Tag: Elisabeth Moss

Seven years, Wes? SEVEN YEARS?

No. Don’t blame this on the Pandemic. The French Dispatch is your first live action movie in 7 years. Honestly, I thought The Grand Budapest Hotel came out earlier than that, so 7 years is a little shocking, because it certainly feels like a decade. Yes, I know we had Isle of Dogs, but that was stop motion.

Come on Wes. You used to churn out these films like buttah.

And it took a long time for this quirky little number to get made and released. This should not have been a 7 year wait. Did you have to wait for Timothée Chalamet‘s schedule to clear up?!

That Timothee, so hot right now.

The French Dispatch is sort of about a newspaper insert from a small town in France, that tells news of the world and Europe in their periodical, specifically for the people in Kansas, due to very specific plot reasons. You know. Quirkiness.

The writers for the paper are great though, and the main editor, Arthur Howitzer, Jr. (Bill Murray), has been running it for 50 years. He wants his writers to not be unlimited in their potential and will not try to limit their word count or cut sections out if it ruins their vision. As long as their articles sound like they wrote it that way on purpose and they don’t cry in his office, he will be fine.

This movie is actually about its final issue, because with Arthur’s death, in his will was to dismantle the paper and cease operations completely. This movie is about the final three main stories of the paper, a smaller city piece, and of course, an obituary.

Starring literally ever actor ever a Wes Anderson movie and more, a whole lot of people are involved in these three stories. Benicio Del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Lyna Khoudri, Jeffrey Wright, Mathieu Amalric, Steve Park, Owen Wilson, Bob Balaban, Henry Winkler, Lois Smith, Tony Revolori, Denis Ménochet, Larry Pine, Christoph Waltz, Cécile de France, Liev Schreiber, Willem Dafoe, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Elisabeth Moss, Jason Schwartzman, Fisher Stevens, Griffin Dunne, and Anjelica Huston.

A lot of people close together staring towards the camera. Classic Wes shot.

I probably overhyped it. I went in not knowing anything about the film, and honestly, a few smaller stories is not usually what I hope for in a film. A bigger plot with subplots, sure.

Technically there is one bigger plot, but it is also relatively minor compared to the three main stories. So why do I care if it is three main stories? Well, if two of the stories are great, and the other is okay, then the whole film doesn’t feel really great anymore.

I definitely feel the stories weren’t even in quality or whimsy. The middle story in particular left a lot to be desired for me, despite elements I liked. My favorite would be the first one, in the prison, although narratively, I don’t know how this person became a normal writer for the paper, and why they are telling this story in their issue that is so far in the past. The third story was fine, but confusing for a bit and that is…less fine.

Overall, this might be the most Wes-Andersy film ever that he has made, and it is incredibly weird. Probably his most black and white and just…strange. He did try a lot with this film, and I guess wanted to tell stories he didn’t think were strong enough for a solo film.

The cinematography, colors, and dialogue are superb of course, but that was to be expected.

I just think we need to be apart for a bit. I think there is a disconnect, a dethering, if you will. But overall, I want to make it clear, it’s not you, it’s…Us.

That was me talking to all the other movies I could have watched recently, but knew that nothing was going to stop be from seeing Us. The second movie directed/written/produced by Jordan Peele, who gave us the wildly great and successful Get Out two years prior.

This sequel is incredibly different with its theme, and probably “subtle messages”, and that is wonderful. It can be hard for directors to try new things, and Peele is ready to branch out right away. For example, Us looks a lot more like a horror film than Get Out did, so I expect to be much more of a bitch while watching it, and hiding from the screen in front of me.

This is me ready to face the scares of the movie (If the movie was the staircase).

Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o) and her family are relatively successful in life, and able to enjoy some of the finer things. Her husband (Winston Duke) is very outgoing and funny, her daughter (Shahadi Wright Joseph) is in track, and her youngest boy (Evan Alex), sort of a weird one, likes magic and masks and playing jokes. They are at least wealthy enough to go on vacations to a summer home that they also own on a lake. Okay yeah, that is pretty wealthy. Two homes? Like, one they don’t even rent out because they have a lot of personal belongings there that they can just leave all year. Really nice.

Well, Adelaide doesn’t like that area. The lake is fine. But in a nearby city, she had an incident in her childhood that changed her life forever. It scared her. Made her sheltered. All because she just wandered off.

And why did they have a vacation home near a place she fears? Eh, friend pressure probably.

