LilyWai

What is it about these egotistical men who under the guise of religion use & abuse people to feel powerful & line their own pockets? This is not an isolated instance but is a story repeated over & over - the religion may be different or skewed for purpose but the underlying desire of the leader is always the same & the damage the exact of the people who've bought into their lie is profound & devastating.

This documentary follows several young people - some more recent & some from the church's early origins - who have all been lured into Robert Shinn's Shekinah Church in the USA under wholly false pretences. Of the more recent group of young people most are talented dancers all starting out on the competitive career of professional dancing. Of course when Shinn sees this he has dollar signs flashing in his eyes & through manipulation & proselytising he - along with using his family reinforcers who follow his lead & also benefit financially - is able to utilise their talents to make his bank accounts overflow.

This is not a stupid man, he sees the gains to be made on the backs of these fresh faced talented people, sucking them dry as they dance up a storm on social media. But he also knows that religion & business are not palatable bed fellows for the masses so he develops a production company '7M' where he can work them to the bone by day & preach to their young brains & tired bodies by night. Along with targeting young people who know what struggle is or those who are just plain vulnerable he quickly gets them locked into a one-sided contract & his false prophet mantra by dazzling them with beautiful houses & the flashy cars he drives. He knows as the 'likes' increase so will their exposure & this will be a spring board to further fiscal gains for him in advertising campaigns, movies etc.. But sadly as so often happens in these stories those that put in the hard graft don't get to enjoy their hard earned money because the majority of it goes right back into the big boss' pockets. This is not the only thing they lose though as it is part of his schtick to preach the importance of separation from loved ones, yep they are told in order to 'save' their family members from hell they must cut all ties to them...& I mean ALL ties.

The other part of this doco is an examination of the devastation on the other side of the equation - the family members left with no contact except the odd weird grinning dancing video to watch as they scratch their heads wondering what happened to their child. We also get to meet a pair of Korean sisters who were in the first wave of Shekinah casualties & join the current escapees to not only try & acclimate to the real word but to also seek some form of justice. The older of the two sisters, who was trapped for 23 years in Shinn's mind warping version of Holy Roller Big Brother, is profoundly devastated by her time in the cult and what those years took from her. She is emotionally fragile, angry, confused & wanting payback & no one can blame her for that. It must be a a bitter pill to swallow to come to the realisation that you have spent half you life not wrapped in the arms of a loving church with a direct line to God but rather being manipulated, lied to, abused & stolen from.

This is a challenging doco to watch as it shines a light on some of the worst kind of deception & abuse - when people's personal faith is used against them solely for power & greed. But it is, in my opinion, worth watching if only to see how these young people are able to gain back their autonomy, realise the victims they actually were & seek to establish new lives where they are the master of their own destiny. Where there is life there is hope & these survivors have plenty of life left to live now they are out of the grasp of the egomaniac that is Robert Shinn.

While this docuseries is underpinned by a brutal murder this seems to be the secondary focus, the real spotlight lands in the characters that make up this saga with Indrani Mukerjea taking the central position - just as she demands it. This is no shrinking violet or humble introspective woman but rather a driven, status-seeking manipulator who thinks nothing of rewriting the past to suit her current objective - claiming her dead actual walks & that she is the true victim in this case. People are clearly pawns for Indrani & she loves nothing more than being at the centre moving them all around - or in & out of - her life as she sees fit. The question posed by the series, the various journalists, the Indian media is did she, with the help of her co-accused, murder her eldest child to ensure that the secrets Sheena held about her Mother's ignominious past never reached the light of day? She seemed to be the only one of her children who Indrani had lost her power over, the others could be kept onside with either money or guilt over Motherly allegiance, whereas Sheena didn't need or depend on her Mother being in her life.

The series starts at the end - with her being jailed for the alleged murder of her first born - but then we get to see just how she ended up in this position, the early years, the people she stepped on & manipulated to claw her way to the highest strata of Indian society. The cast of characters is astounding, the many husbands - each a strategic means to an end by the titular accused - the children - who for the most part don't give a glowing recollection of their mother's past actions or character - & the people she has passed on her way up - who all use the same terms to describe her "manipulative" &/or "ambitious". It's clear that the consensus is that this is a woman who utilised the men she married to move up the classes & therefore the power structure underpinning Indian society.

