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Showing posts from September, 2019

Review - Hustlers

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Hustlers  is the true(ish) to life story of a bunch of strippers who drug some dudes and then rob them. We could leave it there but that would be a disservice to the film, hence why I'm reviewing it. As many have pointed out, this is essentially a gender flipped version of Goodfellas, except about exotic dancers instead of mobsters. They're both true life stories that feel so much bigger than their loglines imply, that nominally have lead characters but work best as ensembles and are also just really damn fun. The plot here is about a new dancer called Destiny, played by Constance Wu, who is brought under the wing of an experienced dancer called Ramona, played by Jennifer Lopez. She teaches her the way to milk these men of money and the two support each other, until the 2008 financial crisis. They find each other again afterwards and now under desperate times, they start to drug and rob the very Wall Street dickheads who brought about this whole disaster and it's to the

Top 7 - Best Musical Scores in Film

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It's a filler week again, sorry everyone. Hustlers and The Goldfinch came out in the US this past weekend but tickets are cheapest on a Tuesday (that being today) so I'm afraid you'll have to wait another week for one or both of those (haven't decided yet). Instead, we're going to do a list that I thought I had already done but actually haven't. Back in the day (I think three, maybe four years ago?), I did a bunch of lists about the best soundtracks and uses of music in films and TV and the like but looking back, I realised I never did one for film scores. To clarify for anyone who doesn't know the difference, a soundtrack for a film is when pre-existing music is used in the film (think Guardians of the Galaxy or most of Tarantino's films) whereas a score is when a composer is brought on to write music specifically for use in the film. As usual, this whole list is just my opinion so don't get mad about iconic scores being left out. Musicals have bee

Opinion Piece - Hyperdrive, and Why I Love Netflix's Trash TV

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I talk a lot about how I love trash on this blog. Mainly, that's restricted to films, specifically Fast and Furious , super specifically Hobbs and Shaw but sometimes, my love of trash spreads to TV. Not often, because the nature of that medium usually means you have to spend a lot of time getting invested in badness, compared to the hour and a half your average bad Nic Cage film demands. Still, it happens from time to time and recently, it happened with a new Netflix show called Hyperdrive . For those who don't know (which I assume is most people), it's a show from the producers of Fast and Furious where a bunch of racers and drifters have to drive around a car assault course, full of targets to hit, things to miss and all sorts of ridiculous stuff. I love it and it follows in a similar vein to another trashy Netflix competition show called Ultimate Beastmaster, which I also love. They both have debts than run deeper than that but they're two recent examples of my p

An Attempt to Defend - Swiped

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I'm attempting a new format! Usually here on the blog, I only talk about bad films to review them and thoroughly drag them through the mud. But I want to really challenge myself. Anyone can write about a bad film being bad but can I write about the good aspects of critically reviled movies? We're going to find out, starting with one of the worst reviewed films of the year, Swiped . If you want a review that properly dives into how bad it is, I highly recommend this article by my friend Tabby  https://shotswedeserve.wordpress.com/2019/07/03/review-swiped/ , she watches Netflix trash so you don't have to. Anyway, her post is a sincere look at how the film is terrible but from here on out, I am going to attempt a deeply ironic and sarcastic look at the great aspects of this film. God help us all. I don't know if you guys noticed this but people use their phones a lot, right? Like, hey teens, you wanna stop looking at that screen and engage the real world? It's som