I watched Love, Death and Robots on Netflix, a sci-fi anthology show of animated shorts done in the spirit of Heavy Metal with a lot of graphic violence, sex, and cursing. It was a mixed bag to watch, as there were 18 shorts with more misses than hits. My favorite shorts were Zima Blue (about a reclusive artist who turns himself into a cyborg and is obsessed with a particular shade of blue in his art, for sentimental and beautiful reasons); Three Robots (three robots examine a post-apocalyptic Earth in which humans are all extinct and do an anthropological study on them, with funny hypothesis on the objects left behind); Suits (farmers in mecha suits fighting giant alien bugs that surprisingly got me invested in the emotional stakes of the characters very quickly and made me care about them); Good Hunting (a short story by Ken Liu that combines a Chinese folk tale with early 1900s steampunk elements that was touching and striking); and Alternate Histories (a hilarious short about a virtual reality game that shows outcomes of alternate histories, and depicts Hitler dying in 1908 in ridiculous ways, like being trampled by a horse-drawn carriage to being trapped in a gelatinous cube, and the ways that history would be radically changed afterwards).
The other shorts were mostly decent, with some bad or boring ones, but I highly enjoyed watching this series to see a variety of animation and sci-fi, all based on short stories.
Friday, May 24, 2019
Thoughts on Annihilation
I’m late on this, but I really liked Annihilation. It is a gorgeous-looking movie with a lot of slow, creeping dread, and centers women in the STEM field as the core characters of the film. I did like how trippy the last third got, plus the heavy synth score that was reminiscent of the director Alex Garland’s previous film Ex Machina.
Natalie Portman was fantastic in this, and this seemed to be one of the few movies I’ve seen her in where she actually has romantic chemistry with her male lead (Oscar Issac). She usually comes off as cold or removed with a love interest, but I did believe their marriage and connection. Plus, Portman is very much into feminism and advocacy for films about complex women, so I could see how she fit well for this cerebral film that felt like a mix of hard sci-fi with horror.
I felt it was a little long at two hours, I think a few scenes could have been trimmed or cut. But besides that, I was really into this, and it’s a shame it got dumped on Netflix instead of being in more theaters, it’s definitely a big-screen kind of movie.
Natalie Portman was fantastic in this, and this seemed to be one of the few movies I’ve seen her in where she actually has romantic chemistry with her male lead (Oscar Issac). She usually comes off as cold or removed with a love interest, but I did believe their marriage and connection. Plus, Portman is very much into feminism and advocacy for films about complex women, so I could see how she fit well for this cerebral film that felt like a mix of hard sci-fi with horror.
I felt it was a little long at two hours, I think a few scenes could have been trimmed or cut. But besides that, I was really into this, and it’s a shame it got dumped on Netflix instead of being in more theaters, it’s definitely a big-screen kind of movie.
Thoughts on Guncrazy
I watched the 1950 film Guncrazy, I hadn't seen it since I was in my teens, and I forgot how much I liked it. It’s a noir film about two lovers who are fascinated by guns and have an erotic draw to each other based on their gunplay, and they end up becoming robbers on the lam. The movie felt ahead of its time, with the leads feeling more fit for an 80’s noir but with the sexuality more simmering instead of explicit. I also forgot that there’s a very impressive one-take sequence of their robbery from the POV of the back of the car, that was very mature filmmaking for a somewhat B-movie in 1950.
There’s a loose remake from 1992 directed by Tamra Davis and starring Drew Barrymore, and it’s a decent movie, though it’s not the same story, just same title and inspiration.
I checked IMDB, and I see that Dalton Trumbo co-wrote the screenplay, but was blacklisted at the time and had a friend use his name in place of his as a front.
There’s a loose remake from 1992 directed by Tamra Davis and starring Drew Barrymore, and it’s a decent movie, though it’s not the same story, just same title and inspiration.
I checked IMDB, and I see that Dalton Trumbo co-wrote the screenplay, but was blacklisted at the time and had a friend use his name in place of his as a front.
