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thing4m4jig
Love: visual storytelling and well-rounded characters. For depth and atmosphere I might turn a blind eye on inconsistencies. MIGHT.
David Fincher just does it for me every time.
I also have a weakness for movies so bad... that they're good.
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Apocalypse Now (1979)
See below
"Heart of Darkness" meets "Catch-22", I love this movie, that's all I have to say.
Stranger Things (2016)
80s rip off
Note: I've only watched season 1. as of now.
I'm writing this because the hype over the 2nd season reminded me of this show. And frankly, of how much I was disappointed when I watched it last year, tempted by stellar reviews.
How "Stranger Things" got these reviews, I still can't understand. Could everybody be blinded by nostalgia to such an extent that they forgot it was a NEW series? That it should offer something more than heaps of references to be good? In fact, that it desperately needed some steering away from the plot devices straight outta the 80s - not to end up worn out as hell?
Ugh. This series wasn't a nod to 80s stylistics. It was a rip off.
I could end up liking it anyway if it was more character-driven - even if the plot is fairly simple, it's still fun to watch strong characters deal with it. It wasn't. I watched a standard set of small town Stephen King characters, lead by a bunch of kids on bikes. Stereotypes, stereotypes everywhere. Could this have been more derivative?
Giving it a 2 for capturing the elusive 80s vibe. They nailed it.
As far as everything else goes, I'll give the 2nd season a try. But if it's as "good" as the last one... I'll probably be snoring halfway through episode 1.
Beyond Borders (2003)
Flat + flat out tasteless
Goodness, I loved this movie when I watched it as a teen.
But that was *because* I was a teen. And Jolie was pretty, and Owen was handsome. And they did noble things, they rescued people. What more could you want, right? Right??
I didn't see back then how offensive this film is. It's a romance, you see. Yes it is. But it makes a haunted face to convince you it's something more.
And the reason I say this is because the film's setting is the Third World. Specifically, several different aid camps with thousands of hungering locals. But this has little impact on the main characters as people. It just works to push or staunch their affair.
Owen, an aid worker, comes to London to fight for founding - so that Jolie can be impressed and help him out. Jolie rescues a child on her way to the camp - so that Owen sees she's wonderful and instantly falls for her. These are just plot devices.
I thought it was pretty distasteful.
There's also zero chemistry between the leads. Don't know how on Earth they achieved it, seeing how jaw-droppingly attractive they both are. Perhaps thanks to the script that gives their characters depth of overcooked shrimps.
Summing up: RUN!!!
A Single Man (2009)
Cold, poreless beauty
Skipping the summary. Y'all know what it's about :)
I am in two minds about this film.
The problem: it's visually so flawless that it's dull.
Clean frames, clean spaces, less life and more a homecare catalogue. Even Colin Firth sometimes stands no chance, fusing into the background like a bland aging model. The washed-out 60s palette doubles down on the impression.
Make no mistake, it's kind of the point. Ford's work is to be watched through the main character's lens. And life is no longer exciting for George. Most of the time, he seems to be savoring the clean elegance of his surroundings with last-minute appreciation of a leaving guest. Rarely does his pulse speed up and the colors regain intensity.
And you'll know it's not just my fancy wording once you see Ford play with the hue.
Still, something feels off. I get the idea, but I don't get the message. It all doesn't move me much.
Tom Ford is a fashion designer, and apparently a movie designer, too. So much so that in every scene I identified the effect at which he aimed and the detail, color, composition type intended to achieve it. It was like watching a series of artistic photos. You could pause at any moment, put the screen in a frame, hang it on a wall, and voilà!
But it was so premeditated it lacked the flow. And it lacked life. A clock became a blank symbol of passing time; a pretty girl in a perfect 60s make-up - a metaphor of the epoch. Everything so universal and emblematic that I couldn't bring myself to care.
And even now I'm still divided. Cause that might have been Ford's intention all the time. To have you experience first-hand how life feels to a person who's lost purpose. A washed-out collection of symbols.
Yes, I have that much faith in him. I might be reading too much into it, but in some ways Ford's movies are a game-changer for me.
This will be 7 out of 10. But it might well be a 6 or an 8, too. I don't know. What a maddening film.
Hannibal (2013)
Pretty but shallow, like a high school beauty queen.
