Rate That Movie Part IV: Movies Never Sleep

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Minari 9/10

A near-masterpiece that brings to mind both The Grapes of Wrath and the works of Terrence Malick. This drama about a family of Korean-Americans trying to set out on their own in the American South during the Reagan era has so much truth of the human condition but also has so much beauty that is found in its premise that it is able to create an experience that is full of emotion. It breaks your heart and mends it back together again with its situations and characters.

This might be the closest in the past few years of a film that successfully emulates the classic Golden Age of Hollywood films. The industry might need to learn a thing or two from Lee Isaac Chung.

[Buscemi2]

Uncle Frank 3/10

Alan Ball sure peaked early in his career, didn't he? The days of writing American Beauty and creating Six Feet Under seem like eons ago in this cliche-ridden, made for Sundance drama about a closeted professor and his niece returning to their South Carolina birthplace to attend the funeral of his hate-filled father. As a run-of-the-mill coming out drama, I might have accepted it. But what really made me turn on this film is the idiot plot and its stereotypical characters. It wants to be a Tracy Letts drama but everything is played so middle of the road. And if the son knows that his father will never accept him for who he is, why does he keep coming back to him? You're a success, create your own destiny.

Ball must have been thinking he was going to win another Oscar with this one. He probably should have lowered his standards a bit.

[Buscemi2]

Wild Mountain Thyme 2/10

I think the Pulitzer people might want John Patrick Shanley to give back that Prize. This dreadful and unfunny romantic comedy is so full of Irish and American stereotypes that it's impossible to view it as anything but a parody. Unfortunately, it's all meant to be taken seriously. It's as if Shanley was trying to transport Moonstruck to Ireland but in the process, failed to understand why Moonstruck worked. In that story, the characters had dimension. Here, everyone is just a cliche. And unlike Moonstruck, the inclusion of the fine arts (opera there, ballet here) is shoehorned and adds nothing to the story.

A total waste from a once-good writer that might have been worse had I not been reminded that Leap Year (the last time I can recall American writers building a story a romantic comedy story about Ireland solely on cliches) was much worse.

[Buscemi2]

The Dark and the Wicked 2/10

Another boring haunted house thriller with dumb characters and lame twists. What else is new?

[Buscemi2]

Raya and the Last Dragon 3/10

Overcomplicated and cliche fantasy film where the daughter of an imperial leader goes on a six-year journey to find the broken shards of a crystal to resurrect the last dragon and reunite her colony of people who have turned to stone. It sounds simple but the eight credited writers make it a mess by introducing too many characters and having the characters speak like modern-day junior high kids despite the setting being obviously B.C. times. And for Disney, it kind of looks cheap. About the one thing I liked was the giant hedgehog/armadillo hybrid Tuk Tuk but he's not given much time to shine.

And the short before it...

Us Again 5/10

When I saw the listed run time of 114 minutes on Raya, I assumed one of two things: either there was a short before the film or the end credits were long. I was right on both. When figured out there was a short, I hoped for a new Pixar short (by the way, the trailer for Luca was very underwhelming). Instead, we get what is basically the montage of Carl and Ellie from Up but with none of the emotion. The premise is that a married couple who have lost the passion of their marriage become young again through rain, which leads to a dance montage that lasts throughout the short. Yeah.

[Buscemi2]

Stray 9/10

A spiritual sequel of sorts to 2016's Kedi, this fascinating documentary focuses on three dogs, two full-grown and one puppy, and their adventures wandering the streets of Istanbul. The documentary not only serves as a study on Turkey's no-kill policy on strays and the relationship between humanity and canines, but also is a view of the cruel nature of Turkey itself under its current regime. Despite the theme, it gets quite dark at times. But in its short run time, it's very pleasing with its direct cinema approach and keeping the focus on what we came to see: the dogs.

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Feb viewings

Malcolm and Marie: 5/10
Self-indulgent nonsense that occasionally, somehow manages to touch on some truths as a couple argue, initially about the girlfriend not being thanked at a speech for the guy's movie premiere, but then touches on deeper issues. Some of the scenes are laughably awful and there's a serious lack of imagination. Stick to Euphoria, particularly the Christmas episode which was also two people talking, but way more powerful.

King Rocker: 6/10
Fun doc led by postmodern comedian Stewart Lee as he explores the history of a band that should not have faded into obscurity, The Nightingales. Far more than a usual music biography, it really makes you understand the world and humour of the frontman Robert Lloyd.

