Keyser Corleone's Movie Memoirs

Registered User

12-10-24

Halloween

(2018) - Directed by David Gordon Green
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Slasher
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"I would suspect the notion of being a predator or the fear of becoming prey keeps both of them alive."

Yeah, yeah, I'm late for the actual time of the year, yadda yadda. The only reason I'm getting this out of the way now is because I've seen every Halloween movie up to this point, and this one's getting taken off of Netflix soon. Now I've had some interest in seeing this for a while since I love seeing Jamie Lee Curtis being a total bazooka broad. Halloween isn't my choice for best slasher franchise (I'm a Wes Craven guy), but I've gone through a few slasher catalogs and I found myself pretty happy that this got good reviews. So after putting it off for so long, trying to study other scenes in the cinematic world, it's time to begin the final chapters of the Halloween legacy (before that TV series comes out).

This whole new take on the sequels, ignoring everything before, follows the same simple concept as the first. Exactly 40 years on the dot, Michael escapes to look for the survivor of his last killing spree: laurie Strode. And she's been preparing for that... a little too well. Her paranoia has lead her relationship with her daughter Karen to be completely strained, although her granddaughter Allyson wants to rekindle the relationship. At first, Karen doesn't believe that Michael's returned, but the killings become too much, and Laurie's not gonna let this one slide.

Now it's obvious that David Gordon Green is a big fan of Halloween. Look at the way these scenes are directed following Michael around like we're a bystander who's just along for the ride. I guess if you're a fan of the franchise, a part of you must've been waiting for that for quite a while, or maybe it'll feel like "awhile" if you're new and binged the series in a short period of time. Unfortunately, this also means we have a general idea of what to expect. So the only thing in the director's department that separates this sequel from most of the others is the nostalgic homage. But thankfully, the movie's still fairly scary. I suppose what helped the film be a bit scarier than most of the sequels is the total aura of awareness that Green exudes, being the awareness of the film's original aura as well as awareness of the bad case of sequelitis. This movie is so much less about the gore in your face (beside a couple instances, one of which I didn't care for), and more about the idea of being stalked. THAT is Halloween, although by this point it's a bit late to save the franchise forever.

Now the story once again tackles the simplicity of the concept and does little to go beyond it. The plot is largely the same as the first with generally minor fluctuations. This semes to be a movie for fan nostalgia more than anything. However, there is one thing to take into consideration: Curtis, more demanding in canon and onscreen than ever. Scenes involving the teenagers will often be generically written and just detailed enough to get by, like a storebought potato salad you "don't hate." But then we get to the legacy characters, and things take a "superfan who reads the wiki" turn for the fans. She's essentially become a mini-Batman who I'd like to see slaying some effing Deadites with Bruce Campbell (lookin' forward to Evil Dead Burn). And of course, our new superfan successor to the late Loomis has a couple little surprises of his own, but I'm not spoiling that.

There are only so many justifiable Halloween additions that can be made. The simple concept has been done before, and unless you get the one right person for the job, there may never be a better Halloween movie than the first. But Jamie once again proves that the reason to watch REAL slashers isn't for the killings... it's for the bad-a bitches. I really enjoyed Curtis in this one, and was more or less satisfied with the results throughout. I WAS, however, hoping to like it a bit more, but I suppose the simplicity of Halloween's concept is still pretty much that to me: simplicity, kinda like some section of Laughing Stock by Talk Talk, which I would rate the same as the first Halloween.

= 67.5

David Gordon Green needs 2 more films to qualify for a directorial score. Totally gonna watch those soon.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

12-13-24

Tarzan the Ape Man

(1981) - Directed by John Derek
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Erotica / Jungle Adventure
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"I don't dislike men. I envy them. I envy your freedom. I resent not having the same."

It's finally time for me to get to this apparent travesty. I never had any good expectations for this one, not since I discovered its existence on the early days of Netflix when the "best guess on how much you'll like it" star ratings put this under two stars. I looked it up: turns out, that guess might've been right. I put it off for over a decade because I wanted to get more invested in the history of Tarzan in cinema, and now I can say I'm educated enough to tackle this one.

Much like the first of the Weissmuller series, this movie centers more around Jane than Tarzan. Bo Derek takes the role of Jane Parker in yet another collab with her director husband, John. Jane goes in search of her estranged father, who's more interested in finding an elephant grave full of ivory rather than building a connection with his daughter, although he still misses her. On their way through the jungles, they encounter a mythical being said to be a great white ape over ten feet tall: Tarzan, who's apparently just a hunky guy raised in the jungle.

When I first heard about this, my prediction for its bad rating was that it was a slow-burner with unconvincing animal interactions, minimal action due to budgeting issues of the time, and increased sexual content. And I hadn't even seen any jungle movies that operated that way before. Turns out I was totally right. Even the chimps look bored to be there.

