flipp525 wrote
THE MENU is a fun, thrilling ride that never goes completely off the rails owing mainly to a committed cast and concept. Hong Chau is *amazing* as the Hawthorne restaurant’s “hostess” and provided some of the biggest laugh-out-loud moments (“These are called ‘tortillas’”) while Janet McTeer’s food critic sends up the whole artifice of extreme high dining and foodie culture. Anya Taylor-Joy has never turned in a performance I didn’t like and her work in The Menu is no exception. Ralph Fiennes is startlingly good as the Chef and proves once again why he is one of our most treasured, versatile actors.
Don’t watch on an empty stomach for several reasons.
Down the line agree, especially with your note of how committed it is. It would be very easy for this film to spiral off in any number of directions but the writers keep it admirably contained (and rooted in Ralph Fiennes' disgust for his life) and follow it down the line. I'm still marinating on my only quibble, which is that it really is just one joke played all the way through for almost two hours. But I think it's offset by how much the writers clearly believe in Ralph Fiennes' Chef as a monster as well as the fact that nobody in the film acts like they're in a comedy at all (a masterstroke).
I'll also add Nicholas Hoult to the standouts in the cast. File this one under "We should get five of these a year."
EDIT: one thing I neglected to mention. The cinematography by Peter Deming is fantastic. Whatever mild reservations I have about how thin it is, the visual atmosphere of the film goes such a long way to selling it.
Watching the right wing British press get their panties in a bunch over RRR is one of the more amusing things of the past year. You'd think Meghan Markle had a cameo in it or something.
A quick rundown on the at-home catch-up I've done of assorted minor movies over the past few weeks (will cover White Noise in its already-created individual thread):
Amsterdam is an unholy mess, but I still enjoyed watching it more than most other movies this year, simply for the pleasure of imagining the better movie that might have been made of the same material. Most other things I've seen of late couldn't have amounted to much even with spectacular execution; this movie at least had a core subject worth exploring, even if it was bungled in the telling.
Sr. is a likable enough look at a cult figure. I can't say it's deeply insightful -- even the feints at dealing with what Jr. calls the elephant in the room are soft-ish -- but an interesting look at a time gone by in 20th century film.
I never read Where the Crawdads Sing -- I'm suspicious of those books that appear from seemingly nowhere and stay on the best-seller list into infinity; the few I've tried have ended up being books I feel I've read before despite the fact I haven't, because they're so reminiscent of books I HAVE read (most commonly, To Kill a Mockingbird). This is no exception, with its misunderstood protagonist, and hot-button stabs at mid-20th century Southern racism and toxic masculinity. Daisy Edgar-Jones continues to be a promising actress, though this performance isn't a patch on her Normal People work.
I've never actually read Lady Chatterly's Lover, but I"m pretty sure it didn't have a romance-novel happy ending, which sets it apart from this film version. Not quite as much soft-core sex as the French version from a few years back, but enough to satisfy those looking for such. Not a distinguished filmization of Lawrence.
Glass Onion was...okay. I'm a soft touch for mysteries in general, the more complicated the better, so I rolled with it. But I don't think it had as much zest at the core as the first film did, mostly because the de Armas character and her situation/position provided more trenchant context. Janelle Monae's character seemed an attempt to approximate that, and she was sympathetic enough, but there was nothing here with the power of that final shot of de Armas, looking down on what have become her supplicants. As for the performances, (SPOILER WARNING) Monae is fine, as usual, but I don't get the Oscar push; is it simply because she plays twins? The overall cast seemed a bit second-tier compared to the first film's roster, and some performances (Odom, Hahn) were disappointingly wan, while Kate Hudson was a bit too much most of the time. Pleasant enough, and I'd certainly prefer it to get the meaningless screenplay nomination over Maverick...but not all that much.
When I saw the trailer for The Woman King, my immediate thought was, not my kind of movie (not big on period movies in non-urbanized settings). That remained mostly the case after I'd seen it, though I'd have to say I found it more interesting than I have similarly-profiled efforts. Some of the plotting is Hollywood-ish (Davis' connection to Mbedu, above all), and there are far too many battle scenes for my taste (the fact that the warriors are women doesn't distinguish them, for me: endless fights are endless fights, whatever gender). But the overall situation was not without interest, and the central performances -- Mbedu especially -- are worthy of praise.
Now, I'll contradict most everything I just wrote. I'll say that the movie I've most enjoyed in this stretch is a period film, set at least partially in non-urban environments. It's a movie filled with battles. It's a preposterous film, yet one that flew by for me, and gave me something of the high the very early summer movies like Jaws once provided.
