Gifted was an unexpected pleasure. Superbly written by Tom Flynn and expertly directed by Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer and Spiderman x 2) this heartfelt drama is humurous and witty and a complete joy. The acting is first rate (who knew Chris Evans could act?) especially newcomer McKenna Grace together with Lindsay Duncan and Octavia Spencer. All with Cat Stevens' The Wind at the end.
If you want songs with your movie, look no further than Baby Driver. I will put all my favourites on a separate post, the whole lot can be found on a Spotify playlist. Writer and director Edgar Wright has tried to weave a Tarantino type crime thriller (especially the messy ending) with a soundtrack that never lets up. This is courtesy of getaway driver Baby (Ansel Elgort) and the iPod that helps to correct some brain problem.
There are some heavyweight actors as partners in crime: Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm and Jaime Foxx, but whilst Wright's story is interesting enough, his dialogue is disappointingly not up to scratch. I was afraid there would be too much revving of engines in the car chases and I was right. Then the scenes with a sparkling Lily James were excellent, and there are enough great cinematic touches. But in the end it is the soundtrack for which this film will be remembered. And that would stand repeat viewings.
This post apocalyptic thriller is deadly serious. So much so that it is filled with dread at every turn. Written and directed by Trey Edward Shult on what must have been a tiny budget, It Comes at Night is set in an isolated house in a forest where most of the family have escaped the plague. When they are joined by another family, the tension increases. For me, there were too many silent or dream sequences and in the end it runs out of ideas. I didn't think it merited the positive reviews.
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