The Death of Stalin: Armando Iannucci

Well here's a movie that's stuck in my brain since I saw it months and months ago. (Yes, I forgot to write a review of it when it came out. Sue me.) Rarely have I seen nail-biting horror and gut-wrenching comedy as successfully balances as Armando Iannucci's The Death of Stalin. The best (or worst) part? It's probably a more-or-less accurate depiction of what historically happened after Stalin died.

8/10

The Catcher Was a Spy: Ben Lewin

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/121881/movie-review-the-catcher-was-a-spy/.

Rating: 7/10

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge: Aditya Chopra

Aditya Chopra's Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, or as I first knew it as one of the movies selected in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die list "The Brave-Hearted Will Take the Bride," is one of the first proper Bollywood musicals I've ever seen. And it is a punishing amount of cinema. The first half is delightful as a happy-go-lucky musical-comedy road movie about two young British-raised Indians who fall in love with each other despite hating each other over the course of a European tour. The second half is less compelling--it's essentially a romantic melodrama with less music. I couldn't get enough of the first half, couldn't care less about the second. But as a whole it's an impressive piece of filmmaking with enough heart, laughter, and emotion to keep anyone satisfied.

8/10

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom: J. A. Bayona

Saw JURASSIC WORLD. Better than the first remake. But if I want to watch a bunch of scientists and a plucky young girl save dinosaurs from corporate animal traffickers, I’ll stick with THE LOST WORLD.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 24, 2018

No movie has ever brought out my inner Neil DeGrasse Tyson than JURASSIC WORLD.

“Even IF Chris Pratt hadn’t burst into flames being with 20 feet of flowing lava, he wouldn’t have survived having his blood boiled in his veins when he was engulfed in that volcanic gas cloud!”

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 24, 2018

I joke, but that image of the last brontosaurus on Isla Nublar made JURASSIC WORLD worth the ticket price.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 24, 2018

For the record, I have literally no interest in another JURASSIC PARK film that isn't a spin-off of that Stygimoloch getting into wacky misadventures in Los Angeles.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 24, 2018

Rating: 7/10

Tag: Jeff Tomsic

Saw TAG. Was funny, but something about it didn’t sit right with me. Felt less like a celebration of the inner child than a glorification of emotionally-stunted masculinity. The miscarriage subplot really felt like a bridge too far.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 23, 2018

That being said, we need to set up a collection to put Hannibal Buress in all future mediocre Hollywood comedies.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 23, 2018

Rating: 6/10

Sylvie et le fantôme: Claude Autant-Lara

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/eclipse-series-45-claude-autant-lara-four-romantic-escapes-from-occupied-france/.

8/10

Douce: Claude Autant-Lara

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/eclipse-series-45-claude-autant-lara-four-romantic-escapes-from-occupied-france/.

8/10

Lettres d’amour: Claude Autant-Lara

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/eclipse-series-45-claude-autant-lara-four-romantic-escapes-from-occupied-france/.

6/10

Le mariage de Chiffon: Claude Autant-Lara

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/eclipse-series-45-claude-autant-lara-four-romantic-escapes-from-occupied-france/.

6/10

Ocean's 8: Gary Ross

OCEAN’S 8: light, breezy, bouncy, and fun. Not the tightest or most suspenseful heist film, but it’s always a blast watching super-smart people being super-smart. It’s also a great reminder why I had a huge crush on Hathaway growing up.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 17, 2018

I also hope this film will revive Sandra Bullock’s career as one of our sharpest actresses after Film Twitter eye-rolled her into irrelevancy after she won the Oscar for THE BLIND SIDE.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 17, 2018

But here’s my biggest complaint: why on EARTH would you put Anne Hathaway and Anna Wintour in a film together and NOT have them share a scene together??!!!

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 17, 2018

Rating: 7/10

Incredibles 2: Brad Bird

Saw THE INCREDIBLES 2. It was superb; a refreshing dose of old school superheroics and Pixar magic. But can we now please, pretty please retire the superheroes-make-people-complacent-and-dependent story trope?

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 16, 2018

I have to say, I don’t know how much more Pixar’s tech can improve. The cooking scenes in the (adorable) short film were photorealistic. And in the feature, I could see the characters breathing in-and-out when they weren’t talking.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 16, 2018

Also, special shout-out to the people who worked on the monorail sequence. Hands-down one of the best superhero action scenes ever put to film.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 16, 2018

Rating: 8/10

Asparagus: Suzan Pitt

Just saw Suzan Pitt's ASPARAGUS (1979). Stunning, gorgeous, and oh so unsettling; feminism strained through a sifter of nightmare logic; vegetarian paraphilia as envisioned by Monty Python animators tripping on peyote.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 9, 2018

What does it all mean? No idea. You tell me. As defiantly esoteric as David Lynch's ERASERHEAD (1977) with which it was apparently paired on the midnight movie circuit for years. One day I hope to see this pairing myself on the big screen.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 9, 2018

211: York Alec Shackleton

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/121367/211-is-a-heist-film-by-a-director-who-cant-direct-action-and-actors-who-wont-act/.

2/10

The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun: Djibril Diop Mambéty

Watching Djibril Diop Mambéty's THE LITTLE GIRL WHO SOLD THE SUN (1999). I'm largely ignorant of his work, so I'm looking forward to checking it out!

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 2, 2018

Wow, this little girl went with the corrupt police officer to the station SPECIFICALLY to humiliate him in front of his superior and to free the "thief."

Absolute legend.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 2, 2018

Get it girl!! pic.twitter.com/v439wdmjiM

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 2, 2018

Absolute. Legend. pic.twitter.com/mInIc87ijw

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 2, 2018

Positively superb. Even if you strip away the political allegory of Senegal shrugging off the burdens of colonialism--and you shouldn't--the film still works as a beautiful folk tale/children's story. Reminds me of Jafar Panahi's THE WHILE BALLOON (1995).

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 2, 2018

One Sings, the Other Doesn't: Agnès Varda

About to see ONE SINGS, THE OTHER DOESN’T at @BAM_Brooklyn, my most embarrassing Varda blind spot.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 3, 2018

Though bloated and long-winded, this story of two women navigating life, love, and abortion felt like Varda’s thesis on pregnancy and motherhood. It’s at its best when it tries to be an almost-musical about folk singers traveling the countryside singing about contraception.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) June 4, 2018

Rating: 6/10

Action Point: Tim Kirkby

Traditional stunt work, much like traditional special effects, is quickly becoming a thing of Hollywood’s past. Not that there isn’t a demand for stunt performers in modern American blockbusters, but the days of stunts uncluttered by computer animation, obnoxious editing, and shaky-cam hysterics seem bygone and forgotten. Now Melissa McCartney and Kevin James can hardly make a pratfall in a trailer without a CGI assist, nor can a fistfight between superheroes go uninterrupted without a camera zooming around them like a hyperactive Peregrine falcon. (I’ll always consider the Russo Brothers’ decision to mince the elevator fight scene in Captain America: Winter Soldier [2014] into a thousand micro-edited close-ups instead of a single static long-take one of the most tragic creative miscalculations of 2010s cinema.) All of this is what makes the stunt-work in Tim Kirkby’s Action Point so refreshing—when we see Johnny Knoxville fall two stories out of a tree, bounce off an aluminum ceiling, and smash into the ground next to a pissed off brown bear, we know it actually happened. Likewise when we watch him grab a porcupine by the tail, go flying off an alpine slide, or get trebucheted into the side of a barn, we know that we’re watching undoctored footage of America’s great idiot savant of practical stunt-work. The problem is that Action Point made the tragic mistake of trying to tell an actual story with actual characters and actual emotions, breaking apart the action scenes into islands scattered amidst a sea of boring, predictable tedium.

Knoxville plays D.C., the owner of the eponymous money pit theme park in some nondescript part of 70s California populated solely by teenagers and alcoholic layabouts. In the course of the film he reconnects with his estranged daughter Boogie (Eleanor Worthington Cox), fights off the encroachment of a rival theme park, sticks it to The Man trying to shut them down and buy them out, and learns to be a respectable father. Whatever. Every story beat is predictable, right down to D.C. and his brother Benny (fellow Jackass alumni Chris Pontius) getting super nervous and weirded out by the revelation that Boogie is a teenager with periods and a purse full of tampons. Action Point could have been a brilliant Jackass reunion. Consider this: Knoxville and his buddies spend 90 minutes fixing up a dilapidated theme park, devoting 5-10 minutes to sequences where they get into all kinds of hilarious hijinks trying to restore different attractions. And if properly handled the actual story could have been genuinely poignant: there’s an underlying wistfulness throughout, a kind of realization by Knoxville & Co. that it isn’t the early 2000s anymore and there isn’t really a place for their weaponized puerility in today’s culture. Action Point NEEDS to close down, and not because of buzzkill lawyers and nanny state politicians, but because Action Point is in itself an idea retarding the mental and emotional growth of its owners and customers. Instead we have this monumental disappointment. And the final insult? All the best stunts in the film were already shown in the trailer.

Rating: 4/10

The Last Witness: Piotr Szkopiak

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/120966/the-last-witness-examines-the-katyn-massacre-by-way-of-a-romantic-thriller/

Rating: 6/10