To add insult to the injury of the original film's decision NOT to make Tarzan the clever genius he was in the book, they stick too faithfully to the movie's decision and waste these 110 minutes never once truly going into Tarzan's backstory. The vast majority of this movie is an unnecessary slog that degrades the legend into a hunky guy on the beach too stupid to speak properly, and is only there to watch a skinny blonde be hot. Honestly, I'm surprised the guy plating Tarzan, Miles O'Keeffe,isn't saying "bro." Actually, no I'm not, considering that Tarzan has NO development, NO personality and NO real skills to show off. There's no real stuntsmanship going on at all. Honestly, I remember this one surfer dork from the jungle cartoon Tak and the Power of Juju TV show who was more entertaining than him. He's there to be muscled up and make panties wet. When I saw how much beefier he is than ol' Johnny, I thought he might do something more impressive, but no.

Now let's go over the general John Derek movie flaws. This movie is absolutely no exception. Bo Derek might be expected to play an independent woman with money, but she certainly can't convince herself to scream in front of a prop snake. Her inability to get into character astounds me sometimes, given her fame, but then I just think back to her body, and as impressive as it is, instead of getting turned on, my brain just feels numbed by other people's inability to think. This ironically makes her a perfect wife for such a poor director. How slow does each scene really need to be? The whole psychedelic segment with the images of Bo Derek and snakes overlapping each other for like three minutes feels like the dumbest eternity a god could spend in any reality. It feels like the wrong kind of slow cinema.

There is one thing that's good about this movie: as one would expect, Richard Harris, playing the father, is a show-stealer, not that there was much if a show to steel. But eventually his dialogue and actions just get more and more confusing and ridiculous, like they were just finding something for him to act well during the climax. And one final "maybe ok" aspect is the occasional chuckle due to the poor delivery of some scenes.

Well, John Derek is so utterly bad that he completely ruined one of the greatest novels of all time (or at least made an overrated adaptation worse). What was even the point of making this a nearly two-hour movie? Even much of the erotica fails at maximizing that much. Other than Guido Malatesta's Tarzana movie which might not even count, this is easily the worst Tarzan movie I've seen so far.

= 15

John Derek's Directorial Score (0 Good vs. 5 Bad)

Fantasies: 4
Tarzan the Ape Man: 15
Ghosts Can't Do It: 15
Once Before I Die: 16.5
Bolero: 27

Average Score: 15.5 / 5

John Derek's position on my Worst Director's List does not change. He remains at #25 between Tony Zarindast and Robert F. Slatzer.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

12-14-24

Nosferatu: The Vampire

(1979) - Directed by Werner Herzog
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Vampire
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"Death is not the worst. There are things more horrible than death."

I have two movies I absolutely need to see before I go to the 2024 Nosferatu: the 70's one and The Northman because the director is Robert Eggers. On top of which, I wanna experience many more Herzog films very soon because I've always had a curiosity about his relevance to modern cinema. I can't watch TOO many horror movies at once right now so I can keep the genres in my log more balanced, so that I can make sure I'm educating myself in every genre, but I will make room for these two Nosferatu reboots. It should also be noted that this is my 3,200th film.

This Nosferatu reboot uses the names from the original Dracula novel as opposed to the new names from the original 20's film. Jonathan Harker is sent to Transylvania to- OK, do I really need to recap this?

Just so everyone knows, I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to adapting classic literature, especially the constantly screwed-up Dracula. Pretty much every time I see a Dracula movie, I find one thing wrong with it. Usually it's something super major, like pacing. Even the 1992 Coppola version couldn't get that 100 because Keanu was so out of his league.

Werner Herzog's film is no exception. This is the slowest of the Dracula movies I've seen so far. The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous. Everywhere you look, there are either dusty, steamy or just plain Gothic touches with perfect lighting. The real issue, however, is that the movie is so damn slow. Herzog spent more time admiring his pretty little shots that he spent very little time actually developing a thorough plot. Halfway through the movie, we finally get a taste of blood. HALFWAY. That's 50 minutes. And it remains slow even in the second half, as very little is truly developed, plot or character-wise. There's only enough of it to get by, but the whole time I'm just WAITING and WAITING for something important to get done. There were even times where the movie had too much silence. They got musical legends Popol Vuh to make the soundtrack, but they were totally underused. In fact, the ending was actually kind of stupid when you think about it, adding the way Dracula is defeated onto the fact that Van Helsing is doing practically NOTHING throughout the whole movie.

