All the R. As R as can be. Like, nudity R. Nudity and finger removal R. Also, if you are squeamish about stuff happening to cats, that would also make this movie "R" for you. Also, weird erotic stuff. This movie is also R for weird erotic stuff. So this movie is R for nudity, eroticism, gore, violence, and cat violence.
DIRECTOR: Guillermo del Toro I'm not sure that I'm going to go be able to maintain a sensitive tone on this one. I always kind of have to walk a pretty fine line, especially when a movie has a message. I'm always encouraging when art has a message, even when a movie's message may not always align with my moral perspective. There are also a ton of different ideas where "the jury is still out" with me. The Shape of Water kind of goes to a place where it may have backpeddled something that I thought I knew pretty well and I know that's not what it wanted me to think about. For people who know me, I get really jazzed about Guillermo del Toro. The most sardonic I get about the guy is when he announces that he is attached to a movie. When I read that del Toro is set to write or direct a movie, I know that there realistically is only a 10% chance that he'll get around to it. The guy quits a lot of movies. I honestly think that studios are super enthusiastic about even having meetings with del Toro, so they manage to leak that information to generate buzz. But often, del Toro ends up having nothing to do with that movie. Remember when Guillermo del Toro was supposed to direct The Hobbit? Yeah, that didn't happen. But honest to Pete, I saw the trailer for a completed Guillermo del Toro project and I lost my mind. The trailer looked absolutely gorgeous. I know that del Toro really knows his way around a camera and that he can make the best gore look absolutely beautiful. Then I saw that the movie was going to be a monster movie romance story and I was even more invested. That looks awesome. Yeah, I can get behind a monster movie romance. Look at that sentence. "Guillermo del Toro made a romance story involving a monster." That's everything I've ever wanted in a movie. In some ways, the movie really pays off on that premise. This is a monster movie romance story. Heck, it goes even further down my "like list" by making it a monster movie romance story that pays homage to the films and music of yesteryear and has a great setting. Okay, del Toro, take all of my money. But the movie ended up really on the weird side of icky and I don't want it to be. I want this movie to be the one that really affected me and got me thinking in new places. I don't think it really did that. Don't get me wrong. The movie is fabulously written and shot. But the big hurdle that this movie presents is that we knew that Sally Hawkins's mute Eliza was going to have on-screen intercourse with a creature of a different species in a romantic setting. That romance had to be compelling. But it never really got there. The movie just kind of had this icky, kind of bestiality feeling to it and I feel like a bad person for not being able to get out of that headspace. A lot of the problem lied in the fact that Doug Jones's monster never really felt like an equal peer to Eliza. He is always a creature. I know that the movie teased the fact that the monster was actually a god. But there is something severely lacking in the characterization of this monster where it felt like Eliza was sleeping with something that functioned almost entirely on instinct rather than a reciprocation of emotions. I'm just giving the loose background here and a lot of this could be gleaned from the trailer, but Michael Shannon (whom I'm starting to warm to despite the fact that I haven't really liked him in anything I've seen) has captured and tortured this sea creature for the U.S. government. Knowing that this creature is going to be killed, Eliza breaks him out of this facility (I won't tell you how) and takes care of the monster in her apartment. So far, this movie is exactly E.T. to a point where I'm a little disappointed in the lack of creativity. The creature is learning to sign language, but it only does so in very simple ideas. I get it. The creature has only recently been exposed to a new language, so the very idea that it can pick up on this shows that it is intelligent. But the sign language is very rudimentary. The creature never really asks its own questions or communicates its own feelings, shy of basic gratitude for being fed and housed. Like E.T. the creature has the power to do some low-level healing, but it also bites the head off of a cat. What I'm getting at is that in no point in the movie do I feel like the creature is an equal of a human being and really just feels like an animal who can lightly communicate. I kept thinking of Koko the gorilla the entire time watching this movie. The creature acts like Koko and has the same depth of conversation that the gorilla does. And then Eliza has intercourse with it...a few times. Like, the one thing that E.T. wasn't missing besides guns that turn into walkie-talkies is Elliot sleeping with the alien. There was never a thought