Shin megami

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4

[8.7/10] The title of this episode is “Assassins”. And what finally fells Winston Churchill from his post as Prime Minister is not a killer’s bullets. It is not the angry recriminations of his likely successor. It is not even the imploring of his sovereign. It is, instead, an uncompromising painter daring to reflect the man back as he truly is.

I suspect there’s a heavy degree of dramatization there. Real life is so rarely as neatly metaphorical like this. But frankly, I don’t care. Truth or fabrication, this episode is pathos-ridden, stunning rendition of what it’s like for a man so enamored with his own larger-than-life grandiosity that it’s become a protective shell, to have it punctured by truth, in a way that wounds him, but also frees him, however bitter that freedom may be.

It is John Lithgow’s finest hour on the show to date, no small feat. It is the writers at their most intimate and lyrical. And it is the series writ large at its most personal and poetic, depicting not the fall of a lion, but rather one forced to admit to himself that he’s already in winter.

However thickly the show lays on the metaphor, I like the idea that Churchill is a man who is very much concerned with symbolism, with projecting strength and dignity. It comes through in the advice he’s given to Elizabeth for her Commonwealth tour and beyond. It comes through in him lying to her about his illness. And naturally, it even comes through in something as small as his official portraiture on his eightieth birthday.

When Graham Sutherland comes for their posing sessions, Churchill bloviates on about omitting background factories from his own efforts on the canvas, about the artist representing the good and omitting the bad, about how Sutherland is not just painting a man but the office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and all that represents. Winston desperately wants to maintain the image of vigor, of pride, of the shining dignity through which he’s defined himself all these years, which gives him the confidence, and in his mind the right, to stay on as Prime Minister.

The Queen is clinging onto a certain image as well. I find the pairing of stories here interesting. Because what unites them is the sense of someone unassuming and low on the totem pole inadvertently throwing bombs into the lives of national figures. What poses trouble for Elizabeth’s domestic tranquility is not some dashing statesman or literal knight in shining armor. It is a paunchy, understated horse trainer who goes by the ridiculous nickname Porchey.

Credit where it’s due, while this story is a bit of an odd fit (did we really need to see the horse hump?) I appreciate the boldness of strongly gesturing toward Philip having affairs, and suggesting that for her part, the Queen at least had an emotional intimacy with someone other than her husband. The rockiness of the royal marriage is not something I expected a glossy show like The Crown to delve into, but it’s potent and, like so much this season, helps humanize a larger than life figure like Elizabeth.

What I appreciate about their story here is that it follows a certain trajectory. Philip is galavanting with his drinking buddy at all hours, doing god knows what. And it clearly affects Elizabeth. Whether she wants to admit it or not, it seems to lead her to seek a certain friendship and understanding with Porchey that suprasses his role as her friend and horse trainer. As with her actions toward Margaret a few episodes back, I’m not sure Elizabeth herself would recognize the cause of her change in course, but the juxtaposition suggests both she and Philip are seeking something they can’t find at home from other people, even if what they want is very different.

Somehow, Philip has the temerity to be jealous. I appreciate that his envy is what pierces the same protective shell the two have erected. This nice enough schmuck, who shares Elizabeth’s passion for horses and treats her like a friend rather than his boss, prompts Philip to act out and Elizabeht to call him on his bullshit. While a bit stagey, her declaration to Philip that it would in many ways be easier if she loved Porchey, but for good or for ill, she’s only loved him, with a dare for him to tell her the same, is a devastating moment and monologue. There and then, the real warts-and-all view of their marriage is thrown into the cold light of day for both of them, and it isn’t pretty.

Neither, frankly, is Churchill. I love Sutherland’s (and by extension, writer Peter Morgan’s) statement that most people are not good judges of themselves, because of the blindspots, conscious and unconscious, it takes a person to get through the day. Churchill wants a portrait that depicts him the way he sees himself. Sutherland wants to depict him as he is.

But through his art, he gets at certain truths about Churchill even the man himself may not see or acknowledge. The most poignant part of their verbal tet-a-tets during the sketching sessions centers on an unlikely tragedy that unites them -- the loss of a child. They correctly diagnose one another’s paintings as reflecting that loss. The difference being that Churchill was in denial. He thinks he returns to the goldfish pond near his home because of the technical challenge. Sutherland connects it to something more emotional, and Churchill, in a roundabout way, realizes that it’s connected to the death of his daughter.

It is a heartbreaking performance by John Lithgow, watching this bulldog of a man break down at the memory of a profound loss. And it ties into the central theme of this storyline. Whatever Churchill may project, there is a well of despair within him, a certain ache that goes unacknowledged but also untamed. He feels the losses he’s had, even if he won’t let himself countenance them, and it takes the piercing qualities of profound art to expose that to him.

So does the final portrait, which true to the man as he is, shows decay and frailty and suffering in a fashion that offends Winston. It gives him an accurate reflection of himself, but one he doesn’t want to be reminded of. And yet, seeing himself laid bare there, with the truth that comes from the artist’s hand, shakes him out of stupor.

He stands down as Prime Minister. He tells Elizabeth he has nothing left to teach her and gives her a sweet kiss on the forehead. He earnestly shakes the hand of the successor he was rebuking weeks earlier. He admits to his wife that he is tired and finished with it all. What is true can be denied no longer. To see ourselves as we are can be unmooring, but also spur us to take action in the light of that truth, rather than in the comfort of images and institutions we insulate ourselves with.

What takes down Winston Churchill is an artist, wielding only the truth. What takes down the Queen’s peace of mind is a humble horsman wielding only some simple warmth and basic empathy. The Prime Minister finally meets someone able to cut through his bluster and bombast, and see the wounded, aging man inside, and perhaps even grant him some much-needed rest. It is a harsh thing, but one that speaks to the power of great art to reach through to what’s real in something, however abstract its lens, much as this story does.

Denis Villeneuve is the man!
There’s only one word that came into my mind after watching it: finally.

Finally, a blockbuster that isn’t afraid to be primarily driven by drama and tension, and doesn’t undercut its own tone by throwing in a joke every 30 seconds.
Finally, a blockbuster that puts actual effort in its cinematography, and doesn’t have a bland or calculated colour palette.
Finally, a blockbuster with a story that has actual substance and themes, and doesn’t rely on intertextual references or nostalgia to create a fake sheen of depth.
Finally, a blockbuster that doesn’t pander to China by having big, loud and overblown action sequences, but relies on practical and grounded spectacle instead (it has big sand worms, you really don’t need to throw anything at the screen besides that).
Finally, a blockbuster that actually feels big, because it isn’t primarily shot in close ups, or on a sound stage.
And of course: finally, a blockbuster that isn’t a fucking prequel, sequel, or connected to an already established IP somehow.

(Yeah, I know Tenet did those things as well, but I couldn’t get into that because the characters were so flat and uninteresting).

This just checks all the boxes. An engaging story with subtext, very well set up characters, great acting (like James Gunn, Villeneuve's great at accentuating the strengths of limited actors like Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa), spectecular visuals and art design (desaturated but not in an ugly washed out way), pacing (slow but it never drags), directing, one of Hans Zimmer’s best scores: it’s all here.
I only have one real criticism: there’s too much exposition, especially in the first half.
It can occasionally hold your hand by referencing things that have already been established previously, and some scenes of characters explaining stuff to each other could’ve been conveyed more visually.
Other than that, it’s easily one of the best films of the year.
I’ve seen some people critiquing it for being incomplete, which is true, but this isn’t just a set up for a future film.
It feels like a whole meal, there are pay offs in this, and the characters progress (even if, yes, their arcs are still incomplete).

8.5/10

This will probably become more beloved than Dune for being a bigger, more action driven film. Personally I prefer the first film by a long shot, but there's a lot to like here. I loved Paul's new journey for this installment as it doesn't develop in the way you'd expect based on the ending of the first film. The themes of colonialism, false prophecies and religion reach a level of depth that cannot be found in other sci-fi/fantasy contemporaries like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars; this film certainly made me understand why this story is taken so seriously as a piece of literature. Despite the source material being so old, there's still something new and refreshing about it. You don't often see major Hollywood productions calling out religion as a manipulative force helping the people in power. On top of that this brilliantly subverts the concept of the hero's journey we've become accustomed to by everything that was in one way or another inspired by Dune. The acting is pretty great, Timothée does a great job at playing the transition Paul goes through. Despite his boyish looks I was sold on his performance as the leader of the Fremen. Rebecca Ferguson and Javier Bardem are also scene stealers. The visuals are once again mindblowing, in terms of set/costume design, cinematography and CGI this is as close to perfection as you could get to right now. The vision and scope of this movie are truly unmatched, which leads to some breathtaking sequences that I'll remember for a while (sandworm ride; the black/white arena fight; knife fight during the third act).

However, for all the praise I have for Dune: Part 2, I think Denis is being uncharacteristically sloppy with this film. First of all, Bautista and Butler feel like they're ripped from a different franchise altogether. Their over the top, cartoonish performances are more suited for something like Mad Max than the nuanced world of Dune. The bigger cracks start to appear when you look at the writing. The brief moments where the movie pokes fun at religious zealots through Javier Bardem's character, while funny, probably won't age very well. Like the first movie, it has a tendency to rely too much on exposition and handholding, a problem which might be worse here. I feel like a lot of the subtlety is lost in order to make the movie more normie proof, and that's quite annoying for a movie with artistic ambitions like this one. For example, there's this scene where Léa Seydoux seduces Austin Butler's character, and everything you need to know as a viewer is communicated through Butler's performance. Cut to the next scene, where Seydoux is all but looking at the camera saying "he's a psychopath, he's violent, he wants power, etc.". I just feel like compared to Villeneuve's precise work on Blade Runner 2049, he's consciously dumbing it down here. It's understandable and somewhat excusable for a complex story like Dune, but he occasionally takes it too far for my liking. Then there's the love story subplot between Chani and Paul, which almost entirely misses the mark for me. It feels rushed, there's no chemistry between the actors and some of the lines are painfully cheesy. Because of that, the emotional gutpunch their story eventually reaches during the third act did little for me. Finally, I'm a little dissatisfied with the use of sound. I loved the otherworldly score Zimmer came up with for the first Dune, however this film is so ridiculously bombastic and low-end heavy that it starts to feel like a parody of his work with Christopher Nolan. For the final action beat of the film Villeneuve cuts out the film's score, and it becomes all the more satisfying for it.

Overall, I recommend this film, however maybe temper those expectations if you're expecting a masterpiece. There's a lot to admire, but it's flawed.

6.5/10

[8.1/10] I’m a fan of films and television shows where a person says one thing but thinks another. The distance between the image they project, and what they feel in their hearts, is the stuff that great character moments are made of.

Which is why the most fascinating character in this for me is the former King Edward. He writes to his wife about how dreadful London is and he can’t wait to get back, but he seems to cherish his last days with his mother. He desires the circus of it all, but blanches at being effectively disinvited from the coronation. He pokes fun at the coronation and its object to a room full of party guests, but he also looks on with what is plainly a certain wistfulness and envy.

I don’t know anywhere near enough to speak to what the real Edward thought and felt. But what I like about this depiction is the sense that I don’t think this character would do anything different. I think his love for Wallis is genuine. I think his offense at the disrespect she receives is legitimate. And I think given the chance to do it all over again, he would make the same choice.

But I also think there’s a sense in which he wishes it didn't have to be this way, that he looks upon the life that might have been hiss, the crown that might have been his, and laments that he ever had to choose between it and her, even if he’d still pick her. To be raised to be king, to have imagined your whole life that this would be your coronation, to still sit in awe of the magic of the ceremony and the institution it represents, as you’re held at arm's length from it, would be a harrowing sort of thing.

When I started The Crown, the last person I expected to feel sympathy for was King Edward. And I’m not exactly crying tears for the real life person. But for this character, diminished in dignity to hawk soap and suits for the papers, denied even a seat at the table at what was once his by right, compelled to pretend not to be homesick when he is acutely reminded of both what he’s gained and what he’s lost, it all makes for a surprisingly sympathetic and humanized figure.

