Finally watched it. I agree that it kinda has a Wes Anderson vibe. The biggest surprise was that I was expecting a full-fledged comedy, which this isn’t. It’s more a drama with some comedic moments, and tells a cleverly constructed story that is typical of Rian Johnson’s scripts. It may be the lowest-ranked of Johnson’s movies but since they’re all terrific that’s not really a put-down. Frankly I think it’s been critically underrated. I’d definitely rate it as “recommended”, but don’t go into it expecting a laugh-out-loud comedy, but rather, an interesting story. Great performances not only by Weisz, but by all three of the major actors. My respect for Rian Johnson as both a screenwriter and director remains very high.
Send Help
Recommended.
Sam Raimi directs this movie about…well, I actually think this movie deserves to be seen blind. Rachel McAdams plays a woman who does a lot of the key work at her job, but never receives proper credit. Others are promoted ahead of her and her work is often ascribed to other people.
I won’t go into details, but this was a pretty fun movie. It went directions I did not expect and was, for the most part, satisfying.
Check it out.
I watched this tonight as another of the Film Independent Spirit nominees, and this is a very good summary of it. Rose Byrne is freaking terrific in a role where at first you’re maybe feeling sympathetic, and then at some point you realize you’re only going to end on pity.
I will also never watch it again, but I’m very glad I did.
The Grand Budapest Hotel
I’ve seen this in whole and in several parts on television before and found it a fun and whimsical film, but this is the first time I’ve seen in on the big screen and my god does it change the film into something much better. All the tiny little Andersonian details that you can’t quite make out on TV pop out at you, and of course the color palette is something else.
As a bonus, there was a 15-minute academic presentation before the film on Milena Canonero who designed the costumes for this (and on a whole lot of other films going back to A Clockwork Orange), which was eye-opening in itself.
Wes Anderson’s best film, IMHO.
The John Wick blu-ray arrived, and apparently the only issue with the streaming version is that I’m an idiot.
When those guys drive up to the gas station and get out speaking Russian, there are no subtitles. But when Alfie Allen speaks directly to John Wick in Russian (and John replies in Russian), there are subtitles. That’s how the blu-ray is, at least. So then I immediately went to HBO Max to check the streaming version, and it’s the same way. Doh!
I would say that at least I have the stylized subtitles on the blu-ray, but at least in that scene it’s not. Just regular subtitles, like closed captioning.
I’d love to check it out but from I can see it doesn’t even open in theaters until tomorrow, and who knows when on home viewing.
Correction, both the Blu-ray and the streaming version have the stylized subtitles. They just don’t show up until later.
Can you explain what you mean by “stylized subtitles”? Are they animated? In a fancy font? Cartoon speech bubbles?
Pretty much. Different locations on the screen, different colors, different fonts. Reminds me of Slumdog Millionaire.
Greenland 2: Migration
Mildly recommended.
Slightly better than the original, but nothing to go nuts over. We follow the same family as the first movie as they determine what to do in a post-apocalyptic world.
Well made.
I finally got around to watching Licorice Pizza, as it’s supposed to be leaving Netflix in a couple of days. Meh. I’m not a big fan of Paul Thomas Anderson’s style of storytelling/ editing here. One scene after another without any narrative flow. How much time has passed from one scene to the next? Days? Weeks? Who knows?
One of the running gags in the series is that Wick apparently speaks every language known to man. So there are a lot of subtitles, and they wanted to make them interesting.
I see what you did there.
Yep!
We went to see Hamnet today for my sister @EllieNeo 's 41st birthday. It was without exaggeration the best movie released in the 21st century among the limited number that I’ve seen.
I’m not going to give you any details about the film at all in this review. Only that it was deeply moving. I went into the film not knowing anything about it at all, and I was all the better for that experience.
It’s going to go down as an all-time classic.
Tron: Ares, the third and most recent installment of the colorful and classic Disney sci-fi franchise. Available on Disney Plus.
I take it there was some kind of controversy about Jared Leto that I didn’t read about. Probably a #MeToo thing, right? I pushed those fears aside and just plain enjoyed a fun movie.
Leto plays Ares, a security program from a TRON grid who is ostensibly designed to enter the real world and become the perfect, fully disposable government soldier once the bad guys secure the contract.
But the problem is, at the moment, Ares can only exist in the real world for like half an hour before he dissolves in agony and returns to cyberspace.
He and his former lieutenant, a highly capable and very dangerous Black woman, end up on different sides of the conflict as they seek to capture the Permanence Program by allying themselves with, or murdering, the head of the good guy company.
Great film with wonderful sci-fi action along the way. Much, much better than the dated first film or the pointless second film.
Highly recommended.
I watched My Beautiful Laundrette yesterday.
I liked but didn’t love this movie. I loved the performances of the two main guys, but I couldn’t tell just where it was going. Was it a story about a Pakistani family trying to make a go of it in London? Or was it about the two main guys? Was Omar a sweet guy or a prick? Was Johnny a vicious punk or pitiably lovelorn? What was Salim’s end game regarding Omar and the laundrette? I guess it was a little of everything but the storyline wandered.
Hamnet was very well done and I agree that it is best to just go in blind. Powerful, not an all-time classic, but powerful.
I barely remember it, but largely it was a gay love story 41 years ago when there was really none of those. The rest was very much of its time and the idea of a gay muslim guy and his struggle with his sexuality was very much radical too.