Review: Insidious - The Red Door

Insidious: The Red Door
Cert: 15 / 107 mins / Dir. Patrick Wilson / Trailer

It has been, lest we forget, five years since the last Insidious movie. And ten years since the last good one. But Sony and Blumhouse have decided there are still fumes in the tank and this time co-leading man Patrick Wilson makes his directorial debut as well. Writer Leigh Whannell returns once more (this time in the company of Scott Teems), and we're back with the core cast where it all began.

In this fifth installment (there may be no numbers in the titles but rest assured Sony, we're counting), it's nine years after the events of Insidious Chapter 2 and the Lambert family's precarious happy ever after has petered to an end. Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne) have separated, Josh's mother Lorraine has passed away*¹, and the spectral lodestone himself Dalton (Ty Simpkins) is about to go to art college. Josh is struggling with brainfog, as the lasting effects of the post-hypnotic suggestion that prevent him astrally projecting himself into danger are conflicting with his long-term memory. Similarly, Dalton finds that magically forgetting his abilities doesn't stop creatures from the other side seeking him out anyway...

EARNEST

After a slow-burn of a first act which plays like a genuinely interesting family melodrama, the colour saturation and gamma correction are turned down so the push-button, cattle-prod jump-scares can begin in earnest. You get the impression it's not that Patrick Wilson has anything new or unique to bring to this as a director, more that the man has starred in enough mid-budget studio horror movies that he's looked at whoever's sitting in The Big Chair and thought 'yeah, I reckon I could do that'. Insidious: The Red Door is by no means a bad movie, but it utterly squanders the property's cumulative potential.

Ty Simpkins' performance is strong in and of itself, but the role doesn't really allow him to flex as an actor (although has it ever?). Patrick Wilson, on the other hand, feels underratedly solid once again, with a surprisingly delicate turn that's no doubt the advantage of being able to direct one's own scenes. Both Wilson and Byrne have always had a decent handle in these films of conveying the actual weight of their emotion rather than just Shrieking-Fear, and this outing is no different. Sure, as a metaphor for parental anxiety and empty nest syndrome it's a bit on the nose, but the subtext is better for being text rather than being absent completely.

GREGORY

Of course Dalton's college setting opens the door to an array of setpieces the series has been previously unable to exploit: Shitty Teen Horror™. And leading the charge here, Sinclair Daniel as Dalton's roommate Chris seems to be acting in a far tackier version of the movie*² despite bringing a welcome 'civilian' viewpoint. The keg-stands and explosive vomit occupy a limited section of the film thankfully, but their presence in the first place cheapens it.

Speaking of presence, in-universe character deaths don't stop other familiar faces returning of course, some of whom fill supporting roles while many are relegated to cameo-status. Between the demons we've already met and footage from the first two chapters intercut and re-composited throughout, there's plenty of connective tissue here. But crucially, there's never the feeling of two-way narrative traffic that writer Leigh Whannell once achieved. The film seems to spend a lot of its time pointing out the series' former glories, rather than expanding or exploring them.

PENNY

If Insidious really had more to add to the story, it would have done so with its third movie. This tonal collection of callbacks has all the physical properties of a competent shocker, but doesn't enhance the events of those early films and barely even adds to them in any meaningful way. The style is fine, but ultimately this is hampered by a lack of coherent writing. The film seems to end just because things stop happening, rather than plot-points having been usefully resolved. This could be seen through some eyes as sequel-bait, but as of the closing credits there really is no story to continue.

The long and short of all this is that The Red Door is more interesting than the last two Insidious movies, and nowhere near as inventive as the first two. Which, at this point, feels about right...

*¹ Yes that's right they've written out Barbara Hershey, the only claim to any semblance of dignity these movies ever had.
^{[ BACK ]}
*² According to this script, there are actual human teenagers in the present day who literally say "BRB" and "interwebs" out loud using their mouths and sweet Christ will somebody please make it stop if I wanted this shit I'd watch Bodies Bodies Bodies.
^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Midway

Midway
Cert: 12A / 138 mins / Dir. Roland Emmerich / Trailer



"War", as George O'Dowd once sang, "is stupid". Not to let this lie, he further opined "and people are stupid". Now, a mere thirty five years later, Roland Emmerich has refined, combined and underlined those points with merciless efficiency in his new offering, Midway.