The actors felt a bit all over the place for me. Now Klaus Kinski rocked his roll with ease, although his roll only really had one or two emotions throughout, so I can't really compare this to Oldman's counterpart. Speaking of the 1992 film, let's head right to Renfield's actor: Roland Topor. There are those who can make cartoons real, like Tom Waits, and there are those who only make realism look like a cartoon. The difference between these two is much like the difference between the difference between the original and live-action Cowboy Bebop's. Lucy's actress, Isabelle Adjani , does a good job at her role but still seems to feel outdone by Kinski, and I was not entertained by Bruno Ganz as Harker at all. On top of which, Helsing's whole character is extraordinarily lacking.

I'm sorry, but I really can't see how this is considered a classic. There are good things about it, and bad things, and both come on strong. The 1970's Nosferatu is mostly visual, and is no different to me than a CGI blockbuster as a result. It was very chilling, but hardly scary. I am actually extremely disappointed not just in this movie, but about the standards for horror classics from the 70's that the public seems to have. I honestly thought this would be better than the original because of the original's simplicity, but I was wrong. This is much more simple. We get it, Herzog. You like cinematography. Now learn to write. Bring back the tension and character of Aguirre.

= 54

Werner Herzog's Directorial Score (4 Good vs. 0 Bad)

Aguirre: 95
Grizzly Man: 92
The Flying Doctors of Easy Africa: 66
Nosferatu: 54

Score: 76.75 / 4

Werner Herzog lowers on my Top Director's List from #125 to #166 between Chuck Russell and Doug Liman.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

12-17-24

The Whale

(2022) - Directed by Darren Aronofsky
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Psycho-Drama / Family Drama / Chamber Film
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"Do you find me disgusting?"

When I saw the films Sleuth and Autumn Sonata, two films that only required a couple of actors and a room to tell the bulk of its story, I grew a deep appreciation for how it takes a small scope and turns it into a grand emotional scale. Interested in other films like this, I was going to look up films of the genre after having fleshed out the last touches of my Top 100 Directors List. Of course, deciding to work on that later, I looked through my list and grew a bit tired of having put off more Aronofsky films for so long, other than Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan and Noah.

In The Whale, Brendan Fraser plays Charlie, a morbidly obese online teacher who's being taken care of by a nurse, and refuses to go to the hospital. One day, his rebellious daughter shows up, and he tries to reconnect with her, and even help her in her schooling. Passing by his house is a religious zealot desperate for self-acceptance, and once he comes back, shadows of Charlie's late ex-boyfriend whom he left his family for come back.

Now I am not a guy who makes fun of weight. I understand that this movie has come under some fire fore its portrayal of a morbidly obese man. Uh, nobody's perfect. It's not the fat that makes him a jerk, doi. I've got a fat grandmother who passed away this year, and she was the one person I loved more than anyone. But it's not like I've either only loved or only hated every fat person I've me, and I see nothing in this film that somehow says, "all fat people are evil" or some shit like that. Nothing. The man's struggling to get his health and life together, he's one guy, end of story.

While I can admit that seeing a guy that obese isn't what I would call a "pretty sight," My biggest hype film for 2026 is the next Evil ****ing Dead. I can stomach this, and I don't ever look at a morbidly obese guy as "lesser than others." Every one of us has something potentially disgusting about us. We're ******* humans. So every time we have something disgusting about us, in fact, even if it's only a tiny little problem, we as humans should be helping each other overcome our flaws.

This is literally the point and the message of The Whale. The movie is about a plethora of characters who have one practically out-of-control flaw: there's the daughter's terrible attitude, there's the mother's terrible negativity and drinking problem, there's the missionary who's obsessed with feeling good about himself, there's the nurse who doesn't trust anyone, and the point is easily forced onto us because every cast member in this film is SO FREAKING PERFECT. It's like having flashbacks to watching Ingrid Bergman's performance in Autumn Sonata. Lemme tell you, movies like The Whale prove that the home is the perfect place for both the chamber film and the family drama. This seems almost obvious to me.

And not just that. When I'm watching Fraser have his dramatic moments, it's like watching everything that happened when my dad passed away in 2017, even when it's not at all like that. The setting, the realism, the perspectives, it all hurts. God. There are scenes here which can go from humorous in a realistic light to dark and grim at the first sign of a wheez or cough, because that's the fear we all have for close friends and family in dire health. We can laugh with our families just as easily as we can cry with them.

Now there is one serious thing that I can't relate to very well. I'm no atheist, and I've never had these specific types of religious dealings with friends or family. But considering the leading aspect of my current praise of the film: the household tension that arises between connected people, I don't really think I can criticize the movie for anything pertaining to that. And I'm the kind of easy-goer who prays and accepts sin as something unavoidable. This is why I don't "ostracize" anything, and even listen to Slayer. Much of what I think about is how people, including myself, need to overcome problems and oftentimes need others to do so. I can't really relate to Thomas's opinions on homophobes either, as a long time ago, I felt like I was supposed to be against it due to a common interpretation of the bible, but I understand that zealously is Thomas's flaw just as much as Charlie's flaw is an inability to get his life straightened out.

