Most of the fiction I've been exposed to involving Puritanism and witchcraft has revolved around the idea that the hysteria surrounding witchcraft in the New World birthed a greater evil than any actual witchcraft ever did. What Robert Eggers' debut film does so masterfully is blend the human frailties that come to the fore when witchcraft-related hysteria emerges with a palpable, thick and dread-filled evil that soaks into the entire film.
Much has been written of the lengths Eggers and his crew went to to ensure historical accuracy and they certainly do a magnificent job of creating an ambiance that never allowed me to relax while watching. The characters speak in quasi-Biblical tongues, their hair lank, their countenances sullen. It's a hard life they've chosen for themselves and it's made all the harder when Samuel, a baby, disappears.
The titular witch is used sparingly and two of her three appearances are images that will stay with me for a long, long time. Eggers does well to find a balance between not showing too much and showing enough to suggest a horror beyond what's shown directly: blood and fat, pale moonlight on gnarled skin, a weathered hand.
The cast are all extraordinarily committed and I admired just about every performance in the film. I was especially impressed by Harvey Scrimshaw - he perfectly plays a young man on the cusp of adolescence, questioning himself, his religion and the environment around him. The ensemble scene around him while he suffers from possession is the high point of the film and this is in no small part because of his staggering performance, veering from thrashing in the throes of a fit to religious ecstasy.
There was one point in the film where I was given a fright outright but what's so effective is the atmosphere of dread that's slowly and carefully increased throughout. I've been thinking about the film for days, and I'm sure I'll be thinking about it for a long time to come. Many commentators, on the site and others, were sorely disappointed that it didn't reflect the more prevalent trends in horror at the moment but I'm glad that this film has carried on a tradition of horror that seeps its way into your consciousness and stays.
Initial Reaction
After two viewings
The Good
• Deadpool himself is as funny as ever. Ryan Reynolds keeps up a fantastic performance and really gives it his all.
• Cable is also really good. Josh Brolin, despite being in many movies this year. Has given a great performance.
• Jokes are really funny when they hit, and they hit hard.
• Secondary characters are also really well done. Some anyway. More on that, below in the spoilers
• It has a true charm to it. Making it more distinct than the first. But not outshining it.
• The action was on point. The director really knows how to capture a great fight scene, and there are plenty here to enjoy and marvel at.
• Villain. This point is actually a fairly good one, but also has spoils. So read below if you really want to know. What I can say is that Ajax is nowhere near as memorable compared to the bad guys here.
• The amount of balls this movie has. It just does things, I would never expect them to do. The first movie gave us shocks at what they could say and show. Now they just go and toy with that to the next level. And I loved it.
The Bad
• Plot. It's not the best. It's also not that simple. The first Deadpool was very straightforward even with the time jumps. Here, it's a bit of a mess. Not to mention it's kind of a rip off of T2. But it acknowledges this at least
• Some jokes don't quite land. They reuse some of the same lines from the first movie, and it feels as if it really is lazy writing. As far as it seems, they are trying to make Deadpool's catchphrases more clear. But to me, it was just annoying.
• The jokes seem to build off the story in this. Whereas the first one felt more improvisational and made it seem like the plot revolved around the humour. Here it just seemed like the comedy was slotted into this action film. But it's not all that bad, just let down the overall tone of the movie.
• CGI is actually pretty bad. It's so distracting, it takes away from the comedy they try to sprinkle over it.
• Wade. He is focused on more than the first. And I just didn't like how they were trying to go about it.
• Along with the focus on Wade, the emotional scenes don't mix that well with the comedy like they did in the first.
Other Things
• You're going to want to stick around for the mid-credit sequences. They are some of the best ever in a Marvel movie, and in movies in general.
• There are two mid-credit scenes (almost back-to-back) and no end-credit scenes.
Spoiler Things
• The X-Force joke is so damn good that I can forgive the lack of build in the team up until the very humorous end. Again such a great ballsy move. Props to the studio.
• The villains in this movie, aren't really present in terms of villains. The first Deadpool had a villain, he had to beat him. Done. This sets it up to be all about Cable, but it actually gives us villains that turn out to be the same as Wade. Which is great for a Deadpool movie to show anti-heroes having a connection with the villains they are fighting.
