thomasandres-54232 Reviews

The BFG (2016)

P!ss off

[6/10 · 18 February 2017]

Steven Spielberg makes a children's film based on a story by Roald Dahl featuring a magic giant: shouldn't this be great?

Spielberg has grown to become a legend in cinema with massive cultural and critical hits such as Jaws, Indiana Jones, E.T., Jurassic Park, need I go on? I mean he made Schindler's List. What happened?

The movie is about Sophie who is abducted by a dream-creating friendly giant. The start was good, it was light, charming, funny, you really like the characters of Sophie and the BFG but that was not the problem, and there is a problem. The acting was really fine, Rylance was good as the giant and Barnhill was very likable. Once again the half of the movie I enjoyed and was very optimistic but then it kind of all went down the s*hole.

I mean when you have a great cast, a great director who still can make incredible cinema why this?? The scene in Dreamland, with the tree and the dreams was really good, really magical. But it's like he gave up halfway there. The story suddenly doesn't make any sense. They go find the queen to help them (or something, I don't care) and then you get the most despicable scene I have seen in a long time, in the queen's palace. It was just foul. Cheap humour like that is so beneath the potential that this film had, let alone Spielberg. How can a man like him, a visionary, make something that honestly made me think of Garfield 2. Just so very disappointing. The ending did not make any sense, it was so painfully stupid.

The CGI is partly very beautiful, partly creepy and ugly to look at.

In the end it's really not a terrible movie or anything, it had some really strong scenes and performances but no. If you pull s*** like this p!ss off. He gave up halfway on a movie with great potential. Is the same year that Shyamalan made a strong comeback, this Spielberg was disappointing.

6

Arrival (II) (2016)

Emotion and Science

[8/10 · 18 February 2017]

There are now two upcoming directors which I closely follow: Damien Chazelle and Denis Villeneuve. Of Villeneuve I saw Incendies (9), Prisoners (8.5) and Sicario (8), which are phenomenal movies. I love his style, his movies are dark, slow and intense, not to mention very good. So I was pumped to see this movie, but after a very disappointing summer (and year thus far) what could I expect? Much.

I thanked God for this movie that came after a sh!t summer. A breath of fresh air, which is weird as the movie is so dark and slow. Let's start with the story: so a handful of alien ships land on earth with no one having any idea of what they came for or, more importantly, how to communicate. So they find the linguist Louise Banks (Adams) to try and figure out how to speak with the alien visitors.

The acting is amazing, well, Amy Adams is amazing and was absolutely robbed of her Oscar nomination (wake up people). She's so subtly very emotional, she doesn't say much but it's all there. You really feel for her, you believe she is figuring out this way of communicating with aliens. Renner is kind of acting besides her, I mean he's fine but just that. People like to talk about Whitaker in this film, but he didn't do anything, so calm down.

Yes, the script is amazing, clever and surprisingly emotional. The approach that it takes to find a linguist is very realistic and clever. But it is the structure that is important. (If you haven't seen the movie now is the time to go see it you worthless scum.) It takes you by surprise as the whole movie you are trying to figure out what the flashbacks have to do with the story, or to understand the emotions of Banks. The ending is not only humane and beautiful, really beautiful, it's also very smart. The whole movie, and the entirety of what she feels and through her we feel makes sense. The choice she makes is one of love, pure love, in an otherwise very scientific movie. Which is what I loved too, it's all very grounded. The characters are not black and white, they're complex, all of them. But it's the method of figuring out how to communicate with these beings that have nothing in common with the human race that is so interesting and very well handled and thought out. It's suspenseful, clever and the cinematography is amazing. Every movie of Villeneuve looks just gorgeous. The moment you see the ship, just cinema gold. That moment represents how you feel watching the film, standing in awe.

It is an scientific movie that in its core is powerfully human and emotional. Mr. Villeneuve you have done it again!

8.5

Moonlight (I) (2016)

An emotional and cinematic diamond

[9/10 · 18 February 2017]

Moonlight is the story of Chiron, a black gay man growing up in the streets of Miami. The film is divided in three parts, which follow three moments of Chiron's life (kid, adolescent, adult). This is a powerful, poetic, gorgeous film, and absolutely one of the best of the year, and last years for that matter.

So as I said (or wrote) the movie is divided in three parts, Chiron as a kid called 'little', Chiron as an adolescent and Chiron as a huge, ripped drug dealer. The problem with this kind of jumps in time when we follow a character is the consistency and credibility. Because inevitably it will be three different actors playing one character during equal time-periods. The other problem is that we have to experience enough depth and development in each segment as for it to work.

