Catching up

So I just watched to catch up and write down some films I recently saw and haven't made a post on yet.

Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald

Johnny English Strikes Again

Venom

Little Favour

The Spy Who Dumped Me

Viimane Vürst

I feel like I am forgetting something....

I'm not sure if I will write a review on any of those, but I just kind of wanted to keep track of the stuff I've seen. Is that weird? I mean that's the whole point of this blog I guess.

Loving Pablo

This is not the kind of genre I generally go for, but every now and again I like to challenge myself, I like to see something different and I do like films that are based on real life, however loosely.

This however, was the standard drug dealer's life kind of story. There was nothing truly shocking about it for me, aside from the fact that the female characters were stupid enough to think that they could be "safe" living or having an affair with a criminal mastermind.

For me it was unnecessarily, violent and gruesome, too much blood and naked bodies that I didn't enjoy looking at. All in all, I'll just admit it wasn't my kind of film. I'm not sure it was a bad one, in fact I think it wasn't, but it certainly wasn't for me either.

Ocean Eight

I love a good heist film. The visuals are beautiful, the outfits were lovely, the actors are great, although its one of those movies that tries to get your attention by slamming in all the famous names.

The story was all right. It was nothing revolutionary, fairly standard heist movie stuff. I was surprised by the fact that nothing really went wrong in the plan, not really, not drastically. The tension was mainly created by me expecting something to go wrong.

The humour was fine, but not anything hilarious either. It was a good, nice, inoffensive film to watch. Enjoyable, but not mind-blowing. I was cheering for the bad guys as the film intended.  I really liked it and I think other people too will like it, but a masterpiece it was not.

Love, Simon

Edit: I have rewritten this entire post. I was previously under the false impression this was based off a John Green book. I feel very sillu. 

Beautiful movie with a heart-warming sweet and relatable story.  I personally feel that the teens in films like in these films remind me more of my teen life than most American teen films. They feel normal, not crazy party and boy-crazed people who pull insane stunts and seem to have no brains.

The cinematography was very beautiful. It was very similar to  John Green films and therefore has a real "John Green film feel" Looking at the trailer I was so certain it was based on a John Green book. The visuals are just really beautiful and interesting.

The subject matter was handled, in my humble experience, well and not too stereotypically. It was a nice take.

Ant-Man and The Wasp

It's another nice and chill Marvel movie. I feel like the humour in Marvel movies gets better and better as time goes on. It wasn't a full on comedy or parody like Deadpool, but it had a lot of really fun moments. It wasn't terribly mind-blowing, but it was good and fun and there wasn't much that bothered me plot-wise. 

I liked that they tied up the end with the Infinity War. I hadn't seen the first Ant-Man film and felt a bit confused as the film started, but the confusion disappeared quite quickly. So see it even if you haven't seen the first part. It was fun-

Deadpool 2

If you saw the first Deadpool film and liked that you're going to like this one. I'm not really sure how it works on its own because I, for one, was happy I had saw the first one again just a few days prior. There were a lot of references to the first movie as well as pop culture references in general. At times I felt it got a bit overboard, but honestly I'm not one of those people who minds them. In fact I usually like them. I felt that at times they just repeated the same joke from the first film and that did feel a bit...old.

Spoilers ahead!

Otherwise it's a fun film. As in the first film it has the same crude, rude, yet creative and fun humour that really fits into this film's general tone. I'm not the one for gross comedy and swearing and sex jokes, but the ones in this film are creative. Also, Marvel has done enough death scenes recently that Deadpool's had me wonder if he was actually going to die. And even if he would have - it would have still been a fun scene and it's hard to make death scenes not feel too heavy. Shrek has done the comically slow death joke before, but it was still funny. I'm not saying it was completely void of clichés, but I am saying it was fun to watch and I laughed a lot and some of the humour was very creative and it was all very true to the way Deadpool is.

Basically it comes down to this - if you like Deadpool you'll like this and if not then I don't think you will? But I did. If you don't know if you like Deadpool yet, give it a go! Maybe you will.

