The Official Review Thread of 2020

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Sabin
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by Sabin »

Onward is a shaggy affair that feels one or two drafts from being something a little more special. All the parts are there but if never quite gets into second gear. There's this nagging "Eh, good enough" quality to it (especially that the magic staff was just something their father left for them for Ian’s sixteenth birthday that the Mom has been holding onto without quest) and the storytellers never quite go as deep as they could into the neuroses of the three leads. They all feel only dialed up to half-volume. But the notion of a fantasy world that's lost its sense of magic is quite fun and more than a little resonating amongst depressed older Millennials like myself. And it sticks the landing very strong. The climactic scene is a triumph of perspective and understatement, which makes it all the more tear-jerking for its honesty. Ultimately, I think I might prefer it to Soul of the two 2020 offerings if only because it's more confident in telling its admittedly simpler story.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by Sonic Youth »

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I've barely seen anything. I don't have the time, stamina, concentration or interest to sit through movies like I once did. But I tried. A little.

I can't find it now, but I remember Flipp saying Trial of Chicago 7 was boring. I didn't find it "boring" so much as "a bore". IOW, I found it reasonably entertaining, it kept my interest, etx. But as a thing that exists, it is a bore. A historical retelling of the Chicago 7 trials as told by The Establishment. OK grandpa, thanks for the seminar.

I watched about 25 minutes of Mank, and promised myself to get back to it when I had the opportunity. But every time the opportunity arose, I couldn't bring myself to continue. I think, aesthetically speaking, after 25 minutes I got the point. I admired the fastidiousness of the filmmaking, but I had the feeling - and reading everyone's reviews seemed to bear this out - that the movie never peaks. Or rather, it's all peak, going nowhere and ending up just as it began, with lots of nice art direction but nothing more to reveal.

Finally, as for Time, I wonder if I would have liked the movie half as much if the central figure was a white redneck who tried to rob a bank, was superficially repentent, and then went on to be a preacher and a car salesman. Not nearly.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by anonymous1980 »

LOVE AND MONSTERS
Cast: Dylan O'Brien, Jessica Henwick, Michael Rooker, Dan Ewing, Arianna Greenblatt.
Dir: Michael Matthews.

After a fallout from an asteroid causes Earth's invertebrates to mutate into man-eating monsters, the remnants of humankind go underground. Among them, a young man who decides to make a perilous journey to reunite with his high school sweetheart. This film which combines a YA romantic comedy with the monster movie and post-apocalyptic genre is pure formula. But it is a lot of fun and surprisingly refreshing. It doesn't go overboard with the big action and manages to surprise a few times. I can see why this got nominated for the Visual Effects Oscar. It combines animatronics and puppets with the CGI and the creature designs are quite imaginative. It is better than you think it's gonna be and it is genuinely enjoyable.

Grade: B+

THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY
Cast: Andra Day, Trevante Rhodes, Garrett Hedlund, Natasha Lyonne, Miss Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Tyler James Williams, Evan Ross, Leslie Jordan.
Dir: Lee Daniels.

This is a biopic of singer Billie Holiday, sort of focusing on the time the FBI targeted her for performing the controversial anti-lynching song "Strange Fruit" by exploiting her drug addiction. This story is quite interesting and compelling. But the film tells it in the least interesting and least compelling way possible. The film instead relies on the truly superb performance of Andra Day to carry it through. The film is otherwise little more than a pretty good cable movie from the 1990's (perhaps on Showtime or Lifetime) with a slightly bigger budget. If it weren't for Day's performance, it would've been a chore to sit through but she made it watchable.

Grade: C+
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by Big Magilla »

Mister Tee wrote:Question: do we have any idea how many years had passed between the main body of the movie and the epilogue? And is there a good brief read on how the rapprochement was allowed to take place?
Good question. Here's a good place to start: https://www.history.com/topics/1990s/bosnian-genocide

Interestingly, Jasna Djuricic who plays the Bosnian interpreter for the Dutch U.N. forces is a Serb, as are other cast members in the film. The genocide that occurred in July 1995 was responded to by the bombing of Serbian positions by NATO in August. Estimates of Bosniaks killed by Serb forces at Srebrenica range from around 7,000 to more than 8,000 in that short period of time. The Serbian general depicted in the film who was dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia" was not found guilty at his Nuremberg-like trial until 2017 when he was imprisoned for life at the age of 74.

