It has been 16 years since the release of Ismael Ferroukhi’s relationship dramady Le Grand Voyage, and it is as relevant today as it was back then. The film follows Reda who, despite studying for exams, agrees to take his illiterate father on a pilgrimage to Mecca from France, bay car.
This film was the first that the Saudi Arabian government agreed to film in Mecca. Up until then, it was only documentaries that were permitted.
The themes of generational gaps, religious identity and language barriers fuel this film’s touching plot, as Reda learns the ways of his father, and how, eventually, they impact his own future.
The luscious cinematography of European landscapes such as Italy, Serbia and Turkey seem very poignant in the current political climate. The constant travelling between countries the two take show how different cultures are with a quick drive through boarder control.
Nicolas Cazale’s (Reda) interpretation of teenage angst lifts the film’s comic spine, whilst Mohamed Majd (the father) plays the wise, yet insular old man brilliantly. A film like this may not work nowadays, what with fancy sat nav phones and cars that can thaw us out of a snow storm, but this must-see spiritual ‘road trip’ film is timeless in it’s own way.
The final scenes of the film in Mecca are truly awe inspiring, and quite unlike anything seen on film without the use of special effects (perhaps the easiest comparison is Gandhi). A sea of white cloth, all together in one place in unison.
So, to use a surprise Oscar winning director’s quote that seems to have been reshaped into a meaningful instagram square…’once you overcome the 1-inch-tall barrier of subtitles’ – you’ll learn to re-love some French classics?
It’s unfortunate that the writing in The Runaways (2019) often times leans too heavily on pretention, because it’s stellar cast hits every beat to perfection.
Despite being written and directed by English filmmaker Richard Heap, The Runways reminds me cinematographically (and to a smaller extent, plot wise) a lot of American midwestern indies of the mid 2010s (Joe, Midnight Special). There is an ominous and meditative tone to The Runaways that suits the Yorkshire marshes well.
The cast of Mark Addy as Reith, the drunken but well-meaning father; uprising star Molly Windsor as disgruntled and moody Angie; and a gobsmacking stand out performance by Tara Fitzgerald as Maggie, the seemingly bipolar mother. The only performance I was not impressed by was Lee Boardman as the thief cum uncle, which I found often over acted and campy.
Overall though, I was impressed with the casting for this film, however there are moments when the writing, while usually consistent and has some sparks of genius, can veer into pretention. The plot starts off when Reith’s younger brother Blythe visits town after being released from prison. Reith dies that night from alcohol poisoning and Blythe wishes to steal something of his. The kids are left with no parent and Blythe threatened to send them into foster care.
With no other option the kids choose to trek across country to find their mother who left them when they were young. Before they do so they decide to give their father a water burial – this is where Ben, played by Rhys Connah gets his jumper caught on the ropes holding the body and falls to the bottom of the sea. When he comes back, he says, “he sings”. While it ties in with a motif where the children continue to see their dad throughout the story, it felt jarring here and unnecessary.
In more redeemable moments, there is a frustrated train post man that is being harassed by Ben who is incredibly relatable. “Thank you,” says Ben. “Yes. Thank you too.” Says the frustrated guard. Also there is a moment, I won’t spoil too much, where a donkey is squealing in a toilet and the person outside of the toilet is terribly confused.
I was also impressed by the writing of the character Maggie, I could gather her mental illness without being told explicitly, though there is one moment where she does do an act which I felt could have used more lead up.
Overall The Runaways was a mixed bag, but I
think the writer director has a lot of potential and is hitting on some
interested and moving themes. The cast was undeniably stellar making this film
hard to rate.
After a 2-month delay due to redesigning the titular character, the ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ Movie is finally out!
‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ is based on the Sega video game franchise and stars James Marsden and Ben Schwartz. Marsden plays a small-town police officer who discovers the small, blue Hedgehog and decides to help him escape from an evil genius who wants to experiment on him.
Ever since it was announced, I’ve been fascinated with this film. It never looked like it was going to work and, when the first trailer came out, there was a huge outcry against Sonic’s strange design. So much so, that director Jeff Fowler tweeted that the film was going to be delayed from a December release to a February release so that the character could be redesigned. This was an incredible decision that rarely happens, if not at all: a major production company listening to a fanbase’s feedback and acting on it.
So, was it worth it? Absolutely!
At the time of writing, ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ has just broken the record for the biggest weekend opening for a video game adaptation, earning over $110million worldwide (with a budget of $85million). And it isn’t difficult to see why: it’s a fun and charming film.
I’ve always found James Marsden a great and charming actor, and this is no exception. His character is immediately likable, and him and Ben Schwartz have great on-screen chemistry the second they interact with each other. As the core theme of the movie is friendship, it demonstrates this to us brilliantly through the two lead characters’ story arcs.