Conclusion
DP2 is not better than the first. It lacks the simplicity and catchy humour that it had. But, it does grab onto you and takes you on a ride that is not as funny, but is just as enjoyable than the original. I don't see it being as rewatchable like the first. But as its own movie, it holds itself up for a fun experience, wonderful character portrayals, and a damn good time.
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.
EDIT: There has never been a movie like this that I didn't like but I really wanted to read and talk more about with other people. I guess Darren Aronofsky at least got people talking about his movie, even if people didn't like it.
What a weird movie. I really thought the sound design was great. Really creepy and creates great tension.
So Jenifer Lawerence is Mother Earth and Javier Bardem is God? Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer are Adam and Eve and the heart crystal is the apple of eden? I don't know much about the bible but that is what I got. I guess the message Daron Aronofsky is trying to say is we treat the Earth like shit. It is going to kill us all but its bound to repeat again? I don't know, it is a weird movie.
EDIT2: So after seeing this after a long time of not thinking about it I realized that Darren Aronofsky really hates humans. The bat shit crazy third act can not make up for the boring first two acts. And knowing that this is just the bible made it even worse. I don't hate this movie but I'm definitely not a fan.
"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.
Got back from watching Ant-man and the Wasp. I really enjoyed this one. I loved how it was its own adventure and relatively self-contained in terms of the MCU. I actually really liked the original Ant-man a lot more than I thought I would when I saw it, so it's no surprise that the humor and tone of the sequel works for me as well. Paul Rudd definitely plays a solid Ant-man and I love me some Evangeline Lilly, who is the star of this one. Even the secondary characters of Ghost/Ava, Foster (and others) were pretty well fleshed out and had good backstories and development to them.
What really made me like this movie was that it had a very good "end game"/goal to strive toward (don't want to spoil it too much), so it made the adventure, journey and conclusion that much sweeter. It's definitely better than some of the other MCU movies where they just inject a rando bad guy trying to destroy the world for some nefarious reasons.
I definitely recommend checking this out if you liked the first at all. If you haven't seen the first, you'll miss out on a ton and not have a good idea of the what is going on emotionally and what is at stake. The original Ant-man is a great movie as well, so this just gives you another excuse to watch it :P
I could feel a sweet taste in my mouth coming out from the cinema after Ready Player One knowing I’d be coming straight back here, my very own “Oasis”, to write this very review about a movie that I hope will be a landmark for all the other people, who like me live in a world where “pop culture” isn’t just a part of history, but it’s a part of real life… or simply IS real life.
Ready Player One isn’t a movie for everyone. It’s a gem that is only to be understood by the people who it is made for. A hymn bellowing aloud to every single person who struggles in life.
The misunderstood, the shunned… people who don’t know what place they have on this earth, people who don’t know how to start living, people who hide and those who create an invisible shell around themselves separating them from everyone else… people like me… the internet people.
Those of us that live in a world where comic books aren’t just “books with figures for kids”, where videogames aren’t just brainwashing violence, where movies matter and they have to be talked about, where the line between fantasy and what is real and tangible is so thin, that it enables us to expand our minds and so deeply changing every single one of us: the way we talk, the way we look, the way we think, how we interact, how we live!
Those are the people Ready Player One was made for. Me and you reading this.
This is for US.
I feel sorry for those who cannot possibly feel the relevance this movie has. Who did not understand any of the references, the little things this movie was brought up upon, the lingo the characters use, the way they are portraited the way in which it takes them a blink of an eye to feel like family, to trust one another completely and depend on each other, the need they have to feel included and not eclipsed by society.
There is only sadness in that, at least for me writing this, I could not live a life without this, it would be colorless.
Ready Player One is an amalgamation of pop culture concentrated in 2 hours and 20 minutes in the form of a videogame where everything your imagination wants is right in front of you.
The characters will fight against an “EvilCorp” to take control of “Oasis” the virtual reality that is the pinnacle of society’s future by racing to find the ultimate “Easter egg” and ensure the community is safe from exploitation by greedy goblins that do not want you to install “AdBlock” as a mod.
