With any luck, this will be back to weekly installments that I might actually be able to write well.
164. Rio Bravo (1959) - June 18th
Classics that I don't end up completely loving are always an interesting challenge for me, both to consider and to write about. Rio Bravo is hardly the first classic that didn't resonate with me, so it's no surprise at this point, and it's a good reminder of the subjective nature of film as an art or even entertainment form and why in the case of classic films it's important to consider how and why a film was popular or acclaimed in its day as much as whether or not and how that influences your perspective, as well as how the difference in era can change how you see it. Rio Bravo was only moderately received upon release, mostly dubbed a good time waster for its exorbitant running time and slow pacing, but over time it created a cultural through-line, first with a series of sequels, then as the inspiration for Assault on Precinct 13, which itself was the inspiration for multiple re-makes and re-imaginings. Because of this, I have an immutable appreciation for the film, even if I didn't attach myself to it. It's also necessary to note how opinion of the film grew over time, something that's usually a factor with classics as they get canonised for being culturally influential, important of relevant. Rio Bravo can now be seen as a part of the bodies of work for both John Wayne and Howard Hawks, and as such its microcosmic part in the elevation of both of these filmmakers in turn elevates the general opinion of the film, as it does for all of their work. It also gets remembered as part of the progression of the Western genre, factors such as its slow burn that once had audiences divided on its entertainment value now seen as a staple for the type of story the film wanted to tell and the type of story itself perfectly suited to its genre. While in a cynical moment I might feel the need to snipe about how Dean Martin's singing moment in the film was probably contractually obliged, the way a film like this is revered is a sobering reminder to look for the feeling of the scene, and quashing shallow and negative thoughts allows the emotional intention to impact me (obvious as it might be I still saw it as obligation first and foremost rather than something that, even though the scene was probably obligated, it doesn't diminish the value the scene actually has in the story). This sort of stuff is what ultimately changes my perspective on such types of films; if they're a classic, there's often a reason for it, and while my own personal experience with the film is an important part of me discussing it, it's also not the be all, end all for any film, especially a classic. - 8.5/10
165. Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) - June 20th
Speaking from personal experience, a T. rex is more than enough to protect a child from monsters; if Heather had just gotten it for Dylan, this whole movie would've ended with a lot fewer deaths.
This is probably the best result that could have been wrung from Freddy's long-beaten corpse; as much as reviving him for one more round is inherently a cash grab, I was pleasantly surprised by how good this was, turning even the degrading quality of the series in to a narrative tool and using its meta nature and focus upon Heather's relationship with her son to create something considerably more "real" than its predecessors. It's still campy at times, and when the overall quality of a movie gets better that sort of schlock becomes a lot less interesting, but the choice to present things this way initially seems clearly intentional, slowly separating New Nightmare from its predecessors to show that, with a little design update and a change of scenery, Freddy could still be genuinely scary at times, if only at times. The movie is smart enough not to rely on Freddy's core scare-factor for its horror, thankfully, building a simple but functional relationship between Heather and Dylan that drives a lot of the emotion of the story; it's not particularly profound, but it's really effective as a linchpin in the film's juxtaposition of the "movie" and the "real". Stuff like Heather's actions and mental state being treated as it would realistically by the doctors caring for Dylan being seen as irrational only if you've seen what the audience has seen is a nice touch, especially before it all unravels. Heather is behaving as one would in a Nightmare movie, and when all she's been having is nightmares it's hard to tell what's real and what isn't, a for a scarce few moments the way the film frames it makes her seem as insane as she is rational, the reality and the movie converging. This is a really good way to close out the series, a prototype for Craven's later work with the Scream series that I think works just as well here. - 6.5/10
166. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) - June 20th
I wish this was better written, because its direction is good enough that this could have been a really good movie. It's still a crowd-pleasing thrill ride with some heart at the best of times, but its insistence on following up the asinine super weapon story shows a certain goal, intentional or not, of turning the Jurassic franchise in to less of a blockbuster franchise and more of a B-movie franchise, which dilutes attempts to take the material with a sense of weight. My full review can be found here. - 6/10
167. Modern Times (1936) - June 21st
When I watched my first Charlie Chaplin movie, The Kid, as good as I found it I couldn't attach myself to it personally. Something similar could be said for how I found City Lights, but even the coldest heart could be melted by that finale. When it came to Modern Times, I had a mind meld with it. It's the sort of movie where it took me all of five minutes to see the design of the thing and be blown away by what I saw. This is silent comedy at its finest, something that manages to convey both its humour and its slant without uttering a word while also showcasing how magnificent the effort must have been to construct it, and thanks to the era from which I write this all wonderful influences this had upon comedy in such a small space. The film is elegantly simple, just as his others were, but here it's something that finally clicked for me as I saw not just the film for what it was but also what it meant to comedy in film for the last eighty years. The factory sequence alone is everything needed to make this a literal classic, but it carries so much heart as it uses its ludicrous set ups to make for meaningful, human moments (again, this all true for Chaplin's general style, but finally seeing the visual reference of the first factory gag made me realise just how much this all means and gave me what felt like the appropriate joyous response). It's truly masterful work, and one that gets to the very essence of comedy. - 10/10
168. A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) - June 22nd
It's bizarre how inept this is. It's not like the Friday the 13th remake, where the source material was so terrible that it's essentially bad by design, or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, which while nowhere near as good as its original still had its own sense of style; this is a direct remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street that even uses explicit ideas for Freddy Krueger's character originally thought of by Wes Craven, and almost nothing about it is presented well. It's not just the story told, it's how it's told, and here we have a story that's already been told very effectively that even has a couple of really intriguing ideas that twist the impact of Freddy's origin, but the film never does anything to earn its horror moments. Despite the movie's intentions and an exceeding effort from Jackie Earle Haley, none of this movie is effectively scary and doesn't even amount to shocking at the best of times. Mara exerts a strong terrified performance, but none of the movie builds and very little of it really tries to jump, so her screams fall on uncaring ears. The only times the movie is mildly effective are whenever it actually slows down to be creepily horrifying instead of just shocking, and those moments are so few and far between that they have so little value; the match cuts don't help much either, no matter how clever the filmmakers thought they were. I'm not even entirely sure that this is better than Freddy's Dead, but I suppose this film's genre commitment and impressive effects are enough to elevate it above a horror movie that tried to turn Krueger in to a comedy cartoon character and still have him be scary. Still, this is considerably worse than its preceding series, without even the limits of era or budget to fall back on and justify its limitations. - 3.5/10
169. Macbeth (1948) - June 23rd
So Orson Welles made a Macbeth film. He did so on limited time and budget, and it shows. That said, given the source material and Welles' directorial talent, as well as the film's aforementioned constraints, this whole thing is actually pretty impressive. The performances are all very good and Welles uses a lot of clever lighting to give everything an appropriately eerie tone, and the way the camera shifts slowly over the course of the film to take Macbeth figuratively from a place of relative obscurity to one of power and back again fits solidly with the story; I especially find the ignominious way that they end Macbeth's life to be evocative, a decision that begs comparison to other interpretations of the work. The easiest comparison I can draw to is Kurzel's film version from 2015. One of the distinct differences between this version and Kurzel's is the oddly human way in which Kurzel has Macbeth self destruct, a factor that runs through the entire film, from the way we start with the grief that fuels the Macbeths' insanity to the moments leading up to Macbeth's death, which shows how haunted and complex the character can be. Welles has not nearly as much respect for the character, seemingly holding Macbeth in such contempt that he isn't even allowed a moment of understanding, defiant to the end and deserving of nothing but a quick end and a cheer for the same. This isn't a comment on which interpretation is better, just an example of how the exact same character can be interpreted in such disparate ways, something that shows how the story teller is just as important to the story's value as the story itself. - 7/10
170. The Crow: City of Angels (1996) - June 24th
A friend of mine has been daring me to check out the sequels to The Crow, one of my personal favourites, for some time now, and I finally decided to oblige him.
This is a hollow shell of its predecessor, an edgy take on something that was already teetering skillfully on the edge of too much, with a distinctly amateurish approach. It plays like a fan fiction film to the first, with a paper thin story that tries at every turn to just do what the first did again but further over the top this time. There's so little sense of the melancholy and humour that made the first one feel genuine despite its nature, and when it is employed it's done so poorly, most attempts at jokes or emotion coming across as forced or fake. It's like they tried to do everything the first film did, but instead of doing it better they assumed that just meant doing it edgier and with less feeling. Hardly the worst thing I've ever seen, but still terrible, and the fact that it seems to misunderstand the significance of why what it's emulating was well received makes it that much worse. - 3/10
Re-watches
41. Some Like it Hot (1959) - June 23rd
Yes, I'm watching this for the fourth time in under a year, this time showing it again to a group of friends. My opinion on the film hasn't changed, it's still the funniest movie I've ever seen for its incredible use of comedic irony and the like, and the 'Shell' joke is still the best singular joke ever, Jack Lemmon's performance is still one of the greats and I feel even more solid in how I've come around on Curtis and Monroe as well. If you haven't already seen this classic, do so, and if you don't find it funny, let me know and let me know why, I know comedy is subjective and I'm always curious to hear what makes people giggle. Just so that this entry isn't a total waste, the only two comedies that I'd call Some Like it Hot's competition are Dr. Strangelove and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the first of which is overall probably a better movie for its continued relevance and the second of which is one of the key comedies I loved growing up and is also a classic that only got better as I got older. If you asked me to rank these, I'd be hard pressed to do so, so I'll just say that they're all the best and call it a day. - 10/10, again and always
Sunday, 24 June 2018
Wednesday, 20 June 2018
2018 Film Review: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
Directed by: J. A. Bayona
Written by: Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall
IMDb Link
This could have been completely terrible and I'd still watch it a half dozen times; I love dinosaurs too much and there's too few movies about them in the world. As it is, the film is decent, at least a little better than its most recent predecessor, but in trying to create something more emotionally akin to the original it ended up going to extremes that were too far away from one another. There's almost three movies here; a horror, a kid's movie, and a tragedy, and while I appreciate what they were going for and where it was inspired directly by Jurassic Park, I don't think that the parts mixed well, nor that there's anything new that feels particularly noteworthy.
Three years after Jurassic World fell apart, the island itself is about to do the same; a long dormant volcano on the island has become active and is about to erupt. With funding from a heretofore unknown former partner of John Hammond, Benjamin Lockwood (played by the ever-solemn James Cromwell), and his assistant Eli Mills (Spall), Claire Dearing (Dallas Howard) sets out with Owen Grady (Pratt) and a team comprising of one paleo-veterinarian (Daniella Pineda), one systems analyst (Justice Smith), and a team of mercenaries led by Wheatley (Ted Levine) to hunt down and rescue as many species on the island as possible so that they might be moved to a sanctuary where they can be left in peace. Of course, all is not as it seems, and corporate and scientific evils perpetrated in the previous film come back to haunt the series with its silly notions of hybrids and super-weapons.
