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At the Movies with Kane and BN

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Tiger Stripes

Honestly, Zaffan should have attacked Farah Lilo & Stitch style.

It's a really good coming-of-age body horror from Malaysia that is more or less like Ginger Snaps with a little bit of Carrie, Raw, and Turning Red on the side. It's by a first-time director Amanda Nell Eu and I thought she did a great job capturing the mundane life of these school girls in Malaysia and showing their wants and obsessions. Zafreen Zairizal is fantastic in this and the movie wouldn't be as good without her performance. It's also shot really well and I thought the colors really pop when the body horror starts creeping in. I do think the 3rd act could have been better explored even after that big scene that happens. Overall, really enjoyed it, especially for a first-time director and a horror movie from Malaysia that has a little more to say.
3.5/5
 
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The Brutalist

Unlike everyone at my screening, I didn't move in my seat during intermission just as Nolan intended.

A real behemoth of a modern epic about a Hungarian Jewish architect immigrating to the US after the war that is actually small in its stakes but large in its ideas. There is a lot going on visually in its presentation that is heavily inspired by other directors like Paul Thomas Anderson with There Will Be Blood and The Master or past directors like Orson Welles with Citizen Kane and Stanley Kubrick with [insert any of his movies here].

There's also a little bit of Metropolis in visuals and story. The movie also acts meta in a way for Brady Corbet trying to make this movie as grand and multifaceted as possible. It is incredibly shot by Lol Crawley who manages to transport into the 1940s/1950s with its scope and grandeur while also focusing on intimate tight shots with incredible lighting and framing.

Most of the cast is really good with Adrien Brody being fantastic and Guy Pearce playing his best Charles Foster Kane/Mr. Burns impression. However, I don't think the movie tries to get in deeper with the characters other than the main three actors. While most of the movie does deal with the immigrant experience in the 40s/50s America, it's also an interesting conversation piece about American capitalism vs artistic expression.

There's also a purposeful political/religious/economic parallel between America and Israel in a way that criticizes it and tries to get into the heart of the movie... but I don't think it fully conveys its message properly and it's left open to interpretation with its epilogue. I also think the second half of the movie is somewhat less interesting compared to the first half but there are some really interesting turns this movie makes. Overall, I'm still thinking about it but on a surface level, it's undeniably great just on a filmmaking level even though its 3rd act feels disjointed storywise.
4/5
 
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Marmalade

That wig is so bad I was surprised the guards didn't take it away from him when he went to prison.

An enjoyable romcom crime thriller with a twist and a style that definitely reminds me of the Coen Brothers, Quentin Tarantino, and Steven Soderbergh. It feels like a really good imitation from director Keir O’Donnell that elevates just enough to make it feel original. Joe Keery is fantastic in this and I really liked what they did with Aldis Hodge. Camila Morrone gave probably the most surprising performance where she plays a hot loose cannon really well. Overall, it's really good.
3.5/5
 
Unlike everyone at my screening, I didn't move in my seat during intermission just as Nolan intended.
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But seriously, if this didn't have an intermission I'd have been okay with that. It didn't need one the way, say, Killers of the Flower Moon did. I thought this was well paced but I agree 100% with your thoughts about the second half and third act. That's the only thing keeping it behind Dune: Part Two as my top 2024 film.
 
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I'm still figuring out if it makes it into my top 10 at all.
 
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Suncoast

The only thing missing from this movie (which takes place in 2005) is some kid playing on their PSP.

Pretty good, it's a coming-of-age drama that is totally a throwback to the days when every studio wanted to make their own Little Miss Sunshine and show it to Sundance. For this one, the movie is about a girl and her mom trying to handle the last days of her brother's life while staying in the same hospital as Terri Schiavo and the media circle surrounding it. It tries to dig a little deeper into the topics of life, death, and religion, but I feel like they also try to make it digestible and safe to a general audience and almost put a bow on it which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's got a ton of coming-of-age tropes between school life, dating, prom, etc and for the most part, it's done pretty decently, but nothing about it feels original aside from it taking place in 2005 and the nostalgia part really worked. Laura Linney and Woody Harrelson were really good as expected for a movie like this, but Nico Parker really shines here and her acting has definitely improved since she was in Dumbo (and of course she was great in The Last of Us). Overall, solid movie even if it feels very familiar and safe.
3.5/5
 
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Land of Bad

A movie that asks the toughest questions, Frosted Flakes or Froot Loops?

