Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate it | {Insert Appropriate Seasonal Greeting Here}

[Rodgerwilco]

If you watch the "Milli Vanilli" documentary on Paramount+ or AppleTV+, you can get all of their songs stuck in your head.

I heard that was pretty good! I do have to say calling them "their" songs might be a bit of a stretch though.

 

[Osprey]

I heard that was pretty good! I do have to say calling them "their" songs might be a bit of a stretch though.

You actually started it by saying "Milli Vanilli's 'Girl I'm Gunna Miss You'".

 

[Rodgerwilco]

You actually started it by saying "Milli Vanilli's 'Girl I'm Gunna Miss You'".

Damn you, Osprey. Got me there lol.

 

[johnjm22]

THE SUBSTANCE (2024)

Director Coralie Fargeat's 4 favorite films:

-The Empire Strikes Back
-Brazil
-The Great Dictator (1940)
-Mulholland Drive


In 'The Substance' David Lynch and Mulholland Drive are obvious influences. Our story navigates the dark side of Hollywood through the duality of lead female character(s) while featuring Lynch style claustrophobic sets, camerawork and line delivery. There's even shots reminiscent of Lost Highway.

Whereas you might watch a Lynch film and wonder what the hell it was about, there's no such mystery here. Fargeat's film is similarly absurdist and bizarre, but its themes and messaging are clear. It satirizes women's beauty standards through the lens of aging and uses body horror to hyperbolize what women will put themselves through to achieve it.

The premise is simple. Aging Hollywood star Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) takes a mysterious drug (The Substance) to create a prettier younger version of herself. The story is somewhat predictable; rules are set for how the substance is supposed to be used, thus we know those rules will eventually be broken leading to catastrophe.

The film manages to be both disgusting and sexy at the same time. Fargeat treats the male gaze the same way Verhoeven treats violence. There are ridiculously overt shots of Margaret Qualley’s perfect ass for us to indulge in, only to be undercut by something gross or visually off-putting a short time later. The film is an exercise in contrast. The score won’t let you off the hook either. It repeatedly smacks you with harsh abrupt dissonant walls of sound when Fargeat decides to shift gears.

There are also themes of self love and acceptance here. A person who truly accepts them self would never take the substance in the first place. Elisabeth’s lust for youthful beauty and fame means she can’t help herself. You can probably guess how that ends up working out for her.

The film becomes increasingly bizarre and unhinged as it approaches its insane final act. This isn’t for everyone. There were audible laughs in the theater and a handful of people made it clear they didn’t like what they were seeing.

I think Fargeat enjoys making her audience feel uncomfortable. Mission accomplished.

7.5 / 10

 

[CDJ]

Megalopolis

Incredibly ambitious, it felt all over the place but overall it came together alright I guess. I could see people looking back at it in 50 years and thinking it’s more profound than it is now. But it was weird and at this point in time I wish I had watched it on mushrooms.

5.8/10

 

[kihei]

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024) Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof 7A

The Seed of the Sacred Fig is a political thriller about a missing gun, but the context is out of the ordinary to say the least. Iman is promoted to Inspector in the ultra-fundamentalist Revolutionary Guard in Iran in 2022. The next step up is judge and that means a much improved life for his wife Najmeh and two daughters. The first day on the job Iman, a conscientious man, is told that he is not expected to inspect anything, just sign execution orders, hundreds of them a day, as there is a raging protest going on in the streets of Tehran among students appalled by the death of a girl who allegedly wore her hijab improperly. Iman and his wife Najmeh convince themselves that signing the death orders is God's will, and with that decision the family not so slowly begins to fall apart. After one of their friends is brutalized by the police, their two daughters Rezvan and Sana grow sympathetic to the resistance. Tensions run even higher when Iman believes he has lost his gun at home. Suddenly the three people whom he loves most in the world are suspects and seem to be turning against him.

