Posts
This is
about 5 movies I saw this past weekend and some brief reviews.
Watch these
movies.
Red Box Titles
"Kubo
and the Two Strings" is good, just like everything Studio Laika has
produced. Certainly, the prettiest of
their movies as the technology they are using is hitting fascinating new levels
of detail and movement.
To me it is
not as good as their last film, “The Box Trolls” but like all their other stuff it
does have a core theme which gives it good bones. The movie is sub-textually about degenerative
mental conditions, as many people suffer from memory issues and it is tied into
the story well. Telling stories keeps
memories alive.
"Hell or High Water" is good, it is a straight up crime movie, while it does
have stuff to say about modern America and banks, it does so thru clever
dialogue without any bullshit nihilistic philosophizing. I kept comparing it to others in what I
consider a modern genre, “Poor Rural Noir”.
Along with
films like “Green Room”, “No Country for Old Men”, “Winter’s Bone”, and TV
shows like “Breaking Bad” and “Sons of Anarchy” this genre portrays poor and
rural crime activity with depth and high production value to make very straight
forward stories about people with little/nothing, who stand to lose even more or
stand to gain too much to pass up, predicated on their committing criminal
offenses or navigating a criminal underworld.
Theater Titles
"Lego Batman" is good, I appreciate the love they showed the character of Robin
who has been all but forgotten in the Bat-franchise for 2 decades. Certain jokes and references to the Batman
mythos resonated with me more than others and I appreciated the ever-ramping
threat leading up to the climax in which enough resources have been marshalled
to turn the tide completely on the villains.
There is a
strong central character arc for Batman.
That is right, the main character grows and changes as a result of the
story, how novel.
"Get Out" is good, when I talk about how I want more minority characters in
movies because I want to see a fresh perspective on something this is exactly
what I am talking about. I am a white
guy, but even I get tired of seeing white guys overcome adversity and get the
girl. I have empathy, I can learn via narrative
about social difficulties facing other people.
Do more of that.
I do have
one complaint in that the trailer gives a lot away. If I had to find another complaint, I think
some things got left on the cutting room floor, a prop shows up at one point
and I am unsure if it was supposed to have been set up earlier.
"Logan"
is good, SAD! SUPER SAD! That Johnny Cash rendition of "Hurt" they
keep playing over the trailer might be the single most thematically appropriate
song to a movie ever.
I made a
quasi-prediction about what the movie was going to be about when “Logan” was
first announced and I was somewhat right. But, the movie did so much more and did what I
thought it was about so well that it crushed my expectations.
Maybe it
felt a little long, but that probably had something to do with the 3-year-old
that was sitting behind me talking whenever there wasn’t a scene of Logan
cutting peoples’ faces off and that kept taking me out of it. Kid, if you are going to talk, talk during
the action scenes and listen during the dialogue scenes, there isn’t going to
be and exposition during the action, good time to ask your dad to clarify what
is happening. ALSO, parents, don’t take
your kids to see this movie, it is violent and sweary as fuck. Maybe a mature 10-year-old would be able to
handle it, MAYBE.
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