Joker

The first thing to say is that I would love for anyone with a lot of knowledge surrounding the comic character to comment on this post and help me out because it is difficult to write an accurate, factual review on this movie.

Just from watching the adverts I was not convinced about this movie. Joaquin Phoenix can do weird and crazy well but there is another side to the joker as well that just seemed to be missing from the trailers. The Joker is the one character who seems to make a new appearance on the superhero/villain scene with a new actor every five years or so. The question that I felt needed to be asked is "do we really need another interpretation of the Joker"? Especially considering that this movie was a DC movie and by definition, the best they can be is 'decent'. Looking back over the movies that they have made since 'The Dark Knight Rises', 'Superman: Man of Steel' was a good movie, 'Batman Vs Superman' was shocking, 'Suicide Squad' was a total flop, 'Wonderwoman' was actually decent, 'Justice League' was so terrible that I turned it off after ten minutes and I haven't even bothered to watch Aquaman. That's two decent movies out of the last six  which is very poor considering that 'the lego batman' movie was better than any DC film featuring Batman since the Christian Bale series. 

In this stand alone movie, The Joker is revealed to be called Arthur Fleck. My problem with naming the Joker and giving him a real back story is that there isn't much substance to support it. From the first introduction of this villain in the very first issue of Batman, he had no explanation and no back story. He was given no name and no parents. In 'The Dark Knight', Heath Ledger's Joker gives three different reasons as to how he got his scars, one of which involved his father and another involving his wife. He doesn't name them and because he gives multiple stories you don't believe that any of them are true. In Tim Burton's movie in 1989, Tommy Lee Jones portrays a character called Jack Napier who then becomes the Joker through the same methods described in the comics. In the Netflix series 'Gotham' the Valaska brothers are modelled on 'The Joker' and in this movie, Arthur Fleck is revealed to be 'The Joker'. My first issue with this is that if you are going to do a back story then use a name which has already been used. No one knows the real name of the Joker so why not try to use the same name and make the audience connect the characters in their heads?

In this movie, Arthur is a guy who isn't good at education. His writing is readable but not great, his speech is a little interesting and he doesn't come across as a guy who has an interest and talent for Chemical Engineering. In this movie he is a weird guy, suffering from mental health issues who doesn't eat, dances around, has no friends and works as a clown whilst living with his mother. You don't look at this guy and think that he is going to become potentially the worlds biggest super villain. No way can you look at this guy on the screen and think that. He's delusional, he thinks about killing himself and he kills people because he is crazy but he doesn't seem like a criminal mastermind who has thought out everything. 

I have to agree with the review in the Guardian. After he kills three boys on a train you lose interest in the movie. I felt like I was watching a history documentary where the murder of three innocent people triggered riots and revolts across the city. That is pretty much what happened in this movie and it just wasn't interesting. There wasn't any real action in this movie and it made it really hard to enjoy the movie. Joaquin Phoenix was good but he has given better performances. 

This movie is an interesting interpretation but it is very personalised in many ways and I highly doubt that it will become a box office hit just because it isn't the type of movie that you would go and see again with your other friends who didn't make it the first time around. Honestly, I don't even think that it is the type of movie that you can enjoy with your friends. It didn't trigger anything inside of me, I wasn't bored but I wasn't engaged. I wasn't angry, I was more just wondering why this movie was made. In this movie they hint that Arthur Fleck could be the son of Thomas Wayne, which would make him the brother of Batman but I can't recall ever reading about it in the comics or seeing that mentioned anywhere else so I wonder why they did it? The end of this movie also removes the league of Shadows from 'Batman Begins' and ruins the start of that movie, they don't follow on from each other but this one is trying to lead in to it and failing. I hear rumours that Robert Pattinson has been cast as Batman, which will be shocking, so maybe they will re-do all the movies and make them more terrible than some of them already are which means that this movie would finally fit in somewhere.

I would be interested to know if there is any original material out there, as in, material from the start when the Joker was just kicking off or was originally developed, that suggests his relationship with Thomas Wayne or his name? I'd like to know where the script writers got this idea from.

Judy

Yep, the Judy Garland movie. 

It's not really a musical, it's more of a musical biography type of film, focusing really on her last year or so of life and her arrival and time in London. 

The films flashes back to her time on the set of  'The Wizard of Oz' and explains a lot about her and why she is so skinny and so messed up. The film is more what I would have considered to be a 'classic' musical movie rather than a musical. So it cannot be compared to Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman, A Star is Born or Yesterday. 

Renee Zellweger takes on the role of Judy Garland and I was very impressed with her. Renee became known for taking on the role of Bridget Jones and at times, that role can be very irritating (especially her accent) but she has become a more selective actress and only takes on roles which are different and challenge her. This role is different to any role I have seen her perform and I wouldn't necessarily have known that it was her, had I not have seen the adverts and actually read up on the film before going to see it.

This movie really gives you an incite in to what the life is like when you make your name young. People don't want you to gain weight in the middle of a movie so you can't eat cake or anything fast or sugar-y. Instead you are given pills and your sleep and diet is impacted. I have no first hand experience in the film industry so I can't say that this is what it is like but I imagine that something similar would occur as people notice when the character puts on weight midway through the movie.
I would not doubt that when she was starting her acting and singing career, her life was controlled by the studio and the pills.

Something that was really highlighted in the movie was Judy's inability to recognise her own mistakes and to learn from them. She turned up late, she was rude to the audience at times and at times, collapsed on stage. It was impossible to get her the real money that she could have earned in her later years because she wasn't reliable and was practically impossible to work with. It has been said in a lot of movies that when people get famous, they want all of the privileges but none of the responsibility.


