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#i saw that scene where robin williams' character killed himself to save all of humanity
oflgtfol · 3 years
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“god loves you!!” the church said and then in the same breath told us how god killed literally all of humanity except for like three people that one time, or how you go to hell for suicide when suicide is like 99% of the time a result of literal mental illness, or how you go to hell for questioning his authority or for a bunch of tiny little sins that just Add Up Over Time if you don’t properly go and grovel at his feet for forgiveness frequently enough, or you go to hell for simply not believing in god when he gives literally no fucking proof he even exists. and they made us excruciatingly aware of just how long eternity is and just how painful burning is so surely Burning In Hell For All Of Eternity is the absolute epitome of Pain and Suffering
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ahouseoflies · 4 years
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The Best Films of 2019, Part II
Part I is here. ENDEARING CURIOSITIES WITH BIG FLAWS
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106. Alita: Battle Angel (Robert Rodriguez)- I'm not looking at a list of films with budgets over $175 million, but I guarantee this is the one with the lowest stakes. It concerns a cyborg who tries to uncover the identity that the audience knows she has all along, and it takes place on three sets. I was intrigued by the prospect of Robert Rodriguez directing a James Cameron production, since the former uses effects to be lazy and the latter uses effects to challenge himself. Alita is more of a Rodriguez movie in that regard. Although it looks slightly better than those pictures he used to make in his backyard, it ain't by much. 105. The Upside (Neil Burger)- As good enough as movies get, good enough right up to the childish screenwriting contrivances of the third act. ("I guess he knows about wheelchairs now, so he gets a job at a wheelchair factory? Or maybe it's his own factory? I don't know--I'm still spitballing in this production draft.") Queen Nicole is criminally underserved though. Have you read that story about how Keanu Reeves's friend forged his name onto the contract for The Watcher, but Keanu didn't want to go through a prolonged legal battle, so he just showed up despite the fraud? Surely it's got to be something like that. Or maybe she was under the impression her character was still being fleshed out, but she got there and saw that nothing has been changed since the last draft? It's just like, "Yvonne looks stern. More to be added." I know for sure that no one told one of the greatest actresses in the world about the part in which she's supposed to be a good dancer. She would have prepared. 104. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (Dean DeBlois)- HtTYD is still the most visually experimental animated franchise. For example, DeBlois hazes the image when a character is looking at another through a torch, there's a five-minute wordless sequence of dragons falling in love, and a lot of work has been put into crafting peach fuzz. I also appreciate that these films retain consequences. Hiccup has a prosthetic leg, and his dad is still dead. Narratively though, everything feels like a holding pattern, a brand extension that doesn't offer real stakes or real laughs. (Fishlegs has a beard now. That's his character development. That's it.) Even if The Hidden World offers an ending of sorts to the trilogy, it's a story of retreat/escape that can't help but feel like a sideways step from its already disappointing predecessor. My daughter tuned out and got really restless with about twenty minutes left. 103. Greta (Neil Jordan)- Such a boilerplate thriller that I was actually predicting the dialogue at points: "Miss, I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do if she's just standing there across the street. She's not breaking the law." There is one notable thing that happens though. In a scene at a church, Huppert makes the Sign of the Cross incorrectly. As an actress, kind of negligent. As a French person, pretty exquisite. 102. Anna (Luc Besson)- The timeline-jumping didn't work for me, but without it, I don't think there's much notable about the quadruple-crossing here at all. The awe-inspiring restaurant fight sequence is the film's saving grace; I'm awarding an extra half-star for its slashing-throats-with-plates viscera. 101. Captain Marvel (Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden)- Was I supposed to know what a Skrull was before this? Lee Pace and Djimon Hounsou show up playing Guardians characters, so I think I was supposed to connect more of the sci-fi dots of the first twenty minutes than I did. All of that inter-planetary stuff was tough sledding for me, and I preferred the Elastica music cue and Radio Shack jokes. As it turns out, especially in this genre, it's dramatically frustrating to go on a hero's journey with a character who doesn't know who she is. It was nice to see Samuel L. Jackson, with convincing de-aging effects, get a real arc in one of these movies, rather than just posing here and there. Brie Larson does enough posing for the both of them. 100. Frozen II (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee)- Frozen begins with sisters being separated after one injures the other. It plays for keeps from minute five. Frozen II, whose smaller stakes are felt in the one-or-so location, B-team songs, and forgettable new characters, never feels as real. 99. Aladdin (Guy Ritchie)- Even if the songs still bang and Nasim Pedrad is very funny, Aladdin feels as cynical and--don't say it, don't say it--unnecessary as all of these live-action remakes do. I'm looking forward to the animated remakes of the live-action remakes, which might figure out a way to reincarnate Robin Williams. One can dream, even cynically. 98. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (Vince Gilligan)- Finally, the TV movie--and no shade, but this ending we didn't ask for is definitely part of the TV movie tradition--that answers a burning question for Breaking Bad fans: Was Jesse ever interesting by himself?
