Uh-oh! A24!

I know that there are people who are fans of the A24 production company — it’s a whole thing — and I can respect that. I’m a fan of certain record companies, and that’s fine.

But I’ve seen like a handful of A24 movies, and I’m not impressed. They’re generally technically pretty slick (for the budget they have), but they’ve all been pretty… annoying? Like they’re chasing some social media conversation or other.

But perhaps this’ll be awesome.

Uh-oh.

Hey! I’ve been there.

Yeah, this is already pretty annoying. The “hand-held” camera (either simulated in post or done on a tripod but with a lot of operator movement) is so eurgh.

Such symbolic.

SUCH SYMBOLIC!!!

Man, OK, I’m not sure I can do this…. It’s not just All The Clichés, but it’s also All The Boredom.

Yeah, that’s bad:

Although it’s frustratingly clumsy in certain respects, The Inspection is an affecting actors’ showcase in service of some truly worthy themes.

“Worthy”.

It turns out that living rough (and possibly being on drugs?) makes you really fit! Whodathunk! The other soldiers are jelly at the hero because he’s so good at the push ups and stuff.

It’s like a Mary Sue kind of movie… the protagonist (based on the writer, apparently) constantly has people telling him he’s hot and smart and then he’s the best at the sports, too.

And then the movie gets even worse! At this point I’m kinda getting interested in this as a pure train wreck. It’s just ridiculously silly.

It’s… It’s…

And this doesn’t break with tradition.

Meme potential?

Perhaps it’s a recreation.

Oops! What a nerd.

It’s boring. It’s almost enjoyable just for the sheer stupidity of it all, but just almost.

The Inspection. Elegance Bratton. 2022. ⚀

Man, even some newer films have complicated restoration jobs… They only had access to a negative with burned-in English subtitles?

Anyway, this is the second film from the Scorsese box set.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul is famous and stuff now, so I’m guessing this is one of his first movies? And… it’s a documentary?

Whoa.

This is wild… I assume we’re inside the (fictional?) story the first woman up there is telling, but I’m not totally sure. In any case, every scene is just riveting — everything is so tense, even if what they’re actually doing is mostly rather trivial? I’m totally into it.

The film is absolutely riveting for the first two thirds — I mean, it’s a meandering mess, really, but it feels like they’re going to tie things up somehow. It feels really vital. But then we start going into a territory that’s so meta that it wraps back again, and we’re watching “making of” documentary, and that’s not as interesting.

OK, we’re back on track.

For the first two thirds, this movie is a solid ⚅. Then interest dissipates somewhat when it becomes clearer that this really isn’t going anywhere, but is really an improvised movie.

But it’s still pretty fascinating. (And very entertaining.)

I’ve gotten a lot more respect for Scorsese lately. I used to think of him as a guy that did a couple of good movies in the 70s, and then devolved into somebody who generated tedious mobster (OK, that’s a pleonasm) flicks. But I watched After Hours recently, and it’s really great, and you gotta respect somebody who gets financing to restore and distribute a movie like this.

Mysterious Object At Noon. Apichatpong Weerasethakul. 2000. ⚄

I have a tendency to buy box sets of movies and then never watch them. Because if I start watching one, I’m like obligated to watch the entire box set? It’s like to much commitment? I know it makes no sense but there you are.

So now I’ve started on the Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 2 box set because I’m no longer afraid of commitment.

Mort aux vaches!

One for the money…

So this is a Philippine film from the 70s. I admire Scorsese’s project — restoring films from around the world to make them available to a wider audience now — but I’m not quite sure what makes this movie in particular er interesting.

It’s very noisy. That is, people are shouting at each other all the time, and whenever that dies down, you get a soundtrack filling up the space.

True! But they’re all like that…

I think the moral of this movie is: Men suck.

That would be my expression too!

There’s good points… The cinematography is very attractive, and the performances are pretty good… And it’s not that the story is uninteresting, exactly? But it does feel like I’ve seen this movie many times before. Not in the particulars, but the general… gist of it all.

Is that a Rembrandt!?

OK, that was original.

OK, I didn’t really enjoy this much, but the ending is kinda great. So:

Insiang. Lino Brocka. 1976. ⚃