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My Best Friend's Exorcism (2022)
Book fans will be instantly turned off by this adaptation
Who wrote this script? It's god-awful and completely lacks the charm and heart of Grady Hendrix's book. This is like watching a life insurance ad. The stiff actors deliver the most unnatural dialogue and the audience is treated like idiots who need information spoon-fed to them.
Also, if you're going to make a movie about teens in the 1980s, it has to be unique because everyone will see it as a poor imitation of Stranger Things. The book, however, is so charming that I never felt like it was just a copycat version of Strange Things. So something must have gotten lost in translation here. I'm guessing it has something to do with the incompetence of the filmmakers. The scriptwriter should practice her craft more before ruining another property,
Here is an example of the cringe in the first three minutes:
Girl 1: "This quiz is supposed to be about friendship. Why are all of the questions about guys?"
Girl 2: "Because as women we only exist in relation to men"
Okay, then. Show me don't just tell me, wtf?? The writing is so lazy. This line may be directly ripped from the book, idk but from memory, the book was never on the nose like this. The book actually made you feel like you were reading a campy horror novel from an 80s movie. To achieve the right vibe and atmosphere it included 80s ignorance and it worked well. The audience was trusted to know the difference between right and wrong and how the world in the book differs from life today. Not so for this movie. The dialogue is way too modern. And it seems like the filmmakers were too scared to portray the 80s the way it was. However, they completely destroyed the film's authenticity and they made the setting feel like nothing more than a nostalgia-bating set piece.
In my opinion, this scriptwriter cared more about using this story to soapbox their modern messaging than making a faithful adaptation. Well, they didn't do a good job of presenting those messages anyway. I wish the scriptwriter would have had more respect for the source material and I hope Grady Hendrix is more careful about greenlighting adaptations for Horrostor or The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires. They deserve more than this treatment.
Koto no ha no niwa (2013)
10 stars for the ambience, -5 for the off-putting ending
A highly atmospheric film that excels at letting mood take center stage. This film focuses so much on ambiance and attention to detail, which is exactly what I've always wanted in a film. I hope more films do this in the future.
Unfortunately, the story let it down, particularly the last 10 minutes. The movie pairs up a 15-year-old and a 27-year-old as romantic partners, which turned my stomach. Sure, from the beginning the film plays with a grey area and teeters on the edge of the line, but I expected there to be a more thoughtful punchline at the end. Rather, there is a cringy and poorly handled emotional outburst that just made me laugh. Ultimately, I had no interest in the resolution the film left us with. It doesn't go to a disgusting place, but the ending cheapened an excellent first 80%