What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[BFTD]

3 hours ago, scottsdad said:

The wife and I have tickets for the cinema tonight. No idea what the movie is - it's a "secret screening". Taking a gamble that it's something good. 

We went to the Halloween secret screenings last night - turned out to be The Evil Dead and The Shining. Not great; not terrible either. Hadn't seen either on the big screen at least, and Evil Dead is a much different experience with loud screeching sound!  

I've never fancied going to the regular secret screenings as they don't even give a hint of genre. Imagine being a fan of light, frothy romcoms and ending up watching A Serbian Film (I'd like to believe this has happened to someone somewhere).

Also saw David Fincher's new Netflix film The Killer on the big screen. Fairly routine story about hitman Michael Fassbender listening to Morrissey all day, like all psychopaths. Plenty to like here, with Fassbender being his usual engaging self, slickly directed in Fincher's usual style, and an exceptional soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that adds spades of atmosphere to proceedings. There's also a tremendously brutal fight scene featuring a genuine lol moment. Enjoyed it a great deal, with the only criticism being that everyone's seen this story before, and there's no satisfying conclusion. Worth seeing in the cinema if you can, but it'll be on Netflix on November 10th.

[scottsdad]

4 minutes ago, BFTD said:

We went to the Halloween secret screenings last night - turned out to be The Evil Dead and The Shining. Not great; not terrible either. Hadn't seen either on the big screen at least, and Evil Dead is a much different experience with loud screeching sound!  

I've never fancied going to the regular secret screenings as they don't even give a hint of genre. Imagine being a fan of light, frothy romcoms and ending up watching A Serbian Film (I'd like to believe this has happened to someone somewhere).

Also saw David Fincher's new Netflix film The Killer on the big screen. Fairly routine story about hitman Michael Fassbender listening to Morrissey all day, like all psychopaths. Plenty to like here, with Fassbender being his usual engaging self, slickly directed in Fincher's usual style, and an exceptional soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that adds spades of atmosphere to proceedings. There's also a tremendously brutal fight scene featuring a genuine lol moment. Enjoyed it a great deal, with the only criticism being that everyone's seen this story before, and there's no satisfying conclusion. Worth seeing in the cinema if you can, but it'll be on Netflix on November 10th.

I've been told we're not going now, for 2 reasons. 

First, the weather is pish. 

Second, she googled Cineworld's Secret Screenings 1-8 and they looked terrible. I guess they have these as if they said what the movies actually were nobody would go. 

Wanted to do the Hallowe'en ones yesterday but couldn't make it. 

[BFTD]

8 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

I've been told we're not going now, for 2 reasons. 

First, the weather is pish. 

Second, she googled Cineworld's Secret Screenings 1-8 and they looked terrible. I guess they have these as if they said what the movies actually were nobody would go. 

Wanted to do the Hallowe'en ones yesterday but couldn't make it. 

Am I right that they're usually just a random film that was recently released?

Such an appalling idea, only for the kind of people with no real preferences other than being out of the house, and who don't watch films often. Imagine not only getting a shite film in a genre you hate, but one that you'd just sat through a week or two prior. Nightmare.

An elderly roaster turned up twenty minutes into Evil Dead last night, sat in the first row googling the film on their full-bright phone, before deciding it wasn't for them and fucking off again. That bullshit must be common.

[scottsdad]

1 minute ago, BFTD said:

Am I right that they're usually just a random film that was recently released?

Such an appalling idea, only for the kind of people with no real preferences other than being out of the house, and who don't watch films often. Imagine not only getting a shite film in a genre you hate, but one that you'd just sat through a week or two prior. Nightmare.

An elderly roaster turned up twenty minutes into Evil Dead last night, sat in the first row googling the film on their full-bright phone, before deciding it wasn't for them and fucking off again. That bullshit must be common.

 

Quote

It was a pleasant surprise at the Cineworld Secret Screening 3 with the Finnish horror movie Hatching directed by Hanna Bergholm and starring Siiri Solalinna, Sophia Heikkilä and Jani Volanen.

https://blazingminds.co.uk/review-hatching-cineworld-secret-screening-3/#:~:text=It was a pleasant surprise,Sophia Heikkilä and Jani Volanen.

