Dude Rates Movies
Kathryn Bigelow consistently is the queen of filming the atmosphere of a specific turn of events in a very immersive and gripping way. Mark Boal consistently delivers a “fact-based” screenplay out of unknown facts. I’m not sure about the purpose of such detailed and procedural depiction of the incident when a lot of it falls under the umbrella of artistic license because of holes in what is historically known. For someone who mostly didn’t know about the 1967 Detroit’s riots, this was a rather edifying watch nonetheless.
There are three things to learn from this movie: 1. A24’s horror productions are basically all the same (I’m thinking about Hereditary and It Comes at Night). 2. A scary atmosphere isn’t sufficient to make a good scary movie. 3. In colonial America, they burnt witches.
I introduce the new Zz rating, which I use when I fall asleep in front of the movie. This happens only if two conditions are met: 1/ I’m tired and 2/ The movie is boring. This usually happens around the 20th minute, and lasts for about 45 minutes, at which point I try to understand the rest of the movie as an investigative challenge. For some movies, like The Lord of the Ring, it feels like I haven’t missed anything at all about the plot. For some other movies, like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, it is quite disconcerting, although the lack of substance seemed to be stable.
The animation of this movie has been the subject of much praise. If not it, then I don’t know what to blame for my lack of interest into the action sequences (and God knows I like good action stuff). It is just too slick; the physics are all rigged; stuff flies around and spider-man gracefully escapes the situation; and I can’t care because none of this feels real or even consistent.
⚠ Spoilers ahead
There are two scenes in this movie which astonished me.
The first one is the opening scene. It features the beginning of a music class which is interrupted by an armed student from the school who proceeds to shoot the teacher and other students. It is such an impactful beginning because it is so wonderfully directed and played. The teacher, played by Maria Dizzia, is so nice. She looks kind, professional, level-ahead. Out of a minute a screen-time, and with just a few mundane lines, this character is already so likable, you hope that she will play a role in the rest of the movie, and you are eager to discover what it is. When the killer enters the room, he is filmed from behind, so you don't see that he is carrying a weapon. As far as we can tell, he is lost, or maybe late for class. But the face of the teacher, terrified and shocked at his sight, is an indication that something is wrong. What about this student could possibly upset such a seemingly composed teacher? We don't have the time to think of an answer before she gets shot. This is a truly horrific moment, and the brilliant directing conveys the horror authentically. A movie starting like that has my entire attention from this point on.
The second scene happens near the end of the movie. Celeste, another victim from the same shooting who has suffered a non-fatal injury to her neck, is now a big pop-star. In fact, she has been noticed by a music producer when, after the shooting, she sung a song as a tribute to the victims. A few years later, the famous Celeste is now a cynic, often disrespectful, depraved pop singer.
In this scene I liked, Celeste has been doing drugs with her manager, just before a big live performance, and she is having an emotional break-down. It is filmed in one long take, in her dressing room, while her sister tries to comfort her. She says something of high importance, I think, which is that "they" can be so mean to her. "They" being, most likely, her detractors among the general public. It is important for two reasons. Firstly because it is most likely true, as any show-business star is inevitably the target of ferocious criticism and mockery, especially those who has been pictured in scandals of debauchery. Secondly because it is very hypocritical of her to say such thing to her sister, since no later than the previous afternoon she has been terribly mean to her, saying that she was a retard. Her sister doesn't pick up on the hypocrisy, she continues to comfort her. Celeste is destroyed, harmless, hopeless. One of the most accomplished role of Natalie Portman in my opinion, not only this scene, but the entire role.
What I get from this scene is that the way Celeste deals with spitefulness from her detractors is by wearing an armor of nastiness herself. The only way she has found not to adsorb the hate is by reflecting it all around her, making her an unbearable person. The only time she drops her guard is when she experiences the fall-out of an heroin trip. There she isn't mean anymore, she isn't even confident. She just cries from the suffering of all the crap she has to put it with.
The movie has received some criticism for its sense-less structure (is it about school shootings or is it about pop stars?) as well as lack of clear morale (what is the lesson to learn here?). I have no problem about any of those points. First, I'm alright with absurdism. For example, the fact that the Titanic sunk for real should not be fundamental to how good the movie Titanic is, even when it's a love story with a boat that sinks at the end, which would be completely far-fetched from a story-telling architectural perspective. Second, I'm also comfortable with morale-less movies. In fact I especially like movies which don't take a stand as I find pushing any sort of ideology to be a crude way to tell a story; it usually over-simplifies the raw information that the story contains.