The movie struggles to have a very clear line between real and virtual because of the consistent switches between CGI and “regular” film, this up until the very end where it finds balance and leaves the viewer, who understands what is going on, with a message that to me is most important in all that happens: take a break from the internet.
I shouldn’t need to say this – but render unto Caesar the quality of CGI is out the roof, everything is super-detailed and the animations are PHENOMENAL, which is on-par with the few real-life choreographies that are featured in some of the switches between real and virtual that I mentioned earlier. The colors are so vivid and perfectly placed some of the scenes are dreamy and give a sense of everlasting life to what is happening which further thins the line between you – the viewer and it – the picture.
Steven Spielberg is a master at giving life to what could very well look bland and lifeless and for that, I shall thank him till the day I die.
It’s always a pleasure to see Easter eggs and references inside movies, like we’re used to with the MCU, but I daresay this one is an entire different level.
Let me explain to you why: Everything you see, from the WIRED magazine, to the “Twitch” streaming mention, to the DeLorean to the Iron Giant, Tracer, Halo, Gears of War and also all the Back to the Future tingling sounds that warm my heart, these aren’t just references or Easter eggs, and this is why this movie it SO GOOD, they ARE the movie!
It’s just a facet of our life that is there to remind ourselves that, however sci-fi the movie might look like, if you think deep enough it’s actually a mirror of everyday life (if you’re a nerd, like me).
The story itself isn’t too shallow or a Denis Villeneuve mindfuck, it’s a simple low and high climax with a big reveal and a moral story, so it’s a textbook good story… but it is the way it was shaped to enclose everything that just fucking shoots at your brain so seamlessly that makes it even better.
Besides my personal opinion, I think the cast overall was just spot on. I don’t think I can contribute objectively on this subject, for this particular work.
I rarely enjoy Ben Mendelsohn, especially as a bad guy.
What I can say is that I loved the perpetuating and profusing synergy between Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke. I LOVED how bad-ass Lena Waithe looked OOC and how massive her character looked in-game which also showed some soft spots which gave it more depth.
Win Morisaki did one thing near the end of the movie that I won’t spoil but I screamed the name of that thing in the room and everybody was both pissed and annoyed by me (Don’t regret it)
In general, I just loved the crew altogether, bit of a weak villain but honestly, it’s not that bad, it’s really hard giving dignity to someone who you know is going to lose anyway, unless you are Andrew Kevin Walker and like fucking up everyone’s mind.
To end this review I would like to say I almost cried in 10 scenes purely by nerd-gasm, I definitely cried when Win Morisaki did that thing that I cannot speak of without spoiling, with the big purple sword and that bang-bang-bang-bang and those tin-tin-tin from Back to the Future and also all the brum-brum-brum, also cried on the dance swooshy-swoosh scene where they – and so I kept crying and I had to hold my breath when she did that thing with the bike that they mentioned and that was my big “whoa” and then the movie ended and they said that thing and I was like “fuck that I don’t take days off I gotta learn RS6 Siege”.
Peace.
You can find my reviews on real life @WiseMMO on Twitter.
[7.6/10] If I had my druthers, I’d go into every movie cold as cold can be. No trailers. No synopsis. Nothing but a reliable recommendation that what I was about to see will be good. If I can manage it, I prefer to be surprised by a film, to let its wonders and splendors unfold without any preconceived notions or expectations.
I could hardly have gone in less cold for The Disaster Artist.
I’ve watched The Room at least once a year since I first saw it in 2010. I’ve shared it with friends and (reluctantly) family. I’ve gone to midnight screenings where plastic spoons are thrown and audience members shout ripostes and inside jokes back at the screen. I’ve heard Greg Sestero himself provide live, running commentary on his most infamous on-screen appearance. I’ve seen predictably awkward interviews with Tommy Wiseau and struggled through his disjointed jumble of a sitcom. I’ve read the book, by Sestero and Tom Bissel, that The Disaster Artist is based on. And I’ve quoted and ruminated and formed deep, committed opinions about Wiseau’s unlikely, unintentional masterpiece and everything that’s spun out from it.
