deanosuburbia

A masterpiece in modern cinema. Paul Greengrass directs such a realistic account of 9/11 told in almost real time. The last 30 minutes are so frustrating as even though we know the outcome you can't help but will the passengers on to take back control of the aircraft. It never fails to bring a tear to my eye as those poor souls on board faced true terror. What is interesting is that although the terrorists are of course bad, their portrayal is given a layer of humanity. It's almost as if they had no choice but to conduct some heinous acts which changed the course of the modern world. The editing is also very good.

Who knew that tennis could be this sexy? Before I mention anything else I have to highlight the incredible music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, I genuinely was head bobbing in the cinema screen. The three lead actors are excellent, personally my favourite role of Zendaya's. Mike Faist is on form here looking great even dripping in sweat. Josh O'Connor has a twinkle in his eye as the charismatic Patrick. Luca Guadagnino is fast becoming the director I find most fascinating. I loved all the slow motion shots highlighting the characters to make them look beautiful. Now I am off to listen to the soundtrack on repeat.

A classic horror film by John Landis. I love how it captures a period of time in London, in fact a lot of my visits to London trigger memories of this film. The screenplay is excellent with some really well rounded characters from the residents of East Proctor to David, Jack, Nurse Price and Dr Hirsch. There are some great moments with the climatic disturbance scene in Piccadilly Circus one of cinemas most legendary sequences. It must have been a huge undertaking to compose this sequence so hats off to Landis for pulling it off. The make-up effects by Rick Baker are incredible even if they are short lived.

A perfect drama film set in and around London during WW2. There are some comedic moments to add some much needed relief to the horrors of war on the home front. The sublime musical score adds an emotional layer over the scenes. It would have been easy to overload the sad moments but the director relents from over doing it. It seems that every devastating moment is contrasted in the next scene with a lighthearted element. Ian Bannen is glorious as the grumpy typical English grandfather. There is a wonderful scene around the breakfast table where the family share a much needed laugh. Sarah Miles gives a natural and understated performance as mother Grace. Sebastian Rice-Edwards Is a decent child actor leading the film with confidence. Also special highlights go to Sammi Davis as teenage rebel Dawn and Susan Wooldridge as full of life family friend Molly. John Boorman crafts a lovely film told through the eyes of a boy, sadly avoid the sequel Queen & Country which could have been brilliant.

The Boys in the Boat does better what Chariots of Fire did in 1981. It's a traditionally told story with a good pacing throughout. George Clooney directs like an old school film which I appreciated as so many modern films can be a bit on the quirky side.

I can't see why it got no movie award interest but I guess modern audiences prefer spectacle on a different scale. The score and the costume design deserved some recognition. Maybe a slight negative was the editing as I am not sure if at times it was clear when the team were in the lead or not.

The arms on the rowers elevated the film from an 8 to a 9.

The three central performances are excellent. Olivia Colman is iconic as Queen Anne in a career best and memorable role. Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone vie for the object of Queen Anne's affections. It's a very witty screenplay and a crying shame that The Favourite only received one Oscar, albeit a surprise win for Colman even though Glenn Close had been "the favourite" that year.

The costume design and art direction are exquisite complimenting the beautiful cinematography, it's a delightful film to look at. The Favourite is one motion picture I will happily revisit again and again.

Give it a watch.

I have probably over scored this film because of the nostalgia. There are a lot of nods to the original movies which is fun. It's great to see so many cast members back for this outing. The story is weak and with so many returning characters from the original and the 2021 offering, there is little chance for any to shine. The focus in the most part is on Pheobe Spengler as she deals with being too young to be a Ghostbuster, which is a shame as Pheobe can at times be an unlikeable character.

It was fun having Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd back providing some comedic relief and Ernie Hudson rounding out the original gang. Kumail Nanjiani Got the most laughs as Nadeem in a film lacking in comedic moments. The baby Stay Puft's are back but sadly they don't get enough screen time.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is good but it had potential to be better than that especially with the setting switching back to New York City. I don't think there's too much more scope for more Ghostbusters with 3 movies in less than 10 years if you include the Paul Feig 2016 reboot, unless Sigourney Weaver can be coaxed to return...

A true classic from master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock. Tippi Hedren is good as Melanie Daniels who takes a trip to Bodega Bay to flirt with love interest Mitch Brenner, played by a handsome Rod Taylor. Jessica Tandy is excellent as Mitch's overbearing mother Lydia. The strong supporting cast is full of memorable characters, most of which are played way over the top. A stand out is Mrs. Bundy who merrily fills the audience in on ornithology. Suzanne Pleshette as teacher Annie Hayworth is one of the few straight played characters. The bird attack scenes are well executed and for modern day audiences somewhat comedic. My partner laughed his head off at the jump cuts of various faces made by Melanie during the big explosion scene.