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97. High Life (Claire Denis)- As uncool as it makes me, I have to admit that I just don't care for Claire Denis's aesthetic. Knowing nothing going in, I was captivated by the mysterious first half-hour, but once the film started to explain itself, it seemed like a B movie with more ponderous music. High Life is effectively claustrophobic, but I found myself "yes-anding" most of it. Yes, for example, space is lonely, as I've learned from every other movie about space.
96. Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (Richard Linklater)- From the get-go, this movie doesn't work--structurally, tonally--but the miscalculations of Linklater and Blanchett and especially the mawkish music don't have enough consequence for the film to even fail on a noteworthy level. It's not unpleasant. You just laugh sparingly and think, on the way out, "I don't think she loved her daughter as much as she said she did" or "Get to Antarctica twenty minutes earlier or twenty minutes later." Linklater, an inestimable talent, has added an entry to his filmography that might as well not exist. Making movies, especially adaptations of epistolary books, is hard. I'm being too understanding of that or not understanding enough. 95. Dumbo (Tim Burton)- Just as Dumbo begins to take chances--fashioning itself as an anti-corporate parable with Keaton playing a Disney-esque "architect of dreams"--it settles back down to its own low expectations. Expectations that come from the storytelling and characterization and not the production design, which seems grandly practical except for the CG [rolls up sleeves, adjusts glasses, tightens shoes] elephant in the room. Of the performances, Farrell comes out on top, displaying Movie Star confidence despite very little to work with. (Can a World War I veteran who lost his arm and his wife be allowed a bit more pain?) It gives me no pleasure to dunk on child actors, but both of the kids seem to be reading their lines, and their monotones nearly sink the movie at the beginning. 94. Echo in the Canyon (Andrew Slater)- A nice enough introduction to the scene, but Jakob Dylan's constant presence as an interviewer and performer turns it into a vanity project. The film shuffles among talking heads interviews, prep for an anniversary concert, and an anniversary concert, and I'll let you guess which one of those is interesting. The access that the filmmakers got is impressive, but if a person didn't participate (Carole King is the obvious one), the filmmakers just pretend he or she didn't exist. 93. Diamantino (Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt)- I like the notion of someone so specialized in his profession that he has a child-like understanding of the outside world, and Carloto Cotta sells the innocence of the title character. (The Donna Lewis needle-drop killed me too.) But too often this film feels as if it's focusing on sheer weirdness over satisfying narrative. Cult classics are fine, but you should try for the regular classic. 92. Ma (Tate Taylor)- There are some cool ideas here--the innocent entrees that technology provides, the way the movie earns its R rating. But the script needs a few more passes for everything to congeal past the silliness, especially with regard to the hammy flashbacks that attempt to provide motivation for the Ma figure. I respect the attempt to humanize a monster, but she would be more scary if left opaque. 91. Bombshell (Jay Roach)- The films that try explicitly to comment on our current social climate are never the most successful ones, especially if their internal politics are this muddled. The film takes great pleasure in implicating the toxic system of Fox News, taking shots at anyone who would participate. Then it starts to pick and choose who to like in that system, which is where it gets weird. Obviously, a Fox News employee who sexually harasses another employee is "worse" than an employee who gets harassed. But then the Charles Randolph screenplay starts to sort closeted lesbians and career-strivers, and it's not sure who the bad guys really are. The film moves quite swiftly in its first half, and Charlize Theron's mimicking of Megyn Kelly is eerie. But I don't think Jay Roach knows what he believes. The lurid, claustrophobic scene between Margot Robbie's composite Kayla and John Lithgow's breathy Roger Ailes is the transcendent moment. It teases out the humiliation slowly and powerfully. With a quite meta flourish, the scene makes you hate yourself if you've ever objectified one of the most objectified actresses in the world; she's that great at illustrating her discomfort.