On top of which, can I take a moment to just detail how well Aronofsky's sense of direction and music has come? After nine movies, he has a perfect set of eyes and ears for capturing scenarios and expressions through music and motion. It's tame, slow, careful and powerful in meaningful bursts.

Sin isn't something you "hate." It's something you grow from and help others grow from. The Whale is not a movie about fat, and there's certainly none of it in the movie. There is meat to it throughout, and every bit of it says, "this is about giving into your flaws. This is about your addictions and your life." That's all it is. Think about your own life. This is a reversed version of Requiem for a Dream, allowing all of the characters to bleed out the poison from their scars and have even the faintest attempt at connecting. Even if you don't die perfect, you still have the chance to be better and grow from your mistakes. This is all I ever think about. I wrote a debut novel with two teens devoted to their own conflicting beliefs joining together to take down an even greater evil than contradiction. There may even be a part of me that wished for this movie to be written. This brilliant cast of perfectly fleshed-out characters will stand as another polarized entry in Aronofsky's career, but I'll stick with the positives.

This is the first film in about a decade that has made me cry.

Darren Aronofsky's Directorial Score (4 Good vs. 0 Bad)

Requiem for a Dream: 100
The Whale: 100
Black Swan: 97
Noah: 58

Score: 88.75 / 4

Darren Aronofsky's position on my Best Director's List raises from #121 to #97 between Don Bluth and David Zucker. I'll remedy this tomorrow with another Aronofsky film.

Last edited by KeyserCorleone; 12-18-24 at 03:10 PM.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

12-18-24

Moses and Aaron

(1975) - Directed by Jean-Marie Straub, Dani�le Huillet
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Religious Film /Opera
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"Strong is Pharaoh! Weak are we!"

Recently I went on a classical albums binge. I would even take whole opera recordings and listen to them over a couple days. I've heard at least six versions of Mozart's Requiem and have heard three versions of Tristan and Isolde by Wagner. So to find out about an opera based on Schoenberg's unfinished project, Moses and Aaron, sounded pretty cool at first. The Moses story is my favorite story in the Bible so I was reasonably excited for this when I put it on. But it left me completely disappointed.

The movie tells only select parts of the story of Moses and Aaron, unfortunately mirroring the opera's unfinished status. As a result, many of these scenes draw out the quick two-minute chapters of the story to 15-20 minutes, infuriatingly making the actors all stand in place for the majority of the movie. The movie even had the audacity to spend a good thirty seconds on a static shot of a cow cut in half right after we finally had some action in a sacrificial dance and another cow getting cut in half (whether these were fake or real I don't know, but concerning the lacking production values, I'm gonna assume they were real.

Also, don't walk into this actually expecting a story about Moses and Aaron. They're practically side characters because so much effort is put into the choir instead. It seems to mostly center on people rejecting Gods rather than working on the relationship between Moses and Aaron, so we don't ever get to see them in action. No plagues, only one or two miracles, nothing's really going on. I mean, honestly. If Cecil B. DeMille can recreate the ten plagues twenty years earlier, then I think these two could've waited to expand their experience in the filmmaking field before heading right into the one Bible story that requires the most SFX. There are other Biblical operas for them to direct.

And lemme go on about the horrible direction. Why are there so many scenes that center on one thing for thirty seconds or more while playing dramatic music? The story is about the people, so I wanna see more about the people! On top of that, WHAT THE HELL IS WITH ALL THE LENGTHY SHOTS OF TOTAL BLACK!? Is this really what the two directors were thinking when they thought �movie?� What movies are they watching!? Who's making the movies they're watching? Where do I find the directors of the movies they're watching? What manner of death is most fitting for them!?

I'm just gonna say it: if Sussmayr can get away with finishing Mozart's Requiem after Mozart's death, then someone can finish this opera. THEN you can make a movie out of this. As it currently stands, there are too many missing scenes to really call this an enjoyable story. This isn't the same thing as Fellini's Satyricon where there were only occasionally a few pages missing from the source material. This opera that doesn't even realize it's slow cinema is a major disappointment to me as an opera fan, Bible reader and a movie buff. And people have the audacity to call this one of the better Biblical adaptations just because it features good Schoenberg music? I've seen cheesy Biblical dramas where the bad actors were more enjoyable! I've seen bad Biblical cartoons were the talking animals were more enjoyable! They compare this movie to Agnes Varda's works just because a woman directed it? I'd rather go back to The Seven Magnificent Gladiators!

