Mockingbird followed up on the strengths of last week’s episode with Tyrion and Cersei setting the stage for next week’s trial by combat as well as Sansa falling into the centre of some major shake-ups in the Vale of Arryn. That aside, it was ultimately an episode of table-setting that was structured around Tyrion’s search for a champion to fight on his behalf.
WARNING – SPOILERS AHEAD
Given the explosive end to last week’s episode, it was great to dive back into things with Jaime immediately confronting Tyrion about his demands for a trial by combat. As is becoming the usual for this season, the banter between Dinklage and Coster-Waldau was spot on and his reaction to Tyrion’s suggestion that he fight the Mountain despite his injuries. While it was clear Jaime was savoring what could be one of his last interactions with his brother, he wasn’t one to let him off the hook and was quick to remind him that the people of King’s Landing see him as a monster and his speech during last week’s trial only reinforced that image.
It’s a shame that they recast the Mountain again (I always thought the first actor they had back in season 1 was perfect for the role), but his short scene this week did a good job of reminding us how much of a threat he is – not to mention utterly how screwed and dire Tyrion’s chances of winning his trial look.
Bronn’s conversation with Tyrion was pretty great in this aspect too – The Mountain is not one to be messed with and Bronn knows it. Jerome Flynn played this scene perfectly and the bittersweet but mutual understanding reached between the pair was fun to watch. We can only hope the show will give us a look at Bronn’s new life as a noble of Kings Landing at some point.
This episode spent quite a bit of time Stark-side (yes I’ve been waiting weeks to use that term again) with both Arya and Sansa getting a decent amount of screentime. Arya and the Hound found themselves sharing an Assassin’s Creed-esque moment of philosophical clarify with a dying farmer. It was cool to see Arya’s nonchalance towards death here and her fearlessness when the pair found themselves attacked by Biter and Rorge did a good job of reinforcing how much her character has matured over the last few seasons.
Sansa’s scenes this week were of a similarly high quality and Sophie Turner did a great job of capturing the range to Sansa’s character this week. It was clear that while Sansa definitely still longs for the home and family she’s lost, her frankness with Littlefinger regarding Joffrey’s murder shows that she’s no longer the naive girl she once was. She’s learning and if she keeps learning from Baelish, she may find herself a real player as the series goes on.
While Baelish kissing Sansa was undeniably creepy (particularly after he made the comment “you could have been my child”), I felt the show handled it and the ensuing confrontation with Lysa quite well. It might not have been especially surprising for some to see Baelish betray (“I have only loved one woman…..your sister”) Lysa and throw her to her death, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t satisfying.
This week’s check in with Brienne and Podrick was another one of the episodes stronger points with the pair making a brief stop at the crossroads inn. The lecture that the pair received on the finer points of baking by (“You cannot give up on the gravy”) by Hot Pie was a fun scene and it was a clever way of the pair discovering that Arya could well be alive. That said, Podrick has a point that the Lannisters may send bounty hunters of their own and it’ll be interesting to see if there are any consequences to Brienne’s frankness as her search continues.
Last week saw Dany discover that compromises are part of ruling and this trend continued this week alongside her appeal to Daario Naharis’ love of women. It was good to see Dany take a step back from her ceaseless war against slavery and realise that, like Jorah says, there are good and evil on both sides of any war. I liked how Jorah drew on his own past here when it came to convincing her that trying to negotiate with the masters of Yunkai is a better choice than sending Daario to slaughter them. That said, it’ll be interesting to see if this move backfires and pushes Dany away from Jorah and towards Daario.
Speaking of Daario, while I like the way the show is portraying the relationship he has with Dany but I think I’ve more or less settled on the side of not liking the show’s portrayal of the character. He just feels way too nice and polite for what I imagined when I read the books.
Although the climax of the episode dealt with Sansa, it was Oberyn’s visit to Tyrion that felt like the strongest scene of the episode. The short conversation the pair shared did a great job of giving us just as much insight into Oberyn’s past (“That’s not a monster, that’s just a baby”) as it did Tyrion’s headspace and impending doom. Dinklage did a brilliant job of capturing Tyrion at his lowest and is was hard not to cheer when Oberyn revealed he was going to stand as his champion and avenge his sister’s death by slaying the Mountain.
Overall, Mockingbird was another strong episode that gave us some well needed breathing room before diving right back into the thick of things with the murder of Lysa Arryn. Next week’s showdown between the Mountain and the Viper was my favorite moment of A Storm of Swords and I can’t begin to talk about how excited I am to see it brought to life.
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is a film which comes written and directed by Quentin Tarantino who some may know for films such as The Hateful Eight (2015) or Pulp Fiction (1994). The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Dakota Fanning and Al Pacino. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is about a fading Hollywood actor and his stunt double who are striving to achieve success in the final years of the Hollywood golden age.
