Furry Osha

No, I didn't see it in the theaters, but it already has come out on VOD!

There was one overriding motive for Furiosa in the previous movie, and here we find out how that all started. And it's a long road (sic) to get from here to there. We see the five stages of grief (probably, I'm sure someone made that analogy), as young CGI Anya Taylor-Joy goes into non-CGI Anya Taylor-Joy... and it's a story of killing one man because of a life she made.

And yes, let's be honest, this looks fantastic! George Miller knows what he is doing, of course, so it's all very stunning to look at. Although... *looks around warily* the story is a bit on the basic side. Not that this needs to be Shakespeare, but we get the basic idea, and that's all there is.

ATJ is ... I'm just going to go with fine. She sits, and stares, and that's about the extent of it. Chris Hemsworth is having fun. Tom Burke is decent, but rather one-note.

Overall.. yeah, it's fine. People have already raved enough about this, and more will. But... to me, it's just fine.

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Generic Train Shuttle Robot Toy...

As a kid, I had an Astrotrain. Great 'bot. Is it the size of a train? The size of a shuttle? Who cares! But that was then... and this is now. Where knock off versions are available!

Who's the mean machine in grey and green.. er, purple?

Could you, would you, fight him as a train?

Could you, would you fight him as a plane? (okay, a shuttle, but that doesn't rhyme as well).

Well, he'd fight a Dalek for ya!

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Eyeph

Was this a John Krasinski vanity project or a Ryan Reynolds vanity project? Why not both!

While dealing with her dad in hospital a young girl (she's 12... is she a kid? is she a young adult? the movie goes back and forth depending on the emotion of the scene) finds some Imaginary Friends and tries to help them. Which no-one questions what's going on, or why this young girl suddenly turns up all over the place.

John Krasinski is in total sweet mode here, being the dad as well as writer and director (the mum dying was pretty much telegraphed during the opening montage, so I wasn't surprised she didn't make it). Ryan Reynolds is very much trying to be a kid friendly star here, with lots of slapstick and schtick to have something he can show kids that isn't just him swearing... and nearly does it. Cailey Fleming has the star role and she's fine.

And there's, of course, a whole slew of big names as voices of the IFs, because recording lines in a booth is pretty easy work in comparison. And let's have a shout out for the CGI crew that put everything together for the screen.

It's fine, but it's no Drop Dead Fred... and yeah, I saw the twist coming a mile away...

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Wonky

It was there, so I watched it.

Timothée Chalamet is a chap in a purple jacket that can bend the laws of reality around him, and we're supposed to be amazed when he ends up in a wash house. Which isn't a problem, but there's this Chocolate Cartel and corrupt cops because of course there are (although there is only one corrupt cop, who becomes fat, because as we all know people in fat suits are funny!). But everything is fine, because the secret is it was the friends we made along the way.

This is a twee movie. But it is American twee... which means it's not a good twee. Even though this is English. Certainly there are a lot of big English names in this, Olivia Colman, Paterson Joseph, Rowan Atkinson, Simon Farnaby, Charlotte Ritchie, and of course Hugh Grant in an abomniable CGI performance. And Keegan-Michael Key for the USians. Great names, great actors, what the heck are they doing in this? Cashing an easy paycheck, hopefully.

It looks all right, quite pretty... and there are the songs.. I don't mind the songs themselves, but I don't like being teased with Pure Imagination every five minutes. Get your own music!

But after all this.... hopefully we won't get the Wonkaverse now?

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Posssum

Garth Marenghi did a movie? Well, no, but Matthew Holness did!

Philip is a strange man, who made a puppet. A puppet he wants to destroy. He returns to his old home, to try to do so. But his uncle is there. And so is his past. And it's all unpleasent.

Garth may be black comedy, but this is just black. (If is it comedy, it's way over my head.) Instead it is a portrayal about childhood horrors and dealing with your past. Where your past is represented by a spider puppet with a manniquin head. It's weird is what it is. I would almost say "Lynchian" but that's for better movie scholars than me to compare. Certainly a lot of odd composition of shots and rather jumping around narration, which feels on point for that director.

Sean Harris is playing the lead role, and he does so wonderfully with great affectation. Alun Armstrong is the undle, and is more than suitably creepy. It's a simple shot, mainly in a rather run down area of the country, and the big effect is the puppet... which is also creepy.

Quite a different tone from his other works, but I can believe that Matthew Holness did this, and it is right on spot for him.

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I Protest!

Save our Jobs - Stop the cuts!

People over profits - Stop the cuts!

So we had a wee protest yesterday... and people were there

When workers rights are under attack - Stand up, Fight Back!

And since I was there, I have some comments.... first, being on a Saturday, great so us public servants could be there, but that did mean not a lot of goverment was actually disrupted. And we walked down Tory Street, so the amount of traffic disturbed was... not a lot, aside from a few intersections.

Hey hey, ho ho - This backwards budget's got to go!

I was near the back, so had this big sound going on... which did make it hard to hear there was chanting, let alone join in.

When they say cut back - We stay fight back!

Cut back! - Fight back!

Cut back! - Fight back!

It looks like a good turnout. However, we'll see if anything happens from this.

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The MCU Issue

Talking about Marvel and their issues with trying to get their MCU happening...

A problem, to me, is that we have this media (tv and movies) trying to ape their source, which is... I dunno, 100 comics a month pumping out new stories? Half of which are Spiderman, 2/3rds are X-Men and the rest are everything else.

At least when they are just doing one property, eg XMen or Blade, they were contained and didn't need to worry about the larger universe. But now they want to have interconnectivity across everything, and just aren't getting there.

As much as the problem was "putting out too much" in many ways they weren't putting out enough. You need lots of stories happening if you want to capture the heroes by themselves as well as crossing over, and frankly if they really wanted to, Disney could have several movies and shows in production if they wanted to, but the other side is that costs, a hell of a lot more than comics do, so they can't go down that route.

You end up with as much as an MCU is a good idea in theory, you just can't keep the supply up to meet the demand of what people want. (Which is quality of stories as well as quantity of stories.)

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T^-1^Omen

Oh, hey, this is on Disney, okay I'll watch it there!

A young woman joins a convent in Italy as part of her religious journey, but discovers there is a kid that is a "bad child". Along the way she finds there is a particular sect with their own ideas about how to bring people back to the church, but their plans threaten to overwhelm her.

The conceit of this movie is that they need to breed a proper female vessel before they can breed the antichrist. This aligns with some fundamental Christian beliefs that because Jesus came from an Immaculate Birth then Mary also had to be an Immaculate Birth because how could something not-immaculate give birth to a proper immaculate being (don't ask about Mary's parents, I have no idea). And the main character in this movie is called Margaret. Yeah, I saw the big "twist" coming, although I'm not sure if anyone was supposed to be surprised by it and didn't see it coming?

There are also a few beats from the previous movies, such as a caring figure killing themselves, and strange deaths happening to some. But the whole movie just peaks at around 80/90 minutes and just continues just spinning wheels, playing out the required plot for the rest of the running time.

This movie oddly has big names in it, Charles Dance, Bill Nighy, Ralph Ineson... not sure why they signed on, I can't say this is a super big franchise (although I've clearly watched them).

I have no idea if there will be more. There could be a sequel, of a sort, with characters from this, but frankly they should properly reboot the whole thing into the current time.

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