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rinblu
Reviews
The Beguiled (2017)
The worst movie I have ever seen.
I have watched many movies. This is worse than B-movies trying too hard. If anyone had any doubts over how Hollywood is pay to play, this film should erase them. It is clearly the product of a hollow echo chamber of people telling each other how wonderful they are with no input from anyone outside of their circle. I'm sorry, it's not a movie- it's a FILM. Sofia Coppola really wants us to know that. First, there's hardly a score, which means there are many silent moments and lingering shots of trees. The actors might as well be wooden dolls- they have no chemistry with one another whatsoever, and deliver their lines mechanically. And the actual plot itself is illogical. The audience laughed when Farrell's character declared his love for the schoolteacher- he'd barely spoken to her. The ending is ridiculous, and the whole film violates the "show, don't tell" rule of Filmmaking 101. There are far better examples of dramatic suspense from amateur filmmakers on YouTube.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
The Passion of Kal-El
(Contains spoilers.)
Saw a screener for free in IMAX. I am not a DC fan but know the basics.
The good points of this movie:
-Glad they addressed the massive innocent body count of the last Superman movie.
-Cameos by future Justice League members were fun.
-Wonder Woman was awesome.
The bad:
-Fight to the death literally stops because Batman and Superman's mommies have the same first name and the one that isn't in dead is in trouble.
-Blatant, in-your-face Christ allegories. This is basically an Easter movie with superheroes.
-Amy Adams continues to be wasted talent as a Lois that doesn't do much besides get into peril repeatedly and need to be rescued. This gets pretty old.
-Several scenes that make little sense when you think about them too hard.
-If you've seen one Zack Snyder movie, you've seen them all, pretty much. You could cut out paper dolls of Supe and Bats and tape them to either side of your computer/TV screen and just re-watch Watchmen. I've read there's already a 3 hour directors' cut of this movie, because of course there is, because this is Zack Snyder.
-If you've ever read a Superman comic where he goes against Doomsday than nothing that happens is a shock.
-Way too many scenes "torn from the headlines" to make the world more "gritty and real" and instead come across as weird cultural callbacks: 9/11 towers falling in a plume of white dust, journalist captured and executed by terrorists in the desert (Daniel Pearl, et all), Hurricane Katrina, Boston bombings' iconic double leg amputee... those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Way too much reality in my superhero fantasy, thanks.
-Batfleck doesn't give a hoot and has basically no moral code whatsoever. It makes for an interesting anti-hero aspect but is jarring in the wake of three Nolan movies where he was unquestionably the hero. (Different universe, I know.) The feel of this Bats is too similar to Nolan's in styling and mood/theme: a lot of the just Batman footage feels like it was found on the cutting room floor of The Dark Knight Rises.
Wait for the rental.
Nature: The Mystery of Eels (2013)
Needs a new narration track
I'm sure this guy is a fine writer, but he is not a narrator. He sounds robotic. It reminds me of an elementary school kid reading his book report to the class, he has the same sort of cadence.
It's a shame that the narration is so distracting, because the subject matter is important. I also wish the description was better, I was hoping this was about all types of eels, not just the freshwater variety.
And is there nothing the Japanese won't ruthlessly slaughter? We don't even know how they reproduce, so the solution their culture came up with was to pay US fishermen to catch them as babies and then send them overseas to China to be farm raised and eaten. This is not sustainable and the eels are declining in number every year, with the catch becoming ever more profitable for the US fishermen.
I also wish they hadn't had the narrator use a dead eel to make artwork. Kind of ruined the idea that he respects them.
Spy (2015)
Solid date-night comedy
We got advance tickets to a screener. It was surprisingly funny, my husband laughed more than I did, but the humor was mostly decent- some very low brow stuff like Bridesmaids but a few quotable lines. Jude Law's accent was a bit odd but all the principals turned in solid performances. It may have been written as a spoof on James Bond, but it comes off better as a riff on American spy movies ala Mission Impossible and the Bourne series. (The better Bond spoof of the year definitely goes to Kingsmen.) It had some interesting plot twists and turns to keep you following and I didn't see the main twist from a mile away as I tend to, so that was nice. The supporting cast at the CIA were especially great and I probably laughed at those bits the most.
Bambi II (2006)
Some good, some bad, overall an interesting effort.
I love the original Bambi and Felix Salten's gorgeous novel, Bambi: A Life In the Woods, though they are very different. Though the original glosses over many aspects of the book, it still keeps the feel, mostly through the animation and music.
I had high hopes for this 'midquel' and one of the things I did like was Ronno's introduction as a character, though I did not like the character himself. He is in the book and the movie never fully explained the battle between he and Bambi and the original; we assume he is simply another buck vying for Faline when in fact he and Bambi do have a rivalry which goes back. While we are shown that Ronno is a little older than Bambi in this movie, in fact he's a bit older than that- more around the age of the young adult bucks we see in the forest stampede scenes, at the same time Bambi is a fawn. But that would make courting Faline inappropriate for most audiences today I suppose, so no matter. The character himself looks (right down to the torn ear) like Scar's son from Lion King 2 which is disappointing.
Every animal in this movie talks WAY too much. Disney seems to think that children can only be captivated now by movies with tons of dialogue when classics like The Fox and the Hound, Bambi, Dumbo, and 101 Dalmations show us that this is not so! I think every person at Disney should sit down and watch every animal-centric Disney movie from before 1980 before they attempt to create a new one.
The animation was nice, but I think it could have been made to fit the original more closely- IE no obviously CGI'd snowflakes, rain or leaves.
Ultimately it's too short as well. Just when you start to feel immersed, you're watching the credits.
The flashback was the most beautiful part of the film, to me.