The Founder: The Father Of Ronald McDonald

Summary

McDonalds is evil.

So finding out about how McDonalds came to be what it is today could be a very rah rah sort of affair, very pro Ronald, however I have to say I liked that this film showed McDonalds for being the twisted company it is. It didn’t pull its punches, you see the lives ruined the dreams smashed and the horror that happened along the way.

I thought that Micheal Keaton was electric as Roy Kroc, the milkshake salesman turned CEO of McDonalds, he chewed up the scene as a pro business take no prisoners capitalist. He both had that Tony Stark level of confidence where you can’t help but like him whilst also hating him for all the terrible things he’s doing at the same time.

I like that it tried to convey a smaller time period in the company and man’s life rather than trying to cover his whole life, it felt like more of a time capsule and more well done as a result.

Overall, a pretty good biopic about a titan of the fast food industry.

3/5

Pros.

Keaton

The pace

It isn’t bias

Cons.

It is a bit slow at times

It focuses a bit too much on Roy’s love life

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Stop Motion: The Darkside Of Wallace And Gromit

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A young stop motion animator, Aisling Franciosi, tries to get out from under the shadow of her own mother and create her own stop motion project.

I admired the originality of this film, it tried hard to do something new within the horror landscape and within a genre that likes to repeat patterns and tropes that is to be applauded. I also thought the idea of the stop motion project coming to life was interesting and led to some really good scares.

Likewise the interspersing of stop motion shots within the rest of the normal film really helped to push the uniqueness as well as to give us some disturbing and unique visuals. I appreciated what this film tried to do even when it didn’t fully land.

My main complaint with the film would be that it followed the very overdone breakdown storyline as the lead becomes more and more insane to a point where she becomes in a sense possessed attacking those around her. We have seen this done many many times in horror and it feels stale.

Overall, a unique film with some good scares held back by a familiar character arc.

3.5/5

Pros.

The stop motion scenes

It is unique

It is well paced

Some good scares

Cons.

A familiar character arc

A wasted supporting cast

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Reawakening: Life Changing Conversations Whilst Playing With Model Trains

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

After ten years missing a young woman shows up on her parent’s door step, but is it really her?

This film is well done and well-acted but not one that you would want to watch more than once. It is in that same category with films like Locke brilliantly done but depressing as hell and with no rewatch value at all. Once the mystery is revealed, the final nail is placed in the coffin of rewatching this film, and in a sense that is fine you don’t need to watch everything 100 times for it to be good.

Jared Harris and Juliet Stevenson are both fantastic as grieving parents who desperately want to see their daughter again, and both display such a terrific range, going from stunned silences into fits of rage and heartbreak within a matter of moments, it truly is a masterclass in terms of performance.

Overall, it is a good film but not likely one anyone will want to watch more than once.

3/5

Pros.

The performances

Its engaging

The pay off

Cons.

It is depressing

It has some pacing issues

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Time Bandits Season One Overview: Scraping The Bottom Of The Nostalgia Well

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Another classic of yesteryear is vandalised.

I am a big fan of Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement however, this was unnecessary and doomed from the start. I am going to say something revolutionary right now so hold onto your hats, not everything needs to be remade and brought back for audiences of today to watch you can just watch older media.

I think part of the doom of this show was that it was not a well-known IP outside of some diehards, and the good will around Waititi after his breakthrough into Hollywood has fully waned. It also is coming out in a time where people need things to hit immediately and can’t give a show a two season run to see if it can find an audience, it either performs well immediately or it dies, that is the way of things now.

Moreover, the addition of modern day elements, race and gender flipping characters, is going to create enemies from the off and again is needless. Why not create new characters within the Time Bandits story and make those roles diverse why does it need to be handled like this?

Finally, and I get no joy from saying this what were they thinking casting Lisa Kudrow? She has not been relevant in about ten years and hasn’t been popular in a mainstream sense in over twenty. I like The Comeback but even I have to say that she was the wrong person for this role.