That being said, it's possible that there might actually be structure and morale in Vox Lux. Even though we have no information about the school shooter from the beginning, we can reasonably imagine that his profile is similar to real cases. That is, the student likely was persecuted, rejected or mocked by others. In short, they were mean to him. I can't help to draw a parallel between Celeste and the shooter's reaction to unkindness from others. Both reflect it around them by being violent themselves. Both end up wanting to make a big show about it. For the shooter it is catastrophic and gruesome. For Celeste it is artistic and electric. Those scenes respectively open and close the movie. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned from the movie, and it is as simple as: be kind. Of course, this is a banality, but that doesn't make it any less true. Just as the content of any pop song.
It is impressive how quickly we empathize with the tire, and the director should receive props for that alone. The movie is a bit too long. It would have made a wonderful short or medium-length movie.
All the interactions with Eric & Ramzy are a delight. The rest of the plot, as funnily absurd as it is, isn’t as interesting.
Another output from Woody Allen’s random movie generator.
There are 4 segments* out of 13 that caught my attention or made me laugh. That’s about 3 out of 10.
The Catch, Homeschooled, The Proposition, Truth of Dare
Any movie with Fabrice Lucchini automatically gets a pass with me, but if in addition there is Gemma Arterton, oh boy!
WELL THAT WAS FONNY
The director went for an immersive experience into Van Gogh’s mind. This means everything is shaky, blurry, and unnerving, except in the scenes where he paints, where everything becomes stable and easy and peaceful. As it turns out, it is quite unpleasant to go into Van Gogh’s mind.
You can immediately tell that this was a passion project for Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, and it elevates the concept gracefully. Their alchemy on screen is all over the place. The exposition and conclusion (first act and final act) are absolutely great. The middle development is a bit mellow. Great overall.
It’s not clear to me when I was supposed to understand the point of the movie, because I did right at the first scene, when, on a close-up to Glenn Close listening to the phone, the intensity of her facial expression screams the entire plot in the span of a second.
If anything, this is a warm reminder that beyond their life-is-absurd narrative guideline, the Coen brothers are masters of the cinematic craft. The risk of an anthology, of course, is that some stories will be more engaging than others, creating an uneven experience. I particularly enjoyed the tale of the gold digger and its glorious scenery, as well as the young lady traveling with her dog who won’t stop barking.
The competition between Emma Stone’s and Rachel Weisz’ characters is delightful.
After having seen the first two, there was no reason I wouldn’t go all the way. At this point I could at least identify with Frodo and Sam on one aspect: their hardship to reach the Mordor and destroy the ring was very similar to my struggle to reach the end of this cinematic trilogy and finally remove it from my watchlist. Because there is no half-measures to be taken, I watched the extended versions of each of them, which pushes the last one to 4 hours. Those 4 hours went faster than the 7 hours of the first two opus united. It’s actually good. We get to see the origin of Gollum and the extent of his villainy. There is a super-scary bigass spider. Gandalf does some badass kung-fu with his stick when he is bored of using it for actually wizardry. The army of Rohan charges with their horses at stupid orcs on bare foot in the most epic of epic battles. Éowyn kills some high-ranked Nazgûl because she is no man, you stupid motherfucker. Then there is the big climatic conclusion in the heart of the Mordor, where you really root for Frodo to succeed because you don’t want to have spent 11 fucking hours in front of your TV watching elfs and wizards for nothing.
I’m pretty sure you could cut 45 minutes out of The Return of the King and replace them with a synthetic edition of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Even narratively speaking, the whole Saruman mess that is dealt with by the first two movies seems useless in comparison to the power that Sauron can yield in the last one.
After The Fellowship I decided that I wouldn’t watch the rest of the trilogy, but I had time on my hands, and, oddly enough, my curiosity was piqued. No matter how silly-looking Frodo and Sam looked, I wanted to know how their adventure would go. I want to be perfectly honest and say that I slept a good 45 minutes distributed over the most boring segments of the movie, but I didn’t feel like I was missing any important information. The battle at the end was rather interesting to watch.
So this is it. I saw it entirely and properly, and not just some excerpt when it was broadcast on TV. This was insanely boring. Studies should be done on how it is even possible to spread out such simple series of events on such a long duration. I can't tell where is the meat of the story in those never-ending three hours and a half (extended version, bitches). It's actually absurd how the movie begins with the tale of the origin of The One Ring, which takes about 5 minutes of voice-over and rapid flashbacks to describe what appears to be a very rich and eventful mythological story, to then be followed by 200 minutes of a bunch of guys strolling in green hills.
This is exactly like Pawlikowski’s previous movie Ida: beautiful cinematography, sad and mildly-interesting story, very considerate and touching narration. Those are the most accessible movies from the less accessible movies I watch.
