Elvis - quite good.Hanks is excellent, but horrible.
Great songs, lead actor very good obviously studied for months.
They even got James Burton’s guitar correct.
Long though…2.5 hrs
Elvis. Surprisingly good. Wasn’t sure in the first 1/2 hour how the film is put together, but after watching the whole thing, it worked for me. Austin Butler is excellent. I’ll buy it on 4K, so it must have got to me.
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Just listening to the soundtrack.
I’ll definitely try and see it next week.
Both compelling viewing and both evitable.
Sorry for slow response - only just seen your comment. Don’t think it was shot in Preston - wasn’t a serious comment!
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Finally got round to seeing Top Gun Maverick today.
Not really a fan of the original and this was just as corny but it was entertaining and slightly less cringeworthy.
Added points for Jennifer Connelly, oh my… 
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I went with my daughter to the BFI festival on the Southbank. We watched White Noise, based on Don DeLillo’s darkly comic novel on anxiety in modern prosperous America, and starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig. It was a long film but still managed to keep us both engaged and entertained throughout. We both rated it around a 7/10 but didn’t think we’d be re-watching any time soon.
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I went to see the new film starring Bill Nighy - ‘Living’ at the cinema last night. Set in 1950’s London about a very officious senior manager at the London County Hall who finds out he has a terminal illness. Absolutely wonderful film and very moving with a brilliant supporting cast. But the film belongs to Bill Nighy and it is a career highlight for him. Highly recommended
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Thanks for your recommendation. This film has received some great reviews and is certainly on my ‘must watch’ list.
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Yep and Aimee Lou Wood who in 3 series of Sex Education developed from an also ran, one of the others types, into a proper decent actress imo.
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Absolutely - I thought she was absolutely wonderful. Amazing how well the cast of Sex Education are doing for themselves - Emma Mackay has garnered rave reviews for her role as Emily Brontë in the film Emily, Ncuti Gatwa as next Dr Who and Connor Swindells absolutely storming it in SAS, Rogue Heroes. That was some astute casting for Sex Education
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Banshees of Inisherin, one of McDonaghs best. So we’ll written Gleason and Farrel on top form beautifully shot and very very funny.
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Just back from seeing the film of Matilda - The Musical. I’m a complete sucker for musicals but this is something else. Superb transfer to the big screen with a very English feel to it. Great turn from Emma Thompson and the young actor who plays Matilda is just incredible. The star of the show though is the music by Tim Minchin - wonderful and the songs pack a real emotional punch
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Not shown at our multiplex , multiple showings of whatever minor character Marvel/DC gets their own film… but really nothing else
I may try and get to Matilda over the Christmas hostilities
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Had a lovely day out with my daughter today, which included an afternoon visit to the Vue Cinema at Cribs Causeway, to see the new Tom Hanks film OTTO.
When a lively young family moves in next door, grumpy widower Otto Anderson meets his match in a quick-witted, pregnant woman named Marisol, leading to an unlikely friendship that turns his world upside down.
WOW, we both enjoyed this so much, with excellent performances and a constantly surprising storyline, it was an emotional rollercoaster from beginning to end. Highly recommended!
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The movie is a very silly tall tale shaggy dog story.
Like a great piece of Aesthetic philosophy- philosophy of how things appear….
A beautifully elegant structure of a film.
Some vigorous analysis will see it all come crashing down. But, that’s missing the point.
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Sometime we can all suffer from this!
On my ‘to see’ list for next weekend.
Renfield
A disappointment.
This film has a number of elements that compete and undermine each other, despite the brilliant central conceit, that Renfield is going to a self help group to assist with the toxic relationship he has with Dracula.
Three of the competing angles are: Romance; Action; and, Comedy.
It is possible to morph between genres, as films such as Galaxy Quest have brilliantly proved. Here the sum of these parts was a subtraction.
Romance
This element kept mis-firing, but never sputtered to a complete halt. The modern script writing trope appears to be that a woman cannot be vulnerable physically or emotionally, she does not need a man. Within the context of the film this means that Renfield’s Dracula given powers are almost matched by the female protagonist. This reduces the impact of Renfield’s super-powers and pulls you out of any believable grounding; you need someone to be normal and at risk.
This reduces any believability the relationship has, and gives us no one to fear for. I never believed their relationship or felt in fear for either them
I was rooting for them as a couple, but it felt more like a muscle memory than anything genuinely generated by good story telling.
Action
There is some good stunt work, and this aided the comedy in places. But, to me these episodes always felt like breaks in a horror/rom-com. They weren’t organic.
If this was a Mel Brooks film, with the romance dropped, these sequences could have worked to better effect.
As it was I still got a couple of good laughs.
Comedy
How do you expand an idea that could fuel a sketch into a film?
This was a question that these writers failed to answer, but I think that they are hampered by today’s thinking.
There were rich seams here for mining, such as self help groups. But, one is not allowed to ‘punch down’, so there is an earnestness to this group that is never punctured; whilst other groups were mocked to absurdity.
Where, in a Mel Brooks film, everything would be up for grabs here there was a selection of what was safe. This minimised comedic opportunity and surprise.
Overall I am glad I went and saw Renfield, principally for Hoult and Cage.
I would love the film to have had Hoult develop a relationship within the self help group and for them to have combated Deacula. Segueing from observational humour, to Rom-com and onto pure horror. As it was I was given elements of each of these which competed with and cancelled sach other; an overall mis-fire.
M
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Guardians of the galaxy 3… what a hoot. Pure escapism and visual feast with a good dose of humour
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