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How to Build a Girl (2019)
A watered down adaptation of Caitlin Moran's book.
How to Build a Girl is a tame and watered down adaptation of Caitlin Moran's book of the same name based on her early days as a music critic. I would recommend reading the book instead cause while it isn't perfect it's way more fleshed out and perfectly captures a sense of place and time from someone who has lived through this era, it doesn't hold back on the sleazy aspects of the music world and it covers way more ground thematically giving the reader a lot to think about.
This film version however is not only surface level but each change made either ads nothing or makes no sense, the people on Johanna's bedroom wall ranging from fictional character's like Jo March to real life figures such as Karl Marx are just pointless filler and her transformation from the shy awkward fat girl to a "lady sex pirate" is way too fast, the book at least took it's time adding build up and giving you plenty of motivation to why and how her life ends from a to b, but here there is no satisfying build up and logical progression for not only how she ends up having a carrier but how her personality changes, giving the viewer no time to experience those moments and events that shape her.
Not to mention that when Johanna becomes the worst version of herself she is way more mean and cynical then she was in the book which makes the transition she makes feel all the more rushed and unearned, and your left feeling confused as to how she became so mean in the first place, the book has so much layers and build up but all the most interesting aspects of the book is nowhere to be found in this film.
As for positives the casting is pretty on point, despite being way older than Johanna, Beanie Feldstien is a very solid choice, and she gives of more acting range than I expected from her, even better is Paddy Condsidine as her crazy ex-drummer dad who like the character in the book offers the right balance between lovable and tragic, Alfie Allen is inspired casting for John Kite but i didn't like that they made him more mature in this film then in the book because the messiness of his character made him and Johanna a perfect match but by making him the voice of reason in the relationship it takes away from the most interesting aspect of his character.
In conclusion just read the book instead, cause while it's a long read, I guarantee you'll get way more out of it then this movie.
The Old Guard (2020)
So much wasted potential, should have been a TV show
The Old Guard was so close to impressing me. This has got to be one of the most frustrating movies of 2020 so far, because there is too much holding it back for me to call it anything above average but there are some great and exceptional elements that not only help it stand out from other movies of it's sort but it makes me want to like it more than I do.
I think it's biggest drawback is purely having to work around the mechanics of a feature length film which isn't always a bad thing but when your story has this much weight and covers so much ground, from the characters back stories, their place throughout history, as well as their relationships with one another as well as concepts such as how desensitised the characters have become to killing random people in order to survive, is living this long even worth it with having to cope with your loved ones dying around you? as well as the choices with how we live our life and what impact we can have on the world. I feel like a TV show would have given the filmmakers more time to develop all of these elements and give them the attention they diverse, but the movie moves at a quick pace that it gives no time for those interesting elements to breathe or flesh them out. As a result, everything feels so half baked.
Which is a shame because when the characters are interacting with each other the actors have good chemistry, and they do a good job with giving you the impression that they have a long history together and i was looking forward to how the film would explore these things but instead it's mostly told through exposition and quick flashbacks that last a second and then were back to the generic plot and another action scene!
Other problems with the film: I know I'm not the first person to say this but the soundtrack choices where abysmal! I don't understand this recent trend to pander to zoomers by playing some inappropriate dubstep electronic music that is so out of place and takes you out of each action scene it plays in! Even worse by the fact the action scenes by the standard of most modern action movies are actually pretty well done but you can't appreciate them due to the awful music that plays over it!
The villain is probably the worst movie villain I've seen in a long time! There is not a single thing about him that's threatening, his bug eyed expression and over the top accent makes it hard to take him seriously, made worse by the fact that he has literally zero motivation for why he does what he does other than the fact that he is a smiley billionaire that loves money! If your going to have your world and characters be presented in a way that's serious, dour and dark you can't follow it up by having a villain who is the complete opposite to those things and looks like he's walked out of a Saturday morning cartoon, It would have been way better to have Chiwetel Ejiofor as the bad guy cause at least it would have provided some grey area to what he was doing. Also without spoiling anything but that sequel bait ending was sooo forced!!!
So yeah a mixed bag overall (even though this review sounds very negative) If they make a sequel to this (which i doubt) I would probably welcome it so long as the filmmakers take notes about what to improve because this movie had potential and had it's moments so lets hope they build on improving the flaws of this film.
The High Note (2020)
Good Actors. Good Soundtrack. Mediocre Movie!
Wasn't expecting much from this movie but honestly I still felt let down. Even more so considering that this was directed by the same person who did Late Night which while not a great movie, was a very insightful look at the world of late night comedy shows and the trials and tribulations that come with producing them, so i was expecting that same level of insight into the music world but what we get is very surface level at best.
