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Wind River (2017)
Wind River (2017)
2017 | Action, Crime, Mystery
Brilliant performances (1 more)
Very well written and directed
A Satisfying Thriller
Taylor Sheridan has written two of my favourite movies over the last few years, Sicario and Hell or Highwater. This is only Sheridan's second time in the directors chair though and he proves that he is more than capable when put in charge of an entire film's production.

This is a fairly slow burn that focuses mostly on building character arcs and relationships rather than fast paced action. The structure that the movie follows to give the audience context and the backstory of the movie's respective characters though, is extremely effective and well crafted. The movie doesn't treat it's audience like idiots, nor does it act too smart for it's own good.

Renner and Olsen are both fantastic in the two lead roles and are able to make scenes that are purely dialogue focused, engaging and entertaining. I like Jeremy Renner, but when he stars in blockbuster movies like Bourne or Avengers or Mission Impossible, it is easy to forget how good of an actor he really is, in this performance, he does a good job of reminding you of his ability as a performer.

Slight spoilers follow, nothing major, but some might rather not know anything going in, so if that's you stop reading now. Jon Bernthal's cameo towards the end of the movie was such a delight, he is only in the movie for a just shy of ten minutes, but he was fantastic as he always is. That guy is quickly turning into one of my favourite character actors working in Hollywood.

I won't spoil the end of the movie, but I will say that it is extremely satisfying and makes the slow burn leading up to that point totally worth it.

If you are a fan of mystery thrillers and gripping dramatic performances, then go and see this film.
  
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Emma @ The Movies (1786 KP) rated Downsizing (2017) in Movies

Jun 30, 2019 (Updated Sep 25, 2019)  
Downsizing (2017)
Downsizing (2017)
2017 | Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
Paul and Audrey are like any normal couple, they plod along and everything is... okay. But when they meet one of Paul's high school friends who has "downsized" they wonder if this might be what they've been looking for to change their life.

Wow... just wow. Matt Damon is doing amazingly well at reassuring me of the reasons I don't like his films. I'm afraid to say that this one gets two stars purely for the fact that the story line had so much potential... and barely any of it was tapped.

If you go on to IMDb you can see that they've listed this one as comedy, drama, and sci-fi. Now, the last one is a given, as unless I've been missing something we are unable to shrink people. But the other two... I genuinely think that there were two versions of the script, one comedy and one drama, and when someone was taking them to production they accidentally dropped them and ended up matching the comedy beginning with the drama end... the worst type of pantomime horse ever created.

The trailer that I kept seeing for this one looked entirely like a comedy. I was really surprised that it became a "drama". It could quite easily have been one or the other, Damon would have fit well in the comedy version, and had they done some fun stuff around him and his wife trying to reconcile after she bailed on being Downsized I could have seen that working. Equally, with some different casting I could have seen the more serious ending to the movie working if they'd had an equally serious beginning. As it is though this movie seems to have no idea who it's trying to appeal to... and actually, thinking about it... I'm going to revoke one of those stars, talking over it has made me see the error of my ways.
  
Don't Let Go (2019)
Don't Let Go (2019)
2019 | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Don't Let Go nearly passed me by, last minute advertising popped it back onto my radar and I was still suitably intrigued by it and managed to catch it at my local. The idea seemed like an interesting one, it worked for Frequency so why not now too? After seeing the film though you realise that if you take the sci-fi out you could easily adapt the story into a regular thriller. I thought they handled the "time travel" between cuts in a very good way, but ultimately the lack of explanation felt like a letdown and the ending felt rather unfulfilling too.

They do some of my least favourite camera work, bouncy cameras and the opening gliding shot didn't sit well with me. Just once I'd like to see a camera in a car that only jumps when they hit a pothole or take a speed bump.

The majority of the film is following Jack, played by David Oyelowo, he does a good job of the mania that you'd expect from this situation. There's always the issue with situations that are more real than science fiction... how can you even begin to work out what you'd do? It felt believable and that was a fairly impressive feat.

I'd previously seen Storm Reid in A Wrinkle In Time which I loved, but in neither film did I find her easy to watch. She's got a talent for sure but sometimes things don't seem all that natural on screen.

As I said, the idea is intriguing, I'm hopeful that appeal will be enough for some people to find this film entertaining. I enjoyed it for the most part but the disappointing ending and too many points left to "it's a mystery" mean I won't be putting this very high on the list of things to rewatch.

