Camoo Reviews

Terms of Endearment (1983)

An ocean of human feeling

[10/10 · 20 March 2022]

There are individual scenes in Terms of Endearment which would fall apart without all of the genuine emotion surrounding them - the movie builds these emotions carefully and deliberately, and creates such truthful relationships between its characters, that when we reach its inevitable ending, we can't help but be moved.

It took me a good long time to see this film. Maybe it was because I expected a sad slog of a melodrama, or these emotions coming across as undeserved. But I was totally floored by this movie, and lifted by the vivacity of these characters, and the film's careful balance between humor and drama that carries through the story.

Larry McMurtry was one of the best America writers, and his books and the films adapted from his work (and his Brokeback Mountain screenplay, adapted from the Proulx story) all have something in common, which is that they chronicle something very specific about American society - characters whom are often stuck in a bubble, or small towns without a reasonable means of escape; their sexuality or relationships inhibiting their freedom, or circumstance preventing them from living who they are. Transcendence occurs when these people can find find peace and happiness within themselves, and connect to others with love and understanding.

The actors who bring his (and James L. Brooks') words to life are sublime in their roles. I found the familial (especially the mother-daughter relationship) and spousal relationships so true, and filled with so much nuance, that there were many moments I just was nodding in agreement with the decisions made on the part of the writer, director and actors all together.

Licorice Pizza (2021)

One of PTA's best

[10/10 · 15 March 2022]

Paul Thomas Anderson's movies have always excelled in style, but personally I've always thought they were lacking in heart. I really love There Will Be Blood, and I enjoyed the underrated Inherent Vice's zany logic, and parts of his films are always powerful, and always visually awesome. He's a fantastic director. But - I've never been truly moved or stirred by one of his movies.

This one changed my opinion. I can't comment on any of the controversy or the discussion around the film outside of how the story is told and via its characters and setting. But Licorice Pizza transported me somewhere - namely 1970's LA - so precisely, and gave me two perfectly drawn characters, neither of whom I have ever seen before in any other movie. I adored them. This is his most lovable and least cynical of all of his films, and I was totally taken by it.

The film is a sorta loose, sorta dreamy, sorta sprawling, but not in a way that was off-center. The decumbent nature of it might be off-putting to some viewers - there is no ordinary 'plot', it's quite long, and some people might be asking where the licorice pizza is. It's not an on-the-nose movie. But the love story found within it, between these two perfectly cast characters is what anchors the movie into something that really resonated with me.

It's clearly an homage to 1970's Los Angeles, and Anderson's memory, and once you're on board with the hazy nostalgia machine, the movie flows wonderfully between different vignettes of the enterprising Gary Valentine's life and the love he's preserving for Alana. I felt a real love and respect between the characters, and between Anderson and his audience. The untraditional pairing between two first timers was a risk, but I enjoyed how unconventionally beautiful they are together, how much of an odd-couple they turn into; almost partners in crime in Gary's various crazy enterprises. Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman's casting are the best payoffs of this film.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Painful

[2/10 · 24 February 2022]

I was the kid who dressed up as a Ghostbuster every year on Halloween, saved up pennies for the action figures, proton pack and the glow-in-the-dark trap, and begged my parents to bring me to the sequel even though I ended up having recurring nightmares of Janosz's glowing eyeballs. I cherished those movies, and Afterlife seems geared exactly toward my particular level of obsessive fandom.

Which is what makes this whole ordeal such a supreme disappointment. Instead of anything even half approaching a decent movie, we have the umpteenth subversion of a childhood memory by filmmakers who are trying, in vain, to recapture the spark of an original success, and falling on their faces. Whether it's the relentless perversion of the OG Star Wars trilogy, the Crystal Skull disaster, Blade Runner, Matrix, Scream, and the last Ghostbusters - the constant classic franchise revisitation schemes are mostly really annoying and a big fat waste of my money. Honestly, the only person at present time I would trust with a franchise addition is George Miller. And maybe James Cameron. And whoever was behind Paddington.

Afterlife made me cringe. At every level, I was cringing. I was on board with the intent - and the saving grace might be that it doesn't feel like a cold and calculated cash grab by a studio. It does seem a genuine tribute, and a nostalgic vehicle, helmed by the talented son of the original filmmaker. But then it falls into the trap of being a hokey nostalgic vehicle by the son of the original filmmaker, rather than attempting anything fresh and new with the material. Obviously Jason Reitman has proven himself as a great filmmaker in his own right, and made one of the greatest films since the turn of the century, which is Juno. But Ghostbusters: Afterlife is a different beast, and to me, he failed in his mission to direct a big scale supernatural action film, fill it with irreverent comedy and make it feel anywhere near as effortless or purposeful as the original. This movie is a long and difficult slog through seriousness, cheesiness, and weird meta self-referencing in a way neither of the other Ghostbusters ever would have dared to be.

I could get into the plot and details, but really I don't even want to. If you've seen the first two, you're basically seeing the same thing except it takes place in a rural town, it's much more diluted, and it's starring kids. The same music, the same creatures, the same ideas, the same tag lines - even the same sound effects - only hokier and less funny, and all thrown in through a Stranger Things filter. And the hyped up reunion between the original Ghostbusters should have been a joyride and one of the great moments of this movie, and yet I had to close my eyes when it got to those scenes, because I didn't want to ruin the original any more than I had by staying awake through this one.

This movie just embarrassed me. And made me sad. I don't want to leave a Ghostbusters movie sad again, so I actually give up on this, and will settle for revisiting the first two annually again. I liked that arrangement anyway.

Tim's Vermeer (2013)

Fantastic portrait of obsession

[9/10 · 22 February 2022]

This is one of my favorite modern documentaries, which I have watched many times by now. It's basically character study of a very obsessive man who will not let go of his quest to paint a perfect Vermeer - despite never having painted before. It doesn't take long to see why the subject and his process might have fascinated the two magicians behind the making of the film.

I love this doc because I am constantly aware of how much smarter Tim is than I am. Movies about the mechanics of how something works are often really compelling to me - and this movie does a very good job of getting across what it is like to live with a mind like Tim's, and then be a part of this experiment, step by step. There are no tricks to the filmmaking, despite Penn and Teller being behind the camera; it's told simply and straightforward, without any attempt to fool the audience. There is only Tim, trying to deconstruct why he thinks the world was fooled - for centuries - by Vermeer, who he is certain used optical tools to paint with the complete mastery and precision he was famous for.

What it does have in common with the work of Penn and Teller is that Tim's efforts to recreate a Vermeer are ingenious, and require a crazy amount of engineering skill. And the film itself is eccentric, entertaining and very funny.

