My Review of Queer (2024)

Written by Justin Kuritzkes 

Directed by Luca Guadagnino 

William (to Eugene): "I want to talk to you without speaking."

It's been a long month for me to finally get to see this movie and thanks to digital release, now I have seen it. I've seen certain clips spread out over social media and I've read the divisive reactions to the movie itself. Now that I've seen it, here's my opinion on the matter. I liked it.

Yes, I said I liked it because while it certainly cemented my interest in Luca Guadagnino as a filmmaker and there's an incredible performance from a certain lead actor, it doesn't quite hit the same heights as either Call Me By Your Name or Challengers. Saying that, there's plenty to mull over.

Our lead in question being an fictionalised version of William S. Burroughs. In this movie he's called William Lee (Daniel Craig) and he's rather restless while being an expat in Mexico City. Not even the few friends he has like Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzmann) can keep him amused and neither can hustlers like Chimu Bar Guy (Omar Apollo).

Someone that did have William's interest though was the rather aloof and not queer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). William spent most of the movie being obsessed with Eugene while the latter blew hot and cold (but mostly cold) with William. For a straight guy, Eugene seemed to be drawn to William in his own way too.

Around the halfway point of the movie, there's an odd arrangement that William made with Eugene in order to get the latter to travel with him to South America. It's also arrangement that William tried to break, even though Eugene went along with him on his journey for telepathy.

The scenes in South America certainly allowed the movie to get a lot more trippy as well. There was the rather kooky Dr Cotter (Lesley Manville) who helped William and Eugene lose their inhibitions but was adamant about protecting her own research. Aside from a woman named Mary (Andra Ursula), Cotter was the only woman in the movie to do anything of note.

The best scenes in the movie were of course the sex scenes between William and Eugene but the actual best scene was that dancing one in the woods with the two of them high as kites. It's a beautifully shot moment and easily the most intimate thing the two actually share with one another. 

As for the ending itself, it's not necessarily a letdown but I wouldn't say it's the best ending either. Thematically it did kind of work in the sense that it did highlight William's own long and loneliness throughout.

- Other noteworthy roles included Henrique Saga as Winston Moore and Drew Douge as John Dume. David Lowery also appeared as Jim Cochan.

- One of William's fantasy sequences in regards to Eugene was something that happened with his common law wife. She's briefly mentioned in the movie. 

- Based on the incomplete novel of the same name by William S. Burroughs himself.

- Justin Kuritzkes who wrote the script also worked with Luca Guadagnino on Challengers.

- Standout music: Trent Razor and Atticus Ross's score but also Sinead O'Connor's version of All Apologies, Nirvana's Come As You Are and New Order's Leave Me Alone.

- Chronology: 1950s Mexico City and South America, specifically Quito in Ecuador. There's a time jump to William as a dying old man.

Queer was certainly worth the wait and while it doesn't completely hit the same heights as two of Guadagnino's other most prolific of works, it's certainly an accomplishment nonetheless. Daniel Craig gave one of his best performance while his role was more passive, I think Drew Starkey held his own pretty well.

Rating: 8 out of 10 

My Review of Harley Quinn: "The Big Apricot"

 

Written by Jamiesen Borak

Directed by Diana Huh

Harley (to Ivy): "We're going to the Big Apricot."

Well, it's been over a year since the events of the fourth season. In that time we had Kite-Man: Hell Yeah! and that was a show that nobody really watched. So, let's catch up.

Between seasons, it seems that the Batfamily have disbanded, Joker got impeached as Mayor and the Gotham City Sirens took on Enchantress and split as a group. Oh and Harley and Ivy got into a very dull rut with each other.

It looked like the rut could only be solved by taking the pair to Metropolis in order to shake up their relationship. This involved gatecrashing a party that was a museum to Superman and making friends with Lena Luthor. She's Bruce Wayne's new girlfriend and nothing like her now jailed brother.

Yes, despite Harley and Ivy causing disruption to Lena's party, it seemed like she was impressed with the pair. Even blood of Eclipso on her dress didn't deter her from tempting both Harley and Ivy to remain in Metropolis. Yup, they're sticking around and can Lena be trusted? I'm going to assume no.

