#movie mini review

[lisystrata]

Jeanne du Barry - 2023

Today I watched "Jeanne du Barry" about the Rococo era - the times of Louis XV. At one time, Ludovic was played in film adaptations by John Barrymore and Jean Marais. Now it was Johnny Depp.

What can I say… quite a sad sight. It's not just about the casting of actors, which led to the fact that only Depp looked the most adequate to the historical prototype.

Now it has become almost bad manners to discuss the appearance of actors, although, it would seem, what could be more important for such a visual field of art as cinema? But no, here the requirements have gone down to the “school theater” mark. I won't risk talking about it so as not to have been "canceled" if, due to my poor command of the English language, I inadvertently blurt out something that is unacceptable by the standards of political correctness. But, damn it, why not add more suspense into the plot? Wasn't it possible to add more action, add multi-storey and logical intrigues, with which the courtiers of Versailles so amused themselves from idleness? What I saw is characterized by one epithet: despondency. And even the great Depp does not pull the plot out of the quagmire. It's impossible to get it out of there. And if we add to this an inappropriate, exaggerated caricature (daughters of Louis, for example), then we get an even more sad spectacle. In general, of course, it cannot be said that the film is categorically bad. But I can't even call it good.

I apologize for grammatical, syntactical, stylistic and punctuation errors.

[runawaycarouselhorse]

YouTube randomly suggested a full-length anime film (Junkers Come Here) to me and I went into it blind, but loved it. A very funny, charming, bittersweet movie with a young girl whose parents both work and are always too busy. She deeply cherishes a memory from when she was 5 years old, because that was the last time they went out together as a family.

Hiromi is 11 years old. She acts calm and mature (but in a well-written way, believable to her age!), but she's really just a lonely kid. She spends her days with her (secretly talking) schnauzer dog and the comically lovesick maid, and has an (unrequited, as he's too old for her and just sees her as a kid) crush on her tutor.

Junkers the dog has the power to grant just three wishes. Maybe.

The loneliness is pretty relatable as a former latchkey kid with no close friends who mostly spent time with cats and maids...

Absolutely beautiful, down-to-earth art and animation, even the body language is very realistic. Tender little film about growing pains.

[askmovieslate]

Don't get me wrong, there's something fascinating about seeing the way a creator's mind works, and seeing King's vision for some of his stories is kind of...mental?

You can almost tell when the cocaine was kicking in and not kicking in, let me tell ya.

I wonder if it was around the time the confetti started raining, or the bushes began to move.

[ramblingguy54]

You know how one should never trust the way certain trailers advertise an animated film?

Yeah, don't let the "silly" vibes from Transformers One fool you. This is hands down one of the most lovely surprises, animation wise, I've seen in 2024, overall. They make Optimus & Megatron's foundation of friendship feel genuinely organic, which is all the more heartbreaking seeing it go down the inevitable drain. That entire third act alone cements it not only as a great origin story for Autobots VS Decepticons, but becoming unquestionably my new favorite Transformers film, too.

GO SEE IT. DON'T LET THIS SHIT FLOP! WE NEED MORE STUFF LIKE IT!

[call-me-butterfly-onlyy]

Fujoshis in this house, please drop a like/comment. Recommendations for fellow fujoshis wouldn’t be bad either, put them on to something nice.

Fun fact: KinnPorsche remains my all time fav. Your thoughts?

Let’s not forget Quickly Wear The Face of The Devil. I have a lot of favorite books, too many to count.

Happy ranting 🦋

(Check pinned post).

[stuckasmain]

Ultimate actual mini review of Hitcher (1986)

Obsessive blond man psychologically tortures Ponyboy for a hour and a half

Great movie! Felt dread in the pit of my stomach/stressed but that’s as you should feel by design. There were some great shots cinematography wise - particularly the ending/credits. I also like how it’s selective in what it choses to show, where your brain fills in the rest.

God one of the best moments of this is when Jim looks into the car, blood falling on his sneakers and he stumbles back and throws up. You don’t need to see what he saw to understand or feel what you’re supposed to.

I love how it doesn’t over explain to the audience but at the same time I wish you explained a little because I want to know what the fuck John’s deal was. I have several theories but still. Same goes for Jim honestly as I first thought he was just a runaway kid with a stolen car and Chicago was a lie but then Chicago isn’t a lie but he doesn’t really act like ddjdkkdkdkd idk there’s a lot of interesting unknowns about him. I think I get it but do I?

