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crow_jane
Reviews
Poor Things (2023)
I was whelmed
I love The Favourite and fully expected to love this too, but I only like it. Visually stunning, and evocative of fantastical worlds, and provocative and well acted etc etc etc. I was still left... unchallenged. The first half was somewhat frustrating in its limited scope but I trusted that it would unfurl with more energy and intention and examine itself in a meaningful way. Instead, it seemed to entirely lose focus altogether, and by the end I was unhappily in a place of tepid appreciation of craft, of charm, of a decent set up with a discombobulated pay off - or no real pay off at all. I doubt I will revisit this one, even if it evoked nostalgia for other works that I have loved. It never reaches their heights, and in that it only serves to disappoint.
The Killer (2023)
Has one thing to say, and that thing is neither interesting nor profound
If Fight Club is an adolescent attempt at deconstructing masculinity in the modern world, The Killer is an undergraduate attempt at meta-commentary of that original "deconstruction". What if Tyler Durden was actually a moron? If he thought he was smart but he wasn't? And listened to Morrissey while claiming to be emotionless? And thought he saw through the shallowness of existence while spouting platitudes that could be on a your-day-in-nihilism calendar? Isn't that endlessly hilarious and deep? It's worth the dragging nothingness cos the payoff is so good. Except. It's not. It's dull and shallow.
Meet Cute (2022)
Appalling
My husband put this on so I was going in totally blind and with no expectations, and from about 30 seconds in my jaw was hanging open as the awful awful awful dialogue and performances absolutely blew my mind. I don't mind it being an over-done idea, we had just finished Glass Onion and if Rian Johnson could get out of his own way that would have been really good despite the Christie derivativeness. My point is: it's not the concept, but the execution, that is the problem here. Cast good actors and give them good dialogue and they will create chemistry and the viewer will be invested in them and their relationship and bam! The rest will be mostly okay. Disbelief will be suspended and whatever concept you throw will be accepted. Cast actors with at-best limited ranges and give them mind-meltingly clunky and stupid dialogue and viewers will be constantly aware that they're watching a movie and over-thinking whatever scenario you put your characters in. Having an interesting idea does not a good movie make.
Encanto (2021)
Enchanting, but not enthralling
My 7 year old and I are huge LMM fans. She was all about Moana when she was 3 and has since loved Hamilton and Vivo, so we were both excited for this one. But.... Look.... The animation is lovely. And the characters are charming. And a couple of the songs are catchy. But.... The story is fairly nonsensical, with multiple hurdles and reveals but no controlling idea, the backstory is confusing, and every single song seems to be an emotional catharsis. This film was actively wanting me to cry, which just turns my emotions off. And to be honest, some of the singing was sub-par. I really really wanted to like it. And I don't hate it. But I'm a bit bummed that this was all it was. Nothing sticks, nothing makes us want to go back.
Look Both Ways (2005)
poignant, beautiful, real.
it's a pity this was filmed in Adelaide. no offense to Adelaide people - love your "city", very pretty place, but i think such a great film ought to have been made the way it was intended and this was intended to be a Melbourne movie. i read an article a couple of weeks ago about it and evidently quite a lot had to be changed to take into account the change of location. for some reason filming in Melbourne wasn't as feasible as in Adelaide. i can imagine what this film would have been like set in Melbourne. but still, my point is more that a film so great ought to have been unhampered by monetary concerns and shame on the Australian film industry (again) for hampering a local project through lack of vision. my other gripes with the film are some dodgy acting from the support roles and a rather too neat ending that was already upbeat enough. a bit of ambiguity would have left me feeling more satisfied than the neat little "wrap-up montage" at the end. but the main cast was brilliant. i wish more movies about the Australian summer were released at the end of winter - i could feel the heat watching it. my favourite artistic aspect of this movie was the fact that the partner of the guy who died on the train tracks and the driver of the train both remained silent for almost the entire film. the first time either of them spoke was when the driver came to the woman's house and said he was sorry and gave her a card and she said it wasn't his fault and almost cried for the first time and they pressed hands and he left. such poignancy. before that they were just images of grief, mimes acting out the turmoil of loss and trauma and guilt, at that moment they became people surviving life's losses, connected through that one tragic event. i love this film. it is flawed, but in its flaws it is strikingly beautiful and most important of all - real.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Pope Yoda and the Revenge of Sooky La-La
I was all prepared to like this movie. I found the other prequels dull but had read all the good reviews of RotS by others in the same boat. So how disappointed was I
.
