I haven't seen this movie for a really long time and just bought the new restoration from a 4k master on blu-ray and was happy to watch it. I thought it wouldn't be as good as I remembered it, because most of the time you realize that movies you liked in your childhood weren't actually that good.
That's however in no way true for Rambo (the German title of "First Blood" which is why I always got confused in the past when I heard the original title and thought that it was a part of the franchise I hadn't yet seen).
The restoration looks really good (except for some scenes that stand out because of their worse quality (mostly due to bad lightning in the original movie, I guess), and besides that, the movie is still really captivating, though it is in no way over the top. The car/motorcycle chase for instance - how unimpressive was the car flip or Rambo falling from the motorcycle? Still it was more captivating than a lot of modern movies with so overrealistic and fast paced cuts, that you just stop caring all together.
Also I totally forgot how funny Richard Crennas persona was: "God didn't make Rambo - I made him. I'm Sam Trautman - Colonel Samuel Trautman. I came to get my boy" - what an introduction :D And then follows a dick-measuring contest between Will Teasle and Sam Trautman. That is great acting. As is the acting of Brian Dennehy as the dislikable villain character - and of course we cannot forget the actin of our main character, portrayed by Sylvester Stalone - I also forgot how extremely moving the last scene was - I remembered that there was this critical moment when Rambo finally opens up to Trautman, but I forgot just how intense it was, and how unexpected it came. It feels somewhat displaced in a movie that builds up as an action movie with the underdog fighting the bad guys who unfortunately have the law on their side. And at the finale all of a sudden this change of tone - that is really bold, it's both strange but because of it strangeness so much deeper and better - as you are simply not prepared to what is going to happen. I always remember to feel sympathetic towards Vietnam veterans even though I am and always was a pacifist. I guess that is an impression that this movie left with me when I saw it the first time at my earlier teen years.
Last but not least I also really liked the sound track and the setting and locations are also really great. All in all a pretty good movie and factoring in that this movie had me so interested even though I've seen it a couple of times in my youth, and feeling that though it is so 80s it is still a movie that could captivate so many young audiences who have never seen this movie before, I am inclined to give it the best rating possible.
And because I mentioned the new blu-ray release: this is really worth a buy. There is more than 1,5 hours of extras, and these are pretty mixed - from the classics like interviews, making-ofs, trailers and featurettes to two serious documentaries, one on the Vietnam war and the other on the training of Green Barrets, as well as a fitness training featurette from the personal trainer for Rambo, there is a lot really interesting and unconventional ground covered. And the steelbook artwork looks just stunning as well :)
[7.4/10] It can be tricky to approach movies and television shows aimed at children but from before your time. Revisiting something from your own childhood comes with an easier ability to slip in that kid sensibility once again, appreciating what your past self felt for those well-loved stories, even if it’s tougher to feel the same thing as a crusty old grown-up. Even unseen family films from the time period of your childhood can be easier to connect with, since they’re built around a style and vision that will be more familiar. But the further back you go, the harder it is to forge those connections for movies targeted at another age group and another time.
Then a movie like Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure comes along. (Read: debuted almost forty years ago.) And it’s not for me exactly, but it’s surprisingly easy to understand how a ten-year-old watching in 1984 could fall completely in love with it.
The reasons this might not be especially accessible to adults are myriad. The story is basic to the point of being stock. Mace, a young boy, and his sister, Cindel, are separated from their parents after crash-landing on the forest moon of Endor. They must band together with the Ewoks from a local village to rescue their mom and dad from the evil Gorax, a gnarly monster holding Mace’s parents captive in a faraway land from which no Ewok has ever returned.
It’s the closest Star Wars has come to Lord of the Rings. The story dispenses with all but the barest trappings of science fiction and goes full high fantasy. An eclectic group of brave moppets, wizards, and warriors goes on a grand journey to save the day, fending off feral beasts, traversing great gaps, tangling with evil spiders, and pushing fearsome monsters in large chasms. There’s a raft of magic at play, with visions of faraway lands and enchanted objects, and even a Tinkerbelle-esque fairy to aid our heroes at a choice moment. Experienced viewers will recognize the familiar tropes at play, deployed without much in the way of twists.
But there’s a charm in the simplicity. The story is accessible, easy for young men and women to place themselves into. The stakes are clear, with the lives of Mace and Cindel’s parents on the line. And a tale of a young boy showing bravery, banding together with a group of people who don’t know him or his family, but risk everything to help save them anyway, amounts to the right mix of adventure and aspiration to fuel imaginations at home.
Granted, some of this could only work through the eyes of the child. The young performers who play Mace and Cindel are, god bless them, pretty terrible, and a script full of repetitive dialogue and extreme reactions to seemingly every development does them no favors. The vast majority of the cast is made up of Ewoks who don’t speak English, relying on mascot gestures and tone to communicate to the audience. (Though a narrator -- none other than Burl Ives! -- helps avoid the nonstop Wookie growl problem from The Star Wars Holiday Special.) And the movie’s middle is flabby, filled with random interludes of Mace getting trapped in an enchanted pond, Cindel getting caught on a runaway horse, and an extended interlude where they have a giggle-fest with a fairy. It plays like fluff at best and filler at worst.
But some of the material here is transcendent. The production design work of Joe Johnston (one of the first people to play Boba Fett) and his team is remarkable. Part of why it’s easy to understand the appeal of a film like Caravan of Courage for youngsters is how inviting and detailed this world is. The homey yet rustic nature of the Ewok’s homes, the imposing architecture of the Gorax’s lair, the bucolic settings our heroes traipse through all have a lived-in quality that makes them feel real at the same time they seem utterly fantastical.
The character and creature design work is also stellar. In truth, most of the Ewoks are kind of ugly. Something about teddy bears with human-like eyes and big teeth detracts from the alleged cuteness. But performers like Warwick Davis inject such life into them in a way that makes the little fluffballs endearing. Without the benefit of dialogue, the performers have to rely on gestures and tone to convey meaning, and it’s a tribute to their talent and professionalism that each feels like full-fledged characters, connected and bonding with the humans in the story, instead of furry appendages.
In the same vein, there’s a real menace to the larger fauna our heroes encounter. A giant rat-dog chasing the titular caravan inspires a fearsomeness in his gait and snapping jaws. A large spider is a little more evident as a puppet, but has an appropriately grotquese look. The Gorax is an achievement in and of itself, sharing an ugly-yet-terrifying aesthetic with some superb movement and effects work to create the impression of a lumbering giant threatening the despite their best-laid plans. Much of Caravan of Courage shares a vibe with Jim Henson’s fantasy productions like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, and the sharp use of puppetry only helps add to that.
At the same time, the film’s score helps make a fairly simple tale feel like an epic adventure. Peter Bernstein’s theme is oddly reminiscent of the theme song to the 1960s Star Trek series, but also hits the right swells and sweetness whether the kids are palling around with teddy bears and sprites or going toe-to-toe with some burly beast. Alongside the sonic beauty of the piece, sweeping shots of the countryside or intimately lit, misty scenes at an Ewok home capture the eye as well as the ear. Caravan of Courage looks and sounds remarkably good for a 1980s made-for-T.V. movie. The exquisite texture is something all ages can appreciate.
All of that excellence in craft aids a resonant theme -- that for however different humans and Ewoks may seem in the world of Star Wars, there is a familial loyalty and love that unites them. Boundaries of language and culture fade away when lost children search for their parents, whether they’re fluffy or furless. Leaning into the universality of ideas like caring for children, wanting to be a good kid despite mistakes, and a central curiosity. values that cut across different cultures, are an appropriate set of ideas to build this kid-friendly adventure around.