there that perhaps there should be some inter-species eroticism. I honestly thought that this movie was going to easily convince me that these two characters should somehow be together and anyone who didn't root for that was a prude. But I felt remarkably old fashioned coming out of this movie. I felt like a bigot because I saw the allegory running through the film and I couldn't really jump on board. It really just felt really ick. The weirdest thing for me is that all of Eliza's friends were really supportive of that decision. Like, not one of them took a second to process that choice. It just was. It honestly kind of felt like rape to me, but everyone was like, "Go get some, girlfriend." Really? Because that's a big step for openmindedness. There are a bunch of things in this movie that really work. I think the setting sells the movie perfectly. I don't know what it is about the conspiratorial nature of the government in the 1950s, but it always works. Old timey guns and men in hats work so much better than 1980s shadow government. People smoked and slicked their hair despite being horrible people. Like I mentioned, I really liked Shannon in this movie and this might be the context that helps him. He's just a great terrible guy and I think the choice is not to make him look broey. Man of Steel made him look so Ed Hardy-ish that I needed to see him as a corrupted G-Man to make those character choices make sense. Del Toro is a crazy person, so he always has these really gross choices to his villains. In this one, it's the fingers. I'm not going to spoil what's going on with the fingers because that was spoiled for me, but I kind of love it. I know that it is completely removed from reality. That's a really weird choice to do in a movie that already has a pretty high concept. You'd think that Guillermo del Toro would be doing anything to ground this movie from the weirdness it presents, but I also know that del Toro loves throwing everything into a movie, regardless of how many people can possibly relate to it. He seems like he has fun with those grossout moments, so I can kind of applaud that. Along with Shannon comes an absolutely phenomenal cast. Again, outside of the theme that absolutely fails with me, the casting job in this is nearly perfect. The only person I kind of feel bad for is Octavia Spencer, who had such a similar role to her part in Hidden Figures. She's in Hidden Figures and The Help. I wonder if she's being typecast for old-timey racist era science locations. While she does a remarkable job in this movie, I am kind of bummed out that she doesn't really have that much to play with. She always seems to be a sidekick, despite the fact that she is a fabulous actress who could probably pull off everything. (Her reaction to Eliza's sexual escapades is perhaps the most disappointing moment of the film.) I also really like Richard Jenkins in this movie. I really got behind him when I binged Six Feet Under and since then, he has done nothing that hasn't impressed me. He might be the most sympathetic character in the story. I know that the creature's tale is an allegory for Jenkins's characters more realistic struggle. But that also made me wish that more of the movie was focused on that struggle. It almost felt like a side story or only as a foil for the creature's narrative and I feel like that should be flip-flopped. I think the story might have something in it if Giles was the center of the story and that he was sympathetic to the creature's issues because of his own troubles. But again, that is a major work around and I don't know if that would really fix anything. I don't think I've ever been so in love with elements of a movie and so disappointed with the overall feeling after I left. Like del Toro himself, this movie is in love with the history of cinema, but that is just a small part of a much larger tapestry. Think of someone just listing amazing ingredients that should go together, but for some reason it just doesn't taste right. I want the brownies to taste great and there's really no reason that it shouldn't, but the movie doesn't come together in the way it should. Every single part of this movie was the right ingredient, but the central premise of the movie doesn't work like it should. Perhaps I am much more of a prude than I thought I was, but I couldn't help but think that this movie worked against its interest than it did helping its own interests.
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Need LITERALLY ANYTHING to watch? The Misters H recommend a long binge watch of The West Wing and Doctor Who.
Don't know where to start? Well, you can start by listening to this episode to find out! http://literallyanything.net/blog/2018/1/15/episode-22-literally-our-favorite-recommendations A well-deserved TV-MA. You'll discover in this review that I really like this movie, but Baumbach does that thing where he throws a few remarkably offensive things into the movie. Also, this movie is littered with the f-bomb, so keep that in mind when watching some truly offensive scenes attached to a pretty innocent movie.
