Movie Notes

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SPOILER ALERT!!!

SPOILER ALERT!!!

     This review contains narrative spoilers. We highly suggest that you watch any film before reading any reviews about that film. Continue at your own caution but you have been warned.

     Most historical dramas are films that seem to be more appreciated rather than enjoyed on a pure entertainment level. The pageantry of wardrobe, production value, a cerebral classical score, and beautiful wide-angle photography are aesthetic characteristics that seem to favor in the opinions of the members of the academy as opposed to a common philistine. So it’s refreshing to see how Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest film, The Favourite, is a work of cinematic art that can be not just appreciated but enjoyed by most audiences.

     Lanthimos is quickly proving himself to be the most unique director in the business with a sui generis vision. Although The Favourite didn’t prove itself to be my favorite from his catalog, each time I observe another one of his pictures, I gain a greater appreciation for all his movies and this feature does prove to be distinct in comparison to his previous films. Instead of his characters speaking in the same offbeat monotone cadence, like in The Lobster as well as The Killing of a Sacred Deer, or a still camera with an askew composition like in Dogtooth, The Favourite is a clearly much more stylized film. The camera seems to always be moving and panning which lays out the geography of the king-sized royal palace. He also takes the idea of landscape photography, like in Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, and exaggerates our expectations by using fish-eyed lenses instead of wide angle lenses.

     It was also a significant decision to abandon the idiosyncratic dialect we’ve become accustomed to in his films and let his powerhouse female triumvirate cast operate by their own means. Emma Stone and Olivia Coleman are great in their own right but I feel that not enough admiration is given to Rachel Weisz’s tour-de-force performance. It could be argued who the main protagonist in the film is (I would maintain that it’s Abigail, who is played by Stone) but I feel as though it’s Lady Sarah (Weisz) who the audience is in favor of by the conclusion of the story.

     This is the first script that Lanthimos has directed that wasn’t his own screenplay but it still feels like it’s his own and a lot of that has to do with what has become his trademark, an impressionist and ambiguous ending. David Mamet is quoted saying in his Master Class that “French films don’t have a beginning, middle or end…which is why they’re so f*%#*@$ boring”. Now, Lanthimos is not French (he’s from Greece) and they do have first and second acts but there is a large enough sample size now that proves his movies abruptly end and The Favourite is no different. I’m sure there are many different interpretations of this ending which double exposes a herd of rabbits over Abigail massaging the Queen but like Lanthamos’s other selections in his filmography, they’re redeemable despite whether or not you can interpret the conclusion (speaking of redeemable, did I mention yet that there is a slow-motion duck race?). With all this being said, it’s a film well worth visiting and in the fashion of our Greek director, I’m going to abruptly end this review.  

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SPOILER ALERT!!!

SPOILER ALERT!!!

SPOILER ALERT!!!

This review contains narrative spoilers. We highly suggest that you watch any film before reading any reviews about that film. Continue at your own caution but you have been warned.

     The most relatable character in James Wan’s Aquaman is one of the anonymous henchmen from the Sicilian fight sequence with Black Manta. The nameless stooge is decked out in a technologically advanced Atlantean land suit that helps him breathe above water (a sort of militarized walking fishbowl). Once his visor is shattered and water pours out of his helmet and he begins to be strangled by the Italian atmosphere, he spots a working toilet leaning against the wall. At that point, Atlantean Soldier #4 is compelled to shove his head into the John to survive. After paying for my iMax 3D ticket and sitting through the lengthy two and half hour running-time that painfully seems to be even longer, I felt as though I had given myself a self-inflicted swirly.

     Aquaman packs a whole lot of narratives into this one redundant script. Each fight sequence is kick-started by a jump scare explosion that must come out of habit due to Wan’s origins in the horror genre, political tête-à-tête about kingdoms we don’t know with creatures we don’t care about and snarky smirks followed by catchphrase intended one-liners that never seem to stick. The film is also derivative because the A-Story is a modern and not so subtle retelling of Excalibur (The titular character’s birth name is Arthur). The film also congests an origin story detailing Arthur’s childhood and the relationship of his parents, Black Manta attempting to fulfill vengeance by way of his dying father’s orders, a Game of Thrones type struggle for power, sibling rivalry and a RomCom adventure story that takes the king of the ocean on a quest through the desert. It crams all these plots while also letting the audience know of all the world building that is being constructed by needlessly labeling every location that is visited or by through the majority of dialogue which is all exposition and no subtext.

     But doesn’t the film look cool? Yes, I suppose so. It certainly looks like the $200 million dollar budget. The computer-generated imagery seems to have explored the ocean the way Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy conquered outer space. However, there is a saying in most writer’s rooms that, not unlike Arthur Curry when he retrieves the Trident and defeats his brother Ocean Master, the story is king and this film is lacking any sort of engaging narrative. The script seems as if they shoved as much as they could into the 120 something pages because of a dubious mentality for a sequel. The box office numbers solidify a future for an Aquaman led franchise which came as no surprise because the film was always tracking well both domestically and internationally but what is surprising are the praising reviews. I’m shocked to see how much fun audience members and established film critics had watching this movie because I found the film to be utterly exhausting. It seems as though to keep the checks and balances on the feuding cinematic universes, it’s possible that critics are beginning to grade the DCEU on an unjustified curve. I suspect that if the sequel produces a similar product it wouldn’t be welcomed as favorably as this movie.

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SPOILER ALERT!!!

SPOILER ALERT!!!

SPOILER ALERT!!!

This review contains narrative spoilers. We highly suggest that you watch any film before reading any reviews about that film. Continue at your own caution but you have been warned.

