Sat, Dec 14, 1:00 PM
to Rick
KRAVEN THE HUNTER
Yeah I saw Kraven last night, it sucks. I do think I can see fragments of what JC was probably hoping the movie could be. There are moments and scenes and shots that feel like someone was trying to do something. I could see him maybe getting excited about digging into the survival skills element of it, if that had been allowed. I like the bad guys. Rhino man is fun, that guy from Art of Self Defense, I like him. But it's still a mess. I hope JC got some money and learned some things about Hollywood and will use both of those well on this next project.
Thu, Dec 12, 1:07 AM
to Rick
THE ORDER
The Order is pretty cool. Feels kinda like it wants to be Heat and it's obviously not reaching that level, but it does a decent job scratching the surface of it. I think one thing that clashed maybe for me is I just that when they were showing the criminal side it felt probably pretty close to what really happened, but when they showed the cop stuff it felt more invented, and I think those two halves didn't always gel perfectly. Like the criminal side felt a little dry for a crime thriller and the cop stuff felt a little bit hollywood for a historical drama, so I wasn't totally sure how to take the thing as a whole. But it's still pretty cool. Very well made movie, good acting, builds suspense, has exciting sequences.
Tue, Dec 10, 9:25 AM
to Rick
NIGHTBITCH
It was....interesting. I think I would have appreciated a lot of the raw takes on motherhood much more if I hadn't already seen Tully. And the weird stuff certainly is weird. I don't think it really works but I can imagine how it would work better as a book. Maybe it should have been animated or something. Just a very strange tone. But it's not too bad. Amy Adams is great, the performances and dramatic scenes are all just as good as Heller's last couple movies. It just didn't quite come together for me.
Tue, Dec 3, 2024, 4:00 PM
to Rick
GLADIATOR II
Are you gonna see that? I don't think you need to. I don't think anyone needs to. I don't think anyone needed to make it in the first place. But I guess since it does exist, it is fine. Could be a lot worse.
The first one was never a movie I've loved but I do get the appeal and enjoy it to some extent. I think there was a lot of strength just in the classic simplicity of that narrative, but of course for the sequel they have to make things more complicated and muddled so that's lost. The other big thing is Russell Crowe just looks and sounds like he was born to angrily fight people with a sword and spout awesome dialogue about it and I don't know what Paul Mescal was born to do, but I don't think it's anything he does in this movie. He's fine... but he's just... sorta funny looking. I was confused when he was announced and I remain confused. But just like with the first one, the villains are wacky and fun and most of the fight scenes are entertainingly staged. So there's that at least. It's not an embarrassing movie, it just doesn't make a great case for its need to exist.
Mon, Nov 25, 2024, 11:18 AM
to Rick
WICKED
I've never fully liked a movie Chu has directed, but he does always have visual flair and can definitely craft some fun energetic sequences. And yeah. That's about the story of this one. Some of the banter between the two gals is also pretty fun. Ariana does a good job with that character. I don't know. The story is just so so so weird. So many things I didn't understand. I just felt very disconnected and was kinda watching it as a series of music videos. But some of the music videos are pretty good. I mean, it is long and I wasn't bored. So that's my take.
Mon, Nov 18, 2024, 11:45 AM
to Rick
HERETIC
I gather from your letterboxd that you had a different experience, but I LOVED Heretic. It just executed all the things I love about these "trapped in a scary place" movies in the most perfect ways. I also like Hugh Grant a lot in general and he was so much fun. But like the general tone and pace and camera choices, editing, music and sound stuff, the acting and plot progression, the way it drew things out and pulled you along, especially in the first half, it just made me giddy. Delightful. I do think some of the specifics of like what his plan ultimately was don't really come together that well or make a ton of sense when you look back, but none of that was unforgivable or took me out of it. And I think it doesn't entirely try to make everything completely clear by the end, so there is room for some different interpretations or even to just be like "well, he was crazy, who knows." I think that's probably how the girls would feel about the experience themselves so I think that's fair to leave it like that. I do also love the idea of a horror villain who just wants a captive audience of young girls to mansplain his pretentious worldview to. He just wants someone young and pretty to think he's smart. Poor poor old man in a sweater. Something else I really loved was just how long he sort of keeps up the facade that they're not in any danger. Even once it feels like this is clearly getting very sinister, he continues to act friendly and insists they're free to go and I loved seeing the ways they try to navigate that, like to strategize getting away without making a scene. I feel like I could watch a 3 hour movie that was just stewing in that tension the whole time. Reminded me also of that section in Green Room where, for a while, Patrick is insisting they're in no danger and he's just trying to resolve everything peacefully. Love that stuff.
CONCLAVE
It was alright. I can't really overstate how uninterested I am in pope stuff so I think, considering that subject matter, it probably deserves some credit just for keeping my attention the whole time. It makes the story in that world feel pretty accessible and dramatic, so it was a fine time at the movies, and they gave Stanely Tucci things to do, which never hurts. I still just didn't feel much about anything, at the end of the day, but I'm sure if I actually cared about the pope it could have been a riveting experience. I'm just not the target audience, but I wish everyone well.
Tue, Nov 12, 2024, 8:57 AM
to Rick
WOMAN OF THE HOUR
It’s very well acted and well made on a technical level but it's structured in a weird way that I don't think works and the story is also just VERY thin. It feels like someone heard a one line pitch and were like "that sounds like a movie" but then during writing they realized there wasn't actually much there and so they added a bunch of other junk to pad it into 90 minutes. Some scenes have real tension and the main guy is really good but I still think it would have been better as a short film. It also eventually kinda hits you over the head with a political message which might annoy you more than me.
Thu, Nov 7, 2024, 1:27 PM
to Rick
HERE
I figured it wouldn't be good but I haven't seen a new Zemeckis movie in awhile and I just felt very curious. Especially with the unmoving camera gimmick, I just felt like it would be interesting to see him work with that. And it kinda was. But he still just... won't stop abusing technology. It makes me sad. He used to be so great. Nicole asked me afterward if his fall was similar to Tim Burton cause we'd been talking about him lately, and I said yes at first, but then I realized there is kind of a key difference in that, ignoring Pinocchio, Zemeckis is still at least taking on weird interesting projects for the most part. He doesn't seem uninspired the way Tim does, it feels like he wants to push things and challenge himself, cause this is a very weird idea for a movie. I actually think it should have just fully embraced the experimental nature of what it's doing instead of trying to make it such a hollywood thing. Like if they did it with more subtlety and less CGI, some version of this probably would have appealed to critics and film nerds at least, but instead he pushes the fancy visuals and the sentimental music so far that it just comes off as embarrassing a lot of the time. I mean a lot of it does work I guess. But on the whole it does not. I hope he comes back to his senses at some point before he dies.
Mon, Nov 4, 2024, 11:54 PM
to Rick
I saw A Real Pain and Juror #2, both of which were good.
A REAL PAIN
A Real Pain might actually be up there for my tops of the year.
JUROR #2
Juror #2 was enjoyable and good and sometimes interesting but some of it felt a little too sloppy to really reach for true heights. I like Clint a lot and I like Nic and I like legal thrillers so it was one of those combinations that I think would have been hard to screw up and he definitely didn't screw it up, but I also wouldn't call it top tier Clint.
Tue, Oct 22, 2024, 9:39 AM
to Rick
ANORA
It might be my favorite Sean Baker movie and it's probably gonna end up being my favorite movie of the year. Even though I love Sean and I knew it was getting great reviews, for some reason I had a hard time really getting excited about this one, but it's just wonderful. For all the same reasons as his other movies. The characters are endlessly fun and interesting, the situations are compelling and surprising, and of course the whole thing looks gorgeous in that Sean Baker way where it feels like he's hardly doing anything but somehow it's all perfect and also looks totally different from his other movies. And above all it's just super engaging and entertaining, even if it is probably 10 to 15 minutes too long. It also has more of a real plot than his movies usually do, even if it takes some time to get to it, so that was extra fun. Toward the very end it was starting to lose me a little bit but then the actual ending really brought it all together for me so he pulled it off. 10 out of 10.
Fri, Oct 4, 3:20 PM
to Rick
JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX
It's really boring. I didn't expect to like it but I just didn't think it would be so so boring. Some people thought the Hangover sequels were an intentional prank on his audience and this definitely feels like Todd doing that again. I didn't even really like the first movie but I at least sorta understood the appeal. In this one I just can't imagine anyone finding anything of value. I left the theater mostly wondering why anyone thought that needed to exist in the world. It's just so much nothing. The first one at least has the basic hook of being a joker origin story, which I think is hard to completely screw up. And you might think the logical follow up to that would be a movie that's more about the joker where he has his own story. But it's not. He's back to his old mopey self for most of the movie. And he doesn't do anything. I guess a couple of the musical numbers were kind of fun. Most of them were boring but there's an early one that has some energy to it and later they briefly do a cover of a Bee Gees song I like. So that's something.
Fri, Sep 27, 2:12 PM
to Rick
MEGALOPOLIS
So yeah I saw it. I saw Megalopolis. I looked for you in the credits and couldn't find you but they all went by pretty fast. Would you be in there? I was expecting to find it a lot more annoying and boring but I actually SORTA liked it. Big emphasis on the sorta. There are a lot of things I didn't understand or just thought were ridiculous but I think I was expecting something that took itself more seriously, like very high minded sci fi, and it felt a lot more playful. It honestly felt kinda like a comic book movie, like there were major Batman and Superman vibes some of the time, and probably an even more apt comparison would be Watchman. And it's often very cool visually. So it was a pretty fun time for the most part, but I just don't really know what any of it means and a lot of specifics about what people are doing or trying to do just felt bizarrely unclear. It also takes a weird turn like 2/3 in and I felt like things just got way messier at that point and I lost whatever little thread I had of what was going on so I got a little more impatient toward the end. But it was honestly still pretty fun most of the time. The actors also seem like they're having a ball and mostly don't embarrass themselves. I'm sure there will be memes of a lot of weirdo stuff but I think within the context of the movie everyone did well. Shia and Aubrey in particular seem to be really going for it and Adam I think does as well anyone could leading us through this circus of a movie. I just still... don't think I understood what it's supposed to be about. Maybe I will some day. Probably another good comparison would be post-darko Richard Kelly.
Tue, Sep 24, 12:24 AM
to Rick
THE SUBSTANCE
Oh boyy I just saw that new movie The Substance. What a thing that is. It's hard for me not to make the easy joke about substance being the one thing I could have used more of. But it certainly is loaded with style. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie that just felt so in your face and aggressive and extreme in how it does just about everything. Where it takes the story is wild, but also just lots of extreme close ups and wide angle lenses and SUPER intense sound design. I'm not sure why though. It seemed a lot more concerned with its series of increasingly crazy and sensory sequences than telling a coherent story. The characters all felt like cartoons and it's also one of those sci-fi premises that gives you just enough information to make it annoying that you still don't really understand how things work. I mean like on the most basic level of what is happening and what the main character is experiencing, I was often confused, so that also made it hard to get anything really meaningful out of it. Though I guess people are. I mean the one line premise has an obvious hook but it's not especially novel and I also don't think the movie really does anything interesting with it. The whole thing feels so trashy and obvious, like if Michael Bay made a body horror movie, and I'm a defender of Michael Bay, but I just don't quite get the highbrow remarks some people are making about this one. Is it just cause it's French? It feels like something I'd find randomly on Shudder and think "well that was crazy and someone sure directed the shit out of it," and then never think about again. But maybe you'll like it more. It has some pretty great inserts.
Mon, Sep 23, 10:55 AM
to Rick
SPEAK NO EVIL
Would recommend. Not sure if you saw the original. I watched it afterward and I'm glad I did it in that order because I think the original is very much geared toward Danish people in a way that I found a lot less accessible. The last third is completely different but even before that, there are a lot of little differences that just made it harder to invest in. So much of the movie is about violating cultural norms and trying to figure out how polite to be and I do think America needed a version of that story where the protagonists are American. I also just prefer the choices made in the last third. I've read some stuff that makes a good case for the way the original goes but it, again, feels very tied to Danish culture and I don't think it would have ever made sense in the US version. But, separating it from the original, it's just a really well made and well acted suspense movie with a lot going on. There are some truly agonizing sequences that probably drew out the tension more than I needed, but I can't say it wasn't effective.
THE 4:30 MOVIE
I also saw the new Kevin Smith movie. Did you know he made a new movie? I had pretty much given up on him but suddenly this new movie popped up on my radar and it was getting good reviews and had a premise that sounded really delightful. Basically some nerdy teens in the 80s sneak into some movies and there's a romance angle too and it's all clearly fairly autobiographical. It's slight but very funny and charming and the nostalgia stuff all feels fun without ever being annoying about it. Another recommend.