[BFTD]

7 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

https://blazingminds.co.uk/review-hatching-cineworld-secret-screening-3/#:~:text=It was a pleasant surprise,Sophia Heikkilä and Jani Volanen.

That's nice. I see the last one was The Creator, which some branches are still showing anyway  

[accies1874]

And part 2 of the spooky season catchup:

47. Infinity Pool - Sky Cinema

I think this might be really good, but my head got so frazzled by the intentional absence of logic that it’s hard for me to say for sure. It’s that sort of nightmarish, or dreamlike, atmosphere that was every bit as gripping as it was frustrating for me. I also liked its depiction of privilege and the inescapable loop that the main character found himself in, something that I always find horrific, but I don’t have much else to say after just one watch.

48. Renfield - Digital Rental

Four million films crammed into one, which naturally means that some moments are great and some are mega dull. The brutality of the action was quite enjoyable, similar to why I enjoyed Evil Dead, in that it was so surreal that its intentions could only be for laughs, but that was by far the least interesting of the film’s many genres.

What I liked most about Renfield was what I think was the main hook of the premise; a character-oriented dark comedy about a man realising that he’s in a toxic relationship with Dracula. The therapy sessions with Renfield playing off against other victims was interesting to me as it did something that all of the best fantasy films do: it tells a personal story through the lens of something otherworldly. In this case, a character being in a toxic relationship with Dracula is ridiculous, and Renfield knows that, but the other characters in the meeting still understand his pain and offer him solutions to escape it, no matter how ridiculous Renfield and the audience may think it is, which ultimately sends out the positive message that other people can understand your pain and that you’re not alone.

There’s also quite a fun, albeit very stupid, police procedural alongside this, which sadly draws attention to how inconsistent the world of this film is. It’s sometimes a stylised setting with spooky neon interiors and streets – which is what you’d expect from this film – but then those settings get abandoned for more boring, natural cityscapes. I appreciate that that could be a depiction of Renfield’s journey out of his darker place and into the brighter locales (that’s obvious when it comes to his new apartment), but I’m not sure that was the whole intention given that it’s where some of the most brutal action takes place and is also the home to the bad guys’ lair. That kind of epitomised the film’s shortcomings in my eyes; taking something quite enjoyable and making it as generic as can be. The best thing about these scenes, though, was that they seemed to forget about the tacked-on voice-over which felt like an afterthought to spell emotions out for the audience.

49. No One Will Save You - Someplace on the internet

Had to resort to illegitimate means to source this, as, once again, it’s a straight-to-digital film that would’ve suited a cinema release, especially the first altercation which imo, sadly, was by the far the tensest scene in the entire film – only about 30 mins in. The gimmick - that there’s only about three words spoken in total - was really interesting to me and pretty much the only reason I sought this out, although I’m a wee bit unsure about its execution. On the one hand, I didn’t feel like I missed out on too much about the character or her situation (rather, the lack of dialogue told us quite a lot about her), but, on the other, Kaitlyn Denver’s grunts did become a bit unnatural at points, which drew attention to the gimmick rather than it playing out naturally. I suppose it should be looked at like a musical: characters just don’t speak in this film, just like characters happen to sing in a musical.

I was actually thinking during it that I couldn’t remember the last alien invasion movie I saw, but then I remembered Asteroid City from this year, Nope from last year and The Vast of Night from 2020 – all different variations on the genre, but this is much more of a committal to it. Aliens land, the protagonist fights them, there’s a threat to the world etc etc. That’s all wrapped up in this absence of dialogue and underdog story of an anxious outcast taking on aliens, so it’s definitely not a standard alien story, but it commits to a genre while still feeling quite fresh.

I wish it were more thrilling, and I’m still not all that sure about its resolution, but it’s relatively inventive and a bit better than some of the schlock within this genre.  

