Tag Archives: films

Film Reviews: Ammonite. Honest Thief. Pixie. A Year of The Quiet Sun. I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Enola Holmes. The Ground Beneath My Feet. Valley of Love. Gay USA

25 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by in Kate Walsh, movies

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Ammonite

You know I’m a huge advocate for good wlw films, sadly this isn’t one of them. Both Winslet and Ronan aren’t very convincing. There’s only two or three short scenes where Kate’s character can be seen going through internal turmoil connected with hiding her sexuality, which is why I’m giving this 5/10 stars. Do yourself a favour and rewatch Disobedience instead.

5/10

Honest Thief

Kate Walsh finally getting her second break in a film with a worldwide cinema release and starring opposite Liam Neeson makes me so happy.

7/10

Pixie

Olivia Cooke has been in some awesome movies since her time on Bates Motel and this is probably the weakest one, but it’s still quite enjoyable.

6/10

A Year of The Quiet Sun

It’s sad to think that younger generations of cinema goers have forgotten about Krzysztof Zanussi. When you hear about Polish directors, only three surnames are usually mentioned, Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Kieslowski and Roman Polanski. I remember watching special features on my The Double Life of Veronique DVD and there Kieslowski acknowledges how much he’d learned from Zanussi. A Year of the Quiet Sun is leaving Netflix tomorrow, along with The Spiral. Go see them.

7.5/10

I’m Thinking of Ending Things

And she’s off. The US has officially acquired Jessie Buckley. We won’t be seeing her in many British productions now. She’s officially a star. Every time she repeats she’s thinking of ending things I’m taken back to my teen years. It’s a great psychological drama with beautiful, relatable monologues. Take a look at a few of them.

‘I’m thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. IIt sticks, it lingers, it dominates. There’s not much I can do about it, trust me. It doesn’t go away. It’s there whether I like it or not. It’s there when I eat, when I go to bed. It’s there when I sleep. It’s there when I wake up. It’s always there. Always. I haven’t been thinking about it for long. The idea’s new. But it feels old at the same time. When did it start? What if this thought wasn’t conceived by me, but planted in my mind, pre-developed? Is an spoken idea unoriginal? Maybe I’ve actually known all along. Maybe this is how it was always going to end. Jake once said, “Sometimes the thought is closer to the truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.’

‘Other animals live in the present. Humans cannot, so they invented hope.’

‘It’s tragic how few people possess their souls before they die. Nothing is more rare in any man, says Emerson, than an act of his own. And it’s quite true. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. That’s an Oscar Wilde quote.’

‘Coming home is terrible whether the dogs lick your face or not; whether you have a wife or just a wife-shaped loneliness waiting for you. Coming home is terribly lonely, so that you think of the oppressive barometric pressure back where you have just come from with fondness, because everything’s worse once you’re home. You think of the vermin clinging to the grass stalks, long hours on the road, roadside assistance and ice creams, and the peculiar shapes of certain clouds and silences with longing because you did not want to return. Coming home is just awful. And the home-style silences and clouds contribute to nothing but the general malaise. Clouds, such as they are, are in fact suspect, and made from a different material than those you left behind. You yourself were cut from a different cloudy cloth, returned, remaindered, ill-met by moonlight, unhappy to be back, slack in all the wrong spots, seamy suit of clothes dishrag-ratty, worn. You return home moon-landed, foreign; the Earth’s gravitational pull an effort now redoubled, dragging your shoelaces loose and your shoulders etching deeper the stanza of worry on your forehead. You return home deepened, a parched well linked to tomorrow by a frail strand of… Anyway… You sigh into the onslaught of identical days. One might as well, at a time… Well… Anyway… You’re back. The sun goes up and down like a tired whore, the weather immobile like a broken limb while you just keep getting older. Nothing moves but the shifting tides of salt in your body. Your vision blears. You carry your weather with you, the big blue whale, a skeletal darkness. You come back with X-ray vision. Your eyes have become a hunger. You come home with your mutant gifts to a house of bone. Everything you see now, all of it: bone.’

‘It’s hard to describe people. It was so long ago, I barely remember. I mean… We never even talked, is the truth. I’m not even sure I registered him. There’s a lot of people. I was there with my girlfriend… We were celebrating our anniversary, stopped in for a drink, and then this guy kept looking at me. It’s a nuisance. The occupational hazard of… of being a female. You can’t even go for a drink. Always being looked at. He was a creeper! You know? And I remember thinking, I wish my boyfriend was here. Which is… That’s sort of sad, that being a woman, the only way a guy leaves you alone is if you’re with another guy. Like, if… like… like you’ve been claimed. Like you’re property, even then. Anyway, I can’t… I can’t remember what he looks like. Why would I? Nothing happened. Maybe it was just… I think it was just… Just one of thousands of such non-interactions in my life. It’s like asking me to describe a mosquito that bit me on an evening 40 years ago. Well, you haven’t seen anyone fitting that description, have you?’

