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Six Minutes to Midnight (2020)
Poorly Scripted, Badly Edited & Irrelevant...
An uneven and disinteresting tale providing a bounty of avoidances for prospective filmmakers to learn from as a troupe of ageing thespians make the most of their earnability.
Outside the Wire (2021)
A Pick n Mix Heinz 57 of a Mongrel Hybrid...
A contrived, combined, composite, amalgam that's conjoined, moulded, blended and merged then fused, coalesced, alloyed and formed to be plaited, mingled and married into a presentation so separated, split, apart and unoriginal you can tick off a ketchup full of genres, films or approaches just by observing one.
News of the World (2020)
Read All About It...
Ageing Hollywood thespian, once again performing as self, upstaged by 12 year old co-star in unoriginal and exasperating 19th century Texan tale that reveals how little has been learnt and how little attitudes have changed in the intervening years - especially when it comes to stereotypes, preconceptions and biases.
Synchronic (2019)
H.G. Wells on Acid...
... but it's a bad trip, mistimed and persistently incurable as 'The Time Machine' is replaced by a synthetic pill and a pair of modern day Morlocks demonstrate just how bad storytelling, filmmaking and special defects can be - couldn't even cast a decent rock!
Fatale (2020)
Foetal...
Conjured from the minds of those whose cellular brain activity has yet to form sufficient neural bonds to connect with reality this nonsensical piece of life delay will leave you hoping the end is imminent from take 1.
Pieces of a Woman (2020)
A Woman Fractured, Disintegrated, Through a Story Attenuated...
The lives of two people decimated with the loss of their newborn baby girl. Grabbing the viewers' attention from the off, as every parent's nightmare is lived out in graphic detail at the close of a thirty minute escalation that lays the foundations for a bridge to the unimaginable, a trajectory paved with chaos, veiled and shrouded in turmoil, suspended on tenterhooks as tense and as taught as Tacoma. With anticipation and expectation set, it's a little disappointing to find this resonance, once established and secured soon decays and rapidly fades, from the deeps to the shallows, as the story begins to mainstream with its contemporaries, as opportunity, empathy and originality are lost and the only structure left standing embodied through the performance of Vanessa Kirby, who will surely go on to much bigger and better crossings.
Promising Young Woman (2020)
Smashes the Proverbials Out of the Park...
An innovative and all too relevant take on the dish best served cold genre as Carey Mulligan represents all women in the fight against the craven and cowardly who take advantage of and prey on the vulnerable.
Pixie (2020)
Incoherent, Confused & Rambling...
... muddled, jumbled, pointless, disconnected, inarticulate and exceptionally disengaging and dull.
Nomadland (2020)
What's Remembered Lives...
... and in the end, all we have is what we remember. A thoughtful, contemplative and reflective piece of storytelling, riven and scored with meaning and significance, your interpretations uniquely your own. With outstanding performances all round, as sincere as any you will encounter in film, brought to life through great direction and translation with captivating, mesmerising cinematography,
Colectiv (2019)
Open a Can of Worms...
... and be overwhelmed by a machination of maggots. A jaw dropping, eye opening and almost unbelievable documentary focusing on the endemic and systemic corruption discovered by journalists after sixty four people died as a result of a nightclub fire in Bucharest 2015. Plumbing the depths of depravity, and continuing to reach deeper as each minute ticks by, you will feel for the people of Romania and the betrayal perpetrated against them by their elected officials and civil servants.
Ya no estoy aqui (2019)
Stranger in a Strange Town...
... even one called home; life in Monterrey becomes untenable for a young gang lead, stranded in deep water, unable to fight the tide, washed up in New York where the currents repel - all played out to an original soundtrack of Cumbia Rebajada and the passion for expression, identity and dance.
Mogul Mowgli (2020)
Necessities Laid Bare...
A film about conflicts, traditions, cultures and expectations as a second generation British Pakistani, having forged a career in music as an up and coming rapper, has his dreams shattered through illness and becomes affected by vivid reflections of his childhood, the competing demands of the old and the new, the curtailing of ambition, all consuming his fight for recovery. Riz Ahmed, once again, is outstanding!!!
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Wonder Colander...
Leaking like a sieve with plot holes aplenty as Film Editing for Dummies is dispatched to the cutting room floor and the opportunity to build on the previous excellent performances becomes a bit of a blunder.
Forrest Gump (1994)
Encapsulating...
... all that is, all that was and all that will ever be, through the life experiences of the titular character performed to perfection by Tom Hanks whose generous performance leaves us humbled and in awe of what we can achieve, how we can achieve it and why we would want that achievement in the first instance. A piece of cinematic storytelling that will perpetually resonate no matter who or what you are, where you are going or who you are going with - timeless.
Soul (2020)
Life Affirming, Every Minute of it...
There are times during the first quarter when you may believe someone's spiked your drink with an hallucinogenic as Disney's innovative way of capturing our entrance and exit to the world is developed but, as you will find, this is a film to get you thinking and, more importantly, thinking about yourself - reflecting so to speak. Delivered with the usual Pixar excellence, if this doesn't make you realise that tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life then rewind, pause and start again, because the message is universally important to all - and that includes you!!!