Thoughts on Foxfire
I watched Foxfire, I hadn’t seen it in ages. I thought it was pretty good, though I preferred how the novel was set in the 1950s instead of the film’s then-present 1990s. The novel is about a teenage girl gang, and it felt more transgressive and badass to have a 50’s girl gang than a 90’s grunge one.
I thought the gang conspiring to fight back at a lecherous teacher happened way too early in the movie, like 15 minutes in. It felt very rushed to me, like they just set up the jerk teacher, Angelina Jolie is the new kid in school, and right afterwards she leads a new gang of girls in the bathroom to take revenge on him. It just happened way too fast and needed some room to breathe in between.
While I prefer the novel, because I felt like the time setting put more at stake, I did like the movie. Jolie was absolutely perfect as the heroine, as the loner rebel type, and Hedy Burress likely should have had a bigger career, she was really grounded and likable as the level-headed Maddy. I also thought it was sweet to hear the early singing talents of Jenny Lewis in one scene, and ridiculous how two white actors were cast to play the parents of half-Japanese Jenny Shimizu.
The music sent me into a bit of a time warp, because they threw in a lot of 90’s grunge and Riot Grrl in it. Like L7’s “Shirley,” about a famous race car driver, plays in a car scene with the girls singing along. And I cringed at hearing a Candlebox song that I absolutely hated back in the day, and still found the singer’s voice grating.
So it was nice to watch, more of a very dated 90’s girl movie that feels more in common with The Craft, but isn’t as well-remembered.
I thought the gang conspiring to fight back at a lecherous teacher happened way too early in the movie, like 15 minutes in. It felt very rushed to me, like they just set up the jerk teacher, Angelina Jolie is the new kid in school, and right afterwards she leads a new gang of girls in the bathroom to take revenge on him. It just happened way too fast and needed some room to breathe in between.
While I prefer the novel, because I felt like the time setting put more at stake, I did like the movie. Jolie was absolutely perfect as the heroine, as the loner rebel type, and Hedy Burress likely should have had a bigger career, she was really grounded and likable as the level-headed Maddy. I also thought it was sweet to hear the early singing talents of Jenny Lewis in one scene, and ridiculous how two white actors were cast to play the parents of half-Japanese Jenny Shimizu.
The music sent me into a bit of a time warp, because they threw in a lot of 90’s grunge and Riot Grrl in it. Like L7’s “Shirley,” about a famous race car driver, plays in a car scene with the girls singing along. And I cringed at hearing a Candlebox song that I absolutely hated back in the day, and still found the singer’s voice grating.
So it was nice to watch, more of a very dated 90’s girl movie that feels more in common with The Craft, but isn’t as well-remembered.
Thoughts on Personal Shopper
I watched Personal Shopper, I missed it in theaters. It’s a 2016 independent film starring Kristen Stewart as a psychic medium/personal shopper working in Paris, and trying to make contact with the spirit of her dead twin brother. I thought it was good overall, as a mix of a ghost story and a psychological thriller, and had a nice moody atmosphere to it.
Sometimes Stewart’s character bugged me, as she had a too cool for school attitude about working for a celebrity picking outfits for her, complaining that it’s bullshit and keeping her from her work. I thought, “Well, you signed up to work for a celebrity and do this fashion and entertainment stuff, don’t act like you’re above it.” Kind of similar to Stewart’s own attitude towards Hollywood/celebrity culture but still playing the game. Beyond that, she worked well with her coltish tomboy look, and seemed at ease in the film. I wouldn’t have awarded her as much prestige as the European press gave her, but it was a good performance overall.
I did like how when the film leaned into the ghost story aspect, that it managed to be suspenseful and eerie, and it had emotional resonance for Stewart’s character Maureen trying to communicate with her brother, as they had made a pact that if one dies, they would try to contact them from the afterlife. Those were some of the most meaningful parts of the film to me.