Wed, Sep 11, 8:02 PM
to Rick
BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
I liked Beetlejuice more than Mike and Jay. I don't really disagree with their basic complaint that it's forgettable and there are too many plot lines, but there's still plenty of creative stuff and I laughed a lot. It was fun. I guess the bar is pretty low at this point for a sequel to a movie that's almost as old as I am, and maybe even more so for a Tim Burton movie, so maybe I was just delighted that it didn't annoy me and had some cool practical effects. They seemed to really have no interest in doing fan service bits and just wanted to come up with new weird gags. So I dug that. It's not a movie I needed and if you asked me to explain the story I would definitely slowly back into a bush, but I was smiling when I left the theater.
Tue, Sep 10, 2:12 PM
to Rick
AFRAID
OH I almost forgot that I saw the Chris Weitz AI house movie. I liked it more than I thought I would. I'd heard it was terrible but given the premise and the people involved it felt like something I would have a good time no matter what, so I wanted to go, even though I hated Megan. But it actually was pretty good for most of the runtime. The ending just really falls apart but mostly I think just because things twist and turn way too fast and I wonder if there was originally an extra 10 minutes that got cut out which would have fixed a lot of those issues. Cause it is a very short movie. I wouldn't be surprised. But I don't know. I still think it's a good time even if it gets dumb at the end. It does seem genuinely interested in the implications of the concept and John Cho and Katherine are always great. I'd call it slightly elevated trash. It's fun.
Mon, Sep 9, 11:06 AM
to Rick
REBEL RIDGE
I think you’ll like it a lot, probably more than me, although I did also like it a lot. It feels like he’s trying to fit into a genre formula more than usual, but it’s still just impeccably crafted and full of tension and intrigue. Everything feels very specific and detailed and like so much thought was put into it, both the script and the camerawork. It’s all pretty small scale but still manages a lot of tension and satisfying little set pieces. Reminded me a lot of Craig Zahler, partly cause Don Johnson is in it, but it also just has a lot of that slow paced detail in a scary, rough, blue collar world. It’s also a little long, which always feels justified with Craig’s movies, but somehow here I think that was maybe a mistake. I don’t think it quite has the weight to earn that in what is still basically a genre exercise. But maybe I’m wrong. I think it’s a little bit caught between being a fully crowd pleasing movie and something more original and meaningful that could reach a larger audience for those reasons alone. I think maybe if they just cut like 10 minutes and had cast someone more famous in the lead role it could have been a big theatrical hit. It feels right now like something destined to be lost in its first run and then end up getting called underrated by film nerds for decades. Especially if Jeremy does have a breakout hit later in his career, which I feel like is inevitable at this point. I feel like someone will see this movie, realize the potential he has and snag him. Hopefully just not for something so big that he gets lost in the system. I think he's kinda comparable to JC Chandor and I’m still really curious how Kraven the Hunter is gonna turn out, but it’s hard to imagine what JC ever thought he could do with a movie like that in the first place. I mean I guess it’s ultimately about a really really good hunter and maybe he found something to chew on there but I doubt whatever it was that interested him at the start is intact at this point. And I don't think anything good would come out of Jeremy making a superhero movie either but I do hope he finds his way to a project that gets more eyes.
Sat, Aug 31, 11:50 AM
to Rick
STRANGE DARLING
I can definitely say Giovanni did a great job. It looks great. The general tone and style of it was pretty fun. But that's just about the only positive thing I have to say. It is a huge case of style over substance, even down to the nonlinear way it's told, which was fun at first but in the end felt like a gimmick to hide the fact nothing makes sense and none of it means anything. I can't say a lot more without spoiling stuff cause it is definitely a movie that wants you to go in blind, but I just thought the writing was absolutely horrendous. Cliched, naive, simplistic, possibly misogynistic, and with nothing interesting to say. But you know. It looks cool. Maybe you'll like it.
Fri, Aug 16, 10:36 AM
to Rick
ALIEN: ROMULUS
Mostly loved it. I had been very excited about it because I decided I love Fede and that his last movie wasn't his fault. I still think his Evil Dead movie is very underrated and we all love Don't Breathe. And I just got the sense that this was going to be what I wish someone had been doing with the franchise for awhile. Prometheus had fantastic effects but a stupid script and then Covenant had a script I liked but a lot of terrible CG. And I felt like I was shaking my fist like can’t someone just do both things?? And I trusted Fede and he didn’t let me down. It's clever and surprising and the mood and design of everything is so grim and dirty and unsettling and has great doors that make cool noises when they open and close. You know how much I like the sound of a cool doors opening and closing. I think I might have no use for Denis Villeneuve anymore. He can go back to Canada, I will keep Fede instead. Also the creature effects are incredible and there's a really wonderful new robot character. It feels like basically my perfect Alien movie, except for a couple call back things that made me groan and a few others that were more subtle but just felt a little contrived. It feels kind of like the studio told Fede "you can do whatever you want but just make sure these 6 things are in the movie somewhere." And he was like... I guess I can figure that out. I don't think they ruin the movie but they do take it down a notch and there are two in particular that just... why. Why do we have to do it? Can't we just not do that? We'll talk more after you've seen it but basically the movie is very good and cool.
Sat, Aug 3, 2:45 AM
to Rick
TRAP
Oh man Trap is such a crazy, contrived and ridiculously stupid movie. I absolutely loved it. I don’t know why I let Shyamalan get away with this stuff but I guess I just like what he does. Sometimes his stuff hits more than others but this is definitely my favorite in a long time. The Faculty was also my favorite movie at one point so I've always liked Josh Hartnett and wished he'd come back and do something cool and this is like everything I wanted and more. So maybe that's part of it but also this is just the exact kind of trash I love. Even though the script is often stupid and pure nonsense it's somehow also kinda clever and surprising a lot of the time and I just was having so much fun seeing where it would go. I think I also forgive a lot because I believe the movie is essentially a comedy. Like on purpose. The initial premise feels like a comedy premise and then things go to some unexpected and more dramatic places from there but I feel like the whole thing maintains a pretty good sense of fun. I should also say the audience I saw it with was very into it, laughing and cheering all through the movie, especially during some of the turns in the last half hour. There is also mid credits scene that really supports my idea that at least some of this was intended to make people laugh. I think he knows what he's doing. I think some of it is genuinely dumb but it would be an easy movie to mistake for being more dumb than it is.
ODDITY
Oddity was good too. It does a really good job with mood and tension and the creepy spooky setting and keeps you wondering where it's going. Until about an hour in when you find out what's going on. I had kinda predicted it but hoped it wouldn't be so basic. That was a little disappointing, just how ordinary the actual plot ended up being, but it still played out in cool ways. The actors are all really great too. I think this Damien guy may have a future.
Mon, Jul 29, 12: 27 PM
to Rick
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
I got drunk and went opening night and it was pretty fun. It kinda lost me in the last act because the plot got sort of convoluted and also just seemed to take on new plot points that didn't feel like they related to all the meta themes they had been doing. The opening 20 minutes are pretty amazing but it felt kinda like, through the runtime, the movie transitioned from a Deadpool movie to a more typical Marvel movie, and I guess that's probably done on purpose because they're trying to bridge that gap, but the problem is Marvel movies are pretty boring these days. It's not like the last half hour didn't still have swearing and blood and jokes, but it just felt like it was checking more typical boxes and being less irreverent and that was kind of disappointing. Maybe some of it was the alcohol, but I definitely lost track of why some things were happening toward the end. I also just didn't really like the villain, from the start. Any villain that has basically infinite power I always find kind of annoying. But anyway, all that aside, I was delighted by many things and laughed a lot and there were tons of meta movie reference jokes that I never could have imagined. I was especially delighted by references to a lot of older comic book movies, not just the recent MCU stuff, which I haven't totally kept up with. I just, as usual, wish it was like 20 minutes shorter.
Sun, Jul 21, 5:52 PM
to Rick
TWISTERS
Twisters was pretty much everything I wanted it to be. You probably remember that I'm a huge fan of the original and I was skeptical when I first heard they were doing another but the trailers kinda won me over that it would be doing things in a good way and I was right. It feels very in line and of the same spirit as the first one while doing enough different stuff to justify its existence and just be updated to modern times. I didn't love every choice they made but I did kinda love it as a whole. I might be a little easy on these kinds of movies but I had a very good time with it. It also is genuinely scary a lot of the time, which impressed me.
Fri, Jul 12, 9:39 AM
to Rick
LONGLEGS
I know that you know that I'm not exactly fan of Oz Perkins. But, just to be clear, I was really optimistic when I went into Longlegs. I thought it was gonna be the one to change me. And it decidedly was not. It's not terrible, but it still has a lot of the same problems, like a nonsense plot and an overreliance on creepy music. I will say a lot of it was shot in a really interesting way. And I mostly liked what Nic Cage was doing. But the movie ultimately just felt very underwhelming. I won't spoil anything but the more I found out about what was actually happening the less scary it seemed and the more I just felt confused. I saw it with a friend who had also been very excited about it and we spent like 20 minutes after the movie trying to sift through the ruins of the plot. We didn't get anywhere good.
Wed, Jul 10, 10:05 PM
to Rick
A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE
I was shocked at how dumb I thought it was. I had some complaints about the first one but this was so much worse. It felt like just a big nothing. Like no characters, no story, no suspense, barely any plot. There is a very simple and very sappy sort of emotional arc for Lupita but it just made me roll my eyes and it also didn’t really have anything to do with the fact that monsters are attacking the city. It felt like two completely unrelated movies got squished together and they were both bad. One a corny heartfelt indie drama and the other a monster movie made by someone who had no interest in making a monster movie. I can’t believe this was the same guy who made Pig, but maybe he was just hampered by a studio mandate to insert scenes of monsters attacking at predetermined intervals. That is kind of the impression I get. I just don’t think his heart was in any of that stuff.
Sat, Jul 6, 2:12 PM
to Rick
KINDS OF KINDNESS
I was very bored by the new Yorgos movie. I don't know what the point of any of that was. I might be done with him. I’m glad it was broken up into 3 different stories at least so I didn't have to deal with any of them for an entire feature. It's just slow and needlessly vague and all the characters feel thin and none of the stories were interesting to me. I did like the costumes though. Most of it looked good.
MAXXXINE
Maxxxine was very fun. It's impressive how different each movie was and yet how much they all clearly fit together. I think X will always be my favorite but I did like this one more than Pearl. A lot of what makes them distinct is the different settings and I wasn’t that interested in WW1 era Texas but the gross dirty city streets of Hollywood in Maxxxine are pretty gloriously rendered and it is one of those rare movies with a retro 80s horror aesthetic that feels earned and like it is truly doing it's own cool thing, not just wallowing in nostalgia as a masturbatory thing. My one complaint, and this is something I never say, is I feel like it could have been 5 or 10 minutes longer. There is a fake movie being made kind of at the center of everything which has a lot of interesting details, but you ultimately see very little of that production and I was really wishing we saw more. I was surprised that that was missing. Maybe there are deleted scenes. But anyway, I found it a satisfying conclusion and it was especially fun to see after having just been in LA again.
Wed, Jun 5, 11:28 PM
to Rick
IN A VIOLENT NATURE
I went in knowing very little cause once I saw it was getting good reviews and was a horror movie that's not about a curse I figured that was all I needed to know. I would probably watch anything that fit that criteria, but I especially like slashers, over the supernatural stuff. Apart from a Scream sequel now and then, Slasher movies are actually pretty dead right now, so I appreciate that they're trying to inject some life into the genre by doing something weird and different. It's kind of interesting to watch just as an experiment, like "what if Robert Altman made a Friday the 13th movie?" If someone offered that, we would definitely pay to see it just out of curiosity, right? I'd be very eager just to see what that could even be. But the answer is not actually that surprising. It's pretty boring. I was sort of intrigued a lot of the time just to watch it play out, to see the execution of how it would go exactly, but it did get tedious fast and I think it does answer the question of why people don't choose to make this genre in this style. I mean it's possible that it could have been better with a more talented person behind the camera. I think the minimalist style might have come closer to working with a more realistic horror movie, but the actual things happening on screen are very cartoonish so I think that clash just did not work for me. But it was interesting to see someone try it. It also occurred to me that maybe this movie was intended to be more of a comedy than a horror movie and if I watched it with another audience it might have been a totally different experience. There are some truly insane kills and the slow quiet pace of it does make some of that play funnier. I guess the slow pace would make it a tough sell as just a comedy but honestly the slow pace kinda makes it a tough sell as anything because the suspense is also really hampered by the fact there just aren't any characters. You barely get to know anyone because the camera is almost always with the mute monster killer. Anyway. You should probably see it.
THE DEAD DON'T HURT
It's kinda great. Feels like something Costner might have made, though I gather his actual movie this year isn't so great. But Viggo's movie is just lovely. Things do get pretty dark and sad but a lot of it just feels very classic and romantic and full of the rich details I like in a western. It's sort of slow paced but I was never bored. It looks great, the actors are great, it's an engaging yarn. It did confuse me a little by jumping around in time a lot, but I eventually figured that out. Surprising that he just wrote this himself. It feels very much like a novel, like in the structure and pace and the odd details. But that just makes it more impressive. High recommend.
