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The Last House | Film Review

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  When a family are trapped in their home with no way out, they have to work together to protect themselves from the dangerous threat outside. This film was on my radar for a while before it came out because I'm a huge fan of Wagner Moura, so I was excitedly anticipating it! There are some major flaws with this movie, but I did enjoy it. The first point, which is why so many people watched this as soon as it came out and are still watching it - the concept is so inventive and original! The starting point is really simple, but could go in so many different directions that you really want to see what happens. Even just watching you feel trapped, both in the film's house with the family, but also in your own house! It's so claustrophobic that watching it becomes an intense experience. The cast are all great and play their parts really well. The young actors are fantastic and felt really authentic, as did all of the performances. These are characters that we can really root for...
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Book Review: The Weekend by T. M. Logan

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  While on holiday in the Yorkshire Dales, a group of six friends find a backpack containing more money than they've ever seen. But when the group becomes split on deciding whether to hand the money in to the police, long-held secrets are exposed, and the friends discover that they don't know each other as well as they thought they did. T.M. Logan is my favourite author, so his books are always pre-ordered as soon as a new one is announced, and this one was no different. Unfortunately I didn't love this one as much as some of Logan's other novels. I did like that it got right into the story. Everything started really quickly, the money was found before we even knew who most of the characters were, which worked in its favour because the story was a lot more interesting than the characters themselves. From the beginning, I was intrigued to see how it would end, but again that was more about the story than the characters. It moved quite slowly after the initial excitement ...
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Disclosure Day | Film Review

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  Two unrelated people are forced to work together to expose government secrets. I heard really mixed things about this film before seeing it - from it's the best film of the year to it's so bad it's not worth watching, so I was looking forward to seeing it. I too had mixed feelings about it. I actually liked it, but there were definitely huge flaws, so I can understand why a lot of people don't. From the start, it throws you into the situation with no context, in a way that's jarring and makes it difficult to build a connection with the characters. It's not always necessary to connect with the characters but I feel like that connection really would have helped the film. The cast is great, and for the most part the actors do a great job with their characters. That being said, some of the characters had more interesting stories than others. I found I was more interested in the character played by Emily Blunt than anyone else. But when you're interested in the...
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She Dances | Film Review

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  A distant father and daughter (Steve Zahn and Audrey Clair Zahn) are forced to reconnect when he chaperones a dance competition. I watched the trailer for this film and immediately wanted to watch it. It seemed like it would be really sweet but also potentially quite powerful, so I was looking forward to it. And that's kind of what it was; a sweet, powerful story that I enjoyed watching. The filmmakers came up with a really interesting, original way of showing the parallels in the characters' lives, and it allows the audience to build connections with the father and daughter simultaneously. And the whole way through, the film makes such good use out of a split screen and really uses this method to give us much more of an insight into the characters than we would have had otherwise. All the characters have such fun dynamics. It's really nice seeing them interact. The casting is great. The fact that the characters are actually father and daughter adds a beautiful layer to t...
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The Hunger | 100 Movies Bucket List

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  I'd never heard of this movie, let alone knew that David Bowie starred in a horror movie, so I was intrigued about this one. Though also a bit sceptical, as I don't always love vampire-themed horror movies. I liked this film a lot. The beginning is intriguing. We're kind of thrown in at the deep end without knowing much about the characters, and figure things out as we go. It's not surprising that music was such a large focus, but it ties in with the story so easily. Whether it's actual singing, playing or the score, it all becomes a major feature of telling this story. I love that the film plays with the ideas we've always had about vampires - particularly the difference between eternal life and eternal youth, which in many vampire movies are treated like one and the same. Not only does it explore this, but it actually bases the story on it. The visuals, including the make-up, are done so well. The ageing looks incredibly realistic, the gory scenes are done w...
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Power Ballad | Film Review

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  When wedding singer Rick (Paul Rudd) meets boy-band star Danny (Nick Jonas) the two bond over their fading careers. But when Rick discovers that Danny has stolen one of his songs, and it becomes a huge hit, he resolves to take back what's rightfully his at all costs. I didn't know much about this film before it got released, and mostly just watched it on a whim because the premise had a lot of potential. So I really didn't expect to love the film as much as I did! For a start, the casting is absolutely perfect. Rudd and Jonas fit these characters so well and play the parts perfectly. The whole cast has great chemistry and their relationships are believable. But in addition to them working well together, they're all giving powerhouse performances. Rudd in particular is absolutely fantastic, and he and Jonas play off of each other so well. If anything, something that I'd change is that I'd give them more time together. Due to the nature of the film and where it...
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Freaks (1932) | 100 Movies Bucket List

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  This was one of the ones I was most looking forward to based on the premise alone. I thought it sounded so great and, if done well, had the potential to be genuinely scary. That being said, other than the written description, I knew nothing of the history of the movie. I had mixed feelings about this film. I liked it for the most part, but it wasn't what I thought, or really wanted, it to be. The collection of characters is so interesting, particularly because most (if not all) of the actors portraying people with conditions actually had these conditions in real life. Most of them appear to be professional sideshow and/or circus performers, which just adds to the authenticity of the characters, and the story itself. The writing is great. As with the characters, everything feels completely authentic. The pace of the story is odd - it takes a long time to set everything up, but because it's such a short movie, once the horrors begin, there's not a lot of time to really expl...
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