As for Superman, he was in a bigger rut too. With Lex in prison and those automatons keeping the crime down, he felt redundant. At least he managed to get a nice conversation with Harley. That gave him some perspective on what to do next.

Oh and while Harley and Ivy are settling into Metropolis, there was Brainiac in the sky. Well, if the show was going to relocate to Metropolis this season, might as well have Brainiac as the big bad for the season too. I hope the show doesn't waste him.

- Riddler and Clock King have become one of those obnoxious type of couples. 

- Enchantress's necklace contained Eclipso, which Catwoman stole and Lena acquired.

- Lois got neck work done, we briefly saw Jimmy Olsen and Krypto and did this show skip past Nightwing wanting revenge on Harley?

- Chronology: Over a year since the events of the previous season.

The Big Apricot got this season off to a good start. The move to Metropolis does have potential but I'm kind of disappointed that they shelved the Gotham City Sirens story so quickly. I do hope they deliver with Brainiac, villain wise.

Rating: 7 out of 10

My Review of Iron Man 3 (2013)

 

Written by Shane Black And Drew Pearce

Directed by Shane Black 

Tony: "I'm Tony Stark. I build neat stuff, got a great girl, occasionally save the world. So why can't I sleep?"

With this movie, two things happened. Not only did we get our first installment in the second phase for the MCU but a superhero got to complete his trilogy first. This was also the second film in the MCU to also get over a billion at the box office.

Now, was this the best of the Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) movies? I don't know. I think they've all been on the same level. For me, they're good movies but compared to other heroes, they're not as easy to rank them individually. 

Anyways this third movie had a terrorist by the name of the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) popping up on camera, making threats, carrying them out and for a good portion of the movie he had everyone convinced that Tony Stark was dead. Even for 2013, the character was written in a fairly stereotypical way.

Then the twist was that the Mandarin was actually a hammer actor named Trevor Slattery. I will give Ben Kingsley his dues because he did alternate between the Mandarin and Slattery quite well without it feeling too off. Fortunately a later movie in 2021 would do some lifting in making the Mandarin a lot better.

As for the actual Mandarin, it's really an ex-boyfriend of Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Yup, Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) was the one pulling the strings and he did have some help from the likes of Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall), Ellen Brandt (Stéphanie Szostak) and Eric Savin (James Badge Dale). The latter especially being responsible for putting Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) in the hospital for most of the movie.

As a group of villains, they worked. Saying that, Maya was more on the conflicted side of things and ended up being killed for that. There was also Iron Patriot (Don Cheadle) having his suit taken out of control, some President (William Sadler) kidnapping, Pepper suiting up herself and a much needed comeuppance for the baddies while Tony got a protege with Harley Keener (Ty Simpkins) and dealt with his own existential crisis throughout the movie.

- Tony narrates the events of the movie, only for the post credit scene to reveal it being a therapy session of sorts with Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). The latter didn't retain anything Tony told him.

- Horror fans can briefly spot Jenna Ortega as the daughter of the Vice President (Miguel Ferrer) in the movie. JARVIS (Paul Bettany) also got some nice scenes here. Yinsen (Shaun Toub) also appeared.

- Cameos ahoy from the likes of Joan Rivers, Bill Maher and George Kotsiopoulos as well as Stan Lee as a beauty pageant judge.

- Despite playing huge roles in the previous movies, there's no Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) or S.H.I.E.L.D. here.

- This movie largely pulled from the Extremis storyline.

- Chronology: Despite being released for the start of the summer, the movie itself took place during Christmas 2013.

Iron Man 3 did make a good third movie. Yes, there's some horrible stereotypes with the Mandarin story but other than that, the action's good, Tony does get some growth as a character and I quite like the Christmas setting.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of Iron Man 2 (2010)

 

Written by Justin Theroux

Directed by Jon Favreau 

Tony: "My bond is with the people, and I will serve this great nation at the pleasure of myself. If there's one thing I've proven it's that you can count on me to pleasure myself."

