Re: Rate the last movie you've seen
Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 9:11 am
A/A- / B+ / B / B- / C / D / F / No rating
The Edge of Seventeen (link) or what is meant to be the indie movie of the year from within the main Hollywood caravan, yet, while most such indiecoms are generally meant to bounce right off me, I swear I couldn't think of a more half-assed project this year once I finished watching this. Overall, its aim is to add to the bulk of John Hughesian, high-school dramedies focusing on teen angst and social niche mismatch, while amping up the levels of dark / deadpan / awkward comedy and the protagonist's youthful imbalance of outspoken cynicism, grief or social anxiety (the gist is that our main girl's - Hailee Steinfeld - world comes tumbling down when her BFF hooks up with her brother, leaving her stranded in a pool of [even more] intense negativity and disconnect from almost anyone else in the community).
I think what doesn't work with the movie are the precise things it may try to charm us with: the uncanny prevalent brooding or sharp tone and the pay off. Steinfeld - making a true notable return, as far as I'm concerned, only since True Grit - does a commendable effort to play this bluesy, erratic, atypical lead teen figure and shout out even to Blake Jenner (the brother in the story) who can apparently play a jock with flair and substance in any situation (he also played one this year in Linklater's Everybody Wants Some!! which, for my money, is the true - if bathing in retro - indie jewel of the year). Meanwhile, Woody Harrelson...I think some of the posters even highlighted the bond between his character and the main girl, a sort of off-the-wall student-teacher mentorship, but it's probably the most deceiving part of the entire movie, because Woody's scenes are too few and far in between and they don't add up to anything: there are like five identical scenes in which the girl comes in class freaking out and the teacher approaches the kick-some-sense-into-her solution via wisecracking quippy sarcasm, plus a more fatherly-behind-all-the-facade later scene... and I chuckled alright at the former, because they were hilarious, but was there any real pay off?
At its best, I almost sensed that this movie tried to deliver a peculiar message about how negativity sometimes means just as much to poison yourself from within as to not be able to click with the world around you, thus making the protagonist a sort of anti-heroine, whose self-deprecation and rejection are questionably over-the-top and egocentric and whose "coming-of-age", in the end, comes closer to "getting your head out of your ass". But can you fully sell something like this to the mass audiences, in need of their laughs, romance awws and predictable plot developments? Of course not. Hence the pedestrian set pieces, despite the glaze of dark comedy on top of them.
Right Now, Wrong Then (link) - whose original title is so quirkly long and weird, I just have to mention it: Ji-geum-eun-mat-go-geu-ddae-neun-teul-li-da - apparently not the first movie by Sang-soo Hong I've watched (Nobody's Daughter Haewon), though I don't remember much from it. With this movie, one could almost joke that this is how South Korean cineasts envision romcoms, since it is a story of a filmmaker on a business trip who gets enamoured with a stranger and the date goes quite weird, due to his awkward social skills and several faux pas... only for the story to be rebooted completely, with alterations that lead things into a different, seemingly more favorable direction. If your first thought would be that such gimmick of crafting the same movie twice - which apparently is not even the first time this director is doing it :o - would instill boredom upon viewing, well, in some ways that effect could surface, especially since its aesthetics are also fairly minimal and its pace is slow, nevertheless I think there was enough chemistry between the lead characters and humor or emotion to carry some of its moments; plus it resembles that quality of Eric Rohmer's movies, rich in dialogue and interaction if not much else to the naked eye, in which people just talk and talk, acting both philosophical and cursory in their thoughts. One theme this movie might go for, and that I've seen come up in other reviews, would be how the artist can use (or manipulate) the language of his art to his own will and thus tailor the amount of reality or fantasy he puts in his story or drama or whatever content he chooses - the equivalent of a date gone wrong that you'd later wish you could just dial the clock back and do it the right way. Anyway, bit hard to recommend a movie whose two-hour running is literally generated by a one hour act and a complete variation of it, but this was not bad at all.
Krisha (link) - a concise, poignant Thanksgiving drama about an old woman trying to reconnect with her family, despite some troubled past issues. The drama boils up nicely from its apparent conciliatory opening tone, complete with quirky, menacing, bomb-ticky background music, gradual cracks in the family interactions and the protagonist's psyche, even in sync with, oh sweet analogy, the turkey getting roasted in the oven. Plus the big family reunion depicted has a combination of conservative and hipster elements: they have like a bazillion dogs in the house and some of them blabber on about spiritual integrity and practices, whilst matriarchal and/or patriarchal elements are also on full display (the women nursing to their chidren or preparing the meal, while the men watch football, wrestle in the back garden like bros and such). But mostly, this movie deals with psychological pressure and demons of the past you cannot always deal with it - or rather, for which you cannot always be forgiven by others. While this is neatly etched in frame by its debutant director, I'd also say there's a bit more style than substance put into it, plus I didn't feel I'll remember or revisit this one any time soon.
