Log: week 51 / 2018
Doc on the making of Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind. It paints Welles as a complacent director and brings together a bunch of survivors that are more keen to appear on camera rather than tell their story. Even so, behind all the smoke and bullshit there are some (though few) interesting things to be seen.
Serkis' version may not having singing bears, but it does feature talking animals. A damn shame for a film that tries to deliver a somewhat darker and more mature version of Jungle Book. The fact that the animation is rather poor and that the character designs are completely off doesn't help either. Pretty bad.
Decent but somewhat overwrought Hong Kong thriller. Nick Cheung is an okay director, he just lacks what makes other directors great. The film takes itself a little too serious, luckily it looks pretty good and there are some fine action sequences to take your mind off things. Decent filler, but it's a shame it tried to be more.
Another health doc, this time about sugar. Like most health docs, the presenter thinks too highly of himself and the doom message is a little hard to swallow. I'm sure there are some stone cold facts hidden away in here, it's just too much trouble fishing them out of the pile of rubbish that surrounds them.
Welles' final film, finally completed. I'm not a big Orson Welles fan, this pompous, self-important film about film didn't do much to change my mind about him. The editing is poor, the dialogue is grating and the running time is impossible to defend. He should've taken it to the grave with him.
The first 30 minutes are a little challenging and little more than cheap genre fare, the following hour is considerably more fun. Still a bit overhyped, the concept is smart, the execution is fine but overall it's still a little plain and it's budgetary limitations are clear at all times. A fun watch, but no masterpiece.
A worthy successor to the first film, but I didn't like that one much either. Bombastic music, lengthy musical numbers and that core Disney feeling. If you liked the first one, I'm sure this one will be a pleasant surprise, for me though it's just too sugary and way too focused on the musical elements.
Completely bonkers. Cosmatos picks up where he left off with his previous film, but dials up the horror a notch or two. The result is an absolutely mad, although slightly uneven trip into the world of the occult. A few too many nods to the 80s, but apart from that it's a riveting and totally unique experience. Great stuff.
Oz' remake of the 60s film and Broadway musical. It's a cheeky and juicy effort, the kind of thing you'd expect from Oz. The primary reason why this film still works is the fact that the cheese is baked into the concept, everybody clearly had a lot of fun making this and as an audience it's very easy to go along with.
The third instalment is just as pointless as the first two films, but if you need some comedy filler this can probably pass as a decent option. Not enough jokes that work all that well and Atkinson simply repeats his old tricks, but there are a few laughs and giggles along the way, though hardly anything memorable.
A Simple Favor wants to be smart, tries to be smart but is so eager to please that it just falls flat. To make a film like this work the story needs to be more natural and the cues and clues can't be so on the nose. The actors do a decent job, but the rest is just plain mediocre and fails to entertain for the entire running time.
Cheesy and cheap. A whole bunch of B-grade actors are thrown into a sappy story that tries to celebrate the "wonder" of New Year's Eve. The comedy is horrendous, the drama terrible and none of the (many) stories has anything interesting to say. At least corporate sponsors had a ball with this one (hello Nivea).
Hyped up drama that feels way too much like a run of the mill arthouse film. The camerawork is lazy, the black & white photography not distinct enough and the drama too on the nose. There's been a lot of noise about this film appearing on Netflix so fast, well I'm glad I didn't spend a dime watching this in a theatre.
My first film from Pakistan, although I have to say that it did feel a lot like Bollywood cinema, offering a blend of different genres coupled with some musical interludes. It's decent and entertaining enough, but the lack of focus is somewhat annoying and the fact that half the film is set in Poland is just plain weird.
Pretty much a copy of the first film, but with more extravagant events and locations. That doesn't change a whole lot though, the dynamic is still exactly the same as in the first film. There are a couple of genuine laughs and the main actors are well cast, but overall it's a bit too simple and a little too predictable.