by John | Dec 18, 2017 | Movie Reviews and TV Reviews
FIRST LOOK: Molly’s Game Review (2017)
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| View the Molly’s Game film trailer from the FRESH Movie Trailers YouTube channel here.
Article by guest author Jonathan Wiggins.
 Prolific writer Aaron Sorkin has built his career on finding intensely creative ways to explore the fascinating and complicated stories of real-life contemporary figures. He’s done this with The Social Network, Charlie Wilson’s War, and Steve Jobs. But this year, Sorkin has taken on his first female heroine in Molly’s Game, which explores the life and times of the phenomenally savvy woman who went from competing as a skier for the US National Team to running an exclusive high stakes illegal poker den for a decade before being arrested in the middle of the night by the FBI. Sorkin’s overdue directorial debut is an electrifying adaptation of the titular Molly Bloom’s 2013 memoir of the same name, starring an equally exhilarating Jessica Chastain as Bloom and a compelling Idris Elba as her lawyer. The film has already won a handful of awards in the international circuit ahead of its mainstream premiere on Christmas Day, and is expected to fascinate and intrigue audiences for years to come.
A thrilling hand
The film revolves around the titular Molly Bloom, who suffers a career-stopping accident at a national skiing contest at the beginning of the film. The Hollywood Reporter explains that this life-derailing incident sends her down a drastically different path – which starts with law school ambitions and ultimately ends in pleading guilty to running a high-end illegal gambling ring.
Overloaded with lines and monologues of razor sharp wit (a testament, of course, to Sorkin’s love of the written word), Molly’s Game shows Bloom teaching herself about poker and the vices of rich men, first as an assistant to an arrogant real estate agent and gambling host Dean (Jeremy Strong), and later on by herself, after having cut Dean loose. She saunters through her exclusive gambling den full of the biggest names in Hollywood, riveting and unimpressed, before moving on to higher stakes and clients in New York.
Over there, the buy-in is at $250,000, and the games are twice a day, six days a week. On top of Hollywood A-Listers, her clients included rich Russians and mobsters from the criminal underworld, and as her fortune increased, so did the attentions of the authorities. An illegal gambling den as grand and as lucrative as hers couldn’t be kept a secret for long, Bloom business implodes and she is forced to face the legal consequences of her actions. The storytelling is fast-paced and tight, never failing to entertain, even at two hours long.
Poker onscreen
 As Sorkin’s first-time directorial effort, Molly’s Game is well executed, thrilling, and visually intense. Fluid camera movement, clever cuts, and excellent visualization worked to add nail-biting excitement to what many consider an un-filmable sport, arguably putting Molly’s Game a step ahead of the likes of Rounders (1998) and The Cincinnati Kid (1965), which have been listed by PartyPoker as some of the greatest gambling films of all time. In fact, IndieWire’s David Ehrlich has gone on to suggest that Molly’s Game is “the first great poker movie,” commending Sorkin’s direction, which he finds is much like his writing – crisp, fast, and just a tiny bit too blunt. Chastain’s cool, cynical voiceover makes the film great as a poker procedural. However, it is Bloom’s understanding of her clients, as well as the ebb and flow of the game itself, that makes the film luxuriously entertaining, regardless of whether or not you are a poker fan.
Chastain powers her way through rapid-fire dialogue and monologues, and is a force majeure in a world full of men. She bulldozes through the role with a confidence and energy that is intoxicating to watch. The real-life Molly Bloom told the BBC that she loved Chastain’s extraordinary performance, making the entire experience of watching the film a cathartic and emotional one for Bloom.
Filmmaking, like poker, is a game that all boils down to stakes. In Molly’s Game, Sorkin is finally cashing in his chips, and we’re all excited to see his next thrilling hand.
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by John | Nov 21, 2017 | Movie Reviews and TV Reviews, Updates, WriteMovies News
In this JUSTICE LEAGUE review, Jamie White gives his verdict on DC’s superhero team-up and why he’d be more optimistic about seeing more DCEU films in the future…
I love DC. Their characters are rich, the storylines can be tragic, entertaining and enjoyable. I hate the DC expanded universe (DCEU). It’s been dull, gloomy, just not very comic booky, and although JUSTICE LEAGUE was a step in the right direction, it still had major problems.
