A modern classic. If it weren’t for There Will Be Blood, which I think is the best film of the century, this would be PTA’s career best. As it stands, it is merely one of the best films of the past ten years, and a film that would be a career best for almost any other director.
Its 70mm presentation is gorgeous. Johnny Greenwood’s score is remarkable. Every cast member is fantastic. It’s layered, dense, hilarious, and made up of glances and stares that cut like knives.
One of my favourite movies of the past few years.
]]>An R‑rated Hallmark movie functioning as obvious propaganda for Pickleball Co. Not as funny as I hoped it would be. Apple continues their sad streak of forgettable movies. Did make me want to play the game, so I suppose it works on a functional level.
Update from later: Honestly, slightly killed my joy of movies and made me want to stop watching them for a time. This was bad.
]]>Haven’t seen this since its release and the jokes hold up so well. Hilarious movie, surprisingly well made. There’s a oner that is just a 10/10 sequence. Wish we got more comedies like this.
]]>First act is still a mess, filled with the necessary shamblings to remind us all what happened over a decade ago and to set up the rest of this franchise. But once it gets out of its own way, this is nothing less than 5‑star entertainment. Unbelievable spectacle, believable and emotionally rich family drama.
]]>Thematically rich, with nuanced characters (and a nuanced villain), a hopeful outlook on humanity, and an inspired performance from Rosemary Harris. Every superhero movie wants to be this, but none of them are willing to make the sacrifices required to achieve it.
It has an utterly compelling and human core. The first real superhero sequence happens 25 minutes in, and only serves to explain why Peter is late for a play. The villain transformation doesn’t happen for 35 minutes. So much time is spent setting up the human conflict, the choice between selfishness and self sacrifice, that the villain’s plot takes the back seat for the majority of the first hour.
I wish superhero movies wanted to inspire us to be better today. To be noble, brave, and self sacrificial for one another. Raimi imbues this with more humanity than the genre has ever achieved since.
Huge fan of Doc Ock as a villain. He’s actually a little scary. The hospital sequence is fantastic work, and the way his entrances make a subwoofer rumble is reminiscent of the T‑Rex in Jurassic Park.
But mostly, this achieves the incredible feat of expressing the cost of great power, and applying it to the cost of intelligence, the cost of caring for others, and the cost of love. Every major player here is asked to let something go. Peter needs to sacrifice his dream of a normal life with MJ. MJ needs to sacrifice her relationship with the NASA boy and the dream of high society. And Harry needs to sacrifice his desire for revenge. And what they decide, by the end of the film, determines the remainder of their lives.
A real achievement in Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking by Sam Raimi.
]]>Watched it with a first timer. (Tenth time watching this, and despite the fact we have hundreds of discs in the home theatre, people who haven’t seen this gravitate towards it. Ford V Ferrari is also popular with the same crowd.)
At this point, I am ready to declare this a masterpiece. A massively entertaining romp, with layer upon layer upon layer of social commentary, family drama, cinematic perspective, intricate whodunit mechanics, and a genre inversion so clever it can only be done once in a franchise. It doesn’t hurt that it’s also got an all-timer ensemble cast.
A once-a-career movie for Rian Johnson. The franchise will never reach this height again, no matter how many of these they make, because the defied conventions that make this work so well can’t be repeated. It’s magic. Total magic.
Steve Yedlin should get more credit for his cinematography here too.
]]>Over time, I’ve come to believe that Avatar is the Star Wars of a new generation. James Cameron could be the GOAT. There is nobody else alive who knows how to make a movie like this. He’s also got an unbelievable eye. His compositions are interesting, he holds the camera steady and follows the action clearly, and he properly lights his (virtual) sets. His movies are polished to the nth degree. Just incredible work.
It’s odd to see the tide slowly turn against these movies, as though they’re derivative and therefore pointless, while people line up this weekend for the ninth Spider-Man movie and Tom Holland’s seventh appearance as the character.
My only complaint about the first Avatar film is that I think the video log is an excuse for narration, which doesn’t suit this movie. That sort of contrived exposition doesn’t belong or fit in with the rest of what’s on display.
Dances in Wolves in space is a real banger of an idea, and the visual invention is out of this world (no pun intended).
I would love to see Cameron make a fourth and fifth.
