Tag: The Zone Of Interest

2024 Film Awards Part 6

On By troubledproductionsIn AwardsLeave a comment

Most Disappointing

A Quiet Place: Day One

I LOVE the first one, I was less enthusiastic about the second, but I still had high hopes for this. It’s okay, I guess. But it never quite reaches the heights of the first one and doesn’t even come close. Ultimately, it just comes off as lesser. Almost like a poorly financed spin-off that was dictated by the studio. There’s zero passion, zero creativity, zero reason to care.

Argylle

I like the Kingsman movies, except maybe the prequel. But I had an inkling this wouldn’t be as good. From the moment I saw the trailer I had worries. Those worries turned out to be well-founded. It should never have been a 12A, Matthew Vaughn needs blood and violence, and the rating stops him from achieving that. I don’t know why the studio didn’t push for an increased rating, and I’m not sure whose decision it was to aim for it. But either way, they should have stopped him. If you’re a record company and you land the Bee Gees, you don’t let them do a death metal album, you tell them to play that funky music.

Joker: Folie A Deux

If this was based on the biggest drop between “expectations when I first heard about it” and “expectations when I finished watching”, this would be top, number one with a bullet, numero uno, the head honcho, the casa del pene, I kind of forgot what I was talking about. Luckily for J: FAD, this is based on “expectations going in”, which saves it. I had heard a lot of talk that this was terrible. I hoped they were wrong, but it did mean I went in expecting it might be bad. Still doesn’t mean I was prepared for exactly HOW bad it was. I haven’t seen a sequel drop off this extreme since Mean Girls to the trailer for Mean Girls 2 (I’m not watching the actual film, I’m not insane).

My Spy: The Eternal City

I actually really enjoyed the first one. The second has all the hallmarks of a “straight-to-DVD sequel released in the 90s”. It feels low budget, it thinks you remember much more about the previous film than you actually do, and it tries so hard to be different (changing location etc), that it forgets to be good.

Mean Girls

I’m a massive fan of the original film, and also a massive fan of the dislike button on the trailer of the second one. I’m also a big Tina Fey fan, and one of my favourite TV shows of all time is a sequel. So I should love this. I did not. It had none of the charm of the original, none of the heart. Also, I didn’t find the songs that good, which in a musical is a bit of a problem. I couldn’t hum a single melody from the entire thing, meanwhile, I can still remember roughly 3 songs from In The Heights, which I watched once, back in 2021 (review here). I suppose I should have expected it when the trailer (which I repeat, is for a MUSICAL featuring original songs) had Olivia Rodrigo. Now, I love Olivia Rodrigo, her music is right up my street, but an existing song on a trailer for a musical just indicates the studio has no faith in the songs, and the stage musical itself doesn’t have enough bangers that people are obsessed with and will be like “OMG they do that song in this, I need to watch”, unlike the trailers for Wicked which showed snippets of songs from the musical, so fans of the musical would get excited. I’m right that that was a weird decision on the studio that released Mean Girls, right? It’s not just me being picky? Anyway, this film is weaker than my lawsuit for false advertising against the owner/operator of a bottomless pit in Spokane.

Winner

Unfrosted

I’m a big fan of Jerry Seinfeld, I consider his sitcom one of the best sitcoms of the 90’s (and there’s a lot of competition there). He has definitely been hit hardest by the Seinfeld Curse, with his biggest success being a vocal performance. That being said, Unfrosted looked promising. Not just with him as a writer, but with an incredibly strong supporting cast. Also, the idea was fucking weird, and I like weird. I don’t like Unfrosted though. It is funny, hilarious even. But it is so disposable. This does not seem like a film from one of the co-creators of one of the biggest sitcoms of all time. This feels like a group of kids dicking about with a video camera and making jokes up as they go along.

Most Surprising

The First Omen

The Omen is a franchise in name only. Nobody ever says “Let’s watch the entire film series”, in fact, I’d say a lot of people don’t even recognise there are more than two, the original and the remake. Added to that, prequels are normally pretty shit. So it’s quite surprising that The First Omen is actually solid. It has one of my favourite jump scares I’ve ever seen, a genuinely gripping story, and some good acting. Immaculate explored similar themes, but The First Omen did it much better.

