Review: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

Does anyone else think perfume adverts are more than a little ridiculous? Perhaps now 4DX screens are becoming a thing they have a place in the world, but has anyone really ever paid much attention to these ads? You’re probably actually wondering what the hell perfume has to do with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. 

Well, at the cinema the other night, right before the featured trailers aired, an advert of sorts was played for what looked like a period drama movie or TV show starring Domhnall Gleeson (AKA General Hux, AKA my favourite grumpy space ginger). I got so excited I did a little dance in my seat, until I realised it was an advert for Burberry perfume. What. The. Frick?! NOT COOL Burberry, not cool. Although I might buy your aftershave for my husband now...damnit. It works.

Anyway! Harry Potter fans will be aware of the book on every Hogwarts first year’s required reading list, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Who’d have thought all these years later it would be adapted into not one, but 5 movies?! I wish I could go back and tell 12 year old me. This movie is the story of the author of said book, Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) who travels to New York in 1926 to release one of his beasts back into the wild where he/she belongs. Whilst there, several creatures (including the ever adorable Niffler) escape from Newt’s magical suitcase.

Newt gets himself into trouble for involving a no-maj (American muggle) called Kowalski (Dan Fogler) and then not wiping his memory, so gets himself caught by disgraced Auror Tina (Katherine Waterson). Amidst all this, a dark wizard called Gellert Grindelwald is on the loose, an anti-magic cult is throwing their weight around, and a rather dapper Colin Farrell is hunting down a talented young witch. Got it? I sure all hell don’t, there’s so much going on!

Let me first say though how wonderful it is to return to the wizarding world of Harry Potter. The sheer excitement at hearing that familiar music with the Warner Brothers logo was enough to make me cry (for the second or third time that night, after so many Christmas adverts), and there are plenty of references for the hardcore fans to spot. Eddie Redmayne is the perfect choice for Newt, confident in his abilities and passionate in his subject, but terribly awkward at the same time. It’s the first time I’ve ever really loved him on screen.

The beasts themselves are indeed fantastic. The Niffler is the real show stealer, but all the creatures we are shown either bring laughs or a feeling of awe. It’s a lot of CGI to have thrown around, but it works. Almost the entire supporting cast were new to me, but their characters were played so well and even ones that have a high risk of being annoying (I’m looking at you, Queenie) were actually incredibly likeable.

Where this movie falls down is largely the messy plot. Considering this franchise is going to be dragged out into 5 movies, there was too much packed into the first installment. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I would have been happy for the entire first movie to be an introduction to Newt and Co, chasing down the beasts across New York. Save the dark wizard stuff for movie number 2! Who is the target audience, anyway? This was far too dark for young children, but the plot was far too obvious for the older fans. It’s a shame.

I’ll always be happy for more Harry Potter movies, but I’d have liked them to go down the Star Wars route with a collection of one offs instead. Let’s have Fantastic Beasts, then how about a movie for Hagrid and how he got kicked out of Hogwarts? A Marauder’s movie would be amazing too! There are so many stories that could be expanded, without the need of dragging them out.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American readers and fellow Bloggers! Of all the American traditions that we've adopted in the UK, I wish we could make a bigger deal of Thanksgiving, it isn't celebrated at all, but it's such a wonderful holiday. Perhaps not surprisingly, we managed to pick up Black Friday!

Our friend Drew at Drew's Movie Reviews invited us all to tell him why we are thankful for our blog, and for being a blogger, which really got me thinking, and then poor Drew had to deal with the mini-essay response I emailed him. Sorry Drew! The words I sent to him are below, but I urge you all to read his master post here with responses from 8 other bloggers, it was such a heart warming post to read.

Movies have always been a big part of my life. I was brought up on Disney, which I still hold close to my heart. As I got older, I went through some rough times and movies were my escape. Any movie I’ve watched more than a handful of times, I have memories attached to, both good and bad. I also love to talk about them, but before I started blogging most conversations would go something like:

Me: Oh hey, I watched a brilliant movie over the weekend called ‘—————-’, have you seen it?

Other Person: Nah, it looks rubbish/Yeah it was okay/Why are you watching that when you should be watching ‘—————’ instead?

Eventually, I kept myself to myself. When I met Jenna, my blogging buddy at work, I found we shared a common interest, movies! Not only movies, but talking about movies! My life was changed forever. We shared DVDs, had movie nights together, wrote emails back and forth with little reviews, and my love for all things cinematic was rekindled.

It was only a matter of time before we started a blog called Flick Chicks together. To begin with, we were talking to ourselves, but eventually we found our way into the movie blogosphere by taking part in a blogathon, and got chatting to other bloggers. From there, our little network grew and grew, and every day I get excited to check if there are any new comments on the blog. I’m so thankful for everyone who stops by and takes the time to comment on something I’ve written.

Writing has always been therapeutic for me, and although I haven’t studied film, or even writing or journalism, I love the fact that I can put my thoughts down into words, share it online, and have other bloggers interact with me. We aren’t a snobby scene in the slightest, and I’m thankful for the fact I can be truthful and honest about how I feel about a movie, without being belittled for it. Whether I loved a movie that bombed at the box office, or hated a classic, I can share my thoughts without fear and a lot of times, be surprised that there are others out there who feel the same.

