Tuesday, 2 December 2025
As you can see, I watched quite a few movies and a couple television shows, and there were more I just could not include (only thirteen of the twenty-two films—rewatches included—I watched are reviewed here). I briefly tried to get in all the Agatha Christie adaptations of books I haven't read and mediocre-to-bad action comedies with questionable politics that I was watching, but honestly my reviews of them were pretty similar and just kind of boring to do. A lot of my criticisms were repetitive, but they were also fairly straightforward and I felt like were nothing novel in terms of perspective.
I feel like I'm constantly shrinking my pool of films to review—I've restricted myself from writing on anthologies, documentaries or docuseries, things based on real people or events, and now animated films. Most of these categories I've reviewed in the past, but I find them more difficult to write than other reviews as I'm typically engaging with them in a different way and even context. Going forward, unless I have something particularly significant to say about them, I'll likely continue to skip these sorts of films or series as appropriate.
Laid (2024, created by Nahnatchka Khan)
Laid is a comedy television show that follows a woman named Ruby (Stephanie Hsu) as she discovers everyone she's ever had sex with is dying. Her friend AJ (Zosia Mamet) attempts to assist her in uncovering the mystery while Ruby becomes close to old flame Richie (Michael Angarano) and new client of her party planning job Isaac (Tommy Martinez). It is based on an Australian television show of the same name.
This show has been on my list for a little while as I liked a trailer I saw for it online, plus I like a handful of the people involved, or at least I like their work that I'm familiar with. However, it was lackluster in just about every way. Speaking about it to people I know, a few mentioned they felt the concept was "outright bad," for, frankly, shockingly regressive reasons. But I thought it had some legs, had it been done completely differently. I suppose that all the beats were there, but the emotional core really fell flat to me. I found the show spent a lot of time waffling about what Ruby's actual issue was. It landed on there being a problem with how she "loves love" and her refusal to deal with what happened to her parents was a main source of her issues, which was all just a bit underwhelming and didn't really seem particularly poignant to me. At times it completely glossed over anything interesting, including a majority of her lovers, which lowered the stakes and made it feel distant but never stylistic. Worst of all, it wasn't particularly funny.
This isn't strictly a criticism, just something that I kept thinking about throughout the show. There's this emphasis on appearances (clothing, makeup, etc.) in the dialogue, but the actual style of the show was really difficult to pinpoint. Individually things may have been cute or worked—for example I thought Ruby's friend AJ's style was consistent with her character—but overall it felt plucked out of time in the strangest way. It was just a strange way that this sort of distance of the show really made itself known, where nothing felt cohesive or meaningful, even though the concept of the show seems to demand at least some of that.
Misery (1990, dir. Rob Reiner)
Misery is a thriller that tells the story of famous novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan), who is nursed back to health after a car accident by the fanatic Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates). As Annie keeps Paul close to her in her home, small town Sheriff Buster (Richard Farnsworth) and his deputy and wife, Virginia (Frances Sternhagen), attempt to solve Paul's missing persons case. It is based on Stephen King's novel of the same name.
So I am going to be straight up and say, I've never read Stephen King and have no plans to, as I find that I am not really interested in his plots or concepts at all, including in movies based on his books. For the longest time, I said Misery would be my exception, but sadly it's just another example of a plot I wasn't interested in. I say that to say: it's just not my thing. I didn't hate it; I just don't have a strong opinion on it. I don't really have any reasons for that besides taste, so here are some things I liked about the movie.
I liked the costumes, as I felt they were cute and cozy but expressed the environment well. You will see some of these looks influencing my fashion when it finally gets cold. The moments with the sheriff and deputy provided nice relief from the enclosed main drama. The final fight scene was pretty well choreographed, and I liked how it considered the environment as well as the characters' states at the time. That's pretty much it. I had a fine time watching this, and wouldn't mind watching it again, but at the moment I have no real drive to do that.
Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed (2004, dir. Brett Sullivan)
Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed is a horror movie that continues the story of Ginger Snaps' Brigitte (Emily Perkins), years after she was infected with the werewolf curse. Against her will, she is put in a rehabilitation hospital where she must battle her impending lynanthropy, avoid another werewolf looking to mate with her, and deal with the dangerous nurse Tyler (Eric Johnson). She soon escapes with a young girl, Ghost (Tatiana Maslany), who has also been at the hospital, and they hunker down in Ghost's grandmother's house as the werewolf chases them.
I watched this as part of a double feature with the first movie, a film I knew I liked but proved to actually be a favorite of mine. Which is to say that this sequel had a high bar to reach. I don't want to compare it too much to the original, but as it's a direct sequel, I will say that it is tonally distinct from the original. It takes on a much more standard action-horror structure, and really improves on those action scenes quite a bit. It kept many of the same themes—sisterhood, sexual violence, and transformation—but drew them out in really distinct ways that allowed it to feel like it drew on the original but was clearly doing its own thing. Despite how different the two are, I thought they actually worked pretty well together.
As a movie on its own, the film lacks innovation in a lot of ways. The characters were a bit bland and the plot beats were very predictable, but the performances made up for that most of the time. It was pretty quickly paced, especially at the action scenes, so I at least never felt bored, but I did sort of feel like I'd seen it before, if only because the plot was a bit generic. The movie definitely did things that were unique to it, but overall it had this sense of predictability and familiarity.
Game Night (2018, dirs. John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein)
Game Night is a comedy film that follows married couple Annie (Rachel McAdams) and Max (Jason Bateman) and their friends who play games together (Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, and Kylie Bunbury) as they are whisked on a murder mystery of sorts after one of their group member's brothers (Kyle Chandler) is kidnapped. They must solve a set of clues and complete a series of action moments in order to rescue the brother before he is killed.
This was a family movie night watch, so not something I'd normally check out, but one I'm glad I finished. I'm going to have very little to say about this film, but I did overall have a good time with it. It was best at its humor, which was consistently funny. The performers did a great job of making even very corny jokes hit for me, which is always a plus. It also never lost momentum, both in terms of the action/thriller elements and the comedy. I was not super impressed by the mystery, but I also wasn't going into it for that so that's fine. It also had a handful of cool shots and moments with nice lighting, which I wasn't expecting to see but enjoyed nonetheless. The use of miniatures and, for lack of a more technical term, spinning shots, were pretty neat. I actually thought the portrayal of board game fans was solid, which is possibly a vague slight at another, unnamed movie I did not review because it was so egregiously bad so early on.
That said, and this should not be too much of a surprise, but the emotional subplots/main plot did not hit at all. Honestly, at times it seemed a bit lazy and shoehorned in, and I felt that sticking those elements would've really improved the film. This goes for all the dynamics, but the conceiving plot of the main couple genuinely seemed nonsensical at times. I also think there's something to be said about how the character Annie was vying for having children as her husband Max was uncertain, but at no point did I understand why she wanted kids at all. I'm not expecting a thesis on it, but the explicit reason she gave sounded pretty bleak to never be explored beyond a single line.
Umma (2022, dir. Iris K. Shim)
Umma is a horror movie about mother Amanda (Sandra Oh) and daughter Chrissy (Fivel Stewart) as Chrissy navigates the end of her high school experience. Amanda had a tumultuous relationship with her family, especially her mother, and moved abroad to get away from them and her culture, sacrificing all electricity and most communication with the outside world, save for her friend Danny (Dermot Mulroney). As Chrissy considers attending college far away, Amanda struggles with the idea of her daughter leaving the nest, creating the perfect opportunity for her recently deceased mother to begin possessing her.
I realized pretty early on in this movie that it was not going to be the most original movie of all time, but for Sandra Oh I was willing to give it my all. Unfortunately, it never managed to redeem itself in my eyes for two simultaneous reasons: it both had too much going on and didn't allow for enough to happen. The beats of the movie are pretty clear early on, even without reading a summary of the film, and they stuck pretty carefully to it. I think the simplicity of the narrative could've allowed for something interesting, but it never came to fruition as that simplicity wasn't echoed elsewhere.