No comment
Such a charming movie. It is simple, thoughtful, consistently funny. It just keeps on giving. Move your ass and go see it.
What Marvel has done is quite extraordinary. They have created a global pandemy of fanboys. People don’t even consider Marvel movies in the context of movies in general, but systematically in the context of the Marvel cinematic universe. Such movies are not appreciated for their value as independent entities, but for what they bring to the universe and how they compare to their peers. From an outsider perspective not only it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s stupid as hell. What a wasteland this legacy will be once the fad is over.
It comes with tropes and clichés typical of modern, teenagers-targeted stupid movies. Its weakest point being that the main characters are way less endearing than the anecdotal side characters. That being said, it’s overall quite entertaining and delivers a fair amount of suspenseful, well-crafted terror.
This review contains spoilers.
Unbreakable is one of my favorite movie. This is a betrayal. Maybe I'm too inflexible and just don't accept that the movie isn't what I wanted it to be, but in this case I just don't like what it is.
The first thing I didn't like is that David Dunn plays a vigilante. One of most effective way we could identify with David Dunn in Unbreakable is that he was a level-headed and reasonable person. Sure, he did follow a villain to save the children, but he was experimenting, roaming uncertainly. He was just discovering the possibilities and limits of his powers. Watching him assuming the role of an organized vigilante as if it is his duty seems so unlike his character in the first movie. The absurdity of it becomes even more obvious when pondering over his powers. He has two powers: visions of crimes; and super-human force. Out of those two, visions are by far the most powerful. Super-human force is no match for a properly trained SWAT team, and is dirtier anyway. Visions can spare the work of months of police investigations. He could just roam the streets, follow the bad guys, and make anonymous calls to the police once knowing enough. This is what David Dunn from Unbreakable would have done anyway.
The second thing I didn't like is that the movie was way too didactic. Shyamalan did the same mistake the Wachowskis did with Matrix Reloaded: over-analyzing the base subject with monstrous verbosity in-between action scenes. Unbreakable was a masterclass of "Show, don't tell", and Glass is the exact opposite. The scene from the poster where the three characters are seated while being interviewed by the woman doctor is absolutely clumsy. It is unnecessary, it tells too much, but tells nothing useful. The doctor is trying to explore the possibility of David deducing the intentions of the bad guys he "senses" by subconscious Sherlock Holmes'-like analysis, which is irrelevant because he has VISIONS. He sees things happening in another place he never visited, and which are happening for real exactly like he sees them. The directing and editing proved it to us. What are we supposed to do as spectators? Doubt?
The third thing I didn't like is that the story goes the comic-book way. Once again, what was so great in Unbreakable is that it was super-hero story narrated in a context that was very realist, with setups and characters we could identify with. Glass, on the other hand, leverages all sorts of tropes and clichés that is typical of modern, tasteless, super-hero movies. Everything that revolves around the character of Dr. Staple, played by Sarah Paulson, suffers from this curse. She is mysterious, elegantly clothed. She doesn't feel like a real character you can identify with, she is a comic-book character. She manages a psychiatric hospital in which the three characters are gathered, in a plot mechanism that doesn't make any sense. (How ironic for Dr. Staple to explain to David's son that he was a vigilante punishing bad guys without proper judgment when David lands in this psychiatric institution apparently without any judgment.) We eventually learn that she belongs to a sort of sectarian organization which is comic-book-level conspiracy trash.
I don't understand Shyamalan's process in his trilogy. Why destroy everything that proved so effective in Unbreakable and do the exact opposite? As for the Split continuity, well, there isn't much to take from it, apart from an acting circus by James McAvoy in the scenes where he zaps from one personality to another. It has the virtue of making the movie playful, if not subtle.
Glass was a bad movie until the end, where it became a disaster. Firstly because Shyamalan pulls out a terrible twist which is based on the assumption that people in 2019 believe that videos they see on the Internet are real, and secondly because <spoiler>David Dunn is killed in a fucking puddle.</spoiler> This last bit requires me to take the drastic step of considering that Glass just didn't happen. It was a mistake, and we can all live a good life by erasing it from our brains.
A movie with a sniper is a movie with a sniper, but now that really was a bad movie with a sniper.
The sparkling personalities of the two main characters is what makes it watchable. Otherwise the screenplay has a very uneven and awkward structure, it’s difficult to get hooked and it was oddly unsatisfying.
No comment
The good thing about survivals is that it never gets boring no matter how insignificant it is.
Well, this is edifying. Thanks for the cognitive dissonance.
Ah French movies.
