A Simple Favour Two: Blake Lively Runs Damage Control

The internet’s favourite bogeywoman Blake Lively, Amber Heard has run off into obscurity and Rachel Zegler is a bit played out, makes her film comeback in what might be the most chillingly telling performance of her career.

For those unaware, in the first film, we were introduced to Emily, Lively, a character who fakes her own death and then tries to blame it on someone else, Kendrick, and who has a child admitted to killing her father along with her sister. Therein lies my half joke half speculative theory, how far does life imitate art? Could it not be that Lively was drawn to the character for her own cold and bitter ways, both seek to incriminate someone else for something they did not do in order to punish them.

Moving off Lively for a moment the question with this film becomes why? Why wait well over 5 years to make this sequel and who was demanding for it to continue. Was it the director who has not had much success in recent years, Lively in an attempt to rehabilitate her image that was soured long before her most recent scandal who’s to say.

I think this film knows it doesn’t really have a purpose and so just repeats a lot of the plot beats from the first film just with a few characters swapped around for good measure.

Overall, this was doomed to cost Amazon money.

0.5/5

Pros.

It is hilariously telling

Cons.

It is unnecessary

It is boring

It is a rehash

Lively

It has pacing issues

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Death Of A Unicorn: Hollywood Sticking It To Themselves?

Summary

A rich father, Paul Rudd, and his daughter, Jenna Ortega, kill a unicorn.

So before watching this film I had heard how it was an eat the rich narrative about the evil ways of the haves and how the have nots can get wrapped up in it. This made me groan as we have seen this before, but then I watched the film and groaned louder.

It is an incredibly on the nose message of these cartoonishly evil rich people who want to defile the corpse of a unicorn in order to cure cancer. Of course they want to sell this cure rather than give it away for free, which makes them then even more evil. Can you get the message yet? One has to ask are they evil or is the system that creates them evil, is the fact that America is one of the few countries in the world without free medical care not the real evil here, but no such nuance is thrown in the bin. The rich are bad and responsible for all the world’s ills. This feels like it was written by a naïve student who really doesn’t get how the world works despite daddy’s credit card funding self-indulgent narcissism in the form of instagramable charity work in deprived countries.

What for me makes this film worse is that it is Hollywood telling us the rich are bad, in the place where the director will be making over a million for the film, the actors will comfortably be making over a million for the film and where even the slightest hint of self-awareness is viewed with disgust.

Anyway once the evil rich people are dead, the Unicorns resurrected Rudd’s character the good working class father who can afford to send their child away to school, ah Hollywood really understanding the working class, and who also dresses in designer clothes. Have you got my point yet?

Overall, the sort of film that slowly and insidiously kills Hollywood.

2/5

Pros.

Unicorns are original villains

Some good kills

Cons.

The eat the rich message

The hypocrisy

The ending

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Get Away: Actors Shouldn’t Try And Write

Summary

Proof of why actors should not take up writing.

So this was a weird one, there were some good moments peppered in here and there, but then the ending just went and destroyed everything. The last act reveal that reveals the truth about the family makes almost everything that had happened up until that point make little to no sense, I understand it is genre, but that doesn’t mean that folks will just happily eat up garbage writing.

Aisling Bea is a ray of sunshine in this film, it is a shame to hear about her views on Gaza and her joining the band wagon to support those that would see the Jewish homeland destroyed but there were are. She manages to have a few funny moments in the film and totally outshines Nick Frost in every scene they share together. However, I would say that Maisie Ayers is the real star here, she has a real screen presence and eats up the scenery whenever she is on screen.

Broadly this film tries to be comedy horror, but can do neither well.

Overall, a waste of time and money.

2/5

Pros.

Aisling Bea

Ayers

Cons.

Frost and the rest of the cast are wasted

The twist

It isn’t all that funny

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Opus: Yet More Black Girls Seeing Through White Men’s Nonsense

Summary

Yet another film about cults.

Why is Hollywood failing you ask? Well one of the many obvious answers to everyone but them is the fact that they repeat things over and over again until they grind an idea, theme, or even genre of film into the dirt. Enter cults. I understand the popularity of true crime, and as such executives think that films about cults even fictional ones will sell, and whilst that may have been right a few years ago, it is played out now.

