My goal was to win. At what and against whom, those were just details.

Molly's Game (2017)

7.6/10 on IMDb
82% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: Signed, sealed, and recommended by Chloe

Watch it if you: Want to a see a thrilling and entertaining story around poker;
Don't know a lot about poker since the movie does a good job at explaining it;
Are a fan of Jessica Chastain
Molly's Game tells the true story of Molly Bloom, a soon-to-be law student on her gap year who finds herself thrust into an exclusive underground poker game. Suddenly, she's rubbing shoulders with the rich and the famous, assisting in hosting movie stars, directors, Wall Street moguls, and even royalty. Everything's going well but she realises that to make it on her own, and to be taken seriously, she needs to start hosting her own games.

Written and directed (the latter for the first time) by Aaron Sorkin, this film was really entertaining. It's really long, at 2 hours and 20 minutes, but it doesn't feel that long at all.

In fact, it's really well paced and entertaining throughout. There are some fast paced scenes and here is where Aaron Sorkin's writing shines; he just wrote these characters so well and he managed to write about poker games in a way that everyone could understand.

At first, I was a little confused as I didn't know a lot of the poker terminology, and some things went by really quickly and it felt like they went over my head. But soon enough I felt it was explained really well and I was able to understand what was going on, even being on the edge of my seat and sighing a heave of frustration when a particular card was drawn.

But it wasn't just the way the poker games were written. The opening scene was such a great scene. It has nothing to do with poker, but it's hard to see it as unnecessary because it was just so entertaining. It was written so well, instantly grabbing your attention, and when it's all over, you feel like you need to take a deep breath, also because of Chastain's fast narration.

Speaking of, I was surprised at how well the voice-over narration added to the movie. It actually was such a good decision, particularly since a lot of movies cop a lot of flack for choosing to go with boring, annoying, and unnecessary narration. Here, it was necessary to develop both Molly's character as well as explain the poker terms to us.

I really did like the characterisation of Molly in this film, and Jessica Chastain did a fantastic job portraying her. Watching interviews of the real Molly Bloom, you could really see how much of her was in Chastain's performance. So the acting and the writing really came together well to portray this intelligent, capable, and yet unlucky woman.

One thing I will say about Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut here is that in certain scenes, it kind of shows that this is his first time directing. The movie switches between present day and the past, and some of these scene transitions are very awkward and jarring. It was skipping from scene to scene and from time period to time period without a seemingly logical seque. For the most part, though, he did a good job for a first time director.

I'm assuming it was an executive decision either by Aaron Sorkin or by the studio to sort of anonymise some of the other characters, even though some of the real life people's names are mentioned in Molly Bloom's book.

It was interesting to see Michael Cera play against the awkward typecase that he always is, instead playing this anonymous poker player who was a famous movie star. In the movie, he's named Player X, but in real life he is probably Tobey Maguire. I was pretty shocked to find out that Tobey Maguire is an absolute jerk, but the other famous actors that Molly hosted games for (Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Affleck) don't seem to fit the bill for this Player X guy. The general consensus is that Tobey Maguire was the dickhead who treated Molly terribly, and he does worse in the book than what they show in the movie.

That Player X character pops up more in the beginning of the film as we delve into the start up of Molly's poker games, and later as she gets more involved with poker and the potential of breaking the law, that's when Idris Elba's character as her lawyer comes in.

Idris Elba was great, and he has one scene where he is fantastic in. It's the type of scene that they would play at the Oscars if he was nominated. Although, his accent does slip up a few times, but since they're mainly in the scenes where he's really passionate, then I can forgive him for that.

Kevin Costner also does a few scenes as Molly's tough love father. A lot of people liked this one scene with the two of them, but the writing felt a little too on-the-nose personally, particularly since it was dealing with psychologists and 'analysing people' and I just think it didn't do a very good job of portraying psychologists and therapy. I get that in the end it was just trying to say that it's not that easy to always have answers to your problems, but it was still a weird scene for me.

Obviously, though, the star of this is Jessica Chastain. I've already said how amazing she was in this, but seriously, she did such a fantastic job in this movie. Not only is she super beautiful and sexy in this movie, but she is also such a strong female lead actress, and I love how she always tries to pick strong female characters to portray. I'm really glad she got nominated for the Oscar, it's a very well-deserved nomination.