The focus of the movie is split between Iman's dilemmas at the office and Najmeh trying to cope at home with her two increasingly pissed off daughters. The tension ratchets up in a nice steady flow until the third act culminates in indeed a very suspenseful ending though it seemed to me to suit a very different kind of thriller than I had been watching up to this point. Chalk the ending up as an unforced error, but not an egregious one. The Seed of the Sacred Fig intercuts some of its early scenes with actual footage from the riots, demonstrating the Revolutionary Guard's deliberately out-of-control brutality, all in the name of Allah. Iman's growing paranoia and depression seem a very understandable response to the tyranny of an arch-conservative religious and political movement that places insane demands upon its citizens, especially women. What makes the movie so effective is that it is a double whammy--the thriller part is first rate but what we learn about what it is like to live in Iran is eye opening.

subtitles


Best of '24

1) Flow, Zilbalodis, Latvia
2) All We Imagine As Light, Kapadia, India
3) Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Jude, Romania
4) Green Border, Holland, Poland
5) Here, Devos, Belgium
6) The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Rasoulof, Germany
7) Pictures of Ghosts, Filho, Brazil
8) Hit Man, Linklater, US
9) The Substance, Fargeat, US
10) The Breaking Ice, Chen, Singapore

 

[kihei]

The Apprentice (2024) Directed by Ali Abbasi 5A

The Apprentice is an aptly titled unauthorized biography of Donald Trump's early years in New York before he became interested in politics. The time period covered is from his puppy years learning to wheel and deal in the big city to the beginning of his autobiographical The Art of the Deal in the mid-eighties. The movie is principally about his mentor/student relationship with the remorseless Roy Cohn, the lawyer who was the brains behind Senator Joe McCarthy's Communist witch hunts in the '50s. At first, the young Trump is a little reticent about Cohn's methods, but he quickly begins to see the wisdom of Cohn's advice as it applies to him. Cohn has three ironclad rules to live by: 1) attack, attack, attack; 2) admit nothing, deny everything; and 3) most importantly, never admit defeat. These quickly become Trump's standards, and, really, for better or worse, they have made him the man that he is today.

Most of the movie focuses on their relationship, and I would think that even some Trump supporters would find these extended sections plausible and persuasive. The proof is in the pudding after all. The other claims the movie makes regarding Trump's relationship with his father and brother, his alleged assault on his first wife Ivana, and the sour end of his relationship with Cohn all strike me as too rushed and too sketchy to be convincing. These things might have happened, but it they did, the movie doesn't convince me they happened in the manner shown, if at all.

The Apprentice is highly watchable in a snappy gossip-column kind of way. The acting is excellent. Sebastian Stans brings just the right dollop of humanity to his Trump, enough for him to appear human but not not enough for him to be sympathetic. Maria Bakalova is wholly believable as Ivana. And Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn is almost certainly headed for a well-deserved Academy Award nomination. His Cohn is thoroughly repellent but ruthlessly true to his code. Trump by learning how to add charisma, some New York street smarts and a good comedian's timing to this mix takes Cohn's precepts to the next level. And, obviously, beyond.

 

[Spawn]

Smile 2 - 6/10

Where as the first Smile deals with themes of mental illness and guilt over past actions, Smile 2 deals with themes of addiction and guilt over past actions. Very different.

There’s a brilliant cold open set 6 days after the events of the first film with Scream King Kyle Gallner reprising his role from the first film. After that it kind of all goes down hill imo.

We have a new protagonist, a pop idle, who has spent the past year recovering from drug and alcohol addiction while also healing from a car crash that killed her fiancé. While looking to score some illicit pain killers from her drug dealer friend she witnesses his violent death at his own hands.

If you’ve seen the first movie, you know what’s coming next. This one hits a lot of the same notes and reuses quite a few of the same scares. I wouldnt say the scares aren’t effective, they just aren’t particularly new.

The new lead gives a solid performance, it’s a well made movie, and if you’re looking for a decent and accessible horror this is a good one to watch.

That being said, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d rather have watched the events with Kyle Gallner leading up to the cold open as a sequel, or hell even a movie focused on Louis, the new main characters drug dealer friend. This one felt a bit too recycled to me. And about 30 minutes too long.

Still an enjoyable watch for me during spooky season, but wish they hadn’t played it so close to the first one.

Oh and if this is your thing, they ramped up the gore in this one.

If you liked the first one, probably worth watching. If you didn’t, or just didn’t see it, I’d skip it and go watch Kyle Gallner in Strange Darling. A much better and much more original horror film that came out a few weeks earlier.

