Close to Vemeer

This is a Vemeer... or is it?

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam wants to set up an exhibition of Vemeer paintings, and so we follow them as they set about collecting some. They visit a few museums and we watch as they look at paintings, we are introduced to them, learn about them, and discuss them. In particular, there are a few paintings where the questions is: is this a Vemeer? Some say yes, some say no.

When they discussed how Vemeer painted, I was reminded of Tim's Vemeer, in which we see Tim Jenison replicate Vemeer's style. While this doesn't mention that venture, we get a repeat of a lot of how Vemeer made his pictures and how he saw his images, namely camera obscura on transparent paper. And a lot of corners of a room.

A lot of said about his particulars in how he painted faces (green undertones) and the folds of clothes, which led people to confidently claim yes or no. But there is debate, and amusingly one museum is titled with having "3 or 4 Vemeers", depending on who you ask.

We see the exhibition being set up, but not the full exhibition itself. But hey, it does make one want to visit an art gallery some time...

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Goodbye Ruby Gillman

Hnmmm... I suspect there's a puberty metaphor in there...

A young girl is facing the terrible ordeal of the school prom, and she also finds out she's a kraken and there's a whole epic sea war she's a part of. Which is kind of a lot. ... but this isn't the movie I thought it was from the trailer.

Although watching the trailer, there are lines in there that aren't in the movie. I was thinking we would be presented with mermaids being adored by everyone and being in public, and the actual hero (our kraken lead) was hiding away. That sort of happened, but... the mermaid was hiding as well. So there is a different movie out there that is what I was thinking of, but this isn't it.

As mentioned, there's the puberty metaphor, and a lot of mother/daughter dynamics, and there is a movie that happens around it. To be honest, I think I prefer Turning Red's take on it (but then that is Pixar and this is Dreamworks, so that's kind of a given). ... so is this Dreamworks churning out their own take on this following that movie?

Feels a little too generic and targeted to be an "it movie of the moment", but then I'm not the target audience. Nice enough watch, but not one I'll be remembering.

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Take me down to Asteroid City

I'm slowly coming around to Wes, but this is not going to rate the highest.

This is a movie about a grieving father who ends up in a small town that an alien visit. But it's actually about the movie itself as a play and how it was put on. But it's actually about...

This is very Wes Anderson, with perfectly framed shots and very deliberate acting choices. But this is also Wes a bit more up his arse than some of his other movies. He was going in a great arc up to French Dispatch and this... goes a little too far. Dial it back, Wes.

Still, amazing set design as ever. And great performances too. ...

But I think, ultimately, I didn't really get it.

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Barbie Girl!

Of the two, I saw Barbie. I have no interest in seeing the other one.

Woo! I'm glad I saw this. This was great... for the most part. Barbie comes to the real world, and finds out what a trash fire life is. Yay! Fun!

And it is fun. There are tons of references to all sorts of things (I wonder how many kids will get the 2001 intro? Or the keyboard demo music??) I laughed a lot.

But there is a lot of thinking here too. What is the woman's role in life? Why is it so hard in the world of patriarchy? What is Ken?

...which is a point. Ken takes over the movie at one point, and I was wondering "hey, isn't this supposed to be about Barbie? Why is it about the guys now?" Let alone... what's the point of Will Ferrell and co? They are in the movie, and then we get to the end of the movie and... there they are... wha?

No, this is not going to be considered a deep movie... but it's still a great movie.

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Running Impossible: Part First

Ethan Hunt... now looks older than the entire franchise! Yet, he still runs well.

There's a new computer AI called The Entity, because humans are good at naming things. And so we spend the entire movie trying to get the McGuffin that might be linked to doing something to the Entity and.. that's the movie. This is definitely part one (but doesn't end as cliff-hanger-y as other Part Ones recently), and there is a lot of moving parts... but not a lot going on. Go to new location, have an action scene, go to different new location, rinse and repeat.

And while yes, Tom Cruise could easily beat my arse with both hand tied behind his back, he is getting on, and a lot of his fights do feel like they are slowed down a little / having less energy to allow him to do them. Although it's hard to say anyone is giving too much energy, with most of the cast on the higher side...

That is to say, most of the male case. The female cast is about half their age, it seems, so they are perfectly capable of doing things, but aren't given much to do. Hayley Atwell was great as Agent/Captain Carter, but here she is barely more than a pretty lamp with good thief skills. She can brawl, get her into a good fight! And Pom Klementieff is clearly having fun as a bad gal, but as such she can't win all the battles.

The big set pieces feel like they are stretched out a bit, probably because this is Part One, and once again we get car chases that go on a little too long. [Although this does lead to my favourite note in the credits re the Spanish Steps.]

Part One down, now waiting for Part Two. Let's hope they have the script fully worked out (aside from "put random set piece Tom Cruise wants to do here").

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Amazing Morris

I've seen a few adaptations of Pterry's work, and this is one of them.

This is based on the idea of the Pied Piper with the conceit of: what if the rats are in on it? From there, we go with Maurice and his rodents as they come to a town where the nastiest rats in town aren't the ones that just arrived. Mixed with that is the idea of identity and what does it mean to be intelligent.

This is an odd adaptation, in that a lot of the focus moves from the rats to the humans. And there is a strange narrative device of who is the narrator that adds... nothing that I can tell, other than portentous framing that doesn't help.

That said, there are some great voices in this, Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, David Thelis, David Tennant, and many more! The animation style is that kind of weird skinny humans that take some getting used to, but it's fine.

I hoped for more about the rats, but this is more of a standard version of this story, so there is more that could be done as a possibility, but there are worse realisations than this movie.

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Dail of Density

Is this what the kids call "mid"? It definitely wasn't high action.

I never saw any trailers for this, so I have no idea what about the plot is revealed. With that in mind, I'm gonna be careful what I saw, but I do want to point things out, so you may just want to skip over this.

We start with a bit of early Indy in which Harrison Ford is CGI'd into his younger self as well as Jackson was for young Fury in Captain Marvel. We then go to current day and Harrison is barely able to move about the scenes... which really plays hard with the "big action sequences" in which... they used to be high action, but now they are medium action as Harrison can't do the things he used to. The movie tries to make it exciting, but it is all lower key music and scenes and it just doesn't work.

This movie is two and a half hours long... (of which 15 minutes is end credits, you don't need to stay through those). And it could be cut down so easily. All those big "action" pieces? They just go on too long, and they aren't fun. Just the same beats over and over. Cut them down.

And as for the plot gimmick dial... that is barely worth it either. It is entirely a macguffin, it doesn't have any specialty to it, and the end scene it leads to... it wastes that too.

I know people hate Crystal Skull. I think that's fine, but I can see people comparing this to that and this coming off better... but this movie is just so "meh" it isn't worth bothering with.

I gather people are waiting for it to hit D+. Yeah, I can agree with that.

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