The Boy and the Heron - Review

Mahito Maki watches as the hospital his mother works at is destroyed during a bombing raid in World War 2, and he is unable to do anything to save her. 2 years after the war, he and his father Shoichi move to the countryside, to live with the latter's pregnant new wife Natsuko. One day, in this quiet country paradise, a strange heron swoops in, and tells Mahito that his mother is still alive and beckoning him, leading the boy into an abandoned old tower on the property, into a strange, fantastical world...

Magical.
There is no other word for it.
I felt the same whimsy, wonder and charm that I felt when I watched a Studio Ghibli for the first time (my first was "The Cat Returns" and along with "Porco Rosso", it remains my favourite). It has the opposite problem of "Suzume" - where that movie shat itself in the final act, this one lays its foundations a tad rushed, but then soars in its final act, a myriad of wonders and charm which revel in the majesty of fairy tales.

At its best, Ghibli envoke that sense on wonderment, that love of fairy tales for adults. Here, the film tackles the ideas of death, and moving on, and focuses on the idea that whilst these worlds are wonderful, and a fantastical escape - all things must end, and these adventures shall pass, one cannot stay here forever, and must confront that which scares, that which scars, and all the things which taint and mar this world.

The emotional ending actually made me feel something, its stakes felt real, it surpassed the actually somewhat disappointing "Suzume" and later Ghibli works by earning the high emotional payoff, and by having one. We become immersed in this world, relish in its wonders, but always are at a distance due to its edge and dangers: the reincarnating souls, the devouring pelicans who just try to survive, the cannibalistic parakeets, the seemingly endless oceans, the ever dwelling curses. All of it adds a spice, and feels like a clasic children's fairy tale of old, but accessible for adults (as much of a cliche as that may be).
The film also plays out like a "Greatest Hits" victory lap of all that we love in Ghibli.

The proud and haughty "Parakeet King" and his goofy animal minions are akin to "The Cat Returns", there is a shot of a garden straight out of the royal palaces of "Howl's Moving Castle", there's a pagoda a character sits in which I swear is shot-for-shot the one from "Porco Rosso", the old women are very "Spirited Away", the adventures with the mysterious pirate lady are rather "Princess Mononoke" and "Ponyo", there is straight up food pornography in multiple sequences, and it still retains that wonderfully charming "Cottagecore" aesthetic - but it all feels earned, celebratory, and a send off rather than recycling, as the film's ideas are its own, they are developed, they are pure and an expression of actual art, a story which wanted and compelled telling rather than a churned out tube of "content".

We like this boy, we understand his journey, we come to adore the world and the characters around him. When the journey comes to an end, we too will miss it, but unlike him: we are allowed that lingering memory, that fondness... Some tales are better fondly remembered and dwelled upon in their melancholic finality, rather than relished in the moment...
Oh, and the fire is PERFECTION. Good grief it's spectacular.

I'd say it's worth a watch.
Animation fan? Watch it.
Ghibli fan? Watch it.
Fancy some kind of unique little story? Watch it.
Going through some stuff? Watch it.
Not going through some stuff and want a good time? Watch it.
Hell, I've not even gotten into the incredible cast in the dub.

"Godzilla Minus One" - Review

Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a kamikaze pilot in the latter days of World War 2. He turns his plane around to get unnecessary repairs on an island, rather than face the enemy, only for something monstrous to attack. Though he freezes and flees, he survives the event, haunted by his survival and what he saw that day... Returning to Tokyo to find his family dead and his city in ruins, he tries to move on and live with the guilt, the pain and the crippling PTSD. But then the beast rises once again, and Shikishima must confront his past, and that of his nation...

Honestly a triumph, swinging out of the gates to show the world how it's done.
The central character piece is stirring, fantastic work, and anchors the whole affair wonderfully. It is a strong throughline, and the payoff is outstanding. It's a sense of dread and trauma, collectively experienced, throughout. The supporting characters back it too: the always welcome and incredible Sakura Ando plays a neighbour who lost everybody she loved in the bombing raids, for example, and the film has a few things to say about the war, Imperialism, the government and other things... I found myself a bit choked up towards the end, particularly with a plotline about closure with a limping mechanic... The movie has fun, actually pretty tense moments on a boat with some mines early on, very reminiscent of "Jaws" and actually a tad creepy and sinister, and when the big beast you've been waiting for shows up, it's spectacular.
The finale more than earns its key beats, the supporting characters are lovely, it's all I've come to want and expect from a "Godzilla" movie (when that classic theme kicks in? Fuck yes), and comes to a tight, satisfying conclusion and finale. It doesn't lose momentum, and tosses aside annoying comic relief, in favour of a streamlined love of carnage, trauma and the futility of war.
Godzilla's a fucking dick in this too.

"Thanksgiving" - Review

In Plymouth, Massachusetts, people gather for the Black Friday Sale at the RightMart superstore. Jessica (Nell Verlaque) whose father Thomas (Rock Hoffman) owns the store, meets up with her friends when Evan (Tomaso Sanelli) needs a new charger. However, after being let into the store early, tensions rise and end in tragedy... A year later, Jessica and her friends have tried to move on from the tragedy (for the most part...) when they find themselves tagged in a photograph by somebody calling himself "John Carver". And he wants revenge on the people who caused and participating in the events of that day. Who is this mysterious murderer? Is it new, out of town Deputy Bret LaBelle (Jeff Teravainan), Jessica's ex boyfriend Bobby (Jalen Thomas Brooks), former store manager Mitch (Ty Olsson) or somebody else? Jessica and her friends, and Sheriff Eric Newlon (Patrick Dempsey) will found out this Thanksgiving...

Eli Roth is a film maker I have struggled with over the years. On the one hand: he loves horror movies, has a soft spot for the same bloody B-movies and exploitation pictures I relish, and just seems like a swell, fun time, as he tries to bring back the stuff he loved (who else would have a Takashi Miike cameo in one of his movies?). On the other hand, his movies have mostly sucked: I hated "Hostel" and "Hostel 2", and "Green Inferno" was let down by his obnoxious, weird writing despite being a kind of fun cannibal movie, and his best work has honestly been "The House with a Clock in its Walls". "Knock Knock" is funny, however unintentionally.
So it was refreshing to have a movie of his I unironically love with few caveats.
A bloody, brutal, funny, fun throwback to the slashers of old, with a little more of a nudge and a wink to its source material and a few good pieces of character work, red herring laying and some excellent kills to make it more than just something which could have stayed a short trailer. His eccentricities are still there, but have been reigned in somewhat: he introduces a character named "Detective Chu" (Russell Yuen), and has a brief little vulgar swear off between him and Deputy LaBelle, the teenagers have that usual Eli Roth flair in the dialogue and have learned words like "cringe" now - but he now realises which ones are terrible and we wish to have killed off, so makes us wait for them and actually follows through with them; and quirky side characters show up, but here are part of the plot, actually amusing and serve a purpose (particular praise to Joe Delfin as McCarty), no more Deputy Winstons here... And he just seems to have a tighter hold on things now. The movie is funny when it needs to be funny, and has a sense of exuberance to proceedings. Honestly, he even seems to have gotten a handle on tone and juggling it now: the opening is in many ways genuinely quite horrible and upsetting, and some of the kills after this are honestly a welcome relief. The killer doesn't take cheap shots by doing things like murdering a character's cat, but instead feeds the cat (thank Christ) and pets it (good!). The cast are mostly unknowns, and good fun, and a sequence involving heads is excellent fun. The gore is practical, thankfully, and it's a fun time all around, especially since I saw this in a crowded cinema with a great audience. The movie really pushes a particular red herring, and wants you think of one particular character as the killer, almost to detriment of others, despite it being very clearly another... And it even outright lies to you about it! But the movie is still fun, and a great time.
Oh, and the main girl looks a lot like Maria Bakalova.