The big issue is the fact that this film had two directors – Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon. Both have directed comic book films before, but both have very different styles – in fact, they’re almost polar opposites. Snyder definitely appreciates the visuals of comics more, while Whedon is all about tone and style, and while you’d think that would be a great match it really, really isn’t. These two directors’ styles clash horribly throughout the film that you can pinpoint when one scene is Snyder’s and when one is Whedon, and this makes the film feel very disjointed.
The first half of the film especially. There is no focus, no thread from one scene to another. It’s all just stuff happening. Then something else happens. But there’s no connection. Or rather, it’s a building being held together with sticky tape – the connection is there, but it’s weak. The film does pick up from around the halfway mark when a certain super man comes into the fold – it feels like we finally have a proper protagonist with more character depth. The film gains direction when Superman becomes a factor in the story, which it didn’t have before.
Now, this doesn’t redeem the film entirely – it just becomes a fairly average film with a lack of tension and consequences. Still a step in the right direction, I guess. I didn’t hate the film, but I didn’t like it. A lot of the action was poorly edited, the jokes didn’t land, and the character chemistry was just not there yet (it only really existed with Clark (Henry Cavill) and Lois Lane (Amy Adams) who of course have shared the most screen time as these characters in the DCEU.)
What I will say though is this: I was not excited to see this film, BUT it has given me some of Superman’s (newfound) hope that the franchise will improve. Let’s see what you’ve got DC…
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by John | Nov 2, 2017 | Movie Reviews and TV Reviews, WriteMovies News, Writing Insights
Disney. Marvel. Superheroes. Every time I feel like I’m done with the genre, Marvel seems to release a film that draws me back in… well, a little bit. This year that film was not THOR: RAGNAROK, it was SPIDERMAN: HOMECOMING. But without Spidey’s refreshing re-introduction I wouldn’t have even thought about watching the third THOR installment.
Before the SPIDERMAN reboot, my interest in the MCU had fallen so low.
I have no strong feelings, one way or the other about these films. I didn’t care for CIVIL WAR, which I still haven’t watched, and to be honest, I don’t think I’ve missed anything from it. But there is no doubt that Marvel still produce some solid and entertaining films, even if they have no massive impact on my life.
THOR was a very nice mix of superhero, steampunk sci-fi, and comedy – a real good dose of comedy. I was impressed with how the film and director, Taika Waititi, balanced the odd blend of tone and genre. The comedy certainly had the New Zealand subtle, monotone style which Waititi employed brilliantly in one of his previous films, EAGLE VS SHARK. The comedy came naturally within the story and characters and hit all the right beats. Hell, this film might be the confirmation that Chris Hemsworth is more of a comic actor.
MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD… The story had a solid premise – with the death of Odin, Thor’s evil and power-hungry sister (Cate Blanchett, who is her usual brilliant self) was released from an other-worldly prison, and she was set on taking her throne back. The film takes Thor to unique and interesting places, but as with most superhero films, you don’t ever feel he’s in any danger.
THOR: RAGNAROK represents my biggest issue with the Marvel films, though. Yes, it’s solid, it’s funny, it has decent action, it keeps your attention but… it doesn’t do anything else. This is the type of movie you put on TV if there’s nothing else to watch – you don’t hate that you’re gonna watch it, but there’s better things out there. For me, that is every single Marvel film. There is no film in the entire roster, from IRON MAN to THOR: RAGNAROK where I would go “Oh man, I gotta watch this again!”
These Marvel films just don’t do anything spectacular – not really. They aim to grab and maintain the attention of most of its main demographic, and hey, they do that super well, but at some point, we (and by we, I mean me) need something a bit more different. There was some variety here, in HOMECOMING and even in ANT-MAN, but each of these felt like there were two hands on the wheel – the director and Marvel. As much as I could see Waititi’s style on THOR, or Edgar Wright’s on ANT-MAN, I could feel Marvel’s influence just as much.
