shallowness (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shallowness) wrote2024-09-01 02:39 pm
shallowness) wrote2024-09-01 02:39 pm
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Movies seen over summer '24
I went to see Inside Out 2 with tempered expectations, and as everyone has said, while it’s not as good as the original, it’s well worth seeing. They dealt with Riley hitting puberty and its effect on her sense of self (nicely visualised) in a way that younger kids could relate to. It felt like there were a lot of similar beats from the original movie (a quest! Bossy Joy has to deal with a challenge from another emotion! Some of what Riley was going through in the outside world!)
There were probably too many new emotions, (I kept thinking that Disgust covered a lot of the same ground as many of the newbies.) Maya Hawke’s voice has the same raspy quality as Phyllis Smith’s. I’m still not sure if Anxiety is an emotion and whether they did enough with how it taking control becomes a clinical problem, something that was skirted with Sadness and depression in the first film. I also felt like they skirted the ethics of what was going on (there’s not a mention of Honesty Island!) So, it raised a lot of interesting questions while being entertaining. But since seeing it, I’ve read a lot of stories about the great box office redeeming Disney-Pixar/saving cinema.
I caught a cold in July and my cough hung around, so I didn’t go to the cinema all month. So, it was in August that I went to see Twisters. I had been spoiled that the script was not great (it really isn’t, there are moments where it’s lunkheaded) and that there was no closing smooch. What there is is spectacle. It’s not as good as Twister, and there isn’t really a link, just nods like the font, ‘Dorothy’ and the heroine ends up in a white vest.
Traumatised tornado whisperer Kate gets pulled back into chasing tornados by a friend who is forever destined to be in the friend zone (as he’s competing with characters played by Daryl McCormack and then Glen Powell). Their team seem a bit stuffy and are working with a lizardlike investor. The competing team, who seem to want to send fireworks up tornados, look like a lot more fun and turn out to be helpers, at heart. Now it’s the 2020s, there are wind pylons and a glancing mention of climate change. Big spectacle, very superficial depiction of an American way of life (but I’m superficial enough to appreciate Powell in blue jeans, white t and a cowboy hat in some rain) but the girl gets to save a town (and possibly the world.) Daisy Edgar-Jones’s accent occasionally wobbled and I kept thinking how much she looks like Anne Hathaway. Maura Tierney turns up! Apparently it was a bigger hit in the US than the rest of the world, which figures.
I’ve also finally seen Past Lives on DVD and thought it very, very good (a brilliant debut by Celine Song) with very specific and thus universal things to say about identity. And so beautifully shot!
I went to see Widow Clicquot, which was almost exactly the film I thought it would be from the trailer. That’s not a criticism, per se. It’s the latest biopic of a historical Frenchwoman made by Brits (see also Collette and Radioactive, the latter of which also features Sam Riley), set in the very French Champagne region (I wonder if they got to film there) but with everyone speaking in English. On the other hand, its aesthetic is a kind of pretty naturalism with a dash of mud. It figures that Joe Wright was an executive producer. Although I thought it was a bit strident about its of-this-moment proto-feminism, the use of flashbacks to tell a composite story was excellent. (It’s also a shame that husband Francois’s look was a bit Napoleonic Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker.) I don't think it's done much box office.
There were probably too many new emotions, (I kept thinking that Disgust covered a lot of the same ground as many of the newbies.) Maya Hawke’s voice has the same raspy quality as Phyllis Smith’s. I’m still not sure if Anxiety is an emotion and whether they did enough with how it taking control becomes a clinical problem, something that was skirted with Sadness and depression in the first film. I also felt like they skirted the ethics of what was going on (there’s not a mention of Honesty Island!) So, it raised a lot of interesting questions while being entertaining. But since seeing it, I’ve read a lot of stories about the great box office redeeming Disney-Pixar/saving cinema.
I caught a cold in July and my cough hung around, so I didn’t go to the cinema all month. So, it was in August that I went to see Twisters. I had been spoiled that the script was not great (it really isn’t, there are moments where it’s lunkheaded) and that there was no closing smooch. What there is is spectacle. It’s not as good as Twister, and there isn’t really a link, just nods like the font, ‘Dorothy’ and the heroine ends up in a white vest.
Traumatised tornado whisperer Kate gets pulled back into chasing tornados by a friend who is forever destined to be in the friend zone (as he’s competing with characters played by Daryl McCormack and then Glen Powell). Their team seem a bit stuffy and are working with a lizardlike investor. The competing team, who seem to want to send fireworks up tornados, look like a lot more fun and turn out to be helpers, at heart. Now it’s the 2020s, there are wind pylons and a glancing mention of climate change. Big spectacle, very superficial depiction of an American way of life (but I’m superficial enough to appreciate Powell in blue jeans, white t and a cowboy hat in some rain) but the girl gets to save a town (and possibly the world.) Daisy Edgar-Jones’s accent occasionally wobbled and I kept thinking how much she looks like Anne Hathaway. Maura Tierney turns up! Apparently it was a bigger hit in the US than the rest of the world, which figures.
I’ve also finally seen Past Lives on DVD and thought it very, very good (a brilliant debut by Celine Song) with very specific and thus universal things to say about identity. And so beautifully shot!
I went to see Widow Clicquot, which was almost exactly the film I thought it would be from the trailer. That’s not a criticism, per se. It’s the latest biopic of a historical Frenchwoman made by Brits (see also Collette and Radioactive, the latter of which also features Sam Riley), set in the very French Champagne region (I wonder if they got to film there) but with everyone speaking in English. On the other hand, its aesthetic is a kind of pretty naturalism with a dash of mud. It figures that Joe Wright was an executive producer. Although I thought it was a bit strident about its of-this-moment proto-feminism, the use of flashbacks to tell a composite story was excellent. (It’s also a shame that husband Francois’s look was a bit Napoleonic Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker.) I don't think it's done much box office.