Overall, a needless remake of a beloved classic. Stop it.

1/5

Pros.

There are a couple (and I mean 1 or 2) good moments

Cons.

It wastes the cast

Kudrow is miscast

It doesn’t have the spirit of the original

It feels soulless

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The Substance: The Next Phase Of Ozempic

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

An aging celebrity uses the latest beauty fad to stay young and it goes horribly wrong.

I went into this expecting it to be more abstract, however, it is not. In fact it is very in your face with its point in a way you could call hamfisted. Although, I have to say though it was so upfront it never became unpleasant or groan worthy as other films might do. The scene where Elisabeth, Demi Moore, is told that at fifty it stops whilst the man, Dennis Quaid, she is sat across from discards and eats prawns in a disgusting manner is very effective.

In many senses this film reminds me of Garland’s second to last entry Men. By this I mean that about two thirds of it are golden, until the final transformation The Substance is firing on all cylinders it is sharp and witty and is very good at making a stylised point. However, then you get into the final third and things start to fall apart, as things simply move into gross out territory the point is lost and it just becomes a gore fest. I can understand why the film did this as it needs to build to something but it means that the ending just feels like spectacle rather than substance, pardon the pun, and it lessens the wider product.

Whilst I wouldn’t call it scary I do think that the body horror is quite effectively used and there were a few moments of wincing throughout.

Overall, it would have been better if It had a more understated ending but the film as a whole is still very effective

4/5

Pros.

It is effective

It has something to say

Moore and Qualley

The body horror

Cons.

The ending

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Speak No Evil: A Wasted Ad Budget

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A couple, Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy, go to the house of a couple, James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi, they barely know and whom they met on holiday, as no one does, rather unsurprisingly things go badly.

So this was a remake of a Danish film from a few years back, and I don’t know about that film but this one isn’t scary.

It continues Blumhouse’s long streak of lacklustre films. Having two major issues, firstly is the fact it doesn’t know what it wants to be, it wants to be a horror film but also have jokes and some silly comedy. This is particularly apparent with the song they choose to be the scary one for the film that plays at moments of high horror, which in the context of the film is a silly song. A horror film needs to take itself seriously if it wants to be scary, and with recent Blumhouse fare like Meg3an it is becoming to look like the studio doesn’t understand that.

Secondly, you have the issue with modern social horror, and when I say social horror I mean horror films that try and comment on modern issues, and that is they are vapid and think they have something to say when they don’t and they just all want to be Get Out. Here you have this idea of country vs city, modern vs old, with of course the traditional ways being seen as evil and backwards and the modern city folk with their therapy and vegetarianism being the good guys do you see the message yet. The worst thing is that none of this hasn’t been said before it all has, this film’s themes feel like a regurgitation of other better film’s themes.

Finally I just want to say that the way the film emasculates McNairy’s character is nothing short of irritating. So his wife, Davis, cheated on him and then controls him and the family through her neurosis all the while being told by her to stop being so angry, when he is remarkably put together. Couple this with the fact that he almost gets killed at the end of the film needing to be saved by his wife as he grovels at her feet, in the end he manages to do one heroic act to try and save his family falling and hurting himself but by that point his humiliation had been complete.

The more I sit and write this review the more the message of the film hits me and I like it less and less.

Overall, a letdown.

1.5/5

Pros.

It has some unintentionally funny moments

One or two good scares

Cons.

The message

The way it treats McNairy’s character

It is nothing you haven’t seen before

It is badly paced

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Agatha Episode One and Two Review: Disney And Its Need To Push Sexual Themes Onto Kids

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Agatha, Kathryn Hahn, tries to get her mojo back.

The marketing for this show was awful, rather than treat it as a show in its own right or talk about how it is going to advance the MCU we instead got lots of comments about how gay the show is, as though that is some mark of quality and that gay shows cannot be bad no matter what. It is silly.

