This week, I hit 20 films for the year. This isn’t that big of a deal as I should have above 100 by the end of the year, but it does mean I can fill out a Top 10/Bottom 10 now. I won’t post those until the end of a quarter, so the end of next month, but the reviews will give you an idea of what I’m thinking. Starting in this post, if the rank is in green, it is currently Top 10 (the rank should give that away), and red ranks are in the Bottom 10 at that point. Black ranks are in the middle ground. All three films this week are in one of the colors, and the green and one of the red films this week might be there until the end of year. On to the reviews!
The part of this film that really makes it sing, however, is the cooking sequences. This film opens on a solid 30 minutes of our characters preparing for a dinner that will be held that night. It is as close to an action scene as you are going to get in this film, and it is shot to some extent as one. Swooping shots as someone moves to the oven to check if the meat is done enough, then back over as someone checks if the ice cream is ready to progress. You see all the pieces coming into place for the final product, then you watch as each course is presented at the dinner. You really are thrown into this film seeing how well our main pair work together. and it works so well. This pattern happens a couple more times, and it is easily the best part of an already great film.
As France’s submission for Best International at this year’s Oscars, there were high hopes for it. It didn’t make the final nom list though, which surprised some. This is a beautiful film set in the late 1800s in France that follows an older couple who love to cook together and manage to do that spectacularly, all while balancing out the feelings they have for each other. Across its just over 2 hours, you feel decades between the two leads, and when the third act arrives, you feel the emotions that the characters do. It really is a great one to watch around the holiday right around now.
I can see how some wanted it to be in the final nominations, but I really can’t say what I would remove to take its place. Snow, Lounge, and Interest are all better film in my opinion, so I think this is a case of 6 films for 5 spots. However, if France summitted Anatomy of a Fall instead, there would have been a harder discussion. I would guess Capitano would have been left out in the alternate dimension.
Sometimes I go into a movie with the lowest of expectations and things are better than I thought. This isn’t one of those times. Almost everything about this movie is awful. Where to begin? Nearly every character is given the slimmest of background info. The three future Spider-women get maybe 4 sentences to say their background. It isn’t enough. Our bad man only wants to kill them because he thinks they will in the future. That future? It makes no sense why the kill him, but most of that sequence is in the trailer, and 98% of the time in the movie you see them as not Spider-Woman. The trailer makes it seem like it’s a lot. It is maybe 90 seconds. As for our main character, Johnson seemed bored to even be in the movie. She really wasn’t the right person for that role.
The story makes little sense. Characters make stupid choices, and the trailers give away the whole movie. The only things you miss in the trailer are the dumb stuff that doesn’t help the movie. What dumb things? Here are a couple things: 1) Web is born in cave in Peru with the help of magic spider people, and 2) our three teens think hiding from someone trying to kill them, means dancing on a table in a diner for a whole bunch of high school boys. the movie is maybe 35 minutes of plot, and 85 minutes of stupid stuff. They couldn’t even give Web’s cat a name. She just calls it “cat”. I did like Mountain Dew Red Code made a cameo early on though. So that is something. This is Sony’s first of three Spider-Man movies withno Spider-Man. We still have Kraven and Venom 3 later this year. They by possible be worse that this, but we will find out then, won’t we?
We have had a run of musical bio-pics lately. They have ranged from pretty good (Rocketman) to pretty awful (Spinning Gold). In May, there is another one about Amy Winehouse that looks iffy. Right now though, we have the Bob Marley one. Covering only basically a 4 year stretch in his lifetime, we don’t really see much that made him the legend we know today. We see his assassination attempt, him going to Europe, his rise to fame, then back to Jamaica. There isn’t really anything else over the movies 2+ hours. It gets to a part where it is boring as we just see them sitting around and start another song. The brings me to a part I didn’t like. The soundtrack. I’m not saying I don’t like his songs. I do. It’s that there is no time in the film one of his songs doesn’t come up. He and his wife get in a fight? Let’s start “No Women, No Cry”. The needle drops are just on the nose the whole time. It is a lot after some time. What was great about the film was Ben-Adir and Lynch as Bob and his wife, Rita. They are so good in the film and they work so good together. There isn’t really anything else to bring up with this film. Marley’s son Ziggy, a producers on the film, wanted a film that just had the big parts of his Dad’ life. That’s what the film is. I just wish it was a little more interesting, instead of just being by the numbers.
Three more films next week. Monday brings another Screen Unseen, which I am taking my 4-4 guess record and going for 5 in a row by guessing Ordinary Angels. Then, I close the week out with an Ethan Coen film and Japan’s Best International nomination. The slow wait for Dune at the end of the month will also be one week away finally too.
Mitten Film Nerd 
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