redfiona99

I can tell if you will like this film with one simple question - does the phrase "pigeon James Bond girl" thrill some part of your soul?

If the answer is no, this is not the film for you.

If it stirs or intrigues you, you will enjoy this film.

Ignoring the pigeons (we will not be ignoring the pigeons), it's a sci-fi spy film aimed at kids with a remarkably peaceful message. The message doesn't quite work in context, but I figured out the bad guy was going to be more than just a plain bad guy when I twigged that the reason he sounded familiar was because that was Ben Mendelsohn.

When a film has stock children's film message number 3 (violence is bad), it's the detail that matters. And there was lots of glorious, silly detail.

Most particularly involving pigeons.

Someone involved with this film has the same love of pigeons I have and it made me so happy. There was such detail in the pigeons, like the scene where they're flying off through St. Mark's Square.

There's also some child-friendly body horror in the transformation sequence and exactly how difficult it would to get used to thing like monocular vision if you were used to the binocular vision humans have. (And Sterling as a pigeon gets feathers that look like a bow-tie and I'm sorry, I am the target audience for the film).

It probably doesn't quite hold up as a good film, there isn't quite enough to it, and as I said, I don't think the message quite works but ... pigeon Bond girl goes a long way with me.

A picture of our leading lady. Lovely is a white pigeon with brown markings. In this scene she has ruffled up the brown feathers around her neck. If she were human it would look like a fur collar on a coat. She has done this to attract the leading man, Lance Sterling, who has been transformed into a pigeon. He is the greeny-blue pigeon standing next to her.

(Yes, I am annoyed I couldn't find the end credits bit with her which is really done James Bond credit style. Someone involved also knew their spy references.)

(Japan, US, Italy, Mexico for the film locations data)

A summary of my review: Well that didn't work

Spoilers for all of the Star Wars films dotted throughout

You will notice that that summary is very similar to what I said about Rise of Skywalker.

Many of my complaints are very similar.

The main problem is lack of coherence. There's no one artistic vision bringing everything together.

I'll give an example:

The prequel trilogy is "the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker"

The original trilogy is "farm boy uncovers the mystery of his family, meets a scoundrel and a princess, and saves the galaxy"

The sequel trilogy might be "man escapes servitude, joins the Resistance, and ?", or "woman runs into resistance plan, turns out to be a Force user, trains as a Jedi, turns out to be the Emperor's granddaughter and ?" or "..." Actually no, Poe has no character arc.

(I remain convinced that Poe was supposed to be killed off in the first film but everyone was so in love with Oscar Isaac that they kept the character alive. The reason for my belief is that, after the first film, there are no Poe-specific character parts. Everything he does could have been done by another character.)

There is no overarching theme to the series. I think that's because there was no one visionary in charge. George Lucas; far, far away from perfect, but he definitely had a plan. I'm not even sure who the Lucas-equivalent would have been for this because Disney were there for money and none of JJ Abrams's films have ever been anything but derivative schlock.

The lack of one clear vision is most apparent in the way there were so many interesting things that they lightly touched on and then just dropped. Not in a "we chose to drop it" way but in a "we have no idea where the other person who wrote that bit was going with it" way.

Like Phasma, who could have been interesting (on behalf of L, who really wanted them to do something with her), or Finn, and what it is to choose freedom (which they keep touching on and then doing nothing with), or DJ, who chooses neutrality and what that means in this sort of situation.

Because they made these films a direct follow on from the original trilogy and JJ Abrams's endless daddy issues, the sequel trilogy suffered from the same thing a raft of follow on films to films made in the late 70s and 80s suffered from - destroying the legacy of those original characters by making them terrible fathers. The other big example is Indiana Jones, where Indy, having had a terrible father, turns into a worse one. Now I get the whole, generational trauma spreads downwards thing, but I don't need my heroes getting dragged into that.

While I can maybe believe it for Indiana Jones, who even in Raiders of the Lost Ark is "man who makes really poor decisions in his personal life", I don't believe it of Luke. Or rather, I can imagine him being terrible at leading the Jedi, or training other Jedi, but I can't see him being useless in this way.

Because they didn't seem to know where half the characters were going, you have to rely on people liking the way the characters interact. The Force Awakens gave them a good start in this. I liked all three of the new lead characters. The problem is that after The Force Awakens there were very few scenes with our leading trio together, or indeed combinations of them together, so we don't get to have that feeling either.

On the other side, while Phasma gets nothing to do, Adam Driver and Domhnall Gleeson ring every bit of character out of what they get given.

I was legitimately surprised to find out Adam Driver was 32 when The Force Awakens was filmed because he is so good at whiny teenage boy. We have all known boys like that so it's easy for the audience to fill in the gaps - and really hard for us to believe he'll suddenly convert to the side of good like the trilogy obviously wants us to believe he can, and hope that he will.

Hux is such a gloriously cowardly space spiv. If you ask me to name my favourite part of the sequel trilogy, it would be the Rey and Kylo vs the Imperial guards fight scene towards the end of The Last Jedi. Partly it's the staging, but really it's the bit at the end where Hux could have killed Ren and is too scared to do it. It's a marvellous bit of business.

