Crunching the Numbers: Nine Lives Left

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Time to boot up my review thread for Year 9. Since we have a reduced film load this year, I will edit my written review procedure a little bit.

 

First, I will choose the 6 films of the year that interest me the most. Then, I will randomly pick one additional film from a month to review.

 

Then I randomize the review order and see what gets spit out.

 

After the reviews are done, I read the rest, then do the Top 25.

 

I'll pick the films a little later tonight, and start the reviews tomorrow night.

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The Six Pre-Selected Films are:

 

American Spy

Matilda and the Night Children

Warmth

Sleepy Hollow

Dancing in the Doghouse

Among Us

 

 

And The 12 Monthly Randoms are:

 

Interceptors

Whinge & Cringe

Alakazam

Devil Bean

Fatal Error

Xenoblade Chronicles: Power of the Monado 

The Mirage

The Talons of the Hawk

Acne

#Spooked

Mother Knows Better

Father III - All Hell Breaks Loose

 

 

 

The order of reading will be randomized later

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And here is the randomized order of reviews:

 

 

Dancing in the Doghouse
#Spooked
Interceptors
Warmth
Devil Bean

Father III - All Hell Breaks Loose
Sleepy Hollow
Whinge & Cringe
American Spy

Mother Knows Better
Matilda and the Night Children
Alakazam
Xenoblade Chronicles: Power of the Monado
Fatal Error
The Talons of the Hawk
Acne
The Mirage
Among Us

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DANCING IN THE DOGHOUSE

 

Spoiler

The follow-up to the melodramatic adaptation of a Portugese soap opera is just as melodramatic and soap opera-y as you can hope it to be. The film certainly doesn't skimp on the melodrama by adding in a whole bunch of new characters to insert their personal foibles into the situation and throw the existing characters into an emotional turmoil. And of course the film lacks any pretense of subtlety or tact, as exemplified by the "well she just is" shrug it gives to explaining how McKenna Grace is the granddaughter of Danny Glover and Octavia Spencer.

 

What the film really wants to devote its attention to is generational trauma and the proposition that nuture, or lack thereof, is more harmful to a person than anything else, as we see again and again the roots of the crimes and trauma of In the Doghouse traced back to the sins and omissions of the prior generation. The Wolfhard kids are screwed up because of their parents, who are screwed up because of their own parents, and the film certainly relishes in giving roles to Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro where they can just ham it up as trailer trash toxic malcontents. Florence Pugh gives a steady, if sometimes a little too stoic performance as Alice, who basically is caught in the middle as the mess of her family and no-family swirls around her, but she does provide a sticking point to keep the film from spiraling a little too off the rails, which it almost does in an extremely long and drawn out rave sequence at the main characters' house that concludes the second act.

 

Of course, then the climax happens, which is soap opera perfection. Not movie perfection of course, but that's not what the film is aiming for. It's messy, elongated, has false starts and false endings, and finally concludes with unadulterated camp that also forgets to resolve a subplot that gets dropped around the close of the second end.

 

It's an experience.

 

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#SPOOKED

 

 

A horror comedy that knows exactly what it's doing: be as spoofy, parody, and cheesy as possible. Now granted, that doesn't necessarily mean what it intends to do is the right thing to do, because it goes past the event horizon of fun parody and touches the realm of Friedberg & Seltzer at points, where it dispenses with having anything to say in commentary on the vapid existence of social media influencers and their followers doing it for the clicks instead of engaging meaningfully and just goes "lol people watching people die and doing nothing so dumb right". Still, it's for the most part a fun piece of minimally bloody cotton candy that your body will digest and pop out within a day with little remembrance it ever existed.

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INTERCEPTORS

 

 

Somewhere, a bunch of front companies just secured some global businesspeople some tax breaks, because this movie came out. Taking every possible sci-fi disaster cliche in the book and throwing it onto a screen, Interceptors plays things so painfully straight you'd like the film was being given treatment for scoliosis. No nuance, no character development, no humor, just a straight-up remake of Armageddon/Deep Impact in the first act before then I guess the director and screenwriters got high while seeing Moonfall and Ancient Aliens and decided to actually make it an alien invasion movie, with a dose of Chinese propaganda put in for good measure.

 

It's watchable, it looks halfway decent, but it's really the equivalent of a 2-day old Big Mac from the fridge. You can eat it, and it'll still go down reasonably well, but you really should just put it in the disposal.

