Above Average Joe Blogs

From my limited exposure to social media trends and groups regarding movies and reviews, it would seem that Hereditary is either "the worst film of the past 10 to 12 years" (an actual quote, the person said worse than Birdemic...) or "the most terrifying film since The Exorcist" (the boring, go to comparison that gets slapped on any new film out). If you want to cut to the chase on this review, it is neither of these things (particularly nothing like the former, and I don't think The Exorcist is all that jazz so I can't quite compare it to that) but it is a pretty great chiller that plays on classic tropes but delivers them in unusual ways. Hereditary focuses on the escalating woes and horrors suffered by Toni Collette's minitures maker and her family, following the death of her slightly estranged, slightly strange mother. The family group is made up of a stoic, and somewhat playing to type disbelieving dad (Gabriel Byrne), teenager boiling over with a...

Solo stumbles into cinema with a whole lot of prejudice riding its flamboyant Lando Calrissian coattails. Directors being booted out (a recurrent symptom of the new Star Wars regime), extensive reshoots, the hyperbolic backlash against The Last Jedi (seriously, calm your farm about how much you "hate" the film - if that is the worst film you've ever seen then you've lived a sheltered life), a competitive blockbuster market to fight against (Infinity War and Deadpool 2) and a relatively unknown actor stepping into the space cowboy boots of an iconic character. I almost wouldn't hold it against you if you didn't have a bad feeling about this before going to see it. But I'd say you are wrong, for save from a few clunky nudge wink moments this is an exciting, propulsive, heist movie, set in the less explored corners of the Star Wars universe. Central to the success has to be the casting of Alden Ehrenreich as the young Han Solo. Ehrenreich doesn't...