Ben Schwartz voices Sonic the Hedgehog and was the perfect casting choice for the furry blue character. His personality was portrayed differently than in the games: instead of being a quippy, sassy Hedgehog, he had a childlike innocence to him, and I’m glad Paramount Pictures went with this choice rather than the former. I highly doubt he would’ve been a very likable character if his game persona had been placed into the film. Keeping with the subject of the blue mammal, I still cannot say how thankful I am towards Paramount Pictures, director Jeff Fowler and the animation department for the titular character’s redesign. While it’s a mystery as to how no one at Paramount went ‘maybe this isn’t right’ when greenlighting the original design, the new design is glorious. The cartoony nature of his makeover means that, not only does it look like Sonic, but he’s also very expressive; something that was missing from the first design. The more I watched the film, the more I realized the whole thing wouldn’t have worked if Paramount had kept Sonic as a human/rat hybrid!
Jim Carrey plays Dr Robotnik and gives the role his undivided attention, and the amount of work he put into the character shows. His version of the arch-nemesis reminded me of his performance as The Riddler from 1995’s ‘Batman Forever’. For some people, this may sound like a bad thing, but it isn’t. For me, that particular Batman film was part of my childhood; therefore, his performance in ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ can be described as nostalgic as well as going back to the actor’s roots of his 90’s films. He brought the dry humour and threat that the character needed, as well as adding his own charm to the role.
The one aspect of the Sonic movie I was looking forward to was the action scenes, especially considering his super speed ability. And it delivers, including a bar scene that was clearly influenced by ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’. However, because it’s Sonic the Hedgehog, it works beautifully. The action scenes, while they mostly appear in the third act, were unique-looking and exciting.
And, while the movie is set in the real world, don’t worry: there are plenty of references to the games. These include a look at the Green Hill Zone (and its theme music), the Sonic theme playing during the opening credits, a few mentions of a Mushroom Kingdom and a certain character showing up (stay for a mid-credits scene!).
If there’s anything to criticize, it would be that the first 20 minutes run at the speed of sound and give us flimsy exposition. While we do get a look at the Green Hill Zone (the first area featured in the Sonic games), it is brief. However, this is very nit-picky as the film doesn’t need to give its audience a lot of exposition to tell its story.
Overall, ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ is a fantastic film and deserves all the praise it’s getting. It’s charming, funny and enjoyable. However, it also serves as a lesson to the film industry when it comes to adapting beloved material to the big screen. Respect the source material as well as its fanbase. If the fanbase don’t love and support the adaptation, there’s usually a reason why.
Clint Eastwood continues his run of real-life stories of unsung American heroes – which he began with sleeper 2014 hit American Sniper and followed with Sully and The 15:17 to Paris – with the self-titled story of Richard Jewell.
His film follows events of the eponymous Richard Jewell who, working as a security guard at a concert in Atlanta’s Centennial Park on July 27 1996, discovered a planted pipe bomb early enough for the authorities to get enough people to a safe distance before it exploded, reducing the number of potential fatalities to just one.
At first, Jewell was praised as a hero, but after some scandalous details about his past came to light, he became the prime suspect. The story then became he had planted the bomb himself in order to discover it and be seen as a hero. The film depicts the media scrutiny Jewell came under and how he and his lawyer, Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell), tried to clear his name.
As the title character, Paul Walter Hauser is the most unknown of the film’s leads, a casting decision which gives the character a more authentic, less-stagey feel. The film shows Jewell in his prior security jobs to the fateful one at Centennial Park, where he had always shown an enthusiasm in law enforcement – so much so that he has over-exercised his authority. It would be that obsession with law and order, for better and worse, that would put him in the public eye.
On his case following the blast are one composite character, FBI agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm), and one based on real-life Atlanta Journal Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde).
Like Jewell, they are both overly-enthusiastic about what they do, but their single-mindedness ends up putting Jewell into hot water rather than themselves. Scruggs is after a scoop, Shaw is looking either for the perpetrator, or someone to blame. Neither show any concern about throwing Jewell under the bus to get what they want.
Jewell’s innocence can be easily proved, but the circumstances are against him. Fitting the profile of an embittered terrorist – fat, single, unable to hold down a job, living with his mother – as well as blotches on his record and his knowledge of weaponry and explosives, in many peoples’ eyes, make him guilty.
That we see Jewell is not responsible does rob the film of some tension – even at the most desperate moment, it never feels like he will be convicted, whether or not you know the outcome of the real-life story beforehand. Eastwood and screenwriter Billy Ray, though, are not out to manipulate audiences with Richard Jewell.
There are moments of sentimentality, but they are not overdone and when they come, the story has earned a right for such a moment. The use of a docudrama style and lack of score make for a far less exploitative and more compelling way of letting the story unfold.
There have been some doubt cast over the film’s historical accuracy, particularly in its depiction of Scruggs, which does feel unfortunately old-fashioned.
