People just can't get enough of a good real-life tragedy. This vulture-like appetite leads to the constant dissecting of the lives of the rich and famous in various formats. Larrain has made something of a career of it, lately gearing specifically toward iconic dead women.
I watched his Callas drama first, before checking this out, so it's easy to see that he definitely has a very specific narrative style. And I don't think I like it. Instead of focusing on the entire life or even a good chunk of it, Larrain zooms in on a specific time and place and eviscerates it with the voyeuristically macabre glee of a child pulling wings off a butterfly. In this instance, his subject is Princess Diana, and his focus is on the 1991 Royal Christmas celebration which she attends against her will and spends the entire time contemplating leaving it all behind. Diana is presented as a very fragile, moody, unstable, self-harming individual, prone to active hallucinations. The situation is politely volatile as it is blatantly clear that it's a bad fit for all parties involved. It isn't a flattering representation, although apparently accurate enough to draw praise from some former royal employees. But more importantly, it isn't a very interesting one. The movie is too narrow in focus and too idiosyncratic for proper appeal. It's pretty but dreadfully slow and soporific. And KStew in it ... Well, here's the thing. KStew is a remarkably talented actress. Her career has managed to survive and evolve since being a kid actor despite various personal scandals and the dubious rise to fame via Twilight garbage. As far as depictions of real-life people onscreen goes, she does a lot here from inhabiting the voice and the accent to embodying the certain mannerisms. It was apparently enough to secure her nominations from Oscars, Golden Globes, and Critics Choice. And yet, the entire time I kept thinking that's KStew in funny hair doing a British accent. Despite being the same age as her character at the time and similar gamine physicality, she just didn't quite lose herself in the role to the point where it was no longer her. Overall, the movie didn't work for me and was difficult to stay awake for. User milage may vary.
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The Your Monster looks like yet another retelling of the Beauty and the Beast. But it isn't. It so wonderfully isn't. It's deeper and sadder and more disturbing. It's also kind of awesome.
Melissa Barrera, who has screamed her way through two Scream movies, before being canned for not being able to shut up about her political views, and also has slashed through the vampire delight that was Abigail, has certainly earned her street cred as a scream queen. But with this movie, she finally gets a proper star turn. Utilizing her musical theatre background and her comic-horrific skills, she is pitch perfect in the role of a freshly dumped actress who moves back to her childhood home to lick her wounds and discovers a monster living there. He growls, grumbles, and tries to kick her out, but they end up getting along famously, because fundamentally they are both profoundly lonely. And also, the monster is so freaking charming. The more involved the two of them get, the more go-gettery and outspoken Barrera's originally meek character becomes. And then she starts getting carried away with it. I'll avoid saying more, but it's a doozy of an ending. Aside from Barrera, the movie's full of talented nobodies and lesser-knowns, with Dewey as the Monster being a real standout. Clever, morbidly whimsical, and as charming as the best kind of monsters, this is an absolute delight from start to finish. The poster may scream romance, but it's a completely unique take on it. And yes, it may scream :) Recommended. The Walking Dead got in eleven solid seasons. That's an impressive track record for anyone. But of course they couldn't leave it well enough alone there. After all, we live in the age of sequels, prequels, requels, remakes, etc. because why try and risk originality when you can just repackage and resell the things that have sold before?