Which is to say that mine is an inherently unfair opinion when it comes to The Disaster Artist. Because rather than taking the film as I find it, I cannot help but compare it to what I know of the story it’s interpreting, the ways that it reflects and condenses both the book and film it’s based on and around, and my own expectations for how that story should be told. It’s the sort of thing you can try to compartmentalize and set aside, but it seeps in, if for no other reason than that it affects how the movie feels to me, however much I might like to take it in as though I were wholly unwashed.
Apart from my personal hang-ups, The Disaster Artist is a fun story of a young man and his oddball friend finding the world’s most bizarre-but-earnest way to ever “make it” in Hollywood. It is a thoroughly funny flick, one made by individuals who clearly have plenty of affection for the source of their fun, and seem to have as much sincere joy in recreating it as they do any derisive schadenfreude from pointing out how inept a film The Room is. There’s a lot of love in The Disaster Artist -- for The Room, for Wiseau and Sestero, and for the idealism and determination it takes to make a movie, any movie, that can earn such a reaction from its audience.
But there’s not a lot of complexity or darkness. That’s fine in a vacuum. Lord knows there’s plenty of grim and gritty takes on a myriad of lighter properties out there. But it strips one of the most interesting features of the book -- its revelation that Tommy Wiseau was not just the deluded but harmless object of fun that fans of The Room had (somewhat patronizingly) constructed him as, but could instead be scary, or repugnant, or genuinely horrible to the people in his orbit.
The Disaster Artist grazes this idea, showing Tommy to be unreasonable and think-skinned at times, but it mainly wants you to root for him, to succeed in this strange quest and, to be frustrated with him at times, but ultimately to hope that things work out with his improbable hopes. There’s nothing wrong with that. Like most characters translated from real life to the silver screen, the Tommy Wiseau of The Disaster Artist lacks many of the rougher edges of his flesh and blood counterpart, more of a naive and fearless dreamer, albeit an inept one, than the difficult figure he cuts in real life.
Despite the quirks and kinks that are sanded down for the cinematic translation, James Franco is Tommy Wiseau in the film. The Disaster Artist may leave out uncomfortable details of Wiseau’s life and personality, but Franco captures every bit of his mannerisms and demeanor without resorting to caricature and makes it all look effortless. He disappears into the role, one that could easily have been a series of tics and exaggerated impressions, which instead makes this larger-than-life, almost unbelievable individual feel like a real human being, regardless of his eccentricities. It’s the biggest achievement in The Disaster Artist, and one that speaks to Franco’s commitment to the character and the real man underlying him, who is so faithfully translated in his presence and bearing, if not in every detail of who he is both on and off the set.
The same is true for Franco (who also directed the film) with regard to the The Room itself. The Disaster Artist faithfully recreates scene-after-scene from the ignominious original with clear reverence for the source material. The movie parcels out these remade sequences judiciously, making them enjoyable but not tedious for longtime fans, and true enough to pique the interest of first-timers who may not realize how accurate the recreations are. There is an attention to detail on display, demonstrating how Franco & Co. did their homework.
Thankfully most of the comedy comes from the characters, or original takes on situations described in the book, rather than mere efforts to prompt the audience to point and laugh at reenactments from The Room. Seth Rogen in particular steals the show with his sarcastic comments as the film-within-a-film’s on set director. The Disaster Artist is anchored around The Room, but its creators have the good sense not to just cannibalize the curio they’re aping.
Instead, Franco and his team use The Room and the story of its creation, to deliver an Ed Wood-esque lesson in the beauty of making something you believe in, that can affect people and be the culmination of your dream and your hard work, even if what you produce doesn’t meet traditional standards of quality or garner the reaction you imagined. The Disaster Artist seeks out the beauty in the singular-if-inept qualities of The Room, in the misguided but idealistic Tommy Wiseau, and in the rocky but rewarding friendship between him and Greg Sestero. That is certainly laudable.
It just doesn’t line up well with reality. That’s not necessarily a problem, or at least it shouldn’t be. That’s the beauty of storytelling and adaptation, it can plumb the depths of real life and mine it for nuggets of truth and purity from the inevitably more complicated affairs of real people, and transform them into something digestible and heartening.
