The Brown Note Movie Review

Greenland (2020)

Inexplicably given no America cinema release, despite being one of THE most 2020 films imaginable and easily making back it's budget with low-key overseas box office, Greenland is the latest - and one of the best - end of the world/societal collapse movies to feature annihilation by meteor and the best of its kind since Deep Impact. Ric Roman Waugh is a director who has quietly amassed a filmography I have a lot of time for in the prison dramas, Felon and Shot Caller plus rescuing the franchise with Angel Has Fallen. This is his best yet and stars Gerard Butler - whose accent wanders so far from America to Scotland they literally end up talking about kilts.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

Hollywood's uber-writer Aaron Sorkin continues his well worn migration to directing (after the underappreciated yet not quite there, Molly's Game) with this timely, polemical and fascinating story of Nixon's show trial to punish the counter culture. Mark Rylance, Eddie Redmane and most shockingly Sascha Baron Cohen (by far the star of the show) shine. A really, really good film that perhaps falls just shy of outright greatness by dipping its toe into Ron Howard/Spielberg pat worthiness and awards chasing towards the end. Still a must see.

Unhinged (2020)

Despite containing a lead character so gratingly stupid I wanted Russel Crowe's comical-yet-terrifying man-bear to eat her, terrible writing and almost no engagement in the modern themes it raises, Unhinged just clears a very low bar. It's short, focused, gnarly and tense.

Rebecca vs Rebecca (1940 vs 2020)

One of the most exciting and talented new British directors of the last decade, Ben Wheatley, was either an inspired or bizarre choice to take on Alfred Hitchcock's celebrated only Best Picture Oscar winner. Here both visions of the 1938 Daphne du Maurier novel go head to head and it ain't pretty. After scratching my head as to why he even did it, musing that Netflix were solely appealing to the Downton Abbey/Fifty Shades of Grey country house set, I find a whole new appreciation for the modern concerns of the original - domestic violence, psychological abuse, emotional trauma, toxic relationships and gas-lighting - all of which Wheatley's bland, rote film seem oblivious to.

Love and Monsters (2020)

My vision of hell is a young adult dystopian future romance, yet the major debut by South African director Michael Matthews is kinda wonderful. Nowhere near the self-serious, po-faced dreck of Maze Runner-like films nor bombastic and broad, 'Monsters is surprisingly thoughtful and soulful, with some gorgeously understated effects, an effecting lead in Dylan O'Brien and after she totally stood up Kristen Stewart in this years Underwater, another star making turn from Jessica Henwick.

Night Moves (1975)

Alongside the brilliant, The Long Goodbye (reviewed elsewhere in this podcast) one of the two lost classics and twin pillars of neo-noir. Master-director, Arthur Penn( Bonnie and Clyde), helms Gene Hackman in a highly unusual, cerebral, existential gum-shoe tail, where the characters live on shifting sands, the protagonist has only a limited idea of what's going on and is the unknowing creator of his own story. Very early turns for James Woods and (given she's nude) and uncomfortably young, Melanie Griffiths.

City of Lies (2018)

On the very day Johhny Depp was railroaded (I think) in a UK court, this almost invisible 2018 non-release about the deaths of Tupac and Biggie, and the rampant corruption of the LAPD Rampart division that inspired Training Day, should've been far more interesting but it's very inconsequential and I left feeling confused.

2067 (2020)

With low-budget Sci-fi (and horror) undergoing a revolution this last decade, where artistic powerhouses like Annihilation and Under the Skin exist, and Australia routinely pumps out films like Upgrade, I Am Mother, Predestination and The Rover - a trite, rote dystopian-future subject and bad writing were always going to render 2067 a non-entity. Add awful casting and bad acting to the mix and it sinks like a stone. Kodi Smit-Mcphee's trademark grating, crying teenage man-baby is the icing on a rotten cake.

Antebellum (2020)

Perhaps slightly too high a score here for this divisive, critically reviled, Janelle Monae starring Civil War/Most Dangerous Game hybrid but still a far superior, better structured and more successful film than the awful yet praised Da 5 Bloods. Flaws certainly but it gets an awful lot of film making aspects right and is perhaps being trashed for not living up to its hugely ambitious racial paradigm and the contentious potential therein. As a horror I found it interesting and well put together.

The Harry Potter Special

It's 2020 and until a week ago I had never seen any Harry Potter movie, so after catching the first on TV, I binged the lot. So this is a previously very reluctant outsiders view of the Potter universe. Every single film reviewed and my top 15 pros and cons.