Watched The Railway Children (1970) by an author from letterboxd.com
After the enforced absence of their father, the three Waterbury children move with their mother to Yorkshire, where they find themselves involved in several unexpected dramas along the railway by their new home.

A sad reminder that knowing the right people is the key to success…

★★★

My review

Watched Cujo (1983) by an author from letterboxd.com
A friendly St. Bernard named "Cujo" contracts rabies and conducts a reign of terror on a small American town.

I did not expect this to be as good as it was to be honest. I’ve not read the book, but having read some King, I imagine that the overall tone of domestic melodrama, sprinkled with extreme trauma, is pretty much bang on.

I know one thing for sure: viewers with a child are watching a different movie to those without a child.

Can’t forgive the Mum for breaking so many horror movie rules, though. Elementary errors all round!

Oh, and I forgot to mention the uncredited four-legged star(s)! They are fantastic and I felt so sorry for them in all that awful make-up!

★★★½

My review

In the future, if I am involved in interviews where the job requires knowledge of Microsoft Word, I’m going to ask candidates what the keyboard shortcut for a Page Break is.

Watched Nope (2022) by an author from letterboxd.com
Residents in a lonely gulch of inland California bear witness to an uncanny, chilling discovery.

You make a film like Get Out, people are always going to come into your films with a certain expectation.

You make an excellent homage to a classic b-movie and people give you the “iffy” wobbly-hand of doom….

★★★★

My review

It worries me that a good three years after the fact, a serving British Minister refused to agree that “the [Department of Health and Social Care] was overwhelmed by the [COVID] crisis.” He “says he would put it differently” before using textbook definitions of “overwhelmed” to describe the situation.

How can you hold people to account when they twist words like this?

Watched Jungle Cruise (2021) by an author from letterboxd.com
Dr. Lily Houghton enlists the aid of wisecracking skipper Frank Wolff to take her down the Amazon in his dilapidated boat. Together, they search for an ancient tree that holds the power to heal – a discovery that will change the future of medicine.

I watch a lot of “family” films with the children (8&11) and they are roundly poor. This, though, exceeded my expectations.

When we sat down to watch this, I had no idea that, like Pirates of the Carribean, it was “based” on a ride. And I honestly thought it was really clever how they made that link without labouring it. With that out of the way it just turns into a fun, fantasy adventure.

Surprisingly, it delivered a lot of laughs, but this is mostly down to the main cast who are all very good. Emily Blunt is a fantastic comic actress and she generated the most laughs for me. Dwayne manages to be earnest in the right places, despite the fantastical themes, and maintains a subtle edge of unlikeability. Jack Whitehall seems to be playing a version of his own Dad from “Travels with my Father” and that’s as excellent as you might expect. And it’s all neatly leavened with Jessie Plemmons, playing a ridiculous caricature of a German prince (or something) and some well conceptualised CG baddies, that make undead pirates seem a bit dull.

The gender politics aren’t hammered home and even my 11 y/o got some of the more subtle jokes on the topic.

On the downside, the music in places is terrible: anachronistic and off the pace. And the pace slackens in a few places so we can learn inconsequential details about characters. Once again, it’s just that tiny bit too long.

★★★★

My review