If the Oscar for International Feature were to go the most important film, then Quo Vadis, Aida? would be an easy choice, but of course that's not the decision that's being asked to be made.

It might still win in an upset, but Another Round is a film that really resonates with the Academy which has its own share of middle-aged and beyond drunks and outright alcoholics. The film is an indictment of the Danish society at large in which heavy drinking is a national pastime. Then there's the backstory of Vinterberg's 17-year-old daughter having urged him to make the film based on an old play he had written. She was to have played Mikkelsen's daughter in the film, but died in a car crash four weeks into filming before her scenes were to be filmed. Her character was rewritten as a second son for Mikkelsen's character. The film is dedicated to her. Those are her classmates who who appear as extras in the classroom scenes.

It's a tough choice. A tie would be nice. It would put a spotlight on an Oscar category that is generally shrugged off by the public at large.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by Mister Tee »

I'm totally with dws on Quo Vadis, Aida? -- an extremely powerful, gripping film that's for me more successful, top to bottom, than Another Round. (As potent as the extended inside-the-compound section was, the scene just prior to the finale took it to another level.) I definitely agree that it could have been an upset winner under the old you-must-see-all-five system, and I'm not entirely sure it couldn't pull it out even in this circumstance. It's not as if Another Round was that widely seen, either; it's kind of a weak front-runner-because-there-has-to-be-one. And this film is just so emotionally engaging.

And, yes, the lead performance was sensational. (And extremely accessible, because a good bit of it was in English.)

Question: do we have any idea how many years had passed between the main body of the movie and the epilogue? And is there a good brief read on how the rapprochement was allowed to take place?
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by MaxWilder »

Big Magilla wrote:It's left up in the air, but the grandmother was in no shape to be tending them following her stroke. Then again, how much tending would they need after they've reached a certain point in their growth?
Good point. Besides, she’s people’s favorite character. She wouldn’t just vanish without mention.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by Big Magilla »

Reza wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:For me, Minari and Sound of Metal were the two most emotionally true films of the year, and the year's two best films. Nothing else comes close.
Despite your sad personal memories surrounding the plot of The Father didn't you find it as emotionally true as the two films you cite?
No. When my father would confuse people he was speaking to with other people, it would be people he hadn't seen in some time, not people he saw every day like his daughter and son-in-law. The people he imagined seeing were people he wanted to see, not people he didn't want to see like Hopkins' character's illusions were. He was happy to see them, not terrified like Hopkins' character was most of the time. Except for the girl who reminded him of his dead daughter, none of the people Hopkins' character imagined were those he wanted to see.

I thought the film was good, but not great.

Hopkins was very good. Colman and Northam were good, too, but I think it was a mistake to have other actors play their characters in certain scenes. I know the intent was to have the audience see what Hopkins was seeing, but I think it would been better to have the audience see what was happening from Colman and Northam's perspectives. That way you understand what they're going through from the start. Otherwise, it looks like it could be that they're sending in substitutes to confuse the old man to get him declared incompetent so they can get his money as in so many previous films and TV shows.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by Reza »

Big Magilla wrote:For me, Minari and Sound of Metal were the two most emotionally true films of the year, and the year's two best films. Nothing else comes close.
Despite your sad personal memories surrounding the plot of The Father didn't you find it as emotionally true as the two films you cite?
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by Big Magilla »

MaxWilder wrote:Minari spoiler question:

Does the grandmother die at the end? There doesn’t appear to be a time jump, but the father says the minari are “growing well on their own.” The grandmother is the one who planted them, so is she no longer there to tend to them?
It's left up in the air, but the grandmother was in no shape to be tending them following her stroke. Then again, how much tending would they need after they've reached a certain point in their growth?
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by MaxWilder »

Minari spoiler question:

Does the grandmother die at the end? There doesn’t appear to be a time jump, but the father says the minari are “growing well on their own.” The grandmother is the one who planted them, so is she no longer there to tend to them?
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by Big Magilla »

For me, Minari and Sound of Metal were the two most emotionally true films of the year, and the year's two best films. Nothing else comes close.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by Reza »

Mister Tee wrote:All you people who commented on Minari forgot to mention how dull the damn thing is.

