scaryblog

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's  Top 50 Films of 2019 #5 :  The Souvenir Tom Burke and Honor Swinton Byrne star in Joanna Hogg’s most personal and intimate drama to date: the extraordinary and excoriating story of her first major romance A completely random option which I have to watch because a certain film has appeared in the 2022 list.  If you know, then you know - otherwise you'll have to wait until I remember to update this link to tell you.  I've no idea what to expect from it - I have a sneaking suspicion I'm going to roll my eyes at the superficial artiness of it all, but let's see shall we? Hmmm - "superficial artiness" is a bit harsh because it's basically a true story, but it doesn't feel very relatable (" extraordinary and excoriating" is pretty accurate) .   Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) is at film school when she starts up a relationship with Anthony, a charming older man (Tom Burke) who turns out to be a bit of a wrong ...

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's   Top 50 Films of 2019 #39 :  Bait This hypnotic take on tourists – and second home owners – ruining Cornwall launched Mark Jenkin onto the homegrown cinema scene with immense wit and monochrome style. A film watched completely out of order here on account of being stuck on a plane with only a small number of films on my iPad - so I watched this one which I've heard is good but have a slight suspicion might be a bit too arty for my liking. Well, it is arty in some ways (and I mean VERY arty) but, at its heart, it's a reasonably straightforward tale of conflict between locals and incomers in a Cornish village - but that's about the only thing about this film that I could describe as straightforward.   The source of the conflict isn't always what you'd expect and, although I'd struggle to say any of the characters are fully fleshed out, they don't always act as you might expect.   The vast majority of the film takes pla...

Continuing my trip up The Guardians  Top 50 Films of 2019 #43 :  Colette Kinky and invigorating, Keira Knightley and Dominic West make a fascinating married couple in this biopic – released last January – of the much-wronged French novelist. I've heard of this and I know it got good reviews, but I can't say I'd have watched it under normal circumstances.  I'm expecting something well acted, beautifully shot and with gorgeous retro details but struggling to hold my attention.  Happy to be proved wrong though... Hmmm - it's an odd one.  It's an interesting story, which is indeed beautifully shot with gorgeous retro details.  And, I'm pleased to say it didn't struggle to hold my attention - however, probably not for the reasons it was hoping for.  Partly, as I said, because it's an interesting story but also because it's not a very well written film.  It just jumps all over the place and characters behave for the oddest reasons without any obvious m...

Continuing my trip up The Guardians  Top 50 Films of 2019 #44 :  Dolemite Is My Name Eddie Murphy’s glorious return is the richly entertaining tale of cult 70s blaxploitation star Rudy Ray Moore’s rise from nightclub standup to the movies I've heard this is good but suspected it wouldn't really be my thing because I'm not the biggest fan of Mr Murphy's latest material - and by latest, I mean most things after Coming To America, which came out in 1988! But actually "richly entertaining" is a fine description - Rudy Ray Moore had a pretty wild life story which deserved to be told, and this film does a fine job in telling it.  You don't really need me to describe the story - just strap yourself in and enjoy the ride.  It's not a subtle tale (it features a surprising number of bare breasts!) but it's told with warmth, humour and sincerity.  A lot of this is down to the script which is very well put together - a winning combination of smart and filthy (...

Continuing my trip up The Guardians  Top 50 Films of 2019 #45 :  Rojo Benjamín Naishtat’s satire, set before the coup that installed a military junta in Argentina, is an enraging – and informative – parable of iniquity about the fate of the disappeared. Funnily enough, I've never heard of this one - but who's not going to be tempted by a "parable of iniquity", eh?  Going on previous Argentine films, it's either going to be surprisingly good or mystifying obscure.  And I know what I'm expecting... And well, it starts with Claudio going to a restaurant and getting into an argument with a guy about his table - and it's fair to say things escalate from there.  In a mystifying obscure manner, because after 15 minutes the other guy shoots himself in the head.  What?!?  So, obviously, the answer is for Claudio and his wife to put the guy in their car and drive to the beach. I'm sorry, I don't have a clue what's going on here.  It's also accompanie...

