The Movie Addict

The Personal History of David Copperfield is based on the story by Charles Dickens but is given a twist by Armando Iannucci. To be honest I haven’t read David Copperfield and have no desire to do so but I have seen several versions of this story and its only because that Iannucci is involved is the reason why I went to the cinema. It took me about 30 seconds to start laughing because with an Iannucci and Simon Blackwell script, what you do get is plenty of humour and it runs through this film from start to finish.  As there has been several thousand (slight exaggeration) versions of this story I wont really spend any time talking about it as the film is more interesting for the performances. Dev Patel is very good as David Copperfield. His younger self was also interesting but Patel brings a likeable quality to the character and despite all the horrible things that happen to him during the course of the film but he still maintains a calm point of view. Peter Capaldi is very funny a...

There aren’t many films in recent years that I have been looking forward to see. 1917 is one of those films largely because of a video I saw on YouTube and that one shot of George Mackay running towards the camera. This film is directed by Sam Mendes who attempted a similar thing in Spectre a few years ago. In that case it was only a few minutes and in this film it's just over two hours long. In short, 1917 is a superb film.  The set-up of the film is that Lance Corporal Blake (played by Dean-Charles Chapman) has to deliver a message to Colonel MacKenzie (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) calling off an attack which will kill 1600 men including his brother. The key selling point is that the film is shot as one continuous shot. I thought that this helped add to the drama and tension. It was quite clever how they managed to make things flow and keep the low key moments interesting enough.  The central performances are really good although I was surprised that Blake died so early i...

After being disappointed with Episode 8, there was sense that I was going to be disappointed with the final instalment in this trilogy. The set for the film is that Rey and the other are going to hunt down the Emperor who somehow managed to survive after the events of Episode 6. There is a lot to like about this film. Firstly I thought that the plot was much stronger than in the last film. It hit the ground running and never really stopped. The plot gave Rey, Finn and Poe enough to do and my main issue with Episode 8 was that it felt like Finn were being side-lined with the casino stuff. The plot is this film never felt like it was stalling, during episode eight the whole casino scene just felt tacked on and in this film the plot felt like some thought had been given to it. Bringing back the Emperor seemed like a clever way of getting round the fact that Snode was killed in the previous film despite being pushed as the new Emperor. I thought that the Emperor was very good in this altho...