Those early MCU days really were a wild time. To think the first three movies focus on two Iron Man movies and a solo Hulk adventure with the slow build up towards The Avengers. Ah, yes, I'm reviewing the first sequel in the MCU, which also happened to be it's third entry.

Once again, there was the return of Toby Stark aka Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) and he was largely showboating his newfound responsibilities to the consternation of both girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and best friend, Rhodey (Don Cheadle). In fact both were just about done with Tony until they weren't.

For Pepper, she was basically running Stark Industries to the point that Tony made her CEO and with that came a lot of outside scrutiny that she also had to deal. There's a few times in the movie where it did look like she was going to throw in the towel with Tony when she wasn't saving his backside.

Similarly Rhodes has taken enough and when the latter was acting too hedonistic, Rhodes literally became War Machine to try and knock some sense into him. That didn't work. Neither did Rhodes allying with rival Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell).

Let's talk about Justin Hammer. He wanted to beat Tony at his own game and even stole some of Tony's technology to nearly accomplish that. More importantly was his alliance with the real villain of the piece - Ivan Vanko/Whiplash (Mickey Rourke). 

Villain wise, both Hammer and Whiplash have their moments and did make for decent foils against Iron Man and War Machine. Oh and this was the very movie to debut Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). She's part of S.H.I.E.L.D. working with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and while she would be better served in future MCU movies, it's a reasonably good debut for the character.

- The credit scene of the movie had Agent Colson (Clark Gregg) locating Thor's hammer.

- Jump scare moment with Elon Musk's cameo and that exchange between him and Tony was cringe in its writing and delivery.

- Stan Lee got mistook for Larry King in this one and Christine Everhart (Leslie Bibb) and JARVIS (Paul Bettany) also appear/are heard.

- Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) had some great scenes with Black Widow throughout the movie.

- Standout music: AC/DC's Guns For Hire.

- Chronology: A year since the events of the first movie.

Though not quite as good as the first movie, I do think Iron Man 2 at least wasn't a really divisive sequel and for it's introduction of Black Widow, it does merit points. Saying that, Tony did push his reckless streak almost too far here.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of Iron Man (2008)

 

Written by Mark Fergus And Hawk Ostby And Art Marcum And Matt Holloway

Directed by Jon Favreau 

Tony (to the press): "I am Iron Man."

I've been doing this whole catching up with MCU movies that I didn't review first time around a bit backwards. I do apologise for that but anyways, on my Review pile was the first ever MCU movie and it's been an eternity since I've watched this one.

To think that instead of Spider-Man or the X-Men, the first entry into the biggest cinematic universe was Iron Man aka Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr). Imagine if this movie hadn't been a hit. How different things could've been for the MCU.

Fortunately, not only was the film a hit, but it's a bloody good first entry into this cinematic universe. Tony Stark might not be the more agreeable of people but he's perfected the lovable bastard trope quite a bit here. He's annoyingly charming and also annoying in near equal measures.

It's not hard to see why the people around him, including his personal assistant/love interest Virginia "Pepper" Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and best friend James "Rhodry" Rhodes (Terrence Howard) are both impressed and frustrated by him at times. It really would be a recurring feeling with Tony as a character.

This film delved into Tony's weapons dealing and for the most part, it did try to be rather critical of it. We had s enes with Tony being captured by terrorists, befriending/working with fellow captive Ho Yinsen (Shaun Toub) and of course, his origins as Iron Man and that electromagnet that Tony really needed.

Then there's the baddie of the piece. Villain wise, I guess the rather envious Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) did make for a good baddie with his own suit and determination to take Tony out by any means required. The fight scenes between the two actually hold up really good.

As for Tony outing himself as Iron Man. I absolutely loved that. It did seem like he was trying to counter ex-girlfriend, Christine Everhart (Leslie Bibb) but at the same time, he also knew he couldn't deny it either. Of course, outing himself as Iron Man did have consequences.

- The post credit scene did feature Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) reaching out to Tony Stark about the Avengers.

- Agent Colson (Clark Gregg) made his MCU debut here too, with his scenes being with Pepper Potts.

