Movie Diary
I've been kind of thinking about this movie a lot since I watched it, partly wondering if it's possible that I liked it as much I did or if there's some flaw or angle I haven't considered. Having never heard of Olivia Cooke before like a month ago, I kind of accidentally watched her in three different recent movies, so I guess she's a big deal or about to be. She was good in two bad movies (more about those later) and fantastic in Thoroughbreds, where she pulled off a very difficult character with a lot of restraint and deadpan humor, and was a perfect foil for another great performance by Anya Taylor-Joy. I try not to guess where the story will go in movies like this and it still managed to upend my expectations in a really interesting way. Anton Yelchin's role is relatively small but incredibly crucial to the movie working, it's so horribly sad that he died 2 weeks after filming wrapped. Really curious to see what writer/director Cory Finley does in the future.
b) Roma
I haven't seen Alfonso Cuaron's earlier, smaller scale Spanish language films, so I associate him mainly with his ambitious big budget movies. But I didn't expect Roma, an autobiographical black & white film about a Mexican family in the early '70s, to actually often be about as visually dazzling as Children of Men or Gravity. There are several really long tracking shots that are just breathtaking both to watch and to contemplate how they pulled them off, and Yalitza Aparicio really deserves all her accolades for giving an Oscar-worthy performance in her very first acting role, the movie really rests on her shoulders.
I enjoyed the first Ant-Man but couldn't help but wonder what could have been if Edgar Wright hadn't walked off during pre-production. The sequel, however, really feels like the whole cast and crew have found their rhythm and know exactly what they're doing with this story and their approach to it, I like the lighter side of Marvel movies and prefer Ant-Man to Guardians, they really found a great way to film one of the more scientifically intricate and far-fetched superhero movies while gently making fun of itself all along the way, there were so many moments were I laughed at loud or admired how they pulled off a scene.
I haven't seen Alfonso Cuaron's earlier, smaller scale Spanish language films, so I associate him mainly with his ambitious big budget movies. But I didn't expect Roma, an autobiographical black & white film about a Mexican family in the early '70s, to actually often be about as visually dazzling as Children of Men or Gravity. There are several really long tracking shots that are just breathtaking both to watch and to contemplate how they pulled them off, and Yalitza Aparicio really deserves all her accolades for giving an Oscar-worthy performance in her very first acting role, the movie really rests on her shoulders.
I enjoyed the first Ant-Man but couldn't help but wonder what could have been if Edgar Wright hadn't walked off during pre-production. The sequel, however, really feels like the whole cast and crew have found their rhythm and know exactly what they're doing with this story and their approach to it, I like the lighter side of Marvel movies and prefer Ant-Man to Guardians, they really found a great way to film one of the more scientifically intricate and far-fetched superhero movies while gently making fun of itself all along the way, there were so many moments were I laughed at loud or admired how they pulled off a scene.
d) Life Itself
I'm fascinated by movies that are positioned as serious, creative films from a capable, experienced cast and crew that turn out to be widely mocked catastrophes. I feel like they don't happen that often anymore, and when they do, it's really interesting to examine the how and why. The Book of David was probably the most famous one in recent years, and right now Serenity seems to be getting a similar reputation, but last year there was Life Itself, a passion project that Dan Fogelman made hot on the heels of creating the massive TV hit "This Is Us." That show as well as his Crazy, Stupid, Love bear Fogelman's signature mix of emotionally manipulative sentiment and overly clever storytelling trickery, but Life Itself manages to turn both up to 10 while stranding actors like Oscar Isaac and Olivia Cooke inside a strangely silly philosophical tragedy, which opens with a goofy meta comedy bit featuring a cameo by Samuel L. Jackson as himself.e) Ready Player One
Another bad movie where at least Olivia Cooke was charming in it. I think I'd heard so many negative things about it ahead of time, though, that I was kind of surprised that it was blandly pleasant in spots, but definitely a low point of Spielberg's filmography. It's funny to think that even when I was a little kid, me and my friends knew enough about different corporations with exclusive intellectual property that I was impressed that Who Framed Roger Rabbit had iconic cartoon characters from Disney, Warner Brothers, and other studios all in the same movie, which was something that Spielberg negotiated. And on that level, the number of different pop culture characters and objects that are in Ready Player One are kind of impressive just on a logistical level, but it ultimately felt like empty window dressing to me.
Like most people who have seen any Broken Lizard movies, Super Troopers was their first movie that I saw and by far my favorite, but I came to appreciate how they didn't try to repeat it very much in their other movies with similar stories or similar characters. So it kind of felt earned on some level for them to finally return to Super Troopers with a sequel 17 years later, and while it's hard for cult comedies to recapture what made the first movie memorable without outright repeating it, I thought they did a good job, I'd rank it over Zoolander 2 or Anchorman 2.
I thought basing a horror movie around a game of truth or dare had promise, but the supernatural aspect this movie introduces to heighten the stakes is just kind of stupid. The big problem I've always had with truth or dare is that it seems just way too obvious to me to pick truth every time, which at its worst can't be as risky as a dare would often be, and the movie kind of emphasizes that when the truths people are forced to say are, like, a gay guy coming out to his father. But eventually the movie has some poorly explained new rule so people still had to pick dare sometimes. I at least liked that the ending was good and dark.
h) Isle Of Dogs
I know it's a minority view that Wes Anderson started his career with 3 good movies and then fell into mostly worthless self-parody, but that's how I feel about him. The Fantastic Mr. Fox was a nice change of pace that at least forced him into a new visual world and had some charm to it, but Isle of Dogs repeating that approach just kind of put him in another overly familiar rut. A few of the actors, particularly Jeff Goldblum, had enough fun with the line readings, but a lot of the cast was doing that flat affect Wes Anderson thing that has become nails on chalkboard to me.
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