The story's strength varies, working at its best one the island largely due to theme and dropping off afterwards as it fails to find an strong response to the potential it introduces. Saving dinosaurs is an idea any fan of the franchise can get behind, so even with the inevitable turn for the worse it's hard not to respond to the manipulation at hand because the dinosaurs are the most consistently endearing characters. Beyond that, the film works best here because of how devoted it is to the impact the park has had, and the importance of leaving it behind for the sake of something new. The film promises that it remembers what was loved, and will try to find it again. Unfortunately, it takes the rest of the story for the film to get through its requisite villains and actually suggest a satisfying future for the series, and only does so once its devolved in to the same B-grade schlock that weighed its predecessor down. I'm glad that the film committed to its first idea of moving away from the park, but it doesn't seem sure of where to go from there, stalling for time with contrivances and old ideas before actually getting to what it wants to be about, which appears to be setting up for future movies. It's unfortunate that the film couldn't deliver on the imagination it promised, but thankfully, the dinosaurs are always there to make sure a scene is at least not lifeless, even if it's pointless.
Outside of the best parts of the story's mixed bag, the greatest aspects of the film are its action sequences. Driven by weight and chaos, the film lumbers and lashes with fear and fury, combining the best of what makes the dinosaurs powerful with what makes them scary for some truly exhilarating stuff. Between epic chases across fields and an excellent 'haunted house' sequence, the film has no shortage of edge-of-your-seat thrills. This is also the best looking Jurassic film to date, finally combining the right mix of real and CG to make the most important dinosaurs convincing. The film slows down a couple of times so that the dinosaurs can actually be reached out to and touched, and for a few brief moments raw, child-like wonder takes over; the dinosaurs are real again. If nothing else, the film knows how important it thinks these creatures are.
The big issues the film faces are in the tonal clashes between sequences and the poor characters.
While the thrills set front and centre keep things somewhat focused, the jumps between wonder and horror and tragedy are too large and too sudden here, feeling more as parts of different movies rather than extremes within the same. A dinosaur that shares both the film's key moment of wonder and the strongest tragic moment seems more emotional manipulation than real emotion; while I recognise that the film wants there to be gravitas to leaving the island and agree that the gravitas is deserved, the whole thing feels more mean-spirited than sad. Likewise, a bid to escape is played for some childish fun, but it spirals further and further in to cartoon territory before jumping almost immediately in to horror, with such a change only happening due to a contrived action of an undeveloped character. Much of the individual action pieces are well directed on their own, particularly those that delve in to horror, but they all feel disconnected from one another.
Additionally, just as one villain's actions lead to an awfully contrived third finale, much of the film seems to be run by people who were one moustache twirl away from being cartoons. None of the villains have any real development and their perspective is largely just "be cruel to dinosaurs"; it seems to be in service of this larger idea about cloned animals and their rights, but that idea never gets real exploration, just a slapdash "are they alive? yes" as the film trips over yet another villain to do all the bad things and get eaten for our pleasure. The deaths aren't even satisfying anymore, they're just forced despite so little investment beyond making them seem as evil as possible. The protagonists don't fair much better; none of them have any arcs and one of them was barely incidentally necessary, they're just the counter-point good to the villains' evil with a smattering of the forced love story from Jurassic World. There's ideas for good arcs that could be told by other stories, such as the deeper backstory they give to Owen that makes him retroactively more interesting or Lockwood's involvement with Hammond, but none of those are a real part of the story told here, they just make for easier turns and cheap twists.
The Short Version: Fallen Kingdom manages to offer a decent thrill ride with some genuine emotion at its core, but there's a tonal clash between the film's individual pieces; its horror moments and childish moments and heart-wrenching moments are all too far removed from one another.
Rating: 6/10
Published June 21st, 2018
Written by: Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall
IMDb Link
This could have been completely terrible and I'd still watch it a half dozen times; I love dinosaurs too much and there's too few movies about them in the world. As it is, the film is decent, at least a little better than its most recent predecessor, but in trying to create something more emotionally akin to the original it ended up going to extremes that were too far away from one another. There's almost three movies here; a horror, a kid's movie, and a tragedy, and while I appreciate what they were going for and where it was inspired directly by Jurassic Park, I don't think that the parts mixed well, nor that there's anything new that feels particularly noteworthy.
The story's strength varies, working at its best one the island largely due to theme and dropping off afterwards as it fails to find an strong response to the potential it introduces. Saving dinosaurs is an idea any fan of the franchise can get behind, so even with the inevitable turn for the worse it's hard not to respond to the manipulation at hand because the dinosaurs are the most consistently endearing characters. Beyond that, the film works best here because of how devoted it is to the impact the park has had, and the importance of leaving it behind for the sake of something new. The film promises that it remembers what was loved, and will try to find it again. Unfortunately, it takes the rest of the story for the film to get through its requisite villains and actually suggest a satisfying future for the series, and only does so once its devolved in to the same B-grade schlock that weighed its predecessor down. I'm glad that the film committed to its first idea of moving away from the park, but it doesn't seem sure of where to go from there, stalling for time with contrivances and old ideas before actually getting to what it wants to be about, which appears to be setting up for future movies. It's unfortunate that the film couldn't deliver on the imagination it promised, but thankfully, the dinosaurs are always there to make sure a scene is at least not lifeless, even if it's pointless.
Outside of the best parts of the story's mixed bag, the greatest aspects of the film are its action sequences. Driven by weight and chaos, the film lumbers and lashes with fear and fury, combining the best of what makes the dinosaurs powerful with what makes them scary for some truly exhilarating stuff. Between epic chases across fields and an excellent 'haunted house' sequence, the film has no shortage of edge-of-your-seat thrills. This is also the best looking Jurassic film to date, finally combining the right mix of real and CG to make the most important dinosaurs convincing. The film slows down a couple of times so that the dinosaurs can actually be reached out to and touched, and for a few brief moments raw, child-like wonder takes over; the dinosaurs are real again. If nothing else, the film knows how important it thinks these creatures are.
The big issues the film faces are in the tonal clashes between sequences and the poor characters.
While the thrills set front and centre keep things somewhat focused, the jumps between wonder and horror and tragedy are too large and too sudden here, feeling more as parts of different movies rather than extremes within the same. A dinosaur that shares both the film's key moment of wonder and the strongest tragic moment seems more emotional manipulation than real emotion; while I recognise that the film wants there to be gravitas to leaving the island and agree that the gravitas is deserved, the whole thing feels more mean-spirited than sad. Likewise, a bid to escape is played for some childish fun, but it spirals further and further in to cartoon territory before jumping almost immediately in to horror, with such a change only happening due to a contrived action of an undeveloped character. Much of the individual action pieces are well directed on their own, particularly those that delve in to horror, but they all feel disconnected from one another.
Additionally, just as one villain's actions lead to an awfully contrived third finale, much of the film seems to be run by people who were one moustache twirl away from being cartoons. None of the villains have any real development and their perspective is largely just "be cruel to dinosaurs"; it seems to be in service of this larger idea about cloned animals and their rights, but that idea never gets real exploration, just a slapdash "are they alive? yes" as the film trips over yet another villain to do all the bad things and get eaten for our pleasure. The deaths aren't even satisfying anymore, they're just forced despite so little investment beyond making them seem as evil as possible. The protagonists don't fair much better; none of them have any arcs and one of them was barely incidentally necessary, they're just the counter-point good to the villains' evil with a smattering of the forced love story from Jurassic World. There's ideas for good arcs that could be told by other stories, such as the deeper backstory they give to Owen that makes him retroactively more interesting or Lockwood's involvement with Hammond, but none of those are a real part of the story told here, they just make for easier turns and cheap twists.
The Short Version: Fallen Kingdom manages to offer a decent thrill ride with some genuine emotion at its core, but there's a tonal clash between the film's individual pieces; its horror moments and childish moments and heart-wrenching moments are all too far removed from one another.
Rating: 6/10
Published June 21st, 2018
Sunday, 17 June 2018
2018: A Fortnight of Movies - June 4th to June 17th
With exams under way I had to roll this back in to another fortnight installment and rush half of the entries on this list, but once again that's why half the movies on this list are bad and/or sequels: they're easier to write about because there's less going on. That said, there are just as many good or even great movies that I watched over the last two weeks, and I feel like I was able to say something of substance about at least a couple of them. As always, follow the link if you want a summary of the plot.
149. Constantine (2005) - June 4th
Peter Stormare shows up in everything, apparently. Not that I'm complaining, it's just surprising the number of movies I go in to with no background on the cast and he just happens to be here.
Gothic-noir classic it ain't, but Constantine is the sort of film I can't help but like largely due to how much a younger me would've lost his mind over it. It reminds me of films like The Crow (though Constantine isn't as good); a great soundtrack, Gothic imagery, and more edge than a razor blade factory, Constantine seems to want to create the same sort of atmosphere. In some scenes this works (mostly in the second half right up until the finale, where Constantine uses edge to show the devil that camp is the true way), and even when it doesn't I have to credit the film for keeping up the consistency. The film is as perpetually angry as its main character, and actually changes as he does, even when that causes a tonal clash, so as much as I don't think some of it works I appreciate the commitment to the goal. It helps that when the film becomes irrevocably cheesy that the principle actors guiding those scenes are Tilda Swinton and Peter Stormare; Swinton can do anything, but most importantly here she can be exactly as over the top as she needs to be, and Stormare is just permanently over the top and shapes the movie around him to suit. Even as the film ramps up in its absolutely insane last moments and seems to go off the rails, the two actors are encapsulating enough in their performances for us to not really mind that the plot and tone have gone all over the place. It's a solid film, with a great cast and a lot of style, which allows it to get by just fine. - 6/10
150. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989) - June 5th
The Nightmare series has always had more going on the the average horror series, so even when this is the worst one I've seen yet, it's still better than most bad horror sequels by a decent margin just by maintaining the series' signature creativity and memorability when it comes to body horror. That said, it is still the worst Nightmare I've seen yet (though Freddy's Dead and the remake are still on the horizon), largely because the plot and theming are so conflicted and the performances are barely serviceable at the best of times (obviously this is Nightmare so a bit of off the cuff cheesy acting as comedy is par for the course, but that doesn't make it all intentional). If the acting worked and the issues of the film weren't hackneyed and far too wrapped up in the supernatural stuff to be truly coherent, the blue filter and Gothic tone might actually work for more than just aesthetics, but as it is the film is just awesome grotesque visuals and weak everything else. - 4.5/10
151. Videodrome (1983) - June 6th
I'm still not entirely sure what I watched.