"The Marvels" - Review

After destroying the evil AI which ran the planet of Hala, Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) now operates as a space lesbian protector. Her grilfriend's daughter Monica (Teyonah Parris) works as an astronaut for an organisation called S.W.O.R.D, under Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) in space, and they haven't been talking in a long time. Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) is an aspiring superhero living in Jersey City, who absolutely adores Carol Danvers.
When space magic from Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) leads to shenanigans, all 3 of these women find themselves swapping places whenever they attempt to use their powers at the same time.

The central concept and rapport between the trio of Marvels is wonderful. They have lovely chemistry and Iman Vellani is one hell of a find: I wish everybody enjoyed everything in life as much as Iman Vellani enjoys playing Kamala Khan. It is a shame that the "Swapping Places" is not the whole film, and is resolved too quickly. The film soars when it is veteran space lesbian, overly keen and adorable fan girl, and unfortunately bland scientist going on adventures and figuring things out. Yeah, Rambeau gets given the emotional core of the film with her relationship to her "Aunt" Danvers (who is fun here, as a spacefaring lesbian with a lot of things on her plate, who usually spaces out and forgets how humans are, due to her frequent interactions with aliens) after her mother's death and how it separated them and the betrayal she felt. But it falls rather flat despite good efforts from the actors due to a half-baked nature of its ideas and plot: Rambeau (a key supporting character from the last film) has been killed off screen (and don't tell me "it's in one of the shows" because this is a film, fuck off), and whilst we can have Khan's powers just be there and have her be a superhero with no context (she's great, I cannot stress this enough), that's fine for her character: this is a core emotional beat and throughline of the film which is effectively an afterthought. This leaves us with the main plot, forgettable despite having the talented Zawe Ashton as the villain, which boils down to "bad hammer lady wants magic thing and is going to 3 different places, Earth is the last one". Fortunately the set pieces (a fight between the trio and some aliens where they swap places between space, Suburbia, and the moon; a musical segment on a water planet with a beard husband and a species who speak entirely in song, again Vellani is too precious for all things; and a sequence set to "Memory" by Streisand) and the chemistry of the leads propel it higher and further than is would go otherwise, and it is a fun, goofy, if underwritten follow up to Captain Marvel.
The pre-credits finale with Vellani is nice.
Mid credits scene is absolute dogshit, however, continuing the trend of movies self-cannibalising. Can this "Multiverse" nonsense piss off already?

"Dream Scenario" - Review

Professor Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) is an ordinary man, with an ordinary life, with a beautiful home and a beautiful wife. Then he starts appearing in everybody's dreams, and he thinks to himself: how did I get here?

Marketed as a wacky comedy, hoping to get by on the meme potential of Nicolas Cage being in dreams. Instead, the film is actually a dark fable about a man's life being ruined, in a spiralling downfall, complete with satirical swipes at media, memes and celebrity in the modern age. It takes the concept, stretches it, bounces it and toys with it as far as it will go. It has a droll, Scandinavian sense of humour (including a scene where Dylan Gelula tells him about a particularly vivid sex dream), even as it follows a man forced out of his home and community and breaking down. There is a fantastic dystopian sequence featuring Nicholas Braun, nobody let Silicon Valley watch it. Cage injects the film with a lot of pathos without being cartoony, keeping his crown as the greatest actor alive. Cute use of The Talking Heads too. Nice to have cameos from Amber Midthunder, Lily Gao and Dylan Baker.

"Cat Person" - Review

Margot (Emilia Jones) works at a cinema, and bumps into a semi-regular customer named Robert (Nicholas Braun), and after some initial awkwardness, gives him her number. Her more cynical friend Taylor (Geraldine Viswanathan) has doubts, but they start dating, and going through the awkward trials and tribulations of modern dating.

Jones (who played Alice in "Utopia"... huh) is excellent, playing Margot as unsure and awkward and trying her best to navigate this relationship, with little dream sequences and conversations with herself. There are lots of relatable parts to her, and little moments and touches which throw you into her headspace, including a rather well-done sex scene.
But for me personally, it was the performance of Braun which really stood out: he filled it with little touches like his angry shaking off of a hand at his shuolder when opening a door, his awkward pauses or silences during conversations, his somewhat uncomfortable initial conversations with Margot at the start. He managed to be full of red flags without being overtly, comically sinister, and the whole film became a death by a thousand cuts: he's not abusive or violent, he's just a bit weird and mismatched, but the movie has you thinking that Margot is maybe taking this a bit too far (up until a rather unforgivable point). The makers make EXCELLENT use of the fact that Braun is 6 foot fucking 7. But even after the inevtiable break up, and the crossing of the line from Robert, the film takes pains to have it be relatively realistic in its depictions of break ups and behaviours: was Margot being too naive or was her desperate thrust for politeness and manners going too far? It's a murky, grey, uncomfortable film about the awkwardness of romance.
However.
Tonally, it stumbles in a few places as it doesn't know what it wants to be: is it a wacky dark comedy (where the characters huddle around Margot and shuffle out of the restaurant comically) with quick-talking sassy friend Taylor dishing out sick burns and running away with the entire movie (as Viswanathan is wont to do!) and imagined sequences of wackier murders; or is it a dark thriller with a stalker and a woman's descent into paranoia and danger? The tonal shifts can be jarring. One moment we are watching a toe-curling attempt to appease her step father, the next there is a sequence of her up all night, wondering if she realy did see Robert waiting outside...
It yo yos between these things, and whilst Viswanathan is incredibly funny, it threatens to derail proceedings.
The finale will be controversial, but I rather like it: there's some great payoff to previous moments and recontextualising of her previous assumptions and fears, and some actually rather valid points raised by Robert about all of the behaviour up until this point. It risks "both sidesing" the issue, but I think it balances it relatively well, though after "Bottoms" I am not sure I can accuse any finale of being "out there".

"Bottoms" - Review

PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edibiri) are unpopular lesbians in highschool pining for, respectively, popular cheerleaders Brittany (Kaia Gerber) and Isabel (Hannah Rose Liu). After a misunderstanding with their friend Hazel (Ruby Cruz) and Isabel's football captain boyfriend Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine), the pair, and Hazel, come up with an idea...

A completely fucking unhinged follow up to the tight anxiety attack that was "Sheva Baby": go in blind, and hope that director and writer Emma Seligman's career continues to be as unpredictable, vivid, wild and mercilessly creative as this.
Alongside "Booksmart" and "Blockers", it is becoming the holy trinity of "Excellent Queer Sex Comedies of One Word Titles Beginning With B".
Outstanding across the board.
Howled with laughter.

"Five Nights At Freddy's" - Review

Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is fired from his job as a security guard after beating the shit out of a man in a mistaken case of identity. His career counsellor (Matthew Lillard, always a treat) offers him a gig as a night watchman at "Freddy Fazbear's Pizzaria!". Desperate to look after his sister and look good in an upcoming custody battle, Mike takes the job, and there may be more to this place than meets the eye...

