I'm going to keep this short mostly because I just want to get these last blogs finished.
I used to wonder why everybody loves Batman movies so much. I never really got why people were obsessed with this emotionally stunted orphan who beats up the mentally ill because he's just so angry. Watching The Batman only exacerbated the issue since Bruce Wayne in that film has all the character of a cardboard cutout and just feels like a BA for the sake of being a BA. After watching the first in the Christopher Nolan trilogy of Batman movies, though, I now get what the hype is about. Here's Batman Begins. First thing's first, let's address Batman/Bruce Wayne's character: he's interesting. He has motivations, fears, interests, a little bit of that playboy millionaire charm, stuff like that. He's likable for reasons outside of "he's the protagonist" and "he's a BA edgelord." Nolan doesn't really let you project yourself onto Batman like I've been told many other iterations of Batman allow the viewer to do. Batman is an actual character who makes actual decisions based on that character. Second: I love Scarecrow. Cilian Murphy does such a great job as Dr. Jonathan Crane (I felt his eyes peering into my soul as I watched). He's such a cool idea for a villain, and I'm sad that, after this movie, he really doesn't do much in the other two films of the trilogy. He's cool, calm, and collected, and this really lends well to him being a dangerous threat. This first movie focuses on fear, and Scarecrow is the perfect villain for this. Nolan's cinematography is great as always. The soundtrack is good, and the plot keeps interesting. There's also some humor sprinkled in here and there, which is nice, even as someone who isn't a Marvel fan that needs a one-liner every time something happens. I liked this better than The Batman, so I'll give it an 8/10. I don't think it's the best Batman movie (that honor goes to The Dark Knight), but it's still a good movie and a great introduction to Batman for someone looking to get into the character.
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Once again, keeping things short for the sake of getting this done.
I used to wonder why everyone loves this movie. I'm not a huge superhero movie nerd, and my experience with The Batman was not outstanding. The reason for that, though, is that The Batman is not a good way to get into Batman for newcomers like myself. After watching Batman Begins, though, I felt like I could actually get behind the Caped Crusader, and this film really showed me why people love this character and these movies so much. Here's The Dark Knight. We all know the biggest reason why this movie is so great: the Joker. Heath Ledger's Joker is possibly the best villain performance I've seen in a film. With some characters, you do get the feeling you're watching an actor. They're very convincing actors, but they're actors nonetheless. With the Joker, though, I really got the feeling that he was a dangerous maniac whose only drive was chaos. All the little subtleties in his performance were impressive, too, like the constant lip licking or the ways he shakes his head while talking. I remember trying to copy some of these when we were doing our Wes Anderson Dark Knight film project and not being able to keep all of them consistent. Heath Ledger gives a truly legendary performance here. Harvey Dent is also a really good villain. I thought the way they transitioned him to Two-Face would be really contrived or just straight up stupid, but I was very impressed by the way his transition was handled. Also, I really love something about the special effects they did for his burnt face. He's kind of scary, but you still feel for him. It really sucks to watch him descend into madness and go on a killing spree. You hate what he does, but you just can't help but empathize. Also, I saw the warehouse twist coming from the second the scene started. Just thought I should mention that. The characters are interesting, and the villains shine especially bright here. The story really keeps you invested through its 2.5-hour runtime. Nolan's directing is great, as per usual, and it's really just a great movie overall. Very good, 10/10. Calling The Batman the best Batman movie is slander against this movie. I remember first seeing trailers for The Little Things and thinking it looked really good, but after it released, I forgot all about it. Recently, I remembered it existed and decided to watch it. And honestly, it's pretty good. Just pretty good, though. I had a few hangups by the end, but I genuinely cannot figure out what they are. Still, it's worth watching if you like ambiguous crime stuff or if you're a Washington/Malek/Leto fan. Anyways, here's what I thought.