With that in mind I went into the first two episodes expecting the preaching to start from the off, however, the message was not laid on as thick as I was expecting it to be, and if you can ignore the red carpet stuff then the show is perfectly fine. During its first two episodes it never really justified why it needs to exist, is it just because people liked the song, or that she is vaguely Wanda, Elizabeth Olsen, related? As it stands now it is a forgettable side piece of MCU content that you can skip.

The only major thing I had an issue with was the nude scene. So there is a scene in these opening episodes where Agatha is nude and as she is she is being checked out by a little girl. Once again we come back to Disney and its odd relationship with pushing sex onto kids, the kid could have just been innocently playing and not done anything however the big smile on their face and how they struggle against their father as he tries to cover their eyes shows that she wants to look. Again had it been an older teen then that’s one thing but this was a younger kid and it just feels like Disney living up to their horrible reputation for this sort of thing.

Overall, it is fine with some questionable moments, especially the one with the kid.

2/5

Pros.

It is mind numbing

Aubrey Plaza is good in it

Cons.

The weird child thing

It doesn’t need to exist

It is slow

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Starve Acre: Who Needs Babies When You Have Rabbits

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A grieving couple, Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark, develop an unhealthy relationship with a rabbit.

This maybe one of the best horrors this year and certainly not one to sleep on.

It is a traditional British folk horror film, with a strong emphasis on atmosphere. This leads to some great scares later on but also a wider disturbing sense to the film that sticks with you long after it has ended. Just thinking about the rabbit now long after I have watched it I feel unnerved.

Matt Smith does well as a moody lecturer, you both root for his character but he also has enough edge that you don’t fully trust him. Morfydd Clark proves once again how good she is at horror and gives a tour de force performance, second only I would say to her performance in Saint Maud. I think her portrayal of a grieving mother here is incredibly well done, it is both sincere but also a little manic and unhinged at times.

Overall, one of the best British horror films of recent years.

4/5

Pros.

Smith

Clarke

The scares

The atmosphere

Cons.

A slow start pacing wise

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Amulet: Never Trust The Church In Horror Films

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A homeless man employed as a handy man for a church property begins to worry about the old woman dying in the attic.

This film has some interesting ideas but the ending stops it from coming together into anything interesting. At times this film could be called almost experimental in style as it messes about with sub-genre tropes in order to try and produce something new and fresh.

I would argue that the film does manage to do that, however, rather than riding off into the sunset the film gives us an ending that feels subversive. Now this is a risky gambit, it could work well or it could ruin the film and sadly it is the latter here. The ending proves to be a moral lesson and flips everything we know about the character, yet does so without very much set up making it feel quite jarring.

Overall, there are some good scares here and it does feel fresh, sadly the ending just didn’t work for me.

3/5

Pros.

Scares

It feels fresh

It has a great atmosphere

Cons.

The ending

The pacing is a bit off in places

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What If Season 2 Overview

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

What If is back and boy is it a downgrade.

So before we get into the overview lets talk about the basic conceit of the show. It is what if stories based on films in the MCU, it is not new stories that have no basis in the films at all. Yet this season introduces us to a character that has never been in a film or tv show before and centres a whole episode around her.

Moreover, it continues to use characters like Captain Carter, Haley Atwell, and evil but reformed Doctor Strange, Benidict Cumberbatch, rather than focus on new films or tv shows from the MCU. I have no issues with Carter or Strange but I find that I want to watch one off episodes not recurring narratives, that I thought was against the conceit.

I think this show started out with good ideas for what if stories and then slowly over time lost its way, like the wider MCU, and became boring and predictable and not at all like the wacky and out there what ifs we had all been expecting it to be.

Overall, I don’t think we need a season 3

2/5

Some good moments

It is watchable

Cons.

It introduces new characters and breaks the conceit

It is boring

It is repetitive

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