What does come into focus as a salient question is the robustness & integrity of the Indian judicial system. It seems clear that anyone with enough money or power is able to buy the Police to the extent of hiding the discovery of a burnt body & then burying it. Coming from a country with one of the lowest levels of corruption worldwide this was astounding to me & left me wondering if this was able to happen with a victim's body how can the any part of Indian jurisprudence be believed? If there was one person who came across as a truthful victim of this saga - aside from the deceased of course - it would have to be Rahul, the fiancé of the murdered Sheena. Although he did not appear in the docuseries in person his love & life with Sheena prior to her disappearance was represented, as were his recorded conversations with his Father as he desperately tried to find out where Sheena was & why had just suddenly vanished one night. This is perhaps why he was positioned as the star witness in the prosecution's case against Indrani Mukerjea as he was the sole person in Sheena Bora's tragic life who persisted in asking, over the three years she had been missing, where she was & what had actually happened to her.

As the case is ongoing no conclusion was reached in terms of the verdict at the conclusion of the series but the assumption, given the 'evidence' to date & the public opinion, was that at the very least Indrani Mukerjea did indeed conspire or participate to end her daughter's life. Given what she likes to call simply 'coincidences' & the DNA verifying that the body discovered was indeed Sheena (despite Indrani STILL arguing that Sheena is alive in Kashmir) I cannot see how any other conclusion can be reached. Although given this woman's determination, self confidence & pathological narcissism I wouldn't be surprised if she is acquitted & walks as a free woman.

Worth the watch, but don't expect big budget action here. This is a small movie about a small town & a man who believes he can control the place & everyone in it. Of course this never ends well, especially when the next generation falls for each other because then plans are made & trouble ensues. While the plot is somewhat prosaic the work of the central actors carries the film & thank goodness or this would have fallen a bit flat. Billy Bob Thornton is always impactful in whatever role he's in & he does do the menacing roles particularly well and Robin Wright has the ability to make her mark with a small role here but it's her son, Hopper Penn who does the heavy lifting here & manages to hold the film together on his own pretty well.

He has the right kind of melancholic face for this role, you know the 'poor boy down on his luck, nothin' going right' kinda face, well that works here. Not sure I could buy him in a tough, ruthless role but he brings enough emotion & tension to his performance to make this an engaging watch. Not memorable but engaging nonetheless.

Often when you watch a movie or series where a kid is the lead character they are either slightly grating with over acting, just cringe worthy or just not quite up to the level of the rest of the cast. Well this is definitely NOT the case here, Felix Cameron as Eli is a rare treasure as an actor, I don't know whether he has innate talent or has had exceptional acting instruction but wow, this kid knocks it out of the park! He hits every beat, has great comedic timing & has the ability to bring it in the highly emotional scenes - his crying/acting is rivetingly, achingly real.

In fact all the actors in this cast are superb & make this a real ensemble production. A treat to see the incomparable Bryan Brown too, in his role as the world weary but wise babysitter & ex-crim Slim & Lee Tiger Halley adds the perfect big brother to Eli - Gus. While he is a chosen mute he communicates everything he needs to through a plaintive look, knowing smile or cheeky eye roll (not an easy task) or his magical air writing which only Eli (& the audience) can read.

If you were part of the 80s or just enjoy visiting it, like irreverent Aussie humour, a banging soundtrack & enjoy stories based on a romp through the criminal world give this a go, you won't be disappointed. I didn't read the book or know anything about this movie so I came into this blind but was hooked from the first episode.

Give it a go, I promise you'll be entertained.

This was a very difficult watch. With all the victims left in Paolo Macchiarini's wake - & there were many - it was the patients, who's hope hung on this charlatan, who were the true victims. To see the film footage of his two-faced haphazard approach to any surgery let alone cutting edge surgery is horrific. It's like seeing a catastrophic car crash, where you know lives are definitely going to be taken, happening in slow motion and the driver of the car is purposely & knowingly driving his passengers off a cliff & he jumps out of the car just as the car veers over the edge to certain death.

I have spent a lot of my adult life in hospitals & undergoing surgery so I have met a lot of Specialists, surgeons, experts in their medical field and it is true that every now and then you come across Doctors who really think their job entitles them to play God but it's rare to meet one who actually believes they ARE God - Paolo Macchiarini is just such a doctor and this is what makes him so very dangerous. Seeing the now deceased patients and their children & families so excited and hopeful to be getting a 'revolutionary' surgical procedure that they were told was going to improve their lives was gut wrenching. Each of their post operative processes was fraught with problem after problem & even with the terrible suffering they were enduring in the face of all these it was clear that this man who promised so much could not even find compassion enough to be honest with his patients, be honest with colleagues, be honest with himself that his grand experiment had been a huge and catastrophic failure. But then narcissists cannot admit defeat or failure and this man is a fully fledged pathological narcissist.

