Netflix is starting the year on a strong note with Four to Dinner, a sweet and sentimental romantic story that asks the question whether soul mates are real or not. It adds a new twist on the rom-com genre, while at the same time staying within the safe formula of the genre.
The story is framed as a dinner party, where four of the guests are still to arrive. While they are waiting, the topic of soul mates crops up and Luca (Flavio Furno), who doesn’t believe in the idea, starts to tell a story that will once and for all confirm that soul mates aren’t real. He tells the story about how he and his wife invited four people over for dinner one night, with the idea of setting them up with each other, although they don’t agree on which pairing makes the most sense. The story then splits into two, with the two different pairings being played out over a year or so.
The story is then told through two different timelines. One where Daario (Giuseppe Maggio) ends up with Chiara (Ilenia Pastorelli) and Matteo (Matteo Martari) is with Guilia (Matilde Gioli). Then the other is Daario is paried up with Guilia and Matteo is with Chiara. Both stories are told simultaneously and even at the end it is ambiguous which version of the events actually happened, and it’s left up to you to make your mind up who is better suited for who.
Luca’s point is that no one is destined to be with one person, and that anyone could be your perfect partner. Anyone can be perfect for someone. It’s presented throughout as a hopeful and positive message, because through whichever timeline you choose to believe is real each couple has their ups and downs and they all work for different reasons. Being with either partner changes them all, setting them on different life paths, even if some of the events are the same.
It is a little strange that Luca has devised a completely different timeline if his friends ended up dating the other person, just to prove his point. Both stories are given equal time and are detailed. Judging from his wife, Sara’s (Marta Gastini) reaction when he starts to tell the story, this isn’t the first time he’s played it out, so it’s as ambiguous as the ending how long he’s spent thinking about how his friends would react to scenarios if they we with the opposite partner.
While the film is a rom-com with some funny moments, it’s completely grounded and there’s no hint of the magical realism we’ve come to expect from the genre. It’s reflective and realistic, and it really feels fresh because of it. You’re completely invested in both sides of the events and while the premise could have come across as silly, it doesn’t at all.
Four to Dinner is a great little film that’s entertaining, sentimental and a little thoughtful at points. If you can get over the strangeness of the premise, then this is really worth watching. Hopefully Netflix can keep up this high level of quality for the rest of 2022.
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Following on from yesterday’s post recapping 2021, I’m making plans for the new year and what I’m hoping to achieve throughout it. I’ve got a few New Year’s resolutions that I’m looking to achieve throughout the next 12 months or so. From my main priority to probably not going to happen.
Firstly, and most importantly, I’m going to be getting into shape properly, back to how I was pre-pandemic when I wasn’t working from home. I put on a fair bit of weight and I’ve been slowly losing it, but I’m going to be driving that forward to get back into shape again. Being a healthy weight is my main aim for the year and I will get there, sooner rather than later. I have daily targets and I’ve hit them Monday and Tuesday this week and will continue today and every day going forward.
On to writing. I have 2 short stories that are half finished. I want them both finished and put on here by the end of the year. The novel that I’ve been planning out, needs to be started at some point as well. I have scenes figures out, but want to get on with it and get it at least started by the end of the year. I also want to edit and go over some of the older stuff that I’ve written and get that updated and republished in some way.
With film reviews, I’m still going to be publishing them every day, until at least the end of May so that way I’ve written one every day for a year. May isn’t that far away, so it’s completely doable. I’m hoping to get better and better with writing them and also look to stretch out and try pitching to other websites/publications again at some point. So if you’ve ever read one of my reviews and have any feedback, please pass it on. I do appreciate it.
Next up, I want to travel a bit more and do something a little more adventurous. My plan currently is to walk up Mount Snowdon, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a while but it just hasn’t happened. I’ve spoken to my wife about it and it’s something we’re going to look into doing once it gets a little warmer. I’m pretty determined to do this one, but I also know what I’m like so it may not happen.
On a film side, I want to watch every film that’s won best picture at the Oscars. Out of the 93 that have won so far, I’ve seen 25. So I’m going to be aiming to get through at least one a week for the rest of the year so by the end of 2022 I’ve seen all 93.
For things that I don’t think I’ll achieve this year, but still want to do at some point. Release a short story collection. I would like to either appear on or start a podcast, but that will most likely never happen. Finish up a load of different director’s filmographies and most unlikely read Ulysses by James Joyce.
So that’s what I’m hoping to do this year, what are your resolutions and do you think you’ll stick to them?
Based on the Ubisoft game of the same name, Werewolves Within, is a fun and quirky murder mystery that feels like a classic Agatha Christie novel or the recent Knives Out. Written by Mishna Wolff and directed by Josh Ruben, there is a lot to love about this warm and cosy story.
