Knives Out
Watched 19 December 2019
As entertaining as they come. Will the numerous present day references date this film quickly? Well I sure hope so, because I can’t wait to watch it again as an even more charming old time classic.
Watched 19 December 2019
As entertaining as they come. Will the numerous present day references date this film quickly? Well I sure hope so, because I can’t wait to watch it again as an even more charming old time classic.
Watched 15 December 2019
It’s grotesque and unrelenting, careless with death and violence to a shocking degree. While the premise is idiotic, even immoral, the writing shows enough self awareness to let you know that it doesn’t care. The action is at once vivid and artificial, grandiose yet somehow shot to feel claustrophobic. The whole thing clashes with itself, with good taste, with common sense; a bunch of absurd juxtapositions and contradictions firing at your eyeballs at extremely rapid pace. Watching it was both exhilarating and distressing, and judging by my headache, just too much for my feeble brain. I love it and I hate it. It is, without a doubt, an incredibly accomplished work of art.
Watched 5 December 2019
Very fun but not one for the ages. I feel like it could either have been campier or more grandiose, but it kept to a more normalized middle ground, never truly defying expectations. I keep imagining that had this movie been made in the 1980s (with all the differences that would entail) it would most likely be a cool as heck cult classic.
Watched 5 December 2019
2001: A Space Odyssey is one of my favorite films, yet I found this one very boring.
Started out interesting — exciting even — but the story kept shrinking on itself, the ideas growing smaller and smaller. By the end, and much like the sad astronaut, I felt nothing. Please allow me to narrate to you how empty I feel, I’m such a sad sad lonely astronaut help me daddy
Yeah this would have been a two star review if not for the moon rover chase sequence. That part was cool.
Watched 21 November 2019
That scream really did it for me. This film could have been bad and that scream would have saved it. But no, the whole thing was excellent. Sets itself up as an incredibly precise and fastidious formal exercise, only to break with expectations in very unfamiliar, surreal ways. Rule-breaking cinema.
And meeting real-life Willem Dafoe not within one minute of the credits starting to roll was also a surreal experience. That’s two for the price of one. (Humblebrag, I know.)
Watched 14 October 2019
William Jackson Harper’s character is my closest audience surrogate in this film: instead of wanting to escape from this horrific, beautiful place, he wants to learn more about it. That’s what worked so well for me in Hereditary, and it worked brilliantly once again in Midsommar. I really love this vibe of deep detail and interestingness that Ari Aster is bringing to horror.
This was the theatrical version but I’ll definitely be watching the director’s cut as soon as I can.
PS: I have that same mortar and pestle! (From the dance scene.) It’s from Ikea, which is hilarious
Watched 26 August 2019
It might be a case of too much of a good thing, but I was not as entranced by this one as I was with the others. It might have benefited from a bit more breathing room around the mayhem, more of an emotional connection to its origins, maybe even (dare I say it?) a little less violence. It is spectacular, but numbingly so.
Watched 15 August 2019
Wake me up if Hideaki Anno ever makes another one
Rewatched 2 August 2019
Our world doesn’t deserve the unbridled vibrancy and earnestness of Speed Racer. The climactic Grand Prix is so dazzling I had to watch it twice. This film gets better every time I watch it, and I suspect I’ll be doing it quite a few more times.
Watched 28 July 2019
Best car chase of all time?
Watched 24 July 2019
A solid follow-up to the other two good anime-with-real-people movies, Speed Racer and Pacific Rim. More, please.
Watched 11 May 2019
This movie doesn’t know when to calm down. Exhausting!
Watched 25 April 2019
I was pleasantly surprised by how genuinely funny and creatively consistent this movie is — and it’s clear that everyone was having fun while making it. Pretty great!
Watched 25 April 2019
You can tell that they tried (most of the time), but it’s not as sharp as it clearly thinks it is. Also, they shouldn’t have let Ryan Reynolds pick all the songs.
Watched 22 April 2019
Fun to watch and kinda cool in a sort of childish, cartoony way. I wish it had learned even further in that direction.
Watched 20 April 2019
So enamored with the poetry of its own subtext that it fails to make the actual text engaging. The slow, painful lingering is fitting, but at some point it’s too much and there’s not much else there to balance it out — even the action sequences seem drawn out. Starts out pensive, ends up boring. Still, there’s an interesting story there if you can catch it being mumbled at you.