Ready Or Not

Rated: MA15+Ready Or Not

Directed by: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

Written by: Guy Busick & R. Christopher Murphy

Produced by: Tripp Vinson, James Vanderbilt, William Sherak and Bradley J. Fischer

Executive Producers: Chad Villella, Tara Farney, Tracey Nyberg and Daniel Bekerman

Starring: Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien, with Henry Czerny and Andie MacDowell.

The family known as Le Domas has been playing Le Bail’s Gambit since Great Grandfather Le Domas made a pact with Le Bail himself.

Marrying Alex (Mark O’Brien) and into the ‘dominion’ that is the Le Domas family (that fittingly made their fortune out of board games), the pact demands that initiate Grace (Samara Weaving) (and any new addition to the family) must play a game at midnight on the night of her wedding.

She loves Alex despite his weirdo, super-rich family.

So playing along with strange traditions to get along?  Pft!  Sure, why not?!

But when she draws that, ‘Hide and Seek’, card; and that playful, ‘Hide and Seek’ record starts spinning, the weirdo family hunting the new bride through the gothic rooms and corridors of the house, to capture her as a sacrifice, takes issues with the in-laws to a whole new level with each armed and at the, well, ready:

Mother to Alex and kinda sweet, Becky (Andie MacDowell): Bow & Arrow

Rich and crazy dad, Tony (Henry Czerny): Winchester Rifle

Tormented and alcoholic brother, Daniel (Adam Brody): Rifle

Ops, I did it again, sister-in-law, Emilie (Melanie Scrofano): Pistol

How does this work again? Fitch (Kristian Bruun): Crossbow

I was born evil, Charity – there’s the irony (Elyse Levesque): Spear Gun

The adage that people look like their pets but here I look like my weapon, Aunt Helene (Nicky Guadagni): Battle Axe.

If you’ve read this blog before you’ll know I like a good bloody horror with a dry sense of humour.

I can say there’s certainly some bloody moments here, tending to the visceral.

And the humour, although slightly over-done, had me smirking with a few snorts (not unlike Grace herself who isn’t against a snorting laugh when called for): brother in-law, Fitch Googling, ‘getting to know your crossbow’ before his attempt to murder his new sister in-law.  And then there’s death-stare Aunt Helene giving the salutation to niece, Emilie (Melanie Scrofano), ‘You continue to exist’.

Perhaps not a laugh-out-loud tickle (more WTF is going on but I guess I’ll just have to roll with it), there’s a lot of fun here, played with wide-eyed and cool appreciation from Samara Weaving as the fighting-for-her-life and screaming-when-necessary, Grace.

And there’s a decent storyline that edges towards some twists but really more about the beautiful and self-deprecating, Grace.  You want her to get out alive, which is the kinda the point of the movie.

Pavarotti

Rated: MPavarotti

Directed by: Ron Howard

Produced by: Ron Howard

Written by: Marc Monroe

Featuring: Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, José Carreras, Bono.

Before even the first images appear, the cinema is filled with the chittering and warbling of birdsong, and I can only suppose that some kind parallel with Pavarotti’s voice is being drawn. In fact, when the vision comes up, I find myself swooping over the Amazon jungle looking down at the serpentine loops of the river.

As Pavarotti’s story unfolds, director and producer, Ron Howard, not only ushers us behind the scenes, but invites us onstage and even takes us on the road with the maestro. While Luciano Pavarotti may have been born with, ‘One of the most clearest and passionate voices, heaven on earth,’ it took a very earthly degree of physical exertion to fill an entire concert hall with a single voice. Without a microphone. Without an amplifier. And certainly, without speakers.

Despite a long induction emulating his father’s singing, Pavarotti initially qualified as an elementary school teacher. The decision to take on the long training to become a tenor was an enormous leap of faith, ‘You don’t become well-known in a day. You don’t know your destiny’.