Regardless. That night, some goddamn people in red bodysuit outfits show up outside of their residence. And they are mean, they look crazy, they have weapons and large sharp scissors. And they look just like them.

Also starring Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, and Madison Curry.

Twinsies!

So much going on in Us, so little place to discuss. First of all, this is the sort of film that will invoke better discussion once it is seen and can be freely talked about without a care for spoilers. So any of that cannot take place in this review. Trying to throw out what everything means or represents, which I have already seen and heard a lot of theories. Some bat shit, some not. That is great for any movie.

Instead, lets focus on other things. Namely, the score. Holy shit, there was some good music in this movie. Haunting, pulls you in, and really fills you with that sense of dread. Getting stabbed with scissors can be scary, but they made those scissors extra scary. The camera work was top notch, we were able to see a lot despite most most of the “action” taking place at night. They didn’t hide what was going on. Well, they did hide a lot of the gore that they could have showed. We got blood splatter, and off camera kills that are left to the audience to fill in some of the gorier blanks.

I loved loved loved Nyong’o in this. She had a lot of power and works really well in the horror genre. Duke, who has been in like, three movies now and a small role in Modern Family, has a big screen presence and does a lot to both lighten the mood and protect his family the best he can. I also think the two kid actors did great. Shoutout to Moss for being in her second doppleganger film as well.

Overall, I do think the story gets a little bit muddled at times. I think the direction goes more places than one would expect, and so it can’t focus on a few aspects to make itself truly great. This is scarier than Get Out, but not as deep. It is still a solid film. Some people hate the ending, and I admit, I didn’t love it for various reasons, but I think it didn’t detract from the movie as a whole.

There has been a long history of movies being named after animal. I don’t want to give a lot of examples, so I will instead just pick a recent one, The Lobster.

The Lobster was surreal and weird. Is The Seagull going to be just as surreal and weird? Will it explore different concepts? Will it be about birds at all?

Or, as I realized later on, will it just be a remake of a very famous Anton Chekhov play from over a 100 years ago? Yeah, it is that one. And this is my only time to point out that the play has had many adaptations, modern versions, some movie, some references in TV shows. But most importantly a few years ago was a modern play version called Stupid Fucking Bird.

I want to watch Stupid Fucking Bird the movie.

Instead I am stuck with this arguably not stupid fucking face.

Set mostly in the early 1900’s, close to Moscow, on a small lake estate, The Seagull is about a wealthy-ish family and their issues. I say wealthy-ish, because they have servants, but also apparently they are too poor to leave the area or better there lives in other ways.

The main patron of the estate is Sorin (Brian Dennehy), whom is getting ill and would rather live in the city. His sister, Irina (Annette Bening), is an aging actress who is living in Moscow mostly but she returns to the estate in the summer. Irina’s son, Konstantin (Billy Howle), is a modernist, who fancies himself a poet and a playwright, hoping to the way plays are told and to become famous himself. Konstantin is madly in love with a local farm girl and his muse, Nina (Saoirse Ronan), who dreams of being a famous actress. And finally we have Boris Trigorin (Corey Stoll), a relatively young author who is very famous in Moscow, whom Irina has been seeing for some time as a celebrity couple.

Also Elisabeth Moss is hanging around during this time, but I couldn’t possibly tell you what her actual job or purpose is. Maybe beloved neighbor.

Most of the story takes place a few weeks over the summer. A lot of the main characters are jealous or infatuated with other ones, even if they are in other relationships. Some of these relationships are out of prestige, out of love, out of settling.

A lot of sex starved people, who might have parent issues, who can orgasm seemingly after a couple of forbidden kisses.

Also starring Glenn Fleshler, Brian Dennehy, Mare Winningham, Jon Tenney, and Michael Zegen.

Only bad things can happen on a boat.

The Seagull is about a small group of people who all want to fuck a different person. Not everyone will leave disappointed either! Some will succeed, some will be left to pick up the scraps, and that is life.

The ideas behind this story in 2018 don´t feel original at all, but if it was originally scripted in the late 1800s it was probably original as hell at the time of release. It may have inspired most of the similar stories for the last 100 years.

And yet, it doesn´t matter, as I am here just to judge a film.

The film does has really fine acting of course. Bening is a star, and Stoll does a lot more than I expected from him based on most of his previous roles. Moss provides some good comedic relief, and Ronan is fine as usual. I did find Howle a little bit strange though. It really felt like he was meant to be played by Eddie Redmayne, but he canceled or was too expensive so they settled.