]]>Some of the best voice acting that’s ever been done. Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers are both pitch perfect.
]]>Denis is so good at what he does. He has a Nolan-like ability to make a complex plot palatable. Unlike Nolan, his idea of intelligence doesn’t seem like the smarmy British boy school kind, but the sort that wants to invite you in and share something interesting.
And while he’s great at grounding things in reality, Denis also understands the dream like nature of films and goes for it. His creature design, his visual design, and sometimes even his editing — he understands the transportive nature of the medium and allows it to hypnotize us.
His sound design is also the best in the business. Arrival is one of the best sounding movies I’ve heard in my home theatre.
I was reminded of Close Encounters on this viewing and suddenly realized that Denis feels to me like Spielberg without the sentimentality.
Not a fan of Arrival’s cinematography. Uninspired and bland camerawork with few exceptions.
But immensely enjoyable.
]]>Paul Bettany steals every scene he’s in.
Trips over itself on occasion, but it’s frequently so much fun that it doesn’t matter much. Maybe it’s the bias of my youth. This was constantly on at my house when it came out; if I recall correctly, it was one of the first DVDs I owned.
I remember learning later that this was not critically adored, and lambasted for threatening to lower the standards of Hollywood filmmaking. Compared to the slop the big studios make now, this is practically a breath of fresh air: subversive needle drops, wish fulfillment feel-good fantasy, and a vibrant colour palette. Imagine!
]]>Watched with a first timer.
Every time I see Heat, my estimation of it grows. An immaculate film. Stylish, but not without substance. Everybody gives a great performance. Camera moves and sequences that are still mimicked decades later. Incredible action sequences. Some of the best sound design ever committed to celluloid (and maybe the hottest mix I’ve ever heard, at least on my Blu-ray Disc).
I remember disliking it the first time around, and I think I have that habit with most Mann movies. I think his style is so intense that I need a couple viewings to click in with what he’s doing. I don’t know how some critics can watch a film once and never change their mind on it. I like letting the art persuade me of its position with repeated exposure.
]]>The sort of swashbuckling film that made you fall in love with movies to begin with.
]]>Wildly ambitious. Not sure how I felt about the opening 30 minutes, which felt sloppily edited to me, but the last 30 minutes were so sublime that they made up for those shortcomings.
Roy Scheider is amazing in this. Possibly his best performance.
I think this would have become a favourite of mine if I could have found a way to relate to anybody, but there isn’t a single likeable character across the two hours of this film. (And yet Fosse has treated himself warmly enough in this autobiography that it’s impossible to entirely hate him too.) So I can only admire the film from a distance.
Blind buy from a flash Criterion sale. I would watch this again.
]]>I was shocked to find out how divided people are on this when I finished watching. This is a great time! Schlocky B horror perfect for Friday night entertainment. At turns horrifying, funny, gross, gory, tense, and yes, extremely silly.
Nobody would compare this to Citizen Kane, but that’s entirely not the point.
Late edit to add: it’s so nice to see Sam Raimi have fun behind the camera again. Dr. Strange made me wonder if he still had it in him. This proves the man was born to make movies like this.
Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson both made B horror before their breakout early-2000s film trilogies. In both cases, their small doses of horror changed how we think about action and adventure movies. I maintain that Spider-Man and Lord of the Rings both demonstrated that the horror genre is an effective training ground for bigger budgets and larger ideas.
Now look at where we are: every breakout auteur proves their mettle by making high-brow horror. The genre continues to reinvent itself, from Heavenly Creatures to Get Out to Hereditary, and now, to Backrooms.
All this to say that it’s nice to see Raimi pick up from where he left off and do what he clearly thinks he’s best at. Send Help oozes confidence and charm, even when it oozes… other things, and it’s a fun Princess Diaries-esque (she just needs to take off her glasses!) rags-to-riches story for people who think Survivor is actually really freaking horrifying.
In other words, I’m very happy this exists, and I would be very happy to watch it again.
]]>This review may contain spoilers.
It’s a little ham-fisted by its closure, but there is a lot to generally love about The Odyssey. Nolan’s CGI usage is often so subtle that it feels like a practical effect, and when you combine those effects with real-world locations and old-fashioned camera trickery, there’s a lot of magic on screen.