Renee Zellweger is singing. This was something that I wasn't sure about because in some movies the actors mostly lip sync but sing a small amount. I knew that Renee could sing because she sings in 'Empire Records' but her voice was nowhere near as good so I wasn't sure if it was just a recording of Garland being played in the background. I am pleased that she is actually singing as it makes for a better movie and a better performance. Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga did it live in 'A Star is Born' and that made their performances a lot better. You can't reenact that emotion that you actually when you perform live. No matter how good the actor, you can always tell when they aren't singing live because the music is inside of you, it sparks something which changes every time that you perform and so to act something sporadic and unpredictable is practically impossible.

I didn't know anything about Judy Garland because she is way before my time. I knew that she was dead and I have seen a few of her movies. I never found her to be as appealing as Ginger Rodgers or Audrey Hepburn but she was better than average. She could sing and she could dance which is what matters. I am amazed that so many people went to see her show in London after all of the negative press coming from around America. Judy Garland was homeless, she lived in a hotel until she was unable to take on enough paid performing work to cover the bills and then left her kids with their dad so that she could go and perform in London to earn enough money to buy a home for herself and her kids to live in. That didn't work out because she was late, rude to the audience and collapsed on stage and so she ended up with nothing but a fifth marriage problem and potential divorce (although she couldn't pay for the divorce) and nothing to live with. 
Her marriage issues are also highlighted in this movie. Rufus Sewell plays 'Sid', the children's father and he managed her but had problems because she was always late and impossible to work with. In this movie, Garland portrays him as a pathetic figure who can't afford anything and hasn't contributed anything to the world but he  actually has a house and looks after the kids. She needs someone who will devote themselves to her, sort out all of her problems without changing her and that just doesn't work out because in real life you can't just wash away all the negative press surrounding someone and convince people in the movies and theatre that they want to take on someone who has a really bad reputation. 

I don't know if this was an accurate portrayal but if it was then I not only think that it was done very well but it also teaches a lot about fame and about what it can do to people. It's one thing to work hard to become famous but another thing entirely to keep working hard and avoid the drugs and alcohol when you get there. Fame ruins a lot of people and often claims their lives on top of their careers. 

Hats off to Renee Zellweger for this performance. Side notes to Rufus Sewell and Michael Gambon who were both excellent.
Jessie Buckley is starting to make a name for herself (which considering that she originates from the same place my family do, is a hard thing to do!) and Darci Shaw is also one to watch out for. She was almost perfect as young Judy. 

Watch it. Enjoy it and just admire Zellweger's performance.

Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw

Hi all, 

Apologies for the delay- have been away and unable to write a blog post on a movie that I watched about two weeks ago.

I watched the Fast and Furious franchise in random order and had no idea about the plot or characters featuring in this movie but I like the idea of most action movies which star Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson. 

What can I say about this movie?

Lots of action, a British bad guy to go with a British protagonist and a plot based around Deckard Shaw's sister. The music is fantastic and the final stand is a sight to behold. Moving to Samoa to fight brings a different element to the franchise and makes it more enjoyable for a lot of fans. The technology also helps to bring a different element to this movie. It's more what you would expect from two heavy weights in the same movie. 

Is there the standard, typical, car chase that has to feature in every movie to make it worthy of the title? Not that I recall but possibly. There is one of those 'let's all lock together to ring down an aeroplane' scene but nothing that really screams that this is a Fast and Furious movie other than a few characters who have featured in previous movies. 

I will say that Vin Diesel does not feature in this movie. This is a sort of spin off and so his character doesn't actually feature. 

If you like action movies, cars and stunts then you'll enjoy this movie.

A huge shout out to Helen Mirren who is fantastic as Deckard Shaw's mother. Her birthday cake is fantastic and she has some of the most comical lines in the entire movie. Adding her in to this franchise when they did was one of the better choices that they made about the direction that the franchise was going in. 

This movie really is about Deckard Shaw. His sister becomes a target of a man called 'Brixton' (Idris Elba) as she is working for the Government, transporting a virus when her team is attacked and she manages to escape with the Virus by injecting herself with it. Both Shaw and Hobbs get assigned this case respectively and have to work together in order to take down Brixton and the forces behind him. It takes only the entire movie for them to actually be able to work together but they all manage it in the end.

This movie is just another way to have fun. Watching this movie is a decent way of spending an evening. It is one of those that you can enjoy with family and friends or just on your own. Neither Statham nor Johnson can really act, they just get cast in movies that need people who look strong and can perform stunts well. They get type cast but that isn't always a bad thing. So long as you don't expect world class acting then you are not going to be disappointed with this movie.

Watch it, enjoy it and let me know your thoughts on it.

Ad Astra

Released in the UK on the 18th September (yesterday). 
The adverts made it look like nothing special and that would sum it up. 
Did we really need another movie about Astronauts? No. Was this movie going to be a hit? No.
So let's analyse what we spent two hours staring at.

Major Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) is the son of a legend, according to Space Command. He is an Astronaut and he falls from the station just above Earth when a power surge from Neptune destroys almost every complex that the US Space programme have on any other planet. Roy falls from this complex at the start of the movie but doesn't die, he isn't even injured. His heart rate never gets above 80 (which is very impressive) and so he is sent on a classified mission to Neptune, to locate his father, who is secretly believed to be alive and part of the 'Lima Project' which is based on Neptune. 



