Scrooge (Or Marleys Ghost)

A new tradition

Director: ???
Writer(s): ???
Run Time: 6 Minutes 42 Seconds

Plot: Essentially the plot of every Christmas Carol movie, except this is a silent movie from 1901. 

I'm hoping to start a tradition, in which every year on Christmas Day I post a review of a Christmas Carol film, in chronological order. I don't know why but I just think it would be nice to see every version of the classic film, from 1901 to now. There have been so many versions of the story, each trying its best to be the definitive classic, word for word, scene for scene from the book, each however, adding something new and beautiful to the story without compromising the whole story.

This short film is a lot different. For example, it was made in 1901 and is the earliest known version of A Christmas Carol. It's silent and therefore unable to be word for word but still has the overall message of peace and good will to all. So let's get into it.

The film starts with Scrooge and Cratchit working late Christmas Eve, Cratchit asks Scrooge if he can have Christmas Day off to spend time with his family and Scrooge allows him, although he doesn't seem all that happy about it. Cratchit is bowing and bobbing away in thanks and Scrooge is waving at him dismissively, like he doesn't care. Which...he most likely doesn't at this point in the story anyway. Scrooge then throws down his quill, paces for a moment and then gets an idea, puts his hat on, blows out his candle and leaves.

Next, there is a title card with the words Scene II Marleys Ghost Shows Scrooge visions of himself in Christmasses Past. There is something white in the background of the title card that I can't really make out. I'm not sure what it is but it looks like a body so in this story I guess it could really be anybody's.

In this scene, Scrooge walks up to his "door". I put door in quotation marks because it is quite clearly a set piece, and not even a convincing one. Given the time period though they didn't really have much to work with and it works just fine. Scrooge fumbles around in his coat for his keys, finds the right one and goes to unlock his door when, part of the door disappears and a head pops through, kind of like that old John Cena meme that everybody green screened into other memes. It looks like a woman but if you know the story, it's not a woman, it's Jacob Marley's ghost. I'm going to take a minute to talk about the editing and effects here because even though they're terrible, they're impressive.

This is a 1901 film, the careful and precise editing that would have gone into this one short scene would have been immense. It would have taken a lot of time, patience and skill and honestly, even though it looks cheap, it looks good. Obviously it's nothing on today's editing and effects and stuff but for it's time period, it's not half bad.

Back to the story. Marley's face seems to spook Scrooge enough that he does the classic "hold your arms out in front of you and scream because you're scared" move and then the face disappears.  Scrooge slowly goes up to his door and touches the knocker, relieved that he was only hallucinating what he had just gone through. He still backs his way into his house in an overly dramatic way but wouldn't you?

Scrooge then walks into a room that looks like a living room and seems afraid of the door separator. I don't know why, I don't even know if it is a door separator. Either way, Scrooge manages to get his jacket off and put it on the chair behind him. He takes his hat off too, puts that on a table or shelf, whichever it is and turns around to once again get scared by something, only to then continue with his routine. It looks like he's being pestered by a ghost as he picks up his dressing gown but it also kind of looks like he's just jumping at everything too. Both would be understandable, I'd be jumpy as hell if I saw my dead friends face on my door.

He finally gets his gown and night cap on, goes to his window, gets scared at absolutely nothing (unless it was snowing, that's a whole other story) and closes his curtains. On his way to his table, he seems to hear a noise, he looks at where it came from and thinks "ah fuck it" and sits at his table anyway. He eats a couple of spoonfuls of whatever it is in the bowl that was already on the table, stretches and yawns, puts his elbow on the table, his head in his hand and goes to sleep. This is Ebeneezer Scrooge right? Not a millennial teenager?

Marley comes out of the curtain with a white sheet draped over him to represent he's a ghost, 'cause how else are you gonna do that in this time period? He then points at him, Scrooge waves his arms back and Marley retreats into the table to show Scrooge some of his childhood Christmasses.

The first is, I think, Scrooge and his mother. They seem to be preparing the table for dinner. While this scene is layered over Scrooge and Marley, you can see Scrooges reaction to seeing this. He grabs his chest, and looks away, he then looks back and points at the scene before him in disbelief. As young Scrooge and the woman walk away, present day Scrooge can be seen holding his head in his hand in sadness.

The next scene shown is Scrooge meeting Belle, talking with her, falling in love with her and her leaving him. Not much is done to show why she leaves but this is a 6 minute film from the 1900's so you take what you can. While this is playing, Scrooge is absolutely hamming it up with his performance, it's beautiful to watch. He's screaming with his arms wide open and not looking at the scene playing out in front of him but he can't help but look at it. It's great. He even collapses to his knees facing away from the scene, that's how emotional he gets. As he does this, Marley's ghost walks over to the curtains. No attempt made at comforting his old friend, just a wave and a fade away, leaving Scrooge to throw open his curtain in search of his ghost pal.

Then, there is another title card. Scene III Visions of  Christmas Present Bob Cratchitt and Fred drink "To Mister Scrooge!" In this scene, a family is fussing around a table with a sign hanging above them. On that sign is the iconic phrase "God bless us, every one". The sign looks like it came from a church which...honestly I don't know how to feel about that. If it is from a church then it shows the family as the religious type which is fine, but if that's the case, why is it in their house? Is it stolen? Was it gifted to them? I'm never even going to get an answer, why bother even asking?

A young woman enters from the left side of the screen and is immediately ambushed by everyone at the table for hugs, a fairly normal christmas tradition. Everyone then starts bussling around to either sit or get food on the table when Cratchit gets home. He is welcomed with love and someone popping out from under the table...another classic Christmas move? Bob then goes over to greet his young son, Tiny Tim, and picks him up looking like he's about to launch him across the room, (it's down to where I paused it not an actual point in the story.) Instead he carries him over to the head of the table, sits him down and goes to carve the food.

The ghost of Marley and Scrooge are faded into the corner of the screen while Scrooge continues his chest grabbing, although this time it's in disbelief. "Me? The toast of dinner? My goodness I just can't believe it." This sort of acting is my favourite. These days, it wouldn't fly, nobody would have it. At best you'd be called an amateur and at worst you'd be called a terrible actor adn to never grace the stage or screen again. But looking at it for the time period, it's not bad, even if it is a little hammy. Scrooge is just loving his moment, being the toast of the dinner...even though he isn't really there.

After Scrooge looking like he's thanked God for this, we're swept away into the next scene, at his nephew Fred's house, where there is another sign which says "A Merry Xmas" which...was Xmas a thing back then? Honestly I thought it was a recent thing in dealing with cultural sensitivity around Christmas and it's apparent prominence over other religious holidays that take place at the same time. Maybe there was a specific sensitivity at the time or maybe sign makers just got lazy, I don't know.

In Fred's house, they start their toast to Scrooge at the same time he and Marley's ghost pop onto the screen, almost as if it was meant to look like an accident, Fred and the others at the table do the world's fastest toast, Scrooge and Marley fade out and that's the scene. Apparently Fred didn't deserve as much screen time as Bob.

Next comes the best part of any version of A Christmas Carol adaptation, "Scene IV  The Christmas That Might Be Marley's ghost shows Scrooge his own Grave and the death of 'Tiny Tim.'" Could have given us a spoiler warning pal, some of us haven't read the book. That weird white body thing is also floating around in the background of this title card again which is weird because it wasn't there for the last one. The scene itself opens up with a man walking across Scrooges grave, which is engraved with just his name. The man is then followed by Marley's ghost who is finding the need for that sheet in the cold wintery snowy graveyard. Scrooge walks onto the screen begging and praying and falling to his knees in anguish, he begins to cry and then the film ends.

This is the longest version I could find and apparently it must have been longer but for whatever reason, the rest is no longer available. It's quite a nice film and for the time period, it's really good. Even without speech you can follow the story which is fairly simple. Honestly, if you think you've seen all the incarnations of A Christmas Carol, you probably haven't because you probably didn't know this one existed. I'll leave a link so you can watch it and be amazed at the earliest known version of A Christmas Carol on film.

Scrooge (Or Marley's Ghost)

Anyway, that's it for today. Enjoy your day, peace and love to you all and may God bless us, every one.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.

Deck The Halls

Matthew Broderick sucks but this movie doesn't.

Director: John Whitesell
Writers: Chris Ord
                Matt Corman
                Don Rhymer
Run time: 1hr 30minutes

Plot: The Finch family get some new neighbours who Steve (Matthew Broderick) sees as a threat to his perfect Christmas plans, especially when Buddy (Danny DeVito) decides he wants to be recognised for something.

