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.

King of Thieves

I know that this movie hasn't been released for general viewing in the cinema but my membership scheme permitted me to watch it early so if you don't want any spoilers then stop reading.

This movie is about the Hatton Garden Jewel heist. It is a true story and boasts a star studded cast including Michael Caine, Michael Gambon, Tom Courtenay, Charlie Cox, Jim Broadbent and Ray Winstone. When we left the cinema we had a long debate as to who we think really orchestrated this heist but we are still undecided and that is why we would happily go and see this movie again.

A crew of old guys attempt to rob a jewellery safe over the Easter bank holiday weekend. They forget to do things such as cover their faces from cameras, stay awake whilst keeping watch, disable all the alarms or even just get the basics correct but somehow they manage to come out of it with more or less everything that they were after. All but the young guy Basil (Charlie Cox) were caught on camera and identified and all who were caught were also ordered to pay back more money than they actually managed to get away with. Some of the money was never recovered and that is a little scary as it means that something like £2 million is still hidden in the world.

This movie is like 'The Italian Job'. It's as funny and along the same lines but with a few more moments where you sit there wondering how the hell they actually managed to pull it off.

King of Thieves, is a very enjoyable movie. Jim Broadbent was the standout performer but they were all good. Broadbent is an underrated actor, as proven by his performance in this. At times he scared me a little and at other times I just wondered where this performance even came from. The moral of the story is, do your homework, avoid cameras, go in disguise, ditch your cars and don't use your bus pass. There were other reasons as to why so many of them got caught but these are the main ones and ones that I like to think that anyone out there in the business now would  consider to be common sense.

This is probably the best film to be released in the UK this September.

Ant-Man and the Wasp

There have been a lot of movies in between this review and the last review. It has been almost impossible to find the time or energy to sit down and write a review but I will try and write a review for movies such as: Ocean's 8, Mama Mia: Here We Go Again, The Incredibles 2, Dead Pool 2.

It has been a few years since Ant Man was released and it kinda of passed by a little unnoticed. Ant- Man was a great movie which briefly showed parts of the Shield base and led the way for a smaller super hero who may or may not team up with the Avengers in some way. When you watched it, it was easy to watch it as it's own movie and not think about it at all in relation to the Avengers movies. Then Ant-Man featured in 'Civil War' and that led the way for a sequel.

Scott is back from the quantum realm and also from Germany and is under house arrest, which would make you wonder how on earth they could create an entire movie when the protagonist is stuck in his house. Scott's visit to the quantum realm seemed to pair him up with Hope's mother and so Hope and her father kidnap Scott and use him to help them locate the mother/wife.

Of course there has to be a villain, so in comes Eva, a girl who has been exposed to quantum energy when her father's lab exploded and is in incredible pain. This movie is really the back story in to Hope's life and everyone seems to be after quantum energy and her mother. There are many fights and many sequences of becoming big and small which is very entertaining and what I liked about this movie is that it is light-hearted but it sticks to it's plot and doesn't try to make anything to complicated or fancy. Ant-Man teaming up with 'The Wasp (Hope)' enables them to have two battles going on and re-emphasises all the hard work done in the first movie to obtain the Wasp suit.

There's a happy ending and there will be a third movie.

Ant-Man is one of the best Marvel franchises still out there. Two solid, better than good movies without overdoing anything. Ant-Man can slip in to other movies but doesn't need to cross over in the same way that many of the other characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe do. Ant-Man doesn't need The Avengers to come and help him out in any of his movies because there is no need.

We enjoyed this movie and we enjoyed the previous movie as well. Ant- Man is the next big thing.

Tomb Raider

Lara Croft is back in the form of Alicia Vikander. I am and have always been a huge fan of hers and I was really excited for this movie. Tomb Raider needs a reboot and this movie has done it so well.

When Angelina Jolie made these movies I loved them and I think that most people did but we were always a little curious as to why, in the first movie, an American was playing a Brit while a Brit was playing and American. Maybe they haven't quite got round to casting a Brit in this role but at least we didn't have the same problem this time around.