Roy makes it from Earth to the Moon and then from the Moon to Mars but during that flight he and the captain of the rocket that he is being transported in stop to answer a distress call from a biological transportation ship. They discover that there is no one aboard the ship as they were all attacked by a biologically improved form of Ape. The Captain is killed by this Ape and Roy manages to kill both the Apes on board and attempts to save the Captain. Upon returning with the Captain to the rocket, the Captain is pronounced dead and the last rights are said before his body is removed from the space craft and left floating in space. There are some problems landing on Mars and Roy has to take manual control from 1st Lieutenant who has become afraid of the ship. Roy lands it successfully and omits that detail from his mission report. The 1st Lieutenant is promoted to Captain.

Roy, now on Mars, attempts to communicate with his father. He reads the transcripts created for him by Space Com but gets no response so instead makes up a more personal speech to send to his father. His father responds but Roy is deemed too emotionally involved, fails his Psychological exam and is to be sent back to Earth. On Mars Roy discovers the truth about his father and the 'Lima Project'. The truth is that a crew were sent out to discover life sources on the planet but could not discover any. Once they could not locate any life sources most of the crew wished to return to Earth but Dr McBride would not let them. His crew turned on him so he killed them all. 

The rocket which Roy arrived in has now been equipped with nuclear weapons as their mission is to destroy the Lima rocket on Neptune so that they can continue to cover up what has really happened. Roy already has been given some data suggesting a cover up by his escort from Earth to the Moon and on Mars he is shown classified information detailing the real events. Roy goes aboard the rocket, against all order and in doing so, the rest of the crew end up dead as they try to remove him from the rocket and shoot him. Instead of shooting him the captain accidentally hits an air tank and the air in the rocket is contaminated. Roy attempts to save them but cannot so he flies to Neptune alone. 

On Neptune he plants the nuclear device and is reunited with his father. He attempts to take his father away from the ship and bring him back to Earth but his father, having declared that the only thing that he really loved was his job, un clips himself from Roy and fights with Roy to let him go. His father, played by Tommy Lee Jones, dies in Space and Roy uses the blast from the nuclear device to propel him back to earth, where he crash lands and is retrieved by the US space force. That is the end of the movie. 

This movie is a waste of time. There is no real action and he doesn't even manage to save his father. The movie doesn't show us if he is punished for disobeying orders or if he reveals the cover up. There were so many better endings for this movie than the one that they went with and in the end you just feel like you have wasted your time. There is no spectacular acting in it and it makes you wonder what caused Pitt to agree to make this movie. The plot was nothing special and the movie was clearly never going to win him any award or recognition so why do it?

Don't waste your money on this film. It wont change your life or even make you feel anything over the course of the two hours that you spend watching it. It hasn't added anything to our cinematic universe or the world of film. It's one of those films that you will quite easily forget was ever made. Not bad and not good, not made of anything to draw any response from you. It is, in every way, forgettable. 

Next up will be the Fast and Furious spin off: Hobbs and Shaw.

Downton Abbey

Hi everyone. 
It's been a while and I do apologise for that. I can now announce that due to changes in personal circumstances, I should now be able to write at least one blog on a movie per week. As much as possible, I will try to make these movies recent movies, but I will of course add in a few really old movies for fun.

Without further ado, I bring you...

DOWNTON ABBEY

So I have to admit that I am relatively new to Downton, having only discovered it two years ago. For those of you wondering how I could have only discovered it a few years ago the answer is simple; I knew about it due to the adverts and Maggie Smith but I was unable to watch it when it was released so I had to wait until I picked the box sets up in a charity shop for £2 each. Then I worked my way through them on almost a binge and really enjoyed them all. Naturally, I was excited for the movie as I felt that the series hadn't really ended. Julian Fellowes left so many possibilities with his final episode.

We all wondered what would happen to the house once all the 'Crawley girls' were married and this movie shows us. With Carson living happily retired alongside Mrs Hughes (who is not retired) and Thomas taking on the role of Butler we wondered how much time would pass before Thomas was deemed incapable of living up to the pressure. The answer is that he manages well until the Royal Family announce their visit and then after about two or three days Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) asks Carson to come back temporarily and take over from Thomas as she doesn't want the household to appear unprepared for the Royal visit. 

I am going to try and answer some questions that may have been going through your head when you saw the advert for this film:
1) Do they survive the visit- Yes.
2) Do the household staff actually serve the Royal family- Yes, due to some creativity from Mr and Mrs Bates.
3) Is Lady Edith actually in her underwear for one scene- sort of. There are problems with her dress and so she is wearing her undergarments. This may be scandalous but she isn't revealing anything so it is perfectly sensible and realistic to assume that Ladies and Gentlemen were not always well presented.
4) Does Tom Branson give one of his Ireland speeches again? No. Tom actually saves the King's life by preventing an Irish republican from shooting the King. Tom is very well behaved in this movie.
5) Are there any new characters? Yes but not as additions to Downton. Imelda Staunton takes on the role of Lady Bagshaw, who is a travelling companion for Her Royal Highness the Queen and Tuppence Middleton appears as Lady Bagshaw's maid, Lucy Smith.

Now that those questions have been answered I can write a bit about the movie.