 

[End of Line]

Freddy vs Jason (2003)

4/10

Not the greatest out of either library, but I love this movie lol

 

[kihei]

Sing Sing (2024) Directed by Greg Kwedar 6A

An uplifting prison movie? Critics just about unanimously think so. Based on The Rehabilitation through Arts programme at Sing Sing, the film focuses on a group of inmates who put on plays, sometimes as stage hands and sometimes as actors. Colman Domingo gives a bravura performance as Divine G, who continues to try but fails to prove his innocence about a murder decades earlier. The rest of the prisoners in the cast are played by inmates or former inmates who are graduates of the programme. In fact, the second lead, Clarence Maclin plays himself and is damn good at it. He is the most bad-ass of the lot, but theatre gives him a chance to smooth some of the rougher edges off himself. The rest of the cast are basically big p***ycats, likeable guys, who you can't imagine committed despicable crimes or they wouldn't be in a maximum security prison. Anyway, they are putting on a rare comedy, and it has everything in it from Freddy Krueger to Ancient Egypt to Hamlet, to dance numbers. Sing Sing focuses on the rehearsal and related events affecting the inmates as they prepare for opening night.

Therein lies Sing Sing's strength as well as its shortcomings. While the movie makes an important statement about the role that art can play in rehabilitation and the possibility of positive change in the lives of even convicted felons, only one very specific, extremely idealized, side of prison life is shown. It is as though this little theatre group floats above the brutality, boredom and despair evident elsewhere in the prison. Even the external setting, green lawns and trees, seems hopelessly idyllic and not a little misleading. That being said, despite their being not much of a story and a cliche-ridden central character, Sing Sing provides a downright genial cast of characters whose talents as actors allow us to believe that even in dark places, change for the better is possible.

 

[17futurecap]

Just saw Anora on 35 MM in NYC, Mikey Madison, holy crap, she’s on her way to an Oscar. One of the most enjoyable times I have had at the movies this year, immediate see when it gets wider release.

 

[Nakatomi]

R100 (2013) - 6/10 (directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto)

The name is a play on the Japanese film rating system where the number is the age you need to be to enter (so R18 means nobody 17 and under can enter). It is quite an interesting film. I read one review that said it was like Eyes Wide Shut mixed with The Game, haha.

The basic story is of a man whose wife is comatose and who works a dreary job as a salesman while also caring for his young son. He decides to go to a BDSM club and ends up signing a contract that lasts for a year and cannot be canceled that means that black leather clad vixens will show up in his life at unexpected moments to punish him.

Needless to say, things to not go anywhere near to as they are planned. The film has some surrealist aspects, a somewhat intriguing film-within-a-film aspect, and an ending that you truly will not believe.

I did not find it particularly shocking, and there is actually no nudity that I can recall, though there are a few gross sight gags. I'd have rated it even higher but it dragged quite a bit for me in the middle. I do like what I think was the message of the film, though.

All in all, an interesting change of pace film.

Edit: It is one of the $2.99 films for sale on iTunes right now for anyone wanting to check it out:

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Save up to 80% on iTunes movie deals and other offers for all digital products like movies, music, TV shows, books, audiobooks and apps. CheapCharts is the ultimate deal platform and price tracker for iTunes and Vudu Stores and the best place to find cheap iTunes movies.

www.cheapcharts.info

 

[kihei]

Woman of the Hour (2024) Directed by Anna Kendrick 6A

Based on a '70s true story, Sheryl (Anna Kendrick), one of the many young actresses trying to find work in Hollywood, has a career that is going nowhere and in desperation takes a gig on the TV game show The Dating Game where she must pick one of three possible suitors to go on a date with. She unwittingly picks contestant #3 Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovato), a serial killer. That's a pretty compelling premise and first-time director Kendrick employs an interesting non-linear method of development. Woman of the Year intertwines scenes between the killer and his victims and between Sheryl and her experiences. It is a tricky method for even a more experienced director, but I thought it was an inspired way to tell the story. So we have a narrative with two focal points and each takes a different approach. The Rodney parts of the movie, the stalking of women bits, works largely because of a stellar performance by Zovato, who can turn on a dime from charm to malice. We observe him luring potential victims to their death as we cut back and forth to Sheryl whose eventual encounter with him is the strongest part of the movie and leads to its most suspenseful and chilling scenes.

