Rate That Movie Part IV: Movies Never Sleep

[undeadmonkey]

I enjoyed Shazam, it was just fun and didn't take itself to seriously

[Buscemi2]

The Craft: Legacy 1/10

I can't recall the last time I've seen a sequel as bad as this one. If not for a few shoehorned-in references to the first film (such as Fairuza Balk showing up in the last five seconds, this would define the term "in name only". The acting is bad, the script feels like a bad Lifetime movie, and the direction is done by someone who thinks they are making high art but is basically doing The Rage: Carrie 2 with witches. And for a movie about a witch's coven, a lot of their actions felt really childish and didn't need to magic to pull them off.

This movie only exists for the most cynical of reasons. And the writer/director and Jason Blum must have a complete contempt for people if they truly thought they could get people to pay to watch such a soulless exercise in 90's nostalgia.

[Buscemi2]

The Marksman 3/10

Clint Eastwood's old producer more or less rips off his mentor's The Mule in this generic thriller about an ex-Marine (Liam Neeson) at the Arizona/Mexico border, who after realizing he has nothing left to live for, has to send an immigrant boy to his relatives in Chicago before a cartel gets to him. The cartel also seeks revenge as Neeson killed the leader's brother. Once again, Neeson should be above this material but he continues to waste the twilight of his career on these "in it for the money" roles. It's as if Neeson wants to become the less grumpy Bruce Willis rather than make weightier projects that prove he still has it. I have to wonder if Neeson even cares anymore.

But at least it's a more professionally-made film than Honest Thief.

[Buscemi2]

Promising Young Woman 4/10

Overhyped thriller that despite being a well-meaning thriller with an important message, ultimately plays it too safe and saddles itself with a ridiculous twist that's more at home in one of Gillian Flynn's hack works. The product is so restrained and uneven that it seems at times unable to decide if it wants to be a trashy exploitation film with an unhinged protagonist (the opening credits suggest this concept but ends up only feeling like a cash-in on indie cliches) or a buttoned-up subversion of the romantic film, cliches and all. Also, Carey Mulligan and Bo Burnham's relationship is totally unbelievable.

This could have been truly something with an auteur at the helm. Instead, we get a producer simply delivering a marketable product as the director, checking off buzzwords given at the pitch meetings.

[Buscemi2]

Some Kind of Heaven 8/10

Darren Aronofsky produced this documentary about The Villages, Florida, the world's largest retirement community, and while being unlike other projects with his name attached, it's not hard to see what attracted him to the project. While the concept of a retirement community that's the size of a mid-sized city seems alien to many, it's a story about people seeking one last thrill deep down inside. Told from the perspective of three groups of people (a married couple, a widow, and a single man), we learn why people come to The Villages and what they seek there. And it's actually rather wholesome at times. Kind of like if Errol Morris didn't have a dark sense of reality.

[Buscemi2]

Proxima 8/10

A stellar performance by Eva Green elevates this sci-fi drama about a mother who in training for the first space expedition to Mars has to deal with an emotional crisis with her daughter and the possibility that she might not be able to return home. This film is above most recent spaceman film in that it deals with the human aspect of space exploration and what one gives up when they make the decision to leave Earth. It's not your traditional astronaut film and certainly one you wouldn't see an American studio making. Matt Dillon also gives one of his better recent performances as a fellow colleague of Green's.

[numbersix]

Jan batch

Minari: 6/10
Solid and sweet drama about a Korean family who move to rural US to run a farm. The father is the only one who thinks this will work, while his young son has to learn to get along with a grandmother lacking in maternal skills. It's a very decent, unassuming film with some solid performances.

Time: 6/10
A decent doc about a wife trying to help her husband appeal what appears to be more than a life sentence for a robbery. Told across several years, if not decades, it's a testament to her steadfast love and dedication. At times the stylistic cinematography undermines the reality of the situation.

Wonder Woman 1984: 4/10
I was expecting something watchable, just like the first, but this was offensively poor. A pointless opening sequence follwed by a cheesy action sequence set in a mall, this was just embarrassing. Overlong with a cast that struggles, and a tonal mess as it aims to be light and fun yet have a message, and fails on every level.

Collective: 7/10
Imagine if The Wire was a Romanain documentary. Here, we follow a newspaper as it covers a misuc venue fire that results in more deaths than it should, thanks to a suspicously poor burn unit in a hospital. Through victims, politicians, and journalists, we see the case explode into a scoop on a national scandal and coverup. It's fascinating, if not grim.

Ham on Rye: 6/10
A dreamlike teen movie where a bunch of highschoolers prepare for a strange ritual for adulthood. It's almost satirical in its heightened surreal atmosphere, and then takes a turn into darker territory as it explores the lives of those who don't make it. Although it feels like a short stretched thin, it's still impressive.

Promising Young Woman: 5/10
Disappointing awards contender about a 30 year old woman who lurs men into sexually assaulting her before confronting them. But things get complicated when she falls for a college buddy, and questions her own motives. It's a great premise with pertinant themes, but the darkly witty tone turns into something more bitter, and disappointingly dull, with some poor dialogue and questionable character motivations.

The Climb: 7/10
Strong bros-before-hos dramedy about two friends and how their relationship changes across the years, from one cheating on the other's fiancee, to deaths, holidays, marriages, and births. It's sweet and quite amusing throughout.

