I want to know more about the heiarchy and rules of assassin world.
So happy that dog didn’t die.
Also watched Lego Batman and will be reviewing both with Jason/ATW9K.
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Went out to see Hidden Figures recently and enjoyed it. I agree with @Burritoad that it had some of the usual biopic problems, but I think the compression also helped a bit in that it created a tighter, more focused narrative. I prefer that approach over having a movie fall into the biopic trap of trying to cover an entire life in loosely-related snippets across two hours. The compression also doesn’t hurt the spirit of the historical material much, so that’s fine I feel.
The treatment of the racism elements was interesting, though I’m not sure they were as nuanced as they needed to be. I was glad at least to see that the “good white characters” like Kevin Costner are confronted with their complicity in racist structures, such as when Katherine lays into him about the washroom issue and how nobody thought about how that might be a problem for her. Then again, that issue is resolved with frustratingly few consequences, and Kevin Costner gets to display his ally cookie on full blast by knocking down the bathroom sign so that the audience is reassured in his “good white” status. So 
on that a bit, especially since Miriam Mann took down those signs in real life.
And in general, there is not much in the film that actively confronts modern white audiences about their own continued complicity. Most of what’s presented in the film can likely be written off by white viewers as “Phew, well I’m glad we’re not like that anymore!” Though, there was one particularly good little scene between Dorothy Vaughn and Kirsten Dunst’s character. They meet in a newly de-segregated washroom, and though they’re technically “equal” now in that sense, there is still a subtle tension between them that gets across without any dialogue having to be exchanged. Then they do talk a bit, and the end of the scene, Dunst says something sincere to the effect of “You know I don’t actually hold anything against you,” and Dorothy replies with “You know, I’m sure you believe that.” That I felt was a nicely cutting remark that still applies widely today.
Still, it was extremely satisfying to see a movie that features so, SO MUCH black excellence – achievements-wise, character-wise, relationships-wise, politics-wise, and more. I loved the chemistry between the three leads and I especially loved seeing Janelle Monáe killing it in her part (she was great in Moonlight as well - really hope she continues to do more acting!). I forgot that Mahershala Ali would be in this as well, and he continues to prove why he’s becoming such a fast-rising star. He is so damn watchable, oh mans.
So yeah, not perfect by any stretch and probably still problematic in ways that I can’t fully detect as a white viewer (especially since this was still directed and written by white people). But still really enjoyable and definitely better than other Oscar-bait-y films about race like The Help or The Blind Side.
Aside from that, I decided to go through some DVDs of old schlocky horror movies I hadn’t watched yet. Will post more short reviews as I watch more!
Tales of Terror - An anthology film directed by Roger Corman featuring three Edgar Allen Poe-inspired shorts starring Vincent Price, with appearances by Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone. Competent as Corman stuff goes, though the Poe adaptation aspect ended up being pretty clunky. Some reeeaaally off-puttingly bad distortion effects in the Peter Lorre segment. Still, mildly entertaining.
Twice-Told Tales - Another Vincent Price anthology with three stories, this time adapting Nathaniel Hawthorne works. This movie was in the same DVD collection as Tales of Terror and is a LOT better. Still obviously low budget and corny, but there’s actually some decent character writing as these kinds of horror shorts go. My favourite segment was “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment”, which had surprisingly good dialogue writing and performances from Price and Sebastian Cabot. I also just love me a good Fountain of Youth story. “Rappaccini’s Daughter” short was good too, if a lot cheesier. “House of Seven Gables” short was a bit meh, but still watchable.
Blacula - I’ll admit I haven’t dipped my toe into a lot of actual blaxploitation cinema, so I wasn’t entirely sure how to react to this. Mostly it’s just kind of dull, but William Marshall’s performance as Blacula/Mamuwalde was as good as promised and I’m still looking forward to watching the sequel just for more of him. Also, was not expecting to see blatantly gay characters in the movie and for them to end up being Blacula’s first victims, which you could probably read a lot of interesting things into as far as vampire cinema and queer horror cinema goes. Was good to see that the funeral for one of those characters implied that he had a family and friends who accepted him as well, which is really good to see for 1972. Still, afterwards those two are repeatedly referred to with gay slurs by other characters in the film, which was super uncomfortable, soooo… yeah, not exactly a full win there.
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Lethal Weapon. Two thirds good fun, one third tedious dated macho posturing. Lessons learned: casual racism is what heroes do, violence solves all problems, women are either screaming distractions, mostly naked sex objects, or can be safely ignored.
Lethal Weapon is a movie I enjoy primarily by having seen it in its time and place and re-experienced through my memory of it. It’s definitely a relic of its era.
Deadpool
We watched it for Valentines Day. It’s a really good valentines movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR5MlWTAtRg
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Get Out is one of the most incredible Horror movies I’ve ever watched. I would call it toe-curling in the way it made me squirm being so expertly shot and nonstop terrifying. Acting is incredible especially from the lead Daniel Kaluuya (most of us would know him from Black Mirror) Takes really well defined turns for a movie where you can tell something is off. I can’t recommend it enough.
It might be hard to think comedian Jordan Peele would be such a phenomenal horror director, but it makes more sense if you go back to some of the more surreal Key and Peele sketches like “Continental Breakfast” or “Aerobics Meltdown.”
