4v291o

this was already leaving me whilst i was watching

John Wick don't hold a goddamn candle

An aesthetically diverse but delightful hodgepodge inner city neighbourhood faces unwelcome judgement and seemingly inevitable change, a couple of fiercely territorial scrappy kids proving to be the only barrier to the unrelenting march of 'progress'.

Our protagonists Black and White, as well as other ing local characters, demonstrate two sides of opinion in the face of unwanted development - the way of life and being that may be lost, and the possibilities that might await. Those that are entirely disinterested in the feelings of the many can and will make choices for our collective future that serve their own interests, tho that's not to say that the way things were were necessarily better than they might be. Black takes it upon himself to ensure that the environment and way of life that he's always known will survive in the face of a new modality, a 'progression' fuelled by unempathetic greed, impressed upon them by the organised mob, the obvious bad guy. Unfortunately, this crusade leads him to abandon his relationship with his long standing young cohort and ward, the ostensibly innocent and idealistic White, the only meaningful figure in his life upon whose shoulders sit the very motivation behind his ultimately violent stand, and relationship with whom acts as the catalyst for his internal battle between balance and dangerously potent indignation.

As White well understands, and as Black will come to wrestle with, the old cannot exist without the new, the cynical without the hopeful, the summer without the winter, the dark without the light. Kuro, without Shiro.

Yes yes yes, the fates of myriad charismatic women depend entirely upon the actions of strategically humourously chivalric male action hero, I understand completely.

All roads lead to AI, wait, is that right? Rome? They were in Rome at one point right? I feel like there was the thread of something I should've enjoyed but apart from the aforementioned charismatic performances (also Esai Morales) and a few decent action sequences (I don't particularly care about all the real stunts Tom Cruise did, regardless of how much postive auditing it might net him), I didn't really engage with much of it. If I could a GD thing about any of the other movies, I might have found that thread, but I don't, and I didn't

Much less wondrously fantastical than it felt in my childhood. If I were so inclined, I might suggest that that's rather the point

God I love low stakes slow burn interpersonal stage dramas adapted for the screen by the same director, in which the setting takes on a role of its own, with incredible cinematography, down to earth performances and well cultivated light horror vibe

it's just real, real, grinning the whole time fun. the story didn't feel especially fresh or impressive but i still enjoyed it and damn if i wasn't fully engaged from start to finish, and to my mind, /ourguy/ bong seriously brought out the absolute best in every single cast member. i've been an rpatz loyal since twilight so maybe my opinion is a little coloured, but i thought he fucking killed it, he and mark ruffalo and toni collette and steven yeun et al just seemed to be having so much fun with their roles and it very much rubbed off on me

i didn't particularly care for all the expository narration at the start and end and felt all the alien stuff was very underwhelming, i can definitely understand that people might have found the story a little stale, but for my own i found it to be simply funny and well made. there's a lot more to the narrative that could be dug into, humanity as a parasitic cancer, ethics of cloning, commentary on conservative/capitalist politics, contemporary trump/musk archetypes (i thought this was particularly interesting as it was based on a book that i assumed had been out for a while but at 2022 it's not so suprising after all), colonisation/relationships with indigenous cultures and more but i just don't have the deep brain grooves for it at this moment

The scariest part of this is knowing that people squeeze themselves through tiny dark caves just for the fun of it, and it does such a stellar job of cultivating that calustrophobic atmosphere. I also appreciate the acting and writing as far as the characters are concerned, as the relationship and dialogue between them mostly comes across as very natural and believable, which I find is often lacking in horror movies.

However, the film ultimately suffers from an overreliance on jumpscares and unfortunately all fell apart for me in the final act, once the threat was revealed and it became a gorefest, all that palpable tension that had been cultivated just evaporated. For my own, it didn't come anywhere close to living up to it's fearsome reputation on the scariness front.

Comfortably fits into the 'I've wilfully ignored the point so I can idolise them' rogues gallery

It's kinda like netflix made Cowboy Be-

Somehow they made a better Bebop adaptation several years before they made their Bebop. Yet it still suffers from many of the same issues I found in that show, which is to say that it feels massively overproduced, with a large focus on glossy CGI/FX that result in scenes in which it's hard to pay attention to what's actually going on, and a pace of dialogue that feels like every line was written by a different person given the same outline of a script and they just mashed it together.

