laura-ann-review

[laura-ann-review]

One of my biggest problems with film and cultural criticism today, and one of the big reasons I left the game, is how often writers get away with just fuckin……saying shit. Like I’m sure that Jason Tabrys thinks Barbie has fading relevancy, but that doesn’t change the fact that Barbie remains a fucking icon and 10 seconds of research tells me that Barbie had almost $1.5 billion in sales in 2022. And sure that’s down a bit from the almost $1.7 billlion in sales in 2021, but it’s also considerably up from the decade low of $.9 billion in 2015. Also if Jason Tabrys saw $1.5 billion in ticket sales for Tired Marvel Movie 47 or whatever he’d be lauding what a powerhouse the studio is.

And this isn’t really about Barbie necessarily. We all know why this man thinks Barbie has fading relevancy and that’s an important conversation but this isn’t the conversation I’m trying to have (although please continue having this conversation).

My point is that Jason Tabrys, a man who is not without clout in the film community, can just fucking get away with saying shit like it’s true. This isn’t just a him problem (looking at you Mike Ryan) but is representative of a larger problem with the film and cultural criticism communities.

Words have meaning and facts don’t change with your opinion. It’s perfectly fine if Jason Tabrys lives a life unaffected by Barbie, but for fucks fucking sake, spend five seconds to research before you just say shit.

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Remember if you’re out at a store and someone says “This is a robbery” you can say “no it’s not” and then the robber will leave because theyre a robber and this is no longer a robbery .

[laura-ann-review]

Hi, I know you have a lot of asks, but I have a few questions about SAG’s guidelines for influencers, and I can’t think of anyone else I can ask who might have an answer.

What counts as struck here? Is this just shows that are currently in the production stage, or are we not allowed to post about stuff that’s finished production or is atleast done filming like the Barbie movie or what we do in the shadows (currently airing), or good omens?

Also, what counts as influencer here? Does this only apply to people with significant followings or does it apply to everyone who posts?

Thank you for taking the time to read this

This is the SAG-AFTRA FAQ page on influencers. Influencers sign contracts with the brands they have been hired to promote, and also sign things like the SAG influencer agreement, and make pension contributions, and so on.

Somebody who cosplays or posts and has a Tumblr is not An Influencer. Someone hired by a brand to promote them by making YouTube Videos (for example) is definitely An Influencer. Those people are not allowed to work for the Struck Companies.

There is no follower count minimum, but at present only some Influencers will be eligible to sign the Influencer Agreement

• Presently, only Influencers who perform alone can sign the Influencer Agreement. There are no provisions for ensemble use.

• The Influencer must be incorporated.

• The Influencer must produce their content themselves with no involvement by any third party production entity.

• The Influencer must own their own intellectual property.

• The Infuencer must have a direct contractual relationship with the brand.

• Hazardous stunts, gratuitous nudity and sexual content are not permitted under the Influencer Agreement.

[laura-ann-review]

The Flash (2023)

With the amount of controversy that surrounded their lead actor; Ezra Miller, many questioned if it was right to release this movie. With so many who worked hard on this movie, including the not-so- surprising cameos, the studio decided against the controversy and let the Flash hit cinemas around the world.

Returning the Flash aka Barry Allen back to the DCU is Ezra Miller, whose character realises if he speeds faster than light that he may be able to survive his mother from a time altering event.

By Barry’s side is cameo’s from Supergirl aka Kara; Sasha Calle, Iris West; Kiersey Clemons, as well as returning faces, General Zod; Michael Shannon, Bruce Wayne aka Batman played by both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton, Woman Wonder; Gal Gadot and as well as some surprising cameos further along the film.

This movie is dubbed The Flash, yet while watching it I struggled to see Flash’s storyline. I understand throughout this movie, it’s supposed to be about Barry Allen discovering that time altering events can affect the future, but I felt like the storyline focused more on the super family (Supergirl and Superman) rather than on Barry’s involvement.

When the focus was on Barry, it was more about him trying to rescue his dad who had been behind bars for the alleged murder of Nora Allen; Barry’s mother.

After you watch the cameos play out, it almost felt like a this movie struggled to find which route it wanted to go.