Mon, May 27, 6:16 PM
to Rick
HIT MAN
Hit Man is fun and interesting, probably exactly what you expect from the premise and the people involved. It is kind of one of those movies where you look at the main character shaking your head and just wondering why he's making such bad decisions, but it's also loaded with bits of that philosophical talk Linklater loves, which helps contextualize the whole thing into something more interesting. I think this premise in different hands could have been a real disaster. It is much more of a mainstream kind of premise than we tend to see from Rick.
FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA
It was fine. I've never really been into any of the Mad Max movies but I did like Fury Road a decent amount just for some of the spectacle and creativity. The thing is, Fury Road already felt a little bit longer than I wanted it to be and so this one being another half hour longer was kind of deadly. I remember about halfway in thinking I might actually end up liking it more than Fury Road cause I just got caught up in the story more and it has a lot of the same creativity and action. There is one action scene around the middle that feels kinda like something out of Fury Road and it has great character stuff going on and I really had a good time with it. But then the movie just kept going and going and I got bored with it. I think part of the problem also is it starts out being mostly just about survival and in the last third it becomes more directly about revenge and I never find those plotlines very compelling. So it's probably just me. It's a cool enough movie with a lot of fun stuff. They actually have chapter breaks, so maybe if I rewatch it, I'll treat each chapter like an episode to watch separately.
I SAW THE TV GLOW
I think you might love this movie. I didn't love it but I did like it a fair amount. There are just a bunch of scenes that I think are dumb and I wish weren't in the movie, but the overall tone and look and feel of the whole thing by the end is pretty incredible. It's a very artful, haunted, dreamlike, thing. I would imagine the things that bothered me would bother you less and you'd just be into the mood of it. Kinda like It Follows in a lot of ways. I do think it's pretty cool.
Tue, May 21, 11:48 AM
to Rick
LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY
The Jim Cummings movie is really good. It's a pretty simple old fashioned yarn but it's all done exactly the way I like it. Good characters, good pacing, shot with just enough style to be interesting but stays mostly pretty subtle and doesn't get in the way of the story. Some fun twists and turns. It's not breaking any new ground really but it's a type of movie I almost always enjoy just cause I like that trash and this is one of the better ones. Along the lines of Red Rock West, Breakdown, all those southwestern desert neo-noirs. I'm into it.
May 3, 2024, 2:56 PM
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CHALLENGERS
I liked Challengers alright. My favorite part was the early light hearted stuff when they're best friends and both crushing on Zendaya and it's just fun. Once the conflict started it kinda lost me. Like I never understood why they stopped being friends in the first place. It really glosses over that. Eventually, over the years, real stuff happens, but the original rift where they stop being in touch I feel like had no explanation. I also felt like Zendaya was just clearly very unlikable from the start, so them treating her like a fantasy girl was hard to accept. I was fine with them just being silly and dreamy about her while they're teenagers, but the idea that as grown men they both stayed fixated on her for over a decade, just made me lose respect for them and I wasn't very interested anymore. I did think it was all well acted and I actually loved most of the general style of it. The camera work and editing were very fun. Some of it went too far for me, especially in the last ten minutes, made me think of Cape Fear, but most of the wild stuff worked. The music was a bit much at times but again mostly I was fine with it. Even though I had my issues I'd say it still made me more excited to see what Luca does next than I was before. Seems like he's at least trying to do cool interesting things.
THE FALL GUY
I also saw The Fall Guy which is exceedingly fun. That's about all I have to say about it. Just pure fun. Creative and clever and Emily and Ryan are both very charming and it's just a nice little time. Also some good film nerd jokes. You will like it.
Apr 27, 2024, 3:51 PM
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SASQUATCH SUNSET
I guess... that is now something I've seen. I will say it was less boring and gross than I had come to expect. It was somewhat interesting. I was mostly just fascinated that everyone involved cared enough about this to go through with what looks like a fairly difficult production. The makeup job must have been awful for the actors and it's all in the woods, which is never easy for shooting. I just don't know what was getting them up in the morning for this. But good for them I guess. Keep cinema weird and all that.
Apr 16, 2024, 7:14 AM
to Rick
CIVIL WAR
I basically liked it but was just left feeling kinda like I didn't really get what the point of any of it was. The whole idea of there being a civil war was just so unexplored, I feel like I couldn't even really say why that was the subject. It didn't feel like that added much and like the story was really just about war photography in general so why not use a real war. And the journey of a plucky young journalist teaming with an old vet and getting hardened by the end is pretty tired. I was expecting something more thought provoking from Alex. I'm just not sure what he was trying to get at. He seemed to deliberately leave almost all information about the war very unclear, and I don't just mean what the people are fighting about, but also like how long it's been going on, how much of the country is affected, or even whether most of the violence we see is being done by soldiers or just random civilians who have taken advantage of a lawless area. And none of that matters if it's just a movie about some photographers in a war zone, but then why spend so much money to do all the crazy DC stuff? I feel like I must be missing something. Anyway, just scene by scene I did enjoy it. It's very gripping and well acted and Alex knows how to put together a nice suspense sequence. Just not sure what the point was.
Apr 12, 2024, 1:00 PM
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MONKEY MAN
I sadly can't recommend Monkey Man. There's a few cool fight scenes but it's 2 hours long and everything that's not a fight scene I just found pretty boring. People have been comparing it to John Wick, but John Wick really is fun, even when he's not killing people, those are entertaining movies. Monkey Man just has no sense of humor about itself. I'm surprised that a movie called John Wick, which is maybe the most boring title I could ever imagine, is more fun than a movie called MONKEY MAN. But that's the situation, unfortunately. I do like Dev, and it is worth something that it's set in India and brings a different culture to this boilerplate revenge story, but it's not enough. It didn't make me care enough to take it seriously and it didn't make me chuckle enough to enjoy it as a light entertainment. Oh well.
IMMACULATE + THE FIRST OMEN
Also saw the two evil nun movies. They're both kinda fun, but not important to see. The one without Sydney Sweeney is definitely better, had a couple pretty cool sequences. Seems like they took some inspiration from Possession, which is never bad.
Mar 29, 2024, 3:50 PM
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GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE
It was basically fine, which is more than I can say for the last Ghostbusters movie.
SNACK SHACK
I was really not prepared for what this movie was going to be but I gotta give a huge recommend. I think you're gonna love this movie. It starts off like a freight train and I kinda had no idea what was going on for a good ten minutes but I guess it prepares you for the energy of what it's gonna be like watching these two teenage boys as the main characters, one of which is also played by Sammy Fabelman. It does slow down eventually for some drama and then takes kind of a weird tonal shift at the end that I didn't love, but still, it's a near perfect coming of age summer movie and it's also just very sharp and smart and well shot. The filmmaking is very clean and intentional in a way that makes me want to check out other stuff this guy made and actually RLM just did a thing on his last movie, Dinner in America. Did you watch that? I might have to now.
Mar 26, 2024, 5:26 PM
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ROAD HOUSE (2024)
I watched the Road House remake and it's very very fun. I think you'll love it. There is some questionable CGI in some of the action sequences but I think it's forgivable. I can tell they did something new and different with how they shot the fight scenes and I'm not quite sure that was and it does look a little weird at times but overall it works for me and the whole thing is just very jovial and entertaining and cool. I think it hit the perfect balance of what a remake should be where it is very much it's own thing but you can still feel okay calling it Road House. The ending is a little bit abrupt and weird but I kinda don't care. It's just fun. Movies can just be fun sometimes.
LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL
I also saw that devil talk show movie, which is completely fine. It is what it is. They do a good job with the period talk show aesthetic initially but then eventually there are a lot of parts where they were doing more modern things with the camera to elevate the tension and that kinda ruined the gimmick of the movie for me, combined with some very silly looking CGI also. I think I would have rather it be more minimal and they actually stick to their guns to be realistic about the basic premise of what the thing is supposed to be. The last third just feels kind of reckless and like they lost track of any story and it just devolves into horror trash. Not that I don't love horror trash, but it feels like a missed opportunity, cause the early stuff felt very authentic to that time and place and I thought it might do more with that. I do still enjoy a good "is this spooky thing real or fake" yarn though, so on that level I still had a MOSTLY good time with it.
Mar 22, 2024, 2:59 AM
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LOVE LIES BLEEDING
I saw this Kristen Stewart movie Love Lies Bleeding cause everyone was talking enthusiastically about it but I thought it was pretty awful. For most of the movie I was just kinda underwhelmed and not very interested in what was happening, but it gets more crazy in the end and I was just... baffled. I don't know what they were thinking.
Mar 18, 2024, 12:08 AM
to Rick
ALL OF US STRANGERS
I finally saw that All Strangers something or other movie with Andrew Scott like a week ago and really liked it. The ending kinda threw me in a way that I don't think I liked, but everything up till then was really well done. The premise is kinda brilliant and has so much emotional potential that it's amazing how restrained they are. I really appreciated how subtle it was. But then the ending... well we'll talk after you watch it. If you watch it.
RICKY STANICKY
I also watched Ricky Stanicky and was surprised how enjoyable it was. It seemed like a very dumb premise and I don't tend to like Zac Efron or John Cena, but it really went places I wasn't expecting and was much more clever and tasteful than it needed to be. That's not to say it isn't very dumb at times and generally kinda disposable, but it was fun. Exceeded expectations. I didn't know going in that Peter Farrelly directed it but when I saw that credit I felt like that explained a lot.
THE SWEET EAST
And then lastly I gotta give a big recommendation to The Sweet East. It's a movie that is best discovered so I don't want to say too much but it is a weird, wild, fun time that Nicole and I very much enjoyed and it feels like a movie that you would usually like twice as much as me. Several people we know pop up for little episodes, one of which is Simon Rex and I actually only discovered the movie because I happened to rewatch Red Rocket a few days ago and decided to check if he had gotten any decent parts since then and when I came across Sweet East it just happened to be playing at that theater bar I live by, so I kinda stumbled into it. Another thing I discovered is the director had up till now just been a DP and he shot all of Alex Ross Perry's movies and also the early Safdie stuff. So, as you may have guessed, the whole thing looks like a dirty home movie from the 70s. Which is an aesthetic I've been seeing more and more of these days and haven't always loved, but it worked well here.
Mar 5, 2024, 4:21 PM
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PROBLEMISTA
I also saw this movie called Problemista made by the guy who did Los Espookys. I never watched that but you did and liked it right? Anyway I really loved Problemista. It's just delightful. Very inventive and imaginative and fun and manages to say a lot about the state of immigrants trying to stay in the country without being annoying about it. Tilda Swinton is also very funny in it. High recommend.
THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR
I also finally watched Henry Sugar. That was also delightful. Did you watch that yet? Some pretty amazing style stuff being done.
Fri, Mar 1, 9:33 PM
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DUNE: PART TWO
I'd say it had all the same pros and cons as the last one, but more of both. As with most Denis movies my favorite part was the sound design and then a close second is the visual design. There is a lot more spectacle and action in this part and a lot of that is truly incredible to watch just on a visceral experience level. But I still just can't take this movie seriously. It's hard for me to see it as much more than a YA novel with a Hans Zimmer score. Even with some of the best production value of all time, it all feels so silly and I just never felt involved in any of it, other than some moments of "woah that was cool." I don't really get what the point of any of it was. Having said all that, I think overall I did enjoy it more than the first part just because there was more of the spectacle that I do have some appreciation for. But I don't think I can overstate how much I just never cared about anything that was happening.
Tue, Feb 27, 7:29 PM
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PERFECT DAYS
Really liked it. Very reminiscent of Paterson, in all the best ways. Just a lovely place to live for a couple of hours. Similarly pleasant visuals and appreciation for small details, routine, simplicity, and the kinda inherent struggles and limitations of committing to that. Really lovely movie. I realized this is the first Wim Wenders movies I've really liked but it's also the first one I've seen that was made during my lifetime. And he's apparently been making movies pretty regularly that whole time haha. Have you seen any of his more recent stuff?
MADAME WEB
Have you been hearing about Madame Web? When I first saw people talking about it as a movie to go see just to laugh I kinda shook my head and felt like it was probably overblown, that people were just being mean. I was kinda rooting for it cause I thought the trailer looked kinda fun and I like Dakota and Adam. But... jesus. It's shocking. Truly shocking. I was shocked. I don't know what happened. I just can’t imagine. There are bad movies like Samurai Cop and Neil Breen movies where you can tell clearly the problem was just a combination of having no money and every decision being made by ONE crazy guy. But I don't think I've ever seen a big studio wide release movie that was this embarrassing. It was surreal. There are a whole lot of problems but the most jaw dropping thing was definitely the dialogue. There were so many lines that just felt like they were written by someone who doesn't know what it's like to be a human being. I'd really like to know what went wrong here. I would like answers. But I will say, on a purely visual level, a lot of the camerawork is pretty fun and cool and also just overall it's definitely not boring or hard to get through. It's basically entertaining and you can follow what is happening. That's more than I can say for a lot of movies. So that counts for something. I guess... do what you want with this information.