THOR: RAGNAROK was a fine film, I enjoyed it, but that’s it. Each Marvel film is a solid 7 out of 10 now – they’ve got their formula and it works. But there’s no WOW factor. Sooner or later there needs to be some change, some variation in these films and the genre as a whole… otherwise, I might think about watching some DC films… OK maybe not, but you get my point!
What did you think of THOR: RAGNAROK? Was it another home run for Marvel, or just another superhero flick? Let us know on our Twitter and Facebook pages.
© WriteMovies 2017. Exclusive to WriteMovies – To syndicate this content for your own publication, contact ian (at) writemovies dot-com.
by John | Oct 11, 2017 | Industry News, Movie Reviews and TV Reviews, WriteMovies News
The latest STAR WARS trailer for episode VIII, THE LAST JEDI, has just dropped and it is a master at disguising its true intentions – just like Palpatine…
While the trailer gives away a lot of action that will be happening – round 2 between Kylo and Rey, Luke training Rey – these situations were highly expected even before the trailer released. What the trailer did expertly was to not just hide plot details, but to dress them up as something else and misdirect the audience.
Here’s just a few examples
Raw power…
Both Luke and Snoke mention the massive, raw power of an individual. Luke says “I’ve seen this strength only once before. It didn’t scare me enough then… it does now.” Snoke says something very similar at the start of the trailer. The way the trailer sets these lines up makes the audience immediately think that Kylo Ren is the common factor here. However, this is just jumping to conclusions. They could both be referencing Luke himself – what the trailer does brilliantly is to make us think one way so that our expectations are subverted when we see the actual film.- Family reunion?
There’s a little moment between Kylo and Leia in the trailer… only it doesn’t happen. There’s an intercutting of the shots to make it appear like a “shot-reverse shot” technique, giving the illusion the scene we see are connected. But, of course, they’re almost certainly not. Is it possible those scenes are connected? Possibly, but there’s ambiguity and a lack of certainty that we can’t be sure about. Just like…
- Finding a Rey of hope…
A line uttered to what the trailer makes us believe to be Kylo. This is amplified by Kylo offering a hand to Rey – or so we think. Again, the trailer has been edited to make us believe that Rey is speaking to Kylo and that it Kylo is offering his hand to Rey. How sure are you of both of those things? Rey could be speaking to Luke, Leia, or even Snoke. The hand could be Luke’s or Kylo’s. That hand may have no relation there at all.
What this trailer has done is offer so much to audiences and nothing at the same time. Fans can now theorize on what will happen based on the trailer and based on its misdirects. There are so many doors Episode VIII could go down.
Both Mark Hamill and director Rian Johnson initially urged fans to stay away from promotional material for the film, assumedly because it would give too much away. But having watched the trailer it’s really given us the best of both worlds. It gives us a feeling of what we can expect, it hypes up certain interactions and duels while giving away very little.
Just remember, “This is not going to go the way you think.”
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by WriteMovies | Oct 7, 2017 | Highlights, Ian Kennedy, Movie Reviews and TV Reviews, Writing Insights
Our Ian Kennedy on why it’s a fitting follow-up, why you should watch it in IMAX 3D, why it’s like the original in some unintended ways too, and why some audience reaction will suffer as a result…
I’ve got a long history with BLADE RUNNER. I saw it as a teenager in the 90s, again at University where I also attended lectures about it and wrote an essay about it, and I was also tasked with writing Example Development Notes for it during my time training up to join WriteMovies (which I’ll publish for you to read here – a good example of how our Development Notes look to take even the best scripts to the next level! Here’s another example about BLADE RUNNER from a more recent trainee). So you can imagine how excited I was to interview BLADE RUNNER 2049’s VFX Consultant Post Production, Habib Zargarpour, in the run-up to the sequel’s release. While we wait on official approval to publish that, I’ve now had the chance to catch the movie itself, and I wasn’t disappointed – though I think some people will be.
Habib recommended I catch the film in IMAX 3D, for reasons he explains in the interview. And boy was he right. That technology has been truly nailed now, and paired to a uniquely visualized movie like this, it really looked and felt like all the actors and scenes were happening right before my eyes. The 3D is subtle and natural, not artificial and showy, and became an important part of the experience. It’s hard to exaggerate what a naturally immersive experience the IMAX 3D made it. The visuals were stunning throughout – a great job from everyone involved, of which there were hundreds across the globe!