Director Kendrick is very good not only with the polyester details of the period but with the casual misogyny that marked a goodly chunk of the dating culture of the '70s. By making every male in the movie, save for one minor exception, either a jerk, a moron, or a predator, she overstates the case kind of annoyingly. But she does score thematic points about the predatory attitudes of many men toward women at the time and how in the '70s a woman's cry for help was too often given short shrift by the authorities. A big part of what makes Woman of the Hour memorable is that it is a serial killer movie from a woman's perspective, which separates it from other such movies in an original way.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Freaks. I'd somehow never seen this before. A true one-of-one where director Tod Browning cast people with disabilities as the carnival "freaks" here in this story where a scheming woman tries to take advantage of Hans, the leader of the carnival workers. There is a base level of shock at the frank portrayal of this menagerie of people but that quickly gives way to something more powerful ... heart. Though "horror" by reputation this is a deeply humane movie. And though it's fairly common today to have a story where the physical "monsters" are the real humans and the real humans are the actual monsters, it's easy to see why this was so shocking in its day. The troop here is a found family, a loving and accepting one ... even of the normally abled humans in the show. They've become that internally because the outside world is so unaccepting. They're even willing to give Cleo a chance eventhough some of them suspect her motives for "loving" the diminutive Hans are suspect. They love him so they're willing to try to love her too. These are good people. Kind, NORMAL people. They work, they love, they celebrate, same as anyone else.

The heart of the movie is Hans and Frieda, both dwarves and the leader of the found family. They're engaged, but Hans breaks it off when Cleo turns her attentions to him. (She learned of his large inheritance). Frieda is heartbroken not just for herself, but because she sees through the scheme and knows it's going to break his heart. Their heart-to-hearts are so achingly sad. God I'm tearing up a little just thinking back on it. I think it hits so hard because there was likey truth in it from the actors. They live in a real world that only would accept them so much or only under certain terms and never fully. To want more would be foolish.

This all builds to an ending that is the sort of satisfyingly macabre climax that not only earns the horror classification but also feels like it inspired future ironic/moral storytelling in the likes of The Twilight Zone or EC Comics.

A truly fantastic film.

 

[Osprey]

Freaks. I'd somehow never seen this before. A true one-of-one where director Tod Browning cast people with disabilities as the carnival "freaks" here in this story where a scheming woman tries to take advantage of Hans, the leader of the carnival workers. There is a base level of shock at the frank portrayal of this menagerie of people but that quickly gives way to something more powerful ... heart. Though "horror" by reputation this is a deeply humane movie. And though it's fairly common today to have a story where the physical "monsters" are the real humans and the real humans are the actual monsters, it's easy to see why this was so shocking in its day. The troop here is a found family, a loving and accepting one ... even of the normally abled humans in the show. They've become that internally because the outside world is so unaccepting. They're even willing to give Cleo a chance eventhough some of them suspect her motives for "loving" the diminutive Hans are suspect. They love him so they're willing to try to love her too. These are good people. Kind, NORMAL people. They work, they love, they celebrate, same as anyone else.

The heart of the movie is Hans and Frieda, both dwarves and the leader of the found family. They're engaged, but Hans breaks it off when Cleo turns her attentions to him. (She learned of his large inheritance). Frieda is heartbroken not just for herself, but because she sees through the scheme and knows it's going to break his heart. Their heart-to-hearts are so achingly sad. God I'm tearing up a little just thinking back on it. I think it hits so hard because there was likey truth in it from the actors. They live in a real world that only would accept them so much or only under certain terms and never fully. To want more would be foolish.

This all builds to an ending that is the sort of satisfyingly macabre climax that not only earns the horror classification but also feels like it inspired future ironic/moral storytelling in the likes of The Twilight Zone or EC Comics.

A truly fantastic film.

Good, kind people with abnormalities who keep to themselves and have become a family. You're describing horror fans on the Entertainment board. That makes you one of us!

 

[CDJ]

Dragged Across Concrete (2018 Zahler)

I think it might be my favorite of Zahler’s films. Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn is a hell of a duo. Dark buddy cop film lol. From what I understand it got criticism for its portrayal of police brutality and racism but I think that’s only if you think Zahler wanted to portray Gibson and Vaughn’s characters as “good guys”. I don’t really think he did that, I think he wanted to paint them as complicated. Almost as antiheroes. Zahler did a good job on getting you to buy into all the characters though. Great performances from Tori Kittles and Mel Gibson in particular. Fun little crime thriller

I threw an 8.6 on it but it’s extremely my shit

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Smile 2 - 6/10

Where as the first Smile deals with themes of mental illness and guilt over past actions, Smile 2 deals with themes of addiction and guilt over past actions. Very different.

