• 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

A few reviews

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
The dull prologue bored me so much that I could barely concentrate on a word of the exposition-heavy nonsense. Then we meet the titular Shang-Chi and his best mate Katy singing drunken karaoke and I started laughing along with them, then there is a sudden very well choreographed Jackie Chan-esque bus fight. So the movie had me 100% back on board but unfortunately it continues to switch between following this likeable duo and boring exposition scenes to explain the needlessly complicated plot and further flashbacks to more of the prologue. I almost suspect if it was edited together chronologically, the prologue would be half the runtime, which would have been better spent on developing the secondary characters. Therefore my enthusiasm was slowly worn down by the time we got to the inevitable CGI-fest final battle which I was supposed to care about. This is another Marvel movie like Thor 2 that has a great mid-credits scene that should probably have been the ending and at least 10-minutes of deleted character scenes that could have been more useful than 10-minutes of energy blasts exploding all over the screen. Whoever did the brilliant fight choreography needs to be given carte blanche on the sequel (I think the best bits were Hong Kong pro Andy Cheng?), not the FX team because there was too much of that and it was weak.

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
The Rescue (2021)
This documentary on the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue of a Thai junior football team is an absolute nerve shredder... and that's when you already know the outcome! All the people who contributed to the rescue team are acknowledged but the film focuses most on British cave-divers John Volanthen and Richard Stanton (as well as Australian anaesthetist/diver Richard Harris). They look like two 50-60 year old nerdy enthusiasts, with admittedly limited interpersonal skills (they enjoy spending hours alone underwater in deep dark caves for a hobby after all) and zero "political antennae", who are dropped in the middle of a global political, military and media storm. The conflicts between the different groups on how to go about the rescue adds so much drama, as if the rescue itself wasn't dramatic enough.

 

ArtisDead

Banned
Messages
3,590
Reaction score
3,519
Trophy Points
143
Another fanedit that deserves your attention

Godzilla King of The Monsters The Dramatic Cut INIGHTMARES



The so-called Monsterverse is a confusing concept for me. Who's in it? Godzilla? King Kong? Their respective nemeses? Lost somewhere between being heroes or villains, superhero or horror they don't seem to belong in any sub-genre.

To begin with...what an awesome trailer and an even more awesome teaser! That teaser made my skin crawl.

If you had
One chance
Or one opportunity
To create an edit that was everything you ever wanted
Out of a movie that you wanted to love but just couldnt
One chance
Or one opportunity to create a perfect edit
Would you do it?

@INIGHTMARES did.

When I first learned about INightmares' Godzilla King of The Monsters edit, I was very interested. I felt that they had an impressive goal. Cut out all of the cheesy unnecessary jokes and make the edit dramatic, as it should have been.

I previewed the edit and was rocked by the opening sequence. The edit was an almost completely different animal than the movie. It was dark and ominous. That jump scene was a genius idea. I made several suggestions that would further their goal. They were very responsive to ALL input.

Everything looked very hopeful and was on a positive track and then real life happened and it looked like the edit would not get completed. Very depressing, that.

A few weeks later INightmares informed us that they would resume their efforts to bring this deliciously wicked beast to fruition. A few of us got involved in previewing. That turned into @Wraith and I reviewing the edit for approval. We both realized INightmare's vision. It is amazing that they didn't lose their cool with us. We put them through the grinder. In some ways, we may have crossed the line. Change this. Add that. Do this to the title card. Use this music. Create a trailer, etc.

INightmares took it all in stride with the patience of Job. They took our ideas and came up with even better ideas of their own. The entire experience was very kinetic and rewarding. The result is above and beyond what any of us expected it could be. I'm not sure that INightmares even realizes the classic monsterverse masterpiece that they have created.

It's a nonstop thrill ride. Literally unrelenting action with huge beasts fighting and killing each other with puny humans trying to manipulate outcomes.

By rearranging and cutting a few scenes, Emma becomes an eco-terrorist villain. We don't like her. Even when she martyrs herself to save Godzilla, we want to blame her for the whole debacle. In this edit, she truly becomes the real monster and I loved that!

