PG for being absolutely terrifying for kids. I'm not saying this as a bad thing. It's perfect and I wouldn't change a thing. But I also decided to show my real little ones and, yeah, that got scary. The Wolf of Death is potentially the scariest kids' movie villain I can think of. Also, the movie plays the swearing game, only using bleeping as a joke Not really my favorite part in front of the kids. Doesn't mean that I didn't giggle. PG.
DIRECTORS: Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado It was 72 degrees and breezy. Yeah, I broke open the garage movie theater to have a good time watching a movie that should have been watched in the theater. That's what Puss in Boots is, by the way. These are movies that have a cinematic quality behind them, despite being animated (and by some, disposable) movies. Just for the people keeping track, this is my fifth blog for the day and I'm just making dent after dent into my list. Sure, it's still wildly intimidating, looking at how many movies I still have on that list. But I'll tell you what, I don't feel bad about it. I said in the MPAA section that it is a perfect movie. I might need to backtrack that a little bit. It's an amazing movie, especially considering that it is a spin-off of the Shrek franchise. I know that I can't be the only snobby adult who wrote off those movies as fluff. But that reputation is probably deserved to a certain extent. Shrek almost bred itself on its lack of deep content. It was distilled, weaponized entertainment. But what those early Shrek movies didn't realize is that it wasn't an either / or thing when it came to entertainment and content. Instead, there's something in the messaging that can actually be pretty darned entertaining. It's not like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish gets political or anything. I wish it would. I would love an aggressively political Puss in Boots movie. Alas, it becomes more about heavy themes and messages. With The Last Wish, there's the entire notion of fear of aging, arrested development, and vulnerability. Come on. That's a lot of my bread and butter right there. It's actually weird that Guillermo del Toro doesn't have his name attached to this because it is the best in the franchise. I know, I started talking about themes and messaging. But I'm going to talk animation style. Maybe it is still a novelty and everyone's going to jump on board the train, but I love the application of the Into the Spider-Verse style of animation for Puss in Boots. I saw the trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem yesterday and saw a similar art style, so there might be a blog a few years from now where I lament that every movie now looks the same. The thing about the Shrek universe is that those movies look ugly, especially when it comes to people and action. I know, the early-2000s were a different time and that, at one point, was revolutionary. But it didn't age well and I'm glad that the filmmakers behind The Last Wish decided to just let it die. This style of filmmaking really works well with action sequences, something that Puss as a parody of Zorro, does really well. People look stylized, but not gross. Movement is frenetic, giving it almost a Bourne Identity Paul Greengrass style of movement. It's so odd that removing frames from movies somehow create a sense of cleanliness. Or maybe it is a lack of cleanliness. There's something garage-band about it all that I like. Almost underproduced, despite the fact that I know that a movie like this takes way more work. It's going to be a little hard to talk about Puss in Boots: The Last Wish properly because there are so many balls in the air. Normally, I'd call this movie overcrowded. There's one thread that really doesn't belong in this movie, but the rest actually make a ton of sense and everything works as complimentary ingredients. I hate to be the guy dunking on John Mulaney because I'm not quite sure how I feel about him right now. (Again, that genius versus the person versus the addiction.) I'm more concerned that Jack Horner doesn't quite fit the movie as cleanly as it can. We have the Death Wolf as the Ur-villain. He's the one that ties directly into the main plot and central characterization of Puss. Then there are Goldi and the Three Bears, which work as a reminder of the adventures that Puss prides himself in while simultaneously talk about the role of the found family. It's just that Jack Horner A) doesn't match the voice of Spider-Ham and B) really doesn't contribute much to the story outside of being the White Walkers of The Last Wish. Maybe the movie wanted to have one villain who stayed a villain, but how does that tie into the main storyline? Anyway, I like the idea that there is a villainy to being everyone's hero. Mostly, the movie is critiquing Puss in Boots for having a life where he gets to be a hero without having the risk of being a hero. I know that the last movie stressed that the nine lives and the landing on the feet things were myths, but I'm okay with a mild retcon for this movie. (Part of me also believes that the nine lives thing wasn't addressed, but watched a lot of movies in a very short amount of time, so I apologize for that.) I always loved Superman because he has every reason to be cocky, yet his defining trait is humility. But Puss has a bit of that immortality to him. He parties hard because he can. After all, if you have nine lives, what can really go wrong until you start knocking that list down? Now, I'm going to go ahead and say that I completely was blown away by the Death Wolf deal. I thought that he wasn't real. I thought that the metaphor stayed a metaphor, talking about how Puss is his own worst enemy and that he actually fears death. When the movie shows that he's a real manifestation of death, I don't know why that threw me so much. I maybe like the idea of the internal conflict becoming the external conflict. Yeah, that wolf got scary. I normally don't re-MPAA people, but I would like to stress that someone behind the scenes got a kick out of terrifying children. It's great. It's exactly what I wish I had the guts to do and I applaud that choice. But I like how everything in the story was about becoming the best version of the self. I suppose lots of story have that as a central idea, but I don't think a lot of movies nail it as hard as The Last Wish. I do want to talk about the eponymous last wish though. I'm floundering on the central conceit. I mean, it's a Macguffin, right? The movie treats it as such. Everyone wants this magical item that can make anything happen. But I also like how the last wish itself represents the worst of people. Outside of Perrito. Perrito has the best use for the wish and I applaud that we have our own little Frodo Baggins, who doesn't get corrupted by the potential of a final wish. But Puss has the most justifiable reason for getting the wish. He's actively being hunted by the most terrifying, unnerfed villain (although I should probably explore that). He knows that he cannot win and he just wants to live for the day. Goldi would be using the wish to hurt her found family, which is sad in itself. Big Jack Horner is already irredeemable, so that just adds to the toxic notion of wishes. But I love the beauty in accepting one's mortality as a metaphor for the last wish. Yeah, the wolf is scary and if death looked like that, I, too, would consider abandoning my peers for survival. It's convincing. But I also like that there's something circular about Puss's behavior when it comes to that last wish. Death comes for Puss because he's far too cavalier about life. Puss's disregard for the sanctity of the gift he has received has caused him to break his own rules and intervene. He's mad at the notion that he feels that he has to break the rules, which is the only motivating factor that you need to know about that character. He hunts Puss, knowing that Puss cannot beat him, which causes Puss to do something for the first time, and that's run. Fundamentally, Puss is still the same cat that he was before this scene. Yeah, he didn't run. But that's because his heroism was only a show. But when Puss confronts the Wolf a second time, this time accepting that he's chasing death, there's something noble about it. Maybe because he's doing this choice not for his own mythos, but for Kitty Softpaws and Perrito. That true heroism is what inspires the wolf to let him live. I kind of like the idea of treating life as a gift gives it value and turns the same actions into something different. Context is fun. Naw, this movie is great. You know what? I watched all of the Shrek movies to get to this point and I don't regret it. Sure, there's barely a tie-in to Shrek in this one. We get a little tease, implying that we're going to meet those other characters in either a Shrek 5 or a Puss in Boots 3. But when a series gets better and better, I have to say that makes a good franchise. Heck, if Shrek the Third didn't make the list, I would say that this went the same path as Parks and Recreation. But Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, while probably not my pick for Best Animated, is completely deserving of the award. I'm holding out for Turning Red, both because I loved it and for the hipster cred that I would get for that one.
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PG for adorable swearing. Heck, I don't even know if they swear. It's all just cute nonsense. I mean, Mrs. Harris calls people "Ducks". "Ducks." She names them something even more adorable than the creature that they're named after. Um, I guess you see some underwear because Mrs. Harris is cool with going to a burlesque show. But it's a PG burlesque show. Doesn't mean I'm going to show my kids that scene. PG.
