This is very dark, quirky mockumentary, a little like Christopher Guest with way more murder and no interviews. It’s super oddly paced, and it some of the humour hasn’t dated super well, but I kind of admire its mean spirit and how it stands apart from the Christopher Guest school.
Tag: Movies
A Simple Favor (2018, Paul Feig)
This is a noirish murdery mystery/thriller with a heavy dose of comedy that feels relatively unique for these types of films. I was mostly with it until the very end and I do wonder how much of the fault for the ridiculous climax is on the novel versus on the screenplay. SPOILERS
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004, Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky)
I’ve been meaning to watch this movie for a decade and a half. Watching Get Back spurned Jenn to insist we watch it and I’m glad she did. But I do wonder if taking so long to watch the movie dulled it a bit for me – what was distinct and unique in 2004 is …
Samurai Rebellion [Jôi-uchi: Hairyô tsuma shimatsu] (1967, Masaki Kobayashi)
This is an exceptional samurai film from a little bit past the genre’s early heyday, that manages to do nearly everything right. I have only one criticism, but it feels like a minor one given the overall quality of the film.
The Courier (2020, Dominic Cooke)
This is a well-made spy thriller based on real events. It’s apparently a well-known story in the UK (where it was a TV miniseries back in the ’90s) but is not a story I was aware of. In North America, all we here about is the Kennedys and their decision making during the Cuban Missile …
The Dead Don’t Die (2019,Jim Jarmusch)
This is a deliberately-paced, usually mildly amusing but occasionally laugh-out-loud funny zombie movie tribute film. To call it something other than a tribute film feels weird to me, because it feels like Jarmusch is more concerned with layering references – and possibly making some vague statement about consumption and climate change – than he is …
Parasite [Gisaengchung] (2019, Bong Joon Ho)
So obviously there was a lot of talk about this movie when it came out. But somehow – and I really don’t know how – I kind of missed much of it, at least when it comes to the plot. (That I forgot it all in the last 2 years.) I regard this as a …
Red Notice (2021, Rawson Marshall Thurber)
This is a fairly entertaining movie that would be actually pretty fun if it wasn’t so stupid. It’s a frustrating experience to watch a movie where a bunch of the jokes land really well but the script is bad and the plot is ridiculous. The filmmakers don’t appear to trust their audience and the film …
Obchod na korze [The Shop on Main Street] (1965, Ján Kadár, Elmar Klos)
This is a mostly excellent Slovak film about when the Jews were taken away in 1942. It’s a pretty remarkable film and, though I have some minor quibbles, I think I am willing to say it is one of the essential films of 1965.
From the Sea aka Atlantic Rim (2013, Jared Cohn)
The Asylum takes on Pacific Rim. (Honestly it’s sad they changed the name.)
I Am Not Alone (2019, directed by Garin Hovannisian)
This is a surprisingly slick documentary about the 2018 Armenian Revolution. We need a different word for non-fiction films like this, though because calling it a documentary implies a level of impartiality that is not present in this film. Nevertheless, it’s a “ground truth” view of the protests and it manages to get some interviews …
Mac and Me (1988, Stewart Raffill)
This movie is infamous for being a transparent E.T. rip off that, for some reason, came out six years after its inspiration. But it’s a lot more than that. Because, I’d like to think that, even if this wasn’t so clearly a rip-off of one of the most famous movies of the 1980s, we’d still …
Wind River (2017, Taylor Sheridan)
This is a mostly excellent crime mystery/thriller set in rural Wyoming. (Is there any other kind of Wyoming?) It’s a pretty good film and the quibbles I have are mostly representation ones.
Zombieland (2009, Ruben Fleischer)
This is an amusing zombie comedy which sort of makes you wonder why it took until 2009 to make this movie. (In retrospect it feels kind of obvious.) There are certain things I didn’t love about it, but it was mostly pretty effective.
Apur Sansar [The World of Apu] (1959, Satyajit Ray)
At long last, I’ve finish the Apu Trilogy. I no longer remember when I watched the second movie (first). But it was a long time ago. Somehow, in the last few months, I’ve seen both the first movie and third. So, um, hooray!