I'd still love to know where Rian Johnson was going to take it next because while The Last Jedi wasn't necessarily good, it was the most interesting of the films. Possibly because although it does have moments of being weighed down by being a Star Wars film, it is the one that comes closest to wearing it well.

I think that's the problem - JJ Abrams is a huge Star Wars fan and it shows. He wants to have a redemption arc because the original did. He also wants characters with Daddy Issues because ... (waving at every other piece of media he has ever had anything to do with). He's built these half-characters made from bits of existing characters to carry out his story, but then given them away for one film. In that film, they change, and they no longer fit the shape of the intended story, and rather than change the story, he's squished the characters to try and fit and it doesn't work.

A summary of my review: Well that film didn't work

Spoilers for all of the Star Wars films dotted throughout

I have some sympathy for the people who had to try to pull this together, because The Force Awakens was a pallid retread of A New Hope, then Rian Johnson pulled The Last Jedi in a completely different direction (don't get me wrong, I think the Last Jedi is the best of the sequel trilogy but it's a terrible Star Wars film) and they then had to make a film to try to wrap up the story.

Unfortunately, it felt like none of the different parts of the film fitted together.

I'll use the title as an example. The Rise of Skywalker - excellent strong title.

Utterly meaningless within the context of the film.

Name me one Skywalker who rises in this film? By the end of it, they're all dead. (Yes, I know my genre conventions, if there is no body, they're coming back, if there is a body, they might still come back, if there's a body and they're the Master, check behind the door, but for the purposes of the film, they're dead.) Fine, Rey calls herself Skywalker (and Luke and Leia would support her in that) but there is no rise, there's just her giving things up in the desert.

Killing Kylo Ren is the easy narrative option. It feels cheap. The harder, more interesting option, would feature good guys trying to figure out where he fits in a better new world, surrounded by people he tried to kill and whose friends and relatives he succeeded in killing.

There's a few other parts like that, where you can feel them choosing the easy way out rather than trying something and I think that's the weight of being Star Wars. See also, mysteriously reappearing Palpatine.

There's also the lengths Hollywood will go to, to not show Finn and Rey kissing. I see you and what you're up to, Disney.

From a purely stylistic point of view, I'd re-cut the cavalry charge scene. I think I know what they're trying to do, but the way it intercuts with the rest of the space battle takes away from them both.

There's a serious emotional disconnect between what's going on on the screen and me in this film.

An example, they blow up Kijimi and no one cares (this isn't hyperbole. The planet blowing up doesn't even make it into the summary of the film - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Rise_of_Skywalker). It's not lack of time spent with the planet and its people; we never see Alderaan in A New Hope, but we feel when it is destroyed. That connection is completely missing here.

Because of that lack of connection, which I blame on them setting up three main characters then never letting them interact with each other much after the first film (I have a theory about the why of that in my sequel trilogy summary post that I am in the middle of writing), all the emotional weight of the film has to be carried by Chewbacca and C3PO. Despite my love for the characters, this is not a good sign.

(I am a fully paid up member of the "Chewie should have got a medal at the end of A New Hope" campaign and the bad thing that happens to him is why I stopped reading the Star Wars EU novels, while nothing in the new trilogy got to me as well as that moment where C3PO, knowing the risks, decides that the Rebellion needs him to find out what that text means.)

It's not that there aren't bits that I love.

Evil once again sounding British and sudden unexpected Richard E. Grant.

I like both the Hux reveal and his reasoning. I know people complained that it was a bit thin but he is completely the sort of person who would betray a cause just so someone he hated didn't win. Also, a non-Sith who can hide his feelings from a Sith through hate alone. That's going some!

I love Lando.

Adam Driver's mega-watt smile. There's reams to be written about the sequel trilogy being unbalanced by Kylo Ren, but oh the five-to-ten minutes of Ben Solo that we did get ... (I am a simple creature and I like a good pseudo-sword fight).

And there's these occasional hints of a much darker version of the film underneath, and that's a much more intriguing film. It fits in with DJ in The Last Jedi. Examples include Poe being a Spice runner.

There is also no way you will ever convince me that the vision of Han that Kylo sees isn't Luke pretending to be Han, not Han himself. Like, it makes no sense for it to be Han, Han is not a Force user and it's hard even for Force users to do that. But Luke, making one final bid to save Rey, that works, and it make him a much more manipulative character than the rest of the film is willing to let him be.

There's so much interesting potential wasted.

Rise of Skywalker doesn't work as itself, it doesn't really work as a Star Wars film, it's a damp squib of an ending to the series and collapses under the weight of being Star Wars.

Films:

A list of public domain horror films as of 2019 -https://brightnshinythings.tumblr.com/post/188564806629/rigatonidanza-fuckindiva-short-films-by

Miscellaneous:

Why does snow close so many schools? - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-42308301 Everyone in Europe and North America is allowed to laugh at the UK on this topic.

