Film

Film and TV reviews

- TracyB Leave a comment

This is something I have pondered about for a while now. My teen and I have always enjoyed going to the cinema and will talk non stop all the way home about whatever film we have just watched. My son has always been into his films and TV series from a young age, now at age18 he has developed into a great critic looking at actors, directors and how the film was shot, along with what he thought worked and didn’t. Its one of the things we really have in common and quite often he will ask to go with me rather than his mates as he knows I watch with a similar keen eye. I would love to start a blog/ Youtube channel or podcast with him as we have some great discussions after watching something either in the cinema, on Netflix or Now Tv………………..but to no avail……….he wont do it!

So, I have decided to do my own reviews on this little corner of the internet and hope they help someone along the way. They will not all be the latest releases from the cinema (although some will) but will also include binge worthy Tv series and those films released onto streaming services too. The aim is to help people find something to watch next, especially with so much on offer from so many streaming services it can sometimes be difficult to chose. I see people on Twitter a lot asking for recommendations of what to watch next and hopefully my reviews will point someone in the right direction along the way.

My son has always been one to watch on his Ipad as he can pop his headphones on and bring it around the house with him ( especially when he goes into cooking mode in the kitchen!). I actually get a lot of recommendations from him of decent films to watch, he has great taste and generally won’t be what you would expect from his age group. From about the age of 14 films such as Schindler’s List and Shawshank Redemption have been in his top 5. Even at the age of about 9 or 10 he would speed watch the likes of Jaws in about 10 minutes literally fast forwarding (think DVD’s) to the gruesome bits! His DVD and Blueray collection has the likes of American Psycho, Birdman and Saving Private Ryan, so not your typical collection for his age group.

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The Favourite – film review

- TracyB Leave a comment

Ok, so I haven’t been the quickest off the mark to go and see The Favourite and obviously saw that Olivia Coleman had won the Oscar for her role as Queen Anne.

I do however, with regards to cinema, like to let all the fuss die down before going on a quieter afternoon to allow myself to fully enjoy ( or not) whatever film it is at the time, without all the residual underlying noise of a full cinema……yes I’m one of those people! There are only a few films I will book to see on the opening weekends for fear of spoilers hitting me from Twitter and elsewhere.

So, let’s get the obvious out of the way now……………Olivia Coleman is outstanding  ( no shit Sherlock!) and she is compelling to watch. She’s always been pretty underrated for my liking ( I feel the same about James McAvoy just so you know) she has a total naturalness about her in any role she plays, but it’s so much more obvious in this film. It never seemed forced in any way from her throughout.

In fact, all 3 main females are strong in this film. That said I felt that Rachel Weisz the absolute glue that stuck the film together, she was sharp, ruthless and able to switch temperaments in a split second for full effect of her character. Her character was menacing but without force, just a slight change in the tone here and there and you literally didn’t know how far she’d actually go. The director Yorgos Lanthimos has a feel for showing the strong power dynamics of relationships and I loved that all 3 characters were entangled showing the underlying skulduggery that was typically present in those times in order to keep favour in court. Read more