It's probably obvious from the frequency of my blog entries that I didn't have time, and honestly neither much mood for movies lately. I'm considering to compensate a bit more during this summer time, but we'll see... For now I stopped at "Maggie Moore(s)", which I also mentioned in the previews entry a couple of months ago, a title that afterwards received some mediocre ratings on various sites, but which I still decided to watch. And I liked it. Therefore, the current subject.
Probably the best fit for mapping this movie to a genre would be dark comedy, drawing apparently some inspiration from some creepy true events. In the suburbs of some town, some Mr. Moore doesn't get along well with Ms. Maggie Moore, his wife, and Mr. Moore also has some shady relation with an expired foods supplier for his franchise restaurant. When Ms. Moore finds out and threatens to call the police, Mr. Moore decides to hire a local thug to scare her. Unfortunately the scare goes a bit too far and Mr. Moore loses his wife. Through some unfortunate coincidence, Mr. Moore finds out about some other Maggie Moore living in the same area, and an idea pops up... What if, for building a solid alibi as a grieving husband, to hire again the same "assassin" to execute the same scare job on the second Ms. Moore, which would make the first "accident" to really look like an accident with a wrong address. To add more to this plot, the second Ms. Moore proves to be a likely target for some other people, which results in the most complicated case the local police chief ever encountered. Top that with a side romance + a comic relief offered by the bad jokes thrown in by the deputy.
The movie clearly doesn't fit the trend of the last years, and is more likely close to a TV production or to an episode from some crime mystery series. Overall though has some particular charm of a calm story but not a boring one, funny but not childish, "spicy" but not exaggerated. It's a perfectly fine movie if you're looking for one hour and a half of chill time, but still active for your brain, because the script is dense enough and well written. It probably becomes dull for the expectations of the mainstream critics who I guess got used during latest years either with the action box office standard not delivering much substance, or with the range of Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson and others. Something in between... bit more hard to get accepted. For me it seems way too underrated. But, watch it and then judge it... Maybe I'm just tired :)
It's hard to fit "Triangle of Sadness" in a genre, but probably that would be again a dark comedy turning into drama if I'd be forced to pick some category. However, it's an entirely different type of movie than last time's "Banshees of Inisherin". It's also quite complicated to write a spoiler-free review sufficiently eloquent for what we have here. Or I don't have enough inspiration to do it now. That's why I did something that I typically only do before watching a movie, not after = to also have a look at what others wrote. It seems to me, however, that my opinion diverges from the majority, so I'll stick to the essentials.
The movie's split into three acts, the first introducing a couple, Carl and Yaya, two fashion models, somewhere close to their 30s. The second act brings them on a yacht cruise together with all kinds of wealthy but disagreeable characters. The captain of the ship, himself a very special character, always drunk and upset about the capitalist regime he's part of finds a drinking buddy in a Russian oligarch, and ultimately drives the ship to its doom. Or otherwise said, he brings the movie to its third act, where we have a handful of survivors shipwrecked on an island, and forced to adapt their lavish living to a Robinson Crusoe existence. That's the summary in a few words.
"Triangle of Sadness" is a pretty objective movie relative to the current reality and a quite direct one. That's where the criticism stems from, apparently for "lack-of-depth", as I've seen in some reviews close to Hollywood (in Europe it was received ok). I think the real reason behind it is a different one. The movie probably doesn't fit well with a political agenda very firmly oriented in a certain direction during the last few years, which I'm not really in the mood to debate here. Setting some base on "the rich aren't nice" image, the movie first enters some cliches showing the superficiality behind luxury, which is not something new indeed as reviews say, funny enough turning this into low ratings. The last act drives us to some reversing within the social ranks, the control being taken by a former cleaning lady on the yacht, apparently the only one with the necessary practical skills for surviving. This outcome slowly turns the tide towards some exploitation or even tyranny perspectives, and the new group leader feels very well in her position. The essence here (or the probably inconvenient "depth") is that not even the "equality" naturally created by the sunken ship can resist as it would be believed it can. Or at least that pushing to extremes when trying to create equality won't hold, the attitude in commercials can't be standard - sometimes depends on the brand, Thursday is not a day as any other to have dinner despite weather forecasts, a ship's crew cannot indulge in leisure activities as much as the passengers do, not all ships have washable sails, having the stomach full is not a universal recommendation for sea sickness, you can't say "yes" all the times to what's requested from you, and maybe others, maybe even more "deep", that wrap up into the same idea.
"The Banshees of Inisherin" is the fourth feature film written and directed by Martin McDonagh after "In Bruges", "Seven Psychopaths" and "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri". At the first sight it could fit the same line of dark comedy as the predecessors. That's until it becomes clear that it's much more dark and much less a comedy.
