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Roma (2018)
Good Movie, But Not Best Picture
I really like how natural the acting and "feel" this movie has. It's filmed with only static shots and panoramic shots that pan left to right, as though the cameras were just placed there and we are documenting the lives of a family living Mexico City. The movie is very heartfelt and feels very intimate and raw. It feels like a documentary and filmed almost in a way that gives the audience a sense of "looking in" from a distance, and invading the privacy of this family who don't know that they are being filmed. For many of the close up shots they broke the static pan shot that is kept throughout the majority of the movie, while still keeping the essence of the characters and vibe of the movie. The black and white makes the movie feel older than it actually is, almost like this is a nostalgic memory of a time captured long ago. The movie heavily relies on its usage of the "rule of thirds" for framing its subjects, and only moves when the "main subject(s)" in focus begin moving either left or right.
Another thing to point out is how we also get to know the characters through the actions they perform when no one is watching, or when they don't think that they are being filmed. A man(boyfriend) takes a sip from his date's drink after she has left the table and isn't looking (when he thinks no one's watching). We get to learn about the characters the most through the actions they take when they think no one's watching (whether it's public nudity, gossiping, vandalism, lying, stealing, cheating, victim blaming) where we see their true colors, and who they really are. But it's only something that the audience can see, as the cameras continue to roll even after most the character have left, long after the scene seems to be over. We also catch them in intimate moments like having sex, kissing, sharing a cuddle, waking up, or doing simple daily tasks like doing the laundry, or washing the floor. The film gives us a look into the typical day in life of a Mexican family living in Mexico City. It shows us what to be grateful for, how other people in 2nd world countries live, and make due with what they have without knowing how much they don't have-or rather, unaware of what they don't have compared to other countries.
The Son (2022)
Even Hugh Jackman couldn't save this movie
This movie is a horrible representation of suicide and depression. If anything it's advocating for Pro-suicide. The focus of the movie is all over the place, and they never pick a specific character to show the perspective of the movie in. The kid in the movie is supposed to be depressed, but he does not sell it. I thought that the casting of Zen McGrath as Nicholas was a very bad casting choice. He seemed more like an actor acting depressed, rather than someone depressed. I also thought that everyone's acting in this movie were poorly directed. Even an acting veteran like High Jackman was underutilized, and you could see that he was trying his best with the poor script he was working with, but even he wasn't able to save the movie.
But you can't blame everything on the acting in this movie. The script was very sloppy, and much of the dialogue seemed like something out of a rough draft of a screenplay (especially in the first 20 minutes). They should've put the focus on the son's perspective and narrated the movie that way, but instead we get a second hand point of view from the eyes of his father. And throughout the movie we have no idea what Nicholas(the son) is thinking. And because there is no context to what he's thinking, he just comes off as an annoying kid who's depressed for absolutely no reason. Where the kid should have been more of a character we should empathize with, instead we get a kid that just comes off as confusing, and annoying. It comes off as more of a "We need to talk about Kevin" type of POV, when it would be more interesting to see it from the kids perspective.
The direction of this movie was atrocious. Every actor, other than Doctor Harris (Hugh Quarshie) was casted and directed poorly. None of the actors seemed to know what direction the character was supposed to go. And there were countless scenes where the emotion was suddenly cut off for no reason. The actors we're starting to get into it, like the ending where High Jackman is about to bawl telling his son he's proud of him, but he just cuts him off and says, "are you going to cry?" It's like, why would they cut off the emotion right when it's about to start to get raw???
The cinematography choice for this movie was very off. They chose to go with a greenish blue tint for many of the scenes, but this doesn't work. Unless they used the bluish moody tint for the scenes involving Nicholas's perspective, and used brighter, warmer lighting for all the scenes with High Jackman-except the problem is that the movie isn't even centered around Nicholas's perspective.
Also I cannot get over how poor the casting was for Nicholas (the son). Even with the poor direction, the casting for Zen McGrath as the Son was the worst in the movie, aside from the messy writing. He did not sell it as a depressed teenager, or go the emotional rollercoaster his character was supposed to go. He is just a mopey one-note character with almost no character arc or growth throughout the entire movie, when the movie is literally called "THE SON".
