Connected with this way less than I expected. I wonder if the broader focus on the family, here, as compared to in what remains my favorite Davies (The Long Day Closes) is part of it, or if my general unwellness and resulting malaise at present are the culprit. In any event, I don't think it's unfair to say that Davies's style for this kind of film matured in The Long Day Closes and is still somewhat less... flowing(?) and organic here. But boy, howdy, does he know how to evoke a time and place.
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Instant Family 2018
As well-made a version of what they're aiming for as could be expected. I think it works better as a piece of advocacy than as a novel filmed story, but that's fine. It's not going for novelty, it's going for sentiment, humor, and truth. That seems to work fairly well, all told, even if you could predict the plot a mile away. Wahlberg and Byrne can do this kinda stuff in their sleep by now, frankly, and they elevate jokes…
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12:08 East of Bucharest 2006
The first third of this movie, I believe, comprises almost solely stationary, long-take, tableau-style shots with no/negligible camera movement or coverage. These scenes give us a sense of the place we're in, as it stands now nearly two decades post-revolution, and of the three characters who will take up the entirety of the film's remaining run time. That final two-thirds (excepting a couple of vehicle-mounted set-ups) consists solely of the digetic footage of the local TV station where one lead…
