectly portraying a fiendishly brilliant, naturally-talented mistress of detection whose frequent fourth-wall-breaking asides always tickle me; Henry Cavill, meanwhile, is once again clearly having immense fun as the most famous gentleman sleuth of all time, as well as getting to bring an intriguing new dimension to his portrayal as we see Sherlock revealing frustration and ennui for the first time as he has to deal with a mystery that just doesn’t make sense.  When they’re together they’re a joy to behold, and I truly hope we’ll get to see more of them working as a team in the inevitable follow-ups, while the other returning faces from the first film are all given plenty of time to shine in their own right here too, from Louis Partridge (Pistol) as sweet but quietly determined young Viscount Tewkesbury to Helena Bonham Carter as Enola and Sherlock’s wayward revolutionary mother Eudoria, while there are some equally talented newcomers to enjoy here too, with David Thewlis’ brilliant but hateful corrupt Scotland Yard Superintendent Grail particularly impressing here, while the film does a brilliant job of introducing a couple of other key characters from Arthur Conan Doyle’s pantheon for future instalments in suitably interesting ways.  As with the first film, this is a bright and breezy adventure that rattles along at an impressive clip, Thorne’s razor sharp script sparking and fizzing appropriately as the story unfolds, while we have plenty of fun following Enola as she navigates her world’s various social pitfalls and idiosyncrasies with her usual irrepressible determination and exasperation.  Once again, it’s also frequently LAUGH-OUT-LOUD funny, from Brown’s adorably playful narration to the perfectly observed social satire … that being said, there’s also a good deal of HEART here too, with the central story dealing with some very potent hot button subject matter which is as relevant today as when it was actually happening (no I WON’T say what, you’ll just have to watch it and find out).  Altogether this is another phenomenal instalment in an already brilliant new franchise, and one which EASILY rivals the other popular, established adaptations we already know and love regarding Conan Doyle’s more famous Holmes sibling, and I for one cannot wait to see what Bradbeer, Thorne, Brown, Cavill et al are gonna bring us next …

#the woman king #the tragedy of macbeth #doctor strange in the multiverse of madness #hellraiser #hellraiser 2022 #bullet train #bullet train movie #DC league of super pets #belfast #belfast movie #the black phone #kimi #kimi movie #enola holmes 2 #2022 in movies

[neutron-stars-collision]

It's a strange feeling when a movie you least expect to hit that note, ends up triggering you oh so softly...

"Belfast'll still be here when you get back"

"Will you?"

"I'm goin nowhere you won't find me"

Just this. Nothing more. Perhaps only that one phonecall, last one I had with him on St Patrick's day in 2016. When he said something like that too

#personal bs #guess it's the evening to miss my grandfather #but this movie... #I swear it might become one of them to come back to #belfast movie

[iamadarshbadri]

BELFAST: A Compelling Movie Based on Northern Ireland

Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical account, BELFAST, is a treat to watch. This visually stunning and emotionally captivating movie tells a remarkable tale of Belfast in 1969, at a time when Northern Ireland was raging civil war. As tensions between the Catholics and the Protestants in the city are rising during the period referred to as “the troubles”, Branagh depicts Belfast through Buddy…

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#belfast #belfast movie #belfast movie in black and white #belfast movie review #belfast netflix review #belfast review #kenneth branagh #movies in black and white #oscar award #oscar nomination #who is the director of belfast

[demac9]

I uploaded this a short time ago and noticed a big time gap in one of the frames, deleted it, and fixed it.

Stranded (Lyrics) Van Morrison

#youtube #van morrison #magic time #belfast movie #soundtrack #lyrics video

[bellamysgriffin]

get to know me meme >> Favorite Movies [29/?] Belfast

How could I leave Belfast? I wouldn't worry about it. The Irish were born for leaving. Otherwise, the rest of the world would have no pubs. You just need half of us to stay so that the other half can get sentimental about the ones that left.

#filmedit #cinemapix #dailyflicks #* #gtkm4 #belfast #belfastedit #tuserella #usersunflower #userbarrow #usergabriella #usergiu #the belfast hate train that award season was bizarre as fuck #because this movie was so absolutely gorgeous and moving and unique and singular #it was MY best picture of the year

[in-love-with-movies]

Belfast (2021)

#Belfast #filmedit #Caitriona Balfe #Jamie Dornan #Jude Hill #Kenneth Branagh #my gifs #movie gifs

[la-galaxie-langblr]

screech

#tag rant incoming #the wait until results day is killing me #6 days 17 hours until I log onto ucas and see where I'm going in less than a month #time will not go faster no matter what i do I'm an anxious mess all the time and all I look forward to is going to bed so when i wake up #there's 1 less day to wait #I want to get into my first choice so so so badly and I'm not sure how I'll take it if I don't #my second choice is an equally good uni and course but it's just not the same to me #I'll go anyway if that's what ends up happening cus I know I'll enjoy it eventually but yeah #god has a plan everything happens for a reason etc etc but I'm Scared™ #ok positives #today i bought my new laptop that I've been saving for for months - there wasn't any in stock at currys so I'll have to wait for delivery #so now I can finally join discord calls and make silly PowerPoints again #the end of my job is in sight - I wasn't put on the schedule for my last week so now I just have 2 ish weeks to go #on Monday I'm going round to a friend's to play stardew valley #rwrb movie comes out tomorrow #no matter what happens on results day my friends and I are going to a gay bar in Belfast which I'm so excited for #followed by a sleepover with another friend #the future is happening very soon and it's very overwhelming but I will get through it #I am just the unfortunate combination of anxious and impatient #ellis exclaims

