Bria Lou Reviews

My first Favourites post of 2021! I'll be honest, I'm rushing to get this written and uploaded before April because this month has gone so quickly! I can't believe a quarter of the year is already over. But anyway, here are my January - March favourites! Favourite Movie (1): The Prom To be honest, I haven't seen a huge amount of amazing movies so far this year. So as The Prom has been one of my favourites, it had to go at the top of the list. I reviewed it HERE , and as you can tell from the review, I absolutely loved it. Favourite Movie (2): Yes Day I definitely have a soft spot for movies like this. I didn't end up reviewing it, but I adored it. I ended up watching it two days in a row because I loved it so much. It's about, as you can imagine, two parents who give their children a 'Yes Day', where they have to say yes to doing whatever their children want. It's not winning awards or anything like that, but it's a simple story told in a interes...

I had been looking forward to reading this book for a really long time. Not only because of the great premise, but because of how well-received it was. The story follows two women, one of which is Emira, who is accused one night of kidnapping the white child she is babysitting. The other is Alix, Emira's boss, who will do anything to make the situation right. But the incident sparks a chain of events that will challenge and change the lives of everyone involved. Reading this book, something that I've learnt that I've never considered is the fact that, not being able to put a book down doesn't necessarily mean that you loved it. Because that's how I felt about the book. I couldn't put it down for the 5 days that I was reading it, but once I got to the end, I realised that I didn't love it as much as I thought I did. However, I thought the first chapter was incredible. My heart was pounding, I felt like I was in that supermarket with Emira, and I just couldn...

  I heard nothing about this film before it came out, which was really surprising because it had such a good cast. But even though I'm starting to feel the cancer-movie fatigue, I thought I'd give this one a go. When Daryn (Jaden Smith) finds out that his girlfriend Isabelle (Cara Delevingne) is dying of cancer, he decides to pack a lifetime of memories into the year she has left. I enjoyed this film more than I thought I would. I was surprised at how little this film was promoted, especially because, as I've said, it had a really good cast.    Normally with stories like this, the beginning of the film feels unnecessary because you're waiting to get to the main plot. But with this one, even the backstory was really interesting, and definitely didn't feel unnecessary. I loved the characters, particularly Daryn who is a really great character. But all of these characters have their own stories and lives, and they all feel really well written and thought-out. The relat...

  I did this last month and really enjoyed seeing a comprehensive list of my posts, so I'm definitely going to keep doing it! Here are my February posts! Sightless | Film Review - This was my first film review of February. I liked the premise, but felt let down by the end result. The Rental | Film Review - Again, I liked the premise of the film, but I really didn't like the film itself. Malcolm & Marie | Film Review - This film was highly anticipated by a lot of people before it came out. I wasn't a huge fan. The King of Staten Island | Film Review - I had been waiting to see this film for a long time and it definitely didn't disappoint! The Prom | Film Review  - This is my favourite film of February. I completely loved it, and have had the soundtrack on repeat ever since! Sex Education (S1&2) | TV Show Review  - And this is my favourite show of February! I loved it so much I watched it twice, and I can't wait for the next season. To All the Boys: Always...

When I heard that this was coming out, I went back and read my review for the first version of this movie, the original Justice League. I actually liked it, and saw it purely as entertainment. However, after seeing this one, my opinion about the first has completely changed!    Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) and Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) assemble a team to take down a new enemy, Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds). But will this group of heroes save the planet before it's too late? And can they do it without Superman (Henry Cavill)? Okay, so I loved this film! So much more than the first one. In fact, it was so good that it made the first one look bad. For a start, one of my problems with the original movie was that I didn't understand, or even like, the villain Steppenwolf.  The first thing this film does is set up the villain really well. We get more of an understanding into his motivations, and that in turn makes the film make a lot more sense. This is partly because we spend a lot m...

  I had been meaning to watch this for a while, but it kept getting pushed to the back of my To Watch list because my desire to watch it was less to do with my own interest, and more to do with the way that people were talking about it. The reviews and word of mouth made me feel like the film would be amazing, so I knew that I'd either completely agree, or completely disagree. Milla (Eliza Scanlen) is a seriously ill teenager who meets and falls for Moses (Toby Wallace), a drug dealer that her parents disapprove of. But soon, Milla's parents discover how good Moses is for her. I found this one really hard to describe! So as I said, I knew that I'd either love it, or dislike it (because I find that 'hate' is too strong for most movies), and unfortunately I didn't really like it.   For a start, the film begins like a whirlwind. One second nothing is happening, and the next these characters know each other better than the audience do. We don't really have a mom...

  This is a film that I should have watched ages ago. But things kept getting in the way, and I always found something else to be doing. But I finally got around to watching this last week, so here's my review! Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is wrestler who ends up injuring himself due to the demands of his overbearing father (Sterling K. Brown). As stress mounts between Tyler and his girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie), a tragedy occurs that changes Tyler and his family forever. I really liked this film. To be honest, it wasn't what I thought it would be at all, but in a way that made it better, because I had no idea what to expect. The film does a really good job of showing both the good and bad dynamics within this family. As well as Tyler and his father, Ronald, the other members of the family are his mother, Catherine (Renee Elise Goldsberry), and his sister Emily (Taylor Russell). No one is inherently good or bad, and their relationships are informed by a variety of different fa...