The teams of medical staff and colleagues who placed their entire trust in Macchiarini were not totally off the hook. Even when they saw there were questions & issues, even when they saw flaws in the implants indeed in the actual premise, and repeatedly in the post-op recovery they should have dug deeper and asked the pertinent questions. They did eventually and in an attempt to atone for their involvement, the patients immeasurable cost & the significant way this man had tainted their profession they tried their hardest to alert various organisation heads...but to no avail.

Taking down this man was not helped by the inflated position that had been shaped & created for him by various media outlets who hung on the chance to spread the story of the Dr who was saving lives with his - fabricated - humble demeanour, his - manufactured - passion for his patient's wellbeing and his - fundamentally flawed -medical innovation. Never mind the gapping hole in their due diligence prior to going to air or print, never mind whether their subject and his efforts were actually rooted in truth or fact. They must bear some of the responsibility for his continued harm as they not only continued to feed his already considerable ego but they also publicised his work which in turn helped bring more patients into his lair & onto becoming his medical guinea pigs.

Unsurprisingly Macchiarini's ego & pure fabrication was not just perpetuated in his professional life but also within his private life too. By the end of the documentary you realise just how all-consuming his life of lies had become. While his fakery & bluster was blatant in the medical field - where mistakes & errors cannot just be swept under the rug or easily explained away - it was obvious that in that medical world was where he fed his ego. Then there was his endless stream of fabricated love affairs within his private life, the lies, the grand (unbelievable) stories, the effusive romancing - this was where he had his recreational fun, and yet again true to form it was at the expense of others.

Sadly from my perspective it is pure pain that follows this man, whether it be immense physical pain of his deceived dying patients or the emotional pain of patient's families & his broken hearted lovers, it follows behind him like the hideous stench of his rotting plastic windpipes.

In the end it would take a multifaceted, global approach to bring this duplicitous conman down but what he faced cannot be called 'justice' when compared with the suffering he has unleashed on so many. The fact he had to face a courtroom and eventually, on appeal, a jail sentence was pleasing but the sentence was woefully insufficient at 2 and a half years. It must have felt, for the victims families, like he had once again been able to get away with his disgusting self serving behaviour. I just kept picturing him sitting back with that smarmy smirk on his face thinking he had pulled off the best con of all - getting away with murder.

I hadn't read the book this is based on so watched this without any idea of what I was in for but it left me feeling...sad. This is not a film for those who prefer lighthearted topics or happy ever after subject matter, despite the excellent performances by the two lead actors this makes for challenging and at times painful viewing. It is a warning tale of the impact of childhood sexual abuse & the lasting effects it has on the developing psyche. To see two very young boys being groomed and abused by an adult in a position of authority was horrendous (& undoubtedly what happens way too often to far too many children) and then watching how each of them internalises the experience & the tries to navigate their way through adolescence with the impact of this toxic betrayal hanging heavily over each them was really challenging to watch.

(*the childhood abuse is not shown in any explicit way & is implied by dialogue & camerawork rather than exposing the child actors to overt scenes)

Both boys join the local baseball team where their coach spots their different vulnerabilities right away & swoops in for the kill as these predators do. Neil is a confident boy but is starved for validation without a Father figure & a Mother who loves him but is too distracted by working long hours & meeting potential Mr Right to notice just how much time he is spending with his Coach. Brian on the other hand is a slight & sensitive boy who is close to his doting Mother & longs for his Dad's approval but try as he might his failure at sports is a clear disappointment for his traditional & emotionally absent Father. Of course this means Brian too is eventually targeted by the predator using his position & power as an means to abuse.

Neil, laps up the gifts, the praise lavished on him by his abuser as the adult male attention he's been seeking & the abuse is just the price he has to pay. But being sexualised by abuse at such a young and without any parental awareness or disclosure from him he becomes the abuser's accomplice before he is even aware of what is happening or what this means.

The other victim Brian has well meaning parents but they too fail to interpret his classic physical symptoms - wetting the bed, nightmares, fainting - as the result of abuse. Trying to cope for Brian means compartmentalising the abuse, locking it way in his mind so all it appears as is a block of lost time with only a bloody nose to remind him of the horror. Unsurprisingly as he has confusing flashbacks of what happened which he misinterprets as alien encounters sending him off in search of others who have similar stories and hopefully some explanations of what he is experiencing.

