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(Release Info London schedule; February 19th, 2019, Curzon Bloomsbury, London WC1N, The Brunswick, London, WC1N 1AW, 14:45 PM) "Hale County This Morning, This Evening" An inspired and intimate portrait of a place and it's people, "Hale County This Morning, This Evening" follows Daniel Collins and Quincy Bryant, two young 'African American' men from rural 'Hale County', Alabama, over the course of five years. Collins attends college in search of opportunity while Bryant becomes a father to an energetic son in an open-ended, poetic film that privileges the patiently observed interstices of their lives. The audience is invited to experience the mundane and monumental, birth and death, the quotidian and the sublime. These moments combine to communicate the region’s deep culture and provide glimpses of the complex ways 'The African American' community’s collective image is integrated into America’s visual imagination. It's a refreshingly direct approach to documentary that fills in the gaps between individual black male icons. The film allows the viewer an emotive impression of 'The Historic South', showing the consequences of the social construction of race, while simultaneously trumpeting the beauty of life and offering a testament to dreaming despite the odds. Director RaMell Ross earned a 'BA' in both 'English' and 'Sociology' from 'Georgetown University' and an 'MFA' from 'The Rhode Island School Of Design'. His photographs have been exhibited internationally and his writing has appeared in such outlets as 'The New York Times' and 'Walker Arts Center'. He was part of 'Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces Of Independent Film' in.2015, and a 'New Frontier Artist' in 'Residence' at 'The MIT Media Lab'. In 2016, he was a finalist for 'The Aperture Portfolio Prize', winner of an 'Aaron Siskind Individual Photographer’s Fellowship Grant' and a 'Sundance Art Of Nonfiction Fellow'. In early 2017, he was selected for 'Rhode Island Foundation's Robert And Margaret MacColl Johnson Artist Fellowship'. RaMell is currently on faculty at 'Brown University’s Visual Arts Department'. While teaching in a 'GED' program in Greensboro, Alabama RaMell Ross met Quincy, and coaching basketball at the local high school he met Daniel. Filming start after about three years. "Hale County This Morning, This Evening" is his first feature documentary. With a large format '8x10' inch camera, the view of Southern poverty was crystallized in the summer of 1936. The documentation of poor white sharecropping families became the landmark book 'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men'. Two years later, 'The Farm Security Administration' commissioned the effects of 'The Great Depression' in the southern states. The photographic perspective established a new documentary aesthetic and defines a region. In the history of documentary practice, 'Hale County' is a mythical place. On the one hand it's part of the rarefied cannon of black and white photojournalism. The descriptive prose poetry and reflexive questioning of whether documentation can ever represent such social misery. Today, 'Hale County' is a different place. While the current residents subsist with comparable economic hardship, the racial demographics of the region have shifted. These forgotten, isolated, famous men in 'Hale County' are now people of color. Largely disenfranchised, 'The African American' population and communities subsist under conservative political structures determined to maintain a ritual of peaceful cohabitation an unequal distribution of and access to resources. The cycle of poverty in this region persists not only through mainstream political inaction, but also through the absence of progressive initiatives that deconstruct, intervene and disrupt this bogeyman region existing in the American consciousness. The film avoids the tropes of traditional documentary to get at these issues while reacting to the historic, cultural imaging of 'African Americans', in pursuit to exalt the lives of Daniel and Quincy. The film is more than the sum of it's images. The entirety of impressions which constitute the film that take shape in our minds, are something else and more than the film itself. An idea which "Hale County This Morning, This Evening" invites us to experience in a free-form, impressionistic and at times almost surreal montage of cinematic snapshots from 'Hale County', Alabama. But also in a brilliantly edited, up-to date report from the heart of black America, which through it's images tells of racism in 'The USA' and about black self-perception right here, right now. It's not just about what we see, but also how. The film has a sharp eye for the beauty and significance of fleeting moments, but also for organising his images into a larger movement of forms and critical experiences. An artistically eminent and politically urgent intervention at the very right time; and with a cast of protagonists whose company we feel privileged to be in. "Hale County" investigates the return to home of a 'Northern Black American'. The film looks closely at vast stretches of Quincy and Daniel’s lives and to witness the ephemera of the human project; the latter in the context of 'The Historic South', the origin of 'Black American' aesthetics, and in that, the film strove toward engaging the visual complexity of being black. The intentions is quite simple; to exalt Daniel and Quincy’s lives from our centrality, the looking out from 'The Black Community', in the documentary genre’s language of truth. Immediately the problem of agency and historical imaging emerged. You can not faithfully represent the lives of Daniel and Quincy without acknowledging the trouble of representation, that any viewer’s engagement with their lives without first confronting that influence of racism on our perception, is irresponsible. It's the trappings of representation that called for a responsive form; the use of an almost claustrophobic subjectivity and associative editing techniques to give the film a double consciousness. The historical imaging of 'African Americans' is a passive aggressive content of the film. It's important to understand the lives of Quincy, Daniel, and the people of 'Hale County' through glimpses rather than the conventions of a detailed narrative arc. When someone sees another person making a decision, they naturally judge the decision. But if you refuse the viewer that moment, removing judgment, they’re forced to consider a person and their life through other means, through the bigger picture, one that requires the filling in of blanks and active thought. This relieves a burden from the protagonist, perhaps the burden to succeed and/or make the right decision to earn compassion, or escape the odds. In this case, "Hale County" avoids the convention of narrative in order to highlight the greater forces at work in the lives depicted. The music in the film is used to initiate a spry, fleeting experience in line with the film’s itinerary. "Hale County" takes inspiration from both the music and it's desired effect, as well as from forms of musical structure. You could say it’s composed by a series of movements. In that a series of images unite together to have a cumulative effect, a self-determined montage of sorts. The film calls them movements because of their musical relation, and they've a similar quality in that they cultivate a state of being. These movements organize the audience’s journey with the film, allow them to engage with a sense of progress yet encourage the visuals to function the way music does; for that moment of engagement, the pleasure of that single exchange. The global structure of the film is sun up-sun down, all images relating to each other by time of day. As the film is composed of almost completely single moments, the characters do not appear as much as they would normally, which not only increases the weight of that appearance but also makes the moments more susceptible to influence by what comes before it. Adhering to the form of the film while balancing the micro shifts of feeling and mood while balancing the clarity ambiguity, the story takes a collective brain. The film is in some ways itself an effort to answer that question. It's an attempt to create the reality, a reality of film as strategic inquiry, while representing the pre-existence of that world. There are visual moments so intimate in this film that the look itself feels embodied to the point of a sense of participation or involvement. The camera isn’t there to point to a person or something and say to the audience; look at that, this is what's happening. It’s really the proximity to things that determines how much of them we understand. And so the film takes a radically subjective approach to bring people closer together. Cinema is still very young. "Hale County" offers the audience a cinematic experience of perspective and place. Shared experience brings people together and while those onscreen are the other participants, cinema acts as their medium of exchange. The film closes the distance between people by inviting close looking, and in turn close feeling, and allows the audience the feeling of witnessing something, linking wonder and awe to the encounter with the protagonist. There's an element of cosmic and environmental wonder that enters the film. 'Popular American' culture’s relationship to time and memory is distorted. Days, months, years, when does one thing cease to influence another? The past doesn’t fade, it's absorbed into the present. In the same way we're all made of stars, we're all made of history. All of human history has happened under the same sun. It's important to bring the audience back to the origins of cinema’s early declarations of 'Blackness', in order to allow the audience to adjust their bearings, and consider the ways their encounters with media’s 'Blackness' determined their lived reality.

