waxbanksa stray observation about the Matrix films and their makers
rethinking: CHALLENGERS is a recent example of a common type, the high-profile b-movie. Twenty years ago it would have gone straight to video; take away lead actress Zendaya's inexplicable fame (an *obvious psyop*) and what's left is tedium cut with shock-banality. Men kissing! Tennis with loud music! Comprehensively unlikable characters! Please watch the more insightfully unpleasant CHUCK & BUCK instead--just not on date night. #waxflix
family movie nite: watched GOOD WILL HUNTING for the first time since, what, 1997? 98? the first 15 minutes had me cringing at the close-but-still-no-cigar hollywood depiction of Wicked Smaht people, and the rest was riveting. pity about the #BechdelTest but let’s not ask the impossible; minnie driver’s effortlessly natural performance as The Girl is manic, pixie-ish, and dreamy, but she lifts every scene she’s in. and the older men are wonderful.
dead solid movie, glad we watched.
just watched 12 ANGRY MEN for the first time. predictable and wonderful—an unexpectedly stirring defense of humility and democracy. afterward, talked briefly w/my son about the postwar liberal consensus. another day, another hopefully-not-a-lecture. #dadproblems #waxflix
watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off with the family. as good as i remembered. the script was written in a week and at a couple of tonal-mismatch moments (e.g. ferris's 'the first girl he lays' monologue) feels like it, but charisma & music carry it effortlessly—all those classic lines in acts 1-2 sure don't hurt. broderick is a miracle but alan ruck is the story’s weird wounded center; when he howled at his absent father i felt it in my marrow. #waxflix #SaveFerris
tonight i watched BE KIND REWIND with my family and it’s just as i remember—a guileless comic-romantic fantasy, strange dream offering its own existence proof—until the final scene, which is better, realer, more humble than i remember. real blue note.
a beautiful little movie about little movies. michel gondry isn't perfect (needs a forceful cowriter) but his movies have such a humane spirit.
my wife and i just watched BANSHEES OF INISHERIN---
heartbreaking, exquisitely acted, ultimately disturbing in the manner (no surprise) of irish folktales. i hear what its critics are saying about its allegory and stageplay Oirishness, but the pleasure of farrell/gleeson duetting on mcdonagh's script overwhelms any complaint; both deserve every accolade for this work, as do barry keoghan and kerry condon in support.
an adult story, unsparingly told. beautiful.