If you liked the first one, probably worth watching. If you didn’t, or just didn’t see it, I’d skip it and go watch Kyle Gallner in Strange Darling. A much better and much more original horror film that came out a few weeks earlier.

Looking forward to watching this one. I came here to type up a review of the first Smile and saw this. I'm generally not a fan of horror movies that have demon/possession in them, but I really enjoyed Smile and have heard good things about the second one.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Megalopolis:

Spoiler

Most fun I had at the theater all year.

 

[kihei]

State of Silence (2024) Directed by Santiago Maza 7A (documentary)

Mexican superstars and best friends Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna do a public service, even possibly a dangerous one, by sponsoring this documentary that reveals the insane level of violence against journalists who try to report on Mexican corruption. Since the turn of the century there have been 163 journalists who have been murdered with over 30 more still missing. While I guessed that most of the violence came from drug cartels, this apparently is not the case. Despite having a sub-ministry whose purpose is supposedly to protect journalists from violence, the Mexican government is directly and deeply involved in shielding from corruption charges or worse elected officials, government-initiated projects and narco interests that routinely seriously threaten the rights of its citizens. Any form of protest is met with a brutality that is made worse by the fact that it has become so common that it doesn't even seem out of the ordinary anymore. Many of the journalist who report on these events have been forced to go into hiding or to move to other countries for their own safety and that of their families. Way too many have lost their lives.

State of Silence was a real eye-opener for me. It's not just that the interviews with journalists are chilling. I have come to casually accept that corruption must be high in Mexico, but it's not the sort of thing a Canadian worries about much. I had no idea, however, of the level of violence (over 42,000 homicides in 2023 alone) or how deeply embedded such carnage is in the workings of Mexican corporations and government. I had no idea of the perpetrators' immunity nor the extent of human rights violations that occur. The protected power brokers feel no inhibitions about crushing the weak if they get in the way or become too vocal. On exposing these conditions, State of Silence deserves high praise. Though they certainly contribute greatly to the strong-arm tactics, if the drug cartels disappeared tomorrow, journalists would still be risking their lives and the lives of their families by reporting on the corruption and lawlessness that remains.

subtitles

 

[Spring in Fialta]

The Vanishing (1988) - A Dutch-French psychological thriller in which a man searches obsessively for his girlfriend who disappeared three years prior at a gas station while they were traveling in France.

I really enjoyed this. While the plot feels very basic - which it kind of is - what really makes it stand out are two things: the way the film transitions continually in its character's point of view and its editing. Both are done is a such a seamless way thats feels very deceptive (which kind of fits the plot). While certain character decisions (especially Rex, the boyfriend) feel baffling and confusing, the narrative focus on the character is each given ample time to be fleshed out in a very satisfying way, and with the appropriate contrast between searcher and sociopath.

Can't recall of a film that grabbed me with its editing as well recently. Normally, when you watch a film, it's very obvious what scene is or isn't a flashback, especially due to the transition between frames and the presentation. Not so much here, while you are entirely aware that you are watching a flashback, the transition and the narrative shift feel as fluid and organic as watching a cat casually leaping from the ledge of a window. You never think to yourself 'flashback' despite the awareness and the scene incorporates into the present moment perfectly. Never as if years had passed. It's a very neat trick that I don't have the technical knowledge to understand how it was done but I'd be highly curious. Gives a great feel and pace to the story. There's even a bit of very macabre, understated humor in the film that hits perfectly and the clues to the crime are fun to get without being too obscure.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

State of Silence (2024) Directed by Santiago Maza 7A (documentary)

Mexican superstars and best friends Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna do a public service, even possibly a dangerous one, by sponsoring this documentary that reveals the insane level of violence against journalists who try to report on Mexican corruption. Since the turn of the century there have been 163 journalists who have been murdered with over 30 more still missing. While I guessed that most of the violence came from drug cartels, this apparently is not the case. Despite having a sub-ministry whose purpose is supposedly to protect journalists from violence, the Mexican government is directly and deeply involved in shielding from corruption charges or worse elected officials, government-initiated projects and narco interests that routinely seriously threaten the rights of its citizens. Any form of protest is met with a brutality that is made worse by the fact that it has become so common that it doesn't even seem out of the ordinary anymore. Many of the journalist who report on these events have been forced to go into hiding or to move to other countries for their own safety and that of their families. Way too many have lost their lives.