Still, no show has pursued spinning off quite as aggressively as TWD. Despite the fact that every single one of those efforts has been dramatically inferior to the original source material. There's the lame-ish Fear the Walking Dead which I abandoned somewhere in season three through just not caring. There was the Daryl spin-off, decent, but nothing special. And now there's the Rick and Michonne spin-off, which is, frankly, just crappy. Mind you, where some of the characters needed no spin-offs at all, like Daryl and Negan and Maggie, whose stories had a reasonable conclusion in the original series, Michonne and Rick's plotline has always been left for more. But the dedicated fan could have actually hoped for MORE. Instead, what you get is a story so sappy and the writing so jarringly, noticeable bad, that it becomes an almost laughable affair. The TWD left off with Rick disappearing a few seasons back through no fault of his own in a rather mysterious fashion with people who air-lift him out of an explosion. And then years later, Michonne abandons their two young children to the care of others and takes off searching for her man. A questionable decision at the best of times and especially during a zombie apocalypse, but there you have it. Beware, major plot points will be discussed ahead. Read at your discretion. Now we finally get to see her journey. It's arduous. Of course, it is. She meets some people along the way whom she promptly gets killed, because in shows like these that's what side characters do while they help the main characters achieve their goals. At some point, she is exposed to a deadly gas and loses an entire year recovering in a mall. And get this! - despite it being well over a decade since the apocalypse, the mall is apparently fully stocked with all that two people need to survive. Apparently, in this show foods don't expire. Or batteries. Like never. It's magic, people. The kind of magic that helps one blatantly ignore logic. Once Michonne bounces back, she actually manages to find Rick, but all this time he's been recruited by a powerful army determined to take over of what's left of the country, and now Rick's all brainwashed and sad. Also, at some point he's cut off his left arm and got a killer (literally) prosthetic for it. So Michonne has to spend a significant portion of her time deprogramming Rick, a task at which she eventually succeeds after sexing him back to life. Then they take off for Alexandria, but Anne aka Jadis Stokes who saved Rick originally and has been an integral part of the army is in pursuit. She's an interesting and terribly torn character, and the actress got some nominations for it, which should at least make up for that awful haircut. But the thing is, Rick and Michonne are unstoppable. And unkillable, literally. Jadis, a trained soldier, has both of them handcuffed and unarmed, and manages to fail shooting them. It's just impossible. Cause, you know, magic. So, they kill her instead, come back to the army base, destroy the entire army, more or less, and let the government know what they've been up to, so that the government disavows the army's actions and begins do-gooding all over, aid packages, air-lifts, etc. And Rick and Michonne return to their babies. The ending as happy as one can make it. Watchable? Yean, sure. The zombies are still fun. The action scenes are still fun. The actors can act, but that writing is truly awful. Buckets of exposition. Every cliche in the book. The characters literally speak in trite cliches, whenever they are not too busy sneaking make out sessions in. Michonne is still obviously the one with the balls in the family (just look at that poster), while Rick is the starry-eyed idealist who spends a lot of time shirtless - and yes, they did wax him for this. Um ... cute. This is the ending the devoted fans would want for these characters, but couldn't it have been written better? Less, you know, stupid? Less focused on loving on each other so hard, which by the way is a literal line from the Danai Gurira's written episode. Mind you, that's one of the better written episodes out of six. The last two are particularly craptastic. TWD was never stupid. Don't start now. As a huge Agatha Christie fan, I was delighted when Branagh started his line of adaptations. Despite the fact that he has wildly miscast himself as Christie's eminent detective.
And sure enough, the first two movies were dizzying delights that respected the source material while providing stunning exotic backdrops and equally stunning casts of actors. This movie was decidedly less so on all accounts. Set only a few years after the end of WWII, it has a strong melancholy streak. Venice is as beautiful as ever, but the people, including the protagonist who claims retirement (as if he ever could leave it all behind) all bare emotional scarring. Then an American friend, the author Ariadne Oliver, shows up to brighten the mood. She drags Hercule to a most unusual Halloween Party, featuring the female medium who she swears is the real deal and daring Hercule to debunk it. And so, they go to a dark and gloomy palazzo for a party, like one does. The palazzo used to be an orphanage and is said to be haunted by the spirits of dead children. Adding to the creepy ambiance is the fact that the current owner's, Rowena's, daughter had recently gone mad and committed suicide there. So, throw in a mixture of diverse characters with their own agendas and traumas, introduce a frightening medium performance followed by an equally frightening murder, and what do you get? A locked palazzo mystery! And how does it work? Well ... decently enough. There are plenty of surprises until the very end, trying to dazzle the audience enough to make them overlook how many things don't add up. After all is said and done, looking back on it introduces a lot of questions about the what and who and why. Especially, the why. Would Dame Christie approve of such a thing? Well, the funny thing is that this movie is only "inspired by" her novel, Halloween Party, and is far from a direct adaptation. Moreover, the original was one of her least successful books. When the book came out, it was widely panned by the critics, some of whom cited the author's age as the problem. And yes, there were some plot snafus too. So, okay, but is an imperfect Christie-inspired mystery still worth watching? Yes, but with expectations adjusted accordingly. Again, this is very different from Branagh's first two movies - much, much darker, at times positively veering into the realm of supernatural. Visually, it's gorgeous, with Venice effortlessly doing most of the heavy lifting. Mind you, the book was set in England, so it's almost like Branagh knew he was going to need more pizazz. The cast is solid, if a bit unremarkable, and a messy attempt at diversity that seems to override plot faithfulness and other logistics these days. Not sure Tina Fey quite worked for me in this. And why on Earth is an Eastern European housekeeper named Olga Seminoff played by a French and French-accented actress? There's some choppy editing and unnecessary scene lingering and close-up. Branagh's movie feels self-indulgent, like he's buying his own act more than everyone else. The man he plays has a notorious ego, but it's different in appearance. Much like the character's actual appearance differs from Branagh's representation. But, in the end of the day, the mystery proved unpredictable and the setting irresistibly beautiful, so, while somewhat disappointing, this wasn't a regret. User mileage may vary. The fact that Eastwood, now well into his 90s, is still making movies, let alone decent one, is wildly impressive. But how impressive was the movie?
