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#as usual he gives a great performance in an overall mediocre movie

that-shamrock-vibe · 3 years

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Movie Review: Cinderella (Spoilers)

Disclaimer: I am posting this review the day after the movie airs on Amazon Prime, so if you haven't yet seen it don't read on until you do.

General Reaction:

It is slightly weird to think of another movie studio taking on one of the classic fairy-tales that isn't Disney, because, as I am sure is the case for a large portion of the mainstream audience, Disney have almost claimed fairytale adaptations as their own.

However, as identified, Cinderella, is a fairy tale and one created long before Disney came about. As such, other studios are allowed to put across their own interpretation of these classic stories that we have seen a lot of times adapted at this point.

That being said, we have seen many different adaptations of Cinderella at this point from the classis Disney Animation version and it's live-action counterpart, to modern-day reworkings like A Cinderella Story of the mid-noughties starring Hilary Duff.

It's quite an easy story to tell and adapt to a variety of different settings, and what this 2021 retelling does with the story blends the old-fashioned with the modern. Does that mean it is set apart from the others? Well in my opinion yes and no.

While this is a Sony movie, it plays a lot like a Disney Channel Original Movie. From the comedy to the settings to the costuming and the music, it plays like the best of those types of movies. I'm talking the High School Musical franchise and the Descendants franchise. It is by no means bad or corny, but it isn't even on the level of the 2016 live-action Cinderella.

While that version was pretty much a straightforward live-action version of the original animated version, the style of the movie outweighed the substance.

Here however, there is a great blend of both style and substance. The story takes the classic elements of the original Cinderella fairy tale but tries to inject a modern and feministic twist that the recent live-action Beauty and the Beast tried to do.

In terms of whether this version of Cinderella stands out in the crowd of Cinderella movies, I would say it does. Not only is the titular character race-bent and the setting she is in seemingly plays into that, but the reworking of the Fairy Godmother as the Fab G as well as giving the Stepmother a more humanised backstory allows for a more compelling take on a classic.

Cast:

Because this is just the one all-in review I'm not going to do an in-depth character analysis and instead group the characters as who were my favourites, who did a passable job, who was bad and who were for some reason just there.

Favourites:

I have a top 3/4 favourite characters in this movie. Idina Menzel's Stepmother Vivian, Billy Porter's Fab G, Minnie Driver's Queen Beatrice and additionally Beverly Knight's Queen Tatiana.

Idina Menzel was always going to be fantastic in this movie, but to see her portray what is traditionally the villain character in the movie as a sympathetic character as part of the movie's feminist agenda was an interesting twist. No cat for a start, I don't know if Lucifer was a part of the original fairy tale but of course in the Disney adaptations Lady Tremaine is always accompanied by her faithful feline, but also the fact that her backstory parallels Ella's current story and the fact Vivian was so willing to have Ella reject her passion to do what is expected of her just as was forced on her was actually great motivation.

In truth I have only ever seen Billy Porter in one other thing aside from this movie and that was American Horror Story: Apocalypse. I have never seen Pose though I have heard good things, but from what I understand, Billy Porter only really has one speed. However, as the character's name states, that speed is fabulous. I loved Fab G in this movie, the fairy godmother is usually one of my favourite characters in the movie and every interpretation I have seen has brought something different and memorable. If this version of Cinderella is remembered for anything it will be for this very modernised take on the Fairy Godmother, not only gender-bending and race-bending a traditionally white female character, but with Porter choosing to make the character non-binary and that outfit speaks for itself, Fab G was simply a fabulous character.

In both Disney adaptations, I have never heard mention or reference to Prince Charming having a living mother...or a dead one for that matter. So to not only have the Queen being in a chunk of this movie, but also having her own story branch tying into the feminist agenda running through the movie and being portrayed by Minnie Driver, I was in love with this character.

Pretty much similar to the Fab G, if you've seen Beverly Knight's one second in the trailers you've pretty much seen her in the movie. She contributes to Ella's story in the movie and only appears in the latter half of the movie in 2 maybe 3 scenes but she makes an impact because she's Beverly Knight. My only gripe with her is she does not sing in the movie, you have Beverly Knight with not even a solo in a group number?

Passable:

Unfortunately the star of the movie Camilla Cabello is just passable in this movie as Cinderella. She does have some humour about her and her singing is great despite maybe being autotuned because I know how she can sing, but she doesn't feel like Cinderella to me, it actually feels more like a version of what Emma Watson was doing with Belle in the live-action Beauty and the Beast rather than Cinderella but at least she tried.

As for Nicholas Galitzine, he's definitely more engaging as a modern-day Prince Charming, Robert is definitely more engaging a character than Ella unfortunately, which to be fair is still good as the 2015 Cinderella is the only other adaptation to really make the Prince interesting, but I can't quite put my finger on exactly which movie it is but there is another movie I have seen where the Prince Regent doesn't want to be king but the Princess does and has to fight for her right to be it...that's pretty much this story for them.

Also Pierce Brosnan as the King, despite jokingly singing towards the end, did a great job at being the archetype of old-fashioned values with his on-screen wife Minnie Driver's queen pushing him into a modern-day thinking.

Bad:

As for who's bad, I have to say it pains but the British comic relief characters really let the side down in this movie.

In the three mice defence, Romesh Ranganathan and James Acaster are somewhat funny but unnecessary. James Corden however is abismal in this movie. I get he produces it, but particularly after Cats I do not understand 1) Why he'd want to portray another CG animal or 2) Ever think that one shot of him changing back from human to mouse with his head on a mouse body was funny...it was terrifying.

Also this movie is supposedly a family-audience movie...so why include a crass joke of Corden's character talking about peeing out of his front tail?

Additionally to the three mice, Rob Beckett has a surprising role in this movie as a potential suitor for Vivian's daughters, but he simply portrays such a creepy, cringe-worthy character it's almost uncomfortable to watch.

New Additions:

So as well as the two queens and the British comic relief there is also the addition of Princess Gwen to the movie who is the sister of the Prince and the one who wants to be ruler. It's kind of the same story as Jasmine's in the live-action Aladdin as wanting to be Sultan but being a woman isn't taken seriously, however here it is treated more comedically as every time there is a serious moment with the King trying to force Robert to grow up and be King, she always tries to interject with "Would this be a bad time to tell you about an actual real reason why I would be a good ruler" and they make sense but she's always dismissed until the very end.

Then there's a town crier, who is also inserted as a musical number while he's reading his proclamations but as a rap. Honestly I don't know Doc Brown as an artist but I did happen to enjoy what he contributed.

Music:

Which brings us on nicely to the music of the movie as this is a musical and I usually break down the songs. Again this time I will be doing groupings of best to worse.

Honestly my favourite number is probably "Shining Star" mostly performed by Billy Porter with verses by Camilla Cabello and, unfortunately, James Corden.

I also enjoyed the two original songs of the movie, "Million to One" which is Cabello's "I Want" song of the movie and used a lot through the movie, and then also "Dream Girl" which is Idina's main other song but also sung by basically the women of the movie, it's Idina Menzel if you don't give her an original song it's an insult.

Idina's other song is a cover of "Material Girl" and honestly it is a lot of fun, Nicholas Galitzine's rendition of "Somebody to Love" was also fun and surprising as I did not think this guy could sing that well.

The group numbers were fun and well choreographed but they are also somewhat forgettable. The song at the ball of "Whatta Man/Seven Nation Army" was probably the most memorable but still just mediocre.

Recommendation:

So with all that said, would I recommend watching Sony's Cinderella? Honestly I would say it is worth at least one viewing, and I do recommend watching all the way through just to get the full experience. I do think it will do better as a streaming movie than it would have done as a theatrical release, but I cannot pinpoint a market for this movie.

I don't think this will go down as one of the great adaptations, but there are moments and aspects of the movie that sets it apart from the crowd.

Overall I rate this movie a 7/10, it's not as fantastic as I feel the trailers were making it out to be, but having seen the movie twice there are definitely elements of the movie I looked forward to watching the second time around.

So that's my review of Sony's Cinderella, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Movie Reviews as well as other posts.

#cinderella #cinderella 2021 #camilla cabello #nicholas galitzine #pierce brosnan #idina menzel #minnie driver #romesh ranganathan #james corden #james acaster #billy porter #rob beckett

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morievna · 3 years

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My problems with Haruki’s arc and why it could be done better

Hello, a bit late but still happy halloween ^^

Something a bit different this time - more of rant than meta. As maybe you noticed I don’t post usually about Haruki – it is not that particularly dislike him, just his storyline is not that engaging to me and I feel a bit lukewarm about him. Don’t get me wrong – in real life I think it would be great to have friend like him, but fiction works differently. I was thinking why I feel this way about him and I wanted to put it into words.

Since it is my personal opinion therefore goes disclaimer first - my intention is not to bash Haruki or anything like that. Most of my criticism is more about story, because I think Kizu Natsuki could done it better. Some of choices regarding his arc are really weird to me. Although I love Given a lot, it is not that I consider it perfect story. Nothing is perfect after all.

Okay, so let’s get started.

Honestly, to me it feels like Haruki is more of sidekick even though he is one of main characters. To me it stands out how Haruki’s story is done differently than rest of the band. He is usually there to support other characters or help them moving on, but in regards of his characters development there is not that much going on. I mean – at beginning we had learnt that he is kind, caring and dependable person and currently… we don’t really know more aside that. Of course, these traits are admirable, but it is not how character arc should be ^^

For why it is important:

We tell stories because there is a universal lesson. It’s why we feel humanity in far away galaxies and in magical worlds, it all relates back to the same, very human need. Maybe it’s overcoming trauma, or learning how to be independent, or just bettering ourselves in some way through universal experiences. There must be something your character learns about themselves. They should be a very different person at the end of your story than they were at the beginning, otherwise the story isn’t really about them, they’re just in it.

[source]

The last two lines are especially good explanation why I have problem with Haruki.

For rest of main characters we have characters development going in two ways – honing their music skills and more personal side – working on their flaws, overcoming trauma, following the dreams. Even though their family background is vague, it still gives some explanation for their behavior. We see them interacting with various characters and see how they relate to others. Live performances served as important plot points, where we see them reflecting on themselves, making decisions and moving on with their life.

But with Haruki with have very little of all of that.

There is no information why he started playing music or why it is important to him. We just know that he is doing it for fun, which is very little comparing how much time was spent on Mafuyu writing songs or Akihiko reminiscing on his dreams about violin. I mean – is it his passion or is he doing it just to be close to Akihiko? I am not really sure. Though Haruki considers his abilities as mediocre, we don’t really know why he thinks like that. His music skills are not really in the focus of the story – only comments are like “ bass and drums are in good sync”, which don’t really are about his skill, but more about what state is his relationship with Akihiko.

On the other side, there is no better situation with Haruki’s character growth. We can see that he has not much of self-esteem and always puts others before himself. But it is done rather in sketchy way and comparing to other characters it is not given that much attention and time.

Let’s look on it closer.

Haruki’s arc started for good after first live - we got more of his POV chapters after that. As mentioned earlier, he believes to be mediocre at everything and later we see him feeling inadequate and not at the same level as others.

Even though both of them are talented he seems to idealize it very much and kind of assume it all came effortlessly – it is a bit weird to me especially considering how much time they all spend practicing in the studio, but I guess it is to show how low his self-esteem is.

Then the issue with his self-doubt skyrocketed after whole situation with Akihiko – although Akihiko had done a lot wrong to him, what mattered the most to Haruki was fact that he refused his help and didn’t even wanted to share his worries with him. It seems like the most he fears that he is not needed by others.

He tends to put others before himself even not thinking about his own well-being beforehand.

And then all of it is suddenly solved by this scene after Haruki playing badly at practice and never brought up again *facepalms*

Though I get from that scene that Gusari’s intent is to tell us that leadership and soft skills are as much important as music skills but still… the way it is executed and whole context is just not satisfactory to me.

Akihiko telling Haruki that it is his own fault for playing badly – sure Akihiko it has nothing to do with what you done *facepalm*

Akihiko telling Haruki that he should focus on solely him - surely it feels like good solution to focus only on person who hurt you a lot not that much time ago *facepalm*

Overall, i also don’t like how it kind of feels like Haruki’s music skill doesn’t matter and he just should be supporting others and not thinking about anything else.

Though Akihiko’s words helped Haruki, it is very unconvincing to me. This scene feels to me like it was done without thinking through what happened earlier between these two. Even though there is good intent, execution is could be way better – because it makes Akihiko look arrogant and not really being empathetic to Haruki’s situation. I preferred if it would be more emphasis that is okay that Haruki played badly this one time and more like assuring that it is okay for him to take time to heal after what happened.

So in short – we got character which is dependable, who is anxious whether others find him dependable and then his love interest told him that yes, he is dependable and problem solved xD

Which is disappointing to me. I mean - obviously positive feedback is important and valuable, but still imo self-esteem should grounded not only on that.

What I dislike about all of that is that it puts Haruki in box of being dependable. It is like only that matters when it comes to him. Even more background characters like Hiiragi, Shizu or Ugetsu are given more nuances, but he is defined just by this trait. It looks like his main role is to support other characters and hence he isn’t given more characters development and stay the way he is whole time just to preserve current dynamics in the band.

Next ~~

The other problem I have is that Haruki’s storyline orbits too much around Akihiko. I mean I get it that he is his main love interest and sometimes love stories are like that, but it is just too much. Because of that it feels to me like Haruki is more passive as character – like he is not in center of his story just only reacting to what Akihiko does and wants. Even conversation he had with other characters are mostly about Akihiko. Even when he is not main topic he is briefly referenced. All of it feels like in Haruki’s arc it is Akihiko who matters the most.

Especially looking close on his subplot about playing as support:

he started that to cheer up because was feeling lonely and his one-sided crush for Akihiko weighted down him

Haruki didn’t want to tell Akihiko about playing as support, because he suspected that he will not like it

Haruki put on hold playing as support because Akihiko was displeased about that greatly

later when their relationship was on better terms he decide to play with other band

It is like what Akihko wants and thinks of him is most important to Haruki. Like that he that matters to him the most and makes his decisions because of that.

Maybe I wouldn’t mind that much if their dynamics were interesting to me. However, their interactions feel to much repetitive to me – it is always Haruki acting flustered around Akihiko or commenting how he is handsome/adorable/whatever.

On the other side, it is a bit odd to me how different Akihiko treats Haruki than Ugetsu. With the latter he is often more patient and understanding, but around Haruki he usually behaves like big spoiled kid. In addition, there is problematic stuff that happened between them that is well, problematic and could be better resolved imo.

Don’t get me wrong – it is still better done than most BL, but still the way it is executed is a bit off-putting to me. It feels like only one aspect is brought up the most – that Akihiko didn’t rely with his Ugetsu problems on Haruki – and the rest are kind of forgotten by the story. Besides, sometimes I not even sure if Akihiko know how much he hurt Haruki by his action – he looks so much shocked by Haruki’s reactions multiple times to the point it is just weird to me.

Because of that his apology rings a bit empty too. It is not like I want Akihko to apologize more or having to prove himself. For me it would me enough if it would be line somewhere like “i know I’ve hurt you a lot” . But no, even during confession scene he talked mostly about himself all the time XD Though he admitted to be childish - it is not the same as regretting wrongdoings. What he done was too severe to be so overlooked even though Haruki forgiven him completely. Or dunno maybe it is again just me being too much of Capicorn.

To sum it up, for me Akiharu relationship is much too close to het romances in mainstream media (like in Marvel movies), where usually you got main male character who has to save the day and his love interest which main role is supporting him on the sideline. And usually she is his kind of reward for his “manning up” when they got together at the end of the story. Therefore these characters are often flawless embodiment of being pure, kind and innocent. They exist as safe haven for protagonist and don’t have usually any arc in the movie.

And it is the way Haruki was framed in the story – as being only Akihiko’s salvation and not full-fleshed character who matters as much as him.

Okaaay, so I am done complaining. I don’t want to end here on negative note, so I will add where I hope story would go^^

Basically I want Haruki to think of himself more, to realize that he doesn’t have to be genius to be good at something, to find out that there are things he is really good at, to realize that he is too hard on himself. That he doesn’t have only to support others, but he matters as person and musician too.

I also want to him to be more independent and be more assertive sometimes. To not putting others before himself and finding out that is okay to selfish sometimes. Even though it would means some tensions and challenges for Given. But I think it is necessary for his growth as person.

If Akiharu is endgame for real, then I want their relationship to be more balanced and it should be shown that Haruki’s needs and wants matter as much as Akihiko’s. And Akihiko should be more understanding and not that he is still too insecure about Haruki’s playing as support (like in the last chapter *sigh*). If not, then I would preferred them to stay as friends.

To put it shortly – I want some proper epiphany for Haruki that he is the one he should love in the first place ^^

Thank you for reading and stay healthy <3

#given #given meta #given manga #haruki nakayama #nakayama haruki #kaji akihiko #akihiko kaji #kizu natsuki

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ratingtheframe · 3 years

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Everything That Happened at the 2021 Golden Globes

The first two months of the year are finally over and as the days grow longer, we can start to see the early signs of spring. With spring comes summer and with summer comes an influx of movie releases, with the majority of films that were put on hold last year scheduled to be released in the following months in cinemas across the world. You know, cinemas, as in those big rooms where you pay to sit and watch movies from start to finish without pausing it? Gosh have I missed the pre movie adverts, comfy chairs and super wide screens. It's not the same at home and despite Netflix, HBO and Amazon Prime thriving, we shouldn’t set anything in stone when it comes to the quality and accessibility of film.

Cinema is tradition whereas On Demand is convenience and usually choosing convenience over tradition does impact the quality of work being distributed. There are a bunch of films on streaming platforms that would be too inappropriate for cinemas, seeing as they lack a cinematic or dramatic feel to them to be good enough for a big screen. This allows mediocre to downright awful films to find an audience via streaming platforms. All well and good, seeing as these platforms are great exposure for upcoming filmmakers but at the same time it's a capitalistic system that puts views above the quality of content. It doesn’t matter if what you’re watching on Netflix is bad, they just want you to keep coming back for more. This can be said for mainstream cinema too, but to a lesser degree seeing as cinemas typically release around 68 movies per month, whereas Netflix has the ability to add up to 200 releases on their platform per month. It makes perfect sense that Netflix has the viewers that it does, as we can see that it releases almost twice the content of cinemas per month. For the avid cinephiles, this leaves us wanting a lot more as we’re only able to enjoy maybe one or two films a month from online streaming services, because the quality is so inconsistent. I hope that cinemas open soon so that I can relax knowing that the film I’ve paid money for will be of a good quality.

