Promising Young Woman

Rape and revenge has always been one of my favourite genres. I could relate to the scene where Jennifer Coolidge’s character has a meltdown because her thirty year old daughter still lives at home and hasn’t accomplished enough for her to brag about to her friends. Also, I loved the ending.

9/10

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things

Kathryn Newton has been in so many projects since being cast as Reese Witherspoon’s older daughter in Big Little Lies. My favourite one is Freaky. This is Groundhog Day for teens and the pink cotton candy colour grading gets annoying real quick.

3/10

The Croods: A New Age

I knew nothing about this film before going in, but recognised Cage, Stone and Mann’s voices straight away. I’ve never seen the first film, even though my family bought it on DVD for 1£ a few years ago, so I will watch it eventually. I enjoyed the first half of The Croods 2 until they introduced the big monkey and everyone started fighting.

5/10

Music

I’ve fast-forwarded through most of it, especially all of the singing parts. This film clearly didn’t have anything to say about the autism community, so it should have been just about Kate Hudson’s character’s struggle to stay sober. Hudson shaved her head for this role thinking this would be a good film. In a couple of scenes she wears a T-shirt that says ‘I’m not old, I’m a recycled teenager’ which is the only thing I found intriguing in this film. This was filmed in 2017 and only got a release now? Geez, I wonder why.

2/10

The Out of Towners

Did I laugh when the airport employee dragged this poor old lady from the shitter mistaking her for Goldie Hawn, shouting the lady is refusing to go? You bet your ass I did. Did I laugh when Steve Martin climbed the baggage claim carousel, then proceeded to have a conversation with the baggage claim chute, got hit with a bag and fell on his head, while Goldie shouted that’s the wrong bag? I did indeed. I laughed at most of the slapstick scenes, and yes, some parts of the film are outdated, not tolerant or funny, but I enjoyed it just as much as the original film from 1970 starring Jack Lemmon.

6/10

Red Sorghum

A nearly perfect film that also happens to be Zhang Yimou’s first feature. It’s almost as visually stunning (if not blinding) as Raise the Red Lantern. Red Sorghum would get five stars from me, if not for the child nudity and if it had less scenes of characters urinating. The scalping scene on the other hand, may be one of my favourite of Yimou’s.

9/10

To Live

A more realistic masterpiece from Zhang Yimou that follows a family extremely short on luck and their lives starting from before the Chinese Communist Revolution up to the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 60s and 70s. I think I’ve finally found my goal for 2021, and that is to watch Yimou’s entire filmography. Also I may have watched this film twice in one weekend.

10/10

Suffragette

Emily Wilding Davison went to my uni, but dropped out before graduating due to her mother no longer being able to afford to send her there after Emily’s father’s death. Despite what many believed, Emily did not try to kill herself by throwing herself under the King’s horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby. She was trying to hang a Women’s Right to Vote flag on the King’s horse. She had been seen practising hanging the flag on other horses earlier that day. Emily thought she would have enough time to move aside, underestimating the speed of the horse. One thing I must give to the filmmakers is how exquisitely they recreated that incident. I’ve seen archival footage and all of the eeriest angles were recreated here. I think Suffragette would have been better if it focused on Emmeline Pankhurst. I also don’t think casting Meryl Streep for a 4 min monologue was necessary. The Suffragette is about the British women’s fight for the right to vote. American females’ fight is best portrayed in Iron Jawed Angels starring Hilary Swank. I recommend you watch that one first.

6/10

Sweet Nothing In My Ear

Why was Marlee Matlin’s voice dubbed? Couldn’t they just use subtitles? I watched this after rewatching Children of a Lesser God.

6/10