With an “8.0” rating on IMDB and a 95% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes (85% audience score) it’s clear that John Krasinski’s directorial debut A Quiet Place has been well received by both audiences and critics alike, and is being hailed as one of the greatest horror movies of all time. I must concede, when I saw the movie in the cinema I was never bored at any time and found many aspects of the film to be greatly enjoyable, I did not however, at any moment believe that I was witnessing one of the best horror movies of the 2010’s. There are certain modern classics, such as Django Unchained or Wall-E which I can look back and say that I was there to see it on the big screen (in the same way that my father can boast that he saw Rocky, The Godfather and Jaws in theatre). I was there to see film history in those instances, but does A Quiet Place compare, the short answer, from my own personal opinion is no. I would be doing the film, and anyone who is interested in seeing the film, or just in film in general, a great disservice to say that it is a bad film, because it certainly isn’t. The filmography in general is to a high standard, first and foremost, the film looks good, though with a budget of 17 million dollars you’d hope that would be the case. The film is almost a character study of a family living in a post-apocalyptic world where most of humanity have been wiped out by near indestructible creatures which hunt via sound alone. These creatures are never given an official name (they are at one point coined “Angels of death” but this is never confirmed) but who needs an arbitrary name, if The Thing, The Descent and Predator can do it, then why not A Quiet Place. These monsters are established as being ruthless hunters, who have wiped out most of mankind and much of Earth’s wildlife simultaneously, what are they exactly, where did they come from? It’s not really necessary to the plot, and I’m actually glad the writers didn’t try to give them some contrived origin story, be it extra-terrestrial, biblical, demonic or other, they’re here and they’re deadly, that’s enough. The design of the monsters isn’t exactly inspiring, almost like a giant black preying-mantis with a horrific looking giant ear, which is concealed behind a layer of flesh, the flesh lifts up in a truly disgusting fashion to reveal this ear, chunks of flesh attached to pink tendrils, easily the best part of the monster’s design. Other than that, big teeth, big claws, moves quickly, nothing special really. Now I don’t expect Alien or The Thing levels of monster design for every horror movie, and the relatively lacklustre design of the monsters doesn’t detract from the movie, but certainly better than most sub-par horror releases of the last few years. We follow a family of five as they try to survive in this world and, where even the slightest sound can attract these monsters, which are far too fast to run from and are said to be indestructible. The brutality of this world is shown to us in the first five minutes when the youngest child of this family is killed by one of these creatures after he decides to pick up a battery powered toy rocket that makes a lot of noise, not only does the death of the characters youngest son and sibling set up just how cut-throat this world is, and it also sets up conflict for the rest of the film. I liked this opening, it introduced the world, characters, nature of the world, conflicts and allowed us to empathise with the characters we are going to be following. However, it must be said, the film dives in mediocrity from here on out. One major plot point is that the eldest child and only daughter is deaf, not a bad idea, a good juxtaposition between our lead character and the monsters, creatures which hunt purely by sound up against a girl who can’t hear anything, she isn’t even aware of the sound she could be making. This does explain how the family would know sign language (their main method of communication) and is relevant to the plot later on. I liked this idea, and it’s shown well with the film going completely silent when we follow the daughter, near the beginning of the film, so we can hear what she hears. Another main point is that the mother is pregnant. I really liked this aspect, in theory, a world where monsters will tear you apart if you make even the slightest sound, and there’s a nine-month pregnant woman who has to help her husband try and protect her two other children and teach them how to protect themselves. This is played quite well, the visual acting really pulls through, you can see on the character’s faces that they know that they are most likely going to lose their mother and wife, as the process of giving birth will obviously be extremely loud, and you can see that all the characters know that the day she gives birth is coming, and with the wound of losing the youngest member of their family so fresh in all their minds, could they really cope with losing another family member. However this ends up being pushed aside because the film decides to give each character their own sub-plot, a film about a pregnant woman in a world where silence is key for survival is a truly brilliant idea, it could play with the idea that humanity may not physically be able to survive or re-populate, it plays heavily on the family dynamic and you could have a truly masterful climax where the rest of the family have to try and protect the mother, as well as trying to keep themselves alive. But unfortunately it has to compete with other subplots; the father trying to protect his family and pass the torch to his son, the son trying to live up to his father’s teachings and conquer his fear, the daughter’s grief of playing a part in her brother’s death and being at constant loggerheads with her father, as well as coping with being a constant liability to her family due to her not being able to know if she’s making sound or not. These plots could be worked in subtly, but they’re not, the birth scene takes less than five minutes, and once it’s over the focus is never on protecting the new-born or the mother’s recovery. I have never seen such a good concept or driving plot device be dropped so quickly, in the film’s third act it’s not even an issue, why build up to this moment for almost an hour then have it be over and done with in less than fives minutes, it was truly a waste of a fantastic idea. The second act splits the characters up, the father and son go to collect fish from a nearby river, the daughter goes to visit the grave of the brother she lost, and the mother is at home preparing for the baby and doing a few chores. The father and son parts are okay, for the most part, we learn that the creatures ignore constant sounds, like a river or waterfall, the characters can afford to make a bit more noise around running water. It’s here where we get the first lines of dialogue and they are atrocious. The son says in two instances: “Do you blame Regan [his sister] for Beau’s [his brother]”, but we already know, through signed-dialogue earlier, in the movie that he doesn’t blame her. He then goes on to say, “She