By Focus Features - http://www.impawards.com/2023/asteroid_city_ver2.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73402955
Asteroid City - (2023)
There are ensembles, and then there are
Wes Anderson ensembles - and while the sheer number of talented performers in
Asteroid City robs it a little of any sure focus it might have had, it matters little when a film is this funny, gorgeous, whimsically cheerful and beautiful. It's a film that begs to be seen in a cinema, and the group of people at the one I saw it at were especially malleable and ready for what Anderson was doing. There wasn't only laughter, but all kinds of expressive noises that humans make, and you could hear the appreciation in the room. Be warned though - this filmmaker has not reinvented himself or experimented here.
Asteroid City is typical kind of stuff for him - it just so happens that he does it so wonderfully that I'm not near being sick of it yet. An improvement over
The French Dispatch, it comes close to that grand perfection he reached in
The Grand Budapest Hotel but falls just short of that. It's a fictional play brought to life in deep and bright Southwestern desert colours, whereupon the literary reality where Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe and Bryan Cranston exist is in black and white. It's funny, cute, silly and just 105 minutes of delight for me personally. The only thing it's really missing is Bill Murray. The plot, which involves the aforementioned play about a group of science prodigies receiving awards when a UFO descends from the skies is almost incidental to the whole film - but Wes Anderson's movies are moving to a completely different set of priorities - and I love them.
9/10
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Scream - (1996)
A very astute and expert balancing act came off when it comes to
Scream - a knowing and complexly comedic look at the teen slasher genre which is itself a teen slasher movie. Too self-referential, and it breaks the fourth wall and lets all the tension escape the room. Too serious or wrenching and it's no longer a fun examination of 80s horror films. It manages to be both fun and tense by letting it's characters in on everything - watching
Halloween on VHS and letting these films be the driving force behind a series of murders occurring in the small town of Woodsboro. Killing it's most famous star in the film's first scenes and featuring all the slasher's tropes or completely reversing them,
Scream did everything right and looks great for it's age. It did what Wes Craven was trying to do in
Wes Craven's New Nightmare, bringing a sense of culture, artistry and self-acknowledgement to a cinematic corner oft pointed to in derision, sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly. A generation had grown up going to these movies, and were particularly ready to examine a portion of cinema that was rarely given a second look. A really smart movie, and a good horror film on it's own - those two aspects going hand in hand in perfect unison. Still great to watch.
9/10
By http://www.impawards.com/2023/beau_is_afraid_ver2.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72488481
Beau is Afraid - (2023)
Once you've seen it once and are ready for all it's changes of pace and twists and turns,
Beau is Afraid is even better. A supremely enjoyable film to watch - twisted and oddly original. Ari Aster sticking to the darkness, only with more of an unnerving grin on his face.
8/10
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