Tag: movies

  • Streaming Movie Adventures: Tangerine (2015)

    Sin-Dee, Chester, and Alexandra standing in front of Donut Time in Tangerine.

    This movie had a budget 500 times the size of the last one I saw: A hundred grand! A fortune!

    Sean Baker sure is good at making movies that jump into conflicting emotions without losing track of the story.

    I live less than ten miles from where this was shot. I’ve walked those exact blocks many times. I can’t tell you how many times I drove past the doughnut shop at the center of this movie and made a joke about it being Donut Time.

    Side note: RIP Donut Time. I believe I might have actually been inside once. I hope your current life as Danny Trejo’s doughnut shop is going well.

    Today’s poster parody felt like the obvious choice.

    A poster for Tangerine in the style of the poster for A Clockwork Orange.
    Fediverse reactions

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Presence

    The main cast of Presence (plus a realtor).

    It’s hard to talk about this movie without giving away the different take it has on how to capture a ghost story, so I’m not going to try. Spoilers for that below. I won’t spoil any of the actual story, but if you want to be surprised by Soderbergh’s latest way of Soderberghing, now is the time to look away.

    All good? Cool.

    Soderbergh’s approach is to tell a ghost story from the point of view of the ghost. Every scene is a single shot from the ghost’s perspective. For the most part it works. The movie really only breaks when things happen that are beyond things that would happen in the real world; shaking tables are a lot more believable than floating objects.

    As for the actual story: It’s pretty predictable- especially since there are a couple of important plot points that were extremely telegraphed- but the cast is watchable enough to let that slide.

    Today’s fake poster is only the slightest of genre shifts. I could easily see a similar poster being actually used. This version, however, wouldn’t stand a ghost of a chance.

    A poster for Presence parodying the poster for Ghost.
    This movie had a shocking lack of pottery scenes.

    Fediverse reactions

  • Movie Pass Adventures: One of Them Days

    SZA tries to get some shoes.

    Not every movie has to be The Brutalist. Sometimes the right movie is a low stakes comedy where crazy situations happen but you’re not worried because you know it’s going to work out for the right people; a movie where people repeatedly get into bad situations, and when they try to get out of them they fall into something worse until everything falls apart- which somehow is exactly what needs to happen to fix everything.

    Does this movie really make sense? No. Is it lighthearted fun with charming leads? Absolutely.

    And is it bad that it’s only February and I’m stretching to find reasonable posters to parody? Maybe.

    A parody poster for One of Them Days in the style of the poster for Dazed and Confused.
    Fediverse reactions

  • Positively Ancient Movie Adventures: A Trip to the Moon (1901)

    A Trip to the Moon movie Bar

    A ton of film language hadn’t been invented in 1901, so this feel less like a movie and more like a vaudeville magic show with a tiny plot to tie the tricks together. The camera is always stationary. Scenes are single takes, and most new scenes have slow cross dissolves to give the viewer as much time as possible to figure out that they’re switching to a new place. But the creators aren’t afraid to try things. The sets are fantastical. Special effects are built out of hard cuts and multiple film layers. And there’s even social commentary about imperialism. Not bad for a movie that’s nearly 125 years old.

  • Movie (without a) Pass Adventures: The World According to Allee Willis

    Holy crap, Allee Willis did everything! If you don’t know who she is- I sure didn’t- this whole documentary is full of “wait- she also did THAT?” moments. You’ve heard the pop music she wrote (starting with Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September”). You’ve seen the art she created. You know the musical she did the music for. She was an early champion of Internet art and digital creativity for all. I can’t even estimate how much of the pop culture of my childhood originated in her brain.

    This documentary also has a huge advantage: Willis constantly documented what she was doing. Photos, audio, video, extensive notes; if there was a way to keep a record, she did it. It’s an unabashed celebration of her bonkers life, and it’s crazy fun.

  • Movie Pass Adventures Double Feature: Heretic & Memoir of a Snail

    Today was a “two movies at two theaters” day: Heretic at the Universal Citywalk AMC, and Memoir of a Snail at Alamo Drafthouse. Gotta keep those movie passes working!

    Heretic

    Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, and Chloe East in Heretic.

    Once I assumed that these were two Mormon missionaries who had so little sense of danger that they’d walk wide-eyed into a unsafe situation, this movie was a lot of fun. Nonsense, but fun. Also: Hugh Grant is a natural at playing a creep. What a surprise.

    Memoir of a Snail

    Grace & Pinkie from Memoir of a Snail.

    If you saw clips from this and thought “Oh, a stop-motion animation movie- I shall bring my children,” maybe give it another look before you load the kids into the SUV and head down to the multiplex. It’s a great movie, but it’s clear from the very first scene where someone dies- not in a Disney “maybe they’re just sleeping” way, but in a “gasping for their final breaths in their deathbed” way- that this is made for adults. Also, it’s Australian; are kids allowed to watch Australians (even in cartoon form)?

    Bonus image!

    I can only use one image for the featured image. Normally when I see two movies in a day I mash the images together in some way, but I didn’t care for the one I made for Heretic so I’m hiding it here. I bet you will love it so much that you will write an epic poem about it.

    (Poorly) Stylized image of Sophie Thatcher, Hugh Grant, and Chloe East in Heretic.
    Or maybe you won’t.

  • Going to the Movies Trying to Avoid Nightmare Election Results Adventures: Venom: The Last Dance

    Eddie & Venom in Venom: The Last Dance

    I see most superhero movies because I’m a sucker for them. It doesn’t matter how much nonsense they have; my brain goes into low-power mode and I accept it all.

    But I something about the first two Venom movies made me skip them. After watching this one, I can say that was probably a pretty good idea. My brain just couldn’t downshift enough for this thing. It clearly wasn’t expecting to be taken seriously- Venom is constantly making jokes that would make your dad say “that’s a little corny, don’t you think?” – but the movie is so determined to use as many stale and dumb tropes that it forgets to find new dumb trope to keep people interested.

    But as far as I know, it contains the first use ever of Chekov’s Hyperacid. I guess that’s something.

  • 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.

  • 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.

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