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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 2 years

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Eternals

It feels like it’s been an eternity (lol) since the first announcement of Eternals over 2 years ago. My main source of excitement was always going to be Kumail Nanjiani as a superhero, followed closely by Brian Tyree Henry (is he my favorite working actor right now? I think he might be). Other than a stacked cast, I had no idea what Eternals was, and I kind of still don’t.

Pros:

Gorgeous visual effects and design. I love the gold ink style of the Eternals and the iridescent, shifting paper strip muscles of the Deviants.This visual world feels distinctive and unique within the MCU, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished by much else besides Doctor Strange and Thor: Ragnarok.

I also am so happy that the fights between our protagonists and antagonists aren’t the usual Marvel fare - twinsies but one is evil OR swarm of mindless alien/supernatural/robot hordes that all look the exact same. This is a refreshing change of pace, wherein each fight is visually distinctive and interesting and I can actually keep track of who is fighting whom. Novel!

This is the most philosophically interesting entry in the MCU by far. Are the Eternals good guys? Bad guys? Apex predators? I’m not sure! That’s pretty interesting for a billion dollar tentpole movie!

Solid performances all around, and each character gets room to have an arc or at least an interesting interpersonal dynamic or two. However, there are 10 Eternals to develop and get us invested in, and that’s a tall order, even for the movie’s bloated 2 hr 36 min runtime.

Vistas. Chloe Zhao knows how to shoot a fucking vista. Vistas are the star of the show here.

There is a Very Good Dog who appears briefly and is unharmed!

Features maybe my favorite exit out of any conflict in the MCU, which essentially amounts to “I’m just gonna fuck off into the sun forever.”

Two very big deal end credits scenes that I promptly had to Google to decipher the meaning of, because if you’re not Googling at the end of the movie, do you even have a franchise, bro? Related note - there are two new characters that show up and both are played by famous people. I *freaked out* about one of them, and it definitely was not the one played by an international pop superstar.

Cons:

There’s a weird, very tame sex scene on a beach - why? Who wanted this?

I hated the ending which wasn’t an ending, but rather a cliffhanger.

It’s just trying to do A Lot, to middling results. I was interested the whole time, but I just can’t imagine ever putting this movie on voluntarily on a Saturday afternoon for a rewatch or catching it on TV and keeping it on in the background while I make scones (in my fantasies, I’m a together adult-type person who makes scones on the weekends). This is Thor: The Dark World territory in that I will watch it as part of a marathon but will likely only within that very specific context.

Watch it, and watch it in theaters because I think the grand scope of Chloe Zhao’s direction will be best felt on the largest screen possible, but temper expectations. I’m still thinking about this movie days later, so if anything, it’s maybe the most interesting in the MCU - take that how you will.

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Porky’s

Do you ever look at a pug and think “I can’t believe you’re descended from wolves”? That’s kind of how I feel going into a completely cold viewing of Porky’s (requested by Chad, of course). I’ve seen many a teen sex comedy in my day, but this is the granddaddy of them all and I’ve never seen it. This is the wolf that walked so American Pie the pug could run. I’m not expecting anything resembling likeable characters or good writing here, but I am curious about why this movie was the one to really break out and make a name for itself. There’s not much plot to be had - a group of horny dudes at a Florida high school in the 1950s are sex-crazed monsters who set up elaborate pranks on each other, objectify women, terrorize sex workers, and learn an after-school special lesson about racism, maybe? There’s also a side plot about Kim Cattrall howling like a dog during sex. So far, I’m not seeing where the enduring legacy is coming from. As a sex comedy, it’s terribly unfunny AND deeply unsexy, but like a weird Trojan horse plot twist, this is the best ACAB propaganda advocating for abolition of the police (and with its weird racist undertones, probably abolition of ICE as well!) that I’ve ever seen. Truffles in shit, I guess?

Some thoughts:

I see that we’re using the Grease method of casting 35-year-olds to play teenagers. Maybe everyone born in the mid-30s actually did look twice their age when they were in high school. They went through the war, that shit prematurely ages a person.

WOW there are way more racial slurs being thrown around than I expected. I mean, I expected some, sure, but wow, this is a lot. Exotic ones, too, not just your typical anti-black nonsense.

We do see some peen and a lot of male butts, so there’s at least some equal opportunity exploitation here.

Interesting that there’s a subplot about Tim (Cyril O’Reilly) and his just-out-of-prison father being abusive as if we’re attempting to humanize and soften the most virulent racist - we’re talking real in-your-face bigotry - in the film. Are they actually trying to make Schwartz (Scott Colomby) feel sympathy for his abuser because Tim’s dad beat him up after Tim assaulted Schwartz and lost? And the resolution is for Tim to stand up to his dad and say “If being a man means being what you are, I’d rather be queer.” Has...has anyone written about the homoerotic relationship between Tim and Schwartz? The way they protect each other and have that nice little moment after Tim’s dad is arrested? There’s an enemies-to-lovers slow burn fanfic OR a dissertation in here about compulsory heterosexuality in teen sex comedies - I’d read either one..

The actual Porky’s club is a nightmare - there’s Confederate flags everywhere, and one of the patrons tries to assault one of the dancers. Also Mr. Porky refers to his dancers as piglets, so good job! I hate Porky’s the most out of everything I hate in this movie!

Nice to see that the cops are good ol boys blatantly racketeering and extorting money from folks who are, admittedly, assholes but still. They don’t even pretend not to be dirty cops. These are the villains of the movie.

I also feel like it’s significant that Schwartz is the only character who seems even remotely decent. It’s as if his status as the Other means he’s de-sexed and not allowed to participate in the creepy behavior of the rest of the guys, but by extension that actually means he’s the only one I’d be willing to spend more than 30 seconds with.

It feels as if this script was just a collection of pranks the writers came up with and the flimsiest wet tissue paper plot to connect them all together. Rather than the precursor to American Pie, this lives comfortably in that space that all those terrible spoof movies of the early 2000s did - Date Move, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, etc. If your plot is just a series of 2-to-4-word “joke” pitches on post it notes (locker room peephole! Gym teacher grabs dick! Woman howls during sex! Naked running!)...you know what, I was gonna say something insulting, but this movie made truckloads of money for the creators, so what the fuck do I know? Keep doing your thing I guess even if it’s more depressing than - and contains the same amount of artistic integrity as - a crusty pan of congealed eggs at the breakfast buffet in a strip club just like Porky’s.

The infamous shower scene is horrifying for all of the sexual harassment, but turns out there’s also a bunch of virulent fatphobia and the sexual assault of one of the peeping toms as well. Just when you think this movie can’t fit any more horrors in it, it really steps up to the plate. Also, for any of you aspiring screenwriters out there, I’mma need you to jot this down - girls’ reaction to being watched in the shower is not to find it hilarious and want to further engage with the peeping tom.

I’m no structural engineer, but I just don’t think a couple of piece of shit fishing boats and a 20 horsepower 1951 Chevy pickup can pull out the foundation of an entire building. Like, fuck Porky’s - I have no problem with this plan to basically demolish the building, but I find it hard to believe that this infrastructure is so shoddy that you can just take it out no sweat. The WPA probably built that bridge! That’s some solid American craftsmanship!

In the big climax, the villains of the piece (the bad cops) are outsmarted by the good cops - you know, the ones who are also engaging in intimidation, threats with a deadly weapon, and extortion. But see, they ARE pretending they aren’t dirty, and that’s what makes them the good guys! Literally, the showdown ends up being “you’re corrupt, but we’re more corrupt, and if you try to prove it you’ll have to expose how corrupt you are so MIC DROP BITCHES” and then the good cops break some headlights and that’s the end of the movie. So the moral of the story is that we live in a terrifying police state and cops can do whatever they want, and you just better hope that the cops are on YOUR side. Am I saying that this movie influenced NWA when they wrote and released “Fuck tha Police” in 1988? No. But I’m not NOT saying it.

Did I Cry? Only on the inside.

You already know if you’re going to like this movie before you watch it. What you might not know is that this is the highest-grossing movie from Canada for over 20 years. Everything about my experience of watching this movie was perplexing, and the way that fact makes me feel pretty much encapsulates the rest of my feelings on the matter.

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Dear Evan Hansen

You may have seen some ~online discourse~ about the film Dear Evan Hansen, an adaptation of the 2016 Broadway musical, and you might have wondered what all the hubbub is about. I mean, it’s a feel good story about a senior in high school, Evan Hansen (Ben Platt), who has some pretty severe anxiety and depression. While trying to fulfill an assignment from his therapist to write a letter to himself, his letter gets picked up by another student, Connor (Colton Ryan) - and later that day, Connor kills himself. Connor’s grieving parents and sister Zoe (Amy Adams, Danny Pino, and Kaitlyn Dever) are desperate to learn more from the boy they think was Connor’s best friend - after all, Connor’s suicide note was a letter addressed to “Dear Evan Hansen.” And, as you can imagine, Evan tells them about the unfortunate mistake and sits with them in their grief as they struggle to pick up the pieces of their lives.

Just kidding! He lies to them, repeatedly, elaborately, expansively for months, constructing an entire false friendship with Connor that never happened, and ingratiating himself into the wealthy nuclear family he never had, in large part because he wants to get into Zoe’s pants! THIS IS THE PROTAGONIST OF THE STORY. Oh, and it’s a musical so there is a lot of singing and crying and singing WHILE crying and sometimes crying and not singing at all. But the #inspiration, you guys.

Things I liked:

Pretty much everything but the story and Ben Platt’s performance. The supporting cast is stacked, and all of them do a great job at elevating material scraped directly out of a diaper worn by someone who just chewed their way through a copy of the DSM-5.

