The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes

Charlotte explained to me that she really liked it because if you are really in to The Hunger Games then there's tonnes of cool references to the story, and if you're only a casual watcher then there's still plenty of references to get. I can reliably inform that there are no references for watchers who just could not give a fuck about The Hunger Games.

The Killer

I didn't like it but I can't seem to put my finger on why. Charlotte said it reminded her of documentaries that she had to watch in History at school and would have preferred to have had a desk to put her head on and sleep.

The Marvels

Fun bit of Marvel comfort food. No heavy demands on the viewer just goodies, baddies, cats, explosions and silly jokes. Om nom nom etc.

Resident Evil: Welcome To Racoon City

Characters that have no back story, but that do have clearly stated first and last names, move from location to location shooting things until it all ends and you can go do something far more meaningful with your life.

Five Nights At Freddy's

I'm sure if you understand the many internet pages of lore about this, or if you love the zillion video games that this sprang from, or if you're twelve you'll love this. I'm none of these things, it's shit.

A Haunting In Venice

Did a good job at pretending to be a horror film at the start, did a better job of insisting it was a whodunnit movie by the end.

Barbie

A picture perfect realisation of Barbie’s toy landscape shot through with a humour cynical enough for smart people to be able to say that it rises above just being a dumb, pink, feel-good movie but it’s cleverest trick is that it is exactly that. 

Charlotte kept leaning across roughly every ten minutes to tell me that she had one of whatever was onscreen at the time, I definitely don’t recall buying her the shitting dog.

Hypnotic

If your movie has to end with Ben Affleck monologuing a five minute exposition dump for it to make sense then you’ve fucked it up, clearly demonstrated by Charlotte who simply stated “I fucking hate that movie” as we walked out.

Synchronic

Has plenty of big ideas but refuses to look any of them in the eye, choosing instead to stare at the floor and shuffle its feet around a bit.

Morbius

A shitty CGI smudge.

Death On The Nile

You know, it looks like everybody involved enjoyed themselves making this and I wouldn’t want to take anybody’s enjoyment from them no matter what I thought of their dull little film.

The King’s Man

A lumpen episodic parade through a litany of shit accents.

Spider-Man 2

The teenager wanted to know why the excitement for Doc Ock in the latest Spidey trailer, so we watched this and discovered a myriad of subtle changes that have occurred in superhero cinema over the last two decades, between this and now. We also discovered that it’s still the best live action Spiderman movie and Tobey Maguire is still the shittest Spiderman.

Donnie Darko

The teenager having been thoroughly impressed a while back with Trainspotting told me she wanted to watch another movie that I picked, and that I could pick whatever I wanted, so she got Donnie Darko. 

At the end she turned to me and stated “I really, really liked that, but then he just dies at the end which is just a shitter version of ‘and then he woke up and it was a dream’” and I had to concede that not only was she correct, but I had also chosen a film with a talking animal in it. 

How the tables turn etc.

Godzilla vs. Kong

Fucking awful nonsense that depicts how I’m meant to give more of a shit about just how sad a little deaf girl is as she follows her giant monkey round the world, rather than the colossal level of genocide that occurs wherever it goes. Compounded by the usual cardboard human characters, the usual contrived imbecilic plotting and the usual disregard for basic geography that comes along with these things.

The Terminator

I rewatched this classic with the teenager who was enraptured by the time travel plot, gently scoffed at the full blown romance that takes place over mere hours and full on belly laughed at any dated, shoddy as fuck special effect. Which was most of them.

The Silence

Moronic shambles that everybody involved with should be thoroughly embarrassed about.

Sightless

Plays its hand far too early giving you plenty of time to scrutinise just how ludicrous the twist is before it arrives.

The Gentlemen

I had been worried that Trainspotting would be too 90s for the teenager, but then she responded with this 90s throwback that was far more concerned with how it was telling its story rather than what story it was actually trying to tell.

Trainspotting

Another evening of ‘I pick, you pick’ and I’m taking these evenings as an opportunity to take the teenager through some cinema highlights, like this absolutely peerless masterpiece, and broaden her scope. She liked it so much she went and bought the book straight afterward. 

I am doing the good work.