The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

Not a retread

[10/10 · 25 January 2022]

Joel Coen did something I hadn't really thought possible - he crafted a vision of Macbeth that feels completely vital and new. Did we need it? I'm not sure. But what's done is done, and it's done sublimely.

If you didn't care for Shakespeare in school and haven't kindled an interest since, this movie will likely not be for you, and there's no way around it. Those loving Game of Thrones or some 'period pieces', but not attuned to this kind of dense Elizabethan verse will likely still struggle. It is jarring to encounter it, and it took some adjustment, even as a fan of the play; reading it is one thing, absorbing it as it comes at you on a movie screen is another. You do have to want to hear it, to appreciate the athleticism of the words, and the accomplishment of this ensemble to recite and embody them.

I can also see this movie helping the uninitiated to better understand why this play has survived so many centuries. It does about the best any movie ever has at adapting Macbeth into an urgent, modern narrative, and it crafts a surreal world of brooding splendor to help guide you through it. At the very least if you find yourself lost narratively, you will be bedazzled.

The filmmaking is so top notch, the actors are splendid and the production design and cinematography are something to behold. Joel Coen, on his own here, has pushed beyond what he's ever done and has given us not only his trademark noir-ish world, but heightened it all to a degree I've never seen before in a Coen Brothers film. In fact, I can't point to any modern film that looks so starkly expressionist; you'd have to go back to Bergman, Dreyer or Robert Wiene to find the clues to its visual inspiration.

There is imagery here so arresting that I immediately wanted to see the film again. The set design evokes an evil maze, engulfed in fog, rain, blood, falling leaves and shadows that are so sharp they can cut. People have described it as recalling Escher, which is true - you never are sure if it is day or night; everything is dream-like, or nightmare-like, all built on soundstages so there is no mistaking their un-reality. And the performances, like that of Kathryn Hunter, who plays all three of witches with a delicious malevolence, are ecstatic. Basically Coen is firing on all cylinders, and he seems intent on hypnotizing the audience at every level. His gift for visual poetry is both economical and ingenious: the film doesn't lag and there aren't needless visual flights for the sake of it - it compliments the perfection of the written words in a way I'm not sure another director could have accomplished. At least not like this.

I have to give this a 10, the first 10 of the new year. As much as it was a kind of shock to come into contact with Shakespeare after many years without it - the film did grab me on so many levels. It was taut (105 minutes must be a kind of record for a Shakespeare adaptation), supremely well made, and deserving of the big screen treatment. Glad I caught it on that scale.

Soul (2020)

Another Pixar miracle

[10/10 · 21 January 2022]

I consider Soul a miracle, because I can't wrap my head around what it takes to conceive of and execute a movie like this. There must be something very freeing about developing a story at Pixar, knowing you can bring to life just about anything you want, but then how do you go about putting a visual to something like the afterlife? The possibilities must be endless, but this film imagines a life after death better than just about any ever has.

The plot is a bender, and more geared towards adults than any other film in the Pixar canon. We meet Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) during a mid-life crisis. He is a jazz teacher who is facing the prospect of giving up his dream of being a famous musician in order to take a full time position at school, until he scores the gig of his life accompanying the revered singer Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett) on stage. His dream is short-lived, as he takes an unfortunate fall down a manhole on his way home, and finds himself waking up as a deceased soul in the afterlife. From here on in, the film takes surreal creative (and hilarious) liberties, as Joe tries to manufacture a way back into his body before it's too late.

Pixar and director Pete Docter's vision of the afterlife is wonderful, and I've not seen anything like it before. I guess you could consider it a kind of peaceful, Nintendo-like glowing world of souls; those who have recently passed, and those who are yet to be born. The recently deceased souls mentor the souls-to-be, to help them to develop their personalities and 'spark' - the thing that they will be passionate about in life. Then the deceased are shipped off to 'the great beyond', which is, I suppose, the final unknowable destination for each soul, as the new souls drop to earth, with their personalities built in and ready to go.

This is no easy feat to explain; and there is much more - as Joe violates the rules of the afterlife by hijacking his way back to earth, and what ensues, and how he negotiates his new life (and new body) makes up the films fun center.

Perhaps the question is - will kids like it? My nephews did, but I feel like the adults in the room were more aware of the message, the artistry and cultural references. But the core of the movie is gentle and fun, with some hilarious sequences - especially when Tina Fey arrives, voicing a manic lost soul who Joe is asked to mentor. I also loved the music. Trent Reznor's score is totally new territory for him; it buzzes with an uplifting, synthesized rhythm. The rest of the soundtrack is made up of gorgeous piano and jazz music from Jon Batiste, and contains a great appreciation for music generally. It's a music lovers film.

The message is fresh, and it is not as simple as 'follow your dreams and they will come true'. The message here, and underlying theme is that people do not necessarily have just one purpose. That you can have different paths, and fulfilling your one dream is not necessarily your life's purpose. I thought this message, while maybe not totally pushed through perfectly by the end, is a good one, and gives the film something more grounded than a simple wish-fulfillment narrative.

There are moments here as stirring as the opening of Pete Docter's similarly brilliant 'Up', and it reminded me of that in a way - the awareness of mortality and grand ideas about existence which will go over most kids heads, but are still made to be easily digestible and fun.

Neighbors (I) (2014)

Part of a comedy renaissance

[8/10 · 20 January 2022]

There were a series of comedy movies in a row, blasted out over about ten years that were just killer, the buddy bro and gal comedy thing that revolved usually around Apatow and Rogen, and still kind of does. But now that streaming has taken over everything, it feels more like maybe that was a brief fertile-funny period, and nobody's really seeing comedies in the theater anymore. And that these movies were riskier than people could even get away with now.

A movie like this is as timeless as Animal House, and it shares a lot in common - it is pretty much the best college comedy since that film (although this is broader, and also about being a grownup), and though the times and music have changed, the irreverence is about the same. There's also a kind of grounded-ness and heart to both of the films, which I think help them carry on, and will stay relevant and fun for future audiences.

I hadn't seen Neighbors since it came out, and watching it now is as fun as it was the first time. There are so many moments of uncontrollable laughter. Comedy can seem easy, but it's so hard to get right, because laughter is such a reactive, immediate thing. If you laugh, you laugh, if you don't you don't, just as a real scary movie will either scare you or not, and if it doesn't its purpose is diminished. This one made me laugh - full on - and a lot.