DIRECTOR: Anthony Fabian What is wrong with me? Fourth blog of the day is too many blogs for the day. It's all becoming a blur. I have pierced the veil and I can taste color right now. But I don't have time to write these otherwise. Heck, even at this breakneck pace, I'm not going to knock out my to-do list. But that doesn't mean that I don't chase that golden goose known as productivity. I'm saying all this as a preface. It's gonna get weird. Do you know why? It's because I loved Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. It makes no sense to me either. As much as you might be reading this for insight for what was going on in my mind, I'm going to be discovering my reasoning in real time as I type. Everything about this movie should be abhorrent to me. But I think it comes from a desperate need of variety. I'm getting sick of writing this (and if you are a long-time follower, you are probably sick of reading this), but the 2023 Academy Awards are mostly too long, too sexual, and too depressing. Do you know what Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is? None of those things. The movie doesn't break the two-hour mark. Mrs. Harris is an adorable pickle of a character. It's PG. I needed that. After eating nonstop hamburgers, someone offers me a salad for a meal and my body screams that I need something chipper to make me happy again. But that's almost being dismissive of a movie that I've been almost been nonstop recommending all week. So let's break down why I like Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris so much. I can't deny that part of me has to chalk it up to expectations. I heard so much trash about Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (and I didn't even know it was a remake!) that I was ready to power through this. But Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris hits a very specific button that I'm a big fan of. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is a lighter Downton Abbey or a heavier Paddington. I just gave Steven Spielberg nonsense for romanticizing his American childhood, but I'm somehow all for romanticizing an era in British history that didn't quite look like that. I don't know what it is about that sweet spot in history that makes stories so compelling. (We all are laughing about Princess Margaret making a Princess Margaret joke, right?) There's something about the aesthetics about this era, post-war, that is somehow endearing. I mean, The Crown put us in our places about the truth of this era. But pre-War England was all about stuffed shirts and stiff upper lip. The idea of the kitchen sink drama almost is something that America came up with. I'm not talking literally. That would make me a blasphemer. But post-War England was about the common man overcoming one's station. That's what Mrs. Harris is all about. I mean, she's the archetype, isn't she? (Now you Brits got me doing it!) Mrs. Harris almost exists as a cartoon character for us to aspire to. If we're all arguing about late-stage Capitalism (and how it needs to be crushed underfoot!), Mrs. Harris doesn't have time for that. She lives in this idealized world. Sure, the man is keeping her down and making sure that she always has to work for a living (Oh man, when you put economics over any analysis, it instantly bums you out). But Mrs. Harris doesn't worry about that. She finds joy in the sunshine (oh man, I should hate this movie!) and in pretty dresses. It's unfair that Mrs. Harris has to work for her entire life, but it also gives the dress a degree of value. After all, Mrs. Harris discovers the Dior dress in the house of a rich and powerful woman, who appreciates it as much as any other possession in her home. But when Mrs. Harris works for it, ah c'est magnifique! (Now you Francos have me doing it! Not James or Dave, and I hate myself that I had to put that tag on it.) Honestly, the movie made me care about a dress and that's because we all have to accept that people don't get paid enough. But there is a certain degree of sticking it to the man. Heck, most of the movie is sticking it to the man. I mean, it sticks it to the man in the most adorable way possible, which may be a form of anasthetic that big business wants me to have so I keep buying Christian Dior. (What are all these thoughts I'm having? I should buy something on Amazon to bury these feelings I keep feeling!) Okay, it doesn't go for those deep cuts. But everything about the movie is about how a working class woman should stay in her place and stop reaching above her station. Sure, I should be rolling my eyes when I say that Mrs. Harris is there because she's got a certain spunk that doesn't allow her to be walked all over. But for all my complaints about the balm that is given to the workers over things like Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, maybe there's some affirmation that the world is a good place. Yes, people suck harder than they should in the movie. There has to be an antagonist, after all. It is a story with a plot. But Harris wins over every character, given enough time. She also sees the dress for what it really is, which is somewhat uplifting. All of this is culminated in Pamela Penrose. Maybe this is a bit of boomer feed, but Penrose is the fear that the younger generation doesn't know the meaning of a solid day's work. Okay, that's probably not great, but I also enjoyed the movie, so I'm going to try and poorly justify that I just like something. Mrs. Harris is a good person throughout the film. She often has setbacks where she's genuinely moved to tears, questioning her entire way of life. After all, she did gamble away all of her savings on something fundamentally pretty dumb. But through it all, she still stuck to her own moral code (That's why I like the movie! I love epiphanies!). She goes through these little gauntlets, most notably the fact that the romantic love interest in Paris treats her from a place of nostalgia as opposed to erotically. (Yup.) But she is able to keep calm and carry on (Oh, I hate me so much), taking the newly acquired dress back home as a trophy of the greatest week in her life. There's something sad and melancholy about it though, knowing that this moment is over and even it wasn't perfect. It's when she loans out that dress to Penrose. Now, that dress moment is telling. She has seen the dress for what it was: an experience. It doesn't matter that the dress is gorgeous. What mattered was that she got what she set out for and that's the real victory. Still, it hurts when Penrose sets fire to the dress. It's not the action of setting fire to the dress. It's the concept that Penrose couldn't even face the music when asked to return the dress to Harris. But Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris doesn't want me to be sad. I mean, I love sad endings. But Mrs. Harris, she doesn't she. Does she, ducks? Anyway, in this grand statement that karma exists, everything works out. Yeah, I should be mad about that. But I think it is because that's the rules of the movie that I'm not upset with that. Mrs. Harris makes no moral mistakes. She sacrifices as a character traits. These moments where things get darkest reward her sacrifices and builds on them to an almost absurd level. Sure, that's probably not how the real world works out. But sometimes I need the world to be a good place. That's just it. Sometimes I need the world to be a good place to good people. It's all a fantasy. Heck, for Mrs. Harris, it's a fantasy. But that fantasy goes a long way with me sometimes. I need to be able to say that the world is working the way it is supposed to work out there. I want people to make friends in Paris and to step out of comfort zones. Yeah, it's candy. But it's really good candy, isn't it, Ducks? Rated R for a lot of drug and alcohol use...at least by my Puritan standards. There's language and the mildest of sexuality. It's more tension than sexuality proper, but I gotta point it out. There's also a lot of talk of violence without actually having any violence on-screen. Still, it does get a little dicey. Again, we're dealing with a depressing movie, so strap in for all that accompanies that. R.
DIRECTOR: Lila Neugebauer This is the third blog I'm writing in a row. It's like I'm writing my Master's thesis in one sitting, but just completely ignoring typos at this point. Something really weird happens when you binge content. I think people are more aware of it when it comes to TV shows, but it does happen with movies too. It almost does a disservice to the film in itself. Don't get me wrong. I love watching all the movies. For years of this blog, I had a movie a day. But when it comes to Academy Award season, I even ramp that watch schedule up. But if my words start becoming gobbelty-gook, I've broken through to a level of hallicinatory writing that is reserved for few times in my life. Let's see how many more blogs I have to write after this? Oh good, only eight more left. Causeway might not be a great movie. I can't do three movie blogs in a row where I tear apart the movie, so I'm going to finish that thought. Causeway might not be a great movie, but it actually might be significantly better than some of the movies that are up for Best Picture this year. The broad stroke version of my blog is that it is a bit of low-hanging fruit. We are probably all aware of the phrase, "Oscar Bait." This movie is Oscar Bait without the Oscar quality. If I came to a studio and told you that I could get two big-time actors to talk about how hurt people fix each other, I'd probably get some check before I walked out the door. Part of that logic comes from the fact that having an ailment gives the actor something to play. With Jennifer Lawrence, not being able to depend on one's body is an interesting thing to work through. For Brian Tyree Henry, having to backpedal ableism is kind of a fascinating exploration. But like a lot of Oscar Bait, it's low-hanging-fruit. The threads that keep these two characters together seems a little dated for 2023. I'm going to flash back to the halcyon days of Miramax independent film. I know. I crap on his filmmaking a lot, but I want to talk about Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy. There was a time that I thought that this movie was genius. A low-brow writer / director showed some maturity and made a movie that was gutsy and talked about homosexuality in a way that most mainstream culture hadn't heard before. Now, while I don't love Chasing Amy now, Kevin Smith gets all the points in the world. He was the perfect voice to talk about a challenging topic and bring it to an audience that may not have been willing to hear about it. But it is 2023. I'm going to beat you to the punch right here and state clearly, "We absolutely should make movies that deal with homosexuality and queer theory." But the relationship between Lynsey and James isn't there to really say anything except for "how daring!" The story is about two friends helping each other beyond the limitations of their injuries. The problem is, there is no ending to that story. The thing about dealing with a life-altering injury is that it follows you for life. If you want to tell the story of two friends, making up a conflict that might ruin their friendship shouldn't be "gay." That's a different movie. That's Chasing Amy. (I really want to just transcribe Silent Bob's entire "Chasing Amy" speech, but that might stress that I still like Chasing Amy.) Ultimately, Causeway is the dramatic equivalent of a Saturday Night Live skit. SNL, like most sketch comedy, has to just decide when the story is over. Now, with the case of Lynsey (a name that I hate to write out because it's "Lynsey"), there is a decision on the horizon. She teases the notion of going back into the military, despite the fact that she absolutely will never be physically ready to go, as this thing over her head. But that's an external conflict. External conflicts are great and this movie actually has a pretty good one. But we care more about James than we do Lynsey. James, for all of his confidence, has something to lose. It's weird when the protagonist is less important than her supporting cast, but James is also a person who has a bit more of an arc than Lynsey. I don't want to put down Lynsey. She seems like a lovely person who has just been through a lot. Her story is completely sympathetic. But James is this guy who makes the choice to step out of his comfort zone and shows mercy to someone who looks like they're going through a lot. Trust me, I hate me too for bonding with the male character. But he's up for the Academy Award, so I almost feel compelled to talk about him. Okay. So let's talk about James. James isn't at his come-to-Jesus moment. If anything, James is the end of the line, especially compared to Lynsey. He's a guy who has his life together. He has this deep, dark secret about how he's partially responsible for his nephew's death. But he's learned to move on. He sees his leg as a reminder of what he did and he somehow functions. Because he approaches with grace, he's punished. Honestly, I do think that the relationship, regardless of what it finally ends up being, is one that is overall healthy. But if we're using heartache as punishment, I can't deny that he would probably avoid any heartache if he just steered clear of Lynsey. He does all the right things. It is a bit weird that this guy, a car mechanic, takes a personal investment in every element of Lynsey's life. He doesn't know Lynsey. They become fast friends, but the power dynamic is one-sided. Because James has his whole life together, Lynsey quickly becomes dependent on him. But it's the pool kiss that I want to talk about. I'm going to try to separate my frustrations about real life coerced kisses from women and put those aside. (Mainly because the stories are lame and I'm trying to be objective.) While I do get the vibe that James is attracted to a homosexual woman, I think it's pretty mild. It's not like James comes across as infatuated. I mean, the point could be made that he keeps showing up for Lynsey at the drop of a hat could be that infatuation peeking its way through. But that also almost defines us as an audience more than it defines James as a character. If he's doing this out of infatuation, then the movie is a bit more bleak than I would like to admit. James doing it out of a sense of altruism makes for a better story for me, but that's all something that could be argued back and forth. That kiss, though. That's unfair, right? Like, I get genuinely upset at Lynsey for that kiss. I'm holding Lynsey up to a standard that's unfair. I know. I know. I know. It's just that, man, James doesn't need that in his life. One of the key "nice guy" trope things is the notion of deserving attention. James is a nice guy, but he actually treats what emotions he has appropriately. Lynsey sets firm rules and barriers about what the relationship should be and James doesn't really cross those lines. I suppose that Drunk James might have pushed it a bit by inviting her to move in, but that also seems like a friendship thing. James is actively punished for doing the right thing. Because the problem isn't having feelings; the problem is acting on those feels or expecting something from those feelings. James doesn't break any of these rules. If anything, Lynsey plays with his consent. He says he doesn't want to get into the pool. If he does have feelings, it's him setting up boundaries. I applaud that. It's a rough spot because it's not his fault. I am a little weirded about Lynsey's brother in jail. There's this big secret that Lynsey's brother being alive, but in prison. I don't know what this adds to the story. Similarly, her brother is deaf. (At one point, the movie stopped giving us subtitles for the ASL and I thought it was a choice. Then I YouTubed it and realized that Apple TV+ was just being an idiot.) The end of the movie made it about the brother and that was barely a thread up to that point. Again, I chalk a lot of this scene up to Oscar Bait, which is probably not the strongest motivating factor when deciding what scenes make it into the movie. I mean, it's fine. I enjoyed the movie. I even enjoyed the movie more than some of the Oscars that are up for Best Picture. It's just a movie that feels woefully underbaked. It has all of the elements of a great film without actually being a great film. It's just that there is no cohesion between anything beyond the performances, which are pretty great. Not rated, but there's a lot of death with a lot of blood. One guy gets cracked in the face with an ashtray. These are just things that happen in the world of organized crime. You know all that organized crime you do? It involves blood. It's not like the film is gory, but it is also unapologetic when it comes to blood. I suppose there is language too. It would be weird if there wasn't language. Still, not rated.
