Call Me By Your Name

There are countless 'coming of age' stories out there and Call Me By Your Name is one of them but it's more than just one of them. (I should note that I haven't read the book its based upon).
Set in Northern Italy in 1983 it's the story of Elio (Timothee Chalamet), a 17-year-old with a passion for books and music who spends his time not really doing a lot while his professor father carries on his work at their summer house.
Elio spends a lot of his time with his friend Marzia, who obviously has a crush on him, and may or may not want to reciprocate.
Enter Oliver (Armie Hammer), an intern who arrives for a six week stay working with Elio's father. Oliver's age isn't specified but it's safe to say he's in his early to mid-20s.
One of the first things Elio notices about Oliver is his confidence but he soon begins to see him as an arrogant American who uses the term 'later' quite bluntly when farewelling a situation.
Elio offers to show Oliver around the area and they strike up some kind of friendship, though it's an uneasy one. There's a great 80s soundtrack including the song Words (by F R David), which as you reflect on the movie later will give you chills, and Love My Way by the Psychedelic Furs plus some very well crafted original music.
Without giving away too much of the good stuff, if there's one thing that's clear in this movie it's that Elio is headed for heartbreak.
He pursues his fling with Marzia as he watches Oliver flirt with other local girls, to the extent that one develops a crush of her own.
It's on a ride into town to pick up something that things get serious. Elio lets it out in a remarkably well crafted scene with a war memorial as a backdrop. He tells Oliver that he doesn't know about the 'things that matter'. It puzzles Oliver, and even moreso when Elio tells him that he wanted him to know he felt that way.
It's a tense point that brings the movie alive after some slow patches which probably serve more to tell you the mood of the setting rather than any major fault.
You know where this is headed....
I have to say that Call Me By Your Name gets better if you take a bit of time to think about what you've seen. And probably see it again.
There's a fantastic scene with Elio talking to his father towards the end of the film. It reminded me of the 'it's not your fault' scene between Robin Williams and Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. At least it had the same effect.
It seems Elio's father is a lot more attuned to what has been going on in his house than Elio or anyone else may have suspected. But he surprises you.
The scene needs to be watched in its entirety but one line spoke to me more than any other - ''but to feel nothing so as to not feel anything - what a waste''.
Try watching that scene without it doing something to you.
Now it's really easy to pigeonhole this movie as a ''gay film'' or something like that. It's a whole lot more than just a one genre film. There's a bigger story, a better story than just a cheap attempt to attract a certain crowd.
And it's headlined by a masterclass performance from Timothee Chalamet. He's stunning as Elio, he hits all the right notes, even the Italian, he conveys emotion easily without needing words. It's easily the best single acting performance I've seen in some time.
If you like seeing beautifully shot, superbly acted and well crafted drama then this is a must. If you're going to be put off by the themes it's not for you. But, try it out it might just make you feel something.
9/10.

Suicide Squad

After the dour Batman vs Superman, DC's Justice League could well be back in business. 
I'm not sure why this has received similarly ordinary reviews, the poor reviews were warranted for B vs S (despite the extended version making a lot more sense).
It's funny, I always wonder what the reviewer was expecting when they give a pan to a super hero movie. Sure there are some pretty awful ones out there (Fantastic Four comes to mind) and they should be called as such but that really isn't the case with Suicide Squad.
The film comes on the back of a rocking trailer for Wonder Woman and something of an anti-superhero movie. 
Take it from me, it's as entertaining as anything in the comic book genre this year. That doesn't mean it's perfect though.
A motley team of criminals, they often refer to themselves as 'the bad guys', is formed by the government to help fight the superhuman war building in the wake of the 'death' of Superman. 
They're disposable if something goes wrong and something has gone wrong as the Enchantress (Cara Delevigne) is unleashed. Perhaps using yet another CGI villian is not a great idea, just a thought.
Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), Slipknot (Adam Beach), Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) are coerced into helping out and quite hilariously threaten their new bosses regularly despite being injected with a device that will blow them up if they disobey.
All the while the Joker (Jared Leto) is circling attempting to rescue Harley from the group. 
It's hard not to compare Leto's Joker with Heath Ledger's. 
They look a bit different but are similarly nuts, though the Joker isn't a central character so he's not given as much air time relative to the publicity. If you want a comparison, Leto does fine but his Joker is not in the same league.
Speaking of nuts, Margot Robbie's character is 'a stadium full of picnic bars' crazy.
A lot goes on, sometimes it drags a little, but there are plenty of one liners (Margot Robbie gets a lot of them, and she's excellent), an over the top Australian bad guy and plenty of reminders that this is in the Justice League world with a couple of cameo appearances and an important scene midway through the credits. 
This is so much better than Batman vs Superman but not quite up with Captain America: Civil War and Deadpool.
An 8 out of 10. Bring on Wonder Woman!