DIRECTOR: Noah Baumbach Do you understand how frustrating it is when a title mirrors the way I format my headings? It now looks weird. Where does the title start and stop? This also messes with my entire philosophy about Noah Baumbach. I really got burned by The Squid and the Whale. It was one of those movies that got me so frustrated that I became hesitant to give any other one of his movies a fair shake. I still watched them, but I never fell in love with them. They always kind of fell into this "okay" zone, where I acknowledged that they weren't complete wastes of time, but they weren't my jam. As a film nerd, you are supposed to like Noah Baumbach. But I refused to be a hypocrite and I refused to fake-like him just for the street cred. The same thing happened with David O. Russell. It took me a long time to forgive him post I Heart Huckabees. But The Meyerowitz Stories completely made me rethink watching his entire oeuvre. Not only that, but I've also rethought my position on the whole "Netflix Originals as disposable media" philosophy. (If you didn't know my thoughts on Netflix original movies, I always thought many of them are pretty good, but there's nothing there to invest in because it required no sacrifice to watch it. I don't believe this after this movie.) I will say that Baumbach does what I don't like in his movies in this one as well. Eliza's movies are just meant to be shocking, which I don't care for. I get it. The commentary is how early film students think that shocking is good. But I kind of really believe that Noah Baumbach believes that. He keeps doing it! Okay, he's at least done it twice. But there is a way to tell that joke without being so overt with it. Showing reaction shots would have done it. Also, doing one movie would have told the joke. I didn't need to see that joke twice. Admittedly, the joke is pretty funny, but it's not as good as Baumbach thinks it is. But this is really my only big complaint about the movie. The movie hits so many of my buttons that I can wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who is okay with a very R-rated movie. Primarily, this is a story about relationships with fathers. I have different daddy issues, but daddy issues in general resonate with me and the problems here are fascinating. The big issue is how complex Harold Meyerowitz is. Harold is not a good man, but he's also not outright a bad man. I have to applaud Dustin Hoffman for his portrayal in this film because that nuance and balancing act that he pulls off is what grounds the movie. Harold is realistically annoying. We love The Greatest Generation, but there is an odd personality quirk that comes with being part of this era. (I'm going to get ripped apart for this.) I don't know if this is just an old person thing, but I can think of oodles of people of Harold's age who get passive-aggressive and secretly selfish. They say the meanest things and no one can yell at them. These things aren't necessarily said with hate, but as matter-of-fact statements. That's who Harold Meyerowitz is. He is a selfish man who tries to ride the line of martyr and con man. He lives in a world where he is the most important person in the universe and anything that contradicts that attitude causes him to run away or attack that problem. His fight is to say that he is going to punch it in the nose. His flight is literally running away from problems. This man must be extremely hard to grow up with and that is the central internal conflict with Matthew (Ben Stiller), Danny (Adam Sandler), and Jean (Elizabeth Marvel). It's a little bit of a bummer that the story focuses primarily on Danny and Matthew because Jean's story seems to be a complex as the brothers. I don't know if this is an active form of sexism or rather the fact that a male auteur tends to write inherently male experiences. But I find it interesting that Jean's perspective is the closest one to being right in the movie. I think Baumbach has to be aware of this. There's a line that Jean pipes in with her opinion during one of Danny's speeches. She is making her presence known, despite the fact that it has been woefully underserved in the rest of the story. The even more baffling thing about the whole Jean thing is that Jean isn't an undeveloped character. In fact, Jean's backstory might be the most fleshed out. She has a whole speech in the woods behind the hospital that is there for a reason. She is also the most self-aware of the situation. If anything, Jean's problem is that she might be too healthy to actually carry the narrative. It is what makes Danny and Matthew's story far more interesting. I remember hearing somewhere that therapists often tell patients that their problems may not be as hard as someone else's, but they are more personal than other people's problems. Danny and Matthew definitely have real issues with Harold, but objectively they don't hold a candle to