Tag Archives: Tilda Swinton

The Killer – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It is an odd but compelling film where we dive into the mind of a professional killer when everything falls apart.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

The Killer sets up his shot.

The Killer Review –

A revenge film can be a challenging beast to pull off. Because if you don’t work on making the motivations land, then you just have a slasher flick. However, what if you had a cold, distant killer taking on interesting characters, and you can pull that off thematically? Well, that is the film that we are looking at today.

So to set the scene, it is a quiet morning in Paris as The Killer (Michael Fassbender) waits for The Target (Endre Hules) in a cold and gloomy room. He waxes philosophically as he sits there waiting. He has one job, to kill his target, and he does not care who it is as long as he is paid. But what happens when, at the last second, someone gets in the way of your target, and your whole reputation disappears instantly? How many redundancies did you really plan? Are they enough? And are you prepared for the coming storm?

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Asteroid City – Movie Review

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TL;DR – The framing device does not work, but that is not a significant issue, as it is still an entertaining romp even without it.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

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

Mechanics.

Asteroid City Review –

Wes Anderson is one of those filmmakers with entirely his own style and can delight or confuse. Before I see one of his films, I am always wondering which way the pendulum will swing for me, and I think this is one of his works that will hit people differently. As I have heard people gushing over it and others bringing a more meh response. But it is finally time for the film in Australia, and it is time for us to check it out.

So to set the scene, we are introduced to a Host (Bryan Cranston) that introduces us to an anthology TV series that is showing the story behind the stage play Asteroid City by noted playwright Conrad Earp (Edward Norton), which is then presented to us as the movie proper. In a small out of the way town of Asteroid City in the middle of the American desert, there is a crater, an inn, a research centre, and an unfinished overpass. Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman), a noted war photojournalist, has arrived officially because his son Woodrow (Jake Ryan)  is a Junior Stargazer. Still, unofficially because their mother is dead, and he is about to dump his kids on their grandfather Stanley (Tom Hanks). But things change when he meets Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson), and oh, the world changes.  

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Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A work of art that hits on every emotional level from start to finish.    

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

Pinocchio but just a puppet.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio Review –

Some names instantly intrigue you when you hear they are attached to a project. Which is entirely what happened when I heard that Guillermo del Toro was going to make a Pinocchio film. This alone was enough to interest me. Then you discover that it will be an animated film, not just that, a stop-motion animation film, and the masters of puppets, The Jim Henson Company, will produce it. Well, that is a combination that could not be missed, and I am fundamentally glad I watched it.   

 So to set the scene, master craftsman Geppetto (David Bradley) lost his only child Calro (Gregory Mann), during the Great War when he was only ten years old. A stray bomb destroyed the church that they were working in, and it is a loss that he has never recovered from. Sometime later, Sebastian J. Cricket (Ewan McGregor), a travelling cricket, came to live in the tree planted at Carlo’s grave and watched as a drunk Geppetto laments over his lost son. But as that is happening, some old spirits from the forest who typically ignore humanity hear the pleas of the grieving father and when he cuts down the pine tree that was planted at the grave to turn it into a puppet. So The Wood Sprite (Tilda Swinton) looks over the creation and then brings that puppet Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) to life.   

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Three Thousand Years of Longing (3000 Years of Longing) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While it might meander to the end, it shines when it delves into stories and vignettes of the past.    

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to see this film.

Three Thousand Years of Longing the book.

Three Thousand Years of Longing Review –

Few films have ever captured my soul quite like Mad Max Fury Road, a movie that changed and shaped my engagement with cinema. It made such an impact that when I heard that the team behind the film, including director George Miller, were back for another ride. Well, I had to check that out on the opening day.

So to set the scene, once upon a time when humans flew through the skies on metal wings while pulling stories out of the air on their glass pads. A Narratologist called Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) is making her annual trip from her gloomy home in England to a more exotic land in Istanbul to attend a conference of peers. But when she arrives, she starts to see things that are not quite right. Ignoring them as artifacts of her over-active imagination, she spends some time in Istanbul’s Grand Bazar, and she picks the one junk pile, in one of the rooms, in one of the thousands of shops and finds a glass jar whose life told a story. But she got more than what she wished for when in her hotel room, she decided to clean the jar up and inside was a powerful Djinn (Idris Elba) who gave her three wishes.   

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Movie Review – Isle of Dogs

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TL;DR – There are some aspects, like the animation which are superb, but also some things like some of the story aspects that leave you wondering why did they make that choice.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Isle of Dogs

Review –

Hmmm, this is a difficult film to review because as much as it is unique work of art celebrating a form of animation that you don’t see much these days. It is also a deeply problematic story with regards to some aspects of its narrative and characterisation, and as such, it is hard to rectify these two halves. Well, it might be difficult, but then that is what we are here to do today so it is time to rise to the occasion and dive into the world of dogs.

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Movie Review – Okja

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TL;DR – Beautiful, moving, devastating, unsettling, emotional, heart-breaking & powerful

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

P.S. – There is a post-credit scene

Okja. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

Wow, just wow, for a long time Netflix has been moving into the movie distribution industry, but so far they really have not put out anything truly remarkable, focusing more on Adam Sandler type movies, when they actually get around to promoting them. So when some friends in the industry mentioned that Okja was the real thing, I was surprised, then I found out that it was made by Bong Joon-ho, whose Snowpiercer was a fascinating film, even if I did have a couple of issues with it. So I loaded up Netflix, put out my lunch, and wondered what we were going to see, and I can honestly say I was not prepared for the feels, in any way shape and form.

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Movie Review – Doctor Strange

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TL;DR – This is visually one of the best Marvel films ever produced, strong cast, overall a great film, though I do have to say these Marvel films are starting to feel a bit safe.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

P.S. There is a mid and end credit sequence

Doctor Strange. Image Credit: Marvel/Disney.

Review –

Well, this Marvel machine keeps on churning, earlier this year we had the fantastic Captain America: Civil War [See Review] which at the time of writing is still on track to be my film of the year, but now Marvel takes a different tack and jumps into the world of the ‘mystical’. In many respects, Doctor Strange is an interesting film because at times it is almost at arms distance from the rest of the cinematic universe, yet also it is almost the most ‘Marvel’ film Marvel has put out.

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Movie Review – Hail Caesar

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TL;DR – Hail Caesar is an interesting film, with a lot going on, but that is much of the problem, its scattershot nature means the film lacks real substance, but it still has a lot of spectacle to make up for it.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Hail Caesar. Image Credit: Universal.

Review –

This is an interesting film, but it is also a very flawed film and that makes it quite difficult to review, or at least score. There are some really interesting ideas at play here, and there are also some amazingly wonderful set pieces throughout which are a joy to watch. However, it is trying to do so much, that it just can’t do any of the ideas justice, so it just feels like a scattershot of a film, which is a bit a disappointment.

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