also, i watched this a little while ago, but the cloverfield paradox is some boring-ass nonsense bullshit. except for the lady that shows up in the wall. i wish the whole movie was just her.
I just watched Gone Girl.
It was pretty darn good and kept me wondering ( but not necessarily guessing).
And then it didnāt have an ending. And Iām getting real tired of this shit with movies.
Itās a very faithful adaptation of the book, then.
watched francis ford coppolaās bram stokerās dracula for the first time in maybe twenty(?) years. turns out it rules. all-time great production design and probably the last studio showcase for in-camera effects work we will ever see. winona the queen.
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I watched Vox Lux. It set for itself, many marks to hit. Too many. And it missed almost all of them.
Despite starting with a shockingly current setup: the movie then reserves virtually every meaingingful detail of the story, to narration from Willem Dafoe, who isnāt even in the movie as a character. In my opinion, 99% of the time, relying on narration is a mistake for movies.
the scenes we do actually see are often too short and hit several cliches for the a star is born/falls/tries to rise again, story. And its further hurt by a split between teenage years and 30ās years. And the 30ās version of the character has zero resemblance to the teenage character----which despite all of these afore stated problems; was well acted and seemed to maybe setup an interesting trajectory. But no, it was a bunch of cliches and the adult years played by Natalie Portman, felt like a totally different character. A different movie.
It was shot on film, though. And you can tell, because I guessed that it was, while watching it. And confirmed it, afterward.
*Also, despite events being very different, it reminded me of Christina Grimmie. She was on The Voice in 2014 and placed 3rd, overall. I was a fan of the show then and she was one of my faves Iād ever seen on there. She also had a respectable youtube following (which she had apparently cultivated on her own, before being on The Voice) and went on to have a solid early career-------which was cut short by an obsessed fan who drove like 200 miles to one of her shows in 2016 and shot her point blank, while she was doing photo ops and signing with fans. She died on the scene. The shooter manage to shoot himself while her brother was tackling him.
Rest In Piece Grimmie
Iāve encountered that film only in the context of people hate-watching it so
Yeah well I also should mention, its another movie without an ending.
Hate-watching seems justified.
Demolition Man was bad. Wesley Snipes Tire suit.
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Iāve always thought of demolition man as like, the obvious end of verhoeven-style action movies
the direction is stuck in this mode between the mid80s-early90s harshness and the late90s slickness, the cast is all over the place (snipes! stallone! bullock! dafoe!), the social commentary is both heavy handed and choked off, etc
Haha you confused dafoe and dennis leary.
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oh god
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You do see Stalloneās taint and balls. I guess I also saw those in The Specialist. I have seen Stalloneās package multiple times this year.
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i like demolition man but the most hilariously outdated thing about itās satire is the concept that dennis learyās character would be part of some underground resistance to political correctness instead of just regular mainstream 21st century thought
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i finally saw hereditary. i knew the song at the end as a tik tok meme first so i couldnāt stop laughing every time it went BWAAAA BWAAAAAAAAAAAA
Objection! All but one person.
I watched it in cinema this year (yurop, being late as usual and stuff), and against all odds, i actually came around to like it.
Itās far from a perfect flick, yes, and the way how the ending is going down,ā¦ it is unexpected, to say the leastā¦ in hindsight though, i even got less irritated about that as well.
Watching this a second time will tell whether that stays true, or whether i will be bored to death.
In any case, best trick of this movie is using the same actress to play mother in younger years/daughter in our time, making it possible to have older celeste preach about life to herself, which also acts as a general 'what the fff is going on'-moment, also showing how she hasn't got a clue about how she ended up as the broken, almost non-functional individual which is as stark a contrast to her robotic stage persona as it is when compared to her younger self/daughter.
That alone has made it worth watching it. Personally, it has been quite a long time since a movie made me go āhey, this flick didnāt do that, did it? ā¦ā two days later.
Yeah the film really hated College Liberals of 1995.
Ah.
I just put together the whole film is going off to college and then coming back to your hometown spouting off nonsense bullshit your professors told you. And only an idiot with a gun can stop a genius with a gun. Also Dennis Leary is there in a subplot that doesnāt go anywhere.
Sorry William Dafoe.
It was an interesting angle, yes. But, saying it was at all successful, is giving a lot of credit. The āadult yearsā segment was basically her hitting every rotten cliche and being a huge piece of shit. And there was nearly nothing interesting said about any of it. And certainly no narrative which actually supported it.
I also found it weird how during the āadult yearsā segment of the movie, its almost never mentioned that sheās a school shooting victim. She mentions the bullet wound one time, fairly late. And then Willem Dafoe mentions it in is narration, very near the end. But its never mentioned throughout the core. And it seemed real obvious to talk about, when a terrorist group committed a mass shooting with masks reminiscent of her first music video. I mean there were a couple of big moments in front of press and interviewers-----no mention of it. huh?
The movie is a huge mess and said almost nothing.
Hmm, i guess i liked the openess of these points whereas they seemed to have hindered you enjoying it?
e. g. yeah, we are spared watching Celesteās rise and fall from grace, we just get the outcome of it, which makes it so interesting then to see how she raves on about the culture of discussion in the web, about stardom, and how to handle all the flack sheās getting. Thereās no āoh yeah, thatās because of X, and sheās so sad because of Yā justification insinuated, because we just can go with the impression of a monster that she is. So it forces us to take everything at face value - which makes the ambivalence of her behaviour in front of cameras/audience & her family so interesting to watch, seeing how she is oblivious to her own behaviour (well, breakdowns aside), and how she interacts with the group of people nearest to her like they are sometimes close family, sometimes as if they are just an audience themselves (esp her daugther).
In short, the blurring lines of private life, stardom/internet persona are perfectly depicted in that wreck of a human character, and it wouldnāt work so well if there wasnāt so little attachment to what we saw.
Her origin-story was always in the back of my mind, and I was also wondering when that would surface again - I classified that as a deliberate choice after Iāve seen the interview scene, where it became clear to me that this scene wasnāt just about celeste, but rather a point being made about media being hung up on scandals instead of trying to paint the whole picture, she obviously didnāt have problems talking about the traumatic experience, instead she just wasnāt askedā¦ as such, it is quite interesting to see how she is using that as a means of deflecting an attack, or rather to mount one herself, instead of wallowing in pity, like youād expect to.
Catching up with critical consensus on the web, Iāve been asking myself if it is sloppy writing/plotholes I enjoy filling with theories?
idk, it may very well be exactly that, as such, i am fully aware that the consensus is split on this movie, and i somehow fell into the ālikeā-camp. Which, by any means, doesnāt mean that i want anyone to come around to the same opinion, i just want to add another pov here, namely that it isnāt just a superficial or trashy movie, but can be some fun thinking about.
n. b., I gotta watch it a second time before i want to talk about more subtle aspects (the role of masks in entertainment and private/public life, literally and figuratively, the role of pop-culture and terror as portrayed in early 200x and 2017 (and the reaction of people to it), and last but not least, the robotic performance which went on for so long, and the ending itself) which i started thinking about days later.