The small town of Beaverfield is divided over a pipeline that has been proposed, and the residents are at each other’s throats. Finn Wheeler (Sam Richardson) is a forest ranger who has been relocated to Beaverfield. He finds himself not only in the middle of the divided town, but also in the middle of a murder mystery after finding a body one morning. The townsfolk start to believe there’s a werewolf among them and start to turn on each other even more than they already have.
The town of Beaverfield is odd, in the best way possible. It’s filled with personality and strange people. When Finn is first walking around the town, being introduced to the locals, it almost feels like this is the pilot for a TV show and it is the kind of town where you want to spend as much time as possible. All the locals are quirky and strange and there’s a lot of great funny moments as he’s making his first rounds through the town. You can tell that certain people are already on edge.
Finn himself is a great character, he’s a genuine nice guy who just wants others to be happy. He’s probably too nice to be the lead investigator of the murder at the centre of the story, which leads to further funny moments. Moving to Beaverfield means that he is currently apart from his girlfriend, who he doesn’t want to admit has broken up with him. He’s completely out of place in the town, seeming like a normal person compared to the eccentric characters. The film starts with a quote from Mr Rogers, and that pretty much sums up Finn, he’s someone you’d want to be your neighbour.
When the mystery gets going and the film settles in, it has some great tense moments, where you’re not sure who is the killer. All of the characters, with all of their eccentricities, are likable enough that you don’t want any of them to die, and at the same time you don’t want any of them to be the killer. There are enough twists to keep you guessing about who the actual killer is.
Sadly, the story does feel drawn out and it really runs out of steam before it gets to the final conclusion. The ending isn’t that satisfying, even if the big reveal is a shock. The effects on the werewolf aren’t anything to write home about, but they’re still decent enough. Sadly the last act doesn’t live up to what the beginning set up.
Werewolves Within is so close to being great, and it is a little bit of a let-down. There’s still a lot of fun and the central mystery is great for the most part.
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2021 was a really strange year for me, filled with incredible highs and a strange frustration with the world that I think a lot of us have felt. There’s no point going into detail about the pandemic, we’re all in the same boat with that one and it’s been causing problems for all of us in some way or another, and in all honesty I’ve been lucky that it hasn’t effected me more than it has.
This time last year, I wasn’t in a good place with my mental health and in general things weren’t that great. My big holiday that I’d spent a year planning had been pushed back, and I’m still waiting to see when it can be reorganised, work reached new levels of stressful and I wasn’t getting very far with my writing. I’d been working on a short story, A Knock at the Door, that was supposed to be published in October of 2020, but I just didn’t have the motivation to finish it. I did get that finished later in 2021, and published it in July. It’s now one of my most read stories, second to the first one that I put up way back in 2012. I’m very happy with the response it got, and have had some very good feedback from it.
I spent the first half of 2021 practically glued to games. I played the whole of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which took me around 150 hours, Watch Dogs Legion, which took around 50ish, Cyberpunk 2077, which was another 100 hours. Just to put it in context of how long I was sucked into these worlds. There were a few others I played as well, and I did enjoy them, but it’s the only thing I did and it took up all my time to an unhealthy level. Looking at Letterboxd I watched 4 films in January and then nothing until March. It was all about games, and re-watching Buffy with Tabby as she hadn’t seen it.
Around May I then stumbled across a writer on Twitter, who was a self-published author, like me, who also had just been published by a film magazine. He had a similar number of followers on Twitter as me, and it sparked an idea, why am I not doing that? I’ve always said that my back-up plan for life is being a film critic, and I decided it was time to take that more seriously. There were two reasons for this, it would give me more things to write about on this blog, because I was struggling to post things that weren’t repetitive updates, and maybe it would actually get me somewhere. So I bought a book about writing reviews and read it cover to cover, and then I needed to start writing.
The first review I wrote after taking it seriously was for Spiral, which I also really enjoyed and think is one of the best Saw films
With cinemas re-opening it was the perfect opportunity and after seeing Spiral, I made notes and wrote a review and then published it on here. I was a little nervous, and besides my mum I didn’t get any feedback, but it did get a few views, 22 in total, which was slightly more than my average at the time. I then posted a review for the next couple of days into June and once I got a notification saying that I posted 7 days in a row, I set myself a challenge to write a review every day throughout June, with the plan to then pitch to other websites and magazines in the hope to get something actually published. June ended, and I carried on into July, with that notification congratulating me on so many days in a row as the main motivation.
