The Short,Sharp, Shocks keep on coming as we reach the end of disc 1 and ‘Death was a passanger’ a short film that opens in the 50s before flashing back to wartime occupied France as a secret agent tries to escape the gestapo.

I…didn’t much care for this one. It was really more of a thriller…and a pretty mild one at that. The twists and turns wernt exactly revelations and I was left feeling like my time almost certainly could have been spent better elsewhere.

That being said, it’s inoffensive, it looks nice, the story it is trying to tell works about as well as any…I have no grief with it…I just wish it was a bit more interesting.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/death-was-a-passenger/

Another one from ‘Short, Sharp Shocks’ this one, if anything more a humorous tale with a (somewhat) shocking, but kind of unpredictable twist.

We essentially have the same issue here as we did with ‘Lock your door’…there’s only so much ‘atmosphere’ can do for your production if the speaker just doesn’t seem interested in the tale he’s telling…this is even better lit than the last one, which kills even the chance of a bit of moodiness…I wasn’t a fan.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-reformation-of-st-jules/

Another entry from the ‘Short, Sharp, Shocks’ series and this one is essentially an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ in which an English painter butt’s heads with a Spanish bull fighter culminating in him insulting the fighter by painting a striking portrait of him.

He swears vengeance, but how will he do it, from beyond the grave?!?

This one was fun, a little farfetched on the wrap up, but it was decently paced, had a fun story and seemed a bit more alive and with it than other shorts on the set so far.

I’d recommend checking this one out if you can find it, it’s pretty well made and leaves an impression!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/portrait-of-a-matador/

I’m slowly working my way through the ‘Short Sharp Shocks’ set and up next was a telling of the Edgar Allen poe classic.

Quite atmospheric with a decent emotional range. I thought the lighting was perfect for this piece, even if the performance did border on campy a little bit. I liked this one! While I wouldn’t say it delivered a ‘short, sharp, shock’ it most certainly did make a tense atmosphere. Which I for one really appreciated.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-tell-tale-heart-1953/

Essentially a quite dry 15 minute monologue describing the curious tale of a young lady who, as habit always locks the doors of rooms she’s staying in, and the terrifying night that she forgot.

Is this atmospheric? Absolutely. Will this terrify modern audiences? I’ve had more scary bathroom visits.

I struggle to imagine this scaring people even at the time, especially considering this came out in 1949. Maybe 10 years earlier it would have more effect. But as it stands, it’s a story told quite well. In an atmospheric tone…but that’s about it. I was hoping the resolution was a little more unsettling…but it plays more as a cautionary tale than a short, sharp shock.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/lock-your-door/

A staple of early 2000s ‘Cartoon Network’ and probably the last Christmas special I’ll watch for this year. ‘Grandma Got Run Over By A Raindeer’ is the…unusual end product of someone saying ‘Hey everyone loves that hokey christmas novelty song, why not animate it and see what happens!?’

Well, i’ll tell you what the end result is…strangeness and a kind of incoherent story that may or may not be fleshed out with tracks from the album that the titular track came from (I havent got the volition to search it up…its 4:30am as I type this)

The Plot jumps around in time a little bit but basically covers the ‘before’, ‘during’ and ‘after’ of the events of the song. With the film opening establishing that ‘Grandma’ is in fact the owner of one of ‘Cityvilles’ most loved and longest established general stores. Grandma is an old time store owner and is more than happy to offer regulars store credit to get through hard times…Much to the annoyance of ‘Cousin Mel’ who wants Grandma to sell up the shop to a local land tycoon whos willing to offer the family millions to sell the shop so it can be demolished and replaced with…something? the…the special doesnt really say I dont believe.

Anyway, cousin Mel decides to try and force the issue by spiking some of Grandmas fruit cakes with ‘something bad’ in the hopes that it’ll drive customers away and eventually force the sale of the store…But before that can happen, Grandma heads out on christmas eve night to get her medication from the store and winds up getting run over by Santas sleigh. with the only witnesses being Grandmas Grandson (who may or may not be the narrator)…and Grandpa.

The family naturally dont believe the tale…But when Grandmas body cant be found, and she isnt at the usual places, concern begins to set in…Meanwhile Cousin Mel takes the opportunity to weedle a ‘power of attorney’ placement out of Grandpa, and in turn begins the negotiations to sell the store. With time fast running out, Its down to the doting grandson to piece together the clues, find Grandma and get her back up and running before the stores closed for good!

