Fai_Ryy
KIROKAZE
occasionally subtle
Not today Justin
Cosimo Galluzzi
Origami Around
NASA
ellievsbear
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
tannertan36
Game of Thrones Daily
RMH
Monterey Bay Aquarium
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
EXPECTATIONS
Doug Jones
Product Placement
$LAYYYTER
ojovivo
The Stonewall Inn
seen from Germany
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seen from Spain
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from T1
seen from India
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from T1
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from China
@remedialreviews
Riveting! The movement and flow of the first hour or so are superb, the unique angles and staging delicious, the acting terrific. The film does feel longer than 107 minutes and features perhaps two too many emotional lurches in its final stretch, as the pace slows towards a resolution that feels a bit too "What was the point" for the journey. Still, snappy and fun.
Incredible style and provocative substance don't quite unite in a tonal sweet spot, but the film gets damn close and even unbalanced its elements are refreshingly compelling. Plus, it's funny, the two leads are magnetic, and Sterling K. Brown is almost unbearably evil. A unique watch!
Another bright, fun time. The takoyaki life-flash and the horse race were highlights. Other moments were diminished in effect due to some time elapsing between my read of this and the preceding volume; this is not quite a standalone series despite its episodic nature.
Above all else, this was a singular experience in the cinema. Its atypical structure, "anachronistic" but purposefully designed costumes and sets, and curious hybridic writing alongside the unique score creates a truly mythopoeic atmosphere that transports the viewer to an Other Space outside of place and time. Does everything work? Not at all: it pulls punches but not focus (the cinematography generally poor despite arresting visuals); the thematic heart is awfully written; the prominent archery never approaches the target; the audio levels and women are typical of Nolan. Yet as a whole, it really is something special.
Look, this genre just clearly isn't for me. The betrayal was so easy to avoid ("Ur parents are giving me $400/hr to hang out. $200 is urs. When do you want to pretend we're eloping lol") and the red flags so rampant. An extremely shallow movie that caused me too much anxiety for its role of background colour while I worked. Plus, his drip at the end was like a jump scare. The Schitt's Creek reference was ridiculous, but fun I guess.
A film ostensibly about the consequences of a coward's actions wherein the true, brutal horror bleeds in the periphery. While I don't believe the point of view discredits what is effective here, I do think it is fundamentally at fault for the film's hard-to-forgive aspects. The comedy is to highlight Bear's staggering entitlement, but it encourages us to laugh and gawk at the shocking abuse of multiple women. The punchline is an entitled rapist*, but if the joke comes at the expense of his victims, should it be told? While it's clear both in the film and from input from its creatives that Bear is unequivocally the villain of this, how the film treats its women is extremely uncomfortable - too often in irresponsible ways, enough for the filmmakers to present as villainous, too.
---spoiler below---
A gentle portrait of a child and of grief. To say that not everything makes sense is criticism both positive and negative (of course it doesn't; but why the extended paedophile sequence). The portrait is small, so the full two hours do feel long, but everything is worth it for that small moment at the breakfast table. Soaking in the golden mundane - don't look away! Intimate, soft, and aptly impressionistic.
Me in the first 45 minutes: 🥲 The Gaang (animation and Avatar) is back together. 😍 The visuals are so good. Me in the last 45 minutes: 😑 Why are the best benders in the world so weak? 😩 Wait, why are the marginalized and wounded the villains while the people in power are the heroes for upholding the status quo? But yeah, the animation is stunning. The script is fundamentally flawed after the reveal, and let's not get started on the release debacle, but it is very nice to have these characters back on the drawing board.
The perspective and intent are strong, but the script is a little unfocused and the art direction (washed out colours, cheap central set) leaves something to be desired. Still, an arresting and refreshing gothic tale, powerfully performed.
Hugh Jackman just can't do English and any time the sheep share the frame with a real person they don't look right. There, cynicism is expressed and now I can move on. What a treat! Very funny and surprisingly poignant. Maybe I could have asked for a more satisfying mystery in a movie with "Detectives" in the title, but this isn't a movie about a murder: it's about contentment, belonging, mortality, and memory - and I truly couldn't ask for more than what they did with those themes, especially within such a colourful and accessible framework. Lovely!
A frustrating second novel suffering from every extant middle-novel flaw, here enhanced by the unique aspect of this series itself. Already we have an introspective, inactive pawn of a character - evocatively powerless and singularly believable. Now we have that again, but things are getting so much worse around him. As the novel builds the relationships and stage for consummation in book three, it's repetitive and slow. Only the villains achieve anything, and even they do it with brutal slowness. The new element - Molly - is just painful, especially after she appeared to be written out in book one. It's a drag of a novel, but it's true to itself and I have faith it will all contribute to a superior resolution in the next. It better.
Fails itself on a number of levels. The chiaroscuro is often gorgeous; more often it's just flat darkness. The meditation is at times provocative; it is unnecessarily built on gleeful mass murder and ends with cowardice-as-heroism. It has two non-Brits as Robin and John, features a recurve bow, and the costumes are shitty rags sewn together with leather needles by amateurs for some reason. There are moments in this that almost validate its existence, and the conceit is fair enough - this coming from someone with a dedicated Robin Hood shelf in their personal library (this DVD will not be joining it) - but its unfortunate downsides drag it down.
It shoots for prestige horror film, has its roots in copypasta, and in between it was an indie web series; the most liminal thing about the film is its lack of identity. The interesting modern art exhibit dressed by the production team isn't it. The 90s tape footage is something, the jumpscares are fine, but this is maybe just the wrong presentation of the subject. I shouldn't see these rooms in crisp 4K, edited competently without flair. Their nature shouldn't be explained by a bad film therapist at the end. It feels the wrong sort of wrong. Disappointing, and worse on reflection.
Great concept for a shortform video game! Sadly, the shoehorned narrative doesn't work and, like many of the interesting horror elements, it's belaboured to boot (moving eyes, very neat - until the cinematographer goes, "Hey, did you see that? Here, look! Look!"). The long takes are admirable early, but the whole concept is quickly tired. Don't investigate the anomalies, just go "Yep, that klaxon is new, let's turn around." Movie over in half the time.
It has energy and Renée Zellweger, I'll give it that. Almost, there is a romcom in this mess that deserves its multifold place in the cultural mores. I don't even hate Tom Cruise (as an actor), but I sure hate Jerry Maguire, the unrepentant selfish asshole. Maybe if that "glimpse of his true self" in the mission statement wasn't lost (so early, too) in genuinely unhinged script- and reel editing (I truly thought the standing ovation was a fever dream), I'd believe that there was a good person in there? I dunno, but I don't buy it. Loved sister Laurel, though, and Rod was fun.
It's undeniably a mess - but it's the mess of a not-for-profit vintage shop run out of the loft of a Queer artists' commune that has lived in that building long before gentrification moved into the neighbourhood. It's a little toothless, too, in its plain coloured placards saying "Strike Now" calmly instead of "Kill Bezos!" angrily - but heartwarmingly optimistic, like the Manifesto itself. So yeah, it hits and misses, but the target is different for everyone; it's objectively inconsistent, but better that than bland. It has miniatures, it has Harryhausen stop motion, it has COLOUR, it's made choices goddammit! It's the triple F: funny and fast and fashionable.
The craft is incredible, the images alive with shadow, light, and movement. The narrative is, of course, immensely influential and deeply provocative, but I felt it a little loose around the edges. Since when was that baby there, for example: only since it was needed, etc. etc. Still, finally got to my first Kurosawa and it didn't disappoint. That "duel" of panic, fear, and challenged masculinity - the dappled light, the rain ... masterful.