Byrne and Goldberg make a great pair - Byrne is especially hilarious here, and she is one of the best comedy actresses around. Instead of being a pragmatic anchor against Rogen's antics, she matches his wit and delivers the best performance in the movie.

The sequel is really good too, and not a pointless money-grab.

Let Them All Talk (2020)

I watched this with my mom.

[7/10 · 16 January 2022]

Watching a movie with my mom is dicey - she can take very little in terms of experimentation, and needs things spelled out clear or else she tunes out and fixes her attention onto whatever else is going on in the room. So here goes.

Mom: I love all these actresses! Who is Steven Soda Bread?

Me: He's a great director.. Although I doubt you've seen any of his movies. The Liberace one maybe.

Mom: What is all of this moving back and forth, I don't get it?

(I stop the movie, explain what is happening, the character introductions and moving between locations and characters until we are on the cruise ship.)

Mom: This seems.. Interesting. Let me get some wine.

Me: Yea, it's a little loose. But I like seeing these amazing actresses together in something that isn't a sitcom-like reunion. And it's thoughtful, and intelligent...

Mom: (talks about the dog.)

Me: Even when Soderbergh hires a DP and editor why does it always feel like it's shot and edited by Steven Soderbergh?

(30 minutes in)

Mom: This is all over the place.

Me: I kind of agree. Can I have some wine too?

Mom: So who is this kid on the boat with them?

Me: How did you get this far into the movie without knowing that? I explained already - it's her nephew.

Mom: And OH MY GOD - Is that Murphy Brown?

Me: Yes..

Mom: I didn't recognize her, I love her! What happened to her?

Me: She probably got older. Murphy Brown was a long time ago.

Mom: Was it? And who's the other mousy one? I know her from somewhere.

Me: Dianne Wiest? I thought you 'loved these actresses'.

Mom: Ohhhh, from In Treatment.

Me: And Hannah and Her Sisters. And Synecdoche New York.. She won two Oscars.

Mom: (talks about how much she loved In Treatment over 20 minutes of the movie.)

Me: Do you want to stop this?

Mom: No no. We're invested in it now.

Me: I'm invested in it, it doesn't sound like you are so much..

Mom: Yeah but this is more for you anyway, isn't it?

Me: Maybe.

This went on.

Look - I liked this movie and my mom is not the best barometer, but she represents a plain casual viewer. She was polite enough to not fall asleep, but I could tell she wasn't into it. And though I liked it, I also wish it were a little less loosey-goosey, and less experimental in its editing and cinematography, which seemed to create an odd, detached quality when I'd rather have been deliberately engaged for a story like this. There's kind of enough of a plot to drive things along, and the vivacity of some of the individual performances are great (Candice Bergen and Dan Algrent especially). But the screws could have been tightened.

The Righteous Gemstones (2019– )

Good concept, flimsy execution

[5/10 · 12 January 2022]

The world of megachurches, hyperrich pastors and religious hypocrisy is fertile territory for a show, but The Righteous Gemstones is kind of meh. There's nothing really beyond the obvious shots they're taking here. I would have loved a really clever take down on this subject, but this isn't it.

It's not all that bad, there are contained moments of hilarity and a few scattered areas of nuance that shine. Danny McBride and company are usually entertaining but when they revert to hokey family dramas and dumb raunchy comedy it loses me, and it's unfortunately mostly how this show defines itself. The narrative arcs they try and build are boring; I like certain parts better as standalone episodes without having to follow a zany plot that doesn't really draw me in because it's so off the wall stupid. For example, I liked the first season episode 'Wicked Lips', about a tempted pastor's daughter, which had a limited scope but made a satisfying full episode. The larger story they try and tell, which involves a family schism, blackmail and the rest lost me.

Making fun of these hypocritical people is easy - harder is to take the shots but still make us care about the characters and draw them with some intelligence. Not to mention humor that was more clever than this. I would have preferred a show that dared to not just make fun of these people, but make us care a bit more, with overall better drawn characters than these cardboard dart targets.

Don't Look Up (2021)

It's been a weird year, and McKay went dark

[8/10 · 9 January 2022]

The last year was dark - and it's not like it was looking much brighter before the pandemic. People are dealing with compounded angst, and there is a lingering feeling of hopelessness for the future, on part of filmmakers and the audience, that needs satiated somehow. Adam McKay made something here that maybe speaks to this angst better than anything has so far over the last year. People want escapism, but they also want to hear something about what they're feeling.

This movie is very deliberate in what it wants to be about. It is mostly successful in what it says - that we've lost the plot as a species, and as Americans, and are bombarded with distractions and will likely prefer to stare in our phones as the world hurtles toward disaster. I don't doubt the veracity of this thesis. It is also very dry, witty, and feels like it lives in a different universe from McKay's Anchorman style of humor; it's almost British in its self-defeating tone and works more as a parable than a work of pure entertainment. Yes, it is also a satire, but it doesn't reach for easy escapism. This is a movie that wants to scream to the audience about where we are right now.

Half of the audience and critics seemed to hate it. Maybe they feel insulted, to have a finger pointed at them, and piled into this crew of morons. Maybe they thought it wasn't taken far enough. Or wasn't funny enough, or something.

I wasn't really sure about the scope of the film until the last ten or so minutes. The comedy takes a back seat and we get a moment where things become strangely serious, and sad. I suppose what preceded the ending needed the satire and comedic distraction (and an insanely stacked cast) to get a point across, and the irony isn't lost that this is very much what the movie is about. It also made me wish the whole movie had widened its scope to fulfill what its last moments were saying, because what it manages to get away with is kind of awesome.

From the point of view of it as 'entertaining content', I thought it was a worthwhile, fun movie with some good performances, and it kept me on my feet till the end - which is all most people want these days anyway. Seeing this story told really seriously might be too much to bear. But it is also scary, and on point. It reaches to illustrate something about the culture we indulge in, and I liked and appreciated the aims. Judge for yourself.

A Very Brady Sequel (1996)

Undrerrated comedy and performances

[8/10 · 7 January 2022]

When A Very Brady Sequel came about, I can't remember anybody being much excited about it, and some people outright hating it. The comedy was strange and lodged in a kind of limbo between eras. It was always understood to be a clear satire, but about what, I'm not totally sure - the send up fell on deaf ears and the movie wasn't very popular, and the comedy didn't seem to land with audiences or critics.

It's strange how some films evolve into their right time. Now I watch it after I don't know how many years and I love it. I find the comedy great, with some really bizarre and edgy performances, bordering on the surreal - one in particular which has become iconic in its way. And there's a colorful warmth to it, not only the bright 70's palette and vibrance of the 35mm but in the overall nature of this movie. It sure was a breezier time, even in the 90's, and in the original TV era the film harks back to.