According to his wife Adua Veroni, Pavarotti was not a person who ever planned things and that was certainly the case for his international debut. He took the stage as a stand-in playing opposite Joan Sutherland, but was more than a lucky break. Pavarotti was in awe and he believed that Sutherland’s breathing technique allowed him to become a serious professional. During a rehearsal, Sutherland invited him to feel the muscles in her diaphragm. Much to Pavarotti’s amazement, they were responding, even before Sutherland had sung a single note.

For the operatic tenor, the high C is the epitome, but it is not a natural range in the way a bass or baritone is and to achieve the fluency that makes it seem effortless requires more than talent. So, when Pavarotti performed nine high Cs, he created opera history. Likening it to horse jumping, when the Maestro of the High C was asked whether he knew he would be able to reach the note, he replied with a contrary smile: ‘No. That is the beauty of my profession’.

According to Placido Domingo, the art of the opera singer is to share the emotion of each particular word: ‘If you pronounce it well you get the rhythm immediately.’  For Pavarotti, it was a matter of technique: ‘You measure your breath’. The public will not know what you are doing, but they will feel it. But, for all of the art and the artifice, Pavarotti’s wife felt that he was so suited to his operatic repertoire because he was a ‘bumpkin’ at heart.

Then again, his eight-year-old daughter described her father as a thief, because he went to work each night with a suitcase full of fake moustaches and beards. For Pavarotti, ‘the opera is something fake that little by little becomes true’.

On camera Pavarotti seemed so confident and cavalier, but behind the scenes, before every performance, Pavarotti would lament, ‘I go to die.’ According to José Carreras, ‘The voice is a demanding mistress, anything will affect it’.

In his later years, Pavarotti performed with many contemporary musicians. While the focus is on his unlikely friendship with Princess Diana and Bono, he also performed with Elton John and Lou Reed among many others.

Little by little, Howard builds a lifelike portrait of an extraordinary life, but his documentary, overflowing with texture and detail, still cannot cram it all in.

Violence Voyager

Rated: Unclassified (18+)Violence Voyager

Written and Directed by: Ujicha

Produced by: Yoshimoto Kogyo, Reo Anzai / Kimitsugu Ueno

Executive Producer: Hidesuke Kataoka

Music by: Jean-Paul Takahashi

Theme Song “Violence Voyager” by Boby (Aoi Yuki)

English Voice Director: Strathford Hamilton

Production: Hiroshi Fujiwara

Key Cast: Aoi Yûki, Naoki Tanaka, Saki Fujita, Shigeo Takahashi.

‘That one extra bit of summer fun was going to take Bobby through hell.’

Violence Voyager had its Australian Premiere at the recent MIFF – I thought it would be a good idea to review something different for upcoming Halloween.  And yes, Violence Voyager is certainly something a bit different.

Set-up like a childhood adventure story, Bobby (the foreign American kid) tells his sick mother he’s going out to find flowers for her empty valse sitting on the windowsill.  But really, he’s going to the mountain with his best buddy, his blood brother (sporting stitched cuts on their hands to prove it) Akkun – who also, strangely has what looks like scars on his forehead.

Added to the childlike voice-overs and the adventure aspect that includes Bobby’s cat, Derrick who tags along, the whole film is painted cardboard cut-outs with static facial expressions, the movement made by hand like kids playing with a shadowbox filled with toys.

But when the trio, Bobby, Akkun and Derrick-the-cat find a run-down Fun Park, the film becomes a nightmarish hell where kids never escape: they either become modified with all their nerve endings on the outside and their eyes pulled out of their sockets and placed on horizontal sides of their now square face, or they get dissolved to become food for half-robot hybrid human monsters under the command of park-owner but really scientist, Dr Binobo and daughter and navigator, Siori.

There’s a deceiving simplistic feel about this film, the voice-over slow and deliberate, the timing of the dialogue giving the most affect.

But there’s plenty of splattered blood and vomit and naked kids hung like hocks – the theme horrific and the images of those cardboard cut-outs bizarre.

Definitely not one for the kids to watch this Halloween.  I wouldn’t classify Violence Voyager as ‘Family’.