Speaking of good quality films, Chloé Zhao, director of Nomadland (2021) became the second woman in the 78 year history of the Golden Globes to win an award for directing. This is an exceptional triumph and from the moment I saw Nomadland, I knew that it would have an incredible impact on awards circuits this year. Nomadland also won Best Picture, which proves something that up and coming filmmakers may need to start getting their heads around. People may not necessarily be gravitating towards cinema for a chance of escapism any more. I thoroughly believe those days are behind us, buried in the 70s and 80s with films that defied the laws of filmmaking and went to extreme lengths to serve us an entire universe that we couldn’t even comprehend. However, as the world grows more fragile and people start to realise the fragility of life, we want to connect with one another authentically and realistically.

The way that film can do this is by showing our real selves on screen, showing our pain, redemption, emotions, fear, honesty, laughter, race, gender, humanity, darkest secrets and biggest dreams using the backdrop of cinema to sell us a story. People want films that are honest and are a reflection of humanity as well as the current society we’re living in. Not necessarily “a slice of life”, but a slice of humanity that we never see because it’s never impacted us directly, yet we still want to be made to feel like it has through film. That’s the key to success in any film, making the viewer feel like they’ve experienced something on screen even when they haven’t. If the film is too far away from our own psyche or humanity, we switch off, as we can no longer relate or even want to relate to something so obtuse and boring. Nomadland was the complete opposite to this theory, bringing us humanity in all its glory; its sadness and pure emotion that affects millions everyday, especially in such a time when loneliness is rife.

This is why Mank (2020) lost out. In a time where the world is in a sensitive disposition, Mank came as ineffective to the world of film. Though triumphant in it’s making, the film proves the fundamental foundation of film that Mank failed to do; have a good story. Mank just wasn’t the story people wanted or needed to see and one can appreciate a filmmaker’s efforts to make films but at the end of the day, the story is truly the only thing that’ll carry a film and if it's uninteresting and impersonal, people switch off. And they clearly did, seeing as Mank lost out to all SIX of its nominations. Less is more, I suppose, seeing as Nomadland won two out of four awards, including the top prize of Best Picture. David Fincher even took a shot every time he lost a category. Better luck next time.Other snubs included Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman (2021) starring Carey Mulligan ,which was released on VOD last month. The film was nominated for four prizes and I suppose the lack of release in cinemas worldwide or at a Film Festival meant the lack of hype for the film. Regina King’s One Night In Miami...failed to pick up a prize, having been nominated for three awards. King shouldn’t be too disheartened, seeing as her debut definitely got her the recognition she deserved.

Aaron Sorkin most notably won Best Screenplay for his amazing picture, The Trial of the Chicago 7. I had the fortune of catching this in cinemas and the musicality of this screenplay was unreal. An incredibly authentic, riveting and honest piece of work, I believe we can safely say that Aaron Sorkin is the greatest writer for cinema and TV in our day and age. Sorkin is used to being showered with accolades, from Primetime Emmys with The West Wing, to an Oscar with David Fincher’s The Social Network.

The late Chadwick Boseman was honoured in full glory, having won the award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for his role as Levee in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. An exceptional performance that reeks with Oscar success, Boseman is the first actor to be awarded the prize posthumously.

What’s also to be noted is the amount of British nominees and winners at this year’s ceremony. It seems like the American Film & TV market is wide open for Brits, seeing as Emma Corrin, Josh O'Connor, Daniel Kaluuya, Sacha Baron Cohen, Rosamund Pike, John Boyega and Anya Taylor Joy all won awards for acting. Helen Bonham Carter, Olivia Coleman, Vanessa Kirby, Riz Ahmed, Gary Oldman, Antony Hopkins, Dev Patel, James Corden, Hugh Grant, Jodie Comer, Lilly Collins and Nicolas Hoult all received nominations and were all born in the UK. The Crown in particular just seems to be getting more successful with each year and despite its controversy, the show has won Netflix 7 Golden Globes and 10 Emmys. What does this tell us about our actors and their ability in comparison to our friends overseas? Is it just a stroke of luck that the majority of actors who won this year are British or are we doing something different? Only time will tell as more British actors begin to be recognised for their flare over in the US.

If anything, we’ve learnt that The Golden Globes is for everyone. Anyone can win an award despite their background as long as those who control the awards ceremony are willing to give a variety of films a chance, not just ones directed by David Fincher. Nomadland is certainly an underdog for cinema, one that may not have done as well had other films been released last year. COVID-19 created space for this film to be seen and has truly been taken in as a work of art, proving that films of the same kind deserve to be seen in the up and coming future. British actors can and have made it big in Hollywood and it seems like American audiences welcome them with open arms. Sacha Baron’s Cohen’s humour in Borat Subsequent MovieFilm wasn’t unrequited, seeing as it won Best Musical / Comedy at this year’s award season, meaning every moment of that film (incriminating or not) WAS WORTH IT. Even though Regina King and Emerald Fennell lost out on their respective films, their work has been courageous and profound in helping to give space to women in the film industry. The fact that they were even nominated along with Chloé Zhao, was an achievement in itself and has women like me looking up to the success of these three women and realising that I could have the same shot. Mank came at the wrong time, and though good visually, it lacked a beating heart that the Golden Globes could identify with enough to give it at least one award. Soul was named Best Animation Feature Film of the year, also winning an award for music with a beautiful score by Atticus Ross, Trent Reznor and Jon Batiste. The Queen’s Gambit also reigned supreme, as Anya Taylor Joy won Best Actress for a performance in a mini series / tv film and the overall series won Best Television Mini Series / Television Film.

This has to be the best Golden Globes I’ve ever witnessed. Not only did it champion diversity in the film categories, British Actors and female directors, it actually gave consumers as well as judges, something that actually wanted, which was to see underdogs thrive in an environment that’s usually laid bare for the same characters. Let’s keep this up for the next ceremony !

ig @ratingtheframe

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avaantares · 4 years

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My thoughts on Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears

Spoiler warning.

No, seriously, loads of spoilers below the cut. You’ve been warned.

Okay, let's get the bad out of the way first: The plot was pretty darn lame. I pegged the culprit from his very first scene (he acted incredibly suspicious every time he was on camera, and... actually, were there ANY other suspects?) and the whole curse thing was handled very poorly. It wasn't treated with enough gravity to present any kind of believable threat -- I've literally played video games with more plausible crypt curses -- nor was it lampshaded enough to be an effective satire of 1920s oriental mysticism. A little more camp, and it could have been a fun Indiana Jones-type romp; a little more historical depth (or, uh, actually reading a Wikipedia article about Alexander the Great??) and it could have been realistic and suspenseful. As it was, it hit neither goal and instead floundered somewhere in the shallows of mediocrity.

But let's be honest, most of us weren't watching this film for the mystery. The previous series ended with Phryne and Jack breaking three years' worth of sexual tension with an enthusiastic kiss, followed by Phryne flying off and inviting Jack to chase her. (I’m assuming she's come and gone from Australia since, given Dot's rather forced voiceover about how Phryne broke Jack's heart when she left. He looked anything but heartbroken at the end of S3.) So naturally, everyone expects this film to continue the story of their relationship, since they are the dictionary definition of slow burn and S3 teased the fans with a tiny burst of flame right before the credits.

Despite the contrived "Jack thinks Phryne is dead AGAIN" setup -- which was tremendously effective in "Blood at the Wheel," but a little less convincing its second time around -- a lot of the character moments are golden. From Jack's tears in the car ("AWWWW" chorus the fangirls) to the rain-soked, tension-laden staring at each other ("YASSSS" chorus the fangirls) to the declarations in the tent ("FINALLY" chorus the fangirls), the film more than delivers on the Phrack front. (Phront? Nah.) Per usual, the best moments are Jack's reactions to Phryne's shenanigans (my absolute favorite is the casual lean on post, *bang*, "Got it" in the tarantula scene). As the franchise's final installment, the film definitely gives the fans what they want.

Mostly.

I mean, as someone who works in the entertainment industry, I completely understand both the logistical and script limitations that meant Dot and Hugh only had cameos, but... really? Dot can't attend Phryne's funeral because she's pregnant, and we're never going to mention them again after the twenty seconds they had on screen? Is that the best you could do, writers?! Ugh, it's like series 3 all over again when Hugh had to get mad and go fishing for weeks so the actor could appear in a Dwayne Johnson disaster movie. (Not that I begrudge HJB the considerable increase in salary a Hollywood action movie doubtless netted him; I just didn't like the awkward way MFMM handled his absence.) Personally, I might have shifted the England portion of the story to another part of Australia, still leaving Jack outside his jurisdiction but making it possible for Dot, Hugh, Mac and the rest to have a limited presence. Taking the series entirely out of Australia for its big-screen debut feels a little disingenuous, somehow. (This is said as an American for whom Australia still carries some exotic appeal. Perhaps setting the film on an international stage was more appealing for its home audience.)

So overall, it's difficult to rate this film. The performances were delightful, and I definitely enjoyed watching it, but I do think it could have been better in some regards. The character moments were good in spite of a flat story, which I suppose puts it in the same range as some of the more middling episodes of the TV series. I will likely buy the Blu-ray to complete my set, because I’m sure it will merit a re-watch at some point.

#mfmm #miss fisher's murder mysteries #miss fisher and the crypt of tears #miss fisher spoilers #mfmm spoilers

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tigerlilyhasablog · 4 years

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What I’ve Been Watching

Hello everyone! If you read my comeback post, you know that I promised a round-up of the movies I’ve seen so far in 2020. This post has taken WAYYYY too long for me to get around to writing, but now I’m self-isolating and have plenty of time on my hands, so hopefully I should be writing more! So let’s get into it. Before I talk about films from this year, I’ve got to sneak in my thoughts about my absolute FAVORITE film of 2019…

Knives Out – 5/5

I cannot tell you how much I love this movie. I’ve seen it three times in the theater since it came out! I knew that I wanted to see it the moment that I saw the trailer, and I had heard good things about it, but I was worried that it wouldn’t live up to the hype. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. Everything about this movie is just so. Damn. Good. The characters, the storytelling, the aesthetic setting and costume design… perfection, perfection, perfection. The cast, of course, is incredible. This movie is just so much FUN, and I’m obsessed. If you haven’t seen it already, GO SEE KNIVES OUT GODDAMMIT!!!

Now for 2020…

Richard Jewell – 4/5

I went back and forth on whether to give this a 3.5 or a 4, because its been a minute since I watched it, and honestly, I had kind of forgotten about it. Upon reflection, I’ve decided that is because of how many really good films I’ve seen so far this year, not because Richard Jewell is a forgettable movie. I really enjoyed it at the time… it has just gotten overshadowed by things I’ve watched since. The performances are great; Paul Walter Hauser was not someone I was super familiar with before this film, but he seriously impressed me as the titular character. It is just a very solid film about an important story that I really should have known more about since it happened in my home state.🤷‍♀️

Just Mercy – 4/5

Oh boy, bring some tissues for this one. What can I say, this is just a really good movie: its a well-told story of a real-life issue, its hard-hitting and tear-jerking af, the performances are great (Michael B Jordan, man🙌🏻), its just super solid all around. If you don’t cry your eyes out watching this, then sorry, you have no heart.

1917 – 4.5/5

Whoa. Okay, this is an absolute must-see. Holy shit, this movie is something else. As you have probably heard, this movie is shot and edited in a way that makes it look like it was one long take. Not only is this seriously impressive, but it is also effective as hell. There is never a break from the intensity of the film, and you will be on the edge of your seat every second (I’ve seen it twice, and I was completely on edge the entire time even during the second watch.) That’s not the only thing that makes ‘1917’ super impactful, though. The actors are fantastic… I was really impressed by George MacKay. This movie really doesn’t hold back; it is an honest, horrific, emotional depiction of war, and wow, it really isn’t like any war movie I’ve ever seen before.

Like A Boss – 3/5

Okay, time for a drastic change of tone from the last few movies! Not gonna lie, I went into this movie with basically no expectations, as I had heard nothing good about it. But you know, I liked it better than I thought I would. It was funnier than I expected, though not all the jokes hit, and it was overall incredibly silly. But it’s also a fairly sweet story about female friendship. I went to see it with one of my own female friends, we had the theater to ourselves, we laughed at all the stupid parts and we had a good time. So yeah, I didn’t hate it.😅

Dolittle – 3/5

This movie was… weird. Not necessarily a bad weird, but like, really, really bizarre. It’s hard to explain exactly why without giving plot points as examples, but I’ll tell you that there were numerous times throughout the movie where I turned to my sister and said “what the fuck??” I think that there were some drugs involved in the making of this film. On the plus side, I kinda enjoyed it. There were some parts that were genuinely funny, and overall it was something fun to watch with my younger siblings. My 12-year-old brother loved it, and that’s the real test, isn’t it?

The Gentlemen – 4.5/5

Ok, this movie was fucking GOOD. Not gonna lie, when I first saw the poster and trailer for this film, my first thoughts were, god, do we really need another cool-guy crime comedy with an almost entirely white male cast? The answer is no, no we don’t. But damn, if this isn’t a great movie anyway. It surpassed my expectations in every way… I loved it. The humor is not going to be for everyone; it is very British and often extremely crude, but I fucking cried laughing, it was hilarious. The laughs alone were enough for me to like this movie, but there is more to it than that. The plot is engaging, and although I’ve heard some people complain it was slow or too hard to follow, I liked it and enjoyed the story-telling elements. I also found myself caring way more about the characters than I thought I would. Oh, and there are some gorgeous cinematic elements to it as well. Overall, great movie. I guess I need to go and educate myself on some other Guy Ritchie films.

Birds of Prey – 4/5

So, I’ve given this a 4, but this is another one that I debated giving a 3.5. I had wanted to see it again before I reviewed, but the coronavirus screwed that plan up. I decided to round up, however, because my overall feeling about this movie is that I enjoyed it. It isn’t perfect… There were some odd plot decisions, and some so-so action, but you know, I liked it. It’s just FUN. The characters are all bad-ass, the music is on point, it’s funny, it’s colorful, it’s just really enjoyable. The cast are all great, and I thought Ewan McGregor made a great villain. Also, in amongst the mediocre action there were some really great scenes (small spoiler: I’m obsessed with Harley breaking people’s legs.) Like I said, I feel like I need to watch it again to really decide how I feel about it, but overall it’s a thumbs up from me.

The Photograph – 3/5

Huh, this movie was an odd one. I really wanted to like it, and I mean, I didn’t dislike it, but I just wasn’t feeling it, you know? I confess, romance is not really my genre (I like a good rom com, but just straight up romance? Meh), but I just found myself completely uninterested in the main couple. If you haven’t seen this movie, the plot is split between the relationship between Michael and Mae (LaKeith Stanfield and Issa Rae), and flashbacks to the 80s that focus on the relationship between Mae’s mother, Christina (Chante Adams,) and a man named Isaac (Y’lan Noel.) When it came to Michael and Mae, I just did not care at all whether or not they ended up together. I didn’t give a shit about their relationship throughout the entire movie. I liked their characters individually, but together I just wasn’t feeling the chemistry. Now, with the other couple, Sara and Isaac, I actually cared a lot more. I looked forward to the parts that would focus on them, and was annoyed when the film would jump forward to the present day again. I dunno, I mean, I didn’t hate it. It was funny in places and moving (to an extent) in others. The storyline outside of the romance was alright. I just didn’t love it.

Parasite – 4.5/5

Ok, usually I only do reviews for films I see in the theater, but I had to make an exception for this… I had some friends came over and we watched it from my couch, but only because nowhere nearby was showing it. If you haven’t heard of Parasite, you’ve probably been living under a rock. After it scooped up 4 Oscars, everyone was talking about it, and rightly so. Honestly I’m not gonna give it a proper review, because you just. Need. To. Watch. It. Basically, the first half is genuinely really funny, and then it slowly gets darker and darker, and holy fuck, I did NOT see that ending coming. The story, the acting, the symbolism, the cinematography, the setting… All fucking amazing. Watch Parasite, people. Just do it.

#movies #movie review #film #Film Review #knives out #richard jewell #just mercy #1917 #like a boss #dolittle #the gentlemen #birds of prey #the photograph movie #parasite

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joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh · 5 years

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Kyoukai no Kanata - Series Review

So I pretty much randomly decided to watch Kyoukai no Kanata. Let’s talk about it.

Now there are quite a few animated works in this series, with movies, OVAs, specials, you know, the usual stuff. But the best place to start is obviously the TV series. And uh, it’s alright?

Honestly I don’t even feel like I have a lot to say about why this is so mediocre. Basically, everything is kinda rushed and underdeveloped. The plot feels full of holes because nothing is ever really explored and pretty much every character is defined by a single trait. Character development either comes too quickly (Sakura wanting to avenge Yui but then just, not wanting to do that when Mirai’s all “she was jealous of you”) or comes out of nowhere (Hiromi getting mad at Izumi because he wanted to be like her but got mad at her for abandoning her ideals, ideals which weren’t clearly established in the first place by the way). The pacing makes revelations about such things as the main enemy youmu, named Kyoukai no Kanata, kinda hard to really understand, and we get such things as Mirai absorbing it and getting vanished to a different dimension, some random villain who we know literally nothing about bringing Kyoukai no Kanata back with his car engine, Akihito getting his demon back, but then Mirai disappearing again anyway, but then she reappears for no reason. That’s all part of the ending, I find it kinda cryporny that they’d even pretend to kill off MIrai like that, because it makes literally no sense for her to even disappear in the way she does, but if she’s gonna disappear like that anyway, then how on Earth can she come back? Anyway with the show rushing through everything at the speed it does, the tone feels kind of inconsistent? The show’s something of a dark fantasy in the real world for most of its runtime, so the episode where they all gang up to defeat a demon that makes you stink for example, and the way they do that is by putting Mirai in a fanservice-y outfit and then later doing an idol performance, it’s bizarre and unfitting with the rest of the show.

I think Kyokukai no Kanata would have benefitted from running for 2 cours. Mirai and Akihito are literally the only characters who are even remotely fleshed out, but they’re still kind of generic and need a little bit more to them, meanwhile the entire rest of the cast desperately needs expanded on. The aforementioned pacing and plot issues could be addressed that way, and if it’s gonna be 24 episodes, they could probably fit in more episodes like the idol one to balance out the tones a bit better.