Transformers One

I’m not too fond of the live-action Transformers movies. I know I watched one of them at the cinema, there’s a chance I might have watched the second one as well, but I genuinely can’t remember. Also, unlike Teenage Mutant Ninja/Hero Turtles, I never had any Transformers toys growing up (if anybody would like to fix that neglect and buy some, contact me), nor were there any video games I played. So I had zero emotional connection with the franchise, until now. This movie is superb. I think it may have helped that I had no connection to the franchise as it meant that I didn’t know who these characters were. This wasn’t like watching X-Men: First Class, knowing that Magneto and Charles will eventually become enemies, this was watching two complete strangers as their friendship slowly disintegrates. It’s a much more mature movie than you’d expect, dealing with themes such as colonialism, disability rights, hierarchal power structures, appeals to authority fallacies, and transforming into a car (all issues that we face). If it was a bit more “safe”, would it have made more money? Probably (it’s hard to tell because of how badly marketed it was). But by going as dark as they did, going as deep as they did, they’ve created something truly remarkable. This WILL be a kid’s favourite movie, and when they watch it again as an adult, they won’t be disappointed or embarrassed. They will fall back in love with it all over again.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

I’m not saying this is a great movie, it’s not. But it’s A LOT better than a sequel 30 years after a disappointing (to others, I still love it) third movie should be. Every New Year’s Eve, me and my family sit down and watch a franchise, in the past, it’s been John Wick, the modern Planet Of The Apes, Back To The Future etc. As the years go on, the choices get harder and harder, primarily because the trajectory for a lot of franchises is downward, and you don’t want to end the night on a low (can you imagine if the last movie you watched in a year was Die Hard 5?). With Axel F, if we watched this franchise, the year wouldn’t end badly. And really that’s all you can ask for.

Winner

Alien: Romulus

I like the Alien franchise, kind of. I’ve watched the first two and enjoyed them, but I’ve also seen Covenant and wasn’t a fan. When Alien is good, it’s phenomenal, among the best thing that exists in the media it’s created in, when it’s bad, it’s Colonial Marines. Romulus could have been bad, it SHOULD have been bad. It’s not, it’s utterly fantastic. It’s creepy, intelligent, and makes the most of what it has. There are so many times when you’re watching films and, as an audience member, you spot things you would have changed, untaken opportunities or wasted moments. Romulus will have less of that than others. It takes a Blue Peter/artist approach to scenes. It looks at what it has to play with (acidic blood, messed up gravity etc), then tries to create something with them. It could have been dumb and made bank, instead they put A LOT of effort into it, and I cannot thank them enough.

I Don’t Get It

Essentially these are for films which received a lot of love, either critically or commercially, that I just did not care about.

The Beekeeper

I heard a lot of people say this is really good, that it would even appeal to people who aren’t fans of the typical Statham films. I’m not buying it. It’s about 5% more interesting than the rest, but that’s not a huge amount. Otherwise, it’s more of the same. It’s Jason Statham walking around and punching people, only this time he has a bad American accent.

Longlegs

A LOT of people loved this, describing it as one of the best horrors of modern times. I respect that, but I didn’t feel it. Primarily because of how exposition-heavy it was, particularly in the final third. Either the studio or the screenwriter didn’t feel confident enough that the story was clear enough for the audience. Once the writer gets more confident, they WILL make my favourite horror movie of the year, of that I am certain. But this isn’t it.

Winner

The Zone Of Interest

Obviously, this was going to win. The review of it was the hardest I’ve ever had to write. I couldn’t articulate WHY I didn’t like it, I just didn’t. That’s annoying as I feel I should. I love serious movies, so it’s not as though I was sitting there thinking “Need more jokes”. I love POWERFUL movies too, I actually went into HMV a few days ago and asked for “Something that will hurt me and make me feel things”. It genuinely got me worried, am I a shitty movie watcher? Why should anybody take my reviews seriously if I don’t like one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year? In a way, it still bothers me. I find it difficult to reconcile why you should value my opinion alongside my opinion being that I didn’t like this film.

Well I Liked It

The opposite of the last one, these are films which either the internet or professional reviewers hated, but I enjoyed (or at the very least didn’t hate them as much as others).

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

At the time of writing, this sits on Metacritic with a score of 46. That’s only 1 score higher than the new Hellboy, which is dreadful beyond comparison. I’m not arguing this should be in the high 90s, but it definitely deserves higher than that. Yes, it is a bit too long and unfocused, but it is SO damn charming that it’s hard to see where the hatred comes from. The relationship between Phoebe and Melody is damn sweet (and kind of gay-coded, can’t tell if that was intentional) and it warmed even my bitter and cynical heart.

