Movie reviews
Spotted at Leicester’s Phoenix last night. This has done more to make me want to see the movie than literally anything else.
And then there is this, which frankly sums up most of my life from late childhood to adulthood.
movies
Top 10 favourite films of the decade
Note that these are (mostly) not what I consider the BEST films of the decade. Honestly I don’t even get to go the movies all that much, so the best ones I might not have even seen. But they are the ones that made me the happiest.
Like my favourite TV shows of the decade list, this is in alphabetical order and packed with aesthetically pleasing gifs for your viewing pleasure.
10 Cloverfield Lane
My GOD this film. It was claustrophobic, creepy, gnaw-your-own-arm-off terrifying… and a FANTASTIC power fantasy. Michelle, the protagonist of this film, quickly became one of my favourite sci-fi heroines ever. She suffers a lot of trauma during the movie, unimaginable things (but nothing graphic/titillating/male-gazey) and comes out the other side swinging. Then she downs an entire alien spaceship using nothing but her wits. God I love her and this film so much. I could write essay after essay about female empowerment as portrayed in this flick.
Detective Pikachu
When I was a child I dreamed they would one day make a Pokemon live-action film, and they DID, and it was better than I ever imagined. It was sweet, it was funny, it was packed with references to the Pokemon lore (Pokelore?) that would have gone over most people’s heads but was included anyway, and Bill Nighy was in it. I loved this film so much and I can’t wait to show it to my future children.
Ghostbusters
Okay here goes: I never saw the original Ghostbusters. I never saw the sequel movie either, or any of the cartoons. Why’d I like this so much then? Well… honestly… because it was all women. Funny, smart, main-character women, the mere existence of which apparently drove some people into teeth-gnashing mania. And that was it. That’s enough, right?
The Greatest Showman
It stills surprises me that this film got such bad reviews on release. Audiences apparently disagreed because not only did it get really high audience ratings it ALSO made a ton of money AND everyone I’ve ever shown it to liked it! I know some of the songs within it ended up massively overplayed (especially This Is Me, thanks a bunch Simon Cowell) but when you see them being performed in the movie they really do seem raw and real and touching.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
I have absolutely no idea if GOTG2 is a good movie or not and honestly, there’s a part of me that doesn’t even care. It fills me with such insane joy every time I watch it. I love the friendships between all the main characters, I love Yondu’s redemption, I love how the music ties into the story, I love Baby Groot. And I especially love how the film is mostly about different forms of abuse and how we all have it within ourselves to overcome them.
Les Miserables
Les Mis is a very good movie, but it’s actually on this list not so much for itself but because its existence introduced me to the book, which transpired to shape my entire life. That being said I do really mean that it’s a very good movie (and quite faithful to the book as well it turns out), it thoroughly deserves to be on everyone’s Best of the Decade list. Don’t be put off by the fact that Tom Hooper’s next musical was Cats.
The Lego Movie
I wasn’t expecting much from The Lego Movie. Was anyone?! I thought it was a cheap, cynical cash grab. MAN was I wrong. Instead it was an amazing story about the power of imagination and the importance of childhood. The final speech (“You are the most talented, most interesting, and most extraordinary person in the universe…”) is one of my favourite speeches in any movie, ever. It makes me think of a parent talking to a child and it captures the spirit of Lego perfectly.
Mad Max: Fury Road
Is there anything to be said about Mad Max: Fury Road that hasn’t already been said? It’s been called the greatest action film of all time, a feminist masterpiece, one of the best movies of its era… and all the people claiming those things are 100% right. I don’t think it’s technically perfect but it’s damn close. And special-effects wise it’s a staggering achievement. (All those people REALLY WERE climbing poles on motorbikes, holy heck.) I hope it’s celebrated for years to come.
Pacific Rim
I love Pacific Rim not because it’s a bonkers, brightly-coloured monsters-vs-robots movie (though that definitely helps) but because how utterly adamant it was that teamwork, collaboration and in some cases love would help humanity save the world. God, the whole movie seems like a relic from a totally different time, doesn’t it? The less said about the sequel the better.
