Random Thoughts

Holiday in the Wild. Ernie Barbarash. 2019. ☆☆★★★★

This is initially just confusing, because they’re sending off somebody to college…

… but which one is he? Is the one in the middle or the one on the right? Who’s playing the teenager here?

(It’s the one in the middle, and he’s cast for this way-appropriate-age role because he’s Rob Lowe’s son.)

Oh yeah, Rob Lowe is in this, in addition to Kristin Davis (from Sex and the City), because this is one of those Netflix movies that’s a “let’s have two famous actors in a comedy and see whether that just like works” thing.

And he plays a guy in Africa who’s a game warden, a pilot and a painter. Yes, you guessed it: Romance ensues.

The movie is almost crass in the way it piles it on.

The shots from southern Africa are really pretty. They could be from a really posh ad campaign for safaris.

It’s just so limp. Davis and Lowe are fine, but there’s no repartee; there’s no zing. I get that it’s supposed to be sweet holiday fluff, but it’s less than fluff. There’s just nothing there.

And like clockwork… when there’s one third left, the “third act” starts, and with that a bunch of contrived drama.

I predict that this will not become a sentimental holiday evergreen.

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.

Hey! I’ve read that book. The Cloven Viscount?

The Man Without Gravity. Marco Bonfanti. 2019. ☆☆☆★★★

Fourth movie of the night!

Wow. An Italian movie? I think this is the first Italian Netlix Original? There’s a buttload of Indian ones, and a handful of Spanish, but other than that it’s mostly American.

But no, this is exactly like an Italian movie.

Hm:

If you don’t like this movie, you are a monster. The Man without Gravity is very touching and poetic.

*rowr* (Monster sounds.)

This is a cute movie, but it drags. The performances are pretty weak and the storyline isn’t really there. There’s humour, but it’s just not that funny. And it’s really difficult to buy the central character’s conundrum: OK, he has an overprotective mother, but he veers between seeming stupid and clever in a way that’s just… convenient for the plot. I just lost interest.

I realise that this is probably meant as a parable and stuff, but it’s just unbelievable. Not the flying part, but that anybody would give a fuck. “Oh yeah, he’s like the Blue Man Group. Whatever.”

But I did enjoy the last third of this movie, when it’s just simple romantic thing.

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.

Drive. Tarun Mansukhani. 2019. ☆☆☆☆★★

Third movie of the night: This is an Indian action movie or something? “DROVE”?

As in “it drove me crazy”?

The titles at the start seemed to say something about Israel? Is this an Indian/Israeli thing?

And now there’s dancing! Yay!

What spectacle. After the titles, I’m definitely intrigued.

Oh I see:

Drive begins like a wannabe Dhoom (2004) and ends like a dumber version of Dhoom 3 (2013).

No I don’t!

This is the goofiest shit I’ve ever seen.

That’s harsh. 2.3/10 on imdb? I wonder what happened! Nothing scores that low. Was is brigaded? Why!? This is intriguing!

7/7 found that useful!?

There’s 170 reviews of this movie on imbd, and they’re all kinda like that. Saying this is the worst movie ever, but not really saying why, and they’re all written by people from India (is my guess from the er I guess you could call it English). I mean:

Hm… Is this the explanation?

People from India are embarrassed that people from outside of India gets to watch a super-silly comedy slash action movie from India? Could that be it? Hm… I think there must be something more behind this. The reviews and votes look part of some campaign or other, anyway.

This is a better review:

Whether Drive is so bad it’s good, so unwatchable that it’s watchable, a crack-a-box-of-wine-and-invite-your-friends-over-for-a-hate-watch is debatable. I’m too bamboozled from the overwhelmingly stupefying experience of it to make a clear assessment right now.

OK, the CGI car chases are stunningly bad… but nothing makes any sense whatsoever, which I admire. You have to work hard at making a movie this stupid.

I’m amused, entertained and bemildred. I mean bewildred.

I have never seen any of the Fast & Furious movies, and I kinda doubt that they’re this funny and exciting, but this almost makes me want to check them out.