Did you ever watch the live action version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas? Of course you have, for some reason that one is a classic staple of everyone's Christmas movie list, that's beside the point. Do you remember the scene where Martha May Whovier (Christine Baranski) is absolutely just one-upping Betty Lou Who (Molly Shannon)'s Christmas lights? So did the writers of this film. They remembered how truly hilarious that scene was, wrote a script around the idea and thought that this hilarity should be fronted by Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito. Now I'm not a huge fan of Broderick, he's just boring to watch and hi voice does my head in, and I've got nothing against Danny DeVito, I'm just not a fan of his stuff, but this film actually isn't all that bad. If I'm flicking through the channels and I see it, I put it on. It's a fun little film, even if it is full of problems. What are the problems I don't hear you ask? I'm gonna tell you.

First problem, and it's a big one. There is only one person that cares about what's going on, and he's made out to be a complete dick, that guy, is Broderick. The film acts like he's being unreasonable about all these lights being shone at all hours but...he's not. He's an eye doctor, that shit's important, and if you blind your town's eye doctor 'cause you want to be seen from space, then who's the real loser here? Also, if you're constantly blasting out shit loads of light, you can damage people's sleep cycles, you can really mess with the birds and other night animals which is just fucking selfish, Personally, I don't care if you mess with other peoples sleep cycles (unless they're the few people I love in my life, obviously), but if you fuck up an animals sleep cycle, you're in the bad books kidda. I hate to say this, but I'm definitely on Brodericks side with this, don't be fucking obnoxious in the pursuit of someone elses dream.

Another problem, some of the humour just falls flat, it's either predictable or jokes don't land like, for example; the Finch's young son, Carter (Dylan Blue) is looking at an almost naked painting of Tia Hall (Kristin Chenoweth) from back when she was a model for live painting. Tia says something along the lines of "I was just so sick of dating boys" then waves her hand at Carter saying "no offence". I get that it's supposed to be a cute little joke but...it's not funny. There's another joke where the daughters from both families are doing a performance at the winter festival, a la Mean Girls, and Broderick and DeVito are just catcalling their daughters, shouting "Who's your daddy" at them. They turn around and of course the joke is the guys are their daddies. Hahahaha catcalling your daughter is hilarious. Comedy gold people, comedy gold.

Also, DeVito's character Buddy, what a stupid name by the way, is a complete dick. I really hate this kind of character in live action films, in animation it doesn't bother me as much because it's not as tied to reality, you don't see Mickey Mouse providing for a family and paying the mortgage do you? No, 'cause he's gotta teach those kids morals, so the follow your dream narrative is fine in a cartoon because it encourages kids to follow their passions and set kids up for the fall into the abyss that is adulthood. In a live action comedy, targeted mostly towards adults, this sort of behaviour doesn't fly. He decides that his family can survive off the attention the fairy lights are getting him, he gives up his job and does increasingly stupid things to spite his neighbour. It's a wonder his wife even went back to him after he pawned one of her most treasured posessions. If my boyfriend sold off one of my mum's rings, my dad's chain or hell, even got rid of little Ted, he'd be gone forever. Wouldn't have it, and Tia shouldn't have stuck around when he sold off her grandmothers vase. Maybe I'm just a bitch and won't take any shit from anyone but, that's just me, I couldn't forgive something like that, maybe she could with the spirit of Christmas in her heart and such.

Onto the good stuff now, the title is hilarious to me. Deck The Halls? Let me explain if you're not seeing what I think is so funny. There's the obvious meaning behind it, deck the halls, decorating the houses, the main characters are called the Halls, it's cute. What's cracking me up is the fact that "deck" is a word used for multiple things; wooden patio, a part of a boat, knocking someone out. Yeah, not in keeping with the Christmas spirit but in at least the North of England it means to knock someone out. So Deck the Hall's makes a pretty funny title considering all Steve wants to do is knock them out. I find it funny.

Another good thing is that it's not too full on with the message of Christmas which, y'know, it's not suble by any means, but it's nicely slid in there. It gets a little bit too tedious when Christmas films try to shove the message down your throat, when you can do that yourself at Christmas dinner. It's just a good thing.

The rest of...everything is pretty pedestrian, typical "neighbours at war" story but with a Christmas message. It's a good film though, I know I've not sung its praises or anything spectacular but that's because the film itself isn't anything spectacular. Should give it a watch though, it's on Netflix for the Christmas season which...is very short at this point, however you should still watch it, if you've not already.

Anyway, peace out, stay warm, stay hydrated, see you soon.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.

Scrooged

A more cynical telling of A Christmas Carol

Director: Richard Donner
Writers: Mitch Glazer
                Michael O'Donoghue
Runtime: 1hr 41 minutes

Plot: A TV Exec, who lives a parrallelI(ish) life to Ebenezer Scrooge, goes through a similar experience with the three ghosts.

I really like this movie. It's dark, it's funny, it's Bill Murray, it's a Dickens classic all dressed up for the modern world, it's just good. I don't know how else to praise it except for going into it so...here we go.

Let's get the bad out of the way first. There is a moment towards the end of the Ghost Of Christmas Present segment, where Frank (Murray) has come back after his experience with the Ghost of Christmas Past and is on his way down to see how the rehearsals are going for his show. This isn't just any rehearsal mind, it's the final dress rehearsal for a live TV performance. That's a stressful rehearsal, it's got to be perfect so that the people behind the scenes can feel comfortable that what they're putting out there is good. Now then, before Frank comes into the scene, we see how the rehearsal starts off. First with the words "Last dress rehearsal guys", then with the man playing Scrooge getting stuck on one of his lines and breaking character. BIG ol' no no. Don't do that in your last dress rehearsal. What happens after this? The cast is rewarded with an hours lunch. When this happened I just paused the film for a moment and thought "is this real life?" Is this really what writers think final dress rehearsals are? You fuck up a line and you get an hours break? No honey. In my experience with final dress rehearsals (I've not done any for TV but I've done for stage), you get your lunch when the final rehearsal is done. You mess up a line, you carry the hell on, you don't get lunch 'til your final run through is done. I don't know if they did things like this in the 80's but...I don't know, it just sounds weird to be that laid back.

Looking back on my notes, that's the only negative thing I wrote down worth making a point of, the rest are just easy jokes and aren't even that bad.

With that said, onto the good stuff, which amazingly, also has very few notes.

First good thing, the transitions between Frank and the ghosts in wherever they are and then Frank back in the real world are really good. They flow really well with the final moment of the previous scene and the start of the current one which...transitions should do really, but here they're almost flawless. Almost, because nothing is perfect, even in 80's Christmas.

Another cool thing is that the names aren't the same as the classic characters and I can think of two immediate reasons why. One, because in this universe, the story of A Christmas Carol already exists, it'd be a little too obvious to have your main character, who loves an almsot parrallel life to Scrooge, be named something similar. It's just easier to go with the classic Frank than...Edward or something. The other reason, so that you can separate this version from A Christmas Carol. Don't get me wrong, this is still a variation of the classic story, however, it's a very cynical version of the story and, honestly, I don't know how dark the original material is but everyone sees this as a warm story in which a man sees the error of his ways and comes to love Christmas as a time for Joy. This film kind of goes the same route, just not as family friendly, even with Bill Murray leading it. There are sex jokes, there are jokes about the temper of the Ghost of Christmas Present, there's a man holding a gun on an entire room to help Frank reinforce the ideals of Christmas. It's great.

Finally, I want to talk about the ghosts. They're not the classic versions of themselves and that's good, helps the film get more of its own identity rather than someone just going "oh the past ghost is a calm and patient being" "oh the present ghost is someone who just adores christmas" "well well well would ya look at that, the Ghost of Christmas future is dressed like death". The ghosts in this film seem to reflect Frank's experiences with people in the time periods he sees them in.

The first ghost, the Ghost of Christmas Past (David Johansen) is a very rough, New York taxi driver, in a reflection of his childhood and his father. His father was a dick and if you disregard the jokes about a 4 year old being unable to get a job...

Franks mother: Earl, he's only 4 years old
Franks father: All day long, I listen to people give excuses why they can't work. "My back hurts" "my legs ache" "I'm only 4"

This guy's a real dick, just how many people would see a New York taxi driver, looking the way he does, that's what you assume of him.

The next ghost, the Ghost of Christmas Present is hilarious in her representation. She represents the idea of Christmas hitting you in the face with it's happiness and love and joy and I know that happiness and joy are basically the same thing but she's just double happy. I wrote down in my notes that she was the "Ghost of Christmas abuse" which...really, Christmas is pretty abusive. Don't get me wrong, I was listening to Jingle Bell Rock back in August, I love Christmas, but the second it turns 00:00 on November first, Christmas is everywhere it gets fucking exhausting. There's just so much of it everywhere and it can feel like if you try to escape it, you get a slap from all the decorations or marketing people.

