Weird. Not for everyone, but you're definitely in the minority.
97% and an 8.7/10 from critics, and 91% and a 9.2/10 from the audience.
Yeah I certainly wouldn't say it was horrid. I was definitely entertained, the performances were excellent, it was creative and had things to say. Even if it wasn't my favourite movie ever, I still think it's the type of thing we need more of.
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"This has been TheScorpion's shtick for years. All these hot takes, clickbait nonsense just to feed his social media algorithms." –Tuco
I think it's the most competently made and original film from top to bottom of the year so far. Is it my favourite? No. But its a case where you can acknowledge how original & well put together the film is given the outlandish ideas it brought to the table, and you can tip your hat to the people behind it when it inevitably gets best picture attention.
As Scorpion says, it's exactly the kind of thing we need more of in movies.
Northman has earned the title of my favourite to this point though.
I've surprisingly liked the comedies of this year so far too (which is shocking coming out of covid and limited productions). With Massive Talent leading the way, of course.
We saw everything, everywhere, all at once on the weekend and I really enjoyed it. It's weird, quirky and has some really funny moments. The family relationships really spoke to me (grandparent-parent-child) and also the cultural presentations. I'm a white guy engaged to a first gen Chinese-Canadian and my partner and I both agreed, that the relationships were presented extremely accurately. We talked about the themes of the movie for at least 24 hours after. It was also nice seeing the actors in non-standard roles.
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so, upon learning that a Weird Al film is coming out, I decided to go through his back catalogue. After watching "Fat", I was struck by how bizarre some of the parody is, especially with the acting scenes at the start. So, I decided to watch the original "Bad" video, only to discover that I've been lied to all these years.
See, it wasn't just a video with a short bit of dramatic acting before it began, it was a fully produced short film. This was made by Quincy Jones and directed by Martin Scorsese. Wesley Snipes plays a key character. It's equal parts cliche cringe, but also has something important to say about class struggles.
I guess I'm recommending the short film "Bad".
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If we can't fall in love with replaceable bottom 6 players then the terrorists have won.
You have Michael laying it bed having issues sleeping at night,
Then he starts wandering around town doing some kind of a dice roll dance move,
And to top it off, if the subtext wasn't clear from the start, he literally starts singing "Just Beat It"
Why parody a song that is already a parody of itself?
Fantastic Beasts 3 was not nearly as bad as I was expecting. Ezra Miller going bonkers, Johnny Depp's drama and Rowling's inability to shut the #### up certainly overshadowed the movie.
I certainly liked it better than the first. I can barely remember the second, so let's just say I haven't seen it.
Jude Law's Dumbledore is great, and it felt like that's where they're going with the series. I like that this Dumbledore is the pinnacle of sartorial elegance (and why does old Dumbledore wear a muumuu?) Mads Mikkelsen had this chemistry with all costars and should have been Grindelwald all along. I'd watch him paint a room.
Its biggest flaws were the action actions sequences which were both few and really weak, pacing in the second act was dreadful, and the stakes just didn't feel that high. And what happened to the American detective woman? They just sort of wrote her out save for a cameo.
Perhaps it's because I'm not really a big Harry Potter fan (my mom is and that's why we saw this yesterday - and she was disappointed in the movie), or maybe I just wasn't expecting much so it exceeded my expectations. But solid 3.5 stars.
^Just saw it yesterday. Such a well developed concept and also incredibly executed. The acting was top notch for such an insane story. There's a lot of different variations of the character to keep track of, but the vision of the directors was held together through all the different universe shoots. That's impressive.
I really enjoyed the performances of everyone, but especially Stephanie Hsu (playing the daughter). She's been on the last 2 seasons of Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and has been exceptional on that show as well in a very different role. I think she's poised to become a big star after this one.
And of course, there are things in this film that are going to be pop culture reference points for a long time. Just off the top of my head, hot dog fingers and raccaccoony are going to stick with me forever.
It's just funny because the themes and even plot devices are nearly identical to Dr. Strange 2, but are handled in such a different way. I saw both back to back this week and I loved Everything Everywhere... a lot more than Dr. Strange 2, and I really liked Dr. Strange 2.
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Again, A24 finds ways to disturb us well beyond our expectations. To throw our arms up and look over at one another with an expression of "w..t.. actual f?!"
Every time you think you have an idea of what's coming ...guess again!
This is why A24 rules.