See what I did there? Explaining the plot succinctly and simply?
Fuck you Scott Cawthon. There are a myriad of problems in this capstone to a juggernaut of pop cultural growth, turning more and more benign every single day, but they can be boiled down, in this instance, to this:
I don't think Scott Cawthon can write his own name, let alone a fucking story.
You'd think that this would be easy to achieve (after all: "Willy's Wonderland" is great, and did this with about a tenth of the budget! Watch that movie!): scary robots, old theme park, run for your life. Instead the movie piles lore upon lore upon development upon plot point upon twist: like the backwash of a story outline created by a community of 9 year olds who read the synopses of spooky movies in a foreign language badly translated, force-fed to you by a guy who really knows far too much and gets far too angry about "Star Wars" lore. It's unsfferable.
One moment it's our hero struggling to overcome the trauma of a kidnapping in his youth; then it's an attempt at kitchen sink drama as he tries to make enough money to win custody of his sister (Piper Rubio), undercut by a comically Pantomime villain performance by Mary Stuart Wilson as an evil aunt. Then it's a talentless hack's take on "Doctor Sleep" with dream children, spirit guides, Faustian deals and an evil child murderer demon rabbit man who may be supernatural, but maybe not, but probably is. THEN the it becomes the joys of found family, rediscovering joy and love, and the animatronics are not evil really, only they are, only not really, only they're misunderstood!
It's exhausting.
It's like Scott Cawthon is force feeding you his 90,000 page fan fiction rewrite and lore crossover of "The Funhouse".
Rather fitting for a man with views on bodily autonomy like his...
There is no plot, only lore, and the lore is all terrible.
Then it is delivered like a Mormon comedy night: scenes are best described as awkward, jittering stop start nightmares with broad "comedic" moments and dialogue clearly not written by a person who ahs interacted with a single human being in their life. Thus we get Hutcherson trying his best, but nobody quite knowing how to play the material, and thus all floundering. A particular "standout" is Elizabeth Lail as a frustratingly weird, evasive and off-putting police officer who is almost line for line Deputy Winston from "Cabin Fever", but the spitting image of Elizabeth Holmes. It is genuinely one of the worst performances I have seen in recent memory.
Matthew Lillard, with his 2 scenes, sort of knows how to play it, but again his awkward weird energy never really sticks to anything, like pudding with velcro, and it is surrounded by bizarre intercut top down shots of his coffee mug or Dutch angles.
The movie's genuinely alarming in how terribly it is written, I cannot state this enough. If you sit down and just listen to the words being stated by the characters, and note them down, you'll find fucking beat poetry nonsense.
On top of it all, scenes simply end and judder on without warning or reason, as if rushing to get to the good parts, but forgetting to put them in.
The film is simultaneously anemic and padded: it is a Neutron star of awfulness attempting to collapse in on itself and its inconsistencies and inanity, but instead is kept alive in a harrowing anti-life, its body just a prop for the festering seed of terror growing within it:
much like what Scott Cawthon wants to do to women...
There is no way I can oversell the writing in this. If I attempted to write this poorly on purpose, I would fail. Performance art designed to parody and subvert the ideas of Homer and Joseph Campbell would not capture a tenth of the ludicrousness. It matches "Final Fantasy 13" for how dire its plotting is. Its tone is akin to splicing snippets of "My Cousin Vinny" into the runtime of "Bull".
I have seen toilet graffiti make more sense: "Sharon Sucks Cocks" at least has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and raises questions: whose cocks? Why? To what purpose?
I wish this sucked cocks, then at least it would be less homophobic than its creator.
Instead it sucks so much ass it should begin an irrigation practice.

"It Lives Inside" - Review

Samidha (Megan Suri) is an Indian-American girl living with her devout mother Poorna (Neeru Bajwa) and her regular, Giancarlo-Esposito lookalike dad Inesh (Vik Sahay). The other Indian-American girl at her school Tamira (Mohana Krishnan), a former friend of Samidha, is acting strangely. And after an argument between the two, something is unleashed and Tamira disappears...

The debut feature of Indian director Bishal Dutta is an odd affair. Essentially an extended metaphorical journey of a character rediscovering her identity and reconciling both aspects of her culture together, as Samidha (or "Sam" as she insists on being called) is asked to say things in "Hindu" for her friend's amusement, skips out on culutural ceremonies and fesitvals her family have participated in for years, and is asked if she is friends with Inesh because they're both Indian. It's a refreshing thing to see in a horror film, and somethine relatively new (I highly recommend "War Pony" on a similar theme this year).
So far so good. It even comes together in a celebration of Indian culture, pays off the little hints throughout, and wraps up nicely.
It has Betty Gabriel in it too, always welcome after her string of horror movies ("The Purge: Election Year", "Get Out" and "Upgrade" being the good ones, among many many more), and I liked the performances of Bajwa and Suri.
Again, alright.
All it needs now is to be scary and we have a winner!
Ah well, better luck next time.
Yeah, despite a strong central theme, the film doesn't remember to do what horror movies need to do: create atmosphere and dread, or spring good scares on the audience. It feels like it is in a rush to get to the monster, and otherwise falls into a staid conga-line of things we've seen before. There's a good attempt with a swing, and a nice use of eyes and the colour orange, but maybe I've been spoiled by other better horror movies: it's just never scary.
Still, I am intrigued to see the next efforts of its director.

"Expend4bles" - Review

The eponymous team go on a mission to "Gaddafi's Old Bunker" (actual title card) and it goes South, losing them one of their own. Vowing vengeance, Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) is booted off the team regardless for his mistakes. As the team assemble, they do so under the new leadership of ex CIA operative Gina (Megan Fox) and consist of: demolitions expert and recurring member Toll Road (Randy Couture), hyperactive sex fuelled Spaniard and son of previous member Galgo, Galan (Jacob Scipio); new replacement black guy "Easy Day" (50 Cent); tattooed chain wielding new girl Lash (Levy Tran) and the now sober and aging Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren); they do so in order to take revenge on their newest enemy Rahmat (Iko Uwais) and help CIA agent Marsh (Andy Garcia) prevent World War 3.

There are times when "Expend4bles" almost works as a macho, over the top 80s gory throwback. There is blood (unfortunately CGI, cheapening and ruining the effect) and an occasional line where the characters attempt to give each other shit, and this banter feels good on some (Lundgren and Statham mostly) but incredibly weak on others (why Couture keeps getting more lines was a mystery to me, until I saw what it was like when Fiddy attempted to deliver some); and there is one piece of macho bullshit which works and got a chuckle out of me: Dolph Lundgren keeps missing his shots at the start of the film (planting), and tries to stay sober, then in the final gunfight at the end her misses again - he winces, downs a hip flask of whiskey, lands 7 headshots in a row, kills 8 more people with a grenade and goes (practically to the camera) "It's good to be back!" (Payoff!). It's one of the few times when tone works, and when it reaches those heights of greasy dumpster fire trash and over the top carnage it wants.
Unfortunately Scott Waugh is a talentless hack, squandering his budget on CGI and cutting his movie to ribbons, and when the cartoonish backdrops (they CGI a BAR FOR PEOPLE TO CHAT IN!) are not done any favours by the dingy "Call of Duty knockoff" lighting, they are on full vibrant horrible display in "Avengers TV movie" lighting. There are no in betweens.
The editing and shooting is so bad that it makes me wonder if Iko Uwais and Tony Jaa can actually fight, it gets that bad. Andy Garcia delivers a performance so terrible I am convinced it had to be a directing issue, all done in a short time frame on as few takes as possible - all flat intonation and half-flubbed lines. It's genuinely startling to see a performance this bad, this rushed: it's something akin to Steven Seagal reading for "Hamlet" whilst fleeing an impending SA conviction. I swear, the man is half drunk and doesn't know where he is.
The script does no favours to anybody.
The script doesn't need to be intricate or excellent, it needs to do the job, and it stumbles out of the block and falls flat on its face. It's not hard: you come to this movie for the promise of old school action from old school action stars, so just have our ragtag team of thinly sketched characters go on a rampage, kick some ass in an exotic locale and massacre the equivalent of the population of Morocco, and ride into the sunset smoking cigars, knocking back whiskey and fondling the asses of women half their age whilst a mansion detonates behind them, cleansing the area in the fires of their virility.
Instead we get the central cast written out of the movie, with the exception of Statham, and stiff, weak, limp action movie scenes which seem to be struggling to find their purpose, and the movie still has the gall to pad itself with scenes like Statham finding work as a bodyguard for an obnoxious social media influencer.
I wish I could tell you how the performances of the oft-maligned Megan Fox and newcomer Levy Tran are, but again they are given nothing to do. Fox is fine, and Tran belongs in a "John Wick" movie with her myriad of tattoos and use of a bladed chain whip which threatens to make the movie fun, moreseo than Statham Tokyo-drifting a cruiser or flipping a machine-gun mounted motorbike 8 times in the air.
By the time those things happen, I'd clocked out.
All you need to know is this:
Dolph Lundgren credits "The Expendables" with saving his career, turning him from desperate direct to video movies and reminding Hollywood that he was still around and kind of cool. He experienced something of a career Rennaissance: "Creed 2", "Hail Caesar!", "Aquaman", better direct to video fare ("Castle Falls", which is fun and he takes directing duties on; "Universal Soldier: Regeneration"; and the bloody good time "Don't Kill It" which is both mine and his favourite roles ever and a fucking awesome premise and rip roaring good time I recommend whole-heartedly); and him effectively turning his life around: he's the patron of a human-trafficking charity, reconnected with his children, got sober and has really been in his best place for years now. He is a credit to himself, the first movie, Hollywood as a whole, and an icon of non-toxic masculinity.
He has also been suffering from kidney cancer since 2015.
The movie introduces him with 50 Cent mocking him for having a bad wig, and telling him it looks bad.
Fuck this movie.
Please just watch Dolph Lundgren movies and his TED Talk instead.

