I have never seen any of the other Spider Man movies but I wanted to see this one, mainly because of its acclaim and Oscar win for Best Animated Feature. It was OK. I did have some knowledge of the superhero's origin (from the 70s TV show and 80s cartoon), but I didn't realize there were so many other comic versions ("Noir Spiderman", "Pig Spiderman", etc); the main character is a teenage Spiderman name Miles; he has his own comic series as well.
All of these characters manage to meet each other by way of a portal created by a bad guy who wants to use it for his own purposes. How he made the portal is beyond me, but with comics, anything is possible.
The Spider-heroes team up to fight the villains who control the portal to their own dimensions -- if they don't defeat them, they are stuck and can never go home to their own universe. It's a fast-moving movie, and lost some of the details on first watch.
I probably would have enjoyed this movie more if I had more familiarity with all of the other characters, but I got a good sense of them from this film. Not sure if I'm going to go back and watch all of the other Spider Man movies; there's been 7 of them since 2002.
Not long before watching the film, I injured my shoulder after a fall and had to get an X-ray, and remember being pretty anxious to get my results (which turned out ok by the way).
In the film, Cleo also is anxious to get a doctor's report after a test, and the film all takes place within the two hours in between.
She's a pop singer/celebrity, so the results of the test might be consequential to her career if she has a serious illness. I was a little unsure about how big a star she was, but I like the scene where she plays her own song on the jukebox in a restaurant and observes how people respond (people don't pay attention). There's also an interesting part where she has two male songwriters come up to her bedroom and they practice for a bit.
I like the cultural references that were included; in one part, someone makes a funny observational comment "Why aren't more streets named after famous living people like Bardot, Piaf, or Aznavour?" A few scenes take place with her friend in a car, where the radio announces some of the current headlines; it's interesting to hear Kennedy and DeGaulle's names come up in the news.
In the end, she takes a walk in the park, and meets an interesting man, but the movie ends and allows us to imagine the rest of the story.
Of the films I've seen by Quentin Tarantino, the one that I like most is Jackie Brown (1997); it was fictional but didn't present a revised history of true events like some of his later films did.
So I'm among those who have a problem with the ending of his new movie.
For the most part I like every other thing about it: the story, the setting, the two main characters are interesting (the fading western star and his stunt double) and their lives and careers at the end of 1960s Hollywood. I like how Pitt and DiCaprio are shown in unglamourous moments, and pondering the future of their careers apart from the television shows they were so used to. In perhaps one of my favorite scenes, DiCaprio takes a lunch break (while filming a western tv show) to read a book, and meets another actor - a young child star who is also reading, and they stop to form an interesting bond before their scene together.
I liked the recreation of 1969 era Hollywood, and enjoyed all of the music and film references as well. My friend who is older knew pretty much every actual actor and film mentioned.
There is an actor who portrays Steve McQueen, and he looks just like him; it was at the moment where I really felt transported into this world and captivated.
So I didn't have a problem with how the fictional characters brush with real-life characters.
But the ending of the film bothered me because it isn't true to history of who was killed and who wasn't killed in real life. Spoiler - Sharon Tate doesn't die; she lives on. It's basically Tarantino's fantasy alternate universe now, as if he jumped into a time machine like in Back to the Future and altered events.
As a viewer I felt like I'm being asked to buy into this imaginative world in which the real-life victims were never murdered, and the actual killers are the ones who get killed. I'm supposed to be entertained by that?
There's something to that ending that I think Tarantino is trying to say but I'm not sure I fully understand. Maybe I'm not meant to understand. Maybe the ending is a dream that Dicaprio is having? That might make more sense interpreted that way.
The real Sharon Tate may have lived in a "fictional"/ "dreamland" of Hollywood, but she was still a real person, and her life deserves respect. Or maybe a biographical film of her own one day.
Meanwhile, I won't write off Tarantino entirely yet. I will check out some of his additional interviews to better understand what he's trying to say with his film.
The fact that he made a film that has got me thinking after it's over may mean that it's a great film after all.
