Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar: Cutting Lose At Forty

Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar is a comedy film directed by Josh Greenbaum. The plot sees recently unemployed middle-aged friends Star (Kristen Wiig) and Barb (Annie Mumolo), decide to visit Vista Del Mar on holiday, very much like the title suggests.

This is a very odd film, it is not quite romantic comedy, not quite a musical and not quite a comedy either- it is something else. Upon watching the first act, I was expecting to be writing a bad review, however, as the film went on it grew on me more and more.

I am mixed on this one, I did not think the film was funny at all, like nearly every time it is trying to be funny it fails, the only time it is funny successfully on purpose is during its songs (which are actually quite good and easily the highlight of the film), the few laughs to be had during this film were found there. Ultimately, it depends what you find funny, as I often say humour is subjective, if you have found yourself laughing and Kristen Wiig’s style of comedy before then you will laugh at this- as it is the same old same old.

The romance elements are likewise as odd as the rest of the film, seemingly trying to be as absurd as possible though I will say in this respect Jamie Dornan exceeds. Truly this might be the film that finally lets Doran move past his overly serious Mr Grey, and his failed leading man career and reminds audiences that he can still be fun. I enjoyed the romance between Dornan’s character and Wiig’s and I though it was easily one of the strong points of the film.

Overall, a very specific, very niche kind of film that will split audiences.

Pros.

It grows on you

Jamie Dornan

The songs

Cons.

It is not funny

It is very niche and very specific

It feels familiar

It would have worked better as a short film or a sketch

2.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Adulthood: Older And Wiser?

Adulthood is a crime film directed by Noel Clarke (who also stars). The plot continues on from the events of Kidulthood, we see Sam (Clarke), be released from prison after the murder he committed at the end of the previous film. During his time inside Sam, has become an entirely different person who just wants to live a quiet life and get away from the things he has done. This is made harder by the friends and family of the boy he killed putting a hit out on him.

I think this film really achieved the deterring nature that the series was going for, we can see how Sam is haunted by what he did and how everyday he lives with the consequences, wishing he could go back and change it. The Sam we meet here is far more reformed and wiser, he knows that the life he was living before is going nowhere hence why he wants to move on with his life.

This this time around Sam is our protagonist, and though he might not be a likeable lead as he is still a child killer/ teen killer after all, the emotional nuance of the film allows us the see the situation in a less black and white way making the characters reform seem more believable and allowing us the audience to root for him more.

The tension and the gritty, harsh action compliment the film beautifully and really help to make its message standout. There are a number of scenes where you are on edge waiting to see how a scene will play out. This film is definitely more action orientated then the last which was more drama focused, this does change the viewing experience somewhat, but the films still feel stylistically the same.

Overall, in many ways this may be the best film in the trilogy as it manages to show us this bleak world in a widder scale and harsher intensity then the first film, making us better understand the struggle.

Pros.

Clarke, both as a director and actor

The emotional beats and the character arcs

Really managing to push the deterrent angle

The ending

The tension and the action

Cons.

It can be very hard to watch at times

5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Me You Madness: Next Time You Have A Mid Life Crisis Buy A Car, Don’t Rip Off A Book and Make A Terrible Movie

Me, You Madness is a dark comedy film directed by Louise Linton. The plot serves to rip-off in near ever aspect Brett Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, but with a lame rom com subplot forced in because that’s what the book needed right? But hey guys it’s fine because the film calls out its own similarity to Ellis work but says it a female take and that women are having a moment in Hollywood right now, in perhaps one of the most obnoxious bits of voice over ever, so it’s fine. Drawing attention to how poorly written your film is makes it well written right?

This is a vanity project on the part of Linton plain and simple. Honestly the amount of sexual scenes and scenes where Linton’s character is half naked is a little off putting, if she wasn’t the director I would say it was exploitative, but as it is her and she is putting herself constantly on display like this I would say it is just desperate. Everything from the needless over sexualisation to the glib narration, that seems to think it is far more clever than it actually is, just reeks of someone saying, ‘pay attention to me’, it is sad.
Moreover, Linton’s performance in her vanity project isn’t even good: which makes it all the more pathetic. Linton can’t seem to maintain an accent for more than five seconds at any time during this film, one minute she is trying to do an English accent, then Irish then American. Make up your mind and stop wasting my time.

Moreover, the film features Ed Westwick as the male lead who has been the subject of several sexual assault accusations, so the film has that going for it: though to be fair he has not been found guilty and a court has ruled in his favour.

Overall, one of the worst, most needless films I have seen in a long time. This film feels like it was written by a twelve-year-old who was just beginning their edgy phase.

Pros.

Really none.

Cons.

The rom com subplot is lame

This reeks of a vanity project for Linton

Linton repeatedly exposes herself in various different ways to a point that it could be called exploitation if it wasn’t her as the director

It steals from American Psycho and thinks its fine because they reference it

It is incredibly vapid, and the narration is dumb, having as much intelligence as a can of beans that has been set on fire.

