thomasnash

Oscars season continues. Went to see Ladybird today and absolutely loved it. It's incredibly big-hearted and warm, without tipping over into twee and saccharine. It avoids the worst pitfalls of these types of coming-of-age stories; most notably, the audience is never asked to share the protagonists sense of herself, and the film is very up front about her mediocrity. Similarly, the film never presents authority as solely oppressive, or detrimental to the growth of the protagonist - even institutions that it would be easy to paint as priggish and remote. Namely, the nuns of the catholic school are presented as supportive and kind, albeit old-fashioned. The net result is that the film is full of joyful moments from characters who leave a really distinct impression.

At the same time, woven into this are moments of acutely well-observed sadness, and the film's real greatness lies in its refusal to shape these contrasting moments into a standard narrative structure. Some people will hate that lack of structure but for me I thought it was incredibly refreshing to see life presented humanely and truthfully, without some enormous tragedy to shape the narrative.

It's a compellingly simple film, but as I think about it there's a huge amount to unpick about it. Not only is it incredibly psychologically rich, it's structurally and thematically dense in a way that. Even though it plays out in a rapid sequence of fairly short scenes, you can draw a lot of connections between them. It's a tapestry where most films are a straight line.

So yeah, loved it and really recommend it.

Saw The Shape of Water today. I don't quite know how to sum up my feelings about it. It is incredibly well acted by the entire cast. Sally Hawkins, obviously, gives an incredible performance. What impressed me is that she manages to show so many facets to her character - shyness, defiance, sweet innocence or puckish sexuality - without ever losing the centre of the character. I felt it was one of the most human performances I've seen for a while, one that showed me the whole person. Equally good are Michaels Shannon and Stuhlbarg. Shannon is maybe a little over the top, but it just about works, especially when contrasted against Hawkins. I always find that his villains are curiously interesting: At the same time they are more fleshed out than the sort of villain who exists to do evil, he seems to find genuine unpleasantness in even the benign elements of their character. Then at the same time, they are exactly that sort of pantomime villain, just a malevolent force in the film, like a Cormac McCarthy villain. Stuhlbarg is becoming one of my favourite actors, and I think he brings out a lot of pathos in his somewhat small role. Etc etc. It is a film full of great acting.

On the other hand, there's a certain cosiness to the film which I found a little twee. This was most apparent in the, to my mind, slightly cynical focus on the golden age of Hollywood, and so on. I felt that plot lines were wound in very abruptly in the service of the plot - in particular the subplot around Richard Jenkins infatuation with a pie shop manager - when allowing a little bit more mess in might have made the film burrow into my brain a little more. This narrative patness is mirrored slightly by a visual language that is very heavy on metaphorical imagery, which leads to a feeling of artificiality. In the best scenes this leads to a brilliant Coens-esque feeling of absurdity, but in some of the more emotional moments at the close of the film it caused a bit of friction for me. I also felt thathaving driven towards the ending with such focus, it is wrapped up a little hurriedly?

I realise this is a pretty mean-spirited criticism really, it's like criticising Ozymandias for expressing its idea too well and so being too difficult to analyse. It's just one of those niggling things, and I suspect it's the sort of niggle that will work its way out with a second viewing. I can't deny that it's a very special film, if only for the performances.

Right - I was extremely pessimistic about Mass Effect Andromeda when that was being marketed. I don't think I was alone in that but I definitely remember people saying they thought the combat looked really exciting, while I thought it looked really clunky, and not at all like what I enjoyed about previous games. I also thought everything about the story set-up sounded like trash.

Wrong - Lots and lots of stuff. The one I remember most clearly was having a very negative reaction to a trailer for Assassin's Creed III that leaned really heavily into a "evil tea drinking redcoats" vibe. I was rightly roasted for suggesting that this would be in any way reflected in the game, and sure enough the game was a lot more even-handed about that stuff, even if most people didn't like a lot of other stuff about that game (for the record, it's probably my second favourite AC game).

So I've been playing the New Colossus on the hardest available setting, which is what I normally do, and it is an absolutely miserable experience. I know I should drop the difficulty down but I am stubborn, but that's not the point of the thread.