Those ideas are admittedly basic. So is the plot. So are the emotions. But in that simplicity rests something welcoming to kids, goosed with the fun of this elegantly-constructed world filled with warm and charming figures to help children like them through unimaginable dangers. Such elementary tales may not appeal to grumpy adults in the same way. Yet there’s a beauty here, an appeal to the universal amid furry sages and whiny tots, that makes it easier for grown-ups to understand why all of this would tantalize a young mind, and feel their own inner child drawn to it too, if only for a moment.
I rarely assign the highest possible rating here, but "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" simply blew me away. The first movie was almost perfect, with an incredibly varied animation style, good characters, and an exciting and humorous story. The sequel is now a flawless expansion of these elements. This time, for example, even more different animation styles are blended, and the result is simply stunning.
The voice actors are also strong again. I was especially pleased to see Spider-Gwen's (Hailee Steinfeld) role expanded significantly, as her story perfectly complements Miles' (Shameik Moore). And the return of Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) provides a good laugh or two. Oscar Isaac as Spider-Man 2099, the Indian Spider-Man (Karan Soni), and the villain The Spot (Jason Schwartzman) are also clear highlights. There are also numerous Easter eggs that can't all be discovered during a single viewing. For fans of the comics, "Across the Spider-Verse" is one hell of a treat.
This is not least due to the fact that the story is once again very strong. While the first part was perhaps held back a bit by the fact that it was also an origin story, there's no holding back this time. The focus is on the multiverse, and it has never been done so well and creatively in any Marvel movie. Amidst all the spectacle, there is also time for smaller moments and character development. Scenes with Miles and his family, as well as Gwen and her father, stand out in particular.
Overall, "Across the Spider-Verse" is a perfect Spider-Man film. Looking ahead to the sequel, which will fortunately already be released in March 2024, my expectations couldn't be higher.
I thought the movie really underdeveloped the world, and didn't take advantage of all of the cool possibilities. Other than The Shining none of the references had any impact. Mark Rylance was the only actor to make an impression. I didn't even like the narrative of the book that much but I thought Stephen Spielberg would improve it not make it worse. The plot holes were huge especially in the third act ( How did Art3mis just walk into his office, walk out without anyone seeing or hearing her, and just walk out of the IOI headquarters ). It felt like a lot was cut for time, or they spent so much time on CGI sequences they forgot to make anything real, but what they cut were the parts that made the book interesting. You could ignore Ernest Cline's narrative and plot struggles because he made the characters slightly interesting, the challenge seemed difficult and all encompassing, and a lot of the references were actually relevant to the story. Every time they got a key it was a huge deal in the book, here I totally forgot it even mattered because it was so glossed over even from the beginning ( Really a race? ) and the real world consequences also didn't matter, so the whole thing felt like it was hitting the classic sentimental Spielberg movie moments with nothing to back it up.
"It's every man's worst nightmare, getting accused of something like that."
"Do you know what every woman's worst nightmares is?"
Promising Young Woman is dark, entertaining and engaging. It’s not flawless, I don't think it's a cinematic masterpiece or anything like that but I really enjoyed it. The film surprised me by how many turns it took, it had me wondering where the story would lead. The tone and genre shifted a little bit too much, which was jarring at times but ultimately made the movie more exciting.
What I liked:
The use of symbolism, colors, music, and framing. The movie is so damn visually pleasing;
Great ensemble cast. Carey Mulligan was absolutely brilliant in every single scene;
I liked that Cassandra is cunning, she is not the typical 'cold sociopath' but rather a vengeful woman completely fed up with masculinity. I also liked that Cassie is not a Mary Sue. You don’t get to see a female character like this so often. Her revenge on Madison was too cruel. Later, she admitted nothing really happened when Madison was drunk, but how can we be sure she wasn’t rape? The film’s logic is that men will always take advantage of drunk women, why would this time be different? I know that hurt people want other people to feel their pain when they believe they were never acknowledged, that’s what the creators of this movie wanted to show;
It's an interesting choice that for once, the main character is not the victim herself, so the movie is based on the depth of a friendship, and loyalty between the bond of women;
The ending, really exhilarating, matched the message of the film. Yes, it’s bitter and cynical, and leaves a bad taste in your mouth. But that’s the point. The twist was pretty brutal and bold, I definitely didn't think they'd go there. At a certain part I thought this was going to turn into a melodrama about Cassie and Ryan's relationship. It seems like some reviewers were expecting Cassandra to be a hero, to literally kill the men who wronged her. People want some movies to be documentaries, not fiction, but just some!! For example, they have absolutely no problem with watching Borat, despite the fact that this is not how Kazakhs behave or even talk (Sacha Cohen’s fake accent is just horrible and wrong), they don't think how the movie would affect Kazaks. BUT according to these people Promising Young Woman should have ended with the main character triumphing and a happy ending, otherwise it would have negative effect on rape victims. One don’t get to dictate people’s politics but surely we can at least expect them to be consistent? You can’t want acting to be a physical representation/stand-in for a belief system when it suits you and don't when it serves your interests.
What I didn’t like:
The comedic tone of the scene following Cassandra’s death and at the wedding is inappropriate. The characters of Joe and Al Monroe are completely cheesy, idiotic, and quite unrealistic. I wanted them to be more serious because this is not a sitcom.
Cassandra is putting herself in a lot of incredibly potentially dangerous situations. How come none of the guys she was trying to deceit didn’t have weapons of any sort, or didn’t get mad that a woman played them?
All in all, the movie is tense, topical, and eye-opening for people who don’t believe victims of sexual harassment.
Let's be real here. This isn't a good film. And it's flawed from the get-go.
The casting. Dreadful. Hanks is a creation from Batman Returns. Priscilla has none of her beauty. And the most fundamentally unforgiveable issue - Elvis doesn't look like Elvis. Who signed off on an actor to carry this film where the eyes nose and mouth are absolutely incorrect?
The editing. Horrendous and overdone. There is barely a moments peace from the onslaught. However, for this catastrophe of cinematography to only cost 85 million USD is a triumph.
The pov aspect. Why in the hell would you base this around the ridiculous story of Colonel Tom Parker only to then leave out half of the facts? And it's not short on time at 2hr 30.
And finally, the pacing. When Elvis is washed up prior to the 68 Comeback special we haven't been fed enough of him at his peak for the rise and fall to make sense. When he passes, the bloatedness isn't shown and then arrives unexplained but for a single line of voice over. Periods that needed to be shown are glossed over and periods of relative unnecessity are dragged out.
But the real crime is the music. I counted 2 uninterrupted performances. The rest were manic collages or mixed in with - wait for it - modern hip hop... What egotistical mind decided that was a good idea...?
I watched. Now I'll hope to forget. And for anyone who wants an actual representation of Elvis from an actor who actually looks like him and tells the actual story, look for the Jonathan Rhys Meyers TV miniseries biopic.
To paraphrase a Bill Burr routine... Elvis was the first to be a major superstar. He made all the mistakes because he had nobody who had led the way.
Why is that not spelled out?
The 'theft' of black music. The 'child' marriage... I get that 2022 eyes see the world differently but a film like this shouldn't pander to the modern trend for rewriting history. It should provide perspective.
If Elvis hadn't grown up surrounded by black culture and organically witnessed that music, he'd be Pat Boone. But he wasn't. He was a true child of the musical influences. If he hadn't had his career, then it might have been another 20 years before black music found white ears... And it wouldn't have been a black artist who brought it. That's the sad truth. There needs to be a conduit and Elvis was that.
To labour this point... Tom Hanks being cast as a gay man afflicted with HIV (Philadelphia) opened the door to films of that nature being mainstream. Nowadays a gay man must be cast in that role. But you don't get to where we are without Tom Hanks being the conduit. That seems to be lost on people these days.
Progress is a series of incremental steps.
And look at the Priscilla marriage. The age of consent and the times and the location were all a world away. Don't be outraged at this, be outraged at Jerry Lee Lewis or Chuck Berry.
How sad the film was so overwhelmed by its desire to create ridiculous camerawork that it failed to deliver any of the impact of the first major superstar.
