The Devil Rides Out: Christopher Lee Becomes A Magical Warrior Of The Lord

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A satanic secret society infiltrates British high society and Christopher Lee is all that stands between them and their dastardly ends.

Yes, yes I know this film has some racial undertones and is in many respect problematic, but it was from over fifty years ago so I am not hugely surprised. I have acknowledged these elements but for the purpose of my review I am going to try and look past them as little more than a product of their time.

Without further ado on with the review. Christopher Lee was a fantastic actor; he commands the screen here as Duc de Richleau. He brings such gravitas to the performance it is hard to look away, you really buy his performance consistently throughout.

Moreover, the film handles its stakes very well. Though only small in scale the film makes its stakes feel far grander and it is hard not to get caught up in this battle between good and evil. The tension coursing through the film is often palpable especially when it comes to scenes of mental sparing.

The film is beautiful to look at, even though a few of the scenes look quite poor by today’s standards, especially the car chase. However despite this there is longing towards this style of film making within me wherein whole films are not just massive dumps of CGI that underpaid visual effects people were forced to make during one long weekend wherein they couldn’t go home and were paid below minimum wage most likely.

Overall, there is a charm to this film that we don’t seem to see anymore.

Pros.

Lee

The stakes

The tension

The Angel Of Death scenes

The ending

Cons.

The rather blatant racism

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The Lost Daughter: Olivia Colman’s Unintelligible Trip To Greece

1.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Another actor who has achieved moderate success, this time Maggie Gyllenhaal, turns their hand to directing. The film follows a woman, played by Olivia Colman, who is not a natural mother and whilst on holiday becomes fixated on another woman’s life and family.

Being a well respected actor does not make you a good director, I feel this needs to be underlined. The films of George Clooney come to mind as I write this, with his directing fair ranging from passable to incredibly weak and pretentious. Gyllenhaal airs on the latter side.

The main reason this film has such a low score from me is because for the most part you will be hard pressed to understand what is going on without looking up the plot online. The way the film constructs its narrative is deeply flawed using flashbacks scattered in randomly which seem to contradict each other to try and fill in the back story, but again unless you look it up you are still unlikely to understand what is going on.

Colman is as good as ever, even if her character is immensely dislikeable but hey not every lead needs to be a good person or likeable. Colman seems to be having fun and manages to deliver a few funny lines here and there which help you to get through the rest of the film.

Overall, this is one that the Oscars Crowd and certain online critics will love and say is the best thing ever, but for most everyone else you will be left scratching your head and feeling like your time was wasted. I know I was.

Pros.

Colman

I liked Ed Harris but thought his character was not developed anywhere near enough

Cons.

The flashbacks

It is hard to watch at times

It doesn’t make sense

It drags on

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The Breaker Upperers: Taking The Awkwardness Out Of Ending Your Relationship

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Jen, played by Jackie Van Beek, and Mel, played by Madeleine Sami, run a business where they break up couples.

I enjoy quirky comedies and this was just the ticket for me. I thought it was frequently funny as well as quite heart-warming. The film has a nice message of remaining optimistic in life and staying open to love. It managed to balance heart and comedy well giving each both room to excel whilst also knowing how far to go with the sentimentality before it would be overly so.

I thought both of the leads were good though I would probably say Sami stole the show for me and just pipped it to be the breakout here. Sami’s Mel is easy to root for and her enthusiasm is heart not to be infected by.

Though it was only a small cameo I loved that Jemaine Clements was in this film, though it was only one scene Clements was terrific and his whole scene had me laughing continuously, my one regret for this film is that they didn’t use him more.

Overall, a comedy film that makes you laugh and feel, very sweet.

Pros.

Clements

Sami

The humour

The heart

Cons.

A slight case of pacing issues

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Wolf: Hungry Like The Wolf

2/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

George MacKay plays a boy who thinks he is a wolf and becomes committed to a cruel mental institution.