[Scotty Tunbridge]

On 30/10/2023 at 18:26, JustOneCornetto said:

(81) Missing (2023) – Sky Cinema

One of these films which uses the now popular trope of solving a mystery via digital methods. A teenage girl’s mother goes on holiday to Columbia with her new boyfriend but when she fails to return home the girl reports her missing but does her own investigating using various digital tools like live cams and hacking into her mother’s and boyfriend’s accounts. As she finds out more and more the backstory becomes extremely convoluted with a few twists and a major reveal near the end. Decent enough thriller to keep you interested. 7/10

 

My main thought after I seen this at the cinema as an ‘unseen’ last year was that it gave me a headache with how it was shot,

[Miguel Sanchez]

The Shining (1980) I had a funny idea where I would do one of these posts and list the three separate times I watched this and what I thought about it each time. After I watched it the first time I wasn't sure. I read about it and watched it again and still wasn't sure about it so I watched it again. It started to sink in by that point. Some things work for me and some don't. I don't really buy Jack as going crazy. He seems to resent his family even before they go to the hotel. He doesn't do much with them when they're there. Despite it being several years since I last saw it I just picture various scenes as the Simpsons Halloween special, so it's hard to say how seriously I can take it.

I think this is why I ended up watching it a few times. I wanted to watch it and see if I could see anything else. I think I did. I looked at the various posts in this thread from people who'd seen it and they mentioned the three characters and what they do. There's a fourth. The most successful character here is the hotel itself. It's so bright, it's so clean, it's so imposing, it's not... threatening in any way. It's too clean, it's too nice. So you wonder why. Then you watch Danny ride around on his tricycle and you realise every single corridor, wall, room, whatever, look like completely different buildings. It's horrible. So when the actually unsettling bits happen - Wendy confronting Jack after finding his writing, Jack chopping through the door, it ends up landing in a way I didn't think it would after repeated viewings and increased familiarity.

Is that the point? Is the cabin fever experienced by the caretakers rubbing off on me because I watched this a bunch of times? Maybe. That said, I don't think a lot of the music works well and I don't know what the guy in the bear costume is supposed to be. 

Midsommar (2019) Have you ever seen The Wicker Man? Did you think The Wicker Man would be improved by copious amounts of psychedelics, a bunch of annoying American millennials who don't or can't communicate and being a solid half hour longer than it ought to be? Well, here's a film for you.

The most unsettling scene in this is in the first five minutes when we see a murder suicide and the sole remaining family member's reaction. The rest is various things, according to the internet - a retelling of the Wizard of Oz, a break-up movie, a religious exploration. And I'm sure it is, but it's too long and only has one character who seems vaguely human. Any chance I had of taking this seriously evaporated during the, uh, fertilisation scene, where the guy who looked like a cross between Chris Pratt and Dougal from Father Ted experienced an encouraging choir during his fertilisation. I get the whole thing is supposed to be surreal, but this was just silly.

Titane (2021) A young French girl is in a car accident and ends up with a metal plate in her skull. She grows up to be covered in awful tattoos, be a serial killer, have sex with and be impregnated by cars, and steal the identity of a missing child to go and live with an aging fireman who regularly injects himself with testosterone to keep up with all his young, fit cadets. 

After having to read about the previous two films to understand them it was nice to watch something with subtitles. I actually had to pay attention and I understood this. It's obviously very weird, but it's an interesting depiction of various things - grief, identity, isolation, fear, and how much people are willing to lie to themselves to be happy. Enjoyable.

Under the Skin (2013) Scarlett Johansson drives around Govan in a van picking up men. I watched this a few years ago and couldn't take any of it seriously because it was Scarlett Johansson driving around Govan in a van picking up men. Oh there's my granny's house. Oh now she's up the town and she's driving around my university. I could genuinely be in one of these shots and never have realised. There she is walking up the Gallowgate. There she is on Sauchiehall Street on a Friday night. There she is being accosted by the local young team. There she is trying to drive through a crowd coming out of Parkhead. If you don't live in Glasgow substitute these place and street names for ones local to you and you'll understand my trouble. 

Once the shock of this wore of I realised how good this is. An alien takes the form of a woman and through her interactions with men exposes what it's like being a woman. Most of them are led by their penis. Some of them end up being nice so she runs away. It's hard to see a thing this film does wrong. It's very involved. It doesn't look like it was filmed on handheld cameras but there's still a real closeness to so many of the shots that you feel as much of an observer as she is. Maybe I'm just attuned to that because so much of the landscape and people are so familiar to me, but I don't think so. The setting feels real, the people in it feel so real the line between actor and genuinely unwilling participant is often unclear (except the obviously Glaswegian accented guy in a Hibs top, rookie mistake) and the genuinely unpleasant (in a good way) soundtrack makes the most familiar setting in the world to me feel like something alien. 