As the two boys mature they are each more & more affected by these early betrayals - Neil, a popular guy, makes his money as an adolescent 'hustler' who unsurprisingly sees his sexual appeal as all that he has to offer anyone. Brian, an awkward young man who spends his time wrestling with the belief that his alien abduction is real & that he must find others to validate his experience. While Neil gets deeper & deeper into the seedier side of prostitution Brian finds clues that identify Neil's childhood face as a key to finding the answers to his childhood blackouts. When they finally meet the reality of their shared experiences is exposed by Neil in all it's horrific detail which for Brian is almost too much to bear. At the end what we the viewer see is two young men both terribly scarred by their shared early experiences at the hands of a serial predatory abuser.

'Thriller' is a wide ranging movie genre - you have those that use straight up blood & gore to heighten the tension and then there are the thrillers like Last Exit (Little Bone Lodge) which use a combination of character development, a slow burning storyline & clever plot twists to hold the viewer's attention.

This is a very tidy English thriller which considering has such a small cast & very limited locations does a good job at maintaining the tension throughout & keeping you engaged.

Nice effort from Neil Linpow, who not only wrote the screenplay but also takes on one of the key male roles of Jack. He has a visceral intensity that translates really well through the screen & his ruthless frustration in this film is palpable. Also a tidy performance by Harry Cadby as his character's tormented but childlike brother Matty too. It's clear Matty has some significant psychological issues but the exact nature of these are left mostly to our imagination, suffice to say it becomes apparent that Jack has tried to look out for his little brother throughout their lives but the path they have ended up on is far from smooth sailing.

By far the standout has to be Joely Richardson in the main role of Mama and what a Mama she is! What appears at first to be an over-protective, attentive but controlling maternal approach, towards everyone, is revealed to be something else entirely as the film moves into the third act. Richardson's experience shows through with her expert control of her emotions only to flip them when the situation requires it...or when she is provoked. Once you realise what her true motivation is all the puzzle pieces from earlier on start to fall into place & from then on the film's pace is unrelenting, plus the ending is a nice unexpected twist.

No matter what kind of thriller you enjoy, give this a go, even if it's not your ultimate film there's plenty here to keep you engaged for the 90 min runtime.

Well worth watching this series just gets better & better. Set in the 1970's on a Navajo Reservation Dark Winds centres around the small team of Tribal Police - led by the tough but fair Lieutenant Leaphorn (brilliantly played by Zahn McClarnon), Sergeant Manuelito (Jessica Matten), a smart young woman who follows the Navajo ways & the newest addition Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), a deputy with an ulterior motive.

With stunning scenery, a classy script - written by an entirely Native writing team - and showcasing the Navajo perspective, people & culture this series has something for everyone. They deftly juxtapose the warm Navajo life & culture with the starched, cold, Western approach of the FBI which makes for an compelling undercurrent running through the plot....and then there's the ever present criminal threat in the midsts. Reminiscent in tone to other recent crime shows such True Detective & the Australian indigenous series Mystery Road, Dark Winds gets more riveting - & darker - as the story progresses & like these other top shelf shows it is the relationships at the core of the show that give it it's heart.

Keep watching & I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Roman Woods beautifully shot small but impactful film that highlights the suburban drug scene along with the shifting fortunes of those consumed by it & those trying to move on from it.

Cate Blanchett does a superb job in her role as Tracy, a recovering addict who is trying so hard to improve her life after becoming clean. But with a foot in each world her attempts to pull herself up & out of the scene are thwarted by her continued lingering connections with her past.

Hugo Weaving as Lionel, the ex-star footballer & current junkie & Sam Neill as The Jockey, a gangster with a score to settle, give solid performances too culminating in a film that lingers with you long after the credits roll.

I know this film will not appeal to everyone but it's worth a watch for the performance Anna Kendrick gives as Alice, a young woman who's very spirit is being eroded by a controlling abusive partner. Her female friends can see it but she is too consumed in his critiques & criticisms to reflect on their effects, until a girls week away. Wunmi Mosaku and Kaniehtiio Horn, as Sophie and Tess, provide a warm contrasting environment to the stilted & cold one Alice lives within and give her the reminder she needs of how free life should be. Nicely done for a first film & the camera work was beautifully observed & intimate.

