Category: REVIEWS

When a crime novelist dies just after his eighty fifth birthday, an inquisitive detective arrives at his estate to investigate. He soon sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind the writer’s untimely demise.

Murder mysteries and crime shows/movies are the subject of fascination by millions of people all around the world. There is just something highly intriguing about murder mysteries and attempting to guess who the culprit is. Throughout the years, there have been many movies and television programs that have a “whodunnit” premise. One of the most famous examples of this is a show from the 1980s called Unsolved Mysteries and was hosted by Robert Stack.

Even quite recently we had a new film adaptation of the Agatha Christie story Murder on the Orient Express directed by Kenneth Branagh, which was met with a mixed to negative response from both critics and audiences. What am I getting at here? Whodunnit stories are extremely interesting for people and they are always a blast to watch. I know for sure I enjoy watching them, which is one of the many reasons I was excited for Rian Johnson’s latest feature Knives Out.

Johnson is not only an incredibly talented director, but he is a skillful writer as well. It never fails to amaze me how amazing his writing and direction is in every one of his films, particularly Brick and the tremendously controversial Star Wars: The Last Jedi. In my opinion, though, Johnson really knows how to make a gripping story, and direct it with ease, and I can happily say that Knives Out is no exception.

Before going to see this picture, I had heard all over social media and from various friends online that this was a great film, and I believed it, but I was really not ready for how good it was going to be. Let’s just talk about one of the best things in the film right off the bat – the acting. Knives Out has one of the biggest ensemble casts in cinema in quite some time. From Chris Evans, Toni Collette, Don Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Michael Shannon just to name a few, there is no doubting the talent on camera. There are even some recently well known faces in here such as Ana de Armas, known for her role in Blade Runner 2049 and Jaeden Martell known for It.

And even though I thought every single actor involved brought their A game and did a truly fantastic job in every single scene, the true standout here is without a doubt Armas. I have been familiar with a few of her films in the past, such as the aforementioned Blade Runner 2049, and I know how talented she is, but her performance in this movie genuinely blew me away.

She is so raw and believable in this role and gets the job done perfectly. There are some sequences in which she has to show quite a bit of emotion as well, and she makes it look easy. In fact, there is one scene early on where she cries, and it looked one hundred percent authentic.

Now, one of the actors I was most excited to see in this film was Toni Collette, as I think that she is one of the most talented actresses of all time. Not only do I think that she delivered one of the greatest performances ever in Ari Aster’s 2018 horror feature Hereditary, but I also think that Hereditary is the greatest film ever made. Although Collette does do a good job in Knives Out, she barely gets any screen time.

In fact, a large portion of the cast does get depressingly underused here which is a shame since the cast is so massive and so talented. Instead, the film makes the decision to primarily focus on Armas and Craig. That is okay, but I just wish we could have gotten more out of the highly impressive cast.

It is also gorgeously shot by Steve Yedlin, who has served as the director of photography on every single one of Johnson’s films to this day. While this is not Yedlin’s best looking film (that for me would have to be the previously mentioned The Last Jedi), this is still an absolutely mesmerizing film that he shot with plenty of skill.

But perhaps my favorite element of this picture was the script and the many twists and turns it has up its sleeve. As somebody that has seen hundreds of movies in their lifetime, sometimes it can just be so easy to predict where certain plot points are going to go, especially mystery movies like this. But I have to say, I was totally wrong about my predictions for the story here. There is a point in the film in which most people are going to think one thing, and then later on, it gets flipped on you. I would honestly be surprised if there are some people that see Knives Out and they actually correctly predict what happens in the story. It is a wild and immensely satisfying thrill-ride that I am not going to forget any time soon.

Knives Out is a wild and exhilarating thrill-ride with an incredibly talented cast and solidifies Rian Johnson as a highly skillful writer/director.

“Just be yourself”, goes the old phrase echoed to countless nervous or frustrated men and woman seeking a partner. It’s good advice too. You’ll never find someone to love if you’re going out and pretending to be someone else. However, some people find themselves so down on their luck that they cannot fathom the idea their failings are anything other than their own fault. Here is where Oran Zegman’s short film “Marriage Material” comes in. It’s a musical satire about those people, one which tears them down to lift them up.

Our unlucky in love protagonist is Leah (Gwen Hollander), a woman who, according to herself, usually ends up with losers whom she has to propose to because they never will. We see her doing just that through song right at the start of the film, which is swiftly followed by her rejection. This is how she finds herself being driven by her parents to “Yenta Feldman’s Late Blooming Bride Retreat”.

Here she is greeted by a volunteer (Diane Kelber) a prim and proper grey-haired woman who seems to be constantly analysing Leah. Then the most fateful meeting of all, Ms Feldman herself (Laura Gardner). The film’s satire begins the second she comes on screen, mere moments after she breaks into song, the sentiment of which amounts to “We’re going to change you as a person” but is hilariously expressed as “You’ll be yourself, but better”.

