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Charlie Cobra Reviews (1840 KP) rated Tolkien (2019) in Movies

Jul 7, 2020  
Tolkien (2019)
Tolkien (2019)
2019 | Biography, Drama
6
5.7 (18 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
An Unexpectedly Dull Journey
Tolkien is a 2019 biographical/drama movie directed by Dome Karukoski and written by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford. It's produced by Fox Searchlight Pictures and Chernin Entertainment and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. The film stars Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, and Derek Jacobi.


As a young boy living in the countryside, J.R.R. Tolkien, learns multiple languages and how to read and write with his younger brother as they are taught by their mother. They are forced to move to the city so their mother can better provide for them when unfortunate events have them taken in by the Church and and stay at a boarding house. This is where, as a young student at King Edward's School, among a group of fellow outcasts, he finds friendship, love, and artistic inspiration. But his friends and their new brotherhood must endure the ups and downs of his position in society, his relationship with the love of his life Edith Bratt and later the outbreak of World War I.


I was really excited for this movie and having my hopes up and expectations might be the reason I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. For one I don't normally watch autobiographies but I have seen more that I liked in comparison to this film. I guess I thought they would show more about him coming up with the ideas for his books, which they showed very little of. Instead it was about the important events of his life which I guess is what biographies should do. For some reason though I felt like the storytelling dragged and it didn't do enough to keep you interested, very lackluster. I found that the story, acting, and dialogue were all well done but the movie suffered from the direction they went with and how they chose to show it. One thing I really liked was there were several instances where you could see what influenced him when he wrote the Lord of The Rings" books. It's an entertaining film with flair and ambition that teems with on the nose moments but is hindered by the usual biopic framework. I believe the quote from Rotten Tomatoes says it best, "Tolkien Has the period trappings and strong performances of a worthy biopic, but lacks the imagination required to truly do it's subject justice". I give it a 6/10.
(1)   
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Illeana Douglas recommended Wild Strawberries (1957) in Movies (curated)

 
Wild Strawberries (1957)
Wild Strawberries (1957)
1957 | Drama
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"I spent my moviegoing life avoiding Ingmar Bergman movies. A few glimpses of The Seventh Seal or Persona made me think they were not accessible. I also knew Woody Allen worshipped him, so surely they were over my head. It was while working on my Ikea-sponsored web series Easy to Assemble that I thought: Well, if I’m going to be satirizing Swedish culture, I should watch some Bergman. He became the director from whom I have learned the most. He gave me the courage not to shy away from pain, which is the core of all comedy. The results are apparent in “Finding North,” an episode in Easy to Assemble’s third season, and all my writing since. I chose Wild Strawberries because in it I found the key that changed my work forever. I always lived in a daydream, where sometimes things felt real and sometimes they felt imagined. So much of an actor’s life is imagination. Wild Strawberries is a road-trip movie about an old man who looks back at his life, his loves, his regrets, and has to face certain truths about himself. The story is not revealed by flashbacks, though. It’s revealed by going from reality to daydream. He reflects on his past with a nostalgia for childhood. This makes reality feel more present and his relationship with his grown son and daughter-in-law more uncomfortable. Have you ever been in the presence of someone having an argument and thought, I can’t believe they revealed that to me? That is every scene in a Bergman film! After his wife died, Bergman said, “I was in a room built of my own sorrow.” No other sentence expresses the pain of losing a loved one in such a poetic way. His words are so revealing, and coupled with the right emotions, the right images, they bring me as close to the human experience as anything I have experienced in a film. There is another reason Wild Strawberries has a special place in my heart. In 2013, because of my involvement in Easy to Assemble, I was cast in a Swedish-American show called Welcome to Sweden. I like to imagine that Bergman had a hand in that. I shot a scene with Lena Olin in which we picked wild strawberries. It was not imagined, though. That really happened!"

Source
  
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Night Reader Reviews (683 KP) rated A Collection of Short Stories in Books

Nov 9, 2020  
A Collection of Short Stories
A Collection of Short Stories
Maggie Ffrench | 2020 | Children
4
4.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The stories are only a couple pages long each. (0 more)
Sadly the book has a bunch of errors. (0 more)
Created with the intention of parents or other caregivers reading it to children
A Collection of Short Stories by Maggie Ffrench was created with the intention of parents or other caregivers reading it to children and sharing the experience.

 Written my Maggie Ffrench for her grandson “Jamie’s” first birthday (if the story in the book is true) this book contains twelve imaginative stories to read to young children. All the stories focus on a fictional Jamie and his adventures both by himself and with his family.

 Some of the stories like “Bubbles” where Jamie climbs into a bubble and flies over the town, or “The Present” where Jamie’s clay creations come alive are firmly in the realm of imagination. On the other hand “The Box” where Jamie plays with a box and “Looking” where Jamie looks out the window are placed in reality. This (almost) even mix offers a good balance for families.