Sat, Feb 24, 1:13 PM
to Rick
DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS
I actually really liked it. Surprised you didn't have more fun with it. I had been worried it would feel like a cheap version their worst crime comedy movies like Ladykillers or Intolerable Cruelty, but I could tell pretty quickly I was in good hands. From the first few minutes, all the directing and dialogue felt smart and concise, like in their best stuff. It's probably my favorite Coen movie since Llewyn. I think I laughed out loud a few times but the whole thing was just kinda delightful throughout. I loved the characters and the style and the hijinx. It was interesting also because the Coens haven't done a movie like this in awhile and I was reflecting some on how many bad imitations of this kind of thing there have been over the years, so it felt so nice to see the master come back and do it perfectly. It was almost leaning too much on stuff we've seen before in Coen movies, but the lesbian element kept it fresh and I think also just the fact it was starring two young women felt like new territory. I kinda love the idea that an old married couple decided to make this raunchy, trashy movie about young people. Wonder where it came from.
Sun, Dec 31, 7:58 PM
to Rick
FERRARI
I liked Ferrari okay. I'll say I definitely liked it more than Thief and Miami Vice haha. I wasn't terribly into the story but all the racing stuff is really fantastic just on a technical level and the crashes are insane. I also liked Penelope Cruz a lot. I found most of the accents kinda distracting but hers felt easier maybe just cause I'm used to her having an accent. But also just found her to be the most compelling character. Adam Driver didn't do a lot for me this time.
AMERICAN FICTION
American Fiction was kinda interesting but felt like a mess on the whole. It's full of ideas and some of them are worth thinking about but most of them felt half formed or simplistic or contradictory or just ones I thought were stupid. It's a weird movie that feels like it doesn't really know what it's trying to do. There's a very meta moment at the end that almost seems to intentionally proclaim "I don't know what I mean by any of this" and, even though I'd say I'm more in favor of ambiguity than most people, I felt like the way they did that was a cheap cop out. It also spends at least half of its runtime on family drama that's unrelated to the artistic satire plot and I think I get why they're doing that but I don't think it worked.
Mon, Dec 25, 7:16 PM
to Rick
THE IRON CLAW
I didn't feel much about it. I think I would have related more to the ambition into absurdity stuff you were talking about if it felt like any of them had legitimate wants to do any of these things but it always seemed like it was forced on them by the dad and that made it hard to relate to for me. Maybe if they had reckoned more with that question of like to what extent anything they're doing was for themselves vs for their dad, but the movie didn't really seem concerned with that. Maybe the real characters never actually thought about that either and so that's just the truth of the story. I don't know. A lot of things about this story were always gonna be an uphill battle for me to get into so I'm not that surprised I was meh about it. It was fine. The last scene was kinda touching.
Sun, Dec 24, 2:37 AM
to Rick
THE ZONE OF INTEREST
Zone of Interest was not really my cup of tea. Maybe I'm being a snob cause after visiting Auschwitz last year I watched and rewatched a lot of holocaust stuff and I just didn't feel like this one added anything too special to the conversation. There's an HBO movie from 2001 called Conspiracy that's really great and digs much deeper into a lot of the same "banality of evil" stuff and does it in a way that I personally found a lot easier to engage with. The style of Zone is very slow and cold and stark and I get that that's on purpose but it just feels more pretentious than effective to me. Reminds me of other very measured "important" filmmakers like Haneke and McQueen. I appreciate them all to some extent but they do just seem like they have their heads way up their asses a lot of the time and are loving it up there.
GODZILLA MINUS ONE
I didn't realize it was gonna be another movie about an Axis power of WW2. It starts at the end of the war and then a lot of the story is about the country dealing with the aftermath. That is kind of a cool slant for a modern Godzilla movie to take on more directly after all these decades, but it was kind of hard to relate to the main character's arc of feeling shame for bailing on a kamikaze mission. Presumably to kill Americans. Probably didn't help that I'd just watched a movie about the holocaust but I feel like that woulda felt a little awkward regardless. Anyway, all that aside, it is a fairly entertaining monster movie. I've never really cared much for Godzilla in any form and he looks as goofy and lumpy as ever here, but the big set pieces are still done with a lot of spectacle and intensity. The plot is ultimately pretty formulaic and predictable, but they do spend awhile trying to give the characters depth, which was nice, even if I know most of these guys were just recently fighting alongside nazis. You know, whatever, if you want a big loud Godzilla movie, you could do a lot worse.
SOCIETY OF THE SNOW
Remember J. A. Bayona? We used to like him, before he made that terrible dinosaur movie. Well, he's back and better than ever! I'm so glad I got to see this in a big ol theater. It is such an intense, brutal, punishing movie. I always tend to like these stranded in the elements type movies but this one is so grim and they just keep getting hit by more and more shit, it was a little more difficult to take than usual. But, at the same time, somehow the movie manages to feel very hopeful and uplifting. It's completely horrifying and yet also often very light. I don't know how that works. I guess because of the characters and their attitudes and how they handle the situation. Which is ultimately kind of the point. It's all true too. It's really good. Recommend.
WONKA
I had pregamed the night before by finally watching Paddington 2, which I had been putting off for ages cause I didn't particularly like the first one and now after all this time it turns out... I like the second one even less. But Wonka was actually quite charming. I can dig a goofy, optimistic, magician, dressed in purple and sporting a cane and top hat. It had a really nice sense of fun to it. There were a handful of jokes in each Paddington movie that I actually did think were clever and this felt like it had more of that and less of cartoon bears knocking things over and licking men's bald spots. It was a nice time.
Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 1:10 PM
to Rick
EILEEN
The one movie I saw yesterday was Eileen which was... weird. I kinda liked it but it also felt like it sorta fell apart at the end. Maybe it'll come together if I watch it again. There's enough I liked that I could see myself coming back to it and also sorta want to give it the benefit of the doubt. It felt like it knew what it was doing. The characters are really well drawn and interesting.
Fri, Dec 22, 12:10 AM
to Rick
LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND
A lot of it was entertaining in a very formulaic way, just cause it's a fun premise and I like the cast, but I agree that I often wanted to punch the movie. A lot of the writing choices and also several of the characters were just so so annoying to me. The camera stuff was sometimes fun but almost always in a kind of hollow way. It all reeks of everything I don't like about prestige TV. A lot of scenes also seemed like tailor made for people on the internet to make fun of them and I wonder if that's actually on purpose. The scene with the Teslas and the thing with all the deer at the end just seem like they're begging for mockery. I did really like the scene with Kevin Bacon at the end though.
Fri, Dec 15, 11:06 PM
to Rick
POOR THINGS
I'm sorry to say your instincts were more accurate than mine. I had at least "liked" all of his movies except for The Lobster and I actually really loved The Favourite so I was feeling optimistic about Yorgos. But it's just... kinda whatever. I mean it's weird and has some good funny lines and a lot of it looks really gorgeous but I just don't know why. Why does it look the crazy way it does and why did they think this premise was worth exploring. We've all seen these jokes in other things, where someone who doesn't know our culture is stumbling into things, asking oddball questions, acting inappropriately and giving things funny names, and it's a fine comedy bit, but I just didn't feel like they did anything particularly special with it. So it's basically Coneheads but an hour longer and with a lot more sex.
Tue, Dec 12, 6:53 PM
to Rick
ANATOMY OF A FALL
I really liked it. I liked the idea of your life depending on explaining your marriage to a jury, and convincing people that you weren't in the wrong and that it was complicated and getting so into the weeds with speculation about why people do the things they do or what kinds of actions might indicate a likelihood to do this or that. I'm sure real trials have to get very pedantic about subjective stuff like that all the time and just get opinions and make arguments, but no one ever really knows what's right or what actually happened and the jury just has to pick an answer at the end, as best they can. I guess the movie could have been shorter haha. But I liked it.
Thu, Nov 30, 11:23 AM
to Rick
SALTBURN
Saw Saltburn last night and was not a fan. I know Emerald Fennell is older than us but I still want to say the movie feels like it was made by a dumb 22 year old. Someone who spends too much time on instagram and wanted to to cross Talented Mr. Ripley with Euphoria but had none of the storytelling skills of Anthony Minghella and maybe 5 percent of the visual flair of Sam Levinson. Or maybe just a talented DP. For an hour or so I thought the movie was fine. Had a few laughs, had a few complaints, but by the end I was very annoyed. The questions I had about why people were doing the things they were doing just stacked up too high and it started to feel like the movie was only interested in surface level nonsense and contrived "shocking" moments to get the kids talking.
Mon, Nov 27, 1:39 AM
to Rick
MAESTRO
Maestro is pretty amazing. It kinda keeps you at a distance and jumps around and leaves a lot to the imagination but it just feels like one of those movies I'm very happy to spend time inside of. Reminded me a little of some later PTA stuff in that way, it just feels so artful and beautiful and well acted. It's an interesting character too. I didn't really know much about Bernstein going in.
DREAM SCENARIO
Dream Scenario is entertaining. I felt kinda unsatisfied with where the story went, or maybe more to the point, where it didn't go, but I can't deny I was having a very good time for like 75% of it. It's a good enough premise that even just done adequately it's a lot of fun. It's also one of those movies where I would want to say the director is a lot more talented than the writer, but it turns out they're the same person. Weird how often that happens.
Nov 24, 2023, 3:44 PM
to Rick
NAPOLEON
Napoleon was alright. I don't think there was ever going to be a version of a Napoleon movie that I was gonna love but I think Ridley came as close as anyone could. Which is to say I wasn't terribly bored. I enjoyed some of it. It doesn't feel too big or complicated and stays pretty character driven, focusing a lot on him just being an insecure brat who is never really satisfied by anything he gets. A lot of the dialogue scenes actually feel very low key and simple. My problem was I just wasn't that interested in watching an insecure brat for two and a half hours. It's also really violent. Overall a pretty dark and unpleasant movie. People have been making a big deal about how spectacular the battle sequences are and some of that's true but they're also all kind of horrifying. It all feels like pretty typical Ridley fare. I think he probably accomplished exactly what he wanted and I'm happy for the old man.
MAY DECEMBER
Todd's new movie is pretty wild. I didn't actually know what it was about going in. It's kind of a meta examination of storytelling and unknowable people and it's like... I don't even know what to say haha. I'm sure I'll be watching it again. There are things in it that I am fascinated by.
Wed, Nov 8, 12:22 PM
to Rick
THE HOLDOVERS
The Holdovers is really great. It opens with 70s style versions of the studio logos which felt kind of misleading because it's not doing the 70s thing in a kitschy Tarantino way. It just truly, innately feels like a movie out of that era, when things were less flashy, less rushed, more detailed, more character driven. The world and mood it creates is really palpable and it's a delightful thing to live in for a couple of hours. I think it's also the least comedic of all of Payne's movies, even though it is often funny, It just feels less overtly goofy and like more of a drama at heart. It might be my new favorite of his movies.
DUMB MONEY
I also saw Dumb Money because they talked about it on Blank Check and it was a perfectly fine movie. It's fast paced and entertaining and covers the basics of what happened pretty well. I did have some gripes, but it’s usually just altogether a suicide mission to make a movie about something from the news 2 years ago, so all things considered, I think they did about as well as anyone could have.
Mon, Nov 6, 4:22 PM
to Rick
PRISCILLA
It's great. I think it's one of the more perfect matches of filmmaker to material I can recall. And not just cause it's another story about a sad, bored girl in a glamorous setting. I feel like almost anyone else would have taken a more obvious stance by either sanitizing the more unsavory elements or filled the movie with flashing neon signs reading "this is abuse." I felt pretty confident Sofia wouldn't actually do either of those things but I just wasn't exactly sure how she would pull that off, given some stuff I knew about this relationship. And it's really interesting how she does it.
Fri, Oct 27, 11:44 AM
to Rick
THE KILLER
I really liked it. It feels very small and simple for a Fincher movie but in a good way. It's just very focused on process, so it's light on emotion by design, which might leave a lot of people feeling underwhelmed in the end, but I think it makes sense. It's just not the kind of movie where anyone is gonna have a big emotional scene where they realize they need to change, but the whole thing is kind of about failure in a way, and denial, the inability to behave the way you think you ought to. It's very subtle but has enough going on that I'm still thinking about it and I already want to watch it again. Reminded me a lot of The American. I'm feeling like it might be my favorite Fincher movie since Zodiac.
DICKS: THE MUSICAL
Have you heard of this? It's one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time and I don't think that was just the whiskey I was drinking. It's totally insane, in a great way. Watch it as soon as you can.
