Jack Quaid – Film Fanatic

What I have seen at the Cinema in 2025… so far

Hi Readers,

2025 has been a great year for cinema thus far. I have been to see a wide range of films in just the six weeks since the year began and rather than cherry pick one to review, I thought I would combine them all into this post. I am not including A Complete Unknown as I have already dedicated a post to the music biopic.

I try not to read too much into a film before watching which may be ironic considering where you are reading this but I like to form my own opinions and then sometimes share them here. I have picked films that I have heard good things about; I am interested in the story, cast or general vibe or I liked the trailer/teaser.

I was late to the party watching Queer (2023) starring Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey. I saw it at a small chain in London at a popular cinema for those who enjoy art films. Discussing with a friend afterwards, we both agreed that the beginning was the stronger half and when the plot began to get more abstract, it started to lose us as audience members. Daniel Craig gave a lifetime best performance as William Lee. For me, it was more in tune with his performances pre-James Bond, gathering what I can from reviews but I plan to dive more into his roles in a future post. I saw Drew Starkey in his breakout role as Rafe Cameron in Outer Banks on Netflix and it was a real change of character for his role in Queer. As the younger character, I related to him more and he seemed the more grounded of the two male leads.

Changing the genre to a pacy, suspense film, September 5 (2024), set during the Olympics in Munich where a hostage situation quickly developed in the village. The quick thinking of the ABC crew nearby ensured that this was the first terrorist act broadcast live on television. It gathered more viewers than the moon landing did. I thought that the film fit really well with its time period, 1970s as there were a lot of analogue noises from the old technology such as switchboards, rotary phones and camera film cases.

I liked that the cast were not as well known. There were a few heavy hitters like Peter Sarsgaard and John Magaro among the lesser known cast. A standout for me was the actress playing Marianne (Leonie Benesch) as her role in the film developed quickly culminating in going to the scene of the hostage taking when it migrated to the airport. The events of the film are told over a single day and most of the cast spend their time at the television centre so it feels like a bottle episode. This could be as we are focusing on the TV crew but I think could also be because large areas would have to be dressed to look like 1970s Munich and there were already many extras used in the scenes at the village. It really added to the film as it kept you focused on the characters and dialled into the action.

The weakest film of all for me so far was Saturday Night. I went in thinking it would be something else and felt almost disappointed with the result. I think the filming and camera work was done well but the acting and humour could have been stronger and there were sections that didn’t quite hit for me. I have been a huge fan of SNL sketches for a long time and I think I expected the film to be more in that vein rather than a more dramatic take of real events. I thought the ensemble worked well together and Gabriel LaBelle was a good choice for showrunner Lorne Michaels but I think more could have been done with it.

A good new slasher film arrived in the form of Companion. This had a great young rising cast; Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Megan Suri, Harvey Guillén and Lukas Gage. It was cleverly done but I already knew some information about the plot so it tainted some of the reveals. However, I did not know everything so there were still plot twists. Jack Quaid was the stronger lead for me and I don’t know if this was just the script or the fact that she is playing a submissive robot but I felt that Thatcher’s performance was not as strong. I enjoy a tame thriller so the light gore did not bother me and it was not very graphic in other areas.

I was behind the times on Academy Award nominated, The Apprentice but it certainly did not disappoint. I have to start by saying to enjoy this film you have to separate the character that Sebastian Stan portrays on screen from his real life persona. The trajectory shows a relatively normal guy from Queens who does anything it takes to get ahead in business and life by breaking the law and becoming a monster. I am talking about Donald Trump, who was known for his ruthlessness in the boardroom and courtroom before becoming President of America. Setting aside the real world version of the protagonist, I really enjoyed the pace and setting of the film. It had a cool 1970s New York atmosphere with a lot of cut-throat characters and surprising diverseness in the people Trump chose to surround himself with. Jeremy Strong gave a good performance as Roy Cohen who shapes Donald into the person he became but did not understand the error of his ways until it was too late.

It goes without saying that I am not a fan of Trump or any of his policies/ideas but the character he was portrayed as in the film seemed normal at first with a tolerance for a range of people and a level of dorkiness that one would definitely not associate with him today. By the end of the film, he has morphed both physically and mentally into the person he is now but it was strange seeing him as almost normal. Whether these characteristics were exaggerated to give the plot somewhere to go, I couldn’t say but I believe there was a lot of artistic license used. This however worked to their favour to give you an interesting film.

