Rate That Movie Part IV: Movies Never Sleep

[Buscemi2]

The Zone of Interest 2/10

A Best Picture nominee I disliked more than Maestro. What exactly was the point of this movie? There's no plot outside of Nazis living their day-to-day lives, no obstacles, no resolution, and no message. It's just Nazis with bad hairstyles doing things. I can't figure out for the life of me how anyone could get any sort of enjoyment or give any praise to something so utterly pointless. The only use for this movie would be as a cure for insomnia.

105 minutes I'll never get back.

[Buscemi2]

All of Us Strangers 5/10

Andrew Haigh's newest, while an improvement from his ill-fated foray into American cinema with Lean on Pete, is largely uneven. While the romantic elements work somewhat, it loses much of its steam when the supernatural elements come into play. In the process, the mix of genres leads the film to be unsure of if it wants to be a romance, a ghost story, or a drama about grief. Some of the performances work and the cult potential of the film is definitely there but the final film might have needed some more work to reach its full potential. But in the end, it's only about halfway there.

[numbersix]

Funnily I watched All of Us Strangers yesterday, and couldn't disagree with you more.

It's an incredible piece of cinema, with amazing performances, and a unique spin on dealing with past trauma in order to become a better person. I don't see it as a ghost story, that reduces it to something more external than it is. Instead, it's an introspective, insular film about needing to deal with your own shit before you can deal with anyone else. It's thematically and structurally sound.

8/10 for me, and that and Past Lives are the films of the year for me.

[Buscemi2]

I expected you'd disagree with me on The Zone of Interest.

[numbersix]

That too!

But Zone is an unconventional film, an experience as opposed to a story, quite like the kind of films you see in art galleries. So I get why it's not for everyone

[StarLord123]

Dumb Money 6/10
A well-directed and well-acted movie about subject matter that I can only get so invested in. The humor is of the hit-or-miss variety and the movie is plagued by obnoxious song choices during large portions of it. Still, a decent enough one time watch.

Thanksgiving 7.5/10
I think this is a better Scream movie than some of the sequels (mainly 3, 4 and 5). I thought it was quite entertaining and kept me on edge throughout the runtime. There's a refreshing amount of practical blood and gore with little CG, and some gnarly, inventive and unique kills, it walks a fine line without slipping into excessive gore porn territory. The movie can also be surprisingly funny with its dark humor, also without going too far. The only real drawbacks are that I don't think the characters are super likable or well-rounded (though the kill scenes can be more entertaining when they involve unlikable characters), and the final reveal is a bit far-fetched. The killer must've had teleportation powers to pull this all off, though I suppose that's pretty much the norm for this type of movie. With studio leadership needlessly killing the Scream franchise after it had just got back on its feet, I'd be open to this becoming the next big slasher movie franchise.

[StarLord123]

Argylle 3/10
Brutal. As someone who's enjoyed the rest of Matthew Vaughn's filmography to varying degrees, and thought the trailer looked fun enough, this thing is an atrocity. It's nothing short of astonishing that this script was actually greenlit and given such a large budget. The film's head gets farther and farther up its own ass as it drags along, with every plot twist that's thrown in further complicating an already silly story, it induces a headache by the 3rd act. This movie is the cinematic equivalent of furiously jingling keys directly in front of a person's face for nearly 2.5 hours. The PG-13 rating doesn't help matters either, the action scenes feel almost edited for television, and Howard constantly envisioning Cavill in place of Rockwell during the fight scenes becomes an annoyance and messes up the flow of those scenes. It also looks incredibly flat and dull visually, especially considering the high budget. Most of the comedy isn't good, I giggled just a couple times, and most of the cast is wasted on the dumbest supporting roles. The only real positive here is that Sam Rockwell and Bryce Dallas Howard are trying their best, but they can only carry so much weight when the dialogue they're spitting out is fucking painfully stupid, the movie pretty much uses their charisma and chemistry as a crutch. I suppose the cat is cute, but also serves no purpose other than more key jingling. This makes the already not particularly great The Lost City look like a work of comedic genius in comparison.

All in all, Vaughn's worst film by a landslide, maybe the worst movie I've seen in theaters this decade, and a strong early contender for worst of the year.