The story though is just okay. It has some chuckles. It has a pointless intro flashforward. And really, I do not know why the cast wasn´t speaking with Russian accents or anything. It was just lot of clearly American people talking occasionally about Moscow and it kept throwing me off.

To be an effective satire, the audience has to understand what the film is satirizing. So if you told me I was going to be watching a movie that satirizes modern art, I might have changed my mindset going into The Square.

I don’t know shit about modern art, or modern art galleries, or modern tuxedo affairs, So I wouldn’t really understand when it was being made fun of. I mean, on the surface, one might just go and assume this is a normal art film about quirk art people, not going for some deeper meaning behind the whole thing.

Oh well, it is long, and it is Swedish, and I don’t have enough Swedish films on my site. I will take it.

Life is like piles of grains of sand.

Things are about to get weird for Christian (Claes Bang), who up to now has been living a modest, yet successful life in Sweden. He runs a modern art museum, meaning they have to constantly be on the cutting edge of new and modern art. They are constantly seeking new sources of funding, new ways to advertise, and ways to stay relevant in the modern world.

I mean, you’d think everyone in Sweden would care about art enough to just go to their place every new exhibit. But maybe they aren’t as hip as we thought.

Their newest exhibit is called, The Square, with the statement, “The Square is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Within it we all share equal rights and obligations.,” as its punchline. It is about being nice to strangers and the homeless. It is not sexy or controversial. So when it comes to a new advertising campaign, they decide to go with an outside group who decide that they need to turn this nice idea into a controversy. To make a viral video anyway possible.

And sure, that will backfire. But that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to problems with Christian.

Also starring Elisabeth Moss, Dominic Moore, Terry Notary, Christopher Læssø, and more.

This man most recently played Kong in Kong: Skull Island.

The Square was definitely an experience and a hard one to really describe. At almost 2.5 hours long, it was about a lot of things, and a bit about nothing at all. It was about a man who would have a lot of hard experiences, some seemingly ironic given his supposed stances on life. A story about getting harassed by a kid. A story of lost items. A story about trusting strangers who will turn on you in a heartbeat. And a story about art taken to an extreme and a public unwilling to break away from their comfort zone.

The biggest moment comes from the scene in the second picture, which would have played out like a horror story if it went on any further. You don’t have to understand modern art in order to understand what the director is saying about that scene, in relation to the message of The Square. However, it turns out it was based on modern art as well. It was based on Oleg Kulik, an eccentric artist (read, asshole?), who imitated a dog as part of art and bit people.

Bang does good as our lead, looking the part of a man who we want to root for, but who makes strange decisions that question our own goals. Is he an asshole, is he down on his luck, or is he really a good guy? It is really hard to tell, but he is definitely a coward.

The Square is an experience, it is not for everyone, and it will be remembered in the future as a really weird film.

The show Chuck had a magnificent run of five seasons. It is incredible, because it had piss poor live ratings, despite a thriving fan community. It was a nerdy action comedy, a genre that doesn’t get a whole lot of love, especially on the TV.

I am glad it didn’t end too soon, but it is good to see it finally getting a movie as an add on.

Oh wait, shit. This movie, Chuck, is about something completely unrelated. And it was originally called The Bleeder. Well fuck, that sounds like a better title, and a title that wont get me super pumped up on Zachary Levi first. And it is a true story.

Well, I assume whoever this Chuck guy is, he better not secretly also be a spy.

I wonder why it might have been called The Bleeder.

Chuck Wepner (Liev Schreiber) from Bayonne, New Jersey, was a boxer, but it didn’t pay the bills. He had odd jobs, and selling liquor. But he was still a boxer first, he was known for surviving a long time in fights. He could really take a punch to the head. He was also nicknamed the Bayonne Bleeder, on account of how easy it was for his head to bleed, but he hated that nickname. He had fought against George Foreman and other notables, but he was finally getting on a hot streak.

Another person getting on a hot streak was Muhammad Ali (Pooch Hall), who just won the heavyweight champion title against the odds. And against even more odds, Don King wanted Ali to fight a white man, and Wepner was the highest ranked white heavyweight white man, so he got the gig. He was getting paid a lot less than Ali, but it was a lot of money from a bloke from Jersey, and he finally got to train full time.

