Reviews Worth Reading
Without Joe’s perspective of the world he hates, there’s nothing – not even resentment – with which we can empathize. Joe is left merely with things we can’t condone. This doesn’t prevent it from stopping your blood with its performances. The depth of Cage’s eyes describes hurt in ways that words fail.
Truth or Dare, at least the fifth film with that exact name, is wallowing in convention rather than reapplying it, hoping you’ll forgive it for not having any mirrors to see itself in while hiding the hammer that smashed them behind its back.
Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much was Day’s proof of concept, which based on her further career everyone seemed to ignore. That Touch of Mink, a film that makes Cary Grant look like he’s not an actor, is just the kind of spineless jaunt that I hate to associate her with.
The aspect of rebellion in Fight Club makes it the anthem of a cinematic generation, who may not understand it at all. Remember, “the first rule of fight club is that you do not talk about fight club.” If you argued about its philosophy, its meaning, its impact, its significance, the movie would punch you in the nose.
For Buster, falling in love always amounts to running around. Of all his films, The Scarecrow conjures up the most idealized, literal Keaton. It is one of his shortest films, but remember: for Buster, this only means that he’s tuckered out sooner. So are we, in the best possible way.
Reservoir Dogs is the kind of art you don’t understand but “appreciate.” Unlike QT’s Kill Bill, which is too busy not apologizing for being a movie to have a sermon hidden under its jumpsuit, this one acts obnoxiously like it has something to say even though it’s up to you to figure it out.
Peter Rabbit (2018) is awkward. It’s a heap of a film, and not at all because it’s different. Even the best satire is stuffed with sincerity, like a rabbit full of radishes he’s insisting just up and disappeared. Without it, there’s nothing but smugness.
Franco performs Tommy with affectionate realism but directs him with too much ambiguous charity, as though The Disaster Artist is the film in which Wiseau finally gets to be the hero, even if no one can quite figure out why.
Alien: Resurrection is not unified by its cynicism as Robocop was. It’s not a satire of us, but just a satire of Alien movies. It’s never boring and that’s actually something, in the realm of fourth entries. The reason this film is in the category of “Everyone Else is Wrong” is not because I think it’s good, but because I don’t know what people were expecting.
The first thing that must be clear about Her is that it is not satirical: its future is a believable take on a theme of hipster consumerism. Its people are realistically quirky. They are surrounded by fakery but they are not fake. They are peculiar and humane, rediscovering their spirits in a backwards world. Jonze excels at telling a story of us exaggerated into its essentials.