I keep asking myself, what have they done wrong here? I remember The New Order being occasionally tricky, but generally fun even on harder difficulties. The main thing that's bothering me is that the basic gameplay no longer feels satisfying.

Have they actually changed anything about the way the game plays, or do I just have rose-tinted specs about the first game?

A random fact related to Jackie Chan:

In the UK, there was a comedian and experimental playwright called Ken Campbell, well known in the 70s and 80s for very long (like, days long) improvised plays and other experimental stuff, involved with the RSC and National Theatre. A lot of current actors and improv comedians owe something to him. And he maintained that Jackie Chan was the greatest living actor.

He believed this because he had once been at a seance at a church in Islington, where the medium claimed to be channelling Laurence Olivier. So Ken Campbell asked that, during his life, Olivier had said that Charlie Chaplin was the greatest living actor, but who would he say was the greatest living actor now (the early 90s, I think). The medium replied that it was Jackie Chan.

This prompted Campbell to go out and start collecting copies of Chan's films. Reportedly he had all of Chan's films, an enormous collection. And he decided he agreed with the assessment that Chan was the greatest living actor.

Some time later, Jim Broadbent had been approached about a role in an upcoming film, Around the World in 80 Days. Not sure whether the film was a good fit for him, he called Campbell for some advice, and happened to mention that Jackie Chan was in the film. On hearing this, Campbell invited Broadbent to his house for a marathon screening of Chan's films, to convince him of Chan's acting prowess, and it was because of Ken Campbell's passion for Jackie Chan that Jim Broadbent accepted the role.

Not strictly speaking relevant, but I think it's a fun story.

@ford_dent: I also watched Baby Driver recently and felt very similarly. Edgar Wright has always taken a lot of inspiration from his favourite films, but I feel like he just wasn't as comfortable with the style of crime film he was trying to emulate here. It came across as a bad pastiche of Heat, rather than a fresh, lighthearted spin on a genre like previous films. The characters are paper thin and the film just never really generates any chemistry between any of the characters. The action films are reasonably fun, but the "trick" of synchronising the action to the music is juvenile and really damages the excitement and tension of the film. The biggest issue is that the film just doesn't have a strong narrative throughline to sustain it; it just becomes a loose assemblage of action set pieces. It did have some flashes of something more interesting with some of the dialogue scenes (I felt like it came alive briefly with the conversation with the post office worker) but this stuff is just too few and far between.

I also watched Logan Lucky which I enjoyed a lot more. I'm never sure how I feel about Soderbergh. He's made one or two films I think really didn't work. He's also made a couple of films I really like, even if they are a bit slight. This film fits into the latter category. It's an enjoyable little heist film, with an fairly un-soderbergh setting that injects a bit of Coens-esque humour and warmth. Soderbergh has a unique style that you really notice in the establishing shots, I think. Something both very "real" while at the same time having a very glamorous sheen, like a weird hybrid of Thomas Vinterbeg and Michael Mann. It tries to have an Ocean's style twist at the end that doesn't really work and feels both nonsensical and unnecessary. Seth Macfarlane does his best to tank the film with an abysmal accent. Daniel Craig has a slightly wandering accent but is pretty good. Both Channing Tatum and Adam Driver give great, restrained performances. Definitely enjoyed it, but probably don't need to watch it again.

The worst thing about it is that everyone is like "yes, asshole at the party, tell me more about your fascinating bullshit!" I get that the film isn't exactly realistic but come on!

I hated almost everything about that movie though. I have a very high tolerance for pretension but that movie is just too much.

I find it sort of hilarious that this has blown up so much, even if it is stupid to pay £2.50 for something you could pretty easily make 4 of yourself for £1.

Like, is it really any more ridiculous than buying, eg, carrot batons at £2.13/kg when loose carrots cost 60p/kg? That premium for convenience tradeoff isn't new. I'm not sure this is even the most ridiculous example of it.

@mostlysquares: I'd heartily recommend dipping into some later series of it. I also didn't like the first season at all so gave up on it, but then caught some of like, season 8 when my wife was watching it and found it absolutely hilarious.

I felt it was a bit fur coat and no knickers. Had a couple of interesting visual moments but not enough. I felt it had a pedantic focus on world building that massively turned me off. There are significant elements of the plot that appear to have been dropped in from a late 90s Schwarzenegger film.