Search Results

Director: Rian Johnson (Contains Mild Spoilers) I have never been a huge fan of any of the Star Wars episodes, but I have always appreciated how groundbreaking the first films of the franchise were back in the seventies and eighties. The consensus for the mid-2000's revivals is that they were abysmal, but like most 'western' societies these days regarding opinions on certain matters, there seems to be a division about how great these latest Star War movies really are. Most loved the nostalgic feeling that 'Force Awakens' brings, whilst others, like myself, thought that nostalgia was a polite way of saying that the film didn't bring anything new and just copied the same old ideas that came before, such as the underlining story of the Death Destroyer (ok it's a lot bigger now, but so what?). There were interesting questions like, 'why did Finn turn good?', "why is Rey so powerful?", "who is Snoke?". Any exploration of these questions could have potentially elevated this average film to a great one. Instead, many audiences who loved the film concentrated on the visual aspects rather than the storyline, script, and characterisations. But this is a review about 'The Last Jedi', and the point I am making is that when audiences are grateful that a movie is better than what has come before, that does not mean that the movie itself is great, and when audiences say a movie is great when in fact it is nowhere near greatness, i.e. 'Force Awakens', then the film makers are going to say, "O.K. audiences don't care about storyline, or themes, or character significance, they just want to see Star War visuals that remind them of the good old days". This is obviously an exaggeration, but there is consequential truth to this when you watch the recent 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'. Firstly, there is no character development from 'Force Awakens' in this film whatsoever. Who is Snork? Who is Rey really, and why is she so Powerful? Who are her parents? In conjunction, new characters felt pointless, particularly the forgettable Asian girl, Rose. As a British Asian, I am highly disappointed that this character is such a bore. Secondly, there are so many odd plot lines that make no sense. Why wasn't Po (the pilot) told the evacuation plan? This would have saved the trouble of Po leading a rebel force against the leader with purple hair. Why did that lady with purple hair have to stay behind in the big ship? When she was left alone all she did was stand around and do nothing, plus, surely they could have made a droid push any buttons if needed. When they were evacuating, why didn't the enemy spot them? You could argue they were too far away too be seen, but when they eventually fired at them, they seemed to hit a small ship every time. Why did Finn and the forgettable Asian girl Rose go to that gambling planet? They didn't achieve their mission, so that plot had no effect on the storyline whatsoever. Again, if they were told they would be evacuating to the nearby planet they wouldn't have gone to that planet in the first place (and could have saved us thirty minutes of screen time, but more on that point slightly ahead). If Luke didn't want to be found, why did he leave a map of his location in 'Force Awakens'? Admiral Leila used the force to return to the ship from outer space, but why, when the door opened, no one was sucked out into space? If there is no gravity in space, how do space bombs drop? SO MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS!!! To make things worse, this film is over two and a half hours long!!! And if you really think about what happens in the film, nothing really happens. The big ship is stuck in space because they ran out of fuel, Rey is stuck on an island, and the only thing that does happen (Finn and Rose sneaking off to a gambling planet) turns out to be completely irrelevant to the outcome of the story. Two and a half hours long!!!! This storyline would be suffice, and even entertaining, for a 40 minute Star Trek T.V. episode, but for a full length film? I don't think so. It wouldn't be fair not to say nice things about the movie.  The visuals and cinematography were great. The interactions between Rey and Kylo Ren were dramatic and compelling.  Daisy Ridley who plays Rey did a much better job (her mouth less-resembled Keira Knightley). But that was it for me. So, if you are reading this, please, do not judge a film by its visuals alone.  Do not let nostalgia become the reason why a film is a good film.   If you tell film makers that their average film is a great one, then all that will lead to is a pile of mundane, soulless cinema, hence, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi".  Expect more in your films.  As a paying customer, you deserve it. Film Rating: 4 out of 10 P.S. If you are a fan of Star Wars, I highly recommend the animated series Star Wars Rebels.  It is full of interesting developing characters, a well thought out storyline, and music and visuals typically seen in the movies. See, I'm not a Star Wars hater really.

(Parallel Mothers • FSK 02021 • Drama/Drama • 2 hours Showtimes • London Sun 26 Dec, Picturehouse Central, 600 m·Piccadilly Circus, 13 Coventry Street, LONDON W1D 7DH, United Kingdom, 16:00 ● Fulham Road Picturehouse, 4,3 km·142 Fulham Road, LONDON SW10 9QR, United Kingdom, 18:00) https://www.picturehouses.com/movie-details/000/HO00011355/parallel-mothers?date=2021-12-26 "Parallel Mothers" The film's protagonists, photographer Janis (Penélope Cruz) and anxious adolescent Ana (Milena Smit), meet for the first time on a maternity ward in Madrid. Janis and Ana coincide in a hospital room where they're going to give birth. Both are single and became pregnant by accident. Though they share the trait of being single mothers, their journeys up to this moment have been incredibly different. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she's exultant. She's a mature woman, the latter barely grew out of her teenage years. The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatized. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors. Janis knows she will be fine, Ana is extremely doubtful about the future. The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two, which by chance develops and complicates, and changes their lives in a decisive way. A few words create a strong link that connects them beyond their differences. It may seem their paths will cross only for a moment, yet their bond will become as strong as an umbilical cord. The encounter has a transformative effect that thrusts the two mothers into a life-changing odyssey, sending them down a rabbit hole of secrets that calls into question the fabric of family, legacy, and memory. The film starts with Janis looking for the means to open a mass grave containing the body of her great-grandfather, murdered in the 'Spanish Civil War' by Franco’s fascist nationalist party, and ends three years later with the opening of the grave. In between, the relationship of three women who meet in a hospital room before two of them give birth. Janis, middle-aged, excited about the birth; Ana, an adolescent scared and traumatized by her imminent maternity; and Teresa (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), Ana’s mother. When they're alone, Janis tries to infect Ana with her delight and enthusiasm. Both got pregnant by accident and both will be single mothers. When Janis tells her that, 'she has no regrets', Ana confesses that she does regret it, months later she will explain to her why. "Parallel Mothers" talks about ancestors and descendants. About the truth of the