Surviving Congo's massacres: 'I climbed over bodies to flee' - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42327262

Helping women ensure their voices are heard - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42253091

How forced marriage saved a US defector in North Korea - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-42321400

The mystery of the baby in the box - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-42256465

Life as a male sex worker in Britain today - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42265838

'Have a stoma and live or don't have one and die' - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42179173

Music:

The 2010s: 5 Ways Beyoncé Defined The Decade In Music - https://www.npr.org/2019/10/07/767903285/the-2010s-5-ways-beyonc-defined-the-decade-in-music

How vocal problems nearly spelled the end for The Script - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-42311132

Science:

Broadband over 'wet string' tested for fun - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42338067

Plant detectives: How bramble and co. can help solve crimes - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5q2xGXDZv0S7hg3KQl11vNg/plant-detectives-how-bramble-and-co-can-help-solve-crimes

Nine beetles named after celebrities - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2G3Y81qj14LvlcCTXqqhLCT/nine-beetles-named-after-celebrities

Is England a healthy nation? - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42329795

The Strange and Gruesome Story of the Greenland Shark, the Longest-Living Vertebrate on Earth - https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-strange-and-gruesome-story-of-the-greenland-shark-the-longest-living-vertebrate-on-earth

Sport:

Phil Taylor: Darts says farewell to sport's unlikely revolutionary - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/darts/42332921

PDC World Championship: Phil Taylor's farewell & Michael van Gerwen on fatherhood - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/darts/42281255

Cricket:

Mane attraction: We get to the root of why we love fast bowlers' hair - https://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/1124341/mane-attraction

I saw 14 films in the cinema in 2025. It was an odd year, because none of the 14 are actively bad. I would say 9-14 suffered from not doing anything interesting with their premises. I would actively recommend films 1-3 to everyone, 4-5 to some people and 6-8 if you're feeling in the mood for that particular genre of film.

As usual, I am also naming a film I saw for the first time last year but that was not released in the last year. In May I was in Brussels for work and was lucky enough to meet up with nwhyte who blogs at From The Heart of Europe. He recommended the Comic Art Museum (https://www.comicscenter.net/en/home), which was completely worth it.

There I saw 'Gertie the Dinosaur'. I am linking to the Wikipedia page because there is a full-length version of it on there - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertie_the_Dinosaur

She's just so charmingly silly.

For films released this year, I am applying my usual 4 criteria:

a – did the film do what it set out to do?
b – did it use its resources to its best ability? A £250,000 film is not going to have as good explosions as a £25,000,000 film, or it shouldn’t, and if it does, there’s something wrong with the £25,000,000 film. Basically, it's a technical merit score relative to budget.
c – Intellectual satisfaction – does the film’s plot pull some really stupid move at the last moment? Does the plot rely on characters being more stupid than they are?
d – Does this work as a whole? Did it work for me? I am aware that this is the most subjective of subjective criteria!

(As a note, film 13 is that low down because I could see the leading actress's wig tape. You are a Hollywood film, you can afford someone to check that.)

1 - Flow

It's another one of Zilbalodis's nightmare Edens. And it's so good. It's horrific and beautiful and wonderful, and I nearly shouted "Capybara, get out of there" twice in the cinema.

2 - Mickey 17

I want to put a content warning on this - it is disgusting and horrid in parts. It needs to be for the story to work.

It is a satire on modern consumerism and politics and rather obvious - we are in a time that requires obvious. On the other hand, it has the Creepers, Nasha and young Pattinson once again showing that he can act.

3 - Superman

You want to know when I fell for this version of Superman? Because I can tell you. "He's not even a good dog, but he's out there alone and he's probably scared." That's my vision of Superman too.

I was always going to enjoy it because James Gunn writes stories that work for me but I didn't expect to enjoy it so much. I enjoyed liking Superman and Lois, and Perry. I did not expect to love Mr. Terrific as much as I did.

4 - F1

I am the target audience for this. And I loved it. I suspect that if you were not the target audience, you would find this was insipid.

On the other hand, being an F1 nerd means I spotted all the things they got wrong. Like every single one of the stunts Sonny Hayes pulls is already against the rules, and in at least two cases, I watched the race where the rule was created.

5 - Roofman

I saw Roofman with D. It is not the heavy-on-the-comedy comedy drama the adverts promised. It is much better. It's about a weak man, trying to do his best, in a less than ideal world.

Channing Tatum is very good in it. Kirsten Dunst is even better.

6 - Nosferatu

Not even kidding when I said this was the most frustrating film in 2025.

The music, scenery, cinematography and Aaron Taylor Johnson are all outstanding.

The script, the leads, and the use of both sinister Gypsies and fridged women in the year of our Lord 2025 are not.

The direction seems to think there are five different films. They do not interlock well.

7 - Predator: Badlands

Not quite sure what to feel about Predator being an action comedy rather than a horror. But it was enjoyable fighting and explosions nonsense when I needed it. There's a lot to be said about how it explicitly positions the androids as robots not their own beings despite Thia and Tessa. Then again, I was worried about Bud so I think the film did what it intended to. Plus, you know, the universal truth - mothers are worse!

