jtindahouse

Earlier in 2024 'Sing Sing' was looking like a real contender for Best Picture at the Oscars. It has since fallen away and in the end didn't even receive a nomination. And I can kind of see why. The film has very little going for it.

I usually love prison films and I fully expected to love this one, but it didn't do it for me at all. The whole movie requires you to a have a love for theatre and be fascinated by the process of producing one. I couldn't think of a more boring film subject if I tried.

Also all the drama in the movie feels very forced. It all stems because they let one toxic man into the production. Nothing feels natural about it. Oh what's his face is in a bad mood today, there's the next 20 minutes of our film taken care of.

I expected so much more from this film. I really thought this was going to be a banger. A disappointing 5/10.

It's been a while since I've watched a contained and grounded thriller like 'The Wasp'. They're generally my favourite kind of movie. This one got off to a very sloppy start and I was worried about what I was about to watch. It found its way through the middle though and actually became reasonably interesting. With a film like this, it is always going to be about whether it can stick the ending. So did it? Ahh sort of, not really.

The film is very dialogue heavy. There was a point where I realised that the scene through the middle of the movie had been going on for a very long time. Then a realised this wasn't a scene, this was the movie. So I settled in and enjoyed that. The two lead actresses are given plenty of opportunity to show off their chops and shine.

When you're writing a script like this you can basically put the puzzle pieces together to make anything and everything work. So I just thought the route the film ultimately decided to go down was a bit lazy and could have been more creative. It's a decent watch for the most part though. 6/10.

The first film Jesse Eisenberg wrote and directed back in 2022 'When You Finish Saving the World' was one of the rare 2/10 ratings I've ever given. I did not like it at all. That's okay though because every film should be a learning experience and you learn a lot more from a bad round of golf than you do from a good one. And clearly he learned a lot because 'A Real Pain' is a total 180.

There are two main characters in this movie and I think everyone is going to see a lot of themselves in at least one of them. They are very well crafted characters in that they encompass a whole lot of personality traits all in one, without every feeling like caricatures or like fake or exaggerated people.

I felt like the film was perfectly set up and then it never delivered the final blow. It was charming and heart-felt and had a lot of interesting ideas. But I wanted it to take a sledgehammer to me at the end and it never did. I still really enjoyed it, but it missed an opportunity to be something truly great. 7/10.

Note: The film gets an extra point for its recognition of how great airports are. They're like playgrounds for adults and yet 99% of people seem to be annoyed when they're at them. Hopefully this film brings some awareness to the situation.