Despicable Me 3. Image courtesy Universal Pictures.
Yeah, I know Labor Day was two weeks ago, fuck off
It’s been a summer of transition at the movies. Transition to what? Who knows. There are several narratives to spin based on the number of movies that were released this year that you wouldn’t expect in a summer lineup, but the numbers don’t really bear any of them out.
As ancient as most of the subject matter is, mother! also has a lot to say about femininity in a modern context. The lead spends most of the movie ignored and disrespected, either by disrespecting her home or unabashed confrontation. Images courtesy Paramount Pictures.
8/10 Writer/director Darren Aronofsky has made a horror movie about inconsiderate house guests, and it is one of the most gripping, audacious things I have seen in my entire life.
A woman, known in the script only as mother (Jennifer Lawrence), lives in an idyllic, isolated mansion with her husband (Javier Bardem). The mother built their house herself and spends her days perfecting it while her other half, a famous poet, stares at his desk in an eons-long bout of writer’s block. One day, a stranger (Ed Harris) comes to the door saying he thought they were a bed and breakfast, and against mother’s wishes, the poet invites him to stay the night. The next morning, his fiendish wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) unexpectedly arrives as well. The duo becomes an ocean of unruly house guests as they surreally act out the Bible.
In its most basic elements, mother! is a master class in building and toying with tension. The camera is hyper-focused on the mother character, with barely a shot that she isn’t in or isn’t explicitly from her point of view. Despite her almost constant presence on screen, the camera is so close to her that it’s rare to see above her hairline or below her collarbone — and the wide shots that show her feet are outright jarring.
You know who Skarsgård’s Pennywise really reminds me of? The Grinch from that awful 2000 Jim Carey movie. It looks like what happened was they didn’t want to go with something similar to Tim Curry’s assured but subdued performance, so they hired the guy who would hop around as energetically as possible. It’s not Skarsgård’s fault at all, it’s just a lack of creativity from the top down. Images courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.
2/10 The titular monster in It comes out of the sewer every 30 years to feed, so remaking the movie — yeah, I know the 1990 version was a “made for TV miniseries,” eat me — makes a ton of sense. Given the 1,100 page novel’s massive scope and breadth of themes and 30 years of technological advancement, you can create a very different movie while remaining uniquely true to the original novel and previous adaptations.
There’s just one problem: modern horror can really suck sometimes.
Along with the astounding detail shots, Olsen’s effortlessness and Plaza’s palpable discomfort in front of the camera really sell the movie. Images courtesy Neon.
9/10 Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza, who also produces) sits awake in the night, starring unflinchingly at her phone with tear-glazed eyes that seem skinned as if by some outside tormentor, her breathing unsteady, double-tapping to favorite the Instagram pictures of her best friend, Charlotte (Meredith Hagner). Most of the recent ones concern her wedding, to which Thorburn wasn’t invited.
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Images courtesy A24.
8/10 Moviegoers are sure to have a Good Time watching this movie!
Reel Entropy 