DIRECTORS: Andrew Lau and Alan Mak They were going to run out of steam eventually, right? How did they make so many movies that were so plot heavy back-to-back-to-back? These were a year apart. Now, I shoudl just Wikipedia this answer because I'm sure that I'm not the only person who has these questions. Maybe they had all three written ahead of time and they filmed them at the same time? It's possible. It's not like it is unheard of. But the one thing about the Infernal Affairs movies is that they live or die on the plot twist. Plot twists, guys, are very hard to pull off. Infernal Affairs III is the one that dropped the ball. The first Infernal Affairs movie is genius. It's about the cat-and-mouse of it all. The stakes get so high and the movie is unafraid to make beloved characters corpses on a moment's notice. It's why The Departed exists. A story that good has to be stolen by Americans to make it watchable by U.S. audiences. (What? An American should be asked to watch a movie that wasn't starring White people AND the movie has subtitles? For shame!) But there is a notion that some movies shouldn't be sequelized. Now, I don't want to go too deep into this comparison because I'm one of the five people who actually really likes The Godfather Part III. But I'm not the first person to make the comparison from the Infernal Affairs trilogy to The Godfather trilogy. Both Infernal Affairs and The Godfather are movies that shouldn't actually need sequels. Everything needed for the story is told in the first one. Similarly, these are movies that live in worlds so spelled out that there shouldn't be a scenario where these people go through these issues again. (Again, we can look at Die Hard as franchises that push elements of plausibility beyond the pale.) But both The Godfather and Infernal Affairs find valid stories in the prequel / sequel hybrid. With The Godfather, we get the rise of the Corleone Family syndicate and the betrayal of Fredo while Infernal Affairs focuses on how Sam and Wong became frenemies while looking closer at the structures of the triads. Cool. But Infernal Affairs III? At this point in the Infernal Affairs storyline, so much has been wrapped up. Lau comes out the victor of the mole hunt. Sure, he loses his wife and now he has to survive in the world of a police force divorced from a life of crime. But like Neo flying out of a phone booth at the end of the first Matrix film, our brains can and should fill in the gaps. I don't need to see how hard the life of a criminal faking morality should look like. Or, maybe I do. It's just that I don't need a complicated storyline to remind me that the first two movies are complex. Infernal Affairs III is so burdened by the shadow of its predecessors that the movie does itself a disservice and tortures the story that should be simple. Sometimes, a movie doesn't need to be complex. The complexity from the first story is something organic. Instead of treating Infernal Affairs as something with a twist, I consider it more daring. But that standard is impossible to maintain. I mean, look at the work of M. Night Shyamalan as examples for why depending on the perfect dismount only hurts the overall story. The thing is, Infernal Affairs III only has a complex story because the way that the story is told is cryptic and it breaks the rules of its universe. The first thing is easy to break down. Like with Infernal Affairs II, the story is told out of chronological order. It makes sense with Infernal Affairs II. The parallel structure of the past and the present storylines compliment each other and there's a reason for those breaks. But Infernal Affairs III seems to be covering up for a lack of cohesive storytelling. Those breaks in the action seem random. The decision is almost stating, "We've been in this time period too long. Let's see what's happening in a different time period." There's no throughline and the film becomes complex for the sake of being complex. But the worse crime comes from the need to have a twist. The rules of Infernal Affairs comes from the hard-boiled noir storytelling. While the world of Infernal Affairs is quasi-sorta based on reality, there's a hard-edge to everything. It's a bleak world with grey morality coloring everything. But if you tried to figure out what the ending of the films would be, you'd have to go by the rules that everyone is expendable and that you can trust everything that you see. Instead, the movie ends with Lau doing something that you can only really see in movies. For some reason, probably tied to his "Telltale Heart" induced guilt, he becomes the character who died in the previous movies. Yeah, to really try to get a sense of a trilogy, Infernal Affairs keeps bringing back a character who died in the first movie. This character sometimes is the original character, but sometimes he's just a hallucination on the part of Lau's. By the end of the movie, Lau has a full-on mental breakdown and is convinced that he is Chan, once again trying to arrest Lau. For a different movie, that might have worked. But this is the world of Infernal Affairs. The notion of hallucinations and false information isn't part of this world. Everything we see is a clue. Instead, Infernal Affairs III kind of just lies to its audience for the sake of having the "cool" ending. I give so much credit to the people behind Infernal Affairs for being so willing to upset the status quo. But Infernal Affairs III does so much to maintain that expectation that they become the status quo. The real rebellion to make an Infernal Affairs III would to actually make a quiet film about dealing with shame and sin. That's a movie. That's a movie that isn't part of the Infernal Affairs trilogy, with its dependence on Hong Kong gunplay. But it is a story that could be told. The thing that bothers me is the lie. At one point, Infernal Affairs III telegraphs that Lau is losing his sense of self. It stresses that Lau's reflection comes back as Chan's. Okay. I'm using the example of Lau's dual personalities as what's wrong with the movie, but I actually have a bigger problem with Wing. (I think it's Wing. I've watched so many movies in the past three weeks that names start fading.) The goal of the movie is misdirect. Wing is the hero of the story along with Chen. But the data we get at the beginning of the movie is that Wing and Chen are the bad guys of the piece. Wing comes across as increasingly antagonistic because the movie wants you to think that he's the inside man that Lau is searching for. In fact, the movie straight up tells us that there are five moles within the Hong Kong Police Department and the only one that we have any degree of confirmation on is Wing. Wing makes really odd decisions if he wasn't the mole within the department. Similarly, Chan is straight up said to be Sam's partner-in-crime. But both of these characters are revealed to be on the side of angels, which makes me question why they went so far out of their way to point the fingers at themselves. In the world of Infernal Affairs, Lau has every right to suspect these two people because they aren't being normal in the least. There's a difference between suspect and straight up lying and that's the problem with Infernal Affairs III. Why is the third movie in a trilogy so hard to nail? I do believe we do have good third movies. I am even kind of sure we have great third movies. (We should have ended on Last Crusade. The word "Last" is right there!) I don't expect third movies to be the best, like some people do. But Infernal Affairs III fails at almost everything it tries to do. Sometimes, a movie just needs to be a movie. Maybe not every sequel well received needs to be a trilogy. PG-13 for anti-semitism, bullying, mild violence, and affair. Nothing really graphic is shown on screen. I suppose there's some low-key acceptable blasphemy. (I use the word "acceptable" because society deems this specific form of blasphemy okay, even though I find it a bit mortifying.) Tonally, it feels like it could be wholesome. It's like a Wonder Years look at a rough time in Spielberg's life.
DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg Do you know, Mr. Spielberg, how I needed this to be good? It had all of the elements. That trailer, it looked like it was going to knock my socks off. I was going to show it as the first movie of my film class as a "Role of Film" discussion point. But then it was this. I don't mean to be mean. I know that this was a personal movie for you. But for me, oh man, it's the first blog I'm writing today and it's gonna be a doozy. I have to point out that I'm going to be marathon writing today. I have completely outpaced myself in terms of writing versus watching. And I've been writing a lot. Golly, where to start? I mean, the worst thing is the acting, right? If I had to look at The Fabelmans as a memoir about Spielberg's childhood, there are elements that I could really pick apart and it would be fine. While Spielberg might not be alone in the things that happen to him, it is an intensely personal story about his own vulnerabilities. These are the moments that defined him as a filmmaker and coming back to this moment in history requires amazing self-awareness and introspection. Okay. That's cool. Why is everyone acting like a psychopath? Now, I'm going to caveat all of this, despite the fact that the acting really bothered me, like, the whole time. (My best critique comes from me imitating the movie because it's just so lacking in nuance.) The caveat I'm going to give is, "I oddly think that Spielberg's mother might have been that over-the-top" and "Who am I to say that people didn't act that way in Spielberg's family?" To the latter question, I say that Spielberg then needs to film one more scene where a lot of people just question why everyone is talking like it's "Red, White, and Blaine." I already feel like a bully. But I gotta keep going because The Fabelmans might be one of the worst movies on an already pretty weak Academy Awards season. (Note: I hate when people do this and I'm doing this. I don't want to hate the Academy Awards this year. But it feels like such a burden going through these movies that are absolutely not knocking my socks off for the most part. If you like these movies, continue liking them. I mean, some of your opinions are wrong, but I completely want you to like something over not liking them. I'm going to try my best to forgive The Fabelmans, but it might be a tall order.) It's just that, as much as this is the true story of Steven Spielberg (for the most part, even by his own admission), none of this happened. Okay, a version of it happens. It feels like I'm splitting hairs, but this movie is so colored by time that it is hard to take it seriously. The Fabelmans (remind me to talk about the title) exists in that Wonder Years / American Graffiti era of time that never really existed. It's nostalgia for something fake. America never looked like this. It looked a little bit like this. But I want to use another Academy Award nominee for nostalgia done right versus what we're seeing in The Fabelmans. The best part about Babylon is the notion that it takes a time that we've written off as looking one way and made it seem human. Despite rudimentary technology, people are basically people. That thing that makes us look at black-and-white photos and treat it as somehow something other, that's what is going on in The Fabelmans. Nothing quite feels real. While the film is partially about anti-semitism, real racism doesn't exist in this version of the 1950s and 1960s. Instead, it's this Back to the Future version of the '50s, where everyone is straight laced. That might seem like it's a small thing, but it almost gets in the way of storytelling. Sam gets into scrapes with multiple bullies at his California school. There's this distance between the idealistic suburbs that raised Sam in Arizona and points west and the busy world of California. Now, I believe that Steven Spielberg really faced actual, honest-to-God anti-Semitism. But because the entire movie is tinted through the lens of nostalgia, the bullying doesn't quite have the effect it needs to. Honestly, I think, based on this movie, Steven Spielberg's bullies were the same kids who tortured Daniel LaRusso in The Karate Kid. The acting also does a disservice to a lot of the characters, but none moreso than Spielberg's father alias Burt Fabelman. (I can't handle the name "Fabelman". Again, remind me to talk about this.) Burt Fabelman is the victim of the piece. If the story is about Mitzi and her inner demons, Burt is the one who bears Mitzi's problems with a level of grace that almost dehumanizes him. Mitzi is all over the place. Again, I get the vibe that Mitzi might be the most accurate character in this movie. I don't know what it is about Googling Steven Spielberg's real mom (a sentence that I now realize is probably problematic and that technology has made me too complacent with boundaries), she seems like a lady who would go dancing in front of her children in a nightgown, accentuating her form. But Mitzi's real issue, at least symptom-wise, is that she has fallen in love with another man, a man that Sam treats as an uncle. Bennie is never really demonized in the piece. Instead, the rose-colored glasses that look over this entire movie show him more or less faultless as Sam takes out his adolescent angst on this man. Let's be very clear: Burt and Bennie are best friends. Burt really goes the extra mile to ensure that Bennie can succeed. But Bennie is a hanger-on. He has no family of his own, so he adopts the moniker of uncle. Sure, he's a nice guy, but let's put him more in the "nice-guy-syndrome" guys, who feel like they deserve more than what life hands them. When he seduces Mitzi, there's something very wrong about that. Now, because everything is through the eyes of Sam, he doesn't really know the behind-the-scenes of what is going on between Burt and Bennie. For all we know, Burt can be a real jerk about the whole thing. But no one comes acrosss as terrible in this movie. Part of that might come from the fact that the Spielbergs have grown to love this man as a member of the family. Part of that might come from age or ignorance. But ignorance doesn't mean that characters are allowed to be as flat as Burt. Paul Dano, honestly, is one of the most solid actors of this generation, but his "Aw shucks" attitude (if you hear me to do it, I'm sure it'd come across as better. Maybe I should do a new podcast...). But Burt takes it all in stride. Sure, he cries from time-to-time. But his lack of fight, while intending to be empathy for his mentally troubled wife, comes across as an NPC in a video game more than it does a real person. I want to play Devil's Advocate, simply because I can. I want to imagine that Sam wants Burt to stand up and protect his wife. After all, this is Sam's story, not Burt's. But Paul Dano never lets the facade down (I refuse to find the character to make "facade" work). It's not like there is a moment where Burt becomes a real person, letting us into the story of how everything he does is a choice. That, that would have been something. I wouldn't have questioned any of the acting choices in this movie. Instead, it would have all been a mask put on by Burt and there would have been a story there. Instead, the "gollyness" of it all just hurts his character and leaves me nothing to invest in. Sam is the one who gets all of the emotions and that's because Sam is writing and directing the movie. That's such a disservice to storytelling and it honestly gets me a little bit worked up. Have Mitzi be weird. I don't think that Michelle Williams is really blowing minds with her performance, but I also kind of see Mitzi as just being a little bit off. But everyone in the movie is Mitzi. That's not reality. Do you know what else isn't reality? Sam's girlfriend. Come on. I get it. It's a joke. It's meant to be this broad character. Sam's girlfriend is apparently really into "Jesus", which is why she wanted to date a Jewish boy. Okay, slow down. I bet that part, if you squint, might be kind of / sort of real. But then she comes across as an absolute crazy person. She has pictures of Christ next to her Teen Beat photos of cute boys? She thinks that Jesus is sexy. I want to use this as Exhibit A for the prosecution for how time has completely colored Steven Spielberg's memory of this. Do I think that Monica was probably intensely eccentric? Yeah. But man alive, it doesn't do anything for me to have her act like that. Are we supposed to be emotionally invested when you have this caricature of a person commenting on everything that young Sam is doing? It does a disservice to the entire third act of the movie. As bleak as the story gets at times, it's just Jar Jar Binks running around doing goofy commentary about being Christian versus being Jewish. It's a stand-up routine that is cringe-worthy. Okay, Judd Hirsch. Geez, I can't believe I'm about to bully Judd Hirsch on my blog. Judd Hirsch is up for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Do I think that Judd Hirsch deserves an Oscar? Probably. (The back of my brain is screaming that Judd Hirsch did something weird, but I also want to stay focused on what I'm writing.) Do I think that Judd Hirsch has the best performance in The Fabelmans? Also, yes. Do I think that someone should get an Academy Award for a minute-and-a-half of screen time bordering on cameo? Absolutely not. His part is unimportant to the story and I never got beyond the acceptance that "Judd Hirsch is in this scene." Seriously. He's in the movie for such a short amount of time that I could only see the actor and not the character. Come on. That's trying too hard. Now, it's right there in front of us. Steven Spielberg named the movie about himself, a filmmaker who tells stories, The Fabelmans. Oh, I got it. They flipped the L and the E to make the metaphor subtle. Come on. It's a sledgehammer. Let me do some of the lifting with the theme, okay? On top of that, it really isn't about storytelling. I would say that the filmmaking thing is more of a motif than a theme anyway. I wish that this would be about the challenges and freedoms of filmmaking. Instead, it is something that just happens. Let's cut all the movie stuff out, okay? There's a story about a kid who knows that his mom is having an affair and that he can't help growing up in the shadow of his family falling apart. If anything, the movies come across more like a hobby and a calling than something cathartic. Sam never comes to deal with his issues with the film. Sometimes he runs away to edit stuff. I kind of like that as dipping the toe in the pool. But Sam's love of cinema is told to us more than actually shown to us. We, as the audience, never feel the need to turn back to the camera or the edit bay. It's just Sam's "I'm sad" space. The thing is, the movie started with the promise that films were a way for Sam to escape. That first reproduction of the train crashing, that made sense. But the rest of the movie just tells us that Sam finds value in making movies. There's a disconnect between the two narratives. Yeah, I don't know what's going on with Steven Spielberg. I loved Steven Spielberg. In my brain, Steven Spielberg is still one of the greatest directors ever, let alone living. But it's been decades since I've fully embraced a Steven Spielberg movie. I appreciate that he opened the recesses of his past ot share with us, but it's just not done well. Rated R, but for less than I thought. We watched the trailer and we started the movie and we were ready for another Blonde or Babylon situation. Nope. The worst part is the vomiting and toilets exploding sequence. Yeah, it's bad. But it's not the majority of the movie. It's really one sequence that's way grosser for some people than others. That scene ruined my pregnant wife's day while I just kept giggling at it. There's also language and violence.
