Tag: Kristin Scott Thomas

Lara Croft first entered our lives in 1996, with giant pointy boobs, and a woman hero that has never been that defined ever in video games. Them polygons.

A strange video game feminist and sex icon, she raided the fuck out of tombs, and in some versions of the story, fucked the raiders in the tombs. It led to more female protagonists, more hybrid shooter puzzle games, and was a real win for the genre defying starlet.

Well, many years later they decided to reboot it a bit. They had Lara change her body type and her motives, and we got more polished games, more puzzle focused, but with a strange and many easy ways for her to die terrifying deaths. Not as bad as Dragon’s Lair, but relatively similar.

So why not also have a movie reboot as well? A new Tomb Raider. Get someone up and coming, get her in her first real action movies, and get her on the big screen.

Oh, and get her some abs and some muscle.

Laura (Alicia Vikander) grew up in the lap of luxury. Her father (Dominic West) was basically this perfect specimen of a man, who treated her well, trained her to be a model citizen, was into charities, being rich, and of course, cultural secrets. You see, he was sort of absorbed with the idea of finding a missing tomb of an ancient Japanese queen who was said to bring death to the world. Why did he want to find it? Well, it is a goddamn challenge, lost in history. That’s why!

But when he left on that fateful afternoon, he never returned.

Now, many years later, Laura is working, being athletic, doing things, but refusing to sign the papers acknowledging that her father is dead. No, he must be out there. If she signs the papers, she inherits the fortune, but she would rather struggle on the street and hope than admit to his death. She would rather starve, damn it.

Well, eventually she almost signs it, so she is given a puzzle key and that leads her to a secret message from her father. Following the clues, she is led directly to his research, with information on where he went, his goals, and learned about a bad organization and what they wanted to do with that information.

Oh no Laura, what are you going to do? Follow your father’s wishes and destroy all the evidence? Or go on a trip to complete his mission once and for all? Well, we know the answer to that one.

Also starring Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu, Alexandre Willaume, Derek Jacobi, Nick Frost, and Kristin Scott Thomas.

Everyone knows that girls like to play with bows growing up. In and out of their hair.

The original Tomb Raider film was pretty okay. For the 12 year old budding reviewer, it was beyond everything I had hoped for, well, almost. The sequel I didn’t watch until years later and don’t really recall much about it.

If I had to describe this reboot in two words, the words “pretty okay” would be perfectly acceptable towards this film as well. If you want action/adventure, you will get a decent amount of it. Most of it takes place after she leaves London of course, outside a thrilling-ish bike race scene. It seems that after we got to the island, a scene where she escaped capture seemed to last for fucking ever. I was just waiting for her to finally die, or just get caught. Of course neither would happen, but I knew those scenarios would finally let the movie chill out a bit.

The ending parts with the tomb really didn’t let the movie shine. A lot of silly things occur, with puzzles that don’t feel smart or anything, just inconvenient. I want the obstacles they overcome to be actually well written is all.

Overall, there is a lot of hope for this movie. Vikander does do a wonderful job as the new Lara Croft, I believed in her ability to do awesome things. It is still a bit cheesy with mostly lazy thrills and stunts though. An adrenaline junkie might have a good time, but this is still not the video game movie savior.

2 out of 4.

With a title like Darkest Hour, you would assume the movie would take place sometime in the 1-4am range of whatever time zone that film is in. But what do we know.

Well we do know is that The Darkest Hour is a film that came out six years and features at least one more article in the title. I never reviewed The Darkest Hour, but I remember when it came out and in retrospect, I really wish I reviewed it just for this review comparison. Unfortunately, it was right before I started my website, and I was too cool for that shitty looking movie then. Russians, aliens, power, seems perfect. Damn it.

Back to this film, Darkest Hour. This one is a film that people have actually talked about, buzzed about, raved about, but never done a full on analysis between it and the previous film. I feel like this is the easiest thing they could have done. Maybe no one watched The Darkest Hour?

According to him just two people watched The Darkest Hour.

In early May, 1940, the British Parliament was getting sick of World War II. Their troops were dying. Hitler was taking over Europe, and everything looked grim. So they wanted Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”) to resign as the Prime Minister so they could get someone with a bigger drive to save them from utter turmoil. And despite his background, despite his history, they knew the only man for the job would be the controversial Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”).

And of course Churchill knew this, he has waited his whole life for this, he just wishes it was under better times. His wife (Kristin Scott Thomas rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”) supports him, and he just has to, you know, save all of the British troops from annihilation in France, develop a competent war council, and determine if his country will end up signing a peace treaty with one of these warlords.

The king (Ben Mendelsohn rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”) is not a fan of his, his ¨allies¨ (Stephen Dillane) want him to just make peace and end things, and well, nothing is going right. This is the same month that will end with his troops retreating to the coast in Dunkirk, France, with no real ability to get help and return home. Thankfully throughout all of this, we have our person new to the crew (Lily James) as his typist so that we can catch up on any important backstory.

