Tag: film

Review of Night Call (film)

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to discuss an excellent film I saw yesterday. One of the great things about the modern era is that you get to appreciate great art from around the world. This is a French-language film I watched on Sky Cinema.

The scenes flow naturally from one scene to another. It doesn’t feel contrived but like something that could happen to an unfortunate soul. From Wikipedia –

Night Call (La nuit se traîne) is a 2024 action thriller film directed by Michiel Blanchart in his feature directorial debut from a screenplay he co-wrote with Gilles Marchand. Set over the course of a night amid a Black Lives Matter protest in Belgium, a young locksmith is called for nocturnal assignment that plunges him into danger. It stars Jonathan Feltre, Natacha Krief, Jonas Bloquet, Thomas Mustin and Romain Duris. The film is an international co-production between Belgium and France.

Jonathon Feltre gives a superb performance as the locksmith. The fact that he is black is generally not referred to (2024 film, after all), but it plays an unmentioned role towards the end.

There are some great and unexpected action scenes. I especially liked the car chase towards the end. There is quite a lot of violence and the threat of more. All good. It is unconventional, and you are unsure how it will conclude.

I give it four stars out of five.

The Electric State: Billie Bobby Brown Shines Pity Chris Pratt

Hello dear readers, I do hope you are all enjoying the last gasp of summer. This time, I’m writing about an interesting film I watched on Netflix last night – The Electric State. It’s based on a novel, yay for writers everywhere.

From Wikipedia –

In an alternate 1990, a war between humans and robots has left the world in disarray. With the help of Sentre CEO Ethan Skate, who developed Neurocaster technology that allowed humans to upload their minds into drone robots, humanity managed to win the war, while robots were banished to the Exclusion Zone. However, the success of this technology meant many people opted to live their virtual lives in a semi-vegetative state while drones did most of the work.

In 1994, teenager Michelle lives with her deadbeat foster dad Ted. Years earlier, she was involved in a car crash along with her family, in which her parents and brother reportedly perished, and has since lived with a succession of foster families. Michelle is also having trouble at school due to her refusal to use Neurocaster technology to participate in virtual classes.

One day, the sentient robot Cosmo – a robot character of the cartoon of the same name which Michelle’s declared-deceased younger brother Christopher, who was a child prodigy, watched – finds Michelle. He is only able to communicate using gestures and a limited set of pre-recorded words, but manages to convince her that he is controlled by Christopher. Michelle and Cosmo set out across a dystopian landscape to find him by first finding Dr. Clark Amherst, the doctor who confirmed Christopher’s death.

The film has a good cast. Chris Pratt plays Christopher, and the indefatigable Billie Bobby Brown, of Stranger Things fame, plays Michelle. There is little chemistry between them. Like most modern films, it is no longer socially acceptable for any on-screen age gap romance to develop. If this were made during the actual 1990s, that would have been a central plank of the film. Down with that sort of thing! She is clearly a child, at just 21 years of age.

The relationship between Michelle and her brother is warm and authentic. The robots move naturally, and I liked the action scenes. Things get dark at times but not much more than your average Disney film.

So, when you’re sitting on your couch later, maybe give it a try. It gets four stars out of five from me.

A deep dive into the TV Series “Travellers”

Hello ladies and gentlemen, I have just finished watching all three series of Travellers. It’s probably the best sci-fi series you’ve never heard of.

I have bad news for you, folks. There is an apocalypse on the way. I know what you’re thinking, no shit. But don’t worry. You see, the nineties were the key decade. A future super-intelligent computer (Is this even sci-fi anymore?) called the Director is sending back time travellers on missions to ensure a better future. The fact that I might like warmer summers, and will almost certainly be dead by the forthcoming ice age, doesn’t come into its calculations.

Alas, the time travellers have to take over a living body and erase the previous person. Kind of reminds me of “Body Snatchers”. Fear not, it’s all done very ethically. They take over the bodies of those who are about to die anyway.