[movie--posters]

#caitriona balfe #judi dench #ciaran hunds #jude hill #jamie dornan #movie poster #belfast #movie posters #northern ireland #ireland #irish #tv show #movie #movies #cinema #poster #film #film poster #posters

[lamiaprigione]

Belfast (2021)

#film #movie #belfast #ulster #Beal Feirste #northern ireland #irlanda del nord #irish #Kenneth Branagh #Haris Zambarloukos #Jude Hill #Caitríona Balfe #Jamie Dornan #Judi Dench #Ciarán Hinds

[youruncleolaf]

yknow when you find a piece of media that doesn’t necessarily have an all star cast but it’s an all star cast to you

#was googling something and then i found the movie belfast #it has so many actors i know #caitriona balfe #colin morgan #dame judi dench #jamie dornan from once upon a time #olive tennant?? child of georgia tennant and her husband?? what are you doing here?? #while looking for more actors i recognised i checked another guy #did not know him but he was in something i’ve never heard of starring two actors i do know #ann skelly of the nevers and jamie dornan again?? #turlough convery of killing eve #all of them are in belfast (2021)

[grigori77]

Movies of 2022 - My Pre-Summer Rundown (Part 2)

The Top Ten:

10.  THE 355 – my cinematic year kicked off in what I thought was thoroughly fine style with a rip-roaring, star-studded spy thriller which was clearly intended to start a franchise which I’d totally be up for since it’s everything I love to watch – hard-hitting, visceral action pinned to a genuinely compelling plot powered by a quintet of strong women who take on a patriarchal establishment and beat it at its own game.  Clearly it wanted to shake-up the status quo and as far as I’m concerned it pulled it off in fine style  … NO WONDER, then, that it’s been (largely) roundly reviled by critics and tanked at the box office, much as previous attempts for similar ends such as the intended Ghostbusters and Charlie’s Angels reboots did a few years back. I thought we’d gotten over this, guys! Come on … it’s a criminal shame, because this is SUCH great movie.  Jessica Chastain heads the cast as tough-as-nails CIA operative “Mace” Browne, out for blood after a botched operation in Paris to acquire a potentially devastating piece of terrorist-tech results in the death of her partner and friend Nick Fowler (Sebastian Stan).  Given a second chance at tracking down the device, things get complicated when a clandestine conspiracy is revealed and Mace is forced to team up with retired MI6 officer Khadijah Adiyeme (Lupita Nyong’o), rival German BND operative Marie Schmidt (Dianna Kruger), Colombian DNI analyst and psychologist Graciela Rivera (Penelope Cruz) and Chinese MSS agent Lin Mi Sheng (X-Men: Days of Future Past’s Fan Bingbing) to beat the bad guys and clear their names after they’re all framed as terrorists themselves.  All five of the film’s badass leading ladies have been given impressively memorable and thoroughly well-written characters with plenty of potential for growth and character development not only throughout this film but in what now looks like an extremely unlikely franchise future (even Fan who, despite coming into the action quite late, immediately makes QUITE the impression and builds on that groundwork admirably throughout the latter half of the film); similarly, Stan once again proves what a mighty screen talent he is, while there’s an enjoyably reptilian turn from Jason Flemyng as the film’s Big Bad, international crime boss Elijah Clarke.  While this was advertised as a relentlessly-paced, breakneck thrill ride, the action quota is actually somewhat more restrained here than on some of its more established peer franchises (like Bond and Mission: Impossible), but what IS on offer is, correctly, very much in service to the intelligently written story, and the film certainly doesn’t scrimp on the thrills when it DOES decide to get our adrenaline pumping, delivering some suitably robust set-pieces that punctuate rather than drive the agreeably pacy plot.  Former X-Men writer Simon Kinberg acquits himself admirably here, but like his previous crack at directing it really is starting to look like Hollywood just has it out for him, since Dark Phoenix ALSO got a critical and release-debacle-based financial mauling it really DIDN’T deserve.  This is a cracking spy thriller with a killer premise and exceptional cast of characters which deserves far more respect than it's received – altogether this is a film which needs a SERIOUS reappraisal.  Give it a chance, guys, it REALLY needs it …

