Tuesday 30 June 2020

Hustlers (2019)

Strong performances, looks great, does some fun stuff with unreliable narrators and socioeconomic commentary. It effectively strikes a balance between rooting for and empathising with the protagonists while feeling conflicted at their actions. The story is a little thin and pretty tropey, and also a little anticlimactic on those terms. Taken as an intimate drama with a lot of bling on top rather than a crime epic, though, it works great.
Rating: Good

But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)

Funny and sweet. It sometimes drifts away from camp into plain soapy drama which on the whole is executed less effectively, but overall the character dynamics work. I did feel that it was a little hard on teenagers who stay closeted to assuage their arsehole parents, but I'm a straight cis 40 year old so I might be off target there.

Rating: Good

Cell (2016)

I had hoped that this adaptation might turn a rather poor King novel into a fun low-budget romp with Cusack and Jackson bromancing their way through a zombie apocalypse. Unfortunately it stays rather too faithful to the source, falling into all the same traps - the phone gimmick quickly becomes irrelevant, the cause and changes of the phone-triggered zombification are unexplained and random (the film even adds a (iirc) new, equally unexplained plot point where Clay had visions of the raggedy-man previous to any of this, which is utterly unnecessary), and there's really not much in the way of story, characters, drama or conflict.
They did do one thing I had hoped for, which was change the ending, but instead of taking the opportunity to provide explanations and satisfying resolution, they instead shuffle two-thirds of the protagonists off-stage five minutes before the end then go for an unconvincing 'it's a happy ending! Psych, that's just what he's imagining now the villains have brainwashed him!' twist.
Rating: Awful

Sunday 28 June 2020

Phantom Thread (2017)

Gave up 20 minutes before the end when I caught myself groaning in boredom. Dress designer is a prick, other people put up with it, the end, who gives a fuck?
Rating: Awful

Saturday 27 June 2020

Meet the Robinsons (2007)

Irritatingly hyperactive. Overloads on wackiness to the point where it feels like a Friedberg Seltzer movie - dozens of zany characters, genre pastiches, screwball montages, constantly thrown at the viewer in place of story or characterisation. The decision to withhold a bunch of narrative information in service to a big reveal dump an hour in makes the first two thirds of the movie feel even more directionless.
Also, this is pretty damn ugly for a 2007 CG animated movie, and the animation and direction is as spastic as the rest of the film.
Rating: Bad

Thursday 18 June 2020

The Addams Family (2019)

Uninventive. Never really gets past the 'say a phrase but swap a positive word for a negative one' humour, mostly remixes story beats from the two live-action movies, adheres to the original character designs but also to the exact same Pixar aesthetics as almost every CG movie for the past 20 years, nicks the pastel suburbia theme from Edward Scissorhands (but doesn't do anything new with it like, say, make everyone look very similar in a way that wouldn't be so practical in live-action but perfect for CG), gives Thing a watch with an eye on it rather than use animation skills to imbue him with emotions. Also, some truly terrible music choices.
Rating: Bad

The Witch (2015)

Some effectively creepy elements, but a very slow barely existent story, variations on the same cipher for characters and some glaring artifice (the period clothing that all clearly came straight off the costume hire racks, the stilted dialogue and performances).
Rating: Bad

The Gift (2015)

SPOILERS BELOW

Starting off as a relatively standard stalker thriller, it cleverly seeds small passive aggressions that snowball into a much more chilling premise - a pregnant wife finding out that her husband is a gaslighting psychopath. Unfortunately, it then pulls another twist that the seeming stalker *is* actually a psychopathic stalker and possibly raped Robyn while she was unconscious and may actually be the father of her newborn baby. It's a pretty nasty reveal in itself, but even worse is that with this the husband Simon becomes the protagonist. Robyn is suddenly nothing more than a nest for a cuckoo to plant its eggs in, doing nothing more for the rest of the film while Simon heroically speeds through traffic and chases after the stalker to avenge his cuckoldry.

Also, y'know, DNA tests exist.

Rating: Bad

Tuesday 16 June 2020

The House (2017)

Once it settles on a tone, after gradually moving from 'gentle family comedy with some light improv' to 'heightened live-action Simpsons episode', this is generally very funny. Ferrell and Poehler work well together, and even Mantzoukas whom I usually find irritating stays on the entertaining side of manicly abrasive here. Probably the main issue is that the narrative and supporting cast are rather ill-defined, but the comedy generally makes up for that.
Rating: Good

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Typically over-slick Platinum Dunes horror remake. Spends a lot of time on the kids unravelling Freddy's backstory and a weird 'maybe Freddy was falsely accused' fake-out, and not enough time on, y'know, the nightmares. The nightmares lack the slippery, disjointed, visceral feel of the original, and they don't even make use of modern technology to do anything inventive, with the exception of that one shot where the floor turns to goop (in fact, the modern effects are mostly unconvincing). Freddy himself doesn't have the gothic sadism of the original, he's just a rather mundane shouty man.

Perhaps this works a lot better for people who haven't seen the original, and perhaps modern viewers might not be able to get past the low-budget 80s-ness of Craven's movie, but for me this is just a less good version and rather pointless.
Rating: Bad

Monday 15 June 2020

Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

I thought this was just going to be a silly CG flubberfest, and while there is some of that, it's sparing enough to not get tiring, and surrounded by charming comedy and legit kung fu/wuxia fight sequences. All nicely directed and acted too - the tone is always heightened without becoming obnoxious.
Rating: Very Good

Treasure Planet (2002)

Mediocre. Some of the design work is nice (John Silver looks great, for example), but a lot of it is rather unimaginative (spaceships that are just flying ships!) and the CG is often outdated and poorly integrated enough to be actively ugly. The voice-work and story are fine, nothing to write home about. Martin Short's robot character is an incredibly irritating Genie knock-off.
Rating: Bad