Rate That Movie Part IV: Movies Never Sleep

[Buscemi2]

Killers of the Flower Moon 10/10

A three-hour plus American movie that actually is worth being that long. Martin Scorsese's newest is a eye-opening and gorgeous looking historical epic about a series of murders of members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma and the people connected with the events. Every dime of the $200 million budget is on display and the cast is stellar, with the big standout being Lily Gladstone as DiCaprio's wife and the heiress to an oil fortune DiCaprio seeks, no matter the cost. Scorsese, also in a rare co-writer credit, is passionate in telling the story, showing a world rarely seen in American cinema and with incredible detail and respect for the culture. Robbie Robertson's final score is also the year's best, very worthy of an Oscar.

In the end, this is the best film of the year, though that could change.

[Buscemi2]

When Evil Lurks 2/10

How did this get a wide release and a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes? This Argentinian horror film, which peppers its ridiculous idiot plot with lots of disgusting gore and bodily functions, rampant misogyny, unlikable characters you don't care about, and straight-up confusion as whether it wants to be a film about possession or a zombie film. So much of it feels like it could have been solved in five minutes had any of the characters thought to do any decision other than the wrong one. The entire plot only happens because of the main characters' stupidity. Also, the movie chooses to wait until the halfway mark to explain how everyone except the audience knows about the possessions, causing more confusion and giving way for another dumb horror movie cliche.

Have this been in English, I'm sure we would have written it off as another dumb horror movie released by a company that buys bad horror by the truckload. But instead, we get another movie that gets called a new horror masterpiece because it has a lot of violence.

[Buscemi2]

Matilda: The Musical 2/10

I was surprised to found out people liked this one. Personally, I think it might a contender for the worst adaptation of a Roald Dahl story. From the total betrayal of Dahl's style to deciding to fill the two-hour run time with as many forgettable and often annoying songs as possible to an uneven tone that can't decide if it wants to be a feel-good musical or a dark fantasy film or English Mean Girls, I found myself continuously comparing it to the far-superior 1996 adaptation, which was from a director who can do dark. This was nothing more than an attempt to redo Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory while missing why that worked and I wonder why anyone at Netflix or Sony thought it was worth remaking Matilda.

But maybe I just wasn't the target audience for this.

[StarLord123]

Wish 6.5/10
This is pretty much the definition of a "fine" movie, but it feels more like a typical Disney movie rather than a big 100th anniversary blowout that it was seemingly intended as. I actually like the animation style, it has decent songs, decent characters, a decent villain, a decent but familiar story, and a decent message. There's nothing really bad about this film, it's all executed with enough craft and skill behind the scenes, but nothing really stands out as great either. I don't regret seeing it, and I've certainly seen worse in the theater this year, but most will be just fine waiting for it to be on Disney+.

Also, DreamWorks' superb Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is the clear superior to this movie when it comes to story and animation, a movie that I have regrets over missing out on the big screen.

[transformers2]

Some recent watches
Next Goal Wins 7.5/10
For fans of sports comedies about underdog misfit teams that feature silly jokes, an emotional core that isn't nesscairly coming from a sincere place and no surprises whatsoever, Next Goal Wins will most likely get the job done. Taika Waititi is a good fit for this lightweight story about the historically awful American Samoan Men's National Team as they aim to turn things around for the 2014 World Cup Qualifiers by hiring embattled international soccer veteran Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender-who does pretty well playing a short-tempered, visibly disengaged drunk who slowly warms up to his new team) as their new head coach that allows him to showcase the warm, tight-knit community of American Samoa for the world while also getting the opportunity to stage a string of amusing situational comedy bits and effectively mock the white savior tropes that are often a part of the sports movie genre. The handling of key supporting character Jaiyah Saelua (Kaimana)-a defender on the team who is in the process of transitioning into a woman-is clumsy, if not full-blown insensitive at times and definitely won't sit well with some members of the trans community and their loved ones, but aside from that misstep, it's exactly the fun, funny and somewhat sweet little movie that Waititi wanted it to be.

Thanksgiving 8/10
Son of a bitch, Eli Roth really pulled it off! Every ounce of the fake trailer's sadistic B-slasher spirit has been transferred into the feature adaptation/expansion that is full of memorable kills, gnarly practical gore and the brand of giddy dark humor that Roth has long flashed in his work but never gave the proper amount of attention to until this project. As long as they continued to be this depraved, hilarious and entertaining, I'd be all-in on Thanksgiving turning into the next slasher franchise.

