Category: REVIEWS

Once again, it’s that time of year when the collective thoughts of the film world turn to just one thing, the studios beg for the recognition of self-appointed peerages and every day gossip outlets speculate which men will be winners and what women will wear at the ceremony – yes, it’s awards season.

If you couldn’t already tell, I’m not a fan of awards, from the Oscars down. With a growing emphasis on red carpet appearances and, more often than not, those who receive the most hype seem to win, it feels more and more like another piece of celebrity news and a lot of time spent speculating on what is an inevitable conclusion.

Is this just cynicism, though, or, if you looked back at every Oscar result from the start, could you find patterns that could save us all the time and predict the outcomes as soon as the nominees are announced? Could it even be expressed as a mathematical model? 

Author Ben Zauzmer, who holds a degree in applied maths from Havard university, believes he has created just a model that can forecast the outcomes on the night – one that correctly predicted 20 out of 21 winners ahead of time in 2018. He shares the makings and practical workings of that model in his new book Oscarmetrics.

In the book, Zauzmer has collected every piece of Oscars data, the nominees and winners of every category throughout the awards’ history, and analysed it all to find tendencies in how the Academy has voted over time.

It’s not just the Oscars, either, he has done the same for the BAFTAs, Golden Globes, DGA, WGA, Grammys and various other guilds to see if there are any correlations between how they all hand out their prizes and the subsequent Oscar wins.

In doing so, he brings up some interesting trends – such as the director of the eventual best film winner wins their respective award 96% of the time – and litters his books with interesting piece of information, such as the most nominations for an individual without a win and the average age discrepancies in the acting categories.

An in-depth knowledge of maths is not needed to understand Oscarmetrics, though it can get over-technical to the point of confusion at times. Some may find themselves re-reading passages a second, third and fourth time before finally understanding what is being said. 

Even so, Zauzmer proves himself both a very credible writer on both maths and cinema and is able to articulate his understanding of both very well – even doing well to explain how the two can be linked when it comes to awards.

That said, the book can also be unfocused and meandering at times – sometimes Zauzmer doesn’t even discuss the category mentioned at the top of the chapter. Probably more harmful to a book about statistics is that sometimes he uses incomplete or unreliable data, such as IMDb user scores and Rotten Tomatoes ratings, as part of proving his hypothesis. 

This is forms part most grating in an over-long section of the book, towards the end where Zauzmer uses the IMDb scores as the basis to work out which film, year on year, should have won the Best Picture gong. His doing so will make you wish more and more that the proposed “Best Popular Film” category never comes to light.

Possibly the biggest missed opportunity of Oscarmetrics is that Zauzmer does not put his findings into action and predict the winners of an upcoming Oscar ceremony. There may have been some legal issue preventing that, but it does give the book something of an anticlimactic feel.

Despite containing elements that don’t sit comfortably, Oscarmetrics is full of fascinating information and is a book that can be read, understood and appreciated by anyone, regardless of their mathematical ability or level of understanding of film. 

It’s a book that feels to the Oscars what Moneyball was to baseball and will add to the excitement of those who love awards season, while giving greater validation to those who hate it. They can now point to the hard data in Oscarmetrics to show it’s all a predictable, elitist, corporate fuss that will all be long forgotten by the time next year’s ceremony comes around.

The Grudge: The BRWC Review – After a young mother murders her family in her own house, a single mother and detective tries to investigate and solve the case. Later, she discovers the house is cursed by a vengeful ghost that dooms those who enter it with a violent death.

Well folks, here we are not only in a brand new year but in a brand new decade as well. It genuinely seems hard to believe that the 2020s are finally here, but alas they are. There’s only one negative thing that comes with every new year and every January and particular – we get a bunch of bad horror films releasing. Last January, we had the massively disappointing Escape Room, and the year before that, we had Insidious: The Last Key.

But, if I am going to be completely honest with you, something about Nicolas Pesce’s latest feature, a new reboot of The Grudge, intrigued me. Pesce is a filmmaker that I greatly admire. The Eyes of My Mother, his 2016 feature is one of incredible originality and a terrific movie overall. His direction and writing is usually quite strong, so when I heard that he was going to be directing this movie, my excitement increased a little bit.

Another reason why I was cautiously optimistic here was because of the cast. The cast is incredibly impressive with stars such as John Cho, Lin Shaye, and Andrea Riseborough as the leads, which seemed like a win for me. Everything about The Grudge in terms of a technical aspect seemed like a lock.

A great cast, terrific director, good cinematographer, etc. Which is why it seemed so surprising to me that The Grudge was getting a January release. I honestly thought this was going to be one of the rare times that a January film was not too bad, but boy was I wrong. The Grudge is not only a disastrous way to start off the new year in cinema, but it may end up being one of the worst movies of the year by the time December comes.

