Poor Things is very pretty, I’ll give it that much. Colors pop, and the watercolor, blurry sky and the scaling but condensed environments of Lisbon and Alexandria both convey the miasma of Bella’s mind quite well. How the background blurs in our young memories and how we remember all the buildings and places that looked large over us but so rarely the walks to them. Those work for me. So much of the rest of the film doesn’t.
I see what it’s going for- it’s hard not to. A journey of womanhood through the conceit of a child’s brain in a woman’s body, when women are treated as children and property to begin with. But it’s so fucking weird, with that conceit, to devote so much time to sex. Sex is an important part of being human for many people, I’m not denying that. But the attention it gets here throughout compared to brief, paltry scenes of Bella reading, seeking knowledge, having an interest in medical science and surgery is disproportional. Especially when the film wants to play her coming home and following in Godwin’s footstep as a culmination of her journey when it’s a facet of the film that barely gets any play in comparison. Angelica Jade Bastien, whose Variety review you should all read, brings up how in a film ostensibly about a cis woman and her relationship with her body menstruation does not come up once. It’s so telling where the film’s true focus lies.
And yes, sex can be beautiful, and conversely so can sex scenes. But the ones here are done dispassionately yet voyueristically. There’s no interiority, no sensuality, no sense of emotion and character felt through them. Compared to films like The Handmaiden they are sterile in heart if not content. It’s a big swing to go from black and white to color, and I can see sex being the impetus for it, sure, but when it’s done like this I don’t buy it. It’s interesting to me that her first time having sex is portrayed like this, with penetration until the man comes, thrice over, and yet her first time with cunnilingus is off screen. I feel like all the sex in this film is similarly narrow and lifeless.
None of what this film is trying to say is new, but much of it is muddled. It wants to rail against the entitlement of men, how they see women as property, how they want them to be exciting and adventurous but only in service of them. And yet it gives Max no grief at all for falling in love with. A child. Literal child, this is not a metaphor, it’s a child’s brain. And marrying her but refusing to have sex with her until marriage because that would be taking advantage, as if marriage would not be taking advantage and has not been used as the ultimate control. On some level the film condemns this, but only in the opposite direction, as part of Emily leaving Max is her frustration over not having sex. It’s baffling that the film seems to take the viewpoint that we ought to let children consent to sex with adults, that it is part of their development and journey to personhood. The film is similarly forgiving to Godwin, who used a woman’s body in a way she would very likely not have consented to all while the film extols a woman’s choice and ownership of her body.
Everything the film has to say about the nature of man and people, about women’s place in society, about sex work, etc, is rote. Nothing here is new, and nothing is heightened by the core conceit. It’s so surface level. And the cast is game enough. Dafoe is Dafoe and that’s always a good time, but I wouldn’t call this one of his greatest roles. Carmichael, much as I love his standup, just is not working here. Stone and Ruffalo are acting for the back seats, and while that has its moments of charm, it’s too much for most of the runtime. And Stone is just. She’s playing into ableist stereotypes for so much of this performance. The film drops the r slur and we’re just gonna pretend that Stone isn’t doing an insulting caricature at the same time? I don’t even want to delve into all the questions raised by the mental disability angle, others could do that better than me, but it’s another level of thoughtlessness and surface level depth.
The score is similarly cloying and overbearing. It insists on a scene rather than being a part of it. It doesn’t enhance it or complement it, it beats you over the head with how the scene is meant to make you feel. I could enjoy the sound of it in isolation, but as a score it’s distracting more than anything else. It’s a bit surprising to me how much this film has been praised as outside of the production design, I don’t see it. I just don’t. For me, this is as much a misfire as Barbie, if not more. Poor things.
