Hi All! I’ve not been around as am having a difficult year. But I miss blogging & have still been watching & logging some movies. I do have a post ready to go with what I watched in January but I rewatched Suspiria recently & felt like doing a quick mini-review.
Okay – WHY are there no cool landscape posters for this film?! So I had to use that squished image above so this post doesn’t look crap in the preview & on Twitter. I like that image, though, and it’s the main one I always see for this movie so here’s the big version:
Based on Suspiria de Profundis by Thomas De Quincey
Starring: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé, Barbara Magnolfi, Susanna Javicoli, Eva Axén, Alida Valli, Joan Bennett
Music by Goblin & Dario Argento
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) The film stars Jessica Harper as an American ballet student who transfers to a prestigious dance academy in Germany but realizes, after a series of brutal murders, that the academy is a front for a supernatural conspiracy.
My Opinion:
I watched this once years ago but hadn’t seen it since. Then in the past few years I’ve tried to delve into the Giallo horror thing a bit & liked Argento’s Deep Red a lot, calling it the more “accessible” film compared to Suspiria. I’ve watched several other Argento films since as well, including the kooky Phenomena, but none of them have compared to Suspiria or Deep Red. I figured it was time to refresh my memory of this film & see how I really feel about it as I know its Goblin score FAR better than the film itself (god I love that bloody brilliant, loud & distracting score!!!).
I have to say that, on a rewatch, I think I may now absolutely love Suspiria. I still think it’s a mess story-wise, as most of Argento’s films (making Deep Red the most coherent in comparison). But I don’t really care about the story when it comes to films like these as I’m such a sucker for atmospheric films with stunning visuals & fantastic scores and this is one of the all-time greats in those regards. It’s gorgeous! I’m thinking of posting this mini-review separately just so I can add loads of images from the movie to the post (Okay – I’ve obviously decided to do that instead of just putting this in my monthly roundup post). Here are some more images:
And I’m still in love with the score. It was really hard to be sneaky & try to watch this one late at night when the Goblin music started BLARING in between the dialogue you can barely hear at all. Love it – it really adds to the film’s unsettling feel. I just love the overall vibe of horror movies from the ’70s. So few horror movies have style these days & even fewer are able to capture that eerie aura of classic horror. Am really happy I decided to rewatch this one as it’s definitely gone up in my estimation. Yay! Maybe I DO like Italian horror! Well, two of them anyway…
I first discovered this band in early 2020 when a guy from work recommended them to me as he knows I like heavy metal music as well as horror movies. I admit I’ve not listened to their other albums as it was The Silver Scream album that appealed to me. It’s a heavy metal album with each song being about a different horror film. It couldn’t be more perfect for me & my interests & this blog! I’ve been meaning to write a little something about them & now seemed like the perfect time just before Halloween. Plus, they’ve just released The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood!
Well, my main focus here is movies but I do love music too. I’ve never written about music, though, so I’ll be very brief. This post is mainly just to maybe introduce these albums to others. I don’t know how the hell to write about music. Well, I don’t know how to write about movies, either… Ha!
Ice Nine Kills – The Silver Scream
I really like this album, although it’s heavier (well, “screamier”) than the classic type of metal I tend to go for. A lot of the movies they did songs for on this first album are favorites of mine (A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Shining, The Crow & even the not-so-horror Edward Scissorhands). Now, with both of these albums, I don’t love every song. Some are definitely better than others but I absolutely love the concept & it’s a lot of fun having two albums based on some of the best horror movies. (I should point out that they also did an album of songs based on books, Every Trick in the Book, which I’ve not checked out yet.)
From this album, my favorites are probably The American Nightmare & Stabbing in the Dark. Here’s the full list of songs & the movies they’re based on (from Wikipedia):
1. “The American Nightmare” – A Nightmare on Elm Street
2. “Thank God It’s Friday” – Friday the 13th
3. “Stabbing in the Dark” – Halloween
4. “Savages” – The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
5. “The Jig Is Up” – Saw
6. “A Grave Mistake” – The Crow
7. “Rocking the Boat” – Jaws
8. “Enjoy Your Slay” – The Shining
9. “Freak Flag” – The Devil’s Rejects (not seen this. not bothered)
10. “The World in My Hands” – Edward Scissorhands
11. “Merry Axe-mas” – Silent Night, Deadly Night (not seen this either but want to)
12. “Love Bites” – An American Werewolf in London
13. “It Is the End” – It
Ice Nine Kills – The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood
I’ve only just found out about this new album so have only listened to it a couple of times while working. I believe that some have videos as well? Will check it out more this week but the first one to really catch my ear was the Child’s Play one Assault & Batteries. It seems to be a take on the old Toys R Us jingle (in America), so I thought that was clever. Here’s the track listing for this one from Wikipedia:
1. “Opening Night…”
2. “Welcome to Horrorwood”
3. “A Rash Decision” – Cabin Fever
4. “Assault & Batteries” – Child’s Play
5. “The Shower Scene” – Psycho
6. “Funeral Derangements” – Pet Sematary
7. “Rainy Day” – Resident Evil (not seen this)
8. “Hip to Be Scared” – American Psycho
9. “Take Your Pick” – My Bloody Valentine
10. “The Box” – Hellraiser
11. “F.L.Y.” – The Fly
12. “Würst Vacation” – Hostel (not seen this. not interested)
13. “Ex-Mørtis” – The Evil Dead
14. “Farewell II Flesh” – Candyman
Based on The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith
Starring: Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Joel Fry, Paul Walter Hauser, Emily Beecham, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Mark Strong
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) Set in London during the punk rock movement of the 1970s, the film revolves around Estella Miller, an aspiring fashion designer, as she explores the path that will lead her to become a notorious up-and-coming fashion designer known as Cruella de Vil.
My Opinion:
Hmm. I was all prepared to absolutely hate this. I’m not a huge fan of Emma Stone and I’m also really annoyed with them rehashing great animated Disney classics to make shitty live action movies (just to extend the rights to these characters for longer or whatever – I know it’s some greedy business deal thing like that). And I love One Hundred And One Dalmatians. Now I’m kind of annoyed that this movie didn’t totally suck. To be fair, I’ve not hated these “villain origin” stories quite as much as the completely pointless straight copies such as Beauty And The Beast. Heck, I kind of liked the Maleficent films. But I also don’t think we need a backstory to make us feel sympathy for the villains. Can’t they sometimes just be evil for no reason? Am I meant to like Cruella now even though she later wants to skin adorable puppies?! By the way, I had her reason for hating dalmatians ruined before seeing this. Oh man is it DUMB. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at that bit at the beginning. But what I don’t understand is that she later finds out it’s not exactly what she thought so, by the end of the movie, she doesn’t really hate dalmatians so we still don’t have a reason as to why she later wants to skin them. So the start was pointless. WTF? Is she just plain evil after all? Stupid.
Okay – I still didn’t love Emma Stone but the outfits were fun and Emma Thompson seemed to be having a blast as a truly evil bitch and the soundtrack was awesome. Some of the song choices made no sense and some were so damn obvious it was almost embarrassing. But, dammit, some of my absolute favorite songs were in this. It annoyed me. Don’t taint good music!!! I won’t go listing them all but a few of the best were Sympathy For The Devil by The Rolling Stones (god that was obvious but goddamn it’s a good song), Time Of The Season by The Zombies & I Wanna Be Your Dog by The Stooges (though performed by an actor – oh my god kind of an obvious choice but not really as slightly obscure and I love that song sooooooo much that I’m annoyed it’s been introduced to Millennials now thanks to Emma f*%king Stone!!!!). 😉 Honestly. Ugh. It’s like when the youngsters suddenly liked some ’70s songs after they heard them in Guardians Of The Galaxy. Old music is the best! It’s been around for years! Seek some songs out before they’re put into cheesy Disney movies!
So… I loved this soundtrack. And I’m annoyed that it was so good. It really did help elevate the film as I thought the story was pretty ridiculous and unnecessary. But the film’s look & sound were good. They did well with that. It was a much better movie overall than I’d been expecting it to be. Damn.
My Rating: 6.5/10
Gotta end this with I Wanna Be Your Dog by The Stooges (love Iggy Pop):
Today would have been the 71st Birthday of John Hughes. Being a part of Generation X, his movies obviously meant a lot to me as a big-haired ’80s teenager & it was very sad when he passed away in 2009.
It’s also Molly Ringwald’s 53rd birthday today. How cool is it that they had the same birthday? Happy Birthday to Molly!
As well as being a great writer, John Hughes also had excellent taste in the music he chose for his films. I recently teamed up with Strange Adventures Music (@StrangeAdvMusic) to create a comprehensive John Hughes playlist. The playlist includes the currently available music from every movie directed, written or produced by Hughes. You can check that out at Apple Music (HERE) or Spotify (HERE). I still listen to that playlist a lot myself.
I also have very fond memories of running a John Hughes Blogathon here in 2014. Thanks again to the many bloggers who participated & helped to review every movie directed or written by Hughes. I thought it was time to again share all the reviews below if you’d like to have a look. And if you love John Hughes too & have a review you’d like me to add to this post as well, feel free to post a link to it in the comments. 🙂
Looks like June was the month when I watched some actual “new releases”. Must admit I’m missing my pretty-much-weekly trip to the cinema but I have no plans on going back to one anytime soon. So I better get used to crappy straight-to-Netflix movies…
MOVIES WATCHED IN JUNE (ranked best to worst):
– Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga – Okay, I’m not going to pretend this is in any way a good movie. But I quite liked it. Am I just desperate for new releases?! I have to say that I can’t imagine Americans enjoying this movie in the same way. I think you have to see the real Eurovision every year to fully appreciate just how delightfully cheesy & ridiculous it is. It’s especially entertaining to live in the UK & watch the UK entry get almost no votes every year because all the other countries hate the UK (there’s a joke about this in the movie that gave us a good laugh).
I think this movie did the real contest justice. It seems like your usual over-the-top Will Ferrell comedy but, honestly, he hasn’t really exaggerated what the show is like. Ferrell is a big fan of Eurovision and I think the movie manages to show his love for it while at the same time lovingly making fun of it. In the end, it’s a sweet story and the final half of the movie makes up for a slow start. And, hell, the songs are pretty good! Maybe a little too good. Much better than most the shit in the real Eurovision. Ferrell is goofy as always (his films are hit or miss for me) and Dan Stevens & Pierce Brosnan are fun additions but I think Rachel McAdams is the best thing about the movie. Her more subtle comedy works well with Ferrell’s usual craziness (liked her in Game Night too). The movie is silly & it won’t be winning any Oscars but it’s one of the first-time watches from all of lockdown that I enjoyed the most. Jaja Ding Dong! – 7/10
– The Vast Of Night – I really liked this movie as well, although I wanted to like it even more as I think they did a great job with it. I respect it. I always appreciate a good low-budget sci-fi where you can tell that the filmmakers have truly put their hearts into making the movie. Let’s give them credit: This movie was written by Andrew Patterson (under the pseudonym of James Montague) & Craig W Sanger. Based on this, I’d love to see what sort of a big budget film they could make in this genre. But, to be fair, the slow-paced low-budget indie-movie style perfectly suits this innocent 1950’s small American town setting. I don’t think a big, glossy Hollywood movie would have captured this town in the same way. I think I’m also a fan of “small town Americana” movies as I grew up in such a small town myself.
I thought they especially did a good job adding all the small details to make this one feel like it really was taking place in the 1950s. I have a lot of affection for that time period and that whole “UFO paranoia” thing as I grew up on the original The Twilight Zone. The movie is clearly influenced by that & introduces the story in a Rod Serling/Twilight Zone way that gave me warm fuzzies. I do think this is a very well made indie sci-fi with two strong main characters but also know it’s absolutely not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Here’s the synopsis from IMDb if you’re interested: “In the twilight of the 1950s, on one fateful night in New Mexico, young switchboard operator Fay and charismatic radio DJ Everett discover a strange audio frequency that could change their small town and the future forever.” FYI: This movie is on Amazon Prime. I highly recommend this movie to old school ’50s sci-fi fans. But probably only to those people. It’s a shame the film may not get as much recognition due to being such a specific sub genre.
Also a quick mention of another good low-budget movie this reminded me of (not sure why) but in the horror genre: Pontypool. Bizarre movie but a great concept. It just gave me a similar vibe, but The Vast Of Night is a better film. I’m happy I happened to see TVON mentioned on Twitter (by Robert Englund – What?! Freddy Krueger?!?). Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known about it. Thanks, Freddy! – 7/10
– Extraction – Not gonna lie: I 100% watched this for Chris Hemsworth. This isn’t my type of genre AT ALL so I wouldn’t have bothered if hottie Chris wasn’t in it. However, even though I don’t like this genre, I occasionally like the movies if they’re good enough. The likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger & Sylvester Stallone made plenty of this type of thing in my precious ’80s & I definitely liked some of those. But Extraction isn’t good enough. It’s… Forgettable. As in: I saw this only two months ago but don’t remember enough to write about it. Um… I think I remember Chris, like, sitting at the bottom of a lake & meditating (as you do)? And I remember the boy being likeable enough for you to want The Hems to save him. And I remember a ridiculous final scene (that I kind of liked as I thought this movie needed to be MORE ridiculous than it actually was – it would have made it more fun). Meh. At least I got to watch Chris Hemsworth in a new movie. – 6/10
– My Spy – I shouldn’t be “reviewing” this as I slept through a good chuck of it. But it was so predictably predictable that sleeping through some of it made no difference. Anyway – I don’t know why but I’ve seen a lot of this weird genre (tough action movie guy doing a family film with a bunch of kids). When did this become a thing?? Because I kind of like these stupid films. I blame that on Kindergarten Cop. Kindergarten Cop rules. All I expect from these films is for them to have a few laughs, to have a cheesy heartwarming moment, and for the kid(s) to be somewhat likeable (or at least cheeky without being overly annoying). This movie fulfils the requirements well enough. Dave Bautista is fine as the latest big muscle-y dude to do this sort of film but the girl, Chloe Coleman, is the star. I can see her easily getting more roles after this. This movie is meh but at the better end of this genre. Not as good as Kindergarten Cop but thankfully much better than Tooth Fairy… – 6/10
– As Above, So Below – This was disappointing. I have a fascination with the catacombs in Paris. I’ve been there and walking through row upon row of skulls & bones is a pretty freaky experience so I can see why it has inspired horror movies. But they have yet to make a good horror movie set there. There was a truly dreadful 2007 movie called Catacombs, starring Shannyn Sossamon & Pink, that I would never recommend to anyone. I actually bought that stupid DVD just because I’d been wanting a horror movie to be set in the catacombs. From what I remember, though, it did at least manage to be a little creepy.
As Above, So Below is certainly the better film of the two but it’s such a weird mishmash of genres that it just didn’t work for me. And it’s not creepy enough. I think a movie with this setting needs to be pure horror but this movie had a sort of Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider thing mixed in with the horror. And then some weird supernatural stuff which is something I normally love but was just too dumb in this case. And the characters were okay but extremely underdeveloped while our lead girl was a tad unlikeable (although the actress was fine). Oh, it’s also a “found footage” film, which not everyone likes (I don’t mind found footage). Here’s the Wikipedia synopsis: “It is presented as found footage of a documentary crew’s experience exploring the Catacombs of Paris and was loosely based on the seven layers of Hell.” Oh yeah – there’s some weird religious stuff going on & ancient artefacts & that kind of shit. I wanted to like this movie but the weird Lara Croft thing going on with the main girl was just awkward. I guess I was expecting a more straightforward horror film but I also give the movie credit for trying to do something a little different. – 5.5/10
Rewatched:
– The Wedding Singer – This is a favorite of mine & by far Adam Sandler’s best movie. I know he has a lot of bad ones but The Wedding Singer is genuinely good. And he has great chemistry with Drew Barrymore (love her). I mean, my username comes from this movie. Still think I was brave to use an Adam Sandler reference on a movie blog! I obviously like this movie even more because of Drew but the ’80s setting & great soundtrack help a lot as well. Steve Buscemi is hilarious. Rapping granny is adorable. And don’t you talk to Billy Idol that way! Plus I’ll always love the mutants at table 9. – 8/10
– Never Been Kissed – More Drew Barrymore! Rewatched this one with the kid. I’ve always found this movie very “sweet”. And Josie Grossy is still fun to say. And Michael Vartan was a cute “hot teacher”. And I like the ending because I DO occasionally like girly romantic stuff. – 7.5/10
– Turner & Hooch – Rewatched this with the kid as well. It’s a fun family film & I miss the days when they made so many films in this genre. Where have all the decent family films gone?! Anyway – the movie has aged pretty well. I still love a good “dog buddy” comedy. – 6.5/10
BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS IN JUNE
MUSIC LISTENED TO
I’ve listened to no “new” music the past couple of months… Can anyone recommend a good new album??? Or, better yet, a good old album since 90% of current music sucks? I’m bored.
BOOKS READ
– Dune by Frank Herbert – As I’ve said in every recent post, it took me months to read this but I finally finished in June. I said I’d review it in my June post but… I can’t do it! How the hell do you go about reviewing Dune?? It’s a loooong book and a lot happens. I enjoyed it very much, yes, but not enough to read the rest of the books (which I’ve heard aren’t as good anyway). I’m really looking forward to the Denis Villeneuve adaptation now, though, as I love his films. I’m especially wanting to see how Rebecca Ferguson does as Lady Jessica as she was my favorite character. I think she should do well as I thought she was great in Doctor Sleep. By the way – Lady Jessica kicks ass (for those wanting more strong female characters in books & film). Oh, and apparently the film is only covering half of this first book?? Bloody hell. Well, I don’t have time to continue reading these tomes but do like the story so am hoping for an epic series of films from Villeneuve. – 4/5
– Black Mad Wheel by Josh Malerman – This was a strange one. I first read Malerman’s Bird Box, which I really enjoyed (so much more than the movie adaptation!). But I was absolutely blown away by his short story included at the end of that book (Ghastle And Yule). It was brilliant. I loved it so much that I tweeted the author to tell him that (I never really tweet “celebs” because that feels stalker-y & weird). But I think he appreciated the praise. Here’s the synopsis for Black Mad Wheel from Amazon, which sounded amazing so is why I chose it as the next book of his to read: “The Danes—the band known as the “Darlings of Detroit”—are washed up and desperate for inspiration, eager to once again have a number one hit. That is, until an agent from the US Army approaches them. Will they travel to an African desert and track down the source of a mysterious and malevolent sound? Under the guidance of their front man, Philip Tonka, the Danes embark on a harrowing journey through the scorching desert—a trip that takes Tonka into the heart of an ominous and twisted conspiracy.
Meanwhile, in a nondescript Midwestern hospital, a nurse named Ellen tends to a patient recovering from a near-fatal accident. The circumstances that led to his injuries are mysterious—and his body heals at a remarkable rate. Ellen will do the impossible for this enigmatic patient, who reveals more about his accident with each passing day.”
A creepy supernatural story about a rock band? Totally my type of thing! I wanted to like this one more than I did, however. Only Philip Tonka, the band’s front man, gets any character development. The story also doesn’t give much of a resolution if that sort of thing bothers you (I don’t mind that so much, especially with supernatural stories, as I like to sometimes have things left to my own imagination). What the story does have, though, is a lot of originality. It also has a good “vibe”. I don’t know how else to describe that but, especially with his Ghastle And Yule short story, I felt like I was there & could easily picture everything that was happening. Based on what I’ve read of Malerman’s so far, I’ll definitely be reading more. His stories are unusual & completely unpredictable. I like that. I need more of that. I just want to like his characters a bit more. Likeable characters are always a big thing for me. By the end of Bird Box, I still didn’t like the main character. I want to care about the fate of at least one character… (I should point out that Ghastle And Yule aren’t likeable either but they’re not meant to be. They’re just great characters). – 3/5
TV SHOWS WATCHED
It looks like I watched no TV in June other than catching up on the latest season of annoying Grey’s Anatomy. Ugh.
BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH
I’ll hopefully post my July roundup post by the end of August. Then post my August roundup in September. I have no blog plans beyond doing monthly roundup posts. Life is too busy at the moment, even with being stuck at home.
I should end this post with a song from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. But I’d rather post one from The Wedding Singer soundtrack. Woohoo! Eighties!! Here’s Musical Youth’s Pass The Dutchie:
Hi All. Here’s another roundup post with everything I watched in May. Looks like it was X-Men Month in our household…
MOVIES WATCHED IN MAY
MOVIES WATCHED (ranked best to worst):
– Hachi: A Dog’s Tale – I was surprised when this movie turned up in the IMDb Top 250 (a bit later, after starting my project HERE). So I figured I’d check it out as a part of the project that I’m never ever going to finish. This is a lovely, heartwarming & very understated film. It’s inspired by a great true story about a very loyal dog in 1920’s Japan. I’d love to now see the original Japanese film Hachikō Monogatari from 1987. I unfortunately found out a bit too much about the story beforehand so I won’t spoil it if you don’t know it. I think this is one where you’re better going into it without knowing the story beforehand. If you’re a dog lover, you’ll love this film. – 7.5/10
– Fruitvale Station – I watched this at the beginning of May & it of course became even more relevant later on. This is also, unfortunately, a true story. From Wikipedia: “Fruitvale Station is based on the events leading to the death of Oscar Grant, a young man who was killed in 2009 by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle at the Fruitvale district station of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in Oakland.” This was Ryan Coogler’s directorial debut and starred Michael B. Jordan, who of course went on to also be in Coogler’s Black Panther. Jordan was great in this & I always like this sort of approach to telling a story, especially a true one (showing a simple day-in-the-life of the person). The movie follows Grant on his final day, leading up to the fatal shooting. It obviously gets tense as it leads up to what you know is going to happen so it’s of course not an easy watch (which is why I admittedly don’t watch true stories often – I want movies to provide escapism from how shitty the world can be). But it’s a good & important film. – 7.5/10
– The Wraith – I’m always a little shocked when I discover the existence of an ’80s movie that I somehow never saw. This 1986 film showed up on Amazon Prime UK so I had to give it a watch (even though it stars Charlie Sheen. Ew.). But I loved the sound of it from the plot. From Wikipedia: “The Wraith tells the story of an Arizona teen who mysteriously returns from the dead as a supernatural street-racer driving an invulnerable supercar. His intent is to take revenge on the gang who murdered him.” That sounds weird as shit & right up my alley.
The movie is fun & kind of what I expected, although it could’ve been a little cooler. Not sure how, but it obviously didn’t quite make it to cult level status although it had that potential. I think it needed to be a little more bizarre. For a weird plot synopsis, the movie itself wasn’t weird enough. Plus Sheen was a bit dull – maybe this would be a cult film now had it starred someone else? Hell, his brother Emilio would’ve been much better. Which made me think that I really want to watch Repo Man again, as I don’t remember much now but love Harry Dean Stanton.
This is another thing I love about discovering ’80s movies I never saw: I love spotting so many actors I liked, especially if they’re obscure actors I recognise from other ’80s films. Two not-so-obscure ones in The Wraith but it was great seeing Randy Quaid and Clint Howard (this was a big role for him! He’s usually not much more than a cameo). Anyway – it’s a fun movie but it could’ve been better. I want to give it a higher rating than this. I’d probably like it more if it had been one I’d managed to see when I was a teenager. – 6.5/10
– The Wolverine – Wait, was this the bad Wolverine movie or the REALLY bad one?? Oh yeah – the really bad one was Origins. And I’d seen that one before, so it’s in the Rewatched section below. I don’t have the energy to write about the X-Men films, which I watched ALL of (other than Logan & Dark Phoenix) during lockdown. Here’s how I feel about X-Men: I know nothing whatsoever about the comics but absolutely loved the first film when it came out. I was a nerd in my mid-20s & it was the first “superhero” thing I really went for. I just liked the concept & thought the characters were great. I even bought some damn toys (including Professor X, as I already loved Patrick Stewart from Star Trek: TNG). Then the second movie was great. Then…. they all went downhill from there. Damn. But I still really like the whole X-Men thing overall so I’m giving even the worst films no lower than a 6/10. I just wish the movies were better as I still love the story & the characters. Maybe I should look into the comics, huh?
