andrewroy-04316

I don't know why it took me so long to watch Brokeback, a universally acclaimed film with two of my favorite actors starring in it, but I am so glad to have watched it. Brokeback Mountain prioritizes a grounded tone and atmosphere over dramatic dialogue and flashy shots. This is a story concerned with the harsh truths of reality, and of humans grappling with their passions. Coming into it, I would have never expected it to be such a film, but in a way it works as a film about passion and how people grapple with being unable to do the thing they love. I love the script and Ang Lee's direction. From the opening shot, it's clear that dialogue will not be added for the sake of it - people react to each other subtly and don't go on dramatic, unrealistic rants or one-liners. It's an intimate and ultimately quite simple story of two men grappling with the conflicting forces of their love for each other and the risks their love carries. Lee maintains a narrow and deep focus on this fundamental question by richly developing both characters, from their mannerisms to their home lives to their moments of weakness. As you would expect, both Gyllenhaal and Ledger are truly exceptional, with Gyllenhaal playing a vulnerable man and Ledger a subtle and quiet one. The supporting performances are solid across the board, with Williams and Cardellini particularly impressing in their struggles to relate to Ennis. The score perfectly suits the hopeful yet somber tone of the film, and the cinematography is gorgeous. This is an impeccably crafted film with not a second or word wasted. Every moment is atmospheric and you feel these characters deeply for every second. An early candidate for the best film I'll watch this year, I am blown away by Brokeback Mountain.

Much of the discussion around Pieces of a Woman seems to agree that it's a mediocre film held together solely by Kirby, and while I can't say enough about her performance, Mundruczo's direction deserves more respect than that. This is a film about emotions, how one deals with grief and how it affects their relationships. The opening is evocative, but I think the emotional notes are hit throughout the film. Kirby's delivery of lines as she tries to remain civil while overwhelmed with grief as well as her physical acting during labor are truly exceptional. The film had a patience to its rhythm and a muted color palette that add to the sadness and isolation Martha feels throughout the film. My real problem with the film is its frustratingly mediocre script, and how the personal narratives outside of Martha are simplistic and often nonsensical. Elizabeth, her mother, is the prime culprit. I do think Burstyn does a great job, and her monologue may well earn her a nomination that I wouldn't have a problem with. Her character's motivations, on the other hand, I cannot condone. Paying off the husband to leave was so abrupt and out of nowhere, and her stake in Martha's child and situation in general was poorly explained and rang hollow, despite some late scenes seeming to imply that it was at the heart of the film. I also didn't love Sean's character - we simply don't get enough of his relationship with Martha or himself in general during normal times to understand where this pretty wild shift comes from. Their cheating and breaking up is a massive deal, yet they never talk about it and we have no idea if this is surprising or if it seemed inevitable. Despite these flaws, I really enjoyed the movie and found Martha's emotional journey poignant and affecting. This is one that leaves me wondering what could have been - with a bit more refinement of the script, I think this could be the best film of the year. As it is, I certainly recommend it primarily for the tour de force performance from Kirby.

One Night in Miami does feel similar to a couple other major 2020 releases, Trial of the Chicago 7 and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, but ends up being a more effective blend of their ideas. The use of major historical figures and events to make a point about a social movement is reminiscent of Trial, and the clear theatrical, dialogue and performance-driven nature of the film as well as its emphasis on the black experience in America is reminiscent of Ma Rainey. The performances in ONIM are fantastic, and Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X is the absolute standout. Odom is also very strong, and their arguments were thoughtfully written and very well acted. While the film is clearly quite theatrical, it doesn't feel limiting as it did in Ma Rainey - the film still feels dynamic, thanks in part to the solid direction from King. It is a film full of life and passion thanks to the performances which give life to such great and influential figures. I wasn't sure I'd love this one, as I thought it would be another fine film but more preachy than actually enjoyable to watch, and it significantly exceeded my expectations. It deserves a best picture nomination and perhaps deserves to win screenplay, as it is one of the best of the year.

This being the first silent film I've seen, it's possible it's simply more difficult for me to engage with silent films in general. Even if that's the case, I still feel that telling a character study, emotion-driven story is inherently going to be less successful if you don't hear the characters talk. I recognize the stylistic choice to mirror the silent films which are the topic of the film, but I don't think it really adds to the depth of the story (we can understand what a silent film is like even if we're not watching one). The Artist is primarily a Star is Born like film about a falling actor and rising star. The plot is fine, but the meat of the film is about George's struggles to adapt to shifting movie preferences, and because we only get small amounts of dialogue we fail to get a good sense of why he is so adamant about silent films and how his frustrations manifest. As the movie progresses, it becomes more and more about his emotional instability and his relationship with Peppy, and the emotional stakes are completely blunted by the fact that we don't hear them talk. Both lead performances are good, and the premise is fine, but it's a story arc I'm not enamored with and uses a style that to me completely undercuts its own intent.

