SilentLuminary Reviews

  Genre: Comedy/ Fantasy  Time: 1h 51mins Director: Brad Bird Quick Summary: A rat who can cook makes an unusual alliance with a young kitchen worker at a famous Paris restaurant. I think I watched this so many times as a kid its probably why I love to cook. There is always something so charming about pixar films. They have such a soft eye pleasing style, and this is no different except there are moments that look stylistically real. Such as during the cooking moments. They really made that food look appetising. Its almost like watching those ASMR cooking videos but with French music and a cute little rat. The colors are very lush and detailed; very accurate toward a real city-scape. This is one of those feel good films that you can't hate. Its so relaxing to watch this, even during some of the more action based scenes. Most Pixar movies actually contain very mature messages and this one is no different. It teaches kids that anyone can do anything and be from anywhere. There should

  Genre: Horror/ Fantasy  Time: 1h 40mins Director:  Bryce McGuire Quick Summary:  A family moves into a new home, unaware that a dark secret from the house's past will unleash a malevolent force in the backyard pool. Jesus Christ that was awful. I had the unfortunate experience of sitting through this entire film. It wasn't fun at all. Not even in the bad film is so bad it's a good way. This was just bland and awful. Think of any generic possession horror movie, but in this one, the main character gets possessed by a cursed swimming pool. If they made this in the 2000's it might have been a hit.  The family consists of a dad who played baseball, a mother whose personality is nowhere to be seen, a daughter who follows in her mother's steps, and a son with the personality that he wants to be his dad.  If you want to see an even remotely good movie, see anything else. This isn't even scary when it comes to the supernatural side of things. The creatures were just

  Genre: Comedy Time: 1h 30mins Director:  Jake Johnson Quick Summary:  Given the opportunity to participate in a life-or-death reality game show, one man discovers there's a lot to live for. *disappointed* oh I think I expected more from this. This had a lot of promise as the set-up for this film was so damn good and funny. It was the strangest thing I have ever seen, Andy Samberg pulled up in a limo to this random dude and told him to get in. I was instantly hooked by this premise, but unfortunately, it struggles just after the halfway point. It has its funny moments. Jake Johnson was funny no matter what he was doing as well as Anna Kendrick. Together they were just like two awkward kids and I loved it. But I noticed as soon as we got over the initial hurdle of the set-up, they just weren't as funny. The awkwardness had vanished. The same goes for James, the homeless guy. After all the jokes were made and everyone had gotten used to him, he was just there. Which sure is fu

  Genre : Drama/ Action Time: 2h 23mins Director:  Hlynur Pálmason Quick Summary:  At the end of the 19th century, a young Danish priest is sent to a remote part of Iceland. The deeper he travels into the Icelandic landscape, the more he loses a sense of his own reality, his mission and his sense of duty. I think this was too artsy for me. The first thing I need to get out of the way is, I did not finish this film. I couldn't. I was so bored of this by the 30-minute mark I really didn't want to waste any more time watching this film.  It's a shame I couldn't get into this as this is so pretty to watch. All the footage is shown in a grainy square to mimic the look of a 19th-century camera. Each shot is static and we only momentarily linger on the shot before it cuts to another, and honestly, I really liked that. We get stunning shots of Iceland and the beautiful various landscapes.  I couldn't get interested in the story though sadly. It was just too boring. Nothing

  Genre: Family/ Adventure Time: 1h 37mins Director:  George Miller Quick Summary: Babe, fresh from his victory in the sheepherding contest, returns to Farmer Hoggett's farm, but after Farmer Hoggett is injured and unable to work, Babe has to go to the big city to save the farm. Well, this got morbid. While I do like this one, it's nowhere as perfect as the first one. This time around, it feels very overwhelming as they cram in 50 different characters and several different elaborate events for this little pig to go through. Sure, it looks a ton better and the set pieces are so good, but did they really need to shove this much into one film. However, I can say it doesn't try to recreate the previous story or try to bring back everything we knew from the first in an attempt to get us to like this. It does its own thing, which wasn't brilliant, but I still liked it. I did like the addition of the chimpanzees. This family of apes are fully dressed in clothes and talk as if

  Genre: Comedy/ Family Time: 1h 31mins Director:  Chris Noonan Quick Summary:  Gentle farmer Arthur Hoggett wins a piglet Babe at a county fair. Narrowly escaping his fate as Christmas dinner, Babe bonds with motherly border collie Fly and discovers that he too can herd sheep. But will the other animals accept him? This makes me sob with happiness every single time I watch this. It's difficult to find a more charming and heartwarming family film like this. Anyone can enjoy this as it's just so loveable. Almost like a storybook come to life. This has been a childhood favourite of mine and it's still enjoyable to this day to me as an adult. How can you not love this adorable little pig? He's so cute and charming and just straight-up innocent. I found myself tearful for the damn little guy during his harder moments, and gleeful for his achievements.  Like you, I have seen thousands of talking animal films over the years but there's something so good about this one.