To be fair, we shouldn't judge it by the standard of a different IP, regardless of the similarities, so how does this stand on its own? Still not very well. I mostly enjoyed the individual characters and felt that they each had interesting stories to tell, but unfortunately they were gears in a machine that was ultimately less than the sum of its parts. There was the makings of an interesting world but it felt very much like they were cramming too lofty a tale into the runtime, such that all aspects felt underdeveloped and character relationships/emotional connection to the story went very much amiss. We can understand the concept of the conflict fairly easily, despite the relentless pace, but there was no real space for the emotional development amongst our gallery of protagonists, and introducing significant connections between the underwhelming villain and some of said protagonists so late in the game removes any possibility of real weight in final confrontation.

The pacing of the whole thing was just off, and this came across most obviously in the roughshod, rapid fire dialogue. In some ways I get the sense this was brilliant, being that we have characters of many varying national backgrounds communicating in native languages through translation devices, but practically it just comes across as parts of conversations thrown together haphazardly.

We select only the most upstanding citizens to bring to space ... That these people are wealthy is coincidence

- yeah alright. In context, I really can't tell if this is incredible satire, laughable ignorance or outright propaganda? But it looks cool though, I love non traditional westerns, and I like flashy space stuff

A hell of a lot more enjoyable than I had thought it would be (yet another win for don't engage with any aspect of a film before seeing it), but certainly no masterpiece.

Trying to make points about institutional patriarchy and our relationship with technology that many films do better but still managing to be pretty fun and engaging. Early on I was principally very critical of the the unnatural mannerisms and patterns of speech exhibited by certain characters, but came to understand as the film went on that this was not necessarily a damning indictment of talent but rather a potential celebration, and it still managed to offer a surprisingly enjoyable progression of the mystery narrative. However, much of the dialogue, even considering the narrative context, still felt very stilted and awkward to a point of hindering enjoyment -- even knowing what we know by the end, I simply can't believe that many of the characters would have said what they said and did what they did given the situation.

All of this being said, I did greatly enjoy the performances, found far more comedy in it than I would have expected, and absolutely adored the musical choices.

A little less purely dramatic than I'd expected and a consistent dry humour that just didn't quite land for me.

It was funny though, and despite the charicatures of each of the three sisters being at times grating, I felt they were each brilliantly well acted and believable.

It comes across as a critique but I think it's ultimately a celebration of the narrative when I say that I enjoyed the first act in which they were setting up the individual personas and their conflicts, greatly disliked the second act in which they seemed to heavily lean into them and deepen the apparent rifts, and finally came together and grew as a unit of individuals in the final act.

An erring-on-the-side-more interesting story about how the loss of a mutual loved one can trigger reflection on, and deepening of, our relationships with them and our relationships with one another.

Spectacular send off for what is to me, probably the single most engaging work of fiction ever constructed. Unspeakably glad it got a release in my far flung corner of the world.

As a singular release, could lose a half star for the audio mixing as it felt a little quiet overall and I would have expected the rumbling to have a little more rumble in a cinema environment, but being what it is, I simply couldn't give anything less than 5* for the incredible climax of a thrillingly well choreographed 12 year journey.

Unashamed fanboy moment. Here's to you Yams, and to however you may bless us in the future (here's hoping). Enjoy your well deserved rest, sweet prince

Act like an adult, be false

Wears it'sTrainspotting homage on its sleeve and absolutely to it's credit. Super stylishsly directed and wonderfully appropriate soundtrack. Drugs are universal, but there's a beautiful melancholy ubiquitous to British drug culture that Human Traffic perfectly nails.

Shoutout to real life softie Danny Dyer's Moff -- the single greatest tragedy of the advent of social media is that your plug is now media illiterate.

NICE ONE BRUVA

Everytime I watch a movie where school kids are prominent I think about how much they suck, but this movie really brought it back to me that people just suck.

But also that we are all just people, that we're all capable of being chill and also supremely unchill regardless of what age we are. An anxiety riddled but humourous reminder of the intellectual capacity of youth and the capacity for ignorance in maturity.

The narrative pace in this film was a sprint but in the best possible sense, finding favourable comparison to films such as Uncut Gems and Shiva Baby in the way it builds and builds the tension and offers snippet after snippet of plot development until it all just sort of ends, explosively or otherwise. And the score was genuinely phenomenal, I was so convinced it was a Ludwig Göransson t because it reminded me so much of the ceaseless building of pieces in the Tenet score -- a credit to be sure, considering the comparatively small production and with I'm sure, a fraction of the budget

Weekly Movie Watch

The American dream is timeless. Unfortunately.

Despite the backdrop of one of the most significant global conflicts in history that should make it bleakly unique, the pipeline of elation at the sight of Liberty to cursing a country seemingly rotten to the core is disappointingly indicative of the immigrant experience in our relatively peaceful contemporaneity.