Anyway – the reason for rewatching them all was because my daughter showed an interest in seeing them. She’s very into “girl” superheroes at the moment & spends a lot of time drawing them. Two of her favorites are Kitty Pryde & X-23. The other two are Jessica Jones & Kate Bishop, who I know nothing about, but we managed to find a comic series containing both of them & aimed at pre-teens & she absolutely loves it. And she’s gone for the X-Men movies big time, which is interesting as she didn’t go quite so much for the MCU stuff (as she was too young to grow up with those, I guess, so only saw some of the later films & missed out on watching the characters develop). It’s just interesting as I felt the same way in far preferring X-Men to other superhero stuff at the time. I think it’s great that I was able to pass my nerdy X-Men toys onto my daughter 20 years later. 🙂
Oh yeah – was I meant to be reviewing The Wolverine?! It sucked. I only watched it a few months ago & barely remember it already. Yikes. And I think I fell asleep through part of it. But it sucked a bit less than Origins. How did they make such a mess out of movies about such an awesome character twice?! Luckily Logan turned out good (which is too violent for the kid so she’s not seen that one, FYI). – 6/10
– X-Men: Apocalypse – Ugh. This one was a mess too. It’s such a mess that I’ve ranked it below The Wolverine. However, I’m not sure which one is actually worse. But I just didn’t go for these “First Class” younger X-Men movies as much. Give me old Patrick Stewart instead! But Michael Fassbender is hot, so… I guess there’s that. What even happened in this one again?! Okay – I think I watched too many X-Men movies in one month. Can’t keep them straight! But that’s the problem with superhero movies, which is why this genre is not truly a favorite of mine: They’re all too similar. Same with the MCU films. At least the MCU films did a better job with the origin stories, which I mostly preferred to the Avengers movies as you get much better character development than you do when too many superheroes are all crammed into a movie together. I wish the X-Men movies had managed to do as good of a job following an overall story arc like the MCU movies did. – 6/10
– Dark Places – Oh, look – it’s young Beast from X-Men! Holy shit – I barely remember this movie either. It was only three months ago! My mind has clearly been elsewhere during this pandemic. What’s sad is that I also read this book. From what I remember of the book, this was a faithful adaptation. It just wasn’t my favorite story from Gillian Flynn. Flynn also wrote Gone Girl, which was a very enjoyable book (review here). But what I liked even more was her novel Sharp Objects (sort-of review here). That book was fucked up! And the TV adaptation with Amy Adams was decent. Dark Places was okay but meh. The characters are all pretty hateful (but that’s the case with all of Flynn’s books that I’ve read). Here’s the synopsis from IMDb: “Libby Day was only eight years old when her family was brutally murdered in their rural Kansas farmhouse. Almost thirty years later, she reluctantly agrees to revisit the crime and uncovers the wrenching truths that led up to that tragic night.” – 5.5/10
Rewatched:
I discussed how I feel about X-Men above so I’m not going to discuss each film below. The above were first-time-watches for me but I rewatched all of the below movies in May as well.
– X-Men – Yay! – 7.5/10
– X-Men 2 – Yay too! – 7.5/10
– X-Men: First Class – Not bad but prefer the older characters – 7/10
– Mulan – I want to like Mulan more than I do. I like the story & her character but the rest of the characters & the film are a bit weak. My daughter was obsessed with this one in May and watched it over & over. I actually badly want to see the live-action film as it looks so damn good from the trailer. And I’m someone who HATES all these horrible live-action versions Disney have been doing. Beauty And The Beast with annoying Emma Watson? Yuck! – 7/10
– The Fox And The Hound – I’ve always been fond of this one, as well as The Rescuers, as for some reason I remember both very well from a young age. Not sure how I saw them, as renting movies obviously didn’t exist at that point (god I’m old). With The Rescuers, I think it’s partly due to having a book of it as a little kid as well as a View-Master reel or whatever you called it (goddamn – I really AM old). And I assume I saw it in the cinema on some re-release. I’ll have seen The Fox And The Hound on its original release, so I guess I really liked it as I was the right sort of age for it. And I’ve always liked “animal” Disney stories the most. So I rewatched this one with the kid in May (is it obvious that Disney Plus was new to the U.K. at the start of lockdown?! Perfect timing). Anyway, on a rewatch I have to admit that this is certainly one of Disney’s weaker films. Don’t get me wrong – it’s still far better than movies from that horrible mid-90s into early 2000s Disney phase (Sorry, Hercules & Emperor’s New Groove lovers). Tod & Copper are still completely loveable, though. – 7/10
– X-Men: Days Of Future Past – Wow – I was harsh in my original review of this (linked). I liked it more the second time around. It’s far better than Apocalypse! – 7/10
– X-Men: The Last Stand – Hmm – 6.5/10
– SpaceCamp – I remember liking this movie a lot at the time (1986) but hadn’t seen it in years. Must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the rewatch. I want to give it a higher rating but know that would be due to nostalgia. It’s a VERY ’80s film so may seem a bit dated now but, for me, that’s a big part of its charm. However, it’s a very fun story for kids so I think any watching it now would still have a lot of fun with it. What was really interesting was seeing Joaquin Phoenix (then Leaf Phoenix) as a young child star again. I still see him that way even now (I was instead a big fan of brother River thanks to Stand By Me) but I think anyone younger watching SpaceCamp now would find it very weird seeing the Joker as this sweet little kid.
Screw it – I’m giving this a score that’s probably half a point more than it deserves. I just still really like this one. And if you have young kids interested in space travel, I’d still recommend this movie. Here’s the synopsis from IMDb: “The young attendees of a space camp find themselves in space for real when their shuttle is accidentally launched into orbit.” And I now see why it failed at the box office, as I just read this at Wikipedia: “The film received mixed reviews and is famous for being a “marketing nightmare,” as it was released less than five months after the Challenger accident of January 28, 1986 (although filming was completed before the disaster occurred). The film performed poorly at the box office, grossing less than $10 million in the US. The script was later adapted into a novel, which did include references to the Challenger explosion and some of the kids’ decisions to attend Space Camp in the wake of said tragedy.” FYI: SpaceCamp stars Kate Capshaw, Lea Thompson, Kelly Preston (R.I.P. – still in shock at her recent death), Larry B. Scott, Leaf Phoenix, Tate Donovan & Tom Skerritt – 7/10
– Mannequin – Cheesy as fuck but I’m an ’80s kid so of course I still appreciate this stupid movie. – 6.5/10
– National Treasure – Decided to rewatch this with the kid as remember liking it the first time around. It was still enjoyable but more boring than I’d remembered. Honestly, there’s too much in the way of boring American history in this film. America – Fuck Yeah! I imagine this movie didn’t do as well outside the U.S. Sorry, it probably doesn’t help that History was always one of my least favorite subjects. I prefer sci-fi & the future to humanity’s horrible past. I also thought this movie had more of an Indiana Jones vibe to it but it’s really just Indiana Jones if he wasn’t sexy as hell and if he tried to teach you a little too much about history along the way instead of just melting the baddies’ faces off. – 6.5/10
– You’ve Got Mail – This movie is cute and I still like the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan combo but this is the worst of the films they did together. Tom Hanks’ character is also kind of a dick in this one. Tom Hanks can’t be a dick! No, it just doesn’t work. But this is still worth watching if you like these old rom-coms which rarely get made anymore. Why did that stop?! It’s admittedly not my favorite genre but the movies were enjoyable & inoffensive and had some great stars. Just be sure to watch Sleepless In Seattle first as it’s much better. But their best one by far is the quirky Joe Versus The Volcano (which I realise won’t be everyone’s cup of tea). Apparently they also did a movie called Ithaca together in 2016 but I don’t know a thing about that one (I see it was directed by Ryan, though – I’d like to see that now). – 6.5/10
– X-Men Origins: Wolverine – God this one is bad. It deserves a much lower rating but I just can’t help but still like the whole X-Men thing… – 6/10
BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH
MUSIC & BOOKS
Nothing “new” to mention here. I’ve just been listening to my usual Apple playlist A LOT lately (it’s one of the best things about working from home: music all day long). One thing I’ll say is that I’ve really been enjoying all the Jóhann Jóhannsson soundtrack stuff that keeps popping up on my playlist while I’m working (particularly the Mandy score). What a loss to the filmmaking world – he did fantastic scores.
I also continued reading Frank Herbert’s Dune throughout May (finishing in June).
TV SHOWS WATCHED
– The Golden Girls – As I said in my April roundup post, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this on Channel 5 during my lunch breaks. I’m really missing it! Now I just work through lunch some of the time. Bring The Golden Girls back!!!
– As I also mentioned, the UK finally got Disney Plus (in April?), so a lot of time was spent watching Disney stuff those first few months. I especially enjoyed watching all the Silly Symphonies with my daughter. Man, I spent a small fortune many years ago trying to buy all those up when they were released in fancy metal tins. Love them. I especially liked the one that introduced Donald Duck as a character. We also enjoyed Pixar In Real Life, some of which are fun & some a bit meh. I swear no one in the Brave episode knew who the hell Merida was & people didn’t seem to catch on to the Up stuff either. Wow – I’d instantly recognise all Disney & Pixar references in real life. And all the Disney & Pixar shorts are great. Where The Golden Girls stopped showing during my lunch breaks, I still sometimes stick on a Disney or Pixar short to watch with the kid during lunch now. She also really liked the Forky Asks A Question shorts. I find Forky a bit annoying, though. Can only take him in small doses, so the shorts are just the right length.
– We did enjoy watching the Andrew Lloyd Webber stuff they showed on Friday nights during the start of lockdown. Very cool that they did that. Can’t say I loved all of them, though. I just have no class. My favorite was probably Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat but we stopped watching The Phantom of the Opera out of boredom. Sorry. See? No class! Jesus Christ Superstar was also disappointing, as I really like the 1973 film. We’ll watch the film version next Easter instead…
– Finally, I started catching up on the latest season of Grey’s Anatomy in May. God that show annoys me. But I can’t quit watching after so many years! And they had the dumbest “write-off” of a character yet with Alex Karev. WTF was that?! Dumb as hell. That was more stupid than when the guy who played George clearly pissed them off on the show so they had his character get hit by a bus & end up in the hospital completely unrecognisable so that they didn’t even need the actor to film that final episode where they kill him off. Haha. So petty.
BLOG PLANS FOR AUGUST
Well, I’ve managed to do my roundup posts up to May now. Didn’t think I’d manage as don’t feel like writing lately. So I guess I’ll try to post June & July as well.
Upcoming Movies I Want To See:
Haven’t bothered with this section as not much is really coming out to see. Plus, I won’t be going to a cinema again for a very, very long time. Feel bad about that as, obviously, movies are my main hobby & I was a regular customer before the pandemic. But I don’t have the money now plus I don’t think it’s safe. Luckily no one reads this blog anyway. 🙂 But the only reviews that ever get any hits are the ones for current releases and I won’t be seeing many of those now.
As for films that were meant to come out in 2020, these are the only ones I badly want to see:
– Bill & Ted Face The Music – I NEED to see this. I’m a big Bill & Ted fan (the whole family are big fans) but it was just announced that it will be a cinema-only release in the UK. Extremely unimpressed at that. Why can’t it be video on demand here as well?!?! This has been my most anticipated movie since the second it was announced. Now we have no clue when we’ll be able to safely see it in the UK plus it’s released an entire month after America gets it anyway. So, yay – the whole movie will have been spoiled by then. Just like how The Mandalorian was spoiled for us. Great.
– Mulan – At least it’s looks like the UK might get a chance to see this one? Who knows, though – we still get screwed over on later releases for some of the Disney Plus stuff too.
– Top Gun: Maverick – I admit it – I love Top Gun. I was really looking forward to this.
– Dune – Well, I finally read the book! I mainly want to see this, though, as Denis Villeneuve is my favorite newer filmmaker.
As I mentioned the great Jóhann Jóhannsson above, here’s something of his from the Mandy score:
Hi again. Hope everyone is still safe & well. I’ve managed to put another post together, this time looking back at what I watched, read & listened to way back in April…
MOVIES WATCHED IN APRIL (ranked best to worst):
– Crimson Peak – I do love a gothic horror and, while none of Guillermo del Toro’s films are personal favorites of mine, I did like The Shape Of Water & think Pan’s Labyrinth is a brilliant & visually stunning film. So I’m not sure what took me so long to check out Crimson Peak as it’s the type of thing I enjoy. And I did definitely enjoy it despite it not being perfect. The story is fine but the atmosphere & the look are what I care about in this type of film and Crimson Peak didn’t disappoint in that department. Loved that creepy dilapidated mansion! I couldn’t find many great images to use for this post but that could be because the movie is quite dark & still images don’t do it justice. I have to say the most disappointing thing in this film are its stars. I’ve never liked Jessica Chastain’s acting & she was as bad as always. I also find Tom Hiddleston a bit bland, although his character was okay, and I’ll never get why Mia Wasikowska became so big when she’s so boring (although this role was perfect for her, so I didn’t mind her in this). But I don’t care that much about who stars in a movie, although it’s an added bonus when it’s actors I do really like. So the stars didn’t ruin this film for me anyway. It’s a pretty straightforward ghost story and a tad predictable but it’s still a solid “haunted house” film with some great imagery. Overall, though, it’s disappointing compared to Guillermo del Toro’s other films. But we can’t expect Pan’s Labyrinth every time. – 7/10
– Dreamgirls – Not sure why I missed this one when it was out. I really liked this & Jennifer Hudson was worthy of her Oscar. I didn’t know anything whatsoever about the musical & didn’t think I knew any of the songs but it turns out that I did know And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going. Good song but those reality show contestants sing it too often! But I suppose that’s okay since it’s how Hudson became famous. Anyway, I love the Motown era and thought this was a really good look at that ’60s into ’70s time period and the rise to fame of a girl group very clearly meant to resemble The Supremes. The songs were good & it was fun hearing ones so closely resembling acts such as The Jackson 5. I have to say that the movie isn’t exactly deep but the characters are good & it’s an enjoyable film. Definitely recommend it to music lovers and anyone interested in a lightweight fictional look at the Motown record industry. It made me want to watch a good documentary about Motown. – 7/10
– Captain Fantastic – Enjoyed this as well, although I have to be in the right kind of mood for “quirky indie drama with good performances”. I often like these type of films but sometimes I absolutely hate them & find them phoney & pretentious. Captain Fantastic is a good film & Viggo Mortensen was deserving of his Best Actor Oscar nomination. As with most movies like this, I couldn’t in any way relate to these characters with a very different sort of lifestyle but the film did well in making you care about them and wanting the best possible life for them. The question is what is the best possible life for them? Not everyone has the same values, goals & dreams. I admit this movie is deserving of a much higher rating than I’m giving it. It’s a very good film (it’s certainly better than Crimson Peak) but it’s a bit too “drama” for me. I like my quirky indie dramas to have a touch more comedy as well. Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, The Way Way Back, etc etc. Think I had that expectation for Captain Fantastic for some reason. But as I said – Very good film & performances. I recommend it if this genre is your type of thing. – 7/10
– Blinded By The Light – It’s very hard to not compare this film to the other 2019 British feelgood movie written around another band/singer and their songs (Yesterday, in which a guy wakes up to find he’s the only person with any memory of The Beatles and their music). Not gonna lie – I’m not a fan of Bruce Springsteen’s music at all while I absolutely loveThe Beatles (top ten here), so I was of course going to enjoy Yesterday much more than Blinded By The Light (and I prefer Manfred Mann’s version of that song – Sorry, Bruce!).
Which film is actually better? It’s hard to say. Yesterday was very flawed and completely failed to explore the complexities of its ambitious idea but I really liked it anyway. I like a good story and Yesterday had such a brilliant idea of exploring an alternate universe in which The Beatles never existed. As I watch so many movies, I get bored with seeing the same predictable stories over & over again so Yesterday was a treat even if it didn’t quite do its brilliant idea justice.
Blinded By The Light is indeed a feelgood film. I enjoyed it & think lovers of Springsteen would all very much enjoy it as well. But the film doesn’t feel like anything we’ve not seen before. Quirky feelgood indie movies are as predictable as quirky indie dramas. I wanted to like this movie more as it’s very “sweet” and god knows feelgood films are badly needed with the world being so shit at the moment. But, while it put a smile on my face while watching it, I can’t say it’s one that I’ll remember that well in a year. Again, it’s a good film for its genre but I’ve just seen too much of this genre… Sorry! I feel bad for not liking it more.
I should point out that it’s a true story, which is great. Here’s what Wikipedia says about that: “It was inspired by the life of journalist Sarfraz Manzoor and his love of the works of Bruce Springsteen. Manzoor co-wrote the script, with Gurinder Chadha and Paul Mayeda Berges. It is based on Manzoor’s 2007 memoir Greetings from Bury Park: Race, Religion and Rock N’ Roll.” I like the true story & Manzoor seems like a nice guy and I can totally relate to being moved by music. I feel that way about music & movies. I can’t imagine life without them and this film helps show just how important art can be to people. Art can literally change a person’s life. This is a well-written film with a good story & likeable characters. I do wonder how much more I’d like it if it was based around an artist I love in the same way that Manzoor loves Springsteen. – 7/10
– Boy – More quirky indie drama stuff! This one has more comedy thrown in, though. So it’s a quirky indie dramedy. It was a struggle to know how to rank all the movies I saw in April. I realise I’ve given my most common “good but didn’t blow me away” rating of 7/10 to the majority this month. The rankings don’t really matter but Boy is probably a better film than Blinded By The Light while Crimson Peak is admittedly probably the “worst” of the 7/10 films. But I rank on personal enjoyment. If you like quirky indie dramedy & Taika Waititi’s humor, you’ll like Boy. Like Jojo Rabbit, the kid actors are the best thing about the film (especially James Rolleston as Boy). Waititi plays the very unsympathetic father who suddenly come back into his kids’ lives. He’s funny as usual but also an asshole (you’re meant to feel this way about him, though). I of course appreciated that this was set in 1984 & it was cute that Boy was a big Michael Jackson fan. I also always appreciate a good coming of age film and likeable characters such as Boy and his little brother Rocky. It’s worth watching to see earlier work from Waititi. It’s probably most similar to Hunt For The Wilderpeople so I think you’ll like Boy of you liked that. I think I actually prefer Boy to that one. – 7/10
– Rise Of The Guardians – I have to admit that I’m always a bit snobby about DreamWorks films. In comparison to Disney and especially Pixar & Studio Ghibli, DreamWorks’ films are just not as good (in my opinion, at least). I don’t like Shrek or How To Train Your Dragon to the degree that others do (Kung Fu Panda is probably my favorite, although I have yet to see Abominable which I did like the look of). So it may be because I went in with low expectations but I enjoyed Rise Of The Guardians. Don’t get me wrong – it’s still not as good as the output from those other studios but I liked the story as it felt quite original & having the connection to all the different holidays via Santa, The Easter Bunny, The Tooth Fairy, etc, was fun. But, meh, whatever. It’s still not going to be a favorite animated film. Like most DreamWorks movies, it’s a “one-time-watch” for me. – 7/10
– Lady Vengeance (친절한금자씨) (Chinjeolhan geumjassi) – I like a revenge movie & am a fan of quite a few South Korean films so expected to really like this one. I was very disappointed. Then again, I absolutely hated Park Chan-wook’s 2nd film in this “Vengeance Trilogy”, so I don’t know why I expected to like this one. Lady Vengeance is the third film, with Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance being the first & that nasty Oldboy being the second. I definitely far preferred this to Oldboy, however, and liked the main character, Lee Geum-ja. From Wikipedia, the movie is about “a woman released from prison after serving the sentence for a murder she did not commit. The film tells her story of revenge against the real murderer“. The story was a decent enough revenge story but, as with Park Chan-wook’s other films I’ve seen, the characters are hard to like (although Lee Geum-ja is a far more sympathetic character than Oldboy dude). And her red eyeshadow was cool. I’d look like shit in red eyeshadow. Anyway, the film was okay. I was just hoping for it to be a bit better than it was… – 6.5/10
– Three Identical Strangers – This was a fascinating documentary about triplets who were separated at birth & adopted by different families. They and their adoptive families were unaware of the other siblings. The story of how they later discovered each other was also great so I won’t spoil that here. Then, when you think this true story can’t get any more crazy, it goes in a completely unexpected direction. I don’t know why but I have to force myself to watch documentaries even though there are some great ones. This is a really good one & deserves a higher rating but I just enjoy fictional movies more. Weird, I know. But this story is almost stranger than fiction & I recommend it to the many people who do love good documentaries. Oh – the triplets got quite famous when their story first came out & it got them a cameo ogling Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan… (below) – 6.5/10
– The Sun Is Also A Star – I read & liked this YA book by Nicola Yoon (my book review is HERE). It wasn’t exactly anything new and I read way too much YA but, whatever – it was an enjoyable enough read. The movie adaptation was pretty faithful. Except for the ending! Why do they change stuff?? Well, I guess the changed ending was okay. Also, they managed to make the girl a bit more likeable in the movie (she was kind of bitchy in the book). Meh. If you like YA romance, you’ll like this just fine. But as (almost) always, the book is better. – 6.5/10
– Anna – Yeah, this movie is fucking ridiculous. And kind of creepy pervy (as to be expected from Luc Besson). I love how only gorgeous women can be spies in movies. And how they have to do a bunch of fighting in sexy heels & stockings. Surely it’s easier to kick ass in appropriate clothing?! And how they have to fuck everyone (in this movie, at least – fuck the good guy, fuck the bad guy, fuck the other sexy female model because of course our sexy spy is so sexy that she has to go undercover as a model…). So if you like sexy spy chick movies with lots of fucking, you’ll like this. Is it the best of this genre? Hell no! But it’s certainly not the worst either. It was far more enjoyable than that idiotic Red Sparrow movie and probably a bit better than Atomic Blonde (which was also fucking ridiculous but I kind of liked). Overall, I guess I kind of liked this one too. It was helped by the fact that Helen Mirren was in it. The original saucy minx! – 6.5/10
– Isn’t It Romantic – What can I say? It was the start of lockdown & I watched any old shit in April. And this one ended up not being too bad. At least the idea behind it was fun. From Wikipedia: “The film stars Rebel Wilson as a woman who finds herself in a world where everything around her plays out like a clichéd PG-13 romantic comedy“. I liked the nods to those guilty pleasure chick flicks, like how Wilson wears the same outfit as Julia Roberts does in Pretty Woman (above). And, although not nearly as hot as brother Chris, Liam Hemsworth is a cutie. It won’t change your life but it’s a decent enough lazy Sunday afternoon romantic comedy. – 6/10
– Dark Skies – This was fine for a horror about aliens. We’ve not had a horror movie involving aliens experimenting on us in a while. This sub genre was a big thing at one point! I’ve always found the alien abduction movies pretty effectively creepy & thought this movie was an okay example of this type of film. Maybe I liked it as the whole alien abduction thing really scared me as a young kid. I honestly thought I’d be abducted & experimented on. Seriously. I think I watched way too much old sci-fi and original Twilight Zone episodes as a kid. I also like Keri Russell as an actress (love the film Waitress). The family were likeable (as far as horror movies go – it’s not the best genre for character development) & the story was fine & it was fairly creepy. Good enough. – 6/10
– Rock Of Ages – Ugh. I fucking hated this. I’m probably being way too harsh on it since I guess it’s not the worst movie ever. But holy fuck is it cheesy!!! Okay, I was a teenager in the ’80s into early ’90s so I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t listen to Guns N’ Roses, Poison, Skid Row, Def Leppard, etc etc etc. All that cheesy hair metal! I liked all of it. But I feel the need to clarify that I preferred stuff like Metallica, Anthrax, AC/DC & Led Zeppelin at that same time, so don’t judge & assume that I only liked the more poppy hair metal like a lot of girls back then. The uglier the band, the better the actual music! 😉
Where was I?! Reminiscing. Man I feel so old now. So, yes, this music is seen as being very cheesy now & I admittedly haven’t listened to much of it since then whereas I still listen to stuff like Black Sabbath & Metallica. But it was accepted at the time and, let’s be honest, it seems damn good compared to the mainstream shit on the radio in 2020. But, while this music was very mainstream & most of the bands were too “pretty” to be fully taken seriously, they all lived that rock lifestyle to the fullest. God, the disgusting stories that Mötley Crüe must be able to tell! Sex, drugs & rock ‘n’ roll. That’s what I expect from these bands. This film sucks all of the life out of these bands & how they lived. It pretends to have characters living that lifestyle, especially the ridiculously stupid Tom Cruise character, while the cast sing dreadful Glee-inspired versions of songs I once liked. I suppose I was expecting a fun look at that era but it instead felt like this was made by kids who didn’t live through that time. So I looked it up and the writers are the same sort of age as me. Really?! That’s surprising, as the movie doesn’t capture a love for that era and instead comes across as phoney. So, yeah – I wasn’t a fan of this film. Obviously. – 4.5/10
Rewatched:
– Lady And The Tramp – Disney classic. Puppy Lady is adorable. The spaghetti scene rules. The Siamese cats are bitches. Not the best Disney film but that’s only because there are SO MANY great Disney films. Probably still within my Top 20. Oh yeah – I ranked the Disney films years ago on this blog (here). That’s so out of date! I think I’d change some now. I should update that sometime. Anyway, it looks like I ranked Lady And The Tramp at 14. – 8/10
– The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – I’ve linked my original review so don’t need to say much other than that I like these films (although this & the first one are much better than the final two). – 7.5/10
– Yellow Submarine – Love this psychedelic weirdness! And I love The Beatles (as I mentioned in the Blinded By The Light review above). So I of course enjoy the music in this. I’ve always liked the imagery in this one as well. Fun animation & great music & weird as shit movie. They had great drugs in the ’60s. Nothing interesting gets made anymore. – 7.5/10
– The Terminal – Rewatched this one as a family. The hubby has always really liked this movie (not sure why). Anyway, Tom Hanks is good as always and the story is unique. I always knew it was inspired by a true story but, holy shit, I just looked it up and the real guy lived in the airport for 18 years!!! That’s crazy. This is a fun, feelgood movie and Stanley Tucci is a total asshole in it. I still don’t understand why his character was so mean to Hanks! – 7/10
– Just Go With It – So, yeah, my daughter is liking the silliness of the Adam Sandler movies so I’ve rewatched a lot of his stuff in the past year. This one is certainly not one of his best but at least it’s far better than his very worst (he does have some very bad ones!). This one is… Meh. He always has better chemistry with Drew Barrymore than with Jennifer Aniston. – 6/10
BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS IN APRIL
MUSIC LISTENED TO
– Hayley Williams – Petals For Armor II – I really liked the first EP, which I reviewed here, so was looking forward to the second EP coming out. Enjoyed Part II as well but Simmer is still by far the best song.