Somewhere on Inisherin, a fictitious island on the Irish coast, at the beginning of the 20th century, two glass mates, Colm and Padraic, abruptly get into a conflict. The reason, Colm, the eldest of the two, and having some talent of playing the violin, decides that his life is wasted in useless chit-chat. So, without explaining much, lets his former friend know that there's nothing to be dicussed between them and that he's busy with composing a new tune. The news is a real shock for Padraic, disrupting without warning a routine where pretty much the only "entertainment" on the island were the afternoon chats at the local pub with his buddy. Confused, Padraic tries to make Colm change his mind, but his attempts hit a rock. Moreover, to prove that he's not kidding, Colm threatens to cut one of his fingers each time he's approached in conversation. The situation seems funny initially, but slowly escalates to a typhoon disturbing the peace of the small local community.
I vaguely remember that also "In Bruges", starring the same Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, switched from comedy to drama, but here it happens quicker and more harsh. Even if in the first part of the movie the action seems sometimes to drag. The humor is not lost though, and it's really good, but it slowly gets to having more of a tension relief role, which is really needed. As a drama, "The Banshees of Inisherin" is much more complex than the summary above might suggest. There are a lot of ideas that can be drawn from what we see here. From the amount of risk in someone's life that a strict separation between black and white can create to the difficulty of leaving a comfort zone and its consequences but as well the lack of understanding of such situations, and others. These many senses seem somehow to contrast the small number of characters and the geographic isolation. The entire community that interacts with the two main leads is limited to a number below 10 (+ 2 animals), out of which more present in the action are actually just Padraic's sister and the son of the local policeman, where we have another mini-drama as a side-story. I guess, however, that actually this reduced context creates an opportunity, such that each character can be carefully crafted and integrated in the script, so that finally what you get is a rich picture of an isolated corner of this world. A picture that is completed by a tragic but open ending, reason why it might be a bit disappointing. Even though, if you want you can see here some tiny hope for a happy-end. It really depends on which half of the glass you prefer ;)
For the 15th year of my blog, I intended for a subject worthy enough of a round anniversary. Obviously, I didn't have enough time to find anything new and I'm again forced to recycle something. This spring, if I remember well, I've rewatched Kieslowski's colors trilogy, supposedly connected to the French Revolution symbols through the well-known colors of the flag - bleu, blanc, rouge. I've always found it a bit overrated, maybe except for the second movie, "Blanc". In essence, it's a comedy, slightly bitter, but that's what makes it special.
Karol Karol is a Polish barber, who recently arrived in Paris, and even more recently left without a dime by his ex-wife after a quick divorce motivated by his incapacity to perform his duties as a husband. Losing his passport, without speaking much French, and with his hair salon set on fire by his former wife, he ends up with a big empty suitcase as a beggar in the metro station, singing with a pair of... combs. The Polish tune catches the attention of Mikolaj, another Polish guy, considerably more wealthy, who offers a deal - to kill somebody who wants to die but doesn't have the guts to do it by himself (we finally find out that "the somebody" is Mikolaj, but let's save some of the story). Karol says no, but Mikolaj finally decides to help him by arranging an illegal journey to their home country, packing Karol in his empty suitcase. Long story short, Karol gets back to Poland barely alive, and slowly starts building a revenge plan. How does that go? It's probably better to watch the movie than read it here :)
Unlike the rest of Kieslowski's trilogy, "Blanc" is more a Polish production than a French one. Besides the story, slightly unrealistic at some point, but dense enough to keep you watching - we definitely have a subject here and it's probably better to keep the current entry spoiler-free - we have very well-picked casting. The score is also surprisingly good and allowed me to discover Zbigniew Preisner (the composer), my only reference until then in Polish film music being Wojciech Kilar. The cinematography is nice, but that's valid for the entire trilogy. Each movie shows an obvious intent to bring forward as much as possible the color set in its title.
As far as I know "Blanc" is mostly considered by film critics a good movie, but still the weakest of the three. Maybe because it's the one with a rich plot, drawing attention there instead of being centered on deep philosophical questions. Concerning that, I didn't care much about the references it draws to "egalite" = the middle link between the "liberte" and "fraternite", as it's considered to be, but I've seen it simply as a stand-alone picture. A "revenge movie" in the end, which surprisingly presents itself this time as a comedy packed within a drama. Or the other way around :) Pretty much like the life of the main character. Maybe that's a reflection theme that's deeper than others ;)
The shortest summary for "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" would be: a larger budget replica for what was "JCVD" for Jean-Claude Van Damme in 2008, but this time dedicated to Nicolas Cage. In a slightly longer summary, we have a fiction where the main character is the real actor that gets into a "filmic" situation. The concept is not new, but is so rarely used that looking at what we had on the big screen during latest years it's quite refreshing (ironically, given the amount "historical" references).
Nicolas Cage is.. Nicolas Cage, an actor with a declining career path, taking a "job" as special guest to the anniversary party of a superfan, who is also super rich, living on the coast of Spain. We quickly get to find out that the guy is the main target of an entangled investigation covering the kidnapping of a politician's daughter, contacts with the Napoli mafia, and pretty much everything we could find in a classic "action movie". Like that, Nicolas Cage gets promoted from action hero to real agent working for the CIA. And from there the real life starts mixing with the movie life, up to reaching a classic happy end.