The Birds is expertly directed by Hitchcock creating a believable universe for which the action to take place. I love the little nuances and the clunky dialogue between the characters adds to the charm. Melanie questioning the postal clerk incessantly is both infuriating and quite funny. Also the scene with the mother of the children calling Melanie "evil!!!" is outstanding.

All in all, you may laugh at it, you may get scared but no doubt you will be entertained. All done without the need for a musical score. One of the few films which finish leaving me wanting more.

Great action, excellent score and over the top performances. Michael Bay may be some things but he certainly knows how to direct a special effects movie. An overlong film but the duration helps for an emotional final act, as we care about the characters of misfits attempting to save the Earth from a collision with an asteroid. A solid turn from Bruce Willis and a great supporting cast including the late Michael Clarke Duncan. I always loved Peter Stormare's scene stealing performance as Lev as Russian astronaut Lev.

The screenplay is littered with implausible set backs for the gang of drillers and astronauts as we are treated to a rollercoaster ride or will they, won't they save the world. There's some really bad dialogue which is so bad it's actually good, such as "he's got space dementia".

Diane Warren's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" is the perfect end credit song.

When The Man with the Golden Arm started I was expecting some comedy but it was a drama through and through. Frank Sinatra was convincing as the drug addicted 'dealer' Frankie. It seems quite revolutionary for the 1950s. Eleanor Parker was very good as wheelchair bound Zosh, with some of the revelations involving this character keeping the pace going. The music was excellent, you will be humming the main tune long after the film has ended. I enjoyed the comment from Frankie where he suggested to Kim Novak's character that they get a colour TV, interesting to have colour in a black and white world.

Let me start by stating that I much prefer the original 1960 version. I do, however, enjoy this film and find it interesting that they chose to do an almost like for like copy of the iconic Hitchcock film. The colours are vibrant and the sets and design are visually impressive. Anne Heche is solid as Marion Crane. Vince Vaughn does his best to capture Norman Bates but I feel his performance falls way short of Anthony Perkins. The rest of the cast are good with lots of familiar faces turning up. Julianne Moore is a bit wooden as Marion's sister, wearing her Walkman and headphones in a somewhat random manner. I guess the main issue is that the horror of the story worked in the 1960s but modern day audiences have moved on, so the fear is hard to capture. Psycho (1998) still entertains me but I will always try and watch this version first before retreating to the original and best.

Enjoyable story about a boxer with a lot of charisma. Miles Teller is excellent as Vinny Pazienza as the film chronicles the road to recovery, after a car crash. There are quite a few boxing scenes which is good as I remember after watching Rocky with a friend some time ago, she turned to me as the credits rolled and said "He (Rocky) didn't fight much".

The best scenes in Bleed for This are when Vinny is trying to secretly get fit again with the help of his trainer Kevin, played superbly by Aaron Eckhart. There's a comedic scene with Vinny and Kevin giggling at the dinner table which was a highlight. I think so often sports movies do get rather melodramatic and although there is some melodrama in Bleed for This, there are also some light hearted moments to savour.

Nominated for 7 Academy Awards, it must have been a weak year. Geoffrey Rush was solid but with such a short amount of screen time I feel his Best Actor Oscar wasn't fully earned. That was my main issue, it took over an hour for Geoffrey Rush's performance of David to fully 'shine'. It was an interesting story but sometimes the passing of time wasn't fully explained to the audience.

I appreciate that Shine was based on a true story but the amount of cigarettes that David smoked made me feel a bit sickly. I had a read of the trivia after watching and it seems the filmmakers took some liberties especially with the portrayal of the father.

I imagine there's a line around the block of actors wanting to work with Denis Villeneuve. His body of work is very strong and Dune: Part Two is another great addition. It was visually outstanding with stunning techinical achievements from the production design to the sound mixing and effects. Much like the first outing, Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya head up a very impressive cast. I enjoyed Austin Butler's supporting role as a menacing antagonist, a shame his screen time was limited. I have to laugh a bit at Charlotte Rampling who plays a Reverend Mother, although it's hard to see her face under her dark costume. I guess anybody could have played that role but it does show the filmmakers effort to cast a great actress like Rampling, just hard to see her performance. I think at just shy of 3 hours the story was a tad drawn out for my liking. I admit to be a fan of a complete story although I do appreciate there's more to tell.

I would have preferred a full story resolution but it will be exciting to visit this cinematic 'Dune-iverse' in the near future.

