Letterboxd 5019o Tom Hemingway

Something in the Water 4u3a4c 2024 - ★★

Sat, 31 May 2025 01:57:26 +1200

4v291o

Kind of like The Hangover with sharks if you think about it.

Was not prepared for how British this is but it unlocked new levels of Britishness with the S Club needle drop.

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The Phoenician Scheme 3wq42 2025 - ★★★★

Wed, 28 May 2025 03:01:34 +1200

Each new Wes Anderson film used to feel like a bit of an event, but he works so regularly now and within such a narrow framework that it’s easy for his films to bleed into one another. This is his 3rd film in the last 4 years, and that’s not even counting the series of shorts he made for Netflix. Rather than resort to ‘they’re all the same’ which is an increasing refrain amongst his detractors but also:
a) untrue,
b) a lazy criticism,
I’ve found the best headspace to view his most recent films are as inessential confections, a little treat. If he keeps going at this pace, I could see his body of work resembling the filmography of a less problematic, and certainly less sloppy, Woody Allen. None are going to change the form but, if you like his stuff, in The Phoenician Scheme you’ll find moving meditations on faith and family, with the best work Michael Cera and Benicio Del Toro have done in years and a star-making turn from Mia Threapleton. Bruno Delbonnel is shooting with Anderson for the first time, and on 35mm, with gorgeous results. In years to come, Anderson’s films like this or The French Dispatch might have faded into obscurity, hidden in the depths of Disney+, waiting to be reclaimed by a film student who wants to argue that it’s top-tier Wes. But why wait that long? Go and see it now.

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Conclave 1l6f3b 2024 - ★★★★

Mon, 26 May 2025 21:05:15 +1200

Watched on Sunday May 25, 2025.

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Final Destination Bloodlines 1q4s64 2025 - ★★★½

Mon, 26 May 2025 07:25:22 +1200

Loved moments of this. The opening 20 minutes are some of the best of the franchise.

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Mission 1h3df Impossible – Ghost Protocol, 2011 - ★★★★

Sun, 25 May 2025 12:27:45 +1200

Was fully locked in for the first 70/80 minutes but my attention started to drift towards the end. This has also happened with 2, 3, and 4 but this was mostly a blast and so much slicker than the last instalment. Ready to get to the really good stuff…

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Fear Street 6a641h Prom Queen, 2025 - ★★

Sun, 25 May 2025 11:59:16 +1200

Watched on Friday May 23, 2025.

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Mission 1h3df Impossible III, 2006 - ★★★

Fri, 23 May 2025 21:39:31 +1200

Saw an advance screening of this back in 2006 and it blew my mind. I distinctly telling my friends at school how the new Mission Impossible movie was amazing and was going to be the film of the summer. JJ really had us all in a chokehold in the mid-2000s.

Anyway, 19 years later, it’s basically fine. The Rome sequence is brilliant and Phillip Seymour Hoffman steals every scene he’s in (as always). But I was surprised how so much of this is dull and ugly. The style of the action scenes reminded a lot of Die Hard 4, but even that film is better.

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Road Diary 4f524t Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band, 2024

Fri, 23 May 2025 04:47:25 +1200

Watched on Friday May 16, 2025.

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Nonnas 6n5t56 2025 - ★★★

Tue, 20 May 2025 10:31:06 +1200

100% going to this restaurant. Respect to all the nonnas (and Linda Cardellini). Much disrespect to Trump apologist Vince Vaughn.

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The ant² k1j2c 2025 - ★★★½

Fri, 9 May 2025 08:32:00 +1200

Hell yes brother. Ultimate dudes rock type movie. Made me want to crush a six-pack and sit in the garden on a deck chair (complimentary). Would love a movie with none of the action stuff and just Affleck and Bernthal hanging in the trailer park. 3nt?

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Warfare 665k3b 2025 - ★★★★

Fri, 9 May 2025 08:27:00 +1200

Watched on Thursday May 8, 2025.