If you've ever wonder what the grubby-end of a brutal and complicated global conflict would look like when filtered through the brain which brought us two Independence Day movies and White House Down, you're in luck. Although if you have ever wondered that, you already know exactly what it would be like before you sit down. God help up all.

PEARL

Ostensibly telling the True Story™ of the eponymous 1942 battle which turned the tide for the Allies after the Pearl Harbour attack, Midway is exactly what you'd expect from a movie whose gritty, blue-collar, All-American reluctant hero is literally named Dick Best*¹. And that accolade works both for and against the film, depending on your pre-existing view of these things. This is a war movie, and it looks, acts and smells like a war movie. The smell, in fact, is palpable.

Credit where it's due, the many adrenaline-fuelled aerial combat scenes in Midway are absolutely outstanding, although they're coincidentally the ones where the cast do the least amount of talking. The film's script - laughably mechanical, its delivery often moreso - appears to have been assembled using the most textbook lines from the corniest war flicks by a team of 15yr old Call Of Duty enthusiasts, one of whom has an older brother "in the army". To think that this is in any way a serious tribute to those who died during the Second World War rather than an emotionally clichéd, thinly-veiled disaster epic would be to walk straight into the trap of its mid-November release date.

HOWARD

The whole thing appears to be anchored to enough historical fact to prevent it being a complete waste of time, but what a way to manhandle the truth. That said, I couldn't hate Midway because it is what it is and that's a Roland Emmerich movie. But it's very clearly - and very cynically - aimed at a particular type of audience, and in that regard I must concede that it succeeds fairly well*². But rest assured, this is far closer to the flag-waving of Battleship than the reflection of They Shall Not Grow Old.

Approach with extreme caution.



Banging a tin tray on your head for just over two hours.



For the combat scenes, yes.



Everything there is to love about this movie is on a big screen, so no.



It is not.



That's incredibly likely.



Inexplicably not.



Level 1: Tobias Beckett is in this.
I mean let's not get excited, Tobias Beckett was in Venom...





*¹ And let me stop you right there. Yes, thanks to the helpful caption-cards acting as the film's inevitable coda, I know that "Richard 'Dick' Best" is the actual pilot's actual name. I can also clearly envision Roland Emmerich sitting in a room learning that nugget of information and yelling "Lads! Lads! This film is fucking writing ITSELF!!!".
Dick Best.
Dick. Best.
The fact that it's true somehow makes it much, much worse. It's perhaps notable that the gentleman's wikipedia page makes one solitary mention of his informal nickname. Which is to say that the film could have just called him Rick or Richard, but didn't. There is so much testosterone in this movie that our cinema gave it a half-time intermission so it could go out for a shave. Adding insult to injury is that Best is played by Ed Skrein, an over-acting live-action cartoon of a performer who at least has finally found his natural habitat under Emmerich's auspices.

Dick Best surely deserves better. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² Yes, I'm aware that this sounds incredibly snobby, but in my defence I am an incredible snob... ^{[ BACK ]}


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Annabelle Comes Home

Annabelle Comes Home
Cert: 15 / 106 mins / Dir. Gary Dauberman / Trailer


A quick and graceless link-drop to save me working them into the review:
The Conjuring | Annabelle | The Conjuring 2 | Annabelle: Creation | The Nun | The Curse Of La Llorona

"Why do you do it to yourself, Ian?" they ask. A valid question. The closest I can come to an answer is that I've watched all of The Conjuring-universe movies at the cinema so far, they'll be far better in that environment than on a TV and while the overall quality is reminiscent of a rollercoaster, I think I just want to see how bad the series can get before someone pulls the plug.