The cinematography is good. Most of the lighting is natural or seems natural, so you get the feeling you're watching a real investigation and are along for the ride. It also makes great use of wide shots and close-ups. Some of my favorite shots are just of urban streets and cars zipping along the freeway. No shot ever feels like it's used randomly, which I greatly appreciate. There are also a few scenes where Deke hallucinates the dead girls whose deaths he's trying to resolve, and those are all set up really well. You do question for a second whether or not what you're looking at is reality. I love the soundtrack. It uses this one piano riff as a motif that tends to play between scene transitions. All of the songs just set the mood perfectly. Unfortunately, though, I don't have any songs or scenes with specific songs that I liked. The music, although great, is definitely secondary to what you're seeing on screen, so it's really only there to help set the mood, but it does that really well. The acting is phenomenal. The acting is phenomenal. I cannot stress this enough: The. Acting. Is. Phenomenal. From the first moments Denzel Washington is on screen as Deke, you just know that he's seen some stuff and that he's done some stuff. Rami Malek as Jim Baxter is... well, it took a little while, but his performance really grew on me. I think I'm just used to Malek playing people who are just a little too awkward for their own good, and I couldn't shake that feeling at first. Jared Leto as Albert Sparma was honestly a great choice. From the first time you see him until the credits roll, you really aren't sure whether or not he's the guy that Deke and Jim are looking for. He strikes a perfect balance between potentially being a creepy murderer and just being a creepy crime buff. Most of his acting is what carries the lingering thought that he killed these girls whose deaths Deke and Jim are investigating. If you were just given the physical evidence, Deke and Jim have nothing on Sparma, but his behavior is so bizarre that you're never quite sure if he was the killer or not. I was going to say that the story is lacking in some areas, but I honestly can't quite figure out what those areas are. There are a lot of characters, but you don't really need their names as long as you recognize their faces. Deke, Jim, and Sparma are the only important characters through most of the film. I think I may have been expecting a murder mystery from this like I did with The Batman, but unlike The Batman, this movie actually is concerned with figuring out who the killer is. Every time you get evidence leading you one way, you're met with evidence taking you the opposite way. It's essentially facts (physical evidence) vs. feelings (Sparma's behavior). It's really brilliant and lets your mind run wild with possibilities. This movie also goes into some subtly political themes at the end (given the time it was released) that I was not expecting. You're never shown the aftermath of the end, either. I'm trying to dance around spoilers, but the movie doesn't tell you whether or not Sparma was the guy. 8/10. I'd probably go lower normally, but the soundtrack and the performances especially are just way too good for me to detract from. After walking out of the theater with my friends, I was fully prepared to make a joke about how The Batman is my favorite Batman movie but that, because it's the only Batman movie I've seen, it's also my least favorite Batman movie. Unfortunately, though, I couldn't make that joke in good conscience because, well, it wasn't either of those things. (And also, I remembered that I've seen The LEGO Batman Movie and that that's my favorite Batman movie.) I didn't love it. I didn't hate it. It wasn't bad. It wasn't good. It was just a slightly positive "eh."
The Batman is a crime/thriller movie. People keep calling this a murder mystery. It is not a murder mystery. It is a crime/thriller movie. A crime movie is about the investigation of a crime. A thriller is about suspense, dread, and the fear of a future crime, not one that's already happened. A crime/thriller, then, would be about the investigation and prevention of a future crime. Murder mysteries, a subgenre of crime, involve a murder and then require the characters to work backwards to figure out who committed that crime. Murder mysteries also encourage the audience to speculate and theorize about who could have done it, something that I feel the movie did not encourage or reward. Everybody who told me this was a murder mystery and every news outlet who reported on it as such is partially responsible for why I did not like this movie. I was expecting a murder mystery and got a crime/thriller instead, so I was disappointed. I was trying to figure out the Riddler's identity, but apparently that wasn't the point. The point was figuring out why he was killing and who he would kill next. If his identity wasn't important in the slightest, though, then that would not make this movie a murder mystery. So, just to make sure we're all clear: murder myster = whodunit; crime/thriller = who's next. We good? Good. Robert Pattinson as Batman works really well. As for the rest of the cast, I don't have much to say. They're all good actors, but the guy who played Edward Cullen now playing an angsty teen who, rather than mentally and emotionally maturing, decided to learn how to beat up homeless people well into his 30s was a great casting choice. When he said, "I... am vengeance," at the start, I had to remind myself, We're in a theater. We're