blames herself”, we already know this, it’s highlighted through the entire film that she blames herself for her brother’s death. In a film based around silence, you’d expect the little dialogue there is to be extremely poignant, but no, we get told what we already know. The father and son then walk back through the woods, they encounter an old man who is standing next to his dead wife, the father tries to mime to him to be quiet, but the man is either inane or cannot possibly live without his wife anymore, and screams, essentially committing suicide, forcing the father and son to run and hide. I actually like random encounters like this in films, it’s a crazy world full of invincible super-predators that hunt via sound, I can accept the odd random scene, and we can decide for ourselves if he killed his wife, maybe to put her out of his misery and spare her from the monsters, or if he really loved her that much. Good piece of film making capitalising on the audience’s imagination. Meanwhile, back at the farm, the mother, while doing chores accidently catches a piece of cloth on a nail on the stairs and pulls it up so that it is pointing up menacingly, if someone was to step on it they would surely scream in agony. Why a nail has been nailed up through a set of stairs, I don’t know, but that’s a bit of a nit-pick. In a peril packed few scenes, the mother goes into labour and steps on the nail. Peril, peril, peril; bad luck can be an interesting idea to toy with, but come on, this a movie about unstoppable super-predators, why shove so much unnecessary peril into this film, and just to clarify, when I say peril I am referring too: old man in the woods screaming, wife going into labour, wife stepping on a nail, son falling into a corn silo and almost drowning in corn, son running head first into a tractor and knocking himself out, a sound proof basement they had just finished building flooding, all three monsters converging upon them at once, daughter falling asleep and not knowing her mother is in danger. Why throw so much bad luck at them, like I said can be an interesting idea to toy with, but they never do, this stuff just happens, basically to move the plot on and for really no other reason. The climax of the film involves the father trying to rescue the children, who are isolated on the other side of their farm. The father rushes to save them, but his kids are then attacked by one of the monsters which traps them in a car and is seconds from tearing the car apart and killing them both, when the father decides to make the ultimate sacrifice and distract the monster from his kids, but not before signing to his daughter that he loves her. A scene where the leading male sacrifices himself for others, not to be a meninist or anti-feminist or anything, but I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen this particular cliché in horror films (again bit of a nit-pick), but then again, there are enough nit-picks or flaws to point out in this film that lead me to believe that it is not one of the best horror movies ever made. One major flaw in my eyes is the spoken dialogue, as I said a film that capitalises on silence, you’d think the few spoken lines would be important but again, the only other spoken lines involve the father and mother sitting in a sound-proof basement, where the mother say’s “Promise me you’ll protect them [referring to the kids]”. He’s been doing that for the entire film, she even says signed earlier in the film “he just wants to show you how to protect yourself, and me”, she and the audience knows he is protecting them. She has just given birth, it’s not unfair of her to ask her husband to stay and protect her and the new-born baby, he can then say that he needs to protect their other two kids, this would get across the same message and could be used to show how relieved they are that she managed to give birth and wasn’t torn apart, miracle of birth accompanied by the miracle of not being eaten by monsters. Another flaw of the film is the sound-proof basement, it just shows up half way through the film and it just works, surely the characters would be banking on this as it would allow them to be as loud as they wanted, and the mother could have given birth in there, it’s just introduced half way though and as soon as we see it, a broken pipe floods it, and it’s gone as quickly as it appears. Apart from letting the characters speak for a bit, it serves no purpose, and throughout the film we see that the father is trying to think of ways to kill the creatures, and they have backup plans to help distract the monsters if they ever attacked, a sound proofed room would be like a palace in this world, why relegate it to just a footnote of the plot, and then get rid of it. One of the biggest problems with the film, is how they finally manage to work out the creature’s weaknesses, the daughter’s new hearing aid, that her father invented, produces a high frequency sound that hurt the monsters, and while their reacting to the sound they are exposed enough for the mother to shoot them with a shotgun and kill them. Firstly bullets, bullets kill the monsters, what a great way to bring the creatures down to the most mundane level, like a boss fight in a game, weaken the creature and then inflict massive damage, I can’t help feeling they could have been a bit more inventive with this. But the biggest problem is how the daughter works out that her hearing aid will hurt them. We, the audience, see earlier in the film that when her hearing aid plays up it hurts the monsters, but in both these instances the daughter never sees this, she would logically have no idea that this would work, and the family have speakers, loud ones which they project the sound through. Why didn’t they use them, we already established that the river makes constant enough sound that the monsters ignore it, record the river and play it through the speakers, it’s already shown that they use distractions to keep themselves safe, but not one of them thought to use the devices built to produce loud sounds. Leading on from this we get the final scene where we see the last two creatures running towards the family, the mother nods to the daughter and cocks the shotgun, as they now know their weakness. Great to see our family finally fight back, but what a lame ending, all this character building and we get a “let’s do this” moment. Okay it’s not the worst ending, and is better than all of them dying or them just killing the other two in a bloodbath, but this film shows us characters who play it safe 24/7, and have seen the consequences in the worst possible way, why would they risk their new-born son/brother after losing their father. This “badass” moment comes out of nowhere, never mind all of that character building, they’re badass monster killers now. All in all, it’s not a terrible movie it really isn’t but it isn’t great, and the biggest crime it commits is that it isn’t scary. At all, it’s essentially a soft action movie, I get maybe some kids would be scared by the monsters, but it’s rated 15 (UK), they marketed it at adults, and failed to scare anybody, nobody I know who’s seen it has said they found it scary. It was essentially an hour and forty-five-minute-long Doctor Who or Supernatural episode, for a 17 million dollar movie they could have done a lot better. 6/10