I'm not sure it would have been as good without Jennifer Elise Cox as Jan Brady - I didn't remember how damn funny and weird she is here, but she's brilliant and I wish I would have seen more of her over the years. The relationship between her and Christine Taylor's Marcia and their scenes together are the best parts of the film, and it overall filled me with joy to watch this thing now.

Being the Ricardos (2021)

A mirthless slog with the Ricardos

[5/10 · 5 January 2022]

I generally enjoy Aaron Sorkin's writing and directing, but here the material feels all wrong. Starting with the casting - Kidman and Bardem are fine actors, but they were just miscast, and neither are very comedic. Then there is the strange tone, the tense, dramatic music, the seriousness and overall lack of joy, humor and fun that defined an iconic duo and TV show. Sure, real life is never as fun as the schtick we saw on TV and in reruns - and surely the short period illustrated here was chosen because it was particularly dramatic - but I'm not sure Lucy and Desi's lives were ever this dour, serious and fraught with tension all day every day. Nobody laughs in this movie, except the studio audience, on cue. Over really tense music.

The movie was a drag. It needed swing, and Sorkin failed to give it much. It spent too much time on petty dramas that I didn't really care about, and not enough time finding a way to fascinate me with Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball. It also illuminated Sorkin's limitations as a director (while I've liked his other efforts) - it's a strange thing, to hear his trademark biting tone given to this duo; it robs the history of some of the innocence of that time, and especially the true joy of Lucille Ball as a performer.

The movie succeeded in one thing, which was to depress me. Even the drab tones of the photography, all the browns and muted colors... I'm sorry, but this shouldn't be the takeaway from a Lucy film. Somebody who wants to relive the nostalgia and joy of the series might be seriously disappointed here; there simply isn't enough spark to recommend it, to fans of the show, or to a casual viewer. If you want an Aaron Sorkin movie, full of hyper-drive, sneering dialogue, you still might get what you asked for.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)

Chastain carries it

[8/10 · 4 January 2022]

This movie wouldn't be as good as it is without an actress as invested in playing Tammy Faye Bakker as Jessica Chastain is. She jumps so head first into the role that she carries the film and gives it all of the bevels that are needed to make it both entertaining and caring.

I hated what Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker stood for - they seemed an easy target to lampoon, but I was intrigued by that documentary 'The Eyes of Tammy Faye', which put her in a different light from her corrupt husband. This film, instead of retreading on what is already known publicly, fills some of the blanks and creates something fascinating out of two deeply flawed people.

This isn't a caricature, it finds room for empathy, and puts all of the focus on its lead actress, who I think did a stellar job here, and without that sort of commitment, this movie would have felt dulled. There are scenes here of great sweetness and sadness, and a sense that Chastain understood something underneath it all.

Author: The JT LeRoy Story (2016)

Dr. Frankenstein's barbie dolls come to life

[9/10 · 24 December 2021]

This film is a document of genius, however twisted and malformed it might have arrived onto the world. You get a sense that without the betrayal inherent in the story, Laura Albert's writing might have not been met with the same fanfare. Fair? Unfair? Does it matter? What Albert pulled off was her own; she brought an alter ego to life, and bamboozled a lot of people in the process. She also happens to be, as herself, a brilliant writer and public speaker, and this movie is transfixing because of her, rather than in spite of her. The way she tells her story in this documentary is completely delicious.

I won't bother with a primer, since those tuning into the film will surely know how about said deception, but won't know the details until they see it here. Those who have no clue about this story deserve to hear it from the horse's mouth.

What I'm most interested in what this deception/accomplishment says about the nature of celebrity and fame versus what it says about either Albert or the woman she enlisted to play JT LeRoy, Savannah Knoop. They were both playing roles, as were so many of the people they ingratiated themselves with; celebrities who knocked on their doors, rather than the other way around. The whole ordeal could be seen as a kind of long form performance art, although that would be unfairly generous, and Albert is so amusingly blunt in this documentary that she doesn't even try to pawn it off as such. She just explains how her lie got out of hand, and how amazed she was that it exploded so far out of proportion. She appears to be completely honest here, and that candidness is what makes the film so fun, and so astonishing.

I loved hearing Laura Albert as herself. A woman who was so afraid to be seen as the author of her own writing, as somebody so self conscious and suffering such negative self image, that it wasn't even a matter of trying to pull the wool over anybody's eyes, it was just a matter of necessity. Albert's con is so outlandish that it deserves a level of appreciation for the sophistication and dedication that went into it, although there is a level of illness and/or malevolence at play too.

This doc has been rightfully accused of glossing over some of this and presenting a single side of this story - many of LeRoy's suitors and admirers were horrified to learn that intimate conversations had been taped. Many people were embarrassed. And mostly people just wanted to believe, and wanted to be close to LeRoy, in whatever way, sometimes intimately. This is a game of celebrity, and if somebody wants to be famous this way, then so be it.

What separates Albert from a fame digger, or her as a fifteen minute idol is that she ultimately is a very talented writer, and wrote in a way that people responded to very deeply. And as a doc, this is about as entertaining as one could be.

Allied (2016)

Underrated masterpiece

[10/10 · 23 December 2021]

When I first saw Allied, I liked it, but found it kind of quaint, and full of nostalgia; not only for Old Hollywood war and spy pictures, but for a more classical, old fashioned style of filmmaking. The homages (most notably Casablanca) sometimes took away from the immediacy of the movie. I filed it under 'liked it', and didn't watch it again.

Another viewing now, years later, and I've reevaluated my tepid attitude toward this movie, and now find it a bold and epic masterpiece, that was totally gripping from start to finish, and full of resonant emotionality. Yes, it is an homage, yes it does feel like 40's film fandom by a couple of old guard filmmakers (Zemeckis and the screenwriter Steven Knight collaborated here, and they're both masters) and the style doesn't innovate as much as comfort us. Maybe I'm more aware now that these kinds of films will not be around forever.

Allied is epic in scope, while still having the time to be intimate and well acted. There are areas of startling passion; it is a sweeping adventure, a spy movie and historical drama in others. But it doesn't bounce around like James Bond with a wink-wink attitude. This story is ultimately a classic tragic romance, on par with the best of them. It is buoyed by some great performances - Marion Cotillard is one of the most beautiful and gifted of all actresses, and Brad Pitt, whom you would never mistake as a Quebecois, is nonetheless great, and is somebody who is always daring when it comes to how he chooses his roles and how he inhabits them. The chemistry between them, and the conviction of their efforts, is what makes this film work.

