Toy Story 4 and Toy Story 5 remind me a lot of Star Trek: Beyond. After Star Trek: Into Darkness, it felt like Beyond was operating on a much smaller, less important scale. It had (necessarily for Star Trek) become episodic. The story was smaller, but it lacked purpose.
Toy Story 4 and Toy Story 5 are smaller than their predecessors, and lack purpose. Like Beyond, they are very competent. But they don’t need to exist.
The original Toy Story trilogy is meaningful because it has a perfect arc: the first film is about coming into existence as a child and learning to deal with others. The second is about youth and finding purpose. The third is about the loss of purpose that comes with age and death. The full circle of life, told in three parts. Each film builds on the last, with incredibly emotional moments that stick with you for a lifetime. (The trash compactor in 3. Jessie’s song in 2. Buzz and Woody gliding together in the first film. “The claaaaaaaw.” Etc.)
Toy Story 5, in particular, really hopes you’re nostalgic for some of these moments. Focussing on Jessie means rehashing much of her backstory from Toy Story 2. “When She Loved Me” is beautifully integrated into the score of this film. Every time that song was called back, my eyes welled up and the waterworks began.
But Pixar doesn’t have to do anything to earn my tears this time around. The emotional wallop of Toy Story 2 has stuck with me since 1998. I can’t hear that song without breaking down. (Merely thinking about that song makes me emotional.)
So halfway through Toy Story 5, I realized that any emotion I felt was a cheap shot; it was a callback emotion. It wasn’t earned. It was manipulation.
Emotional manipulation used to be below Pixar’s purview. Their films were emotionally devastating without having to manipulate you at all. They weren’t cloying or saccharine; they were merely sentimental (in the traditional sense of the word). Pixar’s earliest output had so much compassion for our shared humanity that you couldn’t help but emotionally react to an old man losing his wife, or a couple robots falling in love, or yes, a toy cowgirl getting abandoned by her kid.
I don’t know if Pixar has that same compassion for our shared humanity anymore.
I would love to see them find it again.
]]>This is a really great miniseries, and I’m so grateful it exists. Scorsese is among my favourite filmmakers, and his take on America has always struck me as interesting and astute. This is a great trip through most of his oeuvre. I’m delighted with what’s here. I soaked up every minute and truly did enjoy it all.
It’s a pity it’s not twice as long and twice as honest. We get close to Marty, but it’s clear he views some of his life as too colourful for documentation. That’s a shame. It’s not like we don’t know some of the more sordid details, and for those of us who don’t, it would hardly be surprising to learn that an isolated genius struggles with drugs, love, and fatherhood.
When his daughters talk about their most cherished memories with their father, it’s heartbreaking. You realize that this man is not so unlike the characters he portrays so well — filled with self-loathing and a small measure of contempt for those closest to him, but with boundless love for his work and those in that world.
By the time it’s over, I felt like I was seeing a real world portrayal of Raging Bull or The Irishman, but the documentary went out of its way to avoid making that connection itself. As an official documentary, it’s got a veneer over it that doesn’t match the grit or texture of its subject matter.
Entire chapters of his life are blown over in ten minutes or less, including his hospitalization. His friendship with De Niro, and all their ups and downs, is hinted at but never stated. Both men remain tight-lipped.
So this is fascinating, and it made me want to rewatch all his movies. But I needed more. Marty’s films often dig deep into the psyche of the dark underbelly of America, and just as often dig deep into the religious grandeur of American faith too. I feel like we saw a lot of the latter, but I don’t know that this documentary was able to commit to Marty’s underbelly, as it should.
An additional five episodes — I’m not kidding! — would allow a closer look at Marty’s sin and redemption cycle, making it even easier to sympathize with our favourite director.
]]>Emotionally enthralling, but it is neither as essential as Shawshank or as magical as Life of Chuck. Instead, Green Mile follows the conventions of 90s prestige filmmaking. There’s a lot of plot, and sentiment that often devolves into schmalz when it feels unearned. The bookends of the film feel wholly unnecessary, and it’s just too darn long.
It’s not that it’s all bad or anything; it’s that we’ve seen this done better several times before and since. A few things really stand out: the performances are all terrific, and this is an odd thing to mention, but I loved the songs they played on the radio throughout. The “flicker show” scene got me so good. And the concept, as usual for King, is A+++ stuff.
]]>Michael Bay is so unbelievably tasteless. This is awful. It’s like a child thought up the most convoluted plot ever in an effort to film the most explosions possible for a movie.
Even the needle drops are as shallow as a puddle.
I’d say Michael Bay has the same emotional depth as Taylor Swift’s music, but that would be an insult to Swift. Bay is in a league of his own here.
Utterly incomprehensible from start to finish.
]]>One of the least frightening “horror” movies I’ve ever seen. If I had a teenager who thought this was frightening, I’d sit them down for The Shining and tell them the Overlook Hotel is the original backroom (which it was, if we’re being honest).
I really do like the concept, but the execution is a big miss for me. There are so many interesting things you could do with this idea, and Backrooms pursues zero of that potential. The therapist setup is something I would have written in high school, so I wasn’t surprised the director was 19. (I would have made her the wife. It would have been way creepier.) It just feels like something you’d make as a student film, if you had a budget for sets.