‘Everything wants to live, Jake. Viruses are just one more example of everything. Even fake, crappy movie ideas want to live. Like, they grow in your brain, replacing real ideas. That’s what makes them dangerous.’

8/10

Enola Holmes

A few scenes were shot at Hatfield House (where The Favourite was filmed among many others), which is even prettier in person. I watched this as part of a uni social thing. We were supposed to watch The Greatest Showman, which I’ve seen, so I guess it worked out for the best? The film could have used more Helena Bonham Carter though. I still cannot believe how much Millie Bobby Brown looks like a teenage Natalie Portman. It surely helped her career.

6/10

The Ground Beneath My Feet

I loved the fact that these two successful women had to hide their relationship. If this was an American film they wouldn’t be hiding, but let’s not forget not everyone is or can be out.

7/10

Valley of Love

There are eight Isabelle Huppert films on Mubi right now and I’m ashamed to say I haven’t seen any of them, so I’m fixing that now. I’ve already missed two, just because I assumed everything they show on Mubi goes into the Mubi Library. I was proven wrong.

7/10

Gay USA

I really needed this today. At the beginning of the film one 70 yr old lady said that when she was young there were no gays and she doesn’t understand where did they all come from. A used to say the exact same hurtful thing regularly, which is why I’m still in the closet. There is another film by the same director that I also watched on Mubi called Buddies. It’s the first film about AIDS and it’s equally wonderful.

‘I can’t go on being miserable all my life, so I left my husband. I loved my husband, but I wasn’t in love with him.’

‘Ok, I’m gay, so what?’

8/10

Film Reviews: Limelight. The Babysitter 2: The Killer Queen. A Clockwork Orange. Unpregnant. After We Collided. Daughter of mine. Beast. It Happened One Night. Camera

27 Sunday Sep 2020

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Take me back to last weekend when all I did was watch and rewatch Ratched with no care in the world.

Limelight

An average person remembers Charlie Chaplin as the silly comedian, but we cannot forget that he was also an incredibly talented director, writer and composer. In Limelight a much older Chaplin saves a ballerina from a suicide attempt, and helps her get on her feet. In return, the woman falls for him. The film ends on a sad note with one of the main characters passing. Also Buster Keaton makes a cameo in it as well!

‘What do you want meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning. Desire is the theme of all life!’

‘That’s all any of us are: amateurs. We don’t live long enough to be anything else.’

‘Life can be wonderful if you’re not afraid of it.’

‘What is there to fight for?’

‘Ah, you see, you admit it. What is there to fight for? Everything. Life itself, isn’t that enough, to be lived, suffered, enjoyed. What is there to fight for? Life is a beautiful, magnificent thing, even to a jellyfish. Besides, you have your art, your dancing.’
‘I can’t dance without legs.
‘I know a man without arms who can play a scherzo on a violin and does it all with his toes. The trouble is you won’t fight. You’ve given in, continually dwelling on sickness and death. But there’s something just as inevitable as death, and that’s life. Life, life, life. Think of all the power that’s in the universe, moving the earth, growing the trees. That’s the same power within you if you only have courage and the will to use it.’

You could be Mrs Calvero, in name only of course.
‘Won’t it inconvenience you?
‘Not at all! I’ve had five wives, one more or less won’t make any difference! And I’ve reached the point where a relationship can be maintained on the most platonic level.’

10/10

The Babysitter 2: The Killer Queen

Emily Alyn Lind went from playing a young version of Emily VanCamp in Revenge and Jamie from a film adaption of Dear Dumb Diary to being a cult member in both Doctor Sleep and The Babysitter 2? Woah, time flies. I don’t understand why the sequel takes plays 2 years after the events of the first film and not four? The kids are too grown up to pass for 14 year olds and they’re supposed to be juniors now? If they’re 16, than how were they 12 two years ago?

‘I wanna be the world’s best journalist. Renowned, respected, like Geraldo. Only… fuckable.’

‘I really don’t have good luck with women, they end up being murderers.’

7/10

A Clockwork Orange

I rewatched this after many many years. A young lad leads a gang of hooligans, and for his misbehaviour he’s sent to a psychiatric hospital. I’ve finally figured out who Evan Peters looks like, a young Malcolm McDowell!

‘Do you still feel suicidal?’
‘Well, put it this way, I feel very low in myself. I can’t see much in the future, and I feel that any second something terrible is going to happen to me.’