Here's my thesis: If movies are going to shy away from exploring the human condition...if they're going to be spectacles constructed to merely make the audience whoop with some sort of joy...they ought to at least be genuinely fun. They ought to embrace their silliness, give way to the giddy pleasures a mindless ride can offer. They ought to be, even if in ways derivative, full of original/non-franchise characters...based in a plot that's sturdily focused, yet full of interesting strands...packed with original, exciting, never-seen-that-before action sequences. They ought to fly by.
They ought to be more like RRR.
I swear, I've been avoiding watching this thing for weeks, put off by the 3-hour running time. I went into it last night half-expecting to give up on it after half an hour, or, at best, to break it up into digestible installments. Instead, I watched to the end, and felt not remotely exhausted by the end; in fact, kind of energized, wishing I'd seen it in a theatre, to experience its pleasures at a more intensive level.
Caveats: You can chide me that I'm unacquainted with virtually all of Bollywood (excuse me: Tollywood, which I'm informed is proper designation for this particular film); that, had I seen more of its output, this film might not work so well for me -- same as when people told me I might not have liked Crouching Tiger so much had I had a steady diet of wuxia. Guilty as charged. I can't judge this in the context of a century of films I've never seen. All I can base my opinion on is what I see on the screen, and whether I enjoy it. And what I see is a film that has the epic sweep of a 19th century novel, that is so over-the-top it becomes a style all its own, that never flags over the course of those three hours, and that provides wonderful set pieces (the Naatu Naatu dance number, the attack of the unleashed beasts), along with a moving (if familiar) set of relationships that give the story a romantic heart. Oh, and that sticks it to the British Empire in a way I presume citizens of India have craved for a long time, but which has never really made its way into Western filmmaking. I imagine some are just not going to buy into all this -- I honestly thought I might be one. And some are going to really hate it, as it makes its late way into the Oscar conversation (I was honestly shocked to find out this movie opened in June; I never truly paid attention to it till the NY Critics' prize). All I can say is, after a year -- 3 years, really -- where films have mostly disappointed me, this is one of the few that has exceeded my expectation by a bunch, and given me a pleasure I'd almost thought gone forever.
Minor connected note: with this film's Naatu Naatu, Pinocchio's Ciao Papa, and White Noise's New Body Rumba, it's possible we'll see a slate of nominated songs that actually play a part in their films, rather than being what's played as the cast list runs and patrons make their exits. (Looking at you, Taylor Swift.) I find that refreshing.
a) A beautifully designed movie and world. There are times when it comes close to matching a Miyazaki (I'm thinking Castle in the Sky particularly, which is an all-timer for me).
b) A surprisingly positive portrait of a family and frisky portrait of a marriage.
c) As cliched as you'd expect.
Quite surprised at just how thoroughly it's bombing.
WHITE NOISE
Cast: Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle, Raffey Cassidy, Sam Nivola, May Nivola.
Dir: Noah Baumbach.
After a train crash causes "an airborne toxic event" in a suburban town, a college professor and his wife confront their fears of their own mortality. Based on a Don DeLillo novel which has been described as "un-filmable", this is writer-director Noah Baumbach's biggest, most ambitious film yet. The first act of this film is quite excellent. It feels and moves like a Baumbach film but with a bigger canvass. But then the second act kicks in, when the film goes into its more heady direction which at times found frustrating and thinking perhaps Baumbach bit off more than he could chew. It was a bit rough. But then he found his footing in the end, culminating in one of the best end credit sequences of the year. So yes, I overall really liked it despite my problems and reservations with parts of it and I can understand some people not liking this one. But the performances of the cast is excellent and holds it all together. So, yeah, I liked this one quite a bit.
Oscar Prospects: I think Adam Driver deserves a nod. So does the Song.
Three Minutes: A Lengthening
A short, three-minute 16 mm film from 1938 in many cases is only interesting as an novelty, but when that film is in color and is from Nasielsk, a small, mostly-Jewish Polish town, it jumps far beyond that and becomes a film of great historical value: this is a portrait of a lost world, of a world that was on the brink of disappearing. Knowing what you know about the Holocaust in Poland, you know that the vast majority of the people in this film are going to be dead within a few years. The goal of the film initially is as an act of witness: to give some idea of what this town was like and to give some insight into the lives of these people that were about to be cut so short. Director Bianca Stigter never, with one brief exception, leaves the three minutes of footage from Nasielsk, over the 70-minute runtime, going over it, backwards, forwards, looking for things, people; all of the interviews (which include a couple of people shown in the film) are voice over. Three Minutes ultimately becomes not just a historical record of that moment in time but about how we approach history, how we try to understand it, how we try to construct stories around incomplete narratives. There's a lot more I could say about this; this is an absolutely first-rate documentary.
SEE HOW THEY RUN
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, David Oyelowo, Ruth WIlson, Harris Dickinson, Reece Shearsmith, Charlie Cooper.
