While the fights themselves are good, they do drag on a bit too long at regular moments throughout the movie. Injuries don't seem to have any ongoing consequence for more than about 5 seconds. It's as though they shot a lot of the action such that they could mix up the order of scenes in post. They also just swap and change between who is the dominant fighter and who is the lesser fighter for what seems like shits and giggles. Just to protract the fight, nothing more. There's no reason for who has the upper hand changing as most action and fight movies seem to do (including what should be ongoing injuries but somehow even stop bleeding when they really should have bled out). All of these just seriously take away from what ultimately is good fight choreography.
Having Andrew Koji mostly with guns is a waste of that actor's fighting skills as seen in the TV show Warrior.
As for the plot, it's an action comedy. It doesn't need to be good nor solid. Don't overthink it.
Ultimately, cutting a few minutes out here and there would have helped, as would more intent behind injuries & reasons for fight balance changing.
I'll be damned if I don't feel the same way as I did at the end of season 2: how long can they go with the same powerplays over and over and over again? Because besides the fact that this season cemented the show as one of HBO's greatest (and reassured its position of the top currently on-air television), it doesn't feel that much has changed. The circumstances change from coup to hostile takeover to merging as equals and the characters can learn from these, sure, but they can't change their positions, Logan always wins, the kids always lose, it doesn't matter if they actually stick together for once. Maybe the creators can get away with this by incorporating the cycle of abuse with a cycle where characters try to move but they always come a full circle and end up where they started or lower. Before this season I thought as long as they can do it well, they can go on about it forever, but eventhough I think this season was as good as the previous (only the same and not really better because a lot of times the first half of the episodes felt like a fun slow burner, and only the second halves went to 9 or 10 out of ten, but those always delivered), I'm left with the same feeling again that maybe, just maybe, if its characters can't change and we will just see yet another side of emotional abuse, then the next season should be the last. But for real this time.
Tom: "Do you want a deal with the devil?"
Greg: "Well...what am I gonna do with a soul anyways?"
Succession season 3 finale proved once again the importance of a satisfying ending because a reader/viewer's most long-lasting memory of your story will be its ending, thus making them to forget how the rest was bland. Succession's Red Wedding episode was amazing. It's obvious in hindsight that everything that happened this episode was going to happen, they have been setting Tom up for this since the beginning of the series, so I don't think it was shocking at all. It's brilliant but not shocking.
The devil works hard, but Logan Roy works harder. The man doesn't give a crap about anyone but himself. What's so ironic is Logan claimed he wants to see killer instinct in his children but the second they try to make boss moves he cuts them off at the legs. This should have been the moment he was waiting for - his kids finally realizing they're stronger together. But at the end of the day Logan doesn't want anyone to succeed him. He is also such a big hypocrite – while, yes his kids should've tried to succeed and made their own money, they can't because all of their lives Logan keeps them emotionally dependent on him. For all three seasons, he had them thinking they could finally win his approval, as long as they did everything he said, only to learn that it will never be enough. He was using his own children, only to throw them away once he saw the best deal for himself.
Can you really change the terms of the divorce that happened twenty years ago?
The scene with Kendall coming clean to his siblings was the catharsis he desperately needed. And the way it took all of Roman's strength to stand up to his dad, but then boom, Logan fucks them all as usual.
Connor repeating that he's the eldest son was funny. I sometimes forget there's a fourth Roy kid.
Tom stabbing Shiv in the back makes perfect sense after all the shit he put up with her. She was all shocked pikachu face because she is so unbelievably unaware and lacks any self-awareness. She kept underestimating how awful her relationship with Tom has become. The look in Shiv's eyes at the end was brutal - the anger and hatred of it all. I hope we are getting Gone Girl next year! Tom is probably the worst character on the show - the Roys were brought up by their terrible father and mother to be cruel and horrible, they don't know any better. But Tom worked to get here. Yes, he loves Shiv, but I do not think he would've kept swallowing her treatment of him if it wasn't for her rich family that gave him job, money, and status.
Roman looked so broken, practically in tears, when he asked Gerri for help but she betrayed him as well. I'm glad the writers didn't play into the shippers with them (they still went a little over the board this season) and actually gave us an interesting story there.
Season 3 was rather drowsy in comparison to previous ones, especially season 2, which is basically flawless. Not a lot really happened outside of the demise of Kendall (again). Season 3 never quite lived up to the plot it promised and the hype from the previous seasons. Season 2 ended so strong, set the expectation Kendall would become a 'killer', only to make him seem extremely incompetent and far from being ready to take down his dad. The whole thing has been as anticlimactic as they come. Jeremy Strong plays it well but at some point it's becoming tedious.
Season 3 has become so redundant. Every episode started to mirror the previous, and it was very obvious that the writers kept dragging the story, wanting to make the little progress in the final episode. All this build up and no execution. The senate hearing and Tom going to jail becomes ... nothing. The fed investigation - nothing. The search for new CEO - nothing. Search for the next president becomes...? Nothing there as well. During the whole season, they tee up these huge points constantly and then get cold feet approaching anything momentous.
I hope we see a more fast paced Season 4. This one was too much of a slow burn. I hope the creators do something with the plotlines they create next season, not just writing them off at the start of episodes in 10 minutes scenes. And most importantly, I hope they force the characters into highly unfamiliar territory.
I do enjoyed this movie I think the story is very interesting and pretty original I love the way they build up this apocalyptic world I also love how they really just don't bother telling you how anything happened it's not really important to the story of the movie how we got to this point
I enjoy the main villain he feels very cartoonish at times but at the same time he's very menacing it's a interesting blend
the movie is way too long though so many things could be cut down that are just not that important to the story I mean it feels like at least 30 40 minutes into the movie before the main character even gets the idea to become the post man which is kind of ridiculous if you think about it
there's also a lot of really overly dramatic action sequences where they slow it down with intense music to try to get some kind of emotional reaction a lot of times it just felt like too much and became comical to me
and a lot of times the action is filmed weird they cut away at certain moments that make certain deaths feel less important or brutal when they should feel that way
overall I do like the world building I do like how we get a lot of different characters and only get to see them over the course of time to see them build relationships with each other
the grand feel of the movie
but the tone gets lost several times throughout the movie
This episode was insane, so much happened! I can't believe it's the 8th episode, and finally something happened this season. The focus of season 3 being more on the company, not on the family is a minus for me because we know the Roys can’t lose the company, otherwise the show would be over.
Best episode of this season. I don't even know where to begin:
"Happiest Man/Bullet Proof Candidate" - How Connor proposed to Willa at his siblings' mother's wedding, and then pretending Willa accepted the marriage proposal. So much cringe.
"I may not love you, but I do love you" - The real tea is that Shiv meant every single word she said to Tom during their ‘dirty talking'.
"Your father never saw anything he loved that he didn’t wanna kick it just to see if it would still come back." - Shiv and her mom scene was amazing. So much hatred and hurt being shown.
The Kendall/Logan dinner scene! Logan used his grandson as a royal taste tester, he's truly a monster.
Shiv trying to get both Roman and Geri out the way by weaponizing the harassment against Gerri is a next level snake move. She is the most awful girlboss feminist ever.
I'm not interested in any Greg storyline. It seems to me the writers don't know what to do with him so they just put him in this random dull side plot that nobody cares about.
Why do people think Kendall died? As if the show would go there and lose one of their stars. That's actually my biggest problem with season 3 - the show just seems afraid to walk through any of the doors it opens. It doesn't want to disappoint fans with the direction it takes, do anything interesting, or follow through.
I can't believe we only have 1 episodes left and everyone is basically still on the sides we started out at. This season was promoted like there would be a split in the group, a war, like characters would be stabbing each other in the back, but nobody ended up joining Kendall, they're really turning him into a caricature this season, he has been taking Ls for the past like 7 episodes. Season 3 is definitely not nearly as good as season 2, what is basically a perfect season of television.