L'avenir (Things to Come) (link), a new, awards-gifted (Silver Bear for Directing) movie by Mia Hansen-Løve, a director who might fly under your radar (in which case you should correct that), but whose past three movies I've seen and liked, including this one - 2011's Goodbye First Love, a rare instance of a youthful, capricious and misguided romantic drama that I've actually loved, and 2014's Eden, which I've shortly noted in the past. Her movies always appear to be small scaled, intimate in depiction as well as quasi-referential in creativity, although even with this movie there are hints of bigger themes nudged forward: the protagonist is a philosophy teacher, so naturally a lot of references and allusions come up; social instances of what appears to have been student strikes during the (2010?) pension reform protests: plus the teacher meeting again with a past eminent, gifted student that seems to have, nevertheless, embraced communard anarchy. But deep down, this movie is nothing but the personal drama of a woman who experiences, late in her age, a lot of separations and losses, and must deal with it and with "the things to come". And what better actress to render this than the lovely Isabelle Huppert, capable to act so emancipated and vulnerable within the same range. Contrary to Verhoeven pushing her in Elle to be as sardonic, acerbic and stony-hearted as possible, in light of all grievances and adversities - a performance that was, nonetheless, mindblowing - Hansen-Løve allows more natural and raw emotion from Huppert, while also pushing for the same note of not yielding to any sorrowful circumstances. Soft spoken filmmaking and atmosphere, lively pace and visuals (photogenic frenchiness and/or parisianess, so to speak) and the usual dash of French chic, all making a pleasant viewing, one that could turn out among the best of the year, in hindsight.
And finally, on the more lunacy-driven side of French cinema, Alain Guiraudie's new movie Rester vertical (Staying Vertical) (link), a fairly risqué and weird flick, if that wouldn't be the case with all of his ouevre. While his previous Stranger by the Lake proved such a shocker and surprise delight for me, if its combination of gay romance and chilling thriller could be regarded as plausible and described as such, this one didn't quite land well. "A screenwriter going into rural pilgrimage, in search of inspiration, only to hook up and have a baby with a shepherdess" is about the straightest narrative that could be shared, before things go quite batshit, with, as expected from Guiraudie, full elements of homoeroticism, the protagonist facing conflicting, contradictory opposition from everyone around him and everything happening to him, plus some scenes that just shoot into magic realism fantasy, without any discernible meaning or connection. Nah.
The Edge of Seventeen (link) or what is meant to be the indie movie of the year from within the main Hollywood caravan, yet, while most such indiecoms are generally meant to bounce right off me, I swear I couldn't think of a more half-assed project this year once I finished watching this. Overall, its aim is to add to the bulk of John Hughesian, high-school dramedies focusing on teen angst and social niche mismatch, while amping up the levels of dark / deadpan / awkward comedy and the protagonist's youthful imbalance of outspoken cynicism, grief or social anxiety (the gist is that our main girl's - Hailee Steinfeld - world comes tumbling down when her BFF hooks up with her brother, leaving her stranded in a pool of [even more] intense negativity and disconnect from almost anyone else in the community).
I think what doesn't work with the movie are the precise things it may try to charm us with: the uncanny prevalent brooding or sharp tone and the pay off. Steinfeld - making a true notable return, as far as I'm concerned, only since True Grit - does a commendable effort to play this bluesy, erratic, atypical lead teen figure and shout out even to Blake Jenner (the brother in the story) who can apparently play a jock with flair and substance in any situation (he also played one this year in Linklater's Everybody Wants Some!! which, for my money, is the true - if bathing in retro - indie jewel of the year). Meanwhile, Woody Harrelson...I think some of the posters even highlighted the bond between his character and the main girl, a sort of off-the-wall student-teacher mentorship, but it's probably the most deceiving part of the entire movie, because Woody's scenes are too few and far in between and they don't add up to anything: there are like five identical scenes in which the girl comes in class freaking out and the teacher approaches the kick-some-sense-into-her solution via wisecracking quippy sarcasm, plus a more fatherly-behind-all-the-facade later scene... and I chuckled alright at the former, because they were hilarious, but was there any real pay off?
At its best, I almost sensed that this movie tried to deliver a peculiar message about how negativity sometimes means just as much to poison yourself from within as to not be able to click with the world around you, thus making the protagonist a sort of anti-heroine, whose self-deprecation and rejection are questionably over-the-top and egocentric and whose "coming-of-age", in the end, comes closer to "getting your head out of your ass". But can you fully sell something like this to the mass audiences, in need of their laughs, romance awws and predictable plot developments? Of course not. Hence the pedestrian set pieces, despite the glaze of dark comedy on top of them.