in a theater. Do not laugh out loud. There are people around you who have been excited for this movie for a while now. Do not ruin this for them. We. Are. In. A. Theater! So, I did not laugh out loud and ruin anybody else's experience. This should be the default way of watching movies, but I still feel like I need a reward for not laughing at that. (This isn't a knock against Pattinson, by the way, this is a knock against Batman for being the most Tumblr/DeviantArt superhero to ever be an official superhero.) The soundtrack had its moments but was overall tonally confused. Some scenes used plucked strings a la "Polymorphia" from The Shining. Some use a classic John-Williams-style score. There's one scene that uses this really awful club music (it's in a club, but it still doesn't sound great). It just wasn't to my liking. The action in this gets so cartoonish that it feels like it would work better, surprise surprise, in a comic book. At one point, Batman fires two grappling hooks into some people, kicks them over the edge of a balcony, and uses them as counterweights to swing below the balcony. It sounds cool, but it also sounds like it would fit better in something that wasn't trying to be a gritty crime/thriller about how awful the leaders of Gotham are. The cinematography was good. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't outstanding. I think the one shot I really liked is one where Batman enters a dark hallway and takes down like 7 or 8 gunmen. This sounds generic, but the only lighting in that whole shot is the men's gunfire, so you get these really great shots of light from the barrels of the gun as a shadowy figure whips around the room and takes them all out with fast and stylish acrobatics. I wish the action had been more like this throughout the movie. If you're going to make Batman an edgy BA, which I believe is the most popular version of Batman, really commit to it. More scenes like this would have made the cinematography stand out so much more in my mind. The story was just a little underwhelming. There were so many characters with generic comic-book names that I could not keep track of them. There was a Falcone and a Maroni and some others but I genuinely could not name these characters in a lineup. There's a point in the movie where the Riddler starts talking to Batman like he's part of the crime, saying stuff like, "We make a perfect team," or, "I couldn't have done this without your help." My first thought was, "Oh, since the GCPD doesn't trust Batman (with the exception of Commissioner Gordon), and there are cameras in Arkham Asylum monitoring his conversation with the Riddler, this is Riddler's way of casting suspicion on Batman and making it more difficult for him to foil his plans." Apparently, I was giving the movie too much credit because Batman just goes through the rest of the movie like that whole conversation didn't matter. Thinking about the movie too much just didn't make it enjoyable, but maybe I was just thinking about it incorrectly. If somebody would like to explain to me how I simply don't understand The Batman and am forming all my takes around a huge misconception of what the movie was trying to accomplish, you are more than welcome to try. 7/10. This movie's existence will leave my mind the second I press the "post" button. So my computer crashed while I was writing this blog. Ha. Haha. Hahaha. Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha. Kill me. Anyways, I'm going to try to speedrun the basic points of the review that I had written before.
Turning Red: the trailer dropped, I was skeptical. People got mad that an Asian-Canadian teenage girl protagonist wasn't "relatable" enough, I cringed hard at those takes. I watched the movie, I was pleasantly surprised by it all. Not my favorite Pixar, but definitely good Pixar. Pixar animation is always good. It's no different here. I like the eyes, they're very expressive. Everything works well visually, in my opinion. There's a nice flute leitmotif that I really like. The boy band pop songs are pretty mid. That is all I have on the soundtrack at the moment. They said sexy in a Disney movie I can't believe it it pains my virgin ears to hear what will the children think my day is ruined Pixar has lost a loyal, paying customer. Sarcasm aside, there was no doubt a battle between the filmmakers and the censors, and I'm glad that the filmmakers won, at least enough to give us an animated kids movie that is actually about puberty and doesn't wuss out of it because it's "awkward" or "uncomfortable." That's life, bucko, now here's a movie on how it's all gonna be okay. The red panda is basically a perfect metaphor for puberty: it's a big, hairy monster that nobody really wants to deal with, but the only way to control it is by figuring yourself out. Experience is everything. You can't get rid of it or stop it, you can only make a poor attempt at repressing it, so it's probably healthier to just figure out how to control it. As Mei's dad says, you can't get rid of the "bad" parts of yourself; you have to make room for them. 8/10, I liked it, and I'm glad that Disney has been making more movies with themes that they've shyed away from in the past. If I could describe this movie in one word, it would be AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. As you may have gathered, I did not like this film. One might say it makes me irrationally angry. Too bad I'm not "One," I'm John, and John says this film actually makes me rationally angry because it is not a great film.
