Blackbird

Posted on November 28, 2020 by jaycluitt

This review was originally written for Blueprint: Review. It was written because Kate Winslet appears in the film and one of the missions of this site is to review every Kate Winslet film. The other Kate Winslet reviews can be found here.

There’s all kinds of films in the world. Films to cheer you up, films to terrify you and get your blood pumping, even dramatic weepies designed to emotionally rip you apart, rendering you unable to function for the rest of the day. There’s a time and place for each of these films, and given just how unprecedented the times we’re living in are, and how these days every waking moment can feel like a never-ending naked slide down the spiralling razor blade of life, I for one am trying to limit my exposure to the more emotionally draining films.

Continue reading →

Wonder Wheel

Posted on January 26, 2019 by jaycluitt

On Coney Island in the 1950s, former actress Ginny (Kate Winslet) works as a waitress at Ruby’s Clam Shack whilst her alcoholic husband Humpty (Jim Belushi) operates the carousel at the fairground and her young son Richie (Jack Gore) enjoys setting fires. Ginny begins an illicit affair with Mickey (Justin Timberlake), a lifeguard with literary aspirations, but when Carolina (Juno Temple), Humpty’s daughter from a previous marriage, arrives on the run from her gangster husband and also catches Mickey’s eye, things get a little complicated. Continue reading →

The Mountain Between Us

Posted on July 30, 2018 by jaycluitt

Alex (Kate Winslet), a photo-journalist for The Guardian, is desperate to catch a flight from Idaho to New York for her wedding the next day. Similarly Ben (Idris Elba) needs to get to Baltimore to perform an urgent surgery. When an incoming storm grounds all the flights the two band together and charter a small independent pilot (Beau Bridges) and his dog to take them part of the way. However, the flight goes awry and Ben and Alex find themselves stranded, injured and lost amidst the Uintas Mountains. With no hope of rescue, they must all work together if there is any hope of survival.
Continue reading →

Collateral Beauty

Posted on January 13, 2017 by jaycluitt

Howard Inlet (Will Smith) was a high-flying, smooth-talking New York marketing whizz, until two years ago when his six year old daughter died. He returned to work eighteen months later, but his understandable change of character has left him shut down and closed off to all around him. His work has suffered, and the business he co-owns with best friend Whit (Edward Norton) may go under unless something can be done. After hiring a private investigator, Whit – along with colleagues Simon (Michael Pena) and Claire (Kate Winslet) – discover that as part of his recovery process Howard has written letters to the entities of Love, Death and Time, so the trio decide to hire actors to portray these facets of the world and confront Howard, in an attempt to prove he is crazy so he’ll be forced to sign his ownership of the business over to them.
Continue reading →

Little Children

Posted on November 2, 2016 by jaycluitt

Sarah (Kate Winslet) is a stay-at-home mother whose life is already feeling rut-like and unfulfilling, something that is exacerbated when she catches her husband Richard (Greg Edelman) masturbating in his home office with an unfamiliar pair of women’s underwear tied to his face. Part of Sarah’s daily routine involves going to the park with her three year old daughter Lucy, where Sarah sits slightly apart from the other mothers, due to their constant judgement at how much better they are at caring for their children than Sarah. They all idolise a man named Brad (Patrick Wilson), their male equivalent who brings his young son Aaron to the same park. On a bet, Sarah introduces herself to Brad, and the two soon find the company of the other fulfils something missing in their own lives. Meanwhile, convicted sex offender Ronnie (Jackie Earle Haley), who was arrested for exposing himself to children, has been released from prison and moved back in with his mother, May (Phyllis Somerville). Many members of the community are uncomfortable having Ronnie living in such close proximity, especially former policeman Larry (Noah Emmerich), who makes ruining Ronnie’s life his own personal obsession.
little-children
Continue reading →

Steve Jobs

Posted on August 19, 2016 by jaycluitt

During the preparations leading up to the public unveiling of three products – the Mackintosh in 1984, NeXT Computer in 1988 and iMac in 1998 – business “composer” Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) deals with the same handful of people and problems, including his friend and marketing associate Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet), co-Apple-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), engineer Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg), Apple CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels) and Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterstone), Steve’s ex-girlfriend and the mother of his potential daughter Lisa.
Continue reading →

Triple 9

Posted on August 3, 2016 by jaycluitt

After a crew of thieves – including two corrupt cops – partially botch the robbery of a bank’s safety deposit box for Russian gangsters, the team are given another chance and their fee is withheld until she successfully steal more information, key to the release of the gang’s boss. The only way to pull off the heist is to distract all the local cops long enough for a decent window of time, and the corrupt officers Marcus (Anthony Mackie) and Franco (Clifton Collins Jr.) believe the best way to do this is to pull a “Triple 9”, to kill a cop. And they think they’ve got the perfect target in Marcus’ new greenhorn partner Chris (Casey Affleck), the nephew of prominent Detective Sergeant Jeffrey Allen (Woody Harrelson). Meanwhile, the thieves’ leader Michael (Chiwetel Ejiofor) receives grief from the Russian boss’ wife Irina (Kate Winslet), whose sister (Gal Gadot) is the mother of Michael’s son. The rest of Michael’s team is comprised of Russell (Norman Reedus) and his younger, unstable brother Gabe (Aaron Paul).
gang Continue reading →

The Dressmaker

Posted on June 9, 2016 by jaycluitt

25 years after she was exiled, dressmaker Myrtle “Tilly” Dunnage (Kate Winslet) returns to her home town of Dungatar in Australia. Myrtle soon turns heads and livens up the fashions of the townsfolk, all the while getting to the bottom of why she was banished as a child, and exacting revenge where necessary.
Continue reading →

A Little Chaos

Posted on January 31, 2016 by jaycluitt

Kind Louis XIV of France (Alan Rickman) has commissioned a new garden for the palace of Versailles, and instructed his landscaper Andre (Matthias Schoenaerts) to the task. He interviews many different garden designer for the garden’s various segments, finally settling upon the alternatively-minded Sabine (Kate Winslet) for the role, much to the chagrin of the men who will be working under and alongside her.
chaos Continue reading →

Insurgent

Posted on August 18, 2015 by jaycluitt

In a nonsense dystopia where people are separated into groups based on their personalities, four people are on the run as fugitives from the state, after rebelling in the previous film. These people are Tris (Shailene Woodley), her love interest Four (Theo James), her brother Caleb (Ansel Engort) and a dick called Peter (Miles Teller). They’ve been hiding out amongst the forgiving and generally pleasant Amity faction, but when Peter sells out the others, Caleb heads back to his home in Erudite, leaving Tris and Four to go on the run, passing from faction to faction in an attempt to raise an army against the evil Erudite, led by Jeanine (Kate Winslet) and her army of Dauntless, led by Eric (Jai Courtney) and Max (Mekhi Phifer). Continue reading →