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Showing posts from February, 2020

Review - Sonic the Hedgehog

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After many months, memes and moaning fanboys, Sonic the Hedgehog  has finally sped onto screens, perhaps not as quickly as we might have hoped but here regardless. I'll preface with this, I don't entirely know why this film exists. The popularity of Sonic as a character peaked in the nineties and while the meme culture behind him remains strong (something SEGA themselves have admirably leaned into), I didn't think there was much appeal in a live action movie based around the character. Yet, judging by the box office, I was clearly wrong and here we are, living in Sonic's world. Predictably, the plot of the film is a smidge bonkers. Sonic is an alien from another planet, who comes to our world as a child because his world isn't safe. He grows up here until he reaches an undefined age and causes an electrical wipeout that alerts the US government to his presence. Aided by a local cop who's moving to San Francisco, he is on the run from Dr Robotnik, a crazy sci

Opinion Piece - Goodbye Bojack Horseman

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Please note: as you might expect, this post is going to include both spoilers for the entire show Bojack Horseman  and discussion of its representation of serious issues like substance abuse, suicide and predatory acts of a sexual nature. If you don't want to read about any of these, I recommend you click away, I've got sillier, less spoilery stuff all over this website. Almost three weeks ago, the final eight episodes of Bojack Horseman were released by Netflix, closing out a show that, in six spectacular seasons, cemented itself as one of the finest on television. Bojack Horseman  is the story of the titular character, a washed up sitcom actor who spends most of his days getting drunk and hanging out with Todd, the guy who sleeps on his couch. He's also having an autobiography written by a writer named Diane, who is dating another nineties sitcom actor called Mr Peanutbutter, all at the behest of his long struggling agent Princess Carolyn. Or at least, that's how

Top 7 - My Favourite Films of 2019

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With all the drama and high spectacle of The Oscars now behind us, I am finally prepared to release my top 7 list of my favourite films of 2019 and let me tell you, it has been a hell of a year for cinema, with a record number of films that I gave the highest rating possible. Even so, I haven't had a chance to see many films I think I might love ( Monos , Waves  and Honey Boy  to name just three) and I wish I could have rewatched some films that could have benefited from the rewatch (like The Lighthouse , The Farewell  and Midsommar ) but still, hell of a line up I've got here. If you are wondering where certain films are though, I do have a complete Letterboxd list here , with all 95 of the feature films I saw this year ranked from best to worst. The rules are slightly warped this year, as I've counted films that were released in the UK in the first half of 2019 but then also counted films released in the US in the second half. It may not make sense to most, but it makes s

Oscars 2020 - Final Predictions

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EDIT: this post has now been edited to reflect the correct and incorrect predictions I made, marking the incorrect in red and the correct in green, with a little tally at the bottom of how many I got in total. It's been a much shorter ordeal this year but here we are, the Academy Awards ceremony is being held this Sunday. This means, as has been done by me for years and by those who came before me for about ninety years, it's time to predict who will be taking home the trophies at the biggest night in Hollywood. For the first time ever, I have seen every film in every category I'm talking about, so I'll be able to properly run down everything here, evaluating the work on display and picking who I think will win and who I think should win, were I the one choosing these awards. It's a fascinating bunch and there's some very hard to call races, so let's waste no more time with this pre-amble that most people skipped over. Time to predict! Best Animated Fil