Barbenheimer: Part 1 of 2
This is the kind of film I really don’t want to criticize, because we don’t get nearly enough other stuff like it. However, mr. Nolan has been in need of an intervention for a while now, and unfortunately all of the issues that have been plaguing his films since The Dark Knight Rises show up to some degree here. Visually it might just be his best film, and there’s some tremendous acting in here, particularly by Murphy and RDJ. However, it makes the common biopic mistake of treating its subject matter like a Wikipedia entry, thereby not focussing enough on character and perspective. As a whole, the film feels more like a long extended montage, I don’t think there are many scenes that go on for longer than 60 seconds. There’s a strong ‘and then this happened, and then this happened’ feel to it, which definitely keeps up the pace, but it refuses to stop and let an emotion or idea simmer for a while. There are moments where you get a look into Oppenheimer’s mind, but because the film wants to cover too much ground, it’s (like everything else) reduced to quick snippets. It’s the kind of approach that’d work for a 6 hour long miniseries where you can spend more time with the characters, not for a 3 hour film. I can already tell that I won’t retain much from this, in fact a lot of it is starting to blur together in my mind. There are also issues with some of the dialogue and exposition, such as moments where characters who are experts in their field talk in a way that feels dumbed down for the audience, or just straight up inauthentic. Einstein is given a couple of cheesy lines, college professors and students interact in a way that would never happen, Oppenheimer gives a lecture in what’s (according to the movie) supposed to be Dutch when it’s really German; you have to be way more careful with that when you’re making a serious drama. Finally, there are once again major issues with the sound mixing. I actually really loved the score, but occasionally it’s blaring at such a volume where it drowns out important dialogue in the mix. I’m lucky enough to have subtitles, but Nolan desperately needs to get his ears checked, or maybe he should’ve asked some advice from Benny Safdie since he’s pretty great with experimental sound mixing. My overall feelings are almost identical to the ones I had regarding Tenet; Nolan needs to rethink his approach to writing, editing and mixing. This film as a whole doesn’t work, but there are still more than a few admirable qualities to it.
Edit: I rewatched this at home to see whether my feeling would change. I still stand by what I wrote in July, though the sound mix seems to have been improved for the home media release. It sounds more balanced and I didn’t miss one line of dialogue this time around. I’m slightly raising my score because of that, but besides that I still think it’s unfocused, overedited, awkwardly staged and scripted etc.
5.5/10
I've watched movies running the gamut of genres, including some of the most gruesome splatter films including I Spit On Your Grave, the Hostel franchise, the entire (so far) Saw franchise, and even The Human Centipede.... but nothing I've watched has ever made me as uncomfortable as this film did. It's easy to see why it won Best Picture...and it's easy to see the supposed indifference and blasé attitudes of some of the comments on here: this movie hits all of us right where we live, and for some, it's preferable to shrug it off and say, "Meh, whatever." than it is to admit "I saw myself in this movie, and it was not pretty." The truth - and it's revealed here - is that we all have prejudices, we all have biases, we all stereotype other people just because they're different than we are. And we paint with a really broad brush in spite of what comes out of our mouths. This movie reveals that, and it's extremely unsettling and uncomfortable...which is why there are so many half-hearted "whatever" comments about it. None of us want to face the truth that we fall into the same traps, prejudices, and feel the same scorn and disdain for others as what is so elegantly portrayed in Crash. I applaud the entire cast and crew of this movie for an absolutely amazing performance and for peeling back the layers of who we are and showing us how ugly society really is. There are good and evil in humanity...always have been, always will be. But it's completely unfair of us to paint so broadly the way that we do. This is my second time to watch this, and I'm glad I watched it again. Don't know that I would ever want to sit through it AGAIN, but it definitely bears seeing at least ONCE with a clear and open heart. Very touching, very emotional, and sadly, very revealing of the humanity in all of us.
This movie shows in a very good way how the next virus outbreak that will be just as big or maybe even bigger as the Spanish Flu is gonna happen in the 21th century. And believe me, sooner or later IT WILL HAPPEN.
I liked the electronic music that was playing at the beginning of the movie. It had sort of an panicked tone to it that together with the people who where getting sick and dying set a thrilling tone to the first part of the movie.