To speak on my two issues with it, I was initially intrigued by the immediacy and abundance of the haunting. It was exciting to so early on get a full apparition and such an embodied haunting, but over time it lost its spark and never really grew into something equally engaging. It progresses from visions of ghosts to hauntings with animals (bees and foxes) and possession, but these didn't feel coherent with the voice and visuals of the ghost. On the flip side, though, the interpersonal drama was not enough to sustain the story outside of the paranormal elements. It was remarkably simple, and in the same vein as the haunting, rather than ramping up, it just changed to a different sort of conflict. These later elements competed with the starting ones, and just made the movie feel like a mishmash rather than complex.
Frankenstein (2025, dir. Guillermo del Toro)
Frankenstein is a gothic science fiction movie adapting Mary Shelley's 1818 novel of the same name. It mainly falls into two chapters, Victor Frankenstein's (Oscar Isaac) view of his childhood and early parts of the story, and his creation's (Jacob Elordi) view of the later part of the story. There is particular attention added to Victor's brother William's (Felix Kammerer) fiancée Elizabeth (Mia Goth), who is also the niece of Victor's patron Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz).
I'm not going to go into this acting like I was particular unbiased. I've struggled with a lot of del Toro's work, especially recently; I'm a big fan of Frankenstein, its adaptations, and its derivations; and frankly I just thought the trailer made this movie look like a bore. That said, I love Frankenstein and wanted to give it an honest shot. I'm just going to hit the major points I have, as honestly I think an exhaustive list would be rather boring to write.
I admit that I'm more partial to Frankenstein derivations rather than adaptations, but I have to say that as far as adaptations go, this was simplistic. It kept me on edge for a bit, wondering how exactly these changes to the plot and characters were going to culminate, and it turns out the answer is in the most basic way possible. I'm not going to lie: I think that "fathers and sons" and "who is the monster" are the least interesting themes you can pull from this story, but they are not inherently uninteresting. Done well (that, of course, being the key), they can be solid stories. In this case, they were lacking throughout the film, in both presence and complexity, up until a far too explicit climax in which we are not only told that Victor "[is] the monster" (riveting!) but he and the creature refer to each other as "father" and "son." These moments were treated as so emotional and revelatory, but they were not earned by the development of the characters and relationship we'd seen up until then. There was the allegory to contextualize it, but it was not rooted in the drama of the film and even then, it was simplified to such a degree that it lacked a real emotional impact.
The general progression of the film more or less followed the big moments of the novel, which I hesitate to dwell on, as a "book faithful adaptation" (as I heard it praised) is not of particular interest to me, but one notable inclusion was the frame narrative and narrator. I think this meant to give it a storytelling feel as del Toro often goes for, but it just did not hit for me as I found it made into parable what is a genuinely multi-faceted story spawning centuries of continuous though. Other than that, the film attempted to flesh out the story in some parts, especially the inclusion of Elizabeth's character, but this also fell flat. Her character was inconsistent, at some points seemingly characterized by Victor's narration but ultimately more of a stock "weird woman"—caring but oddball. I was especially struck by a moment in an interview I saw with Mia Goth explaining how she thought Elizabeth would dress; I have to say, based on the way Goth played her, I think she was correct. She was dressed in these opulent, jewel toned dresses that were vastly more visually interesting than the rest of the film (diagrams and body horror aside—stunning!), but did little to complement the characterization beyond her "standing out." After watching a video about it, I gained more of an appreciation for the costumes as a whole, but I think the reason the other costumes didn't stand out in the film is that I physically could not see the details. Beautiful stills and garments, but they didn't fit the story in their more obvious moments, and they were too subtle in others to notice. Putting Elizabeth in these bright colors made her stand out against the rest of the cast, which you could argue is representative of her status among them, but practically feels visually dissonant and not supported by Goth's portrayal. Aside from this, I felt her relationship with the creature was very much left unexplored and it never felt more than "she's a woman so she's more caring," but like entirely unexamined and implicitly sensual.
