Midweek Movie Free Talk

Gladiator II - 7/10

It's out internationally but not in NA yet so I'll keep this little review as vague as possible. Saw it with a friend two days ago.

It was thoroughly entertaining throughout but mood and tone felt very unlike the original. There were some things that were very questionable and odd to do, but battle and action scenes were absolutely stunning and incredible to watch. It was beautifully shot as a whole, and the addition of many more colours compared to the first was very welcome. Editing was off at times, and some of the casting decisions also felt wrong so much so that we felt that a few of the actors were miscast. Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington had the stand-out performances though, just so damn good in their scenes.

Stunning movie, but I much more of an action movie in comparison. It didn't live up expectations, but to be fair how could it? That said, it was definitely worth the price of admission to catch on the big screen.

Mildly spoilery things:

i watched Clueless tonight for the first time. i had no interest in it until finding out that it’s a retelling of Austen’s Emma. John August and Craig Mazin’s Script Notes podcast was focused on it in their last episode.

Great movie with perfect narration. It’s amazing how Silverstone kind of disappeared since being Batgirl*. It feels like she didn’t get a chance to show a lot of range, but she was good in Killing of the Sacred Deer — she also works far more than i assumed.

I don’t know why, but i feel like i’ve always been a big Silverstone fan, even though i haven’t seen a lot of her work. Maybe she won me over with the dropkick on Sawyer in the Cryin’ video.

I have spent the last week focusing on some of the Oscar winners in Best International Film - previously known as Foreign Language. Usually a good source for great films, but I wasn't entirely lucky with my picks.

Startin with Ida from 2013 which is directed by Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski who made Cold War in 2018 which I did like, and this has many similarities. Black and white cinematography, love story of a sort set in post-war Poland. In this about a nun who tries to uncover something about her pasts with help from her aunt, who is living a very "non-nun" lifestyle. On the whole the film is rather dreary, with totally stone faced actors that are impossible to get a good grasp on. The script has the potential for something, but I didn't feel it got that across the screen very well.

Pelle the Conqueror from is the Danish winner from 1987 and it has "movie to watch in school" all over it. I am sure it has been shown in many Scandinavian classrooms, but my Danish teacher showed us Krzysztof Kieślowski, which it took me more than 25 years to really appreciate. It tells a story of a Swedish and his son who immigrate from Sweden to Denmark to work as a farmhand for a big landowner. It is a tad heavy on the Hollywood-ish violins in the score, but I was really impressed by Max von Sydow's performance and his portrayal of a struggling father that really tries to his best. I am closer to his age than Pelle's, so I could easier put myself in his shoes. The young Pelle is convincing as well, but some of the other actors were a bit hokey in their acting style. The movie balances well showing the brutal hardships of working as farmhands for big landowners, with the everyday joys of life and small elements of hope for a better future. But it crams too many sidestories and themes that just detracted from the more interesting focus on Pelle and Lasse.

The Spanish winner from 1999, All About My Mother made me think that this is how some people feels when they watch a Verhoeven film. I think the true meaning flew over me. The basic premise is about a single mother who loses her young son in a car accident and she travels from Madrid to Barcelona in search for the boys father. The movie is absolutely packed with one tragic coincidence after another told in a very predictable melodramatic way, which makes it hard to empathize with as everything is bluntly foreshadowed. If you hear about someone being run over by a car, it is tragic. If they get hit twice the same day, still tragic. Three times in the same day, it starts to get a little bit funny. This movie felt like that for me. And I have an inkling sensation that it is entirely intentional. There is a heightened reality to what happens here and while all the characters where colorfully and lovely portrayed, it didn't feel real. It is not a parody, it is not mocking its characters or anything as there is clearly a lot of love and compassion. It is just weird and I didn't really get much out of it.

Asghar Farhadi won for A Seperation in 2011 so I had high hopes for his winner from 2016, The Salesman. It lived up to my expectations, but I think I might have liked this a bit more if I saw this first as they are very similar in structure. Tells the story of a middleclass couple both working on a theater production, who has to move and find a new apartment quickly as their current building is about to collapse. They find one, but one day the woman gets assaulted by someone entering the apartment and they assume it is somehow related to the previous tenant. Things go south from there with tons of misunderstandings and unfortunate circumstances. Farhadi is a master in getting a high level of authenticity out of his actors. Everything feels and look very natural, making me believe in these people and their situation. It opens up for questions and themes about forgiveness, the price for revenge and its consequences for people around those involved, complicated by a lack of trust in the police and the ability to not overreact on assumptions alone.

Tsotsi from 2005 is a South African film where the basic premise sounds somewhat contrived and Oscar-baity, and in some ways it is, but I think it actually manages to pull it off. A young man living in the slums of Johannesburg aimlessly gets by using threats and violence. One day he steals a car, shoots the driver and runs off. In the backseat he finds a baby, which he confusingly takes home. Over a couple of days, by being forced to take care of this baby, he manages to critically self-reflect on his violent lifestyle and learn about empathy. It sounds incredibly eye-rolling when spelled out, and I did have that feeling parts of the way watching it. What I think makes it work is how it has the same authenticity as City of God, just with more compassion and that it doesn't fall into sentimentality trappings. One way to view it is to not see it as merely a story about a gangster learning about love he never himself got to experience, but it is really more of an honest portrayal about extreme poverty and what it does to peoples morality. Told without judgement or villainization of anyone.

I actually started trying to watch Fellini's 8½ from 1963 but after about 20 minutes I decided that that type of film wasn't something I could get into now. Instead I watched The Great Beauty from 2013 which is very inspired by Fellini and similar to 8½ and La Dolce Vita. I haven't watched many Italian films outside spaghetti westerns, but I did enjoy La Dolce Vita and this does have the same feeling where the style is the substance. But beneath that there isn't much real substance, which does fit with the movies theme overall. It is sort of the whole point, that beneath all the excess and gorgeous environments, it is rather empty. Which our charming main character discover along the way. Watching it was a mix of being both bored and wowed. There are several scenes with a very high WTF factor, some great use of music and especially the dance scenes are hypnotic and mesmerizing. Like in La Dolce Vita the depiction of Rome itself is lovely, but this dragged and left me uninterested where La Dolce Vita hooked me from start to finish. Not surprising in won an Oscar, as this really is a crowd-pleaser for filmmakers with its imitation of Fellini.

Any Oscar winner is a good starting point for films that are at least interesting, even though I didn't like all of them, and none of them come really close to the best pictures in that category like The Zone of Interest, A Seperation, Roma, Amour or Cinema Paradiso.

A Real Pain

This is written and directed by Jesse Esienberg. NOT his directorial debut, as you might think, his directorial debut was a little watched film starring Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhart.

I thought this was okay. It’s clearly inspired by Woody Allen but lacks any of the depth that Allen has in his films. Kieran Culkin is also in this, playing essentially his role from Succession. I think the characters aren’t interesting or consistent. There’s nothing to engross yourself in them.

It’s all kind of shallow.

A Different Man

Basically like if The Elephant Man became beautiful. I related a lot to this as someone that has lived life as both a Very Unattractive person and a Very Attractive person (not to brag).

The scenes where he first starts living life are incredibly true. It’s all an overwhelming experience, it’s a completely different world.

What’s great about this is that solving that outer appearance doesn’t fix his inner turmoil. His self-hatred. And his self-hatred causes his own self-destruction. You can go through a transformation like that and still hate yourself.

Sebastian Stan was fantastic, I really really enjoyed this. I found it as relatable as 2022’s The Whale.