Such claims can be particularly damning for a film about the importance of the truth, but it ultimately does not discredit Richard Jewell The film can work on two levels: first the story of the man himself, second it can be seen as an allegory of the integrity of the press and how we should not be so quick to cast assertions on others. The fake news angle may be one that Trump’s lot will jump on, but it is nonetheless a prescient point to make.
Richard Jewell does well to tell a little-known story and is probably the best dramatisation of these events that there can be. It succeeds largely by not trying to be anything more than what it is and everyone involved giving it their all. In particular, it’s testament to the evident fact that Eastwood, still directing at the age of 89, has not lost any of his abilities as a storyteller.
To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You – The BRWC Review. As her relationship with Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) continues to grow, Lara Jean Song Covey (Lana Condor) reunites with another recipient of one of her old love letters, John Ambrose McClaren (Jordan Fisher).
A couple of years ago, Susan Johnson released a feature film adaptation of Jenny Han’s novel To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and it was met with heavy critical and general audience acclaim. It was a movie that was released all the way back in 2018, but I never checked it out until very recently.
The reason why is simple – romantic movies are almost always weak in my opinion. The majority of them usually follow the exact same storyline and plot beats, and they just don’t offer a whole lot of meat. Sure, they can be fun and entertaining to watch. You can put a romance movie on Netflix during a rainy day when you are bored and there is nothing else to do. They’re just disposable movies usually.
However, I was met with a massive surprise when I finally went ahead and watched To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before earlier this week when I saw that it was actually a great film. Filled to the brim with charm and energy and boosted with amazing performances from Lana Condor and Noah Centineo as the two leads, it worked in a ton of ways.
But if I am going to be honest with you, I was rather nervous to check out this new 2020 Michael Fimognari-directed sequel. The ending of that first movie was really great, and it seemed kind of strange to make more of these movies. Yes, I am aware that there are three books in the series (and they are already making a third and final installment in the film trilogy, supposedly in post-production), but I was just unsure of how they were going to handle this second chapter.
From the bottom of my heart, I was really hoping that, much like the first entry, this movie would actually end up surprising me, but it just didn’t. This is not an awful movie by any means necessary. It’s really not even all that bad, but what it is, is a massive step down from the first installment.
Let’s talk about the best aspect to this film. Once again, much like the first, it is the performances by both Lana Condor and Noah Centineo. Their chemistry is seriously so wonderful, and it is incredibly endearing to watch these two do literally anything on screen. I am convinced that it would be amusing to watch them just drinking coffee or something so incredibly simple. Their performances are some of the best you’ll be able to find in the young adult/teen romance genre.
Also quite strong here is Jordan Fisher as John Ambrose McClaren, a boy that Lara used to know and be friends with back when she was a child. Even though his performance in To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love Youis definitely strong, his character sadly is not much else besides the “guy in the middle of a love triangle” character. That is pretty much the extent of his character, and he isn’t given much else to do in this screenplay.
If you really boil it down, the only two characters that have a lot of substance and development to them are Lara and Peter. The other characters feel pushed to the side, which was disappointing. Trezzo Mahoro delivers a deeply comedic and likeable performance as Lucas, one of Lara’s best friends, but the only thing he gets to do here is comfort her. That’s it. I really wish these side characters were given more to do.
Much like the aforementioned original, this is, for the most part, a pretty cute and adorable movie to watch. It is sadly kind of cheesy, which the original was as well, but actually, this one was not as cheesy as the first. Watching Lara and Peter on screen is always extremely sweet, but there needs to be something else present to make this movie truly come alive – a great script. This movie just doesn’t have one.
The story this time around was nowhere near as investing as it was the first time. Not a whole lot of interesting or dramatic things happen in this film until much later on. We’re never really given anything to care about for a while, which is strange.
It’s also paced rather strange, too. The first film was always entertaining after the first act came and went. It had plenty of things to enjoy. But To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love Youfeels like multiple movies into one. You can definitely tell that this is not directed by Susan Johnson, who was behind the camera for the first.
One of the biggest examples of this movie not feeling the same and feeling like a bunch of different movies crammed into one, happens during a scene in the second act that took me off guard, and not in a good way. It features an extremely bizarre and borderline cringe-worthy song and dance number. It happened so suddenly that it made me open my mouth in shock, because it was just so bizarre. I thought that would be the end of it, but there is another musical number later on that also comes out of nowhere. It just felt so strange and out of place.
Something about this film that was certainly on the same level of excellence as the first however, was the cinematography by director Fimognari. It is kind of exciting to see that the cinematographer behind the first picture got to actually direct this time around. His camera work is utterly stunning, and it is one of the best looking romance movies you can find.
It is just such a shame that the rest of the movie as a whole was rather disappointing to say the least. It takes everything that was great about its predecessor and somehow manages to make it all so uninteresting. Don’t get me wrong, there were still some really cute, funny, and charming sequences to be found here. But as a sequel to a really strong movie, it let me down.
To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You doesn’t offer a lot of greatness with its bland script, even if it still contains great performances from Lana Condor and Noah Centineo.