DOLL

Annabelle Comes Home is the third in its particular subset of the Conjuring flicks, taking place after the previous two prequel-type movies and once the killer doll is safely ensconced in The Warren's occult artefact museum. With Ed and Lorraine (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) out of the house for the night*¹, they arrange for babysitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) to look after their young daughter Judy (McKenna Grace).

But Mary Ellen's best friend Daniela (Katie Sarife) knows of the Warrens' reputation as ghost-hunters, and has reasons for seeing the inside of their infamous vault herself. To add to this, Mary Ellen's prospective sweetheart Bob (Michael Cimino) seems to have picked the wrong night to come a-courting. Before you can say 'Murphy's Law', the doll is free from its holy glass case*² and all hell is breaking loose. Literally. Will young Judy demonstrate she's a product of her lineage, or is this the end of the line?

DEAD

Short version: Yeah, it's not very good. Longer version: but does it need to be? The Conjuring movies are to the horror landscape what Will Ferrell and Melissa McCarthy are to comedy. An undemanding and often underwhelming baseline by which we can judge everything else, for better or worse (and there is worse). That doesn't necessarily make them bad, although they frequently appear that way upon closer inspection.

And Annablle Comes Home just isn't good. Not as laughably awful as the first Annabelle, but not as committed to its narrative as Creation. Instead, this is a parade of mechanically constructed feints and jump-scares which could have been assembled by a computer. McKenna Grace does quite well given the ludicrous nature of the screenplay, but let's not forget that she was the lead in Gifted, and is far better than this.

HUNTER

James Wan gets a story-credit as the snake eating its own tail, with his input meaning the film is one beat short of going full Insidious (although make no mistake, director and screenwriter Gary Dauberman shoulders most of the blame here). Once Annabelle is out of the box and acting as a spiritual lodestone, that's a license for the movie to start flinging shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Bob ends up hiding from a demonic wolf in the chicken house (one of the last places, surely?), Daniela is locked in the museum-room with My Decomposing Dad™ and Mary Ellen ends up padding around the house above avoiding spirits who have dodged The Ferryman. The film basically turns into Poltergeist, leaving Judy and Annabelle literally snoozing through the second act of their own story.

The initial setup is by-the-numbers, even for a series as grounded in classical folklore*³ as this one. The sequence with the doll in the bedroom is well executed, but it's over far too quickly and is in the trailer anyway, so you're already waiting for it. Then the dialogue for the third act consists mostly of screaming. Whether it's our three leads in the house, Sackless Bob out in the shed, or the laundry-list of unhappy spectres appearing like the products of a cursed conveyor belt from the end of The Generation Game. The story seems to have abandoned the twelve-year cycle of events alluded to in previous installments.

JEDI

To add insult to injury, the film has the absolute balls to start lecturing the audience in its final moments. Returning for the coda, Lorraine tells Daniela "When I think of all the evil in here, it reminds me of all the good out there…". I nodded in silent agreement, reminded of the other four movies I could have been watching in that same cinema.

2019 has shown us that the most imaginative horror doesn't have to be moored in the supernatural, despite being deliberately outlandish. So you really have to wonder why we're still doing this. Then again, if Valerian can exist in the same release schedule as Blade Runner 2049, I suppose you have to cater for everybody.

DEAD

On the plus-side, Annabelle Comes Home cruises the fuck past the Bechdel Test. That's it. Anyway, here's the summary which could have saved all of these words:

Is Annabelle Comes Home just a dip in the cinematic rollercoaster of The Conjuring? Or does this apparently low plateau signify that we're finally approaching the boarding platform and the ride is over?

I imagine that will depend, as most things do these days, not on the quality of the mechanics themselves, but rather how many people are interested in paying for the ride. We await with bated breath…

The other Conjuring movies. At best.



Not when Midsommar is playing at the same time.



Stream it, then work out if it deserves space on your shelf (it doesn't).



Fuck no.



Fuck yes.



No.



Level 2: McKenna Grace is in this, and she's the young Captain Marvel, in a film with Sam 'Windu' Jackson and Ben 'Krennic' Mendelsohn



That's not because the film is bad on a technical level (even though it's far from great), but just because it's not even trying.


