More than anything, I dug the imagination, particularly the characters and the settings. It should be noted by many Hollywood assholes that every animal in this film has more charisma and charm than any Bruce Willis character they’ve ever thrown up there.
As an audience, we’re turned around. I went into American Beauty expecting the same-old satire of suburban life, nailing the same old targets. I expected the Hollywood goat-cheese-eaters to say that people in the suburbs are boring, conservative and only care about property values, because Hollywood loves saying they’re better than the rest of us.
It shows us two things. One, that it is damn near impossible to avoid the lessons our parents taught us, no matter how fucked-up they are. Two, it teaches us that Coburn became an asshole through the same process and probably against his will.
It’s better written and deeper than I expected, and it feels pretty damn real and sincere up until it’s last thirty minutes.
Adaptation is a movie that people in Starbucks would probably call “meta” something, without really knowing exactly what that means. Fuck knows I don’t.
What Mangold wants is similarity to the classics that have gone before. It’s all supposed to feel familiar, but more modern by being bloodier and by letting all the characters express their feelings.
If I’m going to spend a night in Manhattan with a worried guy, I’d rather it were Griffin Dunne in After Hours, but The 25th Hour is pretty good.
The Big Sick is a damn fine movie, one with actual laughs, and with the effortless reminder that everyone just wants to be loved, no matter how miserable that will ultimately make them.
I get the sense the folks who made Ready or Not are with me. Why overcomplicate something when you don’t have to?
Ho has made a pretty fucking great reminder of class divisions and of how we let the rich dehumanize us. We marvel when the wealthy rub elbows with us filthy turds. We admire the ones who stick up for our rights. We capitulate to them to make our decisions, and then are thrilled when they actually choose ones that benefit us.
