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kellyrantan
Reviews
Turning Red (2022)
Quirky, refreshing, nostalgic film
I watched this film accidentally. My 2 year old son saw a picture of it on Disney + and thought it was a fox. He likes foxes so we ended up watching the film. We both loved it. He was transfixed by the animation. For me I love the quirkiness of it and found it refreshing that there were so many main female characters. It was nostalgic too, as the friendship group reminded me a lot of my friendship group when I was at school and I've never seen those kind of teen girls portrayed in film before.
My only criticism is that the portrayal of overly strict parental figures is becoming a bit of a cliche with Disney films lately (Brave, Encanto, Coco etc..
and now Seeing Red). It might be interesting if they portrayed it the other way round as in some overly laid back parents who learn the value of providing more boundaries and discipline.
The Outlaws (2021)
Inconsistent black comedy
This series feels rushed. The accents of many of the characters are inaccurate (Polish man barely sounds Eastern European. Bristolian characters sound like they come from all over the place). There are obvious loop holes in the plot which force the audience to accept wildly unrealistic events. If you watch it as a black comedy with some doses of cartoon-ish silly plot lines and a large dollop of cheesiness/cliched characters then it's quite an enjoyable ride.
The jokes are sometimes funny and the music and editing are great. The community officer is a stand-out character. The teenage characters are poorly written and cringe-worthy.
Over-all it's worth a watch, but not sure I'll bother with the second series.
Stranger Things: Chapter Seven: The Lost Sister (2017)
Different isn't always bad!
I found the differences in this episode compared to the other episodes refreshing. It has a Bladerunner feel to it (which works as one of the many 80s tributes to films of that era) where the group of misfits Eleven finds herself in mirror the rebellious robots of Bladerunner. It's clear that Eleven needs to go on this soul-searching trip to grow up and get some prospective on how to truly harness her powers and respect and appreciate Hopper. It doesn't feel like a filler episode at all, but an important part of Eleven's character progression and plot. I think most people are put off by it just because it's so different to any other Stranger Things episode.
The Straight Story (1999)
An interesting cross between an art film and a made-for-TV movie
There were times ,as I watched this movie, where I wasn't sure if I was watching an art house film or a made-for-TV movie; it often sways between the two genres; slow moving, beautifully shot, naturalistic acting and dialogue, but then there are times of real cheese usually supported by the terrible music and several cringing moments of mawkishness and cliched pulling-of-the-heart-strings. However Richard Farnsworth is always worth a watch and he, alone, makes the film worth a look.
Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014)
A bit of a mess
I wasn't aware that this was based on an old TV series when I saw it; I just watched it with fresh eyes as a stand-alone film. The animation is good, but the plot is mostly a convoluted mess. The characterisations and script are dated and cliched. The historic references are interesting and entertaining if woefully inaccurate. What saves the film is the speediness of it (very fast-moving), it's one of those films that some children would enjoy, but few adults would.
Ghosts (2019)
Refreshingly imaginative and witty sitcom
Really refreshing comedy. I love the atmosphere of this sitcom; the house is beautiful, every character is very individual with depth to their personality. The writing is witty and imaginative and each plot of each episode was tight and well-paced. For me, it was rarely laugh-out loud funny, but I found it very entertaining and enjoyable to watch. I just wish the series had been longer - missing it already!
Leaving Neverland (2019)
An immersive account of a celebrity pedophile's systematic abuse of children
The slow pace and immense attention to detail is effective in immersing the audience entirely into the events as they occurred. It's a compelling, mesmerising film that left me feeling stunned and horrified through-out. Since then I've been more shocked and horrified over how many people have dismissed this documentary as fiction. I guess time will tell if any of Jackson's other victims will finally out themselves or whether their love for Michael and fear of vitriol from Michael's fans and family will keep them in the closet. Only time will tell.