Honestly I was quite looking forward to this film, this was furthered by the trailers that made me feel this would be a very different film to the one we got. The one we got was simply depressing. The performances were good I suppose, though people pretending to be animals or in this case people who think they are animals is hardly the height of acting.

The film feels very much like art house horror, not too interested in scaring us or even giving us something to think about rather instead focusing on being pretentious and trying to deliver on a vague message which only the director really understands. It tries to subvert at the expense of any kind of logic.

Furthermore I would describe the film as quite hard to watch, it is about an hour and a half of watching disabled people being abused, I suppose that is the horror.

Overall, this film is depressing and pretentious in equal measure.

Pros.

MacKay

Lily-Rose Depp

Cons.

It is depressing

Paddy Considine has been better

It is pretentious

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Mass: An Uncomfortable Conversation

3.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Two pairs of parents gather together to discuss the events of a school shooting and the impact it has had on their lives.

I thought this film did the impossible, it took a very serious issue, that is ever more in need of discussing, and treated it with respect whilst also not making the film emotionally draining, depressing or hard to watch. There certainly were uncomfortable moments as befitted the subject matter, but these did not dominate the film and the wider narrative was one of understanding, grief and the human experience.

At the centre of the film are four very good character actors delivering four very good performances. I would be very hard picked to say who was the best or who stood out the most, Ann Dowd brought a level of devastation to the role that was hard to look away from whilst Jason Isaacs leads some very powerful monologues and rants, everyone was superb.

The thing that held the film back for me was the pacing of it, for the most part the film flows well, however there are a number of scenes that drag on for too long, furthermore towards the end of the film some of the scenes start feeling like filler to pad out the films runtime. This for me really hurt the film, as if it had been about fifteen to twenty minutes shorter it would have gotten much higher.

Overall, a strong film in many respects but one that could have benefited from a tighter pace.

Pros.

The emotion

The performances

The conversation created, had and left open

Maintaining an optimistic ending

Cons.

Pacing issues

Some of the scenes come off as pretentious or worse yet one the nose

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Last Looks: Charlie Hunnam Finally Finds His Big Screen Franchise

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A retired PI, played by Charlie Hunnam, must come out of retirement to solve the mystery of a daytime TV actor’s, played by Mel Gibson, dead wife.

I thought this was a very well done film. It illuded very much to the golden age of noir films in many ways, however it had more than enough personality to it that you can ignore some of the familiarities.

I have been saying for a long time that Hunnam is a terrific actor who sadly never seems to get cast in the right roles to make him into a big star, but once again he is great here. However, I would say he is outacted by Mel Gibson, yes I know Gibson is controversial but I tried to put that to one side when watching this. Gibson’s hammy British daytime TV actor is hilarious whenever he is on-screen, add to that Gibson’s ability to bring the emotion and deliver some quite touching scenes and you have a scene stealing performance.

The mystery was fairly well done, it was familiar but not predictable I didn’t guess where it was going.

My main criticism of this film would be that it gave Morena Baccarin so little to do, it felt like a huge waste of her talents, though maybe they will develop her character out if the film gets a sequel.

Overall, a charming whodunit.

Pros.

Hunnam

Gibson

A good mystery

Laughs and heart

Cons.

It doesn’t give Baccarin anything to work with

Pacing issues

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Death To 2021: 2022 Doesn’t Look Much Better

3.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A comical stand-up of major world events from 2021.

For the most part I thought this was good, it made me laugh several times though not every joke landed. Moreover, I also appreciated the fact that though it covered some hot button issues it never really came down hard on one side or another politically and just tried to lampoon everything, that is how comedy should be.

In terms of the fictional talking head characters created for the special I thought Hugh Grant’s MBE wielding combater of the woke had many strong comedic lines and Cristin Milioti’s QAnon tinged Kathy Flowers once again stole the show. It is a huge shame that the world has yet to learn about Milioti’s fantastic comedic chops enough to land her leading roles in comedy films, hopefully soon that will be rectified.

