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Ford v Ferrari (2019)
This film is the definition of fun experience
From the director of "Logan", "Walk the Line" and "Identity" comes a true story about Ford's attempt to take Ferrari from the throne of Le Mans.
This film is an embodiment of a careless and fun experience. Because of the perfect pacing, the film manages to keep you engaged and entertained for 2 and a half hours.
This film could be separated into two sections. The first one is a preparation for the minor races and the big finale. The second section would be racing itself. The first two acts are about the relationship between Damon's and Bale's characters. Although, it's not anything new or spectacular, their relationship was very well executed and you could've believed that they were good friends. They didn't show that at all times, but you could feel it because of the tight script which elevated both of their characters. Besides their relationship, the film focuses a lot on a behind the scene conflicts in a Ford company. Yet again, because of the script that ended up being very interesting. The rest of the film focuses on a racing, and I was actually surprised by how much runtime racing took. The grand finale takes almost a whole third act, and because of the way it was filmed, you don't even notice that. When the film gives you the opportunity to immerse yourself into a racing contest, it doesn't let go of you. That brings us to the best part of the film, and that was the way it was filmed, and also the whole production design. It's impressive that they managed to almost completely avoid the usage of CGI. Instead, they shoot the racing sequences in the cars whilst driving. When you're shooting that in a practical way, it's easier to get the audience invested. You notice appealing camera angles, immersive sound design, production design and all the details that went into designing this film. One of the reasons why did they choose that approach is James Mangold, who is the creator of that idea. He had a vision and he accomplished to achieve it. He's slowly becoming one of the most versatile directors working today. He touched almost every genre there is, and yet, he did not make a terrible film so far. Besides his visual decisions, he managed to pull out incredible performances from the whole cast. Matt Damon and Christian Bale were incredible. Damon in a bit subtle role and Bale in a showier role, both of them delivered. It's a shame that both of them are being campaigned for a leading category at the Oscars, so they are probably going to cancel each other's votes, but nonetheless, they were at the top of their game. Besides them, I would like to compliment Jon Bernthal, who in his short time on the screen put a damn good performance.
This film is definitely one of the better technical achievements of this year. If you're interested in seeing this film, check it out whilst it's still in cinemas. Watching it in cinemas certainly elevates the experience, and it emphasizes the huge amount of attention to details.
Motherless Brooklyn (2019)
Beautiful from the outside, but broken from the inside
This film had every right to be an excellent film. This project was Edward Norton's baby. He was committed to this project for almost 20 years, the book is apparently amazing and the story itself sounds somewhat decent. But, something unfortunately went wrong.
So, from the director, producer, actor, and writer Edward Norton comes a story about a private detective who has Tourette's syndrome. As he's investigating one particular case of murder, he becomes more and more involved, and he starts to risk everything that he has.
Despite an interesting premise and all the commitment behind the film, it didn't end up being good. The biggest issue of the film is that it's way too long. It has a runtime of almost 2 hours and 30 minutes. There are so many unnecessary scenes that only dragged the pacing of the film and which didn't contribute to anything. You could easily trim about 30 minutes of the film and almost nothing would change. The only thing that would change is that the film would be more concise. Furthermore, Norton should've given the screenwriting job to someone else because the script was very bad. All the characters were underdeveloped and the whole film in the general was unfocused. The film very often switched focus between many characters, but the thing is that most of them weren't interesting at all. They were just a caricatures which only had one character trait throughout the whole film, and that's it. E.g. Bruce Willis' character had only one purpose in the film, and that was being the role model to Norton's character; Baldwin was a bad guy; Dafoe was a shady, mysterious guy; Gugu Mbatha-Raw was a love interest. It's unfortunate because all of them are terrific actors and they didn't have any material to work with. Regarding the script, Norton used narration and exposition a lot, and the worst thing is that he milked both. If there wasn't any exposition laid out in the narration, he would use it a couple of minutes later to explain the simplest things which didn't need any explanation. Instead of doing pointless exposition, the film could've given more development to the relationship between Norton's and Willis' character. Every 5 minutes Norton talks about him and how he's a huge influence on him. I wish they built some grounds for those statements because they seemed shallow. You didn't have any reason whatsoever to understand/believe why exactly Willis was Norton's idol. And because of that, all those monologues fell short.