Jean's. Jean just handles it better. I think that the story is really about Danny as the protagonist. Ben Stiller's Matthew does hold quite a bit of screen time, but Matthew's realization is a very light switch choice. (It's okay. Unlike Anakin Skywalker's light switch moment, Matthew needed one thing to happen to him to wake up from his stupor. And it isn't exactly a light switch. There are baby steps before one giant step is taken.) But Danny is the more sympathetic of the two brothers. If Matthew is about apathy, Danny is about quiet desperation. Matthew wants to separate himself from his father unless he hears "I'm proud of you." Danny simply wants acknowledgement. He is Cinderella. He wants to be valid and accepted for being a good man. I really like Danny's character. Sandler isn't terrible. I remember really liking him in Punch Drunk Love and I always wondered why he didn't go the Bill Murray route, picking films that show off his acting prowess. I know that reviews are eating up his performance in this movie. I think he's very good in this, but there are a few moments that have rough edges. Sandler will always have his angry Sandlerisms, but they overall work in this move. There are a few times where it feels like his comic character, but that's only to be expected when someone has made a schtick work as long as he has. Danny is the kind of hero I really like. He is a broken good person. He doesn't always get it right, but he always tries to get it right. Danny's main problem, for most of his life, is the idea that there is shame in asking for love. That's really tough. Asking for love reeks of desperation and you can only really do it once. My theory, and I'm sure I could write a pretty sweet paper on the whole thing, is that his limp represents the turmoil he is hiding inside. He is so used to burying his own needs that he can't even take care of a medical issue that has a solution. He sees himself as worthless and not worthy of attention. That's what I also like about the will they / won't they of Danny and Loretta. I don't want to get into spoiler territory, but what Danny discovers about Matthew's sculpture at the end really hit home. It is such a quiet moment that should be a hurricane of violence. Baumbach does something in this scene that is nearly perfect that I would consider a bit of a misstep. The scene works so well in its continued tone of calm hurricanes that just looks goofy. The idea is cool, but it is the zoom on Sandler's mouth. If you want to explain how this shot works, please write so in the comments or on my Facebook account. I don't know why this shot is done, but that scene is nearly perfect. Matthew is a nice element to the story, but I found myself bonding with him less. I don't like his hypocrisy. It's the message of the movie, so I suppose that I have to get on board. I'm not supposed to like everyone, but I can't stop thinking about how people hurt their kids with selfish reasons. Remember, Matthew is the victim of a negligent and selfish father. He even says that he is becoming his father, but he doesn't really his poor behavior. Normally this is great for me, but it makes me mad because Matthew is supposed to be a sympathetic character. I don't want to make this at all political, but there is an interesting trend that I'm seeing character archetypes. Matthew and Harold are characters I see (often more broadly than in The Meyerowitz Stories) that represent the artistic, liberal, intellectual elite. These are the people I want to be, but they are always fundamentally unhappy. Is the argument happening in these stories that "We're right and we're going to fix the world, but we're all miserable?" Harold and, to a lesser extent, Matthew treat people absolutely terribly. What is the logic of selling this character? It makes for absolutely riveting stories, but these characters are just the worst sometimes. It's why I love Woody Allen movies, that are filled with these characters. I love the lifestyle. Reading books and creating art constantly, but sacrificing everyone for their art? I think I complained about this when I talked about The Awakening. There is so much more I could say about this. Maybe I'll write a Catholic News Agency article about the relationships a little more. Regardless, give this a whirl, but realize it is very R. Happy 2018, we guess? The guys return to the show's mission statement to watch The Fast and the Furious franchise, but not before discussing Dan Harmon's latest problems. They also decide to just chat about stuff...like Star Trek and The Simpsons. You know...
...literally anything? BOOM. Check us out at literallyanything.net! My wife said my favorite quote that summarizes this franchise: "You know who likes cars? The same people who like butts." There are so many closeups of butts, but because it is a Universal blockbuster...that makes it PG-13. I'll never understand anything about anything.