I love visual cinema. You can see it from my ratings. I adore Fincher and Ford, I loved "Moonlight", "Drive" and "I Am Love". Films like paintings, that communicate more through the color palette and composition than through action or dialogue, thrill me to no end. I'm pretentious like that.
Having said that, "Hannibal" is visual approach gone wrong. And believe me, I wanted to like it.
But what's a girl to do when the FBI has about five agents in the whole city? Really makes you wonder how they fit all those murderers in there - there's a new one in every episode! Each with a penchant for aesthetically pleasing killing. Thank God, otherwise the only reporter in town would've nothing to do!
All of these agents eat up Will Graham's every word, even though his ideas are often... lacking. A man is hung by his own back skin up in the air and he concludes it's suicide? F*cking hell.
Not to mention his obvious mental instability. The man looks like he's about to fall over any moment! But nah, we'll just send him to Dr Lecter after hours. He'll be fine.
The power plays between the characters could be delicious if they weren't so clumsily executed. Everyone's thought processes make me imagine their neurotransmitters as lazy flies hung in honey. Or perhaps, you know, they think so slowly not to commit any faux pas. Cause "Hannibal" is soooo sophisticated, OMG. You couldn't possibly make rude comments on the weird taste of meat on one of Lecter's dinner parties. You might drown out that harpsichord in the background.
They talk slowly, too. And the dialogue is so sparse. I suspect that's what gives "Hannibal" the air of depth that many people rave about. (That and the slow mo symbolic sequences scattered through the main "plot". And the disturbing atonal music in the soundtrack.)
But for one, it's not enough to talk nice and slow to give your words meaning. And apart from that, all the characters have a disturbingly similar way of thinking, like they're in the same sect of something. Could it be that the writer couldn't get over his own worldview?
I really feel bad for the actors whose work in this was mainly giving each other long looks and moving in slow motion.
***
As you can see, I really can't run out of reasons to bash this pompous piece of trash. I don't even know why I'm giving it 5 stars. Must be my love for pretty things speaking. Cause I have to give "Hannibal" that: I'd never have thought death could be so aesthetically pleasing. The crime scenes in this show are among the most morbidly beautiful things I've ever seen on screen.
Other than that, it's as hollow as a blown egg.
God's Not Dead (2014)
Strawmanning Level Expert.
I wouldn't mind this movie if it weren't so popular. I'd file it away as another piece of propaganda that Christians watch just cause there's God in it, and walk away.
However, for one, it is popular. And apart from that, it tackles the topic of Christianity vs atheism in such an absurd manner that it baffles me some people actually concluded: "Damn, that was insightful" after seeing it.
I know of such people first-hand. My family did just that.
THE PLOT: Josh believes in God. He enters college. His philosophy professor is an atheist and he demands that all his students renounce religion (What The Hell?). Josh refuses; the professor challenges him for a series of debates on the topic.
Sounds interesting, eh? This could have been a good premise. But this is propaganda, so you know how it goes. Every atheist character either ends badly, or converts, or turns out not to have been an atheist at all!
Yeah, you read it well. Apparently for the film creators the only conceivable reason for calling yourself an atheist is that a) this terrible demoralized Western world has pushed you off track, b) you're just angry with God and giving him the cold shoulder.
The debates Josh has with the professor are ridiculous. Josh's arguments basically rely on some romantic notions like, and I quote, "The unimaginably intense flash of light during the Big Bang was how you could expect the universe to react to God's command of 'Let there be light.'". Is this serious?
And the man who is supposed to be a philosophy professor actually takes it as such and eventually embraces faith.
It's maddening to me since I've watched hundreds of Christian vs atheist debates and I know how most atheist intellectuals would *really* react to such arguments. These people are relentlessly rational, whether you like that approach or not. You can hardly sway them with half-assed metaphysical rambling. They'd laugh in your face and recite a list of logical fallacies you've just committed.
Anyway, of course it's just a movie, it can make whatever claims it wants. But if you want more nuanced perspective on atheism vs Christianity, go watch some Dawkins, both the Hitchens brothers, and throw in some Jordan Peterson for good measure. This film will do you no favors.
The Room (2003)
The One And Only.
This is a movie that can only get either one star or ten.
This pretty much sums it up.