I was sad when this movie finished this time around, not only because I felt what what was meant through this story, but because it stands more to me now as a lament for several bygone eras in film that contributed so much to a common language of cinema; something that would have felt 'studio' some years ago, is now steeped with melancholy.

Stillwater (2021)

Muddled purpose

[6/10 · 16 December 2021]

Stillwater is a movie that contains some intriguing elements, and some decent acting, but then it decided to invest in things I didn't really care for, and suffers most of all from what I call foreign imposter syndrome.

By that I mean in an effort to present characters from opposing cultures (Oklahoma and Marseille specifically), and go out of its way draw in excruciating details against stereotype, it gets mired by unintentional stereotyping anyway. Attempts to make its characters seem plausible, layered and nuanced felt contrived, and I wasn't buying any of it.

We have the gun-loving, no-nonsense drawl of an Oklahoman, Bill Baker (Matt Damon), who has decamped to what is meant to seem like the complete opposite of rural America in Marseilles, France, to help exonerate his daughter Allison (Abigail Breslen); she stands accused of a heinous crime, is stuck in a French prison, and Baker is certain that she is innocent. His character, replete with a working class American uniform, ballcap and sports sunglasses, screams red-state progeny, but - hey, he's a nice enough guy, and didn't vote for Trump. Baker soon enlists a bohemian French theater actress, Virginie, introduced - amazingly - in a room full of mimes (the otherwise charming Camille Cottin) to help him with a grassroots investigation into the case, since the French investigators have suspended any further investigating. And Virginie has a daughter, Maya, from a relationship with her absent father, presumably Arab (another stereotype, although Lilou Siauvaud as Maya is very good). Baker inserts himself into their lives with surprising ease, without so much as a few 'yes ma'am's', before proceeding to take matters of justice into his own hands.

The American student aspect of the story is nicked from the notorious case of Amanda Knox, and writer/director Todd McCarthy has tweaked enough details to make it a flight of his own fancy and presumably not have to pay Knox for rights (she disapproved of this film anyway, and likely wouldn't have handed them over). Instead of Perugia, we are in Marseille; Allison here is gay; the suspected murderer is a Muslim instead of black, and so on. But what is the point of dramatizing that story, even the slightest bit? And if it's only meant to be a device - the crime in Stillwater often feels like an afterthought, as we explore the aftermath - what then is actually trying to be said here? I was confused throughout as to what the true purpose of the film was meant to be.

There are parts of the story that seem to want to say something about these contrasting cultures, but it fails on that level to say anything profound. There are aspects that show us an American trying to enact some down-home justice, and throw his weight around in a foreign culture, that seem to want to say something about America's role in the world. Perhaps it's just to show the determination of a man whose daughter's life is on the line, and how grief can often lead to rash decision making. The further Baker gets into researching the case, the less moral he becomes, and he also begins to doubt his own daughter's side of the story. The crime itself all seems a way for us to explore these characters, and the setting, rather than much being said about the crime or the victim. It's just a shame that I wasn't really buying any of these characters being studied, and so much of the presumed nuance of the story felt so contrived and full of unintentional stereotyping.

Se7en (1995)

Defies convention

[10/10 · 9 December 2021]

Seven is a classic at this point, but it never started as such. There was a lot of pushback from the studio, from actors who turned down the lead roles, deeming the script 'too dark'; and from the marketers at New Line, who understandably didn't know how to sell such a horrific enterprise to the masses. The reality is that this film is no more or less violent than a zillion schlock horror movies that preceded it - it's just that it is so well done, so effective in its narrative, and so psychologically devastating that the resulting film is more horrific in scope than most anything ever made before it, or since.

It seems the jury is still out on where this film takes place. New York and Chicago have been posited, but there are no discernible landmarks to tie it to either of these cities. Philly maybe. I think there's nowhere else such a dark, sordid tale could be taking place other than where they shot it: Los Angeles, and there are street signs which don't even bother to hide the true location. Sure, the film is drenched in perpetual downpour rather than the typical sunny Cali atmosphere, but this movie isn't as much about the reality of a location as it is about the evil it documents; something which could only be illustrated with a heightened, dank atmosphere, where the characters seem to all be drowning in an encroaching sorrow.

David Fincher's early whack as a director produced something original and sublime. The cliché buddy cop film is turned on its head by having seasoned detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and his green partner Mills (Brad Pitt) do away with their opposing roles early on, as they simply sink into procedural necessity. The detective characters become equals much faster than is expected, as they are thrown into a task of having to unravel the crimes of a certain John Doe (? You all know by now who this is), hopefully before the serial killers 'masterpiece' is concluded, and more victims are tallied.

Of course, this doesn't happen. What remains most haunting about this film is how uncompromisingly dark it is, how gritty it was allowed to be, how hopelessness is turned into an elegiac statement on evil, loss and death. The score of the film, by Howard Shore, is less remembered than the opening sequence by Trent Reznor - which spurred a great collaboration between a director and a musician - but Shore's contribution here shouldn't be discounted, as it perfectly captures the mournfulness of this story, and and the inevitably of its conclusion.

Se7en is the movie which proved David Fincher is an exceptional filmmaker. He has made some pretty hardcore films. Se7en remains his grittiest, most memorable, most uncompromising. Thankfully the studio and marketing guys didn't get their way, or it could have ended up just like a million other detective movies.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Masterclass in action filmmaking

[10/10 · 5 December 2021]

It's been a few years since this film, but rewatching it now reminded me of how good it actually is and how much I genuinely love it. It's not gritty, or dark, or filled with brooding characters, or the typical atmosphere of many modern sci fi and action films. It's just a lot of fun. The film's greatest asset - aside from two very good performances and chemistry between its leads - is that it constantly keeps a sense of humor about itself. It's funny, and thrilling, and moving, all together.

The concept works so well that it's a wonder we haven't really seen it before, although we have, kind of, in movies like Looper, Source Code, Groundhog Day, and a few others. But the script is fresh. I've read the manga, and I eventually read two early drafts of this screenplay, and it's interesting to me how different they all feel from one another and this final product, and that it evolved so thoroughly into something that feels so tightly written.

