Fore wording…
Today is 8 September 2022. I am British. I am not a Royalist.
However, right now i feel incredibly weird & strange. Our head of state, the Queen, has died. I did say when i saw the pictures of her on Tuesday i went oooh shes starting to look a bit like she is 96. We all feel a little weird, we do. Doesnt matter if you are a monarchist, or in the middle like me, or a republican, shes always been there. In the 32 years 10 months & 10 days of my life i have only had the Queen as my head of state, i have only ever sung God Save the Queen as a national anthem (one of the best moments of my life singing that at Wembley at the football) I may never sing it again as it will now be Kings. Yea it all just feels a bit strange & weird. But i am going to ask you all now to do something Greg has told me to do this morning on the Radio (9 Sept) email, msg or call your grandparents & tell them you bloody love them. You dont know when it will be the last time you do. So please people do that & just be nice & kind to everyone today please. We got this peoples, we do. God Save the Queen… Long Live King Charles III

Right normal life does continue tho, so lets got to the cinema.

Let award season officially start… It is time for Three Thousand Years of Longing, which has had buzz for a very very long time so i am looking forward to this. I somehow think there is a lot more to this film than just granting a few wishes & a genie so this should be fun…

Theres about 30 people in my screening. & i would say its an even split of people my age, who want to start award season in a good way & the other half mid to late 60s. & nothing in between. I mean thats good but its very odd that theres no one in the gap between.

Trailers… Oppenheim ( i think until we go a new trailer thats all im going to type now for it {unless i dont see a trailer for it before a film}) Dont Worry Darling (yes) Smile (prob not) See how they run (yes next week) & ticket to paradise (yes). A good set of trailers really which was good.

& then the film started… & this film did have promise but when it loses its way, it just becomes generic im afraid to say.

This is my favourite Idris Elba performance so far… & ive watched quite a few this year. But seeing him in the past & present & his different emotions & how shit happens to him was so fascinating & i really enjoyed it. He was fantastic & if you take nothing else from this film, you should take that because he owns it. Tilda is good too, dont get me wrong, but hes just nailing it.

The flashbacks to teach you his stories as to how he ended up in the bottle & his life before & his previous loves & lifes & wishes. All fantastic. Everyone acted so well for the period they were in. The change in the costume & cinematography & score in all the different periods were amazing. Each one felt new & so cool & i learnt so much. When we flicked back to that hotel chat i was just like well as much as we need this i need more from past tell me more please. I loved them & they were so engaging.

So then when the actual real wishing started at the beginning of act 3 after everything she had been told & had learnt along the way about the wishing, it then just became a bit generic & lost its way. I mean if you are gonna wish for something yes you might wish for that, but still, nah there would be more you could do for it. Thats when it lost its way. I think its should have ended when she decided to start wishing so then we didnt know what she wished for but the 25mins after that point all just felt a little like well we need to show that wishing isnt a good thing even now. We didnt need that.

There were a few bits which needed explanations such as her visions before she sees him or gets the bottle, or as to why he had that power to start with. I mean we all get the lore about what wishes can & cant be granted, but a few more bits would have been nice, which were kind of glassed over, which considering we got a bland act 3, could have been foreshadowed earlier on.

There a death alluded to in the trailer, which appears in full in the film, i liked that. I laughed at that. IT was well staged & had some nice cinematography.

There are some point in this film where its properly grim & is disturbing to look at. I mean maybe it would have been more shocking for me if i wasnt binging thrones atm or hadnt seen Hatching on monday, but there were some like oh really im not sure it needed to go there & then you remember you are looking at a flashback & go yea that would have happened then fair enough.

Its a solid start to Award season this, i mean this will get a few nominations but not win anything, if im honest. However the performances were good & the different eras being shown were lush, until we got to today, when it just became bland im afraid. It was like a netflix film at the end & miss judged its ending badly.