#cspreview — Public Fediverse posts

@Janet_52square Ha, just remembered this was someone in a group chat, not Mastodon. 😂 What did you think? (I haven't seen it, BTW.)

I used to post movie reviews on here, and got very little engagement. ( #CSPreview ) Someone told me I should do it on Letterboxd. But I said I didn't want to discuss my thoughts with cinephiles, I just wanted to bring them to the attention of the mofos on here.

STRANGER THAN FICTION (2008)
⭐⭐⭐

Dorky Will Ferrell falls for charming Maggie Gyllenhaal.

I want to say this film is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl vehicle, but that's not true—her character is pretty strong. If you switched the genders, the male lead would not seem diminished (a new Bechdel test of sorts). But I had a hard time believing that she would fall for him, based on what I saw.

Other than that, really enjoyed this movie. Emma Thompson rocks.

#CSPreview

PLAYTIME (1967)
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Finally got around to watching Jacques Tati's magnum opus last night. I really enjoyed it.

Spouse asked what it was about beforehand, and all I could say was a repeat of the Wikipedia description: "It's a satire of hyperconsumerist mid-century modern Paris." Because other than that, it's not really about anything—there's no real narrative other than watching things happen.

Wild to believe that everything filmed was on a set.

#CSPreview

SILENT RUNNING (1972).
⭐⭐⭐⭐

For some reason, this film was never on my radar, until recently. Wound up buying a DVD rather than rewarding our corporate overlords' stranglehold on culture.

What a melancholy, somber film. Having been alive in the 1960s, I can see where this film comes from—it's an extrapolation of the then-current and now ongoing battle between ecologists and corporations, to a final resolution. It's The Lorax, as a sci-fi film.

#SilentRunning #CSPreview

1/2

COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT (1970) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Okay, I'm just going to say this was an amazing movie to watch, fifty-five years after its release. What if HAL9000, but in 1970, in charge of the U.S. nuclear arsenal? It is both a wonderful capturing of the mid-century moment—its culture, its fascinations and fantasies, its worries—as well as a incredible prognostication of parts of the torment nexus in which we are living.

#CSPreview

YOU CAN COUNT ON ME (2000) ⭐⭐⭐½
It was good. A small film, well acted. Laura Linney, Mark Ruffalo, Rory Culkin, and Matthew Broderick in a small N.Y. town just living their lives. There's some minor drama, but nothing really happens—everything returns to the way it was, which is okay.
#CSPreview

MY OLD ASS (2024) ⭐⭐⭐½
Elliot (Maisy Stella), the daughter of cranberry farmers in Ontario, is getting ready to go to college in Toronto. One night, she takes shrooms and is visited by her older self (Aubrey Plaza), who gives her VERY SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS on what not to do. She has difficulty following them. This wound up being a smaller coming of age movie than I thought it would be, but it is delightful.
#CSPreview

Watched YES, MADAM! (1985) ⭐⭐, one of Michelle Yeoh's first movies. 😆 The script is bonkers bad, but the fight scenes are NOT to be MISSED. Also, every male is either a criminal, or is ineffectual/inept (some are both). And the two women police officers not only are the best at their jobs, but also are the best at martial arts! What more can you want? A little unbalanced (okay, a lot), but worth it for some of the action scenes.

#CSPreview

THELMA (2024) ⭐⭐⭐½
Parts of the film are painfully slow, but intentionally—it's about old people, and if you don't have patience, then that's your problem. June Squibb does an excellent job portraying an ancient grandmother taken in by a scam. It's Richard Roundtree's final performance, and quite a role for someone who most people remember as Shaft. Parker Posey does fussy middle-age mom well. The film never it takes itself too seriously yet has real moments.
#CSPreview

Finally geared myself up to watch BONES AND ALL (2022) ⭐⭐⭐½.

It was less grisly, less horrifying, and sweeter than I was expecting. Still grim and very, very creepy though. 😂 Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet make a cute couple. Mark Rylance was great as a super-creep.
#CSPreview

LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND (2023) ⭐½
Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke play an upper-middle-class family who take their two teen children to a lavish beach house rental for a weekend getaway—only to have society crumble while they are there. Mahershala Ali and Myha'la play a very wealthy father and daughter who own the rental and have to navigate white fear to talk themselves into their own home. What follows are these six people interacting during the collapse of the country. 1/2

#CSPreview

THE MENU (2022) ⭐⭐⭐
Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) arrive at exclusive an island restaurant run by Chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). It soon becomes clear this will be a very unique meal.

Satirizing high-end "foodie" dining, this dark comedy has a good ensemble cast and unfolds well to its grim conclusion. While some parts were a tad underdone, if you've ever been at a meal where smoke was one of the ingredients, grab a glass of wine and laugh at yourself.