DIRECTOR: Ruben Östlund I'm so overwhelmed. I loved Triangle of Sadness and I'd love to go right into it, but I cannot stress enough how overwhelmed I am by what should be a fun hobby. I don't even know how I'm going to release these blog entries because I am getting closer and closer to the actual Academy Awards date. From my perspective, I want my Academy Awards page updated with every movie that is up for something. But that means mass-releasing all of my blogs at the same time. Sure, this isn't a "you problem" as such. But it is stressing me out unreasonably. Somehow, Triangle of Sadness falls into the Venn Diagram of movie critiques for the 2023 Oscars, but somehow is forgivable. I really need to point out that Triangle of Sadness is a comedy. It's a very funny satire and I love it. But I also believe that comedies should feel the most comfortable at the hour-thirty mark, not the two hour-thirty mark. Also, as established by the MPAA section, it has a lot of gross out stuff in it. In this case, very little of it is sexual so much as it is a bunch of rich people barfing all over and then sliding around in the barf. I guess I could even argue that the movie is bleak because, it is. But because it's a comedy, that bleakness is actually kind of hilarious. Maybe Triangle of Sadness is a reminder that it's not what is being handled in a movie, but how it is being handled in a movie that makes a story good or bad. Maybe I need to abandon those neoclassical precepts that I've been holding onto oh-so-desperately since my theatre theory classes from years ago taught me. It's about ingredients. Sure, we comment on the quality of ingredients because it is an element of a dish, but it is how those ingredients work in harmony that we comment on the film. Also, people barf all over themselves. I loved Everything Everywhere All at Once. It was one of the movies I had seen way before Oscar nominations were even considered. (I mean, people are always considering Oscar stuff, but you know what I mean.) I have to say that I've been generally disappointed by the Oscars this year. But I haven't been disappointed with Triangle of Sadness. Yes, there is something special with this movie. But honestly, I thought we'd have a handful of movies witih the same quality of Triangle of Sadness. Triangle of Sadness's unique vision with something to say while still being entertaining is what the Best Picture nominees should all be sharing. Instead, my two big movies on the list are Everything Everywhere All at Once and this for quirkiness while appreciating Women Talking for what it is.Triangle of Sadness doesn't feel the need to be locked into a certain vibe to make it what it is. I feel dumb for saying that it both seems rooted in reality while simultaneously embracing the absurd. I mean, I'm trying to guess one thing that couldn't happen. I'm trying to even think of a character that doesn't seem real. If anything, the movie is stressing the absurdity of reality. The fact that it digs into the upper class makes it all the better. So many of the bananas quirks of the characters is almost wired into the notion that no one leads an average lifestyle on this boat. (Also, are there really tiny cruises for the ultra rich like this movie shows? I don't know if I want to go on such a cruise.) Maybe that's what makes it such good satire. If the role of satire is to expose the truth so we can either laugh at it or critique it, the insane personalities of the characters in the story highlight how distant from reality the characters are. It's odd though, because we don't really get the scathing criticism about the upper crust until the final act. The movie, breaking itself into chapters, almost starts the film dead serious. Okay, there's the pre-credit sequence that reminds you that you have signed up for a comedy. The audition process for male models is almost a short film in itself. (I never knew that male models were paid significantly less than their female counterparts and also, I don't know what my commentary for that should be. I also have no investment in fashion.) But the film starts with a pretty down-to-earth fight between two titans. Supermodels fighting is a new thing that I'm not used to really seeing. That fight is the most grounded thing that happens in the movie, by the way. If most relationships fall apart because of disputes over money, I completely related to it. No one comes out of that fight looking shiny. Because I'm male and make less money than my spouse, I tended to lean into Carl over Yaya very quickly. Also, her name is Yaya. But the director does something really smart with these characters. If Carl and Yaya are the grounding characters in a movie that lacks a protagonist, that fight characterizes them beautifully. Carl, in an attempt to make a fight peaceful, has somehow blown something that should be a normal discussion out of proportion. His need to be liked and to be the good guy carries through the movie. While they may both be 10s in terms of physical attractiveness (not my thing), the emotional divide between Carl and Yaya is telling. Carl is holding on by the thinnest of strings and it is in everything that he says for the rest of the movie. It's such a perfect relationship based on the notion that Yaya lives or dies based on social media followers. The ship is almost a break from Carl and Yaya. They're there and it is their story that gives the audience something to hold onto as the ship begins to careen towards its imminent destruction. But since Ostlund is making a movie about satirizing the rich, that middle portion of the movie is the direct assault on the rich. There's almost no story outside a peek into what the rich find fun. It's odd, because the archetype of the rich is often considered the "other." Like with The Menu, I don't really know who the target audience for Triangle of Sadness is. Usually, we have the rich person as someone on the outside looking in; or more realistically, looking down. But when you get a lot of rich people together and ask them to relax, something very telling happens. Everything just loos a little sad. I think it's Jarmo that is the most telling about this. I mean, sure, I can talk about Carl and Yaya all day. But Jarmo has the same insecurities that the poor do, only it's worse. I'm talking about the scene where he has to attempt to thinly trick the pretty girls into taking pictures with him. The thing about the rich among the rich is that almost all power comes from disparity. A rich person can afford to push a poor person around. Giving points to the rich, it is probably without malice. It's just that money has legs and tends to get further in a place without money. But Jarmo has no disparity to take advantage of. He's just a sad man who has no idea what it is like to have to market oneself. It's kind of like how Elon Musk complains about real people problems despite the fact that he is one of the most privileged people on the planet. Then Yaya. There's the notion of always working and never working and I'm not sure where Yaya falls on that scale. Yeah, I'm sure that the Hollywood elite (gross, I just said that) are watching this movie and laughing. But the movie is meant to be for people like me, who aren't allowed to move their laptops too much in one direction or else the battery falls out and the screen goes blank. Yaya is on vacation. She's on this vacation because of ourobouros. She has these tickets so she can Insta the whole thing, which is a vacation for her. But she really isn't on vacation, because the whole thing is being Insta'ed. It's why we have the crew. The crew, God bless the crew! Throughout the boat scenes on, the captain comes across as this Marxist. I love every minute of Woody Harrelson in this movie and it's really weird that he's in the movie. But he represents the working man, despite the fact that he does almost no work in the story. He dies the saddest death, knowing his own hypocrisy. He even says so. But contrast that to the crew's introduction. There's this rallying cry around "money." Every interaction has a bee-line to money. For all of the civility that the crew partakes, it's all because of money. That love of money is what gets a crew member to have to break the rules while simultaneously upholding the rules of ensuring that the guests get everything that they want. That girl, having to get into a pool with an old lady. That's what I'm in this movie for. Everyone having to abandon what they are doing, even on their much needed breaks, to go down a waterslide. Not only is it characterizing the crew as broken down shells of people, but it is about the fundamental disconnect with the working class. Trust me, I now feel bad about chatting to any employee of a place ever. I'd like to think that people liked me, but there are a fair share who probably roll their eyes at me when I ask about their days. So what is Abigail? I mean, what is Abigail...besides perfect? It's a great ending for this movie about the rich. They lack all real world skills and would starve on that island if it wasn't for the lady who cleans the toilets. As a means of comeuppance, it's perfect. But also, Abigail is ruthless. She's kind of the worst. Her instantaneous corruption on the island is telling that humanity, beyond economic barriers, is willing to do anything for power. Abigail has that power disparity. She sees that no one can do anything and she embraces that distance that people have from comfort. Still, it is wildly depressing. (Side note: Why does no one take the lifeboat that Abigail finds herself on? That seems like it would be pretty secure and keep people away from sun exposure.) Yeah, the end makes for a wonderful Twilight Zone-eque end, where we have to wonder exactly how that scenario plays out as Rod Serling gives us a wry smile. But in terms of message, it's remarkably bleak. I adored this movie. I really did. It's just the right level of coy. I know that there have been a handful of movies that have relished in punching up, but I think that Triangle of Sadness is actually a story that seems to have a far clearer message than its peers. I dug it. PG for violence. At this point in the franchise, there isn't a ton of innuendo or straight up offensive swearing. I mean, there's a little in the sequel to this movie, but I'm not writing about the sequel now, am I? There is a reference that Puss in Boots often seduces women, but it's very tame and moves pretty quickly past that moment. Instead, this is about scary imagery on camera. But it's a kids' movie, so everything has to have quasi-scary action. PG.