This is like a bad nightmare as a cautionary tale, a commentary on the dangers of mass media that's effective because it feels dangerous to my health. Exploring the impact of media and media consumption through Cronenberg's uniquely disturbing lens, Videodrome also sees one of James Woods' best performances of his career. The film is designed to mess with you as it does with Woods' sleazy Max, and Woods' performance is genuine enough to amplify the impact of the weirder aspects of the film. It's strange, and painful, and the sort of film you wish upon no-one but can't help recommend. When James Woods' torso turning in to a video cassette isn't even the most disturbing thing to happen, it's hard not to be so engrossed as to suggest seeing it. - 7/10
152. Hereditary (2018) - June 7th
Straight-up, this is the best horror movie in years. It's so calculated and atmospheric, a slow-burn with the goal of wrenching the control a viewers feels away from them, so starkly uncomfortable and yet hypnotic. My full review can be found here. - 9/10
153. Blue Jasmine (2013) - June 8th
Cate Blanchett does some of her best work in this Woody Allen flick that's considerably darker than his usual schtick. This movie has a lot of Allen's marks, from the way it uses its location as a character, to the verbose conversations the characters have with one another, but it's all framed with a story that's heavier than I would expect from him, ending a note that is, regardless of how much you might dislike Jasmine, pitiable. That said, a lot of the sympathy I have for the character at story and at wit's end is probably derived from the fact that Cate Blanchett is perfect and that this is one of her best performances (second only to Carol, in retrospect, but I saw Carol first); she makes the character so human, suggesting a greater complexity to everything that she says and does, exhibiting real fear and anger and poorly hidden insecurity. Jasmine makes a lot of poor choices because she thinks she needs the high life to survive, and despite her best efforts can't get back there on her own, as she slowly comes to grips with her new place in the world, and can't stand it. Were she played with any less skill she'd be little more than a spoiled brat, but Blanchett begs for understanding as she searches for a life saver, her economic condition and the reaction to it treated something akin to her mental state. It's in the writing and direction, too; Allen lingers when we need to see her weakness and offers some clever wordplay to reinforce a thematic connection between Jasmine's deteriorating sanity and the loss of her high life. There's also no shortage of talent around Blanchett for her to play off of, with Sally Hawkins and Alec Baldwin offering the best roles for Jasmine to contrast with. If you didn't get the hint already, this is worth seeing because Blanchett is perfect, but it's also really well written and acted by everyone involved. - 8/10
154. UHF (1989) - June 9th
A Weird Al 80s movie that's at once a satire of 80s movies and a feel good 80s movie in and of itself seems like a recipe for excellence, but this is a largely middling affair with comedy that lands lame more often than funny. I appreciate the energy Al and everyone involved applies, even to the formulaic nature of the story, but as pure comedy this is the definition of hit-or-miss, with the misses thankfully being simple bland and inoffensive as opposed to aggressively unfunny. Still, the funniest part of this to me was that I somehow managed to watch two 80s movies about UHF TV stations in one week, I hadn't originally planned on that at all. - 5/10
155. A Wrinkle in Time (2018) - June 9th
... I mean, Reese Witherspoon turning in to flying lettuce isn't even the weirdest thing that happens in this movie.
I have to give the makers of this movie credit for their earnest approach to a kid's movie; for all its freewheeling plot points, precocious kid stuff, and heavily on-the-nose dialogue that substitutes actually feeling for simply telling us how to feel, the film is clearly designed to attempt a childlike wonder with these traits, something made purely for kids. It's not particularly successful at this, as it largely feels emotionally empty (save for the reunion between Meg and her father, which gets undercut by his next actions) but still, give credit for trying, and with all the flashy visuals, it at least looks good, and shares a handful of good scenes (the back and forth between Galifianakis and Witherspoon was great, and the darkness montage showed at least as much as it told). It's a shame, too, because these flashes of inspiration and visual essence suggest what could have been a better film; something great when all we got was serviceable. - 5/10
156. Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) - June 11th
Freddy Kruger, horror icon, has been turned in to Wile E. Coyote.
This movie tries so hard to be funny while still wanting to find the time to be creepy without earning that mix. It plays like one of the newer Texas Chainsaw movies, giving an unnecessary background to try and humanise a character who has been mercilessly and gleefully murdering scores of people in increasingly grotesque and creative ways, but here it's even worse because they decide to juxtapose it with macabre comedy sketches that feel like a bad Looney Tunes ripoff. Seriously, Freddy drops a guy in a dream, and then pushes a set of spikes to wear the guy will land, and they even take the time to let Freddy act out of breath and then look at the camera before brutally impaling the guy. It's such a tonally dissonant mess, wanting horror and comedy but failing at both and having no idea how to mix them. Freddy's Dead doesn't even have the redeeming creativity of its predecessors, the kills and designs are largely flat and boring (save for a couple, but that's part of why this isn't rated lower). This is really terrible, and I feel bad for calling The Dream Child the worst Nightmare on Elm Street. - 3/10
157. Midnight in Paris (2011) - June 12th
A film as soft as cheese, Midnight in Paris is hardly Allen's most revelatory movie, but the combination of whimsy and nostalgia revealing itself to be no better than what we have now is an idea that I appreciate; recognising the past as past, realising that what we see it as through our nostalgia is little more than an idealised fantasy, and learning to see the good in the present around us, it's all good stuff that isn't exactly discovery of the century but is still valuable enough a thing that everyone should hear at least once in their life. Owen Wilson plays the part of the Woody Allen type very well, in fact he's more pleasant overall for the lack of paranoia and neuroses; he's more sympathetic, intentionally played to how he's written as an over-romantic (and therefore naive) sap. It's nice how that progresses over the course of the movie in to something more nuanced, and how that plays off of the simple caricatures of characters around him. - 7.5/10
158. Encounters at the End of the World (2007) - June 13th
Herzog documentaries are always great, careful and sober examinations of incredible locations and the people who put themselves there; Encounters is much the same. I love how much of himself he puts in to his work, the eagerness to get out in to the Antarctic wilderness, the respectful approach to everyone else's perspective, the willingness to learn and see the appreciation of the world through other people's eyes, it's all so consistent across his work, offering insight in to such small and remote places with immutable enthusiasm ponderous nihilism. Herzog offers such particular slices of life with work like this, the humanity of it all, and his quiet dignity lulls you in to a calm that helps you accept the journey he takes you on as your own. - 8/10
159. Incredibles 2 (2018) - June 14th
When your predecessor is one of the greatest animated films of all time, being not quite as good as a sequel still makes for an excellent movie. My full review can be found here. - 8/10
160. Earth Girls Are Easy (1988) - June 15th
Oh my goodness this is so dumb and I love it. Seriously, an 80s musical starring Geena Davis, Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans about a manicurist that catches her husband cheating right before three weird aliens crash land in her swimming pool and change her life; how have I not seen this before? This is light as a feather, absurd and strange, and utterly enjoyable for how silly it all is. There's some themes of security versus freedom at the personal level as Val (Davis) comes to terms with whether or not she can forgive her husband and how she feels about alien Mac (Goldblum), and a few shallow comments on sexuality and the culture thereof, but the stuff is simply entertaining for how silly it all is in its approach; the fact that Carrey gets a long tongue and Wayans tears up the dance floor should be enough of an indication without spoiling how weird this movie gets with it. It's also pretty consistently funny, depending on how tickled you are by the odd impersonations the alien trio make and a little situational irony. I definitely recommend this movie, but I'm not sure who I'd recommend it to. It's like over-saturated bubble gum, marshmallow and cookie dough ice cream; clearly way too much and hardly good for you, but something that's so clearly over the top that you have to give it a try just to find out how much. - 6/10
161. Upgrade (2018) - June 16th
An unoriginal film with unique spins on familiar ideas that's also very well directed. My full review can be found here. - 7/10
162. F the Prom (2017) - June 16th
This is the third movie I've seen that originated from a YouTuber, and while it's not as incessantly offensive as Not Cool (though in retrospect, it's way closer to Not Cool in terms of humour than any film should be) nor as entirely niche and unfunny as Smosh: The Movie (I only laughed once at a joke in Smosh, and it was the very last joke, whereas F the Prom managed to squeeze two whole chuckles out of me), the pedestal from which it preaches makes F the Prom the YouTube culture equivalent to the likes of such movies as God's Not Dead; that is to say, it's so inept at conveying its own points in any way that can be taken seriously because the film tries way too hard to force them without giving them a believable or relatable context. I'd go so far as to say it's even worse than the likes of God's Not Dead, because as laughably bad as those movies are, they at least take themselves consistently seriously; F the Prom uses intentionally extreme caricatures to make cheap and unfunny jokes and then tries to either straw man those same characters in a weak effort to have some sort of point or rip the film's characters out of their comedic context altogether for an unearned dramatic moment. Nothing about this film sticks, it just tries a hundred different ways to tell about five different jokes that weren't funny the first time while trying to appeal to internet culture with a poorly realised #message that amounts to little more than "high school sucks sometimes and technology has made some aspects of it worse." The film even ends with a hashtag to try and be trendy. That sort of statement is not only incredibly shallow and hardly unobserved, it also has no impact in this case because F the Prom spends the rest of the movie trying to make terrible jokes out of the caricatures it specifically overdoes for the sake of making terrible jokes. This is probably the worst movie I've seen all year, and I'm glad to say that it's so bad I think I've dug as deep as I can go in 2018. - 1/10
163. Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000) - June 17th
With this I've seen every Godzilla film released up to this point (except City on the Edge of Battle, which isn't available in Australia yet). To be completely honest, this isn't exactly a high note to end it on, but with Godzilla: King of the Monsters coming out next year and Godzilla vs. Kong soon after, as well as the continued release of Toho films, it won't be the end for long. It's a good time to be a Godzilla fan.
As for Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, a little context first. While the Showa era produced an embodiment of the nation's pain and turned it in to a commercial enterprise primarily aimed at children and the Heisei era created a serial that was at once about Godzilla's impact and a meta commentary on the impact of the Godzilla franchise (side note: this is the sort of thing Star Wars is doing right now with its sequel trilogy so I fully expect that to take Marvel's focus after they're done with the Infinity War arc), the Millennium era was a simple anthology series that experimented with the concept of Godzilla. None of the movies in this series are connected in any way, each one instead behaving as if it were the sole sequel to the original film, and as a result they each had the opportunity to play around with the Godzilla property without having to adhere to any rules set up by previous installments (with one exception; Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla was successful enough to warrant a sequel). As a result, it produced a handful of films that are essentially a bunch of Godzilla's greatest hits, with some of them playing with old familiar ideas in new ways, and others trying to do what we know a little better than before.
