Films: The Ups and Downs

THE CALL OF THE WILD Yes, we know Buck is a CGI dog. If you saw what Buck did out in the Yukon in the snow, the spring and the water, you'd understand that no dog could go through, and battle through, what Buck did. Basically, Buck's Superman. Or he's SuperDog. Anyway. But with Buck, you cry at the bad things to happen to him (there are quite a few of those incidents), and you cheer his bravery (there are quite a few of those incidents). It's pretty simple. At the start you work out that it's a CGI dog that's stealing food, being a general pain in the behind, and then getting kidnapped. And a little noise starts in your brain telling you: "HEY! WHY WATCH THIS? IT ISN'T EVEN A ****ING REAL DOG?" Then you follow him through the Yukon as he's leading the pack and the post, and then as he's by Harrison Ford's side, and then the rest of the cool stuff. You know that the world around him is generally CGI, but do you ...

When it came out, the new Star Wars movie: "The Rise of Skywalker", was roundly criticised. The fanboys hated it because it brownnosed too much to the audience. Some of the critics didn't like it because it felt too much like Return of The Jedi. The group who did like it was Disney, who made $1 billion and counting from it, as the punter ignored the frustrations of the cellar-dwellers and the self-styled Hollywood pen elite and got their butts on seats. Some of them multiple times. Today was my second watch, after the first one burnt joy and a headache into my skull after I watched it in IMAX (which was cool). If it's a second watch, some people like to think that this was the time to think critically . So I tried to. I tried to analyse the battle sequences, whether it was indeed an updated version of Return of The Jedi, and whether it was paying too much homage to the fans instead of following the darker trajectory that the last two films had promised. ...

If there were factions of lovers of characters in 'Gossip Girl', I was definitely Team Blake Lively. In that, Lively was a tall, kind, decent human being who could act a bit but certainly didn't hurt the eye. Well, she's married to Ryan Reynolds, has two children, lives in Bedford, New York (my cousins have seen her at a pizza place - disguised in caps and sunglasses to make sure that they aren't surrounded by 50-year multimillionaires just drooling for a selfie) and she's apparently  not gone the way of Gossip Girl The Series, where the whole cast was involved in different levels of debauchery. Anyhow..... the mind wonders......oh..... And now I'm in Houston, Texas, in a cinema, watching 'The Rhythm Section', her latest movie. No Chuck Bass, just her, Stephanie, a woman who's mourning her family after they died in a plane crash. A long way away from 5th Avenue, she's attracted a heroin habit ("I'm not an addict I...

The Oscars might have been Boomtown for Parasite, but it wasn't Boomtown for ABC, who saw the ceremony fall to the lowest ratings in its 89-year history. Here are some reasons why: 1) No host  In attempt to be 'woke' (it's a new-fangled word that I don't think I understand) and stop someone getting offended in this ultra-offended world we live in, the Oscars decided not to have a host. Kevin Hart wrote some homophobic tweets back in the day that quite rightly got him booted. So why not get someone else? It's not like Hollywood didn't have enough people who would have drooled at the chance to make it. Such is the way that Hollywood blackens the name of someone who has written an offensive tweet four hundred years ago, Kevin Hart will never host an Oscars again (thank God they let him back for Jumanji: The Next Level ). The Golden Globes attendees might have been shocked by Ricky Gervais' monologue at this year's celebrations, but i...

I love movies. People in addiction talk about inner circles (things that get you in trouble), middle circles (things that might get you in trouble) and outer circle (things that don't get you in trouble and in fact, you love). I love movies. The cinema has been my escape from the goings-on on my mobile phone. It transports me to imagination, to laughter, to tears, and to feels of disturbance and joy. If I go into the movie and don't come out feeling affected by a movie, it's an instant dose of misery. I hate it. You are meant to love movies. You are meant to have a bias towards directors, actors, or genres. I hope this blog will explore all three, without dengerating into hero-worship. I'm well-known to say it how it is (for good or for bad), and I really hope this blog will do just that. Of course, within the movie world there's the industry. It's sad to note that there aren't enough female directors getting plaudits, or actresses of colour g...