DIRECTOR: Chris Miller I'll tell you what. I'm so overwhelmed with movies that I have to write about at this point because the Academy Awards are this Sunday. For me, it's Monday. I am going to try and knock out oh-so-many blogs today and tomorrow because I don't know when else to do them. Is it bad when your hobby causes you stress? I don't know how to relax anymore. So if the quality of these blogs takes a huge dip, I genuinely apologize. I've never really set a standard for writing, because I'm just trying to word vomit these things to have a lot of daily content. But I have to acknowledge that there's a change I'll reach rock bottom and it will fall apart from there. Of course Guillermo del Toro has his name on this movie. I mean, I don't know how much or how little involvement he had in the making of the Puss in Boots movie, but I love the idea that he had something to do with it. If you've been following my blog lately, you've probably seen a streak of Shrek blogs. It's all to get prepped for Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (available now on home video!), the ur-film in the franchise. In the course of my Shrek binge, I've discovered that I'm different from the typical Shrek fan. I think Shrek found itself in the sequels while most people probably think the opposite. Like my opinion of many Dreamworks movies, I always kind of thought that the Shrek franchise invested too much in the fun and the funny to have any real heart. Again, I'm writing in the new Disney renaissance, where Disney has time-and-again challenged us to look at ourselves in the storytelling. I actually felt pretty good about Puss in Boots as a movie because, despite the fact that it is a movie about a cat in footwear doing a broad parody of Zorro, there's actually something really good to watch here. For the Shrek movies, I always thought that Puss in Boots was a bit of a punchline. I mean, as much as I like the Puss in Boots stuff, the big adorable eye joke is overplayed. (Yet, why do I keep laughing at it? Callbacks aren't supposed to work like that. Maybe I'm old and want to like things.) Puss isn't really a character in those movies. He's there as someone to sing pop songs and to provide banter with Donkey because Shrek is supposed to be simply flustered. (Note: I'm now figuring out the entire Donkey / Puss in Boots dynamic in real time. I apologize for not overthinking this relationship ahead of time.) Donkey is meant to say a million words a second. Shrek, by his very nature, isn't meant to talk, so all of Shrek's reactions to Donkey are meant to be frustrated or slow moving. But adding Puss in Boots to the trio makes Donkey have someone who is unaffected by the sheer size of Donkey's personality. It's nice. You get the funny guy with two very polarizing directions to take the character. I was always just amazed that Eddie Murphy was verbally sparring with Antonio Banderas. The cynical part of me would say that there is no need for a Shrek spin-off, but I know that I'm wrong with this. Puss in Boots is one of those spin-offs, like Frasier, that gives a character who has little to say a compelling storyline. The way that Miller does this is by actually treating him in the way a protagonist should be treated: explaining that not everything is as it seems. (Side story because I have nowhere else to put this. For a send up of Zorro, you actually cast Zorro from The Mask of Zorro? I suppose this isn't the first time something like this has been done, a 'la Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade with Sean Connery, but still!) Puss is this fully developed character that has a reason behind his hubris. Honestly, Zorro himself is almost an archetype. (Okay, I'll have to rewatch those movies to say that with confidence.) But when we meet Puss in Shrek 2, he's just there to be a joke. A lot of those characters are there as bits. We don't know much about Gingy or Pinocchio beyond their one-note jokes. But Puss actually goes from being just a brigand assassin to a hero of the people. Now, I know that the world of Puss in Boots is not Mexico. But isn't it? I mean, I see Guillermo del Toro's name attached to this movie, I get that he's doing this because of cultural ties. If Puss is Zorro, we need to know that Puss in Boots is for the people. Oddly enough --and this is giving Puss in Boots far too much gravitas -- Puss in Boots acts as an alternate reality tale of Zorro. Zorro, in my mind, is Batman. He is what he is. He exists and he always has existed. But Puss in Boots acts as a cautionary tale for the idea of a masked vigilante. He has all of these skills and these moral codes, yet he's treated as a monster by the people around him. Puss is the champion of the people. The fact that he's from a small, Mexico-like village (why does it feel racist? Mexico is a place that has ties to the producer of the film!) gives the character a heart beyond what he presents in the films up to this point. There's something vulenerable about him. He's punished because he believes in the people / eggs around him. Humpty Dumpty (This is my life now. I start with a subject of "Humpty Dumpty") makes an eggcellent (I can't help myself) antagonist because of the foil that he provides to Puss. It's nothing new. Marvel has been all over this dynamic, but I'm going to spell it out anyway. Because Humpty and Puss come from the same ambiguous origins, the archetype of the orphan, they mirror each other in ways that make the story sympathetic to one another. With Puss, he's just looking for a peer to make the world a better place. Humpty, with his perverted sense of justice, is incapable of prioritizing the good in the world. It makes it fascinating that Humpty actually hates Puss not because of the betrayal on the bridge, as he keeps pointing out, but because Puss represents what Humpty should be doing. I actually like when Humpty spirals deeper and deeper into vengeance because it almost acts as a stronger cautionary tale for Puss. My one complaint about the movie is that Humpty puts aside his quest for revenge simply because Puss makes a heartfelt plea. For most of the movie, it comes down to Puss putting away his resentment for Humpty, who is the true villain of the bridge story, and learning to forgive. Puss, then, is twice punished for his trust of Humpty because people don't really change. But Humpty goes through the motions of bonding with Puss. Knowing that his vengeance would be incomplete without Puss taking the hit for the Golden Goose, he has to fake rekindling a relationship with someone he treated like a brother. The entire thing is part of the show and there's such delight when the plan goes off as planned. (It's a bit of a stretch that both Jack and Jill + Kitty Softpaws were part of this, but then I realized I had to write out "Kitty Softpaws" without a hint of irony made it all better). It makes it almost unbelievable (you know, the movie of a cat and his talking egg friend) when Humpty changes his motivations for the greater good. But I don't even care. This movie works on so many levels and it has something to say about the role of family and trust. Sure, it almost teeters into that superficial messaging thing that a lot of other Shrek movies do. But I really love the aesthetics. The characters actually mean something to me. It just keeps on working when it shouldn't be working. Maybe it's a me thing. Maybe it's what happens when you watch enough of a franchise to just get it. The only difference is that my love for the series only started when everyone else's dropped off. That's reasonable, right? Rated R, and for a while, I thought would push the NC-17 train. Again, the combos for these Academy Awards are too long, too depressing, and too sexual. While depressing, it might not be the most depressing. But there's a ton of nudity and sex happening in this movie. I'm pretty sure there's drugs. A ton of alcohol. There's violence, and feces, and projectile vomit. It's got so much going for / against it. Depending on where you stand. (Just don't stand behind the elephant!)
DIRECTOR: Damien Chazelle He uses the theme to La La Land a lot, doesn't he? Like, it is all through the movie. I'm not even mad. The soundtrack to La La Land is a bop, even the score. Hearing a rendition of it in Babylon isn't exactly a turn-off either. If I wasn't in mixed company right now, I would be blaring this soundtrack loud. You all hated this movie, right? Don't get me wrong. It commits all three crimes of the 2023 Academy Award nominees: it's too long; it's too sexual; it's too depressing. But I'll tell you what. Despite being kind of imperfect, it's pretty great. In the first 20 minutes, I was convinced I was going to hate it. I also forgot that it was directed by Damien Chazelle, whose movies have completely crushed for me. Yeah, I'm becoming a bit of a fanboy. The movie, for those not in the know, starts with an elephant massively defecating all over a person as they attempt to spit out the excrement. Mmm...sign me up for more of that, am I right? (Sometimes, sarcasm is lost in writing. I did not care for this sequence.) From there, the movie spirals into an epic party that has more in common with the orgy from Eyes Wide Shut than it does an party that I've ever thrown. For example, not once did anyone pull out an unplayed copy of Star Trek: Catan in an attempt to really get the party cooking. And then the party just kept going and I thought, "I can't handle this." One thing about me and shock, I'm not a fan. I was in high school from 1998-2001 (stop it, identity theives!) and I was just in the cradle of shock culture then. I learned that shock can only go so far when it comes to storytelling. But I think that Damien Chazelle knows that. Yeah, the movie has three hour and nine minute runtime, a crime in my imagination. But I think it's there for a very specific reason. Babylon, for all of its commentary on Singin' in the Rain (I'll get to that later), is a movie about juxtaposition. We were at one place; now we are at another. We are absolute messes; we make art out of chaos. The more extreme that these parties get, the more the product of cinema seems impressive. Babylon, as its name implies, stresses that movies should not work. These are people who are given too much money and drugs and alcohol and sex and, somehow, the movies that we all grew up modeling film off of seem fun and entertaining. There needs to be that contrast. Yeah, I do think that Chazelle really embraces that he's allowed to make a really long movie. But sometimes, I feel like I am just binge watching a show. I know. It's not the most flattering thing to say about a movie, especially a movie about the glory of movies. But The Irishman had the same thing. When a movie hits a certain runtime, our brains have to shift. It's incredible American for me to say, because other countries regularly have insane runtimes for their movies. But for the sake of storytelling, sometimes the audience has to shift perspectives a little bit. Nothing I'm about to say is going to be shocking. Chazelle wears his obsessions on his sleeves. He really likes old-timey cinema. He also likes music. Like with La La Land, he's doing both fandoms a service. With La La Land, it was more music over film. With Babylon, it's more film over music. I'm okay with that. He does what he does. Do I want him to branch out? Sure. But Chazelle is doing a lot of inside baseball here. He knows that a lot of his audience probably knows Singin' in the Rain pretty well. (That's me!) I don't think that a lot of people were casually about to go see Babylon. It's the cinephile's bait. I don't even know how he got financing outside of promising Academy Awards that he will not get. There are all these references to Singin' in the Rain, going as far as having Jack Conrad try to sing that song for a movie he doesn't want to be in. For a while, I thought that Chazelle was doing some kind of pastiche. It's a weird place to be in. Singin' in the Rain is a comic send-up of the death of the silent film era. If you wanted to make a historical fiction set in this era, you are going to hit a bunch of the same touchstones. But I honestly started screaming "Dueling Cavalier!" during the movie, saying that there is pastiche and then there is plagiarism. But it's not plagiarism. The movie decides to cite its sources. It all culminates in Manny watching Singin' in the Rain, watching it as a tragedy. I have such amorphous opinions about this. I love Singin' in the Rain. It's one of those musicals that I completely gel with. There are a handful. I don't call myself a musical guy. But I do like good film and Singin' in the Rain is good film. It's funny and well-made and I'm not going to apologize for it. But I will say that maybe --just maybe --Chazelle has a point. Or maybe this isn't his point and I'm full of it. Anyway, he might have a point in saying that one man's comedy is another man's tragedy. For all of the laughs and broad characterization of Singin' in the Rain, there's something tragic and slightly bullish about the concept of the movie. (I know, I'm trying to make the word "bully" into an adjective, but "bullish" means something else.) There is this temptation to look at silent film as something primitive. It was the beginning of a movement that was built out of novelty. For the longest time, it wasn't treated as art. After all, one of the first films that Edison ever made was "boxing cats", the forerunner of today's YouTube culture. But Chazelle wants to stress that the silent film stars were people. Sure, they were full of themselves and led debaucherous lives. But if we focus on Nellie and Jack, what should have been progress was an assault on what they considered something difficult to do. These were people talented at one specific thing and then someone came in and just made them amateurs in a matter of years. Nellie's life, for all of her partying, (which is intentionally a blend of sympathetic and pathetic) made her self-actualized. She comes to grips with some demons and embraces others. She finds value in the fact that she can have fun on set. She doesn't allow others to define her because she knows that she can have fun