• Most new users don't bother reading our rules. Here's the one that is ignored almost immediately upon signup: DO NOT ASK FOR FANEDIT LINKS PUBLICLY. First, read the FAQ. Seriously. What you want is there. You can also send a message to the editor. If that doesn't work THEN post in the Trade & Request forum. Anywhere else and it will be deleted and an infraction will be issued.
  • If this is your first time here please read our FAQ and Rules pages. They have some useful information that will get us all off on the right foot, especially our Own the Source rule. If you do not understand any of these rules send a private message to one of our staff for further details.
  • Please read our Rules & Guidelines

    Read BEFORE posting Trades & Request

A few reviews

A triple bill of films that are held up by sensational lead actors...

American Fiction (2023)
This starts as a satire, then goes into a beautifully played family drama for the next 30-minutes, so I genuinely forgot I was in a satire 'til it snapped back into the b-plot. It's an odd mix, you allow a satire some leeway believability wise, to make it's points with attitude but the other half of the movie has none of that, it feels so real. At times it felt like Monk wasn't just calling his agent in L.A., he was calling up a different movie. The film thinks it's being bold and creative with a 4th wall break ending but it's a lazy cop-out, it would've been bolder, more impactful (and much harder to pull off creatively) to actually say something. I get the metatextual thing it's going for but it didn't quite stick the execution. With all that being said, the characters and the performances are utterly captivating and I enjoyed watching them so much, that I don't think I really care if it all worked or not. Since first being astounded by Jeffrey Wright in 'Angels in America' 20-years ago, it fees like he's spent a lot of time slumming it in various blockbuster franchises, so it was wonderful to spend 2-hours with the camera pointed at his face, showing us why he's one of the most subtle and brilliant actors ever.

90% of this trailer is made up from shots/scenes from the 10% of the movie that is a satirical comedy:



Perfect Days (2023)
An oddly absorbing watch, spent observing Hirayama, as he observes other people and nature. The film is slow, appropriately slow, like Hirayama’s daily routine and work ethic, it’s about savouring the details and not speaking unless it’s needed. However, I found the ending disappointing, we don’t get any answers or insight into why Hirayama is the way he is. Some of his behaviours and obsessions suggest reasons, so I was looking forward to finding out if I was right or wrong. ‘Perfect Days’ is like an inverse ‘Ikuru’, where we see all of the part where a quiet man has decided to live life to the fullest (which Akira Kurosawa omitted) but none of the footage of why.



How to Have Sex (2023)
Mia McKenna-Bruce's lead performance is phenomenal, but it's almost too good for the film surrounding it. She's playing a teenager who gets raped on holiday and that trauma is written all over McKenna-Bruce's face, so it feels odd that her friends don't really enquire about the dramatic change in her demeanour until the final minutes. That trauma gets barely dealt with in a too-short but powerful scene at one of those airport perfume shops, then a bit of uplifting music and an unearned (what sounds like an off-screen ADR addition) reading of "We got this", and then roll credits. I have a personal hatred of any scripts using "We got this / I got this / You got this" because it always sound to me like the writer couldn't be bothered to think of anything less generic... and that's just when the line is used at all, here it's the finale summing up a troubling subject matter.

 
Last edited:
Past Lives (2023)
A beautifully acted, and sensitively and maturely written film, that looks gorgeous too. But in seeking to deal with it's characters with inquisitive nuance and realism, perhaps there isn't enough good old fashioned drama to fully justify 106-minutes. Then again, for a film about a powerful love triangle, it's kinda impressive that Director/Writer Celine Song doesn't resort to a single raised voice any where. I don't recall seeing Teo Yoo in anything before but he's so great, assured, yet vulnerable. The scene in bed where John Magaro's Arthur discusses his feelings is one of the best written all year.

 
TM2YC said:
I have a personal hatred of any scripts using "We got this / I got this / You got this"
Click to expand...
Hell to the Yes. I especially hate when writers put this in the mouths of characters on other planets, civilizations, with other languages, or in a time before 2000. No, not everyone talks like Gen Z!
 
Scrapper (2023)
The runtime is short, the setting is limited and the plotting is pretty slim, 'cheeky young girl and her absent father get to know each other', but the emotions explored and the writing of the characters is where it has real depth. I'm not sure the few fantasy elements added much to the film, the tender drama and charming comedy were enough for me.

