Review: Nocturnal Animals (2016)

I don’t remember ever going into the cinema as blind as I did last week for Nocturnal Animals. I’d heard a lot of buzz surrounding the name, I’d watched the trailer (once) which didn’t give much away at all, and I knew Jake Gyllenhaal was in it. That was enough for me, and I somehow convinced my husband to come along too. I don’t know how I did it, but I have a feeling it may have been something to do with the ever beautiful Amy Adams.

Before I go into an actual review, I have to share a funny moment with you. Tuesday and Wednesday showings have a silly amount of adverts before the movie, because of the wildly popular ‘Meerkat Movies’ 2-4-1 deal. This poor couple in front of us were already there when we arrived, sat through the whole slog of ads, the 5 trailers (although we were shown the Arrival trailer twice in a row, odd) and when the BBFC ratings screen came on with ‘Nocturnal Animals’ emblazoned on the left hand side, they realised they were in the wrong screen. I hope they didn’t miss too much of Doctor Strange, because that opening scene was awesome.

Anyway! Nocturnal Animals is a dark movie split into two narratives. First we have Susan (Amy Adams), an art gallery owner living a seemingly-perfect life in her mansion of a house adorned with staff, and a husband who sadly, is hardly ever at home. One morning she receives a parcel from her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal), a manuscript for a book he’s written that he wants her thoughts on. The book turns out to be dedicated to Susan, but is a dark and twisted story, which haunts her.

Whenever Susan starts reading the book, we get to see it played out, by Jake Gyllenhaal himself and his book-wife (Isla Fisher). Their story isn’t for the feint-hearted, it’s a cruel and violent tale. Some scenes are particularly difficult to watch, and I get the feeling they were deliberately made as long as possible to make the audience uncomfortable. If that is the case, it definitely worked on me. I kept thinking to myself ‘Oh that won’t actually happen though, they wouldn’t show us that’ and then they did! I’m getting the shivers just thinking about it.

So, whilst we see Edward’s story played out in snippets, we also go back to Susan often to learn more about her, and more importantly, what happened all those years ago between her and Edward. There’s a theme of revenge here for sure, and we know that Susan left him, but not why, or under what circumstances. It’s really well edited in these sections, the way something happens in the book that then takes us back to real life, and editing isn’t something that I normally take notice of.

Of course, I won’t give anything away, but I love an ambiguous ending. One that’s satisfying enough when taken at face value, but when you start to analyse every little detail, you begin to come up with different theories about certain elements. 

I really loved this movie, but I will NOT forgive that jump scare. You can witness it for yourself, I’m not going to warn you, but it scared the crap out of the entire screen. Then I had to watch the next ten minutes from the corner of my eye in case something else happens. My poor nervous wreck of a husband now labels Nocturnal Animals as ‘that piece of sh*t movie that scared me’. He liked it of course, but he’s a bigger scaredy cat than me!

So yes, big seal of approval from me. Just...skip the opening credits if you can...trust me.

Review: Midnight Special (2016)

Date night! This might be the first movie Jenna and I actually watched together at the cinema THIS YEAR. Is that right? What did we actually watch together last?  Urm I think you might be right, I don't actually remember the last time we went!

Anyway, I do love our cinema trips. They almost always involve a cheeky Nandos, and I get a free ticket thanks to those delightful meerkats and Jenna’s Cineworld card. I did not approve of the life size, all too real Idris Elba cutout in the foyer that terrified me every time I looked it. So mesmerising at the same time, though… This feels like the ideal time to mentions Allie's joke about Idris' elbow....you may have had to be there! Did you actually hear that? I can't help calling him Idris Elbow but I thought I only got halfway through that sentence before the cardboard version of him terrified me!

On to the movie! I don’t want to tell you too much about the plot of Midnight Special, because it’s one of those that’s better the less you know, but this is what I could tell from the trailer and the summary on IMDB. A young boy named Alton with mysterious, special powers (Jaeden Lieberher) is on the run from the government with his father (Michael Shannon). That really is all you need to know. That, and the fact that this is a Sci-Fi movie.

It’s got one of the greatest openings to a movie I’ve seen for a long time. The logos of the production companies are still being played, but you can hear a news report in the background giving an amber warning for a missing child, kidnapped by a man named Roy (Shannon). Quickly we realise we’re in the motel room occupied by Roy, Alton and a friend of Roy’s, Lucas (Joel Edgerton). In the middle of the night, the three leave their room and drive at speed through the night. 