King Ghidora may be the coolest CGI creature ever created. The final showdown between Godzilla and King Ghidora is one to rival any gunfight in the old west. Godzilla breathed atomic breath through his disembodied head right after totally kicking his ass. That's unreal! and made far more dramatic in this edit.

When all else is stripped away, it becomes apparent that the original movie's pulpit point is that humans are an infection that has disrupted the natural cycles of the planet. This sets up a complex angle about figuring out how we reconcile the Titans with our own need for expansion and consumption. That's why this edit is so important. It's an allegorical statement for the state of destruction of the earth that we have created and the necessary cleansing that needs to eventually take place. All of the unnecessary garbage has been stripped away to drive that point home. And does it ever.

I was rocked. Few edits have that effect on me.

This is edit is the movie that should have been released. I concur with @Wraith , it is one of the best fanedits to be released and is a gamechanger in its scope. I for one completely feel honored to have been a small part of this edit coming to life.

I also concur with @Stromboli Bones when they said that they chose to remember this edit as the movie that they saw in the theatre.

Thanks for giving us that!

Highly recommended!
 
Last edited:

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
Encanto (2021)
The vibrant colours, beautiful animation and super catchy, celebratory songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda are the reason to watch this latest Disney animation. However, the "learning to love you for you and appreciate others" thing that is the backbone of every one of these movies is getting stale and it's not helped by some half-baked plotting and underdeveloped moral underpinning. The way the Madrigal family are positioned visually higher than the rest of the village, in a large mansion-like house, came across as them being like the "lords of the manor" surrounded by adoring, grateful, passive peasants, content to be ruled over by their feudal masters, dutifully delivering their "tithe" like offerings (It's basically "Downton Casita")... something that is definitely not intended by the film. A giant plot-hole is quickly acknowledged in a single line, in one of the later songs, in the hope that you'll be enjoying yourself so much you won't care. On the other hand, I was delighted that it totally swerved the "get cast out, go on an adventure, find an irritating wisecracking comedy sidekick (voiced by somebody off SNL), find love and return to save the day" cliche. Am I the only one that could see a Greek Myth influence? Heracles, Cassandra, Atlas etc (the latter is explicitly referenced in a fantasy sequence). 'Encanto' is a bright, fun 90-minutes but not polished enough to be a true Disney classic.

By the way, with 'Encanto' and 'Raya and the Last Dragon', Disney sadly moves into it's 2nd decade without a new original hand-drawn 2D animated film :( .




The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)
The stark black and white 4:3 compositions, redolent of German Expressionism and Ingmar Bergman films are gorgeous to look at. Every frame a painting. The look shares some DNA with Orson Welles' 1948 'Macbeth'. Many of Joel Coen's interpretations of Shakespeare's ideas are incredibly creative and unusual. Kathryn Hunter's croaky voiced, body-contortion version of the witches is unforgettable and Coen's visualisation of the "Is this a dagger which I see before me?" scene is perhaps the best ever put on film. I wasn't expecting the fight choreography to be a highlight of this minimal art film but it was so clever the way Denzel Washington's Macbeth fights Siward, with all the lazy swagger of somebody who thinks they truly lead a "charmed life". I just didn't fully connect with the emotions, or several of the mannered performances and therefore the text, in the way I have with other films, TV versions and stage productions of the play.

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
Mild spoilers warning because it's difficult to talk about it without any spoilers...

The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
From the teasers I'd hoped 'Resurrections' would be this batsh*t meta but I didn't really believe they'd do it. I chortled at the Warner Bros. executives being portrayed as uncreative hacks, in a WB film. The only punch Lana Wachowski pulled in that respect was having the in-universe characters remember the whole Matrix trilogy as being "groundbreaking", instead of being really brave and having them (accurately) think 'Reloaded' and 'Revolutions' were awful. 'Resurrections' is by far and away the best Matrix sequel... but that ain't saying much. It's got exciting ideas, they might not always be good ones but they actively engage you in considering them. The last two sequels quoted a lot of philosophy and stuffed the script full of long words but gave you nothing to actually tease your brain. 'Resurrections' gets everything right that the other two got wrong but sadly the inverse is also true.