I have somewhat nostalgic memories catching this over the years on Cartoon Network…But watching it now…it…has not aged well. Cash in is about as good as I can muster for this one…an attempt to revive interest in a novelty record that was a little stinky the year it came out, letalone 16 years after it got a release…

The scripts all over the place, with act structuring and pacing thats inconsistent, it cant quite nail the tone of humour it wants to go with swinging wildly between being semi serious to ‘Scrubs’ style ‘pop aways’ into sequences of Cousin mel conga dancing with her lawyer, or Grandpa thinking hes Elvis.

The humours so scattershot that it got a chuckle more for how surreal and all over the place it was really than anything it intentionally tried to do. The act structurings all over the place, the characters have next to no depth. and the ending is quite underwhelming even for the low bar this special set.

The animation is semi consistent, but I cant lie, I personally find it a bit ugly…the promotional materials seem to have been done in a slightly different art style, which DOES look pretty okay…But the animation itself is a little too mixed on style, they’re all in vaguely the same ball park, but characters are *just* different enough style wise to create an unsettling contrast.

Not helped either by the fact they recycle chunks of the special BACK INTO itself for the music video breaks…OR that they even HAVE music video breaks here…

The voice acting is fine enough, not great…but gets the job done and the score swings WILDLY between frankly terrible and genuinely bizarre in the best possible way.

I still get quite nostalgic about this strange little special, but 21 years of film making, a degree in media and film production and theory and 7 and a half years of working in film journalism/criticism REALLY does not go in this films favour. I dont think its very good ultimately, and i’d say unless you were nostalgic for this (having seen it when it first went out) OR if you like bad holiday specials. I dont think you’ll really get a kick out of this one.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/grandma-got-run-over-by-a-reindeer/

2024 will probably go down for me as the year where the TV listings just DID NOT relent in trying to make up to me for years of crappy scheduling. ‘Black Dynamite’ comes courtesy of ITV this year…for some reason. and it’s been on my ‘to watch’ list for years…free is the best price in my book, so I settled down and I was NOT dissapointed.

‘Black Dynamite’ is essentially a parody of blacksploitation films styalized to the 1970s and occasionally using ACTUAL cutaway footage from blacksploitation films. But its greatest strength at times can be its biggest weakness.

The plot follows ‘Black Dynamite’ an ex-CIA agent whos essentially an amalgamation of Dolemite, Shaft and a bevvy of other Blacksploitation heros. who’s dragged into ‘one last mission’ when his brother Jimmy ends up killed by drug dealers, leading him to recruit a chapter of the black panthers, some local pimps and pushers and even members of the CIA to track down the killers and get the steady supply of smack off the street and out of the hands of the poor unfortunate orphan children!

And I wont go as far as to say this thing was a laugh riot, but it was absolutely a lot of fun! the plot is barely coherent (on purpose) and utilises the old trick of ‘its a fake bad movie, so we get to do on set goofs like leave the boom mic in and its funny because of that!’ Which, im usually kind of against, but here they make it so effortless, a personal favourite being a scene where gangsters turn up at a coffee shop and start to open fire, only for one of the ‘gang’ members to realise they hadnt put the parking break on their car, which slowly starts to roll away, before jumpcutting back into place.

Theres TONS of in jokes and references to real life blacksploitation films. But that, in a way becomes its achilles heel. Because the blacksploitation genre in and of itself is SO over the top and ludicrous in places. ‘Black Dynamite’ at times feels like its trying to out-comedy ACTUAL movies accidental comedy. Which is a bit of a perilous place to put your movie as, from my own experience, natural accidental comedy almost always trumps carefully planned comedy.

Films like ‘The Human Tornado’ or ‘Supersoul brother’ thrive on the fact they’re being made for a budget of 20 cents and a dream and its the little moments that cemented it into film history. Black dynamite had a budget, and is *trying* to recapture that lightning in a bottle…and I feel it does so with mixed success…When it hits, its hilarious…But when it misses, you really feel it.

as for the script itself, its fun! maybe about 10-15 minutes longer than I would have liked, but they nail the tone and theming they’re aiming for, at times it genuinely looks like a 70s exploitation flick. the pacings a little stop/start, particularly in the back end of the film where it seems the script fully derails as we enter multiple absurdist subplots involving storming a kung fu island compound, and fighting several VERY unexpected historical figures.

The characters are all purposfully vague, which is genius honestly because it means that Black Dynamite himself can basically literally do anything, leading to several genuinely funny out of pocket moments I wasnt expecting. and giving the supporting cast the perfect foil to either play it straight, or go along with the madness to great effect.