I understand that the lead actor; Ezra Miller’s, is currently going through legal problems and that may have possibly affected the way this storyline was supposed to play out but in saying that, whether it was Miller’s fault or not, this story struggled to find a route that hadn’t already been exhausted by their competitor.

The movie the audience tries to focus itself on the storyline, the easier it is to lose itself to the poorly done VFX on Ezra Miller’s body Double’s face.

Even at times, understandably that the Flash can be faster than the speed of light but when he was going for a casual jog, it felt like the scenery around him was too fake to be real ruining the illusion of what the VFX department may have been trying to create for audiences to believe.

After sitting through the whole film, including the one post credit scene at the very end of the credits, I’ve come to the conclusion that WB felt like The Flash couldn’t survive alone. Watching the endless list of cameos, like I mentioned earlier some surprising and not so surprising, it felt like the studio was counting on those cameos to get audiences members to race to cinemas.

[laura-ann-review]

Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse

With a trailer like Across the Spider-verse, fans already knew what they’d be getting themselves into. They already knew, they’d be jaw dropping with the endless designs of spiderman’s.

Fans knew they’d be in for a world of jokes and a world of “what!?” with a villain like Spots; Jason Schwartzman.

But what audiences aren’t realising what their getting is so much more. Yes, it’s jam packed full of jokes that land perfectly and will have a full cinema session left in stitches. What fans are really getting is a story at its core.

A story of a young man; Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), returning to his world and feeling like everyone’s abandoned him, feeling like he has no other spider-person to turn to, as well as feeling the typical struggle of Do I or Don’t I tell the world I’m spiderman?

The internal conflict Miles has with himself sets up the whole journey, his a young man whose in the early years of high school, a young man whose parents want him to be always close by while trying to mould him into letting him be himself, a young man whose trying to find his own identity amongst the Spidey-chaos.

When Miles comes upon his villain of the week; Spot, his slow to realise that cannon vs non cannon can affect him in more ways than one.

Turns out his spider incident from Spider 42; Alchemex spider, was never meant to bite Miles Morales but rather another Peter Parker but because of the twisted turn of events, it meant the world Miles knew had to change.

With secrets being kept, Miles learns from another misunderstand spider-man from 2099; Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), as well as many others such as Spider-Woman/Jessica Drew (Issa Rae), Hobie/ Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya) and a brief cameo from Pavitr Prabhakar/ Spider-man India (Karan Soni) with returning spiders, Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) and Spider-man (Jake Johnson).

The movie is a visual feast for the eyes, the animating team of this movie did a fantastic job piecing together all the key elements, from the way the audience could see the texture of hair to the texture of clothing, even highlighting key elements attached to each spider person within various frames which some frames had over 100+ and each spider person was easily identifiable.

As I sat and watched this movie, I found that this was slightly different to what I was expecting, I was expecting a villain vs hero comic book movie that the trailer had promised instead what I got was a story of moral struggles, a story that doesn’t necessarily focus on the key villain throughout the story instead using Spot as a starting point in order to show the point of Miles’ struggles.

At times Across the Spider-verse felt a bit slow to watch, at times the movie felt like it was just dragging on and had me checking the time. Though those slow moments have their purpose and without them, than the movie may not have made any sense.

The audiences know Part 2 is on the cards, which explains the cliff-hanger for this even if the cliff hanger did feel a bit underwhelming.

Unlike most comic book movies within the MCU, this doesn’t have any post credit scenes exceptMiles Morales will return in Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Vers

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Love Again

Love Again is a story that follows two people; a woman, whose witnessed her boyfriend’s tragic passing and a man, who was publicly humiliated by being left at the altar. The two of them are almost from two different worlds, while both living in New York. Their love accidentally starts as he starts receiving texts from her and her confessions of grief.

For me, I cried like a baby during the last half of this movie. I absolutely swooned over the idea of finding new love and the idea of learning to love while dealing with pain.

With Celine Dione at the helm, directing these two characters either together or apart. She openly admits I don’t care if you get with him. She just wants a white male reporter to understand love and the reason why she has the song’s she has.

I do unfortunately have some issues with this movie, it was good, but it could’ve been better.

With Mira, our female lead love interest. I found her storyline quite lacklustre. When she was on screen, I understand that people take time to grieve and take time to process what’s happened but for me, I really struggled to understand her grief. I found it hard to believe that the man that the audience meets for less than five minutes is her boyfriend. The way the two of them bounce of each other, almost feels like they are just two friends and when his tragic death happens, it feels like it was let down and didn’t give the audience enough reason to care about her.