Gritty and realistic. Both the lead characters regularly flip from hunter to hunted building a palpable tension. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett captures Jules brilliantly from the early scenes when he is violently hurt in a homophobic attack, up to the end where he shows his power and takes charge. George MacKay is simply outstanding as Preston, Jules' attacker and then lover. I can't believe how MacKay was able to convey so much emotion that I actually felt sorry for Preston, even though I knew I shouldn't. Preston is a deeply troubled character, a man who is able to be tender and loving trapped in a world of toxic masculinity. MacKay has a kind face and is able to express the vulnerability that Preston faces but on the flick of a light switch can show us the monsterous behaviours that he is capable of. The storytelling and direction is outstanding as when the credits rolled I truly wanted more. The peacekeeper in me wanted Jules and Preston to reconcile but is there any way back for what Preston did? I do suspect not but stranger thanks have happened. Clearly Preston didn't belong in his world and felt more at ease in the arms of Jules but the threat of exposure is a cross too hard to bear.

Fun, fast and full of weird creatures. A classic 90s science fiction comedy. Tommy Lee Jones is perfect as a grumpy member of the men in black, here recruiting a smart talking NYPD cop played by Will Smith. The visual effects are great and the Oscar winning make-up help to create alien life forms which look, on the most part, realistic. Danny Elfman's musical score is one of the best, you can clearly hear motifs which were used in previous effort Mars Attacks (1996) and the subsequent Spider-Man (2002). Jones and Smith have great chemistry with most of the comedy reliant on physical gags. Will Smith was hot off the back of another alien blockbuster Independence Day, displaying his action comedy status once again. As a child when I first went to the cinema to see Men in Black, the end scene involving aliens playing with marbles containing the solar system and more, always made me feel how insignificant we are. Cut to credits to one of the best movie songs of the 1990s.

Only one small gripe from me, why were Kay and Jay's suits looking fresh in the scene after the fight with the slimy alien bug, considering Laurel was still dirty?

So I didn't realise this was an erotic psychological drama...but I do now. I am a fan of Isabelle Huppert and in this film, she did not disappoint. Huppert plays Erika, a piano professor, who lives with her overbearing mother. Although appearing uptight Erika is a woman who has a number of sexual fantasies and desires including voyeurism and sadomasochistic fetishes.

The story really gets going when Erika embarks on a relationship with student Walter, who at first finds Erika's desires hard to comprehend. Walter is clearly sexually attracted to the professor but he didn't account for her to take charge the way she did.

The scenes are long allowing the actors to get into character and show the audience the brutality of some of the sexual desires of the protagonist. As a viewer I did prefer the first half of the film as we tried to understand Erika opposed to the second half where her vulnerability and chaotic personality were on display. The ending was a bit of a WTF moment but I guess it was never going to end in a conventional way.

A self indulgent delve into an artist who is clearly talented. I don't profess to know anything about Jon Batiste, I have heard his name mentioned every now and then. The synopsis for this documentary described it as deeply intimate but that intimacy is mostly at the mercy of carefully set up scenes in my opinion. Batiste seems like a nice man but my word the makers of this documentary made him look like a bit of a self centred and pretentious individual.

It got about an hour in and I found myself talking to the screen, clearly I wasn't falling for the nonsense. I must say that the film picked up from the Grammy awards section onwards, which is good as at that point I was verging on awarding the film a 1 star review. Jon's wife Suleika Jaouad was clearly going through a terrible cancer ordeal of which I have full empathy. I did find a lot of the scenes extremely set up especially the wedding, some of the hospital sequences and Jon on the phone to his therapist.

The part when he is performing at the piano (not during the power cut) and he waits for what feels like an eternity to begin to play was something of a low point. The audience didn't look too thrilled to watch his show.

I am unlikely to further my education into Batiste, but I am happy to part company with him knowing that I didn't dislike him as much as I did during the first hour of this documentary, than I did at the end.

At one point his wife mentions that the music playing is "emotionally manipulative", I think this sums up American Symphony perfectly.

Simple and entertaining with a good ensemble cast. There are a few laughs to be had although quite a lot of the funny parts were in the trailer. Olivia Colman is always a delight to watch with Jessie Buckley stealing the show with some excellent acting as the unpredictable, foul mouthed Rose. Timothy Small plays a character so hideous it is hard to watch at times. It's a story about female empowerment and it still frustrates me that women were treated like this only in the last century. The scenes with the gang of women clubbing together to help Rose were a highlight. Wicked Little Letters reminded me in tone of The Banshees of Inisherin albeit with a much more positive narrative.