A celebrated proponent in the field of Brutalist architecture finds a surprising - yet surprisingly apt - parallel in his work, to the pragmatism and resilience that he realises is necessary for American immigrants to simply survive, much less thrive, in a discouragingly hostile country that prior to arrival had offered the enticing idea of a safe haven and prosperous fresh start.

I'm no deft hand in the sphere, but I love a cool building and the story behind it's creation, and The Brutalist delivers this beautifully. Career defining performances from Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones impeccably accompany an impressively engaging narrative that brilliantly juxtaposes the design and construction of a brutally pragmatic concrete megalith against László's increasingly fractured and uncertain mental state. Wonderfully complemented by a largely 'guerilla', handheld cinematography and the compelling motif of glass as a component of a Brutalist design allowing light to stream in, to glimpse what is inside the cold and unappealing exterior.

Absolute cinema.

Good for committing a couple nose exhales here and there, but otherwise didn't really connect with any of it. All I really managed to take away is that smoking isn't so bad in the grand scheme of things

The anti-woke propaganda piece that finally got through to me

I still can't believe how well the boys act themselves, and I'm so glad this was my introduction to them -- getting a glimpse into the story of their origin and their raw ion for their heritage lends a deep weight to their music.

Weekly Movie Watch

George MacKay turned himself into Elliot Rodger with just a haircut, incredible talent.

A pretty ok execution of a very interesting idea. An exploration of modern interpersonal relationships and our collective relationship with technology and what direction that might take us in the future -- through the lens of how people lived and loved in lives ed -- weighed down by trying too hard to an uninteresting commentary on what modern life looks like within that context.

This review may contain spoilers.

As a story about the psychological detioration of someone dealing with their SO's serious sleep disorder and the chaos it sows in the lives, it was very interesting. Unfortunately I felt it was poorly served by turning the gradual switch to seeking a spiritual answer in desperation, into an unambiguous supernatural element.

Weekly Movie Watch

This review may contain spoilers.

Given that I went expecting more of a focus on the intensely grim discrimination and violence that queer communities are often subject to, it was a pleasant surprise to get something a lot more wholesome and focused on the positive aspects of the blossoming relationship between Aysha and Luke.

Unfortunately I think the film ultimately spread itself too thin. Between the evolution of Luke, initially aggressively straight, coming to with feelings that don't fit his narrow perception -- and Ashiq living a life he knows his parents will never accept, and the conflicts that arise in his world -- we have two very strong and interesting stories that could be explored. In giving equal focus to both of them, much of the story progressed too quickly and lacked a certain impact. I feel that focusing on one or the other would have allowed for more satisfying development and growth, and produced a more engaging and elevated film

I feel the key part of what makes a whodunnit engaging is when the bulk of the clues to the answer were provided all along and it's just a case of putting it together, which rather falls apart when most of the necessary clues are only given after the culprit has been exposed. Trying far too hard for it's own good to really drive home the style and metanarrative, at the expense of the details that could build a compelling mystery.

He's a man of his word. He went to Eton.

Although it was a little grating, I appreciate the forced, corny jokes were very much a part of that style that they were going for — and the comedy aspect actually mostly works. Each of the exaggerated caricatures feel well done thanks to the highlight of the film, the cast.

Weekly Movie Watch

Deeply meditative. Apichatpong imbues his work with a sense of inward spirituality that feels as though it defies any commentary or interpretation I could offer

It has something to do with conscience

A psychologically turbulent yet patiently considered tale of the human yearning to be in control of every aspect of our existence. To understand or to destroy. To know and accept our feelings, memories and regrets, or to block them out completely.

I can't speak to how accurately this adapts Stanislav Lem's book of the same name, or how much of it is Tarkovsky's own contribution, but it's interesting that this thematic and narrative structure of several different personalities and mindsets all tackling/dealing with the same nebulous concept would come up again later again in Stalker. I think Tarkovsky and the cast did a wonderful job portraying these different approaches to having discovered what appears to be alien intelligence, only to be confronted with elements of their past and psyche that they had hoped never to have to face.

For all the love that may be lost, all we really need is to chill in the warmth, spending our days drinking, smoking and chasing the disembodied.

Rare magical realism L. I wanted to like it a lot more, but despite having a good setup and a great display of talent, I just never connected with it and the magical realism elements they were slowly introducing didn't pull through to anything, felt wasted, and left me wanting.

But hey, you don't need to warn me twice about the dangers of the gym

From Syracuse to Syracuse, the world is a bitter and complicated place.