8/10

Unpregnant

She should have told her parents and then go from there. I could relate to the friend getting dropped by her bestie, because she stopped being happy. Young teenagers suck. The anti-abortion plot was ridiculous.

6/10

After We Collided

The only intriguing storyline is one of the supporting characters’ past sexual assault. The rest is just 50 Shades of Grey for teens. Also this sequel stars Frank from How To Get Away with Murder and I haven’t seen him in anything else before, so there’s that?

3/10

Daughter of mine

I mainly watched this, because the poster fooled me into thinking it was an LGBT film. It’s not, and it’s not good either.

4/10

Beast

How did it take me this long to watch this gem? I became a fan of Jessie Buckley after seeing her in Wild Rose last year. I just cannot wait to watch I’m Thinking of Ending Things.

I’d like to make a toast. To my family. For everything you have done for me… I forgive you.

Your father’s been acting up, where have you been?

‘I’m in a relationship, Mum. I can’t be there all the time.

Sweetheart, you can’t just change the rules because someone’s shown an interest. Maybe I’ve been too soft on you.

7/10

It Happened One Night

Original Runaway Bride and an inspiration for any romantic comedy ever. It’s a required viewing for my uni course.

10/10

Camera

I watched this David Cronenberg short in my Film Production class today. It made me feel old, especially when the lecturer asked if all the students were born in this millennium. Haha, not even close, oh I’m getting old.

‘When you record the moment, you record the death of the moment. Children and death are a bad combination.’

6.5/10

Film Reviews: So Long My Son. Funny Girl. The War Against Women. House. Hearts of Atlantis. Blue Crush. Chemical Hearts. Elisa and Marcela. Swimming For Gold. InstaPsycho. The Half of It. Fanatyk

31 Monday Aug 2020

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First time using the new WordPress editor. It took me good few minutes to figure out where everything is. Inserting picture is now a little more complicated I think, I don’t really know how to adjust size of images, but I’ll figure out soon. I really like how you can highlight what text you want to move and just click the arrows, without having to drag it or click Copy and Paste. Last week I finally caved in and got myself Amazon Prime. Between Mubi, Filmbox Arthouse, HBO GO, Netflix and Amazon, I will never run out of films to watch.

So Long, My Son

Amazing take on China’s one child policy. I think this would have benefited from chronological scene order, but it was a treat anyway. I have renewed Mubi for another year and this is the first film I watched with my new subscription. I just learned yesterday that this film is coming to HBO Go and I cannot wait to show it to my dad next week.

9/10

Funny Girl

I understand Fanny’s attachment and forgiveness. I really wish they showed us what happened after, because speaking from experience, not much comes close to stressing about the loved one doing the same thing again in the future. It’s a thought that never really leaves your head. On a happy note though, I really liked most of Barbra’s costumes in this film.

You think beautiful girls are going to stay in style forever? I should say not! Any minute now they’re going to be out! Finished! Then it’ll be my turn!

8/10

The War Against Women

It angers me that men will always have that one thing that they can take away from women. Think of all the home invasion films, criminals encounter a male and think ‘Let’s beat him up’, they encounter a female ‘Let’s rape her’. They never think of doing these nasty things to other men, yet they’ll always have that power over women and sadly too many use it as a weapon. This is a great short. It’s on Netflix, go watch it.

7/10

Hearts in Atlantis

What a nice surprise. This is based on two Stephen King novellas? Which ones? First love and being young. What a magical time. I am very nostalgic and I miss my care free childhood every day, so this film is ideal for me. I’ve decided a long time ago, that I will never sell my family home, because I have so many wonderful memories associated with it. I am an only child and spent a lot of my time in that house by myself, so it will always be my safe space. I try to visit as much as I can. I didn’t like the mind reading mumbo jumbo, but everything else was amazing. They don’t make family films like this anymore.

‘You know, when you’re young, you have moments of such happiness, you think you’re living in some-place magical, like Atlantis must have been. Then we grow up, and our hearts break in two.’

‘I wouldn’t have missed a single minute of it, Bobby. Not for the whole world.’

‘Why do we always expect home to stay the same? Nothing else does.’

‘It’s funny how when you’re a kid, a day can last forever. Now, all these years seem just like a blink.’

‘I never heard from Ted Brautigan again. Not that I didn’t think of him. I always have. I always will. Because that summer was the last of my childhood. And though I never again saw what people were thinking, there was an enduring gift that he left me. What Ted did was open my eyes, and let the future in. I wouldn’t have missed a minute of it. Not for all the world.’

8/10

House

I probably would have never come across it if it wasn’t for Mubi. This film must be what a long acid trip must be like. I liked it a lot, but I’m not into lights constantly flashing, hence the lower rating.

