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Reviews
Beau Is Afraid (2023)
The most polarizing I have ever seen...
Let's get this out of the way first: I love Ari Aster. I think he is an amazing Director and I definitely love the vision he goes for on every project he makes. So when I heard about this movie, I was excited to go see it but events happened that got in the way. I didn't see this movie until a few months later and... God this movie is weird. It is the first movie I have seen where I legitimately can't figure out what to rate it. I'm in no way saying it's a bad movie. For the most part, this movie is pretty damn good. All of the acting is good, I loved Joaquin Phoenix's performance throughout. The cinematography is immaculate, especially during the 10 minute dream sequence which is filmed beautifully along with an amazing score. The rest of the music is pretty good too, and I think the idea of it is pretty great because you can put your own twist on what it's actually about. So then what is the biggest problem with it? Well, the pacing is all over the place. In the first 45 minutes of the movie, Beau loses his luggage, homeless people break into his house, the guy at the counter of the convenience store tries to have him arrested, his mom dies, and then during a bath he's attacked by a homeless man hanging from the ceiling and he runs out but naked and gets run over by a food truck after a cop tried to kill him... I have only seen this movie twice and I don't even know if I want to watch it again honestly. It's just so in your face and over the top and maybe that was the point, maybe it was supposed to be uncomfortable to watch, but God is this movie uncomfortable to watch. I feel like this movie is actually amazing once you understand what it's really about but they just shove so much meta subtle commentary down your throat at some points that I feel like I have to pray to God I don't choke to death before the climax. There's commentary about familial trauma, Family secrets, gaslighting, manipulation, peer pressure, drug dependence, and all of it is portrayed really well but it's just sensory overload. But that's honestly all I can really say, I could write a 10 page essay about this movie because it is just so perplexing.
Blue Beetle (2023)
The Most Cookie Cutter Superhero Movie Ever Made!
I'm going to be completely honest here: as a comic book fan, I have never actually read any of blue Beatles solo comics so those might be good, but this movie really doesn't showcase that. This just might be the most cookie cutter superhero movie that was ever created. As a comic book based movie, it should attempt to make those who are unfamiliar with a character walk away from it knowing the baseline stuff so that they are more inclined to read the comics to know more. Here however, this movie did great in doing absolutely NOTHING TO MAKE ME CARE ABOUT BLUE BEETLE!!! It's not even like it's shockingly bad, it just does nothing new. The baseline story is about a boy in a dysfunctional family that stumbles upon new technology and hast to learn how to deal with it while low slow stopping an evil threat that wishes to take over the world for the price of her own greed. What are Jaime's motives in the first place? I don't know, I think they told me but he's so one-dimensional that I don't even care about his goals if he even had any. He didn't even have a motivation to keep wearing the suit at the end, his dad had to randomly die from some medical condition in order for him to be motivated. What is his connection with his dad? I don't know they really only shared 2 1/2 scenes together so who knows? The effects were pretty good, especially with the suits, I liked the fight scenes even though they were very few and far between but beyond that there's really nothing unique about this movie. The main character is a normal teenage boy. The main villain is an evil scientist. Sure they try to make it interesting by having the right hand man kill the villain out of a change of heart but that's not really a plus because that's been done so many times. Like I said it's not a terrible movie, that's why I didn't give it a three out of 10 and there are some redeeming qualities. I thought the guy who played Jaime did an good job, The effects like I said were pretty damn phenomenal, and actually pretty exciting, and I did get a few laughs out of George Lopez being the stereotypical dirtbag uncle troop but other than that what's the point in watching this when I can watch a movie like Spider-Man across the spider verse or guardians of the galaxy three which actually go in a completely different direction from the normal and I highly recommend those movies. This one however, you're missing nothing if you skip it.
Umma (2022)
When The Movie Poster is More Interesting Than The Actual Movie
Let me start off by saying that this movie came out about the same time as X, a horror movie that I really enjoyed and really recommend if you are an avid movie lover. However, I was not able to get a ticket for X due to it being too late so I saw Umma instead. Where do I even begin with this one? How about we start off with the fact that I actually never made it through the full movie. Not because it was unbearable or unwatchable, but because this movie is just an hour and a half of nothing happening. The pacing a slow, the writing is clunky, the dialogue is super cliché regardless of the character, even the acting is nothing special with Sandra Oh starring as the generic protagonist who was haunted by a dark past, one of which is never fully explained, it's brought up maybe once or twice but never fully explored. What were left with is just a movie or bad things happen for a non specific reason. My recommendation is if you have to choose between watching this and X, please just watch X.
X (2022)
Ti West Does It Again!
Ti West, the man that helped bring us VHS and The Inkeepers, returns back to the big screen with, "X." When I first saw the trailer for this during a screening of Studio 666, I was immediately intrigued. Not only because it had the A24 banner attached to it, The company that helped to bring us movies such as the Florida Project, Good Time, and The Lighthouse, but it also contained a lot of unique elements to it such as slasher tropes made famous by movies like Halloween, mixed with some of the elements you would see typically laced in me and scream horror movies like Jumpscares or fake outs. However, when I actually viewed the movie, I was left speechless. The cinematography was my favorite part, how it was able to make the movie looks so retro while simultaneously incorporating scenes that looked as if they were filled on a 1970s camera. The transitions are well done giving a compare and contrast to the life of the filmmakers to the life of the farmer and his wife. Then to get the spoilers out of the way, this movie has some of the most classic and unique kills I have seen since the days of Elm Street and Friday the 13th. Lots of blood, violence, fornication, all things you would expect from a horror movie but done in a way that makes you want more. But my favorite part of the movie has to be the overall story. I love how they made it this one big allegory for The sex industry in the 70s and how the main characters live their lives free and full of corruption while the main villain, pearl, is envious of their youth because she is past her prime and not able to do the things she used to because her husband has a heart condition. The only pure character in the movie ends up caving into the corruption she is surrounded in, and the main character fills her life with drugs and sex so she doesn't have to cave into the societal pressures brought in to her world by her father. Another detail I would like to share is that I love that Mia goth plays both Maxine and Pearl. I love how it's the showcase that they are essentially foils or parallels of one another. How Pearl serves as a symbol for everything Maxine doesn't wanna grow up to be. I highly recommend this movie if you love A24 or just slasher movies in general. Definitely looking for to, "Pearl," when it comes out.