BOOKS READ
– Dune by Frank Herbert – I started reading this in March & it took me months to finish as I just wasn’t able to concentrate on anything at that time. Liked it, though. I’ll maybe try to review it in my June roundup post, as I think that’s when I finally finished it…
TV SHOWS WATCHED
– The Mandalorian – I’m not going to say much about this show as I’ll just ramble on forever. I adore this show (yes, The Child is THE reason why I love it so much). The Child is the pinnacle of cuteness. Nothing will top “Baby Yoda”. But, damn, it’s such a good show. It’s better than the Star Warssequel trilogy. It’s made me like Star Wars again (not that I stopped, but I did find the recent films disappointing). And the score by Ludwig Göransson is BRILLIANT. Love it. And the artwork during the credits! Love everything about this show so far. I don’t have a bad thing to say about it.
– The Golden Girls – I can’t even begin to tell you just HOW MUCH I loved watching this on Channel 5 during my working-from-home lunch breaks through lockdown. Seriously, it was the highlight of each weekday! And the show has aged well, to be honest. It’s still funny as hell. Love it and still love these ladies. Protect Betty White forever! But Channel 5 only aired 4 seasons. I’m still pissed off about that. Show the rest, Channel 5! Please!!!
– The Masked Singer US – God this show was cheesy & stupid but also kind of… entertaining, I guess. I watched the U.K. one too. I was rubbish at guessing who anyone was. At least I’d heard of most of the stars in the U.S. one (except the sports stars). They really scraped the bottom of the barrel for the U.K. one! I’m not posting an image from this stupid show. Here’s The Mandalorian again…
BLOG PLANS FOR AUGUST
I’m hoping to post the rest of my monthly roundup posts for May, June & July… If I get around to writing them.
Let’s listen to Ludwig Göransson’s awesome theme music for The Mandalorian:
I haven’t posted any of these monthly updates since February. Obviously, it all seems a bit pointless at the moment. I’m not watching many “new to me” films anyway since I seem to be sticking with movies I’ve already seen & know that I like or think the kid would like. I’ve still kept these monthly lists in my drafts, though, so I might as well catch up on posting them. I’ll keep my thoughts brief (I can’t remember much after five months anyway). Here’s what I watched & read back in March 2020…
MOVIES REVIEWEDIN MARCH
– Onward – Last film I watched in the cinema. I reviewed it in full at the link. Enjoyed it but a weak entry from Pixar. – 7/10
MOVIES WATCHED IN MARCH (ranked best to worst)
– This Boy’s Life – Been wanting to check this out for years to see the performances from Robert De Niro & a young Leonardo DiCaprio. Actually didn’t know beforehand that it was about author Tobias Wolff (played by DiCaprio). I then thought “Oh, I read his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test!” But, never mind, that was written by Tom Wolfe. I know nothing about Tobias Wolff (except that his stepdad, played by De Niro, was a bit of an asshole). Well, they both delivered the expected good performances but biographical dramas have never really been my thing. It’s a good film but not one I’d watch again. – 7/10
– Four Flies On Grey Velvet(4 mosche di velluto grigio) – Was excited to see this Dario Argento film available on Amazon Prime as I’ve been wanting to explore more of the Italian giallo horror thing since finding Phenomena interesting then thinking Deep Red was pretty damn great. Was super disappointed that Four Flies was only available dubbed in English. Argh! I hate when films are dubbed. It’s distracting & definitely ruins the film but, meh – I was in lockdown so I watched it anyway. It’s certainly nowhere near the level of Deep Red or Suspiria. As usual, there was some imagery I liked (like that doll thing up there – I love a creepy doll thing & Argento clearly does too). Shit, I dunno – I remember almost nothing about this five months later whereas I remember all of Deep Red plus its brilliant score. At least the story was ALMOST coherent in Four Flies, which I can’t say for all of Argento’s stuff (especially Inferno, which is later in this list). It also had a truly silly but fun way in which the killer got discovered so I guess I’ll give it an extra point for that. But if you’re new to Argento just watch Deep Red, which is his most accessible film. – 6.5/10
– All The Bright Places – I liked this YA novel a lot. I admit I read waaaaaay too many YA books but this was definitely one of my favorites when it comes to the romance/drama side of the genre. It had very strong characters & it left me feeling emotionally drained in a way that many YA books don’t manage as so many of them feel a bit shallow. So I highly recommend the book to fans of YA along the lines of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, etc. The film adaptation, though? Meh. Disappointing. I didn’t feel they captured the characters at all, especially the boy & it was extremely important to get him right. You can feel his pain & desperation in the book but the film character left me a bit cold. To be fair, I don’t think this is the actor’s fault as he’s such a complex character that they never would have been able to bring to the screen in the same way. Overall, it’s an okay film so I’m sure people like it but I know just how good the book is so I’m hoping people will read the book first. Then, yes, it’s worth seeing the adaptation afterwards if you’re interested. – 6.5/10
– Dark Shadows – This was the ONLY Tim Burton-directed film I’d not seen so I finally checked it out. Ugh. I suppose I should update my Tim Burton Movie Rankings HERE but I’m too lazy at the moment. It’s probably second or third to last anyway. What a huge disappointment, especially after it started out okay. Then it all went to shit in the final third. I did enjoy the ensemble cast, though – I do love Michelle Pfeiffer & am happy that (I think?) we’re allowed to like Johnny Depp again (Are we?! Hard to keep track these days). Alice Cooper was also in this (as Alice Cooper). So, bonus points for that since I love Cooper (even though the cameo was stupid and felt forced into the story – it worked much better in Wayne’s World!). The story was just messy and the characters were hateful. Eva Green is sexy but her psycho slut character was just dumb. Meh. Whatever. I’ll give it an okay score since, as I said, it started out okay plus it had some style, as to be expected from Burton. And Alice Cooper is in it. – 6/10
– Inferno (1980)– Again, I was excited to see a Dario Argento film was going to be showing on TV on Film4. I don’t have a way to record anymore so, as it was the start of lockdown & everything was shit, I was determined to stay up to watch this at its 1:30am showtime. Not worth it!! Damn. First of all, this was ALSO dubbed. What? Why?? Let’s be honest – only proper film nerds are gonna watch foreign films in the middle of the night and film nerds want subtitles. So, again, this will have hurt my enjoyment of this one. When I mentioned that Four Flies was somewhat coherent (as far as Argento films go)? Inferno was an incoherent mess. I don’t know what the fuck was going on, but of course it didn’t help that I was exhausted & worried about viruses at that point (well, I still am now). Anyway – I don’t think anyone watches Italian horror for a good story so I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s all about the imagery & bright red blood & supernatural weirdness. Again, there’s some good imagery in this one but not nearly enough to make up for how weak this movie is compared to Suspiria. Here’s a bit about it from Wikipedia: A thematic sequel to Suspiria (1977), the film is the second part of Argento’s Three Mothers trilogy, though it is the first in the trilogy to explore the idea of the Three Mothers. The long-delayed concluding entry, The Mother of Tears, was released in 2007. Yeah, so this is sort of a sequel to Suspiria. Too bad it sucks. But it doesn’t sound as bad as the third film! Released in 2007? I’ll skip that one. Give me good old Seventies/early Eighties horror. At least this one is worth a try if you like Argento’s style as it’s still almost a 70’s film but with a weird ass early 80’s prog score from Keith Emerson. But at least that gives it a cheese-factor that often works for me personally. I kind of hated yet liked the score – I think I’ll add it to my playlist now & I bet it grows on me along with all the other horror scores I like to have creepily playing in the background while I work from home. Give me a Goblin score instead, though! Goblin are a huge part of the reason for Deep Red & Suspiria being the superior Argento films I’ve seen so far. Watch those. Only watch Inferno if you absolutely love Suspiria and want another witchy Argento fix but go in with very low expectations. And don’t watch it dubbed. I’m just too broke to watch films in the way I prefer. – 6/10
Rewatched:
As I said above, a lot of the movies I’ve watched during lockdown have been ones I’ve already seen. Comfort movies, I guess. And some have been ones I’ve wanted to introduce my daughter to, like all the X-Men films (which she LOVED). I better point out that she’s not seen Logan, of course – too violent. I don’t have the energy to write too much about all the re-watches. If I happened to have reviewed them in full in the past, I’ll include the review link.
– Jaws – A classic. Still love it but not to the same degree that others my age do. You HAVE to admit it takes a while for this one to pick up. It only becomes truly great once the three guys go out on the boat together. From there, yes, it becomes a brilliant & iconic film. – 8/10
– The Hunger Games – I reviewed all but the first Hunger Games film in full as I started this blog just as the first one came out. I should try to review it in full some day as it’s the best of the four (although Catching Fire is very good too). I think these films get some very unfair treatment and it’s likely only because they are part of the YA genre. “Young Adult” is a dirty phrase to people who have become far too judgemental & seem to think art shouldn’t exist for anyone under 25. There’s awful YA & fantastic YA. These books are great reads and the films are very good adaptations while Jennifer Lawrence is perfect as Katniss. Okay, I didn’t like the final book but I think everyone felt the same way about that one. It was a disappointing conclusion. You can’t say it wasn’t well-written, though, and you certainly can’t accuse her of selling out to keep fans happy in the end. It’s a strong series & will be seen as a classic in its genre. And I say this as someone who has also read & loved Battle Royale & its film adaptation. The stories are very different, with The Hunger Games exploring some pretty complex political themes for stories aimed at such a young audience. I actually read Battle Royaleafter liking that adaptation so much as I wanted a more in-depth look into the reasons why they made those kids kill each other but unfortunately didn’t get much more of an explanation than you get in the movie. So don’t start talking shit about The Hunger Games. For this genre, it’s a very good series. If you don’t like the books or films, it may be because they weren’t written for you. It doesn’t make them bad and, as far as the films go, Lawrence acted her ass off and the characters were far more well-developed & empathetic than in many films – especially Woody Harrelson as Haymitch (why can’t we get his story as a prequel??). – 8/10
– Coming To America – Still think this is a pretty damn funny 80’s classic. They don’t make decent fun-but-dumb comedy anymore. Comedy movies are just plain dumb nowadays. – 7/10
– 50 First Dates – I’m Generation X so I’m not an Adam Sandler hater. It was cool for anyone younger than Gen X to hate Sandler until Uncut Gems. You know what? You’re not allowed to like him if you didn’t like him before Uncut Gems. You can’t suddenly claim him like you tried to claim Keanu Reeves. Reeves is ours and so is Sandler, whether he’s in a good movie or a bad one (and, yes, he’s been in some very BAD ones). Sandler was good in Uncut Gems but it was a thoroughly unenjoyable film. I just wanted it to finish (I really liked Good Time, though, FYI). Give me his “dumb” old comedies instead. The Wedding Singer is great and would probably be more universally loved had it starred someone else (maybe Paul Rudd? He seems acceptable to younger people). I also happen to think Big Daddy & 50 First Dates are good so these are my top three Sandler films. Admittedly, the rest start to go downhill but he’s still had more successful films than many actors, especially in the comedy genre, so he’s clearly doing something right. And I love Drew Barrymore as well & think they’re adorable together in this, The Wedding Singer, and even Blended. Drew is especially sweet in 50 First Dates – she elevates this one quite a bit & is the true star of this film. You keep making films, Adam! I’ll watch them. Even when they suck. Just drag Drew into them when you can – they turn out much better than the ones you do with Jennifer Aniston. – 7/10
– Click – Um, Click wasn’t as good. Its heart was in the right place (all about appreciating what you have in life & all that). But the comedy didn’t work as well & got too dumb at times. It also felt like it carried on for too long (too lazy to go check the runtime but it felt too long). However, Christopher Walken was a welcome kooky addition, as he is in everything he’s ever in. So I’ll give it an extra half a point for that. And also for the dog always humping that toy. Sometimes dumb comedy works, such as dogs predictably humping things. – 6/10
MUSIC, BOOKS, TV, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH
MUSIC LISTENED TO
– Joe Hisaishi – Dream Songs: The Essential Joe Hisaishi – What can I say? I ADORE Studio Ghibli. But I won’t go into that as I’ve gone on & on about Studio Ghibli so much on this blog. So of course I love this album as so much of it is the music he composed for Ghibli films. He’s a genius. He should be more well known (Well, he’s probably huge in Japan? What do I know!). Special shoutout especially to Hisaishi’s music for My Neighbor Totoro& Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind. Gorgeous. Also my two favorite Ghibli films. The music in a film is very important to me, so it’s probably not a coincidence that they have the best scores as well. He’s to Ghibli what Morricone is to Leone’s films (to me, at least). Perfection.
– Ice Nine Kills – The Silver Scream – This is a heavy metal album with each song being about a different horror film. It couldn’t be more perfect for me & my interests & this silly blog! I really like this album, although it’s heavier than the classic type of metal I tend to go for. I just wish I’d known about it last October when I did what will probably be my last ever October Horror Month on this blog. I don’t know if I’ll ever do a proper post on this blog again or if I’ll even post anything else at all after this but this album needs its own specific post. There’s too much to cover, as I’d like to discuss each song as well each of the movies the songs are dedicated to (many of them, such as A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Shining, The Crow & even the not-so-horror Edward Scissorhands being absolute favorite films of mine). So, I’ll make no promises but I’ll try to discuss this album in full sometime. Probably in October while everyone is watching horror movies. I recommend this album to heavy metal horror movie lovers. Thanks to the guy who recommended this album to me! It’s so me. (I thanked him in real life since he’s a real life person – I won’t pretend I discovered this album on my own).
BOOKS READ
– Dune by Frank Herbert – I started this at the beginning of lockdown as I obviously wanted to finally read it before the Denis Villeneuve adaptation. It took me several months to finish as I couldn’t concentrate. I did really like it – Life is just very distracting at the moment. I’ll write a bit about it in June’s roundup post, as I think that’s when I finished it.
TV SHOWS WATCHED
Like reading books, I’m also finding it hard to concentrate on TV shows at the moment. I’ve still watched only an episode or two of each of these.
– Locke & Key – Love Joe Hill’s books & especially his short story collections. Not read the graphic novel this is based on, however, but the story is intriguing. I’d like to read it first. So far, I’m liking the show but I find it far easier to watch a movie than to try to finish an entire series of something. How on earth do people manage to binge watch an entire show over a weekend?? I feel like I’m busier than I’ve ever been. I’m exhausted.
– The Storyteller – This is weird as shit! It’s a Jim Henson show from the late Eighties narrated by the brilliant John Hurt and I’d somehow never heard of it. I watched only one episode (Hans My Hedgehog). It was bizarre & creepy and I’m pretty sure it gave me nightmares that night. I’d forgotten I’d watched this. I want to see the rest.
– Parks & Recreation – Watched a couple episodes. It’s just okay? Am I the only person who doesn’t love TV shows from the last 20 years?
– The Creeps – Watched a few episodes of this Goosebumps-like show with the kid. I’m a lover of weird & bizarre stories, especially with a twist, and I’m always trying & failing to get her to also fall in love with things like The Twilight Zone. She liked this show okay. Think Black Mirror but for kids. But it’s not great. And it’s certainly no masterpiece like The Twilight Zone.
– Love, Death & Robots – Watched two or three episodes. Sounded like the EXACT thing the hubby & I would love (sci-fi & robots!!!). We weren’t impressed. And one episode was so over-the-top gory and unnecessarily sexual. Hubby said something along the lines of how it felt like it was made for horny 13-year-old boys (he’ll say I’ve misquoted him when he reads this). That’s accurate, though. Maybe the other episodes are better but what I’ve seen so far was a bit pathetic. How can they fuck up a show about robots?! Robots are awesome! Dammit.
BLOG PLANS FOR AUGUST
I’ll try to do a weekly post of my monthly roundups for April, May, June & July but I’m making no guarantees.
Upcoming Movies I Want To See (I made this list in February so I’m leaving it here for myself as I’ve still not seen even the ones that did get released. I can’t remember what half of these are now…):
The Invisible Man, Dark Waters, The Hunt, Swallow (looked interesting), VFW (what the heck is this?),The New Mutants (ha! will this ever see the light of day?), The Secret Garden, Trolls World Tour (oh god no – why is this listed?! the first one was bad enough), Antlers, Promising Young Woman (don’t remember this), Dream Horse (nor this), Proxima, Finding The Way Back (nor this), Antebellum (nor this), A Quiet Place Part II (still want to see this as really liked A Quiet Place)
Here’s Joe Hisaishi’s beautiful Path Of The Wind from My Neighbor Totoro:
Happy March everyone! I’m cold! February was worse than January for a change. And February’s movie releases were as disappointing as the weather. Here’s everything I watched & read & listened to in February...
– The Gentlemen – I enjoyed this Guy Ritchie film. It’s good to see him back doing the “London gangster” type stuff since, quite frankly, it’s what he does best. I mean, WTF was Aladdin all about?! (Not that I’ve seen it – I’m boycotting Disney live-action remakes! But Aladdin looked especially rubbish). Lock Stock & Snatch are very enjoyable movies, though. If you’re a fan of those, I guarantee that you’ll like The Gentlemen as well. The only thing I’d say it has against it is that the story gets too convoluted. I think it’s trying too hard to be a little too clever at times. However, the characters are very strong & make up for the meandering plot. Matthew McConaughey is great & super cool as the powerful drug lord (well, it’s just marijuana so I don’t know if that exactly makes you a drug lord). I can’t believe how much I like McConaughey as an actor now after all the shitty rom-com stuff he did at first. Other standouts are Charlie Hunnam, Michelle Dockery, and surprisingly Colin Farrell and, even MORE surprisingly, Hugh Grant as a sleazeball you can’t help but kind of like. His & Farrell’s roles are a lot of fun, and I normally don’t like either actor. Farrell’s character seems the most “pointless” in a way but I’m glad they added him in anyway as he was fun to watch. There’s a lot of double crossing & back stabbing and it was nice not being able to predict what was going to happen every step of the way. As I said, though, the story was a little more messy than I’d have liked but overall I can’t complain as I got far more enjoyment from watching this than some of the dreary Oscar nominees in January. Oh, and they swear like absolute motherfuckers in this one. I love a good sweary movie. – 7/10
– The Call Of The Wild – I found this family-friendly film based on a classic American novel (that I never read – shame on me) very enjoyable as well. As I said, I never read the book so can’t compare it so I’m only speaking of my experience with the movie. It’s about a dog named Buck who is stolen from his family & sold to become a sled dog in Alaska during the time of the Gold Rush. Buck is a dog and who the hell doesn’t love a dog?! Plus there’s grumpy old Harrison Ford. Who the hell doesn’t love grumpy old Harrison Ford?! That’s all I needed to convince me to check this one out. And I’ll say once again that there are NOT enough “family films” being made these days (besides shitty live-action Disney remakes). We’re a household of big movie fans and it’s felt like we’ve had nothing to take our daughter to see in the cinema in months. Movies are either for adults or are too “kiddie” lately (being almost pre-teen she has no interest in those). She brought a friend to this & they both liked it and of course especially liked Buck. I’m assuming this is a toned-down version of the book and that there’s more focus on Buck feeling the “call of the wild” in the novel but, as a film, I think this does well to make you feel like you know Buck & what he’s thinking. The movie gets stronger once Ford plays a more active role later on. I’d have liked to know a little more of Ford’s backstory but they tell you enough to understand his character & his bond with Buck. It’s a lovely story & I’m sure it’s a very good book (just like Little Women, which I also never read). Damn. I really should’ve read more American classics as a kid & teen instead of just Stephen King. – 7/10
– The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl – This was an odd one! I love Japanese anime & have been exploring more of it beyond just the Studio Ghibli stuff. I knew nothing about this one but liked the look of it from what I’d seen of images from it. I just realised in looking it up now that it’s from the same director, Masaaki Yuasa, as Lu Over The Wall (which I reviewed HERE). I’d say this one is the stronger film but both are fun & quite “cute”. Cute sounds kind of insulting but I can’t think of a better way to describe the animation style. Lu is aimed younger, though, while this one has a slightly more grown-up storyline involving romance, guys who keep losing their underwear, and drinking lots of alcohol. Honestly, the story is pretty damn weird at times & I have no idea how to go about reviewing this. But I like weird so I had fun watching it although I didn’t love it. If you like Japanese anime and if you like quirky movies, you might want to check this one out. – 6.5/10
– Midnight Sun – Why do I watch so much YA romance bullshit? Oh yeah – Because I secretly like YA romance bullshit. Shh – Don’t tell anyone! This is an American remake of a Japanese film & I of course wanted to see the Japanese film instead. It’s about a teenage girl with xeroderma pigmentosum, which means she can’t ever go out into sunlight as it will kill her. But she’s a teenage girl & has had a crush on a neighbor boy who has gone past her window every day since they were kids. The boy is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son, FYI. But he’s no Terminator. The Terminator & Predator are WAY better movies than Midnight Sun. Obviously. Hell, Kindergarten Cop is better. Where was I?? Midnight Sun is fine as far as this weird subgenre of “dying teen romance” goes. But it’s got some of the most ridiculously cliché shit I’ve seen in a while, especially at the end. One cheesy bit at the end actually made me drop my overall score slightly. If you like this genre, it’s worth an easy watch as the two leads are likeable enough. But The Fault In Our Stars & especially Five Feet Apart are much better so I’d recommend those first. I also preferred Everything, Everything. Man – I watch too much of this genre… – 6/10
– Uncut Gems – Had to check this out as everyone was raving about it on Twitter. And, once again, I’m wondering why the hell I listen to people on Twitter. I know it’s popular to hate Adam Sandler but I’ve never had a problem with him and do really enjoy SOME of his movies. It probably helps that he’s from my generation of Saturday Night Live (the years of my beloved Wayne’s World!!). I did also watch the Safdie Brothers’ film Good Time & really liked it so I was looking forward to Uncut Gems. I couldn’t get into this film at all. It’s honestly nothing but shouting & hateful characters the whole time. It gave me a headache. However, I agree with the general consensus that Adam Sandler is good in this. He is. It’s maybe worth a watch just to see him in a very different role. Maybe. I just wish the movie wasn’t so annoying. And I could’ve done without seeing up Sandler’s butthole. – 5.5/10
– Birds Of Prey – Um. Ugh. Yikes. Damn… This was bad. Sorry! But what an absolute fucking mess of a film. And I wanted to like it. I really really did. To be fair, I’ve not really liked any of the DC movies other than Wonder Woman. Not being a fan in the first place probably didn’t help. I do think Margot Robbie is good as Harley Quinn but she was such a hateful character it was hard to really give a shit about her. She’s unhinged to the point of being silly instead of just being fun. The best thing about this movie was at the very end when the women team up & work together (then becoming the Birds Of Prey). So the reason for the title of the movie isn’t until the very end. I have to say that I’d find a movie about this group of female vigilantes FAR more interesting than this mess of a Harley Quinn story. The next movie should’ve been called Birds Of Prey as this one was really about Quinn with little development of the other female characters until the end. And I did like those characters, especially Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s. Maybe a spin-off Birds Of Prey movie wouldn’t suck as much. Even without the inclusion of Harley Quinn it could be okay. Meh. Waste of time. Worst movie I’ve gone to so far this year. – 5.5/10
– Freeway – Wow. This was awful. I like Reese Witherspoon but had never seen this 1996 film with Kiefer Sutherland where he’s a creepy pervert serial killer & she’s a trashy juvenile delinquent. It’s apparently a dark satirical take on Little Red Riding Hood. I normally love dark humor (Heathers is a big favorite) but I can’t say I enjoyed Freeway at all. I do think Witherspoon is good, though. I knew she’d be a big star after seeing her in The Man In The Moon in 1991. She’s good in Freeway although it’s strange seeing her playing someone so trashy. If you want to see her saying all kinds of filthy shit, this movie is the one for you. It’s just one of those movies where everyone is so hateful that it’s hard to get any enjoyment out of it. For a far better satirical black comedy starring Witherspoon, I’d recommend Election instead of this one. – 4.5/10
I actually listened to some NEW music in February. Shocking! I finally have access to a streaming service. Yeah, finally. What can I say? I’m old school. I still play CDs. So I finally have some music to talk about in this section. I’ll start with that. But I won’t rate or “review” music as I wouldn’t know how to go about doing that. Plus my musical tastes change way too often…
MUSIC LISTENED TO
– Petals For Armor I by Hayley Williams – I mainly listened to this to get my daughter into Hayley Williams as she likes some Paramore. But, hell, I’m the one who ended up loving this EP (especially the song Simmer). The songs are unusual. Very grown-up (the kid liked Simmer but I don’t think the rest went down well). I’m now looking forward to this full album being released in May. I liked all the albums I listened to in February but my very favorite song from all of them is Simmer (I’ve put the video at the end of this post).