Avengers: Infinity War

Was it a great movie? I wouldn't say it was some grand masterpiece. It had so many plot-lines going and and loads of characters and you could sort of feel that they tried to cram as many of them in there as physically possible. Also it seemed they tried to film this around actors and their schedules. There are so many famous and great actors in this film and they can't possibly all be in the same place at the same time so it seemed that they were trying to keep that in mind while filming. That might not have even been the case, but it certainly felt and seemed that way.

Spoilers ahead!

The storyline wasn't anything amazingly unique either, but the story was comprehensible despite the many plot-lines and characters. Some things, such as Thanos killing his daughter were so utterly predictable he might have as well carelessly thrown her off the cliff for comedic effect. Yes, they wanted to show he did really love her, but we sort of get that from what we're shown before and we all knew he was going to do it.

I loved the ending. It was totally unexpected for me. I doubt Marvel will actually kill off half of its characters in the MCU, so the stakes aren't as high as they may seem, but it was a good, bold ending and I liked it. I've longed for a film where the villain wins plenty of times. Honestly, I really loved the film too. These are the characters I know (well, most of them at least, I haven't seen all of the previous films) and some of whom, I love. I felt good coming out of the cinema. I thought about this film days later and really, what more could you ask for?

Shape of Water

This is the best film of the year? Are you sure academy?

Okay. Maybe I didn't like it, because I had very high expectations. It was a bit of a sci-fi film that won an Oscar. So surely I would like it, right? No. It wasn't a bad film. I'm not saying that. I'm saying I didn't like it.
There were a few things I liked:

• the look of things. The aesthetic, the colours, was mostly pleasing. It looked nice and artsy.
• the ending. For a moment I thought it won an Oscar, because everyone dies in it and hence it's art.

And that's it.  So the bad stuff:

• The characters were pretty one-dimesional. I mean Elisa was okay, but she wasn't hugely interesting. The bad guy. We get it. He's  awful. He has no redeeming qualities. You don't have to keep hammering it in every damn second. You don't have to show him practically raping his wife. He's a psycho. Okay. I get it. 
• Everything was so predictable. Really. I could tell the Bad Guy was going to hit on Elisa. I could tell writing your plans in the calendar was a bad idea. I could tell everything down to the bloody jumpscares! It was almost more predictable the average superhero film. But those are fun at least. 
• It was gross. That sounds juvenile, but I don' t want to expose myself to things that make me sick. From the eating of a cat's head (although I didn't see that one coming. Well, I was praying it wouldn't come) to the rotting fingers. Did I really need to see all that? Because honestly some of it is haunting me and not in a good way.

I, Tonya

Wow. I've seen a lot of films recently I haven't added here. This, I loved. It is so worth seeing. I love the storytelling, the way they show the perspectives of different characters and tell the story from different sides. I wish they had mixed it with documentary frames, but other than that it was great. Margot Robbie was amazing in it too.

Coco

Pixar knows it's movies. Pixar also knows how to make people cry, how to touch their hearts and move them, better than many non-animated movies.

The plot isn't all that unpredictable, in fact I was sure of several key elements and many others I guessed might happen and yet still it is a good story. I like that the used Mexican folklore? beliefs? as the basis of this and went and built their world on that. It was cool and refreshing, yet I had so many questions like, if the whole, going to the living world works on the premise of photos being put out then

• How did their crossing to the living world system work before photography? 
• What about people of whom there are no photos? Surely they are not all forgotten?
•  Do paintings work? But there are mostly only paintings of rich people, weren't there? In the older days?
• How come the whole family hates music so much? I understand the reasons originally, but Coco's great-grandchildren? How were all except one so well persuaded?
• If Coco remembered and loved his father all along. it seems a biiit unlikely he never told ANYONE of him, but okay

But that aside it was really touching, a cool premise, cool universe and designs. Even if you'll know how the story ends, it's easy to still get involved and there were some surprises even for me.

Better tomorrow than today

PÖFF post


As much as I try to avoid seeing depressing stuff at PÖFF I didn't this time manage. Well,  as far as depressing human dramas about teenage girls go this one was pretty good. I'm just honestly not sure if I liked it more, because it was good or because it was Korean and I enjoy anything from these parts of Asia more.

