This week there's just a lot of really good or even great movies, including Infinity War.
110. Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992) (Also known as Godzilla and Mothra: Battle for Earth) - April 23rd
I never was as big a fan of Mothra as I was Godzilla's other rivals; her powers are a bit boring and her movies are a bit softer, and it reminds me of the camp of the Showa era with the return of her stranger elements like the fairies. That said, the film mostly maintains the decent quality I've some to expect from the Heisei era. I don't really have much to say about it, aside from Battra it doesn't have anything new, and it feels like a coalition of elements that have worked in previous Godzilla ventures. That's fine, it just reduces what I can say about it to what I've already said about the series. - 6/10
111. Why We're Here (2018) - April 23rd
Fifteen years ago, a couple of guys working out of a spare bedroom put together a little comedy show, animating it using one of their favourite video games - that show was Red vs. Blue, and the guys putting it together were the founders of Rooster Teeth. Now, Red vs. Blue has just started its sixteenth season, and Rooster Teeth has amassed a company spanning multiple studio lots and containing hundreds of people, who have gone on to produce many animated shows, several live-action shows, a couple of movies, and even a handful of documentaries - and Why We're Here is one of them, the one that takes a look back at the history of the company up to this point, in celebration of Rooster Teeth's fifteenth anniversary.
Why We're Here covers a lot of the basics: how the founders all knew each other, the basis for them starting up, their success with Red vs. Blue and how they were able to grow beyond that to explore as many avenues open to them as possible, the countless hours worked and late nights spent keeping it all together, the explosion of Rooster Teeth's animation division, with some time spent looking at a few key early members of Rooster Teeth's community, and a moment to remember and pay respects to the late Monty Oum (may he rest in peace). They also cover the transition to working under Fullscreen, the potential future of Rooster Teeth, and the emphasis on Rooster Teeth continuing to work because of its community above all else.
As a former avid fan of Rooster Teeth's content, particularly Red vs. Blue, I've heard countless stories told through various mediums about the history of how the company started and bits and pieces of anecdotes over the years, so not a lot of this was new to me. The film offers a good baseline for what Rooster Teeth is all about and serves as an introduction to the company's work overall, but there's nothing here that I don't already know and haven't heard in greater detail before, so this effectively amounts to an exercise in nostalgia for me, for a time when I actually felt invested in Rooster Teeth's work. It's not bad, in fact seeing more of Burnie's Buda home was a highlight because they spent some time actually talking about the process in a way I haven't heard since I watched Red vs. Blue with commentary, but so much of this left me wanting for more information, more detail, more time on each individual topic, and at just over an hour Why We're Here simply doesn't offer it. This feels less like something for the fans and more like something for the fans to show their friends what they're on about when they talk about Rooster Teeth, which seems slightly ironic given how much time they talk about loving their community. That said, for how little there is here, it's all relatively well made, and most technical hiccups must be attributed to certain legal limitations about where hey could and couldn't film. It's a documentary that at least tells what it wants to tell well, even if it doesn't tell enough. - 7/10
112. I Saw the Devil (2010) - April 24th
Between this and Oldboy, it seems that Korean filmmakers have been taking their revenge lessons directly from the great Greek playwrights. This movie is messed up in the best and worst ways, with a classical taste for tragedy and revenge amplified by a sickening creativity. Why just take revenge on the guy who killed and sliced up your pregnant fiance when you can seek to destroy every single aspect of his life, until he snaps and then kills your fiance's sister and blinds her father, leading you to slice the guy's head off in front of his family? Yes, this is the structure of the story, and it's brutal. I appreciate the film's goal is ultimately to express the self destructive nature of revenge, even when you succeed. At the same time, the way it goes on as it does begins to feel redundant, leading you to wish the movie was about twenty minutes shorter. Still, it's a mesmerising, meditative mayhem that almost manages to consider the cold nature of evil as it loses itself in the manic glee of its gore. - 7/10
113. Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949) - April 24th
This is some basic stuff from Kelly and Sinatra; it ain't On the Town or Anchors Aweigh, but even when they aren't offering their best, it's still pretty damn good. Like most of these films, the plot is mostly window dressing for the sake of a few musical numbers and a few great jokes (and a handful of jokes were really great, the best of them bumped up my rating a whole point). There's some antiquated but progressive for its time and setting styled roles for its characters, particularly along gender lines, and an eleventh hour twist that feels completely out of step with the rest of the movie for how quickly its introduced and then resolved; the musical numbers also aren't the most elaborate or memorable, but they're at least entertaining and (mostly, considering the era in which this was produced) inoffensive. - 7/10
That said, it's weird to consider that this is not the first movie I've seen in which a shy Frank Sinatra falls for a girl, and an outgoing Gene Kelly seeks to help set Sinatra up with the girl, only to fall for the girl in the process, and then have Sinatra end up with some other girl. Here, the other woman is at least interested in Sinatra from the very start, pretty aggressively so in fact, so the switch has a bit more substance to it than 'oh, we forgot to give Sinatra a gal too', and her attitude's an interesting role reversal that plays in to the consistent theme in the movie. This is something that I kind of appreciate about the movie, and it's a reminder of the complex nature of social progression as it's represented in Hollywood films. There are certain topics that this movie approaches with little more than a throwaway joke, topics which when approached in this way feel completely inappropriate were they done so today. At the same time, there are other topics, such as gender roles, that feel almost forward thinking in their goals, and it's largely by virtue of them being a more significant aspect of the movie. K. C. Higgins is initially balked at for her womanhood, but after a few humorous reactions and some damn good comedic irony, almost everyone essentially gets over themselves and accepts and treats her like they would any other manager. She isn't really talked down to, she has a chance to voice her opinions and suggestions, and those suggestions are taken in to consideration and carried out, because she proves her understanding of the game and the circumstances. The only person who continues to treat her with any kind of spite is Kelly's O'Brien. Importantly, this isn't entirely because she's a woman either, but also because she allowed him to make a fool of himself in front of her; equally as important is the fact that his misogynistic behaviour is punished, leaving him the momentary butt of his teammates' jokes, because unlike them he hasn't moved on. It's kind of straightforward, especially because O'Brien's behaviour is quickly forgiven by Higgins, but it's a surprisingly progressive attitude for a movie made in 1949, especially for one that's set in 1908, and it's obviously idealism, but it's kind of neat to see regardless, and I don't want to walk away from this movie with a focus on its problematic elements, largely because it's such a product of its time.
114. Avengers: Infinity War (2018) - April 25th
The big purple guy hunts for shiny rocks. It's a good thing that it's the details of a movie that make a plot work. This was very good, excellent even, and it's by far Marvel's biggest movie. My full review can be found here. - 7.5/10
115. Russian Ark (2002) - April 26th
This is stream of consciousness storytelling put to film in its most ambitious form.
I'm really not sure how much I can actually say of substance about this film. It's a passage of time, the lack of cuts keeping you in a dream-like state as you wander about a museum with a dead travel writer, you yourself put in to the perspective of another dead person, and discuss Russian art, culture, and history - the camera never once cutting. I'm not sure what I experienced, and I feel like a basic understanding of what the two characters discuss before going in would have helped me, but I can appreciate what the film does despite my unfamiliarity; the film utilises the long take better than just about every other film I've seen, with positively mind-blowing set up and execution clear in the way everything moves, all played to a civilised and human discussion of art, culture and history, all in the Russian context. I'm not entirely sure what I watched, but I know that it was shown to me with incredible skill - 8.5/10
116. Brazil (1985) - April 26th
Between this and Time Bandits, Terry Gilliam is really good at making a chillingly dark but also comedic ending that suggests imagination is easier than reality.
This is basically 1984 with a Monty Python slapstick approach, and importantly no 'Big Brother' to direct people's ardour; here the world essentially operates the way that it does largely due to societal incompetence, with the very reasons that this world shouldn't work being the same reasons that it continues to do so - people are dumb and they don't care all that much. This is a world of impenetrable bureaucracy, where no-one can ever get anything done and human identity is null and void, and air conditioner repair men are heroes and renegades and terrorists, just for doing their work without the appropriate paper work. It's a chilling vision of dystopia (is there any other kind?) that Gilliam constantly ladens with an emphasis on its ridiculousness for the sake of comedy, and the whole process runs beautifully, the way the film actually makes De Niro's Harry Tuttle in to some silly superhero who's always there with the answer to the main character's problems and the key to defeating the system, while also never really getting anything of consequence done, at once comedy and a reminder that it takes more than the individual to change the system. The film is positively superb, and the ending just sells it so well. - 8.5/10
117. Save the Tiger (1973) - April 27th
After seeing him in Some Like it Hot, Jack Lemmon immediately became one of my all time favourite actors. Anyone who can bring that amount of sheer dynamism to an already brilliant movie is someone who has my utmost respect for their craft. Since then, I've managed to catch a similarly fantastic performance in The Apartment, and I finally sat down to watch his Oscar-winning performance in Save the Tiger.
I will say before I start losing my mind over how great the late Lemmon is, he is most of why the movie is as good as it is. The rest of the film is fine, even good when it uses its melancholic jazz to accentuate Lemmon's mournful performance, or another actor gets a chance to bounce off of him, but Lemmon's performance is absolutely fantastic, and the reason you should and the reason I did watch the movie.
It's so human and complex, brimming with a mournful longing that aches with memories of happiness in simplicity, as its minor plot spirals out of control and Lemmon's Harry Stoner tries desperately to search for what made things easier for him when he was young. He's stretched thin and then torn between where he is, where he wants to be, and where he needs to be; Lemmon conveys it so well with every defeated sigh, every shrill rebuke, every conversation he has, thinks he has, and wishes he could have. It's a truly brilliant performance, and while it may not be my favourite of Lemmons (I don't know if anything can top his work in Some Like it Hot), it's still a monument to such a great actor. - 7.5/10
118. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) - April 29th
James Stewart is purity incarnate in this film, Superman without the powers.
The only other Frank Capra film I've seen is It's a Wonderful Life (the best Christmas movie, regardless of what people say about Die Hard), but within minutes I saw Mr. Smith as a film very much in the same vein: a vision of simple selfless values beset on all sides by misfortunes and ill intent, choosing to confront these unjust challenges head on, because it is right to do so. It's preening in its sentimentality and patriotism, so utterly devoted to its ideals and insistent that you know about it, but in a way that's positioned so righteously you would be aligning yourself with what amounts to cartoon villainy were you to disagree with the film's goals. Imagery of flags, stars and stripes, statues and monuments, the words with which these symbols have become synonymous - freedom, liberty, justice - these are what the film seeks to uphold, but suggests that those entrusted to do so have failed and must indeed be challenged by their failure. It's classic black and white (both visually and morally) filmmaking and storytelling, loud and proud and then allowing Smith to be quiet in the awe with which the film observes the history of the nation it wants to remind people of, as if Capra wants so badly to believe that men like Smith still exist, and if they don't that they still deserve to be shown in the right for wanting the good of the people. I'm reminded of Donner's Superman ("here for truth, justice, and The American Way"), always seeking to be the boy scout in a world that has grown cynical of his type, the indomitable spirit of a man you wish you could be, if only for always knowing and doing the 'right' thing.
Anyone familiar with the cultural history of this film doesn't need me to tell you that this film is great, sentimentality and all. To say it was controversial for its time is an understatement, given that it was essentially propaganda for American values released during World War II that also (to many senators) undermined America's political system. It was banned in Hitler's Germany, Stalin's USSR, and Mussolini's Italy, and multiple foreign dubs changed the script to fit their own national perspectives, while some American politicians and press alike felt that the film was anti-American, pro-Communist, and not made in the best interests of the country for how it portrays the senate and the media. The film was nominated for eleven Oscars and managed to win one (back when best story and best screenplay were separate awards), and it's been added to the United States' National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. The film's value it beyond reproach, and it's a reminder of what films can become, given enough time. Despite every sleight that has been thrown the film's way, it's considered today one of the greatest of all time (a title that for me at least feels like a several-hundred way tie); it's much like Jefferson Smith himself, standing strong in its value despite everything people have said against it. The film believes so much in its own virtuosity, and, at least for its running time, I bought in to it completely - 9.5/10
I have to say though, this would be a 9, but it earned a half point just for the scene between Smith and Susan Paine at Senator Paine's home. The way the camera focuses completely on Smith's hat, as if to say that that's exactly where Smith would be looking. It's just one more little reason that the film is so sweet, and it's framed so bashfully and with an intense longing that it deserves recognition all on its own.
119. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) - April 29th
These keep getting better with their action, but also more meaningless, seemingly only existing for the purpose of fueling Tom Cruise's adrenaline. That said, there's nothing wrong with that, it's just that it's hard to care for such a consistently rotating set of characters, and while Ethan Hunt is a really cool action hero, that's about the only attribute he has. Still, I'm not gonna complain about this any more, because the action is the focus of these movies, and in Ghost Protocol it's near magical how well the film balances tension, thrills, and even levity, as the team are forced to get more creative within their limitations. Every sequence is truly fascinating to behold, toeing the line between reality and the ridiculous, no doubt assisted by Cruise's insistence on doing his own stunts; the practicality of it all makes the action that much more visceral. Simply put, I don't remember the last time an action movie made me go "holy sh*t" so many times. - 7/10
Re-watches
21. Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (2004) - April 27th
Every now and then, you need to be reminded of the mediocre schlock you liked when you were a kid, if only to see how you observe film differently, and consider why you appreciated a film differently when you were younger.