But there’s an irony to that process in The Disaster Artist because The Room wasn't just supposed to be Tommy Wiseau’s magnum opus. It was meant to be his star-making debut and self-feting. Johnny of The Room is clearly Tommy’s idealized version of himself: generous, surrounded by friends, and meant to be seen as underappreciated for his magnanimous nature by anyone and everyone in his life. The Room is meant to reveal Tommy Wiseau as an artist and a talent, but it’s also a personal calling card, one where the thin veneer between Tommy and Johnny unveils a man who not only thinks of himself in terms of these delusions of grandeur, but believes this film would instill those same delusions in other.
And yet, as all great art does, The Room ended up revealing the real parts of its creator, and they were not as attractive or commendable as Wiseau tried to present them on the screen. The Room does evince a sense of idealism, yes, but also a clear sense of vanity, of perceived martyrdom, of inescapable misogyny. Wiseau tries to present an idealized version of himself, and ends up showing his true self, problematic warts and all.
The irony is that in creating a dramatized “behind the scenes” version of the “real” Tommy Wiseau, it’s The Disaster Artist that presents an idealized version of him. The Tommy of this film is too lacking in perspective to realize how unlikely his dreams are to be realized, but persists nevertheless. He can be difficult at times, but primarily because he values his project and his vision. And he can be a bit overly possessive, but it’s always framed out of a sense of hurt, of believing in a friendship he doesn’t know how to properly reciprocate.
The film meant to show us the true Tommy Wiseau instead gives us Wiseau’s best self, while the man’s own attempt at hagiography puts his worst impulses on display. That too is the glory of film, where one man can be the subject of two films, each presenting very different versions of who he is, and both can be true after a fashion. The Disaster Artist may not present the Tommy Wiseau I’ve come to know through his work and words and choices before and after The Room, but it uses what he represents, more than what he is, to lionize the medium itself and the fools who would dare fraternize with it, when it recreates him and his work on the silver screen, and in that way, does more justice to Wiseau than even the man himself could.
An easily missable and forgettable semi-supernatural (bullet bending, some kind of adrenaline ESP, and other assassin magic) action flick that is actually better than it seems. On the second viewing, I found a direct giveaway to the main twist half an hour into the movie. It's not hidden, but neither is attention called to it. Just a quick little shot that will make you go "huh?" and then it moves on. I also found a reference to the writers, "J.G. Millar" at the end (on a cubicle, a reference to J.G. Jones and Mark Millar). There are probably other little things hidden throughout that are less obvious than, say, the words on the bullets that are made obvious (and what the keyboard keys spell). The movie may try to be a little more clever than it was by aping Fight Club with the monologues, but it never holds itself out as a serious film. It's a witty action flick not unlike the Fast/Furious films (and it has its fair share of car stunts, too, and some Dom hasn't done yet) but with assassins. It may not be a Best Picture winner and it may not have made IMDb Top 250, but you could do a lot worse on a Friday night.
I heard about this film some months ago but I didn't expect it to be released in here. When I heard that it would be I knew right away that I had to have the chance to watch it at the big screen because it looked visually appealing and the different story caught my attention too.
The Congress is presented to us as a futuristic story about Robin Wright, the actress that plays herself. The cinema industry is not easy we all know that aging is not a good thing in Hollywood. The parts start to get smaller and start to be less and less. Beauty almost always wins in a world that sells beauty and youth for all eternity. The new Hollywood era in The Congress is exactly the non existence of actors. All actors are scanned into a computer, then the computer does all of the rest. They just have to sign a contract saying that they are "property" of a movie company. But this film is not just that. From that point, we jump into 20 years ahead where people are be able to chose to live in the real world or in an animated world that offers them the freedom of being whatever they want to be with a total different perception of what the world once was before.
The whole concept of this film is very innovative. The combination of live-action and animation is absolutely very well made. Visually is great, very colorful and imaginative. Creepy sometimes but beautiful at the same time. Definitely an unique film.
A lot of moral questions are presented to us like, what is freedom afterall? Why humans are so superficial and selfish? What about human consciousness? It's very deep and we need to find all of the hidden messages beneath what we are watching.
It is definitely a film that will make you think about a lot of powerful issues that exist in this world. It looks amazing and all of the themes addressed are very important but I think sometimes might be a bit confusing and overcomplicated. That's why I can't give it the 5 stars and I also don't know if I can recommend it to any one. I just can speak for myself and for me it was definitely worth watching! I think that it's a film that need to be experienced because is much harder to explain.