Sun, Oct 22, 11:01 PM
to Rick
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
I still feel like I need some time to process, but the more I think about it the less impressed I feel by Killers of the Flower Moon. I left the theater basically thinking "I guess that was pretty good" but have gotten a little more negative since then. Maybe just realizing how little impact it had on me, and how little it caused me to think about anything. Which feels especially damning for a movie that's so long. But I will say, despite the huge run time, I was never bored while watching it and every scene was very well executed, acted, shot, staged, etc. But I just don't feel like I got a lot out of it in the end. I just feel underwhelmed. I wasn't expecting the main characters to be the ones who were committing the crimes and I get that Leo's character was kind of swept up and sometimes felt bad about it, but he still was never a very compelling character to me. And the victims aren't given a lot of screen time or depth, so I just never latched onto anything. I think my favorite part was the first hour when it's just establishing the setting cause the dynamics of that time and place and how it all worked was pretty interesting. I don't know. Maybe it'll hit me differently on a second viewing.
Sat, Oct 21, 1:27 PM
to Rick
NO HARD FEELINGS
I also watched that Jennifer Lawerence movie No Hard Feelings, on my flight back here. It was kinda good. I was surprised how much it actually took the premise seriously and seemed to care about the character dynamics. It sometimes felt almost more like a drama than a comedy, but there are a lot of very funny moments. It's just not the sitcom style where there has to be a joke every 30 seconds. Both of the main characters could have so easily been caricatures to just play out obvious comedy sequences but it was actually very thoughtful. It reminded me of some of the better Farrelly brothers movies. I'll have to rewatch at some point, not on a plane, but I think I liked it!
Tue, Sep 26, 1:12 PM
to Rick
REALITY
By the way I watched this movie on HBO called Reality that I think you would really dig. It stars Sydney Sweeney and our friend Josh Hamilton and it's only like 80 minutes. Don't want to spoil anything but it's a very simple procedural thing, very self contained, basically a prolonged conversation but it's just really well done. Got very into it. The politics of where it ends up might not be your thing but it's fairly light handed about that and I think you'll appreciate it as just a tense dramatic piece. I want to credit the writer for how well everything is built up and how methodically it plays out but apparently every word is straight from transcripts of the real incident, so... I guess I'll give credit to the actors haha. I actually only got interested in the movie cause I think I saw some image somewhere of Sydney Sweeney making a serious face in a movie called REALITY and I was just like... that looks like it's gonna be the dumbest thing ever. But then I saw it was getting really great reviews and the premise did sound like a movie I would like, so I became intrigued, partly just out of curiosity to see if I had judged her wrong, cause I know some people love her. I had so far been very unimpressed, but I'll give it to her, she's really great in this one.
Sat, Aug 26, 9:56 PM
to Rick
BOTTOMS
I also saw this new movie called Bottoms, not sure if that's on your radar but it's very funny. It felt a little bit confused about what world it was taking place in sometimes and the story is ultimately complete nonsense but it's a decent enough excuse to just be irreverent and make a lot of jokes about current youth culture. The characters are also really strong and there's a lot of fun banter between them but mostly it's just full of ridiculous wacky stuff. I think you'd like it.
Fri, Aug 4, 10:57 PM
to Rick
TALK TO ME
I feel pretty much the same way I did about Smile which is there are some undeniably well executed scary sequences and I like the initial premise, but it's ultimately so full of formulaic curse movie stuff that I was left more annoyed than anything else. There was one thing I thought was pretty cool about the initial premise which was that this thing that seems to access the spirit world is basically being treated like a drug trip where it's just teens doing it at partys to laugh at each other and share on their instagram stories. That was kind of an interesting take on how something like this would really play out today. But it doesn't actually end up doing anything with that after the first half hour. Oh well.
Sat, Jul 22, 2:24 PM
to Rick
OPPENHEIMER
I want to say the same thing about Oppenheimer that I said about Barbie, which is that I think there's an 85 minute version of the movie I would have loved. For a while I was just getting more and more into the movie as it went along, all leading up to the trinity test and then my favorite stuff in the whole movie was the immediate aftermath of that, all the way through the Truman scene. All of that was really fantastic. And I really wish the movie had ended there. I mean maybe I just saw it too late and was tired but I swear nothing interesting happened for the last hour of this movie. It felt like the same scene just happening over and over, in the same room and I don't even think the communist plot thread was interesting in the first place, but it ends up being like 60 percent of the movie, right? Because even in the first half they're peppering it in there a lot of the time. I just don't get why that was made such a focus. It felt like a completely separate movie from the one I was enjoying. Like one movie was about Cillian Murphy being really interesting and the other was about Jason Clarke saying "are you a communist" over and over again for 90 minutes. I would be fine if they put like a few scenes of that just at the end, because it's worth including just as something that happened, but WHY is it more than half of the movie? Maybe I need to see it again and there's more nuance I missed cause I was tired, but all of that really really weighed everything down for me, even though I did love a lot of the first half. And of course it's all fantastic to look at and Cillian was great through the whole thing. I really dug everything about the actual creation of the bomb, all the science nerd stuff and the tension about who was going to get it first and then him trying to pull it back after. The parts where you see his reality distorting were also really effective and felt kinda like an exciting step forward for Nolan. He's usually kept things pretty literal in the past. I hope he plays more with abstract stuff going forward.
Fri, Jul 21, 5:42 PM
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BARBIE
It was alright. If I'm looking at it in the context of "filmmakers we love jumping into a big hollywood movie" then I guess it's roughly in line with how many notches that tends to take them down. I had kinda hoped this might be better since there aren't yet any other movies she's beholden to, but I'd say she shines through about as much as Raimi did in Doctor Strange. There are some pretty good jokes and the whole thing is generally fun, but it doesn't feel very far off from what a Barbie movie probably would have been if like Shawn Levy had directed it. So that's disappointing. I think I would be more positive if the thing was lighter on its feet but they weigh it down with some serious scenes and a runtime of almost 2 hours and that really felt like a huge error in judgement. The story and world is just so cartoonish and nonsensical that I don't think it can support either of those things, but I'm sure there's an 85 minute version of the movie buried in there somewhere that I would have liked a lot more.
Thu, Jul 20, 8:39 PM
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AMANDA
I don't even remember how I heard about it but I saw something that compared it to Noah Baumbach and then saw it was about an angry 20 something and had a high RT score and that just sold me very quickly. Didn't even realize it was going to be Italian. But it's really great and yes in a very Baumbachian way. The character is mean and blunt in a very insecure and amusing way. Very funny dialogue. Recommend for sure.
BIOSPHERE
And then I saw Biosphere which is very typical Duplass fare in good and bad ways. It's well acted and pretty entertaining on a surface level but just ultimately feels kinda dumb and not well thought out. The premise is a lot wilder than I was expecting, which I won't spoil, but I don't think it ever really overcame how ridiculous it is and also didn't ultimately take it anywhere I thought was very interesting. It does have some "you won't believe what happens in this movie" value though, which was fun for me because I was going to a party right after. It definitely gives you things to talk about, and that's worth something I guess.
Thu, Jul 13, 5:52 PM
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MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING PART 1
I was surprised how different it feels from the last one. It took some mental adjusting but ultimately I really loved it. There are different strengths and weaknesses. It doesn't have as many amazing action sequences but there is something about the tone and feel of it that I liked a lot. It takes itself much more seriously. It even comes off kind of silly sometimes, but I just got into what they were doing. There is a sense of urgency and desperation, which I guess is kind of a running theme for the whole series but this one just felt different in a really cool way. It actually felt shorter than the last one, even though it is longer. And of course there ARE some really wonderful action sequences, it's just like there are 3 standouts instead of 7 in the last movie, but that's fine. It makes it feel more story driven, whereas the last one, or maybe even the whole series up till now, has had a little bit of a feeling like it's just a bunch of set pieces with a plot loosely connecting them. This one feels like they really cared more about the story, which I was not expecting, but was very into. Also I think it takes the crown for Best Tom Cruise Running Sequence of all time.
Sun, Jul 9, 6:04 PM
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SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE
I mostly liked it but I think they probably could have cut a lot of stuff and then just made the whole thing one movie. I didn't realize they were gonna end with a "to be continued" but the whole thing feels so overstuffed, it really feels like that was not necessary. I think they could have totally done without the whole league of spider-men plot at all and just focused on the Schwartzman Spot character as the villain. That character was so great, probably my favorite thing in either movie and it looks like they're heading in a really cool direction with him, but it got kinda brushed off to the side for half the movie to do a tired "follow the rules for the greater good" plot. Remember The Adjustment Bureau? And like 5 other movies. And them calling it "canon" is just annoyingly meta. But it's all done with a good amount of style and fun. The animation was amazing in the first movie and even more so here. They really got creative with a lot of backgrounds and transitions. There are scenes where I was completely uninterested in the dialogue and just looking in awe at the animation of the walls behind the characters. Some really cool stuff there.
Sat, Jul 1, 4:26 PM
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INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY
I guess the new Indiana Jones movie wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It didn't make me angry, but it did make me bored, and on some level that might be worse. I rewatched Crystal Skull for the first time in many years right before going and that one made me shake my fist in the air a few times but it did also delight me a pretty good amount. This new one didn't do either. It was just kind of there. It is a competent adventure film about an old man looking for a thing. I think people maybe underestimate how much of the appeal of Indiana Jones is just some kind of Spielberg magic that is unique to him and no one will ever replicate. He has a real knack for coming up with creative stunts and shooting them in an old fashioned way that is just kind of joyful and that is really missing from this one.
The more obvious but equally true complaint is that it just isn't as much fun when he's a senior citizen. Even in the opening sequence where they de-age him it has the Irishman problem where he still moves and talks like an old man, and here that is a lot more distracting because it's so action heavy. It's also full of bad compositing. They do a decent job at the script level of making the basic quest fun and feel like an Indiana Jones thing and you also get a good sense of his reverence for archaeology, which I liked. So they don't mess it up in any major ways, but my initial reaction when I heard they were making another Indiana Jones movie was just "WHY" and maybe the worst thing I can say about this new movie is that I don't think that question is answered.
ASTROID CITY
I also saw the new Wes Anderson joint and had a pretty good time with it. I haven't been especially into any of his movies since Moonrise Kingdom but this one was a little more interesting to me. I think he's been suffering a little from that Zemeckis syndrome of getting so wrapped up in the perfect visuals that everything starts to feel too emotionally distant, but with this one, even though this movie still feels more muted and distant than his older movies, it felt for the first time like a choice that worked. I'm not sure if that's him finally figuring out his new mature tone or if it's just me adjusting to it, but I liked it.
Tue, Jun 13, 6:22 PM
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BLACKBERRY
I saw Blackberry which I really liked and recommend. It was kind of everything I wish The Social Network was. It hits a lot of the same beats and some people might accuse it of like, modeling itself too much on that but for my money Blackberry makes every inch of it way more compelling and does plenty of new things too. It's also completely different stylistically, full of long lens handheld stuff, like a Greengrass movie, which is not my favorite but they do it well.
PAST LIVES
Then I saw Past Lives, which was a very modest little movie that I enjoyed and think you would like. I read some Before Sunset comparisons which does feel kind of obvious but it's not as romantic, it's more complicated, more unspoken, more contemplative. Has some In the Mood for Love vibes. I was often wishing they would flesh things out more, because it really doesn't give you a lot of information about the relationships it's centered on, but there is something nice about how swift and slight it feels. I was telling someone the whole movie felt kind of like it was just an anecdote, like it's meant to just float in and out of your mind and you go "huh, interesting." And maybe you think about it more later, maybe you don't, but it's leaving a lot of open space for whatever you want. I think you'd dig it.
YOU HURT MY FEELINGS
I realized I've actually watched every movie Nicole Holofcener has made for the past 25 years, without really meaning to, but just because they always sounded interesting. I think I basically enjoyed all of them, but not enough to intentionally seek out more of her work. Like none of them really made a big impact and I never thought to rewatch any of them. But I think I might finally be onboard. Maybe I'll rewatch Enough Said. This is my long build up to saying I really liked You Hurt My Feelings. It's somewhat obvious but it's also just fun and it does talk about relatable things in a compelling and entertaining way, with nuance and good acting and some unexpected beats. I should give her other films another look.
Sun, May 7, 3:03 AM
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GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 3
Guardians 3 has a lot of fun things but is too long. It's fine.
Apr 25, 1:53 AM
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BEAU IS AFRAID
I just saw Beau is Afraid with 9 friends. I couldn't believe how many people wanted to see this movie. I actually tried to talk some of them out of it, including by repeating your "completely unpleasant and uncomfortable by design" quote. But everything I said just seemed to make them more interested. I got roughly what I expected, but I think everyone else was pretty disappointed, save for one guy who actually had already seen it a few days earlier and loved it so much he wanted to see it again already. The other reactions ranged from mildly positive to outright anger.