I honestly shouldn't have expected much from a Working Title production as they tend to be produced in the blandest, safest, crowd pleasing way possible in order for them to be remotely accessible to a wide audience. There is an interesting story to be told in this film about an aspiring music producer who has diluted her duties between an ultra successful singer who is reaching old age and irrelevancy and her glory days are long gone and this young aspiring singer who has a lot of potential and is about to start his successful carrier of. They could have used this angle as away of exploring the struggles of what happens working your way up contrasting of what happens when you've made it and your no longer relevant, but the movie ditches that and instead becomes a predictable and bland look at the music world that not only rings false but hits every trope, cliche and story beat you would expect. Does the protagonist have a quirky best friend who's only job is to act goofy and lift the main character's spirits up? Check! Is there gonna be a liar revealed /everything goes wrong conflict in the third act followed by a sad montage? check! will all this be followed up by the other characters solving their issues by saying sorry and all is resolved by the end? ....I'll let you decide for your self!
On a more positive note i did really enjoy the soundtrack to this film, I was even taping my foot at some of the tracks and the actors did a great job preforming them, I wish they could have been used in a more meaningful way and in a film that had more substance. It's not a terrible movie but passable at best. On a more tangential note I have had a recurring thing happen when I watch movies that are so mind nummingly safe and dull that I end up rewriting it in my head to come up with something so much better, It really makes me wonder if I can come up with these interesting ideas, why can't the people who are actually working the industry?!
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
So close yet so far.
Not to get preachy here but I think it's safe to say that as a man, I am never going to fully understand the blood sweat and tears that goes into having an abortion, especially in a healthcare system as terrible as the US, it must cost loads of time, energy, money and must (depending on the circumstance) cause loads of trauma surrounding the cause of the pregnancy and trying to get it aborted in time before the fetus has evolved to a point where they will not allow the procedure to continue.
For that reason I'm somewhat glad that a film like Never Rarely Sometimes Always exists, because while people like me wont ever experience an abortion procedure in my entire lifetime, the medium of film is powerful enough to where we can reach the closest point of understanding and empathy that we can. Even more admirable is the film's social realist presentation, removing the hallmarks of exposition and melodrama in favour of a documentary esc style filmmaking that a lot of the tastelessness you would see in a worse film like this completely absent. This aspect is ultimately one of the film's greatest strengths as the dialogue is mostly sparse, filling every space with a quiet sense of melancholy, the cinematography is crisp and timeless and the performances from the young actors never once ring false. The most compelling aspect of the film is in it's exploration to the extent of the hassle when it comes to trying to set an appointment and getting the procedure done, from answering difficult and personal questions surrounding the pregnancy, to waiting in line to have your name called out. Even more admirable is it's characterisation of Autumn as a quiet yet flawed, person as opposed to making her perfect in every way, providing a lot of character through unspoken glances and touches and other small details in her behaviour.
So with that said Never Rarely Sometimes Always has a lot going for it and is an undeniably important film with a sad, real life subject matter.....But as a film on it's own merits....I had some issues that I just couldn't ignore.
This next part of the review is going to make me sound like some unhinged MRA who get's triggered by the portrayal of men as abusers in media and I often don't make points like these so I don't get labelled as that but I found the film's obsession in making every male character either creepy or just dickish to be borderline comical, that's not to say you can't do these portrayals well, nor I'm denying that people like that don't exist, (I've worked in a restaurant where the women would get harassed by drunk lads almost every day, trust me I know it happens) but when you have ALL of your male characters be so telegraphed in their creepiness and misogyny, it ruins the subtlety and realism the film managed to create because at that point It feels like I'm not watching a realist drama anymore, I am watching the director preach some other message that is counter-intuitive to the main and overall point the film is trying to make. It would be easier to forgive this if these portrayals were more short and subtle but these portrayals look like they belong in a short after school special that people would make fun of on Youtube.
To draw a comparison, The Assistant is much better in handling this issue in every single way as not only is it a brilliant claustrophobic quiet film about the terror of workplace misogyny, but the male characters in that film ring way more true. They are not overtly evil people, but they are also complicit in the horror's taken place in the establishment that they work in. This isn't just through their silence and refusal to take action but their mildly rude, condescending and sometimes passive aggressive behaviour towards the female protagonist further contribute to that workplace tension whether they realise it or not. The dialogue in those moments is minimal and short quickly getting the point across without beating you over the head.
NRSA on the other hand is not only surface level in it's deception of misogyny but the film would have gained so much more without these moments and I don't understand the wider point the director was trying to make other then "men suck" Which is not only a very reductive way of approaching of handling this but lacks the nuance and subtly that a film like The Assistant (and this film to a certain extent) did have. NRSA isn't a bad film by any means and I appreciate that it exists, but it's portrayal of male characters is so contrived and over the top that it drags the rest of this film down, and serves very little purpose other then to drive a very reductive and one note message that does a disservice to the films greatest strengths.