The second problem is helped by a great writing and an amazing script. Each segment is deep, poetic and different. But the character is the same. The first is Little struggling with bullies and his timidity. The second is Chiron struggling with his sexual orientation and bullies. The third is Black struggling with himself, his desires, his quest for love and being loved. Each segment we get to know Chiron more, and adding them all up we get a complex understanding of his personality and his struggles. Chiron changes enormously from the first to the third segment, but because of the second it is completely logical. The first problem is avoided by amazing acting. From Hibbert (little) to Sanders (adolescent) and to Rhodes (black). I mean it's just great. Rhodes is enormous and ripped but he makes you believe that he is Little grown up, you actually recognise Little in Black, which is so weird. And whilst he is quite menacing at the end and quite bad ass, he is so tender and silent and emotional, it's amazing.

Sanders does a tremendous job too. Harris plays the crack-addict mom, she's good. Ali is the big one everybody is talking about, and yeah, he 's amazing. His role is pretty small but important, and he plays it nuanced and deep. But once again, every performance in this film is nuanced and deep and pretty much great.

The directing is phenomenal, as is the cinematography. Every shot is gorgeous, and the camera movements are hypnotic. Thanks to the great writing but certainly also the camera-work this movie is perhaps one of the most intimate ever. I actually felt like I was in the movie during some scenes. This is a poetic movie filled with recurring symbolism (water and fire etc.) and inner struggle. A movie about understanding (of self) and love. This film also shows us something we have never seen, a black man in the ghetto who is gay. Which really confused me at first, I literally was confused by this movie because I just never saw anything like it.

This is a tender, poetic, gorgeous-looking, amazingly-acted, incredibly-directed film which dares to show us something we have not seen before. So yeah, amazing.

9

Manchester by the Sea (2016)

Slow, emotionally draining, depressing...lovely

[9/10 · 17 February 2017]

Manchester by the Sea is a movie that was surrounded by a lot of buzz when I saw it. Affleck was said to be amazing and Williams was said to be even better. So when I went and saw it I was glad to see that for once people hadn't lied to me.

This film follows Lee Chandler (Affleck) in his travel to Manchester as his brother has just died and his nephew (Hedges) is left alone. He then discovers that he's supposed to be the legal tutor to his nephew, much to his displeasure. We watch as Lee organizes his brother's funeral and tries to figure out what to do with his nephew and the belongings of his brother, while dealing with his past at the same time.

Let's talk about the structure of the film. The script is truly great, the first part we don't understand Lee, we follow him thinking he's a bit of an ass. He is mean to people, he doesn't engage in conversations and most of all he never smiles. But then comes a point in the middle when we learn what happened in the past and we suddenly understand why he doesn't want to be in Manchester, why he doesn't want his nephew's tuition and why he is so damn moody all the time. Suddenly we feel for Lee on a really humane level, and all his actions, past and future, are understood. The film is really slow, to its credit, and the dialogues are extremely realistic. This movie is an emotional roller coaster, in the sense that you have this feeling of dread during the whole film and when you learn what happened you die on the inside. And you stay dead.

The acting is amazing, I mean Casey (we're on a first name basis) is great and truly delivers an Oscar-worthy performance. . We get his performance and it's just an amazing one. It is so subtle, so layered and so real. A broken man, you see a broken man. He plays a man that has lived something from which he cannot recover, and if one performance was ever to portray that, it is this one. You just believe it, he's so gray, so sad, you just see it in his eyes. Lucas Hedges was also good, his chemistry with Casey felt real and he does what he has to do. Michelle Williams, for the five seconds she is on screen, is unbelievable. Her performance actually bothered me until I discovered that the reason for that was that she was just too real. She played it too well (which makes it believable I guess). The scene between her and Casey is incredibly heartbreaking, I challenge anyone not to tear up. Casey and her are on the same level, Williams might be a bit better but Casey carries the whole film.

The last thing I want to say is the realism. This movie makes it a point to make it feel real. Everyday things like forgetting where you parked your car, are shown which feels weird but makes a good point. Struggling with machinery in the most dramatic scene in the film makes you feel so uneasy you want to look away. Many things like that seem cruel but are actually very common. Seeing Williams' stroller on screen when she's talking to Casey was just so painful (in a good way).The directing is very smart and I applaud Lonnergan for it, for its realism and uneasiness throughout. The score is also very beautiful, and underscores powerfully to really lodge that knife further in your heart.

Its a slow burn, emotionally draining, devastating, real film with two of the best performances of the year. It is easily one of the top of 2016. 9