The cinematography looks poor, cheap and not consistent with the other films which were all lensed by Bill Pope. The action is often badly shot and edited, scenes like the train carriage fight border on incomprehensible. It's difficult to tell friend from foe, or understand the geography of a situation. The occasional "bullet time" moments ironically serve to slow this action down enough for it actually feel fast and exciting. The CGI isn't terrible but it looks weak next to the 23-year old practical FX of the first movie. The recasting of the actors that didn't return is brilliantly done, I totally excepted Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Morpheus and Jonathan Groff as Smith. I loved new character "Bugs", she looks so cool and gets a few action moments that recapture the outrageous style of the original film. Jada Pinkett Smith's Niobe takes up the mantel of several boring Zion bureaucrat characters from the other sequels but thankfully neither her, or Zion itself, are around long enough to fully arrest the momentum. Despite many flaws I'd happily re-watch 'Resurrections'... I don't plan on ever slogging through the other two sequels again.

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)
It was a nice twist that this Disney animation wasn't about an uncertain young protagonist learning to be a hero and finding a mighty dragon (as I'd assumed) but about an already proficient Indiana Jones-type young hero bringing together an uncertain dragon and band of assorted comrades. It's set in an ancient "sword & sorcery" South Asian sub-continent and while it features lush authentic cultural art direction and a cast of voice actors of Asian decent, this comes across as a veneer since the cast all talking in aggressive Californian "valley speak". The script is full of "I got this!/You got this!/We got this!", "sureeoooslay?!" and anachronistic 21st century terms like "note to self". So I switched to the excellent Thai language option early on (which is available on Disney+), this mitigated a lot of that disconnect between the setting and the voice cast (high praise to the charismatic Thai voice actors). Other appropriate languages like Malay and Indonesian are also selectable. James Newton Howard's main theme is joyous and the sword fights are fantastically choreographed. It might just be me but I was very distracted by Raya riding a large spherical creature in a way that defied the laws of physics. I know this is a kids animation with magic dragons but you have to have some rules!




The Harder They Fall (2021)
An above average new Western from first-time British Director Jeymes Samuel, who also impressively acts as writer, producer and soundtrack composer. The CGI blood looks poor when they are trying to go for those fountains of goopy splatter like Quentin Tarantino had in 'Django Unchained'. The music has a classic Ennio Morricone flavour. I thought there were too many characters fitted into 2-hours to allow you to really appreciate their backstories, or care about any of them enough by the time they all meet for the big gunfire showdown. It's like the "Magnificent Fourteen".


^ Fab trailer by the way.
 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
The Tender Bar (2021)
This might not be remembered as one of the greats but George Clooney’s classic Directorial style crafts the kind of absorbing, thoughtful and heart-warming coming of age drama where you go “Oh.., is it the credits already?”. It’s about a budding young writer being raised by dysfunctional but admirable male role models, in the absence of his dead-beat dad. Ben Affleck as the uncle is really wonderful, he’s possibly never been better. There’s an interesting, subtle meta-memoir thing going on, where it’s aware of its genre tropes and where to avoid them. I hated the “it’s the past so everything is brown and green” grade but it didn’t spoil the movie. We’ll worth your time if you have Amazon Prime.

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
Don't Look Up (2021)
I think 'Don't Look Up' is aspiring to reach the level of political satire achieved by Armando Iannucci (e.g. 'In the Loop' and 'The Death of Stalin') but it falls somewhere short in it's logical execution and it's basic premise. For example, early on we are expected to believe that the only forum for two Astronomers to disseminate information to the public is via a dumb US morning talk show and we are expected to believe they just accept that too. Rather than them informing thousands of scientific colleagues around the world and inviting them to independently verify their observations and independently contact their own governments and national media organisations. Okay it's a silly comedy but you need to at least pay lip service to logic so the viewer is laughing, rather than scratching their heads in confusion. The other big problem is that I don't think an impending massive asteroid is a very helpful metaphor for climate change (as intended). A huge planet killing asteroid that will hit in just 6-months and is presumably observable to everyone through basic retail telescopes (something that is never brought up in the movie), just isn't psychologically the same proposition as something that will slowly kill us across decades and centuries. So the characters are required to act really stupid to maintain the assumption that they are similar. It's like how a pensioner being shown an x-ray of their growing lung-cancer, just isn't the same level of existential threat as a teenager being advised not to start smoking, even if they have the same outcome.