My one criticism of the film is that it doesn't address why Wade Robson sued Jackson's estate for so much money. All other arguments used to downplay the boys' accusations are addressed i.e. why they took so long to admit the abuse, why the parents left them alone with MJ for 'sleepovers' and why the victims testified for MJ in court, but the documentary doesn't address why Wade chose to go after MJ's estate for so much money. Is this just standard practice for civil cases in America? Or are we expected to assume that going after MJ's money was a reasonable thing to do considering what he did to Wade? Surely Wade (and his lawyers/family) knew that going after MJ's money would lay him open to accusations of money-grabbing? But this isn't addressed, which I found surprising and frustrating.
Over-all I recommend this film whole-heartedly to anyone with an ounce of interest in protecting children from this type of pedophile and to anyone who ever liked a Michael Jackson song.
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
If you want a film to help you escape from the real world then you'll be sorely disappointed.
This film is painfully realistic - it moves slowly, there's lots of grief and pain and awkwardness and it has no dramatic or sentimental ending.
Some reviewers have written that the lack of outward grief shown in the teenage boy and then his sudden, awkward outburst over the freezer is unrealistic, but in my experience it's not. I've known a teenage boy who lost a parent to cancer and he behaved very similarly to the boy in this film. I think when a loved one dies from a terminal illness you've been grieving for a long time already so the shock is absent when the time finally comes. Sometimes busying yourself with your normal daily routine is the best way to cope with it. I think the teenager in the film embodies this kind of grief successfully.
Unfortunately, for me, I've experienced a similar trauma to the main character in that both my children died very young. I can vouch that the behaviour the main character and his ex wife display is very realistic (for me anyway). That sort of grief becomes very internalised in the end. You try to hide it the best you can, but it shapes you and scars you. I think the script writer and director (Kenneth Lonergan) understood this perfectly and found some beauty in it in his film, which for me I found cathartic. This film has helped me on a personal level.
A strange contradiction to the realistic feel of the dialogue and pacing is the intense melodramatic music. I can understand why this would jar with some people, but I quite liked it. For me it was a successful, balanced contrast because the music reflects the melodramatic grief the characters feel on the inside and the dialogue and acting reflect the numbness and squashed down/censored grief the characters display on the outside.
There are two reasons why I don't give the film a 10/10. The female characters are much less realistically written than the male ones. They all easily fit into one dimensional stereotypes of motherly, shrew/drama queen or frivolous silly young female. I think partly why Michelle Williams outburst is so effective towards the end is because suddenly a female character breaks free from her caricature in a really direct way.
Secondly I predicted the death of the children and how they died much earlier than I would have liked to. As soon as they showed the first clip of the main character with his kids in a flashback I was thinking to myself ok I get it, all the children died. And then I was wondering how - first I thought drowning, but dismissed this as Michelle Williams played a mother in 'Shutter Island' where all her children drowned. Then I considered fire and decided this was the most likely cause of the children's death, as their house looked like the type that would easily blow up and this would work better as a dramatic device in the movie than, say a car accident. I'm not sure if they could have done it any other way, but for me this was the only part of the movie that was easily predictable and so it lessened the power of it for me.
Over-all though I loved this movie. I can't think of another that I've seen that has portrayed grief so realistically and sensitively and beautifully, except maybe 'Truly Madly Deeply'.
The Substitute Wife (1994)
Shallow, slightly disturbing film
I'm surprised how many supposed women reviewers like this film. The movie plays out as a stereotypical male fetish fantasy laughably gift-wrapped as a 'love story'. I'm all for polyamorous relationships, but when a wife is dying and the 'new' wife is having sex with the husband under the same roof of the dying wife, all with the dying wife's stamp of approval... This is just plain disturbing - very sad if it's true that women in those times had to resort to that. However the feeling of the movie is not of a genuine, sincere exploration of these circumstances. It's more of a male (probably married) director/writer living out his (very) soft porn Farrah Fawcett fantasies... If you're into that kind of thing you'll love this movie!