Exceptionally skilled cast portray the loves, the longing, the slanders …
From source Chekhov, but overall the film panders
To uneven shifts in mood.
So, even with this talented brood
It doesn’t feel like a cohesive whole, but a collection of fab two-handers.
One plus: the animals are expertly rendered.
But sadly the tale of adult CR (who’d surrendered
To a life with joys that are few)
And the re-introduction of his youth’s crew
Is overall quite drab, bland & sluggish. Not recommended.
There are truly outrageous plot points, but if you can run
With them, there’s some fabulous, escapist fun
To be had. Hendrick and Lively shine.
Highlights: stunning costume design,
Some music choices and a colour palette than can stun.
Young Lee came from working class roots,
Began apprenticing on Savile Row suits.
Along came adulation and fame …
We learn the cost of the game
In this beautiful executed study of McQueen’s pursuits.
Professor Rachel’s attending a wedding in the home town
Of her partner Nick (not expecting the scornful frown
Of his mother and assorted fam).
Abundant laughs and OTT glam
In this delightful film. Great leads’ chemistry, plus many a clown.
Notorious RBG: Associate Justice of the Court (Supreme);
Tireless octogenarian with a round-the-clock work regime.
Excellent portrait of a genius legal mind
Who’s fought for womankind.
After hard-won battles, millions hold her in high esteem.
They’re less than stellar students, these four college guys
Who have an audacious plan (yes, it’s clearly unwise).
Riveting incarnations
Of crazy situations
Where twelve mil of rare books are the prize.
Teacher Lisa’s tasked with guiding a class of young minds.
She becomes intensely obsessed when she finds
A wordsmith genius (little fella).
Sevak & Gyllenhaal’s work: stellar.
It’s complexly unsettling as boundary adherence unwinds.
So up to six months before the wedding ceremony’s kiss,
These young Chinese couples wouldn’t dare miss
Paying huge loot
For an elaborate photo shoot.
A interesting look at this required step towards (pre-) wedded bliss.
Yes, the ridiculous premise requires disbelief suspension,
But there’s laughs re: Duncan giving over-the-top attention
To Tucker’s short, faded career.
Hawke’s clearly having fun here.
A slight, but enjoyable tale (with themes of reinvention).
The shocking system, where talented female directors find
Themselves systematically shut out or undermined
Is examined in this doco (essential).
Discriminatory obstacles mean potential
Is often unrealised (and the fight for recognition's a cruel grind).
A deceptively simple setup: a day’s road trip for a son and dad
(Delivering invitations). There’s piles of obligatory food to be had
(Such generous hospitality conventions).
Familial love and long-held tensions
Are beautifully drawn out. Exquisite balance of the joyous and the sad.
Christian’s going straight: A new supermarket job where he greets
(In the break room) Marion (from the magical aisle of the sweets).
New friends are connected.
Forklift driving’s perfected.
There’s gentle melancholy, black humour, and dodgy processed meats.
This film’s particularly clever and novel conceit
Never feels like a gimmicky cheat.
Storytelling skills: immense.
Constantly riveting and intense.
Genuinely engaging. The tensions’s edge-of-your-seat.
Cameron’s SSA has been labelled a perversion,
So she’s sent to soul-destroying gay conversion
Therapy (with poison teachings of hate).
The central performances are great.
Often restrained (I'd like to have seen more resistance/aversion).
A gentle love, and the bigotry hits them like a mallet.
Violence, gossip and politics (upcoming ballot).
Though at times the story’s slight,
The film excels visually (use of light,
Plus a gorgeously joyous colour palette).
Clients: too cowardly to do the dropping,
So Mel & Jen plan to come stopping
By to provide a unique service
(Client fraternising makes Jen nervous).
Hilarious scenes as jilted lovers endure a copping.
Like a latter-day L.B. Jeffries, Randal’s looking
(From apartment prison) at what the neighbours have cooking.
Dumisa delivers such dread
And then more tension ahead.
Despite a few short drags, there’s much here that’s hooking.
Moving stories of seriously ill patients and their agonising waits
For much-needed donor organs. But tragically, the rates
Of donation are dangerously low.
Hopefully this excellent doco will go
A long way towards more awareness, leading to healthy fates.
Three brothers meet, and it feels like they’re tripping.
Into their backstory director Wardle begins chipping.
They’re an extraordinary triplet gang.
On each development we hang,
As we follow a mind-blowing journey that’s utterly gripping.