There have been many questions going through my head since those movies were made. How did she maintain her money when she seemed to not really do any work? Why are the games SO different from the two movies that were made? I guess the idea is that they took a concept and made it work but as the games got more popular and started to develop back stories and more of a plot we as an audience started demanding more from our movies and so they decided to reboot the movies and draw on the games a little more.

This movie is like a prequel to the Jolie movies. This film explains what happens when her father goes missing and how she continues to live. Then she finds her father and has a bit of an adventure with him and manages to be like a female 'Indiana Jones' as well which means that we got a feeling of watching two movies at the same time! When this movie ends we know what she is going to do with her time, what happened to her father and what to expect from the next movie. The use of a bow and arrow reflects on the game character and also explains to us that being rich didn't mean that she grew up running around with guns. She only transfers to guns at the end and always prefers the bow and arrow. Everything about this setting has more reflection on some of the games and whatever people thought of the film wont seriously hinder the development of these movies because the games are so successful.

I really enjoyed this movie. I enjoyed the £2.50 I spent on it, the company of Bekah and the overall feel of the movie. I enjoyed Dominic West as her father and spent most of the movie staring at him asking myself where I knew him from (The Affair). Kristen Scott-Thomas was superb and her character is going to be one to watch with slight enjoyment. The same can be said for Derek Jacobi because I have many suspicions about his character role and I am waiting for the next movie to confirm or deny my suspicions.

Next up is Close Encounters of the Third Kind and then Ready Player One.

I, Tonya

This movie is half a documentary and half a movie. This makes it a good thing because if it were entirely a documentary I would not have watched it.

Margot Robbie stars as Tonya Harding who, if any of you remember was a figure skater, a very good one but one who never got the scores that she deserved. Tonya Harding was the first woman to land a triple in a competition and that should have earned her great fame but it didn't because she was disliked by the American judges and there was a lot of controversy over her landing a place at the Olympics.

I didn't know the story because I don't even remember Torvile and Dean winning their gold medals at that Olympics so I have no chance of knowing anything about this woman. She was correct, she didn't get the scores that she deserved because her skating was fantastic and her presentation was also exceptionally good. She just came from a family where her mother was crazy and just insulted her, told her that she was no good and threw knives at her. Her father left when she was a child and her mother had to raise her whilst working, which is always difficult.

To work out the actual events of this story is fairly hard because what they say in the documentary and what they say in the acted parts of the movie are totally different and contradict each other; meaning that you came out of the movie still a little confused as to what was the actual truth and what was made up. In the end, her husband was an idiot who tried to scare off other competitors with a well thought out plan and let it be executed by a total idiot. Tonya knew about it, didn't stop the plot to send death threats but didn't actually get involved in any of it and she was given a lifetime ban from skating which was stupid and unfair because the others received minor prison sentences for their part in the attack on another world class skater and yet she had her life ruined for not actually being involved in anything.


For me that was the worst part, the unfair system and a life that was ruined by an idiot. In the movie he is made out to abuse her and his friend was a total idiot. She was a victim her entire life and got treated like rubbish for it.

The soundtrack was fantastic. Fleetwood Mac and some other old school rock songs just summed up why she wasn't liked. It should have been okay to be different and the country should have been embracing it but they weren't and they didn't. She worked hard to get to her level and she deserved more than what she got. I learnt from this movie but I can fully see why it wasn't really pushing for any awards. I felt like Alison Janey was playing a similar character to one that I have become accustomed to seeing her take on and for me that was why I wasn't convinced that she was the outright winner of the award for best female actor in a supporting role. The movie is good enough but not a movie that I will add to my collection.

Black Panther

The most hyped marvel movie for a long time. I heard both positive and negative opinions about this movie.
The introduction of Black Panther in Avengers was much better than the introduction of Wonder woman in Batman vs Superman or Spiderman in Avengers. This is a superhero who only cares to protect his people. He doesn't use his powers to fight every evil that comes his way but only the ones that threaten his life and his world which in some ways could make him a little self centred but most superheroes are underneath it all.

Black Panther is a family affair. It takes you through a brief history and then moves to the current affairs of Wakanda. It is full of action, conflict, technology, compassion and morals. None of the stunts looked unreal and they resisted the temptation to go overboard with the technology or the sequencing which made it feel more real.