There are a lot of promises made with that first episode that we do not get any satisfactory explanation for by the last episode. This is not a good way to make me excited for any future seasons, it only makes me feel obligated to watch it again. I really believe it could have been written to give a much better cliffhanger at the end.
This show is what you get from people who have been listening to too much "true crime" podcasts and think they are creative enough to reverse-engineer several 'thriller' threads into a retconned mess.
There's really not enough written for a proper TV show, giving it a surreal "high school life play" instead of a developed franchise. For example, the material comfort of the plane crash survivors is never really shown to degrade. They say they've been out there for weeks, but they are never really uncomfortable; for crying out loud, they are still wearing clean clothes by the last episode!! None of them lost their suitcases, so they all had their own pillows, blankets, and even managed to keep their formal clothes clean after several months of being out there. I really don't think it is too much to ask for Showtime to hire some of consultants to advise on some of the base-level deprivation they would have faced. I suppose I could be biased because I've watched every season of Alone and am amazed at how skinny those people get after only a few weeks in the woods.
Based on almost everything I've read this is going to be a very unpopular opinion, but Yellowjackets oversold and under delivered. It was built up to be much more stark and heavy than it actually was. Season 1 is not a bad show at all but it is overlong and extra messy as a result. Feels like seven episodes would have been the magic number to tighten it up. But maybe the creators embraced the chaos? In the end, I'm not disappointed after watching Yellowjackets, I'm just nowhere near being as blown away by the season as I had expected to be. So that's why I say the show was oversold, because my hopes were exorbitant and it was just a good Showtime show. Nothing wrong with that.
This definitely feels like a show that will ultimately let me down with a lot of unanswered questions. Hopefully getting an early season 3 renewal helps the creatives plan things out well because there are a ton of plot holes not explained. I also feel like the writing is a little messier than people want to admit yet. But hopefully they'll pull it all together as the show progresses. I read that the showrunners have a 5 season plan and for me that’s too much for shows like this, three seasons would be perfect I think or I would have rather they made it a 13/15 episode series that combines season 1 and 2 instead of stretching it out to multiple series. I think this show would have been so much better as a limited series. It feels way too stretched and filled with cliche after cliche.
The most interesting part of the show is the mystery aspects, which they hook you very well with. The rest is nothing new and somewhat predictable. Lord of the Flies with girls + cannibalism. I disliked the Doomcoming episode’s handling of shrooms and sacrifices. The orgy, chase, and shrooms scene felt too Riverdale for my tastes.
I thought the finale of season 1 was decent but not amazing. The bear dying with just one stab was very unrealistic, the ghostly figure in the cabin came across more corny than anything and the whole reunion felt more like filler. Jackie's death was very well done in terms of tragedy and was dramatic enough to be haunting Shauna as badly as it still does. Although, I wish they had fleshed out the reasons for why the group despised Jackie’s guts besides her being a weakling and sleeping with Travis? She’s never been a mean girl, annoying and pretentious for sure, but not enough to warrant that much heat.
Misty is by far the most interesting character, a complete psychopath. I think she's managed to weaponize the perception of herself as someone who is socially inept and very needy of positive attention - the person she was before the crash - while actually still being that person, but only with her fellow teammates. Juliette Lewis was kind of hard to watch (not in a character way).
I know it's not really a show about survival, but the fact that everyone still looked fresh faced and washed all the time after being there for a month was kinda distracting. I can't get over how nicely Van has healed, or even how the hell she survived that wolf attack. She has no medical care and is not eating adequately to promote healing. Nat somehow doesn't have her roots grown in, even though they showed a scene of her younger with darker hair so she clearly wasn’t meant to be a natural blonde.
Wish I had been watching each episode week to week. There’s more of a chance to think about and reflect about what just happened, as well as build anticipation for the rest of the series.
I'm just now getting around to watching this season. I must watch and read too many things with tech, crime, and other stuff because the first things I said as I was watching this (Yes, I talk back to my TV. Don't judge me!):
* Unless they somehow needed to test the long-term effects of humans in space, why were the replicas not up there? Just a few things there would be no need for:
- pressurizing the craft
- oxygen
- heat (unless the instruments require it)
- food and water
- space suits
- waste disposal
* No security for the families back on Earth? Everyone knows the replicas are there. Plenty of wackos out there...
* No DNA security for the tags?
* Before the first switch, I would have established a code word/phrase with my wife to ensure she KNOWS who is in my shell. (And I would speak it first thing when I "arrived" so she did not have to prompt me because that would let David know there IS a code word/phrase he needs to beat/torture out of Cliff should the time come.)
* After the first "You know you want this", my wife starts carrying a concealed handgun - or the swaps stop immediately. Oh, and you sleep in the barn - you're not allowed in the house until you're ready to break the link. You're here to paint, so PAINT!
* The chair push at the end, as if to say, "NOW we can talk because we've both suffered a tragic loss"? Nope. You've just made it so I can never return to Earth. I have no family now AND there's no way I can prove that I DIDN'T DO IT! I'm straight-up murdering you and blowing this station up!
Just my thoughts...
The pursuit of masculinity through fantasy.
It's undoubtedly about masculinity, hence the incessant competition between them about who is the better husband or who has the better body (the characters working out is such an important thread throughout), but I'm not entirely sure on what I get out of this just yet. I've seen some reviews that call it outright feminist and a satire on the 1960's working man/housewife dynamic but I disagree and think it's focusing on the fantasy that can creep up in lonely/lost men's heads...
If you actually think about it, these are men that can leave their problems behind by literally leaving the planet at a click of button - which is kinda hilarious in concept - so they are already living in a fantasy land (hence the choice for outer space, charlie brooker a flat earther?? all the fisheyes seemed like he couldn't help but drop hints and space denial would fit the themes/point of the episode damn perfectly) but it obviously zooms further into the fantasy idea with one of the protagonists by exposing him at his most vulnerable (not long after he lost his entire family) to a utopian lover, home and kid that the other guy seems to take for granted. This is where the plot's core really begins, and shows how an emotional (in this case heavily grieving) man is not far away from being an unstable man. Not only does he get near to sleeping with his space partner's wife very quickly but also immediately gets possessive with her to the point where he murders her just so another man won't have her (which in itself is covered in irony since he is already the replacement).
This episode is extremely allegorical, in pure Black Mirror fashion - I tried to find one for pornography (addiction) but it didn't take me long to realise that one's a stretch.
I want to watch it again very soon to find more though.
5.5/10 - F*** me, that was a dark ending... :o
The scenery was kinda nice (especially the cool roads to drive along :D) but also so liveless and cold. I don't think that I could spend much time there. Maybe some hikes and road trips between visiting larger cities but without more sun it felt a bit depressing the whole time (the pretty much untouched nature is beautiful though).
I mainly lacked the connection to modern technology though - this was more of a "retro" episode.
(Even the name "Twitter" is already outdated :D Interestingly there was a Netflix reference and not just Streamberry.)
"Aye, I'll put the crowbar on whisper mode." - At least that was briefly funny :D
"I uh... don't think we need the lemon juice." - until it got very dark again...
"I don't have any proof. I think I've always known."
What a twist!!!
I was freaking out at the end and could barely watch! I had to emotionally disconnect myself from Pia (treating her as a fictional, stupid person) as I just couldn't handle it anymore (being scared every second).
I saw the following options:
Anyway, when it was finally game over for her I was relieved that I could brief again and it didn't really hit me as it was just too stupid to be believable. Yes, that could happen but it's super unlikely that one would trip over completely AND not use ones hands too counteract the fall and avoid such major injuries.
(And walking through water is stupid anyway from a tactical perspective (too dangerous, could make too much noise, difficult to hear other's noises due to the water, makes one too visible, etc.).)