Boy Kills World

I had no intention of putting this in this section. Primarily because I assumed it was well-reviewed. It was only when looking up the Metacritic score for Ghostbusters that I saw this had a score of 47. How? This is freaking insane. The stunts are badass, the jokes are hilarious, and the performances are everything they need to be. It’s one of the most fun experiences I had last year, and I ate ice cream TWICE!

Winner

Paddington In Peru

This has a Metacritic score 60. I don’t accept that. This deserves a 90 at the very least. It’s not quite as good as the first two, but it is still exactly what we need at this time. I know the world is going to shit: racism has become normalised, there’s war in the middle east, and I dropped my biscuit in my tea. But it’s at times like this when we need something like this; something optimistic, something cute, and most importantly; something kind.

Worst Movie

Nominees Everything here

Winner

The Crow

This was actually difficult. Whilst a lot of films were bad, there wasn’t one that stood out as a lot worse than the others. They were all equally bad. This wins pretty much just because it’s a remake. As such, there is a definite blueprint for how to make it work. They had over 30 years of focus groups and audience feedback to work from. The fact they did that, they had talented performers, as well as a wide variety of screamo bands to use for the soundtrack, and still couldn’t do better than this shit? Nope, fuck you, you suck.

Best Movie

Nominees: Everything here

Winner

Civil War

There are multiple ways to judge a film. Technical brilliance, personal taste, uniqueness. This has all three. But so do quite a few other films nominated. It’s difficult to think of one that stands out above the rest, unlike next year, where it’s already looking like A Real Pain is going to win best film (unless the new Knives Out is incredible), spoilers for a post I won’t write for another 365 days. Really, any of the nominees could have sneaked it. So why did I choose Civil War? Because there was a moment which was so harrowing I was close to leaving just to decompress for a few minutes. No other film has come close to having that effect.

2024 Film Awards: Day One

On By troubledproductionsIn AwardsLeave a comment

Saddest

Nominees

I Saw The TV Glow

A lot of TV Glow is too weird to be counted here. But there’s a scene near the end which is as bleak as it gets. The main character is at work, older, with no achievements, and he has a full-on breakdown, screaming that he’s dying. It’s not the breakdown that is sad or the fact he’s wasted his life, it’s the utter callousness of the other characters, who all just ignore him.

Inside Out 2

I remember when I came out the screening of this, and a little kid said to their parent “That didn’t make sense, why would someone’s brain be against them?”.

Oh that sweet summer child.

Joker: Folie A Deux

The film itself is not good. But there’s a scene in the court where one of his former friends is testifying about Arthur killing someone in his presence in the first movie. He’s talking about how he’s never felt as much fear as he did at that moment, how it haunts him and completely ruined his life. The fear in his voice, and Arthurs reaction to it, when he finally realises the damage he caused, it’s just….it hints at a much better film than what we got.

Civil War

Specifically for the scene where they come across the piles of dead bodies. I mentioned in my review that there was a moment where I felt I had to leave, this was the moment. It’s…..it’s harrowing.

One Life

The first of two holocaust movies in these nominations. The guilt the character feels for not being able to do more oozes off every scene. It’s helped by some pretty darn good performances. This is more personal than the other holocaust movie, and definitely has more parallels to modern life (sadly). This was the first 2024 film I saw, I probably should have gone with something a bit happier. To quote my original review (and still one of my favourite paragraphs):

“It’s a good reminder that the people being helped aren’t soldiers, politicians, or anybody who had a choice in the war or where they live. They were just children who were at constant risk of being arrested and executed just for existing in their current location or as their current ethnicity/religion. It’s impossible to comprehend something similar in modern society.

Unless you’re Ukrainian

or Palestinian”

The Zone Of Interest

Look at what the film about, that should indicate why this film was nominated. I was not a massive fan of this film, but when it worked, it REALLY worked, with one of the characters’ emotional breakdowns mirroring yours (only you’re hopefully not a nazi). But the real sadness comes from how unaffected people are. It’s harrowing how normalised genocide is to some of them, with one of them admitting he couldn’t pay attention to a speech because all he could think about was how he could gas everybody in the room. It’s callous, cruel, and far too true.