"Past Lives" - Review

Nora (Greta Lee), formerly Na Young, is a Korean woman who has a crush on a boy in her class called Hae Sung (Teo Yoo). They have a date as children and seem to hit it off. But then Nora moves to America when her parents emigrate there. Now adults, Hae Sung gets in touch with Nora and hopes to catch up, and the two of them seem to hit it off...

A devastating, emotionally mature film about longing and things never quite being as simple as they want to be. It's rich, wonderfully shot, and a fully immersive, endearing three hander (John Magaro shows up and is bloody brilliant, getting my favourite, gut wrenching, quietly devastating scenes) with electrifying chemistry not seen since Hawke and Delpy. The final shots got me crying.
Highly recommended.

"Assassin Club" - Review

Morgan (Henry Golding, I had to look up his character's name) is an assassin. With the aid of his British handler Caldwell (Sam Neill) he embarks on missions to assassinate people across the globe. He is assigned a selection of targets who have all been assigned to kill him...

We did it! We found the worst film of 2023!
A sloppily edited "John Wick" wannabe, with a protagonist who teleports if only to escape the many blades of the cutting room floor and the ever-vibrating shaky cam. Daniela Melchior, always welcome, is given the thankless task of "Wife", "Damsel in Distress" and "Deserves Better"; whilst Noomi Rapace is given the task of "Generic Villain", because writing more than one woman is hard, guys.
It has no ambitions other than being a straight to DVD "John Wick" knockoff crossed with Bond, but has the budget of a 2000s era Van Damme, half of the charm, and the film making talent of current era Steven Seagal.
Highlight is Sam Neill bobble-heading his performance.

"The Lesson" - Review

Liam Sommers (Daryl McCormack) is an aspiring novelist hired to be the tutor to young Bertie Sinclair (Stephen McMillan), the son of esteemed novelist J.M Sinclair (Richard E Grant at his most Richard E Grant), of whom Liam is an enormous fan. Settling into his enormous house with Sinclair's French wife Helene (the treasure Julie Delpy) and their guarded butler Ellis (Crispin Letts), Sommers is both the pupil and mentor when it comes to how to write...

A 3 or 4 hander, very much a slow burn, it feels like a stage play were it not for Alice Troughton (known primarily for her television work, particularly with Russell T Davies) and her long, sometimes experimental shots. It largely works, and feels exceedingly 90s and European in a good way. Delpy is always welcome, and Grant is always great. I was expecting the whole thing to get gory or properly nuts, but it still kind of works.
Side note: off the back of this and "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande" (which is fantastic, by the way) I am convinced that Daryl McCormack is on a mission to only do movies where he sleeps with esteemed older actresses. Based. I'm all for it.

"Cobweb" - Review

Peter (Woody Norman) is living a sheltered life with his parents (Lizzy Caplan and Anthony Starr), who are still living in the shadow of a child's disappearence years before. Bullied at school and plagued by nightmares, he starts leaping at shadows... What is a boy to do?

A slippery, tricksy, unpredictable movie, and something of a pleasant surprise in today's market. It wove itself insidiously between genres, using shadows and light to create an atmosphere of unease and dread (check out the "Nosferatu"-esque shadows on the stairs, and the very 70s stares and stark shots of certain characters. The director Samuel Bodin has a good eye for this sort of thing); whilst playing form a child's eye view leaves it so much murkier, and unpleasant. Lizzy Caplan (welcome in movies, and against type here) and Anthony Starr do well as a suburban couple with something going on behind that veneer of pleasantness. This is the first thing I've seen Anthony Starr in, and he's pretty good. Still not watching "The Boys" though.
Anyway, the film's unpredictability is done via its use of your expectations of horror: you KNOW something is wrong here, you KNOW something is going to burst out of the woodwork, it's just a case of WHAT is going to do so. And when that 3rd act rolls around? It's great.

"Mercy Falls" - Review

A group of friends set off for the Scottish highlands to find the cabin left to Rhona (Lauren Lyle) by her father. She hopes to hook up with Donnie (Joe Rising), is accompanied by her boisterous best friend Heather (Layla Kirk), and her quiet unassuming boyfriend Donnie (James Watterson), and concerned that Donnie has brought his arsehole friend Andy (Eoin Sweeney) along. But soon the group have bigger problems when they run into Carla (Nicoletta McKeown), a mysterious drifter...

It's a rather generic affair, where I was waiting for the script to pop or subvert things, with little in the way of atmosphere. Still, I can't be mad at it as it was clearly made for about 20 quid, and it's competent enough fare set to be a film on the Horror Channel.

"Theater Camp" - Review

Every year, the AdirondACTS theatre camp run by Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris) is home to the outcast, the fabulous and the theatrical kids, underdogs all, who come together to learn about acting, singing, dancing, stage craft and how to put on the best show you've ever seen! This year, there is a documentary crew here to follow Joan and her arts. But when she suffers a seizure, and falls into a coma (the first ever "Bye Bye Birdie" related injury ni the county's history), the documentary makers are forced to move onto new subjects on the first day of shooting. Namely, we follow acting teacher Amos Klobuchar (Ben Platt), and his co-dependent best friend; the new Age past life-healer and musical director Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon) as they must contend with the news, putting on a musical in Joan's memory, the new stewardship of the camp under her son Troy (Jimmy Tatro), his attempts to save it from financial ruin, and the new influx of kids this year. Complicating this already huge task is the revelation that a Ms Krauss (Patti Harrison), a representative from a rival camp, is here to buy them out, and the new kids have their own issues they have brought to camp this year...

