Tag: 2023 movies

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REVIEW – Poor Things

Willem Dafoe (with heavy prosthesis) and Emma Stone in POOR THINGS.

Yorgos Lanthimos (THE FAVOURITE)’s latest is an off-kilter FRANKENSTEIN riff (based on a 1992 novel) set in a very Terry Gilliam-esque steampunk Victorian age. Bella Baxter (Emma Stone, brilliantly taking us on quite a journey) is a woman reanimated as part of a twisted experiment by dangerously curious scar-faced surgeon Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe playing even-tempered and analytical). When we, alongside Godwin’s eager student Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), first meet Bella she has the mind of a toddling child, but her knowledge and curiosity grow quickly; her desires both intellectual and, uhh, *otherwise* (there’s quite a bit of R-rated sex in this flick) drive her to flee from Godwin & Max into the arms of Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo, doing QUITE the plummy accent), a ridiculous debauched cad who she has an awfully good time seeing the world with until she outgrows him and he starts aggressively trying to keep her in the “box” he thinks she should fit into. Her inexperience leads her to both challenge society’s goofy norms and trip up in ways that a more cynical mind would avoid — but she and the ethos of the tale clearly don’t have a lot of use for cynicism. A charmingly rambling, beautifully crafted experience of a film with standout performances that well deserve the award nominations received. That said, I generally have a soft spot for the genre of “woman escapes the control/narrow expectations of the men who made her,” so your mileage may vary.

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Movies Review

REVIEW – Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

Jason Momoa and Yahya Abdul-Mateen battling it out in AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM.

So ends Warners’ first foray into a connected theatrical superhero universe, with Jason Momoa‘s brawny sea bro, already embracing his new roles as a husband (to Amber Heard‘s Mera, who’s in more of the movie than you’d think based on the marketing, but is mostly here for a gag or two, a big emotional reaction or two, and to save Arthur’s butt a couple more times) and father (“villains threaten Aquaman’s baby” is, as I recall, one of THE classic pre-Crisis Aquaman stories), having to also learn how to actually be a leader. Seeing the NEXT step in his journey? Highly unlikely. The bulk of the plot concerns Yahya Abdul-Mateen‘s Black Manta’s quest to get the vengeance he swore at the end of the first movie; in seeking out Atlantean artifacts to facilitate this end, he acquires a spooky, obviously evil trident that is a remnant of the titular kingdom. I was surprised to see Randall Park turn up early on as a scientist helping Manta in this hunt; Park’s in, like, pretty much the whole movie, and his nervous charm helps make the tedious first twenty-to-thirty minutes bearable. It feels like there used to be a coherent first act to this thing that, in order to beat it down to about two hours, got chopped into ribbons, so all that remains are vignettes intercut with Manta’s plot. That said, once Manta and his crew get the wherewithal to attack Atlantis, the movie starts moving and turns into a reasonably entertaining science-fantasy adventure. Does Aquaman ride a giant seahorse? Yes. Does he talk to fish at a key moment to take out a threat? Absolutely. Are they trying a bit too hard to do a THOR: THE DARK WORLD thing here with Patrick Wilson‘s Orm freed and forced to team up with Arthur to fight a mutual foe, except that Patrick Wilson has absolutely none of Tom Hiddleston’s considerable charm? Oh god, yes — in fact, the movie ends on a note that is absolutely the last scene of two additional Marvel flicks smashed together. Bit cringe-inducing, that. But between that rough opening stretch and that deja vu-inducing final scene, there’s some fun stuff in here. I’ve seen superhero movie train wrecks; this isn’t one of them. However, absolutely inessential viewing. If you got a gift card this holiday season and have a couple hours to kill, Atlantis still looks real pretty up on the big screen, but other than that, it probably won’t hurt to wait for it to turn up on Max.

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Movies Review

REVIEW – The Boy and the Heron / Napoleon

The young protagonist of Miyazaki's THE BOY AND THE HERON surrounded by birds, and Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott's NAPOLEON.

A pair of big screen spectacles by octogenarian directors that I’m pleased to have been able to see on the big screen.

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REVIEW – Godzilla Minus One

Godzilla emerges from the water to menace a ship, from GODZILLA MINUS ONE.

Takashi Yamasaki’s turn at rebooting Toho’s most famous radioactive lizard son takes the new tack of having Godzilla menace a Japan that’s freshly on the mend after its catastrophic loss in World War II. As I was just telling my dad, there’s something of all the early ’80s movies American filmmakers made that were about going back and winning Vietnam to it, only this movie is actually good; Godzilla in this film is so blatantly an avatar of nuclear annihilation that a Japanese populous who JUST had to deal with that in the actual historical record can now, with a can-do attitude and a bit of science (and what little military power the American occupiers will allow), actually swing back ’round and take down. I love that it gives you a monster attack right off the bat, in the prologue that introduces you to our protagonist: kamikaze deserter Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), whose self-loathing only grows when he finds himself one of two survivors of an attack by a pre-nuclear testing version of the big G. I also still love this ongoing trend of finding new, slightly different ways of doing the along-the-spines buildup towards Godzilla firing his atomic breath, and how what had become just another tool in his arsenal has become an EVENT. Interesting that the two theatrical Godzilla flicks Toho’s made since the Legendary/Warner Bros. series began have both been very different takes on the original “Japan Vs. Godzilla” formula as opposed to the later “Godzilla, protector of Japan, versus whatever new nonsense monster we have going on this week” model; I’m here for either one, but I do think it’s a lot easier to care about the story going on around all the devastation set pieces — here, Shikishima’s all-encompassing case of survivor’s guilt, driving every action he makes through the whole of the movie — in the earlier mode, where Godzilla is the disaster instead of the solution. A superb monster flick with engrossing drama and top flight effects; I was stunned it’s playing here in town, and would encourage anyone with a soft spot for movies where monsters flatten Tokyo get out there and give it a watch.

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Movies Review

REVIEW – The Marvels

Teyonah Paris, Brie Larson, and Iman Vellani in THE MARVELS.

I hate to dismiss other folks’ opinions out of hand, but I can’t shake the feeling that the people hating on this flick are reviewing something that’s not actually the movie on the screen. Like, they got annoyed with one or two other Marvel Studios pictures in the last couple of years and are carrying that into this one, or they’ve internalized that “oh no, trouble at Marvel!” Variety article that was going around a week or two ago. What’s on the screen is a fun and touching story of bonding and regrets, making up for mistakes and lost time, with a first-rate cast and some truly terrific action.

Oh, and cats. Lots and lots of cats.

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