I was bored at times during the movie but it left nonetheless a mark on my mind as I was still thinking about it the days after. What I'm realizing is that those kind of naturalistic movies leave memories on you, because you experience them. But this aspect is mostly uncorrelated from a compelling storytelling structure which makes them intellectually engaging as you're watching them.
With Roma, Alfonso Cuarón achieves what Terrence Malick only ever tried. The semi-autobiographical depiction of Cuarón's own childhood, narrated through the prism of a sublime cinematography, with a tone that tries to trigger some sort of transcendence in the spectator, immediately reminded me of The Tree of Life. However, Roma approaches the exercise very differently: with humility and simplicity. Contrary to its Texan counterpart, the Mexican chronicle doesn't feel awkward or weird at parts. It is complete, sound, and rich.
The children in the movies are only side characters. The main character is Cleo, the maid of the upper middle-class family, and nanny of the children. What makes the movie so peculiar is that it has an extremely non-didactic narration. As such, there is not much dialogs nor context about Cleo's life. She's a rather shy and silent young woman, and we can only try to read her state of mind from the numerous shots where she is pensively taking a break or just working in the house.
As far as we can tell, she is an angel. The archetype of the sweet, innocent, saintlike maid, is in fact so frankly painted that it seems Cuarón wasn't interested in drawing nuance, but rather in reporting his galvanized memories from childhood. In the movie, Cleo has a particularly loving relationship with the children, and the way the narration approaches her character matches the way the children must see her: a loving, pure, and protective angel.
The non-didactic narration goes on to include various elements of Mexico's culture without explaining them. There is a fanfare going on in the street of the house. Why? Is there some sort of celebration? There is a student's demonstration being repressed. Why? What are they protesting about? There is no explanation. The movie only shows, and never tell. I browsed quite a lot of interviews and Wikipedia articles afterwards, and I very much enjoy this procedure: first discover by the power of the image without understanding, and then, once the tale is over, go read about it.
Because the movie doesn't explain its context but only shows things happening, it holds an incredible richness. Since it doesn't explain, it doesn't have to summarize, and it doesn't have to simplify. It doesn't even have to take a side about anything. There is an incredible amount of detailed cultural and historical details that are left there for the spectator to care about and be curious about. And it works so well because those things happens in the movie like they would happen in life: you experience them without understanding all the implications.
The only thematic about which the story does take a stand is the place of women in society. Feminism isn't always found where we expect it, and as much as I think Spielberg's The Post was the most feminist movie of 2017, I think Roma is the most feminist of 2018. The movies draws an incredible, voluntarily non-subtle, harsh contrast between men and women: to all appearances men are strong and solid, while women are fragile and modest. But when it comes to reality, men are weak and cowards, while women are enduring all the pain, and are greatly brave. Cuarón said in an interview that Roma was a "love letter to the women who raised him". This is more than a love letter. This is an ode. The only representative of the male sex who are spared in the story are the children, who are still retaining the innocence of youngness. We can only hope that when they grow up they won't evolve into the kind of men who behaved so badly with the women raising them.
Roma needs to be experienced like a stroll. The first hour is slow, descriptive. It relaxed me. The second hour is way more turbulent, with drama and havoc as immersive as you can expect the craft of Alfonso Cuarón to be. The whole adventure followed me the days after, leaving a taste of peace and melancholy in my mind.
A humble, simple, clean cut thriller. Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen have found roles that suit them pretty well. There are a few sorrowful dialogues which feel a bit phony, but otherwise it is very good.
The Woody Allen cinematic universe’s thematics’ list is getting more complete as I unroll his filmography. So far I have: - Very fast flirtatious relationships - Awkward goofy shy men struggling in the phase of expected flirtatious relationship - Age difference in love - The temptation of infidelity - Murder as something to be considered for a solution - Financial despair - Communism - Narcissists with a genius complex - Fortune tellers charlatans vs. rationalist scientific minds - Existentialism - The absurdity of Life - Touristic cities
He’s like the intellectual Luc Besson, where you replace the Audis, prostitutes, and guns with touristic cities, lovers, and murder. Gimme more.
I noticed the 16:9 aspect ratio, which I guess is how Woody Allen admits that he’s basically doing a TV movie with A+ actors.
I found that it was trying too hard to be funny and that it lacked structure. Sam Rockwell is amazing but he’s showing off.
I love the nuanced profiles of hitmans and their romantic sensibility. Lots of humoristic moments too. Martin McDonagh is Tarantino with a conscience. Such an excellent movie.
