Bleu-Le-Fluff-0969

I won't say I am the biggest fan of Tim Robinson but this new cringe comedy offers a hilarious, cringeworthy but balanced tale about friendship, obsession, and the cringe patheticness of human life and bonds. With interesting direction choices from DeYoung and solid comedic tones and dark atmospheres, the movie understands what atmosphere and tone the story is heading towards. Without feeling all over the place with the tone and purpose. The cringe comedy and physical humor is well-explored and portray through the characters and dialogue dynamics.

Tim Robinson gives a great performances alongside with Paul Rudd and frankly, all of the performances are pretty good. Alongside with the camerawork and presentation. Now since I'm not familiar with Robinson's work, not ever comedic aspects worked with me and I personally found myself not engaging entirely with some of the storyline elements (especially since it does feel a bit too similar to other cringe and deadpan comedies I have seen from other filmmakers).

Otherwise, a well-balanced dark comedy.

I love The Weeknd's music but this has to be one of the most pretentious movies I have seen in quite sometime.

Based as a companion piece of the album "Hurry Up Tomorrow", the Weeknd creates a musical piece based on his musical works to tell a tale of connection, self, and the breakdown of fame. I understand what the movie is going for and the artistic choices but this movie really feels like The Weeknd is trying to show off as if his personal and works are amazing and masterpieces, as if he is desperately trying to become the newest grand in musical cinema. This all falls short because of the poor writing, bad execution and really awful atmosphere and approach.

The writing feels meaningless, as if it's like an art-house movie without direction and purpose. There are some decent visual presentation and camerawork. However, the poor editing choices and messy technics between with the music and editing makes it unbearable and sloppy. The performances are not good. The Weeknd's performance was laughably bad especially any moment with dialogue. Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan are doing their best but unfortunately they aren't able to save the film.

Alongside with poor direction, bad dialogue, and pretentious themes, it's a really bad musical piece that tries really hard to be artistic when it's just full of itself. Director Trey Edward Shults is a filmmaker I love but it's pretty clear his talents and direction is out of his control since it feels like The Weeknd took it over with his vision, and his vision is bad.

It's pretty clear that The Weeknd is a talented singer but movie-wise, he should really stay away from it. Not necessarily as awful as "The Idol" but that's not saying much.

Bad.

Bruno Dumont's blend of avant-garde and drama is interesting as I have enjoyed his works in the past. Unfortunately, his recent films haven't been impressive and The Empire is his worst film to date.

Dumont explores a satirical sci-fi tale about the world and people. Despite the great usages of VFX, camerawork and some really interesting concepts, what falls flat is the bad writing, really unlikeable characters and bland approach. Dumont fails to understand to balance between the sci-fi concepts and satirical avant-garde approach properly. What could have been an interesting tale ends up being dull because the characters are underwritten and the writing suffers from having concepts that don't work well and moments feeling as if nothing was happening. It doesn't have that hard punch to what Dumont is wanting.

Alongside with some of the dialogue being awkward and poor, it's pacing and themes are uneven. It felt like as if Dumont saw Dune and decides to make his version of it, but not understanding how to develop the characters or make it interesting.

It's a disappointment.