Joel's Reviews

This was a surprise. I thought it was going to be something completely different. First off I have to say that there's that unmistakable 1970's era level of sophistication that comes through with the staging and directing of this film. Lots of erratic zooms and handheld juxtapose static shots with deep lighting, brilliant use of natural light, and carefully (I think) planned color schemes in the overall scene design. The sound plays a big part, too, since the threading of sound is run underneath scenes in such a way to give a carpet like flooring for everything to just kind of exist on top of. Lots of need for that since this is essentially a collection of scenes that are very disjointed but eventually lead to the ultimate adventure.

There are amazingly nuanced scenes that act as transitions that roar with the sound of fire or shriek with some effect for awakening from a nightmare.

The mission to take four men from different parts of the world and have them take refuge in a place to be hand picked for a suicide mission transporting turned nitro is a very unique premise. I haven't seen "Wages of Fear" so I feel like that may explain some of my issues with the film on a story level, or perhaps, better yet, an editing level. One thing this film does not do is spell everything out for the viewer. I kept thinking at how lucky I was to have an american in there once in a while putting some ketchup on my fries in the way of exposition, because I sure as hell couldn't understand about 60% of the dialog recording, accents, or even some of the dialog itself.

None of the deep and visceral ruminations of any one character, especially Roy Scheider's, had me informed on what exactly I was holding onto. I did not know much back story, if any at all, and it seemed that when the madness montage would happen, I'd just be kind of scratching my head. The film looked really beautiful with most scenes in some exotic location - interiors sometimes looking more exotic, and Tangerine Dream's minimalist score was kind of neat (if underwhelming), but I just couldn't feel the weight that was so clearly trying to break through like the tires of those laboring trucks on the wood bridges, which, was some of the most intense action at a slow pace I have seen, wow!

Sorcerer is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Maybe that much I did get from the film. I felt like the animal that William Friedkin is as a director, and the team he composes to achieve his strong visual and rhythmic style, is enough to sell me that this is a masterpiece. However I also feel that this film is someone else's masterpiece. A masterpiece I may not quite fully understand, but a work of art I can at least glimpse at and feel from a considerable distance.

Good review on Sorcerer Joel. I didn't realize it was rated R, I wonder why it was? It seemed more PG13 to me by today's standards. Great film BTW.

Great review. I really enjoyed that movie. The tree scene and rope bridge scene were very nicely done. I've not seen the original though.

I haven't seen The Wages of Fear either, but Sorcerer is pretty great. I liked how it created such suspense and intensity with purely natural means, no demons or ghosts.

The biggest problem I have with Get Out is the girl's acting. She was much more natural when her character was acting than when her character was her true self. It should have been the other way around.

The synopsis of this film was lazily described as a mix between Mad Max and Pretty in Pink, so I had to give it a spin.

It's definitely not anything near being Pretty in Pink, unless you consider a few 1980's songs to warrant it as such. This movie if anything is closer to The Road Warrior with some major differences. One major difference is that this is not a good movie. At all.

Ana Lily Amirpour is a superb visualist and surrealist. Her work with the debut film "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night" was a strong entry into modern indie cinema, but here her knack for setting up a scene is wasted with a movie bereft of any real redeeming quality aside from a silly ending that completely breaks apart everything before it into territory that belonged in another completely different film.

This movie starts off tastelessly violent and disgusting, having the lead girl's character cover herself in her own feces as an escape tactic from her captor. I wasn't impressed. Why go there? When I see stuff like this it makes me immediately think that the script must be so bad that they will try anything to hold people's attention. How about some doo doo? Yes! Doo doo! That's brilliant!

Well, my attention was held, but not without some annoyance. Eventually this film goes from disgust to an almost meditative experimental film, stretching out wide with deliberately paced scenes that illustrate echo effects and stylish lighting. The set design is never in question. All that is visual is inspiring and handled extremely competently. It's just that the characters are garbage. I suppose if this was the point then OK, fine. Whatever. But my question is: why bother? Why not just work a little harder at coming up with a story that has a real set of arcs involved instead of just slapping one on at the end that comes off as completely inane?