Overall, this was a really interesting storyline based on a crazy true story. The directing could be better, but the screenplay is written really well. The dialogue is fast-paced, quick, and witty, and the narration is great. Jessica Chastain does a fantastic job and it's a very entertaining movie that doesn't feel as long as it actually is.

Winnie the Pooh's depressing backstory.

Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017)

7.2/10 on IMDb
64% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: It's alright

Watch it if you: Are a fan of Domnhall Gleeson;
Are interested in the relationship between the real Christopher Robin and his parents
Goodbye Christopher Robin tells the story of how A. A. Milne's creation (and the following success) of the Winnie the Pooh novels impacted his relationship with his son, the real life Christopher Robin.

I wasn't a huge fan of Winnie the Pooh when I was a kid (I mean, I did watch the cartoon but I never went crazy for them), so I wasn't too interested in this movie, but it was getting alright reviews and it had a good lead cast. I went in thinking I might get really bored and it might be a movie just for old people, but it was surprisingly entertaining. It's not the most entertaining story out there, and definitely not a movie for everyone, but I certainly wasn't bored and was even a little surprised at how engaged I was in the movie.

So since the cast is what sold me on this, let's talk about that since there's not much else to talk about. Domnhall Gleeson, who I love, stars as the post-war-traumatised A.A. Milne, while Margot Robbie stars as his commanding wife.

I really loved Domnhall Gleeson acting as Milne, and Margot Robbie did a great job at making the audience absolutely repulse her. I'm not too sure exactly what these people were like in real life, but their relationship with their son Christopher Robin was very strained, and you can definitely see and feel that in this movie.

Gleeson plays the distant father who kinda-sorta wants to connect with his son. He spends a lot of his time writing (or trying to), and so he ignores his son a lot, but the times that he does spend with his son, you can tell that he was trying his darndest to occupy and engage with him. On the other hand though, Margot Robbie's character thinks that literally just giving birth gives her the right to be a mother, and she doesn't actually put any effort into her relationship with her son. In between this and I, Tonya (2017), Margot Robbie is really making a name for herself with her diverse acting roles.

Speaking of, young Christopher Robin is played by Will Tilston, and Alex Lawther plays him grown up. It's been a great few years for child actors, since Will Tilston did a really good job! He was really cute, with his chubby face and huge dimples, and it didn't help that Mrs. Milne thought it best to dress up her little boy in girls' smocks...

Alex Lawther was also a pleasant surprise to see, as he was in the Shut Up and Dance episode of Black Mirror (2016) which he did a fantastic job in. His role in this is very small, and I hope to see him in bigger and better things.

Then the very Scottish Kelly Macdonald plays Christopher Robin's nanny, which makes her the third Black Mirror cast member here, so it was like a little fun reunion! I really loved her character, I felt so sorry for her because you could tell how much she loved Christopher Robin and how much she cared and looked out for him, especially when she had to witness his parents fighting all the time, and his eventual success after the Winnie the Pooh novels were published. She was Christopher Robin's true mother, since she always played and raised him, and since his real mother (Margot Robbie's character) was never emotionally around for him. Macdonald did a fantastic job here.

So the acting was really good, and I think that was the main thing that kept me engaged. The story was interesting and I don't remember ever getting bored, but I do recognise that it could be slow for some people and therefore it's not really a movie for everyone. It's also not a super memorable movie, but it's engaging in the moment. I'm quite interested in movies based on real people and real events, because I think that even if it was really dramatised and overly-Hollywoodised, it still happened to actual people, and so it's interesting to see that. I think it's also really interesting to see how the story of Winnie the Pooh was developed, just from A.A. Milne seeing how his son played with his toys. And to see how the stories became successful and sort of destroyed Christopher Robin's childhood was so fascinating because I never realised that at all. I don't know if I can see the cartoons the same way anymore.

I was loved for a minute, then I was hated. Then I was just a punch line.

