Best Snyder movie so far. Sadly it is deeply misunderstood. Movie is way more deeper and complex than it looks like on first glance.
People don't realize Sweet Pea is the protagonist, Babydoll is a figment of Sweet Pea’s imagination. Babydoll does not exist. Babydoll's story is Sweet Pea’s story. Sweet Pea was sexually abused, killed her sister and is in psychiatric hospital in therapy. Babydoll is Sweet Pea's avatar. Way of dealing with grief, with guilt, and way to manage her current situation and overcome it. Babydoll is also Sweet Pea's guardian angel.
Sweet Pea is the only fully rounded character, other girls represent aspects of her psyche. Babydoll represents strength and courage, Amber loyalty, Blondie fear, and Rocket represents guilt. In the third level reality her psyche fights for the things to get her free from her current state. Second guardian angel (the Wise Man) guides her through. To fully recover she needs to get over her guilt (Rocket dies as a symbol), also other girls represent things which she needs to leave behind to fully recover .
Babydoll is one of those things. She is the fifth thing (“The fifth is a mystery. It is the reason. It is the goal. It will be a deep sacrifice and a perfect victory.”). Lobotomy of Babydoll represents Sweet Pea’s mind of taking control. Sweet Pea needs to sacrifice Babydoll to be “cured”. Escape at the end is a symbol of that process of being cured. That’s why the driver is the Wise Man, he guides her further.
Sucker Punch is Sweet Pea’s journey from “madness” to “sanity”. Movie is philosophical / psychological investigation wrapped in a special effects action-fantasy. As the movie changes realities (mostly in the third reality), Snyder uses more fetishized image of the girls. He uses clichés and cluttered iconography (nazi zombies, sexy schoolgirls). It is a way to detached and disconnected characters from second reality. Second reality, the brothel, is the “main” reality. In which everything happens.
Rian Johnson is starting to turn into the white Jordan Peele. He's another one of those filmmakers that loves to work in this niche of subversive genre films that include a heavy dose of social commentary, and I'm all here for it. Specifically, with this franchise we’ve gone from satirizing old money with Knives Out to satirizing new money with this new film (chances are Knives Out 3 will center around a group of homeless suspects). Now, a lot of films in that same vein have been released recently (Triangle of Sadness, The Menu), but I think none of them do the satire as well as this film. To me it’s too easy at this point to simply aim your commentary at these people by making a statement about how stupid and incompetent they are. It seems like low hanging fruit to me, because everyone with a brain knows that these types are vapid and contribute nothing to society. Luckily, Rian Johnson understands this too and goes one step beyond that, filtering all of his commentary through this idea of the glass onion. These people aren’t just stupid and incompetent, but they’re using a veil of eccentricity and ‘complexity’ to hide that. This is a brilliant deconstruction that rings very true for today’s society, and of course you can’t quite escape the obvious parallel with Twitter’s manchild CEO firing himself this week. This subtext is woven into a lot of elements of the film (character, location, plot, even some props), which means that some things are a lot dumber and simpler than they appear to be. I think that will annoy some people, but I think it's quite clever. Like the first film, you get a great cast of colourful characters. Some of them are given depth, some of them are just playing funny caricatures. Daniel Craig owns the whole movie again, but Janelle Monáe comes pretty close to outperforming him. Even people like Dave Bautista do a great job, and it’s because Rian Johnson knows how to use these actors despite their limited range. There are plenty of twists you won’t see coming and the filmmaking is again terrific. It looks very cinematic with the blocking, lighting and compositions, and the score feels very 60s (lots of strings, some minor baroque orchestration), which reminded me of The White Lotus and a certain Beatles song. In the end, what puts it over the first film for me is the fact that the tone feels more consistent here. The more tense and dramatic moments of Knives Out didn’t really hit home for me when you have Daniel Craig doing a really campy accent, and this one just fully embraces that it’s a silly comedy. And it’s a great one at that, nearly all the jokes landed for me. Maybe could’ve done with a little less shouting from Kate Hudson, but ok, it makes sense for the character. Probably the most fun movie of the year next to Top Gun: Maverick, and definitely one of the most well constructed.
8/10
LIFF31 2017 #2
"Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot."
There is no doubt how incredibly beautiful "Call Me By Your Name" is. Putting aside your age and sexuality, the film offers more than romance. It's not sad or tragic, but a peaceful one. It's all about falling in love. What's been said by many will be repeated here, so none of this is gonna be new to you, because it's all true.
Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg, and newcomer Timothée Chalamet all deliver terrific performances. Not a weak or unconvincing actor in sight. All of them were perfectly cast in the roles and there was no shred of doubt during the emotional parts. Especially Stuhlbarg monologue towards the end is as moving as anything I have ever seen.