Megaguirus is one of the latter, mostly re-treading familiar concepts for a Godzilla movie with little mix-up, aside from using a couple of goofy horror tropes for Godzilla's titular opponent and showing off a different kind of disaster that can be caused by such creatures. It's not bad, in fact its production value is quite high for a Godzilla movie and its themes and plot, if unoriginal, are at least produced competently, it's just that after thirty-two films there's nothing that really sets this apart; there's no themes or concepts that feel particularly new and Megaguirus is hardly memorable, so we're left with something that's slightly better than okay. The closest it gets to standing apart from its kin is with its human story, which has actual personal motivation related to Godzilla placed with a character capable of doing something about it; apart from that, it's just business as usual. - 5.5/10
Re-watches
39. Hellboy (2004) - June 7th
Del Toro is just the best, and while Hellboy isn't as good as Hellboy II, it's still a damn good movie that shows off the best of del Toro's stylistic attributes and Ron Perlman's acting abilities. The characters and mysticism are all really bizarre, but these attributes are approached with such glee that they work; there's no pretense here, just a joyful take on a lot of weird stuff made accessible by the enthusiasm of those who create it. It's like a metaphor for Hellboy himself; something with an abstract background made human by those around it; eldritch horrors and literal demonic origins doesn't stop him from being more than what he started as, and the potential negative impressions of those strange concepts upon an audience are nullified by just how well Perlman plays him and how human del Toro portrays him. - 7/10
40. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) - June 8th
A few things before I get in to this. First, I grew up reading the books and as a pedantic child obviously cared way too much about the lore and the differences between the books and the movies. Second, this is the best Harry Potter movie by a decent margin. Third, the time travel stuff makes sense and doesn't open up any 'plot holes', it just doesn't use the same time travel theory as the likes of, for example, Back to the Future; it's a stable causative reality loop, not something you can just go back and change over and over (as an aside, I hate how much poor or incorrect use of the term 'plot hole' has proliferated: a plot hole isn't about having 'enough' information, it's about having conflicting information. In the case of Azkaban, even if you could go back in time and change things any time you wanted with a Time Turner, the fact that they didn't isn't a plot hole, and to suggest that it is one is lazy, obtuse, and invalid criticism).
Anyway, Prisoner of Azkaban is the best Harry Potter movie for a few reasons. The film is the transition between its whimsical predecessors and the darker, more mature follow-ups, and as a result it gets the best of both worlds, able to play things incredibly heavy without feeling disconnected from what came before; it can have really horrifying moments (before everyone started dying, the scene where the Dementors try to suck out Sirius' soul was the darkest moment by far) and a painfully bittersweet ending, but still find the time to goof around and really remind us of the friendly humanity that helped endear us to so many of the characters in the first place (Harry messing with Malfoy in the snow is a really solid scene that reinforces the connection between Harry, Ron and Hermione, and the 'execution' scene is so damn hilarious the second time around). The film has basically everything that people love about the Harry Potter series contained in the one movie, and in the hands of bad filmmakers that might've turned Azkaban in to a tonal mess, but thankfully this was put together by people who know and care enough about what they're to doing to make something great.
Alfonso Cuaron's directorial skill elevated the visual style and communication of the series, and enhanced the source material in the process. So much more in this movie can be understood visually, from specific details such as the tension between Ron and Hermione (seriously, the rest of the series mostly forgets this until it's time to make it actually happen, whereas this movies references it over and over again) to the more general consistency of utilising long takes to economically convey information while re-framing ideas as they're explored through dialogue without having to cut (my favourite example of this is at the Leaky Cauldron when Arthur Weasley takes Harry aside to talk about Siruis Black; the way they shift constantly and become more secretive while the film always put Black at the centre is really good work). This film goes above and beyond what was expected of it, and sets a standard that never quite gets met again for the rest of the series. - 8/10
149. Constantine (2005) - June 4th
Peter Stormare shows up in everything, apparently. Not that I'm complaining, it's just surprising the number of movies I go in to with no background on the cast and he just happens to be here.
Gothic-noir classic it ain't, but Constantine is the sort of film I can't help but like largely due to how much a younger me would've lost his mind over it. It reminds me of films like The Crow (though Constantine isn't as good); a great soundtrack, Gothic imagery, and more edge than a razor blade factory, Constantine seems to want to create the same sort of atmosphere. In some scenes this works (mostly in the second half right up until the finale, where Constantine uses edge to show the devil that camp is the true way), and even when it doesn't I have to credit the film for keeping up the consistency. The film is as perpetually angry as its main character, and actually changes as he does, even when that causes a tonal clash, so as much as I don't think some of it works I appreciate the commitment to the goal. It helps that when the film becomes irrevocably cheesy that the principle actors guiding those scenes are Tilda Swinton and Peter Stormare; Swinton can do anything, but most importantly here she can be exactly as over the top as she needs to be, and Stormare is just permanently over the top and shapes the movie around him to suit. Even as the film ramps up in its absolutely insane last moments and seems to go off the rails, the two actors are encapsulating enough in their performances for us to not really mind that the plot and tone have gone all over the place. It's a solid film, with a great cast and a lot of style, which allows it to get by just fine. - 6/10
150. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989) - June 5th
The Nightmare series has always had more going on the the average horror series, so even when this is the worst one I've seen yet, it's still better than most bad horror sequels by a decent margin just by maintaining the series' signature creativity and memorability when it comes to body horror. That said, it is still the worst Nightmare I've seen yet (though Freddy's Dead and the remake are still on the horizon), largely because the plot and theming are so conflicted and the performances are barely serviceable at the best of times (obviously this is Nightmare so a bit of off the cuff cheesy acting as comedy is par for the course, but that doesn't make it all intentional). If the acting worked and the issues of the film weren't hackneyed and far too wrapped up in the supernatural stuff to be truly coherent, the blue filter and Gothic tone might actually work for more than just aesthetics, but as it is the film is just awesome grotesque visuals and weak everything else. - 4.5/10
151. Videodrome (1983) - June 6th
I'm still not entirely sure what I watched.
This is like a bad nightmare as a cautionary tale, a commentary on the dangers of mass media that's effective because it feels dangerous to my health. Exploring the impact of media and media consumption through Cronenberg's uniquely disturbing lens, Videodrome also sees one of James Woods' best performances of his career. The film is designed to mess with you as it does with Woods' sleazy Max, and Woods' performance is genuine enough to amplify the impact of the weirder aspects of the film. It's strange, and painful, and the sort of film you wish upon no-one but can't help recommend. When James Woods' torso turning in to a video cassette isn't even the most disturbing thing to happen, it's hard not to be so engrossed as to suggest seeing it. - 7/10
152. Hereditary (2018) - June 7th
Straight-up, this is the best horror movie in years. It's so calculated and atmospheric, a slow-burn with the goal of wrenching the control a viewers feels away from them, so starkly uncomfortable and yet hypnotic. My full review can be found here. - 9/10
153. Blue Jasmine (2013) - June 8th
Cate Blanchett does some of her best work in this Woody Allen flick that's considerably darker than his usual schtick. This movie has a lot of Allen's marks, from the way it uses its location as a character, to the verbose conversations the characters have with one another, but it's all framed with a story that's heavier than I would expect from him, ending a note that is, regardless of how much you might dislike Jasmine, pitiable. That said, a lot of the sympathy I have for the character at story and at wit's end is probably derived from the fact that Cate Blanchett is perfect and that this is one of her best performances (second only to Carol, in retrospect, but I saw Carol first); she makes the character so human, suggesting a greater complexity to everything that she says and does, exhibiting real fear and anger and poorly hidden insecurity. Jasmine makes a lot of poor choices because she thinks she needs the high life to survive, and despite her best efforts can't get back there on her own, as she slowly comes to grips with her new place in the world, and can't stand it. Were she played with any less skill she'd be little more than a spoiled brat, but Blanchett begs for understanding as she searches for a life saver, her economic condition and the reaction to it treated something akin to her mental state. It's in the writing and direction, too; Allen lingers when we need to see her weakness and offers some clever wordplay to reinforce a thematic connection between Jasmine's deteriorating sanity and the loss of her high life. There's also no shortage of talent around Blanchett for her to play off of, with Sally Hawkins and Alec Baldwin offering the best roles for Jasmine to contrast with. If you didn't get the hint already, this is worth seeing because Blanchett is perfect, but it's also really well written and acted by everyone involved. - 8/10
154. UHF (1989) - June 9th
A Weird Al 80s movie that's at once a satire of 80s movies and a feel good 80s movie in and of itself seems like a recipe for excellence, but this is a largely middling affair with comedy that lands lame more often than funny. I appreciate the energy Al and everyone involved applies, even to the formulaic nature of the story, but as pure comedy this is the definition of hit-or-miss, with the misses thankfully being simple bland and inoffensive as opposed to aggressively unfunny. Still, the funniest part of this to me was that I somehow managed to watch two 80s movies about UHF TV stations in one week, I hadn't originally planned on that at all. - 5/10
155. A Wrinkle in Time (2018) - June 9th
... I mean, Reese Witherspoon turning in to flying lettuce isn't even the weirdest thing that happens in this movie.
I have to give the makers of this movie credit for their earnest approach to a kid's movie; for all its freewheeling plot points, precocious kid stuff, and heavily on-the-nose dialogue that substitutes actually feeling for simply telling us how to feel, the film is clearly designed to attempt a childlike wonder with these traits, something made purely for kids. It's not particularly successful at this, as it largely feels emotionally empty (save for the reunion between Meg and her father, which gets undercut by his next actions) but still, give credit for trying, and with all the flashy visuals, it at least looks good, and shares a handful of good scenes (the back and forth between Galifianakis and Witherspoon was great, and the darkness montage showed at least as much as it told). It's a shame, too, because these flashes of inspiration and visual essence suggest what could have been a better film; something great when all we got was serviceable. - 5/10
156. Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) - June 11th
Freddy Kruger, horror icon, has been turned in to Wile E. Coyote.
