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It feels kind of weird, but I've removed all the various hooks Failbook had into my wishlist website https://www.thingsilove.org.uk/. Don't see any reason to work with what is now in a race to the bottom with Xhitter.
We Live in Time
I caught We Live in Time at the cinema finally (I've been wanting to see it since I saw the trailers) and it was very good. It's about two people, who meet by accident...car accident in fact...fall in love and then have to deal with the tragedy of cancer. It is a little messy in terms of how the story plays out, as it doesn't stick to a linear timeline. It bounces back and forth in time and I wonder how viewers who went in cold found it, as it doesn't give any indication when a given scene is happening. You have to get a feel for it based on contextual clues, like where they're living etc... so it isn't impossible to follow, it just requires a bit more effort I suspect. I felt both leads - Pugh & Garfield - put in stellar performances. I also suspect the ending is meant to be a sad one, but I'm putting on my optimists goggles and picturing it otherwise. #MovieReview
Seasonal holiday greetings!
Sequels everywhere!
Seems to be the month of sequels as I've watched 3 recently - Paddington in Peru, Moana 2 and Gladiator 2. All three of them are good if you liked the previous ones - they're playing up to their target audiences. But...
Gladiator 2 is so similar to the first movie, that you could be mistaken for thinking it is a remake. It reprises just 1 character from the original and is set a number of years later, but the meat of the plot is the same. Which I guess you'd kind of expect given that they called it Gladiator again.
Likewise, Moana 2 is again very similar to the first - she sails off, fights a god etc... There is at least some character development for her and some new songs, although nothing as good IMHO as "You're Welcome". It looks like they're going to do a third one too.
Paddington in Peru at least mixes things up, by having the story change location from London back to Paddington's birth place of Peru. But it is still Paddington getting into all kinds of silly trouble and styling it out with hilarious consequences. Its saving grace is Banderas - he seems to be having a whale of a time playing the villain.
Thoughts on Juror no. 2
Time for another #MovieReview . So I watched Juror no.2 and enjoyed it a lot. It's about a man serving jury duty on a murder case who realises that it is almost a certainty that he accidentally killed the victim, not the accused. The accused is a former gang member so the police and prosecution team are utterly biased towards him as the prime suspect, to the extent they didn't even consider anyone else. And despite the evidence being pretty flimsy, the majority of the jury think he's guilty too for a variety of reasons, mostly ones that are not geared towards giving him a fair trial. So the protagonist is stuck between sending a not so innocent man to jail or face going to jail himself and I found it very interesting to see it play out. I'd like to say more, but I'm wary of giving spoilers for this one. Not that it is particularly full of unexpected twists, but there is more to the plot than I've mentioned that makes the film more complicated.