Therein lies what Marriage Material is all about. The institutionalised thought process that sees people believe they need to change themselves to be happy; Yenta Feldman feeds on those who think that way. In her retreat, all women receive a diagnosis before treatment begins, Leah is labelled “Alpha” meaning she’s dominant, too dominant for Yenta, and another woman “too picky”. Regardless the women are all put through the same training; they are all striving to become slight variations of one person.

They all dress the same, they all sleep in the same room, they are all taught by the same teacher, their goals are the same; each and every one of them, including Leah, is unknowingly pandering to an impossible ideal. It’s all presented humorously though as the training is rather comical, like sex imitations with mannequins and how to correctly pour lemonade. But there is a constant uncomfortable undercurrent, at every turn, the film makes clear what it’s trying to say without being too explicit, and then it sneaks up right at the end and punches you in the gut.

Overall this is quite an achievement from Zegman, who combines her dark humour with upbeat music spectacularly. Of all the shorts I’ve seen this year, this one is undoubtedly the most engaging, a feat which Zegman shares with many but none more so than her composer Ben Zeadmen. His score echos the bombastic nature of the script smartly and becomes poignant at just the right moment towards the end. However, those closing scenes have one champion above all others, Gwen Hollander.

Official Trailer | Marriage Material, the musical (2018) from Oran Zegman on Vimeo.

Leah is told to make a life-changing decision at the end of the film in order to get married to a man she’s only met once. Naively she agrees to go through with it and cries as she lies on the operating table. Then in an image reminiscent of the closing to The Graduate, she stands next to her man on a balcony, panic rapidly setting in as she realises what she’s done. It’s all absolutely brilliant and eerily harrowing, a terrific performance.

I can’t stress enough how important the ending of this film is. It’s the entire point, the affirmation that it’s foolish to behave the way these women do, but also cements the critique on the ideals that brought them to Yenta in the first place. Marriage Material ends with such a stiff blow that it becomes the most critical moment in the film. Suddenly it becomes a wise film, unassumingly so too, and it makes for something well worth watching and paying attention to.

Timeless in its themes and charming in its execution, Marriage Material takes music and uses it to convey an essential message, one that brings a few laughs along the way.

Frozen 2 – Spoiler Review. I am a huge fan of Disney’s ‘Frozen’. I loved the visuals, songs and the characters in the first film and I thought it was clever by going against our expectations of the Disney princess formula. However, even I can admit that the decision to make a sequel to one of Disney’s highest earning animated films was a strange, and unnecessary, choice.

‘Frozen 2’ sees the return of Queen Elsa, Princess Anna, Olaf the Snowman, Kristoff and Sven the Reindeer. After hearing voices, Elsa and co. leave Arendelle to travel to an ancient, autumn-bound forest of an enchanted land. They set out to find the origin of Elsa’s powers in order to save their kingdom.

Overall, I thought ‘Frozen 2’ was decent, but nowhere near  as good as its predecessor. While its animation and visuals were incredible, the songs weren’t as strong and memorable as the songs in the first film. The scene that best portrayed Disney’s advancement in animation was either the sequence for ‘Into the Unknown’ (which was boasted by the songwriters to be the next ‘Let It Go’ – a statement I disagree with), or a scene where Anna and Elsa find the remains of their parents’ ship. The close ups of this setting looked like it was pulled out of a live action film! 

‘Frozen 2’ is a lot darker than its predecessor and is aware that its audience has grown up. Anna and Elsa’s friendship are more focused here, now that they’ve reconnected, and I enjoyed seeing them side-by-side on screen. However, the film should’ve focused on the sisters and not included Olaf, Sven and Kristoff. 

Kristoff was completely wasted in this film; his whole story arc is that he wants to propose to Anna but gets left behind in the woods a quarter way through the film. As well as this, Kristoff has a longer song of his own. However, the song, called ‘Lost in the Woods’, was strange and felt out of place. While every other song here sounds like they’re inspired by the musical ‘Wicked’, this song sounds like a rock ballad and feels like it takes up a lot of the running time. 

When Olaf the snowman was first introduced in ‘Frozen’, I was worried that he would be portrayed as a cringey character and used only for cheap laughs. Unfortunately, when it comes to the second film, I was proven right. Olaf is purely featured in this film to give children slapstick scenes or jokes, or to give viewers a recap of the first film. Admittedly, his re-enactment of the first ‘Frozen’ is genius and very funny. However, the rest of his scenes are cringey and unfortunately break up any tension that the film was building up. 

The overall pacing and structure were uneven due to the slapstick forced in; the three previously mentioned characters should’ve been removed entirely, therefore making ‘Frozen 2’ a much more serious and mature film that it desperately needed to be. Some events unfold and are answered too quickly.  An example of this is after Arrendale has been evacuated due to the four element spirits partly destroying the kingdom. Anna and Elsa decide to follow the voice that Elsa has been hearing while convincing Anna that the spirits might be friendly. A split second later, the troll characters from the first film (Kristoff’s guardians) find the two sisters, and the elder troll tells Elsa that the spirits are not friendly. The event unfolds that quickly, therefore not giving the audience a chance to absorb said moment and wonder for themselves.

