Recently Watched Films

A meta-musical about making a musical. Starts slow, but ends massive. This is the movie that saved both Warner Brothers and big screen musicals, and established the career of Busby Berkeley, the greatest choreographer of his time.

Weird. Loved the slice of life in Mexico side of it, but the sci-fi element seemed a bit gratuitous and metaphoric at the same time.

I quite enjoyed it. Not top tier Disney, and I'm a sucker for wintery films. So this in turn led me to:

Which isn't as good as the first, but still quite good. 

And now I'm currently watching:

Which is a film for years I'd been convinced I'd seen, but begun to doubt myself and it turns out I haven't. I think I must have just seen the trailer so many times as a kid that in later life I thought I saw it. 

Other films watched recently:

This is an oddball. It somehow manages to be boring yet intriguing at the same time, as paradoxical as that sounds. Ultimately I don't think it took the idea far enough, certainly not as far as the title would suggest. And I keep wondering why there's a wookie in this. 

A twist on Hansel and Gretel. Not too bad.  

Not amazingly good, but not near as bad as it's made out to be. This whole movie looks great, and it's a strong story. The biggest fault lies with Jaden Smith. He hasn't got the presence to carry a movie like this when so much of it is him on his own. He just seems out of his depth. Perhaps with a couple more years acting experience this would have been a stronger finished product.

Jason himself is a bit limp, but the animations here are amazing for their time! I remember the skeletons, but had forgotten the other amazing mythical creatures. Anyway, good Greek legend fun to be had by all!

No one does comedy quite like the French... I saw this many years ago when I was living in Korea. It was still in French, with Korean subtitles, which meant monolingual me (well I DO know a little French, but this was beyond me!) could only guess at what was going on. Just watched it with subtitles. I'd got the gist, but missed a lot of the subtleties. And with it being French, I've probably missed a lot more in translation. Jean Reno is excellent, playing things deadpan straight, while chaos reigns around him.

ehh...not worth watching again:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11245972/

Louis Malle disc 9: Au Revoir Les Enfants. Occupied France, WWII. A Catholic school hides a Jewish boy among their number. It ends about as you'd expect it to. 

Louis Malle disc 10: May Fools. The final film in the boxset is a lesser known Malle, and it turns out to be a hidden gem. Set during the May 1968 strikes in France, this is part social commentary, part pure farce, and a whole lot of fun.