NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on March 2, 2021
Lucky starts with a premise that’s slowly growing more familiar with every passing usage of it. May (Brea Grant) is a self-help author living with her partner, Ted (Dhruv Uday Singh), and having what could be considered a relatively comfortable life when suddenly a man breaks into their home.
Continue reading “Lucky (2021) – Luck Repeats Itself”
Released: 20th January
Seen: 14th February
Telling the story of the life of Princess Diana is never going to be easy, in part because she was one of the most well documented human beings in history thanks to the paparazzi who were ultimately implicated in her death but also because her story is ultimately one of utter tragedy, she’s a Disney Princess who was overwhelmed by the harsh reality and eventually torn down by the very glamorous lifestyle that nobility promised.
Continue reading “Spencer (2022) – Better Than The Musical”
NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on February 16, 2021
The world of social media fame is… weird, to say the least. Some people require years of training in a specific skill in order to get fame, other’s can just look pretty and do a good smokey eye and get a million Instagram fans. That second one would describe Mia (Daisye Tutor), a social media ‘celebrity’ with a huge number of followers and a very specific brand that she puts forward to those followers.
Continue reading “Shook (2021) – Much More Interesting Than Its Title”
Released: 31st December 2021
Seen: 13th February 2022
In 2006, the Italian novel La figlia oscura by Elena Ferrante was released. Eventually translated in 2008, the book got the English title of The Lost Daughter. This year at the Oscars the film adaptation of this would only receive three nominations, two for acting and one for the screenplay which honestly feels like a lot less than it deserves but considering the material, they’re definitely the best categories for a film like this.
Continue reading “The Lost Daughter (2021) – Found It”
Released: 3rd February
Seen: 11th February
In August of 1969, there was a series of riots in Belfast that started a 30 year conflict colloquially known as “The Troubles” or the Northern Ireland Conflict. Without going into detail (cos I suck at history), the short version is that it was effectively a civil war between Catholics and Protestants that made life hard for those caught in the middle… one of those people was a young Kenneth Branagh who was only 9 when his family left Ireland and moved to England in order to escape from The Troubles.
When you live through something like that and grow up to be an influential filmmaker like Kenneth did, it feels inevitable that you might turn that period of your life into a film at some point and with Belfast, Kenneth did exactly that… so god it’s going to be awkward to say I’m on the fence on this one.
Continue reading “Belfast (2022) – Bel-slow”
NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on February 8, 2021
Released: 19th November, 2021
Seen: 11th February, 2022
Well, the time has come for one of the more interesting months of the year, that being the month where I desperately try to catch up on all the Oscar-nominated films that I somehow missed because they all seem to be released around the time the nominations come out. No idea how this is going to work for this year, hopefully, we’ll be able to get through everything but that’s why you’re going to see a whole bunch of 2021 films being reviewed fresh in 2022… fortunately, the first cab off the rank is the absolutely brilliant documentary Summer of Soul (…or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised).
Continue reading “Summer of Soul (…or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021) –”
NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on February 2nd, 2020
Driving home from a night with some friends, Babak (Shahab Hosseini) and Neda (Niousha Noor) become too tired to finish the trip home and so, with their young infant in tow, the couple decides to take a room at the Hotel Normandie for the night so they can sleep off the exhaustion and alcohol. However, the Hotel Normandie is not as peaceful as they would hope and soon their night becomes overrun by assorted strange things that seek to drive them apart and force them to reveal the dark secrets that have caused a rift in their relationship to begin with.
Continue reading “The Night (2021) – A Blatant ‘The Shining’ Double”
NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on January 5th, 2020
Some video games are simple enough that you would think that they shouldn’t be that hard to adapt into a movie. Monster Hunter might have a lot of lore, but when the core mechanic seems to be “Kill a big monster then use parts of that monster to help you kill an even bigger monster” then that basically demands you make a fun Kaiju movie with lots of discount-Godzillas being poked with large pointy things. This shouldn’t be too hard to make at least mindlessly watchable… unless you hand it to the guy who drove the Resident Evil franchise into the ground, then you might have an early contender for the worst film 2021 has to offer. (Edit note: It wasn’t just a contender, it won one of those spots)
Continue reading “Monster Hunter (2020) – A Failure of Godzilla-Sized Proportions”
NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on December 10th, 2020
I’m sure we’ve all seen a few science fiction films before that have used the same old trope. A scientist has a great invention, they can’t get anyone else to be the test subject so they test it out on themselves and the ensuing chaos is caused by the experiment going horribly horribly wrong. It’s a trope for a reason, it works and it often leads to an interesting character in the form of the scientist and can also lead to a devastatingly emotional ending (think of The Fly remake for a prime example of this). I love a good story of a scientist being put through the wringer because of their own hubris and Minor Premise presents an interesting version of this story, albeit one that’s a little more heady than most.
Continue reading “Minor Premise (2020) – Extremely Slow in the Payoff”independent and curious
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