Just proves it’s a good movie I guess, still thinking about it lol

[xarliclub]

La segunda temporada de #Rivals ha llegado a @DisneyPlus y nos deja ese sabor nostálgico de los 80s.

xarliclub #movie #movies #cine #cinema #film #films #peli #pelis #pelicula #peliculas #tv #cinemastodon #filmsky 🎬 #DisneyPlus @disneyplusla

[cristalconnors]

80. Shampoo (Hal Ashby, 1975)

Another Hal Ashby “satire” that looks like a million bucks but has nothing to say. Like...I get it, these vapid LA elites only care about beauty and fucking, and election day is about cocktail parties and not voting, and none of them know a damn thing about what's going on in the world, but there's nothing here to suggest that the film knows what's going on in the world either. There's the specter of Nixon, but no indication as to what Nixon is supposed to represent. What should these people care about? What are they ignorant of? Rating: 6.8/10

[belovedcarrion]

I've been on a huge horror movie kick and I'm honestly considering just starting to rate them on here

That way I have an easy way to refer back to the films I enjoyed/scared me without having to actually, like, remember them

Cause my memory cannot be trusted. The second I finish a movie it's on the clock. At any moment it could be swallowed by the sands of my mind only to reemerge two years later in a random conversation about something completely unrelated

[ferdifz]

Spaceman (2024, March; Netflix)

Why does Hanuš the space-spider never call Jakub the Czech cosmonaut, Jakub? And Hanuš instead keeps calling Jakub "skinny man"? I don't protest this about the movie. No, I think I love it.

Also I love how all the dialogue feels translated. As if it's not natively written in English. The post-neo-Soviet vibe, it fits the narrative so well.

In fact I think I'd love watching the movie with Czech audio and English subtitles. I wonder if that's possible... I suppose it's subtle but it would require me hunting for the Czech audio, which I'm 99% sure exists.

I also love the movie's subtext-dialogue about the notions of love, relationship, loneliness, attachment, self-centeredness, touch, beginning & end, cosmology, and so on and so forth.

So much to think about. It's like, I myself had to watch this in a couple of sittings, and I just had to watch it like two, three times to catch what I want to catch out of it...

Spaceman (2024 movie) at Wikipedia

[leologs]

Read the full review of the movie "Red Eye" on the link below.

[runawaycarouselhorse]

Rewatched The Powerpuff Girls Movie today, still a fun, colourful, and even emotional and touching movie!

Bubbles receiving Octi and kissing the Professor's cheek and calling him Dad is still one of the most heartwarming scenes…

The genuine fear and concern in the Professor's voice when he's sent away to jail, worrying about his daughters left alone…

The Professor talking to the girls about how hard it is for people to accept something/someone different and how they need more time to understand them and all his fretting over how the girls will do on their first day ("They're special--really special...") is pretty poignant, given they're that way by they're very nature, feels like a good allegory for those born markedly "different." I wonder if it's one of the reasons I'm so attached to this...

Also, realizing that Mojo Jojo's manipulation of the girls really can fool kids (so the ominous smirk in the shadows is necessary…)

Never read the newspaper before, but love the easter eggs and foreshadowing (the apes at the zoo!)... given Ace later joins the Gorillaz briefly, does this absolutely make The Gorillaz canonically part of the PPG's world? Ace leaving behind a life of crime to be a musician, after such a troubled childhood, is pretty great.

Also, got to appreciate the animators venting. Knowing it had such a tumultous production, even though I personally loved this movie, it makes you more sympathetic and forgiving of flaws!

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

most unbelievable thing about the rwrb film is Stephen 'Rampantly Homosexual' Fry playing the homophobic king pfft

[courtneysmovieblog]

"Totally Killer" and other Halloween mini reviews

I was debating whether or not I should watch Five Nights At Freddy's. I never heard of the video game, and it doesn't seem like my thing. I've read mixed reviews and ultimately I'd rather keep my childhood memories of Chuck E. Cheese untainted by horror.

But that doesn't mean I haven't indulged in other scary movies for Halloween:

The Beguiled (1971): Wounded yankee soldier (Clint Eastwood) picks the wrong girl's school to mess with. It definitely has a more Western feel to it than the Sofia Coppola remake, or maybe that's because of Eastwood. Either way, if you like gothic horror, it's definitely worth a watch.

A Star Is Born (1976): Not a horror movie, but unless you're a Barbra Streisand fan, the Lady Gaga/Bradley Cooper version is the best version.

Hollow Man: Kevin Bacon turns himself invisible and uses it to rape women and kill people. That one scene is so messed up...

Malignant: A woman (Annabelle Wallis) is haunted by her imaginary friend. The surprise twist in this movie reminded me so much of Stephen King's The Dark Half, and that's all I will say.

Antlers: Any movie involving roadkill is just nasty.

They/Them: I don't know why this had to be a slasher film. Showing the actual horrors of a conversion therapy camp would have been much more effective.

Sick: There was a right way and a wrong way to make a movie taking on how people have acted in the pandemic. This was the WRONG way. What were you trying to say, Kevin Williamson? That people that want to take Covid seriously and are fed up with how selfish and reckless people are acting are just crazy?! Because, yeah, not cool. Some of us haven't had Covid yet, and we'd like to keep it that way!

Miranda's Victim: Nothing is more disturbing than real life. Abigail Breslin delivers a harrowing performance as the woman whose real-life attack (and how the police botched it) wound up the catalyst for the Miranda Rights. While it is a necessary right for people, the fact that it was because of a guy who actually committed the crime and was trying to weasel his way out of jail by a technicality is just nauseating.

Totally Killer: Two of the best 80s genres, slasher and time travel, come together in this great horror comedy where Kiernan Shipka time travels back to the 80s to save her teenage mom (Olivia Holt). Even if you don't like horror, this is a delightfully fun movie for Halloween that I highly recommend.