9.  NIGHTMARE ALLEY – Guillermo del Toro is one of my favourite filmmakers of all time, and one of the things I love most about him is his innate understanding of the inherent truths about the cinematic monsters he frequently portrays in his works. Some of his most interesting thematic material comes when he examines the horrors that his NON-supernatural characters are capable of, but until now the only time he’s genuinely FOCUSED on inherently human monsters was in 2015’s Crimson Peak – sure, it had proper ghosts in it, but the actual threat was very much from the film’s living, breathing flesh-and-blood characters.  His latest offering has embraced this principle to a far greater degree as he adapts William Lindsay Gresham’s none-more-dark novel about morally grey grifters and carnival sideshow charlatans in World War II America, Bradley Cooper delivering what might be a career best turn as voraciously ambitious and inherently talented con-artist Stan Carlisle, who rises through the ranks working the sideshow acts in a lowly travelling carnival before finally striking it big when he goes it alone in a one-man psychic act in Buffalo, New York, with the increasingly reluctant help of his disillusioned girlfriend Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara).  When he comes to the attention of influential high-society psychologist Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), she opens the door to a business opportunity which has the potential for MASSIVE financial rewards, but also a truly ruinous fall from grace if Carlisle doesn’t play it JUST RIGHT … del Toro’s always has some pretty palpable darkness in his movies, but he’s never tackled subject matter so genuinely jet black in its pitch before, the film wallowing in some seriously murky waters as we follow an already morally questionable protagonist as he digs down into the most thoroughly reprehensible depths of his own meagre soul, as well as the heart of an uncaring society as irredeemable corrupt as he’s in danger of becoming.  This is NOT an easy film to watch, several times testing the resolve of even the strongest viewers, but the rewards on offer for sticking with it are vast – this is another gold-plated work of art from an immensely talented filmmaker at the very height of his game, and it deserves all of the Oscar buzz it got, even if it ultimately missed out on that coveted Best Picture gong (much as del Toro was snubbed for a directing nomination this time round).  Cooper is a genuine revelation here, suitably seductive but still thoroughly slimy as an already shady guy who becomes progressively worse as his success grows, while Rooney’s definitely the only true bright light in the cast as the sweet innocent he takes for a ride who ultimately gets wise just a little too late; Willem Dafoe once again piles on the creepiness as suitably unpleasant geek show barker Clem, while Toni Collette and David Strathairn are both excellent as Zeena and Pete Krumbein, the fading psychic sideshow act that teach Carlisle his craft, and Del Toro’s The Shape of Water star Richard Jenkins is far more complex than he first seems as Ezra Grindle, the potentially lethal mark that he underestimates to such dangerous degrees.  The REAL standout star of the film, however, is Blanchett, who captivates and repulses in equal measure as an ice-cold psychopath who deserves to go down as one of the all-time great femme fatales of cinema.  This is DEFINITELY going to be the year’s darkest film, I don’t see ANYTHING unseating it from this dubious honour, but it’s also an immensely rewarding viewing experience, incredibly intelligent, breathlessly edgy and unbelievably tense from its creepy opening to its ruinous ending, and every inch as surprisingly seductive as its untrustworthy lead character, the truest film noir to come along in a very long time indeed …

8.  AMBULANCE – Michael Bay’s cinematic output in the last ten years in particular has been very interesting.  It’s like he’s going through phases as he’s trying to work out how he wants to go forward as his style “matures” – 2013’s Pain & Gain was, like all his previous output, big, loud and definitely flashy in the most indulgent way, but it also had something somewhat serious to say, given its origins as an (admittedly genuinely BONKERS) actual TRUE STORY.  Then came the fourth Transformers film, Age of Extinction, widely regarded as THE VERY WORST of the bunch, and rightly so.  But then he turned right round and did something COMPLETELY SERIOUS when he tackled a much less OTT but far more emotionally charged and potent true story in 13 Hours: the Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, which is a genuinely masterful piece of work which I personally regard as his VERY BEST FILM. Then he went and did ANOTHER Transformers movie with The Last Knight, which was more of the same – juvenile, disjointed in plot and narrative and pure over-the-top indulgence – and yet, somehow, it was just a little bit BETTER than much of what had come before all the same (actually getting close to the quality of his first, still BEST, instalment).  Most recently he went to Netflix to create something which was clearly always INTENDED to be over-the-top and indulgent, but this time saw him actually getting it RIGHT, like he did on The Rock – 6 Underground, a thoroughly enjoyable action-packed escapist romp with Ryan Reynolds effortlessly holding court like he always does.  Anyway … Bay’s latest feels like something else entirely, somehow managing to sit VERY comfortably in the middle ground – once again, it’s big, loud, flashy and DEFINITELY indulgent, but it’s also one of those rare things for a Michael Bay film, because it’s anything but dumb.  Sure, it’s got a REALLY simple premise – veteran marine Will Sharp (Candyman and The Matrix Resurrections’ Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and his dangerous livewire adoptive brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal), the sons of a notorious LA bank robber, pull off a spectacular high-stakes daylight heist but are then forced to hijack an ambulance and its inhabitants, skilled but jaded EMT Cam Thompson (From Dusk Till Dawn’s Eiza Gonzalez) and her patient Zach (Mrs Fletcher’s Jackson White), an LAPD patrolman wounded during the robbery, which leads to a crazy cat-and-mouse chase through the streets of Los Angeles – but there’s clearly some real intelligence behind the script.  The plot is surprisingly smart despite it clichéd nature, the characters all impressively well-written and skilfully developed over the course of the film, and the twists are rewardingly effective when they come.  Sure, Bay keeps throwing the camera around like a lunatic, sometimes chucking in some genuine vertigo-inducing drone shots PURELY because he can, I think, but this time it just seems to ramp up the excitement factor as he does one of the few things he’s always really excelled at – crafting properly BLINDING action sequences – over and over again.  Certainly the second unit and stunt teams really earned the big bucks on this one, every car crash, crazy jump and desperate manoeuvre executed with astonishing precision made all the more impressive because it’s immediately obvious that there’s NO CGI AT ALL being used to pull any of this stuff off.  Refreshingly, though, Bay doesn’t scrimp on the character work at all here, screenwriter Chris Fedak’s impressive work doing a lot of the heavy-lifting so the uniformly excellent cast can just concentrate on BEING their characters for 2+ hours – Gyllenhaal is a ferocious, tightly-wound force of nature who’s both antihero and antagonist throughout the film, while Abdul-Mateen II is, as usual, electric in every second of his screen time, investing Will with wounded intensity and conflicted complexity as a desperate everyman stuck in this impossible situation because he’s just trying to help his family, and Gonzalez holds her own against these two craft-MASTERS with incredible skill and determination as a world-weary, disillusioned blue collar worker who finally rediscovers the passion she once had for her work under the most extreme circumstances; Garret Dillahunt (Fear the Walking Dead) and Keir O’Donnell (American Sniper), meanwhile, both shine as a winningly spiky odd-couple as LAPD SIS Captain Monroe and FBI special Agent Anson Clark, the polar-opposite cops thrust together in the race to hunt the Sharp Brothers down, and The Walking Dead’s Olivia Stambouliah frequently steals entire scenes with a single withering putdown or quirky aside as LAPD surveillance wizard Lieutenant Dhazghig.  Sure, this ain’t a perfect movie, Bay still not FULLY jettisoning his off-the-wall and rather off-colour sense of humour, which still surfaces in a few scenes, and it’s still VERY overblown, but these are small quibbles when a film is THIS enjoyable, visually impressive, pulse-pumping exciting and truly unforgettable. Definitely leaning into the camp of Bay’s more worthy films, this is another cracker that once again proves he’s a director who really can DELIVER when he actually TRIES.

