This is the Unforgiven of superhero movies, a brutal yet tender portrayal of former heroes growing old. Logan is tired and world weary, waiting for death to take away his pain. Charles is 90, riddled with drugs to mute his mind, his "super weapon." Despite their friendship their relationship is fractured. Into their lives comes a new mutant and a road trip begins.
I don't want to say much more, having given away a little of the premise already explored in the films trailers. This is a tough, violent and sad film with few moments of humour. There is action but not of the blockbuster kind, one key car chase is like something from a 70's thriller.
This is the swan song of Logan and Charles, both actors giving it their all in their final performances as these characters. To bring them back after this film would undermine their work and the story here.
The film is brilliant and I can't recommend it enough - don't expect a traditional X-Men movie and you will be blown away. If the film itself were a mutant I would say its genes had been spliced with Mad Max and Shane, with a little bit of Children of the Corn (and I mean that in a good way). Excelsior!
Just to preface this, I thought A Force Awakens was emotionless trash that undermined the entire purpose of the original three films.
Rogue One was the opposite.
The best thing about this movie was the emotional impact. It underlined the sacrifices made to make the original trilogy possible. Some people have called it long, but that helped build up characters that you actually felt for, and who weren't carbon copy ripoffs (cough cough A Force Awakens). The final scenes as the two main characters face their fate, recognizing that it was worth it, gave such a high emotional payoff. Each major death scene actually made you feel something.
The second best thing was K-2SO. Very funny, and much needed comedic (but not goofy) relief.
The CGI for landscapes and the world creation was outstanding. When I see a movie like Star Wars I want to be amazed and see things that I haven't seen done before. I want to be impressed and drawn into new, beautifully crafted worlds. In this respect, the movie just kept delivering over and over.
The cinematography was great during the action sequences. The sequences looked epic, and the violence and sacrifice felt meaningful. The Vader fight sequence was intense.
It also had interesting ties to current events with its commentary on terrorism/rebellion/weapons of mass destruction. By the way, the science genius character realizing that he isn't priceless in developing some major device is fantastic. All of the movies with "only so-and-so can figure this out" are very disappointing.
The moral message of the movie was also very clear and well delivered.
I really enjoyed the movie overall and thought that it was a big step in the right direction. It was adventurous again, it was sometimes shocking, original, and most of all meaningful. A Force Awakens failed on all of those points. It's good to see a franchise movie that's taking a bit more risk than average. AFA was just like the new Star Trek films, shiny bling low-impact action movies that just happen to be set in space. Rogue One pushes far beyond to show the what drives the Rebellion in a world we know and love.
Despite the fact that I really liked the movie, it had some flaws:
- Tarkin face CGI
- Some of the acting in the first half.
- Tarkin face CGI
- Some of the cuts were really weird and the pacing felt off for portions of the first half.
- Tarkin face CGI
- Forest Whittaker just deciding to die instead of trying to escape.
- Tarkin face CGI
- A few unbelievable plot lines (thankfully most were minor). Like Cassian being sent to kill Galen for almost no reason, and then deciding not to for no reason, and then Jyn forgiving him surprisingly easily. How did she even know that he was trying to kill her father?
- Tarkin face CGI
- Does every Star Wars movie need to have a father character die? Why didn't Cass follow orders when he heartlessly killed someone else in his first scene?
- Tarkin face CGI
- Heavy handed political messaging.
- Tarkin face CGI
- Said "hope" too many times.
- Tarkin face CGI
- You can just push Star Destroyers that easily?
- Tarkin face CGI
- The word "Stardust"
- Tarkin face CGI
- Too many random worlds introduced that you don't have the time to get invested in.
- Tarkin face CGI
- Too much awkward fan service.
- Tarkin face CGI
- Darth Vader's voice sounded off.
- Tarkin face CGI
- Some of the dialogue was really terrible.
- Tarkin face CGI
In 2008, i saw "Cloverfield" for the first time, i had no idea about what the movie was and a i didn't know i would love it, the simple script and the found footage style made as an imersive and amazing experience, i really enjoyed.
8 years later and the same producers come back with a semi-sequel, i guess that's how i can call this film, in january i didn't even know this movie was coming out, i tought it was weird cause they were using Cloverfield in the name, so i saw a small teaser and i was surprised that this film was totally different from the previous one. The filming style, the atmosphere, everything from the predecessor was gone.