A couple of the songs are damn catchy - “Waving Through a Window” and “You Will Be Found” are standouts for a reason - and here’s the thing, Platt sings them well. But as you’ll discover, there’s a lot more to a movie musical than just singing your part.

Stephen Chbosky, the man behind every deep thought I and a lot of people in my generation had in 2006 after he wrote The Perks of Being a Wallflower, is a pretty good director. I particularly enjoyed the fanvid-type cuts in “Waving Through a Window” in conjunction with the lyrics, and his use of interstitial shots to flashbacks (and sometimes flashforwards!) is a neat little bit of shorthand that I thought was used sparingly enough to be effective.

Amy Fucking Adams. She’s holding on so hard, so desperately to the idea of who her son could have been, rather than the reality of who he was, and she is full of such deep pain that is masked by an almost endless supply of patience with Evan and relentless positivity. All this made me want was Enchanted 2 even worse than I already did.

Super into everything Zoe wears - the costuming department did a great job, and now all I want to do is live in mom jeans and baggy sweaters.

Did I Cry? I teared up a couple of times because I’m not a completely heartless bastard and when Amy Adams offered Evan Connor’s college money, my heart broke for the lie Evan had thrust upon her, and Julianne Moore’s song got me good, because she’s just a single mom to Evan who is doing her goddamn best.

Things I hated more than the time I dropped a frozen gallon container of fruit cocktail on my pinkie toe in my parents’ garage and it turned black and I thought it was gonna fall off:

Ben Platt is 28 years old. He originated the role of Evan Hansen on Broadway, so in many respects it makes sense that he plays the role in the movie, except for the one kinda sorta important thing where he looks like a wizened old crone standing amongst a sea of children doing his best twitching, cringing Hunchback of Notre Dame impression. If you want someone to convincingly play 20 years their junior, hire Paul Rudd. Otherwise, please don’t ask me to believe that this supposed 18-year-old has crow’s feet.

And that twitching nervous energy is a huge part of the black hole at the center of this film - he’s playing to the cheap seats and walking through the halls of his high school like a wet chihuahua. It’s an excruciating acting choice to watch - he doesn’t just have anxiety, he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown seemingly every second of every day. Like honestly, where is only-mentioned-never-seen Dr. Sherman, because this young man’s meds are NOT WORKING DR. SHERMAN.

There’s such a lack of self-awareness on behalf of the writing, directing, and performance by Platt. There’s one song, “Sincerely, Me,” that offers the only glimpse of commentary about what Evan is doing, by pointing out the malicious ridiculousness of him writing a series of fake emails as proof of his and Connor’s friendship.

Also what high schoolers email this much?? I know this was written in probably 2014 or so, but has a bitch never heard of a text? Even a DM? This whole plot is constructed around the premise that high schoolers are just constantly, constantly emailing each other.

Everything - and I mean EV-ER-Y-THING - about Evan’s relationship with Zoe is so creepy and disturbing that with a soundtrack change, this could easily be a horror movie. He attempts to get her to like him by describing to her all the things her brother noticed about her - oh wait, I’m sorry, all the things HE noticed about her while he was skulking in the shadows following her around for years, watching every move she made, and it ends with him singing repeatedly “I LOVE YOU” because following a girl around and never having a conversation with her or knowing her at all is love, right? This was clearly written by the same people who chose “Every Breath You Take” as their wedding song because Sting is hot and they never actually listened to the damn words.

And it gets about 10 billion times worse when Zoe goes to Evan’s house alone, takes him up to his room, and sings “I don’t need reasons to want you” and that was the moment I was that person I hate in a movie theater and I pulled out my phone to Google who wrote the music and lyrics to the musical (we were in the back row of the theater no one was behind me THIS WAS AN OUTRAGE EMERGENCY) and of motherfucking course it was written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, 2 men who heard about meeting an actual human woman from a friend one time but otherwise are unfamiliar with the concept.

Lastly, enormous serial killer vibes from Evan sending unlabeled flash drives anonymously through the mail with no note in an attempt to right his wrongs. That’s not catharsis, that’s how the next installment in the Saw franchise starts, with Evan in a Billy the clown doll mask showing up on the screen and asking if you want to play a fucking game.

Also, I know it’s not possible for the narrative to justify this in a way that could be satisfying based on Evan’s actions, but what is with this thing where single working-class mom Julianne Moore is turning down rich people’s money for Evan to go to college? Like, obviously we can’t have that happen in the movie but in real life, fuck your pride! Take those rich people’s money!

I also know how movies work but nothing annoys me more than a giant group of high schoolers all getting beeps and boops to indicate text notifications all at the same time because I don’t know a single person under the age of 55 who keeps their ringer on. That shit is on vibrate AT MOST, and I feel like that’s a millennial thing.

The emotional climax of the film is obviously Evan’s WAY TOO LATE confession, but the idea that it’s prompted by Connor’s family suddenly getting a lot of internet hate is, frankly, laughable. If Sandy Hook taught me one thing, it is that no tragedy is immune from trolls who live only to cause other people devastating emotional pain on the internet. That shit starts day 1. Apparently no one involved in this production has ever been on Twitter?

Also it feels like there should have been a dog somewhere in this movie and there was no dog, so points off for that too.

Perhaps Dear Evan Hansen isn’t nearly as deep as it aspires to be. Perhaps it’s a morality play, a simplistic message of “Don’t lie, kids, lying is bad!” Major studio movies wrap themselves up with a nice bow at the end so everyone can feel good about themselves and leave with a happy ending, but the moronic cruelty on display here makes that feat feel impossible. We’re left with Evan in an orchard, reading Connor’s favorite books and staring into the big blue sky with all the self-actualization he’s earned now as a lil treat. And if Evan Hansen looked like an actual 18-year-old, it would be a lot easier to extend more empathy to him and his not-fully-developed prefrontal cortex, but it’s a little harder with this fully-grown, weathered man who was old enough to remember seeing Liar Liar in theaters.

Dear Evan Hansen,

Get some actual help and a haircut and maybe you can grow up enough to have an actual healthy interaction with any other living person, ever.

Sincerely,

Me

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Shang-Chi has a lot of heavy lifting to do - not only is it the first MCU film to center around an Asian-American superhero (Simu Liu in the titular role), but also the first new face and origin story in the Marvel universe post-Endgame. This is a whole new world and therefore should feel big, exciting, and different from everything that came before, right? Well...

Marvel’s biggest strength is its biggest weakness here - the interconnectedness of all the movies (and their reliance on stories that are all variations of the hero myth) mean we retread a lot of the same territory over and over again. It’s a reliable dopamine hit, and I’m not immune to it - I think most of the average moviegoing public gets that same dopamine hit, and that’s why these movies basically print money. However, Shang-Chi is at its best when it’s not trying to be like anything else in the MCU.

Things I loved:

The fight scenes, particularly the first three big set pieces - outside Ta Lo, on the bus, and on the scaffolding of the building. The choreography is inventive, exciting, and really showcases what makes Shaun aka Shang-Chi a dynamic and interesting character - he’s lightning fast, balletic, and hardwired to protect and defend rather than attack. I also appreciated the lack of quippiness during the fights - it actually made the stakes feel higher to not have people exchanging jokes all the time!

Simu Liu is a strong lead, and I liked watching him - he and Awkwafina have good chemistry, and physically, he’s an absolute dynamo, moving through every fight scene with incredible power and grace. As a solo act, he’s good, but I’m hoping that when he’s interacting with the rest of the Avengers that could be elevated to great.

[Mild spoiler alert!!!] No forced romantic subplot made me the happiest camper. Shaun and Katy (Awkwafina) have excellent bro vibes and I was so happy, even with the inclusion of a sassy grandmother’s “When are you going to marry her?” line, that they remained platonic bros at the end of the film.

Speaking of, Awkwafina is playing the same kind of character she plays in everything (except the FANTASTIC film The Farewell, which if you haven’t seen you should go out and watch right now), but she also gets to have an actual character arc! Plus, this movie passes the Bechdel test AND the Mako Mori test, and you know that’s that good shit.

I would die for Morris, the Very Good Fuzzy Boy from Ta Lo, and it’s important that you know that no harm comes to Morris throughout the course of the film.

The production design of all the different worlds we visit - Ta Lo, Xialing’s (Meng’er Zhang) graffiti’d underground club, Xu Wenwu’s (Tony Chiu-Wai Leung) compound - they couldn’t be more dissimilar, and each has its own fully-realized aesthetic and fantastic set and character design. The creatures in Ta Lo in particular are GORGEOUS, and I *think* all of them come directly from actual Chinese mythology, like the nine-tailed foxes.

The few familiar faces that we do see from the MCU were particular highlights for me, but I know some people’s mileage may vary there.

Michelle Yeoh. Enough said.

Things I wish were different:

The script is a little generic, in large part because Shaun doesn’t have the mile-a-minute quips of Spider-Man or an ensemble of different personalities to play off of, like the Guardians of the Galaxy. As a result, the story and dialogue are not really where the movie shines the brightest.

My biggest beef with the movie is that the primary conflict just...didn’t really wow me. I am so here for big daddy drama, and once we got to the climax of the film, I found myself a bit...checked out? I wanted to care so much more than I did, and I think the wishy-washy way the film treats Xu Wenwu is a big part of what didn’t hit for me. I always want more nuance in these types of movies, and I think there’s room for an antagonist that contains multitudes (the few MCU antagonists that do this well are based in the same kind of family drama Shang-Chi is grappling with, namely Loki and Killmonger), but this one just didn’t hit me the way I wanted him to. Leung’s performance is OUTSTANDING, but again, I think the issue is with the script and the story here.