Despite all those negative aspects, for some unknown reason, I was sucked in into the world which film presented. That was achieved through aesthetics. The production design was beautiful and it was delightful to look at all those set pieces. Especially, if you're a huge fan of Once Upon a Time in America and films similar to that one, you're going to love the locations and the time period in which this film took place in. The costumes were great and they definitely contributed to achieve a noir "homage". It's actually impressive how well the atmosphere was built despite the bland script. If the actors weren't great as they were, the film would lose a lot in its quality. Norton was fantastic and he was definitely one of the standouts from this film. If it was marketed and promoted better, and maybe if the film received a better reception from the critics, he would be in competition for an Oscar. Bruce Willis gave the second acceptable performance in this year, and Baldwin and Dafoe were decent but their charisma was completely wasted.
When you combine all those positive and negative aspects you'll get an atmospheric and beautiful film from the outside, but unfortunately, from the inside this film ended up being rotten.
The Lighthouse (2019)
Classic in the making
If you're a fan of Ingmar Bergman and/or David Lynch, you're going to enjoy this film to the fullest. Atmosphere-wise, this film comes really close to works of those two directors, and that's the one of the biggest compliments a film can receive.
This story is about two lighthouse keepers and their time spent isolated from the rest of the world. The logline sounds really simple, but the film itself is the total opposite of that. Without a rewatch, you'll feel confused and lost after watching it. Many different interpretations could be drawn out from this film. Besides that, the film doesn't have a clear narrative. What's real, and what's not?; Did this happened in the past, the future or in the present?; Who is who and who's telling the truth? Answers to questions like this are left ambiguous. The audience has the freedom to conclude for themselves what actually happened and what was the purpose and the meaning of some imageries. Because of that, this film is going to be talked about for a long time. This film is one of those types of films for which you can break each scene separately and write essays on it. Hidden meanings, inspirations, camera choices, Shakespearean-Esque dialogue, and many more aspects for which you can spend hours analyzing it. What "Persona" and "Eraserhead" are today, this film could definitely become one day.
From the first shot of this film, you know this is going to be something different compared to today's standards. First of all, the film used unusual aspect ratio (1.19:1) which contributed a lot in giving a claustrophobic feeling and a feeling of isolation. Two of them are on the island and nothing is around them or close to them. They are centered in the middle of the sea, darkness and emptiness is everywhere around them. The director has chosen this aspect ratio to give the same feeling of claustrophobia to the audience. Furthermore, the choice of doing this film in black-and-white palette was excellent. Lack of color greatly emphasized the bleakness of the world they are in. This film would lose a lot if it was done in color, because the lighting would be completely different. In this case, lighting was used excellently to show you what darkness looks like (figuratively) and what does the hope and light at the end of the tunnel look like (although, not very common). You get a lot of information about a state of mind of two main characters just from the usage of various variations of the color black and the color white. Speaking of how the film looks, the cinematography was excellent. There were a lot of long takes which were executed outstandingly well. They mostly served as a tool for making you uncomfortable and uneasy. Also, they were used for excellent closeup shots of monologues whose purpose was to make you feel threatened. A lot of times long shots are used as a gimmick, but in this film, they gave another layer to the script. You feel empathy towards Pattinson's character because you can see what he's going through. While showing those scenes, there were rarely any cuts. The more you see him suffer (without any breaks/cuts from psychological torture), the more you feel for him.
