Looking forward to seeing this. I loved Renate Reinsve in The Worst Person in the World.
Incredibly affecting, rang very true.
I love One Battle but I think I’m giving this one the nod. I can’t imagine there will be a better picture this year.
Saw this one, and enjoyed it immensely. It's actually a relief at times, to get a beautifully made and truly subtle film, in which emotions of characters are genuine, but those of the audience are not manipulated in cliché ways. Not on the same level, but this film reminds me of some of the greatest subtle masterpieces of film, in things like Days of Heaven or Paris, Texas.
Caught up to this as well, after avoiding it due to some reviews. I dislike this film, with its scattershot, aimless narrative, and worse, completely ineffectual attempts at satirizing American culture and paranoia. The latter task--which lately should be easier than shooting dead, motionless, large fish in a barrel--escapes always awkward director Ari Aster, whom I do not regard as any sort of major talent. The end of this film tries to do so much it just gets hopelessly lost.
Finally got around to this one, I’d been putting it off, since a 2.5 hour picture that drags us back to the heart of the pandemic wasn’t screaming my name.
I give it a B/B-. It tried to pack in way too much and got pretty messy and very violent… but it underscores some important messages, especially about social media and the perils of being too online, conspiracy spiraling, etc.
Worthwhile, but it needed 20-30 mins trimmed off.
I think its best moments were when it followed the Western formula. We definitely saw this most clearly in the opening scene, but also a few times later. When it deviated from the formula, however, it started to fall apart. There was some excellent acting, particularly from Phoenix, but I'm not sure how much I cared about any of the characters by the end of the story.
It was an amazing film. Throwback type movie.
I read that Ari Aster had it written as a western and had been developing it when the pandemic hit, and he overhauled it to include those topical elements. I appreciated what he was trying to do, but it just got kinda muddled.
Watched it last night. A truly moving film.
Shows just how fragile and insignificant life can be. The people we meet along the way that we don’t even realize leave such a lasting impression. The ups and downs we go through in life and how in the end it can all seem meaningless in a way. What is truly the meaning of life ? I often ask myself that.
My daughter's said the same
Plan on seeing it this weekend.
I tried to watch this and couldn’t make more than 15 minutes. These fuckheads are insufferable and so far at least I refuse to believe this societal phase is inevitable. Armstrong really challenges you to stay with his despicable creatures and here I just couldn’t.
Mountainhead - Wow, everyone needs to see this. Jesse Armstrong, the genius behind the best writing in television history (and perhaps film as well), Succession, now has made a film. It's about tech bro billionaires getting together to take charge of the world through their social media monstrosities. With a Zuckerberg, a Musk (so hilarious in this), and other stand-ins for the human God-kings our world cowers under, this film blazes with righteous hatred for these people, using the fire of satire to napalm them. I say satire, and yet the real world people are just as lunatic as in this film, as we have seen and suffered through. The writing is steeped in their billionaire superior language, insanely great as Succession was, but crazier in egotism and more insulated still.
The two problems I have with this are that there is no clear, genuine story, though a good one lights a fuse then eventually fizzles, and that the horror these people create is only shown in news bits briefly seen on cell phones. Had the film cross-cut between the real world destruction and bloody suffering their media creates, it could have been far more than just satirical fun. Still, no film yet made sums up the catastrophe of social media and human black holes of personal morality (with some intelligence, admittedly) that are doing such damage to us, and our future.
Do not miss this one.