It didn't depress me terribly, but neither was it fun. Neither was it boring, stuff happened and I was reasonably engaged even if I didn't like any of the characters a whole lot. There were some nice ones. There were some I hated. One in particular. The mother. The dad and his family were very nice. It was okay. I liked how the main character had a very consistent clothing style and I liked the insight into this part of Korean life, education and problems. Provided it was realistic. Which it seemed to be, but then again Estonian life always seems more depressing in Estonian cinema, so who knows.

King Cnut

PÖFF post

This film is absolutely brilliant.  I saw it as part of PÖFF, but if you have the chance to see it -  Go for it. It easily the best documentary I have ever seen. I like the Fashion Cinema programme at PÖFF anyways and I like this sort of classic fashion cinema documentaries too, but this was something totally different and man was it wonderful. I liked the topic of copyright  laws and parodying itself, but the fact that it's sort of a comedy documentary makes it so unique and wonderful. Those are not the two things you'd think to combine easily.

I think the storytelling was amazing. To the point where I started to almost wonder if they manipulated the truth to get a more captivating narrative. It was fantastic, fun, clever and everything wrapped up really nicely. It is a classic David and Goliath story and man was it satisfying. One man goes against a giant corporation in his own unique, witty and clever way and doesn't completely fail. Justice prevails! More or less.

Also, to look at this critically - it's a hell of a good advertising for his clothing brand.

But really, it was awesome and it was great to have the main character (you can't really call him an actor when it's a documentary) and the director there as well.

Mother!

Well, let me tell you - if you like close-ups of Jennifer Lawrence you will love this film. I like Jennifer Lawrence rather a lot, but I must admit the constant close-ups gave me a bit of headache.

Otherwise I loved the aesthetics of this movie. I generally don't like it when all people talk about after seeing a movie are the clothes the people wore or the rooms and landscapes it was all filmed in, but I loved the fact that this film had a very constant colour theme that was really noticable and cool. I liked that the main character had a very distinct style of clothing, despite the fact that it didn't fall under any pre-established style category. I mean that she wasn't a goth or something similar. Her clothes were very casual, but she still had a style.

I also liked the effects, they were very - effective and different from any I had seen. Visually the film was very very pleasing. 

Did I actually like the film as a whole now? I think I did. Maybe. The story wasn't too pleasant and if it hadn't been told so beautifully and visually I wouldn't have liked it. It had some metaphors and sub-text and hidden meanings into it, but they were very unclear and difficult to decode. You might think that's the point, but with some movies its very easy to think of things that the author might have meant. Here, you wonder of they tried too hard.

i liked the ending, it was satisfying, but I think, once again, more visually, than story-wise

Paris can wait

This film ... was not my cup of tea. I'm not saying it was bad. Although I think if it had been exceptionally good I would have enjoyed it despite the drama/romance genre. I can, after all, enjoy such films as well.

This, however, it was pretty average. Not terrible, but not good enough to make me feel it was worth my time. Perhaps I was not its target audience, but I feel that in a good film we can relate to all kinds of characters.

I found nothing relatable in this. Nothing. I didn't really like any of the characters. I couldn't relate to any. The main lead pissed me off, because I would have done everything completely differently that her and as a result her actions irritated me. I don't watch a lot of romantic drama and yet nothing about this felt particularly fresh.  Once again, I can't say it was bad - there were some cool visuals, some neat ideas, a lot of nice food. I just didn't like it.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Honestly, I didn't expect to love it as much as I loved the first part and went into it thinking:"Ah, I bet this won't be as good as the first one." But really - I think it was pretty much just as good. It was - similar. I even liked the callbacks to the originals, the scene that was the same, but the outcome was different. It was clever.  Sure, they used some famous people like Elton John purely because they can do that now with the first part having been successful, but I don't really mind.

I was skeptical about them bringing Harry (Colin Firth) back and how they would do it, but I think plot-wise it was just plausible enough and didn't feel like a huge cop-out. And really, the film doesn't hold very well without him. He is just an amazing actor. Julianne Moore was really great too.

Fun, enjoyable watching, the plot was pretty cool too, it had some tropes, some things you could expect, but it was a fairly clever jab at the US president at least.

The Square

I went into this with high expectations. I heard great things about this film from a person who sees a lot of cinema and reviews films for a living so when she was in love with it I decided to check it out.