Moreover, the on the nose messaging of a cult run by a white man, John Malkovich, with a mostly white power structure being foiled by an opinionated black woman, Ayo Edebiri, is incredibly cringe. This film goes what if Get Out was even more on the nose and we didn’t even try and hide the fact that the white people were in a cult. Yes you have a few non white characters also under the spell of the cult, to try and avoid points like these, but the fact the person leading it was white, the power structure was mainly white and it was a black girl resisting it, the message was clear as day. I have no issue with a well done message in my films, but when it comes to ham-fistedness I draw a line.

Overall, cinema tickets cost a lot of money, you have seen this before if you have ever watched either a film about cults, or a social horror film before.

1.5 /5

Pros.

It has some nice cinematography at times

It is short

Cons

The message is smacking you in the face with its obviousness

It is a rehash of better films

It has pacing issues

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With Love, Meghan: Meghan Spends Her Man’s Money On A Fruit Plate You Could Only Dream Of Peasant

Summary

Possibly the best thing Meghan Markle has ever done, but not for the reasons she or Netflix would want.

Let it be known that I am no fan of the Dutchess, I believe she’s a gold digger, and I believe her cries for privacy are made to look laughable when she turns up to the site of school shootings as a disaster tourist ready to snap a photo for the gram.

However, this was great, it was unintentionally hilarious. Whether it was Meghan shooting the whole thing in a house that is clearly not her own, yet she never says that, or one of the many horribly awkward mash-ups she does with random guests. My favourite was when she reminded Mindy Kailing, famous Hollywood hack, of her last name, but rather than say Windsor as would be her actual marital last name if she took Harry’s name, she instead says Sussex which was a title. It is hilarious as not only does she look like the ultimate Karen but she still gets it wrong.

Moreover, there are also the recipes which for the most part Meghan uses to show that she is down to Earth and just like you, yet when she makes a fruit salad for a kids party, she must use well over $40 of fruit, as any regular working mum can do. It is moments like this where you can see just how out of touch she is, there are also other moments where you can see the rage bubbling inside of her which give a lot of credence to the Palace rumours that she was a bully.

Overall, this is one of the funniest things Netflix has released in a long time.

3/5

Pros.

It is hilarious

It is the right level of good cringe

You can see the anger and entitlement right there on screen.

Cons.

It goes on a bit too long

She has some stilted delivery

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Saturday Night: Hollywood Pats Itself On The Back Again

Summary

Hollywood gives itself a pat on the back.

I don’t know about you, and maybe it’s because I am not American, but I’m getting quite sick and tired of films about Hollywood about filmmaking, and about classic actors or ensembles. This film manages to be quite a few of those at the same time, an ignoble triumph.

Perhaps I would have gotten more out of this if I had ever watched an episode of Saturday Night Live, however, as I have not it was just an unfunny film about a group of people making a TV show. I questioned at times if this was even supposed to be a comedy film as laughs were had by none, the screening I attended had maybe 20 people in it and I didn’t hear a singular laugh once.

In terms of actors everyone was OK, there were no particular standouts or strong performances, and likewise there were no particularly bad performances. My main emotion whilst watching this film was tedium, the pacing was incredibly off and whenever it felt like the film was going to end it would then continue on for another half an hour, not ideal.

Overall, if you’re American and grew up watching the show you may get something out of it, however, if you are either not American or did not grow up watching it then you’ll get a subpar comedy film and a wasted afternoon

1/5

Pros.

There is one good joke towards the end however if is not intended as a joke but it is funny

Cons.

It feels like self-aggrandisement

It is painfully unfunny

It is badly paced

None of the performances are all that good

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Kinda Pregnant: Motherhood Does Not Mature People

Summary

Amy Schumer shows that even after becoming someone’s mother she still prepared to debase herself and embarrassed them in the desperate hope of being a movie star.

Seeing Netflix make films like this makes me want to cancel my subscription, remember when Netflix used to make good quality programming and not lowest common denominator drek, I sure do.