The original explores what it is to be human, and raises the unnerving prospect that replicants may actually be more human than us in some ways. BLADE RUNNER 2049 takes that further – almost the whole story is told from replicants’ points of view, and it takes their world to important new places and times, showing us why perhaps it’s their side we should have been on all along – something the original only hints at. The most interesting character in the new film, though, is actually Joi, the AI who acts as wife to Ryan Gosling’s low-key ‘Blade Runner’ cop – bewitchingly fascinating and uncanny throughout, and easy to fall in love with.
I noticed an interesting parallel to the original – just like for BLADE RUNNER, the trailers sold it as more of an action movie, where the movie actually gave us much more of a slow-burn mood movie (more subtle thoughtful than action-packed, like director Denis Villeneuve also gave us in ARRIVAL – read my Insights into that film here) – and that gap in expectations may result in exactly the kind of mixed audience reactions the original got at first! So far the critics’ reactions I’ve seen are good, and I think it’ll definitely find its place, but in the main, this is definitely NOT an action movie, and long passages focus much more on the vacant emotional life of Ryan Gosling’s inexpressive cop than on plot development – in fact the eerie sound design is often used to make up for the lack of plot development. Some audiences – probably ones who hadn’t seen the original – may even find the storytelling slow and unengaging, especially in the first half. In other hands this story would have made a much sharper two-hour movie, not the 2hrs43mins we’ve been given here, but for me it’s great to see genuinely thought-provoking and subtle films getting their chance at last – I wrote a series of Insights articles about that earlier this year comparing ARRIVAL, MOONLIGHT and MANCHESTER BY THE SEA.
So, this is a great movie, but maybe not in all the ways you’d expect. But with its haunting themes and stunning visuals, you might enjoy it even more second time around. Can’t wait to tell you the inside story from Habib!
© WriteMovies 2017. Exclusive to WriteMovies – To syndicate this content for your own publication, contact ian (at) writemovies dot-com.
by John | Aug 28, 2017 | Movie Reviews and TV Reviews, WriteMovies News, Writing Insights
GAME OF THRONES Season Review – Spoiler Free! By Jamie White
The latest season of GAME OF THRONES has perhaps been the most divisive amongst fans and critics.
Now it’s well past the books, THRONES’ showrunners have had more creative license with the show. It’s arguable if that’s a good thing, though…
The 7-episode length of the season gave the show a noticeable problem – how to pace itself. It began fine, and the quick travel and teleportation of characters is something viewers have almost always questioned and just let go. But with ultimately less screen time, the show has struggled to purvey the same fulfilling content as it has done in previous seasons.
In what started as a briskly paced season, it turned into a season that accelerated so fast, I personally felt like I needed a filler or a bottle episode (like THE FLY, S3E10 from BREAKING BAD). I ended up feeling like a car sick passenger with the driver putting the foot all the way on the gas.
This has still been a season with some magnificent moments, and one of the best episodes in the entire series. But it has been hindered by forced, rushed, and sometimes just damn silly plot developments. I’ve still enjoyed the season, but it doesn’t have the same substance as it once had…
This season of GAME OF THRONES has also been marred by leaks and hacks – some from incompetence, some from hackers. And this signifies the ever-changing world both TV companies and even Hollywood must adapt to.
Cyberattacks on big names like HBO and Sony must mean these honchos must adapt how they do business and how they produce film and television. (I even have my own theory that Sony has been releasing trash like THE EMOJI MOVIE to deter potential hackers…)
You can read more on Hollywood’s need to adapt to avoid cybercrime here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-11/hackers-are-threatening-the-way-that-hollywood-does-business
Here’s a few links where you can find discussion on the current season of GAME OF THRONES:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/
https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/
http://www.slashfilm.com/category/features/slashfilmcast/a-cast-of-kings/
http://fightinginthewarroom.com/category/storm-of-spoilers/
https://www.youtube.com/user/JaiWbio
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© WriteMovies 2017
by John | Jul 16, 2017 | Ian Kennedy, Movie Reviews and TV Reviews, Writing Insights
Ian Kennedy continues to discuss the sublte storytelling reneaissence in cinema and how ARRIVAL could be the sign that this trend will continue…
In the cases of MOONLIGHT and MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, personally I appreciated them more than I enjoyed them! I can see why they were successful and critically acclaimed, but they never fully won me over. I took more of an interest in the film ARRIVAL, a film that applies similar subtlety in its storytelling techniques, but within the usually bombastic high-budget genre of sci-fi… and the ARRIVAL storytelling deserves a close look too.