Dir: Tom George.
A Hollywood film director is murdered in the backstage of a London production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap. It's up to a drunk inspector and female novice constable to find out "whodunnit". After watching Glass Onion, I was sort of in the mood for another murder mystery whodunnit. This kind of pales in comparison to that film but there are still lots to enjoy here. Both Saoirse Ronan and Sam Rockwell are lots of fun in their roles. This has been described as "what if Wes Anderson did a murder mystery whodunnit". I'm not sure I 100% agree with that statement. There are some similarities but the film is not quite as precise and intricate as he would be. But still, it's an enjoyable entry to the genre and in addition to Rockwell and Ronan, David Oyelowo is also a hoot. Overall, it's solid entertainment.
A quote like "we won't see a movie like this again" sounds like so much hyperbole, but the truth is, we probably won't. This type of big-budget studio film is all but dead and will not be made more alive by this losing its entire budget. Mentally went through every possible star rating that Letterboxd allows, from 1/2 to 5, at least twice through the run time. It's a wild, insane movie, just incredible that a major studio would back it. The opening scene, which shows an elephant's asshole in close-up, is a dare to dislike it. The entire pre-title-drop sequence will send some people for the door, and I can't blame them. (It almost sent me, just because I was tired, also note that the title drop is like ~35 minutes in.) Not long after the title drop, when we get on movie sets are some of the best scenes and sequences of the year--one in particular that goes from set to set is astonishing. Would've liked it considerably more if it weren't for, around the time the movie should be and could be wrapping up, a diversion that brings in gangsters, sex-dungeons and chases in what mainly seems like an excuse to go into action-movie territory for a few minutes. That diversion does serve to wrap up a character arc, but that character arc could've been wrapped up without all of that, and the way that character's story resolves (which is inevitable and predictable) is exactly what you would've expected without that. Also, that diversion is interrupted with a diversion to wrap up another character's arc and it's incredibly jarring because it is very different in tone from the action sequence we've been watching. As top-notch technically as Chazelle's last couple of movies, maybe even stronger in some respects, but man, I don't know. Much more to say about this, but I'll hold off until more people see it.
One thing I should've added, re Cimino/Heaven's Gate: I think the real career-killer for Cimino was that when he had a chance, fairly soon after Heaven's Gate, to prove he could bring in a project on budget and on time, with Footloose, he immediately asked for extra time and money to completely rewrite the screenplay. I think after that Cimino was marked as someone who would not give producers anything but headaches.
Sabin wrote:I don't know what Damien Chazelle does next (he's clearly keep working) but I doubt he gets funding for another big swing like this for a while.
dws1982 wrote:I had a ticket for a Friday morning showing for Babylon but didn't go because of the winter storm. (Was going to go after the doctor's appointment, but it got cancelled because of the storm.) Still planning to go see it this week, but this kind of opening is just brutal. Unless the industry really likes it and "saves" it, it will absolutely hurt Chazelle's (and maybe even Robbie's, who has starred in two big budget flops this year) career to some degree. The fact that Paramount is in good shape right now, especially post-Maverick, hopefully means it won't hurt it as badly as Heaven's Gate hurt Cimino's.
Heaven's Gate is an interesting film to reference, even in passing. I was reminded, upon hearing about the hideous Babylon opening -- and matching it up to Amsterdam, Bardo, White Noise earlier -- that there is precedent for directors, who'd delivered exciting, audience-drawing hits, following them with excruciating flops: the vaunted 70s era.
Because some of the biggest name directors survived and redeemed themselves, their big stumbles have been forgotten or at least put into context. But, at the time, it seemed some inevitable pattern of big success/equally big failure was at play. Bogdanovich soared with three straight (Last Picture Show, What's Up, Doc?, Paper Moon), then stutter-stepped with Daisy Miller and crashed entirely with At Long Last Love. Friedkin had back-to-back blockbusters with French Connection and The Exorcist, then cratered with Sorcerer (commercially; I actually think the film is decent), and never was A-list again. Coppola, after the two Godfathers, flirted with disaster and emerged intact with Apocalypse Now, but had only delayed his comeuppance, which came a few years later with the disastrous One From the Heart. Scorsese was never the box office draw these others were, but Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and Taxi Driver had been solid successes -- making the financial disappointment of New York, New York more attention-grabbing. Cimino himself was the most glaring example, dropping from the soaring heights of The Deer Hunter to the catastrophe of Heaven's Gate in just two years. But even the box-office god himself, Spielberg, suffered from the syndrome, following up the twin smashes Jaws and Close Encounters with the DOA 1941. We know in hindsight that he recovered quite quickly -- Raiders was only 18 months away, ET a year past it -- but, at the time, it seemed that he, like all the rest, would be subject to this boom-and-bust pattern.
