Bria Lou Reviews

Next up for the Bucket List was a re-watch. And honestly, one I wasn't really looking forward to watching again. I had seen this film twice before, more than 10 years ago at this point, and never liked it. Maybe I had never really been paying attention, maybe I never really understood it, I'm not sure. But I had always filed it away in my mind as a film I didn't like. So it feels really crazy that I ended up liking it this time around! For a start, it was the first time I really thought about the way the film injected real-life events. Maybe I never noticed it before, but this was done really well and definitely went a long way towards making everything feel authentic. The character of Forrest is really interesting. He carries the film with ease and every story told is a really engrossing one that feels like a puzzle piece that goes towards forming the character we see at the end of the film.  There were also an amazing group of supporting characters that really did a great...

After falling for neurosurgeon Ryle (Justin Baldoni) at the same time her first love, Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), comes back into her life, Lily Bloom (Blake Lively) finds herself in a relationship that mimics her childhood trauma. I reviewed the book this film is based on HERE , and after reading the book I was really excited to finally see the film. All in all, I had mixed feelings about the movie. For a start, I was sceptical about some of the casting choices before seeing the film, and while I do feel like all the actors did great in their roles, some of them probably should have been more accurate to their book descriptions. I also felt that a lot of the cast was underused. Yes this is a story about Lily, Ryle and Atlas, but there are a good few supporting characters that didn't have the importance they were given in the novel. And this is even true of major characters. For example, I thought the present-day relationship between Atlas and Lily was really watered down in compariso...

  Next up for the Bucket List was a first-time watch! Not only had I never seen this movie, but I'd never heard of it, so I didn't have any feelings one way or the other about watching it. I really liked this movie. I had no idea what to expect, so I was really happy it was so interesting and engaging. My favorite thing about the movie is that it's a coming-of-age story.  Typically stories like this are about children becoming teenagers or teenagers becoming adults, so it was really nice to see a coming-of-age movie about older people - and it feels important to see the genre explored in this way. There's also a love story at the heart of the film, which is really sweet to watch. For me, though, the most important love story is the story between friends, rather than the romantic story. The three friends had great chemistry and worked really well together. This is a character-driven story, and the characters are all great. Not only are they people you want to follow, but...

  When Daniel, a dreamer, meets Natasha, a realist, he challenges her - he will make her fall in love with him in one day. But Natasha doesn't have a day. She's hours away from being deported and doesn't have time for falling in love. As an hour turns into two, it seems like fate is intervening. Did Daniel and Natasha meet for a reason? I've had this book for years and never really felt too compelled to pick it up. But because there's so many books I want to read, I really wanted to finish this one and remove it from my TBR! I liked this book. It wasn't amazing or anything, but it was an interesting read, and more compelling than I expected. The story is told from multiple points of view, which took me quite a while to get used to. And while it was good for the main characters and one other, I didn't really like it for any of the other viewpoints. It just took me out of the story a bit. One reason for this was because there were so many times throughout the ...

  While at a concert with his daughter, Cooper (Josh Hartnett) discovers that the concert is being used to trap a notorious serial killer. I am always first in line for the latest M. Night Shyamalan movie regardless of the plot, so it was great that this plot actually looked really interesting. Unfortunately, I have somewhat mixed feelings about the film. I didn't love it, but it was a fun ride and I was definitely engaged and interested from the beginning to the end.  So it was a weird one! For a start, it played like a comedy when it didn't feel like it was supposed to. The suspension of disbelief that you need to truly believe any of these events could happen is crazy, let alone being expected to believe that all of them happened in quick succession. In fact, I would go so far as to say that not one realistic thing happened in the film. And that was what made it comedic. Every time something unrealistic happened, it was just funny! My entire cinema was cracking up at moment...

  Next up for the Bucket List was another first-time watch! Not only had I not seen this movie before, but it's the first Bruce Lee movie that I've seen in many many years, if at all. I had heard of this film in passing but didn't really have a strong desire to see it, and never really knew what it was about. I completely get why this film is as highly revered as it is, considering it's a Bruce Lee action/martial arts movie - and the action is definitely the best part of it. But in saying that, I didn't completely love the film. Taking the action away, I wasn't particularly invested in the story or the characters. And that's not to say either were bad, but I was only really interested in the action scenes, so everything that took away from that felt less enjoyable to watch. Nevertheless, I'm glad there was a martial arts movie on the list - in fact, I'm surprised there aren't more!

When a heist goes wrong, unlikely partners Rory (Matt Damon) and Cobby (Casey Affleck) have to team up to escape the police and take the money they need. I was looking forward to seeing this film so much - to the point where I was counting down the days until it came out! I love the actors involved, the plot looked interesting, and it was promised to be quite funny so I was here for it! Thankfully I loved the movie. I've seen it three times since it first came out and I've loved it more each time. I was really glad that it got straight into the action. In under 10 minutes, we know the characters and what the heist is, and we can sit back and enjoy without any unnecessary backstory. The fun thing about the movie is that it plays like a reverse heist - usually in a heist movie the heist takes place at the end of the film, goes well and everyone walks away with everything they wanted. In this one, the heist takes place at the beginning, everything goes wrong and no one really know...