He also makes for the perfect contrast, once again, to the Queen Elizabeth and how she treats her spouse. For Edward, the weight of sacrifice is felt because these things clearly mean something to him and he still would cast it all aside for Wallis. For her part, Elizabeth makes great stands for Philip, insisting that they buck years of Norfolk family tradition so he can chair the coronation committee and wanting him to have tremendous leeway. But in essence, she makes clear to him that though she is both a spouse and a monarch, the crown must come first. They may be equal partners, but he must still kneel to her.

I admire the show’s willingness to make the juxtaposition. This situation is awkward, but there seems to be genuine love in both royal couples at issue. And yet, Edward does what is necessary to defend the dignity and honor of his wife, and Elizabeth does what she must to defend the dignity and honor of her station. The situations are different. The gender dynamics are different. But it demonstrates, in canny terms, what both Windsors are sacrificing to hold onto what they have, and what’s most important to each of them.

Apart from the comparison, I get a kick out of Phiip’s reforming zeal as an organizer. His comments about modernizing and opening up the coronation, particularly given the optics at a time of austerity, feel prescient in the here and now after we've just seen similar concerns raised about the coronation of King Charles. The advent of television, the democratizing of the ceremony, the point about someone who survived a revolution not wanting a monarch to seem aloof and disconnected from her people all carry the right resonance, adding a philosophical weight to what is, at least in part, a marital dispute as much as it is one of principle.

The coronation itself is The Crown’s best set piece yet. I love the parallels in the opening scene and the near-closing one, where a young Elizabeth helping her father practice before his coronation, and her mirroring the same words and gestures in hers, helps demonstrate the weight of history and the legacy of a loved one that both loom large in this momentous occasion. Elizabeth doesn’t get as much to do here as she has in some episodes (it’s halfway Edward's hour), and yet this is some of the best acting from Claire Foy. The look in her eyes as the magnitude of what she’s succumbing to lands with full force is remarkable, as is the same as the nerves and anxieties and pressure coalesce in the appointment, the kneeing, the kiss from a husband who is also a subject. The nonverbal performance from Foy in particular is superb.

The presentation is the most lavish and loving in the show thus far, aided by the arch but sincere commentary from Edward a channel away. The performance is superb there too with great work from Alex Jennings elucidating the layers between what Edward says and what he feels. But the writing is there to match.

I have no great love for the monarchy or the pomp and circumstance that comes with it. Still, Edward d(and the writers) speak eloquently of the function these events serve. There is, in fact, a magic from the intrigue, the pageantry, the ritual, that turns the utterly ordinary into the elevated and seemingly divine. It is these trappings, as much as any breeding or heritage, that conveys the sense of someone and something greater. King Groge describes it as being reborn, changed, and through Edward’s words and Elizabeth’s looks you believe it, even if it comes with a sense of “for better or worse” rather than the grand ascension it’s intended as.

In the end, I’m not sure who’s happier. Edward is practically excommunicated from his homeland and his family, but he has the love of his life to comfort him. Elizabeth is the recipient of that magic and the keeper of the flame, but seems overwhelmed by a responsibility that seems to come at the expense of her relationship with her husband. If I were to guess, I’d say both feel they made the right choice, but that no matter what they project in public, in private moments, each can’t help but wonder how things might be different, how their lives might be changed, if each could keep grasp of what the other has,

After two successful big-budget starring vehicles, we finally get an origin story for Indiana Jones. Of course, that's largely to facilitate the addition of a new supporting character (Sean Connery in a wonderful casting as Indy's long lost father, who we'll get to in just a moment) but that extra layer of nostalgia, wrapped around a property that's deeply nostalgic in the first place, manages to avoid numerous pitfalls and serve as an effective prologue. River Phoenix performs especially well as the young Jones, expertly wearing Harrison Ford's mannerisms throughout the long callback, and somewhere along the way we get a worthwhile genesis for the grown-up version's affinity for leather jackets and fedoras.

Once the story jumps ahead to a more familiar era (if not precisely the present), it's full speed ahead on the hunt for the mythical holy grail, a lifelong obsession for the father and recent fixation of the third reich. Soon reunited, both Jones boys dance through precarious situations and near-misses in the history books, a full battalion of Nazi soldiers nipping at their heels, before drawing close to the prize. Ford and Connery are dynamic together, boiling down a complicated father-son relationship to a series of glares, grins and grunts. They alternate between bickering testily and slapping each other on the back in camaraderie, and I honestly can't say which makes for a more entertaining watch. There's depth, too, a stinging blend of long-simmering resentment and earnest care for one another, which often bubbles up just in time to enhance the plot's heaviest moments.

Naturally, it simply wouldn't be an Indiana Jones movie without big action sets (in which the series somehow manages to one-up itself yet again) or boatloads of witty retorts and punchy one-liners, and those two essential elements combine to give the film a loose, fun-loving quality without compromising any of the more serious moments. All this without going too far over the top, as we saw more than once in the mildly underwhelming Temple of Doom and borderline-disastrous Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It's well-written and purposeful, successfully intense and humorous, an in-the-wheelhouse serial-styled adventure that spans several continents before confronting superstition and cracking several dusty, life-threatening riddles on the path to a biblical treasure. Indy probably should've left well-enough alone, because this chapter is essentially impossible to top.

Home Alone is a perfect movie, not in the sense that there is zero room for improvement or it's the greatest artistic achievement in human history, but in that it does what it sets out to do in a nigh-flawless fashion. It is impeccably paced, shot, and edited. It has the right balance of escapist fantasy, relatable family drama, humor, heart, and even slapstick comedy to keep the film lively without making it a piece of fluff. And miraculously, despite a cast full of ringers like Catherine O’Hara and Joe Pesci, the whole thing hinges on the acting talents of a nine-year-old boy who pulls it off with flying colors.

Because as great as O’Hara is as the mother desperate to get back to her son, as amusing as Pesci and Daniel Stern are as a pair of robbers who get more than they bargained for, as hilarious as the inimitable John Candy (who steals the show with less than five minutes of screen time) is as a polka-playing good Samaritan, Home Alone is, first and foremost, a story about Kevin McCallister, and even at that tender age, Culkin (with a huge assist from writer John Hughes and director Chris Columbus) sells that story like a champ.

That’s part of why Home Alone works so perfectly as a family movie that plays with both kids and adults. As a child, the more outsized elements of the story loom large. The iconic scenes of Kevin tormenting his pursuers offer a spate of perfectly deployed slapstick, worthy of Looney Tunes or The Three Stooges and apt to elicit any number of giggles from the younger members of the audience. By the same token, there’s an escapist fantasy for kids in the early part of the film, where Kevin jumps on the bed, eats junk, and “watches rubbish” without anyone being able to tell him otherwise. There is an incredible sense of fun to these scenes, whether it’s the ACME-inspired antics and great physical performances of the “Wet Bandits” or Kevin living out the immediate joy of his wish to be family-free.

But what makes the film more than just an insubstantial flight of fancy is the way it mixes that holiday mirth with enough heft, enough of the downside of that wish and a stealthily nuanced depiction of a young child maturing in both his ability to take care of himself and his understanding of the world.

When we meet Kevin in the film’s frenetic opening sequence, showing an entire household abuzz with cousins and uncles all in a state of pre-travel frenzy, Kevin cannot even pack his own suitcase. There’s recurring jabs from his siblings and cousins that his mom has to do everything for him. Over the course of the film, when pressed into service by being the all to his lonesome, Kevin becomes a surprisingly self-sufficient little boy. When not smothered by a score of other siblings, he shows a surprising resourcefulness, proving himself able to go to the store, do laundry, and even leave out cookies for Santa Claus when the time arrives. This culminates in the cornucopia of traps Kevin sets for the robbers, proving that he is even capable of defending his house from those who would do his family harm.

In the process, Kevin overcomes a number of his fears, which provides another thematic throughline for the film. Chris Columbus and Director of Photography Julio Macat help this part of the story tremendously by the way a series of normal things are made frightening by shooting them from Kevin’s perspective. From the low shot on the furnace in the basement as it seems to taunt and beckon Kevin while he’s doing laundry, to the scene in the store where Old Man Marley is introduced only by his big black boots, seeming to glower down at Kevin from high above, Macat’s camera keeps us inside Kevin’s head, seeing the terror in these otherwise quotidian interactions. That cinches Kevin’s transition when he tells the furnace not to bother – we understand what he’s overcoming.

The heart of the movie, however, comes through in the scene where he conquers his other big fear – his scary looking next door neighbor, whom his brother described as a secret murderer the cops couldn’t catch. When Kevin runs into him at church, he discovers that Marley isn’t some serial ghoul, but rather a kindly old man who offers him a bit of solace and comfort in a time of need.

It’s an incredibly well-written scene, bolstered by the stellar performance of Roberts Blossom as Marley and Culkin playing Kevin at his most precocious and worldly. Blossom sells the utter warmth and humanity of Blossom behind his icy visage. His sitting next to Kevin as a friendly presence, telling a small part of his life story, and speaking to the lad as something approaching an equal provides a big leap for the film’s protagonist. It’s part of that maturation process, the realization that he shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, that he can’t necessarily trust his brother’s accounts, and that the people who seem the most unnerving can be the people you want in your hour of need. In one scene, Old Man Marley goes from being the film’s great threat to being its heart.

And he ties into the other big motif running through the film – an appreciation of one’s family. What could easily be a trite Hallmark card of a message from the movie has real force from the way the lesson is delivered. When Kevin wishes he had no family, the film helps us understand why, putting him in that relatable little kid situation of causing a scene, feeling you were goaded into it, and that nobody takes treats you nicely or appreciates you. And then when his wish comes true, it takes some time to let the audience, and Kevin, revel in his newfound freedom. But it also show’s Kevin slowly but surely realizing that he misses them, and that as much as they drive him nuts sometimes, having them back is what he really wants for Christmas.

That’s why the scene and story of Old Man Marley’s estrangement with his son is so important. It’s center on the idea that the issues Kevin is dealing with – fear, family discontent, loneliness around the holidays – are not unique to him or his tender age, but are universal obstacles that people of all ages confront at various points in their life. It’s a sign of Kevin’s broadening perspective, the way he’s being changed by this experience and learns that it’s possible to love your family even when you’re angry with them.

It’s also his realization that even in those impulsive moments, whether you’re an old man or a little boy, that you make grand declarations about not wanting to be a part of your family anymore, you may soon find yourself regretting it, yearning for the thing you were so ready to give up. Kevin starts to understand this in Home Alone, and it’s why his sincere plea to one of Santa’s “messengers” (who amusingly offers him tic tacs and can’t get his car started) to bring his family back has weight and meaning.

All of this is able to come together so well because so many of the technical, or less showy parts of the film are all done extraordinarily well. John Williams’s score expertly matches the mood of the film at every turn, whether he’s playing yuletide pop classics or an orchestral score that fits a grand escape or moment of tension. The writing has a clockwork quality to it. Hughes’s script accounts for the circumstances in which a nine-year-old would left alone by himself, unable to be contacted by his parents or the authorities in a nicely plausible fashion, and he constructs a series of events in which Kevin believes he wished his family away and then wished them back in a way that is equally convincing for the kid and the viewer.

And the film is shot and edited superbly, with amusing cuts like Kevin calling out for his mother with an immediate smash cut to a roaring airplane, or the frenzied fashion in which the McCallisters are depicted racing through the airport. Every part of this film works in sync, to deliver a visually exciting, narratively sound work that lets its humor, story, and message, land without a hint of friction.

So when we reach the end of the film and see Kevin’s reunion with his family, and Old Man Marley’s reunion with his, both moments feel earned. Chris Columbus tells a nigh-wordless story in the final scene, with O’Hara’s Kate McCallister silently marveling at how great the house looks and Kevin offering an expression of reluctance, one that suggests he might still be holding onto the anger he unleashed at this mother the last time they were face to face, before quickly sliding into a smile and running to embrace her. Their expressions tell the story, of the way both mother and child now see each other differently on this Christmas Day. The same goes for the expression of gratitude, of near-tearful camaraderie, between Kevin and Old Man Marley as Kevin witnesses his new friends’ reunion with a family of his own. Everyone here has grown; everyone has taken chances despite their fears, and come out better for it.