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90. Glass (M. Night Shyamalan)- 1. A great example of "story" vs. "things happening." A negative example, I'm afraid. 2. The Osaka Tower represents the literal and figurative highs that the film will literally and figuratively not reach. 3. Spencer Treat Clark back!!! 4. The flashbacks are actual deleted scenes from Unbreakable, which is amazing. 5. Not since Lost has there been a work that seems like obsessive fan service, but the fan in mind is the creator, not any member of the audience. We do not want your explanations about Jai the security guard's role in your universe, Night. 6. This is a sequel to Unbreakable and a sequel to Split, but it somehow does not feel like a third chapter of anything. 7. It makes sense that I watched this on the same day that I listened to Weezer's The Teal Album, their surprise collection of punctilious '80s covers. In both cases, there's an artist who was really important to me in formative years but who has used up the last of whatever capital he has accrued by giving in to his worst instincts. In Shyamalan's case though, at least it's a confident swing. The second act pretty much tells us that we were dumb to believe what he sold us on. Even though it's dramatically inert and completely stops halfway through, this is exactly the movie he wanted to make, which I stupidly still admire. 89. Five Feet Apart (Justin Baldoni)- I checked this out because I have the sneaking suspicion that Haley Lu Richardson is a Movie Star, and she is continuing to progress into that power/responsibility. Otherwise the movie is a by-the-numbers weepie that doesn't really have a new spin on anything but hits its marks adequately. I was surprised that Claire Forlani got neither a "with" nor an "and" card in the credits. How rude. 88. Pet Sematary (Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer)- I like the bleak dive the film takes following its second big twist, which is handled well, but there is a ceiling for an adaptation of one of King's least ambitious and most predetermined tales. 87. Wild Rose (Tom Harper)- So conventional that Jessie Buckley almost got nominated for a Golden Globe. 86. Judy (Rupert Goold)- Just as the leaves start to change, we get biopics like these: too earnest to be cliched, too safe to be original. I'm on the ground floor of the Zellwegerssaince, but Judy is a slog in stretches. 85. The King (David Michod)- Capable but superfluous. Animal Kingdom was nine years ago, so it's quite possible that David Michod, even when he has an imperious Ben Mendelsohn at his disposal, has lost the urgency. The reason that anyone should see this--at least until someone puts together a YouTube compilation of just his scenes--is for Robert Pattinson, whose take on The Dauphin is the frontrunner for Most On-One Performance of the Year. 84. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams)- There are just enough moments--the first Force battle between Kylo and Rey being one of them--that remind the viewer of the magic of Star Wars. Kylo Ren's arc concludes in a more satisfying way than I expected, Babu Frik is officially my dude, and Daisy Ridley's post-Star Wars career intrigues me. My Dolby seat was rumbling, and I was pretty charged up on candy. But, man, most of the business here feels compromised, undermined, and inessential. It's a rushed connect-the-dots compared to The Last Jedi. There's a scene in which the gang has to risk wiping C-3PO's memory to gain important information--they need a thing to get to another thing to get to another thing--and there appear to be stakes for just a second. Then, as if to reassure the audience that there will be ten more of these movies, Rey adds, "Doesn't R2 have a backup of your memory?" That's the whole movie in an expensive, nostalgic nutshell.
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83. Queen & Slim (Melina Matsoukas)- Capable of tender moments but shot in the foot by its episodic nature, Queen & Slim is the most uneven picture of the year. The characters work well as foils to each other, but Jodie Turner-Smith's performance is overshadowed by Kaluuya's. I have no idea what Chloe Sevigny and Flea are trying to do in their brief time on screen, and I have no idea what the film is trying to do when it disturbs the point of view for a misguided protest sequence. 82. Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria)- It has been a long time since I was so surprised that a movie was over. The coda comes up telling us about, in real life, what kind of criminal slaps on the wrists the characters received, and I got pushed out of the theater wondering what it all amounted to. Yeah, that's the point. I know. Just as none of the 2008 bankers went to jail in the wake of their destruction, none of the women who drugged and exploited them did much time beyond "14 months of weekends" either. But should I applaud moral confusion? Can I be angry about the lack of consequences for both parties? If you want me to judge the film I watched instead of the film I wanted to watch, I can be more complimentary. Some of the most electric moments in 2019 cinema are here, rooted in 2008 strip club music. And saying 2008 strip club rap was good is like saying 1890 French Impressionism was good. Nearly every performance works, from Lili Reinhart's bashfulness to Wai Ching Ho's gratitude to Jennifer Lopez's intractable confidence. Also, I don't know if anyone has noticed this before, but J. Lo has a nice butt. 81. The Report (Scott Z. Burns)- There are some interesting things going on here. For example, this feedback loop: An hour or so in, protagonist Daniel Jones watches a fabricated news feature that explains what waterboarding is, and I had an instinct as an audience member to go, "Like we don't know by now. Don't hold my hand." But the only reason I know is because of news reports like that, informed by work that the real Daniel Jones did, dramatized in the events of the first half of this very movie. Still, this movie is a lot like one of those dishes in which every single element sounds like something you would like--"Ooh, pork belly, delicious. Oooh, lemongrass. Bet those would go well together"--but you take a bite, and it doesn't taste good. Is that your fault or the restaurant's?
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