Saltburn 8/10
It takes a little bit for Saltburn's ridiculous web to be woven, but once it does, woo baby, does it become a blast. There isn't enough sex or violence on display for Saltburn to rival the God-tier gonzo goodness of 90's erotic thrillers like Wild Things and Basic Instinct, but it's the closest anything has come to replicating their brand of trashy, intoxicating campiness in the 21st Century. Every provocation, revelation and plot twist Emerald Fennell throws down pulls Saltburn deeper down into the gutter and it only becomes more appealing with each new deposit of stinky, silly shit. By the time the big final reveal comes around and the context of nearly every previous scene gets dramatically shifted, I couldn't stop chuckling at the beautifully warped beast that Fennell had created. All six of the lead performances (Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Archie Madekwe, Allison Oliver) gloriously serve their purpose in this machine, the script is roaringly funny and Linus Sandgren's cinematography conveys the trashy opulent aesthetic of this movie so perfectly that I'm already starting to get upset that he won't win an Oscar. May Fennell be blessed with the opportunity to continue to run wild in Hollywood for years to come.

Napoleon 7/10
This latest spin of the always unpredictable Ridley Scott Wheel of Quality yields mixed results. The portrayal of Napoleon Bonaparte as a manbaby tyrant with a comically fragile ego is inspired, most of the battle sequences (the Austerlitz sequence is particularly awe-inspiring) are expertly staged and every scene between Napoleon (Joaquin Phoenix) and his longtime wife/#1 hater Josephine (Vanessa Kirby) is a compelling soap opera exchange that highlights their ridiculous, contempt-and-jealously-filled relationship. Unfortunately, Napoleon runs into a similar set of problems as Scott's previous film House of Gucci as its tone clunkily shifts between the farcical and stoic at the drop of a hat and the 157-minute runtime simultaneously feels too long and too short as it struggles to justify its 2.5+ hour running time while also leaving nearly every element of its story underdeveloped. Could Scott's upcoming 4-hour director's cut presumably solve some of these problems? Yes, but quite frankly, I'm not sure I have the heart to sit through this again to find out the answer.

[StarLord123]

Napoleon 4/10
A near inconceivable misfire from Ridley Scott unfortunately, although a somewhat interesting failure I suppose.

The film's narrative is a complete clusterfuck. It's super disjointed, events just happen with little to no actual context or development, and almost no proper flow to the story. Napoleon meets Josephine, then just 2 scenes later they're getting married, then just 2 scenes later she's cheating on him while he's out at war. It's possible that the director's cut will patch these issues to some degree. Beyond that however, Phoenix certainly doesn't do a bad job, but I think he was miscast in the title role. I just didn't buy him as a strong military commander, he spends chunks of the movie whining and being upset, and seems to sleepwalk his way through other portions of the movie, and I almost felt second hand embarrassment during the scenes between him and Josephine. He lacks the strong commanding presence that maybe an actor more fit for the role could've pulled off. I get the impression that Scott and Phoenix were trying to make Napoleon out to be an insecure wuss, in that case, they succeeded.

At least the battle sequences are quite thrilling, and the movie is nicely shot. I don't have much else positive, other than it's not entirely unwatchable, I almost can't believe that this cut was deemed acceptable for release, assuming they wanted it to be an awards contender. Maybe the 4-hour Snyder cut version will manage to salvage this narrative disaster, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to find that out.

[BanksIsDaFuture]

Next Goal Wins - I've been over Taika for awhile now, and this did nothing to get me back on his side. Not as bad as Thor Love & Thunder, but nowhere near his highs of JoJo Rabbit. It was slightly funny here and there, but Taika sure knows how to run a joke into the ground.

Napoleon - Have no idea what Ridley Scott was trying to say with this one. 1st major budget biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, and it has the battle scenes to back it up. But then it's showing him as an incompetent child with major mommy issues, who's continuosly shit on by the public and his wife. Real odd switches in tone here throughout the entire runtime. I'd prefer it either focus on his military accomplishments or go full force on the cuck buffoon angle, not this middle ground that pleases nobody (like his wife AMIRITE BOYZ)

I also tried to watch Dicks: The Musical but I don't hate myself enough to get past 10 minutes of whatever that shit show was supposed to be.

