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The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat (1982)
Surprising psychedelic non-xmas grinch
Accidentally stumbled upon this after watching the Christmas classic. Cool to see a grinch cartoon that wasn't the Christmas one. Very psychedelic animation. Nice emotional elements that touched me.
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
AN ALL TIME FAVORITE
One of my favorite movies of all time.
Vivid characters with full and beautiful arcs.
Beautiful exploration of mind warping traumas.
Beautiful exploration of family dynamics.
Beautiful exploration of love.
Beautiful exploration of the bigger picture of life.
BEAUTIFUL cinematography as ALWAYS with the legend Wes Anderson.
Masterful writing of dialogue. Extremely poetic. Shows rather than tells.
This movie is aesthetically a dream both in physical presentation and the craftsmanship of the story. I find it highly emotional and connect deeply with the characters. I love this movie and can't recommend it enough. Perfect for psychedelics due to its beauty and emotional reward.
Just updated from a 9/10 to a 10/10 after a rewatch.
Long overdue.
Grizzly Man (2005)
Powerful story backed by a well executed doc
Rave reviews of Grizzly Man and the story of Timothy Treadwell reached me long before ever watching this film, despite this, Timothy's life with Alaskan bears and Werner's presentation of it far exceeded my expectations.
From the opening of the film, it was immediately evident that the character and personality of Timothy Treadwell was significantly larger than I could have ever imagined. What an unbelievably unique and interesting human! While the basic nature of the story makes Timothy's eccentricities obvious, the footage he recorded throughout his time in Alaska culminate in Werner's edit as one of the most interesting biographical pieces I have ever seen. While entirely grounded in a lack of fiction, Timothy's life alone presents as a surreal biopic; someone truly crossing into another world in which billions of humans would never survive, nor dare.
Werner's grandiose delivery appropriately complements the awe and gravity of Treadwell's epic. Masterful cinematography throughout the film turns supplementary accounts into Wes Anderson-esque moments; still framed shots, independent of audio, and with beautiful eery appeal. These shots introduce and partition analogously powerful interviews where Herzog's videographer turns spoken recounts into haunting monologues with an unsettling amount of command over the audience.
In summary, Werner Herzog gifts us an excellent delivery of a must-watch story, a movie worth witnessing from its origination for the wild and anomalous Timothy Treadwell alone.
Tenet (2020)
Underwhelming action movie that got lost in the Nolan sauce.
Good action and effects, but hard to properly follow and you'll give up at a point.
Interesting concept, but too much of the movie is spent trying to explain it to you. These explanations miss the grade school writing recommendation of 'show not tell'.
The performance of the main protagonist is underwhelming and as a whole you'll likely fail to really connect or get overly invested in the story.
Saw it in theaters and went in with high hopes given Nolan's many previous bangers. Shame it's a flop. I wouldn't tell someone not to see it, but they're not missing anything if they don't.
The Invisible Man (2020)
Strange movie logic overshadowed by quality suspense and spooks
Very predictable at times and very frustrating at others with some of the actions and logic in the show. You'll get pissed off at a multitude of the characters and feel these people are dumb as hell or just feel like it's a gaping logic hole in the plot. The main character does have her shining 2000 IQ moments though, which are attention grabbing and pleasantly rewarding.
Despite all that, the movie is fantastically suspenseful and entertainingly tragic. The acting was pretty solid and the cinematography and effects as well. My girlfriend and I were sufficiently spooked after so that's an 8/10 for me. Great blend of thriller and horror in my opinion.
Don't get too lost in the sauce outthinking the plot and you're bound to have an excellent movie experience... or do like I did and be thankful you will still have a great time!
Paddington (2014)
Close, but just shy of meeting the mark.
This movie has some very nice Wes Anderson-esque (I believe inspired) shots that were enjoyable to spot out. It opens with a relatively intriguing act one, and throughout the movie serves some wholesome laughable gags as well as moments of stress and worry for the main character.
Despite this, I did find that the plot moved a long in a rather uninteresting way. There were notable moments of emotional connection when bad things befell Paddington, but overall the plot itself did not hold a strong continuous grasp of my attention. The beginning of this movie was in my view its strongest point.
Furthermore, I think the acting and dialogue of the supporting human cast doesn't do the movie any favors. Particularly the child acting, which despite the guilt I feel in calling them out, did not meet the mark. In addition, the young characters are also actually a pretty good example of how the writing in this movie can come across a bit less thorough at times, here presenting some very uninspired and cliche child stereotypes.