Anacondas is a blatantly mediocre film; an unoriginal b-movie with only its attention to expositional character detail to act as a crutch that allows it to hobble its way through its poor effects-driven action scenes. It's honestly just the sort of movie I can throw on in the background and understand it to be stable in its schlock; it's pretty bad, but it's consistent in its 'badness'. I honestly can't fathom any merit from the movie that I liked about it as a kid, other than the monster snakes; this film just happened to be one of the ones I latched on to as a movie I could watch with my mum. This doesn't make it better, but it makes it infinitely watchable for me on a personal level. - 4.5/10
22. The Sunset Limited (2011) - April 28th
Cormac McCarthy is one of today's great writers, and when you take his writing and put it in the hands of such talent as Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson, it makes for an extremely effective dialogue-driven story. Were I to see this in pay form, I imagine it would be near-perfect; as it is, the medium of film adds very little in this case. The direction in relation to the actors is fantastic; they share such a significant dynamic, their views juxtaposed in a way that allows them to talk about everything and agree on nothing, with both too insistent to back down. The direction in relation to the visuals are not so inspired. In play form, you can sit at a distance and view both of these men at once, the reaction of one sharing your view alongside the action of the other; in film form, we're forced to look upon one or the other, and never both, while being pushed right in to the faces of both men. We can't sit back comfortably and ponder what the opposition of their two views mean to each one of them; we have to sit excessively close, put ourselves right in the room with them, and consider each mans' point only one at a time. I like both ideas, but I like this closer individual inspection less, mostly because there's very little that's done with the camera beyond the simple shot/reverse shot. There are moments where the camera emphasises what would otherwise be readily apparent if viewed on the stage, not creating anything new but definitely enhancing what's there; and within the space of the set I love the use of diagetic sounds to emphasise the foreboding tension that grows over the course of the film. Most importantly, though, is of course the writing. Questions of faith and meaning that have completely different perspectives, with well-read minds and hurt emotions expressing a raging conflict over everything from just one book to the reasons people commit suicide and what that says about life is an incendiary discourse that has a lot said about it in this film. - 7.5/10
Published April 30th, 2018
Sunday, 29 April 2018
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
2018 Film Review: Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Directed by: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Written by: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely
Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Josh Brolin
IMDb Link
With just about every character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe coming out to play, and a villain, whose presence has cast a shadow over the entire series, in need of a good fleshing out, Infinity War is by far and away the most aspirational film Marvel has produced. Thankfully, it is a success, but with so many heroes in need of their moment, some things fall though the cracks.
The plot is filled with complicated details, but the core is thankfully simple: a big purple alien named Thanos wants to use stones of infinite power to wipe out half the universe and therefore bring balance to it, and everyone and their mums band together to stop that from happening. The Infinity Stones have been mentioned in every other MCU movie and been the focus of several of them, so anyone who has watched even a couple of these movies should have some idea of what's going on. If you haven't been keeping up, then the movie gives a rough explanation so that you get the idea. This the 19th film in the series, so it understandably relies a lot on the audience's basic knowledge of the previous films to be fully enjoyed.
The film goes everywhere to fit all the pieces of its plot together, sometimes stumbling as it tries to pace its handful of storylines. Infinity War tries without always succeeding at keeping the details coherent, but the film never allows these details to get in the way of the story's movement, always pushing forward or changing tracks to keep everyone entertained. It feels like the story is on several TV channels, and it keeps flipping between them just doing its best to ensure it and the audience keep up with it all. Your enjoyment will likely vary depending on how invested you are in each set of characters involved in each subplot. It's disconnected, but not to the point of dissolution, and it always manages to bring things back together when it counts, making sure that heroes get to be heroes.
This is where the movie is by far the strongest: its endless stream of awesome hero moments. There are so many heroes to go around, and each and every one of them both needs and gets a great crowd-pleasing moment that reminds the audience why people have been watching MCU movies all these years. One of the more elegant aspects of the movie is how often these movies suit the hero as they've been characterised; it's not just a cool action moment, it's also a moment that both fits and reinforces who they are to the audience. Spider-man does a lot of cool stuff, but the movie takes care to remind you that what makes him a hero is that saving people is always priority one in his mind. Captain America fights a lot of aliens, but his true heroism is his indomitable spirit. At the same time, this is usually about as much these characters get in terms of screen time, so with the less developed characters, especially the ones brought to the forefront of the plot, this leaves a little wanting.
What is not left wanting is what is in the villain, Thanos. While not quite the greatest MCU villain ever, he's still a fantastic vision of pure power, at once a genocidal maniac, and understood by his abhorrent perspective that his goal is a mercy upon the universe's existence. It's a really good rendition of the 'villain who thinks himself the hero' story, and with most of the actual heroes relegated to just their hero moments, a lot of the film puts Thanos centre stage to show a quiet restraint, an odd respect for the resistance of everyone in the face of what he sees as inevitability. All of this is carried by an excellent performance from Brolin, whose every facial tick and strain of emotion is seen through a very well crafted motion capture performance.
This is about all I feel I can say without giving away real spoilers. It's really a very good film that I highly recommend, one that I also contend requires at least some familiarity with the MCU to be enjoyed, as well as an understanding that with so many balls to juggles it's not catching all of them perfectly every time, and that its confident enough to keep going without worrying about its fumbles.
The Short Version: It's thrilling, funny, and upsetting all at once. It's bursting at the seams as it goes all over the place trying to please everyone and pay respect to each of the many characters that have become part of the epic-scaled Marvel Cinematic Universe. Infinity War is the biggest, though not the best, Marvel movie, and it earns a lot just by its incredible ambition.
Rating: 7.5/10
Published April 26th, 2018
Written by: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely
Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Josh Brolin
IMDb Link
With just about every character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe coming out to play, and a villain, whose presence has cast a shadow over the entire series, in need of a good fleshing out, Infinity War is by far and away the most aspirational film Marvel has produced. Thankfully, it is a success, but with so many heroes in need of their moment, some things fall though the cracks.
The film goes everywhere to fit all the pieces of its plot together, sometimes stumbling as it tries to pace its handful of storylines. Infinity War tries without always succeeding at keeping the details coherent, but the film never allows these details to get in the way of the story's movement, always pushing forward or changing tracks to keep everyone entertained. It feels like the story is on several TV channels, and it keeps flipping between them just doing its best to ensure it and the audience keep up with it all. Your enjoyment will likely vary depending on how invested you are in each set of characters involved in each subplot. It's disconnected, but not to the point of dissolution, and it always manages to bring things back together when it counts, making sure that heroes get to be heroes.
This is where the movie is by far the strongest: its endless stream of awesome hero moments. There are so many heroes to go around, and each and every one of them both needs and gets a great crowd-pleasing moment that reminds the audience why people have been watching MCU movies all these years. One of the more elegant aspects of the movie is how often these movies suit the hero as they've been characterised; it's not just a cool action moment, it's also a moment that both fits and reinforces who they are to the audience. Spider-man does a lot of cool stuff, but the movie takes care to remind you that what makes him a hero is that saving people is always priority one in his mind. Captain America fights a lot of aliens, but his true heroism is his indomitable spirit. At the same time, this is usually about as much these characters get in terms of screen time, so with the less developed characters, especially the ones brought to the forefront of the plot, this leaves a little wanting.
What is not left wanting is what is in the villain, Thanos. While not quite the greatest MCU villain ever, he's still a fantastic vision of pure power, at once a genocidal maniac, and understood by his abhorrent perspective that his goal is a mercy upon the universe's existence. It's a really good rendition of the 'villain who thinks himself the hero' story, and with most of the actual heroes relegated to just their hero moments, a lot of the film puts Thanos centre stage to show a quiet restraint, an odd respect for the resistance of everyone in the face of what he sees as inevitability. All of this is carried by an excellent performance from Brolin, whose every facial tick and strain of emotion is seen through a very well crafted motion capture performance.
This is about all I feel I can say without giving away real spoilers. It's really a very good film that I highly recommend, one that I also contend requires at least some familiarity with the MCU to be enjoyed, as well as an understanding that with so many balls to juggles it's not catching all of them perfectly every time, and that its confident enough to keep going without worrying about its fumbles.
The Short Version: It's thrilling, funny, and upsetting all at once. It's bursting at the seams as it goes all over the place trying to please everyone and pay respect to each of the many characters that have become part of the epic-scaled Marvel Cinematic Universe. Infinity War is the biggest, though not the best, Marvel movie, and it earns a lot just by its incredible ambition.
Rating: 7.5/10
Published April 26th, 2018
Sunday, 22 April 2018
2018: A Week of Movies - April 16th to April 22nd
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
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
Saturday, 21 April 2018
2018 Film Review: Love, Simon (2018)
Directed by: Greg Berlanti
Written by: Elizabeth Berger, Isaac Aptaker
Starring: Nick Robinson, Jennifer Garner, Josh Duhamel
IMDb Link
What we have here is a warm, well-acted, cheesy, and charming film that feels authentic in much of its character interactions, despite some of the contrivances in how these interactions are forced to come about.
Love, Simon is about the difficulties of coming out, even as the world is going through a transitory phase of acceptance. We follow Simon Spier (Robinson), a senior in high school who has always kept his sexuality under wraps, feeling a combination of confusion about what it means to his understanding family, and the foreboding shadow of stigma, personified by a pair of otherwise pointless bullies. The film spends its entire time with Simon, working things out from his perspective and prudently finding things out about him as he finds them out about himself. It's really critical to the film's success that everything that happens in the film essentially does so from Simon's point of view, and everything that we understand is because Simon does; it makes for an fittingly intimate look in to not just what his sexuality means to the people around him, but what it is for him to fall in love. From the way he asks simple questions with difficult answers like "why is straight assumed the default?" to every step he takes in opening himself up to another just as afraid of the stigma as him, because everything is properly looked at through his eyes, the film makes it easy to feel for the guy.
We get a snapshot of everyone in relation to Simon, his life-long and his new friends that "drink way too much iced coffee", the vice principal who tries and fails unduly diligently to relate to the kids, the loving family with their own individual quirks and attitudes that each ebb and flow as Simon grapples with his emotions. It's not always a whole lot than a quirk, but it's more than sufficient when it fits directly in with how it affects that character's relationship with Simon, and because we spend the entire film in Simon's perspective, it can be effectively humanising. This was especially the case with Simon's father Jack (Duhamel); while just about every character goes through an emotional climax with Simon, giving the film quite a few of them, the one that hits hardest is the one that has the least extra stuff going on around it. Jack is ashamed of himself when Simon confesses, not because of who Simon is, but because of how Jack acted in assuming the opposite, every crude joke between father and son having an entirely different context given this new revelation, and it's the simple communication between the two, sold very much by the acting of both men in the scene, that makes it surprisingly compelling for something so quick.
Much of the other stuff doesn't work quite as well, largely because of the contrivance used to go about creating the film's overload of melodrama. The character of Martin (played with energy by Logan Miller) is a cartoon compared to everyone else, going from simply excessively weird with no self-awareness to making school-wide displays for reasons that feel rushed compared to everything else that's happening in the story. The events surrounding Martin in relation to Simon feel off-key with everything else, and so the moments that need to hit hard because of it land softly even for a Disney Channel-style movie like this one, putting a dampener on the film's heavier moments. Thankfully, this doesn't affect the relationships that have nothing to do with Martin, and in one case is actually helped by him, so the film in all its light camp can still have a very satisfying arc.
The Short Version: Love, Simon is well made, heartfelt, and appropriately timed. While exceptions are present within, the film is distinctly human in its approach to its characters, and it ultimately makes for very good melodrama-riddled teen romance.
Rating: 7.5/10
Published April 22st, 2018
Written by: Elizabeth Berger, Isaac Aptaker
Starring: Nick Robinson, Jennifer Garner, Josh Duhamel
IMDb Link
What we have here is a warm, well-acted, cheesy, and charming film that feels authentic in much of its character interactions, despite some of the contrivances in how these interactions are forced to come about.
We get a snapshot of everyone in relation to Simon, his life-long and his new friends that "drink way too much iced coffee", the vice principal who tries and fails unduly diligently to relate to the kids, the loving family with their own individual quirks and attitudes that each ebb and flow as Simon grapples with his emotions. It's not always a whole lot than a quirk, but it's more than sufficient when it fits directly in with how it affects that character's relationship with Simon, and because we spend the entire film in Simon's perspective, it can be effectively humanising. This was especially the case with Simon's father Jack (Duhamel); while just about every character goes through an emotional climax with Simon, giving the film quite a few of them, the one that hits hardest is the one that has the least extra stuff going on around it. Jack is ashamed of himself when Simon confesses, not because of who Simon is, but because of how Jack acted in assuming the opposite, every crude joke between father and son having an entirely different context given this new revelation, and it's the simple communication between the two, sold very much by the acting of both men in the scene, that makes it surprisingly compelling for something so quick.
Much of the other stuff doesn't work quite as well, largely because of the contrivance used to go about creating the film's overload of melodrama. The character of Martin (played with energy by Logan Miller) is a cartoon compared to everyone else, going from simply excessively weird with no self-awareness to making school-wide displays for reasons that feel rushed compared to everything else that's happening in the story. The events surrounding Martin in relation to Simon feel off-key with everything else, and so the moments that need to hit hard because of it land softly even for a Disney Channel-style movie like this one, putting a dampener on the film's heavier moments. Thankfully, this doesn't affect the relationships that have nothing to do with Martin, and in one case is actually helped by him, so the film in all its light camp can still have a very satisfying arc.
The Short Version: Love, Simon is well made, heartfelt, and appropriately timed. While exceptions are present within, the film is distinctly human in its approach to its characters, and it ultimately makes for very good melodrama-riddled teen romance.
Rating: 7.5/10
Published April 22st, 2018
Sunday, 15 April 2018
2018: A Week of Movies - April 9th to April 15th
This week I watched Almost Famous, Good Time, Mission: Impossible III, and a whole lot of Godzilla movies.