Right from the outset, my mind had questions floating around. Who is Lucas? Why are they on the run? Where has Alton been kidnapped from? As the movie creeps along, most questions get answered, but more crop up constantly, and that’s one of the greatest things about Midnight Special. It leads you on at a relatively slow pace, but keeps you guessing throughout. Just when your mind has caught up, it picks up pace again and gives you a fresh batch of thoughts. It also made me jump pretty badly, twice! I’d actually only started trusting the movie again when it got me the second time.  

I am struggling to put together any kind of coherent review for this film.  One thing I will say is that I'm glad I completely forgot the trailer, going into this with an open mind is kind of the only way to watch it.  It's a slow burner that's for sure, refusing to give away anything but the bear minimum of information and building on that.  I think it was nearly 30 minutes before they confirmed that one of the men 'kidnapping' this boy, was actually his father. Had they have provided all the information as we went along I don't think I would have been as engrossed as I was, i was constantly waiting for the answer to a question which inevitably posed a new question!

The performances are great all round. I only really discovered Joel Edgerton last year in The Gift, and his role here was completely different. I’m looking forward to seeing more of his movies. Michael Shannon is an actor I’ve seen very little of also, and he was the star in this one, saying more with his expressions and body language than he did with actual words. I felt Kirsten Dunst was a bit wasted, personally, but maybe that’s because I wanted to know more about her past, and didn’t. Adam Driver was everything I wanted him to be, playing a more serious role than I’m used to seeing him in, but with the right amount of awkwardness for it to still be him.

I was really impressed with Shannon (i'd expect nothing less), Edgerton (no idea what to expect) and Driver (if I said I didn't like him Allie would cut me out of her wedding!). Lieberher did a really good job of playing someone smarter than all the adults around him but still providing a vulnerability that made you want to just hug him.  Don't get me started on Dunst, I don't like her, this had not made me like her anymore.  In fact, I think the whole film could have been just as good without that character entirely.

I want to keep this spoiler free, so I won’t discuss the ending, but afterwards, Jenna and I both agreed we needed to sleep on this one before we knew how to feel. I thought about it the whole drive home, stayed up far too late reading into it, and spent my break at work telling a colleague about it. I love movies that do this to me! When I started writing this, I’d told myself I was giving Midnight Special an 8, but actually putting my thoughts into words has made me realise I enjoyed this more than I thought I did.

It took me four days to work out how I felt about this and how to put that into words.  It's slow paced, providing enough tension to keep me on the edge of my seat without having to resort to excess CGI and huge set pieces. 

Looking Forward to Seeing in the Cinema this Month: April 2016

I cannot possibly be writing the post for April already, surely!  When this post goes live, Allie will be getting married and I will be turning 31 NEXT MONTH...WTF!!!!!

I've known for ages what my movie would be for this month due to my slightly inappropriate obsession with Taron Egerton.  

Eddie the Eagle is the true story of Brit Eddie Edwards AKA Eddie the Eagle and his determination to get to the Olympics in the 80's.  He went on to compete in the Ski Jumping category at the Calgary Winter Olympics in 1988 with the help of fictional coach, Bronson (Hugh Jackman) and won the hearts of fans everywhere.

I don't know many details of the history of Eddie the Eagle and I dying to google all about him but I'm fighting the urge so hopefully I won't know the entire story before I see it!!

Eddie the Eagle is released in UK Cinemas on 1st April 2016.

I'm suspicious of anything that happens on 1st April! I guess that comes from having prankster parents, but how funny would it be if you turned up for Eddie the Eagle on April Fool's Day and the cinema was just like, 'LOL. Here, watch some turd movie instead'. But I digress. You know what...... that wouldn't be in the slightest bit funny, in fact Cineworld if you're reading this, I would be mighty pee'd off and would consider boycotting your establishment!  Ok I wouldn't boycott as such, but I would certainly start bringing my own snacks.....

 

Can we rename April 'weird obsession' month here? As much as I know I'll be seeing Captain America: Civil war soon, there's something else I'm looking forward to more.

Midnight Special, baby! You heard me. I didn't even know this movie existed until last week when my family went out to see 10 Cloverfield Lane. The trailer for Midnight Special started playing and I darn near threw popcorn everywhere before squealing at the sight of Adam Driver on the big screen again!

It's a Sci-Fi flick about a child with special powers. I'm assuming the authorities want to perform all kinds of research on him, and that's why his father goes on the run with him, but I'm trying not to read too much into it. The review scores look good so far though, and the rest of the casting sounds promising. Fingers crossed!

Midnight Special is released in UK cinemas on 8th April 2016.