I have been highly anticipating Last Night in Soho, but if I had my doubts about Edgar Wright after Baby Driver, I now have glaring concerns after the even worse Scott Pilgrim. His style of self-aware absurdity, heavily leaning into tropes for comedic effect, completely doesn't work for me. Yes, it's clear that everything happening on screen is mimicking a video game fantasy, role play and fighting to get to the heart of a girl. The fact that Wright is constantly reminding us of how everything happening is a video game doesn't make every scene feel any less hollow. The plot doesn't make any sense, and even if it's intentionally exaggerated from Scott's perspective it still doesn't provide any insight into his mind (he likes games? He gamifies dating? If that's what he was going for, Wright has absolutely nothing to say about it with the resolution). I'm not going to go through a laundry list of the various plot points that were simply stupid, but I will mention that the mind control reveal is almost hard to believe that something so stupid could be written into an actual movie. They seem to recognize its ridiculousness, as they mention it and do nothing with it. Even if the fights are these silly exaggerations, how does Scott end up being a more than competent fighter in them? Also, WHY would any of Ramona's exes care about Scott at all?? With the fighting 7 exes plot having absolutely nothing of substance beneath it, nothing else of note really happens in the film and there is no character development or anything that could hint at thematic underpinnings. Simply put, the film is an absolute mess.

I will discuss the characters for a minute. Here's what I'm really perplexed by: every single character in the film is a static, one-dimensional, nuance-free caricature, except Ramona. All the performances in the film clearly lean into their character's singular role (which of course I find stupid as it's nothing like the real world), but Winstead actually gives a decent and layered performance as Ramona. It's so odd to see her interact with Scott and other characters, as they all play up the absurdity and stupidity of the scenes and she wrestles with her past and her emotional stability. The performance is so out of place in the film that I don't even know how much it can help - it ends up sticking out as an insane contrast to the utter lack of substance in the rest of the film. It's really bizarre that people seem to quite like this movie, as honestly nearly nothing happens and the things that do happen have no thematic or character resonance and don't make sense.

Blow the Man Down is simply a fun, atmospheric film with great direction and interesting characters and ideas despite its short runtime. It's gotten a lot of comparisons to Fargo, which is fair enough as they are both atmospheric small town crime stories of seemingly ordinary people who get embroiled in a larger ongoing problem. I found it to have more engaging characters and themes and to be a more intimate story. The sisters are the main characters and we see the world through their relatively naive lens, but by the end we realize that it's the old women who run this town. It's not so much a mystery as a world that we gradually come to understand and see how these characters fit together. The simple premise of these 5 struggling young women agreeing to start a prostitution business and seeing how their opinions and relationships change over time is a great one and gives the directors plenty of room to delve into thematic nuances without spending time on exposition. Right down to the closing shot of the film, the directors don't put anything in your face and instead lets the viewer become familiar with the characters and their motivations organically. The score adds tension and atmosphere and it suits the film perfectly. Blow the Man Down reminds me most of Winter's Bone, another excellent and atmospheric piece that has a simple plot with interesting ideas underneath it, nuanced, well-developed characters, and excellent direction. Blow the Man Down is one of my favorites of the year - it won't knock your socks off, but it's easy to get wrapped up in the characters and town.

I don't think The Midnight Sky is a bad movie - aside from the weak dialogue, it has a clear and simple premise and sticks to it, with strong technical elements. Instead, its biggest problem is that it doesn't know what it wants to be - an astronaut journey film like Gravity, a character-driven movie via sci-fi ideas like Ad Astra, a mix like The Martian, or something else. There really isn't a larger message to the movie or any themes that shine through, which seems to be the biggest reason audiences dislike it. The closest the movie comes to having a point is in analyzing Augustine's character, and I did not find that to be particularly effective. The flashbacks simply don't add much and the twist with Iris does not tell us anything at all about his psychology - it's just a twist for the sake of it (sure, he's thinking about her, but he's literally never met her. Meaningless). The visuals are excellent and Desplat's score is very good, but it ends up feeling like a mash up of various styles with no thematic connective tissue. I don't regret having watched it, because it is fairly ambitious and I like the premise fine, but the script is really quite weak and Clooney ultimately needed to focus the film more into clearly being something specific.