Schumer is just as unfunny as ever, it is funny to see her play a woman so insecure and pathetic that she has to pretend to be pregnant for attention that is very on brand for her. It gets to a point in the film where you almost start to feel bad for her and go how much lower can she sink.

Most of the comedy if you can call it that is clawing and mean spirited, Schumer thinks that by making a few negative remarks about herself that it absolves all the punching down but it really doesn’t in anyway.

The film drags on for far too long and then ends, allowing you to feel the sweet relief of not having to watch it anymore, which is the greatest gift.

Overall, none of Schumers films are good but this one makes you at least feel somewhat bad for how low she is prepared to go to be seen as relevant.

0.5/5

Pros.

You almost pity Schumer at times

Cons.

It is not funny

It is boring

It is too long

It tries far too hard to be trendy

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Bridget Jones Mad About The Boy: Later In Life Dating

Summary

Bridget Jones, Renee Zellweger, is back.

I think this is probably the film of the year so far. In many ways this is a near perfect film, the only thing that I didn’t like was the creepy sort of age play relationship sub plot- I didn’t like it as it felt icky plus you can guarantee that if such a storyline was done with a man and a younger women these days people would be up in arms.

That aside I thought this film was just the right amount of old notes brought back to play homage to previous film and also new ideas. It was fun to see the family dynamic of seeing Bridget with kids, it was nice to see the dysfunctional single mother be played without the judgement, she cared about her kids deeply and was there for them whilst also having her own thing. Take note Hollywood that is how single mothers should be.

I thought how they handled the passing of Colin Firth’s character was both beautiful and sad, there was a real melancholy there, but the film handled it in a mature and grown up way. I think the final time we see the ghost of Firth’s character at the school play is a fantastic moment and one in which it is hard not to shed a tear.

Overall, a wonderful send off for the franchise.

4.5/5

Pros.

It is sweet

It gives the characters a good send off

It merges the old and the new well

It is well paced

It is funny

Cons.

The icky relationship

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Emily Perez: Drug Cartels Are Selena Gomez’s People

Summary

Yikes. That sums up the film nicely. Do we really need to say more?

So as many of you know this film has been in the headlines recently for all the wrong reasons, what it should be getting attention for is pushing questionable gender science, having course and vulgar songs that make WAP look like a children’s nursery rhyme and of course softening Mexican drug cartels that kill thousands of people every year.

It is quite funny to see the situation that critics have gotten themselves into on this one, as of course they have to support the film with a trans lead, but now as more and more things about said lead are starting to come out, these left wing critics are starting to have to say things that they may once have said was transphobic.

For me the biggest issues with this film is taste, there are a number of moments and choices in the film that feel in bad taste, simply put. To make a musical about the cartels is simply insensitive and at worst wrong. Worse yet this decision makes the tone of the film feel at times schizophrenic to the subject matter.

Overall, a bad decision all round.

0.5/5

Pros.

It is laughably bad

Cons.

The songs

It pushes bad science

The acting is awful

It has tonal problems

The pace is off

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Rumours: A Fitting Takedown Of Justin Trudeau

Summary

A group of politicians gather together to write a joint statement, things then get out of hand.

I enjoyed the satire of this film, I thought that it tried to do something different and poke fun in a smarter way at politicians and the wider political climate. However, certainly not all the aspects of it came together, I do think that some of the weirder stuff from the third act went a little bit too silly, I could see what they were trying to say but I think that it started to lose the intelligence it had built up in favour of trying to be more out there for the sake of it.

The cast is quite good I would say that this is Cate Blanchett’s film through and through and she does tower above everyone else in it. She is not the main character and the film acts as more of an ensemble yet whenever she does have a scene she steals it.

I wouldn’t say it was a laugh a minute, I would say that they are more few and far between but the film did make me laugh a few times and does have some good jokes in it, if you like the humour of something like VEEP, you will like it.

Overall, an original film if one that doesn’t completely work

3/5

Pros.

It has charm

It is original

Blanchette is good

Cons.

The third act doesn’t work

It has pacing issues

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