Review: Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)

At this point, I’m pretty sure Meryl Streep could walk on set, say a few lines (whether they’re from an actual script or not), go home and we’d all still be singing her praises. I really like her of course, but I don’t worship her like a lot of movie fans do. Perhaps I just need to see more of her work! My point anyway is that she’s not one of the actresses I would see absolutely anything for. My first impression of the trailer for Florence Foster Jenkins was a cross between a laugh and a sneer, I think.

Florence Foster Jenkins is the story of a wealthy heiress living in New York who dreams of becoming an opera singer and performing in Carnegie Hall. The catch is that she can’t sing to save her life, but her devoted husband (Hugh Grant) can’t bring himself to tell her the truth, and instead hires a singing coach and pianist (Simon Helberg) to not only coach her, but remind her how wonderful she is.

The real stand out part of the movie is the wonderful performances by all 3 leads, Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant and Simon Helberg. Streep is exactly how you would expect her to be, powerful yet effortless. Her awful singing may be difficult to listen to at times, but I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for someone with amazing singing talent to actually sing badly. I’d experiment to see for myself, but you know, I can’t sing anyway. Hugh Grant is possibly at a higher level than I’ve seen him before, mastering that charm like he always has but with a surprising amount of heart.

However, the show stealer is Helberg. Better known as the awkward and often inappropriate Howard in the Big Bang Theory, this is a completely different role for him, and after watching him, I can’t actually picture anyone else doing that character justice. It’s like that saying ‘It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it’, Helberg shines for his mannerisms more than anything else. His body language and facial expressions bring a lot of the humour this movie has.

As for the rest of the movie...I’m still not convinced. It’s just not the kind of story that normally interests me. The tone shifted about quite harshly in places, so whilst I was laughing at a clever one-liner, something quite moving would happen and I wasn’t really sure how to feel. That’s the only real thing I can fault though, so I’m just not sure why I only liked Florence Foster Jenkins, rather than loved it.

Still, I’m glad I gave it a watch, and I would definitely recommend it to you all. What did you think, if you’ve seen it?

Review: The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

Another movie to add to the list I need to apologise to. When I went to London Comic Con earlier this year, the halls were plastered floor to ceiling with posters for The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and when I saw a trailer a couple of weeks later my reaction can be summed up with a sound that is probably typed like this: ‘pffffft’. Who/what was U.N.C.L.E. anyway? How are you meant to pronounce it? Can I say Uncle? Or do I have to spell out each letter? That seems so unnecessary! I can't believe you hadn't heard of the Man from U.N.C.L.E?? I can't say I'd watched it but I had heard of it, I think my parents may have watched it!

Fast forward to the present and I finally gave the movie a chance. I’m not sure what gave me the final nudge, but I was curious. I would later learn from my parents that it’s actually based on a 1960’s TV Show, which explained more than I thought. In fact, I just did an IMDB search for it to confirm the year, and the description is: ‘The two top agents of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement fight the enemies of peace, particularly the forces of THRUSH.’ I’m sorry, what?! The forces of THRUSH? That made me laugh. Now what the hey does THRUSH stand for?! This literally made me spray lemonade through my nose, hilarious!! Just keep saying it though, THRUSH. Caps lock helps.

Our modern version stars Henry Cavill as CIA Agent Napoleon Solo and Armie Hammer as KGB Operative Illya Kuyakin (you must have googled this spelling?! How very rude, I am an excellent speller I'll have you know. I used IMDB actually!) who are forced to team up in a joint mission to stop a private criminal organisation from constructing nuclear weapons. Posing as Illya’s fiancee is Alicia Vikander as Gaby Teller, the daughter of the man responsible for the creation of the nuclear weapons.

Within the first five minutes I knew my assumptions were wrong. I mean, I wasn’t expecting it to be so funny! I’m just glad I watched this at home rather than surrounded by strangers out in public, because I was howling at that very first scene. I wish I could park my car like that! At first, I sniggered at every line Henry Cavill spoke because he was just oozing suave, well spoken manliness, but you get used to it after a while. There are some great gags that run through the story too, like Illya’s watch that he got from his father. In fact, my fiance and I cheered every time we saw a watch!

I actually didn't find it as funny as I hoped I would, there were moments when I laughed out loud but they were few and far between.  However, I did love Hammer and Cavill's chemistry, they were funny together and I found myself hoping for them to have more scenes together (take note Mr Ritchie for the sequel!!).  Although, I didn't find it as funny as I expected, I did love it!  The action sequences were great and the story was great (I did get a bit confused as I wasn't 100% concentrating I was distracted decorating my Christmas tree!! Oops!).  

The plot was a little predictable, and the action scenes, although extremely well done, didn’t bring anything new to the table, but it was still a really interesting story, and like I keep harping on about, the humour keeps you entertained throughout. In fact, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. reminds me of a cartoon I watched at a friends house called Archer. Archer is definitely aimed at adults, but it’s got many similarities. Check it out! YES!!

I’m so glad I watched this in the end, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a second movie sometime in the future. Has anyone watched the original TV show? How does it compare? Ooh I'd love to know...

Review: The Rewrite (2014)

Chilling out on the sofa with my cousin and we both have pretty hefty hangovers so we didn’t want anything too heavy so had a rifle through Netflix and found a good old Hugh Grant film, generally I have liked most of Hugh Grant’s rom coms in the past so it seemed like a good choice.

I remember seeing the trailer for this last year now! All I can recall is the line 'Ryan?! Reynolds or Gosling?!'

Keith Michaels (Hugh Grant) is a failing Hollywood writer who has to take a job at a University in Binghamton in order to pay his bills having only really written one memorable script, Paradise Misplaced.  He refuses to help the students as he believes that writing can’t be taught, he lies and tells them he is researching for his next script, sleeps with a student and gets on the wrong side of the wrong teacher, Mary Weldon (Alison Janey).

As soon as I saw Alison Janey and JK Simmons in the opening credits I was so excited, it couldn’t be bad with these two legends in it.  Let me put this bluntly, The Rewrite needed a rewrite, in fact it should have just been scrapped all together.  The lead characters were unlikeable and mostly irritating, the story was utterly predictable and lacked any comedy value whatsoever and two of my favourite actors (Alison Janey and JK Simmons) were completely wasted.

Admittedly, I nearly turned the movie off after about 20 minutes. I had to wonder, were we meant to hate Hugh Grant's character so much? He plays arrogance very well and I appreciate that, but this time it just seemed a bit too much. I hate not finishing a movie though, so I vowed to stick with it.

I watched it until the end just to see if there was some mad twist that I wasn’t expecting (there wasn’t) but countless times I just wanted to turn it off and give up (the biggest issue with this was that it was on Netflix not the TV so I would have had to drag myself off the sofa to the computer to change it and with the hangover, that just wasn’t happening!).  I’ve since read some positive reviews for it and in reading them I wished I felt the same (because I love a Hugh Grant movie) but it just didn’t keep me entertained or make me laugh, at all.  As I mentioned, I didn’t like the main characters and I also didn’t think they had any chemistry, they could have just as easily finished it with them being just friends and I don’t think it would have affected my opinion in the slightest.

It took a while but I did enjoy The Rewrite in the end! It's certainly not the best rom com out there and I can't be sure how memorable it'll be either, but it made a nice Sunday evening chill out movie. Oh, I do miss Hugh Grant you know. This kind of makes me want to re-watch Bridget Jones' Diary...

I really wished I liked this but I just didn’t, maybe Mr Grant needs to spread his wings and try out something other than your typical romcom?