I felt really bad for Davis though! He lost everything... :o
And it's so sick that these tourists even wear similar masks!!!
At least I got to hear Richard Ayoade's very nice/funny voice at the end (gotta focus on the positive things) :) I love that voice and accent <3
The meanest thing I could say about this movie is ‘Has extreme Don’t Worry Darling energy’.
I have never seen a movie more desperate to justify itself. It’s trapped in this endless neurosis over what it is- a blockbuster Barbie movie in 2023 by an acclaimed art house director that is fun but also deep but also earnest but also self aware but also but also but also. Every point it raises it brings up a counterpoint to before the audience can, every frame is trying to prove it’s not just product but art. It’s never just Barbie. It’s never confident or even comfortable in its skin. You cannot for a second be immersed in Barbie because it’s not a story so much as a visual dissertation without a central thesis, it’s a student film riffing on the big dogs hoping it’s underdog audacity will carry it but given a budget in the millions. It so desperately wants you to like it, to know it’s in on the joke too.
Everythng is an ouroboros here: an endless loop of argument and counterarguement feeding itself. Isn’t it shitty how the Mattel boardroom is full of men? Ah, but isn’t it cool how Mattel’s acknowledged it with this niche? And it’ll mythologize Barbie’s creator but uh don’t worry she did tax evasion we know that, now let her impart into Barbie the experience of all women. Barbie helps women, Barbie hurts women, Barbie is told to be everything so isn’t she just like women, but it is better to be a creator than the idea, and in the end, hasn’t Barbie helped all these women? Oh uh why is this blonde white Barbie the centerpiece of it all and helping not only her diverse Barbie friends but a Hispanic woman and her daughter? Don’t worry we’ll have the daughter call her a white savior! But don’t worry we’ll have the mom say she’s not! It’s fascinating to watch, honestly. It’s a film that wants to prove to you so so bad that it works but it doesn’t and it knows it doesn’t and it knows you knows. It’s Gerta Gerwig wrestling with taking this job for an hour and a half.
The cast is more than game and able. Margot Robbie is doing her damndest to find the heart and soul in this role, and there’s one scene with an old lady near the end of the first act/beginning of the second that actually works, for just a moment, more than any of the big third act soliloquies or montages with emotional ballads. And as someone who’s seen Blade Runner 2049 and Drive, this is the best Ryan Gosling performance I’ve seen. The man commits and delivers a surprisingly compelling and entertaining antagonist. The movie can’t quite reconcile what he’s done with his ending, or tie it into the themes- is Ken letting go of Barbie and the need to define himself for or against her symbolizing the need for men to do the same, and if so, why play it so lightly and sympathetically?- but that’s not his fault. And the supporting cast are entertaining, but you just can’t have big laughs with a movie that feels like it’s constantly checking in the corner of its eye after every joke to see if you’re laughing, grin stuck in place. It’s not as funny or as smart as it wants to be, and the sad thing is, it feels like it knows that too.
There is some great set design, cinematography, dazzling choreography, popping colors, and some fun high points. But I can’t imagine many kids liking it. And we’ve seen how conservatives have taken this movie. And anyone’s who’s progressed beyond the politics of. Well. A feminist blockbuster Barbie movie will find it cloying or condescending or just incredibly basic. It’s aimed at a very specific crowd who will buy what it’s saying, the liberals who see corporate feminism as progress, who agree that it’s just about a little change sometimes, who are ready for something just a little more complex than a SNL sketch. I don’t regret seeing it, because I was deeply engaged the whole time seeing it struggle at war with itself, in pain for its whole existence. It’s not a boring movie by any means. It wants to say everything before the audience can say it first. It’s the endpoint of The Lego Movie and Enchanted- the corporations interrogating and justifying themselves, and the cracks in this formula are too large to ignore. It wants to be so much, and the attempt is as darkly mesmerizing as a fly thinking it can somehow and someway metamorphize into a butterfly and suffocating and struggling in its makeshift cocoon, but this is one Barbie that fundamentally just cannot break out of its box.
Man oh man is this freaking good. Richard Gadd is immensely impressive for writing and starring in this true story based on his own life, not to mention how this serves as an example of taking power back over your trauma. It's not only great for the story surrounding its development, but the final product is one of the most well-crafted shows we've gotten this year. The writing is sharp, the pacing is perfect in the way that it reveals things as you need to know them and not too soon or too late, the characters are filled to the brim with complexity and layers, and all around form an editing and production standpoint this thing rocks. It has genuinely creepy and tension-filled moments that are expertly crafted and the show keeps you so intrigued from start to finish. Gadd's performance is amazing, and Jessica Gunning is STELLAR. Might just be the best performance of the year so far?? Baby Reindeer is a show that takes the stalker idea and turns it into something so much more that that and something so unique. It has some really heavy stuff and some very hard to watch and difficult scenes, but I commend it for not backing down and highlighting real life horrors as they are and as things that we need to be aware of. A fantastic character exploration and overall just so intriguing, real, and powerful.
Why did the writers feel the need to give Mon Mothma (one of a total of two ongoing characters that are likable, along with Adria Arjona's) some kind of 'middle aged feckless, incompetent weeb' husband-boy? Like, what is the point? Do they have any idea what they are attempting, or are they just making a mess of things because they don't have a real story to tell?
And why the hell is he just fully adorned in Japanese clothing and accoutrement? It's not even mythologized. The Jedi robes are a take on samurai robes, but it's just inspired by that, not taken-- in this case, literally --from whole cloth. Again, someone(s) doesn't understand Star Wars world building, or fantasy world building in general. It would be funny to see yet another Caucasian man in full-on traditional Japanese attire if it wasn't so distracting.
And then we have the "Rebels". The Tie fighters could have strafed their entire camp, killing everyone, including Cassian, and it would have elicited no more than a shrug from me. Never have I seen such a boring, uncharasmatic, and passively unlikable set of characters in a Star Wars property. I at least actively disliked the 'Resistance'. And I know I like Diego Luna. I loved him in Rogue One. I saw him in a trailer where, with a single reaction and look he showed how charming he is, and there's not a bit of that life in the Cassian of his, supposedly, own show.
I think I'm done. I know Andy Serkis shows up later this season, but I just don't care now. And I don't trust anyone who hasn't been conflicted with the show up until now. It's just the sequels and Mando all over again, but with every bit of charm squeezed out of the lead in a tryhard attempt to be "gritty". Yeah, that's what RO was supposed to be. Maybe Edwards accomplished it, maybe not, we'll probably never know. But this isn't the way to go about it.
Call me if they pull another "Kylo kills Han Solo" moment. I could finally use a laugh to release the pent up disappointment.
[7.6/10] What if you like everything in concept, but not in execution? Structurally, I appreciate the finale of Sharp Objects a lot. It basically gives us a little red riding hood situation, where we see Camille playing the “what big eyes you have” game with her mother until Richard, the woodsman, comes by to save her. Then we get an extended epilogue, one that seems to wrap things up nicely, put Camille and Amma in a place of stability and healing, only for the series to pull the rug out from under us one last time at the end.
Hell, I even like that reveal a lot. Amma as the killer not only makes sense from the clues we’ve gotten -- her being friends with the victims, Ashley Wheeler’s comment that the killer would have to want to be popular, the erratic behavior, the obvious feints that only a man could commit this crime -- but it also makes sense as a pathological echo of Adora. We learn, in grave detail in “Milk”, that Adora’s munchausen mom routine was to make her daughters believe that they needed her, that she was their one source of solace and care, no matter how grown or capable they got.
It makes sense, then, that Amma would be the deadly flipside of that. When she sees another girl getting attention from the woman who’s supposed to be showering affection and love on her, she eliminates that rival. John Keene talks about how Adora never gave up on his sister. It’s easy to see how, given the already warped upbringing that Amma had, she would turn cruel and desperate to eliminate any threat to her as the center of Adora’s world.
