Big Business — 3.5/5
I've got too much history with this movie to do anything but build it up. My sister watched it a hundred times, and love is created through repetition. Everything in the movie is familiar like family, so what I say can't be trusted. I want to give it a 4, if not for the fact that it's a perfect 3.5/5 movie.
Also I think Fred Ward might be one of my favorite actors?
Marie Antoinette — 2.5/5
I've no real interest in Sofia Coppola, but I watched this movie because I was interested in exploring my view of her as 'a person who makes movies about princesses stuck in castles' vis-à-vis an actual princess, in an actual castle. Coming out the other side of it, I now harden my dislike for her and think of her as more of an Emerald Fennell of a previous generation. For a large part of this movie, it paints a portrait of Marie Antoinette that I can forgive. She has no idea what goes on in the outside world, a princess in a castle, protected from what is actually happening and thus with no idea what questions to ask of it, nor what she is doing wrong within it. She exists for others within her sphere, always on display, and she becomes what they expect of her — a thing to talk about. She gets fancy clothes and candies and she wants what anyone wants, which is to entertain our way out of boredom, and there's no one to tell her no and give her the reasons why. So, my bad, I thought the movie was leading towards a "let them eat cake" moment that became the punchline to a joke of a life where she truly does not know why they can't, you know, just pivot from bread. Instead, the movie ends with these sad scenes of her bowing to a crowd and being driven away by carriage. The feeling of those scenes is 'aw, poor princess' and the movie quickly goes from 'she isn't innocent, but she's ignorant, made that way by others, and I can acquit her of any larger crime' to 'I think this movie legitimately wants me to feel sympathy for her?' which brings upon me the fellow-wealthy Emerald Fennell connection, and the general 'we must forgive the privileged amongst us' right-leaning centrist-ass view that I've seen in her films. But whereas I think Emerald is trying to push us all a bit further to the right, away from the class consciousness which would throw her against the wall, I think Sofia Coppola keeps making movies where she wants us to console her for her position within the upper-tier. She wants us to feel bad for Marie Antoinette and me, personally, I can find a way towards forgiving her, but I draw the line at trying to feel sympathy towards her.
The Secret Agent — 4/5
According to the internet, the Brazilians have a culture of not wanting to bring up the past. This was helpful to fully understand the movie! But also, to the movie's credit, it created in me that curiosity to seek out more information. At its core, it's a serious movie, but completely surrounded by these curious and compelling choices. It's not a mystery movie, but it arouses mystery in me. It makes me want to learn more! Why is there a severed leg murdering people?? What is happening in the north vs the south of Brazil?? So, on a surface level, I was able to enjoy the movie despite not fully getting it, but learning what the culture is about helped me understand what the movie is about. At the end, when Wagner Moura appears in his second role, both clearly his father's child and totally removed from his father, there is this sense of hope that quickly becomes muddled. I didn't understand it while watching it, but later, upon learning, did it register. There is a hope that the past leaves a legacy: a son takes on his father, a nation is better for what came before... and the disappointment of that being both true and not true. The American axiom of "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" kind of flipped on its head, with the opposite also being true — we can't hold all of history in our head, it gets scattered, becomes unfinished fragments, barely remembered thoughts, we can't recollect how all the pieces came together, and so we are destined to do it all over again.
The Phoenician Scheme — 1.5/5
Wes Anderson is just making French comic books at this point. Fantagraphics-ass shit. I don't think this movie means anything, and I'm not really a particular fan of how he handles humor. It's too staged. Humor, for me, needs a feeling of unpredictability, and he's far too controlled for that.
Minx S1 — 3/5
A worthy successor to 'Glow,' in that it's a clothing-caricatured depiction of a time and place where I want everyone's furniture and outfits, there's lighthearted humor with mostly good-meaning people, a wily but goodhearted businessman, a disrespected industry, a feminist who's expanding her ideals to others while loosening her own hard-line views, and the occasional titty. Shit, writing it out, it is just 'Glow,' isn't it? It's fun, a perfectly light watch, though at times the priggish nature of the leading lady tends to amount to 'watch 18 minutes of her being wrong before realizing there are other perspectives.'
Shrinking S3 — 3/5
I think the show has returned to its beginning-of-season-1 lulls, namely in that the comedy either just stopped working, or that the show has forgotten it's a comedy? There were a lot of things that felt like jokes that I did not laugh at. Fortunately, the emotion works! I do like these characters, and their fumbles along the way to growth. Everyone would be better if everyone just said their problems aloud, and then friends neighbors co-workers all collectively helped them overcome it!! It's the 'Ted Lasso' idealism that everyone grew to hate and both marks and stains Bill Lawrence's work. But I think the longer his shows go, the more an irony appears: despite doing the work to overcome your problems, there continue to be new problems. Which, yes, I know, is life and sitcoms, but it feels like the idealistic POV of the show suggests that we may Some Day attain The End of Problems, but as the end of Ted Lasso, Scrubs, and this season show, it usually means that when you're in a good place, you just up and fucking leave. What's the use of building a community if everyone acts like it's optional????? The unintended thesis of Bill Lawrence's work is that it teaches us that moving forward means leaving people behind. Which, I think, is sort of a summation of the American mindset: this battle and balance between needing others and needing to be okay on your own.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple — 2.5/5
"I didn't really like this movie, but I'm also curious to watch the next," I said about the previous one. I think the appeal was essentially "what a weird corner they've painted themselves into, I wonder how they'll paint themselves out." And that is indeed the appeal. When it's at its weirdest—like when Ralph Fiennes is doing his best satan karaoke—it is something wonderful. "The end of the world isn't sad or depressing, it's just fucking weird" is a Mad Max-esque sentiment that I can absolutely buy into. It's unfortunately too little of that. It feels like it's trying to be a TV show, as a movie series, characters coming in and out and intersecting at just the right time, but ultimately saying nothing beyond continuing to move the plot forward. Unfortunately, by the end, there's no one really worth following, all of the interesting characters are now gone.
