PODCAST: Film Focus Episode 37 – 2017 Summer Movie Recap

Howdy ladies and gents of the internet, as some of you may have seen, last year I started a film podcast entitled Film Focus and on this podcast, I talk about various topics in film and reviews as well on a biweekly basis. As for the latest episode, it is a recap/review of the summer movies of 2017!

Anyway here’s the episode 37:

So episode 37 of Film Focus is the longest one yet as we do a pretty in-depth recap of the summer movies. And yes you read that correctly, I said “we”, as this episode marks the first time I have a guest on the podcast as I’m joined by Drew from Drew’s Movie Reviews to discuss our thoughts on most of the films released over the course of the summer. Now obviously there will be blind spots in our list because we didn’t have the time or interest to see everything, but I think we did a decent job, plus it was just a really fun to have a different voice on the podcast. The conversation flowed in a casual and relaxed manner and I’m super thankful to Drew for joining me. From The Fate of the Furious to American Made, we get cover a lot of films that came out from April through to August.

There were also a lot of films I saw but never got around to reviewing on my blog, I also have mini review for:

• Baby Driver
• Dunkirk
• The Big Sick
• Atomic Blonde
• The Hitman’s Bodyguard
• Detroit
• Logan Lucky
• American Made
• The Dark Tower

As I mentioned before I’ll cover a different topic or review in each episode and since I don’t have much in the way of listeners or promotion, I’m here to spread the word about my podcast. 🙂

You can find my main site on Soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/film_focus

Or if you’re on iTunes subscribe and rate me on there: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/film-focus/id1114233892?mt=2

So if you have some spare time on your hands and would like to listen to the ramblings of a passionate/strange man then please check it out, and share it with your friends if you can. Also, you have any feedback or if you’d be interested in joining on future episodes be sure to let me know, until next time, laters! 😀

 

ONE PARAGRAPH REVIEW: Atomic Blonde

Howdy ladies and gents, so today I went to the cinema for the first time in like 2-3 weeks and I’m finally getting around to playing catch up with certain films. And with that out of the way, I’m ready to give you a mini review for Atomic Blonde.

The plot can be summed up as the following: “The story revolves around a spy who has to find a list of double agents who are being smuggled into the West, on the eve of the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989”

So this film was better than I expected considering the reviews that ranged from good to okay. Now I’m not saying I base my film viewing experiences purely based the review of others, but if I’m iffy on a film than a certain amount of reviews can sway me, and Atomic Blonde was a film I was interested in because of the director and the action in the trailers, but after a while the more I saw of the film the less sure I would enjoy it. Firstly the story was pretty interesting considering the setting and its ties to real world events in the 80’s, however, I found that the non-linear style of storytelling wasn’t needed as much as it was and the plot did become a tedious, slow, needlessly complicated and predictable at points. As for the cast, they were strong. Charlize Theron as Lorraine Broughton was so cool, stylish, tough as nails and cold yet human on the inside and Theron sold the role well and looked so good in her many outfits. James McAvoy as David Percival was funny, quirky and charismatic and the role works primarily because of McAvoy’s charm. John Goodman and Toby Jones were good as Emmett Kurzfeld and Eric Gray, I also enjoyed Eddie Marsan as Spyglass, Sofia Boutella got to stretch her acting chops as Delphine Lasalle, and Bill Skarsgård was quite good as Merkel. But the best part of this film by miles is the action, good gravy, director David Letch, the cinematographer, stunt team and fight choreographer did a fabulous job. The action was intense, brutal, violent and hard-hitting with every punch, kick, stab, gunshot, car crash and more having an impact. The fight sequences were creative and badass, with such attention to detail with the use of props, a lot of movement and style, and some of those extended scenes all done in one take were insane. I will say that one of the sequences had the characters fighting longer than humanly possible which made it a little unrealistic, but otherwise, I enjoyed it a lot. With the 1980’s soundtrack, it worked for the most part, however, sometimes it felt like there was one song too many and there were also two songs with two versions which felt unnecessary. In conclusion, Atomic Blonde was a decent time at the cinema, while the story was a little tedious, I had fun with the cast and action scenes. Definitely worth a watch,

So have you seen Atomic Blonde and if so what did you think of it? Leave your thoughts in the comments below and I’ll see ya on the next review, laters! 😀