The most praiseworthy thing about the show is, very unsurprisingly, the visuals. It’s Kyoto Animation. Not just that, it’s Kyoto Animation tackling dark fantasy, with intense action scenes and way more blood than I’m used to seeing in a KyoAni show. All the usual stuff you expect to look good in a KyoAni show looks great, Mirai is super adorable, but while the action scenes aren’t quite Bones-tier, they still do look super great, very flashy and colourful but not in such a way that conflicts with the tone nor is it ever hard to follow. Also I’ve already said Mirai’s super adorable but she really is super adorable, and something about seeing her use a sword made from her own blood is uh, idk I like it.

Overall I’d give Kyoukai no Kanata a nice 6/10. It’s mediocre on average but the early episodes and the finale do reach some fairly high highs, and the midsection is still kinda fun. At the very least, even if the plot’s not brilliant, it’s not so bad to where it stops being fun to watch, and again Mirai being super adorable, also voiced by Risa Taneda, automatically makes the show better. I’m quite comfortable saying that the show is just fine.

There’s a 30 second trailer for the light novels that has a MAL entry. It looks really good, but Mirai actually looks less cute in it than she does in the show. 5/10.

There’s also the episode 0 OVA, which would fit really well into the main show had it been 2 cours. It also reveals that the cursed blood of Mirai’s clan is effective in countering Akihito’s little demon mode, which would’ve been nice to know. But it doesn’t really answer any of the questions the show left us with so like. The subs for this were calling everything by different names, youmu being shades for example, so that was weird, and now I’m not really confident on the name of anything from the show. 5/10.

The first series of specials is called Idol Trial. In it, a character is accused of a comical crime such as being weird, 4 of the girls from the show in chibi form do a CG idol dance, and then the character is sentenced to a punishment, with the exception of the last episode where the defendant is innocent and then it was all a dream. These weren’t really very good or funny, and what’s weird is that Sakura, who had no personality in the show, has her personality changed here to “deadpan and eats a lot”. 2/10.

The next set of specials is just called Kyoukai no Kanata: Mini Theatre. And sometimes I wonder why I put myself through these things. These were not fun to watch. I did not have fun watching these. 2/10 once more.

This series has 2 movies. The first is a recap movie. It wasn’t great. Cutting a 12 episode show down into 80 minutes and you’re obviously gonna lose a lot, but I mean they even cut out the Hollow Shadow stuff from the first 3 episodes which I thought was a highlight of the show. Idk recap movies are weird and I don’t know how I should be judging them, but this one particularly given how I watched it the same day as I saw the series it’s recapping so. 4/10. I forgot to say this earlier but I’m not a big fan of Akihito’s voice at all, he gives a really annoying performance most of the time. I mean he’s fine when he’s just speaking normally but so much of his dialogue just isn’t that.

I wanna give a quick shoutout to kissanime, because I obviously didn’t watch any of this legally, but every single thing up to this point I’ve been able to watch on kissanime. What’s neat about that is stuff like the Mini Theatre or Idol Trials, that sort of stuff isn’t typically easy to come by on kissanime, that type of thing is where I usually have to resort to torrenting. I bring this up now because the DVD and Blu-Ray release for movie 1 features a reanimated and extended music video for Yakusoku no Kizuna, the song the group sing to that one youmu. And since it has a MAL entry I wanted to watch it. And it was pretty good, everything not being 3D is nice and all of the characters being out of sync with one another keeps the thing feeling realistic. There’s also the fact that the song’s quite nice. Just strengthens the idea that KyoAni should do an idol anime. 6/10. By the way, the next and final thing, movie 2, was on kissanime, this music video is the only thing I couldn’t find there. Seriously props to them.

And speaking of movie 2, it was actually pretty good! First thing’s first I just wanna talk about how unbelievably good it looks. The show looked great, it was KyoAni, but this is KyoAni on a movie budget, and as always, the results are stunning. The action scenes in this especially are legitimately cool as hell, like when black hair Mirai does all her crazy beautiful moves, I was like, seriously excited to just look at it, and not just because Mirai looks cute with black hair. Honestly this movie’s worth watching just to look at. Also I mentioned way earlier that Risa Taneda does a cute Mirai, but shoutouts to her performance in this movie specifically. Most of her roles I’m familiar with are just from cute girl shows so I’ve never had the opportunity to hear her flex like this, but she does amazing. As for the actual plot and characterisation in this movie, it’s improved quite a lot over the TV series. I forgot to mention in my movie 1 review, but during the post credits we get a thing of Mirai having amnesia, and that plot point is part of what drives this movie. Frankly, I thought this would suck, but they actually did it really well! Though slightly hypocritical, it’s understandable why Akihito keeps hidden what he does, and in trying to understand who she is with what clues she’s got, Mirai actually ends up getting probably more development in this movie than she did in the show proper. I think it was kind of a bit weird that she doesn’t get her memories back by the end, especially given how her arc revolving around wanting those memories back isn’t even negated by them returning, but I guess they wanted to do a “she’s fallen in love with Akihito all over again” thing, which was pretty good. Also Hiromi’s like entire character in the show was that he’s Akihito’s friend and a siscon, but within like his first 10 minutes of screentime he’s already massively developed compared to the show. Like he very quickly becomes one of the best characters in his struggles to maintain his family’s status and influence I guess, he’s a lot of fun here. I think the villains were still kinda weak this time around? We’ve got Izumi who’s under the influence of a youmu she had inserted into her by Miroku Fujima, and we’ve also got Miroku Fujima himself again. He’s still just as confusingly devoid of a motive as he was in the TV anime and also there’s this weird thing where he says he can fuse with Izumi and it’s suggested that he can do it if his original body dies, but we see his original body die and the fuse with Izumi thing goes nowhere? He and Izumi are definitely the weakest elements of the movie, but hey he’s got like this gross new design, but it’s gross in all the right ways, I liked it. With a plot that’s quite a lot more fun even if the villains are still just as bad, better character writing, and I think better application of the dark fantasy stuff, in fact this ends up bordering on horror at times, it’s definitely fair to say that this is the best part about Kyoukai no Kanata, and is what made it all worth the watch beyond my own desire to just, watch every KyoAni thing. I’m happy to give it the highest score I’ve given to anything in this franchise – a nice 7/10.

And uh, yeah, that’s Kyoukai no Kanata. It was pretty okay, of course I’m kind of insane so rather than just watch TV series + OVA + movie 2 I forced myself to check out everything, which perhaps made the overall experience a bit worse, but I opened with the decent TV anime and closed with the really good second movie, so that’s all that matters. I don’t think I’ll ever rewatch the TV series unless like, a friend wants to watch it with me or something, but I can honestly see myself rewatching movie 2, it was a lot of fun. Overall, fun time. Not my favourite, 2nd favourite, 3rd favourite or 4th favourite KyoAni show, and discounting separate seasons and movies I’ve only seen 6 of their works, so Kyoukai no Kanata’s not got the best standing, but I liked it, and that’s all that matters.

#kyoukai no kanata #josh reviews #13.8.19

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cosmicpopcorn · 5 years

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Captain Marvel (2019): Feminism, Diversity, and the 90s, oh my!

Warning: Spoilers, possibly. I always like to warn a nigga just in case.

Note to Readers: Yes, Cosmic Popcorn is back up and running! Last year, I went on an impromptu hiatus due to life being...well, life. Now I’m back and determined to pick back up where I left off on my journey of providing informal movie and TV reviews and discussions on astrology and all things cosmic.

Without further ado, let’s get into Captain Marvel.

If ya’ll remember the post credits scene from Avengers: Infinity War, Nick Fury sends one last message to someone, somewhere on an old ass looking communication device right before he turns to dust...and we see a star-shaped logo confirming that his message has been sent.

He was sending that message off to good ol’ Captain Marvel aka Carol Danvers. Captain Marvel has a very diverse, interesting history in the comics...in fact, Carol Danvers is the 7th Captain Marvel in the comics. To read more about that dope history, check out this article here: The Weird and Diverse Comic Book History of Captain Marvel.

Now, the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) do divert from the comics in a lot of ways. So MCU Carol Danvers is a former air force officer who was under the mentorship of physicist Dr. Wendy Lawson, who was actually a Kree scientist who disagreed with the Kree’s war with the Skrulls and had fled to Earth. Dr. Wendy Lawson (her alias) aka Mar-Vell (her real name) was using the Tesseract (Space Stone) to create an engine that would have helped the Skrulls to live beyond the reach of the Kree empire and she had enlisted Danvers’ help in this mission. But they are discovered by Yon-Rogg, a Kree commander who is the leader of Starforce (a Kree military task-force). During the fight between Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg, Carol shoots the engine in an attempt to prevent Yon-Rogg from getting it and it explodes in her face, causing her to absorb the Tesseract’s energy/powers, thus making her Captain Marvel. Her memories of who she is and her life on Earth are mostly altered/erased and she becomes one of the members of the Starforce, under Yon-Rogg’s direction and mentorship.

The movie was directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel is played by actress Brie Larson. I first remember seeing her in United States of Tara and really enjoying watching her character on screen. She has also played in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Community, and Room (which she won an Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role). Obviously, she’s been in a ton of other shit, won a bunch of awards and been nominated for others but I am not about to lay this woman’s resume out for y’all - just know she’s been here for awhile and she’s accomplished. Lol.

Nick Fury is obviously played by the wonderful Samuel L. Jackson, and y’all should damn well know who he is. He’s one of our national treasures in my opinion, right along with Terry Crews. Not to mention he’s already been present in the other MCU movies. He’s the character with the second most screen time in the movie outside of the obvious Captain Marvel.

Other actors worth mentioning: Talos/Keller is played by Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law is Yon-Rogg, Annette Bening is Dr. Wendy Lawson, and we have Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau, with Akira Akbar as her daughter Monica Rambeau. The cast overall is very diverse - comprised of people of color and women in starring roles. And based on what I’ve personally read on Captain Marvel’s comic book history, this is the essence of her story - breaking through barriers and giving power to a range of different people who may not have had it before, who were not usually represented in certain roles and positions of power.

I’ll be honest, it’s difficult for me to review and critique Marvel movies because the quality of their movies these days is usually pretty high...even the mediocre or bad ones are significantly better than other mediocre/bad non-superhero movies. I go into these movies with a bias towards them and it’s hard for me to see flaws unless they’re extremely obvious and detract from the overall quality of the movie in a major way. I will always try to be honest about a movie...but how I feel is how I feel and I feel Marvel movies are usually pretty great. So when it comes to these movies, I’ll present my thoughts on various aspects of them instead of the usual pros vs. cons approach unless it calls for it.

I basically really liked and enjoyed Captain Marvel. I don’t regret the experience at all and feel it’s worth the movie ticket. Here are some thoughts on the movie:

Brie Larson was a good choice for Captain Marvel: I’ve heard people complain about the decision for Brie Larson to play Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel, with some of the main reasons for their complaints being that she appeared to be too stoic, didn’t smile or laugh enough and that her portrayal of Captain Marvel was bland. I felt that she expressed the appropriate amount of emotion for the character and for the scenes she had. We must also keep in mind that Carol Danvers was an air force officer on Earth, a member of Starforce on Hala while being with the Kree, and also had been taught to not be emotional and that her emotionality was a weakness. So...why the fuck would she be super emotional and expressional?! I’m not sure what was expected - did they want lots of crying and giggles? We don’t ask for Captain America, Iron Man or the Hulk to be more emotional or smile more and this specific critique reeks of sexist undertones to me.

Captain Marvel was portrayed well in this origin movie and Brie Larson did a fine job. Yes, I am saying this as someone who did not grow up reading the comics. We are discussing the MCU Captain Marvel, not the comics. And we already know that when converting books or comics to movies, shit gets changed. They have the same source, but they are still different.

As a 90s baby, I enjoyed the blast from the past: This origin movie is set in 1995 and has things like pay phones, Blockbuster, slow ass internet, internet cafes and the music, oh my, the music. I loved it all. I don’t miss any of that, except maybe the music, but it’s nice to wax nostalgic sometimes.

Nick Fury and Captain Marvel are cute AF: I loved watching Samuel L. Jackson and Brie Larson on screen as Fury and Marvel. They had just the right amount of chemistry and played off of each other very well. I know Fury has gone to dust, but maybe we’ll get to see a nice, cute reunion in Endgame? One can only hope.

They did well at helping Samuel L. Jackson go back in time as Fury: I was pleasantly surprised how good Sam looked as young Fury - usually aging actors and actresses, whether younger or older is something that has a high possibility of not being done well and they did a fantastic job here. My man looked good!

I loved that Nick Fury got a lot of screen time: We got to learn a lot more about the character, his past, and really see his personality shine here. We also learned about how he lost his eye. Once again, I really do hope to see more of Fury in Endgame. And with Fury and his eye in mind, shoutout to Goose the cat, that’s my nigga.

Captain Marvel doesn’t have a strong villain and it doesn’t need it: One of the complaints about the movie was the lack of a strong villain like Killmonger or Thanos. However, with this being an origin movie, I see it being more focused on how Captain Marvel comes to being and how she becomes a hero, any villain present is only there to showcase her powers and as a plot device. That’s not how it is in all origin movies - Black Panther had a very strong, well-developed villain, but here, it appears the villain almost takes a backseat to other aspects of the movie. Her “villains” are more of society’s sexism, her own self-doubt, identity struggles, and her rejection of the emotional parts of herself. The people around her either enforce, support and/or represent those “villains” (e.g. Yon-Rogg) or push her to break against those barriers and embrace her power (e.g. Nick Fury).

Captain Marvel has a diverse cast and clearly wants to empower young women and girls: I loved the fact that our main character was a woman, her main supporting character was a black man, and the other important supporting characters were a black woman and a beautiful black girl. Yes, there were white men and other white people all around, lol, but a good amount of the ones with a lot of screen time were not. The movie also rejected sexist ideas such as: emotionality and being emotionally expressive being a negative trait, women having to smile for men and always appear pleasant or pretty, women not being capable of being in traditionally male-dominated fields and not being capable participating in male-dominated or traditionally male activities. It says a giant FUCK YOU to all these things. It also hints towards Marvel’s first African-American female superhero, Photon.

Brie Larson was right in her Crystal Award for Excellence in Film acceptance speech: In her speech, she presents statistics regarding movie critics - bringing to light that a large, overwhelming amount of movie critics were older, white men and that white women, women of color and men of color are largely unrepresented when it comes to movie critiques. She explains the importance of reviews and the impact it has on what movies can be bought and seen, how much money a movie grosses and what movies are nominated for awards. Overall, she encourages more inclusivity and for critiques of movies to be done by a more diverse group of people - a group that includes more white women, women of color and men of color, especially since some movies are, let’s face, simply not made for white men or with white men in mind. Not mention, as she said, people other than older white men also like Star Wars. You can hear that speech here.

She ain’t say anything wrong and anyone who has a problem with this speech obviously has some unaddressed sexism they need to tend to. Because, I mean...are you saying only older white men like these types of movies? Are we saying their opinions on media are the most important? Do we not want to hear from white women, women of color and men of color...since we are, you know, also part of this world and consume this media? And considering the diversity present in Marvel comics and films, considering the messages about sexism, racism, feminism, etc. that are present in the stories of heroes like Black Panther and Captain Marvel...are you really trying to tell me these were only made for and primarily focused only on older white men? Get the fuck outta here. I don’t care what a 40-year-old white dude has to say about what he doesn’t like about A Wrinkle in Time either.

All in all, I enjoyed this movie and it got me hype of Avengers: Endgame. Instinctually and based on conversations with others and hearing about flaws they felt were present such as pacing issues, actress choice, etc., I feel these flaws were mostly based on opinion (opinions that I don’t agree with) and in my opinion either are subtle (such as pacing issues) and/or simply don’t exist (such as actress choice being a problem). However, this isn’t Black Panther and while it doesn’t really have any cons (major or minor) that come to mind, it does lack the aspects of Black Panther that earned it a 5 Caramel Popcorn Pieces rating. With that in mind, I give it 5 Butter Popcorn Pieces.

Rating: 5 Butter Popcorn Pieces

#captain marvel #brie larson #marvel cinematic universe #samuel l jackson #feminism #moviereviews #Marvel Movies

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minaminokyoko · 6 years

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Venom: A Spoilertastic Review (that is mostly just a rant)

When the end credits to the Venom movie started, just as Eminem began his embarrassingly uninspired rapping, I turned my head to one of my two friends and asked her, "What the hell did I just put into my eyeballs?"

To be frank, Venom is one of the most peculiar, bizarre, baffling films I've seen in years.

I want to preface this review by saying I was against this idea when it was announced. I thought it was beyond idiotic to make a film about a supervillain whose entire creation hinges on a certain Webhead, and since Sony lent him out to Marvel Studios (the only smart fucking decision they've made in probably over a decade, imo), they went off half-cocked with the hair-brained idea that they could create an anti-hero solo flick for Venom instead. To some degree, sure, they were warranted because the general audience these days has low fucking standards and if you put the words "comic book movie" in front of them, they're usually going to lap it up no matter how terrible it is. After all, fandom doesn't care about things being accurate anymore, by this point, if you dangle fresh meat like Tom Hardy riding a motorcycle in front of them. As long as there's an attractive person at the helm, fandom will just adopt it as canon and ignore any red flags, as they have already done. That being said, I still think this is one of the most blatantly stupid things done for money and for notoriety from any studio toting around a popular comic book character.

Is Venom as bad as legendary awful comic book movies like Catwoman, The Spirit, Batman & Robin, Daredevil, Green Lantern, or Spawn?

Well, no.

And that's almost the only positive thing I can report about it, personally.

In short, Venom is inept. That's the word I'd choose, aside from bizarre. It has no fucking clue what it's doing at any given time, from start to finish. It's too wacky to be serious, too serious to be a parody or satire, too mature for kids, too childish for adults, too mainstream for nerds, and too nerdy for mainstream. It's just a piping hot fucking mess.

So let's dive into why. Spoiler alert.

Overall Rating: D

Pros:

-Note: I am being very fucking generous by giving this movie points for anything at all, just so y'all know.

-It's not boring. Other comic book movies that have failed, whether it's the really bad kind or just the mediocre kind, have failed worse than this movie simply because at least there aren't any dead periods. Venom doesn't have awful pacing, even with its sloppy, uneven story. It moves along at a steady rate and you can never accuse it of being a borefest like Superman Returns or something. Even though most of it is incomprehensible from a story standpoint, it keeps your attention throughout.

-The doctor boyfriend surprisingly averted the usual stereotype/archetype for this kind of story. For example, in the first Ant Man, the cop boyfriend who is with Scott's baby mama is a smug, overprotective dickhead who later gets better. Most of the time when a main couple breaks up, the girl picks some douchebag who is either so much better than her former lover that it just feels insulting or it's just a one-dimensional asshole for us to hate so we want the two of them to get back together. Hell, doctor boyfriend was actually TOO nice and understanding and helpful. There is no way in hell I'd have stuck it out after seeing Eddie bite the head off a goddamn lobster. I'd have sent his ass to a mental hospital immediately, fuck the regular hospital. That being said, I like the movie averting the trope. It was a welcome change and was awfully refreshing too.

