My TOG cast and crew movie reviews
Ok so watching TOG revived the part of me that LOVES indie-ish/European Arthouse films and I blitzed through a bunch with more to come! Idk who this review serves but I just had to explode in writing or...the feelings would go nowhere.
Favourite parts: the conflict between a tomboy sports loving protagonist and a conventional homemaking mother. To sound cliched, this is the sort of thing only a woman filmmaker can bring out in her films. Thereâs so much nuance and tension expressed in all the individual women in the film and where that lies in the enforced dichotomy of woman/not a woman--thereby highlighting that IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN A DICHOTOMY all of these are in the broad spectrum of womanly behaviors bc they come from women!!! The ending where a husband supports his wife in HER basketball game? LOVE THAT. Music choices are also A++ in this film.
The film also provides some insight into respectability politics--here we have an NBA player who wants his son to do something more conventionally ârespectableâ. I am not American nor am I Black so someone with more insight would be able to speak to this better, but even so as an audience I could feel it!
TOG cast rating: none, bc itâs the director!! This is Gina Prince-Bythewoodâs breakout film but you can palpably feel that she poured her heart and perhaps some of her life experiences in this film!
Donât understand the movie, slightly put off by the Nietzschean individualist philosophy. Doubly so after I read that the author of the book (Jack London) is a socialist?? (FTR so am I so like...Iâve had enough of white male indivudalism!!) Stuff like that always reminds me of (500) Days of Summer which is anti-manic pixie dream girl and yet is beloved by aspiring MPDG-philes. Here is a quote from the author himself: London wrote, "One of my motifs, in this book, was an attack on individualism (in the person of the hero). I must have bungled it, for not a single reviewer has discovered it."
Though I have not read the book, I hope the movie is a little more pronounced, in the unraveling of the eponymous protagonist. He moves through the gamut of individual politics as the protagonist moves through life and goes through a whole bunch of political beliefs in reaction to the situation around him.
I love movies that show the impoverished side of Europe though. The movie does a good job of showing the class conflict within society--at the end of the day, the Martin Eden that has risen through the social ladder is a self-despising man. The bread mopping scene is great, and truly, there is no love for Luca Martinelli like the cameraâs love for Luca Martinelli. I love Lucaâs bad teeth in this too. Dental health is possibly one of the most obvious, yet most unremarked markers of social class. Nice detail.
TOG cast rating: 5/5 Luca really carries this film on his broaaaaad shoulders. Thank you Luca. Thank you Pietro, for making a movie that lingers so lovingly on Lucaâs face, inspiring many a writer to pen horny paeans to the Roman nose and the Byzantine eyes. I even saw one about the lop of hair over the eyes. YesâŚ.watching Luca is a very physiological experience.
They Call Me Jeeg (Lo Chiamavano Jeeg Robot)
Ok this movie is quite male-gazey in the conventional action movie way. Moments where the damsel is in distress are filmed in a somewhat titillating manner. That aside, the damsel in distress does get a moment of glory, though it shortly precedes her death. The hero of the film I also found not too groundbreaking. He starts out as a thief but is given superpowers, and heâs mostly a sad loser who watches too much porn in his free time, though the damselâs belief in him helps turn him around to the greater good. The story moves at a quick pace and with twists and turns at each corner which help the enjoyability rating.
Really, the standout of this movie is the villain. Fabio (Lo Zingaro) is fantastically deranged, in a style that surpasses the Joker. The only thing I truly have to say about this movie is that the moment where Lo Zingaro barges in on the hero and the camera POV switches from third person to first person and the hero is on the verge of fainting but all he sees is Lo Zingaro saying âCiaoâ.........reader, I am speaking from the afterlife. Again, truly, there is no love for Luca Marinelli like the cameraâs love for Luca Marinelli. My heart stopped when I saw Fabioâs face in such a tender, loving proximity...and yet...he is deranged...he wants to kill youâŚ.TAKE ME NOW FABIO I AM YOURS *lovelorn Victorian sigh*
Perhaps I might issue a CW that there is a trans character in the film. The character doesnât appear for too long, and I think the portrayal is mostly neutral to borderline negative for playing to stereotypes.
TOG cast rating: 5/5 just for that 1st person POV scene alone--that was life changing. I did not expect to be greeted so intimately by a completely deranged motherfucker. I want it as my phone wallpaper.
I loooooooved Bigger Splash so much?? But this is because I love Tilda Swinton and I love Ralph Fiennes. While watching this, I donât know why, but I just kept thinking, aaaaand this guy is also Voldemort (Fiennes). I love the implausibility and yet here we are.
Matthias is so boyfriend-shaped in this movie, I wanted to snuggle up against him and have him care for me. Heâs a wonderful boyfriend, and Ralph Fiennesâs character truly, is the Most Annoying Mansplainer type ever, like, youâve probably met that type, who thinks heâs slick and loves the sound of his own voice and I 100% related when Matthiasâs character just...has had enough of Ralph Fiennesâs character. But oopsie, the rest is a spoiler.
THE SOUNDTRACK IS AWESOME also itâs got St Vincent covering the Rolling Stones and St Vincent is the lesbian guitar hero of your dreams, please give St Vincent more love.
TOG cast rating: 5 / 5 Matthias is butt naked in the opening scenes of the movie, and then he appears full frontal nude later on. But mostly he just looks so snuggly like a big boyfriend hoodie.
Wow ok I LOVED THIS ONE A LOT. Idk what I was expecting, but it was a beautiful, beautiful ride. Itâs a perfect expression of the âroadtrip storyâ form. Itâs got the adventure, the hijinks, the conflict and the âtransformative growthâ that comes out of the conflict. Itâs about the MENA immigrant experience in Europe, and though from a different community as someone whoâs had the immigrant experience myself I loved the part where they talk about people back home thinking theyâre rich for having moved abroad. Yet--in many white-dominated countries, non-white immigrants live under an incredibly bulletproof glass ceiling and moving âupwardâ in society is a pipe dream. I loved when the main character Nadir mentions his dadâs taxi being a reliable source of income for the past 15 years. I think itâs such a warm and human film played by very warm and human characters, and [mild spoiler] I CACKLED SO MUCH at how Nadir âresolvesâ the question of marriage--I canât go into too much detail bc the movie builds up to this but I LAUGHED SO MUCH. Itâs the blend of total inappropriateness delivered in the most sincere package played to perfection.
TOG cast rating: 3/5 criminally underused Marwan bc he is not the main character. Marwan is a womanizing, alcohol-loving Tunisian friend in this story who buys a...bootleg? Hugo Boss suit for 200 Euros and then rips it up to form shorts bc the weather is too hot. The story implies he has a more complex backstory re: his relationship to his father as well as having impregnated a girl and escaping paternal responsibility for that but doesnât give us much more. At one point, one character remarks that he would do âhorribleâ things (implying sexual interest) to Marwanâs character and ALAS I MUST AGREE.
...AAAAAND weâll have more to come!! I promised a friend to watch Beale Street together so itâs gonna take a while for that to happen thx covid.
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