93. Almost Famous (2000) - April 9th
Crowe's work here reminds me a lot of Richard Linklater, with this sense of romantic verisimilitude. Everything that happens in the film feels real, but in the way that memories we have complex feelings about feel real; no matter how we view them, they're inherently depicted through our own emotional lens. I like it a lot, it makes the whole experience feel that much more human, with a meandering sense of making its way through a series of incidents that just happened to make a good story when put together, creating a collection of events any person can appreciate for their honesty, regardless of how truthful the events are depicted. - 8.5/10
94. All Monsters Attack (1969) (Also known as Godzilla's Revenge) - April 10th
This is the low point of the entire Godzilla series. No matter how bad it gets, I can't imagine it being worse than this. Godzilla's Revenge is everything that was bad about the Showa series up to this point, with none of the redeeming factors and more crap piled on. It's obvious that the film is completely directed at kids, but in the process they made everything about it about twice as noisy as it needed to be. The concept is actually ok, but its execution is of in just about every regard, from seizure-inducing editing to the the incredibly obnoxious opening theme song that was so bad I nearly switched the movie off immediately out of reflexive disgust. The movie is about a kid escaping bullying and an empty home by fantasising about hanging out with Minilla and watching Godzilla fight monsters to learn to stand up for himself and fight his own battles; hardly what you'd expect from a kaiju film, but an interesting turn to take nonetheless. It unfortunately tracks through this concept dreadfully, with little more than shameless stock footage from Son of Godzilla, Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, and Destroy All Monsters thrown in with a smattering of new footage, and more obnoxious music, before spiraling out of control as the plot turns in to a kidnapping story. It's all bad, all the time, and it's too obnoxious to be so bad it's good - 2/10
95. Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) (Also known as Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster) - April 11th
Ok, so I said that the Godzilla series couldn't get worse after All Monsters Attack, and I stand by that; however, Godzilla vs. Hedorah made it clear that they can get weirder. I'm not sure whether I love it or hate it. On the one hand, there's little to no cohesion in the editing, with the film cutting harshly between disconnected scenes, from drug-fueled fish-based hallucinations to animations to Godzilla's strangest and most frank entrance, with consistently awful framing and unsuited music; on the other hand, the movie is so bizarre that I have to give the movie at least a little credit for doing all this weird stuff, like a children's variety hour mashed with some monstrous horror. Hedorah itself is definitely one of the more interesting monsters Godzilla has ever faced, a creature of sheer sludge that literally craps himself on to Godzilla as a way of fighting him, powered by the world's pollution (the metaphors were never meant to be subtle, seriously the film opens with a song called 'Save the World' and uses Godzilla as a champion of environmentalism, a factor of his character that actually gives it something in common with Legendary Pictures' version of Godzilla). It's really kind of crazy to see Godzilla as he is in this movie, and indeed All Monsters Attack. He's evolved from the image of atomic destruction that was his inception, with the mid-Showa-era movies making him a much more neutral party that ends up on the side of good purely by way of the other monsters being worse, but in these last couple of movies he's become an angry saviour of the world, marketed as a figure of authority for children to look up to; in this film the main kid literally calls him 'Superman'. It makes sense given the series' trajectory, but it's doubtful anyone post-Hiroshima would've guessed that one of the many symbols of their pain would be turned in to a cash-cow marketed to children. Anyway, I sort of like the movie, at least about as much as I dislike it; for all its technical failings and strange stylistic choices and awkwardly disconnected segues that essentially allow no time for plot in a movie whose genre isn't exactly known for plot, the film is so weird that it's undeniably engrossing, and it puts so much emphasis on the concentrated effects of pollution that it becomes effectively horrifying. It's an ugly, sticky, but awesome mess. Plus, it gave us this. - 5/10
96. Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) - April 11th
I think I may be sensing a pattern with these titles.
Once again, we have a movie that elevates Godzilla's hero status as a reflection of people's shift of opinion about the character, and a movie that's so strange from its conception that I can't help but like it a little. Godzilla vs. Gigan goes back to the sci-fi stuff that was so prominent in the mid-Showa movies; aliens that want to take over/destroy the world, big monsters as their heralds, less message derived from its monsters and more its monsters as a suggestion of societal demands. The mid-Showa stuff was sci-fi because global obsession with space was at an all-time high, and Gigan is sci-fi in the hopes of reigniting interest in the Godzilla films with a familiarly positive aesthetic. The movie also seems more cohesive with the re-tread of story beats, even though its comic book stylings don't do much for the movie, other than allowing the monsters to actually talk for the first time. At least when Hedorah was weird, it was weird with clear, allegorical vision and purpose. Beyond that, at least Gigan was committed enough to maintain the pro-environmentalist angle, keeping Godzilla as a symbol of protecting the world rather than destroying it. Overall, the movie is fine, at least from my perspective, largely no doubt due to still reeling from All Monsters Attack, and Gigan at least has the advantage of being a monster with a really cool design and a memorable fight. - 5/10
97. Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973) - April 11th
This is about as bad as it gets before dropping in to All Monsters Attack territory. Here, the original focus of the Godzilla series on atomic destruction and the environmental message of later Showa-era Godzilla movies would come together at once. It's a shame that they couldn't make a better movie out of it. Atomic testing becomes the basis of a pro-environmental message in the form of an ancient subterranean cyborg beetle god named Megalon being unleashed upon the surface world by a subsurface human race called 'Seatopians' as revenge for atomic testing. Normally, with the Godzilla movies, they get a lot better if the human element is strong; the original Godzilla has a dark and intense focus on the humans as they face horrific deaths, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster had the crazy hilarious possessed princess assassination stuff that's so silly I have to love it, and even Godzilla vs. Gigan's comic book artist subplot has a bit of personality with his relationship with his agent. Here, the human element is tied directly in to the plot, which on paper is actually cleaner, but is otherwise executed with so little life it's a wonder that they bothered. They had to give a reason for Jet Jaguar's existence, I suppose. The rest of the movie doesn't fair much better, save for the absolutely insane monster rumble with one of Godzilla's more memorable moves, something so cool they felt the need to do it twice. The monster Megalon is in a similar boat to Ebirah, being very unmemorable (save for the ability to spit fire bombs), but unlike Ebirah, Megalon doesn't have a hilarious James Bond ripoff of a plot to fall back on. Jet Jaguar isn't exactly an inspired conclusion either, with his design unsurprisingly coming from the winner of a contest for primary school kids. Either way, this film is bad and forgettable, like a handful of other Showa-era Godzilla films, so I'm not so much examining this series any more so much as I am simply absorbing them. This doesn't have a scale like the Friday the 13th series where it started mediocre and then got consistently worse; with the exception of All Monsters Attack, the Godzilla franchise started great, then became very mediocre, and then stayed in the range of pretty bad to better than okay for the entire series, with only on significant change coming every few movies or so, such as the far campier tone adopted by King Kong vs. Godzilla and carried all the way through, or the more explicitly sci-fi aesthetic they adopted in Godzilla vs. The Astro-Monster; watching Godzilla vs. Megalon is only a slightly different, slightly worse version of the experience you get watching Godzilla vs. Gigan, to the point that they may as well always just be part of a double bill, blending together like a haze of monsters and environmental themes. I kind of expect a similar experience from the only Showa-era Godzilla movie I have yet to see, Terror of MechaGodzilla, in that it will probably be a slightly worse version of Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla that may as well always be a double billing because the two are largely the same in tone, themes and monsters. Anyway, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Godzilla vs. Megalon is bad in a lot of the ways that the lesser Showa-era Godzilla movies are bad. - 4/10
98. Terror of MechaGodzilla (1975) - April 12th
Now we come to the last movie of the Showa-era series (if you want to know what I thought of Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla, you can find it in my journal here). After this, Godzilla would disappear from the silver screen for almost a decade and go through a significant reinvention.
Terror picks up shortly after Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla. After the fight, Godzilla is recovering, and a destroyed MechaGodzilla is being repaired by the ape aliens, the remains of MechaGodzilla protected by Titanosaurus, a kaiju controlled by a mad scientist obsessed with studying marine life. As far as monsters go, Titanosaurus is essentially Godzilla-but-fish, and doesn't have much particularly inspired about him, save for one move that allows him to create gale winds with his tail. The main event is the return of MechaGodzilla, and the fact that, for the first time in the series, Godzilla is fighting two proper threats at once with no back-up. Godzilla's taken on more than one enemy before, but it was always fodder or with the help of another kaiju, and for once, especially since this is the last film in the Showa series, there's some real tension to the fights as Godzilla struggles with two such difficult enemies on his own. It makes it that much more important when he loses. One of the key factors of Godzilla seems to be that he always loses when he isn't helped, before winning with the aid of others, in this case the military rather than another kaiju. There's also some real craft to the introduction of Godzilla in this one, not to the calibre of, say, Godzilla (2014), but nevertheless a really cool reveal that reminds the audience, one last time, of Godzilla as a hero. The human element is very similar to vs. MechaGodzilla, with the same aliens pulling the same shenanigans, and the only new stuff is using a cyborg to keep MechaGodzilla's controls safe, less focus on the ape aspect of the aliens, and a mad scientist for using Titanosaurus. There is one neat twist to the fight, where Godzilla rips off MechaGodzilla's head as he did in vs. MechaGodzilla, only for it to be revealed that they've created a countermeasure for this specific occurrence; it's a smart little move that makes the fight more engaging. Overall, this is much of what I expected, although slightly better; aside from Titanosaurus and a few not insignificant stylistic changes, this is largely the same as Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla, which is to say decent; a little better than the average Showa-era Godzilla movies, and memorable by virtue of the continued use of one of Godzilla's best rivals. - 5.5/10
99. Good Time (2017) - April 12th
I know it's some of the lowest of low-hanging fruit, but I'm gonna say it: Good Time is a good time.
The film moves with a pulse, a clear but destructive life and focus that makes its premise of watching a toxic person do toxic things to the people around him for his own gain for a hundred minutes considerably compelling. It's abhorrent, but feels pointed in its pointlessness. Everyone afflicted by Pattinson's poisonous existence, specifically his brother, manages to recover beyond his reach in a position similar to where they started, and everyone who is as toxic or more toxic than him ends up just as bad or worse off than him. The fact that he's doing all this because he loves his brother is the icing on the cake, showing the extent to which something like love can be twisted on such a personal level. It's still an excuse for a malignant man to mercilessly milk what he can out of each person that he meets, but it at least carries with it the recognition of where all that behaviour can leave you and the people around you. The film's not saying much, but it is saying it well and with a lot of style. It also helps that Pattinson is giving one of the best performances of his career here, conning his way on to the lives of the audience as easily he does the people he meets, with a sharp wit and edged persona that is constantly the highlight of the movie. - 7/10
100. Mission: Impossible III (2006) - April 13th
Damn I miss Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Mission Impossible III is the same essentially far-fetched an fast-paced espionage fun of the first two, but with a more tightly tuned plot and bigger, more exciting setpieces, as well as a really fantastically portrayed villain in Philip Seymour Hoffman's Owen Davian. It's largely business as usual, but that business is over the top action, and it has enough laid over the top of the surface to give the experience a heightened sense of thrill. It's better, even if it lost its almost cartoonish nature in the process, and thankfully needs no context from the previous films. - 7/10
101. Isle of Dogs (2018) - April 13th
Do you get the pun yet? This was really damn good, and I highly recommend it. My full review can be found here. - 8/10
102. Rampage (2018) - April 14th
Yeah, this was surprisingly good. Not great, but some mindless destruction with some actual heart is kind of nice. My full review can be found here. - 6/10
Published April 16th, 2018
93. Almost Famous (2000) - April 9th
Crowe's work here reminds me a lot of Richard Linklater, with this sense of romantic verisimilitude. Everything that happens in the film feels real, but in the way that memories we have complex feelings about feel real; no matter how we view them, they're inherently depicted through our own emotional lens. I like it a lot, it makes the whole experience feel that much more human, with a meandering sense of making its way through a series of incidents that just happened to make a good story when put together, creating a collection of events any person can appreciate for their honesty, regardless of how truthful the events are depicted. - 8.5/10
94. All Monsters Attack (1969) (Also known as Godzilla's Revenge) - April 10th
This is the low point of the entire Godzilla series. No matter how bad it gets, I can't imagine it being worse than this. Godzilla's Revenge is everything that was bad about the Showa series up to this point, with none of the redeeming factors and more crap piled on. It's obvious that the film is completely directed at kids, but in the process they made everything about it about twice as noisy as it needed to be. The concept is actually ok, but its execution is of in just about every regard, from seizure-inducing editing to the the incredibly obnoxious opening theme song that was so bad I nearly switched the movie off immediately out of reflexive disgust. The movie is about a kid escaping bullying and an empty home by fantasising about hanging out with Minilla and watching Godzilla fight monsters to learn to stand up for himself and fight his own battles; hardly what you'd expect from a kaiju film, but an interesting turn to take nonetheless. It unfortunately tracks through this concept dreadfully, with little more than shameless stock footage from Son of Godzilla, Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, and Destroy All Monsters thrown in with a smattering of new footage, and more obnoxious music, before spiraling out of control as the plot turns in to a kidnapping story. It's all bad, all the time, and it's too obnoxious to be so bad it's good - 2/10
95. Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) (Also known as Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster) - April 11th
Ok, so I said that the Godzilla series couldn't get worse after All Monsters Attack, and I stand by that; however, Godzilla vs. Hedorah made it clear that they can get weirder. I'm not sure whether I love it or hate it. On the one hand, there's little to no cohesion in the editing, with the film cutting harshly between disconnected scenes, from drug-fueled fish-based hallucinations to animations to Godzilla's strangest and most frank entrance, with consistently awful framing and unsuited music; on the other hand, the movie is so bizarre that I have to give the movie at least a little credit for doing all this weird stuff, like a children's variety hour mashed with some monstrous horror. Hedorah itself is definitely one of the more interesting monsters Godzilla has ever faced, a creature of sheer sludge that literally craps himself on to Godzilla as a way of fighting him, powered by the world's pollution (the metaphors were never meant to be subtle, seriously the film opens with a song called 'Save the World' and uses Godzilla as a champion of environmentalism, a factor of his character that actually gives it something in common with Legendary Pictures' version of Godzilla). It's really kind of crazy to see Godzilla as he is in this movie, and indeed All Monsters Attack. He's evolved from the image of atomic destruction that was his inception, with the mid-Showa-era movies making him a much more neutral party that ends up on the side of good purely by way of the other monsters being worse, but in these last couple of movies he's become an angry saviour of the world, marketed as a figure of authority for children to look up to; in this film the main kid literally calls him 'Superman'. It makes sense given the series' trajectory, but it's doubtful anyone post-Hiroshima would've guessed that one of the many symbols of their pain would be turned in to a cash-cow marketed to children. Anyway, I sort of like the movie, at least about as much as I dislike it; for all its technical failings and strange stylistic choices and awkwardly disconnected segues that essentially allow no time for plot in a movie whose genre isn't exactly known for plot, the film is so weird that it's undeniably engrossing, and it puts so much emphasis on the concentrated effects of pollution that it becomes effectively horrifying. It's an ugly, sticky, but awesome mess. Plus, it gave us this. - 5/10
96. Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) - April 11th
I think I may be sensing a pattern with these titles.