-Even though this is one of his strangest fucking performances to date, Tom Hardy is doing what he always does and gives 110% to a film that really doesn't even deserve him. I've already been hearing rumors that he's not pleased with the final product and that doesn't surprise me, but he does what he can with that awful script and I appreciate the effort. In fact, the only reason I sat through this turd is for Tom Hardy. He is a dedicated, talented actor and even when he's in tripe, he's still busting his beautiful ass to make the best of it anyway. I like him a lot and I'd go to bat for him any day, which is the only reason I coughed up the money for Venom when I knew damn well it'd be a trainwreck.

-The effects are at least decent. Not always. But Venom and the symbiotes actually feel as if they're really there and it's not just the actors staring at a ball on a stick. I appreciate it, since Sony goes in and out of quality regarding CGI.

-Despite the fucking travesty of a fake clown wig on his head, Woody Harrelson is an excellent choice for Cletus Kasady. Everyone knows that. I just hope they get him a better hairpiece next time, sheesh.

Cons:

-Jesus fucking Christ, where do I fucking start?

-Plotholes. This movie doesn't have plotholes--it has plot canyons. It's plothole Inception, for God's sake, with holes inside of fucking holes. It's so clear that the movie doesn't give a rat's ass about anything because there are some of the most ridiculous moments you're expected to swallow with the power of Willing Suspension of Disbelief. It's why it took me a whole two days to try and write a review/analysis of the film. There is so much wrong with it that I frankly wasn't sure where to start and how to process it all. The best I can try to do considering the overwhelming number of holes in the story is go chronologically. First off, Eddie stealing Blondie's confidential documents (Note: Michelle Williams' character was so bland and unimportant I can't remember her name and I don't care to look it up because we all know she doesn't matter, so she is now Blondie) but then not doing his actual job as a journalist when making wild accusations is the first monumentally dumb thing in the film. Why the hell did he go through the trouble of breaching her personal security and trust if all he was going to do was rant about it to the Bad Guy without proof? What did he think it would accomplish? Why would you just confront the guy instead of looking for more proof? Plus, you stole that information, which means it's inadmissable in court since it was obtained illegally, so you still wouldn't have a case anyhow. Any writer with half a brain cell would simply have it so that Eddie read the document, became curious, and started snooping around Life Foundation himself looking for hard evidence that would stand up in court to get justice for the victims. The way they did it in the film makes no sense, but it's because they wanted to bust up the couple and make Eddie a "loser" to kickstart the rest of the film. Then, the girl who tattled on the Life Foundation 100% did not need Eddie Brock to do that. She had full access to the lab and the trust of her superior. All she had to do was document everything herself, send it to Eddie to pass along to his boss, and then skip town with her fucking kids to avoid being murdered. Hell, she could have given it to the authorities anonymously. Third, why after everything went tits up in the lab did she fucking return to the lab as if they wouldn't immediately know it was her? She was seen outside the lab seconds before Eddie set off the alarms and her palm print is recorded having opened the door to the lab. Why the fuck did she go back after she let Eddie in there with no way to cover her tracks? And then she actually told on herself and Eddie, which led to her death. I can't comprehend that level of stupidity at all. It's staggering. Because I'm trying not to turn this into a seven-page single spaced review, I'm just going to stop here and not try to point out all the other plotholes in detail, like the fact that the cops only get involved one time and are never seen again despite the fact that they'd be all over the explosions and missing people associated with the Life Foundation or Eddie's phone working perfectly after he swam under the fucking bridge or Eddie leaving his phone for his boss instead of just sending him the goddamn pictures or the symbiote magically knowing where Eddie was after they took him from the hospital. We'll be here all day if I keep going. I'll just reblog CinemaSins' eventual video of this movie and feel satisfied that way.

-The movie makes zero attempts at explaining anything about the symbiotes except for "they're vulnerable to fire and sound frequencies, need a host to survive, and eat brains." What is even stranger about the lack of explanation is that this isn't a long film. They could have easily added about ten minutes into the story to give us an overview of where they came from, what their world was like, how they found human contact, and why they were on that comet. All we can do is infer things, which pisses me off because this is YOUR story and YOUR new continuity that you just fucking made up on the fly, so I don't know the rules here and it's shitty of you to just gloss over it all. Why is it called Venom? Is that a translation from whatever the hell the symbiote was called on its own planet? Did it hear that somewhere and decide it liked the word? Why? Why does it get touchy if you call it a parasite when that is literally what it is? Is it like Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective and it's just in denial? We have to guess that it knows whatever Eddie knows, but why does it have any conceptual knowledge of romance and relationships when it attempts to get Eddie to apologize to Blondie or when it says it "likes" her? Or that Eddie "changed its mind" at the end? And how can a symbiote even be a loser? That concept is almost universally human and it's a giant sentient piece of fucking tar? How can it possibly be a loser on its own planet? There is just no damn context for majority of the shit surrounding the symbiotes in the movie and it's all the more frustrating since we spend a great deal of time in the lab with them during the movie and yet we learn almost nothing.

-Eddie and the symbiote don't actually form a proper bond or partnership. This is one of the things that's irritating me about people who seem to have taken to the movie. I was told multiple times by people that the movie is stupid, but the repartee between Eddie and Venom is enjoyable. Not really, no. Are there quips? Yes, there are quips. But quips do not inherently create a bond. Anyone can bounce dialogue off each other. If said dialogue does not change the characters, then it's just lip service. Sadly, though, a lot of people don't notice that absolutely nothing between Eddie and Venom lines up. Venom helps Eddie survive the attacks, but is killing him in the process. It's self-interest alone. The truly confounding part is when they get Venom off of Eddie and find out Venom has basically been consuming Eddie's organs to stay alive inside him, Eddie acts betrayed and storms off, but then when Venom returns wearing Blondie as his guise, he just accepts it and they go off to the badly filmed climax. What the hell changed in between those scenes? Nothing. Eddie still runs the risk of dying being piloted by the symbiote, and while Eddie has motivation to stop Bad Guy (again, another character that is so thin I can't be bothered to learn his name) from bringing the symbiotes to earth, Venom is given zero reason to want that at all. As mentioned above, there's no backstory. Is Venom concerned his race will consume the earth? If so, who cares? There's seven billion people and Venom has already found Eddie, who is a suitable match for him to survive, so why does he care at all? Eddie would survive an invasion anyhow. It makes no damn sense. Films that have dealt with symbiotic relationships always establish a common ground at some point but Venom doesn't for some inexplicable reason. I'm incredibly frustrated that everyone's just going "tee hee, look, they're best friends now, it's cute" when in fact Eddie is just running around committing murder randomly without ever really contemplating how serious it is, even though he claims to only be eating bad people.

-Nitpick: Fridging two different female characters, the homeless lady and the Life Foundation tattletale, rubbed me entirely the wrong way. Both of them were in Eddie's vicinity, both die, and both are never brought up again or shown to have impacted Eddie's motivation or life. They are simply used and discarded, which is another thing that makes this movie feel so hollow.

-The tone is all over the fucking place. It can be argued that Venom never went full serious and is always sort of tongue-in-cheek, but there's just this ridiculous whiplash feeling when you watch it spike from an action scene to "wacky" Brock antics to Venom quips. Eddie's personality even before the symbiote is just confusing as hell. It's like stuffing a bunch of random character traits into one man and all of them are fighting to get out at once like the characters from Split. The most consistent thing is he's sarcastic, but even then his moods range far too widely to get a bead on him. He can be dry one minute and then frantic and excitable the next, and that's before the symbiote. After the symbiote, it's like they gave Tom Hardy cocaine and steroids. The man's acting is simply all over the damn place. He accepts near-impossible things sometimes with a shrug and other times he freaks out. The movie just doesn't know what the hell it's attempting to accomplish, and that's why mood and tone are important to set from the get-go with a film. It just slingshots between a faux-horror film and a snippy action flick over and over again until your head feels pulverized.

-The final action sequences is one of the dumbest, messiest things since Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It's an ugly, dark, jumbled up mess. It's so indistinguishable that Godzilla (2014) can take potshots at it. Why in perfect blue hell did they choose two symbiotes with such similar appearances to showdown with each other on top of a rocket at night? It's so hard to see what the two of them are doing, who is winning or losing, or what kind of movement is happening at all. We also are never given the full range of their abilities, so the only real stake is when they pull off their hosts and their bodies are vulnerable, but even then it appears that Venom can raise Eddie from the dead seconds later anyhow. I'm stunned the movie couldn't even do a fake out death properly, which is so fucking easy that even Disney can do it. Eddie dies and is revived in less than fifteen goddamn seconds. The camera doesn't even linger on his body to sell the emotion (not that we'd ever have one, he is just barely a character anyway) before it just takes it right the hell back. That's filmmaking 101, for God's sake, and the movie blows it too.

-The last scene in the movie. In its entirety. I haven't been that exasperated since I stupidly forced myself to watch Pacific Rim: Uprising. There are so many things wrong with it that it's hard to know how to tackle it. I don't care that Eddie stopped that guy from extorting the shop owner--he openly turned into a 10 foot tall alien and ate a guy in front of her, and the movie just laughs and shrugs like it's just totally fine, like that woman isn't about to lose her shit, call the cops, or fuck, the NSA/FBI/CIA/Avengers on Eddie for making her a witness to murder, and endangering pretty much anyone around them. To say nothing of the fact that there is no reason a 10 foot tall alien with a million sharp teeth needs to say a single word to threaten someone. You are the threat, buddy. Your existence is the threat. Why did you need to insist on threatening to bite things off? You're terrifying and nothing you say is going to somehow make you scarier, especially when you just ate the guy anyway. It's like they just made that scene for the final trailer, much like that "I thought she was with you" comment all the way back in Batman v. Superman despite in-canon it made no sense. It's so unnecessary. And don't get me started on the fact that the crook actually asked the giant alien who it is. Fuck you. That was a lazy, transparent attempt to spoonfeed the wretched cliche that Michael Keaton's Batman made famous. (Consequently, all movies ever, please stop doing this cliche. Stop it. Just find another way to announce yourself. It's really tired, y'all, let it go already.) No human would ever look at that thing and ask it who the fuck it is. He'd piss himself and die of fright. Period. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Piss. Die. Period.

-Nitpick: Why was there that weird Godzilla (2014) trailer noise every time Venom attacked someone? Did they just steal it from public domain? They used it almost like the Inception horn cliche that Hollywood was obsessed with for a while and it took me right out of the scene every damn time.

-Nitpick: They really thought we're so stupid that we needed Kasady to actually say his character's name out loud. Look, you fuckers, you know goddamn well that end credits scenes are extras and that people can go home and Google things instead of you literally spelling it out for us. Hell, you know that not that many Average Joes and mainstream people went to this movie anyway since Venom is a second-stringer villain and your main demographic is die-hard Eddie Brock fans anyway. So having Kasady say the damn name “Carnage” in the post credits scene really was the final fart in my general direction. Give us some fucking credit, man. Venom has barely five plotlines to his whole character anyway. Of course we knew you were going to drop Carnage for the Sequel Hook, you condescending twat of a film.

Look, I get it. I'm hypercritical because I write fiction for a living. There are plenty of movies where turning your brain off is required in order to enjoy it, but I think this movie is asking me to get an entire lobotomy to be able to swallow the big-ass pill it's offering. It's just so sloppy and uncaring and yet it's holding its grubby little hands out for your money and your love and I think it's undeserving of it on every last level. It has zero comprehension of what it's trying to accomplish since it's a money grab, and its artistic choices are nothing short of bonkers. It's so strange that it even veers outside of the So Bad It's Good category for me. I can't in good confidence recommend it to anyone even though it's almost like a study in what not to do in both comic book movies and movies in general. It's weird in a distasteful way rather than in a charming way for me, honestly. I know people have rallied around it for being different and out there, but I don't think different and good are the same thing in Venom's case.

#Venom #Venom 2018 #Eddie Brock #film review #movie review #film rant #rant #movie rant #spoilers #spoiler alert #don't @ me #i don't care #anti Venom

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whitewolfofwinterfell · 7 years

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Horror movie recommendations

This list was originally posted in 2017 but has been updated for Halloween 2018.

I’ve been compiling this list for months and thought what better time to post it than October just in time for Halloween? Below is 50+ horror movie recommendations and a smaller list at the end of non-recommendations.

Some general info:

This is a completely subjective list of my personal favourites and I’m not saying these are the best horror movies ever, since there’s still a tonne of horror movies out there that I haven’t watched and everyone’s preferences are different.

My general tastes lean more towards the slasher, psychological, supernatural/paranormal and thriller/mystery sub-genres, which this list will reflect.

Not a fan of found-footage, sci-fi, monster (including vampires, zombies, werewolves etc.) or virus sub-genres, so you won’t see many movies that fall under these categories.

I haven’t seen many of the ‘classic’ horrors pre-dating the 70′s, so there won’t be many included.

All rec’s include the title, year, genre, main cast, summary, IMDb rating and a personal overview (none of which contain any spoilers).

Movies with asterisks are ones I consider must-see’s.

At the end there’s also a small list of movies I advise avoiding and/or that have a better reputation than I think they deserve.

Amityville Horror (2005)

Type: Paranormal/Haunted house/Possession

Starring: Ryan Reynolds & Melissa George

Summary: Newlyweds are terrorized by demonic forces after moving into a large house that was the site of a grisly mass murder a year before.

IMDB rating: 6/10

This is your standard haunted house/possession film, but I think the acting from Ryan and Melissa is strong and since it’s based on a true story, it’s kind of chilling.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)*

Type: Slasher/Supernatural

Starring: Heather Langenkamp & Robert Englund

Summary: Several people are hunted by a cruel serial killer who kills his victims in their dreams. While the survivors are trying to find the reason for being chosen, the murderer won’t lose any chance to kill them as soon as they fall asleep.

IMDB rating: 7.5/10

A Nightmare on Elm Street is an absolute classic and a must-see for any horror fan. Admittedly, on my recent re-watch I found it more comedic than anything else, but Freddy Krueger still stands out to me as being one of the most terrifying serial killers from a movie. Freddy’s back-story adds to his creepiness and the idea of being murdered in your dreams is something that’ll probably keep you up at night, particularly if it’s your first time watching.

A Quiet Place (2018)*

Type: Sci-Fi

Starring: Emily Blunt & John Krasinski

Summary: In a post-apocalyptic world, a family is forced to live in silence while hiding from monsters with ultra-sensitive hearing.

IMDB rating: 7.7/10

A suspenseful and heart-wrenching movie following a family’s survival in a post apocalyptic world. Along with Hush, this is the only horror I’ve seen to include a deaf character, which sets the entire mood for the movie in which the family need to out-wit monsters with super hearing. By far one of the best horror movies to come out in recent years.

Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

Type: Supernatural

Starring: Brian Cox & Emile Hirsch

Summary: A father and son, both coroners, are pulled into a complex mystery while attempting to identify the body of a young woman, who was apparently harboring dark secrets.

IMDB rating: 6.8/10

What I like about this movie is that the idea behind it is quite unique and slightly steps away from the traditional slasher/possession/cult sub-genres we see a lot of within horror. It’s set in a morgue which instantly sets the tone for the entire movie. The build-up is somewhat slow but trust me, shit will hit the fan. The face of Jane Doe will haunt you forever and there is something inexplicably terrifying about a dead body having the power to wreak havoc, because how the hell do you stop it?

The Boy (2016)

Type: Thriller/Psychological

Starring: Lauren Cohan & Rupert Evans

Summary: An American nanny is shocked that her new English family’s boy is actually a life-sized doll. After she violates a list of strict rules, disturbing events make her believe that the doll is really alive.

IMDB rating: 6/10

I didn’t expect to like this one, but gave it a try and was pleasantly surprised. It’s not particularly scary, more tense and somewhat creepy (if you’re like me and dolls give you the heebie jeebies). Lauren Cohan is amazing as the lead and there’s a twist at the end that you just won’t see coming.

The Bye Bye Man (2017)

Type: Psychological

Starring: Douglas Smith & Lucien Laviscount

Summary: Three friends stumble upon the horrific origins of a mysterious figure they discover is the root cause of the evil behind unspeakable acts.

IMDB rating: 4.3/10

I’m genuinely surprised at how low the rating is for this movie and how many bad reviews it has. Is it the best horror movie ever? No, not at all. But is it worth watching? Yeah, definitely. I went in with low expectations but it managed to keep me hooked until the end. The psychological elements in it are what make it so interesting to me. You never quite know what’s real and what’s not and I feel like the idea behind it is slightly different than the general ones that are overused. There’s definitely some jump scare moments in there and the concept behind The Bye Bye Man is very interesting (although more back-story and explanation to how and why he came to be could’ve improved it). The biggest flaw I can think of, which I can only assume is the reason for the low ratings, is that the acting is pretty mediocre and the characters are one dimensional. But for me that wasn’t much of an issue since the plot was interesting enough to keep me watching.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Type: Psychological

Starring: Chris Hemsworth & Kristen Connolly Summary: Five friends go for a break at a remote cabin, where they get more than they bargained for, discovering the truth behind the cabin in the woods.

IMDB rating: 7/10

The ending of this film is slightly “eh” to me and gets a little out of control, but I still rate it as being a generally good movie. The cabin isn’t what you expect and it will definitely play with your head.

Carrie (2013)

Type: Supernatural

Starring: Chloe Grace Mortez & Judy Greer Summary: A shy girl, outcast by her peers and sheltered by her religious mother, unleashes telekinetic terror on her small town after being pushed too far at her senior prom.

IMDB rating: 5.9/10

This is a remake of the 1976 original and I know remakes generally aren’t popular or well-liked, but I enjoyed this. I haven’t seen the original so perhaps my opinion would be different if I had, but Chloe Mortez does a fantastic job as Carrie, and you won’t know whether to hate her or love her.

Case 39 (2009)

Type: Psychological/Supernatural

Starring: Renée Zellweger & Ian McShane Summary: A social worker fights to save a girl from her abusive parents, only to discover that the situation is more dangerous than she ever expected.

IMDB rating: 6.2/10

Renée Zellweger is a fantastic actress and seeing her name on any movie is usually a good sign (excluding Texas Chainsaw Massacre). Her performance in this movie is great and the little girl Lillith will freak you out, because evil children are always more chilling than evil adults. Kind of has an ‘Orphan’ vibe, which is probably why I like it.

