Random Thoughts

Diecisiete. Daniel Sánchez Arévalo. 2019. ☆☆☆☆☆★

Hey! A Spanish Netflix Original. I have hope!

[30 minutes pass]

I still have hope!

Actually, this is a pretty spiffy film. A lot kinda rests on the face of the seventeen-year-old in question, and he kinda aces it. He veers a bit between petulant and determined, but he keeps the intensity up.

It’s a ridiculously sentimental movie as only the Spanish can make. It’s got everything: Slightly strange teenagers, disappeared dogs, estranged brother, dying grandmothers, all in a road movie setting. No minimalism here.

Did I mention that it’s very funny? It’s very funny. I’m dreading the inevitable “third act” when they have to get all serious and stuff, though.

[time passes]

No! It didn’t happen! They kept it up until the very end! I don’t believe it.

I laughed, I cried: It’s perhaps an overly calculated sentimental movie, but it totally worked for me. Nice performances, good cinematography, sweet and funny story: It all came together.

Tarapara.

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.

Street Flow. Kery James. 2019. ☆☆☆☆★★

The French title means… Suburbanites? I’m just guessing. I don’t know from French.

But I guess that doesn’t translate to the US. “Street Flow” is kinda generic, though.

It’s a quite stylish movie with good (and good-looking) actors. The plot is, however, of a pretty standard “it’s tough growing up on the streets, eh?” replete with one brother who’s a gangster and another who’s an over-achiever in the ecole and another who’s getting into trouble at school.

It’s a bit standard, but it’s a very likeable movie… Until the unfortunate third act when it all gets a bit didactic.

And with that I’m caught up with the Netflix Originals. It was a better batch than I’m used to. But there’s three more dropping tomorrow, so perhaps they’ll be more properly disappointing.

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.

Fractured. Brad Anderson. 2019. ☆☆☆★★★

I’m half a minute in and I’m assuming they’re Shalamaying us.

[time passes]

So now I’m 15 minutes in and I’m still assuming that they’re Shyamalaning us, but even if they aren’t, the assumption is draining all fun out of the movie.

Not that there’d be much fun anyway. It’s a pretty turgid drama thriller thing where we’re supposed to feel excited about any incongruence. It’s got a really standard grey teal colour grading going on, and the actors are standard, and the cinematography (if you want to call it that) is standard.

OK, I’m now at 25 minutes, and they’re not Shyamalaying it the way I thought! Is the twist that there’s no twist!?

Oh yeah… they’re just assuming that we’ve never seen a movie with this plot before, and I guess such a person exists. I mean, everybody’s been nine at some point in their lives. Except those that are younger.

I usually don’t want to spoil movies, but I don’t think there’s anything here to spoil.

In summary: It’s Double Shyamalan. (I’m only 45 minutes in, though, so perhaps there’s a triple coming.)

[time passes]

Oh, well. They didn’t shyamalan it exactly the way I thought they were shyamalaning it, but it was pretty close.

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.

The Forest of Love. Sion Sono. 2019. ☆★★★★★

This is such a bizarre movie. Netflix keeps is really mainstream with the movies they make (or have made) in the US, but they buy up the rights to some pretty oddball foreign movies.

But none as odd as this. I don’t even know how to start thinking about evaluating this movie. Is this a normal movie in some Japanese genre? Or is it as goofy as it seems?

I think it’s the latter: It’s meta as fuck and nothing makes much sense. I think it may be… a parody? of a Japanese indie/art movie?

It’s kinda funny here and there, but (at 45 minutes in, which isn’t even halfway through) my guess is that it’s going somewhere abject, so I’m prematurely disliking it because that’s where I think it’s going.

But there’s plenty to dislike even if that’s not where it’s going.

Hm… This was originally a TV series? But it’s been edited into a movie? Well, that explains the length, because as a movie it definitely can’t carry that many minutes.

No:

It’s also a movie that reckons — perhaps regretfully — with the fine line between performing trauma and enacting trauma, and how the mania of artistic creation can accommodate any number of sins.

It’s a sophomoric, boring mess that has nothing to say beyond the director wanting to film just these scenes.

I bailed after 90 minutes of sheer boredom. And I’ve watched Out 1.

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. Vince Gilligan. 2019. ☆☆★★★★

Full disclosure time: I’ve watched two episodes of Breaking Bad. I watched the first one and thought “this is Extruded New Golden Age Of Quality TV Product”: All the ticks of “seriousness” that viewers of silly TV series love these days.

And I watched the Ozymandias episode because everybody said it was the best thing ever committed to SSD.

It was lame.

So I may not be the most qualified person in the world to be bloviating about this movie, which is… a sequel? It seems to be well-received by the fans of the TV series. I mean, reviewers at newspapers. I mean, the fans of the TV series.

*eye roll*

This movie seems to be about… very sentimental… drug dealers? And cars? I’m guessing all the lines are fan service, but as I have no idea what they’re talking about, it’s all rather weird. The scenes are shot as if they’re Serious Emotional Depth, but they do little to justify that in this movie.

All these super-stupid things in here (like what I’m guessing is the badder bad guy?) doing this elaborate string/clamp thing to give the guy who’s usually balder a cigarette? Instead of just dropping it? It’s all so silly.

There’s nothing I loathe more than the style the writers adopt here: “Here’s a guy who’s totally a monster, but see, he’s petting this puppy, so see? there’s complexity and depth! COMPLEXITY AND DEPTH I TELLS YA!” It sickeningly formulaic and tedious.

On the plus side: This movie looks pretty nice. It uses mid-90s US indie movie aesthetics to its advantage. The soundtrack isn’t annoying. The actors are better than average for made-for-TV movies.

I guess:

Anyone who hasn’t watched the show, though, will miss most of why Gilligan’s feature-length epilogue is a success.

But… oh my god, the stupid. The scene in the hoover store just wouldn’t end. And that shootout. Was that supposed to be surprising?

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.