No Second Draft – ramblings about film and TV

Synopsis: Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is having a bad day. Her laundromat is being audited by a Gorgon of an IRS agent named Deirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis). Her doormat of a husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) has served her divorce papers. Her demanding father Gong Gong (James Hong) sees her as a disappointment. And oh…

Synopsis: Two years after Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) first donned the cape and cowl of Batman, little seems to have improved in Gotham City, with crime and corruption still rampant despite the best efforts of Wayne and his allies Lieutenant Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) and Alfred Pennyworth (Andy Serkis). However, Gotham is soon shaken up by…

Synopsis: With a failing marriage and a slowly eroding sense of self, Diana, Princess of Wales, heads to Sandringham House to spend Christmas Day, 1991. 1. Spencer is quite the oddity. After all, you hear the term ‘period costume drama’ and immediately the worst comes to mind – stuffy, airless pontification about trivial aristocratic bullshit…

Synopsis: In 1920s Montana, wealthy rancher brothers Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George (Jesse Plemons) Burbank encounter widowed innkeeper Rose Gordon (Kirsten Dunst) while on a cattle drive. Lonely, introverted George soon strikes up a relationship with Rose, to the sneering displeasure of Phil, who looks down on Rose’s low social class. When George and Rose…

Synopsis: When we last saw Peter Parker (Tom Holland), he had just been outed as Spider-Man by media personality J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons). Now, thanks to the revelation of his secret identity and being framed for the death of Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), the lives of not just Peter, but his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya), best…

Synopsis: When small town country mouse Eloise ‘Ellie’ Turner (Thomasin McKenzie) gets accepted into a prestigious London fashion school, it looks as though all her dreams are coming true. However, the shock of big city life and a posse of mean girls led by roommate Jocasta (Synnøve Karlsen) soon drive Ellie away from her dormitory…

It’s been a long time, and I have had next to no time to write, so I’m just posting some quick thoughts on three interesting female-fronted (both in front of and behind the camera) films that I’ve managed to see in the past month or so. My much lengthier review of Last Night In Soho…

Synopsis: In the distant future, noble House Atreides, led by Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac), takes over stewardship of the desert planet Arrakis and its valuable spice mining operations. However, this turns out to be a plot by the sinister Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard) to eliminate House Atreides, of which only the Duke’s concubine Lady Jessica…

Synopsis: When a military coup in the island nation of Corto Maltese results in sensitive military intelligence falling into the wrong hands, ruthless US government official Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) ‘recruits’ a motley crew of criminals to serve as a black ops infiltration team and destroy whatever dirty secrets they encounter, by any means necessary.…

Synopsis: In 1970s London, orphaned petty thief Estella (Emma Stone) makes a pretty good living along with her partners-in-crime Horace (Paul Walter Hauser) and Jasper (Joel Fry). However, the rebellious, iconoclastic Estella dreams of bigger things, and eventually gets her dream job as a fashion designer under the imperious Baroness (Emma Thompson). When a secret…