Bad Times at the El Royale is written and directed by Drew Goddard and concerns a lounge singer (Cynthia Ervio), a priest (Jeff Bridges), two young women (Dakota Johnson and Cailee Spaeny) and a vacuum salesman (Jon Hamm) all come to the El Royale hotel which is a Bi State hotel between Nevada and California but all is not quite what it seems.
I did not like this movie very much I’m afraid and have likened to calling it “Diet Tarantino” as a nod to Diet Coke for this movie so desperately wants to be a Hateful Eight type of movie where a group of strangers come to a secluded place, their stuck there and things get very twisty and turny about why their there and what they want to do.
And Quentin can pull off that kind of film as he is a great screenwriter that can blend jukebox soundtracks, extreme violence and snappy dialogue that balances the tones of being fun and serious and direct those actors in a way that really seems to bring out the best in them in his films Mr Goddard is not that kind of director and it really shows in this film as the extreme violence moments come out of nowhere and land with a thud (and I love MA15 violence) and the jukebox soundtrack and snazzy dialogue just feel very out of place.
And I loved the Martian in 2015 which Mr Goddard wrote but this feels like a major step back, now as for the performances Ms Ervio and Ms Johnson really shine best here as both of them get a lot of meaty screen time and develop their characters well as for Mr Bridges well he kinda just does the Jeff Bridges thing same with Jon Hamm but the biggest waste is Chris Hemsworth now I love this man and wish he would get some of the opportunities Mel Gibson got at the height of his stardom (Hamlet, Maverick, Air America for example) but I thought he was terrible here as this flower child hippie type of character who shows off his abs and I didn’t like him here.
And so that was Bad Times at the El Royale aka Diet Tarantino and in all honesty wait for the Classic Tarantino to come out next year with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, 1 out of 5.
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Thursday, October 11, 2018
Film Review - First Man (2018)
First Man is directed by Damien Chazelle and stars Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong the astronaut who would make history by being the first man on the Moon in July 1969 well this movie tells the tale of how he got to be on that Apollo mission and finally that history making Moonwalk.
First Man is a movie I very much enjoyed mainly due to Mr Chazelle’s craftsmanship which has come a very long way from La La Land last year which I merely thought was okay there is some beautiful visuals here by Linus Sandgren where he combines an old fashioned film feel with deep blacks in space and tight angles when the astronauts are in the various space rockets and capsules and the way he also uses the blacks, reds, yellows and blues in particular was very eye catching.
And also there is some truly brilliant sound design on show here so good that I want this movie to win the Best Sound Design Oscar next year (A Quiet Place should get the other Sound Oscars) there is some great uses of silence when the rockets and capsules are in space and some great rumbling on the mix when the rockets take off or when something goes wrong.
Both of these elements made this very worthwhile in the cinema and will really shine on the new 4K Ultra HD format.
As for the performances well Mr Gosling was fine but he was pretty much his usual self he does a good job for sure but dialogue for me isn’t his strong suit particularly when it comes across as a little clunky at times, Claire Foy is great as Janet Armstrong who is trying to have something of a normal life and raise her family while also having to bear the burden of someone who could become a widow at any time not to mention live with having already lost a loved one and her grace and dignity out front that conceals a private fever, rage and feeling of powerlessness is fantastic to watch.
It gives me hope that she can overcome my doubts about her as Lisbeth Salander in the Girl in the Spiders Web next month and also I enjoyed seeing Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler and Ciaran Hinds in their small roles.
But lastly if I have a complaint and I do its that this movie is too long, at 141 minutes there are times where this movie drags with some sections of the story going on longer than it feels like it does and during those moments I was checking my watch and with a trimming of 5 to 10 minutes it would’ve made for a great film.
And so that was my review of First Man, a film I really liked despite being a little long, 3 and a half out of 5.
First Man is a movie I very much enjoyed mainly due to Mr Chazelle’s craftsmanship which has come a very long way from La La Land last year which I merely thought was okay there is some beautiful visuals here by Linus Sandgren where he combines an old fashioned film feel with deep blacks in space and tight angles when the astronauts are in the various space rockets and capsules and the way he also uses the blacks, reds, yellows and blues in particular was very eye catching.
