Well, OK, this movie is well made and I love the actors, but… It’s only been fifteen minutes, and we’ve already had so much misery heaped upon this poor woman that it’s… It’s not that I don’t believe that it’s possible, but it’s too much.

Yeah of course — in addition to everything else, she’s probably dying from some disease?

I’m sorry, this is veering close to kitch.

OK OK.

Yeah, a mattress without a sheet. Trés economique à long terme.

Lokita is such a gormless character — she deals drugs but apparently gets paid less than 1% of the take? And is also paying off the people who smuggled her in (in the most humiliating way — by carrying around absolutely all her money on her person), and etc etc. I thought it was a kinda racist movie, but then her kid brother is super duper competent and does almost super human feats, so I guess it’s just misogynist?

I just didn’t find the characters believable.

So instead of being heart-rending (which is what the directors where obviously going for), I was just rolling my eyes at each horrific thing.

Don’t listen to me:

It’s got an 87% tomatometer.

But I’m pissed off with this movie, because they really went all in on making a tear jerker about the horrible conditions immigrants face, and how terribly they’re exploited — and the filmmakers failed completely, in my opinion. I totally applaud what they apparently were trying to make, but instead they made this piece of kitch.

Still, I loved the performances (especially the kid (who they had say the most hair-raisingly incongruous things)) and it looks good, so let’s go with:

Tori and Lokita. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne. 2022. ⚁

What? That was still a thing in 2010?

So this is the 2010 er reboot of the series? I watched all the previous movies last year, but didn’t do this one, because I didn’t know that it existed.

Since it didn’t lead to the franchise taking off again, I’m guessing it bombed? So my expectations are high!

Whoho!

This is gonna be awesome.

This guy has the same makeup artist at the president after the next one in the US.

Well, these digital effects just aren’t as scary are the original practical ones…

Hey! That’s not whatsisname Englund!

Instead of being scary it’s more like “oh this again? really?”

Oh, this is made by a production company specialising in doing uninspired remakes?

Oh, that’s grim. But then they got a hit with The Purge and then A Quiet Place.

OH NO

That’s a nice nightmare library. It’s a kind of confusing movie — it generally looks pretty good, but it seems like it doesn’t have any energy or enthusiasm?

Yeah, it had a pretty solid budget (and didn’t lose money!?).

Allegedly making this was such a miserable experience that Rooney Mara almost quit acting.

So in this version, the parents killed Freddie just on a vague suspicion? That sucks. I mean, Freddie being eeeevil is the whole fun of these movies.

Oh, now people can be having “micronaps” while being seemingly awake so that Freddie can appear at any moment, whether they’re awake or not? That kinda fucks up the logic even further. When it’s just randomness it’s just *rolls eyes*.

The guy playing Freddie is giving like zero percent. He’s barely delivering his lines (and those lines suck). It’s like he’s trying to make sure that he’s never going to have to get that makeup done ever again.

I was bored out of my skull watching this, so it’s really a ⚀ movie. But I did like the sets and the general look? So let’s go with:

A Nightmare On Elm Street. Samuel Bayer. 2010. ⚁

OK, I had to stop this and download subtitles from the pirates (if pirates can create subtitles, why can’t DVDs carry subtitles? (because fans will do this sort of thing for free, but the people who make the DVDs can’t afford to anybody)), because the first few scenes were totally incomprehensible to me. Which is doubly weird because I think the audio has been done after it was filmed?

So this looks like it was filmed on one of those early digital cameras? So this looks pretty bad except in scenes like this.

I’m not sure whether the general aimlessness of the movie is because Hogg wanted to depict this kind of aimlessness or whether they basically just went to Italy and mostly improvised the movie?

There’s genuinely unnerving scenes, though.

And scenes like this just seem a bit too staged for the aesthetic?

Uhm uhm uhm I just couldn’t get into this movie. It seems like totally the thing I’d like, and the cinematography (modulo the horrible digital cameras) is good, and the performances are good, but I just didn’t connect.

Unrelated. Joanna Hogg. 2007. ⚃