on a set. But then sound comes and, moreso, audiences get more conservative. Nellie goes from her authentic self to a self that is being determined by outside forces. There's something to be celebrated while Nellie is a silent film actress. Yeah, I'm going to judge her because I lead a very vanilla lifestyle where I look forward to my 100 calorie bag of veggie straws after a long day of teaching. But Nellie, in her full-party-saiyan form, is happy. She is who she wants to be. When she's being the Wild Child version of herself, there's something gleeful. She's making art. She may not call it art. But Nellie gets on camera and blows people's minds with her impulses and her instincts for what makes good movies. It's subconscious and honestly a little lovely. As much as I judge her, there's a joy to see oneself so fully-realized, especially considering that everyone pigeon-holes her for being just another party girl at the party. That scene, where Nellie's close-up calls her the Wild Child --as sexual as it is --it's heartwarming. She is seen and she is appreciated. Sure, the Hollywood Babylon, from which this movie gets its name, can only sell that image for so long. But instead of minimizing the concept of the fifteen minutes of fame, that time in the sun is about actualization. Conversely, it is also about the crime of hope. For the first time, the people agree that Nellie has value. Not only does she has value, but she has celebrity. When that is stripped of her, that's when she spirals out of control. Manny, for all of his successes, probably stays most similar to his own personality. He gets more ruthless, but he doesn't really change his thoughts about Nellie, despite constant disappointment from her. (I think a bunch of my draft didn't save and I kind of want to cry because I'm so tired right now.) I don't know what to think about Jack, though. If I had to say that this was a story about someone, it's about Nellie and Manny. Nellie and Manny have a clear arc. It's almost telegraphed in their opening scenes together. They go from nothing, to ruling the world, to destroyed by their own meteoric rise to success. Nellie and Mannie are tragic and that's what is going to stick with me. Then why have Jack? I'm obsessed with the Singin' in the Rain angle of the whole thing. Jack is Don Lockwood. But the story plays out really differently for the two characters. Jack as Don works kind of well. He's a guy who made it big in the silent era. You couldn't get any bigger than either of these guys. Okay. That's fine. When Don makes The Dueling Cavalier, it comes across as a joke and there's a risk of him being washed up. But Don sets aside his own ego and makes active change. It seems like Chazelle is a guy who doesn't want to have that easy out. Maybe it is more about the notion that you can't just want things to be okay and then they are. Jack doesn't get a singing version of The Dueling Cavalier. If anything, his movie lives in a more grounded world. Test screenings don't really exist and a studio isn't willing to sink a bunch more money into making a flop into a hit, especially considering that the footage wouldn't be useful. Heck, Jack doesn't even realize that the film is a flop until he comes back from a many-week vacation. What's even more frustrating is that Jack's movie doesn't seem that bad. I mean, it's not charismatic or anything like that, but it isn't an active failure as established by the fact that we see the part of the movie that gets lambasted. That had to be a choice, right? I am grasping at straws here because I'm exhausted, but maybe it is the need for an audience to be so polarized by something that is supposed to be neutral. With Singin' in the Rain, The Dueling Cavalier is meant to be awful. It's so over-the-top awful that it's quotable. But with Jack's performance, it's just a little flat. Yet, the audience loses its mind over Jack's forgettable performance. Aren't most performances forgettable? I go through my Timehop and see that I wrote entire blogs on movies that I don't even think that I've heard of at this point. While Babylon might be my least favorite Damien Chazelle movie, it's darned great. Yeah, I'd have a hard time rewatching it, simply because of all of the shocking content contained within. It's not one of those rewatchable movies. But, honestly, part of me really wants to. There's so much charisma behind the choices made within this film. Maybe that's what draws me to Chazelle's movies, despite the fact that they keep touching on the same points. Regardless, this movie should get more attention than it does. I think that this was labelled TV-MA, and it's almost exclusively for language and depressing imagery. These are kids who have been through the wringer and have come out a little bit broken. Often, their language comes out of nowhere. They'll be a little kid, doing little kid things, and then something crass comes out of nowhere. Also, there are descriptions of horrifying acts that they have witnessed. TV-MA.
DIRECTOR: Simon Lereng Wilmont And now it hits home. My family is Ukrainian. How Ukrainian? I'm first generation American. Ukrainian was my first language, but I don't really speak it anymore. My grammar was always trash and I have a paralyzing anxiety trying to speak it to Ukrainians because I'm worried about getting laughed at. If you want me to get over it, it isn't going to happen. It's something I've dealt with since I was a little kid. Anyway, my mom was in town, so we pushed up the documentary about wartorn Ukraine to the top of the "to-watch" pile. Good thing, too, because it's the best of the documentaries this year. Documentaries are no fun to write about. Okay, they're no fun for me to write about. Part of it comes from the very nature of being a true documentary. A documentary follows a story and hopes that a narrative finds itself. Now, a good documentarian will find a story that no one else sees in the footage and arranges it to make a coherent point. But often, the quality of a documentary is about how much I care about the topic. If you read my travesty of a blog that followed All That Breathes, you can tell that I just don't care about kites, no matter how dramatically you present kites. (By the way, "kites" the bird, not "kites" the children's toy.) With A House Made of Splinters, you have me. I already said that this is the best of the docs for this year, but a lot of that comes from the fact that I A) have investment in Ukraine and B) am moved by the plight of the poor and disenfranchised. This is a movie about Ukrainian displaced children who live in garbage conditions and have to be in the equivalent of halfway houses, separated from their parents. Yeah, I'm moved. It's so much to have to process and the entire thing is just depressing. But this is all a heads up to say that I'm basically going to be writing about the misery of children who must be separated from their parents. I give all of the credit and kudos to Wilmont for finding this story, documenting this story, and focusing this story. But ultimately, I'm going to be talking about the social evils of the world in the context of the fact that I saw this in a documentary. It's probably bad writing, especially in a blog that claims to be a movie blog, but that's what documentaries are almost supposed to do. We're supposed to almost forget the medium we're watching because we're supposed to adopt the cause as our own. Before I go too far, I would like to point out that Amazon completely mislabeled this as a movie about wartime Ukraine. The war is barely mentioned because most of this was filmed before the war broke out. (But, if you look at other documentaries, the war is always a spectre on Ukraine, regardless of immediate threat level.) When making a movie about orphans (please excuse my shorthand, but it is so much easier to just say "orphan" despite stressing that these kids are in different situations) in Ukraine, you would think that there would be something cultural to focus on in Ukraine. Looking at the conditions of the facility, yeah, it screams Ukraine. I have a tactile sympathetic experience thinking of how many layers of paint are on that concrete. But there's nothing about A House Made of Splinters that makes it necessarily about Ukraine. Instead, it almost is a morality play about the dangers of alcoholism. A House Made of Splinters does so much right that I don't want to pinpoint one thing that it does exceptionally well. But what the movie does is give a universal message about the polluting properties of alcohol. The movie follows a handful of kids as they navigate the judicial system of parental responsibility. I think that each of the kids is part of a home where alcohol plays such a large role. (Listen, you can make the alcoholic Ukrainian comment or you can acknowledge that many difficult environments share an alcoholism epidemic.) The thing about alcoholism that A House Made of Splinters plays up is the notion that alcohol is absolutely a drug. Many of these kids love their parents, but want nothing to do with their parents because their parents keep disappointing them. Out of all the kids highlighted in this documentary, there is only one parent who visits their kids. It's actually really weird that visitation is not only a privilege, but it is expected by parents. Again, the movie stresses that few parents take advantage of the opportunity to visit their kids. But the mom who comes to visit seems like she genuinely loves her kids. (I somehow am both cynical and naive at the same time. For all I know, she's putting on the face for the camera that's in the room. I choose to think that she loves her kids.) But there's something just a little bit off. She's just drunk enough to come across as inappropriate. It's in the small moments when examining her mannerisms and the fact that everything she does is tainted by what she describes as one beer. It's depressing, because this is a woman who has multiple kids in the same institution. Kolya, the oldest and one of the primary focuses of the documentary, becomes a child around her when she is there. Kolya's big thing is that he's forced to grow up too fast. I mean, they all have to grow up too fast. There are moments where they are absolutely children, singing, playing, exercising. But Kolya is burdened with being an oldest boy. We can get into gender politics later. Kolya's basic needs aren't being met, so he's quickly influenced by his environment, which includes toxic boys who are grooming him to be a violent turd. Kolya is defined by how much trouble he's getting in. His markers are used to make temporary tattoos. He's constantly being scolded for his behavior. We straight up see him steal and smoke cigarettes (which, why are there cigarettes anymore? Aren't we past this?). But when his mom is there, we watch him completely break down. Now, we're human beings. We're the audience, begged to empathize with this kid. He's barely holding it together. He's there, taking care of a family that he doesn't know what to do with and actually have hope for the future. And then there's the knowledge that his mom is going to be gone any second. She'll be gone and she won't come back. Sorry for the spoiler, but I don't know if that shocks anyone. I don't want to detract from Sacha or Eva. Their stories are rough too. But Kolya represents so much of what this movie is trying to say. There's this constant thing that I was thinking. Yes, this is a Ukrainian temporary home that doesn't scream "awesome." But the environment there has to be better than it is at home. After all, they have friends there. There is warmth and toys and food. The people there (and again, that odd combo of cynical and naive playing up right now) seem to really care about them. (There are many tears shed in this movie.) But this place is a Band-Aid. It's something that they can only enjoy for nine months. I'm using the word "enjoy" inappropriately. It's a balm. It's a temporary relief. The entire time there, they are thinking about how their parents are self-destructing at home. Think about all of that, and then look at Kolya's situation in nine months. I mean, it all comes to a head when those nine months are up. Kolya is separated from his siblings. That's too much. It's too much for me. I'm about to cry just writing about it. (I wish I could full on cry. It's all caught in my throat and in the bags under my eyes.) It honestly seems like torture to me. No one begrudges the temporary home or the social workers who are helping kids like Kolya. But part of me is angry because it seems like it is nine months of denied hope. I want to live in a world where hope is one of those vital emotions that keeps us alive. But watching what hope does to someone in this movie is painful. I know I'm downplaying the poisoning influence of addiction here, but just get your act together, Mom! Just stop. I know it is hard. Alcohol is great and it is a societal norm. But watching these kids go through Hell should sober anyone up. But that's where the cynical part of me punches through and says, "People don't change." All of this makes me sad and I don't drink. I try my best for my kids and I can't imagine any parent who wouldn't save their kids from this kind of landslide. I'm very loved. I'm very blessed. Sometimes it takes a movie like A House Made of Splinters to remind me how good I have it. I am incredibly frustrated with my kids regularly. There are so many days that I wanted to collapse this week. But I also want to run home and hug my kids and hope that they want to hug me back. Wilmont made a good movie. I want to give him credit for what he made. But like a good documentarian, he let life tell its own story and it worked on me. PG, and am I crazy, but is this the least offensive one? I mean, there are themes of parental abandonment. But I don't remember a bunch of stuff that would be considered wholeheartedly offensive. I mean, we're in 2010 now. The shock-valued early-2000s have died down and stories didn't have to offend to get laughs. Like many kids movies, there are scary moments, especially considering that Shrek spends the majority of the movie in an alternate reality dystopia. PG.