Direction is about as authentic to these kind of low budget 70s exploitation flicks as it can get, with only a couple of CGI effects dotted throughout pulling me out of the action, the micro mistakes embedded in the film are a nice touch, and I feel like this was a clear vision, translated fairly effortlessly to the screen.

Same goes for the cine, barring one or two moments that feel a bit ‘too’ modern for the time, this is fairly period authentic and the edit reflects that, I do feel like the edit itself needed one more pass through to really get it bought down to a consistantly nippy runtime…But thats really only a minor quibble.

Performance wise, Michael Jai White revels in this role and absolutely nails it for what its worth. Dolemite eat your heart out, Black Dynamite is the blacksploitation amalgamation we didnt know we needed. White chews the scenery good and proper and delivers some of the biggest belly laughs of the production. its almost certainly a career high and Im delighted to hear he reprised the role for an animated series shortly after this films release.

Byron Minns and Tommy Davidson as Bullhorn and Creamcorn are also just wonderful and gave me a few good chuckles too…What really works in this films favour is everyone involved KNOWS what kind of movie this is, but they seldom lean INTO the hokeiness of it all, its played sincerely, and THAT is what I think endears me to this production so much.

Throw in a soundtrack thats a mixture of new compositions and library tracks from old 70s exploitation films, and you’ve got a power packed punch of a movie that, if you have ANY love for the blacksploitation genre, should be on your watch list.

‘Black Dynamite’ is a flawed film in a sense, it overstays its welcome ever so slightly and by aping an already kind of ludicrous genre it, at times finds itself failing to be funnier than the real life films that inspired it. But I have a real soft spot for this one. I really do need to try and grab a physical copy of it asap, and I absolutely encourage you to seek this one out if you havent already.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/black-dynamite/

I have been a bad partner honestly…My partner has been begging me on and off to watch ‘Moana’ with her for the better part fo 7 years…and for one reason or another, we’ve just never been able to get it lined up…But today? we had a christmas lock in. all day in front of the box playing video games, watching TV and movies and consuming a large volume of our fridge…and NOW is the time for ‘Moana’.

…And I kind of feel bad that I didnt really ‘like’ it…like, dont get me wrong! its good! VERY well made, impressive animation, decent casting, fun moments…But it just…didnt really resonate with me.

The plot revolves around the titual Moana, an island girl who lives on an island with islanders whos dad is the island chief and who has been brought up to want to live on the island because eventually she’ll run the island and the island is a tropical paradise and its set on an island…island.

But Moana doesnt WANT to be an island (island) girl! She wants to explore beyond the reef! visit strange and exotic places and while she wants to make her family proud and continue the tradition of running the island and its subjects…She has grander plans.

And then several things happen very quickly. The island starts to…well…basically begin to rot, all the fish vanish and the coconut supply goes rotten. At first Moana thinks there’ll be more fish beyond the reef, and despite her dads protests, she shores up a boat and heads out…only to get nurf’d by a wave.

Undefeated she eventually has a conversation with her grandma, who reveals that she is in fact chosen by the ocean to go on a great quest to ‘restore the heart of Te-Fiti’ a goddess who, over 1000 years ago had her heart stolen by a demi-god called Maui who mysteriously vanished after a fight with another god by the name of Te-Ka.

Moana is to go, find Maui, command him to get on her boat and take her to the island of Te-fiti where he is to return the heart and restore order to the islands. And to further embolden her, her grandma reveals that up until recently all of Moanas relatives were in fact wayfinders and voyagers. Keen to explore as much as possible.

With that, Moana loads up a napsack, hitches a boat and heads off to find the demi-god and restore the islands…But when she finally DOES locate Maui…things arnt quite as prophesized…

So…Look, this is a Disney movie and as such my usual review notes around ‘technical ability’ and ‘creative output’ are kind of a moot point. They excel in creating BEYOND technically proficiant digital and 2d animated movies, they have done for years and they continue to do so.

So realistically, my comments on Cine and direction for this one are best summerized by ‘Yep…thats A-okay’…I enjoyed the direction, I found it quite creative in places, as I did with the cine around the animation and the way the scenes were set up. Do I think it went above and beyond? No. Do I think it more than surpassed the standard expectation. Absolutely.

Which means really, I only have the scripting, performances and music to talk about here. and the scripting is probably going to be the most contentious thing I have to talk about really.

