1. From the advertising, I had thought Back to Black was a shitty documentary. It's actually a shitty biopic? I don't know what there could possibly be to say about Amy Winehouse - loved her voice, but if you've heard a single one of her songs, you pretty much have the picture.
2. From the advertising, I had assumed IF was, in fact, a Van-Sant's-PSYCHO style remake of BREWSTER MCCLOUD.
AMY is pretty great. Rewatching stretches of it before I wrote this review just made me dislike BACK TO BLACK more. Also, spoiler (?): There's also a moment in BACK TO BLACK where Winehouse gives an interview about how important songwriting is to her and how personal her songs are then launches into a performance of "Valerie," which she did not write.
It’s been a while since I watched the documentary but it seems impossible to me that she wasn’t aware of the Shangri-Las since her teenage years at the latest. I’m normally not a stickler for fact in a non-documentary, but that kind of music seems foundational for her, and she began writing and performing at an early age. I think that could serve a better story (fact or fiction aside) than what sounds like one of the most cliched moments from almost every music biopic ever made.
Yeah the convincing unknowability featured in Amy really made me leary of Back To Black when the trailers started to come out, and although I hoped to be wrong I'm almost relieved that this was a total misfire instead of something plausible enough to make people think they really GOT her.
I felt the same way about the documentary on her that came out 5-10 years ago that everyone raved about. Is this really that interesting/mysterious? Self destructive woman put under enormous pressure self destructs in exactly the way all her songs tell you she is prone to?
It's a crime to waste Eddie Marsan. He's more than just a working class English accent! When I saw him in the ubiquitous trailers, I assumed it meant the movie was going to dig into the darkness in that relationship.
The fact that the next two chapters are already in the can gives me some hope that this is more than just a lazy rehash, but the trailer I saw the other night seemed very Strangers-by-number.
I think it's his first wide US theatrical release in almost eight years? And (according to the release) Chapters 2 and 3 come out in the fall and Jan/Feb 2025.
The musical biopic has to be the most artistically bankrupt subgenre Hollywood keeps pumping out at this point. Even superhero films are more interesting.
I just don't know what there is to say about someone who was obviously troubled and who came to exactly the sad end they spent their whole career telling us they were going to come to. There's some dramatic tension in the story of someone like Karen Carpenter, especially if you put it in the hands of someone like Todd Haynes. I loved Amy Winehouse's voice, but what is there to say other than (RON HOWARD NARRATOR VOICE): "She did not go to rehab."?
You have to give it to an artist, and make it something more than a “this happened and then this happened and then this” story. Go Aronofsky (for example) or go home.
It's also a low ceiling and low floor genre. The best a musical biopic can get is 3 stars if it's anchored by a great performance (Get On Up, Ray, maybe Walk The Line).
And at worst, to your point, they're really bad in a really boring way.
SPOILER for the original QUIET PLACE (implied in the trailers for the new one), but what's with Krasinski casting himself as doomed fathers? This is some student filmmaker thinking - the most emotional thing imaginable... my own death.
My kid expressed an interest in If a while back, I’m hoping he just forgets it’s out this weekend. Maybe I’ll break out my Criterion disc of the Lindsay Anderson version and try to convince him that I got a pirated copy.
Krasinski seems like a very nice, sane, grounded guy. Sometimes I think the audience (if not anyone working on the film) would be better served by Hollywood keeping a few more Peckinpah types around.
I remain unconvinced this isn't a Fables/Once Upon A Time scenario where Krasinski and Reynolds tried to option Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends but a rights thing happened so they just scrubbed the name and ran across to Paramount. In the 2019 pitch for this it was implied to be an action film where Reynolds had to stop "evil" imaginary friends while working with "good" ones.
Are imaginary friends real? Not the friends themselves, but the concept of having one.
It's a super common trope in fiction, yet I didnt know a single kid that had one when I was growing up, and don't know a single adult who has admitted to it.
Feels like something that was invented by Disney circa Pete's Dragon and never left.
Yeah, they're a thing if you're a sad/lonely/different kid, for sure. (No judgment intended - I was that.) Kind of by definition, they're for if you have no one else to talk to/play with - if you've got a bunch of kids hanging out, they're not going to bring their imaginary friends, or talk about them to others.
Paradoxically, you knowing kids who didn't have imaginary friends means that maybe you and those other kids were too social to have needed imaginary friends - you had each other.
Thanks for sharing, and after hearing this, I now think that my lack of IFs (and not knowing other kids who had them) was probably due to my own antisocial tendencies as a weird only child.
I confess! Although mine was just a made-up name I would use to address a kid who wasn’t there, I don’t think I went so far as to invent a personality for him and I definitely didn’t think of him as a flaming marshmallow with a eye dropping or a sentient banana. (My son did the same thing, maybe it’s genetic.)
