These two turned out to be a great watch one after the other due to similarities in theme. And they both stand strong on their own merit. Also, Cineworld showed an anniversary screening of Interstellar. Nice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
American Fiction<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s great to see Jeffrey Wright get a starring role for once. He made big impressions in the recent Bond films and the Westworld<\/em> TV series, but he deserved something bigger. And he got it After being dishonourably discharged from his lecturing position following cancelling controversies with his students, Wright\u2019s Thelonious Ellison reluctantly reconnects with his family and gains unexpected fame with predominant white audience after writing a novel parodying the Black experience. The literary industry is given a light pastiche as Ellison\u2018s work gains increasing attention, and there\u2019s plenty of room for heartfelt performances with Ellison\u2019s embittered brother Cliff and deteriorating mother Agnes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The comedic tone also marks welcome divergence from Wright\u2019s usual roles, blending vibes of Black Klansman<\/em> and I\u2019m Sorry to Bother You<\/em> to create an intriguing, heartfelt and scathing picture of contemporary culture and its pitfalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Holdovers<\/p>\n\n\n\n I still haven\u2019t got round to seeing Sideways<\/em> yet. It\u2019s on my list. But as soon as I heard that one of Alexander\u2019s Payne major influences for The Holdovers was Withnail and I<\/em>, I suspected I was in for a good watch. And I was proved right. How can you be inspired by Bruce Robinson\u2019s cult classic and not let some comedic genius rub off on your film?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul Giamatti reunites with Payne after twenty years to play a grumpy teacher at a New England prep school obsessed with ancient history. Having mainly seen Giamatti playing minor roles in major films, like Jeffrey Wright in American Fiction<\/em>, it\u2019s great to see him take the central role, combining subtle deprecating facial expressions with intense physicality to create a comedic powerhouse of cynicism. Interesting faces are often difficult to find in Hollywood cinema, but Giamatti\u2019s is a gift to the camera, which takes full advantage to observe the actor\u2019s exaggerated, contorted features in close-ups. The shot of his expression after the gym scene? Genius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Da\u2019 Vine Joy Randolph and newcomer Dominic Sessa are also fully deserving of awards attention. A lot has already been in the press about Payne just finding the guy out of nowhere, but Sessa channels angst and tragedy with ease and elegance. Randolph does likewise as a grieving mother doing her best to carry on, and again, close ups do so much in telegraphing emotion when no words are said. Props to cinematographer Eigel Bird for some wonderful shots that build character through imagery alone. Even minor actors make a big compression impression in the first act. Once Giamatti, Sessa, and Randolph come together as the lone holdovers, though, it\u2019s a joy to watch them on screen. They may have come on holiday by mistake, but it\u2019s a fine mistake indeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interstellar<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not in my Nolan top 3 (that would be, in ascending order, Inception<\/em>, Oppenheimer<\/em> and The Dark Knight<\/em>), but it\u2019s still a great film. I kind of forgot how loud the soundtrack is and how difficult it makes hearing dialogue at certain points, but I can\u2019t deny that it\u2019s a great soundtrack. And it\u2019s gosh darn 10 years old now, which is odd. The cinema was absolutely packed to the brim, which was nice, as I haven\u2019t seen that kind of crowd since Barbenheimer. Just a short mention for Interstellar<\/em> here, as it\u2019s an oldie and I feel like I\u2019ve written about it before. So yeah, that\u2019s all for now, folks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" These two turned out to be a great watch one after the other due to similarities in theme. And they both stand strong on their own merit. Also, Cineworld showed an anniversary screening of Interstellar. Nice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1464"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1466,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions\/1466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}