The Official Review Thread of 2022

[Sabin]

Strange World is a super pretty movie with conflicts that feel very muddled to me. The idea of a father-son adventurer team who get split up at some point only to reunite later in a crazy adventure when the son is a father of his own is a good idea. But it's more busy subverting tropes than narrowing on who has what trauma that needs to be healed and why?

Examples of muddled conflicts:
-Searcher Clade doesn't think his father, Jaeger Clade, is dead; he thinks he's just off adventuring.
-Searcher Clade's method of fathering isn't corrective in contrast to what he experienced; he's kind of perfect. He also has a fantastic satisfying progressive married home life.
-Searcher Clade isn't overshadowed by his father's legacy; he actually overshadows his father because he's come into his own as a wild success with his discovery of alternative fuel.
-Searcher Clade isn't going on the adventure because he wants to find his father (which would be personal); he is going because it involves the alternative fuel source losing its power and he is an expert on it.
-Ethan Clade doesn't come along because he wants to prove anything to his father or not be left behind; he has a mother back at home. He comes along (and brings his dog) because... honestly, I don't remember.

I could go on. It's so busy subverting tropes that I think it misses clearer emotional stakes. I think a movie that's 50% dumber would be twice as effective. It's super pretty though.

Why did it flop? Put aside the fact that Disney barely advertised this thing. There's a real lack of elements that children or a family might enjoy. There's no clear memorable protagonist. There aren't any songs. The closest thing to a fun goofy character is Splat. The only thing memorable about the film is the world and that's not enough.

[Sonic Youth]

I guess Miranda July’s voice over is a little on the precious side but this struck me as a rather precious film to begin with. These are like Wes Anderson characters. I haven’t seen the Herzog film so all the footage was new to me and just stunning. My biggest issue was that it’s certainly not a long film but there isn’t much structure to it. It could’ve been 60 minutes, 30 minutes (maybe that’s pushing it), and felt like just as full of a meal. But I enjoyed it. Certainly a contender to win Best Doc.

A slight quibble but I really feel like they could’ve told us a little more clearly how they died. Like it’s pretty clear how it happened but this is also a documentary about volcanos. It’s entirely possible I don’t have the full story. Even if they don’t know, I’d like their best guess. I know this sounds morbid but we all know they’re going to die so… anyway, whatever.

This isn't a documentary. These filmmakers are beyond mere documentaries It's a serenade of life and death, a poetic elegy, a nature haiku, a universal threnody. I'm rather fond of Miranda July, but they probably hired her as voice-over because she's the only one willing to read this pretentious drivel. The volcano footage is sometimes amazing, but can't you see that anywhere? I gave up after 30 minutes, figuring it was probably going to be another hour's worth of more-of-the-same. Sorry.

[Sabin]

I guess Miranda July’s voice over is a little on the precious side but this struck me as a rather precious film to begin with. These are like Wes Anderson characters. I haven’t seen the Herzog film so all the footage was new to me and just stunning. My biggest issue was that it’s certainly not a long film but there isn’t much structure to it. It could’ve been 60 minutes, 30 minutes (maybe that’s pushing it), and felt like just as full of a meal. But I enjoyed it. Certainly a contender to win Best Doc.

A slight quibble but I really feel like they could’ve told us a little more clearly how they died. Like it’s pretty clear how it happened but this is also a documentary about volcanos. It’s entirely possible I don’t have the full story. Even if they don’t know, I’d like their best guess. I know this sounds morbid but we all know they’re going to die so… anyway, whatever.

[Big Magilla]

The remake is closer in spirit to G.W. Pabst's 1930 German film, Westfront 1918, released in 1931 in the U.S. Filmed at the same time as Lewis Milestone's film, it is completely devoid of sentimentality.

When the central character goes home on leave, he is not greeted with open arms. He finds his mother waiting on a long bread line and his wife in bed with the landlord. When he dies at the end he isn't reaching for a butterfly, he just keels over like his comrades who went before him.

[Uri]

Shaul Fridlander, the renowned historion, used the phrase "kitsch and death", referring to a very German way of experiencing the world, when writing about Nazism. And while I honestly believe AQotWf makers are as anti Nazi as they come, that term kept popping in my mind when I watched this version, which is very German in a way not the book nor the 1930 version were.

[Okri]

What more needs to be said about All Quiet On the Western Front that hasn't been said already? I think the genre is in need of a reboot. Sure, it affected me as I was watching it, although it took about an hour for it to "click". As usual, the technical aspects owe a lot to Spielberg, although it has very little of Spielberg's hyper-kineticism, which is actually quite refreshing. But how many more reiterations of the formula - by which I mean not just narrative formula or thematic formula, but battle scene and special effects formulas - can the contemporary war movie withstand before it loses its force all together? The noble and probably correct answer is that these movies should never stop being made. So then the question becomes, how many more reiterations of the formula can I watch before I've reached my limit? I don't know, but it never ocurred to me that there was a limit until... well, actually Dunkirk. Which means I'm getting closer.