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The Aviator is a long movie full of interesting characters, amazing acting, unbelievable but true stories, and increasingly dodgy-looking CGI. I’ve seen it before, but it holds up to second viewing no problem.
Manchester by the Sea
2016
An incredibly drama, that is executing incredibly well. This movies is not one that is enjoyed as it explores the sadness and negatives experiences that people go through in their general lives. How much we generally take for granted and how people are incredibly socially complex.
The acting is incredible, understated, not in your face and true to life as you would imagine the events happening in real life.
The movie focuses on the themes of death, loss, loneliness and grief in a way that I struggle to separate from how real life events occur. The mundane task of having a body moved from the hospital to a funeral home is laid to bare as the struggle that it really is when you are in that situation.
It can be profoundly saddening or you may find pity for some characters, it just depends on how you read this.
I highly recommend watching this piece even if it is just for the virtuosity of film making.
Catch Me if You Can is a good one to watch also.
25 minutes into The Big Short I wasn’t that entertained, and the movie making was mostly annoying me. But by the half way point it had completely won me over. I see why it’s so highly rated on Netflix/with Oscar voters/by critics.
That film felt more like a dummies guide to the 2008 financial crisis. No entertainment value.
I could have done without all the cutaways to explaining the words and concepts. I kept pausing when Juliane asked about something, and explaining what was going on, only for me to press play and then two seconds later it was explained “in movie” in a “clever” way.
But once I warmed to it, I did find it pretty entertaining.
I’d almost call it a “docu-comedy” because it’s unlike any biopic or documentary I’ve ever seen. Most people don’t know how that financial investment stuff works so I found the interludes as a way to cut through the tension.
Get Out was great. Don’t watch the trailer. Go in cold.
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Doctor Strange
I was incredibly surprised and entertained by this film. It was very true to the spirit of the character and the movie was able to pull off magic without ending up appearing silly. The character arc of Strange was also pretty great. The antagonists through the movie felt a bit cookie cutter-ish but the big bad and how he was dealt with was a great payoff. Great use of special effects and surround sound.
Easily made it into my top 3 Marvel films.
Massive detraction for me were all the surgery scenes, due to silly inaccuracies which could have been avoided by Googling standard operating room procedures.
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Logan is an great film. It earns its R rating within the first 5 minutes. I enjoyed myself during its 2.5 hrs. Every moment was delicately used for character development and story progression. The action scenes are very well choreograph, and most importantly the film does not use shaky cam.
Also X-23 steals the show in every scene she is in.
If you have some time in the coming weeks, makes some time to check this movie out.
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Inherent Vice: Extremely fun, kind of a Big Lebowski meets Fear and Loathing meets The Third Man drug-besotted detective mystery. Not sure what I’d call that, maybe film blanc?
Moonlight: Yep, definitely deserved best picture. So beautiful, poignant, I can’t really even muster words to describe it. One of the best films I’ve ever seen.
Moonlight
Story telling, structure and acting were top notch. Distils the genres of life and times / coming of age films.
The writers made the excellent choice of removing all the bullshit in these types of movies that everyone does, like school scene or prison scene. They assume their viewers can put together what has happened to the protagonist through the different chapters of his life and concentrate almost hyper focus on the moments that defined the man.
I can’t see any other film that it was up against winning but was also surprised that a bunch of old white dudes voted for it.
A film that forces something of the audience who gets rewarded for the challenge. Kind of like reading good poetry or short stories which rely on the reader to fill in the blanks while extracting the most poignant parts of the tale.
There is no reason to be shocked between chapters because you know what is going to happen, your brain fills in the blanks and everything makes sense immediately as you start a new chapter.
I watched this movie with my parents and while my Mum got it my Dad had no clue what he had watched. (Dad isn’t as well read as Mum, he prefers his news papers over fiction.
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Saw Logan. I did love it, but I’m much sadder to see that we’ll lose Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier than Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Dafne Keen was an incredible find for X-23 and hope she gets to be in her own movies as this character but hopely in a non-Bryan Singer X-Men Universe. Great ending. Though I have three big knocks.
-Richard E. Grant is absolutely pointless. Just adds all this conspiracy/corporate nonsense to what could be seen as an easy to imagine anti-Mutant world. You already have Boyd as your central antagonist and that underlying genetic crop angle coming from the hicks who try to bully the Munson family. Easily the biggest flaw.
-Wolverine is tsuntsun to the fucking end. I could only deal with so many scenes of “This is all fake crap.” “Don’t help me.” “Don’t be like me.”
-I believe X-24 should have been a Sabertooth clone. Not only would it make sense and spare us from one of the more shocking twists done with the character, but he still represents everything in Wolverine’s central conflict of Man vs. Himself/Wolverine vs. his own savagery than make it so painfully obvious. Someone suggested to me this was done to not remind people of X-Men Origins: Wolverine but there’s already key mcguffins in Logan that refer to that movie already.
If you do like the actors, then see it.
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I saw The Girl on the Train on my flight to London. Thriller movie set on the Metro North train on which we used to commute.
It was better than I expected, but it’s still a whole lot of I WANT BABIES vs I CAN’T HAVE BABIES vs I DON’T ACTUALLY WANT BABIES upper middle class nonsense. The actual thriller/horror part wasn’t what I expected though.
Don’t go out of your way to see it. But if you really like these kind of basic thriller movies with their misdirection and twists, it’s far from the worst one out there. It wraps up in a much more straightforward fashion than I expected.