Since starting this post, I have added a couple more films to my list so perhaps they will be coming in a future post.

Happy Watching,

Robyn

2023: Summer of Cinema: Oppenheimer

In some of his films that are set in reality, Nolan claims to use no CGI. VFX is used to touch up the shots and are not always used to create computer generated elements but in this case, over 100 visual effects artists (about 80%) were not credited for working on Oppenheimer. As someone working in VFX, I see this often enough but to not credit people is to not support fellow workers in the industry.

Hello readers,

The day has come and gone for ‘Barbenheimer’ to hit the screens and according to Rotten Tomatoes, Oppenheimer is currently pulling ahead in terms of reviews, however Barbie is winning in terms of box office. This could be because Barbie is a 12A meaning children under 12 can attend with an adult and Oppenheimer is a 15 but there are also huge differences in runtimes, directorial style and plot.

I chose to see Oppenheimer second on the Monday and I did see it at an IMAX screening as the director Christopher Nolan intended it. I didn’t quite stretch to a 70mm screening as to tell the truth, it was sold out. I am glad that I did not see both Barbie and Oppenheimer on one day as the 3 hour long film did send me to sleep a little.

Oppenheimer (2023)

I will start off the review by saying that the film was objectively good. The story was something not many people know in depth; the cast were Hollywood A-List: Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh and even the supporting cast of lesser knowns were great. The overall look with the costumes, production design and the inclusion of physics really helped set the stage and the use of lighting, composition and colour made the film look visually appealing.

As a former film student, these facts are all clear to me but personally I did not enjoy the film as much as I had hoped. I found it too long and it did not keep my interest after about one and a half hours. The female characters were only there to serve the male plotlines and even Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty (Emily Blunt) who was featured in a lot of scenes did not really say or do much apart from seem mentally unstable or supportive of her husband. Along with Jean (Florence Pugh) having a mental breakdown and Oppenheimer’s sister-in-law, Jackie (Emma Dumont) being blacklisted as a communist, there were not any positive depictions of the women in the story.

For a female audience or even a younger audience who have grown up with men and women being more equally represented on screen to enjoy the film, there should have been more depth to the only two leading female characters: Kitty and Jean. Florence was severely underused and every scene she appeared in involved sex. The sex scenes themselves were weirdly portrayed as a conversation and sex was a secondary element which to me shows that no one needed to be naked for the scene to happen. There was a lot of pointless female nudity that was not replicated for the male counterpart.

There was also a lack of female scientists. The only speaking woman who was involved in the Manhattan Project was relegated to secretary and only got that position as a biologist. In real life, there were more women assisting Oppenheimer and his team with creating the Atomic Bomb and that just wasn’t shown in the film which was a shame. Similar stories such as the space race in Hidden Figures (2016) or the building of the Enigma machine in The Imitation Game (2014) did not shy away from including the stories of real women that helped with these scientific/mathematic projects.

I will say that for me, Robert Downey Jr was the standout performance of the film and for his first big role since Iron Man’s story ended, he really embodied his character: Admiral Strauss. I liked the beginning of the film where we saw Oppenheimer’s background and how he got selected for the Manhattan Project but I think the film loosened after the actual explosion happened. Moving backwards and forwards through time was also a little confusing as black and white was used for present day and colour used for flashbacks.

The general tone of the film, particularly after the bomb was not of regret for making the bomb and using it on innocent civilians but rather Americans trying to excuse themselves for making and using the bomb. Oppenheimer himself was barely affected with two weak aftermath images and no one else seemed that bothered. There was a whole scene of people cheering after hearing of the bombing which felt like patriotic propaganda. Many American people would not have agreed with its use or war in general; when the Vietnam War started there were a lot of protests.

Part of what held my interest was the appearance of many actors in small cameo roles such as Gary Oldman as President Truman; Casey Affleck; Rami Malek; Jack Quaid; Josh Peck; Devon Bostick and Alex Wolff.

Overall, I think I was not the right audience of the film but I have seen other film critics agree with my thoughts so not everyone enjoyed it. I think Nolan is a good director, I have enjoyed other films of his: Interstellar, Inception, The Prestige, Dunkirk and Memento but on this occasion, the film just didn’t grab me. As always these are just my opinions and I would encourage everyone to see the film for themselves and form their own opinions. I give the film 3/5.

Happy Watching,
Robyn