*¹ Ed and Lorraine had the right idea when they fucked off after the first ten minutes. Probably the most sensible thing they've done in seven movies, to be fair. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² You'd think that with the thoroughly abandoned priest sub-plot, they could finally do a crossover with Father Ted? ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Why doesn't Lorraine just walk back onscreen and say to the camera "By the way, we really want to make a Black Shuck movie, so please create some buzz around these scenes okay thanks bye."? ^{[ BACK ]}



DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Aquaman

Aquaman (2D / SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 143 mins / Dir. James Wan / Trailer



As a reviewer (and as you can see dear reader, the cutting-down of these extravagantly lengthy articles is proving only partially successful), a clean-slate is pretty much the ideal scenario for any movie. Read no reviews or opinions beforehand, and let hopefully the flick speak for itself. Mission accomplished, I went into Aquaman with no expectations. Although I confess I went in with no particular excitement, either...

ARTHUR

Jason Momoa is Arthur/Aquaman (hereafter referred to as Arthurman), a sort of amphibian hybrid superhero whose father is a creepy CGI lighthouse keeper*¹ in Maine, and whose mother is Queen Atlanna (hereafter referred to as Aquamum) of Atlantis, sort of like Daryl Hannah in Splash only with legs. When she's in the water as well, I mean. Anyway. Arthurman is doing fine rescuing various submarines from pirates until merlady Mera (Amber Heard) rocks up one day to tell him that his half brother King Orm (Patrick Wilson) is threatening to kick off and lead the seven armies of the sea to take over the land, in conjunction with King Nereus (Dolph Lundgren) and aquatic admin assistant Vulko (Willem Dafoe). Meanwhile, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays a 'dry-land' pirate with archetypal daddy-issues and so wants to kill Arthurman, and sporadically returns throughout the film in an attempt to do so.

And I suppose that once you accept that the characters can talk and be heard underwater, it makes absolute sense that there'd be daylight at the Earth's core, as well.

But the film's alright. By no means great, but Aquaman is far from the most troubled entry in DC's cinematic canon. But that said, it's also pretty far from the most interesting one, too. Momoa continues to be a natural fit for the role in a film which is pretty much built around his presence. Although while the action sequences are pretty much a given, the trademark deadpan humour Jason displayed in Justice League falters, as the script just isn't there to support his natural comic timing*².

HARVEY

As Arthurman's dialogue is relatively minimal, the burden of the script is foisted onto everybody else. This could be Amber Heard's toughest gig to date, as she struggles admirably to deliver her lines without bursting into laughter. There are vast swathes of the film devoted to her and Willem Dafoe standing around explaining backstory which doesn't matter. Considering the amount of alternate bickering and flirting they have to do, Heard and Momoa have precisely no chemistry together, to the point where I suspect they might have green-screened all of their shared scenes on separate days.

The movie features a series of progressive flashbacks to Arthurman's youth, where he's played by a succession of actors who look nothing alike. And I can't believe The Punisher and the Green Goblin have jumped ship to DC (actually with those two, I can).

Aquaman is over-scripted, over-acted, over-directed and way over-long. Here more than ever, DC's live-action output is clunky and old-fashioned, ingrained with a campiness that borders on Gods Of Egypt levels. When pirate-dude comes back as Black Manta, he's pretty much the only one in the movie not wearing a partially CGI costume costume, and as a result looks like something out of Power Rangers*³.

And I didn't think it would be possible to find a more miscast villain than David Thewlis pompously snarling through his ill-fitting armour in a part he's clearly not right for. Then Patrick Wilson was all 'mate hold my Kryptonite'. King Orm is flat-out ridiculous, even for a movie like this*⁴.

SUSIE

The plot as detailed above is a bare-bones affair, and the production is forced to rely on spectacle as a result. In the end, Aquaman borrows so heavily from Thor and Black Panther that it's had to take out a loan from The Phantom Menace just to keep up the repayments*⁵.