Hard to believe this film was made for £500,000, it has an atmosphere, scope and raw brutality that many Hollywood films wish they could achieve.

All the actors do a great job at portraying those living in the low gritty British world of protecting your own at any cost and an eye for an eye but Neil Maskell as the central character Bull takes revenge to a whole other level.

Be prepared for blood & violence as Bull's anger is palpable, endless and not for those who prefer films with 'implied' violence. Classical music was stylishly used for effect at specific moments & was beautifully juxtaposed against the dark, dingey & desperate world these characters exist in.

Now for the not so good - the ending. It felt that it was intended for a seperate film and other genre. It just didn't gel or connect with first 3/4s of the film so by the time the credits rolled the lasting feeling was one of being slightly disappointed.

Still worth watching though & a vast improvement on some of the trite films being made these days.

Many have stated they weren't sure what to expect from Lurhmann's Elvis biopic but watch any of his films & his style is unique, dazzling & showy in the best possible way. He is known for being grand on production, fixated on getting the smallest detail right, merging of past & present musical stylings & on casting choices that catapult particularly his young actors into the next level of stardom. He did it with Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliette and he does it here with Austin Butler in Elvis. Butler's is breathtaking in this role, every mannerism, every performance reeks of Elvis and the fact he is not the spitting image of the actual man makes his performance in the film that much more of an achievement.

The central focus of the film is on the professional relationship between Elvis and his longtime manager 'Colonel' Tom Parker, a shady elusive character who's reigns on his golden goose were ever tightening and who's motivations and choices were never about what was best for Elvis the man but rather about lining his own pockets by commodifying Elvis the performer. Lurmann's Parker is an odd character - which apparently Parker was in real life - but unlike all the other actors in the film he is conveyed as a bloated side show caricature who is juxtaposed harshly alongside Butler's smooth uber realistic Elvis. In fact it almost feels like they are from two seperate kind of movies but somehow find themselves in scenes together. My only criticism of the film was that while Butler's Elvis was a triumph I found Hank's 'Colonel Parker' cartoonish - from the weird vocal choice, to the odd wardrobe to the exaggerated facial expressions, I just couldn't help but feel that Hank's was over playing the part. I don't know if this was due to the way the role was written, the direction he was given by Luhrmann or individual character choices made by Hanks but in a film with such stellar performances from the rest of the cast it was incumbent on Hanks, given the focus of the film, to bring his A game & instead it just felt over done and comedic.

As far as the remainder of the film's cast went, as mentioned, they were brilliant. Special mention goes to Yola as Sister Rosetta Tharpe - what a voice! - and Alton Mason as Little Richard - those moves! It was a shame their time on screen was brief but with Elvis' whole life to convey & the film's running time already exceeding 2.5hrs I can understand why. It was pleasing though to see the inclusion & recognition of black gospel music and the often overlooked black artists of the day in the establishment of Elvis' early stage performances and song choice.

Elvis as a subject for film has been done before in various formats and focussing on different aspects and parts of the singers life but this is probably the most ambitious in scope covering The King from childhood through to his final Vegas performances. Even with Lurhmann's visual bombardment style of film making before I had seen the film I did predicted that due to the 2 hour 39 minute running time I'd be checking my watch & getting distracted at about the 1.5hr mark...but I didn't. I didn't even look at my watch once and this was honestly thanks to Butler's efforts. Once I got a taste early on of what he was able to deliver I couldn't wait to see what he was going to do with 50's Elvis and 60's Elvis etc...by the time he was performing as Vegas Elvis I was well and truly hooked and would have sat there for another hour if he'd delivered more.

In hearing the actor describe the two years+ of intensive study it took him to shape his performance and the lengths he went to in order to get the role right I can see why he was so dazzling on screen and why Elvis' family were so pleased with the film. It was quite simply an Oscar worthy transformation by an actor, a spectacular achievement when the role you are playing is of a musical and cultural legend as well known, well documented and well loved as Elvis Presley.

Bravo Mr Butler, bravo!

The White Lotus was so entertaining but a generic holiday comedy it is not. The slick writing & emotionally desperate & disparate characters played as a modern black comedy ensemble. All the characters were so delightfully flawed & quirky with each battling their own form of a life crisis - from existential to medical to emotional.