When she goes away with Camille, it’s meant to be an escape from that, an exit from the toxic environment that Adora fostered within her home, and an embrace of something healthier with the sister who understands her pain in a way no one else can. Instead, it’s the chance for a repetition of the same routine, only this time, Camille’s simple note of approval for Amma’s new friend is the tip off for Amma to return to her old ways, and to take out anyone who might cause her star to shine a little brighter.
We even get a tag showing how Amma is the woman in white, a reflection of the infantilizing gowns that Adora dresses her girls in when she’s “healing” them. That, coupled with the extended exploration of why and how Adora does what she does, wraps almost everything up surprisingly neatly for a show that threatened to lose itself in ambiguity and nebulous symbolism.
And yet, it left me somewhat cold for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it’s just that the final confrontation with Adora felt like a fait accompli that dragged on for too long, While Camille falling on the grenade that is Adora’s “love” in an effort to save Amma is noble, the show just rubs the audience’s nose in the continued poisoning and abuse beyond what feels necessary.
Maybe that’s a good thing though. I will say full out that Sharp Objects made me uncomfortable in that act. There’s a soft brutality to everything we witness in Adora drugging and poisoning her daughters -- the march of years that lets us understand how, in her own deranged way, Adora views it as a kindness compared to her own mother’s treatment of her. It is hard to watch Camille struggle under that, to see the flashes of images of the pain it’s caused her, for so long.
But maybe that’s the point, to put the viewer in as parallel a state of discomfort as the meager flash of pixels on a screen can manage until the catharsis of a rescue comes. There’s aesthetic beauty in the violet and lilac flashes of light beaming onto the ceiling where Camille is gazing up as she once did with her poor murdered sister. There is symbolic weight to the fans that were constantly whirring in Wind Gap coming to an unexpected halt in Chief Vickery’s home on the day when those structures, those cycles, that had been held in place so long are seemingly ended.
And there is warmth in the aftermath, before the wind is robbed of our sails, when Camille returns home to her editor, pens her great story, and seems to start a new, better life that lets her reckon with her past and forge a new future. The relationship between Camille and Frank Curry is loving and sweet and familiar in a way that makes for the polar opposite of her relationship with her actual parent. The scenes the two share, of the life removed from all the ugliness and damage of Wind Gap with this new family, is a heartening one.
And yet it goes on too long, in a way that hints at the dark echo to come. It seems for much of that sort of extended epilogue that Sharp Object was wrapping things up. We get some Richard-led exposition about what Adora had done, a montage of sentencing and spiritual escape, and these scenes to let us think that things are going to be alright. There’s enough of an air of finality to make you wonder, “why haven’t they just ended this thing already if there’s not one more gut punch coming.”
Then it comes. It’s a solid, pulpy twist, one that allows Adora to have her comeuppance, but to reinforce the ongoing theme of this mini-series that the damage these women have passed down to one another is not so easily sidestepped or set aside just because of where you are or aren’t. The creative (if sometimes overly florid) shooting style, the impeccable acting from all sides, and that final twist come together commendably to deliver the idea.
It just feels like less than the sum of its parts somehow, something to be admired from a distance more than held to one’s chest. It may just be the cruelty or toxicity at the heart of the show, something deliberate in the DNA of the miniseries that is deliberately and intentionally off-putting and hard to watch at times. Or maybe it’s just the distinctiveness of the mini-series, the way it doesn't follow the usual rhythms of either film or television but instead wallows and wafts through its beats and characters.
Still, it earns that admiration in the end, for achieving what it sets out to do, even if it isn’t pleasing. Camille’s victory, her quick attempt at sacrifice, and unexpected rescue and deliverance, ultimately proves a mixed or even hollow one, having helped put away one killer but fostered another. Perhaps that sweetness mixed with bitterness, the kind Adora would approve of, isn’t meant to go down easy, for her or for us.
[7.4/10] “Falling” comes down to two major developments, one of which I buy completely, and the other which makes very little sense to me.
The first is the a three-fold reveal that (1.) Adora is munchausen by proxy, (2.) it’s what killed Marion, and (3.) the whole town knew about it. It’s a plausible story on each count. We’ve seen Adora essentially infantilizing her girls the whole way through, treating Amma as a much younger girl than she really is, and even treating Camille like she’s still an unruly kid in many ways. There’s a dependence, a traditional role as mother, than I can buy her wanting to occupy no matter what.
Hell, it also helps explain Amma’s behavior to some extent. Beyond just the usual forms of teenage rebellion, there’s an equal and opposite reaction to being treated like a child below your years that leads to strained, fun-house mirror efforts to be more of an adult. The dollhouse, the old-fashioned prim clothing, the practical nursing from Adora all create a solid cause for Amma to both like it a little but try to prove, if only to herself, that she’s not the helpless, infantile creature her mother makes her out to be.
It works as an account for the division between Camille and her mother as well. Camille had a mind of her own -- like John Keene says that the two butchered girls did -- and it made her resistant to Adora’s conditioning. Young Camille wouldn’t acquiesce to the poisoning, to the role that her mother wanted her to play, and to help Adora channel the role that she herself wanted to play. It is the move, the “proper” position, that has defined Adora’s life, and Camille, very innocently and understandably, wouldn’t let it happen, creating a domino effect of mutual resentment that persists to this very day.
Then there’s Marion’s death -- the fatal illness that seemed to come out of nowhere. It helps explain the exalted innocence that everyone speaks of Marion in terms of -- the perfect, pliant little girl who never got to grow up. The guilt springs forth from that innocence corrupted, and a cycle emerges, of Adora needing something to fill that space, but treating her work, her legacy, and the stain on each with a certain holiness. It adds tragedy, martyrdom, to the sister who Camille has been mourning since she died.
The same goes for the town’s silent complicity. Chief Vickery knew. Jackie knew. Alan knew. But nobody would stop her, would disrupt Wind Gap’s efforts to maintain the dignity and power structure that had kept the town afloat and humming for so long. Wind Gap always had the atmosphere of an idyllic (or at least once-idyllic) place with a darkness running through it. That darkness comes in the form of a secret everyone knows but nobody speaks of, let alone does something about, lest the forces that control the town, or conspire with them to maintain the status quo, come down on whatever peon might try to rock the boat.
In short, it fits. It fits the warying sense of abuse that pervaded Adora’s home, the uncomfortable images of the past, and the streak of black, impotent complicity that’s run through the town from the first moment we laid eyes on it.
What doesn't fit is Camille deciding to sleep with John Keene, after she tracks him down for a quote. Maybe it’s just that John Keene has kind of been a big nothing in Sharp Objects, to where, to be quite honest, I had trouble distinguishing him from the other random shmoes who would pop up from time to time. I’m not saying that the series could not have built to Camille going full Carrie Matheson with this, but it feels like it comes out of nowhere.
The best that “Falling” can offer is an explanation that the two of them both know what it’s like to be suicidal after the loss of a sister. That makes sense as a concept, but in practice, it doesn't feel like there’s enough of a connection between the two of them as we’ve seen them to justify any romantic or lustful feelings, let alone ones that allow Camille to let her guard down and make herself the most vulnerable and intimate she’s been with anyone when she’s with a near-stranger.
It honestly feels more like the show needed something dramatic to raise the stakes in its penultimate episode. Camille not only getting caught by Chief Vickery in a compromising position with the prime suspect in the murder case she’s investigating, but then getting caught near en flagrante by her pseudo boyfriend, comes off like cheesy soap opera catnip. There’s nothing wrong with cheesy soap opera catnip, but it’s a far stretch from the liminal, severe tone that Sharp Objects seems to want to strike, which makes the whole escapade seem discordant.