Paddington 2
Apparently Paddington 2 is the highest-rated film ever on RottenTomatoes, and despite what you think of RottenTomatoes the site (I personally am not a fan) HOLY HECK IT DESERVES IT. This is a children’s film about a cute teddy bear who lives among humans and loves marmalade sandwiches and somehow it was more hard-hitting, beautiful and poignant than a lot of the “serious” movies released the same year. Hugh Grant deserved an Oscar for playing such a fantastic baddie/hilariously exaggerated version of himself. The whole damn film deserved an Oscar. (As it happened, The Shape of Water won that year. They got the wrong Sally Hawkins Forms A Relationship With A Non-Human Character Resulting In An Emotional Underwater Scene film.)
Honourable mentions: (my god there are a lot) Toy Story 3, Avengers: Endgame, Black Panther (most of the MCU honestly), The Rise of Skywalker, Belle, Their Finest, Big Hero 6, Frozen II, Aladdin, Batman vs Superman (yes really), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the entire Hunger Games series, SO MANY
A Movie Meme
I found this prompt meme at coffee, classics, & craziness and I’m joining in! Yay!
Rules:
#1 Use a different movie for each prompt
#2 Add photos and/or explanations of how your choices fit the prompts
#3 Tag a few friends to play along
Let’s see what we got.
1. A Partridge in a Pear Tree — movie that involves agriculture
OH NO. Okay… Hmm. WAIT! My husband just HANDED ME the most obvious answer. The Martian, a space movie which I love, all about a guy who survives on Mars by growing potatoes. (It’s much, much more interesting than I make it sound there.)
Home to a really good line about humanity and the world:
“Every human being has a basic instinct: to help each other out. If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it’s found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don’t care, but they’re massively outnumbered by the people who do.”
2. Turtledoves — movie about a long-lasting relationship
Back in 2007 this movie ripped my heart out, stamped on it, put it back in, then kicked it upwards through my brain and out my head.
I speak of course of Atonement, the tale of a doomed romance and some beautiful, beautiful dresses. In the end, Robbie and Cecilia can’t survive World War II or the British class system. (Yeah, the British class system, not Briony, is the villain of this story.) But Briony ensures via her writing that they have a long-lasting relationship anyway, and I cry.
3. French Hens — movie that takes place in France
Okay, it’s a toss-up between two movies here, both based on works by Victor Hugo: Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables. And… despite the fact that it has virtually nothing at all to do with the book… I think Hunchback juuuust takes it, because it’s a gorgeous, interesting, progressive-for-Disney film, and I love it.
I can’t even choose one shot from this movie so just have the opening one. And hey! The titular church didn’t burn down this year! It’s still there!
4. Calling Birds — movie where people talk on the phone
Okay, I’m gonna stretch the definition of “phone” a bit here and show you something from The Phantom Menace:
Qui-Gon’s space phone (commlink, sorry) is actually a Gillette Ladies Sensor Excel Razor, or a close approximation of. THIS MOVIE COST 115 MILLION DOLLARS. I love it.
5. Golden Rings — movie with multiple romances
There could only ever be one choice here.
I’m sorry I knoooooow Love Actually probably isn’t really all that great as a movie and it’s so cheesy and corny and up-itself but I love it. It’s like a warm Christmas hug. (And I don’t even really like Christmas, so…)
6. Geese A-laying — movie with a birth or that features babies
So before there was Baby Yoda, there was this equally adorable fella:
And I think his presence is enough to qualify Guardians of the Galaxy 2 as a film that features babies. No births though, unless you count the birth of a god or the birthing chamber stuff on the gold planet or various “rebirths” of characters. Wait… GOTG2 is surprisingly birth-metaphors-heavy actually. Who knew.
7. Swans A-swimming — movie where someone goes swimming
Okay, so maybe this isn’t so much “someone goes swimming” as it is “someone tries to swim and nearly drowns” but…
I can still remember the music from that bit in Fellowship of the Ring after all this time. My god, the last quarter of that movie kicks all kind of ass and tramples on my feelings, I love it so.
“I made a promise, Mr. Frodo. A promise. Don’t you leave him, Samwise Gamgee. And I don’t mean to. I don’t mean to.”
8. Maids A-milking — movie with cows
Okay, this can only be Children of Men. (A film that I very nearly put at #6.) Why? At the film’s pivotal moment we get this beautiful, striking scene featuring a whole lotta cows.
I think it’s meant to be reminiscent of Mary in the manger. And I love it so much. Please watch Children of Men, it’s so harrowing but so good, it’s amazing, I promise.
9. Ladies Dancing — movie with a dance scene
AM I GONNA DO IT? YEAH I’M GONNA DO IT. I’m gonna put Spider-Man 3 in here. Yes, that one.