The way Luca Guadagnino manages to play on your emotions and present gay romances is really mesmerizing. The warm and summer spectacle of Italy makes you want to be there. With the scenery, sunny waters, and the food which look so good, all through Sayombhu Mukdeeprom brilliant cinematography. It's paradise.
Even the sexual tension never once came across pornographic. I don't mind sex or nudity in movies and people seriously just need to stop being so sensitive about it. Ever thought that making little things a huge deal only makes it a huger deal. Or your sloppy description.
The sexuality in this film is more of an emotional connection you personally experience through the characters. And you don't have to be gay to enjoy those scenes. It avoids the typical tropes you find in movies that isn't as perfectly presented as this.
This is a truly special movie that I easily got lost in.
This was a good movie but not a great movie (this will not be a popular opinion). First the good stuff: Lady Gaga was perfect for and in this role - acting singing, chemistry, song writing - all fantastic. The chemistry between Bradley Cooper and Gaga was believable and, at times, breathtaking. The first two thirds of the movie had a great arch and captured us (as a friend, who watched the movie with me, said, "I could watch the first part of this movie on repeat.") I am also a big fan of about 5 of the songs, and would add them to my library without hesitation, they are beautifully written. Now, the not so good stuff: the last third of the movie was too long - it could easily be cut by 20 minutes, but Bradley Cooper, as director, was more than a little self indulgent with his own scenes (we got the struggle, drawing it out didn't serve the storytelling). Ally's character arch was disappointing. As her star rose she didn't learn to love what Jack saw in her. She didn't learn to take ownership of her own story, the very gift Jack was trying to give her. Ally's story wasn't resolved until the very last moments of the movie, it was eclipsed by Bradley's directorial obsession with Jack's decline, belying the original premise of all the STAR IS BORN movies and lessening her triumph. I guess what moved it from great to good, for me, was that the first two thirds proved it could be great but the last third got hijacked (no pun intended). I give this film a 7 (good) out of 10. [Music-centric Romantic Drama]
Why tell stuff, when you can just show it?
The most intimate, best-written and memorable moments of this masterpiece hardly use any words. The story presents itself with its characters, the brillant acting and just the ability to resonate with the viewer. So many moments are just real, they don't feel real, they are real because everyone of us has felt the same many many times in their lives.
It's not just being able to see yourself in one or some of the characters, it's also the moments where you feel completely alienated by their actions, just as how sometimes everyone feels detached from themselves. Sometimes it's as if you look into a mirror that is steadily moving away from you - seeing yourself out of reach of yourself, but somehow it's still you.
This show hurts in the right places and still is enjoyable. It shows you that everyone is surrounded by people that love them, that are affectionate. It shows you that when you're down and alone, you're in fact not alone in your feeling at least - albeit you might be lonely physically, loads of people feel the same way, all the time.
It's awesome that they don't show the protagonists as perfect human beings, instead just as human beings - with their mistakes, intricacies, quirks, imperfections - frankly, just all the stuff that makes them, and us, human and relatable.
This show is fuckign brillant. And I hate the fact that I can't watch it again for the first time.
This show has made me miss the feeling of first being in love with someone.
This show has made me miss the happy life when I lived every day carelessly in school with my friends, while also making me realise and acknowledge that life is fucking awesome and that I'm surrounded by amazing people.
This show is definitely tailored to young adults that are doing their studies like me, but still. I think everyone might not regret giving it a fair chance. Really. I love it so much.
Tarantino’s debut is still one of his best films. The opening sequence has been often imitated and referenced, but it does showcase Tarantino’s use of banter, natural dialogue and pop culture to bring his characters to life. Here it works well, immediately giving the audience a sense of all the important personalities within the film and the relationships between them. By dropping us into the aftermath of the heist, the film’s strength is in the use of flashback to build intrigue over what happened, but equally important is the hook that there might be an insider. This allows Tarantino to gradually develop his characters in the flashbacks beyond simply focusing on how the dilemma they find themselves in will be solved. Buscemi and Keitel in particular stand out and whilst Madsen has repeated himself ad nauseam in other films, he is still effective here. The soundtrack and costume design all serve to emphasise how hip and cool the characters are, but this is punctuated with the violence that remind us they are brutal too. Its this juxtaposition of coolness and violence that marked the film out as something different, no more so than in the still shocking scene of Madsen torturing someone. Some of the flashback scenes do occasionally outstay their welcome, though there is a lot of humour drawn out from them and the authenticity in his dialogue that Tarantino appears to strive for is sometimes stretched as characters vie to show who is top dog. But these minor quibbles don’t stop this from being a tightly edited and well paced crime thriller.