The movie doesn't take itself too seriously, and it's good that gets clear from start in a script with a bunch of self-irony, the typical exaggerations found in a '90s action movie, and lots of references to the top box-office roles made by Nicolas Cage during that time. I imagine that quite a lot of the younger public would be lost and not get all the references to "Face Off", "The Rock" or others. It's clearly a movie dedicated to who has watched Nicolas Cage in his top action star period. That's the main ingredient required for getting a real taste of this movie. If you cut this part, what's left is a light comedy with plenty of action, relatively fine as script complexity for this genre. This is different from "JCVD", which I'm not remembering that well, but it left me an impression of more substance within the self-irony at the time I watched it. In the current case, what we have fits to the category "guilty pleasure, fun to watch", but not more than that. Which is perfectly ok, if that's what you'd expect ;)
Rating: 4 out of 5 (I'm nostalgic = quite subjective on this one)
I kept thinking if I should or shouldn't write a blog entry this month, not really knowing what movie to pick for it. "1917" was a good fit for the current times - not that much given its context, but more for what's expressing. But 1. I already wrote about it in another entry, a couple years ago and 2. I doubt anyway that my blog's audience intersects with whom I was saying there that should have it on their mandatory watch list. On the other hand maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea for more people to watch it or re-watch it. Although, again, it's debatable if the movie's not either too deep for some to get the actual sense in it, or too depressing for who relates too closely to an armed conflict context. So, I got to "Licorice Pizza" - or the first hippie alternative I could think of.
I don't intend to write a long review. Actually, I don't intend to write an actual review. "Licorice Pizza" is some sort of weird romance with lots of comic nuances set in the 70's California, and a much betted movie I'd say than "Inherent Vice", which takes place during the same time and was written and directed by the same Paul Thomas Anderson (more known probably for "There Will Be Blood"). There's a perfect chemistry between the actors, the writing is excellent and the story... not so important.
More important is that "Licorice Pizza" is what we could call a "comfort movie" as an analogy to a "comfort food". Something you really need from time to time. If not for something else, at least to find out if you didn't know that in 1973 (and a couple times after) there were periods of "oil crisis". And most probably that's something you can survive ;) - at least as long as the rest doesn't get much more close to "1917".
Three days ago, I was looking again for a cinematic "sleeping pill", and so I ran over "The Milagro Beanfield War". A totally wrong choice for the intended purpose, as I found out after watching it. And when I found out I decided I must write a blog entry about it. So here we are...
The movie is directed by Robert Redford, which "recommended" it for my search. With all respect for his acting skills, I don't think there's any other directing attempt from Redford to impress me in any way. It's true I've never got to watch "Ordinary People", considered probably his best movie, but out of the rest of what I've seen the script or the subject typically saved the movie, and the directing always felt somewhere between bland and absent. That's why here I had a shock, experiencing exactly the opposite.
There's no complicated subject in this movie. We're somewhere close to the US border with Mexico, in Milagro, a small forgotten town, with a predominantly hispanic population, close to its extinction being overshadowed by a residential complex in development. In this setting we find Jose aka Joe Mondragon who dares the unthinkable - to use water spilled from the property of the landlord who bought almost the entire region to irigate his own field of beans. People start talking, panicking and get close to rioting, splitting between the two sides - pro and agains the capitalst opression. And like that, we get a series of events that lead to a mini "revolucion". What's really catchy in the movie is how this series of events is staged...
I'd say that although produced more than thirty years ago, the movie fits quite well with the more recent trends, drawing some clear lines like anti-system and others. I'm more and more bored of overusing stuff like that in a media like movies, where in more than one hundred years propaganda was way too often present (whatever kind of that was), trying to overshadow the artistic or even the entertainment side. However, unlike the increasing accent on such direction in the latter years, here I can appreciate the fact that this comes second, much less obvious than in many recent movies, and that's thanks to the direction. The movie has a character and situation comic that's so present, fortunately raising on top of other nuances and preventing these to become too.. "aggressive" (maybe less in the end). It's an excellent mix between the acting, the symbolism, a bit of romance, a bit of fantasy, and lots of humor. The actors have a merit, the script has its merit, the score has a merit, but on top of everything, it's clearly, by far, the best movie directed by Redford I've seen by now, and I think the direction has the largest merit in the final result.
As it seems, I'm back to old movies not having a better subject. "The Morning After" is not the best of the '80s, but it has some certain charm (+ obviously I've watched it more recently than the '80s so I can still remember what I've seen).
An alcoholic actress, beyond her prime, wakes up one morning, somewhere in a penthouse, near a dead body with a knife in his chest. Completely amnesic and with no recollection of meeting the late fellow, she decides to run away. Where running = flying out of town, but the whole thing happens to coincide with Thanksgiving so the plan fails due to lack of room in scheduled flights. So, having also her car picked up by the police, the only escape she finds seems to be a guy who struggles to start his wreck's engine in the airport parking lot and who's nice enough to offer her a ride back to the city. Leaving out the details, "the plot thickens" the second morning after another drinking night, when the dead body gets mysteriously teleported in the shower of her own house. Fortunately, the guy she met earlier, who we find out to be a former cop, offers to help the apparent murderer to find out how dead men can walk.
