The Resident Bitch's Movie Log

Locke (Steven Knight, 2013)
Imdb

Date Watched: 02/08/16
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: Tom Hardy
Rewatch: No


I'm kind of at a loss for what to say about this one. Character studies are not my usual fare and that little voice in my head that tells me what to write was all but silent for this film. Here goes nothing.

Plot and story for this movie are virtually non-existent. The premise is this: On the eve of the biggest event of his career, Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) receives a phone call that will turn his life upside down. Bound by a sense of honor and responsibility, Locke takes an unplanned drive and risks everything he holds dear.

The entire film takes place inside Locke's car. We see the face of no one else, we only hear their voices as Locke receives phone call after phone call - from family, from colleagues, and from a hospital - as he is forced to juggle several personal and professional crises.

Tom Hardy does well to carry what might otherwise be a bore of a film. We watch him run the gamut of emotions - anger, frustration, guilt, defeat, desperation, and maybe even a little joy. Through each conversation, we get to know a different part of Locke. We meet Locke, the man dedicated to his job even when it's taken from him. We meet Locke, the caring husband who seriously ****ed up and is trying to come clean and atone for what he did. We meet Locke, the loving father of two boys who adore him. And we meet Locke, the man who was born a bastard with no father to raise him determined not to let that happen to his own offspring. It's a riveting performance and one that reaffirms my admiration for Hardy the actor, though I have doubts as to whether this is something I'll ever have any desire to revisit.

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I was really surprised by how much I liked Locke. If you just looked at the ingredients on paper then it seems like it should be just about the dullest film of all time. It basically stars a single character (Hardy's Locke) in a single location that is amongst the most boring you could imagine (the interior of a car), driving along a motorway talking on the phone. And one of the main story threads is that of a concrete pour at a construction site; how exciting! And yet as a result of Hardy's incredible performance it was somehow a captivating experience. He really should have picked up a number of nominations at the big awards shows for that.

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I think Hardy is brilliant but thought Locke was just ok.

I covered Locke a while back and thought pretty much the same thing, though I naturally gave it a lower rating. A solid enough piece of minimalism and Hardy is good at carrying the film even through some of its weaker parts, but it doesn't feel like it has a lot of replay value or any serious staying power.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Glad to see some love for an over the top western, something people rarely see. Raimi is an underrated director when given a limited budget. I'd like to see him go back to those films and stay away from fare like Oz.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

Charlie's Angels (McG, 2000)
Imdb

Date Watched: 02/10/16
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: I guess because I sometimes have masochistic tendencies?
Rewatch: Not really. I tried watching it once before but ended up dozing off for most of it.


Besides pubescent boys and honeykids, I'm not sure who would find this ***** appealing (or why) and I'm baffled as to why this vapid crap ever got a sequel. The story's pretty much non existent. The acting is atrocious. The dialogue's inane and the stunts are laughable (and not in a good way). This "movie" (I use this word loosely) is nothing but an excuse for Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Lui to wear ridiculous costumes, flaunt their cleavage, shake their asses, and grin like idiots - which is not to say that I was expecting more from this. I wasn't. I was maybe just hoping it had some scrap of something worthwhile to offer. It doesn't.

Yeah well, no one understands Honeykid's taste, not even him.

Why use add an s at the end when there's only one Honeykid in the entire universe.

I kinda do understand why HK likes Charlie Angels though - if one of the angels were Emma Watson, I'd give it a way higher rating.

There could be more than one. We don't know.

If it was Joaquin Phoenix, Tom Hardy, and Leonardo DiCaprio in those three roles, in the exact same film, you'd rate it .

And she'd nominate it for a Hall of Fame, speak endlessly about it and shame everyone who didn't like it, telling us all that we're wasting our time with animal abuse movies.

Great Quills review as usual . I must say i really didn't like Locke much at all and actually thought about turning it off a few times, but i agree Hardy was very good. And yeah Charlies Angels is awful, definitely one of the worst films i've ever seen.

MV, have you seen Stupider Ascending yet? Er... I mean Jupiter Ascending...

I have not.

I genuinely think Charlie's Angels is a good, fun popcorn movie. That's not why I love it, of course, but I do think it is.

That's reason enough for any film to exist. Frankly, I could live in a world where that what every film was.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

That is great . I honestly thought you thought it was really bad too but just didn't care since you love it.


Terrible film though, also not fun

Yep

very well-spoken and in-depth review of Quills. AMAZING film!

And full agree about Locke. If someone else did it instead of Hardy I would have passed it up and Hardy did to an amazing job carrying the film

I read through this thread the other day and dished out a bunch of +rep, but I forgot to say anything, so I'll say it now: Great thread you've got going here, Miss Resident Bitch. I've mostly just seen you post ratings for movies without going into details, so it's a delight to finally get a chance to read your thoughts. As others have noted, the write-ups have steadily improved and gotten longer and more detailed. Turns out you're pretty good at this reviewing thing.

I've added Wrinkles, The 24th Day and The Reckoning to my watchlist. Never heard of any of those three before you logged them, but they sound interesting. Pleased to see how much you like Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant and The Hateful Eight. Those are easily my favorite movies from 2015 so far. Irrational Man sounds more interesting than the typical Woody Allen film, so I'll be bumping it up a little higher on my Netflix queue. I don't think I'd ever heard of Quills before joining the forum, and I've still yet to muster enough desire to check it out, but I promise to watch it one day.

By the way, you should totally make audio-recordings of that erotic fiction you say you've written and send them my way. Make sure you breathe heavily and moan my name from time to time.

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I guess I should mention that it's pretty much M4M fiction.