Review: Premium Rush (2012)

I tried really hard to watch Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy last night. Maybe I was just too tired, or maybe it's not the film for me, but I had to turn it off after ten minutes. Instead, I put on Premium Rush, a film I've been meaning to watch for a while. It kept popping up on IMDB as a film recommend to me, so I thought, 'why not!'.  I've tried to watch this film twice and fallen asleep both times, maybe I need to try one more time.  Third times a charm! Ok I tried again and got 30 minutes in before I fell asleep - I give up as much as I love Joseph Gordon-Levitt, this is just not a film for me :(

Wilee (Jospeh Gordon-Levitt) works as a bike courier in New York City, and he's also a complete mad-man, riding around on a bike with no breaks. I didn't believe bike couriers were even a real thing until I looked it up! Anyway, one afternoon, Wilee ends up picking up an envelope which is also being hunted down by a dirty NYPD cop who will stop at nothing to get his hands on it.

As a car driver myself, I have a natural aversion to cyclists anyway. Birmingham might not be New York, but it's still a nightmare to drive around in rush hour, and cyclists are such a nuisance! I thought Premium Rush might change my view and actually sympathise with the dangerous journeys cyclists have each time, but Wilee and his colleagues are so reckless that it just fuelled my aggression!

Serves you right, Wilee...

It terms of the film itself, I actually really enjoyed it. Wilee had some great witty lines, and there's one particular cop trying to catch him for his dangerous cycling that had me laughing out loud. He just can't catch a break and you can't help but feel sorry for him. The actual storyline surrounding the letter doesn't make much sense if I'm honest, but the chase scenes and humour make up for it.

One particular thing I liked about Premium Rush was some of the effects. When Wilee approaches junctions and crossings, time slows down as his mind processes which route he should take. You also get some pretty cool clips of the routes that the cyclists have to take. I can't find a great clip to emphasise this but here's a goof example of the chase scenes:

Although it had its flaws, Premium Rush is something a little different and it was fun to watch. Plus, come on ladies, who wouldn't want to watch Joseph Gordon-Levitt on a bike for an hour and a half?

Jenna, I now realise that you are the exception to that!

Review: Man of Steel (2013)

I saw this film initially at the cinema and recently it's been on Sky Movies near on daily so I managed to catch up on it again and again and again!! It wasn't so bad though because I did really enjoy this, much to the surprise of many of my film fan friends who were disappointed after all the waiting!!

Who wouldn't love a film with that face...and that body in it!!  That would have been enough for me, it could have been 2 hours of Henry Cavill just staring at the camera and I would have given it 10/10.  I'm kidding, sort of! Mmm I'll second that! I was actually sort of gutted when him and Kaley Cuoco split up, they were so cute together! Man of Steel covers the history of how Kal-El became Clark Kent and then became Superman all while saving Earth from the likes of General Zod and his Kryptonian pals.

It is fair to say that I am overall a Marvel girl, I prefer the Marvel films (I'm not a huge comic book reader so I can't comment on that) but I prefer the humour and comedic timing in the Marvel films to the darker more serious DC films such as this and the Batman trilogy.  That doesn't mean I don't enjoy these and this one had its fair share of dry humour throughout, this being my favourite:

See, now I feel sort of awkward commenting on this. Comics wise, I'm a DC fan completely, no doubt. Film wise, I tend to steer towards Marvel for the humour  (what I actually want to say is Thor) Ta-da!!! (couldn't resist!). I saw Man of Steel at the cinema and enjoyed it, but it just didn't have wow factor for me, and it sort of dragged a bit. My other half wouldn't stop raving though so it's totally personal from my side.

Although the film was particularly long, it felt rushed to me.  I am a huge fan of Smallville which took 10 seasons and 10 years to show how Clark Kent became Superman, what this film showed in 30 minutes.  I understand not as much detail can be put into a film and that there is no way it wouldn't feel rushed, so I think Smallville may have somewhat ruined any Superman films for me that covers the time prior to becoming Superman!

Actually that makes a lot of sense! I only started watching Smallville just before the JLA was introduced, and I would rather watch a few episodes of Smallville than Man of Steel.

Aside from that though, I really enjoyed the film, particularly Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent, who I thought should have had much more screen time and Michael Shannon as General Zod.  Cavil was a significant improvement on what I consider the boring version offered by Brendan Routh but Amy Adams lacked the tough sarcasm and general know-it-all nature of Lois Lane that I love.

I could say I would watch this again and again but I already have! Definitely recommend it to any comic book movie fans but maybe not to Smallville fans!!