You know I have to say, this one surprised me. I had it on my list of "To Watch" on Letterboxd for some reason, and I finally got to it this past week. While in Paris with his snobbish and very unlikeable fiancée, along with her insufferable parents and friends, Gil, played by Owen Wilson, wanders off late at night, bumping into Mr. and Mrs. F Scott Fitzgerald, Earnest Hemingway, Salvador Dali, Gertrude Stein and many other of his literary heroes. He also falls for with Dali's muse Adriana who, like him, is in love with the past. Gil travels back in time to France in different time periods on these late night strolls. The storyline couldn't be more interesting. It was so soothing to see all of the old-timey clothes and hear all of the accents and see what earlier Paris looked like. The movie is SO nostalgic, and Woody Allen does a fantastic job here. (Yes I know he isn't necessarily the BEST guy, but I didn't let that get in the way of my personal experience and reaction to the film) The night lights, and scenery of Paris were breathtaking to say the least. I felt so comforted the whole time while watching this. It also had its funny moments, like one where a detective, who Gil's fiancee's parents hire to see where he is going at night, gets stuck in a old timey palace as he accidently travels back in time as well. Owen Wilson does a really good job at his role, and while I haven't seen him in very much, I really like his voice and think he fit his part well. He really does seem like he is a lost guy, who ends up finding his way in the end. This movie could of very easily sucked, as the aspect of time travel could of been overused and made the book feel like it was both a sci-fi and a realistic movie. However I feel like it is a fun addition, and isn't too dramatic. This movie just clicked for me, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I want to give it a 9.1/10.
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Baby Driver, to me, was phenomenal. This movie had a great soundtrack, with a compelling storyline, interesting characters, and great casting. Throughout pretty much the whole movie, there is music playing. The protagonist, Baby, has a condition where his ears ring all the time due to a childhood accident. He combats this by listening to music on headphones all the time, and that is why there is so much music during the movie. The 3 other heist people are all interesting in themselves, but Jamie Foxx's role stands out the most. He plays a loose-cannon of a person, and his acting really shines as he easily embodies the role he is put into. I also really liked the deaf guy who Baby is taking care of as I felt like he was really sweet and gave the story some warmth. Moving onto the storyline, I never once felt bored or like what was happening was straying too far from the main idea of the movie. It is a "one last time" film and though sometimes the story felt a little cliche, it felt like a classic the way it was executed. The car chases were SO good, and felt like miniature musical numbers with the sick soundtrack. The action is brutal, but not overdone which I think is important as movies with tons of gory violence feel fake and like a video game. I honestly have no real critiques of this movie other than I felt like Baby's boss' motives were not clear. He said no to giving him back his music tapes, and then changed his mind and took a bullet for him within a couple minutes? Not sure what happened there. Overall, great movie 9/10
Looking back to when I read Ender's Game, written by Orson Scott, I remember really liking it. It was actually my favorite book at one point, and it got me into sci-fi action books sometime around 7th grade. Therefore since I liked the book so much, my review might be a little bit more critical. The movie, I thought, had all the potential to be good, but was not. A mixture of many problems made it feel unfulfilling. It was definitely rushed, and things like the flying shooting game were glanced over. The casting was good, but not great as Ben Kingsley's role was pretty un-satisfactory, and I also don't think Harrison Ford really fit his role as I see him as Indiana Jones and Han Solo, not a man who sits back and watches from a distance. The main concept of the movie/book is that it is hard to be a good leader, and that there are many struggles and difficulties that come with leadership. I think this movie did that well, as I felt like it stayed focused in that regard. However the brutality of the fight, and the devastating story about children going into battle was also not properly depicted. The end of the movie Ender gets mad with himself and with the battle, because he realizes he kills a whole race. The characters acknowledge this being a problem (genocide) for about 2 minutes before they put Ender to sleep, and then he wakes up and is obsessed with his sister again (what was up with that???). I just think Ender, and also his friends (who weren't even shown in the last 30 minutes of the movie after the battle), had a very lame response to killing the whole race of aliens, and it was very unsatisfactory and annoying since it was described so well in the book. This movie is a 6/10.