The fact that this year's shocking roster of failures occurs in a time frame where the combination of streaming, pandemic, and what seems an irreversible devolution of the main industry into nothing but superheroes, horror and dumb comedies, makes this more an existential question than we had to face in the aftermath of that 70s hangover stretch (though the 80s being such a moribund decade for film no doubt had some connection to the industry panic after, especially, Heaven's Gate). I'm of course not sure where all this is going to take us. But the fact that artists can face spectacular failure as easily as spectacular success isn't something we're learning for the first time.
I had a ticket for a Friday morning showing for Babylon but didn't go because of the winter storm. (Was going to go after the doctor's appointment, but it got cancelled because of the storm.) Still planning to go see it this week, but this kind of opening is just brutal. Unless the industry really likes it and "saves" it, it will absolutely hurt Chazelle's (and maybe even Robbie's, who has starred in two big budget flops this year) career to some degree. The fact that Paramount is in good shape right now, especially post-Maverick, hopefully means it won't hurt it as badly as Heaven's Gate hurt Cimino's.
I can't remember the last year so many films lost $100m at the box office like this year. If movie studios are scared shitless to invest in anything other than comic book movies, I don't blame them. The latest among them is Babylon. After a reasonably solid week of good news with four Golden Globe nominations and nine Critics Choice nominations, it's just been one hit after another for this film. It performed terribly at the box office, picking up just over $3.5m at the box office, about half of what Amsterdam made opening weekend. It has a C+ audience grade at Cinemascore. I certainly don't trust Rotten Tomatoes as an indicator of merit but it has a rotten 55% critic's score, a slightly fresh 63% audience score, and a Metacritic score of 59. Blame it on COVID or the winter, but this is a catastrophe. Likely, Babylon's best week of the awards season is behind it. Like First Man, I doubt it will show up beyond down ballot at this point.
I'm reserving judgment on it until I see it in the next day or so. I'm actually excited for it. Something I quite like about Damien Chazelle is that he takes very big, ambitious swings. There's almost a film school quality to some of his ideas but not necessarily in a bad way. He wants to tell great big stories that a young man would find very important. There's nothing wrong with that. But it's clear whatever their quality, he's out of step with the popular zeitgeist. I recall Sonic writing that La La Land is a defining Obama-era movie, an identity that became all the more pronounced when it lost in stunning fashion to Moonlight. I don't know what Damien Chazelle does next (he's clearly keep working) but I doubt he gets funding for another big swing like this for a while.
ROALD DAHL'S MATILDA THE MUSICAL
Cast: Alisha Weir, Emma Thompson, Lashana Lynch, Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, Sindhu Vee.
Dir: Matthew Warchus.
This is the film adaptation of the popular Broadway musical adaptation of the popular Roald Dahl book about a genius, telekinetic little girl causing trouble in a school ran by a tyrannical headmistress. I'm familiar with the story because I saw the earlier film adaptation of the book. I didn't read the book or saw the Broadway show but I have listened to the cast album. I have to say, this film is simply a delight. Kudos to director Matthew Warchus who despite working primarily in theater managed to create a very cinematic adaptation of the stage piece while staying true to its musical roots. I guess the only drawback is that as I was watching this, I don't know if anyone else feels this way but I thought Matilda is actually the least interesting character here. Miss Honey, Miss Trunchbull and even Bruce have far more interesting arcs. Not a slight on Alisha Weir who was very good. It's just the way the story is, i guess. But yeah, this is an excellent Netflix watch.
Oscar Prospects: I can't believe this didn't make the Makeup and Song finals so it's gonna have to settle for maybe BAFTA's.
I actually think Wolfwalkers is easily Cartoon Saloon's "worst" film (though I do like it a fair bit). I'm surprised at just how little attention people have been paying to My Father's Dragon.
MY FATHER'S DRAGON
Cast: Jacob Tremblay, Gaten Matarazzo, Golshifteh Farahani, Ian McShane, Whoopi Goldberg, Rita Moreno, Chris O'Dowd, Dianne Wiest, Judy Greer, Yara Shahidi, Alan Cumming, Jackie Earle Haley (voices).
Dir: Nora Twomey.
The latest from Cartoon Saloon is an adaptation of a popular children's book about a young boy who befriends a young dragon who's trying to figure out to save a sinking island. This film has a lot of things going for it. It's got beautiful animation. The voice cast is excellent. There are genuinely funny, sweet and moving moments all throughout. But unfortunately, I think it is hampered by being a bit too long (I think the script could have used some streamlining) and not being as great as their previous work, the masterpiece that was Wolfwalkers. So it's still a very good animated feature, just not quite as great as it could be. It's on Netflix so you could do worse.
