Greyhound (2020) is the second feature film from Cinematographer turned Director Aaron Schneider. It stars Tom Hanks as Ernest Krause, who is serving his first voyage as the commander of a US Naval boat escorting a convoy in World War 2. It is based on the book The Good Shepherd by C. S. Forester. The …
This warm and beautiful documentary tells the story of a group of high school students competing in the August Wilson Monologue Competition. For those who don’t know, August Wilson was a Black American playwright who told stories about normal Black Americans and their lives. One of the competitors refers to how Wilson “was writing for …
Dystopian futures are something we saw a lot of a few years back. The Hunger Games series appearing in the taillights of Twilight, giving teens love triangles and conceptual futures to consider. For all the various shouts of derivative material, under-developed characters and contrived scenarios, they triggered a phenomenon. ‘The Knife of Never Letting Go’ …
Justin Simien (previous work including writing for the Netflix production Dear White People) directs Bad Hair. In which timid Anna (Elle Lorraine), works for tv studio Culture, in the mid 80s. The Black culture focused section of a network similar to MTV. She faces daily microaggressions, dismissals and is regularly overlooked due to her afro …
Tomaz (Alec Secareanu), is a soldier in a Eastern European country at war, we are not told where. He furiously digs through the earth in the woods, we don’t know why. He neglects his post as a border patrol officer. His posting is safe, but it is isolated. The nearest town is two days walk …
Visit Lyme Regis today, and the mark of Mary Anning is all over it. Walk past the fossil shops and the tea rooms, the steep roads all leading to the beach. You reach the seafront itself, which remains by nature of its design much like it was when Mary was 11 and found her Icthyosaur, …
Hi all, I haven’t written anything in aaaaages. Part of this is laziness, some of it is parenthood related, other commitments etc etc. All that gubbins. I have been wanting to get back at the keyboard for a while though and last night I watched a film that really put me in mind of getting …
Continue reading Under The Shadow, modern motherhood, and the missing village.
Doctor Sleep (2019) In spite of being a fan of King's work I've never really liked The Shining. It's a beautiful piece of work, but it is cold, detached, not like the emotional breaking up of a family portrayed in the book. Thankfully Flanagan seems to have taken the aesthetic of The Shining and added …
You know how you get those "best films ever!" lists and they're always basically the same lists... For horror you'll have The Exorcist, The Omen, Night Of the Living Dead, etc etc etc... Well, it's kind of pointless reading those lists because you already know what's on them. All you're really looking for is validation …
Here be spoilers!! The plot of The Shape Of Water rests on the assumption that minorities are underestimated. A mute woman, a black woman and a gay artist past his prime. All of whom have faced a life of judgement are presented with a creature they both identify with and are initially revulsed by. The …
Continue reading Fish & Quips: The Shape of Water and the language of othering (a mini blog)
