The Goods: Film Reviews
Masterful filmmaking, filled with hilarious and evocative and creative moments, elliptical time-hop editing, and zingers. Too bad Allen’s persona is so damn neurotic and unlikeable — ruins the fun for me and suppresses the Is It Good? rating by a point.
Short and good-natured, but the physical comedy really shines. I particularly marveled at the rocking set on the boat — some next level stuff for more than a century ago. Great slapstick.
I don’t know Russian lit, so 25% of the jokes evaded me. It takes awhile to get going, but that second half shows Allen has learned how to make a film. Keaton in particular is at another level.
Wheat.
A bit stuffy and slow to gestate, but intricate, dark, and probing once it gets going. Allen directs drama with assurance and intuitive use of symbolism, but the script isn’t quite there to bring it to the next level.
The footage is superior, but it is actively undermined by some of the most self-serving, anthropomorphizing narration I’ve ever heard. To quote one of my favorite Letterboxd reviews: “i did not care about this man or his problems or his face”
A movie that unfortunately holds together less and less with each minute of its runtime, Sleeper is still often intriguing and funny as a dystopian slapstick. Its lurch to a love triangle is quite inelegant.
Does things with animation that haven’t been done before or since. Mature, postmodern story with lots of humanity. Thrilling action, great score. Its animation has aged a bit, and there’s some weird thematic stuff, but it’s one of the great 21st century animation masterpieces, no doubt.
A college freshman dramedy. Tries to be 3 different movies, none of them particularly good.
I was recently watching some YouTube videos on Crash Course about film history with my three year old daughter.
An anthology of sex-themed genre pastiches that intermittently takes its stupidity seriously enough to verge into funny and/or subversive, but more often just drifts into nothingness.