What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

Luc Besson did a Mummy Movie: The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, based on another favourite comic book nobody under 40 ever heard of. Which is a shame, because the author Tardi is a genius and all his work is unique and you should go and read him if you want to talk about intelligent comic books at all.
Unlike the books it's neither scary nor a must see in any way and it suffers from his usual problems (mostly flat characters, bad CGI and childish humour), but there are some fun slapstick scenes. Also, the main character Adèle is awesome. And the mummy part of the plot is very inventive.

I'm impressed to hear that WW doesn't have male gaze stuff in it cuz the promo stills sure do. There's one where she's reaching back for her sword and she looks impossibly pretty

Emily and I saw Captain Underpants yesterday . I'll write a review tomorrow hopefully but it was pretty good, best cartoon villain I've seen in a long time. I loved all his scenes . Emily loved it and wants to see it again

We were practically alone in the theatres and it just opened. Who decided to release this beside Cars 3?! Are they nuts?

Michael Barnes wrote: One of my favorite scenes in the film is one of the most "girly"- the bit where she tries on the different dresses, finding them all completely un-functional for her way of life.

@Barnes: That was what my wife called the "Pretty Woman" scene. Loved it!

I watched Get Out last night...it was quite good. I'm tempted to call it a touch overrated and I found some of it sort of boring, but by the same token I don't want to diminish the cultural significance of it or the value of its sharp, smart commentary. I don't know if I've ever seen a more barbed, clever skewering of racism on "the other side"- you see all kinds of commentary and analysis of racism directed at a conservative, right-wing ideology. But you never really see anything take the latent, more sublimated racism of assumed progressives.



The real "horror" of the film is something that I think white people can not quite relate directly to, but can maybe understand a little more clearly if they pay attention. It positions the Black American between the hateful, traditional racism of the right and the cultural appropriation and condescension of the kinds of white folks that "would have voted for Obama a third time". It's a lose-lose situation, and in context it explains a kind of frustration and immobility that is quite perfectly summed up with being in that "hole". Watching it as a white person, it really drove home this particular position and it made _me_ horrified at things like how white people often act around black people- trying to ingratiate themselves (like the dad in the film) with certain turns of phrase, conversation topics, and other subtly racist things. It made me horrified to think that I have almost certainly, albeit subconsciously and without ill intent, done those kinds of things around black friends and peers. Because I think this film kind of made me see what position this can put someone who isn't white.



Definitely a thought-provoking, sophisticated film- it's not often we get a horror picture working on this kind of a level.

I'm starting to think that anytime Josh from the West Wing is in a horror movie, it's going to be sophisticated and great.

Barnes, have you ever not found an exceptionally well-reviewed movie or game over-rated? I think this is your standard schtick at this point.

I still can't believe that we're half-way through the year and there has been NOTHING that has come close to GET OUT for being that good. Logan, I guess? But it doesn't hit the same highs that GET OUT did. That's a good deep movie.

Speaking of racism, i tried having a conversation today about the recently released Philando Castile dashcam video with probably my closest black friend i have, and it was super difficult because the systemic racism is so obvious and ingrained in North America at this point. She's from the Carribbean so she's not used to this at all and had trouble identifying with North American blacks but now she is starting to get why they are the way they are. I don't know if you watched that video but it's really difficult. You pair that with the officer being acquitted by a jury and it starts to become a real horror film at this point. It's like we're living a 24/7 The Purge where you pretty much have a green light to kill blacks on sight if you want to. Jesus christ

I'm going to cautiously steer the conversation away from the Castile video and back to movies.

I saw I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore, a Netflix original. It's directed by the star (and I think co-writer?) of Blue Ruin and has a very similar feel.

The story follows a female protagonist who is sick of the everyday rudeness of other people. When her house is robbed, that's the last straw. She becomes an amateur detective and recruits her wacko neighbor to find the thieves and punish them. Of course, they're both way out of their depths and hijinx ensue.

It's not great, but I enjoyed it very much. It's a weird mix of suspense, comedy, and thriller. If you liked Blue Ruin or Green Room, I say check it out. It also reminded me of Blood Simple for some reason.

Slight spoiler that doesn't give away any plot:

Much as I loved Get Out, I think two films are better this year... Well, It Comes at Night is fresher so that may be why I'd give it the edge. But I like I Don't Feel at Home in This World a bit better. Have you seen that yet, Barney? Still on Netflix, I think.

I don't have Netflix
I really want to see It Comes at Night but I still need to Wonder Woman and in my city there is also Stalker from 1979 which I've never seen but am curious and some amazing documentary on street cats in Istanbul which I hear is incredible




Hey I ran into Katie Holmes today and afterwards I was told that Patrick Stewart was right there and I didn't even notice him. I felt crushed. That guy is probably the only celebrity that might turn me into a quivering pile of mush if I were to meet him

Barney, it's no more of a schtick then your "hey, look at me, I'm a friendly Canadian" one.

Stalker is mind-blowingly great. HOWEVER...I would be very hesitant to recommend it to anyone. It's a Tarkovsky movie, and his work is INTENSELY personal, frequently difficult, and absolutely not "exciting" in any commonly used sense of the word. I find that watching his work is also intensely personal, and they are definitely not films to break out when you've got the boys over for beers and a movie.

