Men – Film Review

Posted on June 2, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Alex Garland

Writer: Alex Garland

Starring: Jessie Buckley, Rory Kinnear, Paapa Essiedu, Gayle Rankin

Rating: ★★½

Alex Garland’s latest film, Men, is a puzzle inside an enigma that’s presented as a body horror film.  It’s about misogyny, grief, and guilt, while also being an intense horror film. It stars Jessie Buckley as Harper Marlowe, a widow who has rented out a house deep in the middle of the English countryside to heal from an abusive relationship. The house is owned by Geoffrey, who is played by Rory Kinnear, a walking cliché of an English countryman. Kinnear also plays several other members of the local village, as well as a naked man who is an interpretation of The Green Man.

On one side Men works as a creepy and unsettling horror film, for the first hour or so. There’s a creepy atmosphere, heightened by a demonic and imposing score from Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow. Almost instantly you feel that Harper isn’t safe as she comes across the naked man while going out for a walk in the forest. There’s a growing sense of unease as he follows her back to her house. The tension builds and builds, as the film gets stranger and stranger. Sadly, everything is let down by the finale, as the scales tip too much towards the strange resulting in the horror and tension dissipating so quickly to the point that it becomes almost laughable.

The world presented in the film is bright, with a focus on nature filled with vibrant greens. It looks stunning and otherworldly, with a tunnel at one point almost feeling like a world to another dimension, that is the point that the film really starts to get weird and dreamlike. There’s a repeating motif of echoes, not just in the tunnel as Harper’s yells are echoed back to her, but also through the different men in the village that all look similar. There’s even a strange rebirth sequence, showing how toxic masculinity and characteristics are echoed throughout. Even though all the men that Kinnear plays are completely unique there’s something that combines them all, with their dismissal of Harper’s worry as she tells them about the man following her in the local pub.

Buckley is fantastic as Harper, completely believable in the role and feels authentic. As great as she is, the star of the show is still Rory Kinnear. Every single person he plays feels completely unique, fully built-up characters. They all have different mannerisms and qualities that make them feel like completely different characters, even though they all share the same face. It’s through this that you never feel Harper is safe, and how can you when the naked man following her shares a face with the policeman who arrests him.

Throughout the film there’s a series of flashbacks that slowly reveal what happened in Harper’s marriage to James (Paapa Essiedu). It takes a long time for everything to be revealed, with each flashback adding another piece to the puzzle. It’s not shown in a linear order, but just as things remind Harper about what happened. The slow reveal works really well.

Without getting too deep into spoilers, the film turns into a full-on body horror towards the end, which is when the film starts to unravel. It should be the height of tension and fear, but instead it starts to veer towards being strange for the sake of it, and really suffers for it. The gore doesn’t look or feel real enough to actually make it feel scary, and the best bits are earlier in the film. When Harper is being chased, the tension is heart racing, but all of that is lost. It also becomes hard to decipher and is trying too hard to be metaphorical and symbolic.

If you liked Mother! Then you may enjoy Men, but it’s no where near as good. If you’re looking for a straight-forward horror then this isn’t it. Garland is much more interested in presenting grief and guilt in a strange and at times wonderful way. The strongest moments are the chilling arguments between Harper and James, and it’s worth watching just for that. The way Garland builds up the horror, even if the pay-off isn’t that good, is still masterful, it’s just a shame the ending is disappointing.

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Obi-Wan Kenobi – Episode Three Review

Posted on June 1, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Deborah Chow

Writers: Joby Harold, Hannah Friedman, Hossein Amini

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Vivien Lyra Blair, Moses Ingram, and James Earl Jones

Rating: ★★★★½

It’s finally happened, Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor reunited on screen as Obi-Wan and Darth Vader for the first time since their epic duel at the end of Revenge of the Sith. Episode two of Obi-Wan Kenobi ends with a tease of Vader, and this episode follows through and shows him in his palace on Mustafar, before joining the hunt for the legendary Jedi.