Its a problem a lot of the more contemporary (last 15 years) Disney productions have…and its to do with runtime and pacing. I’ve never believed that a film predominantly aimed at children should be close to 2 hours long. Kids films (unless they have a BLOODY good reason) should NEVER break 90 minutes in my opinion. Im a grown adult and struggle to stick with something for 2 hours or more…as a child, I wouldnt have made it much past Moana leaving the island the first time. And given kids today are supposed to be the ‘ipad generation’ who’s attention spans have been totally nuked by Tiktok and Gore.com. I cant believe that kids who wernt already front loaded into this film would stick with it past the first act.

Which then leads me onto the second problem I have with this film, the pacing and act structuring. I CRAWLED through the first act of this film…CRAWLED. They spent so long establishing life on the island, the islands lore, the characters of the island (hell they introduce a cute pig and then cut it out of the rest of the movie for seemingly no reason) that by the time the ACTUAL plot had surfaced, I was already restless and reaching for my phone.

It seems to struggle repeatedly with knowing exactly what to focus on and how to hone in on the moments that DID draw my attention. Moana and Maui’s first encounter is delightful, the section in the realm of monsters, I really quite enjoyed…But the rest of the film is essentially Moana and Maui on a boat, talking about family traumas and finding their places in the world…and that. is. SLOW. SO painfully slow…and it feels like the film makes a point of pulling the handbreak and saying ‘No! YOU WILL HEAR MAUI’S TRAGIC BACKSTORY BEFORE WE SHOW YOU MORE HEIHEI’…

…It crashes the momentum of the film repeatedly and catastrophically, to the point that it started to feel more like they were given a runtime to hit and had to pad the thing to hit the golden mark, rather than just letting the film naturally grow out of the situation.

Equally not helping matters (and I will try to avoid spoilers here) but the films resolution is just kind of a nothing. I will give the film credit that the twist reveal at the end was quite well handled…But the films spent an hour and 40 building to this, and when that twist happens…nothing much comes from it. the gang kind of just…go home…and thats it. Which…given that for the preceeding hour and 40 Moana and Maui had been built up as semi mythical figures who were going to change the world forever…well, it was a bit deflating to be honest.

Hei hei the chicken is cute, but his joke gets redone OVER and OVER and OVER again until its well and truely ground into the dust. the film hovers in a single gear for most of the second act, idling basically to get us to the finale reveal. and the act structuring is a bit all over the place, with a heavy on the exposition (which wasnt really needed) first act, leading to an actually kind of alright but very Stop/Start middle act, and then it feels like the film was running out of time and as a result the 3rd act is just crammed in and made to work as best as it can…Which was kind of dissapointing.

The characters dont have much depth and emotional range and when the film attempts to inject some, it doesnt feel genuine to sincere to me…It feels like they realised making Maui an asshole for most of the runtime WITHOUT giving him some kind of tragic backstory just wasnt going to sit well…so they just gave him a generic ‘out’ to let him have justification for being a dingus, and then the film uses that generic ‘out’ to force a character change on him in the 3rd act.

The vocal performances are fine enough, Auli’i Cravalho is a pretty solid lead as ‘Moana’, One of the better offerings i’ve seen in modern Disney if im honest…Its just a bit of a shame she doesnt really get to do much other than steer the boat and follow Maui around.

Dwayne Johnson as Maui is equally solid. But just has the occasional moment that feels ‘off’ for lack of a better word…like Im not sure if its a dialogue issue, or a delivery issue…But something just didnt sit right with me about his performance in a couple of places…

And…because I dont have much to say about it, the supporting cast were ‘fine’, but also ‘unremarkable’ with probably the only other standout performance here being Jermaine Clement as the sparkley crab Tamatoa, who ALSO gets one of the better character pieces in the film AND one of the better songs in the movie too.

Which leads me to, the soundtrack…and basically the only songs I jammed with were ‘You’re Welcome’ and ‘Shiny’ both of which are legitimate bops. But the rest? I couldnt hum you a bar. I know there was one where the word ‘Island’ was said approximately 16 million times…but again I couldnt sing you a line of it. other than going ‘Island, island island island ISLAND, island island ISLAND, ISLAND ISLAND ISLAND’…it was a tad on the generic side, and by the 3rd act I did find myself saying ‘Not everything NEEDS to be a song’

I know that Disney movies have musical elements to them…but it felt in places like this film was TRYING to cram as much music in as possible, rather than letting songs happen organically.