This movie was absolutely fucking brilliant.
A madcap spiritual successor to "Waiting for Guffman", with rapid fire jokes not seen on a level since "Booksmart" (featuring some of its alumnii, as a matter of fact! But I get ahead of myself...), razor sharp scriptwriting and a runtime which never outstays its welcome come together to make a witty and sweet comedy: the pace is something to behold.
Ben Platt is great in this, and actually won me over after playing Dear Evan Hansen in that bad version of "World's Greatest Dad", here relishing the part.
But I was here for my queen Molly Gordon, frequently the best thing about whatever she is in (a welcome anti-anxiety medication in "Shiva Baby", a hilarious best friend in "Broken Hearts Gallery", the antagonist and zinger-master in "Good Boys" and the one whose simple delivery of "Where the fuck do you live?" in "Booksmart" still has me in stitches to this day) and here finally relishing the chance to play a role she has wanted for her entire career. They carry the production wonderfully, and the supporting characters all get a chance to shine. The pace of jokes never let up, and they land each and every time in their celebration of this mad, "theatre kid energy", and even the age-old reaction shots of people having to put up with this bullshit never gets old. Troy is essentially Tatro's character from "American Vandal" again, and most welcome here, and the performers across the board all get given gems. Not a single scene goes by without somebody getting a great joke in. Noah Galvin from "Booksmart" also shows up, and "Booksmart" cast members are always welcome. From Troy trying to bond with the kids and calling them "Fam", "Squad" and the like, only to be called "Cishet" to mocking laughter; to the efforts of oddly talented yet overlooked theatre kid Glenn (Galvin) trying to keep the place going; to the new teacher Janet (Ayo Edebiri) bluffing her way through every class after lying on her CV; Rebecca-Diane and Amos trying to just make and write a damn musical: it juggles an enormous number of plates in the air, a huge number of funny characters, and has them all pay off in terms of punchlines, big and small, and emotional, satisfying arcs by the end of the story. It includes 2 coming out jokes, bookending the story, and has not a single mean spirited bone in its body.
Come for Molly Gordon and the redemption of Ben Platt, stay for the antics of Troy, the drama of shows, a cocaine-based musical number, a disatissfied Air B'n'B guest, a welcome cameo from Patti Harrison, and the warmth of its heart.
A fantastic debut, and I unironically want a TV show based on this, and a full length musical based on the final number.

"Blue Beetle" Review

Jaime Reyes (Xolo Mariduena) has returned from college to his family, delighted to have him back in Palmera City. Unfortunately they are set to lose their home to the greed of the ever expanding Kord Industries, headed by Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), and Jaime's father Alberto (Damian Alacazar) has just lost his job after a heart attack. On the ropes, broke, but surrounded by love: Reyes is forced to get himself a job to support his family. The kid gets caught up in a hunt for a mysterious artefact, and adventure ensues.

This movie was just fun.
It's a bright, vibrant, 90s as hell poppy explosion of delights, all about family, fun, and the plight of migrant communities doing battle with corporate overlords and laserbeams. IT has a breezy sensibility to it, but doesn't forget the characters along the way: a lovable family surrounding Reyes, who is himself a good wholesome boy. His banter/rapport and growth with the bloodthirsty robot alien parasite Khaji Da (Becky G) is the throughline of the film and where much of the jokes and humour come from, and the payoff is exactly what you want and need and expect from this film, and it works wonderfully. I'm a big Ted Kord fan, so having his robot spout "Kickstart My Heart" is the most Ted Kord thing. That's just a cute side note.
I was told that this movie (with its odd couple boy and his robot, the lovable George Lopez conspiracy theorist uncle, fighting corporations with an old robot taken from the cave of "Batman but with ADHD" which spouts out Motley Crue songs, and its anti corporation message and sweet heart) was something I would write.
I wish I could write something a tenth as good as this.
A breath of fresh air for superhero films.

"Talk to Me" - Review

Best friends Mia (Sophia Wilde) and Jade (Alexandra Jensen) are going through some tough times at the moment: the former lost her mother a few years ago and is still reeling from it, and the latter is trying to help her through it. When they learn about an online trend involving taking an embalmed hand of a psychic, saying "Talk to me" and messing around with spirits: for a bit of fun they decide to fuck around and find out...

Directors Danny and Michael Phillipou have made a movie geared towards the urban legends "3AM Challenge" crowd, but with a little more going on beneath the surface and a little weird to boot due to its age rating and themes of trauma. It has excellent practical effects, 2 excellent supporting performances from Zoe Terakes and Chris Alosio as the dickhead friends, a good possession performance, and some good gore. There are some details I enjoy, such as how Mia's father is always shot out of focus and off screen because she's distant from him, and the particularly good shot of what happens to a character when their soul is not here... It's fun.
However, I never was as scared as I wanted to be. Maybe I'm just sick of possession movies, but the scares were never quite there for me, as well made as it was.

"Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1" - Review

Finally under the stable leadership of a 2nd term head in Eugene Kitteridge (Henry Czerny), the "Impossible Mission Force" is once again called into action when the intelligence community scrabbles to find the key to an artificial intelligence known as "The Entity". Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is on the case, backed by his black hacker Luther (Ving Rhames) and white hacker Benji (Simon Pegg), charting the globe in a race to find the key, and uncovering a myriad of twisting loyalties and plots along the way. He shall encounter his old British agent friend Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), the arms dealer "White Widow" (Vanessa Kirby) and a supposedly old foe from his past named "Gabriel" (Esai Morales), as Ethan crosses paths with enemies from all sides seeking this key, and a pickpocket named Grace (Hayley Atwell) who is caught in the middle...

A strange duck in the series, encompassing many of my personal problems with it, addressing some of them, and carrying on some of the major strengths but never quite following through with them in a way which soars like greater entries in the series. Cards on the table: I was never really a fan of "Fallout", which received a disproportionate amount of acclaim, and think this is an improvement in many regards, as well as a step back. The main strengths of the series have been the much-publicised large scale stunts and big "Ethan Hunt jumps off a thing" moments: here the undeniable high point (well, putting aside its story of the making of it...) is a Buster Keaton falling train sequence, dodging pianos and chairs and exploding carriages, all mayhem and much welcome. But the film is 2 and 1/2 hours long, and that comes right at the end. The car chase in Venice (side note: both it and "Fast X" have car chases in Venice, a bland lead, a poe-faced tone despite the wackiness and a sprawling cast of characters brought back solely to show off that they still exist, and it does make one wonder...) has some good humour to it with a tiny yellow car and a handcuffed Ethan and Grace bimbling about trying to avoid everybody in tanks and jeeps and gunfights (though I feel the joke could have been a bit funnier if Grace didn't know how to drive, full stop) with one driving and the other yelling directions. Yet it doesn't quite pop in the other action sequences the way it wants to, it doesn't feel as gritty or gnarly as McQuarrie's early "Way of the Gun" (side note: watch "Way of the Gun" if you want a dose of 90s unpleasantness, I quite like it and find it my favourite of his works) and lacks the choreography of a "John Wick" or madness of "Hobbs and Shaw", the latter of which would match the Looney Tunes vibe they are seeking in their physical stuntwork. But the dialogue and plotting around it?
That brings us to the weakness of the films, here both on stark display and somewhat addressed, in a study in contrasts.
The "Mission Impossible" movies have struggled with characters and personality. I struggle to describe Ethan Hunt. The best parts of "Rogue Nation" were the banter and bickering between Luther and Brandt (oh Jeremy Renner), and the attempts to investigate the team and make Benji crack, and finding where Isla's loyalties lie. The highlight of the series ("Ghost Protocol") was a quartet of characters on the run, trying to clear their names and their issues (a quest for venegance, a quest for redemption, their first time in the field, and Ethan) on the run from my favourite character in the series: a cop just doing his job. Here, we have a brief exchange of banter between Luther and Benji, then that's it. The characters are described as being a thing, then we have their dialogue be either directions towards a key, or the word "key" (seriously, there's a bit on the train where Grace and Ethan say the word "key" about 8 or 9 times in the space of a single sentence), and talk gravely about the dangers posed by the world incredibly poe-faced. But it never really feels like it earns it. Some of it is fun (Henry Czerny hisses and growls all of his dialogue, in a way which is clearly the filmmakers trying to have you believe he is the villain, despite them trying this trick in the first film and it coming off the back of Cary Elwes being introduced as a character named "Denlinger" and looking shady as fuck. I like Henry Czerny and am happy he is getting more work, even if he is going to be the patriarch of the Le Domas Clan in my mind forever), but the key flaw in this respect is the villain. Esai Morales tries with what he is given in terms of the material, and almost threatens to be good and threatening, but is introduced 7 movies in as the "ultimate villain who ruined Ethan Hunt's life by killing the love of his life" (not his wife Julia from movie 3, or his apprentice/friend Agent Farris in the same movie, and not Nyah from "2", but instead some girl who is introduced in a blink and you'll miss it flashback), and basically gets to growl and scowl and say prophetic cryptic things of evil AI. Yes, a character dies halfway through the film, but it is oddly telegraphed (they give it to one of the better, more subtle performers, who is re-introduced as competent 40 minutes in, and then loses that competence solely for the purposes of needing somebody to die...) and it just made me go:
"Oh. Okay..."
Yet, they also address the supporting cast, new characters all, by giving them moments of personality. Pom Klementieff (whom I want in all movies, usually in a buddy cop adventure with either Jessica Rothe or Daniela Melchior) makes something of an impact as a blood crazy assassin dressed as "Black Parade" era MCR (even if making her the "mute Asian" is... come on man.) and Grace and Vanessa Kirby's "White Widow" have their moments, but the highlight for me was Shea Whigham turning up as "Detective Shea Whigham", having genuinely funny contrasting buddy cop adventures with his buddy (Greg "Tarzan" Davies) who prefers a more nuanced approach. He had something of an arc over the course of the film too.
The screenplay is cluttered yet sparse in equal measure, and whilst it has some spark in its supporting parts, Ethan and Gabriel are too underwritten as characters to be interesting, and thus the tension suffers. I still kind of recommend it if you like the series.

