Enjoyable but incredibly overrated and an absolutely terrible ending.
I thought this film was breathtakingly beautiful, every frame was decadent. The storyline was vastly different to any other version of the Nutcracker I have seen, but it was a refreshing new take which I enjoyed. Think this may be a new Christmas favourite.
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.
I was excited for this one due to the gorgeous costumes/set design and diversity, but it's also much more than that! The musical numbers were delightful, especially combined with the costuming.
The premise of magic and wonder stands out to me here, because rather than the traditional fantasy that you'd expect it's the beauty of math and engineering (and with a female main character at that). It was really interesting to see, because math is often depicted as "stuffy" and definitely not creative even if advanced math does need a lot of imagination. Truly made me wish I didn't let go of math when I was younger.
You can really tell a lot of love and effort was put into this movie!
Funniest movie I have seen in years. There is no way Dr Strange In the Multiverse of Madness is going to do multiverse better.
Yeah, there's plot holes. But the movie is so damned funny you just don't care. When they first explained how the multiverse thing worked my reaction was "Really? Is that all?". But it just got better and better and better.
There's periods of the movie you're struggling to breathe you're laughing so hard, and others that are just slow, deep, and sad. It's heartbreaking and hilarious. Slow and a thousand miles per hour. Nothing happening and more happening than you can possibly keep track of at once.
This movie is, without a doubt, brilliant.
Being a Colombian I can tell you that it was set in a perfect way.
The colors, the cultural diversity, the music that represents us, the typical foods, the personalities, everything. You could even say that the background on the violence is very well done. In Colombia we have a big problem that is forced internal displacement, so much so that we are the number one country in this. The fact that they gave a few little moments about this conflict ... brought me to tears, but I really appreciate it.
It is the perfect tribute to my beautiful land. I loved it.
In addition, I feel that it is very easy to connect with the characters and give each one a little development, considering that there are so many.
I have a little criticism for the movie though. I feel like a little more explanation was needed as to why Mirabel could not receive the miracle when she was a child and the specific reason why Casita was cracking. Maybe they could make it a bit longer to explain this, but overall I liked it.
Pd: Lin Manuel Miranda never disappoints, I'm his fan 4eveeeeer
I was really surprised by this movie. Nothing was entirely original. It was like ZombieLand meets Fall-Out. However the movie was ambitious, fun, sweet and exciting at times.
It was nice to see a dog used properly in a movie as well. I mean in most movies with monsters, the dog is predictably a goner. So that definitely was a nice change that he was utilized.
It’s strange to get a monster movie that I actually want to give a big hug.
Well... I'll just say that Paul Rudd surely knows how to channel his inner Michelle Pfeiffer.
I've been a fan of Taylor's music for a long time but for a while I refrained myself from being too vocal about my support for her as a person, because it wasn't cool and we were all supposed to think this and that about her and if you didn't you were labelled all sorts of things, so instead of defending her i just didn't say anything, and enjoyed her music outside of that sphere of drama and controversy. But with Taylor it's really hard to fall in love with her music and not instinctively fall in love with her too, because everything that she is she puts into those songs, those lyrics, those melodies, so if you love her music then that means you love her, and i soon figured that out. The way she's grown and become more vocal about everything we all already thought she had in her is really inspiring and, in my opinion, what she needed to fully become an icon, because icons have to stand for something and help change history with their platform, which is music, which happens to be the wider reaching form of art there is in this world. I'm so so happy she's finally showing the world what she stands for, cus it's not hard to see that privately the values have been there from day one. I really never wanted this docu to end, i wanted it to have 3 hours. Fuck The Irishman, give me 3 and a half hours of Miss Americana instead.
Oh. My. Gods.
Just so much better than Shazam.
Has everything that a Shazam movie needs.
9/10
[7.9/10] Nope is a film of tremendous spectacle. Writer/director/producer Jordan Peele has not lost the slightest of steps in crafting evocative sequences with his team. He elicits tension as heroes and bystanders alike flee the giant specter lurking through the sky, ready to suck them up. He captures the balletic grace of a ribbony jellyfish creature floating through the clouds and gobbling up what it finds. He gets the heart pumping as his new age cowboy races through the western skyline, dust whipping in his wake, as the creature sharply pursues. To see it on the big screen is to be awed by it.
But at the same time, it is a film about that spectacle, the lengths filmmakers go to capture it, profit from it, take credit for it. It’s hard to know how to take that. There’s a recursive quality to the film, a movie rife with impossible images about the cost and peril, moral and otherwise, about committing those images to film. At the very least, it speaks to one of Peele’s recurring narrative motifs, those overlooked or underappreciated, who nonetheless contribute to that which is beautiful and even transcendent, even as they’re appropriated or forgotten.