It's not often I'll watch two films back to back about not really human women trying to survive in an unfamiliar world, but this was a nice back to back. 

[BFTD]

Fall - a couple of spectacular narcissists get stuck at the top of a tower.

One of the most important elements of the survival film is that the audience needs to fear for the protagonists' safety. You want our heroines to escape from the caves in The Descent. You want the couple from Open Water not to get munched by Jaws. You're hoping that Sandra Bullock makes it back to Earth, or the blind sanctuary, or whatever.

Not so here; due to some dire acting at the start and a transparent plot twist nicked from The Descent, I spent this whole thing hoping the leads would all die.

Spoiler

It was deeply disappointing in that regard. Fucking useless vultures.

The second plot twist is gash too.

 

[MSU]

221 Halloween III: Season of the Witch -- This is a tough one to judge, even tougher than the Friday the 13th movies where they forgot to put Jason in. But it looks like I've ranked this better than Halloween II which I found a really mean-spirited affair made for the wrong reasons. Here, they try to anthologize the franchise which is a brave decision and may have worked if they'd had the strength to follow it up. Because they didn't, this will always feel like an odd outlier that doesn't really belong. It's a peculiar movie, not exactly awful, but pretty stupid and fairly dull until the end. Bonus points for trying something different, for the practical effects, and for that stupid wee tune that has been in my head for almost four decades. 5/10

222 Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers -- The studio seemed to realize that the best Halloween movie is the one that makes the most profit, so bring Michael back into the picture, put his name in the subtitle so no one is in any doubt, throw a few million dollars at it, and wait for the box office to light up. Considering the amount of damage Michael Myers took to his eyes in the first two Halloween films, I always thought it would've been more interesting if he was portrayed as blind here, bumping into potential victims and avoiding being run over in the street, but somehow lasting about an hour and a half before coming to a sticky end down an abandoned mine. I'll always think positively of this entry most because Danielle Harris is excellent as young Jamie Lloyd, in this timeline the niece of the Boogeyman. Her performance and the genuinely shocking twist in the tail make this worthwhile, and having a completely off-the-charts Dr Loomis, now with facial burns so we don't think Halloween II has been ignored completely, doesn't do it any harm either. 7/10

223 Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers -- At this point, I’m not convinced Loomis is or ever was a doctor. Danielle Harris, once more, does a far better job than anyone could’ve expected but this is just a bad movie. Taking the franchise down an overtly supernatural path seems to have been a decision made on a whim. This was not a great decision in 95 minutes of bad decisions. Like the comedy music whenever the bumbling cops appeared. Like Max the Dog barking for what felt like an eon. Like Jamie being mute and telepathic. Like Loomis being unreasonably angry at everything. Like no one in Haddonfield taking a vacation out of town in October. It couldn’t feel more like a Friday the 13th sequel if it tried. 3/10

224 Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers -- It would be amiss not to recognize that the Producer's Cut makes more sense than the original theatrical cut, but it would be considerably more amiss to suggest that this in any real way makes the movie notably better. Freezing Danielle Harris out of the film because she wanted decent pay is a further black mark against it, the Thorn cult idea was always a horrendous direction to take, and really the only positive thing I can be bothered to say is at least it didn't kill Paul Rudd's career, because it probably should have done. 2/10

225 Halloween H20: 20 Years Later -- I have a soft-spot for this sequel for a couple of reasons. It was the first Halloween movie I saw in the cinema -- the Leicester Square Odeon in That London where I was astounded that a movie ticket could cost £20 in 1998 -- and it was also such a drastic improvement from the pish that came before it. It's a post-Scream Halloween that's more authentic thanks to Kevin Williamson's involvement, evidenced in far superior production values, particularly after the opening sequence. This one cost more than the Jamie Lloyd trilogy combined and was the most expensive overall. The supernatural aspects are sensibly binned and the whole thing is just much better fun, with a genuinely tense finale, and seems to treat the legacy with reverence. Helped along with Williamson's input, Friday the 13th Part II director Steve Miner does a decent job moving the camera around a near-empty prep school, which proves to be a splendid location with lots of corners and shadows and a particularly cramped dumb waiter to play with. And despite all the new young faces on show, it's Jamie Lee Curtis's return to the franchise and the focus on Laurie that really makes this a Halloween to enjoy, so much so that we can ignore the Californian setting and the logistics of Michael traveling cross-country, especially when we get a bit of Janet Leigh and hat-tip to Psycho into the bargain, and LL Cool J's erotic fiction recitals to give us a smile when folks aren't being butchered. 7/10

