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fabiovicentini
Reviews
The Menu (2022)
brilliant and dumb?
Unfortunately the movie foes not stir its taste till the last course and the ingredients spread for us at the beginning become stale before the last bite. The strenght of the movie is how dolute its idea is, focusing -rather brilliantly- on the succession of events and dialogues that keep the interest alive rather than the.social commentary and possible satire that aliments them, which is rather thin and undercooked. In fact, the final resolution -that is anticipated halfway through the movie, in an attempt to shift the focus from the ending to its unfolding- appears to be a name tag in the place of where the actual development should have been: it feels more convinced of its significance than being significantly smart. Yet, this only happens at the ending, and, for a movie that could have only relied on the overprepared dishes that provide satisfaction only in the air consumed to loose the jaws in complimenting the eater's ability to enjoy its taste for food, the movie menages not to be boring.
Late Night (2019)
it's good, but it loses a chance to be great
It is definitely a smart movie, one in which a lot and good thinking has been put into in the way of creating a script where every dialogue does its best to be relevant to the story and not come out as contrite or too pedantic, at least till the end has to be ushered in. Unfortunately, the solution that concludes the viewing is not at the level of the elaborated writing that the previous moments have prepared us to expect; in fact, as Emma Thompson has to address a scandal in the workplace, the script reads as unlike the witticism and elaborated comedy that the character of Thompson stands for that the line the movie wisely weave on the possibility of humour that does not fall in the trap of being gross or tedious falls apart. And with it also the minor contrivances that were included to create the appearance of a conflict easily resolved at the moment the variation in tone required a specific effect, reveal their lack of bite and thinness as if they were included for an apparent dynamic that never comes to affect the characters interactions.
Torn Hearts (2022)
no torn attention for a movie that reuires none
Ridiculously superfluous. Endless minutes where no one comes in with something interesting to fill up the unoriginal dynamic that the whole film is set around, in the inconceivable idea that someone might have thought that there was something worth watching.
The Stylist (2020)
there are 3 minutes worth watching
2 minutes at the beginning and 1 at the end. The rest is amazingly insignificant and will let you wonder 'how is it that a 1 h and 44 min movie can be jammed in 3 min without having a diffferent impact on these scenes?'
That s the power of the ending, which looks back at the whole movie if it had never taken place. We discover, along with the character, that there had never been a a characther that occupayed a story
Wrong Turn (2021)
the only wrong turn is to see in it any redeeming quality
Let s start from some general remarks on cinema: there must be something extremely wrong in the econ9momy of producing moves, either they are too cheap or too remunerative (the two options sustain each other). I cannot think of any other reason why movies with no ideas nor interest in giving some conflicts to develop get constantly produced with, also, some success.
Another observation regards horror specifically: there is a lazyness intrinsic in the genera that has more and more made them flat and uninteresting (I am one that form almost a year after a breaking up I could watch with enjoyment only horror movies and now I have a rejection toward them). Horrors have two parts: the f9rst in the introduction to character and the second is their butchery. The two conflict with each other; why spending time in giving characters depths if they have to die? In this movies this choice I s bought to the extreme and not even in the final girl there is something interesting to root for.
It start from the greatest effort to distinguish the strong character from the rest: she knows how to change a tire. But maybe she is not the only one, maybe she has pushed the others aside to do it herself. No, that is too much depth; the others have no idea how to do it. That's the length the movie goes to give all in once the role that every character keeps to the end, the expendables and the hero with a single virtue.
Due to the lack of any particular traits belonging to the supporting cast, the main lead suffers as a consequence. I like to consider the movie itself as a communal development that each line, each frame, each character carries trough to animate the plot in a comprehensive becoming; there is no separate element nor isolating driving idea that is not rendered via the participation of all episodes and all dialogues in a single development that is the movie (of which the plot is an abstracted element derived from it only at the end of the movie, when it is already no longer the movie but the memory of it that works). So it does in this movie by making it an experience incapable to even start because nothing it it give it and illusion of spontaneus reality that is creating itself in the moment of taking place.
Thus the butchery part fails miserably because it simply does not happen but remains suspended in a belief of interested concerning the characters faith that has never been seriously constructed.
The lack of any element that ignites its essence is dragged till the end in a ridiculous (this adjective does not help much because the whole movie perfectly matches with it) and rotting last scene that packs so many events into one (along them a spoof of the twist in the last movie of the twilight saga) that seems to covering for all that they had forgotten to put in the movie previously: instead of being a resolution, the ending is a last attempt to animate its dying movie, that, like the consummation of the last action in the movie,remains still on the running of the title credits.
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
laughable
This movie is sadly ridiculous.
I want to start form the monkey paws element:
Diana, you are in a movie with actual gods and the artefact that drives your story is a 20th century reference? You had a chance to bring in some trickster god from the maya and you ended up with what seemed to be presented from the executive producer of nickelodeon: instead of that book you checked you would have fared better in having spongebob to explain the extremely convenient tip to solve the impasse of your plot.
Because the way that the wish can be renounced is unbearably silly; it does no represent any actual sacrifice, Diana does not have to kill her love or him love killing himself; just the formula would do, which seems to be coming from an advertisement of underwear with the message 'you better change them eventually'.
This intersects with the other main problem of the movie: the representation of male and female dependency. Diana is an heroine that just needs her lover to give himself away to improve her power. I think this idea was profoundly explored in Digimon. Luckily enough he is always the same guy otherwise the stereotype of the famme fatale would be rewritten for a more dangerous woman that will eventually extinguish the male population by the sheer power of kindness.
