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Flash Movie Review: Empire of Light
THE WEEK HAD BEEN EXTREMELY STRESSFUL. Work was challenging and my kitchen demolition was just starting up. The idea of going home and dealing with the new logistics of eating and washing dishes was too much for me to handle after work; so, I decided to go to the movies. With the Academy Awards ceremony taking place in a few weeks, I was excited that I could catch an Oscar nominated film before the telecast. Traffic was heavy which added to the negativity of the past week and my stress, because I was cutting close the time it would take me to get to the theater before the start of the movie. By the time I found a parking space at the theater, it was past the start time; but, I knew there was at least fifteen minutes worth of previews before the actual start of the picture. I ran from the parking garage to the lobby of the theater, checked in with the ticket taker, made a stop at the restroom, then made my way down the hallway to my theater. By the time I settled into my assigned seat, the last film trailer was nearly finished. I had made it in the nick of time and was hoping the movie would provide me with what I needed. A QUICK AD FOR THE THEATER flashed on the screen as an announcer stated the feature presentation was starting. The lights, which were already dim, lowered completely and the theater was filled with only the tiny LED lights outlining the stairs and exits. The movie started on the wide screen; a setting from an international city in a different time appeared before me. I was familiar with the city, having visited it some time ago. The few patrons in the theater (it was weeknight after all) were quiet and far enough away for me to get transported into the story uninterrupted. This is the ultimate form of relaxation for me; to find myself teleported and inserted into the actions taking place in front of me. All thoughts about the various stresses I was dealing with were pushed out of my mind; or at least out of my consciousness for the time being. I was in that city and experiencing the same effects as the main characters. The story was beautiful and by the end I felt completely relaxed and cozy. That is the magic of being in a movie theater; I can find myself anywhere based on what was showing on the screen. There are very few theaters I have been to that have not allowed me this wonderful experience and I just know the theater set in this romantic drama would be one that would provide me such a trip. DURING A TIME OF UNREST, A small group of individuals find refuge in their local movie palace where they work. With Olivia Coleman (The Lost Daughter, The Crown-TV) as Hilary, Micheal Ward (Blue Story, The A List-TV) as Stephen, Colin Firth (A Single Man, The King’s Speech) as Donald Ellis, Toby Jones (The Wonder, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) as Norman and Tom Brooke (The Death of Stalin, Preacher-TV) as Neil; this Oscar nominated film had moments of magic in it. Foremost, it was the cast led by Olivia and Micheal that kept me in the story. Next, I enjoyed the way human connections were on display. What I did not understand in parts was the script/story. I could not tell if the story was supposed to be a tribute to movies and I found one of the character’s revelations of racism did not ring true for me. At least the acting and sets were wonderful as I watched Olivia prove she was worthy of her Oscar nomination. This was a touching, adult movie that was almost great.
2 ¾ stars
Flash Movie Review: The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
IF I HAD NOT SEEN IT with my own eyes, I would not have believed it. I felt like I was watching the animal sidekicks of an evil, animated character. I was over at a friend’s house, who has five cats as pets. They are outdoor cats according to him. All of them are tabbies who are lean and muscular, at least in my opinion. Anytime I have been at my friend’s place, the cats have always been friendly towards me. This time my friend was telling me he had to take one of the cats to the veterinarian for some health issue. We visited until it was time for him to get ready. He had gone into the coat closet and pulled out a pet carrier. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a couple of cats sit up from their reclined positions, staring at the carrier. My friend started to walk over to one of those two cats. As he got closer to her, she let out this sound like a yelp. I do not know where the other three cats were, but they bolted in and joined the other cat to surround the cat my friend was nearing. It was surreal as they hissed and meowed at my friend, all the time keeping a tight circle around that one tabby. My friend turned his head towards me and said this happens each time he must remove one cat out of the pack. NONE OF MY PAST EXPERIENCES WITH cats ever included this scenario. I have seen cats hiss and cry, but that level of protection towards another cat is something I had never