Here are some of the blogs I recently read for some other perspectives.
- The Collider Matt has some problems with the ending which I agree with.
- Cinematic Corner - Sati has the same problems that I have with the movie and also talked about audience reaction in her theater.
- Live for Films Adam echoes some other critics who call it "a love letter to Hollywood… to film making… and to film lovers"; in Amanda's review, she criticized the many female characters whose sole purpose is to react to the men around them.
- From the Front Row - "Going into a Quentin Tarantino movie, one usually has a certain set of expectations: there will be copious amounts of violence, creative (and constant) use of curse words, extensive references to older films, and lately, a new spin on familiar history."
The author of this Variety article called this "the first dramatic feature about the Manson murders that has a happy ending. Good for him, I guess. And good for us. At least, if you believe that movies should be fairy tales." "Quentin makes the trashing of history look hip....that Sharon Tate “lives” is supposed to send us out on a feel-good cloud (when, in fact, it’s arguably a trivialization of her memory)" - I agree with that.
In this interview (below) from the Cannes Film Festival, Tarantino compares his film to the work of director Claude Lelouch.
Tarantino and the main cast talk to Entertainment Weekly (below)
Below: Cinemablend talks to Quentin Tarantino for about 20 minutes here (Cinemablend is biased and loves Tarantino). In the interview, Tarantino knows his history, and all, but doesn't really talk about the ending.
I didn't expect to enjoy this Guillermo del Toro film, but I did. In my interpretation, the film tells a story about how a young girl finds escape from the brutal realities of her world, circa 1944 in Spain during the dictatorship of Franco.
It's dark. And blends fantasy and politics very much like his other films Devil's Backbone and Shape of Water. The girl's stepfather is a military officer who often tortures or kills any spy or anti-fascist warrior that comes near him or his home.
Meanwhile, the girl discovers fairies and other mythical creatures, which may or may not be real (is it all just in her head?) But my interpretation is that they are real and interact only with her, and the new world she enters is also a real one, only open to her. I thought it was an imaginative world, at least what we see of it.
I first watched this movie back in 1994 on VHS when it first was released. I did alot of camping around that time, and the outdoor survival aspect had a great appeal to me. When I got into paintball a few years later, I thought of this movie.
Rutger Hauer has a large part as a manhunter with a cabin the woods; he and a gang prey on humans for sport. Ice-T has to survive.
Although I haven't seen this in awhile, I remember finding it really entertaining, and a cool survival action thriller.
Speaking of Ice-T, I liked him in Tresspass as well; he had a good run of film roles in the mid-90s.
Some of Hauer's recent films that I still want to see are Hobo with a Shotgun and The Mill and The Cross where he plays Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel.
Agnes Varda was one of the great French filmmakers who emerged during the New Wave period, and continued making films until recently; her final was 2017's Faces/Places, which was nominated for an Oscar (I still haven't seen it yet but it's on my list). I recently attended a retrospective of her short films, noted below.
A Diary of a Pregnant Woman | L'Opéra-Mouffe (1958, 27 minutes)
This film, shot in black/white, was made when she was pregnant (hence the title); it's perhaps one of her most-personal shorts in the series. She films a couple - lovers - and scenes of streetlife in a neighborhood in Paris called la Mouffe, with lots of interesting juxtapositions.
Along the Coast | Du Côté de la Côte (1958, 27 minutes)
This is a traveloge film (shot in color) showcasing the coast of Southern France. Lots of beach shots and shots of tourists and travelers, with narration throughout. A lovely musical score by Georges Delleurde. It's really cool to see this footage from the late 1950s, as well as plentiful scenes of Nice and Monte Carlo, where I visited in 2004 on a France trip.
Hello Cubans | Salut les Cubains (1963, 30 minutes)
Another traveloge, but this time it is in black-and-white, and using mostly photographs in B/W. Agnes took hundreds of photos which she compiled for this film. A narrator describes the history of Cuba and the events leading up to the revolution. She also took a number of quick-succession photographs and turned them into some cool-looking animations; one was of a rumba dancer. Really exceptional.