I haven't read Emma, so my perspective was fresh coming in, knowing absolutely nothing about the story. The plot felt so trite and obvious that I think I would've liked it more if I had read the book so I could at least appreciate how it works off of the source material. It isn't a bad film - the set design, costumes, and score are all very good, and Anya Taylor-Joy is as solid as you'd expect. Its biggest problem is that even without knowing the book, every character seemed to fit neatly into a precisely drawn character arc, with no surprises or innovations along the way. Emma could be an interesting imperfect protagonist, but everyone simply treats her as though she's perfect and casts no real judgement. Every side character has a clear purpose and doesn't get involved in the story beyond that singular mission. The romance resolution was obvious from literally the first time we meet the pair, and while both performances are good enough to keep it from feeling stale, it still doesn't garner much emotional reaction. By the second half of the film, it was obvious what each character was here to do and where the plot was headed and it simply felt rote. There are some decent ideas here which I'm sure are considered in more depth in the book, particularly Emma's psychology in wanting to be liked and admired by others while not being certain of what she really wanted for herself. It feels like a solid period drama, but if you're looking for a great recent classic adaptation of a period drama, Little Women has a similar feeling but is better in every way. That isn't necessarily a fair bar to hold Emma up to, anyways; this is a fine film, but it's too tidy and uncreative for its own good.

I didn't like the first WWE movie much at all, and this is certainly a step up in quality. We don't spend as much time getting into depth of clues and the mystery as I'd like, but there were plenty of red herrings and uncertainty in what was going on. The animation is solid, and the race sabotage is a classic setting that works well, a throwback to the What's New episode The Fast and the Wormious. The dialogue felt off and it doesn't feel like the gang is ever really together solving a mystery. Fred is presented as getting really into cars but then works on a car all night and sleeps through much of the action, ends up doing very little in the movie. This is a clear step backwards for Daphne as a well-realized and nuanced character, as she is presented as the traditional superficial Daphne of old. Her minor fights with Velma are silly and don't seem worthy of their screentime. Shaggy and Scooby definitely have the funny lines they always have (the bad toaster line and the accepting being called skinny man and dead meat were great) but several times their dialogue and animation looked a bit off. Shaggy was more of a scaredy caricature than usual (which says something), and in general they didn't quite have the energy I expect from them. We get introduced to a vast swath of WWE characters, and it ends up feeling like quantity over quality, as most are a one-dimensional caricature. It hits all the notes and feels like a regular Scooby movie, but I don't think it rises above a generic Scooby movie at any point, and the relative weakness of the gang's characters here keep it a 6 for me.

Sound of Metal deserves the hype it's been generating, and Riz Ahmed's fantastic performance anchors it. Sound of Metal is a simple story, but the technical elements are well done and you feel like you're going on this journey with Ruben. I loved the avoidance of tropes and not trying to tie up every plot point with a neat bow or have generic rises and falls, but instead to have things happen and people move on as happens in real life. Ruben's struggle to accept his hearing loss at the start is well done, and I thought it'd go down an Aronofsky-style route of Ruben refusing to give up and remaining obsessed with drumming because it's all he knows, and it eventually ruins his life. It's not that type of obsession-driven movie; instead, it's a much more intimate story of a man adjusting to life as a deaf person and transitioning from being a drummer to a member of a deaf community. Ahmed is really fantastic, one of my favorite performances of the year. His initial confidence that he can do it and reluctance to admit the problem is great, but what really sold me was his reaction to the surgery. Finally he can hear but it's not very clear, and you can tell he assumed it would be a silver bullet and that everything had to go back to normal and in that moment he is crushed realizing it wouldn't. It also may be the best sound design I've ever seen, doing a great job of showing his perspective and how daunting the loss of hearing is while not losing any exposition or meaning in the scenes. This is a very solid film that really thinks about the nuances of losing your hearing, but is also an excellent and authentic character study.

My thoughts on finishing Soul are very similar to my thoughts after finishing Inside Out: very solid movies with interesting metaphorical takes on humanity, and a nice central message but not having as deep an emotional pull for me as they seem to for others. Where Inside Out wrestles with emotions in a creative way, Soul considers a soul's purpose in life. The central message driving the entire movie is that people don't enter life with one singular purpose; instead, you have a passion for living and enjoy whatever life ends up throwing at you. I really like Joey as a vehicle for this story, realizing that there isn't something else out there he's missing out on; life is life. I will also say that the script has some very funny moments, particularly with historical jokes with 22 (like the Knicks joke and Lincoln getting pissed about Jackson being on the 20). The characterization, especially of minor characters in the film, is strong across the board (with perhaps the exception of the Jerrys and Terry). There are plenty of minor things that don't quite make sense within the world, like how he's the first person in centuries to try to skirt death, or how the process of dropping into a body works, or how transitions from real world to soul world work at all (like what happened to that hedge fund bro when he didn't have a soul? How is there not a fundamental difference between people with and without souls? How can people lose their souls by being knocked out of the zone?). Also, what was the difference between boat captain soul bro and everyone else - why could he hear Joey inside the cat and nobody else could? These are fairly minor quibbles but I would have liked a bit more consistency. I do seem to be in the minority in seeing Soul as a solid Pixar movie but not one of their best, and even then I still think it's a solid, ambitious film with a compelling central idea.