[transformers2]

Argylle 7.5/10
I'm actually kind of in awe of just how much of an unapologetically silly romp this is. It's almost like Matthew Vaughn was seeing just how far the cartoonish, absurdity rabbit hole he could go without somebody stepping in to reign him in and Apple just seemingly never did. The plot twists are frequent to the point where it's actually surprising when something or someone is actually on the level. The action sequences are a beautiful combination of Vaughn's love of staging video game-esque moments of mass carnage and secret desire to be a song-and-dance man (the musical that he claims to be making as his next movie is going to be a delight). Vaughn even manages to give the insane Hitler tease from The King's Man a run for its money with another wild, completely unexpected mid-credits scene. Hollywood would be a better place if more blockbusters were allowed to be this audacious and deliberately stupid.

[Buscemi2]

You can be stupid. You just can't be excessive, which is where a lot of the criticism is coming from. A film like this doesn't need to cost $200 million to produce.

[StarLord123]

Pretty much yeah, maybe it'd be different if it had run a tight 90 minutes, but it was so excessive for me that it almost hurt to watch by the final stretch. This is coming from someone who generally enjoys this type of ridiculous action movie. Also, I didn't bother staying for whatever the mid-credit scene was, I'd likely sit out on any potential sequel anyway.

[Buscemi2]

Given how much money it stands to lose, a sequel is looking extremely unlikely.

[numbersix]

You can be stupid. You just can't be excessive, which is where a lot of the criticism is coming from. A film like this doesn't need to cost $200 million to produce.

It didn't cost 200m to produce, it was acquired for that amount. Vaughn's company privately funded it for way less (less than $100m I'd say) and Apple picked it up. It's Apple's mistake to pay so high, just to get a piece of the Kingsman IP. I doubt they'll be doing anything like that again.

[Buscemi2]

The Taste of Things 3/10

A boring and overlong movie that I'm not sure why France saw it as being worthy of getting an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature Film. When you take out all the scenes of people making and eating enormous amounts of foods that they'll probably be throwing up afterwards, the movie is barely an hour long and you've likely stopped caring after the 45 minutes or so of eating that starts the food. I felt like I was going to need some Pepto-Bismol just seeing all of the sauces covering perfectly good meats and vegetables. Anyway, Juliette Binoche does what she can with the material but it's just so dull and uninteresting.

Between this and Anatomy of a Fall, I, along with everyone else, believe the wrong decision was made by whomever was in charge in making the official selection for the country's representative, but there had to have been a third option.

[StarLord123]

Orion and the Dark 7/10
A fairly standard-issue but still decent animated adventure about friendship and facing your fears. Nice animation, good vocal performances, and some neat and creative ideas, although it takes a weird direction in the final 20-30 minutes. Still an improvement over DreamWorks' previous animated movie Ruby Gillman.

Talk to Me 8/10
I haven't felt this unnerved watching a horror film in quite some time. As someone who used to watch RackaRacka videos, this is a pretty impressive feature directorial debut from these guys. The concept is a unique spin on the possession movie, it manages to be constantly tense and chilling without throwing in non-stop jump scares, the performances are generally on point, the direction and cinematography are highly impressive and make the film even more tense, and there's some real neat practical effects usage. The movie has a real edge to it and rarely lets up for most of the runtime, it's not for the faint of heart. I don't have a lot of gripes other than that the characters can be a little obnoxious occasionally, otherwise a very good horror film. I'm definitely interested in seeing what this duo directs next.

The Family Plan 6/10
Eh, it's fine. An entertaining enough action comedy but nothing special. Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Monaghan are trying their best, there are some funny moments and decent action scenes, but it's super predictable and full of cliches, and it probably would've been better as a 90 minute movie with a few unnecessary detours trimmed out instead of 2 hours.

[Buscemi2]

The Teachers' Lounge 8/10

Germany's entry in the Best International Feature Film Oscar race is a thrilling drama about a substitute teacher who cracks down on a theft in her classroom after using her webcam to find the thief. However, this invasion of privacy manages to be the fuse that leads to a much bigger event that escalates to a battle between the faculty and the students at the school. The film does a very solid job of not taking sides and showing how things are never black and white. People always have good intentions but often will not think things all the way through. Is acting on impulse the right thing? And should what happens in the teachers' lounge, stay in the teachers' lounge? It's a movie that makes you think about morality and how things really were at your school.