More of what I watched

Continuing with what I watched recently. There was one film that I had wanted to see ever since I had first seen the trailer: 'The House with a Clock in its Walls'. Starring Jack Black and Cate Blanchett, it is basically a children's film, but that has never stopped me before. A young orphan named Lewis Barnavelt aids his magical uncle in locating a clock with the power to bring about the end of the world. I particularly liked the interaction between Jack Black as the uncle and Cate Blanchett as the friend, as they bickered and called each other names. Overall though I thought it was okay, but not much more.

I watched two films on Amazon recently with the same premise: time loop. The first one was 'Palm Springs', the second was 'The Map of Tiny Perfect Things'. 1. Stuck in a time loop, two wedding guests develop a budding romance while living the same day over and over again. This was very much an adult version. And it required more than just being a good person to get out of the time loop again. 2. Two teens get stuck in a time loop and make a map to try and get out of it again. This was more of a teenage version and for some reason a bit more fun to watch. Definitely more relatable. 

I had recorded 'Ready Player One' a while ago and watched it the other day. When the creator of a virtual reality called the OASIS dies, he makes a posthumous challenge to all OASIS users to find his Easter Egg, which will give the finder his fortune and control of his world. It is set in the future and the main protagonists are all teens, but I liked it very much and in fact watched it twice in two days!

'Wonderstruck' was a film in two parts. It tells the tale of two children separated by fifty years. In 1927, Rose searches for the (silent movie) actress whose life she chronicles in her scrapbook; in 1977, Ben runs away from home to find his father. The visualisation of both stories was fantastic. The 1927 bits were shown with music only, no spoken word and were for me the best of the film. I loved the ending as well, as it really made the stories come together. 

The last film I will share today was 'The 5th Wave'. Another film starring teens. Four waves of increasingly deadly alien attacks have left most of Earth in ruin. Cassie is on the run, desperately trying to save her younger brother. The film was left quite open ended as it was based on the first of a series of books. I think I would watch a sequel, but only if it were a close ended one. But I did quite like this one.