I first saw Barry Jenkins' beautiful adaptation of James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk at London Film Festival this past October and it has taken me nearly 4 months to piece together words that even now feel they can't do justice to what I believe was one of the best films of the festival.

The story plays with time wonderfully, jumping back and forth between present and past to piece together the central narrative of Tish and Fonny's blossoming relationship before Fonny is put in prison after being falsely accused of rape. During his prison sentence, Tish discovers she is pregnant and her and her family get to work to prove his innocence.

James Laxton, who also shot Jenkins' Oscar winning Moonlight, returned to create a muddle of the utopia and dystopia the two central characters found in their little piece of Manhattan. Jenkins and Laxton have a wonderful way of making the unextraordinary meet the extraordinary in little stories coming out of big cities. It feels like magic, like a dream that's gone wrong yet is still full of soul and light. Jenkins makes an editorial choice by contrasting the colour in Tish and Fonny's life against distressing monochrome images of black people suffering throughout history, Tish and Fonny meet their own distress in Officer Bell but they refuse to let it remove the colour from their relationship. It fuels them further and pushes them deeper into their romance.

There's an ache that oozes from the words Barry Jenkins pens from James Baldwin's novel. "We got all the time in the world" Fonny says the first time they make love and yet he has no idea that he's so close to the freedom being cut short. We, the audience, do know and it makes that moment much more bittersweet. We want to savour that time with them, we dream with them, we forget briefly that tragedy is looming in that romantic candlelight.

There's an ominous hero in this story and it is not a character, it is Nicholas Britell's masterpiece of a score. I cannot express how the notes of each song hits a part of my heart that instantly chokes me up. The first time I saw the trailer in a cinema since seeing the film months prior tears instantly filled my eyes because I could see the placement of Eden (Harlem), the opening song that waves through as the two take their place in their own version of the Garden of Eden. Harlem is their paradise. It is where they fall in love. It is where they "sin". The story is biblical. Fonny's mother is deeply religious and so by her terms, their child is born of sin and Fonny must pay for it in prison whilst Tish pays by struggling against a system that so desperately wants them to fail but it allows them to win in their own unique way.

Beale Street is bleak and sad but beautiful and poetic in a way that only Barry Jenkins has the sensitivity to get away with. I believe and root for the story because at the heart it comes from him. He cares what happens to Tish and Fonny and so we do, too, and paired with the wonderful performances from everyone involved, it is hard not to fall in love alongside them.

Remember, love is what brought you here...

If Beale Street Could Talk comes to UK cinemas 8th February 2019.

Until next time

Treat yourself to the beauty of Nicholas Britell's glorious score...

In 2019 M. Night Shyamalan returns with his third instalment of his ‘Unbreakable’ series. I went into Glass with quite high expectations as I really enjoyed both Unbreakable and Split so I hoped linking the two together would work for a third film. 

Glass picks up around three weeks from the ending of Split. David Dunn (Bruce Willis) has been saving innocent bystanders under the publicly dubbed name ‘The Overseer’ with the help of his son. Elijah Price/Mr. Glass (Samuel L Jackson) is still in the institution he was committed to at the end of Unbreakable and Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) has embraced the ‘Horde’ and has continued his kidnap/murdering spree. During a confrontation between David and Kevin, they are both apprehended and institutionalised with Elijah, where Dr Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) must convince them their beliefs of being supernatural beings are delusions. During their stay the three must come to face the reality that they could be ordinary men or perhaps they really could be the stuff of comic books.

For me James McAvoy really stole the show. He gets a lot of screen time to show off his different portrayals of the multiple personalities. I found his characters to have a lot more of a comedic presence than in Split which was an odd change but the jokes did land with the audience. I found that David Dunn lacked the same depth from his appearance in Unbreakable. It was hard to see what was really driving him through the story other than being given some small side stories about the years since we last saw him. I was much more interested in Elijah, who is shown now to be incredibly intelligent and a self proclaimed mastermind similar to super-villains in the comics he idolises. Amongst these performances we also have Sarah Paulson, a psychiatrist who, for an unclear reason, only has three days to convince the trio of their delusions. For a good portion of the film I wasn’t really sure what Shyamalan was setting up for. 

