Ed Wood: ★★★★★ A brilliant film, very glad I decided to watch this over The Disaster Artist. Martin Landau put on the best performance I've seen on screen since I watched J.K. Simmons in Whiplash for the first time. Nearly watched it again tonight. What We Do In The Shadows: ★★★★☆ A very funny film, I thought they incorporated the tropes of vampires very well into their mockumentary. It was a bit predictable at times, but overall told a fun story with entertaining characters.
Yes and he also brought along the art/costume/production directions from Thor Ragnorok and the cinematographer from PTAs the Master, so that’s exciting I was shocked to learn about Taika Watti playing Hitler. That seems like a role tailor made for ScarJo
I wouldn't even be surprised if this whole time ScarJo was actually Robert Downey Jr. still in character from Tropic Thunder going ultra method.
I've talked about this with some friends, but do you guys think if a white guy like Ben Stiller walked into a room and pitched a role like that in 2018, it would be greenlit? I mean RDJ's role is universally loved, but I feel like the hypothetical twitter firestorm would torpedo the movie.
It could still happen but they would have to keep it so hush hush and not let anything leak out, and then explicitly (to almost condescending levels) show in the trailer that it's a satire and against the idea of blackface to survive coming out Because yeah I think social media would not let it happen, came out at just the right time. Shit was hilarious too. 2008 prolly my favorite year for comedy in recent memory between Pineapple Express, Step Brothers and Tropic Thunder
I think that role would hit even harder in 2018 and there's even more fertile material. Incredible performances and good excecution lets you get away with a lot. See stand up comedy. Would it get past the Twitter storm though? idk
San Andreas was better. Didn't hate Skyscraper, it was just mediocre. Rampage was also better. EDIT: One thing I will say about Skyscraper is I dug how they had an amputee protagonist and didn't make a big deal out of it. It was pretty cool that it's not really mentioned verbally and there aren't any lame jokes about it; it's just part of who the guy is.
Now let's get these white head motherfuckers... The First Purge is a really satisfying follow-up to Purge: Anarchy as truth to power for the impoverished minorities as the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA) reign over America. It's the most political of the Purge films, making no bones that it's reflecting Trump's America. Charlottesville, terrorism on black churches, "pussy-grabbing motherfuckers", Russian meddling, racist cops, and neonazis/alt-right/KKK/white supremacists as the third party (along with Repubs and Democrats) becoming the NFFA. Much like the Trump administration, it's made clear here that NFFA doesn't want to care for the poor, so they use this Purge experiment with monetary incentives in hopes the poor minorities exterminate each other. Leading the charge against all this are an all PoC cast of heroes, starting with Y'Lan Noel playing Dmitri (who you might know from Insecure) as the crime boss of Staten Island, Lex Scott Davis as the political activist Nya (former relations with Dmitri) against the Purge and female hero, along with her nervous brother Isaiah played by Joivan Wade who can only see money through drug pushing or the Purge as a way out of the projects. Y'Lan puts those muscles to good use as the film returns to the John Carpenter vibes (Escape From New York, Assault On Precinct 13) as first experienced in Purge: Anarchy. The action and tension here is even better, with Y'Lan revitalizing the action hero antics of Frank Grillo. A mostly one-shot sequence on the stairways reminded me of Atomic Blonde. The heroes here are more relatable. The lived-in atmosphere and dialogue is a great boon to the sense of community, equivalent to like Ryan Googled films. It's no surprise then that the director Gerard McMurray was a producer on Fruitvale Station and Burning Sands. The film can be seen as a cathartic exercise ( a Purge, if you will) for the disadvantaged to drop the respectability politics and pretenses of civility to maintain the status quo in order to fight against the oppressive regime. We gon' be alright.
I started watching two movies last night, but couldn't focus and ended up stopping and deleting both. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - I realized I'd already seen it and have lots of other stuff to watch. I just couldn't focus on it. Too much on my mind/too much caffeine. In the Heart of the Sea - My uncle had said he liked it, but I found the start really boring and wasn't enjoying it. Reviews were shit, which surprised me given his recommendation.
Akira Absolute classic, one of the best ever made and easily one of the most, if not the most, influential anime ever made. 5/5 Wij Hey, do you like film with completely unredeemable psychopaths as main characters à la A Clockwork Orange? Do you think movies nowadays could do with a little more underage sex and prostitution? Are you bored with coming of age movies? Are you not afraid to watch scenes showcasing extreme sexual, emotional and emotional abuse and some animal cruelty added on top? Boy, do I have the movie for you! Wij (We in English) is the impressive directing debut of Dutch filmmaker Rene Eller and offers a nihilistic, dark look into the lives of eight 16/17-year olds who one summer in Belgium decide that the best way to make money quick is by going into amateur porn and prostitution/extortion. What follows is a film that is not afraid to dig deep both thematically and visually (one specific scene has the characters perform explicit sex acts on screen, with what I assume are body doubles and another has the boys repeatedly sexually harrassing one of the girls as part of a game). This is not a film that is at all interested in making any of these characters sympathetic, with the exeption of maybe the second highlighted character (she at least shows some moral sensibility), every single one of the eight is a horrible person and acts like it. It's a fascinating character study of horrible people and one that's sure to be controversial. Special mention goes to Aimé Claes who plays the defacto leader of the group and absolute psychopath Thomas. He was scaringly convincing and I expect a huge career for him if he's already this good as an acting student. Anyway, yeah, I very much recommend this, but with a severe content warning. They even warned me about the content of the film when I went to buy tickets, something they didn't even do when I went to see Utøya, 22 juli. 4/5
