The Film Canary - The New Mutants

It's very hard these days to approach a big studio film without preconceptions.  In this age of internet muckraking clickbaiting scu- erm, I mean 24/7 film journalism, you can often build up in your head quite a picture of a movie from all the sneak peaks, reveals at conventions, big news stories etc. way before you see it.  That isn't helped from entertainment press' urge to make every little thing that happens a big deal, portraying it as some sort of crisis, nearly always making mountains out of molehills.  For example, reshoots happen all of the time, they're not really that big a deal, and often they do work out for the best.  However, I think it's safe to say that The New Mutants is a case when the exaggeration wasn't that necessary, this thing seems to have been straight up cursed from the luck it's had, to the point that I'd only be half joking if I was to say that it feels like the outbreak of a pandemic was par for the course given it's luck.  That trailer below, the April 13th release date at the end?  That was originally April 13th 2018!  I am an amateur that takes this seriously though, so I'm writing this before going in to say that I am going to judge this purely on the state of the finished product.  There have been films made that were nightmares to shoot that you wouldn't have guessed from their completed state, so I'm going to set aside my foreknowledge of the troubled history of this one in watching it as best as I can.  If I do bring it up again, it will be purely to say whether or not the film transcends these problems, or if they really impact the finished article.  Right, into the cinema, with mask and hand sanitiser ready, let's see how it's turned out.

:One viewing later:

Well, I'm going to be bringing up the whole troubled production thing A LOT, and not because the film transcended it.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2020 - Fundraising Begins

It's that time again!  Start the jingle!

"Two more months till Halloween!
"Halloween!
"Halloween!
"Two more months till Halloween!
"Silver Shamrock!"

Canary Duty - Tenet, and a bit about cinema in the time of COVID

Woo, I'm back!  Now, before I talk about the film itself, I should address the experience of returning to cinema at all.  Since this whole lurgy business began, I've been wondering a bit about whether I've been tempting fate with my title of Canary, as I don't think it's ever been more appropriate than with this trip.  I was hmming and ha-ing about whether or not to go back to the cinemas, however I managed to book for a nearly empty screening at Odeon Swiss Cottage this morning (just me near the front, an elderly couple right at the back), and had a free promo code, so it seemed a relatively low risk in the grand scheme of things.  Besides, I work in a school, so in terms of risk, work will be the bigger one.  In the end, I think Odeon have mostly got the right idea, in terms of blocking off seats either side when you book, making sure everyone stays in their areas, use of masks, and cleaning a lot, I felt pretty safe.  My one concern though is that it's still possible in their bookings to go right in front or behind someone, which is when you think about it a bigger risk than sat next to them, so that's far from ideal, and also being a small screening with a teeny audience I can't talk for when it gets busy.  I say if you're not comfortable with the idea of going back to the big screen yet, I understand and don't blame you at all; I felt reasonably safe the way things were, but I will say that if the screening looked any more busy, chances are I might not have bothered.   So yeah, I felt OK on this occasion, but I'm almost certainly not going back as regularly as I might for a little while yet.  With all that out of the way then, here's the question; is Tenet the experience that demands to be seen on the big screen that will bring us all back to the multiplexes?