Mike Goes To Movies

Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020) My expectations going into Birds of Prey was pretty close to ground-zero - something that I am continuing to realize is a good thing. After a string of okay-to-horrendous recent DC films (*cough* Batman v Superman *cough* Justice League *coughcoughcough* Suicide Squad), my excitement for this film was as tepid as the water dripping from my ever-broken kitchen sink tap. It was a joyful surprise then to find myself (for the most part) quite entertained watching Birds of Prey last week.  Like Birds of Prey the movie, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), at the start of this film has smartly broken away from any connection she might have from Suicide Squad and has now broken up with Mr. J (that's the Joker, to all you hopeless non-nerds). And so, Harley tries to strike out on her own not knowing that she very quickly will be running-in with local mobster Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor). Harley soon finds out that ...

Doctor Sleep (2019) Oddly enough, the latest of Stephen King's book adaptations is one of the toughest reviews I've had to write. I have a lot of conflicted thoughts and emotions about this film, and, largely, this is because it is a sequel to a very classic film - one of my favourites in fact - and, in my opinion, the best horror film of all time. Unlike many sequels, however, Doctor Sleep is a legitimate continuation of the story as it was penned by King himself in 2013 (whether he should have done so is an entirely separate discussion). Now, writer/director, Mike Flanagan, had a uniquely difficult task as he decided to make this film a sequel to both The Shining the book and the film - and for those King diehards, you know that there are significant differences between the two. Lastly, is the fact that The Shining was made by one of the all-time greats, Stanley Kubrick, and no matter how much you want to, or try to, you cannot help but compare Doctor Sleep to The Shining ...