"Barbie" - Review

In a world of unyielding horror, divorced from emotion and human experience, purged of identity and soul and meaning: stumbles Barbie (Margot Robbie), a doll who has left her own world in search of the girl who plays with her (Ariana Greenblatt). Accompanying her across this post apocalyptic hellscape comes Ken (Ryan Gosling, we shall get to him), who sees himself as her boyfriend, on a quest for answers to his own identity and place in the world alongside his true love Barbie, who defines him. As Barbie spirals downwards, succumbing to depression, and Ken discovers the darkest impulses of man, a journey of self-discovery, self-actualisation, and the existential horror of our depressive lives ensues...

(Art by Joana Fraga)
You knew it was coming, the memes have been best described as "torrential" and the hype train has had no brakes on it. So here it is.
"Barbie" has lived up to it.
Greta Gerwig (this is the first thing I have seen of hers) has concocted a myriad of pastel coloured wonders, with a rapid fire joke rate subverting its plastic source material, and giving a different gag for every palette. There are surprise musical numbers, breaking the fourth wall, easy-but-still-funny swings for the fences of how Barbie as a concept has aged with girls in a more enlightened world, simple one-liners, a Michael Cera fight sequence and even an extended plot point about Nickelback (a personal favourite was a joke at the expense of "Zach Snyder's Justice League" of all things). A highlight for myself is (apart from the musical numbers, dance number reminiscent of old-school musicals and a shirt which reads "I am Kenough") a Scooby-Doo esque chase in an office cubicle which makes me want Greta Gerwig to make a "Looney Tunes" movie. It's fun, it's pastel coloured, it's a neon carnival of chaos and carnage:

And then, comes the candy-coated poison. I am A SUCKER for a movie with a sickly sweet exterior, hiding a dark centre, and "Barbie" has it in spades: it's about losing your mind, suffering from existential dread, desperately flailing in a downward spiral after perfection slips from your grasp and you begin to believe that you will never achieve anything. It focuses on existential dread, depression and then, in the second act, toxic masculinity stemming from a feeling of mediocrity and a lack of an identity or purpose in your own life, in a mirror to Barbie's own journey.
All this from a fucking "Barbie" movie, I swear to Christ...
Robbie is excellent, and the writing and characters pop, its style is fun without being obnoxious or overbearing. America Ferrera bears the emotional soul of the film, and bears it well, and there is a lovely emotional payoff with Rhea Pearlman (HELL YES) towards the end. It feels a bit crowded when Will Ferrell and his Mattel Goons show up in a throwback to "The LEGO Movie", but it works for the most part, and theire gags still land, only with a bit less bite (bar one about profits at the end). Kate McKinnon, unfortunately, shows up with what can only be described as "Miranda Hart on SNL in the 90s" energy, but is thankfully kept to a minimum here.

The highlight, as many could have predicted, is Ryan Gosling. Just... yes. Everything about Ken in this is letting him embrace his comedic chops, and showcasing the performance of his career.
A triumph.

"Joy Ride" - Review

Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola) grew up as best friends: largely because they were the only Asian kids in their tiny town, and because the fiery, punchy Lolo protected Audrey on the playground from a racist. Now, the high-flying overachieving lawyer Audrey is about to embark on a business trip for her firm to meet a client in China; and the artistic, foul-mouthed, free spirited Lolo (voted "Most Likely to Get Arrested") comes along not just as her best friend, but her translator! After all, ever since they were kids, Audrey has wanted to find her birth mother in China, and Lolo decides that this is the chance to do it. However, the latter also neglected to mention that her awkward K-Pop loving cousin "Deadeye" (Sabrina Wu) will be joining them... Whilst she's in the neighbourhood, Audrey also decides to catch up with her old college room mate Kat (Stephanie Hsu), a wild child sex machine now working as golden girl leading lady in a prestigious TV show called "The Emperor's Daughter" and engaged to her hot, chaste Christian leading man Clarence. The quartet begin a road trip which devolves into shenanigans and evolves into friendship and struggles with identity.

We saw this at a "Screen Unseen" preview a month or so before it comes out, and had 2 walkouts in the first 5 minutes. I'm glad that they left then, because this movie is fucking filthy.
It's also hilarious.
A depraved, wildfire, highly energetic road trip movie with 4 excellent comedic actors (Sherry Cola is an immediate standout and rightly so as the raunchy, borderline degenerate maniac and supportive best friend Lolo; but Stephanie Hsu had me pissing myself, and Sabrina Wu is one hell of a find); all 4 of the cast feel like rounded characters to boot. The lazy review is to say "Asian Bridesmaids", and whilst Stephanie Hsu (can we have a Stephanie Hsu movie every year please?) plays it with madcap Rose Byrne energy, and some will compare Lolo to Melissa McCarthy's star-making performance (and there is even a cameo from Annie Mumolo, writer of "Bridesmaids" as Audrey's mother), the movie evolves into its own hedonistic thing, with an effervescent and horny energy of its own. A sequence involving drugs on a train has some choice lines and had my partner and I crying with laughter, only to be followed up with a 6-way sex sequence/dance-off a few minutes later, where Stephanie Hsu is attempting to hide how horny she is, and it killed me- and yet still it had the sheer nerve to also feature character growth and development in its double-cunnilingus concussion basketball masturbation extravaganza.
In between rapid fire delivery, a breakneck pace and a rendition of "W.A.P" which goes beyond what is shown in the trailer (I will not say more), there comes the movie's real strength of balancing these pussy-tattoo shenanigans and foul mouthed gags about anal sex with its resonant emotional core - a woman's search for her identity when she doesn't feel quite at home in this world anymore, and maybe won't even find it here... Daniel "Turbo Chad" Dae Kim has an incredibly sweet cameo, but the emotional core and heart of the film lies comfortably with Park (whom you can tell is a theatre actor, not just from her EXCELLENT vocals on "W.A.P". Fun fact: she played the part of Gretchen in the "Mean Girls" musical and I can 100% see it) and her journey, as well as some tender moments with friends both new and old... Lolo and Kat have an excellent catty dynamic, but it doesn't drag too long. Deadeye is charming and funny without being annoying (looking at you, Kate McKinnon) and it is just such a damn good time. I applaud Adele Lim for her triumphant debut, and am keen on all of these guys going far.