Elsa la Rose (1965, 20 minutes)
This is short documentary of an older couple, a man and a woman. The man is about 70 or so, and a poet. His wife, also in her 70s, is also interviewed on camera and asked about how she feels about all of the many love poems he wrote to her over the years.
Uncle Yanko (1967, 22 minutes)
Agnes had an older Greek relative who emigrated to San Francisco and lived a bohemian life of an artist. This is her tribute to him. It's a pretty cool short film. There's several scenes of him hanging out with some other artists and friends and eating and talking about art and music and politics. And lots of footage of his artwork. I was sad to learn that he passed away just a few years after this was made.
Black Panthers (1968, 28 minutes)
Made just one year after Uncle Yanko, Agnes again makes a short film set in the United States/California. This time in Oakland California, and focuses on The Black Panther protests during the imprisonment of Huey Newton, a founding member. Agnes interviews many of the Panther leaders including Stokely Carmichael and other people who are just tourists or passerbys who are interested in the protests. It's really a great documentary. It's amazing how she and a crew were able to interview Newton in jail for such a lengthy interview.
The Pleasure of Love in Iran | Plaisir D'amour en Iran (1976, 6 minutes)
This lightly comedic short follows a young couple on a vacation. They relax on a courtyard bench admiring the colorful mosaics on the exterior of a mosque, and make some innocently irreverent comments about the architecture - how the domes look like breasts and the minarets look phallic. I like the part when the woman has a sudden burst of inspiration, and starts to write a poem on some toilet paper. It's a funny short, and feels like it could be one scene in a longer movie, which would be interesting.
Women Reply | Résponse des Femmes (1976, 9 minutes)
About a dozen women are brought together and filmed in short/quick segments talking about what it means to be a woman and how they feel about how women and women's bodies are portrayed in advertising and on television, and how they feel about men's perceptions in general. It's an amazing film, and so relevant for today. Made the year I was born. The baby in the film would be my age, too.
Ulysses (1983, 22 minutes)
In 1954 Agnes took a photograph of two people on a beach standing near a dead goat corpse. It's a unique photo that she presented among her works of photography for many years. In 1982 she interviewed the man and boy in the photo and tried to see if they remembered it. They didn't. It's a really interesting and contemplative film. In a humorous touch, she films a real goat with a copy of the picture and the goat eats the photo.
I really enjoyed all of her films. I love how she always add a touch of humor in them.
This past weekend I attended an outdoor screening of this film at a park downtown (seeing it for the first time); I enjoyed it, especially the build-up of suspense of Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) being tracked down by the police while pursuing Jean Seberg. My friend commented how the misogyny in the film stood out to him, and I could see how this can be problematic for contemporary audiences. While watching, I noticed the one quick shot toward the end where Michel is wearing sunglasses with one lens just like Clyde did at the end of Bonnie and Clyde shortly before he's killed (the 2017 film Baby Driver also includes a similar bit).
I watched this recently with a group and enjoyed it for the most part; it's notable for being Walt Disney's first full-length live-action film without any animation (not even the Long John Silver's parrot). Robert Newton was very good as Silver. Bobby Driscoll was OK; he was probably the most famous child actor at the time, hence his casting. The last five or ten minutes of the film seemed very "rushed" to me for some reason. Another thing that's noticeable by today's standards is that it is pretty violent. I wasn't expecting to see so much blood for early 1950s - a guy gets shot in the face, and several others stabbed and shot. After all, pirates are pirates but for a Disney film it seemed to push the envelope; apparently the censors didn't object to the scene when the young boy shoots a pirate in self defense. But overall I enjoyed watching this version, especially Newton's performance.
I have never seen any of the other Spider Man movies but I wanted to see this one, mainly because of its acclaim and Oscar win for Best Animated Feature. It was OK. I did have some knowledge of the superhero's origin (from the 70s TV show and 80s cartoon), but I didn't realize there were so many other comic versions ("Noir Spiderman", "Pig Spiderman", etc); the main character is a teenage Spiderman name Miles; he has his own comic series as well.