Finally, there's the ghost of Christmas Future. There's a scene after Frank gets dropped by the Ghost of Christmas Present and he almost immediately sees the costume of the Ghost of Christmas Future for the live show and has a bit of a breakdown, more than he already is. Which then transitions into him going into the elevator and coming across the actual ghost, who is dressed in a similar way. The costuming looks cheap but I promise it isn't. It's actually pretty clever, he's literally just seen something that scared him and because the future is uncertain, and the Ghost of Christmas Future is generally ambiguous due to the fact of it being uncertain. This being took the form that scared him the most and decided to take that form and run with it, scare the hell out of him and do what needs to be done.

That last paragraph felt like it should have been in an English exam, wow. Anyway, I really like this film, it's funny enough and dark enough for me to want to watch it again, probably if nothing else is on or if I'm just lounging about and bored. That does happen a lot though. So I'll probably watch this a lot over the next week or so.

Anyway, that's it for today, should get on it, it's on Netflix for now, I guess it will probably stop being on there after the Christmas period so go on. Peace out, stay hydrated kids. Have fun, love you. Bye.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.

Christmas!!

It's Christmas time guys and that means Christmas films.

Over this month I've not had any way of being able to post anything, my laptop has been getting fixed and the computers at uni are terrible. The whole atmosphere in that library is terrible and I just can't focus there. I recently had an essay and my friend was an absolute star in letting me use her laptop to do it, so I'm using her laptop to the fullest potential and blasting out all my December work.

I really am sorry I've not been able to get anything out but hopefully I'll get my laptop back by January and I can carry on as normal.

So the films I've got notes for this month and will post over the coming couple of weeks are...

Deck The Halls
Scrooged
Four Christmasses
Scrooge (Or Marley's Ghost)
The Nightmare Before Christmas

I'll see you guys soon then, peace out, stay hydrated, and stay warm.

Hush

This is a fucking sick film!


Director: Mike Flanagan

Writers: Mike Flanagan

               Kate Siegal

Run time: 1hr 12minutes

Plot: A deaf woman finds herself trapped in her secluded home, fighting for her life with a manic trying to kill her.

Important issues first, there is a cute little cat in this film but don’t you worry, it’s ok, it survives to the end so if you watch this film after you’ve read this review then you won’t have a mini heart attack. With that out of the way, let’s get to the other important thing here, the film. Hush is in the critically acclaimed section of Netflix, and rightfully so, it’s pretty damn good and is the film that spawned my love for John Gallagher Jr. I may have mentioned before that I love this guy but I’m not sure, either way I love this guy. He’s a good actor and it sucks that he’s not in the mainstream eye all that much. Then again if he’s doing smaller films like this maybe it’s best he stays out of the big ol’ spotlight. Besides the point. The point is, this is a great film and I’m gonna tell you why.

It’s an almost silent film. How can nobody appreciate that? It’s rare as hell, in fact the only thing I’ve seen lately that’s a quiet / silent film and that’s the upcoming Emily Blunt and John Kraninski film (name of movie here). The only thing you can hear in this is Maddie’s (Kate Siegel) breath, the sounds being made around the house and John Gallagher Jr talking every now and then. The almost absence of sound absolutely draws you in. You’re listening out for Maddie as if you could help her and tell her where this psycho is. You’re listening out for everything for her because...honestly there’s no boring dialogue to sit through, no overly talked out exposition giving us the characters backstory, their grandmothers backstory and a random rocks ancestry. It’s a nice break. Genuinely.

Another pretty cool thing to do with this film was to make the main character deaf. Everybody’s always talking about representation for everybody and this is a damn good representation of a woman who will not be held back by her inability to speak or hear. There are some crazy things this girl does which is dumb but I won’t hold it against her because she’s a fucking badass. At one point guys, she’s been shot in the leg with an arrow and she carries the fuck on. Later on in the film she dips into her hole in her leg, gathers some blood on her finger and writes on the window, daring her tormentor to kill her, calling him a coward. If she’s not a character to look up to then I got no idea who is.

"The Man" is also the smartest killer I've seen in a long time in film. At one point, Maddie writes on her window that she won't tell the police because she didn't see his face. So what does he do? He takes his mask off and tells her that he's going to mentally torture her until he can be bothered killing her. I love it. And his motives are never explained which is the best thing about the character. It's scarier to leave things to the imagination. It's scarier to believe that he's just doing it because he can, not because he had a messed up childhood or whatever it is that films blame the development of murderers on.

Finally, and this is my absolute favourite thing about the film is that it's so realistic. You know how in horror films, if you've seen enough of them, you're complaining that the characters are always doing the exact wrong thing so that they don't get caught? Well in this, Maddie thinks through her options, she tries her best to work out the best way to get herself out of the situation. There are a few things that do mean she's following the ways of the normal horror films, however, she still manages to come out the better horror heroine.

As much as I've had to say praising this film, it does have its drawbacks which, thankfully, there aren't many of.

First of all, the acting in this film is fantastic, I love it...from almost everybody. Emma Graves who plays Maddie's sister, Max is terrible. She's just so wooden in this and it's almost like she just doesn't care because her role is filmed over a webcam rather than right in front of the cameras. I don't know if this was her first film or not but hopefully, if she's been in anything else she's gotten better.

Another thing that goes against the film is just general things such as getting shot in the leg with an arrow and bending your legs back to lie down. Then taking the arrow out of your leg while it's bent. Problem 1 with this, you probably wouldn't bend like that if you had just been cross-bowed in the thigh. Problem 2, common sense dictates there is more risk pulling out the arrow than keeping it in your leg, you could rip an artery leading to a faster death, you could make the injury worse, if there was poison on the tip you could risk moving it around your system faster than you would just keeping the damned thing in your leg. Problem 3, if you do decide to take out the arrow, don't take it out while your leg is bent in a way that would push all your blood out.

Finally, there's a moment where Maddie tries to get the cat to come to her by rattling the cats food. Fair enough right? My cat comes bounding out of nowhere if he even hears me go to the kitchen. Problem being she continually moves away from the cats eating place and from what I've seen in cats, they hear their food they go to where their food usually is. They won't play "find the dish" they'll sit there yelling at you like a petulant toddler until they get their food. So in Maddie wandering about, she could be losing the cat easily.

The absolute worst thing about the film, however, is that Maddie names her cat Bitch. Poor baby, although I suppose it's a better name than Shits (The real name of the cat my friend used to have until she recently passed away. The cat not the friend.)

Anyway, that's it for today. This film is pretty fucking cool and I love it and you should watch it and love it too. Pretty much everything works in the films advantage and it's just so tense to watch this deaf woman with basically no sensory or physical advantage take on a maniac who is just determined to kill her. It's a great watch and it's back up on Netflix in the Critically Acclaimed section so you go ahead and watch it. Stay hydrated and have a lovely day. Peace out.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.

What do we know about the Fantastic Beasts Sequel?

It's officially out there, Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them has its sequel release date and a name and people into Harry Potter are going crazy for it, myself included. I'm already planning to get the 16th of November next year off from whatever I'm doing that day to go to the cinema and watch the hell out of it.

So what do we know?

We know it's not about the animals, the first one wasn't about the animals and that was quite upsetting, but this time it seems to be a lot more about the OG dark wizard, Grindelwald, played disappointingly by Johnny Depp. Hopefully, Depp can step his game up because from what I've seen him do in recent years in regards to his acting, he's not 100% been giving his all. If he does step it up then this is going to be interesting as hell because who wouldn't want to know about this guy in a film titled Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald.

We know who's going to be playing young Dumbledore and that honour goes to Jude Law who I've not seen in a lot of things so I can't really comment on the acting ability for this role. However, he definitely looks the part and if his looks are anything to go by for his ability to play Dumbledore then he's gonna be fine.

Eddie Redmayne along with Katherine Waterson, Alison Sudol and Dan Fogler will return as their respective roles which is awesome because even though I adore Eddie Redmayne and he can do no wrong in my eyes (as an actor obviously) Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol as Jacob and Queenie are the cutest couple in current cinema and I'm so happy they're coming back so we can watch their relationship grow. (Hopefully). All I want now is for Colin Firth to come back and we got a good wholesome team.

All I've wanted since I first finished watching Fantastic Beasts, is for Ezra Miller to come back as Credence Barebone and honestly, even though the characters death looked fairly...final, I could see a way for him to come back. And it looks like he will come back. Yeah, according to an article by BookBub at least. If this is true I may cry. I loved Credence as a fairly developed character for how little screen time he got and I absolutely fell in love with Ezra Miller portraying the character.

Of course, there will be some little acknowledgements to the original Harry Potter films, this story predates that one so some "historical" things mentioned in the Potter series will possibly be part of the storyline or any future storyline. It'll be cool to find out some stuff in more detail, even if it's just more evidence that Dumbledore is a terrible, terrible character who shouldn't be admired in the slightest.