The main players included a range, from the hard working resort employees trying to please their guests (& mostly just hanging on my their fingernails), through to indulged spoilt pill-popping teens, mismatched honeymooners, parents trying to reconnect with each other (& their kids) and a desperately lonely flaky middle aged women - beautifully played by the sublime Jennifer Coolidge.

The location & situation lends itself to the extreme scenarios with guests letting loose, experimenting and delving into the good the bad and the downright ugly. For everyone featured as their individual storyline's - & lives - gradually unravel across the series it only gets more intriguing & entertaining all culminating in the final chaotic events &/or their own personal epiphanies.

If you love quirky character-driven stories with subtly comedic undercurrents & great writing watch this one. Series as good as this don't come along too often.

I do love a 'we stuffed up the planet so now what' story plot & Wayward Pines Series 1 does a great job of keeping you guessing. The reason why the characters are in their predicament is teased out satisfactorily & the actors do a good job of keeping the intensity up through each episode.

When the penny finally drops you care about Ethan Burke & his family so the fact they kill him off at the finale of Series 1 makes little sense. But to then replace him & his heroics with a gang of generic adolescent 'baddies' in the second series even less so. Series 2's overall story plot & character's journey felt rushed, like they were going through the motions & had a lacklustre feel. I gave up watching after the first four episodes..& it was hard work to stick with it even that long.

Series 1 - 7/10 Series 2 - 4/10.

Yet again another cautionary doco about these intensely scuzzy men who find a 'mark' and con women with lies, fantasy and just general B. S. into handing over their heart, then all their money and finally their sense of reality before the crap hits the fan big time and they wind up wising up, juuust a little too late to save themselves...or their money...or their dignity.

They exist all over the world these callous & damaged serial fantasists - Robert Hendy-Freeguard, Paolo Macchiarini, Simon Leviev, Anthony Strangis etc - and always at the heart of it is some deep inadequacy &/or addiction and clearly a fundamental psychological impairment they are hiding from their mark. They are always funding their hidden life with the money they are stealing & there are usually a trail of similarly conned victims in their past. Always. These guys don't and can't change, they only evolve and get more desperate, more smarmy and therefore more dangerous. Thank heavens for the Internet because nowadays you can plaster the cyber world with their images and past deeds in the hope that spreading their stories will save at least some of their victims the heartache of being entangled in their sick world.

In Sarma's case at the start she seems like someone who would be too smart, too wise to be taken in by this fat con man (can't call Anthony Strangis a 'con artist' because that would imply some higher con skills and he wasn't really that good at it. Ever heard of the adage "Keep it simple stupid"? Angels, demons & travelling through time??? Come on!?). However clearly she wasn't too smart as even with all her savvy skills & experiences she brought this man into her life and handed every penny she had over to him - even believing him when he said he could see to it that her beloved dog Leon would live forever - WHAT?!

Watching this was painful, as they all are, but this one was even more so because there wasn't even a lure at the start to hook her. The standard 'con man 101' is they use something flashy or some grand gesture at the start to get the woman's belief in them hooked in so when any doubts crop up the woman can refer back and say to themselves "but they did come through with THAT so there must be some truth in it?". Not here, this woman gave & gave and he just took & took and she got nothing out of the relationship - except much poorer, many excuses, enough fantasy to fill several cheap sci-fi novels, oh yeah and jail time. Yep, she walked right into this one as I was getting more and more frustrated that yet another woman is the subject of a Netflix doco explaining how her life was ruined by a man she let into her life.

Wise up ladies: if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck and moves like a duck - it's a frikkin duck!! And if your particular 'duck' is constantly asking you for money it's a scumbag con so paddle away as fast as your feet will move! Oh and then make a doco about it because while it might be embarrassing you may just make some of your money back & as a bonus show HIM up to be the knuckledragging pillock that he truly is.

I adore this bittersweet film. Based on the true story of a talented, intellectual idealist who pushes back against the conventions & false rewards of modern life. For a debut project for director and screenwriter Sean Penn this is one impressive film. Waiting ten years to bring it to fruition in order to get McCandless family's approval clearly paid off and I'm sure gave Penn the confidence to tell Chris' story authentically and with all the brutal honesty it needed. For while this is often a achingly beautiful story illustrating humanity at it's best it also is cautionary in many ways. Chris McCandless was a special, unique, highly intelligent young man and what he could have done and given the world with his gifts was endless. The fault was not his own, as so often happens he was born into a family who life view was so juxtaposed & painfully contrasting to his own that he saw no other way to way to 'live' his truth than to literally and metaphorically disappear into the wild of Alaska.

