I don’t agree
I joined in on seeing The Boy and The Beast
Man, those first two acts were really good and I liked the kinda blunt metaphor for hate and depression going on in the script. Then the third act was like watching the card scene in Summer Wars, but in slow motion and stretched out for like, 30 minutes. It kinda soured my feelings on the movie when it wasn’t busy explaining itself to me.
Girl Who Leapt Through Time still officially the best Hosoda film and also the only one without any anthropomorphic animals (just sayin’)
Yeah Magnolia did not hold up to me quite as well on later viewings, it feels dated somehow. It still has some really great performances and writing, though it’s not quite as ingenious feeling as it once was.
Honestly, a big reason why PT Anderson is one of my favorite directors is that he started interesting and good and has just continued to get better over the years, in ways that are very noticeable. I can’t think of other filmmakers who have continued to grow quite as much as he had.
Inherent Vice illustrates this kind of perfectly, by doing the same kind of shaggy dog / ensemble cast story he would have done as a younger filmmaker, but with all the technical and aesthetic refinement of his post-TWBB films.
Edit: As for The Master, I haven’t watched it again since it was released, but in my memory it works more as a character study and tonal experiment than it does as like, a linear narrative. With subject matter like that, I think people were expecting it to cut a lot deeper. And Joaquin Phoenix’s character just kind of runs away with the movie, making everything else secondary to his incredibly weird performance. Perhaps it would have been more coherent if one or two or five of that character’s quirks were rounded out.
You really don’t get to have a solid opinion on The Master having only seen it the one time when it came out. Watch it again. I’ve watched it five or six times and it is a beguiling, beautiful thing.
The first two thirds of Magnolia are just stunningly brilliant. The momentum it builds. That opening scene. The music. It does go a little over the top in the final act but honestly I wouldn’t change a thing. PTA is da bomb. Kubrick’s prodigal son.
The Master rules.
Pee Wee’s Big Holiday was delightful. Judd Apatow had me worried but I realized his style of film works perfectly if it’s a series of non sequiturs. They also did well to hide one of the most hilarious parts of the movie in trailers - Joe Manganiello is playing himself.
kill ferris
It’s still the best John Hughes movie mostly because it doesn’t star molly ringworm or rely on weird stereotypes about high school tribalism to work.
Oh hey, I’ve been saying that they should do this since the original CG intro for WoW. Although it’s kind of weird that you’d cast real humans as humans if you’re just going to make every dwarf and orc and wolf and everything else 100% CG.
Shame that Blizzard’s visual design has become so baroque and awful.
Was excited that Blade Runner is streaming on netflix now, but however many minutes in i realized it was the ‘theatrical cut’ with the v/o narration and man, after watching this film without it for twenty-odd years, is it jarring. Ford’s delivery isn’t the problem at all, i think. More that it seems hastily written (maybe it was?) and feels lifted from another, worse film. Anyway, couldn’t stomach it for long and turned it off.
I really want to believe that High Rise will be a good film, speaking of dystopian cinema.