The travellers have several protocols to protect the timeline (from Wikipedia) –

  • Protocol 1: The mission comes first.
  • Protocol 2: Leave the future in the past.
  • Protocol 3: Don’t take a life, don’t save a life, unless otherwise directed. Do not interfere.
  • Protocol 4: Do not reproduce.
  • Protocol 5: In the absence of direction, maintain your host’s life.
  • Protocol 6: Do not communicate with other known travelers outside of your team unless sanctioned by the Director.

The team historians have an additional secret protocol involving the periodic updates they receive concerning “historic information relative to [their] team’s role in the Grand Plan”. It is a sub-protocol of Protocol 2:

  • Protocol 2H: This forbids the revelation about the existence of the updates “with anyone, ever”.

The Director can invoke three other protocols in special situations:

  • Protocol Alpha: temporarily suspends all other protocols when a critical mission must be completed at all costs
  • Protocol Epsilon: can be invoked when traveler archives are threatened
  • Protocol Omega: permanently suspends all other protocols when the Director abandons the travelers because the future has either been fixed or deemed impossible to fix

Each episode is fast-paced and action-packed. A large part of the series is the relationships between the travellers and those who previously knew the host. The love story between Macy and David plays a key role in maintaining continuity and interest from episode to episode.

Another key relationship is between Grant and his wife, Kat, who can’t quite bring herself to believe her husband. Correctly, as it turns out. I don’t know if this series could be made today, as it brings up thorny consent issues. Can Kat give consent for sex if Grant isn’t who she thinks he is? Hey, it is kind of philosophical. Let’s leave it at that.

They end up completing many missions, but the future doesn’t seem to be getting better. In fact, “The Faction” ends up being created. This is a group from the future that opposes the Director. Ironically, they are from a newly created timeline where their shelter was not destroyed.

Then there is 001, who has gone way off mission, creating an empire and actually killing travellers.

Spoiler Alert.

It all comes to a head at the end of Series 3, which is probably one of the best finales ever. The director calls Protocol Omega, effectively giving up on the timeline. By the end nuclear war is breaking out, and the travellers are told all they’ve done is speed up the Earth’s destruction. What a downer! Ouch.

But there is one last throw of the device. Grant is transported even further into the past and sends a message that the Traveller program failed.

The final scene is the Director acknowledging its failure and initiating Team Two instead. So, everything you’ve watched at least in this timeline ends up never happening. Almost, like the whole thing is just one calculation of the director. I love it!

Travellers can currently be viewed on Netflix.

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End of 2024 update

Hello my dear readers, happy new year to everyone! Hope it goes well for you all. Just a quick update on myself and my writing plans for 2025.

2024 was a relatively good year, but my blog views are down somewhat from the previous year. They have gone from 1,922 views to 1,741 views. This is the first year I’ve had a decrease. I put it down to the new job mostly, and not having as much time to put into it.

On a more positive note, I will try to publish two new works in 2025. “Wheelchair Wars” and a collection of romance short stories. Yes, I probably said this before but fingers and toes crossed that I’ll actually do it lol

I’m really enjoying writing Pegasus at the moment. It should be completed over the next year, nearly halfway there.

Changing the subject entirely, I watched the “Carry-on” movie on Netflix earlier. I reckon it could become a new “Christmas” movie. It’s a new action thriller by Netflix with Taron Egerton and Sofia Carson playing the central characters.

It’s fast and energetic and you are never quite sure what will happen next. Keep an eye out for it and don’t forget to like and post! Please also share any thoughts you may have about the above.

Review of Prey (2022 Film)

Well ladies and gentlemen, finally a “woke” film to truly savor. Although not stated in the title, this is a Predator film. The alien must prove that he is top of the food chain, as we know from the other Predators films. There will be death and glory.

What’s unique about this particular film is where and when it is set – The Great Plains in 1719. And the Predator comes up against The Comanche. It is the stuff that dreams are made of. The other films always alluded to the fact that Predators had been visiting Earth for a very long time and now we finally get to see one of those scenarios play out.

The film centers around a female commanche called Naru. She sees herself as a great hunter but her brother and mother would much prefer if she stayed in the kitchen so to speak. As to be expected with a film in these modern times, she turns out to be the true hunter. And she does it in true style.