It's so horrible that you have to wonder how this train wreck could have been made by accident. Enter conspiracy theories about Tommy Wiseau secretly being a genius who intended every plot hole (Plot? What Plot?), every moment of mindblowing cringiness - all with the thought of creating The World's Least Relatable Movie in mind.
I thought about this.
But then there's this scene where he crushes every damn thing in the apartment, moving around like he's sleepwalking, "Why, Lisa, whyyy", and he starts sniffing her stupid second-hand dress, orgasming on the floor, and I remember Lisa's worm-like eyebrows and I'm like, no way man, that's too intense to be an act.
And I can't even mark this as a spoiler, because that'd imply there's some "suspence to rob the viewer of". THERE IS NONE. God only knows what this movie is even about.
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Nocturnal Animals - an analysis
Hello, dear reader - if by some miraculous coincidence you stumbled upon this review, hidden among others.
This will actually be more of an analysis. Two friends had me explain WHAT THIS FILM WAS EVEN ABOUT when they saw I liked it on Facebook. I've also noticed that - as with many art-house movies -- reviews vary from "A masterpiece!" to "This is about NOTHING". I understand - a lot of films I myself don't get at all or I don't think they deserve the hype. "Nocturnal Animals" I get pretty well though, and I can tell you for sure it's not about nothing. So I'll share my thoughts.
Spoilers ahead, read after you've watched the film.
1. Who is Susan?
This movie is best to watch putting yourself in Susan's shoes. You don't have to like her, but you have to understand her. That's especially important when it comes to analyzing Edward's book, since it's obvious that the events from the book that we see on-screen are filtered through her mind. We get drawn into the fictional world when she starts reading and come back whenever she stops.
So, who is she? For me Susan is, first and foremost, a person who doesn't fit anywhere.
She's pragmatic and cynical, and she knows it. She doesn't like it about herself though; rather she's resigned to accept it. So when as a grad student she bumps into Edward - her brother's childhood friend and her teenage crush -- who infectiously believes she can be more than that, she falls into his arms.
One manifestation of what she escapes is the story of her brother. He's gay; their parents have practically disowned him; Susan hates them for it. She tells Edward that her brother once had a crush on him - his reaction: "I should call him more often". His different, soft, human approach is what draws her to him.
On the other side stands Susan's mother. She's stern and dogmatic but she loves her child. She immediately knows that Susan and Edward aren't right for each other. She warns her daughter that "We all eventually turn into our mothers", and that when Susan's organized nature starts showing, she'll hurt Edward.
Later it turns out she was right. Edward insists writing is his calling, but he isn't any good. Susan eventually stops believing in him. She needs stabilization. She leaves him for another man, Edward's complete opposite. She aborts Edward's child.
But then it turns out she suffocates in her new neat life, too. Her only constant: she doesn't fit. Whomever she's with, she suffers from insomnia (the "nocturnal animal", Edward once called her).
These are the opposites Susan fluctuates between: chaos and order; Edward's softness and pragmatism that runs in her blood.
2. The book. What does Edward say to Susan? However Susan understands the book is indicative of what she thinks Edward wants to communicate with it. So it hints at what happened between them in the past, a lot earlier than the film actually spells it out. Prepare to watch Susan's reactions and then put the puzzles together through her flashbacks.
Only after seeing the end do you realize what game Edward was playing all along.
He gave the book a title that was their private joke, then dedicated it to Susan. She knew the book was about him -- he'd never stopped "writing about himself" when they were together. (That's why she saw Tony as Edward and why Gyllenhaal played both roles).
Edward knew Susan felt guilty for what she's done. For a long time after she must have identified Tony's family harassers as the eponymous animals - her counterparts in the book - he kept her uncertain of their intentions. Will they hurt the family? Will they leave them alone? Finally, they killed them, as Susan destroyed her and Edward's relationship and aborted their child. Edward portrayed Tony's grief, letting Susan know: "Here's what you did to me". Then he expanded on Ray Marcus -- a mindless psychopath -- sending the message: "Here's what you are to me now". Finally, Tony kills Ray and dies himself, which means: "Writing this killed me, but at least now you're dead too".
Edward's revenge might seem childish. But it shows what power those once-close hold over each other. Edward doesn't have to spell it all out to Susan. She knows she hurt him once and he knows that she knows. He knows that what gives her some peace is the thought that perhaps, with time, he forgave her, or at least understood. He takes that comfort from her.