Sound of Metal (2019)
Profoundly Reflective, Original & Universally Relevant...
Taking the auditory experience of film to a brand new and original level, Riz Ahmed signs an immensely authentic performance as a drummer locked from sound without warning. The film builds around the way he learns to come to terms with the challenges his disability presents, through the discovery of who he really is as life, meaning and purpose graft perspective to his being. With a great supporting cast, this is a landmark piece of cinema making to be savoured.
The Midnight Sky (2020)
Robinson Clooney...
As futile a tale as any you'll encounter, produced by those who clearly failed to consult Space Exploration for Dummies, sees a hallucinating arctic hobo communicating with a returning spacecraft juggernaut that can be piloted on a casual basis by whoever takes the fancy since it's composed of an impenetrable exterior surrounding zero gravitass - just like the plot of the film.
Druk (2020)
Three Half Cut Sheets to the Wind get Kaylied...
...but a fourth gets soaked then wrecked. The male mid-life crisis crutch proves once again to be nothing more than an empty vessel, albeit a more than capable form of transport as it masks the wailing sirens from four close friends and sails them perilously close to jagged and rocky coastlines. The easy way out but the hardest way back in, and all because being human, sharing emotions, making the wrong assumptions, breaking habits, opening up and being courageous is so much harder than unscrewing a bottle top or popping a cork. A brilliant piece of cinema with some exceptional performances and direction - Skål.
Run (2020)
Misery in all but Name...
An innovative variation on a theme that will keep you engaged with some ratcheted tension buttressed through two excellent performances from Sarah Paulson and Kiera Allen. Does require the odd leap of faith and occasional suspension of belief but by no means the worst film from the genre you're likely to encounter.
Crazy Heart (2009)
An Aging Alcoholic Chain Smoking Ashtray...
... superbly performed by Jeff Bridges, who leaves you under no illusion of the self destruction and annihilation suffered and endured by such lost souls, as he chances upon a woman (he's got more chance of winning the lottery) in a not particularly interesting story that requests you to suspend your belief in reality in order for the relationship to exist - which is pure fantasy and completely devalues the experience.
WolfWalkers (2020)
Endearing Lupinus Loveliness...
With a story as touching, relevant and engaging as any you've encountered from a Japanese studio you may be familiar with, and similarly exquisitely hand crafted, you will devour, gobble, gorge, nay - wolf down this enchanting, endearing and captivating animation set in Kilkenny, Ireland during the times the countries neighbour was going through its despotic, tyrannical, dictator days (days not than long since passed if we're honest). Plenty of metaphor and allegory to sink your canines into but just as easily taken as a genuinely honest tale of right over wrong, good conquering evil and the perpetual endurance of love, truth and nature.
Le daim (2019)
The Curtailing of a Sacred Deerskin Hunter Gatherer...
Who knows what goes through the mind of a recently separated middle aged man, but if you want an insight into one such gentleman, one with a suede fetish (haven't we all in various interpretations of that word), a penchant for jacket genocide and an ever so slight psychological, psychopathic derangement, then look no further. Jean Dujardin plays an aging buck who impulsively scalps his way through events with the edited financial assistance of the ever elegant Adèle Haenel. Extremely gamy, an acquired taste perhaps.
Savage (2019)
Once Were Brothers...
At its heart, the cause and effect that traps and herds people into the margins of society where the rules of survival are warped back to hunter over gatherer times, peripheries the vast majority of populations are thankful to avoid and turn a blind eye to, ignorant that the marginalised are a product of our inhumane made false ecology. These are incarcerated people living perpetually imprisoned lives with opportunity locked, barred and barriered from them. A powerful piece of cinema that doesn't shy way from acknowledging the damage that can be caused to an individual when paternal, societal, and endemic neglect is allowed to culture. A culture that still permeates today, not just in the warrior lands.
Rialto (2019)
Lost and in a Lonely Place...
A middle aged married man from Dublin struggles to stay afloat as his life and relationships with others deteriorates, his knowledge of who and what he is becomes increasingly acute and the structures he's built his life around begin to cascade and tumble. The far from uncommon drink, depression and betrayal invariably plays out, albeit with a not so common betrayal perspective, which is the only piece of the story that really differentiates it from many things you've seen before. Fine performances compensate for the dot to dot editing, with the conclusion that what you have just seen is generally played out with a myriad of variations on the theme the world over - every day, every week, every year. You may well be playing it out now within your own variation.
Greenland (2020)
Allegorical Climate Change Comet...
The best I could conjure was the comet representing the destruction of the planet through climate change with the least deserving and wealthy, the founding fathers of the the climate crisis (they're all men), finding shelter and survival in, ironically, Green-land; probably because the AI that selected them and their haven was having a bit of a giggle (ha ha ha) - the reality, this film mocks its audience, no AI selection for you! Only D-List celebrities and above get that honour. And just to cherry the cake, the acting is as bad as it gets (even for D-Listers), the editing childlike and the effects not particularly special - and yet it's another American movie where the leading role is fulfilled and satisfied by an individual from the soon to be considerably less United Kingdom of Self Destruction - do ye have nae actors of ye own?