That brings me to my next point: my half-assed feminist review of this film. To put it bluntly, the concept of violence between fathers and sons, and men more broadly, is a fairly ubiquitous concept in film and art overall, although not a meaningless one. It's important to ask what exactly this film is doing with that theme that's unique, innovative, distinguished—anything that shows why this story, why this theme. After watching it, the best I can come up with is that moment of forgiveness at the end of the movie. But as I've already established, I thought that moment was not earned in the rest of the film, and how many movies are about forgiving that cycle of violence anyway. Furthermore, I think it's remiss to make a commentary about patriarchy and its effects on men, but make the women characters so flat and embodying this ultra caring role in comparison. The coy Freudian implications seem to try to discuss this, but with the way they worked in the film, it just replicated the effect on the women characters, rather than do anything insightful with it. I'm perfectly content with this being a story about men (speaking thematically; I do think it's typically good if a film has multiple women in it)—after all, I like Frankenstein. But I also think feminist and woman-focused interpretations, adaptations, and derivations tend to be more thoughtfully engaged with the original story as well as introducing their own ideas that are not reflected in the original novel but may work well with it. That's what I'm getting at with this movie: it's not doing anything particularly novel, both in terms of film canon and adapting this story in particular. The only thing I can really give del Toro kudos for is focusing on a "creation" perspective on the story rather than a merely "reanimated" one—both are cool, but I find the "creation" one underutilized.
All of this is in line with the simplicity I criticized earlier; this movie does not have anything particularly complex or insightful to say. In fact, it is keen on actively rejecting and removing the complexity of the original story. The reduction of the creature to a sad, suffering victim, the narrowing of Victor into this function of cruelty, the storytelling tone mixed with the extended childhood sequence of Victor's life—frankly characteristic of much of del Toro's work in a way that works for other stories, but in the context of this story comes across as surface-level and basic. If the actual minute-to-minute makeup was different, this simplicity might've worked, but at the end of the day, the movie in general was pretty weak. The vast majority of the visuals lacked the lived-in charm of del Toro's other works, the performances were not given much to work with in terms of reducing the characters to archetypes, and the semi-strict adherence to the frames of the novel combined with the parts in a disjointed way. And most notably, these choices all seemed intentional to promote a single reading; this movie, at least it seems to me, said exactly what it wanted to say, a thesis I found disappointing at best. I'd argue that this story, and indeed the genre of gothic fiction as a whole, lacks without feminist interpretations and complexity in story and character. I could generalize this to del Toro's (recent?) corpus as a whole, or indeed the revival of gothic stories and genre in adaptations tending to be lackluster, but I don't want to make this longer than it needs to be.
I'm Totally Fine (2022, dir. Brandon Dermer)
I'm Totally Fine is a science fiction comedy movie that follows Vanessa (Jillian Bell) as she mourns the death of her best friend Jennifer. While on an impromptu retreat that would've been their business' launch party, Vanessa comes upon an alien (Natalie Morales) who appears exactly like Jennifer requesting to run experiments on her.
I found this to be a simple but solid movie, that executes exactly what it's trying to in a functional yet interesting way. As is maybe obvious once you watch the film, this was recorded in nine days during lockdown, supported by a small cast and relatively straightforward narrative and production. Actually, the details of production are interesting and certainly worth the read if you watch the film.
The performances of Bell and Morales are easily the standout element of the movie, weaving together this absurd comic situation with genuine heartfelt moments and emotional highs and lows. The contained nature of the story, complemented by the production, allows the performances and emotional core of the story to stand out. It's strangely charming—the sci-fi elements are so small and homemade, but ultimately work. The film is most definitely a time capsule and shows its production situation all over its makeup, but it worked for me. It's a fun flick!
Set It Off (1996, dir. F. Gary Gray)
Set It Off is a genre-bending thriller about four friends (Jada Pinkett-Smith, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, and Kimberly Elise) who begin to rob banks together after a series of events leaves them in need. It combines elements of drama, thriller, action, crime, and romance to tell of the epic journey these women go on.