Full review originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2019/11/dont-let-go-movie-review.html
  
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
2019 | Action, Adventure
Contains spoilers, click to show
I would like to start by saying that I have, at the time of writing this, never seen any of the previous ‘The Fast and The Furious’ films and my knowledge of the franchise is; Film 1 - some people steel some cars, Film 2 – more cars get stolen, Film 3 racing in Japan, then apparently they get weird so I wasn’t total sure what I was getting into but hay any film that has an evil cyborg going up against two action hero’s has to be good. Doesn’t it?
Of course it does. I’m not going to pretend that ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ is a massive cinematic masterpiece but you it knows what it is, a ‘no brainier’ action film that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The plot is, of course simple and ridiculous, to stop the technological enhanced Brixton from getting a virus that can wipe out most of the people on earth Hattie injects it into herself. Hobbs & Shaw are hired to get Hattie and the virus back. Hobbs and Shaw don’t like each other having met before in one of the previous films and Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham play this brilliantly, bouncing insults off each other though out most of the film.
The film does have a slight serious theme as the subject of family is tackled but this only helps the flow of the film.
The only side effect of not seeing any of the other films was that I was unsure if Brixton had been in any of them before, there was a backstory between him and Shaw but I couldn’t tell if it did refer to something seen before or if it was just for this film. There was also a second bad guy who mentioned that Hobbs didn’t remember him but it was never reviled who this was and as neither of these points impact on the film they do not take away any of the enjoyment.
So If you like easy going action films with car chases and explosions this film is for you.
  
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Colin Newman recommended The Amateur View by To Rococo Rot in Music (curated)

 
The Amateur View by To Rococo Rot
The Amateur View by To Rococo Rot
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"How I got to know about it was through knowing their original record label Kitty-Yo and working with people in Berlin and going over there, and then I met Ronald, and this album summed up a moment for me. Dance music had so completely dominated the 90s. Really you could only ever talk about music in terms of the beat. There was techno and electro and then there was drum & bass, and they were so dominant; there was no other music. I remember thinking at the time, at the height of drum & bass, why would you listen to any other kind of music besides drum & bass? That's the only kind of music there is. There's Britpop, but that's rubbish. And then towards the end of the 90s all that started to fade and there was Tortoise suddenly appearing with what Americans who didn't do dance music did as instrumental music. And then from Germany you had To Rococo Rot. I think they gave me that record, because I think the version I've got is a promo. And again it's one of those records we just listen to over and over again. Wire did a tour, I think it was in 2000, and when we started we hadn't provided any music to go on before the band. And in every venue they were playing something like Soundgarden. Sorry, but I can't stand Soundgarden. I can't take it. So then we said well why don't we give them some music to put on? And I had that album, so we had that on before every show and it was really good. It was like you have some thrashy support band and then some thrashy dirge playing after that and then Wire coming on and it's like an evening of dirge. So to lighten it up we put something else on that puts the audience in a different space. And it also set us up in a different way. We got to feel differently about what we were doing. It was very effective for that"

Source
  
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Rick Astley recommended Under the Pink by Tori Amos in Music (curated)

 
Under the Pink by Tori Amos
Under the Pink by Tori Amos
1994 | Alternative

"I haven't listened to this record for ages. But I intend to! I walk a lot and used to live by Richmond Park and I like to walk with an album as I don't do that very often. That was one of my Richmond Park albums. There's that Kate Bush element, beautiful, mad lyrical content and some of those song titles are like 'what the fuck?' Just great. What was I doing during this period? I was retired. I quit in the mid 1990s and decided I was going to teach myself to make records for other people like a producer. And it was a time when Auto-tune was king in pop music and this – and other things – made me realise I didn't want to do it and also I probably can't do it. It's quite an art to make songs for other people. You give it your everything but no one writes songs for bands, no one wrote songs for The Smiths. They write them for solo artists most of the time. That void is taken up by pop and you have to make records which are autotuned because a lot of the time - in the 1990s – the idea was 'Can she sing? Well, it doesn't matter'. But it did to me! It is an alchemy of Christ knows what to make a good record and I don't think I've got the chops to do that [for someone else]. I had a record deal with Polydor in Germany at one point specifically within the context of not having to release the album anywhere else! I did a bit of promotion there but nothing happened. It wasn't the kind of record that used to get me on the radio in the 1980s but it also wasn't the kind of record that was enough of truly doing what I wanted to do."

Source
  
Unhinged (Splintered #2)
Unhinged (Splintered #2)
A.G. Howard | 2014 | Contemporary
6
8.5 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
<i>Unhinged</i>, the second book in the <i>Splintered</i> trilogy, is <b>set an entire year after the events in <i><a title="Splintered by A.G. Howard" href="https://bookwyrmingthoughts.com/review-splintered-by-ag-howard/"; target="_blank" rel="noopener">Splintered</a></i></b>. With the curse broken, Alyssa finally hopes to have as much of a normal life as possible, despite the fact nothing is actually the same.

I personally thought that <b><i>Splintered</i> was better off a stand-alone</b> when A.G. Howard first takes us to her dark version of Wonderland. <b>The ending definitely could have taken two turns</b> – the book could have expanded into multiple books, or it could have been left alone.