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019, Vince Gilligan)
Two disclaimers: First, I watched the final season of Breaking Bad quite some time ago. Not the season it premiered but whenever it found its way to Netflix, so within a year or so of its premiere. Call it 2014 ish. It’s been a while. Second, I hated the ending of Breaking Bad. But my …
The Incredible Hulk (2008, Louis Leterrier)
So I’ve finally found my way to one of the few MCU movies I’ve missed, the weird one where they replaced the star before things really took off. At this point this feels like a movie from another era, as it has more in common with the first Iron Man, as you’d imagine, than it …
Jurassic World (2015, Colin Trevorrow)
I have no idea who was clamouring for yet another Jurassic Park sequel over 20 years after the original movie but somebody must have been. My memory is that this movie got some pretty good reviews, certainly better than the reviews for the last sequel. But I imagine the pitch meeting was “This film will …
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020, Aaron, Sorkin)
Until the ridiculous final season, I was torn between this and Chicago 10. For the most part, this is a better film than Chicago 10, it’s live action, it’s well-acted, and it’s nowhere near as ADD. (Though it’s clearly inspired by that film.) The ridiculous final scene of this film shook my confidence in that …
Invisible Essence: The Little Prince (2018, Charles Officer)
My father read The Little Prince to me as a child, and maybe I read it myself a few times too. It’s been a very long time. But this whimsical and ambitious documentary does a fairly good job of showing me why it’s such a popular children’s book. I’m not sure it overcomes its nature …
At the Earth’s Core (1976, Kevin Connor)
This is one of those “hollow earth” films. And it stars the one and only Doug McClure, one of inspirations for Troy McClure. If you ever want to watch one of the great man’s performances, I guess you could do worse than this very stupid film about a land in the middle of the earth, …
The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t (1966, Rossano Brazzi)
There are movies that more competent than the worst made movies but somehow manage to be almost worst than the least well made films, in how dull they are, or how incompetent they are from a story perspective. This Christmas film was an absolute chore to sit through even with the MS3K jokes.
The Suicide Squad (2021, James Gunn)
Before I get to the film: the branding is super weird, right? With an article different from the title of the notorious disaster it is supposed to replace, it sure feels like we’re supposed to forget about the earlier movie now.
Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020, Cathy Yan)
I remember hearing about the good reviews. And I briefly thought that maybe here was a recent DC movie I wanted to watch. And then I promptly forgot about it until I got on a plane. Now, it’s possible that this film didn’t work for in part because it was the second film I watched …
Black Widow (2021, Cate Shortland)
Much like Captain Marvel, this is a necessary and needed corrective. And much more than Captain Marvel, we can legitimately wonder what took so damn long. Most of the other Avengers got their movies a long time ago. (The Hulk got his own movie, remember.) But being a necessary corrective to a patriarchal movie franchise …
Crimson Peak (2015, Guillermo del Toro)
This is a series of set pieces in search of something more. It’s kind of mystifying how uninteresting – and specifically how unscary – the whole thing is given some of the reviews. This one is a big shoulder shrug from me.
Woodstock (1970, Michael Wadleigh)
Note: I am reviewing the director’s cut, not the much shorter theatrical version. So, I’ve seen the majority of the musical performances in this film multiple times, and some of them many times. (Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner” in particular, but also the CSN performance and some others.) I’ve seen them because Woodstock used to be …
Tôkyô monogatari (1953, Yasujirô Ozu)
Some critics consider this simple drama to be the best movie ever made. I don’t really understand that, as I don’t really believe that there is a “Greatest Movie of All Time.” I know there are movies I’ve watched that have felt “near perfect” to me but I’m not sure too many of them would …
Ghoulies (1984, Luca Bercovici)
It’s been a long time since I’ve been this disappointed in a bad horror movie. It should be called Chokies or Undead Warlockies or something like that, not Ghoulies. The cover of this movie terrified me as a child in the video store and it turns out that the ghoulies barely do anything, they’re utterly …
Carnival Magic (1983, Al Adamson)
There are some terrible movies that are technically awful and might have actually been saved by some budget. And there are some terrible movies that are bad for story reasons, in addition to some other issues (the cast, the script…). This is one of the latter, presumably a product of the animal craze caused by …