Captain Marvel

Right up to its release Captain Marvel garnered lots of media attention. Some of it focused on the negative anticipation as trolls flooded the Rotten Tomatoes site with defamatory comments about Brie Larsen’s statements on the lack of diversity in film journalism. This of course blew up in the media which, whilst denouncing it, just had the inevitable effect of drawing even more attention to it. Captain Marvel isn’t of course the first superhero movie of the recent superhero movie craze that features a woman as the main protagonist (which was Wonder Woman) but it is the first Marvel movie. This, of course, will be a cause of celebration for some.

Thursday Movie Picks #243: Cold War

There's more to the Cold War than one would have imagined. There's plenty of different narratives, other than the political, from espionage (The Spy Who Came in From the Cold) to ideological battles (any Red Scare films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers) from the space race (First Man) to sports (Rocky IV). But none is more prevalent than the threat of nuclear warfare as two powerful nations, with an arsenal strong enough to destroy the world hundreds of times over, square off with the World at stake. Perhaps this is why the Cold War makes fascinating cinema, tension comes from incredibly high stakes and in these films the stakes have never been higher.

The inventor of this weekly theme meme is - http://wanderingthroughtheshelves.blogspot.com/.

Best Picture: 2019 Nominees Rundown

It’s Oscar night and just before the night kicks off I thought I'd provide a run time of the eight films in the running for the biggest award in the industry.

Note that just because a film is higher in the list doesn’t mean I think it’s a better film, I just preferred it. Anyway – here’s the list.

If Beale Street Could Talk

Every black American is born in Beale Street. It’s the birth place of Louis Armstrong and jazz. If Beale Street could talk it would have some remarkable tales to tell. There would be tales of success, but the tales of love, racial prejudice and injustice would be the narratives that would be the most profound. The many examples of innocent black men incarnated for their crimes is numerous and forms the back bone of Barry Jenkins’ remarkable second feature. Based on James Baldwin’s novel, If Beale Street Could Talk is about Tish and her husband’s family desperate attempts to secure the release of her husband (and father of her child) from prison for a crime he did not commit.

Alita

Set in the dystopian future, Dr Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) finds the remains of a cyborg. He uses the remains to revive the cyborg, giving it the name Alita (Rosa Sazalar). However, Alita is not ordinary cyborg as she’s programmed with a fighting style long since assumed dead. Learning this, Alita goes on a quest to find her true identity. 

Thursday Movie Picks #239: Revenge

The topic of revenge has been in the news this week thanks to Liam Neeson. Liam Neeson was dogged in some controversy in the most sanctimonious place in the world, Twitter. Anyway, they were angry about some comments that were made where he stated he wanted to kill a black person following the rape of a friend. These are clearly feelings of a guy was a racist, but the words of regret are words of man who knew he was wrong. This doesn’t mean we should sweep it under the carpet as these are issues the black people still face today. The main issue with Neeson’s comments his he didn’t acknowledge that.

Vice

Over the last 10 years 7 of the 10 male winners for Best Actor were playing real people (only two for women). It’s clear that the Academy love a big performance of a big character, however this begs the question whether this type of performance is acting or is it merely an impersonation? The answer is acting, but there’s just different levels. At one end of the scale we have Gary Oldman playing Churchill whose just Gary Oldman playing Churchill and at the other end of the scale we have Natalie Portman who plays Jackie Kennedy but gives a performance of such depth and skill she is able to making us believe we are watching Jackie Kennedy.