5/10
This documentary explores the op-ed article that appeared in the Times about SA en CSAM at Pornhub. In doing this, it adds very little, if anything, to the procedings. We get some faces and voices with the article and a bit of extra background but essentially nothing new or groundbreaking. So on that subject the documentary does not go beyond skin-deep, which is fitting.
The added value then, compared to the Times article, is the opinion on the breadth of the industry by the actor and actresses themselves. The difficulty they have monetizing their product, the uncertainty of it al. It's a shame that the lead-in to this actual 'new' material takes most all of the runtime, so it all ends rather too soon and no real resolution or realisation is gained.
For those thinking to watch this for the nekkid ladies: Please don't bother. The whole thing features 3 pairs of naked breasts (6 boobs, if you will) and nothing much more else. So unless your fetish is 'off screen moaning': You'll have to get your rocks off elsewhere.
All in all: Fine concept, subject matter warrants the attention, but the documentary just skims the surface and sits on the Netflix lineup just to draw in people, I fear. Skippable, unless you missed the Times article "The Children of Pornhub" or want to avoid reading it.
[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.
Obviously made on a low budget and a collaboration between three or four companies this film happily does not suffer for it. Casting well-known character/comedy actors makes the viewer, in particular British viewers, feel comfortable from the beginning. Clearly the story is written by fans of the sci-fi and in particular time-travel genre. Therefore the poking at the tropes and blind alleys that more serious films gloss over is done with fun and true love of these types of stories.There is as much imagination and ingenuity shown in the storyline as is demonstrated in much bigger and more more serious films of the same type and this is the strength of the film. More flippant or less grounded would have made this something that you sat through rather than watched. If you are observant or really know this genre as much as the characters in the film you will spot signals, background things going on that tell you how the story will go, if you don’t, that’s okay, because it’s as, if not more, enjoyable as the silliness unfolds.
Chris O’Dowd, Marc Wootton and Dean Lennox Kelly are stalwarts of British TV although all three have gone further afield over the years their down-to-earthness is perfect for the roles and they all are well-craft in playing the normal but somewhat bumbling ‘bloke’. The complaining mates-conversations about films, music, what their future holds will seem realistic to thousands of people who has sat in pubs and other places and rambling, seemingly pointless conversations over the years. I certainly know I have taken place in a few ‘converstations’ like this over the years.
The situation, which cannot be go into too much detail as it will spoil it for those who have not seen this film yet, involves a convoluted time-travel situation for the lads and being mixed up with the charming Anna Faris, so it was not entirely a bad day for the lads!
Overall FAQ About Time Travel is a knowing wink to the science-fiction well-worn story of time-travel but it sets about trying to avoid the usual plotholes and asking all the questions these films often leave unanswered with a great sense of humour and some good acting but still with a clear love of the genre it sending up.
Not so well-known or watched this film should be more popular as director Gareth Carrivick’s final film as he unfortunately died soon after the completion of the film. Recommended.
Prior to watching this film, I had some catching up to do on the slasher genre, having never seen any of the classics. I stuck to only the originals and watched Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), and Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). While those three didn't exactly win me over on the genre, I was still glad to have watched them, as this film makes numerous direct references to the characters and clichés of these classics. That said, I don't think you need to have seen them to enjoy this film, as the references aren't critical to the plot and can be understood through generous context in any case.
So, how does this meta-slasher stack up against the classics? It's better in pretty much every way. Both the story and the characters have more depth, with meaningful backstories, relationships, and reveals that all tie to the central conflict. Comedic elements actually land, both in terms of dialogue and meta-slasher commentary (Randy's slasher obsessed monologues are a good time, especially when coinciding with clever intercut moments). Finally, the biggest distinguishing success for me was the ending, which not only doesn't fall flat, but in fact lands so successfully so as to retroactively improve my assessment of the rest of the film. For example, some of the acting that I thought was a little too hammy in the first and second acts (Matthew Lillard's portrayal of Stu) is re-contextualized by the finale and feels much more appropriate in retrospect. It's a well-acted, bloody set piece with twists and turns that had just the right amount of bread crumbs to make them feel earned. It turns a would-be slasher into a who-dun-it that you feel like you could have actually solved, which is a nice change of pace from the much more simplistic classics. In the end, unlike in the case of those classics, with this film I'm actually interested in checking out the sequels, which serves as a solid endorsement to its quality.
EDIT: Forgot that I had taken a couple of notes during the movie. First, the cliché scene where a character is in a bathroom stall and overhears people talking about them was surprisingly solid. And two, being a big fan of Peaky Blinders, it's always fun to hear a soundtrack that includes "On a gathering storm comes a tall handsome man, in a dusty black coat with a red right hand". And given the killer's black costume, it's even somewhat relevant.
As the many professional reviews I read afterwards suggest, Fatman is a movie that doesn't live up to it's promise.
Fatman has a great premise about a gruffy slightly gritty Santa, a boy-child that feels wronged with his lump of coal and a Santa-obsessed hitman hired to kill him. I even think for the most part that tonally it mostly works. It's not overly gritty and it's not overly serious for most of it's runtime. It strikes that nice balance of casual surrealism.
The problem is that the movie knows what it wants to tell you and doesn't have any patience or subtlety in getting there. All the dramatic tension you expected from the trailer when you hear Mel Gibson's Santa yelling to the hitman about "You think you were the first to come for the Fatman?" the movie doesn't actually have much Fatman hunting. There's no series of hide and seek where we see that Santa is capable of defending himself. Even the tension the movie decides to try to generate of the Hitman even trying to FIND Santa in the first place isn't really tension. It's just a road trip without all the fun aspects of a road-trip movie. No interesting stops, No interesting road people. The movie just walks a straight lines from Point A to Point B. Nothing you see even really matters. Santa goes by Chris in this movie. In this small down he knows everybody and everybody knows him. There is however no payoff for this. He saves a woman from going home with a married man by casually reminding him of his wife and kids but while we see her again and she's clearly a friend there's no payoff. It's like a failure of the Chekhov's Gun trope.
There's a semi interesting plot line about Santa being underfunded and having to take a military contract to be able to pay his workers. In retrospect this entire plot line fails to have any narrative purpose other than world building Santa as a factory owner. In spite of their presence all over the final fight scenes these military security personnel plan next to no role in the violence. There's an even smaller plot line about Chris/Santa being grumpy because of his commercialized depictions compared to this underpaid status and while I like the characterization there it serves so little point to the plot that it feels kinda wasted.
Wasted is unfortunately the only way to describe this whole movie. I went into this hoping for a darkly humorous film with a bit of violence and while a lot of the scenes sans context imply that, this is no Ladykillers (either one).
Every year I pick out one or two cheesy christmas movies as part of my holiday season. Last week I watched the mediocre Lindsay Lohan movie and this week I settled on this movie. More cheese, right? Um, no. This movie is good. I mean really good. Sure, there are the occasional reminders that it is the holiday season but it almost certainly is not a holiday movie (although I do expect that the christmas village scene in the middle of the movie was a wink at the audience from the director). First, the two leads have ridiculous chemistry. And it isn't the crappy syrupy kind that we see in so many other xmas movies. The supporting cast is also excellent, of course (Bonnie Bedelia should have been a bigger star). It is the rare movie that completely sucks me in and allows me to give myself up to it. I didn't want it to end. Some reviews were critical of the fact that there is a bit of a mystery in the movie. I don't agree with that sentiment. As I said earlier, this movie would have been just fine on its own if it hadn't gotten tagged with the "holiday" tag.
Finally, the best thing about the movie is that it is subtle. It didn't beat you over the head with the potential for romance. I would image that many people were disappointed in the last scene (probably the same group that hated the ending of the Sopranos) because they didn't show you exactly what happened. The best movies allow the viewer to fill in the blanks. We don't need to see everything on screen to know that something happened. That's not the point.
