Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile

There’s a morbid and macabre aspect of humanity that enjoys true crime, particularly that of serial killers. You can probably name quite a few from John Dillinger to Harold Shipman, but almost everyone in America, and most parts of the Western world, can name Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy’s name has found itself back into the public consciousness following two highly publicised films/documentaries on Netflix about the notorious serial killer.

End Game (Spoilers)

 

SPOILERS

How do you review a film that is so dependent on one having seen (at least most of) the previous films of the MCU? How do you review a film that is so dependent upon you loving and caring for characters for you to get the most from it? All films are like this, but with Endgame, the most highly anticipated movie this century, this is so much more pronounced. There’s no point going into Endgame as a newbie. We have spent ten years (more for comic book fans) getting to know these characters and they mean a great deal to a lot of people. Stifled sobs were heard frequently throughout the screening, but none were coming from me. Despite seeing all but one of the MCU I still never felt love for the universe.

Thursday Movie Picks #251: True Crime

 

People love true crime, particularly women. Maybe it’s because they empathise with the victim (which are mostly women) or they prepare themselves for the worst (considering woman are most likely to be victims of serial killers). Maybe some women do empathise with the victim, but I still feel there is that element of excitement that draws women to the genre. Like so:

These types of films have been subjected to criticism for glorifying the killer and neglecting the victims. This leads me on to the next two films.

The Shining

You can draw so many theories from The Shining that you can write a book about them. You can certainly make a documentary even if some the theories are so crackpot that even Alex Jones would be sceptical about them. The tiniest detail from the carpet patterns to the Apollo 11 jumper Danny wears is dissected to an inch of its life and provided as evidence for their own personal and overreaching theory.

Shazam

Between DC and Marvel the latter has always come out on top as DC’s darker more brooding tone was successful with a great filmmaker like Christopher Nolan behind the camera, but the other films like Suicide Squad, Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman were not successful in trading off humour for a more darker tone. It worked well with Wonder Woman because of Patty Jenkins deft touch but with Aquaman and Shazam there has been a much more apparent slide towards humour than a dark atmosphere and Shazam is DC’s most light-hearted film of recent times.

White Crow

 

Ralph Fiennes foray into direction started with a modernized adaption of a lesser known Shakespeare play, Coriolanus. In between this and his latest effort (White Crow) was a rather unextraordinary effort about Charles Dickens, but his latest effort is notable for Fiennes working in another language, albeit one he speaks fairly well. Still I can’t think of many British directors that make films in a different language.

Robin Hood

The film stars off by saying it doesn’t want to bore us with the history. This is a sure-fire guarantee way to piss me off as I quite like history so telling me the history of how English royalty and lordships abused the lower classes in 12-14th century England would be interesting to me. I think saying something like this gets the film off to a bad start because it shows that the filmmakers don’t have a passion for the history of the legend or the time it is set. It doesn’t feel like a project that isn’t backed by love.