[MCKillswitch123]

Spoiler

Thank you for the review, I ain't gonna lie and act surprised cause I think it's a bad movie, but regardless, thank you for your patience to sit through 15k words of soapy melodrama (oof) lol

 

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WARMTH

 

 

Alfonso Cuaron returns again to exorcise the demons of the Mexico of his childhood, in a film that occasionally dips into the colorful and somewhat stylistic, but for the most part is anchored around two people in rooms having conversations about the terrible things they did in the name of their country. These dialogue scenes are, even if at times going into simple platitudes, are relatively moving and affecting as we see how two old men, decades after the fact, still cannot shake the buried guilt and regret over their actions and only begin to step forward through shared feelings. It feels like there's a few minor gaps here and there that the film papers over, but for the most part the movie hits the notes it needs to, even if at times the pacing feels a little too deliberate.

 

All in all, it's a satisfying drama with some emotional heft to it.

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DEVIL BEAN

 

There's an expression on the forum "Is it Doug Liman" enough, that jokes about how Liman movies sometimes get a little too down the rabbithole.

 

This movie is if Doug Liman went back in time, took all the prop cocaine from Scarface, made it real, and snorted it all at once. That might be the only explanation for a movie where in what is ostensibly the normal world we have a giant bipedal hippo called Hippoman that no one bats an eye at, a woman shooting laser beams out of fingernails all of a sudden, a ninja suddenly develops telekinesis, robots with every gadget known to man, and Robert Pattinson doing his best Jason Statham in Spy impression. And that barely scratches the surface.

 

The actual movie is quite janky, but there's a fun and over the top Smokin' Aces vibe as loads of dangerous people converge on the iconic city of *checks notes* Denver, to steal a Bean MacGuffin. At times it goes a little too silly and stupid, and the ending gets a bit too cutesy and kumbaya, but if you turn your brain off, it's a wild and pretty entertaining ride.

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FATHER III - ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE

 

 

This is a film where the ghost of Mother Theresa trains a person physically trapped in hell how to master magic spells and activate spirit powers including possessing small children to take into demon warfare. I feel like that is all you really need to know.

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SLEEPY HOLLOW

 

*This review requires a fair amount of spoilers, so if you have not read the film yet, you have been warned*

 

Spoiler

Wow, imagine hearing that Henry Selick is doing a stop-motion adaptation of Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow and seeing this when you go into the theater. I'd ask for my money back, since aside from grating on some character names and extremely loose changes to the folklore, this feels about as much a Sleepy Hollow movie as a Christmas movie would.

 

Because what this really is, is a Neo-Pleasantville murder conspiracy movie that has very little conspiracy or Neo-Pleasantville, just occasional bloody killings interrupting a discordant tone before leading to a predictable third-act reveal that shows it's all about oil and coal, neither of which are present in any meaningful amount in Westchester County (especially oil, there's zero). It's as if the writers were at the deadline, realized they had no reason for Baltus to actually be the villain, and threw a dart at a board and it landed on oil. It would be like if the villain in a film set in New Mexico did his evil plan because he wanted to protect his rice paddies. This is just emblematic of the lack of care or thought put into the film.

 

As another example, the beginning of the film takes great pains to establish that the village is deliberately modeled after a 1950s town that time forgot, which creates all sorts of expectations about the kind of people Ichabod will meet, the themes to explore, and so on, and then the film does nothing with it at all, in fact it goes the opposite and says "we're really creating a minority friendly town that escapes the prejudices of the times we were from," which makes the deliberate usage of 1950s imagery basically pointless window dressing. Which again, basically points to the filmmakers co-opting source material, pointed imagery, and aesthetics to basically sprinkle onto a generic story of a few rich people being greedy and lording over everyone else.

 

And honestly, given the kind of story the film is actually trying to tell, the use of Stop-Motion Animation is an active hindrance to the aesthetics and visuals, in my opinion. So many of the decisions that went into making this film just don't work for me.

 

So, if you went to this moving expecting a Henry Selick re-telling of Sleepy Hollow, you are going to be extremely disappointed, since aside from a couple isolated bits, you get nothing that comes close to the gothic and spooky quasi-supernatural aura that a purported horror mystery retelling deserves.