Still, it points us in the direction of Camille being at her wits end, having been shamed by the police officer who’s aligned with her mother and rejected by the man who seemed to harbor genuine affection for her (despite creepily violating her privacy by digging up medical stuff about her). In that moment, burnished by the same revelation of what happened to her sister, and reinforced by a desperate phone call to her editor and quasi-father figure, she seems messed up enough to do something extreme.
Could that mean killing her own mother? Could that mean blaming her for the deaths of those girls? The flashes that Camille sees -- of Adora as the woman in white, of Amma as some sacrificial lamb, of the dark things lurking behind the walls of the home Adora made in both real life and in miniature -- suggest that’s the reckoning we’re heading toward. But Camille’s flashes of premonition have been wrong in the past, and it feels like Sharp Objects has at least one good twist left in it.
Still, what we know of Adora’s deeds suggests she’s worthy of some punishment, some justice, whether she or John Keene is the real culprit of the recent killings. It’s just a shame that the show had to contort Camille’s character and convenience to get her to the point where she’d realize that.
[7.8/10] I mentioned earlier that a big chunk of Sharp Objects reminds me of Twin Peaks. Well, “Cherry” reminds me much more clearly of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, the cinematic follow-up/prequel to the television show that is as much a portrait of abuse and denial as it any sort of plot continuation. Sharp Objects has been about many of those same things -- the corruption of innocence and “the evil that men do” (or at least that people do) -- but the final sequence of “Cherry” puts that idea into relief.
The most compelling piece of “Cherry” is its final fifteen minutes or so where Camille, feeling discombobulated after her mom’s devastating pronouncement, her tryst with Richard, and her odd reconnection with her high school peers, gives in to her little sister’s world. The ensuing, hauntingly-edited phantasmagoria as Camille takes ecstasy and follows Amma through the local scenes of teenage debauchery are haunting and compelling in the same way that the pink room sequence in Fire Walk with Me is.
There’s the same sense of giving into hedonism as an escape from boredom and the looming shadow of something unknown and ominous in the background. There’s the same sense of having lured someone into that world, only to be afraid at how far things might go. And there’s the same haunting flashes of something that may be supernatural, or which may just be a psychological horror, that taint the edges of the frame and put everyone in a state of unease.
As the music, the imagery, the atmosphere combine to create something both inviting and foreboding, Amma and Camile’s drug-fueled interlude is the showpiece of the episode, and the part of it that grabs you and wraps you in the show’s elliptical headspace for minute after minute.
The catch is that the episode spins its wheels for much of the lead up to that point. Camille has a predictable reunion with her old high school “friends” who have stereotypical “live laugh love”-style lives and opinions. There’s the sense that this is all an act, one upheld by communal expectation, but it’s not especially interesting, and Sharp Objects has done it better elsewhere.
It’s also done the whole symbolism thing better elsewhere. In a post-high school reunion catch-up session, the sole woman in that coven Camille can actually connect with lays the “cherry” metaphor on way too thick. We get it -- the “juicy on the outside/dark pit on the inside” thing is made clear without having a character spell it out. And by the same token, the flashbacks and nods toward Camille’s past in the town don’t do much beyond outline things the audience could already have surmised without the show signposting it so hard.
That’s the thing, it captures that sense of sweetness and innocence on the outside but something dark lurking on the inside much better in the simple interactions between Camille, her mother, and her little sister. The distance between what’s presented in public and what a person feels deep down is colored by the private and public faces of all the Crellin women. The one illuminating bit we have in all of this is that Adora’s mother was herself emotional abusive, suggesting that the original sin did not start with Adora, but rather is something her family has been processing, and being corrupted by, for generations.
The other illuminating piece of plot, or at least whodunnit clue, is Ashley Wheeler’s declaration that John Keene couldn’t have murdered those girls because he doesn't want to be popular. I’ll cop to nursing a few theories about the killer. Amma’s friendship with the two deceased girls, and her apparent leap in popularity, suggest her involvement. And Adora and the chief’s more than friendly relationship, in addition to the power that Adora wields over Wind Gap, suggests a motherly cover-up. Even if that’s all wrong (and I’d put my confidence at about 30%), it suggests the same sort of curdled blackness beneath the pristine image of youth and vigor the town seems obsessed with.
Then there’s Richard’s pretty creepy digging into Camille’s past. I don’t know how to feel about this, because on the one hand, it feels like a massive invasion of privacy for his pseudo-girlfriend. The idea of asking around, conning his way into a mental hospital, and digging up that sort of dirt rather than just asking directly feels shady as all hell. On the other hand, if she, and it, are relevant to this ongoing investigation, then maybe it’s justified. But if that’s the case, then he definitely shouldn’t be flirting/dating/sleeping with her. So Richard, who’s seemed like one of the few decent people in this thing, adds to his moral gray area a little bit.
But the moral gray area is still firmly present for Adora and the chief, who huddle about the little girl’s bike fished out of the lake near Adora’s hog processing facility, in a way that suggests cover-up or at least P.R. It leads to a contretemps between Camille and Adora, and a turning point to where Adora tries to use Alan to get rid of Camille. It goes about as well as anything does for Alan, but hints at Adora reaching a breaking point, or worrying that Camille or Richard or someone is getting too close to the truth, or becoming too much of an influence on Amma.
Maybe that last part is true. It feels much more like Amma is corrupting Camille than the other way around, but as the pair give into their wide-worn drug trip, the show seems to suggest each of them being pulled down together toward something dark. There is release an escape for both of them in their psychotropic adventure, but also the sense of it as a last resort, an effort to put a wall up between them and something frightening, a wall that can only last for so long before something peeks in through the cracks. That same sense of ominous gravity, of inescapable darkness, fueled much of Fire Walk with Me, and this spiritual successor seems poised to show its heroes consumed in the same sort of flames.
[9.2/10] Ten minutes into “Closer”, Adora has taken both of her daughters to a dress shop to pick out something more festive to dress Camille in for the local celebration. After a thin attempt to force Camille to try on the clothes her mother’s sartorial representative has picked out for her, and a predictable standoff, Camille walks out of the dressing room in her underwear.
Her scars are exposed for her mother to see, and Adora is predictably aghast. It is both a “fuck you” and moment of vulnerability. The exposure of the results of her self-harm is meant to be an act of defiance, but it just gives Adora an opportunity to wound her child more deeply. After being assured that Camille’s cutting days are over, Adora responds, “It hardly matters. You’re ruined.”
It is a horrifying thing to say to anyone, let alone for a mother to say to her daughter. It is a visceral rejection, causing visible frustration and a near-breaking points for Camille. It firmly establishes what prior episodes only suggested -- that Adora is not just a terrible mother to Camillle; she is a terrible person.
And then, somehow, she tops herself.
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a line more horrifying, more heartless, more thoughtlessly cruel than Adora telling Camille that she inherited her father’s nature and explaining that it’s “why I never loved you.” She means it as an absolution, a way of saying that it isn’t Camille’s fault, just the passed down sin of a man Adora could excise from her life, or at least keep at a distance, in a way she could not do with Camille. She means it to be sweet, in its way, as a thank you to Camille for finding Amma, to give her “comfort” and explanation for how she’s been treated all these years.
This is Livia Soprano-level maternal malevolence. It’s made worse by the fact that, at least by all appearances, this isn’t the sort of two-faced manipulation that Adora deploys to, for example, try to scare Richard away from her daughter. It’s meant to be an earnest bit of kindness, to put Camille at ease. And that fact just makes the statement itself all the more jaw-droppingly awful, and Camille all the more pitiable for having to hear it.
Those two scenes bookend what could be considered the masterpiece of Sharper Objects were it not merely episode 5 of the season. The Calhoun Festival makes the perfect backdrop to tie, however briefly, all of the storylines floating around Wind Gap together in one bizarre, disturbing festival. The show uses the excuse of having all the major characters occupying the same space to touch on the character relationships, the murder mystery, the toxic social hierarchy and mores of the town, and the historically rotten wood the place was built on.
