I hated Poor Things and reviewed it for Vulture. That people are speaking of this as a rousing, weird, feminist treatise is insane. How are y’all so easily fooled by such glaring misogyny???? Excerpt below. Read my review here at Vulture.
“there’s a corroded spirit to the story, like it’s intermittently possessed by an edgelord who’s unaware most women menstruate, and an early-wave white feminist who believes having sex is the most empowering thing a woman can do. (For all the…
Hmmm. This one didn’t hit for me y’all. Mikey Madison has her sparks. But this film is a bit too emotionally threadbare, our lead is too improperly shaded, and it’s a touch too long. Easy to watch but light weight in a frustrating way. Certain notes don’t hit at all. Pretty but not wholly striking in its cinematography. Some humor but little heart, grit, or emotional intrigue. Sean Baker has a social curiosity into the realms of people who live…
What the fuck was this mess? Starts off fun but falls apart when it reaches toward something meaningful and revealing to say about the way men use and abuse women. Devolves into a “damn, bitches be crazy” story that obliterates the good will it engenders. Also, kinda chuckled at the framing of Thomasin Mackenzie’s lead character as quiet, yearning, and picked on by vapid mean girls. (And not a good chuckle, mind you.) Anya Taylor Joy innocent.
It’s a shame…this…
I was really disappointed in this. It’s far from bad, just absolutely shrug worthy. The writing fails the actors. I had little sense of Daniel Kaluuya’s character. He also turns in a remarkably sedate performance that I blame the writing giving him little to hold onto. Keke Palmer is given more to do on the emotional front due to her relationship with her father; she’s an utter, charismatic delight. But I overall felt the actors didn’t really get anything interesting…
“I have always felt that the South gives America back to itself, ripping illusions from truth. When I see Looney Tunes images of Bugs Bunny sawing off Florida, as if relinquishing land below the Mason-Dixon Line will save our fractured society, my heart breaks. When I read op-eds that suggest Manhattan should be fortified in the face of climate disaster but New Orleans should be consigned to oblivion, I see cowardice in the face of reckoning. The stories we tell…
A beautiful gown of careful craft that has no perspective or value on its own. We are truly in a sensuality starvation crisis in the arts. While I enjoyed The Witch I think Eggers, unfortunately, excels at aesthetic exercises with no soul and lacking a strong point of view, which Nosferatu cements for me. We have Bram Stoker’s Dracula at home, babes. I’ll stick to that.
An incredibly trite affair that feels at least a decade behind the times. No assured point of view. Struggles to be both an achingly earnest drama about a black family beset by death and dementia and homophobia and a satire that indicts the publishing industry and Hollywood about how blackness has become currency. But it lacks the finesse and the depth for either approaches to come anywhere close to their targets. Muddled as fuck. Directed and shot like the blandest…
Hermetically sealed and horribly inert. I am truly baffled by what praise I’ve come across for this film particularly its acting. Everyone feels like the lacquered shell of a person but I’m interested in the fleshy bits we don’t get. I never got a sense of these people as a couple, as artists, as human beings. This film really has nothing to say about its subjects. It’s merely a venue for Bradley Cooper’s ego to flex. Which, baby, there isn’t…
I wrote an essay using the ending of Babygirl to discuss female abjection, the chilly cerebral nature of how the film explores wayward desire, the performances, and why I think this movie isn’t an erotic thriller so much as a half-formed women’s picture — if women fucked on-screen in that genre. It’s a well-crafted film that just didn’t excite me and leaves its most interesting concepts/ideas on the table. Excerpt below. Read the piece here, on Vulture.
“Babygirl is about…
Is this movie good? Nah. The staging for the musical numbers often fail the very game performers. Just sloppy with backlighting and an overall visual approach that washes out the great set and costume design work put into the film. The incessant need to overemphasize easter eggs and explanations (that yellow brick road moment lmao) is grating — even though I understand prequel-reimaginings of this sort are made to do that. The emotional beats — particularly the dramatic ones didn’t…
From my Vulture review:
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever carries a series of burdens no one film could ever bear. Its director, Ryan Coogler, must grapple with the challenges and expectations born and influenced by the tragic death of star Chadwick Boseman. Coogler must craft an entertaining sequel to a billion-dollar blockbuster while working within the constricting Marvel Cinematic Universe. He must carefully balance the expectations of Black folks who have elevated the film to a celestial status — a pinnacle…