Winner

The Iron Claw

Obviously, this was going to be here. I knew the story, and I’m still unsure if that made it better or worse. I want to watch this with someone who knows nothing, to see what’s worse. Because I knew what was going to happen, I saw the set-ups and the train of sadness approach with full knowledge of what would happen. But the surprises may catch you off guard if you don’t know. You may sit there thinking “Ohhhh, one of the brothers died, this is so sad” and think that’s it, that’s the end of the sadness. Spoilers; THAT IS NOT THE END OF THE SADNESS! It just keeps going and going. Yes, it may feel a bit weird to put a film about a singular family as sadder than a holocaust movie, but I argue that’s due to the emotional connections made with the characters. Yes, the numbers are smaller (much smaller), but it hits harder. That’s not sociopathic, it’s natural. It’s why people view the funerals of a relative as sadder than earthquakes in another country. Sadness is all about emotion, and few films are better at realising that than this.

Weirdest

Nominees

Argylle

Not all weird is good. Sometimes weird is a skiing action scene taking place on a floor coated in oil, just after a smoke-filled dance scene set to a song even Waitrose customers would describe as “a bit soppy”. It’s creative, I’ll give it that. It’s not like anything else you’ll see. But it’s also kind of embarrassing to watch. With some baffling creative decisions in terms of visuals.

Boy Kills World

This leans into its oddness, with some truly jaw-dropping fight scenes alongside some “lol, the main character is deaf” scenes. Imagine if John Wick was a comedy, written by the creators of Airplane before they went all right-wing and “People holding a right-wing president to account are all terrorists!”.

Longlegs

Maybe “weird” isn’t the word I’m looking for here. “Utterly disturbing” would be more accurate. What makes the weirdness stand out is how normal the rest of the film is. A lot of it is played like a straight detective drama, so when Cage is on-screen, or when the murders themselves are looked into, it feels even weirder than it would if it was spooky spooky woo all the way through (like Malum was)

The Beast

This is weird in a non-English movie way. I’m not even sure if “weird” is the right word, I’d say more “hypnotic”. Each scene on its own is relatively normal, but when you see how they interact with each other and tie into the overall narrative, the oddness reveals itself like a flasher on a street corner. It’s a strange watch, where you constantly have to adjust your expectations of traditional narrative structure, remembering scenes that happened in a different time, and playing the current scene alongside that in your head. Essentially, it’s the narrative version of a Mobius strip.

Winner

Poor Things

From the second the trailer came you could tell this was going to be weird. I heard Kinds Of Kindness was weirder, but I wasn’t able to go to the screening of that for health reasons. Poor Things is unique in every aspect. From the script, the story, the performances, the music, and the visuals. There are moments it’s too weird, mainly with the audio being discordant which made it difficult to focus. Emma Stone is on top of her game, you can truly believe she’s not in full control of her faculties. The visuals are also unlike anything else. Not just in the lens choices, but also wit the use of colour, particularly on the exterior shots which at times resemble paintings. You may not agree with every choice made, but it’s easy to tell that everything WAS a choice, nothing was accidental or left to chance. At the very least you have to respect that.

Sweetest

Venom: The Last Dance

Not the whole film, but there are moments which are incredibly touching. Two moments stick out. One is when Venom dances in a hotel room. That’s let down by how out of place it is, but in the moment it’s very sweet to see. The next is probably my favourite scene from the film; the family singing a David Bowie song. There’s a simple truth to the scene that rings through and makes you nostalgic for an experience you’ve never had. As I’ve said before; there are moments when the Venom series has shown just how much potential it has, but not many moments where it’s lived up to them.

Alien: Romulus

Almost entirely due to the relationship between two of the characters, Films like Alien have a problem; how do you make the characters smart enough to be in this situation but not quite smart enough to see the issues before they happen? You can’t have a film where scientists land on a planet then immediately remove their helmets and get infected. Okay, you can have that, but you shouldn’t. One way to excuse characters as making rash decisions is personal emotions. Zombie movies have nailed this down, with almost every single one having a scene where someone is infected and a loved one is hesitant to kill them, resulting in chaos. Romulus has similar moments, where the characters’ love for each other is the driving motivation for what would otherwise be questionable choices. Despite the fact one of them is an android, it’s a very human relationship

Babes

A movie like this lives and dies on the romantic relationship seeming believable. That’s difficult to do when we only meet one of the characters once and then he dies. The meet-cute is so damn believable that it actually made me jealous. Yes, one of the participants dies, but the moments they spend together? It’s fucking adorable.