But don't get me wrong, I LOVED "The Father" (Florian Zeller's previous work). I thought the Father had an AMAZING script. However this movie (the son) is literally bad as "The Father" was good.
Babylon (2022)
Not Damien Chazelle's Best
Babylon wasn't a bad movie. It wasn't as good or as personal as "The Fabelmans" but it was a decent movie. You will either love it or hate it. The entire movie felt more like a fever dream than anything. The plot was messy at times where the plot jumped around way too much. I don't really understand the message Damien Chazelle's trying to say other than he has a love for movies. I can see why people are saying the movie feels self indulgent with a lot of the plot seemingly going nowhere, and you really feel every second of the runtime of 3 hours.
Margot Robbie's performance was very good, in fact you can really see her acting range, as well as her acting potential throughout this movie. I don't think I've ever seen her give a bad performance.
This movie is defiantly not La La land, so anyone going in thinking "La La land" will be disappointed. This movie honestly felt like an allegory for Hell in some ways. The entire beginning of the film where everyones dancing, getting high, and having an orgy looked like something straight out of a painting depicting hell on earth, or the end times. To be honest I thought that they should've just went that route and left out the whole "love letter to cinema" bit. However the movie jumps around with way too many timelines and time jumps to the point it gets draining to watch at time. The beginning middle and end feel like we're watching 3 different movies.
Overall I'd give this movie a solid 7.0 for the acting, music, cinematography.
Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
Worst Ending of the Year.
I get that this movie was supposed to be a social commentary on Gen-Z, but they sacrificed good potential plot just trying to make the movie too "meaningful" and pretentious. They had decent actors but the direction they went with the story was not "Werewolf" or "Among us" type of plot like the trailer led us to believe, but instead we get the worst, the most anticlimactic ending I've seen in a long while.
Acting: The acting and emotions in many parts throughout the movie did not carry through into next scene. When someone dies there's no sign of remorse, or trauma. It takes them 3 seconds to get over a death. And afterwards they just forget about it and stop being sad. The reaction and after watching a dude bleed out and die for the first time, went from everyone freaking out to everyone basically being fine the next moment. I don't know if this was bad direction or bad writing, but I felt the acting was alright, the direction and writing was of.
The Story: The plot became completely ridiculous towards the end, and the poor writing made the acting seem over the top and unrealistic, where the film just became cringy and laughable at certain moments. This isn't a terrible movie, but it isn't a good one, and could've been much much better.
The Moral: At the end of the movie, the moral of the story should've been that they all slowly turning on each other(they did this decently well) even though every single person was innocent there should've been at least one person to kill first. They're fears and insecurities/paranoia gets the best of them, turning them all against each other, until they all die in the end. Except their paranoia feeding their insecurity should get evident from the beginning not a silly twist at the end saying it was a clumsy accident that killed Pete Davidson.
The Whale (2022)
Brandon was amazing but...
Brandon Fraser gave his career best performance in this movie. However, the overall film is very generic. None of the characters are likable, and pose as one-note characters with little to no character arc. Sadie Sink's character is just an edgy annoying teenager throughout the whole movie. Secondly, they TELL us too much of the story of how Charlie became obese instead of SHOWING the process of how he ended up obese.
Cinematography: The entire movie is basically shot in one room, but this in my opinion was a bad directing choice. They should've shown more character arc, and shown more backstory to make the characters more real and grounded, instead of one-note characters. To be honest, the scene at the end where the whole family comes together is probably the best scene in the entire movie.
A positive thing that I would like to say aside from Brandon's performance is that they tackled obesity in a very realistic way, although they could've went deeper. This may be the first movie to remotely tackle obesity in a serious manner that wasn't way too over the top or disrespectful towards people suffering from obesity.
Tár (2022)
For a movie about music and orchestra there's little to no music
Ok, am I going crazy or am I the only person who thought this movie was bad?