I wish it was possible to discuss the movie without thinking it a statement for social issues but the blessed times of 9os are over and now everything is as good as the single idea that must be preserved and behind the string of words there is actually no space to feel any living presence of intellect.
The Chinese fortune cookies have less pretentiousness but equal creed.
The movie acknowledges that there can be only woman fullness in loving, furthermore one who has a good sense of clothing in case he is not your reincarnated lost boyfriend (anyway: thank you for having again chirs pyne- it made so much easier to forget that you were actually triyins to say that the beauty is inside- gadot's rocky accent never would have allowed to play serious on that).
And then the naivetés on plots and social issues climax in the most unforgivable sin: I can t forgive the movie to misuse the line of Keats 'beauty is truth, truth is beauty and that is all there is' to get rid it of its ambiguity for the sake of the supposedly powerful message (which more seemed and afterthought after they had forgotten why Diana in eagle armour should be more that just a way to presents Gadot's hips swinging). The line of keats plays on tautology to create an element of beauty in imagination that is not actually written down in the sentence; the line creates the beauty of its subject by refereeing to it without exhausting it in actual representation. Wonder woman, by having the ecstatic diana whispering 'the truth is beautiful' enters in the field of its own ineptitude by revealing that it has no notion of how debatable the concept of truth is. Not that a movie had to solve ontological problem that still titillate philosophers but a certain capacity to recognize that truth had never movie's concern would have bben welcomed ( indeed, coming form a French school of reasoning, desire is the constitutive element of truth,, therefore the truth to be contemplated had always been equally beautiful, before and after the claim that renunciation is the emerging nature of truth , Why do you remain selctive on the truth you fancy, Diana?)
My Soul to Keep (2019)
it is a toy commercial
Well crafted, way better than many other horror movies, but still a long toy commercial
I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
fast forward training
For the first time i experienced a movie whose intention was to play with the possibility of fast forwarding the boring bits. No other explenation can bee given for the two car dialogies. It is refreshing to have a movie that plays with the possibilities that a vision not restraiend to the cinema darkness and charged with the power of a remote control (or keyboard) allows.
Surely to have finally Wordsworth and Guy Debord mentioned to bring some intellectual pickles is an epiphany for a media that is fearfully inferior to its bookish counterpart; it is to praise the recognition of its inferiority that the mentioned writers add to the rest of the frames the same message, i.e. 'whether you catch them or skip them, the indifference they bring to the consecutive safe musing is the same'. Brilliant
The Dark and the Wicked (2020)
a boiled egg
There is a pleasant feeling that the movie sets up its own rules in other to show what it wants without having to give any explanation about them thus reveling that is incapable of being much creative with its own free game.
Possessor (2020)
narcissism that pretends to become insightful
The director is more concentrated on delivering an aesthetic experience rather that any interesting exploration on his subject. By indulging in each sequence on long pauses, either between the character or in the camera he relies on the audience filling the gaps of his direction, which unfortunately when overdone, like here, soon becomes tiresome and not rewarding. To say that the premise is not that original is to emphasize the fact that the realization is even worse. To lose oneself in the body that one is controlling, might have arrived at some interesting developments if it wasn't that it ends being an excuse to have some psychedelic sequences that add nothing to the viewer thinking upon the subject matter at hand. Its unforgivable crime is the boredom by which it fills the runtime of an unnecessary work on dullness.
The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)
please, give us a proper version of this
It is simply unbelievable how ideas are tossed in the screen time to be wasted at best or boring at its lowest.
Some concerns that titillate curiosity in Flannegans and Co are surely present just to wonder how it could it all been better.
To begin with, the framed narration is a device that allows to patch things up too naively. With two episodes before left, we are introduced to a previous episode that gives the viewer information concerning the ghost that is not made available to the characters in Bly manor. Most likely because they do not care much about any of that. The story of Violet that should be the core of the spookiness (it creates the gravitational hole that holds all the ghosts in a quantum loop after all) has no echo running through the previous episodes. It does not reveal anything that the characters were concerned with, it takes place in a story out of their story, only for the need of the viewers rather than any inner dynamic that the story is interested in.
The best idea is that the ghosts lose their features by forgetting themselves (convinienly remembering what serves the plot to sustain this point) without ever forgetting to behave as good ghost that never for one moment behave as if they were still alive. The relevance given to memory in ghost introduces a problem in the role that memory has to humans; their relation to memories is not at all clear. Sure, they are trapped in them, but the plot does not develop beyond that. Should they abandon their memories, being capable of forgetfulness, or being shaped by and with them? They must not forget, it seems, but the protagonist seems to have done so with the ex-boyfriend, even if it is more likely that he was forgotten by the whole crew. Forgetting just seems not possible for the characters (again, with the exception of the ex-boyfriend), to the point that the au pair has to die under it. She dies for the ghost of a memory that never belonged to her in the first place but is/was/will always be more powerful than the suffering she casts on her partner. (I can't wrap my head around this point; she needs to sacrifice herself to purify the demon she carries with her, a demon that was forgetful of itself before possessing her and so it remained for a long time without much of anything that awakened her lost the desire for the treasure she inhabited.)
This brings to the best lesson that the story gives: when you love someone, just hope that your partner will die first so that you can have to tell its story as if nothing would have changed in your love, as if this was not a sign of pathology which might be an interesting ghost that is not touched upon.
Eventually, there is nothing much of a haunting going on. The ghost is the spirit of a woman summoned from her clothes. I wish I had seen more of those clothes anything themselves around the house instead of irrelevant mannequins. Even Peter Quinn is just there to haunt the viewers by remindind of more recent representation (The movie The Turn) of the possibility of an evilness that, like the ghosts, if it has no features it is easier to accept that it has not teeth to bite with.