dmdebruyn

I don't mean to get on my high horse knowing I'm in this movie, but this is really good stuff.

Definitely the biggest thing Cody has done so far, the scale of this feels upped, in large part due to the ensemble cast and the world-building, and yet it remains a down-to-earth character piece, which I'm glad about.

What I really love about this movie, and what I also loved about the script when I read it, was that Cody took this trashy shark b-movie format and - in the same way he did with No Shark - made it follow this singular female character on an emotional existential journey that also made me care about her, making her so much more than a b-movie stock character. The movie doesn't shy away from leaning into the cheapness of the movie's format, but the story still carries emotional weight. The lead is one of his most full-dimensional characters yet, and her journey really invested me. That Invisible Shark is able to balance this down-to-earthiness with the cheeky schlock of it all is impressive and Cody to a T. He even makes time for meta humor with a trashy shark movie within a shark movie that makes for a really amusing running gag.

Probably my biggest pet peeve with this movie was the sound, which sort of gave the cheapness away a bit more than needed, but it wasn't totally distracting, and I thought about it less the further I got into the movie. Against the rest of the movie, it was honestly not a big deal.

This is great. It's knowingly "so-bad-it's-good" while being really good-quality at storytelling, emotion, and editing despite some flawed sound, and I loved the performances, mine most of all (kidding). The pacing was solid, and those opening credits were FIRE! I enjoyed the experience of doing a Cody Clarke/Kill the Lion Films production. I feel so lucky to have worked on this, and I can't wait to show it to more people in the not-too-distant future.

Thank you Cody and thank you Chloe!

For the last few months, I'd read about Hong Sang-soo and his movies, and they sounded very appealing. There was a lot of hearsay about his body of work that drew me to him: His movies have a slice-of-life feel to them, his shooting style is minimalist, his annual output is two or three movies a year, and his movies are on some level closely tied to his life experiences. I have a huge affinity for these qualities at the present, so I knew sooner or later I had to watch his movies.

Watching this has instantly made me a fan. There is much to love about it: Chance encounters, cigarette smoking, drunken hangouts; cringey but moving outpourings of feelings; mutual and one-sided instances of platonic and romantic connectivity; naturalistic acting, long takes, zooms; and to top it all off, a story that gets told twice with glaring and subtle differences in the second telling. Really great stuff. It's everything I want in a movie.

But what I really appreciate is the vulnerability and openness this movie presents. It presents being honest as important and it shows how in a gentle way.

The bar scene in the second half was just wonderful.