Despicable Me 4: visuals are fun. There’s a lot of borrowing from other animated kid action movies over the last couple decades, but it doesn’t add up to much of a story arc. If you go in just for the Minions, it delivers.

That was a fun watch, just enough fun to reset your brain. It's cool that it's based on a true story, sorta. Glen Powell seems to be popping up in a lot of stuff lately, who can blame him, what a nice Caucasian man...

Anatomy of a Fall. I was basically bored.

Was it saying that how we perceive things vs how they are as stated logical facts are very different things (and don't constitute reality)?
Or that court isn't about reality but about the story you tell?
Or was it trying to show the impact trial has on the participants?

Because other films or shows have already done that just fine. I guess the acting was good...

Get Shorty after much time. Travolta very good in this, and some clever dialogue from Elmore Leonard in high Tarantino mode. Nothing consequential, but a fun well paced romp in a lighter version of The Player. I'm still laughing about the running gag about the Oldsmobile Silhouette.

zorg wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2024 1:44 pm Get Shorty after much time. Travolta very good in this, and some clever dialogue from Elmore Leonard in high Tarantino mode. Nothing consequential, but a fun well paced romp in a lighter version of The Player. I'm still laughing about the running gag about the Oldsmobile Silhouette.

I remember seeing that when I was in high school. Only time I can remember getting chewed out b/c I was out past curfew. I didn't like it then, probably should watch it again sometime.

We went to see Kinds of Kindness yesterday. I thought this was the movie equivalent of a band releasing a B-sides/outtakes album. Well-shot material by a talented guy, but the stories play more as unrealized ideas cobbled together. Worse, it's hardly ever absurdly laugh-out-loud funny as The Lobster or The Favourite. My wife's review: "That was weird as fuck, I'm never seeing any movies by that guy ever again."

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt18162096/

Funny and oddly moving.

^ Cracking film. Got to see it followed by a Q&A with Ilinca Manolache. She was also great, very funny, blunt and disarming about how she has to grind away at her dayjob in the theatre (though she's grateful for the work) but is passionate about this sort of thing and not sure how to pursue it or make it her livelihood.

Was it here on the forum that somebody had recommended a 1971 Aussie movie called Wake In Fright?

A man in his late 20's finds a job as a teacher in a remote village in the outback, and a single drunken weekend spent with the locals is enough to shatter his life completely.
A movie that just stays with you, really gave me the chills.

gaetano dimita wrote: Wed Jul 24, 2024 7:55 pm Was it here on the forum that somebody had recommended a 1971 Aussie movie called Wake In Fright?

A man in his late 20's finds a job as a teacher in a remote village in the outback, and a single drunken weekend spent with the locals is enough to shatter his life completely.
A movie that just stays with you, really gave me the chills.

Don't recall it popping up here, but it's a fine film.

Wake in Fright was discussed here "back in the day," though maybe not in depth. One FM had a still from it as his avatar. It's a fantastic movie. Visionary even. Hard to believe it was directed by the same person who did Weekend at Bernie's and it just sort of languished for decades and could have been lost to time. Kotcheff also directed the first Rambo movie, which I've never seen. Wake in Fright is a great depiction of going down the rabbit hole, a bizarre cautionary tale, regardless of whether this was its makers' intention.

Watched Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World a few weeks back. Had started hearing about it not too long after its premier. Would give it a 3 out of 5 maybe. Manolache's performance is very good, and in some ways the film's heart seems to be in the right place, but I feel the same material could've been composed to be more emotionally resonant. A tighter edit maybe, but also more disciplined writing. There's a thematic through-line in the film, maybe several, but as a whole it comes off like a lot of anecdotal observations about our present predicament that are more slapped together than woven with sublime artistry. Even if this might have been the point--highlighting the disjointedness and enshitification of contemporary life/hustle culture--this could have been done with more aplomb. The overwhelmingly positive responses to the film bring to mind the buzz that surrounded Jia Zhangke's The World a couple of decades ago. I like some of Jia Zhangke's work but feel that this film in particular was praised in part because it was such an easy film to write about for critics and film studies types with a leftist/anti-capitalist bent. It offers up a lot of confirmation in this respect but as an experience is shy of great.

Anatomy of a Fall is well acted, has some curious moments, but I didn't really care for it. I think it was shot a bit too sloppily, as a whole, but also the same story could have been conveyed in like 2/3 of the TRT, probably less, without it capitulating to overly commercial values.

Hit Man has a star-making performance from Powell but has an uneasy/timid footing with its own "dark side." I haven't parsed it apart but it doesn't quite achieve the right balance between humorous and sinister, despite some entertaining moments and it being an easy-going sit.

Rented Bonello's The Beast several weeks ago, which has earned comparisons to Lynch and Black Mirror among other things. It's coming to the Criterion Channel. Was expecting it to be a bit more unnerving/scary. It's another film that has some good moments, can give a person a lot to think about, but is at times too scattershot for its own good. Léa Seydoux does a great job of being its glue amid some proceedings that are rather unpleasant.

Dunno . . . I watch fewer movies than usual now, only have the stomach for so much, but La Chimera is still one of the best newer things I've seen from an admittedly small sample size.