There’s so many sharp little scenes in the swelling of crowd and intermingling of people amid the festival. Tastefully brief flashbacks give texture to the high school web of faux-friendships and sexual power plays and veiled insults that still fuel the adults today. The various scenes show these same attitudes permeating the generations, as the teenagers flirt and backbite; the adults offer-come ons and put downs to one another, and even the elder generation snipes behind one another’s backs and ogles old (or current) flames just the same as the younger ones, while everyone puts on airs.
But how could they not? “Closer” puts Wind Gap’s founding story in relief through the younger generation. It’s a horrifying tale of a child bride of a confederate soldier who’s glorified for enduring brutal rape rather than give up the whereabouts of her husband. The only thing more disturbing than the tale itself is the bowdlerized, lionizing recreation of it put on by a pack of middle school students, made all the worse by the way the play’s grown director leers at his underage star and projects his feelings and memories of his teenage dalliances with her sister onto the tableau.
With that, Sharp Objects suggests that this place has been built on these horrible ideals from the beginning. While the gap between Adora and the great great grandparent represented in that play is unknown to us, the implication is that, like the cold nature Adora accuses her daughter of having inherited from her father, the denizens of Wind Gap, and the Crellin girls in particular, have had this wrong-footed weighing of good and evil passed down to them from generation to generation, poisoning each new one as it poisoned the last.
All the while, “Closer” builds the tension of the scene, showing small interactions, simmering resentments and restrained bits of anger, that seem like they could blow up at any minute. Bob Nash and Richard have contretemps. Ashley Wheeler express her anger at Camille for leaving her out of her writing. Adora beckons Richard into the house to sever his connection to her daughter. The local hound dogs and magpies bark and squawk at one another. And all the while, Camille’s story on the murders is floating in the background, creating even more tension and suspicion.
That’s before it’s revealed that Amma and a boyfriend took acid before their performance. The combination of score and editing do a superb job of not only conveying the thudding, paranoid sense of Amma’s impaired perception of these events, but of ratcheting that tension up using only sound and stitched-together glances and glimpses around this scene. It all comes tumbling out when Bob interrupts the climax of the play to beat John Keene, giving Amma cover to run away from the crowd in her drug-fueled fright.
It’s a masterful set of sequences that feed into one another and reach a climax just in time. That’s what makes the quiet of the aftermath, the simple, even warm atmosphere between Camille and her mother seem like such an effective contrast. It is as though the excitement is over, as if this act of rescuing another lost daughter might be enough to start bridging the gap between Adora and Camille that has stretched between them for so long.
Instead, it is the final note of devastation. And yet, it becomes fodder for another act of defiance. Adora doubts that Richard would ever be willing to be closer with Camille given her condition. Camille proves her wrong by rushing into a moment of intimacy with the man Adora tried to drive away. Adora inflicts untold emotional pain on her daughter, so Camille goes to counteract it with pleasure. And Adora accuses her daughter of having a cold nature, one that not even a mother could love, so Adora seeks out that love, that care, that validation from the only one in this town to show her any kindness, to show that she is deserving of it.
That final intimate moment, while somewhat uncomfortable given the context, mirrors the dreadful play, and the tone of someone held in place. It is, whether we’re glad to see Camille and Richard together or not, the product of absolute miserableness projected from one generation to the next. And that parallel suggests that, for however much Camille meant to reject it, leave this place behind, to leave all that came with it behind, she is as subject to it as anyone, even as she tries so hard to expose and maybe even stop the horrors dressed up as kindness that Adora, and Wind Gap continue to put on display.
[8.2/10] Sense memory is powerful. We strain to remember dates or names or episodes of our lives in the abstract. But put us in a familiar room, years or decades later, and the images of the place, the ghosts who used to haunt it, wash over us, whether we’re reaching for them or trying to push them away.
“Vanish” is awash in sense memory. Newspaper reporter Camile Preaker returns to Windgap, Missouri, her rural hometown that feels frozen-in-time, and the tragedies and traumas she suffered there interject themselves back into her mind after so much effort to shut them out.
The first episode of Sharp Objects deploys its fair share of tropes. There is the hard-drinking investigator steeling themself against anguish with the blurry warm security blanket of clear liquids. There is the closed-ranks local police station which can nonetheless boast one hunky detective who seems to harbor a liking for our protagonist. There’s the decorum-focused, image-conscious mother who has tension with her once-rebellious daughter. And there’s the small town with a dark secret, the gruesome things not talked about beneath the image so many residents are trying to protect, that may or may not have been with Windgap for decades, despite the recent spate of murders that brought our hero home.
But the miniseries not only grounds these familiar beats and plots in impeccable performance and haunting images. It anchors them in a magnetic sense of place. Windgap, Missouri feels real. The stately but faded southern home that gives off the vibe of old money, the worn out town square, the local watering hole that boasts feeble karaoke, all evoke a certain truth.
But more than that, there is an oppressive hum to the place, a sense that there’s something harsh or unspeakable behind the walls everywhere Camille goes. For her, this town is suffused not only with bad memories, but with everything about a community and a life she was trying to escape. Director Jean-Marc Vallée and company capture the feeling of disturbia and second-hand melancholy that permeates the show’s backdrop, conveying, without words, the feeling that at any minute something could reach out through the sun-dappled leaves and drag you back under.
Camille tries desperately, despite that sense, to stay afloat. “Vanish” tells one story with her in the present, and firmly implies another one in the past. In the here and now, she has been sent to Windgap to write a story about one murder and the possibility of another. By episode’s end, two young girls have turned up dead, throwing the town into a state of pain and unrest by genteel standards, and Camille has the chance to use her investigative know-how to not only smoke out some suspects, but maybe to bore into a system that allows, if not fosters, such events.
With that, Sharper Objects has much the vibe of its HBO cousin True Detective, with a murder that motivates the story in the here and now, while implicating that the rabbit hole goes to deeper and more disturbing places than our initial glimpse reveals. It also, like that show, wraps that investigation up in the personal, as Camille returns home and jostles once again with her mother, Adora, with no small amount of tension and bad blood floating in the background of every interaction between them.
And yet, “Vanish” is just as concerned, if a little more opaque, with what happened in the past as what happened in the present. The episode gradually unspools the fact that Camille had a sister, Marian, that she was close to, who died. It communicates the notion that Camille and Marian had some refuge with one another from their mother, who had certain expectations and her own compulsions that weighed hard on her daughters. In its first hour, the miniseries is laudably content to hint at this dynamic, give it to us in dribs and drabs to where the feeling is as slowly present for us as it is for Camille.
At the same time, in the most elliptical aspect of this opening salvo, Sharp Objects hints that there’s a trauma in Camille’s past as a girl that is connected, spiritually if not literally, to what’s befallen the poor dead young women who brought her back to this place. Flashes of what looks like a rape den, images of her being intimidated and chased in the woods, all gesture toward some past incident that brought her perilously close to sharing the fate of those girls. That trauma seems to steep and mingle with the loss of her sister, coalescing into a cold ball of past pains that Camille seeks to drown in liquor to suppress.
All the while, there is a richness to “Vanish” that portends intriguing things for the rest of the eight-episode series. The first episode taps into the fraught relationship between mothers and daughters, and the friction between meeting the mutual expectations of that bond and trying to slough them off. There are hints at themes of female sexuality and presentation, both performative and private. There’s the sense of generational echoes, the way that towns age but the ills and pain points can linger from one era to the next.
And there’s the aim to escape the inescapable. That comes literally in the case of how Windgap somehow manages to bring its prodigal daughter back into the fold, but figuratively in how Camille’s unspokenly momentous exit did not rid her of the scars she suffered there.