- Director Jon Favreau had a smaller role as Tony's chauffeur, Happy Hogan and we got Paul Bettany as Tony's AI JARVIS.

- At one point in the movie, Tony actually mistook Stan Lee for Hugh Heffner. 

- In one of the original, Mandarin was supposed to be the baddie but it was changed to Obadiah Stane.

- Chronology: The film was primarily set in 2008 in both the US and Afghanistan. 

Iron Man isn't my favourite MCU movie but it's a bloody good one and a bloody start to the MCU. Everything you love (and maybe don't) can be traced back to this movie .

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of The Adventures Of Ichabod And Mr. Toad (1949)

 

Written by Erdman Penner And Winston Hibler And Joe Rinaldi And Ted Sears And Homer Brightman And Harry Reeves

Directed by Ben Sharpsteen And Jack Kinney And Clyde Geronimi And James Algar

Narrator: "Don't try to figure out a plan. You can't reason with a headless man."

Delving into much earlier Disney era with a movie that up until yesterday, I had never actually seen before. Yes, there are some classic Disney films even I need to watch for the first time. This one was interesting enough.

I'm not sure why but for some reason, this movie decided to take two very different stories and decided to splice them together in a way. One half covers a children's classic and the other half, something more appropriate for Halloween. As you do.

Tackling the first half of the movie, you've got The Wind In The Willows. Yup, J. Thaddeus Toad, Esq (Eric Blore) has his head turned with many a thing and his determination to drive a car became a source of contention for his friends, Angus MacBadger (Campbell Grant) and Water Rat (Claus Alister).

Of course, Toad stole a car to drive, having grown tired of his horse, Cyril Proudbottom (J. Pat O'Malley) and ended up in court where he then ended up in the Tower of London instead. However, even that wasn't enough to keep Toad down as he managed to get away by the end of this story. It's an okay adaptation of that story.

Much better handled for me was the adaptation of The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow. Yes, we've got Ichabod Crane (actor) coming to the titular town and immediately becoming a target for the bully Brom Bones (actor). There's also a love triangle involving farmer's daughter, Katrina (actor) that did seem to go in Ichabod's favour.

As for the Headless Horseman (Billy Fletcher) segment. The story was told in a nice creepy fashion with Brom using it to scare the bejesus out of Crane. The latter then actually encountering the Horseman was rather satisfying. However by the end of it, it seemed that both Brom and Crane won in different ways, given the outcome of this one.

- We got narrations in this movie with Basil Rathbone for The Wind In The Willows and Bing Crosby for The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow.

- Both of these were intended to be separated movies before they were eventually merged.

- Standout music: The Merrily Song, Auld Lang Syne, Ichabod Crane, Katrina and The Headless Horseman.

- Chronology: 1905 London during Christmas Eve for the first part and 1790, Sleepy Hollow, New York during Halloween for the second part.

While a bit of mixed bag, I did find The Adventures Of Ichabod And Mr. Toad to be mostly enjoyable. I did like the second part more than the first one.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of Conclave (2024)

 

Written by Peter Straughan

Directed by Edward Berger 

Benitez: "The church is not the past. It is what we do next."

I'm doing my best to get to nearly all of the potential Oscar nominated movies before the event itself and on that list included this political thriller. Yes, let's look into the Vatican, shall we?

Notably, let's look into the election of the next Pope through a papal conclave following the death of the pope at the start of the movie. You've got the College of Cardinals, under the leadership of British Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes). They've gathered to elect his successor. A task that would make up this film with different candidates to succeed the late Pope.

The first candidate being Lawrence himself who spent a great portion of the movie denying that he even wanted to the job, due to his faith wavering. Lawrence was more or less the main protagonist of the movie itself and he's predominantly a good man wanting to do the right thing throughout.

The other candidates included a similarly morally upstanding Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci). He's somewhat more progressive than the other candidates, being very pro women and LGBT community but also came across as more pragmatic compared to Lawrence. He had no problem in also confronting the latter's wavering stance towards his faith.

