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Barbie (2023)
Ryan Gosling, a pure showman
If forgotten, Ryan Gosling started off in the mickey mouse club. Important to remember because wow what a talented individual. Recent memory sees him leading roles that require a more stoic subdued approach, and it can be easy to miss his range. Barbie seeks to utilize all his acting muscles, and to a resounding success. He can sing, dance, act, and do comedy.
It wouldn't be totally outrageous to suggest he is the star of the movie. Of course, he is one of the stars, but I would posit he is THE star of Barbie's movie.
I was left wondering if the Ken story arc was the stronger theme of the film. Overall, I felt an absurdist philosophy underlined the film. There was a feminist message, sure, but it wasn't as nuanced as Ken's perspective on the patriarchy. At one point, Gosling's Ken quips "When I found out patriarchy wasn't about horses, I lost interest."
Ken's attitude speaks to the idea that most likely the majority of men could care less about a patriarchy or how the world works. They're on the ride like everyone else and playing a role in the fantasy of getting a gal to look there way. In essence, the reality is Ken is only Ken in relation to Barbie being Barbie and the truth is everyone is an Allan.
Babylon (2022)
Go for it
I approached this movie with trepidation. The trailer combined with initial reviews from the IMDb community led me to believe this would be a pretentious funhouse glory piece on par with Wolf of Wall Street. I considered not watching it altogether. Decided to click it on after watching a youtube channel explain how the marketing team really failed the movie.
The movie is really good. I was fully immersed and engaged learning about the transition from the silent film era to "talkies". I thought it was especially touching when one studio exec quipped something like "the audience seems to like having sound in the movie". Of course from our vantage point, this seems like "duh, of course sound is important in a movie". The trials and tribulations of sound engineering was definitely interesting.
It was very satisfying watching how "the movies" get made, although, I'm still befuddled to think that a movie set from the 1920's was essentially a life/death affair.
The performances were well done, also. I've been falling out of favor with Brad Pitt recently but he brought an excellent emotional range to his character. There was a scene in particular looking into his eyes where you can feel that he resonates with the character of Jack Conrad.
In close, if you're thinking about watching it, just watch it. You won't find anything better to do with the 3 hours ;).
The 7 rating is a tad biased by admission. The night before I had watched Brokers by Kore-eda Hirokazu. I didn't feel like I could give Babylon a 10 after seeing that.
Avatar (2009)
Window's Screen Saver
With the sequel coming out, I was curious to see what the most recent reviews had to say. I noticed most of the poor reviews, all but one, start with the general theme of "visually stunning, but..." This primer added to the reviews compelled me to add my own review.
It is not visually stunning, or to be fair, it is as visually stunning as a windows 97 screen saver which was mesmerizing for short periods of time. This movie is the epitome of a computerized world. Any time a computer can do what humans use to it is deemed brilliant. Anime is more "visually stunning" than Avatar and the movie doesn't even compare to a Studio Ghibli quality of animation.
There are plenty of live action films that are more stunning than this. I feel like the wes anderson's film color palette is more stunning than the Avatar CGI. And recently, the lighthouse, directed by Robert Eggers, was far more stunning and that was a black and white film.
Halloween Ends (2022)
Halloween goes Eastbound and Down
The halloween trilogy suffers from the same indecision as the new star wars trilogy. In both modern trilogies, the 1st and 2nd entries feel like rough drafts for the final entry which then is the actual sequel. Like, why now, introduce a successor to the evil presence that is michael myers? Seems like the whole trilogy is stuck between fan service and creating an original entry that could presumably follow up the original halloween.
Danny Mcbride and David Gordon Green have left their mark on this trilogy. I don't quite get the logic of handing the franchise over to the crew who made Your Highness. I was curious to see what they would bring to the material when i found out they were working on the reboot. I thought, maybe, their talent had some diversity and that bridging from comedy to horror would produce something unexpected. Gotta love 'em, but right from the first movie i could feel the kenny powers of the whole thing. The franchise is now a versus match, michael myers vs traumatized little sister (all grown up and ready to take him on), myers vs the town, and finally...myers vs old age? I especially felt mcbride's presence in the scene where myers regains his strength and thirst for evil. Weak, old myers stabs doofy sheriff and has an almost orgasmic jolt reminiscent of goku reaching super saiyan. The more he stabs the stronger he becomes lol.
There was a big misunderstanding in the writers room on the importance of innocence in horror. It's hard to remember any innocent unassuming characters in this trilogy. I guess the murders of 1978 would still be fresh on the collective memory, although it lead to an anticlimactic sense that the town itself isn't surprised. There were multiple times in this trilogy i was half expecting the victim to be like , "oh you got me good on that one michael, nice stab dog" I'll reiterate, Kenny Powers made this!
I forgot something very important...i can only hope that someone somewhere was as transfixed as i was that the bullies were members of the high school marching band. I couldn't get that out of my head anytime they were on screen. Marching band bullies ?! Couldn't recover from the shock of the idea lol.
Extraction (2020)
couldn't stop thinking of tropic thunder
The camera work is applaudable. does anyone feel like tropic thunder ruined action movies? I was waiting for chris hemworth to say, "I will be your papa. I will call you half squat". I also felt like this could be rambo 8
Tôkyô gûru (2017)
Fairly enjoyable
Overall, this was a pretty good adaptation. There most likely will be a trilogy to tell the whole story, well, at least if they want to cover everything the animated series had to offer. This movie completely cuts out the rival ghouls who wish to find rize and end up kidnapping kaneke. The torture scene, as well as, the rescue scenes are cut out which makes me think that storyline will appear in the 2nd movie if they decide to continue with the live action adaptations. Then the third one will probably pick up with kaneke's transformation into the white haired ghoul when he realizes the full extent of his powers.
A Ghost Story (2017)
very pretentious
This movie left me wondering what acting actually is. Like, is someone listening to music suppose to be acting? is someone walking around in a white sheet with two holes cut out for eyes acting? The movie was very pretentious, especially the party scene when the gentleman was talking about Beethoven's 9th symphony and the physics of expansion and the theory of contraction. I guess if you just say the words physics a couple times, throw in some Beethoven, universal expansion, and give a slight overview of the heat death of the universe it makes the whole movie some sort of existential masterpiece. How did Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara end up in this? If I was Affleck, I would have cashed in on the role then hired an assistant to walk around in the ghost costume and in the mean time go on holiday. I forgot to mention the annoying audio in the beginning. Again, is acting sitting in the kitchen eating a pie. The fork slamming against the plate was suppose to symbolize the loneliness mara's character is feeling? Give me a break