The Death Of Stalin (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: In 1953, Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin), the leader of the Soviet union, has died. As his inner circle tries to deal with the power vacuum, Deputy General Secretary Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor), Moscow Party Head Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi) and head of the interior ministry Lavrentiy Beria (Simon Russell Beale) begin their plans to become the new leader. However, between those who wish to live up to Stalin's legacy and those who want to replace it with their own, things are about to get chaotic in Russia.

Miss You Already (2015) - Movie Review

My past reviews of films featuring Kristen Stewart have made running jokes out of this, but in all honesty it’s a really good thing that the stars of former record-holder for Biggest Godwin’s Law Breaker, Twilight, have moved past that famed series. Anna Kendrick has become an accomplished actor/singer thanks to films like Pitch Perfect and Into The Woods, Robert Pattinson has done acclaimed work with visionaries like David Cronenberg, and Kristen Stewart has come to seriously impress crowds thanks to films like Camp X-Ray, Still Alice and American Ultra. Not only that, regular writer of the series Melissa Rosenberg has entered into the Marvel Cinematic fold with the web series Jessica Jones and Stephanie Meyer… has largely gone quiet and rested on her franchise royalties, thank all things right with the world.

[whispering from behind me, even though this is a text review and not in any way audio/visual where this could be properly conveyed]

Wait, she wrote what?

[more inaudible whispering]

Oh, for crying out loud!

Well, point is, for the most part, they’ve largely moved on from that crater of a saga. But what about the original film’s director Catherine Hardwicke?

Macbeth (2015) - Movie Review

Shakespeare is far and away the most adapted writer in human history, which makes the prospect of reviewing one of the thousand films based on his work a little daunting. Not only that, as much as some scholars would eagerly wish to argue, the man’s work is full of notoriously intricate language that can prove rather difficult to read. As someone who has a serious habit of comparing films to each other, even when it isn’t called for, how am I to know whether or not the supposedly 'fresh' ideas presented in one adaptation haven’t already been made cornerstones of the work previously? Is there nearly enough time in the world for me to spool through every work just to be sure? Is it even worth me doing so in the first place? This is where I come face-to-face with the reason I started this blog in the first place: To learn. I have never made any pretence about my own knowledge involving the medium: Everything I claim to know about film, I have learnt in passing and I am by no means a definitive voice on anything except my own personal tastes and opinions.

So, with that unnaturally heavy introduction to another one of my typically idiosyncratic and scatterbrained analyses out of the way, time to get into today’s film.