As we all know, Tom's character got a lot better after Sybil died and he became not only bearable but actually likeable. In this film he has a few powerful lines and appears as the most helpful character in the entire movie. You can't help but feel that from the moment he met Lucy Smith that he was always going to marry her. The relevance of this being that Lady Bagshaw is a cousin of Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith) and has been refusing to make Robert (Hugh Bonneville) her heir because she has actually made Lucy Smith, who turns out to be her child (but not from her deceased husband), her heir. Tom marrying Lucy would bring the money back to the Crawley household (in a manner of speaking).
Violet reveals that she is ill and places the onus on Mary to become the strong leader of the family who will fight for everything just because tradition states. This seemed like a good way to write her out of the script, should they chose to continue with this story and produce a one off Christmas episode (famous for killing off characters). Word on the street is that Maggie Smith wasn't going to do the movie until she discovered that the rest of the cast were all going to reprise their roles. The movie would not have been the same without her and the household would not be the same without her constant bickering with Isobel (Penelope Wilton).
Let's try to remember that Daisy and Andy were going to get married. This movie hasn't really moved on from that and at the end of the movie Daisy agrees to start thinking about her wedding. Daisy has really grown from an irritating character who was unable to see Thomas' true nature, to a relatively strong minded woman who can actually fight for the right things. Andy was always a step up from just about any other footman employed at Downton. Andy isn't stupid or a flirt, which makes him better than the two before him and he actually shows other sides to him as well in this movie.
Thomas gets to learn a thing or two about life and also gets a little bit of development. His character never really expanded in the series. Whilst he did settle down and grow up a bit, he didn't actually have much real development in the same that Mrs Patmore, Mrs Hughes and Carson all suffered from an illness which showed a vulnerable side to themselves.
Everyone has their moment in this movie and it is everything that you would expect from a Downton movie. The only negative is Anna's hair. It looks like a terrible wig and I hope that it is a wig because it doesn't look great on her. Everyone seemed to change their hair in the 20's but this just doesn't work for her. 

If you are a fan of period drama or Downton then make sure to watch this movie. It's in UK cinema's and is worth it. If you've never seen the series but are a fan of Imelda Staunton, Maggie Smith (how could you not be) or even if you are a Terry Pratchett fan and want to watch 'Susan' from 'The Hogfather' in something else then watch this movie.


Now that I have passed on my words of advice, without revealing too much of the plot I can leave you with the explanation as to why this post is in purple. Drum roll please... I struggle with Black on White because the contrast makes everything blurry so I now write almost everything in purple. From now on blog posts will appear in purple- apologies for this weirdness.

Alita: Battle Angel

I didn't want to write about this movie before it had been released because it is so fantastic. One of the most highly anticipated movies of the year and for a good reason. James Cameron (Avatar) is back producing it and with him comes the technology used in Avatar to create the character of Alita.

Manga lovers will appreciate this movie even more as there is space to grow and develop because *spoiler alert* it doesn't end properly.

First things first: when you watch this movie, watch it in Imax 3d, it is phenomenal. It is so much more real in 3d than it ever would be in 2d.
This is the tail of a character, who is thrown down from the city above called Zalem and is only left with a head and a heart. A doctor locates her in the scrapyard and gives her a new body, thus bringing her back to life. Alita starts to learn how to use her body and discovers that she is a trained fighter. As she is fighting she starts to remember things and makes a friend. Her friend takes her to a fallen ship and there she locates her new body. The body that was designed for people of her kind and only her kind. She becomes a hunter warrior in the attempt to make enough money to help send Hugo (Keean Johnson) to Zalem. The only way to do this is to ask Vector (Mahershala Ali) to send you up to Zalem in exchange for a fee.

Alita (Rose Salazar) battles in contests and all of it is thoroughly entertaining. She is, of course, accompanied by Hugo and Doctor Ido (Christoph Waltz), who gave her a body and raises her. By the end of this movie there is no love interest. By doing that Robert Rodriguez has eliminated the possibility of weakening her character for love in any future movies.

This movie is just thoroughly enjoyable. As far as action goes, it is packed with it. The stunts are phenomenal but not unreal and there are no really cheesy lines in the script writing. Both Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron have done themselves proud with this movie and have a really great thing going, should they chose to continue it. Jennifer Connelly plays the wife of Doctor Ido, who has been working for Vector in exchange for a return to Zalem but in the end she stops doing the wrong things and starts doing the right things. Her character is another strong character with so much room for development and it is really exciting to think of the possibilities for this franchise. 

Just make sure that you watch this film and for your own sake, spend the extra money and watch it in 3d.

Glass

The movie that gave off a similar feel to the movie 'Unbreakable' and featuring a similar cast in the personel of Samuel L Jackson and Bruce Willis. Add the comic book feel and the references to them and you have yourself a sequel to 'Unbreakable'. I joke. This movie is not a sequel and once you add James McAvoy to the line up you start to realise how even though it looked like a X-Men type of movie to start with, it really isn't.

This movie is a chance for James McAvoy to reignite his acting career. He has made some terrible decisions with movie choice, making movies such as 'Wanted' and 'X-Men Apocalypse' (where the scripting writing was terrible' and hasn't really ever shown much of his talents, rather playing on his looks than anything else. In Glass, he takes on a character who has 24 different personalities and he plays them all exceptionally well. He is psychotic and thoroughly convincing throughout. I think that we probably all had doubts about his credentials and assumed that his career was going down the drain. We would have all watched this movie for Samuel L Jackson and accepted that McAvoy was going to be bad but that we would look past him because we were focusing on the rest of the movie but that really wasn't the case. When you think that Bruce Willis is always just himself in movies then I have to admit that McAvoy was actually the star of the movie. 

Superheroes... sound familiar? Glass is about a man called Elijah. We're not really sure if he is actually a superhero or if he is just a tactical genius. He manages to orchestrate the creation of two superheroes. I don't want to explain how as that destroys the point of the movie but he manages to make it so that all three of them are in the same mental institution. Bruce Willis is exceptionally strong, James McAvoy has a character called 'The Beast' and he can become very strong, very aggressive and climb up things without a problem. Naturally, where there are superheroes, there are government agencies trying to cover it up and make them think that they are normal. This plan doesn't work because Mr. Glass manages to override all the cameras and live stream their escape to the relatives of each of these three characters. 

