cherold

This movie begins with Kate McKinnon comforting Mila Kunis after her text breakup from a guy who she learns without much to-do is a spy. Suddenly there are spies, and shootouts, and assassins, and a road trip to Europe, and so many dead bodies.

Like most buddy-adventure comedies, you've got the whacky one - Kate, who is as always hilarious, and the regular one, who Mila gives a slightly bumbling charm.

I laughed a lot during this movie, and the action scenes are well done. The movie has some slow patches, but overall it's terrific fun.

It also makes zero sense. It's not just that unlikely things happen, but that at the end if you think about what was in place at the beginning you realize the entire premise is ineptly structured.

But who cares? It's funny, the principles have great chemistry, the supportive-women interludes are heartfelt and don't drag on, and anyway it's got Kate McKinnon in it. Recommended.

I didn't know anything about mother! Going in except it was directed by Darren Aronofsky and billed as a horror movie.

But when I started watching, I just didn't know what I was seeing. Jennifer Lawrence wanders around a pleasant but underlit house, seems worried, encounters her husband, paints a wall, communes with the wall - it's slow and claustrophobic, with the camera absolutely glued to Lawrence (it literally almost never leaves her).

A guy shows up, she seems perturbed, her husband is oblivious. Then an intrusive lady shows up (Michelle Pfeiffer, who is the best thing in the movie), and ... what is this movie again?

Odd things happen, Lawrence is unhappy, and no one is acting the way real people act. And I'm thinking, should I stop watching? Should I keep going?

So I start looking through IMDB spoiler reviews to get my bearings, and learn it's maybe a biblical allegory, and I'm like, well, that's something to go on.

The first part of this movie is very slow and somewhere between upsetting and annoying. Then there's a sort of eye-of-the-storm part which is less perplexing, and then we get total madness.

But it's all slow. No matter how weird and crazy and violent it gets, it still feels slow and deliberate.

It's also not a horror movie. While it has some error elements at the end, it is more something between Kafka and David Lynch, although less entertaining than either of them.

It's also less subtle. Once you get the hang of what's going on, you find it lacks the Lynchian ambiguity.

Jennifer Lawrence is excellent in an intense role, and in many ways Aronofsky's direction is impressive. But in the end I didn't feel this movie was worth my time, or even worth Aronofsky's time to make it. Although it's still a step up from the movie he made right before this, Noah.

Anyway, this is a boring movie where even the best bits are dragged out far too long, and I would recommend skipping it.

Sinners is two things. One, it is a genre mashup that attempts to straddle two entirely different genres in a way I hated when Robert Rodriquez did it. Two, it is a brilliant work of art design as an allegory for American racism and the power of African music. It works surprisingly well for something so ambitious.

Starting as the tale of black twin brothers who arrive in their Mississippi hometown to start a juke joint. They hire some musicians, buy some booze, and invite all the black folk to come party. Then things take a turn.

The story is simple, but the telling is remarkable. The film is visually stunning, the acting is terrific, the characters fully drawn, and the atmosphere hot and steamy.

Then there's the music, which is copious enough for this to count as a musical. The music is great, but it's not music for music's sake, instead being used to establish the power in black Americans' African roots (most notably in a hallucinatory scene where the entirety of black America's musical heritage is brought to life by one guitarist) and the historical white obsession with taking that power.

But as I say, this is essentially two movies - and while the two halves are melded here instead of grafted on like a horse head to a pig body, it's still a tough trick. People who are expecting a movie like the second half may find the first half pointless. Those engaged in the drama of the first half may feel discombobulated by the twist. I actually knew going in that the movie was bifurcated and what the two parts were like, and even though I'm trying not to give spoilers, I feel it's good to know that much.

The first half is compelling, the second half is exciting although distressing, but after the second half the movie keeps going, as though the director just can't find a place where he wants to end, and that really lets some air out of the whole endeavor.

In the end, I am impressed by this movie's artistry and originality but kept at a distance by its odd structure and problems inherent to two-headed storytelling. Which is why I only give it 7 stars even though I acknowledge that it is a truly remarkable film. You should watch it.