Slow. Built to a finale but a terrible ending. Bacon suddenly stopped being a cop for no reason and allowed Penn's character who is at least a murder suspect to walk away drinking whiskey. This is moments after some forced sentimental talk about the past to try and neaten up the story. Again. The ending was that the bad guys win ending. The bad guys being local bully mobster Penn with his two annoying cock sucker friends. Obviously true to life in that evil prevails but it didn't work for me in this movie by its own logic failures. Was it true to Penn's character, a man so proud with truth and paying for his crimes, how he never even confessed? Again, Bacon stopped caring about being a cop about the man he was just protecting?. Why didn't Robbin's just tell the truth instead being an obvious suspect? Instead of confessing he asks for a Sprite. That'll make you seem innocent yeah. Why could a boy that didn't talk secretly talk or was hinted to being able to? How did the cops just happen to show up in time? Was Penn's wife so sick that she really called him a king for being a murderer? Yes. Did Robbin's wife more or less get Robbins killed by presuming he murdered her to Penn thus leaving her child fatherless? Yes. Did Penn just kill a guy based on his own forced confession with no asking for evidence and then he's actually suprised when he got the wrong guy? Yes. And what was Kevin Bacon's wife's about, especially when we had over two hours to explain her? But it's OK... because Bacon makes a gun sign at the end to Penn and that has to mean something.
It's like the ending was a different movie which also revealed split personalities and a terrible movie.
What about the portrayal of Dave by Robbins. Acted well but a cliché abuse victim or what?
Talk about a movie with bad morals and holes
[6.4/10] We may have to come to a sobering realization as fans here, folks. Korra might be dumb. No, dumb is the wrong word. She might just have poor judgment. And maybe that fits with the character, consistently shown to have her heart in the right place but act a little too headstrong.
Still, one can only wonder what her thought process was when Unalaq was holding Jinora hostage and threatening to kill Jinora if Korra didn’t open the other spirit portal. Admittedly, Korra was understandably not expecting to have to make this choice, and so maybe her gameplan isn’t as refined as it could be, especially with a surrogate niece/grandchild/babysittee in the balance, but holy cow does she make a bad decision.
Maybe this is the cold utilitarian in me showing his util-weighing face, but man, trading one life (again, admittedly a life to which you have a personal attachment, which complicates things) for 10,000 years of evil reigning is a really, really, really poor trade. Nevermind the fact that it seems obvious that Unalaq, who despite the faintest veil of decency, seemed like the evil lord of evil from the beginning of this season, probably wouldn’t hold up his end of the bargain anyway. It’s just a dumb thing to do, and coupled with Korra’s initial trust of Unalaq this season, and her odd attempt to just declare Oman a fraud and expect everyone to believe her, it suggests that Korra doesn’t really think these things through.
I have to admit, I was a bit underwhelmed by the other adventures in the spirit world too. There was something neat about Jinora visiting the library that we saw in “The Library” and matching wits with the owl guardian that protects it, but on the whole it mostly serves to set up the hostage angle that didn’t really work for me. (Though I have to admit, I loved the brief but chilling look at what happened to the professor who chose to stay in the library in the corresponding AtLA episode.)
I also didn’t love Korra’s half of the spiritual journey either. I’ll admit, I enjoyed the Alice in Wonderland homages, the design of the spirit creatures was again very cool, and I literally gasped with Iroh showed up. But maybe it’s just watching this show in a post-Inside Out headspace, but there’s something that seems overly simplistic at best and harmful at worst to have the message of the episode essentially be that if you just think positively and don’t process any negative emotions, you’ll be in good shape.
Nevermind the fact that the battle between good and evil seems so much more rote in this season than it ever was on Avatar. One of the things I really appreciated about AtLA is how it eschewed simplistic notions of bad vs. good. Sure, Ozai was terrible, but the show took care to show how not every person from the Fire Nation was bad, not every person from the Earth Kingdom was good, the villains had damage and their own understandable motivations, and the heroes had flaws that meant they weren’t always crusaders for justice.
We still have four episodes left, so I’m not ready to declare anything yet, but there are far fewer shades to the current conflict in Season 2 of TLoK so far. We have a titan-level battle between the literal embodiments of good and evil; we have a big bad who has been nothing but mustache-twirlingly villainous, and we have the good spirit/malevolent spirit dichotomy. It’s all far too binary and uncomplicated for my tastes, and feels out of step with the ethos of the franchise. Again, I expect to have egg on my face when the show reveals some new level of depth in the final four episodes of the season, but it’s not promising or particularly interesting as a central struggle so far.
The episode does wring some juice from Korra returning to the material world and Tenzin’s reaction to the realization that his daughter didn’t come back with her (and Kya and Bumi’s earlier reassurances are a nice touch). But on the whole, it’s centered on two unsatisfying individual stories, with the backdrop of two-tone conflict, and a foolish decision from the main character to wrap it altogether. Not the show’s best outing, to be sure.