Yet, for all its horror, the film was palatable because I was always delighted to see another clever technique giving texture to this bizarre tale like blue vapour rising around the cardboard Dr. Binobo making him look evil, a rising shadow over the cardboard Bobby to depict a pending doom and the kids armed with a super-soaker and dolphin water pistol squirting real water onto those monster robots giving the scene another dimension like those pop-up books I read in primary school.

And that juxtaposition lent another layer to the bizarreness of this simply, horrifically clever film.

With a bat, monkey and cat on your team, you can’t lose – well you can still become a deformed robot, humanoid monster, but in the world of Violence Voyager, that’s a win.

Blinded By The Light

Rated: PGBlinded By The Light

Directed by: Gurinder Chadha O. B. E, Paul Mayeda Berges

Written by: Gurinder Chadha O.B.E, Paul Mayeda Berges,

Based on the book, ‘Greetings from Bury Park (2007)’ written by: Sarfraz Manzoor

Produced by: Gurinder Chadha O.B.E, Jane Barclay, Jamal Daniel

Executive Producer: Paul Mayeda Berges

Starring: Viveik Kalra, Kulvinder Ghir, Meera Ganatra, Hayley Atwell, Aaron Phagura, Nell Williams, David Hayman, Dean Charles Chapman, Tara Divina, Rob Brydon MBE and Jeff Mirza.

‘Tell the world something it needs to hear.’  That’s what Javed’s (Viveik Kalra) English teacher (Hayley Atwell) tells him.

And Javed has plenty to say being a Pakistani growing up in Luten in the 80s.

He writes poems in his diary.  He just doesn’t think anyone’s ever going to understand him.  Until Roops (Aaron Phagura) lends him two cassette tapes of The Boss himself: Bruce Springsteen.

I walked into, Blinded By The Light thinking there was going to be more comedy; and there’s some funny moments with the 80s style used well like the revelation of a hideous t-shirt described part Princess Diana and part Tina Turner…

But this is 80s England, with Thatcher in the midst of her third term, millions out of jobs and racism rampant.

It’s hard enough being a teenager without seeing some racist bastard pissing through the mail slot of the front door or spitting in your face.

The film’s also about family; the authoritative father, the trying to break away from all the expectations of parents and living in a home that has very different rules and expectations than the other kids in school.

I got reflective.  And a little teary, I admit.

I was never exposed to The Boss growing up and never chose to seek out his music.  Now, I seem to be coming across him a lot (see, Thunder Road).

The more I come across this guy, the more I realise the effect he’s had on people’s lives.

I grew up in the country.  I know what it feels like to be trapped, to feel so weak you want ‘to burn down the town’

And like this expression, Blinded By The Light uses the music and especially the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen to give voice to Javed.

It’s like the music is speaking, just to him.  Saying, singing everything he’s feeling so Javed sings the words to the girl he has a crush on (Nell Williams), to the people in his way as he runs with his mate and fellow fan, Roops from the school after they’ve set Springsteen playing over the school sound system, because yes, this is a musical, but it’s a hybrid of a musical because instead of using Springsteen just as a soundtrack, Javed sings Springsteen’s lyrics like a dialogue to say how he’s feeling instead of just, saying how he’s feeling.

So I guess, yeah it’s a musical.

It sounds like it would look stupid (the storm scene and discovery of Dancing in the Dark more like theatre than film), yet Viveik Kalra as Javed is such a sweetie, he gets away with it.  And I appreciated the text on screen to show the lyrics to make sure the message was understood by the audience.  I admit I didn’t realise Springsteen was so deep:

Blow away the dreams that tear you apart Blow away the dreams that break your heart

Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted

The dogs on Main Street howl

‘Cause they understand

If I could take one moment into my hands Mister I ain’t a boy, no I’m a man

And I believe in a promised land.

I feel like there are a lot of these musical hybrid films around lately and I wasn’t completely convinced about The Boss obsession would make such a difference to a person’s life.  That’s my cynicism speaking.  Because the film is based on the true story and novel, ‘Greetings from Bury Park’ written by Sarfraz Manzoor.

