MSU
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Thanks to the VPN, Bottom: Exposed on Gold. A couple of hours of Ade Edmonson talking about the show and Rik and it's just bloody delightful and lovely and sad.
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Started Baby Reindeer last night and finished it today. Dark as f**k, creepy, thrilling, and funny, and something to ponder over now it's done. There was an awful lot of it I really loved but I'm not sure how I feel about it overall.
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068 Scoop -- Great performances from Gillian Anderson, Billie Piper, Keeley Hawes, and Rufus Sewell but this BTS of the lead-up and negotiations to Andrew Windsor giving THAT Newsnight interview and Pizza Express endorsement is too well-known and too recent to be much more than a bit of well-executed cosplay. 5/10
069 Civil War -- This is a movie I've unwittingly had in my dreams since, oh, I dunno, round about 2020. Dreams of cities on fire, civilians being shot dead, chaos. How nice of Alex Garland to put the nightmares of my subconscious onto the screen and make matters worse by giving Jesse Plemons a gun and some funky shades. Brilliantly acted, directed, scored, and shot, it cleverly refuses to nail its flag entirely to the mast, although there are clues, and it makes the story about photojournalists who are there simply to record events and let others decide what's good or bad. As the movie says in one of many unbearably tense scenes, there are no good guys or bad guys a lot of the time, there are just two sets of people trying to kill each other. It kind of reminded me of a war movie (The Thin Red Line, maybe?) where in the midst of battle the camera focuses on a wee insect going about its day, blissfully unaware of anything going on around it and there's a shot here that almost looks like it's going to emulate it, but that to me felt reason enough not to give too much political detail away. A road movie at heart, it's also a story of the journeys Kirstin Dunst as Lee and Cailee Spaeny (so much better here than in Priscilla) as Jessie take, Lee being the hardened veteran and Jessie the naive rookie but every beat the movie takes to evolve these situations feels real and when they happen upon Jesse Plemons and those shades and that little scratch of his chin, five minutes feels like an hour and no one in the cinema dared to breathe. I can't remember a movie where something as mundane in fiction as a man being shot dead has shocked me so much, or been accompanied by a sound I felt in my feet and my stomach. It gave me cause to think of 20 Days in Mariupol with real Lees and Jessies, as well as The Road, which are both fantastic movies that I also never ever want to see again, and which have started trains of thought in my brain that will need to be derailed if I'm going to get to sleep tonight. 10/10
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065 Wicked Little Letters -- I was surprised that this reminded me of Paddington 2 as much as it did, but there’s such a small stakes quaintness and quintessential Britishness to it that maybe it isn’t so surprising after all. Jesse Buckley and Olivia Colman are on fantastic form here as they become embroiled in a case of vulgar poison pen letters set in a small English town in 1920. But it’s Anjana Vasan who really steals the show as WPC Moss. Wide-eyed in more ways than one, she has everything to prove to everyone as an Indian woman police officer and her triumphs are fabulous. There’s humor from the letters and the childishness of it all, but the movie doesn't rely on it for its jokes. The supporting cast are wonderful so the laughs really come from all directions and while the mystery factor is perhaps underplayed, it gives proceedings a fun air that just helps everything along beautifully. Loved it. 10/10
066 Monkey Man -- It's interesting to see an Indian revenge movie like this, but for all the chat from Devl Patel about how it's about nationalism, corruption, the caste system, and false gods, the whole thing felt so flimsy. I did appreciate the fight sequences where Patel with his director's hat on resists the temptation for quick cuts and instead focuses on almost balletic choreography, but it felt incomplete and thin to me. 5/10
067 The First Omen -- The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing Bill Nighy to be in this. On reflection, I preferred Immaculate, and I’m good for religious horror movies for the rest of the decade, thanks. 5/10
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5 hours ago, BillyAnchor said:
The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis.
I really like him but I know he pisses a lot off with his style. I enjoyed this but again, if you disliked him before stay away from this one.
I do love a bit of Bret Easton Ellis and Lunar Park might just contain the most beautiful passage I’ve ever read at the end, but Imperial Bedrooms was such a letdown and then I made the mistake of listening to his podcast. It’s been 13 so I guess all of his other books are his older stuff now but I worry that this would just annoy me.
