Tag Archives: Meryl Streep

Hoppers – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A perfectly charming if conceptually muddied film.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid- and end-credit scene.

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

All the animals imitating a sound.

Hoppers Review Introduction –

There was a time when Pixar could do no wrong, when every film they dropped was gold, and they were adored at the box office. We are no longer living in that era, with several of Pixar’s recent films being dropped straight to Disney+, which is never a good sign. But we are now jumping back to the cinemas with an original story, and that is worthy of checking out.  

So, to set the scene, Mable (Piper Curda) always grew up with a special connection with her grandmother (Karen Huie). She would take Mable down to a local glade where she could find her calm, watching the animals go about their lives. Well, Mable is now 19, her grandmother is now gone, and the spiteful mayor of Beaverton, Jerry Generazzo (Jon Hamm), is trying to destroy the glade to put up an expressway. Mable is fighting with all her energy, but no one else seems to care, which is when she spots a lone beaver doing something odd. She follows it back to Beaverton University when she discovers her professor, Samantha “Sam” Fairfax (Kathy Najimy), has created Avatar technology allowing you to enter a robot animal and understand the world around you. Well, Mable just needs one beaver to move back into the glade, and she can stop the construction … So maybe it is time to download herself into a robot and try to find that one beaver who can make a difference.

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Project Hail Mary – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Project Hail Mary is everything a sci-fi film should be: bold, evocative, immersive, and wonderous.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Warning – Some scenes contain flashing lights.

Warning – Contains scenes which may cause distress.

The Hail Mary floating next to a much larger alien ship.

Project Hail Mary Review Introduction –

As I sit down to write this review, I feel like I am floating a touch on air, as if I had just witnessed something glorious to behold. Something I hoped would be good, but which delivered in ways not even I was expecting. It’s a rare film that not only meets expectations but exceeds them.   

So, to set the scene, a man wakes up sealed in a bag, not able to talk, and is accosted by some persistent medical device. He does not know who he is. He does not know where he is. He does not know why there are two dead bodies with him. And you better believe he does not know why he is on a spaceship, or why the star he is looking at is not Sol. There are flashes of memory, of a dying Sun, a Petrova line to Venus, and microbes called Astrophage eating it away. But the man whom the computer says is Dr Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) doesn’t have much time to think about things when the computer alerts him to Blip-A, and he realises he is not the only spaceship out here.     

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Movie Review – The Laundromat

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TL;DR – A film with good intentions that nevertheless ends up talking down to its audience rather than empowering them as it is trying to do.    

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

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

The Laundromat. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

I think it is a good description of the world at the moment that a couple of years ago one of the biggest leaks of information that changed how we look at the entire banking sector and we have kind of forgotten about it. The Panama Papers was this huge revelation but it is almost surprising that we have not seen anyone try to encapsulate it in media form before now. Well, today we look at a film that does just that, in a weird, slightly absurdist way.

So to set the scene, we open in on Ellen Martin (Meryl Streep) who along with her husband Joe (James Cromwell) is starting the celebrations of their wedding anniversary by taking a boat tour of a local lake. Tragedy strikes when Captain Richard Paris (Robert Patrick) misses a rogue wave and is not able to turn the boat in time causing it to capsize killing Joe and many others. Ellen’s grief is amplified when they find out while the boat tour company thought they were insured, it was all fraud, a fake company, based out of a shell corporation, hidden behind a trust. Leading her down the well of how the wealthy hide their money.

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Movie Review – Mary Poppins Returns

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TL;DR – This is a film with two halves, the beautiful story of a family coming together in the face of a crisis with the help of Mary Poppins, but also a story about how it is individuals and not big corporations that are bad … from Disney … umm  

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

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

Mary Poppins Returns . Image Credit: Disney.

Review –

Mary Poppins is a movie that is quite dear to me. When I was a child it was one of those films that we would watch as a family on a Saturday night. I honestly I was not really all that on board with the remake/sequel hybrid film all the trailers seemed to imply that we were about to get. As well as this, I am starting to get a little tired of Disney’s ‘Weaponised Nostalgia Era’.  Well, that is what I thought walking in, but then a wave of joy enveloped my life leaving a smile on my face and tears rolling down my face.  

So to set the scene, it has been a number of years since the first film and the Banks’ children have grown up. Michael (Ben Whishaw) is, well was, a painter, who married and had three lovely children Annabel (Pixie Davies), John (Nathanael Saleh) and Georgie (Joel Dawson) before his wife tragically died. This has understandably sent ripples through the family, made all the worse when there is a knock on the door and we discover that the bank is foreclosing on the house because Michael has fallen behind paying back a loan, the same bank his father helped run, and the same bank he currently works for. Well, the whole family, including his sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) helps to look for their father’s shares in the bank in the last ditch effort in saving the house, when who should appear at the end of a kite, none other than Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) herself.

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Movie Review – The Post

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TL;DR – A wonderfully filmed, brilliantly acted look at what was one of the most controversial periods in United States’ history. While it is interesting it does take a bit to get going.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – No

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Review –

I don’t think a film in recent history has had an easier sell as The Post, a film directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Meryl Streep & Tom Hanks, scored by John Williams, and based on one of the most controversial periods in United States’ history. Indeed, this is a kind of line up that you don’t see happen very often, and it is truly amazing to see it all come together. That being said there are some structural issues that do hold it back, and it does have a very clear message, and it is subtle about it which might work for you or not.

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