Springsteen has read the book.  After meeting Manzoor he said he loved the book and was happy for the film to be made.  Seriously, what a legend.

Judy

Rated: MJudy

Directed by: Rupert Goold

Written by: Tom Edge

Produced by: David Livingstone

Starring: Renée Zellweger, Finn Wittrock, Jessie Buckley, Rufus Sewell.

I’ve often wondered how those lucky souls who have an inborn gift, the ones who are so effortlessly feted and adored, so often come undone. So badly.

For Judy Garland (Renée Zellweger) there was a price for ‘earning a million dollars before you’re twenty one’, and the dark side of her gift slowly becomes apparent as she vainly searches for a way to leave London and return home to her children.

Shown in a combination of flashbacks and flash-forwards, the movie alternates between a fifteen-year-old Garland filming, The Wizard of Oz and the final months of her life spent performing in London at the height of the swinging 60s, with surprisingly close parallels between the two very distant eras of her life and her role in the famous film.

When the Judy opens, Garland is strolling through the set of ‘the yellow brick road’ with a faceless studio executive. She’s not sure that she is ready to take on the role of Dorothy Gale and the man in the grey suit, while appearing to have her best interests at heart, is slyly grooming her, as he both soothes and at the same time subtly threatens: ‘Judy, you give those people dreams . . . ‘The rest of America is waiting to swallow you up’.

Winning the role away from Shirley Temple, Garland finds that her contract has reduced her to nothing more than studio property, at times working up to eighteen hours a day and watched over by a pair of the studio’s henchwomen. Beneath the pair’s unforgiving gaze, even sneaking a single fried onion ring, or maybe two, as she sits in a café attempting to flirt with Mickey Rooney is taken as a serious breach of the rules. Lonely, sleep deprived and starving, the price of Garland’s success is to wage a war on her body that denies the most basic of human needs. And to ensure that her needs stay denied, the Wicked Witch of the West and her eagle-eyed sister are prepared to do whatever it takes: whisking away hunger with amphetamines and granting sleep with barbiturates.

In any contest, the man in the grey suit was always going to win.

Flash forward thirty years and Garland is alone in the bathroom of her hotel suite, unable to finish dressing and barely able to raise a croak from her damaged vocal chords. She is a broken woman. It takes a fairly brutal shove from her production assistant Rosalyn Wylder (Jessie Buckley) to get her onto the stage. But when the lights come up and the beat counts in, Judy sings. And the audience is entranced. Until the lights are dimmed, when once again she is a broken woman surviving on pills and unable to sleep.

While Garland might have been one of the first to succumb to America’s amphetamine epidemic, that’s not the focus of this drama.

Woven through the story of Garland’s titanic struggle with her gift is a very personal search to find love and her pursuit of it eventually does bring a sense of what love is for her. In the title role, Renée Zellweger is unflinching and her portrayal of Judy Garland deeply affecting, while Finn Wittrock is irresistible as Garland’s dashing lover and husband number five.

The Eulogy

Rated: MThe Eulogy

Directed and Edited by: Janine Hosking

Produced by: Janine Hosking, Katey Grusovin, Trish Lake

Music Performed by: Geoffrey Tozer

Featuring: The Honourable Paul Keating, Richard Gill AO

I don’t know about you, but for me a film titled, The Eulogy does not sound like easy viewing. In this instance, though, the story behind the eulogy is so improbable that it has been described as sounding like, ‘A Story someone might have made up in a pub’.

The documentary opens as ex-prime minister Paul Keating delivers a fiery eulogy hailing classical pianist Geoffrey Tozer the musical prodigy Australia shunned. Keating is incensed and his eulogy is both an ode to the soaring beauty of Tozer’s music and an excoriating rebuke to a mediocre and mean-spirited arts establishment who shut him out. Keating lashes out at them as, ‘A cottage industry in nastiness’.