7/10

Blue Crush

Switched at Birth was a brilliant teen show from Lizzy Weiss about the deaf community, but this is just another teen surf film, like the one with Camilla Bello from around the same time.

4/10

Chemical Hearts

My dad asked ‘Is that the Blackhood’s daughter?’ when he walked past the living room and saw me watching this. I don’t get the hype, but I’m all for unhappy endings.

6/10

Swimming For Gold

I mainly watched this because I used to live in Brisbane and I miss it every day. Guess how much Brisbane they showed us in this… It was just an Aussie version of Bunk’d, Peyton List even had an annoying friend just like on that post-Jessie show. Don’t ask me how I know this, I used to babysit a lot and most of my friends have kids now. Everyone seems to be into another show Peyton is in, Cobra Kai, which is now on Netflix.

5/10

Elisa and Marcela

I really liked the first act, but most of came after angered me. I’m also glad I’m not the only one who googled how exactly she got pregnant from just that one time.

6/10

The Half of It

Undoubtedly Netflix’s best original teen movie. I just love how innocent it is and that the writers didn’t force her to come out to her dad. If she did come out and he would accept her, I would have been disappointed and my rating would have been lower. I like that despite everything that happened in the film, she is still very much in the closet.

7/10

InstaPsycho

It amazes me how Laura Slade Wiggins, best known from Shameless, still plays a teenager at 32. Also, these Lifetime films crack me up. Show me a bigger guilty pleasure, I’ll wait.

4/10

Fanatyk

And to think I almost didn’t give this awesome short a chance, because it’s advertised as a film about fishing, which is exactly why my dad wouldn’t watch it with me. Fishing’s boring and I’m against it as a vegan, but this film isn’t.

7/10

Film Reviews: Showbiz Kids. Cinema Paradiso. Summertime. Dream Love. The Far Shore. Hotel Mumbai. Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind. Ideal Home. The Addition

03 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by in Julianne Moore, Kate Walsh, movies

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show kids cin summertime

Showbiz Kids

I’ve been waiting for this to come out since last year. Sadly, it wasn’t much better than Corey Feldman’s last doc The Rape of Two Coreys from earlier this year. Alex Winter really should have invited him to talk about the sexual abuse him and Corey Haim endured as child actors. He also should have invited Brooke Shields and have her talk about her mother exploiting her and taking those disturbing pre-teen pictures of her since he already chose to show snippets from Pretty Baby. I wish Winter invited more than the 9 child actors that appeared in the film. There’s not much focus there either, they keep going back to drugs, not having normal childhoods, parents sacrificing their lives, parents pushing their kids for their own gain and abuse multiple times. Despite this, I still recommend you check Showbiz Kids out. This is my 10th HBO Documentary and I really liked most of them including Elvis The Searcher which I watched last week. This is also one of Cameron Boyce’s last films.

6.5/10

Cinema Paradiso

My local Showcase cinema has been showing movie goer favourites since they re-opened 3 weeks ago, and I didn’t feel like re-watching any of them, until I saw they’re showing Cinema Paradiso this weekend. I watched it many years ago on a very tiny TV screen, and this is one of the films that need to be seen on the big screen. I cried through the last 30 minutes and it was one of my favourite cinema experiences.

‘Living here day by day, you think it’s the center of the world. You believe nothing will ever change. Then you leave: a year, two years. When you come back, everything’s changed. The thread’s broken. What you came to find isn’t there. What was yours is gone. You have to go away for a long time… many years… before you can come back and find your people. The land where you were born. But now, no. It’s not possible. Right now you’re blinder than I am.’
‘Who said that? Gary Cooper? James Stewart? Henry Fonda? Eh?’
‘No, Toto. Nobody said it. This time it’s all me. Life isn’t like in the movies. Life… is much harder.’

‘Get out of here! Go back to Rome. You’re young and the world is yours. I’m old. I don’t want to hear you talk anymore. I want to hear others talking about you. Don’t come back. Don’t think about us. Don’t look back. Don’t write. Don’t give in to nostalgia. Forget us all. If you do and you come back, don’t come see me. I won’t let you in my house. Understand?’

‘Thank you. For everything you’ve done for me.’

‘Whatever you end up doing, love it. The way you loved the projection booth when you were a little squirt.’

10/10

Summertime

Cecile De France turns 45 today. How refreshing to see them cast a 39 year old as the love interest. Summertime is a lesbian drama about a 20 something year old Delphine who after being left for a man by her closeted girlfriend leaves her family farm and goes to Paris where she meets a 30 something year old straight woman she falls in love with, Carole. It’s the 70s and Carole fights for women’s rights to abortion and contraception. The two get together, and Carole follows the main character to the family farm where they hide their relationship from Delphine’s mother. Her mother hopes she’s going to marry a local young man and things don’t go well when she finds out. Delphine makes a decision to leave to Paris, but then changes her mind which she later regrets as per what is revealed in a letter she sends to Carole seven years later. It’s a beautiful lesbian drama I may not have ever found if it wasn’t for Mubi.

