~On watching Die Hard the day after Christmas with my partner and our very sick baby~
As I have said in the past, having a baby makes watching films on a frequent basis quite difficult, especially if you’re like me and require very particular conditions for the viewing experience: we gotta start by 8pm if the movie’s over 90 mins, no talking, no phones, lights off, and the volume’s gotta be boomin’… yes, you guessed it - I’m very fun…
~On watching half of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on cable on Thanksgiving with my partner and son in a musty Motel 6 while drinking a 40~
Being the parent of a newborn is hard. Among all the other complications, I no longer get to consume movies the way I used to - not even close. I found myself looking at my letterboxd the other day and realized November 2024 was going to be the first month…
Like many historical dramas, the liberties this takes with historical fact requires one to take the entire film’s statement with a grain of salt. I don’t dislike the statement and believe it holds some truth, but the manipulation of these facts for the filmmaker’s purpose kinda undercuts the film’s attempt at authenticity. For it to all be in service of what amounts to a grisly action film is even more problematic. However, taken at face value as a piece of…
Definitely with it in the beginning, but by the end it has completely fallen apart and revealed itself to be a heap of undisciplined aesthetic and narrative decisions. It has some beautiful cinematic moments, some fun performance moments, and when it was at its best I laughed out loud at its absurdity. But it’s often undercut by its lack of tonal control, unhinged pacing, ham fisted needle drops, and inability to be a coherent (or even contradictory) conversation about anything. You can tell what kind of movie it wants to be, but it fails to accomplish what it imitates. Nevertheless, a very watchable aesthetic wash