There were originally only 3 films planned for this series but now it looks to be 5 which...you know is great, and would be fantastic if the films were named in relation to the plot or if the plot had anything to do with the title. It seems to me that the Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them will definitely be more focused on the relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald but, why? My guess is that there was a plan to have it be mostly centred around Newt Scamander and him finding these animals and trying to work them out and being all over adorable. But it's now not, and I get that the story of Grindelwald is way more interesting but it's one of those things, can't change the name now can you? No, you're stuck with finding beasts and trying to make it a metaphor for finding the beasts in your life and battling them. I'm onto you Warner Brothers, I see what's going on.

We now also know that this won't be a direct follow on from the previous film as J.K. Rowling has already confirmed on Twitter. We know it won't jump as far as 1945 because we all know that's when Dumbledore finally defeats Grindelwald so unless I was wrong about the title of the series and the plot not matching up then we can safely assume it'll take place way before that date.

The film won't just be set in America either, in fact it will jump around from London to Paris to possibly anywhere else in the world which will be cool. I mean, seeing other magical communities? Seeing which countries may or may not have them like England does? I just hope they're careful with it because too much jumping around leads to exhaustion and nobody wants to be exhausted watching a film.

Anyway, if I get more information on this I might do another post, I mean, it's fresh information and new things will be coming out pretty fast. Either way, I'm so super excited for the information we have now, the new information to come and obviously to binge watch everything again before going to see this about 40 times at the cinema. So cast aguamenti and stay hydrated kids, peace out.

South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.

I like this.

Director: Trey Parker
Writers: Trey Parker
                Matt Stone 
                Pam Bradley
Runtime: 1hr 21minutes

Plot: The residents of South Park blame a Canadian R-rated film for their children using foul language. The children shouldn't have been admitted to the R-rated film but it's easier to blame Canada than the actual problem. 

What can I even say about this? I mean, it's South Park and it's a film. There are good points and bad points and what the hell points and we're gonna talk about them today.

I'm gonna get the bad out of the way because...there's honestly not that much bad stuff in this really. First off, the animation sucks. I've said this to people before that I couldn't get into South Park for so long because the animation just sucked and it was nothing but, for lack of a better word, shit and unfunny jokes. The film does have terrible animation, both the 2D and CGI does look pretty terrible, over time it has improved, I mean this film came out in 1999 (alongside the absolute masterpiece Wild Wild West) so...the animation wasn't gonna be the best but I'm still not a fan.

That's it, no more negativity here, moving on to the what the hell stuff and there's so much "what the hell" in this. First off, there's a scene where Kenny is getting some sort of medical help after lighting himself on fire, the George Clooney Doctor (formerly George Clooney as Stan's gay dog) goes to put Kenny's heart in the microwave and there's already a spud in there which...is funny but why the hell is there a microwave in an operating theatre, why was there an uncooked spud in it? I dunno, just kinda messes with me. Another thing is the amount of fucks this film gives. Don't get me wrong, I love swearing, it's probably my favourite past time, love it, love all swears and apparently so does this film with 146 fucks given. Yeah, 146. I couldn't do that in a day...maybe 130 if I get up early but my lazy ass ain't gonna do that.

Finally, for a "what the hell" thing, you find yourself strangely rooting for Satan...not that plenty of people already do these days. Can you say Tories are still in power? Grim. But yeah, Satan is clearly in a relationship with Sadam Hussein that's definitely one sided and you just want him to get out. You root for Satan to get his ass out of this abusive relationship and it's just such a weird position to be in but...depending on each individual person's perspective of what they see in that, can probably speak volumes about the kind of person they are. If they think Satan should stay with Sadam who is just using him for his own gain because it's Satan and Satan's evil, get that person out ya life. (Don't listen to me, I'm not an authority figure on this subject.)

And now for the good stuff. The whole story and message in it is just great. If your kid manages to sneak into an R rated film that they're too young to see and picks up some language that you don't want them speaking, take it up with the cinema, or the kids or whatever. Do not blame the film makers because...it's not their job to protect your kids and stop them seeing films that weren't intended for them anyway. In an extreme situation like in this film, it could start a war. I like it because...it's so obvious and yet people don't think to blame the place where these kids saw these films, they blame the people who made it which is just so dumb.

This is also a musical which I love, I don't know why they decided to make this a musical and some of the songs are a bit bleh but that doesn't really take anything away from they story or the viewing experience or anything like that so it's all good. In fact, a couple of my favourite songs from this are Blame Canada (Academy Award nominated by the way), It's easy m'kay, and La Resistance. Also, while I was looking up the titles for these songs, I found out RuPaul sang Super which...I never would have guessed y'know?

Alright well...that's it, I wrote it longer before but I didn't save it and I just fucking suck so I'll just leave you with that because I don't remember what I wrote. I'm sorry. I will do better. Thank you for being patient. I'm gonna leave you with that and also a link to my absolute favourite scene in the film. Peace out, stay hydrated guys.



 Kick the baby 

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.

Bernie

A weird "true story" film

Director: Richard Linklater

Writers: Skip Hollandsworth (Based on the article in Texas Monthly & Screenplay)

                Richard Linklater (Screenplay)

Runtime: 1hr 45minutes

Plot: The nicest man in town, befriends a widow (who's husband he performed the funeral of) and lives the high life with her until he kills her, it's not as malicious as it sounds.

Bernie (Jack Black) is such a sweet murderer that you really do feel for, and this isn't a work of fiction either. Granted some things in the film are probably the work of fiction, such as the little moment where a couple of teenagers are killed in a head on collision and some dude is in the background dressed as death and while it's funny, it may not have actually happened. The film is pretty funny, despite its dark content and is something I really recommend you watch, it's on Netflix right now but I don't know how long it's gonna be up there for. Why is it worth watching? Let's get into it?

First of all, that dude dressed as death that I mentioned before was hilarious, if that was something that carried through to the murder of Mrs Nugent (Shirly MacLaine) it could have gone down well, just have the guy walk past in the background or something and not really interact with the situation but then again, from what I read about the family of Mrs Nugent not being 100% on board with the portrayal of Bernie Tiede maybe it wouldn't go so well.

Another thing that I like about the film is just how precious Jack Black is as this guy, you literally would never think he could kill someone by shooting them 4 times in the back. Literally, every other note I made on this film was "bless this little nugget" and honestly...he's a precious little nugget. I can't find a problem with this guy as a character, he's a Christian who wanted to be an evangelist but decided to go into funeral directory's which is cool, could probably make good money being in that business considering what we paid for my mother, hell I should give up on this and go into that business. Besides the point, irrelevant. Bernie is also into musicals and Broadway shows and just into helping people in general and it's so cool. He does also have his negative points, like...he's an idiot. There's a moment in the film where Mrs Nugent asks Bernie for her pills before eating and he's like "what pills?" and...given the length of the amount of time these people have known each other (at least a few months) he would have remembered that she takes pills before eating y'know? Just a silly thing to put in there but...y'know.

Mrs Nugent, pre-death, is insanely relatable to me. She's a cold-hearted bitch who is tight with her money, has a tantrum over small disagreements citing that the person she's arguing with hates her, and she's very petty. For example, there's a moment where she's mad at Bernie for being late to pick up her dress from the dry-cleaners and they go to brunch and she chews her re-fried beans about 40 times just to irritate Bernie. That is a level of petty I would like to get to when I'm her age. Absolutely perfect.

Finally, I want to talk about Bernie's trial after murdering her. Everyone in town sticks up for Bernie, they all claim he was pushed to do it, he felt trapped and everyone had thought to kill her anyway, just give him a lighter sentence. All that fun stuff. Well, because of that, the trial had to be moved out of town because they most likely wouldn't have gotten a fair trial. Once that's been done and the trials on, Danny Buck (Matthew McConaughey) asks Bernie some stupid questions, trying to say that Bernie likes the finer things in life. Questions like "what wine would you say goes well with fish?" I'm pretty sure it's common knowledge that it's white wine that goes with fish right? I don't even drink wine and I know this, plus, I'm broke as hell, can't even afford to get myself a blue WKD to go with Asda's own Mac & Cheese (which is a great combo btw) so judging by that logic, I enjoy the finer things in life because...I know white wine goes with fish? Another thing to prove that Bernie likes the finer things in life is that he knows how to pronounce Les Miserables...let's go back a couple paragraphs. "Bernie is also into musicals and Broadway shows". Need I say more?

I honestly can't think of anything especially terrible about this film other than those little nitpicky things, it's not the worst thing I've ever seen but it's not the best. Jack Black is...Jack Black and what can you say about him other than he throws everything he has into everything he does and whether that's good or bad, it's something interesting to watch. That's it so as I said, you should go watch this film, it's pretty good. Peace out and stay hydrated.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.