Before going into this film, I must admit I was quite excited about it. This is the 9th film from Quentin Tarantino, who is one of my favourite directors of all time and the cast is filled with so many great actors there’s no reason to not want to see this one. Even though my expectations for this film were set very high, I came out of the cinema incredibly happy, very entertained and extremely impressed with what I just saw. Quentin Tarantino has truly delivered something very special this year and I highly recommend going to see it.
The way the story is told is very interesting. The audience follows the career of Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is trying to maintain his stardom and Hollywood status in a time when things are changing. The actor is trying to transition from being a major TV star to a Hollywood actor, but it’s very difficult. On top of this, Rick Dalton is ageing and he is no longer in his prime, he’s sort of becoming obsolete. Cliff (Brad Pitt) is sharing a similar fate with his career tied to the success or failure of Rick’s. In contrast to these two, Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) is a character who is everything good about Hollywood in 1969, her personality is welcoming, she helps people and she’s friendly. Quentin Tarantino’s Sharon Tate is the ideal Hollywood star of the time.
Quentin Tarantino with this film captured the spirit and essence of Hollywood in 1969. I felt like I was watching real people going through real things. The attention to detail on each of the characters and also watching them develop as the film progresses was very well done. This film also one has of the best endings and is maybe the best film that I’ve seen in 2019.
The actors were all great, I really enjoyed watching Leonardo DiCaprio in this film. The actor has a very wide range of things he could do as his character Rick Dalton is going through quite a lot and there are a lot of different emotional elements. On top of this, as a character who is an actor, Rick is seen acting in other films within this film as different characters he is playing. There are some very good performances within this film from Rick Dalton and in some ways, I wish I could watch the films that he was making within this film. Brad Pitt does very well and so too does Margot Robbie. Dakota Fanning surprised me a lot in this film as I didn’t even recognise her as Squeaky Fromme, she was only in the film for a bit, but for that time she was, she was very impactful.
Overall, I have no further comments to make about this film without having to go into major spoilers discussing all the different elements of it. It’s hard to write a long review for a film when everything was awesome in it. The directing, acting, writing, music and everything else about Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was awesome and Quentin Tarantino exceeded my expectations for this film. It may just be one of his best ones yet. I highly recommend going to see it at the cinema this week or as soon as you can. I am already wanting to see it a second time and probably will re-watch it on Blu-Ray when it’s released.
Crawl is a film which comes directed by Alexendre Aja who some may know as the director of The Hills Have Eyes (2006). The film stars Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper.
Crawl is a film about a young woman named Haley (Kaya Scodelario) who attempts to save her father (Barry Pepper) who is trapped in his house during a category 5 hurricane. Tremendous damage has occurred to the home and the surrounding area during the storm, with the streets slowly flooding But that’s not the only danger to be wary of, the flood waters have paved the way for dozens of alligators to come into town and they’re ready to feast on anyone still around. Will poor Haley and her father survive though?
Going into this film. I was actually quite excited. I do enjoy these action films where there’s some creature out there and it’s preying on whatever character the film is about. This film is a little similar to The Meg, but it most reminded me of Anacondas (2004). All of these films and Crawl included wouldn’t be ones I’d say were legendary films, but gosh, I definitely have fun watching them!
Crawl as a story is about survival. There are themes all throughout it related to man vs nature and also the idea of the apex predator is scattered all throughout it. Both characters in the film are constantly challenged and struggle to survive in the a town getting torn apart by the storm.
The main reason most people would go to see Crawl at the cinema would be for the action and that’s the same reason I wanted to go along and see this one. I wanted to see what the alligators could do and I wanted to see some people get eaten up. Did I get that? I certainly did! Did I need much more out of this? Probably not.
As for Crawl being scary. I’m not too sure, I find it all quite fun. But there are people who this would probably frighten a little. Much of the film is cgi and for what it is and for the type of movie this is I think it was just the right quality. They didn’t try to go too big like in The Meg where the cgi seemed to struggle in certain areas. Although the limitations of the cgi are visible in Crawl, it’s not too bad in the end.
The acting in Crawl isn’t too bad. Kaya Scodelario is who you’ll be watching for basically the entire film and she delivers a pleasant performance. Some may recognise this actress from her appearance in The Maze Runner (2014) where she played Teresa. Hopefully there is more to come from her in future films.
The tone of the film, while at times can be a little intense with all the danger out there did actually feel a little light. Alexandre Aja seemed to keep the tone not too serious and embraced the silliness of it all in certain areas to keep it light and fun. But it was also tense and scary when it needed to be.
Overall I had a good time with Crawl at the cinema last week. This isn’t a film that is going to blow anyone away with how good it is, but it’s something to see for a bit of fun over the weekend. You get to watch two characters try to survive a massive hurricane and not get eaten by alligators. Crawl was 1 hour and 27 minutes of fun!
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