Some Dude Reviews Movies

So it's been a while since I watched something really truly mind boggling. Something that forced me to reconsider it and turn it around in my hands like a Rubik's Cube. So I was a bit thirsty for something challenging. And in walked I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020) by Charlie Kaufman. I. What Is It? This is the story of a Young Woman (Jessie Buckley) who goes to visit her boyfriend's (Jesse Plemons) parents (David Thewlis and Toni Collette). There's also a side story about a school janitor (Guy Boyd). To say anything else would be giving the game away. II. A Work of Art I love movies that fire on all cylinders. And this one bangs. Kaufman's script is playful, but drenched in ennui and pain. The acting, which I'll talk more of anon, is exquisite. The art direction is incredibly detailed and lush. That scary old house is filled to the brim with wonderful wallpapers, and winding stairs, and candlelit dinners. And the colors are constantly shifting: we have ...

When a beloved classic film is remade, the filmmakers must always toe a line. A line between fidelity to the original and presenting something new altogether. In the past few years Disney has trotted out a handful of remakes of some of their classic animated films. All to great financial success, but very few to critical claim. Part of the reason these remakes are not well loved is that Disney has skewed more towards the fidelity side of that line I presented above. It is certainly the reason that I have not really enjoyed any of the recent remakes. But Mulan  (2020) looked different. It appeared that the movie would swap the musical genre for the wuxia epic. And that captured my attention. It actually made me excited for one of these bloated vanity money-traps Disney has been selling us for years. Maybe it wouldn't be so shameless, so tired, so cynically profit-driven? And so, after many delays, some controversy involving Hong Kong protests and the lead actress, and a world-wide p...