I’ve long held the opinion that Good Will Hunting is overrated. Upon rewatch, I must say: I get the raves more than I used to. It’s a great movie.
As unpopular 90s movies takes go, though: Jurassic Park is still wildly overrated, with all due respect to an extremely enjoyable Jeff Goldblum performance. And I gave that one another shot like 2-3 years ago. My underwhelmed teenage self was right.
It’s not your fault.
edgy
Just watched the Northman. So damn dark (low light). It was good but not the 90% on RT. Viewer rating of 64 makes more sense.
2/5 on the Sisu scale for vengeful Scandavians.
I’d like to see a Norse/Viking movie where the mysticism is believed by the people but clearly bullshit.
The inspiration goes back to a job Tarantino had as a teen, loading porn magazines into a vending machine and emptying quarters out of the cash dispenser. “All the other stuff was too skanky to read, but then there was this porno rag that had a really interesting movie page,” he told Bamigboye. There was one critic in particular Tarantino liked, who wrote snarky and smart as the second-string critic.
Past Lives is now on Paramount. Everyone who hasn’t seen it should view now as the time put it at the front of your streaming queue.
Watching it Saturday, thanks for the reminder
For the Canadians here it’s on Amazon prime.
Another broadly recommendable A24 film also just recently hit Paramount: You Hurt My Feelings. If you saw Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s past film Enough Said, where she co-starred with James Gandolfini, this is a JLD reunion with the same director, and IMO this movie is as good or better.
It operates on a small scope and is altogether understated, so I won’t devote the same superlatives to it that I do to other films, but it absolutely works.
Loved Enough Said and been meaning to watch it again. Thanks for this.
Benny Safdie disappears so hard into this role. It’s not just that he’s playing the wholesome father with no twists to it, but he’s incredibly charming. During the same year that he plays a huge creep on The Curse and plays a duplicitous supporting role in Oppenheimer. None of these three characters feel like they have basically any overlap between them. Dude is some sort of chameleon.
Rachel McAdams is the standout here since she gets more to do, but I really can’t believe how sharp of a casting Safdie turned out to be for this.
lol me I didn’t realize it was him till this post!
Ha, well obviously there’s no better way to illustrate how well he disappeared into it. Obviously helps that they can toy with his look to switch him up quite a bit visually, but still, his usual darkness just 100% disappears in this movie. Even in the one scene where he and McAdams get in an argument, it’s about the most mature marital argument from both characters that you’ll see portrayed in a movie.
Maybe the Rewatchables will finally do Rocky in tribute to Weathers.
Sports radio guys side topic last night was about movie/tv adversaries. The “bad guy” that you still root for or becomes a good guy. Fell asleep before too many got mentioned.
Johnny from Karate Kid
Darth Vader
I thought of the Predator and T-1000
The food critics from The Chef and Ratatouille.
Royal Hotel (2023j
From the same director and lead as The Assistant, and on the same themes of male sexual aggression towards women, but not as good. Starts out great building tension but doesn’t really land the plane.
Check out The Assistant instead. It’s a pretty harrowing view into what it would have been like to work at Miramax.
Grade: B
Alien is just trying to live its life as an apex predator and the humans keep trying to exterminate it like the Tasmanian tiger. Sad.
This looks great.
‘Skin Deep’ Review: A Stunning Sci-Fi Debut That Transcends Body Horror
Seeking a retreat where they can salvage their struggling relationship, young couple Leyla (Mala Emde) and Tristan (Jonas Dassler) travel to a remote island at the invitation of Leyla’s childhood friend Stella, where it soon becomes clear that what the island offers is more mysterious than a simple vacation. Leyla and Tristan join another couple in a ritual to exchange bodies and see the world through the eyes of someone else – a chance to find themselves or, for some of them, a chance at escape. Free from the constraints of her former body, Leyla quickly finds she has never been happier, with a fresh outlook on life and a new sense of release and fulfillment. But when she refuses to return to her old self, the situation threatens to spiral out of control. Subverting genre and gender as it toggles from body swap thriller to intimate relationship drama, Skin Deep tells a story that transcends bodies, embracing the endless fluid possibilities in the question of what it means to truly love someone.