The Official Review Thread of 2020

[anonymous1980]

THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME
Cast: Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Bill Skarsgard, Riley Keough, Jason Clarke, Sebastian Stan, Mia Wasikowska, Eliza Scanlen, Haley Bennett, Harry Melling, Kristin Griffith, Douglas Hodge.
Dir: Antonio Campos.

A young man who grew up in the rural South in between the Korean and Vietnam wars has to deal with his dark past as well as the tragedies and secrets of the present. First off, the performances of the ensemble cast led by Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson are stellar. They are excellent and faultless. The concept and the story have potential. You can tell that the source material is rich and quite dense. But that's also its downfall. The script is quite a bit of a mess. It wallows far too much on the tragedy and the darkness. As I was watching this, I'm imagining a better movie if the material was handled by either the Coen Brothers or Paul Thomas Anderson. It is worth checking out for the cast alone.

Oscar Prospects: Even in this year, Holland and Pattinson would be long shots.

Grade: B-

#ALIVE
Cast: Yoo Ah-in, Park Shin-aye.
Dir: Cho Il-hyung.

A young man gets stranded inside his apartment when the zombie apocalypse happens. This is a zombie horror film from South Korea and until anyone tells me otherwise, I am assuming this is from the same universe as Train to Busan. I would call this the zombie movie for COVID pandemic times since it's about being stuck at home. Well, apart from that conceit, this is a pretty standard zombie horror flick. But that doesn't mean it isn't still an enjoyable thrill ride. It manages to entertain and even surprise. The zombie sub-genre is starting to wane but this one manages to seem fresh and relevant given the world's current situation. It's solid enough.

Oscar Prospects: None.

Grade: B.

[Sabin]

Feels Good Man isn't an especially noteworthy piece of documentary filmmaking but I'd recommend it to everyone on this board over a certain age to understand how toxic the internet has become. Over the past few years, I've read a lot of posts bemoaning excessive political correctness and discussions of race, gender, etc. This documentary tracks the far, far other end of the spectrum.

It's a documentary about a cartoonist named Matt Furie and his internet sketch Boys Club, a comic strip about four post-college age animals just enjoying life and being boys. One of them is a frog named Pepe. It's perfectly innocuous stuff and Furie seems like a sweetheart who is writing comics about moments he remembers from his childhood. This film tracks how implausibly this cartoon frog became a 4chan rallying cry, an expression of disempowered anguish, and eventually an alt-right hate symbol. A wacky "occultist/scholar" describes Pepe the Frog as Donald Trump's running mate, and he's not wrong.

Feels Good Man isn't a great film. Matt Furie is a very boring subject and it's very difficult to care about whatever Pepe the Frog or Boys Club was before all this. And truly, it didn’t need to be ninety minutes. The third act is only satisfying for those of us who relish any opportunity to see Alex Jones embarrassed. But we're flooded with films about the Trump phenomenon. I think this is one that might be less known to people on this board but is certainly worth your time and possibly the most reprehensible.

[Precious Doll]

I would not have even aware of the existence of the film until a local media outlet reported on the controversy on Friday. Given the film won the Best Director award in the World Cinema - Dramatic competition at Sundance I thought I'd give a look.

I found it a totally innocuous run of the mill coming-of-age drama. As I had not seen Netflix's advertisements for the film I simply cannot comment on that aspect. And whilst I did find the sexual movements of girls so young a little disturbing it is no worse than those immoral child beauty pageants which are also run with the blessing of parents.

The young protagonist's family of Cuties is basically obvious to her new found interest.

Director/writer Maïmouna Doucouré clearly did not set out to make a film to titillate viewers though unintentionally she may have done just that to some degree.

Advertising aside because as I've already said I haven't actually seen any for the film but when are people going to wake up and realise that when it comes to the arts if they find something objectionable that the best form of censorship is to ignore it - it will probably just go away.

[dws1982]

There has been considerable online backlash against this film due to the mishandling of the marketing by Netflix. The online outrage machine is composed of significantly right wing voices, lots of them subscribe to the QAnon conspiracy theory and by and large of people who, and I cannot stress this enough, DID NOT SEE THE FILM.

This argument is as much of a straw man as the other side calling this film child pornography.

There were plenty of people who do not subscribe to QAnon conspiracy theories who raised concerns with the film and rightly took issue with the way Netflix chose to market it. Netflix has no one but themselves to blame for this controversy.