There's a scene in this film which Emerald Fennell may have watched before writing Saltburn. The scene in question involves a bereaved boy mourning another boy at his grave. Summer of 85 is a little different to some other international gay dramas as it adds a layer of comedy, only a small layer but enough to break the melodramatic scenes. The story is good although the film lost a little pace once David's fate had been sealed.

Félix Lefebvre carries the film well as Alex, even though he must have found it hard to breath wearing tight jeans for the most part. Benjamin Voisin's performance as David is strong and it's also easy to admire his chiselled jawline. There is a confrontational scene between David and Alex which is very memorable. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi is excellent as David's somewhat inappropriate and unhinged mother. The soundtrack is catchy with the original score being quite sombre and reflective.

I've seen this film a few times since it's 2020 release and it remains entertaining every time.

Don't expect page after page of dialogue, if it can be said in a look or body movement then that's what we are given. Drive is a taut thriller from director Nicolas Winding Refn. A simplistic story with excellent car scenes and a hefty dollop of bloody violence. Ryan Gosling has never been more cool or indeed handsome in a role with a lot of depth. Gosling masterfully takes us from start to finish. The soundtrack is fantastic and the scorpion jacket has become an iconic symbol for this film. Carey Mulligan has great chemistry with Gosling. Oscar Isaac is amongst the supporting cast with the only downside being his lack of screen time. Albert Brooks has an everyman quality to his bad guy role as Bernie, who is not exactly menacing but dangerous and unpredictable nonetheless. The central love story will of course put off anyone who only expects constant action, violence and car chases but this romance is the reason you want the main characters to survive. Special mention to the editing, sound design, music and cinematography in what surely has already become a recent cult classic.

Comedy films don't always satisfy me and although there were some decent scenes and lines the film fell flat. There was a certain amount of promise in the first 30 minutes but the last 30 minutes weren't up to scratch, with the ending itself being particularly bad. The funniest moment comes in the form of a scene on a train involving a drug dealer. The four leads all had time to shine but some of the best moments were so rushed, you won't have time to enjoy them. For a film called Joy Ride, which was essentially a road movie, it never capitalised on the fish out of water concept, which was available to the screenwriters. Joy Ride was better than some female led comedies like Wine Country or Girls Trip but not a patch on Bridesmaids.

I remember watching Toy Soldiers once before when I was a teenager. I had forgotten much about it but I must say that I was pleasantly surprised after watching it again. There are lots of action scenes which are well executed on the most part. Sean Astin is extremely likeable as cheeky student Billy. The rest of the trouble making boys are well played by an energetic cast. The terrorists are not too memorable but provide an element of malice which adds some suspense. Toy Soldiers is not amazing but the 90s vibe elevates it for me as I love that decade, especially the costumes worn by the characters.

A Night to Remember was my favourite film growing up as I was fascinated with the sinking of the Titanic. I've seen this film many many times and it holds up very well. Kenneth More brings a warmth to the role as Second Officer Lightoller. The screenplay is kind to Lightoller giving him a lot more to do to justify More as the leading actor. There's a host of great supporting actors such as Laurence Naismith as Captain Smith, Michael Goodliffe as Thomas Andrews, David McCallum as Harold Bride and Honor Blackman as Mrs. Lucas. The story focuses on a large cross section of passengers and crew with each having some scenes to help depict the unfolding drama.

I particularly love the score, although there are few scenes with music but when it is present it's very powerful. The production standards are very good considering this was made in the 1950s, although there are some continuity errors. A lot of the big errors are near the beginning when the producers decided to use archive footage but not of the Titanic, I believe no such footage exists of the Titanic itself. A Night to Remember captures the tragedy well, James Cameron was clearly inspired by this film and borrows some key scenes in his 1997 Oscar winning epic Titanic. I know a lot of fans prefer A Night to Remember to Cameron's Titanic but for me his version is superior, although they are both the best films about the sinking of the 'unsinkable' Titanic.

Growing up in the late 90s I was spoiled for choice of great teen films such as 10 Things I Hate About You, American Pie and Cruel Intentions. After the early noughties the teen films weren't as good or maybe I was now too old for them. Well Love, Simon is up there with those classics and the first teen film I have enjoyed in a while. It's great to see a gay character take the lead in this story about coming out and the difficulties that sometimes brings. Nick Robinson is the perfect boy next door who has a great life apart from his one big secret...he is gay. The ensemble cast is good with Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel playing what seems to be the best movie parents ever. The soundtrack is fun and although longer than some similar films, the pace is just right. Love, Simon is a film I happily watch each year.