Right Now, Wrong Then (link) - whose original title is so quirkly long and weird, I just have to mention it: Ji-geum-eun-mat-go-geu-ddae-neun-teul-li-da - apparently not the first movie by Sang-soo Hong I've watched (Nobody's Daughter Haewon), though I don't remember much from it. With this movie, one could almost joke that this is how South Korean cineasts envision romcoms, since it is a story of a filmmaker on a business trip who gets enamoured with a stranger and the date goes quite weird, due to his awkward social skills and several faux pas... only for the story to be rebooted completely, with alterations that lead things into a different, seemingly more favorable direction. If your first thought would be that such gimmick of crafting the same movie twice - which apparently is not even the first time this director is doing it :o - would instill boredom upon viewing, well, in some ways that effect could surface, especially since its aesthetics are also fairly minimal and its pace is slow, nevertheless I think there was enough chemistry between the lead characters and humor or emotion to carry some of its moments; plus it resembles that quality of Eric Rohmer's movies, rich in dialogue and interaction if not much else to the naked eye, in which people just talk and talk, acting both philosophical and cursory in their thoughts. One theme this movie might go for, and that I've seen come up in other reviews, would be how the artist can use (or manipulate) the language of his art to his own will and thus tailor the amount of reality or fantasy he puts in his story or drama or whatever content he chooses - the equivalent of a date gone wrong that you'd later wish you could just dial the clock back and do it the right way. Anyway, bit hard to recommend a movie whose two-hour running is literally generated by a one hour act and a complete variation of it, but this was not bad at all.
Krisha (link) - a concise, poignant Thanksgiving drama about an old woman trying to reconnect with her family, despite some troubled past issues. The drama boils up nicely from its apparent conciliatory opening tone, complete with quirky, menacing, bomb-ticky background music, gradual cracks in the family interactions and the protagonist's psyche, even in sync with, oh sweet analogy, the turkey getting roasted in the oven. Plus the big family reunion depicted has a combination of conservative and hipster elements: they have like a bazillion dogs in the house and some of them blabber on about spiritual integrity and practices, whilst matriarchal and/or patriarchal elements are also on full display (the women nursing to their chidren or preparing the meal, while the men watch football, wrestle in the back garden like bros and such). But mostly, this movie deals with psychological pressure and demons of the past you cannot always deal with it - or rather, for which you cannot always be forgiven by others. While this is neatly etched in frame by its debutant director, I'd also say there's a bit more style than substance put into it, plus I didn't feel I'll remember or revisit this one any time soon.
L'avenir (Things to Come) (link), a new, awards-gifted (Silver Bear for Directing) movie by Mia Hansen-Løve, a director who might fly under your radar (in which case you should correct that), but whose past three movies I've seen and liked, including this one - 2011's Goodbye First Love, a rare instance of a youthful, capricious and misguided romantic drama that I've actually loved, and 2014's Eden, which I've shortly noted in the past. Her movies always appear to be small scaled, intimate in depiction as well as quasi-referential in creativity, although even with this movie there are hints of bigger themes nudged forward: the protagonist is a philosophy teacher, so naturally a lot of references and allusions come up; social instances of what appears to have been student strikes during the (2010?) pension reform protests: plus the teacher meeting again with a past eminent, gifted student that seems to have, nevertheless, embraced communard anarchy. But deep down, this movie is nothing but the personal drama of a woman who experiences, late in her age, a lot of separations and losses, and must deal with it and with "the things to come". And what better actress to render this than the lovely Isabelle Huppert, capable to act so emancipated and vulnerable within the same range. Contrary to Verhoeven pushing her in Elle to be as sardonic, acerbic and stony-hearted as possible, in light of all grievances and adversities - a performance that was, nonetheless, mindblowing - Hansen-Løve allows more natural and raw emotion from Huppert, while also pushing for the same note of not yielding to any sorrowful circumstances. Soft spoken filmmaking and atmosphere, lively pace and visuals (photogenic frenchiness and/or parisianess, so to speak) and the usual dash of French chic, all making a pleasant viewing, one that could turn out among the best of the year, in hindsight.
And finally, on the more lunacy-driven side of French cinema, Alain Guiraudie's new movie Rester vertical (Staying Vertical) (link), a fairly risqué and weird flick, if that wouldn't be the case with all of his ouevre. While his previous Stranger by the Lake proved such a shocker and surprise delight for me, if its combination of gay romance and chilling thriller could be regarded as plausible and described as such, this one didn't quite land well. "A screenwriter going into rural pilgrimage, in search of inspiration, only to hook up and have a baby with a shepherdess" is about the straightest narrative that could be shared, before things go quite batshit, with, as expected from Guiraudie, full elements of homoeroticism, the protagonist facing conflicting, contradictory opposition from everyone around him and everything happening to him, plus some scenes that just shoot into magic realism fantasy, without any discernible meaning or connection. Nah.