Child’s Play (1988)*

Type: Slasher/Supernatural

Starring: Catherine Hicks & Chris Sarandon Summary: A single mother gives her son a much sought after doll for his birthday, only to discover that it is possessed by the soul of a serial killer.

IMDB rating: 6.5/10

I feel like this movie isn’t as popular as I’d expect it to be amongst horror fans and I do kind of understand why. The idea that a doll would be able to over-power and kill a fully grown adult is ludicrous (and hilarious), but nonetheless this movie is a classic for the slasher genre. It’s wacky, kooky and out there, but it’s supposed to be. Chucky is a comedic killer with personality, which is a nice change from the usual faceless, voiceless, killers that have no back-story or depth and just go around with a knife stabbing people. It probably will make you laugh more than a horror movie should, but give it a try if you haven’t already. And if you like the first one, there’s 5 more movies to watch. None are as good as the first and when it gets to the fourth and fifth installments - Bride of Chucky (1998) and Seed of Chucky (2004), it gets incredibly silly, but I still got a kick out of watching them. If you’re looking for a movie that will genuinely scare and horrify you, this franchise really isn’t the right way to go, but it will make you laugh with it’s dark humor and it incorporates just enough gore to qualify as a horror of sorts.

Circle (2015)

Type: Mystery/Drama

Starring: Allegra Masters & Aimee McKay Summary: Held captive and faced with their imminent executions, fifty strangers are forced to choose the one person among them who deserves to live.

IMDB rating: 6/10

This is another on this very long list that was much better than I expected it to be. The premise is interesting and gripped me from the beginning. It keeps you in suspense throughout, but the ending is underwhelming and there’s room for improvement. However, overall this is a relatively enjoyable viewing experience which poses many questions about humanity, morality and gets the viewer questioning what they would do in the same situation and how far we would go to survive.

The Conjuring (2013) & The Conjuring 2 (2016)*

Type: Paranormal/Haunted house/Posession

Starring: Patrick Wilson & Vera Farmiga Summary: Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren work to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in their farmhouse.

IMDB rating: 7.5/10

The Conjuring movies are by far some of the best in the genre. Aside from the fact that Vera Farmiga is amazing and I love her, both movies have a strong cast of characters that make it easy to connect to the families involved as well as Ed and Lorraine. The stories are well written, there’s lots of jump-scare moments and the fact that both movies are based on true stories taken from the biographies of the real Ed and Lorraine Warren adds to the fear factor. I’m generally not easy to scare, but these two did get to me. Also, after you’ve watched them, research the true stories they’re based on, it’ll have much more of an impact.

Don’t Breathe (2016)

Type: Psychological

Starring: Stephen Lang & Jane Levy

Summary: Hoping to walk away with a massive fortune, a trio of thieves break into the house of a blind man who isn’t as helpless as he seems.

IMDB rating: 7.2/10

I actually walked in on my parents watching this one day and found myself rooted to the sofa, unable to stop watching. It’s very, very tense, so much so that I actually stopped breathing myself in parts! Let’s just say that being blind certainly isn’t a hindrance to this guy.

Don’t Hang Up (2016)

Type: Psychological

Starring: Gregg Sulkin & Garrett Clayton

Summary: An evening of drunken prank calls becomes a nightmare for a pair of teenagers when a mysterious stranger turns their own game against them…with deadly consequences.

IMDB rating: 5.7/10

I watched on a whim, not expecting to like it, but I did. It will keep you engaged and the anti slowly increases bit by bit. There’s also a motive for the person on the other end of the phone which you won’t necessarily see coming.

Emelie (2015)

Type: Thriller/Psychological

Starring: Sarah Bolger & Carly Adams

Summary: A couple’s replacement babysitter turns out to be more than they bargained for when she subjects their kids to a series of twisted activities.

IMDB rating: 5.4/10

This is another I decided to watched on a whim, mostly because I saw Sarah Bolger’s face, but I actually ended up enjoying it. It’s not really that scary, but is creepy in parts and kept me hooked until the end. Once again, there’s a motive and reason behind her actions, which is always more interesting than someone just doing something because they can or because they’re bored.

Final Destination (2000)*

Type: Psychological/Supernatural

Starring: Devon Sawa & Ali Larter

Summary: After a teenager has a terrifying vision of him and his friends dying in a plane crash, he prevents the accident only to have Death hunt them down, one by one.

IMDB rating: 6.7/10

I’m pretty sure everyone has seen or at least heard of Final Destination. Again, not necessarily a horror, but still has it’s moments and is a classic. Obviously, there are 5+ Final Destination movies now, which are all good, but the first is definitely the best. What I love most about these movies is how creative and unique the deaths are. You never know how the next person will die, but you know it’s gonna be epic.

Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Type: Slasher/Supernatural

Starring: Robert Englund & Ken Kirzinger

Summary: Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees return to terrorize the teenage population. Except this time, they're out to get each other, too.

IMDB rating: 5.8/10

Don’t let the slightly low rating put you off. This is one of my guilty pleasure faves. Combining two of the most infamous slasher killers in the world and the result is rather satisfying. Just like A Nightmare on Elm Street, this isn’t a movie that particularly takes itself seriously. It’s a fun ride and great to see Freddy and Jason go head to head in a bloody stand off.

Get Out (2017)*

Type: Psychological/Thriller

Starring: Daniel Kaluuya & Allison Williams

Summary: It’s time for a young African American to meet with his white girlfriend’s parents for a weekend in their secluded estate in the woods, but before long, the friendly and polite ambience will give way to a nightmare.

IMDB rating: 7.8/10

I watched this after hearing good things about it and certainly wasn’t disappointed. Not necessarily what I’d class as a horror, but certainly a thriller and boy, oh boy, did this give me the creeps. The tactics that are used are so subtle and not in your face but so effective. The story will go in a direction you just will not predict (trust me) and will probably make you a little reluctant to meet your future in-laws haha.

Gothika (2003)

Type: Psychological/Supernatural

Starring: Halle Berry & Robert Downey Jr.

Summary: A repressed female psychiatrist wakes up as a patient in the asylum where she worked, with no memory of why she is there or what she has done.

IMDB rating: 5.8/10

This movie isn’t necessarily the scariest, but has a strong cast with Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr. and Penelope Cruz and will play with your mind, particularly in the beginning. There’s an element of crime/mystery as Halle Berry’s character tries to piece together how/why she came to be in the asylum and who murdered her husband, which adds to the intrigue.

The Green Inferno (2013)

Type: Gory

Starring: Lorenza Izzo & Ariel Levy

Summary: A group of student activists travels to the Amazon to save the rain forest and soon discover that they are not alone, and that no good deed goes unpunished.

IMDB rating: 5.3/10

It isn’t perfect, but I actually liked this movie (I only watched it this year, 2018). I like that as far-fetched as it is, it also feels feasible in a way. For many minorities around the world white people are the enemy and if they had the chance to persecute them for all the suffering they endure at their hands, they would. It’s dramatic and the gore reminds me of movies such as Saw and Hostel.

Halloween (1978)*

Type: Slasher

Starring: Donald Pleasence & Jamie Lee Curtis

Summary: Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield to kill again.

IMDB rating: 7.8/10

Halloween is the first horror movie I ever saw and is what piqued my interest in the horror genre. For that reason, it will always be one of my favourites. It’s by far one of the most well-known and defining slasher movies and a true classic. The music alone will give you the creeps, but throw in a masked murderer (and one that apparently can’t be killed) and you’ll be in for a scare. As with most popular franchises Halloween has so many movies that I’ve lost count, but there are continuation issues with most of them and nothing can beat the original. The only other in the franchise I’d specifically recommend watching is ‘H20: 20 Years Later’ (1998), which you can watch immediately after the 1978 original and still understand what’s going on. This is the perfect Halloween movie (the clue is in the title) and it’s a tradition of mine to watch it every October.

Horns (2013)*

Type: Supernatural/Fantasy

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe & Juno Temple

Summary: In the aftermath of his girlfriend’s mysterious death, a young man awakens to find strange horns sprouting from his temples.

IMDB rating: 6.5/10

After the disappointment of ‘Woman in Black’ I didn’t have high hopes for this one, but I actually loved it. It had my stepbrother and I glued to the screen for the entire two hours it was on, which is a big deal since he can barely go without his XBox for more than 5 minutes. It’s weird, out there and not what you expect going in, but it really just works. The fantasy, supernatural and religious influences create an interesting and unique story. It also manages to incorporate comedy with more serious themes and even manages to depict an intriguing murder mystery and compelling love story amongst all that. Daniel Radcliffe is great as the lead and this is the first movie I saw of his that really stopped me from seeing him as Harry Potter and opened my eyes to the talented and adaptable actor he is. Overall, the movie is a mish mash of many different genres and themes (so for that reason may not be to everyone’s tastes) and I wouldn’t necessarily class it as a horror in the traditional sense, but it has elements of it and definitely stands out to me as being a unique movie that is a must-see.

House at the End Of The Street (2012)

Type: Thriller/Psychological

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence & Max Thieriot

Summary: After moving with her mother to a small town, a teenager finds that an accident happened in the house at the end of the street. Things get more complicated when she befriends a boy who was the only survivor of the accident.

IMDB rating: 5.6/10

I feel like this movie deserves more credit. Jennifer Lawrence and Max Thieriot do a great job and although it does take a while to get into the nitty gritty of the story, it’s engaging from beginning to end. And maybe I’m just bad at predicting these things, but there’s a twist that you just won’t see coming.

Hush (2016)

Type: Psychological/Slasher

Starring: Kate Siege & John Gallagher Jr.

Summary: A deaf writer who retreated into the woods to live a solitary life must fight for her life in silence when a masked killer appears at her window.

IMDB rating: 6.6/10

I saw the synopsis for this movie and didn’t expect to like it at all. After all, how entertaining can it be to watch a deaf woman stumble about running from killers for an hour and a half? Boy, how wrong was I. It’s incredibly tense, particularly in those moments where it’s completely silent and we get to experience it through the senses of the main character, Maddie, who is trooper and incredibly tactical and resourceful in her battle for survival.

Identity (2003)*

Type: Thriller/Mystery

Starring: John Cusack & Ray Liotta

Summary: Stranded at a desolate Nevada motel during a nasty rain-storm, ten strangers become acquainted with each other when they realize that they're being killed off one by one.

IMDB rating: 7.3/10

Incident in a Ghostland*

Type: Psychological

Starring: Crystal Reed & Mylène Farmer

Summary: A mother of two who inherits a house is confronted with murderous intruders on the first night in their new home and fights for her daughters' lives. Sixteen years later when the daughters reunite at the house, things get really strange.

IMDB rating: 6.3/10

The best new horror movie I’ve seen in years. In fact, I would include this in my top 20 favourite horrors of all time (maybe even top 10). A truly gritty, raw psychological horror with twists and turns that leaves you haunted long after it has ended. With all of the mediocre horrors that have been released in recent years, Incident in a Ghostland reminded me exactly why I love horror so much and does everything a truly good horror should do.

Insidious (2010)*

Type: Paranormal/Posession

Starring: Patrick Wilson & Rose Byrne

Summary: A family looks to prevent evil spirits from trapping their comatose child in a realm called The Further.

IMDB rating: 6.8/10

There’s a reason these movies have earned so much recognition and are included on almost every top list of horror movies I’ve ever seen. It’s easy to think this movie will be your standard possession movie, but it takes it that step further by making you connect with the family and giving Patrick Wilson’s character a personal journey of self-discovery and growth. He uncovers secrets from his childhood as he tries to save his son from the same entity that plagued him as a child. There’s three movies in this franchise and I’d recommend watching all of them if you enjoy the first one.

Intruders (2015)

Type: Psychological/Thriller

Starring: Rory Culkin & Leticia Jimenez

Summary: Anna suffers from agoraphobia so crippling that when a trio of criminals break into her house, she cannot bring herself to flee. But what the intruders don’t realize is that agoraphobia is not her only problem.

IMDB rating: 5.7/10

I randomly put this movie on one night when my stepsister was round just to have on in the background and before I knew it we were both glued to the screen. How it ends is not the direction you expect it to take at all and I always like movies that have a twist at the end. It has a kind of ‘Don’t Breathe’ vibe with the intruders getting a lot more than they bargained for and just like ‘Don’t Breathe’ it’ll keep you engaged until the end.

The Invitation (2015)

Type: Thriller/Psychological

Starring: Logan Marshall-Green & Emayatzy Corinealdi

Summary: While attending a dinner party at his former home, a man thinks his ex-wife and her new husband have sinister intentions for their guests.

IMDB rating: 6.7/10

This is by far one of my favorite films I watched in 2017. There’s not many movies that can have me on the edge of my seat and questioning everything pretty much until the end, but this movie succeeded in doing exactly that. It makes you constantly question reality and whether the main protagonist, Will, is suffering from a psychotic break or his suspicions truly are justified. I’ve never studied film, so I’m unable to dissect it in a proper or adequate way, but what I will say is there is something about the way in which it’s filmed, directed and edited that perfectly portrays the apprehension, uncertainty, distress and suspense, particularly from Will’s perspective. My one critique is that I feel the ending could’ve been taken a step further and had more surprises thrown in there, since it was so tense all the way through but became a little predictable in the last 20 minutes. Despite this, it’s a great movie and also a very interesting exploration of grief and how it can deeply affect a person’s psyche. Definitely more of a thriller than a horror, but I enjoyed it a lot.

I Spit On Your Grave (2010)

Type: Psychological/Slasher

Starring: Sarah Butler & Jeff Branson

Summary: A writer who is brutalized during her cabin retreat seeks revenge on her attackers, who left her for dead.

IMDB rating: 6.4/10

This is the one movie I debated whether to include, because it’s so controversial. The original was released in 1978 and this is a remake, so I can’t speak to whether the original is better or to what degree the remake follows the original. All I will say is that it’s definitely not one for the faint hearted and I’d recommend anyone that considers watching it to take extreme caution before doing so. The first time I heard about this was from my stepbrother who told me it was so brutal and graphic that it’s been banned or censored in almost every country it’s been released in and after seeing it, I can understand why. I have a strong stomach and I’ve seen so many horror movies that it takes a lot for something to affect me, but this really did. And honestly, that’s the sole reason I’m including it on this list, because in my opinion, any horror movie that sticks in my mind and continues to haunt me after I’ve seen it is one that’s done it’s job. The main warning I need to give is about the rape scenes which are extremely long (according to Wiki up to 30 minutes long), graphic and difficult to watch. There were a few times when I had to close my eyes and remind myself it was just a movie, because it really felt like I was watching this poor woman get raped and tortured. There’s a lot of gore too in comparison to most of the other movies on this list and the killings are very sadistic and violent. Basically, after the first 15 minutes this film is intense and horrific from start to end.

Jennifer’s Body (2009)*

Type: Supernatural

Starring: Megan Fox & Amanda Seyfried

Summary: A newly possessed high school cheerleader turns into a succubus who specializes in killing her male classmates. Can her best friend put an end to the horror?

IMDB rating: 5.1/10

In many ways this movie is trash, but god, I love it. It’s nothing how you’d expect a movie featuring Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried to be, which is what makes it so great. As always Amanda’s acting is A+ and although Megan is sexualised (as she is in every movie she’s in), she makes a pretty convincing and at times scary villain that you love to hate and hate to love. The two actresses are the perfect contrast to one another, as are their characters and the dynamic between Jennifer and Needy is an interesting one to watch. It’s definitely more of a parody or spoof than a genuine horror, but the movie owns itself and doesn’t try to be anything other than what it is, which is why I think it’s so great. And despite being humorous and cliche in part, I’d argue that it has it’s scary moments (particularly the scene where Jennifer goes to Needy’s house after the fire) and interesting characterisation for both the main characters, who are actually nothing but innocent victims that are thrown into chaos.

The Last House On The Left (2009)

Type: Psychological

Starring: Garret Dillahunt & Monica Potter

Summary: After kidnapping and brutally assaulting two young women, a gang unknowingly finds refuge at a vacation home belonging to the parents of one of the victims: a mother and father who devise an increasingly gruesome series of revenge tactics.

IMDB rating: 6.6/10

This is your standard rape/revenge movie and reminds me of ‘I Spit On Your Grave’ but a tamer version. It’s good and worth a watch but nothing special, which I base on the fact that I re-watched it recently and didn’t even realise I’d seen it before until over half way through when I thought, “Huh, this seems familiar”. Before you watch, I should warn you that the rape scene is graphic and distressing.

Lights Out (2016)

Type: Supernatural

Starring: Teresa Palmer & Gabriel Bateman

Summary: Rebecca must unlock the terror behind her little brother’s experiences that once tested her sanity, bringing her face to face with an entity attached to their mother.

IMDB rating: 6.4/10

This is another one of those movies I decided to watch on a whim, expecting it not to be very good and it actually surprised me. I really liked the lead character (which is a rarity for me) and got on board with her and her family. The “entity’s” connection to the family is explored and it’s Rebecca’s job to save herself and her family from it. Not one for those scared of the dark (hah!).

Orphan (2009)*

Type: Thriller/Psychological

Starring: Vera Farmiga & Peter Sarsgaard

Summary: A husband and wife who recently lost their baby adopt a 9 year-old girl who is not nearly as innocent as she claims to be.

IMDB rating: 7/10

By far one of the best horror/thriller movies I’ve ever seen. Vera Farmiga brings her A game to any role she plays and this movie is no exception. This probably is more of a thriller than a horror and there’s a slow build, but it will keep you gripped. Generally with most movies there’s a level of predictability, but trust me, you will not guess the twist with this one. It’s still one of the only times I can recount being truly shocked at a movie, and although it’s not necessarily scary, it’s incredibly chilling and might make you reconsider adopting in the future.

Oujia: Origin of Evil (2016)

Type: Supernatural/Possession/Haunted house

Starring: Elizabeth Reaser & Lulu Wilson

Summary: In 1967 Los Angeles, a widowed mother and her 2 daughters add a new stunt to bolster their seance scam business, inviting an evil presence into their home.

IMDB rating: 6.1/10

This is a very underrated movie. I feel like the title insinuates it’s gonna suck, but it’s actually really good. It has a similar vibe to ‘The Conjuring’ with a little girl getting possessed, but it’s executed very well and has its scary moments.

Pet (2016)

Type: Thriller/Psychological

Starring: Dominic Monaghan & Ksenia Solo

Summary: A psychological thriller about a man who bumps into an old crush and subsequently becomes obsessed with her, leading him to hold her captive underneath the animal shelter where he works. But what will the victim have in store for her captor?

