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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Before watching the latest Planet of the Apes instalment, I prepared myself by watching the previous 3 as I'm pretty certain I'd never seen War and given I got asked me if I wanted to continue playback, I'd only watched some of Dawn. Out of the 3, I still like Rise - I've watched it many times now. I think I prefer War over Dawn, if only because it had a slightly more interesting plot and it feels like a proper sequel.

I also liked Kingdom, although it wasn't at all what I expected. This is mostly down to the synopsis I saw for it, which better described a non-existant movie that occurred between War and Kingdom that talked about the apes leaving their new home and expanding outwards. That had already happened by the time Kingdom starts and a great many different ape settlements have sprung up in the 300 years between the two movies. I liked the idea that our protagonists' clan has formed a strong affinity with eagles, rearing and training them from birth to be their allies in the sky. I wonder if we'll see other clans with other animal bonds in the future films?

The main niggle I have with all the sequels so far, is they're all basically telling the same sort of story. It is all about the pursuit of power in some form or other. Which is very definitely a human trait, but is it an ape one? Are the stories they're writing really just about humanity in ape form? I don't know...hopefully the future films will focus on some other aspect?

More movie reviews

First up - Love Lies Bleeding. Similar in vein as Drive Away Dolls, this also features lesbians vs criminals, but it definitely not a comedy. Our hapless couple are Lou, who works at the local gym and Jackie who is a body builder passes through on her way to a competition in Vegas. And the criminal element is Lou's somewhat estranged father. Murder, drugs, gun fights.

Abigail is a comedy about a gang of kidnappers who find the daughter they've kidnapped is not the helpless little girl they think she is. As kinda spoilered by the trailer - she's a vampire. This is definitely a comedy though with lots of gore and galleons of fake blood spraying everywhere. Think along the lines of Lost Boys, but not so 80s camp.

And finally, The Fall Guy. Which was amazing and exactly what I had hoped it would be. It is very loosely based on the ancient TV show starring Lee Majors which was about a stunt guy who would help rescue the victim of the week from whatever trouble they were in. The movie falls into a similar theme, except our protagonist is the one who is in the middle of a fine old mess that he needs to extract himself from, all the while trying to hook back up with his ex. I would not be surprised if it was full of easter eggs that I missed, but I enjoy seeing Lee Majors making a cameo and the theme song from the TV show playing in the credits.

thoughts about the movie Challengers

I watched it the other day and despite having no interest in tennis, I actually quite enjoyed it. It's about 2 male tennis stars who were best friends, discovering they both have the hots for the same woman. Personality-wise, they are complete opposites. 1 of them is a "nice guy" and the other is a "bad boy". Since I can't remember their actual names, I'm going to refer to them as Nice or Bad. 13 years has passed since Nice and Bad met Zendaya's character and we find out how that time went through flashbacks and exposition. What passes for the main plot is that Nice and Bad have by pure chance found themselves at the same backwater tennis tournament and have ended up in the finals opposite each other. Bad is there because despite being a pro tennis player, he's not making a living from it and he really needs the prize money. Nice is there because he just got owned by some young up and coming player and needs a confidence boost before he tries one last time to win some big tennis thing. And as the match ebbs and flows between them, so does the stuff we find out about the past. Notably though, Z dated Bad and then ended up marrying and being Nice's coach. And despite how things appear in the promotional stuff, Z is definitely not the main protagonist - she is a McGuffin used to direct the plot back and forth between Nice and Bad.

I'm not sure if I'm over thinking it, but I'm wondering if the actual movie is meant to be a gay romance with tennis as the court it is played on. Z mentions early on that she thinks that real tennis is a lot like being in a relationship. And she also questions if these 2 best friends are or might be something more, even luring them onto the bed so she can trick them into snogging each other. Which they don't seem to be entirely unhappy about when they realise what has happened. Nice's sexuality isn't really discussed beyond that, but Bad is possibly bi as you see him using Tinder to find someone to hook up with so he has a place to crash during the tournament and there was at least one man in amongst the women he checks out. But that could have just been someone who filled in their profile wrongly.

My thoughts about the Civil War movie

The Civil War movie sees a pair of seasoned war-journalists travel across a war torn US to try and get an interview with the president before he is ousted. I found it quite harrowing, not because of the horrors of war, but because it is so feasible that I could hear about this on the news in the not so distant future. Or maybe even closer to home, although since we're a less gun focused country I'm sure it would go a lot differently.

There are some very nice cinematographic touches. There is a lot of footage that is made via a montage of photos, as if taken by the journalists. The end credits start off with a blank white background that slowly develops into a black and white photo from the final scene.

My thoughts on Back to Black

I saw the Amy Winehouse biopic today and enjoyed it a lot. I don't really remember much about her life whilst it happened as I don't follow the news - especially the kind of trashy tabloids that would have been dredging up every titbit of "news" - so aside from knowing she'd won quite a few awards and then met a tragic early end, seeing how things played out was very interesting. And I found it very moving, especially the way the movie ended. But my tears dried on their own.