 
Robot Dreams (2023)
Mostly charming and delightful but there is only enough plot for about 30-minutes, the other 72-minutes is taken up with increasingly tiresome diversions. The attention to the little details of 1980s New York city life are engrossing.



Bobi Wine: The People's President (2023)
Like the recently deceased Alexei Navalny in Russia, Uganda's Bobi Wine has the same extraordinary courage to stand up to a dictator. His ordeal follows the same play-book of violent repression, silencing of decent, poisoning, fabricated criminal charges and spells in prison. As with Navalny, when there is virtually no possibility of victory in such a rigged game, it's impressive that some people will choose to fight anyway.



The Eternal Memory (2023)
This documentary does try to convey who these two famous-in-Chile people were, before the Alzheimer's decline this film describes, but I imagine it's going to have way more impact if you've actually heard of them before.

 
Barbie (2023)
If you're a film fan the very first shot, featuring an empty landscape, in 'Barbie' will have you giggling before it cuts to any people and you'll know this is going to be a fun time. There are many great lines of dialogue but my favourite was "It's like I've been in a dream, where I was really invested in the Zack Snyder cut of 'Justice League'". The basic setup reminded me a tiny bit of Disney's 2007 film 'Enchanted', which had the stereotypical "Disney Princess" (instead of "Stereotypical Barbie") meeting the real world and confronting what it is that she lacks in her fantasy world and what it is about herself that is fantastic. Things occasionally got a bit chaotic for me, I would've preferred if the real world had been realer (and not feature rollerblading whacky Will Ferrell) and some of the logic details triggered the obsessive parts of brain, like... the coffee isn't real but the waffles are? The visuals are a dazzling display of Wes Anderson-style tangible artificiality, that make me want to see a making-of about every aspect of how Greta Gerwig and her team did this. Far, far more thought provoking and intelligent than a Mattel toy movie needed to be... not that I don't love 1987's 'Masters of the Universe' too! The final line is genius. Obvious note to Hollywood, let talented film-makers who actually love the IP you own, make their movie, their way, instead of doing it by committee, you never know, it just might just be the biggest film of the year.



Dream Scenario (2023)
Definitely one of the now tri-annual high-class films where Nicolas Cage proves he's one of greatest actors ever, before going back to making 7-8 other random movies that don't do that. The magical-realist premise allows for some fascinating explorations on the themes of 15-minutes of fame and viral social media craziness. I was completely glued to the first two acts where see the increasingly dreadful emotional consequences of what is happening on Cage's face, but the last act was a disappointing mess of ideas, which appeared out of nowhere, and felt significantly more dumb than the subtlety that proceeded it. I really appreciated the choice to never trick the viewer with what is a dream and what is reality, so we can ponder the meaning and impact the events have across the two separate plains of consciousness (which any tricks would've negated).

 
Last edited:
I think I mentioned that very same ZSJL line as my favorite part of the movie when I reviewed it here. 🤣

Edit: found it!
 
Suzume (2022)
Absolutely dreamy animation as per from Makoto Shinkai, although there was an overuse of 3D environments for my Luddite 2D Anime tastes (a little 3D creativity is absolutely fine though). There was a point halfway through that felt like the big climactic finale (and could have been) but the story continues, and although it went to some lovely places, I felt it lacked momentum. I guess I was expecting this to be about sacrificing some things you love, for the good of others but in the end (bar some life lessons) the status quo has been completely restored. Conveying such a range of emotions through a simple broken wooden chair was animating genius... even his slight embarrassment at being sat upon.


Yay, another Radwimps tie-in movie theme song:


Not quite as epic as 'Weathering With You's 'Is There Still Anything That Love Can Do?' but it might grow on me, if I listen to it a hundreds times as well.

