Probably the greatest movie ever made that opens with a size-changing parrot as the personification of death. It’s weirder than I expected, but somehow more believable than the movie I watched a couple of days ago that was based on a true story. Julia Louis-Dreyfus makes the movie work.
Man, this movie does not work. See the faces they’re making up there? That’s 95 percent of their interaction. It might work in a light comedy, but it’s a catastrophe in a story about a father and daughter visiting Poland to visit Auschwitz and examine the horrors inflicted on their family by the Nazis. Also: someone please let director Julia von Heinz know that there are other ways to show the vulnerability of a character beyond nude stress eating in a bathtub. It felt like she thought “Dunham doesn’t mind being naked; let’s throw that into the mix.”
Bonus fun: I always try to do something interesting for the front page feature image, but I couldn’t figure out what to do for this. Then I thought “They’re in Poland. I’ll color the picture to match the Polish flag!” So I looked up the Polish flag. It’s this:
Which translated to this for the featured image:
Good enough for this movie.
More stuff I want to show to my students who worry that they don’t have the tools or skills needed to make a decent movie. Hertzfeldt tells a more engaging and compelling story with pencil drawings of stick figures than most big studios do with huge budgets and millions of dollars worth of actors, locations, and graphic effects.
Side note: they fixed the shake machine at the Alamo Drafthouse and I had a reward for a free treat, and that automatically improves a film.
Why has it taken me 25 years to see this movie?
I teach digital media to middle school kids. One of the things they love is filming chase scenes, and I always end up telling them the same things: It’s too long. It’s too repetitive. You need a clear, sensible story to carry the action or the audience will get bored.
This movie is basically one long chase scene repeated multiple times with a story that shifts every time it repeats, but good golly it works. I may have to show this to my classes (in an edited-for-language form) and say “here’s why this long chase is engaging and yours are less so.”
I saw two movies this weekend, both of them because I had been walking around all day and needed a break.
Actually, because I accidentally bought tickets to the Spanish subtitled version it was called “Observadores.” That was the biggest surprise in the movie. Some other surprises: how many pointless red herrings were in the film, and how obvious the “twist” was. Ishana Night Shyamalan has learned a lot of lessons about movies from her father. Unfortunately, it seems like she’s mostly learned the wrong ones.
Still fun the second time around. My only complaint: The projection in the San Francisco Alamo Drafthouse (in the smaller theater at least) was surprisingly pixelated.
Normally, a movie with a title that mentions a character not actually in the movie is a bad sign, but I liked this more than Fury Road. There’s still a ton of over the top action, but it felt like there was more story in there to hold it together. Also, it has a guy named Scrotus, which made me (and no one else in the theater) laugh.
Call it a crazy hunch, but I think Francis Galluppi (who directed this) is a fan of the early work of the Coen Brothers. It’s clear from the very beginning that things are not going to go well for pretty much anyone.
Raimi Marvel Movies from best to worst:
The fingerprints of Marvel executives are way too visible on this one. Lots of good stuff- the Zombie Strange with Soul Cloak Action is pretty darn cool- but I wish I could see a version of this where Raimi wasn’t forced to shoehorn in cameos and irrelevant fan service.
All I knew about this movie before I saw it was that it was in black and white. It turns out it’s a modern (well, 35 years ago “modern”) retelling of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid.” It’s the kind of movie where a homeless artist witnesses a murder, takes home the toddler daughter of the victim and raises it while looking for the mom, and everyone’s cool with it. It works better if you pretend it was made in 1939 instead of 1989.
Also: there’s a brief bit with a couple making out in a horse drawn carriage. It’s Edie Falco’s third acting credit.
Two movies in a day!
You know how old low-budget R-rated sex comedies like to show boobs really early so you’ll spend the rest of the movie anticipating more? Babes does the same thing with raunchy language. Sure, it’s never puritanical, but it sure felt like the bulk of the naughty talk happens in the first fifteen minutes. The Required Meaningful Moments fall a little flat, but the funny stuff is strong enough to support the weak bits.
I was going to try and write a bunch of monkey puns, but it’s late and I should be asleep so you get two or three flat sentences that will do the required job without being offensive, but also without much to make them interesting. Which it turns out is a pretty good way to describe this film; no monkey business in this monkey business.