If there was gonna be practically no action, why did they bother making a movie of this? If there's nothing good onscreen, just listen to the album while you're doing other things. The music and singing might be good, but the filmmaking is a total bust.

Jean-Marie Straub and Dani�le Huillet need 2 more films to qualify for Directorial Scores.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

12-18-24

The Wrestler

(2008) - Directed by Darren Aronofsky
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Drama / Wrestling
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"A lot of people told me that I'd never wrestle again and that's all I do."

Since I'm on an Aronofsky kick, I decided to check out what seems to be his best-reviewed movie overall: The Wrestler (after getting to Pi, which I may or may not review later). Aronofsky has a long history with polarized reviews, and he's probably the single most polarizing director I can think of. But most places seem to adore The Wrestler, so I was really, REALLY hoping for one of Aronofsky's best here, and I do not feel like that's what I got.

Mickey Rourke plays Robin Ramzinski, known as "The Ram," an old wrestler who's health is starting to get to him. Even though his doctors tell him that he should stop wrestling, that's all he wants to do. But attempting to reconnect with his daughter and find other ways of living finally convince him to retire.

Other than using the surroundings to try and read Randy's mind, showing us what he's thinking and feeling, this really isn't that unique of a sports drama. A guy's health is deteriorating and he's trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter. Now this movie's been done many times before, and I'm certain that scenes about a man's persona changing between the hallways and the stage have been done before with better cinematography. Is there really any point to having some dude hold the camera the whole time instead of making something a little cinematic about it? Sure, we're following him all the time, but once you have that point down, it's no longer original.

Sure, there were a few good scenes. The hardcore wrestling matches were too damn tense. Aronofsky knew what he was doing with those close-ups and angles that time. It's been a while since I watched wrestling, so I was pretty damn glad to have that back for a little while, especially with how disturbing the hardcore matches got. But after that, the best thing about the movie seemed to be the glam metal, and I'm not really into "Bang Your Head" and I believe "Round and Round" to be the worst song on Ratt's Out of the Cellar.

One thing that seemed totally empty was the characterization. I mean, Cassidy's character never evolved beyond "mother / stripper." Randy's daughter has practically no development at all, most of the wrestlers and coworkers are just there, and no one stood out other than Randy in either the story or acting departments. In The Whale, everybody was a perfect choice for their roles. In The Wrestler, the only one who's performance goes above a 7/10 is Rourke.

I feel the same way about The Wrestler that I do about the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line: standard for its genre. The whole story seems like something Nicholas Sparks could put together, and I was never that impressed with him after reading several of his books to give him a fair chance. People really need to switch around the consensus between The Wrestler and any one of Aronofsky's more experimental outings. This movie only ended up convincing me that Aronofsky is at his best when he's symbolizing his themes in a more blatant light, or focusing on what the "arthouse" fans want. I'm not into this in anyway, shape, or form, and has only cemented my further disappointment in the state of sports cinema. At least it's slightly better than Noah.

= 62

Darren Aronofsky's Directorial Score (6 Good vs. 0 Bad)

Requiem for a Dream: 100
The Whale: 100
Black Swan: 97
Pi: 88
The Wrestler: 62

Score: 89.4 / 5

With the inclusion of Pi and The Wrestler, Aronofsky's position on my Best Director's List raises from #97 to #85 between Kenji Mizumi and Richard Linklater.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

01-11-25

Boogie Nights

(1997) - Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
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Drama / Black Comedy / Showbiz
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"I'm looking forward to seeing you in action."

As soon as I signed the contract to join Movieforums, I also signed a fine print saying I'll have to watch all the Paul Thomas Anderson movies. So far, I've done a crap job living up to that. So I'm gonna get through the rest of his stuff because, frankly, I'm kinda done wondering about his movies in place of other projects and lists challenges. So I might as well get through the one I put off for a long time due to the subject matter: Boogie Nights.

In Anderson's early hit, Mark Wahlberg plays a young 70's nightclub worker who's hired by Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), an idealistic and artistic porn filmmaker who turns him into a superstar under the name "Dirk Diggler." But as the 80's come around and new stars are coming in, the drugged-up porn star is fired and struggles with career pursuits afterwards. On top of which, as his fellow stars pursue other ambitions, their time in the porn industry comes to haunt them.

I have this to say first: the direction is flawless. Paul Thomas Anderson barely had any real practice by that point, and the direction is absolutely genius. Every motion captures the whole of the experience in a way that makes you really feel like you're in the late-70's. This works in tandem with the sets. They're so freaking 70's they're gorgeous, and I'm not talking about parodies of 70's culture here. These sets feel like the kinds of places you might've seen in documentaries. I may not be a porn guy by any damn definition, but this movie owns the time period, and I am HUGE on 70's culture. I mean, there were times where I just wanted to dance with everybody, especially since I prefer 70's music to any other decade.

