What I thought of… Late Night, Ad Astra, Joker #movie #review

Watching more TV at the moment? Me too. In fact, I could really do with some recommendations! Nothing too heavy or ‘apocalyptic’ – we’ve got plenty of that going on in real life. But at the same time, nothing too ‘lite’.

For instance… I can thoroughly recommend Late Night starring Emma Thompson. Don’t be put off by the relative low IMDB score (6.5) – this is a fun, charming, surprisingly sophisticated comedy, that is somehow more than the sum of its parts. Trailer at the bottom of the page.

In the meantime, here are a couple of other movies I’ve seen in recent weeks

Ad Astra

The other night I settled down in front of the TV, to watch Ad Astra. In space, so they say, no one can hear you scream…. of boredom.

Thing is, I’d been looking forward to seeing this movie for months. What’s not to like? It stars Brad Pitt. An excellent actor. He produced it too. So it has “high production values” – and it’s about space!! That should have been enough to put it right up there with The Martian, or 2001, or Apollo 13… but someone, somewhere forgot to hire a bloody screenwriter to come up with a decent plot, and develop characters we actually care about. Instead what we’ve got is a movie that’s trying to be beautiful, and worthy, and intriguing, and failing on all counts. It’s another Solaris (both versions), or Gravity (yeah, yeah, I know some people love that movie).

Worse still, it’s one of those movies that starts ‘okay’, and keeps promising to get better, and keeps failing to do so, until it has successfully robbed you of two hours and left you with nothing but a pile of plot-hole related questions, and the desire to watch SOMETHING decent, ANYTHING, before you go to bed.

So yeah. Didn’t like it.

Joker

I’ll be honest with you, in these scary ‘apocalyptic’ times, maybe Joker wasn’t the *best* choice of late night evening viewing. It’s dark.

Very, very dark.

That said, it’s also rather brilliant.

I have a love-hate relationship with superhero movies, but as the film started there was a distinct lack of DC Comics branding. Yes, this is, technically, a film about the character from the ‘Batman’ Universe, but that’s almost incidental, bordering on the irrelevant. Because at its heart, this is a film about a man suffering from acute mental illness, in a society that’s all but given up on him. And we watch, as this sad, scarecrow of a man – a victim – begins to fight back, and take control of his destiny. Though probably not in a way that his therapist would approve of.

Robert DeNiro makes a rather unexpected and welcome appearance as a chat show host. There are some excellent plot twists along the way, and the occasional nod to the Batman Legend (for instance; the age old question of who actually killed Bruce Wayne’s father and mother in that alleyway).

As the credits roll, there’s definitely potential for a rather interesting sequel, and whilst sequels are nearly always a bitter disappointment, I still find myself hoping they make one.

Got any movie recommendations for me? Or indeed TC shows. Post a comment below.

Meantime, here’s that trailer I was telling you about.

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What I thought of…. Passengers #movie #review

So I finally got to see Passengers.

I originally wanted to see this movie at the cinema because, from the trailer at least, it looked like my kind of flick combining two of my favourite subjects in fiction; science & technology, and romantic relationships.

But then the reviews started rolling in and every one I dared to glance at suggested that the film, whilst good, was also a disappointment – specifically ‘the ending’. And the last thing you want to feel as you walk out of the cinema is ‘disappointed’.

So I bumped Passengers to my ‘when it comes out on DVD’ list, and yesterday, finally, it made it to the the top. And can I just say… what film were those reviewers watching!??

Firstly, it’s not quite the lovey-dovey, explodey-wodey, romance-in-space slash adventure-popcorn-fest that I thought it would be. It’s quite a lot smarter than that. It starts funny, moves to heartwarming, but half way through the film I found myself nervously biting my nails and genuinely wondering if the so-called unsatisfactory ending was going to be a lot darker and more sinister than I would have liked. It’s a movie that doesn’t want to fit comfortably in one genre.

