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elizabethdaugherty
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Winchester (2018)
Seriously?
Who allowed this film to be made? Anyone who ever toured that house and gardens or read any biography on Sarah Winchester knows that, aside from the name and house, this story is complete crap.
Sarah Winchester and those who have stayed or lived in the house never experienced any of the paranormal phenomenon displayed in the film. The filmmakers couldn't even get the 1906 San Francisco earthquake correct. This earthquake hit in the early morning hours of April 18, 1906 and Mrs. Winchester was asleep in the Daisy Room (so called because of the Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass windows featuring a daisy pattern).
No one indulged in opioids, the walls didn't bleed and the ghosts of those individuals killed by Winchester firearms did not ghoul about the mansion trying to kill people.
Paranormal phenomenon was not reported until well after Winchester's death and was limited to sights of servants, smells of chicken broth, sounds of construction and sounds of a grand piano being played that had two flat keys.
I love Helen Mirren but I cannot think why someone of her caliber would consent to be in this film.
The 15:17 to Paris (2018)
Be Fair
I get that most liberals, millennials and Gen Zers probably lost it when the kids brought out the Airsoft guns and based on that, have been giving this film two thumbs down. Be fair. There ARE some kids who have been taught responsibility in regards to weapons and firearms. Not many but you know who they are because they're the ones not entertaining themselves by eating Tide Pods.
If this film lacked anything, it lacked pacing and tight editing. I applaud Eastwood's use of the actual heroes portraying themselves. If you were looking for a performance from a trained actor, then you weren't looking for a performance by guys just being guys. Men don't talk and act to each other like George Clooney, Bradley Cooper and Ben Affleck. They're just regular "boy next door" guys and they don't sit around and talk about their feelings. Their banter is dry and flat. That's how guys are. These were normal every day guys being normal every day guys. And they were most likely keeping the language a whole lot more cleaner for the film than they would have in real life.
Eastwood could have mitigated the flatness of the performances by use of tighter editing and a more expansive soundtrack, but he didn't do that. In the end, we saw what we needed to see: Ordinary men being called to do something extraordinary and performed as only the men who lived through it could do. They were the ones who made the decision to take terrorist down without a moment's hesitation. They delivered the punches, they disarmed the terrorist and, wounded badly, they were the ones who dug in and worked to save the life of the man who initially had charged the terrorist.
Despite vitriol from the left, this was not a political film. It was a film about heroes who took down a mad man using bravery instead of hugs and Participation Trophies.
Response to terrorism calls for courage, not benefit of the doubt. This was an excellent film and it showed honestly and brutally just how violent this attack was and how we the people need to respond to save and protect each other. This attack wasn't embellished using Hollywood's usual artistic license. This was exactly how it went down.
This film needed better pacing and better editing. But that's all.