Striking visuals, but that final fight with the big third-act bad was another thing that felt super generic with stakes I just couldn’t find myself caring about. Really the last 30 minutes of the film were only ok for me (as is often the case with MCU final acts).

Everyone’s going to compare this story to Black Panther, which feels reductive and an eensy bit racist, but the comparison is an easy one to make - a son grappling with his father’s legacy, the primary conflict being amongst the family, and a glimpse of a magical civilization that is inaccessible to outsiders, not to mention the groundbreaking nature of the identity of the primary hero. I know there are a bunch of cultural touchpoints in Shang-Chi that will feel personal and revelatory to Chinese and Chinese-American viewers, and I can’t wait to read more about the depth and care that was put into this movie to make it resonate with that demographic deeply. As an entry in the MCU, this is solidly upper middle of the ranks for me, and what I’m most looking forward to is how these characters and this mythology gets folded into the mix with the rest of the Avengers. Don’t forget to stay for the TWO post credit scenes and come back here and tell me how you feel about that last one, as I’m still conflicted.

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Shiva Baby

Have you ever seen an indie comedy filmed like a horror movie? Do yourself a favor and watch Shiva Baby, and you will. I’ve been looking forward to this movie since the trailer first came out after Sundance, and luckily Wes requested that I review it. I had to wait a bit until it came to a streaming service I already had, but luckily this gem is now on HBO Max. At a brisk 77 minutes, this is everything Wife and I can agree on for a movie - it’s under 90 minutes for her, it’s a requested review for me, and it’s a smart indie bisexual comedy darling for us both. The story is a simple one on the surface - Danielle (Rachel Sennott) is graduating college, looking for what to do with her life, and letting her parents (Fred Melamed and Polly Draper) pay for everything while she figures it out. Well, they pay for almost everything...some bills are being footed by her sugar daddy, Max (Danny Deferrari). Everything in Danielle’s life is sucky but manageable until she shows up with her parents at a shiva for a family friend and runs into her ex-girlfriend Maya (Molly Gordon)...and then Max shows up too. With his wife (Dianna Agron). And new baby. That Danielle didn’t even know existed.

Some thoughts:

Polly Draper as Danielle’s mom is incredible. Of course there’s all the Jewish mother stereotypes in the mix here, but Draper imbues the role with so much depth, it’s clear that all of her concern and nagging and fussing and networking on Danielle’s behalf is because of the tremendous amount of love she carries in her heart for her daughter.

Maybe it’s just because I’ve been watching Broad City a lot recently, but this whole shiva scenario, and every flavor of family member or friend we meet, feels spot on.

Love the claustrophobic tight framing on Danielle’s face as we do the first walkthrough of this house. Emma Seligman adapted this from her short film of the same name (also starring Rachel Sennott) and it’s clear she has thought long and carefully about how to build the tension at every turn. There are people pressing against Danielle with every step she takes as she’s making her way through these crowded rooms with trays of food, and it all highlights the anxiety and stress of this day more and more with each passing moment.

The level of anxiety is so high, the film is practically a farce with us knowing things other characters don’t, mistaken identities, miscommunications. There are moments that are almost “Scott’s Tots” level of uncomfortable to watch as we await the inevitable train wreck. This feels like the tension of the first scene of Inglorious Basterds drawn out into nearly 80 minutes. Every move Danielle makes feels like it could be her undoing at any moment.

The film only works because Sennott is perfect as Danielle - she’s spiky, she’s sullen, she’s terrified, she’s desperate, and she’s trying to keep it all together and get through this terrible day as more and more obstacles arise in her way.

One thing that adds to the horror movie vibes is the great score, with the sparse strings and the minor chords, plus the shrieking of the baby in the background. It’s like if you were watching an X-Files episode at an Olive Garden and next to you was a 9-month-old having the most public breakdown of its life. That’s a fucking mood.

I also loved the script - it’s relentless, nearly every second filled with dialogue. When there are finally moments of silence and respite from the chaos, they’re so much more potent and significant. And the jokes are so, so dark and razor sharp, but the comedy is all perfectly executed. It’s a strong effort from a first time writer-director, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing more from Seligman in the future.

Dianna Agron is also shockingly good in this. People really thrive once they escape the hellscape of Glee, I guess.

Don’t love Maya’s slut-shaming but I do love the chemistry between Maya and Danielle and you know I love rooting for fucked-up queer ladies.

Did I Cry? No, but there were moments I had to look away just due to the unbearable cringe.

If you love the British Office or Veep or you generally like your comedy to be as black as your soul, this is 100% the movie for you. It’s smart, funny, tense, and features excellent performances. I think it will easily end up in my top 10 for the year and has fueled a wicked bagel craving ever since I watched it.

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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45 Years

More and more, I look forward to the reviews for films like 45 Years - this is one of those films I didn’t know anything about going in, other than that it’s likely going to make me cry. Chad requested this due to its performances, and that’s usually enough to get me solidly on board. The film centers around a married couple, Geoff and Kate (Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling) who are preparing to throw a party in celebration of their 45th wedding anniversary. The week before the party, a mysterious letter arrives, informing Geoff that the body of a woman from his past has been found in the ice in a glacier in Switzerland. As the nature of his relationship with this woman is revealed, things grow more and more tense between him and Mary, culminating in a huge emotional standoff that is the climax of the film. It’s a slow burn drama that feels almost play-like, as the central performances of Courtenay and Rampling are really the reason for the season here more than any plot or driving action. So we’ve got a film that’s purely about these two people and how they play off of each other - was that enough to keep me entertained? Well...

Here’s the thing. Acting is hard, and Courtenay and Rampling make it look easy. But my issue lies with the story itself - I can empathize, certainly, but as with most movies (stories of all kinds, really) centering on a romantic conflict, the problem can be solved with four little words: TALK TO EACH OTHER.

Some thoughts:

There’s a Very Good Dog named Max! Max is probably the most cheerful thing about the film.

On a surface level, it’s all very quaint. They live in a sweet little British village, their house and land is all big windows and verdant hills and they wear little wool jumpers and drink tea, and everything feels very cozy, if a little bland.

I’m a little confused why Kate is so upset that Geoff was this mystery ice mummy’s next of kin. Is it because she didn’t know until now? Like he was purposefully keeping the nature of their relationship a secret to her? Based on their conversations, it seems clear Mary knew Geoff dated this woman and that she died. Is it just the bringing up a past relationship at all that is upsetting her? Isn’t that kind of fucked up?

Some interesting directorial choices - the slow push in while Kate tends to Geoff’s cut thumb almost begins to feel claustrophobic. And this is when things are still going (mostly) well between them. As an older, childless couple, I suppose the emphasis is on their isolation and the insular bubble they’ve created around themselves. This letter cracked that bubble wide open for the first time in years.

Interesting that they’ve had no children or grandchildren, no pictures to hang on the walls, no mementos of the memories they’ve built in the last 45 years. Wife and I are not having kids ever, but our walls are covered in photos of us and our families and pets and friends - are we narcissists or are Geoff and Kate kinda weird?

There’s a sweet sequence of them dancing and then going upstairs to have sex, and I thought it was refreshing it was included at all. We so rarely see people over the age of 40 having sex in the movies or being allowed to engage in this kind of playful intimacy.

I wish we had seen more of Geoff’s behavior before the letter came so we had something better to compare his later unusual behavior to.

It just seems odd to me that she’s so upset about hearing her husband say he would have married a woman he knew literally 50 years ago, before she even ever met him. Am I in the minority here? He loved her, she was important to him, and she died, and now the circumstances around her death are forcing him to remember it. Isn’t it natural that he would be weird and moody and in mourning about it? Can you really begrudge him that? Kate takes it so personally, and I genuinely can’t wrap my head around why.

And she says she can’t tell him everything she’s thinking or that she knows, and he says he understands. I just don’t get this conflict, I really don’t. This is the problem with being a queer woman - it’s the burden of my people to talk everything to death all the time always, and I’m not saying that approach doesn’t have its problems but...it’s a way better approach than this. JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER AND THEN LISTEN TO EACH OTHER. THAT’S ALL THERE IS TO IT.

Charlotte Rampling is the element that holds all of this together, and her performance throughout the last 10 minutes is a masterclass in subtlety. I feel her pain, her regret, her confusion about the foundation she’s built the last 45 years of her life on. But WHY?? Why does it have to be like this? Why is knowing that her husband loved another woman once - and still carries that love within him - such a personal affront, a betrayal of all she holds dear? I don’t fucking get it, I really don’t.

Did I Cry? Not even a little! What the fuck! I was so ready!

When I read the description of the plot, I genuinely thought Kate was going to discover that Geoff was some sort of killer. That he killed the woman whose body was found, and she had to question the life she had built with a man she didn’t truly know. But instead, Geoff’s crime is...love? Having the capacity to love more than one person in his lifetime? Being a pretty normal human being? The slow burn tension falls apart for me when I take even one microsecond to examine the central conflict. So while the performances are quite good, it all collapses like a flan in a cupboard, and left me feeling supremely frustrated and unsatisfied.

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Face/Off

OK, so this might be cheating a tiny bit because technically I have seen this movie many times and no one EXPLICITLY requested it. But Wife believed that, and I quote, “the people would really want to hear” my thoughts about this one. So here we are, watching John Woo’s masterpiece, Face/Off for the first time in probably 10 years or so, and man oh man is there a lot that I forgot about this movie. For the uninitiated, this is the classic tale of John Travolta and Nicolas Cage swapping faces - it’s kind of like The Parent Trap if one of the Lindsay Lohan twins was a professional...bad person? (It’s unclear what Castor Troy actually does besides fuck shit up) and the other twin was a high-ranking FBI agent. Oh and the first twin killed the son of the second twin. Ok, so it’s not really like The Parent Trap. Full disclosure: I apologize for nothing. I unabashedly love this movie for every single ridiculous moment of its 2 hr 19 min running time. And I saw this in THEATERS. I was TEN YEARS OLD. And before you start judging my parents too harshly, this movie inspired a very healthy fear of both drugs and plastic surgery into me, so really it was more effective than most D.A.R.E. programs according to the data, so I say once again - thanks John Woo!