8 - The Phoenician Scheme

Arguments can be made that this ought to be a couple of positions higher, but I don't think a series of really nicely mounted set pieces can count as a good film, and it does coast on Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera and Benicio Del Toro's charisma and talent.

9 - Thunderbolts/New Avengers

Am I being a bit mean, given I liked it? Possibly. Am I marking it down because I was once again Kurylenko-blocked by a Marvel film? Yes.

On the other hand, this was very much like rice cakes. I like rice cakes. They fill a gap. But they're not the basis of a solid diet.

10 - Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning

Not its fault that it didn't live up to Dead Reckoning. But it really didn't. And one glorious returning character does not make up for that.

My usual end of the year list of the top 10 films. Explanations coming in a week.

1 - Flow

2 - Mickey 17

3 - Superman

4 - F1

5 - Roofman

6 - Nosferatu - I don't normally put any explanations in this version of the post but this was the most frustrating film of the year. It has literally been every position on this list from 2 to 8 depending on how I feel on the day. It may move before next week. It may move before the next hour.

7 - Predator: Badlands

8 - The Phoenician Scheme

9 - Thunderbolts/New Avengers

10 - Mission Impossible: Good Luck Ethan Hunt

A mid-level spy film, an interesting sci-fi film and a mediocre action film had a baby.

As did Superman and Lex Luthor.

No, really.

It's a frustrating film because it comes so close to being better but it's also solid for what it is.

You have the conflicted agent working against a conspiracy - and Will Smith can do that easily (and does).

You've got the international espionage angle - it works.

You've got the everyday setting film that turns out to be sci fi and I like that style of sci fi.

I'm going to go through the three films that don't quite mesh together in increasing order of goodness.

Let's begin with the action film part, which is the bit that doesn't really work. I can understand a director choosing this film to try new technology, and unlike say, Cats, where you're there going 'why are you using tech that isn't quite there yet for an adaptation of this beloved piece from another medium?', this at least uses the tech that isn't quite there yet for an original story so the high frame rate not quite working doesn't ruin anything.

Why am I putting the technical detail in the action film section? Because it was in the action scenes where I noticed it. If I notice you are doing something technically different, my escape into the film is damaged.

I understand that, for the film to work (and probably to get the budget to make it), it needed action scenes. But they don't work and there's too much time spent on them, which means that some of the quieter character scenes that the film needs either aren't there, or are too short.

The middling spy film - it does what a lot of Hollywood films do. Get a bunch of British actors to play morally grey. They're cheap and they can do American accents. I'm fine with this, it gives Benedict Wong and Ralph Brown money. All good.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is stuck with the most obvious "oh hell, we haven't got a single woman in this film, stick one in" role I have seen for some time. She does very well in a horribly under-written role. I am not exaggerating about how obviously Zakarewski was added in to give the film a female character. There's one scene where she's being searched for bugs, and the way it is shot is totally just an excuse to get Mary Elizabeth Winstead in her underwear. It would have been filmed completely differently if the character had been male and it's so frustrating. I had hoped we'd moved beyond that.

There's travel and subterfuge in Budapest and you know what, it's middling.

The science fiction bit is the bit that works the best. I think it is, at least in part, because they don't try and explain the how, and just go with the why. Clive Owen is very good in his short screen time, because you can understand a younger Verris meeting Henry Brogan for the first time and seeing his belief that you can bend someone to being a superman by how you bring them up supported by evidence, and how he moved from that to cloning and every idea he's had since. (It's very Lex Luthor and Superman and Superboy/Kon-El)

And of course it ends up in child soldiers, because children are more malleable and aren't as aware of right and wrong, and isn't interesting the Verris starts to turn against Junior when he becomes old enough to develop his own set of ideals.

Junior is why the film has to use the fancy special effects and Will Smith is an excellent choice because the animators have lots of footage of a younger him to help mould how Junior looks. Will Smith is an excellent choice anyway because he sells Junior as well as Henry Brogan - he plays them differently enough that you could probably pick them apart even without the special effects. And the scene where he talks about his father!!! (Plus, as I said, the way it's obviously that story that made Verris choose him as the DNA donor for Junior.)

When the film does slow down for the emotional scenes, it works well. I almost want Ang Lee to have the chance to re-do it and pace it more like the original Day of the Jackal. Or make it a mini-series. There's so much potential in this that they can't get into because of time constraints.

It's not a good film, don't get me wrong, the bits don't fit together and its under-written, but there's potential there.

For the purposes of the film location chart, this had scenes in Belgium, US, Colombia and Hungary.

Spoilers below

Another Mockingbird Cinema (https://mockingbirdcinema.com/MockingbirdCinema.dll/Home) special.

I went with D. When we go to the cinema, we aim for silly films. Big Trouble in Little China definitely brings that.

It's dashed hard to write about because it's such a delightful confection. You don't want to press too hard in case it breaks the spell. While I understand people who go "you can't want films to make sense and love Big Trouble in Little China" but within itself, it's consistent and makes sense. That's all I ask for.