9/10

dream lover derive mumb

Dream Lover

What is it with James Spader and amusement parks? Remember when his character was trying to rape and then set on fire Lori Loughlin’s character in one of my favourite films The New Kids? I know I haven’t really commented on the Lori Loughlin scandal, and I cannot really. Lori was one of my first favourite actresses and crushes for that matter, so I cannot hate her, like what the rest of the world is doing, because she’s been in some of my favourite films and I thought Full House sucked before her character was introduced, even though I hated what they did to her character after she had the twins. Anyway, this review is about Dream Lover, which also stars Twin Peaks and Riverdale‘s Madchen Amick.

Look, just cause I’m halfway pretty guys look in my eyes and think they know me. Like I’m their fantasy. I’m just a regular screwed-up person. So when you say I’m beautiful it’s like you’re not seeing me at all.

5/10

The Far Shore

This is exactly the kind of film I needed to see today. Two sisters and their mom struggle to move on from the sudden death of their father. While the 16 year old one begins a relationship with her rapist, the 11 year old one is being bullied by her nasty classmates. It’s a beautiful film and I am so glad I got to see it. Thanks, HBO!

8/10

Hotel Mumbai

I haven’t seen Nicolas Saada’s Taj Mahal, but my dad said it was better than this one. I’ve now added it to my watchlist. The racist British woman who panics and accuses a lady for working with terrorists because she speaks their language and then asks Dev Patel’s character to take off his turban was so inappropriate and realist at the same time. What is she even doing in Mumbai? She does understand she’s not in England, so of course people will be speaking their language. Dev Patel has had a wonderful career since his time on Skins. He played the Slumdog, he was in both Hotel Marigold films, he was in Lion with Nicole Kidman and now Hotel Mumbai.

7/10

nata idee addd

Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind

Oh please, we all know he did it. Not much to say about this one. Natalie Wood was a bright light and just think of all the roles she would have played in her 50s, 60s, 70s. It’s tragic to think her story ended there, in the middle of the ocean. Her older daughter looks strikingly exactly like her. I have so many films to watch in my immediate watchlist, but I’m tempted to see Natalie’s entire filmography. I’ve only seen 6 of her films in total, from smaller ones like Inside Daisy Clover to big hits like Rebel Without a Cause or West Side Story. Speaking of West Side Story, I cannot believe Spielberg is making a remake. Why on earth do we need a new version of one of the biggest and most popular films? And just because teens these days won’t reach for a film from 20 years or more?

6/10

Ideal Home

Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd make awesome gay dads and I would watch this as a TV series. Kate Walsh has a very small part in it. One of my most favourite actresses, Julianne Moore said earlier this week that she would not have taken the role of one of the moms in The Kids Are Alright now, because she’s not gay and that role should have gone to a gay actress. Isn’t that the whole point of acting? If this was a rule now, I probably would have never seen The Children’s Hour, Boys Don’t Cry, Disobedience, The Favourite or so many more of my favourites. She never said anything about her other lesbian roles, in Freeheld or The Hours. Lisa Cholodenko, who co-wrote and directed The Kids are Alright and is a member of LGBT said that both Julianne and Annette Benning could have fooled anyone with their wonderful acting, so it doesn’t matter because they were believable. She also said they were thinking of sending the script to Jodie Foster, who is gay or bi, but chickened out. Either way, I would love the film because both Jodie and Julianne are two of my three favourite actresses (Sally Field is one of the three too). There aren’t that many famous openly lesbian actors in their fifties, so I don’t think The Kids Are Alright would have been such a hit, because who would have played Jodie’s counterpart then? Ellen or Jane Lynch?

7/10

The Addiction

Lili Taylor’s audition piece for The Conjuring. It’s a good horror focusing on vampirism, and it tries to be even better with its black and white artiness.

‘We drink to escape the fact we’re alcoholics. Existence is the search for relief from our habit, and our habit is the only relief we can find.’

‘What’s gonna happen to me?’
‘Read the books. Sartre, Beckett, Burroughs. Who do you think they’re talking about? You think they’re works of fiction?’

7/10

I wrote this review over the course of a few days, while watching Stromboli starring Ingrid Bergman, Scorsese’s Raging Bull and listening to Taylor Swift’s Folklore.