DIRECTOR: Justin Lin The podcast on this one is supposed to drop today. If you are just joining me at this website / podcast, please understand that I'm not a fan of The Fast and the Furious movies. We gave ourselves a little quest to watch these movies because I was way too snobby to get into something like this. Fast Five might be the most fun of these movies so far, but I still have my snobby misgivings that clothe me like a sweater in this very cold weather. I enjoy them to a certain point, but I don't find much value. Some people might say that this is true for blockbusters and action tentpole movies, but I disagree. There's some very weird heart missing from these movies that I tend to get with Star Wars or MCU films. That's really bizarre because the word that is thrown around in these movies willy-nilly is "family." The biggest problem we had with the earlier movies is the "who cares" element of them all. The movie really was just trying to be about being rad, and I suppose that's cool. But Fast Five starts the KFC Famous Bowl attitude of the franchise and throws everything into one big mashed nonsense. (I also just learned from my class that the "Famous Bowl" has been changed to the $5 Fill Up. See, you do learn things from your students.) With a franchise like The Fast and the Furious, the way to transcend the brahs who wear Ed Hardy shirts is to just throw everything at the wall, regardless of how much sense it makes. Fast Five also straight up is a heist movie. It is Ocean's Eleven, without the intricate filmmaking that made Ocean's Eleven a great tentpole movie. (I'm going to keep using the term "tentpole movie" because I can. The best parts of the series was when Dom and Brian were stealing stuff, so I can get behind this. As part of this, the movie gets into ambitious territory. 2 Fast 2 Furious really dropped the ball with that heist film, so the fact that the movies were returning to what was already a failed formula was gutsy. But it kind of works in this movie. I'm not saying that it worked well. But the movie feels much more like it was meant for everyone instead of the broey guys of the previous films. I can chalk this up to two things: abandoning the whole Brian O'Conner is a cop business (It's absurd to ask him what he feels like "being on the other side" because he flip-flops more than is reasonable for an audience to accept) and the fact that they earned their mini-cinematic universe for this one. This movie went all Avengers on the screen. For those not in the know, cast members from every movie in the franchise came together to form a superteam. Or as Dom would call it, a family. He loves that word. It didn't matter if a lot of them just met and it seemed like they didn't get along. They. Were. A. Family. (*pinches sinuses*) But the movie still has the problems that plagued the franchise previous to this movie. The bad guys aren't that likable. Like, I know. We're on their team because they tend to steal from guys who are worse than they are. But they are pretty bad and that comes from my problems with the DCEU. They don't mind casualties to innocent civilians. FULL BLOWN SPOILER TERRITORY FOR A MOVIE THAT DOESN'T MATTER: Dragging a bank vault by cable through a major city is going to kill someone. This movie kept trying to simultaneously explain that no one was hurt due to the shannannigans of the crew while showing that they were willing to cause massive amounts of damage to downtown Rio. Every time one of these scenes happen, I'm instantly pulled out of the movie. I can't help but think, "These are the good guys?" I should be rooting for the Rock to catch these guys. I'm going to seamlessly transition into my discussion about the Rock joining the franchise because I am weirdly in awe of Dwayne Johnson. Dwayne Johnson tends to make things way better. He's almost certainly (and I'm writing unironically!) makes a good movie great. That's why his addition to this movie is absolutely bizarre to me. I normally absolutely love him in everything that I see him in because the guy's abnormally perfect sense of comic timing crushes every time. But he wasn't funny in this one. Fast Five, what were you thinking? You made the Rock a serious character? Not only that, but he looks almost exactly like Vin Diesel in many scenes. You had to make him supernaturally sweaty just to differentiate him. Your intentions are perfect. But it just creates a new problem of having to ask why is he so sweaty. Like, no one else is sweaty! The Rock? All the sweat. It's disturbing. Is he nervous? Does he have a condition? So I can tell the difference between the two characters in a fight (which is more than I can say in the Transformers movies), but that creates more problems than it solves. I know that the Rock is going to join the crew for future films, but I kind of want that now. He is wasted in this role and I just want to see him pancake cars in future films. One other thing that really bothered me about these movies is the fact that deaths are malleable. The best scene in the movie is the train robbery scene. The logic of the train robbery scene really defines the attitude of The Fast and the Furious movies because it is sold to the protagonists as "an easy job." It is, by far, the most complex theft in the entire series. But I'm ignoring that. There's a scene where Vin Diesel, on the train, gets wrecked with a