– The Slow Rush by Tame Impala – I don’t have a lot to say about this as I’ve only listened to it once while working. I like Tame Impala so was looking forward to this. It’s super chilled. So, yeah – it was perfect while I was concentrating on working. Will give it more of a proper listen at some point. I’ll say I felt quite calm & relaxed that day so maybe it was good to not be blasting metal into my ears for a change.
– Miss Anthropocene by Grimes – I admit it – I kind of like Grimes. I liked her before the whole Elon Musk thing when no one knew who she was. I even did a post about her for the Music Video Friday series I did for a while (Grimes post HERE. I really enjoyed that series…). Yeah, she’s fucking nutty. Yeah, I don’t like all of her songs and some of what she does is pretentious as shit. But I adore those two songs in that post I did & I happily listened to Miss Anthropocene as soon as she released it. I’ve listened to it quite a bit. I really like it, especially the songs Violence, 4ÆM, My Name Is Dark & You’ll Miss Me When I’m Not Around. I have to keep skipping Darkseid, though – what the fuck is that?!
– Ordinary Man by Ozzy Osbourne – Of course I like this. I’ve loved Ozzy most of my life now. I have so much Black Sabbath & solo Ozzy stuff on various playlists that I don’t think a week ever goes by where I don’t hear his voice. Which is probably why I’ve only listened to this album a couple of times so far. I have loads of Ozzy already! Again, I’ve listened to this while working so I have to give it a proper listen some weekend. Liking it so far. But didn’t expect not to…
BOOKS READ
– Love Letters To The Dead by Ava Dellaira – Damn me & my annoying inability to stop reading YA books. I can’t help it – they’re simple reads! This one is about a teenage girl whose sister has died (we don’t know exactly how or why at the beginning). At school, she’s given an assignment to write to a famous person. She starts writing to various dead celebrities & the story is all told through her letters to them. She sorts out her feelings about her sister & her death as she writes mainly to people both she & her sister liked (Kurt Cobain & my beloved River Phoenix being two of the main ones). It’s a decent book. If you like YA stuff, it’s worth a read. I’ve read better but I’ve also certainly read worse. – 3/5
Currently Reading Dune by Frank Herbert. What the hell have I gotten myself into?! Crazy time to start something so heavy when I’m so damn busy. But one of my only New Year’s Resolutions this year was to finally read this before the new film comes out. I’m digging all, um, 32 pages I’ve managed to read so far…
TV SHOWS WATCHED
– Picard – Have fallen so behind on watching this due to lack of time. Managed two episodes so far. Loving seeing my beloved Patrick Stewart as Picard again but not quite feeling this show yet. We’ll see. But nothing will ever live up to Star Trek: The Next Generation for me.
– The Witcher – Watched the first episode of this. Will watch a couple more to see how I feel (but not sure when I’ll find the time!).
– The Creeps – This Goosebumps-esque British kids’ show is SO up my alley. Watched a couple episodes with my daughter. I love eerie stories with a twist! I adored The Twilight Zone as a kid but I can’t convince mine to watch a black & white show from the 1950s with me. Damn. Guess we have The Creeps as a compromise. (It’s very tame, though. I’d prefer creepier).
– Locke & Key – Can’t wait to watch this if I can ever find the time. I managed about ten minutes of the first episode. I’m intrigued. As Joe Hill is one of my favorite authors, I’ll definitely be watching it even though I’ve not read his graphic novel this show is based on.
BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH
I have no plans other than to hopefully continue posting these monthly roundups. But as I’m listening to music a bit more again, it got me thinking about how much I enjoyed my Music Video Friday series (I especially loved the Billy Idol post with Brian of Hard Ticket To Home Video). No one read the posts but I had fun reminiscing when putting them together. Maybe I’ll start posting those again sometimes. Or maybe at least a Song Of The Week post each Friday…
Upcoming Movies I Want To See:
– Fantasy Island – This looks like it could be dreadful so I’ll probably wait to watch it on Netflix. Like all shitty horror movies… (I watch too many)
– The Photograph – From IMDb, this is “A series of intertwining love stories set in the past and in the present.” Well, that’s vague. Could be good?
– Onward – Seen it! A little disappointing for a Pixar movie but still better than most things made by other animation studios.
– Escape From Pretoria – Not sure this is my type of thing. Will see if reviews are good. Still freaks me out that Daniel Radcliffe is a grown-up in movies now.
– Military Wives – This looks so British. A Sunday afternoon Netflix flick…
– Bacurau – The plot synopsis for this is intriguing. Is it horror?? Mystery?? Will wait to see if reviews are good.
– Misbehaviour – Damn, I hate Keira Knightley but this looks interesting.
– The Jesus Rolls – I’m not bothered about this since, unlike most people, I wasn’t that into The Big Lebowski. Loved that rug, though.
– Radioactive – I’m sure this will be worth watching but can wait for Netflix.
– Mulan – I’ve been boycotting these rubbish Disney live-action remakes ever since that stupid Beauty And The Beast remake. But Mulan looks really good in the trailers… Hmm…
– Vivarium – Love the sound of this movie but can’t stand Jesse Eisenberg.
January is over!! Thank fuck. I’m still taking a blog break this year but I’ll probably do these monthly roundups as I’m obviously not going to take a break from watching movies. I watched seven movies in January, five of those in the cinema. Being in the U.K., January means the release of a lot of the Oscar nominees so I saw a lot of “worthy” stuff last month. I think the Oscar nominees are very weak this year, though. None of them really blew me away. I’ll do mini-reviews of each below.
**Damn. Three of my mini-reviews ended up way too long. So I might as well post separate full reviews for the Best Picture nominees (Parasite, Little Women, Jojo Rabbit & 1917) over the next three days.**
Also, apologies as I was taking a blog break for my sanity (Ha! As if I’ll ever be sane). So I haven’t replied to some great comments in the past month. I’ll be catching up on replies this week. Thanks for putting up with my unreliability!
– Weathering With You – I couldn’t believe it when I saw that there was going to be a showing of a Japanese anime film at my local cinema. Only one showing, though, I believe. And it was packed. Maybe they should show this stuff a bit more often? It clearly has a fanbase. This film is from Makoto Shinkai, who also directed 5 Centimetres Per Second, The Garden Of Words & the fantastic Your Name. I’ll be honest – I thoroughly enjoyed this movie (as I knew I would) & it was gorgeous like all of Shinkai’s films but I did think it was the weakest of what I’ve seen of his work. As a lot of his films, this is another YA romance. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – YA romance will probably always be a guilty pleasure of mine (especially when it’s supernatural romance & pretty anime). Like Your Name, the story involves nature & the sky & it’s all very lovely but the teens are borderline annoying at times. These anime teenagers in love are so damn dramatic! But there are funny moments & sweet moments and, fuck it – it’s Japanese anime so I liked it because I’m a nerdy film snob. Here’s one extra image from the film since it’s so pretty… – 7/10
– Long Shot – This was surprisingly enjoyable and pretty goddamn funny. If I wasn’t such a pussy, I’d rank it above 1917 but I don’t want anyone to yell at me. Let’s be honest – Seth Rogen wouldn’t have a chance in hell with gorgeous Charlize Theron but they somehow managed to make this relationship fairly believable. And Theron was a real surprise doing the comedy. She’s done comedy before but I thought she was really good in this and the chemistry with Rogen did work. To be fair, they’re my sort of age so I’m the right target market for the film but I got some good laughs out of this movie & am glad I watched it as I don’t go for many comedies these days. I needed some laughs in this month of “dramatic Oscar nominees”. – 7/10
– Burning – I’ve been absolutely desperate to see this South Korean movie for ages. When this came out in 2018, everyone claimed you’d like one of these 2018 foreign films: Roma, Cold War, Shoplifters, or Burning. Well, I’ve finally seen them all and have to say they were all pretty damn disappointing. I fully expected to adore Shoplifters as I love Japanese movies, but… Meh. Well, it might be my favorite of these. Here’s my ranking:
Yes, I’ll never understand the love for Roma. Anyway, I did like Burning even though it’s far too long. I knew it was a “slow burn” but, holy hell. Not everyone will have the patience to sit through this one & you aren’t really rewarded with answers if you do. However, I did like the film’s atmosphere & its look & the frustrating mystery. And yeah – I also like Steven Yeun (as Glenn was one of the only characters I liked in The Walking Dead, which I’ve finally stopped watching as it has sucked for years). But nothing really happens in this movie. As I said, I did like it okay & thought it was a decent piece of filmmaking but it would be very hard to recommend to anyone. It certainly won’t be to everyone’s taste. – 6.5/10
Rewatched:
– The Meg – Rewatched this movie with the kid. It’s obviously not a “good” movie but it’s fun. And the characters are more likeable than we usually get in these kind of films. Good enough for me! – 6.5/10
BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH
BOOKS READ
– Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard – I made a New Year’s Resolution to read more worthy books (or at least not so much YA). Then I read this YA book. Oops. I’d been intrigued by this one for a while as I’d read that is has a great twist ending (Really?! Lies). I enjoyed the book but it’s a series & I’m not sure I have the energy to read the rest. It’s my favorite sort of YA (Dystopian! Woohoo!). The world is made up of those with silver blood & special powers and those with red blood & no powers, who are essentially slaves to the silver bloods. There’s of course a love triangle (actually, it’s four people so it’s whatever you’d call that. THREE guys like the main chick. WTF). It’s a decent enough story but I can’t say it feels all that original as there are soooo many YA novels in this genre now. I’d like to know how it ends but maybe I’ll wait to see if they just do a film adaption of all the books. – 3/5
– Gwendy’s Magic Feather by Richard Chizmar – I enjoyed the first short novel, Gwendy’s Button Box, which Chizmar wrote with Stephen King so I figured I’d read this short sequel. It’s fine but you could tell the difference with King not writing this one as well. Not that it matters – it just certainly had far less “horror” than King’s stories. The story in this sequel is more straightforward & not as much strange stuff happens. I like the strange stuff, which is why I like King, so I definitely prefer the first book. But Chizmar did well with the character, who I liked in the first book, so it was good to find out more about what happened to her later in life. Worth a read if you read & liked the first one but don’t expect nearly as much stuff to happen in the sequel. The button box itself seemed a bit pointless in this book (and it’s a pretty cool box). – 3/5
Now Reading: The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James & Love Letters To The Dead by Ava Dellaira (YA. Oops.)
TV SHOWS WATCHED
– Star Trek: Picard – I’m a MASSIVE Star Trek: The Next Generation fan so I was of course super excited about this show. Love Patrick Stewart! I’ve only managed to watch the first episode so far, which was fine. Will see how the rest go. I badly want to see more TNG characters on this show…
– The Middle – Wanted a simple, short sitcom to watch with the family. I recommended this as I’d seen a couple of seasons when it was first on & I liked it. Happy to say that my daughter loves it! It’s great to have a fun family sitcom to veg out to. They make so few of them now. Nothing is made with families in mind these days. I like the show as I think it’s a very realistic portrayal of a normal, slightly fucked-up, poor & struggling family in the American Midwest. I can relate to more of it than my British family, though. Reminds me of growing up in the same part of America.
– Watchmen – I read Alan Moore’s Watchmen years ago & did enjoy it. I wasn’t a big fan of the 2009 film. It was okay – I should probably watch it again sometime. Oh man, though – I’m not sure how I felt about this TV series. It’s just… not Watchmen. There were things I liked about it. The story was okay, the characters were interesting, and I’m impressed that they played part of Devo’s Mongoloid in an episode. Oh, and a Howard Jones song too. Yay 80s! But. I dunno. It’s not Watchmen. The only thing it really accomplished was making me want to read the far superior graphic novel again. I think I didn’t appreciate it enough at the time. I’d had zero experience reading graphic novels/ comic books & Watchmen was probably a pretty heavy one for me to start on. Not that I’ve read any more since… (Other than Tank Girl). Yeah, I’ll read Watchmen again someday. I’ll never watch this TV “sequel” thing again, though.
– The Masked Singer (UK) – I hate myself for watching this shit. But it’s something braindead to stick on to pass the time with the family. Not being from the UK originally & having very little knowledge of the mainstream shit that people like or sports, I’ve not known some of the “celebrities” unmasked so far. Think they had far bigger stars for the US one??
– Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting An Internet Killer – I’m about halfway through watching this. It’s certainly an intriguing story but I’m not sure why I’m watching it as I’m not at all into the “true crime” thing like so many people seem to be. I don’t want to know about these psychos. It makes me sick. That’s why I watch fictional stuff. But it’s certainly worth a watch if this kind of thing floats your boat. The guy is an absolute nutjob. The most interesting thing to me has been seeing how a group of people on the Internet were the ones trying to hunt this psycho down.
BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH
Nothing planned! And I actually have no way to watch the Oscars this year for the first time, um, ever? So I have no plans to do any Oscar posts besides posting my reviews for Parasite, Little Women, Jojo Rabbit & 1917 this week. Hell, maybe I’ll also reblog my reviews of the other nominees as I’ve watched & reviewed every Best Picture nominee this year other than The Irishman (It’s too long! I have no time!).
Upcoming February Movies Releases:
– Parasite – Saw this. Will post the full review this week.
– Underwater – Could be fun or it could be total shit? May wait for Netflix.
– Birds Of Prey – Meh. I never really enjoy the DC shit & I think this looks awful from the trailer. Maybe I’ll go to it if reviews are good.
– The Voyage Of Doctor Dolittle – Ohh. Bad reviews!! Will wait for Netflix.
– Daniel Isn’t Real – Shitty horror? I watch way too much shitty horror. But this stars Mary Stuart Masterson! So I might check it out.
– Fantasy Island – More shitty horror! Again, I’ll probably watch it but will wait for Netflix if reviews are really bad.
– Emma – Meh. Another “wait for Netflix” film. How many Hollywood adaptations of the same stories do we really need??
– The Call Of The Wild – Grumpy old Harrison Ford & a dog? Sounds okay to me.
– Like A Boss – Meh. Shitty comedy can wait for Netflix too.
– Brahms: The Boy II – Not gonna lie: I really liked The Boy. It had a cheesy ’80’s horror feel to it. And I love creepy dolls! So I’ll watch the sequel at some point.
– Portrait Of A Lady On Fire – Wow, this has a high rating on IMDb. Looks a bit “worthy”, though. I’ve had enough of “worthy” films for a while.
– Color Out Of Space – I WANT TO SEE THIS SO BAD!!! 1. It’s directed by Richard Stanley, who directed a huge favorite film of mine (the criminally underrated Hardware). 2. It’s an H.P. Lovecraft story. 3. It stars Nicolas Cage doing yet another weird-ass looking film. If it’s half as strange as Mandy, I’ll be very happy. But I’m unlikely to be able to easily see it since non-mainstream movies are very hard to get hold of…
– Wendy – Know nothing whatsoever about this but the plot synopsis sounds okay.
As I mentioned Devo in the Watchmen TV show, here’s the song. Devo deserve more recognition.
I never did my November Roundup post. So just to complete my 2019 posts, here’s what I watched & read in November 2019. I’ll try to post my December Roundup within the next few days. I’ll then do my 2019 Top Ten Lists next week before taking a blog break for 2020.
– Miss Hokusai – I really enjoyed this anime film about Katsushika Ōi, artist & daughter of critically acclaimed artist Katsushika Hokusai (famous for The Great Wave off Kanagawa). The film has lovely animation and strong characters. I’ll try to review it at some point as it’s probably my favorite non-Ghibli anime that I’ve watched recently. – 7.5/10
– 3 Idiots – I didn’t manage to watch all my 2019 Blind Spot movies but did watch 12 movies for my IMDb project. This is one of them so I’ll do a short post with all 12 sometime. I enjoyed this but don’t think it’s Top 250 material, although the second half is much better than the first. – 7/10
– Locke – This was surprisingly boring. I remember being annoyed at missing out on this one in the cinema as it got really good reviews. It’s Tom Hardy in a car talking on the phone the whole time. It may have been better if he didn’t have some weird ass accent through the whole thing (maybe that’s how he really talks? Ha! Dunno). Anyway, it wasn’t terrible but it certainly wasn’t great and the character was a bit hateful, which sucks when he’s the only damn character in the movie. But I give them credit for managing to make a whole movie about a guy driving in his car… – 6/10
– Planes, Trains & Automobiles – Thanksgiving classic! Finally watched this with the kid as I have to make sure she sees some of the American traditions, etc. Think she liked it but it’s still a slightly more grownup comedy. The ending still makes me feel a little weepy. Loved John Candy (and of course John Hughes). 😦 – 7.5/10
– Legally Blonde – I’m obviously revisiting films with the kid as she gets older. She liked this one (and a new one is coming out this year??). I’ll always be a fan of Reese Witherspoon & she’s adorable as shit in Legally Blonde. Jennifer Coolidge is also as funny as always. The movie is silly but it’s fun and has a decent message. – 6.5/10
BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS
BOOKS READ
I read The Institute by Stephen King & half of Full Throttle by Joe Hill. Full Throttle is a short story collection, including two stories he wrote with his father (one being In The Tall Grass, which I reviewed HERE). I love both King & son Hill’s short story collections so I slightly preferred Hill’s collection to The Institute. But I of course very much enjoyed both and will read everything either of them write. I was unfortunately quite disappointed with the recent King book The Outsider so was very happy to get a better novel this time (even if the story is extremely familiar Stephen King territory). I may try to review these in full at some point (or at least Full Throttle as I like to discuss each story). – 3.5/5 (for both)
TV SHOWS WATCHED
None, as usual lately. However, I did manage to finally watch some stuff in December and am halfway through Watchmen. Not sure how I feel about that one yet.
My plan was to catch up on reviewing December movie releases & preparing my Year End Top Ten lists. But I haven’t yet & it’s now 2020. Oops. At least I caught up on reviewing most 2019 movies.
– Black Christmas – Now kind of wish I hadn’t missed this as reviews are SO bad but they seem to be from people not liking the politics of this version? So I’d like to judge it for myself.
– Cats – HA! Think I dodged a bullet missing out on this one.
– Spies In Disguise – Forgot about this one. Think I can live without it.
– Little Women – I’m weirdly not bothered about this one now that it’s out. There have been so many adaptations already. I’m also not on the Greta Gerwig bandwagon with everyone else. Plus, Emma Watson is in this. Can’t stand her.
Here’s a trailer for Miss Hokusai. I recommend it if you’re an anime fan.
Happy Birthday to Anthony Kiedis, who turns 57 today.
I’ve been meaning to do this post for the past three years. I like the Chili Peppers a lot, although I’m not sure if I’d now call them a favorite band of mine. Hmm. Maybe Top 30. Okay, maybe Top 20. They were certainly a favorite when I was in my late teens/early twenties, though. And I had a huge crush on Kiedis. I have fond memories of this Rolling Stone cover on my dorm room wall:
Lovely! Well, as with most of my “Top Ten” lists, I’m just going to do a ranking of all the Chili Peppers songs that I can think of. To be fair, I don’t remember some at this point and don’t know everything from their later years. Blood Sugar Sex Magik is the album I listened to like crazy in my late teens and it’s still my favorite. I should refresh my memory on their oldest stuff. Time to go dust off those CDs…
So, counting down to My Top Ten Red Hot Chili Peppers songs, here’s my ranking for 35 of them:
35. Get Up And Jump
34. True Men Don’t Kill Coyotes
33. Desecration Smile
32. Aeroplane
31. Fight Like A Brave
Top Thirty:
30. Around The World
29. Hump De Bump
28. Monarchy of Roses
27. Me & My Friends
26. Snow (Hey Oh)
25. The Zephyr Song
24. The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie
23. Fire
22. Mellowship Slinky In B Major
21. Road Trippin’
Top Twenty:
20. The Righteous & The Wicked
19. Funky Monks
18. Dani California
17. Otherside
16. Can’t Stop
15. Suck My Kiss
14. Blood Sugar Sex Magik
13. If You Want Me To Stay
12. Californication
11. Breaking The Girl
Top Ten:
10. By The Way
9. Soul To Squeeze
8. I Could Have Lied
7. Scar Tissue
6. Knock Me Down
5. Taste The Pain
4. Brendan’s Death Song
3. Higher Ground
2. Under The Bridge
1. Give It Away
I can’t do a Red Hot Chili Peppers post without a cocks in socks picture…
Happy Halloween! I’ve enjoyed doing Halloween Horror Month yet again but this was probably my last year. It’s too time consuming plus I’m now way behind on reviewing current non-horror movie releases. I’ve also once again watched WAY too many bad horror movies in the past year. Of those below, I only really loved the top two and thought the next few were quite good. The rest of the Top Twenty were decent enough to pass some time but my life would still be complete if I’d seen none of the rest (it might even be better!). I also have a few thrillers as well as full-on horrors on this list.
So, counting down to my favorite, here’s my ranked list of the 43 horrors & thrillers I’ve watched & reviewed since last October:
I did also do (very brief) reviews of Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep novel and King & son Joe Hill’s short story In The Tall GrassHERE.
I keep using Deep Red imagery in this post because it’s awesome. As is the fantastic Goblin score…
Now I can move onto reviewing the non-horror 2019 releases that I saw in the past two months. Here’s what I’ll try to review over the next month:
Hustlers – 7.5/10
Judy – 7.5/10
Joker – 7.5/10
The Farewell – 7.5/10
I Am Mother – 7/10
Terminator: Dark Fate – 6.5/10 (My review for this is written – I’ll post it tomorrow)
*Yeah, I finally got myself an Unlimited cinema card. I watch way too many movies…
Deep Red (1975) Italian: Profondo Rosso (aka The Hatchet Murders)
Directed by Dario Argento
Starring: David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, Macha Meril, Eros Pagni,Giuliana Calandra
Music by Goblin & Giorgio Gaslini
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) Deep Red stars Macha Meril as a medium and David Hemmings as a pianist who investigates a series of murders performed by a mysterious figure wearing black leather gloves.