"No Hard Feelings" - Review

Uber driver Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) is living her... best (?) life: a commitment-phobic, free-wheeling maneater; when her Uber is repossessed, and she falls behind repayments on the lean on her deceased mother's house. In desperate need of cash (especially since the Summer is coming up, and tourists will be flooding to the tiny town she lives in...), she answers an ad placed online: date the shy, introverted Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) so that he can gain some confidence before going to Princeton, and in return his incredibly wealthy helicopter parents (Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti) will give her a car. Seeing some easy cash, Maddie turns on the charm and her feral, sexual energy and gets to work. But this job may be harder than it seems, and the student may end up becoming the master...

I'm all aboard the band wagon of actors getting their Oscars and critical acclaim early, and then just going nuts. Jennifer Lawrence is great in this, and clearly relishing the chance to get off the leash. In between her vicious barbs and put downs, there is some depth to a character who grew up in a small town and sees big money flooding through and treating it and its people like a playground, and resenting that. A particular highlight comes from a beach scene.
Andrew Barth Feldman is one hell of a find, and plays Percy as more than a charicature.
The plot addresses its unappealing plot, and never really feels exploitative, the two characters learn from each other. Its 3rd act loses some momentum after frequent comedy beats by veering more into character piece, but the film is amiable enough to survive it and get by.
Natalie Morales steals the show, and Zahn McLarnon has a cameo!

"The Flash" - Review

Crime lab technician Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) is a super-fast superhero known as "The Flash". Desperate to clear the name of his father Henry (Ron Livingston), who has long been in prison for the murder of his mother Nora (Maribel Verdu), Barry throws himself into his works. When he figures out that he can move fast enough to travel in time, he decides to prevent his mother's death from ever happening. However, these efforts backfire and alter the timeline, forcing Barry to team up with his younger self, in order to figure out how to fix things...

The story around the making of this movie has been a trainwreck not seen since the days of "Fantfourstic", and I think everybody following it is longing for a documentary/fly-on-the-wall tell all about everything which went so deeply, intrinsically south. Changes in directors, an 8/9 year development cycle, reshoots, connections to a truly dire, wet fart of an "extended universe" (our titular character showing up in one of the most cynical, messiest, compellingly unpleasant watches in recent memory, only adding to that movie's litany of problems) and the... "antics" of its lead have made for a movie doomed on arrival.
Don't get me wrong: this movie is pure product, and a reprehensible exercise in the current trends of cannibalising franchises, names and "IP" (probably best exemplified by the metaphor of Barry Allen breaking apart and vandalising a Michael Keaton Batman suit in order to make his own new costume, complete with close ups and lingering shots of it beforehand), complete with hammering of that excellent Danny Elfman score whenever Michael Keaton is on screen in an attempt to stir some sort of nastalgic high...
However, the movie is more frustrating than actively a trainwreck, in the way something like "Fantfourstic" and "Morbius" were. The opening is a key area in this: on the one hand it is some of the most nightmarish, horrifying, atrocious, rubbery CGI horror babies screaming from the void and doomed to loom and leer at me from my the deepest recesses of hellish sleep paralysis. But on the other hand, it's part of a genuinely rip-roaring, silly little adventure where our hero has to rescue a bunch of babies from being smeared on the pavement because a hospital is collapsing and the maternity ward has a hole in the wall. That kind of thing you want from a Flash movie, right down to his calorie counter being low so him having to stop to grab a burrito halfway through. The rest of the movie is at its best when it's doing that kind of thing, being silly, carefree, fun, it feels natural.
But then the plot and the tomfuckery kick in.
The 2 biggest load stones around the movie's neck are its corporate mandated profiteering, and its lead.
Occasionally Ezra Miller will actually be alright in the part, especially in parts of the time travel plot where they have to interact with themselves, showing a charm and goofiness and awkward weirdness which works for Barry Allen. But then, sometimes in the same scene, the line delivery and acting will be flat, bland, and actually atrocious in parts. It's particularly noticable early on... It's a fascinating study in contrasts for the most part, and also a shame that this is the most prominent movie with a non-binary lead in it...
Then comes the plot and CGI product.
Michael Keaton shows up, as has been plastered over the announcements and internet, as Batman once again. Oh boy does the movie want you to know it! Every appearance is punctuated with hammering of the Danny Elfman Batman theme, there are lingering shots of the suits he uses, and as fun as Keaton is in the role - okay, why? The movie makes hay about its time travel plot and its efforts to get Barry back to the modern world, and almost seems fun and interesting (the one who knows what's going on loses their powers, and thus has to guide an idiot younger version of themselves to the plot), only for it to have more of the atrocious CGI, this time that of the corpses of George Reeves, Christopher Reeve and Adam West, as well as terrible deepfake CGI versions of Helen Slater (but no Brandon Routh, poor bastard, though I suppose he dodged a bullet here) and Nicolas Cage fighting a "Thandanarian Snare Beast" (a joke which, sure, is funny to those of us in the know, but here? Jesus Christ it's out of place...) - all to the admittedly quite interesting visual idea of worlds literally colliding.

A highlight, for the 10 minutes she is allowed to be on screen, is Supergirl, played by Sasha Calle with a cool haircut. In her limited screentime she's allowed to be a more heroic, and majestic figure than Cavill was in his shitty scripts, and she deserves a better movie.

I hope she goes far.
The humour and bouncy, interesting parts are laboured by a mixed performance from its lead, and the knowledge that this was a corporate obligation (but we couldn't get our "Batgirl" movie... funny that) and another Warner Bros corporate cum-fest...
I hope that the majority of the artists involved get allowed to make art (I'm always happy to ahve Ron Livingston in things, and am maybe the last defender of "It: Chapter 2"), and wish them all of the best. In another universe (hah) there would be a fun Flash movie...

"Asteroid City" - Review

Our host for this evening (Brian Cranston) tells a story of a playwright Conrad Earp (Edward Norton), and his efforts to have his play concocted. It's a story of a group of child prodigies in the titular "Asteroid City", particularly one Woodrow Steenbeck (Jake Ryan), whose father (Jason Schwartzmann) has brought him and his trio of sisters here for space camp but also is attempting to break the news of their mother's death. The eclectic group of people in this tiny town meet, interact, fall in love, and live their lives, as a special event begins to unfold...

If you don't like Wes Anderson, don't watch this.
It's a very "Wes Anderson" film: long rat-a-tat camera shutter dialogue, completely deadpan sensibilities, immaculate summetrical sets, an eye for Americana, and a coffeeshop hipster sensibility.
If you like Wes Anderson? This is your jam, there are some good jokes, there is a strong pace, it feels like his Middle class reflections on quarantine, and its bizarre, out-of-this-world plottings (I couldn't resist) are reacted to with a droll eye and a raised eyebrow. I chuckled a lot.
It loses itself a bit in its "wake up, go to sleep" scene at the ened, but enough things are rolling along by that point that its ending is earned.

"Across the Spiderverse" - Review

Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is living as Spiderman in his Universe, trying to juggle his life as a superhero with that of a teenager. However, he is swept up into an adventure when Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), his counterpart from another parallel universe, comes to his world once more. Though told to stay out of it, he has nothing better to do than to beat up aspiring supervillain "The Spot" (Jason Schwarzmann) and get in trouble with his sweet as pie dad Lt Jeff Morales (Bryan Tyree Henry, always welcome) and sassy but competent mother Rio (Luna Lauren Velez, whom I'm glad has recovered from "Dexter") - so he finds himself thrust into a multi-universe spanning adventure, meeting various other Spiderman along the way...