I loved the first Deadpool so I had very high expectations for this one. I was a little disappointed, I still enjoyed this movie a lot but I didn't love it like I thought I would. Maybe it is because the first one was so fresh and different and simple and the sequel is more of the same just more complicated. It could also be the promotion cycle just overloading on jokes and taking a little bit of the wind of the sails.
First off Ryan Reynolds is still perfect. He lives and breathes Deadpool. Josh Brolin is great too but just doesn't have a ton to do here. Hopefully we see more of him in the future. And a shout out to the fantastic Zazie Beetz. She is amazing in the show Atlanta and now I hope everyone gets to see how wonderful an actress she is. This movie also has a few great cameos too.
The movie itself is a mixed bag. The action is a lot better but the CGI can be pretty bad at times. The plot is bigger but more messy. It does some really unexpected things and I enjoyed that. The jokes are great, at least the ones that land. I think the first movie is constantly funny but this feels more like an action movie with a lot of jokes. There are a ton of references, which most are funny now but I wonder how they will age? The music is pretty good too. The opening credits James Bond rip off is really great.
Overall I liked this movie a lot and want to see it again but not right away. I look forward to seeing more Deadpool and hopefully some X-Force movies.
P.S. This has one of the best mid credits scenes any movie has ever done.
Edit: Watched the Super Duper cut and I didn't notice that much difference. They did change some of the music, I like the original soundtrack better. Still the same Deadpool and some jokes are different. The first half drags and that extra time makes the movie feel a lot longer even though it really isn't.
This movie, like many horror films like it, rely heavily on concept rather than writing. It's true, the concept of a spirit that you can only see when you turn off the lights is perfect. We often saw questionable shapes in the night as children, and our mind would then create more disturbing imagery after that. It's only fair that a movie would attempt to do the same thing, but when you rely more heavily on concept, you lose track something important: depth and reason.
Simple scares are easy, but they aren't quite enough anymore. We need a reason to latch onto something in order to understand what we're watching...and to discuss it after viewing as well. To put it lightly - the spirit in this film didn't seem to have a real reason to be as violent as it was. I could probably list off more reasons for it not to be violent. I personally wanted to know why it was so angry at these specific individuals, and I couldn't really find anything. I did understand that it was vengeful for another reason - but without spoiling anything - there is a valid point as to why it shouldn't have ever felt threatened by this family. So I'm a little lost.
All in all, it felt like a movie that drew its strength from the premise and little else. The acting in the film wasn't so bad, in fact the boy's acting was quite impressive for what it's worth...which isn't a whole lot. It's not a terrible movie by any means, in fact I quite enjoyed the premise. I just wish it had a little more backbone and depth when it came to the writing of the characters. That being said, if you are a fan of horror movies - you should check out the movie. You might love it. You might not, but...who am I to judge?
[8.0/10] I don’t know what to do with movies like Birth of a Nation or Triumph of the Will, films that represented important advances in cinema technique and whose influence is still being felt today, but whose subject matter and messages were utterly abhorrent. Pocahontas is nowhere near as morally repugnant as these films glamorizing the Klan or Hitler, but it still forces us to reconcile an amazing technical achievement with an unfortunate flattening and distortion of history.
The 1995 Disney release tells the story of John Smith and the Virginia Company reaching “the New World.” Little do they realize (or, more accurately, care) that there is a tribe of indigienous people living there, most notably Pocahontas, the headstrong, free spirited daughter of the local chieftain. She and Smith fall in love. She teaches him the beauty and connectedness of nature. And, of course, their love and bravery love help resolve the mutual prejudices of the British settlers and the Powhatan tribe (save for the unctuous Governor Radcliffe).
The problem is this is a massively bowdlerized version of the real story. That’s nothing especially new for Disney. Much of Pocahontas’s story feels of a piece with the studios other princess movies, most notably The Little Mermaid, where quick love stories rule the day and the hard edges have been sanded down.