Probably half the movie's charm is given by the acting of Jane Fonda and Jeff Bridges in the lead roles, and the totally atypical romance story. For the rest, you can feel the direction of Sidney Lumet building up the suspense, even though it's not really among his best. Also, we don't actually have a perfect crime novel resolution, the last part becoming predictable enough about the solution of the mystery. Even so, the script with the comic nuances it has it's nice, and makes a watchable movie despite the age it shows sometimes.
My first reaction when I heard about "Cruella", was not a reaction. It was an "ignore" for yet another recycled production stemming from the more and more present lack of imagination at Hollywood. And to give an argument for that, at a quick count, in 2019 - the last pre-pandemic year, the top box-office stats show a score of 26-to-7 (if I didn't miss something) for sequels/reboots/spin-offs/etc vs fresh stuff = featuring a new subject. So, the idea to squeeze out a villain origin story from the "101 Dalmatians" didn't catch my attention. Especially since I don't really like prequels. So, how did I end up watching this: 1) I was looking for something more recent, and I actually found a couple titles, but 2) at 2 AM before going to sleep, knowing that probably it won't work in one view, Id didn't want to fragment watching something else. So, I told myself, ok, let's see how Disney managed to get something that was received better than the previous attempts for a live-action version of the classic animation. Obviously, as in many situations where my expectations were rock bottom, the final impression is way higher, but I'll try to be objective.
I must say that my first surprise after watching this was the complexity of the story - not that it is very complex, but I was expecting.. nothing. I didn't read "101 Dalmatians" the book, but I can assume that it doesn't get too deep into Cruella's origins, so in that case, we can give a plus to the writing. I also don't want to get too deep into the story, but in brief we're starting with the childhood of the character, who from start manifests a split personality between Estella and Cruella, something like a light version of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. It doesn't take long, and the girl loses her mother in tragic conditions, ending up as member of a pickpocket gang with Horace & Jasper, who we know from the animated version. Years pass, and by some fortunate series of events Estella manages to make a career shift from thief to her dreamjob: a designer hired by the most select fashion brand in London, owned by The Baroness - the negative character in the movie. And from here we have a bit of a soap opera, and as in any soap if we tell who, how and when met the path with somebody else, we'll spoil too much.
What the movie tries, especially in its first part is to humanize a character who we know it's a bad one from the classic story. And it's not just Cruella, it does it even more with Horace & Jasper. That's something that for me seemed a bit too forced. Especially since, in its second part, it doesn't go that far in the opposite direction, up to where you would expect seeing how Estella is turned into Cruella. In the end it's a Disney movie in 2021 - let's get real, seeing dalmatians as fur coats nowadays, a bit too sensitive. In any case, the movie rolls as a light comedy from start to its end, which probably helps in all this character development, in the sense that you can't take it very serious neither when Cruella is Estella, nor when Estella is Cruella. In general, I like such an approach, because when the light storyline gets broken for inserting the drama, that has an impact that's much more clear and strong (I can only think at "Guardians of the Galaxy 2" now as an example). We have something pretty similar here, at the climactic point of the soap part, about two thirds in the movie, which gives the whole thing some force, but it's still too little. You would expect to hit you harder with something at the end, but, well... it's a Disney movie.
Leaving the story aside, I don't know... it seemed to me that the rest of the departments that got involved in the movie had pretty much the same expectations as I did from the subject, and gave everything to counterbalance it. Let's not spend much on the acting, where Emma Stone confirms me again that she's probably currently the best actress in the Hollywood generation born in the '80s. For the technical side, pretty much everything from production design to VFX has a shot to whatever awards will be given next year, although typically the movies targeting that get a release during the fall-winter season. I'm reserving a bit more space to mention the soundtrack. I don't remember another situation where I've heard such a good mixing between arrangements of known songs and an original score. Actually.. I don't remember any other case like that. At Tarantino for instance, where we find quite often the first approach, I don't know for instance if in "Kill Bill" was any piece of original score. Well, here we have both - again, I don't know who should get more credit for that - the composer, Nicholas Britell, or the sound mixing department, but the result is probably enough as a reason to clearly recommend you to watch this movie.
To conclude, I'm probably not the only one who sees "Cruella" as a sort of "Joker" made by Disney. That's my final impression. Which probably loses something from the drama, but also even more probable is more appropriate for a period when the reality around is dark enough, so you won't feel the need to see that so poignant also in a movie :)
It's been a while since a I posted at such short intervals, but that will compensate a longer pause following this entry. Besides, for some time the interval between watching the movie and writing about it got longer and longer, and I start forgetting what I want to say. "Boss Level" was also too "motivating" too lose it among the messed up neurons and lack of lecithin.
Roy is a guy in his 40s, an ex member of the special forces, with an ex wife working in a super-secret lab for another ex military. A dude who fits very well the arch-villain pattern with a wish for world domination. In all this context we have a phenomenon going on that resembles Groundhog Day = each morning Roy wakes up at the same time, in the same place, and spends his day with an army of assassins chasing him and trying to shorten his suffering of non-stop repeating the same activity. Obviously this happens just for Roy, who struggles to advance in his last 24 hours as much as to be able to understand how the visit he paid his ex wife a day before fits in all this story. And I won't say more about it. The trailer reveals already enough, and I was inspired not to watch it before the movie.
