Why are horses so resplendent?

• The Rider (2017): What a glorious, heartfelt movie about passion and struggling against the odds! The Rider treads the thin-red-line between reality and fiction to paint this stern, yet touching story about Brady, a cowboy who suffers a head injury that impairs him from doing what he’s best at – riding and taming (breaking in) wild horses. You can sense the potential for metaphors and drama right there, and director Chloé Zhao manages to milk it to the very last drop without ever becoming melo. Great cinematography helps in creating the setting, while perfect pacing makes for one of the best Western-themed movies I’ve seen in a while. 8/10

There’s a resplendent horse here too!

• One and a Half Prince (2018): Although I saw this and The Rider a few weeks apart (#fakechronology), it’s funny how they are both semi-documentarian movies, talking about loss. The results, however, are very different, with One and a Half Prince failing in eliciting revelatory emotions. Or almost any other kind of emotions. More in the review. 5/10

No horses that I can recall.

• RBG (2018): I was writing about this last week, in reference to the similarities it shares with Won’t You Be My Neighbour (2018). While RBG is still a fairly interesting movie, it feels more like a hagiography (God, I love this word) and focuses a fair bit on political overtones, rather than soulful subthemes. In what ultimately is a more old-fashioned documentary, the life of supreme court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg is distinctive enough to merit the treatment, but I never felt it went beyond itself to create something special. Or maybe that’s just me being pretentious. 7/10

Horse don’t associate with losers.

• Sierra Burgess Is a Loser (2018): Another tame Netflix production about teenagers being teenagers and faking relationships (all that big data is really paying off!) proves to be an enjoyable ride for an uneventful night in. Even sharing the same object of desire like the other Netflix teen-pic, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before – Noah Centineo, it’s a bit hard to set them apart. For whatever reason, I did feel All the Boys was less formulaic than Sierra Burgess and the two leads had a less absurd love-story that you could actually get behind of. This does not mean Sierra Burgess doesn’t provide it’s share of positive characters and some moments of truth, just not that many. 6/10

P.S. And if you think that big data ain’t doing stuff – Noah Centineo is number six on the IMDb starmeter, after peaking at number one a week ago. Fear the aggregated data, guys and girls, fear the aggregated data.

Nobody can afford a horse in this one.

• Support the Girls (2018): I think director Andrew Bujalski is on to something here: he’s found the recipe for making critically acclaimed movies that people rate below 6.0 on IMDb. After Results (2015), which I found to be quite enjoyable, Support the Girls is an even more accomplished picture, that seems to hit people the wrong way. Starring Regina Hall and – the apparently unavoidable – Haley Lu Richardson, offers some insight into the day of Lisa, the manager of a “sports bar with curves”. At face value, it’s a trip with Lisa managing all the things that could possibly go wrong during a day’s work. I would argue that it’s actually a critique of modern America, of cutthroat competition and self-serving, misogynistic ownership that undermines the humanism rooted in the way of life we should aspire to. There are no quick fixes, no easy ways out, just a lot of taking crap and making it shine on a platter. It turns out, Support the Girls is a movie about being stoic and willfully obtuse in one’s desire to make the best of things. 8/10

 

To my credit, I have been watching movies. It’s just that I haven’t been writing about them! I deserve a GoT shaming for this.

Twenty Feet from Stardom (2013): I had no particular interest in the world of music in general or backup singers in particular, but there was something so relatable about the idea of being ‘twenty feet from stardom’. Most people are about that distance from being ‘important’, being ‘fulfilled’, from being just ‘more’ of themselves. It’s particular to the arts that so many people dedicate themselves and, yet, only a speckle become famous. The case of backup singers is fascinating, because these (mostly) girls are exceptional talents, yet they find themselves in a career limbo that can quickly become the end of solo aspirations. There’s a lot to be gotten out of TFfS, so it gets a warm recommendation. 8/10

To All the Boys I’ve Loved (2018): This cheery little Netflix title is everything it could have ever been – which is no small feat. Starring a couple of likable leads, it offers a lot of familiar themes from the world of teenage rom-com movies, but still manages to make them feel fresh and honest. It doesn’t make a joke of itself, which is, again, something praiseworthy, while also defying certain gender-related expectations. Enough said. 7/10

When We First Met (2018): In stark contrast with it is this other Netflix rom-com, about a guy stuck in a borderline implausible ‘what could have been’ over Alexandra Daddario. Yes, we all contemplate that, but you have to make a real meal of it for something like this to stand out. WWFM doesn’t and feels like the opposite of All the Boys I’ve Loved, by creating contrived scenarios with one-note characters. It’s slight and easily digestible, but, c’mon, you have to try harder and invest a dime in your characters. Having a cool time-travel mechanic (which you then use for the most generic scenarios) isn’t enough. 4/10

