Breaking In I went into this with low expectations. From the brief trailer I saw, I felt justified in assuming a formulaic family home invasion movie. Even the title ''Breaking In'' even suggests to this. But turns out I got two things wrong. For one, this is not a bog standard home invasion film, its flipped- the mother, Shaun (played by Gabrielle Union) is trying to break into her house, and second, it's certainly not bog standard. This film finally gives us a female lead that genuinely at no point does she do something stupid that inevitably leads to her dying or causing someone she loves to die needlessly. Actually, this character's intelligence and ability to handle herself physically is both a strength and a weakness of the film. It was highly refreshing to see a non-moronic person in this situation (i,e hey, lets split up from my friends and wander into the dark woods alone when I know there's a murder out there called Mr Killer Axe, or hey lets hit the bad guy down once then run away leaving him to kill me later...why not smash his head in you cretin??!! Anyway, I'm sitting in the cinema enjoying myself, watching this no bullsh*t character trying to get into the building where their family is held hostage by multiple villains, I realise what this film most closely resembles. DIE HARD. Yes, this is in fact a small scale version of the classic action movie Die Hard, with a female John McClane. She even loses her shoes at one stage! The antagonists' leader played by Billy Burke (apparently of Twilight fame), lets call him Hans, was the perfect foil to Shaun. He thinks logically and tries to anticipate and force Shaun into situations- like in a sick home invasion version of chess. Yeah so he and his cronies may be a little generic- yes they want ALL THE MONEY, but hey, this was easy to watch, no nonsense entertainment that didn't leave you screaming for villain to kill stupid ass protagonist who deserves to die. I've checked out a couple of the poor reviews of this film already and they seem harsh. Clearly they don't think that Die Hard is one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time. If you've seen Avengers already and want to go see something that won't make you want to tear your eyes out like I assume 'I feel pretty' and 'Life of the Party' are, then go see Breaking In. Yippee ki yay!

Avengers: Infinity War In my last Marvel film review of Black Panther, I expressed how over-saturated I was by the Marvel movies formula: a bit of plot set up then bish-bash-bosh things start hitting each other. We do get more of the same here, but I felt that there was actually a sense of threat. For once we got a good amount of the villain's back story so that almost was an origin story. This provided so much more gravitas to the situation to the Avengers and Earth are in then we ever got from Ultron in Age of Utron's (an "age" in that movie being redefined as a few days) portrayal. We get both a physical and emotional weight to the film's big bad- Thanos. Though an entirely CGI character, when he walked or hit something (or someone) you sure felt it. In previous Marvel movies I've sometimes found this to be lacking. I believe this would have been a motion capture performance from Josh Brolin, and if so he put in a stellar performance. If it wasn't motion capture, then bravo to the CGI team as we felt everything that Thanos did through his expressions. It is a testament to the directors (the Russo brothers- best known for other top rated Marvel movies Captain America's Winter Soldier and Civil War, and also for the TV series Arrested Development and Community) that we simply just didn't get the generic dead eyed power hungry villain that we get all too often (especially in DC movies). I thought the CGI work on Thanos' was excellent. You could see every muscle and hair which made him seem very, very real and to be afraid of. The heroes that we have seen team up before were split and mixed with each other to create fresh dynamics. Again to give credit to the directors, the overall balance of the sheer multitude of characters was done really well. For the heroes that got a lesser role, I think it was justified as either we haven't yet seen enough of them in the MCU to warrant a lot of screen time or we haven't had a lot of meaningful back story to their character to give enough emotional weight. This emotional weight being important as the film has relatively little time for plot explanation and understandably relies a lot on its actions set pieces, so if this weight was lacking, viewers may switch off or become numb to the whole thing. Of course we got the standard Marvel movies quick quips throughout- but i found that most of them hit home- and especially for the laughing seagull viewer that was sat behind me. Mr Seagull always particularly loved a Game of Thrones star's small role- which to be fair was fantastically done. I think the comic fan boys almost would have have gotten what they wanted from this film- especially the climax. But may have a similar little big problem with the film. This being that I don't understand the rationale for Thanos' plan. Its hard to explain without spoilers, but ultimately he has justified to himself into doing some horrific actions for the greater overall good, but unless I've misunderstood how the infinity stones work, with his power, he could do a simple good action for a greater overall good. Other than my little big problem, I think its a good film and holds together very well for such an epic coming together of so many characters. Though over 2 and a half hours, it speeds over an hardly stops for breathe. Well worth seeing, even if you've felt you've been bashed in the head too many times by the Marvel juggernaut.

