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]
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
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
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.
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.
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.
