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The Art of Self-Defense (2019)
A decent movie except for one thing...
This was actually a pretty decent movie and had its share of amusing moments. I'd probably give it a 6/10 or thereabouts if I wasn't leaving this review to make a point. Although funny, it only succeeded at inducing a few chuckles and lacked any "laugh out loud" moments. I'm willing to give some benefit of the doubt on that point to the deadpan delivery, though. In addition to that, however, pretty much all of the funniest moments - like too many movies these days - were in the trailer, or at least alluded to in it, with the remaining portion of the scenes mostly just extending the run time without adding much to them. The only one I can think of that was really an exception from that rule is when Casey finally gets a seat at the "man table" at work. It's been a while since the movie came out, so this didn't ruin it for me because I hadn't actually seen the trailer recently prior to watching the movie. If I had, I imagine I would've been substantially more upset.
The part of the movie that warranted the 1-star review, however, was the theme running from roughly the middle of the movie to the end. When I saw that the movie was a dark comedy about toxic masculinity gone too far, I was fine with that. I think the term is applied too broadly these days and that virtuous masculinity could benefit from some advocacy, but I've known my fair share of people who exhibit behaviors that put them in that camp and deserve some mockery. At any rate, the bottom line for judging a comedy should be that if it's funny, it's funny, regardless of subject matter. But then the movie strays from poking fun at toxic masculinity into wholesale feminist propaganda. Worse, it does it badly. The token female character, Anna, is a cardboard cutout, a stereotype who gets zero character development beyond establishing that she's an oppressed woman. I'd put 'oppressed' in scare quotes, but the writer(s) were competent enough to make potential use of the word to describe her accurate, although only barely. At any rate, once this is established, the story is quickly wrapped up in logical but underwhelming fashion.
In all honesty, I'm actually not mad that the movie included that, because the overall plot of "scrawny loser going too far in trying to become a 'real man' then redeeming his excesses and saving the girl, finally becoming said real man in the process" is actually a solid framework. What irritated me is that the "toxic masculinity gone wild to hilarious comedic effect" never seemed to fully materialize and the "oppressed woman" aspect was so trite and seemed tacked on. Not to sound conspiratorial, but it's almost as if the movie was written to make a point about "social justice" and the rest of it was an afterthought. Y'know. Like 95% of the movies coming out these days. Okay, maybe 95% is hyperbolic, but you get my point. There was no subtlety. The movie was barely more the framework it was attempting to build off of, barely had any meat on its bones. It was an emaciated effigy of a comedy.
Bottom line? The movie had great potential but failed to live up to it. I'm perfectly willing to laugh the excesses of my own, just don't insult my intelligence in the process.
The Perfection (2018)
Not the most original concept, but done with solid execution.
My girlfriend picked this, and after maybe 20-30 minutes I found myself wondering what they were going to do with the rest of the movie considering the whole "couple of girls lost in the Chinese back country" plot from the preview had more or less played itself out already. While the movie didn't go in the most original direction, it was structured in a way that kept me guessing about what exactly the final twist(s) would be for a reasonable amount of time. I happen to enjoy dark humor and the macabre, so I rather enjoyed the final scenes, but I can totally see how others might be put off by it. Overall I'd say it's a solid watch and I regret nothing, but likewise feel no compunction in admitting it was a far cry from groundbreaking material.
As a side note, I have to admit I'm kind of getting tired of the rape theme coming up in practically every other bit of media I consume these days... I get that awareness of women's issues is part of the zeitgeist and all that, but it feels like inundating people with it might have the opposite of the intended effect on a broad scale vis a vis robbing it of its impact. That said, if the idea is going to be woven into a story this movie was a solid example of how to go about it. You find out early on that something is up with the older girl, but the implications of it aren't dwelt upon endlessly and her aunt's condition is a good use of misdirection. Likewise, the amount of pressure the girls are under to perform at that high level is communicated well enough to give the impression that the main focus of the movie is going to be on their conflict with each other. The twist to explain what happens in the Chinese back country is perhaps a bit far-fetched, but considering that it's a return to some semblance of normalcy in relation to vomiting maggots and bugs crawling under the younger girl's skin, as well as its framing in context of the rivalry between the two, it blends in well enough with the overall aesthetic of the story not to break suspension of disbelief if you take the movie on its own terms. Finally, the girl's victory at the end is amenable because a) they never went "Super Saiyan" and displayed unrealistic capabilities, b) it came at a not-insignificant cost to both, giving it reasonable narrative weight, and b) even if one objects to their actions, the protagonist's fury was narrowly channeled at their actual victimizers with whom they had a genuine grievance. Obviously in real life one would hope the background events of the plot would be handled via the proper legal avenues in a civilized fashion, but as fiction the plot works as a sort of Kill Bill style revenge story with a relatively unintrusive side of "girl power" messaging.
Når dyrene drømmer (2014)
Simple, but effective, werewolf movie.
Personally, I liked this movie. It has a simple, raw sort of charm in a time when so many movies are being made with complex, twisting plots just for the sake of seeming "complex" and "deep", but closer inspection reveals that half the plot points don't make sense, don't tie together, seem completely extraneous or even outright contradict each other. This movie avoids those pitfalls by stripping the narrative development down to the bare bones of what's necessary to tell the story. I can understand why this would be somewhat jarring for modern viewers, given what I've previously said, but personally I found it a bit refreshing.
One of my few complaints is that the dialogue does seem a little too sparse to the point of seeming unnatural at times, even for the creative direction the movie was taken in, but it makes up for it with an intensity I can't quite fully describe in many of its scenes. For example, in one scene Marie is spoon feeding her mother and misses her mouth, getting food on her face. At first it seems like it was because she's distracted by the TV and/or her own thoughts, but then she turns to her mother and starts intentionally smearing the food over her face until her father notices. He becomes irate, asking Marie what she's doing at which point Marie storms out of the room after angrily demanding to know what, exactly, is even wrong with her. This scene only has two lines of dialogue, but it perfectly captures Marie's frustration over being so in the dark regarding her family's situation and the fact that it seems like she may be starting to suffer from the same condition as her mother has been all these years, whatever that may be.
That pretty much sums up the movie, actually... an intense but minimalist experience that substitutes raw energy for anything beyond the most basic exposition. Well, verbal exposition, anyway. There's plenty of non-verbal cues to tell you what's going on, but I guess that's what I would describe as the "energy" of it... looks exchanged between two characters, facial expressions, the pace of their stride. Things like that are put to extremely effective use to tell this tale as well as the movie manages to do so. Once again, it's probably not for everyone, especially viewers used to modern Hollywood flicks, but it's very well done (IMHO) and a refreshing movie experience.