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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 just finished watching "Where Is the Friend's House?" by Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, and I have to say I absolutely love it. The premise is pretty simple: it's about a kid who accidentally takes a schoolmate's workbook and has to find the schoolmate's house to return it, or else the other kid will get expelled the next day for not doing his homework. And then the kid takes part in the adventure of finding the friend's house.
What struck me the most about the movie is how well it puts you into the kid's shoes, especially in some scenes where he's talking to adults and none of them really listen to him or pay attention. It's a wonderful film; it's a slow burn, but that's a part of what makes the film great. I'll definitely check how other movies by Kiarostami, hoping they're as good as this one.
Along with Taste of Cherry, that is definitely his best movie. He made two followups to Where Is the Friend's House? with Life, and Nothing More… and Through the Olive Trees, which are both more experimental and very meta commentary on the first film.
I watched Fantastic Four: First Steps and was pretty shocked how bland it was. I am not super into comics or comic book movies, but I usually find them more fun and endearing than I had expected before watching. This seemed like worst I had seen since Wonder Woman 84, which I enjoyed for at least beating entertainingly bad. Even Eternals had some nice locations. This one just felt completely lifeless to me, what many might describe as “felt like ai wrote it”.
Since Godzilla Minus 0 was just announced, the first one has definitely been in my mind. And these two movies have really similar plots. I don’t think FF:FS can really be spoiled, but the premise of an unstoppable force is coming how can we deal with it is pretty classic for a reason. Basically any given scene in GM1 gave me more reasons to care about anyone than the entirety of FF:FS. I’m pretty shocked to see how highly rated it is. Thunderbolts felt pretty flat to me too, though. So maybe I’m just jaded.