 

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WHINGE & CRINGE

 

 

This is a weird movie that kind of takes the concept of Ted but instead of a stuffed animal come to life and being a debauched goon, it's an actual living cartoon that combines the penchant for weapons of destruction of Wile E Coyote combined with the insufferable presentation of a Daffy Duck. So kinda like a cartoon Ryan Reynolds. The movie's tone is occasionally inspired, but at times it certainly lives up to its title with some humor or developments just being a bit cringey.

 

I also don't know why this is R-rated, since aside from throwing in copious language to justify the rating, this is all harmless cartoony violence and shenanigans with nothing graphic or disturbing. I think there's a decent idea buried under all the "whinge and cringe" of it all, but in the end it gets fairly grating at times.

 

But hey, at just over 90 minutes, it doesn't overstay its welcome too badly.

[YM!]

47 minutes ago, 4815162342 said:

 

 

 

SLEEPY HOLLOW

 

*This review requires a fair amount of spoilers, so if you have not read the film yet, you have been warned*

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Wow, imagine hearing that Henry Selick is doing a stop-motion adaptation of Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow and seeing this when you go into the theater. I'd ask for my money back, since aside from grating on some character names and extremely loose changes to the folklore, this feels about as much a Sleepy Hollow movie as a Christmas movie would.

 

Because what this really is, is a Neo-Pleasantville murder conspiracy movie that has very little conspiracy or Neo-Pleasantville, just occasional bloody killings interrupting a discordant tone before leading to a predictable third-act reveal that shows it's all about oil and coal, neither of which are present in any meaningful amount in Westchester County (especially oil, there's zero). It's as if the writers were at the deadline, realized they had no reason for Baltus to actually be the villain, and threw a dart at a board and it landed on oil. It would be like if the villain in a film set in New Mexico did his evil plan because he wanted to protect his rice paddies. This is just emblematic of the lack of care or thought put into the film.

 

As another example, the beginning of the film takes great pains to establish that the village is deliberately modeled after a 1950s town that time forgot, which creates all sorts of expectations about the kind of people Ichabod will meet, the themes to explore, and so on, and then the film does nothing with it at all, in fact it goes the opposite and says "we're really creating a minority friendly town that escapes the prejudices of the times we were from," which makes the deliberate usage of 1950s imagery basically pointless window dressing. Which again, basically points to the filmmakers co-opting source material, pointed imagery, and aesthetics to basically sprinkle onto a generic story of a few rich people being greedy and lording over everyone else.

 

And honestly, given the kind of story the film is actually trying to tell, the use of Stop-Motion Animation is an active hindrance to the aesthetics and visuals, in my opinion. So many of the decisions that went into making this film just don't work for me.

 

So, if you went to this moving expecting a Henry Selick re-telling of Sleepy Hollow, you are going to be extremely disappointed, since aside from a couple isolated bits, you get nothing that comes close to the gothic and spooky quasi-supernatural aura that a purported horror mystery retelling deserves.

 

Spoiler

Damn. Guess I should’ve just gone and done a more straight adaptation. Tbh while there was a message, I was more so interested on trying to get another one home rather than the not really executed social one. If Matilda was a story about how anyone can change, this is a story on how yearning for the past makes you incapable of change. Ichabod though he has good characteristics is too absorbed with his desire of adulation to truly make change. That’s kind of why I wanted the ending to be vague on whether it was real or not and kind of why the film itself was like that, in that it’s Ichabod’s lucid dream in his last dying moments. His desire to be this part of something bigger but because of his ego and actions, he’s doomed to isolated. However, it wasn’t well executed enough to translate well and instead made a generic film which was a thought I had when writing it. 
 

 

Live and learn, it’s a good learning experience for when I do Rust, Lyrical and other more contemporary animation. Thank you for your input and review.

 

Edited July 24, 2022 by YM!

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AMERICAN SPY 

 

American Spy is a film anchored very well by an extremely internalized performance from Jurnee Smollett, who commands the screen as a character whose outward and inward dialogues and thoughts are conflicted and warring against what she knows, what she learns, and what she believes, both about the world and herself. It's a strong start to the lead actress Oscar race from the stuff I have read so far.

 

Her performance and will of character helps keep the film going through some patchy stretches, where the pacing gets a bit languid, or a bit overly stylized in flourishes that distract more than add. I am not familiar with the novel the film is adapted from, so I cannot speak to any choices as adaptation, but the male antagonist roles in the film at times become mustache-twirling cartoons, to overemphasize the film's point that the white-male driven American intelligence community is a bunch of empty greedy assholes. There comes a point where the film knows it has made its point, but then just goes further and further to hit you over the head with "these are sleazy people" to the point that it is a wonder that Smollett's character at some point doesn't just walk away well before she gets entangled in the plots.