Glass had a nice balance of action and character driven plot but it forfeited the horror element that Split did well. Shyamalan chose to fully embrace the comic book theme in this instalment. As you can expect, there were some unexpected plot points and for me, one of the themes was introduced far too late into the film giving it very little time to develop and pay off. 

Glass does a good job of connecting the previous two films, keeping a lot of the themes and ideas, with some of the soundtracks making their way into key moments. The Super Hero theme takes centre stage and sacrifices some of the subtlety I enjoyed from Shyamalan’s previous two films. With that being said I don’t feel this is necessarily a negative if this is the film to conclude the series. You’d expect the finale to be big and bold but I also get the feeling this is setting the stage for more films in this universe he has created. While I am a big fan of Superhero movies, it’s a very oversaturated industry right now. I think Shyamalan created a strong finish for a series that should now be put to bed. 


Glass hits UK cinemas January 18th 2019.

Until next time

Adam McKay is making bold choices that not a lot of filmmakers can get away with. Vice showcases another Christian Bale transformation but not without the substance. He settles into the role of VP Dick Cheney with unnerving ease.

Vice plays like a documentary with quick inserts of archive footage, also like a western with the dramatic opening titles but still manages to play like a horror with its gruesome imagery and all of this is why you just can't look away, you're too scared to miss Cheney's next move.

There's a brilliant quote just after the opening sequence:

"Beware the quiet man, for while others speak, he watches and while others act, he plans and when they finally rest... he strikes"
- anonymous.

This doesn't play into Cheney's persona in relation to the figure we know now, the mastermind behind the war, the manipulator, the crook but it does have a valid place in this film. It's an unnerving warning for our present as well as our future, these demonic-like presences lurking in our media and our politics, watching and waiting to strike at the most vulnerable times. It's how we end up with these dystopian circumstances and this is the fuel that fires the narrative of Vice, ending with a pissed off Dick Cheney blaming the audience:

"You chose me and I did what you asked"

It's incredibly chilling. The whole thing is a nightmare from start to finish with the mad cuts into Shakespearean dialect and the mid film credit roll. I invite the madness in a way that doesn't sit well in other films. Do I think every choice helped Vice get to its point of crescendo? No. But I invite it to try because it feels like living in this world, it feels like what the storytellers set out to do.

It's a brilliant piece of entertainment and informative to an extent but if you take nothing else from the film there were some brilliant performances from Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Steve Carrell and even Sam Rockwell, though his character did feel more like a parody than a real person. One thing that didn't sit right with me in Vice was the underlying theme that maybe Lynne Cheney, Dick's wife, was the real mastermind behind all the madness and it's unfair to pass all the blame to her. She may have her wrongs but so does he and everyone must be held accountable.

There's no resting up in this film, even with the quiet moments that attempt to humanise him. Every opportunity you may find yourself slipping in to rooting for him you get some imagery or a line that reminds you really where we are. This is dystopia but this is also our reality. Every day waking up on this planet is unnerving and every day someone who let things get out of control is making choices for us all.

Vice is coming to UK cinemas 25th January 2019. 

Until next time

Hugh Jackman is out chasing Oscars in all the wrong places. This film screams awards season and yet is nowhere to be seen on the lists so far this year and it's not because the movie is bad, in fact it has wonderful direction from Jason Reitman who is receiving success elsewhere with his insightful exploration of motherhood in his earlier 2018 release Tully. The Front Runner even has thoughtful performances from Hugh Jackman himself and Vera Farmiga who plays Lee Hart, Gary's wife. Mamoudou Athie arguably gives the best performance of all in AJ Parker, an admirer of Gary Hart but also a member of the media who is stuck between the conflict of his job and what is morally right. The film would've been better told through his perspective.

If you need a little run down on what The Front Runner is about it follows Gary Hart who was ahead in the race for presidency at the 1988 US election until his campaign came crashing down in its final three weeks after he was spotted sneaking around with a woman named Donna Rice. The affair is pretty ambiguous and never fully gets explored which leads me to question why this film needed to be made.