But the payoff is that there is a very innate, very challenging sense of raw spirituality in much of his material as well as a heartbreakingly painful sense of nostalgia. His are the only films I've ever watched where scenes have made me weep. There is a moment in Solaris, for example, that was so powerful to me I had to stop watching it. I just switched it off and sat in the dark crying. Won't describe it, but it was something that resonated with me very deeply and it was so beautifully expressed. Mirror features what may be the single greatest single take shot in all of cinema.

With Stalker, you're going to mess up the first time you watch it. Everybody does. You're going to think it's a Russian sci-fi film, and it is...but you are not going to be prepared for its glacial pacing and obliqueness. Or that most of the sci-fi stuff is on the peripheral. You might even come into it with some expectations from seeing Solaris or Andrei Rublev, but you will still go into this movie not ready for what it does. The peripheral sci-fi elements are awesome (it's based on the novel Roadside Picnic, which is pretty great in its own regard), but they are quite understated and serve a higher, more metaphysical purpose than most genre trappings. There are lots of long conversations and stretches where not much appears to be happening. But the payoff, if you get locked in and appreciate it, is quite profound and leads to a an unusually powerful final scene.

I still think Solaris is the better film (and also more approachable), but Stalker is a masterpiece in its own regard.

When it was criticized on release for being too slow, Tarkovsky said something like "I want it to be slow so that anyone who came into this movie not knowing what to expect will leave before anything really happens".

Yeah but are there b00bs??

Discussing the deeper examples of fantasy/SF cinema has inspired me to tell you about what I got to see last weekend. I was playing Twilight Struggle on the laptop in the living room, and the missus and daughter decided that they wanted to subject me to a Twilight/New Moon double bill. TS took enough of my attention to keep me from going Full Metal MST3K. But man, it was rough. If you haven't seen them yet, you're not missing out on undiscovered gems.

I saw Hotel Transylvania 2 with my girlfriend and liked it so much I might watch the first on my own.

Here's the thing: I can tell it's a flawed movie, one with a generic script to boot. And yet, when I saw it, I didn't even notice because I was too busy having fun with the animation to care. The poses, movement and timing are all great and for me are more than enough to carry the film. It actually confirmed Tartakovsky as a director to watch for me, because his use of CGI is very smart. Some poorly classified thoughts:

1) The film is mostly 2D, with characters all on the same plane and few close-ups. This is the traditional way to do animation and there's a reason why: It focuses on animations' strenghts (composition, poses, control of movement). Close-ups are good for actors, who have subtlety and inherent personality in their face but aren't great for caricatures.

2) Tatarkovsky has strong composition fundamentals. I think you could draw the good scenes of this film in UPA or Hanna Barbera style and you would get good results. All scenes are very clear, with characters of different sizes being posed in an ordered manner. There are a ton of scenes with 6 characters inside a narrow, coffin-like car and it's never a problem. Most animated films struggle with fitting three in a compact.

3) Tartakovsky gives his animators ample room to show themselves. Some scenes have clear different animators at the helm. Dracula oscillates quite a bit from being round to being pointy, for example.

4) Tartakovsky abuses his trademark poses a bit, but they are fun. Sticking the neck at an unnatural distance and puffing the eyes is the best example, but I don't mind it because they are fun and well-composed. There are even some very Tex Averian touches, like the rigid, bendy tongues and transtition-less movements.

5) It's clear which characters are fun to animate and which aren't. There's no fun to be had with Dracula's daughter, for example. Interestingly enough and despite having a generic design, the dumb human who marries Drac's daughter is well-animated. He transmits a surprising level of stupidity just in the way he walks, which is fun.

6) There's a fair amount of product placement. It's disgusting and ruins the shots it's in. But I hate intrusive advertising with the passion of a thousand suns so your response will probably be milder.

7) The plot has clear cuts. For example, the fact that Dracula was a sensitive kid is brought only in passing despite being a clear theme of the film. Not that it matters because I didn't care about the plot. At all.

In other words, I think putting this on the same category as Shrek is a mistake. Sure, the generic "dad asks his buddies to take care of kid" plot is nothing to write about, but it's significantly better than the "animated radio" most critics give a pass to. None of the films of the golden age of animation have an interesting plot much less the Warner or MGM cartoons so I don't see why it would be a need or even a positive!

TL;DR: I'm grumpy and like a shitty film.

On related matters, I saw a bunch of short films. Most of them had fairly simple morals hidden behind a fantastical presentation and so were fairly uninteresting.

I saw Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I think a Disney-style film could be made but 90s Disney was not the right studio to make it. It's too soft, its art style is too generic and the constant comedic relief was uneeded. It's also very heavy in its morals to the point it makes the film kind of dumb (Frollo's characterization suffers heavily as he's too much of a raving lunatic for his supposed depths to matter).

It just feels aimless and watered down. There might have been an interesting vision at some point for the film but the final product wasn't like it.

I watched The Handmaiden which is currently on Amazon Prime, from the director of Old Boy. It's very good, and the plot went a couple of places I didn't anticipate right away. Expect a bit of twisting, betrayal, sexy time, torture, etc. In other words what you might get from the director of Old Boy.

My wife and daughter are away, so it was time to continue my boys' education in proper male film experiences. This evening -- Army of Darkness.