[anonymous1980]

CUTIES
Cast: Fathia Youssouf, Médina El Aidi-Azouni, Maïmouna Gueye, Esther Gohourou, Ilanah Cami-Goursolas, Myriam Hamma, Mbissine Therese Diop, Demba Diaw, Mamadou Samaké.
Dir: Maïmouna Doucouré.

There has been considerable online backlash against this film due to the mishandling of the marketing by Netflix. The online outrage machine is composed of significantly right wing voices, lots of them subscribe to the QAnon conspiracy theory and by and large of people who, and I cannot stress this enough, DID NOT SEE THE FILM. Well, I have seen the film. So I am qualified to give my opinion: This is a coming of age film about a 13 year old immigrant African Muslim girl growing up in Paris. Feeling out of place in both her family life and in school, she decides to join a group of girls who want to join a dance contest. What follows is a warm, eye-opening and insightful look into growing up in the age of social media and the internet as well as a culture that sexualizes young girls. Contrary to the criticism, this film is a CONDEMNATION of it, it does not glamorize or condone it. People would know that if they actually saw the damn thing. It feels very much like a coming of age film of the now. So, yeah, before getting caught up in the controversy, watch it first. It is actually a wonderful film.

Oscar Prospects: Maybe International Feature.

Grade: B+

[Big Magilla]

i'm thinking of ending things
Cast: Jesse Plemons, Jessie Buckley, Toni Collette, David Thewlis, Guy Boyd.
Dir: Charlie Kaufman.

A young woman goes on a road trip with her boyfriend of a few months to meet his parents. She's having doubts about the relationship. Then weird things start to happen as things may not be as they seem. At one point as I was watching this, I said to myself, "Screw it." I stopped trying to figure things out and just let the film present itself as it goes along like the way I do with some David Lynch films. I ended up really, really loving the latest puzzler from writer-director Charlie Kaufman. It wasn't what I sort of kind of expected at all. It's laugh-out-loud funny in parts and really sad in parts. I am not going to say anything further. Watching it unfold and go into the direction it goes is part of the experience. I can see people really hating it and I would completely understand. However you end up feeling about it, I bet you will be glad you at least saw it.

Oscar Prospects: I'd give it Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Director and Cinematography.

Grade: A-

For most of it, I felt like I was spending time in a lunatic asylum. I really don't see it getting any Oscar nominations but you never know.

The idea of it is good. I understand that the novel presents everything in a straight-forward manner so that the ending comes as more of a shock. The way Charlie Kaufman writes these characters the ending comes more like a whimper, although I did very much like Jesse Plemons' performance of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Lonely Room, Jud Fry's song from Oklahoma!

[anonymous1980]

i'm thinking of ending things
Cast: Jesse Plemons, Jessie Buckley, Toni Collette, David Thewlis, Guy Boyd.
Dir: Charlie Kaufman.

A young woman goes on a road trip with her boyfriend of a few months to meet his parents. She's having doubts about the relationship. Then weird things start to happen as things may not be as they seem. At one point as I was watching this, I said to myself, "Screw it." I stopped trying to figure things out and just let the film present itself as it goes along like the way I do with some David Lynch films. I ended up really, really loving the latest puzzler from writer-director Charlie Kaufman. It wasn't what I sort of kind of expected at all. It's laugh-out-loud funny in parts and really sad in parts. I am not going to say anything further. Watching it unfold and go into the direction it goes is part of the experience. I can see people really hating it and I would completely understand. However you end up feeling about it, I bet you will be glad you at least saw it.

Oscar Prospects: I'd give it Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Director and Cinematography.

Grade: A-

[Sabin]

When I saw the trailer for An American Pickle, I got excited. First, because I'm a Seth Rogen fan. Second, because I'm a Seth Rich fan. And third, because I've spent the last few months on Zoom calls with my grandparents every week. My grandmother is a Holocaust survivor who's mind is slipping a bit, but is also cheerful and lapses into Hungarian from time to time. And I'm a Jew pushing forty who has felt distant from my faith for some time, I would seem to be the prime audience for this film.