I certainly am not a fan of the generic romantic comedy, and the resolution to Palm Springs feels inevitable within the genre trappings, but along the way the film is clearly aware of its predecessors. It's not spoiling much to say that it's a Groundhog Day movie, which isn't a premise I find particularly interesting, but it recognizes our familiarity with the notion and thankfully speeds through the learning curve. Both leads are good, but it is Milioti who steals the show. Their comedic chemistry is excellent, and the script has some excellent moments playing off of their knowledge of the day and everyone else living it once. There are still some interesting existential questions in the purpose of life, repetition, and the depth of relationships. Some of the ups and downs, particularly in the third act, felt a little less fresh and more tropey than I like, but if you don't mind a generic easy resolution, you'll definitely enjoy Palm Springs. Snappy and funny, this is a good example of a strong romantic comedy.

Ma Rainey certainly feels theatrical, with the actors and their dialogue driving everything in the movie. It ends up working well here, thanks to an excellent ensemble led by a dynamic performance from Boseman. It will take an exceptional turn from Hopkins to unseat Boseman for best actor, and I hope this year's race isn't looked back on as awarding Boseman because he died, for this is a fantastic and deserving performance. It's great to see Boseman go against his usual typecast of a golden boy fighting through adversity, and he shows remarkable range from the emotional turmoil of his past to the energy he brings to his music. Davis is definitely good, though I don't think she was nearly as enthralling or rangy as Boseman. The entire ensemble is very good, with the piano playing Turman as my favorite supporting performance. The script is fine, and it does set the atmosphere and rapport among the players well, but largely repeats the same series of interactions with only a couple unique scenes. The direction was my biggest problem with the film - not that it was incompetent, but that no depth was added to the film beyond what's present in the dialogue. Several of the music scenes cut around haphazardly, and the blocking was extremely uncreative, with wide shots that hone in on a character's face with no depth to the shots or visual meaning. The dialogue captures the struggles of black people fighting their way through a white person's world, but none of the editing or blocking during this dialogue added to it any more than reading the words on a page. I will give credit for one scene which was extremely thematically interesting: the door. Boseman is convinced that the door is new, and we see him playing with it and trying to open it throughout the film. As he is dejected late in the movie, he pushes on the door, it won't budge, and eventually it opens, only for him to find that it leads to an empty, walled in space. Just for this metaphor alone I almost gave the film an 8 - this perfectly symbolizes Boseman's struggle in feeling like he has no hope or door to success, seems like he finds one, only for it to be blocked off all along. The ending makes some sense on a character level but I disliked the execution - it felt so absurd and unaware as to be implausible coming from Levee. Ma Rainey is definitely a good movie and Boseman is the definitive reason, but more compelling direction could have elevated this into an excellent one.

Run proves that Chaganty and Ohanian are here to stay, and I'll watch anything they make. Run certainly doesn't come close to the lofty heights of Searching, one of my top 5 movies of 2018, but it delivers a satisfying, tense thriller in a short runtime. The plot is quite straightforward and is predictable, but the performances and direction keep us on the edge of our seat anyways. The basic story is pretty one-note and I'm not even sure if the advertising is trying to hide it. Even so, as you'd expect if you watched Searching, the attention to detail is excellent here. The set design is great, with small details throughout the house adding to the immersion. Paulson has a fun role that she thankfully doesn't go too off the rails with, but it is absolutely Allen who steals the show here. It was a great choice to get an actress who actually uses a wheelchair for the role, because the movements, especially quick ones when she's trying to get going quickly or be sneaky, would fall flat on their face if she wasn't deft in using the wheelchair. Not only are the wheelchair scenes completely natural, Allen's gradual turn from nervous bargaining to intense fear is fantastic. I really hope we see more from her in the future, because she'd honestly make my top 5 lead actresses of this year right now. The script isn't quite as tight as in Searching, and the final scene (with the line "open wide") was quite silly and detracts from the resolution up to that point. It's not a movie that will stay with me because it doesn't have enough to say psychologically or thematically, but I was nervous and completely engaged from start to finish.