The story is complicated, and yet when watching the movie the plot seems effortless. It's about an insubordinate, cowardly officer named Cage, who is thrown onto the front lines of a war against an invading alien species known as the 'mimics', only to find himself getting killed immediately. Instead of dying outright, he finds himself waking up at a day earlier, unharmed, and about to go back into the battle that killed him. This happens over and over again, hence the tag line of the film, and eventual re-brand into 'live, die, repeat'. He soon discovers that a fellow soldier - the venerated and feared Rita Vrtastky has been stuck in that same loop before, and they begin to conspire a way to harness this time-warp glitch in order to outsmart the seemingly unbeatable mimics.

The movie works well for a few reasons. The first is that Tom Cruise plays against type here, and seeing him as a coward is fun, and he knows it. He's great here. We are reminded that Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise, one of the biggest names in the world, but he is totally comfortable messing around with his persona, and crucially, he is a gifted actor. He makes it all work. His schtick is funny, but not flippant. He plays into the emotional resonance of the story, as the fates of these two characters become intertwined in a way that is poignant. Emily Blunt is just as great. The most interesting part of the film, and what makes it better average is that it reaches for something moving; about what it might be like to fall in love and have to lose that person day in day out - and have them lose the memory too. It doesn't resort to cheap sentiment or unnecessary love scenes. The chemistry is there, and we just start to root for these characters, and the burgeoning-then-blank slate romance without them as much as giving the other a peck on the cheek.

Overall, it's one of my favorite 'big' pictures of recent years, along with Fury Road - it's a template for how these large scale action things can be really great if all the pieces are in order, if it's tightly written, and you actually feel something too, instead of just being wowed by tremendous special effects.

House of Gucci (2021)

Promises way more than it delivers

[4/10 · 2 December 2021]

Some movies, no matter how long they are, breeze by, and you're so engaged that you could sit for six hours if it's asked of you. House of Gucci's 158 minutes felt double that, as I sat aware of each minute slowly tick, its runtime reduced into the arduous task of both begging to be engaged in the picture, and just waiting for it to be over.

It has a lot going for it - a great cast and Ridley Scott, and a scandalous true-crime story that at least holds promise as a flamboyant saga of dynastic unraveling. Maybe a clever comment on wealth, excess and materialism? Sadly, my expectations were totally thwarted, and I noticed instead that my mind was mostly occupied with deconstructing what had all gone wrong here.

The broad strokes of the story are not the problem. We meet two factions of the Gucci family: the operating chairman Aldo (Pacino) and his talentless sad-sack son Paolo (Leto); on the other side is the elderly patriarch Rodolfo (Irons) and his son Maurizio (Driver), a potential heir to the company, except for the fact that he's studying to be a lawyer, and his stilted personality doesn't exactly shine of Gucci flamboyance. The wrench in the wheel is the charming, gold-digging Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga), who chooses Maurizio as her mining target, and once integrated into the Gucci fold she begins to manipulate the direction of the company via her pathetic husband. Eventually hell breaks loose.

The first problem is apparent in the opening moments, which is the awkward and critical error of making a group of great actors cosplay as Italians. None of them seem very comfortable doing it, or adept at it - even Lady Gaga, who is probably the best of the bunch. Pacino still sounds New Yawk, Irons British, Driver like a tourist, Leto - I don't even know what planet he was on. This aspect of the film made it hard to suspend disbelief from the get go, and was mostly inadvertently cringey.

The worst is the fat suited Jared Leto, an actor I sometimes get tired of. He needs a director to reign him in for his talent to shine, or else when left to his devices he comes across as the obnoxious ego-driven comic mugging to be the center of every scene's attention. His weird take on Paolo Gucci neither helped the picture, nor his fellow actors around him to rise. His persona and accent, and whole vocal falsetto-thing was grating - despite strangely being one of the few to get some of the intonation right. His perpetual 'bouf' exclamation made me want to throw my shoe at the screen.

It was hard to sympathize with any of these people or invest emotionally into their destinies. The Gucci family, as portrayed in this film are either all scheming, or nitwits. This needn't be a deal breaker - good films can be made of bad people - but we still need to be interested in what happens to them. The key relationship, between Lady Gaga's (scheming) Patrizia, and Adam Driver's (aloof) Maurizio is flat, and as a result we don't care. The tragedy is that Lady Gaga is a gifted actress, and delivered the most convincing performance overall, and it's frustrating to see her talent buried under a mess of so many uneasy elements.

The best scenes in the film come when Patrizia arrives in St. Moritz to meet her wary husband, who already has eyes for another woman, and tries to act confident in the face of tension between them, and lay claim to him among people she is not accustomed to having to prove herself to. Everything beautiful about her as Patrizia is suddenly reduced to something garish, and there's a vulnerability to the front she puts on that is intriguing. The contrast between the insulated world of the Gucci and 'the outside world' is fleetingly of interest, and I wish there would have been more of those moments. Instead, for most of the film we are stuck inside padded kingdoms, with nothing to expose how screwed up these people are, or anything that might challenge their shows of excess, wealth, and spoiled personalities. In a way, the movie does a very good job of validating all of that.

Ridley Scott is a master, but he's so prolific that even he is prone to misfire. He excels at the overall look and design, but when he's given a bad script, he sometimes will just shoot it anyway. The script here is not very good, nor sharp; it's disorganized, and lacks propulsion. It doesn't even succeed in the realm of outrageous tabloidism, which at least would have made it fun (I, Tonya comes to mind). They were never going to win the approval of the Gucci family for this film, so they might as well have swung for the fences and gone for over-the-top, but something about it feels too safe and rote, occupying a swampy middle ground where I don't know how seriously I'm meant to take all of this.

With a major overhaul on the screenplay and tighter editing, it could have possibly been saved, even with these weird performances, but unfortunately the movie just stranded me way out to sea, and left me scratching my head more than anything, asking how this all went so pear shaped.

Phantom Thread (2017)

Beautiful but cold to the touch

[6/10 · 29 November 2021]

It's almost a shame Daniel Day Lewis decided to end his career with the Phantom Thread, since the film left me puzzled, and less connected to him as a character or actor in comparison with most of his previous work. Here is a film that teases you with a sweeping, period romance and drama and then gradually devolves into something more psychopathic, less serious, and overall less interesting as it develops. In a way the movie completely bamboozles you and feels like a middle finger to the audience by the end of it.

The broad strokes are interesting - the story is that of an upper-class fashion designer, Reynolds Woodcock, who marries a waitress, Alma, makes her his muse, and lover, and then controls her life to such a degree that she begins to retaliate in ways that would only spoil the film to get into them too deeply. The design and opulence, the score and cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, and evokes a grandeur of the English countryside and luxuriant manor houses that is something of dreams. And the actors, individually, are on point, particularly Vicky Krieps who plays Alma, with an innocence that is often touching.