crowbar. (Pun intended) It doesn't even phase him. I know that he's Vin Diesel. Nothing hurts Vin Diesel. But this only gets worse when Dom and Brian pull a Butch and Sundance and just shake it off. They jump off a cliff guys. In a car. Going really fast. I know it is possible to survive this, but other movies show that scene as the scene that is going to possibly kill the heroes. In Fast Five, it is actually the plan for survival. The plan for survival is to drive a car off a cliff at an unreasonable speed and then bail out part of the way down. On top of that, Letty is returning for the next movie. From a guy who reads far too many comic books for his own good, it's hypocritical that I have a problem with people coming back from the dead. But these are movies that now have no permanence. (Again, apologies to the late Paul Walker and his family.) Death really doesn't mean a thing, which means the stakes always seem low. I never really am worried about the fate (or, F8) of these characters because the movie simply decides when these characters are allowed to die. I noticed the same thing with the Charlie's Angels movies and we see how those have held up over time. Yeah, it's fun to watch Dom and Brian launch off a cliff, but there should be some consequences. I like when Fast Five is like the Avengers when it comes to star power, but I also don't need the characters having superhuman abilities. I'd rather see good writing rather than simply accept what shouldn't possibly happen. There's one moment that really sticks in my craw. I know, this is a movie that I said that I liked more than the other ones and all I've done is gripe and complain. There's a scene where it was clearly a callback to the focus of the other movies: the street race. The guys steal a bunch of police cars so that they can blend in while trying to rob the police station. So far, I'm behind this logic. The problem is that immediately after stealing these police cars, they street race them in public. Outside the fact that this ties back into my problem with how cheap life is in Rio, the point of stealing those cars was to stay undercover. When you race four police cars in downtown Rio de Janeiro, it draws attention to yourself. I think that one of the Ocean's movies does this, but it addresses the consequences. Fast Five doesn't have the moral core to do this. It simply throws this scene in because it is apparently awesome. You can't just do things because they are awesome. But again, I did compliment this movie on the fact that it is the Famous Bowls of movie,so I guess they can do whatever they want. And, shy of defying all logical sense, the scene was pretty fun and cool, so do what you need... For a long discussion about Fast Five, check out the podcast tomorrow at literallyanything.net. It's a good time. You know, this one is R. I'll agree with that. The movie doesn't go out of its way to be R. It just is a fine, natural R. I'd even say that it was an organic, farm-to-table R. People curse from time to time. Not every word is the F-bomb, but there's a fine sprinkling in there. Could it be PG-13? Yeah, if they tried. But again, I associate PG-13 with GMOs and Big Pharma.
DIRECTOR: Nacho Vigalondo 6.2 out of 10 on IMDB? Are you kidding me? This movie is great. Like, it's really great. I'm going to gush on this movie and assume that the people who savaged this movie are terrible people. Sure, my wife was kind of bored with it, but I thought it was a gutsy movie. Not only that, but I'm going to go into FULL ON SPOILER TERRITORY because I need to talk about what I just watched. Part of that actually involves talking about the marketing strategy behind this movie and how it was a "pull-the-rug-out-from-under-you" tricksy. Yeah, I got feelings and they are strong. I thought this was supposed to be a sci-fi rom-com. All the dashes, guys. All of the dashes. Watch the trailer on YouTube and tell me that Colossal doesn't look like a sci-fi rom-com. It's not. It's sci-fi, but the movie is primarily about entitlement. This is a story about how men assert dominance in all of the petty creepy ways and I now am paranoid about any time I have been manipulative. As part of this, I have to applaud the casting of Jason Sudekis as Oscar. Sudekis always kind of gets cast as the lovable loser. I have to believe that Nacho Vigalondo knows this. Sudekis comes across as that hapless burnout, but there is this insane dark side that I didn't see coming. I warned you that there were going to be spoilers and that's where I'm going with this comment. The fact that he's a psychopath is completely telling about what men think when they think themselves the victim. His advances are unreciprocated, so he justifies all of his bad behavior following that point. Yes, we too were rotting for your relationship with Gloria, Oscar. But emotions are far more complex things than simply "being a cool guy" and "she should like me." Yeah, the guy that she goes for is kind of a turd. But if she likes that turd, that is her decision. The metaphor of the monsters and the robots is interesting when it comes to manipulation and power. Admittedly, the flashback of Oscar as an evil kid kind of pulls me out of the whole narrative. I kind of like the idea that Oscar was a good guy all of his life, but he also believes that it justifies his evil. That's a great concept for me. Evil Oscar might be a bit indicating, but