Movie Review: Spencer

Posted on November 6, 2021 by jjcwn • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Kristen Stewart • Leave a comment

The problem with the screenwriter and director of the movie “Spencer”, which is about the depressing private life of the late Princess Diana is that when you show her stark, depressing, dark, lonely, boring life – the actual movie is also going to be just as depressing dark and lonely. Who wants to sit for 2 hours watching a dark, lonely depressing and mostly boring life unfold?

This movie is not about the months and weeks before Diana’s untimely death in 1997 while being chased by paparazzi’s in Paris France, or her relationship with Dodi Fayad, or even her bad marriage to Prince Charles. This is a story about a few months in Diana’s life where she was surrounded by old and mostly empty buildings, servants and constant loneliness and depression. Who would have ever thought that getting married to Prince Charles in 1981 and becoming one of the most famous women in the world, would ultimately become the worst thing that ever happened to this woman? The actress Kristen Stewart does not look that much like Diana, or sound that much like her, but she did master many of her subtle mannerisms and because of her acting she might just get an Academy Award nomination.

However, for me this movie was just too boring and depressing for me to recommend it, making it almost impossible to understand the high ratings of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes. I am even surprised the producers would think that this screenplay would be interesting enough to make a movie in the first place.

I disagree with the high critical reviews of this movie and do not recommend Spencer.

Movie Review: Last Night in Soho

Posted on October 30, 2021 by jjcwn • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Anna Taylor Joy, Last Night in Soho • Leave a comment

How things normally work in the movie business is – if you get a big hit, and make a great movie in the past, odds are high that you will get another shot – mainly due to name recognition and a hope that fans of your previous movie will return for your new one. In 2017, Edgar Wright both wrote and directed the vey good “Baby Driver” and most likely somewhere in his files or office floor was one of several scripts that were rejected in the past. The new movie “Last Night in Soho” seems like one of those scripts that would have no chance of ever getting made into a movie were it not for the success of Baby Driver.

The idea about a young woman going to fashion school in London and then having visions of another woman like her 50 years earlier was a stupid enough twist in the middle of this story, only to be surpassed by an even more ridiculous ending that tries to explain the previous 100 minutes of what amounts to a very bad and mostly boring idea.

The advertising for this new film has been rather frequent during TV breaks all over cable TV, trying to remind everyone that Edgar Wright who wrote and directed Baby Driver has a new film. Unfortunately most fans of Baby Driver will be very disappointed with this new movie that in my opinion had no business ever being made. A bad sign for me is at the mid point of any film I am sitting through, when I am thinking about what I will be doing after its all over, or thinking – “please God let this be over soon”.

This movie stars Anna Taylor Joy who received some major accolades for last years extremely good Netflix series “The Queens Gambit”. One has to wonder why she took this role, perhaps not even reading the script because she just wanted to work with Edgar Wright.

The Rotten Tomatoes opinions for Last Night in Soho are an average 73%, but they should be much lower, because this is a long 2 hour waste of time. For fans of Edgar Wright, see Baby Driver again and miss this badly made mess of a film.

Movie Review: The Last Duel

Posted on October 17, 2021 by jjcwn • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, The Last Duel • Leave a comment

The new movie “The Last Duel” marks the first time Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have written a screenplay together since “Good Will Hunting”, released in 1997 and won both of them the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 1998. I recently saw both Affleck and Damon on a talk show, talking about the arduous and long task of writing Good Will Hunting. According to Damon, the process took years of learning how to create a great screenplay, and over 1000 pages of trial and error. This is what it takes to create a great screenplay, which is why so few have been written. It took of all people, Harvey Weinstein to bring Good Will Hunting to the screen with his money and clout – unfortunately.

The story behind The Last Duel happened in the 1380’s in France. Amazingly this story is about a duel to the death over a woman, due to a he said – she said – over a alleged rape of a French Soldier’s wife and his best friend. This story is told in 3 parts, reminding me of a weak episode of a sitcom where 3 perspectives of a story are told almost as if the writers had trouble coming up with a teleplay that week. How and why Damon and Affleck found this obscure story from so long ago and then agreed to go through the hardships of writing and then filming a movie like this in the depressing dark French countryside for months, is the most unlikely part about this film. Then add highly respected director Ridley Scott who directed this movie that like so many films was halted in mid production during the Pandemic of 2020.

I am very surprised by the relatively high 86% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes for this film, despite the good acting including relative newcomer Jodie Comer, who plays Damon’s wife. There are too many areas of slow moving boredom that in some cases can offset the good parts of this film and I did not like the 3 part perspective idea, repeating too many areas of this story. For me, the essential problem is that the overall idea here is not big enough or compelling enough to make a movie about it. The final duel scene is impressive between Adam Driver and Matt Damon, and I was surprised at the relatively small role for Ben Affleck, who plays a King who constantly cheats on his wife.

I rank this movie as a marginal thumbs up, mainly for fans of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.