0/5

Reviewed by Luke

Kidulthood: Boys To Men

Kidulthood is a British crime drama film directed by Menhaj Huda. The plot focus on the lives of a group of high school students in Ladbroke Grove, London who lives seem to be shaped around crime, violence and chronic drug use.

There is something of a morbid charm to these films, yes on the surface they are horribly bleak and if you are easily upset or offended by films you probably shouldn’t watch this, however despite being disgusted by what you see on screen you also can’t look away. This is true to such an extent that when I finished the first film, I immediately put on the next one (review coming soon).

This film does not sugar coat its views on life and youth behaviour, it shows it all and doesn’t apologies if we don’t like what we see; it makes Boyle’s Trainspotting look at happy by comparison. The creatives went out of their way to show us a version of lived reality closer to our own then what we normally see in these sort of crime films, to show us how bad, desperate and sad this sort of life style is, and I think they resoundingly succeeded.

The performances in the film are all serviceable, with one exception, they are neither good nor bad, not memorable in any real way. The one exception of course is Noel Clarke as Sam, Clarke was heavily involved in the series and would go on to direct the later instalments, but it is his scene stealing performance that cements him as a star. Clarke conveys emotion with such intensity that you forget that you are even watching a film and you believe this character to be a real person.

Overall, despite this being an incredibly hard watch for a number of reasons, if you do watch it there is something of merit here.

Pros.

Clarke

The message of the film

Showing us a closer reality then that which we would normally see

A morbid fascination that is hard to describe

Cons.
It is very, very, very bleak and upsetting at times

4/5

Reviewed by Luke

Red Dot: Taking The Originality Out Of The Netflix Original

Red Dot is a Swedish horror thriller film directed by Alain Darborg. The plot sees a struggling young couple head up to the mountains for a hiking retreat to fix their issues before their child is born, however, once they head up the mountain they become the prey of a killer, a hunt for survival ensues. Real original I know.

Don’t waste your time with this please. I am a big defender of Netflix in a lot of ways, I think they are often given an unfairly hard time, however, when they release trash like this one can understand the hate. The film is deeply, and I do mean deeply unoriginal: this feels like the 4^th or 5^th time I’ve seen this premise done and it does not feel any fresher.

Moreover, the main couple, who I have no idea what they were called and don’t care to look it up, are two of the most bland and unlikeable characters ever put to film. The opening ten minutes is just them having argument after argument, yay? That’s interesting. To be frank with you by the time they made it up the mountain I already disliked them so much that I was hoping the killer would hurry up so I could lose less of my free time.

Everything about this film progresses as you would expect it to and there are no surprises.

Overall, the weakest Netflix original of 2021 so far.

Pros.

There are some pretty shots

Cons.

The main couple are awful, and you don’t care about them

It is not tense or scary

It is predictable

It is sorely unoriginal

0.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Breaking News In Yuba County: Anyone Can Make It Onto The News These Days

Breaking News In Yuba County is a comedy drama film directed by Tate Taylor. We follow Sue (Alison Janney), as she discovers her husband’s infidelity: which leads to his death through a heart attack. How does Sue deal with this? She buries him privately and tells everyone else he has gone missing so she can get media attention.

This was bad, just plain bad.

Firstly, it was in no way funny. Not only did I not laugh once, but the film failed to even make me smile, I did not have fun watching it and quite frankly it was a slog to get through. The characters are all such awful people, and the film does nothing to make you care about any of them, so you just feel indifferent to them regardless of what happens.

The film tries to distract you by having a number of famous faces in supporting roles, but this quickly wears out and instead serves to remind you, who is hard up and in need of a quick pay day role; most likely agreeing to star in anything as long as it pays off the credit card.

The central crime, the cover up of the husband’s heart attack, is so idiotic. It makes no sense as to why she would do it, we are lead to believe that Sue is just a regular person, not someone who can just flip a switch and become a criminal at the drop of a hat, but hey she does it constantly. The fact that the crime does not immediately get figured out is an insult to everyone’s intelligence, and in real life those investigating it would be fired for incompetence.

Overall, a very bad poorly thought-out comedy film that will be showing up in worst of 2021 lists soon enough.

Pros.

It is not offensive

Cons.

It is lame

It is not funny

The characters are not likeable

It feels done for the money

0.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Malcolm and Marie: Overly Indulgent In The Worst Way

Malcolm and Marie is a drama film directed Sam Levinson. The plot follows Malcom (John David Washington), and Marie (Zendaya), as there relationship is tested over the course of one particularly bad night.

I think there are good elements to this film, and I will get to them in time, but there are also a lot of issues, it is by no means perfect as it is deeply flawed in a number of ways. Firstly, it is very, very smug and up its own arse as an art film, and that is clear and is quite off-putting. Secondly, this film is made for people who know a fair bit about film in general, there are five to ten-minute scenes where Malcolm rants on and on about certain things to do with the industry and if you don’t have a keen amount of know how in that regard you will be lost.

The issue with these sort of films, and it is the same fate that befell, Pieces Of A Woman is that when films centre around these intimate struggles, the delivery has to be spot on and feel reflective of reality. Now I am not knocking either of the performances, as I thought they were the only good part of the film, however, neither of these characters behave in a natural way (going on long winded rants about the finer points of film criticism, while your partner stairs blankly at the celling), and it reads as overacted and also like a film writer’s fantasy version of reality. Nothing against the performances, everything against the highschool play esque script.