It’s a satellite phone. How did this get in my purse? While looking at the film poster, the first thing I thought was: “Wow, Halle Berry has a thing for films about kidnapping”. First, there was “The Call“. And then at the beginning of the year, I saw “Kidnap“. And now it’s a film about human trafficking. In particular, the kidnapping of young women who then end up in a network of prostitution and terrible abuse. But soon I realized I was completely wrong. The woman in question wasn’t Halle Berry. But damn, she looks disturbingly a lot like Halle. Now, I didn’t like “Kidnap” very much. To be honest I thought it was outright irritating at times. This film is, despite another protagonist (Paula Patton), of the same level. That surprise weekend will become a fiasco. The acting in itself wasn’t that bad at all. Perhaps a bit simplistic and predictable, but certainly not annoying. Only some stupid decisions were made again. But that’s typical for these kinds of films, I suppose. Lovebirds Brea (Paula Patton) and John (Omar Epps) are both nice looking persons and form a beautiful couple. When John arrives one day with a classic car as a birthday present and takes Brea on a surprise weekend, you already know this very peaceful scene is doomed to turn into a fiasco. Where’s this phone coming from?. First, they are being harassed by a motor gang in a gas station. Next, their fantastic weekend full of love and eroticism is ruined the moment super-jerk Darren (Laz Alonso), someone with an ego problem and an agent for sports stars, shows up. And as icing on the cake, there’s a satellite phone, with a series of disturbing pictures of abused young women, inexplicably ending up in Brea’s handbag. I’m not impressed. If only they’d stuck to the idea of making a disconcerting film about sex trafficking, it might have been interesting. But turning it into some kind of Hollywood spectacle, with story twists you could see coming from half a world away and an improbable denouement, wasn’t such a hot idea. Human trafficking is a deadly serious subject and a despicable type of crime that needs to be tackled seriously. The fact they try to make people aware of this widespread problem, I can accept. But in the end, this was nothing more than a cheap B-movie about the abuse and exploitation of women in networks. “You were not really here” also brings up this issue, but there it concerns networks with minors. And that message was loud and clear. “Traffik” just uses the cheap solution of showing statistics about the number of women abducted in the US. In other words, I wasn’t really impressed by this film. My rating 4/10 Links: IMDB More reviews here

Rudyard, there are no people living in this forest. Do you see any animals? There’s no flora with any color, nothing to allure insects! Are you someone who prefers to spend his free time in his perfectly tended garden? Is your lawn as if a delegation from the International Golf Federation could arrive any minute to ask if it could be used as a “green” at a next golf championship? Do you spend hours in your garden staring at freshly planted and potted flowers and plants? Are you an expert in fertilizing, scarifying, digging, pruning, grafting and draining? Well, I guess this film is really suitable for you. Because “Flora” is actually nothing more than a nature film that every botanical film viewer will be excited about. Do you know which film quote always came to me? “Run, Forrest, Run!“. Only here the main characters are running away from a forest. They might have used the following alternative movie title: “Attack of the killer pollen“. That about covers it. It really looks like the 1920s. “Flora” certainly isn’t a bad film. But for those who don’t see themselves as purebred nature lovers, this film may seem terribly boring. What they managed to do, is to show a decent image of the 1920s. I found the props and atmosphere perfect. All the pieces fitted. The oldtimer, the costumes, and the used music. Perfectly chosen. Everything seemed innocent and frivolous in those days. The naivety and insufficient knowledge are portrayed in a proper way. The resources available to the six scientists are fairly limited. Plants are cataloged in notebooks. Illustrations are made with the use of a whole array of colored pencils. No electronic worksheet and digital camera as one would use in the present time. You won’t see the main characters wandering around with a tiny headphone connected to a compact MP3 player. No, here they are lugging around with an impressive gramophone with a huge horn. Before you know it, an old-fashioned foxtrot echoes through the forest after putting on such a fragile record. The footage and acting look great. Unfortunately, it’s slow and superficial. Praise for the creators of this indie-horror. Because despite the extremely limited budget, film-technically it looks fab. Even the for me unknown actors made themselves meritorious in the field of acting. Admittedly, sometimes there was a touch of overacting. And they tried to bring drama in a forced way. But this was certainly not irritating. Unfortunately, it was all fairly superficial with a painfully slow pace. It seemed after a while that the entire film consisted of exploring the surrounding nature. And yes, the discovery that no living organism can be detected in the surrounding area can easily be called troubling. But it’s never really exciting. Nail-biting boredom. Trust me, I’m not someone who only associates horror with gory slaughter and diabolical entities. And also, a forest in a horror movie isn’t automatically linked to a lonely, deserted wooden cabin. Or a wandering, bloodthirsty creature that suddenly shows up from behind a tree and rips you into pieces. So all the praise to try a different idea and for once think out of the box. However, I don’t think this symbiotic fungus that kills every human and animal life is something that ensures it to be a movie with nail-biting suspense. All in all, the starting point of the film wasn’t bad when you talk about originality. But apart from some beautiful nature shots and moments in which the dialogue seemed interesting, it’s all relatively boring and monotonous. My rating 3/10 Links: IMDB More reviews here