'Big Trouble in Little China' also does something clever, with a lead character who is so totally not the hero. It's not that Jack Burton doesn't try, or isn't brave, but that man is not the hero. (By the by, Wang Chi is a most excellent fiancé and were I to be kidnapped by ancient incorporeal wizards, I would like to be rescued by him)

A lot of films would tweak that start to make Jack Burton be the big damn hero at the end, but this doesn't. One knife throw aside, he spends the end fight unable to help.

He's also an excellent character to explain the plot to because he's an outsider so there's very little "as you know, Bob" going on, because Jack knows Jack.

It's a little gem of a film and I recommend seeing it if you get the chance.

This entry is a bit easier to write, because there are no bad versions of the Prisoner of Zenda.

There is definitely a best version.

The best version is the black and white 1937 version with Ronald Colman, Douglas Fairbanks jnr, Raymond Massey and David Niven.

If, like me, your tastes tend sword-fight-wards, it's one of the greatest films you'll ever see.

Why do I say this?

1 - The way it adapts the book. It is such a good adaptation. It digs out all the best parts of the book and dispenses with most of the opening section which is … not good.

2 - The lighting and set design. Everything looks so good.

3 - The acting. Ronald Colman does such a good job as both Rudolf Rassendyll and Prince Rudolf. As Rassendyll, he is a good man but tempted, ever so tempted. He makes it believable that Rassendyll might turn on the Prince. (He's also good as the Prince who learns to be better. You believe he will become better for this.)

And you believe C. Aubrey Smith and David Niven when their characters say they know Rassendyll is a good man, probably better than the King, but that if he does betray the King, they will be the first people he has to kill.

Raymond Massey's take on the line "God save the King" when a Rudolf turns up at the coronation is one of the funniest things you will ever hear. He's so marvellous as Black Michael. (He's Raymond Massey, he's always marvellous)

And then you have Douglas Fairbanks jnr as Prince Rupert of Hentzau. He's just so perfectly charmingly villainous. There's a reason some part of you cheers when he escapes most consequences. When he leans against a doorway early on he is absolute smouldering desire.

In a film with perfect casting, he is the most perfect.

Prince Rupert can easily overwhelm a film but that's where Ronald Colman's ability to convey decency is so vital (in much the same way as James Cagney gets all the glory for Angels with Dirty Faces, but that film wouldn't work if Pat O'Brien couldn't do decency that well).

It also has the best swordfight in Hollywood films (some people suggest the long fight in Scaramouche is better. These people are wrong.)

Watch on YouTube

The Stewart Granger, James Mason, Robert Douglas and Robert Coote version from 1952 is often derided as being nothing but a colour remake, and it's true that it's not as good, although their Princess Flavia (Deborah Kerr) is stronger.

There aren't as many other versions of this as there are of several other entries in this series. I'm not sure why. I think it's because it's harder to bend the story to other ways of telling it … although I do like that love makes the good people better and the bad people worse. It's very much set in a time, place and cultural setting. Which makes my choice of something different quite amusing.

For my something different, I am going with a Doctor Who episode, the Androids of Tara which runs the plot straight into a Doctor Who episode, with added bonus android doubles. It takes that silly premise and runs with it.

Watch on YouTube

My favourite character is Lamia who is mostly original to the Doctor Who episode (she is the stand in for Antoinette de Mauban but gets more oomph and stuff to do) and I still don't quite forgive it for what they do to her but it does feature Peter Jeffrey as not-Rupert and he is marvellous avuncular evil, which sadly the trailer does not feature enough of.

It also has the Fourth Doctor pointing out how ridiculous the whole thing is, and swordfighting, where they steal chunks of the Colman fight.

Given the recent upswing in sword-fighting films, I live in hope we might get a new film for this as well.

The case for the prosecution:

Ad Astra is just a bad film (https://redfiona99.dreamwidth.org/1406097.html). It had pretensions to being hard sci-fi but had fire with no convection, and three photos of Europa at different angles and in different colours pretending to be Kuiper Belt Objects.

The film has sudden moments of violence, and a large number of character deaths, which play out so bizarrely that there's a distinct feeling of bleak, absurdist comedy underneath, and I don't think that's deliberate (I wouldn't mind it so much if it was deliberate).

The scene itself:

Much though I am tempted to go with the "Baboon of Doom" scene, because until the killer is revealed to be a crazed baboon, that's actually scary, I am going to go with a shot when McBride (Brad Pitt) first arrives on the moon, and looks in disgust at how, instead of it being the magnificent moon, it's been turned into just another city (complete with Vegas neon cowboy sign). It's as close as I've ever seen in film to the Douglas Adams bit about how time travel has ruined the past.

Why the scene is so good:

They do that with one look and some set design. We're shown and not told in a film that does the rest of its philosophy in OTT voice-overs.

(Mild spoilers for Thunderbolts and from that to Fantastic Four)

I have more skin in this game than I did for Superman (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2025/05/17/superman-the-new-one-some-scattergun-thoughts-about-comics-history-and-culture/). The coterie of comics fans I was in at high school were very much Marvel (and later 2000AD).