Spoiler... all three characters die but the live feed of their escape, from the 100 cameras inside of this institution is sent to the relatives and the relatives upload for the world to see. 

This movie is set up for a sequel but I would hope that the production team will take their time with it and make sure that the script is good because they shouldn't just pull out more superheros in the same city because that we be predictable and rather stupid. This agency admits that there are people with unnatural powers but also accepts that where there are heroes, there are always villains and that this creates conflict and therefore they attempt to remove both without anyone realising. They were all prepared to move on to the next city and that is what they should do. Glass was the setup. Other than his brain, he had no powers. His bones shattered easily and it made him easy to kill but he was exceptionally intelligent. 

The lack of real powers and the lack of an obvious hero and villains makes this film different, which is probably why it topped the box office. Glass is memorable and more psychological than most other superhero like movies. You will remember it and you may also spend time wondering about Mr. Glass and if he really did have special powers or if it was more chance than anything else. 

Samuel L Jackson delivers the performance that we have come to expect from him. We have got used to him being a bit weird and different in some of the roles that he has taken on over the decade but that is why we love him. He can do more than just be, there is no other way of saying i, 'a dude'. 

Sarah Paulson is one to keep an eye on. She has this way of taking on roles in smaller films or taking on roles where you may not remember her because she is overshadowed by a bigger name. She has taken on roles in '12 Years A Slave' and 'Carol', as the first two that spring up after 'Glass' when you search her on 'IMDB'. I have seen both of those movies and now that I see them listed I start to remember her but I couldn't without the prompt. Sometimes being forgettable isn't a bad thing. It's not that we forgot her, its just that we made the mistake of overlooking her in smaller roles. If she ever takes on a role that earns her awards then we will all make a point of allocating her a place in our memory, rather than storing her somewhere in the desert of our long term memory and throwing away the key. She was in Ocean's 8 and was fantastic in that movie as well but again, the prompt was needed to make the connection. For some people, this type of career is enough. Take the role, do it well, make successful movies but avoid the spotlight and be able to dictate your career in terms of doing the movies or series that you want rather than having this audience demand to take on weird roles or bigger movies that are so often a huge flop.

I would say to anyone who hasn't seen it, make sure that you catch this movie while there is still time because it is different to most things being released at this moment in time and so much better than the 'Avengers' movies.

Mary Poppins Returns

Very excited for this movie. Huge fan of Emily Blunt and huge fan of Mary Poppins.

This movie is similar to the first movie but with a slighter darker twist and less showstopping tunes. As a bookshop manager I will be playing the song "A Cover is Not the Book" around my shop for several weeks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNvV6N7veRs

Emily Blunt is not Julie Andrews but she is really the only woman currently acting, with a strong voice who could have pulled it off and she really did pull it off! Emily Blunt is the Mary Poppins that children from this generation will remember but children from my generation or earlier will remember Julie Andrews as the main Mary Poppins. Emily Blunt could keep this going for a few more movies though and I think that Julie Andrews may have been proud of their choice to replace her. Blunt has a great voice, the right personality to pull it off and the skill behind it all, which can clearly been seen by her dancing in this movie. So long as you remember that Mary Poppins never comes to save the father, she always comes to save the children then there should be no problems with these movies.

No Dick Van Dyke reprising his role of 'Burt', which makes sense because Burt would be reaching his fifties or sixties and therefore probably wouldn't still be sweeping the chimneys in London. This time, the role of street worker is taken on by Lin-Manuel Miranda (Musical writer of Hamilton and Moanna) and he takes on the role of 'Jack', a street lighter who was a child working with Burt in the original movie so it sort of gives his character a bit more purpose. This movie, in so many ways, runs parallel to the original movie. If you can remember the 'step in time' dance sequence then fear not because there is a similar sequence with the street lighters and of course, 'A Cover is Not the Book' is in a similar place to 'Supercallafragilisticexpialidosious', making it very easy for you as the audience to feel like you are in a Mary Poppins movie.

Of course, Dick Van Dyke gets a brief look in, as does Angela Lansbury as a balloon seller. Van Dyke takes over as head of the bank but he only briefly appears and dances on the desk as the movie resolves itself. The main role of head banker is played by Colin Firth and when I said that this movie was slightly darker that is only because there is an obvious bad guy in this movie and that is Colin Firth. The bank and financial troubles were always a problem for the Banks family but the bankers weren't obviously as bad as this time around.

Poverty hits Michael Banks after his wife dies and leaves him with three children to look after. He forgets to pay monthly loans and generally forgets to do a lot of things. He still has Ellen, this time played by Julie Walters but even she cannot make everything happy again. As I said, less showstoppers means less memorable music and less unity of family but this time Mary Poppins had a more subtle role to play and she did it so very well that I only have positive reviews to write about this movie. Everyone in this movie was great and I especially loved how far Meryl Streep has come with her singing. Her acting was more similar to her role in 'Into the Woods' but her voice has come even further than it had in that movie. She was great, her costume was fantastic, her setting was stupendous and her singing was enjoyable.