It follows an Auschwitz’s prisoner who clean gas chambers and transports bodies from the chambers to crematoriums. This is one of the darkest movies I ever saw. I consider this viewing as useful since there is no other thing that has made me realize with such impact the sheer, indescribable horror of how death had been industrialized. But this was not, of course, a pleasant viewing by any measure. There are movies about the subject like Schindler’s List which are softer and enjoyable as a drama. But this made wonder: is this even legitimate to enjoy a movie about the subject? Aren’t neutrality and rawness the only responsible registers? I’m not sure.
Apart from the awful cinematography this is a beautiful gem of creativity and originality.
There are a lot of recurrent themes and stereotypes in Woody Allen’s movies, and it’s hard to sort out what he’s making fun of, and what is part of his own personality. This director is a true mystery.
WOODY ALLEN WOODY ALLEN WOODY ALLEN WOODY ALLEN WOODY ALLEN WOODY ALLEN
If I continue going down the 48 movies of Woody Allen like that, it will become difficult to write anything insightful at some point. I have nothing to say.
It was interesting to see an horror movie with such a methodical and organized survivor. There are many very good ideas throughout the film. The major drawback is that it’s very flat, emotionally speaking.
Woody Allen’s morale: love can’t be explained so you should dump your wife for any young bird who makes an impression on you.
I spent some time wondering whether he was actually rational or not, will probably write an article about it some day. Nice flick.
Everybody knows there is a romantic sensibility behind the savage facade of King Kong, and it is good and charming, although anecdotal.
This and Wonder Wheel, the last two movies of Woody Allen, share a beautiful cinematography and very enjoyable vaudeville-like comedy.
A very steady and methodical man has made a huge mistake and must now handle the consequences, which he does with 90 minutes of phone calls to various people while driving. This is really well made.
Comparing Daniel Plainview's relationship to church in There Will Be Blood with the one of Rodrigues in Silence says a lot on how atheism works in comparison to faith. Those two movies share an epic sense of artistry and storytelling with the drawback of having a few dragging sections.
What I liked very much about this movie is how it deals with rebellion. The main character doesn’t try to stand up to make a point, she doesn’t oppose resistance and is rather apathetic to the whole process. When she does things that appear as rebellious to the establishment, it is because it is her natural behavior to do so. It is simply human, just a sane expression of her freedom. She doesn’t even try to rebel, it just happens because she lives. Cinema is about putting the spectator in someone else’s shoes, and this is beautifully done here. Chloë Grace Moretz is a great actress.
Very hard to enjoy unless you have the arcade references, I guess.
A bag of two-cents at random: The color palette is typical from the 50s and 60s with such flamboyant pastel colors, which is refreshing in comparison to today's cinema pseudo-subtle dark tones. Some shots are beautiful in the way they are classically and simply composed. Incredible how a movie as harmless as this one still carries on gruesome racist characterization duty with the most ridiculous side-character ever. Surprising that the Manic Pixie Dream Girl stereotype was already a thing in the 60s. I will now hang the famous picture with Audrey Hepburn on my wall. The cat is the best character. Rather average overall.
No comment
Jonah Hill deploys emotions I wasn't aware he had in his range.
It is actually very good to watch, but oh boy does it fail the History vs. Hollywood test.
5 is the average between 10 for depicting with an impressive sharpness the anxious times of middle-school, and 0 for absolutely not wanting to experience those times again. This belongs to what could be called the "inconsequential accurate" types of movies, which render a truthful portrait of a time and age, with no ambition of hinting at anything useful or even entertain. If I want to watch life I can look by the window.
It made me happy, so there is that.
The movie pays tribute to the original Jurassic Park with various references, so much in fact that it achieves being "one big pile of shit" as a whole.
First Man is no movie to show to kids who want to become astronauts. If anything, it illustrates how perilous and hard space exploration is. It follows the entire decade of the 60s, from the first NASA missions to Apollo 11, and shows that working as an astronaut in those times is no safe trade. People die. From the T-38 crash in early Gemini tests to the fire in the Apollo 1 cockpit, the film doesn't ignore disasters. Narrated entirely from Neil Armstrong's point of view and his family's, those people who are gone are colleagues, friends, or even neighbor. And as the others lose their lives, Neil continues advancing to the next level, riskier than the previous one.
One can imagine what kind of bravery and morale fortitude Apollo-era astronauts must have had to continue towards their goal. The popular image is the one of hot-shots and cow-boys so excited and with some much self-confidence they happily hop on the rocket ready to launch. We learn that that this is not the profile of Armstrong. In his case, death is not only a risk ahead, it is also a shadow behind. He lost his 2-years old daughter to a brain tumor before enlisting in the NASA space program. He is surrounded by death, and deals with it using total rectitude, coldness, and expertise. Such overall professionalism which certainly contributed to him having been selected to command Apollo 11. Ryan Gosling is absolutely suited for the role, which might be the peak of his career. He projects so much intensity, yet inspire so much calmness. His composure and silence form a fortress to an internal storm that is palpable.