Throughout all of this, Home Alone manages to be cute, sweet, thrilling, funny, sharp, clever, and hopeful. For films set alone the holiday, it’s all too easy to lean into maudlin sentiment or cloying comedy, but Hughes’s and Columbus’s collaboration produced a film that manages to be nimble and amusing from start to finish, with enough meaning and mirth in it to make the story told feel as important as it is small. Home Alone tells the tale of a young man learning that despite his fear, his inexperience, and his familial resentments, he’s ready to take his first step into adulthood, and finds in the process that what he needs most are the people he was afraid of or wanted to wish away.

Superbad wasn't super bad but for me it wasn't super awesome has I thought it would be. It's definitely a very good and smart teenage film, entertaining and funny but not as funny as I thought. It has it's moments.

Jonah Hill and Michael Cera always make me laugh a lot in every film I see with both of them but in this film the times that they made me laugh were very few. The absolutely hilarious parts of the film were the ones involving McLovin and those irresponsible cops Officer Slater and Officer Michaels. Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Seth Rogen and Bill Hader were so so good! I couldn't stop laughing with those three. Their scenes are the best thing of the film.

Despite the whole unrealistic situations the film knew how to manage them well, but some of the aspects about puberty comedies were just more of the same that we are already used to see in films of this genre.

Overall, I had a great time watching it. I thought that I would give it five stars but I have to stick just with four, which is a pretty good note for a good comedy with an heartwarming touch like this one.

It took me a while to adjust to the directing and editing of this film, but I really appreciate it now.
Great performances, well drawn characters, love the location (immediately seperates itself from Hollywood blockbusters because of the location), the action’s pretty well handled (quick cutting done right) and extremely funny.
The third act of this thing is so good; just about every minor piece of dialogue turns out to be a set up.
There’s also this Agatha Christie element woven into the first two acts that adds some nice subtext. I read the theme of the film as being about the conflict of the values of city life and country life, with the film criticizing the city side as being too stern and driven by rules, and the country community trying to maintain their idyllic facade by upholding these regressive, ridiculous ideas . I think it’s really cool that Edgar Wright found a way to integrate that idea into his big, silly action movie. It elevates the picture as a whole, I think it’s the kind of action film Scorsese would dare to label as ‘cinema’.
Maybe it isn’t objectively the best action comedy ever made, it certainly doesn’t have the biggest, most impressively filmed explosions. However, it’s the most well rounded and rewatchable one if you ask me.
Truly one of those rare films that improves when you get a better grasp of its rhythm.

9.5/10

Over 30 years since its release, this is still the high watermark of the series and, indeed pretty much any adventure film. Ford is the lynchpin of the series, and unlike James Bond, it is difficult to imagine anyone else taking on this role in the future. What makes Indiana Jones works so well as a character and instantly connect with an audience (apart from being Han Solo in disguise) is his world-weariness and that he does indeed seem to be "making it up as he goes along." He makes mistakes and gets himself into trouble more often than not. The sheer pace, the reliance on practical stunts and Ford's performance here sets this film apart from some of the more ridiculous elements that mar the sequels and Karen Allen is a great foil. Every film of course has a great score from Williams, but the theme created for the Ark of the Covenant elevates the music to another level. But it is Ford that embodies Indiana Jones - the looks of relief, panic and determination that cross his face, sometimes all in one shot, is often priceless and he is the key to making this character work so well.

As others have said I absolutely love all of these characters, warts and all, and I can't wait to see where each of them goes over the course of this season. I'm also appreciating the raised comedy in this season. While it was prevalent in the previous season, it's really brought to the forefront here and it's adding a nice lilt to the whole thing without losing the dramatic edge.

There is so many layers here to all of these people, and they always manage to keep to a tight 30 minutes:

Ebra struggling in the academic setting after being clearly talented and proficient by himself was very relatable. I hope after the initial impostor syndrome and doubt subsides, he can come out the other side even better.

Syd trying to explain to her Dad why she believes in this dream, when all your parents want for you is stability. We got an insight into her past and her mother too, which was done in the usual Bear fashion of leading conversation that we can only gleam small details from to piece the bigger picture together ourselves.

I think it's fitting that Carm would have a love interest that also works in a sector as stress-inducing and high pressure as his own profession. I do however feel this will be very reminiscent of Whiplash, where we're lead to believe the love interest will follow the usual arc, but in a twist is cut short and removed entirely as the connection only serves to hinder the potential of being great. I'd love to be wrong, but I think the detail called out by @votrespirit only adds to my theory.

Richie is still bubbling under the surface, but the short glimpses we saw of his partner? ex-partner? in the opening episode as well as his confession about having no purpose will surely come to a boil at some point and I'm excited to see it.

Once again, what a show. Christopher Storer & co, you have a fan for life. I will watch anything you create.

[7.5/10] This is a pretty simple story for The Mandalorian, but also a good one. It’s more a series of vignettes than a cohesive episode. Each of the vignettes is good though, so I’m not complaining.

If you want action, you have a giant pterodactyl-like beast snatching up one of the children of the Children of the Watch, forcing our heroes to go after it. Guest director Carl Weathers delivers the fireworks, with a nice aerial skirmish between the mando squad and the winged beast through over mountainous terrain. The sequence in its nest brings some neat creature design with its babies and some unique danger. Bo Katan gets to prove her worth to the Children of the Watch by using her ship to help find the missing child, further ingratiating herself to her new tribe. And Din gets to earn some brownie points with Paz Vizsla, the hulking Mandalorian who’s been a bit of a rival to him since season 1, for saving his son. It’s all a bit tidy, but every part of it serves a purpose.

If you want Grogu stories, “The Foundling” has you covered too. It’s a cute and fairly minor little vignette, but I got a big kick out of Din insisting his son take part in the Watch’s little training matches. Grogu continues to be adorable, and watching him blanche after getting hit with paint darts is very cute. After receiving some encouragement from his dad, his flipping triumph to win the match is quite triumphant. And I was especially touched by Bo-Katan telling him it’s okay, that her dad was proud of her the same way.

But we also get some long-awaited backstory on how Baby Yoda escaped Order 66. It turns out he was rescued by none other than Master Beq, played by Ahmed Best (of Jar Jar Binks infamy), getting a chance to canonize his character from the Jedi Temple Challenge game show and getting a bit of redemption, which is nice to see. There’s not much to these sequences, just a fairly standard escape and rescue routine that longtime fans have seen in everything from the Revenge of the Sith film to the The Clone Wars show to the Jedi: Fallen Order game. But it’s well done, and particularly nice that given Beq’s role on a kid-focused game show, his role her is to save a youngling before it’s too late.

It also develops Grogu just a tad. He gets another piece of beskar armor to help signify his chance to grow into his role with the Mandalorians and follow The Way. But he also has time to reflect on challenges, with the puppy dog eyes and drooped ears that show he’s still struggling with the events that led him to this point.

We get a bit of the same for Bo Katan too. She gets a nice benediction from the Armorer as well, with an armor patch featuring the mythosaur, making up for what she lost finding one of their own, and receiving the same sort of acceptance she struggled to find with her old crew who merely idolized the darksaber. Again, these scenes are simple, but there’s a power in their simplicity.

Overall, this is a more episodic, character-focused outing for The Mandalorian, but I’m all for that. It’s nice to get installments that give us a bit of texture and backstory, so that the major fireworks of the season have real meaning.

[7.8/10] This is going to sound a little odd, but the bulk of “The Convert” felt more like an episode of Andor than it did of The Mandalorian. I’m not complaining though. One of the things I like about the other show is that it gives us a look at people’s lives away from the movers and shakers of the galaxy. The sense of place of the Star Wars galaxy improves when you get to witness how normal people live their lives, where the world acts upon them more than they act upon it. Which is all to say that I wouldn’t necessarily have asked for an episode on the life and times of Dr. Pershing, but I’m glad we got it anyway.

I like it as a slice of life story. One of the big questions that's been underexplored in Star Wars is a simple but important one -- what do we do with all the ex-Imperials? The new canon has plenty of examples of former Imps who decided to break good: Iden Versio in Battlefront II, Yeager in Resistance, Sinjir in the Aftermath Trilogy. But few folks who tried to just become regular folks in the regular world. Pershing’s participation in the amnesty program, the humdrum life that he leads, and his desire to finish his work, all bring this down to a smaller, more personal scale that makes a onetime operator for the bad guys sympathetic in an intimate, down-to-earth way you don’t often get in an operatic franchise. It’s a breath of fresh air, honestly.

I love the fact that he genuinely thought he was doing some good. He had a understandable, personal reason for getting into cloning and genetic engineering. He wants to continue his work, and is willing to break the rules to do it because he seems to genuinely believe it could help the New Republic, and to him that's what matters most of all.

Well, that and a friendship that blossoms and helps make him feel seen and at home in uncomfortable circumstances. One of the things I like about “The Convert” is that it shows how Pershing is worn down by his situation. There’s something downright Office Space-esque about his rigid, cubicle-centered work life. His living quarters are bland and gray. He has freedom to go to the public event in the square, but for all the vaunted freedom of the New Republic, there’s still rules in place, particularly for those less-than-trusted former members of the Empire. When Pershing’s monotony is only broken by sycophantic aristocrats fawning over his Ted Talk, you can understand why he wants to color outside the lines.

Well that and the fact that he’s encouraged by someone who seems to get him in a way few others do. I’ll confess that I barely remember Elia Kane from prior episodes of The Mandalorian, but I like how she’s used here. She seems like a kindred spirit, one who encourages Pershing, who helps him, who gives him a case of the yellow travel biscuits he misses, and who treats him like a human being, not a curiosity. After subsisting in a world of cruelty, rank, and rigid expectation, someone who would help him to cut loose and be his own person is a trope, but a heartening one.

Which makes it seem extra cruel and unjust when Kane turns out to be working for the Amnesty enforcement group, and that her whole friendship and encouragement of Pershing turned out to be a case of entrapment. She seems to have ulterior motives -- Pershing knowing too much about Gideon’s work, perhaps. But the simple fact of Pershing trying to do good, being led into breaking the rules to do it, and punished for it by the person who talked him into it feels harsh and unfair in a palpable way.

The New Republic is supposed to be a paradise, or at least an improvement on the uncaring oppression that existed before. “The Convert” posits that it might be for some people, but that many who lived through the age of the Empire are as penned in now as they were then, that different ways of wearing people down emerge, even if they’re wrapped in a smile and a gentle reassurance rather than in open cruelty and jackboots.

Therein lies the connection between the main story of “The Convert”, featuring Dr. Pershing’s new life and his sad fall, with the bookends of Din and Bo Katan escaping from an Imperial warlord’s forces and reconnecting with the enclave of the Children of the Watch.

Because there are two converts here, each who have markedly different experiences and find themselves in very different spaces. Pershing is converted from the Empire to the New Republic. Bo Katan is converted from her ambivalence toward her people’s traditions to The Way.

Pershing finds that his supposed friend is, in fact, a turncoat who just wanted to trap him and use the Empire’s tools to wipe his mind away. Bo Katan finds that Din is an honorable man, who sticks his neck out to protect her and her home, when he didn’t have to. Pershing is stuck in an impersonal world, where he’s driven by droids, counseled by droids, policed by droids. Bo Katan finds a place where she is ultimately welcomed by her fellow men and women, with real human beings who bring her into the fold.

Most of all, Dr. Pershing comes to a place where he is theoretically welcome and a citizen, but where he’s kept at arm’s length, restricted, continually judged and nudged into being something other than what he is or wants to be. At the same time, Bo Katan walks in as a skeptic and an outsider to the Children of the Watch, but simply by having been cleansed in the same living waters and not removed her helmet, she is not only accepted and embraced by her fellow Mandalorians, but also granted the freedom to leave without questions if she so desires. There is a freedom and an acceptance that distinguishes them, despite their theoretically similar positions.