This movie tries so hard to be funny while still wanting to find the time to be creepy without earning that mix. It plays like one of the newer Texas Chainsaw movies, giving an unnecessary background to try and humanise a character who has been mercilessly and gleefully murdering scores of people in increasingly grotesque and creative ways, but here it's even worse because they decide to juxtapose it with macabre comedy sketches that feel like a bad Looney Tunes ripoff. Seriously, Freddy drops a guy in a dream, and then pushes a set of spikes to wear the guy will land, and they even take the time to let Freddy act out of breath and then look at the camera before brutally impaling the guy. It's such a tonally dissonant mess, wanting horror and comedy but failing at both and having no idea how to mix them. Freddy's Dead doesn't even have the redeeming creativity of its predecessors, the kills and designs are largely flat and boring (save for a couple, but that's part of why this isn't rated lower). This is really terrible, and I feel bad for calling The Dream Child the worst Nightmare on Elm Street. - 3/10
157. Midnight in Paris (2011) - June 12th
A film as soft as cheese, Midnight in Paris is hardly Allen's most revelatory movie, but the combination of whimsy and nostalgia revealing itself to be no better than what we have now is an idea that I appreciate; recognising the past as past, realising that what we see it as through our nostalgia is little more than an idealised fantasy, and learning to see the good in the present around us, it's all good stuff that isn't exactly discovery of the century but is still valuable enough a thing that everyone should hear at least once in their life. Owen Wilson plays the part of the Woody Allen type very well, in fact he's more pleasant overall for the lack of paranoia and neuroses; he's more sympathetic, intentionally played to how he's written as an over-romantic (and therefore naive) sap. It's nice how that progresses over the course of the movie in to something more nuanced, and how that plays off of the simple caricatures of characters around him. - 7.5/10
158. Encounters at the End of the World (2007) - June 13th
Herzog documentaries are always great, careful and sober examinations of incredible locations and the people who put themselves there; Encounters is much the same. I love how much of himself he puts in to his work, the eagerness to get out in to the Antarctic wilderness, the respectful approach to everyone else's perspective, the willingness to learn and see the appreciation of the world through other people's eyes, it's all so consistent across his work, offering insight in to such small and remote places with immutable enthusiasm ponderous nihilism. Herzog offers such particular slices of life with work like this, the humanity of it all, and his quiet dignity lulls you in to a calm that helps you accept the journey he takes you on as your own. - 8/10
159. Incredibles 2 (2018) - June 14th
When your predecessor is one of the greatest animated films of all time, being not quite as good as a sequel still makes for an excellent movie. My full review can be found here. - 8/10
160. Earth Girls Are Easy (1988) - June 15th
Oh my goodness this is so dumb and I love it. Seriously, an 80s musical starring Geena Davis, Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans about a manicurist that catches her husband cheating right before three weird aliens crash land in her swimming pool and change her life; how have I not seen this before? This is light as a feather, absurd and strange, and utterly enjoyable for how silly it all is. There's some themes of security versus freedom at the personal level as Val (Davis) comes to terms with whether or not she can forgive her husband and how she feels about alien Mac (Goldblum), and a few shallow comments on sexuality and the culture thereof, but the stuff is simply entertaining for how silly it all is in its approach; the fact that Carrey gets a long tongue and Wayans tears up the dance floor should be enough of an indication without spoiling how weird this movie gets with it. It's also pretty consistently funny, depending on how tickled you are by the odd impersonations the alien trio make and a little situational irony. I definitely recommend this movie, but I'm not sure who I'd recommend it to. It's like over-saturated bubble gum, marshmallow and cookie dough ice cream; clearly way too much and hardly good for you, but something that's so clearly over the top that you have to give it a try just to find out how much. - 6/10
161. Upgrade (2018) - June 16th
An unoriginal film with unique spins on familiar ideas that's also very well directed. My full review can be found here. - 7/10
162. F the Prom (2017) - June 16th
This is the third movie I've seen that originated from a YouTuber, and while it's not as incessantly offensive as Not Cool (though in retrospect, it's way closer to Not Cool in terms of humour than any film should be) nor as entirely niche and unfunny as Smosh: The Movie (I only laughed once at a joke in Smosh, and it was the very last joke, whereas F the Prom managed to squeeze two whole chuckles out of me), the pedestal from which it preaches makes F the Prom the YouTube culture equivalent to the likes of such movies as God's Not Dead; that is to say, it's so inept at conveying its own points in any way that can be taken seriously because the film tries way too hard to force them without giving them a believable or relatable context. I'd go so far as to say it's even worse than the likes of God's Not Dead, because as laughably bad as those movies are, they at least take themselves consistently seriously; F the Prom uses intentionally extreme caricatures to make cheap and unfunny jokes and then tries to either straw man those same characters in a weak effort to have some sort of point or rip the film's characters out of their comedic context altogether for an unearned dramatic moment. Nothing about this film sticks, it just tries a hundred different ways to tell about five different jokes that weren't funny the first time while trying to appeal to internet culture with a poorly realised #message that amounts to little more than "high school sucks sometimes and technology has made some aspects of it worse." The film even ends with a hashtag to try and be trendy. That sort of statement is not only incredibly shallow and hardly unobserved, it also has no impact in this case because F the Prom spends the rest of the movie trying to make terrible jokes out of the caricatures it specifically overdoes for the sake of making terrible jokes. This is probably the worst movie I've seen all year, and I'm glad to say that it's so bad I think I've dug as deep as I can go in 2018. - 1/10
163. Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000) - June 17th
With this I've seen every Godzilla film released up to this point (except City on the Edge of Battle, which isn't available in Australia yet). To be completely honest, this isn't exactly a high note to end it on, but with Godzilla: King of the Monsters coming out next year and Godzilla vs. Kong soon after, as well as the continued release of Toho films, it won't be the end for long. It's a good time to be a Godzilla fan.
As for Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, a little context first. While the Showa era produced an embodiment of the nation's pain and turned it in to a commercial enterprise primarily aimed at children and the Heisei era created a serial that was at once about Godzilla's impact and a meta commentary on the impact of the Godzilla franchise (side note: this is the sort of thing Star Wars is doing right now with its sequel trilogy so I fully expect that to take Marvel's focus after they're done with the Infinity War arc), the Millennium era was a simple anthology series that experimented with the concept of Godzilla. None of the movies in this series are connected in any way, each one instead behaving as if it were the sole sequel to the original film, and as a result they each had the opportunity to play around with the Godzilla property without having to adhere to any rules set up by previous installments (with one exception; Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla was successful enough to warrant a sequel). As a result, it produced a handful of films that are essentially a bunch of Godzilla's greatest hits, with some of them playing with old familiar ideas in new ways, and others trying to do what we know a little better than before.
Megaguirus is one of the latter, mostly re-treading familiar concepts for a Godzilla movie with little mix-up, aside from using a couple of goofy horror tropes for Godzilla's titular opponent and showing off a different kind of disaster that can be caused by such creatures. It's not bad, in fact its production value is quite high for a Godzilla movie and its themes and plot, if unoriginal, are at least produced competently, it's just that after thirty-two films there's nothing that really sets this apart; there's no themes or concepts that feel particularly new and Megaguirus is hardly memorable, so we're left with something that's slightly better than okay. The closest it gets to standing apart from its kin is with its human story, which has actual personal motivation related to Godzilla placed with a character capable of doing something about it; apart from that, it's just business as usual. - 5.5/10
Re-watches
39. Hellboy (2004) - June 7th
Del Toro is just the best, and while Hellboy isn't as good as Hellboy II, it's still a damn good movie that shows off the best of del Toro's stylistic attributes and Ron Perlman's acting abilities. The characters and mysticism are all really bizarre, but these attributes are approached with such glee that they work; there's no pretense here, just a joyful take on a lot of weird stuff made accessible by the enthusiasm of those who create it. It's like a metaphor for Hellboy himself; something with an abstract background made human by those around it; eldritch horrors and literal demonic origins doesn't stop him from being more than what he started as, and the potential negative impressions of those strange concepts upon an audience are nullified by just how well Perlman plays him and how human del Toro portrays him. - 7/10
40. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) - June 8th
A few things before I get in to this. First, I grew up reading the books and as a pedantic child obviously cared way too much about the lore and the differences between the books and the movies. Second, this is the best Harry Potter movie by a decent margin. Third, the time travel stuff makes sense and doesn't open up any 'plot holes', it just doesn't use the same time travel theory as the likes of, for example, Back to the Future; it's a stable causative reality loop, not something you can just go back and change over and over (as an aside, I hate how much poor or incorrect use of the term 'plot hole' has proliferated: a plot hole isn't about having 'enough' information, it's about having conflicting information. In the case of Azkaban, even if you could go back in time and change things any time you wanted with a Time Turner, the fact that they didn't isn't a plot hole, and to suggest that it is one is lazy, obtuse, and invalid criticism).
Anyway, Prisoner of Azkaban is the best Harry Potter movie for a few reasons. The film is the transition between its whimsical predecessors and the darker, more mature follow-ups, and as a result it gets the best of both worlds, able to play things incredibly heavy without feeling disconnected from what came before; it can have really horrifying moments (before everyone started dying, the scene where the Dementors try to suck out Sirius' soul was the darkest moment by far) and a painfully bittersweet ending, but still find the time to goof around and really remind us of the friendly humanity that helped endear us to so many of the characters in the first place (Harry messing with Malfoy in the snow is a really solid scene that reinforces the connection between Harry, Ron and Hermione, and the 'execution' scene is so damn hilarious the second time around). The film has basically everything that people love about the Harry Potter series contained in the one movie, and in the hands of bad filmmakers that might've turned Azkaban in to a tonal mess, but thankfully this was put together by people who know and care enough about what they're to doing to make something great.
Alfonso Cuaron's directorial skill elevated the visual style and communication of the series, and enhanced the source material in the process. So much more in this movie can be understood visually, from specific details such as the tension between Ron and Hermione (seriously, the rest of the series mostly forgets this until it's time to make it actually happen, whereas this movies references it over and over again) to the more general consistency of utilising long takes to economically convey information while re-framing ideas as they're explored through dialogue without having to cut (my favourite example of this is at the Leaky Cauldron when Arthur Weasley takes Harry aside to talk about Siruis Black; the way they shift constantly and become more secretive while the film always put Black at the centre is really good work). This film goes above and beyond what was expected of it, and sets a standard that never quite gets met again for the rest of the series. - 8/10
Saturday, 16 June 2018
2018 Film Review: Upgrade (2018)
Directed by: Leigh Whannell
Written by: Leigh Whannell
Starring: Logan Marshall-Green, Simon Maiden, Betty Gabriel
IMDb Link
None of the ideas in Upgrade are particularly new, but it puts a somewhat original spin on them with its approach, and does so alongside some savage and superbly shot action sequences.
Grey (Marshall-Green, giving an overall very good performance helped by his slavish attention to robotic motion) is a technophobe mechanic in a surveillance state run by electronics whose life is ruined when an accident and subsequent attack leave his wife dead and him paralysed from below the neck. Grey is approached by the head of a tech company to be implanted with STEM, an artificial intelligence that can move for him, and after the procedure seeks out the men who murdered his wife. It's a fairly straightforward revenge plot set inside a darkly twisted techno-dystopia, one that shows cynical limitations of total surveillance and playfully toys with fears about A.I., the future, and the nature of control versus freedom and the impact technology can have. Most of the beats in the story are completely expected, but get by on execution; if the film isn't planting the seeds for the darker ideas it suggests with its world, it's taking the required action sequences and turning them masterfully.
Seriously, the action sequences in this film are great, moving and rotating the camera with Grey/STEM's own movement but maintaining a steady hand so that it never gets disorienting. The camera moves and jolts and rolls with every punch thrown and every tumble taken, and not a single beat is dropped as the film dashes from point to point with a skill and energy that outstrips the general by-the-numbers plot; every expected scene transcends expectations largely because of how well directed it is.
One another important factor that's done well here is the interplay between Grey and STEM. The two have a hilariously dark back and forth fueled by the grim nature of their relationship and the extent of STEM's capabilities, and it adds to both the themes and the plot of the film. It's symbiotic, and we see despite all that it can do exactly what STEM's limitations are, and it makes for small but significant alterations to the implications of the plot as it progresses; the film plays to and then ever so lightly twists tried and true concepts about the nature of A.I. as it's represented in science fiction, and while it's not enough to feel like an entirely satisfying exploration of the change-up, it's still a welcome attempt.
The Short Version: Upgrade is as inventive as it is formulaic, putting effective and intriguing twists on familiar themes and ideas that combine with creatively shot action and a streak of dry humour to make for a brutally memorable experience.