historical past and the most intimate truth of the characters. It talks about identity and maternal passion through three very different mothers; Janis, Ana and Ana’s mother, a selfish mother, without any maternal instinct, as she herself confesses. It’s the imperfections of those mothers that attract us most. They're very different mothers from those who've appeared in Almodóvar's filmography to date. Due to strange circumstances, Janis is forced to live in total contradiction between the historical truth, her great-grandfather buried in a mass grave, and her more intimate truth, as regards her daughter. Her moral dilemma is the center of the story, which makes Janis a complex, generous, contradictory and even mean-spirited character. She's a very difficult and painful character because she always has more than one face, until her sense of guilt and the shame provoked in her by the lie which she's living make her explode. Even though all these elements belong to the melodrama genre, from the script and in the mise-en-scène, "Parallel Mothers" is a tense, contained drama, with a protagonist who perhaps is not a role model. The result is splendid. The purity and innocence of her Ana accentuate the darker parts of Janis. At the end, they will all form part of a diverse and unexpected family. "Parallel Mothers" is not only a bittersweet, intimate tale of the pain and the brilliance of motherhood. It's also a voice against keeping family secrets as well as burying the secrets of the past. A random encounter may change one's destiny for ever and a coincidental family may become more important than the biological one. It's precisely women who build bridges between the past and the future that provide people with closure and catharsis. A boisterous, moving ode to women, "Parallel Mothers" takes it's place within a bold color palette and careening plot twists that border on comic, yet stands memorably on it's own. "Parallel Mothers is an examination of motherhood and the ways in which history frames our experience.

(Release Info London schedule; April 17th, 2019, Cineplex Odeon Westmount Cinemas 755 Wonderland Road South, London, (519) 474-2152 Wed - Thu 4:30 7:20 10:20 pm) "Breakthrough" "Breakthrough" is based on the incredible true story of one mother’s unfaltering love in the face of impossible odds. When Joyce Smith’s (Chrissy Metz) adopted son John (Marcel Ruiz) falls through an icy Missouri lake, all hope seems lost. But as John lies lifeless, Joyce refuses to give up. Her steadfast belief inspires those around her to continue to pray for John’s recovery, even in the face of every case history and scientific prediction. The film is adapted for the screen from Joyce Smith’s own book 'The Impossible'. "Breakthrough" is an enthralling reminder that faith and love can create a mountain of hope, and sometimes even a miracle.   "Breakthrough" is based on a true story of a mother, Joyce Smith, who prayed her son back to life after he fell through a frozen lake and died and how this miracle impacted an entire community. John Smith was underneath the ice for 15 minutes, with no oxygen. When 'EMS' workers rescued him, he has no pulse. They rushed him to the emergency room and worked on him for another 45 minutes. The doctors can not bring him back to life. When Joyce comes into the emergency room and she sees her son laid out on the table, dead, instead of saying goodbye, she grabs his feet and says, ‘holy spirit please bring back my son right now'. Immediately, 'The EKG' machine begin going off. When you’re underwater for that amount of time with no oxygen, the chances of medically recovering are slim to none. And so, for John to have no brain damage, no eye damage, no lung damage, for everything to have been healed, it's medically unheard of. For these reasons it's a medical miracle. The miracle of John coming back to life is only the beginning of the story and a catalyst for a series of other miracles that followed. Even before Joyce prays for John, it's miraculous that the firefighters and first responders are able to find him in the first place. 'Lake St. Louis' is massive, like finding a needle in a haystack. Fireman Tommy Shine (Mike Colter) hears this voice, telling him where he needs to go. He thinks it’s the chief talking to him, but later finds out it isn't the chief at all. The first doctor at the local hospital, Dr. Kent Sutterer (Sam Trammell), who happened to be the father of a friend of John’s, spent 45 minutes, an unusually long time, trying to revive him. Then Dr. Garrett (Dennis Haysbert), a world renown specialist, tells John’s mother, okay, Joyce, we're going to let 'God' do the rest. John’s recovering is a miracle. But the biggest miracle is the community itself. The thing that's so powerful is because of how the community rallied around John. Joyce is a fierce mama bear. She's not afraid to speak her mind. She's her faith. Her not giving up hope and her fight for John is what really brought him through this. She’s been through a lot, but man she's strong. She's a strong woman. Joyce Smith is a force. She has faith in what she believes in and she loves her son wholeheartedly. Joyce believes that John is created for a purpose and refuses to accept what the doctors say. Her faith stayed strong and she's just like a light of love, pure love. Brian (Josh Lucas) is Joyce husband. He's a man who's more introverted, Joyce is the one who speaks up and takes the reins. Brian loves his son so much that he can't even be in the room with him when he's like this, and it's not out of lack of love. It's out of so much love that he cannot bear it. And so it's a difficult and delicate character to play because he's not this sort of forceful father. Tommy's character represents the doubters and the audience members that don't necessarily believe in miracles. Tommy is that person's point of view, so they get to experience this film through Tommy's eyes. This is a modern-day resurrection story. 'God' is operating in miracles every day, but sometimes we're so focused in our day-to-day that we don't see them. This movie, and the story of John Smith and Joyce Smith and Pastor Jason (Topher Grace) will remind people that miracles are still happening. It will remind us of the power of prayer. It’s like a ripple in a lake when you throw a rock into it. The circle keeps getting wider. Those miracles just keep moving out. The humor in this film is wonderful. You will be laughing and crying throughout the entire movie. There's a fair amount of the audience that comes to a movie like this have some apprehension about believing the story and doubt that it really happened. It’s a great portrait of this town and this community. You meet all these different people and they all connected, and by a few degrees are all related to John in some way. They all come together to offer emotional and spiritual support. It’s just a really inspiring story about positivity in a town, and just believing in something and supporting each other. The music is very important. The favorite moment of the movie is the church scene. The film opens with 'Uptown Funk' and we've 'Can’t Hold Me Down' because of actual songs from when the incident happened over 'Martin Luther King' weekend in 2015. We also have 'Oceans' which, when it comes to worship music, is one of the biggest worship songs probably in the history of worship music. We've Kirk Franklin who's a good buddy come in and do a remix for a gospel version that's performed on camera during the prayer vigil scene. Roxann Dawson isn't familiar with 'Oceans', but it's love at first listen. The film uses it as the midnight