wattsnew
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Post by wattsnew on Aug 22, 2019 22:35:34 GMT
Holy shit. This movie was fucking incredible. Greatest film of 2019, hands down. The screenplay, the direction, the cinematography, the lighting, the editing, the MUSIC, and the ACTING!!! This whole ensemble is crazy good. Tim Roth is good although with the least interesting character. Andrea Bang and Marsha Stephanie Blake made me tremble and physically shake with tears in my eyes as I witnessed their brief scenes. Octavia Spencer gives her best performance to date and I was entranced by her here. She made me hate her and love her character at the same time. Kelvin Harrison Jr. is an absolute revelation here, in one of the most stunningly chilling performances I’ve seen in years. Every single acting choice he makes here is absolutely brilliant and unexpected. I was left chilled to the bone and gasping by an acting choice he made towards the end of this film.
And then there’s Naomi Watts. Wow. WOW. SHE IS UNBELIEVABLE here. Absolute perfection. Her best performance in years. There were certain parts of this film where she was just so astonishingly good that I had to stand up and start clapping in the theater, with tears in my eyes again, just thinking about how much I love her. She is the greatest actress of all time, I don’t care what you all think, but she truly is.
She very skillfully vacillates between a range of tones; she's protective, then questioning, then paranoid, then protective again, then petrified. (And yes, that's how she's supposed to do it.) She's sultry. She's goofy. She acts slightly absurd. She's fully engaged. She's expressive in ways that "technically superior" actresses just aren't. She is brilliant. You have no idea how brilliant she is.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 23, 2019 20:38:57 GMT
6.5+ (but not a 7) Well acted improbabilities are still improbabilities and they can't overcome the scenarios laid out in this film. The movie takes an inorganic premise and for a while gets a ton out of it but then at a certain point you feel the movie messing with you rather than the characters messing with each other. The best scene in the film is the "fnck this - fnck you" scene between Roth-Watts because that scene is grounded and believable. Roth is great in this film in a thankless role - note the way he points his finger at Watts in a scene that starts with flirty overtones drifts to a self-pity critique and then to something bubbling underneath. They are perfect together - the most believable married professional couple I've seen in a while actually. Spencer and Harrison are good too but its too much platitudes and straining credulity. that scene in her house is a tornado of great acting in the middle of "this would never happen" logic lapses - it just collapses because it rings false One thing that gets this over is how the kids talk to each other - the kid who plays DeShaun has one of the best acted scenes "we all need one Obama" - full of ominous undercurrent and sad POV. |
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wattsnew
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Likes: 347
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Post by wattsnew on Aug 24, 2019 4:22:36 GMT
The best scene in the film is the "fnck this - fnck you" scene between Roth-Watts because that scene is grounded and believable. Roth is great in this film in a thankless role - note the way he points his finger at Watts in a scene that starts with flirty overtones drifts to a self-pity critique and then to something bubbling underneath. They are perfect together - the most believable married professional couple I've seen in a while actually. That scene you mentioned was largely improvised actually. |
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Post by Sharbs on Sept 2, 2019 5:36:46 GMT
Spellbinding. I do think it baits the audience a bit too much. I can't even try to delve into the nuances without at least another viewing or I change, myself.
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Film Socialism
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99.9999% of rock is crap
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Post by Film Socialism on Nov 23, 2019 15:47:56 GMT
this marks the last hollywood film i will love until disney is overthrown. man what a great movie, i like ones that go in all sorts of thematic directions, and the lack of clarity on anything reminded me a lot of The Leftovers. probably my movie of the year atm, very exciting cinema. anyone catch it yet? edit: thanks to the mod who moved my thread here  |
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Post by themoviesinner on Nov 23, 2019 16:35:56 GMT
It was a very good film, well-written and poignant. The only thing I somewhat didn't like was the overdramatization of certain moments. In my opinion a more detached approach would have helped the film even more. Still, this is among the most interesting films of the year for sure.