I've been slowly but steadily trying to get into thrillers this year, and I think this movie might've finally helped me stumble upon my niche. It has this great balance of tension and action sequences with empathy and dramatic storytelling, and it is those latter two that allow for the former two. It does the tragedy thing so artfully, building up these characters who you very quickly come to feel for, exploring their relationships with one another and to what they're doing, and then puts them in a situation that they aren't able to get out of.
This movie has a great visual style from the cinematography to the costumes, wonderful performances, and a stellar soundtrack. It's a little bit jarring as it blends a handful of different genres—the listing for the movie had at least five, and I'd argue more apply to different parts—but this created a really versatile world and allowed each of the character's stories to feel unique yet also related. The quick pacing and performances allowed it to feel mainly cohesive despite this idiosyncrasy, although I maintain the movie wouldn't have been the same without it. This is a great film if you're in the mood for something fun and action-packed, but heartfelt and tragic at the same time.
Am I Being Unreasonable? (2022–2025, created by Daisy May Cooper & Selin Hizli)
Am I Being Unreasonable? is a dark comedy about two mothers and outcasts, Nic (Daisy May Cooper) and Jen (Selin Hizli), who become friends, although things quickly prove themselves to not be as they seem, as just about everyone is hiding some sort of dark secret.
I literally don't know if I like this show. I watched the whole thing, pretty quickly actually as I was curious to know the extent of the mystery and I will say right off the bat that it's pretty underwhelming as far as reveals go. It has this sort of anxious sense the whole time—it's not quite tension, as it doesn't have the same gravity, but there is a pull to keep watching. It did mix those elements of comedy and thriller well, and I liked both the characters and their dynamics, with new angles being revealed as we went that weren't necessarily clear from the start.
It's very much in the vein of those woman-led comedy thrillers I've discussed on here before (Dead to Me is the notable one) but it definitely has its own sense of identity, with a distinct tone the whole time. My comparisons to that subgenre are more superficial and distant than is actually reflected in the tone. It has these occasionally dreamlike scenes that bleed into the more grounded moments, which combine with the big and distinct characters that populate this world, but are sort of held down by a grand mystery that ends up being predictable yet slightly too complicated to counteract that dreaminess. Other than that, I have very few specific comments to make about it.
The Whale (2022, dir. Darren Aronofsky)
The Whale is a melodrama that follows Charlie (Brendan Fraser), an English teacher and estranged father suffering from grief and obesity. His friend Liz (Hong Chau) takes care of him, though makes it clear he does not have much time left, so he elects to spend as much of that time as he can with his distant daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink). There is a secondary plot about Charlie's deceased lover and a missionary Thomas (Ty Simpkins) who visits him in his last days.
This is a film I'm glad I waited a bit to write about, as I find I like it less the more I think about it. Here is the good: beautiful blue-green visuals and notable audio mixing create, in line with the Moby Dick discussion that colors the dialogue, this inescapable sense of a ship. Evoking this mood of being trapped but ultimately propelling forward, complemented the drama as well as the recurring symbols, which made it feel almost literary. It is a drama to its core, and that slight fantasy of the filmmaking outside of the performances added a dynamic quality to it I enjoyed. The performances were strong, which allowed for it to be really moving and sad.
At the same time, though, I just found myself a little bored by it. It took a little bit before I was invested in the story, and despite the technical and narrative strengths, it just isn't my favorite movie of all time. This film has received a lot of criticism for its fatphobia and I think it's warranted at the same time the director's response makes sense. Aronofsky aimed to create a complex fat character, and he did do this—Fraser's performance has received well-warranted acclaim—but the narrative and visual framing still make him into a spectacle and more than that, there is almost no resolution to the way he is treated except for literally his death.
Spree (2020, dir. Eugene Kotlyarenko)
Spree is a found footage dark comedy horror movie about a young man called Kurt (Joe Keery) who wants to become a social media star; in an effort to go viral, he starts a killing spree while driving for a rideshare company. One of these customers, and potential victims, is up-and-coming comedian Jessie Adams (Sasheer Zamata).