  I don't remember exactly when this came out, but I know that a lot of people binged it in one go because all the episodes were streaming on the Channel 4 streaming service in the UK. I ended up watching one a day for a week, and as glad as I am that I watched it that way, I was completely wrecked by the end of the week! The show follows a group of friends, most of them gay men, living in London through the 1980s, and the effect that the HIV/AIDS crisis had on their lives. I knew this show was going to be a tough watch, but no amount of mental preparation was enough! The main friendship group includes Ritchie Tozer (Olly Alexander), Roscoe Babatunde (Omari Douglas), Jill Baxter (Lydia West), Colin Morris-Jones (Calum Scott Howells) and Ash Mukherjee (Nathaniel Curtis).  These were all incredible characters. They were so well-written, incredibly developed, and amazingly realistic. We felt like we were going through this journey with them because they were so easy to connect to...

  I remember hearing about this film ages ago and being vaguely interested, but not enough to find out when it was coming out. However, it recently came out on the Sky Premiere channels and I thought that I'd see if I liked it. Married couple Theo (Kevin Bacon) and Susanna (Amanda Seyfried), and their daughter Ella (Avery Essex) go on holiday to Wales, but soon find that their vacation home harbours dark secrets.  I don't know if that's the best way to describe it, but because the film isn't completely straightforward, that's what I'm going with. I absolutely loved this film. It's the kind of film where I can completely understand if others don't like it, or don't get it, but I thought it was great.   From the start, there is something really likeable about this family. The actors worked really well together, and the family is really endearing, even when you see some of their problems. You could watch them in any genre and they'd be believable. I...

  Today's post is another Shudder Original. This time its in form of 'Anything for Jackson', a film that had an interesting premise because it's a twist on a usual genre. This had really great reviews, so I had high expectations for it. After the death of their grandson, Henry (Julian Richings) and Audrey Walsh (Sheila McCarthy) try to resurrect him through the unborn baby of a pregnant woman (Konstantina Mantelos). I have mixed feelings about this film. I love the subversion of the exorcism genre, and I like what they did with it, but overall I didn't love the film. The opening of the film, though, was great. I loved the way that we are introduced to these characters, and it was also a great way to get into the plot without wading through unnecessary backstory.  The premise of the film, alongside the reality of Henry and Audrey Walsh, is such an interesting juxtaposition. Put them in any other story and they are the sweet old couple who everyone can't help but ...

  Me Before You, the first book in this trilogy, is one of my absolute favourite books, and it was one of the first books that I ever reviewed. It took me a few years, but near the end of last year I read the second book, 'After You'. I didn't review it because I didn't have much to say about it, but I didn't feel like the first book needed a sequel. And however I feel about this third instalment, I don't think this story needed to be a trilogy. After the events of the first two books, Lou Clark is living in New York, working for a rich family, and trying to keep in touch with her boyfriend back home. While in New York, Lou meets a man who reminds her of someone she used to love, and when New York begins to feel like home, Lou is torn. Where is she supposed to be? Who is she supposed to be? And how will she ever figure it out? While I enjoyed this book more than the second one, I didn't love it. For a start, this is an almost 500-page book. Now, while this i...

This is another Shudder Original - there are so many on the platform that it's been so fun working my way through them. Here's my review of Shook! Mia (Daisye Tutor) is a social media influencer. When her friends' lives are threatened, she has to solve a series of games in order to save them. But is everything as it seems? I didn't love this film, which was annoying because the premise of a serial killer targeting social media stars is very interesting, and current. But this film went to a few different places that I wasn't a fan of. I found it really hard to tell whether the film was supposed to be a comedy or an ordinary horror. While most things are presented as ordinary, the deaths of some characters are so comical that you have to laugh. There were times when it felt like no one, not even the actors, were taking the film seriously.   Mia was a really bland character. We never really knew anything about her, and after a while we just stop trying to learn anythin...

I heard a lot about this film before I saw it, in terms of people's opinions. There have been quite a lot of negative reviews, but the people who love it really love it. So of course, I had to watch it so I could see which side of the debate I stood on. Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike) is a corrupt legal guardian who makes a living from scamming the elderly. However, one of her scams goes dangerously wrong when she discovers that the elderly woman she's scamming isn't who anyone thought she was.    I loved this film! It was nothing I expected, and completely exceeded my expectations. For a start, this is such an interesting story, and it comes from an original point of view. How often do we see films about corruption from the point of view of the corrupt? There are really interesting dynamics between these characters. They all play off of each other really well. This isn't a one-person film, and everyone's character is informed by the actions of someone else. The event...

  I knew absolutely nothing about this film before I watched it. It is an Amazon Original movie, and was recommended to me when it came out on Amazon Prime, which is how I found it. After reading the premise, I was interested to see where it would go. Mark (Kyle Allen) continuously lives the same day, and he has perfected his daily routine. Until one day, he discovers something he hadn't accounted for - someone else stuck in the same time loop. As Mark and Margaret (Kathryn Newton) try to find the tiny perfect things that make up their never-ending day, they soon have to discover if they can, and if they want to, leave their time loop. I liked this film, but I didn't love it as much as I could have. This film had a really great opening. We get to know the character of Mark really well in a really short space of time. I really liked the fact that the movie begins in the middle of the time loop, rather than showing us the character being really confused and having to work out wha...