TV Binge: A Discovery of Witches (Season 1, 2018)

A Discovery of Witches (Season 1, 2018)

Cast: Matthew Goode, Teresa Palmer, Valarie Pettiford, Malin Buska, Owen Teale, Alex Kingston, Aiysha Hart, Edward Bluemel, Gregg Chillin, Trevor Eve, Louise Brealey, Elarica Johnson

Diana Bishop, historian and witch, accesses Ashmole 782 and knows she must solve its mysteries. She is offered help by the enigmatic Matthew Clairmont, but he’s a vampire and witches should never trust vampires. – IMDB

A Discovery of Witches is a fun little gem. Season 1 is neatly packed at 8 episodes and stars the talented but rather underrated (in my opinion) Matthew Goode (I mean, have you seen him in Stoker?) and the very charming Teresa Palmer as they are paired up as two magical individuals, vampire and witch who unexpectedly and much against the magical order’s rules, fall in love with each other, except maybe its not that surprising with later discoveries.

Granted its only a few episodes long for the first season, the story does have some odd execution issues that probably lean more on building a romantic foundation between the two characters a lot in the first half before bringing in the magical dangers in the second half. This execution is good and bad. Its good because the characters of Matthew and Diana become quite the connected couple and we can root for them together. The bad is that, it takes a little away from the thrills of this world of magic and keeps that part relatively more shallow and piles it on a lot more in the second half. I haven’t read the source material so maybe that is also how the book is.

While I say that, Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer are amazing as a couple and probably will end up on couples to ship together for sure. Their characters Matthew and Diana are fascinating together even when some of the dialogue is very been there done that and maybe even a tad cringey however somehow whenever ancient vampires come into play, it all becomes a little more acceptable because they are expected to be old-fashioned. The connection they have is great on screen and they have some believable chemistry and passion between them. It also helps that Diana learns from him as he learns and protects her from the magical world that she isn’t quite familiar with. At the same time, they balance out because while she lacks control in her powers, she is also a tough character with determination not only for their love but other elements as well. TV couples that somewhat grow and better themselves together make for strong characters.

Where this season and possibly the story itself has its limits is in some relatively annoying characters who almost seem endless and have no sense of danger to them. Like the girl above playing Satu (Malin Buska) who honestly is supposed to be scary or unsettling through the constant character design of quiet and glares. Her character felt quite useless throughout although how they end the season 1 (and depending on what Season 2 does with it) might change that thought. While there are other fairly disposable characters here presented, which probably only feels that way because the season is so compact and has a good number of characters revealed but never quite having enough place to be memorable or meaningful.

This first season of A Discovery of Witches is honestly setting up a lot of foundations and giving an outline of the characters and the world and magical politics, that set the stage for whats to come in future seasons. Many shows tend to do that as something of an introductory. Luckily, there’s enough here to have Season 2 greenlit and hopefully will be released soon.

Stoker (2013)

Stoker was one of my most anticipated movies of 2013.  However, because it was part of those artsy independent film categories, my suburban theatre didn’t have it.  When it was released, I bought it at full price.  Who would know that I’d wait all the way till now to watch it.

Director: Park Chan Wook

Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Nicole Kidman, Jacki Weaver, Dermot Mulroney

On her 18th birthday, India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) loses her father (Dermot Mulroney) in a car accident.  The day of the funeral, her mysterious and charming uncle, Charlie shows up out of the blue and decides to stay with them to help her and her mother (Nicole Kidman) out.  India tries to figure out why Uncle Charlie appears out of nowhere as she didn’t even know about his existence before her father’s death and slowly she becomes attracted to him.

Unlike a lot of you, I’m not too familiar with Park Chan Wook.  I’ve only ever seen one short film by him called Cut and it was part of the 3 Extremes movie that I reviewed for the Halloween marathon 2012. You can check it out HERE if you’d like.  I only did a brief review as well but Park Chan Wook does have a very cool, mysterious style in kind of a mentally disturbed way. I like it a lot and I promise that I’ll get to Oldboy and Thirst soon. Stoker was my full conversion because it was all sorts of awesome.  I loved how it was filmed.  The shots were nice and the atmosphere matched the mood perfectly.  It was somewhat strange and mysterious but at the same time, it was intriguing.