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person

Again, fucking adorable. This could be terrible and melodramatic. But the central relationship is damn cute that you can’t help but fall in love with it. HVSCSP is flawed, but without the moments (particularly the two of them just sitting there listening to music), it would be a failure. With them? It’s genuinely lovely.

Paddington In Peru

Do I even need to justify this? It’s a Paddington movie, OF COURSE, it’s going to be adorable.

Thelma

It’s difficult to not watch this and fall a little bit in love with how lovely June Squibb is. She plays her role perfectly, with a mix of defencelessness and aged smarts. I like how Thelma didn’t just do the “old lady does a rap” style of comedy. The jokes have actual heart to them, it’s why it works. What could be just a silly dumb comedy, is actually a heartwarming look at ageing, family, and the defenceless you can feel after being scammed. The relationship between her and her grandson are delightfully sweet.

Winner

Monster

I had no idea what Monster was going in, I assumed it wasn’t a biography of the drinks company or the Imagine Dragons song. For a large period of the runtime of the film, I still wasn’t sure. Monster isn’t a film, it’s a puzzle that gradually reveals itself to you. But when it does? Oh my science is it worth it. Once you realise the romantic relationship at the heart of the Rashomon-style narrative, your heart will melt. It may seem like it comes out of nowhere, but that’s only because your brain wasn’t trained to read the foreshadowing. The two characters interacting is damn adorable, especially with the conflicted feelings they obviously have, knowing how the world is against their pairing.

Most Me

This is both the easiest and hardest to explain. They’re essentially the films I think are closest to my personality. Sometimes that’s “These are the films I feel I would have made”, sometimes it’s “I have never identified with a character more”.

American Fiction

It shifts skilfully between incredibly unsubtle satire about race in 2020’s America (especially in regards to expectations and preconceptions placed upon black people), to discussions about family trauma, and then ridiculously silly dialogue about nothing. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it makes you feel things. I could never write this movie, but I would really want to.

The Iron Claw

It’s a wrestling movie, this was going to be here. I’m a huge professional wrestling fan, and the backstage stories are fucking insane sometimes. You need a certain personality type to be involved in the business, and those personality types tend to do crazy shit. There are a lot of stories from the history of it which would make good films, but I’m not sure any would be as heartbreaking as this.

Winner

Sometimes I Think About Dying

Yes, I rated this movie lower than the others on this list. So it’s not the best movie of the year, but it is the one I would show people if they wanted to know me. I really identified with the lead character and understood her feelings of preferred isolation. The dreary drudge of day-to-day domestication and how you escape into bleak fantasies to feel something is all too relatable. There’s also something to be said about how she craves human connection but denies it to herself, sabotaging her best chances of happiness and romantic relationships. Yet again, the character I related most to in a movie is a woman, that just keeps happening for some reason.

2024 In Film: Day Four (The Could Be Better)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Bad Boys: Ride Or Die
Ups: Some creative shots.
Fitting continuation of the story.
Downs: Too many scenes exist just to exist.
The villain reveal is too obvious.
Best Performer: Will Smith
Best Moment: Reggie killing everybody.
Worst Moment: The Tiffany Haddish scene. I like her as a performer, but her entire section was unnecessary, if it was cut out it wouldn’t be missed.
Opening: There’s a wedding, and then Marcus has a heart attack. Some good visuals and sets up the characters’ relationship well.
Closing: Mike and Marcus argue about who gets to cook on a grill. They then insult Reggie before remembering what he did earlier. It takes the two characters WAY too long to remember.
Best Line: Y’all are some terrible fucking fugitives.
Original review here

Drive-Away Dolls
Ups: Some nice visuals.
Unique.
So very horny.
Downs: Unfocused.
Characters are unsympathetic too often.
Best Performer: Geraldine Viswanathan.
Best Moment: The fall of the Senator. Gloriously cathartic, and gives a reason to some of the plot points.
Worst Moment: The small flashbacks. Don’t match the tone of the rest.
Opening: A man is killed carrying a briefcase of dildos. You don’t find out what the briefcase contains until later.
Closing: The two leads drive off to get married. Kind of sweet. But I felt like them meeting up with the Aunt would matter more, like she’d have an effect on the plot. Or at the very least say something surprising/funny to end the film.
Best Line: I’ve had it with love. I know bards and troubadours are high on it, but I don’t believe it’s relevant to the modern 20th soon to be 21st century lesbian.
Original review here

