things I watched…

Before I begin this review I feel as if I should provide a short disclaimer. As I have mentioned before, the original Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott and released in 1982, is one of my favourite films of all time. When Blade Runner 2049 released, helmed by new director Denis Villeneuve, I was worried that it wouldn’t, couldn’t, live up to the heights set by the original. It had been thirty-five years. Would the aesthetic that made the first film such a cult classic be able to be recaptured with a new director? Surely there was no way Blade Runner 2049 could match its predecessor.

I was wrong.

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The first time I watched Blade Runner was when I was in university. I don’t remember the exact circumstances that led me to discovering the film, but I think it was featured in one of the multitudes of “10 Sci-Fi Films You Need to See Before You Kick Off This Mortal Coil” lists, and as sci-fi is pretty much my favourite genre of anything, I was eager for a new offering to devour (the film also single-handedly introduced me to the cyberpunk genre, which has been my favourite niche ever since). This is going to sound really hyperbolic, and I’m sorry about that, but Blade Runner really was one of those films that was a turning point for me. It was a revelation.

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Factory Girl is a biopic of the life of silver-haired sixties socialite Edie Sedgwick, who was the Paris Hilton or the Kylie Jenner of America before those two were even twinkles in their father’s eyes. The plot charts the rapid rise and then the rapid fall of the troubled young woman, as she suddenly finds herself as muse for the decade’s most daring artist, Andy Warhol, and is then cast aside almost as quickly.

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Akira is a movie with an absolutely massive cult following. It’s another one of those films that for a long time I had only heard about, and because it was kind of hard to access (when I was younger, at least, before you could easily stream things online) it remained unseen and unknowable to me – like a trendy secret that I’d only seen stills from online.

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Suspiria. It’s a name that rolls off the tongue, dripping with sibilance, serpentine. It’s eerie, and it’s strange. It’s a perfect title for a film such as this.

I had a lot of anticipation for this film, having heard a lot about it, knowing that it would be something that I’d never experienced before. It was going to be this mysterious, scary, shocking thing. I knew roughly what it was about and that it was considered essential viewing, but it was impossible to be prepared for what I’d actually see.

Continue reading “Should You Watch Suspiria (1977)?” →

Going into The Wrong Missy, I thought I would hate it. And I did! The Wrong Missy, how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways…

First of all, there’s the plot. Regular Dude™ Tim (David Spade) goes on a blind date with Missy (Lauren Lapkus), possibly the worst person who has ever existed in the history of the world. Within approximately three seconds he realises it’s a bad idea and tries to escape the date. Also within approximately three seconds I realised this movie was a bad idea and I wanted to escape.

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Marriage Story is, despite the name, a film not actually all that much about marriage. It’s a film about two people who were married, but now very much want that marriage to be over. A more apt title for the film would be Divorce Story, but that doesn’t seem like a very appealing film to watch.

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The Fly II is an abjectly disgusting movie. I am writing this whilst eating my breakfast and I instantly regret doing that, because I’m having to remember everything I found gross about the film and still try and stomach my cereal. The Fly II is a film that you should watch only after you have squared away your evening meal a few hours prior.

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This week we will be continuing with my theme of “Gossip Girl stars appearing in mediocre-at-best films” and focusing on another lukewarm effort produced during the show’s heyday – The Roommate.

Now, let’s make one thing clear straight off the bat: 90% of The Roommate is not good. Like, really not good. I’ve seen it twice, actually, and the first time I watched it was with friends in around 2013 and we tore it to shreds. The second time I watched it was for this review because I wanted to see if my original impression of the film held up and it did. So, I repeat my statement: 90% of this film is not good.

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Ok, before we begin, I am going to preface this review with some complete honesty – the only reason I watched The Stepfather was because I saw the preview on Netflix had Dan Humphrey from Gossip Girl in it, and he looked like he would rather be anywhere else in the entire world (except maybe on Gossip Girl again). And so I thought to myself: “yep, this is going to be terrible” and “yep, I have to watch this.”

Continue reading “Should You Watch The Stepfather (2009)?” →