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Probably makes me a big wean, but Season Three of Alex Rider dropped this morning and it looks very much like I'm going to finish all 8 episodes today. I love the Anthony Horowitz books and this on focuses on Scorpia, probably the pick of the bunch. Young Jimmy Bond story has no right to be as good as this. Banging theme tune too.
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McCoist isn’t a bigot, but he guarantees he’ll be committing a hate crime at Ibrox on Sunday along with 48,000 Rangers fans. So much for that minority angle.
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061 Road House -- Much like the 1989 version, it's best if you don't take it too seriously, or at all. This one wears its ridiculous heart on its preposterous sleeve a little more obviously and teeters on the brink of outright stupidity quite a bit of the time, but it's a lot of fun. Jake Gyllenhaal is a pleasantly more self-aware version of Patrick Swayze's Dalton and there's a comedic henchman played by Arturo Castro, from The Menu, that I enjoyed an awful lot. Conor McGregor was a peculiar choice but he was sufficiently over the top to just about make up for the fact that he can't act a jot. I don't doubt for a moment that I'll watch it again. 6/10
062 Immaculate -- f**k around with a nun from Michigan and find out, ammarite? I enjoyed this more than I was expecting. As a nunsploitation meets Rosemary's Baby type thing, the first half relies far too much on jump scares to keep us engaged but the craziness of the second half made up for it. Sydney Sweeney is a compelling lead, what it has to say about some body autonomy issues is pretty clear, and the final sequence is absolutely bonkers. I think I'd have preferred it to be a bit scarier, but it more than passed the time and made me feel guilty for munching on my popcorn during some of the more questionable moments. 6/10
063 Imaginary -- Started out a decent Blumhouse PG13 bit of hokum but by around the halfway point, I wanted the bear to kill them all. Especially the neighbor. 3/10
064 Late Night with the Devil -- I'm of an age that not only do I remember BBC's Ghostwatch, I remember watching it live and I remember shitting my pants just a little bit at it. Anyway, Late Night with the Devil is very much from the Ghostwatch school of mockumentary although given we have to go to the cinema to see it, it's far more obvious as it goes about its business. Presented as a 1970s Late Night show hosted by troubled Jack Delroy, it follows the conceit of the late-night genre brilliantly and in a special Halloween episode, Delroy looks to test the boundaries of the supernatural and, of course, it all goes horribly wrong when a possessed little girl is his main guest. The confines of the show and the transitions between on-air and behind the scenes make it feel like a cross between This Time with Alan Partridge and Scanners and there's a lot of fun to be had in the conversations and the conniving that goes on. When the shit hits the fan, the movie delivers with some genuinely creepy moments and then in the close, just when it threatens to veer off the tracks, it brings everything back in a pretty satisfying way. David Dastmalchian is great as Delroy, Rhys Auteri was born to play a talk show sidekick, and Ingrid Torelli as the creepy wee lassie is just perfectly off-kilter all the way through. 1970s production design is spot on and its directed with enthusiasm by Cameron and Colin Cairnes. All in all, between this and Talk to Me, Australian horror is in pretty rude health. 9/10
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I'm about to have a picnic in the park. Can a screaming Irishwoman sell me a tent, please?
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060 Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire -- Please stop now. 2/10
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23 hours ago, Harry Kinnear said:
Just in from the Bunnymen at the Barras, not the best I’ve seen them, too many pished folk and the 20 mins break mid set was a load of bollocks, maybe I’m just getting old.
My friend is their sound engineer. He got us VIP tickets when they played Detroit last year. According to him, the 20 minute break was an impromptu thing from the first gig of the tour and apparently it was received well by men of a certain age who appreciated the chance to nip off for a pish so now it’s a thing.