Furthermore, the performances were brilliant. Both Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe were unbelievable, probably the best performances of their careers. Their accents, line delivery, gestures and mimic performances were out of this world. Throughout the film, they were constantly topping each other's performance. Because of the indeterminate tone of the film, their performances varied from the comedic to the terrifying and frightening. Their comedic timing was excellent and some monologues are going to be remembered and quoted for an eternity. And on the other side of the coin, when the film had a more serious tone, both of them delivered, especially Pattinson. Also, I don't want to forget a 3rd actor in the film, the seagull. Robert Eggers really likes to use animals as actors in his films. In "The Witch" he trained a goat to act, and he did the same thing in this film with a seagull.
Usage of seagull actors and similar unusual aspects contributed to the tone of the film which is quite unique. The film walks on a fine thin line of being an absurd comedy, surrealistic horror and psychological drama. Also, it's filled with many allegories which can be interpreted in many different ways. Props to Eggers for pulling that off, because on the paper, that seemed almost impossible to pull off. But, in here, every single element of the film fits with the other ones. Tonally, this film had no right to be as good as it was. But, somehow because of the excellent editing and direction, the film flows very smoothly without any unnecessary scenes.
Just from the surface level, this film is outstanding achievement and it's definitely one of the highlights of 2019.
Joker (2019)
Darkest and grittiest film of the year
From the director of "The Hangover" trilogy comes a dark and gritty version of Joker's origin story. His version of the Joker seems to be heavily inspired by Martin Scorsese's "The King of Comedy" with a touch of "Taxi Driver". On top of that, there are some attempts of commentary about society and how crooked it is. When you mix all those things up, you get a film that's going to divide everyone's opinions.
Let's begin with the good stuff first. Easily, the best part of the film was a performance by Joaquin Phoenix. He carried this film completely and he gave one of the better performances of his career (nothing is going to beat his performance in "The Master"). He proved once again why he's one of the best actors working today. If someone else was in his place, there's no way this film would've worked. His mannerisms, facial expressions (especially how he showed so many different emotions through laughs and eye expressions at the same time), his physicality and his vulnerability were incredible. If this film received a bit better reviews he would definitely be the main contender for that Oscar. Furthermore, the next aspect with which I was blown away was the score. I would even say that the score was a more effective way of showing emotions than the script. Because of the score at every moment, you knew how you were supposed to feel regarding what's happening on the screen, and that was achieved in a way that wasn't forceful. If you listen carefully to the score, you can even distinguish what scenes happened in reality and which were just in his imagination. Those two aspects of the film were outstanding and they carried the film noticeably. The color palette really nicely supported the script. Through the colors in the film, you could've seen in what mood the main character was and how he felt about what was happening around him. Colors helped to immerse the audience into that time period (I would say the film happened in 1981 because the movie theatre was showing the film "Blow Out" which came out in that year), but that wouldn't work without production design which was on the point.
The cinematography was decent. Although the director's vision wasn't groundbreaking I generally enjoyed most of the camera choices.
Let's get into some aspects that weren't so good. The script. It's one of the weakest parts of the film. You get a feeling the film wanted to say a lot, but unfortunately, it ended up saying almost nothing. There were a lot of attempts to give some social commentary, but for me personally, that fell flat because there wasn't any explanation of why is everything how it is. Joker as a character for the huge part of the film was complaining about how society is bad and how everyone is mean, but there wasn't any reason given why is the world like that, beyond poverty and poor people suck and rich people are corrupted and evil. Regarding that specific aspect, I felt like the director wanted to say a lot, but it just ended up being shallow and on the nose. The film was beating you over the head of how everything is bad. I would've appreciated concluding by myself that the world is crooked, but instead, I was just told what the situation was, without any room for my own interpretations. And that explained situation wasn't backed up with any other pieces of information. This time, tell don't show approach didn't work out. Furthermore, speaking of the script, all characters except Joker were unbelievable and underwritten. Zazie Beetz was completely unutilized and the relationship between her character and the Joker was underdeveloped. The film was supposed to make you believe in their relationship, but it didn't and because of it the film suffered at the later stages of its runtime. I understood what did film tried to achieve with their relationship, but that wasn't realized very well. That sentence could've been used for many aspects of this film. Robert De Niro as an older version of Rupert Pupkin had a ton of fun in this film, one of the better De Niro's performances since "Casino". They could've done more with his character, but at least it seemed like he had fun with this project. So, Joker is basically the only character that was decently written, but the thing is, the director didn't make a clear choice if we were supposed to feel for him or we were supposed to hate him because of his actions. Don't get me wrong, he isn't a good person, but the film way too many times tried to make the audience sympathize with him. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but at the times it felt way too forceful.
