My Top 50 Films Part 6

Posted on August 13, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter

We’re over half way through my list now. If you haven’t already, you can catch up here:

PART 1  PART 2  PART 3  PART 4  PART 5

As always, the list is in a random order until we get to part 9 and 10. I couldn’t list them all, without them shifting places. If you’ve seem any of the films, love them or hate them, let me know.

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

I think this might be the funniest film of recent years. Every time I watch it I’m laughing from start to finish. It’s The Lonely Island, so it’s full of strange comedy music and just ridiculous situations. It features so many cameos, from Justin Timberlake to Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. The whole film is a mockumentary about a popstar releasing an album that doesn’t do very well. It’s seriously funny and if you haven’t seen it, I would recommend it.

A Hard Day’s Night

Again, a mix of funny absurdist humour and great music. This is a perfect film to watch when going to bed. The accompanying album is great, and you just get a good sense of The Beatles’ sense of humour. This didn’t appeal to me when my dad first bought it for me one Christmas, but I gave it a go and ended up loving it. I’ve now seen it quite a few times. It’s essential for any Beatles fan. The follow-up Help is also pretty good, but just a little too crazy.

About a Boy

I haven’t seen this film in a very long time, but I know I loved it when I first watched it. My dad showed it to me, and it really clicked with me. A part of me doesn’t ever want to watch it again, just to not spoil the memories, but it sits very highly in my mind. One day I will re-watch it and I’m sure it will click all over again. It’s a rom com with some very dark moments. Hugh Grant is great in it.

Lilo and Stitch

One of my all-time favourite Disney films. It’s so funny and charming. Stitch is one of the best characters Disney ever created. I’m pretty sure most people have seen this film, or at least know about it. There are so many quotable lines and funny moments. There’s also a sweet story about family at its centre and a great soundtrack.

True Romance

One of Tarantino’s best scripts and turned out better than most of the films he actually directed. Inspired heavily by Badlands, featuring similar music and voice over, True Romance is a timeless film. My mum showed this to me when I was growing up and I’ve watched it a few times since. Slater and Arquette are brilliant. Brad Pitt is absolutely great in one of his earliest roles. Everyone is great in the film. It’s an excellent film and everyone should watch it, if they haven’t already.

Thank you for reading and until next time,

Ashley

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Free Guy – Film Review

Posted on August 12, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Shawn Levy

Written by: Matt Liberman & Zak Penn

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer, Lil Rel Howery, Ukarsh Ambudkar, Joe Keery and Taika Waititi  

Rating: ★★★★

Video Games have come a long way in the last few years, so having a second life inside a game like Grand Theft Auto doesn’t feel that far from reality. Free Guy takes that one step further with the NPCs (Non-playable characters) becoming sentient. It’s great to see Ryan Reynolds completely redeem himself after The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. Free Guy is a superb comedy and the most fun I’ve had in the cinema this year.

If you mix The Matrix and They Live with The Lego Movie and Wreck-It Ralph, then you get Free Guy. Guy (Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool) lives his life by routine, Groundhog Day style, not realising that he is an NPC in an online game. He starts to want more from life, and once he puts on a pair of sunglasses, he starts to realise the world around him isn’t quite what it seems.

Free Guy could have easily fallen into a trap of an overload pop culture references, meta humour and not doing anything more than that (See Space Jam: A New Legacy for the most recent example). While there are a lot of references and a fair few cameos, the film never relies on them. It’s funny in its own right, with great characters and jokes that hit the mark more often than not. The references and cameos, from YouTubers to megastars, are also great and work brilliantly.

Most of the humour comes from Reynolds’ timing and delivery. If you’re a fan of Deadpool or Detective Pikachu, then you will most likely love Free Guy. On the other hand, if Reynolds generally annoys you, then this isn’t going to win you over. He’s doing what he does best.

The characters are all great and play off each other perfectly. Guy and Buddy (Lil Rel Howery, Get Out) are fantastic every time they are screen together. If anything, there isn’t enough time with Buddy. The same can be said of the villain Antwan (Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit). As always Waititi is fantastic every time he’s on screen and you wish you’ll get more of him. Millie (Jodie Comer, Killing Eve) who enlists Guy’s help to take down Antwan, is fantastic in every scene. The mini-ice-cream-date they go on is one of the highlights.

There are so many great moments throughout the two hour thrill-ride, from the repeating bank robbery to the final confrontation with Guy’s nemesis, the aptly named Dude. There isn’t a moment that feels boring or tedious. The whole thing rips along, accompanied by a roaring soundtrack. The whole thing feels like a live-action Lego Movie in the best way possible.  

If you think about the film too much, then it does unravel. The bad guys in the real world don’t seem to really be active unless they are on screen, so the heroes get to progress a lot without much interference. The logic the world sets up also doesn’t make that much sense under scrutiny, but none of it matters. The humour is there, the lovable characters are there and it’s not the type of film to overthink. Just sit back and enjoy.

There is so much heart in Free Guy and so much to love. Its central concept may already becoming a little overdone in recent years (with not only the ones I’ve mentioned, but others such as Ready Player One and Pixels to name a couple more), but it feels fresh here. This is a charming film that is filled with passion and humour. It’s simply fantastic.

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Looking Away by Charles Tashiro – Book Review

Posted on August 12, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter

I was given a copy of this book in return for an honest review

The United States of America is fractured with many of the states at war with each other. People are living on rations, trying to go about their daily lives the best they can. After falling from their high social standing Tom and Madeleine Forsythe, along with their mute son Lyle, travel across the free zone to Tom’s childhood home hoping to find a new normality.