And also there is some truly brilliant sound design on show here so good that I want this movie to win the Best Sound Design Oscar next year (A Quiet Place should get the other Sound Oscars) there is some great uses of silence when the rockets and capsules are in space and some great rumbling on the mix when the rockets take off or when something goes wrong.
Both of these elements made this very worthwhile in the cinema and will really shine on the new 4K Ultra HD format.
As for the performances well Mr Gosling was fine but he was pretty much his usual self he does a good job for sure but dialogue for me isn’t his strong suit particularly when it comes across as a little clunky at times, Claire Foy is great as Janet Armstrong who is trying to have something of a normal life and raise her family while also having to bear the burden of someone who could become a widow at any time not to mention live with having already lost a loved one and her grace and dignity out front that conceals a private fever, rage and feeling of powerlessness is fantastic to watch.
It gives me hope that she can overcome my doubts about her as Lisbeth Salander in the Girl in the Spiders Web next month and also I enjoyed seeing Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler and Ciaran Hinds in their small roles.
But lastly if I have a complaint and I do its that this movie is too long, at 141 minutes there are times where this movie drags with some sections of the story going on longer than it feels like it does and during those moments I was checking my watch and with a trimming of 5 to 10 minutes it would’ve made for a great film.
And so that was my review of First Man, a film I really liked despite being a little long, 3 and a half out of 5.
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
Film Review - Halloween (1978)
Halloween is directed by John Carpenter and stars Jamie Lee Curtis as Lori Strode a young high school girl who is babysitting on Halloween night while also hanging out with her school friends but an evil presence has descended upon their night in the form of Michael Myers and Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) is the only one who knows how evil he really is.
Halloween is a very effective horror film that I found very refreshing to watch for three reasons:
- First is John Carpenter’s direction, score and screenplay also co written by Debra Hill the two of them really take the time to both develop the main characters, build up the menace of Michael and the dread of when he will strike and the way the 3 strands of the storytelling play out is well handled by Carpenter in his direction and though it can be a little long before the killing happens it is very well done and all the more shocking when it happens as it isn’t thrown at you in a cheap jump scare like we see so often today.
- Secondly the performances are really good here, Jamie Lee Curtis is effective as Lori both as a young girl in school and as someone who is thrown into this horrifying home invasion while also trying to protect the 2 children under her care, in many ways I was reminded of Linda Hamilton in the first Terminator movie an innocent girl living her life then caught up in a horrifying situation.
Donald Pleasance is also very good here as Dr. Loomis the doctor who tried to bring Michael back to sanity but failed and is now trying to make sure he doesn’t kill anyone else one scene he has with a local sheriff is really effective.
- And lastly Michael Myers is a terrific villain, he has no dialogue, no face save for that mask and yet he is so good at instilling terror and feat wherever he goes that when Carpenter is moving his camera around it instils this sense of dread and tension in regards to when and where he will strike next and this was so refreshing to watch as today he’d be another evil creature with some apparatus that is the subject of endless jump scares, quick cuts and LOUD NOISES ON THE SOUND MIX!
And so that was Halloween a really really good horror film that is highly recommend, 4 out of 5.
Halloween is a very effective horror film that I found very refreshing to watch for three reasons:
- First is John Carpenter’s direction, score and screenplay also co written by Debra Hill the two of them really take the time to both develop the main characters, build up the menace of Michael and the dread of when he will strike and the way the 3 strands of the storytelling play out is well handled by Carpenter in his direction and though it can be a little long before the killing happens it is very well done and all the more shocking when it happens as it isn’t thrown at you in a cheap jump scare like we see so often today.
- Secondly the performances are really good here, Jamie Lee Curtis is effective as Lori both as a young girl in school and as someone who is thrown into this horrifying home invasion while also trying to protect the 2 children under her care, in many ways I was reminded of Linda Hamilton in the first Terminator movie an innocent girl living her life then caught up in a horrifying situation.
Donald Pleasance is also very good here as Dr. Loomis the doctor who tried to bring Michael back to sanity but failed and is now trying to make sure he doesn’t kill anyone else one scene he has with a local sheriff is really effective.
- And lastly Michael Myers is a terrific villain, he has no dialogue, no face save for that mask and yet he is so good at instilling terror and feat wherever he goes that when Carpenter is moving his camera around it instils this sense of dread and tension in regards to when and where he will strike next and this was so refreshing to watch as today he’d be another evil creature with some apparatus that is the subject of endless jump scares, quick cuts and LOUD NOISES ON THE SOUND MIX!
