"The Life of Chuck" - Review

It's the end of the world. Schoolteacher Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejifor) watches the slow, gentle descent with a melancholic acceptance, as people take stock of what matters and madness spirals around them, peeling away all that doesn't matter and makes it all seem to small. Making events odder are constant adverts and billboards thanking a gentleman named Chuck (Tom Hiddleston) for 39 years. Over the end of the world, an extended musical number and a coming-of-age tale - a trio of chapters tell a story of a man's life in snapshots.

(Picture Credit: Cosmopolitan. Thank you for still using JPEGs)
Somewhat bizarrely, this is directed by Mike Flanagan: bizarre in that it is not a horror movie, and that it is somewhat hopeful and upbeat. But it being Mike Flanagan we get a fucked up hand and a selection of cameos and supporting parts from Carl Lumbly ("Doctor Sleep"), Jacob Tremblay ("Doctor Sleep". Please watch "Doctor Sleep"), Katie Siegel ("Hush", "Oculus", "Oujia: Origin Of Evil", "Gerald's Game") and Karen Gillan ("Oculus"), and even a soundtrack by the Newton Brothers. It's an experimental fare: told in three parts, in reverse, switching genres each time from melancholic apocalyptic drama to extended musical sequence and finishing on a longer coming-of-age story; incredibly unusual and something of a curveball as a film. It's pretty good for the most part.
The switch and mix-match of genres is an aquired taste, and for some it may go on too long in parts 2 and 3, but personally I enjoyed them. They slotted together nicely and with care, the film shot in a way which captures the vividness of King's writing: we're caught with those details, little things leap out at us. It's a remarkably poingnant film about how when we die, we remember not what we choose to but random moments in life: there is no rhyme or reason to it, and that is what makes these moments wonderful. A dance. A sound of a tap. Sharing a moment with a woman (Annalise Basso) having the worst day of her life and just intrinsically knowing it will get better. My favourite scene, and the one which got me choked up, is the one with Flanagan's partner Katy Siegel as Miss Richards the hippie teacher not cut out for the school system explaining what Walt Whitman's "I Contain Multitudes" means: people who change our life (especially in the schooling system) are there all too briefly, they'll vanish in a moment, existing only as a briefly vivid light in the skies of our minds.
Mia Sara (much missed!) is wonderful, as is Mark Hamill as a grandfather; and "Miss Rohrbacher" is the most Stephen King name in recent memory. It's a sweet, soaring, whimsical film.
We indeed contain multitudes.

"Weapons" - Review

At 2:17AM, seventeen children rise from their beds in Maybrook, sprint away into the night, and disappear. As the town reels, attempts to make sense of it and come to terms with what has happened, they attempt to lay blame: every child was from a single classroom of new teacher Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), and one child remains (Cary Christopher), clueless as to what happened. Wracked with grief and confusion, the town spirals, and we watch a dark mystery unfurl from multiple perspectives...

(Piture Credit: Bloody Disgusting)
I was so, so, so excited for this. Off the back of "Barbarian" (my second favourite film of that year), I was all too eager to see where the wild, unpredictable Zach Cregger would go.
Fucking hell yes.
Abso-fucking-lutely yes.
Told in a "Rashomon" style (an absolutely fantastic choice and creative idea) the film keeps that unpredictability and slipperiness of "Barbarian", as a mystery unfurls across several perspectives. The horror begins as a ruinously effective, somewhat bleak, human element: a town tears itself apart and delves into its base instincts, blaming innocent people, transforming it all into a witch hunt. It's great shit. And Cregger remains grounded not just in the human elements (Josh Brolin sleeping in his missing child's bed and screwing up at work, whilst his wife angrily tells him "she's going to work", cold and with a wedge driven between them by this tragedy) but in horror too: I was genuinely gripping my seat, unsure where it was going, what was going to happen, and driven to anxiousness by the simplicity of an average American suburbia draped in darkness and evil behind its walls, like a David Lynch painting shot by a documentarian. Is this person approaching Miss Gandy in a shop during an excruciating long take here as a grieving mother blaming her, or something far more dangerous?
It's excellent with the atmosphere, and flickers between 6 perspectives fluidly, crossing over and overlapping wonderfully, whilst ending each on a genuniely great "what the fuck?!" moment. I don't want to spoil too much, because the mystery is genuinely fun, though when it settles on a resolution, it loses steam in the 6th perspective and drags a little too long (it could have been halved) despite doing a good job delving into abuse and how it's behind closed doors, though the absolutely barmy and energetic 3rd act pulls it out of the bag and salvages it.
The performances are excellent across the board, and Cregger has a firm, solid, equally excellent grasp on characters: Garner plays Miss Gandy as a messy, kind of flawed and all-too-relatable human being; Josh Brolin is exceptional as the grieving father Archer Graff, who has a wonderful arc with Gandy and I ended up REALLY worried for him in the final act; Alden Ehrenreich (I'm happy he shows up!) plays a local cop and is great; and Benedict Wong man, Jesus fucking Christ... He'll haunt me forever. June Diane Raphael shows up too! Sweeeet! Toby Huss as well, in a cool supporting role.
It's great fun.

"The Naked Gun"

Do you really need anything here?

(Photo Credit: The Hollywood Reporter. I need to do this more often. Apologies.)
It was fucking funny, a great, wild time, just an old-school comedy of joke after joke after joke, and I was consistently giggling my tits off. Highlights include a particularly unhinged snowman sequence, a deranged jazz performance from Pamela Anderson, and a conversation with the barman. Puns, slapstick, wordplay, rule-of-three and more, there's comedy for everybody here.
Great time.