For me, this is like Sundance/vintage 1983, when nearly all the films that came out of there were well-intentioned stories of honest-working-people (mostly in rural areas) whose humdrum lives were chronicled with grinding integrity that didn't allow for a single moment of wit or invention. Halfway though, I started to suspect this was largely memoir (a suspicion confirmed by research), because no one would try to sell this limp a narrative as a story -- it can only fly as something that has "truth" as defense. Even the sudden flurry of plot developments in the last quarter hour (after 90 minutes of barely anything happening) had the whiff of "don't tell me it's melodramatic/it actually happened that way". Proving, as someone once said, that life is no artist.

The only thing this movie has going for it is the grandmother character, and I will say that Youn brings the movie to what life it has. (Though I felt bad for her having to deliver the I Am Metaphor/Hear Me Roar speech that spells out the meaning of the title in as banal a fashion as the worst 1950s play.) She's the only thing about the film that deserved a spot on the Oscar slate. Steven Yeun had a wonderful, insinuating presence in Burning, but here he does next to nothing -- how he managed a best actor nomination for it is beyond me. (I'm retroactively even more outraged for Delroy Lindo.)
Hilarious and absolutely spot on!! :lol:

In fact even Youn is no great shakes and if she wins over any of the other 4 nominees it would be a travesty.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by Mister Tee »

All you people who commented on Minari forgot to mention how dull the damn thing is.

For me, this is like Sundance/vintage 1983, when nearly all the films that came out of there were well-intentioned stories of honest-working-people (mostly in rural areas) whose humdrum lives were chronicled with grinding integrity that didn't allow for a single moment of wit or invention. Halfway though, I started to suspect this was largely memoir (a suspicion confirmed by research), because no one would try to sell this limp a narrative as a story -- it can only fly as something that has "truth" as defense. Even the sudden flurry of plot developments in the last quarter hour (after 90 minutes of barely anything happening) had the whiff of "don't tell me it's melodramatic/it actually happened that way". Proving, as someone once said, that life is no artist.

The only thing this movie has going for it is the grandmother character, and I will say that Youn brings the movie to what life it has. (Though I felt bad for her having to deliver the I Am Metaphor/Hear Me Roar speech that spells out the meaning of the title in as banal a fashion as the worst 1950s play.) She's the only thing about the film that deserved a spot on the Oscar slate. Steven Yeun had a wonderful, insinuating presence in Burning, but here he does next to nothing -- how he managed a best actor nomination for it is beyond me. (I'm retroactively even more outraged for Delroy Lindo.)

A cluster of films I genuinely liked -- Promising Young Woman, Judas, The Father, even Nomadland to a degree -- had me thinking maybe I was short-changing the year. But seeing this listless piece up in all the top categories makes me revert to my original position: that this was barely half a year, and giving out prizes for it is inflationary for those involved.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by gunnar »

I had the same thought about Jasna Đuričić for Best Actress. That was an excellent performance and an excellent movie, too.
dws1982 wrote:Just a quick word about Quo Vadis Aida, the International Film nominee from Bosnia and Heregovina: I liked it better than Another Round; it's doing something very different, and in the must-see-all-five days, I think it probably could've had a shot at an upset because it's a fairly mainstream film with a strong emotional pull, and a VERY strong lead performance. NEON should've made the film eligible in all categories (I don't think it was "officially" released until March 2021) and pushed Jasna Đuričić for Best Actress, because there was room to move in that category, and she would easily get my vote. Not going to say a ton else about the movie, and I would caution you guys to avoid reviews, because this is a movie where, because I had read a plot summary and a couple of reviews on Letterboxd (that didn't even really discuss the plot in a ton of detail), I knew way more about where it would go than I would've preferred, and I think I would've liked it even more if I hadn't read those reviews.

It's easily available as a rental or purchase on all of the big streaming sites.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2020

Post by dws1982 »

Just a quick word about Quo Vadis Aida, the International Film nominee from Bosnia and Heregovina: I liked it better than Another Round; it's doing something very different, and in the must-see-all-five days, I think it probably could've had a shot at an upset because it's a fairly mainstream film with a strong emotional pull, and a VERY strong lead performance. NEON should've made the film eligible in all categories (I don't think it was "officially" released until March 2021) and pushed Jasna Đuričić for Best Actress, because there was room to move in that category, and she would easily get my vote. Not going to say a ton else about the movie, and I would caution you guys to avoid reviews, because this is a movie where, because I had read a plot summary and a couple of reviews on Letterboxd (that didn't even really discuss the plot in a ton of detail), I knew way more about where it would go than I would've preferred, and I think I would've liked it even more if I hadn't read those reviews.

It's easily available as a rental or purchase on all of the big streaming sites.
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