What did Susan do? She left a man she wasn't compatible with. She aborted a baby she didn't want. Whatever your personal opinion of it is doesn't matter; that's not the point. The point is that such things people live with. But Susan now has to live with more than that: the knowledge that she made a person she once loved suffer for the next 20 years. Suffer enough to regret his own softness and humanity (Tony's qualities that made the murder possible). Enough to turn into a man she didn't recognize anymore and to write a book just to make her suffer in turn.
3. The ending.
I've seen people write THERE IS NO ENDING AT ALL.
What happens in the end is this: Edward and Susan arrange for a dinner to discuss the book; she comes and waits; he never appears.
It might seem anti-climatic; but if you were in Susan's place, I guarantee you wouldn't say so. She realizes she'll never be absolved; that the worst possible interpretation of Edward's book was the intended one; that this story will soon be published. Maybe become a bestseller. Her past has caught up with her.
Thank you for reading and have a great day :)
Wanted (2008)
Badass
OK, just to get things straight:
I hate action movies. I watched this one 3 times in a row when it came out, and 2 more times since.
Usually when I watch long, over-the-top action scenes, I'm like "meh... give me the damn plot already". But action scenes in "Wanted" are hilariously self-conscious about how over-the-top they are. There's this scene in the beginning, where James McAvoy knocks out his shitty friend's teeth with a PC keyboard... and then a couple of keys and one tooth form a "F*CK U" in the air for a moment. I saw this and I was SOLD. What's not to love?
This is "Deadpool" v.2008, guys. WATCH. IT.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Prepare to dive in head first
I don't blame people who claim this movie is a hell of a mess; but this doesn't have to be a drawback. It's a mess in a comic book/video game style that made me think of "Scott Pilgrim vs the world" a lot. If you buy the tickets unprepared for something ultravisual and tech-savvy, chances are you're gonna be exhausted with it.
Personally I loved it. This movie is why cinemas still make sense in times when we can watch anything at home anyway. It's a movie designed for cinemas, to be savored as an all-encompassing experience, not just a visual one.
The way the story was told made a lot of sense too. I loved the way in that Arthur's young years were explained away - it made a lot of sense with regards to his ability to manage people. It was not only charisma; these were years of practice.
The legend is properly told. It's simple, and it's epic, and it's the same old story that is so ingrained in our culture that we tell and retell it again, and it's never boring. There is the good father and the evil uncle - the dual nature of the same blood; there's a young boy who's lost and a coward and who turns his eyes away from the darkness; and who has to face it to regain control and become the man he's meant to be.
I think it's an art to tell this story well and to put emphasis in all the right places. That's the value of this film for me.
P.S. And it's funny AS HELL.
Me Before You (2016)
Love conquers all - or does it?
This film shook me quite a bit.
And I might be a chick, but usually I'm not one for chick flicks. They can be good to pass the time. At their worst they're flat out offensive, using serious themes to pretend they're more than they really are. Like the misery of the Third World - see 'Beyond Borders". Or cancer, see "The Fault In Our Stars".
So when I hear of a chick flick dealing with war or death or sickness, that's what I fear. Flat, mindless characters that are there just to fall in love in spite of everything, because, you know, love conquers all.
But for one: for all you could say about Emilia Clarke, she's never flat. She's lovely. She's a top-notch actress, and I can't imagine anyone who would give this role this much warmth and steadiness. People like Lou - grown-up children, with both childlike innocence and more wisdom than the rest of us - are a rare breed, but they do exist, and she captured this perfectly. Her eyebrows are a gift from god.
She was the first good thing about "Me Before You". I still wouldn't remember much of it if it wasn't for the second one - the ending. I've read a couple of reviews for this film and people seem to get the "live boldly" slogan as its message. They miss the fact that it's also a movie that debates assisted suicide. And actually argues in favor of it. As a person who has gone through a debilitating illness, I appreciate the fact that it doesn't maintain that any life is worth living or something along those lines. This is something that only people who don't know the first thing about being sick can state - and that I see mainstream cinema argue much too often.
I still don't think it's a good movie. I give it a 6, because most of it is calculated just to repeat the success of "The Fault In Our Stars" and such. But there was something visceral in it that cracked through the Hollywood facade and that cracked me in turn, because I didn't expect it there.
Watch it, somehow it's worth it.