Going into this, I told myself, "Okay, this won't be any Perfect Blue, so I should give it a fair chance and not treat it like that movie." Yet, over the course of the film, I just kept caring less and less about the whole thing. The only truly good thing I have to say about the film is that it kept me watching to the end. I kept thinking, "Maybe it'll redeem itself." Nope! Look, it's probably wishful thinking for me to imagine that Edgar Wright got the idea for Last Night in Soho from Perfect Blue and not Black Swan, but how in the hecky did Wright do it SO MUCH BETTER than Aronofsky? Seriously, watching Soho, I was like, "Wow, this movie explores duality and the transition from sexual purity to impurity forced onto women by men really well. It's amazing how effectively it gets me to sympathize with Ellie and Sandie when they're in such drastically different positions than I could ever even think of being in." And watching Black Swan, all I could think was, "Wow. I hate everyone in this movie. Except for Meg Griffin from Family Guy, ironically." Creating a likeable protagonist doesn't necessarily have to mean making a character audiences actually like, but I should at least want them to achieve their goals, even if only for the sake of the movie. In this sense, I liked Nina because I knew everything would go down on performance night (that's how climaxes work), but I didn't feel like Nina changed substantially until the night of the performance. Nina 1 hour and 15 minutes in would have done the same stuff that Nina 15 minutes in did. DARREN ARONOFSKY TRY TO HOLD THE CAMERA STILL FOR 5 SECONDS CHALLENGE (IMPOSSIBLE)! I hated the cinematography of this movie. There were only two somewhat inventive shots I liked, and that was when Nina (the camera) kept turning around and around as Thomas kept saying, "Again!" and when Nina saw Beth lying on the hospital bed in the reflection of the window. Other than that, the rest of the good shots were either generic as all get-out or practically stolen from--you guessed it--Perfect Blue. To avoid spoiling that movie for you, though, I am going to avoid making any more references to Perfect Blue outside of aesthetic similarities and themes. I will not be talking about parallels between the two stories' plot points, though I did find a video that does a better job articulating it than I ever could. The soundtrack tries to be The Shining at times and fails miserably. You'll get these strings doing the "Polymorphia" thing very quietly in the background during the most mundane scenes. Outside of the obvious motifs of the Swan Lake ballet throughout the film, the soundtrack itself is nothing to write home about. Aronofsky loves his body horror, doesn't he? I get body horror. I love Junji Ito, and he's a master of body horror. Here, though, it almost feels unnecessary at times. The only body horror I liked is Nina's physical transformations into a swan. The rest is just... bad. There's a scene where she hallucinates peeling off the skin on her finger, and in the next shot, it's back to normal. The movie is trying to show that Nina is a perfectionist, but it just comes off as pointless mutilation for the sake of showing mutilation. Also, Nina's mom is simultaneously the most and least important supporting character in the whole movie. She's the reason why Nina, at age 28, still acts like a pure and innocent child even though she's a grown adult woman. At the same time, though, Nina perpetuates a lot of her perfectionist practices throughout the movie without her mother's egging on, so the mother only exists to make Nina feel younger and purer. Genuinely, I thought Nina was supposed to be somewhere from 18 to 22 years old, but when I looked it up (during her first "me time" scene, no less), it turned out she was supposed to be 28. Also, Nina's mother has a really manipulative moment when she threatens to throw Nina's cake away. It's so out of nowhere, and she never shows these manipulative tendencies ever again in the movie. She's overprotective, but it doesn't seem that she's a manipulator, so I don't get why that scene was left in besides to show that Nina is suffering from an eating disorder, something I got from the first time we saw her standing over a toilet. Probably the most objective criticism I can levy at the movie is that Nina's hallucinations don't make sense. Now, John, you might be thinking, hallucinations aren't supposed to make sense, stupid! Yes. I know. But why does