Also doesn’t help that this is set two years after her partner’s death, and she just struggles to get back out there as her sister puts it.

When there is mention of John; Mira’s boyfriend, they wasn’t information. Such as how long they had been together or anything other than just what his shirt smells like and that she misses his smell.

When the audience is introduce to Rob, our male lead love interest. He has more to him, he has more life and more reason to pull the audience in. We didn’t know he was left at the altar until a side character mentions it on a pure whim to prove how pathetic Rob’s life is.

Rob uses his career, his lack of care for Celine Dione and his curiosity to pull the audience in.

If it wasn’t for Rob, this story would’ve just been of a woman crying for an hour 44minutes.

Even though I cried in the last half of the movie and turned into one of those stereotypical sappy romance film female watchers, I do have to admit there is flaws to this movie.

Like I’ve mentioned already, John’s quick on/off screen introduction, Mira’s need to cry almost every chance she gets as well as her refusal to let others help her grieve, but there was also the jump between Mira and Rob; even though this story is about them, the story should’ve solely focused on him and the mystery texts.

This is no hate to Celine Dione, because I can see how her character helped the storyline push through, I do feel like she was there so they could get the rights to use her songs throughout the whole movie. I feel like if you took Celine out, the movie still would’ve worked. We didn’t necessarily need her plot device throughout the movie, but it did ad an extra step of flair especially since Mira was such a boring character.

For those that are planning to watch Love Again, I suggest bring tissues. It’s defiantly a tearjerker.

For those like me who are currently going through their lonely phase, stay away from this film. It’ll make you feel lonelier than ever…Though it does give you a reason to feel something and dream that you’ll have a meet cute story like this.

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The Little Mermaid (2023)

In 1989 Disney released an animated film called ‘The Little Mermaid’, which follows a young sixteen year old female mermaid and her fascination with the human world.

It became a beloved fairy-tale for every child and fitted perfectly amongst the catalogue of princesses.

Now, 34 years later Disney had plucked our favourite mermaid into her own live action adaption.

With Halle Bailey not just voicing but also being the live action little Mermaid, Melissa McCarthy taking on the role of our infamous Sea Witch; Ursula, Javier Bardem plays our father of the seven seas; King Trident, Jonah Hauer-King taking on our leading prince; Prince Eric.

As well as our favourite sea animals getting new voices, Sebastian; Daveed Diggs, Flounder; Jacob Trembly, and Scuttle; Awkwafina.

The Little Mermaid (2023) has been discussed as similar to it’s animated counterpart with a few obvious changes with the actors and as well as a touch of rewriting in the songs.

As someone who loved the Little Mermaid and has photos of herself dressed as the little mermaid when she was younger, I was quite excited to see this take and prayed it’d exceed my expectations.

For me when I recently rewatched the 1989 classic, I saw it as a story of self-sacrifice, a story of a young girl trying to break away from her father’s rules and letting her curiosity get the better of her and a father who finally listens to his daughter by relaxing his rules.

I hoped by the end of the movie, I’d still be able to see that in the 2023 telling.

Unfortunately, After watching the movie the message I had taken away from the 1989 classic was a bit askew.

For me, watching this film it felt like I was watching a stage adaptation. It felt like a huge gimmick with trick lighting with very simple and basic costumes.

I understand this film was set in the 13th century, and I understand that this is a predominantly underwater movie, but it didn’t feel like either of those. It felt like they were trying to bring the 13th Century to the 21st Century and we all know by now, that trying to combine the two doesn’t quite work.

Like I mentioned, a few sentences ago. The water effects just felt like stage lighting effects and possibly a quite wind machine (a fan) close on hand to make it look like the actors hairs were moving the way they should underwater. It just felt like they refused to make an attempt at creating an underwater effect.

I know comparing animation to live action is like comparing apples to oranges but when you accustomed to one thing, you can’t help but compare.

Halle Bailey tries her hardest to fit into the fins of Ariel. At times she does a brilliant job, and you can see she is suited to the role of our favourite red head but at other times, she falls flat and allows herself to blend into the scenery without a second thought.

