Glee: The Top 10 Episodes

The pop-culture phenomenon Glee takes its curtain call tonight, after 121 episodes and over 700 performances over the course of its six year run. It's no question that Glee was never as good as it was in its first season, and the show began to increasingly create and drop important plots in an episode, write characters in entirely different personalities on a weekly basis and use countless songs purely for iTunes sales, rather than to advance the plot. But for a while at least, Glee was really something special, so in celebration of its finale I decided to create a list of its top 10 best episodes (in my opinion of course).

Four Films in a Day - Part Two (Jupiter Ascending + Shaun the Sheep Movie)

Here is part two! Go read Part One before this if you haven't already!

In celebration of finishing our mock exams, my friend & I indulged a ‘full movie day’ at our local cinema and saw 4 films in a day (basically for free may I add – bless you Cineworld Unlimited!). So here is a review for the last two films I saw that day:

JUPITER ASCENDING

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Jupiter Ascending is the kind of batshit insane, big-budget epic that you cannot believe was greenlit and funded in this day and age. The Wachowskis’ populate their vast worlds with rat, elephant, mole and lizard people, twinky robot lawyers, dragon bodyguards and shapeshifting ‘gollums’ and create truly magnificent space environments for Channing Tatum as a wolf-soldier with gravity boots to run around with Mila Kunis in. The convoluted plot involves a powerful family of technologically advanced humans who ‘harvest’ planets to maintain their youth and are seeking to hunt down a girl (Kunis) whose genetic signature matches their deceased mothers, giving her a valuable inheritance that they all want. And that is the abbreviated version. Regardless of whether you love it or hate it, you can’t deny that it’s awesome that a wildly ambitious epic like this can still be made.

The film greatest asset is its frankly stunning visuals, not just with CGI of the vast space environments but with the beautifully detailed backgrounds, costumes and character designs that fill the film and make it a treat for the eyes. The universe-building by the Wachowskis in this film deserves more credit than it has been given and this kind of ambition and flair in a big-budget action/sci-fi flick is something I wish was used more often in blockbusters. 

However, the film suffers from a story that is often repetitive and drills through a few too plots in its running time. The characters are fairly thin and unremarkable and the actors don’t do much to help elevate them, though are generally decent (with the exception of a gleefully awful Eddie Redmayne as the film’s primary antagonist whose obscene scene-chewing is just so much fun to watch). Moreover, Kunis’ Jupiter is too often relegated to a ‘damsel-in-distress’ role, while her romance with Tatum seems to come out of nowhere and is pretty groan-worthy.

While these negatives may seem quite significant, the mad ambition and originality of Jupiter Ascending help to elevate it to a level where it is a firmly enjoyable space opera that I wish weren’t tanking so hard at the box office.

★★★

SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE

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It was a bold move from Aardman to take Shaun the Sheep and his gang from the titular TV series and stretch out the usual 7-minute episodes to an 80-minute feature film. It features no dialogue at all (aside from ineligible grunts by the Farmer) and while it widens the usual scale of the TV series, there are none of the large, action set-pieces that populate many recent family films. However, the Shaun the Sheep Movie succeeds tremendously on its own merits, never having any issue in conveying its surprisingly dense plot and creating some excellent physical comedy.

Aardman (known for creating Wallace and Gromit, amongst films such as Chicken Run) continues to prove stop-motion animation as a format that can be as visually sharp as the computer-animated films that make up most of the mainstream animation industry, but with twice the personality. Their use of humour and quirkiness always make their efforts feel more authentic and charismatic than most other animations and Shaun the Sheep Movie is no exception to this. It transcends its very young target audience with some great gags – including a hilarious commentary on the vapidity of celebrity – and provides a lot of fun for people of all ages. It would be great to see more animation studios that take it down a notch and really focus on telling a great story as Aardman have in this film. 

★★★★

Please leave a comment telling me your own thoughts on these films, and on my reviews of them! 

Four Films in a Day - Part One (Big Hero 6 + Paddington)

In celebration of finishing our mock exams, my friend & I indulged a ‘full movie day’ at our local cinema and saw 4 films in a day (basically for free may I add – bless you Cineworld Unlimited!). So here is a review for the first two of the films I saw that day:

BIG HERO 6

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After the blockbuster success of Frozen, Walt Disney Animation Studios had a lot to live up to with their next release Big Hero 6, an adaptation of a lesser known Marvel Comics title. Luckily, this animated superhero romp is a real treat that stands among Disney’s strong films. Directors, Don Hall and Chris Williams fill the film with excellent action sequences, great humour and colourful & memorable characters.

The plot shines when focusing on the heartfelt relationship between protagonist, Hiro and the huggable healthcare droid Baymax, invented by his deceased brother, Tadashi, finding real poignancy in Hiro’s status as Baymax’s “patient”. His belief that going on adventures and spending time with his friends will help Hiro deal with his unresolved grief offers an unsentimental look into mortality and how it can affect young people, proving Disney’s readiness to tackle serious issues in their blockbusters. However in the film’s third act, this heart is lost slightly due to a descent into the more formulaic waters of a typical ‘team-up’ superhero movie with a fairly unremarkable villain and large action set-piece. It’s a shame but luckily doesn’t take away the impact of the film’s earlier themes.

Overall, Big Hero 6 is a fun and well delivered family film. The city of San Fransokyo is gorgeously animated and designed to combine elements of Japanese and American culture while the central friendship of Hiro and Baymax provides a genuinely heartfelt backbone to the film that is unfortunately diminished by the slightly more lacklustre and unoriginal final act. 

★★★½

PADDINGTON

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Out-of-nowhere, Paddington has become one of the highest grossing and best received films of 2014 in the UK and after finally seeing it, it’s not hard to see why. Adapted from the classic Paddington Bear stories, this is an effortlessly charming and delightful family film, filled with wit and fun that while targeted towards a younger audience, is sprinkled with knowing gags for adult audiences that truly make it a film ‘for the whole family’.

Director, Paul King (of The Mighty Boosh) and co-writer, Hamish McColl update the original stories into a modern London setting, with mild satiric undertones critiquing the xenophobia and anti-immigrant beliefs that are all too common in British society. King’s imagining of London somewhat resembles Wes Anderson’s quirky style and creates a lovely – though sadly monocultural – depiction of the city, while the film’s cast of great British character actors - including the likes of Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins as the Brown parents, with Peter Capaldi and Julie Walters in supporting roles – are great fun in their roles.

In conclusion, Paddington is simply a family treat. It may not be pushing many boundaries with its plot but its charm and good-hearted nature has deservedly won audiences over.

★★★★

'Part Two' will be up tomorrow, featuring reviews of Jupiter Ascending and Shaun the Sheep Movie! Also, please leave a comment telling me your own thoughts on these films, and on my reviews of them!