Film Reviews: The Platform. Black Water: Abyss. Anna Karenina. Rust Creek. Virus Tropical. Pom Poko. Alien Resurrection. Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. Home Sweet Home

11 Saturday Jul 2020

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the platform abyss 2 anna

The Platform

Over 600 people are locked in a prison with 300+ floors. There is a lift carrying food delivering food starting from the 1st floor, all the way to the last floor. There isn’t enough food for everyone and the greedy people from top floors get more food and people from 200+ and below get nothing. Every 30 days prisoners change floors. If they’re lucky they move up, if not, they may end up below the 200+ floor. In the age when everything is a copy and it’s impossible to find an original idea, David Desola and Pedro Rivero came up with The Platform and what a beautifully depressing ride it is.

There are 3 kinds of people; the ones above, the ones below, and the ones who fall.

10/10

Black Water: Abyss

First new release at my local cinema since the pandemic and the first film I’ve seen at the pictures since mid March. I thought it was realistic enough and it made me think of The Descent and Steve Irwin, so I cannot complain. This is the second time this week I’m watching something with a crocodile in it. My family and I just finished watching reruns of the original Return to Eden mini series, which features a croc attack in the pilot. The fact that Black Water 2 took place inside a cave made it more entertaining than the first one. I enjoyed the ending too. I really don’t understand why people think it’s a good idea to explore caves, I just don’t.

6/10

Anna Karenina

Not the best adaptation, but not the worst one either. I watched death scenes from all 6 adaptations on youtube, and I think I liked this one the most, especially with the neck breaking.

6/10

rust virus pom poko

Rust Creek

A villain or villains chasing someone in the middle of the woods has been my favourite genre since I watched Wes Craven’s The Last House On The Left as a kid. The lesson we can learn from Rust Creek is to never get out of your perfectly working car when you’re in the middle of nowhere. Don’t leave the car to look at the map, you can do that from your car. And don’t stop your car in the middle of nowhere when you’re by yourself. Keep driving till you’re surrounded by multiple households. Also, don’t waste your phone’s battery on the recorder app. And always charge your phone while driving.

6/10

Virus Tropical

It’s good, but whoever called it Colombian Persepolis has clearly never seen Persepolis.

5.5/10

Pom Poko

It took me five days to finish this, which helped me realise maybe I don’t need to see all of Ghibli studio’s films. It’s about racoons getting their revenge on people for deforestation, urbanisation and gentrification.

5/10

alien lady day home sweet home

Alien: Resurrection

I just really felt like watching the first 4 Alien films. I gave Alien and Aliens 10/10 and 6/10 to Alien 3. This one sees Ripley come back after 200 years as a robot, I know right? Winona Ryder co-stars. Why so many flashing lights though?! I had to watch parts of it with my head down and considered fast forwarding. I will not be watching any other Aliens. Well, I would if Sigourney Weaver was back.

Hey, Ripley. I heard you, like, ran into these things before?
That’s right.
Wow, man. So, like, what did you do?
I died.

4.5/10

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill

Audra’s acting is fantastic and the way she changed her voice so much and kept it that low through an hour and a half monologue of talking and singing is a masterclass in itself!

5.5/10

Home Sweet Home

So Candace Cameron Bure’s youtuber daughter is an actress now?

2/10

Film Reviews: Dads. Fantasy Island. Animal Crackers. Gretel and Hansel. Back To The Future. Armageddon.

03 Friday Jul 2020

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Dads

Little Bryce Dallas telling her dad Ron Howard he’s embarrassing her by filming her is one of the two highlights of this doc from Bryce. The second one is a video of a dad destroying his teenage son’s PlayStation with a sledgehammer. I liked Dads, but just as you’d expect, there’s nothing new here. The only thing I’ve learned from this film is that Will Smith’s got three children, not two.

‘No video?’
‘You’re embarrassing me.’

6/10

Fantasy Island

I was thinking of watching this at the movies, but it was only on for a week and I saw that it was at 8% on Rotten Tomatoes, so I chose to stay home. The only two things I liked about this film are the Panic Room reference and how the bully didn’t even remember the main character’s name. That’s the thing, bully forgets the minute they’re done bullying, while the bullied is scarred forever.

‘I feel just like Jodie Foster in that Jodie Foster movie.’

3/10

Animal Crackers

‘Why Am I So Romantic?’ is a catchy song. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I think this is my first The Marx Brothers film? Which is weird seeing how my dad is always on about them and yet I’ve never come across their films on TV? Thanks, Mubi for correcting that and for never failing to educate me!

7/10

gretel back to the future armageddon

Gretel and Hansel

Not as good as the Blackcoat’s Daughter, but it has a lot of potential and is better than I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House. I collected an A1 poster for this film from my local cinema, it’s black and dark yellow and has the grandma pulling a long lock of hair from her mouth.

