Goofy ahh film
Lots of filmmakers can do searing social critique, few can make it so weird and so fun. Bong Joon-Ho’s best films split the difference between these poles, morally murky with a satire sharpened by absurdity.
The first two acts of Mickey 17 walk this line, as a squeaky voiced and cartoonish looking Robert Pattinson is infected, poisoned, asphyxiated and stabbed to death in the name of progress. We feel bad for him but it’s too funny not to…
yorgos lanthimos has made a film which is extremely funny, weird, horny, stylish and - for i think the first time in his bizarro world - joyful.
unlike frankenstein’s creature who is cast off from humanity and the world, bella baxter seeks it out, despite the frequent ugliness. instead of cursing her creator, bella forgives him because, on balance, life is ‘quite interesting’
all the way through this x-rated bildungsroman, bella insists on agency, choice and transformation - that things…
I was struck by the nonchalant, willing, even proud way that our photojournalist gang were given full access to the unfolding conflicts, not just the choreographed victories but the atrocities too. Civil War induced in me the bizarre thought that ‘if I was executing prisoners and committing war crimes, I wouldn’t be letting them film it like this’.
While this first seemed like a plot contrivance to get the heroes where the action is, it also illustrates the nature of Garland’s near-future…