My Opinion:
Happy Halloween! I thought I better finally review one of my Blind Spot choices this year so it seemed like the perfect time for Dario Argento’s Deep Red. I do try to explore a little bit of most every genre of film but my knowledge of the Italian Giallo horror thing is severely lacking. This is my third Giallo horror and I’ve only seen Argento’s movies so far; Suspiria, which I saw years ago and should really watch again, and Phenomena as a Blind Spot a few years ago. While I still think Suspiria is the best mainly due to being so iconic (and having that amazing Goblin score), Deep Red may actually be the more “enjoyable” and certainly the more accessible film. If someone was entirely new to this genre and wanted a good film to start with, I’d probably recommend this before Suspiria just because it’s a much more straightforward murder mystery and far less strange. Both are absolute must sees for film fans, though – Deep Red is just an easier starting point.
I’ll start with the obvious things that made this such an enjoyable watch for me personally: The look & the imagery, the atmosphere, and the score. These are extremely important elements to me when it comes to all films but especially for horror. I admit that I’m old but there’s just something special about the look & feel of Seventies & early Eighties horror movies that very few modern horrors manage to achieve. We do occasionally get some good ones now but it’s interesting how often they try to copy the look of old films. It never quite works, though. I appreciate things like The House Of The Devil trying to look like a Seventies or Eighties film but no modern movies ever manage to fully capture that mood and it always just feels like modern actors playing dress up (true for non-horrors too, such as American Hustle). Deep Red has a brilliant Seventies vibe. The clothing! The awful hair! The ugly decor! A stunning & creepy old abandoned mansion! Then we also get some amazing imagery, some of which I’ve posted but others that I can’t due to spoilers. We get a couple of creepy dolls (I love creepy dolls!), lots of that super bright red blood they seemed to use in Italian horror, a big sharp knife in a famous spoiler image, funky artwork on the walls, and closeups of the killer’s eye and the killer’s strange trinkets.
The imagery is fantastic but the score is just as important for setting the mood in this sort of film. I don’t know why modern movies so often seem to care so little about the score. A great score can turn a movie I like into a movie I love. Hell, I know I rated The Good, The Bad And The Uglymuch more highly than I would’ve without Ennio Morricone’s masterpiece score (Italians do it better! Wasn’t that on a Madonna t-shirt?!). Goblin did the Deep Red score and I already love it along with the soundtracks for Suspiria and Dawn Of The Dead (1978), an all-time favorite film of mine. Many of my favorite films also have brilliant scores so I do think the music is important. I’ve added a clip of this Goblin score at the end of this post. Goblin feature heavily on my phone’s playlist. I know the scores to these Argento movies better than I know the movies themselves. I now want to watch every single movie that has a Goblin score (but I think a lot of them are very obscure and I’m sure the music is much better than the films).
Atmosphere & music aside, Deep Red also has a decent murder mystery as well as some good characters. David Hemmings is good and I enjoyed watching him investigate these murders, especially when he explores a lovely old mansion as the main Goblin theme below plays. Daria Nicolodi is great as the female reporter who joins Hemmings in his investigations. The two had really good chemistry and I liked her sassy attitude. She added a bit of humor to the movie, which I wasn’t expecting in a Dario Argento horror. So, while I personally always prefer the supernatural and things like witches in Suspiria to murder mysteries, I can see plenty of people actually preferring Deep Red. I’m not sure why it doesn’t seem as popular or quite as well known as Suspiria? I think Deep Red (aka Profondo Rosso) is a brilliant horror classic and I’d recommend it to anyone curious about this genre. I’m glad I finally watched it as I’ve seen way too many bad horrors in 2019. Deep Red is by far my favorite of those I’ve watched in the past year.
My Rating: 8/10
Here’s part of the fantastic Goblin score. Love it. I wish movie scores were still as brilliant as they were in the Seventies & Eighties…
**As this posts, I’ll be watching Doctor Sleep. I’ll try to do at least a quick review by the end of today, although I may not have time. I love Stephen King and have very high hopes based on the trailer…
Starring: Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden, Bryce Dallas Howard
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) The film follows Elton John’s early days as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music to his musical partnership with Bernie Taupin. The film is titled after John’s 1972 song “Rocket Man”.
My Opinion:
I watched this a while ago but never got around to reviewing it. I know it, understandably, got compared to Bohemian Rhapsody a lot and that snobby film fans far preferred Rocketman. I have to say that Rocketman is most definitely the better “film” whereasBohemian Rhapsody is more of a straightforward and very lightweight crowd-pleaser. I do think people were too hard on Bohemian Rhapsody, though. I think music biopics should be fun. If you want reality, watch a damn documentary about the band. (It sure as shit shouldn’t have been up for the Best Picture Oscar, though.) However, I think most people would agree that Queen’s songs are far more enjoyable than Elton John’s, which will be another big reason why Bohemian Rhapsody was more popular with mainstream cinema goers. I mean, come on – Queen are WAY cooler than Elton John. Sorry Elton John fans! John & Taupin did write some absolute all-time classics, though. There’s no denying that they’re hugely talented, whether or not you’re a fan of their music.
Rocketman also won’t have won over casual movie fans thanks to it having been done more in the style of a musical, which isn’t for everyone. It wasn’t what I was expecting. I don’t always like the musical approach as it doesn’t always work but I thought it worked very well for this film and I did enjoy it. Also, Taron Egerton was absolutely brilliant! I thought his performance was far more impressive than Rami Malek’s as Freddie Mercury. Egerton had to sing & dance & perform full musical numbers – who knew he was such an all-around talent? I’m impressed. I wasn’t previously a fan and kind of borderline disliked him. I can’t fault him in Rocketman – he’s fantastic.
As well as Egerton, Jamie Bell was great as Bernie Taupin. Okay – I admit to knowing very little about John & even less aboutTaupinso can’t say how accurate this movie is but it was good seeing their relationship and musical partnership. They’re great together in this film and it was interesting to see how they worked together to write such strong songs. As I said; Even if it’s music mostly just loved by people who are even older than I am now, you can’t deny how brilliant these songs really are. I mean, I’m old and adore music from the 70s but Elton John isn’t really my thing. When are we going to get a Black Sabbath musical with full dance numbers?! I’d watch that! They could do something really fun with Fairies Wear Boots!
As for the rest of the cast (such as Richard Madden as John’s manager and lover & Bryce Dallas Howard as John’s mother), they’re also very good but I do wonder what the real people think of this film. Well, I assume Elton John’s parents aren’t alive now. Probably not since they’re shown as being pretty hateful. Not as hateful as Madden’s character, though (John Reid). As Reid also managed Queen, he was in Bohemian Rhapsody as well but not shown to be such a jerk. I found an interesting article HERE comparing Reid in both films (both times played by Game Of Thrones actors but only played by a hot actor in Rocketman). Speaking of hot actors, I don’t think Egerton is hot but I bet Elton WISHES he actually looked like Egerton. That’s movie fantasy for you, though. I want someone super hot to play me in the story of my life too! God, that would be a boring movie.
Rocketman is a good film with great performances. Not actually being a big Elton John fan, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the film. The story and performances are very strong and they did the usual “rock star drug drama & daddy issues” thing very well but I also really liked the musical numbers (even the Crocodile Rock one and I f*^king hate that song!). It’s a good scene. Heck, I think the movie made me like the songs a bit more as they actually really suit the musical format of the movie. Maybe I was just in a good mood when I saw this. Or maybe I’m a secret Elton John fan & don’t want to admit it. (Nah)
Starring: Himesh Patel, Karma Sood, Lily James, Jaimie Kollmer, Kate McKinnon, Ed Sheeran, Lamorne Morris, Sophia Di Martino, Joel Fry, Ellise Chappell, Harry Michell, Camille Chen, Alexander Arnold, James Corden, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Meera Syal, Karl Theobald
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb) A struggling musician realizes he’s the only person on Earth who can remember The Beatles after waking up in an alternate timeline where they never existed.
My Opinion:
I have to admit that, while there are definitely cheesy moments in this film (of course there are – it’s Richard Curtis!), I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s now one of my favorites for 2019 so far. It’s certainly a feelgood movie but, hell, we could all use those every once in a while. I don’t want all movies to be as depressing as Midsommar. It’s also one of those movies that gives you plenty to talk about and contemplate afterwards as the concept is fantastic. What a brilliant idea for a story – I absolutely loved the plot synopsis when I first heard about the film and it was great to see how the story would play out.
To be fair, though, I’m a fan of The Beatles. I’ve done a load of Top Ten posts on this blog since starting it but My Top Ten Beatles Songs was one of my first lists (it may actually be the very first). I do think you need to like their music (and/or the band members themselves) to truly appreciate this film. Had this been based on a band I didn’t like, I’d still admire the subject matter but wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much enjoyment out of the film. The concept and the music are what make this movie. If you hate The Beatles & aren’t impressed by the plot, there’s absolutely no reason for you to watch this.
Does the movie do all that it can with such a good idea? Yes and no. I really liked the direction the story took a couple of times and truly loved one surprise even though I SO should’ve seen it coming. I think it’s always hard to live up to a brilliant idea, though. The movie, overall, could’ve been better. The romance wasn’t believable nor was the possibility that this guy could become as famous as The Beatles. Himesh Patel is good in this role but, come on – his character is just not very interesting and doesn’t have much charisma. The Beatles made some of the all-time best songs but did they become so famous based ONLY on their songs? I don’t know. Maybe? That’s certainly something that would make for an interesting conversation but I don’t think the movie really explored this. Also, while I love most of their songs, there are some I really don’t like and some that I don’t think have aged well. Would the songs be as popular if they were made now? That’s not the kind of music that’s made today. This isn’t explored at all in the movie. It makes me sad but I don’t think the songs would be as popular if they were heard for the very first time in 2019. I may be wrong but I rarely hear anyone younger than me saying that they like The Beatles.
Ed Fucking Sheeran. Ew.
Oh well. Although the film isn’t absolutely perfect, it was great to see something with so much originality instead of yet another sequel or superhero film. And I certainly can’t complain at hearing so many great songs for a couple of hours. It even made up for Ed FuckingSheeran being in this! It’s a shame that the movie suffers a bit from some typical Richard Curtis rom-com writing but, luckily, nothing in it is as ridiculous as Love Actually. I just wish there’d been more of the old school Danny Boyle influence on this but I suppose a Trainspotting vibe wouldn’t suit this family-friendly feelgood film. That was a lot of F words… Fanciful family-friendly feelgood fantasy fiction filmfor Fab Four fans!
– A Matter Of Life And Death – I loved this! Why isn’t this movie more well known?? I decided to check it out when I saw people on Twitter highly recommending it when it was on TV. Here’s the IMDb plot synopsis if you’ve not heard of it: “A British wartime aviator who cheats death must argue for his life before a celestial court.” It’s a 1946 British film starring David Niven and Kim Hunter and it’s pretty damn epic. It reminded me of the great classics such as It’s A Wonderful Life. I loved the Technicolor look of it and the gorgeous elaborate sets (as far as 1946 films go). It also has a Wizard Of Oz vibe with the parts of the film that are set on Earth being in color and those in Heaven being in black & white. Fantastic!
This is also one of those old romantic films where the couple fall in love IMMEDIATELY. Like, they knew each for two whole seconds. Man I love that about old romances, like the super mushy Brief Encounter (which has the best sexual tension EVER). I love old movies and their sexless romance! I also love that everyone in old films looks at least 45. At one point David Niven said his age (27) and I was like “You’re shitting me!” Anyway. This movie was a lovely surprise and I highly recommend it if you like wartime romances and/or unique stories. There’s also some playful “American vs British” stuff that was quite fun and an enjoyable character in a small role as a stereotypical cocky American soldier (he was kind of hot, too). – 8/10
– Infernal Affairs (Mou gaan dou) – This was great. I’ve been focusing on watching the remainder of the movies for my IMDb Top 250 Project. I prefer to see the original film before a Hollywood remake but didn’t manage that this time. Martin Scorsese’s The Departed is very good and a fairly faithful remake but, as expected, the original is better. I have a lot of IMDb film reviews to catch up on this year so I’ll do a review of this one along with the rest at some point. I highly recommend it if you liked The Departed (and if you’ve not seen The Departed, watch this one first!). – 7.5/10
– Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner – I’ve been meaning to explore more of Sidney Poitier’s work so have finally managed to watch both this and In The Heat Of The Night, which was one that I chose as a 2019 Blind Spot film. In The Heat Of The Night is a better film but this one is also worth watching, mainly for the great performances (especially Poitier’s & Hepburn’s). I wasn’t crazy about his love interest but I think that’s just because her character was so annoyingly happy. She also just seemed a bit weak in comparison to the heavyweight stars in this one – these are proper ACTORS. The movie is obviously going to seem dated now and people might find it slightly uncomfortable to watch but, hell, I wouldn’t say that the times have changed as much as you’d have expected by now (just over 50 freaking YEARS later!). So I think it’s still a very relevant film & certainly worth a watch to see some classic actors at their usual best. The movie itself could’ve been slightly better – it does drag a little and the “stage play” feeling won’t be for everyone but I’m happy to say I’ve seen another Poitier film and think he’s fantastic. I don’t feel like the stars of today have the same sort of presence as classic stars such as Poitier & Hepburn. I should really watch more old films… – 7/10
– Touch Of Evil – This is another IMDb Top 250 film so I’ll review it in full with the rest in a separate post. It was good but not a favorite of mine compared to the others I’ve watched from the Top 250 since starting this blog. – 7/10
– The Wild Bunch – This is another Top 250 film as well as one of my 2019 Blind Spot choices so will get a full review later. I have to say that, while it’s a good film, I was a bit disappointed. I’ve watched several Westerns now since starting this blog and far prefer the others I’ve watched, such as Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy. – 7/10
– In Order Of Disappearance – The is the original Norwegian film of Liam Neeson’s Cold Pursuit (which I’ve not seen but the hubby enjoyed). It’s fine. It’s a decent revenge story and I can certainly see why they remade it with Neeson – it’s SO the type of film he’s typecast in now. To be honest, though, where I’m so behind on writing this I now don’t even remember it all that well. It’s an entertaining crime film but that’s never been a favorite genre of mine and I clearly find the movies in this genre a bit forgettable. – 6.5/10
– Snowpiercer – Hmm. After waiting YEARS to finally get the opportunity to see this 2013 film in the U.K. and all the hype surrounding it, I have to say I was pretty disappointed. I was very much looking forward to seeing John Hurt again, though (R.I.P.), and I did love seeing him in this. At least I did have my doubts beforehand as I didn’t really like Bong Joon-ho’s movie Okja. However, I liked his film The Host and loved the crazy ass concept in Snowpiercer so was very interested in seeing it. People live on a motherfucking train that never stops and travels around the entire frozen apocalyptic Earth. That’s nuts. I love a weird ass story. I bet the French graphic novelthis is based on, Le Transperceneige, is fun. I hope it’s better than this film, which was hard to fully get into as most of the characters are unlikeable and poorly developed. Strong characters are very important to me and annoying characters do seem to be a problem with Bong Joon-ho’s films that I’ve seen. I also hate over-the-top caricatures and hated Tilda Swinton in both this & Okja. Sorry, Swinton fans! It just threw me out of both movies. Chris Evans is fine but, again, by the end you kind of don’t care about him anymore (I won’t say why). I did, however, like the two characters who also happen to be the only likeable characters from The Host, so that helped the movie a bit and I was fine with how it ended. I’m just disappointed as the story itself had so much potential to be a really kick ass movie but it tries too hard to be weird & quirky and it fails massively in making you give the slightest shit about the characters. Great concept wasted. – 6.5/10
– Lu Over The Wall – This was an odd one. First of all, if you want to see a good anime film about a weird fishgirl, do yourself a favor and watch Ponyo. And watch all the other Studio Ghibli movies. And Akira. And Ghost In The Shell. And Wolf Children. And Your Name. I’m no anime expert as I clearly stick to the most mainstream stuff but Lu Over The Wall is the sort of thing you’d watch after checking out more well-known anime first. It’s a cute movie but definitely aimed at a younger audience (maybe 13 and under). The mermaid, Lu, is sweet but a fraction annoying. The story is simple and the characters are likeable enough but slightly dull. I just far prefer the artistic beauty & otherworldliness of Studio Ghibli. The best way to describe it is to say that Lu Over The Wall is the equivalent of a DreamWorks movie in the West: Enjoyable enough for a couple of hours of entertainment but ultimately forgettable. – 6.5/10
– Adrift – This was fine. I’d probably have liked it more with a different actress as I find Shailene Woodley annoying. But I’m always intrigued by true stories of people lost at sea (maybe because the thought of being adrift in the middle of the ocean freaks me out). If true story disaster dramas are your thing, this one is worth a watch. It’s exactly what I expected but most movies in this sort of genre are pretty predictable. – 6/10
– The Wandering Earth – This Chinese sci-fi film was disappointing but had potential and certainly had plenty of ambition. Here’s the crazy IMDb synopsis: “As the sun is dying out, people all around the world build giant planet thrusters to move Earth out of its orbit and sail Earth to a new star system. Yet the 2500-year journey comes with unexpected dangers, and in order to save humanity, a group of young people in this age of a wandering Earth fight hard for the survival of humankind.” Hey – it’s no more outrageous than Snowpiercer! I just wish the characters had been stronger, which would have made up for the expected cheesiness of this story. The movie looked very good, which I enjoyed. It’s just a shame that the story is too much like cheesy Western sci-fi (I kept thinking of The Core from 2003). Oh well. It was entertaining enough for a couple of hours and I’m always happy to watch science fiction. – 6/10
– King Of Thieves – I found this a bit disappointing as well. Ever since the real life Hatton Garden raid, I’ve been wanting them to make a movie of it starring Michael Caine. Casting that’s predictable as hell, yes, but he had to be in it! No one was more perfect for this role. But, somehow, they managed to make a movie about an amazing heist quite boring. I guess that’s kind of the point, though – these old British dudes managed this huge heist but it won’t have been all sleek & stylish like Ocean’s Eleven. It was a real heist, not a sexy Hollywood heist. I just wanted to like it more and to kind of like the characters, even though they’re criminals. They weren’t well developed and I’m still not exactly sure why they even did this robbery. – 6/10
– The Monster – This was fine for a (I’m assuming) low-budget indie “horror”. It’s more of a psychological horror, although you do see the monster (even though it’s symbolic of the mother and her strained relationship with her daughter). If you want a straight-up horror, this one probably won’t be your kind of thing. If you want an indie drama about a mother & daughter with some decent acting (for a “horror” movie), you might like this one. But I gotta admit it’s a little boring & the mother (played by Zoe Kazan) is a little too hateful. – 6/10
– The Sentinel (1977) – Ugh. I love 70’s horror so had been meaning to check this out for a while as I’d never seen it. Plus, it has Burgess Meredith in it (love him!). I wasn’t missing much. There was some messy, incoherent story about, I dunno… priests or some shit? It doesn’t matter – the story was stupid. There was some fun weirdness in this, though, and some unnecessary nudity. Maybe that’s why some people remember this fondly; they got to see some boobies and therefore forgot that the overall film was a bit crap.
Oh, we also got to see Beverly D’Angelo playing with herself…
Yeah, that’s ruined National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation for me a bit. What’s funny is that, for a crap 70’s horror, this had some very big names in it! Here are some of them: Cristina Raines, Chris Sarandon, Ava Gardner, Burgess Meredith, Sylvia Miles, Eli Wallach, Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, John Carradine, Jerry Orbach, Tom Berenger, and, of course, Beverly D’Angelo masturbating. This movie was a real waste of some big stars. – 5/10
– The Funhouse – Not only do I love 70’s horror… I also love cheesy 80’s horror! So this Tobe Hooper movie seemed right up my alley. PLUS it’s set in a carnival and I always love this sort of setting. And a Funhouse! What’s better than a creepy-ass Funhouse?! Well… damn. This movie isn’t exactly the worst 80’s horror I’ve seen since I’ve seen MANY bad ones – It’s just very forgettable. Maybe I hyped it up too much in my mind. Meh. Watch it only if you’re sad like me and feel the urge to watch every movie ever made in my favorite sort of genres… – 5/10
BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH
BOOKS READ
– The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt – Don’t have much spare time at the moment so haven’t really been reading. I’m slowly working my way through this book as the movie is coming out in September. It’s good so far – I just wish it was much shorter! I shouldn’t have started such a long novel at the moment…
TV SHOWS WATCHED
– Game Of Thrones– In my last Roundup post, I was partway through the final season and didn’t write much as the show was annoying me. I said I’d write more about it when it was finished. I can’t be fucking bothered to write anything now. Kind of like the writers clearly couldn’t be bothered to write the final season of Game Of Thrones… What a massive letdown after this started out as some of the best TV with the best writing in years.
– Grey’s Anatomy – Ha. Whatever. Fuck this show. I only continue to watch it since I have to now that it’s been on so damn long. Come to think of it, I can’t even remember what the hell happened this season. What was the usual cliffhanger? Wow. I honestly can’t remember. That’s bad.
Well, it’s July now and I’ve watched the first two episodes of season 3 of Stranger Things. Am hoping it’ll be better than Season 2.
BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH
My plan is to hopefully catch up on reviewing current films. I’ve just watched Spider-Man: Far From Home & I’m posting a review of Midsommar tomorrow.
Upcoming Movies I Want To See:
As I’m so far behind on this post, I’ve already seen all that I could have of June’s cinema releases. So here’s a quick list of the 2019 movies I saw in June (and which I’ll also try to review at some point):
Toy Story 4 – 8/10
Yesterday – 7.5/10
Rocketman – 7.5/10
Ma – 7/10
Child’s Play (2019) – 6.5/10
Booksmart – 7/10
Wine Country – 6.5/10
Brightburn – 6.5/10
Boogaloo Shrimp Documentary – 6.5/10
Murder Mystery – 5.5/10
There was no memorable music in the movies I watched in May so let’s just watch this video of Keanu Reeves with puppies.