Okay, I really wanted to like this episode, mainly because Jacqueline's character development is such a feminist statement. Unfortunately, the entire subplot with Titus as a Geisha is......argh. The way they dealt with this subplot is very one-sided and unfair. This episode comes off as pandering to the anti-SJW/anti-PC crowd. They could have at least give the PC crowd a much fairer portrayal. Like pointing out more realistic reasons why they're offended by Titus' portrayal of a Geisha in the first place like how doing a yellowface can actually be harmful to the way how people perceive Asians. Not because they're offended cause they're offended, like how they were portrayed in the show. With this, it gives a much fairer discussion on the still talked about political correctness vs. comedy debate. But nope, it's very clear what kind of bias Tina Fey has in regards to this topic.
In regards to this debate. Full-on political correctness is bad. I believe jokes on very taboo subjects has to at least be clever and does not come off as making fun of the oppressed. Like in regards to making a rape joke that makes a rapist the butt of the joke rather than the rape victims. Of course, that subplot is in response to the whitewashing of Jacqueline since the actress who is playing her is white. Honestly, I am okay with Jacqueline's character being an Native American despite being played by an actress who is white because it's ironic, gives a plot twist that Jacqueline is not actually white and also delivers a sad massage about how many PoC had to make themselves white to be feel worthy. Honestly, with this kind of story, I wouldn't buy an accurate Native American actor playing Jacqueline. Let me be clear that whitewashing in general is awful. This is just an exemption because this particular part is executed well in my opinion.
The Wicker Man's influence cannot be denied. Its fingerprints lie in countless movies after. And yet, unlike the last movie I watched, Blade Runner, its values lay far deeper than merely the foundation for others to build upon. This is a film that holds up incredibly well, in every respect. Concise and tightly plotted, it does all it sets out to accomplish. The music is surreal, innocent with a killer edge. The ensemble cast perfectly unwavering, innocent and offputting all at once. The cinematography presents this world bluntly, without shame, only heightening its unsettling nature. All of these come together to create an atmosphere forever suspenseful, forever building, until it reaches the fever pitch of the climax. You feel the fear and unease of the protagonist in every moment as if you were there yourself. The final scene sends chills down my spine.
Particular attention must be given to Edward Woodward as Neil Howie and Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle, of course. Perfect foils, they both make use of every second they're on screen. Woodward bleeds passion and conviction, especially in the ending. He is the perfect audience surrogate, surveying the setting with the same suspicion and discomfort, trying to piece it all together as we are. Where Woodward burns, Lee simmers, a quiet confidence but no less certain. That certainty of both Lee and the rest of the ensemble produces the unsettling effect of Howie almost feeling like the fanatic, especially as he becomes more and more determined and disdainful of them all. Is it only the fact that others share them that makes our beliefs feel so obvious, so natural? If we were dropped into a world were everyone around us believes so completely something radically different, would we feel as lost, as under siege, as doomed?
The Wicker Man has been oft duplicated, with works like Midsommar putting their own unique spin on similar premises, but it has never been replaced. It still burns bright today, forever reborn through its influences. As both a piece of film culture and as a standalone work, it can't be missed.
What in the actual f*ck.
I'm a reasonable man, I realize I've been crapping on D&D even more than usual this season but I really do have to give them props for doing exactly what they set out to do. They hoped to subvert our expectations and they did just wonderfully in that regards.
We expected all of that buildup over the years to actually amount to something that at the very least passes for a presentable series finale but instead, we got an incoherent, steaming pile of shit. Expectations subverted!
We expected all of that character development to actually result in a beautiful pay-off that respects the journey of self-discovery each and every one of our beloved characters went through to get to where they are now but instead, we got a painful, disrespectful cycle of character regression. Expectations subverted!
We expected the final season of this show to keep us at the edge of our seats with thrilling writing that didn't subvert our expectations for the sake of subverting our expectations via low-quality shock value-seeking writing, but to introduce plot twists that make sense within the overall narrative of the story but instead, we got CW-level predictable, cringe material. Expectations subverted!
I get it. I really do. GRRM let them down by not getting the books ready in time and so they had to improvise away from his influence, but this? This? For a long while, Game of Thrones lived up to the slogan of its parent network, it wasn't just TV, it was something different, something unique and now to have to see it come to this... it's nothing short of disappointing.
On the bright side though, at least this episode didn't suck completely. The acting, score and cinematography were all on point, so I guess it's nice that I didn't walk out of it having appreciated absolutely nothing about it.
So why do I even bother anymore? I honestly could not tell you, though it's probably a mixture of masochism and a faint sliver of hope that they won't flush our collective investment into this series down the drain by the end of it, just one more episode dammit.