State of Silence was a real eye-opener for me. It's not just that the interviews with journalists are chilling. I have come to casually accept that corruption must be high in Mexico, but it's not the sort of thing a Canadian worries about much. I had no idea, however, of the level of violence (over 42,000 homicides in 2023 alone) or how deeply embedded such carnage is in the workings of Mexican corporations and government. I had no idea of the perpetrators' immunity nor the extent of human rights violations that occur. The protected power brokers feel no inhibitions about crushing the weak if they get in the way or become too vocal. On exposing these conditions, State of Silence deserves high praise. Though they certainly contribute greatly to the strong-arm tactics, if the drug cartels disappeared tomorrow, journalists would still be risking their lives and the lives of their families by reporting on the corruption and lawlessness that remains.

subtitles

In terms of real-life mob stories, it's hard to think of anything more insane than the government of Mexico literally had to give back a drug kingpin because his organization had too much firepower for even the military to think going against it was a bad decision.

Here in Montreal, mob bosses get lit up at the Ritz, you know? Or have an attempt on their life on the highway in the middle of the afternoon. Not this.

 

[kihei]

Caught by the Tides (2024) Directed by Jia Zhang-ke 9B

Caught by the Tides is a hybrid, one-of-a-kind film that contains some gorgeous, almost miscellaneous documentary footage as well as a narrative that takes place roughly over a twenty-year period. The story entails a quest by one partner to find the other in the soon-to-be-transformed Three Gorges area on Northern China. We have met the protagonists before in Jia's masterpiece Still Life, one of my two favourite films of the 21st century. In that film, Qiao travels to Fengzie, a city that will soon be under water thanks to a huge damn project on the Yangtze River. Though he doesn't seem much of a catch, she has fallen in love with Bin despite his sometimes poor treatment of her, and she goes to great lengths to find him. Caught by the Tides could be thought of as a sequel to the earlier film though it is unlike any sequel ever made.

For starters, most of the "story" footage is taken from Still Life and other Jia films over the past twenty years. The naturalistic "documentary" shots are more recent, and it all fits together in a way that is somehow both pleasing and startling. The first 45 minutes of this roughly two hour movie is made up mainly of what I would call "establishing shots." And they are wondrous. I am at a loss to explain why, but no director I know of can shoot faces and small groups of people better than Jia does. The faces linger with you--each stray person seems to reveal great depths of hope, lassitude, loss, decrepitude, whatever. By the time the story finally got under way, I sort of wished it hadn't. I was just content to follow Jia's restless camera, virtually a character in the film, as it moved around peeking over people's shoulders or strolling through a crowd. It made me realize how unreliant Jia's works are on dialogue.

So we do have a culmination of this strange romance, but really the movie has so many different facets beside that, things that in a way the unhappy romance symbolizes: social change that is too rapid for its people; hopeful youth; disenfranchised old people; business hustlers; robots and modern technology; Covid; music, which is everywhere; recovery and loss (not the other way around); the growing pains of a nation that finds some of its poorest people expendable; and finally, a big one, images that tell a story better than words ever can. While I don't underrate the significant benefit of being already familiar with Jia's work and thematic preoccupations, I think the sheer brilliance of the film making and the beauty of the images justify an enthusiastic recommendation. Like many great works of art, ultimately Caught by the Tides plays by its own rules and thrives doing so. And it teaches us a lot that we could never learn in any other way about its real subject: China.

Sidenote: Though I know no one asked, I keep wanting to complete Jia's title for him. My version: Caught by the Tides in the Stream of History. That seems to sum up contemporary China pretty well.

subtitles


Best of '24 so far

1) Flow, Zilbalodis, Latvia
2) Caught by the Tides, Jia, China
3) All We Imagine As Light, Kapadia, India
4) Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Jude, Romania
5) Green Border, Holland, Poland
6) The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Rasoulof, Germany
7) Here, Devos, Belgium
8) Pictures of Ghosts, Filho, Brazil
9) Hit Man, Linklater, US
10)The Substance, Fargeat, US

 

[Chairman Maouth]

Just a very brief review of Chef (2014).

