tommy-97761

Mamma Mia is musical with good songs performed poorly by unlikeable characters on top of a baffling plot.

The movie isn't all bad, the songs are fun and greece is beautiful, but I won't award any extra points for unoriginal songs performed poorly. The lyrics hardly even make sense in the context of the plot where it all feels very forced and unnatural.

What even is the plot? A young girl is about to marry a guy. That's pretty much all we learn about the dude in the whole movie, honestly he could have been played by a coat hanger and it wouldn't have made much of a difference. Anyway, the girl stumbles on the diary of her mother where she reads about how she banged three dudes in one summer (who in their right mind does that? I mean read about the love life of their parents? The DOT DOT DOT scene is very cringy). She figures, one of them is her probable semen donor, so she invites all of them to her wedding. Then there are a bunch of dancenumbers that don't particularly further the plot and at the end when the Girl should say "YES" she calls of the whole wedding in an act of absolute selfishness with no regard for any of her guests. Fortunately no-one seems to mind so there is an another dance number. Her reasoning? Even though she claims to love Mr. Coathanger, they are apparently young to get married. Translated that means she got envious, that her momma had seen more wieners in one summer than she had in her life I guess.

Just watch some documentary about Greece and play an Abba album in the background instead.

After having loved Rush and FordvFerarri, I was hoping for an another excellent drama set around racing. Gran Turismo sort of fills that gap, though it doesn't quite reach the same level of entertainment. Perhaps it's because the real Jann Mardenborough is nowhere as popular as the characters in either forementioned movies were. What he had managed to achieve is admirable and gives hope to the rest of the dreamers out there. This movie is in essence feelgood filler and I can see it becoming a comfort movie to many. The acting is compelling. Archie Madekwe and David Harbour make you care about the characters. What weights the movie down is the artificial melodrama against team CAPA. The character of Nicholas Capa who is the main antagonist (dude in golden helmet) is completely fictional and made up for the movie. I guess they needed a fictional character they could antagonize and that could fuel some rivalry but even without knowing it was fictional (I just looked it up now) it felt very fake in the movie itself.

So all in all, there is an excellent plot about becoming a racer trough the GT Academy against all odds, and then trying to prove himself among real drivers. There are compelling main characters but also some phony melodrama. Worth a watch, if you happen to stumble upon the movie.

Since it's the summer solstice, I thought I'd give Midsommar a chance. I have come across this movie on numerous occasions with the reactions being polarizing. Most people tend to find the movie boring, tedious, yet there are some who absolutely love it. I was curious how I'd find it. Well, somewhere in between.

The plot revolves around Dani (Florence Pugh) whom is in a relationship with Christian. At the beginning of the movie she goes trough a traumatic event and she ends up joining Christian and his friends on a trip to Europe to attend a folk celebration. The group is lead to a cult where characters start missing. In essence, the movie is about the relationship between Dani and Christian, about emotional support (or lack thereof) and the need to belong somewhere.

Don't go into the movie expecting a scarry experience, it's not. More uneasy if anything. There are a couple of gory images (smashed face, gutted animals, and such) but mostly the disturbing feelings stem from the behavior of the villagers and the slow burn of the buildup. Ari Aster chooses to present a lot of the movie trough drawn out long shots which often come across rather pretentious rather than artistic. The depiction of the folk traditions itself feels suppreficial, as if Ari watched the wickerman, watched a bit of History Channels Vikings, and decided to write write a script. This being a fictional cult, I guess the details are negligible and effective for a casual viewer, but the setting falls flat if you are actually interested in folk stuff at all. Like casually performing an act reserved for people guilty of regicide, as part of the celebration of the coming harvest no less, It didn't shock me, but rather made me go 'really'? There are more wtf moments like that.

I think I get what the movie was going for. Present an uncanny pagan cult and tell a story of a toxic relationship and dealing with trauma on top of that. The movie actually does achieve that, and the way it is presented it encourages discussion. A lot is left purposefully ambiguous, though most reactions I have come across side with Dani, which I found unfair. Sure, Christian is indeed emotionally distant, selfish and immature, but he is no villain. Be honest with yourself, how many people have what it takes to step up and be the support some need? I had written a further paragraph concerning Dani and Christian, but I'd need to go into spoilers which I don't want to. What I realized though, that I probably enjoyed the plot more than I realized. I am still thinking about what happened, how it happened and who was responsible. I don't think there is a clear answer, just a lot of food for thought so I guess I will give an extra star. One thing I'd note though is that while it might come across to a lot of people that Christian is the villain, I think it's Pelle, who is not depicted as such at all. He is the Swedish friend who brings the lambs to the slaughter.

The movie is ambiguous, intriguing, and often actually nice to look at. The long static shots can come across as boring to some, though I quite enjoyed the composition of some of them. Nordic folk music as part of the soundtrack is a nice touch. Overall, I felt entertained while I watched the movie, even if some of that entertainment stemmed from bafflement. I started thinking the movie was pretentious, but the more I think about it, the more it grows on me.