vigil that's sung outside the window on the night before John is going to go off all medication and all machines to see if he can survive. When the community gets together and really prays as one for John. We've got music that John is actually listening to, music that's on his playlist. The audience can put themselves into John's shoes. The actions he takes, his attitudes, the things that he goes through will be identifiable. The film will be a catalyst for positive transformative change in the life of everyone who sees it. We live in a time so divisive, where everybody is on different sides of the political aisle, and have different points of view on so many things. That division can keep us from reminding ourselves, we're still brothers and sisters. We're still in this together. This movie can really stimulate and be a catalyst to get people back to praying together. Audiences take away from this movie, 'Hope', 'Faith', 'Love', 'Joy', 'Community'. And that all things really are possible. They may not always work out the way you want, and may not always fall in line, but when you're down you will see who really cares about you. Sometimes things don't work out the way we want, so that we understand we're more loved than we think. Anyone who watches it will believe there really is a plan for your life. Everybody will walk out of this movie feeling there's hope for us. In a world that feels chaotic, there's hope we can find common ground. Love really is at the core of everything, if you really distill it down, and if we can come back to remembering this. Maybe this movie can help remind us in one small way. Audiences that are not necessarily faith-based come and see the movie and see a story that makes them have some questions about what's faith, and their own faith. Whether you're a believer or not you take away something from this movie, and this story more than anything makes you go there's something bigger out there. Whatever your beliefs are. It's a movie where you go home and lay in bed that night and have some interesting thoughts and questions, and maybe some challenging ones about yourself, about what you're going through in your own life. Audiences take away that love can truly move mountains. In that collective consciousness or prayer, in that quiet still time, those moments really make a difference in that you can change your life and you can change your mind. And when you do that and you believe in the power of positivity and prayer you would be amazed what could happen.

(Release Info London schedule; September 12th, 2018, Empire, Leicester Square, 2018) "The Predator" From the outer reaches of space to the backwoods of southern Georgia, the hunt comes home in Shane Black's explosive reinvention of 'The Predator Series'. Now, the universe's most lethal hunters are stronger, smarter and deadlier than ever before. And only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and an evolutionary biology professor can prevent the end of the human race. The heroes at the heart of 'The Predator' are affectionately known as 'Loonies'. Led by Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), whom meet on a military prison bus, 'The Loonies' are a group of veterans suffering from 'PTSD' who know each other from group therapy, Williams (Trevante Rhodes), Coyle (Keegan-Michael Key), Baxley (Thomas Jane), Lynch (Alfie Allen) and Nettles (Augusto Aguilera). Quinn McKenna is a retired 'Special Forces' army ranger. He's a mercenary who finds himself leading a ragtag team of veterans to go up against the lethal alien. When we first meet Quinn, he doesn't really have much to live for. He's estranged from his wife and son, and he's on a tear. He's on a mercenary job in Mexico when a 'Predator' spaceship crash-lands. He gets exposed to a cover up in Mexico, and he ends up trying to get this device that he's found back to his address in 'The States'. He needs proof, no one's going to believe him. Dr. Casey Brackett (Olivia Munn) is a evolutionary biologist. Casey is the top in her field, essentially a scientist who researches how creatures change and adapt. She has been on 'The CIA' and government's list of top people to go to if there's ever contact with other intelligent life forms. So this is something she's been waiting for her entire life, not knowing if it's ever going to happen. All of a sudden a call comes through. They need her expertise. It's something she never really expected would happen. It's something she's been looking forward to her entire life, but it's definitely terrifying and surreal. It ignites something inside of her, it's the epitome of her studies. She's chasing and wants to capture this 'Predator'. She wants to study it, be up close, communicate, talk to it, touch it, but at the same time, she's running for her life. There's definitely a mix of joy and utter fear. Williams (Trevante Rhodes) is 'The Captain', made a bad call and got everyone killed. So he's lived with that. And then, here comes this guy who's fighting to save his family. And that's such a beautiful thing, seeing the passion behind that. Pulling on that emotional cord and showing that facet of the individual who's a stone cold killer in a sense, shows the facet of what he always looked for. His character's full name is Gaylord Nebraska Williams, but he's not too fond of Gaylord. He was a Sergeant in an 'Air Force Special Forces' group. There's a question mark on the inside of his wrist because he ends up attempting suicide, and that's the contemplation of that. He has a strand of barbed wire around his arm, with the names of his unit member, and an American flag. Coyle (Keegan-Michael Key) has resigned himself to a life that mundane and completely, diametrically opposed to the life he lived when he was in the military. Coyle belongs to a group of gentlemen that go to group therapy to overcome 'PTSD', depression and the trauma they went through during war. The only way he's going to make it through his day is to tell dirty, sophomoric jokes. He wants to fill a room with jocularity so that it lifts up his mood. Baxley (Thomas Jane) has always been a little 'OCD' in the first place, develops conversion disorder. He puts a gun in his hand and it suppresses 'The Tourette's' because it goes back to an impulse. 'Predators' have been coming to Earth and hunting humans for some time now, and it's no longer quite the secret it was. The government has established a defense agency dedicated solely to protecting humans from a 'Predator' incursion. 'Project Stargazer' is initially conceived of as a high-tech, top-secret government lab in which captured 'Predators' could be studied. But in the back-story, the government needed some kind of plausible deniability, so they put it in the hands of 'The CIA'. But when Traeger (Sterling Brown) takes over operations, he privatizes 'Stargazer' to profit from 'Predator' technology. Traeger is someone who's not bad and twirling his mustache, but simply pursuing his own agenda, that happens to be at odds with everyone else's. What may have started off as something that's truly altruistic and beneficial for man at large, once he saw that that might not any longer be a possibility, he asked, ‘what can I do at least for myself? He sees an opportunity for personal gain. Dr. Sean Keyes (Jake Busey) is a research scientist who studies 'Predators' at 'Project Stargazer'. Sean is continuing the legacy of the Keys family in 'The Predator World'. 