Goldstone

Though I haven't spend a great deal of time in what would be termed the Australian outback, I know enough to be confident that it's as harsh as it is sparse and scarily beautiful.

And in the film Goldstone it's the setting for a story of lost souls and the corruption that sustains them at the expense of all others.

The story centres around indigenous detective Jay (Aaron Pedersen) who arrives, drunk and behind the wheel no less, in what could hardly be called a town as there are few free standing buildings and many demountables, in search of a missing Chinese girl.

He's pulled over by the local cop Josh (Alex Russell), a bit too clean cut despite some occasional stubble to be an outback cop just quietly, and thrown in jail. Quickly everyone in 'town' is suspicious of Jay's motives and we find out they have good reason to be as everyone, Josh included, has their hands dirty with what's been going on.

Jay was sent there because of a phone call coming from a woman in the aboriginal community about a sighting of the girl. Legendary actor David Gulpilil has a pivotal role as the community elder Jimmy who has some insight into Jay's past.

Very early we learn that Josh is open to being kept quiet, either by the Mayor (Jacki Weaver) providing 'wink wink' apple pies or more directly with the local mines boss Johnny (David Wenham) offering to 'keep an eye' on a large wad of $50 notes for him.

What are they protecting? As Jay continues his search for the young Chinese girl, a plane carrying five young Chinese women arrives and a few leave. It's made clear the girls are there to 'work'.

In some ways Goldstone is a bit hard to get into, possibly because of how spread out the community is and how the dialogue is sparingly used at times, but in others it's a very interesting story.

It's not a complex story, far from it, and that's a major flaw. It needn't be so one-dimensional.

Even in the outback the almighty dollar rules. The Mayor admits it, as does Johnny, while it eventually gets the better of others.

Pedersen's character is quite enigmatic at times, we're not too sure about who he is (apart from being a detective) as we aren't given a lot of insight into him early on. Some things do unfold in time.

Russell came across a little bit like a Home And Away cop at times and wasn't given many opportunities to shine as much as he could have. You can almost see him pleading with the audience 'there's more to this character that what you can see'.

That is probably a casualty of the setting and the disconnectedness of the township. Another flaw.

Weaver's Mayor is a bit of a cartoon at times but she's there to serve a purpose, to drive the story along and serve a stern warning to Jay to stay out of her town's business, and it's a bit of a shame an actor of her calibre was wasted.

Despite its flaws I did like the movie but I reckon there's a ripping six or eight part TV series in this, akin to a True Detective type show, and it's a big opportunity missed. 

Then we'd have a bit of time to get a bit deeper into the town and the characters and the drama could unfold a bit more naturally.

A 7 out of 10, but it could have been so much more.

