Tag: James Norton

When I see things and when I hear things, I tend to believe them. They are some strong senses. I use those two more than the rest of the basic five senses. Smell, Touch, Taste? Not stuff that matters for the most part when it comes to believing.

Sure, we do have a lot more senses, like a sense of time, or sense of balance. But we are lead to believe if we can see and hear something, we should trust it and believe it.

So for Things Heard & Seen, I imagine, there are going to be unbelievable things that get heard and seen, and the characters in it will have to believe it, even if they too find it unbelievable.

Fuck yeah, I really broke down that title there.

Fuck yeah, the sun really did get partially in both of their eyes.

It is 1979 and Catherine (Amanda Seyfried) and her husband, George (James Norton), are finally ready to move on to the next stage of their life. Is it children? Nope. They already have a daughter (Ana Sophia Heger), and she is a regular kid. No. George got a job!

More importantly, he finished his PhD in Art History (Woo), really exciting stuff, but it took him awhile. So now they can leave New York City and go to small town New York for him to be an exciting professor of Art History.

And of course, their house has history, but George didn’t want to tell Catherine about it. Catherine gets superstitious, about ghosts, gods, and the dead. He doesn’t need that. Turns out the whole community is mostly religious. Well, it is the 1970’s, so nonbelievers are less out open.

But sure enough, George kind of sucks. Immediately flirts with some students, spends a lot of time away from Catherine. Catherine’s only reprieve is some neighbor kids who help watch their daughter and are helping fix up aspects of the house.

As time continues on, George gets work, more secrets come out for Catherine, and you know, dark stuff.

Also starring Alex Neustaedter, F. Murray Abraham, Jack Gore, Natalia Dyer, and Rhea Seehorn.

Candles mean Séance which means WHAT IS BEHIND THAT GUY?

Things Heard & Seen definitely kept my attention…in the beginning of the film. I was really excited to get to know these characters, honestly. The husband turning out to be a sleazeball wasn’t surprising and happened really early on. I expected that.

And then large swaths of time after that were just showing that he is actually worse than we thought and a sleazeball in many other elements too, not just relationship wise. A liar, and a cheat, and an adulterer he is I tell you.

This movie ended up providing zero excitement the more things were being revealed. The sort of thing that classifies as twists happened, but they made the film actually seem duller the further it went along. And this is just the mans story! Our main character’s story barely moves at all, outside of an increase in her own paranoia.

The ending itself would be considered a huge let down if I didn’t already lose most interest before that point. (It can’t be a huge let down if it isn’t a big drop, so just a regular let down). It takes more that nice cameras to make a nice movie. Things Heard & Seen should remain unheard and unseen. Clever joke, I know.

1 out of 4.

I first read Little Women probably when I was ten years old. I remember it fondly. It was over Winter Break. I was in fifth grade. And it was worth more AR points than anything else in our system at the time. It was worth like, 35 points maybe, and most books were only worth 3-5 at the most! What a mammoth!

Later I also read Treasure Island for a similar reason, but never got enough incentive to try Crime and Punishment.

Either way, I didn’t remember a lot about Little Women earlier in the year. I knew it existed and I read it and four sisters and maybe 2 or 3 plot points, but most of my recollection has been replaced with facts about Jane Austin books.

So I was a bit excited about visiting a relic from my past, and see what memories can be returned to me.

Get those women a beach. Women love beaches. Four sisters, four girls with passions and dreams! We have Beth (Eliza Scanlen), who is good at piano, being quaint, and being sick. We got Amy (Florence Pugh), who wants to be like her older two sisters but gets pushed back against, likes to paint, and hates being in second place. We also have a Jo (Saoirse Ronan), who likes to write and not fill in typical gender roles for the time, while also being our main character. And of course have Meg (Emma Watson), the oldest, the actress, the dream child, and the one who has a pure heart.

These women live in Connecticut, with their dad off helping with the Civil War for the North. They have reasonable wealth to get by and have rich relatives and lessons in the arts. Times are tough, but they aren’t starving.