Outside of some Zack Snyder-style visuals, this was a pretty generic military action thriller that features some interestingly mundane stuff like grocery shopping. It feels like you're watching a really expensive demo of what a military action movie is supposed to look like without a real script which is bizarre coming from a director I really like, William Eubank. The villains are cartoony and 2 dimensional and the banter between the soldiers feels like watching a Call of Duty game. The only thing that stood out the most was Russell Crowe's character who was doing the more weird mundane stuff as the drone operator. Overall, not too bad but honestly pretty forgettable.
2.5/5
 
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The Room Next Door

I bet if the camera panned further left in that Airbnb dvd collection, you would have seen a copy of The Room and Fateful Findings.

This was kinda bizarre even for primary color master Pedro Almodóvar. Most of the time, it felt like you're watching the fake movie inside of a better movie. For it being Almodóvar's first English-language movie, there was definitely some lost-in-translation moments in the script and dialogue, and I couldn't really connect to the characters. I think the second half felt more genuine and the performances were a little better but not by much. There were parts of Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore's performances that I did like but a lot of it feels phony to me. I kinda liked John Turturro's performance the most out of everybody but he's not in it enough. Overall, can't say I hated it but this felt like a misfire from a director I really liked.
2.5/5
 
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Wolf Man

That scene with his arm is me when I get that itch I can't scratch.

Shockingly unimpressive especially coming from Leigh Whannell. This feels like Blumhouse trying to salvage this project after the Ryan Gosling Wolf Man movie fell through. Much like The Invisible Man remake (also by Leigh Whannell), this is pretty much an attempt to make a more grounded and contemporary Universal Monster movie with a limited budget instead of being the more mystical side of The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney. The only problem is the story they are trying to make ends up being pretty basic and it's meant to be a little more in-depth with its main characters and be more about the relationship with the family. There's some of that early on in the movie but I feel like they stretched each scene to the point that it loses any tension and quick pacing. The movie feels like it drags on to each moment and each set piece and it doesn't do anything new or exciting. The performances with Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, and Sam Jaeger are decent but nothing about their characters feels special. I don't really hate the redesign of the Wolf Man and I thought the effects were not bad. I just don't get why they decided to not have proper lighting or direction. Overall, it just ends up being not bad but not too memorable.
2.5/5
 
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Robot Dreams

Quite possibly the most crucial to the plot needle drop to ever happen in a movie?

Wow, I can't believe it took me this long to finally get around to this masterpiece of animation. For a movie about loneliness, friendship, and deep connection with a robot and a dog, it was both heartwarming and tragic all in one stew. It is a masterclass of how to tell a story strictly through impressive 2D animation with no dialogue and an incredible foley artist. The story, style, and format of the animation reminded me of stuff like Rocko's Modern Life, Sheep in the Big City, and Zootopia where they have anthropomorphic animals living like humans. With the more mature themes and no dialogue, it also reminds me of other animated films like The Illusionist and The Red Turtle. They do such a great job setting this movie in 1980s Manhattan and the filmmakers really do a deep dive on all the things real New Yorkers recognize. This couldn't get any more New York than animating folks flying their kite in Central Park and having a Mister Softee right after. The Earth Wind and Fire needle drop of Setepmber is also what really makes this movie just as impactful. Overall, an undeniable masterpiece. Because of the awkward release date, I'm still counting this as one of the best movies of the year. And while I really enjoyed The Wild Robot, Robot Dreams takes the cake by far.
5/5


@Drizzle @Shinobi Shaw you ain't real New Yorkers if you haven't seen this yet. :o
Following up with this because I watched it last night. Just as good as you said and I loved it. It was both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. However, the only reason I'm leaving it off my 2024 list because of my OCD about it being a 2023 movie that we just got late since it already had an Oscar run. Funny enough, now the only 2023 nominee for Best Animated Feature that I haven't seen is the one that actually won. :o
 
Following up with this because I watched it last night. Just as good as you said and I loved it. It was both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. However, the only reason I'm leaving it off my 2024 list because of my OCD about it being a 2023 movie that we just got late since it already had an Oscar run. Funny enough, now the only 2023 nominee for Best Animated Feature that I haven't seen is the one that actually won. :o

Yeah, it's also affecting my OCD about counting it as a 2024 release even though it counted for 2023 in the awards race. The same thing kinda happened when I saw Perfect Days last year after I posted my top 10 and I really wanted to put it in.