On Monday 29th January 2018, I saw Darkest Hour at the Vue Cinema with my Mum and sister. The Darkest Hour is about the period of time in May 1940 when Britain needed a new Prime minister to guide our country through World War II. That Prime minister being Winston Churchill. The film shows the audience the struggle Churchill went through to be accepted as a 'victory' Prime minister and how his stubbornness and care for British people managed to get 300,000 men home from Dunkirk safely and through 6 years of war. I don't know if this is because I am English or if I just love our culture and feel good movies, but I absolutely LOVE British films. We have some incredible actors and that makes me feel incredibly proud. Gary Oldman was no exception, he was absolutely incredible as Winston Churchill, from the makeup to the stutter and articulate voice he was simply perfect. After the recent Academy Award nominations for Darkest Hour I expected a showstopper and it exceeded my expectations entirely. British films win in mise-en-scene as the film was perfectly shot with costumes and sets that fit the 1940's era and how London would have looked at the time. Along with how aesthetically pleasing the film is the historical aspects and learning about what Winston Churchill had to do to please the public and parliament and save soldiers in Dunkirk and still with a positive attitude was very inspiring. In the time of complete and utter fear he stayed humorous and confident that we'd win the war with resilience when others were willing to give up. I personally loved the scene when Churchill visited the public in the Underground when he wasn't supposed to, although he may have not done that specifically it was interesting to learn that he would often wonder off and ask the public how they want to respond to the war and that's why he was so well respected and got us through the war. Along with it being very serious with the situation at Dunkirk and Calais (which was interesting to see after watching Dunkirk in the summer) it was also funny and showed that Churchill didn't really care and was his own individual self. The film brought some comedy to it, some of it was quite obviously funny but as the film is a Drama and is supposed to be serious there weren’t too many moments of humour. The other audience members didn’t really laugh but there were some quite funny parts where Churchill wouldn’t take situations all too seriously and parts where he’d just walk around naked. Overall, I really thoroughly enjoyed the film and I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to see a (hopefully, most likely) Academy Award winning performance as Churchill. It’s very light hearted and not too intense to watch. Definitely watch the film if you can while it’s out in the cinema, you’ll get a different experience then watching it at home.

Oppenheimer (2023) Cold, dark and brooding, Oppenheimer misses the mark when it comes to narrative drama. Christopher Nolan’s $100 million summer blockbuster explores the making of the atomic bomb, and America’s tumultuous attempts to come to terms with what it unleashed.   Over three long hours, Nolan time-hops between the 1920s through to the 1950s as American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) develops the bomb and struggles with its moral and political fallout. Oppenheimer is brought on to the Manhattan Project by the US Army’s Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), and the story is woven with two complex love interests in Kitty Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt) and Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh).   Many of the post-war scenes centre on the jealousies and obsessions of Lewis Strauss (Robert Downie Jr.), chair of the US Atomic Energy Commission, as he seeks the Senate’s approval to join Eisenhower’s cabinet.   This is undoubtedly an all-star cast, but beyond the wry wit of Damon’s character, the ensemble inspired little feeling. Is this numbness an ingenious reflection of how most of us feel when trying to comprehend something so morally complex and shudderingly terrifying as nuclear weapons? That may be too generous.   The danger in biopics is that the meandering complexities of people’s real lives rarely lend themselves to excellent narrative cinema. By way of example, a line that jars most with the tone is when the President calls Oppenheimer a “cry-baby”. It felt limp and cheesy, yet a quick internet search later shows it is historically accurate that Truman said this. There’s an irony that if the best Hollywood writers were freed from the constraints of historical record, a more consistent tone could probably have kept the film on track.   Non-linear storytelling is Nolan’s bread and butter, but overall Oppenheimer’s sequencing leaves a lot to be desired. The fundamental flaw is the set-up of a rivalry between Oppenheimer and Strauss, where for much of the film it is not entirely clear what their conflict is even about.   The two main characters barely meet or interact on screen, leading to a frustrating absence of drama. Nolan has the skill to pull this off – he did so exquisitely with Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale’s rival characters in The Prestige – but he may have taken a time and space hop too far here, thawing any sense of friction between the characters.   Oppenheimer is packed with dialogue, but much of it is emotionally muted, faux scientific and essentially dull. Talking about science and showing how people work together in a lab might not sound like a winning recipe, but try telling that to the Oscar-winning writer of The Imitation Game, Graham Moore. The Imitation Game also uses flashbacks and flashforwards, but with a sense of purpose that makes the audience invest more in its main character.   Murphy’s Oppenheimer struggles to draw out the same emotion. Perhaps that is not surprising, given he is the father of the atomic bomb, but the lack of emotional connection to the main characters made it difficult to feel much when they faced tragedy or internal turmoil. Often cinema uses love or romance to help open up their main character, but in this Oppenheimer didn’t prioritise making the audience relate. Most of us aren’t so squishy and perfect as a Rom Com when falling in love, but most of us aren’t so grim and sad as Oppenheimer either.   The film is very America-centric, which may be a conscious choice given the themes of introspection (or lack of). When Oppenheimer is picturing the scenes of destruction caused by the dropping of the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he visualises them within an American lecture theatre. The Americanisation of trauma is reminiscent of the old Vietnam War films made in Hollywood, which can feel a little crass in our globalised world. The moral questioning could have been more powerful if the audience was confronted with the devastation in Japan itself.   Space to explore the moral dilemmas was denied to the audience, perhaps as a reflection of the self-denial that the main characters are experiencing. But while that allows the audience into Oppenheimer’s psyche, it does not necessarily make for compelling viewing. An interesting dynamic is the use of a black and white filter for the scenes furthest in the future, reflecting how the world had stepped backwards since the making of the bomb.   No audience member could walk away without being acutely aware that we live with the means for our own extinction. The themes of Oppenheimer are also timely as questions remain unanswered over who will regulate or control artificial intelligence.   A metaphor about getting carried away with our own abilities might be appropriate as Nolan indulges his love of gritty time-jumps at the expense of viewer satisfaction.

