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Showing posts from September, 2024

The Kids Aren't All Right

  Viewers of 2022 Danish film Speak No Evil will be wondering how the hell this Hollywood remake would incorporate the originals bleakest of bleak endings. The answer is, it simply doesn't, completely changing the third act to something much more audience friendly. Does that make this version far less impactful? Yes. Does it make it bad? No.  Louise and Ben Dalton (Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy) are on holiday with their daughter where they meet Paddy (James McAvoy) and Chiara (Aisling Francis) who are holidaying with their mute son Ant. Despite their different outlooks on life the couples become friends and upon returning to their strained life back in London the Daltons decide to take Paddy and Chiara up on the offer of a visit to the West Country. Louise quickly becomes uncomfortable but Ben is charmed by the rustic lifestyle and enthralled by the bullish Paddy, who's no nonsense lust for life and alpha male energy he longs to embody himself. As time goes on social awkw

It's Always Showtime

  1988's Beetlejuice is unique blend of visual style, humour, lite horror, performance and trappings of the decade. How to recreate this is a question sequel Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice doesn't even try to answer. Instead it throws its weird and wonderful characters into as many chaotic scenarios as Tim Burton and team can think of and do so at such a manic pace that the viewer doesn't have time to think if they are enjoying it as much. Thanks to the amount of talent on display, this method ends up working a treat. The story begins with Winona Ryder's Lydia Deetz, now the star of a TV show where she contacts the dead, receiving the news that her father has died. Consequently, she reunites with step mother Delia (Catherine O'Hara) for a memorial service come art project back at the old family home. Accompanying the returning cast members are Lydia's daughter Jenna Ortega and new partner Justin Theroux. Ghostly couple Gina Davis and Alec Baldwin are no longer in res

Stone the Crows

  One thing you can say about The Crow is that is that it has delivered on expectations. They are remaking that crap 90's action film The Crow? Sounds like a bad idea. It's been in development hell for over a decade? It's definitely going to be bad. The Snow White and the Huntsman guy is directing it? His films are quite bad. The trailers out? It looks bad. Film is here? Yeh it's bad.  To call the film a remake is a actually a little unfair, it's really a new adaptation of the graphic novel source material (which sucks to begin with) and directer Rupert Sanders has tried to make the film something more than its 1994 counterpart, he just fails at a very fundamental level. This is still the story of Eric, brought back from the dead to kill those who offed him and his girl but this time we lean more into the romance side of the tale, with his rampage motivated by the idea of saving his loves soul rather than just seeking vengeance. The problem is that there is a compl

No Love Island

 Blink Twice was originally going to be called Pussy Island,  meaning it joins the likes of American Fiction (Fuck) and A Family Affair (Mother Fucker) in adopting a disappointing title downgrade. Fortunately, that's pretty much the only disappointing thing about this stellar directing debut from Zoe Kravitz.  Naomi Ackie plays nail technician Frida who, along with her friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) is whisked away to billionaire Channing Tatum's private island after meeting him at  A function they are working. The partying is more reserved than she was expecting and she is convinced she is having a great time but as the reality of accompanying a bunch of strangers to the middle of nowhere and giving up your means of contacting the outside world starts to creep in, Frida can't shake the feeling things might not be as idyllic as they seem. The film this will be most compared to is Get Out and while it doesn't quite hit those heights it brings the same kind of exuberant ener