Virtually nothing in this review reflects what I thought of the film which I saw yesterday. It's the best film I've seen all year and funnily enough I thought it was, if not as good as ATPM, certainly better than Spotlight. Unbelievable that it could be dismissed as a lecture about sexual abuse. It hit very close to home for me and the woman who I saw it with. Anyone with a wife, daughter, niece, granddaughter should get their butts into gear and catch this film. edit* The film captured the deadly effects of silencing of good men and women who want to speak truth to power, which very much echoed ATPM. A timely reminder for our own era.
Vickie and I just got out of Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. We drove 40 miles out of our way to visit Miller's Theater, just to see this on the big screen. We were the only people in the theater, but then again it was a 1:00 showing on a weekday. Beautiful. It's the best piece of stop motion animation I've seen in a very long time. He sets the story during World War II under Mussolini, so to some extent it's paired with Pan's Labyrinth and The Devils Backbone, two other films about children under fascist regimes. It's a musical, and unfortunately the songs weren't terribly memorable. The music was by Alexandre Desplat, and while he is a excellent composer, the skills of making a memorable pop tune are completely different. Of course, in fairness, the tunes from Disney's Pinocchio were running through my head.
It dealt with some issues that most films ignore - having a career while also raising a family, and postpartum depression.
My attention span is - hey, there's a squirrel! To be clear, I wanted to like "She Said". I thought it looked really interesting. And I don't want to leave the impression that the tales of abuse survivors aren't compelling or meaningful. I just felt that they didn't fit this movie. "She Said" is about the journalism. A movie about the actual events is something different, and the 2 parts didn't connect well.
But I don't think it deals with them well - and that's a lot of the reason I wasn't fond of the movie. It just feels unfocused and casts too broad a net. The filmmakers simply can't connect all the different domains in a coherent manner.
Why not this movie? I thought it was a great story, an important one, told well. I was gripped. The part which I phased out from about two thirds of the way through was due to complexities within the story-line. A good excuse to go back and see it again, but with my kids in tow and some friends - one of whom is an ex Al Jazeera journalist. I'll report back on their impressions.
The Fabelmans I liked this much more than I thought I would, and I particularly liked the actor who played the teenage Sam Fableman. Michelle Williams did a fantastic job as well. I just couldn’t help thinking that this film, as good as it was, was pretty self-indulgent. I am trying to figure out why I did not feel that Belfast was self-indulgent, and I think it’s because if you didn’t know the little boy in Belfast grew up to be a famous film maker, you probably wouldn’t have figured it out.
Hopefully when you see it again you will go "man, that Oatsdad nailed it and was right about everything!" Hey, opinions differ on a lot of things. It's cool you liked the movie! I do wish Carey Mulligan could figure out how to do a convincing American accent, though. I didn't mind her bad accent in "Promising Young Woman" - which I loved - because that movie was semi-satirical and over the top - the unconvincing accent kinda fit the tone. But here it took me out of the movie to a minor degree.
Violent Night. Despite the mass of good reviews, my wife & I both found it sporadically entertaining at best. It's a pedestrian pastiche of too many overused tropes in films, with three of the family members such cartoonish caricatures that you immediately don't care what happens to them. "Look! Here's a filthy rich, mostly despicable family similar to the one in Knives Out!" "Here's a heartwarming holiday moment!" "This scene is to remind you of Home Alone!" I mean, I didn't expect a lot of subtlety in something like this, but every single moment of this movie was telegraphed with as much subtlety as the sledgehammer Saint Nick wields through much of the movie. It's a rote, by-the-numbers mix of Die Hard, Home Alone & Miracle On 34th Street with a touch of Bad Santa here & there. David Harbour, Beverly DeAngelo & John Leguizamo, are the best actors in this, & are still largely wasted.
Vickie and I just saw this one tonight. I'd say it's pretty old-fashioned movie, yet another of those films that people who haven't been to see a film in the theater in years claim "they don't make anymore". Not astonishing, but enjoyable, and to film about a war that most Americans forget happened.