The animation is spectacular, I shall start there.
As expected, the creative, wild, weird use of this kind of imagery is nothing short of spectacular. A version of "The Vulture" from Renaissance Italy shows up, entirely in papyrus and sketchbook drawings (an illustrated contrast to the world he has entered) - coincidentally a better version of "Morbius" than "Morbius" - one moment, whilst Gwen Stacy's conversations with her father are done as living mood boards, the atmosphere and colours around her leaking out and changing and morphing to reflect the characters and who they are (culminating in an excellent draining use at the end, and her father being shown with a pink tie in his otherwise black and white attire); and a particular favourite part of mine was a villain being done as pen and pencil drawings at first, then literally developing into an all absorbing, morphous oil painting style.
It's stunning.
It's also a bit much, it's an utterly overwhelming celebration of animation and animation for animation's sake, which I loved but was feeling exhausted by. Do not take any overwhelmed autistic kids or relatives to this, I'm serious.
It thrives in moments of silliness and wild mayhem (a chase invlving literally scores of Spider-Folk is absolutely the highlight, and I lost my shit at "Peter Parked-Car"), and is stuffed to the brim with references and cameos and jokes. It stumbles with its reliance on them in some cases ("the power of the Multiverse in the palm of my hand", "Hello Peter...") but has a rapid fire pace and adoration of the source material. Where "No Way Home" was the death of art and a vampiric state of unlife, this feels like a belt of hand grenades unleashed in a paint factory one after the other by a bunch of comic book addicts.
It's exhilirating to watch.
But...
I was waiting for an emotional impact, a gut punch or a plot which never came together, unlike other efforts like "The Lego Movie" (though there is a fun use OF Lego in it), "The Mitchells and the Machines" and "Kubo and the 2 Strings". Though there are some fun moments (the idea of "canon" and the Spiderman mythos being something binding and unyielding and the be shaken off and ignored was interesting) and the scenes with Gwen and her dad and Miles and his parents are the ones which come closest to soaring; the film flags in the middle, and never reaches the emotional heights I wanted or it was aiming for.
The Indian-inspired sequence is an unedeniably fun time, but does pad the runtime, and by the time Oscar Isaac arrives (though Papa is MOST welcome), it only then feels like the plot is coming into its own, belatedly. Still, the madness and creativity keep it going.
It's still a marvellously pretty and funny and engaging film, with a gag for every kind of fan.
Daniel Kaluuya steals the show.

"War Pony" - Review

At the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, 2 Lakota boys live their lives. Bill (Jojo Bapteise Whiting) is an aimless, grifting father with a scheme cooking in the works, and Matho (Ladainan Crazy Thunder) is a carefree young boy with a crush on a girl, a love for magic, and a father who deals methamphetamines...

This was exactly what I expected, and a lovely film to boot. A slice of life character piece about 2 boys drifting through the world and the realistic tribulations on the way. There is no melodrama, Hollywood ending or traditional film-making trickery: merely a well-constructed, immaculately observed and tender without being saccharine film about life. It's raw and gritty without being exploitative, the world and performances naturalistic, and it all comes together on a hopeful note about the future. The 2 leads are fantastic, Bapteise Whiting in particular is wonderful, and Riley Keough manages an iron-clad directorial debut which doesn't feel exploitative or steeped in misery porn like so many white-people movies about Native Americans - it helps that its crew, writers, co director and cast are made up of Native American actors. There are cute, endearing little touches ("I don't speak Lakota", the broken wing mirror, the line on the wall about Buffalo hunters, the 2 boys in red hoodies) which come together as a bow on the top and make me excited for what she does next.

"Hypnotic" - Review

Detective Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) lost his daughter to a kidnapping years ago, and is going to therapy for it. His latest case is that of a strange individual by the name of Dellrayne (William Fichtner, always welcome), who appears to be able to mind control people into doing his bidding. Hot on his tail, Rourke attempts to figure out the mystery of why Dellrayne is stealing random safety deposit boxes, where he got his powers, what he's doing here, and what the hell he has to do with Rourke...

"Paprika" is my favourite movie of all time, and there is something of a fascination in seeing movies which fumble it so badly. What on paper felt like a fun throwback, a stripped back "supernatural serial killer" movie like the exceedingly underrated "Fallen" or that piece of shit "Solace", immediately crumples under a myriad of bad decisions and a script caked in layers of dreadfulness, like Brent Ratner rewrote "Memento" after thinking that "that bit in Inception was so cool, that shit is such a complex movie dude!".
For the first 2 minutes of "Hypnotic" I immediately knew that nothing mattered, an existential despair swallowing me up in the cinema. See, the film plays its card too early: Ben Affleck in therapy, looking out of the window, reminiscing on his tragic past ("Reminiscence" is another one! God, remember that?), and then we get shots of him marching past maze-patterned walls, his daughter in flashbacks telling him her hair is not a braid but a "maize!", and spirals. You end up sat there waiting for when the "it was all a dream!" twist kicks in, and thus you feel absolutely no attachment to the characters. None of this matters, so why are we bothering to care? It's just going to have the rug pulled out of from us anyway... Attempts to be cerebral and "mind blowing" ("Transcendence!" That's another one! Remember that? Jesus...) fall flat, as it wants to be "Inception" when its plotting is "Surrogates" without the charm. There are some flairs (William Fichtner is always excellent, and Jackie Earle Haley is in this for one scene, and does a remarkably good William Fichtner impression, which is one of the most niche talents I have ever witnessed. Touche Jackie!), including in the directing and lighting, but Rodriguez (Oh yeah, it's a Robert Rodriguez movie! I honestly would never have known) and it would have somewhat flourished had it been a stripped back, pulpier, more horror-angled story of how a cop tries to stop a psychic serial killer; but instead escalates and escalates and escalates with revelations less interesting than casting announcements for the humans in a "Transformers" movie. Each one simply makes you think "Why? What is this adding to the story?" And strips the layers of empathy back even further. I kept thinking of better movies, and when the climactic showdown happened on a farm, all I culd think of was "Man, I should read Firestarter again..." and then I remembered the terrible "Firestarter" remake and got sad...
It's a rather dull movie too: do you know how dull you have to be in order to have your villains dressed as Butlin's redcoats be an afterthought?
The best part of the film is a line early on where, due to Alice Braga's accent and delivery, "The synapses start to collapse" reads instead as:
"The synopsis starts to collapse!"
And that says it all really.

"Love Again" - Review

Mira (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) is the artist of children's picture books, falls into a pit of despair when her boyfriend John dies. Two years on, and she still hasn't been able to move on, so her sister Suzy (Sofia Barclay) helps her move to New York... In the Big Apple lies Rob Burns (Sam Heughan), a journalist moping after his fiancee left him, which he hasn't recovered from. With Mira's book deadline approaching, and Rob being asked to pull himself together in order to work on a story about Celine Dion, both seem to be trudging through life, until their paths cross when Rob gets a new work phone...

The script is weaker than tissue paper, the entire plot hinging around Celine Dion (who produces and co-stars) aims for whacky celebrity cameo energy ala "Long Shot" or "This Is 40" but instead feels utterly surreal and a future answer on "Pointless"; and its leads have the chemistry of a man collecting his porn-riddled hard drive from a computer retrieval specialist. Nick Jonas has a funny cameo. But as bad as it is (and it is bad) it's not worth hating. It's just a film, utterly harmless, with the always excellent Russell Tovey and Omid Djallili in supporting parts (both putting on American accents, which is WEIRD), which flutters by. It's not the next "so bad it's good", it's not worth vitriol or hatred. It could do with "Hallmark Movie" energy to prop it up, but you know, who is gunning for this movie?
The ending credits are adorable, however, featuring the cast singing "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" in lockdown. Sam Heughan sings in a kilt on the Highlands, kudos my guy.