7.5/10

Back To The Future

Are you telling me Robert Zemeckis really believed we would be flying our cars in 2015? Reality must have hit him hard. Ever since I watched Back to the Future as a kid, every time a kid asked me what year I would time travel to if I could, I’d say I’d want to meet my parents when they were teenagers. Then again, they grew up in different cities and there’s a 4 year age gap between them. None of the kids ever got the reference. I’ve always loved the first film and was never a fan of the other two. I would rate the sequel at 6/10 as It’s always annoyed me that they couldn’t find enough interesting things about the future, so they went back to 1955 again?, and the last one, which I found pointless, at 4/10.

9.5/10

Armageddon

The Twin Towers scene stunned me. Aerosmith providing soundtrack for this film including their hit song ‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’ for scenes including ones with Steven Tyler’s daughter Liv makes me wonder whether Liv was cast first, or whether Aerosmith were asked to record the soundtrack before she was cast, either way a fine example of nepotism, and I’m not even bothered. I didn’t like the film though, what a waste of 2.5h. If you haven’t seen it yet, I suggest you watch the first 8 minutes, which include the fictional destruction a meteor attack brought on New York and then you may as well switch it off.

4.5/10

Film Reviews: Safe. The Assistant. Our Little Sister. Tomboy. District 9. National Gallery. Don’t Talk to Irene. Passion. Friday Night Lights

25 Thursday Jun 2020

Posted by in Julianne Moore, movies

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Safe

A female suddenly becomes allergic to the environment. Her husband and doctors  are convinced it’s psychological. Possibly the best time to re-visit this Todd Haynes masterpiece starring his muse, Julianne Moore. I never realised how much weight Julie had to drop for this role. I read that she felt awful and pledged to never lose or gain weight for a role ever again. I hate how misleading this poster is, it’s not a post apocalyptic film.

9.5/10

The Assistant

We witness a day in the life of a film producer’s assistant as she gets on with her daily tasks and questions her boss’s integrity when it comes to hiring another assistant. In one of the first scripts since the Me Too movement, the assistant, decides to go to HR and raise a complaint against her boss, even though she has no proof and doesn’t even know if anything has happened. Her current and future jobs are threatened and she backs down. My favourite scene has got to be the one at the very end when she talks to her dad and her dad tells her how proud her parents are of her. That ached, because it’s true, our parents don’t know half of the shit we go through, because we want to protect them and we want to protect the image they have of us, no matter how fake it is. The film ends with the girl witnessing a suggestive scene through a window with his boss and a very poor wanna be actress and her walking back to her flat. I love Ozark, but this is amazing too. I can’t wait to see Julia Garner get an Oscar one day. This film also made me want to check out Casting JonBenet, a Kitty Green film I’ve been putting off for 3 years now. My dad didn’t like this film at all.

9/10

Our Little Sister

Three adult sisters attend their estranged father’s funeral. They meet their half sister and offer to take her to live with them in this old traditional Japanese house their mother left them. I would have never known about this wonderful gem if it wasn’t for Mubi. I’ve updated my 100 Favourite films of the decade, sacrificing a less perfect title.

9/10

tomboy district 9 national

Tomboy

When her new friends mistakenly take her for a boy, an 11 year old girl tries to figure out whether she’s a boy, or if she’s just a tomboy. The secret comes out and her  little sister is very supportive, their mother is not accepting. It made me think of Boys Don’t Cry and I loved every minute of it! This is my 4th Celine Sciamma film, I still haven’t seen Girlhood (come on Mubi, please add it already!), and I’m mesmerized by every single one of them.

9.5/10

District 9

Aliens land in South Africa, people are not kind to them and keep them locked, experiment on them and kill them without a good reason. A male accidentally sprays a liquid on himself and his arm turns into a claw. While being chased by humans, he befriends an alien, and screws him over, but in the end they reconcile. The man turns into an alien ‘The Fly’ style while humans think he’s disappeared. He waits for his friend to come back in 3 years and help him, but we never see what happens. Peter Jackson didn’t plan a sequel, but the ending is very sequel’y. It’s a good movie, but why is it one of the 1000 movies we need to see before we die? I also didn’t know Nathalie Boltt, who plays Cheryl’s mom on Riverdale is South African until I IMDB’d her while watching this film. I laughed when they announced on the news that the main character is wanted for shagging an alien and then everyone he ran into asked him about his sexual preferences.

‘I would never have any kind of… pornographic activity with a fokkin’ creature.’

7/10

National Gallery

While waiting for the galleries to re-open take a virtual step into the London’s National Gallery and follow the staff as they go on with their daily tours and activities. The restoration process looks fascinating. I’ve been to Trafalgar Square so many times, yet I’ve never found time to visit the National Gallery. I mean, I took advanced Visual Arts in secondary school and an Art History elective in my first semester of uni for crying out loud. I need to find time. The film is 3h long, and I would advise you fast forward through the staff meeting parts.

