It doesn’t help that she spent quite a bit of screen time downing the movie. And the decision to not hire little people to play the dwarves because of one guy who already got his chunk caused some really bad CGI.
Part three. Shall we start taking bets on how many parts Chat Music will release for this one?
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In 2022, Everything Everywhere All at Once became an Academy Award-winning film with an extremely small post-production visual effects team of just five people.
For the films of 2024, Latvian film Straume won Best Animated Feature by both the Academy and the Golden Globe and started with a small group of people that made the entire movie before expanding to include two studios, created using the free and open-source 3D graphics program Blender. The movie just exited theaters but will receive its home video release through The Criteron Collection this year. It’s called Flow in the U.S.
I just saw it on HBO today. I’d like to do a review of it, but it’s a hard one to review because of the simplicity of the story that would necessitate spoiling a lot of it to actually provide a review. So instead, here’s an overview of the story:
Some time after humans disappeared, a sudden flash flood turns into a global flood and animals that might normally fight learn to work together to survive.
That’s it. Most of its 84 minute runtime is devoted to it. Now that’s out of the way, I can review the technical aspects of the film.
There’s no dialogue. This is pure visual and audial storytelling. The animals do make their normal sounds, except for the capybara, which had a baby camel’s vocalizations because what capybaras make are high-pitched and unpleasant. While watching it, there was one point where the cat would have been disgustedly saying something like “morons” if there was dialogue.
Whereas many CGI films aim for photorealism, this doesn’t. The shading has distinct gradations, like someone took a topological map and filled in each elevation level with a different solid shade. Instead, it uses movement, mannerisms and sound to achieve its realism.
It’s rated PG and everyone can watch it. There’s elements of danger and watching the flood rise at a slow yet quick and relentless pace creates urgency for all animals, but the cat especially. There’s also one fight scene, but it’s more like ritual or ceremony than anything that might be seen as brutal.
See this when you can. There is also a board game based on the film.
There I am, browsing YouTube and see Walton Goggins has a new movie. Watch trailer and I realize, “Wait, I know this one. I know what it’s about.” In three weeks, you also can know what it’s about if you haven’t already read Wikipedia’s article if you go to the theaters to see The Luckiest Man in America.
Part 4.
Interestingly, I’ve read a couple reviews that say she was the best part of a very unneeded movie with no real direction or purpose.
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Went to the Annapolis Film Festival to see Been Here Stay Here which my wife wanted to see. It’s a documentary in the ‘slice of life’ style about Tangier Island, Virginia which is an old isolated island in the Chesapeake Bay. It’s disappearing due to rising sea levels and erosion.
Interesting movie. Doesn’t blame anyone for the problems the island faces but just shows them. Like a lot of small towns there’s also the usual trend that young adults leave and done want to come back, at least permanently.
A tidbit for the upcoming Thunderbolts* movie premiering in three weeks. When you see Yelena walk off the edge of a building, that is her actress, Florence Pugh, actually doing that at that actual location. All of the safety equipment and harnesses were digitally edited out of the sequence, but that is her.
'Nuff said.
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If you missed the Studio Ghibli Fest in 2024, you have another chance in 2025, with English and Japanese versions. Here’s the times to see these eight movies in theaters:
- Kiki’s Delivery Service – May 17-21
- The Secret World of Arrietty (15th Anniversary) – June 22-24
- My Neighbor Totoro – July 19-22
- Grave of the Fireflies – August 10-12
- Ponyo – August 23-27
- Howl’s Moving Castle – September 20-23
- Spirited Away – October 18-21
- The Boy and the Heron – November 15-18
The site is advertised as ghiblifest.com, which forwards into gkids.com/ghiblifest.
Pixar was heavily involved in bringing these movies (except the last) to the U.S. on DVD and did the dubbing in English for them. That’s how we wound up with some very famous actors providing voices, like Phil Hartman and Billy Crystal.
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I need to see The Boy and the Heron. I haven’t seen that one yet.
If you haven’t seen Hotaru no Haka (Grave of the Fireflies) you MUST see it. You may never want to see it again, but it should be seen.
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Reminder that if you want to read my review of it, scroll back up to December 2023 in this thread.