Overall ‘Frozen 2’ was decent, but a little clunky in places. While the soundtrack wasn’t as memorable as the first one, the animation is incredible, and Disney just keep improving in that aspect. Another script edit would’ve made this sequel a lot tighter and more enjoyable.

3/5

When American boy band NSYNC signed their first record deal, they were told by their manager, Lou Pearlman, that they would all get their fair share of the profits once the contract was up. Three years later, after touring the world and selling millions of records, the five members all received what they were told was their cut – $10,000 each.

They knew right then and there that Pearlman, the man credited with starting the nineties boy band trend and who the band thought of as a second father, had been ripping them off all along.

They would also soon find out they weren’t the only ones. Other bands under his management had also signed his contract, described by one lawyer as being “the worst (he had) ever seen,” and lost out on big money as a result. These events are all recounted in the documentary The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story.

The documentary has plenty of first-hand accounts from those who directly affected, which isn’t so surprising as some helped to produce the film. Ex-NSYNC member Lance Bass serves as producer as well as appearing as a subject, along with his mother Diane and former band mates Chris Kirkpatrick and JC Chasez.

As such, the film does tend to focus on their own dealings with Pearlman, though there are testimonies from others who were once in the same boat – trusting young hopefuls who misguidedly signed his contract, which as one puts it, would have seen them making more money working in Starbucks.

It’s clear there are still mixed feelings about Pearlman – he has done many people wrong, yes, but he also gave them their start in the industry. AJ McLean of the Backstreet Boys does not hold back his continued disdain, while former teen star Aaron Carter almost won’t hear a word against Pearlman.

These sentiments are echoed by Lynn Harkless, the mother of Justin Timberlake (himself absent), who expresses sympathy for Pearlman who, she feels, “wanted to be the sixth member of the band.” The problem is, the less interviewees who are prepared to really vilify him, the more the film ends up justifying his actions.

As well as hearing how they had been duped, the film also devotes time to Pearlman’s life story, from his childhood to his early business days in aviation and real estate – with his dissatisfied customers here also telling all – to making the unlikely career move to the music industry.

The documentary then goes into detail about Pearlman’s shady dealings and the truly bizzare manner where he was caught and brought to justice. The tone, though, is so light and splashy that it’s easy to get lost in the finer, more technical details of the legal proceedings. At the same time, some other serious allegations made against him are hardly probed.

Ultimately, The Boy Band Con struggles to find the balance between a real-life showbiz story and a more serious story about a serial embezzler. However, the story at its core is interesting enough to shine through the imperfections and make a viewing for those interested in crime stories and the late nineties music scene worthwhile.

The Lost Footage of Leah Sullivan is, as the title suggests, a found footage slow burn horror movie and the feature debut of writer/director Burt Grinstead. Suggesting that the following will be an unedited account of a student doing a school project, the movie follows said student, Leah Sullivan (Anna Stromberg), as she investigates a cold case of a family that were massacred.

As Leah investigates further, interviewing various members of her community (including her own mother), Leah starts to get deep into what went on around the time of the murders and gets ever closer to revealing the truth.

Found footage horror movies have a difficult history. For every Blair Witch Project you get, well you get 2016’s Blair Witch remake which failed to capture the horror of the original by its overuse of first person camera footage that relied on actors running around, breathing heavily and trying to sound scared. Instead, The Lost Footage of Leah Sullivan takes a different approach as it follows Leah making her documentary about the notorious killings that have always haunted her hometown.

The story plays out through a series of interviews where Leah meets a few people who talk about what they remember about the incident and this is where the strength of the movie lies. Rather than contrived dialogue that furthers the plot, it seems as if there is more of an improvisational style to the interviews and this puts the audience at ease. Through these interactions it shows a relaxed style where the characters really come out, making them often relatable, funny and occasionally sinister.

However, for as much fun that these interviews are and the chemistry between Leah and police officer Patrick Rooke (Burt Grinstead), it feels like there was perhaps a little too much emphasis on the characters and a little less on building the tension for the scares. As The Lost Footage of Leah Sullivan reaches its climactic final act, all the build up feels a little unearned as the movie disregards all of the previous events, giving the audience the found footage horror movie they may have wanted from the start.

Tropes fly thick and fast (dropped cameras, fleeting glimpses of the terror by flashlight and even the question of why Leah is still filming at all) and it feels like the movie loses its nerve. Most found footage horror movies feel like they’re either terror inducing first person scream-a-thons or slow burn, atmospheric movies that send a shiver down your spine. Unfortunately, it’s the latter that I feel the movie fails to deliver.

For all its moments of humour, dialogue that never overexplains the plot and the occasional jump scare, The Lost Footage of Leah Sullivan could have benefitted from a few more glimpses of things out of the corner of your eye that would raise the tension tenfold.