Fantastic Four was C's comic of choice - mine was X-Men (I am filled with trepidation about what Marvel will do to them because while the Fox films haven't been perfect, several of them have come pretty damn near).

I'm intrigued by the retro-futurism of the trailer for the new Fantastic Four, and amused by sudden unexpected Mark Gattiss appearing as I-can't-believe-it's-not Ed Sullivan.

There's a sinister uncurrent in the trailer, even before Galactus and the Silver Surfer turn up, that would have made it clear that it wasn't going end well, even before the bad guys do arrive. Also, Ben Grimm is somewhere where he is happy and beloved and they seem to be determined he will never get that for long *.

Given what we get in the Thunderbolts end credits teaser, I presume the end of Fantastic Four has them slingshotted over into our universe, which at least has precedent in the comics.

Part of me wants it to be "them slingshotted following abject failure to beat Galactus." but I don't think Marvel will go there, no one likes to see their heroes lose. Although they did go there for the Avengers: Infinity War cliffhanger.

What I think is more likely is that Reed Richards is going to have to make a choice, save the world and potentially doom the family, and luckily they end up over in MCU-main-verse.

But that leads to the question of why would they give that away in another film? Or am I just putting too much thought into it?

* Ben Grimm is my favourite in ways that words cannot explain.

This film was so bad that I have made a new graphic for it.

Circle with a line through. The text around it says Do Not Watch, Film Is Terrible.

This is going to be reserved for the real clunkers. I have 61 film reviews to write up, including this one and only 3 of them deserve this figure, and one of those is an edge case.

Ad Astra was terrible.

Bad science, bad plot, bad logic.

Although I will say it had good set design.

What annoyed me about it so much?

It was the laziness.

I'm a bad sci-fi fan. I do not expect diamond-level hardness in my sci-fi films. I am happy to accept internally cohesive over scientifically accurate. But, if you're going to have one of your characters be a deep space explorer charting new planets out in the Kuiper belt don't have three pictures of "new space objects" be the same picture of Europa turned 90 degrees and coloured in differently.

Particularly not if you say things like "what I’m trying to do is the most realistic depiction of space travel that’s been put in a movie and to basically say, ‘Space is awfully hostile to us.’ It’s kind of a Heart of Darkness story about traveling to the outer edge of our solar system." during the press tour. (https://collider.com/james-gray-brad-pitt-ad-astra-filming/)

You really don't get to say that if you have scenes that only work if there is no convection of heat from rocket engines.

It's not just Europa, and basic physics, it's every little detail of the film. For instance, the faked geography of the opening shot. "Whilst watching Ad Astra, instantly recognised two lakes as Brad Pitt was looking down to Earth. Qinghai Lake and Lake Urmia. Obviously they are no where close to each other, one is in China, the other in Iran." (quoted with permission from here - https://x.com/x4rius/status/1248252953074360320).

In the director's defence, he does achieve the whole "Heart of Darkness" theme he was aiming for, although his is more the isolation of space drives you mad rather than colonialism will destroy us all.

The vibe I got was more Odysseus in the "everyone he meets dies" way but I think we have to accept my brain was warped at an early age.

The problem is that it was sold as 'interesting sci-fi philosophical film', but it is in fact, "man-pain the movie: this time we're in space". Which would be hard to sit through anyway, but the lead character is deliberately emotionless as his major characteristic and he's the only character with any major screen time ... this film is dull and unengaging as well as having all those technical flaws.

Gah!

The whole thing is a mess and is a waste of two hours of your life.

D took me to the Mockingbird Cinema (https://mockingbirdcinema.com/MockingbirdCinema.dll/Home) because, as an indie cinema, they reshow older films sometimes.

I had seen Time Bandits before, but never in the right order. As you can imagine, it has a very different effect in the right order - it works better, despite it very much being Terry Gilliam doing the child hero's journey.

And ending it very Gilliamly. (Which I define as an ending that is sort of, if not unhappy, then lacking in comfort. I think that might be the hallmark of his films, they provide no direct comforting message.)

But at least things look interesting. (I will forgive a lot for interesting)

Writing this has made me realise how difficult I find it to describe Terry Gilliam's films and my responses to them. They're very much experiences rather than a solid thing that can be described, or certainly not by me, who, I admit, comes from the science and sense end of things rather than humanities and sensibilities. I am happier with things that are and aren't, rather than -ish, but Gilliam's films are full of -ish and questions, but I like that about them. They're full of that feeling, without trying to explain everything, as opposed to some films that aim for that and then try to explain, and that never works for me. (Spoiling my review in advance, I think that's why I did not jive with 'Everything, Everywhere, All At Once'.)

During the Spanish trip (see posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11) I was reading LA Confidential.

It is an awesome book. It's thick and dark and rich (like good goulash) and I want to return to it to spend more time in that world. James Ellroy puts words together in a pleasing way.

This bit is more about how well they adapted it because yeah, I can see why they said it was unadaptable (see also there are many bad goulashes out there).