As easy as it would be to simply see these little philistine shits as fetid, degenerate, cretinous, lazy, vulgar, rancid, etc. etc. — we also understand that it is unfair to paint any one of a whole with a single brush. Every work of art is made with many strokes, and they are often not all visible on the surface.

Please. They've had it easy their whole lives

You don't know that. Did you? Besides, everybody should be with their people on christmas

We all have a story to tell, that which makes us who we are, and - as much as I despise the gross capitalist perversion of christmas that most of us now experience - seeing these brilliantly acted and well lived lonely souls finding meaningful connection through their stories, finding their people, during this time we traditionally set aside to spend with loved ones, was just wonderful.

As a movie about, at it's core, a boarding school instructor who doesn't do things the way his peers expect of him and the way he interacts with his students, I imagine this film has drawn many comparisons to Dead Poets Society. but I found the ultimate hopefulness and positive relationships forged herein to be much more relatable and grounded when accompanied by the wrought cynicism and despondency displayed in varying measures by both Paul and Angus.

I thought I was going a little crazy throughout the movie as Paul's lazy eye seemed to change sides. At one point he enters the heasters office and I noticed the door was on the opposite side to an earlier scene so chalked it up to an editing inconsistency, but after some brief research, it appears to have been done intentionally to lend a little additional weight to a particular late scene. Nicely done. Also I didn't realise this was a time travel movie until I saw the 2015 style iMac that had found it's way back to 1970, masterful

Hooking up my Xbox in the cinema unfortunately meant that certain picture quality settings did not kick in and the whole thing looked a little washed out, which is a devastating tragedy given the incredible use of colour in certain scenes :( The audio was amazing tho, very glad to be able to hear the cracking sound design and Daniel Hart's beautiful soundtrack on a cinema audio system.

Alas, despite the tragic miscalculation with the picture quality, the movie remains an incredibly creative and all-around well made adaptation of Gawain Poet's chivalric romance

Let's drift

Oh yeah, that's kino right there. Truly the one that brought me in from the cold on westerns

The older I get the more I realise how everyone is always still just learning how to BE. I don't know if anyone ever really gets there but it really is that much harder when you're a kid tryna be the person and do the things that you think others expect of you.

Dude, don't talk to your mom like that

I'm glad someone finally said it. Still I think we all understand that feeling that everything you do is wrong, like you can't ever put a foot right, even in situations where you are yourself being wronged. This film so solidly captures that suffocating mindset, and also manages to be funny AF. Seeing an outside perspective of even a little of how I almost certainly acted at that age is hard to watch

Can't believe he tore down the Place Promised in our Early Days poster! Bro was an early Shinkai stan

David Lowery said he wanted to "make a movie that felt like a folk song" and I think he really nailed it with this grounded interpration of a storied western ballad.

Deeply unexpected Rami Malek too!

Very cool execution of the idea and builds some serious tension in the first two acts that unfortunately falls apart completely in the third.

Would love to see a Primer style infographic for this one

How horrifying the notion that AI would simply be too burdened by humanity and the monstrosities of its existence to become anything monstrous itself.

She died of grief

The general positivity and hopefulness displayed by the engers on the Aniara was refreshingly long lasting (relatively), despite the bleak circumstance and was a testament to human ability to endure and live meaningful lives even against the breakdown of social order and collective sanity.

Also love to see a sci-fi story that doesn't get too hung up on trying to define the technicalities of theoretical concepts that it will never be able to adequately explain.

Have you ever tried to catch a bus in Hong Kong?

*Everybody loved that*

Unsurprisingly over the top silly, with some very rocky dialogue (probably attributable in part to the English dubbing), but the stunt choreography is certainly not to be baulked at, and watching Jackie Chan move around is basically awe inspiring.

Some very genuinely funny moments tho, and I can just imagine what a good time it might've been to catch a late night showing of Police Story after a night out with the boys in 80's Hong Kong

Never would've guessed how the guy that brought us the quietly ruminative slice of life, Paterson, could pull off a mob hitman, samurai-noveau story. Turns out by injecting that exact same quietly ruminative quality. It just really works, dog. Ghost Dog.

Priya Kansara gives a fun and very enthusiastic performance as a young Indian woman with a burning ion for stunt work and her head in a world of fantastical action. Comical but well choreographed hand to hand combat scenes that pay tribute to, and almost parody the often over the top fighting that seems to be so often exhibited in Bollywood movies, with a humourous freudian subplot. Unfortunately I felt we were not given the right opportunity to connect to our two lead characters and in my view, both ended up coming across as far more abrasive than loveable.

