Dan Says its Alright

  The opening scene of A Real Pain , showing a bright eyed Kieren Culkin sitting alone in a busy airport to the score of Chopin piano music, really sets the tone for what the film intends to be. You are about watch a semi-whimsical but worthy dramedy that is going to use characters that are, at first glance, entertainingly comedic to hit you in the feels. It certainly attains those goals and will tug at your heartstrings, even if you can see the notes it's going to play in advance. Jessie Eisenberg and Kieren Culkin play David and Benji, Jewish American cousins who travel to Poland to take part in a holocaust tour and visit the home of their late grandmother, using money she left them in her will. David is reserved and a little neurotic, dealing with issues through exercise, therapy and medication, aka the American way. This leads to him being emotionally withdrawn, much to the lamentation of Benji, who misses the version of his cousin who felt everything acutely. Benji himself is ...

Bye bye 2024, time to put your ducks in a row. If ducks are films I saw in the cinema. As ever, ranking is purely my opinion (although my opinion is obviously correct), a movie needs to have been released in the UK during calendar year 2024 and I have to have seen it on the big screen for it to be eligible.   60. The Strangers: Chapter 1 Unrelentingly tedious reboot of an already mediocre home invasion thriller that ramps up nothing but the banality. If your idea of entertainment is watching an insufferable couple hide while a man and a woman in stupid masks walk about slowly then this is the film for you. Otherwise the only scary thing here is the fact they have already filmed chapters two and three.  59. In a Violent Nature You don't need to make people drink curdled milk to know it would taste awful. Similarly, you shouldn't need to make people watch a slasher film that follows the killer for the whole runtime to know it's a terrible idea. Dialogue is replaced by endless...