Top 5 Simpsons Tree House Of Horror Episodes

I really am a terrible person

So here's what went down. I got sick, I went to post some stuff and I have no idea how I managed it but I deleted a lot of my posts. I hate myself for this but what I don't hate myself for is binge-watching every episode of The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror and considering it is the month of Halloween, these are Halloween themed episodes and The Simpsons just flat out refuses to die, it only seems fitting that that's something I can talk about. So in today's rushed out post, I'm gonna be listing off my top ten favourite Treehouse of Horror episodes.

There isn't any particular order to this list, it's just my personal favourite episodes and you're more than welcome to disagree with me on this.

1. The Simpsons Halloween Special. The first in the extremely long line of Simpsons episodes and easily one of the best. The episode begins with the children, Bart, Lisa & Maggie telling scary stories up in the treehouse. The stories in the episode were Bad Dream House, Hungry Are The Damned and probably the best and most Simpsons parody of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven. Honestly, this is probably the best as it's kicked off a series of episodes that is most likely the only thing keeping The Simpsons alive. Everyone gets excited for these episodes every year and this was a great jumping off point.
2. Treehouse Of Horror XXVI. The episode in which Sideshow Bob finally kills Bart Simpson. If you're not familiar with the (too) long-running series, Sideshow Bob Roberts was once Krusty The Clown's sidekick on his kids tv show, Bob eventually tired of being the punchline to almost all of Krusty's jokes and decided to frame him for armed robbery at the local shop in order to take over the Krusty The Clown show. Luckily, Bart believed in his idol and did everything he could until he was able to foil his evil plan and since then, Sideshow Bob has had a drive in him to murder the boy and he eventually did. I mean it did take him a good 27 seasons and didn't even manage to do it in the canonical series, he did it in the anthology series which both does and doesn't count. Either way, it's a definite fan pleaser, especially when The Simpsons was pretty much dead, it brought a little bit of traffic back to them. The other two stories in this anthology are alright, them being Homerzilla and Telepaths Of Glory. With the whole of the 27th season being boring at best, this was a good one to get you through Halloween.
3. Treehouse Of Horror V. The very first Halloween episode of The Simpsons that I ever saw and it scared the hell out of me as a kid. My mum told me that this one would freak me out and it really did, put me off of watching regular Simpsons episodes in the dark, and that's thanks to the segment known as The Shinning. "Don't you mean The Shining?" No, what do you wanna get sued? (That's my favourite joke of the whole episode). The Shinning is, of course, a parody of the Stephen King hated version of his own work, The Shining by director Stanley Kubrick and oh my God if this isn't on a lot of fans lists for favourite Halloween episodes. The other segments are great too. Time And Punishment being about Homer trying to fix the toaster and managing to change history in doing so. Following the rule of "if you ever travel back in time, don't step on anything" it results in some pretty fun outcomes every time Homer tries to fix time. And finally, there's Nightmare Cafeteria in which the school faces an overcrowding situation and finds that cannibalism is the best way to sort that out, owing to the classic 200 Miles To Oregon for its inspiration.
4. Treehouse Of Horror XXV. Easily my favourite one, outside of the first one. In this episode, we see current Simpsons meet their very original Tracy Ulman versions of themselves in a segment called The Others. I love this idea of old meeting new and seeing really how far everything has come since the very early days of these characters and their life. It all ends in tradgedy however but I won't spoil that here. There is also a pretty...bleh but not so bleh parody of one of my all-time favourite stories and films, A Clockwork Orange. It doesn't follow the exact story yet there are a couple of funny jokes playing with the films iconic moments and the language of the book. The other story which is pretty forgettable School Is Hell, yet it still manages to be better than a lot of previous seasons. 
5. Treehouse Of Horror XI. The one with the dolphins. I remember watching this one as a kid and for some reason, it was on really late at night, like 10 or 11pm. Which, for a 9-year-old, is pretty late, hell it's late for a 20-year-old, that's beside the point. I remember getting to stay up late this one night and the only thing on tv was this and I had this weird thing about dolphins that just freaked me out. As I've gotten older I've watched this over and over again, and the plot to the segment Night Of The Dolphin is both fun and interesting. The other stories in the episode, G-G-Ghost Dad, a parody of the Bill Cosby crap fest of a similar name (Ghost Dad) in which Homer eats a piece of broccoli and dies has a really funny ending, despite it not being a great part of the episode, and Scary Tales Can Come True in which Bart & Lisa are Hansel & Gretel and go through that story in the only way they can. The Simpsons way, which is very hit and miss but still good.

Alrighty well that's it for this one, stay tuned for another couple of posts to finish up you're Halloween. Not like you'll be reading these on the day as you'll probably be enjoying getting wasted or something. Either way, stay hydrated and stay safe out there. You know there's a lot of crazies out there this time of year.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about the films listed. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like the films listed then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.

Annabelle

It's a possessed doll so of course it's scary.

Director: John R Leonetti
Writer: Gary Dauberman
Runtime: 99 Minutes

Plot: A young couple experience some supernatural shit after the daughter of their neighbours is taken in by a cult, kills her parents and tries to kill them, failing to do so she kills herself and possesses a doll, ultimately forcing the young woman to make a terrible choice.

It's a dumb film. There are so many points where you think it's gonna be cool and you're going to love what you've seen and then it just manages to go back and unravel what it's done. This was a terrible start to spooky month and I don't know why I didn't just watch Creepshow or something first. The acting isn't good, the scares are cheap, the creepy doll was creepy before it got possessed soooo....let's just get into this shit.

So first, the acting is crap. The actors are attractive enough to bring in an audience based on "oh he's so cute", "oh she's gorgeous" but outside of that, they have no chemistry, are more boring than the smell of wet cardboard and are putting way too much effort into whatever it is they're trying to do. I will say that the writing has a severe impact on the way that Ward Horton and Annabelle Wallis deliver their performances but damn, they tried too hard for this to sound like a real conversation but there is no way that could be possible. Own that cheesy-ness and you'll have a better movie.

Second, the characters make some dumb decisions. First John (Ward) buys a doll and says that they will be behind on the rent for a while which if you knew you would struggle financially once you bought that thing, why buy it? You have a baby on the way dude, don't make dumb financial decisions like this. Then, when Mia (Annabelle) decides she doesn't want the doll anymore due to everything that went down which, y'know, a crazy cult lady comes in and tries to kill you and your unborn baby, then dies holding that doll, you're not gonna want that thing anywhere near you. The problem with her wanting it gone is that John decides to just trash it. If that thing cost as much as he implied it did, I'd demand that shit got sold for his money back or at least a fraction of it. Maybe he wouldn't have had a lot of interest in it but...it's an apparently very rare item and will always have interest.

The scares in this film, as I mentioned before, are so cheap. Count how many times a door closes or there's a jump scare. I don't even mind jumpscares in a film, but I think it's just a little too easy to do to get a reaction from an audience. And personally, I don't think seeing a door open/close all by itself is even scary. We know this is a scary film, we know there's a demon or whatever so why does it constantly close doors? How is this scary? How does it build tension? It doesn't and it's stupid and it's gotta stop.

Finally I'm just gonna talk about the actual Annabelle doll and how this movie version are nothing like each other. The real doll is actually a Raggedy Ann doll and while I completely understand why they couldn't use a Raggedy Ann, why would the people behind that creation want their product to be involved in a series about demons and cults? I know I wouldn't. So faced with this problem, the design team needed to create something from scratch and they came up with something that was absolutely nothing like the original. This doll is already piss yourself scary and it makes a person wonder why anybody would buy it, whether it be in it's clean, new condition or whether it be the absolutely fucked version at the end. They could have at least made it look more...innocent.

I dunno, I can't really find anything that great in this, the only thing that really stands out is the basement scene in which Mia is trapped in some seemingly alternate dimension where she can't escape the basement and honestly, it's a pretty good scene. Builds tension nicely and gets you on the edge of your seat. Shame it's in this movie where literally everything else sucks.

But that's it, I know this is a fairly underwhelming start to spooky month, I was thinking about just posting my IT review to start it off but I just had to get it out there. I promise the rest of this month will be better and, enjoy spooky month pals. Peace out, stay hydrated and bye.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.

Movies Made For Cinema

It's Spooky Month bitches! You know what that means right? Scary movies all month.

Quick disclaimer though, this is being written on October 3rd whereas all the shit I've written for this month is all ready to go so...all I gotta do is remember to post it (new schedule to follow, check Facebook and Twitter for details guyssssss) and it's smooth sailing. Also, if the police read this then...you guys stop here. I'm gonna be detailing some criminal activity that I don't want you to know about. Onto what ya'll are here to read.