– Wind River – This was really good. This was directed & written by Taylor Sheridan, who also wrote the brilliant Sicario and Hell Or High Water. Here’s the IMDb plot synopsis: “A veteran hunter helps an FBI agent investigate the murder of a young woman on a Wyoming Native American reservation.” As someone who isn’t normally a fan of “crime dramas”, I loved all three of these films. I think this is probably thanks to Sheridan’s writing as the characters are so strong and so real. You can feel the grief of the parents of the murdered girl and the conversations, especially between Renner’s character & the murdered girl’s father, come across as very genuine. I often find that movie dialogue feels phoney so I love that Sheridan’s characters in these three films feel so natural & are so well-developed. And, yeah, it was kind of fun seeing Hawkeye & Scarlet Witch together in this. I highly recommend this movie if you like a serious crime drama that takes its time focusing on the characters, which is always important to me. If you liked either of the other two Sheridan films I mentioned, you should like Wind River too. – 7.5/10
– The Hunt (Jagten) – Finally got around to watching this as I wanted to see Mads Mikkelsen‘s performance plus the film was nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar and is in the IMDb Top 250. It’s not a topic I’m comfortable with but it was handled well & Mikkelsen was fantastic. It takes place in a small community and focuses on how a little lie/misunderstanding goes too far & completely destroys Mikkelsen’s life. It’s a good film with great performances and I’d recommend it but you have to be in the mood for a serious drama. – 7.5/10
– Cold War – This was a very good but not a great film. I was hoping for a bit more when people raved about this last year (it was up for the Best Foreign Film Oscar along with Roma & Shoplifters (which is the one I want to see the most). Here’s the IMDb plot synopsis: “In the 1950s, a music director falls in love with a singer and tries to persuade her to flee communist Poland for France.” I did enjoy the story and the look of the film plus I love when a storyline spans so many years (especially when it involves lovers separated & reunited over those years). I think the biggest problem for me was that, unfortunately, I didn’t like the female character. She was very hard to like and I didn’t understand why she did what she did (I’ll leave it at that as I’m obviously avoiding spoilers). I at first liked how headstrong she was but it was frustrating as her personality caused so much pain by the end. It was still a good film and I did like the male lead – I was just hoping to like them both and to want them together. Oh well – At least Cold War was much better than that snoozefest winner Roma… – 7/10
– Repulsion – This film deserves to be higher on the list. It’s artsy fartsy & “worthy” but I can’t say I exactly enjoyed it. However, Catherine Deneuve was very good & it’s worth watching for her performance. I decided to watch this Roman Polanski film after liking Deneuve in a somewhat similar role in Belle de Jour. I haven’t seen her in much – I don’t know why she played a sexually repressed woman in both of these but she handles this type of character well. Here’s the IMDb plot synopsis if you don’t know anything about Repulsion: “A sex-repulsed woman who disapproves of her sister’s boyfriend sinks into depression and has horrific visions of rape and violence.” Obviously, having come out in 1965, it seems tame now but I would imagine this was a very shocking film at the time. The pacing is very slow & it does take a long time before much of anything happens, so bear that in mind if you choose to watch it. I have to say I preferred Belle de Jour. I was hoping this would be much weirder, based on that image I used at the top of this post of Deneuve in the hallway with all the hands coming out of the walls. It’s not, though – it’s a pretty straightforward story of a woman who may have experienced sexual abuse in the past (I think this is implied), which eventually drives her insane. Deneuve is great in these films, though, and I’d watch her in other movies based on what I’ve seen so far. – 7/10
– Eddie The Eagle – This was fine. It’s a pretty typical British feel-good family movie. I didn’t know a thing about the real life guy or his story so I found it interesting. He was certainly a character. The film itself is just okay, though. Yeah, it’s a little cheesy and I’d say the performances are a bit phoned-in but, hell, who cares? It’s a nice story and we could use more nice stories nowadays. If you liked Cool Runnings, it’s very likely you’d enjoy this one as well. And the final half hour makes up for the film being somewhat slow to get going. – 6/10
– Black Snake Moan – I’ve been on a Samuel L. Jackson kick lately. Love him! So I figured I’d finally check this one out. Well, this was an odd one. And, man, I didn’t think I’d ever see Christina Ricci naked, which was disturbing as she’ll always be a little kid to me (despite not being TOO much younger than me). I’m not sure what to say about this film. At least it wasn’t boring? It was hard to like the characters to begin with but Jackson’s & even Ricci’s do grow on you, especially as you get to know why Ricci’s is as messed-up as she is. I liked the strange friendship between these two and you do want everyone to find happiness at the end. Also, the music was really good. Was that Jackson really singing?! That was a treat. Overall, I did like the film and enjoyed that it was so “different”. But I can’t say it’s one I’d have the desire to watch a second time. – 6/10
– Must Love Dogs – This was dull. A lifeless & predictable rom-com. To be fair, this isn’t exactly a favorite genre of mine so I may not be the best judge. I tend to watch movies like these if I like the stars and I love both Diane Lane & John Cusack, although I’ve gone off of him slightly in recent years. I think I’ll always just see him as perfect boyfriend Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything. Anyway. Hmm. What can I say? The story goes exactly as you’d expect. What was disappointing was that Lane & Cusack had ZERO chemistry. Think this was more Cusack’s fault as he seemed bored while Lane was as charming as she usually is, even though she’s seriously typecast in this genre. Oh! And there weren’t enough dogs. Must Love DOGS. Where were the loads of cute fucking dogs?! False advertising! Meh. Whatever. I’ll forget this movie in a year. Oh – Stockard Channing was quite enjoyable in this, though. – 5.5/10
– Suspiria (2018) – What. The. Actual. Fuck. Okay, I admit I’ve only seen the original Suspiria once and don’t remember much other than the Goblin score, which I fricking love and listen to regularly. I know I liked the overall vibe. I really should watch the film again. Italian horror is one of the very few genres I’ve not yet really explored. This remake is an incoherent mess. It’s laughable, especially in the final half hour. At least I was “rewarded” with a good laugh over the ending’s absolute ridiculousness after suffering through this otherwise boring thing for HOURS (2 hours & 32 fucking minutes!!!).
Why do they keep remaking films that are considered classics?! WHY?!? I don’t get it. I understand that there are fans of the giallo horror thing but don’t understand why, if people want a 2018 giallo movie, filmmakers can’t just make an original film with the same characteristics???? I’d totally watch that. Why shit on a classic’s legacy? I think this was also disappointing as the trailer and especially the poster (which is great!) almost made this look promising despite it starring Dakota Johnson. As much as remakes & reboots piss me off, I admit that they occasionally work and have even liked a few. I’m a fan of 2004’s Dawn Of The Dead even though the 1978 film is one of my all-time favorite movies, probably because it wasn’t a straight remake but more of a respectful & enjoyable reimagining. It almost felt as if 2018 Suspiria had zero regard for what made the original such a beloved classic for many horror fans.
I’ve read no reviews of this version but am *assuming* that those who love the original hated this and those who loved this hated or probably didn’t even see the original. I’d like to hear from anyone who loves both versions of Suspiria – I’d love to know the reasons why. I saw so many people on Horror Twitter raving about this remake so I’m actually quite confused as I thought it was a dreadful mess. Give me Mandy instead of 2018 Suspiria! It’s hard to not compare the two as they’re both pretentious artsy horror films that came out the same year and are both extremely divisive. Mandy is weird as hell but has originality and style. Suspiria tries too hard and just comes across as desperate and phoney.
I should say something nice… Um. I think Thom Yorke was a great choice to do the music for this and was one of the reasons I wanted to watch the film. The music starts out promising in the very beginning but then I no longer noticed it. I don’t know if there was less music in the second half or if I just no longer noticed it as I slowly lost the will to live. But nothing will EVER beat the original’s Goblin score anyway so why bother. – 4.5/10
– The Grand Budapest Hotel – This is an IMDb Top 250 film so I might review it at some point with the others I’ve watched this year. I hated it. I got sick of people telling me I should watch it so I finally did. Just trust me when I say I hate Wes Anderson films! 😉 – 5/10
– Barely Lethal – Like Black Snake Moan, I mainly watched this because of Samuel L. Jackson. Also, the IMDb plot synopsis sounds quite fun: “A teenage special ops agent coveting a “normal” adolescence fakes her own death and enrolls in a suburban high school. She quickly learns that surviving the treacherous waters of high school is more challenging than international espionage.” See? That sounds like a great setup! Unfortunately, the movie is a bore. It could’ve been a great teen flick with dark humor but it’s unfunny with underdeveloped characters you don’t give a shit about. Whatever. I have no energy left to write about this and the next two films after my lengthy Suspiria rant. Let’s just say that it’s pretty bad that I have several films ranked BELOW Suspiria. At least parts of Suspiria were memorable. There! I said another nice thing about Suspiria! I’ve just said the word Suspiria way too many times. Anyway – I always prefer memorable, even when I hate a film, to one that’s just plain dull. – 5/10
– The Spy Who Dumped Me – Ugh. Not sure why I watched this as I hate the majority of modern comedies. I like the two actresses, though, and often find Kate McKinnon funny so gave it a chance. She’s funny at times but the film is so fucking bad that it didn’t matter. What a waste of time. Maybe I need a new hobby. – 4/10
– Baywatch – Good Lord. I can’t do this. I’m too tired for another rant. This is quite possibly the biggest pile of shit I’ve seen since Jennifer’s Body. It may even be worse than Jug Face. I’ve never seen a less funny “comedy”. I think I need to stop watching movies. Maybe I’ll become a food blog. I hate cooking and I hate food but I hate that shit like this gets made and widely distributed while indie & foreign films with rave reviews that I desperately want to see don’t show anywhere near me and often don’t show up on any of the many services I can’t afford but pay for anyway just to stand a chance of seeing ONE decent fucking film once in a blue moon!!!! – 2/10
Re-Watched:
– Save The Last Dance – I love that the kid is getting older and liking more films such as Save The Last Dance. We’ll be onto teen movies before too long. Can’t wait to start on the introduction of John Hughes movies! Okay – she’ll probably hate those since most teens seem to hate those these days. Oh well. I enjoyed watching Save The Last Dance again as I’d not seen it in years. It’s not my era (I’m clearly an 80s/early 90s teen) but it’s an enjoyable teen dance flick (the kid loves Honey as well). It’s a bit dated & cheesy but I’m sure it’s a favorite for many girls who were teenagers in 2001. I kind of miss the teen dance flick genre… – 6.5/10
Fell Asleep During:
– Dog Days – I think I need a new section for “Movies I can’t review because I slept through them“. This happens a lot. I’m old and I’m tired. I slept off and on through Dog Days. It seemed to be a perfectly fine, bland, wholesome family film. Needed more dogs. I might have stayed awake for a load of cute puppies. But at least it had way more dogs than Must Love Dogs!!!! I didn’t feel as cheated by a misleading title this time.
BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH
BOOKS READ
Been too busy so haven’t been reading as much. Have started The Talisman by Stephen King & Peter Straub. Really good so far! Not sure why I never read this King novel as I try to read everything he writes…
TV SHOWS WATCHED
– Game Of Thrones – *Sigh*
This post is so damn long. I’m tired. I don’t have the energy to get into what a massive disappointment the final season of Game Of Thrones has been so far. I’m writing this after seeing the first four episodes of the final season so a lot has happened but it all feels very rushed. It feels like the writers said “Let’s just get this fucking thing over with”. Screw it – I’ll wait & maybe write more in next month’s post after the series has finished. Maybe the final episodes will turn everything around & make this show good again.
– Tales Of The Unexpected – Just after moving to the UK, I discovered Tales Of The Unexpected. As my favorite TV show EVER is The Twilight Zone, imagine my delight to discover a British show with similar weird stories & good twists. Years ago they did a marathon of these shows on New Year’s Eve into New Year’s Day & I spent hours watching them. Do I know how to party or WHAT?! My all-nighters tend to involve watching weird shit. Anyway – I noticed this was on Now TV so I’ve been watching these episodes off & on again. They’re good to stick on while using the exercise bike. I still love the show. Good job, Roald Dahl! Here’s the IMDb link to Tales Of The Unexpected for any Americans who may not know what the hell I’m talking about…
BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH
No plans! Too busy. As always, I’ll try to review what I see in the cinema.
May Movie Releases I Might Watch:
– The Curse Of La Llorona – Will wait for Netflix like I do with most shitty horror. I watch too much shitty horror.
– Long Shot – Looks like a decent enough but probably predictable Seth Rogen rom-com. Might try to check it out (after payday – I’m broke!).
– Tolkien – Am interested in this as love Tolkien’s writing but will wait for Netflix. I’m not that into biographies.
– Vox Lux – Liked the sound of this Natalie Portman movie but reviews aren’t great. Damn. Will skip for now. As I said, I’m broke!
– A Dog’s Journey – I actually liked A Dog’s Purpose quite a bit (and it had lots of DOGS in it!!!) so I do want to see this sequel.
– High Life – Like Mandy & Suspiria, this sounds like another extremely divisive, artsy fartsy, highly pretentious film. PLUS it’s sci-fi, my favorite genre?! This is SO the type of thing I’ll watch and either love to death or hate with the same passion as Suspiria. Can’t wait!!!
– Pokémon Detective Pikachu – Saw this already. It’s, um… Well, it’s a Pokémon movie. I think you need to be a serious Pokémon fan to truly like this one. I fully admit to loving Pikachu, though. Pikachu is adorable and a great character.
– The Hustle – Nah. Fuck this. I’ve been burned by too many shitty comedies. I may never watch another modern “comedy” thanks to Baywatch.
– Destination Wedding – Keanu Reeves & Winona Ryder!!! You’d have to pay me to NOT watch this.
– John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum – Keanu Reeves again!!! Love him so will of course watch this, despite these films not actually being favorites of mine. Oh that adorable dog from the first one!!!! I might cry now. Why have I mentioned dogs so much in this post?! I don’t even have a dog. I want a John Wick beagle…
– Aladdin – No. Fuck off with these live-action Disney remakes. I said Dumbo would be my last one & meant it. And this one looks awful from the trailer! Looks like a low budget straight-to-DVD mess.
– Rocketman – Yep. Will check this one out as I love a music biopic, even when I don’t necessarily love the artist. Would anyone admit to liking Elton John’s music?? It’s old fart music (I can say that since I’m an old fart). I think his life story will be fascinating, though.
– Booksmart – This sounds like it could be a fun teen flick.
– Godzilla: King Of The Monsters – Have there been trailers for this?? I’m very out of the loop at the moment. Hope this is a kick-ass blockbuster.
– Ma – This could be fun or utterly ridiculous. Will wait for reviews.
Here’s the brilliant Goblin theme music from the only version of Suspiria that should be watched…
– Ip Man – This was good. As it was one of my alternate 2019 Blind Spot choices, I’ll do a full review of it at some point. – 7.5/10
– The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups) – Again, I’ll try to do a full review of this sometime as it’s a film I watched for my IMDb Top 250 Project. A good film but it won’t be a favorite of mine, unlike a lot of the other Top 250 films I’ve watched since starting that project. – 7.5/10
– Straight Outta Compton – Been meaning to watch this for ages as I do always enjoy films based on musicians and seeing how they came together & made their music. I’m not going to pretend I was a big fan of N.W.A. This music is indeed from my sort of era but, when I occasionally listen to rap & hip hop instead of my usual rock & metal, I’m more of a Public Enemy or De La Soul girl. I also can’t pretend to know how accurate this movie is but thought it was a thoroughly engaging film (after a slow start) with very good performances. I did love that Ice Cube’s son played Ice Cube. Now I’m wondering if the offspring of famous people have played their parents often?! Okay – I’m going to Google that when I’m done with this post. By the way – Boyz N The Hood is a fantastic film if you never saw it (I should watch Ice Cube in Friday now too – I never did see that one). Okay, I’m getting off topic. As far as music biopics go, this is one of the better examples of how to do one right. It’s interesting seeing this not long after Bohemian Rhapsody. While I did enjoy that one (it was fun), it did come across as a bit phoney and I can understand the backlash even though I do think people are too picky on films that are meant to be crowd-pleasing (watch a Queen documentary if you want “real”). Straight Outta Compton came across as being much more genuine. It’s definitely worth a watch if you like music biopics, even if you aren’t necessarily a fan of N.W.A.’s music. – 7.5/10
– Mississippi Burning – This is another 2019 Blind Spot choice so I’ll review it in full before the year is through. Good but certainly not the best Blind Spot film watched so far this year. In The Heat Of The Night was better… – 7/10
– Leave No Trace – I was desperate to see this as it had a lot of hype from film fans. It’s very good but I can’t say it’s one I’d feel the need to watch again (I saw people saying they loved it so much they went to see it multiple times). This is from the same director who did Winter’s Bone and it definitely has the same mood & feel, although it’s far less gritty than that one. In the same way that Winter’s Bone had a brilliant performance from Jennifer Lawrence, which I believe was the role that got her noticed, Leave No Trace also features a great performance from a young actress named Thomasin McKenzie. Let’s see if she becomes as famous as Lawrence! If you liked Winter’s Bone and like a realistic drama with great performances, I’d definitely recommend this film. I’ll be honest and say that it’s just not a genre that I typically tend to go for. Here’s the synopsis from Wikipedia if you’re interested: “The plot follows a veteran father with PTSD (Ben Foster) who lives in the forest with his young daughter (Thomasin McKenzie).” – 7/10
– Curtains – Meh. This probably deserves to be ranked below the next two films as it wasn’t very good but I’m just a sucker for cheesy 80’s slashers. Here’s the Wikipedia synopsis for this mediocre horror film with a kick-ass poster: “A slasher film centered on theater and filmmaking, its plot focuses on a group of actresses targeted by a masked killer at a prestigious director’s remote mansion where they are auditioning for a role in a movie.” Here’s the awesome poster:
This stars Samantha Eggar (from David Cronenberg’s brilliant The Brood) as an actress so desperate for a role as a crazy woman in a new film that she has herself checked into a mental hospital for “research”. I’ll say that part of the reason I’ve wanted to see this for years was because of that doll in that cool poster. I love a creepy doll movie! Well, this isn’t a creepy doll movie, although the doll is used in an effective way in a couple of creepy scenes. This movie is fine. It’s a fairly predictable 80’s slasher but better than some of them. It’s worth a watch on Amazon Prime but only if it’s a genre you like. – 6/10
– American Mary – This was pretty hardcore. I’d been meaning to watch this film for a while now to see if it would be a contender for My Top Ten Body Horror Movies list. I’m afraid to say I didn’t love the film but thought Katharine Isabelle did a good job in this crazy role. I thought the film started out pretty strong but it loses its way when Isabelle’s character goes so extreme. She starts out quite innocent (although practising surgery on turkey carcasses while wearing sexy lingerie was odd) but then she goes completely batshit crazy and it just didn’t feel realistic after she was set up as this poor, struggling student who loves her sweet grandmother. I have to say, though, that she seemed to have enough money for lingerie for someone so poor! Lingerie is expensive. If you’re poor, surely you should buy clothes that keep you warm?! But I guess she needed the lingerie for turkey surgery. Anyway! There’s a bit of a revenge plot going on in this film and I did enjoy that because I love some good vengeance. And this was some fucked-up vengeance! I just wish the final half of the film hadn’t fallen apart. We start out on Mary’s side but can’t relate to her anymore by the end (at least, I hope no one can relate to her at the end). Oh well. It’s certainly a memorable film! I give it credit for that. I far prefer a memorable film to something so bland that I won’t remember it in a year. – 6/10
– The Love Witch – Like American Mary, this was on Film 4 the other week and I was really happy as I’d been intrigued by the look of this one since it first came out. Damn – this was a huge disappointment. While I did indeed love the look of it, I can’t say that I thought the film was good. Film critics will say something about this exploring gender roles or some shit but I thought the film was all style & no substance. However, I appreciate the effort it made on its 60’s aesthetic and the lead actress is definitely beautiful (and half naked quite often, which may be why the positive reviews I’ve seen have mostly been from dudes. Hmm). As a woman, I was hoping to like this a lot more as it’s from a female director and has a strong female role. It’s artsy and pleasing to the eye but the intentionally bad acting and the slow pace made it a chore to even finish it. Still, it has fans and I can see why it would as it’s a unique film. It just didn’t work for me personally, so don’t let my unenthusiastic review keep you from watching it if you like the look of it. – 5.5/10
– Coach – Oh you 70’s & 80’s teenage sex comedies! I can’t resist watching these sometimes since I’m so damn old and grew up with these. When I noticed this on Amazon Prime, I had to watch it immediately because of my longtime crush on Michael Biehn (thanks mostly to Kyle Reese). No, this movie isn’t good but it was interesting seeing Biehn so young (the film came out in 1978). It’s one that wouldn’t be made now since, well, the sexy new 30-something basketball coach (Cathy Lee Crosby) has an affair with one of the teenagers on the team (Biehn, of course, since he’s the hot one). It’s actually better than some of the full-on sex comedies from its day – there’s more of a story and not as much stupid, silly shit. They even explore the sexism that was still so common in 1978. Some people do not want her as a coach despite the fact that she’s a goddamn gold medal Olympic athlete. She was hired based on her resume having a unisex first name. Whatever. Coach is still just a basic sexy teenage film from 1978. I’ve seen worse. – 5.5/10
– Red Sparrow – Wow. This was… quite bad. Way too long and surprisingly boring, I also found it a chore to finish this one. I think it tries too hard to be serious. It also tries to be sexy, I guess, with Jennifer Lawrence’s nudity and being required to use sex as a weapon, but it just felt gross and weird. I do think Lawrence is a really good actress but we all know her real-life goofy personality so well that this role just didn’t suit her. At all. What’s weird is that this movie made me appreciate Atomic Blonde much more. While that film was also not exactly great, it had a lot more style and a kick-ass soundtrack and it didn’t take itself so damn seriously. I was actually annoyed that I wasted my time watching Red Sparrow. That doesn’t happen often as I can usually find at least one thing to appreciate about a movie. – 5/10
– Re-Watches – Saw these years ago but re-watched recently with the kid:
– My Girl – Oh man, I love My Girl so much. Always been a fan of this one and thought Anna Chlumsky was adorable and absolutely lovable in this role. And, of course, Macaulay Culkin in a role quite different from his cheeky character in Home Alone. It was also great having Dan Aykroyd & Jamie Lee Curtis in this as they’re so perfect together. It’s a fantastic family movie that explores a distressing topic in a realistic & sensitive way without ever being too soppy or saccharine. The characters feel real as do their relationships. My heart broke a little as my hubby & kid both said they preferred Bridge To Terabithia, which we also watched recently. Well, I’ll always be a bigger fan of My Girl but both are great coming of age films that treat their young audience respectfully and don’t dumb things down. Kids aren’t stupid – they want movies that don’t talk down to them. I wish there were more family films like these. – 8/10
– Men In Black – Figured we better re-watch this before the new Men In Black: International with my beloved Chris Hemsworth. I don’t have a lot to say about this one as it was never an absolute favorite of mine but I think it’s a lot of fun. It’s also very unique, which I always appreciate. There’s no other film with a similar story (that I can think of?!). Remember when Will Smith was a big action star making films like this?? I miss these sort of movies. We don’t seem to get enough fun blockbusters anymore. I need to re-watch Independence Day too… – 7/10
BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH
BOOKS READ (ranked best to worst)
– ‘—All You Zombies—’ by Robert A. Heinlein– I finally read this short story because I loved the movie adaptation (Predestination – my review is HERE). This story truly is short! It was about ten pages. I have to say they actually did a brilliant job adapting this into a full length movie. As the story involves someone “telling” a story, it works in the movie as they show what’s being told in flashbacks. Nothing extra is actually added (well, there was a small subplot but I think that was kind of hinted at in Heinlein’s writing). I love the movie even more now – it’s one of the most faithful film adaptations I’ve seen. I highly recommend the film first, though, which is not normally the way I do things. But the film fleshes out the characters a lot more and uses a more serious tone that works better than the almost dark humor of the original story. But certainly read this afterwards if you appreciate the film. – 4/5
– The Rats by James Herbert– This was fun! I reserved this at the library after seeing a picture of the cover online and loving the cheesy look of it (not the cover above, although that has a great pulpy look too). This is the first James Herbert book I’ve read and I’m not sure why as this genre is my type of thing. It reminded me a bit of Dean Koontz but it’s certainly more violent than his stuff (and with more sex – it made me realize that Koontz doesn’t get very graphic with the sex stuff. Damn.). I enjoyed this one and I’ll definitely read the rest in the trilogy, although I won’t rush to read them immediately. Oh, if you don’t know the story: this is about large rats taking over London and killing people. Pretty straightforward horror stuff but would make for a good cheesy horror film if they did it right. I see it was made into a movie called Deadly Eyes in 1982 but it sounds dreadful. I love this bit of trivia from IMDb: “Dachshunds were dressed up as rats for the special effects.” Ha! Sounds atrocious! – 3/5
– The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness – Umm. This is yet another dystopian YA book series and I’m starting to think I need to stop reading so much of this genre. What can I say? I love the dystopian shit! Maybe I should explore the “old adult” dystopian novels. OA! Any recommendations? Because I found this book really boring and don’t plan to continue reading the rest of the series. I read this because it’s been adapted into a film, Chaos Walking, which was meant to come out last month but has now been pushed back to 2020. Bad sign! I can’t see how they could easily make this into a good film. Here’s the synopsis from Amazon: “Prentisstown isn’t like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts in a constant, overwhelming Noise. There is no privacy. There are no secrets. Then Todd Hewitt unexpectedly stumbles on a spot of complete silence. Which is impossible. And now he’s going to have to run… “. This book was unnecessarily long and, spoiler… There’s a baddie who never f*^king dies. He keeps coming back again & again like Freddy Freaking Krueger or something. And then, after soooooo many pages of our main character being chased, we don’t get a proper ending. Okay – I knew this was the first book in a series but plenty of first books don’t leave you hanging quite so much. The characters also lack decent development. Considering the length of this, I wanted to care about them more by the end. I don’t know. It’s still a good idea for a story but I’ve read far better YA novels. I’m starting to appreciate Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy more & more. I think it’s time to introduce those to my kid. I could do with re-reading those. That’s great YA writing… – 2/5
TV SHOWS WATCHED
Well, I’m still watching Grey’s Anatomy & The Walking Dead even though they annoy the shit out of me. Bring on the final series of Game Of Thrones!!!! I can’t freaking wait!
BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH
As always, my plan is to watch a few movies. Hopefully good movies! I’m in desperate need of seeing a really good movie. 2019 has been disappointing so far. Also need to read a good book. Any recommendations??
Upcoming Movies I Want To See:
– Pet Sematary – Saw this already. I’m a huge Stephen King fan and love the first adaptation of this, which came out when I was a teenager. I’ll review this in full soon. It mostly feels pointless to have done another film but it does improve on the first adaptation in a few areas.
– Shazam! – Saw this as well. Am honestly scared to review it after seeing people on Twitter get death threats for giving this a negative review. Insane. Well, I’ll still review it in full at some point. And I’ll prepare for any backlash since, um, I liked but definitely didn’t love this. It has some good laughs & very likable characters but is also quite a flawed film overall.