Rupert Gregson-Williams' score is nicely rousing for the most part, but its claustrophobic submarine fight-scene features more-than-a-touch-of Henry Jackman's 'Lemurian Star' cue from the Winter Soldier soundtrack. Y'know, the bit where there's a claustrophobic fight-scene on a maritime vessel…

FIXO

It wouldn't be a DC movie without a murky CGI 30-minute explosion to round things out. And if Pirates Of The Caribbean and The Meg have taught us nothing else, it's that these look so much better when they're happening underwater. Yay.

Of course it's easy to be cynical about all this, but it's also nigh-on impossible to find some sort of depth or subtext in the screenplay. It's just a very linear franchise-filler, and that's okay. But every time the script threw in some heavy-handed line about pollution and the environment, I couldn't help but think of the number of non-recyclable drinks cups in the auditorium around me. Can that really be the message?

But if you're after an uncomplicated, undemanding*⁶ superhero flick over the holidays that's sincere in its silliness, you could do far worse. Aquaman is basically fine*⁷.

DC's best film of modern times is still Teen Titans Go! To The Movies.

Well, the other DC flicks, frankly.



If you like the look of the trailer, sure.



Most of the cinematic spectacle will be reduced accordingly in your living room, so choose wisely.



With the best will in the world, it's not.



It's likely, but not certain.



Not that I heard.



Level 1: Jango Fett is in this.

Maybe that's what he looked like after Geonosian scientists grafted his head back on after Geonosis…





*¹ Seriously, the CGI de-aged Temuera Morrison used for the first sequence is just embarrassing, even worse than Rogue One Princess Leia. He looks like an pre-vis animatic rendering of a burns-victim. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² The most pertinent example being that bit from the trailer where Arthurman punches in the top of a submarine and lands in the corridor. Two armed henchmen look at each other nervously while Arthurman looks coyly over his shoulder and quips "Permission to come aboard?". He is already aboard. That is the joke. That is the level of wit reached in the first ten minutes of the film and maintained throughout. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ "Call me..." *postures* "...Black Manta!" he said as I sniggered slightly too loudly in the cinema. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ "Call me..." *grimaces* "...Ocean Master!" he said as I actually guffawed in the cinema. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁵ Yeah, that's about the ninth time I've used that joke on this blog, and I'm not even sick of it yet. I'd apologise here, but I'm just not sorry. Hey, if DC can recycle threadbare ideas then I sure as hell can, too. They're the ones profiteering from their laziness, I do this shit for free. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁶ Genuine conversation overheard after the film:
-Have you just been to see Aquaman?
~Yeah, loved it mate, best one yet. So much better than Justice League.
-Yeah man, that was fucking shit.
~Yeah, right!

…and I thought 'but why are you here watching this then, if its predecessors offended you so?'. Then I remembered that I was due to see the new Transformers flick three days later, even though I tore the last one a new arsehole. Although I'll be honest, these didn't seem like two reviewers spitballing ideas for an imminent deconstruction. But you never know. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁷ Seriously though, Arthurman has got long hair and a beard. How is this efficient for someone who spends half their time underwater and the other half trying to dry out (and presumably stinking in the process)? ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: The Nun

The Nun
Cert: 15 / 96 mins / Dir. Corin Hardy / Trailer



I've got a spreadsheet where I list all the films I've watched*¹, link to reviews, categorise them by score, BBFC rating, genre etc. One of those genres available in the dropdown is 'True Story'. Corin Hardy's The Nun opens with a caption-card reading "The following occurred in Romania, 1952". Now, The Nun wasn't categorised in my spreadsheet as 'True Story' before I sat down in screen 5, and it sure as fuck isn't afterward, either. If anything, an early sequence in which our eponymous villain glides slowly down a corridor sees a crucifix on the wall slowly turning upside down the closer to it she gets. As The Nun™ draws parallel to the now-inverted cross, it bursts into flames, and I realised these particular real events have apparently been screenwritten by a 17yr old Cradle Of Filth fan…

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Nun is the fifth movie in the Conjuring universe. It is the very definition of A Studio Horror, in which an ancient demon is summoned into the body of a middle-aged woman in an Eastern European convent, and is so furious at this that it then goes a bit mad and kills pretty much everyone at every opportunity. For obvious reasons the Vatican isn't too happy at the ruckus being caused, so they send Father Burke (Demián Bichir) to investigate with a collection of suitcases, accompanied for reasons which really aren't made clear by prospective good-nun Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga*²). Hell on.