I was not sure at all about this movie, but I was curious about a Joe Keery horror comedy, so I gave it a shot anyway. You'll see this with another film this month, but I just don't love found footage films. I thought the explanation for this one made sense and—as is the mark of a better one of these films—was a format required for the story being told. I also found Kurt's motivations were prominent without being overly explained or sanctimonious, a trap that could've been easy to fall into given the subject matter. It's not particularly profound, but it represents what it's trying to say without falling into common pitfalls of archetypically shallow social media creator characters that are a pet peeve of mine,
The movie was quickly paced and funny, which kept me interested. But ultimately, and this is to be expected from how the film was structured, I found the other characters to be underwhelming. Jessie Adams (Sasheer Zamata) is eventually the hero of the story, but it felt like we were introduced to her so late and we didn't really get to know her very well. Of course we were rooting for her to survive, but that's because Kurt's other victims or potential victims were all sort of egregiously awful. It's just a fine movie.
Wicked: For Good (2025, dir. Jon M. Chu)
Wicked: For Good is a musical that adapts the second act of the stage musical Wicked, which continues with Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), Glinda (Ariana Grande-Butera), and to a lesser extent other classmates Fiyero, Nessarose, and Boq (Jonathan Bailey, Marissa Bode, and Ethan Slater) as they enter the tumultuous political landscape in Oz following their schooling. As Elphaba is made into a public enemy, Glinda achieves great success in the Emerald City as Madama Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) and the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum)'s third arm.
I've already said a lot of my thoughts on this film series/adaptation in my review on the previous film. Suffice to say if you didn't read that one: I thought it was solidly mid. My review leaned more negative due to the amount of adoration I saw for it and the disappointment that ensued when I watched it myself. My lowered expectations were definitely a large part of the reason I didn't mind this movie as much. Don't get me wrong, I really have no burning love for Chu's adaptation of this musical, but I was fine after watching this one.
The biggest improvement, I would argue, was the performances. The first film is much more comedic while the second takes on a more serious tone; this is true of the acts of the musical as well. However, I did not find the first movie particularly funny at all and in fact found jokes I've laughed at by other (yes, stage) performers fell flat. On the other hand, the performances were very much improved in the more solemn moments and that really made a huge difference while watching.
The visuals, meanwhile, were a huge downgrade. I was disappointed by the lighting and coloring of the first film, but the rest of it was there—the set design was great, the shots were solid, the choreography wasn't to my tastes but worked for what it was trying to do. The musical numbers especially stood out as really haphazard much of the time; No Good Deed was especially rough, and I did not feel like the way that scene was shot made sense for the song and thus character's emotional state at the time.
These songs could've been used to bridge the gaps as the characters go through pretty substantial changes in this film, but this is also the case for the setting/political landscape. These elements are present, but there is little follow through with them, which makes motivations and choices feel all over the map rather than shifting as the situation shifts. Furthermore, there were some pacing issues, but these are typical of the second act of the stage play. As I mentioned in my other review, I do wish they were more willing to deviate from that a bit more. They seemed to do it more in this movie, which I liked the ambition of even if the execution was a little juvenile for me (I'm not a huge fan of flashbacks to childhood to explain already clear character motivations); still, though, there is a sense that this film is a very stretched out adaptation of this stage musical, but there's not really anything added to make that runtime add up.
At the end of the day, this movie and indeed this duo of movies does not really seem to be engaged as an adaptation of the stage musical. There are moments of fleshing out the story or characters, but the places where this stands out end up simplifying the narrative, rather than complicating or reexamining it. That plus the huge emphasis on marketing really take a lot of the soul out of the film for me.
The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014, dir. Adam Robitel)
The Taking of Deborah Logan is a found footage horror movie that follows a crew of doctoral students, Mia, Gavin, and Luis (Michelle Ang, Brett Gentile, and Jeremy DeCarlos), as they document the illness of the elderly Deborah (Jill Larson) and her caregiver and daughter Sarah (Anne Ramsay). However, things quickly turn paranormal as the ghost of a serial killer seems to be haunting Deborah.
