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jrmystone-86057
Reviews
Manodrome (2023)
Intriguing, compelling... great watch
This film wasn't perfect but it was pretty darn close. The writing, directing & acting were all stellar. It is difficult to hit this type of movie on the mark but this team did it. It addressed almost impossible topics like a crushing economy, toxic masculinity, nationalism, mental health, sexuality....with surprising effectiveness.
That said, I can't fault critics for having the various dislikes they had with this flick. I fault these critics for missing the mark. This movie did what it aimed to, so if you are able to jump on that train it takes you for a great ride.
The pacing is especially well-done -- except for a couple conversational scenes that wax Matrix-esque. If you give in to the pacing, there are some great surprises, twists and extremely relatable emotional outbursts. When you look back you see all the breadcrumbs were there, you just didn't realize where it was leading you.
I suspect the second-most off-putting device for critics is the story-telling. It's not believable that one man would go through this entire story arc. But many men do go through many of these arcs and have many of these emotions and experiences. Most importantly, most of them feel alone in their journey. It is the writer's & director's challenge to fit many storylines into one believable story, and this movie was a success. It required some ghoulish plot twists (like you find in Hereditary) to get from start to finish but those made it even more compelling.
Which leads to the most off-putting device of this movie: It was meant to be realistically disturbing. Makes people uncomfortable. Feeling uncomfortably disturbed is not the most entertaining so, some people are going to balk.
If you like looking at the world's problems from the driver's seat, this is a great movie for it. I admit there were a couple times I was ready to give up on this movie but I stuck with it and am really glad I did.
Animal Kingdom (2016)
Toothless, disappointing writing
This title should have gotten a 10.... up until Season 6. But some pretty lazy writing took all the gas out of a pretty amazing show. The casting, acting and directing are stellar. Even the writing was pretty great, but starting about Season 5 or 6 the writing gets incredibly lazy.
The actors (esp. Ellen Barkin) and their writers built some pretty exquisite characters. Complex, lovably hate-able... People you can relate to them in surprisingly despicable ways. Now? They're just despicable, and that's not enough. Purely despicable writing is not quality, it's lazy. This show was always brusque and raw but even its deepest narcissism had finesse and nuance. Now it's just bare knuckles and blood. Feels like the last season was dumbed down for a low-brow audience. Not sure if it feels pandering or insulting...or both.
Despite the actors' amazing work, Season 6 turns all but Pope's characters into one-dimensional louts. It's a shame because it doesn't take that much effort to make a person's bad deeds understandable or even relatable. But the writers choose, instead, to insult Animal Kingdom fans by reducing Barkin's character to a heinous, hateful narcissist and all the other characters to little more than teen-angst adult-children with no depth. This was done to try and give Pope and J their moment (which COULD have been awesome!) but the final scene between those two missed so many marks it just fizzled.
Trashing Smurf to endear Pope is just lazy. There's a reason antiheroes have become so popular, but there's no antiheroism here and it's disappointing. We don't even love to hate any of the characters anymore which leaves this show basically nothing to chew on.
Split (2016)
No plot, no twist
First, credit to James McAvoy, he's always a stunning actor, but it was far from enough to redeem this waste of time and budget. Taylor Joy's character had zero substance, a real waste of Taylor Joy's talent. I mean seriously, why do people keep encouraging Shayamalan? His movies usually lack true intelligence and the supposed twists are never more than disappointments.
'Split' lacks cohesion and direction. The most cohesive part of the movie is McAvoy slipping from one personality to the next in rapid succession (which he does pretty well). When it comes time for a classic Shayamalan twist...there is none. So people should stop talking about it like there's a twist. The plot steps are so disjointed the 'surprise twist' makes just as much sense as everything else.
There has been one Shayamalan movie that was worth watching. This is not it. And somehow he still manages to rope top-notch talent??? That's the real plot twist here.
The Mimic (2020)
Hidden gem
For those who like a great psychological twister, this movie is a real treat. Quirky humor is not for everyone so the genius of this film will be lost on most. This film drops you in the middle of the protagonist's dilemma then asks you to help solve it with him. It adeptly shifts your mental center of gravity sidewise and sidewise, until you feel like the whole situation is completely upside down... only to find out that all is right-side up. If you don't mind feeling like your brain is in the spin-cycle, this film will tickle your curiosity bone.
Most flicks that are carried by one or two actors are a complete annoyance/failure, but the main actors in The Mimic do an amazing job. Both characters are complex, endearing & annoying and ya kinda love that about them. The acting is so convincing and compelling, you hardly realize an entire movie has passed before you're dropped off unexpectedly at the end.
The writing, directing and acting are all wonderfully cohesive, quirky, enticing, subtle, touching... genius. It got many belly laughs out of me, and even if you can't always relate to the protagonists' situations, you somehow feel a bit emotionally healed along with them by the end.
Totally worth the ride.