I found the movie to be very realistic. Jude Law character was spot-on. When there is gonna be an outbreak we will see people on the internet (who have no medical training whatsoever) who think they have found the cure and millions of people will listen to them. There will be millions of people who stop going to work, who stay at home and avoid contact with anyone. Others will do whatever they can to get their hands on a vaccination, even if that means killing someone else.
I liked the fact that we got to see the story from so many different angles. It really gave an overview of the entire situation and what the virus had for an impact on all the people involved.
The end of the movie was a bit disappointing. In my opinion that could have been a lot better. But overall i find this movie to be really good.
Cool concept but terrible, terrible writing.
None of the characters behaves in a believable way, it all feels staged (you know those lines that just happen in movies but just don't feel right in real life? Like "there's no time to explain, just follow me" or "we've got company"), even at the beginning at the resort, before the supernatural part kicks in, like a series of scenes almost unrelated one to the other and patched together, each with the precise purpose to stimulate a feeling in the audience or to get the plot ahead. Characters falling as flies like in predictable horror movies.
Some unexplicable sloppy screenplay moments:
The ending was the best and more naturally progressing part of the movie
It's been so long since I've seen a styling masterfully directed movie from Guy Ritchie. This is far from the best movie of all time. Not even my favorite Guy Ritchie or Jason Statham film. But it's a movie that's told with such verve. This is a crew that isn't trying to do new experimental story telling at this point. They know exactly where they want to go. The tension and the pacing are prepared like a chef whose done this 100 times before. In the wrong hands you'd wonder why the narrative goes back and forth all the time but in Ritchie's hands this only serves to help the tension build.
This is your mother's pie, it's comfortable and delicious in all the ways you hope it would be. But there are misses here as there are in any film. Mostly in the writing. I like Statham and I think his presence carries the perfect amount of menace. There are a few poorly explained plot points like H taking pictures of employee badges (I think this was to do research on all of their names a point that leads absolutely nowhere). I understand H and I empathize with his motivation but I don't care about him. He's almost too much menace. A good Statham role is about 50-70% menace and the rest English bad-boy charm. H is about 90% menace leaving not enough room for anything else to matter. His previous characters have been meticulous and precise almost to a fault and you get to revel in his mastery but here we have that character interrupted forced to forgo the planning we know him for and in it's stead just a continuous forward progression. The rest of the cast is filled with characters that should have been fun. They have great names, solid backstories. In a John Wick style movie this cast would be amazing but here we could have used more of Ritchie's telltale dry gallows humor. For such a full cast filled with actors who could really chew the scenery they didn't get a lot to do. Taking everyone here and transplanting them in something like Boss Level would be perfect. Those characters were almost too cartoonish. I would have loved to see these actors get more to do.
I was definitely excited for a sci-fi thriller, but this movie was so underwhelming. The visual effects also looked really bad. I thought there would be more manipulation of time, sort of in the same vein as Gravity/Interstellar(?) but I felt let down by that. This was advertised kind of as a timey-wimey scifi thriller but it's barely that.
Steve and Dennis work as EMTs in New Orleans when they attend to a series of strange calls of people catatonic, seemingly overdosing on drugs, injured in strange and horrible ways. There's a drug being distributed making waves, called Synchronic, that works by manipulating the Pineal gland in your brain. However, by adulthood the gland is no longer functional, so the drug has different effects on teenagers. As one can guess, the story is pretty obvious from here - I was actually hoping there would be more to it, but it was honestly very straightforward.
I felt like the structure of the narrative was overblown - seeing the different conversations about and between Dennis and Steve had almost nothing to do with the drug and the overarching plot. Why do we need to see different snippets of a conversation when the drug takes you to a different timeline IN THE PAST. The drug emphasises how it shows you a different time and how all time is happening all at once - but it literally sends Steve to the distant past at different times depending where he stands when he takes the drugs. None of the timelines are exactly explained. I also felt like the attempts at humour were really poor. Plus the sad moments didn't affect me either. When Steve takes his dog into the past and loses him there - we could have known that without seeing a weird flickering dog whining in the background.