This is one hell of a dark book. It’s dealing with some dark themes of death, war, poverty, elitism and adultery. There are a few really brutal moments in the story. When these moments take place Charles Tashiro doesn’t give too many details of what happens – just enough to let you imagination run wild. It’s a good example of less is more.

The book is quite short and flew by in a single sitting. It did take me a couple of chapters to really get into it, but once I was hooked I couldn’t put it down reading it as quickly as possible. Saying that, I do wish the book was slightly longer with more focus on the events.

There is a lot of mystery in this book. At first there isn’t a lot of indication of the wider story, as it slowly unravels. This is done really well and keeps you reading from page to page. A lot of the mysteries are answered by the end, but the wider world is still shrouded.

While on the surface this is a book about a war torn country, at its heart it is about the damaged relationship between Tom and Madeleine. It’s focused on them, with the fighting and soldiers taking a back seat for most of the plot. The war is almost irrelevant to the story as the characters take centre stage. Their relationship is fractured and we explore that throughout the narrative.

The best moments of the book happen when it’s focused on Tom, his son Lyle and their new neighbour Mr Saito. Those scenes are really sweet and are filled with great character building. I’m not so sure about Madeleine. Her actions, especially towards the end, don’t really add up with the character as I saw her. Maybe if there was more time building up her past it would have clicked more.  

I enjoyed Looking Away and would recommend it. There are some clunky sentences that I had to read twice to get my head around, but that’s only a minor quibble. For the most part I enjoyed it and would read other books that Tashiro writes.

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The Nest – Film Review

Posted on August 11, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Sean Durkin

Written by Sean Durkin

Starring: Jude Law, Carrie Coon, Charlie Shotwell, Oona Roche and Adeel Akhtar

Rating: ★★½

Writer and director Sean Durkin returns for his second film, The Nest, a thriller/drama set in the 1980s following Rory O’Hara (Jude Law, Enemy at the Gates), a trader who moves his family to England to potentially strike it big with a deal that could merge his old company with an American one. His wife, Allison O’Hara (Carrie Coon, Fargo, The Post), isn’t keen on the idea, but follows her husband anyway. They move into a lavish gothic mansion, and everything is looking great until the money starts to run dry, and the big deal falls through.

From the plot, this sounds like it could be a horror film – family moving into an old mansion. If you’ve seen the trailers, you would be forgiven for thinking it’s a horror film. It’s not, despite a fair few of the scenes being shot in the way a horror film would be. Including a door being locked and then opening again when the camera swings back round. There are many moments in the film that rely on the tropes of horror to build suspense. With an unsettling tone and camera movements. You’ll be waiting for a ghost or intruder to attack at any moment.

At other points, this is a full-blown relationship drama. Allison and the children didn’t want to move to England and with Rory becoming less present by the day, the resentment and strains start to show. If this film was more about Allison and less about Rory, then it would be more enjoyable. The best moments are when Carrie Coon is on screen. Her performance is great and really brings life to Allison with a nuanced performance. Despite her strong performance, there are still moments that feel out of place. She screams ‘I don’t recognise you anymore’ to her children when trying to figure out why the door was open, she takes control at the restaurant recklessly spending money moments after revealing to her husband that she knows there isn’t enough of it. It feels like we don’t know the character well enough for these moments to really make sense. There’s also a moment towards the end that feels odd and out of place.

Jude Law, on the other hand, gives a real mixed performance. There are scenes where he just isn’t believable or natural in any way, while at other points, his character feels real. The problem is with the writing, he literally tells us his motivation throughout, his character is a walking cliché and paper thin. He had a bad childhood and deserves a better life, which is what he screams at his wife when she questions him. The film would be better if he wasn’t the main focus.

The Nest is a really slow paced film, trying to build tension with long shots that hang for uncomfortable amount of time. At points this works, at others it doesn’t. Overall the film drags and meanders to it’s very unfulfilling conclusion. When the film faded to black, with the unnecessary pause before the credits role, there was someone in the screening who said ‘how much longer is this film’ while someone else said ‘is that it?’. Somewhere here is a really good family drama, but it’s trying to hard to be unsettling and full of tension for that to really pay-off in any meaningful way.

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A Weekly Update

Posted on August 11, 2021 by ashleymanningwriter

It’s a small update this week. I haven’t had time to edit my new short story Teddy just yet, but I will be doing it as soon as possible. I have inched closer to the end of writing my other short story, currently known as ‘the space one’ in my mind.

I’ve been reading a couple of books for reviews. My review for Looking Away by Charles Tashiro will be going up tomorrow morning. I’m currently reading The Illusion of Gravity by John Green Dyer and hoping to have a review ready for next Tuesday. I’ve also started Billy Summers, the new Stephen King book, which will probably get a review the week after that.

Film reviews are still going strong. I’m currently four ahead with writing them and am going to a secret screening tonight. Not sure what it’s going to be, hopefully something good. It will probably be tomorrow’s review, either way

Fitness-wise, I’ve barely moved since last Wednesday. I need to get in a better habit of exercising after work. My problem is how hot the house is. It’s always so stuffy and that stops me from sleeping, so when I finish work, I end up not wanting to do anything.

Thankfully, I haven’t moved from 16 stone and 1 pound. I really thought I was going to put on weight over the weekend. It was my birthday and I ate a lot of rubbish. I did go for a couple of longer walks, which probably balanced that out.

Thanks for reading and until next time,

Ashley

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