Watched, Read, Reviewed: April 2024

Quickly posting this so I can start posting my May & June reviews. Saw some good ones! Already posted all the below movie reviews…

MOVIES WATCHED IN APRIL (ranked best to worst):

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence – 9/10
Assault On Precinct 13 – 8.5/10
Lawrence Of Arabia – 8/10
Wild Strawberries – 8/10
The Circus – 7.5/10
The Gold Rush – 7.5/10
Suzume – 7.5/10
The Holy Mountain – 7.5/10
The Zone Of Interest – 7.5/10
Lake Mungo – 7.5/10
The Greatest Hits – 7/10
Wish – 7/10
Toni Erdmann – 6.5/10
Música – 6.5/10
Strawberry Mansion – 5.5/10

Movies Rewatched In April:

Barbie – 8.5/10
Donnie Darko – 8/10

Documentary:

Koyaanisqatsi

BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS IN APRIL

TV SHOWS

Superstore: S3 – Still enjoying this. Will definitely finish watching them all. Already sad that I don’t know what the next sitcom is that both my daughter & I will enjoy… (And there will never be another Community!)

Grey’s Anatomy: S20 E1-5 – Yep. Still watching. Why would I stop now after 20 years?! Honestly don’t mind the newest batch of characters, at least. Sometimes the new interns have really sucked.

Baby Reindeer: S1 – What the hell was this?! This was kind of traumatising. Did he really go through all that?! Just very sad for all involved. Thought it was going to be a dark comedy but it was just… Dark… Poor guy. Good show, though, I guess. Just not my type of thing.

Fallout: S1 E1 – Ummm. I wasn’t feeling the first episode so didn’t continue. And, wow, way more violent than I was expecting!! Did like the vibe of the bits with that bug-eyed girl from Yellowjackets – those bits reminded me a lot of the only good part of that weird A Boy And His Dog movie. Would’ve liked more of that but then they had two other storylines going on that didn’t interest me at all. I dunno – is it worth ever continuing?

Curb Your Enthusiasm: S1 E1-3 – Continued from the start after accidentally watching an episode from later years. Like what I’ve seen but feeling no need to binge these or something. If I’m in the mood, maybe I’ll stick one on.

Saturday Night Live: The Ryan Gosling episode – I’ve not watched SNL since the early to mid-90s. Also, it wasn’t available to watch at all in the U.K. when I moved here 23 years ago but it didn’t look like I was missing much anyway. Well, it’s been available here for quite a while now (I think) but I never bothered with it until seeing Ryan Gosling dressed up like Beavis on Twitter (I’ll never call it X). So I watched the whole episode. Loved that skit! The whole episode was pretty good. Maybe I’ll watch them more regularly again?

MUSIC

Justice – Hyperdrama: Need to listen to this a bit more to form an opinion but have enjoyed having the album on while working. Justice are (is?!) great – I remember when it was thought that Justice were maybe actually Daft Punk under a different name. I like Justice a lot, as did my husband. So I was happy but also very sad when I noticed that they had a new album out. My husband would have been very excited about it & would have listened to this album a lot by now. I wish I could share it with him & hear his opinion on it. Something new breaks my heart every day.

BOOKS

The Picture House Murders by Fiona Veitch Smith – This was quite a lightweight but fun mystery. Did I buy it simply because the setting for the crime was a movie theater? Yes, I did. It’s about a woman who takes over her uncle’s detective agency in 1929. I see it’s a series, as I expected it probably would be. Would be fun to follow the character as she solves various mysteries. But, for me, it’s not really my type of thing so unlikely I’ll read any more. Could see these making a good TV series, though, and could also see these books definitely having a fan base. – 3/5

BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH

As always, just trying to catch up on things here…

Upcoming Movies I Want To See:

LOVED Inside Out 2! 🙂 And I see Deadpool & Wolverine tickets are already on sale. Looking forward to that one (and my daughter especially is – she’s a big fan of both characters & of all the X-Men & Deadpool films). And I’m excited for the Quiet Place prequel. Oh! And not gonna lie – I can’t wait for Despicable Me 4 as well.

Here’s that absolutely gorgeous piece of music from Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence:

https://youtu.be/1OZDaRhHHyM?feature=shared

We Are Your Friends (2015) Review

We Are Your Friends (2015)

Directed by Max Joseph

Starring: Zac Efron, Emily Ratajkowski, Shiloh Fernandez, Alex Shaffer, Jonny Weston, Wes Bentley

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB)
Caught between a forbidden romance and the expectations of his friends, aspiring DJ Cole Carter attempts to find the path in life that leads to fame and fortune.

My Opinion:

Hmm. First of all, I wouldn’t say that I’m some EDM (Electronic Dance Music) fan. Some of it is okay, such as the title song (We Are Your Friends by Justice vs Simian). I love Justice, actually – I did a post about their music HERE for my Music Video Friday thing. Anyway, I like a little bit of most every type of music other than country (puke) but rock & metal will always be my first love and this EDM drug, rave, dance, screw, get-your-tits-out scene isn’t my type of thing. Plus, I hate really attractive people. And young people. And especially young AND attractive people. And that girl from that totally rapey Blurred Lines video is in this with her huge pouty mouth (and boobs). So… I went to this with low expectations and expecting to have to watch a bunch of young, attractive twats taking drugs & screwing each other for a couple of hours. Well, that of course happens but the movie actually wasn’t too bad overall. It could have been a lot worse, anyway. Clichéd as hell! But not the worst ever movie-watching experience.