Everyone in this cast is a great choice for their roles. Wahlberg's early acting effort doesn't feel like a challenging role when you get down to cases, but he gradually owns it more as the role goes on, especially when the Bruce Lee fan comes out. And his screentime with John C. Reilly as his fellow star is maximized due to Reilly's hyperactive and comedic nature. Really, these people need to be themselves. And come on: BURT REYNOLDS. Has he ever underperformed in a movie? I really don't think he has. Maybe no one expected him to take Smokey and bring that energy to a porn director: but he did, and the results were flawless.

But I really can't get behind the idea that this is one of PTA's best movies. I mean, it has an incredible amount of high highs, but there's one major low that I need to get behind: DIRK IS A TOTALLY STANDARD PROTAG. Literally the only thing that separates him from other protags is how healthy and big his junk is. Small-time guy gets huge (no puns intended), he gets into drugs, gets too big for his britches (still no pun intended) and that's when his downfall starts, gets in trouble, gets his life back together. Ugh. On top of which, as far as characterization goes, I'm not getting enough Don Cheadle, Heather Graham or William H. Macy. I especially dislike how they handled Macy's characters. I might've enjoyed their acting more had they been given more to work with. This could've ended up like a Nashville-style film capturing the whole scene, but it was more interested in telling a few imbalanced stories, which are all effective, but imbalanced.

I didn't get the masterpiece I was expecting from all of the reviews, but I'm not gonna say it greatly disappointed. Outweighing its biggest flaw, Boogie Nights has a keen spirit and flair for theatrics that unfortunately gives this "almost porn" film a lot of rewatch value. I don't think I'll be partaking in that, but I'm not gonna deny that I find this movie better than Punch-Drunk Love. Anderson obviously had a passion for the time period and let it blast out like soda in a cheesy commercial, although the story balance was more well-handled by the fast-paced Inherent Vice for crying out loud. It's no Magnolia, but if a movie this good is one of Anderson's worst, major kudos.

= 91

Paul Thomas Anderson's Directorial Score (5 Good vs. 0 Bad)

Magnolia: 100
Inherent Vice: 100
There Will Be Blood: 97
Boogie Nights: 91
Punch-Drunk Love: 89

Anderson's position on my Best Directors List lowers from #30 to #37 between Wes Craven and Ron Howard.

Last edited by KeyserCorleone; 01-11-25 at 11:07 AM.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

03-15-25

Mickey 17

(2025) - Directed by Bong Joon-Ho
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Sci-Fi/ Black Comedy
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"We're multiples!"

So years ago, this nerd (me) runs into a library, and I'm desperately in the mood for a cyberpunk novel but have a hard time finding one. Drawn in by as hazard-sign-style cover, I check out this book, Three Days in April by Edward Ashton, after reading the back and finding it to be a cyberpunk comedy. I read it, give it a 9/10, and look for his other books but have difficulty finding more. Some time later in 2023, I'm checking out upcoming movies, and I see the name "Mickey 17." I think, "That looks familiar," and find that it is based on the book by Edward Ashton and directed by Bong Joon-Ho! So I'm "oh my god-ing" all over the place, like the sex scene from Scary Movie but with happiness instead of you-know-what, and it quickly became one of my most anticipated movies. Having used up my Barnes & Noble gift card, I couldn't buy the book for a reasonable price. But a 2024 birthday gift card got me Mickey7, the sequel Antimatter Blues, and Good Omens. So today I got done with the one movie I've been waiting for for two years.

In a slightly futuristic world, Mickey Barnes is a complete loser with no qualifications or skills, so after a bad business deal with a loan shark, he and his "friend" Timo sign up for colonization. While Timo cons his way into a little power, Mickey applies to be an expendable, a man who is cloned every time he dies, and uses the knowledge from his deaths to help the science committee who's colonizing the icy hell known as Planet Niflheim. After being cloned sixteen times, Mickey finds himself presumed dead and dragged out of a cave by the local giant alien bugs. And when he gets back, he meets Mickey 18. Now "multiples" with neither one willing to die, the two Mickeys have to hide each other before their both incinerated by the fanatical commander of the expedition, ex-politician Kenneth Marshall, who's hoping to build a perfect world on Niflheim.

I sped through the book in one day, and the sequel the day after. At 300 pages each, both only took two hours for me. And boy did I enjoy both. I even liked the sequel 2/100 points more. 96. 98. Loved 'em. But there is only one real problem with this movie: the character development in this movie was weaker, although they made a real wacko out of Marshall's wife. Marshall himself was a done before villain with an excellent actor. Seriously. I tasted his slime in my mouth. The characterization is probably the only flaw.

