Last week, I got hit by what turned out to not be the omicron variant, but a very nasty flu. I was severely knocked out and couldn´t get into much music at all. However, I started binging a lot of films during my recovery. Here is my thoughts on this rather random assortment of movies.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
Dir.: Quentin Tarantino
Script: Quentin Taratino
Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russel, Jenniffer Jason Leigh
I mainly picked this film because of the realisation that I now finally had some time to watch movies with unnecessarioly long runtimes that I can not normally fit into an evening. And oh boy, is the runtime on here unnecessary. Tarantino´s dialogue has gotten more and more indulgent over the years. I feel this was mainly due to two factors. Number one: When a director gets too big, fewer people are willing to say no to them (the George Lucas effect, if you will. Nobody can tell quentin Tarantino that his dialogue doesn´t move the story forward, because he would probably get fired. Number two: Tarantino likely believes that the audience actually likes this (and the audience probably to a degree believes this or actually likes it, too). This trend began on 'Inglorious Basterds' which was famously praised for the introductory dialogue scene. Frankly, it doesn´t have the samme effect on me, as I just wish every scene would just end.
The structure of the film bothers me, as well. There is a twist in the film, which I will not spoil. However, after the twist you will be treated to about 40 minutes of footage in a flashback explaining to you what the twist is and how it happened. This whole issue is especially apparent since tarantino has called the film a "western retelling of John Carpenter's 'The Thing'", a film with a structure that doesn´t need to rely on tricks like this and which has a clear buildup to the climactic scenes. All alterations to the story lessen the material and the extreme windup in getting to the location makes very little sense. Overall, I can´t really see liking this film unless you find Tarantino´s dialogue to be worth it by itself. Overall, I was very frustrated with it.
Rating: 4/10.
Jackie Brown (1997)
Dir.: Quentin Tarantino
Script: Quentin Taratino
Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, Pam Grier, Robert Forster, Robert De Niro
After I had finished 'The Hateful Eight', I realised that I had seen every single Quentin Tarantino movie but one; that one being Jackie Brown. Jackie Brown has traditionally been regarded as his one bad film, but has in recent years beec reclaimed for what it actually is and not what it was unfavorably compared to. I can see an audience that expected the stylish, quippy and hyper-stylized dialogue and the visual flair that 'Pulp Fiction' had previously set up be disappointed by this films arguably very relaxed pace and the more naturalistic acting and dialogue that these characters speak. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed 'Jackie Brown', however - maybe particularly because it feels immersed so much less in Tarantino´s tropes while still being true to his occupations as an auteur. Much like Tarantino´s newest feature, 'Once upon a Time in Hollywood', 'Jackie Brown' is basically the movie version of what is often called literary fiction in literature. The enjoyment that you will get from this film will heavily depend on how much you can get on board with a film that is purely built out of the interactions of the two characters and how their characters affact the dialogue and relationships. 'Jackie Brown' is a talky movie - sometimes too talky - and it can not completely justify its own length, but my thumb is still up on it since it seems like a very honest love letter to Pam Grier, an actress mainly forgotten by mainstream hollywood. The interactions between her and the Robert Forster make this movie, with their subtle yet intense character. This is why, despite the at times sluggish pace of it, I am thoroughly rooting for these two to win and it thoroughly earns its last scene with the two. Rating: 7/10.
Mindhorn (2016)
Dir.: Sean Foley
Script: Julian Barratt, Simon Farnaby
Stars: Julian Barratt, Simon Farnaby, Essie Davis
Unlike the two earlier films, I didn´t select 'Mindhorn' in advance and it was mainly random browsing that made me commit to this film. I am a huge fan of 'Garth Marenghi´s Darkplace', which Julian Barratt has a small part in and the whole concept around 'Mindhorn' gave me similar vibes to that project. Barratt stars as Richard Thorncroft, a washed up actor whose career completely tanked after his iconic role as TV Detective Mindhorn, who has a cybernetic eye that can see lies. Thorncroft gets called to the Isle of Man, where a demented serial killer is only willing to speak to Mindhorn, whom he believes to be real. The film is pretty frontloaded with my favorite bits, where the fake TV show gets authentically remade for the film, ripe with VHS artifacts and deliberately cheesy special effects. Mindhorn is a very british comedy hero, where a lot of the comedy comes from how worn down he is and how the people from his past don´t respect them. From the basic premise, you can basically already surmise how the film develops and most of the great comedy is in the early stages of the film, before the plot really gets going. Mindhorn is certainly more predictable and by the numbers than a film like Jackie Brown, but I did end up rooting for Mindhorn despite the predictable plot structrue and I did get a couple good laughs out of it. 'Mindhorn' is probably not a better film, but one that was easier for me to consume and which I frankly enjoyed a lot more than it maybe deserves. Also, it has Andrea Riseborough in it, which I always enjoy seeing. Rating: (low) 7/10.