Like you, I was mixed on it. Some moments felt like Looney Tunes, others were sincere, other Home Alone with blood. It felt confused. Still, it was not without enjoyment.
We saw it the other night. I suppose a lot of people could be conflicted about... Spoiler ...the adorable little girl setting up fairly lethal booby traps, but then again they were perfectly willing to kill her and everybody in her family. And frankly, children are vicious little brutes. Anyway, we enjoyed it.
You left the TV cartoon "Frosty the Snowman" off the influences list. Spoiler The ending directly steals from "Frosty" - and does so in such a conscious manner that the filmmakers dress the little girl in the exact same outfit as Karen from "Frosty". At least the filmmakers are honest about their theft, as the characters openly refer to "Home Alone" and "Die Hard". There's also some obvious allusions to "Die Hard 2" - which featured a just-getting-going-in-movies John Leguizamo!
The two Happy Death Day films were like that - ripping off Groundhog Day, but doing it in a completely honest manner.
Did the "HDD" movies make overt allusions to "GD"? "VN" literally tells us it's stealing from other movies! The characters refer to "Die Hard" and "Home Alone"!
There's a mid-credit sequence where the male lead asks the female lead if she's ever seen the movie Groundhog Day. If you haven't seen them, you really should. Even though they are basically slasher films, they're especially clever ones, especially the second one.
The Menu. I had seen Fiennes in a play two weeks before and was going to see him at a reading that evening. So I figured I’d complete the triptych. Also, I’ve been to several restaurants satirized in the film. I even have a jar of granola.
Films /recent that are pretty good The Menu 7/10 Bones and All 7/10 Triangle Of Sadness 8.5/10 White Noise 8/10 Decision For Leaving ( tad overrated) 7/10 Banshees of Isherin 8/10 Glass Onion ( bit disappointed, not as inspired as Knives Out). 7/10 She Said ( walked out)
Missed the scene entirely that they based on the toon, likely because I hadn't watched it in around 50 years. They'd have had to be honest about their theft, as Ray Charles would have noticed it, & he's blind & dead! Plus it was beyond obvious that the little girl was Al Powell to Santa's John McClain. It was just so clumsily executed, as much of the film was. I didn't expect anything more than a fun popcorn movie, I just wish we'd gotten at least that. Between all the allusions to other movies, and shoehorning pathos, a snide & hateful family, a semi-inept group of crooks, some gore, attempts at humor & a steamer trunk full of other movie & holiday cliches, it just felt like it was trying too hard. It seemed like a movie created by committee, cynically exploiting every tiresome trope it could to engage it's audience. The film reeked of high concept flop sweat. The fight/action scenes were poorly lit, badly filmed & edited, with too many rapid cuts & too much shaky hand held camera work. The overall pacing was slack, keeping the film from building up any real tension. The characters were such poorly cut out cardboard caricatures that I, at least, couldn't work up any emotional investment in any of them. I literally didn't care what happened to anyone in the movie. If Leguizamo had killed them all, including Santa, all his henchmen had perished, & he then used his gun on himself, perhaps because his character had a rare sense of self-awareness that he was just a film cipher, I still wouldn't have cared. Except it might have been over sooner. At around 90 minutes this could have been a fast paced, tidy little action movie. At 112 minutes it felt bloated & overlong, & the seams were showing.
Oh, I've seen them. I just couldn't remember if there was an active reference to "G Day" like the way "Violent Night" openly acknowledges "Die Hard" and "Home Alone". I thought the first was okay but the 2nd much better. The 1st just relied on the "gorey 'Groundhog Day'" idea to carry the day, but the sequel needed more creativity.
And the need to break into a vault with use of specialists to extricate the money? Leguizamo's character even makes a nod toward "Die Hard" when he discusses prior methods of this kind of theft. I liked the movie more than you did, but I agree it's something of a mess.
What was especially annoying to me is that I really wanted to like it more than I did. The best parts almost seemed to be in the trailer & the movie left me unsatisfied. And this is coming from a fan of Die Hard, the John Wick series & other action films & film series. .
