Bria Lou Reviews

After being catapulted to fame, conductor Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) begins a relationship with Felicia  Montealegre (Carey Mulligan) that changes both of their lives forever. I had been putting off this movie for a long time. Ignoring all the press and the Oscars and everything else, I just didn't think it would be something I'd like. If it wasn't nominated, I'm not sure I ever would have made myself sit down and watch it. As expected, I didn't love the film. There were things about it I liked, and things I didn't like, but overall I found it just okay. The first thing that stood out was the cinematography. If nothing else, the film is great to look at and shot in a really interesting way. Cooper and Mulligan have great chemistry. But as good as they are together, the characters often don't feel like real people. In some scenes, they feel almost like caricatures. The story is told well, but it isn't particularly interesting. In fact, I hate to s...

  This was a really highly anticipated first-time watch. Though I had never seen this before, I feel like I knew the entire plot solely through watching a Family Guy episode that parodied it. And even then, I was surprised how close the parody was! I already knew all of the pivotal plot points because of that, and honestly it just made it more entertaining to me. Every classic should get a cartoon parody! But I had been wanting to watch this film for years, and honestly it just seemed a bit intimidating, and also like something you had to be in the mood for, and I never was. So I put it off until, thankfully, I needed to watch it for the Bucket List. And I absolutely loved it! I never give first-time watches 5 stars on Letterboxd (I usually have to re-watch something to realise how much I love it), and this was the first time I had to do that, because there was no other rating to give it. What a film! And yes this shouldn't come as a shock, it's very clearly a classic, it's...

When a woman (Emma Stone) is brought back to life by a scientist (Willem Dafoe), she decides to leave her oppressive home to discover who she wants to be in a new world. This was probably my most anticipated watch in the run-up to the Oscars. The way people were talking about it, I just knew I had to see it as soon as possible. I loved this film! It was wild in the best way possible. For a start, hopefully this isn't a spoiler, but I love the way the film approaches sex - both the idea of it and the actual scenes. A lot of the time, usually with American productions, violence is seen as much more palatable than sex. The European approach to this is often the other way around and I think that makes a lot more sense. So I'm really glad the film approached the sexual liberation of the character in this way. It was so well written - the humour doesn't ever feel like it's trying.  Speaking of the humour, it was so smoothly woven into the story that I often didn't find th...

  Next up for the Bucket List is one of my favourite romance movies ever! I've seen this a few times and love it every time, so it wasn't a surprise at all that I loved it again this time. I actually think I loved it more this time than I ever have before. It definitely earns its place on the list - it's a classic for a reason. It has everything - believable romance, great music, iconic dances and an actually interesting storyline regardless of the romance. I would definitely encourage everyone who's never seen this movie to give it a go! It also holds up really well over time. It's the kind of film that never gets old - I could watch it over and over again. But other than that, there's not much to say about this one. I loved it before I saw it this time around, I still love it after re-watching it and I will definitely be watching it again!

A disliked teacher (Paul Giamatti) at a boarding school stays behind during Christmas break to look after a trouble-making student (Dominic Sessa), with the help of the school's head cook (Da'Vine Joy Randolph). What starts off as an annoying obligation becomes a life-changing experience, as the three form a bond they never expected.   We are now into Oscar season! At the time of writing this, the nominations came out last week, and thankfully I guessed correctly that this film would be nominated for Best Picture. I loved this film. So far this is probably my favourite of the Best Picture nominees (though there are some key movies I haven't seen yet). For a start, just to get this out of the way, if I was in charge of the Academy, all of the main actors would walk out of that ceremony with an Oscar - especially Dominic Sessa, whose performance is extremely underrated. I was completely entertained throughout the movie. It's not particularly long, around 2 hours 13 minute...

  Next up on the Bucket List was an animated classic! This is a rewatch - I've seen it so many times! Less than I've seen the second and third movies, but still a lot. I've been seeing a trend lately with the films I'm rewatching for the list, and this definitely fell into that trend. This was so much better this time around! My favourite Toy Story movie is 2, without a doubt. As well as the story being more enjoyable to me, it also has an element of nostalgia that the first doesn't for some reason. I think I probably just rewatched the second over and over again when I was young. But anyway, I didn't mind rewatching the first, but I had no thoughts about it. I only really picked it because it was short and I only had an hour and a half to spare. So I was really surprised that I ended up liking it as much as I did. There were so many iconic lines and shots that I didn't even know I remembered. Animated movies don't often get revered as much as they shoul...

When a woman (Sandra Hüller) is accused of murdering her husband (Samuel Theis), their blind 11-year-old son ( Milo Machado Graner) faces a dilemma as the only witness. When the Best Picture nominees were announced, this was one of the ones I was most looking forward to. Not just because of the interesting plot, but because of the way people spoke about it. I knew it would definitely be one to watch. I really really liked this film. It's so compelling from the very beginning and you become engrossed in the story really quickly. I found that at some points it was hard to look away from the screen. The film was really interesting throughout, but my favourite scenes were definitely the ones in the courtroom. The camera movements were great, there were so many unique shots. If the plot wasn't interesting enough by itself, it was definitely an interesting watch visually. The way the story is told, going back and forth between the present and the past, is really well done. I really l...