I honestly don't know what to do, but I might just have to put an asterisk over it or something just so everybody will know it kinda sorta counts. To me it's by far the best animated movie I saw last year.
 
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The Seed of the Sacred Fig

It's a serious movie, but it was so funny to me when the dad told the family he'd make sure they were safe and then immediately take all of them to go on a full Mad Max chase scene.

A really great political family thriller that's set during the protests of the death of Mahsa Amini and the morality police in Iran. The movie starts off more of a slow-burn family drama that grows increasingly as their lives get impacted by the protest. The movie does a good job showing the dynamics between the parents and the two daughters and also their struggles trying to wrap their heads around what's really going on online as opposed to what is being shown on tv. The dad character is really interesting because you don't quite get his motives at first but then it quickly turns on its head and the allegory of what he does later on is apparent. They do an interesting thing of showing us real footage of the protest and the abuse of power by the Iranian police in between the scenes that show the daughters on their phones. I think the second half is far more interesting and it gets into the subtext of the film way more than the first half which feels kinda straightforward. It also feels a tad too long for what it was trying to accomplish. Overall, really well made and while it's got some issues, I thought it really worked for a subject matter that is definitely important.
4/5
 
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Queer

Luca saw one too many Dolce & Gabbana ads and said "What if I made it extremely weird and gay?"

Honestly, this was a pretty interesting movie with so much style that kinda fails on the substance a little bit. There's definitely a lot of David Lynch-inspired elements going on in the direction and it's Luca Guadagnino experimenting on canvas that reminded me of his work in Suspiria. The movie adapts the novel in a way where the inner monologue is visually shown and while that's a really cool trick, I kinda wanted more out of these characters and the plot itself. I feel like the second half gets more weird but gets less interesting from the characters. Still, Daniel Craig gave a pretty solid performance, Drew Starkey was not bad, and I honestly didn't know that was Jason Schwartzman the entire time. The way it's shot and a lot of the camera work feels like you're watching a postcard come to life and I thought the set designs were some of the best of the year. Overall, I really dug the look of the movie but storywise it felt lacking.
3/5
 
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Joy

Thomasin McKenzie's character was wild telling her mom that at the dinner table lol

This is a mostly generic biographical drama about the creation of the very first IVF in Britain. It has its moments, but it's very plainly told in a Wikipedia movie kind of way. It has a very saccharine/TV movie feel about it that I wish was better, even though it's shot pretty well for the most part. The performers weren't bad per say, I thought Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie, and James Norton were good in this but it's nothing too memorable. Overall, it's one of those bio-dramas with an important subject matter that you wish you were watching the documentary version instead.
2.5/5
 
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The Idea of You

The most unrealistic part about this movie is seeing Graham Norton only interview one guest.

A romcom that I guess is decent even though it felt like they had a better movie trapped inside of a very basic one. It's very LA-centric to the point of having the main character work at a cliche art gallery and going to Coachella. The fake boy band they got is pretty much a knockoff One Direction or the Jonas Brothers but it's fitting because all their music sounds the same. I feel like Anne Hathaway (who is good in it) is the only one who thinks she's in a more prestige Oscar contender whereas everyone else in the cast is in an MTV movie. I think there are parts in the middle where the movie works at its best, but how it starts and how it ends is very generic. Overall, not too bad but not too great.
2.5/5
 
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Nickel Boys

Not me thinking he picked up a lucky nickel instead of a penny...

Truly awe-inspiring filmmaking by RaMell Ross that does something different and new for this genre. The movie is a heartbreaking tale of two black kids living in 1962 Jim Crow era Tallahassee and how both of them get caught up in this juvenile detention/reform school.

It's a movie that is told almost strictly through a first-person point of view in a way that feels fresh and inventive while still giving a very stylized and almost dream-like indie approach to filmmaking. Also, since I love the found footage genre, you get a great sense of immersion to the story here as well as you're watching this.