Rating: 7/10
Published June 17th, 2018
Written by: Leigh Whannell
Starring: Logan Marshall-Green, Simon Maiden, Betty Gabriel
IMDb Link
None of the ideas in Upgrade are particularly new, but it puts a somewhat original spin on them with its approach, and does so alongside some savage and superbly shot action sequences.
Seriously, the action sequences in this film are great, moving and rotating the camera with Grey/STEM's own movement but maintaining a steady hand so that it never gets disorienting. The camera moves and jolts and rolls with every punch thrown and every tumble taken, and not a single beat is dropped as the film dashes from point to point with a skill and energy that outstrips the general by-the-numbers plot; every expected scene transcends expectations largely because of how well directed it is.
One another important factor that's done well here is the interplay between Grey and STEM. The two have a hilariously dark back and forth fueled by the grim nature of their relationship and the extent of STEM's capabilities, and it adds to both the themes and the plot of the film. It's symbiotic, and we see despite all that it can do exactly what STEM's limitations are, and it makes for small but significant alterations to the implications of the plot as it progresses; the film plays to and then ever so lightly twists tried and true concepts about the nature of A.I. as it's represented in science fiction, and while it's not enough to feel like an entirely satisfying exploration of the change-up, it's still a welcome attempt.
The Short Version: Upgrade is as inventive as it is formulaic, putting effective and intriguing twists on familiar themes and ideas that combine with creatively shot action and a streak of dry humour to make for a brutally memorable experience.
Rating: 7/10
Published June 17th, 2018
Thursday, 14 June 2018
2018 Film Review: Incredibles 2 (2018)
Directed by: Brad Bird
Written by: Brad Bird
Starring: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson
IMDb Link
Sequels almost never live up to the original, and Incredibles 2 is no exception, but being only somewhat less good than the greatest animated movie of all time still makes it excellent overall, especially when it draws from such perfect material.
Picking up right where the last movie left off, the Parr family are back to hero work before coming to a sudden stop with the sobering realisation that the world still isn't ready for them even though they saved it again. Approached by the head of a mega corporation, Helen/Elastigirl (Hunter) must now be the bread-winner as she works to bring about the legality of superheroes once again, in the process putting Bob/Mr. Incredible in to a home-maker role for which he is ill-prepared. It's a nice role reversal in theory, but some things work better than others.
Fortunately, the most important aspect of The Incredibles, the humanising familial interactions, are here once again and as meaningful as ever. Bob's conflict over letting Helen take the lead for the family by doing something he'd spent the last fifteen years wanting to do creates an important conflict between them that Bob spends the better part of the movie learning to adapt to as part of his new home life. It's really the bulk of the movie that feels just as good as the first; the scenes are all as human as you would expect, with everything from embarrassing attempts to help Violet (Sarah Vowell) to his constant battle to put Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile) to bed. Bob's clear lack of understanding of how to deal with this life makes his efforts to do so that much more endearing, down to the moment when an overtired Bob stays up long after he should've gone to bed just so he can help Dash (Huck Milner) with Dash's math homework. It's also where most of the film's comedy comes from; the entire film could have just been about Jack-Jack discovering his powers while fighting a raccoon he confuses for a burglar, because that scene is so wonderfully creative, both in terms of comedic moments and fantastic animation. The conflicts and bonds between the family here are tested and stronger than ever because of it, and the film is as relatable as the first because of it.
Unfortunately, that also leaves Helen out of most of the familial bonding, which would be fine if what she was doing instead really contributed to the growth and improvement of her character as it did for Bob in the first, but the plot and villainy of her side of this movie is mostly underwhelming and furthers very little about her. Her scenes are excellently crafted, for sure; the action is fast-paced and incredibly slick, taking advantage of Elastigirl's powers for maximum effect, regularly showing off the creativity of the film's animation and direction, but most of what her character is about at first merely feeds back in to Bob's growth and change without affecting her, and after that we don't get much for her as character until she's back with her family. This seems largely to do with the villain's plot, which is generic and presented blandly compared to everything else, and doesn't have anything to do with Helen personally. It gives her something to do, but once the film establishes why she's doing it there's not a lot of examination of that idea; there's a scant moment where she can't help Dash finding his shoes because she's on a mission, and some discussions help show her somewhat nuanced perspective on heroics and the power of the individual, but that sort of thing doesn't come back to her in a significant way. It's okay, but it's no replacement for Syndrome and Bob's personal responsibility for his creation and the brilliant meta-commentary on superhero tropes.
That said, everything else here is really great and deserves recognition for drawing on, making anew and even sometimes improving upon its predecessor. The action and animation I've already mentioned, combining incredible pacing and energy with beautifully rendered movement and effects; the initial chase with The Underminer is a fantastic note to start out on and sets the standard for great action sequences and fluid animation for this year. Speaking of notes, the score is just brilliant here, sometimes better, utilising the core of the old themes to make some really smooth tracks that ebb and flow with the pace of the action and keep that big band energy, with a certain relaxed touch to contrast Elastigirl's much more measured approach with Mr. Incredible's bombastic take. The voice acting is great from everyone, who all just slip right back in to their roles as if they were only in them yesterday. It's really fantastic work from everyone involved.
The Short Version: Incredibles 2 gets the most important parts of The Incredibles right a second time around. The film is a powerhouse of animation and action direction with a perfectly humanising familial core, and these attributes more than make up for its generic plotting, bland villain and surprising under-development of Elastigirl.
Rating: 8/10
Published June 15th, 2018
Written by: Brad Bird
Starring: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson
IMDb Link
Sequels almost never live up to the original, and Incredibles 2 is no exception, but being only somewhat less good than the greatest animated movie of all time still makes it excellent overall, especially when it draws from such perfect material.
Fortunately, the most important aspect of The Incredibles, the humanising familial interactions, are here once again and as meaningful as ever. Bob's conflict over letting Helen take the lead for the family by doing something he'd spent the last fifteen years wanting to do creates an important conflict between them that Bob spends the better part of the movie learning to adapt to as part of his new home life. It's really the bulk of the movie that feels just as good as the first; the scenes are all as human as you would expect, with everything from embarrassing attempts to help Violet (Sarah Vowell) to his constant battle to put Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile) to bed. Bob's clear lack of understanding of how to deal with this life makes his efforts to do so that much more endearing, down to the moment when an overtired Bob stays up long after he should've gone to bed just so he can help Dash (Huck Milner) with Dash's math homework. It's also where most of the film's comedy comes from; the entire film could have just been about Jack-Jack discovering his powers while fighting a raccoon he confuses for a burglar, because that scene is so wonderfully creative, both in terms of comedic moments and fantastic animation. The conflicts and bonds between the family here are tested and stronger than ever because of it, and the film is as relatable as the first because of it.
Unfortunately, that also leaves Helen out of most of the familial bonding, which would be fine if what she was doing instead really contributed to the growth and improvement of her character as it did for Bob in the first, but the plot and villainy of her side of this movie is mostly underwhelming and furthers very little about her. Her scenes are excellently crafted, for sure; the action is fast-paced and incredibly slick, taking advantage of Elastigirl's powers for maximum effect, regularly showing off the creativity of the film's animation and direction, but most of what her character is about at first merely feeds back in to Bob's growth and change without affecting her, and after that we don't get much for her as character until she's back with her family. This seems largely to do with the villain's plot, which is generic and presented blandly compared to everything else, and doesn't have anything to do with Helen personally. It gives her something to do, but once the film establishes why she's doing it there's not a lot of examination of that idea; there's a scant moment where she can't help Dash finding his shoes because she's on a mission, and some discussions help show her somewhat nuanced perspective on heroics and the power of the individual, but that sort of thing doesn't come back to her in a significant way. It's okay, but it's no replacement for Syndrome and Bob's personal responsibility for his creation and the brilliant meta-commentary on superhero tropes.
That said, everything else here is really great and deserves recognition for drawing on, making anew and even sometimes improving upon its predecessor. The action and animation I've already mentioned, combining incredible pacing and energy with beautifully rendered movement and effects; the initial chase with The Underminer is a fantastic note to start out on and sets the standard for great action sequences and fluid animation for this year. Speaking of notes, the score is just brilliant here, sometimes better, utilising the core of the old themes to make some really smooth tracks that ebb and flow with the pace of the action and keep that big band energy, with a certain relaxed touch to contrast Elastigirl's much more measured approach with Mr. Incredible's bombastic take. The voice acting is great from everyone, who all just slip right back in to their roles as if they were only in them yesterday. It's really fantastic work from everyone involved.
The Short Version: Incredibles 2 gets the most important parts of The Incredibles right a second time around. The film is a powerhouse of animation and action direction with a perfectly humanising familial core, and these attributes more than make up for its generic plotting, bland villain and surprising under-development of Elastigirl.
Rating: 8/10
Published June 15th, 2018
Thursday, 7 June 2018
2018 Film Review: Hereditary (2018)
Directed by: Ari Aster
Written by: Ari Aster
Starring: Toni Collette, Milly Shapiro, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff
IMDb Link
This movie is fascinating in its execution, with not-quite-pastel colours and soft, natural lighting coalescing to create a strong sense of space, a light but deliberate touch to the senses that lulls you in to a false sense of security, throwing you off only a tiny bit at a time, before cascading in to darker and darker territory as you lose all sense of control and realise that it was pre-destined from the outset. Hereditary reminds me a lot of Rosemary's Baby in this regard, carefully exercising the process of set-up and pay off over and over again to stack horrific realisation on top of horrific realisation, and even though the mythology gets a little hokey and a rare couple of moments landed as cheesy rather than scary for me, I still found it largely to be some of the most well made horror in recent years.
A death in the Graham family leads to its undoing. Even when she's gone, grandmother Ellen casts a shadow over her whole family, leaving her daughter Annie (Collette) to grapple with the damage done by Ellen in Annie's life and the complicated ways in which this affected Annie's relationship with her own children. Hereditary is about control and the illusion of control, and as we learn the extent of Ellen's impact it becomes all too disturbing how little we have of either.
What I appreciated first about Hereditary is its calculated approach to cinematography; it moves slowly, at a painfully soft pace, making sure to frame everything with the greatest of care, highlighting the square mise en scene which in turn enhances the motif set immediately by the movie of using Annie's professional miniature art work to position the false sense of control and our attempt to wield it against the same sense and attempts by the characters themselves. At first it all seems so ordered and comfortable, the only aspect placed intentionally off being the colour palette, which toes the line between natural and dollhouse pastel. The movie uses this, throwing things off little by little, until what was once acceptance turns in to paranoia and you wish the camera would just move faster or shut off completely. The events are grizzly, and they leave you feeling sick, but the excellent camera work makes it all the harder to stomach and all the better for it. What's more, though, is just how much information the film manages to convey visually; the occasional diagetic text can be a little convenient, but other than those rare occurrences the film manages to tell everything it needs to with what you can see. Although I wouldn't recommend it, just for how good the use of sound is in this movie, you can understand the significance of every scene with the whole thing muted.