The Wrestler is a very good character study which has classic Aronofsky themes but is a stylistic departure. Rather than the highly stylized, in your face style of his previous three films, The Wrestler has an air of authenticity at its core. Rourke turns in an excellent performance as the lead, perfectly selling his breezy confidence in the ring and uncertainty outside it. I really loved Tomei, she frankly stole the show for me. The story is nothing too surprising, with classic biopic-style ups and downs that feel overly cliched. The performances keep it from being rote, and the ending is great. Where I'm left scratching my head is in the themes of the film. My primary takeaway from the first act of the film was how completely insane professional wrestling is. The entire entertainment element is derived purely from watching how badly people can hurt themselves, from using a staple gun on themselves to getting stuck in barbed wire to having a glass door smashed over your head. It's all staged, everyone knows it, and the crowd is just there to see this ridiculous spectacle and cheer on men allowing pain to be inflicted upon them. I was really hoping the movie would hint at the absurdity of the world and particularly have Ram grapple with the shallowness of the one thing he's devoted his life to, but we never see anything in the script approaching self-awareness on the subject. The other area I found extremely interesting but was largely left untouched was in the parallels between stripping and wrestling. Both are people effectively selling their bodies for other people's entertainment, and we see the two main characters struggle to balance and separate their lives within that shallow sphere and their everyday lives. The only line that potentially hints at irony is when Ram asks her out, is denied, and then demands a lap dance and objectifies her as merely useful for her body. Even here the irony of his disdain isn't explicit, and outside of this neither character seems to engage with this line of inquiry. One other thing that made my specific experience with this movie strange was that my library DVD had wildly incorrect information on the back of it - when I started it, I was under the impression it was a 3 hour movie so I was absolutely dumbfounded when it ended with his jump. It's a good ending to be sure, but it felt so incomplete because I had gone in expecting a sprawling, epic story and it felt so abrupt. Definitely a good movie and the general exploration of Ram's contrasting temperament inside and outside the context of wrestling was great, but a more thoughtful and subversive script could've turned this into the exceptional movie I was hoping for.

If you like immersive cinema that takes its time and lets you embrace the setting, First Cow is for you. This is a slow-moving portrait of two men happening across an opportunity in 18th century Oregon. To be perfectly honest, early in the movie I was not especially interested and concerned it would just meander along, focused on establishing the setting. Thankfully, it develops into an elegant story of risk and capitalistic exploitation. Everyone in 18th century Oregon is there for some sort of venture, and it is just starting to boom with people moving in. Cookie and King Lu seem like unlikely friends, a soft-spoken cook and an opportunistic Chinese immigrant. Both characters are very well acted, drawing out subtleties in how they view the cake making opportunity and how they deal with their guilt. The class divide is clear as they know the Commander is so arrogant as to assume nobody would dare steal from him, as he is so high and mighty. It's quite a simple story, but it's a compelling metaphorical tale, with the cow representing the beginnings of the modern economic era. I'm not sure if Reichardt's style is quite my bread and butter, but I like the ideas and the third act was quite well realized. I'm happy to see this quiet, contemplative movie get such critical acclaim; while I certainly don't like it as much, it reminds me somewhat of 2018's fantastic Leave No Trace.

I wasn't sure how satisfied I was with Mank halfway through, but the central theme of a small group of powerful men controlling many areas of life shone through late in the movie. There is little to quibble with technically - the score, cinematography, and direction are all excellent and strongly evocative of 1930s Hollywood. Oldman is excellent as Mank, bringing out the quick-witted rebelliousness as well as an underlying dedication to his craft. I also quite liked Seyfried's performance and would see her as a deserving Best Supporting Actress, and I also loved Hearst's speech with the monkey allegory at the end of the movie. The moments that are most meaningful in Mank are those where we see the immense power taken for granted by the powerful men in the film, studio heads and Heart, juxtaposed with the powerlessness of everyone around them. Those men know they can do whatever they want, and everyone else has to adapt to their desires. Mank is seen as a loose cannon because he doesn't always abide by these hierarchies and social expectations, which puts him in difficult situations. It's hard for him to make the films he wants and get the credit he deserves, and there is a constant sense of pressure for him to churn out work. He clearly is a man who cares deeply and is thoughtful about the movies he writes, and turns to alcohol in part due to the ever-present pressure he feels to produce a script. Mank doesn't fall into generic tropes, which could have easily happened with Seyfried's character being a trapped pretty young airhead, or Mank being a man driven to depression through external pressure. Instead, we get more nuanced portraits - Mank still finishes the script and it is exceptional, and he even gets the credit for it, but he never writes another movie and dies 11 years later due to drinking, feeling like he was trapped (presumably within the power structures of the industry) and could never really escape. The governorship race was an interesting allegory to throw in as we see how little people in power care about all people's wellbeing - they just want the system that allowed them to be at the top to continue. Oldman is really great and drives home the challenges Mank faced as a good but imperfect man caught in an unpleasant power structure. I am curious to see how Mank does - I imagine it'll get many nominations, but could it win BP? Regardless, this is a film that I will not mind if it cleans up at awards season (though I have very high hopes for Nomadland).