IMDB rating: 5.7/10

This is one of those movies where the only thought that goes through your head the entire time is, “What sick fuck thought of this?”. Dominic Monaghan is an actor I personally love and he’s great in this movie (if you’re able to overlook his poor American accent, which I admit I struggled with at times) and trust me when I say that how this movie starts, is nothing close to how it will end.

The Purge (2013)

Type: Psychological/Thriller

Starring: Ethan Hawke & Lena Headey

Summary: A wealthy family are held hostage for harboring the target of a murderous syndicate during the Purge, a 12-hour period in which any and all crime is legal.

IMDB rating: 5.7/10

Another movie on the list that I wouldn’t necessarily class as a horror, but which is scary purely based on the fact that this is something that could feasibly happen in the future. All crimes are legalised for 24 hours and anything can happen. The summary speaks for itself really.

The Ring (2002)

Type: Supernatural

Starring: Naomi Watts & Martin Henderson

Summary: A journalist must investigate a mysterious videotape which seems to cause the death of anyone in a week of viewing it.

IMDB rating: 7.1/10

This is well-known within the horror genre, because it quite simply delivers. It’s scary and every time I watch it I still feel a surge of panic whenever the videotape comes on screen and afterwards dread the sound of my phone going off. It’s simple but effectively scary and a classic.

Saw (2004)*

Type: Slasher/Gore

Starring: Cary Elwes & Leigh Whannell

Summary: Two strangers awaken in a room with no recollection of how they got there or why, and soon discover they are pawns in a deadly game perpetrated by a notorious serial killer.

IMDB rating: 7.7/10

Saw is another classic in the horror genre and one I go back to re-watch again and again. It’s a gore fest and I don’t know many people that have the stomach to sit through it, but it actually has a lot more to it than that. There’s a story behind Jigsaw, the killer, which is built upon across the franchise (I’d recommend watching all of the movies) and even the victims have back stories that are sometimes quite interesting. Just like ‘Final Destination’, it’s fascinating to see what the next death trap Jigsaw sets up will be like and whether or not the person will make it out alive. The music also gives me shivers whenever I hear it. It’s up there with the Halloween soundtrack as being my fave.

Scream (1996)*

Type: Slasher

Starring: Neve Campbell & Courteney Cox

Summary: A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a new killer, who targets the girl and her friends by using horror films as part of a deadly game.

IMDB rating: 7.2/10

How can anyone that enjoys horror movies not have seen Scream at least once? For me, this will always be at the top of my list as being the best horror movie. A strong cast, characters that viewers are actually able to connect to (Sidney is badass, Dewey is a loveable dork and Gale is that character you have a love-hate relationship with), interesting back-story that has continuity across the franchise (unlike Halloween) and a shit-ton of horror tropes classic to the horror genre that are both scary and at times funny. Again, I’d recommend watching all of the movies in the triology (even Scream 4 isn’t bad), but the first stands out to me as being the best, simply because nothing can beat the reveal of the killer.

Shaun Of The Dead (2004)*

Type: Comedy/Zombie

Starring: Simon Pegg & Nick Frost

Summary: A man decides to turn his moribund life around by winning back his ex-girlfriend, reconciling his relationship with his mother, and dealing with an entire community that has returned from the dead to eat the living.

IMDB rating: 8/10

I’m not a huge fan of horror comedies, but Shaun Of The Dead is an exception. This isn’t just one of my fave movies from the horror genre, but of all time. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are the ultimate comedic pairing and bounce off each other so well. The humor is spot on, actually laugh out loud funny (unlike Scary Movie), it’s cleverly written and witty, but also manages to incorporate an appropriate amount of gore and emotion. Just please go and watch this movie, you won’t regret it. I’d also just like to point out as a final point, that there’s a reason this is the most highly rated movie on IMDB off this list.

The Shallows (2016)

Type: Thriller/Shark

Starring: Blake Lively

Summary: A mere 200 yards from shore, surfer Nancy is attacked by a great white shark, with her short journey to safety becoming the ultimate contest of wills.

IMDB rating: 6.4/10

Now, I’ve seen my fair share of shark movies over the years and it’s an area I tend to steer clear of because they’re inevitably always complete and utter shite, but not this one. I was pleasantly surprised at just how engrossed I became with this movie. Usually when I’m watching something I’ll pause midway through to grab some snacks or I’ll browse social media for a few minutes, but with this I remained glue to my screen from beginning to end. I think what makes this movie so good in comparison to other shark movies I’ve seen is Blake Lively’s performance. She does an amazing job as the lead, particularly considering 90% of the movie is of her on her own. Nancy is a pragmatic character that really fights tooth (excuse the pun) and nail to survive and she makes you really root for her. It does drag a little towards the end, but overall I enjoyed this movie and although I wouldn’t exactly class it a horror, most sites list it as being so.

The Shining (1980)*

Type: Psychological/Supernatural

Starring: Jack Nicholson & Shelley Duvall

Summary: A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.

IMDB rating: 8.4/10

An absolute classic to the horror genre that most of you will likely already have seen. Surprisingly, I only got around to watching this in 2018 (although I’d seen snippets of it before, I’d never watched it properly) and it met all of my expectations. It’s movies like these that represent everything that’s amazing in the horror genre.

Sinister (2012)

Type: Supernatural

Starring: Ethan Hawke & Juliet Rylance

Summary: Washed-up true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt finds a box of super 8 home movies that suggest the murder he is currently researching is the work of a serial killer whose work dates back to the 1960s.

IMDB rating: 6.8/10

I only recently watched this after seeing it on multiple “best horror movie” lists and can understand why it was included. Although the build-up is slow, it adds to the tension and definitely has it’s jump-scare moments. Ethan Hawke as the lead is incredible. Even though you know he’s not crazy, you still find yourself questioning his mental health as he becomes obsessed with his work and in the process puts his entire family in jeopardy. I wasn’t overly fond of the ending (a trend that’s common for me), but overall it’s a good movie.

Split (2016)*

Type: Thriller/Psychological

Starring: James McAvoy & Anya Taylor-Joy

Summary: Three girls are kidnapped by a man with a diagnosed 23 distinct personalities. They must try to escape before the apparent emergence of a frightful new 24th.

IMDB rating: 7.3/10

I was so so so so excited to see this movie the second I saw it advertised, (mainly because of James McAvoy, let’s be honest here), but also because it looked so damn good. As expected, James delivered in this movie, he really did. Portraying mental illness is a tricky task for any actor and a mental illness that manifests itself in 23 distinct personalities is even trickier to pull off, but James did it. I was gripped from the very beginning and found myself developing attachments to each distinctive personality that we saw. The end was disappointing since it got a little wacky and too far-fetched for my liking, particularly considering the tone of the rest of the movie, but overall it’s a brilliant movie that I would recommend anyone to watch.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)*

Type: Slasher

Starring: Marilyn Burns & Edwin Neal

Summary: Two siblings visit their grandfather’s grave in Texas along with three of their friends and are attacked by a family of cannibalistic psychopaths.

IMDB rating: 7.5/10

How could I not include ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ on this list? It’s as defining of the slasher genre as ‘Halloween’ (although in my opinion, not as good) and one of the first franchises I watched when I was first discovering horror. The 1974 original is the best out of the 7 films that make up the franchise which is no surprise. As with any long-running horror franchise, the movies span across 4 decades and there’s huge continuity issues with each producer/director putting their own spin on it and a lot of the time failing to do it justice. I haven’t seen all of them but have to warn you to steer clear of the fourth installment, ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation’ (1994), at all costs. Don’t let the cast fool you, it’s by far one of the worst films I’ve ever seen and the 3.4 rating it has on IMDb is generous. The only other two worth watching in my opinion are the fifth and sixth installments - ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ (2003) and ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning’ (2006), which in some ways I actually prefer to the 1974 original.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)

Type: Slasher

Starring: Addison Timlin & Veronica Cartwright

Summary: 65 years after a masked serial killer terrorized the small town of Texarkana, the so-called ‘moonlight murders’ begin again. Is it a copycat or something even more sinister? A lonely high school girl, with dark secrets of her own, may be the key to catching him.

IMDB rating: 5.6/10

I feel like most people would rate this movie as average or even below average, but you know what? I really liked it. Probably because I’m a sucker for a good old slasher movie with a bit of history to the town/killer and that’s exactly what this movie is.

Vacancy (2007)*

Type: Psychological

Starring: Kate Beckinsale & Luke Wilson

Summary: A married couple becomes stranded at an isolated motel and finds hidden video cameras in their room. They soon realize that unless they escape, they’ll be the next victims of a snuff film.

IMDB rating: 6.2/10

This was recommended to me by my best friend who said he was so scared by this that he didn’t sleep properly for a week. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s that scary (but that’s just because it takes a lot for a movie to scare me), but it will have you on the edge of your seat. I do really like this movie for the fact that it’s so isolated and feels like something that could realistically happen to anyone that’s on holiday in a strange place. There’s a pretty slow build too, which adds to the tension and fear. Definitely a must-watch.

The Witch (2015)

Type: Supernatural

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy & Ralph Ineson

Summary: A family in 1630s New England is torn apart by the forces of witchcraft, black magic and possession.

IMDB rating: 6.8/10

This is a fairly new movie that I’ve seen come highly recommended so I decided to give it a try. Since it’s set in the 1630′s and based on true accounts of experiences with witchcraft during that period, it has a very historical and thematic feel to it. Anya Taylor-Joy is incredibly talented and fast becoming one of my fave young actresses within the horror genre. She does a fantastic job in this movie, as does the entire cast. The build-up is slow and very effective and unlike other supernatural movies I watch where I’m usually thinking “As if that would ever happen”, there’s something about this that feels unnervingly realistic despite how wacky it is. Perhaps it’s because it’s based on true accounts but the sufferings the family go through feel reflective of something that may have really happened in our history. I do have some critique when it comes to this movie though, the main one being that I didn’t like the ending. It gets a little crazy and what starts out feeling realistic soon becomes very far-fetched. I also didn’t understand the ending and had to do a little Googling to find out the meaning of it, which I feel is something that should’ve been self-explanatory. All in all it’s a decent movie although it doesn’t stand out to me as being amazing.

Wolf Creek & Wolf Creek 2 (2005 & 2013)*

Type: Psychological/Slasher

Starring: Nathan Phillips & Cassandra Magrath

Summary: Three backpackers stranded in the Australian outback are befriended by a local who turns out to be a sadistic psychopath and will plunge them into a hellish nightmare of insufferable torture.

IMDB rating: 6.3/10

You know when you have that one horror movie that impacted you so much the first time you saw it that you never forget it? This is that movie for me. It still haunts me today, which is partly because I saw it for the first time at such a young age, but mostly because it’s based on a true story and could so easily happen to any one of us in real life. Just watch how the killer lures them back to his place, it’s so sneaky and clever and quite frankly has made me wary of ever accepting a stranger’s help if my car breaks down(!) As for Wolf Creek 2, as far as sequels go, it’s decent and follows the POV of the killer Mick from the first Wolf Creek.

Would You Rather (2012)

Type: Psychological

Starring: Brittany Snow & June Squibb

Summary: Desperate to help her ailing brother, a young woman unknowingly agrees to compete in a deadly game of “Would You Rather,” hosted by a sadistic aristocrat.

IMDB rating: 5.8/10

I feel like this movie delivers exactly what it says on the tin. A bunch of vulnerable individuals who are desperate for cash for various reasons are invited by a stranger to engage in a game of “Would You Rather” in exchange for a large sum of money. Obviously the choices they’re faced with aren’t the traditional ones you’d expect to have in “Would You Rather” and horror and gore ensues. I think what’s great about this movie is that it has you questioning what you’d do in this situation. If you needed money to save a loved one from a life threatening illness, how far would you go?

You’re Next (2011)

Type: Slasher/Psychological

Starring: Sharni Vinson & Joe Swanberg

Summary: When the Davison family comes under attack during their wedding anniversary getaway, the gang of mysterious killers soon learns that one of the victims harbors a secret talent for fighting back.

IMDB rating: 6.5/10

Yet another movie I wasn’t expecting to like much, but that pleasantly surprised me. This’ll certainly keep you on the edge of your seat and the mysterious killers turn out to not be so mysterious after all. You might guess who they are before the big reveal (me and my mom did), but it will still keep you guessing for a while and the journey is intense as the family fight for survival.

Zombieland (2009)

Type: Comedy/Zombie

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone & Woody Harrelson

Summary: A shy student trying to reach his family in Ohio, a gun-toting tough guy trying to find the last Twinkie, and a pair of sisters trying to get to an amusement park join forces to travel across a zombie-filled America.

IMDB rating: 7.7/10

The only other horror comedy that I actually like. I mean, for the amazing cast alone this deserves to be on this list. But it also has the perfect amount of comedy, seriousness and gore.

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

Type: Psychological

Starring: John Goodman & Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Summary: After getting in a car accident, a woman is held in a shelter with two men, who claim the outside world is affected by a widespread chemical attack.

IMDB rating: 7.2/10

Going into this, I was expecting it to be rubbish, (mainly because ‘Cloverfield’ was so bloody awful that I didn’t see how a sequel could be any better), but it took me by surprise. The main question throughout the film is, are the men telling the truth? Are they good guys or bad guys? Those are the questions you will doubt the answers to right up until the reveal at the end. It kept me hooked and the fact that it isn’t found-footage like ‘Cloverfield’ definitely works in its favour.

Lastly, I’d like to mention some movies that I see included on a lot of recommendation, best of or top 10/50/100 lists that I personally don’t rate and why. That isn’t saying you shouldn’t watch them, just that they’re not necessarily as good as they’re portrayed to be. Warning: The movies listed below will contain spoilers.

It Follows (2014) - The entire movie is based upon the idea of a sexually transmitted disease/curse, which is just laughable and something I couldn’t take seriously at all. It’s impossible to root for the main character who is so utterly conceited and selfish that she willingly has sex with her best friend a.k.a the guy who has been crushing on her for years and who cares about her so much that he offers to have sex with her to free her from the entity, which results in his untimely death. The only good thing about this movie is that it raises awareness of the consequences of unprotected sex with strangers and hopefully encourages people to learn more about someone before jumping into bed with them.

The Babadook (2014) - I’d heard so many great things about this movie and how terrifying it was and for that reason I went in with high expectations. When it got started my first thought was “Surely this is the wrong movie”, because bloody hell, it was bad. I’ve seen so many reviews crediting it for how amazing it is considering it had such a low budget and all I say to that is - you can bloody well tell it had a low budget. Everything about it screams “low budget movie”. The incessant whining and yelling from both the mother and child made my ears bleed and all it succeeded in doing was irritating (and boring me) me rather than scaring me. I don’t condone that the idea behind it is a good one, but the execution is poor and the acting mediocre. For that reason, I often question how this has managed to receive such a high reputation within the horror genre.

The Descent (2005) - Again, such a highly accredited movie for which I can’t understand why. A bunch of girls running around in the pitch black underground from some mysterious monsters that kill them all one by one… it’s just so boring. There’s no plot, no build-up, no mystery, nothing. I actually watched it for the first time when I was 16, around the time I was starting to really get into horror movies and even back then it didn’t scare me. I can, however, see why it’d be scary to others as it does create a feeling of claustrophobia since it’s set underground. My dislike for is mainly because monster movies aren’t really my thing.

Friday The 13th (1980) - I feel like I’m betraying myself by including Friday The 13th, because there’s no denying that it was really defining for the slasher genre and it was one of the first movies that introduced me to horror, but I just don’t like it. I tried to re-watch it recently (since I hadn’t watched it all the way through since I was a teenager) and I couldn’t even get half-way through. The franchise is so big with there being 12 films and the story just gets lost on me. I know there’s some sort of story there with Jason and his mother, but it doesn’t harbour the same impact and intriuge to me as Michael Myers’ back-story. Essentially Friday The 13th will always be a poor rip-off of Halloween.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - I already mentioned that found-footage movies are a huuuuge no-no for me and they’re by far the worst corner of the horror genre. Blair Witch is something you either love or hate, for me it’s the latter. It’s just so boring. With any found-footage movies there’s an inability for me to connect to the characters or the story and for that reason the suspense and fear just isn’t there which is so important for any horror movie. I watched this movie once and I’d never watch it again. It’s one of those movies where the end credits roll and you sit back in your chair, look over to the person you’re watching it with and say, “Well there’s 2 hours of our lives we’re never getting back.”

Paranormal Activity (2007) - Another franchise that’s done so well and become so huge, but I can’t understand why. More found-footage which I despise (the wobbling and half-head shots alone are enough to put me off watching), but these are somewhat watchable in comparison to Blair Witch. I think when you watch these movies in the cinema (which I did for at least 3 of them, though I can’t remember which ones), there are a lot of jump-scare moments mostly because there’s a lot of “normal” scenes set in the day where nothing much is happening, so when those scarier moments happen they’re more impacting. However, a lot of the time the development is so slow with the movement of a sheet or door being the only occurrence for over half of the film and then in the last 10 minutes everything goes crazy. Admittedly there are some of the movies in the franchise that are better. My personal favourite is Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, which is actually the one that is often overlooked and underrated, but that by far had the biggest impact on me. So if you do choose to watch these, that would be the one I’d recommend. But overall the franchise is extremely overrated and it’s reputation is based purely on those cinema jump-scares they’re so famous for.

The Woman In Black (2012) - AKA the most boring movie in existence. This was the first Daniel Radcliffe movie I’d watched since Harry Potter and as a huge fan of him, I went in with high expectations and it certainly disappointed. Not because of Daniel’s acting, but because of the simple fact that it failed to engage me. It wasn’t scary, it wasn’t tense and I found myself wishing that something would jump out to scare me just to keep me engaged, even if it was only for a second. This is one of those movies that was so incredibly dull that I wouldn’t even be able to recall what happened if someone paid me £100 to do so. All I remember is Daniel Radcliffe looking out of a window a lot and jumping every time he saw a black figure standing in the distance (yawn!).

The Strangers (2008) - I only watched this a couple of weeks ago to see if it was worthy of being included on this list and came to the conclusion it wasn’t. It’s not the worst horror movie I’ve ever seen and unlike some of the others on this list I wouldn’t strongly recommend against watching it, but like all of the movies above, it completely failed to engage me. I paid attention for the first 15 minutes, after which I ended up pulling out my laptop. And the ending is possibly one of my most hated endings in any horror movie whereby the villains/killers have absolutely zero motive. When they were asked, “Why are you doing this?” their response was simply, “Because you were home.” Really? I’ve sat through two hours of watching two people get mentally tortured and hunted like dogs just because a bunch of sadistic people stumbled across their house and decided to torture them just to pass the time? No thanks.