Otherwise, the characterization of Mickey was absolutely incredible, especially when you get the perfect actor. I mean, Pattinson played multiple Mickeys with different personalities just BEAUTIFULLY. It was incredible. It might've even been better than Sissy Spacek doing the same multiple personality dance with 3 Women, somehow beating the great Shelley Duvall. I mean, there's the soft-spoken and pathetic 17, and then there's the snarky and insane 18, and both are played to the purest perfection. Okay, I will no longer call Robert Pattinson "Twilight Boy" ever again. It's like I became a new fan of his all over again, like after I saw The Lighthouse. I understand there are those who've seen more, but I have to say this: this is one of the five best acting jobs I have ever seen in over 3000 movies, on par with Bergman's performance in Autumn Sonata, Pacino's Michael and Fraser's in The Whale.

The visual style is perfect despondent, whether it be the darkened rusty halls of the ship or the endlessly white snow-scapes of Niflheim. And then we get to the aliens, designed from the notes in the book and given a wacky-ass BJH look that's designed by the same man responsible for the monsters in Okja and The Host. The babies are both creepy and cute while the big bad queen is as intriguing as she is frightening. Basically, the surroundings all match perfectly with all the gruesome black comedy that mirrors the despondence of the major powers of the ship: Marshall, the science team and their studies into Mickey's deaths, the coworkers who only pay attention to Mickey because of his job, everything. It had a lot to say about how progress works.

I can see myself watching Mickey 17 again and again. This movie is 100% faithful to the book's overall spirit and themes, and much more than what I hoped for, while changing the ending to something else that ended up great by adding elements from the literary sequel. This movie adaptation will hopefully skyrocket a great modern-day author's popularity, because he deserves it. Mickey 17 might not stand as one of the best movies of the decade, but it'll certainly be a modern sci-fi classic at the best. Hopefully, people will eventually see this the way they see Soylent Green.

= 93

Bong Joon-Ho's Directorial Score (5 Good vs. 0 Bad)

Parasite: 98
Mother: 96
Memories of Murder: 96
Mickey 17: 93
Snowpiercer: 88

Score: 94.2 / 5

Bong Joon-Ho's position on my Best Director's List raises from #48 to #46 between Clint Eastwood and Bryan Singer.

__________________

Originally Posted by LeBoyWondeur

If you're going to approach it from a child's point of view then it kinda changes the topic of discussion, doesn't it.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

1 week ago

Je, Tu, Il, Elle

(1974) - Directed by Chantal Akerman
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Drama / Slow Cinema
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"I lay down on my mattress, then got up to undress. I lay down again, naked."

This is my fourth Chantal Akerman film, and this review's actually a re-writing of a review I thought I posted yesterday, but apparently didn't. I have no idea why, but I was apparently in the mood for an Akerman film, even though I'm easily more of a Varda guy and find Akerman quite overrated, but not necessarily bad. I guess it was simply that I thought of a director I needed to educate myself more in and decided to role with it.

In Akerman's first attempt at a full-length fiction movie, she plays Julie, who just got over a really bad breakup and will do anything to get out of all the confusion involved. And... that's basically it. No need for a full paragraph into the plot as it's an 80-minute slow cinema film. Ans lemme tell you, the first act does a good job of handling the idea of post-breakup breakdowns with all the uncertainty and little signs of mental chaos that could've lead up to something big. The idea of a deep and psychological drama like that is absolutely perfect for slow cinema.

But then we get to the second and third acts, who's stories are built exclusively upon the kind of behavior that most lonely people go through after a breakup and WITHOUT the breakdown. Doesn't the idea of a "breakup breakdown" have a good ring to it? Well this didn't make the cut at all. In fact, to pair with this, it doesn't even have the desperation within the actual sets, as they are also too normalized to really create a mood. At least Jeanne Dielman's home was nicely decorated...

What could've been a deeper and someone more commentative look at a breakdown turned into a slog of normality and nothing to say. In other words, even in slow cinema, Chantal Akerman managed to defeat the purpose of an 80 minute film's first act by underwriting the second and third acts. This is really further confirmation in my mind that Akerman is not the true queen of directors, but potentially fellow Frenchwoman Varda. I really, really need more depth in her slow cinema.

= 45

Chantal Akerman's Directorial Score (2 Good vs. 2 Bad)

Jeanne Dielman: 68
News from Home: 58
Je, Tu, Il, Elle: 45
Hotel Monterey: 37

Score: 52 / 4

Akerman's position on my Best Director's List lowers from #297 to #306 between J.S. Cardone and Joseph Kane. However, the below review will feature my fifth Chantal Akerman film.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

1 week ago

Tell Me

(1980) - Directed by Chantal Akerman
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Documentary
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"And we were there, your mother, you too."

