Splenderm'n

All right, a Slender Man horror movie. I'm in, let's go.

Four girls summon a supernatural horror and then get picked off one by one.

...and that's about it really. The originality this movie brings is... it came out in 2018? This is... bad. Let's just jump straight to it, this is a badly made movie. And this is me saying that, who can't tell you what an edit is. Replace Slendy with any other creature, and this movie wouldn't change at all.

Two examples, so yeah spoilers. One scene has a girl at the library researching Slender via the web, and I'm pretty sure they just filmed their own research they did (or rather didn't do) for the movie. Oh, and later it turns out she had her own computer at home anyway. But this way they could do a scary library scene!

And a really annoying touch, they completely missed on Chekov's runner. They establish early that one girl is really good at track. And even bring up the point later again. So you would expect that at some point she has to outrun Slender, perhaps to save herself and someone else? There's a bit later on where that totally could have happened. But nope, none of that. Not even subversion of that because they don't make anything out of it when it could have happened. Just drop it from the movie and forget about it.

Maybe rent this later? But don't bother watching it now.

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Baden Baden

Hey, I finally got back to the Film Society, and it is a French film tonight, Baden Baden.

Ana is a young woman with a largely casual attitude to life, including doing a job and having relationships. We are with her as she finishes one job (and keeps a hold of the dress and rental car she got), and she returns to be with her grandmother. Her grandmother ends up in hospital, and Ana decides to remodel her bathroom using her own skill. At the same time, Ana sort of gets together with previous boyfriends, who are varying degrees of jerks.

Okay, I know there were bits I didn't get, and parts that just didn't resonate. This is billed as a comedy/drama, and the comedy is around the bathroom remodelling, and the drama is the rest of the movie. And there are also very artistic moments when I had no idea what was going on. This movie also has the issue of 'long slow shots are artistic' as opposed to just long and slow.

I wasn't sure about this movie, but thought I'd give it a go. As something different, yeah okay, but not really one I would pick.

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Thelma

Religious girl who experiences supernatural abilities? Okay, I'm in.

A young woman goes to college by herself, feeling alone. Eventually makes a friend or two, one of whom could become something more. However, as that friend is female, and she is religious, she doesn't think she should be having such feelings, and her previous abilities resurface. However, this isn't a good thing, and her family think they must do what is best.

First note: "atmospheric" is not the same as "slow", and this is slow paced. Which isn't bad, but when it takes so long to get anywhere, I'm already seeing the rest of the film spooling out before me. Nothing here is surprising, so I'm sitting there waiting for the inevitable beats to play out... and there they are.

This is basically a coming out/becoming accepting of one's own feelings that don't conform to your upbringing, but we don't need this to take place over two hours...

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Ex Libris: The New York Public Library

Okay, settle in, this is a long one. By which I mean it is 3 and a half hours long! On the other hand, for a Frederick Wiseman document, it's on the short side.

This documentary is within the New York Public Library, and the format is a lot of very short segments of goings on at the library. Which means there isn't really a plot line as such, just moment of the library in use.

Which means the themes that come through aren't that of the library itself, but of how people use the library, interact with the space and idea of it. We have people using rooms for meetings and presentations, we have people using it as research, we have a few behind the scene meetings of what people consider the role of the library and how to develop, and then we have shots of how the neighbourhood the library exists in.

So while not a standard documentary, we aren't following a story, but nonetheless you get the sense of what the library is, and what it means.

Which is great... but I hope you have a very strong bladder! (Note, TMI: I don't.)

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Michael Smither: Of Crimson Joy

The New Zealand International Film Festival has been happening, and I've only seen a few of the movies, although I hope to catch some more later.

In the ten part series, the latter half of which has been shown at the festivals, is Part Nine: Of Crimson Joy.

There is only three short segments, and this is the shortest of the parts so far, and it feels it. The first is a follow up to something started in the previous movie (the portraits), the second is going into how Smither deals with a painting that is a failure, and the third is him telling a poem.

While the components are interesting, the whole does definitely feel a little lacking given the lack of runtime. Perhaps when viewed as a part of the total series in one sitting, it'll work better.

And there is only one to go, for next year!

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MI FaalOot

Sure, let's go for an action movie that doesn't require a lot of thought. And I saw this at an advanced screening, woo!

So, let's recap the movie... um.. I remember the final big sequence... and before that, I remember snatches of what happened... oh right, there are plutonium cores out there, so the IMF team has to get them back, Along the way, they team up with various different people, and various true loyalties are revealed... none of which are surprising in this slightest.

This is not a sophisticated plot. Yes, there's a lot of it to get from one action sequence to the other, but ultimately none of it really matters. Indeed, there's a whole section of bad guys that are referred to, but they never actually turn up. Holding on to them for the next movie? Or were they just forgotten and/or dealt with an offhand line of dialogue? This series is now pretending they have a lot of continuity to refer to, so it could be the former, but I doubt it.

Don't go into this expecting an indepth story and well drawn out characters and situations. But as long as you don't want that, this'll do.

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