This film was so FULL OF ITSELF. So self important. As if THIS IS ART, DON'T QUESTION MY AUTHORITY. Kind of like what Spring Breakers tried to do. Slow motion, slow pacing, ridiculous choices for music, all seem to want to gain approval as being "cutting edge" or trendy, or to put across some sort of "commentary".

All this pretense is just confused kids not knowing how to dredg up a good story in their heart of hearts, and instead, take the foul road, and conjure up something that will appeal to those with a perverted sense instead of aiming a little higher on the food chain.

Something to note is that this film has two very unusual performances from Jim Carrey and Keanu Reeves. Both do very good and interesting work. Unfortunately, nothing is saved by their presence except their isolated scenes.

OK, so this movie basically stinks.
I liked the visuals. I did not like the movie the visuals were tap dancing over.

I remember there being some closely photographed violence near the end with the military men hijacking the truck. Bullet holes in heads, etc. Also, I believe there was at least an F bomb or two, and the tone was definitely for adults. But yeah, nowadays you'd see more graphic and realistic violence on the Lifetime network. Which is OK because hey, just don't show any nudity or say a word that resembles procreation like f-u-c-k.

Population control? LOL

Sorcerer was/is rated PG. There was no PG-13 in the '70s.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
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Yeah, you both are right. For some reason I thought it was rated R. Didn't seem like a PG at all to me.

true dat

i hear ya on that. now that ya mentioned it.

i forgive it only because most other aspects were so tight..like..i wouldnt throw away a cadillac just cuz it had a dent kind of thing

Blade Runner 2049

The design of this sequel to 1982's Blade Runner remains stark and tempered. Since the original survived mostly as an existential mood piece, it's hard to say whether or not this follow up works as well on its own. Most everything is ported over from the first film, and that includes music cues, water lit schemes splayed onto walls, macro iris shots, searing spinner noise over dystopian cityscapes and post apocalyptic neo noir down on the streets at night.

Rather unappealing was that the tone came off a bit mis-matched, with a good portion of the story being shot in a straightforward manner of lighting. Overhead fluorescents weren't exactly an enchanting way to let some scenes play out with interior shots. But as the film became more involved we got immersed in more atmospheric schemes that seemed to remain in place until the conclusion.

The story expands and throws a twist or two in the mix that didn't really offend me being a disciple of the first film, but it also didn't really phase me that much. Without spoiling anything, I'll say that this film was more engaging story-wise than the original, but it simply lacked the authentic poetry and refrain from the original, which is fine but, the issue is that this movie borrows so much from the first film that one cannot help but constantly compare the two. We get lookalikes for Pris, Rachael (as well as a cameo from an incredible Rachael likeness), and Gosling himself looks very much like the ruffled Ford from part 1. There are so many nods to the first film that it almost becomes impossible to see this as a standalone picture. Almost.

The music is powerful enough, but still, even with two composers, it cannot break the mold and capture the precedent set by Vangelis. This too would be fine had it not so closely mirrored the original score. I kept hearing what sounded like revving dirt bike engines used as a gritty music cue and almost laughed a little. Funnily enough, the most moving part of this film happens when a piece of Vangelis score is re-interpreted and brought back into a pivotal scene in the snow. My hairs started to stand up, but not because of the movie. It was because for once I could hear a piece of music that had soul to it. That's testament to Vangelis and Ridley Scott's collaboration. If I'm being honest, I think Ridley should have directed this and made it his life passion like he did with part one. I think Villeneuve does damn fine work here, but Ridley still should have never given up that kind of control. I felt it.

All in all, Blade Runner 2049 is a powerful picture. It was deeply moody and terrifically shot. Gosling's performance was pitched proper and Ford was capable, if not a bit thinly drawn. This sequel suffers from the long shadow looming over it, and would have been an authentic and much more honest picture had it tried harder to forge its own path, with it's own brand of hypnotic sound design and music score.


