#MWi2018: darkest hour

[krokodile]

movies watched in 2018

kimi no na wa - why am i the only person who thought this movie was just okay???  i see where the people who loved it are coming from, i just...didn’t.  gorgeous though, i’ll give it that.

darkest hour - my mother considers churchill to be one of the most heroic figures of her lifetime, and she felt positively about this movie.  that’s good enough for me.  (also, that one fucking SHOT of this movie was better than the entirety of the actual film about dunkirk.  you know the one i mean.  and the scene in the underground, holy shit, did i cry.)

thoroughbreds - i would have declared it perfect if it had ended about ten minutes earlier than it did.  i fucking hate epilogues.  still, two of the fastest rising stars in horror sharing the screen was as awesome as you’d think (though this is more of a thriller i suppose).  also i’m the only person who’s annoyed by this, i’m sure, but olivia cooke’s bedroom was CLEARLY IN ANYA TAYLOR-JOY’S HOUSE.  that bedroom was clearly part of that house.  details bug me sometimes.  what can i say?  and i mean if the house hadn’t been so goddamn perfect a setting for this film i wouldn’t have noticed,  so...

daddy’s home 2 - god help me, but i found this sort of cute.  never saw the first one and don’t plan to, but somehow found myself watching and vaguely enjoying this one.  plus i love that my mother now asks “was she a matilda?” every time a girl in the 9-13 age range shows up in a movie.  i’m counting the days until we can rent hereditary so i can finally say “yes, actually.”  (i swear to god if that’s the one time she doesn’t ask that i will scream.  as an aside, the trailers for that look REALLY good.  i’m so glad milly finally got to do a horror movie, and i’m doubly glad that it looks like it might be a good one, because obviously i’ll be seeing that in theaters.)

three billboards outside ebbing, missouri - it was okay.  that’s really the extent of my feelings about it. frances mcdormand’s performance is one for the books, and woody harrelson’s is noteworthy as well.  and peter dinklage is always good...and i don’t think i’ve seen samara weaving in anything before, but she did so much with such a tiny role in this...the acting is overall stellar, is where i’m going here.  and the soundtrack is great.  (not JUST because i have soft spots for renee fleming and the joan baez version of ‘the night they drove old dixie down’, but it helps.)  but good god am i uncomfortable with the “racist asshole is actually a good guy despite still being super racist, as written by a white guy” trope.  and i thought sam rockwell’s performance was pretty lukewarm.  i see why people felt so positively about it, but i didn’t like it that much.  it had its moments.  but again, having a hard time moving past sam rockwell’s character.  

growing up smith - maybe this time i’m the racist, but the indian-american (or indian-englishman in the case of bend it like beckham) fish out of water movies always, always, always charm the fuck out of me.  this one is fairly weak on its own merit - lots of cliches - but it’s just likeable. i’d also love to know if the screenwriter based any aspects of the dad character on his own dad, or smith on himself, since the film is set in around the time he would’ve grown up.  

all i see is you - literally, and i’m using the word correctly here, the most disturbing fictional film i’ve ever seen in my life.  holy shit.  it’s literally - again, really! - the most horrific scenario i can envision (pun not intended but i wish it had been).  blake lively has come a long way since she played bridget vreeland and serena van der woodsen, and she really impressed me here.  indeed, if she hadn’t been so easy to like, the movie might not have worked so well, but i did genuinely care about her character.  (that fish tank bothered me, though.  again, i know, details, but...discus would be dead in zero seconds flat in that type of environment.)  the ending felt a bit like the screenwriter realized they’d forgotten to write an ending, though.  As a film it’s not that great, but the premise is so goddamn chilling and blakely lively is so easy to care about that it’s really stuck with me.

eddie the eagle - one of the things i’m looking forward to the most about getting older is anticipating which events that have occurred during my lifetime are going to be the ones that “stick.”  i can’t wait to (god willing) be able to sit through a movie about something i lived through and be able to go on about my memories of those events and see how the fictionalized account pairs up with what i remember.  it’s one of the things i’m looking forward to the most about seeing i tonya, actually.  there have been a few things that fit that category so far (diana, the people v. oj simpson, dubya), but nothing that feels *personal* yet, if that makes any sense (which i AM anticipating from i tonya).  all of this to say, this movie is saccharine and full of cliches but it’s kind of awesome that this guy’s story is something that stuck.  it’s not that good, but it’s obvious how much effort went into it, and if i had a kid who was into sports or other competitive activities, i’d probably suggest they watch this.  it felt a LOT like cool runnings to me, and it’s probably just as “true to life” - which is to say, not terribly - and i think it’s set during the same winter olympics, come to think of it.  

flower - i had some problems with it, but it’s SUCH an easy movie to LIKE, i can’t find the energy to complain too much.  there are some structural problems; for a dark comedy there isn’t quite a lot of comedy; there are a few plot threads that could either have been filled out more or dropped entirely; zoey deutch and her “teen” friends have deeper facial lines than i do (one of them honest to god looks forty, and i’ll give zoey deutch a pass because she owns this role, but the other two could easily have been cast with more convincingly young actors); but goddammit, i just LIKED this movie.  i long suspected that zoey deutch was too good for dreck like why him? (i like that movie, but it’s not good) and before i fall, and she proved me so right.  her performance is gorgeous.  adam scott and the guy playing her stepbrother (i don’t know his name) are perfectly cast.  the story is delightfully weird and i never had any goddamn idea where anything was going.  and the adorable pet rat doesn’t die horribly.  if the plot summary or trailer appeal to you, i think you’ll like it.  if not, i doubt you will.  but it’s exactly my cup of tea.

the killing of a sacred deer - i don’t like this director at all.  i’ve tried so hard, but i don’t.  this movie is more of the same from him.  if you’ve liked his past work, you’ll like this.  if you’re not a fan, this won’t convert you.