Practical titles!

You don’t see that a lot.

Tati’s doing these houses as his vision of a modernist nightmare… but I really love these houses! I so want to live here!

So this is his vision of how architecture should be, I think? And I like this too.

Heh heh. This is very funny, though.

I love it!

This is where I want to live! All concrete and angles and stuff.

No! This is what I want my living room to look like!

My dream garden!

My dream living room!

That’s what I want my windows to look like!

And my lawnmower!

That’s totally what I want my hallway to look like.

I really enjoy this movie, but the pacing is pretty weird. I was all aboard with the house stuff, but then we shift to the factory (for some I Love Lucy stuff), and the er plot of the movie kinda sorta evaporates? I had this problem with Playtime, too — the segments just didn’t seem to connect?

But, I mean, every shot here is genius, so I’m just quibbling… but it seems odd that nobody would just go “er, M. Tati, how does what do you say all this like connect into a whole”….

Gorgeous! I want that garage!

Tati predicted the Roomba.

I loved watching this movie. I mean, every scene is just genius. And the (five?) little dogs tying it all together. It’s fabulous. But there’s just this slight disconnect between the scenes: If it hadn’t been for the factory stuff, I think this would have felt like a more complete movie, instead of a collection of meticulously engineered tableaux? I mean, all these scenes are just so … amazing.

Still, I’m just giving it a:

Mon Oncle. Jacques Tati. 1958. ⚄

Oh! This is a sequel to The Hitman’s Bodyguard! Which I haven’t seen! Should I…

No, let’s just go with the flow.

This is most amusing!

I like this! It’s very, very silly. But I’m getting a whiplash from switching between good practical gags and very bad CGI gags all the time. And every shot is like three seconds long.

Max.

I see what they’re going for — overwhelming the viewer with fun chaos, but I’m not quite on board?

On the other hand.

So Hayek is married to Jackson? He’s like a couple decades older than she is? That’s movies for you.

When this movie works, it’s awesome. But there’s like all these little things that make you go “huh?” and then you’re out of the silliness of it all. It’s like… there’s too many things? And then there’s not enough things? It’s a pacing issue.

So generic!

Well! How do you score this? This was very funny — I laughed out loud a lot. But on the other hand — it’s so choppy! You’ve got these great action sequences, and then these super-cheesy CGI things that makes you go “er wha…” Did this have zero budget left after they finished shooting it? Nothing for the effects people?

But let’s just go with the fun and:

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. Patrick Hughes. 2021. ⚄

This is most excellent.

I got this DVD because it was mentioned in an article in Sight & Sounds magazine and it sounded interesting… and it is! It’s very strange. It’s got a pacing I’m not used to at all — wherever I thought the first film here was going, it totally wasn’t.

Yeah, this is three short films glued together, apparently?

And I can’t imagine what the director went through to be allowed to make something this… er… ambiguous in Iran. She must have nerves of steel.

It’s weird — I don’t associate Iran with all this seafront. But, I mean, Iran has a huge coastline… Teheran is rather inland, so I guess that might be the reason? And looking at Google Maps, it looks like the coastline to the south is really, really arid? Like in this movie.

The last two stories are kinda allegorical… but I was so worried for the old woman in the last bit! مشکینی really made the viewer care… on such a flimsy premise. So weird.

And then she tied it all together. It’s a marvellous, strange, beautiful movie.

The ending is very, very moving, but it’s hard to pinpoint why.

The Day I Became A Woman. Marzieh Meshkini. 2000. ⚅