Zendaya and John David Washington make the most out of what they have and try and give it some personality and life- dying nobly on that hill. It is a shame as they are both talented.

Overall, nearly all the art house cliches rolled into one. Poor, but well-acted.

Pros.

Washington

Zendaya

Cons.

It is smug

It feels overacted and fake

It seems like the writer has never had a real human conversation before

It is not as deep as it thinks it is

1/5

Reviewed by Luke

Silk Road: Nick Robinson, You Can Do Better!

The Silk Road is a thriller film directed by Tiller Russell. The film serves to tell the real-life story of Ross Ulbricht (Nick Robinson), the founder of Silk Road: a website that functioned as Amazon for hardcore drugs.

I have been excited for this film for a while,

, there is a lot of interesting things about it, little details and such, and I was eagerly waiting to see how this film would show the story. Sadly, it chose to be generic and just like every other drug kingpin take down film out there. To say the films take on events lacked nuance would be a vast, vast understatement- it is morally simplistic.

The main thing I will give this film prompts for is finally giving me a Jason Clarke performance that I enjoyed. Clarke excels as the shady, but ‘doing it for the right reasons’ DEA agent tasked with bringing Ulbricht down, and his performance is easily the best thing about the film, Robinson was great in The Kings Of Summer and Love, Simon but was deeply milk toast here.

The ending also felt quite anticlimactic, they were building it up and building it up and then when it finally gave us an ending it was underwhelming, and I was left going ‘is that it’? I understand that is based on a true story so they are limited with what they can do with it, but in a writing and set up capacity there were issues with building and execution that really hampered the ending.

Overall, sadly, yet another generic crime film.

Pros.

Clarke

A few interesting moments

Cons.

The ending

Simplifying the issue

Robinson

2/5

Reviewed by Luke

Judas And The Black Messiah: Power To The People

Judas and the Black Messiah is a historical drama film directed by Shaka King. The plot follows the real life rise and assassination of prominent Black Panther Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), and his betrayal at the hands of FBI informant Bill O’ Neil (Lakeith Stanfield).

I have been looking forward to watching this film for a long time, and it did not disappoint.

I think this is an important film that needs to be seen and understood, moreover it should be a stepping stone to a larger conversation around race and struggle, not just in The States but worldwide. It’s message is furthered by events that have happened in the recent past, showing that police violence and institutional racism is still a festering part of our society that needs to be dealt with.

Both leading men give terrific performances, as I knew they would, however, I think this is Kaluuya’s film; what’s more I think this film should net Kaluuya some Oscar gold. His performance of Hampton is so effective and impactful, it reaches you on a deep emotional level and opens your eyes to the evils of the world, we see through Kaluuya that Hampton truly wanted to better the position of the oppressed in society and wanted to be a force for positive change, and what did he get for that? They shot him while he slept.

Pacing wise this is a model for other films. Usually I knock off points for pacing issues or drag, but I have to say that every second of this film felt needed and important and for that I tip my hat.

Overall, this is not an easy watch it is infuriating and depressing, but at the end of day that’s reflective of life. Moreover, the film highlights the need for further change within our worldwide community and inspires the viewer to go out there and make that happen.

Pros.

It opens your eyes

Kaluuya

Stanfield

The ending

It makes you mad and then channels your energy into a force for good
Cons.

None
5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Willy’s Wonderland: Perhaps The Best Nicolas Cage Film Ever Made

Willy’s Wonderland is an action, horror, comedy film directed by Kevin Lewis. The plot sees a man known only as the Janitor (Nicolas Cage) have to work off the debt of repairing his car, by cleaning an alleged haunted pizzeria, where the animatronics come to life and murder people. Basically Five Nights At Freddie’s, but not for legal reasons.

This is easily my favourite film of 2021 so far; it is one of the few films I have enjoyed so much that I preordered it on DVD immediately after watching. There is something so wonderfully weird about this film that makes it what it is.

I saw a review call this this something to the extent of the most ‘Nicolas Cage weirdness ever put into a film’ and it truly is that: this film was made without a doubt based on the internet’s love affair with the odd performances and behaviour of Nicolas Cage, and no one else could have pulled it off.

Nicolas Cage is majestic here, he truly sells the weirdness of a man who has to drink a can of soft drink every hour or so or face dire consequences. There are so many great weird Nicolas Cage moments here, such as him doing a fabulous dance after finally besting the arcades pinball machine, or just scene after scene of watching him rip apart animatronic machines.

Moreover, Cage does not say a single word in the whole of the film, yet he conveys so much emotion and character just from facial expressions that he doesn’t need to: it is a gutsy stylistic choice but one that works out for the film.

Overall, one of the best films of the last few years and maybe my favourite Nicolas Cage film ever, check it out!

Pros.

It is hilarious

It is cool

The action and the horror elements are both solid

Nicolas Cage

The ending

Cons.

None

5/5

Reviewed by Luke