Not as good as I it being but Edgar Wright movies always absolutely nail the timing, editing and soundtrack

It never gets old. Watched in the cinema for the first time as part of an action season at my local, and this go around, hearing the middle aged guy that picked it cracking up at every single joke and reference was the real highlight

It was a Wednesday, in August

Alzheimers and other long term conditions that degrade memory are some of lifes true horrors. This was such a terrifyingly well executed portrayal of the horrific experience of a failing memory.

There's an inate irony in a perpetrator of sexual misconduct towards women directing, writing and starring in an intense allegory for how the experience of a woman living in a world where there are no women, is not so far removed from the experience of women living in our own world.

I really hope this second outing as director since the production that led to that misconduct, I'm Still Here, which seems to illustrate some genuine growth in Casey Affleck, is actually that.

Speaking creatively, I've always found him to be a very capable actor that never fails to deliver an engaging and believable performance, and this is no exception. Acting opposite, is the mesmerising young talent Anna Pniowsky, and if this role as a wise-and-weary-well-before-their-time child growing up in a world that is out to get them is anything to go by, I really hope we see more of her in the future. The dialogue is incredibly well written and delivered, and brilliantly sells the tried and true bond between a father and daughter struggling against such a trying existence, forced into a life of nomadism. Daniel Hart (who also scored A Ghost Story, and whose soundtrack for The Green Knight was a big part of what made it so special) was a simply perfect choice to compose this score, here lending a restrained but deeply emotional weight to every scene it accompanies.

And by lord this movie knows how to hold a shot, to linger on a scene. I mean, who gives a fucking shit how long a scene is?

I can only beg the question, has Ridley Scott ever actually seen Gladiator?

An unimaginative rehashing of much of the same story, character archetypes, themes and even scenes as the first, but for a generation suckled on subway surfer splitscreens. Fundamentally misunderstanding the considered pacing and well defined cultivation of the protagonists and antagonists that were, for my own, the great strengths of the first movie. Foregoing the believable and satisfying development of their stories and motivations in favour of characters we never had an opportunity to invest in - being subjected to a constant chain reaction of explosive scenes and major plot points - clinically pristine wardrobes and set pieces, saturated colour grading and a desparate attempt to weave an emotional thread between the two movies through the use of a key plot point that feels incredibly forced and poorly executed.

It's not all bad, the cast were, more or less without exception, delightful. The fight scenes for the most part were well done and gave a sense of physicality that is often lacking in contemporary big budget action. Well scored with the welcome return of a couple of particular motifs, although lacking the overall sense of grand scale as the first.

Pictures such as Napoleon and Gladiator II are wholly unsurprising given the unhinged lunacy, and disregard for anything that Ridley Scott seems to exhibit through his real life persona, and whilst seeing the old grump say something aggresively blunt, overtly combative or simply offensive can be fun, it's a shame to see that the powerhouse that brought us bangers such as Blade Runner, Alien and Black Hawk Down, simply may not bring us any more.

In the future, there will be a Ridley Scott biopic, and it will include a scene whereby Ridley, as Proximo to Maximus, will speak to a young up and coming jamoke of his halcyon days as the audience favourite, and of scratching a living in his flea infested latter career.

"Need my pirates some Gladiator ah music brother" - Gore Verbinski when he signed Hans Zimmer, I presume

"Do your fucking job" really needs to be in every officers employee handbook

More fun than I was anticipating. The narrative structure felt very stylish and did a good job of keeping me engaged all the way through, plus I thought Willa Fitzgerald delivered a great performance. Soundtrack was killer in the cinema also.

God it felt so good to see that wee prick get a smack upside the head. In conclusion, vampires are pretty cool

Ego is the death of character; obsession, the death of reason; the goal, the death of the pursuit

They will see every last one of us dead or worse, and speak of what more we should have done. Feed it to the animals, and to the fire in the cold, hard months, for the meat of the rich is surely tainted.

I'm sure many of the Gotham officials are very corrupt, but as a billionaire he should really be paying his taxes...

But damn these movies are just fun, and so well produced - Lego lends itself so well to the medium of animation

"I believe different things in different places"

This is still the single best portrayal of a mad chill bakemaxxing bro and businessmaxxing bro maxin' relaxin' all cool and getting into all sorts of frontier hijinx, that we've seen yet

Thomas was just tripping cos he never got his oily cake, but Lily Gladstone was cool as always

Kelly Reichardt you sly dog 🥲

Rewatched cos Will Oldhams character is perfect research for a character I'm developing for some tabletop game fr