Virtually every element of this film fails on every level. Let’s start with the characters, though. In the 2004 American reboot of The Grudge, the characters, while not terrifically strong in any regard, were ones that I could get behind at times. I understood their motivations and I knew what they were after and I got to know a little bit about them as the story progressed. In Pesce’s version, the characters are painfully dull and underdeveloped. There is maybe only one or two sequences here in which he cares to flesh out the characters, and even still, the scenes that we do get are frustratingly quick. It seems like the filmmakers were worried to take a breather in its scares department to focus on the human element which was such a shame.  

If any one of these characters were to die in the first fifteen minutes of the film, I would not have cared one bit, because we are never given any reason to care. They feel like the exact definition of disposable horror movie characters. They’re only in the film to eventually be killed off in some way, and you know it is coming. That’s another thing about The Grudge I despised; the scares and its overall predictability.

Those that have been following me and my reviews for many years know by now that there are few things I hate more in a horror film than jump scares. They have never been scary. There is a stark difference between being scared and startled. Jump scares can be startling. They can take you off guard for a brief moment or two, but after that initial shock, you no longer feel terror, because you have been released. A loud sound effect accompanied with a weird image on screen can be startling. Being scared is feeling downright uncomfortable, uneasy even. You feel like you may literally be in danger, and you feel like you will never be released from the tension the filmmaker is gripping you with. The Grudge is not scary. It can be startling, which to me, is annoying. It seemed as if there was a jump scare every other minute in this movie and after a while, it was insanely predictable as to when a jump scare would happen.

Even in terms of a story The Grudge has nothing new to offer either. This is the exact same story that we have been told time and time again with nothing exciting to change things up present here. In fact, I am completely confused as to how this movie was approved, as it feels in every way, like the most generic horror film that the filmmakers could have possibly made. I admire and respect the effort, but it just did not work.

Now without spoilers of course, I have to briefly touch upon the ending. It is without a shadow of a doubt, one of the worst endings in cinema in several years. An ending that feels so unearned and comes completely out of field field and will leave fans of the film beforehand, no longer fans by the time the credits roll.

Don’t get me wrong though, this is not one of the worst films ever made or anything. There are much worse films out there, but this is still really bad. That being said, there are some things about this movie that are not too bad, so let’s talk about those.

The acting some of the cast is actually quite strong during certain moments. For example, Andrea Riseborough as Detective Muldoon was one that, at first, I was not sure how to feel about her acting. But after a while, I found myself thinking that she was actually quite good. But by far the best actor here is Lin Shaye as Mrs. Matheson, who does her best with the little screen time that she is given. While still being good in the film, I have to admit that there was one scene in particular that involves Shaye that I thought was extremely cringe-worthy, and it even had people in my theatre laughing out loud, which was not at all the intention. Not only was I laughing at this scene, but I found myself laughing at a large portion of the film, and this film is not supposed to be humorous whatsoever, but it just was.

Speaking of Mrs. Matheson, and I know this is just a silly nitpick but I still feel the need to bring it up, I challenge you to count how many times her name is spoken in the film. I guarantee you it is at least thirty times or more, and after I while, it actually became hilarious to listen to.

The Grudge is a massive disappointment and a drastically dull horror film that has a recycled story, a wasted cast, and weak scares.

Uncut Gems: The BRWC Review – We saw the film at London Film Festival, so we have reposted that review.

Fresh from the success of the terrific Heaven Knows What and the wonderfully absorbing Good Time, the Safdie Brothers’ latest film is a roller-coaster of thrills from start to finish, proving themselves once again to be true masters of suspense cinema, capable of unnerving any audience. 

In Uncut Gems, Adam Sandler plays a jewellery dealer with a mountain of debts, facing a race against time for his life, in a New York-based crime thriller that carries a level of grit not seen in Hollywood for many years. It has a particularly authentic feel to it, thanks in large part to the raw and chaotic style that the Safdie Brothers have now perfected.

This is an absolute masterclass in tense, pulse-racing cinema, designed to discomfort the viewer in the best way imaginable. It’s genuinely edge-of-your-seat stuff, and the erratic nature of it all is at once unsafe, unnerving and unpredictable. 

In amongst the thrills are plenty of legitimate laughs, in what could only be considered a black comedy in the strongest possible sense. It’s certainly not for everyone, carrying with it the potential of being either your favourite film of the year or your least favourite, but those who find themselves wrapped up in it will find it impossible to forget. 

Of course, the main talking point with this film is that of the terrific central performance from Adam Sandler, who proves once again that, when given strong material, he is an extremely capable dramatic actor. Much like Punch-Drunk Love and The Meyerowitz Stories, the range in his performance is admirable, and much credit must go to the Safdie Brothers for their work with actors, as we saw with Robert Pattinson’s career-defining turn in Good Time.

Adam Sandler is a difficult man for film lovers to like. In many ways, the films he makes and the way he conducts those productions represents the very worst of Hollywood and just how shallow mainstream cinema has become, but its testament to his performance that these preconceived opinions are largely forgotten after about three minutes, with films like Grown Ups and Jack and Jill a distant memory. He is outstanding in this film, in a role that utilises both his dramatic and comedic talents, and that’s really all that matters. 