Also... Weird Al Jankovic once did a parody of George Harrisons' hit "I've Got My Mind Set On You" which goes "This Song's Just Six Words Long". It kept running through my head whenever the score - which is only three notes - asserted itself. Also, the make-up overacted.

I don't mean to sound overly-dismissive. It's a serious, honorable film. But maybe 20 years too late?

dws had a post about the day Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot and I would legit rather see a movie about that. Or an adaptation of Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919.

I have to admit I was mixed on basically every aspect of the film but the performances and make-up, actually. I'm particularly irritated by the cinematography, which has a "made for Netflix" aesthetic I'm a little worried by.

[danfrank]

Sonic, it’s great reading your reviews. You’re both spot on and hilarious. Maybe you have a bit more time to watch movies now?

[Sonic Youth]

What more needs to be said about All Quiet On the Western Front that hasn't been said already? I think the genre is in need of a reboot. Sure, it affected me as I was watching it, although it took about an hour for it to "click". As usual, the technical aspects owe a lot to Spielberg, although it has very little of Spielberg's hyper-kineticism, which is actually quite refreshing. But how many more reiterations of the formula - by which I mean not just narrative formula or thematic formula, but battle scene and special effects formulas - can the contemporary war movie withstand before it loses its force all together? The noble and probably correct answer is that these movies should never stop being made. So then the question becomes, how many more reiterations of the formula can I watch before I've reached my limit? I don't know, but it never ocurred to me that there was a limit until... well, actually Dunkirk. Which means I'm getting closer.

Also... Weird Al Jankovic once did a parody of George Harrisons' hit "I've Got My Mind Set On You" which goes "This Song's Just Six Words Long". It kept running through my head whenever the score - which is only three notes - asserted itself. Also, the make-up overacted.

I don't mean to sound overly-dismissive. It's a serious, honorable film. But maybe 20 years too late?

[Sabin]

Big Magilla wrote
Did we read the same review? I thought that quote was Sonic saying what he thought before seeing the film, immediately followed by a rebuke of that idea.

Yes, I understand that. I was saying that even if he didn't like it, he wouldn't be in danger because it's sitting at a low RT. That said, I missed the qualifier about festival winners without the equivalent critical support, which is to say exactly a movie that would sit at 72% and win the Palme d'Or. So... post deleted.

Anyway, I watched it again. I still think it's terrific. Only the first chapter is really incisive. I don't care if Russian capitalists and American communists getting drunk and exchanging quotes is obvious. It's a terrific time and I don't think it gets enough credit for restarting twice over during the film. That's a very hard thing to do and it pulls it off with ease. It comes down a bit for me on a second viewing because of just how ruinous that ending is. I think it has something to do with the warning the taxi driver gave Harris Dickinson about being a slave but we're beyond that at this point and we need something else.

I also rewatched The Fabelmans. I really couldn't be objective on the first viewing and I think I know why. It wasn't just the combination of elements that felt very personal to me. It was also just what a remarkable visual storyteller Steven Spielberg is. It all just felt very close. It still does, but that's sort of the part I resent a bit now. It's over-written, melodramatic, stagy in a way that I don't think is entirely earned, resulting in (for me) scenes and moments that contain individual power but not totally as a story that gels the "birth of an artist through the ruins of his family" thing in an emotionally satisfying way. Rewatching it, I wondered how the film might play had the John Ford scene been the midpoint. Who wouldn't want to see what happened after that? I really do understand why people love that scene so much. It's specific and jolting (Gabriel LaBelle is great in that scene) in a way that the rest of the film occasionally feels un-lived (like the anti-semitism). Just not that sure Spielberg had that interesting of a childhood. Anyway, I liked seeing Spielberg bring a story to life with such a light plot but I get why it's about to score a bagel at the Oscars.

[Big Magilla]

Sonic Youth wrote
Great, can't wait for [Triangle of Sadness'] fans to tell me how unintelligent I am for not appreciating it.

Considering that it stands at 72% on Rotten Tomatoes, I don't think you're in danger. This is not a venerable Palme d'Or winner. I love it for mainly the reasons you cite. There is nothing profound about an American communist trading quotes with a Russian capitalist, but it's fun. The first chapter is incisive. The rest is a good time.

Did we read the same review? I thought that quote was Sonic saying what he thought before seeing the film, immediately followed by a rebuke of that idea.

Mercifully, I dozed off during much of Woody Harrelson's portion of the film which included most of the puking scenes or I probably wouldn't have placed it as high on my top ten list as I did, coming in fourth behind Tár, The Banshees of Inisherin, and The Fabelmans, and ahead of All Quiet on the Western Front and Women Talking, the other Oscar nominees that made my list.