I believe the strongest portion of this movie is its style which very modestly approached the perfected visual stylings of Wes Anderson. Unfortunately, this noteworthy, yet not meddle-worthy homage, gets washed out by a less than captivating plot and poor theatrical performances.
I would not recommend this movie as a stand alone film, but as I have heard good things about Paddington 2 and have yet to see the movie myself, I can't really advise either way in the context of pair. I plan to edit this review post viewing Paddington 2 with my conclusion.
Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Great animation with well crafted deeper messages
I was very pleasantly surprised with this movie.
Going into it I had fears of it being one of the many hollow and rushed animated movies that often go to theaters.
On the contrary, Rise of the Guardians, was clearly a beloved work that the creators put time and thought into. They appeared to truly care that they were creating a nice piece of art, and through that attention to detail, they did!
The writing and story is great; the dialogue also surprisingly complex. They do a good job at weaving in quality messages for younger audiences across a variety of themes from things more practical like self-worth, to more fantastical and fun things for kids like belief(in Santa etc). It's very tastefully done and they even add some original amendments to some common North American childhood story traditions that my girlfriend and I loved.
The animation looks pretty disappointing at the start of the movie(but this was 2012 to be fair), but it clearly becomes of better and more notable quality as the film goes on, with the exception of a scene or two that appeared to return to this lower budget animation(perhaps last minute additions to the film that they didn't have time to polish). There are many fantastically animated sequences that are very eye catching and pleasing to watch owing to the well choreographed movements on screen and attention to visual detail. The individual characters are well designed and bring their own unique visual and functional aspects to the movie.
The voice acting fits in par with the rest of the film. Very glad they pulled together a great cast to do justice to the other fine qualities of this movie.
My biggest complaint is probably that some of the smaller plot arcs that take place building up to the main climax, are a bit lack luster and less exciting to me in their nature, but they still managed to create fairly entertaining portions of the movies out of them nonetheless.
I would recommend this movie to adults looking to watch a wholesome animation, and would highly recommend it for any younger viewers or families in general.
This movie is a very strong 7. I'd give it a 7.5/10 if I could.
Aquaman (2018)
Strong visual. Weak dialogue/acting.
Visually this movie was pretty great. They crafted a very unique and cool world and met my expectations for this, which was the original reason I wanted to see this movie in theaters. Sadly though, the dialogue was very painfully corny and unnatural feeling much of the time; and the acting of some of the main characters doesn't help. I loved Jason Momoa in Game of Thrones, but for some reason he did not appear to be able to naturally perform this role. I will say to be fair that the dialogue he was served to read gave him a massive disadvantage. What he does have going for him is he definitely looks the part, perhaps better than anyone else I can think, I just wish the performance felt more genuine.
Another pro for this movie would be that the action scenes were pretty strong. Still I found that the corniness of the dialogue overshadowed this in my mind because it was painfully hard if not impossible to ignore at times.
If you're going to see this movie, go in for cool costumes, sea animals, fantastical kingdoms, superhero action fights, and neat visuals. Leave your expectations for good dialogue and non-cringy character interactions behind.
Baby Driver (2017)
Very disappointing movie with few redeeming qualities
WARNING THE RATING PAGE OF THIS MOVIE HAS BEEN RIGGED.
A look through the user reviews on this movie will reveal many reviews with a score ranging from 1-6 and then the occasional "10/10 Perfected action movie! A must watch masterpiece!" It is my opinion that this page has been seeded with fake reviews to inflate the score of this movie well beyond an accurate reflection of its quality. I have noticed some other reviews addressing this same thing and after you've watched the film yourself its painfully obvious. The quality of this movie in no way reflects its current rating of 7.6 and I have read from other comments that it used to be at an 8.3. BLASPHEMY! Please watch this movie for yourself if you do not believe me(or don't and save yourself two hours).
PROS:
-Decent soundtrack
-Good driving action scenes
-Eiza Gonzalez's outfit in the second part of the movie
-Suspenseful and intense action climax
CONS:
Stylistic failings:
-Musical aspects feels like a knock off of Guardians of the Galaxy and is not executed nearly as well
-Graphic scenes/gore felt forced
Muddled character motivations:
-Large and relatively unexplained/unjustified motivational 180's
-Some not believable/convincing motivations(especially with romance narrative)
Extremely frustrating to watch:
-Characters make stupid decisions in action scenes
-Annoying plot holes
-Orders 4 coffees at one point and gets them in literally ten seconds(I know this is kind of petty and dumb, but it completely took me out of my immersion in the movie because I was thinking "What?! There is literally no way in hell you could get your coffees that fast.")
