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Reviews
Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020)
Fell asleep after half an hour, but not for the reasons you may think.
So having started a woefully vain attempt at getting fit over the summer (read less burger shaped), I finally caved and bought some of those poncy elastic fitness bands, mainly to bring to an end the very long and sustained advertising campaign, complete with full psychological warfare across all things social media, that all the apps in the appniverse came together and decided was imperative, after I most likely thought about it briefly in a deep sleep.
On the evening my partner and I had decided to watch BOPATFEOOHQ (try saying that when you're leathered) I had just started out with a new laccy band workout video, as the guy and girl from the first series I tried were the YouTube channel equivalent of go pro cyclists, trying to do that whooping, shouty alternate beasting / encouragement thing that Americans seem to never tire of (they tried alternating good cop and bad cop, it didn't work and just left me thinking they were both sociopathic). The new guy I'm using is also an American, but more of a mid west agricultural type, bit daft but means well sort of thing, and he gets straight to the exercises without trying to convince me that organic chia seeds aren't just dried ants made to taste like cow pats.
Having finished my half hour sesh with billy bob and eating an exciting root and stamen salad, we stuck the movie on, and for the first half hour I remember being reasonably entertained, I recall one scene in particular saved me from having to gauge my eyes out with a teaspoon from boredom, but it also brought on the biggest wave of sleepy tiredness I'd felt in a long time, one of those rare and amazing sleepinesses where you know you're falling asleep, and you know it's going to be brilliant.
Needless to say I woke at the end of the movie, and my partners facial expression of "meh" suggested that hitting rewind was in no way a priority over more sleep, so I waited until the next day to watch the rest, and can safely say my partners facial expression spoke a thousand very accurate words. It's just ok, and while some of the acting was clearly being done by those who had acted before, and as such was passable, there were clearly quite a few actors for whom this was a first outing, or who just wanted a 9-5'er acting equivalent pay check, and who will clearly realize that acting isn't for them when they see it, and who will hopefully then get employment where being filmed with a camera isn't a requirement. We can but hope.
Anyway we are watching Air Force One for the first time this evening, and it's a rest night from bouncy bands with billy bob, so I'll hopefully be able to matchstick my eyelids through the whole thing. Ill post a review over on Air Force Ones profile page once gleamed.
Inside No. 9: Love's Great Adventure (2020)
Twists galore if you look hard enough
Lots of folks writing about this being more of a drama focussed on Christmas and lacking in the typical twist plot line of most other episodes.
There are a good few twists here, and after a second viewing I think this is one of my favourite Inside episodes of the entire vehicle. Everyone in it is superb, Steve Pemberton is an absolute tour de force, and should be expecting a call from Shane Meadows any day now. Everyone else is spot on, and as the story unfolds you can't help but have a deeper faith in the meaning of family, especially when witnessing it through such potential hardship at a time like Christmas.
And all that in half an hour! Absolutely superb.
Inside No. 9: Misdirection (2020)
Very good, but one part just didn't make sense for me.
A very well crafted episode, but why did the magician not question the messages being left at the desk of his wife's hotel after she told him?!?
If I had a video call with my significant other and they told me I'd been leaving increasingly aggressive messages at the front desk, I'd definitely question it, and want to get to the bottom of what was going on. Knowing it wasn't me would immediately set alarm bells ringing. So the ending was marred by that one detail, and I thought it would have had some intricacy with the overall plot and twists, but it just didn't.
Maybe I'm missing something, but that turned what would of been a superb storyline into an OK one. Still well thought out, and Reece Shearsmith is brilliant as usual, but yeah, frustrating.
Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019)
It's just so bland, yet again.
Quentin Tarantino has defined the colour vanilla (not even the flavour), with increasing accuracy, with each of his last five movies. They're by no means terrible, they're just really average, and dare I say horribly boring. In this one even the actors look checked out.
30 Days of Night (2007)
What a load of old b*llocks
I have never been a major fan of horror movies and steer even further from those with a vampire theme as the fiction is repetitive and can at times overkill for the sake of blood and guts flying in to camera lenses and red mouthed faces arching back in slow motion in the moonlight after draining a body in the only other method of sucking off another person.
So I wasn't looking forward to watching the questionable Josh Hartnett lead a film about the above and boy was I right to feel that way, this film is really really crap, so crap that I can picture the sound boom guys falling asleep and hitting Hartnett on the head several times, thus his complete inability to convey any emotion whatsoever, but then again maybe he got used to the flog in his hand and the dead horse before him after the first day of shooting.
I feel compelled to warn you all away from this film and even Sam Raimi as executive producer seemingly asked that his credit be flashed in mini text for a nano second as the titles roll at the end.
The vampires speak some form of chicken language but can also speak English and are not sure why they are doing what they are doing and Hartnett goes from being a run of the mill town sheriff to Bruce Lee within a minute, again no explanation, maybe he had the matrix? Might as well be the case as this would be just as plausible as the rest of the plot/non plot.
The money spent on this detritus could have been used to build a school in Afirca which could educate hundreds and eventually produce an actor / director who could have done a decent job here, just a thought? Please don't make films if you cant be bothered with and haven't worked out from start to finish, it insults the movie going populations intelligence.
30 days of night = Big bag of sh*te