Mine was kind of a mix of those in that I did enjoy parts but was very annoyed by others. The movie breaks pretty cleanly into 4 or 5 sections, when the setting changes, and each time it moved to a new section I feel like things got worse. I actually liked the first part in the city quite a bit and then the Nathan Lane stuff was sort of hit and miss but I was mostly positive on it. And then the play was also mixed but I liked parts. Everything after that I was really losing patience with and just grew increasingly annoyed, not just at how long the movie was starting to feel but also how much less it felt like it was coming together to mean anything. There had been times going along where I had a sense of some kind of coherency, if not literally, just thematically, but by the last half hour it felt like too much shit had been piled on to see anything clearly. I was just kinda throwing my arms up, too bored and annoyed to try to sift through the sea of garbage. I hope it means something to someone and I know, as an adamant defender of Under the Silver Lake, I should be hesitant to dismiss any movie as overlong, self indulgent, nonsense. But this one is really tempting me.
Apr 22, 2023, 5:55 PM
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SCREAM 6
I did like Scream 6. Not as much as the last one, but I think that was probably unavoidable with such an immediate sequel. A lot of the giant smile on my face during that one was just to do with it having been so long and the way they restarted things. This feels like basically more of the same, but I still enjoy that. Usually the snarky meta humor stuff would annoy me more and I'm not sure if I'm tolerating it here cause I love the franchise or if they're just doing it better than most people. Maybe a bit of both. But I really appreciate that it never gets in the way of taking all the kill scenes seriously and getting pretty grim with a lot of them.
EVIL DEAD RISE
Evil Dead I was really impressed by. It felt dark and horrific in ways that I haven't seen in awhile, and still allowing for that twisted sense of fun. I like the last one Fede did a lot but I don't think any of the movies since the first one have felt truly scary and EVIL in a way that got so under my skin. The change of setting was smart and also really well done I thought. Really great design and visuals overall. This may be the longest running franchise ever where I actually really like every single movie that's come out. I'll have to think about that.
AIR
Air is fun and well made. I'm so tempted to use words like breezy and lightweight. It's really true though. I don't really care about basketball and even less about sneakers, so the fact I was actually engaged and basically had a good time is impressive on its own. But it still felt... very lightweight. I think people who care about Michael Jordan will probably get more out of it.
HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a very solid thriller. I had been expecting it to be more political but it really barely digs into that stuff at all and plays out pretty much like a formulaic heist movie. The characters and plot beats are pretty thin and standard. But I do still like formulaic heist movies as long as they're executed with some flare and this one does a good job building tension and investing in the details. I think you'll enjoy it.
ENYS MEN
I'd be curious to know your take on Enys Men if you see it. I didn't like it at all but it's clearly going more for mood than a coherent story and the grainy 70s aesthetic is definitely something. Maybe you could get into it. It's sort of like if The Lighthouse looked like Moonrise Kingdom but also there's only one character. Does that sound good?
Mon, Apr 17, 5:57 PM
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RENFIELD
Over the weekend I saw Renfield with my visiting friend. We had walked by a poster and he expressed interest and even though I thought the trailer looked abhorrent I thought it might be fun at Nitehawk with some drinks. I'd also seen that it seemed to be getting pretty decent reviews. Anyway, it's terrible. Some of it was moderately entertaining while drunk but it mostly felt like an overwhelming assemblage of all the Hollywood trends I hate today. The lighting, the camera work, the CG blood, the overly self-conscious comedy, the simplistic writing and characterizations, the limp, disingenuous attempt at connecting their cynical cash grab to something topical and important, like abusive relationships. A couple of the fight scenes had some energy and creativity to them, especially the music choices, and there were 3 or 4 lines of dialogue that Cage seemed to actually have fun with. So that was enjoyable even though I hated his makeup and the overall writing of that character. There's a part of me that's just happy he's back in wide release movies at all. I hope he can turn things around.
Mar 25, 2023, 8:55 PM
to Rick
65
I knew it wouldn't be good but I thought it would at least be entertaining. The premise should be fun but sadly the whole thing is very dry and joyless. It feels like they didn't try very hard with the action scenes because they thought they were making a serious character drama that just happened to have dinosaurs in it, but the characters are so boring and hollow that none of the drama actually works either. So they just failed on every level. It feels very much like a movie made by people who don't understand tone or the language of film. Or human beings.
Mar 24, 2023, 2:39 PM
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JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4
It probably goes without saying that the new John Wick movie is a whole lot of fun. The real question is how it compares to the others and I'd say it doesn't quite reach the amazing heights of 3 but is pretty firmly my second favorite of the series. Complaints include the ridiculous runtime, not enough scenes in New York, and not enough humor. But I mean I understand why all those things are the way they are. That's where we've landed now in the series. It needs to get bigger and the stakes are higher and he's obviously not gonna be in New York if he's in hiding. Even though it feels overly long, there is something cool to just how large this one feels. It feels like an appropriate big finish to this long story and like everything is given its due. And of course it has many great, inventive action scenes.
Feb 4, 2023, 2:00 PM
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KNOCK AT THE CABIN
The new Shyamalan is one of his better ones. The premise is pretty weird and has a lot of religious themes which can be kinda corny at times but he basically handles the whole thing very realistically and I was pretty wrapped up in just seeing how this bizarre situation would play out. There are things about it as a hypothetical that were really interesting to me and it is surprisingly nuanced and smart in how the characters react and the different things they bring to it. I do think he was ultimately going for something more emotional and meaningful at the end I wasn't really feeling a lot of that, but I still very much enjoyed the journey.
Jan 28, 2023, 12:14 PM
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ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
Yesterday I ended up in a position where I could very easily just walk into a showing of the All Quiet on the Western Front remake that was about to start so I decided to finally cross that off my list. I had kinda been meaning to see it for awhile but just felt totally uninterested and couldn't get myself out for it. I'm sort of cynical about war movies these days and kinda feel like no one has done anything very new or interesting since Saving Private Ryan, and most are just kinda ripping that off. But I gotta hand it to this new adaptation, they definitely found new and creative ways to express the horrors of war. The actual warfare is very visceral and detailed and impressively executed, but a lot of what really makes it work is the writing, the context of the battles and the character's reactions to things, the way things escalate and also the political context they added in to show just how futile all the fighting is. I don't usually like war films very much but I may need to consider revising my 2022 top 10 for this one.
INFINITY POOL (January 27th, 2023. 12:49PM)
And then I saw Infinity Pool which was just as fucked up as I'd expect after Possessor. I had no idea going in just how insane the conceit of the plot was and I won't spoil it but soon the movie really felt more like a satire than a thriller and I THINK that's on purpose. It's kind of hard to say but I'm pretty sure some parts are supposed to be funny and it's just such a ridiculous idea that I think you have to view it that way. That's not the say it isn't also quite horrific at times but if I were to just summarize the movie in a sentence or two I would be hard to do without laughing. And it's something that at first I just thought was too ridiculous to even relate to anything real but as it went on I kinda got into it and it actually is a very interesting idea that's given me a lot to ponder. I think at this point I can say I prefer Cronenberg Jr. to Cronenberg Sr.
WOMEN TALKING (January 27th, 2023. 12:49PM)
I finally saw Women Talking last night and did enjoy it. It was different from what I expected though, like less dry and less like a play, more cinematic and I guess also it was a lot more about the specifics of living in this religious colony than just about the concept of forgiveness, which is what I'd been expecting. I was kind of disappointed by that at first but it became an interesting story in its own right. It seemed actually like the forgiveness aspect got lost sort of quickly and there were times where I was kind of confused about what exactly the two options were that they were discussing. Wasn't it initially the three options of stay and forgive, stay and fight or just leave? And I thought the leaving option was the one they removed at the start but then it seemed like most of the movie they were deciding between leaving and fighting, which also was odd because neither of those actually involved forgiving the men. Which was still coming up in conversation sometimes. I just got kinda lost sometimes about what each option really meant. But even if the narrative got fuzzy it's full of compelling scenes and it's just a very interesting world to peek into and such a crazy situation to consider. Really well done. I thought the desaturation was a bit overdone, but otherwise really solid filmmaking from Sarah.
MEGAN (January 16th, 2023. 8:29PM)
By the way, I saw Megan. Don't see Megan.
2022 TOP 10 (January 7th, 2023. 6:59PM)
Babylon probably shouldn't be this high but it's been ringing in my head. I also probably need to rewatch some of these, but whatever. I'm going with the feeling of the moment.
1. The Banshees of Inisherin
Babylon
X
Vengeance
Confess, Fletch
Glass Onion
Ambulance
Bones and All
Watcher
10. Cyrano
BABYLON (December 31st, 2022. 8:01 PM)
I finally saw Babylon. I think New Year's Eve was a fitting time for that. They have it playing in 70mm at this one giant theater here so I did that and it was pretty amazing. l had pretty low expectations after some stuff I'd read but I kind of loved it. Maybe just because I love to see all the absurd nonsense and chaos of filmmaking and depicting it as this huge epic farce is kind of how I see most of the world anyway. The whole sequence out in the desert with them making a bunch of movies is one of my favorite things I've seen in any movie for awhile. And there is something interesting about the tone it hit for me, which I'm sure is a small target and I'm not surprised it didn't hit for a lot of people, but the combination of just awful, sordid behavior mixed with some appreciation for the magic of filmmaking... it's a very rough and messy thing and I think the movie captures that. I think Griffin talks about this a lot more eloquently on the Roger Rabbit episode of Blank Check, do you remember that? Maybe it's weird to compare a disney film to a movie that shows a woman pissing into a man's mouth but they do actually have a lot in common in how they depict show business.
Anyway, apart from the story I'm sure you agree it's just amazing on a sight and sound level. The camera work, the editing, the acting, the staging, it's pretty breathtaking. Damien remains a wizard and I've never been too impressed by Margot Robbie but I thought she was really great in this.
I probably could have done without some of the more vulgar moments but I get why it's pushing things that way and I respect it, I suppose. The whole Tobey Maguire sequence was pretty amazing although I agree that that part did feel kind of derivative of Boogie Nights. Obviously the execution is completely different and it's still very creative, but just having a sequence like that, at that point in the movie, think that's been done a few too many times now. And the montage at the end I thought was incredible but definitely could have done without clips of modern movies. That felt pretty weird. I think it probably should have cut itself off at 1952.
But these are small nitpicks. This'll be on my top 10 for the year I'm sure. I'm surprised you didn't like it more. You usually dig the giant excessive movies. How is it any more mean spirited and vulgar than Wolf of Wall Street? I wouldn't actually call Babylon particularly mean spirited, but I definitely will give it more exemptions than Wolf just because it's actually about something I care about. I could say a lot more but I gotta start partying soon. Hope you're doing something fun. Happy New Year.
AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (December 17th, 2022. 4:20 PM)
Yeah I actually didn't like Avatar much at all. I think some of it is just my personal taste and people like you who are into fantasy worlds will have a great time, and I wish everyone well with that, but I just can't take any of this seriously. I already struggled in the first movie with giant blue cat people protagonists but at least the main guy was human sometimes. This one barely even has human characters and there's so much more goofy fantastical stuff. I mean I even had that problem with Dune, so I guess this shouldn't be surprising. I honestly lost track of the main character's names, couldn't tell kids apart or most of the green people, Lang's henchman all seemed identical to me.
I also thought the whole plot was pretty strange in that they're supposed to be after Jake cause he's like the leader of the resistance but he almost immediately abandons that and appoints a new leader so he can go live with the fish people. Shouldn't they be after the new guy now? I get that Lang has a personal vendetta but is there just no oversight for him and his team? He's using a lot of that company's resources to just go after a guy he's mad at. Maybe he was able to keep that hidden but it still reduces the antagonist to "bad guy wants revenge." That was kinda bland. He was always a bland character but it was still more interesting when you could see he was just a tool being used by people with more complicated agendas. Something I really liked about the first movie was how the politics were kind of messy. Like Giovanni was actually trying to be diplomatic with the blue people to some extent and trying to avoid war, even if he was doing it in a kind of crude, half-hearted way. When they did go to war, it wasn't done out of malice, it was like an unfortunate necessity. That was something. I thought Giovanni was supposed to be back in this movie. I missed him.
But okay, a lot of the water stuff was very cool. The giant whale thing that the one son makes friends with is super cool. That scene where they first meet is the one they showed after the release of the first one. I may have complaints, but no one can say this movie doesn't have a lot of cool fish creatures. Some really neat details, like I enjoyed when they went through the whole hunting process. Although maybe I enjoyed that the most cause it's like the one 10 minute chunk of the movie with human characters. And the action stuff at the end is often very inventive and cool. Even simple things like a boat crashing into a rock is done with so much more detail and impact than you would usually see in a hollywood movie. But still, in the end, I think the Oppenheimer trailer before the movie started was the most exciting thing I saw.
THE WHALE (December 13th, 2022. 9:27 AM)
I also recommend The Whale. I know Aronofksy didn't write it and in fact didn't write most of his movies but I still kept feeling like this material is just so him. Like someone took all his other movies and put them in a blender. The most obvious parallels are with The Wrestler but there's also religious stuff and it has similarities to Requiem for sure. I was actually thinking about how he could have just been doing drugs or drinking himself to death instead of eating himself to death and the movie wouldn't be very different. Except he would be drunk the whole movie. That wouldn't work. I mean there is something to the sheer size and also the physical struggles you see him go through, but I think like the weight is less important than just the fact he is destroying himself and that just happens to be his method. I guess all of Aronofksy's movies are kind of about self-destruction, maybe that's why it felt so familiar. And there's usually some sort of rebirth. Maybe all stories kind of are that. But especially Aronofsky movies.