For a movie about music and orchestra there's little to no music. There is no score to the movie and the movie often drags on with scenes and dialogue seeming too go nowhere. There are no stakes in the movie, no real conflict. The movie is centered around a fictional celebrity, and the movie felt more like a documentary than a movie. The plot is extremely slow and boring, in fact I don't think there was a plot. It was more of "a-day-in-the-life" movie more than anything. Out of all the boring movies I've seen this takes the top spot. Watching the lights in the theater was more interesting than the actual movie. Yes, the movie was THAT slow. Pretty much everyone in my row left within the first half of the movie, and what's funny was that the old man sitting two seats to the right of me laughed at everything remotely funny when the trailers where playing, but I didn't even hear a chuckle out of him when the movie started playing.
The acting of cate Blanchett was probably the only positive thing about this movie. One clever thing that they did in the movie was showing the 8 minutes of credits at the beginning of the film so you were forced to sit through it. Although on the downside the anticipation it built up in the credits wasn't worth it, because after the credits roll for 8 minutes it jumps right into a 10 minute interview about music that seems to go nowhere and makes the movie drag on.
Don't watch this movie in the theater. This is one of those movies that can be viewed on your phone or iPad and it won't make a difference. It's one of those movies you can have playing in the background while you work or study.
Pearl (2022)
A very Unique movie
I actually enjoyed "X" this prequel was visually very compelling and unique, it seemed like you were watching the movie from Pearl's distorted perspective of reality. Although Mia Goth stepped up her acting in this film, and the cinematography was very visually enticing, I didn't think plotwise the story was nearly as good or as cohesive as "X" was. Although, I must say, this movie would've made a good "Joker" sequel. If the first Joker movie was about a darker grimmer world Arthur was in, the sequel could be a lighter tone, but this second one is a 100% delusional perspective from the eyes of Joker. This "wizard of Oz Musical" vibe could be the world he sees now, and the people he meets in the asylum to him are like musical performers to him. Which is where he performs a song, dances on stage, and performs a musical with other inmates while this is coupled with gory violence which does not suit the overall mood of the cinematography. I think a Joker 2 could very much work.
Stranger Things: Chapter Nine: The Piggyback (2022)
Way too many characters
I very much despised this season, unlike many if those who liked it. I thought VOL 1 was entertaining to watch but had very many scenes that were infuriating to watch. First of all, there were WAY too many characters(like Millie Bobby brown said). They had 4-6 story plots going on at the same time, and way too many too keep track of, that the writers forgot to put in so of the characters from time to time.... We had the Hopper side plot, Eleven side plot, Mike's gang, Dustin's gang, Joyce trying to find hopper, basketball team hunting Eddie, Eddie running away from the cops, Vecna taking victims-all these things all happening at the same time there's just too much information to keep track of.
Secondly, another thing that annoyed me was that they won't kill off any of the title characters, because the show runners are so afraid of killing anybody off, which is something I HATED about the finale, which was that they couldn't even kill off Max properly. Vecna takes so long to kill off max that I was practically rooting for him to kill off at least one of the main characters, but I knew that he wouldn't because I knew the show runners didn't have the balls to do it. And when they do kill off characters, why did they kill off Eddie? I thought they skipped over his death too quickly and Eddie, and Chrissy were underused characters, of wasted potential. Nuff said.
Thirdly, the season finale was WAY TOO LONG-In fact the entire season felt way too long, I mean they could've cut so much plot down but there's hours and hours of wasted footage of them just rambling, driving, and sidetracking that becomes just another "filler plot device". Even in the end where Vecna is supposed to kill Max, he talks for almost 10 minutes of uninterrupted nonsense to Eleven when he could be killing Max. It was predictable that she wouldn't die, and one of her friends would save the day. The show became very predictable
But to mention the unanswered questions; How did eleven save Max? Why did Vecna take so freaking long to kill Max? Why did he do nothing for 2 days after opening the portal in the season finale?
I think that this show should've ended at season 1, where everything was much simpler, but now it is just bigger, more commercialized and everything just seems to be a parody of what this show used to be.