Won’t You Be My Neighbor (2018): There was a lot of buzz surrounding a couple of unexpected documentaries this summer – the one about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and this, starring Fred Rogers. It’s not only the unexpected characters leading them that embrethrens them, but also their approach to the wider theme of how we build society and foster particular ways of thinking. More on RBG next week, because Mr. Rogers deserves a LOT of attention. The documentary is, really, a great piece of filmmaking, which reconstructs a man and his singular vision of how television can be used to teach children about the complexities of life. It’s an intricate story with surprising emotional heft, stemming from director Morgan Neville’s ability to bring Rogers into your living room. It doesn’t matter if you agree with everything (and the movie does shy away from controversy), because the overall experience is such a wholesome, uplifting one, that it will, in the least, change your day. That’s not a simple feat from a movie about an awkward man playing around with puppets. 9/10

P.S. Can you believe I had no idea Morgan Neville also directed Twenty Feet From Stardom until writing this? Crazy, crazy world.

First Reformed (2018): It’s hard to make a relevant movie about spiritualism and radicalism without being totally political about it. Yet, Paul Schrader manages just that in a difficult movie, that ends up in totally unexpected places. Ethan Hawke plays Toller, a priest who is tormented by his own shortcomings. This leads to something else when he has to ‘consult’ with a young radical environmentalist, who just about ends up ‘infecting’ Toller with doubt and action. Torn between duty, carnality and desperation, Toller slowly winds himself up, while losing more and more control. A strong finale underpinned the forlorn feelings I was left with while the credits were rolling. It might be a tad slow, but it’s worth it. 8/10

Games for mice and men

• Tag (2018): All major movie themes of any given year come in twos – this time, it’s about adult people playing games. After the excellent Game Night (2018), it’s tag’s turn to make a resurgence. The movie, starring a bunch of high caliber actors like Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner, tells of a group of men whose friendship has survived thanks to their annual game of tag. It’s mostly a fun romp, but for me it failed in its tonal inconsistencies and the manner in which it completely underused most of the female cast in trite subplots. What’s the point of having Rashida Jones if all you want of her is to be an object of desire…erm, well, you know, with no personality and just as an excuse for male rivalry. Not that the part of Annabelle Wallis is any better. And that blatant effort to pander at the end by including the women in the game does nobody any favours. 6/10

Sometimes I think about not watching a movie if its title doesn’t fit on the weekly graphic 

• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018): It’s not just a mouthful of a title, but also a mouthful of a movie. At over two hours, this (novel-based) story of how a tiny literary society came to be in Guernsey during the Nazi occupation is sometimes sweet, but often tiresome. Although Lily James is a good fit for her part, both her love interests are unconvincing, which isn’t where you want to be if you’re going for romance. Getting past this stumbling block proved difficult for me, and the lackluster story of Nazi resistance didn’t help much either. The historical context, though, caught my interest and got me through the movie, as it did a proper job of capturing the residual pain of loss even as WW2 had ended. Scrapes by with a small recommendation, although people in general seemed to have liked it. 6/10

Tomorrow is today

• Upgrade (2018): From the mind of Leigh Whannell, creator of Saw, comes a movie set in a blue-tinted cyber future, that borrows heavily from all sorts of similarly themed films, yet manages to put forward an enjoyable ride that feels fresh enough to matter. If you just ignore the ultra-obvious plot (hey, at least it twists in the end), you’ll be sucked into the dim world of tomorrow, where computers can do almost everything, society is harshly segregated and the police are still terribly ineffectual at fighting crime. In this life-inspiring setting, an old-school mechanic will be transformed in an uber-mensch and will struggle to discover who the bad guys are. With the help of a microchip, he will be faster, smarter, better than most people, in a slight Deus-Ex scenario. So if that’s your thing, enjoy. 7/10

Plethora of size jokes incoming

• Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018): If you thought the first Ant-Man was average, be ready to relive the same feelings as you go through its follow-up. Featuring the same cast, its comic relief and the occasional set-piece make the movie tolerable, but most of it just feels rehashed. Unlike with Upgrade, I don’t feel the need to sympathize with it, because it bears no ambitions. A good-bad-guy is cool enough once, but when he/she starts showing up in all your movies Marvel, then something’s wrong. The only truly exciting moment comes in the first after-credits scene, so judge that as you will. 6/10