Like previous episodes, this one has a nice slow pace to it, slowly building up the story. It mostly follows Kenobi and Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair) as they make their way across Mapuzo to get to a space port and back to Alderaan. Along the way we get glimpses of the planet under Empire control, with Kenobi trying to explain what it used to look like. Instead of checkpoints and guards, there were fields and families.

The best thing about the Star Wars TV shows, including the animated ones, is that you get to see glimpses of life outside of the main heroes, and while this show is about Kenobi first and foremost, there’s still glimpses of the wider world around them. A truck driver, Freck (voiced by Zach Braff), seems to be on the Empire’s side, liking how they bring order to the galaxy.

McGregor is absolutely brilliant in this episode, as he was in the first two. This is his best performance as Obi-Wan, showing the hero at his lowest point after the events of the prequel trilogy. After learning that Anakin didn’t die on Mustafar, knocks him back, with him reaching out for help and guidance early in the episode, but can’t quite find it. He’s almost cut-off from the force completely and is almost a shell of his former self. It’s exciting to see what happens in the next three episodes that renews him and brings him to the Alec Guinness Kenobi we meet in A New Hope.

Without spoiling too much, the last ten or so minutes of this episode gives us the moment we’ve all been waiting for. The rematch between Kenobi and Vader. It’s a brutal and ruthless scene, showing Vader with his full anger that we see again in Rogue One. He doesn’t hold back at all, choking out and killing locals on his way to find Kenobi. While the fight between Vader and Kenobi isn’t going to go down as the best fight in Star Wars history, it still has an incredibly dark moment. It shows that Kenobi is nowhere near his peak and doesn’t match Vader anymore in the slightest.  

This episode is absolutely filled with tension, from Kenobi and Leia making their way past guards, to the inevitable face-off, and it’s all excellent. It manages to keep up the momentum from the opening episodes and set up the second half of the series.

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One Year Later

Posted on May 31, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of daily posts. To start off I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has read any post, subscribed, or commented. I truly and deeply appreciate it. This time last year as lockdown was slowly ending and cinemas were reopening I started writing film reviews. Mainly because it was something I’d always wanted to do, and also because I wanted to post on here regularly. When the local cinema re-opened, I went to see everything I could and wrote notes that turned into full reviews. At first there was no intention to post daily, with just every so often as the aim, but then I wanted to go for a week, then the rest of the month, just to challenge myself. As June finished I just kept writing, and the end of the year started to creep up, so that was the aim. Now the aim is 12 months of daily posts, and after tomorrow, I’ll just continue on for as long as I can.

This last year has been something special to me, I’ve had so many opportunities that I never thought I would have. I’ve covered film festivals, had people reach out to ask me to review their films and books. The number of people who subscribe to this blog has doubled in the last year. I started the blog in November 2012, and in the last 12 months I’ve received almost 6 times the views that I received in the first 8 and a half years. Last week after posting the Obi-Wan Kenobi review I received more views in that day that I had in some years.

One of my favourite things about doing this is finding new things. I love receiving recommendations and every time someone comments with something they would like me to review, I add it to my long list and I will get around to everything. I’ve found out about so many cool film and books, even if I’ve not reviewed them on here.

I’ve also received my first few hate comments, which feels like a stepping stone. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but still amazes me how my opinion can annoy somebody that much. I like people disagreeing with me, and have enjoyed discussing certain things with people in the comments. It’s always interesting to see someone else’s view on something, but some people don’t put their viewpoint and just throw insults.

Looking forward, I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t have many plans, beyond writing more reviews, short stories and then hopefully books. I’ve proven to myself that I can do something if I put my mind to it, and want to keep that up.

Again, thank you to everyone reading this. It means the world to me. Until next time,

Ashley

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Yakuza: Like a Dragon

Posted on May 30, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

The Yakuza series is one of my favourite game series, including the Judgement spin-offs. It’s absolutely bonkers while also having a dark and gripping story. I’ve just finished played Like a Dragon, which is my favourite of the series so far. It’s a soft-reboot of the series with a new protagonist, Kasuga, but it’s still set in the same universe as the previous games with some of the same locations and even some returning characters.