Some thoughts:

TWO HOURS and NINETEEN MINUTES. It’s frankly ridiculous, and if it were any other director I would say learn to edit, man, but John Woo really knows how to make a slow motion shot work.

Castor (Nic Cage) is so much more disgusting now that I’m grown. Like, when I was a kid he was just a cartoonish villain, but now his rampant misogyny and sexual predator antics at every turn is WAY more creepy and disturbing than his tendency to just shoot people.

More people should follow John Woo’s lead - this motherfucker loves sparks in his action scenes, and they’re so much more visually interesting than just plain explosions. Broke: you shoot a car’s gas tank and it explodes. Woke: You shoot the engine of a passenger jet and a shower of sparks goes everywhere.

This is Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage’s finest performance, tbh. He gets to go full unhinged crazy pants for half the movie, and then turn on a dime and play the determined no-nonsense FBI man. I genuinely love Nic Cage with my entire heart, because he - has - the - range.

One underrated thing about this movie is its score. The funky bass line when Castor first arrives, the overwrought strings during every chase scene, the triumphant orchestral swell when Sean stages the prison coup - it’s so cheesy and SO good.

Reason #57 this whole face switching plan is insane - they did no psychological exam or evaluation to determine whether Sean (John Travolta) would lose his damn mind by going through the intense trauma of wearing his son’s murderer’s face. You’re telling me he didn’t have to fill out a single form before they cut his literal face off? If I know anything about the government, I know there would be so much paperwork involved before anyone’s face was going anywhere.

Why are we not talking about the massive problem it is that there exists a prison where “the Geneva convention doesn’t exist” and that Amnesty International has never heard of? Like, Castor is a bad guy, sure, but we’re supposed to just be fine with this? This is the precursor to the raft prison they built in Captain America: Civil War that is meant to house literal superheroes and is completely off the grid. That’s not okay! The copaganda runs so deep, it genuinely boggles my mind that I grew up watching movies like this and only now that I’ve unlearned so many things can I even recognize how absolutely fucked up it all is.

John Travolta doesn’t get enough credit for this movie either - all the attention goes to Nic Cage and his bonkers facial expressions, but Travolta is having the time of his goddamn life doing his little dances, singing his little songs. We all know he loves musicals, and I love that he gets to showcase that here but through villainy.

Sean’s entire escape plan hinged on Dubov (Chris Bauer) getting his brain fried first, but he had no way of knowing that would be the exact moment Dubov would be in the clinic getting fried.

Also one of my favorite things is that during the escape when one of the guards is burned by acid he screams the same scream that was used in the credits for Aah! Real Monsters.

Oh and we have to talk about the fact that Sean escapes the prison by just - jumping in the fucking ocean? How did he not die? How did he get to land? And the helicopter just STOPPED LOOKING for him? Didja spend all your money on magnetized boots so the “helicopter that searches for escaped prisoners” fund ran dry in your terrifying war crime prison budget?

In retrospect, I should have realized that I was into women based on how very hard I crushed on Gina Gershon in this movie. Velvet top with satin pants and the Jennifer Aniston haircut? SO INTO IT.

Taylor Swift is re-recording all her old masters now, right? I’m just saying, I really think she would be smart to collaborate with John Woo on a new video for “Sparks Fly,” because, and I can’t stress this enough, NOBODY loves sparks more than John Woo. Nobody.

What even is this building Dietrich (Nick Cassavetes) lives in? It’s like an airplane hanger but there are stairs and black lacquer furniture, but there’s like a basement lobby thing that’s all marble and tile and a circle of mirrors and giant plants? Who designed this? Is it a hotel? I have so many questions.

I know that the benchmark for future technology is the flying car, but I ask you, how is it possible that we don’t live in a world where people can swap faces like this yet? Or DO WE and it is all just black ops operations like this. Oh lord, I’m probably gonna start getting batshit crazy QAnon type conspiracy Facebook ads now that I’ve typed that sentence on the internet.

Also pretty fucked up that Castor - as Sean - sleeps with Eve (Joan Allen) and both she and the real Sean are just kind of like “yeah I know, rape by deception really sucks, guess we’ll just have to deal with it.” Like how much therapy does this whole family need now??

What kind of church is this where doves are just flapping around INSIDE the entrance by the remembrance candles? And there’s just so many of them. Like at least 30 doves. Doesn’t that feel like too many doves? You know what, nevermind, I shouldn’t have doubted John Woo’s vision - keep the sparks and doves coming, buddy, I’m here for it.

There’s no way you drive a boat THROUGH ANOTHER FUCKING BOAT and emerge completely unharmed.

Ohh teen daughter Jamie (Dominique Swain) doesn’t have her nose ring anymore! That’s how you know she’s no longer broken.

And Sean just brings a new 5-year-old son to live with them and everything is totally fine, as if no time has passed. That’s how you heal collective trauma, right? By simply replacing your murdered son with a different 5-year-old boy? Ah, the 90s.

Everything about this movie is exactly what I want movies to be like. You’ve got great villains who are really in it for the DRAMA of it all, you’ve got stalwart and true (read: repressed) heroes who are willing to do what it takes to get the job done, and you’ve got more sparks and doves than you know what to do with.

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Old (2021)

Oh you guys. You guyyyyyys. Buckle the fuck up, I am so pumped to tell you about this absolutely GONZO mummified deuce of a movie. Spoilers will be had in this one, because you need to know everything.

Old is the latest from M. Night Shyamalan and like....I think we all know M. Night’s track record. For every Sixth Sense, we also get a Happening or a Village. In some ways, he’s the most exciting director working today because every new film is a 50/50 coin toss, and mama loves living on the edge. The gist of this latest roll of the dice is that a group of different families who have all come to stay at a remote luxury beach resort get invited to go to a secluded private beach for the day, and after they arrive they discover they can’t leave. That’s not great, but the bigger problem is that they seem to be aging rapidly - like 2 years older every hour or so. That’s a solid “how are we gonna get outta this one” bottle episode premise, and in the hands of a better writer, it could be a fun sci-fi romp. M. is NOT that writer.

Some thoughts:

I should have known it would all go wrong from the terrible foreshadowing starting at the very beginning scene. The mom of our main family, Prisca (Vicky Krieps) says “You have such a beautiful voice, I can’t wait to hear it when you’re older.” The dad, Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) says, “Don’t rush this moment, enjoy the present while you can.” BECAUSE THE CHARACTERS WON’T BE ABLE TO LATER, DO YOU GET IT? dO yOU GEt iT? Wife leaned over and said “look at all the ferns - the oldest plants!” That last one was probably her projecting, but the point stands: there is nothing subtle about Old.

There’s a lot of just like, shouting out loud the things that are currently happening onscreen. “She’s having a seizure!” “People who go back the way we came black out!” “The rust has entered your bloodstream; it acts like poison!” That’s how you tell stories, right? Just having characters point out events that are occurring right in front of their stupid fucking faces with no other commentary or reflection?

An additional element that feels woefully ignorant at best and malicious at worst is the inclusion of a black male character (Aaron Pierre) who 1) is a rapper 2) is named Mid-Sized Sedan [I’ll give you a moment to deal with that detail emotionally] 3) says the single line of dialogue “Damn.” at least 4 times and 4) suffers the bloodiest, most violent onscreen death at the hands of a racist white man who is revealed to have paranoid schizophrenia. There are other gruesome deaths onscreen, to be sure, but the worst are body horror nightmares that could never occur in the real world - a woman whose bones are breaking and setting in the wrong position nearly instantaneously until she resembles a horrifying spider creature, and the aforementioned rust-in-the-bloodstream trick that leads to a Jeff-Goldblum-in-The Fly-bubbling-skin infection kinda deal. But Mid-Sized Sedan just gets stabbed in the chest repeatedly, brutally, a bunch of times by a white guy who pleads fear for his life even though MSS posed no danger to him, and it all happens onscreen when so many other characters are offered the mercy of offscreen deaths. I’m not sure if M. is trying to throw some real-world horror in and he’s just shit at it, or if it really didn’t occur to him how malicious this inclusion feels in a fantasy narrative, and I don’t really care. If you have a black character in your story and they die, you better think really long and hard about how it happens and what it means and it’s clear no one did that here.

Nothing to do with the film itself, but it did tickle me that someone brought a tiny infant to my pretty packed screening. The baby was very chill, thank goodness, and as far as I know did not age up to a kindergartner during the course of the film.

There is a Very Good Dog, a Yorkie, present for the first part of the film, but unfortunately the dog dies. It occurs offscreen, and given the premise of what’s going on on this beach, it’s not a shock when it happens BUT STILL.

The old age makeup, at least on Prisca is pretty great. Good job makeup department!

At one point, Guy gets attacked by another beachgoer, and his eyesight is failing so he has a hard time fighting back. But you are surrounded by sand, my dude, and you can still see blurry shapes. You’re not gonna throw some sand in the eyes until you’ve been stabbed like 10 times? Not gonna try to push him down, or sweep the fucking leg, or do anything but just keep raising your arms and getting stabbed while yelling “I’ll protect you!” I’ve seen stale tuna sandwiches with better defense mechanisms than you.