THE best part of Stoker, hands-down, has to be the cast.  Lets start with Nicole Kidman.  I’m a huge fan of her to start. I’ve been slowing down on watching her films lately but she was pretty good as the widow who is attracted to her dead husband’s brooding brother and also, a mother who really doesn’t know what she’s doing but seems to want to be closer to her daughter but at the same time, in this controlling way but still remains distant.  And then, I start wondering if there’s more.  Either way, its not super clear but it didn’t bother me too much. Let me say, her glares and reactions were quite good.

Our main lead is the talented Mia Wasikowska.  She always seems to pick up these peculiar roles.  The first time I saw her was in Alice in Wonderland.  Despite that movie having certain flaws, she was not and I thought she made a good Alice.  Then after that, she played in the very awesome Jane Eyre as the renowned Charlotte Bronte character from the novel, you can check out the review HERE! Suffice to say, that I’m quite impressed with her and to me, when I first saw the poster of this, I was thinking that this was exactly what she would be awesome in.  She definitely did not disappoint me. It was a pretty captivating performance because her character was so quiet and it was all just her analysing her Uncle Charlie.  It had a lot to do with her body language and her glares, that sort of thing.  In general, this is a pretty quiet movie with  not all that much dialogue to begin with.

As much as Mia was great, Matthew Goode stole the show as Uncle Charlie.  This guy was an awesome mix of mysterious, creepy, weird, and very charming.  We never really see what Uncle Charlie wants until the end and its just totally crazy.  The dialogue, the connection with Mia’s character India and equally with Nicole Kidman’s character.  Every single time he was on screen I was totally drawn in.

Another thing I really loved about Stoker was the music.  Maybe its because I play the piano, the music itself had a lot of that.  I totally loved that weird piano scene with India.  I’ve mentioned it here but I can see how this movie might not be for everyone.  Its slow and not very wordy.  Its all about just how they react, India’s analysis of Charlie and her mother, and just seeing how India discovers a bit more about herself and her family.

Overall, Stoker shot up as one of the best movies I’ve seen in 2013.  It feels good to have expectations exceeded.  Its a great movie.  Deep, weird, mysterious, suspenseful, and in a way, somewhat disturbing but done so well.  Chan Wook Park is a very awesome director who captures some nice scenes and the cast is amazing.  Stoker is worth a watch just to see Matthew Goode in this awesome role 🙂 I highly recommend it!

Did you see Stoker? Did you like it? If you didn’t, what didn’t you like about it?

Leap Year (2010)

Who likes Amy Adams? I think she’s a super pretty and elegant actress! I first saw her in Enchanted and thought she was adorable! Then, after this one a year or two ago, I learned about Matthew Goode who is a pretty decent actor himself! Plus, he proved he could make awesome movies in any sort of character like in The Lookout and I’m about to watch Stoker (which I recently bought).

Director: Anand Tucker

Cast: Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, Adam Scott, John Lithgow, Tony Rohr

Anna (Amy Adams) and Jeremy (Adam Scott) are getting ready to get one of the most pretigious apartments Davenport in Boston.  Anna is a stager for realtors to transform the apartments to make them presentable and impressive to encourage buyers while Jeremy is a doctor.  When Jeremy has to head over to Dublin for a work conference, she decides to fly over on leap year to propose to him because the tradition is that he will have to accept her proposal.  However, due to a big storm and her flight is rerouted, she ends up in Dingle where she requests the help of a rude innkeeper Declan (Matthew Goode) to lead the way. This Irish man challenges and surprises her and breaks her out of her plans and being fully in control of everything and makes her question if her decision to get married were right.

This is a pretty average romantic comedy.  However, romantic comedies are essentially to dish out all the corny plots and silly lines and build up this simple story of romance that can happen when you least expect it.  Thats all I ever expect out of this.  One of the reasons I love to watch this movie is for the setting.  Ireland is beautiful.  Is it actually filmed in Ireland? I have no idea, maybe someone can help me, but man, so gorgeous to look at.

Second reason I love to watch this is for Amy Adams.  She has this on screen charm that makes all the movies she’s in shine a little more.  In this one, she’s fantastic at the controlling and slightly arrogant Anna who shields herself from any surprises in her life because she doesn’t really have much faith.  However, she is casted opposite Matthew Goode.  This is actually the first flick I ever saw him in.  Recently, he’s been on my radar as a really bad bad guy, if you get what I mean, in The Lookout! It made me want to go back to relive this movie where he plays this sarcastic and bitter unromantic guy who was hurt by love before.  Very different character in the two movies.  Amy Adams and Matthew Goode really had awesome chemistry and some of their lines seriously made me laugh.

