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Showing posts from August, 2023

Red, White & Royal Blue | Film Review

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I first heard that this movie was coming out after I bought the book it's based on. I didn't love the book, and ended up not finishing it. But I always loved the story's premise, so I wanted to see if I'd enjoy it more in movie format. When the first son of the US, Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez) falls in love with the Prince Henry of England (Nicholas Galitzine), the two must keep their relationship a secret from the outside world. I really liked this movie! I liked it a lot more than I initially thought I would. Alex and Henry work really well together. The characters and the actors have great chemistry and make the relationship, and everything leading up to it, feel really believable. The film is funnier than I expected. Most of the humour comes from Alex who is a great, likeable, charismatic character. While we have to warm up to Henry a bit, Alex is really endearing from the very beginning. One of my problems with 'enemies-to-lovers' stories is ho

Insidious: The Red Door | Film Review

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  I mentioned in my review of the new Mission: Impossible film that my personal Barbie vs Oppenheimer was M:I vs Insidious, and if I'm honest I was probably more excited for Insidious. I feel so invested in these movies, and in this family, and the fact that Patrick Wilson directed this one just pushed that excitement over the edge. About 10 years after the events of Insidious 1 and 2, Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) is taking his son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) to college. However, soon the pair find that the demons they've repressed from their past have found them once again. I'm definitely biased because of my love for these characters, but I enjoyed this movie. It's not perfect, and I definitely have some issues with it, but I also think it's a successful sequel. As mentioned more than once, I loved seeing the original characters. Not only Josh and Dalton, but Rose Byrne is back as Renai, and I loved that they kept the same actor, Andrew Astor, to play Dalton's broth

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One | Film Review

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  I love the Mission: Impossible movies. In the conversation between Barbie and Oppenheimer, my personal version of that was Mission: Impossible 7 vs Insidious 5. This is the second MI film I've seen in the cinema and I'm really glad I decided to go and see it on the big screen. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team are back, searching for a weapon that could threaten the entire world if it falls into the wrong hands. But when a enemy from Ethan's past returns, he has to accept the fact that nothing can come before the mission - not even the lives of those he cares about most. I liked this film. It wasn't my favourite Mission: Impossible movie, but it's definitely up there. One of the reasons I love these movies so much is because of the familiar cast, and it was great coming back to them this time around. The film reunites Cruise with Ving Rhames (Luther), Simon Pegg (Benji), Rebecca Ferguson (Ilsa) and Vanessa Kirby (Alanna), but there are also a few new additions,

Book Review #119: The Beauty that Remains by Ashley Woodfolk

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I had this book for a few years before I even thought about picking it up. I never felt in the right frame of mind, or it never felt like the right time. But when I finished reading my last book, this felt like exactly what I needed. This story follows Autumn, Logan and Shay, three people going through different variations of grief, who find a connection through music. There were things I liked and didn't like about this book. I'd say I liked it more than I didn't. I loved hearing from all three characters. The perspectives are diverse and authentic. Reading this book felt very grounded, like reading about the world we're currently living in. The exploration of grief is really powerful, particularly how it manifests in different ways for the characters, and how they each choose to deal with it. Of the three characters, I felt myself drawn towards Logan's story, maybe because it was the most complicated. Missing a best friend or a sister makes complete sense, but the

Robots | Film Review

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I didn't really know what this was about before I watched it. I like the two main actors, and saw that it was a romance, so I watched it on a whim. Charles (Jack Whitehall) and Elaine (Shailene Woodley) are using robot doubles to perfect one important aspect of their lives - dating. But when their robot doubles end up falling in love, the pair are forced to team up to find them. This was fine. It was a fun way to spend an hour and a half, but you won't really think about it once the credits roll. I really liked the concept once I knew what it was actually about. The dialogue throughout the film is a bit flat, and a lot of it feels inauthentic. It's not as funny as it needs to be, and it's definitely not as funny as it tried to be. But it was kind of fun, so it had that going for it.  After a while it gets a bit boring. I didn't care about the characters as much as I should have, so ultimately I didn't care what happened to them one way or the other. There wasn&#