That's heady stuff, the kind of intimate worldbuilding and social comparisons that are more the provenance of Cassian Andor’s show than Din Djarin’s. Nonetheless, I’m please to see The Mandalorian take a page out of its sister series’ book, and give us a look at the corners of the Star Wars galaxy, and the kind of people and experiences, that aren’t normally in focus.

Had I known more about this series, I would have watched it much sooner as it is right up my alley - I’m loving it. As it is, I’ve come in completely cold - I didn’t even know it was sci fi: I thought it was going to be a series about hackers. Three episodes in, the big picture is fuzzy but resolving for me. Here’s my speculation, spoilerized just in case I’m right (and I think I may be):

This is a show about simulation theory. We start with Sergei successfully simulating and then predicting the nematode’s future movement (oops - he broke Rule 1 of 2, but landed an invitation to the inner sanctum). In Devs, of course, they’re doing the same thing on a much bigger scale. They are not using some quantum tv timescreen to view the actual past; they’re simulating what the past was, albeit not with perfect resolution just yet. It’s far from Sergei’s five point synchronization on the nematode, but not yet at the one qubit per particle they need for perfect clarity. If/when they resolve things better, they could theoretically view a simulation of themselves viewing themselves viewing themselves ad infinitum. It’s turtles all the way down.

But here’s the kicker, and it’s something of which they are aware, and a secret that they will kill to protect: it’s turtles all the way up, too. They are not at the end of the line - their “reality” is a simulation, too. Coming to that realization is what made Sergei so violently ill when he comprehended the code - it was a mind-blowing realization. He didn’t kill himself over it, of course. Forest had him killed for exactly the reasons he explained in his No Bullshit pre-murder conversation with Sergei in the forest. He was okay with doing so because Forest recognizes that nobody’s “real” anyway - they’re all living in a simulation.

The conversation Forest and Katie have, sitting outside by the golden pillars, makes total sense if you go back and listen with the understanding that they are talking about simulation theory. “I know, it’s really hard,” Katie says, referring to killing Sergei. “It is, but it shouldn’t be,” Forest replies. Then they talk about unraveling a lifetime of moral experience, unlearning a lifetime of what is real, acknowledging ultimately that humans are hard-wired magical thinkers.

The conversation Forest has with his security chief in this episode runs along similar lines. They talk about how he no longer cares about money, doesn’t care about the environment, smoking doesn’t matter, etc. They don’t matter because, he recognizes, none of it is real.

What makes it all deliciously meta is that, at the end of the day, this show itself is a simulation that we, its viewers, are watching on a screen. Which leaves the question: is anyone watching us watch it?

Adored this movie. Solid performances, amazing screenplay, and McDonagh’s most gorgeous looking film to date. All of the actors were fantastic in this. This has to be my favorite film of the year.

One of my favorite moments of the film was Siobhan correcting Colm about Mozart. It shows that Colm was not as smart as he appeared to be, and cracked open his wise old man facade. He was being truthful to about his reasons for tanking the friendship, but his methods for doing so are still bullshit. He is wise, but also bitter and stubborn, and that so he thinks that the key to breaking his monotony is by suffering.

Colm resents Pádraic for being content with his simple life and not being concerned with having a legacy or being remembered beyond those he cares about in life. Colm, due to his frustration with his own existence, concludes that the only reason Pádraic is so content and untroubled is because he is dull and stupid.

Ironically I think Pádraic is actually Colm's muse, after each encounter with an impassioned Pádraic Colm seems to progress with his work on his magnum opus 'The Banshees of Inisherin'.

Moral of the story, in my opinion, is that men create meaningless conflict for contrived reasons and that leads to innocents being hurt (kind of like a civil war).

"I do worry sometimes I might just be entertaining myself while staving off the inevitable."

The Banshees of Inisherin is one of the saddest breakup movies since Marriage Story. Well...in the film, they are not a romantic couple, but Padraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson) were good friends, until one day their friendship ends abruptly, just because Colm decides that despite there being no bad blood between them, he does not like him anymore. The reason is: you are dull. In some ways, friendships are like relationships; it starts with the strong bonds you form with each other until that feeling towards them is not the same, and you no longer like/love them anymore.

I mean, everything was fine yesterday.

A strange occurrence that is not explainable but does happen. I believe it starts when one person changes while the other doesn’t. In the movie, Colm is a wise and articulated older man with an artistic ambition that he never acted on and never stopped to think about getting older. Living on a small remote island off the west coast of Ireland, where everybody is freaking boring and gossiping little bitches who love to stick their noses in other people's business and drama, because there is nothing else to do on the island. The movie does a fantastic job of giving you the impression that living on this rock slowly kills you on the inside. While being a supporting character, this is the dilemma with Colm. He does the same thing every day with his ex-friend, going to the pub at two pm and talking endlessly about meaningless crap and nonsense, and who knows what else happens the rest of the day, which is not that interesting, I assume.

The end of their friendship is hard to watch because it leaves the audience with everlasting pain. Brendan Gleeson is remarkable as the desperate and often cold Colm.

Despite what film Twitter tries to tell you, Martin McDonagh has yet to make a bad movie. In the same vein as Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, whenever McDonagh makes a new movie, I am 100% there. Every movie this guy has made has been brilliant, and Banshees is no different. A dark comedy at its finest cause you know when things go so wrong to the point it gets funny. Well, Martin McDonagh's movies are like that.

The writing is superb and has plenty of dry humour. The film-making is not anything grand or flashy; some comment on how stagy it is, but I do not feel it needs to be a technical marvel. With that said, there are some beautiful shots of the landscape of Ireland.

Comparing his work in The Batman early this year and this movie proves that Colin Farrell is one of the finest working actors. His character Pádraic Súilleabháin is a dim-minded, polite man who, unlike Colm, has found peace and happiness in his daily life. Farrell brings a child-like vulnerability to the character, where everything he does or says can be funny and depressing. His character arc is incredibly heart-rending.

Pádraic sister, played by Kerry Cordon, another standout performance, and some of her line delivery has implanted itself in my head. Her character Siobhan is trying to find the ultimate purpose in her life, echoing the problems that Colm is facing, which the two get along like a house on fire.

Barry Keoghan plays Dominic, and out of all the characters in the story, he lives the worst life under his abusive father. Keoghan continues to be an excellent actor who is on a winning streak. The character of Dominic is a playful and childish man, but the tragedy of the character is that he is lost in this life and has nowhere to call home, often appearing at the most random of places during odd times.

The score from Carter Burwell immerses you in this story and contributes to the stunning visuals.

Overall rating: On paper, a simple concept of a friendship breaking up, but its approach to mental illness, kindness, art, masculinity, and our inevitable death was strikingly profound. At times, it felt like Shakespeare mixed with the Brothers Grim tale.

It is one of the best movies of 2022.

"If my best friend hides his farts from me then what else is he hiding from me, and why does that make me feel so alone?"

Honestly, I am just glad a movie like Swiss Army Man exists.

Coming from the directors of the "Turn Down for What" music video comes one of the weirdest films I have ever seen in my entire life. The film opens with Hank (Dano), attempting to hang himself on a stranded island, but instead ens up finding Manny's (Radcliffe) deceased corpse wash ashore. After this, Hank discovers Manny is not only just alive, but he has an array of unexplained supernatural abilities, including an "erection compass" (I shit you not), extreme flatulence, super human strength, and even more.

The film's premise is so bizarre, but it constantly manages to be relatable, no matter how crazy the movie continues to get. The film feels rewarding as you watch it, and not just based on a gimmick to show a bunch of dumb stuff happen on screen for 90 minutes. The film has an apparent purpose, and thats what makes it stand out; Beneath all the insanity, it has a lot of heart.

The cinematography is beautiful, and coupled with the score, there are many scenes in this movie which are absolutely serene

Its well acted, its genuinely hilarious, and it really will make you think at times - which was a pleasant surprise, to be honest. My only gripe with the film is that the third act (the last twenty minutes to be specific) drags on too long and the momentum is somewhat lost by the time the credits roll by.

All in all, Swiss Army Man is an extremely enjoyable film, and one that truly is memorable, especially in a time when we're constantly being plagued by sequels and unnecessary reboots.

Blade Runner 2049 is a true sequel to the original, through and through. It has dazzling visuals and cinematography, a true vision bleeding through, and a lived in, immaculately crafted set design. But, conversely, it also has the issue of being more brain than heart, occasionally stilted dialogue, and misused women cast members.

Like Daryl Hanah before her, Sylvia Hoeks gives it her all, but it's the material that fails her. She never quite coalesces into a complete character, lacking the one vital scene that connects all the others showing her tears or her rage, her antipathy or her empathy. She feels more like whatever the film wants or needs her to be in the moment than a fully realized being, as much as Hoeks valiantly almost pulls it all together. And Ana de Armas similarly makes the most of a neglected character. She infuses Joi with charm, heart, and an arc of her own. There is a version of this film out in another world where her want to be a real girl and whether it's even possible or if she's just a tool for man's gratification is given more attention. It could carry a movie in of itself. Instead, her character is completely in service of the male lead, from life to death, a fate that previously befell Sean Young's Rachel.

It's impossible not to notice the hollow treatment of most of the female cast. Hoeks is a inconsistent psycho with a twisted crush on the lead, while Joi is fridged for his development. And most glaringly, Sean Young's Rachel is similarly fridged for Deckard, dying off screen and cameoing as just a temptation for Deckard to refuse. The women in this film appear mostly as victims, sex workers, and/or holographic housewives. You could surely argue that the subversion of the Chosen One plot- an admittedly inspired touch- but the force of that subversion is not a real character in of herself, only appearing in two scenes. She's a plot device, again facilitating the two male lead's growth. This is not her story. Director Denis Villeneuve tried to defend this, saying "Blade Runner is not about tomorrow; it's about today. And I'm sorry, but the world is not kind on women." But is that supposed to be a shock? What purpose does it serve to be similarly unkind on women? The world is cruel to them, undoubtedly, but that does not mean they don't have their own stories, their own lives. What's the point of it if you do not condemn it, or even portray it in a new way to shock the audience, to reveal today's dehumanizing treatment of them. In 2049, it's just there, lazily presented with a shrug.

That is not to say the film is completely without its pluses- far from it. The ensemble overall is better served than in the original. Robin Wright is the exception among the female cast, playing a character who is callous and unfailingly committed to the current system, but is not inhuman. There is a loneliness that exudes from her, and there is a sort of kindness to her with how she attatches to K, offering him her version of mercy while never ceasing to believe she's in the right. Harrison Ford is much more engaged in this film. His expression in the last shot of the film may be the most honest acting I've ever seen from him. Dave Bautista owns his singular scene, perfectly setting the tone. And Gosling as K is a much more compelling protagonist than Deckard was. He adeptly portrays a man robotic on the outside and quietly human within, conveying contrasts of hope and fear or yearning and disbelief at the same time. But as Blade Runner had an underutilized ensemble lifted by one bright performance from Rutger Hauer, so does 2049 have a mostly solid cast marred by a horrific showing.

Jared Leto is just awful. He feeds into one of the Blade Runner series' biggest issues - nobody talks like this. It is no coincidence that when Rutger Hauer portrayed Roy Batty, the high point of the franchise, he rewrote the character's dying speech, dismissing the original as 'opera talk and hi-tech speech'. This has always been a potential flaw in this series, but the right actors can find the emotions in the tech, as he did. Wright sells awkwardly written lines like "The world is bought on a wall, it separates kind," with conviction. And Bautista kills it on "You newer models are happy scraping the shit, because you've never seen a miracle." He feels it in his soul, and the emotion of his delivery, certain and grunted through intense pain from both the moment and a long life, reverberates through the entire films. Where they enliven their lines, Leto exposes it.

