peter0969

Josh Safdie offers a unpredictable, tense and a tale of nervous breakdowns of a man who will do anything to achieve his dreams, whether it has consequences, with strong directing choices, tension and pacing, and wonderful strong performance from Timothee Chalamet.

What Safdie and writer Ronald Bronstein offers isn't a generic sports drama, but a fast-paced and anxiety filled character study about sports, drama, and character with greatness. Many of the directing choices, presentation and atmosphere moments felt purposeful and chaotic. Which helps establish the chaotic nature, tone, and setting throughout. Alongside with the great production designs, sound designs and make-up, the writing is really good. The way how characters are structured, scenes displayed, dialogue, and personality is carried is strong, powerful and engaging. One of the best aspects are the way Ping Pong is demonstrated, as it's clear Safdie and Bronstein did research with how sports are quite competitive and the drama and somewhat corrupted concepts around sports successfully.

The characters are unlikeable, yet, investing. Stories about unlikeable characters going through an adventure is difficult but Safdie's direction and writing really helps bring these characters to life and become vibrant. As mention, the performances are wonderful, as Chalamet gives probably one of his best performances in his career thus far. Alongside with Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A'zion, Luke Manley, and even Tyler Okonma and Abel Ferrara. The soundtrack from Daniel Lopatin is electric and chaotic, some of the best musical tracks of this year.

The camerawork is great, the pacing never felt a moment of boredom and the dialogue moments were strong and realistic. There are some great dialogues between characters that are still burned into my memory. Particularly, the third act is one of the best and most engaging third acts I have seen this year, with how Safdie is able to structure them, it's amazing!

However, the only compliant that, personally, I have with this movie is Kevin O'Leary. O'Leary's performance pretty much stinks. Any moment that he performs and his dialogue is displayed comes off fake, messy, and unrealistic. But luckily, it didn't ruin the experience for me.

At the end, it's unfortunate the Josh Safdie and his brother Benny Safdie have separated to work on their own projects, but now with Marty Supreme, I am intrigued to see what they can offer next. Definitely one of the best movies of this year.

The story about a Neil Diamond tribute band and exploring about their dreams and stories is a moving concept that could have been heartfelt and emotional. Unfortunately, the end result ends up being cheap, uninteresting, and filled with cliched tropes of the good example of Oscar Bait.

Sure, there are some decent make-up choices and some nice music. But unfortunately, the writing, cheap atmosphere, manipulative emotional dynamics and uninteresting characters offers nothing or value to the story's core and purpose. The directing choices from Craig Brewer feels messy and unbalanced, the colorful presentation is kind of all over the place, and the way how the movie is paced, structured, and presented, feels too fake and cheap to feel as if it is a movie. Which is funny because, this movie is based on a documentary about the same people, which makes sense why it feels like a fake parody movie.

Kate Hudson gives the best performance. As Hudson offers a good personality and insightful take on her character and emotions. However, Hugh Jackman, as much I like his acting, he isn't very good in this movie. His performance feels over-the-top, and quite annoying. The musical aspects, and singing moments feel cheap, poorly-written, and certain dialogue and singing tone moments felt as if they were using AI machines to produce them out.

The worst aspects are that the pacing is extremely poorly paced, and the writing doesn't offer anything unique or special to the actual subject. Because at the end, Oscar-Bait musical movies just continue to demonstrate how boring and forgettable they can be. Which I will most likely forget I saw this in a few days.

I'm convinced Bradley Cooper is becoming the new Oscar-Bait filmmaker because it shows.

What Cooper offers is a very strong performance from Will Arnett and Laura Dern, yet, a predictable, cheesy, and basic narrative and concept, that doesn't really offer anything new to the core of comedy-drama. First thing is first, Cooper's direction on the atmosphere, presentation, and style, is mostly okay. The presentation is acceptable, there are some solid humor moments, and has some nice colors presented throughout. Having loved Arnett's vocal performances on Bojack Horseman, Arnett's performance was pretty good, as his personality and dynamics were the best aspects about the movie.

Unfortunately, as a whole, the narrative, as mentioned, is predictable. Each moment whether on it's humor dynamics, writing, and the concepts feel slim, cheesy, and follows pretty much most basic and non-creative comedy-drama. Beat per beat, which makes each moment too easy to follow, and easy to guess. The characters, were quite unlikable. Unlikeable characters can be well-written and engaging if they are given more depth and personality, unfortunately, Cooper offers little to nothing to the characters, which makes it a little difficult to believe them nor engage with their conflicts, and dynamics.

The musical score feels cheap, and there are some pacing aspects that feel a bit too slow. The dialogue feels clunky. As at times, there are some good dialogue moments between characters, and at the same time, some of them felt off-putting, weird, and fake.

Overall, Cooper, once again, just made another okay movie. Sadly, his remake of A Star Is Born and Maestro are pretty much good examples of Oscar Bait, and here, once again, comes another.