However, if you don't think too critically, 'Don't Look Up' is fairly fun romp with some effective barbs aimed at our social media age, with a Douglas Adams-esque mid-credits sequence, Ron Perlman hilariously shouting "You've never take me alive!" at the sky and four fantastic performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Mark Rylance and Jonah Hill. Rylance captures every tech-giant megalomanic weirdo and you'll be in no doub't about which coked-up "son of the President" Hill is skewering. Lawrence should've got a Best Supporting Actress nomination, she so believably explores all the roller-coaster emotions you might feel when faced with oblivion. It's a performance that deserves a better, more intelligent film around it. The dinner scene at the end actually had me a bit emotional too.


By the way, there is a quote at the start of 'Don't Look Up' that reads "I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming in terror like his passengers." which is attributed on screen to the late British comedian Bob Monkhouse, except I've seen the quote on the US stream attributed to Jack Handey. So is this a correction, or are Netflix attributing it to different people based on the region you watch it in? Weird.



Luca (2021)
If you thought Studio Ghibli's latest 'Earwig and the Witch' looked awful, then this Disney movie might come as a relief, capturing the Ghibli magic but translating it's look and feel to 3D computer animation in a way that feels completely natural (with a touch of the Aardman style too). 'Luca' reminded me most of 'Ponyo' and 'From Up on Poppy Hill' but set in an Italian town like the one in Federico Fellini's 'Amarcord', or 'Il Postino'. Despite being a Hollywood film, it's very authentically Italian (Director and co-writer Enrico Casarosa was born in Genoa) so I went for the Italian audio, which fits it like a glove. The relationships between all the characters are beautifully written. I loved Giulia's charming habit of exclaiming "Santo Pecorino!" (or other Italian cheeses). Definitely my favourite Disney animation this year and until Hayao Miyazaki completes 'How Do You Live?', my favourite quasi-Ghibli film this year too (you could watch it in Japanese on Disney+ if you want, to complete that illusion).


Ciao Alberto (2021)
If you finish watching 'Luca' on Disney+ it'll bring this short film up next which follows the life of the character Alberto for a few more days after the finale. It could easily be edited into the main movie to create a different ending and maybe an even stronger one, further cementing the surrogate father/son relationship between Alberto and Massimo. I'd highly recommend watching this just after 'Luca'.

 

asterixsmeagol

Well-known member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
2,012
Reaction score
924
Trophy Points
128
Don't Look Up (2021)
I think 'Don't Look Up' is aspiring to reach the level of political satire achieved by Armando Iannucci (e.g. 'In the Loop' and 'The Death of Stalin') but it falls somewhere short in it's logical execution and it's basic premise. ... However, if you don't think too critically, 'Don't Look Up' is fairly fun romp with some effective barbs aimed at our social media age ...
I enjoyed the performances and each individual scene, but put together they are much less than the sum of their parts because (as you said) the whole plot just doesn't make any sense, and it's full of characters acting in ways the plot requires rather than the way any actual person would behave.
 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
Free Guy (2021)
I got a bad feeling from 'Free Guy's title not being 'Non-Player Character', or just 'NPC' because it suggests the makers don't have faith in today's more game-savvy viewers understanding the premise and what's the point in doing a movie riffing on video game tropes if you don't expect the viewers to get the joke? Then it gets off on the wrong foot by not properly establishing that game world first, before deconstructing it 5-mins in. This feels most closely modelled on 'The Truman Show' but that was at pains to establish Truman's "normal" life, his routines, the rules that govern his world and the logic that maintains it, before they start to break it down. 'Free Guy' is still introducing entirely new elements to it's world an hour in, long after our protagonist Guy has put on the "truth sunglasses" ('They Live' is another influence). Lil Rel Howery's sidekick (literally called "Buddy" LOL) is far too irritating to earn the genuine emotion you're invited to feel by the end. The "game engine" footage we occasionally see looks far more convincing as a GTA clone, than the admittedly impressive photo-realistic live-action translation they went for. I imagine it would have been far cheaper to have gone that way and wouldn't have cost hundreds of millions of dollars, which necessitated pandering to a wide, PG-13 audience. Showing a truly awful R-Rated open-world city would've thrown Guy's friendly innocence into sharper relief. Despite all those flaws, there is something really genuine and uplifting about the positive story and the "David versus Goliath" struggles of the likeable characters. It often made me smile.