A Quiet Place VERSUS Truth or Dare So let’s play a quiet game. Do you choose ‘A Quiet Place’ or ‘Truth or Dare’? Do you choose the film that earned its jumps scares, or the one that pumped up the volume whenever it wanted to make you jump? Do you choose the film that had a fairly original premise or the one with a clichéd narrative? Do you choose the film written and directed by Jim from The American Office, or the film written and directed by the guy that made the massive let down that was Kick Ass 2? A Quiet Place was a very, very good Twlight Zone-esque B-Movie that took a simple, easy to understand idea and took it as far as it could go. A family lives in a world where they can’t make noises over a whisper without creatures that sense their prey only through noise hunting them down. We are drawn into the quiet world and hold our breath when a character drops something by accident- this even in a cinema with a fairly talkative audience. Unlike the other film, A Quiet Place earned its occasional jump scare through plot alone. By this I mean that it didn’t have to turn the speakers up to eleven. In fact, it managed to achieve one jump scare by the simple shot of a babbling brook (not as scary as an A-Level exam on The Scarlet Letter though I promise you). On the other hand, Truth or Dare took a simple kids / drunken teenager game and turned it into a overly convoluted mess. The first third, to be fair, was set up quite well. Decent character building which then quickly turns onto the main plot. A group of teenagers play a game of truth or dare that soon turns deadly. But then the film lost hope in itself and gave up on its own simple rules. Starting making up its own rules to keep the plot going, and escalated far too quickly and without reason. I was expecting a bit more of over the top deaths associated with the Final Destination franchise but they were all quite bland really. Some horribly clichéd horror moments- I swear if I have to watch a character in the bathroom look down and then up at their own warped reflection in the mirror one more time I’ll have to choke myself in a bucket of Odeon’s overpriced, chewy popcorn! So if you like your horror movies, I urge you to go see A Quiet Place rather than Truth or Dare. Leave the latter for underage teenagers that snuck in so they can laugh away their terror or try touching that girl’s hand that they sit next to in maths.

Muse (Newcastle Film Festival) Really disappointed with this one. I believed I was going to see a Spanish film of the same name made in 2017, but instead I got this poor substitute. It honestly felt like a C-Movie which made back in the early 90s had been forgotten about and somebody unearthed it and submitted it for a film festival trying to make out it was retro. The film's lead (let's call him Discount Bradley Cooper) had the acting chops of one of the "actors" on Channel 5's after 11pm softcore pornography movies. Some of the audience literally sniggered at his awkward attempts to convey emotion. Also the cutting of this film made no sense. I had no idea what was supposed to be going on at the start. It kept cutting to random people which I'm pretty sure never reappeared. Every time the 'Muse' appeared, pseudo-Bradley reacted as though a naked lady appearing out of nowhere was an everyday occurrence for him (though this probably does happen to the real Bradley Cooper). The worst bit of this experience was at the end when a member of the cinema crew announced that the director was to hold a surprise Q&A afterwards. I made a mad dash out only to nearly knock this director over with the screen exit door. Sorry mate :(

The Light of the Moon (Newcastle Film Festival) This gritty, grounded, true to life account of the rape of a woman (Bonnie, played fantastically by Stephanie Beatriz, better known as Agent Diaz from Brooklyn 99) was my top film of the Newcastle Film Festival. The plot takes place over about a month, and we see Bonnie trying to reintegrate herself back into her world of work, meeting friends, having an intimate relationship again with her boyfriend. She jumps from not wanting to talk about, to wanting her boyfriend to talk to her about it, who in turn doesn't know how to react to any of this. He tries to follow the guidelines but that only seems to make things worse. The story is nothing over the top. Nothing that leads her to decide to campaign or go on a revenge mission. Just a woman trying to get her life back to how it was before some unknown bastard decided to take advantage of her. There were only a few stylistic cinematography shots but I felt that that was with a purpose as being too pretty a film would have downplayed the hard hitting context. I doubt that this will ever be a mainstream movie, but I felt it excellently conveyed how easily such an occurrence could happen to someone, and the magnitude of the fall out.