7/10

dont talk passion friday night

Don’t Talk to Irene

Irene is a fifteen year old girl who wants to be a cheerleader. She only has one friend, an imaginary friend, Geena Davis. If you love Geena Davis, you’ll love this! Geena Davis herself admits that Earth Girls Are Easy was a stupid film. She also mentions many of her other films, most notably A League of their Own and Thelma and Louise. I did find it disappointing that the girl wasn’t in love with Geena. Why else would you convince yourself you’re actually talking to your favourite celebrity, while in fact you’re talking to a poster on the wall.

7/10

Passion

Brian De Palma still at it with the erotic thrillers. I didn’t like the film that much while I was watching it, but now when I look back, It wasn’t that bad. The title itself is just a click-bate though. There is a lesbian plot in this and you won’t be surprised until you finally see how they chose to play it out. I wonder if this film is why Rachel McAdams was cast in Disobedience. I remember seeing an interview on Youtube where Rachel Weisz said McAdams got the job because of her acting in Spotlight. This is my least favourite film of De Palma’s and yet I still want it on DVD.

What do you want?
I used to want to be admired.
I admire you.
Well, now I want to be loved.

5/10

Friday Night Lives

I was a fan of the TV Show, but the film is not for me. I kept waiting for Kyle Chandler to pop up on my screen and say: ‘Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!’

6/10

Film Reviews: To The Stars. Jack The Bear. Julia. The Woman in the Window. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend. Deadly Shores. Ophelia. Popeye the Sailor and Sindbad the Sailor. Nothing in Common

31 Sunday May 2020

Posted by in Jane Fonda, movies

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to the stars jack the bear julia 8

To The Stars

A bullied teenager befriends a new girl in town. The new girl is a mystery to everyone and likes to lie to everyone about herself and her family. She’s hiding a personal secret that is soon going to come out and change everything. My kind of screenplay. This is probably my favorite LGBT film of 2019. Time to update my Favourite films of the 2010s list.

10/10

Jack The Bear

Exactly what I needed today. The relationship between the two brothers is what’s running the film here. What happened to Miko Hughes’s career after the nineties? He was awesome in every single one of those kid roles he played including in Pet Sematary, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Mercury Rising, Full House and so many more. Jack the Bear must have been shelved for years, because the ages of child actors were at least 3 years off from how old their characters were, Reese Witherspoon would have been 16 in 1992, but looked 13 in the film, and Miko was 3.5 in the film, but would have been 6 in ’92.

7/10

Julia

A writer goes to meet her friend who was injured in the war many years ago, and whom she had a crush on as a little girl. I wish I realised she’s the writer of The Children’s Hour before she mentioned it an hour and a half into the film.

‘There are women who reach a perfect time of life when the face will never again be as good, the body never as graceful, powerful. It had happened that year to Julia.’

‘Act gay. Can you act gay?’

‘After all, the whole world knows about you and Julia.’
‘What does the whole world know, Sammy? What does the world know?’
‘Don’t be that way. I’m a sophisticated man. If anybody understands the sex urge of the adolescent girl, it’s me.’

8/10

the woman in the window unbreak deadly shor

The Woman in the Window

A film noir classic. This film was originally supposed to end with a suicide, but the studio said that would be too horrific, so we got this highly disappointing ending instead.

7/10

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend

It took me almost 3 hours to go through all possible scenarios and some of them were clearly better than others, for example how on Earth is my favourite character accidentally ending Times Up funny? There’s also a diss at Lori Loughlin and the USC scandal. I won’t miss this show that much, I’d rather re-watch 30 Rock.

7/10

Deadly Shores

Carly Schroeder’s last film before she retired from acting and joined the army. I loved Mean Creek as a kid, and I think her acting was better when she was younger. It’s been a month and I couldn’t possibly tell you how this movie ended, I know a young wife followed her writer husband to a property by the seaside, where his deceased wife lived, there she finds out he’s in love with someone else and is planning to get rid of her.

2.5/10

ophelia opoeye nothing in common

Ophelia

Let me guess, Naomi Watts refused to do this little adaptation unless they let her play two characters?

Fun fact, I once played Ophelia in a school play, back in 8th grade, I think? This took me back.

6/10

Popeye the Sailor and Sindbad the Sailor

Why this particular Popeye, Mubi? I grew up watching Full House, so whenever someone mentions Popeye or I see someone wearing a Popeye T-shirt, I automatically think of Joey Gladstone and his Popeye impression.

5.5/10

Nothing in Common

This is what Mad Men would be like if it was a comedy.

5/10