Once again, we have a movie that elevates Godzilla's hero status as a reflection of people's shift of opinion about the character, and a movie that's so strange from its conception that I can't help but like it a little. Godzilla vs. Gigan goes back to the sci-fi stuff that was so prominent in the mid-Showa movies; aliens that want to take over/destroy the world, big monsters as their heralds, less message derived from its monsters and more its monsters as a suggestion of societal demands. The mid-Showa stuff was sci-fi because global obsession with space was at an all-time high, and Gigan is sci-fi in the hopes of reigniting interest in the Godzilla films with a familiarly positive aesthetic. The movie also seems more cohesive with the re-tread of story beats, even though its comic book stylings don't do much for the movie, other than allowing the monsters to actually talk for the first time. At least when Hedorah was weird, it was weird with clear, allegorical vision and purpose. Beyond that, at least Gigan was committed enough to maintain the pro-environmentalist angle, keeping Godzilla as a symbol of protecting the world rather than destroying it. Overall, the movie is fine, at least from my perspective, largely no doubt due to still reeling from All Monsters Attack, and Gigan at least has the advantage of being a monster with a really cool design and a memorable fight. - 5/10
97. Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973) - April 11th
This is about as bad as it gets before dropping in to All Monsters Attack territory. Here, the original focus of the Godzilla series on atomic destruction and the environmental message of later Showa-era Godzilla movies would come together at once. It's a shame that they couldn't make a better movie out of it. Atomic testing becomes the basis of a pro-environmental message in the form of an ancient subterranean cyborg beetle god named Megalon being unleashed upon the surface world by a subsurface human race called 'Seatopians' as revenge for atomic testing. Normally, with the Godzilla movies, they get a lot better if the human element is strong; the original Godzilla has a dark and intense focus on the humans as they face horrific deaths, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster had the crazy hilarious possessed princess assassination stuff that's so silly I have to love it, and even Godzilla vs. Gigan's comic book artist subplot has a bit of personality with his relationship with his agent. Here, the human element is tied directly in to the plot, which on paper is actually cleaner, but is otherwise executed with so little life it's a wonder that they bothered. They had to give a reason for Jet Jaguar's existence, I suppose. The rest of the movie doesn't fair much better, save for the absolutely insane monster rumble with one of Godzilla's more memorable moves, something so cool they felt the need to do it twice. The monster Megalon is in a similar boat to Ebirah, being very unmemorable (save for the ability to spit fire bombs), but unlike Ebirah, Megalon doesn't have a hilarious James Bond ripoff of a plot to fall back on. Jet Jaguar isn't exactly an inspired conclusion either, with his design unsurprisingly coming from the winner of a contest for primary school kids. Either way, this film is bad and forgettable, like a handful of other Showa-era Godzilla films, so I'm not so much examining this series any more so much as I am simply absorbing them. This doesn't have a scale like the Friday the 13th series where it started mediocre and then got consistently worse; with the exception of All Monsters Attack, the Godzilla franchise started great, then became very mediocre, and then stayed in the range of pretty bad to better than okay for the entire series, with only on significant change coming every few movies or so, such as the far campier tone adopted by King Kong vs. Godzilla and carried all the way through, or the more explicitly sci-fi aesthetic they adopted in Godzilla vs. The Astro-Monster; watching Godzilla vs. Megalon is only a slightly different, slightly worse version of the experience you get watching Godzilla vs. Gigan, to the point that they may as well always just be part of a double bill, blending together like a haze of monsters and environmental themes. I kind of expect a similar experience from the only Showa-era Godzilla movie I have yet to see, Terror of MechaGodzilla, in that it will probably be a slightly worse version of Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla that may as well always be a double billing because the two are largely the same in tone, themes and monsters. Anyway, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Godzilla vs. Megalon is bad in a lot of the ways that the lesser Showa-era Godzilla movies are bad. - 4/10
98. Terror of MechaGodzilla (1975) - April 12th
Now we come to the last movie of the Showa-era series (if you want to know what I thought of Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla, you can find it in my journal here). After this, Godzilla would disappear from the silver screen for almost a decade and go through a significant reinvention.
Terror picks up shortly after Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla. After the fight, Godzilla is recovering, and a destroyed MechaGodzilla is being repaired by the ape aliens, the remains of MechaGodzilla protected by Titanosaurus, a kaiju controlled by a mad scientist obsessed with studying marine life. As far as monsters go, Titanosaurus is essentially Godzilla-but-fish, and doesn't have much particularly inspired about him, save for one move that allows him to create gale winds with his tail. The main event is the return of MechaGodzilla, and the fact that, for the first time in the series, Godzilla is fighting two proper threats at once with no back-up. Godzilla's taken on more than one enemy before, but it was always fodder or with the help of another kaiju, and for once, especially since this is the last film in the Showa series, there's some real tension to the fights as Godzilla struggles with two such difficult enemies on his own. It makes it that much more important when he loses. One of the key factors of Godzilla seems to be that he always loses when he isn't helped, before winning with the aid of others, in this case the military rather than another kaiju. There's also some real craft to the introduction of Godzilla in this one, not to the calibre of, say, Godzilla (2014), but nevertheless a really cool reveal that reminds the audience, one last time, of Godzilla as a hero. The human element is very similar to vs. MechaGodzilla, with the same aliens pulling the same shenanigans, and the only new stuff is using a cyborg to keep MechaGodzilla's controls safe, less focus on the ape aspect of the aliens, and a mad scientist for using Titanosaurus. There is one neat twist to the fight, where Godzilla rips off MechaGodzilla's head as he did in vs. MechaGodzilla, only for it to be revealed that they've created a countermeasure for this specific occurrence; it's a smart little move that makes the fight more engaging. Overall, this is much of what I expected, although slightly better; aside from Titanosaurus and a few not insignificant stylistic changes, this is largely the same as Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla, which is to say decent; a little better than the average Showa-era Godzilla movies, and memorable by virtue of the continued use of one of Godzilla's best rivals. - 5.5/10
99. Good Time (2017) - April 12th
I know it's some of the lowest of low-hanging fruit, but I'm gonna say it: Good Time is a good time.
The film moves with a pulse, a clear but destructive life and focus that makes its premise of watching a toxic person do toxic things to the people around him for his own gain for a hundred minutes considerably compelling. It's abhorrent, but feels pointed in its pointlessness. Everyone afflicted by Pattinson's poisonous existence, specifically his brother, manages to recover beyond his reach in a position similar to where they started, and everyone who is as toxic or more toxic than him ends up just as bad or worse off than him. The fact that he's doing all this because he loves his brother is the icing on the cake, showing the extent to which something like love can be twisted on such a personal level. It's still an excuse for a malignant man to mercilessly milk what he can out of each person that he meets, but it at least carries with it the recognition of where all that behaviour can leave you and the people around you. The film's not saying much, but it is saying it well and with a lot of style. It also helps that Pattinson is giving one of the best performances of his career here, conning his way on to the lives of the audience as easily he does the people he meets, with a sharp wit and edged persona that is constantly the highlight of the movie. - 7/10
100. Mission: Impossible III (2006) - April 13th
Damn I miss Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Mission Impossible III is the same essentially far-fetched an fast-paced espionage fun of the first two, but with a more tightly tuned plot and bigger, more exciting setpieces, as well as a really fantastically portrayed villain in Philip Seymour Hoffman's Owen Davian. It's largely business as usual, but that business is over the top action, and it has enough laid over the top of the surface to give the experience a heightened sense of thrill. It's better, even if it lost its almost cartoonish nature in the process, and thankfully needs no context from the previous films. - 7/10
101. Isle of Dogs (2018) - April 13th
Do you get the pun yet? This was really damn good, and I highly recommend it. My full review can be found here. - 8/10
102. Rampage (2018) - April 14th
Yeah, this was surprisingly good. Not great, but some mindless destruction with some actual heart is kind of nice. My full review can be found here. - 6/10
Published April 16th, 2018
Saturday, 14 April 2018
2018 Film Review: Rampage (2018)
Directed by: Brad Peyton
Written by: Ryan Engle, Carlton Cuse, Ryan J. Condal, Adam Sztykiel
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
IMDb Link
It isn't saying much, but this is easily the best video game movie of all time, largely by virtue of foremost being a kaiju movie with a solid human element.
A corporate pathogen infects three animals, turning them in to potential weapons of mass destruction, with increased size, speed, strength, regeneration, aggression, the works. One of the animals is George, and albino gorilla and best friend to primate specialist Davis Okoye (Johnson). Okoye must team up with geneticist Dr. Kate Caldwell (Harris) in order to save George and stop the monsters from wreaking havoc upon the world. It's a big, cheesy blockbuster monster movie with an increasingly far-fetched plot and a seemingly never-ending excess of destruction, and the film is perfectly content to be just that.
A giant gorilla, an even bigger flying wolf and the biggest overly mutated crocodile all smash their way to and through Chicago, in an effort to get to and destroy a radio releasing a signal that sends them in to a blood rage. Limbs fly, blood splatters, people are mushed left, right and centre, and building after building gets a chunk taken out of it or comes down altogether. All of this is happening because of some cartoon-level bad guys (played with an appropriate level of camp by Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy) who want to test their unintended subjects, blame it on Kate, and try and get her killed in the process. It's completely preposterous and the movie revels in that fact, trying as hard as it can to cover for its front-heavy plotting with a sincere energy, supported by all the actors at play, particularly Jeffrey Dean Morgan, quite literally a government cowboy just here for a bit of fun and a pleasantly surprising redemption arc.
While senseless ruination is on full display, the thing that keeps the movie together is Johnson and his relationship with George. No matter how messy or overly convoluted the plot details become, the core concept of a man who loves animals like family remains focused and simple. It's interesting to see Johnson play a character like this; still an unkillable action hero, but one that's far less charismatic and even a little awkward around other people, preferring to spend time at home with his dogs than go one a date, that sort of thing. It's endearing, and it's sold consistently by how he is with George as opposed to everyone else, with an intrinsic care and understanding that's far less exaggerated than his usual characters and actually somewhat grounds the movie (at least at first, by the end it's totally ridiculous how hard he is to kill and a lot of the action feels drawn out and deflated because of it, but I have to give the movie and Johnson credit for genuinely trying to give this movie a bit of heart).
The Short Version: The friendship between Johnson's Okoye and George the gorilla is a solid and focused bedrock for a decent mindless destruction movie that doesn't play coy with its sheer explosive nature.
Rating: 6/10
Published April 15th, 2018
Written by: Ryan Engle, Carlton Cuse, Ryan J. Condal, Adam Sztykiel
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
IMDb Link
It isn't saying much, but this is easily the best video game movie of all time, largely by virtue of foremost being a kaiju movie with a solid human element.
A giant gorilla, an even bigger flying wolf and the biggest overly mutated crocodile all smash their way to and through Chicago, in an effort to get to and destroy a radio releasing a signal that sends them in to a blood rage. Limbs fly, blood splatters, people are mushed left, right and centre, and building after building gets a chunk taken out of it or comes down altogether. All of this is happening because of some cartoon-level bad guys (played with an appropriate level of camp by Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy) who want to test their unintended subjects, blame it on Kate, and try and get her killed in the process. It's completely preposterous and the movie revels in that fact, trying as hard as it can to cover for its front-heavy plotting with a sincere energy, supported by all the actors at play, particularly Jeffrey Dean Morgan, quite literally a government cowboy just here for a bit of fun and a pleasantly surprising redemption arc.
While senseless ruination is on full display, the thing that keeps the movie together is Johnson and his relationship with George. No matter how messy or overly convoluted the plot details become, the core concept of a man who loves animals like family remains focused and simple. It's interesting to see Johnson play a character like this; still an unkillable action hero, but one that's far less charismatic and even a little awkward around other people, preferring to spend time at home with his dogs than go one a date, that sort of thing. It's endearing, and it's sold consistently by how he is with George as opposed to everyone else, with an intrinsic care and understanding that's far less exaggerated than his usual characters and actually somewhat grounds the movie (at least at first, by the end it's totally ridiculous how hard he is to kill and a lot of the action feels drawn out and deflated because of it, but I have to give the movie and Johnson credit for genuinely trying to give this movie a bit of heart).
The Short Version: The friendship between Johnson's Okoye and George the gorilla is a solid and focused bedrock for a decent mindless destruction movie that doesn't play coy with its sheer explosive nature.
Rating: 6/10
Published April 15th, 2018
Friday, 13 April 2018
2018 Film Review: Isle of Dogs (2018)
Directed by: Wes Anderson
Written by: Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, Kunichi Nomura
Starring: Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton
IMDb Link
We have a fairly convoluted set up to tell a fairly simple story. Basically, Japan has collectively gone insane and decided that the best way to deal with the overpopulation of dogs afflicted by dog flu is to deport them all to Trash Island and promptly forget about them; this is all motivated by the mayor of Megasaki city, whose bloodline has historically been cat lovers with a vendetta against dogs. The story then picks up six months later, following five such dogs on the island, all thematically named after some sort of leader (Chief, Rex, Duke, Boss, King, voiced by Cranston, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray, and Bob Balaban respectively) as they trek across the island with 12-year old ward to the mayor, Atari (Rankin), in search of Atari's own dog Spots (Liev Schreiber). The most unbelievable thing about this movie is the idea that people would be so willing to give up their dogs, and that in six months only one person would try to get theirs back.