Why Hide? (Newcastle Film Festival) A derivative, clichéd and low brow attempt at a comedy horror. This film stole from (the makers might say paid homage to) the original Evil Dead. We got similar jokes to Shaun of the Dead (in this case, a cricket bat is replaced by a 9-iron as a comical weapon) but "Shaun" respected the genre it was poking fun at more. I was also reminded of a lesser known British comedy The Cottage but I can't put my finger on why. A lot also seemed stolen from the Conjuring and Insidious films. I.e. creepy inexplicable set pieces which tended to end in a loud bang. There was also one scene I'm fairly sure was ripped straight from the god-awful Insidious: The Last Key. On a side note, it's also a bit awkward when the director brings his own intoxicated crowd (I assume some of the film's actors and the director's mates) to the film who then woop and laugh loudly at every low brow "joke" while the rest of the audience sit in silence. Oh that guy is camp...ahahahah (always hilarious :/)... oh look at that overweight guy running around in his white pants hahaha.... *sigh*. The effects of the creature weren't bad considering this was a low budget production, but it was never quite clear to me what the creature was or what it could do, which removed any kind of fear for me.

Ghost ries So I went along to the Odeon's Scream Unseen preview screening last night and correctly predicted it was to be 'Ghost Stories' (predictable as Odeon typically show a British film and there's few British horrors in the pipeline). This wasn't the disappointment though as I would have gone to see this anyway. The disappointment was for a British made film to rely so heavily on the Hollywood horror playbook of loud noise jump scares and creepy girls with long hair. As this film is based on Andy Nyman's (who stars and directs) stage play, maybe the scares are more effective in that medium and the overall tone more creepy, but it didn't come across as anything special. I found myself pretty much counting down to when a scare or false scare would occur. That said, there was a stellar cast involved with Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins, Dr Watson and Tim from the Office), Paul Whitehouse (The Fast Show) and especially up and comer Alex Lawther (The End of the F***ing World and he also appeared in a Black Mirror episode as a young man who is black mailed by webcam hackers into doing increasingly disturbing acts). I think this young actor stole the show. His small role got the best reactions from an "uninitiated" horror audience. His close up facial expressions oozed the fear his character was trying to hide but he also delivered perfect comic timing when appropriate. We got an unexpected turn for the last act (would be interesting to see how this is done in the play) but didn't give us anything that hasn't been done before (not naming similar film's due to avoiding giving it away). Not a bad film by any means, just highly forgettable I'm afraid.

Annihilation Finally Netflix has brought out a high end original film to go alongside some of its excellent original tv series (Jessica Jones being my favourite). After the meh to boring such as Cloverfield Paradox and Bright, I hope Neflix has finally cracked the movie formula. To get Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac on board must have been massive coups. Hopefully they will see sense to splash the cash on guys like this in the future rather than giving Adam Sandler free reign to make endless low brow, low quality trash. So whoever (whomever??) did the cinematography for this film deserves a round of applause and all the credit they can get. Wait, let me check who it was.... ....it was Rob Hardy- who also worked on Ex Machina which also starred Oscar Isaac (Poe from new Star Wars series). Maybe he just knows how to light that guy's face ever so well. Anyway, the look of this film was up there with Bladerunner 2049. It was as though everything within the "the shimmer" was shot through a bubble- you know, when you get that bent rainbow of colours around the edges. I felt that this film was like a blending of Robin William's What Dreams May Come, Evolution (from 2001) and bizarrely also the new Blair Witch. Granted, not three films you may ever categorise together but if you've seen them too I'd like to think you'll see where I'm coming from with this. I think what stops this film being really great is that given the premise I think more could have been shown of the animal mutations in the shimmer world. We see a lot of the plants, but they seem only to give the scientists a chance to narrate to the audience what is happening. I say this mainly because the the screaming mutated bear creature was so well done creepy-wise and really gets under your skin, if they had explored that with what one or two more similar creatures could do I think we would have gotten more from it. Also the flashback subplot seemed a bit unnecessary. In summary, a very good watch if you have a Netflix subscription. A solid 3.5/5.

4.5/5- I saw this film last year but it has only recently come out on general release. This is an excellent film that revolves around a mum (Frances McDormand) who sets up three billboards that directly questions the local police chief (Woody Harrelson) as to why the killer of her daughter has not been brought to justice. The comedy is well toned but never overshines the dark subject matter. The film boasts a superb supporting cast of Sam Rockwell, Peter Dinklage and John Hawkes. You never know which way the story is going to go. You can get two or three judgements on each character once you see the situation from their point of view. This was one of my favourite films of last year. I urge you to go and see it.