Toni Collette's performance is most assuredly the strongest part of the film. While every actor turns in good work, Collette is front and centre for most of the film, and carries with her an incredibly humanising presence that seems to bring everything about the film together. Despite the supernatural circumstances, the strong family dynamics and Collette's ability to completely realise her part in it makes every moment with her incredibly engaging; she's vulnerable, she's hurt, the circumstances of her character are so grey it would take a lifetime to unpack, and Collette makes just about every aspect of Annie something worth getting invested in, at least to the point of trying to understand the deep-seated issues she and her family carry. No matter how crazy it got, she was a powerhouse.
The writing supports Collette's character, and indeed the rest of the characters, very well. As I said before, the film conveys its story visually, which means that most of what we hear from the characters feels like real conversation; half finished words, implied ideas and inferred meaning, the occasional emotional outburst that strikes all too hard given the context, it all feels like human talking, shouting, and crying with each other, rather than characters whose goal is to convey exposition. It's really fantastic, and when coupled with the human performances it makes for a bizarrely and effectively realistic family in such an unrealistic scenario. The film doesn't waste anything it introduces, either, with very intentional set-up behind anything the film isn't using to pay off something else, and exploiting the realisations that come with those payoffs for maximum effect.
The Short Version: Hereditary is a meticulously crafted slow-burn of a horror that left me drained, sick to my stomach, and wishing for death. Essentially, it's the best horror movie in years.
Rating: 9/10
Published June 8th, 2018
Written by: Ari Aster
Starring: Toni Collette, Milly Shapiro, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff
IMDb Link
This movie is fascinating in its execution, with not-quite-pastel colours and soft, natural lighting coalescing to create a strong sense of space, a light but deliberate touch to the senses that lulls you in to a false sense of security, throwing you off only a tiny bit at a time, before cascading in to darker and darker territory as you lose all sense of control and realise that it was pre-destined from the outset. Hereditary reminds me a lot of Rosemary's Baby in this regard, carefully exercising the process of set-up and pay off over and over again to stack horrific realisation on top of horrific realisation, and even though the mythology gets a little hokey and a rare couple of moments landed as cheesy rather than scary for me, I still found it largely to be some of the most well made horror in recent years.
What I appreciated first about Hereditary is its calculated approach to cinematography; it moves slowly, at a painfully soft pace, making sure to frame everything with the greatest of care, highlighting the square mise en scene which in turn enhances the motif set immediately by the movie of using Annie's professional miniature art work to position the false sense of control and our attempt to wield it against the same sense and attempts by the characters themselves. At first it all seems so ordered and comfortable, the only aspect placed intentionally off being the colour palette, which toes the line between natural and dollhouse pastel. The movie uses this, throwing things off little by little, until what was once acceptance turns in to paranoia and you wish the camera would just move faster or shut off completely. The events are grizzly, and they leave you feeling sick, but the excellent camera work makes it all the harder to stomach and all the better for it. What's more, though, is just how much information the film manages to convey visually; the occasional diagetic text can be a little convenient, but other than those rare occurrences the film manages to tell everything it needs to with what you can see. Although I wouldn't recommend it, just for how good the use of sound is in this movie, you can understand the significance of every scene with the whole thing muted.
Toni Collette's performance is most assuredly the strongest part of the film. While every actor turns in good work, Collette is front and centre for most of the film, and carries with her an incredibly humanising presence that seems to bring everything about the film together. Despite the supernatural circumstances, the strong family dynamics and Collette's ability to completely realise her part in it makes every moment with her incredibly engaging; she's vulnerable, she's hurt, the circumstances of her character are so grey it would take a lifetime to unpack, and Collette makes just about every aspect of Annie something worth getting invested in, at least to the point of trying to understand the deep-seated issues she and her family carry. No matter how crazy it got, she was a powerhouse.
The writing supports Collette's character, and indeed the rest of the characters, very well. As I said before, the film conveys its story visually, which means that most of what we hear from the characters feels like real conversation; half finished words, implied ideas and inferred meaning, the occasional emotional outburst that strikes all too hard given the context, it all feels like human talking, shouting, and crying with each other, rather than characters whose goal is to convey exposition. It's really fantastic, and when coupled with the human performances it makes for a bizarrely and effectively realistic family in such an unrealistic scenario. The film doesn't waste anything it introduces, either, with very intentional set-up behind anything the film isn't using to pay off something else, and exploiting the realisations that come with those payoffs for maximum effect.
The Short Version: Hereditary is a meticulously crafted slow-burn of a horror that left me drained, sick to my stomach, and wishing for death. Essentially, it's the best horror movie in years.
Rating: 9/10
Published June 8th, 2018
Sunday, 3 June 2018
2018: A Fortnight of Movies - May 21st to June 3rd
I had a lot of assignments to complete over the last few weeks, and as such I've fallen behind on my movie watching and my movie writing. While doing assignments, I didn't want to abandon movie watching completely, but as I was largely devoting brain power to my current and/or next assignment at all times, I found it difficult to engage with movies that I hadn't seen before if said movies required any amount of real thought. This became easier to deal with as my number of assignments grew smaller, but as you read this, if there's a movie on this list that makes you think "Why would you ever watch this?" my answer is that I needed to think less. This is also why my summaries are pretty short this week.
141. The Condemned (2007) - May 21st
This was so close to being my kind of trash; any movie that thinks it's a good idea to end on a Nickelback song gets at least one ironic point from me, but for some reason this movie about a battle royale with extreme convicts felt the need to go on far too long and even thought it could moralise at us for wanting to watch the movie. The initial entertainment from the pure schlock goes out the window as soon as the movie tries to have a point that spells itself out as "are we 'The Condemned'?" for wanting to be entertained by this fictional ultra-violence. It's such a strange and hypocritical thing to say when this comes from the WWE network, which literally exists to spout silly, fictional violence. I can understand if a movie wants to try to make a point about its mindless violence, other movies of this type do it consistently, but when you awkwardly juxtapose extreme violence and the glorification thereof with judgement for wanting to indulge in this sort of fiction, it gets awfully grating and even detracts from what was already entertaining. - 3.5/10
142. Fallen (1998) - May 23rd
This was a better concept than it was a story. The stuff surrounding the story is mostly fine; the cast is solid (Denzel never disappoints), the tone is consistently dour and a little sickening and the music fits. The only aspect that I found genuinely bad was the editing, which was about as subtle as a brick to the face while reinforcing a self-serious tone, which is a dissonant mix; however this isn't enough to ruin the rest of the film's stronger aspects. Unfortunately, the whole thing banks on a story being as good as its idea, and despite a few good turns here and there the whole thing runs out of steam until its final twist, at which point it either sells you overall or is at least memorable enough to be decent. It's a shame, too, because it starts so well, with a unique mystery surrounding a series of copycat murders that seem to have no connection aside from their similar M.O., and when a supernatural element is suggested it's not entirely nonsensical within the context of the film, but as it keeps heaping on more rules and stakes and loosely realised reasons for why its plot is happening, the whole thing begins to collapse on itself. The only reprieve is its twist, which is set-up enough that, if all other turns feel pointless, it at least got us to this point. - 6/10
143. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) - May 25th
This was the weakest of the new Star Wars movies, but it's still pretty good. Everything is soft and kind of pointless because the film can't have real stakes with most of its primary characters, and while Ehrenreich gives a great performance its suggests more of a character arc than what's given in the writing. My full review can be found here. - 6.5/10
144. Fifty Shades Freed (2018) - May 25th
I didn't think it could get worse after Fifty Shades Darker. I was wrong, and I wish I didn't hate myself to find out that I was wrong. This is trash, and if it's your kind of trash then I'm not going to judge you, but I am going to tell you that this is the least sexy sex movie I've ever seen, and that I recommend against anyone ever seeing it. This is essentially softcore porn that will turn you off ice cream, and it's so bad that there's a morbid entertainment that can be drawn from drinking heavily every time that something stupid happens on-screen because the two main characters are terrible people that are terrible to each other. This is, in a word, bad. - 2/10
145. Early Man (2018) - May 31st
I love Aardman's work. Every Wallace and Gromit, as well as Chicken Run, are absolutely animation classics and deserve to be watched over and over and cherished for eternity. Early Man isn't nearly as good, although it's still a decent movie with its own handful of comedic qualities reminiscent of Aardman's best. While its story may fall flat largely due to its generic nature and surprising lacking in comedy, and there may be strangely dissonant relations between character wants and needs and the conflict thereof, but its animation is flawless and carries with it more wonderfully light humour than anything in the dialogue. - 6.5/10
146. The Brothers Grimm (2005) - June 1st
This is a weird mish-mash of the Gothic and the goofy. Its style is so strange and yet I find it surprisingly compelling; the fact that the general's head torturer is a comedic side-character (played with such cheese by Peter Stormare) should be enough to get across the weird tonal dissonance that's so consistent across this film. I'm not sure that I like the mixture, but appreciate the film's commitment to maintaining the idea; in one moment Peter Stormare is pooped on by a bird for a cheap joke, and in the very next shot this joke shifts to a foreboding image of dozens of crows perched on an overhanging tree. Kids get eaten by spider horses and their faces wiped off by magic mud, but we still have time for a bit of slapstick or an off-colour joke. There's drama here to try and balance out the other two elements, but I don't find it nearly as compelling, largely because its oriented around characters who get too little development to be interesting; the brothers have some okay banter and Lena Headey has a good foundation, but their character stuff is used for easy melodrama rather than actual character development. The movie's also too long for its idea, with a couple of sequences (such as the interlude back with the general, which conveys information that was already or could have been otherwise conveyed in the general's initial scene) that are unnecessary. Still, the film gets by a lot on its stylistic and tonal mixture, making it hard to dislike the presentation mostly due to hard hard it tries to keep the balance between two contrasting tones; I suppose it is Terry Gilliam, after all. 6/10
147. Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior (2003) - June 1st
I'm out of energy at this point, which is a shame because I'd like to be able to say something comprehensive about this one. I love the fights, they walk a fine line between flashy style and gritty punishment that's become a standard of great martial arts movies. I find the themes interesting, slightly cheesy in presentation with the obvious stuff like "respect religion and tradition" and "don't be greedy" that's at least fitting for its context and only becomes overbearing at points, and doesn't prevent the movie from having a bit of edge to its heart of gold and a self-deprecating, goofy quality that makes the whole experience a little endearing despite the subject matter. Also, Jaa literally falling face first in to the plot submerged underwater might be the best-worst way I've seen of resolving a plot point ever. - 7/10
148. Leatherface (2017) - June 3rd
This is better than Texas Chainsaw 3D, but that's not saying much. It's still strange to see a film try to make Leatherface, the maniacal chainsaw-wielding cannibal, sympathetic, and while this does a much better job than its predecessor by giving his family a ritualistic, systemic approach to murder and cannibalism, it's still trying to turn a psycho killer in to a tragic figure, an idea so abhorrent that a better film than this is needed to make me feel anything for the character (maybe the filmmakers should watch a little of Fritz Lang's work. Seriously, have you seen 'M'? That has to be one of the greatest murder mysteries of all time and it actually succeeds in at least quelling the idea that mob mentality is the appropriate measure by which we should punish psychos, and that guy was killing kids; he's still a monster, but his pleas stop you from being a monster too and give you this disturbing insight in to such an insane mind. Interestingly enough, Leatherface seems a little like it takes from this idea, characterising the lawman as wrong despite his righteous anger over the murder of his daughter, making Leatherface's murderous nature a sickness cultivated by his environment, giving him the chance at least at an understanding, etc. Man, this side note is taking way longer than I expected it to, I'll stop now). There's flashes of a good idea here, certainly a better one than its predecessor, but the movie has no restraint in its application of ultra-violence and is unable to offer the character of Leatherface the reprieve he really needs for the movie to succeed in its idea, smashing everything together too quickly and refusing to let the story breathe for a moment to let the idea of understanding him have any weight. The biggest emotional turn around in the movie happens so quickly that there's no time to absorb it as anything more than a quick 'gotcha!' moment; the film doesn't show the dedication to its idea enough to really make it work. - 4/10
Re-watches
I didn't mean to watch three movies in a row that had Keith David in them, it just kind of worked out that way. I don't have the time to do these as well as I would like, so the responses to these will all be one sentence each.
