103. I'm Still Here (2010) - April 16th
Well, this is certainly what you could call experimental. That doesn't make it good, but I'm impressed at the sheer insanity of what happens in this movie, be it really or mockumentary. Regardless of whether or not Joaquin is a caricature of himself the whole time or not, he actually did everything in this movie, and each possibility says something completely different, either of which is at least interesting, but pretty pretentious. If Joaquin did all this because he was having an actual identity crisis, coped with it by breaking away from his acting career in what he felt was the most rebellious but still artful way possible, then this film is a fairly shallow consideration of the destructive elements of Imposter Syndrome, and doesn't offer much insight, but is kind of grossly sympathetic as it fails to answer the questions it raises while Joaquin spirals out of control. If this movie is, as Joaquin and Casey Affleck would have you believe, an elaborate hoax in which Joaquin is essentially in-character 100% of the time, then it's merely the pretense of everything is suggests that it is. I'm not sure if that's better or worse, but at least with the latter the seemingly incidental questions it asks are more clearly intentional, and seems more oriented around critique of the lifestyle that affords the conditions it depicts. While again, it's not exactly successful at fulfilling the goals it sets out, it's at least committed to its idea, and as pretentious as it can be, it's hard not to admire Joaquin performance as you hate the guy. - 5.5/10
That said, I watched this entirely so that I could watch this as a companion piece to Joaquin Phoenix's new film, You Were Never Really Here, just because of the irony of Joaquin starring in two movies with those titles.
104. You Were Never Really Here (2017) - April 17th
Rightfully, the only thing this has in common with I'm Still Here is its showcasing of Joaquin's commitment to his work. This is a taut, disturbing thriller, but Joaquin's performance elevates the work as much as it elevates him, and what we're given is almost as much a breakneck thriller as it is a ponderous piece on life and death. It was the moment Joe decided to actually spend a moment with a man who tried to kill him. Despite the fact that this man would have murdered Joe in cold blood, Joe still stayed with him while he died, softly singing him in to the afterlife as they both grapple with the meaning of what has happened between them. It's a really powerful, quiet moment couched within act after act of cold, business-only murder, and it's a great singular example of the struggle within Joe and the care the film takes to examine it, which is really what sets the film apart. - 8/10
105. Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) - April 17th
Now that I've watched all of the Showa-era Godzilla movies, I only have four Heisei-era movies and one Millenium-era movie to go until I've seen every one. From what I've already seen (Return, vs. King Ghidorah, vs. MechaGodzilla II) the Heisei series is far more consistent in quality and more consistently tied to explicitly science fiction ideas of its era, rather than mysticism, with the symbolism attached to Godzilla still usually present, but taking a backseat to the iconography of Godzilla himself and his prevalence in Japanese pop culture.
The series also seems far more connected between films in the Heisei era, with consistent references to events between films; the first thing I appreciated about Biollante is that it deals with the aftermath of Return and spends some time showcasing Godzilla's impact upon the land and the people, a nice combination of narrative and meta-narrative about Godzilla's effect on Japanese culture. There's also some actual adaptation by the military to Godzilla's presence; instead of sending the same useless tanks and laser again and again, we get actual sci-fi super-weapons that see actual upgrade and development over time as they try to keep up with the ever-stronger Godzilla and his growing list of adversaries. It's a little tone-deaf considering Godzilla's inception and the point of the original film, but as part of an evolving franchise it makes sense, as characters learn from the mistakes of the past in-universe and the writers learn from the mistakes of the past at the meta level. Beyond that, the human story is at least emotionally resonant to an extent and somewhat engaging like the better Showa-era movies. The idea that the story would be centred around recovered Godzilla cells and their scientific application, the fact that several groups with varying interests want to get their hands on the cells for their incredible durability and regenerative properties, the main scientist losing his daughter due to conflicts from those interests and creating Biollante in a failed attempt to bring her back, the whole film just carries from the first to make for considerably decent filmmaking. It helps that Biollante is also one of Godzilla's more memorable one-time enemies, with a grotesque design and an impressive size that dwarfs even the big G himself. Overall, this was a good film, and it felt nice to watch a Godzilla movie and be motivated to watch it for the merits of the film alone, and not just get through it because it's a Godzilla movie - 6.5/10