The worst part about the movie? I think that this movie ruined the Hallmark-ish kinds of movies for me. The movie started in a traditional way and for the first 20 minutes I had the mindset that cheese was on the way. Instead I was blown away. How do I go back to the traditional schlock? Damn you, Netflix.
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[9.7/10] Three different characters say the phrase “diamond in the rough” multiple times in the first fifteen minutes of Aladdin. While an age appropriate lesson, you would have to be dozing through most of the movie to miss its moral that a person’s worth comes from what’s inside them, rather from than their appearance or wealth or station in life. Aladdin is a rags to riches story, about a “street rat” whose inner-decency let’s him find love and fortune when he’s finally read to “beeeeee himself.”
But however trite that aesop may seem on the service, this crown jewel of the Disney Renaissance earns every bit of it. You’ll struggle to find a tighter script in all of the Disney Animated Canon. It quickly introduces each of its characters, giving them each struggles and goals; has each make choices that are self-flattering and those that are difficult, and lets the consequences of those choices lead to changes of heart and just deserts for everyone involved.
The meaning of what happens after Aladdin, and Jasmine, and even Jafar each choose to be themselves comes from how much time the film spends on exploring what happens when they try to be someone else.
Because Aladdin is also a story of wanting to control your own destiny, of having the agency and the capability to direct your own life, and about desperate people who feel they have to go great lengths to make that happen. The script underscores the point a little too neatly, but Aladdin and Jasmine each only see the limitations in their own lives and the possibilities in the other’s. The Genie’s central want in the movie is to finally be free. Even Jafar, with his power-hungry plotting, is that idea taken up to eleven -- the ability to throw off any restrictions on the life he wants, whether legal, romantic, or metaphysical.
That makes us care about the characters at the core of the film. Each of them essentially wants the same thing, while wanting very different versions of it, and their quests to get it conflicts and intersects in amusing, heartwarming, and occasionally frightening ways. Beyond the standard “true to yourself” messaging, Aladdin is just a cracking good story about characters with clear wants and wishes that drive the action, create the conflicts, and eventually provide a way through for all of them.
All the while, Disney is also offering the peak of its musical, visual, and comic abilities. Despite only boasting a few songs for a musical, Aladdin is all killer, no filler. From the mood-setting introduction of “Arabian Nights”, to the bombastic fun of “Prince Ali” to the coo-worthy duet of “A Whole New World”, each of the film’s tunes is at risk of getting stuck in your head. And the orchestration itself makes a perfect accompaniment to the scenes, whether it’s to heighten a tense moment in the marketplace or encompass Aladdin’s exaltation after his first kiss with Jasmine.
At the same time, Aladdin is a dazzling film to look at. The film mainly adopts a dusky blue palette for its desert setting, contrasting it with hot reds and oranges and yellows that flash and grab amid that azure landscape. The use of light is tremendous, creating shadows and setting moods as the two young paramours canoodle or the eponymous hero stalks his way through a torch-lit cave. And it’s characters are all expressive and move with an intuitive fluidity that marks a path between believable realism and the fantasy of this tall tale perfectly.
That’s all before you dive into the movie’s stellar action set pieces. Aladdin’s race into and out of the cave blends traditional animation and CGI better than most films released decades later. Little sequences like Abu being stranded amid lava or Aladdin needing to avoid a rolling turret are edited for maximum tension. And the final showdown with Jafar shows such imaginative visual verve, with a rapid-fire array of attempted saves and renewed threats before the street rat’s improvised trick that brings down the villain for good (or at least until the next movie).
But that creativity also extends to the film’s more comic character. Part of why the bits of sappiness or moralizing in Aladdin go down so easy is that at almost every turn, they’re undercut by some thoroughly enjoyable bit of comic relief. The animal sidekick trio of Abu, Iago, and Rajah each have their outstanding comic moments and bits of both exasperation and even pathos in connection with their human friends. The magic carpet is an understandably wordless character who not only fuels some of the movie’s most exciting sequences, but who manages to memorably express emotion and personality with nary a line of dialogue.
That’s all to say nothing of the tour de force performance that Robin Williams, and the stellar team of designers and animators, put in to create The Genie, one of the most stunning and memorable Disney characters of all time. The magical wish-giver is the perfect manifestation of Williams’s manic id style of humor, conjuring his impressions, fostering his rapid-fire wit, and even drilling down into that well of humanity he would put on display in more strictly dramatic roles.
It’s telling that The Genie doesn't show up until nearly half an hour into the film and yet he is one of its most iconic elements, carrying the humor, the moral, and even the emotion of the piece in the final tally. His and Williams’s presence in Aladdin are a nearly unrivaled achievement when it comes to the Disney Renaissance, and perhaps animated films writ large.
The Genie is, in many ways, Aladdin’s Jiminy Cricket and Blue Fairy rolled into one. He uses Williams’s panache to make Aladdin’s dream of being a prince to woo his princess possible, but he’s also the one trying to steer him toward the right choices beyond the costumes and cons that a little fairy dust can provide. Aladdin believes that there’s more to him than just his shabby clothes and denigrated position, but thinks that it’s the surface level bits of station and presentation that he lacks, rather than the utter decency and kindness that the movie takes pains to show, that will prove it.
His efforts are not academic. He wants to do all this to win the love of his life. As quickly as the film brings Aladdin and Jasmine together, it does a superb job of making them a root-worthy and intuitive likeable couple. There’s an instant rapport, an ability to improvise that brings them together. It’s easy to see them as each offering what the other wants -- the liberation of wealth and position vs. the liberation of no royal restrictions. But there’s also a sense that, as much as these two crazy kids really are from two different worlds, they’re joined not only by that hope for a particular kind of freedom and agency, but also by a desire to see and be seen for something that no amount of gold or titles or legal expectation can provide.
That’s all a little grandiose, but it’s the idea that powers the movie, and makes those moments so memorable and affecting. Jasmine is Disney’s most fully-realized princess yet, who goes after what she wants, rejects what she doesn't want, and cares about more than just her handsome crush. The Genie has weight beyond his uproarious comic asides because he too has hopes and dreams, the realization of which are not only heartwarming, but which come from a choice that marks Aladdin as being true-of-heart in a way that no narration or prophecy ever could. Even Jafar, as rankly evil as he is from the word go, has a fall that’s strengthened by the irony of his quest for unlimited power and freedom leading him to the same unexpected shackles everyone in the film is trying to escape.
That goes double for Aladdin himself, whose journey is as much a personal one as it is ridden with heart-pumping cave escapes and magic-boosted thoroughfare unveilings and international jaunts. He gets what he wants, as all characters must, but only after trying to get it the wrong way and paying the price for it. He stumbles, hurts his friends, out of an understandable insecurity that the truth will only keep him from the liberty and happiness that seem reserved for people with a different pedigree than he can offer. But he sets things right, and is rewarded for it, when he sticks to being the innately good, decent person he truly is.
There are worse lessons to pack in to a family film, particularly when it’s chock full of such memorable characters, melodies, and crowd-pleasing spectacle. There is no wasted second in Aladdin, with each moment perfectly-calibrate to make you laugh, cheer, sigh, or scream. It is the peak of Disney’s 1990s revivification, an endlessly stunning paean to the desire to chart one’s own path in life, and the true-to-oneself characters whose grace and decency earn them the right to that, and to share it with one another.
It sure is pretty. And not much else. It is set up set up set up, and I get it, it’s a part 1. But even part 1 movies have to be movies in of themselves. The climax is the limpest one in recent memory. Zendaya literally tells us this is the beginning, in case we forgot the title card.