It's the kind of film where a French-Canadian farmer living in Romania answers the door to a pair of strangers by speaking in English. The range of accents here is astounding.

The film's basically fine if that's what you're into. But as is so often the case, you'd have to be pretty new to the genre to be wrapped up in anything it has to say. At this point in the ongoing Conjuring saga, the storyline itself is almost completely linear. But wearing the continuity badge upfront like a press-pass, at least that's expected. If anything, I'd much rather have this movie be middling as part of a series than standing alone thinking it's better than it is. The Nun is well enough assembled, but in a way that suggests no-one involved believed they were making something unique, so just didn't try. The wardrobe and set-dressing are nothing less than meticulous, yet I still didn't believe for a single frame that this was taking place 66 years ago*³.

Oh, and when the power is pulled from a radio, the music will just cease, it doesn't drop in speed and pitch like a turntable. Not even in 1952. Although I'm also aware that nothing else in that particular sequence makes sense either.

The Conjuring series has been up and down like a rollercoaster, but this is an absolute ghost train of a movie. With dusty tombs, papal crisis meetings, an Act II backstory exposition reel and more jump-scares you can throw a crucifix at, it's more a tribute to the genre than a pastiche, but still made with a knowing glint in its eye. And with its motifs of guilt and possession in a Romanian setting, The Nun owes as much to Bram Stoker as it does William Friedkin.

Oh, and when farmer Terry is walking around the catacombs with the flaming torch in the film's crescendo? The audience can see where the inbuilt gas jets are, mate.

Still, the bits with the pentacles made me laugh. I mean out loud*⁴.


The Nun is much like the cave on Dagobah.
"What's in there?"
"Only what you take with you."



Well let's take a wild guess, shall we?



Well, not unless you're a hardened fan of the series.



Not unless you're a hardened fan of the series.



It's not.



Probably not.



Definitely not.



Level 1: Rogue One Dr. Evazan's in this.





*¹ Not that regular readers will be surprised by this, obviously ^{[ BACK ]}

*² And for the record, Taissa Farmiga is a very capable and competent central performer here (given the state of the screenplay), who is the younger sister of Conjuring 1 & 2 star Vera Farmiga, and who looks and acts very much like Vera Farmiga, and whose point in the story's timeline suggests that her character could just be a younger version of the character played by Vera Farmiga, and whose experiences in the film point towards a third-act reveal surprising approximately no-one that 'hey this is really Lorraine from the Conjuring films!', especially since Vera Farmiga appears in the film's bookend scenes, but then that doesn't happen and you have to wonder why the actual fuck Taissa would be cast if the family resemblance wasn't going to be a thing because otherwise it's just really distracting. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ While watching The Nun, It crossed my mind (because it's the sort of film which allows the viewer's train of thought to wander well off the tracks) that I have no problem believing in Santa Claus when I'm watching a great Christmas movie. Just between the opening titles and closing credits, obviously, and just as a dramatic conceit to tell the story. So why am I so cynical when it comes to supernatural horror? Why can't I just switch off and be 'in the moment'? I suspect it's something to do with caption cards claiming some sort of documentary heritage, but I'm snarky at movies that don't have these, too. Answers on a postcard, please. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ No real code-breaking in this, since I was sat in my local's massive screen 5 on my own for the entire movie. Which I didn't mind at all, as you can imagine. That said, the only worry I had was that I'd look round at one point and there'd be someone dressed as a nun sitting four about seats away. Anyway, that didn't happen. Although if I ran a cinema, I'd make sure one of my staff members was doing that with every screening. ^{[ BACK ]}


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.