7.  THE CURSED – some of my favourite horror movies are films that snuck in under the radar to become cult hits, or simply stuck to the shadows to become secret weapons of the genre, uncut gems known to a lucky few who always recommend them to likeminded genre fans when they get the chance.  This immensely impressive indie horror from writer-director Sean Ellis (The Broken, Anthropoid) is another great example of this particular phenomenon, and I’m sure it’s destined for some small cult status somewhere down the line.  The plot is … STRANGE, but in a very good way, and there’s a lot here that I really shouldn’t give away because it’s better to let you just ease in and discover it on your own - suffice to say, this is an intriguingly offbeat take on the classic werewolf trope, set in late 19th Century France (albeit with a mysterious coda set during World War I’s Battle of the Somme) but shot in England with a largely British cast and thoroughly OOZING with a genuinely palpable doom-laden atmosphere of pregnant dread teeming with hazy mists and overcast skies.  Narcos’ Boyd Holbrook pulls off a surprisingly decent English accent as he smoulders with restrained, broody intensity as John McBride, a haunted pathologist who goes to an isolated French village to investigate a succession of animalistic killings which may be the result of a curse laid upon the community after the brutal eradication of a group of Roma travellers some years before.  There are allusions made to the legendary Beast of Gevaudan throughout, which formed the inspiration for the enjoyably oddball cult classic Brotherhood of the Wolf, but this is a very different breed of horror cinema – moody, understated and deliberately slowburn, parcelling out its scares and impressively visceral violence with cool restraint throughout while building to a feverish climax that brilliantly pays off the groundwork meticulously laid through its two hours, while the inventive use of some very icky physical effects has crafted something pretty unique to this particular sub-genre.   Holdbrook makes for a tragically fallible hero here, while Kelly Reilly brings restrained, wounded classiness to the film as Isabelle, the wife of complicated, brutish landowner Seamus Laurent (a restrained but potent turn from Rogue One’s Alistair Petrie), whose pig-headed short-sightedness seems to have doomed his community, and Amelia Crouch (Kate, The Last Dragonslayer) thoroughly impresses as the Laurents’ daughter Charlotte, whose younger brother Edward (Rocketman’s Max Mackintosh) was the first bitten and therefore first cursed.  Ellis has crafted a magnificently subtle masterpiece of the genre, playing an understated long game that pays off magnificently, and what resulted is one of the best indie horror movies I’ve come across in years.  I look forward to whatever he does next.

