The French Dispatch (2021)
Movie Watch
"A love letter to journalists set at an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th-century...
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2012)
Movie
A film adaptation based on Lionel Shriver's dramatic, epistolary novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin...
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)
Movie Watch
Visiting their annoying cousin, Eustace, Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund Pevensie (Skandar Keynes)...
The New Garconne: How to be a Modern Gentlewoman
Book
The New Garconne is a non-prescriptive guide for today's modern, independent and stylish woman. It...
Hail, Caesar! (2016)
Movie Watch
In the early 1950s, Eddie Mannix is busy at work trying to solve all the problems of the actors and...
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
Movie Watch
Born under unusual circumstances, Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) springs into being as an elderly man...
Adaptation (2002)
Movie Watch
Director Spike Jonze delivers a stunningly original comedy that seamlessly blends fictional...
Awix (3310 KP) rated The Dead Don't Die (2019) in Movies
Jul 20, 2019 (Updated Jul 20, 2019)
Sounds like a knowing pastiche of B-movie tropes (there indeed appears to be a nod to Plan Nine from Outer Space at one point), and indeed it is, but if this is really a comedy they forgot to add any jokes. There are some amusing moments and the zombie-pocalypse is certainly well staged, but the film seems more concerned with cultivating a baffling, deadpan weirdness than actually telling a coherent story. For instance: Tilda Swinton plays the town's undertaker, a sword-swinging eccentric with a Highland Scots accent. The punchline? Tilda Swinton's character is called Zelda Winston! Oh, my sides. Various other bits of self-aware cleverness also intrude. Characters appear, don't do much, and then exit; Romero is referenced without any new angles being taken on his ideas; there is no conclusion worthy of the name. If the film is trying to send a message about pointlessness and futility, it needn't have taken it quite so much to heart.
Burn After Reading (2008)
Movie Watch
Burn After Reading, a comedy thriller from Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, Fargo,...
Gareth von Kallenbach (965 KP) rated The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019) in Movies
Oct 8, 2020
We see his birth where his mother, Clara Copperfield (Morfydd Clark, playing a double role, later as Dora Spenlow) a slight, fantastical woman, and the steadfast housekeeper, Peggotty (Daisy May Cooper) go through the hectic confusion while people mill about, entering and exiting during the process of birth. His Aunt, Betsy (Tilda Swinton) goes about, adding to the calamity insistent that the child of her late brother would be a girl, who would carry her legacy as a Trotwood. Her eccentricity noted immediately as she storms out once learning the child is a boy.
The film progresses, with the same quick tempo, through his brief, idyllic childhood with his mother, then his trip to Yarmouth summering with Peggotty’s family where his imagination begins its bloom in the house that is a boat, by the sea. Once David returns home, he is informed that his mother had married, and his stepfather sends him to London. He is sent to live with Mr. & Mrs. Micawber (Peter Capaldi and Bronagh Gallagher) while he works at the bottle factory.
David’s life goes from famine to feast, bear to bull. However, he has learned resilience through his encounters with people of all classes and situations. As Copperfield makes his way through life, the tempo slows down, and the frenzy subsides.
Yes, it’s a remake, the film is beautifully made, the cast is an incredibly talented international group. Hugh Laurie and Tilda Swinton provide an endearing portrait of eclectic personalities. The film is just a charming and whimsical piece of storytelling.