But there’s something more pernicious about softening actual history than in adapting old fairy tales. The movie’s love story feels more than a little gross when you learn that Pocahontas was a preteen during the events depicted (and, not for nothing, the romance may thankfully never have happened at all). It glosses over other unpleasant and disturbing parts of her story in service of an easy tale of love bringing understanding between two peoples. (And hey, that’s before the uncomfortableness of watching a kids movie starring Mel Gibson these ways, which is its own satchel of hummingbirds.)
Even if you can forgive that as standard Disney sap, there’s something far worse about how the film transforms the real history of colonization, a brutal affair that’s left scars on indigenous communities to this day, and all but sweeps it under the rug. That brutality is turned into a “both sides have their prejudices” late-movie tune, and a “we’ve learned that we’re not so different and can live in peace” ending that ignores the harsh realities of what followed. The standard Disney “happily ever after” lands much harder when real people are still healing from the awful truth centuries later.
Despite that, Pocahontas, while provincial, has its heart in the right place. Sure, there’s some bland nineties corporate inclusivity at play, but the thrust of the movie’s showpiece “Colors of the Wind” number is that the settlers, despite their pretensions to civilization and superiority, are the ones who are naive and ought to be taught. The film’s antagonist is a representation of the idea that greedy, social-climbing capitalists will harness and stoke prejudices to paper over their naked cash grabs and veiled efforts to bilk the workers, to whom they think themselves just as superior, something more than a little radical for Disney.
Hell, there’s even some decent comic satire of colonial arrogance when Governor Radcliffe rhetorically inquires why the Powhatans attacked them, and his valet responds, “Because we invaded their land and cut down their trees and dug up their earth?” The film does indulge in some reductive “noble savage” tropes, and its “both sides”-ism feels particularly quaint from the vantage point of 2020, but the movie is raising these issues, even if it can’t satisfactorily grapple with them in the confines of a cuddly kids film.
And yet, if you can set aside the bundle of thorns that is the movie’s historical revisionism, mixed-bag messaging, and prejudice-spouting star, you will be treated to one of Disney’s most gorgeous, euphonious musical films ever.
Pocahontas is awash in a stunning palette of sunset hues. Glowing blues, pinks, and purples sufuse the film, adding to the spiritual tenor of the piece in places, but also just showing off the brilliant paintings that Disney’s animators and design team could create. It’s more revisionism, but the movie manages to make the fetid swamp that is Jamestown look like a series of impossibly scenic vistas, each more inviting and idyllic than the last. True to the movie’s themes, the setting and the land come alive in almost every scene.
That’s to say nothing of the film’s wonderful effects and elemental work. The movie is draped in fog and vapor, with the two lovers seeing each other through the mists and the warring peoples’ anger and hatred represented in a collision of smoke. Water is an essential visual motif in the picture, and its flows and splashes and settles on the screen with all the unpredictable fluidity its real life counterpart.
Time and again, the movie returns to characters’ reflections (Hello Mulan fans!), using funhouse mirror distortions or natural shifts in perception to reflect the same in our heroes or villains. And the wind is just as much a thematic landmark for Pocahontas, conveyed beautifully in the swirl of leaves through secluded setting, or just the waves of the title character’s tresses in the mountainside gusts. If you watched this film on mute, you would still be in for a treat based on the film’s aesthetics alone.
But if you did that, you would miss Pocahontas’s wonderful songs. Composer Alan Menken returns after his triumphs in The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, and has not, if you’ll pardon the expression, missed a beat. Menken knows how to create the soaring rush of a major moment with his score, but also finds creative rhythms and stacking melodies in the film’s choruses. He prepares a sonic feast here, with melodies that suit the movie’s needs and stick in your brain.
By the same token, the lyrics of Disney newcomer Stephen Schwartz (who would go on to write Wicked), are pithy and often clever. At times, his words lack subtlety. (“They’re different from us, which means they can’t be trusted,” may be the most thudding lyric in Disney history.) But particularly when he’s writing for Radcliffe, Schwartz finds a comic edge and drops some sharp lines. Purely as a musical, Pocahontas is unimpeachable.
