Because Everybody Else Has One

Another biggie this week - and it's not even the only film really worth seeing this week. I may cover it at some point - there's a bunch of great films that came out this year that I haven't reviewed and I really should do a roundup of all of them towards the end of the year and things slow down - but do check out Searching if you get the chance. It's really good. Anyway, this review, like all of those that I've been doing of late, is up on Channel 24 too. What it’s about Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon and this is the story of how he got there. From dealing with the death of his young daughter in 1961 through returning as a hero after completing the first successful, manned mission to the moon in July 1969, we see Armstrong struggling to come to terms with his loss even as each step that brings him closer to the moon is littered with obstacles, both practical and emotional. What we thought Quite unlike Hidden Figures and less ev...

Along with the Grand Budapest Hotel, this was my personal favourite of this year's very solid Oscar lineup. I'm still kind of astounded by this fact. Whiplash is, in no uncertain terms, a brilliant piece of work. It is also, however, a seriously odd duck. It's a music film with a nasty heart; a tense, edge of your seat thriller where most of the action happens behind a drumset and, most unbelievably, an emotionally riveting and thoroughly enjoyable piece of storytelling that is lacking in anything even remotely resembling a single likeable lead character. It's also a film that approaches music not as art but as a grueling, almost martial sport; as something that isn't a mode of expression but as something that's all about mathematical precision and superhuman technical abilities. Most audaciously, it presents a nine-minute long jazz-drum solo as the height of dramatic tension. It's a film of contradictions, paradoxes even, that refuses to adhere to fo...