 

So these writing issues cause some trouble for the film and hold it back from being a truly meditative character drama about the conflicts of a spy. Again, not sure how much comes from the source and how much is the choice in adaptation, but I do think a little more care and nuance could have been attached instead of just flashing neon signs.

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MOTHER KNOWS BETTER

 

Paper-thin in plot and character and probably 10-15 minutes too long, it's still an alright family friendly time-waster.

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MATILDA AND THE NIGHT CHILDREN

 

Endless Animation's summer offering is a tale of family that ties in heavily to Bajan roots, which is a recurring trait in some Endless movies. The film drags a little in the middle as it sags a bit with recurring personal drama and pitfalls, but it picks up again in the third act for a fun and invigorating chase and keep-away setpiece before going heavily into folk magic and just desserts. On the whole it's a pretty wholesome and involving adventure, though a few characters feel underwritten and present more for presenting personal emotional stakes than anything else. It doesn't do anything great, but it does a pretty fair deal pretty good.

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ALAKAZAM

 

We now have Studio Groundswell's animated offering that starts off pretty strong, but in the final act or so loses focus and turns into a mess of mayhem. There's plenty of eyepopping and dynamic visuals that help the momentum propel forward, but the story definitely goes off the rails and kinda papers over character motivations to get to even more spectacle. It resolves nicely, if a little too saccharine, but the last jog to get there is exhausting.

 

Cumberbatch and Redmayne make for a fun duo with their competing personalities, but sadly spend most of the film separated, which while necessitated by the plot I do think impacts the weight of events in the final act a little bit. I do applaud the film for giving a bit of misdirection like any true magician, by initially making me think it was gonna a certain way with potential romance subplot or two, but ultimately played it straight. I think Davies and Yates' characters probably could have been minimized a bit or given a change in direction, since they make things a bit more chaotic and off the rails than the film needs to be with their own choices.

 

In all, it's a fun and energetic adventure.

 

 

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XENOBLADE CHRONICLES: THE POWER OF THE MONADO

 

 

This movie is a bunch of exposition jiggery pokery combined with monster robot lore argle bargle. Take every single trope you can think of: Secret weapon that can stop the enemy, random young chosen one, killer robots, monsters that eat people, the list of tropes copied and recycled for this movie goes on and on as it gets all tossed into a blender then spat out onto the screen in a near-incomprehensible image salad. Yes the plot and characters at their most basic level are easy enough to follow, but that base foundation is then piled onto with a relentless onslaught of terms, phrases, dialogues, concepts, etc. that just become a mountain of mediocre mumbo-jumbo.

 

Just a total woof of a movie.

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FATAL ERROR

 

 

Basically this, but with Japanese horror movies and far less self-aware humor

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THE TALONS OF THE HAWK

 

*in tags because of some mild spoilers about the premises/set-up*

 

Spoiler

I have no idea how this movie is even 108 minutes long when there's basically plot for maybe an hour, resulting in some set-up scenes or some post-mayhem struggle and survival scenes dragging on for almost interminable amounts of time as the movie waits in-between setpieces. The characters are all paper-thin cutouts for the most part, given the barest of characterizations just so they can be told apart from the background extras, and in some instances the character detail gives us absolutely nothing to work with. Tony is upset about not having custody of his kids, so he drinks a random elixir that ends up turning him into a hawk monster that likes to eat people. Because that's the plot, and it just happens with no rhyme or reason. The attempts of the film to slowly build tension as Tony transforms and the crew and passengers of the plane slowly realize something is wrong come off as kinda laughable as it drags on for about ten minutes in slow motion with an almost situational comedy tone.

 

Honestly, if the film had made one change, it would probably have made the film a lot better: Instead of Tony changing himself into a hawk monster for zero reason, the plane could have been attacked by an unknown hawk monster or two while flying over a remote part of the country. Would the presence of hawk monsters make any more sense? Not really, but it would be the kind of nonsense that goes down far easier because it's the kind of nonsense that makes sense, plus the film could have gotten rid of all of the unintentional comedic buildup and Tony being a complete moron to use that to build more character relationships between Tony and Jasper and the crew, which would make the second half of the film more engaging as they all have to work through their personal issues to team up and survive the threat from above.

 

But, alas, the decision the film actually makes really makes it almost a looney tune.