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Wed, 7 May 2025 09:35:30 +1200

For some reason, this was one of my favourite comedies when I was like 12 years old. It was eclipsed by the wave of Apatow productions which would soon follow, and even Todd Phillips (kinda) redefined the R-rated studio comedy a few years after this with The Hangover.

Still, this is worth returning to. Not entirely sure whether it’s trying to be parody or played straight, and is actually more effective when doing the latter.

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Mission 1h3df Impossible II, 2000 - ★★★

Wed, 7 May 2025 02:50:01 +1200

Watched on Tuesday May 6, 2025.

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Another Simple Favor 4j1x45 2025 - ★★½

Tue, 6 May 2025 21:53:29 +1200

Do not recall the first film being anything like this in of tone and style. I kept saying it felt like a made-for-tv movie and then realised that it was one.

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Slender Man 136a2f 2018 - ★

Tue, 6 May 2025 21:51:30 +1200

So this was more of a half watch but it was still maybe one of the worst things I’ve seen in the past ten years.

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Mission 1h3df Impossible, 1996 - ★★★★

Sat, 3 May 2025 01:43:05 +1200

Watched on Friday May 2, 2025.

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Star Wars 2j6o5l Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, 2005 - ★★★★

Thu, 1 May 2025 04:30:25 +1200

Feeling like Buster Bluth the way I woke up this morning and decided to go and see a star war.

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Burnt 2c2t5c 2015 - ★★★

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 18:26:00 +1200

It earns a third star from me. Having said that, all I could think about the whole time was that Nancy Meyers could have cooked with this material. Imagine the kitchens!

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The ant 6xn5c 2016 - ★★★

Sun, 27 Apr 2025 22:06:42 +1200

Actually enjoyed this after putting it off for about 10 years, although that’s probably because it is better suited to a 30-year old man than a 20-year old one. Affleck and Kendrick are both excellent and all of their stuff together works. There’s a few too many plot strands and I got a bit weirded out when JK Simmons started filling in all the gaps in a ten-minute flashback scene around 2/3rds through. Surely there was a better way to do that. Anyway, quite the vibe, bring on The Accoun2ant.

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Sinners 5z1711 2025 - ★★★★½

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 00:26:14 +1200

SAMMY

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Skinamarink 2b6r6c 2022 - ★★★½

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 20:19:16 +1200

When I was a kid, I once went and stood in the hallway of our house in the middle of the night outside my parents room. For some reason, I was out there for ages, maybe even a few hours, and didn’t even go into their room. I looking at the little flashing red dot on motion sensor in the corner of the hall and the light from the oven clock through the glass kitchen door. Just doing creepy kid stuff.

Anyway, I don’t know why I did that but this film reminded me of that and I found it creepy.

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Warfare 665k3b 2025 - ★★★★

Thu, 17 Apr 2025 09:33:11 +1200

Anyone could probably mount a convincing argument of this being pro-war, anti-war, and everything in between. I thought it was mostly excellent, eventually let down by some real-life footage over the credits where it all starts to feel a bit OOH RAH.

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Death of a Unicorn 4t449 2025 - ★★★

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 20:17:49 +1200

Not entirely sure about this one. Took ages for me to get on board with it and then when I finally did, it shifted gears again to a become a kind of crappy Jurassic Park (Téa Leoni, hello!). Worth it just to see Will Poulter and Richard E. Grant ham it up.

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The Return of Jamie Vincent 334v1g 2025

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 10:24:44 +1200

Played before Death of a Unicorn and honestly thought it was just the start of that film and they were screwing around with us.

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Jurassic World 484h2a Fallen Kingdom, 2018 - ★★★

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 01:24:35 +1200

Not quite as well-rounded as the first JW movie, but has more on its mind and sets the stage for a potentially genuinely exciting follow-up (which I’ve heard is terrible). It’s kind of a weird blockbuster and I liked that.