And again, I get it. This is based off a book from 1965. But the politics… there’s a fatsuit so fatness can represent greed and gluttony. There’s a mystic and duplicitous Asian doctor. Zendaya is an exotic object for the incredibly pale white savior messiah to be entranced by and lust after. The aforementioned climax is pale boy fighting against a growling, vicious, and dark skinned black man. I know, the book is from the 60s. But there are ways to update or confront that. But Villenueve chose to take on this film, and chose to adapt it as is.
What results in a pretty film that hits every beat you’d expect without making a case for what makes Dune different from Star Wars besides BBC nature documentary shots. The actors are good; Isaacs and Mamoa stand out. Isaacs is a great father archetype; I didn’t expect it from him beforehand but then seeing it in action he’s a perfect fit. And Mamoa has a looseness and natural charisma that livens up the proceedings and makes the world more lived in. But they aren’t enough to lift a film that’s everything I felt about Blade Runner 2049 amplified. All visual, no heart.
And they wasted my man Bautista! I’m sure he’d get more in sequels, but those might not happen! I was waiting the whole time for him to steal a scene and got nothing! He didn’t even wear tiny glasses! This film is lucky it didn’t get zero stars from me.
Between this and Cherry, it’s becoming more and more clear that the MCU’s best director is called Kevin Feige.
Netflix clearly spent a lot of money on this, you can feel the price of your subscription going up with every new set piece that’s introduced, but the end results are still unforgivingly bland and generic nonetheless.
It’s their attempt to compete with Bond, Bourne or Mission Impossible, but if anything this feels like a poser imitation of those superior blockbuster franchises. The plot is in fact literally ripping off both Skyfall and The Bourne Identity at the same time, but forgets about any of their depth in regards to story and character.
The Russos are clearly trying to recapture that same tone and spark from their Captain America: The Winter Soldier days, but they end up making something that’s more akin to the quality of Red Notice.
In terms of directing they kinda got outdone by their own second unit director with his Netflix action flick, as I’d argue that Extraction is a marginally better film than this.
The action’s poorly done and cheaply put together, lots of annoying editing choices (heavy overuse of drone shots, quick cuts and can the Russos pick a normal font for once?), corny dialogue, distractingly bad CGI, boring visuals and music (why is everything so low contrast, foggy and muddy?); not a lot to recommend about this one.
The acting’s fine, Evans is having a blast, but I have absolutely no idea why an extremely picky actor like Ryan Gosling chose this script in the first place. It seems like a paycheck movie for someone of his caliber. Just watch The Nice Guys instead of this if you want to see Goose in an action comedy, we don’t need these 200 million dollar direct to streaming action films.
4/10
Unreal! I didn't expect 'Million Dollar Baby' to be so astonishingly brilliant.
I've said it many a time before but for full context, I do not read up about films before watching them - aside from making sure the film isn't part of a franchise, checking the run time and seeing the genre - so I was expecting this to be a cliché-filled, but still great, sports flick. It's so much more than that.
It's way more deeper and has an everlasting impact that I hadn't anticipated. Even across the opening chunk I was predicating the obvious cliché ending, but as the film progresses and, especially, as the final portion rolls around it just absorbed my total attention - I was fully engrossed... hook, line, and sinker. Some film!
The cast are simply stunning. Clint Eastwood gives an absolutely fantastic performance, Hilary Swank is truly sensational - especially at the end, damn - and Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman; what an actor and what a voice, using him as narrator was a great move. Elsewhere, and though less dramatically, Jay Baruchel, Anthony Mackie, Margo Martindale and Michael Peña also feature interestingly.
It's quite the journey the film takes you on, which I just found utterly enthralling to watch unfold. Perfect pacing, perfect acting. I loved watching every second of it and will undoubtedly be revisiting it.
I noted days ago that I was rather surprised to learn that Eastwood's 'Unforgiven' had been so heavily acclaimed, on this occasion with this 2004 film I am the complete opposite. I don't care much for awards et al., but I am delighted to see all involved receive their props for this. Chapeau!
Marvellous, just marvellous.
For those fortunate enough to know that this movie was the second of a trilogy, this may be a satisfying movie. The trilogy is M. Night Shyamalan's building his own subset of the superhero genre. His superheroes and villians don't have non-human powers (teleportation, invisibility, heat vision, etc.) but have enhanced human behaviours (survival instinct, empathy, intuition, a hero's heart). Once that is established, our expectations turn to psychological thrillers, as the personalities are explored and the extra- is added to -ordinary. For those looking for a horror movie, a fast paced thriller, or a superhero action movie, you will be thwarted by your genre expectations. Having said all that, here are my pluses and negatives: The acting is superb - James MacAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy and Izzie Coffey, especially. The premise and developing sub genre are interesting. The pacing is too slow for me, but that is Shyamalan's preferred pace in his movies, better than UNBROKEN but still too plodding for me (he writes for an intelligent audience, he should trust that they can keep up). There were some loose ends or lost opportunities for me, Casey Cooke's character, forged in torment, could have been the mirror superhero to our supervillain or at least she could have been enabled to finally escape from her abusive uncle. (Super up the girl's powers of observation and deduction, for Pete's sake). . I give this film a 6 (fair) out of 10. [Genisis of a Super Villain]
"The broken are the more evolved"
"Split" isn't just a return to form from Shamalamadingdong, but an emotionally powerhouse of a thriller. Anyone who watched the trailer and think they have an idea of what it's gonna be, think again. Putting forward this guys history in films; this surprised the heck out of me.
The cinematography was excellent, same guy who did "It Follows" which was pretty neat. The film had the right balance of tone with comedy and horrific. One minute you're laughing at the intentional comedic scenes, but quickly change when you start to over think.
James McAvoy is absolutely fantastic in this movie. Every personality has a unique purpose to them and McAvoy makes the whole thing believable. Especially when he plays a little boy named Hedwig, who you actually care for and the childlike behavior McAvoy was done so perfectly. The scene when he starts dancing, had me laughing so hard when I saw it, but when I heard M. Night talk about the meaning behind it, it gave me chills. It's about a person dying and coming back to life.
Then again, "Kanye West is my main man".
Anya Taylor Joy was great in this too. Really impressing me from what I've seen from her so far, and might be the new face of horror movies. Her character arc was the most compelling part of the film and ties in very well with McAvoy characters. It's too bad Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula, the other captured girls, couldn't keep up with Anya. They performances were pretty bad and easily the worst part of the film.
It's not just them, some of the supporting actors who thankfully don't have much screen time, deliver such wooden performances. The film also suffers from M. Night's trademark, terribly written exposition. Other than that, this was a pretty solid film.
Overall rating: Welcome back M. Night Shyamalan, for real this time.
[7.6/10] One of the best tacks a horror film can take is rooting its supernatural or outsized sense of terror in something real. That grain of truth at the core of a movie’s scares makes them more vivid and gripping than bare, spooky scenes or the usual collection of ghoulies.
It certainly works to the benefit of The Visit. The film tells the story of two young children, Becca and Tyler, visiting their estranged grandparents for the first time. “Pop Pop” and “Nana” behave strangely, rumbling and being ill in the middle of the night or sneaking out to a mysterious shed, in a way that unnerves their grandchildren.
The smartest choice the film makes is to walk the line between whether this is the sign of something sinister or wrong, or whether it’s simply a combination of dementia and unfamiliarity that’s disturbing the kids. It’s a horror movie, so it’s not hard to guess how things play out, but the film gains strength by playing with that ambiguity. Outside the confines of a Hollywood picture, kids can have trouble relating to their grandparents, understanding the physical and mental challenges their elders are going through. Using that natural anxiety, that natural misunderstanding, both serves as a means to muddy the waters of What’s Really Going On, and to elevate the frightening qualities of when Nana and Pop Pop are acting out.
If there’s a smarter choice, however, it’s in the casting of the two young leads who carry the film. Olivia DeJonge plays Becca, the older sibling who is a budding director, out to document this momentous and fraught family occasion, with a combination of precociousness and vulnerability. Ed Oxenbould plays Tyler, Becca’s colorful, freestyle-rapping little brother, who makes for an amusingly free-wheeling yin to Becca’s very deliberate yang.
