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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.
Something got me thinking that I should watch Mission Impossible again. I think I'd only seen the first two Mission Impossible movies, and I disliked the first one, and never gave the second one a real shot, so I made it through the first one. Since the movie is almost 30 years old, I'm just going to talk about the twist, I think spoiler season has passed.
Jim Phelps being the bad guy is like a kick in the guts, even now. It would be like watching Inspector Gadget but at the end it turned out that Gadget was a serial killer. It feels wrong even though I should be fully capable of appreciating the twist, and understand that it is an adaptation of a TV series. So I'm just telling myself that "Ethan Hunt" is really the Jim Phelps character, and Voigt's Phelps is just some imposter.
Other than that, it's a fine movie, great soundtrack obviously, the twists and turns don't feel all that twisty, but I love Ving Rhames, and Cruise is a superstar because he's Tom Frigging Cruise, and this is one of his Tom Cruise-iest roles. The effects mostly hold up, and it's enjoyable.
But damnit, the Phelps thing!
I beg you to watch the other ones they’re so good
I think it was a comment that you made that prompted this actually - something about how movies can be both good and fun. I don't recall the context other than that, though. If so, thanks - I did quite enjoy the second and I'm looking forward to the third.
That is 100% my intent. I'm in the middle of 2 right now.
Mission: Impossible II is my least favorite in the series so if it doesn't hit quite the same as the first for you, don't let that deter you. It's only up from here on out!
John Woo is a great action director, but for some reason his style did not suit the series very well, at least to my tastes.
It is definitely John Woo-y! I actually liked it as a palette cleanser after the first movie, as it is helping me get over the Jim Phelps issue. I'm still trying to rationalize to myself that Ethan is just really Jim, and the Jim from the first movie is not the real Jim Phelps from the TV show. It's weird how things that we internalize from childhood can give us a reaction like this.
I actually quite liked MI2, but I can understand people liking it less. I love the cast though; I'll watch anything with Brendan Gleeson in it, but I also like Rade Zerbedzija and Thandiwe Newton. This definitely feels like a 90s movie - which make sense given that it was filmed in the 90s. I also quite like Alex Honnold breaking down the realism of the climb sequence.
Overall, this was pretty enjoyable. I looked it up the directors:
I was pretty excited to see a bunch of different takes on the series coming up. I hope they all have slightly different feels.
Edit: Chris McQuarrie also wrote and directed Jack Reacher, which I actually think is a pretty decent movie despite what feels like horrendous miscasting of Tom Cruise. Reacher is supposed to be a giant - see Alan Ritchson in the TV role, which is perfection as far as casting goes in my opinion - but I actually like the movie, and I think Cruise actually did a pretty good job as Reacher. Though now I feel like it's more like he's just Ethan Hunt in that movie as well, and it could be subsumed into the MI universe.
I saw three movies this past weekend. Two of which are some of my favorites of the year. I'll start with the one that wasn't:
Transformers One
This was getting positive reactions online and from critics. I was pretty disappointed in it. It feels like a Netflix animated series for kids. Obviously it's for kids, but the writing was just pretty flat, character motivations are weak. Most importantly the voice acting is pretty bad, especially from Hemsworth as Optimus Prime (he struggles to keep an American accent). Brian Tyree Henry also sounds awkward most of the time. Peele and Johansson are the only ones that don't feel out of place (probably due to their experience in previous voice acting roles). Yeah I wouldn't really recommend this.
Now onto the good ones:
The Substance
This won Best Screenplay at Cannes. It is through and through an exploitation film. It has really impressive make-up used for body horror sequences. Demi Moore gives a very brave performance, it's actually awesome that she took on this role with the amount of make-up that she has to be under. Margaret Qualley is also good, I don't generally think she's a good actress but she impressed me here.
The film is so entertaining and stylish. It reminds me of 70s exploitation films, even with it's barebones social framework that's more or less an excuse to show some violence. It seems to be celebrated on film twitter (whatever's left of them anyway) and this appears to be the one-a-year I actually agree with the film twitter/letterboxd crowd about a film being amazing. Really great score and editing as well.
His Three Daughters
I never saw French Exit, the director's previous film, but a friend of mine said it was one of his favorites of 2020. This made me want to check that out. I was not expecting to love this as much as I did.
It's so clearly influenced by Woody Allen's dramatic films Interiors and September. The cinematography and the score are also very Woody-esque. The cinematographer actually shot a lot of Noah Baumbach films and Lady Bird, both which took a lot of inspiration from Woody Allen movies.
