Bria Lou Reviews

April was a busy month for me, which meant that it wasn't a particularly busy month for my blog. But nevertheless, I really enjoyed looking back at my April posts - especially because it's now nearly June! The Queen's Gambit | TV Show Review  - This show had never been on my radar, but after being recommended it by a colleague, I watched it and actually enjoyed it. Fatale | Film Review  - The premise of this film has been done 100 times, and this wasn't a particularly good version of it. Looking back on my review, I definitely think my rating was too high! Skipping the Oscars 2021  - This is one that I hated writing. I'm not particularly upset about missing the Oscars ceremony anymore, but I'm still upset that I missed out on some of the movies that came out. Particularly the ones that I still haven't gotten the chance to see. But my local cinema opens next week, so hopefully I can go back there soon. Palm Springs | Film  - I had heard so much about this fil

  I had been looking forward to seeing this for a really long time, regardless of it being Oscar nominated, so I'm really glad that it was released through the Sky Premiere channel. Cassie (Carey Mulligan) is not who everyone thinks she is. But when she gets the chance to finally get justice for a traumatising event from her past, can she pass up the opportunity? I loved this film! I always liked the concept, but I loved the way it was executed. The opening scene was such a great way to introduce both the story and the character of Cassie. We are thrown in at the deep end, which was the best way to start the story. Cassie is a really interesting character, particularly because she's not typically 'likeable'. She has not been created as a character that you fall in love with, because she is so complex. There are so many layers to her that the feelings of the audience change many times the more we see her. The story itself is really intriguing. I was hooked from the first

This show came out in the US before it came out in the UK. The reviews from the US were so positive that I couldn't wait to get the chance to see it. Cassie (Kaley Cuoco) is a flight attendant who wakes up one morning in a foreign country beside the body of a dead man. But with her memory of the previous evening non-existent, can Cassie discover the truth of what happened? My love for this show decreased as time went on.  I loved the first episode. I really took an instant liking to the show, and found that it set itself up really well. I loved the character of Cassie, and I feel like no one could have played the role as well as Kaley Cuoco, who really made this her own. Cassie felt real, and her reactions were realistic.  The story is really interesting - you can see why it was made into a show. It was originally a book (by Chris Bohjalian), but the TV format really works for it. I really enjoyed finding out about Cassie as a character. In fact, there were quite a few times where

  I've wanted to see this for such a long time, long before I heard that it was nominated for any Oscars. It's out on Amazon Prime Video, and it's definitely worth watching. Ruben Stone (Riz Ahmed) is a drummer whose life completely changes when he begins to lose his hearing. One of the reasons that I was so keen to see this film was because I loved the concept. I thought it was a really good idea, and I wanted to see how it would be executed. It goes without saying that sound is really important to the film, but the film uses sound really uniquely and effectively to tell this story. Ruben is such an interesting, fully fleshed-out, well-written character. I also really loved his relationship with Lou (Olivia Cooke). I've been a fan of Riz Ahmed for a while now, and this is one of the best performances of his that I've seen. He is amazing as Ruben.  Watching the journey of this character is extremely thought-provoking. It also feels really important to see him in rel

  I've started to make notes on the shows I watch rather than writing these reviews from memory, so hopefully they're a bit more structured! This is a show that I found on Netflix (UK), and I started watching it because I recognised one of the actresses (Olivia Junkeer - far right)  from the Australian Soap Neighbours, which I have watched for years, so I was interested to see her outside of her Neighbours role. Three best friends, Penny (Naomi Higgins), Mia (Olivia Junkeer) and Austin (Wil King) navigate life as twenty-somethings going through the ups and downs of life in Melbourne, Australia. I have mixed feelings about this show. I think the description of the show is better than the show actually is. It felt like these characters are not meant to be taken seriously. They reminded me of the characters in 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia' in the way that the audience is in on the joke of them being morally reprehensible, unhinged characters, and that's why w

  I heard about this film a while ago, but I don't remember it coming out - probably because cinemas weren't open. However, it was recently released on the Sky Premiere channel, which I'm really glad about! Rachel (Caren Pistorius) is taking her son to school when she gets stuck behind an unmoving driver in rush-hour traffic. Without thinking, she beeps her horn, which leads her to discover just how unhinged the mysterious driver is. I really liked the concept of the film, and while the execution wasn't great, it was still really enjoyable. The opening scene of the film was great, and set up the main events really well. However, I feel like the first scene between the two protagonists would have been more powerful if we hadn't seen so much of Tom (Russell Crowe) in the beginning. The amount of backstory used to set up the film doesn't feel entirely necessary. It's nice to learn more about these characters, but that's not what we're interested in. We&

  This had been on my Amazon Wishlist for such a long time that after Christmas, I decided to just get it. I loved the idea of it, and after reading a couple of long, hard-to-read and not entirely enjoyable stories, this was exactly what I wanted to read.  When Nikole Paterson's boyfriend of five months proposes to her at a baseball game, it's not hard to say no. But when she is faced with a stadium full of angry fans, Carlos Ibarra comes to her rescue, and there's an instant attraction between the two. But with neither of them looking for anything serious, can they date without falling in love? I loved this book. There are a lot of things that I think could have been done better, or been improved upon, but overall it was exactly what I wanted it to be. Carlos was my favourite character, without a doubt. I loved being in his point-of-view, and I loved seeing him through the eyes of other people. He was really well-written, and it was easy to see why someone would fall for h

  I was doing a binge of Jamie Bell's filmography back in September, and I noticed that this was on his Wikipedia as an upcoming project. I looked it up and it sounded really interesting, so I made a mental note to watch it when it eventually came out. John Clark (Michael B. Jordan) is a Navy SEAL who has to go to dark places in order to get revenge on the men who murdered his pregnant wife. I didn't end up liking this film half as much as I wanted to. I haven't read any of Tom Clancy's works, and I've only seen one Jack Ryan movie, so I was going into this completely unaware of what it is based on. For a start, the concept, while interesting, isn't really anything new. In fact, the husband/wife/child/dog murder revenge thriller has been done to death. But this looked like it would be a slightly different take on what we're used to.  The film is made up of quite a few action scenes, but there were a lot of them that just felt lacklustre and underwhelming. Th