[Buscemi2]

Napoleon would have made more sense as a miniseries than as a film. You need six to eight hours to tell his story, not two and a half hours.

As for Dicks: The Musical, I think it wanted to be the new Repo: The Genetic Opera, in which it wanted to be the new cult musical but fails to understand why movies become cult classics.

[numbersix]

Isn't Scott putting it out on Apple as a 4-part miniseries?

The film is so divisive I'm tempted to go see it now.

[Buscemi2]

There is a four-hour director's cut set to arrive next year. So, probably more of the same but longer.

[Buscemi2]

Dream Scenario 3/10

Today on Just A24 Things, a glorified episode of an Adult Swim series gets stretched to feature-length where people have nightmares about Nicolas Cage because...reasons before the action devolves from "Nic Cage is Slenderman" into "cancel culture is real and it's evil!". I'm not sure what this movie was trying to accomplish as it doesn't work as a comedy, far more time is spent in the real world than in the dream world (also, I don't think the writer/director/editor understands how dreams work), and the movie just seems to hate both its audience and the main character, not wanting to give any sort of comfort in a film so disconnected from reality.

Maybe the only positive is that Ari Aster didn't direct this one as originally planned as it would have been three insufferable hours of a glorified meme instead of one hours and forty minutes of something that's just barely tolerable.

[Buscemi2]

Silent Night 3/10

John Woo's return to American cinema is a big disappointment. What's sold as a yuletide John Wick is nothing more than The Punisher Does Christmas. While the gimmick of having nearly the entire movie be wordless is an interesting one, the end result is basically mindless violence as an angry white guy kills an entire cartel, feeling like a lift from the last Rambo movie as well. In addition to being uncomfortably racist, the film is awfully unoriginal and a lot of the action is empty and full of CGI from something that was set up to feel like a return to films like The Killer and Hard Boiled. Instead, Woo pretty much phones it in, showing how the many filmmakers he's influenced have largely surpassed him. Joel Kinnaman, getting incredibly shredded as the mute protagonist, tries but watching it makes you wish this had been done in the 90's with Chow Yun-Fat or Jackie Chan starring.

While I think this is a better film than last year's Christmas action entry, Violent Night, that is not a recommendation. Just put on a better John Woo movie instead of seeing this one.

[Buscemi2]

Godzilla Minus One 7/10

While I'd put this one in the middle for the long-running Godzilla franchise, I'd put it way ahead of Shin Godzilla. Returning again to the "Godzilla is the villain" basics in this prequel, this one, like the original, uses the basis of post-war Japan as its backdrop and while not as successful as Gojira, it does make it stand out compared to every English-language sci-fi movie seemingly being a dystopian film where technology is evil and only an overpowered young person can save everyone. I also liked how this had a balance of light and dark, mixing the doom and gloom with a series of likeable protagonists working together to protect their city.

While I'm kind of starting to hope for a return to making Godzilla the hero again, this is one of the better "evil Godzilla" films and maybe this will lead to a new renaissance for the character, kind of like Planet of the Apes or Predator.

[NicodemustheSage]

Interesting, yeah. We ended up in around the same place, but for different reasons. (I think I now need to rewatch "Shin Godzilla", which I remember much more favorably.)

[Screen203]

I saw both Godzilla Minus One and Dream Scenario today.

Godzilla Minus One

I wasn't sure what to think about this going in, but I actually really liked it for the most part. The focus on the humans really works here in a way it hasn't in many American Godzilla films, and the actors all give strong performances. There's less action than I was expecting, but the scenes of destruction are very-well done when they appear. The music is also really good - in particular, towards the end. One issue, however, I did have was with the ending. The last 5-10 minutes made a few character choices I didn't really think fit, and the sequel hook felt unnecessary and, IMO, should have been a post-credits scene. Overall, I would definitely recommend it if you are at all interested, though.

8 out of 10

Dream Scenario

This was a very mixed bag, and the more I think about it, the less I like it. I will say that it starts very strong; the first third or so features some generally humorous and creative situations. However, it wears thin fast. When it gets into the downfall of Nicholas Cage's character, it loses a lot of steam. That being said, Cage (who I'm not always a huge fan of) does a really good job here, as well as the rest of the cast. That being said, it was hard for me to be that interested in any of the characters, and I generally felt very apathetic by the conclusion of the film. If you are interested, I would see it for the perfomances alone.

5 out of 10