 
Air (2023)
Having only enough scant interest and knowledge in the subject matter to know that this is about some sort of shoe and a dude who bounced a ball for a living, I almost gave this a pass. Luckily 'Air' is a thoroughly entertaining corporate pop-thriller, which due to the highly charismatic lead presence of Matt Damon, makes this feel like a tonal/thematic sequel to the excellent 'Ford v Ferrari', except instead of Ford, it's Nike and instead of Ferrari it's Converse & Adidas. I don't know how the film worked the angle of including Adidas' branding and executives on screen but also repeatedly making comedic mention of their Nazi history. Jason Bateman's deadpan comedy timing is never in doubt but since when was he this great of a serious actor? The understated emotion of the scene where he is talking about having visitation rights with his daughter is the centre of the movie. It's a part of why a film like this works, even if you don't give a toss about the real life product/car/shoe/sports-star/MacGuffin, if the film is crafted well (by Director Ben Affleck), you just need to understand why it matters to the characters so deeply. All the pounding 80s music, the cheesy 80s pop culture ephemera and Affleck gamely dressing himself up like an embarrassing parody of the 80s, is just icing on the cake of a satisfying movie.

 
TM2YC said:
Jason Bateman's deadpan comedy timing is never in doubt but since when was he this great of a serious actor?
Click to expand...
OZARK is not a series which left me satisfied, but Bateman is almost deadly serious throughout, and he is very, very good. (He produces, writes, and directs many episodes to boot!)
 
Wish (2023)
Another one of those weird attempts to blow $200m failing to make a 3D-CG animated film look like a cheaper $100m 2D animated film. The choice to make everything a bland and limited pastel colour is odd, as is the heavy layer of grain/texture over everything. Still, the characters are fairly likeable and it's got a couple of toe-tapping tunes, including one called 'I'm a Star' (as in "star stuff").

 
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
It all looks joyful and colourful, as a children's video game should and has all the right components plugged in, but it often feels like they made a spreadsheet of plot beats and character arcs, then forgot to write an actual full script on top. Characters meet, deliver three lines of exposition, then are friends for life. The little cute blue star begging for the sweet release of death was my favourite part.



Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023)
I can't say I've ever deliberately listened to a Taylor Swift song but this has made such a cultural impact, I thought I'd see what the fuss was about. Across nearly 3-hours she performs 41-songs but I only recognised 6 of them. I like a 3-hour live concert extravaganza, 'Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium' was one of my top-3 films of last year, so this compares unfavourably with that. Swift walking up and down a platform, going up on an elevator, going down on an elevator, then for variety going halfway back up an elevator, and singing in a way that might as well be mimed, with no visible live musicians (except one bit to prove she does have four ageing rockers with instruments somewhere backstage)... does not compare with 75-year old Elton and his amazing band rocking out like their lives depended on it. The final moment summed up Swift's performance, when after taking a bow with her dancers, she kinda goes "hang on guys, I just need to take a spontaneous moment to walk back on the stage because I'm suddenly overcome by the emotion I feel for this unique crowd of 70,000 individuals"... coincidentally hitting her pre-arranged stage mark for the elevator. Some of the lyrics are a bit lacking but the line that went "Forcing laughter, faking smiles... walls of insincerity, shifting eyes and vacancy" worked for me.

 
Getting It Back: The Story Of Cymande (2023)
This year's answer to 'Searching for Sugar Man' or 'Anvil! The Story of Anvil', in which a forgotten band's sensational music amply demonstrates why it has never been really forgotten and why it's more celebrated today than it's ever been. It would be hard to believe that anybody could've not heard Cymande's music somewhere, due to the many songs which have sampled them but like me, you might not have given their oeuvre a proper listen. The film is full of their music and had me reaching for their albums as soon as the credits roll. It sounds like it was recorded yesterday, rather in the early 70s. Mission accomplished documentary!


God damn this is an amazing track...

 
The Krays (1990)
The violence of this gangster film really stuck in the memory of younger me when I first watched it, not because there’s a lot of it, it’s just really visceral when it does happen. It's often lingering on the victim pleading for what is being threatened not to happen. Even the moments when characters are just talking about violence they've witnessed is horrifyingly vivid. Both the Kemp brothers are very scary but some of the supporting cast are lacking. Steven Berkoff's angry, shouting overacting looks particularly naff when you know he’s standing next to real life gangsters, who just look quietly dangerous. I like the way the film concentrates more on creating a malevolent, dream-like atmosphere, and on period details, rather than on simple plot progression. The bonus features on the Second Sight blu-ray are fascinating, especially the bits about how Director Peter Medak actually knew the Kray twins, after they rolled up on the set of one of his early film jobs to ask why they hadn’t got their permission to film (a police permit was deemed insufficient).



Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
This might’ve been the first time I've ever seen Raiders on the big screen and with three generations who all enjoyed it. What a thrill ride. The increased size and resolution revealed new details. Since watching this on fuzzy VHS I've always thought the scene where Indy and Sullah go to the old translation guy was in the cellar stockroom of his antiques shop (or something like that) due to the arched ceilings. After hundreds of viewings I just noticed that behind the smoky interior is a painted backdrop window showing they are actually in a room overlooking the city. There is something magical about the MacGuffin exposition scenes in Raiders, where I can be so glued to every word of the actors that I can not even notice obvious things like that window. I've also just noticed that Eddie Tagoe, the actor playing Cpt. Katanga's 1st mate, appears in 1984's WW2 spy spoof 'Top Secret!' as "Chocolate Mousse" in a similar costume, from the same time period. I'm going to believe they are the same character from now on! Not the first time I've seen it but there is a blatant gaff early on (probably caused by a reshoot) during the lecture hall scene, as the guy who leaves the apple and the girl who makes eyes at Indy occupy the same seat somehow.

FyN2LQraUAEUCRc.jpg


 
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
The thing I really liked about the Tom Holland Spider-Man films was the young cast being realistic(ish) school kids and having to deal with the superhero stuff at the same time. The fact that the film-makers completely ditch that core concept in this entirely outlandish multiverse-based third film, yet it still works for me, says a lot about how much fun it is. It's impressive how many old spidey actors they were able to rope into this thing, more impressive that it doesn't just feel like empty fan-service and most impressive that many of them are giving genuinely great performances. Unlike in other recent multiverse films where actors look like they are standing on an empty green screen stage, bored and waiting for their pay cheque. Alfred Molina and especially Willem Dafoe look like they are going for the Oscar. Only Jamie Foxx lets the side down slightly by not bothering to get made up, or acting nerdy, like he did in TASM2. It's not got much competition but this is one of Marvel's best films in years.

 
TM2YC said:
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
It's not got much competition but this is one of Marvel's best films in years.
Click to expand...

Thoroughly enjoyed this movie. But I also feel like this the tipping point where Marvel Studios began to shift from Earnest Reality to Sitcom Universe.

And I pinpoint it to the moment where Peter, MJ and Ned began making fun of Otto Octavius's name. I was like "uh oh! Have the producers forgotten this is a Comic Book Reality and crazy character alliteration names are not only normal but the bedrock of the Marvelverse?"

It is like at this point Feige lost faith either in the source material or the audience, and began to mandate more and more idiotic comedy into the later phase films.

If the creators no longer care to treat their source material, universe or characters seriously, then why should the audience care?
 
Last edited:
Just saw Dune Part 1. What a boring movie. It’s basically Lawrence of Arabia in Space. The movie started off pretty decent but slowly descended into mindless filler. I'd be a lot more forgiving of it if it had mercifully ended after the bunker escape but then it just kept going and I checked out. Nothing meaningful happened after that point anyway. This movie did not need to be as long as it was and even if it wasn't I didn't care about any of the characters and loads of the dialog was virtually inaudible, which doesn't help when the movie has so many words to teach you. Can't say I have any plans to see Part 2, but never say never.
 
bionicbob said:
If the creators no longer care to treat their source material, universe or characters seriously, then why should the audience care?
Click to expand...
This was my fundamental and major issue with Thor: Ragnarok. I know I'm in the minority here, but I actually really appreciated the adaptation of the Thor comics created in the first, and yes, second Thor films. I know Thor has never been as accessible to a general audience as Spidey or Batman or someone, but for those of us who like the Norse mythology and have favorite Thor comics, those first two films did so much right.

Then the third film garnered mass popularity by saying "look how ridiculous all those things are! I mean, this is all so silly, right?!" Continuity thrown aside, names and character traits mocked, personalities and character qualities completely changed, and the whole thing made into essentially a different universe. Mocking that world has always been Deadpool's thing, and there's a space for that, but when you try to ride those coattails and just make all your heroes self-aware joke machines, then you're blowing up the house for an insurance payout. Sure, you got your money, but now you've got no place left to live in.
 
mnkykungfu said:
This was my fundamental and major issue with Thor: Ragnarok. I know I'm in the minority here, but I actually really appreciated the adaptation of the Thor comics created in the first, and yes, second Thor films. I know Thor has never been as accessible to a general audience as Spidey or Batman or someone, but for those of us who like the Norse mythology and have favorite Thor comics, those first two films did so much right.
Click to expand...
Completely agree.