During a hunt she spots the alien, although not realizing it is a monster from another world. She resolves to take it down to show her tribe that she is the real deal.

What follows are some great action scenes. It is brutal, with no quarter given exactly as you would expect. Of course, evil Europeans show up for a while but thankfully they are laid to waste.

The ending is good but I would have liked an alien ship to appear to salute our heroine. Overall, I give this film four stars out of five and highly recommend you watch it.

Well that’s it from me, for now. Don’t forget to subscribe!

Review of The Duke (Film)

This film, that only recently became available on Sky Cinema, is a British comedy drama based on real life events. It was released to cinema in February 2022. It’s about a British taxi driver played by Jim Broadbent, self educated sixty year old Kempton Bunton who has recently been fired and steals a famous painting to try and further a socialist cause – that older persons shouldn’t have to pay their tv license. In that regard, it feels eerily contemporary.

It deals with the real life 1961 theft of “The Portrait of Wellington”. Generally, I love these films set in prior eras giving you a snapshot into what life was once like.

So is it any good? Well, yes and no. It’s quite slow to start but that does give you time to get to know the characters that bit better and what their different motivations are. Mr. Bunton’s daughter died a few years previously and he blames himself, trying to do good deeds to make some amends.

He is aided by his dutiful son who helps him in his exploits when he’s not chasing skirt.

The exasperated wife, who has buried her grief is played by played by Helen Mirren and she is brilliant as always. Just a pity role wasn’t a bit more challenging.

The film is quite funny at times, especially when it goes to trial. The intelligentsia meets the self taught man with his unusual answers to questions.

However, the film does have somewhat of a depressive feel to it for a comedy. Of course they have to show the why of what he did. And I don’t think it crosses the line into being a feel good film.

Therefore, I give this film three stars out of five.

Review of “The Tomorrow War”

What a beautiful day it is today. Maybe it’s just the fact that I am on my holidays and yes, it does feel good. So, what better way to start them than to watch a film. And if it is to be a film then something with lots of death to keep me in my cheery mood. “The Tomorrow War” was the perfect film for the perfect morning.

The premise is that there is an alien invasion. Always good. Who doesn’t like to see mangled bodies and cities in ruins? It’s a little bit different here in that the invasion occurs thirty years from now and people are being recruited in more or less the present day to go fight in it. It does its best to clear up some paradoxes. You can only go if you have since died, for instance.

In between the action and gore, there is also the heart warming story of the love of a father for his daughter. It’s okay though, it just about avoids getting to the sick bucket stage where your finger is itching to change the channel.

The aliens are never given their opportunity to explain their side of things. They just like to eat and reproduce, doesn’t sound too bad to me either.

The film ends on a positive note, which I suppose is good. Maybe it’s all the horrors I’m watching but an ending where everybody dies is generally more satisfying. Apparently, that is a bit “disturbing” according to my Mum.

This film gets four stars out of five on the markometer.

The film is available only on Amazon Prime. That makes it even better, like I was specially chosen to watch it.

Another film to watch is “The Ice Road” starring Liam Neeson. If you like “Ice Road Truckers” you’ll love this. After a mine explosion, the only hope hope for trapped miners is heavy equipment that must be driven on a “Ice Road” or a river that has frozen over. I found the characters likeable and it proved more action packed than I had at first anticipated.

Four stars out of five once again.

Review of “My Left foot” by Christie Brown

This is a book I have always wanted to read. Most of you have probably already seen the eponymous film it later inspired. For those who have not, Brown was the tenth of twenty-two children (thirteen of whom survived). Back then, child mortality was very high, especially in the urban areas of Ireland. Brown was diagnosed with severe cerebral palsy and his parents were told that they should put him into an institution and forget about him because he would be a “mental defective”. From what we know now, this would have been a death sentence. This novel was published in 1954, when Brown was still just twenty two years, so most of it is set in 1930’s and 1940’s Dublin. This was a very different time and place to modern Ireland.