Like most fantastical premises, there are only a certain number of ways this narrative can end that really make any sense. It reminds me quite a bit of 2019’s Brightburn which was like “what if Superman but evil?” Either everyone is gonna die, or someone is going to improbably survive and you better have a real neat explanation for how that’s possible. Oh M. Night, when will you realize that your explanations are never as clever as you think they are? There’s no “twist” here really, simply a reveal, and it’s the equivalent of eating one of those sugar-free, gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free snack cakes I broke down and ate out of desperation when I was on Weight Watchers. That shit is “food” in the same way that the climax is a “logical explanation for all this.” Big Pharma is luring sick people to the resort through targeted ads, then arranging these excursions to the wacky time beach in order to test how medicine they secretly slipped into the guests’ drinks works over decades of life. These sneaky medical breakthroughs are saving hundreds of thousands of people’s lives, we’re told, and the scientists offer a moment of silence for each fallen group of unwitting human lab rats after they inevitably die. Because if there’s one thing the world needs right now, it’s more distrust of pharmaceutical companies and the ethics of modern science! I can’t think of one possible reason we’d want to portray molecular biologists, immunologists, and virologists in a positive light right now, can you? When will those assholes get off their high horses and stop being universally trusted and beloved by everyone, am I right??

My saddest takeaway, tbh, is that this is a stacked international cast, with at least half the roles going to POC - this is the future liberals want, etc etc - and the result is THIS.

Did I Cry? Of course not.

Not all is terrible! It’s a beautiful movie to look at, because M. Night’s direction is never the problem, but combined with the script, the acting, and the absurd narrative leaps needed to make this story make even a little bit of sense, the whole thing turns into a mess. Unfortunately, getting Old with M. Night is less “leisurely retirement at a plush resort in Florida” and more “rancid can of Ensure and a poop-choked pair of Depends.”

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Zola

If you were a Very Online person in October 2015, you’re already familiar with the story of Zola. Based on a 148-tweet thread from Detroit stripper (and the movie’s executive producer) Aziah "Zola" King, this is the tale of a wild trip to Florida that Zola (played by a fantastic Taylour Paige) takes with a new acquaintance and fellow stripper, Stefani (Riley Keough), Stefani’s hapless boyfriend Derrek (Nicholas Braun, playing a greasier, less ambitious Cousin Greg here), and Stefani’s “roommate” X (a terrifying and slippery Colman Domingo), who is actually her pimp. What starts as a fun and fancy free road trip to Tampa for the purpose of making $$$ at a hot spot strip club takes a turn REAL quick - if this situation sounds like a recipe for bad news, it’s not. It’s a recipe for fucking napalm.

Janicza Bravo’s direction is my favorite thing about this movie, because her vision is so clear the entire time. She filmed on 16mm, which lends a dreamy, humid quality to everything. It’s a choice that works to create the sweaty excitement of the first third of the story, as Zola and Stefani bond and the ragtag crew takes the long drive down to Florida, taking pictures for the ‘gram and shouting rap lyrics along the way. When things take a turn that shimmery filter makes everything feel suffocating, as it becomes clear Zola is trapped in a situation she can’t control. Paige plays the part perfectly, as her voiceover narrates the action with (sometimes quoting directly from Zola’s tweet thread) while her face remains stony, silent, and impassive and her wide eyes bear witness to the crazy shit happening in front of her.

Highlights:

Nicholas Braun as Derrek and all his pathetic, cuckolded earnestness.

Though the film is about sex workers, it doesn’t feel exploitative or male gaze-y. Make no mistake - the sex work itself is wildly exploitative, but the way the film treats its female characters is not.

A midway twist to switch to Stefani’s perspective that made me laugh out loud.

The twisty, turny, manipulative bond between Zola and Stefani at the heart of this entire misadventure. Even after Stefani betrays Zola’s trust, the bond of solidarity between women forces Zola to stick around.

Don’t be fooled by the sarcastic voice over or the raunchiness that goes hand in hand with sex work - this is a story about trauma and terror that’s wrapped up in the defense mechanisms of the generation that has experienced more collective trauma than maybe any other. It will definitely be in my top 10 of the year and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Party Girl (1995)

Parker Posey is one of those people who I know objectively is very talented and has done an excellent job of finding her niche and really working within it. That being said, I find her excruciating to watch. Of course Chad knows this, which is why he requested that I review 1995’s Party Girl, starring Parker Posey as Mary, an entitled broke party girl with a closet full of designer clothes and shoes who gets a job at the library to help pay the rent. I do love libraries, so maybe that’s enough to salvage this for me, right? Well...

As with most “cult classics” this is one of those movies that you either get or you don’t. Guess which one I am. I will be charitable and say I can kind of get why it takes up a special place in the hearts of a very specific demographic of people (read: millennial gays and former 90s club kids). Unfortunately, I am not the millennial gay this movie is for.

Some thoughts:

Liev Schreiber is using the worst English accent I’ve ever heard.

I can already tell this is one of those movies where a bunch of people I don’t care about do a bunch of things that make no logical sense, and there’s no conflict of any kind.

I hate everything about this club scene, and would much rather we were spending more time in the library.

I do like Mustafa (Omar Townsend), the Lebanese falafel vendor, who is clearly meant to be Mary’s love interest.

Why is Mary being such a bitch to Judy (Sasha von Scherler), who bailed her out of jail AND gave her a job?

This scene where Mary is “singing” in her apartment and fantasizing about Mustafa is possibly the worst sound I’ve ever heard. Here’s a list of things I’d rather do than watch Parker Posey in this movie: get another root canal; pour lemon juice into my eyes; make out with a wolverine; swallow a live octopus; receive a cayenne pepper colonic; or clean my kitchen floor with my tongue.

I am personally offended that she referred to the Dewey Decimal System as antiquated and idiotic. Does it have problems? Sure. But you have to keep things organized somehow!

Ummm ain’t no way that crowd full of white people would be able to clap consistently on beat until Leo (Guillermo Diaz) was able to get the next record spinning. Have you ever been in a room full of people starting a spontaneous rhythmic clap? That shit goes off the rails in less than 10 seconds.

The amount of glitter Venus (Nicole Bobbitt) has on her face and clothes and hair is honestly awe-inspiring.

From a sheer practical film-making perspective, this is often painful to watch. A bunch of scenes make people’s movements look jerky and accelerated - almost as if they were being filmed in time-lapse. Other times, things seem to move in slow motion, and people’s mouths don’t sync to the spoken dialogue. Like it legit looks like this movie was made for $400.

Why is Mary kissing Leo in the shower? Why is this makeout scene with Mustafa taking 45 full seconds?

Judy’s angry rant about the history of librarians is pretty great. I wish this movie were about Judy, because she seems like she’s really holding onto some big feelings. I would watch an hour and half of Judy just hanging out, being a librarian.

Oh awesome, this party Mary is throwing is suuuuuper racist. Let’s backburner the aggressive cultural appropriation (that’s all a mishmash of different cultures from what I can tell?) - we don’t have time to unpack all that - but she tells Mustafa that the point of him being there selling falafel is that “it’s funny” and then she calls her friend the f-slur multiple times.

This script is so fucking bad. Judy has said the line “Your mother was a woman with no common sense” at least 6 times.

Who made this? Who read this and was like “Yes, I want to be a part of this!” It feels like a weird sex dream that Parker Posey had and then convinced other people around her to make a reality. “I was constantly in clubs playing repetitive dance music, and I had a velvet hat, and then I wanted falafel, so I went to the library and got a job there and then the falafel guy came to the library and we had sex in the romance languages section! And you were there...and you were there...”

Did I Cry? Does weeping on the inside for my wasted time count?

I can’t imagine who this movie was made for other than catty gay men at least 10 years after the film’s 1995 release date (so it could build an underground cult following, of course). Just watch a subpar challenge on RuPaul’s Drag Race and you’ll get about the same level of character development and insight as you do here, and the music selection will be better. Yes, I said it - RuPaul’s oeuvre of stale dance tracks is preferable to this.

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Black Widow

I don’t think anything is as frustrating to me in the MCU as the way it has done Natasha Romanoff dirty. Nine years after Natasha became more than just a sexpot spy in a catsuit and actually got to help save the world in The Avengers, here we are with her very own movie, approximately eight years too late. If I sound bitter, it’s because I am. Endgame left a bad taste in my mouth, and I wasn’t sure why I should even care about a new MCU story set in the recent past about a woman the Marvel movies really haven’t known what to do with in any meaningful way since the bright shining glory that was Winter Soldier. But, you give me Rachel Weisz and Florence Pugh and David Harbour as a Russian spy found family, and I’m willing to at least hear you out.

Spoiler-free synopsis: Basically, after the events of Civil War, Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) is on the run and someone comes looking for a package she has in her possession. That leads her to steal the contents of the package and hunt down its origins - her original family, a group of deep undercover Russian spies (Weisz, Harbour, and unknowing baby sister Pugh). In the process of getting the band back together, Nat learns the truth about a job from her past and the bulk of the movie is her going on a mission to make things right with bickering family of grumpy Russians in tow. The action scenes are tight, with some truly breathtaking sequences (an aerial fight near the end is a real knockout). Pugh is the MVP of the film, taking the role of comic relief as well as the emotional core, and her performance as Yelena is worth the price of admission alone. Weisz could step on my face and I’d say thank you, as per usual. Cate Shortland’s direction is competent, but nothing to write home about - she keeps the action moving, the pace brisk, and she lets the emotional beats breathe, so I suppose the movie’s unremarkable direction is probably a sign that it’s more good than bad. Her vision is strongest when she’s engaging with the theme of the subjugation of women and the trail of broken bodies that subjugation leaves in its wake.