226 Priscilla -- I expected more from the movie than this, either more about Elvis or, heaven forbid, more about Priscilla, but everything that's served up is more or less surface-level only. Boiled down, this is a movie about grooming and a movie about exploitation and a movie about human trafficking, so why then is it so unfathomably boring? We learn so little about Priscilla and Elvis is painted in incidental brushstrokes during episodes of his life where he is either going off to Hollywood, coming back from Hollywood, berating Priscilla's dress sense, berating Priscilla's opinions on music, drugging her, assaulting her, briefly attempting to rape her, until eventually he lets her leave him. Meanwhile, Priscilla is painted for 95% of the movie as non-existent unless she's around him. This seems like a dreadful waste. I found Cailee Spaeny's lead performance flat, unengaging, and oddly exhausted. Jacob Elordi as Elvis is a little better but very two-note with nothing in between and for me, he's a poor substitute for Austin Butler who at least held my attention. Sophia Coppola's direction is insipid and uninspiring with nothing much happening in the perifary to distract from the lack of anything happening in the focus. I get that if anything this is supposed to show the superficial nature of Elvis's fame -- he's shown complaining about the poor scripts or poor songs that land on his desk but never shown actually doing anything about either -- but the movie ends up caught in its own trap of resorting to a really dull, episodic way to tell its unnuanced story. I've read an awful lot of praise for this since I saw it, a bit of Oscar buzz brewing too, so maybe it's just me, but I've never wanted to scream, "WHY IS THIS SO FUCKING BORING?" as much in a cinema for a very long time. 3/10

[BFTD]

3 hours ago, MSU said:

WHY IS THIS SO FUCKING BORING?

"a film by Sofia Coppola"

[MSU]

2 hours ago, BFTD said:

"a film by Sofia Coppola"

Yeah, that detail didn't escape me.

[BFTD]

8 hours ago, MSU said:

Yeah, that detail didn't escape me.

I love Halloween 3 BTW. Grown on me a lot over the years.

Pointless fact: it's leading man Tom Atkins' then-wife who's killed in the motel room while he's banging a much younger woman next door. Saw an interview where he seemed to find that quite amusing.

[accies1874]

H20 is definitely my favourite Halloween sequel for pretty much all of the reasons pointed out, though I don't like its lack of Halloweeny atmosphere. 

[accies1874]

50. Cat Person - Cinema

I wasn’t gonna bother with this until I listened to Kermode’s review, as it’s been getting panned most other places but he sold me on it. It’s about a female college student, Margot, who gets chatted up by this kinda-weird 33-year-old guy, Robert, at her work in the local cinema, which then spirals into awkward uncertainty about dating in the 2020s. To sum it up with references to other recent films, it’s like the opening section of Barbarian spread across two hours, with the politics of Promising Young Woman and the mystery of something like Burning or Watcher, so while that all might seem a bit unoriginal, mashing them together actually works really well.

Strangely, despite not being a horror whatsoever, it was actually quite a good film to watch on Halloween night (though Silverburn was very much in Christmas mode), as there’s a creeping paranoia to the dark streets and salvation in the cosy interiors, especially at Margot’s work in the cinema. She also gets occasional visions of Robert brutally murdering her, but they gradually get toned down to become much more sympathetic which plays into the female guilt about saying no. It seemed to me that she started out so anxious that he’d murder her that, when that doesn’t transpire, she slowly settles on him because ‘well, at least he didn’t murder me!’ which provides an insight into Margot’s mind. The whole film really puts you into her frame of mind (one scene in particular) and is a good depiction of the quote that the film starts with. It’s essentially all about the power dynamics of a modern relationship in its infancy.