So I watched the remake of it recently and I thought "damn, that got me a little" and I was just so down to see it again to get a second opinion on it, nobody wanted to go with, I didn't wanna pay shit loads of money and because I'm a rebellious little millennial, who shares a social network platform full of other rebellious little millennials, the full movie got shared onto my feed. Shit quality but if I can sit in a baggy shirt, stuff myself with Mac & Cheese balls and watch a film, I'm gonna do it, regardless of quality. The only thing missing from that ideal night is a blue Tango Ice Blast. Either way, I was a criminal for a night.

As I was watching it, I realised something odd. I realised I wasn't as scared as I was at the cinema and it's not because I know what's coming. I know what's coming in The Exorcist and that shit's still scary to me. I only realised today that it could have been a number of different things contributing to the situation. I started thinking back to what a lot of films have been doing lately and that's to be a box office pleaser and not really focusing on the re-watch value which, arguably, generates popularity for films that either obscure or have gotten themselves to a cult status. Marvel films do it, have you watched Deadpool again recently? Not as funny as it was the first time right, because even though a lot of heart and soul went into it, there's not a lot of re-watch value, unlike something as timeless (in a sense) as Mean Girls. And it got me thinking, what is it that makes a film look so good that you want to buy it on Amazon, DVD, Bluray or whatever? What is it that makes you want to come back to it? Well I had a good old think about it and I found some things that might be somewhat of an answer.

First, there's everybody else getting spooked alongside you in the cinema, if you go with someone who scares easily at films and like me, you're the sadistic type that not only gets a kick out of the film but the fear of the person/people around you, then you're gonna have a blast. The problem with watching a film alone is that you can still enjoy the film, but you might not enjoy it as much as you did at the cinema. This is because you're a part of a collective experience at the cinema, you're feeling the same as a lot of the people in that room which means your opinion is most likely going to be different when you see it alone stuffing yourself with Mac & Cheese balls.

Then there's the atmosphere created by the cinema, if you know exactly where to sit in a cinema for maximum sound and visuals then you know how to have a good time. Sound and sight are two very important senses to have when you go out to see a film and if a film has you by those senses in the cinema, you're more likely to go out and buy the film when it's available to purchase for home use. Putting more money into Hollywood pockets.

And then, you have the film itself, and the shots used in the film. I'm sure by now, a lot of you have either seen the film, have said "I'll go see it" but most likely won't, or you're gonna wait for it to be online to watch for free. I'm not gonna judge, but I'm sure a lot of you have definitely seen the trailer, and there's a moment in the trailer that's good trailer fuel and pretty good for the big screen but...not so much for home viewing. It's the projector scene. If you've not seen it either find it on Youtube, I know it's there, not great quality but you get what you get. The problem with that scene, while it is amazingly scary, doesn't work when it's on a tiny screen, on your lap, in your home. You're not immersed in the curved screen or the loud sound (unless you have earphones in), you're not in a pitch black room. You're in a bedroom where you're in control of getting away if it gets too scary.

And that's the biggest problem with made for cinema films. You have to make the audience want to buy your film, hell if you don't make your money back in the box office you have to be certain you did a good job to make back your money in home sales. So if you do a good job making sure something is bigger than your audience in the cinema, it has to be at least similar when it comes to watching at home. If you get nothing from it then people have just wasted their money on a deceptive product.

Sometimes this sort of thing is obvious but most of the time it's not, so you gotta be aware of what you're watching and when you leave the cinema you gotta think hard about what you just saw. Not just to properly digest what you just saw, but to also decide if you're willing to see it again more than once or if you'd pay more money to see what you just watched.

Anyway, that's it from me, it's past my bedtime, I've already forgotten what I wrote, I'm tired, I love you all. Stay hydrated, get some rest, peace out and remember this lil' nugget of wisdom: the best place to sit in the cinema is the exact middle 4 seats, you can vary between the middle 2 or 3 rows. Why there? Because that's where the technicians sit to make sure the sound is working properly, plus you're in the middle of the curved screen meaning you're right in there visually. You're welcome, fellas. G'night.

IT 2017

Ya girl got a lil' spooked.

Director: Andy Muschietti

Writers: Chase Palmer (Screenplay)

                Cary Fukunaga (Screenplay)

                Gary Dauberman (Screenplay)

                Stephen King (Novel)

Runtime: 2hr 15minutes

Plot: A group of children is terrorized by a killer clown that only they can see while also dealing with problems at home and a fairly unhinged bully. The kids come together, calling themselves "the losers club"  in an effort to kill the clown.

DISCLAIMER: I haven't yet read the book, I will eventually when I have about 5 or so years to spare to get through that brick of a book. Don't hate me. I'm broke and constantly exhausted, I will get to it at some point I promise.

I don't know what to think of this film. I wasn't expecting much considering King adaptations are pretty hit and miss, especially with remakes *cough cough" Carrie was too pretty in the remake which made it totally unbelievable that she was the plain girl so despised as described in the book and the '76 film *cough cough*. But I went because...it's almost Halloween and I'm down for any attempt at filling in for Tim Curry and the trailers looked a little more hardcore than the mini-series. I wasn't expecting to see it with Ben considering he isn't the horror movie type. I wasn't expecting to be as spooked as I was. And I definitely wasn't expecting to not know how I feel after watching it. I still don't know how I feel after a few days after watching it so...maybe once I've written this out I will. Probably not but we'll find out, right? 'Kay, let's get to it.

First, we're gonna talk about the elephant in the room. Tim Curry as a cultural icon as Pennywise. Tim (to me at least) will always be the best Pennywise, it's just more believable that kids will want to go with him into the sewer and die rather than this genuinely freaky guy who occasionally looks like he's lost his memory and his eyes float in random directions. Kids have incredible intuition, they're not stupid, if they get a bad vibe from someone they're most likely going to combine that with "stranger danger" stories (I'm certain the 80's would have had them to a degree) and kids would stay away. Tim Curry is the better clown in the technical sense to lure kids in but...credit where it's due, Skarsgård is a scary clown. Just gotta pick your poison. (Tim is the best.) The film definitely didn't forget about Tim, and in a scene where Richie (Finn Wolfhard) is trapped in a room full of clown dolls, there's a Tim Curry Pennywise doll hidden in the back.

With that out of the way, let's get praising this thing. The tense scenes are done extremely well. There's a build-up where you know what's going to happen, a jump scare, but the way it's built up you can't exactly predict when it's going to happen and it waits until the exact moment you let your guard down, get you. Very effective. Especially in this one scene not fully shown in the trailers but...holy hell man, it is scary when that trailer scene carries on in the film.

Another good thing is character development and accurate representation of kids. The kids grew as they should have the way they should have and even though some (most) of the time it's on Bill (Jaeden Lieberher), Beverly (Sophia Lillis) and sometimes Richie, it works enough.



CGI. If you've been keeping up with what I write then you'll knowI'm not a huge fan of it. I feel like it's a cheap and lazy way to throw in jumpscares and I'll admit, you can do some things with practical effects some of it has to be done with computers. It looks pretty good in some places, hell in some places I got a bit scared of what was going on. There's a scene towards the end where IT is opening it's mouth and it looks so reminiscent of Geena Davis' scary head in Beetlejuice which I thought was pretty good and looks like there was a lot of hard work that went into this.

Now for the good stuff...The bad stuff...



Why doesn't this clown just take these kids out? I get that he likes to get the kids as scared as they possibly can be but...I think that scene with the projector woulda done it. Sunlight shouldn't have stopped this guy eating everything up. He just keeps fucking with these kids instead of just eating them. Also also, why did Pennywise attack Georgie? This kid was just a little scared because his brother made him the boat and thought he'd kill him. Did the clown fuck with Georgie for a while too or was he just that hungry? Man, I don't know. It's probably explained in the book.



Barely any time was dedicated to Mike (Chosen Jacobs), like...at all. There was this really interesting afterthought of him learning to work on the farm and get over not wanting to put a bolt through a sheeps head. Honestly, most of the focus was on Beverly and Bill and, while I'm not against it, I would have liked to see more of the kids. Go into why Richie was scared of clowns (I think?), I'd have loved to see more of Ben's life considering it just looks like he's getting bullied because...he's new and has no friends and he's fat I guess. There may have been an actual reason but I really don't get it. As I said before these kids did develop the way they should have considering the time given to them, it's just a shame that we don't get a lot of time with all of them.



Speaking of time actually, if most of these scary scenes where Pennywise is just terrorizing the kids for the sake of it, went on for another minute or so to properly get their reactions after the event. It feels like it cuts away just a little too quickly. If there was just this extra moment of calm down time it'd be great, better than what it is.