And so that was Halloween a really really good horror film that is highly recommend, 4 out of 5.
Thursday, October 4, 2018
Film Review - Venom (2018)
Venom is based off of the villain from the Spider-Man comics and this time Tom Hardy stars as Eddie Brock an investigative journalist who is living with his girlfriend Annie (Michelle Williams) and is assigned to interview the head of the Life Corporation (Riz Ahmed) but when he pushes on allegations of bad behaviour he is fired from his job but one night a mysterious substance enters his body and unbeknownst to him gives him great power.
Venom was a movie that before I saw it I thought it would be great or it would be horrible and instead it is only ok nothing great but nothing horrible either, the film works best when Tom Hardy who is easy to understand this time after so many movies where no cared who he was unless he put on the mask is playing Eddie Brock the journalist someone who has a bit of a reputation that like in the Spider-Man animated series from the 90s conflicts with his superiors will go to any lengths to get his story, when those scenes were playing I was interested.
But when the Venom symbiote shows up and takes over the movie it becomes very cartoonish and at times it literally feels like a live action cartoon with the Symbiote CG effects having that very animated feel and it also doesn’t help that the storytelling starts to develop this dual identity of going from a serious investigative journalism story with this evil company (and Mr Ahmed is good in his scenes) to a cartoon with people flying everywhere and the predictable action scenes and climax and payback of the early scenes.
And its not that those scenes are bad certainly not but they just feel very disengaging and I just sat there kind of a bit bored by it all but not like with the new Predator movie where I just began to hate what I was watching but just feeling very eh and meh about it all and when you have a film like Split by M. Night Shyamalan from last year that did this kind of anti hero film so well this feels very very bland in comparison.
But hey at least Venom is done and we have Glass to look forward at the end of January next year and frankly watch Split instead of this movie, 2 out of 5.
Venom was a movie that before I saw it I thought it would be great or it would be horrible and instead it is only ok nothing great but nothing horrible either, the film works best when Tom Hardy who is easy to understand this time after so many movies where no cared who he was unless he put on the mask is playing Eddie Brock the journalist someone who has a bit of a reputation that like in the Spider-Man animated series from the 90s conflicts with his superiors will go to any lengths to get his story, when those scenes were playing I was interested.
But when the Venom symbiote shows up and takes over the movie it becomes very cartoonish and at times it literally feels like a live action cartoon with the Symbiote CG effects having that very animated feel and it also doesn’t help that the storytelling starts to develop this dual identity of going from a serious investigative journalism story with this evil company (and Mr Ahmed is good in his scenes) to a cartoon with people flying everywhere and the predictable action scenes and climax and payback of the early scenes.
And its not that those scenes are bad certainly not but they just feel very disengaging and I just sat there kind of a bit bored by it all but not like with the new Predator movie where I just began to hate what I was watching but just feeling very eh and meh about it all and when you have a film like Split by M. Night Shyamalan from last year that did this kind of anti hero film so well this feels very very bland in comparison.
But hey at least Venom is done and we have Glass to look forward at the end of January next year and frankly watch Split instead of this movie, 2 out of 5.
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Film Review - Christopher Robin (2018)
Christopher Robin is the newest Disney attempt at doing the Winnie the Pooh story but this time Ewan McGregor plays a grown up Christopher Robin who has long left the 100 acre wood behind and has a wife Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) and a daughter Madeleine as well as a job at Wombley Luggage which is having to make some hard cuts in order to survive which means staying behind while his family head away on holiday but when Pooh (Jim Cummings) comes to Christopher to find all of his friends the woods come calling again.
Christopher Robin sadly was very forgettable for me and that doesn’t make it a bad movie but one that didn’t really do very much to keep me interested as it was being projected in front of me but first off it is wonderful to hear Jim Cummings as Pooh’s voice as he brings so much heart and warmth and depth to that character that every time he opened his mouth to talk I was really enjoying his dialogue.
And also a lot of the other voices like Brad Garrett as Eeyore and Peter Calpaldi as Rabbit are great likenesses for the original voices from the Winnie the Pooh animated series where Peter Cullen voiced Eeyore for example and Chris O’Dowd who voices Tigger also really captures Jim Cummings’s Tigger voice very well.