It's one of those rare films that is both artsy, different, unique and..fascinating, thrilling and actually relateable.  It has a plot, that moves, for a most part, with a pleasant speed. It grabs your attention, there is something everyone can relate to or at least - recognize and say:"Yes, I know other people like that."

It's interesting, multi-layered and has a lot going on in it. The characters are just likeable enough that you can feel a bit sorry for them here and there. I wouldn't call it a comedy. It is classified as one, but it certainly isn't the sort of humour that makes you laugh. It's dark, satirical and certainly very clever and intelligent, but I didn't feel in any way uplifted or humoured leaving the cinema. It is obviously a great movie. Anyone can tell you that, it was awarded highly at Cannes after all, but better than that (for me personally), it was one that I actually liked.

Kedi

I got into the mood for a bit of an indie...ish - film (not a Hollywood blockbuster) for this, picked a day when I felt I was in the right mood for it. I read a review - it was great and the film was shown not only in the art-film cinemas here, but in the more mainstream ones too, so surely, it must be great. It's about cats, after all. I love cats. What could go wrong?

Well, apparently - a lot of things. It was - boring. Plain and simple. At the start I was excited, by the end I was squirming in my seat wondering when would it end. One could say that Hollywood movies with their flashy fast-paced images has spoiled me. But no - I'm not sure that's the issue here. The film had no narrative. No one storyline to tie together the small bits, the stories of all the cats. If there was one it was so loose, it didn't do it's job. It felt like a small TV-series with each bit of the film being an episode about a certain cat(s) and a human connected to the cat(s). It got old, repetitive and there were a lot of issues I would have liked a closer look at, a more in-depth discussion of, but that were just briefly mentioned. All and all, not my favorite kind of film.

Spider-man: homecoming

Sometimes it's just nice to go and see a nice entertaining movie. It's nice when you go and expect something good, mildly amusing and nice and you get just that. Not a masterpiece, but something that you can just enjoy and forgive some small flaws to, because it's entertaining. And that is what that movie is.

It was almost a little shocking that this wasn't an origin story. I was mildly disoriented by the fact for a moment, but really it was great and refreshing. I liked the story. Liked that everything was already established, because really - we all know how Peter Parker becomes Spiderman by now. I felt that Peter was pretty in character too.

Baywatch

It's a funny film. Not by any means a masterpiece, not even a great movie, but an enjoyable and entertaining one. It's just fun. The humor is a bit grotesque and not the kind you want to admit you laugh at, but you laugh at it anyways.

It's so over the top, so silly and it knows it. It doesn't take itself seriously at all and that's what makes it an honest fun movie. The small cameos from Pamela Anderson & David Hasselhoff feel a bit forced, but they are appreciated and I liked the fact that while the main character is called Mitch, David Hasselfoff's character is also called Mitch and not something else. Although I don't particularly get why or how they have the same name, but it wasn't particularly bothersome.

Wonder Woman

I honestly didn't have much expectations in terms that I had no idea what this film would be about - other than Wonder Woman. I had heard great things about it through, about how empowering it felt for women and great.

It was pretty good. The plot was consistent, there was one. It was pretty logical. For most part. I don't really understand why Diana couldn't return to the amazons once she left, but maybe I should have read the comics. There were visual inconsistencies - a mug being in once place in one shot and in other in other. But these were small mistakes that I didn't even notice, and wouldn't have noticed, if they weren't pointed out to me.

I think the actors were pretty good. Our leading actress fit into her role well and I liked the amazons. They didn't look too young, nor did they look old. They looked kind of perfectly ageless if that makes sense, somewhere between old and young.

I don't think this film was that groundbreaking in other ways. Sure, Diana seems like a very headstrong and independent woman - for the early 20th century where she is thrown into. I think she is all that by the modern standards too, but I wish they would have tried to show her as an independent strong woman in the 21st century, where all other characters aren't comically and pointedly not feminists. It feels like a bit of a cheat.

The ending was cliche'd and perhaps the most boring part of the film. The moral was so worn-out that there were holes through it. It wasn't wrong, just over-exploited.  All in all there was little that felt new. Besides a female heroine.