But not for that dance scene… or even that one. You know the much-derided ones I mean. The one I like is this one:
Harry Osborn (in his various incarnations) is my Second Favourite Fictional Character Of All Time, and Mary Jane is pretty high up the list as well, so it was nice to see them have a moment of happiness before one of them dies. Honestly, that’s it. (I unapologetically love Spider-Man 3, even if only for Harry. I admit it. I’m sorry. No wait, no I’m not.)
10. Lords A-leaping — movie about athletes
Aw dang… I’m not good at this genre. But I do really like Noel Clarke’s Fast Girls and no-one else seems to have seen it, so I’m putting it here. I really need to watch it again actually. It suffers from Unnecessary Forced Heterosexual Romance In An Almost All-Woman Film Syndrome but eh, what doesn’t.
(Yeah, the Noel Clarke from Doctor Who. And yes, that is a pre-mega-fame Lily James.)
11. Pipers Piping — movie with someone playing a musical instrument
Wait, NOW I can get Les Miserables in here. During the very start of the “Drink With Me” scene Grantaire (my First Favourite Fictional Character of all time) starts running his hands over a broken piano.
It doesn’t make any sound of course, but that’s so much more poignant than if it had.
12. Drummers Drumming — movie with characters in the military
I don’t really get to go to the cinema much these days but one film I did see this year was Tolkien, which kinda delves in a little into how Tolkien’s experiences in the First World War inspired his writings.
It didn’t get very good reviews, to my surprise, and I suppose the dispute with Tolkien’s descendants definitely didn’t help, but I liked it. It definitely didn’t shy away when depicting the horrors of World War I.
And that’s that…
You should definitely do this meme if you want to! In fact, please do!
The name on everybody’s lips is gonna be… ROXIE
So the other day I screencapped the movie Chicago, and posted a link to the gallery on my screencaps twitter with the caption, “Chicago is a story about horrible people being rewarded rather than punished for their crimes, thank god that never happens anymore.” I suppose it’s not hard to tell what I was thinking about real-life wise when I wrote that, but I was also thinking about Roxie Hart and how incredibly, inhumanly awful she is.
But then, casting my mind back over the whole movie, I suddenly had a thought. Wait…. is she?
Chicago begins with Roxie, who has the cunning of a snake and also the dubious street smarts of one, cheating on her husband with another man. So far, not great. But then one day her lover hits her, hard, while shouting about how he lied to her so she’d sleep with him. He also threatens that that hit won’t be the last one if she continues to displease him. (“Touch me again, I’ll put your lights out.”) So Roxie, sobbing furiously, grabs a gun and shoots him dead. Okay, obviously killing someone is not great either. Obviously. However, mitigating factors there, right?
Roxie then tries to get her husband Amos to take the blame for everything by having him claim he shot a burglar, which wouldn’t be punishable by death. It doesn’t go to plan. Roxie’s terrible treatment of her husband is the biggest mark against her in the movie I think, even more than the murder. But during this scene we get Amos saying of Roxie, “She wouldn’t hurt a worm, not even a worm!” and that makes me wonder, did she really pull the wool over his eyes that much, or was she a geniunely more sweet-natured person pre-affair?
Once she’s imprisoned, Roxie acts incredibly naively, and I don’t think that’s all an act. She really doesn’t seem to have a lot of idea of how the world works. When asked what she plans to tell the jury she says “I just figured I’d tell them the truth” which indicates that she geniunely doesn’t believe killing her abusive lover was that bad a crime. (And based on the Cell Block Tango, most of her fellow prisoners would agree with her.)
Roxie conducts herself perfectly in prison, acting deferential to just about everyone. And when she geniunely tries to become friends with Velma, Velma rudely rebuffs her. Roxie, who must surely count grudge-holding among her biggest flaws, hates her from that moment on. Eh, I guess that’s fair, considering.
Roxie then acquires the services of lawyer Billy Flynn, who has the good looks of Richard Gere but is also a grotesque, greedy bastard. She doesn’t like him and indeed she has no reason to, since he’s arguably even more morally corrupt than the actual murderers of this story. But she does take his advice (despite him very obviously not giving a shit about her, just her husband’s money) and he gets her declared innocent. After all the press photographers hastily leave to cover other murders Roxie laments that her fifteen minutes of fame are over in a voice which is legit baffled, as she still doesn’t seem to have twigged how this world she lives in works. That’s probably incredibly narcissistic but I guess not completely terrible, and also Amos leaves her at this point which thoroughly serves her right.