Crucially, Daniel Day-Lewis, and his character Woodcock, remains a shallow cypher throughout the film, and instead of deepening an understanding into the man in any meaningful or poignant way, the film revels in its shallowness till the very end. I felt nothing, and a kind of emptiness by this films conclusion, and this was the films major disappointment. It reminded me of the Master, another Anderson epic with an opulent look to it but I did not connect with emotionally. And as dark and cynical as this film seems to want to be, it did not go as far or as engrossingly into the depths of a dark soul as There Will Be Blood, which remains their collaborative masterpiece.

On second viewing, I was bored, because I knew what to expect, and knew that the effort doesn't amount to much in terms of feeling or humanity, so I relied on simply gazing at the beauty of the whole thing, but then, I didn't really understand what I was supposed to feel beyond that, and I put off viewing it a third time. I don't want to invest time into a movie that makes me simply feel empty.

Sadly, it's also film that made me re-evaluate Anderson's work totally, and now I wonder if some of the aesthetic power built into his work has just made up for some of my lack of being able to truly connect emotionally with it. The Phantom Thread is a film that closed me off from the world depicted in it, the world of the characters, and I felt like Alma, desperately wanting to be let in.

The Hateful Eight (2015)

Meh.

[5/10 · 20 November 2021]

It's fun to rank Tarantino's films because you know he would do the same. The Hateful Eight has to sit somewhere near the bottom of the pile. Heavy on self-infatuated dialogue, light on action or sharp humor, and it makes me wonder why this wasn't conceived as theater piece, and was instead immortalized onto a big fat waste of pristine 70mm film stock.

Of course, this is my humble, internet-pointless opinion, and this poor rating is only in comparison with the rest of his stuff. Tarantino has obviously earned his stripes, and there are too many redeeming qualities to prevent one of his pics from ever being downright bad, or at least boring. But the questionable qualities of Hateful Eight film outweigh the good, and they are hard to ignore.

My first gripe is with the format and whether 70mm really aided in telling this story. A movie shot at that scale and then, aside from a couple exterior scenes, sets itself inside a small haberdashery is a bizarre choice, and one of its major frustrations. I didn't want to be stuck inside for a two hour long conversation in a poorly lit (too bright), poorly designed (one large awkward room) set, and it felt like a waste of a lot of talent and effort. The most visually interesting parts of the film are the few minutes spent outdoors, and the one truly redeeming quality is a single scene-stealing performance.

I prefer when the technical aspect of a film is in service to the story, and not just employed as a cool gimmick for the sake of it. The same would go for gratuitous CGI effects, or anything that draws attention to that aspect rather than immersing you deeper into the story. And the 70mm format here just took me out of it. There are only so many 'epic' wide angles of a single, confined space you can get away with before you want to set off some dynamite and blow this haberdashery to kingdoms come, just to get a change of scenery.

Secondly, the writing. Tarantino is clearly not interested in making realistic westerns, and he has reveled in recent years in telling revisionist historical pics mixed with comedic revenge violence (whew) to get his stories across. They're almost satires of satires. He hasn't had a brush with realism since Jackie Brown, and I wonder if he's just 'been there, done that', but that film remains one of my favorites, and I yearn for him to return to that sharpness of purpose. I understand he doesn't want to retread, but there are times here I wish this whole western ordeal was approached as less of a satiric joke, and carried some of the cutting edge of his earlier films. Words here fall flat, failing to evoke the period at at all, or poorly so. The violent, hateful rants don't land as intended. It's missing any interesting set pieces or action that might have justified the format and genre. Yet another Mexican stand-off is fine, as long as it's novel, or doing something interesting with it, and here it doesn't.

Tarantino is usually a director who retains an ability to hypnotize you for stretches into a special kind of captivity with the force of words alone. Instead here, the actors are captive to both that room and his dialogue, so nobody really felt natural in their roles. When I think of the great Spaghetti westerns he's inspired by, a movie like the Hateful Eight doesn't live up to any of those in either playfulness or crude, balls-out schlock. There are too many moments I felt could have been worked through.

This is no fault of the actors, who all do a fine enough job, particularly Jennifer Jason Leigh and Samuel L Jackson. Leigh's Daisy is the closest we get to that special quality I was hoping for, but unfortunately she's alone, surrounded by a bunch of magoos in an ugly old shed who don't live up to her spark.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

A grand achievement, with panache

[10/10 · 20 November 2021]

This is the film that took all of Wes Anderson's obsessive passions and distilled them into a cinematic snow globe of tremendous beauty. It's my favorite of his movies, I want to say by a large margin - but deep down I know he's one of the best film artists of all time, and everything he's made are gems, and well worth the effort gone into crafting them.

For the Grand Budapest Hotel, he pulled the all the stops out and created an endearing Europa fantasia world from scratch, and it's not a world I've ever quite seen before. I would liken it to the efforts of world building gone into films like the Wizard of Oz, Star Wars and 2001, where you're captivated by its epic scope and such sharply defined details that you get swept up in the proceedings without a moment to register the difference between what is real and what isn't.

The movie works so well because the basis of the story is as rich and detailed as the icing on Mendl's little pastries; what you're seeing is only complimented by an elaborate, but completely fluid narrative, and a great performance by Ralph Fiennes as Grand Budapest Hotel proprietor Gustav H. The heart is the relationship between Gustav and his young lobby boy / protege Zero Mustafa, and the adventures they find themselves embroiled in are as mesmerizing as the feeling I had when I was a kid raiding the school library and getting lost in books about far off adventures, distant planets, Three Investigator mysteries, and other such things adults aren't supposed to read anymore.

I love everything about this movie.

Babyteeth (2019)

Sublime

[9/10 · 19 November 2021]

This is one of the rare movies that surprised me right out the gate with its quick wit, a really believable, touching love relationship, and a feeling that I was seeing a hell of a lot of great talent all on display at once.

The story is rather simple, but the way it's told makes it stand apart. It starts with a meet cute between a teenage girl and a young drifter; he's a bit sketchy, a bit eccentric, but she takes a liking to him anyway. Her parents are disapproving, and see this troubled fellow and their age difference as a potential threat. He's in his early twenties, though it isn't so obvious - he's as immature as she is precocious - but any drama around this detail is quashed when the girl becomes struck with cancer. Her condition is never quite lingered on in the way it would be in lesser movies. We know she is sick but there are no arbitrary scenes of her writhing in pain and spending time at various hospitals - instead the focus of the story becomes about how all of these characters must bond together to help her get on.