CGI time again. As I said earlier, some of the computer generated stuff looks good, but some of it looks like it was hashed out in half an hour for a creepypasta I mean...look at this.

What the fuck is that? Take a minute to absorb how terrible that is, go on, I don't mind. Take as long as you need. I'm aware it looks like a drawing but it isn't. I mean...that looks fucking terrible. CGI is canceled 'til you guys learn how to not make it look...like that. I mean it's not the worst in the world, I've seen worse I promise you, but you know, could have tried a little harder. I mean it is only on screen for like half a second but, people are law breakers these days, they film and take pictures in the cinema. This stuff gets out faster than it should.



Pennywise the dancing clown is also a fun little...thing. Whether it was meant to be scary or just silly I don't know but I saw a clip of it on Facebook a day or two before I saw the film and I thought "Wow...that can't be in the film, looks so stupid and looks so fake. Nah, that's not in there." And to mine and everybody else's pure joy, it was. God bless Hollywood. Why is it in my negative notes? Because it's dumb. Next.



Pennywise's movements while scary in a cool mechanical sort of sense in some scenes also looks fucking hilarious in others. Like when he runs and violently shakes his head and body, man that cracked me up. It looked so terrible. At first I thought it was just something in the trailers that looked a little weird but nope. That's his attack method sometimes and it looks so stupid it's hilarious.

The final thing about Pennywise, what's the reason for him going a little dead-eyed sometimes? Maybe it's in the book but it looks like he's having a senior moment every now and then. I suppose it comes with being an age-old evil entity but...I didn't get it.



That's it from me with this, I still don't know how I feel about it but I'll definitely go see it again and get a definite opinion. I love the miniseries and this was a good gory / less camp update on that but at the same time I don't know how into it I was. Not like my opinion matters. The only person's opinion who really matters on this is King's, and he apparently loved it so much he went back and saw it again. I would advise you go see this though, regardless of King's and my own opinions. Just don't see it if you're not down for almost cat murder and big ol' clowns.

Anyway, that's me done, peace out, stay hydrated and remember, we all float.



This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film please go and support its creators by buying tickets to go see it in cinemas / buying the DVD or Bluray when the time comes.

The Emoji Movie

The reviews are correct and God is dead.

Director: Tony Leondis
Writers: Tony Leondis (Screenplay & Story)
                Eric Siegel (Screenplay & Story)
                Mike White (Screenplay)
Runtime: 1hr 30 minutes

Plot: A "meh" emoji can make a lot more faces than just "meh", screws his job up by sending out the wrong emoji and has to get a "hacker" emoji to fix him as a just "meh" emoji so he won't get deleted.

I remember the good old days, the days where James Corden was a really good comedian and generally just a nice guy and Patrick Stewart was a dignified and respected actor. That all changed August 5th, 2017. The day myself and my boyfriend saw The Emoji Movie. That day, the sun stopped shining, the birds stopped singing and we saw a lot of good talent abused and misused, an hour and a half of our time slip through our fingers and £21.60 (plus what everyone else paid plus the cost of actually making this movie) get flushed down the toilet. I see nothing good in anything anymore. We can now prove, with the evidence provided that there was a God, there maybe much more but we definitely know there was one. This God(s) took care of us and looked after us and our world until it was taken away from us far too soon at the conceiving of this film. This God is dead, we have nothing to watch over us anymore. We live in a lawless wasteland now.

You might think that as dramatic but...if you do go to see The Emoji Movie y'all are gonna feel the same way, but to save you that trouble, I'm gonna tell you about the film, this...could be a long one because I need to get this out there, I cannot hold anything back when it comes to this...this thing.

This was a waste of talent, James Corden, TJ Miller, Anna Farris, Patrick Stewart, Steven Wright, Maya Rudolph, Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Coolidge, Sofia Vergara, Rachael Ray. All of these people are in this film and honestly...they're all given parts that are perfect for them, except obviously Patrick Stewart as Poop. That's just fucking sad. But everyone else is given a decent role, the best voices for their roles are definitely Steven Wright and Jennifer Coolidge as mama and papa meh. Everything wrong with these voices in this film is to do with the script, they're not given anything good to work with. And it's a shame, it really is.

James Corden as high five is a dick head. Honestly, such a dick could have easily cut him out of the film and nothing would be missed, could have shaved a good 5 / 10 minutes off the film too. Don't get me wrong like, I love James Corden, he's so funny, he's a good actor, good singer, good guy and fuck, this character is I think supposed to be the comic relief but he's literally just on this ride to get himself put back on the favourite emoji list so he can be popular again and like...that's such a selfish character. I don't know why TJ Miller's "meh" and Anna Farris' "hacker" go and save him from the trash app which...does that even exist? I don't have it on my phone but I dunno, just seems a little convenient to the plot.

Speaking of apps, you know exactly where the funding for this film came from. It's literally up there on the screen and it's disgustingly obvious that this is product placement. It's worse than Asda with all the product placement. Literally. If I had to guess, the one company that definitely paid the most would be Dropbox, the amount of times that gets said is appalling.

The film has a scene in which high five takes meh to the "loser lounge" which is a room in which every unused emoji hangs out, and is a room that high five hangs out in too. Now then, that's either a severe fall from grace or this character is a little too over dramatic. That's beside the point, the emoji's that I remember being in there was an old lady emoji, a cactus, a tree, a...I think it was a fish cake with a colour on it, a graph and the eggplant emoji. I know that this is a kids film, but every single person in the world knows that the eggplant emoji, is not an unpopular emoji. And with this emoji being in a teenage boys phone...ya damn well know he's using that emoji and not for its eggplant-y purpose. Whatever an eggplant-y purpose is.

I almost forgot about the teenage boy in this film, he has a crush on this girl and he can't work out what emoji to send her because Quote: "Emoji's are the most important form of communication ever invented." And yes, that is a line from this movie. Someone took the time to sit there and think of that line, write it down and have it put through all the editing and drafts that came after it and allowed it to be in the film. That's what we're teaching to kids these days. Grim. But as I said, this kid has a crush on this girl and he's got to find the right emoji to send her to make her like him, but he can't seem to do it. He apparently just wants to send one emoji, when he could have sent a few in just one text. Or he could have typed out a message. Or spoken to her. Or written her a note. Or used smoke signals. This kid could have literally done anything and he chose to go with the singular emoji. This kid's an idiot.

Patrick Stewart plays Poop in this film. I said that earlier but...I just have to say it again. And he said about 5 or 6 of the 8 jokes based on toilet humour. I dunno if that's what a poop emoji's job is, I dunno how much Patrick Stewart was paid to do this. I don't know if he even was paid. Maybe there was a meeting where someone hired a private investigator to dig up something on him and they found some dark stuff and they brought him in and said "Yo, Sir Patrick Stewart, it seems  like you're a highly regarded actor, do you wanna be in the role of a lifetime?" and he would cautiously say "go on..." and they say "How would you like to play the poop emoji in our upcoming summer blockbuster The Emoji Movie?" and he would rightfully tell them to get bent but probably a lot more profane and they would say "Well, we tried to be nice about it but it seems like we're gonna have to do it the hard way, you see we found this in your past, it would be a terrible shame if it were to get out into the public and damage every single thing you've ever worked for in your entire life." And he had to do the movie. That's the only conceivable way I can see this actually happening.

There's a scene what everybody knows already and that's where the characters play Candy Crush, there's a moment where they can't get the meh emoji out of the game and they have the option to either combine him with a special yellow candy and get him sent to the candy jar or blow him up and they show what it would look like if he blew up. The animation on that few moments of screen time where they show this emoji blowing up and his yellow....I dunno is it insides? Do emoji's have insides? I dunno but whatever it was got blown up and onto high five and the hacker emoji and that's just fucking scary. I'm always down to scare kids because they're gonna need that later in life but don't fucking do it that way.

There are no actual jokes in this film, it's just puns. Puns based on the emojis. I'm sad there was no dick innuendo when it came to the eggplant emoji. I would have so forgiven it a little more just for that. There is nothing actually funny, at all, during this film. Actually no there is there's a moment where high five goes to click his fingers and hits himself in the eye. That was kinda funny. Outside of that..there was nothing.

This also such a rip off of Inside Out and you can see that Sony so desperately wants to be Pixar. They want to be Pixar soooooo badly that there was even a short at the beginning that was better than the actual feature. Granted the short was a Hotel Transylvania short which was honestly so good. And given Adam Sandler's reputation for just being poison and having his short be the highlight of the whole experience is amazing. Well done you Sony. Well done you.