As for the human performers Mr McGregor is good as the older Christopher Robin and Ms Atwell who was wonderful as Peggy in the Captain America films pretty much plays the concerned wife and mother role and she does a good job with it but part of me was wishing she was given something more to do and hopefully in the future she will get a great part to really sink her teeth into.
But alas this story just felt very forgettable for me and it plays out very much in that “What if Christopher Robin grew up” kind of way that I didn’t really find all that interesting I mean if your going to do a live action Winnie the Pooh movie it needs to be colourful and bright and fun to watch for a family audience here the adults might get something out of but younger children which should be an ideal audience for this film will just sit there bored by it all when Pooh and his friends aren’t on screen.
And so that was Christopher Robin a forgettable film for me I’m afraid despite some good performances, 1.5 out of 5.
Christopher Robin sadly was very forgettable for me and that doesn’t make it a bad movie but one that didn’t really do very much to keep me interested as it was being projected in front of me but first off it is wonderful to hear Jim Cummings as Pooh’s voice as he brings so much heart and warmth and depth to that character that every time he opened his mouth to talk I was really enjoying his dialogue.
And also a lot of the other voices like Brad Garrett as Eeyore and Peter Calpaldi as Rabbit are great likenesses for the original voices from the Winnie the Pooh animated series where Peter Cullen voiced Eeyore for example and Chris O’Dowd who voices Tigger also really captures Jim Cummings’s Tigger voice very well.
As for the human performers Mr McGregor is good as the older Christopher Robin and Ms Atwell who was wonderful as Peggy in the Captain America films pretty much plays the concerned wife and mother role and she does a good job with it but part of me was wishing she was given something more to do and hopefully in the future she will get a great part to really sink her teeth into.
But alas this story just felt very forgettable for me and it plays out very much in that “What if Christopher Robin grew up” kind of way that I didn’t really find all that interesting I mean if your going to do a live action Winnie the Pooh movie it needs to be colourful and bright and fun to watch for a family audience here the adults might get something out of but younger children which should be an ideal audience for this film will just sit there bored by it all when Pooh and his friends aren’t on screen.
And so that was Christopher Robin a forgettable film for me I’m afraid despite some good performances, 1.5 out of 5.
Film Review - Ladies in Black (2018)
Ladies in Black is based off of the novel Women in Black and is directed by Bruce Beresford and takes place in Sydney 1959 as the department store Goodes has hired some temp hands to deal with the Christmas/New Year sales period one of those is a young girl named Lisa (Angourie Rice) who befriends a European refugee named Magda (Julia Ormond) who also works at the department store, at the same time some of the other girls (Rachael Taylor and Alison McGirr) are going through their own problems and Rudi (Ryan Corr) wants to meet an Australian girlfriend.
Ladies in Black is a nice love letter to Sydney and to Australia of that time period somewhat, 59 was the 10th anniversary of Sir Robert Menzies’s time as Prime Minister and a lot of English and Europeans migrated to Australia to start a new life (one scene made me think of the 1984 film by Ms Sophia Turkiewicz Silver City which starred Steve Bisley) and the production design, costumes and cinematography do a nice job of recreating that period even if at times you can tell that archival footage has been used as it doesn’t quite match up with the photography of the sets.
At one point however and this is a brief aside Let it Snow plays on the soundtrack and all I could think of was Die Hard as to me that song and that movie are inseparable so I’ll move on.
Performance wise Ms Rice who really stole the show in the Nice Guys in 2016 continues to do good work and she really proves herself as a capable young actress and it was very nice to see after seeing her basically do a glorified cameo in Spider-Man: Homecoming last year, Ms Taylor really lights up the screen with her presence here and she reminded me a lot of that 50s starlet and she was good too, Julia Ormond and Noni Hazlehurst were pretty good while Shane Jacobson is his usual affable self and he gets a couple of good laughs.
All in all Ladies in Black is a nice movie with some good visuals and performances even if I wasn’t all that enthralled by it, 2 out of 5.
Ladies in Black is a nice love letter to Sydney and to Australia of that time period somewhat, 59 was the 10th anniversary of Sir Robert Menzies’s time as Prime Minister and a lot of English and Europeans migrated to Australia to start a new life (one scene made me think of the 1984 film by Ms Sophia Turkiewicz Silver City which starred Steve Bisley) and the production design, costumes and cinematography do a nice job of recreating that period even if at times you can tell that archival footage has been used as it doesn’t quite match up with the photography of the sets.