Anyway, it's very well done. A lot of things are presented VERY dramatically in ways I'd think might feel over the top, but he gets away with it somehow. For me at least. I was pretty swept up and it's a very emotional story. Fraser's great of course. I hope he wins some things.
WHITE NOISE (December 11th, 2022. 8:06 PM)
White Noise I also really liked. I don't know if you're familiar with the book but I actually read it in college and I wasn't really a big fan but there were things I did like a lot and I think he did a great job bringing out all the parts I liked and fixing the parts I didn't. Partly just by turning it into a 2 hour movie but really I think he did as good a job as anyone could pulling it together into a coherent story that still retains all the great lines and interesting thematic stuff. It's also just cool to see him play with a bigger budget and pull off some cool spectacle. He does a good job with it. Though, I feel bad if he was hopeful this might be a mainstream hit. I assume some one thought that if they gave him this much money. Even though it does have some spectacle and more of a plot than most of his movies, it's still probably the weirdest thing he's ever done. I was thinking about The Northman a little bit in that it's a big budget attempt at doing something more accessible by someone who usually just does weird little movies and in both cases I think they were really kidding themselves if they thought normal people would get into it. But I didn't especially like The Northman and I actually liked White Noise a lot. Some of it is just bewildering but it's still full of fun and interesting things and I'm sure I'll watch it many more times.
BONES AND ALL (December 11th, 2022. 8:06 PM)
Luca finally made a movie I'm into. I didn't like his romantic coming of age drama and I didn't like his weird disgusting horror movie but for some reason I really dug his weird disgusting coming of age horror drama movie. Go figure. I think there is something to the artful mixture of all those things that is a big part of what I enjoyed because that's a lot more unusual than those things on their own and I was surprised how well it worked and felt like it made sense. But it also has a lot of other things I like which were not present in either of those other two movies. Road trips, middle america, moral quandaries, mark rylance. He sure is something. I loved how ambiguous his character is for awhile. How hard it is to know what's right when you're young and alone and have no guidance. Cool movie.
VIOLENT NIGHT (December 6th, 2022. 4:14PM)
I forgot to mention that I saw Violent Night. I almost forgot that I saw Violent Night. I'd had a few drinks. I recommend having a few drinks and watching it. It's very fun if you've had a few drinks. I can't speak to how it would be sober but I'd suspect a significant drop off in entertainment value.
GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (November 23rd, 2022. 10:38 PM)
I'm sure this will come as no surprise but Glass Onion is completely delightful and wonderful and very fun, just like Knives Out was. Not sure I can say I prefer one to the other at this moment. A couple things I'd say are better and a couple are maybe slightly weaker. Comes out pretty even. It's great.
THE MENU (November 23rd, 2022. 3:56AM)
It reminded me of Pig a lot in the sort of deconstruction of snobby food culture but it's a much trashier movie. Luckily, it's the trash I love, so I had a great time with it. It's very simple and it works as a sort of horror thriller but it's also about creativity and how you interact with an audience. And a lot of it is just about class and the concept of paying someone for something. It mixes all that heady stuff well into the story and is a good time.
BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER (November 20th, 2022. 9:47PM)
I just reread your black panther review and I'm pretty onboard with everything you said. The first 30 to 40 minutes felt very promising, just solid filmmaking, but it lead nowhere interesting. The plot ended up being incredibly simple and pretty boring. It's like "shit these people are stronger than us, that's never happened before. Wait, there's that one thing we had before that made us even stronger. Can we just do that again? Also is revenge good or bad?" That's my take on the movie. For a second it seemed like there was going to be some stuff about exploitation of resources but that all kind of fell away and it was just a guy who wants to go to war with the whole world with very thin reasons. I'm sure that's a result of the troubled production. Still probably liked it more than the first one just because I could actually sense someone talented behind the camera. Coogler really disappeared last time but on this one I could see him shining through, here and there. I'll be excited to see his next movie, whatever it is.
THE FABELMANS (November 20th, 2022. 6:26PM)
I was expecting The Fabelmans to either annoy me with sentimentality or completely win me over with Spielberg magic and it actually didn't do either. It didn't do much. It was surprisingly unremarkable to me. I have no real grievances other than I was bored sometimes. But there are also some great scenes. Especially the last one, just for film nerd amusement, and I'm sure we will talk about that after you've seen it. I will be surprised if you like the movie as whole more than I did, but I'll be happy if you do. Also, boy does this kid look like young Spielberg. I almost want to say they did some digital work to get him to look even more like Steve but that would be crazy right? I mean it's not a biopic. I definitely recognized a lot of stuff from what I know about his youth but I was still assuming the story is like 50 percent made up. Maybe Steve is just in love with his own face.
ARMAGEDDON TIME (November 5, 2022. 7:17 PM)
It's very good. In typical Gray fashion it's very subtle but there is actually a lot of detail and complexity if you can keep your eyes open. The basic story could easily be reduced to an after school special sort of thing but he handles it all carefully to avoid that or any sense that there are clear answers to these problems. It's just upsetting. And that's more the point. I'm sure I'll be watching it again.
AFTERSUN (November 5, 2022. 7:17 PM)
Aftersun feels like a movie that would get no attention at all and I would be telling people it's underrated but instead people are raving about it and I'm kinda back on my heels like woah woah let's take it a little easy. Like I would expect the world to give it a 3/10 for being boring while I give it an 8/10 and instead I'm giving it my 8 and the world is giving it a 12. I guess it does that thing where it wows you in the end with a big emotional sequence and maybe that's enough to make it mainstream even though most of the first hour and 20 minutes is pretty boring. The shooting style is very intentionally kinda obscure, like not shot for clarity, and I get why they did that, but I always struggle with that aesthetic. Partly it's just not my thing but I also tend to find it kinda pretentious and this was bordering on that for me. Maybe you'll have an easier time with that than me. But style aside, I like what the movie is about and the characters and ideas are all compelling and there is real weight there, so overall I did like it. It's definitely worth seeing.
TRIANGLE OF SADNESS (November 4, 2022. 3:40 PM)
After the fourth person tried to talk to me about it I finally caved and went to see Triangle of Sadness. I did like it more than expected and more than Force Majeure, but that is not a super high bar to clear. I forget if I even told you I watched Force Majeure. I had very little to say about it. I thought it was fine but probably would have been just as good as a ten minute short film.
Anyway, Triangle of Sadness was very funny and I do like the general tone and style of it, but it didn't really leave me feeling much. I just felt too distanced from the characters, which is often a problem I have with satire like this where every character is kind of the butt of a joke. But I don't want to be too down on it. I would give it a very casual thumbs up overall.
THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (October 24, 2022. 11:39 PM)
Banshees of whatever might end up being my favorite movie of this year. And I'm pretty sure I'm not just saying that cause I'm in Dublin right now. It was many things I like. My biggest compliment is that I'll probably learn how to spell it at some point.
TAR (October 17, 2022. 8:00 PM)
I don't really know how I feel about it. I probably need to see it again. Partly because I was under the impression the whole time watching it that this was a real person and then later realized it was all made up and that... in some ways makes it a lot more impressive but it also makes me less into it thematically. It's impressive how big and detailed they made this thing, knowing its all from scratch. But I don't know how I feel about the way the story goes now that I know they were fully free to do anything. It's an odd story. But it's definitely... a thing to behold. Some amazing craft.
DECISION TO LEAVE (October 17, 2022. 8:00 PM)
It's actually very cool. And really striking visually. I recommend it.
HALLOWEEN ENDS (October 13, 2022. 11:51 PM)
Halloween Ends might be the worst movie I've ever seen. I didn't think it could possibly be worse than the last one but this is a whole new level of bewilderment. I'm not even sure what they thought they were doing with some of these choices but it's all ill advised. My whole theater was laughing throughout and at several points I heard people shout "whatt??" There are many bits of dialogue that have that feeling like Samurai Cop where you feel like whoever wrote it doesn't understand anything about human beings, like they came from another planet. What has happened to Dave?
AVATAR 3D RE-RELEASE (October 10, 2022. 10:28 PM)
Avatar was just as embarrassing on a story level as I remember but much more impressive on a technical level. I guess I hadn't seen it in 3D or in a theater for a long time. But I feel like being inundated with Marvel movies somehow makes it more impressive now. Because I can't help but make direct comparisons and Avatar is just so much more distinctive and well-crafted and detailed and tactile and creative with that fantasy world building stuff we're seeing all the time now. You would think it would have been more impressive when it was brand new but somehow I am more impressed when I'm comparing it to the times it's done lazily. Also there was a scene from the new movie in the credits which looked very cool. I'm still worried the hippy propaganda in the new one will be twice as bad now but I'm sure it'll be entertaining.
MONA LISA AND THE BLOOD MOON (October 4, 11:59 PM)
On a more positive note I did really enjoy Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon. It's probably more my kind of movie than yours but I think you would still like it a lot.
BLONDE (October 3, 2022. 10:50 PM)
This may not surprise you but I really really didn't like Blonde at all. I guess I thought some bits here and there were cool visually but I still just wanted it to be over after 20 minutes. All of the drama felt awkward and poorly constructed and I never felt like I understood her character enough to care much about anything happening and it just went on and on and the music was obnoxiously melodramatic. I don't have a serious gripe with it politically but I can see why some people are calling it exploitative because it never seems interested in making her a real character with desires or complexity. She just feels like a girl in a trashy horror film being tormented the whole movie and you can feel the director getting off on making that stylish and pretty. The whole thing did just kind of feel in poor taste. But that's just my sense of it I guess. Maybe Andrew had good intentions. I have no idea. But that was one of the more tedious film experiences I've had in awhile.
DEAD FOR A DOLLAR (October 1, 2022. 4:47 PM)
And then... I very suddenly realized the new Walter Hill movie is out now and at a theater here. So I saw that too. It's... fine. Pretty underwhelming. He does that thing where he mixes a lot of old and new style choices and it does not work. The whole thing feels kind of cheap and like no one was trying. But there are some good parts.
BROS (October 1, 2022. 4:47 PM)
I also saw Bros today which was pretty good. I think it was mostly just interesting to me. A point of view I know less about than I thought. It's not especially funny or especially artful with its drama but that stuff is all fine. Some of it is a little corny. I mostly just felt intrigued by seeing a world I'm not so familiar with. Sorta like Goodfellas.
SMILE (October 1, 2022. 4:47 PM)
Smile is a very typical and cliched curse movie in most ways but I gotta admit I was pretty frightened by a lot of it. It has some very unnerving sequences. It's well made on a technical level and the visuals are pretty unusual for this type of movie. But still. The basic premise feels so old at this point. It Follows, Drag Me to Hell, The Periphery. I've seen it so many times by now.
PEARL/CONFESS, FLETCH (Sep 22, 2022. 8:43 PM)
I realized I completely forgot to mention that I saw Pearl and Fletch last weekend. I liked both of them a lot. Fletch probably more so. It's super fun.
BARBARIAN (Sep 11, 2022. 11:11 PM)
Yeah Barbarian was a lot of fun. Especially with my audience full of very reactive and opinionated girls. I'm not sure it'll have much replay value since so much of the fun is wondering what's going on and how it all fits together. And I'm already thinking back on a lot of scenes that seem completely pointless in retrospect. Like the initial premise of overbooking and the entire Bill Skarskard character. I thought there would be some reason why the place got double booked or why it was being booked at all without the owner knowing. But I don't think that ever came up. And I thought the point of cutting to Justin Long was gonna be to go back and explain some part of what had been happening. But his story doesn't actually explain anything. It just sets up a new character to throw in. Well whatever. It was a fun ride.
VENGEANCE (Aug 7, 2022. 9:48 PM)
I really liked this movie. More than I thought. It's equally a satire of liberal elitism and red state culture and a lot of interesting ideas about what a mess we are as a country right now with everyone so wildly divided and kinda meta stuff about our attempts to understand it all. I’m not sure if I liked the ending but I was with it 95 percent at least.
BULLET TRAIN (Aug 7, 2022. 9:48 PM)
I’m sorry to say I actually enjoyed Bullet Train a fair amount too. I would probably trim like 15 minutes out of it, mostly from the first half, but I was having a real good time for a lot of it. The running theme of fate and bad luck vs good luck made for a lot of fun gags and clever twists. I might like this type of movie more than you just because of how dependent it is on the writing and complicated plotting that twists in on itself. I also just really enjoyed Brad Pitt’s character. I wish he was in the movie more.