6.  THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH – this adaptation of one of my very favourite William Shakespeare plays is a particularly notable milestone in cinematic history, because for the very first time, writer-director Joel Coen has made a feature film without his ubiquitous filmmaker brother Ethan having anything to do with the project.  That being said, Joel’s always been such a dominant force on the DIRECTING side of the Coen Brother’s output that, if you didn’t know this, you’d never know Ethan was absent on this one, because it’s still EVERY INCH a Coen film.  It’s also Denzel Washington’s first time working for either Brother, but he’s SO magnificent as one of the greatest fictional villains OF ALL TIME that you won’t have any idea WHY they never worked together before.  He’s absolutely MESMERISING as Macbeth, the doom-courting Thane of Cawdor, who decides to murder his way to the throne of Medieval Scotland after receiving a very tempting prophecy from a trio of creepy-ass witches right after a decisive battle sees him get one hell of a royal promotion – Washington sizzles and sears in every scene, whether he’s smouldering with pregnant understated menace or exploding with un-righteous fury as Macbeth is haunted by gruesome ghosts or egged on by his scheming, ambitious wife.  Coen-regular Frances McDormand matches him in every scene as the DEFINITIVE Lady Macbeth, particular as she crumbles spectacularly once the guilt of what they’ve done starts to weigh her down; Brendan Gleeson is typically grand yet cuddly as ineffectual ill-fated King Duncan, while Harry Potter star Harry Melling continues to prove that he's grown up into a truly DYNAMITE star-in-the-making as his untested but prematurely put-upon son Malcolm, The Boys’ Alex Hassell is obsequious but complex as duplicitous young nobleman Ross, and Straight Outta Compton’s Corey Hawkins makes for a suitably strapping and dynamic Macduff (ALWAYS my favourite character in the play and EVERY adaptation). Joel Coen has once again dropped a blinder on us, solo-effort or not, making Sakespeare’s text breathe in fresh and interesting ways while he weaves a beautifully bleak and haunted visual spell, unleashing compositions on us that recall the subtly unsettling weird mundanity of American Gothic art or the surreality of German expressionist cinema, especially in the film’s very unusual interpretation of the supernatural, as well as framing the story’s bloody and decidedly non-glamorous violence with an almost clinical detachment which perfectly complements the gorgeously stylised world he’s built, all of it topped off with an unsettlingly lowkey atmospheric score from regular Coen collaborator Carter Burwell.  Thoroughly deserving all the immense acclaim it’s had heaped upon it, this has definitely proven to be one of the year’s early surprises and one of its most downright exquisite works of art (so far).  Most important of all, though, Joel’s taken what’s always been a definitive Shakespearean villain and turned him into one of the all-time GREAT Coen protagonists ...

5.  BELFAST – Kenneth Brannagh’s an interesting duck.  As an actor, I love his work, he’s consistently impressed me over the years, blowing me away with some truly spectacular performances, whether in his favoured territory (essaying Shakespeare) or doing something fun and different (such as The Road to El Dorado), or even just providing some solid support to other stars in a smaller role (Dunkirk instantly springs to mind); as a director, on the other hand … yeah, the results have been mixed at best.  For every masterpiece like Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Thor or Murder On the Orient Express, he’s also brought us dreck like Dead Again, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or (gods help us) Artemis Fowl, and a fair amount in the middle ground that’s either kinda meh or actually not too bad if you just go with it (Hamlet, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Peter’s Friends are certainly ones I actually kinda liked).  Approaching a new release, therefore, is always a trepidatious business, you never know what you’re gonna get … so you can probably imagine my surprise when his OTHER latest offering (JUST preceding the aforementioned Death On the Nile) ACTUALLY turned out to be the very best feature I’ve ever seen from him.  Then again, this is BY FAR his most personal film to date, Brannagh going RIGHT back to his roots with a semi-autobiographical story which is HEAVILY based on his own personal experiences as a boy growing up in the titular city in Ireland at the height of the Troubles, specifically during the August Riots of 1969.  The film is told largely from the point of view of nine year-old Buddy (newcomer Jude Hill), the younger son of a small working class family living on a mixed denomination street, who find themselves in the middle of a powder-keg when anti-Catholic resentment starts to boil over in their neighbourhood.  His dreamer “Pa” (Jamie Dornan) is looking at the possibility of a brighter future for him and his family if they move abroad to greener pastures, but forceful and pragmatic “Ma” (The Beauty Inside and Ford V Ferrari’s Catriona Balfe) just wants to stay put, and both are forced to make hard choices that directly affect the family’s future as the Troubles start to impact their lives as a whole.  Dornan and Balfe are both exceptional throughout, Balfe in particularly shouldering a lot of the film’s heavy lifting with spectacular skill and undeniable talent, while Dame Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds warm our cockles and pluck at our heartstrings in equal measure as Buddy’s grandparents, two people who are clearly still deeply in love even in the twilight of their time together, and Merlin’s Colin Morgan brings a charged menace to proceedings as the film’s nominal villain, Billy Clanton, an up-and-comer in the local sectarian movement who wants Pa to join The Cause.  Buddy’s the undeniable beating heart of the film, though, Hill instantly showing he’s gonna be a star in the future as he essentially brings a young Brannagh to life, a deeply imaginative boy who loves movies and science fiction (especially Star Trek) but is struggling to find his place in the world and what’s going on around him.  The director shows as much skill with his writing as he does behind the camera, weaving a compellingly rich tapestry out of a deceptively simple storyline and bringing some genuinely palpable, fully realised characters to vital breathing life (although I guess he had STRONG inspiration to draw from), as well as paying frequent, loving respect to all the massive influences he’s drawn from over the years, from the films he grew up with (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and One Million Years BC among others) to the music his parents taught him to love.  The resulting film is a powerful and rewarding viewing experience, a clear labour of love which is equal parts dramatic, moving, heart-breaking, warmly funny and deeply inspiring.  Brannagh wins our hearts by wearing his on his sleeve.

