Murder on ‘The Menu’ in celebrity chef tantrum movie

Posted on January 13, 2023 by reelentropy
Ralph Fiennes, the legend, crushes it, of course, though I can’t figure why they’re having him do an American accent. Images courtesy Searchlight Pictures – that’s right, kids, this horrible movie about the crazy chef who kills everybody is a Disney property!

2/10 The Menu is a terrible, boring film that exists only to clamber up its own ass and turn left. It’s about a crazy chef who murders everybody, and the mystery is his insane and torturously metaphorical reasons for murdering everybody being revealed over the course of the dinner. It’s wild, but completely arbitrary in a way that makes my interest vanish as it goes onward.

In The Menu, Tyler Ledford and Margot Mills (Nicholas Hoult and Anya Taylor-Joy) join a group of a dozen diners for an exclusive evening at Hawthorne, the restaurant on a private island belonging to reclusive celebrity chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). Slowik, a self-aggrandizing cunt, has arranged for a specific group of 12 customers and intends to murder all of them, but he’s thrown by the presence of Mills, who’s filling in for Ledford’s recent ex.

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‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ deservedly rakes in awards

Posted on January 13, 2023 by reelentropy
Images courtesy Searchlight Pictures – that’s right kids, this extended allegory for the Irish Civil War where Brendan Gleeson cuts his own fingers off is a Disney property!

9/10 The Banshees of Inisherin is one of the top movies of the year, simple yet contemplative, expressive and emotionally razor sharp.

Inisherin among the Aran Islands on the east coast of Ireland, April 1, 1923- Local folk musician Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) begins abruptly ignoring his longtime drinking buddy, Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell). As the confused Súilleabháin tries to mend the friendship, over the course of a week and a half, tensions between the two wind to the point that Doherty threatens to begin cutting his fingers off in protest every time Súilleabháin speaks to him. Relationships in the tiny island town unravel as inhabitants begin to wonder whether or not they really like each other or the isle of Inisherin.

Banshees of Inisherin is the fourth feature film from playwright and director Martin McDonagh, who’s been putting them out every five years like clockwork. He’s one of the best dialogue writers and meta storytellers working today and appointment viewing for any cinephile. Perhaps only Quentin Tarantino is better suited to make a movie about smalltalk so irritating it fully ends a relationship, but his version would be a completely different movie. McDonagh has already hit mainstream success with his last film, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, and Inisherin collected screenplay and lead actor awards at Venice and three Golden Globes, including Best Picture in the comedy category, making it an Oscar frontrunner.

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‘Tár,’ the #metoo ghost story

Posted on January 13, 2023 by reelentropy
Images courtesy Focus Features.

9/10 Tár is a three-hour long talkie. Only a certain kind of person is going to be up for this, but it’s for that certain kind of person, nuanced, detailed, more rewarding the more attention you’re paying and formed around a signature central performance from one of history’s greatest actresses.

Berlin- World-renowned composer-conductor Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett, who also produces executively) has done it all in her career, playing at each of the big five American orchestras on her way to her current seat as the first ever female chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, but behind the scenes, it’s clear she’s spent decades abusing her authority to select young women and keep them close for sex. As she prepares for a live recording of Maher’s transformative fifth symphony, which is to be the climax of her career, Krista Taylor (Sylvia Flote), an old victim who Tár blackballed from the conducting industry, escalates her stalking of Tár, and Tár begins to suffer nightmares and hear disembodied sounds in her waking life.

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‘Decision to Leave’ is one of the finest films ever made

Posted on January 13, 2023 by reelentropy
“Killing is like smoking – only the first time is hard.” Images courtesy CJ Entertainment.

9/10 Decision to Leave is an absolutely gorgeous and completely engrossing shape-shifting and yet brick-solid beast of a film. It’s transcendent, a sensation, a revolution, an utter masterpiece – screenwriter/director Park Chan-wook is such a master of his craft that he can make abbreviations no one else can make, like a writer expressing entire paragraphs with a single word. It’s breathtaking to watch and even more breathtaking to watch again and again.

Busan, South Korea- Det. Jang Hae-jun (Park Hae-il), one of the Busan police department’s lead inspectors, can’t sleep and only sees his wife on weekends. When a retired immigration official falls to his death from a mountain he regularly climbs, Jang suspects his wife, the much younger Chinese immigrant Song Seo-rae (Tang Wei), but is also immediately infatuated with her. His nights, already consumed by long stakeouts, become completely earmarked for her, and they grow closer over interrogations.

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Scatological arthouse satire skippable

Posted on January 13, 2023 by reelentropy
Another way the film seems to exist only for its yacht leg is every scene in the marketing was set on the yacht, at least in America, so you’re not aware there’s any other setting going in. Images courtesy Neon.

6/10 After his electric black satire The Square took the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017, lord of shapes Ruben Östlund has won the Palm d’Orr again with Triangle of Sadness, only the third director in history to win the award twice. His new effort doesn’t make nearly as solid a connection.  

Triangle of Sadness is a tedious and obvious satire about apathy toward the impending ecological collapse. It is, appropriately, divided into three parts. In the first, model and influencer Yaya (Charlbi Dean), who makes significantly more than her peer and boyfriend Carl (Harris Dickinson), psychologically abuses him with gender and power dynamics. In the second, they go on an exclusive luxury cruise, free to them in exchange for social media promotion, but populated mostly by old money arms dealers. In the third, they are among a group of survivors on a deserted island. Abigail (Dolly de Leon), the only crew member with necessary survival skills, takes command and begins sexually abusing Carl.

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