Centering a movie around kids is hard, as the challenges of finding the core of a character and maintaining it from beginning to end can be difficult for young actors. But DeJonge and Oxenbould both give their characters a sense of realness in their childlike reactions to the world around them, but also deliver the emotional layers to that experience to make them compelling figures and not just props in this drama.
Much of that comes from the script penned by the famed/notorious M. Night Shyamalan, who also directs the film. He too captures the inquisitive, precious spirit of childhood, while making Becca and Tyler easy characters to become endeared to and fear for. The film also features one of Shyamalan’s tightest scripts. As much as Shyamalan takes time out to be a little loose and show the kids being kids, helping to establish character and tone, he also dots every “i” and crosses every “t” in terms of setting up the mystery and providing plausible hints, convincing red herrings, and a solid build to the truth about what’s happening with their grandparents.
If anything, the film’s narrative is a little too neat. Emotional beats or noted characteristics come back into play at just the right moment, to the point that the viewer can see the strings of why some detail or story was told in the prelude. The plot never feels too convenient, but at times it moves like it’s on rails.
The same cannot be said, however, for the cinematography. Shyamalan employs the “found footage” conceit here, and it gives him a chance to use perspective and the verisimilitude of that choice to accentuate his scares. More than anything, it allows us to better know Becca and Tyler. If we’re not literally seeing their perspective, hearing their voice and seeing their point-of-view from behind the camera, then we see them in confessionals, opening up in the piercing way only a camera lens can admit.
Shyamalan uses that choice -- having the kids “filming” almost all of the movie, for both terror and fun. The hand-held conceit turns a simple game of hide and seek, or a chance encounter with a bystander on a visit to an old high school, into terrifying episodes, filled with crawling figures or troubling confrontations. But it also gives Tyler the chance to goof off in front of the camera in the way a ten year old would, or for Becca to amusingly wax rhapsodic over not wanting to be too intentional in her zooms and cuts, with Shyamalan clearly having a good time poking fun at his profession through the eyes of the child.
The only problem, then, is that once Shyamalan has laid down that initial layer of humor and creepiness, the inevitable reveal leads to a bit of the air coming out of the picture rather than the terror being heightened. Once the scales fall and the ambiguity is no longer there to goose the scares, the film becomes more stock in its horror, and the emotional climaxes coincide with the horror climaxes a little too easily.
Still, The Visit isn’t content to merely offer a snootful of well-crafted horror and an endearing, if frightening kid adventure. There’s a heavily-underlined but potent theme about acceptance and processing anger for those who’ve hurt us, particularly family members. The film isn’t shy in the way it connects the feelings of Becca and Tyler’s mom (Kathryn Hahn, who makes a strong impression in just a little bit of screentime) toward the parents she hasn’t spoken to in a decade and a half, with Becca and Tyler’s own feelings about their absentee dad. As with the scary side of the movie, The Visit pays both of these internal challenges a little too easily, but still convincingly.
It’s hard not to draw comparisons with Shyamalan’s breakthrough film, The Sixth Sense, give both movies’ use of talented child actors and themes of making peace with difficult parts of our lives, but The Visit stands on its own. It’s a tidier film, more self-contained, more human and unvarnished, with its single-location focus and more conventional scares. And it finds the sweet spot between the real things that unnerve us, and the grander horrors of the screen, to make an effective vignette about two kids finding their way through one uncertain situation and resolving another.
The maturation of the Harry Potter franchise is finally complete in this, the sixth go-round for Harry, Ron, Hermione and friends. Gone (or greatly reduced) are the Hogwarts Academy's whimsical little accents - jovial ghosts, talking paintings, animated plants, hidden chambers - replaced by a quivering mass of moody sentiment, rampaging emotions and stormy romances. It's sensible. The colorful decor we see in kindergarten doesn't usually match what's on the walls in high school.
That's been helped along by progressively better filmmaking, as we've slowly shed the flimsy special effects and inconsistent tones first introduced by Chris Columbus back in The Sorcerer's Stone. The series has struggled with long growing pains ever since, trying to bridge that tricky gap between childish wonder and adolescent gloom, and it's a relief to see the metamorphosis finally come to fruition. The Half-Blood Prince is a genuinely slick, professional presentation, well-realized as a fitting companion to the equally dark, funereal source material. It doesn't really stand alone, though, leaning on an expectant knowledge of novel-only details and events to fill in the plot's many, sizeable gaps. Too much going on in the printed page, I expect, as many well-remembered scenes and important bits of lore hit the cutting room floor. At least quidditch games are back on the agenda this time around; a much-needed (and exceptionally well-realized) break from all the death and doom that's been gathering.
The strongest entry since Azkaban, Half-Blood Prince begins to lay the pieces of the backstory that up to now has largely been hinted at. Memories are a key theme of the film and there is a melancholy feel to the story as characters old and young begin to realise that huge changes are imminent. Amidst all the darker threads however, the film also has a lot of fun portraying teenage angst over relationships and the central trio’s refusal to express their feelings. But it’s Harry’s relationship with Dumbledore that is brought to the fore and after fumbling a little with Sirius, here the filmmakers do a wonderful job of showing the respect and affection the two characters have for each other - it helps to have five films behind this, but Gambon is much warmer and caring towards Harry and there is a much stronger bond shown here that ensures the plot developments hit home when they should. This is also the first film to give Tom Felton something more to do than sneer at Harry and it’s great to see Draco develop into something more interesting than a childish foil to the heroes - his bravado unmasked throughout the film in small vignettes that show his uncertainty and fear. The reveal of the identity of the Half Blood Prince feels like an afterthought in many ways but this sets up the prospect of a great finale.
I wasn't a huge fan of this movie the first time I saw it back in theaters as it was very confusing and to be honest, without the understanding about how it fit into the overall story, it was kind of boring. However, I also hadn't read the book at the time, and that would have helped me a lot.
I just rewatched the movie yesterday after reading the book to my children and liked it a LOT more. I was actually impressed how the filmmakers took the 800+ pages of book story & made it fit into 2 hrs & 15 mins of screen time. Sure, it's not perfect & the kids were a little miffed at what they left out from the book story, but it gave me the chance to explain about choices filmmakers have to make when adapting a story that people know so well. Besides, all that stuff they liked was STILL in the book...it's not like it is erased from existence.
Having said that, even not having read the book, the character Dolores Umbridge was done perfectly. In my opinion, she is one of the great villains I've ever seen even though she's ignorant of her own villain-ness [villainity?]. I wanted to punch her in the face when I saw the movie, and only wanted to do it more after reading the book. That's a good character.
Favorite part of the movie: The duel between the Death Eaters & Order of the Phoenix. Would have liked the Dumbledore/Voldemort showdown to be a little longer or have been able to include more verbal back-and-forth between them.
But, if you're ONLY watching the movies without the added depth of the information in the book, this is one of the weaker chapters in the series.
The entry of Voldemort into the series at the end of Goblet of Fire means that this entry feels much less episodic and more of a direct continuation from the fallout of the last film. There is an even greater focus on jettisoning much of the extraneous plot and whimsy of Rowling’s world that mean even Ron and Hermione add little to the story. Harry’s guilt and trauma and his desire to isolate himself form a large part of the plot and Radcliffe manages to pull off Harry’s anger and frustration without ever making him unlikeable. That the film returns to the importance of Harry’s friends in his life is unsurprising, but the film balances this with the repercussions of Voldermort’s return on the wider world that Rowling has created - the ongoing thread of denial of the truth and control of information seemingly even more relevant than when the film was made and Imelda Staunton is a wonderful addition to the cast. The previous entry has also given the series a real sense of danger to the magical powers shown, and there is also a much stronger visual style to the film here than the rather flat Goblet of Fire, the final act in the Ministry of Magic being a great example. It’s a shame the final emotional beats of the film don’t hit home as strong as they should and it’s somewhat ironic that after complaints that previous entries tried to include too much of the books, this is the one entry in the film series that would have benefitted from more material to work with.