4.  KIMI – we were already getting movies about the COVID outbreak and the resulting chaos that the Pandemic’s wrought upon us around the world as early as late 2020, but for the most part it’s largely been small, under-the-radar indie stuff.  Now we’re starting to get BIG stuff, and the latest from Steven Soderbergh is one of the most impressive offerings I’ve seen to date.  Written by thriller cinema extraordinaire David Koepp (Carlito’s Way, Panic Room, Stir of Echoes), this is a spectacularly taut and blissfully streamlined suspense thriller that not only brings the impact of the Pandemic into sharp perspective, but also our growing overreliance on smart device technology and social media – altogether then, fertile ground for a socially-conscious filmmaker like Soderbergh, who essentially PREDICTED all the shit COVID just put us through with 2011’s terrifyingly prescient outbreak-thriller Contagion. The Kimi of the title is the latest creation of the film’s fictional tech conglomerate Amygdala and its visionary CEO Bradley Hasling (Derek DelGaudio), an all-encompassing smart speaker which revolutionises the technology by taking the potentially controversial step of having live human moderators overseeing its operation instead of AI in order to cut down on potential voice recognition-based cock-ups. The film’s main narrative focuses on one of these moderators, Angela Childs (Zoe Kravitz), whose long-standing social anxiety and agoraphobia have been immensely exacerbated by lockdown to the detriment of many aspects of her life.  Then one day, a routine review of some of her daily moderations uncovers something deeply disturbing – what sounds to her VERY MUCH like a break-in and the murder of a Kimi owner.  Under pressure from Amygdala to bury the information but driven by her own conscience and personal trauma from a similar incident, Angela decides to take matters into her own hands instead … this might be the best performance I’ve EVER seen Kravitz deliver (which is definitely saying something when we just saw her PERFECTLY embody one of my favourite comic book characters of all time), as she invests Angela with twitchy awkwardness but also fierce, unshakeable determination when faced with truly insurmountable obstacles, creating one of the most refreshingly compelling and resourceful lead protagonists I’ve come across in cinema so far this year, and since big chunks of the film are a one-woman show with many of her interactions with other characters playing out through phones and computer screens, this means she largely DOMINATES the film. That’s not to say there aren’t other great performances in this – DelGaudio does a lot with quite a small part, while there are excellent turns from Byron Bowers (The Chi, Honey Boy) as Angela’s occasional casual friend-with-benefits, Terry, who wants to become something more to her, Devin Ratray (Blue Ruin, The Tick) as Kevin, a fellow shut-in neighbour, and Rita Wilson (Runaway Bride, The Good Wife) as Natalie Chowdury, an executive with Amygdala to whom Angela attempts to blow the whistle on her findings.  Soderberg and Koepp have crafted a spectacularly suspenseful thriller which expertly ratchets up the atmospheric dread of Angela’s situation from the slowburn scene-setting start to the fraught and harrowing climax, the film’s determination to keep its focus squarely on Angela meaning that we’re right there in the thick of it with her throughout all her anxiety, paranoia, terror and downright feral fight for life.  The end result’s one of the best films either Soderbergh OR Koepp have delivered in a good while, and definitely the year’s top big screen thriller (so far, anyway).  Not bad for something which was inspired by and executed entirely in the midst of COVID.

3. TURNING RED – Disney/Pixar’s latest offering is also one of the most deeply personal films they’ve ever produced, with writer-director Domee Shi (who made the spell-binding and evocative Pixar short Bao) making a hell of a splash as the first woman EVER to land a solo direction credit on a Pixar feature with what’s essentially a fictionalised account of her own experiences as a teenage girl growing up in Toronto, Canada.  The result is a film which feels far more emotionally truthful and infinitely resonant that ANYTHING I’ve ever seen EITHER studio deliver before, perfectly encapsulating what it must have felt like to be a 13-year-old girl in 2002 (while I am mostly of the other gender, I too was once 13 and VERY unsure of myself, so I remember only too well how unbearably hard, hectic and downright UNWIELDY that part of my life could feel at times).  The 13 year-old girl in question here is Mei Lee (a DEEPLY affecting performance from newcomer Rosalie Chiang), the only child of a Chinese couple in Toronto who run their family’s temple, which is dedicated to their ancestor Sun Yee, a powerful sorceress who once harnessed the spiritual power of the red panda in order to protect her daughters.  For much of her life Mei has put her own personal feelings on hold to be everything her overbearing mother Ming (Sandra Oh, once again putting in a palpable turn full of deep heart, soul and frequent observational comic GOLD) wants her to become, and she’s become a straight-A student because of it, but as she starts to grow up she’s discovering there’s more to life than just good grades.  Specifically 4*Town, a five-man boyband (yeah, I know) that Mei and her three girlfriends – confident tomboy Miriam (newcomer Ava Morse), stoic and deadpan Priya (Never Have I Ever’s Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and diminutively hyperactive bundle of barely-contained-malevolent-energy Abby (newcomer Hyein Park) are thoroughly obsessed with, who the quartet discover are coming to play a concert in Toronto … JUST as something awakens in Mei, and she suddenly finds herself stricken by a deeply strange supernatural affliction – specifically, whenever her emotions run out of control, she turns into a giant red panda.  She’s told that her family can perform a ritual to help her remove the panda spirit (which turns out to be on THE SAME NIGHT as 4*Town’s performance), but in the meantime she must learn to control and restrain the panda or it’ll be that much harder to exorcise.  But as the concert approaches, Mei and her friends hit upon a unique solution to help them earn the money for four tickets in time, which utilises the panda’s runaway cute factor and makes Mei realise that maybe she doesn’t actually WANT to get rid of this part of herself … there are definitely a lot of interpretations that can be derived from the phenomenon at the heart of the story, but whether it’s about teenage girls first learning to come to terms with a certain feminine bodily function or not, this is THE most powerful and, if I’m honest, downright ENTERTAINING film about growing up as a teenage girl I’ve EVER experienced, a GOOD DEAL better than all those sometimes genuinely vomit-worthy teen comedies and dramas I’ve found largely preferable to avoid over the years.  Of course it definitely helps that ALL the characters are SO well realised, beautifully derived from what are, clearly, Shi’s own friends, family and personal experiences when she was going through (most) of what we’re witnessing here – Mei and her friends are THOROUGHLY lovable (not least Abby, who became one of my VERY FAVOURITE characters of THIS ENTIRE YEAR within a few minutes of us first meeting her), while Ming is the perfect embodiment of helicopter mums the world over, but in particular that specific kind of Asian mother who seems determined that their only child will grow up be something truly exceptional to the exclusion of ALL ELSE, and as a result she’s very nearly the actual VILLAIN of the film but at the same time has clear, strong redeeming features which make us feel very deeply for her.  Shi and co-writer, playwright Julia Cho, have crafted a deeply affecting but also frequently riotously comical, thoroughly chaotic piece of work, injecting plenty of joyful mirth and madness into proceedings to compliment the massive amounts of heart and emotion on display, and the gloriously designed, beautifully realised early Noughties Toronto setting has been lovingly captured through Pixar’s typically rich and lively animation.  Sweet, spicy and perfectly evocative of its subject matter, this is WITHOUT A DOUBT one of the two studios’ finest collaborations to date.  Simply wonderful.