she hallucinate her own face on literally every woman around her? Why does she imagine specifically Lily having a moment with her so she can "touch herself"? Why does she think the one person in the whole movie who shows her genuine kindness is out for her role? I get that a lot of Nina's motivations rely on her paranoia and psychosis, so that explains why she thinks Lily is out for her role. I get that Nina ends up finding something to "touch herself" to, so that's why she hallucinates Lily, but I don't get why it has to be Lily specifically. Does it have to do with Lily representing the Black Swan and "seducing" Nina? Probably, but it feels important and is sort of just written off after Lily finds out. As for why she hallucinates her own face on everybody around her and not just Lily, I have wracked my brain and cannot come up with a semi-logical reason for the life of me. The thing that bugs me the most, though, is that Nina stabs Lily with a shard from a broken mirror and then performs as the Black Swan for at least 30 minutes. This is a stupid plot point. Why? Because this movie shoots all of its stakes in the foot when it's revealed that no, actually, Nina didn't stab Lily, she stabbed herself. I haven't facepalmed that hard in a long time, but also I haven't had a good laugh like that in a long time either. When Nina said, "I was perfect," and the credits rolled, I actually found the nearest pillow and screamed into it. Mila Kunis as Lily is the only likeable character in the entire film (until she drugs Nina's drink, but shhhh), and she was the only one I liked watching on-screen until the end. Natalie Portman as Nina, though, is insufferable for the first two acts of the film, at least. I get that that doesn't sound good considering her whole thing is that she's a mentally ill performer getting mentally ill-er, but I've seen mentally ill characters that were still able to keep things interesting for the viewer (Jack Torrance from The Shining, all the characters in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, nearly the entire cast of Neon Genesis Evangelion, and of course, Mima Kirigoe from Perfect Blue, to name a few). Also, the fact that I liked the girl who drugged Nina's drink better than Nina herself should tell you something. About me or the film, I could not say, but it definitely should tell you something. If I had to find something good about the movie, I'd say Nina dancing and turning into the Black Swan was a cool effect. Although I didn't like Natalie Portman at the start, her performance at the end is good. I can only hope I'm properly giving her the credit for the scene here and that it shouldn't go to Sarah Lane, her dance double, instead. 5/10. I would go lower, but I try to keep things slightly objective when it comes to these blogs. I do think that if I hadn't heard it was so similar to Last Night in Soho and Perfect Blue, movies that I like, I would've just liked it. Maybe a 7/10. It's less that it's a terrible movie with no worth and more that it's an averagely made movie that frustrated me to no end because it could have been so much better. It could have been so much worse as well, but it just felt like wasted potential more than anything else. I'll probably find myself coming back to Perfect Blue or Last Night in Soho multiple times over before I end up giving this one another try. Over the weekend, a couple of friends and I wanted to watch Perfect Blue, a movie I know full well you still haven't watched, because one of my friends had not seen it yet. When looking on Amazon Video for keyword "pe," the Dreamworks family film Penguins of Madagscar unsurprisingly pops up before the obscure 1997 psychological thriller anime. One of our friends did a spin-the-wheel thing where Penguins had a 1-in-50 chance to be landed on and Perfect Blue had a 49-in-50 chance, and whatever was spun would determine what we watched. As soon as the wheel was spun, I said, "It's going to land on Penguins, isn't it?" Lo and behold! (We watched Perfect Blue afterwards, and the friend who hadn't seen it before was as thoroughly confused as we expected, but after thinking about it, he said he liked it.) Sadly, I've already written a blog on Perfect Blue, a movie which you should watch immediately but I know you definitely won't because it's Oscar season, so instead, I'm writing about this movie. Surprisingly, it was actually... good????? I don't know why, but it just is. Here's Penguins of Madagascar.