I did pitch reviews to websites, and from one I got some good feedback, made the changes they recommended and then they said they’d publish it, but they never got back to me once I re-submitted and ignored my follow-up emails. From the others I heard absolutely nothing and haven’t pitched since, mainly because I don’t want to write something that I pitch to somewhere else and then can’t post on my own blog, because I don’t hear back but might do at some point. I’ve set my schedule of writing 2 posts a day, and for the most part I’ve hit that, writing more on top of that would be difficult enough, without the added frustration of it never being read because I don’t hear back. It’s something I’m hoping to work towards in 2022.
To add into the mix I started emailing film companies and studios to be added to their press list and while most didn’t reply at all, some did get back to me and added me to their list. When I started hearing back I felt like I was really making it somewhere, slowly but surely. I was getting more views some weeks than I had received in some years. Then in August I applied for a press pass to London Film Festival, thinking nothing would come of it. I just thought what’s the harm, and they did get back to me very quickly and the next thing I knew I was planning a trip to London in October, which became my first outing since March 2020.
Edgar Wright introducing Last Night in Soho is one of my absolute highlights of the last year
Being in London felt like the previous 18 months hadn’t happened. People were just out and about, and enjoying themselves. We had a lot of spare time and did a lot of walking around, which was great and a lot of fun. The festival itself was incredible, and one of my favourite things I’ve ever done. We managed to watch 4 films in a row in one day and then went back to the hotel for another. I loved it and I really hope I get to go again this year.
Since then the blog has been going from strength to strength. I’ve managed to keep up daily posts for 217 days in a row and counting. My follower numbers have tripled in a year, and the views are the highest they’ve ever been. My most popular review of 2021 was surprisingly Christmas is Cancelled, which has broken the 800 view barrier and still going strong. That may not be a lot to some, but it’s beyond the most read thing I’ve ever written.
Because of writing film reviews, I’ve been contacted by people I haven’t spoken to in years, one of them in over 10 years. Friends and former co-workers have contacted me to say they like reading them or to recommend new films to me, and that’s been incredible. Honestly one of the highlights of the year is reconnecting with people. I’m quite an introverted person, and I fall out of contact with people easily, so it’s always nice to speak to someone again.
In all honesty keeping up the schedule has been incredibly hard work, but also absolutely rewarding. It feels sometimes that I’m working 2 full time jobs, with my actual day job and then watching as many films as I can fit into a day, writing reviews, trying to come up with other posts to fill up the schedule, and trying to find new ways to expand and reach out. Sometimes I’m working on very little sleep and it’s been stressful. I’m not complaining at all, just trying to contextualise that I’ve been putting in the time. This is something I enjoy doing and it’s been a lot of fun so far.
I also don’t want it to sound like bragging at all, I’m just incredibly excited about how far I’ve come in the last year. In the last few months I’ve received online screeners to upcoming films, some physical DVD/Blu Ray screeners, a few advance copies of books, emails from directors/actors and writers thanking me for a review or offering me something new to look at. It’s been an incredible year and I can only hope that 2022 is even better.
Starring: Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, Nestor Paiva, Whit Bissell, Ben Chapman, and Ricou Browning
Creature From the Black Lagoon was released in 1954 and marked the last new monster from the Universal Classic Monsters series, which had started 23 years earlier with Bela Lugosi as Dracula. There were sequels to Black Lagoon, but no more monsters were introduced to the long running series.
The film starts with the discovery of a hand in a rock, that belongs to an unknown creature. To try and find more information a group dives into the water and discover the creature himself, who then terrorises them into leaving. The creature also becomes obsessed with the female member of the group, Kay Lawrence who was played by Julie Adams.
I quite liked this film; it was easy watching, and the monster design was pretty good. It’s something that’s inspired many imitations including The Shape of Water, and it’s always interesting to see the original. The monster is quite sympathetic, in the sense that the humans wandered into his habitat and it’s only defending itself. It doesn’t attack first, which is interesting. Frankenstein is similar, in that it’s a misunderstood monster.
There’s a great scene where Kay is swimming, and the camera shows her at the surface of the water and the creature mimicking her just underneath. There’s an almost dance-like quality to it and it’s genuinely mesmerising to watch. For me, that’s the best scene of the film, it’s not an attack or any attempt at horror, but just a fascinating moment that says so much about the Creature without a single word being spoke.
The version I watched had a mini documentary about Universal itself, including the lot that most of their films are shot on, the lake in the middle is where Creature from the Black Lagoon was made. It’s completely man-made, and you can’t tell that when you are watching. The camera trickery is very good to make this feel like a completely remote location.
The old black and white monster films aren’t particularly scary, but they are worth watching for more than just historical reasons. The story is interesting, and the characters are engaging enough.
Ashley Manning 