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
Coming 2 America (2021)
This belated sequel seems to have displeased (or even angered) fans of the original but while I did enjoy 'Coming to America' a few times in the 90s, I didn't have it on a pedestal or anything, so 'Coming 2 America' worked fine for me. Leslie Jones' brand of screaming, non-stop improv based comedy is off putting and the movie should've been called 'Coming to Africa' but apart from that, I had fun. I think it might've been improved if they'd made Lavelle a grifter but through the course of the film he learns to genuinely love and respect Zamunda, fall in love with the Princess (instead of his hair dresser), plus Akeem comes to love him as a son, so doesn't care when it's revealed that he is not and realises he should've make his daughter Queen, then she marries Lavelle.




Mild spoilers...

Nightmare Alley (2021)
I could tell straight away that Guillermo del Toro had Tod Browning's 1932 movie 'Freaks' on his mind, so I suspected all along that it was going to end in a similar way from the way 'Nightmare Alley' is setup. In fact one of the final shots goes so far as to explicitly feature the characters/actors from 'Freaks', recreated with makeup, or CGI. I think this foreknowledge actually intensified my experience because it hung over the movie like a dark ominous cloud. I've not seen the earlier 1947 version (or read the novel) but I imagine it leans harder on the seductive noir elements and less on the excruciating, creeping horror, I'm curious to see it now. David Strathairn is sensational in a short but powerful role, a crying shame he's not up for any major supporting-actor awards. As you'd expect from del Toro, the art-direction is full of sumptuous detail to get lost in, for example, Cate Blanchett's psychologist has a beautiful art-deco wood panelled office but a viewer might not even notice that the grain of the wood deliberately resembles Rorschach tests. One of my favourite films of the year.

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
King Rocker (2021)
I've been combing the SkyArts TV listings for repeats of this critically acclaimed music doc all year. Comedian Stewart Lee presents a beautiful portrait of musician Robert Lloyd and his post-Punk band The Nightingales, still creating art decades later, to mostly critical and commercial indifference. Another John Peel favourite, for those that thought that The Fall were just too mainstream, rich and famous. Lloyd says he wants the film to be like 'Anvil! The Story of Anvil' but Lee says Lloyd is too good to be that kind of joke. Nevertheless, the sardonic but jovial humour of both men couldn't help but me laugh like a drain. Early on Lloyd remembers that he once thought that he'd be reappraised after his death but worries that even then, people might not care, before cracking up. Another band member proclaims with a grin "Everyone loved us apart from the people who bought records". This is a welcome polar-opposite and antidote to the awful aggrandising 'When You're Strange' Doors documentary. 'King Rocker' doesn't make Robert Lloyd out to be a mythic music god, just some bloke you might see down the pub, maybe drinking, maybe singing, maybe betting on the horses. Like Lee's standup shows, the documentary is a deconstruction of genre. At a number of points he makes the people he's interviewing or talking to aware of the metaphors he's trying to frame them with.


This bit was definitely the highlight for me, featuring proper serious BBC/Channel4 journalist Samira Ahmed miming to Lloyd's vocals/lyrics about being interviewed by Ahmed, about Lloyd writing a song. So funny, so good, so clever:

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
The Hand of God (2021)
Director Paolo Sorrentino combines a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age film, an ode to his home town of Naples, a tragedy, a comedy, a joyful celebration of eccentric, or even abrasive characters and strange happenstance, or is that providence. Teenager Fabietto and his family live in Naples against the backdrop of the legendary Diego Maradona coming to play for the Naploi team in the mid 80s and scoring the "hand of God" goal in the 1986 World Cup. A wonderful movie about a rich melange of characters with endearing faults. Asif Kapadia's superb 2019 documentary 'Diego Maradona' is a great primer for the time and context in which Sorrentino's movie takes place, especially if like me, you don't follow football.