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 23, 2019 16:50:43 GMT
There's another thread on this film but I liked the acting far more than the script - the script counts on an uncanny amount of behavioral actions spinning around illogical plot points. Those start at around the mid-point of the film but Watts and Roth are an achingly real life evoking couple and Harrison and Spencer are quite good in less believable roles.
You could make a case Spencer is nodworthy and utterly forgotten this year - it's not her fault at all that the writing undercuts her, she can only play the cards she's dealt after all.
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Post by stephen on Dec 1, 2019 3:15:07 GMT
It had several moments of strong acting, particularly from Spencer and Harrison, Jr., but the story was workmanlike and slight, and I feel its moral complications felt pallid compared to something like We Need to Talk About Kevin.
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Post by JangoB on Dec 10, 2019 13:06:50 GMT
Muddled piece of mediocrity with some decent performances (except for the titular character himself - Harrison overplays the niceness way too much which makes him far less ambiguous than the movie would like to suggest) and perhaps the worst piece of original score of the year. Add to that the dull muted inexpressive photography and the desire to be about Big Things without actually diving into of that stuff properly...Man, Watts, Roth and Spencer really save it all.
The Cloverfield Paradox >>>
tbh...
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Post by Viced on Jan 8, 2020 16:50:43 GMT
Worst ending of the year? Outside of the obvious awful stuff (like Jojo Rabbit) I'd say it is. For what seemed like Build-up: The Movie, this really went nowhere interesting. The score (that sounded like it was out of a bad horror movie) kept making it seem like this was gonna go super dark... I was waiting for Luce to start blowing up buildings or something instead of just being an enigma the whole movie. I think it really needed to put most of the focus on one of the characters instead of half-assing all four. Definitely somewhat saved by the acting though... Octavia Spencer was great, Tim Roth (whose character was most let down by the movie) had some terrific moments, Naomi Watts was solid........ but Kelvin Harrison Jr... I wasn't buying what he was selling. The best thing about the movie is the alternate ending I imagined where Octavia Spencer (as Ma) comes out of nowhere and runs Luce over at the end.  |
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jan 9, 2020 5:49:35 GMT
yeah I really didn't like this. The kind of stagey Big Ideas movie that I loathe, and surely this Luce fellow has to be the most annoying movie character of 2019.  |
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Post by dadsburgers on Feb 6, 2020 5:20:06 GMT
Man, that movie was a ride and a half. It was definitely uneven in places and I'm not sure where I stand on it yet, but it certainly left me thinking. I'll probably be thinking about it for a long time. It didn't get a whole lot of traction upon release, but I could see this one becoming a bit of a slow burn in some circles that will eventually grow a reputation through word of mouth. Maybe it's because I found the whole thing devastating. Trying to figure out whose side I was on at any given time, I feel like everyone was truly trying to be good in some way, but was just totally incapable of doing so in any way. They all did some pretty gross things at one point or another, and what happened to Harriet was particularly horrifying, even if you argue she deserves it |
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Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Mar 16, 2020 20:09:14 GMT
Worst ending of the year? Outside of the obvious awful stuff (like Jojo Rabbit) I'd say it is. For what seemed like Build-up: The Movie, this really went nowhere interesting. The score (that sounded like it was out of a bad horror movie) kept making it seem like this was gonna go super dark... I was waiting for Luce to start blowing up buildings or something instead of just being an enigma the whole movie. I think it really needed to put most of the focus on one of the characters instead of half-assing all four. Definitely somewhat saved by the acting though... Octavia Spencer was great, Tim Roth (whose character was most let down by the movie) had some terrific moments, Naomi Watts was solid........ but Kelvin Harrison Jr... I wasn't buying what he was selling. The best thing about the movie is the alternate ending I imagined where Octavia Spencer (as Ma) comes out of nowhere and runs Luce over at the end. I swear to God, at the end I was fully expecting what's under your spoiler tag to happen...or was at least hoping for it. |
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