Baby Driver

Posted on July 29, 2017 by jaycluitt

Baby (Ansel Elgort) is the driver for an ever-changing roster of heist teams, led by Doc (Kevin Spacey). Baby is in debt to Doc, but is just one job away from being square, which makes it a fairly inopportune point in his life to meet and fall in love with Debora (Lily James), a waitress at his local diner. When Doc makes it clear he has no intention of letting Baby, his lucky charm, out of the gang, Baby finds himself in a tricky situation, stuck in a world of criminals including Buddy (Jon Hamm), his wife Darling (Eiza González) and the self-proclaimed crazy guy Bats (Jamie Foxx). Oh, and as a child Baby survived a car accident which killed his parents and left him with permanent tinnitus, something he can only drown out by constantly playing music.
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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.
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My Week in Movies, 2016 Week 27

Posted on July 9, 2016 by jaycluitt

This week has been pretty uneventful mainly because I’ve spent most evenings – in fact all of the evenings and most of the nights – doing craft projects for Aisha’s work. As such I’ve written about as many reviews as I’ve had full nights sleep, and I’ve watched a comparable amount of useful films. I did get a few in last weekend though, so here’s what I watched recently:
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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.
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Room

Posted on May 22, 2016 by jaycluitt

This review was originally written for Blueprint: Review.

Today is Jack’s birthday, he is five years old. To him, the whole world is Room, an 11×11 foot enclosure outside of which he has never been. He lives with his mother, Ma, plays with Egg Snake under Bed, eats with Meltedy Spoon and sometimes, when Old Nick visits, Jack has to sleep in Wardrobe, counting the groans before Old Nick falls asleep. The stuff on TV is all fantasy, things that don’t exist in real life. Jack’s world ends at the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the skylight and the heavy metal door, locked with a keypad combination. Beyond that, there is nothing.
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The Revenant

Posted on February 24, 2016 by jaycluitt

Whilst guiding a team of fur trappers in the snowy North American wilderness of the 1820s, Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) finds himself in a pretty poor state after being mauled by a bear whilst the group is fleeing a surprise attack from a Native American tribe they refer to as the Ree. Being unable to carry Glass back safely without endangering the rest of the team, captain of the party Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) requests Glass remain behind but be cared for and properly buried when the time comes. He leaves Glass under the protection of bitter, greedy trapper John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), naive and inexperienced Jim Bridger (Will Poulter) and Glass’ own half-Native American son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck). Circumstances arise that see Glass being abandoned with life still, barely, coursing through his veins, and he finds himself driven by vengeance against those responsible for abandoning him.
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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.
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The Hateful Eight

Posted on January 31, 2016 by jaycluitt

John Ruth “The Hangman” (Kurt Russell) is a bounty hunter known for bringing in his bounties alive, regardless of the difficulty in doing so. His latest conquest is Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), but whilst transporting her by stagecoach through a brutal winter storm, he is forced to stop off at Minnie’s Haberdashery to wait out the blizzard. On his way there he picks up a fellow bounty hunter, Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) and the new sheriff of the town they’re heading for, Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins). Upon arriving at the haberdashery, Ruth and the others find Minnie nowhere to be found, and four strangers (Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Demian Bichir and Bruce Dern) holding the fort instead.
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Katniss Sniddlegrass and the Cauldron of Mockingjays

Posted on December 5, 2015 by jaycluitt

Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers everywhere!

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) lives in the world of Panem, and land rife with civil unrest. 74 years ago Panem, which is split into twelve working-class districts and one wealthy capitalist Capitol, was host to an uprising, during which the unruly numbered districts were defeated by the Capitol’s military powers, and during which District 13 was destroyed. As penance for this act, every year the Capitol holds an annual Hunger Games, for which a boy and girl aged 12 to 18 from each district are randomly selected, trained, presented to the public and thrown into a specially made arena to fight it out to the death, until only one player survives. Katniss lives in District 12, and the when her younger sister Primrose (Willow Shields) is picked in her first draw, Katniss volunteers in her stead. Her male counterpart is Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), a baker who only tangentially knows Katniss. Katniss asks her friend Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth) to look after her sister and emotionally frail mother (Paula Malcomson).

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Inside Out, or Why I Should Never Have Kids

Posted on December 3, 2015 by jaycluitt

Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) is an 11 year old girl living in Minnesota with her parents (Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan). She is a normal girl who enjoys hockey, spending time with her friends and having fun with her family. All that changes when they move to San Francisco, and Riley finds herself having to deal with some unfamiliar emotions and situations. Most of this plays out in her head, where Riley is operated by her five core emotions, Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Fear (Bill Hader) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). However, when Joy tries to prevent Sadness from interfering with Riley’s memories, the two find themselves lost in Riley’s long term memory, leaving Anger, Disgust and Fear at the helm.
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