While that might sound a bit boring, most of it is spent being an enjoyable ‘will they, won’t they’ somewhat-romantic comedy – just with the lingering threat that the man might actually kill her. It’s funny, particularly when it comes to picking apart a certain kind of dude, and I reckon it’s a better script than Barbie when it comes to tackling similar themes about ingrained gender imbalances. I wasn’t sure about its two-hour runtime both before I saw it and initially while watching, but the way that the narrative progresses, and the fact that so much of it is about observing the two leads within a situation, meant that it was earned – it feels long but not boring in the slightest.

Perhaps the biggest criticism I’ve seen elsewhere is about the final act, but, while there were a couple of story choices that I didn’t like and iffy execution, I thought it mostly remained true to what came before and was a natural conclusion to that. It was probably the weakest part of the whole film, but it wasn’t enough to make me dislike it. I subsequently listened to the short story it's based on - also called Cat Person - which I expected would retrospectively colour my view of the film given how many critics said it paled in comparison to the source material, but nah, while it shifts the genre a wee bit and removes some of the ambiguity (but not all), I thought that the majority of the additions made for a more enjoyable story. It’s definitely one that I’ll watch again – hopefully next time half of my screen won’t be out of focus (thanks again, Cineworld!).

The title’s also fun too: Cat Person is like a tag on a Tinder profile and it’s up to the person reading the profile, in this case a woman, to try and discern what exactly that tells you about a person and why they chose to brand themselves with it. It encapsulates the overthinking that goes into these scenarios, which is essentially the crux of the whole film.

51. Killers of the Flower Moon - Cinema

This was all about the three lead performances for me. Seeing Leonardo DiCaprio portray this completely pathetic character was really enjoyable and pretty bold for a bona fide star who only appears in a film every few years to choose a role so passive and submissive, especially as I think this role would typically be given to a younger actor but using someone older was much more effective imo. He's beholden to his uncle, Robert De Niro, as they (or De Niro) try to find a way to get the Native American money into their pocket. DiCaprio needs to sell his relationship with De Niro and his relationship with his wife, Lily Gladstone, as he is right in the middle of what I thought was the central idea of control vs nature. De Niro's the idol, DiCaprio's the fool and Gladstone's the heart of the film - she managed to convey her arc just through her face. Through all of its ideas, characters and its lengthy runtime, it's those three performances that my mind keeps coming back to. 

It's also impressive that Scorsese can continue to find new ways to tell a rise-fall story, especially one that concerns an aspiring criminal. 

Edited November 6, 2023 by accies1874

[accies1874]

I reckon that before this year, the only 3+ hour film I'd seen in the cinema was The Return of the King (which I barely remember seeing), but that's now four this year with Babylon, Beau is Afraid, Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon. Someone earlier in the thread said that it's better to see something of this length in the cinema as your mind's more likely to wander at home - which I agree with - but it's still a lot to get through. Thankfully I haven't hated any of those four, and there's plenty to love about each of them. 

[DeeTillEhDeh]

The Marvels - 1/10 - absolute pish.

[MSU]

227 The Persian Version -- There was plenty in this I enjoyed, and some I enjoyed a great deal, but at its heart it's a story about a mother and daughter who don't understand each other but then do, and we've all seen that plenty of times, haven't we? Added to this, there's an immigrant story and that's something I think I'll always find interesting, particularly when that's between countries such as here with Iran and the US. Layla Mohammadi plays Leila, the only girl in a large family of boys, and the movie somewhat deals with her trials as a gay woman in New York while trying to negotiate a difficult relationship with her mother who seems to think that every action Leila takes is with the express purpose to hurt her, such as falling pregnant to a one-night stand. When Leila's dad has to undergo a heart transplant, she's sent out of the way under the supposed guise of looking after her grandmother, but there she discovers some family secrets that pull apart her understanding of her own life and relationships before putting it all back together again in a better order. Writing that out, though, suggests a linear narrative and scenes that kind of gel together but the actual movie is far more distracted than that. We flit from subject to subject, even jumping perspective now and again, and we don't always return to get any closure. The sections that deal with her own childhood, traveling back and forth between the US and Iran with Cyndi Lauper tapes smuggled in her underwear are probably the sweetest. The sections with Leila and English father-to-be Max interacting with her family are probably the funniest. Where the movie fails, though, is in its reluctance to close any of the circles it begins to draw. Leila's ex-wife is barely drawn, her own career as a filmmaker and writer seems to only exist to excuse her writing poignant lines in Final Draft, and it all does a disservice to the stories it *really* wants to tell. That said, it closes strongly in what should've been a pretty obvious manner but still surprised a tear from my eye, and it would be a stonehearted individual who came away not wanting to call their mum. 6/10

