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wishfulclicking) wrote2019-02-11 07:24 pm
wishfulclicking) wrote2019-02-11 07:24 pm
Entry tags:
films watched: hereditary, velvet buzzsaw, little hours, ant man & wasp,hunt for wilderpeople, HFB
(whispers: the real test was not making the first post in 2019, but the second one...)
Hereditary was a film of two parts--meaning, the acting performances (Toni Collette deserves all the awards! Alex Wolff was so good! That dinner scene is one of my favorite scenes ever, and I just hear Collette saying 'I am your mother' in that tone of voice and remembering how great the film was at moments). Whenever the horror of grief and familial bonds (broken and all) was focused on (the wail after the night of the party!) still rings in my ears--the film is near perfect. But as the film progressed and a more standard horror features began to dominate and weren't as integrated, the film just didn't hang together as well. I don't want to spoil anything, so that is where I will stop.
Velvet Buzzsaw is one of the Netflix films and brings together Dan Gilroy with his muses of Jake Gyllenhal and Renee Russo. My complaint about Hereditary not really holding the balance of more standard horror films motifs with the other parts of the film is magnified with Velvet Buzzsaw. Love the performances of Gyllenhall and Russo. Russo does a menacing stride and diction so well, I want to see her play a crime boss. The supernatural angle was weak, and I wish they had gone with a serial killer angle and play more on the art world satire.
Little Hours is a sex comedy set in a historical nunnery but spoken with modern dialogue. If you like Aubrey Plaza and Dave Franco and comedy made by that set of actors, this comedy may work for you. It felt like a protracted SNL sketch, just with more sex scenes.
Ant Man and the Wasp was fine. Paul Rudd is charming; Michael Douglas is fine. The Wasp is fun to see in action. I can see how this film performs well because it was very comfortably in a lane and well made with the Marvel formula; but if I only experienced Ant Man in group films I would be okay.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople is very good. It's silly in parts but never shies away from the touches of sadness without being weighed down by it. The casting is perfect (I have never seen Sam Neill like this). Though What We do in the Shadows is my favorite of Taika Waititi's films; this is such a close second.
High Flying Bird is Soderbergh's latest film and it's on Netflix. Usually I add Netflix films to my never ending queue and get to them at some point (I am much more quick to get to the netflix tv shows) but this one was talked about on basketball twitter and film twitter. It's odd what stood out to me was the dialogue and the words. This film was written by the writer of Moonlight and there are some beautiful scenes and characters bounce off of each other and the words flow. As far as the shot on iphone angle--Tangerine was shot on an iphone (??) and was a better experience for me, but that is me preferring a more lively color palette. Holland is such a good actor that he kind of unintentionally dwarfs others in scenes who aren't on his level, but the scenes with him and Zazie are pretty good.There are motions towards saying something about player power but it feels too untethered to reality for me to give it that much credence. I was actually more interested in the back story of the dead, gay cousin who couldn't take being closeted in the NBA and Holland's part in telling him to keep it hidden. Every time another character brought it up to him, you could see the weight and pain trying to pull him down.
Hereditary was a film of two parts--meaning, the acting performances (Toni Collette deserves all the awards! Alex Wolff was so good! That dinner scene is one of my favorite scenes ever, and I just hear Collette saying 'I am your mother' in that tone of voice and remembering how great the film was at moments). Whenever the horror of grief and familial bonds (broken and all) was focused on (the wail after the night of the party!) still rings in my ears--the film is near perfect. But as the film progressed and a more standard horror features began to dominate and weren't as integrated, the film just didn't hang together as well. I don't want to spoil anything, so that is where I will stop.
Velvet Buzzsaw is one of the Netflix films and brings together Dan Gilroy with his muses of Jake Gyllenhal and Renee Russo. My complaint about Hereditary not really holding the balance of more standard horror films motifs with the other parts of the film is magnified with Velvet Buzzsaw. Love the performances of Gyllenhall and Russo. Russo does a menacing stride and diction so well, I want to see her play a crime boss. The supernatural angle was weak, and I wish they had gone with a serial killer angle and play more on the art world satire.
Little Hours is a sex comedy set in a historical nunnery but spoken with modern dialogue. If you like Aubrey Plaza and Dave Franco and comedy made by that set of actors, this comedy may work for you. It felt like a protracted SNL sketch, just with more sex scenes.
Ant Man and the Wasp was fine. Paul Rudd is charming; Michael Douglas is fine. The Wasp is fun to see in action. I can see how this film performs well because it was very comfortably in a lane and well made with the Marvel formula; but if I only experienced Ant Man in group films I would be okay.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople is very good. It's silly in parts but never shies away from the touches of sadness without being weighed down by it. The casting is perfect (I have never seen Sam Neill like this). Though What We do in the Shadows is my favorite of Taika Waititi's films; this is such a close second.
High Flying Bird is Soderbergh's latest film and it's on Netflix. Usually I add Netflix films to my never ending queue and get to them at some point (I am much more quick to get to the netflix tv shows) but this one was talked about on basketball twitter and film twitter. It's odd what stood out to me was the dialogue and the words. This film was written by the writer of Moonlight and there are some beautiful scenes and characters bounce off of each other and the words flow. As far as the shot on iphone angle--Tangerine was shot on an iphone (??) and was a better experience for me, but that is me preferring a more lively color palette. Holland is such a good actor that he kind of unintentionally dwarfs others in scenes who aren't on his level, but the scenes with him and Zazie are pretty good.There are motions towards saying something about player power but it feels too untethered to reality for me to give it that much credence. I was actually more interested in the back story of the dead, gay cousin who couldn't take being closeted in the NBA and Holland's part in telling him to keep it hidden. Every time another character brought it up to him, you could see the weight and pain trying to pull him down.