Maybe one day we’ll talk about how Kane Parsons was a visionary and his first film was “surprisingly good” considering his age. But without the benefit of that hindsight, and with no assumption of foresight, this is very okay for a first movie and very meh for a movie.
]]>What a swing and a miss from Spielberg. Easily one of his worst. I don’t even like the high contrast bleach bypass look here, which doesn’t work with the film at all.
Theoretically interesting as a 9/11 metaphor, but Spielberg doesn’t have anything to say about it. He just wants to showcase the horror of it all without real commentary.
Hard to hate it, because there are moments — entire sequences, really — that work well. But even Spielberg seems bored by the material. Nothing gels here at all.
]]>Rewatched to show my wife, who also thought it was very funny and emblematic of office work.
]]>A somewhat bad movie uplifted by its bizarrely accurate prophecy into America’s future.
If the film wasn’t narrated, I think it would have been funnier. Having Luke Wilson actually figure out this context would have been great.
]]>For my tastes, a nearly flawless movie. Entirely enthralling from start to finish.
My parents had a copy of this on DVD somewhere, I think, and I never watched it. I don’t think I would have liked it much as a teenager, but in my mid-thirties, this rocks.
A tremendous, exciting, captivating, thoughtful, and intelligent piece of filmmaking.
]]>Easy to enjoy and extremely dumb. We make fun of these now, but we’re going to reminisce about them when they’re gone.
Perfect “I have a bad cold but need to survive holding this baby all night” filmmaking.
]]>Genuinely surprising and inventive. Went so many places I didn’t expect — just fun to watch. I can see why they handed the keys to Resident Evil to this guy; I would love to see his take on that franchise.
Great cast too. Inspired use of Justin Long.
]]>Funny. Stephen Root is amazing.
]]>I am a huge fan of the original Ready or Not, and have recommended it to so many people that I almost feel partially reasonable for its current cult status. For my taste, that original film is perfect Friday night entertainment: it’s hysterically funny, wildly thrilling, and has the sort of ending that makes you laugh with glee. It’s just a preposterously fun thrill ride.
I am sad to say the sequel doesn’t live up to the original. The problem is partially that there’s no real way to escalate things further when the “bit” you end the first film with is absurdly comic. After you start making bodies combust because of a failed blood pact with the devil, you really have nowhere else to go.
So a film whose entire premise is quite literally “double or nothing” doesn’t work when you already know everything that’s going to happen. The gig is up. You’d have to get wildly inventive here, and pivot to a whole different genre — like pulling an Aliens-style sequel — in order to make this happen.
But that’s not what this is. If I had to sit and think about it, Ready or Not 2 would have worked better if it became a spoof of the Kill Bill films, leaning into gory action rather than gory horror. There’s no horror here left to mine; it’s just a redux.
To add insult to injury, the entire sister subplot adds nothing to the film and just detracts from Samara Weaving’s great performance. Bummer.
Elijah Wood is a bright spot, and he adds a lot of flavour to what would otherwise be a paint by numbers affair. It’s great that Lord of the Rings has afforded him the chance to take these weird little roles that he seems so obviously into.
]]>An effective piece of genre filmmaking from a surprising director, with a surprising budget, and a surprising sense of taste and style. I’m mostly impressed that a YouTube filmmaker isn’t obsessed with quick cuts and cheap thrills.
Bang-up job with lighting and cinematography. Inde is a great actress; she totally sells this role.
I’ll add that even at a brisk 100 minutes, this started to feel like it was running long to me.
]]>Competent and occasionally fun, but not that interesting either.
]]>Dang, this is a real banger. A concise exploration of mankind’s violent nature and a condemnation of fanatical zealotry, delivered with the sort of love and care rarely given to B movies. Terrific. Amazing effects, and great cinematography.
This would have blown my mind if I saw it when I was a kid.
]]>I loved Reeves’ two previous instalments, which gave this world the pathos of Shakespearean drama and the grandeur of Heston-inspired Biblical grandeur. This film does nothing for me.
By any measurement, it is the least interesting of these new movies in this series. It’s not as visually impressive. The acting isn’t as memorable. The story is comparatively rote. This one is shorter (if memory serves), but sure feels longer.
But the worst thing I could say is that I was as interested in this as I am in an instruction manual. There was nothing I latched onto here emotionally at all.
]]>First one is way better. This throws out everything that makes the first one interesting for your normal straight-to-Disney Channel slop. Too bad it’s about women defining themselves by the men around them instead of the feminist slant of the first.
(Possible I saw this when I was a teenager, but I have no memory of it at all, so I’m counting it as a first-time watch.)
]]>Spider-Man for tween girls. Haven’t seen this in over twenty years. Holds up well. Hathaway is great in it. Julie Andrews is perfect.
]]>I’m glad some people like this, and it works just fine as a TV show, but Disney should be ashamed and embarrassed by the way they’re milking this once-beloved franchise. (We’re one multiverse plot away from the Mandalorian joining the X‑Men at this point.) Pedro phones it in. The editing is not great. The story is a bore and too long, so it becomes a chore. Jeremy Allen White is miscast.
But the real problem is that this looks, feels, and functions like a TV show stitched together for a movie. It feels wrong for the medium. Cinema should be a step above television. This is not.
Liked the miniatures and puppets though.
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