21 Comments

Wenders’s PINA was a great use of 3D. His follow up EVERY THING WILL BE FINE was proof that not every film needed it.

Expand full comment
author

Quick warning just to ignore me on ANSELM. Seems like everyone else who's seen it likes it a lot more than I did. And seeing it in 3D is an essential experience if you're going to see it at all.

Expand full comment
Feb 8Liked by Scott Tobias

I was underwhelmed by it, too. Some great imagery so I don’t regret going but I didn’t get much out of it.

Expand full comment

The main issue with Vaughan's filmography in the decade since KINGSMAN is that it's *only* been KINGSMAN movies - literally half his directing career spaffed on that one franchise, which wasn't particularly fantastic to begin with. I was hoping him doing something - anything - else might have seen him shake things up a bit, dude's got the chops (LAYER CAKE: pretty great), but seems like he's doubled- or tripled-down on that style, which isn't ideal.

Expand full comment

Agree with this. I really, really liked LOCK, STOCK, AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS and X-MEN FIRST CLASS. which were exercises in style but also had characters and plots. Now style is the whole thing.

Expand full comment

Vaughn only produced Lock, Stock, ect. Guy Ritchie directed

Expand full comment

You're right, my mistake.

Expand full comment

I think it would be fine if he'd kept the style he had with Kick Ass, for instance (a movie that is dumb as hell but pretty fun.) This stuff is so garish and junky though.

Expand full comment
founding

Glad HOW TO HAVE SEX is finally going wide! Really loved that one. (And ANSELM…I liked it for what it was when I caught it at Cannes, but never expected it to go anywhere but on a loop in some screening room in Keifer’s museum.)

Expand full comment
founding

I really thought Argylle was going to be about the cat....

I can't wait to read a full summary of the inanity of the plot at some point

wait... is the final twist that the cat has been the spy all along??

Expand full comment

I would be very happy with that twist. My guess is that Bryce Dallas Howard is actually a spy all along or some such nonsense...

Expand full comment
Feb 3Liked by Scott Tobias

One of you is right, but I won't say which one

Expand full comment
author

Hilariously, you could have found out three years ago when it was posted publicly!

Expand full comment

TBF this is how I found out lol

Expand full comment

I was annoyed to find that not only is ARGYLLE's "big twist, teased in the trailer... on loan from another, better movie," but also another, better movie co-starring Samuel L. Jackson.

Expand full comment
author

You’re right. But I was actually thinking of yet another movie!

Expand full comment

ARGYLLE has very quickly become 2024's Quantumania for me, in that it looks terrible and I've seen the trailer approximately five thousand times.

Expand full comment

The trailers before Zone of Interest generally had me wanting to claw my brains out of my head, but Argyle and Madame Web were by far the worst.

Expand full comment
author

I haven’t seen Madame Web yet but I’m imagining a nightmarish Zone / Arrgyle double feature.

Expand full comment

My screening of How to Have Sex was subtitled. Is that the norm for this one or did I just get a screening intended for the hard of hearing (it was a Monday when a lot of retirees normally go to the movies). The nature of the audio was right on the borderline where I could see theaters just expecting American audiences to need subtitles.

Expand full comment

I saw it last week, and my screening did have subtitles as well, and was not advertised as an OC showing either. Wonder if MUBI required them as part of US distribution...

Expand full comment