Overall disjunct and poor quality writing:
-Corny dialogue(maybe poor acting too sometimes?)
-No character, not even the main, was that compelling
-Many cliche feeling character archetypes
-Ending felt like it was duct-taped together last minute and not thoughtfully crafted
The Old Man of the Mountain (1933)
Fantastic old cartoon
This short was SUPER well done.
It was visually a joy to watch, the animation was seriously amazing. These cartoonists were so talented. I was really impressed by how creative and beautiful the art was.
In addition to that, this is a certified bop on a musical level. The way it's incorporated with the animation is awesomely done and the lead male singer is a pleasure to listen to. The entire soundtrack for this short should be applauded.
I had a great experience watching it and it nailed that classic cartoon vibe. I felt like I was captured in the same way I would have been when I was younger.
Don't come to this cartoon for a narrative experience though. Your much better off just watching in a more present mindset with the events on screen.
This was an awesome watch that definitely stood the test of time.
The Big Lebowski (1998)
An impressive depth of dialogue that requires a rewatch
I had seen this movie once before and got way more out of it when watching it recently for the second time.
I think the complexity of dialogue is one of this movie's most fantastic aspects. Ironically though, I think it's also the reason I didn't like the film as much from my first viewing. I think this is also where the movie's rewatchability comes from. The dialogue is written in an extremely non-linear fashion. Often much of it has to be filtered through to follow the plot, as there can be so much going on in a scene. Upon my rewatch I was able to better follow and inspect what was going on in the more dialogue heavy scenes and when you're no longer struggling to just follow the plot, you can really appreciate the intricacies the Cohen brothers wrote into these conversations.
I found the chaos of these dialogue scenes very humorous and you really get to see the dynamic of the Dude's friend group through these scenes. It's hilarious watching everyone talking to each other, yet so caught up in their own heads at the same time.
The story and wildness of the tale is captivating and the wacky premise with which it starts draws you in quickly, especially with the way the Dude and his pals respond and react to the events that befall them.
Julianne Moore's role in the film is one of my favorite and in my opinion most mastered storylines of the movie. Her introduction is particularly memorable and impressed into my brain.
The narration in this movie fits well throughout and towards the end became one of my favorite parts of the film. It brings a whole new path to reflect about the movie on and does a phenomenal job at wrapping the narrative in a meaningful and expansive way that adds to the movie at the same time as it encapsulates it.
The dream sequences provide nice intermissions to the story and are also hilarious as well as visually a joy to watch.
My biggest complaint about the film has to be the potential for it to cause confusion in its complexity, but this is also what makes the movie so great and makes it worth watching again. I look forward to the next time I see this movie and anticipate my third viewing to be even more enjoyable than my last!
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
A brilliant movie for fans of Queen and those uninitiated alike.
This movie was an absolute blast to watch in theatres and the tunes and scenes have been echoing in my mind ever since.
Rami Malek delivers an incredible performance, that will blow you away and make you feel like you are seeing into the mind of the real Freddie Mercury. Rami gives a stunningly expressive and unique performance that captures the audiences emotional attention quickly and even more expertly captures the wild artistic genius of Mercury, while also the pain of his personal challenges.
The set locations of this movie were amazing and many of them had me in awe. They are a beautiful backdrop to the story developing on screen.
The movie has fantastic energy, especially during the musical numbers, that matches that of Queen's hits and will have you stomping your feet along as you watch.
The casting as a whole seems very spot on. Particularly Brian May is memorably spot on.
The only moment this movie rubbed me weird was probably at the ending. The timing of the ending of the movie does work and fit the film, but it definitely caught me slightly off guard at that moment as I assumed the movie to have more narrative to follow, I think other viewers may find this as well. Despite this, narratively, it still was a good ending.
8.5/10
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
An Unforgettable Cinema Experience
Blade Runner 2049 was an absolutely stunning sequel to the original film of the series from 1982. As a fan of Blade Runner, my already high expectations were completely blown out of the water by the captivatingly unpredictable writing and the incredibly artistic cinematography. This movie has some of my favorite scenes in all of film to date; shots that left my jaw dropped and my spine tingling in my seat. I actively crave my next experience watching this movie and cannot wait to be thrust back into its breathtaking cyberpunk landscape. This movie will leave a permanent impact on me, and I expect to return to it many times in my life to feel the original rush I got when watching this film in theaters.
Blade Runner(1982) is a timeless classic that deserves to be honored in only the most carefully crafted and perfected of manners. Denis Villeneuve and the entire crew did exactly that with this masterpiece.