From start I probably had a positive subjective approach on this, knowing from the two lines describing it on IMDb (very underrated there by the way) that's a time travel movie, subgenre on which I have an obvious thing for. In a different context I might've been bothered by the lack of rigor, and I would've looked for loopholes. It's however obvious from the first scene that the movie doesn't take itself too seriously, and you shouldn't to it either. It's built as the title suggests, like it's video game adaptation, although it's not. It's very very fresh though, and the script construction is just simplistic in appearance. Indeed, it won't tell you much about the time technology behind the Osiris spindle that creates the phenomenon and which looks as a new Stargate. But it will take enough time to build a solid puzzle that Roy has to solve in order to reach the "boss level". And the twist there, which you might not feel as a twist, so I'll endulge myself a spoiler, is that the "boss level" it's actually a different one. "The secret level" :-) - for which Roy needs even more repeats to figure it out. Moment where the movie does what I was complaining last time that "Love and Monsters" doesn't - a short exit from the light area more towards drama, but with enough force here to feel it. Or, well, being about passed time, turning points, and what could you do with a time machine, I might be subjective again ;-)
I won't try getting too philosophical and extracting some hidden message from "Love and Monsters" to fit the late context, because I probably wouldn't agree with what message might send. I just simply took the movie as it is - a light SciFi with a consistent comedy part.
We have a dystopian context, where after humanity successfully avoided a cataclismic disaster by bombing an asteroid on its way to Earth, fount itself in a different problem = the radioactive waste landing on the planet created mutations causing various species to dangerously grow overnight. Lots of times I thought that we're lucky that pidgeons aren't 10-15 times bigger, otherwise we would be extinct. That's pretty much the conclusion the movie reaches, although I didn't see any pidgeon there, but we have others - the "monsters" in the title.
In this situation, pretty much everybody retired in various shelters, periodically going out for food. Some kind of "Zombieland", but with mutated creatures instead of zombies. In a group of survivors we find Joel, who after many years finds his former girlfriend, in some other shelter on the seaside at something like seven days of walking - and so we get the "love" in the title. That leads to the main part in the movie - the travel to meet her again. Only that Joel has a small big problem, zero experience in fighting what awaits him outside, or better said a "freeze panic" effect when encountering anything with more legs, tentacles, or other types of members, larger than himself.
Obviously the subject described above has lots of potential. The movie delivers withn an "ok" margin. I guess it could've been better, or better said I felt something missing. Maybe it was just the comic side and the drama exits from that don't have enough force to have the same effect as for example "Guardians of the Galaxy". Maybe there are some action threads that seemed unfinished. Or maybe I did expect too much. Anyway, bottom line, the movie was fun.
I had in mind to write an entry on "Nomadland". Before watching the movie. After I did, I changed my plan. There are a couple days since seeing this and I already don't know what I've watched, so I don't have anything to write about. In brief, "Nomadland" is a movie that if you cut in pieces of ~10-20 minute, and watch these in random order you'll probably get pretty much the same thing, whatever that might be. It would be interesting if the experienced critics could do a simple exercise before throwing too much praise on a movie: just to ask themselves what is so memorable about it that they can punctually reference in three years from viewing it. Well, there's some stuff in "Remo Williams" :)...
I shifted 180 degrees with the movie genre - but I really felt the need for a popcorn movie in its more obvious shape as an antidote to the pretentious "artistic" production named above. And not so long ago I've watched "Remo Williams" as part of my '80s detour, and I actually wanted to write a couple words about it but I didn't have the time. Remo Williams is pretty much like a "Commando", but for the super-hero niche, before it became so popular as it is today. Meaning that's funny enough to not be bad, although clearly far from masterpiece level. The main character origin is in some series of pulp novels, being some kind of a super-agent for a super-secret organization, who fights all kinds of super-villains. The movie takes a bit more light the "super" part, our agent being nothing more than a hamburger eating cop, trained in a "Karate Kid" fashion by a Korean master, in order to dismantle the unlawful profits plan of an arms dealer (without other super-powers than money and relations).
What stands out in Remo Williams, to support my claim above, are the script lines: from "Your reflexes are pitiful. The seasons move faster." to "You know why Americans call it fast food? Because it speeds them on the way to the grave.", such stuff makes you remember it as quotes source. It's probably one of the most witty scripts I've seen lately. There are also plenty of action scenes, which for the '80s are comparable with what you can find in "Mission Impossible" - in particular one is filmed on top of the Statue of Liberty and sticks as a reference beyond the poster. Not last about it, the characters, or more precisely the actors, is something you'll probably remember. It was hard for me to imagine Fred Ward as a wannabe super-hero, and such casting is so weird that after seeing the movie, it's still hard to imagine. The most memorable part is though the Korean's master, Chiun (the one delivering the witty lines above), where the actor is... Joel Grey. Without ant Asian genes, it would probably make the movie to be labeled today as non-ethical, stereotypical, even rasist, despite the fact that the acting is so good that at the time got a nomination for a Golden Globe. Objectively I have to admit that I found myself the casting to be a bit unnatural, but again objectively the actor did his job close to perfection.