Here, he extends that franchise to the animals made to perform for Hollywood productions. From Gordy, the sitcom chimp who goes on a rampage, to the horses on the Haywood family ranch loaned out for television and film, to Jean Jacket, the living UFO who feeds on whatever flesh he finds in the great loping west, Nope is suffused with an inherent respect and fear for the wild animals made to perform for our amusement.
The subtext of the story suggests that these animals should not be treated as just another prop, but rather respected and treated like the fellow souls they are. They possess a power, one that requires us to meet them on their level to be able to forge a working relationship with them, lest we be subject to the parts of them that remain wild, the parts we cannot control, no matter how much we think we have them cowed.
The themes, as always, are potent. Nope lingers in the mind and the heart, in its reflections on the creatures made to perform, the urge to wrangle such heart-stopping images, and those who are disregarded and overlooked in both efforts. But the film’s characters are some of Peele’s most inaccessible. Their decisions are often strange, their reactions stranger. Their motivations vary, but often come down to the need for wealth or fame or both. They are some of the director’s most colorful figures, but in a way that can obscure the sense of an inner life beyond the ideas and motifs they signify. It makes the movie a hard one to warm to at times, with the players more sketched than defined.
And yet, in those quieter undefined spaces, Daniel Kaluuya shines once again. It’s hard to discern whether his character -- O.J. Haywood, the inheritor of his father’s Hollywood horse ranch -- is meant to be neurodivergent or simply the archetypal strong silent type. Regardless, he is a man of few words, and Kaluuya makes a meal out of the meaningful looks and body language that convey his bearing and demeanor despite that.
He is reserved, if not outright shy, full of determination, if only to carry on the barrier-breaking legacy his father built, and he is made of steely, steady, stuff. Those qualities make him someone who understands animals better than people, and combine to make him the perfect soul to respect, comprehend, and even commune with this being from the beyond.
Peele and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema also understand how to shoot him. Nope is filled with any number of eerie, low-light scenes where OJ, his more extraverted sister Em, and their handful of neighbors and allies investigated the strangeness hovering above their doorstep. Peele and his collaborators still know how to evoke a sense of dread in these moments, with obscured visions, suggestions of something ominous, and blank spaces for the viewers to fill in with god knows what.
But there’s also great attention to the detail in the lighting, bringing out Kaluuya’s complexion and definition even in darkness, highlighting his expressive eyes, that allows his performance to take center stage even amid the building horror and eerie tone. There’s an interiority to O.J. in particular, and sharp choices in lighting and composition help draw it out to the audience’s wavelength.
Peele and company also do well to set up rules for Jean Jacket that both speak to the movie’s themes while creating practical challenges for the main characters to overcome. The flying beast deadens anything electrical in its wake, something that stops vehicles in their tracks, permits the sound team to chill the audience with waning audio, and makes filming it that much more challenging. The alien creature can only consume organic matter, with rains of discarded metal and other leavings that make it sick creating both a practical danger and frightening imagery. And as with the horses the Haywood family trains, it is provoked through making eye-contact with it as it roams the skies above, turning the horror flick into a reverse “the floor is lava” game of staying shielded from view. These qualities are cinematic, while also creating pragmatic challenges that the main players must be clever and determined to overcome.
In that, the movie’s creative team crafts some of the stunning horror that already defines Peele’s budding filmography. The title drop comes when O.J. witnesses the magnitude and power of this cloud-hopping behemoth, “nopes out” of doing anything to get in its way, as the same imposing figure prompts the audience to do the same. It’s a film as steeped in feelings as it is in thoughts, and the sense of abject terror as something that cannot be controlled, or tamed, only accommodated, imposes its will on those brave or foolhardy enough to try to use it for notoriety, riches, or entertainment.
Nope uses it for those ends too. It’s hard to tell whether the filmmakers want us to feel complicit in this, to speak out against animal cruelty in Holywood, to recognize the below-the-line workers who make the impossible into the real, or simply to experience the same terror and triumph its players do. But in this alternating languid and exhilarating movie, the spectacle, and the awe, overwhelm, as Peele conveys his signature incredible images, through his characters striving to do the same.
Onward is a solid and heartwarming adventure about brotherhood and the importance of believing in yourself
Even though over the years we have come to expect nothing but perfection out of Pixar, (Which is kinda harsh from my perspective even though it unfortunately makes sense) I believe it is still worth noting that movies like this one give the impression that the beloved animation studio wants to keep enchanting us with stories that are relatable, creative and tug hard at your heart strings.
The movie pretty much does all that is listed and then some. The world is unique combining our modern day world with a dungeons and dragons like twist, The chemistry between the brothers is beyond enjoyable and the story does it's very best to give audiences something adventurous but also something though provoking as well
Although I personally wouldn't put it up there with other Pixar Originals like Inside Out, Wall.E, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo and ect.... I still believe that Onward is still one of the better movies Pixar has put out in a while and definitely stands on it's own merits as a great family adventure that has something for everyone
All I can say now is, Pixar, I'm super excited to see what you come up with next.