  Genre: Romance/ Drama Time: 2hours Director:  Tom Hooper Quick Summary:  A fictitious love story loosely inspired by the lives of Danish artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. Lili and Gerda's marriage and work evolve as they navigate Lili's groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer. I tried to watch this twice and both times I zoned out. This is another film that really drags out its runtime, except this isn't all that interesting. It feels very pretentious and feels incredibly shallow. For a film that is based on a true story and a real-life person, this is an insult to them. I think what was the biggest issue is that we're supposed to Sympathize with the main person here, but I actually found them to be very selfish and just shitty I'll be honest. I spend more time feeling sorry for their wife than the person that the story is actually about. Something that actually made me a little uncomfortable is how they made the transgender accept that this is sort o

  Genre: Horror/ Mystery Time: 2h 26mins Director:  Gore Verbinski Quick Summary:  An ambitious young executive is sent to retrieve his company's CEO from an idyllic but mysterious "wellness centre" at a remote location in the Swiss Alps. However, he soon suspects that the spa's treatments are not what they seem. I wasn't bored it was just long I'm not going to lie this is a strange film, but I liked it and was interested all through. It plays on a well-known paranoia and gets really creepy with it. The issue is, that it doesn't really give us enough substance for this concept that they give us.  This has some really good cinematography and shots, as well it's actually really pretty and aesthetic. We get loads of dizzying, mind-bending, travelling shots as we also get lost with our main character within the sanctuary. There are a lot of gothic horror elements, that have been slightly modernized in a good way, and they really help sell how creepy this

  Genre: Musical/ Thriller Time: 2h 34mins Director:  Steven Spielberg Quick Summary:  A tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. Brb just sobbing my eyes out  Such a touching and emotional story that I'm sure quite a few people will be able to relate to. This can be hard to watch, especially with some of the abuse scenes even if they're not graphic at all, but there's a lot you can piece together. It's gentle with the information it presents, and honestly, I like that, though it does come across as really overdramatic at times, especially with the bizarre score at times. Something I struggled with sometimes is the time jumps as it is a bit erratic with the timeline, and it only shows year stamps in big jumps of time. I was getting a little lost in how far ahead in time it had jumped to occasionally, as I have read the book so I also found myself realising it missed some key

  Genre: Musical/ Drama Time: 2h 20mins Director:  Blitz Bazawule Quick Summary:  A woman faces many hardships in her life, but ultimately finds extraordinary strength and hope in the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood. I'm not really sure how I feel about this being a musical admittedly. While I praised the previous adaptation for balancing the emotional moments with the more cheery ones, this time it feels very sharply disjointed as we get one moment where two characters are involved with some horrible abuse and then suddenly go on a really happy walk and singsong. This happens a lot actually, something horrible happens and then we move on to really happy song time. As for the songs, they were instantly forgettable. I don't remember a single one and honestly, I think at the time they all sounded the same. They all had that, happy, soul, dance upbeat kind of sound. I found them to be really distracting too as they didn't forward the story at all, they were just kinda there.

  Genre: Sports/ Thriller Time: 2h 12mins Director:  Sean Durkin Quick Summary:  The true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothers, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. Me looking at Jeremy Allen White: ....smash I feel like a mixed bag myself with my feelings towards this film. The first hour was pretty much a bore for me, as it was just wrestling and Zac Effron showing off his muscles (which to me are not appealing). There were some interesting bits during this that managed to keep my attention, but otherwise, this part felt a little empty to me. I'm not sure if it was because we had full attention on Zac Efforn, who actually, I felt was really wooden during this. Maybe that's how the guy was in real life, I have no clue there.  Don't get me wrong though as this gets EMOTIONAL very quickly. A lot of tragedy happens to this family, and it never stops. It's honestly really horrible to think about when you

