Category: Movie Pass Adventures

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Emilia Pérez

    Karla Sofía Gascón as Emilia Pérez

    When you have a story that starts with a lawyer helping a cartel kingpin get gender affirming surgery so she can disappear as the person she always wanted to be, and then the real action starts, you probably don’t need to throw in that it’s a musical. And if you do decide to make a musical, you’d better make sure the music lives up to the story. The leads are all strong, and some of the music works, but a lot of it feels like they were afraid people wouldn’t accept a “real” musical. Some of the half-singing would make Rex Harrison say “even I managed more tunefulness than that.”

    Also: today at Alamo Drafthouse I had to do the very rare “could you turn off your phone, please” thing to the guy sitting next to me. Distractions are bad enough in a typical movie; they’re unbearable at a half-Spanish musical full of subtitles.

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Here

    Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as 50 year olds in Here.

    I like when film makers try difficult and different things, and a whole movie shot from a single locked down camera position that takes place over thousands of years (though really mostly over about 100) with multiple timelines on screen at once certainly falls into the “difficult & different” camp.

    But a movie needs more than a gimmick to work, and this movie does not work. Some reasons it doesn’t:

    • Dialogue that no humans would ever say.
    • Tom Hanks and Robin Wright are not convincing teenagers, no matter how much CGI you throw at them.
    • Startling coincidences and extraordinary luck (what are the odds that before the house was built an indigenous person was buried in that location, and then a road ran through the same location and Benjamin Franklin’s coach got stuck right there, and after the house was built archeologists would find the indigenous person’s remains “just a couple of feet” underground, undisturbed by centuries of road and home construction?)
    • “We need a way to show when things are happening- make sure we show the TV a lot!”
    • “We’re only going to show exactly what can be seen from this spot- but later we’re going to be able to see through the house sometimes.”
    • A score that screams “THIS IS A HEARTFELT SCENE AND YOU SHOULD FEEL EMOTIONS.”

    Look- some of it does work, but not much. The final scene works, but it really only does because of the hour and a half that mostly doesn’t work before it. The weirdest thing about it: I think with the right director, this could be a good play. All it would take is some creative projections to show the different time periods, reusing actors as multiple characters, and losing Ben Franklin.

  • San Francisco Accidental Double Feature and Half Movie Pass Adventures: MaXXXine and Anora

    Also: I didn’t plan it, but this weekend’s movie theme was “women sex workers dealing with unusual situations.”

    MaXXXine

    MaXXXine movie bar

    I skipped this when it came out- I’m not a huge horror/slasher fan, and I didn’t see the first two movies in the trilogy- but I had a couple of hours to kill in my hotel room and it was on, so I gave it a shot. Very watchable, campy fun that doesn’t hide its love of the eighties in general, and eighties slasher movies in particular. Also reminded me how good Frankie Goes To Hollywood could be.

    Anora

    Fantastic. A three act story, deftly switch genres as it goes, driven by Mikey Madison’s unstoppable energy. Constantly went in ways I did not expect but that made total sense. Hilarious, touching, crushing. One of the best films I’ve seen this year.

    Also: my second film at the San Francisco Alamo Drafthouse, and the first one in the big theater. A great space (much better than the little screen upstairs where I saw a very pixelated version of Furiosa), and a crowd that was fully engaged with (and responding to) the movie.

  • Movie (No-) Pass Adventures: Devo

    Devo movie bar

    First you believe in the system.
    Then you protest the system.
    Then you work to subvert the system.
    Then the system absorbs your subversion.

    Then you make a documentary.

    My spoiled self was annoyed that I had to wait in line to sit in the back of the theater instead of having a reserved seat, but it was worth the wait. And my old ears probably enjoyed the controlled sound environment of a movie more than they would have appreciated the noise of a live show.

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Rumours

    I am officially declaring that my opinions of movies have no basis in reality and should not be considered when evaluating a film. How else can I explain that of the nine movies I’ve watched in the last three weeks, my favorite was a willfully nonsensical story of the leaders of the G7 countries trying to write a meaningless joint declaration while dealing with ancient masturbating bog monsters?

    My biggest disappointment was the lack of Timex Social Club.

  • Movie Pass Adventures: We Live In Time

    Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield in We Live In Time

    Pugh and Garfield play well together and the movie is entertaining- but for a movie with so many big events going on, it somehow feels light on content. Maybe it needed fewer extreme situations and more demon carousel horse.

  • Movie Pass Adventures: The Apprentice

    The Apprentice movie bar

    I’m not sure if this movie is ten years too late or ten years too early. Great performances- Stan really shows the evolution of Trump from rent collector for his slumlord father to pompous ego-maniacal windbag, and Jeremy Strong’s Cohn is spooky as hell- but I don’t know anyone right now who would want to watch them.

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story

    Super/Man movie bar

    This is DC Studios’ first official release, but it’s also from the CNN documentary division, and CNN’s documentaries can be pretty fawning. This one is, but it also actually lets Christopher Reeve have some flaws, which is refreshing. Reeve and his family had some impressive hardships and triumphs, and I’m a sucker for inspirational music in general (and the John Williams Superman theme in particular) so it was often effective at making me feel what humans call “emotions.”

    Not bad, but I wish it wasn’t cut with obvious spaces to insert commercial breaks.

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Saturday Night

    Saturday Night movie bar

    A ticking time bomb story that never quite feels like the timer is running – maybe they have 90 minutes until showtime, but the movie takes 110 minutes to get there. Lots of people playing famous people with uncanny valley impressions just strong enough to remind me how much talent the actual people had.

  • Retro Movie Fundraising Adventures: Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)

    Geena Davis in Earth Girls Are Easy

    Just a silly, fun movie. The wildest part was watching Jim Carrey as “the other alien- no not that one, the OTHER other alien.” Bonus: According to Julie Brown (who did a Q&A after the show), Jim Carrey was a really good kisser.

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