Overall, this movie was thoroughly enjoyable. I saw it with my Mother and my Grandmother and we all enjoyed it. There were moments where I wished for the classic, three beat Mary Poppins music but I do have to accept that the songwriters are not going to be the same. There is always room for improvement and this is something that they can take in to the next movie. Emily Blunt appears to do less with her singing voice than Julie Andrews did and therefore may have a little more time to make another movie before having to retire from the musical theatre side of movies but from my point of view, I hope that she makes another movie because she is fantastic in almost everything that she does and this role was different to any other role that I have seen from her and really suited her.

Bumblebee

Transformers was a good movie, the rest were rubbish and changing to Mark Whalberg didn't make them any better.

So instead of making more movies they have decided to backtrack a little and explain how Bumblebee arrived on earth, without his ability to speak. What I will say now is that this movie completely destroys the timeline of the previous series made, starting with the movie staring Shia Le Bouf and Megan Fox.

Instead of picking a slightly sweaty, teenage boy who is out to impress a somewhat attractive young girl, they pick a young girl, portrayed by Hailee Steinfeld. My first issue with this character is that they have chosen the very typical, only child, parent died, other remarried and home sucks feel that so many movies have adopted poorly over the years. Given that Spielberg was involved with this movie I didn't expect to have so many criticisms of it as this is the first movie with his involvement that I think I have publicly criticised on this blog.

Hailee was good and her portrayal and character developed but the sort of, I am so hard done by because you wont buy me a car, attitude just sort of shows what a stuck up lifestyle she thinks she has. A lot of Kids who are turning 18 want their parents to buy them a drink or something smaller than a car, knowing that they didn't grow up with that kind of money. It just seemed a little unreal to me, as an adult viewer, looking back on what I wanted as a seventeen year old girl.
Once we got past that point it got a bit better. There was nothing wrong with her performance but I felt that the script was very tailored towards children and that in doing so they were eliminating the older audience that so often enjoys these types of movies.

Great music choice and generally speaking good action to the movie but it is hard to see how they are going to develop it. Prime  is on earth which removes the older series and means that they now have to reboot the entire franchise. With man having witnessed one fight between the Autobots and Decepticons in an attempt to save Earth and humanity, what are they going to do in the next movie and how do they plan on working with that? The romance was unnecessary and didn't really flow with the rest of the movie.

I am sort of interested in seeing what they do next with it, simply because they have destroyed so much of what we already knew that I want to see how they dig themselves out of it. I am sure that Aquaman would have been a worse choice of movie to go and watch but I still felt like this one would have been challenging Aquaman as it was boring and a bit pathetic.

The Green Book

This movie has not been released in the UK yet. It will be released in early February of 2019 and will premier towards the end of this month.

This means that I can't write in my normal way as I will spoil the entire movie for most readers.

The Green Book is about a musician called Don Shirley. Most of us haven't heard of this man because his music was a bit different. He was a pianist, a black pianist who trained in Russia and was performing during the heavily racist period of the world's history. Black people, at this period in time, were going to get in to trouble for performing classical music in predominantly white places. Therefore, his record label made him part of a trio and they improvised classical styles of music. His style is classical but with some elements of Jazz in it.

Orpheus in the Underworld is probably his most known work and it is, well, different. The foundation is very classical but it never entirely sounds like a classical masterpiece. It is different and does require your full attention when listening to it in order to truly appreciate the craft behind it.

So what can we tell you about Don Shirley? He was a doctor. He had two doctorates in various studies and was a fabulous pianist in every way. He was well spoken, made acquaintances with a lot of high up people, people close to the president and had high up mannerisms that were seen as a little uncharacteristic. The teachings of etiquette were fantastic in this movie and Don Shirley, according to the movie, had similar mannerisms to myself, which I appreciate.


Don Shirley, in this movie is played by the rising star Mahershala Ali (Moonlight, Luke Cage, Hidden Figures) and is a man of many secrets. Opposite him is Viggo Mortensen (A History of violence, Captain Fantastic, The Lord of the Rings) playing an American Italian, (think of De Niro) known for his ability to talk people in to things and for his muscle. Usually used as muscle, he turns in to a driver for this one gig, one tour of the slightly more racist parts of America. Apart from getting paid, he learns to expand his taste in music, speak better, write better and learns a few things about mannerism and friendship.

This movie has many fantastic moments and I can see it winning all the awards possible. The music is fantastic, the speech, at times, is hilarious and some of the most powerful moments are, of course, towards the end, moments that make you want to rise up out of your chair and put your fist in the air. Someone of my generation, with my upbringing, wants to shout at the screen and ask the racist people why they are so racist, why they treat performers in such a way. There was nothing to be afraid of but they never learned that.

Seriously, if this movie does not pick up more than one award at every ceremony then there is something wrong with the judges. Watch this movie and learn from it. You can receive a musical education from this movie, even if you are a trained musician and think that you already know most things about music. You can also learn a lot about yourself from watching this movie.


For those who aren't sure and haven't seen the trailer, it is listed below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkZxoko_HC0

Wreck-It-Ralph: Ralph breaks the internet.

First movie was incredible. So excited to hear that they had announced another movie!

Wreck-It-Ralph 2 was always going to be good.

So what can we say about the sequel to a superb animated movie? Just watch it. This movie is set inside the internet and sees Ralph and Venelope head to the internet to obtain a controller for her game. Without this controller Candy racing will no longer be part of the arcade and Venelope and her friends will no longer have a game to go to.

This comes from Venelope being bored and needing new tracks in her game, so Ralph makes some for her and she does whatever she wants instead of playing the game when the arcade is open, causing the player to accidentally break the steering wheel and the arcade owner deciding that the game doesn't make enough money to justify the cost of the controller.