Oh, and yes, the film takes place entirely in the month of may, no D-Day like I originally imagined.

Also featuring Samuel West and Richard Lumsden.

That smoke is coming out of his eyes like a bizarre dragon, not his cigar.

Watching the trailer for The Darkest Hour, I realize I totally did watch that movie. Again, it was just incredibly forgettable, and before I had this site, so no review of it exists. I can´t believe I watched it.

On the other side of the line, I am so glad I watched Darkest Hour. A thrilling biographical film, filled with wonderful performances, gripping true story, and wonderful history.

Gary Morphman Oldman is insane in this film. I don´t mean he acts insane, as he has plenty of characters who do that, but in his transformation into Churchill. At no point in the film did I think that it was just Oldman playing a character and doing it well, it just felt like Churchill the entire time. The words, the walk, the look, the makeup people are probably getting nominations for this one. Sure, yes, you can see him in his Oldman eyes, but it is one of the finest full on character transformations in recent years. Similar to the transformation of Daniel Day-Lewis into Lincoln.

The rest of the cast could not get up to Oldman´s level, unfortunately. Our main antagonist felt a lot less realistic and not fleshed out, so he became a one note pony and it got a bit old. The King was okay, Chamberlain was okay, Lily James was okay enough, but didn´t have a strong purpose either.

This is certainly a better movie in my mind than Dunkirk, because it has a lot more of a human and story component behind it, while Dunkirk is visually pleasing and thrilling, the story just lacks so much.

In case you didn´t read that, Oldman great, rest of cast okay, story better than Dunkirk.

3 out of 4.

Oh man, we got a period drama here.

The Invisible Woman! Not at all about the Fantastic Four reboot either. No, it is about Charles Dickens having an affair before he died. Yeah, and we get a whole movie about it, because why not, Dickens was a famous person!

This is a movie that is going to go super heavy into the drama/romance aspect.

But thankfully we get intense and unusual facial hair. My favorite!

Charles Dickens (Ralph Fiennes) is very Dickens-y. He is writing books, writing plays, and acting and directing him too. Oh what fun, high society Victorian era is!

He has a wife (Joanna Scanlan) who lives him, but she is uhh, homely. So when he meets young Nelly (Felicity Jones) he is smitten. She is beautiful, after all!

So he wants to tap that. Despite his marriage. Despite how inappropriate it all is. Hell, he even has her mother’s (Kristin Scott Thomas) permission. After all, it would do good for her career to be on the good graces of someone so influential.

Then you know, eventually Dickens dies. End of movie basically. Also staring Tom Hollander!

Shit, Pharrell’s Hat has nothing on this one.

Now I have to ask myself this question. Why does this movie at all matter? Well, in honesty, it doesn’t at all matter. I have said it before, and said it again: Just because something is a true story, doesn’t mean it warrants its own movie.

The reason this has its own movie is because Charles Dickens was a famous writer in Victorian times. The woman was invisible because no one knew about the affair until she wrote memoirs on the subject. After all, Dickens was married.

But this affair on its own is nothing special. Like, absolutely nothing special. Just an affair, then he dies, then nothing else. Ho Hum.

So, the story is weak. How is the acting? The clothing? The dialogue? All of those are top notch. I just wish there was a plot worth watching to go along with it.

2 out of 4.

Trying to watch all of the Ryan Gosling movies has taken me down some strange twist and turns. Thankfully, most of them are older movies outside of my range, so I don’t have to review them. But if you saw my review of All Good Things, then you know there is some fucked up shit out there.

Using fucked up is an over exaggeration for that movie. Because then I watched Only God Forgives, written and directed by the same guy who directed Drive. Which was an artsy movie, interesting, violence heavy, but overall pretty fantastic. Even compared to Drive, Only God Forgives is truly the most fucked up of his entire career.

Fucked is use in a different way from the way I use it for Lars and the Real Girl.

“Well howdy there pilgrim…”Julian (Gosling) is your average American. He doesn’t say much. He lives in Thailand. He runs a boxing arena that is a front for a big drug smuggling operation. Yep. Average American indeed. His brother Billy (Tom Burke) is a big dick though. Rapes an underage prostitute. Gets arrested.

Lieutenant Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), aka the Angel of Vengeance, arrives on the scene and lets the father beat Billy to death for the deed. Shit, son. Not only that, he then cuts off the arms of the father, for letting his daughter in prostitution in the first place! At least he is just?

Julian was going to fuck the dad up, but hey, he lost his arms already, and Billy had it coming. It didn’t stop Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas) from traveling to Thailand to identify the body. You know, Julian’s mom. They have a strange relationship, he is surprised to see her. She wants blood. He doesn’t care. She wants to take out the Angel of Vengeance. He doesn’t care.