And hey, their neighbor is this boy right around Jo’s age, Laurie (Timothée Chalamet), who is like the manic pixie dream boy of his time. Rich, not a care, and a lot of a weird. He is going to marry one of the March sisters, damn it! 

And uh yeah, this is their life growing up, the trials and tribulations, and everything in between.

Also starring Jayne Houdyshell, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Louis Garrel, James Norton, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, and Laura Dern.

What a beautiful wedding! What a beautiful wedding says the Little Woman to her sister. As a reviewer, I try to remain unbiased by never reading the book before the film, but 5th grade me didn’t know there’d ever be a future in my writing or movie watching skills.

But I will say that some of the joy from this movie came from these memories flowing back into me, remember plot points I must have haphazardly rushed through as a kid, knowing that I never had a book as big as that one before. And it feels so familiar like we were distant friends in the past, and not distant cousins. It was a good feeling throughout.

It did take me awhile to get into the movie, but I loved the changes Greta Gerwig made with the film. It is told in a non-linear manner, combing elements from the first parts of the book with the end to maximize emotional response, especially when it came to marriage arcs and Beth. I wouldn’t know if they make the story hard to follow, because unfortunately, I remembered the story.

Ronan continues to be great at her very spunky time period self. She loves films that are not set in the present, and Gerwig clearly loves working with her. Pugh showed good range here, especially when compared to the other major films she had come out this year. Watson was okay, but it isn’t her fault that Meg is the boring one. And of course, Scalen brought a lot of heart for someone unknown to the saddest role.

Little Women is charming and done in a way to increase its already heavy feminist angle. It brings fresh light into an old story, and is worth being seen.

3 out of 4.

Belle is one of those indie movies that makes a lot of noise early in the year, yet usually gets ignored when it comes time to award season.

Not saying this film is deserved awards or anything, that is just when it was released. A nice indie number that is indeed not about Beauty and the Beast, but instead, racism in the victorian era. Ah yes, the Victorian era, where women wore corsets and giant dresses all the time, and men wore…I guess mostly regular clothes. And wigs!

But this work of fiction, based on books, is also pseudo historically accurate. Namely the character Lord Mansfield was actually Chief Justice of England during the time of the movie and presided over several cases that are relevant to the plot. Sweet. But the rest is just guesstimated fluff. I love fluff!

Despite the picture, this is also not a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

Dido Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) was born in the West Indies and she is a mulatto. Her mother was a local, but her father was of the English Royal Navy (Matthew Goode) and he has decided to claim her and take her to England. Because he is at sea all the damn time, he places her in the care of his uncle, Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson) and his wife (Emily Watson), even though she is BLACK and they are distinguished members of society.

But they get over it, kind of, and raise her as an aristocrat with her cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon). However, she is still slightly shunned by society and not able to play all the reindeer games. Like when it comes time for suitors, she is told she cannot interact with the other gentleman as none of them would find her desirable.

Also at the same time, Lord Mansfield is ruling on a case involving a ship who threw slaves overboard out of necessity to survive, running low on supplies. They echoed it as similar to throwing cargo overboard and want to collect the insurance on their haul. His ruling on this and the events surrounding it could change Britain forever and some people think that having Dido around might influence his decision.

We also have Sam Reid as a young freedom feeling lawyer, Tom Felton and James Norton as brother suitors of varying tastes, and Miranda Richardson and Penelope Wilton as…other people.

I guess I would conclude Belle is a good movie, just one that is pretty darn predictable. Oh sorry, I am concluding before I describe.

Yes, Belle is well acted and I felt good by the end. But a lot of the movie just felt like Victorian filler in the middle. The plot is literally finding suitors for a few ladies. Is this a Jane Austen novel in secret?

Which is my main complaint. Not that predictability is a necessarily a bad thing, but if I kind of know what to expect the entire movie and it follows the path pretty straightforwardly, what is the point? It should have a lot of stuff going on for it in the middle to really make up for that fact.

And it has a few unique events to be sure. Well acted, as I already said. Outfits are nice, message is nice. But I kind of just expected something more. The film itself was incredibly safe.

2 out of 4.