This is a Dreamworks film, so of course the animation is good. Unfortunately, I don't have much to say about it outside of that it's good, though. There's a running gag where Dave tells his henchmen to do things, but the names of the henchmen combined with what he wants them to do form the names of various stars. The first one I noticed was "Drew! Barry! More power." The most obvious one was probably "Kevin! Bake on! We're still gonna need those victory cakes!" As a kid, you don't get these jokes, but once you're a little bit older, you start to recognize the names. It's a really great running gag. There were a few that I didn't even catch because it took me until about halfway through to realize. Of course, the kids probably aren't going to know who Drew Barrymore and Nicolas Cage are, so the Dreamworks writing room came up with something for them, too. The villain's name is Dave (very menacing), but every time Skipper says his name, he actually just says a completely different name that also starts with a D. This normally wouldn't be that funny, but Tom McGrath's delivery as Skipper is totally serious and deadpan, so they always hit home. Being a family movie, Penguins is naturally going to be about things that kids need to learn, and the way the movie delivers on these messages is really good. The main conflict is between Skipper and Private: Skipper never lets Private be anything more than the baby of the group despite Private constantly wanting to prove his worth and be something more. Skipper starts experiencing survivor's guilt over Private getting kidnapped because of his own orders, and he lets Classified (we're never told his actual name) take control of the mission. Of course, the North Wind guys get captured, and Private finally gets a chance to prove himself as a valuable member of the team. The message of perseverance is done really well here. It's good to let kids know that even if nobody else believes in you, you can still accomplish anything you put your mind to, and sometimes, you're actually the only one who can get the job done. Penguins of Madagascar gets a solid 8/10. I think most of the disregard this movie gets is because of the interrupting chicken Cheetoh-eating scene that was shown in all the trailers (even I found myself shaking my head when we got to that part). I think people just assumed the movie would be full of humor in the same vein and just didn't watch it or never talked about it after release, which is a real shame. I'd probably say I liked this movie better than Spirited Away. I don't know if it tops Princess Mononoke, but I'd have to rewatch that at some point to say for sure. This was one of the big Studio Ghibli/Hayao Miyazaki films I had yet to watch. Noah had recommended it to me while doing his project on Miyazaki, and I believe he said it was his favorite of the Miyazaki movies he had watched. After viewing it for myself, I can totally see why. Here's what I thought of Howl's Moving Castle.
I watched this in dub, so that's what I'm gonna talk about first. Christian Bale (aka the American psycho) as the pretty boy Howl was certainly a casting choice, considering how low Bale's voice is here. I've heard a scene from the original version, and Howl's voice, while low, still feels like it fits his voice a little better. I've talked to other people, though, and it sounds like this was just an issue that I had. However, Billy Crystal (aka Mike Wazowski) as Calcifer was an inspired call, just mwah, chef's kiss, I couldn't have cast it better myself. Also, a young Josh Hutcherson (aka Peetah Mellark) plays Markl. This was actually a really good choice since Hutcherson was like 12 at the time of recording. Everybody else I'm either too young to recognize or too out of the loop to care about. It's Studio Ghibli. It's Hayao Miyazaki. I'm not going to tell you why it's beautiful, just that it is. Maybe one of my favorite scenes of the movie is when Sophie and the Witch of the Waste are walking up some stairs. That's it. It's essentially just three minutes of an old woman and a fat woman racing up a tall staircase to a palace, the two of them bickering all the while. It's such a simple and ordinary idea, but it's such a great scene. The main musical motif used throughout the movie is very nice. "Merry-Go-Round of Life" is a really great song and has a strong enough melody to be recognizable at any scene in the movie. War: Howl doesn't like it, Miyazaki doesn't like it, and I don't like it. How very based of the three of us. There's a scene in the movie (I couldn't find it, but it's pretty much just before the climax of the film starts) where a warship flies over a field of flowers. Sophie asks if the ship is one of theirs or the enemy's, to which Howl responds, "What difference does it make?" I think that's the most obvious anti-war messaging in the whole film, but it's planted subtly (and not so subtly) throughout. When Suliman turns the Witch of the Waste into a dried-out vegetable, she essentially tells Sophie that those with power who do not comply are a threat to the country. Pretty much immediately after, her husband comes in telling her that his new war plan won't result in civilian deaths (war crimes). Also, that scene near the start of the film where two guards try to "talk to" Sophie, and one of them remarks, "She's even cuter when she's afraid." Yeah, like I said, the messages are subtle and less so, depending on where in