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Ups: Actually has space to breathe so the action impresses you.
Nice colours.
Hemsworth is clearly having a lot of fun.
Downs: Some of the effects are a bit weak.
Nothing makes it stand out.
Not that memorable.
Best Performer: Hemsworth.
Best Moment: When Dementus captures Furiosa’s mother. Harrowing.
Worst Moment: There’s an action scene near the end with really flat visuals
Opening: Weirdly calm talking about destruction and society ending. It’s pretty harrowing, but there’s not much urgency about it.
Closing: Hemsworth has a tree growing out of him.
Best Line: Where are you going, so full of hope? THERE IS NO HOPE!
Original review here

Malum
Ups: Some pretty damn good music.
Downs: Bad dialogue.
Some pretty bad editing.
Best Performer: Jessica Sula.
Best Moment: The cult staring her down, chilling.
Worst Moment: The interviews, mainly because whilst they are creepy, but there’s a way to make them creepier.
Opening: Police notice saying this is footage from the event. REALLY helps you buy in. Then creepy handheld footage. Well, some of it is creepy (weird chairs etc), and some is so mundane that it becomes creepy. Yes, it feels cheap, but its effective. Then, it transitions into modern times, where you assume the person we meet is our hero. Nope.
Closing: The plan worked
Best Line: “She don’t even look like people anymore”
Original review here

Never Let Go
Ups: Anchored by some great performances.
Some very creative visuals.
Original
Downs: Disappointing script.
Trips over itself trying to confound expectations.
Needed to focus on the survivalism aspect more, as those are the most interesting moments.
Best Performer: Berry, obviously.
Best Moment: The suicide. Horrible to see.
Worst Moment: How “the evil” is defeated, bit weak.
Opening: Simple world-building. Effective.
Closing: The monsters were real, society collapsing wasn’t.
Best Line: One touch without a rope on, is all it takes.
Original review here

Sting
Ups: Some pretty brutal moments.
Pretty damn impressive characterisation.
Downs: Wastes time.
Not the best lit.
Weird music choices
The winter aspect doesn’t really come into it as much as it could.
Best Performer: Part of me says Alyla Browne, but Ryan Corr just edges it out due to the emotional complexity.
Best Moment: When the mother tells the step dad how much he means to her daughter. Odd to put a piece of character work instead of a horror/action set-piece, but it’s really sweet. The fact its then followed by someone screaming when they find the skinless corpse of a bird says a lot.
Worst Moment: The exterminator’s reaction to the dead bird “looks like it had sex with a blender”. Feels too “written”.
Opening: An old woman knits whilst watching tv, then hears scuttling in her walls. It does a pretty good job of setting up her current state of mind, with her needing notes on the walls to tell her her name and address. The exterminator arrives and is killed. The set-up? Brilliant. The death itself? Weak. As an opening, it’s okay, but it does take longer than it should to get to the credits, especially for such a short movie.
Closing: The spider is dead, but it lay eggs. Sequel!
Best Line: “my dad is awesome”
“is that why he never visits?”
Cutting.
Original review here

The Beekeeper
Ups: Some interesting fight scenes.
Could be a useful tool to teach people about phishing scams.
Downs: Stathams accent.
Some of the worst dialogue ever committed to film.
Best Performer: Josh Hutcherson. Utterly despicable.
Best Moment: The original call centre being burned down. Deliciously cathartic.
Worst Moment: The aftermath of the suicide. Mainly because of how bad the dialogue is.
Opening: Quick unsubtle introduction to the relationship between Clay and Eloise.
Closing: Parker points a gun at Clay then lets him scuba away. Kind of disappointed it ended so quickly, not because I wanted more of the film, but because the implications of the events of the film are never given enough time to be explored.
Best Line: “Madame President”
Original review here

The Zone Of Interest
Ups: Harrowing.
A fascinating look at the psychological tricks ordinary people needed to use to survive that time.
Downs: Bit dull.
Meanders at times.
Could teach more.
A bit more clarification could have been helpful.
Personally, did nothing for me compared to similar films.
Best Performer: Christian Friedel.
Best Moment: When Hoss notices human remains in the river his family play in. The first crack in his armour.
Worst Moment: The random girl hiding food. Doesn’t really add too much.
Opening: Can’t remember it exactly, but I remember it did do a good job of setting up the idea that this was just a normal day to them. The soundtrack of screaming was just something they put up with during their gardening.
Closing: Janitors clean up the museum which stands on the site. Good to know that it pushes the idea that his ideas failed and are now (kind of) condemned to history. That his legacy was one of cruelness and inhumanity. Might have worked better with people on a tour.
Best Line: I wasn’t really paying attention… I was too busy thinking how I would gas everyone in the room.
Original review here