Then Roxie goes on the audition circuit, and at this point of the film it occured to me that she actually thanks the people who turn her down, and thanks her piano player too. This is a big contrast to Billy, a man who finds it acceptable to kick those “beneath him” without giving it a second thought.
In the end Roxie does get the stardom and fortune she so desires, via begrudgingly teaming up with Velma, but it seems like a Pyrrhic victory when you think about it. Because although she’s famous now and presumably rich, she has no-one left in her life who actually loves her and her closest ally is a woman who utterly hates her guts.
In conclusion: Roxie is not a nice person in the slightest, and she absolutely did not deserve any fame whatsoever… but she’s not anywhere as near as outright evil as I thought. If you’d had been there, if you’d had seen it, maybe you would have done the same?
British Theater Chain Pulls Gang Film ‘Blue Story’ After Mass Brawl — Variety
British-based exhibition chain Vue has pulled gang film “Blue Story” from its theaters after a brawl among dozens of moviegoers – some of them apparently wielding machetes – erupted at a cinema in central England. The fight broke out late Saturday afternoon during a screening of the film at a multiplex in Birmingham, Britain’s second-most-populous […]
British Theater Chain Pulls Gang Film ‘Blue Story’ After Mass Brawl — Variety
This is a completely unfathomable decision, not least because – as far as I can acertain from the local news that was just on – the screening the machete-wielding people were attending was not actually Blue Story (and might have been Frozen II); the majority of culprits were young teens (and wouldn’t have been legally allowed into Blue Story) and, you know, Vue has so far refused to issue a statement about any of this so unless you were there you’re probably in the dark. And also, a quick look at #BoycottVue and you’ll get people explaining the racial factor. Which I agree with, because back in 2012 I didn’t see cinemas banning The Dark Knight Rises after people actually died.
“Despicable”
There are other things going on in the world right now, far more important things. To be talking about some old men having an opinion on some popular films seems like an exercise in futility, and yet…
Francis Ford Coppola’s comments on Marvel movies, and Martin Scorsese’s ones before that, they irritate me no end. Coppola’s especially, because here’s what he apparently said:
When Martin Scorsese says that the Marvel pictures are not cinema, he’s right because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration. I don’t know that anyone gets anything out of seeing the same movie over and over again. Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is.
This comes off as very hypocritical considering his positive comments on the MCU’s big hit Black Panther. Ryan Coolger specifically asked for his opinion and showed him an early cut of the movie. Now it seems he’s changed his mind. What a way to treat someone who looks up to you, don’t cha think?
But I digress…
I love the MCU and superhero movies in general. There’s a few of them I feel like I could say “This movie was made for me.” But, you know, they’re not made for me. The people behind them I feel are fundamentally making them for children, giving children good role models and good lessons. I mean, say what you want about Marvel movies as cinema, but they do generally contain the sort of thing you’d want your children to learn, you know? “Bad people should be stood up to” “Respect your friends even when they’re having problems” “Seek help whenever you need it”… yeah?
Like, take the ending of Black Panther. That’s an amazing scene and frankly I think a lot of real-life world leaders ought to take it on board.
And I think everyone can take something away from “I don’t like bullies, I don’t care where they’re from.”
Morally I don’t think the Marvel movies are despicable, not remotely. Disney as a company… I suppose you could debate til the cows come home about what their morals actually are besides money, but also I think it’s fair to assume that the individual directors of the various MCU movies probably came into the enterprise without any ill intentions. (Or, y’know, hopefully at least.)
Speaking as a former child, I love that more kids are getting the sort of stories I longed for as a 12-year-old… stories with women and girls in leading roles especially. Look at this fabulous list of Marvel heroines, and that’s only a handful of them.
And speaking as an adult, I look very forward to seeing the sort of things a generation raised on MCU movies will create. I suspect only some of them will be to my taste but I know what I’m not gonna label the ones I don’t like.
I saw Ready Player One today! I quite liked it. There wasn’t much substance to it (or if there was I didn’t see it) but it was aesthetically beautiful and it had a battle scene set to We’re Not Gonna Take It which is always good. I think my 12-year-old self would have ADORED this film.
But where was Letitia Wright? I was promised Letitia Wright.