Every once in a while, nature makes a mistake. The beginning explains a lot. First, footage of an adorable-looking 2-year-old, growing up and having one injury after the other. And again and again, you get this emotionless stare because he turns out to be numb to pain. In addition, there’s an increasingly desperate-looking mother. And finally, that picture of a little boy in plaster staring sadly ahead while in the background children enjoy themselves in a playground. Perhaps this little boy realizes at that moment that his life will be very different from that of an average person. And that’s how you’ll see the grown-up Henry (Joey Klein) afterward. A person who lives completely isolated and who moves carefully through society every day. Taking with him a backpack stuffed with attributes to take care of injuries. The only thing he’s trying to produce in his as a lab equipped apartment is a medicinal product. Not to treat pain. But something so he finally can feel pain. A vital signal that the human body passes on to indicate that something isn’t right physically. A medicine so Henry has the feeling he’s really alive. It feels like watching a science programme. “Painless” is not SF, even though I don’t know whether there are people in the world who suffer from the same condition as Henry or not. I’d rather call this film a drama with a scientific undertone. Because believe me, a lot of Chinese sounding medical terms will be fired at you. Technical terms about chemical compounds and genetic stuff are used throughout the whole movie. No idea what education Henry has followed. But it’s clear he’s a genius in the field of science. He also appears to have an unprecedented gift that allows him to diagnose a person’s condition with a single glance. This all makes this film rather boring sometimes and too intellectual. It feels as if you are looking at some scientific program. Something only real nerds like to watch. And they get excited about every scientific term that’s being used. Yet there’s something else to be enjoyed for ordinary people without a master degree. Someone like me for instance. And that’s the wonderful acting. The acting is absolutely superb. Joey Klein delivers a great performance. The way he shapes Henry is simply brilliant. The unworldly loner who looks shyly around and who avoids any contact with other individuals. The only one he has regular contact with is his doctor Dr. Raymond Parks (Kip Gilman). Probably someone who took care of Henry countless times after yet another incident. He’s also Henry’s confidant. So regularly Henry storms into his office without asking, just to argue about a new theory. In my opinion, it’s also the only one who fully understands Henry. And then one day Henry meets the graceful Shani (Evalena Marie). A painful encounter (there’s hot coffee involved) after which he comes to the realization that there’s more to life than his eternal search for a cure. It’s painful to see how clumsy he is when interacting with others who don’t have a medical background. A scientific drama with a romantic twist. “Painless” is about the absence of physical pain. It’s also about the numbing effect this had on the emotional part of Henry. He’s just as insensitive when it’s about emotions. The way he responds to certain situations shows a social ignorance and a lack of experience in the field of human interaction. For him, everything is a distraction that prevents him from finding a solution for his ailment. “Painless” is certainly not an action-packed and adventurous blockbuster but still an interesting film. It shows how persons with a disorder still can function in our society. And even though you usually don’t understand what they’re talking about (thanks to the frequent use of medical and scientific terms), you can understand Henry at the end. “Painless” is about perseverance and determination. But at the same time, it is also about loneliness and sorrow. In short, a scientific drama with a romantic touch that surprised me. My rating 7/10 More reviews here

There’s no medicine out there. There’s just death and hate. The future world looks fairly simplistic. Mankind has been transformed into a superficial society in which the truly kindhearted population has nestled in one or another oasis, while the riotous part indulges in looting and hanging out in a striptease/dance temple or drug centers. Also choosing names will be simpler in that period, as it seems. When you are the leader of a motorcycle gang who wander around on their dirtbikes to terrorize innocent people (such as pirates and barbarian tribes did in ancient times), you simply call yourself War Lord (James Franco). When you run a place where drugs are being used somewhere on the American coast, you call that place “Paradise Beach” and yourself simply Drug Lord (Mila Jovovich). The idolized woman of the peaceful tribe who lives in tents between the palm trees is then conveniently called Queen (Lucy Liu). And you’ll never guess it. Her son is called Prince (Jeffrey Wahlberg). The scriptwriters of this somewhat unsuccessful Mad Max clone have given this a lot of thought. Had there been a person who owned a stall where he sold mineral water, they certainly would have called him Water Lord. Mad Max, the cheap version. “Future World” just exudes an atmosphere like “Mad Max“. It has identically scenery. A world affected by drought and full of sand, where lawlessness rules and everyone apparently pillaged the local leather goods store at the start of the Apocalypse. Most traveling is done using transport that can handle sandy surroundings. And furthermore, you can be sure your head is being smashed by some brutal-looking colossus of a guy just because you’re near him. Apparently, the only thing that still makes sense in this long-lost world is the opening of alcohol, drugs and dance facilities (where functional nudity is obviously necessary). To be honest, “Future World” looks like a trial version of “Mad Max: Fury Road“. The similarities are sometimes so obvious. I think Franco, who’s not only playing a leading role but also directed this, will be bothered by the copyright commission. Quite a busy bee, Franco. You got to hand it to Franco, he’s quite busy in film land. The number of films he played in as an actor and the