I’ve only seen a few of Oliver Assayas’ films, the others being Clean and Clouds of Sils Maria. Clean so far has been my favorite, a 2004 film in which Maggie Cheung plays a rock’n’roll widow who does time in prison for drugs, then goes to clean her life up in Paris while trying to stay sober and steady to reconnect with her daughter and in-laws. I haven’t seen it since it came out, but I remembered being really touched by it, having a lot of heart for Cheung’s character, and loving how great Nick Nolte was as her husband’s world-weary father dealing with grief for his son and caring for his granddaughter. It was just an incredible film over all.
Personal Shopper was good, but I wasn’t as blown away by it as the critical acclaim has been, I just thought it was a decent movie.
Sometimes Stewart’s character bugged me, as she had a too cool for school attitude about working for a celebrity picking outfits for her, complaining that it’s bullshit and keeping her from her work. I thought, “Well, you signed up to work for a celebrity and do this fashion and entertainment stuff, don’t act like you’re above it.” Kind of similar to Stewart’s own attitude towards Hollywood/celebrity culture but still playing the game. Beyond that, she worked well with her coltish tomboy look, and seemed at ease in the film. I wouldn’t have awarded her as much prestige as the European press gave her, but it was a good performance overall.
I did like how when the film leaned into the ghost story aspect, that it managed to be suspenseful and eerie, and it had emotional resonance for Stewart’s character Maureen trying to communicate with her brother, as they had made a pact that if one dies, they would try to contact them from the afterlife. Those were some of the most meaningful parts of the film to me.
I’ve only seen a few of Oliver Assayas’ films, the others being Clean and Clouds of Sils Maria. Clean so far has been my favorite, a 2004 film in which Maggie Cheung plays a rock’n’roll widow who does time in prison for drugs, then goes to clean her life up in Paris while trying to stay sober and steady to reconnect with her daughter and in-laws. I haven’t seen it since it came out, but I remembered being really touched by it, having a lot of heart for Cheung’s character, and loving how great Nick Nolte was as her husband’s world-weary father dealing with grief for his son and caring for his granddaughter. It was just an incredible film over all.
Personal Shopper was good, but I wasn’t as blown away by it as the critical acclaim has been, I just thought it was a decent movie.
Thoughts on Shirley Valentine and The Sisters Brothers
I really liked a couple of movies I watched on Hulu this week, Shirley Valentine and The Sisters Brothers.
Shirley Valentine is a 1989 British film that was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Actress and Best Original Song). It’s a fun movie about a frustrated Liverpool housewife who talks to the audience a lot about her no-good husband, her obnoxious adult children, her stifling and boring life, and feeling underestimated by everyone and losing her sense of self. So she ends up going on a vacation to Greece with her friend, has a fling with a local guy, and is actually able to breathe and be herself outside of her identity as wife and mother.
I found the movie to be really funny, with a witty heroine that had a charming personality, and was right along with her wanting a more fulfilling life, especially wanting her to get away from her childish lout of a husband. I also especially liked Joanna Lumley’s cameo as an old schoolmate living the fabulous life that Shirley wants, and the revelation about how she affords such glamour was a pretty funny truth bomb. So this was a pleasure to watch.
The Sisters Brothers is a Western that came out last year, that I missed in theaters, and bombed hard, despite good critical reviews. It was directed by Jacques Audiard, who did the excellent French crime thrillers Read My Lips and The Prophet, and is a beautifully-shot film to watch. Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly are Charlie and Eli Sisters, hunting down a gold prospector (Riz Ahmed, who plays his role with this creepy quiet calm) who stole from their boss, and are basically notorious outlaws to boot. Ahmed’s character meets up with Jake Gyllenhaal’s character along the way, and it’s basically a manhunt story in 1851 Oregon, but that goes in some weird and unconventional directions.
The movie took a while to get going, but once it did, I was really into it, and enjoyed the moments of gallows humor with violence. The cast were excellent in this, though I felt like I never really connected with Gyllenhaal’s character, I never really got his purpose in the story aside from being a random confidant to Ahmed’s guy. But I thought John C. Reilly was great, he just plays his roles with so much sympathetic heart, you just can’t help but want him to turn out OK. So the film was pretty good, but just came and went in theaters last year. Well, at least it’s on Hulu now to enjoy.