Javier Bardem as King Trident almost feels like a waste of a budget. I felt like he should’ve played a bigger part, I mean how much bigger can you get when your playing the father of the lead role? But he just felt so underused and when he was on screen, he wasn’t bring this anguish, this caring, this larger than life, this protective father figure to the screen. He felt like he was playing King Trident as a distant father.

Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, I felt like something was lacking with her and I can’t put my fin on it. I know that Ursula was inspired by a drag queen, and you can see those elements in the infamous villain but I’m not sure. To me, she seemed like a drag queen who had spent way too much time in a cigarette bar and allowed herself to grasp at fleeting moments of fame.

Maybe it didn’t help that when Ursula was shown during the first half of the movie, she felt like she was narrating the movie and giving away too much all at once. I doubt the animated movie Ursula told the audience everything before everything happened. Than when it came to showing Ursula in the second half of the movie, it felt like the writers didn’t know what to do with her, making her feel like she was shoved into the movie without a point. Even her finale with Ariel felt like a huge let down rather than the huge spectacle that audiences were once accustomed too.

Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, I don’t remember Prince Eric being on the same path of as Ariel but hey, I never really cared for Prince Eric to begin with…So…He had the innocence of Eric and you can see the chemistry flow between him and Halle, those two together seemed to have worked magically on screen. But I felt like they under wrote Prince Eric or at least they turned him into a huge sap of a male version of Ariel.

Daveed Diggs as Sebastian tries to steal the whole movie. In the movie session I was in, the audience ate him up and loved him.

Jacob Tremblay; Flounder, and Awkwafina; Scuttle, felt like a struggle to be put in the story. Obviously when you take the mermaid out of the water, you can’t take the fish with her. Whereas Scuttle, it felt like Scuttle HAD to be there because the bird’s role was important in the animated movie.

This movie could’ve hit expectations, it could’ve hit records that Disney hoped for, unfortunately it falls quite flat. It felt like a stage adaptation.

At the beginning of the film it quotes “But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.” By Hans Christian Anderson, the original writer of this fairy-tale but his story and Disney’s take did not mix. Maybe it was Disney’s way of trying to convince the audience that they could do dark while trying to remake their own work. It just doesn’t work.

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GOTG Vol 3

When your working the day it’s released and want to avoid spoilers during it’s first weekend, you head to an advance screening.

I had sorta been following the hype of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, since the days of James Gunn working on the script and seeing which songs he put with this Instagram stories as part of the script he was working on. Which meant, I went in with an understanding of this is going to hurt like a mothertrucker and I better be all emotions activated.

It has been a hot minute since I’ve seen the first two including the Christmas special, which turns out my marvel fan of a brother hadn’t seen, and I had to explain who the “new” characters were.

Now after seeing the movie, I can absolutely say it’s a perfect way to end the trilogy and acknowledge the future of these characters. Especially with it’s tie up of two closing credits, polaroids of the previous Guardians adventures and a hint of what may be coming next with our beloved.

For me watching this, it was full of adventure, full of laughs and as I heard in the session I was in, a while lot of sniffles.

At the heart of this movie is family, the unbreakable bond of an unlikely squad of misfits becoming family.

This story features heavily on Rocket’s past and who his creator was, this story cameos Adam Warlock; who I thought was greatly underused throughout, and his mother; Ayesha, as well as their capturer.

The cast is not only filled with familiar faces of our beloved characters but also a familiar faces of cameos; Nathan Fillion, Michael Rooker, Jennifer Holland, Elizabeth Debicki and Sly Stallone, but also a list of new faces; Chukwudi Iwuji, Will Poulter, Miriam Shor and Nico Santos.

Just like with any James Gunn film, there is a kickass playlist to match which fits most scenes throughout the movie. Though I did question the scene that Alice Cooper’s I'm Always Chasing Rainbows song purely because I imagine that song more as an end credit scene rather than the scene Gunn has chosen for it.

If that’s my only issue with the film than clearly, I couldn’t find anything bad about it.

The pacing felt pretty quick during most times, there were times that it did pace itself, but I feel that was due to the storyline and them wanted to show the most of what this story was truly about and that was the past of Rocket, rather than trying to fit it all into a montage.

Two end credit scenes, and polaroids of the past conclude our beloved characters. Leaving them to adventures that we may/may not ever see again.