New filming style (which by the way is a beautiful cinematography), new atmosphere, new characters, new story. Dan Trachtenberg's first feature film is just amazing, very competitive and stylish direction, everything works on this film, the simple script works along with the cast of three. Mary Elizabeth Winstead outstanding as usual, John Goodman on one of the best works of his career and John Gallagher Jr. i never saw acting but he surprised me.
The atmosphere created in the film is just great, caught my attention in every second, the shadowed cinematography and a very imersive soundtrack by Bear McCreary makes it almost perfect.
The third act rushes a little bit, and the ending may have some mixed receptions, i liked it. (Obs: don't watch the trailers, it may have too many information and ruin your experience).
10 Cloverfield Lane is one of the best psychological thriller movies of the decade, terrific and almost perfect. Go see it.
Creepy. Thrilling. Suspenseful. Conjuring.
My friends and I have been planning on seeing The Conjuring for a while now. There was quite a hype going around about how freaked this left a bunch of our friends, so I guess there was some level of expectation. I wasn't expecting much, though. This is the first "horror" movie I've watched in months (I never really saw the appeal in them, except when watching with friends), and it definitely did not disappoint for me.
At the end of the film though, my friends kept saying how it wasn't scary (which contradicted their screams from a few minutes before that lol) and how it does not compare to Insidious, a film which we all watched together two years before.
What my friends did not appreciate was what I liked about it: there actually was a story. It was developed and did not just focus on trying to scare the crap out of you with shocking music and sudden appearances by creepy-faced hags. I have to admit, I still found some scenes definitely cliched and corny.. It's not perfect, but it wasn't bad either, which is saying something because I've hated horror movies growing up.
There were essentially four stories here, two of which I liked, and two of which made me roll my eyes. So let's mix and match!
My favorite element of the episode was the scenes between Trish and her mom. The mom was the scorpion from the fable of the scorpion and the frog. You can tell she legitimately wants to connect with her daughter, that she genuinely wants a relationship with her, that she's proud of Trish, but that she can't turn off that part of her that has to sell or self-justify or manipulate. Trish's disdain was palpable, and it was frankly one of her better performances, and the mom's presence and layered depiction of her character's emotions was stellar.
I would say this show's greatest strength is how it's able to show people as simultaneously bad and still sympathetic, or at least understandable. You see it with the mom; you see it with Kilgrave, and you see it with Hogarth. Each of these people do terrible things (with differences in degree, obviously), and yet the show is neither content to write their bad behavior off as an unfortunate indiscretion, nor willing to treat them as pure unadulterated evil. Each has their own, comprehensible motivations for they do and have done, and even if that doesn't condone their actions--which is important--it explains it, which helps to make these characters feel more real and nuanced.
The reverse of this situation is the Robyn-Malcom story. I believe this was an attempt to do the same thing, to show that whatever Robyn's craziness, there's a certain fractured love beneath it that makes her far from all bad, and deserving of consolation and friendship, The problem is that she's just such an annoying character. I don't necessarily put it on the actress, but the performance is so broad, the dialogue so corny, that it's hard to buy into that type of arc, even when it's being bounced off of Malcolm, who quickly became one of my favorite characters on the show, and whose goodness and devotion to helping others despite, or perhaps because of his trauma, makes him a beacon of light in an otherwise very dark show.
And then, there's Jessica and Luke. I've just never bought into their relationship, so the fact that it was the backbone of this episode, and the emotional undercurrent of it, meant that their scenes generally fell flat to me. Luke is just a bland hunk in my book, with action moive dialogue and delivery that feels borrowed from the parodic protagonist of Team America. The scenes that are supposed to be moving or emotionally charge left me rolling my eyes, or even laughing, and the odd cinematography of the episode, with peculiar shots focused on street signs or other odd angles didn't help communicate the tone.
But then I did like the twist that Kilgrave was setting the whole thing up. When Kilgrave mockingly said the "I forgive you and I'll say it every day" line, I cracked up, because I thought that line was painfully sappy when Luke said it originally, so the reveal was a pleasant one. I appreciate Kilgrave's misguided jiltedness as what's motivating him here, and how he's attempting to twist the knife via Luke. It's a believably despicable turn from him.