Shadow in the Cloud: 4/10
Initially engaging action horror that becomes utterly silly, dealing with a woman who boards a plane during WWII with a mysterious package, only to realises there's a creature on the wing. I could deal with the silliness if the first 30 minutes didn't feel so tense and restrained. But there's one moment in the film, involving a fall from a plane and an explosion, that makes Looney Tunes look like a Ken Loach film. From there the film gets increasingly silly and tries to say something about feminism but by then I was too busy rolling my eyes.

The Night: 5/10
Almost a decent horror if it didn't rely on so many cliches from the genre. Mostly in Farci, it's about an Iranian couple with an infant who drive from a friend's house in LA home and get lost, so stay in a creepy hotel. There's a good underlying theme about personal responsibility in a relationship, but it gets lost amongst the predictable attempts at scares.

News of the World: 5/10
Pointless Western featuring the always lovely Tom Hanks as he travels around the Eild West reading newspaper stories to villages, until he encounters a lost child who he deicdes to return to a settlement of her people. The little girl is great (you'll recognise her from the impressive System Crasher), but the story is dull, meandering, slow, with only one interesting sequence of note. Skip.

I Care A Lot: 6/10
Solid black comedy about a pretty successful con artist who takes over the estates of elderly, imprisoning them in nursing homes and then selling their assets. But she does that to the wrong old lady, who has a connection to the Russian mafia. So the war of wills between Rose Pike and Peter Dinklage is fun and dark, and has plenty to say about America. It's a shame the characters are made so horrible, and a bit more wit and charm from Pike's character would have made this a brilliant film.

Nomadland: 6/10
Decent but flawed film about an elderly woman who now lives out of a van, getting seasonal work. We learn she has lost people in her life, and prefers this nomadic way although has to face difficulties as her van falls apart. It's a very watchable film but there's an uneasy tension between realism and theatricality. Particularly in the casting and performances. Frances McDormand and David Strathairn tend to overact, so putting them in a film surrounded by semi or non-professional actors is a bad idea. And the film tries to say poeople who live like this are suffering from trauma, which is far from the truth and cheapens their lifestyle.

The Toll: 4/10
Disappointing low-budget Welsh thriller that wants to be a Tarantino or McDonagh flick, but is poorly directed and amounts to very little.

Swallow: 6/10
Impressive debut feature about a young, gentle woman who has married a high-achieving businessman, but is left alone and bored at home during the day, so she spices things up by swallowing objects - marbles, needles, etc. And when the husband and his parents find out they treat her as insane, which spirals out of control. It's beautifully shot and well acted.

[Buscemi2]

She Dies Tomorrow 2/10

Sold as a horror film, this is really nothing more than a boring mumblecore film (these still exist?) that wants to be a profound sci-fi film but it's nothing more than an ego trip for its writer/director. Even as a 20 minute student film, it would have been tedious. At 85 minutes, it's excessive thanks to the copious amount of padding and scenes where little actually happens. It was like watching a Brit Marling film without the budget.

A waste, really.

[Buscemi2]

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run 8/10

Yes, it's stupid but it's SpongeBob. I had much more fun with this movie than with Raya and the Last Dragon, which focuses on SpongeBob having to get Gary back from King Poseidon while the town of Bikini Bottom comes to realize once again how important SpongeBob is the lifeblood of the area. Also, we get flashbacks that set up the recently-released spinoff, which are cute even if they retcon certain events from the original but it's best to ignore that.

Also, can you hate a movie that has Keanu Reeves as a sagebrush, Snoop Dogg as a ghost, Danny Trejo as Satan, and Awkwafina voicing a robot that fires anyone and anything on a whim?

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Next batch of films, Berlin-edition

Censor: 6/10
An impressive debut horror, set in the 80s about a British movie censor who believes sing sister is appearing in the films of a particularly nasty gore horror film-maker. The film is less about the scares than the dread and psychological trauma. It doesn't feel tonally cohesive throughout although the last 10 minutes are incredible.

Natural Light: 5/10
Another debut, this time a Hungaria WWII story about a local soldier enlisted in the Soviet army. It's a slow, brooding, deliberately shot film that has very little plot, nor does it capture the madness the way a film like Come and See did.

Hive: 6/10
A Kosovan drama that picked up a bunch of awards at Sundance. This is about a wife who is trying to live life in a poor town, hoping that her husband has survived the war. Desperate for money she sets up her own business, making a local type of red pepper sauce with other wives. But the ultra-conservative values of the town mean the women are verbally then physically abused. It's a good film, and avoids being a dreary Euro arthouse drama by having more plot and tension than most.

Night Raiders: 5/10
Disappointing sci-fi about a future where children are all kept in academies, while the lower classes survive in slums or the wild. A Canadian inuit mother is forced to give up her child, and later learns of a prophecy that makes the child special. Not a huge amount going on here we haven't seen before, besides the undercurrent of institutionalised racism. The direction and action is a little weak, and the climax doesn't quite make sense.