The movie soars when it demonstrates the perilous nature of space exploitation from inside a spaceship. Those scenes are so masterfully done they are enthralling. You don't even observe it, you are in it. Director Damien Chazelle uses all the tooling at his disposition to immerse us into the missions, and it works impressively well. First-person shots entering the confined cockpits reproduced to incredible detail. Close-ups to nuts and bolts to show that this thing is fundamentally a pile of scrap that is going to be shot into space. Various distant metallic cracks when it is about to get alive. This is the most incredible rendition of what it must feel to be in a rocket I ever experienced.
We like to impress ourselves with the anecdote that states that the Apollo program sent men to the Moon with a computing power that is less than what is available today in a single cellphone. So we should also impress ourselves with the fact that First Man was made with a budget of $59 millions, which is about a third of what is usually available to those kinds of movies. The lack of budget sometimes shows. When the crawler is bringing the Saturn V rocket from the hangar to the launchpad, we only get to see the crawler. The astronauts, by-standing, are looking up and commenting on the impressive size of the rocket, but we never get to see what they see. Chazelle therefore needs to employ wonders of creativity to convince us, and he delivers. By filming the astronauts taking the elevator to the top of the rocket, we get to see the big cylinder going by vertically while we gain scary height as we can tell by the Cap Canaveral early morning scenery. There you understand the sheer scale of what is happening. They intend to launch a high-rise building into space!
First Man is about war as much as it is about space. The reasons the U.S. were fueling the space program was solely to beat the Soviets at it. Those astronauts entering spaceships to go to space were really entering heavy machinery to go to war. And those who lost their lives in a test were fallen brothers of a battle. Add to that the stern, stoic personality of Armstrong, and "Cold War" would have made an alternative title full of sense.
For Armstrong though, it seems to be an escape. When saddened by the loss of a colleague, he desires solitude from his wife, or rather the company of the Moon, which he observes with a sextant. When the Saturn V is headed towards the Moon and the interstage ring separates from the rocket's second stage, the sustained shot of the ring falling back to Earth rhymes with the way a man would remove his own wedding ring before leaving his family for a get away he might never be coming back from.
First Man is not a crowd pleaser. Neil Armstrong's detached behavior would be a mood killer for those who expect the movie to be a modern revision of The Right Stuff with hot-shots. The absence of joy, however, is not to be confused with the absence of character development. Of all the characters that are presented to us, Armstrong is certainly the one on whom the idea of going to the Moon has the deepest impact.
When they accomplish an achievement, Armstrong's colleagues congratulate themselves for getting closer at beating the reds. But when, at his initial NASA interview, Armstrong is asked why he thinks space exploration is important, he answers that it is because it provides a shift in perspective. He is describing what is now documented as the overview effect. His mates are warriors. He is a sailor. When him and Buzz Aldrin has set foot on the Moon, Aldrin is shown jumping around as if it was playground time. Armstrong is experiencing a profound emotional meltdown. It is eerie, in this moment, how, behind the opaque silver-plated visor of his helmet, we can almost understand more about his internal state as we ever could during the rest of the movie on Earth. And as we start being able to peek through this impenetrable facade, he seems to finally have found a way to commune with himself.
The movie is unconventional on various fronts. It is a saga on an entire decade yet you don't have the usual montages to show progression. This doesn't prevent the rhythm of the movie from being fantastic. As soon as you think the story might be about to develop a segment that is going to be a bit boring, it moves on without further ado to the next interesting chapter. There is not a single second in those almost 150 minutes that is useless. The music is from outer space. When the lunar module is about to land, Justin Hurwitz drops an incredible melody made of strings and brass instruments going stronger and stronger in an almost jazzy mood. As the narration focuses on Armstrong flying the module and doesn't show the conventional tour of the world with people listening to the live feed on the radio or TV, the music alone, with its originality and wonder, conveys perfectly the greatness of what is happening.
This is a film made by people who decided not to take the traditional paths, and who designed their own beautiful ones. They are true artists, and this is a masterpiece.
This looked like the U.S. equivalent of our French OSS 117 so I'm giving a consistent rating.
Is Cage hirable anymore? Kinda sad seeing him in a movie that can't even afford decent cinematography or sound mixing. Although what is a seemingly art student post-graduate project filled with bullshit might be the closest to an acid trip, it certainly isn't close to a good movie.