And I enjoyed the fight between Luke and Jessica. Again, it didn't have as much meaning to me given that I was fairly unmoved by their relationship, but it was well-choreographed and told a story about Jessica not wanting to hurt Luke. The final shotgun blast was an intriguing finish (though come on, we know he doesn't die), even if the "do what you have to do" came off like a dry cool action hero line. But the perfect capstone to it was Jessica crying over him. I've gone back and forth on Ritter's performance here, but she absolutely sold that moment like a pro, and even as I come around on her quips as the show makes me a laugh a little more, I still prefer scenes like these where she sells the moment in her expressions and demeanor.
All-in-all, this was a mixed bag, leaning toward the positive.
Let me start by saying I have been a Godzilla fan ever since I saw Godzilla vs Mothra back in the 80s. With that out of the way I really liked this movie. It is in no way like the 98' movie (which was terrible) but instead kinda takes the Clover field route by showing how the fighting of the monsters really impact human. In this movie it's very clear that human need to get the hell out of the way! While there is not an overly amount of scenes showing all out fighting with the monsters you still get a feel for the current situation with Godzilla. This also attempts to ground Godzilla the creature in reality but doesn't 100% succeed. Some of the explanations for why things are happening are not always believable. Still, I enjoyed seeing Godzilla take on these "enemies" and eventually kill them. One interesting twist, which I had never seen in a Godzilla movie was he used his radioactive breath. In the movie he uses it almost as a last resort, seemingly because it takes a lot of energy from him. While this is inconsistent with any Godzilla movie before it I rather liked the idea. It would probably take a great amount of energy to create that blast of power. This is best seen when Godzilla brutally kills the last creature with a prolonged blast of energy that knocked him out till the next day. So if you cam looking for a movie that showed nothing but Godzilla fighting all the way through or a "Man v Monster" movie...this may not be the movie for you. However, give it a shot...you may like it after all.
After watching Sicario, I have to say that the movie is pretty great. This movie was made by Denis Villeneuve and he has been making some great films as of late. I think the best way to describe this movie is a better version of "Zero Dark Thirty". If you keep that movie in mind, you'll notice that both of these movies hit the same sort of narrative beats. However, in my opinion, not only is this film much more intense but it is also much better executed. Denis is once again teamed up with famed cinematographer Roger Deakins, and boy do these guys ever know what they're doing. The visual choices near the end of the movie were absolutely phenomenal. These two do well to sure make this movie gets better and better as it goes on. It is very well acted and the characters here are well-defined and interesting. The shining light in this movie are its action scenes where not only is tension built up extremely well, but it also pushes boundaries that you don't often see pushed in films. This film aims to be disturbing and messed up at points and I believe it did its job very well. Now unfortunately, there was one shot which really did bother me, there is a scene where a character is getting strangled and it is very apparent that the victim was receiving no force at all from the attacker. It was the one scene that really took me out of the movies universe. Anyways, besides a few narrative weakness, I would definitely recommend this movie. It might bump up to an 8 next time I see it, but for now I'll give it a 7 out of 10.
The Fall is a visually spectacular movie: breathtaking cinematography, and beautiful colours and costumes. Still, that isn't all it has to offer.
The movie has two storylines: the realistic setting where a girl with a broken arm meets a suicidal stuntman (Lee Pace) in the hospital, and the world of the story he starts to tell her. Though the stuntman develops a fondness for the girl, the reason he tells her the story is to trick her into getting him morfine so he can commit suicide. The story he tells her is chaotic and ever changing and though some people may not like this, I thought it really represented how spontaneous storytelling works. The boundaries between reality and fantasy become increasingly blurry because of the girl's interuptions and as the movie goes on the story starts to reflect the stuntman's life. At one point he asks the girl whether she is trying to save his soul and that really captures what this story is about. There is no reason for running away screaming from such a cheesy theme because it is handled in a moving but surprising way.
Lee Pace was amazing playing the suicidal stuntman but the heart and soul of the movie was the little girl. Their interactions had me going through a rollercoaster of emotions, moving from laughing to crying in a matter of seconds.
This story will stay with you long after the movie is done.
A "dark comedy" that's just dark. Haven't laughed a single time and I love dark, morbid, cynical humour but this is taking it way too far. This kind of humour is a very fine line between good and terribly misplaced or simply bad. For this movie it is the latter.
The idea of showing a mentally ill person in a humourous way isn't that bad on its own, although difficult to not glamourize terrible acts or ridicule that person or the illness.