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058 The American Society of Magical Negroes -- I thought this was a pretty decent satire that posits that the tendency in fiction for white protagonists to have a black character to help them figure out the plot is actually real and there's a society who have special powers to ensure that white people don't feel uncomfortable. Ever. This eventually puts underappreciated yarn sculptor and new recruit to the society, Aren, played by Justice Smith, into a situation where he's working for a social media company to make designer Jason, Drew Tarver, feel better about himself. This is complicated when part of the journey to get there requires Aren to set Jason up with Lizzie, An Li Bogan, who Aren has already fallen for. The society rules that members must never put themselves first, so there's the conflict. The chemistry between Justice Smith and An Li Bohan is amazing so as a romantic comedy, this works very well and Smith as a comedy actor is endearing. There's the fantasy, magical side of the movie that undoubtedly becomes a passenger to the romance, and that's a bit of a shame considering the whole purpose of the satire. That said, I think the movie gets a lot of things right. The existence of the society, while initially being presented as a kind of racial Hogwarts, isn't a good thing, and the movie ends up not giving a shit about anything other than Aren and Lizzie, and there's a little sting in the tail that rounded the whole thing off perfectly. 8/10
059 Love Lies Bleeding -- I don't really care for Kristen Stewart and frequently think she's the worse thing in whatever I'm seeing her in, but I have to admit that this is maybe the best performance of hers I've seen. This is a smelly movie. Everything you're looking at stinks of sweat or cigarettes or vomit or blood and, for a few moments, all of that made me think of the humid claustrophobia of Blood Simple. The story here is also a simple one that's complicated by people's actions as Stewart's character Lou falls for bodybuilder Jackie, played by Katy O’Brian. Turns out their relationship isn't exactly healthy and when Lou's sister is beaten again by her husband and eventually Lou's dad -- a bizarrely mulleted Ed Harris -- is brought into the mix. The movie is fine if for no other reason than how it deals with having Dave Franco in it, but as it progressed and as it became more surreal, I found myself caring less about smelly characters I didn't really care too much for to begin with. 5/10
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My final push to see all the movies nominated for an Oscar ahead of tonight's ceremony peters out at 52 out of 53. Last year I was 33 out of 54 so while I'm quite pleased with this pointless missed achievement, it's a hearty f**k you to Robot Dreams which frustratingly doesn't come out on general release here until after tonight.
050 Napoleon -- The battle scenes were quite satisfyingly bloody and explosive, but for the rest of it, I found myself wishing Armando Iannucci had been directing, a desire that was only intensified once Miles Jupp and Kevin Eldon showed up. 5/10
051 Four Daughters -- Kaouther Ben Hania's documentary is a fascinating look at motherhood, Islam, Tunisia, generational trauma, so many other things, and uses an interesting conceit to do so. Olfa Hamrouni had four daughters. The eldest two were radicalized into ISIS and are now missing. Ben Hania's film uses two actors to stand in for the missing daughters -- and for Olfa when the emotion runs too high -- to have conversations and role-play to figure out why the radicalization happened. For the most part, the method works but there are moments where everyone involved, me included, became confused about what was real, what actually happened, and what wasn't an overwhelming reaction and response to the method itself. There are many saddening moments to the film, perhaps the saddest being that Olfa's attempts to keep all her daughters safe played a role in pushing two of them away. 8/10
052 The Eternal Memory -- The fate that awaits us all if we're unlucky enough to survive so long. Augusto has Alzheimer’s and he and his wife, Pauli, are worried for the day he no longer recognizes her. While it's a documentary of the process towards the inevitable, at its heart it's a love story. I get the sense that the couple is well-known in their native Chile where he was a journalist and TV anchorman and she was an actress and politician, so for Chileans it probably hits differently, but for those who don't know them, the everyday nature of their relationship and his condition maybe hit a bit harder. It's life-affirming and warm, and Pauli's spirit as she tests his memory is incredible, but oh my god, it's so sad. And it only gets sadder. 8/10
053 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 -- I don't remember anything of Vol. 1 and didn't see Vol. 2, so there was little chance that this was going to do much for me, and it didn't. To be honest, I didn't have a clue what was going on for most of its insanely excessive runtime, but it looked impressive, I suppose, it was cute in places, and it did its very best to make me give a f**k about the annoying wee rat thing. Extra half-point for Faith No More in the soundtrack. 4/10
054 Bobi Wine: The People's President -- It's a tale that inspires about as much as it depresses as it chronicles one man's dedication to bringing democracy to his beloved homeland despite insurmountable odds. Seemingly, Bobi Wine said after the film was made that its production was the only thing that kept him alive during the Ugandan elections. For those living in Uganda, I'm not sure what it tells them that they don't already know. For everyone else, it's a timely reminder of the value of democracy and the qualities of a fascist dictatorship that mankind has a horrible habit of failing to recognize until it's much too late. 7/10
