Oliver

Peak 🤤

**“HERE’S JOHNNY!”** **The Shining** is just great. Jack Nicholson gives a powerhouse performance as Jack Torrance, treading a fine line between silly and terrifying. Shelly Duvall is just as amazing, carving herself onto the Mount Rushmore of horror final girls, alongside your Laurie Strodes, Sidney Prescotts, and Ellen Ripley’s. She simply nails Wendy’s sheer terror, Just as precisely as Nicholson does Torrance’s insanity. The cherry on top is Danny Lloyd, who gives one of the great child performances, period, alongside Regan and John Connors of **The Excorcist **and **Terminator 2: Judgement Day** fame. He’s seriously unnerving in this. The whole movie is, really. It just has this unusual, uncanny vibe, and said feeling is amplified even more so by The Overlook hotel itself. It’s one of the most iconic locations in all of cinema, let alone horror. The way it utilises liminality and the eery feeling of nostalgia creates a very disturbing atmosphere, and its absolutely nonsense architecture creates a dreadful sense of uncertainty. A feeling you don’t want to be having when being chased down by your crazy husband wielding an axe. Seriously, the last 30 odd minutes of this film are jaw-dropping, and craft one of the most iconic chases in all of horror. But.. that’s the problem. I’ve been absolutely GLAZING this movie to the max, but there’s a reason this is no 5 star movie. Its iconic moments are iconic for a reason. They’re the best parts of the movie. In this pretty chunky 2 hour and 20 minute watch, a decent amount of runtime gets.. strangely boring? Maybe it’s just because I’ve seen this before, but certain sequences seemed to drag. I’m aware that this feeling might stem from the fact that this movie features ALOT of tracking shots, but I don’t know. It gets a bit repetitive. I am low on sleep, to be fair. Felt like Jack Torrance istg Overall a really good film, and it’s obvious why this in the pantheon of horror movies. I’ve only watched two Kubrick movies (this and Paths of Glory) but I’m pretty confident in saying I fuck with him. I did prefer Paths of Glory, though.

**“We accept the love we think we deserve.”** Dear Friend(s), I’m aware that I’m the LAST person to start my review of **The Perks of being a wallflower **off with this quote, but I believe that’s enigmatic of just how *iconic* this movie has become. Its popularity on this app, tiktok, and just in general is staggering, and that’s for good reason. This is a wonderful movie. I can easily see how it’s resonated with such a massive crowd of viewers, with its heartwarming depiction of love, and in contrast, its heart wrenching portrait of Charlie’s mental health. The imagery of scenes like the dance, the snow angels, and of course THE TUNNEL are so friggin beautiful man. The use of music is ethereal, and has recovered my love for **Heroes **by David Bowie (You stupid Stranger things fans ruined it for me) Everyone in this is great. Charlie is played to perfection, the scene where he cries at the typewriter is an all timer. Emma Watson is equally brilliant as Sam, and fortunately carries a lot of essential scenes. (**THE FUCKING TUNNELLLLLL)** Rare footage of Ezra Miller being funny, and a good actor-aswell as person. His character of Patrick is really fun, and he makes you feel really bad for what he goes through with Brad. Marie Elizabeth is also cool too There were some cringe worthy moments in this, but that’s par for the course with high school movies. The Truth or dare scene made me want to blow my shit clean off 💔 “*kiss the prettiest girl in the room”* What are we doing Charlie But really, The perks of being a wallflower is a movie about friendship, and the slightly stronger feeling of love. It’s often hard to discern between the two. Sometimes there’s no difference at all. But friends and lovers often have a habit of helping you through hard times. They have with me, anyway. Just as Charlie is, I’m really grateful for having a group of friends, at all, and I’m even more grateful (and lucky) to have one I really enjoy being around. They make school easier, anyway. I even have my own Sam! Well, he’s not exactly the love of my life or anything, more so my fat friend, but he’s a super funny guy. I’m proud of him, and everyone else for being so fun to be around. I’m also proud of myself, too. It’s hard to say that sometimes, but it’s true. I’m happy to have evolved as much as I have as a person from when I was just a tad bit younger. A large part of that is probably BECAUSE of my friends, so thanks again. To any of you’s who are reading this, thanks for being there. It means a lot. Love always, Oliver

I find **X-Men **to be a very interesting film. What it chooses to and not to adapt is genuinely bizarre to me, and the 2000’s CGI makes it even more peculiar. (Seriously, when the Senator gets mutated I was disgusted) It’s good for what it is though, and what it is is a very 2000 X-men adaptation, that’s for sure. People often cite this film as being ‘embarrassed’ of its comic book roots. And whilst I can definitely see the reasoning for such (saying this I mainly refer to the hideous Military-esque uniforms the team wears, and that STUPID yellow spandex line) I think I might disagree. It understands what the X-men is, and the fine line between it being a kind of daft, action packed superhero soap opera, and a critique on modern day society, discrimination, and how hate spreads like contagion. You have genuinely breath-taking scenes that say a lot about humanity as a whole, such as the Holocaust scene showing us Magneto’s tragic origin, and entertaining action set pieces on the Statue of Liberty. It’s a jack of all trades, and I think that’s the reason this specific superhero universe has became so beloved. GOD it isn’t perfect, but it’s a really fun movie and whilst it doesn’t give you a fully-satisfying X-men story, I think it has a decent idea of what the X-men are as a team.