– The Sisters Brothers – Read this book and did a (super short!) review HERE. It was a fun book although it wasn’t my sort of thing so I’ll wait for Netflix to watch this film adaptation.
– Missing Link – Might try to go to this since it’s a Laika film and they’re often good (although they can be a bit hit or miss).
– Happy As Lazzaro – Looks like a quirky Italian film. Will wait for Netflix, though.
– Wonder Park – Hmm. This actually has fairly bad reviews so far so I’ll skip it. Love that my kid is at the age where she only wants to go to animated films with good reviews. I do try to not let her be too snobby of a film fan, though! I still let her watch some shitty films. Like High School Musical…
– Hellboy – Is it just me or do the trailers make this look BAD?! I certainly won’t go to it but will watch at home if it ends up being good.
– Mid90s – Want to see this but have a feeling it might be too indie to get a full cinema release.
– Little – This looks dumb as shit but for some strange reason I kind of want to see it. But I sure as hell won’t spend money on seeing it in the cinema.
– Wild Rose – Again, I’d wait for Netflix on this one. I HATE country music but do love stories that revolve around people in the music industry (such as The Rose and A Star Is Born) so I’ll definitely watch it sometime.
– Greta – This is so the type of movie that I enjoy watching and that the hubby will happily let me watch without him since it looks a bit shit. This looks like those cheesy 80’s & 90’s guilty pleasure thrillers such as Single White Female. I especially want to see this as Isabelle Huppert is in it and I think I developed a weird sort of girl crush on her after seeing Elle. She’s 66-years-old and sexy as hell. Sounds like she might be some sort of psycho in this? Ohh. Fun!
– Dragged Across Concrete – Does look good but, again, I’ll wait to watch it at home. Prefer to watch violent films where I can hide my face behind a pillow.
– Avengers: Endgame – HELL YEAH! I’m not even a huge superhero fan but am massively excited about this one. My tickets are already booked.
– Eighth Grade – Finally!!! This movie is finally being released in the UK. Been wanting to see it for months.
I always end with some good music that was in something that I watched. This time I have to go with I Got 5 On It feat. Michael Marshall (Tethered Mix) by Luniz from the fantastic Us soundtrack.
– In The Heat Of The Night – This is a 2019 Blind Spot choice of mine so I’ll do a full review at some point. I selected it as I want to see more Sidney Poitier movies. Loved him in this. – 7.5/10
– Belle de Jour – I’ve always wanted to watch this so was happy when it appeared on Amazon Prime. Kinky Pretentious French Shit! Oh man, this was so tame. I suppose it was saucy for 1967. But, hey, I’ve now watched my first Luis Buñuel movie so I can pretend I’m all smart and arty & shit. And I’d rather watch kinky shit than that Un Chien Andalou eyeball film of his. Here’s the synopsis from Wikipedia if you don’t know this movie: “Based on the 1928 novel Belle de jour by Joseph Kessel, the film is about a young woman who spends her midweek afternoons as a high-class prostitute, while her husband is at work.” Catherine Deneuve is lovely and very good as the frigid housewife who turns out to be a masochist who wants mud (or was it pig shit?) chucked at her like in that photo up there. She’s unsatisfied in her marriage since her hubby is so perfect and so damn nice. He’s actually quite a hottie (played by Jean Sorel) and a doctor and a total catch so you can’t help but feel sorry for the way his wife is unable to return his affections. It’s a good film, yes. It’s a classic. But it’s a bit boring by today’s standards. And if you’re a Fifty Shades fan (I’ve avoided those books & films like the plague), you’re unlikely to go for the artsy fartsy kinkiness in this. Deneuve can actually act, though, unlike what I’ve managed to see of Dakota Johnson’s work. – 7/10
– A Silent Voice – I’ve been trying to watch more anime beyond just Studio Ghibli so I checked this out as it’s available on Netflix. I have to say that this one was just “okay”. It’s certainly not up there with the Ghiblis or with the work of directors such as Mamoru Hosoda or Makoto Shinkai. It’s most similar to Shinkai’s work in that the story was a little too “YA” for me but, unlike Shinkai’s films, this one didn’t have the same level of beautiful animation to distract you from the, er, “YA-ness” (I made up a new word!). The story revolves around a teenage boy who befriends a deaf girl he had previously bullied at school when they were younger. The girl and her sister were fairly strong characters but the boy was a little hard to like. Overall, though, the characters weren’t as well developed as they have been in the other anime works I’ve mentioned. Considering that this film is actually quite long, I expected to buy into the characters more. The story also dragged and didn’t seem to really go anywhere until it just suddenly ended. This film was okay but I’d only recommend it to anime fans and certainly not as an introduction for someone new to this genre. – 6.5/10
– Truth Or Dare – I did NOT expect to like this AT ALL. Why do I watch so many horror movies I expect to be shitty?! Oh yeah – because my husband doesn’t get mad at me when I watch shitty movies without him. 😉 Anyway, this is a pretty typical cheesy slasher film filled with twenty-something twats. But as far as that sort of thing goes, I actually thought this was fairly decent example of the genre. A good bad horror movie! Here’s the synopsis from IMDb: “A harmless game of Truth or Dare among friends turns deadly when someone — or something — begins to punish those who tell a lie or refuse the dare.” I’m a sucker for supernatural horror so was happy about that aspect of the film but know this doesn’t work for everyone. The story actually gave me a Final Destination vibe as this “curse” comes after these characters one by one and there’s seemingly no way out as they are forced to play along or die. The characters were somewhat better than your usual twenty-something horror twats, too. Most were even likable! Only two were assholes. I want to want characters to survive and will never understand why horror films often make absolutely everyone hateful. The overall story is a little predictable and it doesn’t exactly feel like we’re seeing anything new here. However, some of the truths & dares were fairly original and I had a decent enough time watching this knowing it’s slightly silly. The ending was also a bit stupid but, hell, what movie like this doesn’t have a stupid ending?! I’ve seen plenty of twenty-something twat supernatural horrors far worse than this one. – 6/10
– Breaking In – This film also wasn’t too bad as far as lightweight “PG-13-Style” home invasion movies go. Is it a bit cheesy? Of course! But are the family likable and do you want them to survive? Yep! Good enough. What more do you need from this sort of movie? I wasn’t expecting something Oscar-worthy here. Gabrielle Union was good and I loved that she was pretty kick-ass for a mother but also not unrealistically so. I actually hate movies like this where a character makes no mistakes whatsoever – that’s unrealistic as we’d all fuck things up in this sort of situation in real life. Wow – Union looks young, though. I had to look up her age and she’s actually a bit older than me. Damn. Lucky her! Well. I don’t know what else to say. This movie is flawed. It’s ridiculous at times. It’s far from perfect. But I liked it. It’s the sort genre we saw a lot more of in the 80’s & 90’s. I miss this kind of straightforward cheesy thriller sometimes. It’s not trying to be anything more than that. – 6/10
– Race To Witch Mountain – Almost forgot to add this one because I forgot I’d watched it. That’s because it’s… Forgettable. My kid is obsessed with The Rock, though, so we’ve been working through his movies. I wish I’d seen the original 70’s Disney film, Escape To Witch Mountain, as I’d probably prefer it. I thought this was a remake but it’s actually a continuation of the original story? Is that right? Oh well. The two original kids did have cameos in this, which is cool. Oh! And Meredith Salenger had a small cameo as a reporter named Natalie Gann. Excellent! I love The Journey Of Natty Gann! So I loved Disney’s nod to their other films but, meh, this movie was nothing special. I’m sure some kids who grew up with it like it but I think my own kid was a bit bored. It’s bland, wholesome, live-action Disney. Oh, but the girl (AnnaSophia Robb) was good and was in a lot of these family films when younger. She was also in the excellent Bridge To Terabithia, which I’d recommend over this one. – 5.5/10
– Life Of The Party – Meh. I’m not a big fan of Melissa McCarthy or of this sort of comedy. But the kid likes McCarthy (like The Rock!) so I let her watch some of the less saucy bits of this. Which means I saw all of this. I suppose I maybe had a small chuckle. Maybe even two! They both revolved around McCarthy & her character’s friendship with Maya Rudolph. Those two are good together. I kind of feel the way I always feel about these sort of stupid comedies: it’s no more stupid than the stupid comedies with males in the lead roles. They’re equally stupid but the ones with female comedic leads receive unfair treatment that I’ll never understand. But I won’t get too far into that discussion within a review for this particular movie since, overall, this one is a bit shit. But McCarthy and Rudolph are fun to watch together. – 5/10
– Re-Watch: Single White Female – God, this movie is so shit. The acting is atrocious. Goddamn I thoroughly enjoyed re-watching this pile of shit all these years later while stuck in a hotel with nothing else to watch. This is the kind of cheesy thriller I was talking about in my Breaking In review. We had so many films like these in the 80’s and especially the early 90’s. I kind of miss these shitty thrillers with bad acting! Remember the movie Malice with Nicole Kidman & Alec Baldwin? That was early 90’s too. I loved that movie for some odd reason. Oh! And how about The Hand That Rocks The Cradle?! I kind of liked that piece of shit too. Man, early 90’s movies were crap. Anyway – Single White Female is kind of in the “So bad it’s good” territory. I love Jennifer Jason Leigh and her overacting here and Bridget Fonda’s, I dunno, underacting? Does she have any emotions at all? And how crap is this movie title? And who the hell doesn’t remember the high heels in this film?! Classic cheese. I kind of feel like giving this a slightly higher rating but can’t in good conscience do that… – 6.5/10
BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH
BOOKS READ
– The Woman In The Window by A.J. Finn – I read this as it’s being made into a movie starring my beloved Amy Adams. It’s a “cheesy thriller” like I was talking about in my Single White Female review (though not as much fun). It starts out great and I loved the mystery and trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Unfortunately, like most of these sort of thrillers (other than Malice!), this one kind of craps out in the end. Disappointing as I was pretty into the story while reading it. It felt a lot like when I read The Girl On The Train – It’s a real page-turner but, by the end, I felt pretty “meh” about it. It’s better than The Girl On The Train, however, since the characters aren’t hateful as hell. I also loved the Rear Window aspect to this (my favorite Hitchcock film) and how the character had a thing for classic black & white Hitchcock-like films (I’ve added some movies to my Watchlist thanks to this book). Overall, it’s a fun read. It’s slightly forgettable but should make for a decent enough film. Here’s the plot synopsis from Amazon: “Anna Fox lives alone—a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.
Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother, their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble—and its shocking secrets are laid bare.” – 3/5
Now Reading: (I’m in the middle of both of these – I’ll review them next month)…
– The Rats by James Herbert – I’ve actually never read a James Herbert book before, despite loving cheesy horror novels. Enjoying this so far. Pretty damn gruesome. Was this never made into a bad movie?! I’d totally want to see that…
– The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness – I started this book as it’s been made into a movie that was meant to come out this month but it’s now saying it’ll be a 2020 release. Not a good sign! I have to say, so far, I can’t see how they could easily make this into a decent movie. It’s also yet another YA dystopian novel (why can’t I stop reading this genre?!). Here’s the film’s plot synopsis from IMDb, which had me very interested: A dystopian world where there are no women and all living creatures can hear each others’ thoughts in a stream of images, words, and sounds called Noise.
TV SHOWS WATCHED (ranked best to worst)
– Kingdom – Again, have been too busy for TV so have still not watched this past the first episode. I really need to as I’m sure it’s SO much better than The Walking DREAD.
– Grey’s Anatomy – God I hate/sort-of-love this stupid show. I wish it would end so I could stop watching it.
– The Walking Dead – Fuck this show. Someone cancel this, please!!! I’m now forced to watch it to the end since I’ve wasted all these years on it! Help! I’ve fallen a few episodes behind, though – I hope they’ve killed off some more main characters.
BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH
No blog plans! But lots of March releases I want to see. 🙂 And I’m desperate to find the time to watch The Love Witch, which was on Film 4 last weekend.Thank god for one channel actually showing films beyond just the mainstream stuff…
– Captain Marvel – Saw it! Enjoyed it much more than I was expecting.
– Border – Saw this too. Huh. It’s odd as shit! I’ll review it at some point.
– The Kindergarten Teacher – Meh. I’ll wait for Netflix.
– The Prodigy – A shitty supernatural horror about a creepy kid? That’s so ME. But I’ll wait for Netflix since I’m sure it’s bad.
– Under The Silver Lake – Intriguing synopsis and from the writer & director of It Follows, which I loved. But the reviews are meh so far.
– Us – This looks intense. Looking forward to this (and hoping it’s better than Get Out, which I thought was just “okay”).
– Five Feet Apart – More YA romance crap. Sounds like The Fault In Our Stars. Barf. (I’ll totally watch this when it’s on Netflix)
– At Eternity’s Gate – Will check this out on Netflix for Dafoe’s Oscar-nominated performance as Vincent van Gogh.
– Lords Of Chaos – This sounds interesting as hell. Not had the greatest reviews, though.
– Dumbo – I’m SO sick of live-action Disney remakes. And how bloody AWFUL does Aladdin look from the trailer?! But I’m a hypocrite and will definitely go to this because, well, it’s Tim Burton and Dumbo looks cute as hell (those big blue eyes!).
– Captive State – When I saw the trailer for this, I thought it looked like it would either be a massive turd or massively awesome. The IMDb rating now suggests it’s a massive turd. Oh well.
There wasn’t a lot of great music in the movies I watched in February. I’ll end with a song featured heavily in Breaking In. It’s not normally my kind of thing but I do like this song. It’s a classic. And there’s something weirdly menacing about it, which is why it worked quite well in the film. I SWEAR this song has been used in countless other films. It’s perfect for movies…
Yes!!!! January is OVER! Okay – it’s been over for a while – I’m just behind on my monthly update as usual. I f*^king hate January. And I spent it watching loads of shit! WTF? So much for my resolution to watch fewer movies this year and to try to watchmore “quality” films. Pfft. Oh well. Let’s see what utter shit I wasted my time on during dark, dreary January 2019…
– Paprika – This is one of my 2019 Blind Spot choices so I’ll review it in full soon. It was okay but I didn’t love it. – 7/10
– Black Mirror: Bandersnatch – This was okay but it didn’t exactly change my life. I’m starting to wonder if I’m too damn picky (or bitchy) since a lot of people loved this film/game thingy. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been big on video games and this felt more like a game than a proper film to me.As far as the story goes, it’s weaker than a regular Black Mirror episode. The characters were fine but I didn’t care enough to bother trying out various different choices. Who has time to watch something multiple times?! I just read about the other options online afterwards instead. Apparently the ending I got is the hardest one to get to. Hmm. Sounds like the best one anyway. – 6.5/10
– Every Day – I kind of liked this. If I was honest, I’d put it above Bandersnatch but I’m always a little embarrassed by the fact that I still read & watch YA stuff. Guilty pleasure! I read the book last year (review HERE) because I loved the concept. Here’s the book synopsis from Amazon: “Each morning, A wakes up in a different body. There’s never any warning about who it will be, but A is used to that. Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere. And that’s fine – until A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone he wants to be with – every day . . .” This is one of those rare occasions where I think the movie is slightly better than the book. It’s very faithful to the book so it might be down to its star (the girl – played by Angourie Rice) being quite likable. I remember thinking she was great alongside Ryan Gosling & Russell Crowe in The Nice Guys, considering they’re big stars & she was unknown. Anyway, this is a simple & sweet teen romance with an interesting story. If you like that sort of thing, you’ll like this one.– 6.5/10
– Murder On The Orient Express – Had to check this out since I read the book in 2017 when I heard they’d be adapting it again (and that Daisy Ridley & Michelle Pfeiffer would be in it). It’s the first & only Agatha Christie book I’ve read (and one of the only crime/mystery thrillers I’ve read – I stick to horror and sci-fi). It’s a great story and I enjoyed the book but this adaptation was weak. The casting felt very wrong, although I like most of the actors in it. Johnny Depp was the worst. I loved him back in the Edward Scissorhands days. I want that Johnny Depp back! The movie also gets off to a very slow & boring start. It does pick up once they’re on the train (and the murder happens) but, if you’ve read the book and already know the conclusion, it’s not that exciting watching the mystery unfold. They managed to make a murder mystery very dull in this.There are some references to other Christie novels (I think), which fans will probably appreciate but which went over my head. If you love the book and the actors, you still might want to check this film out one rainy afternoon. But I’d definitely recommend the novel over this adaptation if you’re interested in the story. – 6.5/10
– 2:22 – This sounded so good from the plot synopsis on IMDb: “A man’s life is derailed when an ominous pattern of events repeats itself in exactly the same manner every day, ending at precisely 2:22 p.m.“Sci-fi weirdness! Totally my type of thing! But it has a really low IMDb rating and bad reviews. This wasn’t great but the reviews are way too harsh. The story was intriguing and a bit romantic if you’re into that. The execution of the story is far from perfect but the people calling it boring clearly haven’t seen that pretentious snoozefest Comet (a somewhat similar genre film involving two lovers). If you like full-on mind-bendy sci-fi weirdness, I highly recommend Coherence or Circle or Predestination over this. If you’re in the mood for more of a romance with a simple story that happens to have a small twist of sci-fi, you may like this one okay. I think I just have some weird thing for Theresa Palmer because I always seem to watch her movies even though she’s rarely in very good ones… – 6/10
– Roma – Okay… I’m one of those people who found this film boring. Very boring. Guess I just have no class. I’m sorry but I’m always 100% honest when it comes to my opinion on things and I never pretend to like something that I didn’t enjoy. I actually found it a chore to make it through this one and don’t know how I managed to stay awake. I was exhausted. I deserve a medal! It’s a beautiful looking film, I get that. Alfonso Cuarón is a great filmmaker and I think Gravity and Children Of Men are fantastic. But this? I don’t get it. I hated the family. The main girl was good (the family’s maid, played by Yalitza Aparicio, who is up for an Oscar). Not sure it’s an “Oscar worthy” performance but she’s the only sympathetic character in this. I still didn’t connect with her, though. That may be due to her lack of emotion throughout all that happens but you do feel for her character and want a better life for her. Roma isn’t a bad film, obviously. I just can’t see it sitting alongside Best Picture Oscar winners from the past, which are some epic, all-time classics. But I’d say the same for a lot of Oscar nominees from the past decade or so. The Academy is completely out of touch. I’d love to hear from people who genuinely enjoyed this, though. Honestly – I do want to understand what all the fuss is about. But I know that not one real-life person I know (I know no obsessive movie nerds like me) would like Roma, let alone be able to sit through the whole thing. – 6/10
– Dreamscape – This is another 2019 Blind Spot choice so I’ll review it at some point. Worst Blind Spot film I’ve ever chosen… – 6/10
– Unsane – This is that Steven Soderbergh movie he filmed on an iPhone. The gimmick doesn’t really work if the movie is boring, though. I wasn’t distracted by the iPhone thing but the story and characters were very weak for a Soderbergh film. He’s not a favorite of mine but this film is certainly no Out Of Sight or Ocean’s Eleven. Sex, Lies, And Videotape had far more interesting characters & dialogueand, for a film of his with a somewhat similar theme, I’d definitely recommend Side Effects over this. This is the first thing I’ve seen Claire Foy in and everyone raves about her but I can’t see why based on this film. That’s probably the fault of the film, though. I didn’t care about her character and whether or not she was crazy. But, hey – Juno Temple rips her tampon out in this & chucks it at Claire Foy so I guess it at least deserves an honorable mention on My Top Ten Period Dramas list… – 6/10
– Green Lantern – Why did I watch this?? I’m sick of superhero movies and this one is known to be bad. To be fair, it’s very silly but certainly not the worst superhero movie I’ve seen. I’ll be honest – I enjoyed it more than Man Of Steeland Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice. AsI always say, I prefer superhero movies to be fun instead of dark & dreary like those two. So. Meh. This was silly but Reynolds was fun. I’ve seen worse. – 5.5/10
– Pitch Perfect 3 – I won’t waste time saying much about this. It’s bad. Hollywood needs to stop milking the shit out of every idea. The first Pitch Perfect was fine. It was a fun concept and I got some laughs out of it (mainly thanks to the weird girl who whispers crazy shit and makes puke angels). There were very few funny moments in this one and a pathetic story. Time to move on! – 5.5/10
– Ghost Stories – Wow. This was boring. I normally enjoy horror anthologies and this sounded good on IMDb: “Skeptical professor Phillip Goodman embarks on a trip to the terrifying after finding a file with details of three unexplained cases of apparitions.” The overall story was pretty good, in a Twilight Zone type of way, but the individual stories were bog standard ghost/demon stories and the ways they were presented weren’t at all scary (I’m never a fan of seeing too much, especially when the effects & make-up look cheesy). And the “twist” ending, which was okay, didn’t make up for the previous almost hour and a half of cheesy, boring hauntings. Modern horror is so often a huge disappointment for me. – 5/10
– Bird Box – Ugh. I read the book by Josh Malerman (review HERE) and enjoyed it. Really good story only let down slightly by unlikable characters. I like Bullock but she was so wrong for this role. Not that it matters, I suppose, but the character in the book is half her age. Then the film changed the story so much until the very end. I don’t understand why films make changes when completely unnecessary and when it actually makes the story worse. This does pick up a little toward the end when the focus is on Bullock and the kids (and when it also isn’t straying so far from the book).Dreadful acting in this film, as well. Just read the book. – 5/10
– Winchester – Bloody hell. Modern horror really does suck. What an utter snoozefest this was. Again, it sounded so good on IMDb: “Ensconced in her sprawling California mansion, eccentric firearm heiress Sarah Winchester believes she is haunted by the souls of people killed by the Winchester repeating rifle.” How did they manage to make an intriguing story so damn boring? And what a waste of Helen Mirren (I like that saucy lady) and Sarah Snook (absolutely brilliant in the fantastic Predestination). To be fair, I was paying zero attention by the end since I was playing on my phone out of sheer boredom. Maybe I missed something that made this good? Unlikely since it’s up for a bunch of Razzie Awards, I guess. – 5/10
BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH
BOOKS READ (ranked best to worst)
I got these two short Stephen King novels for Christmas so of course read them immediately. I read everything King writes and I almost prefer his shorter stories to his full novels so I was excited about reading these. They’re fine but not his best.
– Gwendy’s Button Box by Stephen King & Richard Chizmar – Iliked the setup for this one. Here’s the synopsis from Amazon: “There are three ways up to Castle View from the town of Castle Rock: Route 117, Pleasant Road, and the Suicide Stairs. Every day in the summer of 1974 twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson takes the stairs, which are held by strong (if time-rusted) iron bolts and zig-zag up the cliffside.
One day, while Gwendy catches her breath and listens to the shouts of the kids on the playground and the chink of an aluminium bat hitting a baseball, a stranger calls out to her.
On a bench in the shade sits a man in a small, neat black hat. He offers Gwendy a mahogany box with coloured buttons. The buttons will produce gifts, such as chocolate which can make you slimmer. But he warns her that the gifts will be small recompense for the responsibility.”
I liked the character of Gwendy and am a sucker for a 70s or 80s time period plus I like a story that spans many years so I enjoyed reading about Gwendy as she grew up throughout this short novel. However, not a lot happens. There’s also very little horror, which was fine by me as I’m just as happy with King’s less horrific books but I can certainly see not all King fans loving this one. I loved the concept and had fun with the story and like that the title sounds slightly dirty. – 3/5
– Elevation by Stephen King– I think this one really won’t be loved by all King fans. Like Gwendy’s Button Box, it’s not exactly a“horror”. Again, though, I really liked the concept. A guy starts losing weight very quickly, although his outward appearance never changes andhis scales register the same weight even if he’s holding something heavy. I couldn’t wait to see where King was going with this odd story. Strangely, this felt more like a story his son (Joe Hill) would write. Hill does weird concepts more often than full-on horror. I love the style of both King & Hill. I maybe liked this one slightly more than Gwendy’s Button Box, actually – but I think that was a better novel overall. – 3/5
TV SHOWS WATCHED
None. Am thinking of starting on that South Korean zombie thing Kingdom on Netflix. Looks like something I’d like. Anyone seen it?
BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH
I’ll again try to review whatever I watch in the cinema. I’ll also try to review one of my Blind Spot choices (probably Paprika).
February Movie Releases:
– Burning – Not a February release but, dammit, I want to see this. It was showing in limited cinemas recently. I need to live in London!
– Destroyer – Looks okay but I’ll wait for Netflix.