The nice guys was a very enjoyable movie. Ryan Gosling is one of my favorite actors, and he was so good with Russel Crowe. Also the girl who played Ryan Goslings daughter I thought killed it. The story itself was very entertaining and fun, and was never too slow. It was a perfect mix of comedy, and action. The visuals of the 1970's stood out and was done perfectly by the designers. It was dark with the deaths and murders, but was countered with funny, subtle jokes. It reminded me of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood for some reason, with the set design, and since I am a Tarantino fanatic, that speaks for itself. Something I didn't like was the parts when the kids were put into weird sexual situations. It made me uncomfortable and felt unnecessary even though I understand it was to make Holly seem independent. Her and her dad's relationship is great, and has some really cool development and evolution. Russel Crowe's depiction of his character is literally perfect, and his character arc thanks to Holly was sweet. Even though the movie kept changing from being wholesome, to suspenseful, to funny, I was enveloped in it throughout the whole movie. I think I'm going to give it a 9/10. It was very involving, suspenseful, funny, and really well done.
Kung Fu Panda 4I wrote a whole review for this, probably my longest one so far, and it literally just deleted itself so I have to start over. I'm going to make one section for negatives and one for positives. Overall though, this movie was not good.
The pacing was so hard to keep up with, as there were numerous times different scenes were never revisited and were skipped in a very annoying fashion. The villain was pretty cool to begin with, but her fate is so predictable and when she is taken down it is less satisfying with how lame and fast the battle was. Poe dominated her even thought she had the "power of all the other dragon warriors" which was stupid. The audience is just evidently supposed to understand and accept all the magic stuff, which yes I know oogway was with, but that kind of took away from him because this rando gecko is just able to do all of what he did was really annoying. The furious five were gone. What?!? Why would you take out such an entertaining and nostalgic thing from this series? Shifu also got ignored after the first 10 minutes. Losing these characters made it not feel like a kung fu panda movie, and the new characters did not fill the holes. The jokes were ok, but mostly bad. Just like the TMNT movie that i reviewed earlier in the year, the woke jokes were really cringey and obnoxious and forced. On a positive note, the relationship between Poe and Mr. Ping is beautiful. The noodle restaurant is the same and I still love the temple as well. The soundtrack was great! The theme of KFP is iconic and they didn't overuse it and had a nice score from Hans Zimmer. The animation was great, and so were the graphics. The scene in the restaurant was genuinely funny and reminded me of the scene from Brave with the lucky duck pub. Overall this movie was bad, as I felt super let down. I loved the first two movies so much, the third was just ok, and so I had high hopes that this one would feel like one of the originals (it didn't). Sad to see the furious five out of the movie, and frustrating that Poe can't just BE the dragon warrior. There is no reason they have to keep playing with his title, just put him on a mission or something! 6.5/10 I watched this at a friend's house last weekend after we got pizza and I will say, it was a fun one. The structure of the movie turned out to be really cool, as at the end of the movie you realize there is a movie within a movie, as Nick and Javi did end up making a movie of their experiences. It was funny, but not too funny, as I felt the comedic aspect of it was not overdone or at all forced. The Paddington scene and the acid scene were both funny, but it wasn't too dramatic and crazy. It was a perfect balance between an action, and a comedy. The storyline was slightly wishy washy, but maybe it was supposed to be that way to help show how crazy Nick Cage's life is. It is about a mid-life crisis and what came of it. I liked him reminiscing to his old self, (in the Javi's shrine) but the scene were he kissed himself was weird. I didn't like it and I thought it wasn't funny and was creepy. The set design was really aesthetic and visually pleasing. I liked the cars and Javi's house and also the town, and I figured out it was filmed in Croatia. I personally thought it was a fun one, and it was enjoyable to watch. It definitely wasn't too special, and it didn't try to do too much for what it was. I'd give it a 8.8/10. A solid B- tier movie. It isn't a huge score as honestly it just wasn't my type of genre, as I like more sci-fi movies or ones with a lot of suspense, but it was still pretty good.
Spaceman was a disappointing movie. It had so much potential, but there were just too many mistakes in the way it was written. It is pretty much about a man named Jakub, who is on a spaceship and realizes he is a terrible husband and he decides to improve thanks to a magic telepathic spider. Adam Sandler does pretty well, but I am too used to seeing him in comedies for it to really work for me. The movie itself is both an adventure, and a romance, and it doesn't decide which it is. The movie was way too slow to me. Sometimes a movie or tv show could take place in one or very few different settings, and I do sometimes like that structure. There was not enough going on in the ship other than the spider talking to entertain me for almost 2 hours. It should be a 45 minute long movie. There was some good contemplation and self reflection, which I liked, but I wished it focused more on the adventure to space and not the wife drama. Interstellar did it well as the protagonist fought internally with being a good father, and completing a mission in space. This movie was a terrible attempt at the same sort of idea. The spider was pretty cool to look at, and the space CGI was dope. It felt like they spent more time designing the ship and aesthetic and perfecting the CGI than they did figuring out what the movie was even focusing on concept wise. I would give it a 5.9/10 for being boring, not having a clear genre, and being too long.