The message in this film is just hammered the fuck in. You should always be yourself. I like you the way you are. There's nothing wrong with you. You're perfect the way you are. You shouldn't change yourself for others. There's a scene where high five is accidentally sent to the trash with the Just Dance app and there are internet trolls in there and they're bullying high five saying nobody's coming to save him and nobody loves him and stuff and when he gets saved he shouts at them "I have friends, I'm not upset, look how not upset I am, I am loved and you're not" and it's like...don't hammer it in more, you've beaten the dead horse to mush, replaced with a second dead horse and are beating it with a dead horse strapped to another dead horse. Stop it. We have had this message so much.

The weirdest thing about this film is how it's so cynical about its audience and...how much it praises its audience. There's a definite thing where someone who wrote this wanted this film to go one way and someone else wanted it to go another way. This was such a mess of a script in terms of direction. I don't know how else to explain it, this script definitely needed someone to look over it and tell the writers they have no fucking direction. It goes out of its way to not be relatable to anyone.

The only person who actually seemed to enjoy this film was this one woman in front of us, like literally the row in front and a seat to the left and she very obviously didn't get out of the house much. I mean, just bless her but she was cackling at nearly every single "joke" in this film, the kid that she came with was looking at her as if to say "mam, what the fuck, calm down and get yourself a life hun". I mean I'm glad she got some enjoyment out of it.

I don't know what the ultimately cringiest scene was in this film but there's an "Emoji Dance" which is horrific. I've done some embarrassing shit in my life which makes me cringe hard to this day but I've never cringed so hard until I saw this dance. I wanted so much to be a tortoise and just shove my head into my shell and never return. I felt every single hair on my body stand up and I felt my soul leave the Earth.  I've heard there's a 20-minute dance scene during the credits, I don't know if that's true or not because we just wanted to get the fuck out of there, you couldn't have paid us to sit through more of that. You couldn't pay me to sit through that again. No way sir.

The animation seemed a little lazy too, it was the sort of animation that had to always be moving and not stop to really take a breath. The character design was boring and unoriginal, granted the emoji character design couldn't change all that much because...they're already animated with designs set in place for them but when it came to the human characters, it's just very run of the mill generic. The worlds they visited were boring as hell too and looked like they could have had a creative boost. It just looked boring as fuck man. I just don't know what else I can say about it other than...it also looked a little ugly.

Finally, and this is the most tragic thing. Do you not find it suspicious that Chris Pratt and Anna Farris have split around the time of this film's release? I mean it probably has nothing to do with it but it just seems a little too coincidental. Personally, I think this film ended one of the best marriages in Hollywood.

Honestly, there were two positive things to come out of this film, the credits showing their face after what felt like a good couple years and the scene where they're in the Youtube app and there's a cute video of a kitten. You know the one where someone's tickling this precious baby's tummy and they come away and the kitten holds its arms up and it's one of the most famous and cutest kitten videos. Easily the best thing and an instant stress reliever for this movie.

This film is...not good, all I could do while watching it was just see myself smashing my head on the seat in front of me, I wanted Heath Ledgers Joker to come out, put a pencil in front of me and smash my head onto said pencil. I'm ashamed I spent money on this thing, I'm ashamed I sat through this thing, I'm jsut ashamed of this thing and I'm ashamed of every single person involved in its creation. This film....I have no idea what else to say about it. It's tragically terrible, and I loooooove bad films. I really do, but this one was really pushing it. I knew it was gonna be bad, hell I think everyone did, but we all at least thought it was gonna be bad in the sense it was gonna be just a boring, generic kids movie. Hell, I've read and watched some reviews where people have said they hoped it would be like The Lego Movie where it looked like a cash grab but also turned out to be good and they seem to be the ones who were the most disappointed.

My advice for this movie?

• Don't see it.
• Don't let your kids see it.
• Don't let anyone you know see it.
• If you have to see it as an adult get drunk and forget to see it.
• If you remember to go and see it get extra drunk and hopefully you'll forget you saw it.
• Do. Not. See. It. 

That's it, I can't write about this trash anymore, peace out, stay hydrated and go see a better movie. 

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film please go and support its creators by buying tickets to go see it in cinemas / buying the DVD or Bluray when the time comes.

Should we trust reviews?

(Should we trust reviews? Says the girl who's trying to make herself some sort of career reviewing fucking films)

This is a weird thing for to me to be thinking about at half one in the morning, I was wanting to write something different to post that wasn't a part of my backlog and I couldn't think of anything. I was ready for sleep when I remembered that I'll be seeing The Emoji Movie tomorrow (tonight? It's 1:30 am) and to prepare myself, I've been reading the reviews for it and...there's not much difference in the way the audience has rated this film and how critics have rated it and it got me thinking. We all know this film was going to be absolute trash, it could be good trash, it could be bad trash but what about the times when critics are the ones praising a film that audiences hate and vice versa? Who should we listen to when it comes to preparing ourselves for films we're going to see or whether we should even see these films? Should we even trust reviews at all and just go into a film with our own expectations? Who is the authority on these things?

First question, should we listen to anyone's opinion regarding a film? Yes and no. Yes because we don't want to waste our money buying tickets to see something or buying a DVD / Bluray or whatever. We want our money to go to a good product and we definitely don't want to go in blind. It's like eating a nut for the first time and having that thing in the back of your head saying "what if you're allergic?" And I get that, after having a fear of eating nuts for...more or less my entire life and wanting to not put money into trash products. But we shouldn't because...well, watching a film is an experience, and it's different for everyone. You shouldn't...for lack of a better word, imprint someone else's opinion into our minds and we go to see that film with that in the back of our minds, preventing us from having our own opinion in a way. If you are going to listen to other peoples opinions then go ahead, if it's something that helps you decide then go for it but don't just listen to one opinion when it comes to looking at reviews. Look at both critic and audience reviews and look at both the good and bad so you can have...a less biased viewpoint going into something.

Let's get into the thing about critics and how they're seen as...the go to opinion when we need information on a film. Critics are not higher beings with an authoritative position when it comes to films, they're just people who have to see a lot more films in their lifetime than a member of the general public. Meaning that they pick up on the little things a bit more quickly than others because...they're exposed to it more. You never really think about it but how many times in films have you heard the "I should have killed you when I had the chance" line in films? I'm gonna bet not as much as an experienced critic who is tired as hell of hearing that combination of words and therefore you're not going to be as annoyed by that because....you don't hear it every other film you see. Films aren't really made to please critics, they're meant to please a general audience because...that's the bigger target to hit. If critics are pleased too then even better, promotional value and all that jazz. Critics tend to write long winded or very concise pieces about a film or an aspect of film that looks very professional and may feel like you're reading an essay for university...but it's good y'know, nothing anyone can expect to write.

Audiences are the ones films are made for, they're also the people who think that critics are up on their marble pedestals thinking a film needs to be a high art, and if it's anything less than, then it's no good at all. It's all or nothing with these critics and they don't speak for everyone. While in a sense that's right because critics are seeing a lot more films than the general public they're seeing something totally different because they've adapted to seeing the same thing over and over and so are looking for more impressive things. It's also wrong because even though critics are essentially the voice to go to to see what's up with a film, but...they're still people, members of the general public. Audiences don't have the same viewpoint as a critic and that's fine. Sometimes, people see them as a beacon of knowledge and sometimes people think they're pretentious dicks sat laughing at the masses for enjoying an Adam Sandler film. (Which is something we have to discuss at some point by the way.) Audiences tend to write pieces that are more...general, really, they don't pick out specific things unless it's really good or really bad. They just give a general yay or nay on a film and that's great, to be honest. They just get to the point and I feel like that's very underappreciated in a lot of things.

So should we trust reviews? Honestly, I don't think we should listen to anyone and if you want to know what a film is like, you should see it yourself. Reviews are just opinions at the end of the day, whether "professional" or not, and critics are just people who have a passion for watching and talking about films. There are times when people don't agree with them and there are times when everyone has the same general feeling about a film and there are even times when nobody can agree on something. But you know, we're all human, we're all going to have an opinion on something. For example, I did not like The Revenant. Buy your pitchforks and torches here. I thought it was boring, pretentious, and an obvious Oscar grab. Wanna know something fun? 81% critic score and 84% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. What the heck everyone else in the world? Did y'all just want Leo to get his Oscar to end the memes or something? I don't get it. Point being, we all have our own opinion on something and every single opinion is valid so...my advice is to just go out and watch a movie if something pulls you to it. Even if it's the emoji movie or...47 Metres Down you go watch it becuase you'll probably come out a different person than when you went in.

Anyway, I've spent 3 exhausted hours on this because I just wanted to get this out. I'm gonna get what...3 or 4 hours sleep because I gotta get my ass up early so I can be ready but that's it for now, see you in a couple of days when I write about The Emoji Movie. Peace out, stay hydrated and...get enough sleep guys.