Either you love this movie or you don't. I loved it, I think it's supposed to be cringe and everything. I loved the cameos and the story line. I got a kick out of the one liners and references to other movies and shows. Hopefully we'll see more
Good wholesome fun movie. There’s a fantastic dog that makes it all worth it.
Quite a genuine and affectionate throwback, yet it's not quite as "stirring" or funny as I was lead to believe, nor does it have the horror elements the genre was known for. The visuals are impressive though, as the 70s aesthetic is captured lovingly.
This is basically "Goonies 2021". A perfectly enjoyable family movie.
Short Round/Data was even in this. :)
How I rate:
1-3 :heart: = seriously! don't waste your time
4-6 :heart: = you may or may not enjoy this
7-8 :heart: = I expect you will like this too
9-10 :heart: = movies and TV shows I really love!
I kept waiting for the part where the film becomes detestable, but that part never came.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is like a tasty Christmas cookie: it has all the right ingredients, is a little too saccharine and looks incredible.
While the visuals are extremely Baroque in nature, the story, like the original Tchaikovsky ballet, has clear Romantic influences which mean the plot and the music go together like feet and pointe shoes.
MacKenzie Foy was utterly breathtaking in the lead while Jayden Fowora-Knight as the Nutcracker Captain was utterly gorgeous (though the weakest of all performances).
My take is, The Nutcracker... is meant for adults who remember what it means to be a child, and for children who want to know how it feels to be an adult.
Much good. I cried 4 times.
a captivating soft-core horror dream!!
Did you guys seen another movie? this was fantastic and very emotional. Henry was great and the whole premise and how it unfolded the story was superb.I don't understand the bad reviews. This is a must see for anyone with feelings.
The Love Witch is an incredible movie, one of the best of the last two decades at least. Anna Biller's first feature film Viva was its precursor and already a great first attempt at conveying the idea of art in cinema. With The Love Witch, Biller achieves that goal and surpasses all expectations. It is an amazing technical feat, even more so when you realise that she herself had a literal hand in all the aspects of her film; the art, designs, sets, props, costumes as well as obviously writing and directing.
This time and unlike Viva, she doesn't act in the main role and cedes that position to Samantha Robinson, who is stellar. Her performance echoes the ones from the industry's greatest. She is charm and presence incarnate.
To viewers who didn't understand the acting at times, let me tell you this: think theater on a reel and not method acting. I personally never once thought the acting was weird or bad or whichever derogatory argument. It is just great and works as a stunning aesthetic device in the film, like all its other aspects do and are; from the incredible use of colours, to the mystifying music.
The Love Witch is a technical and artistic triumph. It is the definition of an aesthetic movie with depth and character, and if this does not fit the idea of cinema as art, I don't know what does.
What a great concept by Disney to create a film based around what they believe in and practice as this film follows a magical town that is run by a king who keeps everyone’s wishes and desires, safe supposedly until something unexpected happens, and a rising star has to come to the rescue in a young teenage girl. There was some good music in this film, but not enough to your liking as most Disney films have. It was comical, funny and emotional like all Disney films usually are but it seemed like it was missing that something special. So if there was a little bit more music and had that special flare, this movie would get a 10 out of 10. But because it does not, it is just a solid Well done movie.
Don't watch this if you have not seen the first one recently. You will miss too much. I just watched back to back both, and loved it. Great story, characters, action, martial arts, everything. This is easily better than all recent Marvel and DC movies combined.
This was the best film I've seen in a long time.
This is The Exorcist level stuff.
1 cheap scare but it was placed perfectly.
Story is very deep... Very isn't a strong enough word here.
The camera and editing work was top notch!
And the sound was perfect! This movie doesn't try to scare you with music... but it does.
This isn't a movie to casually watch with distractions.
Get good and baked and sit alone in the dark and get your pants scared off you!
3 Thoughts After Watching ‘Wish’:
Gaston officially has a rival for the sexiest Disney villain.
My first major thought is how I don’t understand the disdain this film has been getting. This was a solid Disney story. A touching standalone fairytale, with great characters, gorgeous animation, and those signature Disney tunes. Yeah, there were a lot of Easter eggs. I loved ‘em. This is clearly a love letter to Disney history, to the man himself, and I was moved by it.
“Knowing What I Know Now” is a certified bop. And I was giving ALL the snaps when the queen joined in.
Well that movie was a lot of fun, plenty of decent action and fuck loads of monsters that can be harmless or very dangerous. I was impressed on Dylan’s performance, definitely growing stronger in his acting and did his role well also the film had a lot of heartwarming moments and a good message.