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Happy Death Day 4s5z61 2017 - ★★★

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 01:17:23 +1200

Groundhog Day without Bill Murray just isn’t as good.

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Drop af73 2025 - ★★★½

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 01:16:24 +1200

Major M. Night vibes but would be 10x funnier if he made it.

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Last Straw 5x4j5e 2023 - ★★½

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 01:15:08 +1200

Watched on Thursday April 10, 2025.

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Jurassic World 484h2a 2015 - ★★★½

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 00:45:39 +1200

Watched on Thursday April 10, 2025.

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Money Monster 616z4j 2016 - ★★½

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 20:44:42 +1200

Leapt out of my seat when I saw ‘Directed by Jodie Foster’ after 100 minutes.

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Funny People e2c34 2009 - ★★★★½

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 10:48:29 +1200

Funny People feels tailor made for me in so many ways. Haven’t watched it in 5+ years and, maybe it’s because comedies don’t hold the same stock they once did, but it is somehow better than ever. It felt like watching an artefact from a time when films like this were treated as meaningful in a way they aren’t anymore. It gets lumped in with the ‘good’ Sandler films like Punch Drunk Love and Uncut Gems but I’d argue it’s far more personal and poignant than either of those. I felt this even more so when watching today and thinking about Sandler and his friends losing Farley a decade earlier, or more recently Norm MacDonald, who not only appears in this movie, but also died from a cancer which he kept secret from his closest friends.

I’m a staunch defender of its third act which, apart from being sensible from a writing perspective (the growth viewers expect from George around the 90-minute mark is inconsistent with his characterisation), is also just kind of a baller thing to do in your insanely high-budget studio comedy. I wish more movies would tack on an additional 45-minute, single-location sequence which complicates your feelings towards its main characters. Not just that, but it also follows the film’s loose adaptation of The Great Gatsby, where the third act resembles the uncomfortable sweltering afternoon spent in the city between Jay, Nick, Tom, and Daisy. So y’know, there’s a literary precedent to all this, coming from one of the great American novels.

Regardless of what people say about the length of Apatow’s films, this flew by. In the excellent making-of doc, he says that he’ll probably never be given the budget to make a film like this again. I think this is true, although God knows how much Netflix paid for The Bubble. Anyway, I’m glad he made it and still believe it’s the best thing he’s done.

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Novocaine 512d6w 2025 - ★★★½

Wed, 9 Apr 2025 10:42:10 +1200

Runs over by about 20 minutes but I had a blast with this. Not quite as inventive as it could have been but I was just pulling these faces the whole time 😃😃🤕😄 bonus points for using the city space (kinda well) and for being set at Christmas. Also, Ray Nicholson, take a bow.

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A Minecraft Movie 6b481a 2025 - ★★½

Wed, 9 Apr 2025 01:59:02 +1200

Know nothing about Minecraft and couldn’t care less about whether this is a faithful adaptation. Everyone has buried the lede by not mentioning that, above all else, this feels like a Jared Hess movie. It just so happens that it’s a $150 million Jared Hess Minecraft movie and I laughed a lot. Black and Momoa fully commit and there’s a Jennifer Coolidge line read that I howled at.

The cultural influence of Nacho Libre endures. Get in the Hess mindset.

(Like all his other films, this is still basically a 5/10)

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Babygirl 4q646 2024 - ★★★

Sat, 5 Apr 2025 11:34:11 +1300

Can’t bring myself to just write ‘Eyes Wide Shit’ and leave it at that, because there’s some genuinely good stuff here, like the three main performances and the score. However, I will say that I sincerely think this is less interesting and enjoyable than 50 Shades of Grey.

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A Real Pain 5y656i 2024 - ★★★★

Thu, 3 Apr 2025 19:51:47 +1300

Watched on Wednesday April 2, 2025.

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Black Bag 1o2o5k 2025 - ★★★★

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 13:35:53 +1300

I’ve been trying to put my finger on what this reminded me of all night and it’s finally come to me: Burn After Reading but if everyone was clever.

