Showing posts with label Tilda Swinton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tilda Swinton. Show all posts

Monday, July 10, 2023

SUSPIRIA (2018)

"They'll hollow me out and eat my cunt on a plate."

So close, but yet so far away.

West Berlin, 1977. A young American woman moves to Germany to join a prestigious (and creepy as fuck) all female dance academy. Things start out okay, but it isn’t too long before she starts to notice that some sinister shenanigans are afoot. Most of the shenanigan’s stem from the fact that the school is run by an evil coven of thousand-year-old witches in the middle of a power struggle.

SUSPIRIA, for those of you who don’t know (and there’s nothing wrong with not knowing…everybody has to learn something somewhere) is a remake of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror film of the same name. SUSPIRIA (1977) has a justifiable place in movie history (awesome musical score, bold use of colours, etc.), but it wasn’t a great film. So…that said, I was looking forward to checking out this remake.

The opening scene was a snoozer, but after that things start going along pretty good with a creepy atmosphere, surreal dream imagery and gruesome violence. Then, for some unknown reason things slow down and it just starts to drone on and on and on. For 152 minutes. I don’t mind horror films with long runtimes. Hell, MIDSOMMAR was 148 minutes and I love that movie, but the story has got to move forward! SUSPIRIA has way too much excess baggage and unneeded bullshit.

I’m not a filmmaker and nobody reads this bullshit, but off the top of my handsome head I’d say the entire Dr. Josef Klemperer character could have been left out of the story. Every scene with him drags on like torture. Secondly, the witch showdown climax sucked and looked like hell. After such a long build-up it was a huge disappointment. Also, what was the point of setting the film in 1977? Who gives a fuck?  My simple dmub brain just wants to see some creepy witch shit!

Excessive runtime that kills the film, bloated script, above average acting, completely unneeded casting / make-up gimmicks that take the viewer out of the film, promising moments of cool arthouse creepiness, a lot of drab colours, random arthouse nudity, various moments of obviously fake-looking computer graphics, impressive mirror effects, at least two David Bowie posters. SUSPIRIA is an interesting film, but when it’s all said and done, it just left me wanting to see yet another (and hopefully superior) remake. The story idea is way too awesome to be left like this.

[This has nothing to do with the review, but am I the only one that thinks Dakota Johnson's character in this film looks like Sarah Goldberg's character in Barry? It was kinda tripping me out.]

Original - Suspiria (1977)

Monday, August 15, 2016

HAIL, CAESAR! (2016)

Around a hour or so into HAIL, CAESAR! I thought to myself "What the hell is this movie?"  IMDb lists it as a "Comedy, Mystery", but there's nothing worth more than a smile throughout the entire thing and I have no idea what the mystery portion could have be.  Yeah, there's a kidnapping but we know who the kidnappers are right from the beginning!

Whatever.  Set in the early 1950's, HAIL, CAESAR! is the story of a Hollywood studio big wig (Josh Brolin) who spends all of his time taking care of production needs and keeping the various studio stars in line.  One day something big comes up when the main actor (George Clooney) in the studio's most expensive film disappears off the set.  Is he on a bender?  Shacked up with a dame?  Or maybe even kidnapped by Communists?  69'ing in the woods with a mountain lion?  Brolin has to get his star back while at the same time taking care of various other problems (pregnant single actress, miscast actor, a tempting job offer, etc), it's all very...blah.

I love classic Hollywood and I was excited to see a modern day film set back in 1950's Hollywood, but HAIL, CAESAR! is a dud.  It looks nice, but the story was all over the place with no true center or even likeable characters.  I kept waiting and waiting for something to develop, then I realized that the movie is already 3/4's done and it's still just flailing around like a boat lost in a storm.

With so much talent (both in front and behind the camera) I was expecting a delightful throwback mystery-comedy, kinda like the wonderful THE CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION, but that didn't happen.  Instead HAIL, CAESAR! simply putters along and leaves more questions than it answers.  On the bright side I really enjoyed the performances of Alden Ehrenreich and Veronica Osorio.  They were both great. Also, the lighting was nice.
Is that a white SUV off to the right?