DIRECTOR: Mike Mitchell Oh man I'm about to get controversial. I'm all riled up and I have something to say. I've been teasing this in my other Shrek blog entries. It's not that I have strong opinions about Shrek movies. As previously stated in other entries, I'm just getting prepped for Puss in Boots: The Last Wish by catching up on the other movies in the Shrekiverse. But are you ready for the thunder? (I don't know if you are ready. This is a one-way medium and no one ever comments on these things.) Shrek Forever After, the fourth entry in a series that I didn't really get into, is the best Shrek movie. So far. I hear that there's a Shrek 5 in the can, but might be unreleasable? I don't know. Okay, one thing we have to clear the air about. The Shrek movies have a lot of ironic fans behind them. It's the whole Chuck Norris thing, only it's a bit more split than that. Some people genuinely get obsessed with Shrek. Good. Like what you like. These aren't terrible movies. They're just not my fandom. Let your freak flag fly, which is a very on-brand Shrek idea. Then there are people who like making fun of "All-Star" and playing Shrek on devices not designed to play movies. I tried Googling "lo-res Shrek" and there were too many results, just validating my point. So I don't know what people really think about Shrek Forever After. On Letterboxd, there's a guy who has multiple Shrek the Third posts just advertising how good Shrek Forever After is. I get the vibe that it is one of those really disliked movies because I don't think a lot of people saw this one. It's a bummer, because I'm a dad and this is the movie that gets dads. The other Shrek movies keep starting with ideas, but rarely make good on them. Sure, the first Shrek movie does this wonderful body positivity thing that I'm a fan of, but even that is a bit watered down. But here's me, in 2023, watching Shrek 4 and finally I have something that really talks to me. That's what this franchise needed: something that spoke to 40-year-old dads. Here's the thing. Shrek genuniely is the cause of his own misery in this one. I love my family. I absolutely do. But let's talk about yesterday (from the day that I wrote this sentence). Two nights ago, my four-year-old got out of bed at 11:00 pm. She shares a room with her two-year-old sister. Penny, the four-year-old, was howling about the nightlight that was missing. Okay. That's managable. Only it wasn't. The nightlight was gone, as were all the backup nightlights. (I had prepped for this very scenario and my backup plan was stymied!) I found a nightlight in the basement and I ran it upstairs. Problem solved, right? Nope. Penny starts screaming louder and louder. We discovered that she had an ear infection. She did not go quietly into that good night. There was no sleep to be had that night. She woke up her two-year-old sister and my wife and I had to tag-team keeping kids quiet because the other two had still stayed asleep. Once the morning came, we got meds from the pharmacy; meds that should return kids to normal within the hour. Penny's stomach didn't like these meds, so she puked all over...twice. I slept with her in the basement and had two nights of crappy sleep. (For clarification, my wife got really bad sleep the night before, so it was my turn. I, too, got bad sleep that first night, but nothing compared to my wife.) That's one night. Parenthood, for all of its positives and the things that keep me alive and fully-realized, is absolutely miserable a lot of the time. I regularly have the phrase, "I just need a vacation from my family" in my head, something that is considered blasphemous. Shrek's desire to be taken seriously as himself, not simply as the spouse to Fiona or the father to three kids (thank you, Forever After, for confirming how many children Shrek has) is a thing. I try to imagine scenarios where I have an extended amount of time away, where I can write, play video games, sleep in, and do all the stuff that 20-year-old Tim would do and my best case scenario involves retirement. As much as Shrek Forever After demonizes Shrek for having these feelings, it also normalizes the concept of self-care. Shrek, like an idiot (a realistic idiot) points that attention outwards. Those feelings turn into feelings of resentment to his family and that's where Shrek's mistake lies. Thus, we're granted the first Shrek villain that really matters: Rumpelstiltskin. I know. Some of you are crying "Fairy Godmother" or "Farquaad." If you read my blogs about the other movies, you'll get my thoughts on them, particularly Farquaad. The Shrek movies have always have had a hard time returning to their themes. They always seem like these tertiary ideas (which defeats the definition of "theme"). But Rumpelstiltskin is the personification of finding companionship outside of marriage. Okay, slow down. I am not writing a critical response to gay theory in Shrek Forever After. (Although, I really want to right now because that sounds like a fascinating paper.) Shrek is in a low place after his kids' birthday party. ("Do the roar" will forever be my favorite Shrek quote.) He gets into a fight with Fiona over his boorish behavior (His tank is on empty and people need to vent sometimes) and he turns his attention to Rumpelstiltskin, who offers him the seemingly impossible. He offers him a single day in exchange for a forgettable day. Rumpelstiltskin is a miserable turd. (I like him as a villain. I'm talking about his characterization.) His entire thing is blaming others for things that eluded him. I'm going to make the comparison of Rumpelstiltskin to the divorced dad or the incel. There's this whole origin story for Rumpelstiltskin where he was going to gain control of the land of Far, Far Away, but Shrek's heroism saving Fiona cost him that contract. Starting from moment one, he finds excuses for why he can't succeed on his own. He blames everything on Shrek, someone he hasn't met. Also, the notion of Fiona being trapped in a tower included the notion that people were going to rescue her. It's actually weird that more people hadn't rescued her up to that point. But there he is, blaming Shrek. He then befriends Shrek for the sake of tricking him into this whole contract. Where I'm really slowly getting to is that Shrek is feeding his own confirmation bias. Instead of finding a place where he can receive honest feedback and constructive criticism, he wallows in the emotional gutter with someone who wants to see him fail. Okay, yeah, Rumpelstiltskin is a bit on the nose for someone who wants to see him fail. Real life, the people who want to see you fail probably don't literally even think that. They simply want to justify their own misery with other miserable people. It's once Shrek is in the dystopian alternate reality (which I will now refer to just as "dystopia") that he has his It's a Wonderful Life moment. The very notion of "glory days" is an amoral concept. There's no fault on Shrek when he thinks of the good ol' days as a fearful ogre. (Okay, you could argue that romanticizing emotional terrorism probably has its fair share of issues.) But it's only when he has those moments stripped away, like George Bailey, that he sees the immorality of his actions. It's interesting, the It's a Wonderful Life formula. These stories work really well for moral heroes. George Bailey spends the majority of the movie being a good person. It's when he looks back at a world where he's never been born that he gets the message of his good acts. Shrek never really gets to the heights of all the good he has done. I'm not going to give Shrek Forever After the same points as It's a Wonderful Life because It's a Wonderful Life is a masterpiece and Shrek Forever After is the fourth movie in a kids' cartoon franchise that makes a pun on "four". But Shrek's actions have positive ramifications. We can't forget that Shrek is predisposed not to help people. Every positive change he makes is a bit of a sacrifice for him. Shrek Forever After is the payoff to that list of small sacrifices. I still get the vibe that people don't love this movie. I think, like with Quantumania, there's fatigue towards a franchise here. It's not so much that people don't like like Shrek Forever After as much as it is people not being all that interested in Shrek sequels anymore. Heck, I'm openly one of them. If I didn't have this obsessive need to watch everything, I wouldn't have seen this one. Sure, I'm happy that I'm done with the actual Shrek movies. But it was a good one to go out on. |
Film is great. It can challenge us. It can entertain us. It can puzzle us. It can awaken us.
AuthorMr. H has watched an upsetting amount of movies. They bring him a level of joy that few things have achieved. Archives
April 2024
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