I could whinge about all the let downs, but a lot of people have already done that. So my main points on what I loathed and how Lucas let us all down are as follows:
What exactly did we gain from watching this movie? We all knew Anakin was going to turn to the dark side, and that's basically what happened. Over the course of three films a petulant, sooky, talented kid grew up to think too much of himself, showed off his lack of intelligence and fell for the dark side for no apparent reason. Right, he'd had some dreams about Padme dying. So, he believes the evil guy is going to help him. Maybe believable before he found out Palpatine was the Sith Lord, but afterwards it smacks either of an IQ somewhere in the low teens or Lucas being too lazy and/or preoccupied with CGI to come up with something believable.
However, part of me did not blame Anakin for turning to the dark side when the other option was to be a priest in the thou-shalt-not church of the Jedi. We were seriously wondering if anything wasn't the path to the dark side. I mean, if you went up to Yoda and said "Hey Yoda, let's do lunch!" would he reply with "the path to the dark side lunch is"? In this movie, probably.
Women are generally not portrayed well, portrayed at all, in sci-fi movies. However, in the original Star Wars films, we had the brilliant character of Leia to compensate for all the Y chromosomes flying around. In TPM, Padme seemed to almost fill the void, in AotC she did sporadically, but in RotS she became a spineless sop with no backbone or brain. The one time she expresses her views on the war Anakin gets angry at her so, instead of having an argument or at least sticking up for herself, she goes "Hold me
" and chickens out. After Anakin tries to kill her, instead of asking if the bastard's good and dead, she's all "Is Ani OK?"
.and I seriously wonder if she was wearing a corset under the multitude of pretty clothes that were her only voice in the movie, and if all she did whilst pottering around in that apartment was embroider and sigh, since Lucas assigned her the 19th Century fate of dying from a broken heart. If roles were reversed, Anakin would hardly have died of a broken heart, would he? Nooo, cos he's a man, man.
One potential for drama in this movie, which I was looking forward to, was the hunting down of the Jedi. Lucas should have watched 'Elizabeth' before shooting those scenes, because they lacked even the hint of dramatic tension or suspense.
Basically, what Yoda should have said was "gullibility path to the dark side is" or "mind- boggling naivety to the dark side leads." Because that is the main moral of the story, and all the rest was a load of computer-generated excrement
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
brilliant...except they killed bernard *cough*dylan*cough*david
the only reason i rented this movie was that there was a half price deal on the second movie at my local video ezy and my boyfriend is a fanatical black books fan and i felt he deserved something for agreeing to watch bridget jones two with me. bridget jones! ha! (not that it's not a watchable movie...with a great fight scene. but ha!) i've never seen a zombie flick, and i didn't watch this as a zombie flick, and everyone who complains about it in terms of it being a zombie flick needs to understand that simon pegg is a comedian. but! people also need to understand it's not a spoof. this is spaced humour, this is black books humour. this is *that type of British comedy* humour. and it's bloody hilarious. my only complaint is David's death, and not just because i, like my boyfriend, am a black books fanatic, but also because up until then the movie hadn't been particularly gruesome, so disemboweling, however fake it looked upon repeat viewings, was a bit of a shock. and i have to admit the end was an anti-climax both dramatically and comedically. but i'm willing to overlook this on account of its humour, originality, and the fun we had going "hey! that's the girl from episode whatzit of black books" or" i know. ed was the security security security guy!" oh, and i read somewhere someone complaining about how the movie broke away from "zombie fact". zombie FACT?? .......................
