Movies | These are the voyages...

Movies

Feb 22, 2025 ∞

🍿 Watched Conclave (2024) ★★★★½

A rectangular image with a review of the movie Conclave (2024). The show poster is on the left and the review on the right side. Across the bottom is a rating of Avoid Okay Good Great! with Great! selected. The review reads: Thoroughly enjoyed this. If Ralph Fiennes doesn't get an Oscar it will be a sin. A dramatisation, it has glorious costumes as you'd expect and the feel of authenticity. The little twists, the politics in play, the ending. They all make for a brilliant movie.

Jan 24, 2025 ∞

🍿 Watched Star Trek: Section 31 (2025) ★½

A rectangular image with a review of the movie Star Trek: Section 31. The show poster is on the left and the review on the right side. Across the bottom is a rating of Avoid Okay Good Great! with Avoid selected. The review reads: I wanted to like this so much and it contains all the elements needed to have a few films made in the vein of Guardians of the Galaxy but it was so disappointing. The amount of hype being pumped out by the PR machine in the lead up should have been a warning sign. Not the worst Star Trek movie but it’s right near the bottom of the rankings.

Oct 19, 2024 ∞

🍿 All the President’s Men (1976). ★★★★

A rectangular image with a review of the movie All the Presidents Men (1976). The movie poster is on the left and the review on the right side. Across the bottom is a rating of Poor Okay Good Great with Great selected. The review reads: Haven’t watched this in years and it still holds up exceptionally well. The pacing is on point, and even knowing the history you’re still waiting to see if Woodward and Bernstein can build their story enough to get the backing of the editor and others up the line to publish. Redford and Hoffman are perfect casting and play great off each other.

Oct 12, 2024 ∞

🍿 Deadpool & Wolverine (2024). ★★½

A rectangular image with a review of the movie Deadpool and Wolverine (2024). The movie poster is on the left and the review on the right side. Across the bottom is a rating of Poor Okay Good Great with Okay selected. The review reads: Being the third Deadpool movie you know exactly what you will get. If you went into it thinking you were going to get another overdone, lengthy Marvel movie which requires you to have seen six other movies and three tv shows to understand the plot then more fool you. Reviewers saying it’s a betrayal or some such nonsense of previous X-Men movies or the Logan character need to chill. It was always going to be dumb jokes delivered in the same goofy way Ryan Reynolds has in the last two movies. Perfectly evident from the previews what you were going to get. I think we can stop at three though. No need for a fourth Deadpool outing.

Oct 11, 2024 ∞

🍿 Wolfs (2024). ★★½

A rectangular image with a review of the movie Wolfs (2024). The movie poster is on the left and the review on the right side. Across the bottom is a rating of Poor Okay Good Great with Okay selected. The review reads: Clooney and Pitt just bouncing off each other is good entertainment. This isn't at the level the Oceans films were but I don't think it's as bad as a lot of people seem to think it is. There were some plot lines which seemed to go nowhere, the whole doctor knowing them both, and a major new high end hotel having cameras in the rooms is not credible. It would be out of business the minute one was discovered by a guest. It rolled along perfectly fine and wrapped up neatly but with an opening for a sequel. Standard stuff.

Oct 5, 2024 ∞

🍿 Predestination (2014). ★½

A rectangular image with a review of the movie Predestination (2014). The movie poster is on the left and the review on the right side. Across the bottom is a rating of Poor Okay Good Great with Poor selected. The review reads: A time travel and paradox plot line which becomes more convoluted as each reveal happens with each switch between the past and the present. Having randomly come across it I had no expectations, which was a good thing. Maybe I was too tired to properly enjoy it but it was all a bit overdone and the final moments seemed inevitable but contrived.

Oct 2, 2024 ∞

🍿 Coming to America (1988). ★★★

A rectangular image with a review of the movie Coming to America (1988). The movie poster is on the left and the review on the right side. Across the bottom is a rating of Poor Okay Good Great with Good selected. The review reads: Decided to watch this again after the recent passing of John Amos. It would likely never be made now but as a product of its time it’s great. Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall comedically bouncing off each other while John Amos and James Earl Jones both deliver serious roles but half expecting them to break into comedy at any moment as well.

Sep 27, 2024 ∞

🍿 Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023). ★★

A rectangular image with a review of the movie Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023). The movie poster is on the left and the review on the right side. Across the bottom is a rating of Poor Okay Good Great with Okay selected. The review reads: Finally got around to watching this and I could have probably gotten by a bit longer. Guy Ritchie must have spent about thirty minutes pulling together discarded ideas and scenes from some of his other movies and then found a weak plot to try and thread it all together. Some big names in this but that didn't help it. It's ordinary but watchable as a standard by the numbers Ritchie affair.

Aug 31, 2024 ∞

🍿 MIFF number 18 and my final one was Misericordia (2024). ★★★½

A psychological study of repression and desire in a small rural town is what you think you're going to get. You do but the melodrama and sadness of the first half becomes philosophical and comedic through some unexpected plot twists in the second half. The glances, the unsaid thoughts, the desire of the characters, the catholic guilt over the top of it all. Some absurd dialogue that completely works and isn't out of place. Lovely camera work, with the use of day and night to help shift between the open and the secrets. You'll leave wondering if the main character is a manipulative psychopath or a hapless idiot bumbling through one mishap after another. You won't leave wondering about the priest's desire for him though.

Aug 30, 2024 ∞

🍿 MIFF number 17 was Some Rain Must Fall (2024). ★★

A rectangular image with a review of the movie Some Rain Must Fall (2024). The movie poster is on the left and the review on the right side. Across the bottom is a rating of Poor Okay Good Great with Okay selected. The review reads: The cinematography, lighting and visuals of this film are its strength, certainly not the plot or pacing. The first half moves slowly and you’re left to guess at how the characters have arrived where they are. There’s too much unsaid or not filled in until later and some sub plots which seem unnecessary, detracting from the overall story in fact. I can see what the director was attempting to do but I don’t think he has delivered.