Category: Film

Review: Little Women

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We are back for 2020. Although, I do admit I saw this film in 2019, I’ve just been much too busy to sit down and witter about my feelings around a film. Nonetheless, I have finally found half an hour free and intend to discuss a rather good film which made my top twenty of the year. So without further ado, lets talk Little Women.

Based on the book by Louisa Alcott (which I have yet to read), Little Women follows the story of four sisters in two different time periods. Jo (Saoirse Ronan) is a writer who never plans to fall in love. She wants to be successful, but her writings aren’t interesting enough according to the publisher who requires women to be married or dead by the end. Meg (Emma Watson) would rather fall in love than be rich. Amy (Florence Pugh), however, believes that marriage is merely good for money and wants nothing more than riches as she becomes a painter. Beth (Eliza Scanlen) is the innocent one of the group and a talented pianist. They are looked after by Marmee (Laura Dern) while their dad is fighting the civil war. They just about get by, nonetheless acting with generosity and kindness to one another and their community. Meanwhile, their aunt Marge (Meryl Streep) enjoys living in wealth albeit in a cold frame of mind. Next door is rich kid Laurie (Timothee Chalamet) who takes a liking to Jo.

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The top 20 of 2019

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We are getting to that time, new years day, where one puts together their list of films. While I’m no Barack Obama, this list should provide a good indicator of what one could have watched and could look for upon a DVD release. Apologies to some films I didn’t see yet Fighting with My Family, Sorry I missed You, The Souvenier, Pain and Glory, The Two Popes and Ford vs Ferrari amongst many others which may have gone into the list had I had the time, but that doesn’t make the twenty any less worthy.

All twenty are from all over the world and provide a variety of genres, so hopefully there is something which takes your fancy. Each one is a brilliant piece of work which gave me enormous satisfaction. There were other good ones which weren’t included. Just because a film is at 17/18/19/20 doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. It just means there were others which I also enjoyed more or in a different way. Apologies in advance to Marvel fanboys and here is to 2020.

Eight of these films are on Prime/Netflix UK so there is no excuse to not watch them. Enjoy!

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Review: Knives Out

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If you go to the cinema and enjoy a film that I didn’t, then I am happy for you. My view is not all encompassing and sacreligious. Not all films are my cup of tea. If you enjoyed the latest blockbuster that I found boring, great. I really am pleased for you. If you didn’t enjoy the weird indie flick I liked, that’s fine as well. I’m sad you didn’t enjoy what you spent time and money on, but have no resentment over your film taste. Despite your prior beliefs, this blog is not gospel and I mention this before I review Knives Out as I find it leaves me in an awkward place. I can see why others liked this film a lot, but I really struggled to connect with it.

Knives out is written as a comedy/murder mystery. On crime writer Harlan Thrombey’s (Christopher Plummer) birthday party, he appears to commits suicide, however all is not as it seems *shock* as an anonymous donor has paid for private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to investigate. The primary focus of the story is Marta (Ana De Armas), Harlan’s carer, who clearly knows more than she is letting on. She os accompanied by a top cast of Thrombey’s sinister family members including Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Michael Shannon and Toni Colette, to name a few. Similarly to death in paradise it attempts to somewhat split the comedy from the story, however this really fails in Craig’s dreadful attempt at an American accent. Every time he spoke, my immersion into the film was ruined, whether a suspenseful, emotional or funny part, he just couldn’t shake the accent off.

Twist The Knife

Review: I Lost My Body

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Unlike most reviews I do, I watched this film on a TV. I also watched this film in its original language (with subtitles), however, Netflix does have an English option with Dev Patel as its lead. I would recommend sticking to the French as the voices match the aesthetic and music better.

One of the great film betrayals is the idea that animation is only for kids films. The idea is that it’s obviously make belief and therefore, no self respecting adult could consider an animated film a masterpiece. Well, this is wrong. Spider-man into the Spider-verse is one of the most creative superhero films around. WALL-E is a gorgeous emotional tale for everyone with mature themes to think about. Then you have true the great animated film Spirited Away. In fact, it’s not a great animated film, it’s just a great film, full stop. Animation creates a contract between writer and viewer in which the latter suspends their disbelief, leading to more abnormal and creative ways to write. This is when animation is done right. Anyway, now we have removed any inhibitions around the genre, lets move on…

At the time of writing, it’s been 6 days since I watched I Lost My Body (or J’ai perdu mon corps), yet I still remember most of it. It’s a film with a sense of familiarity yet difference at the same time. We start with a hand escaping from the fridge. What we can tell about it straight away is that it is looking for its body, so it scuttles away like an insect using its fingers for legs. At the same time, we are introduced to Naofel (Hakim Faris/(Dev Patel)), who we see as a young boy growing up. There is a lot of focus on his hand as you see him use it in a variety of places and each texture he feels or interacts with is done in a way which shows said hand as sentient. It’s pretty obvious from early on, that he’s going to lose said hand at some point. So we end up with time jumps between the story of how he loses his hand and the story of his hand trying to find him.