I am trying to be very general here as there are several kind of mental illnesses.
In this movie our main character has probably schizophrenia, I haven't exactly payed attention to the type of pills he's (supposed to be) taking or their label and don't think it was explicitly mentioned.
However, watching a woman getting killed by someone who is apparently mentally ill and persuaded by his cat and dog is nothing that I can laugh about and the movie tries hard to achieve that at times. Even with "accidental" killing.
I simply can't find anything funny about a person cracking the neck by "accident" and it is even worse when the maincharacter says afterwards something like "Oh, how could that happen", I've seen the German version, so I don't know the exact English words but you get the idea.
As a thriller this would work through and through, a simple plot escalating into much more, a "normal" guy becoming a serial killer who is extremely dangerous because of his mental illness and difficulty to perceive reality.
But the terrible attempts at the "comedy" aspect of this movie ruin the whole plot. Although I wouldn't really call anything plot here. There's no real end and the synopsis takes the first half away or less, the rest is dealing with the hallucinated world of the main character.
It is said that this is one of Reynold's best performances but I find it hard to support that claim considering the problematic direction of the movie.
Previous comments in the page, though short, sum up the frustration with this episode (safe for the eliminated queen. She really sucked in this episode, and it was well deserved).
But on the usual rant: The least funny snatch game in RPRD's history. Clearly, this isn't a season for comedy, only for bitchiness, which some of the queens have to spare. Most characters were, well, horrible. I saw a lot of people complaining that Bob stole the spotlight, but perhaps the blandness of the others just made it too easy for her to do so? Most of them were flailing on dry land, and removing attention from them might have been a blessing in disguise. Derrick finally could play Britney - now, yes, at the right moment to do so, but.. hm. I honestly think Tatianna's Britney would slay Derrick's any day. So... just not impressed. I actually thought Kim Chi's character was funny, and who cares if it was made up. The body language was really nice. Thorgy's Michael Jackson was also pretty good, and the thing about the baby and the blanket was delightfully unexpected and funny. Then there's Bob - which I'm still not sure if she was really very good, or just above average enough to seem in an entirely different category from the rest of awful unfunny barely acting queens. Robbie, which I came to love btw, sunk under her character. Totally sunk, and she then whined with excuses. Robbie, darling, this is not a show for whining, complaining, or justifying yourself - when you suck, you pray you aren't sent home and you LEARN from it. That's all there's to it - unless you can put on a beautiful show when you cry, of course. Also, mention to Naomi: so pretty, so average. I mean, I adore her to the point that sometimes she appears and I just have to stop and wonder how can a queen be so beautiful, but I feel she's beginning to to approach the deep end of the pool, and despite those eternally long legs of hers, she'll be underwater real soon. If I could bet, I'd say she's the next one out... (does a guess require a spoiler alert? Considering it isn't pertinent to this episode, it makes me wonder if it annoys who reads this.)
Now, runway time: TODAY NOBODY COULD CALL CHI CHI BASIC. BASIC ARE THOSE RED KIMONOS. I mean, really, is it some kind of trend? How many of you own red kimonos, did they really just have them there by accident? And when we say Madonna, you all think Nothing Really Matters? It isn't even the most iconic Ray of Light-era look, much less all-time ever. How in the world did they not notice the oriental theme going on around the work room? So many questions for this Gaijin Cherry Blossom festival runway.
But back to Chi Chi, here's my delight in seeing that she has once more shown herself cool under pressure, coming up with what is definitely Madonna's most iconic look on the spot. Well done, my Louisana queen! Ok, Kim Chi's red kimono wasn't so bad - or maybe, it's just my crush talking. Bob's runway makes me ask the same question as before - is she really good, or just good enough to steal the spotlight from this underwhelming lot? Her padding, though, was flawless. And I thought that wig really suited her. She just looked so sweet and pretty when she smiled in the runway, I think she had my favorite make up on too, followed by Chi Chi's amazing glitter eyeshadow. Least favorite make-up was Acid Betty's. I'm not sure if the Victorian actor powder look was intentional, awfully dry skin, or awfully applied translucent powder atop some equally awfully blended highlighter. And to think she's so eager to criticize Trixie's look.... hm.
(As for next week, Marc Jacobs will be the guest judge. Here's to my hopes that the week's winner prize is MJ merch. I'D KILL FOR THAT).