amount he directed, is impressive. One wonders whether Franco has quantity as the main goal instead of quality. Well, you can’t call “Future World” a quality product. The story is meaningless. The combat actions and pursuits look dull and uninspiring. Even the aspect of the high-tech android Ash (Suki Waterhouse), that suddenly proves to be in possession of a consciousness, is something that we have already experienced in a better way in “Ex Machina“. Ash doesn’t look very expensive here and its malfunctioning is only made clear by a sizzling, crackling sound and a short-term non-functioning. Furthermore, it’s as if Suki Waterhouse just came from “The bad batch” set. Apparently, deserts are a fetish for her. How about the acting? It’s also quite disappointing when talking about acting. And then to think that they have managed to get a few big names for this production. James Franco is widely known (not difficult if you see his resume of films) and he did a better job in for example, “Rise of the planet of the apes“, “Homefront” and “Oz the Great and Powerful“. I thought Mila Jovovich was the most interesting character. But she’s not as intriguing here as in the “Resident Evil” franchise. Lucy Liu has a rather limited role. Luckily her part was of more importance in “Kill Bill” and “Charlie’s Angels“. James Wahlberg (He says uncle to Mark) is actually one of the leads but is so uninteresting it’s as if he blurs with the background. Even Snoop Dogg shows up as the owner of the seedy striptease-joint Love Town (And yes, his name is Love Lord. The creativity kills me). A small contribution but highly entertaining. It’s another crap-movie-warning. The most positive thing I could think of about this film is related to the dedication and enthusiasm of James Franco. If you continue to produce films as if they rolled off an assembly line, someday there will certainly be an exquisite result. But to be honest, this boring and meaningless creation is just a failed attempt. A sloppy and superficially made film that seems so ridiculous that it’s not even funny. No, this film can be avoided like you’d avoid a cheap holiday offer to stay for 2 weeks without drinking in the Sahara. It’ll kill you. My rating 2/10 Links: IMDB

The Happytime Murders (Brian Henson, 2018) In a Trump ridden, post-Brexit world it’s safe to say we need more fun. We focus so much of our daily lives on the mundane or the shambles of the globe, that cinema creates the perfect environment for anyone and everyone to zone out of reality for a couple of hours and immerse yourself into a beautiful fictional world… If you are searching for such an escape, do not watch The Happytime Murders. The art of puppetry began in the 5th Century in Ancient Greece with the intent to communicate the needs of human societies through entertainment. Of course, in more recent popular culture puppets sing at Christmas in The Muppets Christmas Carol (Henson, 1992) and teach children the correct names for the primary colours in Sesame Street. However, someone somewhere in the distant land of Hollywood decided puppets now need to be focussed at an adult audience, perhaps a film where sex, drugs and murder are the foundations of hysterics and Melissa McCarthy has a puppet liver. (Yeah, you read that right). The film’s narrative follows Phil Phillips (voiced by Brain Barretta), a puppet disgraced ex-cop trying to get by in a world where puppets and humans co-exist. When cast members of an old hit TV show The Happytime Gang start getting murdered, Phillips is forced to team up with his ex-partner Connie Edwards (McCarthy). Of course, at first they hate each other - fighting in hot tubs and cursing at each other on the streets of L.A. - but then they are reminded why they were friends and begin to have each other’s backs. So, other than the puppets, why is the film so shockingly bad? Let me tell you. The comedy in The Happytime Murders is not clever or witty. It is schoolboy humour focussing on sex and profanity. The writers have placed puppets in human situations and expected the comedy to flourish itself, not focussing their efforts on the script or screenplay. Unfortunately, taking colourful puppets and characterising them as sleazy guys in a strip club does not make for an entertaining scene. Furthermore, the narrative itself is uninspiring. The outcome of the plot is as predictable as the jokes. McCarthy seems to attract parts which are rouge, out of control characters that always end up finding empathy, overcoming their selfishness and saving the day. Think about it: The Heat (2013), Identity Thief (2013), Tammy (2014)…You see McCarthy in the film’s trailer and you know what the movie will be. No surprises there. The plot also overlooks some characters which have narrative potential. Bubbles (Maya Rudolph) is set up to simply be Phillip’s secretary, dressing in mismatched patterns and sporting a lovely perm, she is odd but forgettable. However, in one scene, where she and Edwards break into a suspect’s house, she knows to pick a lock. And she does it pretty quickly! As a member of the audience you are eager for more of Bubbles from this point in the movie, is she an ex-con? Does she have some skeletons in her closet? What is her obsession with bananas? Bubbles is evidently not just the stereotypical secretary character the writers would have you believe her to be. The cast list for The Happytime Murders shocked me, are there really this many well-known actors and actresses desperate for roles in Hollywood? For example, Elizabeth Banks who in the film plays Jenny Peterson, an out of work actress turned stripper. Banks is probably best known for her role in The Hunger Games (as Effie Trinket, 2012-2015), as Betty Brant in three of Marvel’s Spiderman films (2002-2007) and for her work producing, directing and starring in all three Pitch Perfect movies (2012-2017). Why is Banks in this trainwrek of a production? I would really like to know. Overall, I would not recommend The Happytime Murders. The immature humour and predictable plot forced four people to grab their bags and leave the screen I was in (it really was that bad). Hopefully Hollywood bosses will leave puppets for junior audiences for the time being, and reward us adults with the blissful escapism which we all need.