'The Predator' (Brian Prince) in this film is the deadliest and scariest one yet. Thirty years later, it's the same 'Predator', but over time 'The Predator' has upgraded himself. This is not a reinvention and not a redo. This is the franchise you loved, 30 years later. These are the consequences of what has happened. This is what has been going on in the last three decades. They're badder and bigger; they've evolved. It ain't your daddy's 'Predator'. The very first 'Predator' still has a huge worldwide audience, and sells around the globe on cable and streaming services. It's hard to believe that 30 years later, this movie continues to captivate generation after generation. They're different yet so very alike. They all long for the connection and brotherhood they once had. Loony is a very attractive word. It comes off the tongue with a sense of energy and fun. The film wants them to come across as humans that are broken, not as cartoon characters and not as clowns. They're misfits and outcasts. They're the dirty half dozen. They never knew they'd have an opportunity again in their lives to do this, let alone, fighting warrior extraterrestrials. They're not reintegrated back into society in a way that make them feel like productive, normal members of society and that causes a lot of problems. What would happen if these guys were to be thrust into extraordinary circumstances where you've an alien hunter from another planet? They've all got serious problems, but when it comes time to engage with the enemy, all that shit goes away and they're like a well-oiled machine. Training doesn't go away, it's ingrained into your muscle memory, into your soul, when you've done it a few thousand times. This crackpot group of half-cocked soldiers can't really keep their shit together for 12 hours at a time, but when push comes to shove and the shit hits the ground, they're there for their people, and they'll die for them. And there's something very human about that. They're all bonded by the fact there's no one else around for them. They're all each other has. This group clings to each other because, when they're alone, their heads go to very strange and bad places. It's only through contact with people who keep them steady that they can find their steam again and go on one last mission. They think we're all nuts. So as long as we're off our meds, why don't we all go a little fucking crazy and kill this thing. There's a gauntlet of things that make up these people. These guys are really a fascinating group of men. They're the forgotten soldiers, misfits. For one reason or another, they're all deemed untrustworthy and unacceptable because they got fractured, something broke. But somehow, they found each other. They aren't a crack team of soldiers. It takes these guys a bit of effort to be good, but there's still a spark waiting to be ignited. There's an unquenchable spirit that's flickering, and this is their opportunity to come to life and support each other and go up against the monster. They're the least likely people you would ever choose for this, except that they're really tough when the chips are down. They've spirit, they've spunk, and they've an unquenchable loyalty to each other. It was the idea of the hunter. It was the idea of this creature from another planet that hunted the greatest game and would go from planet-to-planet for that sport, and 'The American Commando' and group of guys in the jungle that represented that. And in the end, he was outsmarted and defeated, so even though 'The Predator' had great brawn and weaponry, there was an ingenuity and a desire to survive in man that made it a fair fight. 'The Predator' is one of the most iconick creatures in cinema because the design is elegant and, like all the great monster designs, it immediately targets our subconscious. We look at this creature and we see some mirror image of ourselves but in a dark, scary, primal kind of way and that's hard to do. That look, humanoid to some extent and alien to another, is just shocking. There isn't anything about it that's corny and that's the hardest thing to do when you create an alien creature from another planet. 'The Predator' is the ultimate hunter. He's overwhelming. He has the ability to move incredibly gracefully but fast, the ability to span large distances with a jump, the ability to cloak and hide, the ability to spring out, like a tiger or a lion; pure, raw strength, and the cunning of a great, great hunter. 'The Predator' knows how to follow it's prey, how to lure it, how to attack when it has the greatest advantage, and how to access the weakness of it's prey. It's special because there's a mask that's freaking cool, and then you take off the mask and it's even cooler. It's a creature that we recognize, that walks like us, understands us, has the same kinds of primitive impulses as a human being but it's clearly not from here. The ability of a guy to look at 'The Predator' in the face and actually relate to it's what's interesting. It has the capability of being an actual character. It's always important to find the coolest variant without violating the basic principal that made the first one popular. What's so great about the original 'Predator' was that human quality which, as deadly as it was, it wasn't just a wild animal, it had an intelligence and a cunning and it could look at you and see what you're afraid of and see how to stop and catch you..'The Predator' characters in this film are a combination of both practical in-camera as well as CG effects.   The script is very different from the original. It's lighter, probably more cynical, has a greater sense of humor and it's also more difficult to determine who the good guys and bad guys are. This 'Predator' slice and dice as well. To stay true to it's roots, a 'Predator'  movie needs to be scary. It needs to have the menace of a hunt occurring throughout the film. There's going to be a certain amount of bloodshed, there will be some viscera and goo as well, it needs to be scary? The actual 'Predator' in the original is one of the great movie monsters of all time. The film pays tribute and homage to the first two films and references the first two for the chronology and story. But the film wants to expand the mythology. It's almost a literal rollercoaster and it's going to be an exciting part of the movie. While audiences have seen 'Predator' dog creatures before, there's a twist to the alien canines in the new film. 'The Predator' utilizes hunting dogs, which are almost like classic big dogs that have their own personality. We'll get to see 'The Predator' interacting with another creature, almost fondly. It gives 'The Predator' another dimension.   The film creates a lot of mysterious scary monster moments. Because so many people know 'The Predator' and what it's, it's kind of hard to do a big reveal of what he looks like or treat him like a mysterious thing in the film. "The Upgraded Predator' goes through a couple of stages as they play the cat and mouse game. As he gets more involved, he gets angrier and we'll see frustration. A big part of the work is giving a character a personality, even though he's not physically there, but evolving the character so he has his own personality in the movie. Whereas for horror, the cliché is that it's dark and shadowy and you don't see a lot. So, visually, sometimes it's hard to blend those together. The situation dictates the look of the scene. It's pretty hard to make the lab dark and scary, yet we've a monster that's probably going to do some bad things. So, when the emergency happens, red lights go off, other lights stay on, there's a lot of blinking, noises, color change and hopefully, that provides shadows, dark, light and freneticism and chaos that will allow some of that scariness to come through.