As for the story itself, I enjoyed it because I care about Natasha and I crave more than anything more opportunities for her to be herself (not some pointless eye candy or over-the-top seductress as a form of nerd wish fulfillment), which this movie delivers. But even in her own movie, I couldn’t help but feel the shadow of the rest of the Avengers looming large in ways they don’t in say, an Iron Man or a Thor movie. All the payoffs to things we’ve heard about in Nat’s backstory - Budapest, Dreykov’s daughter - come from ensemble movies, and there are a ton of visual references and homages that can’t be coincidental to Black Panther, Captain America, and the SHIELD helicarrier from The Avengers. At least this movie has some Very Good Pigs as a highlight too.

Is this a good Black Widow movie? Yeah, I think so! I enjoyed my time and I’m glad it was made. Is it the best Black Widow movie? Nah, that’s still Winter Soldier. Is it the Black Widow movie we deserved? Absolutely not, because we deserved one eight years ago. Maybe in some other timeline in the multiverse folks got that movie, and they got to live in a world where Nat wasn’t an afterthought in her own damn franchise.

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Sometimes a Great Notion

This is one of those old movies my mom requested that we couldn’t even find at our local library. It’s incredibly hard to track down, which says more about how easily lost our film history and culture can be as we move from format to format rather than its quality as a film, but that is another conversation. Basically this 1971 film is the second that Paul Newman directed, and it tells the story of the Stamper family, a family who run an independent logging business in a town where the local logging union has gone on strike. As independents, they take the union’s former contracts and as the film goes on, the consequences of that choice become larger and larger, and depending on your perspective, this is either an indomitable tale of the perseverance of the human spirit or a disheartening look at everything that makes America the end-stage capitalist nightmare it currently is.

Some thoughts:

It appears that I’m supposed to think Henry Fonda, as the patriarch of the Stamper clan, is a charming old coot, like an Archie Bunker type, complaining about Commie pinko socialists and calling his estranged son a New York fairy. I’m not really seeing the charm here.

I’m not 100% sure what’s going on with this subplot where Joe B (Richard Jaekel) and his wife apparently attend the Church of God and the Metaphysical Science...so maybe they’re cult members too? That never really gets delved into, which is a head scratcher.

I feel like with this dialogue they’re supposed to be kind of...gruff and jokey with each other, but I really don’t get it. None of it seems funny at all, just aggro.

I think I'm just really confused about what exactly this movie IS. It’s not a character study because we’re learning so little about these people. It doesn’t seem to be a David vs. Goliath small business taking on The Man story because the whole union vs. Stamper family thing doesn’t seem to be anything the Stampers are that concerned about. Leeland (Michael Sarrazin) coming back after a long absence is certainly a wrinkle, but no one is actually delving into what that means for the family or how they feel about it. Like the purpose of the film seems to just be “these are some people doing their jobs and going about their business for a couple hours.”

Like for real, there are multiple really long segments that just show them doing logging shit.

And listen, I’m not one of those people that only wants to watch media where I like the characters. There are a lot of bad people and evil characters that I don’t want to emulate and would absolutely hate to be around in real life that I REALLY enjoy watching. Hell, in the last year, my main TV hyperfixations have been Succession and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. So it’s not the fact that the Stampers are sexist, stubborn, union-busting jackasses. I just don’t really care about any of them and I question why I should care about their story because the movie isn’t doing a very good job at convincing me.

There are some Very Good Dogs! At least that’s something.

This would be a way more interesting movie if Leeland and Viv (Hank’s wife, played with stunning grace by Lee Remick) hook up because Leeland is the only one who talks to her or listens to what she has to say. He sees her in a way no one else in the family sees these women at all. ESPECIALLY because even though Henry is Leeland’s father, Hank had an affair with Leeland’s mother too, which is deeply disturbing because we find out he was 14 and she was 30. Fuck, now there’s statutory rape and unresolved trauma involved. Wouldn’t this be a fantastic thing to actually talk about and delve into? Wouldn’t this whole relationship entanglement and the ripple effects it’s had on this family be really interesting? NOT ACCORDING TO PAUL NEWMAN I GUESS.

As much as I love Paul Newman, I’m really questioning a lot of his directorial choices, too. He can’t control the story or the script so much (this is based on a Ken Kesey novel) but other choices are baffling. The pacing is a mess. Some scenes go on for what seems like forever for no reason, others are brutally short or feel cut off. The transitions between scenes are all these quick cuts that don’t let anything breathe. Leeland and Viv’s deep, intimate conversation ends with her saying Hank’s satisfied and Leland asking “Are you?” and then BOOM next scene where bluegrass kicks in and they’re all riding motorcycles. What should have been a body blow of a moment gets its legs cut out right from underneath, and it’s a damn shame.

“To work and eat and screw and sleep and drink and keep on going, that’s for what. That’s all there is.” - the film’s central thesis, uttered by Henry Stamper in his big Oscar-worthy monologue. Which in a nihilist sort of way I agree with, but there’s a big fat asterisk that gets ignored here: if you’re doing those things and directly, knowingly causing the suffering of others - and you can make choices that AVOID that as much as possible, and you DON’T - well that’s where your philosophy turns to shit, I’m afraid.

And the consequences of that philosophy are laid bare when the Stamper family has one HELL of a bad day. Play stupid games and win stupid prizes.

I really thought the movie was going to end with Hank sitting alone in his dark, quiet house drinking beer and feeling sorry for himself and maybe reflecting on the enormous cost of his decisions. Instead the movie ends with Hank displaying his father’s severed arm at the top of his boat, flipping the bird to the town he’s turned his back on. And frankly it’s a big “fuck you” to the audience as well, for thinking that the Stamper family could learn or grow or see outside of their own rugged individualism for one second.

Did I Cry? I probably should have, but any emotional weight the tragedies we watch hold gets completely deflated when no one learns a goddamn thing from them.

All things considered, this movie is a perfect encapsulation of the toxic attitudes that have yielded every single moral failing of America from its inception. The myth of the American frontiersman, pulling himself up by his bootstraps, owing nothing to no one and simply trying to work hard and provide for his own family - it’s all wrapped up in the same wars (both literal and figurative) we’ve been fighting for centuries. We’re supposed to cheer at the Stampers for sticking to their guns and moving forward to get the job done no matter the cost, and that’s precisely the fucking problem. Costs matter, especially when they’re paid in human lives. And I would be more willing to view this film as a fascinating artifact of attitudes that have gone by the wayside if we weren’t having the same damn argument today. As a result, it ends up just feeling frustrating.

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Sound of Metal

I’ve been looking forward to Sound of Metal since my friend Wes saw it on the (virtual) festival circuit last year and raved about it. He later asked that I review it to guarantee I would watch it, and I’m so incredibly glad I did. The film centers on Ruben (Riz Ahmed), a heavy metal drummer in a band with his girlfriend, Lou (Olivia Cooke). Suddenly, Ruben begins to experience hearing loss - first intermittent, then total. It completely upends his life, and because he is a recovering heroin addict, Lou convinces him to move in to a community of Deaf adults run by a kind man named Joe (Paul Raci, a real life Child of Deaf Adults who has devoted his life to Deaf activism and visibility) so that Ruben can essentially learn how to be Deaf.

Some thoughts:

I get why the film opens with this very loud, very aggressive live performance, but this band is really, really shitty, and this music is deeply unpleasant.

Obviously sound design is such an integral part of how this movie functions and the muffled effects, the low and high-pitched tones, the lack of sound from objects we’ve seen making sound prior to this, it’s eerie, isolating, and nearly panic-inducing.

Cochlear implants aren’t covered by insurance? I think I knew that already, but god, that’s just one more reminder of how much this country hates disabled people. [ETA: I’ve done more reading about this and it seems that cochlear implant surgery is often covered IF you have insurance, but in America that’s a big if.]

I love Olivia Cooke, and she’s fantastic in this, but I’m wildly distracted by her bleached eyebrows.

There is a very good dog named Louie who is a therapy dog! He is small and sweet and I love him.

To complicate matters, Ruben is a recovering addict and he’s struggling to stay clean due to the overwhelming stress of this situation. Watching him struggle moment to moment at the beginning is agonizing, as you can see how much effort he’s putting in just putting one foot in front of the other.

It’s interesting for me to be a hearing person in this group of Deaf folks who are recovering together. It keeps those of us in the audience who are hearing isolated just the same way Ruben feels isolated.

There’s so much anger in Ruben, and Riz Ahmed does an incredible job of showcasing all of his vulnerability, his fear, his anger, and his confusion all in a single look. For much of his performance, Ahmed isn’t speaking, but simply looking, trying desperately to understand the new reality he’s living within.

The small victories we see - Ruben playing with the kids, learning the ASL alphabet, making music again through something as simple as tapping on a metal slide - they all feel so much more powerful because they were hard-earned, because Ruben’s rage is so powerful and his despair was so complete at the beginning of his journey.

It’s fascinating hearing the cochlear implant and the way sounds are different compared to “normal” hearing. The way music sounds, and the look on Ruben’s face when he realizes it made my heart shatter in two.

How did he get to Paris when he just spent all of his money on this operation?

That final scene reminds me of Call Me By Your Name (maybe the only scene of that film that I actually felt moved by) and that tight close-up on Riz Ahmed’s face is the only way I could imagine this film ending.

Did I Cry? No, but my heart ached for Ruben in every moment of wide-eyed terror and confusion and desperation conveyed so completely by Riz Ahmed’s beautiful face.