If Tozer was the extraordinary talent described by his peer, internationally lauded concert pianist Arthur Rubinstein, ‘Possibly the finest pianist of the twentieth century’, why has his memory been virtually expunged from the national consciousness? Music educator and conductor Richard Gill AO has set himself a mission to find out. Was Tozer a prodigy? And if he was, Gill asks:

‘What. Went. Wrong?’

The first hint that Tozer might be the virtuoso that Keating claims is a cutaway to a concert pianist in the opening scenes: fingers dance so lightly across the keys, releasing a rapturous cascade of music. Gill’s students listening in, describe the subtlety of the touch, every note in the performance ‘en pointe’, but none recognise the musician.

Gill’s search for the life story of this neglected artist begins in a trim and freshly painted backyard shed, a miniature museum as part of Tozer’s estate, filled with letters, journals, drawings and photographs. While, at the same time as he sifts through the artefacts, Gill also ponders the nature of genius. Speaking to his students, he notes: ‘Originally prodigy was linked to omens and the foretelling of monstrous events, but now it has come to mean a special gift.’

Certainly, Tozer’s genius was not difficult to identify in his early years. At the age of thirteen, he became the youngest ever recipient ever of the Winston Churchill Fellowship and he made his debut on the international stage at the age of fifteen, playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 15 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Although, by the time he was thirty two, Tozer was eking out an existence by teaching part-time at St Edmunds College in Canberra.

It was there that Paul Keating met and befriended him. Keating was at the St Edmunds Christmas recital to watch his son, but Tozer’s performance stole his breath away. Their meeting, the beginning of an enduring friendship, would eventually see a, ‘Prime Minister so passionately avenge the death of a musician’.

Not only does, The Eulogy offer a unique glimpse into the genesis of prodigy, Richard Gill’s quest contains all the ingredients of a decent mystery story, with Tozer’s playing a sublime counterpoint and his, Medtner Concerto Number One an epiphany for the senses.

Gemini Man

Rated: MGemini Man

Directed by: Ang Lee

Screenplay by: David Benioff, Billy Ray and Darren Lemke

Story by: Darren Lemke and David Benioff

Produced by: Jerry Bruckheimer, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger

Executive Produced by: Chad Oman, Mike Stenson, Guo Guangchang, Brian Bell, Don Murphy

Starring: Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen and Benedict Wong.

Viewed in 3D+ (120 FPS)

After 72 kills, Henry Brogen (Will Smith) feels like his soul hurts.

It’s time to retire from the DIA and find something else he’s good at.  Something where he feels like he can look in the mirror again.

But when he finds there are complications to his last assignment, Clay Verris (Clive Owens), head of the shadow group who turn soldiers into killers, AKA Gemini, isn’t going to make retirement an option: soldiers who grow old and discover they have a conscience are no longer viable. Clay stating: ‘Mutts like Henry were born to be collateral damage.’

Clay had planned ahead, cloning the best in the business so when Henry outlasts his use, there will be someone to take his place: Junior.

With Agent Danny Zakarweski (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) by his side, Henry fights for his life against the only adversary good enough to stand a chance at beating him – his younger self.

From Belgium to Colombia to Hungry, director Ang Lee has set up some amazing shots featuring motor bike acrobatics, intense fight scenes and explosions, all good action while leaving the violence implied (hence the M rating rather than the MA15+).

But the real point of difference is the tech.  Not only is Junior a computer-generated creation (by Weta Digital), the whole film is shot in 3D at 120 frames per second (instead of the usual 60).

That extra resolution isn’t a gimic either.  I have never watched anything so clear, so pristine.

I was glad the bloody was kept to a minimum as it would have been too much.

Instead, Ang Lee uses the tech to show shots underwater, looking up, and spits of sparks off helmets as bullets ricotte, as kerosene tins blow and to see those fight scenes between Henry and his clone so you feel like you’re right there with them.

What surprised me was how that clarity left no room for discord or error in the acting.  There is absolutely no where to hide so any false expression or off-key moment would have shouted through the screen.

Instead we get Mary Elizabeth Winstead as the very likeable side-kick, Agent Danny; and Clive Owens as the fierce villain, Verris.