You definitely can see this movie sharing the same kind of DNA as If Beale Street Could Talk, Moonlight, and even The Tree of Life for a bit. It also reminded me of the Reservation Dogs episode that deals with the assimilation boarding school abuse that happened with the Indigenous American kids. I thought Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor were fantastic in this and even though you don't see their faces sometimes in the performances, you can still feel the emotion through the movements.

Fantastic work with the cinematography and especially the editing, it's kinda insane that this didn't get swept up in the awards race. Overall, definitely see this movie even if you aren't feeling the pov aspect. It's one of the best movies of 2024 by far.
4.5/5
 
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Presence

A movie that begs the question, who wins the 50-meter dash, the cameraman in Presence or the cameraman on the Maury Povich show?

Great stuff. It's a solid return for Steven Soderbergh getting back into the quasi-horror thrillers. At first glance, this might be more of a nuanced ghost movie that is more in line with another similar existential take on ghosts, A Ghost Story... but this is more of a family drama that has supernatural elements. The POV is entirely shown through the ghost itself in a found footage kind of way. It's really impressive on a technical level with how the movie moves around through the house and how much they had to make sure reflections and mirrors had to be maneuvered around and edited out in post. I thought the family dynamics and Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan's performances were interesting enough. I also really liked Callina Liang in this who plays the daughter and how she slowly becomes the central figure of the plot. I thought the brother and the friend were the weakest links in the movie but it didn't ruin my enjoyment. Overall, another banger from Steven Soderbergh and it's worth seeing on the biggest screen you can if you're a horror person.
4/5
 
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Lee

Well, this is a pretty decent WWII biop... JAKE PERALTA?

This was fine enough for a biopic about wartime magazine photographer Lee Miller... even though it feels like a super obvious Oscar-bait checklist at times that's overly done. I thought the movie works at its best when it does focus on the photography side of things and seeing how they were able to set up certain shots. Kate Winslet is really good as usual with these kinds of movies and I thought the biggest surprise was seeing Andy Samberg play a serious role and work on his acting chops. There's also a shocking amount of notable name stars in this between Alexander Skarsgård, Marion Cotillard, Josh O'Connor, and Andrea Riseborough who is still in her Gary Oldman chameleon phase. The movie does a decent job on its pacing and it does feel like it's always moving from one place to another but I thought the ending felt a little too cute for its own good. Overall, while I did really like it, this is pretty much a typical recipe for making movies that desperately want award nominations.
3/5
 
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Oh, Canada

I just know Leo wouldn't survive online dating apps.

This was just fine, I guess for a meditation drama. It's a Schrader film that has all of his hallmarks but is set during a documentary session about a fictional filmmaker in his later years. It's really dependent on a great Richard Gere performance and I think he does give it and to me elevates the film by just a little. Jacob Elordi plays the younger version and I thought he was pretty good in a more subtle performance. What's surprising to me is that not only Uma Thurman is in it but you wonder why she hasn't really been in more movies like this in the last decade. I think for me the movie is a bit disjointed storywise and I think for a movie about legacy, memory, and when to tell the truth to others, it doesn't really completely work for me. Overall, aside from the really good performances, it's a movie with a muddled story.
3/5
 
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The End

You know how some people hate the anticipation of a jump scare in a horror movie? I'm finding out I'm the same way with musical numbers.

For a documentarian, Joshua Oppenheimer makes an interesting pivot to do a post-apocalyptic bottle film musical that I don't think totally works as well as it should. It's got a pretty familiar setup that you would see in a show like Fallout or any other movie that's set in a bunker. When it's not doing a classical operatic musical set piece every 15 minutes, I was digging the story, and seeing the characters that George MacKay and Moses Ingram play was the best part of the movie for me. I thought the performances for the most part were really good even if I didn't care when they started singing like Michael Shannon & Tilda Swinton. Overall, this just barely gets above average.
3/5
 
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September 5

The part where that one guy said "This isn't about ratings" and the movie ends with them talking about how awesome it was that their broadcast was viewed more than moon landing. Morbid stuff.

