Man, this is so 2012. Everything’s been colour-graded to a desaturated teal.

Oh, that’s Cillian Murphy?

And, of course, Sigourney, which is why I got this movie.

OK, here comes the orange after the teal…

This is ridiculous. Is this movie really supposed to be this teal and desaturated or is there something wrong with this bluray?

It’s like… the person in change of the white balance button was colour blind or something? This is the most ridiculously teal movie I’ve ever seen.

Yes, that is Robert de Niro playing a Uri Geller character. Indeed.

See? When it’s not teal, it’s orange. They did this on purpose.

NOOOOES NOT THE SPOOOONS

This movie is somewhat compelling when they’re not talking. If it hadn’t been for the absurd colour grading, a lot of these moody shots would have been quite nice. But when they have to infodump on us what this silly movie is about, it’s like

This movie is such a car crash. And even though car crashes are easy to look away from, this is almost fascinatingly awful.

Yes, this is a movie from 2012, and somebody is walking for several minutes to go to a pay phone. Inside a school.

The imdb rating is just about a perfect score (if it’s higher, it usually something “popular”, and if it’s lower, it genuinely bad).

But on Rottentomatoes, it’s what you’d expect, because this is an awful movie. Just offal.

That looks like a very real street.

Anyway, after they kill off Sigourney (OOPS SPOILERS), the movie has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

But the first part is kinda fun, so:

Red Lights. Rodrigo Cortés. 2012. ⚁

This is most amusing. It’s a screwball comedy about a bunch of perfessers writing an encyclopedia, and it’s really really screwy.

Gary Cooper is the perfessor in charge of grammer, so he’s out doing research for slang, see?

Hey, that’s Gene Krupa?

And Babs!

Stanwyck, that is.

This is amazing! It’s like Bringing Up Baby II or something! Have I been living under a rock or something? Because I can’t recall seeing this film mentioned like ever.

*gasp*

This is totally delightful. It’s not quite perfect the way Bringing Up Baby is (it’s a bit flabby in the last third), but it’s wonderful anyway.

It’s shocking that no Howard Hawks movies are in the S&S Top 100, but on the other hand, perhaps not? If you’re listing the ten “best movies”, you’re going to go for something that had an emotional impact, not a screwball comedy. But watching this movie, I want to watch everything Howard Hawks has done, because this is pure genius.

Looking at his imdb, I’ve watched more than half a dozen of his films, but there’s so much I haven’t seen. I should get shopping.

Ball of Fire. Howard Hawks. 1941. ⚅

I wasn’t going to watch this, because I assumed “oh, it’s gonna end with cannibalism”, because all films about haute cuisine end like that. But Mike at Redlettermedia said it doesn’t! And he said it’s hilarious, so I’m watching it anyway.

So far, it’s more amusing than actual “ha ha” funny…

Heh heh. “Not just a single vinyard, but a single row of vines.”

Heh heh heh.

I know it’s a joke and a “savage satire” and stuff, but I think that sounds great — I wanna eat at this restaurant.

And… I think they lulled me into a sense that I was watching a cookery show… and I was fine with that!

But this is an actual movie.

Well… It’s an original movie, fer sure. But there a number of cheesy bits (like with the burger) that were just *rolls eyes*.

And it’s not like it’s a low budget movie, which would excuse a lot of stuff. It’s a $35M movie, and it’s just very uneven. Parts are like “oooh” and then there’s a whole lot of “yawn” towards the end.

My impression is that people enjoy the political bits of this, which I can understand. But it’s just not all that.

The Menu. Mark Mylod. 2022. ⚃