I, Tonya (2017)

7.7/10 on IMDb
90% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: Signed, sealed and recommended by Chloe

Watch it if you: Want to see a well-acted, nicely directed film surrounding a real life sporting event;
Want to see unreliable narrators portrayed in a clever way;
Want to see some amazing acting by Margot Robbie and Allison Janney;
Are interested in the Nancy Kerrigan attack of 1994
In 1994, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan were competitive skaters looking to compete in the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, when an incident happened that shocked people the world over. After a practice session, Nancy Kerrigan was attacked in the leg, forcing her to withdraw. She quickly recovered, and ended up getting through to the 1994 Winter Olympics, taking the silver medal home. For Tonya Harding, though, life was about to be turned upside down. The attacker was identified as someone hired by Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly, as well as Gillooly's friend (also Harding's bodyguard). They and the attackers were sentenced to 18 months in prison, however Gillooly also testified that Harding knew of the attack beforehand. Harding was stripped of her previous titles, fined, and, instead of being jailed, was banned from the United States Figure Skating Association, unable to competitively skate for the rest of her life.

This movie depicts Tonya Harding's life and the events surrounding the incident, based on what was said in interviews on those involved.

At first, I really was not interested in watching this movie. In fact, I got really offended when I saw that Tonya Harding went to the Golden Globes. I thought, "Really, Hollywood, you're letting this sports villain into the Golden Globes?" But after watching this film, I actually feel sorry for Tonya Harding. I don't know what's true, or what's false, and I don't think even the director or the writers know, but it does portray Harding's side of the story, and if it is true, then it's terrible what happened to her.

In all honesty, I didn't know much about this incident. I mean, I wasn't even born when this happened. But I had seen some things on TV or some documentaries where they talk about the biggest controversies of the Olympics, and so I did hear a little about it. When you watch these bits of media, it's very clear how 100% sure the media thinks Harding was a villain in this. They make her out to be some cunning and selfish athlete who will do anything to win. Because of that, I just wasn't interested in watching a movie where they try to glamorise a villain and give her money and attention by making a movie on her.

But, the film is based on interviews of everyone involved. The writers interviewed Harding, Gillooly, Gillooly's friend, Harding's mother, Harding's trainer, and even a media reporter. And a lot of what they say is very contradictory, particularly what Harding and Gillooly say, so instead of trying to figure out how to portray one perspective that will please everyone, they just decided to portray everyone's perspective. The film is the epitome of the unreliable narrator, which I thought was really interesting because even if we don't get to see the truth of the matter, we can really tell what some of these people are like just purely based on the things they said (particularly Gillooly's friend, the bodyguard).

And the film doesn't just focus on the incident with Nancy Kerrigan. I mean, everything is building up to that incident, but we start off when Harding was just a little girl just starting to ice skate. We see how she comes from a trash family, with an abusive mother, then marries the first guy that tells her she's pretty only so she can get away from her mother, and then how he turns out to be abusive too. And how he pretty much ruins her entire career through this incident with Kerrigan.

I don't think the film is really trying to tell you what to think of the story, it's kind of just presenting everything as the real life people described it, but I think it did a good job at painting a very sad picture for Tonya Harding. She basically never got a break, except for when she was the first US woman to land a triple axel, and then soon after this her life turned to shit again. It's actually a really heartbreaking story, if you think about it.

Margot Robbie does an excellent job at portraying this tragic character. She's both headstrong and stubborn, but she's also very frail and vulnerable. She's able to show so much emotion, particularly towards the end, and she's come a long way from her Wolf of Wall Street (2013) days.

Allison Janney has to be the standout of the film though. She plays the abusive mother who never showed any love to Tonya (to the point where, when she was just 6 years old or so, Tonya had to piss herself on the skating rink and continue to skate, since Tonya's mother "wasn't paying for her to pee", she was "paying for her to skate"). She does a fantastic job and I really hope she wins the Oscar for this.

Sebastian Stan is also really great as Gillooly, the at first very likeable and shy guy that makes Harding's life a little bit better, but then becomes the asshole who beats her up, shoots in her general direction, and ruins her ice skating career for life.

The whole cast actually did an excellent job, and I really wasn't expecting to like this movie as much as I did. The attack on Kerrigan seems like such a ridiculous thing to do, especially since she recovered and ended up winning the Silver anyway, so it was interesting to see this film explore sort of why and how it actually happened. The unreliable narrator trope was used well enough, and there's also quite a few fourth wall breaks in here (although I started getting sick of them as the movie progressed). In the end, this film is a really interesting look at Tonya's life, and it allows you to see her perspective of it.

And... you may even come out feeling sorry for her.

Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me.

