New year looks new.
On Addictions and Other Things
- The Monster (2016): As a horror movie, The Monster is bland and boring. As a take on alcohol addiction, it’s not a bad piece of allegorical work. This must be why critics have given it some decent reviews, as opposed to the stark 5.4 it garnered on IMDb. I did think the atmosphere failed to really get under your skin, whereas the characters worked up an engaging story. The gist of it is that alcoholic mother is driving to drop off her daughter at her father’s, for an undetermined period of time. They get stuck in the woods and a monster rears its head. There are casualties. Addiction stuff. So yeah, not the worst failed horror movie I’ve seen. 6/10
A Childhood Stroll
- Matilda (1996): I know for certain that I’ve seen Matilda before, but it was only the odd scene here or there that truly felt familiar. As one of the big movies of the 90s, a decade seemingly littered with highly successful movies about children, Matilda isn’t all that. It’s cute and honest, with a likable lead and a bunch of excellent villains – Pam Farris steals the show here. Beyond that, there wasn’t much to keep me interested in either the story, or its characters. Old age made me cynical, I’m afraid. 6/10
Back When Westerns Had Character
- The Sisters Brothers (2018): You come across a movie directed by Jacques Audiard and starring the likes of John C. Reilly, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joaquin Phones and Riz Ahmed, and you are just bound to have phenomenal expectations. Then the movie trots about at a leisurely pace for half an hour and just as you start questioning the routinely Western events unfolding, the characters catch colour. They become distinctive, memorable, and as Audiard plays with the seen and the unseen, I found myself enraptured. As far as sibling movies go, this one is pretty high up there. 8/10
A Childhood Stroll Returns
- Mary Poppins Returns (2018): It’s hard to find a much bigger MP fan than me. This movie is so meshed up into my childhood, every time I watch it, I get hit by a hurricane of emotions. Obviously, hearing of her return made me weary, although I did have faith it Emily Blunt. What came out was a very faithful recreation, almost scene by scene, which can be a worthy point of critique. However, Rob Marshall succeeded in also recreating some of that warm and tingly atmosphere, even without the aid of any iconic songs. It’s why, overall, I got to enjoying MPR, as a decent piece of fan service, if there even is such a thing as MP fans in need of it. 7/10
When Art Meets Commerce
- Colette (2018): The story of Colette, the famous French writer of the eary 1900s that you’ve probably never heard of, has a penchant for the unusual, yet manages to feel tediously modern in most of its commentaries. This defied my expectations of authenticity and even if I’m totally in the wrong, it simply didn’t engage. Some very competent acting and a reasonably interesting story make up for its other shortcomings, but that’s meager consolation for what might have been a different experience altogether. 6/10
tributarystu 