Cruella (2021)
I can see the studio-note from Disney "This 'Cruella de Vil' origins movie you're writing, can you make it so she's not cruel? Also, we'd like you to pen a 'Ming the Merciless' script but the emphasis needs to be on how merciful he is". They also couldn't portray her only defining characteristic from the original 1961 movie, that she wants to make animals into fur coats (plus she now doesn't smoke). Given those absurd limitations, the writers managed to come up with a pretty interesting angle but keep quite close to the source, framing Cruella as an impious young Vivienne Westwood-style Punk challenger, to an older established House of Chanel type designer. Unfortunately the execution of that idea is a bit bland and pulls it's punches, I'd like to have seen Cruella really emersed in the grotty 1970s Punk scene. The dialogue is often bad and some of the supporting cast deliver truly bizarre performances (not in a good way). I was puzzled at Disney's decision to spend $100 million rendering almost photo-realistic CGI dogs, instead of just using these real world things called "dogs". However, Emma Thompson absolutely dominates the film as the villain, every moment she's on screen is worth seeing!


By the way, kudos to the prop and set designers for their attention to detail. I thought I'd spotted an obvious mistake when the characters are prominently eating from a box of "Coco Krispies", which is called "Coco Pops" in the UK and is a ubiquitous breakfast cereal here but apparently it briefly reverted to the US branding in the UK for a few years in the mid 70s before I was born, at exactly the time the film is set. Well done on your research guys!



One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
I wasn't sure if I'd seen this as a kid, I probably had but I didn't remember anything. It's a fairly slight story "puppies kidnapped, puppies rescued" but it's told with oodles of charm and exceptional animation of the endearing canine characters. I laughed out loud when the little dog barked so hard it nearly fell off a wall. The pop-art background design was interesting.

 

Moe_Syzlak

Well-known member
Messages
3,456
Reaction score
1,165
Trophy Points
118
@TM2YC I reviewed Hand of Gold recently (I think in the short reviews thread); did you see it? I thought it could’ve used more structure and felt it was in the same vein as Belfast or Roma in that it was the unreliable narrative of youth. But I’ve grown a bit weary of that form of storytelling by now.
 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
@TM2YC I reviewed Hand of Gold recently (I think in the short reviews thread); did you see it? I thought it could’ve used more structure and felt it was in the same vein as Belfast or Roma in that it was the unreliable narrative of youth. But I’ve grown a bit weary of that form of storytelling by now.

I loved the freewheeling lack of structure because I couldn't predict what was going to happen next, which often had me in fits of laughter, or other emotions. e.g. I was genuinely afraid that the father was going to be eaten by a bear because by that point it couldn't be ruled out as something that would happen in a "normal" movie. Or I felt sure Fabietto was going to end up with the young theatre actress but instead her final scene features the famous director standing up in the middle of her performance and shouting at her that she's sh*t. Nobody could have predicted that the family would suddenly set upon the old lady in the fur coat and beat her up, while the guy with the voice box is telling them to stop.

I did not like Roma at all and didn't feel it was anything like the excellent Belfast (other than the b&w) and didn't think Hand of God was like either of them. It was more like 'Amarcord' meets 'Nuovo Cinema Paradiso'.
 

Moe_Syzlak

Well-known member
Messages
3,456
Reaction score
1,165
Trophy Points
118
I loved the freewheeling lack of structure because I couldn't predict what was going to happen next, which often had me in fits of laughter, or other emotions. e.g. I was genuinely afraid that the father was going to be eaten by a bear because by that point it couldn't be ruled out as something that would happen in a "normal" movie. Or I felt sure Fabietto was going to end up with the young theatre actress but instead her final scene features the famous director standing up in the middle of her performance and shouting at her that she's sh*t. Nobody could have predicted that the family would suddenly set upon the old lady in the fur coat and beat her up, while the guy with the voice box is telling them to stop.