Ragnarok and Love & Thunder are awful imo. No, wait. Ranarok is awful. Love & Thunder is garbage.
After such deliberate craftsmanship, I just do not understand how Feige thought this was the right direction to go in?
 
Last edited:
^I wrote a huge long post on Quora once after researching that. The short version is that essentially the timeline goes:
    1. For many years, Thor was the only MCU film to have a B Cinemascore.
    2. The Dark World actually moved up (from Thor's B+ to an A-) but did even worse on pure critical sites.
    3. TDW also had a famously troubled post-production, with Marvel parting ways with the director after.
    4. Chris Hemsworth, as seen in his many fitness apps and streaming shows, is a highly competitive guy. Few people were clamoring for another Thor movie after the 2nd one, but they did want more Iron Man, more Cap, a Black Widow movie, a Hulk movie, a LOKI movie! Loki had come out of The Dark World a star, and was in talks to be the first ever villain to have his own Marvel movie.
    5. Hemsie's contract was up after the 2 already-planned Avengers movies. To get him to do a third Thor film, they had to sign him to a new contract. He talked with Feige and said he wanted a radical change for Thor. He was bored of the character. He had just done Ghostbusters and everyone loved his comedy bits. He wanted to do more of that. He wanted to get the laugh lines in his own movie (not Loki.) Also, he'd just met this Kiwi director when he was doing press back home in Australia. He thinks he'd be perfect for the movie.
    6. Kevin Feige agrees to hire Waititi and let him and Hemsie develop the script basically carte blanche. They're signed for just one film provisionally, to fill the gap between The Dark World and Infinity War. They have no script meeting with the writers of Infinity War, no coordination other than that Chris Yost flew over to the Avengers set one day to see what the writers there were doing, because they were halfway through making Ragnarok and the script was half improv, being changed every day, and Yost had no idea if the thing was going to match up with Avengers or not.
    7. There's a brief break after Ragnarok is done filming, and then Hemsie goes right onto the set of IW. The Russos had no idea that he had lost an eye and were still figuring out exactly what to do about him having lost his hammer. (They at that point were planning for that storyline to be much more involved and more screen time.)
    8. Hemsie was not too happy with the IW script and wanted to improv more lines and have more comedy for Thor, like on the set he just finished. He was allowed to do that a bit on a couple days with the GotG, but mostly the Russos were on a tight schedule to get to the Endgame scenes. To accommodate funny Hemsie, they came up with the idea of Fat Lebowski Thor, which was not in the original Endgame script. The amount of comedy for Hemsie got expanded as Endgame was shooting because Ragnarok debuted and turned out to be a big hit.
    9. After Ragnarok, both Waititi and Hemsie were open to coming back for more MCU. They signed on for another single film, L+T. When it flopped, both have since said "never say never" but again, the direction for another film would have to be very different, a "great idea" to bring them back on board the MCU. It's funny how some actors like RDJ or Chris Evans will keep stumping for their films that didn't find success but that they think are good. Then you have other actors who's opinions and career choices seem to be purely about chasing recognition...
    [*]
Essentially, as near as I can tell, Marvel itself at the time of Ragnarok was still chasing critical clout. Contrary to popular internet rumors, the first 2 Thor movies were not failures, they got strong reviews and made a lot of money. They just weren't the huge successes that Marvel was hoping for. Everyone seems to have been pretty won over by Hemsworth too, and convinced that he'd be the next big thing. And he's basically been a big promoter of every Thor appearance while he's making it, and then talks a lot of negativity as soon the dust has faded. "I didn't have a lot to do in that one (Avengers)... The script was just this mass of language, this silly stuff that nobody understands (Thor)... I'd gotten quite bored with it, really, as I think everyone had (Thor II)... I didn't understand what I was doing, and it was pretty hard without a clear idea (AoU)... We had a lot of fun while we were making it, too much probably, and I just trusted people that it was going to be good, and I really shouldn't have (L+T)." Basically, nothing is his fault, and he'll throw everyone on the bus if the film isn't a runaway success. Ragnarok is the only one I haven't heard him say much negative about, and it's basically the one that he seems to have had the most creative control on (uncredited of course).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom