'War Stories'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Saw an early screening of Atomic Blonde last night. Short version, if you want to see Charlize Theron beating people up while wearing sleek clothes and high heels, you will not be disappointed.
Long version: Fun, but not brilliant. Theron is great, and the film definitely commits to the late 80s Communist vibe. But as silly as this sounds, the plot is over-complicated, and nothing particularly unexpected happens.
Oh, but Dana, I could not believe the people in my theater toward the end (not the final end, but what I thought was going to be the end! The scene in the hotel, I think) who were like, "Wait, is she...?!?!" Which I thought was obvious by that point.
I thought it was obvious too -- I mean, not who she was working for, but why she was going to the hotel. But to be honest, I had problems occasionally understanding all of the dialogue between the Russian, German, French, and British accents.
Yeah, all of that.
I liked it, though! Even when I thought it didn't need a second ending, it turned out it DID need the third ending!
Short version, if you want to see Charlize Theron beating people up while wearing sleek clothes and high heels, you will not be disappointed.
If you like your movies to have plots, however, you probably will be. I recommend going in with the assumption that none of the spy shit matters.
The fight scenes are AWESOME, and I really appreciated that Theron looked like an adult. It's rare to see women allowed to look grown up without looking Old, you know?
Question - does this movie still get to pass the Bechdel test if the conversation not-about-a-man happens in the middle of one of the male-gaze-iest lesbian sex scenes in film history, with the possible exception of actual pornography?
Even when I thought it didn't need a second ending, it turned out it DID need the third ending!
Bwah, so true. I wonder if it was always in the script, or if it was an afterthought due to Theron's godawful British accent.
All of the Christopher Nolan movie rankings, ranked
It's a ranking of the rankings! Like, an inception of rankings! My mind is blown!
I'm so glad that exists in the world.
Vox has a run-down of all the big trailers at San Diego Comic Con this week: [link]
Finally caught Rogue One on my laptop. Probably would have been better in the theater but I still liked it. Wasn't too spoiled, so a few nice surprises, and sad ones.
Just came back from watching Dunkirk. I don't think I breathed for the entire running time. Goddamn that was some amazing film-making and I speak as someone dubious about most of Nolan features, even the acclaimed ones.