Petite Maman: 7/10
Celine Sciamma follows up her impressive Portrait of a Lady on Fire with a surprisingly smaller film. Although it was shot with the constraints of COVID. But it nevertheless is a powerful film, about a young girl who stays in her recently deceased grandmother's house. When her mother leaves her alone to process the loss, the daughter befriends a girl who seems strangely like her own mother. It's a simple but beautiful film about sadness and loss and connection, with a dash of magical realism.

Wild Indian: 6/10
Solid debut from a Native American director. It's the story of two NAtive American kids who end up doing something really bad. 20 years later one is a success and the other is in prison, and when the two reunite some bad shit goes down. It's a good balance of strong characterisation and interesting twists. Worth watching.

Judas and the Black Messiah: 6/10
A really important story told with a strong cast but it doesn't quite work. Daniel Kaluuya is very impressive as Fred Hampton and deserves plenty of awards, but everyone is great in this story about a young criminal who becomes an informer for the FBI and infiltrates a Black Panther cell. The major problem is that there's no reason to care for the criminal, and his understanding of the movement doesn't really change that much. Still, it's watchable.

Coming 2 America: 4/10
Ugh. Maybe the original doesn't stand up, but it deserved a better sequel than this. It's overlong and deeply unfunny, besides one or two scenes. But all the new characters, particualrly Eddie Murphy's bastard New York son who is to be trained to become heir of Zamunda. There's no charisma or wit rot he new elements, and the other characters all seem tired.

Poly Stryene: I Am A Cliche: 6/10
Watchable doc about the lead singer of the punk band X-Ray Spex, an awkward odd young woman who career got sidelined when she was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic. The doc is told by her daughter and uses diaries and footage of the punk frontwoman. It's well told but doesn't quite give the music its due.

Come True: 6/10
Dream-like sci-fi horror that occasionally feels like a Cronenberg film,but instead drifts too much into the abstract. It's about a homeless teen who enters a sleep experiment that leads to a discovery about a shared consciousness. That's about as much as I could understand. But it's well shot and it's atmospheric.

Sound of Metal: 7/10
The best film of the Oscar nominations. Darius Morder's debut as a director is a powerful film about a drummer who loses his hearing, and refuses to accept his condition. The cast, not just Riz Ahmed, but everyone else, is incredible and despite the slow pace it's nevertheless completely compelling and powerful, with an excellent use of sound design and mixing.

[Buscemi2]

I'm surprised you liked Judas and the Black Messiah, Six. This seems like the kind of film you would have trashed for being awards bait. Also, I'm not sure how Lakeith Stanfield was nominated for Supporting Actor when he was clearly the lead. Seems like the decision cheated out one of the actors from Minari (either Alan Kim or Will Patton) of a nomination.

Anyway...

76 Days 5/10

Ever get the feeling that you're watching something that you know is important but find yourself bored watching it? That was me here with this documentary, which despite its current relevance is ultimately dull. It's less a film and more one of those old Discovery medical shows you'd watch at 2:00 in the morning when there's nothing else on. Some of the stories (such as the baby being born while the mother had COVID) are interesting but the end result is done so dry that you're more likely to fight sleep than be interested. I'm not surprised this wasn't nominated for an Oscar.

Also, I watched Alone a few days back, which even though it's nothing new for the survival genre, felt like the film Unhinged should have been. Rather than forcing excesssiveness and dated messages, it's a simple thriller that delivers in its one job. And the villain is appropriately creepy in his Ted Bundy-inspired tone. 6/10.

[Buscemi2]

The Father 9/10

Solid performances and a script that mostly avoids melodrama elevate this film about a man suffering from the advanced effects of Alzhemier's and the people around him who may or may not actually be there. Anthony Hopkins' performance is among the year's best and the story will continue to keep you guessing long after the film is over. I'm still wondering what was real and what wasn't. It's that good.

