SlovakPrincess

So .. Salem's Lot. Oh dear. The first half is so, so promising. The build up and the use of the song "Sundown" and all the lovely cinematography and the little town they used for the downtown atmosphere. Perfect. And the suspension building ... Especially that scene where the boys are walking in the woods and everything is in silhouette. All the scenes with undead Mike, especially the quiet creepiness of the bar scene -- fantastic. And yet. Somewhere around the halfway mark something happens with the script and everything just gets very dumbed down and wooden and clunky and all the depth falls away from the characters and everybody starts going through the motions. It seems like they wanted to do something with the idea of a "dying" town being vulnerable to evil, nobody truly good (as the sheriff claims), the town simply trying to ignore the Glick family tragedy and hating outsiders, and the sad, drinking priest ... etc. But it's not explored at all. Everybody quite literally disappears instead.

It's rare to find a movie that is merciless in its satire, but is still full of heart. I loved Monk (even when he was being difficult to love, as his brother told him), his family, and his agent. Just fantastic performances all around. Jeffrey Wright can do so much with the most subtle facial expression. When Lorraine and Maynard invited Cliff (and the two guys he picked up) to stay for the wedding, and Cliff was so appreciative ... 😪 And really all the scenes with Monk and Cliff. They felt like real people to me. At the end of the film I found myself thinking Even "Willy" and "Van Go" gave good performances when Monk was imagining his writing. When "Van Go" turned and was like "WTF?!" to Monk after Monk killed him off in the book, 😆 The conversation between Monk and Sintara was great. She immediately saw through the pandering and phoniness of "My Pafology / F**k" -- and we find out that her book was different because it was based on actual research and real life stories. Yet, she knows she's contributing to a genre that stereotypes Black people. Obviously, so is he, and arguably far more egregiously, and while we know it's mostly because he needs the money for his mom, he's being a hypocrite - but we're still on his side while he's arguing about how wrong it all is! So many layers to that scene.

This movie should have gotten a little more love. It's a deliriously bonkers and very fun summer movie, and Ryan Gosling was great in it, as were Emily Blunt and Winston Duke. Maybe I was just in the mood for fun action as a way to escape the heat wave for two hours, but this was worth a trip to the movie theater. I only very vaguely remember seeing old re-runs of the original 80s TV show as a kid on some random channel - but I still thought it was great to see the actors from the show in a cameo at the very end.

Finally watching this season and got to this episode… lmao. I died laughing. I am now deceased. I truly don’t know how Steve Martin carried that off.

Tarantino flirted with one kind of movie but was really making something more symbolic here. I kind of wanted him to develop the dramatic story of a has-been working his way through descending levels of Hollywood and having to come to terms with that, as his more chill side kick (with a dark past) crosses paths with and flirts with an element of the counter culture that turns out to be evil. Because a drama really committed to that (against the lovely back drop of Tarantino's shots of 1960s Hollywood) would've been pretty engrossing. And, yeah, I know, it's Tarantino. Style and quirkiness (that doesn't often land for me but I understand why others love) interspersed with graphic violence is kinda his thing. But don't tell me he couldn't have done something interesting and impactful about two macho men out of place in an industry and world that's changing too fast for them -- Jackie Brown is so good precisely because the two leads face and accept their own aging and hard luck in a hostile world, and it informs their actions through the film. Tarantino's clearly pining for a mythical past world of his media-loving childhood, where macho men could be macho men (and as long as they're "cool" we don't ask too many questions about how their nagging wife died, or whether Quentin was looking for an excuse to have a scene where two women get their faces absolutely pulverized, because if you think about those things for too long ... yikes). Margot Robbie as Tate is an enigma precisely because she's really just a symbol of this world (that never really existed) and yet Tarantino really longs for and wants to "save." We get some really nice tension building with the Spahn Ranch scenes, and Rick putting his all into playing a character he initially felt was beneath him ... only to realize he's still going to have to resort to spaghetti westerns. But that tension gets frittered away in the last act with misguided narration and the ultra-violent twist ending played for laughs that feels rushed after two hours of cruising along slowly and hinting at something deeper. OR, if you're a fan of Tarantino's style, it perfectly fits his vision. I'm not a Tarantino fan, and that's probably why his least Tarantino film (Jackie Brown) is my favorite and I found this film frustrating.

Seriously, that was giving me so much anxiety to watch. In the U.S. system, you can't be compelled to testify or answer questions at all if you're a criminal defendant. And witnesses are only supposed to answer the direct questions posed to them. I was jumping out of my skin wanting to yell "objection!" when Sandra and the psychiatrist just started arguing with each other and exchanging accusations. Holy hell. I would have an aneurysm if my client ever started word vomiting all over the place in court and I couldn't stop them and then it opened up a whole avenue for the prosecutor to question them.

The animation is, once again, flawless and gorgeous. Miles Morales is still a fantastic character. I liked it a lot but nowhere near as much as the first movie. They kind of threw too much story and way too many characters into this thing.

I'm extremely late to the party on this one, but did finally see it. Margot Robbie is a gem - I adored her in this. America Ferreira did a great job as well. The set design was fantastic. A lot of it was very funny. And I really enjoyed Rhea Perlman as the spirit of the Barbie creator. I thought Ryan Gosling was very funny here, but Oscar nominations for him and for the Ken song? Eh ... kind of a bit much, in my view. The way it ended was ... odd?

