Midweek Movie Free Talk

She Said

Part of the This Had Oscar Buzz Class of 2022 (meaning it had Oscar buzz but ended up with zero nominations). From last year in the summer, from the trailer, you can tell that it was kind of a generic journalist movie. It seemed a little dull. So I wasn’t expecting much from it, nor was I looking forward to it. In fact I wasn’t planning on watching it at all. But after I saw Women Talking and the train wreck that that was, I was curious to see if this one (the other Plan B production of the year) was any better.

It is, it’s a lot better. It is at least technically well made, and the performances are at least good. They’re not screaming at each other in a baity way. And all of the pandering that’s in this movie, with lines like “oh the system is bad” and “you have to speak it’s important” it’s not nearly as preachy or as in your face about it like Women Talking is. The score is also just incredible. It’s way better than Women Talking’s score despite that one receiving more attention. It really is so good guys.

I mean it’s very clearly trying to copy Spotlight. Through and through. Through the editing and especially the cinematography, it’s very clearly trying to do an imitation of that film. Spotlight is better, I don’t think I even have to say that. But if it was between this and Women Talking getting the Screenplay/Picture nomination, I would have been A LOT happier with this. I understand why BAFTA snubbed Women Talking in Adapted Screenplay and nominated this instead. It truly is the better movie.

The Pale Blue Eye

Scott Cooper seems to be the type of filmmaker that people either actively hate or they’re just indifferent towards him. I actually quite like him. Black Mass I thought was a great movie, I really liked Out of the Furnace, Crazy Heart, and Hostiles. They’re not masterpieces, and they won’t be remembered as anything substantial anytime soon. But, I like his stuff. He makes slow, beautifully shot, and beautifully acted movies.

And this is his best looking movie to date. I’m convinced if this came out in the late 90s or early 00s, it would have been a moderate box office hit and would have gotten a couple of Oscar nominations. If something like Quills tickled the fancy of the Academy back then this would have too. Apparently one, or even a couple, of academy members voted for this in Picture which I assume is an old school academy member.

It’s my jam, I’m not sure if other people could enjoy this. But I like it’s atmosphere and I think the kid from Harry Potter (who’s not a kid anymore) delivers such a weird and great performance as Edgar Allen Poe.

i finally got around to The Menu and loved everything about it. i won’t watch it a second time, but the Agatha Christie’s Chef’s Table is perfect.

Last night i saw The Green Knight for a second time. i think i liked it more than the first. i love how they play with time and the scene similar to The 25th Hour wraps it up perfectly.

You People (Netflix) is being sold as full-blow (romantic?) comedy, which probably doesn't help its score. When people see a movie with Eddie Murphy, Jonah Hill, and Julia Louis Dreifus, they'll expect to laugh out loud. Well, that is not the case. It's more favorable to think of it as a light-hearted drama with plenty of opportunities for cringe and some nervous laughter (I hate the word "dramedy", but maybe that's what it is).

As a non-American man that is sometimes considered too black, and others "not black enough", You People rings so true to my previous relationships, I don't even wanna convince you that it is objectively good (if that is even a thing). I just wanna point out how, despite its many absurdities, You People rings so deeply true *to me.

It's funny that I identify both with the white dude (Jonah) and the absolutely breathtaking Amira (Lauren London). She is obviously a wonderful performer, but truth be told, she is so freaking beautiful it posed a problem to my appreciation of the other aspects of the movie. For completion, I have to say that Jonah Hill is absolutely rocking the jiu-jitsu body and the beard is top-notch, just not my thing (love you, Jonah!).

Moving on.

I felt like Jonah Hill's character numerous times when I wasn't "black enough". I don't dance, I'm not outspoken, extrovert, or hyper-sexual. I enjoy "white things", like computers, roleplaying games, The Beatles, Eric Clapton, and staying still at parties. My lack of "blackness" was viewed as a negation of my identity by other black people, and was a point of contention in at least two of my relationships. People think I'm elitist because I don't eat with my hands, or because I don't like certain traditional dishes. What pisses me the most is when someone with exactly the same color as mine looked me in the face and told me I was not black. Fuck them.

I felt like Lauren London's character in so many occasions where "enlightened whites" use me as validation for their virtue signaling, and I'm so ashamed that I never had the guts she had in the ending to spill the guts over Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

There's so much more I can talk... about how the intricacies of Black Love are not really addressed in Hollywood, and black women are often reduced to the stereotype of the loud irrational woman, either vilified or hyper-sexualized. It's so sweet to see a movie where they have a space for subtlety and romance.

I don't know, this movie can be very uncomfortable, but it also can be very sweet. I enjoy seeing a woman that looks like the ones I've loved being treated like they deserve. That's all.

EDIT: this movie has one the best "slowly falling in love" montage/scenes I've ever seen. So cute! I like romcoms :)

Also, Eddie Murphy is great but they made his character such an asshole that it's almost like this romcom had a psychological thriller subplot. Felt like Training Day. Not good for a romcom.

Before I forget I’ll talk about a couple of more movies I saw recently.

OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies

It’s a Bond parody in the vein of Austin Powers but French and if Austin Powers had a more cinematic quality to it. I heard about this many years ago but only now decided to watch it. I didn’t know that it’s from the director of The Artist until recently, and I actually quite like that movie, so that made me have to check this out.

It’s funny, it’s humor can be very overt like it is in Powers, especially when it pokes fun of the racial stuff in the old Bond films, but it also has incredible clever and somewhat subtle jokes. I really enjoyed it. A friend of mine that knows way more about movies than me (I liken him to having the encyclopedic knowledge of film that Tarantino has), says that while he likes this film specifically, it would be like if Jay Roach won the Palme directly after Austin Powers. Which, when you put it like that, kind of makes sense why Artist is so unliked.

The Before Trilogy

These were movies that I always intended to watch but never did for some reason. The first two were on HBOMAX so I decided to give them a watch, and then I had to torrent the third one.

It’s so good, I can’t believe it took me this long to see them. It’s probably my favorite trilogy ever made.

Watching them all back-to-back is kind of surreal. Seeing people grow old, and seeing what the films represent different stages of life.

The first one is more romantic, more dream-like, because the characters are in their 20s and are more naive and hopeful about the world around them. And then the second one is this sort of middle ground as the characters are in their 30s. The reality of the world is starting to set in, but there’s still this romanticism to it. Because 30 year olds don’t usually realize that they are still pretty young in life, and still have some aspects that they are naive or optimistic about. And then the third one is cold hard reality. That optimism in their youth mostly gone as they now go further into middle-age.

Even simple things, like the characters changing their opinions on the same topics of existentialism, are just so incredibly beautiful to witness.

I feel like this is what most people saw in Boyhood that I didn’t. I think it being framed around these characters specifically, and it being framed as a love story as the meaning of love changes throughout our lives, blows the concept of Boyhood out of the water. They’re also really easy movies to watch, even back-to-back, compared to Boyhood which I actually find kind of boring.

Babylon? More like BABYLONG! --- this has no business being three hours. I enjoyed it for the most part, but it just needed to be shorter.