Sign up
Search
Advanced search settings

Search only in certain items:

Search results
All (5000)
Content
People
Apps
Books
Orbs
Movies
Music
Podcasts
Shows
Tabletop Games
Tech
TV
Video Games
YouTube Channels
Videos
40x40

Bob Mann (459 KP) rated The Courier (2020) in Movies

Aug 16, 2021  
The Courier (2020)
The Courier (2020)
2020 |
7
8.0 (4 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Cumberbatch is brilliant. (1 more)
Great real life history lesson
Buckley is good, but miscast. (0 more)
A peerless Cumberbatch and a miscast Buckley.
It's not to be confused with the Olga Kurylenko / Gary Oldman 2019 movie of the same title. But with a fresh Berlin current-day Russian spy scandal in the news this week, seeing the cold war spy drama "The Courier" is a timely thing to do.

Positives:
- Benedict Cumberbatch is outstandingly good in this. He could have been born to play the slightly bemused English gentlemen of the time. All golf, tweed suits and gentlemen's clubs. No spoilers, but there is a physical transformation as well that's impressive to observe. The film would have been decidedly so-so I think without that core central performance.
- The film is based on a true story. As someone who was born in 1961, it's a good reminder to count our blessings that you, me and everyone else are still around to live our lives at all. The world was on the brink of a precipice and learning the story of Wynne's part in this was insightful history.
- There's a nice catchy Russian-themed score by Abel Korzeniowski.

Negatives:
- I'm a big fan of Jessie Buckley. Really, I am. And to be fair to her, her performance is really good. I particularly liked a scene where she dismissed on the doorstep a local busybody. But I just didn't see her as Wynne's pearl-neckless-wearing wife in this part. Perhaps the problem is that although there's a 13 year age gap between the leads, I always imagine Buckley as being much younger that her 31 years. For whatever reason, the casting didn't work for me.

Summary Thoughts on "The Courier": As a true-life spy story, the movie is interesting and Cumberbatch's performance is brilliant. But I can't say that I was 100% grabbed by it. While having a few moments of high drama and tension - particularly one on a plane - I never felt that to be maintained for enough of the movie. Director Dominic Cooke has a limited filmography (with the Saoirse Ronan movie "On Chesil Beach" being his only other feature) and writer Tom O'Connor is the guy behind the more flippant "Hitman's Bodyguard" films. Perhaps a more experienced writer/director team would have elevated this to a higher level.

So it's eminently watchable but not memorable. Just a marginal hit in my book.

(For the full graphical review, please check out onemannsmovies on the web, Facebook and Tiktok. Thanks.)
  
40x40

Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated The Lady of the Ravens in Books

Oct 18, 2022  
The Lady of the Ravens
The Lady of the Ravens
Joanna Hickson | 2020 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics
6
7.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
191 of 230
Book
The Lady of the Ravens ( Queens of the Tower book 1)
By Joanna Hickson
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Elizabeth of York, her life already tainted by dishonour and tragedy, now queen to the first Tudor king, Henry the VII.

Joan Vaux, servant of the court, straining against marriage and motherhood and privy to the deepest and darkest secrets of her queen. Like the ravens, Joan must use her eyes and her senses, as conspiracy whispers through the dark corridors of the Tower.

Through Joan’s eyes, The Lady of the Ravens inhabits the squalid streets of Tudor London, the imposing walls of its most fearsome fortress and the glamorous court of a kingdom in crisis.

It was good. I enjoyed it but got slightly bored towards the end. I’m a huge fan of the Tudors and liked reading this adaptation of the start of their reign. It was a decent read.
  
40x40

Rufus Wainwright recommended The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill in Music (curated)

 
The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill
The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Yes, that's the one. I know both recordings, and the movie too, but I think the one I listened to mostly was the later one. In a lot of ways Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, and this piece in particular, represent what I'd ultimately like to do as an artist: bringing opera together with popular music; classical singing with everyday life. I've written a couple of operas, I've worked with Shakespeare's sonnets, I've made pop records, and I have this folk background, and I feel that Kurt Weill with The Threepenny Opera was the pinnacle where all of the elements that he was influenced by joined together to create this other animal. Lotte Lenya was the one who interpreted that. It's a really good touchstone to keep in mind in terms of what I do in the pop world and the theatre world."

Source
  
40x40

Ashley Valencia (5 KP) rated Christopher Robin (2018) in Movies

Mar 31, 2019  
Christopher Robin (2018)
Christopher Robin (2018)
2018 | Adventure, Animation, Comedy
9
8.1 (77 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
Surprisingly Good
I was very pleasantly surprised by this film. Disney's live action remakes have been pretty disappointing to me, in general. But this one was very well made. I think they did a great job incorporating the fantasy characters into the real life world of post war England.

Ewan McGregor plays a grown up Christopher Robin who most people will be able to relate to. He's trying to find balance between his work and home life and finds himself coming up short on both sides. He's stressed and has put aside childish things to focus on trying to be a competent adult.

Then he gets a visit from a few almost forgotten childhood friends and learns to loosen up a little and see things differently. It's a wonderfully told story and I was so glad that the original voice actor was brought back. It just wouldn't have been Winnie the Pooh without Jim Cummings.