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Midweek Movie Free Talk
Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
I think you're onto something here. The problem I felt was that there seem to be a general consensus that Alien was one of the best Sci-Fi horror ever made and Aliens (my favorite film of all time) was one of the best Sci-Fi action films of all time. To me Aliens have always been a horror movie with action elements but maybe that was because I was a kid back then. Somehow these two films worked as 1 and 2 although vastly different in so many ways. I always think about Terminator 1 and 2 the same way and maybe Predator 1 and 2. Then came Alien 3. It was almost bound to disappoint in some way or another and it did in my book. There's a lot of stories about production horrors and that David Fincher ended up not really wanting to make the film because of this and other things. I think it's OK and certainly much better than the following films but your points about it makes sense to me and it's refreshing to see someone who really likes it. When thinking about it I honestly don't know what they could have done to make it an universally accepted third in the series. Like many other have complained about I would have loved to see Hicks and Newt again but I don't know if that would have made a difference.
So I saw Women Talking. I had initially been very excited for it at the beginning of 2022. I’m a big fan of Take This Waltz and this was Polley’s follow up ten years later. And then the critical reaction to it was kind of muted, it was so muted that it didn’t show up at any of the real critic awards. That really put me off it, made me think something was wrong with it. So I was thinking I didn’t have to watch it but then it got that surprise Picture nomination. It was discount Tuesday so I said eh why not.
Now that I’ve seen all of the Picture nominees, it’s clear to me that Women Talking is the worst Picture nominee this year. And is the worst Picture nominee since Bohemian Rhapsody.
There’s a lot of problems with it. The biggest one is that it’s over-written and over-acted. The dialogue is so bad and is pretentious a lot of the times. The two main actors, Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley, actors who I really like and think are incredibly talented, give probably their career worst performances. Ben Wishaw gives almost a Tropic Thunder-like parody of a performance. The surrounding performances by the no-name actors are to the level of regional theater.
This is through and through Oscar bait. Both Foy and Buckley are given so many “Oscar clip” scenes. So many overwrought monologues that strive to sound smart and important, delivered with screams and teary eyes. It’s quite embarrassing frankly.
Polley is not a cinematic director (her last two movies were mumblecore dramas), and this isn’t cinematic source material. But she tries her darn hardest to feel cinematic here. And in a way this is her most cinematic movie (I used cinematic too much already). But what she basically does is rip off Terrence Malick, with floating camera work (especially during magic hour) and unmotivated cuts. As much as Nomadland gets accused of being a weak Malick rip off, at least Zhao had the technical competence to make a good Malick rip off. Technical competence that Polley lacks. It’s not a poorly put together movie. But everything about it screams try hard.
I will say though, the score was good. Probably better than this movie deserved.
My previous least favorite nominee this year was Triangle of Sadness. But at least Triangle is made with more technical proficiency. It feels more cinematic. And it isn’t filled with hammy dialogue and pretentious camera work. Oh and the actors are actually giving good naturalistic performances. And isn’t trying to hit you in the head over and over again that this is important. It gives its commentary in a, believe it or not, more subtle way than Women Talking, despite Triangle having a scene with two character directly having a Socialism vs Capitalism argument.
Big disappointment.
Luckily I’m not alone in thinking this. The praise for it seems almost artificial.
It was originally rated R but they cut it down to PG-13 since they thought teens were gonna be a big audience for it.