Everyone keeps suggesting there is a paradox concerning the 5D future humans and their ability to save humanity in the past. It's really not a paradox at all. Everyone assumes humanity survived to ascend to the 5th dimension but how could humanity exist in the future if not for the actions of Cooper.. who was guided by future humans (begin endless loop).
Did anyone ever consider the other important character in the movie? Amelia Brand carried on with the rest of her mission (thanks to Cooper). I postulate that Brand used the human seeds as intended and set up a colony. A colony that would thrive and eventually evolve beyond human. Thus Earth is of little importance, and may have indeed died. These colonists, and the generations that followed, would have been told the story of a great man (Cooper) who saved them from extinction. With the ability to manipulate space-time, they would pay homage to their hero "God" by helping him in the past so he may fulfill the mission most important to him, to once again see his daughter. Plan B worked beautifully. But the 5d humans, having the power to bend space-time, decided there's no reason why Plan A had to fail.
Okay, what the f? How did they pull this brilliant piece of cinema off? I am your standard hater of Disney live-action and I am pleasantly surprised they made me enjoy a Cruella origin film. Wtf. I want that little dog Wink. What a boss.
I watched a fantastic video that focused more on the murderer Chris Watts’ abysmal turn in the interrogation. It focuses a lot less on Shanann (which is a good thing because the documentary throwing mean comments towards her did nothing for the story). Check out JCS Criminal Psychology Chris Watts for a better analysis if you are interested in the case.
It was at the point after Eloise enters the first dream sequence, and Sandie descends the mirror lined stairs and dances that I thought "This is so good, I don't even care what happens next!"
Turns out, I did care. It's such a shame to see a movie that could be so brilliant suffer from such a poor and incoherent narrative.
"A guy gets on the MTA here L.A. and dies. Think anybody'll notice?"
For all international viewers, the movie is based on a Romanian fairytale (“Capra cu Trei Iezi” written by Ion Creangă) and follows the original story quite closely.
It’s another superb performance from Maia Morgenstern with her unique way of transmitting emotions, while Marius Bodochi plays the role of the bad guy in a horror movie superbly - he really is scary.
Brutal and tough to watch... Whether you believe or not doesn't matter...there is no denying that Jesus Christ was the fuckin mannn...he took an ass whoopin for what he believed in... coulda rolled over and died like a punk, and just gave up but they tortured his ass to death and he not only didn't give in, he forgave too? He's a stronger man than I...I woulda asked my father to rain down hellfire and brimstone and that sequel would be 'hot' as hell bahahaha
The meanest thing I could say about this movie is ‘Has extreme Don’t Worry Darling energy’.
I have never seen a movie more desperate to justify itself. It’s trapped in this endless neurosis over what it is- a blockbuster Barbie movie in 2023 by an acclaimed art house director that is fun but also deep but also earnest but also self aware but also but also but also. Every point it raises it brings up a counterpoint to before the audience can, every frame is trying to prove it’s not just product but art. It’s never just Barbie. It’s never confident or even comfortable in its skin. You cannot for a second be immersed in Barbie because it’s not a story so much as a visual dissertation without a central thesis, it’s a student film riffing on the big dogs hoping it’s underdog audacity will carry it but given a budget in the millions. It so desperately wants you to like it, to know it’s in on the joke too.
Everythng is an ouroboros here: an endless loop of argument and counterarguement feeding itself. Isn’t it shitty how the Mattel boardroom is full of men? Ah, but isn’t it cool how Mattel’s acknowledged it with this niche? And it’ll mythologize Barbie’s creator but uh don’t worry she did tax evasion we know that, now let her impart into Barbie the experience of all women. Barbie helps women, Barbie hurts women, Barbie is told to be everything so isn’t she just like women, but it is better to be a creator than the idea, and in the end, hasn’t Barbie helped all these women? Oh uh why is this blonde white Barbie the centerpiece of it all and helping not only her diverse Barbie friends but a Hispanic woman and her daughter? Don’t worry we’ll have the daughter call her a white savior! But don’t worry we’ll have the mom say she’s not! It’s fascinating to watch, honestly. It’s a film that wants to prove to you so so bad that it works but it doesn’t and it knows it doesn’t and it knows you knows. It’s Gerta Gerwig wrestling with taking this job for an hour and a half.