228 It's a Wonderful Knife -- Proof, if ever that it was needed, that despite Totally Killer being a great slasher version of Back to the Future, Happy Death Day being a great slasher version of Groundhog Day, and Freaky being a great slasher version of Freaky Friday, not every movie can be turned into a great slasher version of [INSERT MOVIE HERE]. The problems with this really stem from the hoops the story has to jump through to make the It's a Wonderful Life aspects work, and even then, the main thrust just doesn't add up. We should know who George Bailey is in this, we should know who Clarence is. We don't. And I don't think anyone involved in the movie knows either. Title first, movie second. Not helped by a script lacking in charisma and soul, Jane Widdop is a bit of a Dollar General version of the leads in the movies mentioned above. She plays high-schooler Winnie, who stops a serial killer in her seemingly idyllic town of Angel Falls, and in doing so saves her brother's life. One year later and she hasn't moved on and resents the rest of the town and her family who have. She mutters a wish during the northern lights that she had never existed and bo and lehold, that's exactly what happens and in her new reality, her brother died, her parents now hate each other, and the town is a very different place. With the help of the school outcast, Bernie, she has to fight against time to get back to her previous life. To be honest, I didn't expect it to be very good, but as it came from the pen of Michael Kennedy -- who did such a great job with Freaky -- I expected fun. The editing is just dreadful and cuts out the kills as if it's a PG-13 movie which leads to some question marks over continuity and flow, and the movie's most creative kill moments come in the first ten minutes which leads to issues of a lack of suspense and build. By the end, it feels like no one is quite sure what they're doing anymore, there's a bizarre shift in tone and direction, and the whimpering end just confirms the dryness of the ideas well. Joel McHale phones his performance in from a neighboring state, William B Davis is shamefully underused and dispatched early doors, and Justin Long is the only person who genuinely seems to be enjoying himself. It's just a shame that this isn't a slasher version of When Harry Met Sally as it would've made my choice of "I'll have what he's having" closing line make much more sense. 2/10

229 The Killer -- This really could have gone either way and I imagine there being quite polarizing reviews that are going to be based on how compelling people find Michael Fassbender, how forgiving they are of David Fincher, and how they deal with subject matter that for very long stretches is boring. In my review of Tar, I wondered not for the first time if it is ever okay to be purposefully dull, and I think the first chapter of The Killer, set in Paris ahead of an assassin taking out his mark, really tests that hypothesis and I have to say, for me, it worked rather well. The movie centers around Fassbender's assassin character and the ramifications of a botched job but rather than cut out all the preparation work, or the stakeouts, or the contemplation, or the hours where nothing happens, Fincher decides to focus on that and it becomes a meditative day-in-the-life where The Killer narrates his mantra to us, or runs through series of seemingly loosely related statistics. Fassbender's depiction of this character is somehow more detached than the android he played in Prometheus, and I can get how this deliberate one-note performance won't work for everyone, but as someone who enjoyed the first 126 pages of American Psycho, I liked it quite a bit. Fincher relies on Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to score this character study but it's less noticeable here as instead we're bombarded with Smiths hits from across the years, making me wonder if this is what a Smiths jukebox musical would look like. An eight out of ten for me, but really anything between three to nine would be difficult to argue against. 8/10

[Mark Connolly]

On 10/11/2023 at 19:57, DeeTillEhDeh said:

The Marvels - 1/10 - absolute pish.

Just seen it.

I’m marvelling at how shite it was. Down there with Eternals, Batman and Robin, and Howard the Duck in the all time comic book movie list.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

1 hour ago, Mark Connolly said:

Just seen it.

I’m marvelling at how shite it was. Down there with Eternals, Batman and Robin, and Howard the Duck in the all time comic book movie list.

My expectations were low but it didn't even reach that high.