His jilted, shallow movements, his approximation of how blind people act, relayed to him by his usual overwrought method acting. He put in opaque contact lenses and calls it a day. Every word is spoken with a breathy, empty air. Leto does not feel his lines, he thinks them. He thinks he's delivering a master performance in a Blade Runner movie, he knows he's in one. He thinks he belongs in one, and so he does not. He reveals the insipidness of lines like "There were bad angels once, but I make good angels now," and "Pain reminds you the joy you felt was real," lines that are more thesis statements than actual human beliefs. And his utter lack of conviction in "We should own the stars" is criminal, mustering not enough energy on the last word to sell his character's certainty but just enough for you to notice he tried and failed. These lines are all head, and it is the actors' jobs to find the heart. Leto failed. He lays bare the passionless script.

But this is not the only case of the head failing. A big backbone of the film is Deckard's and Rachel' romance from the first film. The horribly rushed, utterly sterile romance that culminated in a sex scene that's borderline assault at worst and pushy at best. Leto states, in his lifeless way, that the connection they felt was instant? How? Every scene they had was lifeless. This is a case where seeing the original film actually hampers this one- I might be more able to buy into Ford's grief over his love if I hadn't seen how awkward that 'love' was.

This results in a film that, for all of its (mostly) talented cast, its daring visuals, and swooning, unique soundtrack... I like less than the original. 2049 makes me think, but it does not make me feel. It may. perhaps, be more even on the whole than the original. But with Leto, it hits a deeper low. The emptiness of its women is even less excusable in 2017 and today than Blade Runner's was in 1982. And it never hits as big a high as Hauer as Roy, who elevated that film and delivered its themes directly to your heart. I can examine 2049's themes, I can piece apart its cinematography, I can be awed by the lighting and setting. But I cannot connect with it. The crystallizing moment for this, I think, were the flashbacks to events we seen earlier in the film. A flashback after your big twist, showing the little hints that set it up? Acceptable. A flashback to explain your lead's decision to make his big heroic choice? It's lazy. if you need to tell us, through replaying past lines of the film, why your main character is making his climatic choice, you've failed. Either you think you haven't set it up enough for it to work without, or you think you're so smart and adept that you want to make sure the audience sees your genius, sees how perfectly you set this all up, and either one is damning. That's the feeling 2049 left me with. It wants you to look and awe at and think about it so hard it forgets to make you affected by it.

For Hauer's performance, I'd gladly rewatch the original- it leaves an impression that never fades. I feel no compulsion to watch this one again. I'm sure 2049 tells Blade Runner fans exactly what they want to hear. But it's just as simulated as Joi, and just as lacking in true emotion.

I liked most of the movie's tone. Spectacular and beautiful in the empire sprawling dystopia that is / was Blade Runner. Visually stunning, and the 4 hours of the runtime is almost devoted to these superlative, panoramic moments...

Oh, it's just 2h 45m?

The plot is very much attractive and attemptive.

After a few hours of depth, it was okay. 7/10.
If I was charitable.

Its not a good sequel. It's also not blade runner. It is trying very hard to make itself blade runner. It fits together. But, it is going in too different a direction and making different choices.

In ways that should never be attempted, it has rebooted blade runner.

The same problem exists with Ghost in the shell, Ghostbusters, The Force Awakens, etc. The pageantry and spectacular effects are the most important focus, and it destroys the native or originality of the first movie. It's akin to being the archetype of a new trope.

There's a few reboots that improve, but it's a disappointment more profound than a terrible sequel to realizing that a sequel has nothing to do with the first movie. Aliens to Alien, the movie is startlingly different and plays with the same world. Blade Runner 2049 is a different world to the original.

This isn't Fan4stic. It's just... Not a sequel. Too much has changed to be the same world as the original movie.

There are deliberate problems. First world problems, to be sure, and the story is convoluted for effect.

I can't especially pin down why it fails to be a good movie rather than a great one. It has all of the pieces, or some of the pieces of a great, re-watchable, fun and masterful film.

The briefest way to sum up my disappointment is that I don't care about the characters.

The only compelling thing is perhaps Joi the holographic fake girlfriend. And while I think that this is awesome, it is not. I probably should be concerned for the hero, or Deckard. Or anything, anyone else. Nope.

Joi is the least of the significant absurdity. The reality of Joi is something profoundly idiotic. Ie. That the best acting, most emotional and smartest person is the least powerful, and the least human. This is a problem.

If the scenery was a character, it would be the protagonist of the movie. This has actually been attempted with success elsewhere, koyannaquatsi, sic.

Maybe it's just my imagination, or opinion, or A quirk of the length of the movie perhaps. Or just a funny aspect of the direction and production, could the story be told without words? Just scenes and edits.?

Probably.

Other times, it challenges you, especially the preference to rattle the room with ambient bass and ear piercing volume for the emotional experience of the scenery. Does a dead forest require a 97db foghorn-like pulse racing ambience?

It doesn't not work. Audio is pushy rather than subtle. Loud, rather than contrast or matching the power of the visual effects/ landscape.

It's not great. It's not bad. The parts it does badly are choices made. And there's thousands of odd idiosyncrasies. It's a very long movie.

It's just on the cusp of going past the suspension of disbelief. More inconsistencies than plausible or tolerant. As a result of this, you end up pulling the threads with boredom or curiosity. A movie under 100 minutes, you can Suspend Disbelief. At the 150+ minutes mark, the fantasy erodes and it needs to work much harder for coherence.

In an Era where TV can deliver a story with movie quality over 10 to 20 hours, film has to change or choose. Perhaps, choices that were made for the film by someone who doesn't enjoy movies.

Thousands of hours of thought went into this movie, and it bleeds through. When I try to put a finger on the concepts, art, choices and script for a single vision, or a single flaw that underpins the way I don't like it enough to really enjoy this or feel favorable towards it...

Nothing about the movie is inherently bad. You can overtly go into depth into scenes and pull out the hidden details for hours, context and framing etc.

The challenge will be in 5 or 10+ years, to see if someone can make this concept work properly into a better movie, TV series or universe. It is an awesome film to break into pieces, much like Gladiator or Guardians of the Galaxy, to calibrate what makes a movie great and fun.

With some editing, it could be salvaged into a better noir film. More has to go wrong, and the movie would need more characters, etc.

Theres like an hour of filler in the storyline to accomplish... Nothing. The characters chase a red herring, and it takes time. The payoff is that the quest... Is nihilistic. Okay. Awesome.

Perhaps, it comes down to the storyline being rushed, or the twist (cough) being quite a bit mishandled.

The appeal to discourse is vain. Watercooler discussion works if you make good choices and people want more. You don't get this by overlaying and obscuring the plot with a red herring and forget about the wider implications of adding a layer of intrigue that casts infinite doubt into the story.

The elements that gave the twist for Deckard being a Replicant in the original were subtle. It pushed the choice on the viewer to infer more than the movie informed or showed to people. Hence the confusion about cuts and endings, the unicorn, etc.

Now, In its most concise, the replicants are the movie. This is the first problem, of many.

Blade runner focused on the humanity of the characters, their failures and doubts versus the reckless and charismatic replicants, better in every aspect once they could be allowed to be.

This is airbrushed in the sequel.

The other is the artistry and decadence of the settings and locations. Awesome, but amateurish as well.

Amateur in that people don't live in the places created, and never did. There's a lot of brilliant and creative ideas on display, and a botched integration with the world. Things are weathered, in sterile rooms. Lighting is moody, in a clean street, with/without vehicles in the roads. A brothel is next door to a food court with a giant touch screen locker system, which seems like it should be a keyed location. It feels unlike a real location because of the fake and the overt push of the crowds.

And you have tumbled modernist art deco statues in a washed out Las Vegas, but holographic jukeboxes and intact highrises. The reason it looks fake is, people have to make places. Choices. Fund and buy resources. The reason why you don't have an office building with irrigation and water pools is someone has to clean it. Maintain it. And be irritated by it. The Wallace replicants are entirely doll manifestations that also deliver the plot and momentum of the film. This is... Stupid. Not clever. The noir elements don't merge well, the luck needed to process the plot is supra deus ex machinae, there's... Time spent on the silliest of things that do not change the plot in the 4 middle parts. We have 4 middle parts of filler to drive a plot that is being steered.

The directing / storyline choices made are... Curious. Dumb. Gaudy. Pretentious. Self important. Disconnected. Hyped. Overt. Mismanaged. Otherwise, fine. It's not a problem, despite the insanity required to implement. The visual and story choices are styled to make people feel and understand.

You can think of these settings, but it becomes fake and austentatious once built. This overt motif becomes a character in the movie, it does not ever blend in with the background. Hence, amateur.

In some ways, they did the same damage as Ghost in the Shell (2017) attempting modernized Holographic Cityscapes. It is so much more gorgeous, and so much more hollow.

The more significant problem exists with Ghost. The characters were trampled by the budget and the plot inserts. Arguably, the same problem exists with The Force Awakens, that the characters feel forced into the greenscreen and wire work action scenes from unnatural dialogue. Ford Ambles in this movie. A lot. He has his moments, but the insanity of using a cartoon Evil villain in a "billion dollar" movie is incredibly lazy.

Harrison Ford against a non blind, non insane Jared Leto would have connected people to the charismatic and driven ideologue. Nope.

The movie wants to forget subtle and forges a deliberate "fish bowl" motif to the antagonist, a "Desperate" ambitious CEO with a lust for dominance via a replicating replicant workforce. This is the lowest possible point in the movie, because of the way it is presented as... Iconoclast and preachy desperation.

I don't know if I'd give the movie a 9 without Jared Leto, but it seems possible.

I just don't even really care, that's the problem. Every other character, is fine.

Started off good enough enough. I thought this movie could pull off a decent sequel. After an hour the mystery of the child becaming painfully obvious. From then it became a typical hollywood drag of a dog (let's call him Pinocchio Runner) chasing his tail. As I'm waiting for the obvious to happen I remember that the bad guys did some cringey plot revealing monologues in the style of Sunset Beach, but looking like something from a superhero movie (adhere to the demographic?) It was looking bleak and felt dumbed down and boring.
It's fair to compare this to the look of the original as it's setting is simular and it really was a part of Blade Runner. This is less cyber punk and way brighter. It does still have its moments of beauty. Many. The pacing is simular, but the slow pacing of the original was held together with a plot that deveoped and a thick murky atmosphere, which are missing here.
The relationship between Joi and our main guy the serial number was too repetitive and obvious. I liked it at first glance. It looked great on screen. My issue was that the idea and thought provoking behind the relationship was done after a few scenes and the rest, of which there was a lot, felt like filler. The relationship was too linear and uninteresting to demand so much time and in the end it didnt make me feel much for the characters.
Before long there was no new ideas or interesting development in the story. When Gosling finally meets Ford it got worse - not better. The scene in which they meet was boring and silly. I start zoning out. Then... a rescue mission to conveniently take us to the end. Bye now I was completely bored and didn't care about the movie.
This movie didn't need to be made. It didnt feel like the writers wanted to write it. It felt like a cash in. Another cash in.
So it lacks all the main qualities of the original, doesnt stand alone as a good movie, and becomes increasingly boring as it progresses. Least we know Sylvia Hoeks can produce a single tear to roll down a cheek for the camera.

Same with Arrival and Sicario, I didn't like this movie as much as other people. Villeneuve is a visually interesting director. The same goes for Christopher Nolan. But both have, in my opinion, the problem with emotions and characters in their movies. In Arrival we had some really bad cliché scientists, Sicario didn't have any interesting characters at all (same old "this is an evil guy, this is a good guy"-type stuff); the worst characters award goes to Inception (no Nolan discussion beyond this, I promise).

When I look at this Blade Runner version, we have the same problem as in Sicario. We have a solid bad character as in Luv (if we count in Mr. Wallace we have two, but was he even a character we cared about? In the end he didn't have much to do anyway, maybe he was in the movie just to implement the new moral system/ideology after Tyrell) and of course the good characters as in K and Deckard. When I look at the original Blade Runner, the sides of good & evil aren't nearly as distinguished as in this movie. Sure, you can say the replicants that want a longer life that threatened other people were the "bad" boys, but here they had their reasons. And in the end of the original one, even the bad ones turned human (or atleast did something we'd call humanistic). This was atleast visionary and why I like the original so much. In the new one? Just a solid, not changing bad character, whose only reason to be bad seems her loyalty to Mr. Wallace and his ideology. This is way behind the moral integrity of the original Blade Runner and mostly just another boring good vs. evil plot without any scope for moral integrity, for humans and replicants alike.