As always, Nolan’s filmmaking is extremely confident. There is never any sense of self-doubt. He knows where he wants the camera, even if it is typically centre framed for the benefit of his IMAX audience. And he knows how to create a sense of sheer spectacle.
Nolan’s dialogue remains stilted, but most of the cast does great work, considering what they’ve been given.
And while I think there’s a lot here that doesn’t work, it is largely outweighed by what does. Some sequences are truly fantastic. The cyclops sequence is exceptional. There is a sequence in Hades that blew me away; it felt like something I had seen before, but Nolan somehow imbued it with some ineffable feeling of “the new.” I also loved the return to Ithaca and the film’s climax, which kept me on the edge of my seat.
The sum is greater than all its parts. Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay The Odyssey is that it made me want to watch more movies. It reminded me of the transportive magic of the medium at its best.
Viewed in Ultra AVX at Cineplex, which had a poor crowd (who kept checking their phones!) and a poorly optimized, dim projector. Booked tickets for IMAX 70mm in August.
]]>It’s amazing that this never captured the public imagination. Doug Liman, despite his tendency for shaking the camera incessantly, delivers spectacle on a level reminiscent of James Cameron. The cast is fun. There’s a real beating heart at the core of this thing.
I don’t think the third act totally works. It’s too dark and underexposed, making the action hard to see, which makes the payoff difficult to visually process. Unlike, say, Aliens, which ends in the dark but remains well lit, this is so mired in shadow that I don’t think one can make out what’s happening from one frame to the next.
But everything up to the final ten minutes is smart, interesting filmmaking.
I would have loved to see more of these.
]]>Paraphrasing from what I remember, it’s that TV’s incentives are to make the most of it, not to make the best art possible, which is more aligned with movies. I’d think the budget and talent also favor movies (on average and per-minute).
So why the imbalance in the other direction for me, and maybe a lot of you?
I am more of a movies guy than a TV guy, basically for the reasons Chris stated. But I also watch a fair bit of TV, especially on weeknights. I have thought about this question a lot over the years.
I think there are two reasons people choose TV shows over movies, beyond general FOMO and pop culture:
Watching a movie requires making a series of choices.
First, pick watching a movie over a TV show.
Second, which movie? (How much time do you have? What are you in the mood for? If you’re not alone, does your partner/friend/child want to watch this with you? )
And then, if you haven’t answered this question already: where is streaming? (Do you have that service? Can you rent it elsewhere? Where you can watch this movie?)
All those choices are made only once with a TV show. Once you pick the show, you just settle in with inertia. You don’t need to pick a new show every night. If you start Mad Men, you could easily spend a month of evenings watching nothing but that show without expending another ounce of energy on those choices.
Choosing movies requires, in my opinion, an almost heroic level of energy. It’s not a wonder most people pick TV.
]]>I vaguely recall watching my dad watch this when I was a kid. He had this massive grin on his face the whole time. I didn’t get it. I thought it was obnoxious and boring.
Cue to me, 35 years old — probably close to the same age my dad was when I saw him watching it, actually. Right around the beginning of “Good Morning,” I realize I’ve had been grinning the same stupid grin for over an hour, and my stupid face is starting to get sore from the smiling.
This is fantastic. “Make them laugh” indeed. Donald O’Connor blew my mind. Gene Kelly is a gift from God to humanity. Debbie Reynolds is a riot.
I wish I could tap dance.
]]>Watched with a first-timer.
It is impossible to dislike this movie. It’s practically flawless. A miracle. The scene about the Indianapolis is one of my favourite scenes in movie history.
A rare bonus for me is that one person in our audience noticed how great the 4K restoration is. This never happens. Usually I’m the only weirdo talking about how tremendously well cared for a film has been. I felt very seen.
]]>I feel bad saying this, because I’m sure he tries just as hard as the rest of us, and I’m probably not always perfect at my job either, but Paul Feig is tasteless and it really hurts his movies. (See also, A Simple Favour and its sequel, Ghostbusters, and, uh, etc.)
Like, the bones of something interesting are here, but Paul Feig lost them somewhere in an AI-suggested Spotify playlist.
He needs an especially vicious, extremely mean, very good editor to start working with him. It’s never too late! Rooting for you, Paul.
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