Regrettably, my journey to Wakanda was via Snoozeville. Never thought I'd be saying this but I couldn't get over how much this film reminded me of the god awful Star Wars Ep.1 the Phantom Menace. Slow pace scene after slow pace scene of people sitting around in circles talking, standing around...talking...with nothing interesting actually going on. Then to top it off, for the final battle to keep cutting away from the main protagonist's action to the supporting characters' generic, CGI shoot-em-up (a la Obi Wan and Qui-Gon vs Darth Insidious). Marvel needs to revamp their formula from quick quips then big punch em up as I think this is the point where we've had our fill. Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad movie. If it had came out a few years ago it could have been considered great and enjoyable. But we've been so beaten over the head with Marvel it is the straw that breaks the armoured plated rhino's back. A mediocre 2.5/5.

Imagine Goodfellas on Ice. With having several unreliable narrators (Tonya herself, her husband and mother) we never truly get the full story which is kind of the point given that the dramatic story of Tonya Harding's life has a cloud of mystery about it. We get a very strong central performance from Margot Robbie- who desperately needed one after flops like Focus and Suicide Squad- her stand out scene which you may have spotted in the trailers where she's silently putting on her make-up in front of the mirror is simply engrossing. The story thankfully stays clear of becoming a stereotypical 'Hollywood underdog sports movie', but I think we needed just a little bit more of Tonya at some competitions. Though dramatic, I think they could have extended the on-ice performances a tad. Just as you were getting into her performances...they ended. That said, the visual effects really made it look like it was Margot Robbie was truly performing the near impossible triple axel jumps. Could quite easily have done a dodgy photo-shopped head and we would have ended up with a Henry Cavill moustache moment. What let the film down was that I felt it skipped over too much in passing, a lot like in Tupac's recent biography All Eyez on Me. Both suffered from maybe trying to cover too long a time period rather than focusing in on maybe a year or a few months. A lot of time was spent in the first third of the film building the audiences' understanding of Tonya's fractured relationship with her mum (Allison Janney) but then she kind of disappeared from plot- as a true story this may have actually been the case but I don't believe that the pay off from a script point of view was worth it. In the end I was a little disappointed and starting to check my watch to see how much longer I had to go until this ended. Would watch again on Netflix but wouldn't be eagerly waiting for it. 3/5.

I had been been waiting months to see this and finally I did and I wasn't disappointed, not blown away, but a very good film. Didn't hit the emotional peaks like with Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, but had more consistent humour through-out. Any scene that involves a nun or a priest (Lois Smith and Stephen Henderson) be prepared for a hearty chortle, though with a little bit of guilt at the context. I had been been waiting months to see this and finally I did and I wasn't disappointed, not blown away, but a very good film. Didn't hit the emotional peaks like with Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, but had more consistent humour through-out. Any scene that involves a nun or a priest (Lois Smith and Stephen Henderson) be prepared for a hearty chortle, though with a little bit of guilt at the context.I had been been waiting months to see this and finally I did and I wasn't disappointed, not blown away, but a very good film. Didn't hit the emotional peaks like with Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, but had more consistent humour through-out. Any scene that involves a nun or a priest (Lois Smith and Stephen Henderson) be prepared for a hearty chortle, though with a little bit of guilt at the context. Christine, or ''Ladybird'' (Saoirse Ronan) as she likes to go by, plays a high school senior on the verge of going to college. We see her dealing with all too familiar and real elements from all our teenage years i.e. her battle to make the grades to get out of her town and go to a college in the big city, entering into her first relationships with boys and also dealing with the love/hate relationship with her mum Laurie Metcalf (aka Sheldon's mom) who gives a fantastic performance which for me almost steals the show. Watch out for up and coming star Lucas Hedge, who plays Ladybird's love interest who has a limited supporting role but gives depth to his and Saoise's characters. He is quickly becoming your film award nomination guarantee, recently also appearing in Three Billboards and Manchester by the Sea. I think this film is deserving of the plaudits it has been receiving, but I don't think gives us much new in an American coming-of-age film, but has a realistic grounding, think more Boyhood than Superbad. If you haven't considered going to see it, then you will find it a heart warming gem of a film and will not be disappointed. 4/5.