This is my fifth Akerman, a 45-minute documentary about seeing old women around the city and listening to their stories of the past, notably about Jewish culture and experiences in WWII. Once again, that's literally all there is, as it is a rather short one for Akerman.

If you've seen Shoah, you might get a kick out of this one. Honestly, it wasn't difficult to find at all. We're here with Akerman and the three elderly women she's interviewing, hearing various stories about being a Jewish woman in times of great suffering. Now the Jews even have a biblical history of persecution, and movies like this make me think of what these stories were like being heard from biblical figures 30-50 years afterwards. Closest I had up to this point was a chapter in Catherine Called Birdy about migrating Jews. Great book, btw. Personal fave.

Some stories are much longer than others, and there are moments in their stories that are bores in comparison to the cute and charming love stories and the depressing war stories. Honestly, Chantal Akerman really had something going on here. But there's a serious problem: this movie could even be three times as long and still be a good movie. Akerman didn't interview very many women here, only three. ONLY THREE. This isn't 3 Women by Altman, this is something that could expand all over France. Now my own grandmother was the one person I loved more than anyone, so I get a personal kick out of hearing about your parents' or grandparents' pasts as anyone rightfully should. But there just aren't enough interviews, dammit! This is EASILY one of Akerman's best concepts for an indie movie, and she under-did it, even going as far as to give the vast majority of her screen time to her own mother out of likely favoritism.

So for the drastically little we had, this was a pretty good documentary with a good sense of charm. I had a feeling I'd get into Akerman's other ventures beyond the slow cinema and the structural stuff. Honestly, I really hope other Akerman's are like this, because even though I'm not gonna rate it THAT highly, it's one of the best of her movies. But the more I think about the obvious flaws, the more grating it gets.

= 66

Chantal Akerman's Directorial Score (3 Good vs. 2 Bad)

Jeanne Dielman: 68
Tell Me: 66
News from Home: 58
Je, Tu, Il, Elle: 45
Hotel Monterey: 37

Score: 54.8 / 5

Akerman's position on my Best Director's List raises from #296 between Rick Rosenthal and Roy Allen Smith.

Last edited by KeyserCorleone; 6 days ago at 02:28 PM.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

1 week ago

Henry V

(1989) - Directed by Kenneth Branagh
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War / Historical Drama / Epic / Medieval
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"And we were there, your mother, you too."

My third and final review of the day! I wasn't going to post three today, but that first Akerman one didn't get posted last night, and I actually have some things I really want to say about this movie. Now I don't spend enough time with Shakespeare films and have been meaning to. And one of the most notable names in modern-day Shakespeare entertainment is bookworm Kenneth Branagh, who's pretty much the movie counterpart to bookworm band Blind Guardian, who wrote about The Witcher, American Gods, and other classics modern or elderly.

King Henry V of England feels that the crown of France is his right, and takes offense at any attempts to get him to back off. Declaring war against France, he begins a violent reign of terror to enemy lands, spreading steel, blood and poetry as his loyal but tired army follows him to achieve the claim he demands.

Now the only Shakespeare play I've ever seen was Twelfth Night, and I laughed my ass off. First time I ever saw a person jump into someone's arms Scooby-Doo style. But anyone knows that Shakespeare wrote for 50 different genres, and would've written 51 had the western been invented then. And if the tones of this movie prove anything, it's that both Shakespeare, and Branagh, understood / understands the power of wartime thrills. Much of this is told through expertly-crafted dialogue that can be expected from a proper Shakespeare play (I had the subtitles on). The tension between any two people speaking just took over my body on a regular basis.

Branagh was able to grab a star-studded cast for this piece of work, one that features personal favorites like Judi Dench and a very young Christian Bale. Dench's speech at Sir John's death was absolutely hypnotic. And of course, there's quite some delight from seeing Emma Thompson just nail a charming young French made trying hard to learn English. And then she ends up doing Cruella. We also have giants like Brian Blessed, Derek Jacobi, Paul Scofield and the late yet immortal Ian Holm.

HOWEVER, there's a major problem with this movie that must be addressed: the character development is weak for so many grand actors. Many of the ones played by actors I mentioned are absent for the second and third acts or only have a few minutes onscreen. I really do have a problem with that. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the tone, the perfect acting, the beautiful dialogue and the overall story. I'll definitely be chacking out more Branagh and Shakespeare films for some time starting now.

= 91

Kenneth Branagh needs 1 more film to qualify for a Directorial Score.

KeyserCorleone