     Alright, let’s do this one last time. Between the lore of the books, the success of the Sam Raimi films, the lack of success from the Andrew Garfield led films and now the inevitable addition of Tom Holland into the MCU, we all know the Spider-Man origin story. Bit by a radioactive spider, with great power, comes (don’t worry, I’m not going to say it) and etc…For most of the general world, all we’ve ever known was Peter Parker as the one and only Spider-Man but instead of another reboot in which the first half of the first film must be a retelling of that very same origin story which has become played out public knowledge, Into the Spider-Verse injects a jolting bolt of radioactive venom into a formulaic genre.

     Miles Morales, an Afro-Latino adolescent, is unlike the Peter Parker we’ve come to know. An extroverted artist who enjoys hip-hop and graffiti but fails to excel at school despite the capability to succeed at it. He walks around the streets of Brooklyn exchanging pleasantries with the entire neighborhood like that distinguished Steadicam shot of Henry Hill walking through the back door of the Copacabana. The difference in tone is evident right out of the gate and the Lord and Miller produced film takes some not so subtle jabs at the films that came before it, like never ever mentioning the emo dance sequence from Spider-Man 3. The Peter B. Parker persona, the first Spider-man we are introduced to who comes from another dimension by way of the Collider, seems to be an allegory of the Queens resident created from the mind of the late Stan Lee (who because of his recent death provides his most heartfelt and emotional film cameo to date.) The chubby and older Spider-Man seems to lethargically go through the motions, laments all the personal slip-ups he’s made through his life and even wears a pair of his best Sunday sweatpants over his suit.

     Despite this, the film still celebrates all things Spider-Man and comes from a place of sheer love and admiration. For starters, the film is highlighted by its superb animation that I can honestly say is unlike any piece of art that I’ve ever seen animated before. It functions as a comic book that is loaded with cartoon tropes like Benday dots, hatching, thought bubbles, well-timed action words that serve as a punchline in its own-right and split screen images that read like several panels on a page. The most unique artistic decision was the frame-rate. Instead of the conventional 24 frames per second which provides a smooth and seamlessly transition from frame to frame, the film is shot in 12 frames per second, adding a slightly more choppy projection but adding emphasis to each frame as an individual work of art, not unlike a comic book. The animation provides endless opportunities like the different drawing styles of the other Spider-Men/Women/Pig, as well as the unique way they play with camera angles and gravity that would make it virtually impossible to accomplish during a live action film. I don’t suspect that I’m going out on a limb here when I say that I predict Spider-Verse will excel in the animation categories during award season.

     With the exception of the final fight sequence, in which the Collider is in effect and the whole scene is played larger than Kingpin’s gargantuan stature, the film resonates on a personal level. Most superhero films attempt to raise the stakes by putting the fate of the world or universe on the titular heroes shoulder’s (we’ve all seen now several times that floating alien vacuum ship hovering over a city). It seems that every Spider-Man must lose an uncle and Miles is no different. Miles’ friction with his father and even Kingpin’s past mishaps is to some extent understandable and make him a somewhat empathetic character. The film seems much more personal than some of the larger budget films of the same genre.

     All in all, Into the Spider-Verse, is just a great fun film. The idea of seeing several different heroes that represent different race, gender and nationality makes the film a cultural success, not just a technical achievement. The film explicitly states that anyone can wear the mask and its reassuring that a diverse audience can walk out of the theater donning that message.

   Welcome to MovieNotes! As we begin to publish our means across multiple social media platforms, I thought transparency would be a welcoming first gesture. We plan to provide a blueprint of our ambitions and as well as articulating our proprietary brand so you, our audience and followers, can fully hop on the MovieNotes bandwagon with unassailable self-regard and decorum.

   First things first, making films is an extremely difficult and grand task to accomplish. It’s a full steamed locomotive that doesn’t alter its speed until it reaches its destination regardless of the fact that the train flew off the tracks during pre-production. Hard-working and dedicated artists and technicians labor up to eighteen hours a day lasting from months or up to several years (most animated films now provide a list of credits deemed “Production Babies” during the credits because of how long it takes to make an animated film employees actually get pregnant and give birth during that timetable). I truly believe that every film should be applauded no matter how infallible or plagued a production turned out to be.

   Which leads me to my second point because sometimes when criticizing and analyzing films, the essence of championing art can seem to be abandoned when a particular film is badgered by the press for innumerable reasons. It’s certainly plausible and understandable that a reporter, who is involuntarily tethered to screen excruciatingly defective works of art, may want to relay his pugnacity through his fingertips and onto his word processing software. A hardened beat writer who fails to see originality and casts an air of pretentiousness through our culture is unbecoming. MovieNotes hopes to tightrope the precarious rope in which our writing can be informative, critical and entertaining without being ostentatious or lethargic. Civil discourse in academia like manner with a trace of humor is the objective. Whether one is discussing politics, sports or art, the topic should always follow the paths of an affable conversation without any animosity.

   The third detail is distinguishing the difference between film criticism and a movie review. The University of Vermont’s Libraries defines the difference between the two by saying “film criticism is the study, interpretation, and evaluation of a film and its place in cinema history. Film criticism usually offers an interpretation of its meaning, analysis of its structure and style, judgment of its worth by comparison with other films, and an estimation of its likely effect on viewers. Film theory (e.g. feminist, postmodernist, etc.) often informs the critical analysis of a film. Criticism may examine a particular film or may look at a group of films in the same genre, or a director's or actor's body of work. Film criticism differs from movie reviews in several ways: it entails both analysis and judgment; it may be published many years after a film is released; it is usually longer and more complex than a movie review. A movie review documents the critical reception of a film at its time of theatrical or DVD release. It is more "consumer-oriented," placing more emphasis on recommendation than analysis” (Vermont). All in all, nothing exists in a vacuum and our analysis will argue with or against a thesis by providing objective and subjective evidence. Our film reviews will only examine the film as one tangible piece of art.

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