seen. Granted, I do not have any other friends or family who have five cats; but even then, I do not know if it makes a difference if a cat is an indoor or outdoor one. I have loved cats all my life; I can sit and watch them play for hours. There is one friend of mine who uses a laser pointer to get his cat to exercise. This cat will follow the red point of light all over the floor, the couch or chairs, even try to go up the wall to catch it. I have relatives who had one of the most docile cats I had ever known. This cat, I think, was part human because he knew when you were available to play with him or when you were sad, to come over and sit by you. I could lift him up and drape him around the back of my neck, where he would stay perfectly content while purring deeply in my ears. Like dogs, I think cats have distinct personalities. The artist in this biographical drama believes the same thing as I do. TAKING IN A STRAY CAT DID more for Louis Wain’s, played by Benedict Cumberbatch (The Power of the Dog, The Courier) career than almost anything else. Some would say it was an obsession; others would say it would be his legacy. With Claire Foy (The Crown-TV, The Girl in the Spider’s Web) as Emily Richardson-Wain, Andrea Riseborough (The Grudge, The Death of Stalin) as Caroline Wain, Toby Jones (A Boy Called Christmas, The Mist) as Sir William Ingram and Sharon Rooney (Dumbo, Zapped-TV) as Josephine Wain; this film based on true events shined a little brighter due to Benedict and Claire. The mix of whimsical and serious scenes made for some variety, though some areas of the story could have used a deeper dive into them. I had never heard of Louis Wain, but I believe I have seen some of his work. The story itself appeared to have a lot of things to explore; I am not sure the script did it justice. However, from a historical and dramatic aspect, I stayed involved with the characters. And the cats were quite cute to boot.
3 stars
Flash Movie Review: Atomic Blonde
“ACT LIKE A LADY,” what does that exactly mean? I always found it an odd comment because I had never seen or heard about a primer that explained how girls and boys were supposed to act. Sure I remember when I was a child boys played with toy soldiers, guns and baseball bats; while girls played with stuffed animals, tea sets and dolls. There was a young girl who enjoyed playing with trucks, the bigger the better. I can still remember the odd looks some adults would give her as if she was doing something wrong. I used to babysit some of my female relatives and play house with them; it never occurred to me to tell them boys don’t play house or host a dinner party. If that is what they wanted to play or if they wanted to play cards I did not care. However, I was aware that out among my friends I could be teased for it. FAST forward to current times and there now seems like there is a push by people, companies and such to praise women, to show how progressive they have become. Now do not get me wrong, I am all for putting a spotlight on anyone who deserves it; however, some of these campaigns ring false to me. A company has formed a women’s group to promote female employees; yet they still do not get the same pay scale as their male counterparts. A film comes out with a strong female lead but studio executives still treat some of their female staff in an inappropriate way. It bugs me when people assign a label to their friends or co-workers. For example statements like, “my black friend” or “my gay co-worker;” do we really need to classify an individual? Isn’t a friend just your friend or does one choose their friends to fit a specific category? For those who want to try and classify the main character in this action thriller you will have a hard time figuring out what to say. SENT to Berlin to retrieve a secret list MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton, played by Charlize Theron (Dark Places, Mad Max: Fury Road), was a target even before she landed. Based on the graphic novel series “The Coldest City” the cast also included James McAvoy (X-Men franchise, Split) as David Percival, Eddie Marsan (Sherlock franchise, Ray Donovan-TV) as Spyglass, John Goodman (Love the Coopers, Kong: Skull Island) as Emmett Kurzfeld and Toby Jones (Captain America franchise, Tale of Tales) as Eric Gray. Hands down this was Charlize’s film all the way. She simply was a beast in this picture. The fight scenes looked graphically real and Charlize must have gone through intense hand to hand combat training because it showed. I had read afterwards she did over 90% of all the stunts. The soundtrack was an important part to the script, but here is the downside to it. The script was confusing and not as strong as it could have been. I did not mind the jumping back in forth in time but would have preferred less of it. Regardless I felt this was at times an intense, mysterious, all out thriller that did not need to be defined as a male or female film; it was an equal opportunity battle. There were scenes with blood and strong violence.
