watched past lives friday night, was great, I’d be fine with it winning best picture.
just finished with anatomy of a fall, not so great, I think it was solid, great acting, but as LKJ mentioned in his old post too long imo, just not compelling enough for that long. Def not a contender for best picture imo.
Also i have questions/comments about the storyline/ending etc:
She killed him imo. I don’t buy suicide, as seemed pretty evident by the recorded argument he loved his son a lot and to believe that he just offs himself leaving his son to find him possibly with no note and just that bullshit dog metaphor whatever you wanna call it I dont buy it at all. Theres proof shes hit him before, as the attorney said really doubtful thats the only time she ever hit him. She cheated multiple times, they had the argument the day before, she was obviously perturbed by the interruption. She claimed she put in ear plugs and went to sleep but then heard her son yelling, musta been cuz ear plug fell out yea ok sure. She doesn’t mention the fight, yes I guess if you were innocent and were worried a fight would look bad you wouldnt mention but a guilty person wouldnt either. She made it clear the guy was super careful when working and wasn’t even working in the window area, wasnt drinking, she had been though. Also yea that window is fairly high up but i dont think anywhere near a height that someone trying to kill themselves would consider a good height. The psychiatrist said he wasn’t suicidal, the recorded convo doesnt paint him as suicidal. There wasn’t any blood on the shed roof which i know they talked about but still come on. My feel was the kid made up the dog conversation in the car or at least embellished or decided to paint it as the dad talking about suicide so as to save his mom imo.
thoughts?
edit: gonna go see holdovers tomorrow night i think and then zone of interest likely friday night
I would go back and forth on this and ultimately have enough doubt that, if going by the American criminal justice system’s burden of proof, would vote to acquit. It’s a bit difficult to accept the suicide explanation just given how impractical of a jumping-off point he would have gone from, but it’s a bit too horrifying to think that she killed him and then waited inside and left her son to find the body. It did feel like the son found a story he could convince himself to believe in and then leaned into it when testifying.
I’ll say that I’m completely fine with the fact that they stayed intentionally vague on the ultimate answer, and actually regard it as a strength of the film.
If you’re interested, I thought The Big Picture did a great job with their deep-dive discussion of the film that starts at 1:12:00 of this episode.
Yea I do agree that as far as voting to convict you don’t really have enough evidence, I just think she did it. Agreed on the son leaning in, and yes I’m fine with it not being shown one way or the other and basically expected that going in.
Not knowing how to make the stupid blur bullshit work, I’ll just say this about AoaF: the director takes many deliberate steps to make it unambiguous as to what happened. Most people are wrong about it, somehow, b/c ppl are dumb.
Had the opposite reaction, where I felt there was no doubt that she was innocent. Like there’s no reason for her to have done it, and all the evidence presented by her side at the trial was more convincing than the other side’s. The podcast i listened to immediately after watching also all had similar impression. Not saying this is the correct answer btw, and i find it interesting (and to the film’s credit) that ppl may have different interpretations.
Also think its pretty clear the son is implied to have made up the final conversation, but this doesn’t mean she did it.
And while watching I only realized like an hour before the end that the movie wasn’t going to be giving us narrative closure (i should have figured this out earlier lol), its objectively fine and the right choice but in real time i was annoyed lol
Honestly, I just saw part of The Scout one time when flipping channels and stopping on Comedy Central, and it looked pretty awful. And since reviews largely backed up that impression after I looked, I can’t say I’ve really seen that one beyond a 15-20 minute chunk.
Lost in America is another worthwhile Brooks project, though it’s not as strong as some of the others.
Watched The Zone of Interest. It worked for me quite a bit better than Under the Skin did, and I did form an objective appreciation for it despite it being a film that is near impossible to conventionally enjoy.
There are films where it feels important for a viewer to avoid spoilers before first viewing, but this one exists on nearly the opposite pole. I surely appreciated this more for the knowledge I had of it in advance, that I knew not to expect any sort of strong narrative to drive the film, and to instead just take it in from the first minute as a work where I should be trying to explore everything in the shots and to keep my ears pricked to take in a vivid aural experience. On those points, the film absolutely delivers; it’s beautifully shot, and the soundscape was compelling. If you’re looking for a good story then you’re not going to get it, and that’s something better accepted up front than midway through.
For the reasons that I’ve said, it defies easy rating or ranking. It feels deserving of having made the Best Picture field, but again it just sort of feels like it’s operating in a lane all its own…so I’ll keep it simple and say that I wouldn’t vote for it to win, but that it feels like its awards nominations are well-earned.