055 Io Capitano -- What an incredible, eye-opening subject matter. I wonder if everyone who damns migrants were to see this movie how much better this world might be. Seydou and Moussa are teenagers in Senegal who run off to Europe to make money to send home to their parents and with a dream of becoming famous pop stars. With money saved up, and despite the warnings of everyone they speak to, they employ the services of people traffickers and it's shortly after this moment that their dreams predictably turn to nightmares. The acting chops of everyone involved is pretty impressive, particularly the two young leads, and it's unsettling that a movie so tough and uncompromising is shot so beautifully. There's a magical realism moment in the Sahara that took my breath away. I'm torn about how the movie ends as it makes perfect sense on one hand but is really just the start of the story on the other, but overall I thought it was an enlightening and moving experience and while I don't think it stands much chance of winning the Oscar for Best International Film, I'm glad it's in the conversation. 9/10
056 To Kill a Tiger -- An incredible documentary that follows the aftermath of the gang rape of a 13-year-old girl in rural India where the most prevailing question in the village is which of the rapists the girl should marry to save the honor of the village. The girl’s father says f**k that and pursue’s justice for his daughter. It’s moving, difficult to watch, and hugely frustrating but highlights brilliantly that the only way attitudes can change is through brave advocates and survivors such as those we see here. 10/10
057 The Teacher's Lounge -- I suppose the word "microcosm" is going to turn up in more reviews than mine, but The Teachers' Lounge does serve as a microcosm of society. A spate of thefts from a German school teachers' lounge results in a Turkish student being racially profiled and wrongly accused and then a naive young teacher breaches all kinds of laws by setting up a secret video sting. With all but one scene set inside the school, the movie deals with privacy and authority and morality and it does so like this was a John Le Carre thriller. The score and aspect ratio suggest we're building to something more extreme and potentially explosive, but it's a shoe that never really falls, and I think I like the movie more because of that. 7/10
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Goldson sitting on his laurels after his goal. Come on, lad, get another.
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10 hours ago, accies1874 said:
Wait, so there's still not an ending? Goddammit
I'd have to check with Mrs MSU, but I'm sure my first reaction was "You've got to be fucking kidding me."
Impressively, Child #2 watched Dune and Dune 2 in the same day.
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Just now, Bully Wee Villa said:
I can't remember anything that happened in Dune. Would I need to rewatch it before watching Dune 2?
Wouldn't hurt. There's no recap.
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048 Dune: Part Two -- What a difference three years makes. I saw Dune in 2021, rewatched it last week, and while it was a visual spectacle, the glacial pace and wafer-thin characterization made it a bit of a slog. Part Two, though, sees Paul now encamped with the Fremen and it's like Dune finally came to life. Across the board, this is just a much better movie and for the extra 15 minutes in runtime, it didn't feel anything like as long as the first one. The world creation and attention to detail are both amazing but what I loved most was the journey that Paul and Lady Jessica found themselves on was absolutely gripping. Florence Pugh and Austin Butler are welcome additions to an already impressive cast, but Christopher Walken is an unforgivable misstep. Seeing him sitting on the emperor's throne made me laugh out loud because all I could hear was him describing where he hid Timothée Chalamet's father's watch. While I'm complaining, like Part One, I really didn't get an awfully strong sense of heat from the movie, the eye colors seemed to inconsistently flicker to and from blue, and sooner or later we're going to need to get a definitive ending, but these are minor niggles. I haven't read any of the books so I don't have any expectations to dash, so this is comfortably the highlight of 2024 so far. 9/10
049 Perfect Days -- Who would have thought that a two-hour movie about a Japanese toilet attendant could be so enthralling? Really, there's not a huge amount more to the movie than that. Over the course of a couple of weeks, people move in and out of Hirayama's life while he goes through his meticulously observed routine. He hardly speaks to any of them, most of them are strangers or co-workers, and when his niece arrives after running away from home, you could be forgiven for thinking that this will turn his lie upside down, but it doesn't. Or if it does, it's fleeting. And really, that's what I took from Wim Wenders' film; that life is temporary and we should take time to appreciate the things that bring us joy. There's an awful lot of noise in the world and it seldom adds anything positive. Koji Yakusho's portrayal is deceptively simple, right up to his final frames where the pay-off is heartbreaking and beautiful in equal measures. It's up against The Zone of Interest in the International Feature Film category at the Oscars, and it's a long shot, but I hope it wins. It deserves to be seen. 8/10
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55 minutes ago, BFTD said:
I don't know if other people feel this way, but these days I lose interest in a film almost immediately when I realise it's a biopic, no matter who the subject is. They're usually stories that have to be massively manipulated to even slightly resemble a movie plot, take real life people peripherally involved (alive or dead) and libel them to serve the story they want to tell, and often whitewash their subjects to ensure cooperation from them/their estate.