What a mistake it is for a woman to wait for a man to build the world that she wants instead of creating it herself.

So I’m going to keep this review short as I do not want to give anything away. Audiences should watch Endgame with a ‘spoiler-free’ mind, the only way that one can enjoy this film at the highest level. I didn’t think that ENDGAME was as good as INFINITY WAR, but as the title suggests I still loved it. There were only a couple of ‘imperfect’ things, the most notable being the pacing. The beginning was extremely slow, and it took a while before the story actually got going, but it was understandable considering this was the aftermath of the dire consequences of Infinity War. And the second aspect was that there were a couple of characters I expected were going to have more screen time and more relevance to the story, but instead, they fizzled and diminished quickly away probably so that the story could concentrate on the first main characters of the original Avengers film. Despite these minor flaws, for me, it was the end that made the film so magical, so incredible, and so emotional. I had tears, and because of the fact that there were other people in the cinema, I somehow controlled my emotions so that I would not cry and wail like a three year old toddler. The ending was a homage to itself, and if it was any other movie this would probably be quite arrogant, but what the film shows is how incredible the MCU has, for over a decade, created worlds and characters through 22 films that many a population has dedicated and invested their time, money, and emotion. You don’t need me to tell you to watch it, the film has already taken over $1.2 billion after five days of its release. Just a word of advice: bring some tissues. RATING: 8.5/10

(Vue Cinema London - West End (Leicester Square), 3 Cranbourn Street Leicester, London WC2H 7AL, United Kingdom, Showtimes.SAT, JUN 26, 12:00 PM ● 5:15 PM ● 7:00 PM ● 9:15 PM) "Supernova" Sam (Colin Firth) and Tusker (Stanley Tucci), partners of twenty years, are traveling across England in their old camper van visiting friends, family, and places from their past. Following a life-changing diagnosis, their time together has become more important than ever until secret plans test their love like never before. "Supernova" is a modern love story about a couple struggling with a diagnosis of early-onset dementia who take a road trip together to reconnect with friends, family and places from their past. Sam and Tusker have spent 20 years together, and they're as passionately in love as they've ever been. But in the two years since Tusker was diagnosed with early onset dementia, their lives have had to change. As Tusker’s condition progresses, Sam is forced to place his life on hold and become his partner’s full-time caregiver. Their time together has become the most important aspect of their lives and every moment they share has a weight it once did not. So, they plan a road trip while Tusker is still able to travel, to see friends and family and revisit memories from their long life together. While Tusker had once been Sam’s rock, it now falls to Sam to take control, and he's resolved to give his beloved partner as much joy and normalcy as he can muster. But his outer resolve belies an internal struggle to manage that colors their every moment. Meanwhile, Tusker knows that his condition is having an overwhelming effect on both their lives, and that he's beginning to lose control. As their trip together progresses, their individual ideas for their future begin to collide. Secrets are uncovered, private plans unravel, and their love for each other is tested like never before. Ultimately, they must confront the question of what it means to love one another in the face of Tusker’s incurable illness. A supernova is the massive explosive event at the end of the evolution of a star. This is representative of Tusker himself, a man who shines bright in all he does, brings light and laughter to almost every situation and is, of course, dying. It’s quite literal in that regard. He knows his final chapter is just around the corner. Tusker is a man who wants to be well, a man who wants to be in control. Outwardly, Tusker’s life seems pretty normal most of the time, but inwardly he’s being slowly and absolutely unraveled by his condition. When you’re dealing with something so deeply felt, and with a condition that changes so many people’s lives in the way dementia does, it’s a moral imperative to do it right. Sam is the self-pitying character of the piece. He’s a person being asked to make a huge sacrifice for the person he loves. It’s ironic, because it’s not happening to Sam. Sam has to be relieved of his self-pity by Tusker, the man who’s truly having to deal with this. That plays as part of the dynamic. It's a very interesting question to ask; who’s the caretaker? Sam and Tusker set against huge ideas concerning love, memory, identity, and end of a life. Indeed, the intertwined nature of these two aspects is reflected in the film’s title, "Supernova", which refers directly to Tusker’s interest in the night sky, but also to the context of this intimate story in the vast space of the universe. The scenes under the night sky, gazing at stars, echo the insignificance of the human race in the greater scheme of things, but you’ve also got these intimate moments between two characters. We don’t see them at home. We don’t really know much about their lives at all. There’s a kind of propulsion that being on the road gives you, a mechanism, with cogs turning. As a way of framing the film, it seemed like an effortless way to take these characters from A to B, and through it, you’re afforded the possibility to bring in all of this incredible scenery and the beautiful natural world, which is very important when you’re talking about the big questions of life. This interesting, microcosmic world in which we find these two people has even more resonance and appeal than it might have done otherwise. You’re challenged with the task of doing justice to a character, and it may sound a little highfalutin, but we feel there’s something quite sacred about that. At around the film’s midway point, Sam and Tusker visit Sam’s childhood home, now inhabited by his sister Lilly (Pippa Haywood) and her husband Tim (James Dreyfus). It’s a joyous section of the film, where everyone has come together. Everything inside the house feels like a big, warm hug. A safe space before the real darkness of the story unfolds. So, it’s a place of respite for them, a place of comfort and familiarity. There's a similar transformation for the cottage at 'Supernova’s' climax, though it's contrasted against Sam’s family home by a cold and clinical sensibility. "Supernova" is about versions of young-onset dementia that has played out in very different ways. We know so little about it. And especially when it comes to young-onset dementias, there’s