showmethemoviescontact

This Oscar-nominated German comedy may have gained favour amongst others, but failed to leave me captivated through its' depiction of politics, pranks and dysfunctional families.

The film views a snapshot of the life of Winfried Conradi - a music teacher and life-long prankster who, upon the death of his beloved canine companion, decides to visit his estranged daughter (Ines Conradi, played by Sandra Hüller) in Bucharest for her birthday.. leading to her horror as an alter-ego - 'Toni Erdmann' - begins causing a nuisance at various events as he follows her around (in an attempt to both embarrass and connect with her).

The premise of the film - though not riveting - sounds decent enough; a moving father/daughter tale with some jokes lodged in there. The screenplay, though well-written and humorous at times, came across (perhaps purposefully-) awkward and dull - somewhat lacking in that natural fluidity that many alternative comedies manage to achieve. This could be, in part, due to its' long-winded (almost 3 hour) screen-time (not many pictures can pull that off!).

Sandra Hüller was actually rather good in her role - though I struggled to want to reach her entry to the film as it started so slowly I could happily have nodded off. Once in full swing, Toni Erdmann was actually quite nicely paced, showing well how irritating, over-bearing and infuriating Winfried makes his daughter (bad-dad dancing doesn't cut it!) who, though softens to him toward the closing credits, really doesn't want her father to be a part of her world.

My main compliment here is that it is unashamedly silly whilst contributing some underlining moving, melancholic elements - something popular this season at cinemas (think Manchester by the Sea). Dutch director, Maren Ade, may well have been caught up in the ridiculousness and satire of her whole creation though - which sometimes worked but at other times were left stale.

Some fairly good characters and fairly good dialogue, this tragedy/comedy caught me off guard with its' seemingly-uncharacteristically serious elements - as Ines begins to let down her defences, I felt that so did I.

Though perhaps a controversial opinion, I can't really say I would give Toni Erdmann the time of day again; not a tragic effort but one best left at one time only viewing. Although I appreciate a foreign language film generating a bit of buzz, and liked their attempt at bringing things back to basics, I couldn't vouch for it past 'it's not bad'.

https://showme-themovies.blogspot.co.uk/

Better than expected, a not-too-shabby attempt at yet another (insert eye-roll here) King Kong picture, starring Tom Hiddleston, John C. Reilly and the beloved Samuel L. Jackson.

Predominantly set in 1973, the flick follows a purpose-built team of soldiers, scientists and stragglers as they head for the undiscovered Skull Island in search of the unknown. Here they stumble upon a beast trapped on the island known as Kong - a potentially misjudged anti-hero.

Highly-anticipated by many, this sequel was - in my mind - always going to be either a complete masterpiece or bucketful of disappointment. To my surprise(/delight/sadness), it turned out to be neither. Whilst on the most part I would praise its' solid cinematography (some beautiful landscape and action shots), as well as Kongs' expert-use of CGI throughout, these couldn't save it from what appeared to me a watered-down premise with fortune-cookie-clichés being pulled out of a hat and inserted into every appropriate crevice.

The acting standard as a whole is admittedly not bad - I have to give particular nod to Samuel L Jackson for finally producing a well played-out character (seriously, name me a role he's played well since Django Unchained and I'll be a monkey's uncle) - but I can't particularly criticise much of the performances throughout. Toby Kebbell (yes, that guy that's been in everything recently that you never remember the name of) and Brie Larson were probably the most bland - with Tom Hiddleston outshining most of his fellow cast members.

The fight scenes were indeed the most entertaining part - well-timed, well thought-out and, at times, epic! Other than a slight overuse of slow-motion features, and a couple of ridiculous shots, I honestly quite enjoyed seeing not only the fights with Kong himself but the other internal exchanges (no spoilers, I promised!).

Also, entirely blameless of the creators, but yet another movie this season with the insertion of JFK, Vietnam and 60's culture was really not needed (sorry guys!). Despite this, it redeemed itself slightly with some fairly enjoyable music throwbacks. Alongside these were plenty of well-utilised sound-effects and editing that I found rather enjoyable (a complete renunciation from the script).

I was pleasantly surprised to find Kong: Skull Island didn't leave me wanting 2 hours of my life back; that said, given the choice I wouldn't waste another two rewatching it. Okay to pass the time, Kong exists. If you're after something more worthwhile, perhaps skip this and shove on Predator (terribly brilliant) or Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (brilliantly terrible).

showme-themovies.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/review-kong-skull-island.html

Style really does take priority over substance for Denzels' one-man-band; a whole lot of fuss for a film quite ordinary.

Fences in many ways mimics a 1989 film, Do the Right Thing, which essentially tells a tale of life, with no intentions to over-dramatise or show a Hollywood filter over events. The idea of Fences is paved with good intentions - it is not a cash-grab like past Denzel Washington movies have been, and the plot does flow at a consistent rate. That consistent rate in question happens to be, however, a sluggishly slow rate.

The movie seems to make a big fuss out of every little event that occurs; the opening of the film is a twenty minute conversation between Troy (Washington), his wife Rose (Viola Davis) and his best friend, Jim Bono (Stephen Henderson), with little context or connection to the rest of the film, with no other purpose than to make the characters appear more relatable - but this scene was far too drawn out to be a Tarantino-esque dialogue masterpiece.

Despite these attempts, Troy is not a relatable character at all either, in fact most of the decisions he makes throughout the movie are completely unreasonable and yet as the main character he is painted out to be the moral authority. The idea of excusing him for his actions simply because he is from a troubled background with many difficult situations to deal with at once, is not how the movie should deal with his character. A character can only be excused for their unrelatable actions if their reasons for their actions are relatable, which in this case, they are not.

Troy was played well by Washington, and most actors did a great job as a whole. Viola Davis was excellent in her role, and was essentially perfectly cast; Cory (Jovan Adepo) was good as Troy and Rose's son, attempting to impress his father constantly, and the emotions he conveyed whenever Troy would do something he disagreed with were authentic and natural as a performance.

The problem Fences has is that it doesn't really go anywhere. The film has great actors, and environment for those characters to be in, but no opportunity to make a fantastic film out of a worthy script, which has some lines which even repeat during the movie.

Fences does not really have a premise, there isn't a moral of the story and it appears like the film was put together as an idea before the script was even written to be able to simulate 'real life' action and conversation, but there was no need for all of this self-celebratory pretentious style which made the movie irritating to watch.

I never found myself engrossed in the plot at all, and I couldn't recommend this since I barely found myself caring about how events would unfold or what would happen to the characters.

https://showme-themovies.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/review-fences.html