For that rainy night when you feel lonesome

• Columbus (2017): Talk about beautiful, lush and introspective cinema! Kogonada’s feature length debut is an ode to the marvels of design, small-town life and a-harmonious families. It’s a joy to watch and feel, even though its trailer seems uninspiring – perhaps because the narrative isn’t quite memorable, nor are the actors inhabiting the two leads, but there’s just enough there to hold the movie’s inner life together. It has a scent of Lost in Translation, thanks to its quiet admiration for people and places grown out of solitude, something that should feel familiar and blue in an instant. Delicious. 8/10

I can’t believe it, I’m losing to a rug

• Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind (2018): I just don’t trust people who feel nothing when watching Robin Williams. The man put everything in his performances, he was so committed that it hurt to think about what was going on inside, especially knowing the drug use of his younger days. This HBO docu is a joyous elegy to the man, and although it doesn’t tread far into the unknown, it still manages to paint a comprehensive portrait the funny man. His death, now four years away, still feels raw – as raw as any movie stars dying can feel. The documentary comes to emphasize the age-old-adage: that the truest tragedy lies within comedy. 8/10

Should you choose to accept it

• Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018): Every time I see Tom Cruise and it dawns upon me that he’s only a couple of years younger than my dad, a shiver goes down my spine. Somehow, Cruise went beyond his scientology blemishes and still manages to rock some of the most hardcore action characters Hollywood has to offer. His ‘all-in’ mentality translates well on film, and the broken ankle he suffered while filming MI:F is a testament to the guy’s dedication. The movie itself is ‘adrenaline fueled’ as the kids like to say nowadays, about as good as a pure action flick can get. The set-pieces are incredible, with director McQuarrie capturing it all with flair. Strong co-stars bring appeal and levity to the leg banging. 8/10

Hey! I quoted this in my book.

• On Chesil Beach (2017): When you finally read one of the many books you aimed to read come new-year, and you then find out they’re making a movie based on it, watching it becomes a must. Even if you didn’t quite enjoy the book to begin with. On Chesil Beach is the tragic love-story of two unfortunate and inexperienced newly weds, who are as foreign to love and love-making as can be. But that’s how we it used to be done back in those days – settle for the first man/woman that you’re socially compatible with. Unfortunately, the whole affair is slow and fails to capture the raw disgust that Florence felt when faced with sexual intimacy. That’s a big thing, because it was the most redeeming aspect of the book. You’re left with some greater social construct considerations to contemplate, but it’s at the end of an anguishing movie. At least I came out of it knowing how to pronounce Saoirse Ronan’s name, so that’s something. 5/10

Oh, perfect father-daughter relationship starring Kristen Bell, where hast thou gone?

• Like Father (2018): This less pretentious Netflix movie starring Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammer banks on the appeal of its leads and cashes in. Somewhat. Bell plays a workaholic who ruins her own wedding and then reconnects with her estranged father on what should have been the honeymoon of anyone’s dreams. It’s not an ambitious feature, yet it plays well enough to be enjoyable in its major parts. Don’t expect any surprises, just a mild morality tale about the life you never had. 6/10

A harrowing ‘tradition’

• Tower (2016): To be fair, I did make some acclaimed choices this week. Tower is a partly animated documentary that retells the tragic hours that marked the university of Texas in 1966, when a sniper killed sixteen people who were just minding their own business. I’m not sure if this was the first of the many mass shootings that occurred in the US, but it sure shaped the public frame of mind. The movie patches together and reenacts recollections of the day from survivors (mostly), and although it starts out slowly, by the end you’re going to feel that emotional punch. The whole situation is everything the US and Texas is about, as vigilante gunman encircled the tower to take down the shooter – Charles Whitman, a former UoT student. Interestingly, a tumor was found inside Whitman’s brain at the autopsy (spoiler alert – he dies), and it has been suggested this might have been a contributing factor to his violent impulses. Maybe a movie for another day, as this one made no concessions at all for the state of the shooter, focusing rather on the manner in which the bystanders reacted to this unimaginable situation. 8/10

I was out on a week with the guys, which generally leads to some dark experiences. We tried our luck with a bunch of horror movies and were mostly pleased by what we saw.