The characters are so self-deprecating but it's just depressing because it plays into the dark tones of the movie. I liked the dynamic between Steve and Dennis but the side characters were not developed that much. I didn't understand the bonding scenes with Brianna or with Dennis' wife. The one scene where Dennis bonds with his daughter over her future - is that meant to explain why she turns to drugs? Anyway, I was just very disappointed by this film. It was trying to be a human and sympathetic story, but I didn't feel the emotions I would have if I had read this as a book. I would say it would be in the same camp as books like The Last Policeman, The Gone World or The Space between Worlds, but it just didn't hit me the same.
I did like the filming techniques and the colours of the different environments.
This was definitely more for Godzilla fans than it was for critics. It was way better than the 2014 film that got Certified Fresh. The film is just badass. Not perfect but....bad ass.
They do over-do the family drama again though. Especially when the family drama makes no sense. Mark Russel (Kyle Chandler) blames Godzilla for the death of his son. He wants all monsters dead.
Mark’s wife Emma (Vera Farmiga) says screw mankind. The monsters will cure the planet of Climate Change. So yeah in another words who cares if anyone else loses family members. Due to her plan to unleash all monsters.
Her daughter Madison (Millie Bobbie Brown) sticks with her. Despite her mom teaming with some bad men with guns. Who kill some nice scientists right in front of her. So yeah, Mark is the sanest one in that family.
Even if there’s too much of the humans and a silly plot. This is the best of the Hollywood Godzilla movies. Critics are just wrong. One even said the Roland Emmerich version is better. What drugs is that critic on ?
The battles are some of the best done of any monster vs monster battle. Unlike the first film this one has a ton of Godzilla history to it. It shows him way more and shows the character great respect.
*Old fashioned murder mystery on a ship.*
A nice easy breezy murder mystery. Full of fun. Don't count on anything serious or deep here just sit back with your popcorn and a soda and enjoy the movie. Nothing offencive here. Just an adult murder mystery romp. We don't get many like these anymore. Ignore the people who like to criticize everything because they think they are actual critics. Chemistry between Aniston and Sadler is awesome. I hope they make more movies together. Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler are the best!
My Score: 7/10.
^^*Trivias*^^
+This movie set a new Netflix record. In the first 3 days 30,869,863 accounts watched the film. 13,374,914 North American accounts & and an additional 17,494,949 accounts watching worldwide.
+The movie seems to be an Agatha Christi-esque style murder mystery thriller. At the end of the movie, we see the characters of Audrey and Nick on a train named "The Orient Express". This is a direct homage to Agatha Christie's famous "Murder on the Orient Express" (1935) novel.
+Adam Sandler's real life wife, Jackie Sandler, makes a cameo appearance as the flight attendant on the plane.
+When Audrey goes to the first-class section of the plane, a passenger is watching a clip of Game Over, Man! (2018), another film directed by Kyle Newacheck.
+In the movie Nick mentions a guy named Eric Lamonsoff. Kevin James played a character named Eric Lamonsoff in Grownups and Grownups 2, also starring Adam Sandler. Most of Sandler's films reference that last name, in a nod to his old friend.
+Andrea Bendewald who plays a customer in the salon Jennifer Aniston is working at in the start of the movie. Andrea is Jennifer's best friend. She was maid of honour at her wedding to Brad Pitt. She also guest starred in Jennifer's sitcom "Friends"
+Adam Sandler's and Jennifer Aniston's second film together. The first was Just Go with It (2011).
+In 2013, a report surfaced from a German financier that Colin Firth, Adam Sandler and Emily Blunt would be joining Charlize Theron in the movie, which turned out to be false. Coincidentally, Sandler did become attached to the project in 2018, though Theron had already left.
+When Nick and Audrey arrive at Malaga Airport (Spain), the airport shown is actually Milan Malpensa Airport (Italy), not Malaga Airport.