"The Media" is its own character in this movie. There's social commentary all over the place with subtle jabs at Trump, as most films are doing nowadays, and it has a recipe for success as its themes are topical and important but the characters are never explored deep enough for me to even care about what the outcome of the race is. I was unsure of who I was being positioned to like and it was due to the ensemble cast with Jackman at the heart. The affair was pretty ambiguously alluded to and never once did we see him really doing anything other than walking out of a house with her. There were one or two short scenes of the two of them together but we didn't get to see a relationship build or develop and therefore we, as an audience, cannot connect to what Gary Hart is going through, he just seems like another powerful man with nothing better to do with his time. The narrative is popular and has been done better in other films which leads me to question whether the newsroom characters in J. K. Simmons et al were meant to be our protagonists but I didn't feel sorry for them either, hiding in the bushes and jumping a man in the street with no real evidence of what they were accusing him of.

It misses its mark in multiple ways and if Reitman's angle on the film was to position us as the general public then the newsroom angle should've been pursued harder and if he wanted us to be outraged by the aggressiveness of the media then we needed to see Gary going through it and the knock on effect it had to his family. It felt like there was a real attempt to get the balance between the two but it just left us with a real neutral angle on the argument.

The film was shot beautifully and the quiet moments were nurtured with intricate direction but I wish there was a harder angle on a topic that would outrage us as much as it was intended to.

The Front Runner hits UK cinemas 11th January 2019.

Until next time

Happy New Year, everyone!

It's been pretty quiet around here for a while but that's because I took some time to prepare something super exciting for you all. Over the last couple of months I have been working towards publishing the first ever Cinematic Faves e-magazine which is available for FREE now via our online shop!

The magazine is 15 pages discussing the first 6 months as a website, what's to come in 2019 and reflecting on some of my favourite movies of 2018 and it's all free! I wanted this to be a thank you for all the support and recognition Cinematic Faves has had in its short time of being alive.

You'll notice when trying to download the magazine you have to put in a price point. Type in 0 to get it for free or if you feel like paying any amount at all (even as small as 10p!) every penny will go to MediCinema, a charity that builds cinemas in hospitals so that patients can still catch the latest releases! If you'd like some more info on the charity then please click HERE.

Thank you for every time you've read a post or engaged with my content, it means a lot to share my love of cinema with people who feel the same way. Every opportunity and experience Cinematic Faves has had has been a dream so a big thank you to the companies who support us.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and enjoyed your New Year. I am so ready to get started with 2019 and excited for all the things that are coming!

Until next time

Tides is Tupaq Felber's feature length directorial debut and what a brilliant way to introduce yourself. This movie was at BFI's London Film Festival in 2017 but has recently found itself available on the On Demand websites.

Tides follows four friends down the canals of South England as they go on their "holibobs" all the while dodging the conversation of what has bought them together. Felber said the boat was picked up "Friday at 1pm and [they] dropped it off the following Monday at 9am" over these days they accrued 17.5 hours of footage. The film is said to be "loosely scripted" which lends to its incredibly naturalistic style. There's nothing extraordinary or showy about Tides and yet it works perfectly for the story it is trying to serve.

I loved this film for the silences. The moments where a character has finished interacting with the others and was alone. Jon has a moment like this, as does Red and it reminds me so fully of being present in one place and yet being entirely detached and in your own thoughts. It had a feel of French New Wave with the decision to shoot in black and white and the fast tempo conversations and naturalism. It explores the exhaustion of real life and relationships between people in an honest and sincere way.

What strikes me as the most original part of this film is the encouraging sign it gives for the future of independent British cinema. I always see in our mainstream that we spend a lot of time exploring period or war-time stories and yet these types of films are what American independent cinema is doing so successfully and what we should be striving to keep up with. It's a brilliant positive light for the future of independent directors here in the UK.

The humour and conversations are incredibly British with skirting around the subject of money and not wanting to start fights whilst wanting the other person to know exactly how you're feeling. They were things we can all recognise in ourselves and whilst each character reflected different themes we have all done something each of them have done. Even the earnest moments were sincere with the almost inarticulate babbling coming from a drunk Red about a documentary she watched about a couple that was married 50 years. Her point was sweet and meaningful but it wasn't a grand moment inside the narrative that was unearned, it fit in perfectly with the pace of the piece.

Tides was a brilliant watch. It was an excellent exploration of friendship and a thoughtful reflection on what makes us all human. Nothing about this was stylised or glamourised, it didn't need to be. Every moment felt justified and every conversation was recognisable. A piece everyone involved with the making of should be proud to have accomplished. 

Tides is available to watch online at the BFI Player & CHILI.

(don't hold me to this but I also think there's a code on CHILI called FREECHILI that gets you one free film)

Until next time