The Shape of Water

#StokerScore 10/10

This movie, from start to finish, was so obviously a labour of love. Sometimes, the director of a labour of love forgets that an audience is watching the finished product and the movie is consigned to the bin marked Vanity Project. This is definitely not one of them. 

The colours stand out vividly, green being the most important and the director uses it as background to other motifs. The actors are perfectly cast and insist that you soak yourself in their characters and not the person playing them. Doug Jones brings the creature to life, I don't want to say monster as there are plenty of other monsters on display here, since Del Toro has written an adult fairy tale and imbued it with ethereal beauty alongside day-to-day mundanity, juxtaposing the two to the point where you happily accept that they co-exist. 

It is the habits, routines and earnestness of all of the people who dwell in this movie that allows you to suspend belief and hope for the best. Yet, there is a constant sense of unease, that things are about to go wrong that kept me gripped until the end of the movie. When that end did come, I was satisfied that it was the best outcome for all.

This is not a movie for the kids to watch as it contains nudity and sexual content, but these things are entirely acceptable in the context of the overall film. So, if you love textured film making from a director who loves what he does and can approach with an open mind, you will find yourself as thrilled as I was.

Midnight Special

#StokerScore 7/10

Sci-fi. Often a genre that puts people off before they even consider the film, the actors or the story and the diversity of the genre means that this is not without reason. As with any genre of movie some are well made, well thought out, well written and clearly drawn characters. They can catch the viewers imagination by looking at a subject from a different angle or just playing with our emotions. And then there are the opposite of these and unfortunately sci-fi has too many bad movies. Movies that could have been great but were just too careless.

why is it never somewhere easy, like the local mall?

Close Encounters of The Third Kind was Spielberg's 1977 sci-fi opus that followed a group of people who were motivated to find a place where they would meet aliens, aliens who are increasingly witnessed by people with an affinity. Twenty years earlier John Wyndham wrote The Midwich Cuckoos in which a group of children are born to regular parents but who are ultimately not human.

Midnight Special appears to draw from both of these sources in its tale of Alton, a young boy who seems to be sickening due to his being 'special'  (he cant go out in daylight and needs special goggles and ear protectors to sleep) and the attempts of his parents and their friend to help Alton to reach his destination before either a religious cult or the federal government can stop them.

The movie has a great cast with Michael Shannon and Kirsten Dunst as the parents, Joel Edgerton as their friend and Adam Driver as an NSA advisor. Jaeden Lieberher holds his own as the young boy, never coming across as a kid who can't act.

annoying

not annoying

The story keeps you involved and we're thrown right into the mix from the get go. Background is filled in through conversations and characters have motivations for their actions. But where the story lets itself down is never really explaining how Alton came to be nor the meaning behind the big reveal towards the end of the movie. It certainly left me with more questions than answers.

Nevertheless, the story was well told, effects were astonishing for such a cheaply made movie and if you can get past the questions and allow your imagination to answer them for you, you'll love this...