the film you look. The movie's main theme seems to be "war bad, but also protect your loved ones." One thing I noticed about this movie is that it does a lot with appearance vs. reality. Sophie looks like an old lady but is actually a young woman. Howl is a great feathery beast who looks like a young man. Markl disgusies himself as an old wizard but is actually a young boy. These true appearances only occur at rare times when the characters are being vulnerable. I first picked up on this when Sophie starts transforming while talking to Madame Suliman about how great Howl is. Then, I remembered a few scenes earlier, Sophie had turned back to her younger self in her sleep, when everyone is at their most physically vulnerable. Then, Markl started crying while in his disguise. Howl becomes slimy when his hair dye is ruined. I don't think this is an aspect of the movie that's super obvious. When I first saw the trailer for the movie, I was wondering, "Why does Howl have like 3 different appearances? Why is Sophie constantly switching between being young with brown hair, old with gray hair, and young with that same gray hair?" I don't believe the movie ever truly tells you why these form changes, specifically Sophie's, happen, only that they do, and I think that's pretty neat. Howl's Moving Castle gets a 9/10. The animation's gorgeous, the plot's interesting, the music is beautiful, it's all just very good. Okay, uh, wow. This was a movie. I think. My brain is fried after watching this. When I finished this film, the first thing I did was text the person who got me to watch it, "What the [heck] did I just watch." Here's what I thought of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
When people talk about a movie they like, they can sometimes talk less about the movie itself, what they liked or disliked, etc., and more about what kind of emotional response it elicited from them. This has to be one of those movies for me. The pure wonder, amazement, and confusion this movie got out of me reminds me of my first time watching Perfect Blue, but it reminded me more of The End of Evangelion. And there are plenty of aesthetic similarities between 2001 and EoE: sci-fi, long shots, elements of cosmic horror, classical music, making me question the meaning of life, etc. etc. etc. As previously mentioned here, and as stated in my project on the auteur, Stanley Kubrick loves his hallways and his long shots. He's the king of balanced shot composition. Every frame feels like something out of a dream. One of my personal favorites is when a stewardess on the ship headed for Clavius brings Floyd his food by walking along a circular wall until she's upside down and then walks into another room while still upside down. Although this wasn't necessarily a "new" shot (the earliest rotating room that I could find was used was from 1921), it's still impressive. There are a few shots with double gravity, specifically during "Jupiter Mission", like this one, where gravity pulls in two separate direction. Wikipedia tells me it's the same thing except Poole's actor was strapped into his seat while eating so that he wouldn't, you know, fall straight down and break his neck. Apparently Kubrick had a giant "Ferris wheel" constructed to do a lot of these rotating room shots, and it paid off because they all look awesome. I was having a grand old time watching this film. It was great. Then, I got to Jupiter. Oh, boy. What to say about "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite"? Gorgeous? Yes. Confusing? Absolutely. The scene where Dave enters the monolith is around 10 minutes long, and I got none of it. It's absolutely beautiful, and I do wonder how Kubrick managed to come up with those shots, from the laser light show to the shifting stars. I've been thinking about what exactly any of it could mean, and I honestly don't have an answer. I don't understand why the hallucinations shift from being distorted stars to just discolored shots of what is clearly the Earth. It's got to be done for a reason, I just don't get why. And why does Dave see himself growing older like in timeskips? What's the meaning of all white room at the end? Why does Dave turn into a giant floating space fetus, which is apparently called a "star child"? I don't know. The one thing I'm semi-confident about is that the monolith represents evolution and humanity's intelligence and drive for innovation. Beyond that, nothing. I can only theorize that it's about the life cycle of humanity and the nature of technological progress, but I'm not even sure about that because I couldn't actually explain why it would make sense. I didn't know where else to put it, but I just want to mention that Stanley Kubrick dropped this bombshell of a film on moviegoers and then decided to end it with the "Blue Danube Waltz," and I just feel like that's such a powerful move to make. Now, I can only think that if Kubrick made A Clockwork Orange today, he would absolutely have chosen to have Alex sing "Mr. Blue Sky" during the rape scene in that movie and would have then ended the movie with the proper "Mr. Blue Sky." 10/10, I've got no idea what I watched. I used to think Kubrick was either a genius or totally insane, but now I realize that he's both. And in one fell swoop, Pixar Thanos-snapped homophobia out of existence. Very impressive. What a way to start off the month of Valentine's Day. I watched Luca, and here's what I thought.
