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I know that most of you are here for one reason only: my half-assed amateur movie reviews.
In which case you may be wondering, “Hey man, aren’t you watching any movies this year?"
Well, I am, but not that many, and I haven’t had time to write them up here (which is also why I haven't seen that many films this year – it’s been pretty nuts).
So consider yrself caught up with this post.
The Big Short
You wouldn’t think Michael Lewis’ non-fiction books would make good films. But they do. First Moneyball, and now The Big Short, in which a small group of financial investors who realized the supposedly solid US housing market was based on fraud and on the verge of collapse, bet against it and made a fortune. It all works thanks to a combination of top-notch acting and the ability of the screenwriters to simplify the complex financial situation without dumbing it down (the gimmick of using actual celebrities to break the fourth wall and explain the wonky bits is particularly inspired). And the film smartly acknowledges openly that it’s making up some of the dramatic details but the overall story is true. It’s not a trick that would work with every “based on a true story” film but it works here. This is the best film about the 2008 economic crisis I’ve seen so far.
Trumbo
Biopic of Dalton Trumbo, the infamous Hollywood screenwriter who secretly wrote Oscar-winning screenplays while being officially blacklisted by Hollywood during the McCarthy Communist witch hunts. Like most biopics, Trumbo fudges some facts and glosses over certain details – and it makes no secret whose side it’s on as Trumbo faces off with congressmen, John Wayne and gossip queen Hedda Hopper. But it’s not exactly hagiographical either – Trumbo has his flaws, particularly when it comes to his family relationships. And at the heart of it is an interesting story of how Trumbo got around the blacklist. Anyway, I’m a sucker for stories about censorship and Commie witch hunts, so I’m with the choir this film preaches to.
Hail, Caesar!
In which the Coen Brothers pay tribute to 50s Hollywood films by way of a fake story about a real person – studio fixer Eddie Mannix, whose main job was to cover up the scandals of the studio’s stars. The Coens’ Mannix is not as sleazy or ruthless as the real one, but he does spend the film dealing with various problems, the centerpiece of which is the disappearance of Baird Whitlock, the lead actor in the eponymous film, who has been kidnapped by Communist screenwriters. The story meanders somewhat, but that may be intentional, as one of the goals for the Coens here was to create scenes from some of the big genres of post-war Hollywood, from musicals and singing cowboys to sword-and-sandals Biblical epics – which they do with stunning accuracy. The fact that they wrote their own “classic” film scenes instead of recreating existing ones is an achievement in itself. It may not be their best film, but it may be their best technical achievement.
The Hateful Eight
The eighth film by Quentin Tarantino, and the first one of his films I found it hard to get into. Like all his films, it looks great, has good acting, good dialogue and plays with the narration structure a little when it suits Tarantino to do so. The gimmick here is essentially a single-room mystery where people are not what they seem and the characters have to figure out what’s really going on. The problem for me is that there’s really no one very likeable, which is another way of saying there’s no single character you hope makes it out of the situation alive. The film is just too mired in the worst qualities of humans for me to really enjoy it. It’s not bad, it’s just one of those films I’ll probably only watch once.
Zootopia
One doesn’t usually associate buddy-cop films with animated kids films, but Zootopia is just that. Naïve idealist country bunny Judy realizes her dream of becoming the first bunny to join the police force in Zootopia, a city where predators and prey live together in relative harmony. But no one takes her seriously, and to prove herself, she takes a case to find a missing otter, with some unwilling help from Nick, a con-artist fox who is her only lead to the otter’s whereabouts. It probably says a lot that only an animated film with anthropomorphic animals could get away with using a buddy-cop formula as a vehicle to denounce racism, sexism, xenophobia and exploiting fear for political gain. Given current events, it’s arguably one of the more subversive films of the year.
The Mermaid
Steven Chow’s latest film, in which a mermaid is sent to assassinate a greedy billionaire whose development company has savaged her people’s home. It’s pretty much the usual Chow template – the selfish but redeemable protagonist, the goonish leading lady, cheesy CGI and a juxtaposition of madcap humor and senseless, cruel violence that, like most of Chow’s latter-day work, tends to lean more towards the latter. So it helps if you think of it more as a fantasy action film with comedy bits rather than a comedy film with action bits. That said, it’s also Chow’s most message-driven film – which is saying something, considering this is ostensibly a mainland Chinese-produced film that not only criticizes greedy land development but also makes fun of the growing trend of China’s growing (and in many cases irresponsible) millionaires.
