Spencer (2022) - Movie Review

Well, this should be interesting. Another biopic drama from the director of Jackie, a star turn from Kristen Stewart that has gotten her legit Oscar buzz for the first time in her career (I’d wouldn’t normally bother mentioning such things, but with how long she spent as a critical punching bag, it’s more than deserved by this point), and it’s written by the mental giant behind one of last year’s worst films in Locked Down, and 2019’s Best Worst Film in Serenity.

Oh.

Well, two out of three ain’t bad. (RIP Meat Loaf)

The Green Knight (2021) - Movie Review

I’m a bit apprehensive about looking at this one. Partly because the last time I reviewed a David Lowery film on here, things didn’t exactly go to plan, but also because, since I still have The Last Duel firmly implanted in my head, I get the feeling I won’t be as open to the more romanticised version of the knights of legend as I might’ve been otherwise. At least, that was my thought process going into this. Having now seen it, it actually fits in surprisingly well alongside that kind of grand deconstruction of the trope, only with a slightly different bent to it. Where The Last Duel was about the grim reality behind those who so readily claimed to live under those ideals, The Green Knight contrasts that reality with the prospect of becoming a legend that embodies those ideals.

The King (2019) - Movie Review

There’s something off about this movie. The latest from Aussie director David Michôd is an adaptation of the Henriad, the classic canon of Shakespearean works focusing on King Henry IV and V… and yet, it is a remarkably loose adaptation. Written by Michôd and Joel Edgerton, you’d have to strain to hear any of the original prose in here. Even considering the lengthy history of adaptations of the Bard, including Ophelia from earlier this year, this seems like a backwards move. Why would you bother adapting a work of fiction, which itself is based on historical fact, and leave behind the writing that is the main reason why Shakespeare’s work survives to the present day? Well, thankfully, there are quite a few answers to that, and all things considered, I think these guys took the right approach.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: After a mission goes wrong, the world is under threat by the terrorist group The Apostles, who now have access to enough plutonium to construct nuclear weaponry. Wanting to correct what happened, IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) once again sets out with his colleagues Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg) to save the world as they go after the stolen plutonium. However, with CIA operative August Walker (Henry Cavill) assigned to watch Ethan's every move in case he goes rogue again, and anarchist Soloman Lane (Sean Harris) plotting his revenge, this will prove to be Ethan's toughest assignment yet.

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.