This game is sort of like 'Ready Player One' combined with what you would expect from a normal animated movie. Seeing them delve in to 'the internet' is fantastic. I love being able to see someone else's understanding of the internet. It makes so much sense. This is another chapter in the potentially, on-going Wreck-it- Ralph series which has so much potential to continue developing.

In this movie they take on some of the toughest racers out there and fight within themselves to find their places in their lives. Ralph does some things that he may regret, Venelope definitely does things that she should regret and sometimes you have to accept that life moves on and not always with the same friends. The driving is fantastic, the sequencing is fantastic and of course, the laughs that you expect come, as you would expect.

There was never any shame in going to see this movie in the cinema. Some kids movies are fantastic and good work should be appreciated wherever it is found.

Just watch it and enjoy it. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't watched this movie already.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Much debate has been had over the casting of Jude Law as the young Albus Dumbledore. I would like to take the time now to make one thing perfectly clear: he is no Richard Harris but no one was ever going to be and I cannot think of anyone who would pull off playing a young Richard Harris.

This movie does not end. I know that Rowling has already stated her intention of their being several more movies in this franchise but I really feel that they shouldn't do that. This movie, whilst being good, did not exactly follow on with the Potter knowledge that die hard fans of the books already had. There is no other Dumbledore brother and it seems a little stupid with the way that the movie ended.

The first flaw is that the elite magicians in the world cannot see through something as simple as his method of escape. For me watching it was predictable. Predictability did not prevent me from enjoying the movie but did prevent me from watching it another time, which is something that the first movie did not do. The other underlying issue for me is the lack of verbal spells in this movie. There is this idea that once you become an adult you do not need to actually say spells but that takes away from the magic. Historically, people were always scared of words that they did not know and understand and that is what made us believe in magic. Once you remove the words from magic it stops being magic and just becomes visual effect. This movie has been fantastic for visual effects but the magical world mostly exists due to spells, spoken and shouted at each other and once you take that away the world seems less real and more like something we are watching on a screen, which loses half of the audience.

Johnny Depp, what can we say. This guy is one of the very few who can continually change his role when on screen. Recently we had this debate about Depp and decided that he so very rarely plays a 'normal' character that he has probably forgotten how to do it. Grindelwald is another character who cannot, in any way, be considered as 'normal'. He is weird, cruel and actually does very little in this movie. As always, there is supposed to be an epic battle between him and the Skamanders but some of that is lost in the lack of words used throughout the battle scenes, which is something similar that took place in the final movies of the 'Harry Potter' series and David Yates hasn't actually learned from it yet. Depp is a good acquisition to this cast and will play off nicely against Eddie Redmayne, who is perfect for the role of Newt Skamander and will
to be perfect.

They could end this series in two movies but knowing this franchise, they will just drag it out, like they did with Potter, until we are all bored and able to predict everything that is going to happen. The Potter movies got noticeably worse as they went on and I really don't want that to happen with this series as well. The first movie was fantastic and this movie wasn't as good but was still very good. The next movie will probably be slightly worse and then they will continue to downwards spiral until we are all endlessly bored.

For now, they remain a good franchise.

The Girl in the spiders web

Another movie that I watched in preview.

This movie is part of the series 'The girl with the dragon tattoo', however, the movie itself confused me a lot as I have only seen the original Swedish movie and this movie doesn't seem to follow on from the end of that movie. There is no doubt about it that it is supposed to be a sequel but it just confused me because none of it really made any sense. In the original Swedish movie she doesn't have a sister, rather a brother, who abuses her and she kills him along with her father.

This movie is all about Lisbeth Slander, she has been made famous by the newspaper article on 'The Girl with the Dragon tattoo' and she is out to defend women who are abused or mistreated by men. She is still a hacker, a very food one and she makes her money off of targeting rich men who are unfaithful or abusive. In this movie she has a sister and her task is to assist an American programmer who made a programme that is very dangerous. He based the code around his son but instead of letting the American government have it he hires Lisbeth to hack the NSA and steal it back so that he can take it away with him and no one will ever have access to it.

It wouldn't be a movie without double crossing, death, action and an evil nemessiss. Needless to say that he is killed, double crossed by some of the people that he trusted and that Lisbeth is now left with his son to protect, a weapon to disarm and a nation to save, whilst fighting against her psychotic sister. She has friends, she has allies but most importantly, she has herself.

If I hadn't have spent the entire movie being a little confused as to how it followed on, I would have really enjoyed the movie. I enjoyed it but I wasn't able to appreciate it for what it was because it didn't make much sense in my head. The setting is different, the characters are played by different actors to the actors in the Swedish movie and nothing flowed normally for me. I liked the action, I liked the portrayal of Lisbeth but I just found that it didn't work as a sequel and that they should have drawn a line under the previous movies and started again with this franchise.

I haven't felt the need to ever re-watch the original movie and I feel the same way about this movie. I remember it and even now, I don't really remember the original movie unless I try but when I do think about it I really don't need to watch it again. There is a slightly darker tone to these movies that makes them very memorable but equally, not necessarily re-watchable.

Bohemian Rhapsody

We've waited a long time for a movie like this to be released.

I can imagine that one of the greatest difficulties would be finding the right person to cast as Freddie Mercury.

Rami Malek was fairly solid. To me he is known for the Amazon series 'Mr Robot' and will always stand out a little because of the way that he looks. Rami received critical acclaim for his role and I have to say that I enjoyed the movie and even though there will never be another Freddie, Rami is about as close as they will get.