The Mist (2007) - Again, another movie I opted to watch based on the fact it was included on a list of recommendations and I was bitterly disappointed. Some big mysterious alien-like bugs attack a small town from beneath the cover of mist. It’s so boring and not at all scary. Once again, my dislike for this movie can be put down to my dislike for monster/alien sub-genres.

The Hills Have Eyes (2006) - This is a movie that everyone has heard the name of, even if you haven’t seen it. For that reason, I had high expectations going into it, but unfortunately it was just more boring shit about a family getting hunted down by a bunch of cannibal deformed humans in the desert. Yawn.

The Girl With All The Gifts (2016) - This movie starts out so promising and I was so eager to learn the mystery behind the dystopian world it was set in and when I realised it was just another zombie movie I was deflated. Once the mystery ends and the “hungries” are revealed there’s really nothing more to watch for. I also don’t understand how this qualifies as horror because it’s not in the least bit scary or pertaining to anything I consider defining of a horror movie and I would happily let any young teenager watch it. The only thing that remotely relates it to horror is the inclusion of zombies.

V/H/S (2012) - I should’ve been smart enough to read more about this movie before watching it, but I didn’t and it turns out it’s a found-footage movie, yay my fave(!) /sarcasm. The problem with this movie (aside from the fact that it’s found-footage) is that I found it impossible to follow. It jumped from one group/plot to the next and I couldn’t make head or tail of what was going on. Because of this, it didn’t keep my focus and I ended up having to Wiki what the plot/ending was and ended up frowning at the screen in utter confusion because I just didn’t get what the plot was supposed to be from what I watched.

Drag Me To Hell (2009) - Along with ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation’ this is the worst horror movie I’ve ever seen. God knows how it’s managed to scrape a 6 point something rating on IMDb. I couldn’t even list all of the things that make this so terrible, just save yourself from wasting an hour and a half of your life and don’t watch this movie.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968) - This movie is considered a classic in the horror genre and is on pretty much every recommendation list you’ll ever find relating to horror, but god, it’s awful. Maybe it’s because I’m accustomed to modern horror which is so much more vivid, graphic and unafraid to push the boundaries, but I find this movie so tame, boring and not at all scary. It’s predictable with a terrible and anti-climatic ending that drags out a lot. There is nothing appealing or interesting about it and if you do decide to watch it, just don’t go in with high expectations like I did, because you’re bound to be disappointed.

#horror #userhorroredits #horror movies #horror films #halloween movies #movie recommendations #horror genre #mine #my recs #why is it always that the things i spend the most time and effort on get barely any notes lmao

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oscar-isaacs-number-one-bitch · 5 years

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The 3rd Annual Redford Awards - Winners

Hello, everyone, and welcome to what I’m calling “The Redfords,” named so because (as of this posting) the great Robert Redford has retired from acting, and naming these after him this time around felt like a decent way to honor that screen legacy, even though the name for what is basically the awards show I would run if it were my Oscars changes every year anyway, and it will likely change again for the 2019 awards (though definitely into something more permanent, I promise this time). It has been a long and arduous road getting here, so much so that I actually had to push back the announcement of these winners from the intended date by a day due to both scheduling issues and the greater context of what truly deserves Best Picture being really, really hard to parse out this time around, especially considering that the actual value of Best Picture has come to mean substantively more to me this year than in any year past what with the presence of Black Panther in the category at the actual Oscars and all that that means going forward for the broader culture. Still, I did manage to choose one; the awards have been completed, the winners have been chosen, and it is now finally time to announce the winners for the third annual Redford Awards.

Best Sound Design: First Man

Usually when I do these things, I tend to just capitalize or italicize who the winner is as I post the nomination list a second time, but the fact is I already posted the nominees once (if you need a refresher I will post a link to them with this announcement) and I don’t want to take up a bunch of space being redundant when I could instead say something nice about the winners and explain why I chose them specifically. Suffice it to say even though First Man didn’t rake in what it should have at the box office relative to quality, its sound design was undoubtedly the most impressive thing about it apart from every element of the lunar sequence coalescing into a truly jaw-dropping stretch of filmmaking. The sound design, yes, did also contribute to that stretch, but First Man is also the movie of 2018 that did its sound the best all the way through, even considering that while A Quiet Place’s whole thing is pretty much built around sound, it’s more about the sound editing than the sound mixing, and one half of a victory won’t win you the whole thing.

Best Visual Effects: Avengers: Infinity War

This one is generally pretty self-explanatory, but basically the central conceit behind picking a winner is not necessarily that it has the most visual effects, but that it has the ones you either don’t see or forget are visual effects during the movie because they make it believable that any of what’s happening is even possible. This year, sure, that happens to be the same movie, but what can you say? It deserves the prize, and I’m more than happy to give it out.

Best Screenplay: Daveed Diggs & Rafael Casal, Blindspotting

The Oscars had a decent line-up of screenplay nominations this year, but considering the sheer volume of immensely creative scripts they had to choose from, most of them are fairly mediocre choices, with the likes of Sorry to Bother You and even Bo Burnham’s critical hit Eighth Grade being left out of the conversation, which is a real bummer considering Original Screenplay was Eighth Grade’s best shot for any Academy Award nomination. Perhaps the most overlooked, though, even in terms of what people were saying should be nominated in the Original Screenplay category, is absolutely Blindspotting. This script is about as sharp as they come, with witty, insightful commentary on socio-political issues, characters that you grow to care about, enough comedy to keep the whole thing going without feeling too much like a drag, and one of the most creative, original, and tense climaxes to a movie not only of 2018, but of the past decade.

Best Original Score: Justin Hurwitz, First Man

Future film lovers, and specifically film music lovers, will not look back kindly at the Academy’s decision to not even nominate this at the Oscars in this category. Justin Hurwitz’ score for first man is, both paired with the film and taken on its own merits, the most bold, unapologetic, and strangely unwieldy score of all of 2018, and while I do love Nicholas Britell (who should have won for Moonlight, by the way), this is the year that Hurwitz proved to all of us that yeah, he actually is the real deal.

Best Cinematography: Alfonso Cuarón, Roma

Just about anyone in my immediate sphere (in fact, even most people out of it) is already aware of the Academy’s decision to air this category (as well as editing, makeup, and short live-action film) during the commercial breaks at the Oscars, how stupid a decision it was, and how it’s been reverse due to film professional, critical, and general audience backlash, so I’m not going to get into those here because it’ll take too much time, and other people have ways of explaining it better than me anyway, so I’d recommend reading one of those posts/twitter threads/whatever. But yeah, let’s not play too much with our food; by far the best shot movie of the entire year is the one the writer and director of Children of Men and Gravity shot himself without the assistance of his usual go-to guy, Emmanuel Lubezki. The black and white brings a sharpness to the picture not often seen, the long, sweeping shots of life for Yalitza Aparicio’s Cleo as well as the city she lives in are well-staged and executed, and it’s all handled so smoothly you’d be forgiven for thinking this one was shot by an actual perfectionist A.I. or something. Seriously, folks, it’s stunning to look at.

Best Editing: Barry Alexander Brown, BlacKkKlansman

Studying film more and more over the years of doing this movie critic thing just because I want to and enjoy it has given me a lot more appreciation for the nature of film editing. A perfectly time cut or a long, unbroken sequence that’s well-shot will sometimes do the trick, and occasionally it’s more about what you don’t notice, but sometimes the best editing is just in how it feels to watch a movie strut its style and stick in your memory, and no film in 2018 did that like BlaKkKlansman.

Best Character Design: Ruth E. Carter, Black Panther

This category is really a combination of the Makeup & Hairstyling and Costume Design categories at the Oscars, made so in large part because I don’t understand enough about how much make-up and hairstyling impacts an overall movie (unless it’s like, really drastic, like Shape of Water fish suit drastic) and they’re both extremely important elements contributing to an audience’s overall impression of a character without said character even talking or doing anything. Presenting the whole package as one unit also acknowledges the aesthetic choices involved in a character’s overall look, and I like that, so that’s how I made it. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse very nearly took this category for how beautifully and differently rendered most of its characters were (especially the titular ones), but ultimately I think this one should go to Black Panther, not just because African tribalism and the clothing therein is a refreshing thing to see presented on screen in such vibrant and prideful fashion, but also because adapting costumes from comics into live-action is far more challenging than it sounds, and the fact that they pulled it off this well is something to commend.

Best Production Design: Eugenio Caballero, Roma

I was really tempted to go with Crazy Rich Asians on this one, but I soon realized that I was continuously thinking of this the same way most people probably think about visual effects: that the best production design meant the most production design. And while the production design in Crazy Rich Asians is beautiful and vibrant and deserves praise, it didn’t necessarily give the audience a whole lot of information about the characters beyond how rich Nick’s family actually is. Roma, on the other hand, had five entire blocks of Mexico City built from scratch based solely on its director’s memory, with not a single misplaced building, prop, or set piece in its entirety. Maybe there’s just something special about that that hits me harder than the design for Crazy Rich Asians did, but I also think it was the best production design in service of its story (both thematically and narratively) in 2018.

Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

And now we’re into the acting categories, the final stretch of road on the way to crowning that Best Picture winner I agonized over for almost an entire month. Marina de Tavira’s fantastic turn in Roma almost stole this one out from under Rachel Weisz, but like the viper she is in The Favourite, Weisz bit down hard and came out the other side with a Redford in her hands. It’s honestly astound how well she commands the screen in this movie (and a little bit scary), but it is all the more impressive when put next to the caliber of performances her co-stars are giving and allowed to shine just the tiniest bit brighter.

Best Supporting Actor: Ben Foster, Leave No Trace

No one except critics online talked about Leave No Trace during awards season, and I’m sad about it. That’s not the reason I’m giving it an award, but I just wanted to put that out there for good measure. Truthfully though, this is a fantastic performance once again from an increasingly underrated and undervalued actor (perhaps the best he’s ever been), and the best supporting performance from any male actor in 2018. I really do hope that sometime soon, the Academy and everyone else will finally give Ben Foster the recognition he deserves beyond his Hell or High Water nomination a few years ago.

Best Actress: Olivia Colman, The Favourite

Most, if not all, critics and general audiences (including myself) peg this award as going to Glenn Close at the Oscars this year for her performance in The Wife; however, I haven’t seen that movie, so I can’t nominate her for an award in an awards package that I personally put together, but best of luck to her at the ceremony. Despite her absence, there’s still an absurdly strong field of nominees, and none stronger than Olivia Colman’s performance as Queen Anne in The Favourite. She genuinely makes every single moment she’s on screen feel like something she, and only she, could believably do, wordlessly running the gambit from hilariously emotional to genuinely terrifying and making it all seem true.

Best Actor: Christian Bale, Vice

I don’t love this movie nearly as much as the Academy does, but the one thing we do both agree on about it is that Christian Bale absolutely stuns as former VP Dick Cheney, though a little help from the makeup department didn’t hurt and they’re sure to win that award at the actual Oscars ceremony. Plenty of other actors gave admirable performances in 2018, especially Bradley Cooper and Rami Malek (who also happens to be the best thing about his mediocre movie that no one seems to recognize is mediocre), but none of them ever truly became their characters quite the way that Christian Bale did with this terrifyingly accurate portrayal of perhaps the most powerful vice president ever to set foot in the White House.

Best Director: Spike Lee, BlaKkKlansman

Yes, absolutely, Alfonso Cuarón will be winning this one at the Oscars and probably deserves it more from the Academy’s perspective, but Roma relies on more than just the direction to keep it going. So does BlaKkKlansman I suppose, but the point is that the latter is fueled by its direction while the earlier is more guided. Both are spectacular feats and truly fantastic jobs done by both Cuarón and Spike Lee, but if BlaKkKlansman doesn’t have Lee’s fingerprints all over it, the entire thing could cascade and fall apart as a movie, whereas Roma might be okay but just might not look as pretty and feature a few more cuts; and that is why I’m giving Spike Lee Best Director.

Best Picture: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

When people typically think “okay, what is the best movie I saw this year,” they’re usually actually thinking about their favorite because art is a subjective medium in and of itself and there are only so many things you can study and observe about filmmaking and how it all comes together that aren’t subjective inherently, so they can’t really be blamed for it. What’s the best to you may not constitute what the best is to someone else, and it plays out like that with most people, and generally always will. Best Picture in the context of something like the Redfords, then, owes its justification to a few key beliefs I have about what a film I want to call the best of the year might look like; namely, these beliefs are that it should have something to say (whether positive or negative) that resonates with the audience it’s trying to reach, tell its story in an innovative and unique fashion, and set the stage for whatever corner of the medium it occupies to engage in an acceptance for change going forward. The change doesn’t have to be big or even particularly important necessarily, but it should be there nonetheless. This awards system and set of beliefs is often why what I consider the Best Picture of the year for an awards package like this doesn’t usually line up with what my favorite movie of that year actually is. That all being said, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is what I truly believe to be the best example of this from 2018. It reformed and re-shaped the genre it was in to such a degree that it elevated the status of the animation medium, the message about anyone being able to “wear the mask” of one of the most popular and beloved pop culture icons of all time also being a metaphor for facing fears, accepting yourself, helping others, and being an inspiration to people as you lead by example is a genius move that I can’t believe a theatrically-released, feature-length Spider-Man movie hasn’t attempted before (but is so perfectly suited to animation I guess I understand the hesitancy), and the method by which it told its story was so incredibly unique and innovative that every subsequent attempt to animate the same way this movie does to adapt anything will inevitably be compared to Into the Spider-Verse for the rest of time. That, and the fact that it’s also probably the most widely accessible movie of the three I had running for this award (the other two were Roma and Won’t You Be My Neighbor? for context), make it not only the ideal candidate, but the appropriate choice for the Redford Awards’ title of Best Picture.

And there you have it, the Redford Awards are now officially complete. I’ll forgive you if you saw the length of this post and just “nope”-d outta there, but for the rest of you who stuck around and read to the very end, thanks for sticking with me all this way, and I hope you enjoyed your read. See you next year!

Link to nominees: https://thefriendlyfilmfan.tumblr.com/post/182203750531/the-3rd-annual-redford-awards-nominees

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smokeybrandreviews · 5 years

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Smokey brand Reviews: Velour Mediocrity

With all the hype surrounding Velvet Buzzsaw, I kind of tried to avoid it. Netflix, lately, has been getting a ton of recognition for their original films but they always seem to be bad. Birdbox is a great example. That movie sucks. There are some great performances, and the directions is immaculate, along with the cast and premise, but, overall, it doesn’t work. There’s no way cats exist in the world like that without sight. None. There are point where I absolutely couldn’t suspend my disbelief, yet, this thing is amazingly popular. Sandra Bullock is amazing in it, but the core of that movie is just plain dumb. Therefore, I was hesitant to watch Buzzsaw. It has all the same hallmarks Birdbox has; Fantastic cast, outstanding premise, and an interesting if cliched plot. My mediocre sense was tingling but I finally decided to give it a shot.

The Good

Jake Gyllenhaal was excellent as always. His Morf Vandewalt was an interesting blend of pretension, paranoia, and passion. You could tell dude was serious about his position in the art world but, at the same time, wary of it.

Renee Russo was awesome as well. I generally love her in anything but her take on art gallery, Rhodora Haze was outstanding. She was absolutely smug in her characterization which lent itself to the character. Just seeing her onscreen again after so long was great.

John Malkovich, as usual, turns in an excellent performance. He was the best thing in Birdbox and comes close to that in this, but his struggling Piers falls just short of Gyllenhaal. I kind of wanted more of dude but I understood he was used just as much as was needed. Shame, really.

Natalie Dyer was surprisingly adept in this flick. She wasn’t in it much, but her Coco was arguably one of the best things about this flick. For what her role demands, she killed it. This performance was a far cry from what she usually gives us in Stranger Things, for sure. I’m curious if we’ll see this growth in season three.

The Meh

Toni Collette’s Gretchen was mad underwhelming. She wasn’t bad or anything but, coming off Hereditary, I was so goddamn disappointed. There was no passion, in this performance. I imagine that was by design, but it was super hard for me to watch her act like an icy b*tch, coming off such a fiery performance.

Zawe Ashton was a little much for me t0 take. Her character, Josephina, was conniving, dishonest, and the catalyst for all of these events to transpire. She was a user of people and absolutely the antagonist of this film. Which is why her performance was so disappointing. There’s so much that can be done with this character and Zawe just gives us a stereotypical b*tch. I imagine if the character was played kind of how Hiddleston plays Loki, Josephine would have been much more compelling.

For a movie about art and aesthetic and the grandiose of that world, this movie feels small and looks ugly by comparison. I’m not saying it needed to be stylized but, goddamn, it shouldn’t have been devoid of any style. This thing looks like a TNT production. Like, that joint Search Party is prettier than this and it’s a serial. How does a film about art not be art, itself?

Dan Gilroy’s direction leaves a lot to be desired. I mean, I liked Nightcrawler. That sh*t was incredible. Everything else I’ve seen of his vision is pedestrian. Like, what even was Kong: Skull Island? Buzzsaw is everything Gilroy is as a director and it shows. Nightcrawler being the outlier, this is the best dude can consistently give us and it’s just okay. He feels like the intellectual’s version of Zack Snyder or Michael Bay.

I imagine the script was kind of meh, too. Things that are said and interactions that are performed just fell… performed. They’re not natural. Again, if this was played up more as part of the aesthetic to the film. I can give it a pass. But as it is, this sh*t is just jarring and poorly executed. Which isn’t surprising as Gilroy had a hand in the writing, too.

The Bad

Except for one specific death, there wasn’t anything very horrifying about this horror movie. I’m not saying everything must be Hostel but, goddamn, can a brother get a little gore?

This movie looks very cheap. There are a lot of offscreen happenings and certain events are staged in a way to hide a lack of budget. It gives the film a uniqueness, true, but overall, it kind of takes away from the experience.

There is a great movie in here, man. I can see it through all the bullsh*t and schlock. I wish it had more money to execute THAT vision better but the Netflix format kind of hamstrings that too much. It’s a shame really because I think this movie could have really been something special if an actual studio believed in it.

Everything about this premise is cliché. You’ve seen this movie before which means it needs to standout with it’s execution and Buzzsaw does not do that. At all. It’s wild because, with this setting and these characters, this thing could have been exceptional, but the auteur director lacked the vision to properly execute. That’s a goddamn shame because if, say, David Fincher made this, it’d be a f*cking hit, for real.