Lest it otherwise be forgotten, Pocahontas is not just a love story or a musical or an attempt at history -- it’s also a cartoon! The movie remembers this in scenes featuring Meeko the racoon and Percy the pug. The pair’s lighthearted Tom and Jerry routine doesn't fulfill Disney's legally mandated animal sidekick requirements, but allows the animation team to craft all kinds of amusing, slapstick sequences to keep the kiddies smiling and show off the funny animal bona fides that helped give animation a foot in the door.
That comic relief is a welcome tonic to a solid, if unspectacular plot. Make no mistake, separate and apart from the social and moral issues surrounding the film, this is a fairly standard Disney princess story (albeit one in service of a woman of color), with all the shopworn trappings that come with that. Pocahontas is independent and doesn't want to listen to her father. She and her beau fall in love at first sight. They bridge their differences and help avert the final conflict. Lather, rinse, repeat.
And yet, the script is supremely solid and functional. Every character’s major motivation and personality is established and built to intersect. Secondary characters like Pocahontas’s fiance or the young colonist who admires John Smith are given good reason to act and intervene. The essential themes of the movie are baked into even the smallest interactions. Even Radcliffe is a delight of a villain -- officious, small-minded, greedy, and insecure -- making him a memorable baddie. The narrative here is no great shakes apart from the broader problems it invokes, but it works as a structure on which to build the film’s visual and musical glory.
It’s just hard to separate that glory from all of those problems. Pocahontas is a great movie despite those undeniable issues that hover around the film. It’s virtuoso visuals, exceptional soundtrack, and dazzling animation should earn it a place of pride in the grand Disney pantheon. Nevertheless, those wonderful features are inseparable from the difficult truths the movie either whitewashes or rewrites for popular consumption.
It’s still a film that any animation buff should watch, and whose beauty and melodies are worth being shared with the younger members of the audience. But any screening for the kiddos should be followed by a long chat, about what really happened and about how tricky it can be to appreciate art that dazzles the eye and pleases the ear, while remaking or ignoring so many real life scars.
This movie was released soon after my father had passed away in a similar situation, but in an FPSO ship, and for that reason, it took me so long to be able to watch it and I still don't want my mother to do so.
My father died saving his crew and I can tell you from experience that there's no justice in this world, nor even for big things like this.
I can only feel empathy for the families of those who died in the Deepwater Horizon, the deep damage the incident caused to them... it's sad to think they probably didn't get any real support from those companies afterward, just like we didn't get any as well from the big Norwegian company my father worked to.
In the end, you can read all the accident reports you can find, with their "consequences" for the accidents sites, but you won't find one that includes the consequences for the families of the deceased ones and the trauma of the survivors.
There should be so much more movies about these "accidents"... maybe it'd raise awareness of how dangerous and risky this work is and why it should be better and heavily regulated and supervised - but not by the companies operating them, but by neutrals affiliated to the Navy, who won't cover up the wrong things in the name of profit. If there was more serious supervision, many of these accidents could be avoided, for the good of the sailors, crew and the sea.
'Let's Be Cops' a.k.a. New Girl tribute episode to 'The Other Guys' with Nick and Coach.
A pretty fun movie, even though it is written with not enough room left over for the actors to work with for more improvisation (or so it seems.) There are also a lot of scenes that are just not necessary and kinda over the top (the dancing of coach being a perfect example of it) for a movie like this. It makes for a few good smiles, but it also feels a bit forced into the film.
However, Jake and Damon are having a good chemistry on screen since they have been working together for a while with New Girl now, and this makes the movie highly enjoyable. The physical humor especially is worked out great. Adding Rob Riggle (as the backing 2nd 'straight man') makes them stand out even better.
This movie is not it's best in making you laugh out loud with witty comments or crazy jokes, but it definitely makes you light-hearted and kind of happy throughout and after the movie from watching these two 'silly smart guys' save the day.
The worst is the soundtrack of the film though. In the opening scene it is still funny to hear the guilty pleasure song from Backstreet Boys, but soon you'll discover that the whole movie is drenched in bad trap meets hiphop (I expected 'Beez in the trap" during almost every scene xD) and this bothered me a lot. Couldn't they use some more neutral les disturbing tracks if they didn't want to get cliché songs?
Anyway, the movie will not disappoint most of its viewers and even though it won't go to the top of the comedic genre either. It is great for some nice entertainment for (almost) everyone.