I know some female bloggers here like Zac Efron. Little kid Zac Efron. He’s just a kid. A little kid! So, no, I do NOT find him attractive. Way too young! Also, too pretty for me anyway. If I had to choose from the group of four male friends in this, I’d go with the one who wants to be an actor:

But the one named Squirrel is the one who’d actually be my boyfriend:

If I was TWENTY. So, this group of four male friends are going nowhere in life & don’t have proper jobs & spend their spare time raving (or whatever EDM kids call it). But Efron has a dream – he wants to be a superstar DJ & make something of himself! He wants to write songs & dance almost naked on the tops of bars! Wait – that’s Coyote Ugly… He wants to make furniture! No, wait – that’s Magic Mike… Yes – it’s one of those “young, attractive person with a dream” movies. But, although shallow & predictable, it had more heart than I was expecting & was at least better than the two I just mentioned (thank god). I have to say that little Efron was quite good in this. He may end up being a decent actor! He has that “pretty boy” thing working against him, just like Leonardo DiCaprio had in the early days. But I have to say this is the first movie where I was impressed with his acting – it would be good to see him in slightly more serious roles.

Blurred Lines girl was… Tolerable. The oh-so-predictable romance/love triangle didn’t totally make me want to puke & they made her have “issues” and doubts about her own choices in life so at least they did do more with her character than JUST have her be the pretty face. And her boobs stayed covered! (Yes, you get some boobs in this but it didn’t go overboard. This was no Spring Breakers – it does take itself quite seriously). Wes Bentley also did well as the older DJ who is past his prime but his character doesn’t get much of a resolution. I also liked Efron’s group of friends who are “holding him back!”. Oh, and I liked one trippy scene where Efron has taken some PCP. Damn – can’t find a picture of that. 

Summary:

There’s not a lot more that I can say about We Are Your Friends. This same story has been done SO many times! It just happens to be an “EDM DJ” with a dream this time so I guess we’ve not exactly seen that before. I have nothing against this type of story – it always does well but the important thing is that they make us care about the characters & this movie does manage that. Efron was likeable & you want him to succeed. I found his group of friends believable & more developed than you’d expect from a film like this. I even found the (predictable, yes) ending pretty satisfying & they tied up some loose ends pretty well (in a clichéd way but, hey – most movies are guilty of that). Yeah, I liked this movie just fine. I can sometimes not be all snobby-movie-blogger and just admit that I liked a non-Oscar-worthy movie. 😉

My Rating: 6.5/10

Music Video Friday: Justice – D.A.N.C.E.

Continuing what is my least popular series so far, today’s music video is D.A.N.C.E. by Justice. Lol 😉

I don’t like a lot of current music but there are four albums I’ve loved above all others in the 21st Century. Okay – I’m totally cheating as one was released in 1998 but that’s still my definition of current. That one is Psyence Fiction by UNKLE and I really wanted to share the video for Rabbit In Your Headlights but I can’t find a full version to share (it’s probably banned). I’ll bore you all with my thoughts on the brilliant Psyence Fiction another day – I promise! Another one of the four is the much more current Random Access Memories by Daft Punk. I doubt I need to go into that one – some of you will already be fans (check out my review of their movie Electroma HERE. Woohoo!).

Finally, the other two albums of the new millennium that I can’t live without are two albums from French duo Justice. One is the pretentiously named (well, “symboled”? it’s a cross symbol…) album sometimes just called Cross & the other is Audio, Video, Disco. Here are the album covers:

(No, it’s not Christian rock)

Justice were at one point rumored to actually be Daft Punk & I can see why as it wouldn’t be hard to imagine Daft Punk making the music on their albums. Wikipedia lists “Electro house, electronica, nu-disco, electroclash, electronic rock, alternative dance” as the band’s genres. There’s a mouthful! I love their music as it really is a mish-mash of styles. The video I’ve chosen is for a song that was actually a hit (although less so than I thought – it looks like the D.A.N.C.E. single only got to number 48 in the UK charts in 2007 but did reach number 1 in the dance chart). However, it’s very unlike their far less radio-friendly songs. Their other hit single, We Are Your Friends, was a remix of Simian song Never Be Alone (and far better than the original). My personal favorite song is definitely On’N’On but I can’t post that because of the nudity in the video. I also highly recommend checking out their video for New Lands, which was clearly inspired by the 1975 film Rollerball. (Someone please click on that! It’s more me than D.A.N.C.E. but I’m going with the more commercial one for this post). 😉

I’ve rambled on about Justice for long enough so I’m going to just let Wikipedia tell you about the below video:

The music video for “D.A.N.C.E.” was shot by French directorial duo Jonas & François with animation by So Me. The video was nominated for the 2007 MTV Video Music Award “Video of the Year”; while winning the award at the MTV Europe Music Awards. The music video is shot in the style of pop art. In the video, Augé and de Rosnay walk and the images of their T-shirts constantly change and morph (cars, mouths, thunderbolts, lollipops, numbers, letters and the lyrics). The video includes a reference to the song “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles.

I love all the references to Michael Jackson songs in D.A.N.C.E. – this is a great dance tune that should’ve been a bigger hit:

*UK chart information from Wikipedia