You can eat cookies till you throw up, for all I care. You’ll see… things are…quite different here. Have you seen “Goosebumps” where Jack Black plays the leading role as well? Well, you can expect almost the same thing. A kids-sized horror film. And I had the same feelings about it after a certain amount of time. Namely that it’s all a little bit over the top. Probably it wasn’t the intention to make it too scary. It should all be about magic and mystery. And it sure was the first half. I admit I have a weak spot for such type of movies. “The House with a clock in its walls” reminded me of the wonderful “Harry Potter” movies. Here too it’s about an orphan boy who ends up in a foster family and apparently has magic powers in his DNA. Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) himself looks like Henry from “The book of Henry“. Also an outsider with aviator glasses on. But halfway the movie derailed a bit and felt rather exaggerated, absurd and grotesque. Shit, there’s that lion again. As I mentioned earlier, the first part is highly entertaining. Lewis is being introduced. He meets uncle Jonathan Barnavelt (Jack Black) and his neighbor Florence Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett). And of course, there’s this huge Victorian-looking house with its ghostly contours. As a spectator, you notice there’s something very unusual going on and certain ordinary things come to life (and in normal circumstances they never do). Something that Lewis only discovers afterward. We then see Lewis attending his new school and how he befriends Tarby (Sunny Suljic), the popular boy who briefly raises Lewis’s popularity. All this is brought with the necessary humor and is highly entertaining for young and old. Even the presence of Jack Black was bearable. I’m not really a big fan of Black’s humor. Usually, it’s bland and ridiculously exaggerated. That is why a similar scene with a lion-shaped-bush with stomach problems is being used three times. Bland, trite and exaggerated toilet humor. Puking pumpkins? Let’s use the umbrella. But in general, it was still enjoyable. What amused me the most was the constant bickering between Uncle Barnavelt and Mrs. Zimmerman. That never really got boring. And then suddenly those puking pumpkins (and boy this was bad looking CGI) and a bunch of puppets shows up. Also, you’ll witness the resurrection of the evil Warlock Isaac (Kyle MacLachlan) and his illustrious wife Selena (Renée Elise Goldsberry). And finally, everything revolves around a very well hidden clock somewhere in the house of uncle Barnavelt. Although he’s a talented wizard and Mrs. Zimmerman a famous sorceress, finding this clock seems an impossible task. Even uncle Barnavelt is forced to use other tools to look for it. Like a huge pickaxe, for example, with which he starts to demolish walls in the middle of the night. And the way they handled this clock-problem, in the end, was also an easy solution. Apparently, the scriptwriters were exhausted and a little uninspired. Most positive was Cate Blanchett. No, I wasn’t really impressed. Visually it looked sophisticated and extremely well-taken care of, but it never was as magical as “Harry Potter“. Cate Blanchett was perhaps the only highlight in this fantasy film for kids. It was as if she tried to be the new Mary Poppins with her behavior. Maybe this movie is perfect to stimulate the fantasy of 8-year-olds. Though they must endure the hyperactive behavior of Jack Black. Is it because of the awkward way in which horror director Eli Roth tackled this project? Or is it due to Jack Black’s lackluster humor? Or was it the laser beam-shooting umbrella of Cate Blanchett used? No more fantasy-movies for kids. Anyway, my interest disappeared and made way for annoyance and lots of headshaking. The only thing I was hoping for was that the damn clock that posed a threat to our universe was found as quickly as possible. And that the other books written by John Bellairs aren’t used for a motion picture as well. After “A wrinkle in time” and this movie, I’m going to avoid fantasy films for children. Enough is enough. My rating 4/10 Links: IMDB More reviews here

All that time with Anton, the practice, the performances, the pressure to be perfect. Whenever I read newsflashes about films that make people suffer from migraine attacks and even make them sick, my curiosity is immediately awakened. The final verdict can go two ways. Or the film indeed has an ingeniously elaborated story and is provided with images the average stomach can’t bear. Or it’s the umpteenth overrated movie of which you ask yourself afterward “Who on earth made such statements?“. Are those people who’ve never seen a similar film as “The Perfection“? Are they film lovers who limit themselves to innocent rom-coms? Or supporters of superficial films such as “The Sound of Music“? No idea. In any case, I couldn’t find any nauseating fragments or rancid footage in this Netflix Original. But that doesn’t mean I thought it was a terrible movie. On the contrary. “The Perfection” contains a cleverly put together story, some successful acting, and a surprising denouement. So, highly recommended. A bit suspense. A bit erotism. I myself thought that “The Perfection” was nothing more than a psychological thriller with a bit of erotism and a few lurid events. Admittedly, the denouement will look pretty disturbing for some. But I assure you that this film will mislead you from the start. The goal that Charlotte (Allison “Get out” Williams) has in mind and the reasons for this are of a very different nature than you would expect. If you realize what a dark secret the Bachoff Institute is hiding, where Charlotte has taken lessons for years as a gifted cellist, it will give you more chills than the bus ride through rural China. The film fits in perfectly with our modern zeitgeist where there’s a “Me too” movement that explicitly tries to draw attention to sexual harassment and sexual assault. How the renowned academy Bachoff can be associated with this is something that you have to discover for yourself in this original film. A mixed bag of different genres. It’s quite clear that this film is difficult to catalog when it comes to the genre. It’s actually a mixed bag of different genres. It’s a light-erotic thriller with a dash of horror. For experienced horror enthusiasts, the horror part will be slightly disappointing. You could describe it as an ultra-light version of “I spit on your grave“. But without explicit visual material and a wide variety of horrifying revenge actions. And from the beginning of the film till roughly halfway, it’s a mild drama where you are introduced to the most important protagonists. Charlotte, a talented cellist who, after years of absence (taking care of her sick mother), seeks contact again with her former music teacher Anton (Steven Weber) and his wife Paloma (Alaina Huffman). But especially the meeting with the new star of the academy, cellist Lizzie (Logan Browning), is causing some stir. First of all, you can feel the competition between the two cellists whose finger-fastness and sensitive handling of the fiddlestick create magical sounds the moment they squeeze a cello between their knees. As these two, not bad-looking classical musicians spend more time together, the sexual tension between them increases. And before they know it, they make use of the skills they use while playing the cello, when they are all over each other when lying naked under the sheets. It’s not perfect but still. Once this introduction took place and the two lovebirds are sitting on a local bus on their way to some small town in China, the film goes in a higher gear. The frivolous atmosphere makes way for exciting situations and horror elements. It feels rather mysterious. Even the rewind moments won’t really clarify it. On the one hand, I thought this technique was kind of an original approach. On the other hand, it seemed rather pedantic. Let’s say something about acting. There’s actually nothing negative to announce. You can safely state that the two main characters almost reach perfection when it’s about that. The chemistry between the two girls is realistic. The different moods that they struggle through are convincing. Steven Weber and Alaina Huffman also fit perfectly into their role. An illustrious couple consisting of dark personalities. Perhaps it seems as if they have mixed a number of different genres and it feels as if they didn’t know which direction to go. But it never gets boring. No, “The Perfection” is certainly not perfect. But it wasn’t very far from perfection. You can watch “The Perfection” on Netflix now. My rating 7/10 Links: IMDB