Wisely retaining the visual aesthetic of Azkaban, albeit with a little more colour, this does lack the visual flourishes and background details that characterised the previous entry. The filmmakers have also recognised the need to streamline Rowling’s novels and keep the focus largely on Harry, though Brendan Gleeson is also a great addition to the secondary characters as Moody. It’s a shame then that a large portion of the plot focuses on a tournament that offers very little except some fun set pieces and the coming of age themes involving teenage jealousy, friendship difficulties and attraction don’t feel as integrated into the plot as last time. Part of the problem is that much of this feels largely inconsequential to the impending return of Voldemort. His return has been teased for three entries and right from the start, it’s clear the film is building to it. Fortunately, the final portion of the film doesn’t disappoint and Ralph Fiennes is deliciously arrogant, evil and appears to be having a great time. There is an intensity and ultimately a sadness to the end of the film as the central trio are faced with mortality and death that takes the series forward into more uncertain times and a recognition that a darker more adult world awaits them beyond the seemingly safe confines of their environment.
They really set the tone for the 90s slasher film right from the get go; very Scream and Urban Legends style mixed with Goosebumps, and rightfully so because director Leigh Janiak did a couple of episodes of the Scream TV series. I find it to be a perfect fit for this three-part Fear Street film series based on the books by RL Stine. The pacing is great, keeps you interested throughout, but do expect the typical horror tropes of this era. I was able to spot a Stephen King novel and a few of the Fear Street books (as Robert Lawrence aka RL Stine :wink:) in that book store, a Nintendo Game Boy at school, Josh using AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), wearing an Iron Maiden shirt, playing Castlevania on Sega Genesis, and soundtrack included songs from Nine Inch Nails, Garbage, Radiohead, Cypress Hill, The Prodigy, White Zombie. It was oozing with 90s nostalgia, even if they were inaccurate with them. I liked the use of colors reds and blues, and the lighting for the night time scenes. I won't say much about the story, but these three films do involve going through different periods of time which I find really intriguing. The end of 1994 got me really excited for the next two installments which will have us go to a 1978 camp setting :camping: and then 1666 when the cursed started :mage:. That's also what I noticed on the movie poster art is that each of the weapons represents the generation or year that each of films are set in. It's a fun one, so I recommend watching this (and the rest of the trilogy) with a friend who also enjoys spooky time if you can. :knife:
Almost the whole time I was watching this movie (including the bath-scene with Margot Robbie) I felt like the biggest idiot on the planet.
I'm not a numbers guy nor do I know all the terminology in American banking and mortgage systems and most of it looked like watching some kind of alien language. In the end though I knew what happened, I saw people warning us for what was about to happen and watched it all crumble down when it did happen.
All in all though it's an excellent portrayal of a system that is quite frankly a big con, stripping away money from those "below" with people at the help that don't really know what they are doing. An intricate web of rules, regulations, lingo, faces and characters who don't know the full picture. I think the movie quite nicely mimicks this chaos in the way it is set up, the catchy camera movements and often loud and noisy environments the scenes play out in. Here's a famous face that will teach you plebs what it's about, "let's simplify this for ya" so you're lured in.
Despite it's dry subject, the vast amout of stuff I personally didn't fully grasp it is a very enjoyable movie that will keep you hooked till the end.
Oh and it took me about at third the movie to realize Brad Pitt was that one guy.
[8.0/10] I have to admit that I’m a little mystified by Midsommar, albeit in a good way. There’s a decent amount that goes unexplained (or at least under explained) in the climax of the film. The pieces are there to put a good amount of it together, but the close of the film is still a bewildering, unnerving experience, as it should be under the circumstances. But if I had to pinpoint what Midsommar is trying to say, I would center it on two big ideas: empathy and emotion on the one hand and life and death on the other.
The former comes through in Dani’s relationship with her boyfriend Christian. From the moment we meet her, Dani is clearly going through something difficult and feels like she can’t lean on her long-term boyfriend for emotional support for fear of scaring him off. When she tries to express her frustration or grief or anything other than “I’m cool,” he either begs off or turns it back on her to make it seem like she’s the one with the issue. And as the film goes on, we see Christian evincing a deeper lack of empathy, acting nonplussed at horrific scenes, stealing his friend’s work, and feigning only fleeting concern when acquaintances go missing.
At times Midsommar lays some of this Bad Boyfriend material on a little thick (especially him forgetting her birthday and how long they’ve been dating, which feels like something out of a sitcom). But it works to draw a contrast between Christian on the one hand, and Pelle and his “family” on the other. While Christian pays desultory lip service to Dani’s feelings, Pelle sees her is attentive to her and responds to how she’s feeling in a given moment.
So does his whole enclave, the small Swedish community whose midsommar ritual our cast of newcomers is experiencing. In one scene, an elder describes their scripture as “emotional sheet music.” Their society is built on emotion as a free-flowing, communal thing, with the climactic scenes involving the adherents of his culture imitating the expressions of joy or pain or horror until it crescendos into one crowd-wide emotional wave.
For most of the film, Dani is still grieving without even fully realizing it, having this well of pain and mourning she’s been unable to express given how her prime emotional outlet constantly deflects and shuts her down. It’s not until the end of the film, when she firmly discards him, that she can fully express that grief she’s had bottled up for so long, with a catharsis and a rejection that gives her the first genuinely smile we see in the whole picture. Through this lens, Midsommar is ultimately a story of emotional expression, where open processing of one’s feelings is encouraged, snuffing out those expressions is punished, and the consequences of both can be severe.
The other big theme, and this one is admittedly fuzzier from my vantage point, is the cycle of life and death. We witness elders commit suicide at a given age, with it treated as a blessing and a choice, with the idea that their names will be passed on to children not yet born and their lives lived again. One of the movie’s strangest interludes involves a ritual centered around conception. And the climactic set piece and lingering undercurrent of horror upon which the whole movie rests is a ritualistic killing to banish away the dark spirits and invite happiness and prosperity to their community.
I’ll confess my inability to fully articulate what all of this means, but the biggest takeaway I have is this. Dani is laboring under an unspeakable tragedy, with the suicide and murder of the rest of her family, with no good emotional support to help her get through it. This community offers a welcome alternative to that, not only its emotional openness, but in its treatment of death as part of that liberating cycle of nature. Dani sees herself more and more a part of both nature and that community (as represented by her “flower volcano”, as my wife put it, in the closing sequence), and that view of death as something both spiritually freeing and not cause for grief is uniquely inviting to her.
But that’s the great thing about Midsommar. Even if you’re not inclined to grapple with emotional repression or cultural views on mortality, it works as pure slow-spun, unnerving horror. The film shares a vibe with past horror classics like Rosemary’s Baby and Get Out with our protagonist ensconced in a warm and welcoming atmosphere and community, with subtle hints along the margins that something is wrong here.
Frankly, some of the film’s best moments come when you have a vague sense that something is off, but can’t put your finger on what. The film does a good job of escalation, introducing peculiarities that can be written off as foreign cultural practices, until it becomes undeniable and terrifying how this is not just a different society’s ways and rituals but something darker and more sinister. For a film that is not only long, but also languid in its pacing, Midsommar is never boring, gradually bringing the simmering horror to a boil.
Still, the gradualness prompts a confession -- if you could somehow scrub away all the horror elements, I would totally stay in the Harga enclave. Part of the way the horror works is by making their commune seem so warm and inviting, to where you relate to Dani’s feeling so content and at home there.
