Week 51 & 52 – December 31

Matthew’s Movie Mentions – Eloquent Gushing

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So it turns out I had this prepped but never released it. Sorry to anyone who was waiting on this. I’m going to continue this in future as a monthly post about the best films I’ve seen each month, with an audio version to accompany it available on Patreon (patreon.com/eloquentgushing) available to our $3 and above supporters.

Charade

This was the Christmas society screening. It’s a beautiful film but I didn’t feel the chemistry between the leads, and the twists were not consistently delivered. The point where the female protagonist gives up her fight because she’s getting married is not a great moment any more.

K-19: The Widowmaker

Kathryn Bigelow really is exquisite at the tense, claustophobic thrillers. The accents notwithstanding, this is a fascinating story with some movements that I didn’t always see coming and performances that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Awakenings

With the director passing away I wanted to watch her most famous film. It was fascinating to watch and very well told, but I never felt quite as connected to the characters as I would have liked.

Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot

I was thoroughly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. Very dark humour goes quite a long way with me so that helps, but the non-chronological style of telling the story really did lend weight to the finale.

The English Patient

The main plot in this is pretty much the least interesting one. If we’d had more about clearing mines, working together, and the secondary romances and characters it would have been far more gripping.

The Aviator

If someone had told me Cate Blanchett was playing Katharine Hepburn I would have watched this a very long time ago. It is pretty much all on the performances that make this film, but it gave a good insight into an interesting character.

Deck The Halls

Very rarely do I give 1/10. This film was offensive and bad.

A Single Man

The ending of this film pushed it to 9/10. Then they added another moment that pushed it back to 8/10. Stylish and with some good stuff going on, but trying to have its cake and eat it at the end.

Ringu

A classic of Japanese horror that I really should have seen way before now. It’s not really scary any more, especially as the main points have been done ad nauseum.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

This was it, the 365th new film of the year. I thought I’d enjoy this. I didn’t expect it to be the best new film I’d see in all of 2018. Visuals, sounds, performances, story… all of it is the best. I cannot get over how confidently this film told a weird and complicated story, whilst throwing a style and images unlike anything else.

Blockers

The premise of this film seemed awful, the film itself was significantly better than that. I genuinely enjoyed it in the end.

The Bucket List

A very average film. Not really anything funny or exciting to it, but also not really anything bad.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

We suspect this film is much better when you’ve read the book, but I didn’t buy the relationships which really hurts the film itself. Also a friend fed back their thoughts a few weeks later when I’d just seen Red Sparrow, and thought they were talking about that film. Those are two wildly different films!

A Monster Calls

I did not peg this film right when I thought it would be a heartwarming tale. Heartbreaking, beautiful, and emotionally resonant.

Storks

Another very average film, the wolves just about lifted it above a 5 but really this isn’t one anyone should spend time on.

Mary Shelley

Surprisingly clunky when it’s about someone whose life was so interesting. The periods where Percy wasn’t in this film were much better.

Mission Impossible – Fallout

The MI films are all solid, but I think the last one or two were better than this. That toilet fight is very good though.

Rocky

There’s an uncomfortable scene in the middle, but otherwise this is an exceptional film. We covered it on Pop Culturally Deprived for all my thoughts.

A Wrinkle In Time

I think whatever you do with this if you follow the story it’s somewhat unfulfilling, and very of its time. Visually very good though.

Animal House

Another film that is generously of its time. Problematic now but still with some very funny moments, and not actually an ending. Another you can hear about on Pop Culturally Deprived

Aquaman

I’m assuming this film knows how silly it all is, therefore is leaning into that fact. In which case, it’s a lot of fun.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

Overall quite good but with a pretty bad ending that negates a lot of the film’s good work.

Harvey

Surprisingly very good. The performance is everything in this film, and absolutely work.

Rampage

This film has no nutritional value. There is nothing in it to sustain you.

Thoroughbreds

Some great performances if thoroughly unpleasant. An interesting coming of age but much darker than most.

Recommendations

Week 51 – Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse blows everything else out of the water. The best superhero film of the year, the best Spider-Man film ever, and the best new film I watched in 2018. I will gush about and recommend this film to everyone for years to come.

Week 52 – A Monster Calls took me thoroughly by surprise. The fact my wife was in floods of tears by the end shows how emotionally gripping it was, but every performance in this was superb, and I think this is one very worth watching, although it’s hard to recommend one so hard.