Well, it doesn't quite work for a few reasons, the first is that Simon Rich is more attracted to ideas than character. The story is very simple: Herschel Greenbaum is a turn of the century Eastern European Jewish man who falls into a vat of pickle brine after coming to America and freezes in time (like Woody Allen in Sleeper -- or Fry from Futurama) and comes to live with Ben, his only living relative, an app-developing hipster great-grandson. Both are played by Seth Rogen. What happens after that isn't very eventful. Herschel disrupts Ben's business, Herschel sets off on his own to create his own business, and Ben tries to sabotage him after Herschel does much better almost instantly. There might be some larger point about contrasting Herschel's business instincts vs. Ben's slacking and overthinking but the film is more interested in the game of cat and mouse between the two, Herschel succeeding, Ben trying to stop him, until the end of the second act where Herschel is persona non-grata in this country vis-a-vis his immigrant status and being revealed to the world as an old country bigot (there is a lot of going viral in this film). A more accurate title for the film might be Greenbaum vs. Greenbaum, but it's all about family. This fuck-around plot is all about putting them at odds to bring them together. A return to faith and family at the exclusion of everything else...and I found some of it a missed opportunity. I can't imagine I'm that much of a softy that I would've rather seen a film where Herschel learns more about the modern world of relationships and dating? Or a film about faith and returning to family rather than this plot about Herschel's business (which honestly feels like just fucking around) before arriving at its conclusion. It would also help if Simon Rich wrote the characters with any real depth. It all feels sketchy and satirical like he's wonderful show Man Seeking Woman. I think this is a missed opportunity especially when we end up with courtroom scenes featuring one minute of Tim Robinson that features more life than anyone else in the film combined. And to be honest, there's really nobody else in the film besides Seth Rogen.

This is destined to be a forgotten curio in Rogen's filmography -- a filmography that's a little more ambitious than meets the eye, which is why I was excited for this one. A nice try but hard to care.

[dws1982]

Hope Gap

William Nicholson directs and re-works this version of his play The Retreat From Moscow. I'd love to read about this from someone more familiar with the play (I've read it, but it's been a lot of years), because I suspect there's a good bit to be said about the fact that the play was written when his parents were still alive, and he's waited until they've passed away* to make the movie.

It starts off pretty badly, and the problem with the movie is that too much is the setup for what the movie really could (or should) have been about; It seems to stack the deck pretty strongly against Bening's Grace (interestingly--tellingly?--the only character from the play to be renamed for the film); you wonder why kind Bill Nighy didn't leave her years before. I also think that if Nicholson was set on Bening playing this role, she probably should've just kept her American accent, and they could've explained it in the script. In the last third, it deepens into something pretty interesting and pretty moving as both Bening and Nighy as well as their son, played by Josh O'Connor (excellent) begin to make sense of their new lives and grieve what was lost. I just wish more of the movie had been at this level, because it is very good in the last 20-30 minutes. Still worth a watch though.

* - In his introduction to the 2003 publication of the play, Nicholson states that both parents are alive but "well into their 80's", so I'm assuming they are no longer alive; I don't have any proof though.

[Sabin]

We've seen the future of big dollar Sundance buys and it is Hulu. I'm sure that Palm Springs would've fared better in theaters than, oh say, Late Night, but does it lose much on the small screen? Not really.

As always, the Hit Sundance Comedy turns out to be a pretty mild pleasure at best. Imagine the entire series of You're the Worst condensed 90 minutes with a sci-fi device. I like You're the Worst. I enjoy sci-fi-ing comedies so it wasn't an un-pleasurable lark, especially because it's attitude is pretty fun. The most one could extrapolate from it is that it mirrors Millennial careers. It's less that Andy Samberg (and eventually Cristin Milioti) is in an existential time-loop... more that he's stuck. He doesn't know what to do to escape it but it's pretty clear he hasn't really tried much either. He's just sort of accepted it and trying to have a good time by hooking up with everybody in this wedding that will repeat forever. And there's some very amusing grim absurdity to the fact that he's perennially hunted for sport by an angry J.K. Simmons whom he got into the loop as well. But this being stuck feeling is what separates it from Groundhog Day. Palm Springs is not about eventually becoming a better person. They make that clear early on. It has more in common with Defending Your Life. It's about overcoming fear, and sadly Andy Samberg just isn't really there for that turn. Cristin Milioti is though.

It doesn't stick the landing but it's a lark that you either enjoy or you don't. I watched Palm Springs last night, on the even of my first vacation in sixteen months, with a foot injury, and three beers. It's impossible to imagine being in a better mindset for this film.