The Lovebirds (2020)
A lacklustre effort
Kumail Nanjiani is a very likeable dude and I really enjoyed The Big Sick but this was a massive step back from that film. Where's the big sick based it's humour on the charm and the likeability and insecurities of the characters, The Lovebirds like most modern American comedies is another point and shoot, stretched out SNL skit. Filled with obvious and desperate improv bit's that go on for too long loosely connected by a very thin premise.
It's kinda shocking to me that this was originally meant to be a theatrical release because this is the type of forgettable, low to mid budget trite that I expect from them. There is no sense of scale in any of the locations, the few action bit's you see are very shoddily done and most of the scenes appear to have been done in a hurry with the actors mugging their improvisational lines in the hopes that something funny will come out. I'm left wondering if there's a stipulation in place with American comedies that requires them to have a majority of the runtime be the actors doing improv and saying nothing of value nor anything that progresses the story in anyway? Do they just not have faith in their scripts or do the actors just love to show off their comedic skills?
The two leads are quite charming and I would probably would like to see a good film surrounding these two but what we get is a very lame, contrived film. There's a decent attempt at a subversion in the third act but other than that this movie doesn't have very much to offer and I'm going to forget about it as soon as I've finished typing this.
Tell It to the Bees (2018)
Something went very wrong here!
I saw this in a cinema nearly a year ago now and the only reason I did was because the only other new thing that was playing near me at the time was The Lion King remake and honestly if there was a way to change the coarse of history by making sure I wasn't stuck with these two options then I would have been left with a better use of two hours!
Tell it to the Bees is about a mother and her son in a small Scottish village in the 50s who befriend the local Doctor named Jean (Anna Paquin) after the mothers son named Charlie (Gregor Selkirk) visits her due to a fight on the school playground. When Charlie and his mother Lydia (Holiday Grainger) are evicted from their house Jean offers them a roof over their heads in her house and sure enough the two women begin to fall in love, but just how long can they keep their secret from not just the closed minded village but from Lydia's comically over the top evil ex- husband Robert (Emun Elliot) who expresses interest in having custody of Charlie.
There are many LGBTQ themed movies recently that I've watched and have either enjoyed or loved, Tell It to the Bees is not one them. For the first half of this film, it approaches it's story in a dull manner, in one of those British productions where the camera looks like it's had cement thrown onto the lens. Inspite of the occasional whimsical moment where our three main protagonists enjoy each other's company, it's mostly a uneventful and uninteresting watch that struggles to maintain the viewer's attention.
However once the second half of the film comes, this is where Tell it to the Bees completely goes of the rails, and does so in such a bizarre and fascinating manner that I can't help but spoil the remaining event's of the film.
So pay attention here, inevitability and in a conflict that anyone with half a brain that can see coming a mile away, Charlie walks in on his mother and Jean making love and upset that his mother lied to him (even though it should be very obvious to him why) he runs out back to his scumbag farther, not before calling his mother a "dity d**e" in what i found to be a unintentional funny scene that nearly made me laugh out loud in a cinema.
But I digress, when running back to his evil farther and telling him everything of the relationship he refuses to let Lydia see her son ever again. These event's completely soaked in melodrama and are as subtle as giant sledgehammer lead to the film's climax that made me visibly shocked and appalled that the I was forced to try and put myself in the mind of the filmmakers to try and understand what the hell they where thinking!
In a moment that comes completely out of nowhere, one of the character's who we barley see but is hinted at having a multiracial relationship with a black individual and is pregnant with his child, is forced into a illegal abortion from the evil ex-husband and his sister that goes terribly wrong and places the girl unconscious. Charlie being witnessed to it runs back to Jean's house to get help for the girl, whilst she deals with the girl, the evil ex-husband chases Charlie back to the house to try and get him back. After Lydia tries to block him from seeing his son, along with some awful dialogue where Lydia taunts the evil ex-husband about how much better Jean is in bed (no i'm not even kidding) he over powers Lydia and attempts to rape her, Charlie runs out of the house and open's Jeans beehive which is a recurring motif throughout the film presumably an allegory of female liberation, after the bees are let out free they both collectively and conveniently fly to the window where the attempted rape is happening, (the window is also conveniently open so it would have put a snag in Charlie's plan if it was closed) and the bees somehow knowing what to do fly all round the room which gives Lydia the chance to fight against the husband's struggles and she knocks him out by hitting an ornament over his head.
This wired mix of whimsy, dark subject matters, and magic realism (?) elevates Tell it to the Bees into a dull experience in one of the most, pretentious and misguided films I've ever seen, with one of the most baffling climaxes that needs to be seen to be believed!