This film deserved those Oscars for Film Editing and Sound, and my main takeaway from watching it is to be more mindful of all the sounds I hear every day that I take for granted, and more aware of the presence (or lack of) accomodations for the Deaf folks around me. Everyone should see this film not only as a great cinematic experience but as a way to better understand an entire community that so often gets ignored.

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Cruella

Executive 1 at Disney: Alright, pitch meeting, guys, c’mon let’s throw out some ideas. What do we got?

Executive 2 at Disney: We’ve been getting some feedback that people want more original stories. So picture this - London, early 70s. An orphan rises up in the fashion world from the bottom and she’s got this great counterculture punk kinda thing going on, but get this - her mentor steals her ideas. So she gets revenge by creating this kind of alter eg/ larger-than-life persona and doing these pop-up street art photo op moments, making the mentor look old and out of touch. So she’s got this double life thing going on, there’s some great fashion, kind of a found family vibe, until she overthrows the mentor and gets to live the rest of her days as a successful designer.

E1: Wow. I mean....that sounds so weird, Bob. Are you high? Do you even understand what Disney is about? C’mon guys, new ideas, fresh ideas, gimme something.

Executive 3 at Disney: What about some IP we already own?

E1: NOW WE’RE TALKING. What did you have in mind?

E3: Well you know 101 Dalmatians?

E1: Of course! A spinoff about the next generation of puppies! Kids love talking dogs, we’ll be printing money.

E3: No, not puppies, even better - what about the woman who wants to brutally murder the puppies and make clothes out of them ? Like, what’s her story?

E2: Um, isn’t she just like...a terrible person? Her main personality trait is hating dogs and wanting to literally sew their skins into coats? Her name is a play on the words “cruel” and “devil”?

E3: That’s the one.

E1: Eh, here’s $200 million - figure it out, you two! *gives noogies and walks away*

I don’t think this is a controversial opinion: this movie is fucking weird. To be fair, most things that shouldn’t exist are pretty laughably weird and upsetting - like if I said to you, “Hey do you want a phoenix Frappucino?” or “Hello, and welcome to my feather murder palace,” or “There are 2,755 billionaires in the world” you’d be like, “Take a nap, you’re talking nonsense ya rascal!” (In this scenario, we’re friends and I’m frequently rascally). Is Cruella bad? No, not really. It’s a fun story with great visuals and performances from 2 women who are absolutely chewing up every centimeter of scenery they can. Is Cruella good? Not at all if you’re trying to fit it into any framework you have of the character it’s based on.

Things that I liked:

SO many good dogs! Good dogs are everywhere. There are even Very Good Dog Characters, who have names and participate in heists and wear eyepatches. 100/10 for good dog action.

The soundtrack is absolutely bangin’ - a ton of excellent 60s and 70s grooves, with a healthy punk streak.

Disney has more money than God so like...the production design as a whole is fantastic. The costumes are beyond fantastic. If you’ve ever been to Disneyland or DisneyWorld and had the thought “Wow, this place really is magical” because of how perfectly thought-out everything looks down to the tiniest detail - that’s what this movie is with its fashion. You’re watching magic happen on the screen through the clothes.

Unlike most of Disney’s live-action remakes or reboots or revisits of a villain’s backstory, this one isn’t composed of at least 75% CGI, so the story by extension feels significantly more real and tangible. Always a good thing for character studies.

How can you not love the Emmas, you know? Emma Stone loves playing the role of Cruella and her fun is our fun, even when the script makes some...questionable choices, including a terrible voiceover framing device. And Queen of all Eternity Emma Thompson as the Baroness is channeling Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada without the feigned boredom. She’s more hands-on, nastier, wrapped in Old Hollywood glamour. If Miranda Priestly is an icicle that will stab you while you freeze you to death, The Baroness is a sheet of volcanic glass that will tear you to shreds if you touch it.

Things that I didn’t like:

The woobification of a puppy murderer, I can’t stress this enough.

The fact that Cruella actually likes dogs. Like, even Dalmatians. She has no problem with them, and in fact, there are two dogs that are like her childhood best friends that she ran schemes with. Even the Dalmatians she should, by all accounts, hate viciously, she hangs out with and gives a loving home to.

The absolutely BATSHIT way they try to set up a possible continuation into the 101 Dalmatians story.

The extra 45 min of runtime that were wildly unnecessary.

THEY COMPLETELY WASTED MARK STRONG.

I’m honestly the most angry at the fact that I’m mad this version of Cruella doesn’t want to murder puppies. Why are you making me angry at someone who is anti-puppy-murder? What have you turned me into, Disney???

Of the live-action remakes/reboots/reimaginings, this one is probably the one I enjoyed watching the most. I like that it’s an original story (even if it’s cookoo bananapants) and it sure is pretty to look at, in large part because it lacks most of the freakish uncanny valley animals that these Disney live-action movies so heavily rely on. Give it a spin, darling, and see how it feels - just forget everything you know about Cruella DeVil ahead of time and you’ll be golden.

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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A Quiet Place Part II

It’s finally happening. Summer movie season is here. I know, I know, the big lizard and monkey punchfest was technically the start of summer movie season, but it’s officially Memorial Day weekend, and the first truly anticipated (for me, anyway) releases of 2020 are finally hitting the megaplex. I LOVED A Quiet Place, both for its originality and its excellent performances, so I was eagerly anticipating Part II. However, I think we all know it’s hard for lightning to strike like that twice, and a sequel this anticipated has to be a least a little disappointing, right? Well...

Honestly, it’s a solid, solid effort. The gimmicks are much the same as in the first film, and we retread a lot of similar territory in one of the movie’s two main plots, centering around Evelyn (Emily Blunt), Marcus (Noah Jupe), and the just-born baby from the first film. BUT, the other plot, centering around Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and begrudging travel companion Emmett (Cillian Murphy) allows us to venture outside of the insular environment of the first film and discover more of this strange new world, and that is by far the stronger half.

Some thoughts:

Love this first scene of the flashback to Day 1 when the aliens arrived. Kudos to John Krasinski as a director and of course the entire sound design team for making sure that we as an audience are attuned to every little sound the characters are making as they go through their last day of normal life. Flashbacks like this are usually a respite from the tension rather than a source of creeping dread, knowing that there’s a boogeyman waiting to jump out but not knowing when, and it’s an incredibly effective device here. The downside is, it just makes me miss John Krasinski from the rest of the film’s action.

Two Very Good Dogs right off the bat (a German Shepherd and a red hound of some kind). I bet dogs don’t fare well against the aliens, although we see no dog violence or harm onscreen. A world without dogs is maybe the worst thing I can think of :(

Ok, second worst thing - being barefoot all the time. But then Cillian Murphy shows up and has some very sensible shoes, so that makes me think this family is barefoot for no fucking reason, and that just seems wildly irresponsible! This is why people invented shoes! You might be at risk from these aliens, but I’ll tell you what is silent and WILL kill you - sepsis from your nasty ass foot infection.

I know there’s a certain amount of suspension of disbelief that comes with the logistics of making a film but like...this baby was born approximately yesterday. There is no way it would A) have its eyes open or B) be smiling and cooing or C) not look like a fugly old man.

Cillian Murphy? More like Killin-it Murphy. That man can do more with those startling blue eyes in that razor-sharp face that most people can convey with their whole body. He’s a real standout here, and his chemistry with Millicent Simmonds is fantastic. Their journey is compelling because it moves us forward into the unknown, and the obstacles they face are new ones.

Did I Cry? I teared up every time Regan invoked the spirit of her dad, and at the line “I’m nothing like him. You are.” they started to fall for real. There’s never a moment that equals the gut punch climax of the first movie, but the affection for these characters is still very real.

Even though we’ve seen a lot of these tricks before, the gimmick still works. Make a noise and you die? There’s no better way to ramp up the tension, and by having the characters split up, Krasinski tries to keep the stakes as high as possible among all of the characters in multiple different ways, which is pretty effective. The monsters are fast, they’re scary, and the characters are good people who love each other, and you want them to survive. That’s a pretty good recipe for a thriller.

Much like the first time around, the ending is so abrupt as to feel a little sudden or underbaked. Your mileage may vary, but I wasn’t wild about it this time around. Not a BAD ending, but not a great one either.

Overall, a solid follow-up and a great expansion of a story that has so much potential for world-building. The performances are all good, but Simmonds and Murphy are the real reason to buy a ticket to this one. Seeing it on the big screen was absolutely the way to go, and this was exactly the kind of experience I was hoping for now that I’m back at the movies.

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Kids

I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen an NC-17 movie before, so Kids is going to be a milestone for that fact alone. And what a milestone it was. I’ve watched some real shit for Chad, just some absolutely rancid chunks of possum meat (in movie form), but this has to be the most rancid possum of the bunch. Harmony Korine (who you might remember as the writer/director of my least favorite film of 2019, and is more famous as the writer/director of Spring Breakers) wrote this as his debut screenplay, and by that I basically mean he scraped the remains of a 3-day-old beefy 5-layer burrito from Taco Bell out of a dumpster, had a child with a wicked stomach flu consume then immediately vomit it up, and mixed the remains with some hot mayonnaise before using that to paint this fucking screenscape. So c’mon folks, let’s take a magical mystery tour through the dregs of goddamn humanity.

Plot summary: there is no plot, just a bunch of horrifying choices masquerading as lighthearted teenage rebellion. A bunch of teenagers wander the streets of New York on a Saturday, drinking, doing drugs, and having insane amounts of sex and/or committing rape. WARNING: This is your notice to exit the ride if reading about such matters is not something you want to participate in.