Somewhat well made but honestly kinda baffling even if you take out the politics of it all. It's a political thriller that's set during the 1972 Munich Olympic hostage crisis through the viewpoint of the ABC Sports team at their news desk. The movie desperately tried to make this movie as apolitical as possible but they ended up making it as political as possible through just one slanted viewpoint that is constantly contradictory to itself with its message while also pandering to a specific American audience. It's also hard to believe they wanted to get this movie out without even thinking about what has been going on recently and how this movie is also cashing in on a devastating situation, it just feels tone-deaf to me. Even as just a film, the movie is a chamber piece that isn't all that well written and doesn't have the nuanced discussion of the plot that's unfolding even as a thriller. The only interesting part was seeing the mechanism of how live TV operated at that time and how quickly they had to move from one thing to another. It has a lot of that Broadcast News vibe of that part for me. Overall, didn't really hate it but this was a big swing and a miss.
2/5
 
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All We Imagine As Light

Chekhov's rice cooker.

An incredible film by Payal Kapadia that is about longing and social isolation done as a meditative journey through the city of Mumbi. It's a romantic drama that also tackles issues like the caste system, inter-religious relationships, misogyny, and gentrification in India. Between how it's incredibly well shot and acted, it definitely reminded me of Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love and Ritesh Batra's The Lunchbox. Kani Kusruti and Divya Prabha gave really good performances and where it ended up was interesting. Overall, really great and it's a damn shame neither France nor India picked this for their international film at the Oscars.
4/5
 
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Better Man

I like how, since nobody saw this movie in the States, I could say it has a out of nowhere Battle of the Bastards-level action scene for a solid two minutes, and nobody knows if I'm telling the truth. (spoiler alert, it does!)

Wow, this was unbelievably well done, especially for a brit pop star from the '90s that I knew almost nothing about, and his music never really carried over here. The secret sauce that made this movie work is Michael Gracey who previously made The Greatest Showman and does a slam dunk of a job elevating this word-for-word, cliche after cliche textbook definition of a music biopic. There's so much creativity shown through the direction and the cinematography that it makes it feel so fresh even though it's so by the numbers as a music biopic/musical and the movie doesn't forget to be entertaining the whole way through. The CGI work by WETA was so impressive and made this human-chimp hybrid that feels very real and how it interacts with everyone and everything was so well done. While it's not Robbie Williams doing the motion capture... the actor they got to do the motion capture Jonno Davies plus Robbie himself does feel like he's a seasoned actor as you're watching this. Overall, one of the best music biopics I've seen in a long time and it's easily the best musical of 2024.
4/5
 
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The Last Showgirl

I'm just picturing how different this movie would have been if it had 57-year-old Pearl as the last showgirl.

It's really good, but it feels incomplete as a movie. It's one of these smaller end-of-the-road character dramas that definitely reminded me of The Wrestler and Support of the Girls. I like how it operates as one of those things where you reminisce on the old days because you and your coworkers got laid off or are about to. It's a movie that is tailor-made for someone like Pamela Anderson, who gives a really good performance. Dave Bautista, Jamie Lee Curtis, Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka, and Billie Lourd were also all really good but I think the movie doesn't give them enough time to cook. For a 90-minute movie, the 3rd act is about 5 minutes long and I think this script needed more time to develop to flesh out those supporting characters and give Pamela Anderson more time to explore the subplot. Still, what Gia Coppola does with the documentary look and style of it all I think works a lot and those scenes in the first two acts were really good. Overall, Enjoyable but it needed so much more.
3/5
 
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One of Them Days

I'm gonna file this under movies that got me checking my own credit score.

This was a lot of fun. It's a movie that goes back to the days when theatrical comedies were still a thing. This definitely has shades of Friday, Dude Where’s My Car?, Superbad, and more recently Joy Ride where they are constantly on a run from one comedic set piece to another comedic set piece while on a mission. Keke Palmer and Sza were so fun in this and their banter worked so well. Also, funny enough Keke plays the straight person while the movie is dependent on Sza's comedic chops which surprisingly works. The loan bank, blood bank, and fast food drive-thru set pieces were my favorites, and while some moments do feel a little predictable, it was still enjoyable to watch. Overall, fun movie and I do hope studios start releasing more comedies in theaters again and not have them regulated to just streaming with less money.
3.5/5
 

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