An Aside
I will watch this again once it hits blu ray. The IMAX theater I watched it in looked like it projected at least 60fps which almost tripled the native frame rate. This must have been to avoid smearing when the camera panned in a shot. However, this also added a bit of a "live" look to it that sometimes robbed the film of that slow and set pace that's part of twenty four frames per second. Also, as SOON as the credits started rolling the theater lights BLASTED on, as if to say, OK, GET OUT, MOVIE'S OVER! So, I suppose this was like paying $11.50 for Netflix.

Final Thoughts
I enjoyed this movie. I think it had a lot to offer in the way of story, or at least, an engaging enough mystery. It in no way eclipses the first film. If anything, it's a respectable homage to the original. However, if there is a third Blade Runner film, I'm hoping that the production team makes the decision to re-invent the wheel, and make something that can be its own thing, stylistically. This sequel does throw some things on the table that are unique and very well rendered, it's just that the baseline of the film is still steeped in a world that doesn't quite connect like the first world did. It's not as detailed, and not as moving, and I believe this has a lot to do with the lack of hypnotizing sound design, which seems to be only half there.

I keep having to add to this review because I feel as if another watch of this movie is absolutely necessary. It may be much better than I have processed yet. Therefore, my little 4 box of popcorn rating couldn't really indicate much of anything except that I've indexed this film as a priority. It's a really, really good movie, and now that I've gotten my grievances out of the way, I will return again to re-assess it.


@Kissintel

This is a fun little movie. Chevy Chase plays Andy Farmer, a sports writer given an advance to pen his first novel in the country. He packs up the wife for their new scenic home, and things start to go south of the luxury life in nature the couple had intended.

Chase does his usual every-man comedy bit here, but he's more streamlined. He isn't over the top like Clark W. Griswold. Here he fits into a story and tone that make Funny Farm a real movie. The editing of Funny Farm is old style, and I really liked that aspect of it. As a scene ends, and a new one tapers in, we get a nice pause for closure, as if turning a page in a book. This is no accident. Director Roy Hill is a capable man for a film like this, and what makes this picture stand apart from any other routine comedy is the skill put to work on this feature.

Everything from the settings and the playful idea of incorporating Norman Rockwell into the design, to the down home feeling of eating at the local diner and jumping out of the way from your drunk and road raged mail man.

I think the direction in this movie is spot on. It really brings out the best of Chevy Chase and his knack for timing, as witnessed in a Christmas Caroling scene where Chase starts a verse out of turn, ending up the lone singer in the room. This is quickly shifted to another line of dialog pushing the story forward, and it's a moment like this that shows confidence. The confidence is the speed of the joke, the obscurance of that joke not to linger too long, and as Farmer's resonate voice is still heard in our own after thought, the humor lands twice as hard.

It's difficult not to like this movie, myself. I revisit it every so often, and always come away appreciating it a little bit more every time. This is easily Chase's best picture, and a seemingly ignored gem from the 1980's.

Dude, it's awesome you were able to temper your negative expectations toward Blade Runner 2049 and go in with an open mind. I know you were super skeptical beforehand, and a lot of people would just make themselves hate it because they wanted to hate it in the first place. But not Joel!

I didn't want to hate it..but I did hate it for happening. I felt betrayed by commerce. The original film was the most magical, defining moment in cinematic history for me, and having seen it at the drive ins back in 82', with all of the echo between car window planted speakers, I was nervous about the sequel. How dare they. It's not the first film..it could never be the first one...but as a follow up I was very impressed, and definitely have to give it another spin once it hits blu ray

I had asked my gf what she thought of Blade Runner 2049 a few days afterwards (both of us absolutely love the original), and she said that she really liked it. Then I asked her if she wanted to own a copy of it, and oddly she does. I still struggle with it, but there are things in that movie that I can help but to love and want to watch again more than once.

Yeah, I think it's a "grower". I have a feeling. The more I think about it, the more I remember some music and scenes that took on an almost sensual and disparate life of its own. I think it's a lot deeper than I was giving it credit for while watching it. The after burn of it is still working on me.