Some thoughts:

I’m very uncomfortable watching these two teens making out at the beginning. It looks like they’re trying to suck each other’s faces off and it goes on for so long that it’s giving me kind of a complex. Like, I am a happily married woman and I’ve kissed a not unreasonable number of people, and have had no complaints so far but watching this kissing is making me feel like maybe there was a new species of kissing that was invented when I wasn’t paying attention, like by aliens or Tesla or something, and now I’m out here practicing kissing 1.0 like a fucking chump.

You know that thing when you’re a kid and an adult tells you “if you keep making that face, it’ll freeze like that”? I’m really glad that isn’t true because if it were true, my face would be frozen in a rictus of horrified disgust from the conversation Casper (Justin Pierce) and Telly (Leo Fitzpatrick) are having in the first 10 minutes of this movie about Telly having sex with a 12-year-old girl.

Everything about the way these kids talk, the way they dress, the way they act as though the drugs and the drink and the violence doesn’t touch them, it’s all a performance, and a fucking sad one at that. Nothing about them is real or genuine, and we see no glimpses of any real human connection between them the entire movie. This is not reality, and the fact that Korine and director Larry Clark think it is is so fucking depressing.

Maybe it’s because I didn’t do the whole wild teenage rebellion thing, but none of this even looks fun. This club scene with the techno and everyone watching these people make out in the bathroom, it’s loud and crowded and everyone is so sweaty. And this house party looks godawful, there’s cigarettes and old food and spilled liquor everywhere. Everything would be sticky. Blech.

I can’t tell if they’re stuck in this hellish world of drugs, violence, and irresponsible sex because they’re poor and looking for an escape or if they have money and are just bored and disaffected. So I’m mostly just stuck on “Where are these kids’ fucking parents??”

Jenny (Chloe Sevigny in her film debut) is the only character who has any sort of point or driving force - she’s trying to find Telly to confront him because he gave her HIV when he convinced her to lose her virginity to him the previous year, and he’s the only person she’s slept with. Grim, but at least it’s a narrative.

I’m also wildly uncomfortable at Telly and Casper and all these white kids casually using the N word repeatedly. Everything about how they talk and dress feels incredibly cultural appropriation-y and I couldn’t help but think that when they were buying weed from the Jamaican guy in the park that if they were caught, they would face a much more lenient punishment, if any at all, than the Jamaican man.

How could Jenny see what Telly was doing to Darcy (Yakira Peguero) and just...shut the door? What was the point of her coming to find him if not to confront him, and at least stop him from infecting any other girls? Who hears a girl crying in pain as she’s being sexually assaulted and just...leaves? Every single scene in this movie is more disheartening than the last.

And then to go to an extremely graphic rape scene almost immediately after that...just. Fuck. When I say graphic, I mean GRAPHIC. And it goes on for MINUTES, which feels just about unbearable. I’ve never seen anything like this in a movie before and I hope I never do again.

Did I Cry? No, but I honest to god thought I might vomit.

I don’t know that I’ve ever legitimately felt sick to my stomach while watching a film before this one. I struggle to see how this is artistic expression, or anything all that groundbreaking. Snuff films have existed for as long as motion pictures have been a thing, and that’s essentially what this is. My philosophy for my reviews is never to tell people they shouldn’t watch a film; I want to give people my perspective and allow them to choose for themselves. But I really have to wonder who on earth this movie is for, other than teens sneaking out after dark to watch things they think are “dangerous.” I don’t need a nice tidy moral or a happily ever after - I don’t always need good cinematography or complex, nuanced characters - I don’t even need a cohesive plot in some circumstances. But I sure as shit need at least ONE of those things, or what’s the motherfucking point?

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Godzilla vs. Kong

From the first rumble in the seats in the Dolby theater, I was so glad I chose to see this movie on the big screen. At times it felt like I was on one of those “4-D” roller coasters where the seats rumble and they spray water on your or pipe smells into the audience. That’s how close I was to the action! As at least a casual fan of the previous entries in the Monsterverse, I was looking forward to Godzilla vs Kong and my goodness, those medium expectations sure were met. How medium was it? Well...

I would like the science in this movie to win Best Comedy or Musical in next year’s Golden Globes. This is probably the hardest I’ve laughed in a theater in over a year (obviously there are other reasons for that, but the sentiment still stands). This movie was nonsensical, loud, shiny, dumb fun and I had a great fucking time watching it. Oh, you probably want a plot summary - I’m just gonna refer you to the title of the film. That about covers all you need to know.

Some thoughts:

“Somewhere on Skull Island” - whaaaaat is with this title card? It’s a tiny island. How many possible locations could there possibly be for a giant fuck-off ape to be taking his nap?

I know we’re not here for any semblance of plot but boy, they really sprained something trying to lift these clunky paragraphs of exposition into anything resembling what actual humans would say.

These opening credits are one of the funniest sequences I’ve seen in ages.

My main man Brian Tyree Henry! I had no idea he was in this (frankly I knew virtually nothing about this movie because what do you even need to know about a movie with the title Godzilla vs. Kong). He’s playing a completely different vibe than I’ve ever seen him play - the comedic relief and a mile-a-minute vaguely conspiracy theorist podcast host who is obsessed with Sir Zilla and the other Titans. I really enjoyed seeing this other side of him!

Absolutely terrible waste of Kyle Chandler, who was probably paid more than my yearly salary for 60 seconds of Protective and Frazzled Dad perfection.

One of the highlights of the film is the performance of young actress Kaylee Hottle as Jia. Jia is Deaf, and so is Kaylee in real life, and I’m always here for more Deaf representation onscreen! And her friendship with Kong is one of the few things in the movie that elicits any genuine emotion of any kind. When he booped her I literally said “Aw!” out loud.

The visuals of the hollow Earth are very cool and remind me of those space age desktop backgrounds that most of the guys I know who built their own PCs and spent a lot of time on Tor.com would have had.

Even the most ridiculous films like this one will sometimes include little bits of worldbuilding that are thoughtful and have fascinating implications. For example, the “Titan Shelters” in Hong Kong - who pays for those? The government? Do rich people have reinforced private Titan Shelters while poor folks have to rely on the public ones, which are likely overcrowded and possibly don’t have enough resources? (I think we all know the answer to that).

I am very much enjoying all the neon in the Hong Kong fight, and how much more visually interesting it makes two giant blobs slamming their blob bodies against each other while causing a staggering amount of property damage.

Finally a realistic “I can crack the password!” scene!

Did I Cry? Ok, a teeny tiny bit, about Kong and Jia’s friendship.

Times I laughed LOUDLY in the theater: when Mr. Zilla, who can literally shoot lightning out of his damn mouth just straight up punches Kong in the face. When Kong gets attacked by all those lizard things in the hollow Earth and just uses one motherfucker to slap another motherfucker. When they use an anti-gravity machine (whatever that actually means) as a defibrillator for an ape that is sometimes as big as a skyscraper and other times as big as a mountain.

And now a series of questions:

Why is this high school class just watching the news in the middle of the day? The G-Z has attacked cities at least 3 other times in this universe that we know of. Like, this isn’t their 9/11, this is a thing that just regularly happens.

You decided it was a good idea to transport Kong over the ocean...where Big Daddy G hangs out all the time? Like...that’s where he lives, you guys. You’re basically trying to sneak Kong over the roof of Godzilla’s house and hoping he doesn’t notice.

OH and you had a Kong-sized net and a team of Kong transport helicopters ready the WHOLE TIME? But you still chose “sneaking over Godzilla’s house” as your first plan of action????

How long can Kong hold his breath? He goes underwater for some long ass periods.

In fact, what are the details of Kong’s physiology in general? How tall is he? Because at one point in his fight with The GZA, he’s standing on the floor of the Tasman Sea, no big deal - except the Tasman Sea has a depth of roughly 18,000 feet. And Kong’s just chilling out in the water at waist level? But he’s also shorter than the skyscrapers in Hong Kong? I choose to believe he can grow and shrink at will because that makes more sense than the sloppy joe approach to his biology the screenwriters are using.

I like Millie Bobby Brown as much as the next guy, but does it bother anyone else that she always sounds congested? Is that a consequence of her doing her American accent? It’s incredibly distracting.

Oh, this entire scene is set in Antarctica but no one is wearing hats or gloves? Sure sure sure.

And no one is having any problems breathing the air in the middle of the fucking earth? No one thought to check that the atmosphere was breathable before everyone takes off their helmets? No noxious fumes to worry about in the center of a planet that produces magma and shit?

You’re taking your child to the literal center of the earth? Is this not the ONE TIME you think you might need a babysitter?

The ship that can *checks notes* withstand the forces present during an entire reversal of gravity is crushed by Kong’s fist like it’s a tube of toothpaste?

Even though the Earth is hollow, I’m assuming the distance to reach the core is still about the same, so Godzilla’s lighting can 1) act as a drill to - I cannot reiterate this strongly enough - the CENTER OF THE FUCKING EARTH and 2) Godzilla and Kong can yell at each other for 3,958 miles (give or take) and still hear each other? Do they have superhearing? Is this something we’re studying or are we content to just have them Hulk smash all of that incredibly important evolutionary biology to bits while everyone stands around?

Because this is a “vs” movie, of course there is no clear-cut “winner” at the end. Instead the two parties leave each other with a grudging respect formed, an uneasy truce in place. But I’m obsessed with the way this final scene plays out, as though Godzilla is a bitter ex walking away from Kong after their doomed relationship has run its course. The lighting, the soft music, the absolute melodrama of this giant lizard slinking slowly back into the sea. Godzilla is giving the gays everything they want in 2k21 and I am here for it. Here’s hoping the next entry in the franchise has Kong hooking up with Rodan to make G jealous and they all have a messy public fight over brunch, Real Housewives style.

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