Well, it featured more moral complexity that a lot of similar vehicles, but in the end, narrowed down just enough to appease the average i.e. black-and-white morality viewer. The plot revolves around a man named Justin Kemp, a journalist who, against his wishes, gets stuck being juror. The defendant is James Michael Sythe, a white-trashy sort accused of killing his girlfriend. Right there, you have a very interesting class dynamic to explore. But that's only a small slice of this pie. The much bigger one has to do with the fact that as the evidence are presented, Kemp begins to suspect that he was the person responsible for the death of the young woman, however inadvertently. His guilty conscience forces him to throw the otherwise unanimous jury decision into a tailspin. But in the end, he can only do so much, leaving him faced with a terrible decision: confess or condemn an innocent man. Kemp is a recovering alcoholic, just getting his life together, with a new baby on the way, which put him under an enormous amount of pressure. So what will he do? What would you do? The case is being prosecuted by an ambitious, justice-devoted, ridiculously named Faith Killebrew. (Thus reuniting the lead with the woman who played his mother 22 years ago in About a Boy.) And there is her journey to consider too. She is someone who convinced justice equates to the truth, coming to realize that in this case it may not be so. The movie is very well-cast and acted, so as a serious drama, it's nice to watch. On the logistics side, it leaves something to be desired, with a highly circumstantial case, an inexplicable late-in-the-game pseudo confession, and the heavy-handed ending, where subtlety would have won the day. Warning for those who haven't see the movie - stop reading. By all rights, the movie should have ended with Kemp in his child's bedroom, peering out of the window, jumpy as a police car goes by, leaving him forever haunted by his choice. And leaving Sythe locked up for a crime he did not commit to comment on how the justice system works for people of his socioeconomic class. Eastwood is too All-American of a character for such nuance, so he goes for a more crowd-pleasing conclusion, simplifying the moral conundrums for the audience. It's a choice. It's fine. It works. Some may want more, but what are you going to do? The movie is solid, if unremarkable. But no, it doesn't quite impress as much as its director's longevity and prolificity. An Aster, mostly known for his indie terrors like Midsommar, has come up with an entirely different nightmare here. It is still very much his style and, more importantly, still a very A24 movie, but it's different.