Honestly, I rewatched this movie to help myself write this review.  Its a romantic comedy that you don’t really have to expect too much from.  If you want to just sit back and relax and watch an alright flick, this is it.  You can see Amy Adams and Matthew Goode charm the screen with their chemistry as their characters. You can enjoy breathtaking Ireland scenery (to replace going on vacation).  The story is predictable but still, its an decent concept.  Average is how I would describe it.  I’ve seen a lot better and I’ve seen much much much worse 😉

Amy Adams is who I want to talk about! She’s been about the recent movies these days? Whats a role you really enjoyed her in? Do you like her as an actress or maybe you think she’s pretty? Did you like her in this role (if you’ve seen this before)?

The Lookout (2007)

Back in December, Target bought out Zellers and as our neighborhood Zellers was cleaning out all of its stock, I went hunting for extra cheap DVDs.  In the piles and piles, I found this one.  I like Matthew Goode and JGL, so why not?

Director: Scott Frank

Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Matthew Goode, Jeff Daniels, Isla Fisher, Carla Gugino, Sergio Di Zio

When a tragic accident causes Chris (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to lose every thing he had in his promising future, he has to rebuild it step by step and adapt to being handicapped with his memory.  He no longer can sequence his thoughts properly and control his emotions due to damage to his frontal lobes.  Due to this, he ends up paired up with a blind man called Lewis (Jeff Daniels) as a means to take care of each other.  After a night shift at his job, he meets Gary Spargo, a guy who claims he used to date his sister and praise the success he had in school back in the day before the accident.  Gary introduces him to his friends and helps him meet an ex-dancer called Luvlee (Isla Fisher).  Eventually, he learns that Gary approached him to manipulate him to join them in their bank heist and be their lookout and teaches him that “Whoever has the money has the power”.

Even after a few days of seeing this, I’m having slightly mixed feelings about this.  Don’t get me wrong.  Its a decent flick.  In fact, for a good part of this drama/crime thriller, I felt that it was alright.  Especially since we had to understand what our main character Chris was going through and to understand how his life was run.  However, once the whole heist thing goes down, I felt it was a bit more predictable.  I had a feeling of what was going to go down and I even figured out some of their lines.

 

There is one specific element that I’d like to really emphasize on because the movie would’ve been pretty horrible without it was the cast and their characters.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a really good Chris, a guy who has to calm his emotions and deal with the mess he’s made when his brain isn’t really cooperating with him.  Even before all the great breakthrough roles he had, this one shows us how promising he is.  It helps that everyone else, or at least the other  roles were outstanding as well.  I’ve always liked Jeff Daniels.  Remembering him in Speed makes me love him even more.  Now, as Lewis, he plays a tough, sometimes vulgar, sarcastic, but pretty easy going blind guy.  He’s extremely chill with everything that Chris does, but uses all his other senses to look out for him.

 

Matthew Goode pretty much plays the bad guy here. He’s the leader of the heist and he wants the money to have more power.  He’s secretive and the moment his Gary Spargo ends up on screen, we start wondering.  He’s a suspenseful character, mostly because we’re not completely sure if he’s manipulating Chris or whether he’s really out to help him sincerely and be his friend.  Thats the guessing game and the surprises of the movie and he is the main thrill.  Of course, except for his other henchman, Bone who really looks creepy and doesn’t talk.  That guy had me thinking about what he was there to do every time he popped up.

 

Isla Fisher plays the lovely Luvlee, an ex-dancer (we never see her dance so we’ll just accept that its the truth) who ends up having a “relationship” with Chris.  This wasn’t a big role but its Isla Fisher and I love her charisma on screen.  I’ve enjoyed most of the movies with her in it.  Most of who Luvlee is isn’t really apparent as we don’t really learn much about her throughout the movie.  This also gives her character a little bit of mystery.

This movie is a decent thriller mostly for its characters.  The story is slow-paced but for a good part of the first half, it really has us guessing and trying to figure out everyone’s positions as the characters slowly one by one enter the screen.  It does drop off a bit at the end however, its worth the watch just to see Matthew Goode in a bad guy role or JGL’s awesomeness.