Brown relies on his family for all of his basic needs and his speech in his early years is intelligible to all, but his family. That is why it is such a breakthrough when they realize that he is able to communicate by writing with his left foot. At first, it is just a letter, but with perseverance especially from his mother he improves over time. His mother is the other central character in the novel. She is the one who didn’t give up on him and got him to make the most of what he had. Later Brown also uses his left foot to paint. It turns out that he is very good and this is what brings him to wider public attention in his teenage years, when he wins a competition.

In a way, he was fortunate to be from such a large family as his brothers brought him out and about them with them. However, as happens with many people with disabilities, as one grows older growing awareness of one being somewhat different leads to many isolating themselves. Alas, this is what happened to him, and it appears he rarely left the house from the age of eight or nine.

There were people who cared about his plight though. A young nurse who visited him and encouraged his writing. Then later, a doctor who believes that he can be cured by “physiotherapy”. In a way, I found this part of the book quite interesting as Brown has perhaps inadvertently given a fascinating insight into the early beginnings of Disability Support Services and treatments.

At the time, the cause of cerebral palsy was unknown. It appears that the doctors told him with the required effort, he could become “normal”. They even told him to stop using his left foot as this would hold his recovery back (thankfully, he eventually ignores them). Alas, the benefits of physio were oversold. However, it does make a difference and has benefited many people with disabilities, including myself to this day. They have to rent rooms in which to carry out their activities. There is no Central Remedial Clinic, no IWA, nothing and there wouldn’t be for another decade or so.

Browns writing is quite funny at times, despite the dark content of basically being trapped inside a body that mostly doesn’t function. He originally thought of putting “mental defective” in the title of book, to show how wrong the doctors were. Perhaps, he should have.

The film seems to include many things that are not in this book. There is no fight in a pub for a start! In fact, alcohol is not consumed at all in the book. In reality, Brown is an alcoholic. Also, there’s no mention of his sister becoming pregnant out of wedlock, like in the film, which leads him to shouting at his father to leave her alone. I learned that there is a later novel he writes, which is darker that he never admits to being autobiographical, which maybe is where these scenes came from.

Or maybe they are just pure fiction. The novel ends fairly abruptly at a ceremony to raise funds for cerebral palsy, but he’s still only 22. The film ends with news that Brown married the love of his life before choking to death at the age of 49. In reality, according to his family he married a former prostitutes who neglected him. It does seem that he loved her though, so who are we to judge?

In any event, he will always be one of my heroes. He triumphed against great adversity, and played a role in highlighting disability in the Irish mainstream. It may come as no surprise that it gets five stars out of five from me.

Lauren and James Pt 4

James wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Lauren seemed to be smiling that bit more at him recently and wearing a heavy scented perfume that drove him wild with arousal, although he tried his best not to show it. Instead of her just watching him playing video games, they would talk for hours. Well, mostly Lauren would talk, which was just as well as James would struggle even without his slight speech impediment. But he was an excellent listener, especially to her and that seemed to compensate.

They would discuss everything together and James now felt like he knew everything about her. She even told him about an ex boyfriend that recently contacted her.

“Yeah, imagine that texting me just as I’m about to go home. For you know what! No, that’s just not me anymore.”

James was somewhat stunned, mostly by the fact that a man would not realize what a gem she truly was.

“Oh, I just don’t know.”

James thought he should say something, anything.

“You deserve more,” he replied.

This raised a smile as she flicked her long, curly red hair.

“Why do you say that?”

James turned crimson and struggled to respond.

“Why don’t we watch a movie when I’m here tomorrow. You could download something off the internet.”

“Yyeah that’d be greatt,” replied James.

*************************************************************************

Lauren’s heart was beating ferociously as she got into her car. He definitely likes her, she was sure of it. But just not sure enough to kiss him. Not yet anyway. This film would be the opportunity. She would have to make the move but that was okay, it was the twenty-first century after all.

Every night now, he would enter her dreams and she would tell him how she truly felt. That he brightened her every day. That she loved everything about him.

Yes, it was now the time to do it for real.