Venom: The Last Dance
Ups: Sweet at times.
Shows glimpses of brilliance.
Downs: Too often it hints at concepts which would have made a much better movie.
Never feels like a finale.
Some of the coincidences are far too convenient.
Krull is underused
Best Performer: Tom Hardy
Best Moment: The Space Oddity scene.
Worst Moment: The fight between the many symbiote, because it hints at what would have been a MUCH better film.
Opening: Eddie Brock is getting drunk. Essentially, what we saw in the last Spider-Man movie. The multiverse aspect NEVER comes up. Sooooo, why?
Closing: Venom is dead but the symbiote lives on. Reports that Sony celebrated this movie by having a cake and eating it were made up by me.
Best Line: I’m so done with the multiverse shit.
Original review here

The Zone Of Interest (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: In this drama written and directed by Jonathan Glazer, a couple (Rudolf Hoss and Sandra Huller) struggle to raise their children under the pressures of his work, that work? Commandant of a concentration camp.

The Zone Of Interest (Tzoi, pronounced Soy) is an important film. The holocaust is a strange and emotive subject. We are taught a lot about it, and the facts are discussed often in modern society. So, we learn a lot about it, but we don’t learn much FROM it. We don’t discuss how the Nazis used language specifically to dehumanise people so that the treatment of them was deemed more appropriate. If we did learn that lesson, we wouldn’t have politicians describing refugees as “vermin”. We don’t discuss how the citizens of Germany ignored what was going on for their own comfort. If we did, then we wouldn’t be okay with the government essentially making homelessness illegal by arresting anybody sleeping rough in the street. So we do need films like this, even in a time far removed from the events. We need something that shows how to some people it wasn’t a constant threat to their lives, it was just something that happened to other people. To some people involved, it wasn’t the most important part of their lives, it was just something they worked on to get a promotion. TZOI’s focus on the “banality of evil” is both its greatest strength and its biggest flaw. The fact that Glazer focuses so much on the mundane and regularness of the family is fascinating and incredibly harrowing. But lets face it, watching people do nothing for 105 minutes soon does become quite dull, that level of boring mundane stops being fascinating and starts becoming, well, boring and mundane.

A lot goes unsaid and happens in the background. But it could have done a slightly better job of pushing some of that to the front. I’m not asking to make it very obvious, but there are a few moments (particularly at the end) where a bit of clarification would have improved not only the understanding but also helped push through the idea and message that the film was trying to put forward.

Outside of the normality of Nazi life, there’s not really that much to it. It makes its point, and then continues to make that same point, never developing or adding to its themes. Once you’ve watched 5 minutes, really you’ve seen it all. In general, it leaves you with a hollow(caust) feeling, a realisation that this would have been far better as a short.

The worst realisation though? The fact that the people who need to learn the lessons from this is trying to teach, are the EXACT type of people who won’t watch a film like this. It’s essentially preaching to the converted.

It’s a shame, as this is at times fascinating, and depressingly real. It’s shot very realistically. Not like a documentary, with static shots and a set of people well aware they’re being filmed. It’s more like you’re an invisible witness to the goings-on. Sandra Huller continues to be one of those performers I now feel guilty for not paying attention to sooner. Christian Friedel as Rudolf Hoss is a revelation. His non-verbal reactions are key to the horrors TZOI contains. He is helped by the script giving him a lot to work with, there’s a moment near the end where he is so overcome with revulsion over his acts that he tries to vomit, but is unable to. It’s reminiscent of the (incredibly disturbing) documentary The Act Of Killing. There are lots of subtle moments which are equally horrifying (finding body parts in the river his family swim in, the soundtrack of slight screaming), but none have quite as much humanity as that moment does.

I do like how the ending shows that his legacy wasn’t as a great commander, but of the builder of one of the most horrific displays of humanity anybody has ever witnessed. His name is not sung in glorious tones but is instead spat out with disgust and hatred.

Like I said, there’s a lot to, well, not exactly “enjoy”, but appreciate. I just, I kind of wish it had bigger ambitions than “Art Student Film”.