Tombstone was my first western, and while I know it isn't the most popular or got the best reviews, I did enjoy it. The environment and the setting was the coolest part of the film for me. I loved the way the town looked and how the speech and dress of all of the characters made you feel enveloped in this time period it is set in. The fight scenes were dope. The gunsounds, and stunts were very entertaining. I loved the standoffs and the rivalry between the cowboys and Wyatt's friends as well. The plotline was pretty entertaining, but it wasn't that straightforward as at times it felt like maybe certain scenes served no real purpose and weren't that interesting. The last half of the movie felt a little like a rush. So the aesthetics were awesome. Super encapsulating, pleasing, and entertaining, which is what a good movie should do. Though the appearance and concepts were cool, I feel like it fulfilled every western stereotype and cliche. For a movie coming out at the time it did, I assume that there are many movies VERY similar to this one, and while i enjoyed it, I could tell it copied a lot of other Westerns. I would say I liked it, enjoyed watching it, and would watch it again. I think a western is something I would like to watch while sick, as a comfort movie. I would give it a 8.3/10, as I honestly just had a good experience watching it. If I had seen more westerns before this, I would guess my rating would be lower but I am not certain. My Dad loved this movie, and Mr. H I know you said there was another western you liked more but I forget the name of it (what was it?).
This blog is for 2/26/24's classOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest was a movie I found pretty randomly, but enjoyed very much. It reminded me of Hateful Eight and how it is mostly filmed in the the same room, and even though the setting stays the same, the movie is still super entertaining. The strongest part of this movie is the characters, and how you get attached to them. When Billy dies, you really do feel terrible for him, and when chief escapes you feel a lot of happiness for him. It is both a fun movie, and a depressing movie. McMurphy is a witty, electric person and Jack Nicholson portrays him very well. The film came out in 1975, and I can see why it is a classic. The compelling story and emotions that we see out of the patients made it so. I love the themes of freedom, mental health, and individualism. Randle wants to leave the ward with chief, and wants to free them both from their captivity, but when he dies he is almost a sacrifice for Chief. Though is death is very sad and gruesome, Randle honestly needed to die for Chief to leave. After watching the movie I looked into it a little more and found it was made after a book, which came out in 1962, so maybe I'll check that out. So overall I thought that since the characters were really compelling and likeable, and the fact that it didn't need any elaborate CGI or setting to be a great movie makes it a 8.8/10.
This is for class 2/20/24 WOAH. I know this movie is nominated and is supposed to do very well at the Oscars this year so I had to give it a try. This movie I really really liked. And for many reasons I shall explain. First off what stuck out to me was the camera quality, as the grainy texture of the screen and the bland, early 70s colors really immersed you in the environment that is Barton and the surrounding city. When I was halfway through, I went upstairs to get a snack and I told my dad, who had already seen it, that I felt I had just left another world. The character of Mr. Hunham and the awesome development of his relationship with Angus kept me locked into this movie. It was so cozy! The christmas scenes were super nostalgic and to me almost felt like holiday memories I didn't know I even had. The school and the rooms somehow made me feel like I was there, and I could almost smell the surroundings of the characters myself. The story of Angus is super compelling, and I feel like the idea being highlighted that is we shouldn't assume everyone has it easy is very great. ALSO MARY WAS SO SWEET. I hope the actor wins best supporting actor because the way she takes care of everyone while she is undergoing so much grief and disappointment makes her a really loving character. I know no movie is perfect, but until someone points it out I honestly didn't notice anything. There were no gaps or things I didn't understand, which I personally really like, because most of the time movies are a relaxing past time were I want to be able to be entertained but not required to think ;). The soundtrack I thought was also amazing. My mom grew up in a family listening to folk music and acoustic blues so hearing that music and then also Labi Siffre I just felt happy. The decor of the dorms, to the paintings on the walls, to the gym and its aesthetic, I think the environment and the meticulous attention to detail also helped provide for such an immersive experience. The Mise-en-scene was on point. I loved Paul Giamatti and the way that he finally let go and went after his dreams, and even the annoying kid Kountze did well as he really did annoy me. This is a solid 9.4/10.
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