Then a lot more fucked up shit happens then the movie ends.

Have sword, will slash.Looking up random stuff about the film, I found out that the director wanted to make a more modern and set in Asia cowboy movie. Or something. Which I can kind of see. I guess Gosling is the cowboy in a dangerous land(Thailand, not the wild west). Kind of a lone ranger. Doesn’t speak much. Fights a lot. Maybe crooked.

Whatever. The cowboy elements are there.

But the film could also be something about mysticism in Asia. Or something about anger and violence he felt when his second daughter was being born.

Really, it could be anything. This is all stuff the director said, so it seems to be all over the place.

Gosling’s character only speaks 22 lines of film. No one really talks a lot. But we do get some karaoke scenes, so we get singing as well! It is another visual heavy picture, with strange dark colors, set in the seedy parts of town. The whole thing seems to be set during the night as well. Daytime is for rookies. Thailand scares me cause of shit like this, and The Hangover Part II.

It is really hard to talk about this movie, so I kind of just want to shut up now. I don’t even know what to think anymore. Somebody hold me.

2 out of 4.

Fish movies! Oh the fish movies!

Okay, I am kind of bullshitting here. After all, I only know of one other fish movie that came out anywhere near this one, and that was The River Why. Very, very hipster. That was a boy’s coming of age story, who just really liked fishing and wanted to fish like a real man. Or something.

So Salmon Fishing On The Yemen is probably similar.

Wait a minute. This title is weird. “The Yemen”. There is no river called that. What the hell. Do they just mean in Yemen? I wouldn’t say “Salmon Fishing In The Italy”. Don’t be weird, movie titles.

I can’t tell who is the expert here.

Oh wait a minute. Yemen is all in the Middle East (kind of). I see now. There is no salmon in Yemen! That is a big problem I guess, but one this movie plans to over come.

Sheikh Muhammed (Amr Waked) is a prince and he loves fishing, and wants to fish at his home in Yemen. So he contacts the UK to see if it can be done. This means they have to make a river, and introduce salmon, and hope they can live and breed there without it being too much of a problem.

The UK are interested in helping too, because any news with the middle east that has nothing to do with war can only be good. So they get Harriet (Emily Blunt) who is some political underling in the UK to get it started. So she goes to the fisheries department. Who else would know what to do? There she finds Dr. Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor), world renounced Salmon expert and fisherman and lure-maker.

But he says no.

That idea is dumb.

Or maybe it is crazy enough to work? Doesn’t matter. His job is now on the line to at least try. Bah.

Then some romance happens (Which is bad, because he has a boyfriend in the military Tom Mison) and a lot of politics. Do they succeed at building a river, shipping ten thousand fish over, and having them survive, without pissing off Yemen locals and environmental group? Welllll…. Also featuring Kristin Scott Thomas as even higher up official in the UK!

There are few things I love more than adultery. Unfortunately, one of those things is not cheating and stable relationships.

2 out of 4.

Oooh a kind of foreign film. Watching it now, you can tell that the director probably wanted this whole movie to be in French. Probably made one of the main characters speak English, just to get more viewers. I say don’t half ass it. Go full french, or full american. That way my senses don’t get boggled.

Boggled like Texas champion Peggy Hill.

Sarah’s Key is a story about nazis! Didn’t see that one coming.

First there is a journalist in modern day Paris, Julia (Kristin Scott Thomas), who just got a new apartment that has been in her family for decades. Not knowing much about it, she learns that it actually was taken away from a Jewish family in 1942 during the “Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup”. What is that? That is when 10,000 Jewish people around Paris were arrested and brought into a theater house. They were taken away in busses eventually, and separated to camps. Apparently the theater setting was about “10,000 times worse” than the Katrina Superdome incident.

So the story tells of the journalist trying to find out about the family who used to live there. She wants to return it to them, it just feels right. So outside of that story, we get to see the story of the family right before they are evicted and the many years after, intertwined through the story. That is where Sarah comes in! Played by Melusine Mayance. When the police arrive she hides her brother in a secret compartment and locks the key, thinking it is just another random visit that will be quick. She tells him to wait for them to come back. Once the family realizes that they won’t be returning anytime soon, they go into freak out mode. The story is mostly about Sarah and her desire to get away, and return to the home to try and find her brother.

That story, the one in the 40s. That is pretty interesting. The modern parts? Not as much.

Unfortunately the climax of the 40s story line happens around halfway through the movie, leaving the viewer with a lore more modern stuff. Sure it mostly ties up the story lines, but who really cares about those other story lines? So while the overall story is interesting, the excessive modern parts are ho-humable, dragging the movie down a peg.

I forced a King of the Hill reference earlier. Here is an actual helpful photo!

2 out of 4.