I started watching the movies and got through Kiki’s, Howl’s and Spirited Away before switching over to nightly reading. I’m currently half-way through Under Wildwood, the second book of The Wildwood Chronicles trilogy. Basically, it’s set in Forest Park in Portland, Oregon, and while it’s a small area in reality, it seems bigger on the inside, with magic giving the area the moniker “Impassable Wilderness”. Laika’s animated film of the first book releases sometime later this year.
Grave of the Fireflies is now next to my Blu-ray player for after I get done with The Book of Life. I decided a week ago to take my own advice after looking at my cable bill. I have a subscription level that isn’t offered any more, so any changes can end up costing me more. I’d have to dump about half of what I have before the price will even drop, and that’s only $25 lower per month.
What I did instead was turn in the cable adapter for the bedroom TV. Instead of watching TV or a movie from cable, it will be from disc so I can get caught up on the good stuff I already have. I think I’m going to skip getting the network reconnected to it so I can’t watch anything on Netflix, either.
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I watch old movies at work. Something surprising I noticed is that the Marx Bros. and Abbott & Costello movies I recently watched were relatively ‘family friendly’ while Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was decidedly not.
Guess which one I’d seen, albeit in the TV friendly cut, several times before?
We finally got around to wall-mounting a spare TV that has sat on top of a dresser for the last three years since we moved. It’s an old Insignia TV and the built-in Amazon Fire features aren’t good but they’re good enough for a TV that’s mainly turned on for background noise.
The number of movies I watch on broadcast TV in the 80’s that I then attempted to, or even actually started, to show to my way too young daughters is unfortunately long. Sure, I watched Jaws at 12 or whatever, it was nothing like the Jaws my daughters watched with me… And trying to watch Goonies with my 8 year old daughter, didn’t make it past the first scene.
Good times.
My mom had me watch The Deer Hunter when I was 12. She thought it would be educational for me. I’m still traumatized by that one.
Half the people acting in that movie were too.
If you decide to go see Thunderbolts*, double-check the listings. After it premiered, the asterisk was explained why it was there and the name of the movie was changed to reflect it.
There’s a movie you’ve probably heard of called Dogma. Maybe you’ve seen on TV, or might be lucky enough to own the DVD or Blu-ray for it. It’s been unavailable for a long time for a reason you may or may not know about.
The good news is it’s coming back to theaters this Thursday for its 25th anniversary, remastered in 4K and with new content.
So how did this happen when Harvey Weinstein did his best to prevent it because he wanted money for it and Kevin Smith refused to let him benefit from it? Here’s how, as Smith revealed recently. (Sorry, but I can’t find the video right now, so this is by memory.)
Many years ago, Smith was interested in re-releasing it for one of the anniversaries, but it just didn’t seem to happen. Weinstein had bought it from Miramax, the company he ran. I can’t remember the timing, but there were two or three offers Smith made to purchase the film from Weinstein, increasing the amount each time after finding people to help with funding. It wasn’t a huge amount of money, but probably more than it might have been worth. The offers weren’t accepted.
Out of the blue, Weinstein calls him and wants to discuss re-releasing it. Smith is surprised, but it seems good. A few days later, the sexual abuse allegations against Weinstein became public. Through a third party, Smith found out that the reason why Weinstein called him wasn’t about Dogma. It was to fish for information about whether Smith leaked the allegations or was involved in them in some way. (Again, sorry, can’t remember exactly what it was.)
After this point, Smith did not try any more to buy the film because he didn’t want the money from the sale going to Weinstein. After being convicted of rape in 2020 and sentenced to 23 years, Weinstein tried to get his brother Bob to buy the film rights for $5 million. Bob refused.
And that’s where it sat until Weinstein’s legal troubles got worse. The convictions were overturned due to procedural errors and a retrial was ordered. In the new trial, a new plaintiff was added.
This is the point where Smith got another call out of the blue. It was from a woman that told him she had Dogma. Weinstein had to sell a group of films he personally owned and Dogma was among them. Smith asked if she wanted to sell it to him. She said no. The company she works for (Iconic Events) is going to hang onto the movie, but they’re going to work with Smith to help it get released again.
There are reports Smith got the rights to Dogma again, but whether he has them or Iconic Events has them, Harvey Weinstein no longer does.
And thus, Dogma will be back in theaters and I think re-released on home video.
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I saw that one when it was first released. My old roommate loved it, I liked it.
He’s doing an AMA on reddit but AFAICT he hasn’t answered any of the questions so far.