The cast is more than game and able. Margot Robbie is doing her damndest to find the heart and soul in this role, and there’s one scene with an old lady near the end of the first act/beginning of the second that actually works, for just a moment, more than any of the big third act soliloquies or montages with emotional ballads. And as someone who’s seen Blade Runner 2049 and Drive, this is the best Ryan Gosling performance I’ve seen. The man commits and delivers a surprisingly compelling and entertaining antagonist. The movie can’t quite reconcile what he’s done with his ending, or tie it into the themes- is Ken letting go of Barbie and the need to define himself for or against her symbolizing the need for men to do the same, and if so, why play it so lightly and sympathetically?- but that’s not his fault. And the supporting cast are entertaining, but you just can’t have big laughs with a movie that feels like it’s constantly checking in the corner of its eye after every joke to see if you’re laughing, grin stuck in place. It’s not as funny or as smart as it wants to be, and the sad thing is, it feels like it knows that too.
There is some great set design, cinematography, dazzling choreography, popping colors, and some fun high points. But I can’t imagine many kids liking it. And we’ve seen how conservatives have taken this movie. And anyone’s who’s progressed beyond the politics of. Well. A feminist blockbuster Barbie movie will find it cloying or condescending or just incredibly basic. It’s aimed at a very specific crowd who will buy what it’s saying, the liberals who see corporate feminism as progress, who agree that it’s just about a little change sometimes, who are ready for something just a little more complex than a SNL sketch. I don’t regret seeing it, because I was deeply engaged the whole time seeing it struggle at war with itself, in pain for its whole existence. It’s not a boring movie by any means. It wants to say everything before the audience can say it first. It’s the endpoint of The Lego Movie and Enchanted- the corporations interrogating and justifying themselves, and the cracks in this formula are too large to ignore. It wants to be so much, and the attempt is as darkly mesmerizing as a fly thinking it can somehow and someway metamorphize into a butterfly and suffocating and struggling in its makeshift cocoon, but this is one Barbie that fundamentally just cannot break out of its box.
This movie is legendary. someday it'll become a classic. I don't know why someone is complaing about why they didn't get to explore more of Oppenheimer's character, or what he was. I think that person needs to rewatch this movie. Scene are not snippets, It is complete and well integrated. Yes, they covered a lot ground. Could it have been a miniseries? of course! but saying that this movie fails to integrate different aspect, is completely false. Even character whom had small screen time, did perfect. I think everyone needs to hit theatre, so Hollywood makes more fucking movie like this. which delves deep in character and dark part of human chatacter. Not everything is Pink and happy. I think, you must watch it in theatre decide for yourself. I think I have spent all my penny well. Thank you Nolan.
This is a masterclass in how to portray subjectivity. I was absolutely immersed in this character and could feel the amazement, horror, and divided feelings that he was going through. The directing was phenomenal and deserves much praise.
Will be really interesting to see how this is gonna be received here in the west. It's a weird one. Couldn't help myself to actually feel disappointed after the credits rolled, and a lot of people in the audience felt the same way. It's super vague, the story jumps constantly, new ideas and (seemingly) new plotlines are constantly opened but never resolved. It's confusing. And because of this, I just never really cared about any of the characters. Which is something that usually never happens to me in a Ghibli film...no emotional attachement whatsoever. After sleeping over it and reading some reviews and interepretations from Japan, I can accept and respect the film much more now. It's a supposedly final goodbye from Miyazaki, a potpourrie of his ideas and visions, a micro-history of Ghibli itself. It's fine. But it's not for me and probably a lot of other people. But that's okay.
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.
What an incredible script, very well structured. A story that grips you from start to finish, very tense and very well done. The performances are magnificent and the connection between the characters makes everything so much more exciting to watch. In addition to these aspects, the movie is set in the 80s, which gives everything a special touch.
It is honestly so refreshing to watch a movie that is trying new things! i was paying attention to everything every second of it. i'm still not sure of how i feel about the ending, but the experience was totally worth it!
Having seen both this and the documentary, I really appreciated Howard's widening the scope to include the less visible helpers, like the farmers whose crops were ruined and the water engineers/laborers. Beautifully made. Might just be Ron Howard's best work for me.
No dramatization of anything. No portrayal of politics, or the rights and the wrongs. A movie that truly honors the people, the volunteers involved in the rescue, and most importantly the people who lost their lives.
Caught a special preview earlier tonight. It was pretty funny. I'm talking there were parts where the entire theater was laughing out loud. This kind of reminds me of raunchy love story movies like American Pie. Overall it was a lot of fun.
This was a lot of fun and felt fresh through and through. For me, the 2+ hours passed by like nothing. I enjoyed most of the dialogues, of course the camera work, the soundtrack and the overall vibe. The final 10-15 minutes made me smile nonstop, this was just really good cinema. I personally also loved the ending shot. Left the theatre with a big grin and a good feeling.