In this movie there is an obvious villain who at times is a little unnecessary but is probably one of the most controlled villains portrayed in a movie for a long time. What I liked the  most about him was that you could understand why he was doing what he was doing but you could also see that it was wrong and was not going to do any good. This is more than a battle of good and evil and that makes it a lot easier to watch.

This was better than Spiderman and Wonder woman. This is better than any superhero movie that has ever been  made. Black Panther is incredible and if they can continue to make exceptional stand alone movies then Black Panther will have the longest screen time of any hero in the cinematic universe. There is so much potential for crossovers within the cinematic universe as long as they do them properly. So many people got a chance to shine in this movie with stars like Forest Whitaker and Martin Freeman leading the line there was space for new stars and for old names like Andy Serkis to take on a different role.

I saw this movie with my brother and he was happy with the movie. He said that it followed the story of the comics and that it was true to itself. This movie was about putting Wakanda on the map and giving us a taste of what could be done and now it is time for the creators and cast to rise up, make more of these movies to this high standard and go also take the time to make a few different movies and show us what they can really do. Daniel Kuwayla has already done a few things such as 'Black Mirror' and 'Get Out'. This movie will help further his career but he needs to build on it and expand the platform that he has created for himself.

Everyone involved in this movie should be proud of themselves.

Finding your feet.

Finding your feet is a movie that you probably watch with your parents. I certainly did. On a freezing, icy cold day I took my mother to see it and we both really enjoyed it. When it comes to movies you shouldn't disregard any because of the target audience. This movie had a fantastic cast. If you liked 'Bridget Jones's Diary' then you like Celia Imrie and if you liked Harry Potter 5 then you know who Imelda Staunton is. I loved her so much in the West end production of 'Gypsy' that I now just watch any movie that she is in.

Finding your feet is about dealing with divorce. It's about learning how to live again  after your life has fallen apart. You don't need money or a title to have a good time and see the world, or even to do things that you enjoy and this film shows it in so many different ways.

There were a lot of laughs in this movie and a lot of fantastic and hilarious moments but there was also a plot, a story that was told and it done in the right amount of time as well. Finding your feet has taken the problems that we are more likely to face as we get older and shown us to go back to our roots and what we are good at. To not be afraid of what others might think and to live our life because we only have one and the do need to make sure that we use the time that is given to us.

In this movie I witnessed a different Imelda Staunton to the one that I most recently saw. I even enjoyed Timothy Spall,whom cannot change the way that he looks so often finds it hard to blend in. Even though it will not be taking home any awards, it was probably as much fun to make as it was to watch and it is certainly a movie to watch when things aren't going your way.

The Post

This seems to be something of a remake of the movie 'All The President's Men' but I haven't seen it so I will take the word of others.

Meryl Streep stared in this movie alongside Tom Hanks. I honestly am starting to grow a little bit of admiration for Tom Hanks but I still wont list him as a great actor because it is only his more recent movies that I have actually enjoyed. I struggle now to know when he is acting and when he isn't but that doesn't bother me so much anymore. There comes a time in your career when you been in so many movies that you cannot take on another role properly anymore. It happened with Johnny Depp; the last role that he successfully created was John Dillinger in the movie 'Public Enemies'. No disrespect to Depp but now almost every role that he plays turns in to Jack Sparrow. Before Jack Sparrow and whilst those movies were picking up he could make other movies and change characters successfully but now he can't and he has to start to accept that he can't because his movies are proving that and this is the same for Tom Hanks. I liked his role in this movie and I liked him a lot in it but I do see Tom Hanks, rather than a character in these movies.

Rant aside, this movie is about the newspaper leaks concerning the information on the Vietnam War. It was scandalous and the newspaper in question actually leaked more than other newspapers and like the other newspapers, they went to court and eventually won. The point of this movie is to focus on the character of Streep. She owns the newspaper and she inherited it from her father. Throughout the movie she is portrayed as a weak and indecisive character who is selling the company and not sure what she should do. Should she publish these reports and risk being taken to court, which will in turn greatly impact the value of her company in the stock market? Should she sell the company at all? Should she fight with Bob over this? She never seems to make a decision, always sticking to what the lawyer advises until at the last moment she has the courage to ignore everyone else and make her own decision which leads to all the other papers publishing some of the leaks and a revolution for the freedom of the press.