Emile Hirsch was spectacular in this role and when revealing some of the other actors considered for the role I can think of no one else. Hirsch has boyish, joy-filled innocence that gives an authenticity to his portrayal. Just the right mix between this and his quiet but steely determination make him compelling to watch. The fact he did all his own stunts and Penn's ability to capture, through facial close ups, an unspoken a truth and realism make this a film that should have won the ultimate award - the Oscar. The fact it didn't takes nothing from away from film itself but rather says more about the contrived and convoluted Oscar selection process.

Even though his death was ultimately in error I can't help but feel it was an somewhat inevitable outcome to his time on earth. He was too pure of heart, too kind, too gentle for this cruel materialistic modern world. The fact his life ended while he was still travelling seems somehow appropriate as returning to a life fraught with all the aspects he was running from would have been more than, I believe, he could bear.

Special mention goes to Eddie Vedder for his original soundtrack too - hauntingly beautiful. See this film at least once in your life, it's important in its message, it's more than just mere 'entertainment' and if nothing else it holds so many messages about life, liberty and our intrinsic & enduring desire to be connected to the natural world.

I found this documentary very hard to watch, it felt a little like watching a slow-moving, tragic car accident as it headed towards assured impact. I half expected the morbidly obese Baron Ronald Busch Reisinger to have a massive coronary or stroke as we watched him gorge on huge quantities of rich calorific food (enough for three or four people) and repeatedly get his huge frame get wedged in furniture & struggle to extricate himself. I couldn't help but feel for the man as I don't think this was the regal image he was hoping to portray. In between his frequent & excessive food consumption he tries in a manifest and clumsy way to engage, befriend and impress random people and often the cruise staff first by introducing himself - not his given name "Ronald" but rather by using "Baron", his title - and then regaling them with his over-the-top stories about how wonderful & fascinating his life is...when it seemed anything but. He talks about watching people's eyes glaze over when in conversation with them but I would argue this is not because of becoming invisible with his increasing age, as he asserts, but rather because he talks incessantly about himself & seems to have little interest in anyone else or their lives. He does at one point find a willing eager audience for his patter about his wealth and his resident Scottish castle...but they are not the stylish, erudite people you know he was hoping for but rather a couple of surgically tightened rather gaudy elderly women. With dollar signs flashing in their eyes the facts are lost in translation as they incorrectly pick him as related to the well known US presidential Bush family, not his actual lesser known family name of Busch, from the Budweiser brewing fame. He does have some straight-to-camera moments of brutal honesty where speaks of his fear of dying, his addiction to food, the heartbreak he experienced with the breakdown of his first marriage and his difficult distant relationship with his parents, particularly his Mother, as a child but these moment are relatively few which is a shame. Including more of this kind of real honest content would have created a more truthful counterbalance to the more ego-driven, outlandish parts of his presentation and the documentary as a whole. All in all it was a stark illustration that having all the money in the world cannot buy you happiness. Even his description of his current marriage, where he declared he knew his much younger wife was only with him because he was rich, was a brutally sad I portrayal of financially-motivated marital coupling. I was left pondering his motivation is for attending these cruises and came to the conclusion that it gives him the opportunity; to feel superior to other cruisers, to feel good about himself at a time in his life when he struggles to do so and to freely and with abandon consume as much food as his vast appetite desires.

Wonderfully entertaining series following the life and loves of Josh and his family and friends, but this is not 'bubblegum for the mind' viewing as it actually highlights some important issues, particularly around mental health. Beautifully developed core cast of characters who you are rooting for throughout, with all their high highs, their lowest lows and all the funny bits in between. Just watch it.

I'm not sure what these low reviewers expect, maybe they are just too used to modern blood and gore horror movies, but I thought this was a worthy adaptation. Creepy and atmospheric the cast does a good job to maintain the suspense. Kate, the central character, is hired to care for a child in a remote stately but spooky house inhabited by only the house keeper and young Flora, or so she thinks. Her elder brother Miles is away at boarding school but soon returns home and trouble ensues. The actors playing Miles and Flora do a great job at 'playing' the two rather spoilt charges - entitled children who have been raised by paid staff after the death of their parents and Barbara Marten as Mrs Grose the the epitome of the tightly wound classic Governess who thinks the children can do no wrong. For a story that was written in the nineteenth century I thought director Floria Sigismondi did a great job at giving it a modern touch without taking it too far from the original's essence. Sure, it's not a movie for everyone but if you like spooky, ghostly tales set in grand surroundings with the gradual suffocating revelation of what the unknown central character has walked into give it a go. It is not the flop others have made it out to be.