106. The Crazies (2010) - April 18th
This is the surprise quality of the week. A fairly simply set-up that's essentially small-town zombies (except they're, you know, crazies), the film rolls with its idea, competently creating tension out of even fairly simple scenes and escapes built out of everyday areas, like a car wash or a truck stop. It's really solid, including the peak of tension involving one particularly hardcore scene wherein the sheriff has to kill one of the infected by stabbing them in the throat with a straight razor that the infected had in turn stabbed through his hand; it's a really tense scene with some great imagery. The film also sees the leads played very well by Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell, who are both always enjoyable to watch on-screen, and with a decent supporting cast, I must say it was nice to see a horror movie that was just good. It's so often that horrors are either the future classics of their genre or terrible franchise flicks that have no meaning, it was nice to see something that was good and that I can recommend, but that there's also a middle of the road somewhere for horror. - 6/10
107. Deep Blue Sea 2 (2018) - April 19th
I can't believe they made a sequel to the second-best shark movie of all time. I can believe that it's almost completely awful and pointless. Seriously, this is a made-for-TV sequel to a B-movie, and it's largely beat for beat the same as the original, only with a lower budget and worse actors. The first half of the film has almost no conceptual differences, only competent (or obnoxious, depending on your perspective) enough to be so similar that it can toy with expectation by doing something the original movie didn't. Once the half-way twist happens, the film decides to drop a whole lot of new information on the audience that only serves to make the film more laughable in context, which would be great if this were going for comedic effect but that's not what I saw from the movie. One super shark is pregnant and gives birth to a school of baby super sharks that act like a swarm of piranhas, which is about the only thing that's remotely different enough to be interesting, and the motivation is so ridiculous and so out of left field (the guy running the super shark program literally believes that humanity will soon be outdone by A.I., at which point he wants to employ the super sharks to fight back) that I essentially checked out mentally at the reveal just so I could get through the movie. This wouldn't be a point of comparison, except for the fact that the original movie had actual motivation that was set up, made sense in context, and carried the theme of every sci-fi movie that man shouldn't mess with nature. Deep Blue Sea 2 is somehow worse than I expected. - 2/10
108. Final Destination (2000) - April 19th
This is definitely the funniest movie I've seen all week. Finally taking a stab at this horror franchise, I was so happy to find comedy that's so consistent that I have to believe it's completely intentional. The movie has the usual sort of brain-dead/heartless approach to its characters, that's common in movies, caring little for who all but a few of them are and mercilessly killing them off in the most roundabout way possible, but here it's for the sake of trying to get tension out of everyday household appliances. It's hilarious how much this film pulls at that thread, treating death like a child that treats life as a game and gets huffy when the game doesn't goes its way, taking macabre joy out of finding the most hilariously awkward way of dealing with the people as possible. The film is saved by its comedic attempts, because the horror wasn't working for me at all, and instead usually just got a laugh out of me. - 5/10
109. Love, Simon (2018) - April 20th
This is where I'd make some allusions to cheese or corn. The movie is sweet and charming, but also human in its approach to its main character, and completely 'Disney Channel' in its approach to everything else. You can find my full review here. - 7.5/10
Re-watches
19. Jurassic World (2015) - April 16th
For as much as I love dinosaurs and will accept the faults of any movie on the basis that it includes dinosaurs, this is only pretty decent. As much as I can recall the overwhelming power of the wave of nostalgia caused by key moments in this movie, from its use of the original music to the fight between the Indominus and Rexy, to the final shot of Rexy roaring as she overlooks the abandoned park, watching this for what must be the sixth time at this point serves to remind me just as much that this film only had its effect because of that nostalgia, as opposed to the merits of the film intermingling effectively with that nostalgia. That said, the reason that I'm watching this for the sixth time is because my dad is watching it for the first, so I thought I'd take an opportunity to jot down some thoughts I have about the movie here.