Again, this is another slice of history that I was never really taught about so it was another educational visit to the cinema for me and one that I enjoyed. There was no real drama so it didn't make me emotional which in turn then didn't impact my decisions emotionally. I liked everyone in this movie, I enjoyed this movie and I learned a lot from it. I would like to encourage anyone who like me, was never taught anything about the Vietnam War to watch this movie.

Darkest Hour

This has become more of a hobby and less of a weekly/daily activity that drives my life. I still spend time in the cinema but I am no longer actively watching older movies that I may have missed along the way.

Darkest Hour is a film about Churchill and as I know nothing about Churchill because I studied WW2 I knew that I had to watch this film. Gary Oldman won the BAFTA and OSCAR for this movie and he thoroughly deserved it. The makeup department won a BAFTA and their work was so incredible that when you were watching the movie you couldn't tell from the face or voice who it was which made it so easy to just sit back and enjoy the movie. I didn't have to try and assess an actors performance because I knew in the back of my head who it was but it wasn't glaring at me.

The contents of this film picks on Churchill taking over, the evacuation of Dunkirk and eventually winning over the people with one of the greatest speeches in time. He was phenomenal and I learned so much from this movie. These types of movies are some of the best types of movies because I can get emotional and know that it actually happened. For some people watching this movie it's like they were reliving history. What they were watching on screen actually happened in their life time and it wasn't just a movie to them but they came out of the cinema screen talking about what a fantastic film it was, how accurate it was and how similar to Churchill Oldman's portrayal was.

Another massive shout out to Kristen Scott- Thomas as Mrs. Churchill. He was a difficult character and that made her life difficult as well but she knew that and she married him anyway. She struggled to live with the pressure that was on his shoulders and equally on hers but in this movie she was so strong and determined. Having seen I, Tonya I still feel that Scott- Thomas was better than Alison Janney. My disappointment is that she didn't win any awards for her performance in this movie because she truly did deserve them and even though there were a lot of good movies last year and there have already been a lot of good movies this year she has been the strongest supporting lady in a movie that I have seen (I haven't seen 'The Shape of Water').

Churchill is a phenomenal movie and if you haven't seen it then you should make sure that you do.

Pitch Perfect 3

The final instalment in this series and after the second movie we were all thankful that they were going to end it. The first movie was so good and it ended in a way that almost left it perfectly for another movie to guide them through the next year but when the second movie didn't pick up from the end of the first movie we all knew that there were going to be problems. There were huge problems so it pleases me to say that this movie is ten times better than the second one!

The song choice is better, the plot is better, everything is better. There is still the comedy but they go back to where they are and this movie is just about each of them working out who they want to be and where they want to go. There is a lot more focus on 'Fat Amy' (Rebel Wilson) which is nice because she really was fighting with 'Becca' (Anna Kendrick) for the spotlight. They worked hard on this movie and the compilation of songs is brilliant. It kinda went a way that I wasn't expecting but the film felt finished and we enjoyed it a lot more than the previous movie.

It is fitting that they managed to get in 'Zombie' by 'The Cranberries' because for those of you who aren't rock fans, you probably wont know that the singer died a few weeks ago. I enjoyed their version of it and I was very impressed and excited by it. DJ Khaled was himself because he was supposed to be himself. I didn't really know who he was until watching this movie and even though I hate that he ripped off 'Maria Maria' which features Carlos Santana on the guitar I can learn his other music and I quite like that he is a DJ and a producer rather than attempting to sing or rap. Anyone that can make Justin Bieber sound slightly bearable deserves a lot of credit. It's all about your taste in music but he was solid in this movie and that can only help to promote his music.

The one thing that I did like a lot was the British love interest for Becca. The character of 'Theo' was actually very good and he did everything that he needed to do in order to bring Becca to a new level. The Jesse love interest is over and done with and there wasn't anywhere else they could go with it so giving her a new life and a new interest has actually worked out very well for this movie.

There is class to this movie. If you enjoyed the first movie then you should enjoy this movie.