a lot we don’t know. We're learning new things about these conditions on a monthly basis. You've to understand that the perception of dementia, as being a condition characterized solely by memory loss, is inaccurate. Ultimately, if you've any type of dementia, at any age, it will eventually end up with 'Alzheimer’s', which involves total memory loss, but actually a lot of the different types of dementia have nothing to do with memory for a long time. The film wants to find out more about this disorder specifically, as well as the vital debate around end-of-life choices; one that still rages to this day in many countries around the world. It's a story that frames a same-sex relationship in an original manner. To present a loving relationship for which the sexuality of the characters didn’t in any way shape the narrative. A film about long-term partners who are bound together by their deep love for each other, whilst being pushed apart by the situation they find themselves in. The characters and themes in "Supernova" reflect our attempt to do these people and their stories justice in a truthful and original manner, to place a selfless, loving relationship in the context of an immediate future that hangs in the balance. It's an intimate, self-contained tale that investigates some of the biggest human questions of all: how we live and love and laugh, even as we near the end of our time. The film talks about death and loss through the very simple, human days surrounding it. The score takes a lead in three key moments of transition; the journey to the lake, to Lilly’s house, and to the cottage, and each transitional scene takes us from one emotional state to another. The idea is to exist within these limitations, and have something that sounded intimate and familiar. While the story plays out, and grand vistas roll past us on screen, the string players breath and fingers and seat shuffles are present, hopefully making it sound human. Like friends with their arms around you. If death does one thing well, it’s to shine a stark spotlight on life, and the love we feel for one another, or even just the beauty of the hills and fields around us. It's journey away from the complex cognitive outer layer that once defined them, through the jumble and tangle of emotions created through their life experiences, to the center of their being That really resonates with the way the film portrays the relationship with the condition and with each other. It’s now just the two of them trying to reach each other and wrestle with the questions of cognition and choice, because that’s one of the harshest things about this, is feeling choice has been taken away. Indeed, dementia does not discriminate, and though cinema has a long and rich history of gay storytelling that directly examines sexuality, the film reflects a shared experience through the lens of a committed, long-term relationship between two men. You could easily swap it out for a heterosexual couple, and it wouldn’t matter. But equally, the fact it’s a gay couple adds a whole other element to it. How with love, trust, and compassion, it’s possible to make this difficult stage of life empowering and life-affirming, not only for the person that’s dying, but for the people around them. The older we get, the more we feel that the specific and the universal are connected. Looking at big themes as big themes just always feels like it gets you nowhere, if that’s all you’re doing. Equally, everyday realities, if you’re attempting to detach them from anything wider, then it’s a dead end as well. All sorrows are alike. But we think if you’re trying to make something that has a universal resonance, the way in is through the very personal and the very specific, and this film is a study in that.

(Dog' showtimes in London Today 23 FEB Cineworld Leicester Square, 5-6 Leicester Square, 12:50 15:20 17:50 20:20 Vue Cinemas - West End 3 Cranbourn Street, Leicester Square, 14:45 17:30 19:00 ODEON Luxe Haymarket, 11/18 Panton Street 15:30 18:00 20:30 Vue Cinemas - Piccadilly (Apollo), 19 Lower Regent Street, 15:15 18:00 Everyman King's Cross, Handyside Street, 11:15 18:15) https://we-love-cinema.com/movies/59945-dog/ "Dog" "Dog" is a buddy comedy that follows the misadventures of two former Army Rangers paired against their will on the road trip of a lifetime. Army Ranger Jackson Briggs (Channing Tatum) and Lulu (a Belgian Malinois dog) buckle into a 1984 Ford Bronco and race down the Pacific Coast in hopes of making it to a fellow soldier's funeral on time. Along the way, they II drive each other completely crazy, break a small handful of laws, narrowly evade death, and learn to let down their guards in order to have a fighting chance of finding happiness. "Dog" is about a road trip that a guy takes with a dog. But more than all of that, it's a movie about the uncanny ability of road trips to go awry in the craziest possible ways and how animals can be healing, even when relationships with them aren't unconditionally effortless. So perhaps, it's that easy to describe it, a road trip that a guy takes with a dog, in the end, they rescue each other. This dog in particular, an anxious, boisterous Belgian Malinois named Lulu. Lulu is the main character in the film. Lulu is a war hero, who worked with her handler Riley Rodriguez (Eric Urbiztando), who served in the Army Rangers with Jackson Briggs for many years. But for a road trip movie to have the perfect tinge of Americana, you first need the perfect car. A sleek, vintage, blue ’84 Bronco to hit the highways. Sadly, Rodriguez has passed, and it's up to Briggs to pack this dog into his ’84 Bronco and drive her down the Pacific Coast to Rodriguez's family in time for the funeral in Arizona. Briggs, however, has no interest in this trip, after a traumatic brain injury, his interest lies in getting back to active duty. The only way to make that happen? To do his C.O. a solid and get Lulu to the funeral on time. Driving a dog to a destination? How hard can it be? Pretty difficult, it turns out. No road trip movie is fun without antics, have you ever taken a road trip with no antics? It's impossible. Malinois, they love to tear stuff apart, and we've a sequence where the dog escaped from her cage and she's destroying the insides of the car. She chews up the seats. So, needless to say, it's his worst nightmare that this dog just treats it with utter disrespect. A car has always got to get destroyed on the road. It's not a road trip if it's not. "Dog" certainly lives by this adage. But along the way Briggs and Lulu bond in an unexpected way, even through adventures with ornery pot growers, a car break-in, and a luxury hotel con. Lulu needs a comfortable bed, so says a pet psychic they meet on the road. Needless to say, Lulu and Briggs both bring a lot of emotional baggage on this trip. Lulu also comes with an owner's manual, which is something most people