In the golden hour shadows of that place, those scars ache anew. As the sound drips from her speakers as distraction and respite, trying to block it out, she is nevertheless reminded of what she tried to run from. As the spirits flow from bottle to lip, and past to present, there is the effort to numb, to neutralize, to forget. But returned to the place where such wounds were first inflicted, where such losses were suffered, no palliative can stifle that dull roar, vibrating in every rock and tree, reverberating through a town that still silently acknowledges the sound, and echoing in a house that long ago ceased to be a home, but still holds such power.
"Ogata, humans are weak animals. Even if I burn my notes, the secret will still be in my head. Until I die, how can I be sure I won't be forced by someone to make the device again?
"Oh Peace, Oh Light, Return... The prayer for peace that took place all over the country today... Here we see the Tokyo chapter of this event... Listen to the young voices as they put the strength of their lives into their song..."
"I can't believe that Godzilla was the only surviving member of its species... But if we continue conducting nuclear tests... it's possible another Godzilla might appear somewhere in the world again."
This is not a monster movie. This is not a Godzilla movie. This is a post-war horror film. This is a drama masterpiece that displays the horrors of nuclear weapons and the results such weapons have on the planet. Godzilla is a direct symbol of an atomic explosion. Godzilla is our fault. We did this to ourselves, and now we suffer the devastating consequences.
It's such a damn shame, even though I'm loving where the new Godzilla films are going with Kong Vs. Godzilla, we will never get an American Godzilla film this insanely deep or politically important. The closest Godzilla film that's gotten close tone wise to this is Gareth Edwards' masterpiece in 2014 and Anno's 2016's 'Shin Godzilla.' That film was about the horrors of the 2011 tsunami and incompetence of the Japanese government during that event.
The acting is perfect. The script is perfect. The music is perfect. The themes of post-war fear are perfect. It's groundbreaking. It's heartbreaking. It's amazing. It's the original Godzilla.
I wasn't expecting much going in, but this group out of NW Ohio was pretty notorious at the time. As eluded to in the film, they had attempted to take public office during the "Tea Party" movement which at the time was regarded by many as a racist movement. Ironically, the "tea nuts" are now the "maga" movement with most of them not able to recognize the cult they have been sucked into.
This group was notorious because the face tattoo was very prominent, even on the most junior members. It was a way to isolate them from everyone else, and it definitely worked. It's harder and harder to step away from something when your face is literally tied to the horrors of what it really means.
It's pretty raw. It shows the recruiting strategies and it shows how quickly they can become entrenched. Jamie Bell is magnificent. The film wasn't filmed in the original area, as far as I can tell, because the area they were known for while wooded was pretty flat. That didn't take away though and the flashing between the story and the tattoo removal really just poetic art showing how hard it is for those that want to leave. It's a huge commitment to themselves and a lot of the time it takes a commitment to people who enter their lives.
The film highlights most importantly that there are people that will help them out when they are ready. but it's not an easy process. No film I've seen to date captures that better. 10/10
An incredible example of what can be accomplished with little means. Everything takes place in a small mobile home, only two actors and the sound of rain, barely any movement, and yet the atmosphere created and the multiple hypothesis on what is happening are fascinating.
A man at home, bit of a recluse. A storm at night. A woman looking for help comes in. And as their conversation goes on, one can only try to guess what's happening.
He's weird. She's alone. She's naturally scared for her safety. Is he just trying to help ? Or keeping her there on purpose ? He offers drinks and food, is it safe ?
On the other hand, she's here out of nowhere. Her story is weird too, incoherent. There's probably a reason he lives like a recluse there, what if she was not here by chance ?
They both have something to hide. They both lie about some stuff. And the storm outside doesn't look natural. There are so many ways this could go and the tension is building the whole time. This is really amazing work.
Sadly the finish is not at the same level as what was built until then, but that does not diminish its quality.
I'm a bit disappointed that the most obvious and even cliche solution is the right one: he's a killer and she would be his next victim.
The final twist makes it a tad bit better but it falls in the lazy it was just a dream category even if not quite limited to that.
As for what it means, I'm assuming it was all in his head.
The girl has an incoherent story because she's not a specific girl but a mix of the memories of his victims, so their stories merge together. At some points she repeats stuff he said. And at another, when she mentions something he said, he replied he thinks she was the one to said it. But since it's in his head, all the words comes from him and it does not matter who said them.
There's no reason for him to have noticed she dropped the soup in the boots, unless he knows because one of his pas victims did it, which he could find out later.
In the first scene, he's looking at the drug hesitantly, it could be he was already planning a suicide (from the guilt of having killed again after so long without ?).
He also mentions how he doesn't sleep much because it's basically all nightmares and that visions don't stop when he stops sleeping. Couple with the whole sleepwalking song. So he's probably having this vivid nightmare and/or sleepwalking and sleepdrinking the drug.
One issue with that is that there are scenes that are from the girl only point of view but all of those are weird, she sees things that aren't there but maybe were ? Or will be ? Like the blood and her injuries.. That opened other possibilities in the initial build up, but fits weirdly afterwards.
Of course there's also the possibility it's all real and his victims' spirits came back to haunt him, but it feels a bit weird to push more supernatural than necessary in it.
I absolutely loved this movie, it's the kind of movie that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I grew up in a catholic household and one of my local priests was accused of pedophilia, everything about this movie felt so incredibly real. It's a story we've all heard before, yet when it's told by the victims and by those in the middle of it it becomes all the more powerful. The acting in this movie was superb, not just from the leads but from the side characters. The performances from the victims were fantastic and incredibly moving. The directing is so subtle and laid back, McCarthy lets the story do it's work without needing flashy visuals or incredible shots. The movie is so simple, and it lets it's story and acting be the center point, adding to the power. The score is perfect background music, it doesn't distract from the movie and fits perfectly into the background. I'm having a hard time thinking of anything I disliked about it, it was a little slow but that made it feel more real and worthwhile. It's easily my favorite film of 2015, passing Ex Machina. I almost never give movies 10/10, but this movie deserves it.
Such an odd movie. It's really a wonder it was ever made. Now, this is not me saying this was a bad movie - far from it.
So, what is this about? A mentally ill man believes his Real Doll, Bianca, to be alive, and his small town agrees to go along with his delusion.
I completely understand that the purpose of the story is that Lars is loved by the inhabitants of his town, and Bianca is acting as more of a plot device.
Anyway! Do not go into this looking for a comedy, you will be disappointed. This is a light-hearted drama. The subject matter is heavy, however the tone is very light, and walks a razors edge of recognizing that this is all rather weird, without falling into comedy.
Although this is well made, and I liked so much of it, from the acting, to the music, to the cold, grey atmosphere, there was not enough for me to latch onto. What it comes down to is we never get a full picture of what Lars' issues are. Aside from vague mentions of him being delusional - of course - and a very brief mention of his childhood. I'm surprised Cinema Therapy has not made a video about this film. Given the lack of character development for Lars, all I can deduce is he is a dismissive avoidant, who likely had an abusive father. Just not enough information. I get that this was not the story the writer wanted to tell, but I feel it fails for want of being optimistic.
Another one of them movie that tell us just how dumb the majority are. Like all stories in this vein it comes across half good story ideas and half personal rant. These movies (especially in these days of conspiracy) always find an audience of people who feel they are those awakened or smart individuals themselves. It becomes a personal movie and social commentary. These sci-fi movie tend to focus on the subject of personal intelligence (a reflection of the writer's frustration) rather than all aspects of society and a bigger picture. 1984 maybe being an exemption. It gets called a 'thinking person's movie' a lot on imdb. I find this this statement may be a bit of self projection for some viewers who feel like the characters in the movie. Mayne verging on intellectual pretentiousness, yet I do understand people's frustrations.
For me it's a sci-fi movie. I understand the social commentary but I've come to the conclusion in real life that it's not so much governments who are always the bad guys doing the dumbing down but people themselves willing to take the easy route because of human nature itself.