I don't remember doing it myself, just know from my parents telling me. My son was also too young to be doing a bit, just one of those things in the liminal moments in a kid's construct of reality.
Just here to suggest that everyone skip IF (2024) and watch IF... (1968) which is an amazing film that captures the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s and the live wire that was Malcolm McDowell and turns it into a movie you're unlikely to ever forget
I can remember a day in college, back when I'd see *everything* in theaters, where I saw a double feature of ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE and MY FATHER THE HERO. That was about as bad as it got for me. (The latter has to look so much worse now given the #MeToo revelations around Gerard Depardieu.)
Krasinksi and Reynolds teaming up on a saccharine, mid-concept/no-thought whatsit feels like the most inevitable path, one that all roads lead to. They're both incredibly just-ok talents who've survived big career missteps (plenty of second chances for folks who fit their demo) and get overly complimented for doing something competently (Deadpool, A Quiet Place - both not bad! but, both predominantly good because of more talented collaborators).
Will this slow them down? No, I'm afraid it won't friends.
Woof - can't believe the "Nowhere Boy" director is back to the well, once again delivering the most forgettable version of a 'I guess this could be interesting' story.
My mind is blown here on two fronts:
1. From the advertising, I had thought Back to Black was a shitty documentary. It's actually a shitty biopic? I don't know what there could possibly be to say about Amy Winehouse - loved her voice, but if you've heard a single one of her songs, you pretty much have the picture.
2. From the advertising, I had assumed IF was, in fact, a Van-Sant's-PSYCHO style remake of BREWSTER MCCLOUD.
The Winehouse documentary that we already have was sufficient to render this movie unnecessary, but it sounds even worse than unnecessary.
AMY is pretty great. Rewatching stretches of it before I wrote this review just made me dislike BACK TO BLACK more. Also, spoiler (?): There's also a moment in BACK TO BLACK where Winehouse gives an interview about how important songwriting is to her and how personal her songs are then launches into a performance of "Valerie," which she did not write.
It’s been a while since I watched the documentary but it seems impossible to me that she wasn’t aware of the Shangri-Las since her teenage years at the latest. I’m normally not a stickler for fact in a non-documentary, but that kind of music seems foundational for her, and she began writing and performing at an early age. I think that could serve a better story (fact or fiction aside) than what sounds like one of the most cliched moments from almost every music biopic ever made.
"one of the most cliched moments from almost every music biopic ever made."
Amy Winehouse had to think about her whole life before she played.
Yeah the convincing unknowability featured in Amy really made me leary of Back To Black when the trailers started to come out, and although I hoped to be wrong I'm almost relieved that this was a total misfire instead of something plausible enough to make people think they really GOT her.
I felt the same way about the documentary on her that came out 5-10 years ago that everyone raved about. Is this really that interesting/mysterious? Self destructive woman put under enormous pressure self destructs in exactly the way all her songs tell you she is prone to?
It's a crime to waste Eddie Marsan. He's more than just a working class English accent! When I saw him in the ubiquitous trailers, I assumed it meant the movie was going to dig into the darkness in that relationship.
Oof. Rough week. I’m going to play it safe by catching THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER ONE, which apparently was not screened for critics. Always a good sign!
Here's why I'm excited for Strangers: Chapter One :
-It's Renny Harlin
-And they decided while filming why not just make two more
The fact that the next two chapters are already in the can gives me some hope that this is more than just a lazy rehash, but the trailer I saw the other night seemed very Strangers-by-number.
I only just now realized Harlin directed this. Wild.
I think it's his first wide US theatrical release in almost eight years? And (according to the release) Chapters 2 and 3 come out in the fall and Jan/Feb 2025.
The musical biopic has to be the most artistically bankrupt subgenre Hollywood keeps pumping out at this point. Even superhero films are more interesting.
I just don't know what there is to say about someone who was obviously troubled and who came to exactly the sad end they spent their whole career telling us they were going to come to. There's some dramatic tension in the story of someone like Karen Carpenter, especially if you put it in the hands of someone like Todd Haynes. I loved Amy Winehouse's voice, but what is there to say other than (RON HOWARD NARRATOR VOICE): "She did not go to rehab."?
You have to give it to an artist, and make it something more than a “this happened and then this happened and then this” story. Go Aronofsky (for example) or go home.
It's also a low ceiling and low floor genre. The best a musical biopic can get is 3 stars if it's anchored by a great performance (Get On Up, Ray, maybe Walk The Line).
And at worst, to your point, they're really bad in a really boring way.