The second part is dangerously close to an afternoon TV movie for soccer moms in need of strong sensations, but the sheer talent of Emma Thompson and the rather elegant directing makes it overall pretty decent.
The movie possesses those thrilling vibes that will comfort fans of the first installment, but the enjoyment becomes voided as the story makes less and less sense as it progresses.
The Mary Sue aspect of Mel Gibson's character is a bit too obvious, but overall the story unrolls smoothly and the scale of the battle scenes, seemingly without CGIs, is very impressive.
I'm starting to more frankly dislike movies that raise lots of intrigues in the air and then barely do the work of closing them, as if the screenwriters themselves decided they didn't know and would let the spectators figure it out by themselves because, well, the story exists as an independent entity and there is no correct or incorrect answer anyway. Yeah sure, but what about you try being less lazy and deliver a compelling story instead.
I can give a pass to that if the movie is emotionally powerful enough to move me (that's what happened to me with Mother!). I could see that this one was trying that, with quite frightening sequences. Yet the directing, although meticulous and neat, still comes out as somewhat bland, as does the rest of the movie. This seems like it's becoming a leitmotiv for A24 productions.
Delivers just the right amount of comedy and entertainment on a crime genre background. I would have preferred if it had let us the task of drawing parallels with some crazy old man on Twitter rather than hammering it to our face. As an example, Spielberg was quite clear about how The Post needed to be released when it was, considering how much of a callback it was to the current events, yet this isn't hinted at at all in the movie itself. Let the spectators do the math by themselves, especially when your movie is about what happens when people blindly gulp down ideologies presented in a plate instead of thinking by themselves.
I watched it Friday and it was so boring and forgettable that I needed to concentrate one good minute on Sunday to remember what movie I had watched two days before. It's not even bad though.
The cinematography was so under-exposed it must have triggered a melatonin release because I fell asleep at the 45 minutes mark. I'm happy Solo eventually found back his girlfriend.
No comment
Dark humor has never been so delicious. Steve Buscemi is brilliant in this, and his character represents the film so well, joking around but so cold inside.
What a crude and didactic discourse on racism. Dialogs are used literally to talk about it, the story is just a side-component of the dissertation and all the characters are impersonal portraits gathered to form a catalog of profiles on the subject. Although with such analytic tooling the film succeeds in explaining how major social tensions are mostly the result of ignorance, misconception and inertia of violence rather than fundamental malice or incompatibilities, it certainly doesn't succeed in building a compelling story made of actual, nuanced characters.
François Ozon's specialization is taking the premise of an adult movie and turning it into an auteur movie. I have no strong feeling about this one way or another.
It's so simply told and tactfully presented, you don't watch it, you sip it. Cue the classical music, picture the paintings. We're talking 5 minutes eye-game between a pretender and a Countess covered by Schubert Piano Trio; 10 minutes duel setting on Handel's Sarabande. Sophistication balanced by simplicity, grandeur canceled by coldness. A pleasure to watch.
Old classics often come with a theatrical style that creates some distance between the story and a young spectator like me. This is particularly true for this one. I will nonetheless recognize its big quality, which is that it becomes better and better, the last hour being the best, and you don't get tired in spite of the duration.
The only thing holding me from giving a higher rating is the cheesiness of it all. Quite a lot of potential there. Although if it had been better done then it would have been pretty much redundant with All is Lost.
People complained about the baby in American Sniper, but this dead squirrel tho
This is one hell of a sneaky tricky title. Sends you friendly Stranger Things vibes and then suddenly it gets real dark real fast.
I'm trying out a quota system where I watch 1 French movie per couple of weeks, so that I can look sophisticated in society. I wonder how much time it will take to be used to cinema that distills an atmosphere in research of poetry in the banalities of life. I'm more used to cinema that tells stories.
This is basically a modern revision of Taxi Driver. Didn't quite understand the whole purpose of it nor where the film was going, but Joaquin Phoenix is captivating.
No rating as this doesn't really compare to movies I watch on a regular basis. I watched this for educational and documentary purposes on the birth of the vampire genre. As boring as homework can be.
It seems that the way they made this film is by choosing some fancy action scenes to make and then interpolates a story that would somehow involve those scenes. The amount of ridicule this movie subject itself to is too big to fit in this short review. I have a preference for the repetitive shots of the helicopter's indicators that blink red, with more and more of them displaying red as peril intensifies.
Now, it's true that the cinematic quality of action scenes is great, especially the whole arc in Paris. The dedication (and insanity?) of the crew to their craft cannot be understated. In the end it looks like the true Mission: Impossible was happening during shooting, and that the making-of might be more interesting that the movie itself.