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Bloody Axe Wound t2s6h 2024 - ★★½

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 11:41:15 +1300

Can’t lie, I was barely watching this and it didn’t make a lick of sense but there were things I liked (Billy Burke in gnarly makeup) and it captured the vibe of some 80s slasher films quite well.

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Mickey 17 296tq 2025 - ★★★★ (contains spoilers)

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 05:59:25 +1300

This review may contain spoilers.

Bong took the Parasite money and made a film where Robert Pattinson talks like Steve-O and executes a suicide mission to kill Donald Trump. For those reasons alone, Mickey 17 rules.

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Scream VI 6l125v 2023 - ★★★½

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 13:02:16 +1300

Watched on Saturday March 22, 2025.

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Scream 3i556j 2022 - ★★★½

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 01:08:33 +1300

Watched on Thursday March 20, 2025.

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Che 6p3k1z Part One, 2008 - ★★★★

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 12:47:37 +1300

That line - ‘A country that does not know how to read or write is easy to deceive’ - goes hard as hell in our present-day stupid timeline.

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Jurassic World 484h2a 2015 - ★★★

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 12:54:36 +1300

A middling, hollow piece of entertainment. Sat and watched this for the first time in maybe 7 or 8 years tonight. Feel like this is going to skew a little negative so I should say, this is a completely fine time (after a couple of beers) in a ‘wow look, dinosaurs’ or ‘haha Bryce Dallas Howard being quirky’ kind of way, but none of it holds up to scrutiny. Chris Pratt really is one of the great failures of our time as a Hollywood leading man. A charmless vacuum of a person who has lowkey been giving MAGA ever since Parks and Rec ended.

It coasts by on nostalgia for the original film/s and the unique idea that the franchise might actually for once benefit from depicting a theme park as open. Props to Michael Giacchino for adding some really nice motifs to the original Williams score and to the cinematographer for miraculously producing a well-lit modern blockbuster. Otherwise, this is a little flat and I can’t believe people at the time had the gall to say it was up there as the best Jurassic Park sequel when The Lost World’s ‘trailer hanging off a cliff’ scene bests just about anything going on here.

Sidenote: to hell with the dinosaurs, I would love to get blitzed at Jurassic World’s licensed Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville.

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Heat 2l5d2z 1995 - ★★★★★

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 12:56:30 +1300

Watched on Monday March 17, 2025.

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Jenny Slate 1x4mw Seasoned Professional, 2024

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 05:44:19 +1300

Watched on Monday March 17, 2025.

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Jerrod Carmichael 4n5p4d 8, 2017

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:57:16 +1300

Watched on Monday March 17, 2025.

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SNL50 2g3v6h The Anniversary Special, 2025

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:20:32 +1300

Watched on Sunday March 16, 2025.

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Scream 4 4w4z6g 2011 - ★★★½

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 22:28:47 +1300

Does a better job than Scream 5 at exploring the effects of modern day violence and online culture on the slasher film while simultaneously also being rendered irrelevant by the very existence of Scream 5. This is the odd one out in the franchise for me, even down to the way it looks, but I still always have lots of fun with it anyway.

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Ready or Not 3c1y2 2019 - ★★★½

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 22:23:00 +1300

Watched on Thursday March 13, 2025.

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Scream 3 6d3920 2000 - ★★★½

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 22:20:22 +1300

What if this is the best Scream sequel…

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Scream 2 5v63u 1997 - ★★★½

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 11:06:04 +1300

Didn’t hit like it usually does - maybe tired and weary after a busy week of teaching (hold up, it’s only tuesday) - but still plenty to enjoy here. Some great set pieces and an expanded cast, albeit one which it doesn’t quite know how to use as well as the first film. It’s missing the sense of fun you feel watching the first movie but doesn’t substitute that with any weird or interesting choices (see: Scream 3).

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