My only real criticism would be that there were pacing issues in parts and not all of the jokes landed, these two things weren’t major issues but they did team up and when they did it led to a few bad segments where unfunny jokes were stretched out for far too long.

Overall, a funny stand up to an otherwise quite troubling year.

Pros.

Grant

Milioti

The jokes

It never chose one side politically

Cons.

Pacing issues

A few bad jokes

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Coming Home In The Dark: In Contention For My Worst Film Of The Year

0/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A family is attacked by a duo of deranged men.

What was the need for this film? What did it address that hasn’t already been done so better before? Honestly as I am sat here writing this review after having seen it, I struggle to answer either question. There is nothing wrong with a film being gritty when it is in service of something, but here it seems to be done for nothing more than shock value.

A lot of people don’t like films like Hostel as they feel they are over the top, needless and handled in bad taste, well personally I like the Hostel films well enough but I can see all those complaints being true here of this film. It was deeply unpleasant to watch and even more so to finish, it was so bleak, depressing and needless that honestly I struggled to finish it.

I think the thing that makes everything worse is how incredibly predictable it all is. There truly are no surprises here, you know exactly where this film is going throughout, you don’t want it to go there but rather predictably it does and it is unpleasant for doing so.

Overall, this is one of the hardest films I have ever had to sit through.

Pros.

Really nothing

Cons.

It is bleak and depressing

It feels done in bad taste and for shock value

It is incredibly predictable

It has major pacing issues

It is a chore to watch

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Don’t Look Up: A Gender Swapped Trump

0.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A group of scientists and astronomers must convince the world that a giant asteroid is about to wipe them out.

This was a deeply unlikeable film it seems to be just over two hours of Adam McKay being smug. The runtime in and of itself is excessive and indulgent but that could be remedied if the film had something interesting to say, but it does not. The film makes a lot of rather obvious and on the nose political points about how Hollywood saw America during the Trump presidency, honestly all of these points have been made before and though the film gender swaps the president role it is incredibly obvious what it is trying to say. It is several years out of date.

Moreover, this is the big film that Jennifer Lawrence used as her comeback to acting, after to quote her ‘audiences got sick of her’, well that isn’t about to change anytime soon as her character here is incredibly annoying and is written as a one note flat character. Her character is given nothing to do beyond freak out, and that quickly gets tiresome. Furthermore, the film features Jonah Hill being equally as annoying, only the film doesn’t seem to realise this and instead thinks he is being hilarious and quick witted, not only does this film prove to you that Hill should stay in drama roles it also shows you how desperately this film wants to be something like The Wolf Of Wallstreet.

Overall, a smug film that is too busy giving itself a pat on the back to do anything else.

Pros.

Leonardo DiCaprio is trying his best

A few funny moments

Cons.

It is smug

It is incredibly on the nose

It has pacing issues

Lawrence is awful

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Yes God Yes: Chat Rooms, The Portal To Self Discovery

3.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A catholic school girl, played by Natalie Dyer, learns the importance of self-love after she gives in to sin.

I thought this film was in many ways genius, I think for a long time the sex comedy genre has been heavily male dominated and in recent years we have seen more sex comedy films told from the female point of view and this is much needed, this is one of those films. I think it is important to do this to demystify ideas around female sex and masturbation and in many ways these have been stigmatised within society.

I would say the film is funny about three quarters of the time, not every joke lands but enough do that it still works as a comedy. In terms of the dramatic elements I think the film does a good job of making us see the repressed world of this catholic school girl just looking to explore her sexuality and shows the adversity she faces.

Dyer does a good job here and does more than enough to distance herself from her other role of Nancy Myers on Stranger Things, I think there is a believable naivety here and a believable innocence that really plays into the performance and makes it seem more genuine.

Overall, an important film for many reasons but one that doesn’t totally stick the landing.

Pros.

The female focus

Demystifying female sexual experiences

The jokes

The ending

Cons.

Not all the jokes land

Pacing issues, it may have worked better as a short

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