What interests me is how well they caught the characters even when they really changed them (especially Jack Vincennes). Because they really get how Bud White is a great hulking brute with a giant squishy heart and that's both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness. (And that he adds the heart that Ed Exley, bless his cotton socks, does not have. He is a great man, not a good man.)

They do cut the bit where it's not his violent qualities which help him hunt down the bad guy, but the brains that everyone assumes he doesn't have because he's a hulking brute. (Also Russell Crowe is perfect as him. Like actually perfect.)

They also cut a lot of Inez but I can see why because to do everything in the book, you'd have to make it a mini-series.

Jack Vincennes is interesting because they make him both less relatable (corrupted by fame vs hiding a terrible secret) and a lot more (because his secret makes him a terrible human being while you know corrupted by fame is at least relatable). I'm presuming they had to to hook a big name actor (I am eliding for a reason).

I think it's that actually getting the characters to feel right is the difference between a good adaptation and a bad one. It's like Ran and King Lear, they get the important bits of the characters so all the changes work. This is versus say the Disney Musketeers, which gets Milady and the Cardinal so wrong that the whole thing cannot work, no matter how closely (or not) they stick to the rest of it.

Catching up on film reviews

Wiser heads than me have written about how weird, wrong and bad it is to have Scarlett Johansson as Major Kusanagi, so I shan't be writing about that.

The thing that freaked me out was how things that the Major did in the animated film version became things that happened to her in this.

Obviously it's not a shot for shot remake but there's several scenes that are blocked to look and play out in really similar ways.

The example I'm going to use is from towards the end, so there's slight spoilers.

In the big end fight, in the animated film, already injured and knowing that interfacing with the wild killer robot guards will do her further damage, the Major chooses to plug herself in to solve the mystery.

In the equivalent scene in the live-action film, the robot plugs the Major into itself.

It's not the only example, but it's probably the clearest because of how similarly the two scenes are shot.

It gives the film (and the Major) a very different vibe than in the animated version, and I do not approve.

Batou is my favourite, but if Batou isn't my favourite in any version, that's probably a signal that I'm trying to tell you I've been kidnapped and am being held against my will.

Economics:

Who are the poor Americans? - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41930107 From 2017

Films:

Star Wars: The blockbuster made in Borehamwood - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-42267308

Miscellaneous:

Modern slavery: 'I had to eat the dog's food to survive' - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-41857444

Britain on the verge: Life along the A1 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-42151512

Workers Are Falling Ill, Even Dying, After Making Kitchen Countertops - https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/02/766028237/workers-are-falling-ill-even-dying-after-making-kitchen-countertops I thought we knew about silicosis

The 'A-Team' that hunts missing planes - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42272952

Politics:

Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush - https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-and-the-presidency-of-george-w-bush.html From 2004

Because L assures me that sometimes my post should be up to date and my film reviews are now running 5-6 years late.

I start with some caveats:
1 - in my comic book days, I was very much a Marvel girl. Make mine Marvel etc. The nearest I got to DC was Batman.

2 - James Gunn is one of those creative types who appears to have a direct line to my soul. He is responsible for an excessive amount of me crying in cinemas; somewhat famously, the time Guardians of the Galaxy made me cry so hard I gave L a migraine.

I have very little skin in this game (Superman) and I know that I will enjoy it anyway.

That being said, it's so nice to see a friendly Superman on screen.

I blame a mixture of Quentin Tarantino and the comics' Dark Age for the dour Supermen we have been having on the big screen recently (this applies to big screen only, the cartoons have been suitable).

Quentin Tarantino because of the whole which of Clark Kent's identities is the "real" one spiel, and everyone wanting to be an auteur like him and ape him in every possible way. (Said with affection for his films)

The Dark Age for that period of comics were everything had to be bleaker than bleak. And fellas, I understand the appeal, because those were the comics of my teenage years too. But they were a short blip in a long lifetime of the Superman character.

Superman is the best of us and happens to be an übermensch, not just an übermensch.

There's a reason L says the motto for my blog should be "I never drop projects, I just don't update them for a while". This one used to be yearly and then stuff happened, so I'm taking the chance to update it now.

This is a list of all the locations where films I have mentioned up to August 2020 (yes, I know).

Looking only at real locations, the US and UK lead the way.

( Giant pie chart under the cut )

It's a lot less clear cut when I include fictional locations.

( Another giant pie chart )

There's still an disturbing overwhelming, more than 80% of them are set there, English slant to the films set in the UK. It does possible suggest something about film funding in the UK, and where Hollywood sets films when they're set in the UK.

( Third and last giant pie chart )

When I have time to learn how to do nice map plots, I think this will be my dataset.

My "not first released in 2024" option is Galaxy Quest, which I saw at the Electric, about two weeks before it closed. Which was a real shock! The owner was perpetually threatening to close it but hadn't ever (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clm7nnyx2d5o). It just means I really need to get myself more organised to actually get back to going to the Mockingbird (https://mockingbirdcinema.com/MockingbirdCinema.dll/Home) when I get the chance.