Go fish,
This is dF
In which case you may be wondering, “Hey man, aren’t you watching any movies this year?"
Well, I am, but not that many, and I haven’t had time to write them up here (which is also why I haven't seen that many films this year – it’s been pretty nuts).
So consider yrself caught up with this post.
The Big Short
You wouldn’t think Michael Lewis’ non-fiction books would make good films. But they do. First Moneyball, and now The Big Short, in which a small group of financial investors who realized the supposedly solid US housing market was based on fraud and on the verge of collapse, bet against it and made a fortune. It all works thanks to a combination of top-notch acting and the ability of the screenwriters to simplify the complex financial situation without dumbing it down (the gimmick of using actual celebrities to break the fourth wall and explain the wonky bits is particularly inspired). And the film smartly acknowledges openly that it’s making up some of the dramatic details but the overall story is true. It’s not a trick that would work with every “based on a true story” film but it works here. This is the best film about the 2008 economic crisis I’ve seen so far.
Trumbo
Biopic of Dalton Trumbo, the infamous Hollywood screenwriter who secretly wrote Oscar-winning screenplays while being officially blacklisted by Hollywood during the McCarthy Communist witch hunts. Like most biopics, Trumbo fudges some facts and glosses over certain details – and it makes no secret whose side it’s on as Trumbo faces off with congressmen, John Wayne and gossip queen Hedda Hopper. But it’s not exactly hagiographical either – Trumbo has his flaws, particularly when it comes to his family relationships. And at the heart of it is an interesting story of how Trumbo got around the blacklist. Anyway, I’m a sucker for stories about censorship and Commie witch hunts, so I’m with the choir this film preaches to.
Hail, Caesar!
In which the Coen Brothers pay tribute to 50s Hollywood films by way of a fake story about a real person – studio fixer Eddie Mannix, whose main job was to cover up the scandals of the studio’s stars. The Coens’ Mannix is not as sleazy or ruthless as the real one, but he does spend the film dealing with various problems, the centerpiece of which is the disappearance of Baird Whitlock, the lead actor in the eponymous film, who has been kidnapped by Communist screenwriters. The story meanders somewhat, but that may be intentional, as one of the goals for the Coens here was to create scenes from some of the big genres of post-war Hollywood, from musicals and singing cowboys to sword-and-sandals Biblical epics – which they do with stunning accuracy. The fact that they wrote their own “classic” film scenes instead of recreating existing ones is an achievement in itself. It may not be their best film, but it may be their best technical achievement.
The Hateful Eight
The eighth film by Quentin Tarantino, and the first one of his films I found it hard to get into. Like all his films, it looks great, has good acting, good dialogue and plays with the narration structure a little when it suits Tarantino to do so. The gimmick here is essentially a single-room mystery where people are not what they seem and the characters have to figure out what’s really going on. The problem for me is that there’s really no one very likeable, which is another way of saying there’s no single character you hope makes it out of the situation alive. The film is just too mired in the worst qualities of humans for me to really enjoy it. It’s not bad, it’s just one of those films I’ll probably only watch once.
Zootopia
One doesn’t usually associate buddy-cop films with animated kids films, but Zootopia is just that. Naïve idealist country bunny Judy realizes her dream of becoming the first bunny to join the police force in Zootopia, a city where predators and prey live together in relative harmony. But no one takes her seriously, and to prove herself, she takes a case to find a missing otter, with some unwilling help from Nick, a con-artist fox who is her only lead to the otter’s whereabouts. It probably says a lot that only an animated film with anthropomorphic animals could get away with using a buddy-cop formula as a vehicle to denounce racism, sexism, xenophobia and exploiting fear for political gain. Given current events, it’s arguably one of the more subversive films of the year.
The Mermaid
Steven Chow’s latest film, in which a mermaid is sent to assassinate a greedy billionaire whose development company has savaged her people’s home. It’s pretty much the usual Chow template – the selfish but redeemable protagonist, the goonish leading lady, cheesy CGI and a juxtaposition of madcap humor and senseless, cruel violence that, like most of Chow’s latter-day work, tends to lean more towards the latter. So it helps if you think of it more as a fantasy action film with comedy bits rather than a comedy film with action bits. That said, it’s also Chow’s most message-driven film – which is saying something, considering this is ostensibly a mainland Chinese-produced film that not only criticizes greedy land development but also makes fun of the growing trend of China’s growing (and in many cases irresponsible) millionaires.
Go fish,
This is dF
