Random Thoughts

See You Yesterday. Stefon Bristol. 2019. ☆☆☆☆★★

What’s this then? From the name it sounds like a science fiction movie… but it’s produced by Spile Lee? Is that what he does these days? I kinda lost track of him in the 90s after a couple of kinda boring movies he did after the initial burst of great movies…

I was so intrigued that I did something that I rarely do before watching these Netflixes: I googled the movie.

Intriguingly enough, it’s got a 94% rating on Rottentomatoes, and an impossibly low 4.9 rating on imdb: When you get below 5 in imdb, you’re usually way into home movie territory… or the movie is subject to a Nazi block voting campaign.

And you can see why nazis would get upset about this movie: It’s about a teenage girl (*gasp*) who’s smart (*gasp*) and a nerd (*gasp*) and (*gasp*) black (*gasp*).

So I’m intrigued. Let the movie start!

The actors are very likeable. The cinematography bucks the current Netflix trend of colour-correcting everything into washed-out greys and leaves at least some splashes of colour, which I appreciate. I like that it’s very difficult to even tell what this movie is going to be about: Sure, there’s kids building a time machine, but at least this far (I’m 20 minutes in), it’s mostly like interpersonal drama and stuff.

Oh! And then the plot really starts at the mid-way point. I can understand them spending time on getting us to know the characters so that it feels important for the plot to work out… and it worked. Still, it feels excessively slow, and not in an interesting way.

The movie lacks energy.

I’m going to guess that the ending is going to annoy a lot of people, but I think it works.

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.

Good Sam. Kate Melville. 2019. ☆☆★★★★

Watching Netflix Originals in this way, one by one based on release date but knowing nothing about them, I find myself playing the What Genre Is Netflix Making A Generic Movie In Now? game.

This is about a scrappy TV reporter? It’s very efficient: In the second scene, the scrappy TV reporter is being chewed out by her sergeant I mean managing editor for being too reckless and “it’s gotta stop”. Movies in this genre usually wait until at least the fifth scene to do that bit.

This movie has the odd distinguishing factor of being the first Netflix Originals movie that’s in modern TV format (i.e., 16:9): All the previous ones have been wider. This makes it look even more like a TV series, which I’m going to guess is on purpose. Or perhaps it was made as a TV series pilot?

It’s a very Made For TV Movie: The actors are attractive, but not particularly er good; things keep happening without anything being too intense; the cinematography is… there…

There’s also a “mystery” in here, but the solution to the mystery is so obvious that it’s *eye roll*.

It’s intensely pedestrian, but it’s not particularly annoying. I can well imagine that many people would find this a perfectly inoffensive way to spend 90 minutes.

IT”S SO BORING!

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.

Malibu Rescue. . 2019. ☆☆☆☆☆★

So what’s this then? Is this a children’s movie… or is it at parody of a children’s movie?

OK, I’ve watched now for ten minutes and I still can’t tell. Perhaps it doesn’t matter? It’s weird as fuck anyway.

The actors are really fun. Everything is somewhat over the top, but they don’t go all the way into panto territory.

It’s about a bunch of kids from the Valley at spending the summer at Malibu Rescue summer camp. So you’ve got the conflict between the Valley kids and the stuck-up Malibu residents, of course.

Humour ensues.

The plot is great (for this sort of thing) and there’s plenty of amusing lines. Some of them really funny, even.

I’m still not sure whether this is a parody or not, but I really enjoyed all the silliness. For what it is, it’s just about perfect. It’s made with verve and conviction. It treads a very fine line between sincere children’s show and Naked Gun type insanity, but it masterfully manages not to veer into either of those directions.

Oh:

Following the film’s release, Netflix is planning to launch an eight-episode Malibu Rescue television series on June 3, 2019.

I probably won’t be watching that… Or will I?

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.

Wine Country. Amy Poehler. 2019. ☆☆☆☆★★

Oh wow. Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, Maya Rudolph, Tina Fey, Jason Schwartzman… Oh! And Poehler directed this!

From the name, I supposed that this would be a Netflix rip-off of that Pinot Noir movie that was all the rage a while back, but this looks more like a parody of that, which I’m all aboard with.

But after all these Netflix movies, I’m kinda wondering “well, how is Netflix going to fuck up this sure-thing-looking movie”…

Well, let’s roll and see what’s what.

… OK, I’m now half an hour in. There’s been some good jokes (and Tina Fey had most of them during her brief cameo), but it seems to lack energy. I mean, it’s enjoyable to watch, but it should just have more good jokes. It putters away in an amusing way, but that feels like a waste of talent.

With expectations reset, this is an enjoyable movie to watch. The performances are great and the plot flows in a pleasant way. It’s good. I smiled a lot. The disappointment is that it feels like it could have been great.

There are scenes in here that are just about perfect, though.

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.

The Last Summer. William Bindley. 2019. ☆★★★★★

So… this is one of those teen dramedies about a pre-nostalgic “last summer”. There are jocks, there are nerds, there are Heathers.

It’s such a generic throwback of a movie.

I can’t decide whether the filmmakers are totally inept or they’re taking brave artistic choices: Everything is washed-out and often in somewhat bizarre colours. The lighting is insane: Even the children have bags under their eyes and look like they do meth on a regular basis. The audio is weirdly subdued for this type of movie: When you’d expect a slamming dubstep track, there’s a plunkly (that’s a word) guitar instead. When you expect the characters to drop some witty repartee, they just stand there… staring…

Some things are standard: All the teenagers look like they’re in their mid-20s. Some in their early 30s. Makes it difficult to tell the teenagers from their parents, but you know.

I’m guessing this was pitched to Netflix as a really cheaply made movie that everybody who loves teen rom coms will at least spent ten minutes with. So just another random walk in Netflix’ quest to have a library of movie-like objects they own themselves.

It’s insanely boring and virtually charmless.

Once in a while, there’s a joke that lands, but in this context I’m almost offended: “How dare you make me smile after boring me this much!” That’s unfair, I know, but it’s the truth.

This post is part of the NFLX2019 blog series.