[anonymous1980]

PALM SPRINGS
Cast: Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti, JK Simmons, Peter Gallagher, Meredith Hagner, Camilla Mendes, Tyler Hoechlin, Jacqueline Obradors, June Squibb, Chris Pang, Dale Dickey.
Dir: Max Barbakow.

A slacker boyfriend of a bridesmaid in a wedding meets and hooks up with the bride's older sister then we find out he's actually stuck in a time loop. Yes, another time loop movie. Yes, another sort of romantic comedy movie. Groundhog Day already perfected it. So why bother? Well, as it turns out, this film is positively delightful and actually stands as its own thing. It manages to inject a truly refreshing spin on the genre in very surprising and very funny ways. Andy Samberg's goofball charm (which I find to be often fairly limiting and one-note) actually works here and Cristin Milioti works off him quite well. This is one of the best films of 2020 and something we kind of need now.

Oscar Prospects: I can see this being a viable Screenplay contender.

Grade: B+

[anonymous1980]

THE OLD GUARD
Cast: Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Marwan Kenzali, Luca Marinelli, Harry Melling, Veronica Ngo.
Dir: Gina Prince-Blythewood.

A group of immortals who travel the world saving people are being hunted down by a pharma bro in order to unlock their secrets. At first glance, this may seem like a unique twist on the superhero genre but it's actually a hodgepodge of things that have been tackled in past examples of this sub-genre. But that's not to say this isn't an entertaining and enjoyable film. It is! Charlize Theron is further cementing her place as the go-to female action hero and director Gina Prince-Blythewood is actually a pretty darn good action director. That said, I'm actually more interested in what comes after this film. I won't spoil it but it seems to be setting up a far more interesting sequel.

Oscar Prospects: Doubtful.

Grade: B

FAMILY ROMANCE, LLC
Cast: Yuichi Ishii, Mahiro Tanimoto.
Dir: Werner Herzog.

A man runs a business called Family Romance in which he rents himself out to act like a friend, husband, father, family member, or whatever to people who need it. I thought this was a documentary at first. And apparently, that's how it started. Director Werner Herzog wanted to do a documentary about a real-life business in Japan where this is actually done. But eventually, it became a narrative film. And it does in a way, still feels like a documentary due to its loose, avant-garde, improvised style and non-professional actors. The result is a sincere, sweet, tender film which really kind of sneaks up on you in a way. I don't think this is Werner Herzog's best film by a long shot but it's definitely his most humane, sweetest film at least from what I've seen. It's nice to see this side of him.

Oscar Prospects: Doubtful.

Grade: B+

[Big Magilla]

Another issue solved.

And no, it shouldn't be. Filmed stage shows are not movies. They weren't in 1975 when James Whitmore was nominated for Best Actor for Give 'em Hell Harry but there was no rule against it at the time. I didn't know they amended the rule in 1997. It shouldn't have taken that long but good to know it won't happen unless they amend the rule. Even if they did, I don't think they would make it retroactive just for the sake of one filmed show.

[Sabin]

anonymous1980 wrote
Oscar Prospects: I have no idea if this is gonna be ruled eligible. But Best Picture and Acting nominations will be possible if it was.

Nope.

‘Hamilton’ Can’t Win Any Oscars But Has a Shot at the Emmys

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/hami ... 234699198/

But let's be honest: should it really? It's just a filmed play.

[anonymous1980]

HAMILTON
Cast: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr., Philippa Soo, Christopher Jackson, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Daveed Diggs, Okieriete Onaodowan, Jonathan Groff, Anthony Ramos, Jasmine Cephas Jones.
Dir: Thomas Kail.

It's not exactly a film adaptation but rather a filmed stage performance of the hit Broadway pop culture phenomenon about one of the America's Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton. I've listened to the cast album. I know the story. I went into this expecting it to be good...and it managed to surpassed it. Wow. I love theater and I try to watch plays as much as I could (I go on the average a couple of times a year, mostly local productions and the occasional international touring production). I would rank this as one of the best pieces of theater I've ever seen in my life. Everything here is firing in all cylinders. I'm so impressed: The staging, the choreography, the performances, the score, all great. Is it cinema? Not sure. But it's great nevertheless. I would totally pay to see it again live.

Oscar Prospects: I have no idea if this is gonna be ruled eligible. But Best Picture and Acting nominations will be possible if it was.

Grade: A.