They're almost all shite, often immoral, and it's a genre I'd be happy to see die.
I've watched a lot of them in trying to see all the Oscar noms this year and there's nothing that stands out positively in any of them. And I see there's an Amy Winehouse on its way which seems to be portraying her dad as a sympathetic character, something that the Amy documentary notably didn't do.
I really liked The Social Network. I'm struggling to think of another that I enjoyed.
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15 hours ago, accies1874 said:
Oh dear. Maybe Joel Coen was the true brains of the operation after all.
I can confirm that The Tragedy of Macbeth is definitely better than Drive-Away Dolls.
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Finally, Oscar nominated Live Action shorts.
041 The After -- This short has an awful lot going for it, most of it in the shape of David Oyelowo who plays a father whose life is turned upside down by a terrorist incident. But after a strong opening, it doesn’t really go anywhere and the things that do happen feel inconsequential. It bears more than a passing nod to 2020’s winner, The Long Goodbye, but benefits from not having Riz Ahmed do some slam poetry at the end. 4/10
042 Red, White, and Blue -- And the Oscar for most ill-judged twist goes to… I liked quite a bit of this as it seemed to be a tale of the lengths that a woman has to go to to get an abortion in the US these days. Brittany Snow gives a strong performance but the focus drifts and someone involved should’ve really had some notes about the ending. 5/10
043 Knight of Fortune -- Changing a light bulb in a mortuary has never been so funny. This Danish short was as odd and quirky as you’d expect but while it has a fairly dark premise, it chooses to go in a humorous direction and is all the better for it as it examines grief and the struggles men have in dealing with such matters. My pick of the bunch from 2024’s selection. 8/10
044 Invincible -- This true story of a Quebec kid detained in a youth center, or juvenile detention, doesn’t offer many paths into the heart of the tale. As a consequence, it remains unclear why Marc, our young protagonist, plays up when his good behavior allows him family outings at the weekend as a reward. It’s full of angst and anger but with no real background or hint to the cause, it’s pretty hard to care. 4/10
045 The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar -- Hey, Wes Anderson! Wes Anderson just called. He wants his Wes Anderson movie back. It doesn’t matter which one. 3/10
... and then ...
046 Bob Marley: One Love -- When Ziggy Marley comes on before the movie starts to tell you how much he and the family approve of this film about his dad, and then when you see the number of producers who share a last name in the credits, you know you're in for a somewhat sanitized version of events. And so it proved to be, with Marley's dalliances outside his marriage dealt with by a female figure in the distance looking back over her shoulder. The music and Kingsley Ben-Adir are both wonderful, but neither is enough to raise this overly-safe biopic into interesting territories, not helped by a flashback-heavy approach to the storytelling. 4/10
047 Drive-Away Dolls -- I should know better than to look forward to movies released so early in the year. On paper, a lesbian road trip movie starring Geraldine Viswanathan and Beanie Feldstein, and directed by a Coen brother should've been the pick of the year so far. As it is, it's not even the pick of this week in February. The most difficult thing about reviewing this movie is to establish what I hated most about it. Margaret Qualley's irritating Texan accent? The lack of character development? The misguided opening that I guess was meant to be a light-hearted introduction to the characters but honestly made me want to leave after ten minutes? The many psychedelic interludes? The fact that it's set in 1999 for no other reason than to explain why no one has a cell phone? Just nothing worked, and it somehow continued to not work all the way through one of the longest 90-minutes films I've seen in years. It's one of those movies that makes you wonder how anyone watching the rushes thought this in any way was progressing as planned and worth pursuing. It manages to raise itself to 2/10 because I saw The Neon Demon a couple of nights ago and it's better than that, and its sexuality is unabashedly front and center, but honestly, not even a half-hearted attempt at a Coen-esque pair of bumbling baddies or a mandatory Matt Damon cameo are enough to save this car wreck. 2/10
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10 minutes ago, BFTD said:
You noticed how small the text on food packets is getting these days?