The movie itself is good. It's not too ranting and it's got some humour in it. The message gets a little tiring and the story could have done with some interesting turn of events.
I do NOT get why this movie gets so much love.
I get that it's not meant to be a historical movie. It's a revenge exploitation flick set in WWII, and the bad guys being the target of revenge here are the Nazis. I get that. At the same time, there's something so utterly morally corrupt about creating an unrealistic fantasy where badass Jews torture Nazis. It's the kind of thinking that has led to America using torture on captives: ultimate evil requires an equal response. It's so much against the ethos of the survivors of the Holocaust that it's embarrassing to watch. It's misguided revenge porn.
Ah, but if only the story that was being told was better. As it is, it's not so much a story as much as a sequence of masturbatory dialogues where Tarantino gets to feel clever about himself. People talk and talk and talk, and although there is an overlying sense of tension, it's so predictable every time it becomes tedious. There's just so many times we can watch a Nazi being passive aggressive with an undercover Jew before the shtick becomes boring, and each of these last so damn long... You get twenty whole minutes of a Nazi talking racist shit until the inevitable violence happens and Tarantino gets his money shot. We're talking porn-levels of sophistication, here, except it's about murdering evil Nazis.
It's well-directed for sure, and Christoph Waltz and Mélanie Laurent do an amazing job, but man, that script is a big pile of self-indulgent crap. And I say this as someone who loves early Tarantino.
First thing I noticed was how inefficient the dialogue was. It beats around the bush in an attempt to be more natural and meandering, but it's just the usual contrived Tarrantino style of doing so. The content of the dialogue isn't even character based for the most part, but just whatever just sounds cool or plot told in a straight forward boring way with no emotional connection to whoever is talking. Worst of all is that it's all completely predictable from Tarrantino. It's the same dialogue style and voice every movie now and with almost every character. His whole dialogue writing is a big style of substance trick. Many praise his dialogue. It entertains people. That's fine. It's not great character based dialogue. It's hollywood cool. It's aggresive and trashy chic. It's why Pulp Fiction worked. It was a perfect fit for that movie. The characters were visually striking in that movie and had a job or purpose, which made them individual - even with simular dialogue. Pulp Fiction also had some plot and pace. A great farce. I'm no hater of Tarrantino and will always give his films a watch.
The way the movie is shot is good.
The story is slow and uninteresting itself. It does nothing for me. It's not that I hate ridiculous stories, but even ridiculous stories can cleverly tell us something interesting underneath the stupidity. That's what makes writing and movies special. The ability to tell a storymore connect with a character.
What story is this? It's a collage of trash, not a parody of styles. This movie is a complete mess and sad to watch. And what a bore, just waiting for something to happen and being left with the plot.
Luckily I found this movie in a pound shop as I looked for cheap DVDs. That was still too much for this.
Tgis is an adolescent wannabe movie buff movie. Self projection in that Tarrantino likes movies and I like him, therefore I like movie just as much as Tarrantino and get him.
You will not find a more vile or offensive piece of anti-abortion propaganda out there. I don’t know how accurate this is, but apparently, the actors weren’t shown the entire script during production, but when they got their hands on it, they dropped out really fast. They didn’t know what they were involved in. Talk about propaganda.
Nick, man...you’ve gone on record saying you tried to portray both sides of the argument, and sure...time was given to both the pro-choice and pro-life sides, but it’s told through the veil of someone who sees pro-choicers as satan’s army. They are the “bad guys” so to speak. The entire atmosphere when they show up on screen is pretty menacing. Overbearingly so, and the pro-lifers are always seen with that soft, acoustic, innocent music...as they are all these angelic do-gooders, and with any good pro-life persuasion essay, you had to use the smoking gun of the argument, and went all out with shots of unnecessary gore. Here’s the thing. Abortion is not fun. It’s not supposed to be. Pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion. It’s also not supposed to be pretty. Heck, pregnancy and giving birth is also rather gory. Have even SEEN a placenta come out of a woman’s body? Well, I have. And I thought it was a liver and was appalled that doctors and nurses were casually removing it from my wife’s body!
The website for this film has a fact-checking list of things that did and did not happen in real life, and while I went through the list, I don’t think any of it is important. I never questioned what happened, that’s all well-documented. I just didn’t see it as menacing or malicious. One, politics are crooked with literally everything they do. I expect nothing less, but two...when these politicians went all out to try to suade the vote to pro-choice...I didn’t see that as deceit. I saw that as a vigilante act of someone trying to do what’s right for someone other than themselves.
Another thing...there is so much unnecessary exposition in this film. The director narrates everything, sometimes for no reason. Like, you see the supreme court justices voting on the case, and then the director narrates it by saying, and that's how they voted. I KNOW, MAN....I'm watching the movie, so I saw them do it, and this happens constantly, and I felt like I was being talked down to, like I was too dumb to understand the details of the scene. Let the scene flow organically. Tell the story, but don't go overboard.
And this is the last thing that I have to say, but probably most important. Any film on Roe v Wade or abortion AT ALL should only be written and directed by a female, NOT a conservative male. That is the last thing a story like this needs, and that’s exactly what we have in Roe v Wade. Even though I was born and spent half my life as a pro-lifer…I changed once I stopped thinking about myself – and I’ve come a long way...but no matter how far I go from now until the day I die, I will never be able to understand this topic as much as a woman would. Which is why a man should never direct a movie on abortion. No matter your political stance on it.
So, yeah.. I tried to be as professional and technical as possible, but guys...people watch film with bias. You can’t get away from it, and in this case, bias effects you more than anything else.
Stay away
I'm not so sure whether I've simply forgotten how to have fun with really stupid movies or whether Matthew Vaughn simply can't manage to make his truly dumb movies fun anymore. After 'The King's Man' and now 'Argylle', however, I'm leaning towards the second scenario. Because in the director's new movie, it feels like he's shouting 'Have fun already' in the audience's face the whole time. But you just can't force that to happen.
Vaughn's unique style is still clearly recognizable, but somehow it no longer works as well as in his earlier films. This is particularly evident in the colorful and absurd action sequences in the finale, which are extremely dynamic but still bored me to death. And honestly, the whole cliché of CGI fluids splashing around in action scenes and leaving no trace on the characters' clothes is something I just don't want to see anymore (I'm looking at you, 'Renfield').
The story can't save the movie, either. Apart from a whole series of twists, one of which is stupider than the next, it has nothing to offer. The characters are also weak. On top of that, the runtime is far too long, so I definitely won't ever watch this movie again. Accordingly, I have absolutely no interest in this franchise or the hinted-at crossover.
Another Bond pastiche from Matthew Vaughn, and once again it’s worse than the last one. Here we have what is basically another Kingsman film, but this time it’s made for the wine moms who had found their new favorite film with The Lost City. The plot is quite bonkers, it's so dense and the amount of schlocky plot twists indicate that Vaughn’s at least somewhat aware of how tasteless it all is. Sometimes you can still find traces of the cleverness you’d expect from him, but generally it favours being loud and cringe. I understand that he’s targeting a different demographic here than with Kingsman, but the end result is so tame and commercial that it feels more like typical streaming filler (Red Notice, Ghosted). Some of the acting is atrocious. Obviously Rockwell puts in the best work, but it doesn’t make up for the stiff performances by Cavill, Howard and Lipa (though she gets a pass for being Dua Lipa). The directing is also noticeably a step down compared to Vaughn’s previous stuff. It doesn’t feel like he put much heart and soul in this, because besides some good stuntwork it looks like shit. There’s just so much plastic sheen (artificial bright lighting, tacky CGI, unnatural compositions and camera movement) that it becomes incredibly ugly to look at. You could pass that off as ‘well it’s meant to be cartoonish’, but I’m not going to make that leap when there’s this little artistry to it. Vaughn needs to stop making these, the whole thing feels predictable and played out.
2.5/10