I did not like Roma at all and didn't feel it was anything like the excellent Belfast (other than the b&w) and didn't think Hand of God was like either of them. It was more like 'Amarcord' meets 'Nuovo Cinema Paradiso'.
Roma and Belfast are nothing alike, nor is this film, other than they share the conceit that the story is being told from the viewpoint of the unreliable narrator of the director’s childhood memories. And that conceit helped me to like Roma more on second viewing and helped me to see Belfast through that lens and allowed me to not need as much structure in this film. But it only works, IMO, in these three movies if you know that going in. Otherwise, the movies themselves don’t do a good job conveying that. And, as I said, it is a trope that was forgivable for Roma as it was unique, but it’s a trope I hope goes away soon as it feels lazy and self-indulgent to me.
 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)
The 2022 Oscars are officially "worth it" because if this Netflix animation hadn't been nominated for 'Best Animated Feature' I wouldn't have given it a second look... and would've missed the best movie of the year! (barring any late entries). That it's an enormously fun, kaleidoscopic adventure about a family battling a robot apocalypse, always feels like it's of secondary importance to exploring the emotional rift between a techno-phobic "outdoorsman" father Rick and his tech-savvy film-maker teenage daughter Katie. Instead of articulating his feelings in words, he forces the whole family to go on a road trip in a last ditch attempt to reconnect with her before she goes off to college. The writing of the family relationships is so full of love and genuine feeling awkwardness. I was almost blubbing by the end.

There are touches of films like 'The Terminator', 'Dawn of the Dead', 'Tron' and as the title suggests, a stylistic flair reminiscent of 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World'. It pips the excellent 'Ron's Gone Wrong' for the title of 2021's best "animated movie about robots created by a young tech wiz called Marc (CEO of banally evil social media firm) that take over the world, which is a metaphor for a family’s generational disconnect in a world of social media, but the family is helped by a damaged version of the robots, plus starring the voice of Olivia Colman". I thought 'Ron's Gone Wrong' would've benefited from a bit more edge when satirising social media and tech companies but 'The Mitchells vs. the Machines' brings it with lines like "Sorry about causing the whole machine uprising. It's almost like stealing people's data and giving it to a hyper-intelligent AI as part of an unregulated tech monopoly was a bad thing". The animation is amazing and too stuffed with visual detail to possibly soak up on a single viewing. Mark Mothersbaugh's synth score is fantastic and the tie-in credits song is even a pop banger:



I'm not alone in thinking this might be my favourite film of the year, Bong Joon-ho had it on his list too.


I might have to rewatch it again immediately! :)
 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
The Velvet Underground (2021)
This should really be called "Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground" because it's much more interested in channelling Warhol's "Exploding Plastic Inevitable" multimedia experience, than actually telling you anything about the band. Sometimes it's little more than pop-video montages to accompany their music, which is no bad thing considering the quality of the music. It doesn't even get on to discussing anything after their first record until two thirds in, then rushes through the other five albums worth of associated material. For example, the 'Chelsea Girl' LP is only addressed by showing the sleeve art for a few seconds and playing half a song, with no explanation of what the image or music pertains to. I can only assume Todd Haynes intends this Apple+ documentary as a beautifully edited, visually experimental accompaniment for those of us who already own and love the Velvets discography and are aware of their back story and place within late-60s music. If you're going into this cold, you may be baffled, or at best, wanting to know more. This served to remind me that Lou Reed's 'I'll Be Your Mirror' is one of the greatest lyrics ever written and has me reaching for my Velvets records for another spin!




51906928598_c6c7cfb576_c.jpg


The Living Daylights (1987)
Having recently framed a poster of this, my favourite Bond movie, on the wall, it was time for another re-watch. The action is unparalleled right from the opening scenes. The whole sequence where Bond escapes with Kara across the border into Austria, in his awesome Aston Martin V8 Vantage, firing missiles and lasers, is sensational. It's a mini story all about Bond improvising and turning negatives into improbable positives, like using a blown tire on his car, to cut out a hole in the ice to trap his pursuers. Then using a cello case as a makeshift sled and the priceless Stradivarius to steer with. Later you've got the Afghanistan airport escape, with some insane stunt work from guys hanging off the back of a cargo plane. 'The Living Daylights' is the perfect balance of outlandish action fun and riding the line of believability and cool.