What's Love Got to Do with It? | Film Review

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  I remember being intrigued by this film when it first came out. I love a rom-com, and this looked like a unique approach to one, with a perspective not usually shown, so I was really interested in seeing it. Zoe (Lily James) documents her best friend Kaz's (Shazad Latif) journey into an arranged marriage. I was quite disappointed with this movie actually. I really wanted to like it because I really liked the premise. At the start I really liked the characters. They felt well-written and authentic. But I quickly realised that, as much as I liked the characters alone, none of them had any chemistry. And that's not just about the romantic couples - every person in the film who had to interact with another person had absolutely no chemistry with them. The film never made me care about any of the characters, and I didn't particularly like them after a while either. It wasn't as heart-warming as it could have been, and it definitely wasn't as romantic or comedic as it n

Babylon | Film Review

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This recently came out on the Sky Premiere channel and to be honest I watched it on a complete whim. I knew nothing about it, and I barely paid attention to it when it originally came out. But after looking it up and seeing who the director was (Damien Chazelle, director of La La Land amongst other great movies) I was interested in seeing it. In the 1920s, a group of Hollywood artists face extreme ups and downs as the industry transitions from silent pictures to sound films. This film was okay. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either. The first thing I noticed was that you can completely tell it's directed by Chazelle. It has a very similar 'old Hollywood' feel to La La Land. This story has a very specific tone that you'll either like or you won't. I personally didn't like it, and it took me a long time to get used to it. Because of that, I wasn't interested in anything that happened for at least the first 45 minutes. I actually turned it off a

Book Review #118: Five Survive by Holly Jackson

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  I loved Holly Jackson's 'A Good Girl's Guide to Murder' so much that I've been pre-ordering her books since then. This is the first one that didn't fall within that series, so I was really excited to see how different this story would be, and where it would go. Six friends are going on a road trip in an RV when they suddenly break down in the middle of nowhere at midnight. But soon they realise that there was nothing sudden about their breakdown - someone is hiding, watching them, waiting for a secret to be revealed. But what is the secret? Whose secret is it? And with 6 hours until daylight, will everyone survive the night? I loved this book! I won't lie, I really didn't like it at first, but it definitely got a lot better as it went on. It took me a long time to get into the story. At the beginning, I hated all of the characters (which is really strong but absolutely how I felt). I couldn't connect to them, none of them seemed to have real person

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande | Film Review

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I'd been meaning to watch this for so long. I remember it looked really interesting when it first came out, so I'm glad I finally got around to it! Nancy (Emma Thompson), in search for something new, hires sex worker Leo (Daryl McCormack) to help her experience things she never has before. But their meeting changes them both in ways they never expected. While I was interested in seeing the film, I never knew what it was really about, so I was pleasantly surprised by it. The script reads like a play. The dialogue is quick and takes up most of the film in the best way. It would definitely work on the stage. I really liked both of the characters. It was really interesting to watch their interactions, and the candidness of the dialogue made it a really entertaining watch. The film is completely character driven, and the characters make a great connection, not only with each other, but with the audience. We get to know Nancy really quickly, and then we get to know Leo at the same pa

The Out-Laws | Film Review

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  I saw the trailer for this movie a couple of weeks before it came out on Netflix and loved it, so I was really excited for the film to actually come out. Bank manager Owen (Adam DeVine) is about to marry the love of his life, Parker (Nina Dobrev). But when his bank is robbed, he soon believes his future in-laws (Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin) are the culprits. I ended up being really disappointed with this film. It wasn't awful by any means, and I love how original the premise is, but it wasn't as good as the trailer made it look.  The cast is great. They're hilarious together, and when the comedy works, it's because the cast is so authentically funny. But in saying that, a lot of the humour is definitely trying too hard, and isn't as funny as it could have been. The story moves a lot slower than you'd expect, and at times it feels like not much is happening. This also makes the film feel a lot longer than it actually is. I never cared about any of the chara

Barbie | Film Review

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  I can't remember the last time I was so excited to see a film. And with the way people on social media have been talking about it, my expectations were really high. Barbie (Margot Robbie) is having the time of her life living in Barbie Land, and Ken (Ryan Gosling) is also there, vying for Barbie's affection. But when Barbie has to travel to the real world to fix some problems, she and Ken discover the truth about a world they've never really known. I hate saying this, and it feels like I'm one of the only people who feel this way, but I was really disappointed with this movie. I just didn't like it as much as I thought I would. For a start, I felt like too much was shown in clips and trailers before the film was released. Watching the film almost felt like deja vu, especially in the first 30 minutes. I had already heard most of the jokes and knew exactly where the story was going up to a point. I loved the inclusion of the mother/daughter relationship and the way