How so, you may ask? Well, for one thing the horrific elements here are more absurdist; for another, they are stretched out over 180 freaking minutes. And because, like most nightmares, this one is weirdly compelling, you end up watching the entire thing in a sort of disbelief and bewilderment. There is a plot here. This is a movie about Beau, played by a flabbed-up, whimpering, simpering, greying, and balding (but hey, at least he isn't singing!) Joaquin Phoenix. Because he's such a good actor, he can do just about anything, but the whimpering alone makes you want to smack him. A lot. But then, Beau has been smacked by life, which explains his tragic lifestyle. And of course, he isn't very good at life. When he sets off on a trip to visit his mother, it becomes an odyssey through an apocalyptic world that looks eerily plausible, violent, and terrifying. And Beau surviving it is due to chance not skill. The real question here is will Beau survive returning to his mother. The entire movie as seen in retrospect is actually all about guilt, specifically the sort Jewish mothers lay on their sons. But because An Aster's brain appears to be wired differently, it comes out as this mad allegory/metaphor. Joaquin is game the entire way and his mother, played by LuPone with a frightening gusto, is scarier than a clown in a sewer. There are some fun smaller roles too, and a sex scene that truly etches itself into your mind whether you want it to or not. (One should hope not, but different strokes ...) Overall, this isn't a movie one recommends to others or even enjoys. But it's striking enough in its awfulness and oddness to merit a view from a curious cinema buff. Unlike so many, I wasn't a Midsommar fan. But I still remember it and may occasionally reference.it. This movie has the same sort of quality. It's weird (inventive, creative) enough to be memorable. Which seems to be Aster's thing. Beau is Afraid got Joaquin a Golden Globe nomination, but the movie isn't going to be another Midsommar - it's simply too weird and too long for that. Still, it may become some bizarre cult classic. Watch at your own discretion. The Creator is a peculiar movie. On one hand, it is a proper modern blockbuster, complete with bombastic special effects and a photogenic, ethnically diverse cast.
On the other, it's curiously at odds with the modern American zeitgeist of jingoistic pride and fears of Artificial (or sadly any other) Intelligence. Specifically, in The Creator, robots are the good guys. Just how I like them! Man(and women)kind are the problem here, as exemplified on one side by the protagonist (a US Army sergeant Joshua Taylor, sent to investigate the mastermind behind the robots - Nirmata) and the amusingly militant Alison Janney and his boss, the Colonel with a personal grudge against the robots. Joshua, played by Washington Jr., goes native on his assignment, falling in love and knocking up with the woman he is meant to investigate. When things go wrong, he is left to his own sadness, until a new mission and an unusual child who will change his mind about everything. Gareth Edwards is known for huge, CGI extravaganzas, and this movie is no exception. It's fun and fun to watch, and, crucially, smarter than the average cinematic bonanza of this kind. John David Washington is a lead that's serviceable at best. The industry has been trying to make him into one for a while now, but sadly he just doesn't have the looks, presence, or talent of daddy Denzel. In this movie, he is constantly outshined by ithers, mainly the wonderful child actor who plays Alphie. The movie didn't lend in the best of times, amid strikes about AI use, etc. nor is it dumb enough for the public at large, but the quality is there, and it is thought-provoking in a way few effects-driven vehicles are and is well worth a watch. And a surprisingly sharp commentary on the society that is more eager to destroy that coexist. This was definitely one of my favorite recent robots-on-screen representations. As anyone who has spent a significant amount of time around people and/or read the news, I'd love to see the future of intelligent, compassionate, sentient robots. Bring it! Most actors have sizable egos. That's to be expected, comes with the territory, and all that. But every so often, that ego becomes so outsized that it dominates their work.
Enter proof #1 aka Mr. and Mrs. Smith TV series. First off, did this need a remake? I'm going to go ahead and say no. There was no reason to take a perfectly entertaining (and not even that old) movie and stretch it out into a rather obnoxious TV series. What is the update here, you may ask? Well, dear reader, the main update here is racially diversifying the leads and making the entire thing a drag. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. Presumably, the original was too Caucasian for some. If that's the way you want to look at movies. But the main reason for this show seems to be that Donald Glover wanted to present himself as a leading man. He is indeed the leading stud of this production. The most scantily dressed, constantly showing off his toned bod or his tightly whities package. The one with the most tediously ostentatious wardrobe. The momma's boy who went as far as to cast his real-life mom (with no prior acting experience) as his on-screen one. The casting of his onscreen Mrs. seems to be deliberately damped down - a relative unknown Maya Erskine - so that he can be the attractive one. Glover has written himself a star vehicle, forgetting to take care of the wheels. The main thing here is that the show follows two annoying aging millennials who