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George Carlin's American Dream - Available on HBO Max and/or Crave
There is no greater influence on how I view life and the world than George Carlin, so this documentary wasn't only important to me as a fan, but also important to me as a kind of disciple. I have seen all the specials and I have read all the books. There is still footage and perspectives that I have never seen before.
This was tough for me because some of the stuff was unseen and it felt like I had another chance to see him alive again. As a stan it was beautiful to see even further into who he was and why he was.
I have no shame in saying I welled up throughout the two parts. Hell, Apatow and company made me feel things for Garry Shandling and I didn't even know his body of work.
June 22 is still a trigger day for me because Carlin passed away that date in 2008. Learning the details of it made it worse. I'm enriched for knowing but I'm still pissed off they said it out loud, if that makes sense?
Whenever I post or talk about Carlin there are always people that say, with all respect due, they don't understand what made him so funny. They never really had the same laughs they did with other stand-up comedians. To me that's what made him special.
George Carlin had a divine sense of the world and comedy that was transcendent. He made it OK and enlightening to joke or talk about things deeply personal to us, such as culture, nationalism, and religion. These were engrained ways of life critically dissected, deconstructed, and destroyed through the very foundations on which they were established. It was an absurdist take on modern philosophy, and I'll never stop yearning for Carlin's takes on every stupid human thing that happens. Any time you find yourself nodding along and agreeing, even if you weren't rolling in the aisles laughing, meant you got the whole of his performance without necessarily knowing or acknowledging.
I'll never accept or come to close the loss of George Carlin's unmatched and timeless brilliance to the world, but this was as good a bookend I could imagine. #### I miss him.
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I just came home from watching Everything Everywhere All At Once.
I liked it fine, it was quite entertaining at times, but the ending really dragged for me, kept bouncing back and forth between things way more times than was good for the story, and the final battle lasted quite a while after it stopped being funny (and it didn't exactly feel poignant, even though the idea was clever). The thing with the rocks was still pretty good, but other than that I was hoping that they start wrapping it up already, and was almost completely tuned out of the movie for at least the last 10 minutes. I really wish they would have just stopped earlier. You're making a very silly movie, and you can't convince me to take it seriously by repeating the same few points multiple times in the end. Still, it was imaginative, entertaining, funny, very well acted and casted, with enough actually good ideas to gloss over the few weaker moments. A solid 4/5 overall, even though I don't think I'll ever feel a need to watch it again.
Multiverse of Madness was pretty much exactly what I expected in both good and bad. The good was that it was still extremely imaginative visually with tons of creative fantastical concepts. While I'm not a huge fan of Dr. Strange as a character, that aspect of this franchise is just catnip for me, I love it. The cast was as good as expected, I especially love Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda. The movie likely set a new record of referencing previous material, but that was also to be expected and was mostly handled pretty well I think. (Of course I'm a fanboy who's seen all the stuff and read a ton of comics). Soundtrack was also better than what's average for MCU. The actress for America Chavez had a somewhat one-note role, but she did good with what she had to work with and I'm sure I'll enjoy the character in future MCU stuff.
The bad was that MCU is getting somewhat lazy with how they're handling superpowers. Continuously one-upping on previously ridiculously overpowered characters is getting quite old already, and they've gotten really lazy in just going with rule-of-cool in what the parameters of everyone's powers actually are. When there's really no logic or consistency to what anyone can do, it drains quite a lot of tension out of action scenes, and makes the plot feel somewhat irrelevant. There was also some very lazy character writing in some scenes.
Luckily you can paint over all those problems with good worksmanship, and as I already mentioned, the technical aspects was top notch as expected with Marvel these days. The whole thing moved at a good pace and was never boring. Sam Raimi was a very good choice to direct this material. Everybody looks like they're having fun doing what they're doing, and the cast hams it up in a way that suits the movie perfectly.
To sum up, it was a pretty dumb but very entertaining movie with enough of an emotional core to not make it feel completely disposable. I had a lot of fun from the first minute to the last, and at about two hours it was also pleasantly compact. That extra fifteen minutes they DIDN'T spend doing victory laps and explaining the plot and morals of the movie was a choice I wish EEAAO had also made.
Both are good films, with strengths that are different enough that there's no need to declare either better or worse than the other. I'd also give MoM a solid 4/5.
MoM is a film I will very likely watch again however, just because it's a very pretty comic book movie. Obviously since MoM had (goes to check) 8 times the budget of EEAAO, that particular comparison is not exactly fair.