First, the stuff I like. At its core, the film is achingly self-aware about the burden it is carrying; it understands what Jurassic Park was and seems content to not reach quite as high and just prove that it's at least worthy of its name. It's a little cheap to do this by shamelessly plugging the audience with reminders of what people loved about Jurassic Park, but I wouldn't call that a knock on the film purely because it at least more respect for its source material than the previous entry in the series. The movie seems to work best when taken as a b-grade schlock version of Jurassic Park, and while that's not the direction I would've hoped for this series, there's still plenty of humorous merit to it (heck, I'm excited to watch the next Iron Sky movie purely because the trailer was genius enough to include a zombie Hitler riding a Nazi Tyrannosaurus, I am more than happy with b-grade schlock, it's just not what the Jurassic Park series started as). The Indominus Rex is also a really cool idea and probably the best possible incarnation of that whole stupid 'dinosaur super-soldier' idea that they were throwing around for a few years while they were figuring out how to tell a new story (on a similar note, I like that from the trailers we can see that they're taking this idea to its declared and logical next step, auctioning off mini-Indominus as bio-weapons; the whole thing is evil in a very appropriately silly way, following the more cartoonish nature of this film). The Indominus is at least moderately interesting in its design, more for how it moves and attacks, with its swift transitions from bipedal to quadrupedal and back, and its vicious, gaping bites. The final fight between the Indominus, Rexy and Blue is fantastic on both the nostalgic and technical levels. Seeing Rexy on the big screen for the first time in almost two decades was absolutely amazing, and director Trevorrow was acutely aware of the power she held, only putting her centre stage at the last possible moment. The way the fight was choreographed and shot was extremely effective, with the big one-shot at the end of the fight seeing Blue and Rexy work together to push the Indominus to the edge of the water being the definite highlight, especially the sheer power carried by Rexy as, even wounded, she throws the Indominus' entire body around like a chew toy after getting almost killed only moment before.
Now, there are a myriad of problems with the film, but some of them get a little better when accepted as aggressively self-aware b-grade schlock. The characters of Owen and Claire are painful and backwards forgettable stereotypes that are so unbelievable that it's feels like a joke, with Owen so perfect he's essentially the greatest living human being ever, and Claire such a fundamental control freak that it makes her progression in to an ultimately indecisive woman feel unavoidably forced. These two characters become at least understandable if not particularly palatable when viewed through the b-grade lens, following contrived and regressive rules and roles for story and characters that don't follow logically and only happen because they have to happen in the fastest and therefore funniest way possible. It also gives a bit of credence to the pointless and sudden inclusion of special powers for the Indominus in the way that the film did. Were the film going for some actual dramatic irony or semblance of tension in the same vein as Jurassic Park, at least some of these powers would've been known to the audience before they were revealed, so that we could look between our eyes in fear as we watch, knowing as the characters step in to their own unknowing doom. Because they aren't, because the film decides to reveal each factor about the story at the least possible moment, it maximises humour over tension, seemingly pulling the ludicrous out of nowhere simply when it needs to. The film softly offers an actual explanation after the fact in the form of bio-weaponry, which wouldn't be necessary except for the fact that the explanation in and of itself is so ridiculous that it actually follows the silly tone of the movie, even if it simultaneously undermines the idea of a b-movie by providing a serious reasoning. Now, this doesn't make the movie particularly great schlock (it's not Kung Fury; Jurassic World is seemingly afraid to commit wholesale to its own silly ideas in the hopes of being taken somewhat seriously, never quite striking the ground evenly between the two). However, it does make the movies' seemingly unintentional writing blunders and comedic moments feel intentional, and while the comedy wrought from it isn't exactly consistent it at least makes it seem like that's what the movie is going for. Stuff like the Indominus suddenly camouflaging or taking control of the raptors being delivered to us without a hint of circumstance leads to basically no tension in these portions of the movie, only shock and awe, but when taken as a b-movie, that's all they're going for, and while the comedy derived from this doesn't always land, it's at least a lens through which something else can be gotten out of the movie. - 5.5/10
Published April 23rd, 2018
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