 What I liked best was that this book contains twelve short stories, each only a few pages long. Those pages even only have a couple of sentences on most of them at that, making them great for young ear who are easily distracted. Unfortunately there was quite a bit wrong with this book for how short it is. At least one of the stories cuts off without an ending and twice the book itself is referenced in stories. Some of the sentences are missing words completely while others have words like “controversial” which is an awfully big word (and strange one) to have in a children’s book. Then there is the page and a half that looks like it was photocopied.

 This book appears to have been designed for parents to read to small children. The introduction even talks about how important the author believes it is for parents and children to read together. I rate this book 1 out of 4 or 2 out of 5. The concept is good but sadly the overall book is not. This book did not appear to have been edited very well and comes off as extremely amateurish. Honestly I really wanted to like this book, but for me it missed the mark big time.
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Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated A Bad Moms Christmas (2017) in Movies

Jul 11, 2019  
A Bad Moms Christmas (2017)
A Bad Moms Christmas (2017)
2017 | Comedy
8
6.9 (25 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
Christmas is the happiest time of the year. At least it’s supposed to be, Moms are expected to work tirelessly throughout the Christmas season to ensure that the holiday is absolute perfection for their families. The gifts are to be wrapped with precision, decorations hanging from every available bough, food that could be lifted from the pages of Bon Appétit magazine, all done without breaking a sweat. Tis the season for family and frolic, yet our Bad Moms are stressed beyond their imagination this holiday season. Why? Because their mothers have arrived.

This Christmas, Amy (Mila Kunis), Kiki (Kristen Bell) and Carla (Kathryn Hahn) are enter the holiday season feeling the pressure of Christmas present. With all that need to be done, they agree that this is the Christmas where they make the rules. Amy decides that they are going to have a low key holiday. However, that goes against the everything Ruth (Christine Baranski), Amy’s mom believes and expects as she arrives in a tornado of holiday perfection, trailed by her blissfully oblivious husband Hank (Peter Gallagher). Ruth is a perfectionist, a task master extraordinaire who expects no less from her child. Amy, tired of trying to get her mother’s approval, decides to change the traditions.

 Kiki’s Mom Sandy (Cheryl Hines) is the clinging, overbearing type who’s behavior could be classified as stalker; if she were not Kiki’s mom. Sandy’s need to be close to her daughter crosses the comfort zone in so many ways. Kiki decides to see Dr. Karl (Wanda Sykes), the family therapist, who explains the maternal process of insanity in hilariously truthful detail.

Isis (Susan Sarandon) shows up at Carla’s house unexpectedly. She seems to only show up at Carla’s door when she has run out of money. She is on the other side of the maternal spectrum, the hands off type. Carla has had to fend for herself for years and expects her mother to take off without a moment’s notice.

I enjoyed the first Bad Moms, but I was hesitant to watch the sequel because there was a chance that it would not be as good as the first. I quite surprised by how much I enjoyed the movie. It made me snort laugh more than once. This is the perfect movie for a Girls Night Out. Grab your BFFs and head to the theater to take a break this holiday season!
  
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Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) in Movies

Jul 11, 2019  
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
2017 | Sci-Fi
8
6.9 (54 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
Alpha, the inter-universal coalition of a thousand planets that has evolved to support millions of life forms, is under attack. Valerian and his partner, Laureline are assigned to find the culprits and destroy them. Based on the main characters in the 1967 French comic book series Valerian and Laureline. Luc Besson sends us out into the vastness of the universe and shows us how wondrous it can be.

The director of The Fifth Element has been working on this film for about ten years. Besson has mentioned he had wanted to work on this project for years and it would not have been made before the technology used in James Cameron’s Avatar. The film is a eye-gasming smorgasbord of star systems, planets and five hundred different alien species. The story itself does not hold many surprises. Heroes looking for villains, lasers pew-pewing across time and space. Goal to save the world as they know.

Valerian (Dane DeHann) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) have a cool/electric repartee of partners who know each other well and are working to combat the underlying…tensions. We learn that Valerian, quite confident in his abilities does not work as well without Laureline by him. Not as the sidekick, but equal. Throughout the film, we see the humor in their relationship with the push and push of their personalities trying to gain the upper hand. The film has some visual and physical comedic moments that tip the hat to screwball, buddy comedies.

The movie is such an incredible visually dazzling event throughout, there’s so much going on that at times I wondered what I could have been missing . The characters are striking: Rhianna’s performance as Bubble was an ocular delight. The costuming and makeup were fanciful, artistic and offbeat. All the CG work in this movie truly makes me wonder what it is like to live in Luc Besson’s mind. I can see the inspiration taken from the comic books which give us the characters and storyline, but the imagination that illustrates Valerian and Laureline’s universe on the big screen is absolutely mind-blowing.

If you are a fan of the Fifth Element, you will enjoy this film. However, you don’t need to be a fan to enjoy this adventure. I highly recommend that you view this in 3D, it enhances the vision created by Besson.