in the military actually create. They can range from a simple book of all their military paperwork to a beautifully designed scrapbook, filled with mementos. For Lulu, this was a book full of letters written by Rodriguez to her and DVDs that calm her anxiety down. Though Briggs mocks it at first, he grows to embrace its highlights getting to know Lulu through Rodriguez's eyes. Along the way they encounter outlandish characters who not only bring comic relief to Briggs's mission, but teach him about trauma, healing, and bonding. Meeting a lot of eccentric people. Mean locals. Why are the locals so mean? You're bringing them business. South Park did something good with theis cliche. We don't care much for your kind round here. Gus (Kevin Nash) and Tamara (Jane Adams) are cannabis farmers who create some real drama for Briggs. While Gus initially mistakes Briggs for an interloper, Briggs ultimately befriends the couple. What makes a good road-trip movie. The roots of the genre go back to classical literature such as “The Odyssey” and “Don Quixote". In case you don't know, a road movie is a film genre in which the main characters leave home to travel from place to place, typically altering the perspective from their everyday lives. What are some common elements in the genre you can think of that are done to death or are just plain cheesy and annoying? The story for "Dog" is initially inspired by the documentary 'War Dog: A Soldier's Best Friend' (HBO, 2017). The Rangers do very specialized things, so they've these walls up, but a dog can come in to the room and turn hardened soldiers into these puppy dog sort of loving guys. Belgian Malinois are also known as Dutch Shepherds, and most people associate them with military, Secret Service or Navy SEALS. Road movies are our favorite kinds of movies..They make you feel something and expose you to new ideas and places and wild characters. Casting a movie is never an easy task, but how do you audition for a co-star when it's a four-legged friend? For "Dog", that means working with three dogs, Britta, Zuza and Lana. The three dogs are wonderful, like really great acting. And watching them act is magical for everyone. There's a certain irony in bonding with an animal just so you can both act like you're not bonded. In dog movies, typically the way you see an animal is in an insert shot. There's a trainer right off camera doing something so the dog does a specific behavior and then you cut back to the action. Characters are on a quest for something or someone and what happens, is that they discover themselves along the way. The idea of a road trip is to expand your consciousness. The road picture is like that, going from place to place, meeting all sorts of people. It’s a cliche, it’s about the journey, not the destination. There's nothing new under the sun. It's a completely different world, but at the same time, feels very natural, because it's very military in the way it's chaotic but everyone seems to know what they're doing. The movie wants to capture the personality and the spirit of the Rangers and their dogs as well. Don't worry about tropes and clichés. You need to have the cliches that define road movies in the script, otherwise it wouldn't really be a road movie. And that's the guiding spirit of the movie. Written by Gregory Mann Personal Note: This winter, homebound with writing deadlines, I watched “Paris, Texas” again. This time, undistracted by the road, I turned my focus to the narrative and the characters. At the end, I wept. .

(Glasgow Film Festival ● Select event time ● Here are a list of days and times at which this event will take place ● March Sun 06 Screening time 20:20 ● Mon 07.Screening time 15:00) https://glasgowfilm.org/glasgow-film-festival/shows/red-rocket-nc-18 "Red Rocket" "Red Rocket" in a magnetic, live-wire performance. It's a darkly funny, raw, and humane portrait of Mikey Saber (Simon Rex), an uniquely 'American' hustler, and a hometown that barely tolerates him. Mikey Saber is illuminating the hustler’s code, or something akin to it. Maybe it’s an overall philosophy of life. Maybe it’s just a way of explaining his character. Whatever it's, there’s a truth to it. Some people, if there’s a bottle thrown into a crowd, they’re going to get hit in the head with it every time. Other people step in shit and come out smelling like roses and nothing ever happens to them. Mikey’s just one of those guys. He doesn’t think about the future. He doesn’t care about ramifications. Flat broke and scheming, Mikey is back home in his tiny town of Texas City, T after a Los Angeles flame-out, hoping to move back in with his estranged wife Lexi (Bree Elrod) and mother-in-law Lil (Brenda Davis). They shouldn’t let him in, but they do. Mikey’s a man-child, constantly sugarcoating things for his own mental state. He’s feeding his head with positivity because he can’t really face the negative place he's in. It’s literally the only way he can cope. Everything is always somebody else’s fault. You see a lot of 'America' in that. That’s definitely an 'American' characteristic, somebody who's striving for success and it doesn’t matter who’s left trampled on the sidelines. You see it in "There Will Be Blood" and "The Wolf Of Wall Street" too, these ruthless guys who exploit to get to the top. The film uses comedy to a degree to soften Mikey, to show how one could be attracted to him. The central character is a distinctively American figure; a confidence man, an irrepressible optimist and a total grifter. Like snake-oil salesmen and Ponzi schemers, Mikey earns his living as a specific kind of freeloader, feeding off other people’s false hopes and real work; a suitcase pimp. It's a total revelation for the character. Since leaving the adult movie industry herself, Lexi has retreated to their hometown and slipped into drugs, but Mikey’s return sparks in her a mass of conflicting feelings, not all of them negative. She can see through the bullshit and can identify it immediately. But she's also a woman who's very lost and feeling trapped and addicted. Sometimes when you love someone, it can cloud your judgment and you can fall back into bad habits easily. Lexi’s character is crucial to the design of the film. She’s a keyhole into Mikey’s past and also, potentially, an opportunity for his redemption. Forgiveness may be off the table, but there’s a thaw. Still, Texas City doesn’t really know what to do with Mikey, this oddball former resident and washed up pseudo-celebrity riding around town on a borrowed bicycle. He’s un-hirable, unmanageable and largely irredeemable, especially to Lexi’s no-nonsense mother Lil, Significantly, "Red Rocket" is about Mikey’s eventual comeuppance at the hands of a community of women who grow tired of the hustles he believes he’s pulling off at their expense. Leading that charge, and quick to see through him, is Leondria (Judy Hill), a pot-supply kingpin. A