Spoilers alert… this article will discuss the outcomes of the story in order to demonstrate how and why it works.
On the face of it, ARRIVAL is about an alien invasion, but this extremely provocative scenario provides the vehicle for subtle implicit storytelling rather than an action-packed, over-the-top, blockbuster story in the usual style.
Instead of invading or threatening humans, alien ships simply hang in air in obscure places, waiting for us to travel to them and engage them. We, as a race, have to work out why they’ve shown up unannounced and, more strangely (to audiences, at least!), why they are seemingly serene and peaceful.
Our protagonist, Louise (Amy Adams), an expert in languages, is called upon to decipher the language of the aliens in an attempt to avert any possibility of interplanetary war against clearly superior opposition (or even against fellow nations). So this becomes a story, not about alien invasion, but about communication – about why we and other creatures need to reach out to one another to survive. Telling this story from female perspective with great subtlety makes it a far more stimulating and rewarding thought-experiment than the usual whizz-bang sci-fi fare.
In a clever manipulation of our expectations of storytelling, this film presents us with a series of flashbacks showing the bereavement of Louise. Only at the end of the film do we discover these are actually premonitions of what will happen to her, which are generated by her understanding the language that the aliens teach her, which enables us and them to predict the future, and link past, present, and future in ways we could not have imagined. The aliens finally reveal they’ve done this, not because they want to conquer us, but because in thousands of years they’ll need our help. War is averted – through their subtlety and inaction, they’ve negotiated a peace treaty with us.
Conventional sci-fi stories play out male obsessions with power, control, colonialism, war and exploration, whereas ARRIVAL embodies a more subtle and feminine approach to the profound questions of life which sci-fi is uniquely placed to explore. Although there is an explosion in middle of the film (something that is poorly explained and has limited consequences on the story), the real story explosion takes place in our mind and in the hearts of our main characters, as the clues fall into place and the scenario begins to make sense. This film intentionally confuses its audience, so that its reveal can be more mind-blowing to us.
MOONLIGHT, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, ARRIVAL – in all 3 of these films, we see subtlety is used to reward intelligent audiences. Audiences who are tired of having their intelligence insulted by convention get rewarded for their patience, through stimulating and often powerful and unconventional stories.
MOONLIGHT winning Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards 2017 suggests critics, audiences and awards ceremonies are now more open to subtle and implicit films.
In return, these films have been rewarded by audiences, awards ceremonies, and critics – hopefully this signals the beginning of a new era of cinema and film storytelling, in which writers and audiences will be rewarded not through explosions or CGI action, but through the emotional and intellectual connection they make through the characters they’re watching. At WriteMovies, that suits us and scripts we love just fine. We look forward to sharing more of these with you in months and years ahead…
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© WriteMovies 2017
Prolific writer Aaron Sorkin has built his career on finding intensely creative ways to explore the fascinating and complicated stories of real-life contemporary figures. He’s done this with The Social Network, Charlie Wilson’s War, and Steve Jobs. But this year, Sorkin has taken on his first female heroine in Molly’s Game, which explores the life and times of the phenomenally savvy woman who went from competing as a skier for the US National Team to running an exclusive high stakes illegal poker den for a decade before being arrested in the middle of the night by the FBI.
I have no strong feelings, one way or the other about these films. I didn’t care for CIVIL WAR, which I still haven’t watched, and to be honest, I don’t think I’ve missed anything from it. But there is no doubt that Marvel still produce some solid and entertaining films, even if they have no massive impact on my life.