For films released this year, I am applying my usual 4 criteria:

a – did the film do what it set out to do?
b – did it use its resources to its best ability? A £250,000 film is not going to have as good explosions as a £25,000,000 film, or it shouldn’t, and if it does, there’s something wrong with the £25,000,000 film. Basically, it's a technical merit score.
c – Intellectual satisfaction – does the film’s plot pull some really stupid move at the last moment? Does the plot rely on characters being more stupid than they are?
d – Does this work as a whole? Did it work for me? I am aware that this is the most subjective of subjective criteria!

I saw 13 films this year, 12 in the cinema and one on a plane, because the cinema-to-plane turnaround time is ridiculous nowadays. The bottom 3, which didn't make the top 10, can all be missed quite happily.

Of the 10 here, I can find something to recommend in everything down to 9, while I'd say the top 4 are actively good and Kalki 2898 AD is intriguing but that might be my lack of knowledge.

1 - Monkey Man - If we could give Dev Patel all the money he wants to make any film he wants, I would be so grateful. This was marvellous. Fills my need for arthouse violence exactly.

2 - Kneecap - I am going to caveat this one. How do you feel about about swearing, drink and drugs? If any of the above are not your thing, please skip. The politics is also ... intriguing (let's be honest, they go with 'Band banned by the UK gov' for a reason). (The politics is a whole section of the full review, a long section.)

On the other hand, other than 'oh heck, Fassbender is old enough to be playing parents', this was good. Openly, 'our story as told by a drunk', in the best sense, and DJ Provai can act (the other two, not so much but not worse than many pro-actors).

3 - The Beekeeper - Kurt Wimmer is a member of the Garth Marenghi school of writing, where subtext is for cowards. His style really works for me. The Beekeeper is a very straightforward story of good guys, bad guys, necessary bad guys and a lot of violence. They fill this out by casting a bunch of British actors in random roles (and have Josh Hutcherson being the sleaziest sleaze ever).

Catnip for me.

4 - The Count of Monte Cristo - It needed to be a mini-series. But I enjoyed what there was. Pierre Niney was excellent, I did not expect to fall for Andrea Calcavetti quite that hard and loved how they did Dantes acting as the Count.

5 - Kalki 2898 AD - The full story of how I ended up watching this will wait until the write up. Safe to say it was longer than expected, and could have done with some judicious cutting. On the other hand it felt very fresh, although how much of that is me not knowing the Mahabharata, I do not know. (It is a gap I am planning on fixing eventually)

I do find it interesting that 4 out of my top 5 are not English as their main language. Monkey Man and Kneecap (and the Count, to an extent) are also good at the way people who use more than language use their languages and flow between them.

6 - Furiosa - It wasn't as good as Fury Road (but that's a very high bar), and it did make Furiosa far too nice and cut-out how she was supporting Immortan Joe. But the images were still awesome and it does interesting things with revenge.

7 - Dune 2 - I am the problem with this. I acknowledge this. But there are three scenes I demand in any adaptation of this part of the book, and it whiffs all of them. I grant there's reasons for one of them - can I recommend SelenaK's review here - https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1573791.html? - but I still want those scenes.

8 - Argylle - It has problems. For spoilery reasons, Bryce Dallas Howard is mildly miscast, but she's not miscast for the more important part. I would have re-edited several of the scenes that ran too long. But it's pleasingly silly, and does some fun things.

9 - The Fall Guy - This is probably better than Argylle, I just do not vibe with Ryan Gosling. The parts that are David Leitch's love letter to stunt guys, and any part that features Winston Duke, are absolute love, mind you.

10 - Venom 3

Everything above 10 has some redeeming feature. Films 10-13 have almost none of these. Venom 3 comes the top of them because while it is a pointless sequel (like film 11), I enjoyed it more than 11. Unlike film 12, I didn't consider that it might have been written by AI, because AI would be more evenly-toned. Unlike film 13, it didn't make me drunkenly rant at L, because it's just so wrong.

Also, it did have Venom Horse and Mrs Chen.

And Venom Penguin!

My usual end of the year list of the top 10 films. Explanations coming in a week.

1 - Monkey Man
2 - Kneecap
3 - The Beekeeper
4 - The Count of Monte Cristo
5 - Kalki 2898 AD
6 - Furiosa
7 - Dune 2
8 - Argylle
9 - The Fall Guy
10 - Venom 3

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Entries tagged with films

Film Review - Spies in Disguise

Star Wars - A Review of the Sequel Trilogy

Film Review - Star Wars IX - The Rise of Skywalker

Links

Top 10 Films of 2025 - Now with Explanations

Top 10 Films of 2025

Gemini Man - Film review

Film Review - Big Trouble in Little China

Sword Fighting Films - The Prisoner of Zenda

100 Great Scenes In Not So Great Films - 48 - The Moon is not another country in Ad Astra

Some equally scattershot thoughts about Fantastic Four, the new one

Film Review - Ad Astra

Film Review - Time Bandits

LA Confidential and the art of adaptations

Ghost in the Shell (2017 film)

Links

Superman: the new one - some scattergun thoughts about comics, history and culture

Not actually yearly round up of film locations

Top 10 Films of 2024 - Now with Explanations

Top 10 Films of 2024