2.  THE NORTHMAN – over the last few years, writer-director Robert Eggers has been getting under our skins to magnificently unpleasant effect through his subtly unsettling arthouse horrors, The Witch and The Lighthouse.  When we heard he had another movie in the works we started preparing ourselves for another skin-crawling mind-troubler of a horror movie, but he’s taken an intriguing leftfield swerve and really surprised us with his third feature, a dark, edgy and subtly fantastical retelling of the legend of Amleth, the Viking prince who became the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  As a boy (played by impressive newcomer Oscar Novak), Amleth witnesses the murder of his father, King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke), at the hands of his uncle Fjölnir (The Square and Dracula’s Claes Bang), who then usurps the throne intended for Amleth and with it his mother, Queen Gudrun (Nicole Kidman). Amleth flees, swearing to avenge his father, kill his uncle and save his mother, but when we next encounter him many years later (now played by Alexander Skarsgaard), a berserker raiding the lands of the Rus, it’s an oath he seems to have largely forgotten, at least until a chance meeting with a mysterious seeress (Bjork) reminds him in Eggers’ typically unnerving fashion.  Suitably inspired, Amleth disguises himself as a slave and secretes himself amongst a party destined to be shipped to the Icelandic land of Fjolnir’s underwhelming exile, where he now rules over a far less impressive kingdom than he once intended.  Through canny strategy and subtle magical assistance, Amleth begins to torment his uncle as he tightens to screws in the build-up to his vengeance, but as he draws closer to his goal it begins to become clear to him that things may not actually be that simple … this is a singularly stunning feature which PERFECTLY encapsulates everything that’s so great about Eggers’ filmmaking style while also effectively repackaging it as something completely fresh and new to what he’s brought us before as he takes all the tricks he so keenly fashioned through his previous horror ventures and sets to them to ruthlessly efficient and thoroughly fiendish effect in what is surely destined to become known as the greatest Viking movie of all time, or at least the most interesting.  Skarsgaard is SPECTACULAR here, by turns understated and downright FEROCIOUS depending on the needs of the story and Amleth’s own personal plot, but he also crafts a character who’s far more complex that just a spiteful, vengeful warrior out for blood; Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch), meanwhile, brings subtly fierce feistiness to proceedings as Olga of the Birch Forest, the enslaved Slavic witch that Amleth forms a conspiratorial bond (and eventually more) with in his quest, Bang and Kidman both skilfully subvert expectations of their characters as the story progresses, and both Hawke and The Lighthouse’s Willem Dafoe deliver brief but potent performances in their early scenes which sear great impressions on us that resonate throughout the rest of the film.  As with his previous films, this is as much about mood, atmosphere and some truly jaw-dropping visuals as it is about its dark and twisting labyrinthine central plot, but this is still BY FAR Eggers’ most refreshingly coherent and linear film, even if there are times when it seems to turn into some kind of strange (but admittedly deeply compelling) cinematic fever dream, and the characters are all impressively well-developed and three-dimensional, quickly making us root for or hate them according to requirements before the ingeniously crafty script sometimes turns things on their head to frame them in a new and startlingly different light.  This is as powerful, inventive and downright DOOM-LADEN as we would ever have expected from Eggers, but also definitely THE BEST film he’s brought us so far, and as he goes on this is going to be a really tough one to beat …

