Moviethoughts, volume 2
I originally planned on making this a weekly blog, but due to workloads, I have decided to collapse the past two weeks in terms of movies into one blogpost. I will try to keep it short for the individual movies though, so I hope this will be a swift and entertaining read.
The Thursday Murder Club is a recent Netflix production. It has a lot of good names attached to it, ranging from Chris Columbus as its director to Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley and David Tennant as some actors I usually enjoy. On paper, this should be a winner: Get a bunch of older actors together and make them solve murder mysteries in a retirement home. The result however is one of the flattest, most meh experiences I have ever seen. The script needed at least another pass to be funny or suspenseful, the timing on the jokes is off many times and the cinematography is uninspired. The last point really surprises me because the movie does look expensive. Overall, it feels like this project lacked energy. David Tennant does his very best to play the villain but manages to overdo it. Considering the material he was given – a villain without any kind of depth, past or interesting motives – leaning into his past performances of bad guys was pretty much all he could do. The other actors do not fare much better: while all their characters seem to have unique pasts and skillsets, they all come off rather underutilized. Add to that a beginning that takes way too long to really establish the setting, and you have a proper borefest. It’s not bad per se, mind you, so it can be a decent enough watch and some jokes do land. I appreciated the fact that while this plot happens, most residents just try to live their normal lives and have a birthday party in the background, while the main characters do their own thing. This should have been better.
After that I did my first watch of The Exorcist (1973) on UHD. This movie has been on my watchlist for a very long time, since horror is a genre near and dear to me. While I already knew a lot of key moments of this movie thanks to Slavoj Zizecs The Pervert Guy to Cinema, some moments hit me hard. The pacing is classic but meticulous, the effects are old-school but convincing and charming while the acting is very much of the era. The fun bit is of course to watch this movie and just ignore the horror bits to discover what it’s all about. What I see here is a single mother struggling with the fact that her little girl is hitting puberty and is turning into a different person. A person that clearly notices that her mother is looking for a new romantic entanglement. In that respect it is remarkable how much the girl is turned into a mere body, a body on which all kinds of violence is inflicted, not just by the demon but also by those who seemingly want to help her. The true horror – at least to me – lied in the medical procedures the girl had to suffer through. Very hard to watch for me. All in all a remarkable movie that still looks and feels so much more interesting than many newer movies.
In preparation for the soon to be upon us remake of The Running Man, directed by Edgar Wright, I finally watched the original. I love me some good old Arnie and this movie delivers the staples: Him yelling and screaming in his signature way, the one liners, the ridiculous action and fun set designs. For a Stephen King adaptation, this one seemed to be produced after skimming the cliff notes of the novel and ramping up the media criticism a fair bit, which is very superficial, but serves the movie well enough. It does not reach the highs of other Arnie movies from that era, but it’s decent enough. Edgar Wright can probably make a more interesting movie out of this.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More by Wes Anderson is another Netflix production. I normally enjoy Wes Anderson productions and Benedikt Cumberbatch is an actor I enjoy, but this movie which consists of adaptations of stories by Roald Dahl did not grad me for long. Having the characters in the stories narrate themselves is fun for about 5 minutes before it crosses over into being annoying. The way how colours are handled is charming enough for about half an hour. Static shots can become stale, even if the movie adds a lot of variety throughout. I never really got into the stories and there was a general lack of tension for me. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had been less tired while watching it.
Midsommar is another movie that has been on my watchlist for a very long time. I am not going to say anything spoilery and keep things very short: It is a beautifully shot and haunting experience that shows true mastery of the craft, both in terms of movie making and horrorstory crafting. I enjoyed almost everything about this movie and even though it is almost three hours long in the Directors Cut, I would not shorten it in any way, as the pacing holds up. It’s quite the ride and maybe one of my favourite movies ever.
Psycho (1960) is my second Hitchcock movie after having watched Vertigo nearly a decade ago. I watched it immediately after Midsommar, which made for a fun combination, as this movie is very different. Don’t get me wrong, it has a lot of good tension going on, even though I already knew the twist, and the camerawork, while very much of its era, reinforces the more shocking moments. This is a movie that has been referenced to death. Everyone has basically seen this without ever having seen it, but it’s a worthwhile experience. The only thing I regret is getting the DVD version, because that looked bad on my TV.
All things considered these past two weeks were fun in terms of movies. I discovered at least one new favourite movie, which balances out the movies I did not enjoy that much.