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Thoughts on some recent watches
Minari 8/10:
Lee Issac Chung puts himself on the map in a big way with this semi-autobiographical drama set in the early 80's about a family of South Korean immigrants trying to establish a farming business in rural Arkansas. The relaxed pacing allows for plenty of time for the members of the family as well as their complicated dynamic to be developed and the restrained, naturalistic performances from the main cast (particularly Steven Yuen as the patriarch who is determined to make the farm a success regardless of what it costs him, Youn Yuh-jung as the mother-in-law who comes over from South Korea to help watch the kids while they start to get their business rolling and Alan Kim-who turns in the best performance by a child actor since Jacob Tremblay in Room-as the American-born son whose particularly discontent with their new living situation) make all of the high and lows the characters go through during their journey to achieve true prosperity and assimilate to a new country resonate beautifully. It's the type of sweet, low-key and emotional movie that will only add to A24's mythic lore in the independent film community.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday 6/10
In the first significant acting role of her career, singer/songwriter Andra Day was basically asked to compete in the Tour de France on a Huffy that had a leaky tire and some wonky brakes. The United States vs. Billie Holiday features a frantic narrative that clumsily jumps between years/events in Holiday's life so frequently that it basically requires an evidence board to follow completely, clunky pacing that alternates between methodical and blistering on an almost scene-by-scene basis and of course, the Lee Daniels specialty of ruining potentially emotional moments by staging them in the most needlessly melodramatic fashion possible. Day managed to not only get that dilapidated, barely functional bike across the finish line, but win the whole damn thing when that realistically shouldn't have been an option.

By capturing the charisma, unrelenting courage and burden of the tremendous torture Holiday endured in her personal and professional career while also belting out every song with supreme confidence, Day becomes a mesmerizing force that is powerful enough to make this tedious, miscalculated telling of the tragic and fascinating story of one of America's most iconic singers at least somewhat watchable.

Monster Hunter 5/10:
Despite the cool creature design and a strangely sweet buddy rapport between Mila Jovovich and Tony Jaa, there just isn't enough juice present in the action sequences or the silly portal fantasy story to make this anything more than an average movie that is moderately entertaining at times.

Moxie 5/10:
As recently as 5 years ago, Moxie would've been a successful rallying cry for young girls to garner the courage to take on the societal hierarchies that have oppressed them for centuries. Now in a generation of informed, socially conscious high schoolers that needs no inspiration to stand up to oppressive instructions/people, it feels dated as hell by being completely out of touch with the mindsets/behaviors of the generation its portraying.

Coming 2 America 6/10:
An incredible case study in the diminishing returns comedy can have. By basically repeating the same jokes/story structure from the original, this proves that what was hilarious in 1988, may be only gently amusing in 2021. It also doesn't help that the newcomers seem a lot more excited to be apart of the Coming to America franchise than the people who helped build its legacy-with the notable exception of John Amos-who shines in both scenes he appears in. Hopefully Eddie Murphy will chose his next project carefully because it's evident that he doesn't really give a shit about acting anymore unless he's passionate about the material i.e. Dolemite is My Name.

Boss Level 7.5/10
Joe Caranhan's first directorial effort since the little seen Stretch in 2014 may be the most accurate portrayal of a video game ever committed to film. It captures the painstaking repetition of being stuck on a level in a shooter/adventure game with impeccable detail from the infuriating predictability of the AI down to Frank Grillo's hero perfectly embodying the alternately cocky and hopeless internal monologue that goes through the player mind's depending where they are within the level that they can't beat even after hundreds of tries. Unfortunately, that authentic portrayal is also its biggest weakness as it has to repeat the same scenes for the first 3/4 of the movies in service of its story-which subsequently limits the creativity of its action until the final act where Carnahan gets to really let loose with a couple of explosive fight scenes and prevents it from ascending to Hardcore Henry/Upgrade levels of excellence.

Songbird 3/10
I guess the likes of Demi Moore, Bradley Whitford and Paul Walter Hauser were just desperate to work again once filming was allowed to resume in LA last summer because this would be a straight up made for TV production if it wasn't for the ensemble cast. While clearly it's not in great taste to make a movie that uses COVID as the backdrop for a cheesy dystopian romance, the bigger problem with Songbird is that the script is a comically bad clusterfuck that tries to juggle way too many subplots for its sub 90 minute runtime and ends up feeling like every bit of the miscalculated rush job that it so clearly was.

Also I finally watched A Beautiful Mind last week. Easily the biggest cornball sack of shit Best Picture winner I've seen that isn't named The King's Speech.

[Buscemi2]

You've obviously never seen Shakespeare in Love then.

And I'm sure I won't like Moxie solely for the fact that it's yet another example of letting an actor direct solely because they have connections and not because they can actually direct. Most of these movies are nothing but soulless vanity projects design to stroke the creative force's ego. And I think I just described two of this year's Worst Picture nominees for the Razzies.

And speaking of Songbird, I've seen a trailer for Little Fish before a few movies and the whole time, I'm like, "Isn't this just Songbird with better actors?". It's amazing how often with see two movies do the exact same thing but have wildly different results.

[transformers2]

Nope, I haven't seen Shakespeare in Love and have zero intention of ever changing that.