#Russelwatches 29/03/19

Over on Twitter, I do two hashtags that you'll only find on my feed -- #russelreads and #russelwatches.

#russelreads is all about books. Because of the nature of my day job (as an editor) its updated less often, as my time for pleasure-reading is less due to the nature of that work.

But #russelwatches is all about my second passion: movies. I adore movies - with a particular love of late 60s/early 70s stuff - and have made no secret of the fact that my dream has always been to move into scriptwriting, alongside my career as a novelist.

I'm going to try and do a weekly roundup of #russelwatches on the blog, as sometimes I miss or forget to do a twitter tag of what I'm watching. And hopefully, it'll help you guys find a few things you might fancy watching (or know to avoid!)

Anyway, this week on #russelwatches

US - Caught the new Jordan Peele movie at the Glasgow Film Theatre at an afternoon showing. Anyone expecting a retread of GET OUT might be slightly confused. This is a different movie, although again he's playing with horror tropes. If you're looking for a clear and concise message, again you might find yourself confused, but this is a movie all about the performances. Lupita Nyong'o is particularly superb as both the mother looking to save her family and her terrifying, guttural dopelganger. A last minute twist may seem obvious to some, but this movie really is about the journey - and its a damn fine one!

DEADPOOL 2 - Caught on demand, and, you know, I was slightly underwhelmed. Ryan Reynolds does a great job as the "Merc With a Mouth" who was one of my favourite comics characters back when I was a teen, and his double act with the incredibly serious Mutant-from-the-future, Cable (Josh Brolin) is superb, But the movies at its best riffing off cliches, and slows down a little whenever it actually has to move the plot forward. That said, I laughed a hell of a lot, especially at several jokes pointing out the po-faced seriousness of DC's recent crop of big screen adaptations.

CALIBRE - Scottish-set thriller on Netflix about two friends who go hunting in the Highlands and accidentally get into a lot of trouble with the locals. Cleverly eshcewing Deliverance cliches, and with a great central performance by Jack Lowden, it promises a lot but slightly misses its landing in the third act, where you get the impression that you've missed a lot of character motivation from the local villagers. But its watchable, and has a number of nicely tense wee sequences.

INFERNAL AFFAIRS - On Blu-ray, the movie that influenced THE DEPARTED, you can see some scenes that Scorcese lifted wholesale in his adaptation. so its not full of huge surprises. That said, its a lot leaner than Scorcese's epic, and once it gets going, the two leads have a great intensity. Really looking forward to the next two films in the trilogy.