The Shape of Water (2017)

7.9/10 on IMDb
92% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: Signed, sealed, and recommended by Chloe;
Watch it in cinemas

Watch it if you: Are a fan of Guillermo del Toro;
Want to see a mysterious and dark modern day fairytale;
Are after a change in tone for movies and are looking for something different and unique;
Want to see a visually beautiful and artsy movie
A mute cleaning lady discovers a captive amphibian creature.

I fairly recently watched Pan's Labyrinth (2006) and thought it was a great film by Guillermo del Toro, so I was excited to see this film too. It looked like such a ridiculous and unique concept that I was really excited to see it even just after the first trailer. And del Toro does another great job, and no wonder it's deserving of so many awards.

Firstly, this entire movie has such an amazing, ethereal, fantasy-like feel to it. Right from the start, the beautiful opening shot leaves you mesmerised, since it looks really stunning and really wondrously mysterious and intriguing. It felt like a dark fairytale and I absolutely loved that. It sort of brings out the inner child in you because it creates this feeling of wonder and amazement at what you're seeing.

And this feeling of wonder is carried through the entire film through Sally Hawkins, who is the standout in this film. She is phenomenal in this, playing a mute woman who's able to express herself so perfectly. Her sense of wonder is so innocent and childlike, her sadness is so heartbreaking, and she doesn't even need to speak for you to understand every single thing she's thinking.

One thing, though, is that I really would have liked for them to explore more of the relationship between Eliza (the mute lady) and the amphibian man.

Don't get me wrong, the film is really good, but for the first half of the film, I thought it was going to possibly be my favourite film of the year. I thought, damn this is going to be a must see for everyone!

But as the film progressed, it went a little down hill, particularly towards the end.

I think it really would have helped if they didn't rush through Eliza and the amphibian man getting to know each other, it would have been a better film if we saw their relationship develop slowly, rather than really quickly and all at once like it did in the film.

I also think the film was kind of messy going from character to character. It made sense that the film would want to elaborate on each character so you understood their thought process and their intentions, but sometimes it just got messy.

Don't get me wrong, though, the entire cast was great.

I loved Michael Shannon in particular; he is a fantastic villainous actor. I loved him in Nocturnal Animals, and in this film he really brought it in every scene he was in. He was this evil corporate guy that really took matters into his own hands and didn't see this amphibian man as a living being at all.

The amphibian man himself was stunning. And it wasn't CGI. They actually got Doug Jones to cover himself in prosthetics and make up, and he actually looked so amazing. He looked very ethereal and magical, and it was stunning to watch him move and act along with Sally Hawkins, since they were both voiceless characters. You could really see how characters in this film would be entranced by this amphibious creature, even to the point of calling him 'beautiful'.

The way the film is done also makes you feel like you're actually underwater, mainly because of the dark, slightly green, colour palette throughout the film.

I also loved the score in this movie. Right at the beginning, it was so perfect in taking you out of the real world and placing you within this fantastical world. It was just the right touch of whimsical to make you feel like this was a fantasy, but it could have still happened in this world of ours.

I'm so glad this movie got so many Oscar nominations, and I'll be so happy if Sally Hawkins takes home Best Actress. The whole cast was great though, and the cinematography was really brilliant although I do hope Blade Runner 2049 (2017) gets Best Cinematography. The film does go downhill towards the end but it still is overall a really unique and wonderful film to watch. It's a great story about people who don't fit in to normal society, and about finding your humanity and sense of meaning in life. It's a magical fantasy that sometimes seems ridiculous but it's portrayed in such a real way that you can't help but feel a little wholesome watching it.

A few side notes:

• I loved how the colour palette was really dark and green, but Eliza slowly started introducing red into her wardrobe the happier and more fulfilled she became.
  
• That poem at the end, part of which is the title of this blog post, was so beautiful.
  

Downsizing is about saving yourself.

Downsizing (2017)

5.8/10 on IMDb
50% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: Low-energy entertainment;
Proceed at your own risk

Watch it if you: Just want something to put on in the background when you do something else;
Just want a simple comedy that isn't as philosophical as it advertises itself to be
Attempting to cure the world of overpopulation and its resulting climate change effects, scientists discover how to permanently shrink people down to about 5 inches tall, literally reducing people's carbon footprints.