Loved this film, a little sweet snapshot of how droll the midlife grind can be when you don't have the life you thought you'd have. Great understated performance from James LeGros as Bobby, and the full cast of his friends & associates offer plenty of dramatic layers for his character to engage with. Jesse Borego as Carlos is a breath of fresh air to Bobby's downer moments & his passion for his craft is infectious. I appreciated the fumbled semi romantic thread between Bobby and Tanya too as too often in movies it's all packaged up so neatly the viewer is deprived of seeing the truth when it comes to 'just not the right time' connections. Oh and have to mention Kevin Corrigan's Al, nicely positioned in both character and storyline as Bobby's polar opposite nemesis. Highly recommend but one negative is I almost passed this by thanks to the insipid title. I get the 'Phoenix' connection in the storyline but come on, something a little more thoughtful would be cherry on the top.

Well worth watching. Great characters, enough heart & humour with a intriguing storyline that keeps you wanting more.. More please?

Brilliantly shot this is one of those series that grabs you from the first episode meaning the next two days are spent obsessively watching to see how the expertly woven story threads intertwine and unravel. Great cast who gave it their all, especially in some of the more emotional scenes. Well worth a watch if you enjoy not having everything neatly and quickly laid out for you in a formulaic way. The use of flashbacks to fill in a characters storyline can be at time stilted, predictable and frustrating as a viewer but they are used to good effect here. They act almost like teasers showing events and actions that give the players real depth and fuel for their journey. My only negative was the screen time the subtitles were given, I missed so much dialogue trying to watch what was visually happening while also reading the subtitles as they appeared on the screen for a nanosecond. Other than that I think this has something for everyone, drama & relationships, action & gun fights and a mystery guru as well. Nicely done indeed.

Well if ever there was a disappointing and frustrating character it would have to be Jules. If only she had half the savvy and smarts she had glimpses of towards the end throughout the entire film then this could of been an interesting match up - but she didn't so it wasn't. This is one of those frustrating films where you feel like yelling at the screen because the 'good' character is making all the wrong (& frankly laughable) decisions and squandering every opportunity to either escape or finish her attacker off. I know it was required to ensure the film was the required length but it just made for ridiculous viewing. This meant the ending was ultimately unsatifying and you didn't have any investment in any of the characters because they were both so incredibly flawed and unbelievable; either overly weak, emotional and stupid (in the case of Jules) and cartoonishly evil and emotionless (in the case of Jackie). By the end you just wanted it over for them both...and for you the viewer.

Based on a memoirs of father and son David & Nic Sheff 'Beautiful Boy' gives the uninitiated a real glimpse into the heartache, desperation and battles that occur when a parent is trying to save their drug addicted child. The father David is masterfully portrayed by Steve Carell who gives a engaging and empathetic performance showing the ongoing turmoil, heartbreak and angst felt by the addict's loved ones. Carell's start in comedic roles hid his depths as an dramatic actor, in this role he gets to show his true emotional range and it makes for riviting viewing. He shows the intellectual & emotional journey any parent goes through as they try to understand what is driving their child's addiction; what it is, what led them to this, what can I do to fix this, why isn't treatment working to finally accepting that it is out of his control and not something that he can fix or make better. Nic, played by the stunning Timothée Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name) starts like so many young people, dabbling in the odd pill here or joint there and very quickly spirals downward to where he is grappling with an insatiable addiction to crystal meth that is pulling him further and further from his family. He is clearly powerless in the face of his addiction and as with most people struggling with addiction he has many attempts at sobriety, mostly facilitated by his father. Just when you think he has managed to overcome it the the weight of his feelings shame and self loathing pull him right back under again and leave him feeling that yet again he is a failure in the eyes of his father. This movie is at it's heart a film about the unwaning love that a father has for his son and the lengths he will go to get his son back but it also is an illustration of how voracious and indiscriminate drug addiction can be. Nic's story could be any young person in America today and that is possibly the most salient message of all.

I loved it when I first saw it as a teen in 1984 amd felt the same watching it now as an adult all these years later. Great simple story that showcases new kid in town, the rebellion of youth, lust and how gooooood dancing makes you feel and what you'll do to get that feeling.