This could be the basis for any number of sappy melodramas, but what pops here is how well the movie subverts those expectations; it's damn well acted and written, and so much empathy and humor is allowed for. It absorbs you in its opening scenes - you're as drawn to Toby Wallace's Moses as Eliza Scanlen's Milla is, and her parents (Ben Mendelsohn and Essie Davis') disapproval is quickly dispensed with as they deal with their own marital difficulties. If they can't hold themselves together, what right do they have to take away the thing that makes Milla happiest? It doesn't take long for them to look past the young couple's differences and come to terms with reality. A movie where all of them would have been at odds, the parents scolding and quarantining the couple, would have left me bored. Instead, the core of this story is about something way more interesting and harder to grasp - which is finding the space to be accepting and loving, despite such differences.

And then, the movie does something even better: it takes us on journeys, it allows for asides of free-roaming moments, of improv and spark; it allows us to see Eliza appreciating something approaching glory. I smiled, and said a silent thanks, when she danced to herself at music teacher's home. And at her sly, brief glances at the camera, at the choice of music, and energy of the actors, the moments to take in the natural beauty of the world that engulf the scenes in moments of quiet harmony. And the movie is so sumptuously photographed, with such care for color and observation of small, lively moments, which make us appreciate this life along with her. I thought the movie did a very good job of showing us a character who was acutely aware in a moment in her life of being alive, and being present for it.

In spite of Babyteeth's (very few) flaws, by the end of the film, in a sublime final scene, it all comes back around. It's one of the rare films to move me to tears, and it then stayed with me for days. It's a movie that left me feeling grateful, and that is very rare indeed.

The French Dispatch (2021)

Partly maddening, partly delightful

[6/10 · 19 November 2021]

Wes Anderson's films can be maddeningly fixated on minutiae that most directors would bypass in favor of getting to the heart of the story. One can surmise that the he most likely suffers from OCD, and has used his career as an outlet to grapple with his disorders. What else would drive him to whittle down his singular style into something like the French Dispatch, which, instead of broadening his directorial horizons into new territory, only digs itself deeper into the trenches? He's like a sculptor who has used a single piece of marble over decades: the sculpture becomes more intricate, in places more glorious, but the artist has failed to step back and appreciate the piece as a whole, and what might be missing due to this microscopic sculpting disorder.

And fair enough. His career is one of passionate obsession, set within a few very specific aesthetic parameters, and he seems only interested in refinement. This is in part a huge comfort, since what he conjures are often compact works of magic. And while the French Dispatch does have some of that magic - he could never make a joyless film - it felt uncharacteristically lacking, and too focused on the tiny details rather than the big picture. For all of it's high-wired, frenzied antics, this narrative bored me for long stretches, which is rare for an Anderson film.

The plot is not easy to summarize. This is an anthology flick, with multiple stories tied loosely through the reporting staff of a newspaper called the 'French Dispatch', helmed by Bill Murray's Arthur Howitzer, Jr. Not like the gazillion character names here could ever be committed to memory, but many are apparently based on real people; Wes Anderson is a longtime fan of New Yorker magazine and has made this film as an homage to its staff writers and editors of yore. This aspect of the film appealed to me, but my problem wasn't with the setup.

Some of these individual stories are more fun, more engrossing than others, but little is done to tie them all together and there doesn't always feel like there's a full purpose for their being, except that they're quirky. Some of the characters are delightful - I liked Jeffrey Wright's Roebuck-Baldwin, and Lea Seydoux's prison guard. Tilda Swinton's accent is funny. But for long periods I felt like I wasn't actively engaged in the joy of watching a movie, rather I was submitting to it, which was kind of stifling. I wanted to breathe for a moment, either that or I wanted a bottle of whiskey in the theater with me. The rapid-fire dialogue, voice overs, endless character introductions, story shifts, abrupt transitions between color and black and white, miniature text and title cards - I could go on - felt like one epic introduction to a Wes Anderson film without the lift off. I was overdosing on Anderson pie. It was also officially the first movie where the hypersaturation of perfect symmetry started to put me into seizure, and I wanted to kick his camera out of place, just to change things up a bit.

Don't get me wrong, the movie had it moments, and I'm grading this against his other movies. He has set a high bar for himself. But mainly The French Dispatch just wasn't as fun as his other films. The bored, affected quality of the characters grew tiresome, and maybe it's because I had seen so few films in a theater during the pandemic that I was turned off by this, and I wanted to feel something that rose above ennui. Ennui feels gilded and passé for these times, even if this concept was built into the name of the fantasy city here. I also wished for more story, more humanity, to have arose out of the chaos. Without it I was left rudderless.

The French Dispatch is certainly Anderson's most artful, adult film - and the first I gather to feature prolonged nudity. By artful I mean there are scenes here with an experimental quality which draw attention to themselves in ways I haven't seen in previous Anderson films, and seem to deliberately throw back to the French New Wave and silent films. I appreciate the nods. And of course the fastidious production design, and his writing are always worthwhile (he'd make for a wonderful novelist or tea shop decorator if he wasn't making films). But it's the first of his movies I've seen since the Life Aquatic that felt like it came and left, and my attention waned.

I can't rule out the possibility that it all just went by so fast that I will need to marinate with it a bit, and that with repeated viewings the intended picture will reveal itself to me. This was my first impression. But this film unfortunately didn't leave me feeling that I wanted to return to the theater a second time to sit through it again any time soon.

TlDR - if you're a hardcore fan of Anderson, there will be plenty to enjoy here. If you're a casual viewer, you might find yourself lost early on, with little to grip onto.

Ordinary People (1980)

Just perfect

[10/10 · 10 October 2021]

Rare is such a perfect movie. It is so true, so loving, so perceptive, that it wouldn't be a stretch to call it one of the greatest American movies ever made.

Redford saw something in Judith Guest's very good novel and brought it into sharper focus than the book. The novel is quite beautiful, but it's first person, so you're in the heads of the characters and are aware of the motivations for their behavior throughout. The film works better than the novel because what is so fundamental about this story - a family who have collectively experienced a tragedy so shattering, that they all shatter too in its aftermath - is the repression of emotion between father, mother and son, and what is then left unsaid between them becomes the most powerful. The interior lives of the characters are so perfectly captured through the fine acting and direction that we need little else. When words of meaning are finally said, the ground quakes.

This is a transcendent film. Redford's career as a director of American films has been a mixed bag, but consistent in the types of thoughtful narratives he found to be of interest. Some are very very good. His debut here is his masterpiece, by any standard, and it never fails to move me.