Tag: Sara Montpetit

2024 In Film: Day Eight (The Very Good)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

A side note to this entry. I originally had Fly Me To The Moon here, but then I thought about it and added it to this list instead. Yup. The differences are SO small once we get this high that something can be easily knocked down two spaces based on a single flaw.

Babes
Ups: Funny.
Honest
Downs: Some scenes feel a little lazy and like they’re a first-draft.
Best Performer: Ilana Glazer
Best Moment: The meet-cute. From a writing perspective, it’s iconic and inspirational.
Worst Moment: The “bitch” scene. The way it’s filmed makes it seem like the two performers are in separate rooms recording their lines.
Opening: “THIS FILM IS SET IN NEW YORK” montage opening
Closing: She takes her child to the movie the kid’s dad was in before he died. Very sweet.
Best Line: “Best friends are screwed over as adults. If you don’t couple up you’re fucked”.
Original review here

Gladiator 2
Ups: Every character makes sense and is well-defined.
Looks fantastic.
Brutal deaths.
Fight and action scenes look like they hurt.
Downs: Is it necessary?
The historical inaccuracies will make your head hurt. It’s not just “this happened 10 years after”. Some weaponry wouldn’t exist for over 1000 years after the movie’s events. For similar timescales; imagine a film about William The Conquerer, where the invading Norman army drives Ford Fiestas. Think of how “well that’s bullshit” that would seem. Similarly; there was no way for the safe transportation of sharks to be used in the arena.
Best Performer: Pedro Pascal
Best Moment: The Naumachia, at least until the sharks turn up.
Worst Moment: Him being shown the armour etc of Maximus feels a little shoe-horned.
Opening: A beautiful opening credit sequence that looks like it’s been painted.
Closing: A new emperor is crowned.
Best Line: What does my past matter, when my future is only to die as a gladiator?
Original review here

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
Ups: Cracking title.
Very sweet.
When the music is good, it’s very good.
Downs: The above point about the music? Doesn’t happen enough.
Bland background characters.
It doesn’t establish the universe well enough. This is such a big problem because if it sorted that out, this would be in the next blog.
Best Performer: Sara Montpetit
Best Moment: Sasha and Paul listening to music together. Incredibly awkward and sweet. The way the characters move says so much without a word of dialogue. Paul’s revenge is also up there.
Worst Moment: Sasha breaks free from Henry in the park, hitting them. Feels weak, as if the hits have no weight to them.
Opening: It’s Sasha’s birthday, As a present, her family invited a clown over for dinner, as the main course.
Closing: Paul becomes a vampire and the two form a euthanasia team at the local hospital, draining people on their deathbeds. There’s then a scene of the two walking in the corridor, which wasn’t needed.
Best Line: I wouldn’t kill anyone other than myself.
Original review here

I Saw The TV Glow
Ups: The music.
The general feeling.
Some great performances.
Weirdly hypnotic
For someone out there questioning their gender identity, this will be THE most important film they’ve ever seen.
Excellent lighting.
Downs: It’s definitely too slow and weird for a lot of people.
Needs a clearer narrative.
Justice Smith isn’t quite confident enough to pull some of these moments off.
Best Performer: Brigette Lunday-Paine
Best Moment: Maddy explains how they buried themselves.
Worst Moment: When he’s at the cinema with a film playing behind him, mainly because whilst the Pink Opaque TV show feels real, the film does not, at all.
Opening: Some weird neon chalk drawings on a road at night. Very cool looking, it doesn’t feel like a horror movie, which I love as it helps everything feel real.
Closing: Owen breaks down at a party. Pretty damn creepy, especially since nobody reacts, they just kind of shut down like robots. He goes into a room and cuts his chest open, smiling when he finds TV static. Then goes back to work and apologises. There are a lot of different interpretations of this, which is good.
Best Line: It feels like someone… took a shovel and dug out all my insides. And I know there’s nothing in there, but I’m still too nervous to open myself up and check. I know there’s something wrong with me. My parents know it too, even if they don’t say anything.
Original review here

Juror #2
Ups: Tense.
Some great performances.
Interesting story. The kind you can tell someone and they go “Oh, I’d like to see that”
Will inspire discussion.
Downs: Bland visuals.
It wastes SOO much time.
Completely screwed over by the distributors.
It’s disheartening how believable it is.
Characters disappear.
Best Performer: Nicholas Holt.
Best Moment: Justins’ car journey, is depressing.
Worst Moment: Harold getting kicked off the case, mainly because you think it would lead somewhere.
Opening: Kind of bland opening. Hasn’t been that long but I can’t even remember it.
Closing: The assistant DA knocks on Justins’ door, so I’m assuming he gets arrested.
Best Line: We’re only as sick as our secrets.
Original review here

Late Night With The Devil
Ups: Chilling.
A lot of subtext.
Good performances.
Downs: Some wasted time.
The backstage moments completely break the immersion.
Doesn’t lead into the concept as much as it could.
Best Performer: David Dastmalchian.
Best Moment: The third-act carnage.
Worst Moment: The opening.
Opening: A documentary is investigating the events. Well not really investigating, just playing the show in full. Could have got away with cutting away from it for some sort of modern analysis etc, make it feel more like a documentary. As it is, the opening is just set up, and it all sets up stuff we would be told later anyway.
Closing: Lots of flashbacks and self-analysis. The closest a film has come to the Firefly Funhouse Match, but more normal.
Best Line: We go WAY back. We met amongst the tall trees… remember?
Original review here