Uncut Gems is utterly relentless from start to finish; a true force of nature that is excruciating to sit through yet impossible to look away from. Its provocative style will prove no doubt to be divisive, but those who engage with it will be rewarded with one of the most high-pressure, adrenaline-fueled American films in years.

UNCUT GEMS is in select cinemas from January 10^th and on Netflix from January 31^st

Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is like every other boy his age, he is nervous about the world around him, wants to look the best that he can in front of his peers and although he doesn’t have many friends, he relies on his imaginary best friend to advise him on the more serious things. Jojo also lives in Nazi Germany and his best friend just happens to be Adolph Hitler (Taika Waititi). Jojo is told all the things that little boys and girls were told at the time and Jojo laps it up.

]He’s told that Jews are wicked and not to be trusted and that women are only good for cleaning and making babies and so Jojo wants to do his best to please The Fuhrer who he dreams of meeting for real one day. However, one day Jojo hears noises upstairs and finds a young girl, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) hiding in the wall. However, despite everything he’s been told about Jews, Jojo starts to warm to Elsa and learns that perhaps the things he’s been told are wrong.

Jojo Rabbit is a heart-warming, hopeful, emotional and tragic film from writer/director Taika Waititi. Nazi Germany is viewed through the eyes of Jojo who is just a child, so although the adults in the film (and the audience) may see the world for what it really is, Jojo doesn’t and it’s all because he has been overwhelmed with propaganda at such a young and impressionable age.

The adults are mostly seen as taking things very casually, even when there is word of an impending attack on Germany and for Jojo, this kind of thing is reassuring to him, especially because of his trust in Germany’s leader. Jojo lives with his mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) and despite their political differences, Jojo and his mother share a special bond that is at the heart of the film and perhaps shows the audience how nurture over nature can help a child to find the right way. There scenes together are touching in a way that brings out the best of both actors and Johansson hasn’t been this good in years.

Jojo’s friendship with Elsa is also something unique that forms into a brother/sister relationship but is also adorably moulded by Jojo’s burgeoning feelings of romantic love, even though he doesn’t know how to deal with them. The chemistry between the two young actors is sweet, often funny and the carefully crafted script shows how their relationship changes and perhaps would make the audience think twice before judging a person they’d never met.

Although the audience may see where this story is heading from the start, Jojo Rabbit shows that it’s more about the journey than the destination and the direction that the film takes its audience is through some dark humour, unexpectedly emotional scenes and moments that can help its audience relate to Jojo’s experiences in ways they perhaps weren’t expecting. The cast is filled with cameos from Sam Rockwell, Rebel Wilson and Stephen Merchant, but the warmth and bond between Johansson and Davis is what really pulls at the heart strings in all the right ways.

Although it would be thoughtless to disregard Davis’ performance alone as he carries almost the entire film himself and his second-best friend, Yorki (Archie Yates) has some of the best one-liners in the film.

Jojo Rabbit is a story about how the world is ever changing and along with the world, people can change too. If you feel that the state of the world you live in right now is more than you can bare, Jojo Rabbit is a reassuring story that firmly believes that nothing stays the same forever. In another pair of hands, Jojo Rabbit would have been another deadly serious and harrowing Oscar contender merely because it tells the audience the Nazis are bad.

I think we get the message by now so Jojo Rabbit feels like a breath of fresh air and a more approachable story that will entertain and maybe even educate people of all ages.

November 1^st is a short film that takes the form of a road trip with a mother, Bonnie (Lindsay Duncan) and her daughter, Caroline (Sophia Myles) as they travel to witness the execution of the man that murdered Bonnie’s son.

Obviously, tensions are fraught, Bonnie isn’t exactly easy to get along with and Caroline is feeling the onslaught of verbal abuse from her mother. Although, the audience gets the feeling that despite their destination, this is just another day. Duncan transforms into yet another unrecognisable role and Bonnie’s characterisation feels very real along with a script that never holds back, and direction that makes the audience feel like they are on the road trip with them.

Whether they want to be there or not. Myles also plays the part of the put upon and unappreciated daughter well, with the unspoken frustration clear on her face as she endures her mother’s vitriolic personality and plays well off of Duncan making their relationship all the more believable.

Watching these close family members on what is quite possibly the hardest day of their lives is clearly a very uncomfortable thing to witness, and as the heat comes to a boiling point the audience perhaps can relate to their own family members with whom they have left things unsaid.

However, the audience knows that things may never be resolved, so despite the feelings of relief as Bonnie and Caroline air their grievances, the short film only ever feels like a slice of their lives that the audience are witnessing. No matter how much the audience may want them to resolve their issues.

Despite all the friction between mother and daughter, it’s thanks to the script and Duncan’s performance that Bonnie is able to come across as a sympathetic character at all, but Duncan manages to peel back a few layers which may explain years of a hardening soul. The fact that the story is never really given a satisfactory conclusion may frustrate some audience members, but it only adds to the realism of the situation, reminding the audience that not everything gets wrapped up in a neat little bow.

Because for Bonnie and Caroline, despite the closure that November 1^st may bring, it will stay with them for the rest of their lives.