The story is the usual Anderson mix of softly funny, glibly grim, and fancifully human, making for something easy and emotionally resonant without cutting too deep; learning about the reality of the situation through deadpan one-liners that carry with them way more weight than their delivery suggests in order to soften the blow of the circumstance, hard cuts and fake outs to keep the feeling sore without needing to show anything particularly gruesome, or when doing so, doing it in such a way that it feels theatrical. It definitely works here to get that mix of comedy and tragedy just right; Anderson never wants the audience to really hurt, it's like the film equivalent of a slap-fight, maintaining a sense of whimsy to undercut its own emotional depth for the sake of keeping things light and moving.
That said, the dog stuff is far more effective than the human stuff. The character with an actual arc is Chief, and most of what happens human side is build-up to solving the dog flu problem, all of which for some reason is done by an exchange student with a crush on Atari. There's also far more time spent with the dogs, which makes all of its set-ups, build-ups and payoffs feel earned and well-treated, while a lot of the large-scale human stuff is only given enough time to feel little more than convenient. It's still emotionally resonant by the end, but once again only by virtue of the dogs and the personality and time given to them, rather than because of anything the humans they love, aside from Atari, actually did.
That said, all of this is expressed through some truly incredible stop-motion animation. The whole look of the movie has an uncanny texture; the dogs are lively furry, the trash land around them is brimming with an ugly personality, and the whole thing moves and shakes so smoothly, with Anderson's unique visual style making the most out of the real estate on-screen, with perfect use of blocking and split screen to convey even more visually than he does through his story. Every single shot took painstaking care to show off not only that style but also reinforce what we understand by the story and supplement as much information as possible, it's really quite fascinating to see play out on screen.
Credit is also due to the spectacular voice-acting of everyone involved. They all give just the right amount of dramatic humanity and comedic timing to fit flawlessly in to Anderson's style, without a single beat dropped. Particular credit goes to Cranston, pulling more than his own as the broken Chief who doesn't even understand himself and doesn't know how to, with every break in his normally cold and hard voice and a very real lump in his throat as he becomes the very best version of himself.
The Short Version: Beautifully animated, excellently voice-acted, and whimsically told, Isle of Dogs is an emotionally resonant visual feast with a simple and effective, if at times convenient, story.
Rating: 8/10
Published April 14th, 2018
Written by: Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, Kunichi Nomura
Starring: Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton
IMDb Link
The story is the usual Anderson mix of softly funny, glibly grim, and fancifully human, making for something easy and emotionally resonant without cutting too deep; learning about the reality of the situation through deadpan one-liners that carry with them way more weight than their delivery suggests in order to soften the blow of the circumstance, hard cuts and fake outs to keep the feeling sore without needing to show anything particularly gruesome, or when doing so, doing it in such a way that it feels theatrical. It definitely works here to get that mix of comedy and tragedy just right; Anderson never wants the audience to really hurt, it's like the film equivalent of a slap-fight, maintaining a sense of whimsy to undercut its own emotional depth for the sake of keeping things light and moving.
That said, the dog stuff is far more effective than the human stuff. The character with an actual arc is Chief, and most of what happens human side is build-up to solving the dog flu problem, all of which for some reason is done by an exchange student with a crush on Atari. There's also far more time spent with the dogs, which makes all of its set-ups, build-ups and payoffs feel earned and well-treated, while a lot of the large-scale human stuff is only given enough time to feel little more than convenient. It's still emotionally resonant by the end, but once again only by virtue of the dogs and the personality and time given to them, rather than because of anything the humans they love, aside from Atari, actually did.
That said, all of this is expressed through some truly incredible stop-motion animation. The whole look of the movie has an uncanny texture; the dogs are lively furry, the trash land around them is brimming with an ugly personality, and the whole thing moves and shakes so smoothly, with Anderson's unique visual style making the most out of the real estate on-screen, with perfect use of blocking and split screen to convey even more visually than he does through his story. Every single shot took painstaking care to show off not only that style but also reinforce what we understand by the story and supplement as much information as possible, it's really quite fascinating to see play out on screen.
Credit is also due to the spectacular voice-acting of everyone involved. They all give just the right amount of dramatic humanity and comedic timing to fit flawlessly in to Anderson's style, without a single beat dropped. Particular credit goes to Cranston, pulling more than his own as the broken Chief who doesn't even understand himself and doesn't know how to, with every break in his normally cold and hard voice and a very real lump in his throat as he becomes the very best version of himself.
The Short Version: Beautifully animated, excellently voice-acted, and whimsically told, Isle of Dogs is an emotionally resonant visual feast with a simple and effective, if at times convenient, story.
Rating: 8/10
Published April 14th, 2018
Sunday, 8 April 2018
2018: A Week of Movies - April 2nd to April 8th
84. Funny Games (1997) - April 2nd
It is both outrageous and admirable how sickening this movie is. The film is essentially a metaphor for the power the author has over the story and their ability to abuse the contract of trust that they enter in to with the reader/viewer, while also taking a few cheap shots at the bourgeois. I'm aggravated by the constant way the movie messes with its characters and audience while also acknowledging and mocking the audience with its own power, but I'm impressed that Haneke actually had the stones to do this in the first place. It reminds me of Knock Knock, but with a few significant differences that make this movie easier to stomach.
The story is just a microcosm in a seemingly endless cycle of torture and murder, a cruel exercise that suggests an audience's own implicit need to observe is in itself a statement of their agreement to let events play out on screen as they do, and using that thesis to essentially carry the movie in any direction Haneke pleases. Anything can happen in any way because the director has explicitly told us it will, and the film conforms to or bucks expectations as the metaphor that the film's antagonists represent decides what it wants to do, often with meticulous intent, sometimes simply on a whim. Funnily enough, when antagonist Paul's control over the events of the movie become literal, I was reminded of Yu-Gi-Oh! of all things. The final arc of that show's original run saw a story play out under the control of main villain Bakura as he toyed with Atem, but and when an unexpected boon gave Atem the strength he needed to beat Bakura, Bakura literally turns back time and wins instead because it's "his game". This exact idea plays out Funny Games, it's uncanny how similar these two plot threads are.
Anyway, I get and appreciate the point of the movie's abuse of both its characters and the contract it creates with its audience, even the frustrating opener that acts as a microcosm of the whole movie, but even so I find the experience drags as we are reminded for the tenth time that this is not going to end well, that we can't do anything about it, and that by watching it we allow it to happen. There is the ultimate twist that brings everything in the movie together, but after that point everything that happens is also essentially rote. While the thesis is a compelling and challenging idea, there's only so many times the movie can suggest that hope will be ignited before blowing it out and confirming total and direct control before you wish the story was as deep an idea as it is broad. - 7/10
85. Funny Games (2007) - April 2nd
I understand that part of the original Funny Games' point was to satirise the violence in media, particularly American Horror culture, and so I see why re-making the film in an American context makes sense as an idea, but when the idea behind the original satire was to make a very violent but otherwise pointless movie, it's no surprise that the re-make ultimately feels redundant, like Gus Van Sant's Psycho re-make. The film is almost shot-for-shot the same, and almost none of it feels improved by the translation. The exception is this version of Peter, whose combination of creepiness and innocence seems to play out way more organically, which to some might be an issue for some because of how we are supposed to see these characters as inhuman, but otherwise is really compelling. Unfortunately, that doesn't make this film any less somehow-less-than-pointless, regardless of how well it's made by virtue of mimicking the original. - 5/10
As it is, watching both Funny Games back-to-back was a good exercise in bad nihilism that I do not want to repeat any time soon. The films feel akin to Eli Roth's work, with a meta-narrative that essentially punishes the audience for enjoying or feeling ambivalence towards movie violence, and a general anti-affluent attitude, which would all be great if it had more to say than its one concept over and over.
86. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) - April 3rd
The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the G.O.A.T.s of the horror genre, with a huge influence upon even other classics, and a sick sense of humour couched within the unnerving force of its excellently crafted atmosphere. The remake was part of a long list of cash-grab remakes of horror classics produced by one studio; it's hardly a surprise it didn't measure up.
To be fair to the film, it's at least somewhat competently made, and were it it's own thing and not a re-make of a horror classic, it would probably be passable. There are a couple of scenes that momentarily remember that things don't need sudden loud noises accompanying them to be scary, and they at least maintain one of the most important factors that made Leatherface scary (the fact that he actually chases his playthings down instead of slowly stalking them while they amble fearfully), and regardless of the problems in its depiction and glorification of violence, the film is at least slick and consistent in the style and delivery. We never need to see that a woman has shot herself in the head by following the camera through the bullet hole, but it's not out of touch with everything that the movie goes for. There may be a commentary on the differences in the depictions of violence between this movie and the original as a metaphor for the changes in what the audience deems as acceptable viewing, but it's not really found within the text on its own, as most of what happens is little more than overly-stylised shock value. It's not scary or disturbing, it's just gross, and in this regard it largely fails at one of horror's most important tenets. What's worse is that the film's attempts at upping the ante also created more explicit sexual overtones somewhat akin to the awful The Hills Have Eyes 2, with every member of the cast of disturbed locals exploiting women, alive or dead, at every opportunity. It's really vile and completely unnecessary, and on top of the fact that it doesn't even have the decency of the original to create an effective atmosphere or somewhat sympathetic characters shows what the filmmakers actually got out of the original. - 4/10
87. The Wild Bunch (1969) - April 5th
The first paragraph is just me talking about the depiction of violence in film and the way films respond to it, so if you just want to read my thoughts on The Wild Bunch skip ahead to the second paragraph.
As an aside to start, it's interesting to me that the majority of movies I've watched this week so far use excessive violence for similar but contrasting purposes. Funny Games was a commentary on violence's representation in media, taking violence to a pointless extreme to highlight the pointlessness of depicting violence for violence's sake. Violence in The Wild Bunch is stated to have been a response to the way the effects of violence in media was glamorised, lashing back at the bloodless depictions with its own excess. Funny Games feels almost like it's commenting on films like The Wild Bunch, as the choice to depict violence in The Wild Bunch is largely meta-textual. However, I don't think that criticism fits as, meta-textual or not, the depiction of violence in The Wild Bunch has explicit purpose that reflects the misgivings of the media's current use of violence in film and the issues with the media's coverage of the Vietnam War. In truth, Funny Games is probably more a response to films like the Texas Chainsaw remake (though obviously not this film specifically, considering the original was made six years prior, but the fact that Haneke felt it necessary to tell the same story again suggests that he thought his thesis was still valid at that point). Those sorts of films fail to understand the point of the violence in films where violence actually has a point, and instead chooses to depict it without any thought as to why it was depicted in the first place. It makes for intriguing differences between all these different films, all made at different times by different people with different intentions, but all with the theme of violence at their cores. The Wild Bunch suggests the point of depicting violence is to not mislead the audience about the nature of violence and the significant effect it can have on life and that it is an immutable truth of life's experience that must be understood rather than shied away from. Funny Games suggests either that this point is not enough to warrant such explicit depiction, and that depicting is pointless, or that people have forgotten this point in their own depictions of violence and in doing so have rendered their own depictions pointless. The Texas Chainsaw remake is simply evidence to the latter.
On the movie itself, The Wild Bunch is a truly fantastic film, a meandering, character-driven story filled with raw emotions fueled by incredible performances that sell even the most abrupt moments. There's a fluctuating intensity to the whole experience as it moves between the angry, the humorous, the melancholic and the blood-curdling. I love a movie that manages to grab you from the start, and with some clever visual metaphors and a slow, tense build-up, The Wild Bunch ramps up to an introduction that will be on my mind for days. It's really excellent, but apart from my spiel about its themes of violence, that's all I really have to say about it right now. The rest of the film lives up to the precedent the intro sets, even with its sometimes awkwardly placed flashbacks, and moments like Angel's scene with his girl are completely resonant with even the smallest set-up and the least inherently likable characters. I appreciate the emotional complexity of the film, the way it treats the violence of its leads as both a calling and a curse, one that gives them purpose but that they cannot escape from, as they lament both the innocence of youth and their inability to change in a changing world, reflecting on regrets and trying to educate the young not to make the same mistakes while needing them to keep living a life that they can't give up on. It's all really well done, and as both an individual film and a reflection on the evolution of the Western genre, this is possibly the best (Once Upon a Time in the West is obviously a contender, but that's more a reflection on Leone's own work in relation to American Westerns, where they're similar and where they differ). - 9/10
88. A Quiet Place (2018) - April 6th
I love horror, and I love it when a good horror movie comes out. People should see this. My full review can be found here. - 7.5/10
89. Return of the Killer Tomatoes! (1988) - April 6th
Before you judge me, understand that this scene is what convinced me to watch the movie.
This is one of the most absurd, most meta things I have ever seen, and despite the comedy being somewhat hit-or-miss, the film is so unbelievably charming in how it is absolutely shameless in its cheapness and self-awareness, so committed to its bit in how elaborately it builds upon the idea of a world recovering from a literal war with tomatoes, that I can't help but love it. - 5/10
90. The Phantom of the Opera (2004) - April 7th
I'm always up for a bit of over the top theatre dramatics, but this movie is just the freakin' most.The colour palette is so overwhelming gaudy that my eyes felt like they were melting after half an hour. It's a shame it's a distraction too, because the costume and set design is fantastic, with incredible detail imbued in to every seam and seat. The story fairs far less well, dragging its feet at every possible moment and devoid of some of the less palatable tone of the original, in the process making it less interesting to watch than such a loud and silly movie should be. Still, the music, save for a couple of occasions, is really damn good, and carries the movie to its end. Overall, this is in a similar vein to The Greatest Showman, but not even as good as that; the sort of movie whose panache covers for the fact that it doesn't do enough with everything it has going on. - 5/10
91. The Director and The Jedi (2018) - April 8th
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is one of my favourite films from last year, and with a recent watching and re-watching of Brick, Rian Johnson is quickly becoming a personal favourite modern director of mine. The Director and The Jedi is a really well made look in to the Rian's process, taken from so many perspectives, with the conflicts and the passion turned out in equal measure, that also reminded me what a fantastic and herculean undertaking filmmaking, especially filmmaking of this scale, can be. It's really great to see all the hard work put in to making the film, to learn a little about the amount of pressure they were all under, especially Johnson, and also the immense support everyone gave each other as they were making it happen. It's also fantastic to see all of the practical effects work in production and compare them to how they look in the final product, the sheer time and effort that was taken to put the film together, the bits and pieces of the process. Johnson is a director who loves film and loves Star Wars, and if The Last Jedi wasn't more than enough to convince you, The Director and The Jedi shows so much of what makes the film and what makes the film great. - 7/10
92. The Witches of Eastwick (1987) - April 8th
It's probably cheap to say it, but this movie about witches is charming. Jack Nicholson, Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon, it's a star-studded cast brimming with dark and twisted humour, only losing its effect as it spirals out of control moving in to the finale. I appreciated the absurdity of it all, the idea that three women could unknowingly be witches and accidentally make a deal with the devil, and everyone gives a performance that sells the whole thing, with Jack Nicholson channeling a combination of his other works to create the ultimate disgustingly irresistible creep, and Cher, Sarandon, and Pfeiffer each offering a distinct character turn that has surprising detail and personality. There is a bit of issue with telling us things as opposed to showing from time to time, such as Pfeiffer's five kids essentially being a non-factor on-screen and only spoken about, and as I said the film really loses focus as it barrels towards its ending, but the whole experience is still a distinctly positive one, a perverse romp with a bit of woman empowerment going on. - 6.5/10
Re-watches
There's nothing better than showing a friend a movie you love.