Shirley Valentine is a 1989 British film that was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Actress and Best Original Song). It’s a fun movie about a frustrated Liverpool housewife who talks to the audience a lot about her no-good husband, her obnoxious adult children, her stifling and boring life, and feeling underestimated by everyone and losing her sense of self. So she ends up going on a vacation to Greece with her friend, has a fling with a local guy, and is actually able to breathe and be herself outside of her identity as wife and mother.
I found the movie to be really funny, with a witty heroine that had a charming personality, and was right along with her wanting a more fulfilling life, especially wanting her to get away from her childish lout of a husband. I also especially liked Joanna Lumley’s cameo as an old schoolmate living the fabulous life that Shirley wants, and the revelation about how she affords such glamour was a pretty funny truth bomb. So this was a pleasure to watch.
The Sisters Brothers is a Western that came out last year, that I missed in theaters, and bombed hard, despite good critical reviews. It was directed by Jacques Audiard, who did the excellent French crime thrillers Read My Lips and The Prophet, and is a beautifully-shot film to watch. Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly are Charlie and Eli Sisters, hunting down a gold prospector (Riz Ahmed, who plays his role with this creepy quiet calm) who stole from their boss, and are basically notorious outlaws to boot. Ahmed’s character meets up with Jake Gyllenhaal’s character along the way, and it’s basically a manhunt story in 1851 Oregon, but that goes in some weird and unconventional directions.
The movie took a while to get going, but once it did, I was really into it, and enjoyed the moments of gallows humor with violence. The cast were excellent in this, though I felt like I never really connected with Gyllenhaal’s character, I never really got his purpose in the story aside from being a random confidant to Ahmed’s guy. But I thought John C. Reilly was great, he just plays his roles with so much sympathetic heart, you just can’t help but want him to turn out OK. So the film was pretty good, but just came and went in theaters last year. Well, at least it’s on Hulu now to enjoy.
Thoughts on John Wick
I liked John Wick 3 a lot. Even though I think the first movie is an art masterpiece, and it’s hard to follow up to, I think this one does well as a chase film, as, by this point, Wick has a price on his head for killing an assassin on sacred neutral ground, and every assassin in the world is after him. I love how huge this underground network is, that news of Wick is so known that it should practically have tracking coverage on CNN.
I just love watching how clean and fantastic the fight choreography is and how the camera just holds on the action to take in the beauty and brutality of it. I was also really impressed with how good Halle Berry was in the gun-fu scenes, with a lot of finesse, and the excellent training in her guard dogs that just go flying across the air at henchmen, or, in some stunt scenes, go running up ramps and obstacles to attack.
The story itself was decent, but I felt like the finale with the big boss fight didn’t have the same kind of stakes in it that I felt in the first film. It was cool to see Mark Dacascos again, but I didn’t feel much investment in their battle by the end because Wick had already been through so much and faced a lot bigger challenges.
I am a sucker for loving neon-lit rainy city night scenes, as well as any martial arts battle in suits and grime, so this was definitely for me.
I just love watching how clean and fantastic the fight choreography is and how the camera just holds on the action to take in the beauty and brutality of it. I was also really impressed with how good Halle Berry was in the gun-fu scenes, with a lot of finesse, and the excellent training in her guard dogs that just go flying across the air at henchmen, or, in some stunt scenes, go running up ramps and obstacles to attack.
The story itself was decent, but I felt like the finale with the big boss fight didn’t have the same kind of stakes in it that I felt in the first film. It was cool to see Mark Dacascos again, but I didn’t feel much investment in their battle by the end because Wick had already been through so much and faced a lot bigger challenges.
I am a sucker for loving neon-lit rainy city night scenes, as well as any martial arts battle in suits and grime, so this was definitely for me.
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