Let's address the elephant in the room: I know the director has gone on record saying that Luca and Alberto aren't gay, but something something directorial intent vs. death of the director, they look gay to me. Regardless of your thoughts on whether the two are queer or not, though, there's no doubt in my mind that the movie itself is an allegory for being an oppressed minority and being demonized for it, whether that be because of race, sexuality, gender, religion, what have you. Plus, it came out during pride month. So there's that. I originally thought that the Bruno in "Silenzio, Bruno" was actually going to turn out to be Alberto's dad. I thought Luca's mom and Alberto's dad both had similarly authoritarian parenting styles and that Alberto had run away from home and had been living on his own. This would have tied the "Silenzio, Bruno" thing back into Alberto's backstory better, but I guess it's less associated with him and more with Luca anyways. I think the abandonment issues tie into Alberto and Massimo's relationship with each other better, but I feel like that doesn't start to develop until right in the middle of the movie, whereas "Silenzio, Bruno" is a motif throughout the movie about 5-10 minutes after Luca and Alberto meet. This wouldn't be a Pixar movie without gorgeous animation, and, as expected, Luca delivers. You get great scenes of stuff like Luca and Alberto flying through a starry sky of fish, but also just simple things like the sea monsters' "hair" floating around in the water. It's a very pretty movie. Luca's parents are pretty funny. I mean, of course they are, the mom is voiced by Maya Rudolph, but it's just very entertaining to watch them go around town, splashing random children with water while trying to find their son. Also, Daniela is basically gender-bent Marlin from Finding Nemo except funnier and a little less controlling. Only a little, though. Alberto does some gaslighting gatekeeping girlbossing during the second act. He gets really jealous of Giulia and Luca's friendship and does some really frustrating stuff. At one point he tells Luca he shouldn't go to school because he won't be accepted for being a sea monster, but it's made pretty obvious that envy and selfishness are what are driving him at this point, especially when he reveals himself as a sea monster. Alberto is pretty stubborn throughout the movie until he gets his big moment during the climax when he runs to give Luca an umbrella. This movie does the second-act breakup thing that I hate so much, but I really don't mind it here because it actually feels like it's for a really good reason. It's not just some petty argument that could be solved another way; it's an extreme betrayal of trust that was built up to well. In my opinion, it's less about being sea monsters and more about Luca recanting his friendship with Alberto. The thing that binds Luca and Alberto's relationship in the beginning is the fact that they're both sea monsters who want to live on the land. This quickly changes into a friendship based on a shared desire to see the world. When Alberto outs himself as a sea monster, he hopes that Luca will stay by his side, but instead, Luca pretends to have not known and to be scared of Alberto. Alberto isn't hurt because Luca refuses to publicly associate with a sea monster; Alberto is hurt because Luca refuses to publicly associate with him. And then, Giulia pushes Luca away to keep him safe. She doesn't want to stop being friends, but she knows it isn't safe for him in the town. So, Luca has pushed away his best friend and been pushed away by the first person in the town who has shown him kindness. Very sad. You hate to see it. A problem this movie and Encanto both have, in my opinion, is ROCD: Rapid-Onset Climax Disorder. Due to the need to be 90 minutes long, give or take a few, you expect the climax to be sometime soon, and then you blink, and suddenly, you're there. To be fair, it's more noticable in Encanto than it is in Luca, but it's still an issue that could probably be fixed if Disney just let their movies be 15 minutes longer. Like Encanto, though, the climax itself is well-paced. The issue is just that it feels like it comes on too quickly. I also watched Ciao Alberto, which is a short sequel to the movie. It was very cute, and it kind of brought that adoptive father-son storyline between Massimo and Alberto that the original alluded to at the end to a full close, which was nice. Definitely a great little feel-good short. Luca gets a 9/10. It's probably in my top 3 Pixar movies with the likes of WALL-E and Inside-Out. Also, it's been nominated for Best Animated Feature this year, so I'm excited to see how that plays out since it's up against Encanto and The Mitchells vs. the Machines, two other outstanding animated movies from last year. |