The Verdict

Velvet Buzzsaw falls into same trap that Birdbox does; high concept, poor execution. Buzzsaw, like most Netflix films, feels cheap, like a super high-end, made for TV, movie. For what it is, Buzzsaw is pretty good. I feel like the promotion of this thing does it a disservice, at best this is a horror comedy not some brutal psychological thriller, but if you temper your expectations, you’ll have fun. But that’s the issue with this film. With everything that makes it up, the individual components, this flick should be excellent but it’s not and I can’t put my finger on why. Birdbox was the same way. I can see that there is a great movie in there somewhere, but I can’t tell you why it’s not. Buzzsaw is, however, one of the better Netflix movies, which I think is fast becoming a slur. There’s no way this thing is successful if it’s released theatrically but it’s doing fine on streaming. That’s a great thing, you know, but it’s very telling about what major studios think of the platform. I’m afraid this new age of in-home cinema is going to become a dumping ground for mediocrity. I dig Velvet Buzzsaw but it’s not a great movie. It’s not a bad one either. It’s just okay, which means is a great f*cking Netflix movie.

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smokeybrand · 5 years

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Smokey brand Reviews: Velour Mediocrity

The Good

The Meh

The Bad

Except for one specific death, there wasn’t anything very horrifying about this horror movie. I’m not saying everything must be Hostel but, goddamn, can a brother get a little gore?

The Verdict

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douchebagbrainwaves · 6 years

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WHERE TO A BOSS

Performance isn't everything, you say? And if Microsoft's applications only work with some clients, competitors will be able to find a few smart people to a site that caused them to waste lots of time. Partly this is because the rest of the world that mean people don't rule, and that people choose mostly based on how intellectual the work sounds when described in research papers than commercial software, but there will be a while before any American city can bring itself to do that? I created in the first step, and ngood and nbad are the number of false positives will not tend to be short. Sort routines you can write software that recognizes individual properties of spam. The ones on startups get tested by about 70 people every 6 months. I don't mean this in an insulting way—of the kind of people who will put up with them because they need a job. 9762507 cgi 0.

The American way is to make more than you spend. Hosting applications is a lot more work.1 If it's not what you want to take a break from working, I walk into the square, just as we marvel now at what early car owners put up with, just as Facebook was though they probably didn't realize it when they got all the Harvard undergrads.2 Even at the morning-after valuations of March and April 2001, the people running the networks will take the easy route and try to keep the old model: mainframe applications are all server-based applications will often be useful to let two people edit the same document, for example, is all math. What sustains a startup in the beginning it works. The example of painting can teach us not only how to manage our own work, but on gaining control of some bottleneck. Over time the teams have gotten smaller, faster, and you can release it as soon as they're discovered. If the movie industry could have any law they wanted, where would they stop? In addition to catching bugs, they were exceptional.

Every time the site gets slow, I fortify myself by recalling McIlroy and Bentley's famous quote The key to performance is elegance, not battalions of special cases. Here's a case where we can trade efficiency for even the smallest increase in convenience.3 Even now I think if you looked inside the average Windows user you'd find a huge and pretty much 100% of their advice was about investor psychology. The kind of people who are supposed to be doing something else; and though businesses, their founders often know nothing about business. The ups and downs are surprisingly extreme. So we're in much the same position as someone buying technology for large organizations don't care if they pay a fortune for mediocre software. The user doesn't know what a programming language is, they'll say something like Oh, a high-level language? I can think of possibilities that shock even me, with my conscientiously broadened mind.

Curiously, a filter based on word pairs see below might well catch this one: cost effective, setup fee, money back—pretty incriminating stuff. In fact, it's the computer Steve Huffman wrote Reddit on.4 I don't really blame Amazon for applying for the one above.5 It was a classic metacircular interpreter written on top of Common Lisp, with a definite owner, and with interfaces between them that are as carefully designed and, if possible. So let's look at Silicon Valley the way you'd look at a product made by a company called Miquelrius. They're a lot of them.6 Look at the individual, not where they went to college. A programming language is for thinking of programs, not for expressing programs you've already thought of. I was 13 that TV was addictive, so I have the inside story about admissions. This essay is derived from an invited talk at ICFP 2004.

I suppose that's worth something. He was like Michael Jordan.7 The tragedy of the situation is that by far the greatest liability of not having gone to the college you'd have liked is your own feeling that you're thereby lacking something.8 Though the situation is that by far the greatest liability of not having gone to the college you'd have liked is your own feeling that you're thereby lacking something. But you're asking for trouble if you try to decide what to optimize, just log into a server and see what's consuming all the CPU. I'm more forgiving than she is, but my guess is that someone at Yahoo goofed.9 You don't have to do that?10

In the period just before the industrial revolution, some of the software support for CDs and DVDs wasn't ready. That will increasingly be the route to worldly success. Or rather, any client, and if you have to make it something that hackers themselves will want to use yourself. My guess is that someone at Yahoo goofed. Is there no configuration of the bits in memory of a 4K TRS-80.11 The arrival of desktop computers inspired a lot of mistakes. Programs should be written for people to start startups. Back in 1997, one of the most powerful tools you can find a good teacher.

Unless you're planning to write math applications, of course, the probabilities should be calculated individually for each user.12 Viaweb, to the extent I thought about the question at all. I wanted to do any amount of math you need as a hacker is a lot more than Yahoo. I remember time seeming to stretch out, so we were on the same parts. Don't be intimidated. Don't worry what people will say.13 Don't you learn things at the best schools. Half our earnings were too. I could keep up current rates of spam filtering, I would consider this problem solved.

Notes

If the response doesn't come back. Buy an old-fashioned idea. A P supermarket chain because it was outlawed in the sense of things you sell. The First Two Hundred Years.

If a man has good corn or wood, or some vague thing like that.

The story of Business Week article mentioning del.

If you want to start some vaguely benevolent business. Yes, it means a big success or a 2004 Mercedes S600 sedan 122,000, the American custom of having employers pay for health insurance derives from the end of World War II the tax codes were so bad that they could probably improve filter performance by incorporating prior probabilities.

And the expertise and connections the founders of failing startups would even be conscious of this theory is that in the definition of property.

Trevor Blackwell points out that another way in which internal limits are expressed. And yet there is something in the Neolithic period. Strictly speaking it's impossible to write great software in Lisp.

There are two simplifying assumptions: that the big winners aren't all that matters, just that they're all that value, don't destroy the startup is compress a lifetime's worth of work into a fancy restaurant in San Francisco wearing a jeans and a wing collar who had to for some reason insists that you end up. Don't invest so much better that you decide the price of a problem this will give you fifty times as much as Drew Houston needed Dropbox, or your job will consist of dealing with the exception of the growth rate has to their stems, but it turns out to be careful.

As one very successful YC founder told me they like the iPad because it lets them bring the Internet, like someone adding a few hours of advice from your neighbor's fifteen year old to get kids into better colleges, I can establish that good art is a way that's rare among technology companies between them. Unless you're very smooth if you're college students.

There may be common in the Sunday paper. Oddly enough, a well-known byproduct of oligopoly. Photo by Alex Lewin.

The most accurate way to answer the first wave of hostile takeovers in the Valley use the word philosophy has changed is how much of the corpora. But it can have a one world viewpoint, deciding to move from Chicago to Silicon Valley. In-Q-Tel that is allowing economic inequality to turn down some good ideas buried in Bubble thinking. It was common in, you'll usually do best to pick the former.

Apparently the mall was not just for her but for the first thing they'd do is keep track of statistics for foo overall as well. Some find they have a precise measure of the people working for me to put in the next Apple, maybe you'd start to rise again. There was one of them.

According to the writing teachers were transformed in situ into English professors.

The variation in prices. Thanks to judgmentalist for this situation: that the web was going to drunken parties. But which of them is a coffee-drinking vegan cartoonist whose work they see you at a Demo Day and they begin by having a gentlemen's agreement with the earlier stage startups, just try to make money from the example of applied empathy.

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rob3rtruth3er4ordblog · 7 years

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Film Review: Spider-Man: Homecoming

Spider-man Homecoming is the third incarnation and second reboot of the Spider-Man franchise since being introduced to audiences on the big screen in Sam Raimi’s 2002 worldwide hit. However, since 2004 when Spider-Man two hit screens, which a lot of people would argue is not only the best Spider-Man film of all-time thus far, but also one of the greatest comic book movies of all time, the Spider-Man franchise has mostly had mixed reactions with some incarnations receiving more negative press than good. And with the fallout Sony faced after the Amazing Spider-Man two failed to be a critical success with critics and fans, Spider-Man homecoming is set to be the start of getting the beloved character back on track. And Luckily for Sony, their partnership with Marvel Studios is paying off.

Simply put, Spider-Man Homecoming knows who Spider-Man/Peter Parker is. From the moment we link back up with the web-slinger after being introduced to this new incarnation in Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War (2016), we see Peter Parker filming just about every part of his adventure leading up to his scene in Civil War. Seeing Peter Parker geek out over every little thing while making his quips at every passing moment feels like Spider-Man. It is so light-hearted and welcoming, unlike the darker tone the Amazing Spider-Man series took at times. And while the first Amazing Spider-Man took place during Pete’s time in high school, Homecoming spent a lot more time in the school, which ended up being some of the best parts of the film.

Seeing the different personalities of the students in the school and how Pete interacts with them while trying to balance his superhero lifestyle has always been the biggest draw to why people love Spider-man so much. He is easily one of the most, if not the most relatable superhero of all time, and Spider-Man Homecoming nails this expect of the character. Somewhere along the line, an audience member can relate to some of the things Peter Parker experiences. Whether it be crushing on someone, clock-watching time in class, going to a first party, trying to balance multiple things at once with nothing going the way you want, or having bigger aspirations and wanting more, just about anyone can find something if not several things to connect to with the character. And getting this part of the characters life right is crucial because while it is not bad and is entertaining, Homecoming has possibly the weakest action scenes out of all the Spider-Man films. Anytime Spider-Man is on screen it is exciting. However, it is usually the characters interactions with others in the suit that makes it so entertaining, but even when Peter is not Spider-Man my interest in the film never decreased, which is a huge testament to how great the characters are in the movie.

And while we meet many different characters in the movie, there are only a few who have significant roles in the film. Of course the stand-out is Tom Holland. Just like in Civil War he brings the right amount of charm, comedy, wit, and even emotional beats when needed. Overall, Tom Holland continues to make his case at possibly being the best Spider-Man if he continues to play the character this well in more films. Jacob Batalon as Peter’s best friend Ned Leeds also does a great job. Just about every scene he is in, Batalon stands toe to toe with Holland or even outshines him. The chemistry between the two actors comes off legit and anytime both are on screen together the scene is instantly engaging.

One of my biggest fears leading up to the release was the film possibly leaning too much on the star power of Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man. Fortunately, the film only uses the character sparingly, and he never overstays his welcome. Every time Tony Stark/Iron Man appears on screen, it always makes sense instead of it feeling as though the makers of the film shoehorned him in. The film never seems like Spider-Man and Iron man. It feels like a Spider-Man movie all the way through. And besides these three characters, just about everyone else in the film comes by in segments, which is a right approach. Every actor and actress play their role well and felt as though they had just the right amount of screen time. The characters that are the most entertaining are the ones who receive the most screen time. The third character with a high amount of time on the screen is the film's main villain, Vulture, who is played by Michael Keaton. Traditionally, most superhero films fall under the umbrella of not having the most fleshed out and engaging villains. And no matter how great Spider-Man is in this movie, even he cannot save the film from this stigma. Overall, Keaton does a solid job as Vulture. But he will not be a villain people will be walking out of the theater talking about his performance. He does have a chilling interaction with Peter Parker late in the film that received a good reaction from the crowd at the show I attended. But even with that homecoming, unfortunately, did not produce a great or classic villain.

As a whole, Spider-Man Homecoming gives the franchise new life and helps correct its course of being mediocre. With interesting characters across the board and good action to keep the adrenalin fans happy, most Spider-Man fans and fans of the superhero genre should walk away satisfied. With plenty of easter eggs and threads to connect Spidey’s continuing adventures to not just his franchise but the Avengers as well, the future for everyone’s friendly neighborhood spider-man just got a lot brighter.

Rate: 8.5/10

#Marvel #Marvelstudios #spiderman #vulture #tomholland #film #review #filmreview #movies #writing criticism #writing #journalism #comic #comicbook #superhero #hero #action #comedy #michaelkeaton

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smokeybrand · 6 years

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Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Up An Asshole

So Venom is better than it had any right to be. Also, it’s a f*cking quandary, man. Like, straight up, Venom is not a good film. It’s not. But, at the same time, it’s not terrible. It’s the oddest sh*t i’ve ever experienced. There is a lot of good here. In theory, this should have worked and it kind of does but not really. Full disclose, i am approaching this as a thoroughly versed in the language of Spider-Man and his mythos. I know a great deal about the Venom character. In fact, he’s my third favorite Marvel character. Spider-Man, Dr. Doom, Venom, Captain Marvel, and X-23. Top five, right there. I’m going to do my best to be as objective about this review as possible but, understand, i am wildly biased.

The Good

The performances in this thing were really f*cking good. It’s rare that i see a flick where every major character gives it their all like this. In a bad movie. That’s the thing about this; I don’t know if it’s really all that bad. Independently, the components are mediocre to terrible but together, with an added lift by how great the leads are in their respective roles, this thing gets elevated considerably. it’s schlock, don’t misunderstand, but it’s schlock handled with care, love, and reverence which makes it more? I dunno, man.

Tom Hardy does his thing as usual. I’ve seen a lot of reviews saying this is the worst he’s been since his last terrible performance but that’s not the case. I don’t think those people actually understand the character of Venom. I don’t think they get that he’s a dark reflection of Peter Parker so, yeah, he’s gonna be quick in an edgelord, try-hard, kind of way which is exactly what Hardy gives you. Dude is one hundred percent true to who Eddie Brock and Venom are as characters.

Michelle Williams as Brock’s Ex-fiance (Ex-Wife in the comics) Anne Weying was phenomenal. She’s everything i wanted Mary Jane or Gwen Stacey to be in Sony’s Spider-Outings. Madame is intelligent, strong, and a force all in her own right. Plus, i mean, but dat She Venom, tho!

Rhiz Ahmed does a fantastic job as Carlton Drake. Seriously, he does insidiously sinister Elon Musk brilliantly. There was a quiet danger to this cat that just seethed with every second he was on screen. This is a man who knows he can destroy a person with little more than a phone call. His metered, subtle, insanity is just f*cking breathtaking to watch. Drake, as the main antagonist, would have been spectacular if he maintained a kind of Kingpin-esque level, someone who is just out of reach of our protagonist, as Brock tried to find a way to topple his entire regime. Think Lex Luthor. Bring in Cassidy to play the part of The Joker but with more slaughter, and you’d have a rather compelling narrative to follow through a trilogy of films, i think. But Sony dumb and blew their load on this one movie so we’ll never get to see just how smarmy of a sociopath Rhiz could have crafted with Drake.

The adaption of Lethal Protector for film was pretty dope. I like the liberties they took with the characters while still hearkening back to the comic origins. I didn’t think Venom could work without Spider-Man but it kind of does. There is a lot here to unpack for a first attempt but, as a first attempt? it got a lot right. There is a solid foundation to build something better on and that bodes well for the future. Unless this thing doesn’t make any money. it might not make any money...

The Meh

Everything is cohesive, for the most part. The pacing here is brisk but competent. You get from one scene to the next, all in service toward head-biting and tongue-punching. It’s not the most smooth in it’s stride but it gets to where it needs to, even if it stumbles more of then than it should.

The script was ehh. You can tell someone had some ideas and they are very apparent but the execution just didn’t do it justice. I don’t know if it was the overall plot or the characters, themselves, or the corny dialogue but everything felt just under good. Not pitch enough for me to say it stinks but nowhere near good enough for me to praise it.

The fact that this flick is PG-13 is a goddamn disservice. Seriously, there is, apparently, 40 minutes of raw, violent, footage left on the cutting room floor. This movie probably needed that.

The tone of this flick is mad jarring. I feel like if it was hard R but kept that rather sarcastic, nonchalant, tone, it would have been a better film overall. Not quite like Deadpool but more like Kiss Kiss Bang. I think this film’s strength was when it was calling out the absurd nature of it’s own premise. Which brings me to my net point....

The direction in this film is... wrong. Like, it doesn’t fit the film, you know? Ruben Fleischer, the guy who did Zombieland, helms this and he does a decent job. Dude sucks at directing action but the interpersonal parts, the actual character dynamics, are spectacular in this film. I particularly enjoyed the weird love (?) triangle between Eddie, Anne, and Venom. While i was pleased with what Fleischer gave us, i can’t help but feel like this was the perfect vehicle for Shane Black. HIS version of Venom would have been spectacular.

The Bad

The plot holes in this thing are ludicrous. There are entire subplots just dropped. Main characters are killed off left and right. There are rules established, things inherent to the logic of the world that was created for Venom, that are just thrown out the goddamn window for plot convenience. It’s f*cking insane

Riot is a flaccid antagonist. I understand you don’t blow your load with Carnage in the first film, but really? Riot wasn’t even good in the comics. Dude was a red shirt symbiote. Seriously, he gets consumed and amalgamated, along with, like, three other ones, into a D-Class antihero called Hybrid. If i’m not mistaken, Scream, a female symbiote from the same lot, is the only on that doesn’t get fridged by the end of that Life Foundation arc. To make him the big bad was ridiculous.

That climax was sh*t. I literally didn’t know what the f*ck was going on. Nonsense looked like a f*cking Pollock painting with teeth.

This movie looks like sh*t. The CGI is poor, man. Almost unforgivably so. This thing cost 100 million to make and it looks like it cost a quarter of that. There’s been a lot of comparison to Upgrade but for the money, Upgrade is a FAR superior situation. I can’t say if it was a better film overall but it definitely did the whole takeover thing just as good as Venom, but for a fraction of the budget. Hell, f*cking Life is a better looking Venom movie and it only cost 70 mil!

Why are all of the goddamn symbiotes named human things? The host comes up with that name in the comic. What f*cking alien even understands the English word “Riot”?

The Verdict

Overall, Venom was entertaining. There are a TON of issues, man, but i don’t think it’s as bad as everyone is saying. This sh*t ain’t Shakespeare but it definitely isn’t Batman vs Superman either. There is a lot to like and a clear path toward something better. I think, in the hands of a better director who understand how to execute this type of film, we could have something fantastic. Still, for what we have, it’s pretty decent. I’d say give it a chance. It’s mad entertaining and watching Hardy do his thing is more than worth the price of admission.

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