Tag Archives: Bill Camp

Drive-Away Dolls – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It is a wild but somewhat inconsistent ride that will bring the laughs but probably does not have the lasting effect they were going for.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Love is a sleigh ride to HELL.

Drive-Away Dolls Review –

The early 200s was a wild time for the raunchy road trip film, with gems like Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and EuroTrip. For a while, they had fallen out of fashion, maybe because the old focus of those films no longer ran true for modern audiences. However, in the last few years, we have started to see a resurgence in this genre, and it is just such a film that we are looking at today.  

So to set the scene, we opened in Philadelphia in 1999 on the cusp of the new Millennium or, as it was known at the time, the Willennium. Here, there are two good friends, Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), who could not be more different. But when Jamie breaks up with her girlfriend Sukie (Beanie Feldstein), well more, she gets dumped after multiple cheating incidents. Jamie decides to tag along on Marian’s trip to Tallahassee, Florida, to help Marian get some. The only problem is that Jamie persuades Marian to use a service to cut down on the cost by driving a car down there for free (a drive-away). The only problem is that something else might be taking the trip with them, a something that many people want.

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Musings on The Leftovers (or did Nora Lie?)

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TL;DR – In which I wax lyrical or ramble about the series The Leftovers and its exploration of faith and truth.

Warning – Contains scenes which may cause distress.

Disclosure – I paid for the Binge service that viewed this series.

Two men on a roof after an apocalypse that didn't happen.

The Leftovers Review –

Today, we will do something a little different than usual in that we will be less of a review and more of a retrospective on a series. Well, it’s not quite a retrospective, but more some musings that have been rumbling around in my head for months and that I better put down on paper somewhere so I can let them go rather than pondering on them all the time. With that in mind, we delve into the world of guilt, trauma, religion, faith, and crisis.

So to set the scene, three years before the start of the series on October 14th, 2011, two per cent of the world’s population vanished instantly. One hundred forty million people were gone in a moment of time, with no rhyme or reason as to why they were chosen. A child was screaming one second, gone the next. A family was eating breakfast one moment and gone the next. The person you were holding hands with during a science experiment, the person you were making love with, all gone. How do you move on after an event like this? Can you? Can society? Can the town of Mapleton and the Garvey family? Now from here, we will be looking at the whole series as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Movie Review – Dark Waters

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TL;DR – A film that comes at you like the rising tide, slow at first and then before you know it you have become overwhelmed     

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Dark Waters. Image Credit: Universal Studios.

Review –


Having grown up in the era of Erin Brockovich, I am hard-wired to like a good biopic, especially one where someone takes down a major corporation that should have known better. Well, today we get to see a film that does pretty much all of that and does it very well indeed.

So to set the scene, we open back in the 1970s as a bunch of kids go skinny dipping in a lake in Parkersburg, West Virginia only to get shoed away from the site by men from the DuPont Corporation in a boat firing foam at a residue building up on the surface. Sometime later, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Robert Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) has just been made a partner in the Taft Stettinius & Hollister law firm when he is interrupted in a meeting by Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp) an old friend of Robert’s grandmother. He has a problem with his farm, ever since DuPont built a rubbish tip next door to his property all of his cattle have been dying of odd diseases. Robert is reluctant to intercede but he makes a trip out to Parkersburg and finds things are not what they seem.

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Movie Review – Joker

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TL;DR –  A hollow film trying to say something but knowing it actually has nothing to say and hoping you will be distracted by Phoenix’s performance not to notice.  

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Joker. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –

It has been a couple of days since I watched Joker and instead of writing the review right away I needed to let this film sit a percolate in my brain for a bit before I started writing. Part of that is because I have talked to a lot of people because there are a lot of different experiences with the film, so I wanted to make sure I knew the different perspectives before I dived in. But also because there are aspects of the film I quite like and those that I really don’t and I needed to work through that juxtaposition.    

So to set the scene, in the 1980s Gotham City is beset by a garbage strike and tempers are starting to flare as the piles of rubbish start to accumulate. On the outskirts of the city lives Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) who works as a clown during the day and looks after his housebound mother Penny (Frances Conroy) in the evenings. Which would be difficult enough for any person but Arthur suffers from a neurological condition that required multiple types of medication and still causes spontaneous uncontrollable laughter. Things are manageable for Arthur but as his life starts to unravel so does he.

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Movie Review – Red Sparrow

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TL;DR –  A deeply confronting and often times dull film, there is a single moment that will probably determine if you like Red Sparrow or not, which is a huge gamble for a film like this

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Red Sparrow banner

Review –

Wow, just like Jennifer Lawrence’s last film mother! (see review), Red Sparrow is running the gauntlet of reviews from amazing to trash and everything in between, and after seeing it I completely understand how you could come to such vastly different opinions on it. This is a film that is banking everything on its ending and how much you are going to gel with that is going to dramatically shape how you engage with this film because it can be a slog to get through at times. So what we are going to do today is look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of Red Sparrow. Then we will take a moment to look at that ending in a full spoilery moment.

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Movie Review – Molly’s Game

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TL;DR – Exploring the interplay of power and greed, and how lives can change in an instant, also you got Aaron Sorkin walk and talks, so what’s not to like?

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – No

Molly's Game

Review –

Today is an interesting week because we are looking at a film that is both from a first-time director but also one of the industries long-time greats, Aaron Sorkin. So today we will see if his walk and talk dialogue works when he is the one behind the camera? Now before we start, because of the way the film is structured it is hard to talk about it at all without getting into [SPOILER] territory almost immediately, so if you have not seen the film probably be careful when proceeding.

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Movie Review – The Killing of a Sacred Deer

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TL;DR – No matter how well it is filmed or acted, I can’t recommend it on the story alone which is a deeply disturbing slog with no real redeemable features.

Score – 1.5 out of 5 stars

The Killing of a Sacrificial Deer. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review –

Oh boy, is this is a tough film to review, and I am going to be honest right from the start that I’ll be quite negative towards the film because of its subject material. Now you might agree with this or not, but for me personally, I found this film to be deeply disturbing and frankly I completely understand why people walked out of my showing. Just a warning that there will be major spoilers in this review.

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