Brad Pitt & Jonah Hill lead the dramatisation of Michael Lewis’s book of the same title, centering around the building of a baseball team via statistical modelling rather than more traditional talent scout approaches. I found myself willing myself on
Gran Torino
Clint Eastwood playing a hard-as-nails veteran/former assembly line worker living in suburban Detroit, as well as directing the film (prior to his penchant for speaking to furniture developed). Richly acted and though predictable also wins you over in the same
The Departed
So, the goal of watching “a shit film” doesn’t alway pan out, and in this case seeing a cast list with the names “Nicholson / DiCaprio / Damon” in it meant no further searching was needed. Unfortunately for me, I
Faster
We weren’t really paying attention in this – it’s got The Rock, but he’s playing a sort-of-bad-guy (as you’re constantly reminded by the prosthetic scars) on a revenge mission: it makes a tilt at moral ambiguity but you never really
This Is Where I Leave You
Surprisingly emotional/dramatic piece for a cast of this pedigree (Bateman, Fey, Fonda, Driver, Byrne) with not quite enough comedy to push it out of being a drama. Enjoyable enough but pretty middle-of-the-road.
Walking Tall
No, we’re NOT obsessed with The Rock. We can stop watching his films any time we want… no, YOU’RE crying. etc. So, this one’s BASED ON A TRUE STORY (credible), where an ex-marine goes back to his hometown but doesn’t
Good Will Hunting
Throwback to the late-90s with this one, which when asked I realised I’d never actually seen! It’s funny how your enjoyment of a film becomes harder in an objective sense when so many cultural tropes are derived from it… and
Official Secrets
Dramatisation of the whistleblowing & prosecution of GCHQ translator Katharine Gun who leaked a US communique to GCHQ instructing them to falsify a case for going to war in Iraq in 2003. Decent performances albeit seemingly heavyhanded dramatisation in places,
Misbehaviour
The Miss World pageant in 1970 was a groundbreaking focal point for womens’ rights & equality, conflating a simultaneous uprising of the Womens’ Liberation movement with the pageant’s recognition of non-white contestants, all against a depressingly sexist cultural backdrop which
Snitch
The combination of Dwayne Johnson, the phrase “based on a true story”, and an IMDB rating of 6.4 probably best convey what this tale of a construction company owner going undercover to free his wrongfully imprisoned son is going to