16. Evil Dead II (1987) - April 3rd
This is the very best of bad taste comedy and campy horror, and watching this again was a reminder of why Sam Raimi is one of my personal favourite directors. Evil Dead II is just the best, it's pure silliness, slapstick and screams abound as we watch Bruce Campbell's chin do battle with ghosts and demons that possess everything from his girlfriend to his hand. It's a brilliant and unrefined mix that never fails to delight me. - 8/10
17. Brick (2005) - April 4th
Everything I said about this in last week's entry remains true here, so I have no particular need to re-iterate anything right now, I just really love this movie and loved showing it to a friend. - 9/10
18. Edge of Tomorrow (2014) - April 7th
This movie is the good video game movie people have been trying to make. It follows the Groundhog Day blueprint to treat one day as the single hardest video game checkpoint ever created, and in the process makes for one of the strongest emotional arcs and series of action sequences to come out of action films in the last five years. Cruise grows as a person as he learns and fails over and over, overcoming each obstacle by facing it again and again, becoming embittered and hopeful and stricken and furious over the course of the longest day of his entire life. It's the core of the movie and why it's so emotionally resonant, which is what makes the ending so excellent. Despite the fact that the day is saved and no one has to die anymore, the thing that became most important to him over that time, his relationship with Emily Blunt, must be attained once again, and that cheeky little smile and out of breath laugh just sells that combination of victory, hope, and the lightest of defeat that contrasts so well with the rest of the movie. - 8/10
Published April 9th, 2018
It is both outrageous and admirable how sickening this movie is. The film is essentially a metaphor for the power the author has over the story and their ability to abuse the contract of trust that they enter in to with the reader/viewer, while also taking a few cheap shots at the bourgeois. I'm aggravated by the constant way the movie messes with its characters and audience while also acknowledging and mocking the audience with its own power, but I'm impressed that Haneke actually had the stones to do this in the first place. It reminds me of Knock Knock, but with a few significant differences that make this movie easier to stomach.
The story is just a microcosm in a seemingly endless cycle of torture and murder, a cruel exercise that suggests an audience's own implicit need to observe is in itself a statement of their agreement to let events play out on screen as they do, and using that thesis to essentially carry the movie in any direction Haneke pleases. Anything can happen in any way because the director has explicitly told us it will, and the film conforms to or bucks expectations as the metaphor that the film's antagonists represent decides what it wants to do, often with meticulous intent, sometimes simply on a whim. Funnily enough, when antagonist Paul's control over the events of the movie become literal, I was reminded of Yu-Gi-Oh! of all things. The final arc of that show's original run saw a story play out under the control of main villain Bakura as he toyed with Atem, but and when an unexpected boon gave Atem the strength he needed to beat Bakura, Bakura literally turns back time and wins instead because it's "his game". This exact idea plays out Funny Games, it's uncanny how similar these two plot threads are.
Anyway, I get and appreciate the point of the movie's abuse of both its characters and the contract it creates with its audience, even the frustrating opener that acts as a microcosm of the whole movie, but even so I find the experience drags as we are reminded for the tenth time that this is not going to end well, that we can't do anything about it, and that by watching it we allow it to happen. There is the ultimate twist that brings everything in the movie together, but after that point everything that happens is also essentially rote. While the thesis is a compelling and challenging idea, there's only so many times the movie can suggest that hope will be ignited before blowing it out and confirming total and direct control before you wish the story was as deep an idea as it is broad. - 7/10
85. Funny Games (2007) - April 2nd
I understand that part of the original Funny Games' point was to satirise the violence in media, particularly American Horror culture, and so I see why re-making the film in an American context makes sense as an idea, but when the idea behind the original satire was to make a very violent but otherwise pointless movie, it's no surprise that the re-make ultimately feels redundant, like Gus Van Sant's Psycho re-make. The film is almost shot-for-shot the same, and almost none of it feels improved by the translation. The exception is this version of Peter, whose combination of creepiness and innocence seems to play out way more organically, which to some might be an issue for some because of how we are supposed to see these characters as inhuman, but otherwise is really compelling. Unfortunately, that doesn't make this film any less somehow-less-than-pointless, regardless of how well it's made by virtue of mimicking the original. - 5/10
As it is, watching both Funny Games back-to-back was a good exercise in bad nihilism that I do not want to repeat any time soon. The films feel akin to Eli Roth's work, with a meta-narrative that essentially punishes the audience for enjoying or feeling ambivalence towards movie violence, and a general anti-affluent attitude, which would all be great if it had more to say than its one concept over and over.
86. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) - April 3rd
The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the G.O.A.T.s of the horror genre, with a huge influence upon even other classics, and a sick sense of humour couched within the unnerving force of its excellently crafted atmosphere. The remake was part of a long list of cash-grab remakes of horror classics produced by one studio; it's hardly a surprise it didn't measure up.
To be fair to the film, it's at least somewhat competently made, and were it it's own thing and not a re-make of a horror classic, it would probably be passable. There are a couple of scenes that momentarily remember that things don't need sudden loud noises accompanying them to be scary, and they at least maintain one of the most important factors that made Leatherface scary (the fact that he actually chases his playthings down instead of slowly stalking them while they amble fearfully), and regardless of the problems in its depiction and glorification of violence, the film is at least slick and consistent in the style and delivery. We never need to see that a woman has shot herself in the head by following the camera through the bullet hole, but it's not out of touch with everything that the movie goes for. There may be a commentary on the differences in the depictions of violence between this movie and the original as a metaphor for the changes in what the audience deems as acceptable viewing, but it's not really found within the text on its own, as most of what happens is little more than overly-stylised shock value. It's not scary or disturbing, it's just gross, and in this regard it largely fails at one of horror's most important tenets. What's worse is that the film's attempts at upping the ante also created more explicit sexual overtones somewhat akin to the awful The Hills Have Eyes 2, with every member of the cast of disturbed locals exploiting women, alive or dead, at every opportunity. It's really vile and completely unnecessary, and on top of the fact that it doesn't even have the decency of the original to create an effective atmosphere or somewhat sympathetic characters shows what the filmmakers actually got out of the original. - 4/10
87. The Wild Bunch (1969) - April 5th
The first paragraph is just me talking about the depiction of violence in film and the way films respond to it, so if you just want to read my thoughts on The Wild Bunch skip ahead to the second paragraph.
As an aside to start, it's interesting to me that the majority of movies I've watched this week so far use excessive violence for similar but contrasting purposes. Funny Games was a commentary on violence's representation in media, taking violence to a pointless extreme to highlight the pointlessness of depicting violence for violence's sake. Violence in The Wild Bunch is stated to have been a response to the way the effects of violence in media was glamorised, lashing back at the bloodless depictions with its own excess. Funny Games feels almost like it's commenting on films like The Wild Bunch, as the choice to depict violence in The Wild Bunch is largely meta-textual. However, I don't think that criticism fits as, meta-textual or not, the depiction of violence in The Wild Bunch has explicit purpose that reflects the misgivings of the media's current use of violence in film and the issues with the media's coverage of the Vietnam War. In truth, Funny Games is probably more a response to films like the Texas Chainsaw remake (though obviously not this film specifically, considering the original was made six years prior, but the fact that Haneke felt it necessary to tell the same story again suggests that he thought his thesis was still valid at that point). Those sorts of films fail to understand the point of the violence in films where violence actually has a point, and instead chooses to depict it without any thought as to why it was depicted in the first place. It makes for intriguing differences between all these different films, all made at different times by different people with different intentions, but all with the theme of violence at their cores. The Wild Bunch suggests the point of depicting violence is to not mislead the audience about the nature of violence and the significant effect it can have on life and that it is an immutable truth of life's experience that must be understood rather than shied away from. Funny Games suggests either that this point is not enough to warrant such explicit depiction, and that depicting is pointless, or that people have forgotten this point in their own depictions of violence and in doing so have rendered their own depictions pointless. The Texas Chainsaw remake is simply evidence to the latter.
On the movie itself, The Wild Bunch is a truly fantastic film, a meandering, character-driven story filled with raw emotions fueled by incredible performances that sell even the most abrupt moments. There's a fluctuating intensity to the whole experience as it moves between the angry, the humorous, the melancholic and the blood-curdling. I love a movie that manages to grab you from the start, and with some clever visual metaphors and a slow, tense build-up, The Wild Bunch ramps up to an introduction that will be on my mind for days. It's really excellent, but apart from my spiel about its themes of violence, that's all I really have to say about it right now. The rest of the film lives up to the precedent the intro sets, even with its sometimes awkwardly placed flashbacks, and moments like Angel's scene with his girl are completely resonant with even the smallest set-up and the least inherently likable characters. I appreciate the emotional complexity of the film, the way it treats the violence of its leads as both a calling and a curse, one that gives them purpose but that they cannot escape from, as they lament both the innocence of youth and their inability to change in a changing world, reflecting on regrets and trying to educate the young not to make the same mistakes while needing them to keep living a life that they can't give up on. It's all really well done, and as both an individual film and a reflection on the evolution of the Western genre, this is possibly the best (Once Upon a Time in the West is obviously a contender, but that's more a reflection on Leone's own work in relation to American Westerns, where they're similar and where they differ). - 9/10
88. A Quiet Place (2018) - April 6th
I love horror, and I love it when a good horror movie comes out. People should see this. My full review can be found here. - 7.5/10
89. Return of the Killer Tomatoes! (1988) - April 6th
Before you judge me, understand that this scene is what convinced me to watch the movie.
This is one of the most absurd, most meta things I have ever seen, and despite the comedy being somewhat hit-or-miss, the film is so unbelievably charming in how it is absolutely shameless in its cheapness and self-awareness, so committed to its bit in how elaborately it builds upon the idea of a world recovering from a literal war with tomatoes, that I can't help but love it. - 5/10
90. The Phantom of the Opera (2004) - April 7th
I'm always up for a bit of over the top theatre dramatics, but this movie is just the freakin' most.The colour palette is so overwhelming gaudy that my eyes felt like they were melting after half an hour. It's a shame it's a distraction too, because the costume and set design is fantastic, with incredible detail imbued in to every seam and seat. The story fairs far less well, dragging its feet at every possible moment and devoid of some of the less palatable tone of the original, in the process making it less interesting to watch than such a loud and silly movie should be. Still, the music, save for a couple of occasions, is really damn good, and carries the movie to its end. Overall, this is in a similar vein to The Greatest Showman, but not even as good as that; the sort of movie whose panache covers for the fact that it doesn't do enough with everything it has going on. - 5/10
91. The Director and The Jedi (2018) - April 8th
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is one of my favourite films from last year, and with a recent watching and re-watching of Brick, Rian Johnson is quickly becoming a personal favourite modern director of mine. The Director and The Jedi is a really well made look in to the Rian's process, taken from so many perspectives, with the conflicts and the passion turned out in equal measure, that also reminded me what a fantastic and herculean undertaking filmmaking, especially filmmaking of this scale, can be. It's really great to see all the hard work put in to making the film, to learn a little about the amount of pressure they were all under, especially Johnson, and also the immense support everyone gave each other as they were making it happen. It's also fantastic to see all of the practical effects work in production and compare them to how they look in the final product, the sheer time and effort that was taken to put the film together, the bits and pieces of the process. Johnson is a director who loves film and loves Star Wars, and if The Last Jedi wasn't more than enough to convince you, The Director and The Jedi shows so much of what makes the film and what makes the film great. - 7/10
92. The Witches of Eastwick (1987) - April 8th
It's probably cheap to say it, but this movie about witches is charming. Jack Nicholson, Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon, it's a star-studded cast brimming with dark and twisted humour, only losing its effect as it spirals out of control moving in to the finale. I appreciated the absurdity of it all, the idea that three women could unknowingly be witches and accidentally make a deal with the devil, and everyone gives a performance that sells the whole thing, with Jack Nicholson channeling a combination of his other works to create the ultimate disgustingly irresistible creep, and Cher, Sarandon, and Pfeiffer each offering a distinct character turn that has surprising detail and personality. There is a bit of issue with telling us things as opposed to showing from time to time, such as Pfeiffer's five kids essentially being a non-factor on-screen and only spoken about, and as I said the film really loses focus as it barrels towards its ending, but the whole experience is still a distinctly positive one, a perverse romp with a bit of woman empowerment going on. - 6.5/10
Re-watches
There's nothing better than showing a friend a movie you love.