While I didn't abhor them as some fans did, Curse of the 13th Ghost and Return to Zombie Island were certainly lesser Scooby entries, and I have been eager for a return to form. I'm not sure I'm prepared to go that far with Happy Halloween, but it is passable. The visuals are good, and the tone is excellent. It's fun to see Scarecrow here, and the ominous Halloween vibe comes through strongly. The mystery is decent, though I wouldn't say it's as much of a focus as I'd like, and the solution is a cool one but comes out of left field. The side characters aside from Scarecrow simply aren't very interesting - I have absolutely no idea why Elvira continues to hang around, as she was absolutely useless, and if they're aiming for relatability, if I didn't know who she was there's no way kids today do. Mike and his daughter were throwaway attempts at comic relief, and Bill Nye was a cool idea but felt more like a shoehorned Guess Who appearance than a cohesive addition. As always, the main tension is on the characters, and the script for them is the biggest problem with the movie: the humor feels extremely forced, as if it's desperate to stay relevant and capture the attention of "hip" modern kids. Daphne, who has been my favorite character in several recent movie and show iterations (shout out to Be Cool Daphne, the legend), is mind numbingly stupid and pointless here. She does nothing at all related to the mystery, makes a bunch of ill-fitting jokes and slang trash talk, and then has a bizarre obsession with becoming Elvira I did my best to ignore. Fred is fine, and Shaggy and Scooby are undoubtedly the bright spots of the movie, as the only ones with comedic lines that actually work, as they highlight the absurdity of the situations. Velma isn't as grating as she has been in previous movies, and I appreciate that they try to develop some depth to her here, but the mind palace was overemphasized and the realization that Shaggy and Scooby can be good for something doesn't seem to hit home as well as the writers thought it would. The many easter eggs and throwbacks were lots of fun, I do really like the idea and tone, and the mystery was a great idea if just fine in execution. The character troubles (primarily Daphne and Elvira just being terrible) and lack of development of the mystery hold back what could've been a very good movie.

I wasn't convinced I'd like Benjamin Button - it's a drawn out introspection on aging and life, and wasn't sure if it would really engage me the entire time. I shouldn't have doubted Fincher, because it doesn't feel too slow and the characters are quite engaging. Fincher uses Benjamin's life to speak to universal themes and give a narrow story a sense of sprawl. Unsurprisingly, the primary theme running through the story is how aging changes people and how they develop over time. I didn't think the script was anything special - it was heavy handed in its ideas and didn't have remarkable depth, but the performances and direction let the themes shine through anyways. The unconscious judgements people make based on appearance and age are drawn out by Benjamin's contradictory age and appearance. Rather than play this for laughs, Fincher takes this seriously and makes Benjamin a plausible character who yearns for connection but only has a few people who can truly appreciate him. It's this very specific connection he has to Queenie and Daisy that make the third act of the movie so poignant. The story structure being interspersed with jumps into the present seems odd at first, but comes together beautifully as the ideas of love and permanence are emphasized by the ripples caused by Benjamin's life. The cast is stellar, with Pitt and Blanchett leading the way. This movie reminds me of Forrest Gump as we go through many world events and locations through the eyes of someone with a truly unique perspective, and watch their struggles to be with the person they love. It is more of a journey that you feel than a story that leaves you thinking, but the direction, cinematography, and editing are all excellent. I'm excited to see Mank later this week, as Fincher clearly deserves to be trusted.

Emotionally-driven romance movies are not my cup of tea, but Portrait is simply exquisite. My immediate point of comparison was The Handmaiden (another foreign language forbidden lesbian romance), but Portrait is more of an emotional story than an idea-driven one. That's not to say that the film isn't thoughtful; on the contrary, to the extent that Sciamma ponders the nature of art and women's autonomy, the script works well. This is a subtle and patient film, though, and one whose core is the emotions felt by the women at the center of it. Both performances are excellent, and especially given the laconic script, it is essential that both leads convey their emotional states and reactions clearly through body language. It feels like a classic tragic love story, but it still feels fresh and the emotions of the characters come through strongly. The biggest reason I consider Portrait a great movie, though, is due to its gorgeous visual production. The camerawork and editing are fantastic, with limited movement in shots and seamless cuts that make the audience feel present. The lighting is amazing, with a stark contrast between the beach scenes, the daylight painting scenes, and the evening fireplace scenes. The camera also ensures the audience is carefully attuned to Heloise and Marianne's reactions and facial expressions. Maybe Portrait will drop to a 7 for me as I don't know how much the emotions of the film will stay with me (the limited development of big themes and sparse dialogue restricting how well we know the characters play major roles in that), but I do think Sciamma achieved precisely her aim with this film: a gorgeous movie that captures the emotional tragedy of a beautiful lesbian relationship that will inevitably slip away.