I’m thankful for everything that blogging has brought me. I talk about a lot of you fellow bloggers all the time, and consider you to be my friends. I’m thankful for the comments, and the Twitter mentions, that cheer me up when I’m feeling blue. And I’m thankful to you all for widening my movie horizons. For recommending hidden indie gems that I’d never heard of, and for convincing me to see classics that I thought would be dull. Thank you!

So, I hope you're all enjoying a fantastic day, and stay safe out there tomorrow if you go bargain hunting. Myself, I'll be cooking my specialty spaghetti bolognese and spending the night with my husband, playing computer games together, with our cats inevitably sitting on our keyboards. I wouldn't have it any other way!

Review: Tickled (2016)

In between the cinema trips and desperately trying to catch up with Westworld (which I’ve done - yay!) I put some time aside to check out a documentary that I’d seen reviewed on a few blogs I follow called Tickled. I can count the number of documentaries I’ve seen on one hand, so although I was curious to add to the number, I did wonder how interesting it could be without the dramatics of a regular movie.

Tickled was funded by both Kickstarter and the New Zealand Film Commission in 2014, and is directed by journalist David Farrier and his colleague Dylan Reeve. David makes a living from looking into all things unordinary, so when he saw videos online of ‘Competitive Endurance Tickling’, needless to say his curiosity was tickled! Har har har. That’s where the laughs stop though. These videos are far from ordinary, and feature young men bound by their wrists and ankles, and then tickled by other young men.

There didn’t seem to be a sexual connotation about the videos, the young men were clothed at all times, but the ‘sport’ was certainly weird enough for David to want to look into it. The videos were produced by a company called Jane O’Brien Media, which had it’s own Facebook page, so David sent a message asking if he could conduct an interview with either Jane herself or another producer to learn more for his article.

Rather than be welcomed with open arms, or politely turned down, David was instead bombarded with hostile responses, pointing out David’s own sexuality and firmly stating that this sport is a “passionately and exclusively heterosexual athletic endurance activity”. When David persisted with his line of enquiry, Jane O’Brien Media sent legal threats and even flew out 3 members of staff to intimidate David and Dylan.

Really, that’s as far into it as I want to go in this post. This is all most other bloggers wrote about, and honestly, if that alone is enough to get you interested than you’ll find the rest of the documentary absolutely fascinating. The way it had me chuckling at how absurd the sport is to suddenly feeling shocked at what was happening is just a little bit unreal.

As I said, I watch very few documentaries so I don’t feel able to comment on how well it was filmed, edited, etc, but I was hooked from the very first minute right up until the credits rolled. Then I had to sit in silence for about ten minutes while I took it all in. If you’ve already seen Tickled, then check out the Wikipedia page for it, right at the bottom is a section about the response to the documentary from the people involved, and that in itself is quite shocking. It’s definitely a subject that I want to keep updated with!

Has anyone else seen Tickled? If you have it was probably your blog that led me down this rabbit hole! I don’t know whether to thank you or curse you, ha!

Girl Week: The Leading Ladies of 2016

For the second year running, king of blogathons Dell at Dell on Movies is dedicating this week to movies with female protagonists. It’s Girl Week! From 21st - 27th November he’s aiming to post every single day, so be sure to bookmark his blog if you aren’t already to check his posts out. Dell has been kind enough to ask us all to contribute to this special week, so I thought I’d put together a list of my favourite leading ladies of movies released this year, so far at least!

It was actually quite shocking looking through my film journal for the year and seeing just how few of those movies have a woman in the leading role. Nonetheless, there are a few, and plenty others I haven’t actually seen yet, so let’s kick this off shall we?

Amy Adams (Nocturnal Animals, Arrival)

I didn’t think I would love an Amy Adams character any more than Mary in The Muppets. That probably sounds sarcastic, but I love that movie so much. So no, I didn’t think she could top that for me, and then November came along and brought not one, but two movies with Amy Adams as the lead, and she plays completely different roles in each. Susan in Nocturnal Animals is cold, and cruel, whereas Louise in Arrival is warm and kind, someone we can look up to. November 2016 shall forever be remembered as Amy Adams month in my eyes.

Mila Kunis, Kathryn Hahn & Kristen Bell (Bad Moms)

Too many times it’s been said that women can’t be funny. When the trailer for Bad Moms came out though I felt apprehensive. After the deeply disappointing How to be Single, this looked like the typical comedy where the only funny moments are in the trailer. Yet I think Bad Moms surprised a lot of people in the end. It’s funny from start to finish, with several scenes that had me holding my stomach to stop it from aching. Not only does this movie have an all-female leading cast, it has some great supporting actresses too!

Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins)

We can always count on the ever wonderful Meryl Streep to put on a good performance. Whilst Florence Foster Jenkins won’t make my Top 10 Movies of 2016 list, it’s still absolutely worth a watch just to see Meryl Streep do what she does best. It’s guaranteed to bring a smile to your face, and I still can’t comprehend just how difficult it must be to deliberately sing badly when you actually have an amazing amount of talent in that area.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead (10 Cloverfield Lane)

Until this year I’ve only seen Mary Elizabeth Winstead in smaller roles, and it wasn’t until after watching 10 Cloverfield Lane that I recognised her at all. She really holds her own as the leading character in this thriller. After being rescued/kidnapped and locked in a bunker, Mary plays a fighter trying to discover the truth, rather than a damsel in distress waiting to be rescued. It looks like she’s landed a big role in Season 3 of Fargo next year too, so I’m looking forward to that!

Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon & Leslie Jones (Ghostbusters)

Maybe it’s because I’d never seen the original (I have now) but I felt indifferent about the announcement of a remake of Ghostbusters. There was a lot of noise about an all-female cast and a lot of upset hardcore Ghostbusters fans, and then a rush to score the movie as low as possible days before it was even released. I loved it, for the record, and I watched the extended version with my family over the weekend and still loved it. Point proven, women are funny as hell!

Ellen Page & Allison Janney (Tallulah)

Tallulah is a movie that makes me so grateful for this blogging community, because I don’t think I would have even heard of it otherwise. I’d read glowing reviews and sometimes that’s all I need to go out (or stay in actually, this was on Netflix) and watch a movie straight away. Ellen Page might be the lead in this heartbreaking story about motherhood, but her co-star Allison Janney gives a performance just as strong.

So there you have it, my favourite leading ladies of the year so far. I’m sure if I re-visited this list at the end of year I’ll be adding at least Felicity Jones to it! Don’t forget to check out Dell’s blog to see his Girl Week posts.

My 5 Favourite Adam Driver Roles

In celebration of Adam Driver’s birthday today, I’ve made a Top 5 list of my favourite roles of his. You probably know him as that tall guy in the mask who likes to throw a temper tantrum, but he’s been in quite a few movies before The Force Awakens! Sadly, a lot of them are very mediocre indies, but he tends to be the hidden gem in them.

Before I kick off, I’d like to throw in an honorable mention, because I seemingly can’t stick to even my own rules, but he played such as small role in this movie I didn’t want to include it. If you haven’t seen Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) yet, you really should, even if it’s just to see this wonderful musical number:

At the time of writing, that video has 1,572,844 views. I think I'm probably responsible for at least 25,000 of those. So now that’s stuck in my head for the rest of the day, here’s the actual top 5:

#5 Midnight Special (2016), Sevier

Another small role for Adam, but part of a fantastic Sci-Fi movie. Sevier is the NSA agent hunting down Alton, a young boy with special abilities. Sevier becomes quite fascinated by Alton, and ultimately abandons his primary goal to help the boy instead. It’s a very different role to what he normally plays, but his natural goofy charm really shines.

#4 While We’re Young (2014), Jamie

I’m still mad that this movie wasn’t very good. It could have stuck to a real conventional, predictable romcom plot and I would have enjoyed it more. Jamie and his wife(? girlfriend?) become good friends with an older couple, and both pairs learn from each other, which of course includes goofy/fun Adam Driver, my favourite kind, but of course the movie turns all dark and weird. Classic example of a great role in a bad movie.

#3 Hungry Hearts (2014), Jude

Where the previous movie left me disappointed, Hungry Hearts just made me mad and sad. Adam Driver’s on-screen wife (I’m sure this time) becomes obsessed with purity, leaving their newborn baby starving and not growing. It’s a difficult movie to watch, but it’s very well acted and my heart just broke for Jude. You want to hug him and tell him everything will be okay, but at the same time, give him a slap and tell him to take control of the situation!

#2 Girls (2012-2017), Adam Sackler

Maybe I’m cheating a little, because Girls is a TV Show, but hey, this is my list! If anyone out there happened to wonder how Adam Driver got the role in Star Wars, look no further than his character here. Often childish, and occasionally violent, Adam Sackler is a multi-dimensional character. I know it’s not a popular show, but watching Adam’s character grow throughout the seasons has been fascinating, and I hope he has a happy ending when it all ends in 2017.

#1 Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Kylo Ren

The role that started this whole obsession of mine just had to be number 1, really. I know Kylo Ren has been shrugged off as a whiny character, but I think there’s a lot of room for character backstory here. You don’t just turn to the dark side for no reason, and I doubt a Snoke Apprenticeship is an easy thing to win. I’m both excited and terrified to see Kylo Ren in the next 2 movies, only because I know he’ll die in the end, and that will make me sad. There’s surely no coming back for him now, no matter how strong the pull from the light is. Is there?

BONUS! I know I already picked an honourable mention, but I just can’t leave this list here. You can’t mention Kylo Ren without mentioning his SNL alter-ego, Matt the Radar Technician. The whole world has seen that clip now, and I’ve seen it too many times to count, but it still makes me laugh. Pleeeeaaaase, powers that be, make Matt canon. I don’t even need to see him, just let General Hux make an off-hand comment about a bumbling idiot in a blonde wig, or something!

It’s now just a few days until Paterson (2016) is released in the UK, and I really can’t wait for that. I don’t think I have a cinema date yet though…