#CSPReview

STRAIGHT UP (2019) ⭐⭐⭐½
Todd (James Sweeney) suffers from OCD and can't consummate his gay relationships because he's afraid of bodily fluids. His therapist (Tracie Thoms) wonders if he may want to explore whether he is in fact straight. He offhands meets Rory (Katie Findlay) and they spend the next eight hours together nonstop talking—the start of a romance unlike in any other movie.

Straight Up may surpass Metropolitan for the longest screenplay—the main characters never stop talking. It has the feel of a student film, but a clever, entertaining one. And though it follows the conventional rom-com structure, as a rom-com it takes the idea of two people who are meant to be together into new ground. What if your true soul mate is someone you are supposed to play Bananagrams with until the end of time?

#CSPreview

THE PALE BLUE EYE (2022) ⭐⭐
A retired drunkard detective (Christian Bale) is asked to investigate a grisly death at West Point Military Academy in 1830. While working, he meets a cadet name Edgar Allen Poe (Harry Melling) and engages him to help with the investigation—which now involves several more grisly deaths.

Bale and Melling are perfect in their roles. Toby Jones plays a West Point medical professor, Gillian Anderson his somewhat odd wife, and Charlotte Gainsborough the local barmaid. Such incredible star power is combined with excellent setting and costume—sight and sound were so perfect I could almost smell some scenes. But all this was scuttled by the intrusiveness of the character of Poe and the decision to pursue a cheap revenge plot twist instead of exploring the characters more. Oh, and at one point the film straight up steals a scene from The Last of the Mohicans. Why? Who knows.

#CSPreview

AMMONITE (2020) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Real-life paleontologist Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) struggles to get by in 1840s England, selling fossil curiosities to tourists in her seaside shop as she continues to seek fossil finds that rival those she discovered in her youth. One day, a geologist comes to town to learn from her. After the geologist spends time seeking fossils and learning, he departs, but without his depressed wife (Saoirse Ronan), who is left behind to recuperate—with Anning's care.

This period romance genre film could have taken the easy route—costumed walks along the beach with furtive glances—but instead, it plodded through miserable drudgery, pauses, moments, exploring the lives of its characters. Such a slow burn of a movie. That it ever arrived at smoking hot bodice-ripping scenes made them that much more precious—you *want* these two to find happiness. Good for them. Flawless acting, including Gemma Jones as Anning's mother and Fiona Shaw as an ex.

#CSPreview

WHITE NOISE (2022)⭐⭐⭐
How to convey the absurd madness of America in the early-mid 1980s. Adam Driver playing a professor of "Hitler Studies" at a university? Greta Gerwig as Driver's wife, zonked out on some mystery drug? Don Cheadle as Driver's colleague, setting up a program in "Elvis Studies"? An "Airborne Toxic Event" threatening the town, and provoking the theme of the fear of death? Yeah, that'll do it.

It is hard to imagine Don DeLillo's novel "White Noise" as a film-able story—so much is internal, or at least not action-based. It's an ambitious project that could have gone way, way, way wrong—but didn't. While director Noah Baumbach makes some poor choices—the inserted car chase scene didn't really work for me, for example—he nails others, like the dual-monologues by Driver and Cheadle in the classroom, presenting their subjects. The viewing experience is like watching National Lampoon's Summer Vacation, except written by Thomas Pynchon.

#CSPreview

VENGEANCE (2022) ⭐⭐⭐
This supposed dark comedy follows a NYC writer and aspiring podcaster (B. J. Novak ) who travels to very rural Texas to attend the funeral of a girl (Lio Tipton ) he hooked up with a few times because the family believed him to be the girl's solid boyfriend. While listening to theories about how her death was not an OD, but rather a murder, he comes up with an idea for a perfect podcast—investigating the need for these conspiracies.

The idea behind this movie is fresh, and it delivers moment after truly enjoyable moment—with the family, with the locals, and with his podcast editor in NYC (Issa Rae)—and a great performance by Ashton Kutcher, but Hollywood's formulaic love of conflict does the narrative a great disservice in the final scenes. Still worth watching, but feel free to choose your own ending—I did.

#CSPreview

TOKYO GODFATHERS (2003) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
This animated story of a baby rescued from a trash pile during the winter holiday season by a trio of people experiencing homelessness goes places no other holiday movie goes. Each character has a secret that slowly is exposed, showing how vulnerable, untenable—yet inescapable—the human condition can be. While there were times when the movie could have been better served by dwelling on certain moments rather than action sequences, there is more than enough of substance here for this movie to stand out in terms of "the meaning of Christmas." Christians, take note.

#CSPreview

I've started doing movie reviews here, so someone suggested I should start a Letterboxd account. But I don't want to meet and interact with other cinephiles—I just want to tell you mofos what I thought about a movie.

#CSPreview