[pocchi-poket]

Spoilers for Nimona movie (and comic)

I finally got around to watching Nimona (forgive me for taking two weeks, it’s exam season in Italy) and when I tell you I broke down crying when I saw the Nimona “memorial wall”. The contrast with the ending of the comic, where Ballister is the only one who doesn’t see Nimona as a monster, while in the movie everyone sees her as a hero and there is an entire wall with “We love Nimona” plastered on it just, got to me. 

And, since some drawings were actually made in the style of the comic, to me it also felt like those were messages from all the people who read Nimona through the years who were thanking “her” for making them feel less alone. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, idk, I’m really emotional rn. 

Rather than filling the hashtags with my thoughts I guess I’ll just write a mini review:

They did many changes from the original comic, indeed, but it’s fine. In the end they’re two different things and they’re both GREAT. This movie is the proof that adaptations can be different because, if they’re well made, we can get not one but two masterpieces. The humor wasn’t always my thing, but it’s fine: it’s a matter of taste after all. Ballister and Ambrosius are different from their comic counterparts, but I loved them nonetheless. And, of course, my fave shapeshifter was everything I could wish for and more (yes, this is partly a joke on the fact Nimona’s a shapeshifter).

What really surprised me is that they managed to cover many things, even with depth, and the movie never felt rushed, which is something I can’t say for most movies I saw lately. And yeah, the trans/queer metaphor was really more blatant in this one, but I found it masterfully done, and maybe it should, for once, be blatant.

I also want to spend two words on the animation because, tbh, in the trailers I didn’t like it at all: things and characters felt a bit made of rubber. But I actually loved it watching the movie??? Idk why, maybe on a big screen (rather than my phone, where I watched the trailers) you can actually see the details, lol (and overall it was really fluid and well made). The 2d animations sequences were also beautiful. Of course, it’s no Spiderverse, but I’m pretty sure the budget for these two movies is vastly different. 

Also, love how in the credits we can see that the monopoly (who, for those who might not know, is THE game about how capitalism sucks) rip off is called “World Domination”. I love a good ol’ capitalism critic.

Anyway, thanks to ND Stevenson, Annapurna and all the people who worked on this masterpiece (and I guess Netflix too gets some thanks). Hoping this movie is the first of many of its genre.

Edit: forgot to mention my actually only qualm, which is about the italian version of the movie, where they translated Goldenloin's name roughly as "Goldenlimbs" or "Goldenedges". Cowards

[stuckasmain]

Moulin Rouge - movie thoughts and comparison

I mentioned this in my last post but later in the week after seeing the show, we watched the movie. There’s a lot to be said and my feelings are complicated (just as they are the for stage version). It has a lot of elements I love and a lot of issues at the same time so let’s just get into it.

It has the movie advantage. Big budget flash - pardon the pun- spectacular. The huge cast plays to its advantage and its detriment. We get a wide array of weird, wild and wonderful. Body type, ethnicity, etc. You get a well rounded image of what the district is like. At the same time it sort of takes away in that- the focus is on no one. A lot more  bohemian friends (the musical knocks it to the main three and helps develop that friendship a tad more), more people working at the rouge in general and we get less of a look at they’re relationships to each other etc. It’s? I love there’s more , realistically there would be, but it also takes away from everyone at the same time, if that makes sense.

The editing is everything. It’s the silly, whimsical and funny sort of deal. There’s fast forwards/speeding characters up, random explosions of sparkles etc. My favorite things are everyone tossing their hats into the air and they literally go through the roof, the gun hutting the Eiffel tower, Zidler moon. The musical does a similar effect in the opening number(s) with the confusion and whimsy it hits up with.

Period costuming! For the most part! While I can appreciate and understand the musical going the more bedazzled and more 80s route for the clothes… something about it being a jukebox musical and running around and talking in a more modern fashion while dressing completely like it’s 1899 is so good. Something about Christian wearing white tie- looking incredibly awkward in it might I add- and going 🥺 across the room is everything. More of this! Period dramas- period anything! Take note!

Props for featuring the actual can can

One of my leading criticisms however, as much as I am a complete sucker for a montage scene I feel like there’s too many and it starts to muddy what exactly is happening. There’s context lost that the musical later fills in. Here however “she’s dying” *two month montage of her very much doing the opposite* I know it’s to reveal the illness but still. Montage + to many characters = loss of context/gravity

The duke is great. I love a “oblivious man child who gets violent when he doesn’t get what he wants” however he’s also not really a active threat until the last chunk. They keep putting him off and his threats off until it becomes real in the last act— he’s funny but I think i prefer to musicals take of having him more outright villainous and actually taking Satine away for huge chunks of time. Making a good reason for jealousy and fear of her mistreatment.

john leguizamo. I don’t actively seek out movies he’s in but he’s a treat whenever he does appear. That being said the difference between the two Lautrec’s is wild lmao. Similar but the musical has him WAY more focused on his own pining.

Ewan McGregor Christian 💕

I also mentioned this in the last post but I think the play in the movie is weaker however Satines death is stronger as it knows to do the grand celebration before, thus making it hit all the more harder by it simply ending.