All of this makes it sound like a so bad it's good film and that climax is a whole other level of crazy, but all of that makes up about 20% of the film's runtime and when it isn't being unintentionally funny, Tell It to the Bees is a very unpleasant experience. This is one of those LGBTQ films that thinks exploiting their suffering throughout history is much better of gaining the audience's sympathy rather then actually writing a good well rounded film with characters and people you can like and care about. All slurs abuse and trauma take up much of the script along with a tragic backstory for Jean involving a rape and murder of a former lover that the film flashes back and let's us see in full motion. I'm not a member of the LGBTQ community so I can't say this for certain but if your making a film specifically made for that audience, I don't think they would want to see a film to be reminded constantly of the suffering persecution they faced throughout history and now.
All of this would be bad enough without the performance from Eumn Elliot as the evil ex-husband who I've mentioned throughout most of my review. His character and performance is written in a way that is so over the top that I'm surprised no one thought to write the words "Evil" on his forehead. His character is established as being a veteran during world war two who became a different man ever since the aftermath. This sounds like an interesting arc and subject to explore but the film does nothing with it and is given no development besides that, no room for nuance, no room for interpretation, his character is given no personality beyond the "homophobic, evil straight white male caricature" that I would expect to see in some lesbian fantasy novel. There is no room to explore what happened to him that made him turn into the man he is, why is he constantly being a neglecting farther, an abusive husband and a misogynist pig that filled with so much rage? The answer of course is that the script requires him to.
There's a lot of talent packed into this film. Holiday Grainger is very good here as a struggling mother trying to make end's meet with her poor environment and her early scenes are some of her best work, Anna Paquin despite the doggy accent tries her best too despite being fed with dialogue that is quite unbelievable and hard to take seriously. There was potential in Tell it to the Bees for something really powerful but the end result is nothing more than a melodramatic soap opera that looks like it's had money chucked at it, and the climax involving sentient magical bees who can help our characters on command is a complete slap to the face to any audience member who wants to be taken seriously and doesn't like to be treated like a moron.
Euphoria (2019)
What Assassination Nation should have been
Knowing that this was the same person who wrote and directed Assassination Nation which was one of my least favourite films of 2018 I had put this off for quite a while and my hope's weren't exactly high before pressing play, and while it's far from perfect, the stuff that works heavily outweighs the stuff that doesn't. The biggest problem with Assassination Nation imo is that it tried to be about an insightful look at contemporary issues currently affecting youth, but after the 30-40 minute mark it completely discards that sentiment and instead opps for a exploitative and pandering Purge rip off with the hallow and cringe "Ra girl power!!!" amped up to 11. Euphoria doesn't take that lazy approach. Instead it's an uncompromising and honest look at drug addiction, staying sober, abuse, trauma, modern relationships and sexuality, All the thing's you wished you learned about in school instead of having to work all of these things out on your own.
On top of that, the presentation is unique, purposeful and effective, and makes for some powerful moments. whether they'd be creepy, disturbing or uplifting and heartfelt. Zendaya shows a side to her acting chops that I never knew she had before. She and all the other members of the cast of young actors do a great job, no one phones it in or takes you out of the experience. I can't wait to see what they do in the future.
Also It's nice to see a antagonistic "evil straight white cis male" character actually be written with nuance and depth. A common mistake writers make when it comes to character's like this is that they are often written in a way that is so over the top evil that it makes it hard for any random audience member to take seriously or believe that this is a human from planet earth. They are also written in a way that requires them to be stupid and idiotic whenever it's most convenient for the plot, or if the writers want to make a character appear stronger than the antagonist. Not so here, Nate is a character who is not only menacing but is also cunning with his actions, like a puppet master carefully controlling the strings of the character's actions. On top of that he isn't one note, we see him be vulnerable in many occasions and even cry and scream. It's easy to make a character like this be a evil supervillan in a bond film and have him be the least human person in the story, but the fact that the show allows him these moments of weakness and depth makes him even more scary and real because at the end of the day he is a person who lives and thinks just like us whether we want to admit that or not. I can't remember the last time I felt disturbed by a character like this .
In terms of the flaws of the show, there where some cringe worthy dialogue and the occasional cliched moment. With all the moment's of realism a scene where a character walks in the school corridor after her makeover and catches eyes with every person in said corridor is the last thing I'd expect to see in a show like this. While the soundtrack is sometimes well used, there times when it can get too excessive and it can often feel like white noise. I get that this is what people are listening to but if your trying to have a show with substance you don't complement that with songs that have no substance.
But overall I was surprisingly impressed at how mature this show was, and how much It didn't hold back with it's content. It was cleverly presented, it kept my attention and it's probably one the most versatile look at these issues I've ever seen. Not all of it works but I admire that a show like this has come around and attempted to explore these issues and experiences without sugarcoating it in anyway. Because in this weird and confusing time It's deffenetly what people need.