It's one of mine for sure. Wages of Fear is great and gritty too.

I still haven't seen it. Your thoughts have made me more excited than anything else I've read though. Movies that introspectively grow tend to become favorites of mine.

Sorcerer, like BR2049, are both movies I'll need to gander at again. I may completely re-tool both reviews on doing so.

And yes, any movie that grows in retrospect is a special film. I remember seeing Mad Max: Fury Road, and that film actually grew away from me. I liked it at first, but quickly realized I forced myself to like it. I no longer care for it, haha.

I've never been a big fan of Noah Baumbach. I felt like once he started coming in to co-write with Wes Anderson on his films (replacing Owen Wilson), that the dialog kind of went a bit downhill and became more flighty and pretentious. I never felt as if his jokes landed right for me, personally. I made a commitment to watch his new film, even after being deeply disappointed in his 2010 film Greenberg, because I heard rumors that Adam Sandler turns in a career performance. OK, sure, why not?

The first 15 or so minutes of The Meyerowitz Stories came off a bit like the usual from Baumbach; overlapped dialog, fast, detailed and stagy. The difference was that in this first fifteen minutes, the "bit" was only about the fast and detailed. The stagy aspect seemed to have been diluted with conviction, and a kind of easy matter of factness that I had wished been a part of dialog heavy comedies I'd seen prior, like Greenberg. And here it was. So far, not bad. We'll see what happens.

It's the story of an arrogant absentee sculptor father who favors only one child (Ben Stiller), leaving the other two (Elizabeth Marvel, Adam Sandler) to basically fend for themselves, even though the two neglected children spend more time with their father, and are loyal by him, and make excuses for him all of the time. They support his failing sculpture work, and talk it up as being genius and worthy. It's work that the father (Harold Meyerowitz) feels is just as important as his contemporary in the field (L.J. Shapiro - played by Judd Hirsch), his contemporary that has enjoyed some degree of success, and has healthy showings at galleries.

Ben Stiller's character (Matthew) is the favorite child. He got to be there during the sculpting process, sitting on the floor, getting nails in his ass, as his father worked in front of him, teaching him how to forge ahead with great confidence. Matthew is an investment banker with a successful roster of clientele.

Not a bad story, so far.

As much as this picture is a comedy that takes cues from late 1970's Woody Allen, it also exists very prominently as a drama. We see how the children act with one another, trying to be adult enough to move past jealousy, regressed hate, abandonment, and misunderstandings.

Adam Sandler does fine work. He delivers lines so effortlessly, and stays within these boundaries he's put around himself, that when he colors outside of the lines with anger every so often, he is rewarded with being cut off cold by a hard and sudden edit that puts us into another scene. This happens quite a bit throughout the film, and it's a great juxtapose for other more expository moments. However, if anyone is going to get my vote for a little gold statue, it's Ben Stiller. He acts his ass off here, and he's never been better. You can see the wisdom of age in his eyes, and when he lets it fly, he really taps into something. I won't spoil it, but let's just say that Ben Stiller has never been more human.

Elizabeth Marvel has a printed few lines here and there that she works though a bit transparently, but she is also one of the more powerful actors in the film. She does a great job at keeping the film grounded with her pessimism hiding just beneath a layer of reason. She is truly the rock of the picture.

It's Dustin Hoffman that seems to be sleepwalking (literally) through the film. We don't get to see him shine like he usually insists on doing. Instead, he is sedate and aloof, and that's certainly what his character is supposed to be.

The Meyerowitz Stories is a truly moving film if you give it a try and allow yourself to warm up to it. It may seem a bit off-putting and trying too hard at first, but give it time. It straightens itself out, and reveals its reasons for being so percussive in the beginning.


And Noah Baumbach has finally written and directed something I liked very much. I think I'll be seeing this again. I feel as if this is a classic film, and it may even take some time to register as that kind of movie in the critical community (I have not checked to see its overall rating yet), but it's earned its stripes in my book. It's not pretending. This is how it was done before, and I'm glad to see it's been done again.