As I mentioned earlier, this is defiantly a perfect way to end a trilogy. 

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The Boogeyman (2023)

This year I’ve challenged myself to find spooky movies and give them a watch, in order to find a HORROR movie that leaves me oozing fear from every pore of my body. Unfortunately I’ve been finding that horror doesn’t have the spook factor I thought it should.

On a pure whim, seeing Event Cinemas having an advance screening of The Boogeyman; a book adaption from Stephen King’s 1973 short story of the same name, I decided to see this movie.

I knew very little of it expect that it’s a King adaptation and I know from my own cinematic experience I usually don’t end up a fan of Stephen King movies.

In this story, we follow a family of three; a father and two daughters, in the midst of grief. Which is poorly explained, it’s later loosely explained that the mother was involved in a car accident. Amongst the grief, the youngest out of the two daughters has a phobia of the dark; seems normal, Unfortunely her phobia starts to become a little too real as what goes bump in the night is truly alive.

The thing with this story is that it starts to set something up along the way, but it doesn’t know how to tie itself up.

It opens with a baby in a crib before implying a baby’s death, than we’re introduced to our grieving family on the first day back to normalcy. The baby and the grieving family have no connection to each other.

Unlike most horror movies, they’d set up the location as the same but nope. This one keeps two different locations for two different set ups, only letting one close chapter.

It takes roughly ten minutes into the story for us to seeing the father of the baby in the movie, after what feels like five minutes on screen, the father is casually killed off which than starts the audience on a loop of it’s all in your head scenarios.

Watching this movie play out, it reminded me of jump scare videos from the early/mid-2000’s, where your friends would encourage you to watch this nice calm video and then suddenly your having a heart attack as your friends are laughing cause you got scared by the creepy thing that suddenly came onto screen.

The monster of our story is dubbed as The Boogeymen, but the creature doesn’t have a good enough reason to be on our screens. Understandably, a child scared of the dark; fine. Makes sense.

But what was the monster’s true purpose? It couldn’t of just been to scare a child and prove monsters are real especially when it’s trying to kill anything that moves?

I tried to find the monster’s motivates but there weren’t any.

Even with the grieving family, it almost felt like they were disconnected from each other. Understandably the characters were written that way but even still, there was nothing that really grabbed out at the audience and made the characters feel like they were trying to at least pretend to care about each other.

When we tried to loop back to the baby’s death at the beginning of the story, than tragically the baby’s father’s death. Again, the story failed to tie itself up.

Watching The Boogeymen felt like they had too many strings and not enough bows. It felt like they were trying to play safe in the world of horror rather than trying to sink it’s claws into a story that should’ve made even the strongest scream.

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[laura-ann-review]

Since Instagram no longer wants to link with tumblr. Which means less posting on here. Jump over to letterbox to see my reviews. I'm also on Instagram & Twitter & Tiktok

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public service announcement

[laura-ann-review]

Vary your language with synonyms to use instead of "said"

While there is nothing wrong with the word "said" in and of itself, variety is the key to exciting writing that keeps readers engaged.

Combining action beats with varied synonyms as well as "said" yields the most interesting and varied results.

Here are some examples you can use in your next project to keep you writing varied:

Instead of "said quietly"

whispered

murmured

muttered

croaked

purred

hissed

crooned

breathed

buzzed

Instead of "said affectionately"

admired

gushed

praised

flattered

lauded

beamed

complimented

approved

exalted

Instead of "said sadly"

sobbed

cried

lamented

pleaded

wept

grieved

wailed

sniffled

bawled

Instead of "said angrily"

growled

fumed

demanded

hissed

scolded

mocked

yelled

bellowed

berated

Instead of "said fearfully"

stuttered

gasped

stammered

gulped

cautioned

screamed

wavered

croaked

blanched

Instead of "said excitedly"

cheered

sang

beamed

rejoiced

hailed

exclaimed

celebrated

exulted

blurted

Instead of "said uncertainly"

inquired

hesitated

balked

deferred

speculated

floundered

pondered

wavered

vacillated

Neutral synonyms to use instead of "said"

voiced

expressed

insisted

noted

uttered

continued

replied

went on

began

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#They really did it

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KE HUY QUAN wins Best Supporting Actor for WAYMOND WANG in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE | 2023 Oscars

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