Pig (2021)
Dir.: Micheal Sarnoski
Script: Vanessa Block (Story by), Michael Sarnoski (Script)
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Alan Arkin
I know many people were going into this expecting it to be basically 'John Wick' but its Nic Cage and a pig or maybe something like 'Hobo with a Shotgun', only to be disappointed. I was prepapred, however, and 'Pig' ended up being one of my favorite current films I have seen in forever. The story is about a pig getting abducted and a man who wants his pig back, yes, but it ends up being so much. The backdrop of Portlands high society, ripe with snobbery and hipster attitudes, is ideal for what the film tries to do but it manages to be not condescending towards the people it might be commenting on, which is the hardest thing to do for a film like this to do. Not to mention that the city looks beautiful in it with wonderful cinematography and an intense attention to color. 'Pig' is a meditation of honesty and expression in art as viewed through the lens of haute cuisine in portland. Nicolas Cage is the ideal centerpiece for this and his face - weathered and shaped by the experiences of the man himself - does most of the acting, but it is not a detriment as his performance has just the right amount of melancholy and honesty boiling under the surface. Maybe this is the experience of a man who once was an oscar-winning hollywood actor, deeply routed in a system of extreme artificiality like the fake restaurants he has to move through in this film. Yet, never becomes the film too didactic - spelling out only what it needs to to make the stories themes graspable. This is probably my favorite film of 2021, even if I have to admit that I haven´t seen all that much of it - the year was still tortured by covid, after all. Rating: (high) 8
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
Dir.: David Blue Garcia
Script: Chris Thomas Devlin (script), Fede Alvarez (Story by),Rodo Sayagues(Story by)
Stars: Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham
I actually didn´t check out this film because I thought I would enjoy it. No, I was just curious in what specific ways they could fuck up this film this time. 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' as a franchise isn´t the easiest cow to milk - the original film pretty much is good and iconic for its absence of filmmaking and the complete lack of corporate thinking - a grimy piece of film that is willing to depict handicapped people heavily negatively and whose yellowish hue makes it feel like a found footage film before that was really a thing. The absence of a traditional structure makes it unpredictable - and drag in the first half, but it is an iconic film nonetheless whose influence is hard to gauge. 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2' is already an entirely different beast which ironically undercuts the original film and promptly flopping at the box office (albeit slightly being reclaimed as a now cult classic. Updating 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' for the modern age seems impossible without completely disregarding the essence of the original. Even worse, this new version also seems to try to rip off some other horror trends that make very little sense in regards to the original story. The newly emerged 'Final Girl gets her revenge' trope is lazily applied to the story, as the original survivor is now a retired Texas Ranger that had devoted her life to finding Leatherface - even though he apparently just lives in an orphanage. Her existence is verbally acknowledged by some faux documentary footage at the start, yet she only becomes a character in the final third of the film and then promptly dies. This is clearly an attempt to do a similar thing for her as 'Halloween (2020)' had done. However, 'Halloween (2020)' at least devotes time to her as a character and makes her a focal point of the story, however flawed that film ended up. Similarly, the main plot also falls flat in lifting the themes of gentrification that the Candyman remake also tried to apply to the original plot unsuccesfully. In the end, what are we left with? A story that is heavy handed, unengaging and in every way unappealing and that could only be saved by some very satisfying kills. Yet, not even the gore delivers as it seems cold and digital and lacks the physical impact that gorehounds like me crave. Overall the weakest film I saw all week and one I struggled through. Rating: 3/10.
Comentários