Moana 2
Ups: Beautiful visuals.
New characters slot in perfectly.
Funny.
Downs: Unfocused, especially in regards to the villains.
Some of the dialogue is cringy.
The music is nowhere near as good as the first one.
Best Performer: Auli’i Cravalho
Best Moment: Assembling the crew. Always a super easy way to make a film entertaining as it allows quick jokes and character development.
Worst Moment: The death of Moana. Nobody in the audience buys it, and it’s over far too soon.
Opening: Moana has continued her adventures. Doesn’t feel like there’s been too much that has happened between the two movies. Which kind of makes it seem like the first one didn’t matter.
Closing: The island is connected to the world. Depending on how the third one goes, this is a genuine game-changer.
Best Line: “You look like a kidney stone”
“And you look like someone who would know what that is”
Original review here

Mothers’ Instinct
Ups: Some great shots.
Constantly keeps you on edge.
Downs: Doesn’t need a second watch.
Difficult to love.
Does nothing new.
Best Performer: Anne Hathaway
Best Moment: When Celine kills her husband. Slow, methodical, and brutal.
Worst Moment: The birthday party seems too cruel.
Opening: White women curtain twitching. If you know nothing going in, I’m not sure it would be as good. Knowing that it’s a thriller means you’re on edge throughout the opening, expecting something terrible to happen, instead, it’s a surprise party.
Closing: Celine adopts Theo after killing his parents. Chilling closing. Could have done a fake-out where she’s in court and made it look like she had been caught before revealing it’s for custody.
Best Line: Not really a line, but Hathaway’s scream is spine-chilling.
Original review here

Wicked Little Letters
Ups: Funny and sweary.
Olivia Colman is a delight
Fantastic chemistry between the cast.
Downs: Misleading trailer.
The “mystery” is pretty obvious.
Best Performer: Jessie Buckley
Best Moment: How they reveal the villain. Fun, caper-esque, and so damn charming.
Worst Moment: The death of Victoria feels a little misguided tonally.
Opening: Sweary letters are sent. It’s clear from reactions it’s been happening for a while. It sets up the repressed characters well and gets some good laughs in.
Closing: Standard “what happened next” reminds you that this stuff really happened.
Best Line: “It’s German”
Original review here

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: I feel the title adequately explains it.

As we approach the end of the year, I’m starting to think of the awards I will give out in January, and try to note the contenders for each award. Some are pretty much settled (Worst Moment is likely to go to Twisters for a character introduction that tainted the rest of the film). In contrast, some still require a lot of thinking (the Most Disappointing category is depressingly packed so far). One award that won’t be given is Best Title, if it was, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (HVSCSP, pronounced Hoo-vis-car-seep) would win that easily. I love that title, it promises so much. Not just the plot, but also the type of film it will be. A title like that is not going to be an incredibly depressing look at the human condition. It will be quirky, and it will be unique.

What you might not expect is just how damn sweet it is. It’s incredibly heart-warming, with the central relationship being more believable and recognisable than a vampire story should be. Some writers would have focused on the sexual energy of vampires, but HVSCSP is more sweat than sexual, and is all the better for it. I love the central relationship. There’s a moment between the two where they’re just sitting listening to music. There’s no dialogue, no dancing, they’re just sitting near each other. By all logic, that should be boring as hell. But it says something about the talent of director Ariane Louis-Seize, plus the performers Sara Montpetit and Felix-Antoine Benard that it works. You can tell there are moments when both of them want to speak, and you know exactly what they would say, and the characters know that too, so they want to respond, but because it wasn’t actually said, they don’t. That scene is a microcosm of the film as a whole; incredibly sweet and wholesome.

I’ve seen some reviews which have stated they wished this had more bite. I’m assuming they only said that for pun purposes. Cynicism and meanness would have ruined this. Yes, vampire movies usually do need to be dark and broody, but this particular film? It needs niceness. It’s like a Wes Anderson movie being caressed by Tim Burton.

Don’t get me wrong, there is some violence, but it’s used to tell a story. The killing of the clown in the opening scene is shown to have traumatised Sasha, so it makes sense that even with the ability to do so, she would be reticent to commit violence unless she needed to. This builds up beautifully to a moment where she violently attacks a group of people threatening Paul. If the film was filled with violence, that scene wouldn’t land. If the violence was shot as “cool” and fun, that moment wouldn’t land. HVSCSP understands restraint better than a German dungeon mistress and uses it to great joy.

It’s not perfect. The soundtrack is kind of bland. The aforementioned scene of the two listening to music together? Perfect song choice. The rest of the movie? Forgettable. I’m not saying EVERY film needs more 80’s dark synth music, but some Bauhaus would have improved this immensely.

I also found it difficult to get a solid grounding on the universe contained within HVSCSP. Are people aware of vampires but decide to ignore them? Are they aware but deathly scared? Do they consider vampires as mythological creatures? There are moments which support all three assertions, so it’s difficult to work out what world this takes place in. This leads me to the other problem; with the exception of the main two, the characters are all tremendously bland. It doesn’t feel like a real group of people, they’re not main characters in their own life, they’re only supporters of the tale we’re being told right now.

This is still a lovely film. It’s not among the best of the year, but it’s worth watching, even if only once.