Long story short: it's a popcorn movie. A bit old, but enough funny and with more substance than what we have in today's Marvel productions.
"Kajillionaire" is the American version of a theme recently used in a couple other movies too, less candid than a Japanese version we have in "Shoplifters", but also less cynical than the Korean "Parasite".
As in the above references, here the subject is revolving around a dysfunctional family of crooks, a bit smaller though, formed only of the parents and a daughter being raised deprived of feelings, specially trained for a career in this "line of work". She's actually the main character of the movie, getting through a conversion towards humanity after the three intersect with a future fourth group member, a seller in an lenses shop, bored of her usual daily life.
As well as the two above, "Kajillionaire" sits somewhere between a drama and a dark comedy (not so dark though). It's the perfect example of a movie built out of moments - lots of short sequences that can be drawn out of context - from an owner with a mental condition that doesn't allow him to kick out his late paying tenants, to a simple chat with a clerk at a lost luggage desk for who a 6 weeks period for insurance collection seems quick. I can't say there's any such moment that's truly memorable. However, it's the type of a movie that leaves you a warm feeling after end credits, definitely closer to "Shoplifters" in respect to that ;)
I finally watched "The Gentlemen" or otherwise said, the return of Guy Ritchie to his main genre, probably something that could be called "British gangster action/comedy/thriller". Even though we had some bits and pieces of that also in "Sherlock Holmes" or in "The Man from UNCLE", the series that practically defined the genre started in '98 with "Lock, Stock..." and took a break in 2008 with "RocknRolla", hitting a peak with "Snatch", which stays as definitive reference.
"The Gentlemen" starts slowly, with a story told one evening by a private investigator who bring together the tangled pieces connecting a pot grower who wants to sell his business with his potential clients - actually only one. The purpose of the whole story is a simple blackmail for start, undoubtedly getting more complicated as we get through it. But to stick to my spoilers free rule, let's let the movie do his job for the rest of the story. In summary, we have the typical entanglement present also in the above titles, which is part of their charm after all, adding new threads to the subject as it evolves and more and more colorful characters.
All the build-up part in "The Gentlemen" up to the first scene, so to the present day, goes on for as much as three quarters of the movie, and the action really pushes the acceleration pedal only in its last quarter, which might make the rhythm to seem a bit aged compared to its younger predecessors. That was the reason of complaint for some early reviews as far as I remember. But if we check the composing pieces, some artificially introduced - fake story in the story, these maintain a certain dynamic which I find to be more than decent. Add to that the editing style which makes up for half of the movie - besides James Herbert, the editor who's working with Ritchie since long ago (you can notice similarities with "The Man form UNCLE", "Sherlock Holmes", etc), we also have Paul Machliss on the credits ("Baby Driver", "Scott Pilgrim"), so you can imagine the result. Top that with the brilliant ensemble cast, where again I'd rather let the movie tell what's to be told. Even though the story is rather predictable and clearly not as consistent as "Snatch", everything besides it dresses is extremely well. To conclude, we have a revival of the genre + in general an example of how a movie targeting pure entertainment should look like.
My first impression after a couple minutes of "Ready or Not" was that we're getting towards something like "Knives Out", probably the best dark comedy I've watched in the last several years. It's not the same thing though. Here we have some horror accents, the subject is much simpler and there's no ending twist. Nevertheless, it was fun.
In the center of the story we have (as in "Knives Out", therefore the comparison) an aristocratic dysfunctional family, the Le Domas, who made their fortune in a board games industry, started like three generations behind, following a mysterious meeting of the great-grandfather, somewhere in the middle of the ocean with a guy named Le Bail (light spoiler: easy anagram). So the guy proposed a pact - luck and fortune for all the family members, but on one condition - during each new wedding night the new Le Domas is obligated to play a game with the rest of the family, the game being randomly decided by a box that draws a card for the player. The options seem harmless, chess, checkers, etc, with one single exception: hide and seek. The difference here are the rules saying that the new family member should also be the new loss of the family = must be found by the rest and sacrificed during a macabre ritual, otherwise no more luck, fortune and add the life on top of that.
We move back to the present, when Alex, apparently the most sane of all the Le Domas clan, is about to marry Grace. Obviously without notifying the poor woman of what follows, hoping that everything will just be a simple chess game. Again obviously, it's not a simple chess game, and what's next is something like "Hard Target", but without Van Damme and packing much more comedy within ( yeah I know the reference is old, but I'm too ;) ). So, I already spoiled probably the most non-linear part of the movie, therefore, I'll skip the rest of the details. Even though I'm not really into excess red paint scenes, I could say that the movie is impeccably put together, with a special mention on the audio part - the score (Brian Tyler) and the sound editing. I've seen Samara Weaving who's leading the cast here, in a somehow similar role in "Mayhem" (another dark comedy with lots of red paint). I don't know if a couple of years between the movies are enough for a consistent growth in the acting experience, but if there I barely noticed her, here I'll definitely remember her. These being said...