I watched this because I'm vaguely interested in hagsploitation in the sense of I'd like to have a fuller picture of it every once in a while. This was a stand-out example in that the text deals specifically with dementia and more specifically Alzheimer's disease, though I didn't know how the movie was actually regarded. The concept is interesting, although I was less impressed by the execution. It definitely prioritizes the plot and scares over other things—in particular I felt the characters and their development were present, but just a bit underwhelming. That's not precisely the right word for it, but a few days later and I can't describe exactly how I felt besides a slight disconnect.
The film lost me a bit with the kidnapping, which felt a bit random. It raised the stakes and fit in with the lore of the movie, but I felt it could've just as easily have been any other type of danger had the story been slightly changed. I've said it before, but occult and ritual stuff just doesn't interest me all that much. The found footage format was fine, and I appreciated how it allowed other characters aside from Deborah's family to play a role in the plot, but it's just not my favorite form.
Ghost World (2001, dir. Terry Zwigoff)
Ghost World is a dark comedy about two young girls, Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson), just after they graduate high school. As they search for jobs and an apartment, Enid befriends a local music hobbyist Seymour (Steve Buscemi), a friendship that in part begins to alter the girls' friendship.
It's very rare I feel like I don't have anything to say about a movie, but it does happen sometimes. I just felt a bit whatever about this movie. It had cool costumes is the biggest thing I took away as I struggled to connect with it. I think that's ultimately how I feel about this movie: it's technically perfectly fine but it keeps you at a bit of a distance. Even when you really understand the complexities of what is going on in these characters' worlds, that is coming from outside, not so much the movie itself. I don't, to be clear, think this is a bad thing at all. It reflects the characters' outlook and informs the moments when that changes and shifts. It's quite specific and in doing that, delivers its broader ideas well. Honestly, I just found it boring.
This film deals with, as many reviews point out, "teenage ennui." This is very accurate, and it's just not something I'm looking for as an adult—more power to you if you enjoy this type of thing, but I'm really not into coming of age type stories in general. This movie is definitely a bit more than that; there's a worldview captured that's not necessarily always reflected in such films, which I appreciated about it.
Inception (2010, dir. Christopher Nolan)
Inception is a science fiction action movie about thief Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), who goes into people's dreams to steal information. Contracted by businessman Saito (Ken Watanabe), Cobb gathers a team (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elliot Page, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao) to help him with a heist to implant an idea in Saito's business rival's son Robert Fisher's (Cillian Murphy) mind. Of course, he is plagued by the memory of his deceased wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) in each dream he enters.
It's always a bit difficult writing these reviews when I go into a movie with expectations: in this case, I expected to find it was not nearly as confusing as everybody always says it is. Indeed I was correct—this movie is perfectly coherent and not difficult to follow so long as you watch the film in its entirety. This movie does a good job of telling a complex storyline with remarkable clarity. However, in so doing, it creates a landscape of dreams that's hardly made up of dreams at all. That's my only real issue with this movie, but it is a notable one.
I felt myself wondering about some of the creative choices—the mundanity of the dreamscapes made sense from a narrative perspective, Ariadne being the architect for a specific and mostly straightforward goal, but less so from a creative one. Who dreams so plainly? At the same time, I understood logically the use of color grading to differentiate the different levels of the dreams, but I still found the visuals boring in terms of color. You have these moments of striking visuals, with interesting special effects, but they're used in strange moments—introducing the concept more often than actually using them during the action. I suppose I was mainly surprised about the sort of action and its presence throughout the story. The grounded and standard approach does make sense with a more complicated narrative, but I didn't personally find it so complicated that it would've been an issue. I suppose my issue, then, is not exclusively with the visuals but with the genre. Why is this an action movie? I won't lie that I've always been a fan of them, but I've made great progress in appreciating this genre of film. So this was a real let down in that sense, as it was so straightforward in its visuals and action sequences. I don't know if it's just the year this came out or the vision for this particular movie that led to this, but it affected my watch quite a bit. Other than that, this movie was technically great.