Then there was Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), whose candidacy came into potential following the reveal of a past indiscretion with a nun, thanks to the more tactical and moderate Joseph Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow). Tremblay certainly wasn't above playing dirty, even though the late Pope had demanded his resignation prior to his death. That also left the more traditionalist Goffredo Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) as another would be successor.

Among the vying to be the next Pope and the somewhat expected outcome (if you've read the book), there were two other characters who got to shine in this movie. Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini) worked well as a bit of a foil to Lawrence while Vincent Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz) own backstory was nicely explored and gave some great context following the newly elected Pope.

- The candidates represented different places - Bellini with Italy, Adeyemi with Nigeria, Tremblay with Canada and Benitez with Mexico/Afghanistan. Lawrence was British.

- The movie is based on the 2005 book of the same name by Robert Harris. 

- Standout music: Capella Musicale Pontificia Sistina, Massimo Palombella's version of Allegri: Miserere.

- Chronology: The movie was set over the course of three days, resulting in the newly elected pope.

Conclave certainly managed to be an intriguing and nicely nuanced look into the next Pope. The performances from everyone are particularly great but I have to give a special mention to Carlos Diehz in particular.

Rating: 8 out of 10 

My Review of Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015)

 

Written And Directed by Joss Whedon 

Ultron: "How do you hope to stop me?"

Tony: "Like the old man said, Together."

After hitting the heights of The Avengers and before the chaos that would be those Justice League reshoots, Joss Whedon was kind of on his A-Game as a writer/director. He was in the big leagues as both and then this sequel came along and sort of became the beginning of the end for him, kind of.

Financially you wouldn't think so because this was another monster hit for both the MCU and for Whedon himself and while it's arguably the "weakest" of the Avengers in terms of movie, there's still plenty to recommend with it. Notably for it's villain choice, character introductions and the set up for other things.

Let's talk villains first. Ultron (James Spader), the dangerous AI that effectively had JARVIS (Paul Bettany) replaced with FRIDAY (Kerry Condon), though not intentionally. He wanted to pacify the Earth by eradicating humanity and thanks to both Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) not keeping a better check on him, he nearly did.

Ultron's design doesn't look too dissimilar from a Terminator to be perfectly honest but he's a great foil for the Avengers, both as a physical and an intellectual menace. He got the best of them multiple times and had it not been for the creation of Vision (Paul Bettany) he might have actually bested the lot of them.

Then there was the twins. Yup, Pietro Maximoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his sister, Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) certainly were a threat for the team, until halfway through they switched alliances. I think it was the promise of becoming Avengers. It was also the fact that they were two traumatised people who lost their parents in horrific circumstances at a young age and have been exploited by the bad guys ever since.

Of course joining the team didn't initially mean they were trusted but they certainly did their bit to stop Ultron's overall scheme, even if one of them died. Yeah, it's a shame we lost Pietro before really getting to know him but on the other hand, it did make sense to keep Wanda around and the MCU has largely benefitted from that creative decision. 

As for the rest of the team, Captain America (Chris Evans) remained the wholesome guy who got teased for his stance on swearing, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) took delight in the fact that no one could wield his hammer and there was Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). He was genuinely surprised that there was a bubbling romance between Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hulk. Am I the only one who didn't mind that potential pairing? It's a shame that it ultimately went nowhere after this movie.

- The other villain of the piece being Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis), who was obsessed with finding Vibranium.

- Other characters to appear in this movie included Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard), Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), Helen Cho (Claudia Kim) and Heimdell (Idris Elba).

- Stan Lee cameo as a military veteran during a party scene with the Avengers.

- The credit scenes included Thanos (Josh Brolin) determined to do it himself while War-Machine (Don Cheadle) joined the Avengers with Wanda and Vision.

- We were introduced to Clint's wife, Laura (Linda Cardellini) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) also factored in the movie.

- Chronology: Not long after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Took place in Sokovia, Seoul, Johannesburg to name a few places.

Avengers: Age Of Ultron might be the Avengers movie that some fans like the least but it's still a good movie. I actually enjoyed a lot of this, especially with the villain choice and the various character moments.

Rating: 8 out of 10