I didnt hate ‘Moana’ its technically sound, the performances are fun and well handled and I enjoyed some of the gags and music…But I have major issues with the script on a structural level and they really overplayed their hand on the musical numbers. If your kid likes it, I wont ick their yum. But This was too long and generic for me sadly…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/moana-2016/

A more than pleasent surprise for the christmas listings this year, ‘Wallace & Gromit’ return with their 2nd ever feature length outing in ‘Vengence Most Fowl’ a sequel to the 1995 claymation masterwork ‘The Wrong Trousers’. Having had a soft spot for the pair now for years, this was kind of an easy sell for me. But what surprised me the most is just how close it comes to surpassing ‘Trousers’ in terms of scope and scale!

We pick up many years after the events of ‘The Wrong Trousers’ and Wallace is once again in financial trouble, fearing the baliffs, he puts his thinking cap on and comes up with the ‘Norbot’ a ‘Smart Gnome’ who cant do almost any task inside or outside of the home. When word catches on at just how effective Norbot is, Wallace becomes a household name. But after a news crew interviews the inventor, word reaches a most despicable enemy. Feathers McGraw! Who’s still serving time in the zoo for the attempted theft of the Blue Diamond in ‘Wrong Trousers’.

Feathers hatches a scheme to bust out utilising Norbot and frames Wallace for a spate of burglerys leading the pair to turn detective to find out exactly WHO is framing them and what Feathers could be up to next!

And what we have here is a DAMN solid hour and 20 the isnt afraid to push the pair forward, but is MORE than willing to embrace their past. For a british person who grew up with the pair, it was a warm christmas hug from the screen.

The plot is energetic, rarely slowing down and only really starting to creak a bit towards the end of the 2nd half, where they have to cram in a lot of exposition VERY quickly to crash us into the 3rd act. And the thing I appreciated most about this entry is they finally seemed to have understood that we, as an audience, dont WANT Wallace & Gromit to be some kind of heavily cinematic, highly polished product. a bit of the rough and ‘handmade’ quality to it is what makes it feel home grown and wonderful. And to see that personal touch back again here really was quite wonderful.

The pacings consistant mostly throughout (barring the aforementioned 2nd act slowdown) and the humour is pretty much perfectly balanced, and a DEFINITE improvement over their previous outing ‘A Matter of Loaf and Death’. they’ve gone back to what works with this pair, and thats gentle visual comedy and the occasional rhy comedy line well timed. And thats EXACTLY the kind of thing I go to Wallace and Gromit for…Not references to ‘Batman 1966’.

The animation itself is lovely, While I dont think this film *quite* hits the complexity of ‘Wrong Trousers’ or ‘Close shave’ in terms of visual creativity and jaw dropping scene construction. It does have a ruddy good go and that creative effort really does pay off, delivering (arguably) the most solid work the studios produced in *AT LEAST* 20 years. Moments such as the finale or Wallaces new ‘Wake up’ machine are very well handled and the whole thing oozes a charm.

I also have to add that, for the first time in a while, there is ACTUALLY a genuine unsettling quality to the villains in this piece, Norbot has moments that I am fairly convinced WILL traumatise young children (consider that a warning) as *I* as a fully grown adult got the fear from those bloody gnomes at least once or twice…

As for the performances? Sadly Peter Sallis passed away in 2017, but since then the voice of Wallace has been headed up by Ben Whitehead. and honestly? if you didnt KNOW Sallis had died, you’d think it WAS him…I only really picked up on it based on LITERALLY one or two brief line deliveries where the phonics didnt line up *quite* with how Sallis had delivered them in the past. Otherwise its a remarkable performance that really nails the warmth and curiosity Wallace as a character has, and I was quite impressed.

Reece shearsmith delights as Norbot, frankly just knowing its Shearsmith adds a whole other layer of folk horror fear to proceedings. I enjoyed his take a lot, even the cameos from Peter Kay, Lauren Patel and Dianne Morgan were utterly delightful and really more than nailed the brief. They aced it.

And finally the soundtrack. Which again, I cant honestly flaw really…Its maybe not *quite* as memorable as the firm fan favourite entries…But again, it has a ruddy good go, and I could believe it WOULD become a ‘fondly remembered classic’ in future.

In short, this was a very nice christmas present from Aardman animations. A really well built production which, apart from one or two minor pacing issues and a few duff jokes, had me chortling over my cheeseboard (im not kidding, this film prompted me and the missus to go and break the cheeseboard out…it has that kind of mythic power)

Would I recommend ‘Vengence Most Fowl?’ Absolutely! But, if you REALLY want a christmas treat…Maybe either watch it ASAP or save it for next christmas. I think its best watched with the tin of chocolates, a glass of the good stuff and the blinds closed. Enjoy.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/wallace-gromit-vengeance-most-fowl/

Watched on Friday December 27, 2024.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/a-charlie-brown-christmas/1/