a bit redundant-- a hazard that comes with any contained action movie-- but I kind of thought it was a blast. some impressive action, actual emotional connection (even amidst the overkill), a few genuinely surprising pieces of violence, and a sick mid-movie title card. it's also got that thing where it basically shifts into a horror movie in which the bad guys are our victims and our hero is the slasher. and I personally love that.
it'll be pitched as…
with each rewatch, I'm struck by just how much time Demme spends away from the action to build the humanity of the world. like the scene where Daniels is watching Griffith from a phone booth-- any other movie, we start at the phone booth, showing us what Daniels is up to right away. Demme starts with a man we've never met driving his motorcycle up to the phone booth with a dog on board. the man drives over for several…
kinda feels like the Schrader-Scorsese scale tips toward Schrader on this one, but when it's this gorgeous and manic and depressing and weird, the scale's lean doesn't really matter. got nervous that it was losing control toward the end, but then we get the impaling and the fireworks and the death and the final beat and it's all just fucking magical. every movie would improve if Ving Rhames rolled in and did this character for 15-20 minutes.
the combination of paranormal horror with detective mystery worked surprisingly well for me-- can we have Poirot just run around debunking paranormal claims for the next several entries? maybe a Loch Ness movie-- or Bigfoot? I'm spitballing!
still runs into the usual Detective Novel Turned Movie problem, where you have to have characters say things out loud that might seem innocuous in print but here seem super out of left field-- which means, of course, that they're super important to…
seen a surprising number of "but the story is thin!" comments, to which I say: who gives a shit? story is so much less important than vibes, and here, the vibes are IMMACULATE. Kelly at the height of his charms, his enthusiastic joy a perfect match for Minnelli's Technicolor spectacle.
just a few dudes in a beautiful city, hanging out, making art, chasing girls, living the dream. I want to fucking live inside this movie, man. so, so, so, so, so much fun.
look, I'll be honest: I was fine with this. yes, there's a general vibe of shamelessness, but you get some enjoyable spectacle, two movie stars exchanging genial canned banter, and a scene where Jackie Chan fights a bad guy with a tattooed face in a giant pit of bubble bath. we even get a few outtakes at the end. yes, I'll forget this cotton candy-light concoction of sand and explosions by tomorrow, but I'll take this over more sludge-colored 150-minute superhero movies.
doesn't let us into our subject's mind, especially when compared to the rest of Scorsese's work. the perils, I suppose, of making a hagiography biopic using non-actor relatives of the subject of the film. it's all reverence, all the time.
still, absolutely stunning work in terms of production design, sound, and cinematography. a few unreal, knock-out, best of the decade level shots here. might be Scorsese's best-looking movie... ever?
HALEY LU RICHARDSON HIVE ASSEMBLE!!!
hits all the beats with precision. laughed, cried, etc. there's a near kiss set to an acoustic rendition of "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," which I think is a good litmus test of whether you'll dig this movie or not.
Sally Phillips is lovely as the Dying Character, and Dexter Fletcher is so charming as her husband that it almost makes up for GHOSTED.
relatable film. as a young man, whenever I'd take a trip out of town, I too would spend all my time looking for some head.
boasts a few wild stunt falls and a meme-worthy fight or two. it's strange that so many of these actors are delivering lines like English is their second language when English is, in fact, their first. like, imagine a movie full of Tommy Wiseaus-- and they all know martial arts. then again, maybe it's hard for *any* actor to sell a line like “what’s Stingray have eyeballs in a fish tank for?”
then again again, I'm making it sound more…
"like the man said, can happiness buy money?"
I’m an easy mark for stuff like this. gorgeous visuals, a few outstanding set pieces, and a sub-70 minute run time. story clearly made up as they went along, but story’s overrated.
took shrooms and watched Zardoz. good call!
fwiw, I've seen a decent number of "trippy" cult films that have some boring-ass stretches in them, and this is *not* one of those. a lot going on here! giant stone heads, jewels and prisms, speedos and many a bare breast. all things that make movies good.
also must regrettably confess that Charlotte Rampling acting cold and severe *really* does it for me. she's being a cruel emotionless asshole, and me in my…