I have highly enjoyed the Aronofsky films I've seen thus far on my marathon, but I knew The Fountain was one of his most divisive. I love Hugh Jackman and greatly admire Aronofsky's ambitious scope and originality, but the script is a letdown and it tries to do a lot thematically and doesn't manage to make any of it especially powerful. I liked Mansell's score, and the visuals are excellent, but I was left cold by what was supposed to be a story of love and accepting death. I didn't find the three interspersed timelines to add any depth - the main storyline of Jackman struggling to accept his wife's cancer is interesting enough, but the book stories of the Conquistador and the higher power meditating man were not interesting. Aronofsky leaves it fairly open to interpretation, but my read is that the film centers on Jackman accepting the nature of life and death, that it is inevitable and can still be beautiful. The first problem is that we are given no reason to be invested in their relationship (maybe aside from Jackman's acting) - Weisz is given no character by the script and their dialogue is repetitive and boring. Even if you buy their relationship, it's hard to take any themes away other than very simple, surface level ones that have been explored many times relating to love transcending all and keeping a loved one in your heart. The idea of death being a necessary part of the life cycle to promote future growth is interesting enough, driven home by Jackman's drinking of the tree of life milk and sprouting some plants (I was hoping this would be an interesting commentary on human greed and climate change, that he saw this potential and heedlessly drank it all, but alas). At the end of the day, there's just nothing that made me really want to spend more time with the film. I like the premise, and there were glimpses of a film I liked as Jackman did everything he could to translate this miracle plant into a cure for his wife and struggled to accept her death, but unfortunately the ideas don't go anywhere creative and the alternate timelines were a dud for me. Not a bad movie, and it's very interesting that some love it so much, but not one that left me wanting more.

Requiem for a Dream is the first movie I've ever watched that truly felt like it took a toll on me - that it was truly a hard watch. It is a sad movie, and one that is heavily stylized, which normally I dislike. Here, I think the style amplifies the substance of the film, as Aronofsky uses aggressive editing, warped perspectives, and a propulsive score to highlight the way addiction and desperation accelerate for all the characters throughout the film. This is a narrowly focused film with a clear idea and direction. Each of the four main characters feels they have to get ahead, each for their own reasons, and in their desperation they turn to things they don't truly understand. In this case, drugs are what end up bringing them down, but the film is focused on a much broader idea of consumerism and the constant pressure people feel to be succeeding, to mean something. Harry didn't have to be so aggressive in securing drug suppliers, but he pushed and put them all at jeopardy and coped by becoming addicted. Ellen Burstyn is exceptional as the lead, especially in her monologue about how she feels she has nothing to live for and is yearning for her younger days when she felt a sense of purpose. When she gets a glimmer of hope, that she could be on TV and wear the red dress of her youth, she turns to pills she doesn't understand. The story is nothing remarkable, but it is an unflinching look at people falling deep into a rabbit hole, looking for a quick solution to get them out of it, and falling even deeper. What makes Requiem an exceptional movie is its technical elements. Requiem is a showcase of the power of cinema. The score is fantastic and has a manic energy balancing the hope and desperation the characters feel. The directing and editing is brilliant in showing how the four characters each have their own unique troubles and reasons, but all fall prey to the same general problem. We've seen spirals into drug addiction and losing control before, but it's well done in showing what each character is dreaming of and how they fall, and I haven't seen such a stylistically apt rendering of the phenomenon. Hats off to Aronofsky, because the technical elements accentuate the film's themes perfectly.

