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.