Read Handy Review

Review: Marriage Story

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A couple of years ago, I decided to go and watch Greta Gerwig’s debut film Ladybird. I wasn’t sure why. I had only seen the poster, but the film never felt like one I’d usually see. A teenage girl from a religiously devout home in Sacramento coming of age just wasn’t a film I would ever be interested in. Yet, Ladybird had a real charm to it which made it one of my favourite films that year against all odds (and changed my answer of favourite type of film to good films). In the same way, some sad rom-com focusing on a couple’s love life didn’t appeal to me on paper either. However, Marriage Story is so much more than that.

While your dad will be sat in one corner of the room with his portable device watching Netflix and Scorsese’s latest masterpiece, your mother is likely to be sat in the other corner on her portable device watching Noah Baumbach’s latest work. The opening few minutes are incredibly charming. Charlie (Adam Driver) lists everything he loves about his wife Nicole, from how shameless she is to how she’s a bit messy. Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) then says everything she loves about Charlie, from how determined he is, to how he cries in films. Importantly, both are very competitive. Everything all seems happy and rosy, then it turns out these are just things they wrote for divorce counselling… That’s right. Marriage Story is all about a divorce.

Read Competitively

Review: The Irishman

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Having watched an avalanche of films, I took a couple of weeks break, mainly due to work and illness. However, I was back and with Scorsese’s big gangster film doing a limited theatrical run before it goes onto Netflix, I had to see it (Even if gangster films aren’t usually my cup of tea).

Sitting at a staggering 3 hours and 30 minutes (Forty six minutes longer than 2001: A Space Odyssey, and thirteen minutes longer than Schindler’s List), the Irishman certainly provides a lot of film. Most of this works and for such a lengthy flick, the pacing is done well, with no scene feeling like it particularly could be cut.

Charge at a gun holding review

Review: Monos

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[Language: Spanish (Colombian)]

There were times when I needed to remind myself to breathe as Monos reached its climax. Long gone was a film about looking after a cow. We had descended into absolute chaos. This was what I wanted Joker to be like. The film took you out of the cinema onto a very surreal journey from which there may well be no return as Monos sticks its claws in your brain.

“The Monos” are a group of child guerrillas who work for “The Organisation”. They sit on a mountain guarding an American prisoner of war. You don’t know when or where this is. Neither do you know who is good and who is evil. But that just adds to the mystery and starts every character on a blank canvas. As the film goes on, the isolation up in the mountains and in the middle of the jungle starts to have an effect on this group as they transition from hallucinogenic freedom to Lord of the Flies. The whole plot is difficult to put forward in words. Monos is more of an experience than a story. This is in a similar way to 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it’s faster moving.

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Review: The Peanut Butter Falcon

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I originally didn’t plan to see Peanut Butter Falcon. I was planning out some upcoming cinema trips and sure this one seemed okay, but in the same week “Monos” and “The Last Black Man In San Francisco” were having a small-scale release, this was kicked down the chain. Come Friday evening. I’m in the car home with mum, preparing for a weekend in Portsmouth and discussing this film I’d seen advertised while sat on the train which I thought she’d have liked to see. Immediately she was sold and agreed to travel to Southampton (*cough* 0-9 *cough*) for an 11:00AM Saturday morning screening. Immediately, I was worried. When you recommend a film, lest one you haven’t seen, your reputation as a recommend-er is put on the line, especially if the concept excites the other person. When we came out of the cinema, I asked mum what she thought of the film? Her reply: “Probably my favourite film I’ve ever seen. The film felt like it was made for me” and you know what: I enjoyed it to.

Take A Journey To The Saltwater Redneck

Review: Joker

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Spoiler Free

Some of my favourite films have been about people who are on their journey to insanity. Furthermore, the Dark Knight is my favourite super hero film, mainly thanks to Heath Ledger’s incredible performance. Therefore my hopes were high going into Joker. I believed that the divisive film had bad reviews from the pretentious snobs or the “woke snowflakes” who can’t stand any sort of violence that deviates from their hand holding dancing in circle perception of the world. When I came out of the film, three questions went across my mind: Am I pretentious? (Probably) Am I a snowflake? (Possibly) Was the film just not that great? (Yes).

Bring In The Clowns