The Power: 5/10
Underwhelming horror film about a 1950s nurse starting a new job in a hospital, only to find it's haunted by someone who wants her. There's nothing particularly new here, and there are far too many forced scares, undermining any sense of build-up or tension.

Spontaneous: 6/10
Watchable teen movie about a high-school class where students inexplicably explode. We follow one teen girl as she tries to process this, while also developing a relationship with a shy boy. Some of the dialogue is cheesy and it tries to be too sincere by the end, but it's occasionally funny and charming too.

The White Tiger: 6/10
Decent drama set in modern India, where castes still determine a person's fate. Here, we get a story of a poor village boy who works his way up to being the driver for a wealthy family, but through his treatment he soon learns to resent them. Not as vibrant as Slumdog Millionaire, yet still indebted to its energy, there is plenty of surprises and interesting things to learn about India to justify the film's 2-hour runtime.

[Buscemi2]

News of the World 8/10

Tom Hanks does The Searchers in Paul Greengrass' most restrained film in a long time and the end result is an admirable, old fashioned Western with a lot of heart and just strong filmmaking in general. The concept of focusing on a guy who presents the news in a pre-electronic media era is an interesting and original one and it points out that even then, you had to deal with people only wanting their side of the story. But deep down inside, it's really a story about a man and a little girl on a journey and that's where the emotional core is.

If you want a new Western that's not just about violence, you can't go wrong here.

[Buscemi2]

Earwig and the Witch 3/10

A rare misfire from Studio Ghibli. The plot of the film is cliche and derivative of other, better fantasy films but what really hurts this film is the terrible animation. The CGI here looks like bad television animation and many of the characters look like something out of your nightmares. How this was deemed releaseable, I don't know.

But on the bright side, it's a better film about witches than The Craft: Legacy.

[Buscemi2]

Supernova 3/10

A decent performance from Stanley Tucci can't change the fact that this is a boring film where hardly anything happens. At 20-25 minutes, this character piece might have been okay. But at just over 90 minutes, it's overly padded and often excessive. I'm not sure exactly what the director was trying to accomplish but whatever it was, it didn't work.

Stick to Amour.

[Buscemi2]

The Little Things 8/10

If Clint Eastwood did Seven, this would probably have been the end result. This 1990-set thriller feels a lot like the crime dramas that were being made at the time and it's not hard to imagine this having been made then with Eastwood or Danny Glover in the Denzel Washington role and someone such as Raul Julia in Rami Malek's role. John Lee Hancock can be a hit-or-miss director but with this not being based on a true story, he doesn't enter his penchant for historical revisionism here. And even with Jared Leto being a hard to like figure, his casting as a creepy transient who turns out to be a pathological liar is fitting and is more believable than say, Leto as a Batman ripoff.

It seems like a lot of people have been turned off by the twists in the story but it's an entertaining Saturday afternoon movie with strong leads and a certain appeal to those into crime films.

[Buscemi2]

Time 9/10

Moving, heartwrenching documentary focusing on a wife and mother's twenty year fight to bring her husband back home after before sentenced for robbery. Her battle becomes even more personal as it's revealed that she spent time in prison for the same charge and on the inside, discovers the inhumane nature of the American prison system. Despite the downbeat themes, this one goes for an inspirational and hopeful theme and does it much better than Hollywood could do it. The use of home movies of the family really adds to the personal nature.

Unless there's some sort of documentary about the current political structure we don't know about, I would not be surprised to see this win the Best Documentary Feature Oscar if it's nominated. And even though I personally consider Collective the best documentary of 2020, Time probably would deserve that Oscar.

[Buscemi2]

Judas and the Black Messiah 5/10

An interesting topic bogged down by one-dimensional caricatures that you really don't care much about. The idea of Fred Hampton and the FBI's role in undermining the Black Panthers is a concept that would have made for a great documentary (and it kind of did, as footage from Eyes on the Prize 2 is featured in the film). But as a narrative film, we don't really get to know much about the people and the end result ends up being rather forgettable. Everything is just kind of there. Which is funny as there are four credited writers but they really can't say much about the subjects. And that's too bad as there is a good story. We as the audience don't get to hear about it.

[Buscemi2]

Nomadland 10/10

Now this is a movie worth seeing. In a year where most Hollywood films were either overhyped, underwhelming, or not released at all, we finally get something that makes us realize that the industry isn't dead yet. Going entirely against the typical mold of acclaimed, award-winning films, Chloe Zhao's latest is a meditative study of a community often marginalized: the people without a home. It's reality that the American film industry often chooses to ignore, instead making us watch the fantasies the people in charge want. The film is not so much 107 minutes of a modern-day nomad. It's a call to action, telling us no more of the sameness that has taken over cinema (and yes, I know that Zhao's next film is an Marvel adaptation but is she any more of a sellout than say, the Internet deity that is named Christopher Nolan?). We, as cinephiles, want how things really are. We want that 99% of those stories the powers that be say can't be told. We want truth in film.

And Chloe Zhao might be that savior for American cinema.

[Screen203]

The Little Things

I thought this was kind of stupid. There are many plot holes and I'm not talking about the ending.For example, the movie is supposed to be set during 1990, but there is a poster for a No Doubt concert, who didn't become famous until later. I also thought the pacing was odd, with strange comic relief in a very dark story. And why did Rami Malek get peace at the end? As for the acting, Jared Leto deserves any nominations he gets for this role.

6 out of 10