In the end, looking at the whole picture, this is a good film but isn't anything spectacular. At the same time, I would say the film was overblown with praises of how good it was, and yet at the same time, it was unfairly criticized because of some aspects in the film (e.g. the usage of violence).
It Chapter Two (2019)
A bit of a letdown with some redeeming qualities
If you're reading this review and you haven't already seen Chapter two, and you didn't rewatch the first Chapter, go rewatch it if you want to get the best out of Chapter two. This film doesn't stand on its own at all.
I liked the first Chapter way more than this film. Instead of improving on the mistakes of the first film, Chapter two was an even messier film.
Let's start with the good things. The film looks beautiful. It's filmed beautifully and visual design of monsters and creatures is very imaginative and unnerving. All that is supported by the beautiful production design, which only suffers in act 3, when it's too dark to tell how the background looks. On the technical level in general, the film delivers. Sound mixing really helped to build an atmosphere, and the makeup and costumes were on the point. Regarding the acting, the majority of the actors were very unutilized. James McAvoy's and Jessica Chastain's characters were far more interested in their child form. Those two were completely wasted because of the bland script. Star of the film, and easily the best part of it was Bill Hader. Every scene in which all of them were together, he outshined them completely. In every scene he was in, the spotlight was on him. Besides comedic chops, he showed his capability to deliver a great performance in more serious and dramatic scenes. Bill Skarsgard was also fantastic, but I wished he was a little bit more in the film.
The biggest issue I have with this film was its tone inconsistency. This film has huge tonal issues. The film is filled with humor, but that wouldn't be a problem if the humor was dosed and appropriate. In the majority of the film, the humor and scary scenes intertwined. They intertwined in a way in which you don't know if the scene is supposed to be scary or funny, and that's a huge problem for a horror film. Jokes were decent in most cases, but their timing was catastrophic. For example, when I was watching this film in the theatre, when I thought the scary scene was happening at the moment, someone was laughing at the fullest, and vice versa. That's a shame because the horror sequences were decently directed, and the jokes were mostly funny. But when those two elements intertwine too often and at the wrong moments, both of those elements lose their effect.
Except for tonal issues, the film had its problems with pacing. The film is 170 minutes long, and that's very unusual for horror standards today. The film is very scattered and its length could be felt. There's some redundancy in storytelling because very often the group gets together and splits apart, that happens way too many times. Act 3 was way too long and at that point, the film really started to drag.
The script was very weak, it wouldn't even be a stretch to call it bad. I guess the absence of Cary Joji Fukunaga as one of the screenwriters hurt this film very badly in the end. The first Chapter did not develop all of the kids, but at least some of them were somewhat developed. In Chapter two for the most characters, there's not any further development for any of them. Ben's motives are borrowed from Chapter one and nothing else has happened with him as a character, he's just there. Mike is only a walking exposition. Bill and Bev were way more concise and compelling characters in Chapter one. And Bowers, he was a terrible character in the first Chapter, and somehow he's gotten even worse in the second part. I also would love if the film gave any meaning to Pennywise and his actions, beyond: he's just an evil force who kills.
Speaking of characters, the chemistry between old Losers, compared to young Losers was nonexistent. Every time the film switched back to young actors, it became way more interesting.
In the end, compared to the first Chapter, the sequel declined in quality. It's not a great film, but it has some redeeming qualities in it, such as visual effects and Bill Hader's performance.