+This is the third film featuring Luke Evans and Gemma Arterton together following Clash of the Titans (2010) and Tamara Drewe (2010).
+Charlize Theron was once attached.
+The shield shown by Nick on the plane and in the store is a patrolmen's shield yet he was referred to as a Sergeant.
+Luke Evans and Victor Turpin, who both appeared in "Murder Mystery", are a couple in real life.
+During the interrogation, the character yells 187. That is a California code for murder, not world or US code.
+John Madden was once attached to direct the movie. Anne Fletcher was attached to direct the movie later.
+The Rolls-Royce that Cavendish owns is a Phantom Drophead Coupe, License plate number EQU 617. Recent models (2016) approaches $533,000 new. It gets 14 MPG, has a 412 cubic inch, 453 horsepower V-12 engine, and weighs in at 5,780 pounds. (16.8l/100km, 6.8l V12, 2.6t)
+Game-Over Man (another netflix movie) is playing on the airplane when Jennifer Aniston's character is wandering around the plan.
Spoilers
+Body count: 6
+At the end of the movie when Nick and Audrey are on the train, the camera pans out and we see the name of the train is Orient Express. This is in reference to another famous murder mystery movie, Murder on the Orient Express.
I saw the trailer and was intrigued.
I was expecting before watching it that it was gonna actually be Death, Time and Love coming to Howard, and I was a bit sad when I saw that they were just actors. But how thrilled was I towards the end, that plot twist I just couldn't have seen coming!
I was going along with them just being actors, and then at the end, we see Death herself at the hospital with Madeline (as we learn at the end, she is Howards wife and the mother of his dead daughter). Revelation! And when Howard and Madeline turn around at the end, we see that Howard is the only one who sees the three. Then we have to remember what Death said about the rules: "We have the power to be seen by whomever we want, whenever we want". Madeline needed to see Death at the hospital that day, but she didn't need to see her again or the other two. Howard still saw them all, however at the end when the camera turns we see that they're gone. Maybe Howard doesn't need them anymore... or might it be us, the viewers, who can't see them anymore? We've gained what we can gain from watching the movie and now they're not visible to us? I might take it a bit far, but my first time watching this was just amazing!
A little sidenote, when thinking about why the "actors" wanted to money, or didn't want it. First of all yeah, they might have done it so to play the role of the starving actors, but not just that. We can use our resources, money, to save time, to get more time - we spend money so we don't have to wait. With death I'm not 100 % sure, but my take on it is that we fear death so we spend money to avoid it. In a straight forward way by paying for vaccines, medications, psychologists. But also think back to when people would pay to get a "ticket to heaven", we are scared and think money is the solution. And then there's love, and she didn't originally want to do this, but when she hears that she can help someone, she's in it. She's only in it when it's about the love. Most people will probably say that you can buy a lot in this world, but you can't buy real love. Don't you just love that.
I honestly am gonna watch this again in the near future with someone I care for, cause it made a huge impact on me and I'm sure it could on other people in my life as well. Will Smith, or well all of the actors, I really thought they did a great job. Recommending!
This is 'Primer' for dummies.
The movie frustrated me from time to time because of massive plot holes and bad writing. The idea is challenging, and complex enough to have fun with, and not too complex to get lost in. However too many things did not add up.
For such smart kids they sure were reckless and rushed everything as if they were for the first time in a chemistry class. Every guy who has even the slightest idea of timetravel knows that messing with stuff in the past is going to get you in trouble (butterfly effect) and if you are going to do something you have to plan it out carefully.
There are also multiple occasions when they travel back in time for a 2nd time to the same time and place, but do not meet their 'earlier' time traveling selfs there. This was especially awkward with the kiss scene. Arguably the most important scene of the movie. Even if the device somehow canceled out earlier jumps to the same time, they didn't have to interfere but just had to jump and wait.
For the story it might have been much more interesting if they didn't focus so much on the main actor during the final act of the movie and prevent such a boring cliched ending.