I thought it was the best of the year's "crazy" films which also included Babylon and White Noise which I also liked a lot more than Everywhere All at Once, Glass Onion, and The Menu. Dolly De Leon was robbed.

[Sabin]

Just deleted

[Sonic Youth]

Busy this weekend playing some catch-up before tomorrow night.

I was prepared to dispise Triangle of Sadness. I usually tend to resent festival-winning movies - sight-unseen - that don't have the equivalent critical support. (Yes, I know that's unreasonable.) Contains obvious and unoriginal social satirical jabs? Great, can't wait for the film's fans to tell me how unintelligent I am for not appreciating it. I even had a mini-review all planned out which went something like "Channeling my inner Armond White, I can declare that Glass Onion > Triangle of Sadness". But mostly it was the promise of on-screen puking that put me off, which needless to say I really, really don't enjoy watching.

But I can't, in good concience, use my Armond White line because I enjoyed most of it. Oh, it's a mess, and I still prefer Glass Onion (because however broad and obvious Onion's satirical jabs are, at least they're funny). It's really three different films (four, including the brief intro) and each "chapter" change is really a reset. And the final chapter, on the island, kinda goes splat. (Don't these dummies know that when you see a donkey, it means you're not on an uninhabited island???) Bur the first two thirds were quite entertaining, even audacious. I was not at all prepared for the dramatic vehemence of the first part, which depicted a toxic relationship with searing intensity, "Don't Look Back in Anger" set in a luxury hotel. I would've liked to have seen this relationship develop, which unfortunately it doesn't. Yes, Chapter 2 has its obvious social satire, (when a passenger says he manufactures products that "promote democracy", you already know what the product will be. In fact, I think I spoiled it for you.) but as an exercise in absurdity, it's great fun. It was fascinating to watch the crew unrewardingly struggle to keep near-militaristic order on the cruise. (Three cheers to Vicki Berlin as the barely contained head of staff.) And I don't know if there's anything profound about a communist American captain and a capitalist Russian oligarch trading quotes over the PA while on a - ahem! - sinking ship. But as the climax of the slow-burn absurdity that came before, it's exhilaratingly silly. And Woody Harrelson proves he can be funny delivering his lines behind a closed door. And yes, there's all that vomiting and shit-filled toilets I could've done without, but as long as I closed my eyes at the right times, I could handle it.

So, I thought it was a two-thirds success, and all I'll say about the final one-third is it's more interesting to watch than it is to think back on. And can we please call a moritorium to the unresolved final shot? I think I've seen twenty instances of it in the past ten years. Retire it already!

[anonymous1980]

LIVING
Cast: Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp, Tom Burke.
Dir: Oliver Hermanus.

A London bureaucrat nearing retirement age finds out he has stomach cancer and has less than a year to live. He decides to try and make the most of the time he has left. This is a British remake of the Akira Kurosawa classic Ikiru. As with most remakes, this should give any self-respecting cinephile pause. But thankfully, this is a heartfelt wonderfully acted film that feels like its own thing but at the same time honors and respects the original. The story. I have to say, translates well to the British milieu. Bill Nighy is outstanding in the lead. Is it as good as the original? Hell, no. But it's a fine film on its own that still resonates its message well. This is the last of the major Oscar nominees I haven't seen so I've officially seen all the films except for the one with the Diane Warren song.

Grade: B+

[Sabin]

I'm not going to waste a lot of time on writing about Everything Everywhere All At Once for a third time. My sister hadn't seen the movie yet. It's been a pretty crazy and emotional week for our family so I figured "What's one more viewing?" So I watched it again. I don't know why the whole thing came a little more into focus for me (or maybe I just did) but it did. This is the first viewing of the film where I can honestly say I liked it without much hesitation beyond the fact that I just think I could've been a little clearer through. It's just lousy at delivering exposition. And it's just overlong. But most important, this is the first viewing where I really feel like I got Michelle Yeoh's character (day-dreamer, hobbyist, unhappy with her life, passing on generational pressures) and I was able to more savor it as the story of a woman who learns to appreciate what she has. That's really what the film is at the end of the day. It's a maximalist take on a sweet little family with their own set of problems and this is the first time I could really watch the film and see it as that. Joy's role as Jobu Tupaki worked better for me this time. I just wish it’s maximalist take didn’t always get in the way of what I like about it.

Also, I don't think Michelle Yeoh is going to win but she really is very good in this. She's quite good at showing us Evelyn as a sort of closed off, stubborn woman who becomes sort addicted to the "multiverse-jumping" because she wants to see more versions of the way her life could turn out.

It's not my choice for Best Picture but I can certainly live with it.

[mlrg]

Also think that Nighy is highly deserving of his nomination.

I also really liked the musical score. I would have nominated it myself.