Everything just works, while the dialogue isn't naturalistic everything feels real. The performances from Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen, and Natasha Lyonne are all very strong. Lyonne has been getting a lot of notices, but I actually think Olsen was the stand out.
It's a very emotional film, and it's all brought together by a powerful ending monologue.
I was not expecting to watch two movies that I loved so much this weekend, especially as the year overall has been pretty weak for films.
Nice, the lady friend and i are planning to see Substance so cool that there's positive buzz around it.
I ?finally? got around to watching everything, everywhere, all at once tonight. I get the hype now (originally why I avoided it).
Been having a bit of a French week.
Beau Travail from 1999 is a highly regarded film about soldiers in the French Foreign Legion. It has some beautifully compositions and cinematography, and while the story of illogical resentment towards a single person in an environment that almost removes individuality, is somewhat interesting, it was difficult for me to really connect with this.
Mommy from 2014 is notable for its bold choice in aspect ratio which is a square 1:1. It might sound like a gimmick, but I found it gave the film a very personal frame where everything looks like a portrait, making us focus on the people and not their surroundings. As for the film, I was very conflicted as I found it sometimes extremely annoying and clichéd, and other times showing some impeccable acting depicting the complicated love between the mother and her son who is dealing with a ton of psychological issues with very violent outbursts. Maybe the director intended for that conflict, as there are some eye-rolling music montage sequences where everything gets better, but they are punctured quickly as things don't get better. Like the director is mocking similar films showing progress, where this film shows the opposite. Still not entirely made my mind up about this.
Agnès Varda is a big name in the new French wave of cinema, and her feminist film Le Bonheur previously impressed me, so I was looking forward to seeing Vagabond and Cléo from 5 to 7.
Vagabond (Sans toit ni loi) from 1985 starts with showing us a dead young woman found in a ditch, and the film then has a mock-documentary style format showing her life as a vagrant going from place to place, getting some help from someone, being abused by others, but she is never able to stay in one place for long. How the drifter Mona is portrayed here doesn't exactly invoke empathy at first, and I think Varga want's me to question why that is. We don't get a back story or much character development from her, we just see her from the outside as the completely anonymous homeless person she is.
Cléo from 5 to 7 (Cléo de 5 à 7) from 1962 is a looser slice of life narrative and less sinister and very much a product of the new French wave with its experimental narrative and editing. Paris is looking lovely in black and white, full of life and spirit, in contrast to Cleo who we follow in real time one afternoon as she ponders a possible cancer diagnosis. Varga clearly has some deeper intentions with how woman are portrayed in film and a feminist message like her films, but it mostly eluded me and it was less thought provoking than Vagabond and Le Bonheur.
The Lovers on the Bridge (Les amants du Pont-Neuf) from 1991 is pretty crazy. Juliette Binoche on water skis and Denis Lavant dancing on the Pont-Neuf while Paris is exploding in fireworks is really something else. Full of extravagant spectacle, equally fantastical and nonsensical. Messy, uneven and incoherent, but I really love that someone dared to do such a unique and ambitious project. The story of its production struggles is equally absurd. There are plenty of individual scenes that are stunning and groundbreaking, but it doesn't quite work as a complete film. It's legacy is hard to deny, as it is clear it has influenced other films where the city is a character on its own like Before Sunrise. Another film where Paris is magical, full of character and romance.
I went to go see Strange Darling during one of its super limited showings out here. Which is nuts cause it was so good. The theatre really mucked it up though and for some reason the whole movie played in separated colours, slightly offset. REALLY ruined some of the cooler visuals like the neat truck scene in front of the motel sign and the pivotal bathroom scene. What a great movie though regardless, so much fun to watch and a joy to discover their weird relationship. And the fun, looney tunes style intro and music when either of their characters are on screen in the first part of the movie. The way the story is told. Would recommend. 5 bags of popcorn.
Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner were both awesome. In particular, Willa really blew me away with her performance. Overall, I totally recommend it.
I did find myself rather annoyed by the pretentious giant lettering at the start informing us that the movie was shot in 35mm. Also the first few minutes felt like one big bag of tricks the writer wanted to use to stylize the story. Letter crawl, narrator, freeze frame, out of order narrative, chapter cards.
I watched Spite Marriage (1929) tonight.
I really like everything Buster Keaton made.