Mainly movies watched in April ‘25
May. 1st, 2025 08:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessYears and years ago, when I started a post containing links to all the fanfiction posted here, I dated it somewhere in the far future. That day is now today. I've had to tick the sticky box (because that was beyond me way back when in the early days of getting Dreamwidth) so that it remains the first thing you see.
To the movies!
On streaming: Free Color popped up, made in 2019, but I’d never heard of it before. It’s a sparse thriller that becomes a family drama set in the middle of climate breakdown, and its main character has superpowers. She’s Ruth, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw. As someone who has always been well-disposed towards superhero movies, I thought the final third or stretch lifted up its game, making sense of flashbacks. It made total sense that it was directed and co-written by a woman, given that we have the perspectives of three generations of women, and the whispers of the women who came before. That they were African American added something, for instance, one scene that reminded me of X-Men had a wholly different feel because of the gender and skin colour dynamic. Oh, and the way this talkative, ‘helpful’ guy was written thoroughly from the female gaze.
Until the very last (but I kind of didn’t care, because it came along with an emotional breakthrough) the special effects work. It helps that its focus is so narrow – really, there are only five characters of substance, and the atmosphere and realities of a dust-covered world, where water is scarce, ground it. It’s less depressing than I feared it would be at first, and more satisfying the more I think about it.
At the cinema: Mr. Burton, and I really enjoyed it. I only knew scattered facts about Richard Burton’s life (only finding out how he came to have his surname thanks to promo for this film) and haven’t seen much of his work. Very much made in Wales, and I wonder how much dramatic licence was taken with the selections of plays, because they were so on point that they were on the nose, really, but I loved the whole ‘becoming an actor’ journey. The central dyad is fascinating, with the older man with more status facing (or not) the fact that his dreams are probably closed to him, while this talented boy needs his patronage to realise his. And a father figure. (Based on reading reviews after, it was confirmed to me that I am still missing my slash goggles.)
The three leads are actually played by English actors, although their accents are very good. (Not really a surprise that Jones and Manville, who had the more thankless role, were good.) If I’m being hyper-critical, Lawtrey didn’t quite pull off the Welsh, and they tailored the use of Welsh to curtail how much he had to do rather than it being realistic, but I was really impressed at how he played the raw schoolboy for most of the film and then the young man with The Voice at the end. It starts off during world war 2, has still pertinent things to say about class in the performing arts in the UK (and is knowing about the Welsh-English dynamic.) Because it’s mainly set in Port Talbot, it has a particular resonance given that it’s not a year since the steelworks shut there. I saw it in a nearly full cinema, but then, that was in south Wales, where I imagine it was a much bigger hit than in any other part of the UK.
To the movies!
On streaming: Free Color popped up, made in 2019, but I’d never heard of it before. It’s a sparse thriller that becomes a family drama set in the middle of climate breakdown, and its main character has superpowers. She’s Ruth, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw. As someone who has always been well-disposed towards superhero movies, I thought the final third or stretch lifted up its game, making sense of flashbacks. It made total sense that it was directed and co-written by a woman, given that we have the perspectives of three generations of women, and the whispers of the women who came before. That they were African American added something, for instance, one scene that reminded me of X-Men had a wholly different feel because of the gender and skin colour dynamic. Oh, and the way this talkative, ‘helpful’ guy was written thoroughly from the female gaze.
Until the very last (but I kind of didn’t care, because it came along with an emotional breakthrough) the special effects work. It helps that its focus is so narrow – really, there are only five characters of substance, and the atmosphere and realities of a dust-covered world, where water is scarce, ground it. It’s less depressing than I feared it would be at first, and more satisfying the more I think about it.
At the cinema: Mr. Burton, and I really enjoyed it. I only knew scattered facts about Richard Burton’s life (only finding out how he came to have his surname thanks to promo for this film) and haven’t seen much of his work. Very much made in Wales, and I wonder how much dramatic licence was taken with the selections of plays, because they were so on point that they were on the nose, really, but I loved the whole ‘becoming an actor’ journey. The central dyad is fascinating, with the older man with more status facing (or not) the fact that his dreams are probably closed to him, while this talented boy needs his patronage to realise his. And a father figure. (Based on reading reviews after, it was confirmed to me that I am still missing my slash goggles.)
The three leads are actually played by English actors, although their accents are very good. (Not really a surprise that Jones and Manville, who had the more thankless role, were good.) If I’m being hyper-critical, Lawtrey didn’t quite pull off the Welsh, and they tailored the use of Welsh to curtail how much he had to do rather than it being realistic, but I was really impressed at how he played the raw schoolboy for most of the film and then the young man with The Voice at the end. It starts off during world war 2, has still pertinent things to say about class in the performing arts in the UK (and is knowing about the Welsh-English dynamic.) Because it’s mainly set in Port Talbot, it has a particular resonance given that it’s not a year since the steelworks shut there. I saw it in a nearly full cinema, but then, that was in south Wales, where I imagine it was a much bigger hit than in any other part of the UK.