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,871
Reaction score
2,384
Trophy Points
228
The Beatles: Get Back (2021)
I think there is an element of "too much of a good thing" about Peter Jackson's new 8-hour assembly of the footage shot by Michael Lindsay-Hogg during the making of the 'Let It Be' LP. On one hand, I'd happily and greedily watch every second that was filmed but on the other hand, was PJ including every possible moment, even if it's just The Beatles chatting about sandwiches, really necessary? The rooftop concert is all magic but did we need to hear 4 or 5 takes of the same song? The Twickenham Studios opening is the weakest part, you really get to experience the same feeling of boredom, irritation and directionless inactivity that the Fab Four are going through themselves. However, there are fascinating parts in the Twickenham section, where you actually get see Paul McCartney grinding songs into existence through shear will, from plonking away seemingly fruitlessly on the piano keys, into half formed melody and draft lyrics and finally into iconic rock anthems. You're truly seeing Edison's maxim that "Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration" in action. The middle section at Apple Studios when Billy Preston arrives is the part that really cooks! The injection of his virtuoso organ playing, warmth and upbeat spirit lifts the whole group up and drives them to excel. It's a privilege to be in that small recording studio with the band. The rooftop concert performance is of course fantastic but the interviews with the public turned out to be one the best parts. Some of the things they say are so unexpected, it takes all sorts to make a world, from a smily old Vicar enjoying the music, to a cranky lady complaining about the noise.

Unfortunately Jackson has ruined the 16mm footage by digitally scrubbing all the detail off the film, cropping it to widescreen and making it look generally strange. He's somehow managed to make an HD film look like SD videotape, it looks like 1970s Doctor Who level quality. So it's probably best viewed on an iPhone and not a big 4K TV like I did. The splitting up of the film into 3 long episodes came across as arbitrary and I thought they were too long to enjoy in one sitting. Splitting it up into shorter episodes corresponding to the actual days/weeks might've made more digestible portions. Those quibbles aside, Jackson has created the visual equivalent of The Stooges' 'Complete Fun House Sessions' CD boxset: the chance to sit in on the creation of a classic album from start to finish. Thanks PJ!




Let It Be (1970)
It seems the promise to finally re-release Michael Lindsay-Hogg's documentary alongside the new Peter Jackson version has not been kept. So insatiable curiosity forced me to resort to a poor digital copy, of a poor bootleg VHS copy, of a poor Laserdisc transfer. It's very much in the late 60s "vérité" style, with an emphasis on the bitter interpersonal conflicts between the group, rather than the wonderful music being crafted. Considering the wealth of glorious material that was available to Lindsay-Hogg, as demonstrated by Jackson's rechristened 'The Beatles: Get Back', 'Let It Be' feels like a meagre, rather depressing affair. It's interesting to see the way that Lindsay-Hogg cuts the infamous flare up between McCartney and Harrison so it appears as one long bitter exchange, after you know that it was actually two arguments, as seen in the new film. However, the rooftop concert section is superbly edited and perhaps captures the exhilaration of the moment a little better than Jackson's repetitive "uncut" version. Plus to be completely fair to Lindsay-Hogg, he didn't have Jackson's luxury of a limitless "for streaming" runtime and virtually limitless budget and editing resources to play around with.




The Beatles: Get Back - The Rooftop Concert (2022)
Unless I'm mistaken, while this 65-minute film is playing in cinemas only, it's exactly the same edit of the concert featured in Peter Jackson's 8-hour Disney+ doc (with an intro and outro also culled from the same footage) so you're not seeing anything new but you are getting the chance to hear it on some big surround speakers! Unfortunately Jackson's bizarre de-mastering of the footage looks even worse when projected in giant 4K, there are areas of the frame that shimmer like a heat haze with all the digital distortion and I noticed the cross-hatched weave of Mal Evans' jacket fading off into pin-stripes as the weird AI filters failed to cope with scrubbing all the texture off the film. Thankfully the actual concert portion is presented in full-frame 4:3, so the massive loss of visual information was less apparent and less distracting. Those gripes aside, this totally rocks and all the interview footage with the people in the street is fascinating and often hilarious. I think I counted just 5 shots of Billy Preston and some of those might have been edits of the same shot. Presumably PJ would've used every scrap of material available, so I guess original Director Michael Lindsay-Hogg must have directed his crew to "only film The Beatles", which was a real shame because Preston was a genus on these live tracks.

 
Top Bottom