As for replicants and their moral scope, Officer K. didn't seem to even have one at all. Questioning his lifestyle or his side of ideology didn't seem to bother him at all. His character was just too focused on his "who are my parents, are my memories real or not?", so there was no room for him to really change or develop with everything that's happening as the movie continues. In the end, he's just as wise as he was in the beginning without getting somewhere. This is tragic and kinda the point, but did I feel any emotions for him? Not at all, because he wasn't an ambigiuous character to start with. It seems to me that part of the problem and why this movie was made how it is, is that Villeneuve planned from the beginning to do more Blade Runner movies and just touch some themes. So Officer K can just play the role of getting Deckard to the point he his now and in the next movie we could see ideologies crumble (or another boring good guy (Deckard) vs. bad guy (Mr. Wallace)-type story, yawn).

For me, this movie felt like a placeholder for something that could be way deeper and more focused on the philosophical, ethical or moral side of replicants story (which the original movie was). Maybe it was for the sake of more sequels to come (which would be the worst reason in my opinion, the remake and sequel trend in the last few years is just awful for cinema as a unique art form) or also to make it more accessible to more viewers (even with its slow pace, I think Blade Runner 2049 is way more accessible than the original one) Imagine the incredibly long scene with the creepy dolls or the unicorn scene from the original for your "generic" cinema viewer today. I don't think any major movie studio would approve such scenes. Which hurts cinema as an art in the end the most.

TL;DR: The original Blade Runner was a complex movie, Blade Runner 2049 is just overly complicated without getting anywhere (for me).

Let me start this off by saying that this sequel did not feel outside of what we remember.
Blade Runner 2049 maintains the mood and feel of its predecessor. The visuals, the sound... the dystopian future, it's all there.

| FIRST THOUGHT |

I love writing reviews, it comes somewhat naturally to me after watching something that I learn to feel passionate about.
This movie taught me to be passionate.

But... it's really hard for me to express judgment. And I'm going to explain why:

Actually, it's very simple. This was a 3 hours movie. Of these 3 hours, 2 were simply... air. Now, don't get me wrong, that isn't always negative, like in this case. It was refreshing air, but still... it doesn't (at first glance) hold anything on the plot.

Because of this, the viewer (me at least), is left with a lot of questions, the picture doesn't explain itself. Also; as a side note - you most definitely need to watch the first one. The great majority of the runtime is inexplicably useless.

The longer it goes, the longer it begins to add new stuff, and then some, then it seems somehow related to what's actually going on, but right after it deviates the actual story on an ideal from the characters involved, that at a certain point, evaporates. I'm really conflicted about this because it looks to me like the screenwriters and director wanted to leave all of this to theory and the fans.

Why is this confusing? Because it's a very strange mixture of linear narrative and non-linear narrative. One is focussed on one objective, the other starts a bunch of other objectives and then it simply dies. No explanation was given, no closure was given.

And this is aggravated by the fact that it's a 3 hours movie, of which 1 hour of the actual story is spread and mixed amongst 2 hours of absolutely nothing. VISUALLY IMPRESSIVE NOTHING. A VERY INTERESTING BUNCH OF LITERAL VOID.

This is actually the only thing I did not like about the movie. Which, again, if you are like me and enjoy movies that aren't patently explaining themselves, it's not a bad thing. I just feel like it could've been much more interesting if they explained somehow what happened to all the side characters, or just cut them out.

|STORY & ACTORS |

Aside from what I've mentioned before, the more "linear" part of the story is actually not that bad. It's nothing impressive. A part of what I said earlier connects to the fact that this movie constantly keeps juggling between what is real and what is not. Be it by robots, or actual reality that the characters are living. So it came out pretty obvious that the movie would have a twist at some point, somewhere. I will admit that I did not get it until the very end, so, don't be discouraged.

Ryan Gosling was great, also because he as an actor was perfect for his role. Being so that he has this way of being and looking conflicted, and so it portrayed really well on the protagonist.

Harrison Ford had less value to this movie than he did in the last Star Wars.

Jared Leto's character is a mystery to me, but he did a phenomenal job talking random shit.

All of the other actors, Jared Leto included, were there to push the story forward (or to add random bullshit) and that's it. They did a fantastic job, but unfortunately, as mentioned above, at first glance it looks like they don't mean shit.

| CINEMATOGRAPHY |

The movie is visually pleasing, it's bliss for people with OCD. It's perfectly round and at the same time perfectly square. It keeps smooth lines combining great color combinations in the palette, and utilizing great solid colors at the same time.

As I said before it holds perfectly a spot near its predecessor, the mood and feel are almost identical. (Having watched the first one only an hour before going to the theater to watch this one)

I have to say, this one looks A LOT, like A FUCKING GIGAZILLION LOT more gruesome and splatter than the first one. The fighting scenes are brutal, they do not go into dramatic effects, they just are what they should be. A punch in the face, exploding heads and blood.

There is no doubt that this movie looks fucking amazing.

It sounds amazing as well. It has a collection of deep, pure sounds. There is not a lot of music, but when there is it's powerful and present and it makes you wake up and amaze. Same goes for the special audio effects: I have watched it in ATMOS and I have to admit, they did not utilize it at all, except for one scene later in the movie, but the way it goes from absolute silence to seat trembling sensations it's really amazing. The sounds were so powerful I could literally see the movie screen shake and the subwoofer hit made the whole room shake.

I would also like to add that in the Italian version, you can clearly see that they used "incorrect" words grammatically, they used a lot of anglicisms, I guess they've done that to express how language is evolving? It's actually current of our generation, I see a lot of people adapting English words in Italian, so I was very impressed by that.

| FINAL THOUGHT |
I feel like everyone needs to understand, before watching this movie, that you need a time, a mood and a place perfectly fit to sit for a 3 hours movie that it's going to feel like a 6-hour long journey into colors, shapes, and absolute "living" silence.

This is NOT a Marvel movie, there is action, well-done action, but it's not about action. You need to sit, relax and don't think about time, because, trust me, it's going to fuck you.

Please like my comment if you enjoyed my review, it makes me really happy.

Note that all of this is driven by my personal opinion. If you think I wasn't objective in some of the parts of what I've written, you're welcome to make me notice where.

On Twitter, I review the entire world -> @WiseMMO

[7.5/10] Poor Eleven. She’s easily the strongest character this season, and the one most worth investing in, and season 4 puts her through a parade of horribles. I’m not complaining exactly. Seeing characters suffer makes their ultimate triumphs more meaningful, but it’s hard to watch at places.

Mike is...not as his best here. I want to be sympathetic to the kid. What he experienced with Eleven would be upsetting, especially if you’ve been away from someone for a while. But we, the audience, see what she’s been going through, so it’s hard to see her receive something less than total support than one of the people she cares most about.

At the same time though, the “You won’t say you love me!” bit between the two of them is a little much. I get that they need some place to go with this relationship, but it’s not crazy for fifteen-year-olds not to say the L-word. That said, it’s also totally normal for fifteen-year-olds to flip out about who is or isn’t saying the L-word, so it’s a fair storyline. More than anything, it’s another sign that Eleven is at her lowest point, feeling like the world, including her boyfriend, sees her as a monster.

Mike starts to redeem himself a little, reassuring Eleven, promising her he’ll make things right when she gets arrested, and chasing after her when she gets hauled away to juvie. But he also contributes to her complex. When she feels like a monster, he declares her a superhero. She responds “not anymore”. She feels less-than having lost her powers, and it makes her more likely to go through whatever procedures Sam Owens has come up with to restore them, since she’s under the misimpression that it’s where her value comes from.

It’s sad to see a good kid in a tough situation treated harshly and eventually railroaded by the police. Again, the audience knows what Eleven’s been through, which makes it extra difficult to watch them arrest a fifteen-year-old and treat her like a wanton criminal. There’s some not so subtle subtext to the treatment she receives, and it makes you feel extra.

At the same time, there’s great relief when Sam Owens shows up to de facto rescue her from the ordeal. Paul Reiser is so good here. He strikes the tone of convivial warmth, with a side dish of potentially shady government guy. He has instant credibility as an ally, and he’s the right mouthpiece to puff up the threat of Vecna and the importance to getting Eleven back to full strength to be able to fight it and help save the world again. It’s a little too convenient that he has a method to bring her powers back, but you’re glad he finds Eleven if the end, even if it means she has to leave her friends behind for now, and risk leaving them behind forever.

Nothing else in the episode is quite to that level, but there’s more subplots worth a damn here than in the last episode. Jason the basketball star is still a walking cartoon character, but I like Lucas’ dilemma. He wants to be part of the cool kids, and do what it takes to fit in, but also to protect his friends. That means walking an awkward line, trying to warn his friends in advance, and play both sides when he’s not entirely sure where his loyalties lie. The shtick with Jason and company roughing people up is meh, but Lucas’ discomfort with his new running buddies, mixed with the urgency of what’s going on, is a good note for him.

I’m less up on the junior detective routine this week. There’s definitely a raising of the stakes with the signs that Vecna is after Max, with the same clock imagery. And I appreciate that we get some more details or at least hints about what’s going on. Victor Kreel isn’t the killer himself, but rather one of its victims. Vecna is apparently feeding on people who’ve experienced some kind of guilt or trauma. And there’s a particular resonance to Kreel’s house, which he thought was haunted, and has some kind of duplicate in the Upside Down. I’m better the house was knocked down and the trailer park built in its place.

But the ways we get these details is less than inspired. Max plying her school counselor for information is fine, but not particularly exciting. Robin continues to be a fun character, talking about her lack of filter and having the smarts to check the Weekly World News equivalent for historical info about Kreel. But she gets saddled with Nancy who’s continued her transformation into a dull, proto-Rory Gilmore type.

Plus, god help me, I really hope that all of this Nancy/Jonathan drama, followed by Steve still hunting fruitlessly for The One, does not turn into a Steve/Nancy reunion. Their shtick was some of the worst parts of the first season, and Steve is much better playing off the other characters than off Nancy. To the point, his and Dustin’s conversation about this whole entanglement is fantastic, is better than any further love triangle B.S.

Speaking of B.S., the Hopper, Joyce, and Murray portion of the show continues to feel like we’re marching in place. I’ll give their subplot this much -- the scene where Hopper pulls his shackles off his broken foot is legitimately wince inducing, and shows what Hop is suffering to make this work. We also learn the Russian guard’s motivation for colluding with him -- he just wants the cash. It’s not very exciting or interesting, but it is at least plausible.

All we get from Joyce and Murray is some tepid airplane humor. Though Murray’s lame excuses for why he happens to be in California and making risotto for the Byers family are a solid laugh. And his reactions to the back-and-forth at the dinner table are a highlight.

Otherwise, I’m still a little underwhelmed by Vecna, if only because the CGI and design work on him comes off a bit less-than-convincing. And the opposing military guy who’s convinced that Eleven is causing the deaths in Hawkins rather than their best chance to stop them comes off as fairly generic in the scenes where he’s hassling Dr. Owens.

Overall, the Eleven material continues to carry the season, and is good enough to boost this episode, but the other material doesn’t rise much above “pretty good” territory.

I’ve long said that Lost in Translation is the key film of my adult life. It spoke to me at 21, and it speaks to me now, in a way that few other works of art have been able to do. To me, the film is a meditation on existential loneliness, on feeling spiritually adrift in a world that is confusing, hostile, and unloving. Sofia Coppola’s Tokyo is an alien land of garish neon filmed with a lens that heightens the sense of insomnia and displacement the characters face. Each character is lost–Bob is aging, doing foreign whiskey commercials and in the twilight phase of his marriage. Charlotte is newly married and already regretting it, with a degree in philosophy and no immediate prospects. I find this depiction of alienation to be immensely moving for a number of personal reasons.

But what I love about this movie is what it has to say about the redemptive capacity of human connection. Nothing base, or lurid–there’s no sex here, and only the faintest hint of any romantic feelings. No, the human connection here is more deeply felt–it’s a connection between two souls in pain. Souls that maybe can’t articulate what is missing in their lives until they find a complement that immediately casts the rest of the world into sharp relief. The world may be an ugly place, full of vapid Hollywood actors, carpet swatches, and Pachinko parlors–but when two people meet and fill a void in each other’s life.. To me, that makes life worth living. And so do films like this. I love, love, love this movie.

[7.0/10] I love the texture of Paul Thomas Anderson’s movies. There are few filmmakers working today who are better at evoking a particular time or place with all the light and color of the cinema. As in the seminal Boogie Nights, Anderson again conjures an image of Southern California in the 1970s that is simultaneously nigh-magical and viscerally real at the same time. To dip into one of his cinematic worlds is a treat in and of itself.

But I don’t really like Gary Valentine. I don’t really like Alanna Kane. And while there’s something to be said for Anderson putting together a slice-of-life collage of a peculiar childhood, I don’t need to see those vignettes hung onto the spine of a dysfunctional romance between an adult and a high schooler. Licorice Pizza is nice to dip into for the craft on display in almost every moment. But it doesn’t just feel shaggy. In places, it feels pointless, and sometimes even unpleasant.

Mainly that comes down to the two main characters and the fact that Anderson and company anchor the movie around a romance I don’t really want to see blossom. I can set aside the age difference for the purposes of cinematic storytelling. Gary and Alana look and act similar in age, so while intellectually there’s a discomfort in the distance of years between them, the look and level of maturity between them seems to put them on the same level psychologically for a work of fiction.

But there’s not much to latch onto in their relationship. Gary Valentine is an operator, a schmoozer, who lures Alana more than he ever seeks an honest emotional connection with her. That’s fine! He’s fifteen! People thrice his age struggle to make honest emotional connections with people. It’s just hard to invest in a relationship founded on that, especially when Valentine calls to mind the practiced preciousness of indie movie teens like Max Fischer in Rushmore without ever having the sort of humbling and turn toward the true and earnest that Max does.

For her part, Alana is a combative jerk, ready to respond with any show of affection or interest with a proclamation of “Idiot!” or some other insult, occasionally accompanied but mild but menacing physical violence. There’s parts of her personality which are endearing -- her sense of being the black sheep and wanting to get out which put a chip on her shoulder -- but her combination of nigh-teasing friendliness paired with frequent, jarring acerbic turns makes her a hard one to warm to.

That’s life though. If there’s a defense for Licorice Pizza in that regard, it’s that as one character says toward the end of the film, “They’re all shits.” It seems meant to remind Alana that she’s met a lot of assholes over the course of the film, but for all his immaturity, Gary’s the only one who’s actually shown care and kindness to her. But it fits as something broader, where all the general jerkery that goes on between Alana and Gary can be chalked up to real people having dysfunctional friendships that are messier than those we normally see on the silver screen.

There’s two problems with that though. The first is that much of the time Licorice Pizza plays like a fantasy, or certainly a very heightened reality. Supposedly the screenplay is based on actual life events of one of Anderson’s friends as a kid. Suffice it to say, the experiences of being a child star flown out to New York for press junkets, opening a waterbed store and pinball palace, running into Hollywood bigwigs who leap flaming pits on motorcycles or threaten bystanders over gas shortages, and helping to manage a mayoral campaign seem downright fantastical, and certainly unrelatable, to those of us apparently unlucky enough not to have grown up in Encino in the 1970s.

The upshot is that there’s a disharmony between the seemingly exaggerated world that Gary and Alana occupy and the “warts and all” friendship the film wants to dramatize between them. It’s hard to take the messiness as real when it’s juxtaposed with a hodgepodge of over-the-top adventures that seem to have little tether to reality or clear cause and effect between them.

The second is that Alana and Gary suck to each other. Okay. They’re young. They’re impulsive. They’re still both works in progress. But their entire M.O. throughout the film is for one to be aloof to the other until the other one makes them jealous, which starts the cycle anew. Even if you can get past the age difference, it never feels like a healthy relationship, or one that could blossom into that, just two kids taunting and poking at each other until they decide the rest of the world they’ve been chasing sucks even more.

The key is supposed to be that when the chips are down, they look out for each other. Gary’s mistakenly arrested for murder (another bizarre interlude in the conveyor belt of disconnected episodes here), and Alana races to the station on foot to help him. Alana falls off the back of a motorcycle during a stunt, and while everyone’s eyes are on the actor who makes the jump, Gary rushes to look after her. Running is a recurring visual motif here, brought back at the end of the picture, when the two young people run in search of one another and exalt when they both finally admit their affections.

These scenes are meant to show that despite the outward prickliness and schmoozing, deep down the two truly care for one another. But it’s not enough to make up for the other ninety percent of the movie where either they play cruel games for one another or, at best, don’t seem like a healthy fit.

That wouldn’t be such a big problem if it weren’t the skeleton the rest of the movie is built around. Take away the romance, and all you have is a bunch of random vignettes that work better as individual snippets rather than part of a larger narrative. Licorice Pizza is a patchwork quilt of these standalone portraits, vaguely united by the common characters involved, but mostly an excuse to stitch together a random assortment of stories from someone’s SoCal youth without any real connective tissue or sense of build or unity between them.

And yet, I’d take many, if not most of them on their own. Anderson knows how to construct a scene, even if the broader compendium of them comes off a little wonky and misshapen. Harriet Sansom Harris nearly steals the show as an eccentric but memorable child talent agent in a one-scene wonder. Tom Waits is as garbled-yet-effervescent as ever as an old director who spurs his actor buddy to perform an impromptu stunt. And Joseph Cross offers the most touching interlude in the film, as the boyfriend of a mayoral candidate torn up over how the clash between political aspirations and their homoseuxality leaves him always having to put his needs to the side. Some of the episodes in the film go a little too over the top, but there’s something there, something worth keeping, in almost all of them.

Occasionally, that comes down to the pure craft of the moment. Anderson and co-cinematographer Michael Bauman are wizards with light. Whether it’s evoking a smoke-filled bar in low light while an old actor tells his tales, brightening the cacophony of colors of 1970s fashion and decor, or lighting Alana in silhouette from a distance, the two of them and their team evoke moods and simply present striking images which take full advantage of the medium.

At the same time, Anderson pulls off still more of his famously well-choreographed longer takes. There’s a regular sense of motion in this film, with extended shots that follow the characters as they walk down one throughway for another, capturing the energy of movement and even chaos as it stalks them around the streets of these Los Angeles neighborhoods. You may not always love the people pounding the pavement, but you will almost always feel like you’re there.

Maybe that's enough. Perhaps without the nostalgia for this time and place, it’s harder to connect with people like Gary and Alana. It’s tough to wonder why Anderosn didn’t just release a series of shorts about a grab bag of experiences in the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s, rather than smushing them all together when they don’t fit. It’s more difficult to see why we should root for a romance between two people who don’t seem to know how to be kind to one another, even if they do like each other.

But Licorice Pizza does bring you into their world, the peculiar ecosystem of eccentric Hollywood stars, child entrepreneurs, and luminous dreams that painted block after block and row after row. Wherever Anderson goes, he takes you with him, and that’s worth something, even if you’re not enamored with the fellow passengers he’s selected for the ride.

[7.3/10] One of the things I like about kids movies these days is that they tend to be pretty clear about what the characters want and how that drives the story. I’m sure there’s some selection bias there, with plenty of kid-focused dreck that doesn't make it onto my radar. But one of the benefits of aiming at the kid audience is that films almost have to be clearer about motivation and its connection to story or you risk losing attention and understanding. Sometimes, that leads to overly telegraphed plot points or predictable story arcs, but in others, it adds a sense of clarity and character to children’s entertainment that wide swaths of adult-focused films lack.

Ralph Breaks the Internet is the (nigh-literal) poster child for that idea. In a series of enjoyable opening clips, the film establishes that candy-coated racer Vanellope is tired of the predictability of life in the arcade, and is thirsting for the new, different, and unknown. Ralph, on the other hand, things the steady life of work, root beer, and especially hanging out with his best friend is paradise, is everything he could ever want. So when Vanellope yearns for something more, he’s helpful and supportive, but doesn't really get it and wonders why his friendship isn’t enough to sate her.

Naturally, things go haywire from there. Some track-based improvisation leads to a broken gaming wheel in the real world, sending Ralph and Vanellope into the internet in an effort to find a replacement. They meet new characters and face new challenges and explore the ever-expanding, bustling realm of the world wide web. But every choice the movie, and more importantly the characters, make is driven by their friendship, and those two conflicting impulses and concerns that Ralph Breaks the Internet sets up in its first ten minutes.

What’s interesting is that despite being set there, and theoretically expanding the reach of this franchise, the film isn’t really about the internet. Sure, there’s plenty of glancing observations about silly things going viral or the toxicity of comment sections. But for the most part, the web is just an energetic backdrop for a story about two friends who care deeply about one another but need different things in order to feel fulfilled. The tale Ralph Breaks the Internet tells fits that within its cyberspace setting, but the Internet is merely the object of Vanellope’s impulse to experience a wider, woolier world, and Ralph’s reluctance in the shadow of its dizzying diversity, rather than the true subject of the film.

That’s not to say that Ralph Breaks the Internet fails to make the most of that setting. While fans of Tron or even the inevitably revived ReBoot are familiar with the inner workings of cyberspace being depicted as some sort of bustling city, this movie kicks that idea up a notch. The web as a sprawling metropolis, with website skyscrapers and user milling around as little avatars, is a fun, high energy backdrop for all the misadventures of our heroes. Spammers and pop-ups are treated like carnival barkers, sites themselves are fun houses or factories, and viruses and the “dark web” are the seedy underbelly of the bustling burg. The tropes are familiar, but the execution is a visual feast, creatively done.

Thankfully, the gratuitous corporate synergy comes in small, concentrated doses rather than overwhelming the story and setup this film is trying to impart. There’s cameos from Marvel and Star Wars characters and conspicuous House of Mouse-style mash-ups of different worlds and properties. And yes, as the trailer promised, there is an all-star team-up of Disney princesses, who chat with Vanellope and lend a bit of aid when the moment calls for it, with a new ode from Alan Menken to boot. There’s meta gags galore and a few winks at the standard princess tropes, but it’s all punchy and funny enough that it’s always pleasing and rarely veers to the level of indulgence.

The problems with the movie instead lie in how it rushes and sitcom-ifies the conflict between Vanellope and Ralph. There’s legitimate tension to be had in how Vanellope is drawn to Shank, the leader of a hardscrabble racing squad in a Grand Theft Auto-meets-Twisted Metal game called “Slaughter Race” that’s captured Vanellope’s imagination, and how insecure Ralph feels over that. But Ralph Breaks the Internet dramatizes that with a cliché “one character speaks frankly without knowing that another character is listening in” setup, and underlines in with a device that literally reproduces Ralph’s “insecurity” in destructive fashion.

At the same time, the movie bends over backwards to prevent either party from seeing the bad guy. That’s not a bad tack in principle. Both Ralph and Vanellope are genuinely well-meaning but are capable of hurting each other due to their divergent wants from life. But the movie needs conflict and action, and so retreats from having Ralph doing anything genuinely bad or ill-intentioned, instead incessantly underscoring the fact that he doesn't mean any harm when his actions come close to doing real harm to his best friend. That takes the juice out of the confrontation between confidantes the film wants to draw out, and weakens the overall conflict.

The inevitable third act action sequence exists in an odd space between inventive and rote. The final challenge involves an Oogie-Boogie esque threat who’s creatively animated in every frame, but who’s too blunt as a personification of Ralph’s worries and whose defeat drifts into hand-holding as to the message of the film and a solid snootful of fan service to boot. The film thrives and delights when it features Ralph and Vanellope capering through cyberspace, but falter when it has to bring the burgeoning friction between them to a head.