Yet again... zero subject. And it's not the lack of new movies. More like the lack of inspiration in choosing something, or time for a backup option. It's been a while since I've watched an animation and "Mr. Peabody & Sherman" had a time-travel factor somewhere in its synopsis. I wasn't expecting much from an animation, but still convinced me to watch it. And up to some point it actually seemed promising...
We have a situation of a wonder dog (obviously fluid in English) = Mr. Peabody, with a level of intelligence that's higher than the average of the human race, who after graduating countless PhDs, becoming a successful entrepreneur, proving its talent in culinary arts, and many other accomplishments, decided to adopt a baby. Young Sherman, who completes the title. Well, young Sherman, in his first day of school had a conflict with Penny Peterson, an obnoxious class mate. Well, for cooling down the conflict we're moving to a peace dinner organized by Peabody for the two families, and from there it's just a step to the children running away using - "the WABAC" - a time machine, obviously part of the garage inventions belonging to Mr. Peabody.
Sorry, but I'm really in zero mood to move forward with the story. Up to half of its duration, the action is relatively decent and seemingly educational for children = it takes you the ancient Egipt, the the French revolution, to the Italian Renaissance, to the Trojan war, and also packs in some historical characters. From half on it's getting totally cringe though, throwing everything into a chaos of temporal distortions without any logic reasoning behind and making a real salad mixing all history references together (which actually you can see coming, but you hope it won't get there). It's obvious that the movie doesn't target quantum physics graduates in its public, and neither people with a PhD in history, but 1) for kids some ideas are pushed a bit too much towards absurdity losing any initial intention of educational value and 2) for adults the funny moments are simply weak and stupid. Or maybe I just wasn't in the right mood when I watched it. But I don't have a WABAC machine to return there and check it out.
A couple days ago, I was wondering if the there's some crossed digits typo in the Mayan calendar. Hopefully not... or at least not the digits I was thinking about. In any case, I said it might be a good idea to check a title of this year, since anyway, the number of new releases will most probably be smaller than usual. Besides that, I was complaining last time that I don't really have comedies in my schedule as an alternative material to the "apocalypse" genre promoted by most TV stations in their movie schedule these days. Well, I found an option that seemed perfect - "Bad Boys for Life" ... at least until I got to choose what poster to pick: one with "Ride Together. Die Together" as tagline or with a sober dark background. The clothing choice wins - when in doubt, wear black.
The latest "Bad Boys" was a nice surprise - 17 years since the previous one (damn, I'm getting old...), and 25 year since the first one (so old...), when I heard they're making another movie I didn't expect anything else than lots of hype, cheap story and exaggerated screen time for shooting and explosions. I don't know how much hype this got, the story is debatable on how cheap it is, and we have shooting and explosions, but thank God, the movie is not directed anymore by Michael Bay (if you watched any of the Transformers you should know what I mean). In the first part it still gives you the same feeling of an exaggerated action movie with lots of potential for eye-rolling at each third scene. Still, slowly, it did grow on me quite a bit.
If you don't know who the two bad boys in the tile are, it's probably recommended to watch the first two movies, which I'd say are "classics" of the '90s and respectively of the beginning of this century (even though I always found the first one overrated). In brief, Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) are two detectives in Miami PD, who make a funny cop duo involved in actions where they need to deal with some really bad guys. Basically, the same trend as many of the movies of the period (for which I think that the "Lethal Weapon" series is the reference). Even though I only vaguely remember what the plot in the first two is, I'd risk saying that the in this third movie we have the most complex subject of them all. And that helps a lot, even though at some point it might start looking as a telenovela. I will only say that we have a revenge story, where the target is one of the two - Mike, who after escaping the bullets struggles to find out who and why shot him. And that in a context of his partner dreaming of nothing else than a quite retirement.
First thing first, the movie is funny. I really laughed, which happens rarely. But it also depends if you taste the kind of jokes you have here, and also maybe the advantage of the age has a role ;) = you've watched sometime, long ago, the other movies, and you see in a certain light the bunch of references in the range of "we're old & obsolete". Besides that, it also creates a bit of nostalgic feeling that might help. And on top of everything, in moments when you're ready to say that this is too exaggerated, it applies the only valid recipe for such situations - the movie makes fun of itself. Keep in mind having Kate del Castillo as main villain and the reference to telenovelas regarding the story ;). Even so, we're still left with some over-the-top moments, and probably the worst part is that unlike the other movies we have a main bad boy, the other getting lost a bit too often from the action.
Anyway, I don't have any psychotherapy experience, but I'll stick to my opinion that to stay as lucid as possible in though real life moments, you need some time off from the real life. Not too much, to not lose the contact completely :) And what we have here, I think it's a good option to remove a bit of the current days stress. .
If a month ago, I wouldn't have thought that my next max rating will be for a war movie = "1917", the least I was expecting that immediately after to warmly recommend another war movie = "Jojo Rabbit". Or again, actually another anti-war movie, although the resemblance with "1917" stops here.
