Soderbergh released two movies in the same year? Who does he think he is, Luca Guadagnino? This is a lot more traditionally constructed than Presence, but it does have some fun playing with spy movie conventions. Bonus points for getting a former James Bond as the spy version of a cranky middle manager.
Today’s poster parody came pretty easily, but a romantic comedy probably would have been funnier.
There’s a lot they hadn’t learned how to do in movies in 1920, but this movie pushes to do the most it can with the available tools and knowledge. No color? Tint the whole frame! No fades? Use oddly-shaped irises! Continuity between shots in a scene? We’ll do that next time and trust the audience to figure it out!
It’s also pretty amazing to see that so many foundational elements of modern horror movies are in here. Mysterious characters, plot twists, multiple suspects, a surprise ending: they’re all there!
Is this movie good by today’s standards? Not really. Is it a revolutionary movie for its time? Absolutely.
And was it funny for me to watch this for the first time decades after watching Forbidden Zone? Oh, so funny.
This may shock you, but there aren’t great photos available from this movie. But I did manage to pull one that sort-of matched the style of the posters I decided to parody.
My second old school heist movie in a week. This one’s a lot lighter than The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Cracking good fun!
Things I learned:
The whole movie is about stealing gold, so this seemed like a natural pairing.
This feels like a different movie every time I see it. I don’t mean “Golly, I just figured out a new interpretation”; I mean like they keep shooting other scenes and sneaking them into the film.
Also: Alamo Drafthouse played a clip of Lynch before the film where he said that no one else interpreted the film the way he did, which means all non-Lynch interpretations are equally valid. Personally, I think it’s the origin of Pencilhead from Mystery Men.
I had a hard time finding a tangentially related poster to parody for this. The end result doesn’t look much like the original, and the original is hardly iconic. I’d be surprised if you can figure it out without looking at the alternate text.
The story of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba by the CIA, told through the lens of jazz. I’m sure glad our government hasn’t done anything shady since then.
It took me a while to get into the rhythm of this- probably because it’s pretty frenetic and I’m running on about four hours of sleep- but even before I locked it I appreciated the look and sound used to make old newsreels, memos, and TV recordings work tell an eventually cohesive story.
I’ve now seen 40 of the 50 2024 Oscar nominees. I’m mostly missing documentaries: two full length, and all five shorts. The other three are Maria (cinematography), Elton John: Never Too Late (song), and The Six Triple Eight (also song). I might get one or two in before the show tomorrow, but I’ll probably go for a bike ride instead.
It’s weird to make silly posters for documentaries about serious subjects, but the energy of the film makes it feel a bit more comfortable. I think the only thing I really like about this poster is the title design. It’s not exactly the right base font to match the original, but it’s pretty darn close.
The second half of my Unplanned Surreal Film Festival Weekend. Also my second film of the year in Farsi, but this one is much lighter than the last one.
I didn’t remember anything I knew about this before I watched it, and I think that’s probably the best way to go into something as gloriously absurd as this. Without giving anything away, it feels a little like Wes Anderson directing Airplane (with second unit by David Lynch).
For the fake poster, I did a riff on the title. It doesn’t quite have the images available to balance out the same way as the original.
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.
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.
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.
Waka Waka!