Inclined to Opine

Sometimes you stumble on a perfect gem of a film and you just want to share how much you loved it with the world. This movie is a breath of fresh air. It tells an incredibly small story that is somehow imbued with truth in every moment. It is extraordinary, beautiful, hilarious, heartbreaking, but most of all human. Rarely have I watched such well written dialogue, making me half hope someone turns it into a play. It takes a good long look at what it means to grow older, to grieve and regret, and is one of the most sex-positive films I have ever encountered. It acknowledges the essential importance of sexuality and its power to transform a person’s life, and how mind and body are inexorably intertwined so that it’s impossible to fully enjoy one when the other isn’t on board. The care this movie shows in how it depicts current hot topics like consent, the abundance of porn, and gender double standards along with the taboo and perceived shame that still surround sex work is exquisite. An...

Like many classic musicals, my first encounter with My Fair Lady was through the film version. Beloved and rewatched many a time, I was excited to finally see it live. Either I am misremembering the film, or it took some liberties with the stage version by condensing it. I say this because I found the show long-winded and repetitive : every song had a reprise, scenes were drawn out, three verses sung without any new emotion… The second act, in particular, dragged on endlessly, with a too-long “I’m Getting Married in the Morning” number full of show girls (and boys) that seemed rather irrelevant to the story exhibiting uninteresting choreography. There also seems to be an imbalance between the acts, with the second having far fewer songs to buoy it along amidst dialogue after dialogue; the pacing wasn’t brilliant and I found myself thoroughly bored until the end of the ball. I will, however, say that, not knowing any other versions of the stage show, I am inclined to think this is a str...

What if Bruce Wayne was a whiny emo teenager who treats the only person who cares for him like crap?  What if he were fairly intelligent but utterly outshone by Alfred, outsourcing all major sleuthing to his butler? What if Batman was little more than an extension of him with no real differentiation between the man and the vigilante? What if all this was told with poor writing, bad pacing, and zero chemistry between main characters? There were good elements to this film, even if I'm struggling to remember them. Colin Farrell’s Penguin was a delight, walking the fine line between over-the-top yet still believably intimidating, the actor completely disappearing into the character in part thanks to amazing prosthetics and make-up. Paul Dano as the Riddler was very good, bringing an unsettling serial killer vibe that grounded his performance in realism. And that’s about it for great acting. Jeffrey Wright as Gordon was meh, not bad but not particularly interesting either. Zoë Kravitz w...

Expectation management is an important life skill so, given that I hadn't terribly liked the film, finding the music repetitive and a bit annoying, I came into the stage version of Frozen not counting on being blown away. And I was right. Mirroring an issue I have felt in several Disney film-to-stage musical adaptations, the new material inserted to increase the run time brought nothing innovative or interesting. Instead of fleshing out the characters and storyline, all we had was longer/more musical numbers, mostly either foreshadowing or partially reprising pre-existing songs. When you have already heard the melody of Let It Go from the very start, the number loses its punch, methinks, and this is but one of several examples. The tone of the show was also off for me. While I understand it's very much aimed at children, the opportunity to engage adult audiences was completely missed. If you think of Lion King, for instance, the stage show has lifted the source material, deepen...

Every year, I see more and more articles on how viewer numbers for the Oscars have fallen yet again, and I have no trouble believing this to be true. It seems the Academy is so focused on shortening the ceremony and, I assume, cutting costs, that they are chipping away at all the elements that distinguished the Oscars from any other award show. If we want to learn who won, we read it in the news; if we want to hear the speeches, we find them online a few hours later; even the drama is captured by following live on social media. So what sets the Oscars apart (or used to!) is the sense of grandeur and spectacle, the celebration of film, the over-the-top-ness. All the things that were lacking in this year's ceremony. I see the idea behind having one of the nominated songs as an opener and Beyoncé's neon yellow rendition was a showstopper, but I found myself feeling thrown into the proceedings without a preamble, missing the film montages of old to get the excitement going. And the...

Here are my personal picks for this year’s Oscars along with the number of nominated films I managed to watch from each category: - Film: CODA (9/10) - Director: Kenneth Branagh, not even because I’m biased but because it was a breath of fresh air. (4/5) - Actor: Andrew Garfield, though I’d be ok with Benedict Cumberbatch. (5/5) - Actress: Jessica Chastain (4/5) - Supporting Actor: Troy Kotsur with Ciarán Hinds a very close second. (5/5) - Supporting Actress: Jessie Buckley (5/5) - Animated film: The Mitchells vs the Machines but more importantly, NOT Encanto! (2/5) - Original Score: The Power of the Dog though Dune is pretty awesome too. (5/5) - Song: Be Alive (4/5) - Adapted Screenplay: CODA (5/5) - Original Screenplay: Belfast (3/5) - Cinematography: Dune (5/5) - Costume Design: Dune (3/5) - Film Editing: tick, tick…BOOM! because it’s such an integral part of the storytelling. (5/5) - Production Design: Nightmare Alley, literally the only good thing about the film! (5/5) Let’s see j...

This is going to be a difficult film to review without spoilers so let's just go ahead and say that, if you haven't watched it and want to, you should stop right here! Parallel Mothers started off well enough. An interesting take on the babies switched at birth trope, I was enjoying how the main character slowly starts suspecting something is amiss then battles her conflicting feelings when deciding what to do about it. The blow of finding out what happened to the other baby was well set up and made us viewers understand her dilemma. Her next step, of taking in the other mother and involving her in the baby's life made sense and seemed a fair compromise, given she wasn't ready to disclose her secret yet. But then the film lost me. Why the need to create a romantic relationship between the two mothers?? I don't care if they're both women, a 40 year-old and a vulnerable 18 year-old who is dependant on the former for work, food, and home is creepy! But then even th...