miraculously get everything they ever wanted - fun, exciting, well-paying jobs as spies, complete with a gorgeous NYC townhouse and a slew of perks. Moreover, the two actually get along and proceed to become a real-life couple. And then they promptly f*ck it all up, because they are just that kind of people Erskine does her best with the material, coming across as a sort of disaffected millennial with a strong killing streak. But Glover is just tedious with his incessant strutting and preening and precociously hip persona. I was a fan of his comedic work from Community. It seems that he and his ego have come a long way since then. The show has its pluses, like a fun cast of guest stars, and some entertaining action scenes, but only the last episode, in which Mr. and Mrs. Smith are busy trying to kill each other is worth watching. And yes, the entire time you'll be wanting them to succeed. Mine seems to be a minority opinion on this one. The critics loved this. It got 16 Emmy nominations. I'd love to have seen the show they were watching and not this overstylized mess. This remake might be trendy, but not all trendy things are good, as evidenced by the lead characters' very hip, often ugly wardrobe. User mileage may vary. Based on an old TV show I've never heard off, The Fall Guy starts off with distractingly cheesy narration. The kind that makes you think, 'What is this nonsense?" But then you realize that 's the movie's thing - cheese nonsense. In fact, they lean into it with such enthusiasm that it becomes its own charm. Naturally, the main charming here falls (pun alert) to Gosling, who is more than well equipped for the job. The stuntman he plays, Colt Seavers, gets injured in the opening scene, and quits. But he returns to a movie set eighteen months later, believing that his ex, now a director, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) has personally requested him. Sparks of all kinds fly, but Colt soon finds himself navigating in a deadly conspiracy that involves the popular leading man he stundoubles for. Curious aside: Colt Seavers is the name of the original TV show stuntman. And his girlfriend's original name is Jody Banks. Was renaming her Moreno for a movie some kind of a pathetic stab at multicultural inclusivity? Because Emily Blunt, much like the original actress, is a blatantly Caucasian blue-eyed blonde, so that's a fail at best. Or just why? Directed by a former stuntman, the movie looks and acts like it. The action here is next-level bombastic and funny to boot. And don't forget, you're watching stuntmen standing in for a stars who plays a stuntman standing in for a star. That's pretty amusing in and off itself. There's also a lot of perfectly chiseled stomach muscles. A LOT. This is a very silly movie. Intentionally so. Just how silly? Well, Colt theme song is "I Was Made For Loving You." That silly. If you go with it, it'll amuse you in a very mainstream sort of way. The audiences didn't seem to realize that, hence the movie was a box office disappointment. But it is a very entertaining way to kill/blow up/set on fire/car crash 120 minutes or so from the comfort of your own couch. I enjoyed the first Quiet Place movie well enough. A lot of people did that and more, and so the movie got a sequel, with part three currently in development. And then now a prequel.
That's how these things work - nothing popular can ever be left as a standalone. Limited originality and all that. The surprising thing here is how excellent this prequel is. For my money, it is the best of all Quiet Place movies so far. Yes, the first one will always have that freshness of the idea; the initial POP. But once that's gone, you're stuck following the characters dumb enough to have a baby during a quiet apocalypse. And it's compelling, because that real-life couple of co-writer and director John Krasinski and Emily Blunt are very charismatic. But also, no. Just no. Sex responsibly, you idiots. The world hardly needs any more people, and certainly not while blind alien predators are hunting everyone to extinction. Also, what are the aliens going to do once that happens? Why is that never addressed? I mean, is Earth just a snack stop for them, or are they going to starve to death eventually? Shouldn't they maybe farm some people for later? And if so, still not okay, the main couple. Don't make more food for the aliens. Why do people keep having babies during the apocalypse? It was the same thing in The Walking Dead. Does the vainglorious need to procreate override all semblance of logic? Anyway, no babies in this movie. Just a dying woman determined to get one last slice of pizza in the rapidly collapsing New York City and a man she meets on her way. The two of them end up saving each other in different ways, and it's a really lovely, deeply humane story about sudden friendship and survival in impossible circumstances. Lupita Nyong'o is excellent as expected, another stellar turn in a genre movie, following her terrific performance in and the best thing about Jordan Peele's Us. The surprise here is Quinn aka Stranger Things' Eddie Munson. Straightlaced and regularly coiffed, he is miles away from his best-known character and heartbreakingly riveting as a regular person caught in the most irregular nightmare. May this ne the gateway to an excellent career. Overall, the movie, despite some excellent bombastic scenes, does best (appropriately enough) in its quiet moments. It is a character drama with aliens, not an alien extravaganza with some people in it. Which to me, is a thing of beauty. Recommended! |
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