  Genre: Fantasy/ Romance  Time: 1h 45mins Director:  Andrew Haigh Quick Summary:  A screenwriter drawn back to his childhood home enters into a fledgling relationship with his downstairs neighbour while discovering a mysterious new way to heal from losing his parents 30 years ago. Crying. Screaming. Throwing up. What I mainly like about this is how well it manages to show loneliness, and how it can affect you.  Feeling like an outsider in your own family is tough, but always feeling alone is much tougher. This addresses that feeling so well with a really beautiful monologue. But that's only one part of this story. Mostly it's split into two parts, a new relationship and also reminiscing about parents.  I'll start with the relationship side. It was sweet. Felt very quick personally as there would be moments I'd be thinking but you just met this man. But I could see that they must have been comfortable together as we witnessed a lot of intimate moments, both psychically

  Genre: Adventure/ Thriller Time: 2h 24mins Director:  J. A. Bayona Quick Summary:  The flight of a rugby team crashes on a glacier in the Andes. The few passengers who survive the crash find themselves in one of the world's toughest environments to survive. I'm never complaining about the cold ever again. Aside from the Final Destination series, nothing has terrified me even more to go on a plane until this. The crash scene in this is honestly so brutal I actually had to turn away at some points. I mean, it shows how horrible this accident actually was but boy, I was a bit squeamish. I think what makes this such a whiplash of a moment is because of how calm the first 15 minutes of this film are, and how happy and unsuspecting everyone is, and then bam. The worst plane crash I have ever seen happened.  What these people went through was horrible and the things they had to resort to so that they would survive were equally as horrible. I will warn people there are a lot of uns

  Genre: Comedy/ Family Time: 1h 22mins Directors:  Benjamin Renner, Guylo Homsy Quick Summary:  A family of ducks try to convince their overprotective father to go on the vacation of a lifetime. It's fun, enjoyable and cute. What else could you ask for? I have noticed a decline in kids' films over the last few years. They either, weren't that impressive, overstimulating, didn't teach them anything, or were just straight-up terrible. Sure, kids won't really notice the difference between an Oscar-winning beautifully animated film that shows them so many life lessons, or cocomelon, but adults need to have something to endure while bonding with their kids. This is enjoyable for both.  There is something so mature and charming about this as a whole and I can't quite put my finger on it. The family feels so realistic in terms of a family dynamic, everyone has a part and starts out with their own little unique quirks and aren't just reduced down to the stereotyp

  Genre: Romance/ Drama Time: 1h 51mins Director:  Wong Kar-wai Quick Summary:  A young lonely woman takes a soul-searching journey across America to resolve her questions about love while encountering a series of off-beat characters along the way. The beginning had me fooled into thinking this was going to be a romance film... You know I had very high hopes considering the guy who directed this also directed In The Mood For Love , but this ended up being very disappointing to me. The beginning of this film starts up really sweet with a sort of cheesy start to a cute match-up, with lots of scenes of them hanging out and getting to know each other. Then it sort of switches it up by sending the girl on a journey to find herself a new life, which could be an interesting film, but not when you've set up for such a cute romance.  I really don't think I found anyone interesting, not even the main girl. Everyone felt more like the basic archetypes, here's your divorced drunk woma

  Genre: Family/ Comedy Time: 1h 35mins Director:  Tim Hill Quick Summary:  E.B., the Easter Bunny's teenage son, heads to Hollywood, determined to become a drummer in a rock 'n' roll band. In LA, he's taken in by Fred after the out-of-work slacker hits E.B. with his car. "Any baggage? Just emotional" Same E.B. Same This is another film I am not too sure about. I enjoyed some of it at the moment, but I really don't remember this too well. I will admit, that the Animation for the bunny is incredible considering most of the time it's with real-life people. It was really well done and I did believe that this was a real talking bunny (for the suspension of belief). Though, it isn't really a new thing as I believe there have been plenty of talking animal films before this.  I think most of the laughs that this film got out of me were because of Russle brand's jokes and the silly little moments, that are very obviously directed towards kids. But I&