There is more, but lets leave it with this
There is 1 interesting detail in the ending though; the papers David throws in the garbage bin after the talk with his father date 2025. I wonder what that implies....
Still, there are way worse movies out there.
Edit: there is another thing I really liked about the movie btw. It used a track by Mark Sixma. :D
Did not like it.
I guess it will go well with star stricken audience that watches movies just because a movie star that they like is in it.
For me it is a bad movie.
Bad characters (after watching the movie ask yourself what did you actually learn about lead characters.
Not two rows worth of character development and also almost no interaction between them).
Bad heist plot (multiple plot holes and inconsistencies:
SPOILERS they drag Ann to toilet so they can steal the necklace and then act that they found it somewhere else because it slipped although it was pointed out that it can not slip since you need magnetic key to remove it, or at least wouldn't it be easier just to give her the fake necklace in the toilet saying that it fell.
Also later they drove off with the rest of the diamonds while the place was in lockdown by "best security team in the world" that just accepts "oh, look what i found in the pool" explanation...
Not to mention the movie is caled Ocean's Eight but there were seven women in a group which made Ann Hathaway's reveal at the end not so much of a shock, more of a meh.
There are many more plot holes but it would take longer to read them than to watch this movie.
About SJW in the movie
they managed to cover all "the colors of Benetton", Also it is marketed as a movie about an "All women's heist team",
but in the end they have a male in a team, but I guess he doesn't count and doesn't deserve an equal part of the loot.
Constance swiped one necklace and gets 38 million, but the guy that collected all the rest gets a tap on the shoulder, and no credit.
This was pretty awful.
The entire movie was trying to dictate something to the audience, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was.
At no point do you feel anything at all for the characters. The kidnapped girls and Casey's dad are not developed at all, so their deaths don't carry any weight.
The one smart character (the doctor) doesn't act rationally. The whole lecture sequence made me cringe. The doctor is originally presented as someone who approaches her patients methodically. She is perceptive and crafty. Then she gives a Skype lecture where she pleads with a group of scientists to believe her. She doesn't present proof or make a convincing argument, even though she must have that capability.
Then in dangerous situations she shuts down. While she can write out his name, she doesn't call it out or check for his presence. She knows how dangerous he is. She suspects him. She even stuffs the tissue into the keyhole, but she still doesn't call out his name to snap him out of it.
The girls are also in an unrealistic state while trying to escape. In most other movies, people in this type of situation are either 1) competent, 2) paralyzed by fear, or 3) completely frantic and flailing. These girls were none of those. Their maddeningly slow pace was inconsistent with the terror they must be feeling.
The whole parallel with Casey's uncle (and being imprisoned after being "released" into his custody) didn't match well with the main story. Why did she pull the trigger on The Beast but not her uncle? At first it seems like both stories were parallels, where at this point in her life she actually overcomes her fear and confronts her aggressor. But then she just goes back to her uncle. It's very unclear what her character is feeling and what she's going through.
Also, the fact that The Beast is immune to gunshots and has superhuman strength is out of nowhere. The story abides in the natural world before derailing into the supernatural. While the supernatural element should be a big reveal, it wasn't. His powers build up step by step, so there is no surprise factor. The lack of surprise implies that we should expect this. Yet the world presented doesn't give us any hint before the build up. Tying it into Unbreakable at the end was jarring as well. The tie-in explains more about the movie's universe, but nothing about the movie's tone or world-building mirrored Unbreakable.
McAvoy's performances were decent but spread very thin. So many characters (8?) are introduced that none of them were well developed. The other thirteen aren't explored at all, which was pretty disappointing. MNS might be saving them for the sequel, but I doubt most viewers will be willing to sit through another ordeal of this magnitude.
The only success of this movie is when Casey goes for a gun and the non-Beast personalities plead for their lives one by one. It makes you think about the twenty-some actual people who would die if she pulled the trigger in self defense. Unfortunately, this was the only redeeming quality of the movie and not enough to justify a watch.
