Is that title strictly accurate? I think it might be, but why is that the case? What are the ingredients to a ‘manly’ movie? The Magnificent Seven may hold some answers. It’s a modern Western movie with an impressive cast, and all the Westerny tropes you can shake a stick at. I’ll admit that I haven’t seen the original film it’s based on, or the TV series from the 1990s, or the much-older Kurosawa samurai film they’re all remakes of — I’m only going to be talking about the 2016 film. But I’m sure that the vibe is the same: a group of very different men join forces to repel a great evil. And what a great evil it is. I think that’s the first factor to consider.

Most horror franchises have death quotas, at least in the slasher genre; some people get killed, and that’s just the convention. The Jurassic Park series isn’t a slasher franchise, but it seems to operate by similar principles. It’s a science fiction action series about dinosaurs (of course), the hubris of humanity, corporate greed, and (sometimes) family, but people always die. So if your movie must have some human deaths in it, how do you pick who dies? The obvious answer is that it always depends, and it depends on what the movie is about. Every movie has its themes, and depending on the themes and the characters that might represent different sides of those themes, you’d probably make your choices accordingly.

Ballerina is a 2025 action movie set in the John Wick universe, following the story of a new assassin/bodyguard called Eve Macarro. It’s set either: 1. during the events of John Wick 3: Parabellum and John Wick 4, or 2. during the third movie itself (sources online are unclear, and even having watched Ballerina, I’m still not sure either). Regardless, Ballerina contains all the things that you’d expect from a John Wick movie — innovative (and bloody) action sequences, captivating set design, and various themes of revenge, loyalty, fate, choice, and consequences. As a standalone story, it has an opportunity to be like the first John Wick film, which tied up nicely, at least in theme. Unfortunately, it’s a little messy. Spoilers ahead.

Warm Bodies is a horrible name for a movie that isn’t some form of smut (and is quite horrible even if it were some form of smut). It’s also a 2013 zombie movie that’s supposed to be an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, except Romeo is a zombie and Juliet isn’t, and Romeo eats Paris’ brains. Are you on board yet? I sure was — I’ve been on board with this premise for years, but I’m only getting to it now. The main reason I was interested is that it is a romance story between a zombie and a human, and I wondered if such a story could be pulled off at all. Vampires are usually the fictional beings where passion persists in death; the zombie, instead, represents death in its relentlessness. Warm Bodies presents a monumental challenge for a romance writer, implications of necrophilia and necrophagy and cannibalism aside. So let’s start at the beginning.

Miller’s Girl is many things. It’s a movie that I learnt about through a YouTube ad, and which came out in cinemas in early 2024. It stars Jenna Ortega, a.k.a. Wednesday from Wednesday, and Martin Freeman, a.k.a. Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit. They play an eighteen-year-old high-school senior improbably named Cairo Sweet, and a middle-aged creative writing teacher named Jonathan Miller. Just to be clear, Freeman plays the teacher and Ortega plays the student.

Look — no matter how you look at it, it’s hard to explain the musical Cats, even without addressing the 2019 movie version. Enough has been written about that version already, and I don’t feel that I should bash it without having seen it, even if it is bad. The version I want to talk about instead is the 1998 movie, which I have seen. Certainly, this is the first time where I think I should summarise the topic of the week in its entirety before attempting to say anything about it. I’ll have to give it a shot, so just bear with me. You’re going to have to suspend your disbelief quite a bit.

Lost in Translation is sad. I don’t know what else to say, so that’s all for this week.

When writing fiction, characters are always tricky. Even in non-fiction, characters are tricky if you’re going for a creative angle on a real person. Much has been said about writing characters that are more than one-dimensional, ie. having layers and motivations. Creating such layers and motivations means that those layers and motivations will bleed into the plot of a story, and that’s crucial for a reader’s or audience’s engagement with said plot. Even if that plot is very engaging, you want equally engaging characters to go along with it.

Bangkok Dog is a martial arts film. Martial arts films are not known for their writing. They’re known — good ones, anyway — for tightly-choreographed action scenes that are shot in dynamic, interesting ways. You’ve got the John Wick franchise with its wide shots to show off the performers’ talent, putting all the incredible technique and prowess on full display. You’ve got the Ip Man franchise, for that classic Hong-Kong-martial-arts-film-feel with a modern twist, with decades of experience behind each film. Franchises aside, Jackie Chan is known for insane high-spectacle stunts in most, if not all, of his martial arts films.

Hanna isn't a movie I've heard much about, but it’s about a little girl who’s trained to be an assassin. I’d first gotten interested in Hanna when I found out that it was directed by the same guy who did Darkest Hour in 2017, which I’d really enjoyed. I’ve also been interested in the John Wick franchise for a while, which is about assassins, if you didn’t know. I also discovered — when looking at the Wikipedia page for Hanna — that it starred Saoirse Ronan, and I’ve wanted to watch something she’s in for some time, mostly because I like the name Saoirse. After reading the description of the plot of Hanna, I expected a movie about assassins in which young Saoirse Ronan trains all her life for a mission, and the movie shows that mission. It turned out to be not quite that. It also turned out to be absolutely bloody horrifying.

Violet Evergarden is an anime series released in 2018, based on a light novel series. It depicts the eponymous Violet Evergarden, a young lady who loses her arms and a loved one while she’s a child, from fighting in a horrible war. After the war is over, and after she receives mechanical arms, she then trains to be a special kind of typist, known as Auto-Memory Dolls (the show doesn’t quite explain why). They function primarily as ghostwriters for clients who want letters written, or for whatever other clients who want things typed up.

You’re probably detecting some aggression through the title. Well, you’d be right to, so well done. I’ve written about Shōgun before, mostly praising it for its good writing and enjoying the character Usami Fuji. However, Shōgun continues to write characters well, in that the writers tried to create a character that I really could not muster any enthusiasm for, and they did that really well too. I really had no time for this man whatsoever. Not that they were writing this character for me.