Hamnet: Jessie Buckley is simply great, & beats as the heart of the movie.
I didn't hate the Shakespeare guy (who shares responsibility for Gladiator II!)
The whole thing is - seems intended to be - an emotional rollercoaster. At times it veers toward the mawkish or melodramatic. There's a big bunch o'cinematic tricks & loadsa allusion to 'The Bard's Works', & some rather overt telegraphy. Buckley, however, manages to dissipate this, maintaining a believable, sensitive affect throughout... her grief is raw, even savage, & demands an emotional response. Beautifully shot, fantastic score, & not really about Will.I.am.
I'll need to see it again to truly make me mind up!
28 Years Later - Bone Temple: I rather liked it... Jude not so much!
What happens when people become the monsters? & the monsters more human?
Jimmy & his fingers are all kinda culty, Mansonesque even: debased in
blind obedience, unquestioning belief, messianic acceptance, greed, & violence!
The movie has rather a lot to say about the fkd up world we currently inhabit, no?
Humanity can begin to rise again... care, intellect, & morality reassert!
Fiennes carries the load, but good performances abound - O'Connell having the
best time, Clockwork-Orange-styley! The big lad, Samson, was a big part!
Graphic gore, levity, & hope... a definite step toward the next one wi'Cillian back.
Sentimental Value: a beautiful ensemble piece, & great performances abound.b
No Other Choice: wonderful movie, starts out as a Kind Hearts & Coronets black comedy as a guy is blind-sided by redundancy, but becomes other things: an elegiac take on the threats & relationships in a despairing middle class family; a reflection on individual/society strained by technology, consumption, envy, & exclusion; a very Korean satire, that leads us humorously, but inexorably, to a dystopian now! Lee Byung-hun & Son Ye-jin brilliantly lead the film as Man-soo & Miri Yoo, a less than moral couple who one for roots throughout. The corrosive impact of competition, humiliation, & 'failure' in modern life stalks the narrative: to strive with honest effort & loyalty garners no reward; the permanence of hearth & home being potentially revoked by unseen bureaucracy. Yoo Man-soo ain't no Louis d'Ascoyne Mazzini, two murders are a bit shit, another he doesn't even manage - the bloke's wife does the dirty deed! The supporting cast are uniformly great - the kids, Si-one & Ri-one, deserving special mention. Cinematography, score, pace & wit of direction, drive the hugely engaging 2+hrs. Modern life is cruel & uncaring!
The Secret Agent: 'kin'ell this is a great movie! Wagner Moura is a revelation
The Bride: it's that Jessie Buckley again... chewing up the scenery, with Christian Bale masticating less monstrously alongside! A blackly comic Bonnie & Died, a weird joyride sparked by the acerbically fkd-off ghost of Mary Shelley. This is also a film about films, wi'loadsa allusion to & acknowledgement of movies across the early decades of cinema (tho' there's more than a touch of Heath Ledger's Joker in the Bride herself!) Chaotic, but hugely imaginative, & it looks friggin' marvellous.
I really enjoyed this, but do understand why some won't.... so much going on!
The Good Boy: weirdly engaging, if somewhat gruesome! Stephen Graham & Andrea Riseborough lead a wee cast that act the fk outa summat that could be a crass, steaming pile o'doggy's! Tommy, a nasty wee street thug, is kidnapped & subject to 'caring' rehabilitation by a very capable, connected, loving bloke, who is seeking to make whole his somehow 'damaged' family. Black satire & comedy underpin the action, which manages to get away wi'melodrama fully up the wazoo!
The ending is dampish in the squib department, as Anson Boon's raw, visceral unpleasant Tommy makes way for an emotional longing & spacefor 'heart & home'.
Glad I made the effort to drag my ass to this Clockwork Orange-y success.
Exit 8: not a gamer, so this is simply a movie for me... & a great evening's entertainment at that. The Lost Man finds himself a character in the nightmare parable of his drudge-filled life meeting the potential of his being partner & father: he just has to choose... but the parameters of such choice are myriad & unclear.
It is very Japanese: simple concept managed with sophisticated creativity; weirdly mundane; sparse yet intense... ultimately a consideration of modern urban lives of quiet, if acute, desperation! The corridors repeat, & repeat, & repeat; any anomalies must be spotted, any anomalies must be responded to whilst maintaining 'the rules'! There will be some interaction with other characters who seem equally stuck in this demanding, spartan matrix, & the 'healing' possibilities of relationship & family run quietly alongside the unnerving, harsh repetition. Hard to categorise, non-orientable as the Mobius, & none the worse for that.
Project Hail Mary: a big luxurious bowl of billowy, interstellar pudding!
A mash-up of the Martian & Enemy Mine, with Gosling, sorry, the lovely Ryan playing the Dennis Quaid role, & a cute crab-rock as Louis Gosset Jr.
Dressed as sci-fi, this is actually a buddy movie, that does lean into the nature & impacts of relationship, friendship, or lack thereof. Sandra Huller is great as the East German project lead, nowt but callous competence & drive to succeed (but Ry finds a chink in her heart - as he does with ours!) Pictures, sound, & score are fantastic; the science-y bits seem reasonable at the time (astrophages is sneaky bastards!) The whole thing was hugely enjoyable & fully engaging for a runtime of 2.5hrs+. Ryan saved universes & learned a lesson in love. We left w'smiles on us grids!
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