Hi-Lo it’s me The Blog Complainer and I have been busy. After completing my best and worst lists of 2019 I was honestly hoping to retire for the rest of the week, but as you can see, that didn’t happen. It all started when I saw Little Women. I wasn’t sure if I was going to review it as I realised it wasn’t really aimed at me and I might ruin everyone’s day if I talked about it. Flash-forward to today when I noticed that the Golden Globes took place whilst I was watching The Gentlemen. Then I was enjoying The Gentlemen which led me to just say screw it, let’s create a post where I cover about Little Women, The Gentlemen and the 2020 Golden Globes all in one big swoop!

So enjoy I guess.

I wasn’t too familiar with Little Women before watching it and if it wasn’t for the glowing reviews I probably would have written it off as not worth my time. Now that I have seen it I thought it was okay.

Before we go into my negatives let’s talk about what I really liked about this movie. For the most part I enjoyed the story and from what I’ve heard it’s probably because it’s faithful to the source material. The characters and the world these young women inhabit are interesting and some of the themes that are tackled are handled very well. Greta Gerwig was a good pick to direct this movie as I enjoyed her previous movie Lady Bird and this is another good film to add to her library.

The other big highlight is probably the acting as everyone does a great job. Saoirse Ronan was a great pick for our lead as she was the most interesting to watch. Timothee Chalamet and Florence Pugh were also really good and hopefully this movie is a launching pad for their upcoming careers. The cinematography was great but here are where my issues begin.

The movie oscillates between the past and present and it can get confusing as the same actors are used in both timelines. The only real way to tell which storyline we’re currently following is by the colour pallet as the past is bright and colourful while the present is a bit more dull and grim.

I’m grateful the movie doesn’t hold your hand, but again it can be confusing and might take people off guard. The other thing with telling the story out of order is some parts aren’t going to be as interesting as others, like Emma Watson’s story is basically over just as the movie starts.

2019’s Little Women, at the end of the day, is a feel good movie. It’s going to appease young women, older women and maybe some men will get a kick out of it and it’s going to get nominated for alot of awards. For me it’s a well made movie, but there isn’t enough nuance for me to be really interested.  It might also be down to personal taste as I kind of cringed at the really soppy moments of the movie. It’s a harmless movie, watch it if you really want to, but I’m settling at my 7/10.

I wouldn’t be really talking about this award show if I wasn’t jamming this in between two movie reviews. The Golden Globes has always been like the forgettable appetiser before the feast that everyone is really waiting for, The Oscars. If it isn’t obvious already I didn’t watch the Golden Globes, I just read up on the winners. So I have no comment on Ricky Gervais’ hosting or anything else that happened at the event.

Onto the awards and I’m just going to skip TV because I haven’t seen half of the shows and also I have my own plans for TV. Before we officially start I’m still yet to catch up on some of these movies, the main ones being Jojo Rabbit and 1917. Sorry Two Popes, it’s not my fault you look like the most boring movie on the planet. I hope you’re not nominated for an Oscar so then I have to watch you.

The picks I agree with:

• Taron Edgerton winning Best Performance for a Comedy/Musical for Rocketman.
• Rocketman also winning best Original Song is another good pick for me.
• Parasite winning Best Foreign Language movie is the most obvious result, but I’m glad it won.
• I would have preferred Adam Driver, but I’m still cool with Joaquin Phoenix  walking away with the win for Joker.
• The Missing Link winning best Animated Feature. I haven’t seen the movie, but I hear it’s pretty damn good and I’m glad it beat the four rubbish nominees it was up against.

Now for everything I disagree with:

It sucks that Knives Out and The Irishman came home awardless.  Awkwalfina was pretty good in The Farewell, but Ana de Armas just knocked it out of the park for me. I liked Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but I liked Al Pacino and Joe Pesci in The Irishman better. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood can have the Best Comedy/Musical award, but it definitely didn’t deserve the award for Best Screenplay. Tarantino’s writing is great and all, but it just doesn’t compare to the masterful writing on display in Parasite or Marriage Story.

That’s it, it’s such an inoffensive award show that I do not have any more to add to this topic. Come back to me again when The Oscars are on and then we can have a real discussion!

My first official movie of 2020 was quite a fun one. It’s kind of interesting that when you get Guy Ritchie to direct a big Hollywood movie it sucks, but when you get him to direct a normal movie like The Gentlemen it’s very entertaining!

The big standout for The Gentlemen is the sharp witty writing that keeps the movie from being a bore. Some potentially boring scenes are made more memorable because of the great writing and the well-cast actors. Most of the humour is swearing alot or being unnecessarily crude and depending on your tastes in comedy this could be a deal breaker for you. For me, it goes a bit overboard when it thinks it has a really funny joke on it’s hands and all I want from it is to move on!

I much prefer the absurdity of some scenes and how it’s delivered by the great actors in this movie. Hugh Grant gives the best performance I have ever seen from him as he’s an absolute joy and completely steals the movie whenever he shows up. He’s narrating the adventures of super genius kingpin Matthew McConaughey to his pal Charlie Hunnam and these two worked off each other so well that I was honestly disappointed when we had to leave their scenes.

The rest of the movie is fine but can get a bit confusing with all of the different characters that we’re supposed to be interested in. The writing for these scenes is sub par compared to the ones with Hugh Grant and Charlie Hunnam. Matthew McConaughey is fine, but he was overshadowed by everyone else. Colin Farrell and his boxing students were a lot of fun. I enjoyed Matthew McConaughey’s wife because she was so sassy. The story and camera work are fine and there is no real bad element in this entire movie.

The Gentlemen was a good start for 2020, which is nice to see. If this takes your fancy then check it out. I’m giving it a 7 to 8 out of 10.

Wow, would you look at that, it’s over. If you read the whole thing I congratulate you! More random posts in the future and I have been The Blog Complainer, signing out.