  Genre: Muscial/ Drama Time: 2h Director:  Sam Taylor-Johnson Quick Summary:  The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. Man, they really didn't need to do her dirty like this. I'm not even sure where to start with this. It feels so lazy. Honestly, I think they just read a quick summary about her life and used that, as some of the information shown in this was incorrect or they just glossed over it. There was zero depth in anything. This makes her father and Blake out as some sort of saviours to Amy when really they are what incited her downfall.  The pacing makes no sense whatsoever, and the ending just comes out of nowhere. Also, some of the most important people in her life such as Jules and Salaam are almost entirely left out. They changed a lot of details about her life too, such as how things happened or when.  I find it very sad how this story has shown Amy. She w

  Genre: Horror/ Comedy Time: 1h 30mins Director:  Frank Henenlotter Quick Summary:  Duane recovers from his delusional breakdown to find his freakish basket-bound brother Belial will soon become a father. But not everything is joyous as the once tight-knit brothers no longer seem to trust each other. I kept progressively saying oh my god louder each time a baby popped out. This continues in much the same way as the second film, with loads of twisted humour, some very silly freaks, and plenty of truly demented scenes, including a terrific musical number from Granny Ruth and her 'unique individuals', the birth of twelve mutant babies and various other moments.  I did notice the focus was less on the two brothers and more on the various freaks and their silly antics. Which I didn't mind, it was just sad to not see the pair that much. We do get to witness this horrific birthing scene which was honestly so gross as multiple flesh gremlins kept coming out of this flesh mound. 

  Genre: Horror/ Comedy Time: 1h 30mins Director:  Frank Henenlotter Quick Summary:  Duane and his basket-bound mutant brother are taken in by a secret home for wayward freaks with journalists hot on their tail. Well, at least that question I was dying to know has been answered for me... It seems like they took the tongue-in-cheek humour and went all the way with this one. Duane seems a lot more clueless and has no brain cells this time, and I'm loving it. It doesn't have the same charm as the first one though, but it feels more like a comedy as the gore is really toned down.  There is obviously a much bigger budget too, which I'm not complaining about as it really helped with all the practical effects, I just miss the bad acting and over-the-top gore.  Speaking of the practical effects, I actually really like them. We get a barrage of freaks on screen to look at and all of them look spectacularly horrible and twisted. Though I really don't like the 'update' th

  Genre: Horror/ Comedy Time: 1h 31mins Director:  Frank Henenlotter Quick Summary:  A young man carrying a big basket that contains his extremely deformed, formerly conjoined twin brother seeks vengeance on the doctors who separated them against their will. (Warning: Gore Image below) Nothing beats a good grindhouse film. I enjoyed this film so much I ended up rewatching it a couple of days later. This is awful, but the good awful. You love it because it's so bad. I know this is a comedy but everything about it is so funny.  The non-demformed brother duane, falls in love with this woman within five minutes of meeting her, his delivery for all his lines are so bad it's brilliant, he feels a little campy to be honest with how clueless the poor guy is towards everything. The deformed brother, is a masterpiece of creature design. The thing itself looks ridiculous, but honestly if I saw that in real life I would probably pee my pants and run. There are some brilliant moments when h

  Genre: Horror/ Mystery  Time: 1h 38mins Director:  Chris Shadley Quick Summary : Nine strangers are kidnapped and forced to figure out the connection they have to each other as one has to die every ten minutes. So saw, but without the torture porn. Have you ever watched saw and thought, the concept is cool but I want less blood and gore. Well this is what you get. It isn't awful to be honest. It has a really cool concept and foundation to it, but the longer this went on the more messy it got.  The main issue is that it doesn't reveal why these nine people have been brought together until the very end, which can be pretty gripping its just there are barely any clues to link them together throughout. As well, why they're linked isn't totally obvious either. I actually found it kinda silly. This plus that they only get 10 minutes to talk to each other before one person is killed, to work out whats going on seems a bit too short as for the first 30 minutes people are jus

  Genre: Romance/ Drama Time: 2h 9mins Director:  Bradley Cooper Quick Summary:  This love story chronicles the lifelong relationship of conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein and actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. Mam, I'm sorry but what do you expect from marrying a clearly gay man. I really wanted to like this film, the first half of it had me and then as soon as it went to the colour I lost interest. A lot of this feels very heavy-handed and doesn't know how to approach certain things that happened, so instead of touching gentler scenes that have a lot of subtly to them, it comes smashing through blaring something it wanted to get across. Honestly, it made for a really tiring experience. I really don't think this knew what to focus on either, as sometimes it would be his early life and his music, then it was his love life, then back to music, then for more than I thought should have been, focuses on the wife. The thing is though it only gives us the surface det