At one point however and this is a brief aside Let it Snow plays on the soundtrack and all I could think of was Die Hard as to me that song and that movie are inseparable so I’ll move on.
Performance wise Ms Rice who really stole the show in the Nice Guys in 2016 continues to do good work and she really proves herself as a capable young actress and it was very nice to see after seeing her basically do a glorified cameo in Spider-Man: Homecoming last year, Ms Taylor really lights up the screen with her presence here and she reminded me a lot of that 50s starlet and she was good too, Julia Ormond and Noni Hazlehurst were pretty good while Shane Jacobson is his usual affable self and he gets a couple of good laughs.
All in all Ladies in Black is a nice movie with some good visuals and performances even if I wasn’t all that enthralled by it, 2 out of 5.
Film Review - A Simple Favor (2018)
A Simple Favor is the new film by Paul Feig who made Spy and Ghostbusters and stars Anna Kendrick as Stephanie a mummy vlogger who makes friends with a woman named Emily (Blake Lively) and her husband (Henry Golding) but when Emily disappears Stephanie starts to suspect something is wrong so she decides to investigate her disappearance while also comforting her abandoned family.
A Simple Favor works best when Anna Kendrick is allowed to be the private detective so to speak and that element of the story is a lot of fun to watch as we rarely get a well made detective story on film nowadays most often they go to television now and it’s a real shame as a good mystery is always worthwhile on screen as you sit with an audience to discover the clues and guess who the killer is and then watch when all is revealed and you can piece it all together and Kendrick who was also very good in the Accountant in 2016 is good here as well.
As for Ms Lively she simply oozes sex appeal here with her sharp suits and statuesque posture in Mr Feig’s hand and on a couple of occasions she reminded me of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct the beautiful blonde with a mysterious story that keeps our lead guessing for the truth, she also has some really nice suits and a fuck it all attitude that sees Ms Lively really shine as an actress and she has been hit and miss for me but here like in the underrated Age of Adaline in 2015 she was quite good here.
And lastly Mr Golding hot off the success of Crazy Rich Asians is good here as well as the concerned husband who worries about his missing wife and caring for his son Nicky though I will say he does not have as much screen time as Ms Lively and Ms Kendrick do.
Where the film does fall over somewhat is that at times the central mystery gets a little too silly for its own good and while seeing it all come together is very satisfying it does during the course of the storytelling become a little too silly in a way that made me think “Okay how does this make any sense” but again it dances that fine line well enough in the end that I don’t really mind all that much.
And so that was a Simple Favor which is a fun detective story with great performances at the centre of it that make it worth watching, 3 and a half out of 5.
A Simple Favor works best when Anna Kendrick is allowed to be the private detective so to speak and that element of the story is a lot of fun to watch as we rarely get a well made detective story on film nowadays most often they go to television now and it’s a real shame as a good mystery is always worthwhile on screen as you sit with an audience to discover the clues and guess who the killer is and then watch when all is revealed and you can piece it all together and Kendrick who was also very good in the Accountant in 2016 is good here as well.
As for Ms Lively she simply oozes sex appeal here with her sharp suits and statuesque posture in Mr Feig’s hand and on a couple of occasions she reminded me of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct the beautiful blonde with a mysterious story that keeps our lead guessing for the truth, she also has some really nice suits and a fuck it all attitude that sees Ms Lively really shine as an actress and she has been hit and miss for me but here like in the underrated Age of Adaline in 2015 she was quite good here.
And lastly Mr Golding hot off the success of Crazy Rich Asians is good here as well as the concerned husband who worries about his missing wife and caring for his son Nicky though I will say he does not have as much screen time as Ms Lively and Ms Kendrick do.
Where the film does fall over somewhat is that at times the central mystery gets a little too silly for its own good and while seeing it all come together is very satisfying it does during the course of the storytelling become a little too silly in a way that made me think “Okay how does this make any sense” but again it dances that fine line well enough in the end that I don’t really mind all that much.
And so that was a Simple Favor which is a fun detective story with great performances at the centre of it that make it worth watching, 3 and a half out of 5.
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