Foreboding dominance

• Revenge (2017): I’ve rarely seen an opening fifteen minutes as luscious as this. Shot with a lot of flair, at a great location and featuring a sensual lead, it set up the movie exceptionally well. Things get rough after this, before the movie asks of you to disconnect your brain and just take things as they come. Ultimately, the plot disappoints and the violence is borderline excessive, which is quite a shame. For a first film, however, this is not a bad effort from Coralie Fargeat. 7/10

Guess who’s coming to dinner

• It Comes at Night (2017): Director Trey Shults impressed the awkwardness out of me with his previous movie, Krisha (2015). This one’s a different experience, as it looks at a post-apocalyptic world without telling us much about it. A highly contagious virus kills people, that’s all you need to know, because the gist of it is about how people treat each other when faced with their own survival. There are no good and bad guys, just two families trying to make the best out of a horrible situation. I would argue Shults doesn’t take things far enough to make a truly enticing movie, but the manner in which he defies convention and his attention to detail elevates It Comes at Night to a character drama. But no, it’s no horror movie and the title does it not favours. 7/10

Spanish Ouija

• Verónica (2017): Another stylish horror for this crop – the closest to a horror movie of the lot – proves to be a let-down. I’m not a big fan of spiritualism and possession plots, which is part of the reason why I just couldn’t get behind Veronica. Add to that the fact that I don’t care much for young protagonists either, and it’s pretty clear my prejudices didn’t help at all in how I experienced the movie. It felt slow and uninspired, with the odd scare making an appearance – nothing like the kind of stuff you’d expect from the director of [REC]. 5/10

The zombie movie everyone has been craving for

• Zombeavers (2014): If you love beavers and you want to be a zombie when you grow up, this is the right movie for you. A very camp, silly low-budget B-grade piece of filmmaking, Zombeavers proves to be a fun ride if you’ve got a group of like-minded connoisseurs around you. All you need is an appreciation for gore and nudity. Otherwise, it’s probably not something you should spend a lot of time on.  6/10

AKA a documentary on all things witchcraft in the 1630s

• The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015): It’s funny how three of the six movies reviewed this week were by first-time directors. The VVitch was highly acclaimed on release and I would have to concur with the critics on this one. It’s not really a horror movie, as it is a historical movie embedded in folklore. Great acting and exceptional cinematography flesh out what is, essentially, a family drama. If you’ve ever wondered how one could have thought women were witches, you’ll get some meaty insight here, as the movie treads the line between the real and the supernatural. Pretty special, this. 8/10

Composite stories abound

• Ghost Stories (2017): As opposed to The VVitch and Revenge, the directors behind Ghost Stories don’t have quite the same mature cinematic eye. Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman propose a plot-driven film, with Nyman playing the lead character, a Professor Goodman. A debunker of the supernatural, Goodman is faced with three cases that are said to be unsolvable. Whether you’ll like it or not depends on how much you care for Shyamalan-esque twists and turns. I didn’t really have fun with it, but it wasn’t a terrible story either. 6/10

Oh, those Russians

• Our Kind of Traitor (2016): This John le Carre adaptation bears some of his usual trademarks – small mafia-big mafia and the wider political entanglements of black money – and works well for the most part, without ever really exciting. Director Susanna White, in what is her second major movie after…Nanny McPhee, fails to really make the personal drama of Perry and Gail resonate with the crazy geopolitical storm they got mixed in. The pedigreed cast, starring Ewan McGregor, Stellan Skarsgård, Naomi Harris and Damien Lewis, provides a bunch of rather lifeless performances, perhaps due to the equally lifeless characters they play. Which is not to say that the movie didn’t feel slick at times, it just felt kind of empty. 6/10

It’s bloody grim

• The Future (2011): Miranda July’ second feature isn’t as impressive as Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), but still proves an unusually intense love story. Or something of the sort. The movie is uncomfortable, painful at times, weird at others, while providing an unforgiving X-Ray of relationship plateaus. And to think it all starts with the lead couple adopting a defective cat, with said-cat narrating the whole affair. Can it get more weird than this? Strangely enough, it also makes sense, while having a distinctively true ring about the relationship complications it portrays. The fact that it has an equally strong meta-verse makes for a memorable, if imperfect and overly quirky experience. 7/10

Child-rearing antidote

• Tully (2018): Charlize Theron goes for a body transformation once more, in her saddening portrayal of Marlo – anguished mother of two (three), hanging on to life and sanity by her teeth. Directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody, Tully isn’t an easy ride – if anything, it’s a good companion piece for The Future, if that one didn’t scar your soul sufficiently. There’s a harrowing montage early on, of Marlo going through her sleep-deprived routine with her newly-born, which was just seared into my brain. It becomes more digestible as it goes on, to ultimately pull the rug from under you at the end. It didn’t feel like the most believable outcome and, often enough, it sounded like Diablo Cody just leapt out of her characters’s mouths, undermining the whole experience. I’m not sure why it bothered me so much, because other than this, Tully is a remarkable story about the undue burdens of motherhood. 7/10

Angel Eyes on repeat for five hours – check!

• Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018): I am shocked by how harsh I was with my review of the original (“unless you’re as big an ABBA fan as I am, it’s hard to recommend this stuff”). Surprisingly enough, the sequel is a better, more natural and more joyous movie, even though it doesn’t rely on the most popular ABBA songs. The story is a variation on the original, as Sophie copes with her mother’s death while preparing to open a fancy hotel/resort on their idyllic Greek island. In parallel, we are pranced around young Donna’s life-affirming choices many years ago, which led her towards said island, meeting Harry, Bill and Sam along the way. Breaking from the chains of the musical makes for a more free flowing movie, aided by the flair of its fresh, young cast. But don’t worry, there are a lot of old faces around too, as Here We Go Again finds the sweet spot for nostalgics and new fans alike. 7/10

One small step for man!

• Chappaquiddick (2017): The Kennedy clan lore is a treasure trove for American film-making, with so much drama in it, that it never ceases to offer tempting material to work from. Ted Kennedy, the younger brother of Jack and Bobby, was close to the presidency in the late 60s, before the car he was driving crashed an took the life of one of Bobby’s former aids. The manner in which the whole even was handled is on show here, with lines being crossed, crisis managers brought in and familial disrepute at stake. Jason Clarke is impressive in the titular role, an interesting character that unfortunately feels too stiff and controlled to really fascinate. Ultimately, in spite of its merits, the movie just doesn’t transcend the factual in favour of the riveting. 7/10

The rehash of the rehash

• Finding Your Feet (2017): This ultra-tame feel-good story rests on the quality of its stars (Imelda Staunton, Celia Imrie, Timothy Spall), but phones in a story with no surprises and little appeal. If you have no expectations and are in the mood for a fluff piece, maybe you’ll find something pleasurable in the downfall of a socialite who returns to her youthful passion of dancing and falls for ‘a downtown guy’. It wasn’t quite what I wanted, though. 5/10

One Sicario wasn’t enough

• Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018): This is what happens when you do a sequel to a movie that doesn’t demand it. Sicario 2 is still a stylish flick, featuring an entertaining actor in Benicio del Toro and an ultra-popular one in Joshn “Thanos” Brolin, which is why it finds a passing grade. Beyond this, the narrative is slim and focuses on the dark interests of American forces to induce a war between Mexican cartels after another US terror attack. It makes some sense, but is needlessly dramatic, before turning in on itself and running out of an ending. Unsurprisingly, Sicario 2 is nowhere near the original, even if it does entertain at times. 6/10

When Rachel met Rachel

• Disobedience (2018): From Sebastian Leilo, the director of Gloria (2013, thumbs up!) and the Oscar-winning Una Mujer Fantastica (2017) comes a forbidden romance in the midst of an Orthodox Jewish community of the US. Starring a couple of the best Rachels in the world, Weisz and McAdams, the movie burns slowly, before flaming up and leaving you with the burning embers of a once pleasantly repressed existence. It feels like a bit of a churn, being so deeply set in its community that it becomes borderline foreign at times. Its finale has some redemption to it, even if the movie never provides emotional closure, because, hey!, that’s life. Leilo is a critics favourite and it’s easy to see why, but his movies aren’t the most digestible. Disobedience lacks a proper punch, that would have made it resonate more powerfully, given how deeply steeped it is in its microuniverse. 7/10

The original courtroom drama

• The Staircase (2004): Without The Staircase there would probably have been no The Jinx (2015), Making a Murderer (2015) or all the similar true-crime documentaries that place us in an intimate setting with potential criminals. Whether Michael Peterson did kill his wife or not is a question you won’t have answered for you without a reasonable doubt, particularly not by a documentarian who captured it all alongside the accused from the very beginning. Jean Xavier de Lestrade stays out the limelight, offering it all up to Peterson and his exuberant lawyer, David Rudolf. It’s an experience spanning almost fifteen years, with so much drama and frustration in it, that being truly factual falls by the sides. I don’t even think it is Lestrade’s job to prove facts, but rather to explore the complicated realities of Peterson’s case, wherever they may take him. The amount of unexpected thrown at the viewer in the first part of the series, the existential drama of a family that tears itself apart the seams, the inefficiencies of the judicial system, the conspiracy theories – everything comes together in one of the most memorable TV cases ever caught on film. 9/10