Because this is hilarious.

The actors are fun to watch (and the female actors are always impeccably lit), and the editing is on point for maximum fun.

The dancing bits aren’t really integrated into the movie at all, but appear as, like, music videos appearing randomly. But the dancing is impeccable and the spectacles are er spectacular.

It’s really too bad the CGI is really, really horrible.

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.

The King. David Michôd. 2019. ☆☆☆★★★

OK, second movie of the night, and it’s a longer one.

I guess you could term this a… post-Game of Thrones historical drama? That is, it’s “gritty”. But it does aim for more realism than Game of Thrones, I guess: The hairstyles are bad and the actors have artfully greasy hair. And… I think that’s it? (I mean, Westeros is a fantasy land where they had invented shampoo.)

It’s pretty ridiculous and feels oddly small. I wonder what the budget was: Netflix only announces the budget when it’s megabucks, which makes me suspect that this had a smaller budget than web sites saying this is a “big budget” movie thinks. And it’s something about the crowd scenes: They only have enough extras for one line of people when they’re trying to do masses of soldiers. I guess they spent any money they had on that mud-bath at the end.

Yeah, that’s pretty accurate:

Moments where interest is snatched from the jaws of boredom come just often enough to keep you from switching to one of Netflix’s many other offerings, but it’s not enough to recommend starting The King in the first place.

This movie is just kinda annoying. I mean, to me: It’s a generally well-liked movie, so the stuff I find annoying is probably not what a lot of other people react negatively to. It’s stuff like how they just trust the images enough not to put a bed of dramatic “music” under most of the scenes. How the characters can deliver the most pompous lines without anybody finding them just a bit ridiculous. The way the colour grading makes everything beige. The way people are whispering-speaking.

It all just gets on my tits, but this isn’t a bad movie, really. I mean, not really. I guess it’s an original take on a war movie: Instead of being all “war is hell”, this is more “war is boring as fuck, dude”.

So I’m not sure whether this is a movie people who enjoy watching these kinds of movies will enjoy watching? Or perhaps the “progressive” tics of Henry V makes it a “yeah! dude!” kind of thing? The young guy with his magical, grizzled advisor proving all the fuddy-duddies wrong?

Anyway, I hate it.

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.

American Son. Kenny Leon. 2019. ☆☆★★★★

I was already behind on mah Netflix stories, but then I got a cold and now I’m even further behind. But now I’m fine! I slept from 8 to 20 today! Can I watch all the Netflixes tonight? There’s only seven! It’s now 23, so I should be done by… noon?

Let’s find out!

Oh-oh. The movie starts off with the most portentous quote possible.

Oh:

This film is an adaptation of a Broadway play, of the same name, with the same cast (so keep that in mind while watching).

Now I’m more positive. Because I was wondering whether this was a no-budget kind of thing or something (what with the extremely photogenic police station slash mansion), but that makes more sense. I (generally) like filmed plays: The usually have better dialogue and more interesting drama. It also explains why the actors are really… projecting. Enunciating clearly.

Right:

The problem is that these people are not people – they are characters. They do not speak English, they speak dialogue, pages and pages of it, yards and yards of it. It fills their mouths like cardboard. Each scene is like a long drama class. You expect the director to interrupt at any moment and say: “Mm, yeah, OK, let’s try that again, but maybe try … a little less?”

I don’t think it’s that bad… I liked the “I don’t think so” after she points out that it’s Dickens, not Dickinson. I mean, it’s not a good movie, but it’s the kind of movie I like. I like the colour scheme. The cinematography’s surprisingly good: Within the confines of a stage-play-for-the-TV it makes the most of it, focusing on the performers completely and putting them in attractive framing.

Even so, there’s so many bad lines, and so much shouting.

So much shouting.

When the older cop comes in and says “if there’s any more shouting, I’m leaving” (or something) and I was “FINALLY!”

I’m all for Netflix making a bunch more of these movies (i.e., filmed theatre). Netflix could be the modern PBS.

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.