Emma Stone's commitment to this role and her performance really sold this. She was excellent! The look of the movie was over the top but very artistic, and the costumes were delightful. I was not bothered by the explicit sex, but I did think it was really overdone at a certain point. There was so much focus on that that it made it seem like that was the most important part of her education and growth as a person. I could have done with more of her with Harry the cynic and Martha -- the scene where she learns about the horror of poverty in the world was powerful, and I wished there was more of that. The stuff with the general was just kind of tedious and the movie could have been shorter.

The whole time, I couldn't stop thinking about how swimming for 60 hours straight in shark and jellyfish waters is insane, ridiculous, and unnecessary, and I don't condone it at all. I still loved this movie and was rooting for Diana, Bonnie and the gang by the end of it, though. Diana would be a lot - A LOT - to deal with, but Annette Bening made her sort of lovable somehow. Jodie Foster was fantastic and dynamic as well. Lovely understated performance from Rhys Ifans, as well. The appalled look on the jellyfish suit doctor's face, and the head medic just sort of nervously laughing along, when Diana was hallucinating and Bonnie was encouraging it ... lol, I died.

Ok, I did not expect this movie to be genuinely good?! I thought the story and acting, and the fact that they tried to say something meaningful about the demoralized psyche of ordinary Japanese people after WWII, were a pleasant surprise. I really thought it was going to be just a fun monster flick to take my nephew to, but I was pretty impressed.

They were on that damn train forever, lol. Celia and Jimmy Lee were just the absolute worst, making their wedding guests take like a week off of work to dress up and sit on a train to nowhere. I confess I stalled out in the middle of the Asian Quarter story and stopped trying to watch the 80s stuff for a long while (I have watched clips all over the place, and remember the late 80s from my childhood, but I was trying to do a watch all the way through). Anyway, your enjoyment of the Mr. Big story may depend entirely on whether you like the Duke character or not. I remember liking Duke well enough as a character when I was a kid.... but actually going back and watching clips many years later, and I'm just annoyed to distraction by him. I still really like the actor, while wanting to slap the character, if that makes sense? lol

I think this might be one of my huge problems with the movie, though. It pushes the idea Cassie was so "damaged" her self-sacrifice was inevitable. Most rape survivors and people who lose a loved one to suicide do, in fact, survive and it's absolutely possible for them to have the happy life and healing they deserve. This movie mostly works until the last 15 or so minutes - I'm in the camp of "I was enjoying it and thought it made some important points really well, but the ending ruins the whole thing for me." Fennel went for a big, splashy shocker, not to mention and it's just like ... huh?! And because the little plot-resolution bow she ties on at the end is not realistic, it forces you to think of all the other plot holes. For instance: - What was she actually doing to the guys from bars? Just lecturing them? What on earth was the plan for the lawyer before he repented? If your movie's about revenge, you do have to decide what the mode of revenge is going to be: we only see it with respect to the dean, Madison, and Al. - Her plan for Al was never going to work and she should have just released the video (we could have had some interesting debate over whether posthumously sharing these images of Nina was justified to ruin Al's life, but it would have made way more sense). - The idea that any of these people would be too afraid to report Cassie to the police because of their own past guilt is pretty naive. The dean, Madison, Al (if she'd successfully maimed him), the other men to the point she did anything physical to them ... most of them would have felt perfectly justified labeling her a crazy liar and the cops would've believed them in most cases. - Cassie's "back-up" revenge ( Which is completely unbelievable.

I think one of the things the film does do well is show the Cattons are nice and lovably eccentric on the surface ... become a bother or boring, and out you go. (Except Felix goes out of his way to find Oliver's parents and broker a reunion, completely undermining this -- did Fennel realize creating the "a-ha!" moment for Felix meant turning Felix into a person far more selfless and motivated than most college students, let alone super-privileged ones, would be???). Oliver is too extreme and unconvincing for us to do what Fennel wants -- cheer despite ourselves when he murders a sad, sickly, lonely Elspeth at the end of the movie, and then gleefully dances. Oliver is desperately obsessed AND a calm, cold schemer; painfully awkward AND a sexual god who easily seduces Venetia and Farleigh when the plot requires it -- and some sort of stand in for everyone who resents the super-rich (not for any lofty political reason, just a pathetic, greedy desire to be the super-rich). Give me a break. Fennel has made a very pretty movie with a lot of half-finished ideas that work against each other. Ripley worked because Matt Damon made Tom's desperation to be included palpable and understandable and Jude Law's Dickie was such a magnificent, beautiful bastard that you totally get why Tom desires him and snaps so violently when Dickie rejects him. Hell, Kellie Martin's obsession with and killing Tori Spelling in Death of a Cheerleader worked better on an emotional level than this movie (I'm only sort of joking).

The stuff with Rory and Logan cheating just really, really bothered me. It's unforgivable for people their age, and we never even find out how they fell into this horrible pattern with each other, it's just "oh, yeah, they've been doing this for a while now as we rejoin our story .... la la la [cue the cutesy GG music]" And the audience is just supposed to accept that? Why? They clearly wanted to force a Rory-is-pregnant-but-absolutely-must-raise-it-alone-because-reasons story, which they could've more believably done by having Logan and Rory run into each other, have an ill-advised nostalgic one-night fling that they both felt guilty about afterwards because he's engaged, and part. Teen Rory being drawn to Jess when she was with Dean, and even sleeping with a married Dean (as a thoughtless college kid gravitating back to her high school sweetheart) .... yeah, that was frustrating to watch at the time, but made sense for the story and the characters' ages. I don't think GG was intending to say "Rory is a natural cheater, it is part of her character so it makes sense she's still doing this at 30!" And yet, that's kind of how this ended up.