– Can You Ever Forgive Me? – Was hoping to see this for its Oscar-nominated performances but don’t think there are enough showings.
– Escape Room – Cheesy teen horror. Can definitely wait for Netflix.
– How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World – Going to miss this now as there are too many other films I want to see. Will probably send the hubby & kid to this while I go to Green Book.
– If Beale Street Could Talk – Looks really good. Will try to check it out if I have time.
– Alita: Battle Angel – Seen this already. Really enjoyed it! Will try to review it soon.
– Boy Erased – Again, I’ll probably wait for Netflix. I can only take so many dreary dramas at once so I’ll focus on the ones up for Oscars first.
– The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part – Saw this as well so will also review it soon. Was disappointing compared to the first film, which I thought was great.
– Instant Family – Netflix film! Like most silly comedies.
– The Kid Who Would Be King – I seriously want to see this because 1. I really liked Joe Cornish’s last film Attack The Block and 2. Patrick Stewart!!!!
– On The Basis Of Sex – Another “wait for Netflix” film but I do really like Felicity Jones.
– Cold Pursuit – Well, I kind of wanted to see this for its sheer ridiculousness but didn’t know it’s based on a Norwegian film, In Order Of Disappearance, which is currently on Amazon Prime. Now I want to watch THAT instead!
Oh yeah! I always try to end these roundups with music from one of the films I watched. I forgot the very best thing about Bandersnatch: Tangerine Dream! YES!!! 🙂
Happy New Year, everyone! 2019. Holy shit. Well, I suppose I better post my December Roundup so I can finally get on with posting my 2018 Year End Top Ten Lists. I love lists!!!! I’ll be posting those the rest of this week. So first of all, here’s what I watched & read in December 2018.
*l’m going to sound grumpy in my reviews below since I’ve already reviewed the stuff I actually liked. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse was especially fantastic. Believe the hype! All my reviews are linked.
– The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society – This was my “Christmas present wrapping movie” this year. It wasn’t as much fun as watching Road House while wrapping presents – I’ll be going back to watching that one while wrapping next year. This was still a decent movie, though, and it continues to annoy me that Lily James is so damn cute. Here’s the plot synopsis from Wikipedia: “Set in 1946, the plot follows a London-based writer who begins exchanging letters with residents on the island of Guernsey, which was under German occupation during World War II.” I enjoyed the story and the characters were well developed and the romance worked well even though I don’t normally go for that sort of thing. Itprobably deserves a higher rating but it was still a bit too “chick flick” for my tastes. – 6.5/10
– Mute – Hmm. Okay – I’ve been meaning to watch this as I really liked Moon from Duncan Jones (plus he’s cool on Twitter and of course he’s David Bowie’s son and that’s awesome). But then it got pretty bad reviews so I waited. I can see why it got bad reviews. It’s certainly no Moon! The characters are really hateful (the main guy & his girlfriend were okay, I guess. And the young girl). The story was pretty silly and felt a bit pointless after how it ended. It felt like one of those movies where the director had a vision of the backdrop he wanted for the film then wrote a story around it, which didn’t really work. I did like some of the imagery and always love futuristic sci-fi so I didn’t totally hate the film. But I didn’t like it all that much, either. It’s a poor Blade Runner imitation. Overall, it was a big disappointment but I like that Jones got to make the film exactly as he’d wanted. – 6/10
– Thoroughbreds – This movie was pretty disappointing as well. I was looking forward to it after hearing comparisons to things like Heathers. I do like a good teen angst movie! Okay – people need to stop calling every angsty teen movie the next Heathers. Nothing will ever live up to Heathers or any of the other 80’s teen movies. Heathers was witty with some of the most quotable dialogue ever and fantastic characters. Thoroughbreds was mostly just boring, which I didn’t expect since the story revolves around the girls planning to kill someone. I do like both these actresses fine and it was good seeing Anton Yelchin again (R.I.P.) so, like with Mute, I didn’t totally hate this. It just felt a bit pointless and a little “up its own arse”. Just because a plot is a little dark, it doesn’t automatically make something a brilliant film. – 6/10
– Justice League – I finally watched this since I figured I better see it before watching Aquaman (which I really enjoyed!). Meh.I really can’t get into the DCEU movies, although I did like Wonder Woman & Aquaman. The Batman & Superman movies have been atrocious, though, and I can’t stand Ben Affleck. Like most superhero movies, this felt exactly the same as all the rest. Hell, I barely remember the stupid plot now and I only just watched this last week. These stories are getting boring as hell. However, Wonder Woman has a big role in this film and she’s easily the best thing about it. She saved the movie (somewhat). It’s far better than the Batman & Superman films, at least! But the MCU movies are still so much better overall. At least this one didn’t totally suck. – 6/10
– The Christmas Chronicles – Well, this was silly as hell but it’s the sort of thing you’d expect from a family Christmas movie anyway. And who (my age) doesn’t love Kurt Russell?? He’s still awesome, even when old and with hair like 70’s Kenny Rogers. I was a bit like “I kind of want to f*^k this Santa”. Is that inappropriate? I mean, he was in The Thing! The Thing rules. We need a Kurt Russell Santa movie directed by John Carpenter. It wouldn’t have had those dumbass elf(?) rat-looking things. As for this movie, it was fine other than those weirdass elf things. Well, I’m also not so sure about Russell singing the blues in prison (the hubby & I both pointed out a few times that they seemed to be influenced by Adventures In Babysitting for this movie). The movie would’ve been better with less cheese as the story itself, although a thoroughly predictable “dead parent” story, was suitably heartwarming for Christmas. The two kids were quite likeable as well. Can we just have a little less cheese in our Christmas movies?? It’s A Wonderful Life is heartwarming with very little cheese. And no stupid elf rats. – 5.5/10
– Amber Lake– This was one of those movies with a decent story idea but truly hateful characters. The low budget didn’t help either, I suppose. Actually, one of the Ambers was okay (Mekenna Melvin). The girls are all named Amber because their father is an asshole and you wouldn’t blame any of them for wanting to possibly kill him. The movie uses the Rashômon concept of telling the same story from different perspectives. But that of course worked in the hands of Akira Kurosawa as he was a genius and one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Amber Lake is no Rashômon! Obviously. Um… I don’t actually know what to say about this. Here’s the plot synopsis from IMDb: “Three half-sisters, after being invited to their father’s lake house to meet him and each other for the first time, are each questioned by a local sheriff to explain the events that took place leading up to the discovery of their father floating dead in the lake.” It’s on Amazon Prime in the UK if you’re interested but do yourself a favor & watch Rashômon instead. Or any Kurosawa film. To be fair, though, I’ve seen worse “horror” films (well, this is more of a “mystery thriller”) with much bigger budgets. I guess Amber Lake did have some potential and it had a decent ending. – 5/10
– Cam – I really need to stop trusting tweets from Twitter’s “horror community”. I’ve realized that they rave about every horrormovie no matter how good or bad it really is. Cam is yet another Netflix film that everyone thinks is great, probably because they get to watch it at home as part of their subscription, which is a lot easier than dragging your butt off the couch to go the cinema to watch something that’s actually good. Netflix is the new equivalent of “straight to video” in the Eighties. Anyway, after all my bitching I can see why this would have some fans (especially horny guys). And, yes – it’s an original story so I definitely give it credit for that in this day & age of sequels and reboots. It’s a good concept buthaving a thoroughly annoying character as its focus didn’t really work. I don’t want to hate all the characters in a movie – it just means that I don’t care what happens to them. To be fair, this movie did have a good idea and I think I’d have liked it okay if they’d gone about it differently. Plus the porn thing didn’t work for me, I suppose, since I’m a girl. Hey – whatever happened to Babestation in the UK? Is that still around?? I haven’t been channel surfing at 3am in recent years… – 5/10
BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH
BOOKS READ
– Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby – I like Nick Hornby & have read most of his books. The film adaptation of this came out a few months ago so I figured I better read the book before checking out the movie (Ethan Hawke is in it so I’ll be watching it at some point). The book was okay and very “Hornby” but definitely not one of his best. I like that there’s once again a music connection, as there often is with his stories. In this one, a guy is obsessed with an old rock star who had one big hit album then disappeared. His long suffering girlfriend (or were they married? I don’t remember!) ends up being contacted by the rock star after she posts a review online of his new album. Hey – I review stuff online! I’ve reviewed several Chris Hemsworth movies. Where’s my e-mail from him? Hey Chris – I’m totally up for a hot love affair! Anyway. Where was I? Oh, this book was fine but a little boring. The characters were weak compared to those in other Hornby novels but I sadly related to the pathetic guy in this & his obsession since I get kind of obsessed with stuff like that too. I mean, I obviously have a movie blog. The guy posted on a blog dedicated to the rock star. We’re obsessive nerds. Hornby does seem to write the “obsessive nerd” characters well. The book was a decent enough read but I didn’t love the ending. However, I do think it would make for a good movie so I’ll be watching that as soon as it’s available on whatever service. – 3/5
Currently Reading: Gwendy’s Button Box by Stephen King & Richard Chizmar
TV SHOWS WATCHED
Nothing. Well, Grey’s Anatomy. Ugh. And The Walking Dead. Ugh Ugh. Eagerly awaiting Game Of Thrones and Stranger Things!
BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH
I’m going to take it easy this month. I actually watched too many movies last year and plan to cut down on that as well. Fewer movies but hopefully better movies. Although I do enjoy writing a bitchy review, obviously. I’ll continue with these monthly roundups and will try to review the movies I see in the cinema. I also plan to continue the Blind Spot Project. I’ll post my 2019 choices for that next week after I finish posting my 2018 Top Ten Lists.
Upcoming Movies I Want To See:
As usual, January is a weak month for movie releases in the UK. Of the below, I’m only really interested in going to see Glass. The Mule & Green Book also sound decent.
– The Favorite – Will wait for Netflix. Not a fan of the director. Hated The Lobster.
– Welcome To Marwen – Really liked the plot synopsis for this but it’s had bad reviews.
– Colette – Looks like a good story but stars Keira Knightly. Yuck. So will wait for Netflix.
– Glass – The one film I’ll definitely go to, even though I’m not a huge fan of this trilogy. But I do like Shyamalan for the most part.
– Mary Queen Of Scots – Again, it looks okay but it’s a Netflix movie for me. I’m not big on historical dramas.
– The Mule – This stars Clint Eastwood so I can guarantee that my dad will be watching this one…
– A Dog’s Way Home – Actually, I’m likely to go to this as well. It’s a cute doggo story so I can guarantee that my daughter will be dragging me to it…
– Green Book – I really like the sound of this one and it’s had great reviews. If it’s shown near me, I may go.
There wasn’t a lot of music in the movies I watched in December (other than Mary Poppins Returns, obviously, but those songs were pretty boring). So here’s one of the best songs from Bumblebee’s overuse of 80’s music to shove all its Eightiesness in our faces. Tears For Fears are underrated.Mad World is one of the best songs ever. But they of course didn’t use that one in Bumblebee…
Happy December, everyone! Is winter over yet? Oh man – I’m mega late with this update & it’s now almost January. That’s even worse than December. Have I mentioned that I hate this cold & dreary time of year??? Well, here’s what I watched & read way back in November…
**I’ll try to review all the below 2018 releases in full later so I’ll only talk a little about the two I saw at home.
– A Star Is Born – 8/10
– Mirai – 7/10
– Ralph Breaks The Internet – 7/10
– The Nutcracker And The Four Realms – 6.5/10
– The Boat That Rocked (aka Pirate Radio) – I’d always wanted to check this out sometime as I find the pirate radio thing that happened in the UK fascinating. I love the spirit of pirate radio. Sticking it to corporate radio bullshit! And I’ve always had a thing for Pump Up The Volume (I think it was a teenage nerd dream of mine to be Slater’s anti-establishment pirate DJ in that). This movie was pretty bloody awful, though. Could they really not just make a movie based on the true story of pirate radio, which would be thoroughly interesting, instead of an overlong piece of fiction filled with hateful characters? What I find most fascinating, however, is just how much the world has changed in the ten years since this was released. This couldn’t be made in the same way now as there’d be a huge backlash due to how the female characters are portrayed (and a scene involving Gemma Arterton is rapey beyond belief). I have to get the hell off the internet sometimes when I see words like “woke” and “problematic” and I just want to puke. I’m Gen X and rude as fuck and offended by nothing so, if I found this movie slightly uncomfortable in 2018, I’m hoping that the people who use those words never check it out. I’ll say two good things about it, though: Philip Seymour Hoffman was really good and the soundtrack was AMAZING. Holy hell! Richard Curtis must have some serious connections to have gotten the rights to so many great songs for this film (I looked it up – there are 60 songs in the movie). It was actually worth watching for the constant background music alone. I’d say the movie somewhat captured the spirit of pirate radio’s love of good music and wanting to share it with others. It’s just a shame that a good movie about pirate radio wasn’t made instead of this silly one. – 5.5/10
– Slaughterhouse Rulez – 5.5/10
– The Grinch – 5/10
– Better Watch Out – This was an odd one. I was excited about this as I like a good Christmas horror comedy: Gremlins is an all-time favorite & I thought Krampus was a fun film. The marketing was strange for this… I got the impression that it might be another comedy horror such as Krampus but it’s nothing of the sort despite being listed as a “comedy crime horror thriller” on IMDb. Everything I read said to avoid spoilers for this so I’ll not say much about it other than that I absolutely hated the turn that this film took. As I said before, it takes a hell of a lot to offend me but I didn’t like the creepy way this played out. And, as always, I hate movies filled with hateful characters (though the girl wasn’t too bad). I don’t know. This has an okay IMDb rating as far as horrors go so clearly some must like it but I can’t for the life of me imagine who as I can think of no one I would recommend this movie to. – 4.5/10
BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH
BOOKS READ
– Bird Box by Josh Malerman – I enjoyed this horror novel. If you liked A Quiet Place, you’d probably like this story as well. In the book, people start going mad and killing themselves & others after seeing *something*. No one knows the cause so people start barricading themselves in their homes & wearing blindfolds at all times. I’d say the only negative was that I didn’t love the main character as she seems so cold & uncaring but it’s also completely understandable as this terrible new existence has made her that way. This has now been made into a Netflix movie starring Sandra Bullock and I have to say I hate the look of the trailer as it looks like too much has been changed (plus she’s very wrong for the role). I’ll check it out but I highly recommend reading the book first if you’re interested. – 4/5
– Ghastle And Yule by Josh Malerman – This was a short story hidden at the end of Bird Box and, oh my god, I loved it! I liked it so much that I tweeted the author (I never do that – I just felt the need to let him know I appreciated it). The story is about two rival horror filmmakers and I highly recommend it to lovers of filmmaking & especially classic horror filmmaking. The way Malerman describes each of their films in detail made them feel like real directors and actual movies I’d seen. Seriously – every movie described in this story needs to be made for real. Horror filmmakers are missing out if they don’t do this. At the very least, the story itself should be a film. – 4.5/5
– Stories Of Your Life And Others by Ted Chiang – I’ve only read two of the stories in this collection so far. I’ll try to review this once I’ve read the whole book.
Currently Reading: Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby – But I have to return it to the library and I’ve not finished it. Damn. Good so far. Typical Hornby.
TV SHOWS WATCHED
– The Walking Dead – Ugh. Why do I keep doing this to myself?! This show has sucked for years. It has sucked since Darabont left. And I never loved Rick but it’s completely pointless without him now…
BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH
No plans! Too busy with work. And stupid Christmas. I may try to review the 2018 films I’ve not yet reviewed. And I’ll do end-of-year Top Ten lists as always but that may be the first week of January.
December Movies I Want To See:
– Sorry To Bother You – Sounds like a “love it or hate it”. I do like weird.
– The Old Man & The Gun – Sounds like an interesting story but I’ll wait for Netflix.
– Mortal Engines – Damn, reviews aren’t great but I liked the book. Looks like it’ll be another “wait for Netflix” film.
– Aquaman – Meh. DC movies suck but he’s pretty damn hot so I might watch this one.
– Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse – Saw it. It’s brilliant! And I’m not a huge superhero fan.
– An Elephant Sitting Still – I know nothing at all about this but it’s a Chinese film with decent reviews (but probably too obscure for me to be able to ever see it easily). And I’ve just seen that it’s four hours long?! Huh. Ain’t nobody got time for that!
– Mary Poppins Returns – I’ll go as it looks like a lovely family film and I like Emily Blunt but I’m seriously bored with reboots and remakes and sequels and whatever.
– Bumblebee – Tickets booked! I’ll have seen this by the time this posts. Sounds like a fun family movie.
– Holmes & Watson – Could be fun. Could be shit. Will Ferrell movies are iffy.
**I’ll end with a song from the thoroughly disappointing The Boat That Rocked movie with the thoroughly fantastic soundtrack. I’ve always loved Crimson And Clover by Tommy James and the Shondells. I seriously always thought this song was about taking a girl’s virginity in the grass but I can’t find any evidence of this online and I’m now weirdly disappointed that there’s no actual meaning. This is from Wikipedia: “The title, “Crimson and Clover”, was decided before a song had been written for it. The combination of unknown meaning came to James as he was waking up, comprising his favorite color – crimson – and his favorite flower – clover.”
Starring: Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Tom Hollander, Mike Myers
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) Bohemian Rhapsody is a 2018 biographical film about the British rock band Queen. It follows singer Freddie Mercury’s life leading to Queen’s Live Aid performance at Wembley Stadium in 1985.
My Opinion:
This is one of those movies where I’m glad I waited a couple of weeks before reviewing it. If I’d written it while still on a “high” just after seeing it, I’d have rated it too highly. It’s a fun film. I like Queen and of course love Freddie Mercury (I did a list of My Top Ten Queen Songs HERE). Who doesn’t love Freddie?? He’s a legend and I miss the days when we had proper performers like him. And Bowie. (I’m still not over being upset about Bowie’s death either!). Anyway, this film was a lot of fun but it’s not going to be an all-time classic. It’s somewhat disposable and, while Rami Malek did well, it’s not an Oscar-worthy performance. I never really felt like I was watching Freddie Mercury. (Sorry!)
I can see that this film is similar to The Greatest Showman: audiences love it while critics have been harsh in their reviews. It’s easy to understand why it has fans. It’s great hearing all of Queen’s biggest singles and witnessing the creation of Bohemian Rhapsody was an absolute joy (whether or not it was accurate – I have no idea). And as a huge fan of Wayne’s World, I personally adored the fact that they had Mike Myers playing a record executive who hated their weird opera song. Brilliant.
Rami Malek may not exactly feel like Mercury but, to be fair, I don’t think anyone could ever do Mercury justice. Malek was still very good & fun to watch. I think credit hasn’t really been given to the rest of the band in the film, though. Gwilym Lee was especially good as Brian May. However, what I possibly enjoyed the most was seeing Freddie’s relationship with Mary Austin. I knew of her but knew very little of their relationship. I was glad that there was so much focus on her as she was such an important part of his life and I thought Lucy Boynton was great. Again, I think she’s probably not been given enough credit but, to be fair to Malek, it’s probably much easier playing a character who isn’t as well known as Mercury. I also liked her a lot in the fantastic Sing Street so she’s definitely one to watch.
I haven’t read any reviews so don’t actually know what negative things the critics are saying but I do know they like a gritty drama when it comes to biopics and Bohemian Rhapsody certainly isn’t a gritty drama. The movie feels very watered down. It’s a very “family friendly” version of the life of a rock band. Come on – where was all the raunchy sex?!?!? I don’t really mind when Hollywood movies do this, though. If you wants facts, watch a documentary or read a book about Queen. This movie is pure entertainment. As long as you know what you’ll be getting if you watch it, you should enjoy it if you like Queen’s music and just want to know a little bit about the band (but mostly Freddie). It’s a fun movie but not a great film. That was fine with me since I just wanted some light entertainment anyway.
My Rating: 7/10
I definitely have to end with the Wayne’s World clip…
Two quickie reviews for two 2017 movies that I finally saw. Then I’m going to focus on reviewing movies with at least one Oscar nomination (Kong: Skull Island has one nomination so I guess I’m kind of starting today). Next week I’ll review The Shape Of Water, Darkest Hour, and hopefully both Lady Bird & I, Tonya if I manage to see them after they’re released tomorrow. Oh, and tomorrow I’ll finally review The Greatest Showman (nominated in the Best Song category).
Good Time (2017)
Directed by Ben Safdie & Josh Safdie
Written by Josh Safdie & Ronald Bronstein
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ben Safdie, Barkhad Abdi, Buddy Duress, Taliah Webster, Necro
Music by Oneohtrix Point Never
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb) After a heist goes awry, a bank robber spends a night trying to free his mentally handicapped brother from being sent to Riker’s Island prison.
My Opinion:
Good Time is one of those films that’s quite good but soooooo extremely “indie” that there’s absolutely no one in real life who I could recommend it to. Only you movie bloggers! 😉
So it appears this was directed by two filmmakers who are brothers & one also does the writing while the other also does the acting (in this case, playing the mentally handicapped brother of Robert Pattinson). This is certainly no Twilight! It’s good to see Pattinson in something so different. He does very well in this as a complete fuck-up who clearly loves & wants to take care of his brother despite not knowing at all what’s actually best for him.
I don’t really know what to say about this. You’ll either like its indie style or you won’t. Stuff happens but it’s the meandering sort of storyline that’s so common in indie films. The way that Pattinson’s character does absolutely everything wrong when it comes to his choices in life was amusing. I liked his brother (played by director Ben Safdie) and you really can’t help but kind of want things to work out for these two bumbling criminals. Oh! But, more than anything, I really liked the electronic score done by Oneohtrix Point Never. I’m a sucker for a good score & I know that really helped me to like this movie a little more than I otherwise might have. It kind of brought It Follows to mind. A good score is very important, filmmakers! Well done Safdie brothers & Oneohtrix Point Never.
Based on King Kong by Merian C. Cooper & Edgar Wallace
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, Brie Larson, Jing Tian, Toby Kebbell, John Ortiz, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Shea Whigham, Thomas Mann, Terry Notary, John C. Reilly
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) Set in 1973, the film follows a team of scientists and a US Army unit recently withdrawn from the Vietnam War who travel to an uncharted island in the Pacific and encounter terrifying creatures and the mighty Kong.
My Opinion:
Speaking of good music in a film, Kong: Skull Island has this as well. This time, though, it was a kick ass soundtrack as opposed to the score (I can’t recall the score). The soundtrack was easily my favorite thing about this movie. What is it with Vietnam-era songs?? I love the angry songs from that time in history. Warning: I’m going to go off on a short non-movie-related rant here. Throughout history, the worst times for the human race have often resulted in fantastic music being made. People pour their hearts into their art during the most desperate times. So… Why does music FUCKING suck nowadays? Hmm?! The world is completely fucked up right now so where’s the great music as a result?????? I’ve wondered this for a while now.
Okay – let’s talk about this movie. It really kind of sucked. I hated it at first. I was mega tired & attempted to watch it & zonked out about 30 minutes in. I remember muttering something like “can’t they make a good monster movie….zzzzzzzz…..snore…….”. Then I tried again and still thought it sucked but kind of enjoyed it in a guilty pleasure sort of way. I think this was mainly thanks to (besides the soundtrack) John C. Reilly. Easily the best character. It took far too long to finally introduce him! No wonder I fell asleep the first time.
Oh. I suppose I should mention the monsters??? MonsterSSSS (plural). Was Kong not enough?! What’s with people these days? Never satisfied! I thought Kong was done quite well. And he was a far more developed character than all those random army guys who were there just to die in entertaining ways. Kong was cool – I think I could be friends with that dude. This movie really did improve in the second half (more Reilly & more Kong). So. I dunno. I enjoyed it yet thought it was a pretty bad film. Fun but bad. Like Road House! No. Wait. Road House is fucking awesome. That’s an 8/10 goodbad movie. Kong isn’t bad enough nor good enough to be goodbad. I’m making no sense. I’m mega tired again.
Awesome Vietnam songs! Black Sabbath & David Bowie! Holy shit! John C. Reilly great. Kong very good. Too many monsters spoil things (ONE other big monster to fight Kong is all we need). Rest of the characters extremely weak, especially all those random army guys. But I still always like having Samuel L. Jackson in a movie so that was a bonus. I enjoyed it more than Godzilla (2014). But I have to say that the best monster movie I’ve seen recently is definitely Colossal.
My Rating: 6/10
From the soundtrack: Time Has Come Today by The Chamber Brothers
Cinema Parrot Disco 