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's  Top 50 Films of 2019 #46 :  Ad Astra Brad Pitt goes intergalactic in search of long-lost dad Tommy Lee Jones in James Gray’s thrilling Freudian mashup of Apocalypse Now and 2001: A Space Odyssey. I have heard of this but never felt the need to watch it - and I find it interesting that it describes it as a mashup of Apocalypse Now and 2001: A Space Odyssey.  There's no doubting that both of those films are classic "cinema" and contain several iconic scenes - but, they both also contain long scenes which are utter, utter bobbins.  So it very much depends on which bits they choose to mash up and there's 2 hours of it, so it could go well or it could go very, very badly. And well, it's got an intriguing and extremely good looking beginning with Brad falling to Earth from an orbital platform as a result of an unknown accident.  But - it turns out the accident might have been caused by Brad's dad who disappeared 20 years ago...

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's  Top 50 Films of 2019 #47 :   Atlantique (Atlantics) Mati Diop’s supernatural debut forces young Senegalese lovers to choose between love, duty and servitude, then adds a surreal twist. Never heard of this, so have no idea what to expect - and the description above doesn't exactly help.  Although, of course, it does make me think "how surreal is the surreal twist gonna be"? So in the first 15 minutes, we meet Ada who's engaged to Omar but in love with Souleiman - and, to be honest, they could have given us that plot in 10 seconds, but they don't half draw it out.  It's also clear (in case the title of the film didn't make it clear) that the sea is going to feature A LOT in this. And then Souleiman disappears (at sea, of course) and Ada is not happy.  She shows this by sitting (or standing) around and staring into the distance.  A lot.  If I was Omar, I might think she didn't want to marry me - but that certainly...

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's  Top 50 Films of 2019 #48 :   The Nightingale Jennifer Kent follows up The Babadook with some real-life monsters: the men who ran Tasmania’s penal colonies in the 1820s – one of whom gets some grisly, if just, comeuppance in this gothic thriller. I've heard this is a good but pretty hard-core revenge movie - I suspect I might find it a bit too much for my delicate sensibilities, but let's see. Well, the first half an hour introduces us to Clare who is a convict working for the army in Tasmania and provides us with ample (and I mean AMPLE) reason for her to want revenge against some of the soldiers.  The soldiers then head off on a journey and so she decides to follow them using Billy, an Aboriginal guide, to help her - although it's fair to say he has reservations.  After that it's a bit of a road-trip movie as they meet various characters and have various "adventures".   Billy and Clare have a well constructed relation...

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's  Top 50 Films of 2019 #49 :   Avengers: Endgame Is it cinema? Or is it soulless bobbins that’s degrading the fabric of art and society as we know it? Debate still rages; both sides can point to the Russo brothers’ quasi-finale as evidence for their cause. Of course it's cinema.  There is, of course, an argument that it's also soulless bobbins and it's interesting that I used exactly the same word to describe the last film which was directed by - Martin Scorsese, who famously declared the Marvel films to be "not cinema".  Hold on - what even does "not cinema" mean?!? Anyways, I digress.  I have to admit to not watching this film for this review because I've seen it twice already and I will be watching it again pretty soon as part of the family Marvel film watch, in which three of the family are watching all the Marvel films in order (can you guess which one of the family is giving it a miss?).   I like most of ...

I finished The Guardians  Top 50 films of 2021  with a couple of months left in 2022, so I've decided to see how many of their  Top 50 of 2019  I can get through before 2023 comes around and I can start on their Top 50 of 2022 - I reckon I might get 2019 finished by 2025 if I'm lucky!  Did you follow all the year-based logic there? #50 :   Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese Two legends collaborate and a truckload collide in Martin Scorsese’s epic, freewheeling documentary unspooling on Bob Dylan’s 1975 tourbus. This is going to be a load of bobbins, isn't it?  If it's not mostly pretentious arty nonsense in which I have absolutely no interest, I'm going to be amazed.  And, for extra added annoyance, it's going to have Bob in it. Oh yes, it very much is mostly pretentious arty nonsense in which Bob features quite a lot.  Ostensibly it follows Bob's Rolling Thunder Revue tour which played 57 concerts in '75/'76 in small...