The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
An anthology movie made up of a handful of short stories, all set in the Wild West. If there's a common theme, it's the expendability of human life. It's a Coen brothers film so there's lots of dry humour juxtaposed with lots of extreme violence, with one really tender story right in the middle. And it looks beautiful. As is often the case with anthology films, some parts work better than others, but ultimately it's very satisfying watch.
Bohemian Rhapsody. I do not recommend it, especially if you are a fan of Freddie Mercury of historical truth about real persons.
I have a different opinion. I've watched Bohemian Rhapsody a few days ago and really liked it. It did come across as a sanitised version of Freddie Mercury's life rather than an historically accurate portrayal of who he was but once you put that aside there is so much more to enjoy in this film. The best thing in the film was the outstanding performance of Remi Malik who is so good in the role that you could almost momentarily forget that it is dramatic performance and think it's a documentary. Thank goodness that Sacha Baron Cohen dropped out of playing the role of Freddie Mercury because I can't imagine he would be anywhere near as good.
Interesting. Those do seem to be the two prevailing opinions about that film.
Terence Stamp is equal parts beautiful and creepy as the stalker who locks the object of his affection away in his cellar in the hopes that she will fall in love with him. Great stuff.
That looks great!
Just watched ...
Girl On The Train - not a bad film but was kind of hoping it would have been better.
Yeah, I think I was expecting something more substantial. Had I known it was so popcorny going in, I might have enjoyed the ride a bit more. But as a mixture of Hitchcock (The Lady Vanishes, Vertigo) and one of those slick domestic thrillers from the early 90s (Sleeping with the Enemy, The Hand That Rocked the Cradle) with a vaguely proto-feminist spin, it was good dumb fun.
I saw the stage version of this last week starring Ronnie Mitchell off of
EastEnders. She's perfect casting, really excellent. It looks really good on stage as well, but ultimately that can't disguise the thinness of the overall story. Maybe it just works best as a book.
I wonder what happened to Steve Guttenberg. I used to have quite a crush on him, and last night reminded me why.
Ha, I just saw this! I worked with Steve Guttenberg a few months ago on an episode of a CBBC series -- very random! He was very nice, in a "professionally very nice" sort of way.