Genuinely found myself seething about this a few years ago until the penny dropped. I keep a magnifying glass in the kitchen now; you might want to try employing an able-bodied young person around the house.
My arms definitely aren't long enough to read some food packages these days.
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The five Oscar-nominated animated shorts next, and they must be pretty short because the cinema threw in two Highly-Commended for good measure.
034 Our Uniform -- We started off the 2024 Animated Shorts Oscar nominations with this interesting Iranian piece that basically gives a young girl’s opinion of the hijab. The seven-minute film lacks a conventional story but the animation style using fabrics was really inventive. I’d have preferred a slightly longer short with a more traditional narrative. A decent start. 5/10
035 Letter to a Pig -- A short about the holocaust and generational trauma left me confused about the overall message and the violent twist it took about halfway through. The animation was sparse in places, but effective, and mixed well with some live-action / rotoscoping thrown in. I guess I just don’t get why the little girl wanted to kill the pig. Story of my life. 3/10
036 Pachyderm -- Animated like a children’s book for a fairy tale just gives this short more oomph as it details a little girl who spends her summer vacation with her grandparents, and the horror that very subtly lies within. I thought the style was very impressive and appreciated that the narrative didn’t need to check with the audience to make sure we all got it. My pick out of the nominations to pick up the Oscar. 7/10
037 Ninety-Five Senses -- An old man tells the story of his life through the five senses and rips the rug from under us when he reveals his rap sheet extends to more than just stealing a magazine from a hair salon. The conceit is fine, but it asks for suspension of disbelief to be extended a bit further than was acceptable. However, I liked how each sense had its own animation style and team of artists. 6/10
038 War is Over! -- Horribly manipulative and twee, this short uses a video game engine to tell us that chess is like war, and ask if we’re sure we can’t just get along? A pigeon flying over the trenches is the real star, the Lennon and Ono influences are less of a coup (coo!). Will probably win. 2/10
039 Wild Summon -- How typical that my favorite Oscar nomination short wasn’t even nominated. This Highly Commended offering from the UK follows the life cycle of a wild salmon but pictures her and all the other salmon in a pseudo-human form with swimming flippers and goggles. The hurdles that have to be swam through seem all the more stark when happening to something that doesn’t look like a fish. Gorgeous scenery and a brave approach to animation, I thought this was already excellent before Marianne Faithful’s narration. 9/10
040 I'm Hip -- Paula Abdul wants her animated feline music video back. 1/10
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8 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:
Have you seen Holiday On the Buses?
No, but I watched Carry on Abroad last night.
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027 Lover, Stalker, Killer -- I dunno if it's because I've watched so many of these Netflix documentaries, but because of the way they set out the players at the start of this, it becomes fairly obvious fairly quickly what the real story is. That notwithstanding, Sam Hobkinson's film is still interesting enough and maybe even something that would've been astounding to watch 10 years ago as it follows the tale of a man who got more than he bargained for when he opened up a Plenty of Fish account. 5/10
028 The Color Purple -- After enjoying Wonka so much, it almost fooled me into thinking I liked musicals. Thankfully, The Color Purple comes along to remind me that I really don't. It's such a shame because so much of this is first-rate: the acting, the cinematography, and the lighting is *gorgeous*, but every time it threatened to make an emotional connection with me, a big ole song in its size 12s would come along, trample over that good work, and make an already long film feel even longer. 6/10
... and then I went to see the five Oscar-nominated documentary shorts ...