BODIES BODIES BODIES (Aug 7, 2022. 9:48 PM)
This one was a bit of a disappointment. I did get some good laughs at the gen z mockery here and there but mostly it was less clever and more boring than I had hoped and didn’t really go anywhere I liked.
WATCHER (June 4, 2022. 4:38 PM)
Watcher is worth rushing to a theater for. It's a good one to experience fully in a dark vacuum. So much is built around very subtle things in the sound mix. It's one of those fairly basic genre exercises that is just so well done that it delights me. It manages to feel clever and fresh and original in its execution while on paper being pretty formulaic. I love this type of movie when it's done this well.
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (June 4, 2022. 4:38 PM)
Crimes of the Future is also really good but less important for a movie theater I would say. It's got a lot of really interesting stuff going on and is never boring. It's also not nearly as repulsive as the hype would have you believe. Or maybe I'm just hard to shock. But it's a very cool movie. Possibly my favorite Cronenberg now after The Fly.
X (March 17, 2022. 11:50 PM)
The new Ti West movie is fucking bonkers. I loved it. There's a lot going on. I have much more to say but not before you have seen it.
THE BATMAN (Mar 4, 2022. 2:36 AM)
The new batman movie is pretty cool. I'm not over the moon about it because it's fairly emotionless but Matt is definitely doing something very different and I think it works. The most noteworthy thing about it is just the gross creepy feeling it gives you after being in that world for awhile. It's quite the potent visual/audio cocktail of grimy, urban decay and pessimism. It all felt very 90s like reminiscent of seven, the crow, silence of the lambs. Probably not a coincidence he used nirvana in the soundtrack. I don't think it really needed to be so long but I like that it just feels so uncompromised. It feels like the kind of movie a director would normally do only when they had way too much power and they end up bankrupting a studio with their 3 hour depressing mood piece. But hopefully normal people will like it.
Thu, Oct 7, 2021, 11:18 PM
to Rick
NO TIME TO DIE
So I saw the new James Bond extravaganza. It's pretty cool. It's clearly trying to be a real movie that's actually about the characters more than explosions and car chases and it mostly succeeds at that while still having a lot of explosions and car chases. I just wouldn't say the story or characters are terribly interesting or deep. It's pretty simple and basic stuff that we've seen before but it's still more weight than any other bond movie has had and it is handled well. Most of the emotional stuff actually works I think. Daniel Craig gives like a real performance which was nice to see. It is also very well shot and staged, if nothing else. I might lean towards saying it is pretty than Skyfall. There were a couple action scenes where I was really just admiring the visuals more than really caring about what was going on. Oh yeah Ana de Armas was really great in it but she's only in the movie for like 20 minutes for some reason. It feels like ages ago that I was watching her on screen. Almost like it was a different movie. I guess it was kind of long haha. It didn't feel long but now in retrospect I'm just remembering how much stuff happened. The plot is a little bit of a mess and I have this feeling like a whole hour probably could have been cut, but whatever. I'm sure you'll have a good time with it.
DUNE (October 26, 2021. 8:23 AM)
I basically enjoyed it but I just can't take these kinds of movies very seriously. I did also get a little confused pretty frequently with all the made up words but I think I basically followed everything. I'm most hazy just on how all these factions relate to each other. Like do those creepy women related to Rebecca Ferguson overrule Oscar Isaac or did he not know that they almost killed his son? And this mysterious emperor character I assume is like the ruler of everyone but we never see him right? But everyone is taking orders from him. And does he rule over like the whole universe? Are there more than these 4 groups or like how many planets are there in this universe? Actually does everyone have their own planets or do the white bloated evil people live on the same planet as the good guys and it's just somewhere far away? I also was wondering what kind of interstellar travel people are doing so often that makes this spice so important because that doesn't seem to come up ever. Is it so important to be space traveling all the time? Kinda just bought that it's valuable for whatever reason but it felt basically like unobtanium. I'm sure this is all more clear in the book. Anyway the sandworms are pretty cool.
THE GREEN KNIGHT (July 31, 2021. 3:17 PM)
I almost was too tired and went home instead of seeing The Green Knight but I'm glad I stayed cause I think seeing it while a little bit sleepy was kind of perfect. It's such a weird creepy dream of a movie. I was reminded of Kubrick a lot but not in the usual ways. Not the camera work or anything stylistically really but just something in the tone and sensibility. It's probably most like Eyes Wide Shut but I also thought of 2001 and Barry Lyndon a lot. I don't know who let him make this movie but it's pretty fascinating and wonderful. Also I actually read the story it's based on in college and I remember it standing out as like the only thing from that time period that felt actually very accessible and fun to read but I also remember when I heard they were making a movie of it thinking that sounded like... how would you do that? It felt like something you couldn't really make a movie out of unless you barely followed the story at all and just used it as a jumping off point for some made up adventure, like I guess is what they did with beowulf. But Lowery managed to actually follow the story and really capture that old folklore feeling cinematically in a kind of magical way that I never would have been able to figure out. So that was very cool.
OLD (Aug 8, 2021, 10:36 PM)
Old is the funniest Shyamalan movie since The Happening. I don't know what he was thinking. Similar to The Happening some of it feels like he must have been aware this was funny, but I don't know what the point of making people laugh during that surgery scene was with the doctor trying to remember movie titles. Well whatever. I hope he keeps making weird movies
DON'T BREATHE 2 (Aug 22, 2021, 2:10 PM)
Don't Breathe 2 is trashier and not as well crafted or intense as the first one but there is still some smart creative stuff going on and it's a fine movie. It's interesting what they decided to do with the story. It has some turns where you go back and forth on who you're sympathies are with and that was cool.
FREE GUY (Aug 22, 2021, 2:10 PM)
Free Guy is like the most hollywood movie ever, in all the best and worst ways. But it's a good time. It's got some good spectacle, Ryan is very good at what he's doing and the script is kind of basic but it is better than it has to be for this kind of movie. I liked it more Black Widow.
BLACK WIDOW (Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 10:42 PM)
Black Widow was indeed a marvel movie. I thought it was fine. There were times when I thought it was about to actually go somewhere interesting but it just always stayed a notch above the surface instead of really going there. And by the end I felt like it had even derailed some of the concepts I had liked. I really don't like magical mind control as a plot device because it feels lazy and simplistic and not interesting. And then I was kind of baffled at how they ended up just giving the david harbour character a pass for what he did to those girls. The family dynamic that kind of formed really felt cringey to me. I thought the opening was kind of great though like you see these people are the heros but then you realize they're actually the villains and it was an interesting way to show how our main character kind of got manipulated as a kid. But then the story ends up being about actual mind control instead which relates to nothing and then the father figure is actually seen as an okay guy by the end. Very weird. But Florence was very entertaining.
A QUIET PLACE 2 (May 30, 2021, 9:10 PM)
So last night I rewatched a quiet place which I had only been mildly impressed with the first time and this time felt about the same. I had forgotten just how little happens. It's basically just them hanging out and then she has a baby and that causes some problems. But there's kind of no story.
So having said that, I really liked the new one. Because it had a story. And of course it has more set pieces and bigger set pieces, which was the main strength of the first one. But without overdoing it. The scope is still pretty small as you pointed out. Which is basically good but I am kind of wondering some big picture stuff now that I was willing to just ignore on the first one. Like these creatures do seem formidable if you're just a guy with a gun but they don't seem beyond the capability of the military to deal with pretty quickly. I think we're supposed to assume that this is worldwide yeah? It would be nice if some people were talking about that. Like do they have these things in Europe. That was an important part of 28 days later I remember, like the big mystery of how affected the rest of the world was. I'm not sure what we are meant to assume in this one. I guess that's not a big deal but I was definitely wondering about it. I was actually afraid in the beginning with the stuff on the TV that they were going to over explain the origin in this movie and I'm glad it stayed very vague. But I would have liked just like one or two more details. Anyway. Cool movie.
CRUELLA (May 28, 2021, 8:42 PM)
Maybe I'm just in a superlative mood but right now I really feel like that was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It was kind of shocking. Remember that thing in Solo where they're like "you're by yourself so we will call you Solo"? The whole movie felt like one of those. So much ridiculous nonsense that just seemed like all the laziest ways to explain iconic things about a character who shouldn't be the star of a movie in the first place. So much of it is just so very very dumb or pointless or stuff you've seen a thousand times. But I'm more shocked than I am upset about it though. Reminded me a lot of Suicide Squad but at least this was less boring.
I didn't hate it because I just don't care enough but I was just kind of amazed at how little effort seemed to be put into the script. And I did feel disappointed cause I thought there could have been a sort of fun version of this movie and I like some of the people involved and I think because it's such a big tentpole movie I feel kind of disappointed in hollywood in general. Especially with the state of theaters now and this being one of the first big releases now.
The first thing that astounded me was just seeing the baby with the black and white hair. That just feels like an SNL sketch idea. And then right after that they establish that Cruella isn't her real name, it's actually like a joke where they're very conscious of what it sounds like. I hate that stuff. I wanted to see a movie about a character who actually chooses to color their hair that way and also lives in a world silly enough where some one could legitimately be called Cruella without people pointing out the cartoonishness of it. I actually laughed when her mom was killed by dalmations. I'm glad they ultimately didn't really use that as a way to sell her having grudge against that specific breed of dog. But at the time I really thought that was what they were doing and I thought I was being pranked. I mean I would bet that was pushed more in early drafts and some one made them take it out. Also, for a movie that is spending over 2 hours just telling the origin story of how she got this way, it's pretty weird how sudden her turn actually is. So much so that her two friends are confused and comment on it like 4 separate times. That felt very odd that she just decided to become a whole other character.
Do you think we can ever get one of these "early years of a classic character" movies where it's just some adventure that happened when the character was younger instead of a check list explaining every single thing we know about the character.
ARMY OF THE DEAD (May 28, 2021, 12:02 AM)
I just saw it at a theater with drinks. Which I think is the only way I could have gotten through that movie. It definitely feels like a movie made by the guy who made Sucker Punch. I would recommend watching the first 15 minutes and stopping there. I mean it's not terrible. It's definitely more of a real movie than Sucker Punch. But it still feels like it was written and directed by a 16-year-old boy who happens to be rather technically proficient. It's unbelievably stupid. I think to some extent that's on purpose but I couldn't really tell how much. Like 5 minutes in I was already trying to figure out if the movie was supposed to be a joke. I'm still not sure how seriously I was supposed to take certain parts. There is a pretty cool opening credit sequence that covers what could be a whole movie on its own. Which is also very Vegas. So I think you will enjoy that. And then there's a handful of fun moments throughout. Mostly just entertaining gore. But it's a whole lot of build up and wheel spinning for a movie as dumb as this that really has nothing interesting on its mind. I think the fun aspects would have sufficed if it was like an 85 minute movie. But at an hour longer than that it's hard to recommend.
SAINT MAUD (May 23, 2021, 2:25 AM)
I didn't much like saint maud. I could tell almost immediately I wasn't going to be a big fan. The whole style of it, the lighting, the pace, the music, even the bones of the premise, like a traumatized girl goes nuts, it all feels so played out. I feel like I've seen this movie a dozen times in the past 5 years. Not that a movie couldn't potentially rise above that. I mean The Lodge is probably guilty of all those same things but I liked that one for whatever reason. I think that was more distinctive visually and there was more nuance to the characters. There was a bit more going on with the story too. This just felt so basic and uninspired to me and I knew from the start exactly what was going to happen. I did think the execution of the last five minutes was creepy and well done. But the general tone and look of everything just rubs me the wrong way and there was never enough originality elsewhere to ever overcome that. But yeah none of that stuff you mentioned is very interesting to me. Religious stuff usually appeals more to you than me and same with these slow atmospheric horror movies that are popular now adays. Even when you said it was very A24 I felt like that wasn't a great sign. I mean I didn't love The Witch or Hereditary or It Comes at Night... apparently even Blackcoats Daughter was A24. I think the only one I'm really a big fan of is The Lighthouse. So I guess it's just not my thing. That's fine.
WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (May 16, 2021, 3:02 AM)
I actually kinda liked Woman in the Window. It definitely has big problems and I'm not surprised most people wouldn't be into it but I was having a good time through the whole thing. It just does a lot of very odd things and some of those things feel bold and exciting and others just feel wholly ill advised. One of the more ill advised things is just the arc of the story itself so that's a big problem but it maybe could have worked with the right tone and edit. I would bet the re-editing that caused the first delay is probably to blame for a lot of the problems. It definitely feels like a movie where you could easily assemble a much better version with the same footage. I wish I could see Joe's original cut. I'm sure it was better. He's definitely having more fun with style and visuals and editing and than he has in a long time so that's fun to see. I always wanted him make more movies like this. Some real good performances too.
TOGETHER TOGETHER (May 2, 2021, 8:17 PM)
By the way, I saw this Ed Helms movie yesterday. Together Together. You heard of that? It was okay. It has all the usual annoying flaws of an indie dramedy movie of that type but it is really well acted and kind of an interesting premise. I don't regret watching it but I also don't really recommend it.