And Will is at his finest here, his sincerity coming through clear, his skill as a killer shot coming through like his role as Deadshot in Suicide Squad.

The more I see this guy, the more I like him.

It has to be said some of the humour felt like filler for the dialogue.  Just a bit – more, I’m-happy-go-lucky in a tight spot and that’s funny, rather than, jokey jokes.  If you get what I mean.  Which probably fit the tone of the film which gets borderline soft cheese with that added bit of drama.

But I enjoyed the film.  And really got into the  visual difference on screen.

Ang even goes so far as to include a scene that shows a set used as a military exercise, shooting and explosions, to show the difference between fake and his actual movie that looked more genuine and authentic.  Tricky stuff!

The whole film is filled with tricky that successfully leads to an entertaining movie.

Hustlers

Rated: MA15+Hustlers

Written and Directed by: Lorene Scarfaria

Inspired by the Article Published in New York Magazine, “The Hustlers at Scores”, Written by, Jessica Pressler

Produced by: Jennifer Lopez, Benny Medina, Will Ferrell, Adam McKay

Executive Producers: Robert Simonds, Adam Fogelson, Megan Ellison, Alex Brown, Pamela Thur

Starring: Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Stiles, Keke Palmer, Lili Reinhart, Mercedes Ruehl, Cardi B, Lizzo, Mette Towley, Madeline Brewer and Trace Lysette.

Destiny (Costance Wu) – definitely a stripper name – is the new girl.

She’s followed the green brick road, all the way to the city.

She’s got some moves, but nothing like Ramona (Jennifer Lopez) who has Wall Street guys throwing fists full of cash on to the stage as she performs moves like the carousel, fireman, front hook, ankle-hook, and stag (It has to be noted Jennifer Lopez had to train for six months to be able to pull-off the pole dancing moves in this film which says something about the athleticism required to be a good stripper…).

Destiny could learn a thing or two from Ramona.

And literally taking Destiny under the cover of her fur jacket, together they make a bodacious, money-making partnership – until the dreaded financial crash on September 29, 2008.

When all the money disappears, the girls have gotta get creative.  Cut a few corners.

They gotta hustle those Wall Street guys, clean out their bank accounts by any means possible; and then, keep them coming back.

It’s a fun ride watching these guys get fleeced.  But also a little sickening, demonstrated by youngest member of the crew, Annabelle and her puking whenever things get real, or even just a little stressful.

It’s a world of hustle or be hustled.  A world based on the true story written by Jessica Pressler, in her article, “The Hustlers at Scores”.

We see the reality of stripping, the behind the curtain in the dressing room moments where being sexy for a living doesn’t necessarily mean there’s always sex – one stripper admitting she hasn’t had sex for two years, while another introduces the girls to her new boyfriend, a pink vibrator.

And sure it’s about the money, about the shopping, but also about Destiny not wanting to rely on anyone and wanting to look after her Grandmother.  And Ramona wanting to look after her daughter, to give her everything – she even admits that motherhood is a mental illness that will make you do anything for your child.

It’s all anyone wants.

And in America, where those who hustle get rewarded, where banks who rip off the little people get let off because they’re too big to fall – stripping, stealing, hustling sure beats making minimum wage.

Director and writer Lorene Scarfaria doesn’t let the whole stripper thing get in the way of a good drama or try too hard with the sexy stuff.  It’s more about the tongue-in-cheek humour and friendship between Destiny and Ramona and following a path to get what you want not realising how dark that path is.  It’s survival.  It’s all dark.

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark

Rated: MScary Stories To Tell In The Dark

Directed by: André Øvredal

Written by: Dan Hageman & Kevin Hageman

Screen story by: Guillermo Del Toro and Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan

Based on the series by: Alvin Schwartz

Produced by: Guillermo Del Toro, p.g.a., Sean Daniel, p.g.a., Jason F. Brown, p.g.a., J. Miles Dale, p.g.a., Elizabeth Grave, p.g.a.

Executive Producers: Peter Luo, Joshua Long, Roberto Grande

Starring: Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Abrams, Dean Norris, Gil Bellows, and Lorraine Toussaint.