✓ Characters communicate explicitly with each other and tell what they see ✓ Characters are cautious and take reasonable decisions ✓ Characters stay with each other for security, they don't split ✓ The atmosphere is scary, without artificial jump scares ❌ The story has a clear resolution
This film gracefully avoids all the horror tropes and proves that it's still possible to make a frightening movie without them. It also throws a lot of intrigues in the air and finishes like they never have been raised. It actually got under my skin, making me imagine all sorts of theories and hypothesis to explain its mystery, even though it's a lost cause considering that the author himself said he added elements to challenge the spectator, without having himself a clear explanation for their purposes in the story.
The traditional Bond formula never fails to deliver a solid entertainment, although Bond's behavior toward women characters still comes out as creepy, and the capabilities of the franchise's budget gives way to too-much.
A young couple suffers the two most important perils of marriage, lack of communication and over-reaction, under 6 hours of being wed. Many critics praised the acting of Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle, which is surprising considering that their style of diction comes out as very explicit and roman-esque, contrasting with modern naturalistic acting that is usually appreciated from indies. It is, anyway, absolutely consistent with the overall mood of the movie, which explores the nature of love and its complications with an approach that is both simple and epic in its sensibility.
Margo Martindale and Richard Jenkins, seniors among the cast, who play the family's parents, save the movie from the mediocrity of the younger part of the cast. We can understand why John Krasinsky followed this by a movie where he doesn't have to talk since his only dramatic technique seems to exclaim "Whhhat?!" when hearing shocking news. As it turns out, the acting style of The Office isn't perfectly suited for cinema. The story doesn't deliver anything truly remarkable, only the bare minimum for a light-hearted dramedy.
Since it's 35 Celcius (S.I. units bitches) where I live I figured from the title that this would be an appropriate viewing. So I guess to complete the picture I now need to get into dealing weed, seducing the hot girl, and be a bad boy with my Corvette. All pumped up with a hysterical editing and soundtrack, this mixtape of genres succeeds when it doesn't take itself seriously and fails when it does. The result isn't necessarily memorable, but it makes for a pretty cool movie night.
Set years before 9/11 when Hollywood could still joke about terrorism, this masterpiece of a 90's action flick elevates itself way over its French source material, without forgetting to pay tribute to it. After Aliens, The Abyss and T2, it marks the end of James Cameron's nuclear warhead tetralogy, and a turning point into his insane budget and profit ascent, paving the way for his further titanic projects.
No comment
The first act misled me into thinking that this was just a story between a boy and a horse. It almost became boring before I realized that this is a full-featured saga on a lost teenager trying to find his marks. This is a good story, simply told, simply poetic. Boyhood the hard way.
I need to stop adding movies on my watchlist because of their poster, just like I need to stop clicking on YouTube videos because of their thumbnail. That was as heavy and gloomy as a tank launching rockets that spread clinical depression when they hit their target.
This is about a journalist who uses himself as a test subject for doping. Apparently he also injected steroids into the documentary itself, because its sensationalism sometimes hinder proper informational conveyance. It’s fast-paced editing, dramatic soundtrack and catchline interviewing all around. Unnecessary considering how crazy the base material is in a first place.
Jessica Chastain typecast as the strong independent woman, Sam Rockwell typecast as the racist American with a loose walking style, the spiritual journey of the white among the natives typecast as boring as hell.
This is a Monsters University or Finding Dory type of situation. The universe is deepened with some arbitrary story that I’ll forget about in six months. It’s at least well made and entertaining.
The Cars franchise is probably the most lucrative production of Pixar, thanks to the merchandising around it. For fans it’s anecdotal but for them it’s big money. Fair enough.
The incredibly clever screenplay seems more suited for a play (which it originally is), than for a screen. The movie eventually confesses its didacticism by going as far as letting the police inspector literally describing out loud the climax.
Too bad Molly didn’t succeed in her Olympic career because this introduction sequence is stellar in comparison to the rest of the okay movie.
So what happens if Bill Murray feeds a mogwai just before 6AM.
When in doubt, apply a dose of rape-and-revenge exploitation garbage to your watching schedule.
Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins
Sunday 31 March 2019
permalinkBecause apparently Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie don’t have enough work with the Mission Impossible franchise, they’re also working on Jack Reacher. The ode and emphasis on Tom Cruise’s perfection and God-like character reaches a point where it is hilarious. In spite of it being obviously for the lulz, I can’t help but imagine that it must nonetheless boost Cruise’s ego as an actor. Beyond the best scenes where Jack Reacher is delivering insane quotes for intimidation, and one or two big action scenes, the movie is mostly very verbose and would have benefited from a more even distribution of action.