16. Evil Dead II (1987) - April 3rd
This is the very best of bad taste comedy and campy horror, and watching this again was a reminder of why Sam Raimi is one of my personal favourite directors. Evil Dead II is just the best, it's pure silliness, slapstick and screams abound as we watch Bruce Campbell's chin do battle with ghosts and demons that possess everything from his girlfriend to his hand. It's a brilliant and unrefined mix that never fails to delight me. - 8/10
17. Brick (2005) - April 4th
Everything I said about this in last week's entry remains true here, so I have no particular need to re-iterate anything right now, I just really love this movie and loved showing it to a friend. - 9/10
18. Edge of Tomorrow (2014) - April 7th
This movie is the good video game movie people have been trying to make. It follows the Groundhog Day blueprint to treat one day as the single hardest video game checkpoint ever created, and in the process makes for one of the strongest emotional arcs and series of action sequences to come out of action films in the last five years. Cruise grows as a person as he learns and fails over and over, overcoming each obstacle by facing it again and again, becoming embittered and hopeful and stricken and furious over the course of the longest day of his entire life. It's the core of the movie and why it's so emotionally resonant, which is what makes the ending so excellent. Despite the fact that the day is saved and no one has to die anymore, the thing that became most important to him over that time, his relationship with Emily Blunt, must be attained once again, and that cheeky little smile and out of breath laugh just sells that combination of victory, hope, and the lightest of defeat that contrasts so well with the rest of the movie. - 8/10
Published April 9th, 2018
Friday, 6 April 2018
2018: A Quiet Place (2018)
Directed by: John Krasinski
Written by: John Krasinski. Bryan Woods, Scott Beck
Starring: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds
IMDb Link
It's nice to have a horror movie that's actually really damn good with a lot of heart and some layers.
The world has been invaded and humanity all but wiped out by a species of monstrous alien that hunts by sound. Those few who survive do so by adapting to a silent life. The story follows the Abbott family, beset by personal tragedy and struggling to emotionally connect with one another because of it. Regan (Simmonds) blames herself and feels pushed away by her father Lee (Krasinski), Lee is failing to deal with the rift between him and his daughter while also contending with preparing his son Marcus for manhood and keeping connected with his pregnant wife Evelyn (Blunt). Evelyn is preparing for the ordeal of childbirth in a world where she can make no sound and Marcus learns to grapple with the fear that can cripple his ability to survive. All of this echoes with the pain of the initial catastrophe, and we are reminded again and again of just how much it has splintered each character individually and as a unit.
That's what makes A Quiet Place so compelling; the silence in the movie is effective as a horror tool, but it more importantly drives right to the emotional core of the film, standing also as a strong metaphor for the distance and break down in communication between parent and child, with a sense of coming of age and the identity parents find in their children. That's a lot of poignant weight coming from a movie that's about a family hiding from monsters, and though it's delivered in short bursts between ongoing conflict, it's definitely effective in its given context. There are a few contrivances in how these character arcs all coincide right as they need to do to but a handful of small actions, like a bag pulling on a nail raising it up as the obvious set up of the kickoff to the big conflict, but these small moments don't really hurt the movie so much as they feel inevitable given the fact that people have to completely alter how they live in accordance with being quiet. The performances sell it, too, drawing focus away from any potential annoyances with convenient/inconvenient coincidences, and these little actions lead to some of the more intense horror moments in the film, making them easily forgivable.
The silence is used to excellent effect here. There's a really interesting mixture of perspectives here, as the movie directs us to focus on characters in a scene by what we hear rather than what we see. We get tranquil ambiance offset by the tension of its context, we hear the difference between quiet and pure nothingness when we switch to Regan's perspective, and any dropped item crashes like thunder to contrast. It gives the movie a consuming presence, and allows even the tiniest scares to hit with maximum effect. This can be annoying when it falls in to the usual horror movie tropes, like fake-out scares and non-diagetic loud noises accompanying already loud noises to attempt to obnoxiously maximise their effect, but for the most part A Quiet Place is peacefully and terrifyingly restrained, with key horror moments landing exactly as they need to.
The Short Version: A Quiet Place is a well-crafted nail-biting horror with a cool concept, a strong emotional core, and some solid allegory, and despite falling in to a few common horror trappings, I highly recommend it.
Rating: 7.5/10
Published April 6th, 2018
Written by: John Krasinski. Bryan Woods, Scott Beck
Starring: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds
IMDb Link
It's nice to have a horror movie that's actually really damn good with a lot of heart and some layers.
That's what makes A Quiet Place so compelling; the silence in the movie is effective as a horror tool, but it more importantly drives right to the emotional core of the film, standing also as a strong metaphor for the distance and break down in communication between parent and child, with a sense of coming of age and the identity parents find in their children. That's a lot of poignant weight coming from a movie that's about a family hiding from monsters, and though it's delivered in short bursts between ongoing conflict, it's definitely effective in its given context. There are a few contrivances in how these character arcs all coincide right as they need to do to but a handful of small actions, like a bag pulling on a nail raising it up as the obvious set up of the kickoff to the big conflict, but these small moments don't really hurt the movie so much as they feel inevitable given the fact that people have to completely alter how they live in accordance with being quiet. The performances sell it, too, drawing focus away from any potential annoyances with convenient/inconvenient coincidences, and these little actions lead to some of the more intense horror moments in the film, making them easily forgivable.
The silence is used to excellent effect here. There's a really interesting mixture of perspectives here, as the movie directs us to focus on characters in a scene by what we hear rather than what we see. We get tranquil ambiance offset by the tension of its context, we hear the difference between quiet and pure nothingness when we switch to Regan's perspective, and any dropped item crashes like thunder to contrast. It gives the movie a consuming presence, and allows even the tiniest scares to hit with maximum effect. This can be annoying when it falls in to the usual horror movie tropes, like fake-out scares and non-diagetic loud noises accompanying already loud noises to attempt to obnoxiously maximise their effect, but for the most part A Quiet Place is peacefully and terrifyingly restrained, with key horror moments landing exactly as they need to.
The Short Version: A Quiet Place is a well-crafted nail-biting horror with a cool concept, a strong emotional core, and some solid allegory, and despite falling in to a few common horror trappings, I highly recommend it.
Rating: 7.5/10
Published April 6th, 2018
Sunday, 1 April 2018
2018: A Fortnight of Movies - March 19th to April 1st
I started my prac on March 19th, so I decided I should probably plan my time around that as opposed to movies. As a result, I watched far fewer movies, and decided to put all the films I watched over the two week period in to one post.
76. Notorious (1946) - March 20th
There's a reason Hitchcock is remembered as one of the Greatest Of All Time.
Notorious is sublime; slick direction, dialogue as smooth as butter, and perfectly melodramatic acting, all working together to execute an intense and intriguingly grey story poisonous love and the effects of trust and communication. As far as Hitchcock's works go, it's one of his most important. - 9/10
I wish I had more to say about it, but right now I don't have much time to put more thought in to it; movie watching has to be juggled with both assignments and my prac placement.
There are a few things that stuck out to me on this initial viewing, however. I love the way the direction casts this spells on the early scenes. For a moment Bergman and Grant's romance feels "movie real", with this intense chemistry supported by intimate angles and soppy music to hammer it home, only to have it all dashed at the revelation of Grant's intentions. I love the way Claude Rain's Alex Sebastian is positioned pathetically; he's a Nazi, so it's the shortest of short-hands to make him a bad guy, but the film goes out of its way to humanise him, trusting too easily and being emasculated at every turn. He's still an absolute villain, obsessing and possessing Bergman's Alicia Huberman and being, you know, a Nazi, and particularly how these two things tie together to create a situation in which he poisons her; but it's all forged by conflict, a mixture of his emasculation at the hands of his mother causing him to confuse love with possession and not understanding how to deal with and the jealousy that boils within him. He's a broken human, but in a position of power, and it makes for a thrilling combination to watch as it all crumbles. I'm conflicted on the way Huberman is simply used by the men around her. On the one hand, this was made in 1946, so I shouldn't be surprised, and I'm at least impressed by the amount the film develops her character and makes sure that while the men around her use her as an object, the film works to show that it doesn't see her the same way. I also appreciate that the film is about Devlin learning not to do that, to treat her as a human being and to not push her away; like Sebastian he's conflicted about trust, communication and women, and he at least learns to overcome these things through the terrible conflict within himself over what he does to Huberman. At the same time, he never see punishment for his actions, no real rebuttal from Huberman, and the way he learns to appreciate her is fueled by her degradation in to a mere damsel. The first I see the workings of; duty takes precedence for Devlin and acts as the key to his conflict and the reason for why he's the "better man" of the story. He pushes her away, but he does so for a number of reasons, all of which are to minimise the hurt for both characters and make the grizzly situation slightly easier. It's understandable, even justifiable, and some may say that seeing the woman you love in the arms of another man is the external punishment, and punishment enough for his crimes. Were I someone in 1946, I'd agree; standing in 2018 it's far less cut and dry. With that in mind, at least the morality of the situation lends itself to discussion. The degradation of Huberman's character is a little harder to abide. I understand what they were going for, but the act essentially removes her as a factor in the story outside of the impressively and intimately filmed kiss scene. She no longer has a chance to regain her agency, an opportunity to draw attention back to the woman between the two men and be as dynamic as she has been. It's a product of its time, so it's a bit of a wash; the degradation works within the context of the film, but there's an unsettling feeling that goes beyond the film's melodrama. Perhaps upon re-watch I'll see it again and find it to be an intentional layer, one that isn't just me being a product of my time; it wouldn't surprise me given Hitchcock's work. At the same time, it's also not unlikely that this aspect of the film is simply a product of its time, one that like many others I'll have to uncomfortably make an exception for. Either way, it contributes little to my overall loving opinion of the film right now.
77. Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) - March 22nd
This wasn't bad. It's not good, either, but most of what's bad about this movie comes from the failure to complete the myriad ideas it suggests. Also, Scott Eastwood can't act and John Boyega can, which creates a stark contrast between them when they're together on-screen. Eastwood sounds perpetually phoned-in, like he has all the range of his dad but none of the grit; Boyega on the other hand delivers even the most cliche dialogue with complete earnest enthusiasm, making every scene involving him having to say something positively magnetic. - My full review can be found here. - 5.5/10
78. Mission: Impossible 2 (2000) - March 26th
A week ago, I watched Notorious. Today I did it again.
Seriously, I decided to watch Mission: Impossible 2 after reading that the story beats were the lifted from Notorious; the idea of these two particular movies sharing such a strange connection was intriguing enough for me to see how it plays out on-screen.
The similarities are all conceptual only. As far as stylistic and narrative approach are concerned the two could not be more different; Notorious is a scalpel, and M:I 2 is a lead pipe. Where Notorious emphasises psychological thrills, duplicity, and character growth, M:I 2 is all unbridled emotion, testosterone and John Woo's signature action style, applied liberally to every possible character action and reaction. There's points of comparison that can be made between the two films in terms of how they handle the same story beats, especially in how the details are completely altered by the context of each film, but for two films made over fifty years apart and with completely different, I can't imagine it would be to a constructive end if these were the only two films considered. As it is, I'll just talk about M:I 2.
I thoroughly enjoy how insane this movie can be with its spy stuff, and how seriously it takes itself in spite of this. John Woo has no sense of restraint, and as a result he can make even the smallest shot simmer with slow motion, or choose to cut to a close-up on even the slightest character action. At its worst, this can be exhausting, but it's honestly so funny how much he just really wants you to know a character is watching another character like a hawk by slowing things down for a few seconds, or how he cuts between ultra-close and medium shots of a conversation while the camera is moving around, just to make sure you know that a cigar cutter is going to be used. It's necessary to know these things, of course, but Woo smacks you in the face with it over an extended period of time, just to be sure. This style is much better applied to the action scenes, where high-octane thrills can get lost in the chaos; Woo's extra insurance is more than helpful here, as opposed to the dialogue scenes. There's also the regulation Woo doves/pigeons, which is just hilariously wonderful no matter how many times I see it.
That said, Woo's style doesn't exactly ruin the dialogue scenes; they weren't good to begin with. While a handful of lines sit well because of the movie's intense emotional core, for the most part the dialogue is nothing but one placeholder action cliche after another. That's not exactly the gravest problem facing our society today, as a film like this emphasises action and style over literally everything else, but this isn't Pacific Rim for me, the film doesn't resonate with me on such an innately engaging level that I intentionally ignore all these flaws, so they come up relatively prominently on this first time around. It's still a solid action movie, and I always love it when a movie takes itself as seriously as a film like this one, but the dialogue was literally cliche about a decade before this film was released. The dialogue is also awfully stereotypical in its discussion of women, which is ok when it's coming from the bad guy, we hate him already, but it's placed uncomfortably innocuously sometimes.
I appreciate the performances though. Cruise is never a disappointment, always giving his strongest effort and he's even better here than he was in the first, again helping to smooth-over the film's rough attempt to maintain earnestness in its emotional core. Thandie Newton is also good fun here, playful and sexy without being a total prop, a character with some agency behind her intense expression. The two of them keep the whole thing entertaining even if the story and dialogue leave much to be desired.
All-in-all, this was a decent early 2000s action flick and it doesn't surprise me that it led to more sequels; as I hear it, it's all uphill from here, so I'm looking forward to the next few. - 6/10
79. Rushmore (1998) - March 27th
After having seen it, this is probably one of my preferred Wes Anderson movies, primarily because the film is so prototypical of his style that everything that would become a Wes Anderson staple feels understated, clever by virtue of not rubbing it in the audience's face at all times. I appreciate the 'self-aware filmmaking with unaware characters' dynamic that allows the main character to be a completely insufferable douche without the movie losing its charm and creating an opportunity for the him to learn and grow out of it. - 8/10
80. Brick (2005) - March 30th
Stylistically speaking, this is probably my favourite movie in recent memory. A neo-noir framed by a high school with visuals inspired by seemingly everything including Cowboy Bebop? How is this not the best thing ever?
I love the way the film just plays out beat for beat like a hard-boiled detective story, but with every character archetype as a high school student. You have characters speaking the usual stylish dialogue spoken in smoky tones (-"You don't know me, I'll save you some time" -"I know everyone and have all the time in the world" -"The folly of youth" - a quick exchange between two characters that feels ripped right from the pages of Hammett or Chandler) and dressed up to be every kind of noir stereotype, except they're all kids essentially living out the power fantasy of adulthood; it's a fantastic juxtaposition of self-aware filmmaking and unaware characters. I love the choice to always shoot Gordon-Levitt's Brendan's entrance in to scenes at shoe-height, and to frame him compared to others with low angles and high blocking to create the sense of power he thinks he has over everyone else by being apart from them, and how it strips that away when he's with Emily, until her differences drive her away (and therefore below) him too. I love the way the film supports all this with some clever (if occasionally way too fast) editing and the dulcet rattle of jazz.