1.  THE BATMAN – another year, another Batman movie, it would seem.  But this one … somehow, this one feels a little different, a little special.  Frankly, THAT is actually something of an understatement … yeah, basically, Dawn of/War For the Planet of the Apes writer-director Matt Reeves’ long-gestating (and certainly long-awaited) reboot of DC’s flagship superhero franchise (originally intended to be part of the increasingly problematic DCEU canon but now, thankfully, cut loose so it can be its own thing) has actually turned out to be THE VERY BEST Batman movie outside of 2008’s simply DEFINITIVE The Dark Knight.  Perhaps this take’s most notable (not to mention most controversial) choice was in the casting of its Bruce Wayne/Batman – Robert Pattinson, the admittedly precocious young wunderkind who’s been working VERY HARD INDEED to distance himself from the godawful memory of Edward Cullen but still hadn’t quite managed to fully evacuate the stink of his tenure on Twilight … until now, at least. Turns out, he’s PERFECT for the role, especially in THIS version – this incarnation is JUST starting out, still finding his way as he tries to become the Dark Knight Defender that the nightmarish, corrupt, deeply FUCKED UP city of Gotham desperately needs to rescue it from its inexorable slow descent into criminal hell.  This Batman is still very fallible, still learning his craft, and the police don’t trust him yet, they’re openly hostile and always right on the verge of turning on him as he tries to insert himself into investigations with only one man on his side – Gotham City Police lieutenant Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), perhaps the one good man in a genuinely rotten police force, who’s as determined as his mysterious vigilante “friend” to save his city.  Certainly they’re all Gotham’s got as a brutal murder kicks off a fiendishly Machiavellian game of homicidal cat-and-mouse as newly emerged villain The Riddler (Paul Dano) begins to dig up a twisted web of lies and conspiracies that’s long held the city in the grip of criminal purgatory, spurring the fledgling Batman into a desperate investigation which inexorably leads him to dark and troubling revelations which hit uncomfortably close to home as some truly terrible long-buried truths are finally uncovered.  Matt Reeves and co-writer Peter Craig (The Town, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Top Gun: Maverick) have delivered a screenplay which not only makes this one of the best written superhero movies ever, but just a downright masterpiece of a film, PERIOD, but Reeves’ simply AWESOME direction deserves just as much praise here because every scene has been crafted to flawless precision and shot with an uncommonly artful eye too (certainly cinematographer Greg Fraser, known for the likes of Zero Dark Thirty, Rogue One and Dune, deserves a big dollop of the credit too).  The cast are uniformly phenomenal too – there are FAR too many blazing bright star turns in this to name, but the standouts include Wright himself, noble, steadfast and forthright as the most honest cop in Gotham, John Turturro as a surprisingly seductive mobster kingpin in the role of Carmine Falcone, Peter Sarsgaard as Gotham’s enjoyably sleezy and hopelessly corrupt district attorney Gil Colson, Colin Farrell, COMPLETELY unrecognisable and therefore able to just ACT HIS SOCKS OFF as the very best and DEFINITELY most faithful take on Oswald Copplepot/the Penguin we’ve had to date, a low-down, brutal thug with delusions of grandeur, and of course Reeves-regular Andy Serkis, taking Bruce Wayne’s faithful manservant Alfred Pennyworth in an intriguing new direction as a former soldier and reserved man of action in his own right, while Paul Dano’s clearly having the time of his life as the Riddler (I also fully applaud the way they’ve fully embraced the alternative take on the character from the Hush run of the Batman comics, which finally gives this villain REAL TEETH), playing things subtle and close to the chest in his earlier appearances before he’s finally unmasked and allowed to fully unleash in typical showstopping style.  The film truly belongs, however, to our new Batman and Catwoman – Pattinson largely plays the role in quite an understated way, but it’s a performance BRIMMING with deep nuance and subtle layers, perfectly pitched to highlight this Bruce Wayne’s somewhat isolated upbringing and deep-seated underlying trauma, which manifests in his suitably awkward public image, while when he’s in the suit (which is, of course, how he spends the majority of the film) he’s quietly menacing and thoroughly ODD in the best way possible; Zoe Kravitz, on the other hand, is PERFECTLY cast as Selina Kyle, investing my very favourite comic book antihero with just the right mix of sultry, sexy fire and sass and a ferocious determination to never be owned by ANYONE, and even LOOKS perfect with her spot-on short hair, sharp claw-like nails and genuinely preternatural feline grace (yeah, I thought Anne Hathaway was fantastic and pretty definitive in The Dark Knight Rises, but Zoe has thoroughly trumped her in this).  Altogether this is an essentially perfect package that effortlessly brings the Dark Knight and his hellish Gotham City to life just as effectively as Christopher Nolan did in his seminal trilogy – the design-work is on-point throughout, the action sequences are phenomenal (that insanely awesome car chase in the rain may well be this year’s best set-piece, although there’s also an incredible fight scene, lit ONLY with machine-gun muzzle flashes, which comes impressively close), the plot twists and turns like few others I’ve seen, dropping some genuinely AMAZING rug-pulls that I TRULY did not see coming, and Michael Giacchino’s incendiary score is a MASTERCLASS in low-key dramatic brilliance.  Most importantly, though, this is the first Batman film that genuinely gets the psychology of its central character COMPLETELY RIGHT, and I truly look forward to seeing what Reeves, Craig, Pattinson and all the rest do with the already greenlit sequel when it comes (hopefully it won’t take anywhere near as long as this one did to finally reach our screens).  If it’s anywhere NEAR as good as this it'll be GOLD …

#movies 2022 #the 355 #nightmare alley #ambulance #ambulance movie #the cursed #the cursed movie #the cursed 2021 #the cursed 2022 #the tragedy of macbeth #belfast #belfast movie #kimi #kimi movie #turning red #the northman #the batman #the batman 2022

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