While the previous games of the series were action based RPGs, this one is full on turn-based, as Kasuga imagines the world around him is similar to his favourite game series Dragon Quest. It allows the most bizarre and strange things in the game to live in then same universe as a dark and grounded storyline. It starts on New Years Eve 2000, going into 2001, with Kasuga as a low-level member of the Asakawa family. He ends up taking the fall for a higher member of the family and spends eighteen years in prison, and when he is released the world has changed more than he expected. On one hand the story is grounded, but on another there’s a moment where you take control of a confectionary company and a chicken works for you. There’s loads of funny and wacky ideas, on par with the rest of the Yakuza series.

The game is split into fifteen chapters, with the early chapters showing Kasuga trying to settle into his life again after so much time behind bars. This is my favourite part of the game, where Kasuga starts to make friends and ends up with a room mate in a tiny little apartment, going to the job centre, and trying to get back on his feet. It’s mundane, but Kasuga is instantly likable and meets a great group of characters. It does take a little time for the story to really get going, with little seeds of mystery planted throughout, some of which take the whole game to pay off.

The story does get a little lost further into the game, like anything with almost a hundred hours of gameplay, but does manage to bring everything back home for the finale. There’s a ton of side-content to do as well, from side missions, minigames, and dungeons you can explore. The turn-based fighting is excellent and takes away any of the stress from some of the harder fights in earlier games in the series. The characters are all well balanced, with a good level of challenge throughout. Around the mid-point there’s also a battle tower introduced making which is a great place to grind if you want to make the later story fights a cakewalk.

From a 100% completion standpoint this is a lot better than previous games as well. There’s still a long list of random tasks to get that coveted 100%, but it’s not as tiresome or tedious as some of the other games. To get all the trophies/achievements you don’t even need to finish the full list, but it’s still satisfying to do either way.

The Yakuza series set a high standard for story, and this game doesn’t disappoint. Everything about this game is excellent. The plot, characters, side-content, visuals. All brilliant. There’s nothing really bad to say about it, apart from the story feels a little wandering at points. Another excellent entry to the series and my personal favourite so far.

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Zom 100, Volume 5 – Manga Review

Posted on May 29, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

The fourth volume of Zom 100 ended with Akira finding his way back to him home village and seeing his parents for the first time in years, and more importantly the first time since the zombie apocalypse started. There was also a threat that the safety of the village was going to be short-lived, which is exactly where volume five starts, with Kanta, the mirror opposite of Akira, getting a brief introduction.

Before the apocalypse Kanta’s life hadn’t amounted to much, he was unemployable, a loner and hadn’t achieved much since collage. He longs for the days of summer holidays and hanging out at the local pool with his friends, like when he was in school. He sees the apocalypse as an excuse to do whatever he likes, and like Akira, he starts to write a list of all the things he wants to do while waiting to be turned into a zombie. Unlike Akira’s list, Kanta’s is filled with mean and malicious things and one of those involves destroying the local village and turning them all into zombies.

The first chapter of this volume shows the group of heroes settling into village life, and how that differs to the big city of Tokyo. There’s a community, that is deeply missing in the crowded city, and everyone is helping one another. Kencho finds a little girl, whose parents were killed, and sets out to make her smile. Shizuka finds that she is fascinated by the non-technological ways of survival outside of the city.

Like the previous volumes, there’s a good amount of social commentary about the way our modern lives puts pressure on us, with this volume focusing on how isolating big cities are, despite all the people around you. The themes of the story are a small portion of the manga, with most of it focusing on the zombies, and comedy we’ve come to expect from the series. It’s not the funniest addition to the manga, but it’s still entertaining. Once the zombies do start attacking, the pace picks up and doesn’t stop until the final page, where once again the series is left on a massive cliff-hanger for volume six. It’s a tense story, and one that looks like it’s only going to escalate soon.

With this volume, every chapter is a continuation and not just stand-alone adventures of the main characters. It’s one complete story that picks up where volume four ends and will continue beyond into the next book. It feels like the story of Zom 100 is in full swing and it is a blast to read. The characters are excellent, and the art style is great, clean and easy to follow. One of the best ongoing manga series at the moment and seems to be going from strength to strength. Can’t wait for volume six.

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