“Sarah Bellows, tell us a story.”

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark pieces together the fabled fiction of Alvin Schwartz (who wrote the series), where screen story writer Guillermo Del Toro (along with Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan) hang the film on the idea that: “Stories can hurt, and stories can heal”.

Set in 1968 where, ‘If it’s in the newspaper it has to be right,’ but really there’s a lot wrong, like the Vietnam War and the fact Stella’s (Zoe Colletti) mum has left her with her dad (Dean Norris); Stella’s only friends in the world, Chuck (Austin Abrams) and Auggie (Gabriel Rush).

But having buddies makes life easier to live until they decide to show new-kid-in-town Ramón (Michael Garza) the Mill Valley haunted house. On Halloween.

The story of the haunted house being the young daughter, Sarah Bellows was a child killer.  That she killed the children of Mill Valley who listened to her scary stories on the other side of the wall of her locked room.

Her family hid Sarah away because they said there was something very wrong with Sarah.

So when Stella finds Sarah’s book of scary stories in the haunted house, she thinks it’s a good idea to take it home to read.  She’s a writer too.

Then new stories start appearing in the book.  New scary stories like, ‘Who took my toe?’.  It’s worse than it sounds.  Particularly when the stories start coming true.

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark feels like one of those coming-of-age movies but really, it’s a scare-fest with body parts that come to life and bugs crawling out of empty eye-sockets.

The monsters are impressive with director, André Øvredal not holding back on the nightmarish imagery, while adding subtle details like the skin chewed around Stella’s fingernail.

I was absorbed and surprised as monsters came to life in cornfields and glaring red-lit corridors… But then the film became a crusade.

The story still holds and hey, it had to go somewhere; but I just couldn’t put myself into the shoes of Stella because there didn’t seem to be any fight or build to the strength of her character.  How did this kid suddenly get to be so strong?

Ad Astra

Rated: MAd Astra

Directed by: James Gray

Written by: James Gray & Ethan Gross

Produced by: Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, p.g.a., Jeremy Kleiner, p.g.a., James Gray, p.g.a., Anthony Katagas, p.g.a., Rodrigo Teixeira, p.g.a., Arnon Milchan

Starring: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler, and Donald Sutherland.

‘I will not be vulnerable,’ says Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) in a monologue that threads the story of the film together; it’s a voice that measures the thought processing behind those blue eyes with green specks.  A thought-process hidden, because the person Roy shows to others is a performance, ‘my eye always on the exit.’

Set in the near future, Ad Astra is a mystery set in space, the story based in commercialised space travel to the moon, to rockets that blast toward the human inhabitants of Mars, to go further, for Roy to reach Neptune in search of his father who began the Lima Project thirty years before; his father’s purpose: to find evidence of extra-terrestrial life.

Instead of science fiction and the practicalities of space travel or even the exploration of physics to understand human existence, Ad Astra, at its heart, is a drama.

There was plenty of opportunity to get technical, but the film skips over the science behind the impending disaster from outer space so the story jumps while the movement in space is slow and calculated.

So although there’s a disturbing beauty to the tense moments of guns fired from space rovers and visually stunning scenes of a reflection of darkness across the orange visor of a helmet that looks like a faceless being, I felt like the story was missing the factual backbone to hold up the idea of the mysterious father figure who has dedicated his life to science and space exploration.

Ad Astra is not a journey into space but for Roy to find his way back to humanity.

The story circles around to give some satisfaction, to be able to, Let go.

And there’s so much going for the film with the build of tension with the low vibrating soundtrack of a siren; with those crime thriller moments set in space with the slow danger of being in an environment with toxic air, without gravity – in a place no other living Being has ever been found.

But for me, those amazing moments of suspense combined with the beauty of space on the big screen would have been so much more astounding if the story dug just a bit deeper into the physics of the environment – that would have made the film more believable while adding that extra layer to the drama of the story.

Still, an interesting change in pace that adds a mysterious twist to the thriller genre.

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