The 10 club

I'm a fairly hard marker when it comes to rating a film.
I've never subscribed to the 'stars' model as I believe it's a bit narrow and unless you are going to pin a particular standard to each star it just doesn't work.
So I prefer to score movies out of 10, hence the name of this blog, and to date only four films have reached that standard. Therefore they are members of The 10 Club.
There was a time when I would never hand out a 10 because I didn't think it was possible. So I adjusted how I viewed them, just slightly, and while it is still hard to receive the perfect score it's no longer (what was more or less) impossible.
In the last four years I've handed out a 10 on one occasion each year. It started with The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, while no movie is faultless I had nowhere else to go but 10 after seeing it.
A bit over a year later Whiplash received my second 10 and, as I noted in my review at the time, I would probably gave gone higher if it were possible. Yes, it's just that brilliant.
The weakest of my four 10s is Pixar's Inside Out. I think at the time I was caught up in the sheer excellence of the characters and how much fun the movie is, compared to some of the forgettable sequels and prequels they've been producing of late.
It's still a great film and while I can't backtrack on my rating if I could I'd probably slip it back a point.
The way 2016 is shaping up I'd be surprised if there's another 10 out there after the outstanding Spotlight lived right up to my expectation and then some.
I was so rapt it won Best Picture at the Academy Awards over the boring, overlong The Revenant because it was clearly the best film.
No one style of film lends itself to a 10, though I am partial to a compelling drama.
Looking down my list of 23 films seen (at the cinema) this year it's going to be a fairly disappointing year in the quality stakes. A lot of 7s and 7.5s which aren't bad but so far only eight have made an 8 or better and I've handed out two 4s.

Ghostbusters

Reboot, re-imagining, remake...whatever you call them let me make one thing clear - I'm going to approach you with a level of negativity, just above the level you go into a sequel with.
(Don't get me started on sequels made more than a couple of years later).
Ghostbusters, the 1984 version, is beloved but is certainly not a cinematic classic though I note it was nominated for a couple of Oscars way back when (effects and original song I think). There will be no Oscars for the 2016 gender swapped version, though it wouldn't surprise if there are a couple of Razzies come next February/March.
A big deal was made on social media about the all girl Ghostbusters.
My two cents worth can be illustrated with the following - if casting four women in the leads was for some empowerment reason then good luck to them, but there's a lot of drooling over Chris Hemsworth's character and much made of how pretty and buff he is and just pay attention to where the girls shoot the big baddie towards the end. Just sayin'!
I don't really care whether it was all girl, all boy or a mix but there's something very wrong with the casting choices and something extremely wrong with the script.
I have to declare that I'm not particularly a fan of Melissa McCarthy, I just haven't found her to be funny and she comes across as try-hard funny too. Particularly in Ghostbusters where she's paranormal investigator Abby Yates. After outing her friend Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) as another enthusiast of the ghostly dimensions just as she's about to be given tenure at a prestigious university as a science lecturer they team up with the kooky Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon, one of the film's few standouts) to investigate a sighting at a local museum.
From there the Ghostbusters are born, though they only take on that moniker when they are mocked by a news report.
They rope in the pretty but dumb Kevin (Chris Hemsworth) as their receptionist - again gender swapping from 1984 - and subway worker Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones) invites herself along to complete our foursome of female busters.
It seems our apparitions are being encouraged by the mysterious Rowan North (Neil Casey) who wants to over run New York with ghosts for some not completely clear reason. Perhaps to give those using up the CGI budget plenty to keep them busy in the second half.
Put simply, the awkward comedy employed by McCarthy and Wiig just doesn't work. Whether you blame them or the script or both.
There's some familiar territory from the original and this smacks as a cheap knock-off.
The 1984 Ghostbusters wasn't exactly a roll them in the aisles comedy but there was a cheekiness about it and it didn't need to resort to feminine hygiene jokes (the point where the movie lost me after a promising start) or prolonged scenes like where a dean gives the girls a bird flipping session for way too long.
We do get cameos from most of the original cast, Bill Murray's is more a minor role than just a cameo, and I did very much like Dan Ackroyd's.
Unfortunately, if you've seen the trailer then you know exactly what to expect. If you like that trailer then knock yourself out, you'll probably enjoy it. But if it worries you like it did me when it was first released then believe me, your fears are well founded.
There is apparently a scene at the very end of the credits, but I didn't care enough to bother to stick around. The thought of another one of these is bad enough, let alone waiting five minutes to find out what they have in mind for next time.
I'd really hope there isn't a sequel or franchise as the company owning Ghostbusters would be hoping.
Who ya gonna call? Not these Ghostbusters, that's for sure! If you want to see Ghostbusters, I'd advise the 1984 version.
4 out of 10.