Pi is about the minimalist, low-budget, psychologically involved debut I expected from Aronofsky. This is a film that is quite ambiguous and open to interpretation, but it all centers on Max, who is a number theorist trying to predict the stock market and more broadly use math to explain patterns in the world. The explanation through Max's obsessed eyes of how nature follows mathematical laws so precisely is all very well written and edited. From there we have an interesting dichotomy between a stock market group trying to use Max to get rich and a religious group trying to use Max to find the true name of God. At the heart of this tug of war, Max is growing increasingly frantic, uncertain of what is real, and committed to finding and understanding the 216 digit number. I love the elements of the movie - the math-based premise, the way it's shot and edited highlighting the contrasting chaos and patterns that exist in the natural world, the descent into madness as Max delves deeper into his journey, and the juxtaposition of religious and economics groups looking to find their respective holy grails. I still don't really know how to interpret the ending, but here's my initial read. Max becomes mentally consumed with finding the number, but then he finds it and sees that Sol had the number but that it ended up not helping him at all and he died alone, rather regretful of his own obsession. This allows Max to let go of the number - perhaps he comes to the realization that he was spiraling infinitely and there's no real ending down that path. He found the number, and he could give it to the religious people or give the Euclid code to the stock brokers, but the madness driven by each group or Max's obsession to go deeper won't end - it's a fruitless search. This finally gives him the closure to move on, so he doesn't share the number with anyone, destroys the computer and number, and is no longer obsessed with math. The final scene shows him at ease for the first time all film - hand not shaking, smiling, and with his mind no longer filled with mathematical calculations. It's a fascinating film, and it's certainly not what I expected, as my reading of it is more in the necessity of moving on from your obsessions rather than letting them consume you. This is reminiscent of Rian Johnson's Brick and Christopher Nolan's Following (and Memento at times, in how Max repeats facts to himself to center who he is), as low-budget debuts from some of my favorite directors that show the themes and styles they tackle and iterate on throughout their careers. I'm definitely excited to see more Aronofsky, and I could see Pi growing on me over time as it is a film with depth and one that is very creative and well directed.

I cannot think of a reason anyone would enjoy The Devil All the Time. It has a great ensemble cast, and it's fun to see Tom Holland in a darker role, and Pattison is always good, but the script is so terrible that there's nothing the actors can do if their characters and motivations are utterly uninteresting. Maybe people like that it's a dark movie for the sake of being dark? It certainly doesn't shy away from violence, which I don't mind at all, but the fact that it's violent doesn't make the movie good in and of itself. There are so many problems with this film, but I don't want to spend more time thinking about this dreadful film than I have to, so I'll be brief. The biggest problem: the film is extremely dull and tedious. The characters are even worse than one-dimensional caricatures; they actually have no dimensions, no reason to engage with them or care about their journey. The violence serves no purpose, the characters don't have to wrestle with anything psychologically, and deaths have no consequence to anything that happens - they happen and then we move along as though they never happened. Campos clearly wanted to make this a story about Christianity gone awry, but when there is no hint at any character psychology and it's obvious the characters feel no inkling of moral misgiving about killing people, that message is worthless. The voiceover narration is terrible, adding nothing to the film and heavy handedly stating points that a competent filmmaker would show subtly in character actions. The nonlinear storytelling adds nothing at all to the story, as the nonlinear bits are edited together when they are completely unrelated, so when we come back to a scene we saw earlier there is no new information to consider, it was merely a pointless diversion. The dialogue is laughable, with very few conversations that could plausibly have taken place between real, normal people. I will say that the church scene between Holland and Pattinson was fun, though again it ended in the same silly, meaningless violence the movie is filled with. I also like the idea of Holland standing up for his sister, though the sharp dichotomy between the confidence of the boys by the school and then their fear and lack of fight later is a bit ridiculous. There are plenty of technical issues and frustrations, but more than anything this film is ruined by a terrible script devoid of thematic depth or any direction at all, which makes the film an absolute chore. I was so eager for it to end because I simply could not care less what happened to anyone in the film. I regret watching this movie as much as any I've watched all year and would encourage anyone who hasn't seen it to stay away.

Panic Room is a straightforward, suspense-driven film that doesn't spend much time on larger thematic questions or character backstories, and I think it's all the better for that narrow focus. The premise is simple (just a home invasion), and nearly the entire movie takes place during one night, with about 6 characters involved. There isn't much more to it than a solid, simple thrill ride, but it's a plausible plot, tension-filled cat and mouse game, and the acting and cinematography are excellent. The script merely hints at what else is going on in these character's lives, from why one man needs the money, to the recent divorce, to who the robbers even are. We see these characters as snapshots in this moment rather than spending time on forced exposition. Foster is great as the lead, and the entire ensemble is very good - Kristen Stewart plays a strong teenage daughter, Leto brings a captivating stupid but aggressive man, and Whitaker is some much appreciated nuance in showing some morality. The camera work is fantastic throughout, both in highlighting the contrast between the claustrophobic panic room with the open house as well as transition shots that zoom through the house and remind us of the paths these characters can take through the house. Panic Room probably isn't a movie that will come to mind immediately, but it knows what it wants to be and does that well.