Movie Diary
As far as Charlie Kaufman goes, I prefer the movies that embrace the inherent silliness of his premises (Malkovich, Adaptation, Dangerous Mind) over the ones that use the high concept tomfoolery to wallow in soggy sentimentality that more straightforward writers wouldn't be able to get away with (Synecdoche, Eternal Sunshine). So I'm not really an ideal audience for I'm Thinking Of Ending Things, but I was still kind of surprised by how much it wasted the best efforts of Jessie Buckley, Jesse Plemons, and Toni Collette, how far up his own ass Kaufman went this time, and how in the end it was just a less imaginative Jacob's Ladder. The 40 minutes where you're just watching 2 people on a long car ride through snow falling over a windshield are probably the best parts of the movie, and they still contained some interminable attempts at zeitgeisty arguments about "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and David Foster Wallace.
I really think Quentin Tarantino falling down this rabbit hole of prestige exploitation movies where charismatic fictional characters kill historical villains (Hitler, slave owners, the Manson Family) is suffering from diminishing returns. Inglourious Basterds is my favorie thing he's done since Jackie Brown, but I really hope his next movie isn't, like, Brad and Leo kicking John Wayne Gacy's ass. I will forgive a lot for filmmakers with a great ear for dialogue, so I enjoyed a lot of Once Upon A Time's tangents, especially DiCaprio's scenes with Julia Butters. But I feel like this movie would've been so much better without the real life Tate/Manson events crammed into it, which just made the big finale at the pool feel totally asinine.
This was pulled off pretty well, but I think I would've enjoyed more if I hadn't seen the animated "Harley Quinn" series first, which is just so much funnier and more well written. The long stretch in the second half that was just Margot Robbie, Jurnee Smollett, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead is silly comic book getups beating up hundreds of guys was pretty great.
This seemed on the surface to be an incredibly unappealing movie, but the good reviews and Seth Rogen's track record made me want to give it a chance. But shit, I think this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen? It had the potential to maybe be about something or just be a silly high concept comedy, but instead it turned into a movie about social media that posited that even if someone awoke from 100 years of suspended animation and everyone knew they were born in the 1800s, it would be the world's biggest scandal if they tweeted something racist. Also, Seth Rogen's accent was terrible and the movie totally underused Sarah Snook.
e) Buffaloed
Zoey Deutch is really becoming one of my favorite comic actresses, and she really gets to go over-the-top in Buffaloed, it's a middling movie that's carried by the sheer force of her performance. It's kind of a smart satire about the cruelty of debt and debt collection, but it's not afraid to go broad and cartoony. I thought the depiction of Buffalo, New York as a place where people just eat buffalo wings constantly, even a judge in the middle of a trial, was pretty corny eye-rolling, though.
f) Fearless
My son enjoyed this Netflix animated movie, and I was endless amused that the Buzz Lightyear-style outer space superhero character was voiced by Jadakiss.
g) Brightburn
At this point we've gotten a good number of shows and movies exploring the dark side of people or especially kids having superhuman powers, but Brightburn is just kind of unremmittingly bleak, as gorey as "The Boys" without any levity or character-driven moments, or even a halfway compelling villain arc like the somewhat similar Chronicle had.
The first Jumanji reboot movie was unexpectedly entertaining, and the sequel did a decent job of putting some new twists on the premise, but it was very much a sequel by numbers, not really worth seeing.
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