029 Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó -- "Documentary" seems too grand a term for this nevertheless delightful short about the elderly grandmothers of the filmmaker, Sean Wang, who live and grow even older together. There isn't an awful lot to this, except the quirky, sharp, amusing old women who laugh and dance and fart and seem to gain energy whenever Sean comes to visit, but who measure the summers they have left as under five. Very pleasant but overall maybe just a bit too twee and offers too little that lingers. Even the farts. 6/10
030 The Barber of Little Rock -- I loved this short documentary about Arlo Washington, a man who set up a barber college in Little Rock, AK but has given so much to his under-privileged and ignored community. Arlo articulates brilliantly the generational poverty that afflicts those born on the wrong side of I-630, and the ridiculous additional hoops they have to jump through for financial services and loans. Washington is an inspirational character, doing something great for the community he loves, but the film also provides an interesting history lesson for those in need to learn. 8/10
031 Island in Between -- I'm a sucker for geographical quirks such as Kinmen Island shown in this documentary short, which despite belonging to Taiwain, lies a couple of miles from the Chinese mainland. What was most interesting, along with relics from the civil war, was the propaganda that swayed those on Kinmen away from the evil Commies across the water that seemed to be immediately dispelled once a ferry between the two was opened. S Leo Chiang's film doesn't get much deeper than that and fails to convey the tensions that still exist. 5/10
032 The ABCs of Book Banning -- If you weren't aware of the books that find themselves either restricted, challenged, or outright banned, from school libraries in the US, it's unlikely you'd expect to see The Hobbit on the list. And yet here we are. This short documentary interviews kids on their views of the books on the list that mostly appear to promote conversation around race, sexuality, and religion and whose talking points are squashed. You've got to be fucking kidding me, is the general view of the youngsters and it's hard to argue against it. Bookending this are the thoughts of a 100-year-old woman who gives an incredible speech to a Floridian school board, reminding them that the freedoms that people fought and died for include the freedom to express thoughts that some may find challenging. You get the impression that some of the soundbites are a bit manufactured, but the message remains incredibly strong. 8/10
033 The Last Repair Shop -- My pick of the bunch of the 2024 Short Documentary Oscar nominees focuses on the last repair shop in Los Angeles that fixes musical instruments for tens of thousands of school students. There's a pretty clear metaphor that the instruments aren't the only things that get broken or fixed, but the film handles this pretty smoothly. The craftspeople in the shop bring their own stories to the table along with those of the students and it's a hugely uplifting experience and a worthy reminder of the importance of music in children's lives and how playing an instrument can take you anywhere. Beautiful stuff. 9/10
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What Was The Last Movie You Watched?
in TV and Film Forum
Posted
070 Sasquatch Sunset -- It's never a good sign when an 88 minute movie feels like 2 hours and this disjointed tale of a pod of sasquatches out in the wild going about their weird sasquatch business of pissing and shitting on things. This might have been a decent short, but even then I'm worried that the premise just doesn't hold up for anything more than a 5 minute SNL skit. On the positive side, the make-up and costumes are great, the scenery of the forest and the wilderness is amazing, and Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough do a decent enough job, but there isn't much of a plot and then it tries to be funny and just ruins whatever little suspension of disbelief it had built up. There were six people in the showing I was at including me and Mrs MSU. By about midway, it was just me and the missus. A generous 4/10 but depending on whether you can tune into its wavelength it could be anything from 1 to 7.
071 Abigail -- A group of six criminals are hired to kidnap Abigail, the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a mysterious underworld figure. They have to hold on to her in a mansion for 24 hours and then will get the payday of their lives, if they can survive. It's a simple enough premise and the movie takes its time introducing its characters and the little girl and as it moves through the first act, we discover that there's plenty of distrust among the gang and Abigail herself may not be the helpless victim in all this. The movie is a huge amount of fun, frequently hilarious, and has a Danzig needle drop that might just be my favorite sequence of the entire film. It's bloody and tense and shot superbly with lots of wirework that I understand the wonderful Alisha Weir, as Abigail, did herself. With a supporting cast of Kathryn Newton, Giancarlo Esposito, Dan Stevens, and Scream's Melissa Barrera, it has an enormous amount going for it. Fun fact, Alisha Weir is Jessie Buckley's daughter in Wicked Little Letters. 9/10