dark comedy with a keen attention to the dynamics of sex and power, "Red Rocket" works on it's own terms as a high-wire balancing act and mesmerizing character-driven drama. Intriguingly, though, we sometimes hear snippets of a very different off-screen drama; a careful listener will realize that the film, about a malignant narcissist on the outs, is set during the fateful summer of 2016. "Red Rocket" is a product of bold thinking and even bolder resourcefulness. An exhilarating realm of dark comedy, stylistic ambition, and pure off-the-grid adventurousness. It's a film that turns on a pin from live-wire comedy to quiet poignancy and back again, a movie as big and complex as the character at it's center. Rarely explored on film, much less on TV or in literature, the suitcase pimp is a male hanger-on, often a loosely employed boyfriend or husband, who manages a more popular female porn star, grooming and using her. Their lives are all about exploitation and using the women they’re with. The women make thousands while the men are making hundreds at best. So they've to live off the women, financially. There’s a self-denial, a holier-than-thou attitude, an obliviousness, an ignorance that these guys have. Because that’s how we think the magic happens in life, when you don’t have any expectations and you just go. And that’s what happened with this movie. It’s the full spectrum of our obscene, over-the-top culture, a culture of excess. written by Gregory Mann

(Release Info London schedule; Fri Jun 18, Sat Jun 19, Sun Jun 20, Mon Jun 21, Tue Jun 22, Wed Jun 23, Thu Jun 24, Picturehouse Central, Piccadilly Circus, 13 Coventry Street, LONDON W1D 7DH, United Kingdom, • 4:00 PM • 6:40 PM • 9:20 PM Curzon Soho, 99 Shaftesbury Avenue, LONDON W1D 5DY, United Kingdom, • • 6:00 PM • 9:10 PM) "In The Earth" As the world searches for a cure to a disastrous virus, Martin Lowery (Joel Fry), a scientist, and Zach (Reece Shearsmith), a park scout, venture deep in the forest for a routine equipment run. Through the night, their journey becomes a terrifying voyage through the heart of darkness, the forest coming to life around them. We come to learn that the forest has a voice of it's own. The film as a medium of light and sound and there's a way where light and sound are a feature of it. Also, bringing forward the lighting like strobe lights and music into the movie so they're actually legitimately there. The Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires) character is actually playing music for half the movie. Not like the score is going to be an underscore, a load of dialogue just to make things tenser, it’s actually going to be it's own character. That kind of formal experimentation is allowed within the structure of the script itself and the film has that right from the beginning. The four main characters continually surprise the audience with the duality of their behavior. Some more subtle than the others. It's about human characters that are skilled. They aren't useless; they've skill sets that are very different from each other. And you can believe that they're able to do the things that they do but they aren't necessarily super tough. They're not straight up tropes. The film wants you to understand them a bit more because you know that they're human. It's kind of us thinking of ideas about folk, horror, and about the construction of myth. There's always a seed of truth in it somewhere but the trapping around it may be absolute nonsense. In this movie, there’s a lot of different perspectives on this thing they can’t understand. Are the characters creatures of the mechanics of the plot or are they real people that have to deal with a set of situations. So that’s the difference in writing. The film is shot in the forest with very few people but a lot of life. The film has this moments where the characters think about what's happening to them, you see in Jackie Chan movies sometimes, when each other and then they stop and recover and then they start fighting again, and you think 'they're hurt really bad'. At the end Zach, going from being a villain and a threat to being really vulnerable really quick. This is also what happens when you hurt yourself, your gravity changes and you become a child. It’s part of the humanness in storytelling; to put you in a situation of understanding where there's humor in these things and you can laugh, but you’re also afraid of it. "In The Earth" follows a scientist and a park scout into the forest as a disastrous virus grips the planet; without sounding naive. The film is contextualized in the moment. Movies that had been made during the pandemic feel very old-fashioned. No one is talking about what has just happened. Covid is going to mark a generation. It feels like making a film in 1946 and not referencing the fact that everyone had just gone through the second world war. To talk about this moment. Make something about the experience we've right now. The movie projects into the future, but the future keeps catching up to the film. You can almost go into that Sam Fuller space, where you’re ripping movies from the headlines and you’re making stuff that does feel like reportage. It’s kind of the antidote to the fact that Disney is already planning films for the next 10 years and announcing them. When they do that it can feel like nothing new is ever going to happen. The genre dictates itself by budget. The movies they're making then are not much money and did not take much time. Having more and more money, and more and more time doesn’t necessarily make things better and better. Genre cinema should be shot fast, solving problems on the fly, really having to use your imagination. The script is not very descriptive. more like haikus. So, if you draw something and go ‘I want this room to be this shape to make this shot work’ that’s brilliant, but if you can’t control that room, then you can’t achieve the drawing and then you’re thinking about two things at once rather than being in the current space and time, trying to actually make it work. And with practical prosthetic effects, how far can you take the audience? How far can you push them and confound them with comedy and horror at the same time? They're not gags, but 'should I be laughing' is more of the question. It’s part of the anxiety of the design of those things. And that's what horror cinema should be. It takes the moment that we're living in and puts it into a genre.

Though I'm not a professional film critic, I do know a bad film when I see one, and unfortunately, the new Netflix film To All The Boys I've Loved Before (dir. Susan Johnson) is one of them. Do give my (mediocre) review a watch if you're interested...

Two sisters with vastly different sexual experiences get snowed into an abandoned theater where they form a relationship with a mysterious runaway. Proof of concept short film for feature script. https://vimeo.com/288986718