My Blog posts tagged with moviereview

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

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.

Red One review

Red One was awesome. Santa gets kidnapped by mercs and his head of security (Johnson) gets a person famed for his ability to find people (Evans) to help rescue him. It is very funny and silly. Just the sort of thing to take your mind off the drudgery of life. I think I prefer Violent Night, but that is more because the violence is more realistic - with this being a kids movie, you know that no-one is going to get actually hurt even though they really should. Like when Evans' character is slapped into oblivion and comes away with barely a scratch. But you're not watching it for the violence, you're watching it for the laughs which like a lot of movies aimed at kids, it has some humour aimed for the older audience too. I'm also seriously impressed and envious of how ripped J. K. Simmons was, although maybe he's always this buff, but cos he's usually wearing a shirt we didn't notice? #MovieReview

My thoughts on Anora

I can't remember where I read it, but someone likened Anora to Pretty Woman. Whilst there are some basic similarities, I'm not sure I'd entirely agree though. It has the basic premise of sex worker meets a rich man and there's the plot element of him buying her for a week. But Ivan is not at all like Edward - he's an immature, spoiled brat who is only rich because his parents fund his lavish lifestyle. And also the majority of the movie concerns the fall out from them getting married and his parents trying to get it annulled. Overall, I think I enjoyed it though - it has some funny parts, some sad parts, but the story is crucially engaging. And ultimately it is not the fairy tale that Pretty Woman portrays - it is a very realistic plot of what would happen in this situation I think. #MovieReview

Venom 3 review

Venom: The Last Dance is not bad, but it doesn't feel quite right to me and I'm not entirely sure why. Sure, it felt a bit too "busy", like Spiderman 3 was. And there were lots of inexplicable things popping out of nowhere to solve whatever the current problem was - the most random example being Eddie finding himself in Vegas casino with no money and happens to spot that Mrs Chen is there too and has just won big. I guess it felt like there was lots of distinct set pieces with lots of hand waving to tie them together to give some semblance of a story, but one that didn't seem to fit in with the previous 2 movies. And whilst there was what appears to be a definite ending to the Eddie/Venom story arc, the post credit scenes seem to imply there were going to be more movies. On the plus side, it isn't as bad as Morbius. I'd certainly watch it again. #MovieReview

Kids movie week review

I ended up one week watching 3 movies intended for kids. I started off the week re-watching Hocus Pocus. I don't feel the need to write a #MovieReview of a film that is over 20 years old. If you don't know anything about it now, you're probably not the kind of person who'd care anyway.

And then I saw The Wild Robot. It is about a robot who boots up on an unhabited (by humans) island. In an effort to find a user and a task to do, it terrorises the local wildlife and accidentally wipes out a family of geese except for 1 egg. So it takes it upon itself to raise it. It's a very heartwarming and endearing tale about growth and acceptance. And funny in places too. I also liked the visual style.

Finally, was Transformers One - the new Transformers animated movie which was also good I guess. I'm not sure who needed an Optimus Prime/Megatron origin story, but this is exactly what this is. Both start off as lowly miners who couldn't transform and until they go off on an adventure which changes them into the hero and villain we know today. Not sure there is more than meets the eye to this otherwise. Maybe if you're more aware of the Lore, this movie means something. For the kids, it's just a fun couple of hours with robots fighting and stuff.

More recent movie thoughts

So first off; Megalopolis. I have no idea what I watched. It was kind of pretty, but didn't make any sense. It reminded me of the sort of film you got in the Golden era of Hollywood, mixed with some Shakespeare and set in some kind of futuristic Roman version of New York.

The Outrun, however, I enjoyed. It's about a woman trying to overcome an addiction to alcohol. There are lots of cute animals and picturesque shots of the Orkneys. There isn't too much to say about it really as the concept and plot is not at all complicated. Which is in stark contrast to Megalopolis which is trying to be this clever, complicated film and has just ended up a mess. #MovieReview

My thoughts on The Substance

I don't like horror movies, but I decided (foolishly?) that maybe The Substance wouldn't be so bad? It wasn't at all scary, but there was lots of medical stuff - injections mostly - and lots and lots of gore. It is about the misogyny and ageism of the movie/tv industry and how once a woman reaches a certain age, she's tossed onto the scrap heap and replaced with a younger replacement. Such is the case with the protagonist of this movie - she hits 50 and the head of the network wants her replaced with a 20something. She discovers "The Substance", a wonder drug that can unlock a younger better version of herself. And it doesn't quite work out how she plans.

The transformation into her new version was not at all what I expected based on what you see in the trailer. Very gory. Very traumatic. The prosthetics effects are amazing, or at least I'm guessing they're not CGI. Moore looks amazing, which just hammers home the daftness of the disgusting character that Quaid plays. Not a movie I'd probably watch again, but I think it was good - just not my sort of thing. #MovieReview

I watched Lee...

I went and saw Lee in the cinema and thought it was very good. It's about a celebrated WW2 photographer who despite the sexism of the time, managed to make quite the career for herself. And she took lots of photos that opened the eyes of the folk back home to the horror of that war. I've little interest in WW2, so wasn't aware of her, but now I am I guess. They did an amazing job of recreating the scenes she'd have taken photos of which made for a bit of a grim watch in places, but not entirely unexpected. What was unexpected, was...well it'd be a spoiler to say, but I did find that it was what made me really like the movie. #MovieReview