For people like me, who know very little about Queen and their lives, this movie was educational and a lot of fun. It was so hard to resist the temptation to join in with the songs throughout the movie and so hard to not continuously laugh. Freddie Mercury seems like a real character and one that was not easy to work with. I think that the rest of the band really deserved something for working with him. That being said, Freddie was the front of Queen. His vocals, his stage presence and his engagement with fans were really what made Queen. The music was good and they could all play their instruments but Freddie took them to a greater level and made them a world wide name.

Rami has been nominated for several awards and he deserves his nominations. It has taken time to produce this movie and I am very glad that they took the time to get the right cast and the right director for this movie because it is a very, very good movie but could have gone so wrong with the wrong cast. I know that Sacha Barron- Cohen was cast as Freddie but I for one am very glad that they reconsidered as I think that he would have ruined the film. Malek was a much better option.

Probably the strongest part of the movie was the live aid scene right at the end of the movie. Loved it, loved watching the performance and longed to have been a part of that experience. Live aid wasn't really working until Freddie took the stage and engaged with the audience. I loved the fact that Brian May actually made an effort to write a song that the audience could engage with. Queen took audience engagement to a new level and really raised the bar for performers and performances.

I know that they are going to release a similar type of movie based on Elton John but I personally feel that it is too soon for that as Elton John is still alive and the reason why this movie worked so well is because people from all eras either relived moments of their past or learned things about history that they didn't know and everyone got to sing whilst doing it.

If you haven't seen it then make sure that you do.

Venom

Generally received a mixed response from people when enquiring about this movie. Tom Hardy is liked as an actor and often takes on slightly different roles so it is always nice to see him being a normal, slightly attractive guy, with no insane muscles or masks. The general feeling was that the film was good but the special effects weren't great and I can see where people are coming from.

The thing about special effects is that in a world full of technology, directors and producers often forget about the plot and the development and spend too much time focusing on the special effects. A lot of movies recently have overdone it on the effects and the film has suffered for it. I personally didn't feel that Venom overdid it at all. There was nothing special about the effects but that was good because it meant that we as the viewer could focus more on the plot and the talent on display in front of us.

I've never really understood much about Venom. I didn't watch the third Spider-Man movie and I haven't read the comics so let's say that I am a complete novice. I enjoyed the movie. Venom is neither a good guy nor a bad guy. Venom is sort of a conflicted character who turns from good to bad but has no loyalty to the earth and actually has no loyalty to Eddie. They work well together and something about Eddie seems to work for Venom, hence why he stays but nothing is owed to Eddie and that means that Venom is free to behave as Venom sees fit which makes him neither good nor bad- a bit like Deadpool.

Tom Hardy was brilliant. I found him to be the perfect character; sticks up for what he believes in, doesn't realise what it will cost him until he loses it and then has to correct his mistakes by remembering what he believed in. There was no standout star in this movie. Michelle Williams was strong as Anne. She tried to fight, she even had Venom inside of her, albeit very briefly, and she wasn't the pathetic love interest who cannot do anything for herself. There is room for her to be developed in future movies. Riz Ahmed was a strong villain but he wasn't an obvious villain. The character of Drake was obviously going to be the bad guy. He was obviously doing something suspect with his science labs but then most top scientists are. There was always a sign of control and the calmness within him that enabled him to evoke fear within people without getting angry or saying anything more than asking how your family was. People like that are people that you should be afraid of as they are often more capable of unimaginable things than the overly aggressive, power crazy people.

Venom is a solid movie and they will probably make another one to help continue with the Spider-verse and the MCU. Venom can also be a stand alone set of movies and even though there were a few cut scenes linking to Spider-Man, like the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' movies, it can be done as a stand alone and then brought together as part of something bigger when it needs to.

I hope that there will be another movie.

A Star Is Born

This movie is a remake and I haven't watched the original. The other thing to say is that Lady Gaga is phenomenal in this movie. What a way to kick start an acting career.

What I will say about this movie (and yes, I watched it at the premier so I have been holding this post until now to publish in order to give you all a chance to see it without spoiling it) is that if you are suffering from musical block or a lack of song writing ideas this then film will help to open your mind a little. I found that it reminded of a different type of rock music and a different way to play the guitar which had been forgotten due to the influences of heavier rock music or heavy metal, which treat the guitar in a completely different way. There is more to writing a song than four chords and this movie actually emphasises the need to have something to say and the talent to pull it off and make people want to listen.

For me, Bradley Cooper was at his best in this movie. He spent time working on his voice, not just on singing but on lowering his voice so as to develop the character better and it really paid off. It clearly showed the life that we all know to be true of rock stars but it also showed the push from record labels when they take someone with talent and turn them in to something that aren't. They often overlook the needs for happiness on an emotional level and really play a massive part in the destruction of lives. This is just common knowledge now.
In this movie she had a great voice as a country singer, she could have toured with Jackson Maine and still been a star. She was a star before she was signed to a record label and even though he didn't help her much with the drugs and alcohol in his life, Jackson Maine found her, encouraged her and supported her. For him it was difficult when her life and her name became bigger than his and he didn't really like her style of music because he saw what we could all see, which was that she wasn't using her voice to her full potential, she wasn't writing songs that really made people listen, she had just become a singing and dancing act with a catchy beat and some good moves. His alcohol and drug addictions in the end ruined him but they may not have ruined her. When there is talent the world remembers and waits for it.

Music lovers or just fans of a good movie with a clear message, everyone should enjoy this movie and appreciate the work that went in to it. It is worth paying to watch over and over again. Go and watch it with a clear mind and let it speak to you. Music is everywhere and without you knowing, forms a huge part of your daily life and routine.