35. The Thing (1982) - May 29th
John Carpenter is one of my favourite directors and this is one of his best films, combining a fantastic premise with excellently exercised paranoia and attention to detail and spine-tinglingly disgusting effects to make one of the greatest horror films of all time - 8.5/10
36. They Live (1988) - May 29th
Hardly his best to most but easily my personal favourite of Carpenters, this film uses his common 'so blatant it's satire' approach to make a comedically slanted commentary on America's disparate social structure that's more entertaining than it is comprehensive, and while for some that might not be enough, for me it hits the spot just right at the exact moment Rowdy Roddy Piper says "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum." - 8/10
37. The Nice Guys (2016) - May 30th
Shane Black is a great writer, especially of dialogue, and a good director, but he always seems to stretch his third act in to two parts that each have their own climax and give the pacing the of the film an uneven feel; this doesn't entirely detract from The Nice Guys strength in having some of the best verbal slap-fighting I've ever heard, but it does weaken my enjoyment of and care for the film as it approaches its second climax. - 7.5/10
38. Bridesmaids (2011) - June 2nd
This is just one of the funnier pure comedies from the last decade and I'm really glad my friend felt like watching it, because it was just as hilarious the second time around. - 7.5/10
Published June 4th, 2018
141. The Condemned (2007) - May 21st
This was so close to being my kind of trash; any movie that thinks it's a good idea to end on a Nickelback song gets at least one ironic point from me, but for some reason this movie about a battle royale with extreme convicts felt the need to go on far too long and even thought it could moralise at us for wanting to watch the movie. The initial entertainment from the pure schlock goes out the window as soon as the movie tries to have a point that spells itself out as "are we 'The Condemned'?" for wanting to be entertained by this fictional ultra-violence. It's such a strange and hypocritical thing to say when this comes from the WWE network, which literally exists to spout silly, fictional violence. I can understand if a movie wants to try to make a point about its mindless violence, other movies of this type do it consistently, but when you awkwardly juxtapose extreme violence and the glorification thereof with judgement for wanting to indulge in this sort of fiction, it gets awfully grating and even detracts from what was already entertaining. - 3.5/10
142. Fallen (1998) - May 23rd
This was a better concept than it was a story. The stuff surrounding the story is mostly fine; the cast is solid (Denzel never disappoints), the tone is consistently dour and a little sickening and the music fits. The only aspect that I found genuinely bad was the editing, which was about as subtle as a brick to the face while reinforcing a self-serious tone, which is a dissonant mix; however this isn't enough to ruin the rest of the film's stronger aspects. Unfortunately, the whole thing banks on a story being as good as its idea, and despite a few good turns here and there the whole thing runs out of steam until its final twist, at which point it either sells you overall or is at least memorable enough to be decent. It's a shame, too, because it starts so well, with a unique mystery surrounding a series of copycat murders that seem to have no connection aside from their similar M.O., and when a supernatural element is suggested it's not entirely nonsensical within the context of the film, but as it keeps heaping on more rules and stakes and loosely realised reasons for why its plot is happening, the whole thing begins to collapse on itself. The only reprieve is its twist, which is set-up enough that, if all other turns feel pointless, it at least got us to this point. - 6/10
143. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) - May 25th
This was the weakest of the new Star Wars movies, but it's still pretty good. Everything is soft and kind of pointless because the film can't have real stakes with most of its primary characters, and while Ehrenreich gives a great performance its suggests more of a character arc than what's given in the writing. My full review can be found here. - 6.5/10
144. Fifty Shades Freed (2018) - May 25th
I didn't think it could get worse after Fifty Shades Darker. I was wrong, and I wish I didn't hate myself to find out that I was wrong. This is trash, and if it's your kind of trash then I'm not going to judge you, but I am going to tell you that this is the least sexy sex movie I've ever seen, and that I recommend against anyone ever seeing it. This is essentially softcore porn that will turn you off ice cream, and it's so bad that there's a morbid entertainment that can be drawn from drinking heavily every time that something stupid happens on-screen because the two main characters are terrible people that are terrible to each other. This is, in a word, bad. - 2/10
145. Early Man (2018) - May 31st
I love Aardman's work. Every Wallace and Gromit, as well as Chicken Run, are absolutely animation classics and deserve to be watched over and over and cherished for eternity. Early Man isn't nearly as good, although it's still a decent movie with its own handful of comedic qualities reminiscent of Aardman's best. While its story may fall flat largely due to its generic nature and surprising lacking in comedy, and there may be strangely dissonant relations between character wants and needs and the conflict thereof, but its animation is flawless and carries with it more wonderfully light humour than anything in the dialogue. - 6.5/10
146. The Brothers Grimm (2005) - June 1st
This is a weird mish-mash of the Gothic and the goofy. Its style is so strange and yet I find it surprisingly compelling; the fact that the general's head torturer is a comedic side-character (played with such cheese by Peter Stormare) should be enough to get across the weird tonal dissonance that's so consistent across this film. I'm not sure that I like the mixture, but appreciate the film's commitment to maintaining the idea; in one moment Peter Stormare is pooped on by a bird for a cheap joke, and in the very next shot this joke shifts to a foreboding image of dozens of crows perched on an overhanging tree. Kids get eaten by spider horses and their faces wiped off by magic mud, but we still have time for a bit of slapstick or an off-colour joke. There's drama here to try and balance out the other two elements, but I don't find it nearly as compelling, largely because its oriented around characters who get too little development to be interesting; the brothers have some okay banter and Lena Headey has a good foundation, but their character stuff is used for easy melodrama rather than actual character development. The movie's also too long for its idea, with a couple of sequences (such as the interlude back with the general, which conveys information that was already or could have been otherwise conveyed in the general's initial scene) that are unnecessary. Still, the film gets by a lot on its stylistic and tonal mixture, making it hard to dislike the presentation mostly due to hard hard it tries to keep the balance between two contrasting tones; I suppose it is Terry Gilliam, after all. 6/10
147. Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior (2003) - June 1st
I'm out of energy at this point, which is a shame because I'd like to be able to say something comprehensive about this one. I love the fights, they walk a fine line between flashy style and gritty punishment that's become a standard of great martial arts movies. I find the themes interesting, slightly cheesy in presentation with the obvious stuff like "respect religion and tradition" and "don't be greedy" that's at least fitting for its context and only becomes overbearing at points, and doesn't prevent the movie from having a bit of edge to its heart of gold and a self-deprecating, goofy quality that makes the whole experience a little endearing despite the subject matter. Also, Jaa literally falling face first in to the plot submerged underwater might be the best-worst way I've seen of resolving a plot point ever. - 7/10
148. Leatherface (2017) - June 3rd
This is better than Texas Chainsaw 3D, but that's not saying much. It's still strange to see a film try to make Leatherface, the maniacal chainsaw-wielding cannibal, sympathetic, and while this does a much better job than its predecessor by giving his family a ritualistic, systemic approach to murder and cannibalism, it's still trying to turn a psycho killer in to a tragic figure, an idea so abhorrent that a better film than this is needed to make me feel anything for the character (maybe the filmmakers should watch a little of Fritz Lang's work. Seriously, have you seen 'M'? That has to be one of the greatest murder mysteries of all time and it actually succeeds in at least quelling the idea that mob mentality is the appropriate measure by which we should punish psychos, and that guy was killing kids; he's still a monster, but his pleas stop you from being a monster too and give you this disturbing insight in to such an insane mind. Interestingly enough, Leatherface seems a little like it takes from this idea, characterising the lawman as wrong despite his righteous anger over the murder of his daughter, making Leatherface's murderous nature a sickness cultivated by his environment, giving him the chance at least at an understanding, etc. Man, this side note is taking way longer than I expected it to, I'll stop now). There's flashes of a good idea here, certainly a better one than its predecessor, but the movie has no restraint in its application of ultra-violence and is unable to offer the character of Leatherface the reprieve he really needs for the movie to succeed in its idea, smashing everything together too quickly and refusing to let the story breathe for a moment to let the idea of understanding him have any weight. The biggest emotional turn around in the movie happens so quickly that there's no time to absorb it as anything more than a quick 'gotcha!' moment; the film doesn't show the dedication to its idea enough to really make it work. - 4/10
Re-watches
I didn't mean to watch three movies in a row that had Keith David in them, it just kind of worked out that way. I don't have the time to do these as well as I would like, so the responses to these will all be one sentence each.
35. The Thing (1982) - May 29th
John Carpenter is one of my favourite directors and this is one of his best films, combining a fantastic premise with excellently exercised paranoia and attention to detail and spine-tinglingly disgusting effects to make one of the greatest horror films of all time - 8.5/10
36. They Live (1988) - May 29th
Hardly his best to most but easily my personal favourite of Carpenters, this film uses his common 'so blatant it's satire' approach to make a comedically slanted commentary on America's disparate social structure that's more entertaining than it is comprehensive, and while for some that might not be enough, for me it hits the spot just right at the exact moment Rowdy Roddy Piper says "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum." - 8/10
37. The Nice Guys (2016) - May 30th
Shane Black is a great writer, especially of dialogue, and a good director, but he always seems to stretch his third act in to two parts that each have their own climax and give the pacing the of the film an uneven feel; this doesn't entirely detract from The Nice Guys strength in having some of the best verbal slap-fighting I've ever heard, but it does weaken my enjoyment of and care for the film as it approaches its second climax. - 7.5/10
38. Bridesmaids (2011) - June 2nd
This is just one of the funnier pure comedies from the last decade and I'm really glad my friend felt like watching it, because it was just as hilarious the second time around. - 7.5/10
Published June 4th, 2018
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