Johannes Betzler, aka Jojo Rabbit, is a kid, who close to the end of WW2 still strictly follows his beliefs taken directly from Mein Kampf, missing none of the meetings of the Hitler's youth movement. Moreover, his imaginary friend is the "mein fuhrer" himself, making the boy totally devoted to the Nazi cause, despite his mother's suggestions towards moderation. Rosie Betzler is actually doing more than that, sheltering a young fugitive jew girl. Discovering this, brings shock and horror to Jojo's life, who's facing now an existential dilemma: his antisemitic cause vs. throwing his mother into Gestapo's claws.
"Jojo Rabbit", as most of Taika Waititi's movies, is a comedy before being a "war/anti-war movie". But slowly it gets you into the drama world, up to the moment where it starts reminding you a bit of "La Vita e Bella". There are actually at least a couple scenes that are in deep contrast with the usual "playful" atmosphere present in the movie, and you'll be at risk of shedding a tear or two. The major difference is that the script doesn't fall into the tragic zone, and somehow manages to get out with a clear smile from these hard moments. Again I'm not in my best writing mood, so I might be subjective, but I really prefer this "happy" version. In the end I guess it's more ok as view over life, even if it might be less real ;)
I think I wrote before that if you've seen a movie by Woody Allen, you've seen them all, or to not sound that mean, at least a part of each of them. So, that's why I've never liked much Woody Allen = it just seemed boring. There are just two categories - romantic comedies or dramas with some hint of romance. But either my taste got "softened" by my age, or I started finding also some which have a slightly different nuance in the extremely prolific repertoire of the aforementioned (after all, at one movie per year it's actually hard I guess to find variation). "Magic in the Moonlight" is one of these more fortunate case, or at least this is what the trailer suggests...
Sometime in the 1920s: Stanley is a well-known magician, going with Wei Ling Soo as stage name, who besides the artistic career also formed a reputation of debunking fake mediums. So, he cannot resist the invitation of a fellow magician, old childhood friend, who asks him to investigate Sophie, a young lady posing as able to talk to spirits, who infiltrated into a rich family somewhere in South of France, making them believe she's the only way to contact the late head of the house. That's the starting point, and it doesn't sound bad at all.
The movie's part of the comedy area of Woody Allen, and it obviously keeps a lot of the specific elements = the characters construction, dialogues, etc. However, the context that's slightly more exotic and the location elements that add to the general feeling making it look a bit more like something by Alexander Payne ("Sideways", "Descendants"), give the movie some originality, enough to make it look different than just another episode of an anthology series. It's not something to stir strong laughs, but it has its humor, and even though it doesn't try to rival with Agatha Christie on keeping the mystery = you get quite quickly the answer on "who's the killer" in the story, it still doesn't lose you. That's because you have something left - to see how the romance evolves in all the context (even though that's predictable too). Probably this is also the disappointing part, in the sense that you'll probably expect something more elaborate, not just the simplistic solution you're offered. But after all, it's a light movie, relaxing, and not trying more than that. Something for a vacation :) Just the opportunity to end my 2019 chapter with a: Happy Holidays! & hopefully a better new year to come ;)
As I said it in other years, for the usual weekly entry I'm choosing what subject I can pick (if I can pick) from what I've seen in the days nearby, but for each blog anniversary and end-of-year I'm trying a bit more to find a title that's worth to be watched. Unfortunately, if in the beginnings of this I was reserving some time to see at least 3 movies, for some years I'm more focused on carefully choosing, hoping to find "the lucky one" from the first try, because there's no time for a second one. Now, I realize that I even got late to the "carefully choosing" part. Ergo: no chance for a 5/5. But "Extra Ordinary" is still a bit more than "ordinary" :)
Somewhere in Ireland: Rose Dooley is an auto instructor and the daughter + apprentice of the famous Vincent Dooley, ghost exorcist and paranormal expert. Former exorcist actually, because during a badly ended session he got crushed by a truck. So Rose, traumatized by the event, tries to focus on her more domestic job, although the community seems more productive in restless spirits and rising the number of scared potential customers than in people needing a driving license. And like that we get to Martin Martin who still lives with his late wife, deceased since 10 years. "The plot thickens", to directly quote the character, when Christian Winter, a "one-hit wonder" singer, having moved to Ireland to evade taxes, and becoming an expert in satanic rituals to find his way towards the 2nd-hit wonder, sets his eyes on Sarah Martin, the daughter of Martin Martin.
There's enough I guess to not get into spoilers. The movie is something like "Ghostbusters" meets Edgar Wright & Simon Pegg, but without Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg. We have the same feel and dark humor as in "Shaun of the Dead" or "Hot Fuzz". Sometimes it might seem a bit silly, but everything is forgotten when we reach the final crescendo, getting more & more crazy by each scene, reaching its climax at the end (really, even for the VFX, where there's a major contrast with what you'd expect for the low-budget you just watched). It's not a masterpiece, but the actors are ok, the script is ok, we have a minimalist score that fits well, and most important: I laughed. And that doesn't happen often lately when seeing comedies (that's why I'm actually typically avoiding these).
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
So, that's it for the 12 year anniversary. I still persist in continuing with probably the most unread blog in the country as views/days of existence :) (presumption not verified but highly probable). But well, moving on ;)...
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