Much of that owes to the cinematography and beautiful images that director Ari Aster and director of photography Pawel Pogorzelski put together. The location itself is gorgeous, full of sweeping greenery and eye-catching structures strewn about their little grove. It’s a film rich with color, as Dani’s Mayqueen getup exemplified. The look of handsomely-set tables and maypole dances embodies the warm communal feel of the place before things turn deadly, as does the way the Harga seem to be one organism, always moving and feeling in stereo. Aster and Pogorzelski frame the images beautifully, playing with symmetry, different depths of field, and close-ups to convey the grandeur and intimacy of even the most horrifying moments. And there’s even some superb impressionism, with wavy backgrounds to subtly convey the effect of the drugged tea the main characters imbibe.
But part of it is just the smiling, empathetic atmosphere created by the Harga. The film uses that sense to its advantage, by both wrapping the strangeness up in “Well, I guess it’s just their custom,” and by luring Dani and the audience in with the slightly unnerving, unfailing friendliness of the whole thing. So by the time it becomes clear this is a death cult and not just a culturally unfamiliar enclave, both the protagonist and the audience are too wrapped up in it to turn back.
That transformation and relatability rests on the shoulders of star Florence Pugh, who does fantastic work here. The shift from low-key naturalism to over the top emotional exhortations could be jarring, but feels right coming out of her. More to the point, much of the film requires her to be bottling up her emotions until they explode, which in the hands of a lesser actor, leave Dani feeling flat. Instead, Pugh conveys the layers to the character, the internal roiling that makes the choices made in the end feel organic to what the viewer hasn’t seen, but feels through her, until it becomes expressed with lethal consequences.
There’s a lot of weirdness and even opaqueness to Midsommar. That makes the film a little baffling and hard to get your hands around at times, even when its cards are on the table. But it also uses that uncertainty to its advantage, lending an unknowable atmosphere to the Harga and their rituals, and a greater unspoken terror when their practices are laid bare. I’d be lying if I told you that I fully understood Midsommar, but that only heightens, rather than detract from, its horror, its themes, and its final exorcising transformation.
For those of us who remember the originals, we can breath a sigh of relief because the basic heart and soul of those still beats in the third outing of this trilogy. Yes Keanu, sans the John Wick beard, is just starting to show his age, and at times is just mimicking what the fans expect of this character, but, thankfully, he isn't phoning it in just yet. Amazingly, Alex Winter seems even more enthused than his arguably more successful (at least of late) partner in time, and seems to be having a blast just chilling with the old gang. William Sadler is as hysterical as ever, playing Death, who has been exiled from the band and injunctioned from even using the name, because of his 40 minute experimental bass solos, and, the make-up scene between him and the two front men is worth the time it takes to finally get there.
There had to be a hook, besides a mindless rehash of the previous two movies, and "Thea" Preston, and "Billie" Logan playing the oppositely named, female progeny of our intrepid hero's, provide that hook, as being raised by fathers tasked with, but never finishing, the EPIC song that would unite the world, have, in spite of outward appearances, somehow "rain manned" a Wikipedic knowledge and insight of all things melodic and musical. This comes in quite handy once their part of the story begins.
It is rumored that Samara Weaving holds no grudge toward Keanu Reeves for repeatedly killing her father, (Hugo Weaving) Agent Smith, in that OTHER Trilogy he made, nor at any time did she smirkingly call him..... MISTER ANDERSON,,,,,,
The ensuing RE-mash of the first two movies follows, with the daughters essentially retracing the journey of the first Bill and Ted movie, with the appropriate musical theme of course, while, the Dads jump time meeting future versions of themselves in the hopes of stealing "the SONG", from themselves, but discovering instead that perhaps living their mission focused lives, and repeatedly failing, caused them to miss out on all the great things in the one they were actually living. Also, they are now pursued by Rufus' daughters ex-boyfriend turned assassin robot, "Dennis Caleb McCoy'", sent by her Mother, Missus Rufus, and played with neurotic aplomb by Anthony Carrigan, in an inspired turn.
Fortunately, in the end, they do indeed get the band back together, and, as we are still here, (for now) the rest I guess, is history.
The best part of which will be said is they DIDN'T screw this one up!!
Not perfect, but pretty darn close, considering it's ANOTHER "tale as old as timey whimey wibbly wobbly, time looping Groundhog Day-esque, exploration of what would happen if you got stuck in a temporal loop and couldn't get out. BUT, instead of just one person realizing they were caught in a loop, what if there were others there with you, to explore the possibilities, good, bad, light, or dark?
Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti are indeed a quantum match for this screwball take on a potentially played out premise. But, the supporting cast, rather than being mere detritus and fodder for various sight gags and miscues, actually add to the storyline.
As J.K Simmons mused later in the film, "you have to find your really good day, and try to be happy there". Well that's ONE solution, or, is it? Even if you were able to share that perfect day with the perfect person, would you want to be stuck there forever? An interesting question, that has been explored before, but, here, somehow is fresher, and more thought provoking.
Is the paradox resolved in the climax? I was left with questions, but, perhaps that was done purposely, perhaps leaving room for part 2.
Worth a watch.....
There are a handful of movies that I have always wished I could have seen in the cinema when they first came out. Certain films feel so important and ingrained in the year that they were released that I feel tangible amounts envy towards the people that got to experience them at them at the time they were most relevant. Near the top of this list for me is 2007′s Superbad. I was 6 when Superbad was released and so naturally I didn’t get to see it until much later, the point of that film would have likely went over my head at that age as well, I wish I could have been leaving high school when that film was out so I could experience it at its most impactful. I can only image how emotional and relatable the story of two best friends trying desperately to make it to the last party before graduation would have been for teenagers who were going through the same types of situations at the time.
Well as I said, I was 6 when Superbad was first shown in cinemas. I am about to turn 18 and I honestly feel like I have just walked out of my Superbad. I left high school early but was still invited to my prom which I went to just 6 days before seeing this film, there was a strange feeling that filled the room as if it had only just dawned on a lot of my old classmates that meeting up and hanging out was going to made a lot harder after this summer due to everyone having different plans. Although I didn’t stay for my final year at that school I would be lying if I said that this wasn’t a feeling that hit me too at a certain point in the night after running into some old friends I hadn’t spoken to in a few months.
To get more to the point (and actually talk about the movie I’m meant to be reviewing) that is the feeling that I got while watching Booksmart. This film expertly captures the feeling of moving on after high school in a way that most films aimed at teenagers completely fail to do.
The characters feel like real teenagers, with real teenage problems. The performances are all fantastic especially from the two leads who are both destined to become stars after this. The tone is far from bleak despite what my intro may have had you think. I compared this to Superbad for a reason, it tackles it themes of separation and moving on in a mature way but it is still absolutely hilarious. The interactions between Dever and Feldstein are continuously funny, aided by what appears to be a heavy focus on imporv. The side characters also offer a lot of comedic potential that is rarely missed. Despite not appear much in the film Jason Sudeikis is at the top of his comedic game whever he is on screen however the best moments tend to come from Billie Lourd as Gigi. Lourd is a complete scene-stealer in all of the best ways as she commits 100% to a character that, if handled poorly, could have become insanely irritating. Honestly considering that I had only seen Lourd as Lieutenant Connix in the recent Star Wars sequels, a pretty forgettable role that she was given because her mother was Princess Leia, I did not expect her to be this great.
This is also the feature debut for actress turned director Olivia Wilde which you would not guess from how well this film is put together. I would not be at all surprised if Wilde decides to change course with her career much like Greta Gerwig seems to have opted to do.
I don’t see this film garnering much awards buzz at the end of the year but, with the risk of spoilers for my 2019 retrospective, this is absolutely my favourite film of the year so far. I only really had an issue with one scene in particular where the score takes over way to much but that is all I will say about that so as to avoid spoilers. I highly recommend checking this out although I do admit that this may have just been the right film at the right time for me personally, but Isn’t that the real joy of film?