Little Women (1994)
A journey to adulthood
I watched Little Women last night and for the first time in a very long time I viewed it as a film in it's own right, without being preoccupied with comparing it to the book. The first thing that struck me was the music. It makes one think of childhood, and I guess, for me, that is partly because the movie was released when I was a child. But it is beautifully melancholy score, evoking the nostalgia that is the true meaning behind this film. Jo is the main character, and the movie is truly the story of her growing up. When we first meet her she is an ambitious young writer, "longing for transformation", to escape the confines of her family life. But at the same time Jo loves her family deeply, hence a conflict that rages in her for the better part of the movie, best shown in the scene where Mr. March has arrived home and Jo is sitting on the stairs watching the family, cut off from them by her fear of change, namely Meg marrying and leaving the family home, and in the scene where Jo explains to Marmee how trapped she feels. Meg and Amy are both desperate to grow up and leave home, but once they do, they feel closer bound to their family then ever; Amy brings back from Europe a painting of the family home. Beth never has this conflict - since neither desire nor ambition drive her from home and, in fact, she never actually grows up. Laurie is the love of Jo's childhood, Friedrich of her adulthood. Hence, on the cusp of adulthood, Jo rejects Laurie even though she loves him, rightly divining that they would live to regret marrying each other. In fact, Jo rejects her childish loves - Laurie and travel and family, in pursuit of an adult identity. Meg's journey is one from false dignity, a misguided idea of what is 'proper' and 'grown-up', to embracing true maturity. The girls do their best in a world not made for women's betterment. Jo:"I'd commit murder to go to college" Armstrong infuses the movie with more pro-feminist feeling than Alcott did in the book, but this seems to lead to the sad diminishing of the characters of Mr. March and Mr. Lawrence as if the title Little Women means the only characters that could possibly be of importance are the women and their love interests (yes, I'm back to referencing the book) The acting is good (except Samantha Mathis, who brings none of the life and sparkle to Amy that Dunst does) , the design beautiful, the directing faultless. All in all, a wonderful movie.
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
but....but....but.....why????
how could this happen? in the first matrix movie we are given both a great story and a great set up for sequels. i was so stoked when i heard that they were releasing two follow up movies.
i wish i'd never seen them.
i can't watch the original movie now without remembering the descent into overblown mediocrity - as much of a tautology as that sounds - that followed.
characters degenerate - Morpheus especially. No longer the enigmatic, idealistic, self-sacrificing leader he once was- he's now a pathetic General wannabe who has to make overly loud speeches to compensate for lack of substance.
And what's with Neo's premonitions? His ability to affect the machines from outside the Matrix? I was hoping against hope for a dual matrix revelation, but instead we're left with vague explanations and made to feel that they're either too obvious or too complex to explain to *us*
i did like the final battle for Zion, the special effects were great and it was realistically gritty, even if the acting was incredibly uneven.....but i thought neo's awkward, anti-climactic death was an insult even to keanu reeves.
and that ending better not be a signal for ANOTHER movie...
The Ring (2002)
The sophisticated cousin of a large family
First, I saw The Ring. I stayed at my friends house, drinking coffee in her kitchen and talking about the movie, until 2am. I went home and slept with the light on. My curiosity, however, was piqued. My friend and I then rented Ring and Ring 2 to see how the Japanese versions stacked up. We watched them in her lounge room, alone, with the lights turned off, yet neither movie elicited in either of us the same response as the American version. To my, perhaps overly westernised view, each contained only one truly scary scene, in the first, the 'Sadako leaves the TV' scene, and in the second a scene where Anna appears as an oblivious ghost, but then turns around and looks at the main character.
I then read all the information I could find on the net, and then one day in Borders I saw the book had finally been translated and published here. It was a great read, very different from the movies, and, apart from being incredibly sexist (all the women in it are either evil or insipid, the Rachel Character is, of course, a man) one of the best contemporary stories I have ever read.
However, it opened my eyes to a plot hole I had ignored in the movies, which is; if Sadako/Samara wants everyone to know her pain and spread it like a sickness, why would she not SAY SO? In the book, the video is like a chain letter, featuring a "If you do not pass this on within 7 days, you will die" type warning, however, that part has been taped over by the teenagers as a prank.
Apart from that, and the odd inclusion of horses, and the fact that the DVD has a trailer of Catch Me If You Can as a Special Feature, it is a very scary, well done movie with brilliant sound and lighting, and a breath-takingly chilling performance by Daveigh Chase. Some of the story changes, such as Samara's mother being the one who put her in the well, and of Samara being killed when she was still a child, were good choices for this film.
Someone said here that the end is a disappointing sequel chaser, which is missing the whole point of any of the movies, and certainly of the original story- which was that "it won't stop". It will spread throughout the world like a virus, replicating a re-replicating itself until everyone has experienced the horror of Sadako.