I was so excited for this movie when I saw the first trailer. It looked like a Black Mirror episode, except fun. It looked interesting, they didn't give away much of the plot, and I was really keen. Then I saw the second trailer for it (not deliberately, but it was shown in front of a movie I was watching), and I was like, oh... that's what it's about?! The second trailer kind of spoiled it for me, and I might not have watched this movie so soon if it weren't for a friend wanting to watch it with me.

Because of my low expectations though, I thought the film was not... terrible. But it was still... not very good. There are moments that are entertaining but there is definitely a lot more potential that the film could have reached, particularly because the premise is so interesting. In the end, it's a big disappointment.

Firstly, there will be mild spoilers in this blog. Nothing too spoilery, but I will be discussing the same things that the second trailer reveals. In fairness though, I think that if you want to see this movie, you need to know what you're getting yourself into.

So for the rest of this blog, be warned.

Sigh... so the first trailer shows us Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig as a married couple thinking of downsizing to relieve a lot of the financial pressure they are facing. Their money in the normal 'big' world can be translated to roughly 12 million dollars in the small world, meaning they can live a work-free life of luxury in a huge mansion for the rest of their lives.

Except, in the second trailer we find out that Kristen Wiig gets cold feet and decides to no longer undergo the downsizing procedure, leaving Matt Damon permanently small and without a wife. This is when the movie starts to go downhill, as it becomes a movie of self discovery.

And you know what? Movies of self discovery are fine. Heck, there are a lot of good self-discovery movies out there.

But this movie is so long because it's trying to handle the issue of downsizing, with the issue of climate change, with a whole lot of other social issues, all while going through Matt Damon's mid-life crisis. It's too much, it drags out, the movie seems unfocused and lacks a serious sense of direction. And the story line they choose to go with is the one least relevant to downsizing: it's Matt Damon's self discovery.

So they took this great premise of humanity killing the planet and people opting to downsize, and yet went nowhere with it. There are complications in this movie that fuel the plot that have nothing to do with downsizing, and sometimes you just forget that they're even small to begin with. It just seems like a normal movie about normal-sized people! Especially when there are things like small TVs and small mobile phones all built to scale so it doesn't even seem like they're not living in the real world. This whole film could have happened without them actually downsizing, honestly.

It would have been great if they brought in some large scale issue that actually affected small people because they were small. Something bigger than Matt Damon's self esteem blow needed to happen for this movie to be good.

And they actually tried to do this... they tried to show human nature not really changing even when small, they tried to show the effects of climate change on the human race, they tried to show the effects of corrupt politicians in developing countries, the struggles that refugees face, and they even tried to show us the effects of poverty. There's a lot of social issues happening but these don't really go anywhere. It's weird that I feel like these things were both 1) very preachy, and 2) not expanded on enough. I think it's because it felt like they had too many wild ideas floating around their minds, that they couldn't decide which idea to go with, so they all sort of crammed everything in to this movie. Which is what makes it long and lacking direction and focus.

As to the acting. Matt Damon is fine but he doesn't really stand out in this film. It's actually interesting all his movies in the last two years have been flops, I really hope his next few movies are a lot better.

However, Christoph Waltz is amazing in this. He is a fantastic actor, and I think he mentioned his character was actually written for a young actor, but he convinced the director to cast him, and he does a really great job. He is so funny and really steals the scene a lot of the time.

However, the person who steals the entire show has to go to Hong Chau. It was so nice seeing an Asian woman have so much screen time, and Hong Chau did a really good job at being both really funny, with great comedic timing, as well as being a really good dramatic actor. The only thing is that it was really unfortunate that her character and her actions were really a big caricature of a Vietnamese immigrant. Her accent was insane and very stereotypical, although I am guilty of laughing at the way she said things (and I now want to rewatch Anjelah Johnson's nail salon stand up).

Overall, this movie was disappointing because it has a really great premise but they didn't make full use of it. There is too much social commentary happening, and the main plotline doesn't even need to happen to someone who downsized. It seemed interesting at the start but then it becomes a movie where they forget downsizing even really exists in that world. The acting is decent but it's not enough to make up for the film's flaws.

A few side notes:

• As if they were the first couple to have gotten cold feet? As if there isn't a thing where if one half of a couple gets cold feet, then they wouldn't continue doing the procedure with the other person?
  
• Also why are children getting downsized? They should be at least 21 years old before they get to choose to downsize. You can't just force your already 10 year old kid... what if they never wanted it and they're stuck small forever???