3 stars
Flash Movie Review: Morgan
We were sitting around and talking after dinner. I was expressing my exasperation over building a cabinet from a kit I had bought on the internet. My intentions were to store some of my movie DVDs (no surprise, right?) in it but presently the pieces were scattered on the floor in the living room. The directions had no written text; it only had drawings and icons to follow. I tried but the instructions were not making sense to me. At one point I realized I was building one of the glass enclosed wooden doors backwards, so I unscrewed things and left them on the floor. This led me to explain to my friends why I prefer baking over building. Following a recipe makes me feel calm because it is exact. You have your favorite ingredients such as chocolate, cinnamon or peanut butter and you measure out everything like a chemist until you wind up with this beautiful batter that you put in a hot oven to bake. During the baking process I never taste anything; I feel what company or person would want you to make something that tastes bad. If you follow everything exact it will turn out good is my belief. A friend chimed in it was for that exact reason why they did not like to bake. They said with cooking, if something doesn’t taste good or come out exactly right, you can still add something to fix it. With baking they were stuck once the finished item had baked. The two of us went back and forth on the pluses and minuses of cooking as opposed to baking. The conclusion we both agreed on was there are some ideas that sound absolutely great on paper, but when you make the recipe it just doesn’t turn out as good as it sounded. You could say the same thing about this science fiction mystery. ARTIFICIALLY created humanoid Morgan, played by Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Viking Quest-TV movie), was only 5 years old; but she was already causing problems for the corporation. With a cast that included Kate Mara (The Martian, Fantastic Four) as Lee Weather, Rose Leslie (The Last Witch Hunter, Game of Thrones-TV) as Dr. Amy Menser, Toby Jones (Anthropoid, Captain America franchise) as Dr. Simon Ziegler and Paul Giamatti (San Andreas, The Ides of March) as Dr. Alan Shapiro; one would think this horror film had a capable cast to carry the story. Au contraire, the script was simply awful. I am not one to think ahead in a movie but within a very short time I already had guessed the surprise. Secondly, what is up with Paul Giamatti? Doesn’t he get tired of doing a film where he plays the same loud, yelling professional person over and over? I was bored through most of this picture. The idea was interesting and some of the fight scenes were well choreographed; but this was not enough for me. The execution process was dull; I am referring to the directing, the acting and the beyond predictable script. This may have been a good idea but there is nothing that could have fixed this stinker. There were scenes with blood and violence in them.
1 ½ stars
Flash Movie Review: Anthropoid
I always felt I had a decent education; maybe not the top schools, but certainly a well rounded learning experience. Oh, except for a couple of teachers in my early schooling that should not have been allowed to teach. After my college years I still kept up my desire for learning. Using a variety of mediums such as radio, print and internet; I like to be and stay an informed individual. So here I sat watching this film and discovered I had no knowledge about it whatsoever. As the audience was filing out after the movie ended I made a comment to no one in particular, mentioning how the movie was intense. A couple of people in front of me turned and acknowledged the same thing, asking me if I knew this movie was based on a true story. I told them I did not and I was actually surprised I had never heard about it before, considering its significance in history. Standing in the lobby we discussed the movie and our lack of knowledge. It was interesting for us to compare our educational backgrounds, which included Big Ten universities and small city colleges; none of us knew about a specific early scene in this movie. I posed a question about the history classes we had taken; due to the time constraints placed on curriculum courses do teachers provide students only highlights from historical events or do they focus on the subjects they prefer to talk about? I do not have an answer for this; I just know I have to reconfigure my present knowledge to incorporate the story from this historic thriller. PARACHUTED back into their own country of Czechoslovakia Josef Gabcik and Jan Kubis, played by Cillian Murphy (Inception, In the Heart of the Sea) and Jamie Dornan (Fifty Shades of Grey, The Fall-TV), had only one mission. They had to find a way to assassinate Adolf Hitler’s 3rd in command, SS General Reinhard Heydrich. Based on a true story this film also starred Charlotte Le Bon (The Hundred-Foot Journey, The Walk) as Marie, Toby Jones (Captain America franchise, Tale of Tales) as Uncle Hajsky and Brian Caspe (The Martian, The Illusionist) as Antonin. The story had a slow pace to start, but there was a continual buildup that intensified later in the film. I had wished the script would have stuck with the main story because I found the love aspect story line to be a distraction and not believable. It is understandable the writers wanted to humanize the characters but under the circumstances it took away the characters’ purpose in my opinion. The actual story I have to assume was more powerful than what this movie was able to achieve; however, I was still totally engaged by this biographical film. Though they were not graphic there still were violent, disturbing scenes. The editing did not help; I found choppy parts throughout the film. This may not have been the best interpretation of the actual chain of events (I just did not know how much of this movie was true, but I plan on finding out), but its importance in history and the movie in whole was a riveting experience for me. Violent scenes with blood.
3 stars
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