it also kind of is a commentary on the nice guy. The nice guy isn't always nice. The nice guy is nice because it gets him what he wants sometimes. And that's the story of the movie. Gloria also has another guy after her named Tim. I wish his name wasn't Tim. Daniel Stevens from Downton Abbey plays Tim and he's being a bit of his character from Downton Abbey, only in contemporary America and imagine Lady Mary had a drinking problem and could secretly control a monster in Seoul. Tim treats Gloria poorly throughout the movie. His character trope is "bad ex-boyfriend." He lives up to that pretty well. We don't root for Tim because he's a bit of a tool. But Gloria really likes that guy in some form or another, which makes the story more interesting. There's a scene where Tim and Oscar are talking around Gloria and it is very telling about the entire patriarchy. They are talking about what Gloria wants and Gloria is just screaming to get a word in. I know that there is this weird vitriol towards Anne Hathaway that I never really understood, but she's so good in this movie. Look at that scene and look at what is tearing her apart. She can't help how she feels about Tim. She hates and loves him at the same time. She is used to feeling helpless and doesn't know how to handle that situation. It's a thing. Remember, I thought that this movie was a rom-com. It might be more of a breakdown of the rom-com. This is how reality works. Sometimes, lots of people are terrible. I don't want to write that from a pessimistic perspective, but Colossal points out many problems that many romantic comedy archetypes tend to ignore. Relationships really are far more complicated and sometimes a character has to be an avatar for a giant monster / robot. As part of this, I need to talk about the entire problematic flashback sequence. I really like the artistic style of the flashback information, but I also feel like I don't really find that information necessary. I don't know what it is about me that I like being kept in the dark when it comes to the origins of science fiction premises, but I don't. Getting hit by lightning while holding action figures just seems unnecessary. I like the idea that some cosmic event simply allowed Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudekis to control giant monsters if they are in the park at the exact hour. My bigger question, however, is why there are still people in Seoul at 8:04 every day? Why would you still be there? They know the exact time that the monsters are going to show up and yet, the army is quickly evacuating people. There are people eating meals at a restaurant right where the monsters keep appearing. I would not be there. The news reports in the movie actually stated that there were an influx of people hoping to see the monster. I get that a little more than the people who are just surprised that monsters keep showing up, but still. Let's talk about the abuse scene and how this movie got really real. Jason Sudekis beating up on Anne Hathaway takes what most people would consider a fun film and really grounds the whole story. The last shot of the film is post-murder. Gloria, knowing that Oscar will never stop hurting others out of spite, murders him by throwing him far away. There's this moment where she is bruised and beaten inside a bar in Korea that is haunting. She is a stronger person for taking control of her power, but that almost oversimplifies that whole moment. There is no happy moment. Gloria is a different person, not because of her own choosing, but because she was forced to do so. There is the knowledge that life can't go back to normal. She was forced to confront this very literal demon and it took something from her. I know I'm a fan of bummer films, but this movie is almost a secret bummer film. Yeah, she wins, but I refuse to allow that to be the end of the movie for me. I hope to God that there is never a sequel to this movie. While the end of the movie isn't spelled out for us and there is more depth there, I can only imagine that the movie needs us to process that ending instead of spelling it out for us. Again, it's not like this movie was the critical hit that many people needed it to be, but it really does succeed where it needs to. This movie is scary and uncomfortable. I know that many people don't like that emotion, but I think that emotion needs to be explored more in film. Awkwardness and darkness need a real light drawn to it and I think Colossal tells way more than many other films do, let alone other genre films. Like I mentioned, the movie isn't perfect. I don't love the origin story or the fact that it is teased throughout the film. But this movie has guts where it is meant to have guts. It screams for change without being preachy. I really loved this movie and I still don't get why IMDB kind of savaged this movie. It might be Anne Hathaway, but that seems extremely petty because she really is a talented artist. Regardless, give this lesser known movie a whirl. I know that it was on Amazon Prime, but that managed to disappear. It is on Hulu though. You have Hulu, right? |
Film is great. It can challenge us. It can entertain us. It can puzzle us. It can awaken us.
AuthorMr. H has watched an upsetting amount of movies. They bring him a level of joy that few things have achieved. Archives
May 2024
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