With <i>Unhinged</i>, <b>I just didn't feel as passionate as I was with the first book.</b> Though Alyssa believes she has left Wonderland behind, Morpheus and Wonderland eventually come back to haunt her through dreams and violent paintings – something bad is going on and Wonderland needs Alyssa back now that she's taken her place as the Red Queen. <b>The sequel isn't as adventurous or dark – it just felt like something I would normally see in a novel.</b>

I don't even know how to phrase it – <b><i>Unhinged</i> focuses a lot in the human world; Alyssa's conflicted feelings between Morpheus and Jeb, and where she actually belongs.</b> I hoped the book would bring us back to Wonderland, but <b>I don't even think we even entered Wonderland – it came to Alyssa and it just wasn't as exotic or enchanting or amazing as it was back in book one.</b> Am I sounding whiny now?

That's not including Morpheus and Jeb. <b>Much as I like Morpheus and his sassiness, I just don't like him for the life of me. I <em>still</em> don't like Jeb</b> [for the life of me]. If I really had to choose between the two, I would probably pick Morpheus simply because he just seems to have more personality than Jeb. (Have I mentioned Morpheus has sass?) <b>All Morpheus seems to really care about is Red and how to finally get her out of his wings.</b> Alyssa is just... convenient enough to be used and he ends up falling in love with her in the process of "using" her.

Now I don't know if that's true. I'm sure he actually cares about her greatly considering their history, and I'm sure Jeb cares about her as well, even though he is overprotective and it probably seems endearing. They don't fight as much as they did back in <i>Splintered</i>, but I just don't feel anything for the corners of the love triangle. I just don't. <b>I feel completely indifferent about <i>Unhinged</i> altogether and I'll read the last book simply for the feeling of closure.</b>

<a href="https://bookwyrmingthoughts.com/review-unhinged-by-ag-howard/"; target="_blank">This review was originally posted on Bookwyrming Thoughts</a>
  
Tomb Raider (2018)
Tomb Raider (2018)
2018 | Action, Adventure
So, this reboot of the franchise happened. I dare say, I doubt anyone was asking for it. It's a hard film to critique due to the fact that I have to compare it to the Angelina Jolie films where the biggest plus was that Jolie looked like the video game character... And that was the biggest plus.

That being said, I would call this a good movie and an acceptable action flick.


The characters were pretty much all outshine by Alicia Vikander who was the only character with any real nuance. Her father had a lot of potential but was extremely unrelatable. The villain seemed bored to even be there. Her Asian buddy could have been lifted out of the film... And you would never have noticed.


That being said, Vikander's performance was strong and made the character grounded. She took hits. She didn't seem like she just knew how to do everything perfectly well. I actually enjoyed that for most of it she seems out of her element and made to do all the action sequences out of survival.


The plot was better than I expected. I enjoyed the lore and mythology that surrounded the island, but I admit, I breathed a sigh of relief when the reveal showed it being something much more realistic and less supernatural.


The action sequences we're actually very good. There were quite a few times I found myself on the edge of my seat. I particularly enjoyed the bike race at the beginning and her escape from the "chain gang".


Considering that this is clearly an original story attempting to start a franchise, I'm not convinced I need another chapter. But I am glad I got the one they gave me.
  
Disobedience (2018)
Disobedience (2018)
2018 | Drama, Romance
English language films with big name actors are not usually this European. Which is why I have chosen the beautiful French poster to highlight this unexpected gem.

I hadn’t expected to like it, but was curious to see the two lead actresses work together on something so intimate, that became in the media something controversial, regrettably, for all the wrong reasons. They chose to focus on the sexual aspect of two high profile women about to commit to film a level of titillation hitherto unseen by either… but, of course, it is so much more than that.

The world of orthodox Judaisim and commitment to a patriarchal ideal of tradition and intrinsic value is at the heart of this small, yet devastating film. At first, that world is so alien and upsetting that it seems like a fantasy. Until you allow yourself to realise that this community does exist, and thrives.

Both Rachel Weisz as a woman with a secret who managed to escape the constraints and prejudices of the male dominant world, and Rachel McAdams, as the friend left behind to swallow her pride and be the expected wife, deliver extraordinary performances. The passion, repression and guilt are apparent in every scene.

But it is Alessandro Nivola, as the key antagonist, that really wins the plaudits. Watch a character so unlikable become a hero in the most humble and unlikely sense, in a scene of such breath-taking clarity, towards the film’s climax. I can only wish all “bad guys” get this kind of human pay-off.

A film of resonance and social interest that fails as an entirely coherent piece, but works in so many good ways it is worth seeing just for the feels! There is no point where you do not believe how much these women are in love. And for that reason alone, I recommend it.