One more time, I love the dialogue in this movie. It's all perfectly crafted but for another genre, so in context it comes out sounding just off enough to be completely charming and hilarious at the best of times. Moments like Brendan going on a rant like an undercover cop too long on the streets and ending it with "I'll see you at the parent conference" are pure genius, and really toe that line between the engrossing nature of the text and the self aware, genre-savvy nods. A rough-up interrogation being taken "upstairs" meaning to go in to the kingpin's mother's kitchen is just another example of this film's great use of juxtaposition; the film is constantly reminding you of its own absurdity and reveling in it. - 9/10
81. Ready Player One (2018) - March 30th
This was such a strange mix of good direction and bad writing. The movie looks and moves so well, but there's nothing to make me care about any of it. My full review can be found here. - 6/10
82. The Terminal (2004) - March 31st
Steven Spielberg always knows how to make a crowd-pleaser.
It's a simple fish-out-of-water story that acts as a nice metaphor for the universality of the American Dream. It's soft and easy to digest, with only a little tension, and I'll probably forget most of it by next week. Nothing about it really blows my mind, the whole experience is safe and plodding but pleasant. It feels like the perfect movie for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Once again, though, I care very little for everything that actually happens in the movie, even if what happens isn't badly done. The direction is Spielberg's work as expected. He uses a lot of really slick one-ers that don't draw attention to themselves and function primarily to pack a lot of information and allow the acting to often come off as organic as possible. This is a good thing, too, because credit is due the actors as well, who all offer sweet emotional performances that suit the tone of the romantic comedy, with Hanks so charismatic that he's capable of making a character like this seem deeper than he is. The writing is trite romantic comedy at it's most middling, with a lot of cute moments that manage to work on their own but feel rushed and underdeveloped in context, such as the on/off nature of Hanks' relationship with Zeta-Jones, and the rush of Luna's marriage to Saldana. However, the overall positivity of the film fits what it's going for, with the impact Hanks has on the people around him having a sense of that movie magic that makes you want so very much to believe the best in the people. This is too nice not to feel good about, but it's not more than that. - 6/10
83. Sahara (2005) - March 31st
This is the sort of fun bad movie made retroactively better by virtue of the fact that we can examine McConaughey's performance from the perspective of someone who understands that he's actually an incredibly talented actor. His performance here was probably insufferable pre-McConaissance, but taken with the knowledge that he knows what he's doing, this performance comes off as far more self-aware than it probably would have at the time of the film's release. It's still a pretty bad movie that seems right out of the less memorable parts of 80s All-American Cheese, but seeing it with McConaughey in the social consciousness as a champion as opposed to a punch line makes the whole experience worthy of great guilty-pleasure. - 5/10
Published April 2nd, 2018
76. Notorious (1946) - March 20th
There's a reason Hitchcock is remembered as one of the Greatest Of All Time.
Notorious is sublime; slick direction, dialogue as smooth as butter, and perfectly melodramatic acting, all working together to execute an intense and intriguingly grey story poisonous love and the effects of trust and communication. As far as Hitchcock's works go, it's one of his most important. - 9/10
I wish I had more to say about it, but right now I don't have much time to put more thought in to it; movie watching has to be juggled with both assignments and my prac placement.
There are a few things that stuck out to me on this initial viewing, however. I love the way the direction casts this spells on the early scenes. For a moment Bergman and Grant's romance feels "movie real", with this intense chemistry supported by intimate angles and soppy music to hammer it home, only to have it all dashed at the revelation of Grant's intentions. I love the way Claude Rain's Alex Sebastian is positioned pathetically; he's a Nazi, so it's the shortest of short-hands to make him a bad guy, but the film goes out of its way to humanise him, trusting too easily and being emasculated at every turn. He's still an absolute villain, obsessing and possessing Bergman's Alicia Huberman and being, you know, a Nazi, and particularly how these two things tie together to create a situation in which he poisons her; but it's all forged by conflict, a mixture of his emasculation at the hands of his mother causing him to confuse love with possession and not understanding how to deal with and the jealousy that boils within him. He's a broken human, but in a position of power, and it makes for a thrilling combination to watch as it all crumbles. I'm conflicted on the way Huberman is simply used by the men around her. On the one hand, this was made in 1946, so I shouldn't be surprised, and I'm at least impressed by the amount the film develops her character and makes sure that while the men around her use her as an object, the film works to show that it doesn't see her the same way. I also appreciate that the film is about Devlin learning not to do that, to treat her as a human being and to not push her away; like Sebastian he's conflicted about trust, communication and women, and he at least learns to overcome these things through the terrible conflict within himself over what he does to Huberman. At the same time, he never see punishment for his actions, no real rebuttal from Huberman, and the way he learns to appreciate her is fueled by her degradation in to a mere damsel. The first I see the workings of; duty takes precedence for Devlin and acts as the key to his conflict and the reason for why he's the "better man" of the story. He pushes her away, but he does so for a number of reasons, all of which are to minimise the hurt for both characters and make the grizzly situation slightly easier. It's understandable, even justifiable, and some may say that seeing the woman you love in the arms of another man is the external punishment, and punishment enough for his crimes. Were I someone in 1946, I'd agree; standing in 2018 it's far less cut and dry. With that in mind, at least the morality of the situation lends itself to discussion. The degradation of Huberman's character is a little harder to abide. I understand what they were going for, but the act essentially removes her as a factor in the story outside of the impressively and intimately filmed kiss scene. She no longer has a chance to regain her agency, an opportunity to draw attention back to the woman between the two men and be as dynamic as she has been. It's a product of its time, so it's a bit of a wash; the degradation works within the context of the film, but there's an unsettling feeling that goes beyond the film's melodrama. Perhaps upon re-watch I'll see it again and find it to be an intentional layer, one that isn't just me being a product of my time; it wouldn't surprise me given Hitchcock's work. At the same time, it's also not unlikely that this aspect of the film is simply a product of its time, one that like many others I'll have to uncomfortably make an exception for. Either way, it contributes little to my overall loving opinion of the film right now.
77. Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) - March 22nd
This wasn't bad. It's not good, either, but most of what's bad about this movie comes from the failure to complete the myriad ideas it suggests. Also, Scott Eastwood can't act and John Boyega can, which creates a stark contrast between them when they're together on-screen. Eastwood sounds perpetually phoned-in, like he has all the range of his dad but none of the grit; Boyega on the other hand delivers even the most cliche dialogue with complete earnest enthusiasm, making every scene involving him having to say something positively magnetic. - My full review can be found here. - 5.5/10
78. Mission: Impossible 2 (2000) - March 26th
A week ago, I watched Notorious. Today I did it again.
Seriously, I decided to watch Mission: Impossible 2 after reading that the story beats were the lifted from Notorious; the idea of these two particular movies sharing such a strange connection was intriguing enough for me to see how it plays out on-screen.
The similarities are all conceptual only. As far as stylistic and narrative approach are concerned the two could not be more different; Notorious is a scalpel, and M:I 2 is a lead pipe. Where Notorious emphasises psychological thrills, duplicity, and character growth, M:I 2 is all unbridled emotion, testosterone and John Woo's signature action style, applied liberally to every possible character action and reaction. There's points of comparison that can be made between the two films in terms of how they handle the same story beats, especially in how the details are completely altered by the context of each film, but for two films made over fifty years apart and with completely different, I can't imagine it would be to a constructive end if these were the only two films considered. As it is, I'll just talk about M:I 2.
I thoroughly enjoy how insane this movie can be with its spy stuff, and how seriously it takes itself in spite of this. John Woo has no sense of restraint, and as a result he can make even the smallest shot simmer with slow motion, or choose to cut to a close-up on even the slightest character action. At its worst, this can be exhausting, but it's honestly so funny how much he just really wants you to know a character is watching another character like a hawk by slowing things down for a few seconds, or how he cuts between ultra-close and medium shots of a conversation while the camera is moving around, just to make sure you know that a cigar cutter is going to be used. It's necessary to know these things, of course, but Woo smacks you in the face with it over an extended period of time, just to be sure. This style is much better applied to the action scenes, where high-octane thrills can get lost in the chaos; Woo's extra insurance is more than helpful here, as opposed to the dialogue scenes. There's also the regulation Woo doves/pigeons, which is just hilariously wonderful no matter how many times I see it.
That said, Woo's style doesn't exactly ruin the dialogue scenes; they weren't good to begin with. While a handful of lines sit well because of the movie's intense emotional core, for the most part the dialogue is nothing but one placeholder action cliche after another. That's not exactly the gravest problem facing our society today, as a film like this emphasises action and style over literally everything else, but this isn't Pacific Rim for me, the film doesn't resonate with me on such an innately engaging level that I intentionally ignore all these flaws, so they come up relatively prominently on this first time around. It's still a solid action movie, and I always love it when a movie takes itself as seriously as a film like this one, but the dialogue was literally cliche about a decade before this film was released. The dialogue is also awfully stereotypical in its discussion of women, which is ok when it's coming from the bad guy, we hate him already, but it's placed uncomfortably innocuously sometimes.
I appreciate the performances though. Cruise is never a disappointment, always giving his strongest effort and he's even better here than he was in the first, again helping to smooth-over the film's rough attempt to maintain earnestness in its emotional core. Thandie Newton is also good fun here, playful and sexy without being a total prop, a character with some agency behind her intense expression. The two of them keep the whole thing entertaining even if the story and dialogue leave much to be desired.
All-in-all, this was a decent early 2000s action flick and it doesn't surprise me that it led to more sequels; as I hear it, it's all uphill from here, so I'm looking forward to the next few. - 6/10
79. Rushmore (1998) - March 27th
After having seen it, this is probably one of my preferred Wes Anderson movies, primarily because the film is so prototypical of his style that everything that would become a Wes Anderson staple feels understated, clever by virtue of not rubbing it in the audience's face at all times. I appreciate the 'self-aware filmmaking with unaware characters' dynamic that allows the main character to be a completely insufferable douche without the movie losing its charm and creating an opportunity for the him to learn and grow out of it. - 8/10
80. Brick (2005) - March 30th
Stylistically speaking, this is probably my favourite movie in recent memory. A neo-noir framed by a high school with visuals inspired by seemingly everything including Cowboy Bebop? How is this not the best thing ever?
I love the way the film just plays out beat for beat like a hard-boiled detective story, but with every character archetype as a high school student. You have characters speaking the usual stylish dialogue spoken in smoky tones (-"You don't know me, I'll save you some time" -"I know everyone and have all the time in the world" -"The folly of youth" - a quick exchange between two characters that feels ripped right from the pages of Hammett or Chandler) and dressed up to be every kind of noir stereotype, except they're all kids essentially living out the power fantasy of adulthood; it's a fantastic juxtaposition of self-aware filmmaking and unaware characters. I love the choice to always shoot Gordon-Levitt's Brendan's entrance in to scenes at shoe-height, and to frame him compared to others with low angles and high blocking to create the sense of power he thinks he has over everyone else by being apart from them, and how it strips that away when he's with Emily, until her differences drive her away (and therefore below) him too. I love the way the film supports all this with some clever (if occasionally way too fast) editing and the dulcet rattle of jazz.
One more time, I love the dialogue in this movie. It's all perfectly crafted but for another genre, so in context it comes out sounding just off enough to be completely charming and hilarious at the best of times. Moments like Brendan going on a rant like an undercover cop too long on the streets and ending it with "I'll see you at the parent conference" are pure genius, and really toe that line between the engrossing nature of the text and the self aware, genre-savvy nods. A rough-up interrogation being taken "upstairs" meaning to go in to the kingpin's mother's kitchen is just another example of this film's great use of juxtaposition; the film is constantly reminding you of its own absurdity and reveling in it. - 9/10
81. Ready Player One (2018) - March 30th
This was such a strange mix of good direction and bad writing. The movie looks and moves so well, but there's nothing to make me care about any of it. My full review can be found here. - 6/10
82. The Terminal (2004) - March 31st
Steven Spielberg always knows how to make a crowd-pleaser.
It's a simple fish-out-of-water story that acts as a nice metaphor for the universality of the American Dream. It's soft and easy to digest, with only a little tension, and I'll probably forget most of it by next week. Nothing about it really blows my mind, the whole experience is safe and plodding but pleasant. It feels like the perfect movie for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Once again, though, I care very little for everything that actually happens in the movie, even if what happens isn't badly done. The direction is Spielberg's work as expected. He uses a lot of really slick one-ers that don't draw attention to themselves and function primarily to pack a lot of information and allow the acting to often come off as organic as possible. This is a good thing, too, because credit is due the actors as well, who all offer sweet emotional performances that suit the tone of the romantic comedy, with Hanks so charismatic that he's capable of making a character like this seem deeper than he is. The writing is trite romantic comedy at it's most middling, with a lot of cute moments that manage to work on their own but feel rushed and underdeveloped in context, such as the on/off nature of Hanks' relationship with Zeta-Jones, and the rush of Luna's marriage to Saldana. However, the overall positivity of the film fits what it's going for, with the impact Hanks has on the people around him having a sense of that movie magic that makes you want so very much to believe the best in the people. This is too nice not to feel good about, but it's not more than that. - 6/10
83. Sahara (2005) - March 31st
This is the sort of fun bad movie made retroactively better by virtue of the fact that we can examine McConaughey's performance from the perspective of someone who understands that he's actually an incredibly talented actor. His performance here was probably insufferable pre-McConaissance, but taken with the knowledge that he knows what he's doing, this performance comes off as far more self-aware than it probably would have at the time of the film's release. It's still a pretty bad movie that seems right out of the less memorable parts of 80s All-American Cheese, but seeing it with McConaughey in the social consciousness as a champion as opposed to a punch line makes the whole experience worthy of great guilty-pleasure. - 5/10
Published April 2nd, 2018
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