Artemis Fowl (2020), Colin Farrell, Ferdia Shaw, Walt Disney Studios
The latest trailer for Artemis Fowl, a fantasy / adventure about a young criminal mastermind is here.
Directed by Kenneth Brannagh; key cast includes Colin Farrell, Judi Dench Josh Gad, Ferdia Shaw…
With this one, rather than the story, I find myself more interested in the special effects, especially where the villains / monsters are concerned.
Fantasy is generally not my go to genre. However I do like Farrell, and I’m sure I’d eventually forget about how little Shaw seems to resemble Farrell once the movie gets started.
Nikesh Patel, Hong Chau, Nonso Anozie, Miranda Raison, Adrian Scarborough, Taylor James, Lara McDonnell, Joshua McGuire, and Ferdia Shaw also star.
Blithe Spirit (2020), Leslie Mann, Dan Stevens, Studio Canal
Starring Dan Stevens, Judi Dench, Leslie Mann and Isla Fisher, at the heart of new comedy / romance Blithe Spirit is a love triangle.
Directed by Edward Hall; the triangle starts when a writer asks a spiritualist medium to hold a seance to help solve his writers block. But instead the spirit of his deceased wife arrives arrives and subsequently complicates matters for him and his current wife.
I’m looking forward to fully taking in the humour and all that stylish attire.
Emilia Fox, Callie Cooke, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Julian Rhind-Tutt, James Fleet, Simon Kunz, Adil Ray and Stella Stocker also star.
Cats, the story of a tribe of cats who must decide yearly which one will ascend to the ‘Heaviside Layer’ and come back to a new life is here in animated movie form.
Directed by Tom Hooper; key cast includes Idris Elba, Rebel Wilson,Taylor Swift, Judi Dench, Jennifer Hudson…
I’m not overly familiar with the musical Cats but I do know that it has both fans and those who can’t stand it. I’ll be watching for the special effects and what sounds like good music. What wonderfully eclectic cast.
Ray Winstone, Jason Derulo, Daniela Norman, Laurent Bourgeois, Laurie Davidson, Mette Towley, Larry Bourgeois, Robbie Fairchild, Zizi Strallen and Melissa Madden-Gray also star.
Red Joan, the Trevor Nunn directed drama / biography based on the true story of Melita Stedman Norwood, the KGB’s longest serving British spy isn’t quite what I’d hoped.
Not that I was expecting James Bond level antics, however, even though Red Joan is adequately acted, there’s a certain absence of excitement in Nunn’s story. I remained curious enough to watch till the end, but the way the movie is written and edited certainly didn’t allow for me to become very strongly invested emotionally in how things would turn out for the protagonist(s).
Furthermore, I felt as though not enough was delved into as deeply as needed. For example, the film barely sold Joan to me as a person who really believed in saving the world. Assuming she wasn’t lying about her motivations, I wanted to know and understand if by the end she was in fact delusional or was she to some level effective in her mission, as she believed.
Sure, watch Red Joan if you absolutely must. Otherwise, for a loosely similar but far more brilliantly executed film… The Imitation Game (2014).
Judi Dench, Sophie Cookson and Tom Hughes are the stars of Red Joan, a Trevor Nunn directed biography / thriller about the KGB’s longest-serving British spy…
I’m watching because Dench and Cookson are great, I very much want to hear Joan’s justifications and… interrogations are usually fun to watch.
Melita Stedman Norwood is the real name of the spy whose story Red Joan is based on.
Stephen Campbell Moore, Kevin Fuller, Freddie Gaminara, Stephen Boxer and Paul Kerry also star.
All Is True (2019), Kenneth Branagh is William Shakespeare
Directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, All Is True is a new drama about the last days of celebrated playwright William Shakespeare.
Additional key cast includes Judi Dench, Ian McKellan…
Something tells me that ‘epic’ isn’t the word for this production but I rather like Branagh and definitely appreciate Shakespeare… even though his words take extra time to understand in these here modern times.
Kathryn Wilder, Lolita Chakrabarti, Michael Rouse, Jack Colgrave Hirst and Matt Jessup also star
Stephen Frears – director of The Queen (2006) which starred Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen has a new movie based on another British monarch, one who’s played by Judi Dench. Also starring Olivia Williams, Ali Fazal, Eddie Izzard, Michael Gambon and Tim Pigott-Smith, the story of Victoria & Abdul focuses on Victoria’s unlikely friendship with a young Indian clerk named Abdul Karim.
Dame Judi Dench and the promising humour are all the reason I need to watch. There is however, my desire to see an ageing female monarch take charge of herself and others with aplomb.
Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children (2016), Asa Butterfield
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is enjoyable and well acted. Eva Green’s talents and a bunch of children with abilities different to what I’ve already seen in plenty of superhero movies were what appealed the most. I enjoyed the well imagined peculiarities of the films characters. I also loved watching Chris O’Dowd in a ‘struggling father’ role – a highlight because he did a good job.
The storyis well constructed and with Tim Burton plus his rich imagination in the director’s chair, it’s unsurprising that the visual manifestations of writer Ransom Riggs’s characters is another highlight.
Contrary to my initial thoughts after watching the trailer, Miss Peregrine’s peculiar children are not quite superheroes in the traditional sense. Reason being, their main concern is saving their own particular kind rather than humanity as a whole (not a criticism, just something I realised).
There is a moment in the movie where I thought, ‘really? you went with that take?’ It was during Asa Butterfields’s character’s anguish at his grandfather’s demise. It’s not so much that there were no tears in sight since I know that not everyone cries in such predicaments. It’s just that his supposed anguish didn’t ring particularly true for me. Something about the rhythm, maybe.
Though not exactly perfect, I say watch Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children for the story, fun adventure, special effects and refreshing difference when compared to the ‘peculiarities’ of todays well known superhero movie characters.
The Movie My Life 