An excellent film. Every single primary actor knocks the ball out of the park and I high;y recommend this film. But I'm not even going to Google what putting cornstarch on your balls is all about.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Trap (2024)- Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. 5.5/10

Ohhhhh M. Night…. What a guy. He’s done it again with Trap! However as per usual with a Shyamalan production, I’m not quite sure what “it” is.

Trap has a really cool premise, but the execution is just not there. Cooper (Josh Hartnett)takes his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see a “Taylor Swift”-esque concert for the fictional artist “Lady Raven” (Saleka Shyamalan).

At the show Cooper notices a large police presence, including full-on SWAT teams all looking for the serial killer dubbed “The Butcher”. Before long it’s revealed to the viewers that Cooper is indeed The Butcher himself and has found himself in the middle of a Trap to capture The Butcher.

Cooper begins trying to formulate a plan to escape from the arena while not tipping off his daughter as to the reason for his bizarre behavior.

I don’t want to spoil too much of what happens, but I will say the movie takes quite a nosedive about 45ish minutes in. I think this would have been great as an episode of something like Black Mirror but as a full standalone film it’s just too long. The second half feels like it’s just being dragged out for the sake of making it a feature length film.


As usual, Shyamalan trips over himself trying to make the story as convoluted as possible which results in a bunch of plot holes and situations that are beyond suspension of belief.



The acting was pretty solid, with Josh Hartnett putting in quite a performance here. The music of Lady Raven was produced and performed entirely by Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka who is a real life musician. I’m not a pop fan but the music was pretty solid and the concert atmosphere seemed pretty good for a big time pop star show.

Overall it’s a fun little flick in sort of a “ohhh Shyamalan you dog” type of way. His movies always have a bit of a fun-ness to them for me, despite their glaring shortcomings.

 

[kihei]

Anora (2024) Directed by Sean Baker 9A

Anora, who prefers "Annie," is a lap dancer and, when the mood strikes her, a hooker who starts a relationship with Ivan, the young son of a Russian oligarch. Ivan is a lot of fun, a bouncy puppy who looks maybe 18 years old and acts like he is 14. But he's got a certain charm, too, and a busload of his father's cash. Against her better judgment, Anora, a charmer in her own right, falls for the guy, and he reciprocates to the point of actually proposing to her. They get married in Vegas. And the partying and hot sex continues unabated. Made for each other, eh? Not so fast. Ivan's mom and dad back home don't like this turn of events one bit, and they send a trio of Russian heavies to talk to Ivan. Then things take one unexpected turn after another as the chaos mounts up in totally unexpected ways.

Anora is very sexy (almost without precedent by Hollywood standards), brilliantly funny, and just a blast to watch from beginning to end. The acting is uniformly excellent; I hope at least three of these actors, Mikey Madison as Anora, Mark Eydelshteyn as Ivan and Yura Borisov as Igor receive Oscar nominations. The script kept me guessing in a very pleasing way. Though it is kind of clear where the story is going, how it gets there is just as fresh and unpredictable as it can be. I don't know how to describe the characters. On paper it looks like they might be stereotypes, but director Sean Baker never lets that happen. All the characters remain distinct individuals, and the natural humour they generate, sometimes against their own will, is never forced. It wasn't until I was riding home on the subway that it struck me how wonderfully directed Anora is. Channeling all of the energy that goes on in all three acts is no mean accomplishment. Only later did it dawn on me how good the editing was, how Baker captures all this verve and mayhem in a perfect rhythm that allowed me to be so wrapped up in the story that I didn't have time to notice the technique. And I haven't laughed this often at a Hollywood movie in years. If that wasn't enough, the movie has real heart, too. Anora fully deserved its Palme d'Or from Cannes.


Best of '24 so far

1. Anora, Baker, US
2. Flow, Zilbalodis, Latvia
3. Caught by the Tides, Jia, China
4. All We Imagine As Light, Kapadia, India
5. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Jude, Romania
6. Green Border, Holland, Poland
7. The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Rasoulof, Germany
8. Here, Devos, Belgium
9. Pictures of Ghosts, Filho, Brazil
10. Hit Man, Linklater, US