I won’t spoil it for you, but here’s the back-of-the-box blurb (or at least, how I would have written it) because the trailer, whilst good, is REALLY misleading: Jim Preston (played by Chris Pratt) is one of 5000 passengers on a 120 year one-way trip to Earth’s newest, and most distant, colony. But when the ship (on auto pilot) encounters unexpected problems, a computer malfunction results in Jim – and just Jim – being brought out of hyper sleep 90 years too early. After a year of going steadily out of his mind trying everything he can to either wake the crew, or figure out how to get back in his pod, he comes to the conclusion that there are only two remaining options: Jettison himself out of the airlock without a spacesuit, or wake someone to be his companion, thereby condemning someone else to a similar fate.

It’s brilliant: Cracking performances throughout, fabulous special effects, completely believable and most importantly of all… a fantastic plot. INCLUDING the ending, which in my mind was just perfect. Honestly, I don’t see how it could have been better.

But maybe you disagree. Post your thoughts in the comments below – including perhaps the ending you would have liked to have seen.

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What I thought of… Money Monster #movie #review

You know when you add something to your Love Film list and then it arrives and you’re all like, ‘why did I order this?’, and the DVD kind of sits in your living room for days and days, sometimes weeks, until eventually you force yourself to give it ten minutes!? No? Just me then?

Anyway, that’s what happened with MONEY MONSTER. Despite having George Clooney in it, I had zero desire to watch the film and almost put it back in the post unwatched.

There were two things putting me off.

Firstly it has Julia Roberts in it. Now don’t get me wrong, Julia Roberts is a very accomplished actress. Every film I have ever seen her in was, I admit, good. Sometimes it was very good. But there’s something about the woman I find off putting. There’s a part of my psyche that says she’s a wrong-un, and this is despite having seen her in interview several times where I have been shocked to notice how nice she seems.

The second off putting thing about this film is the poster. What does this say to you? To me it says this is a film that’s gritty, hard hitting, devoid of humour, and probably difficult to get your head around – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because The Big Short is really hard to get your head around, but totally worth the effort, whereas this looks like it might be 90 minutes of your life that you’ll never get back.

How wrong I was.

It’s marvellous. Just marvellous. Directed by Jodie Foster (I wish I’d realised that whilst i was agonising over whether to watch it), it tells the story of what happens when a disgruntled amateur share dealer decides to storm onto the set of a popular money-markets TV show and wielding a pistol, and a vest lined with explosives, demands ‘justice’ for losing his life savings on the stock market due to the poor advice offered by the show’s host, Lee Gates (George Clooney). The NYPD hostage guy turns out to be completely incompetent, and it’s down to TV Producer Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) to direct the show of her career.

It’s gripping, funny, believeable, thought provoking, and above all hugely enjoyable. And as Jodie Foster says in the DVD extras, it’s the sort of film that has you talking long after the final credits roll.

Have you seen it? Feel free to let me know what you thought in the comments below.

What I thought of… Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them #movie #review

It’s been a while since I did a ‘what I thought of’ blog post, so yesterday – as part of a Boxing Day – I toddled off to the cinema to see JK Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Now, I probably ought to mention at this point that I’m not a huge fan of the Harry Potter films (though I read the first three books before they started making the movies). The films are okay. I mean, I’d happily watch two and three again anytime, the others… well they were a bit of a yawn fest. Especially the last one. IMHO. Sorry about that.

*This* on the other hand was an absolutely delight, and if it had been twice as long I’d have sat there as happy as a pig in muck.

Interestingly, as I left the cinema, I came to the conclusion that although it doesn’t seem like it at the beginning, the whole film is a little light on plot. Sure, there’s a big swirly thing tearing up New York, there are magical monsters running amok, there’s a small group of stern looking people who’ve just about had it up to here with the Witch/Wizarding community, and there’s a non–magical person caught up in the middle of it all… but… well… it’s not quite as involved as it may appear. There’s the odd *twist* but you can see them coming a mile off (and I speak as someone who was genuinely surprised by the ending of Sixth Sense when everybody else I know seemed to think that was obvious from the beginning). But it doesn’t really matter; the characters are lovely, the dialogue is tight, the effects are amazing, and the magical creatures are fabulous – it’s all good. I look forward to the next one.

But what did you think? Have your say in the comments below.