Ironically music documentaries are maybe the most reliable subgenre of documentary. Even the mediocre ones are a great plane watch
SPOILER for the original QUIET PLACE (implied in the trailers for the new one), but what's with Krasinski casting himself as doomed fathers? This is some student filmmaker thinking - the most emotional thing imaginable... my own death.
(I like A QUIET PLACE)
Dads and hideous men (see: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, 13 Soldiers: Something something in Benghazi)
Wanda Maximoff: "Is their mother still alive? ... Good. There will be someone left to raise them."
My kid expressed an interest in If a while back, I’m hoping he just forgets it’s out this weekend. Maybe I’ll break out my Criterion disc of the Lindsay Anderson version and try to convince him that I got a pirated copy.
Krasinski seems like a very nice, sane, grounded guy. Sometimes I think the audience (if not anyone working on the film) would be better served by Hollywood keeping a few more Peckinpah types around.
"IF feels like the work of someone so upset by Bing Bong’s fate in Inside Out that he made an entire movie to bring him back to life." Nicely put.
If I want dour, unpleasant whimsy, I'll just go watch Levinson's TOYS.
That's an interesting comparison, actually. INSIDE OUT is the obvious connected film here, but TOYS fits too.
That's very valid, but my mind went to Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium and/or The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus.
Serious question: Are half-stars possible in the Reveal scoring system? Or is one star as low as it goes?
Oh, we have two more bullets in the chamber: Half a star and Zero stars.
Forrest MacNeil disapproves. "Having a zero star rating? Half a star."
"Four stars. The back seat was a mess." -Jon Hamm's Fletch
I remain unconvinced this isn't a Fables/Once Upon A Time scenario where Krasinski and Reynolds tried to option Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends but a rights thing happened so they just scrubbed the name and ran across to Paramount. In the 2019 pitch for this it was implied to be an action film where Reynolds had to stop "evil" imaginary friends while working with "good" ones.
Are imaginary friends real? Not the friends themselves, but the concept of having one.
It's a super common trope in fiction, yet I didnt know a single kid that had one when I was growing up, and don't know a single adult who has admitted to it.
Feels like something that was invented by Disney circa Pete's Dragon and never left.
Yeah, they're a thing if you're a sad/lonely/different kid, for sure. (No judgment intended - I was that.) Kind of by definition, they're for if you have no one else to talk to/play with - if you've got a bunch of kids hanging out, they're not going to bring their imaginary friends, or talk about them to others.
Paradoxically, you knowing kids who didn't have imaginary friends means that maybe you and those other kids were too social to have needed imaginary friends - you had each other.
Thanks for sharing, and after hearing this, I now think that my lack of IFs (and not knowing other kids who had them) was probably due to my own antisocial tendencies as a weird only child.
Even in my imagination I was going solo.
I confess! Although mine was just a made-up name I would use to address a kid who wasn’t there, I don’t think I went so far as to invent a personality for him and I definitely didn’t think of him as a flaming marshmallow with a eye dropping or a sentient banana. (My son did the same thing, maybe it’s genetic.)
Thanks for sharing! So was it more of a bit where you thought it was fun to pretend there was a kid in the room than an actual friend?
I don't remember doing it myself, just know from my parents telling me. My son was also too young to be doing a bit, just one of those things in the liminal moments in a kid's construct of reality.
Just here to suggest that everyone skip IF (2024) and watch IF... (1968) which is an amazing film that captures the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s and the live wire that was Malcolm McDowell and turns it into a movie you're unlikely to ever forget
have you ever had a day’s worth or reviews that don’t even add up to 3 stars total? this is a bleak week at the multiplex!
I can remember a day in college, back when I'd see *everything* in theaters, where I saw a double feature of ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE and MY FATHER THE HERO. That was about as bad as it got for me. (The latter has to look so much worse now given the #MeToo revelations around Gerard Depardieu.)
Well, all I can say is MY FATHER THE HERO must have been absolutely horrendous because ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE is a 90s comedy classic!
If there is any silver lining to be found here, it’s that the BACK TO BLACK trailers will finally, blessedly cease.
Thank you for your service. You should each get a Purple Heart this week.
Krasinksi and Reynolds teaming up on a saccharine, mid-concept/no-thought whatsit feels like the most inevitable path, one that all roads lead to. They're both incredibly just-ok talents who've survived big career missteps (plenty of second chances for folks who fit their demo) and get overly complimented for doing something competently (Deadpool, A Quiet Place - both not bad! but, both predominantly good because of more talented collaborators).
Will this slow them down? No, I'm afraid it won't friends.
Woof - can't believe the "Nowhere Boy" director is back to the well, once again delivering the most forgettable version of a 'I guess this could be interesting' story.