But his bout with Ali was just the beginning. After that, he became a pseudo celebrity. And he even had a movie made about him. You may have heard about it? It was called Rocky, don’t cha know.

Ron Perlman played his manager/trainer, Elisabeth Moss was Wepner’s wife, Jim Gaffigan was his best friend, and Naomi Watts was his life. Also Jason Jones as another friend and Morgan Spector as young Sylvester Stallone.

“Eeyyy yo, Chuckie! I made some money!”

Chuck Wepner seems like a really interesting person. You gotta be built a certain way to just take a lot of punches and he used that to his advantage. He has a good story, and the story we were given broke the mold a bit. Because this is a boxing movie with arguably, not a lot of boxing. The fight with Ali was done with about 2/3 of the movie left to go, and the fight wasn’t done to showcase the excitement of boxing. It was just another part of the film.

No the real story of the movie is his life before and after the fight. And it got a little bit meta feeling, which I understand is the wrong word, when Rocky came out and how that changed Wepner’s life. I mean, we had a guy playing Stallone in this film, the production of Rocky 2 and more. We got to see his hard times, his bad personal life, and more. So it was bio drama first, then boxing movie second.

The first third of the movie was great, if not pretty standard. I will note after the Ali fight the film seemed to drag a bit more and I had no idea where it was going throughout it. Some okay moments, but they harped on a few of them just way too long. But the acting was fine, and they did a good job of trying to make everyone uglier to better represent New Jersey.

And overall, seeing Schreiber in this role felt really good. But what this movie really made me wonder is when the fuck will Goon: Last of the Enforcers come to America?

High-Rise is another movie based on a famous book that I have never heard about before. Shit, this book came out in the 1970’s. It took forty years before a movie was made about it, despite having general praise. And it wasn’t even done by America, but the UK got involved to make this bad boy.

And that is all I knew going into it, outside of the setting. That being a single apartment tower.

That might be all I need to know too. Single apartment tower films have tended to be good lately. The Raid: Redemption and Dredd. If it is anywhere close to their level of quality, we got a trifecta here. (I’m ignoring Everly, but that is a guilty pleasure film of mine).

I named this picture “Hiddledick” and felt very proud of that fact.

High-Rise takes place in a sleek and modern UK. In fact, it takes place in a new apartment tower that has all the commodities. There is a school, a supermarket, a pool and a gym, a spa. On the top levels, there are nice apartments and on the bottom, well, they are more modest and common I guess.

And the film begins with Dr. Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston) walking around in this tower, all decrepit, falling apart, full of dead bodies. Just a sneak peak. The film then goes back three months to when we moves in and life is perfect.

The tower is designed by Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons), a great architect and meant to be the future. Laing moved there after the death of his sister, starts a relationship with a single mom (Sienna Miller) and becomes an almost father to her son (Louis Suc). Laing also befriends a low level guy with a lot of energy (Luke Evans) and his pregnant wife (Elisabeth Moss), despite the class difference.

Eventually, when residents find out that the police seem to be avoiding the tower, then changes start to occur. And you know. Laing all alone with a lot of dead bodies.

Also starring James Purefoy, Keeley Hawes, Peter Ferdinando, and Augustus Prew.

No, no, no, this shade is just all wrong.

What the hell did I just watch? I really had a hard time grasping it. I read the very detailed wikipedia outline after the fact, and it cleared up some issues, but it didn’t answer a lot of things. Was the book this vague and…weird? Probably weird at least. I just didn’t get it at all. This whole thing was probably a metaphor for something, but the film is so hard to follow that I can’t really figure it out.

Honestly, if they could have just answered the why things fell the way they did, I would have been a happy camper. But the film leaves to much up to the viewers imagination.

The film itself is shot wonderfully though. The camera use was well done and the music did a great job of guiding my feelings. The acting seemed fine for the most part, in particular I was driven towards Evans’ character the most.

High-Rise is chaotic yet slow, and a film that might require a reading of the book.

Although the words are completely different, whenever I read the title The One I Love, I think of the final song from Grease.

You know. You’re The One That I Want. It bugs me so much that I try to sing the movie title to the same tune and it just falls apart so badly that I feel sad and wonder why would my brain betray me like that.

Either way, I went in knowing this was similar to a romantic comedy, but in no way like a romantic comedy. What a great description!

And it stars the guy from The League and the girl from Mad Men. No, the other girl.