Still, the film’s message is a laudable one, which settles on accepting that the people you care about can want other things in life to make them feel fulfilled, without diminishing the closeness of your friendship. At times, its efforts to convey that message verge on the contrived or the overblown. But at its core, Ralph Breaks the Internet commits to the idea of what its two main characters want, and amid the wonder and pitfalls of the world wide web, plays that idea out in a way that vindicates who they are and what drives them. The film boasts fun online observations and vaguely self-satisfied but self-effacing Disney jibes, while ultimately coming down on the side of a character-focused story.

It can’t top Ralph and Vanellope’s first outing, and stumbles a bit as those character clashes are forced to turn into the mandatory uptempo thrillride all tentpole movies have to have these days, but Ralph Breaks the Internet whose who they are and what they want, comedicaly and dramatically, which keeps the movie enjoyable and on track, even amid the online flurry the film steeps itself in.

An out of the box character driven movie with amazing performances all over. The movie is carried by the philosophical debate about (the hypocrisy of) how society is raising and viewing kids, so for the ones not interested in some deeper themes this movie will fall flat or could even be misunderstood. It is not so much a critique on society as it is thought provoking, and you might end up somewhere in the middle of the two positions of the argument. You could argue both against and in favour of the main character (played by the always amazing Viggo Mortensen) where every character in this movie has been written and portrayed as realistic as they can be.
At its core the movie is about parenting, education and the way society places itself superior to the outcast, and how the outcast always has to fight these conformist systems. Since (western) education and way of life has almost become a religion in itself, it isn't easy to live in (or raise your kids in) when you disagree. Something this movie illustrates the best in its more extreme moments.

Its runtime is a bit longer than you'd think necessary, however the slow pacing of the movie makes room for the rather big cast to breathe a little and not hastily skip over the decision points or thought process of the characters. It rotates intense emotional moments with moments of light heartedness and world building. This makes time for actually taking the audience along with the thoughts of the people that have the most development.

Oh and the cinematography is surprisingly well done too. I found myself both laughing and almost tearing up in 1 single shot. The emotions are very well captured and the use of light, costumes and props is exceptional.

The end really left me wondering if the kids could fly out and become these promising people their parents set them out to be, but something tells me that it won't be that simple.

[8.0/10] This was easily the best episode of the show yet. It so perfectly captured the strange but fun vibe of having a night on the town with That One Friend, and perfectly melds it with the vampire shtick of the show.

Doug Jones is a real get here. He plays the “boss who’s trying to be fun” role well, and manages to emote through the prosthetics in the way only he can. His desire to cut loose, have fun, sing karaoke, and eat “pizza pie” amid his blood-sucking and domineering is great. Even better is the gang’s reactions to him, initially bemoaning his inability to fit in, but eventually warming up to him as everyone loosens up. At the same time, the episode has some fun with the group “drinking” humans who are drunk and/or on drugs, and thus leaving our vamp friends feeling the effects.

At the same time, it does a nice job of using the throughline of the gang plotting to kill The Baron. The abortive attempts in the early going are plenty amusing. The scene where The Baron tells them he was thinking of killing them and they do the same is some perfectly awkward, cringe-y stuff with great comic relief in the end. And the fact that Guillermo kills The Baron by accident in the finish is a great punchline and bit of comic catharsis after all the close calls and misdirects throughout the episode.

What I enjoyed most about this one is that the comedy came less from traditional jokes, and more from the sort of comic energy, awkwardness, and relatableness of the situation. This may have been an alternatively fun and deadly outing for The Baron, but it was the show’s best outing so far!

You know DC f**ked up big time when a movie staring Lego figures started off a better cinematic universe than your live action movie.

After the surprise that was "The Lego Movie", which was my favorite animated movie of 2014. So of course I was looking forward to this. When the team behind "Morel Orel" is directing your movie, it's going to be special. Now while I liked "The Lego Movie" a little more due to the writing and it's clever hidden message, but still.

"The Lego Batman Movie" is the best Batman movie since "The Dark Knight" and that's saying a lot. With it's bright warm colors, fast peace, and some many pop culture references for its humor. There was even a Pulp Fiction reference that I'm not sure many picked up on. It's a movie for both kids and adults. All of the Lego movies have two things in common which is heart and team work. It's really smart and goes as far from being just a kids movie.

Heck, I almost teared up at point. That's right folks, I nearly cried during a movie staring Lego's. Wow.

Will Arnett as Batman might be my third favorite portrayal of the Caped Crusader. Just the voice, emotion swings, and his cocky attitude is basically Batman in a nutshell. While a funnier version, but also an interesting and compelling one. By focusing on family and the loneliness of Batman. The movie itself makes fun of Batman's history with Adam West and Schumacher movies, but also being somewhat respectful as well.

And who would've thought Zach Galifianakis was going to be a solid Joker. Galifianakis was having a blast with this, but also putting his own take on the character as well. The Jokers evil plans in the movie are so absurd and silly that somehow fits. It's perfect for the relationship between him and Batman. Making it a anti-romantic spoof.

All of the other cast all did a fantastic job. Michael Cera was great as Robin and had excellent chemistry with Will Arnett. Rosario Dawson was pretty good as Batgirl / Barbara Gordon. And Ralph Fiennes as Alfred was spot on, but kind of a wasted opportunity that he didn't reprise his role of Voldemort by voicing him, because Voldemort is in the movie. Oh well.

The animation is both really stunning and gorgeous. It's impressive that they once again made it look like it's stop motion animation with the power of CG. You can see the little details that you won't catch on your first watch. The finger prints that are clearly seen on the characters and the movement you would see in stop motion. I'm just be glad it's not the cheap looking direct-to-video animation that every movie starring Lego has been doing.

My only issue with "Lego Batman Movie" is the pacing. As I said before, there are some many pop culture references and all of them are funny, but the film goes by so quick it's easy to miss them. It doesn't give you much time to breath. So while your laughing at the joke, it will then make two or three more jokes. I literally wanted to say to the movie "Please, slow down a bit". But I can see this easily been fixed by re-watching it, which may help.

Overall rating: Everything Is Batman!

I expected a good time and was not dissapointed. I WAS surprised however how touching it was in parts. Succeeding where countless live action Batman movies have failed in showing the human side of Batman instead of Bruce Wayne. If I remember correctly in most of not all Batman movies screen time is split 50/50 for Wayne and Batman, give or take. Insightful character reflection is always reserved for the Wayne scenes, as the Batman scenes are filled with action. Not in this movie. The spotlight is almost exclusively on Batman, including the moments of self doubts and fear. That is a completely new approach and that's where it differs from a simple animated kids movie. I'd go even as far to say that while it may not be the best Batman movie, it is - for me at least - the most in-depth and portrayal of the caped crusader ever. So, yes the movie is a lot of fun with a ton of references and Easter eggs I'd probably need a second and third viewing to find them all, but beyond that it also gives you a glimpse into Batman's psyche in a way no other Batman movie has before. I would give this 8/10.

[8.0/10] There’s a running gag among superhero film fans these days that each new Batman movie forces viewers to relive Bruce Wayne’s parents being killed, that grisly scene reimagined again and again for each new generation. The Lego Batman Movie, thankfully, spares us from that (thought it might have been amusing to see the grim tones of Joe Chill rendered in “pew-pew” style). Still, the movie essentially responds to that criticism as it plumbs the depths of the tropes and subtropes and clichés that have sprung up around the Bat-verse, finding a trite but true take on the character in the process.

The film achieves this by showing a Batman who gazes wistfully at photo of him and his parents near crime alley, and implying that he is afraid to have a family for fear that getting close to anyone will result in that sort of loss. It’s heavy stuff, but Lego Batman plays it just light enough to keep the proceedings fun, but strong enough to where you cannot help but offer a minor “aww” when he, inevitably, opens those emotional doors and lets people into his life.

That makes Lego Batman sound deeper and darker it is. There is nothing particularly groundbreaking about the core story of the film, how a gloomy loner learns to appreciate the value of community and family. But grafting that onto The Batman himself, particularly in a film that is constantly taking the stuffing out of the ever-stoic, uber-capable, eternal icon of all that is broody and badass, lends it an air of fun that never lets up.

It’s also a major part of why the film is so sound at its core. Every major character has a journey. Batman discovers that he’s already a part of a family. Alfred manages to help his surrogate son grow up. Dick Grayson finds a surrogate dad of his own. And Barbara Gordon succeeds in finding a new, more communal way to fight crime, by having Batman work with local law enforcement rather than apart from them. Again, none of this is so novel, but it all splits off the main theme, and gives each of the protagonists an animating purpose and distinct point-of-view throughout the proceedings.

But what truly sets Lego Batman apart is its the way the films writers clearly both love Batman, but find endless ways to make fun of the caricature of the character that has emerged in the popular culture over last thirty years or so. The just-for-fun confines of the Lego environment gives director Chris McKay (who’s used to this style of reimaginative comedy from his work on Robot Chicken) license to turn the Caped Crusader into a silly, over-the-top parody of himself, with plenty of nods to the character’s prior incarnations in tow.

Lego Batman is, in fact, a veritable cornucopia of humorous homages, great and small, to the entire history of the character. While the hilarious Batman: The Brave and The Bold animated series functioned similarly as a tribute to the wilder and woolier side of the character’s past appearances, it (mostly) played those nods straight, albeit tongue-in-cheek, while McKay’s film a whirling dervish of meta-gags about Batman’s greatest hits, filled to the brim with winks to the audience and blasts from the past. Whether it’s a cavalcade of Z-grade villains or Billy Dee Williams finally getting to play Two-Face or The Joker declaring that his latest caper will be even greater than the “thing with the two boats,” there are frequent shout outs to Batman’s other on-screen outings.

To that end, the film’s finest point is its opening fifteen minutes, which serves as both a nice entree to the world and tone of the film, and also as a nice, standalone gag-fest for not only The Dark Knight himself, but for all superhero flick opening acts. The rapid-fire gags and meta humor are in full swing, and the movie shows of its visual impressiveness as well, finding a nice balance between big action and Lego-fueled weightlessness. The torrent of hero-on-villain combat and comic asides creates an intro to the film that is as visually inventive as it is amusing.

But, as all films must, eventually Lego Batman’s initial thrills give way to the real plot. At this point, the film becomes more conventional in the paths its characters take, but the irreverence of it all, particularly the steely black-clad hero himself longing for a human connection in very silly terms, keeps the film enjoyable even when it can’t match the comic punch of that opening salvo. The cross-franchise mayhem, creative animated sequences, and murderer’s row of great actors voicing their Gotham counterparts, help buoy the proceedings even as the movie settles down.

Still, it’s the unconventional, loving-but-joshing take on the main character that wins the day. One of the quick gags early in the film is that the nominally dark, mature Batman loves romantic comedies. What seems like a throwaway gag, powered by the out of character fun of such a revelation, is fleshed out into a fulsome and funny bit of character, when The Joker takes offense to Batman refusing to call him his “greatest enemy.” What ensues is a story of a hero and archvillain told with the contours of the same romcoms, with jilted love (er, hate), a refusal to say three magic words, and the third act reconciliation and affirmation that takes the occasional obsessive subtext between Batman and the Clown Prince of Crime in an amusingly Jerry MaGuire-inspired direction.

That’s the gleam of The Lego Batman Movie. It’s a film that is not only aware of the storied, sometimes absurd history of its central (mini)figure, but it’s aware of the conversations that have cropped up in and among his endless permutations on screen over the years. It’s ready with a commentary on who Batman is, with all of his exaggerated qualities taken up to eleven, that is both age-appropriate for youngsters come to see a Lego adventure, and clever for the adults watching a riff on the hero they grew up with. And by offering a take on the character that is committed to not taking Batman too seriously, Lego Batman, oddly enough, presents one of the best encapsulations of the character and all the wonderful absurdity he’s spawned, that is affectionate, clever, and above all, fun.