Ethan (Mark Duplass) and Sophie (Elisabeth Moss) are having marriage problems. Their love seems to have floundered. They used to feel great in each others company and spontaneous, but now they argue all the time and don’t know how to rekindle their relationship. Also, Ethan did cheat on her in a moment of weakness. That is important.

So now they are seeing a marriage counselor (Ted Danson), who recommends to them a weekend getaway in a house in the middle of nowhere that he knows about. He has told them it has helped many couples find their love again there and saved many marriages. It has a 100% success rate and is just a magical place.

When they get there, it is okay and they try to give it a shot. And then they have sex!

Or at least they think they do. Sophie says it was great but Mark says he doesn’t remember it. Whatever, it must be some dumb perverted joke of his, always messing around. Oh that Mark.

But the next morning, Mark goes to the guest house and sees Sophie making breakfast with bacon which she is totally against. This can’t be real. Especially when he goes back to the regular house and sees Sophie there as well.

Yep. Things are getting weird. Are clones involved? Evil spirits? Magic? Aliens? Voodoo? Why are they seeing replicas, damn it?! And how can multiple versions of your loved one help you love them more?

I am not talking about increasing the frequency of love here.

MOTHERFUCKING DOPPELGANGERS. This came out of no where! I just liked the somewhat uncomfortable artwork. But another movie to come out this year about Doppelgangers? We had Enemy and The Double? How many more can there fucking be? Doppelgangers of Doppelganger movies. If there are more, seriously, let me know so I can watch them.

This movie was full of surprises. It just seemed to keep getting weirder and creepier the more it went along. It had some great paranoia / jealousy going on, along with fantastic conversations about relationships. Given some sort of magical element, it adds philosophical talk too, in terms of what constitutes as cheating / lying when there exact duplicates running around.

I was very entranced watching this movie and loved every minute of it. Yes, even the parts pre-magic. They were interesting as well damn it. The best part of it is that despite these fantasy elements, it still felt incredibly realistic of its portrayal of real people in a really odd situation.

This movie was a complete surprise for me to watch and I am glad I did.

Let me preface this review by saying that I don’t know much about Jack Kerouac, especially on how to spell his last name. I know enough about him to know that he totally wrote On The Road as a poem/bio/narrative thing, and enough to make that joke during my tiny review of The Road.

I also know that they have been wanting to make this movie since the poem came out. Shit, that is some major production hell. I expect it to be similar to Howl, and will probably be confused by the end. Yay literature!

Some parts of the title can be taken literally.

I don’t really want to go over the plot of the book. Most likely, you have either read it, which is why you want to see the movie, or you haven’t and want to see this movie to see a naked Kristen Stewart. Because that happens in this movie, along with a few more compromising situations. But I really doubt you’d watch it just for a small scene.

But this movie is mainly about Sal Paradise (Sam Riley) and Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund), aka Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. Jack changed the names of everyone in the novel, so that he could most likely change the story in smaller ways too, but still keep the actual truths of his journey visible.

Marylou (Stewart) is the third main person on their journey I guess. Not just because of the sex and other shenanigans they get in to.

But yeah, they meet a lot of interesting and unique characters. People who help them discover their sexuality, their interests. People who just have interesting stories to tell. I could tell you about them, but again, eh, just watch/read it. They are played by a lot of people, including Amy Adams, Tom Sturridge, Alice Braga, Elisabeth Moss, Kirsten Dunst, and Viggo Mortensen.

Viggo Mortensen? Huh. That makes my The Road joke that much better.

They are way too excited in this picture. They need to have faces full of angst. Especially Kristen, so the internet can continue to make the same joke over and over.

If you are hoping I say anything to praise or take down this movie, I wont. It was okay. It is a famous story that people read. It was made for a niche group. So if you think you fit that group (and you totally know if you fit that group) give it a watch.

But I doubt this movie has any ability to change your life, which hey, the book might. Whoa. Am I promoting reading a book? Maybe. Just maybe.

I can honestly say, this movie is no where near as good as the book. I can make that claim without reading the book. I guarantee the book has more themes and messages to get across than the movie. But the movie is probably a fair enough adaptation of the book. To me, it sounds like the book is the type of thing that should never really get a movie, because you won’t get the full experience Jack is trying to tell you.

Eh. Everything gets made into movies anyways. Always has, and always will. Also, Kristen Stewart’s naked scenes weren’t that impressive, which is why I watched the movie.