Undine

A nice wee film about love and killing people because of water.

Undine breaks up with one boyfriend, but ends up with another one pretty quickly. While passionate, a brief encounter shows she still has feelings for the one old. Well, we can't be having with that, can we?

Undine is a water nymph, and this movie taps into that idea, although I'm not very familiar with the myth. But the brief line on IMDB gives it away (spoilers!), so I wasn't too shocked when it happened. Knowing it was coming, events did flow nicely and it is quite the tale. Not so much of a woman scorned, but certainly a woman with her own problems that has a supernatural touch to it.

Paula Beer gives a good performance as Undine, but I was reminded by Franz Rogowski that I've seen him in a few other things. Thanks to the Wellington Film Society for broadening my horizons!

At only 90 minutes, it doesn't outstay its welcome, and indeed it is a welcome film.

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Titane

I gather that people really love this. Indeed, it won a Palme D'or. It's... weird.

A girl is involved in a car crash, and gets a Titanium skull plate... and later grows up to be a rather psychotic young woman. Conversely, there's father that lost his son, and the woman is looking for a place to hide, so 1 + 3 = 2...

Yeah, as I said, it's weird. The main weirdness is that woman is pregnant, but doesn't seem to be, but is heavy pregnant, but isn't...

Agathe Rousselle puts on a heck of a performance, with not much dialogue, but plenty of screen time to show her stuff. Vincent Lindon also has a heck of a role, and sells a lot of things well.

It's a full on character piece about lengths people will go to, and I can see that it looks like a great movie, but I wouldn't say this is a movie I'll want to watch again.

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The Eternally

Thanks to "early screenings" and because New Zealand has an early time zone, yep, I saw this last night!

Of course, with such an early screening, I do need to be more careful about spoilers than some. That said, you already probably know most of the premise from adverts and basic movie formulas. There were Deviants, and so there were Eternals to battle them. We see some past battles amidst the present day needing to deal with them, but still plenty of present day to deal with.

And at around 2 and a half hours there's a LOT of everything to deal with. To be honest, there are lot of long shots and and HUGE exposition dump that half hour could easily be edited down. And there are some odd editing choices. Aside from the huge Tell Don't Show that occurs, there is a lot of dialogue that is given while the shot is looking at the other person in the scene, who isn't really reacting much. That, to me, smacks of ADR, so I do wonder what happened there. (And yes, there is gay representation, but despite some assurances, I'm not going to say that it can't be edited around with too many issues.)

Gemma Chan, Richard Madden and Lia McHugh are the main leads. Despite Selma Hayek and Angelina Jolie being present in a lot of trailers, they feel more like supporting cast there for star power than actual presences in the movie. And best non-Eternal is easily Harish Patel's Karun. Let's get more of him!

Overall, this will be a movie people will see. I can't see this being a highly ranking Marvel feature, although it's certainly better than a lot.

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Nine Days

My watching of Film Festival films begins with... what sounds like a too adult version of Soul.

A man is watching over people living on earth, and must choose someone else to go from being a soul to being an actual human being. They are given nine days while he assesses them, and we are here for the journey.

While it could be a serious take on Soul, it is entirely it's own thing. We aren't given any context of why or how this is a thing, but we quickly get the idea and see the potential humans on their journey, as well as the interviewer himself learning about living.

Winston Duke is the interviewer, and he does a great job. However, he is easily upstaged by Zazie Beetz who steals all the moments she is on screen. Benedict Wong is enjoying himself too, and all the actors are into making this movie work.

And it does. This isn't big budget, but dang, you can see why it gets the film festival picks...

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DUNC it!

It seems that a) everyone will see this movie, and b) everyone will like this movie. Everyone... WILL!!!

Paul Atreides goes with his parents to the planet known as Dune. Everyone gets attacked, and Paul barely gets away and...

End of part one!

Okay, that was a rather glib summary, but if you know the story you know what happens. This movie is quite a faithful adaptation of the book. Remember that scene? Yeah, it's in the movie. Which means this is a long ass movie, with lots of stuff happening... and yet not much does really happen. The book works better because it has room to breathe, but translating onto screen, it feels like some elements are skipped over.

However, there's no real doubt that there will be a part two. Especially with some performances (hello Zendaya) not really coming into anything until part two.

But at least the music is great!

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Hilloween Kalls

Oh dear gods... what the hell is this mess of a movie supposed to be?

One part of this movie is supposed to follow on from the previous movie (which I can't recall the name of), and it is trying to make a statement about what is the real impact of Michael Myers. Another part of this movie is trying to reference the previous movies like it is an anniversary special. And yet another part is going "hey, how about some kewl Michael kills?"

And the problem is... none of these parts are integrated! It's like they had three different scripts they mashed together. Or, rather, more like they had a raft of deleted scenes from other movies they wanted to cram into one movie to get everything out of the way.

(And make no mistake about this being the end of the franchise... they aren't allowed to kill Myers off.)

What we get is an incoherent mess. I'm not sure why half the actors bothered to be here, possibly they were contracted, possibly they just wanted the money. Certainly it's not for the artistic merit.

Just best to avoid, but I'm sure everyone already even halfway invested in this series will check this out.

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Jimonthy Blonde

Partially I suspect because cinemas could not open up fully, this took a while to come out compare to other countries... but still before others. But not as bad as some other movies on the slate...

What if there was a weapon that could target people and be used safely around others? And what if the British spies were entirely responsible for it getting out of hand? That's the plot, but the majority of this movie is actually about the relationships between Bond and other characters, mainly his not wife Madeleine Swann and also her relationships with other characters. Which sometimes gets interrupted with action scenes.

Am I saying this movie is focusing on the wrong things? Well, it's so bloody long it focuses on everything. There were a lot of parts where I was thinking "could this be edited down? yes!".

That said, it has a lot to pack it. It has a lot of references to the rest of the series, and James' interaction with Felix is one of the better parts of the movie. There are some good action sequences, but not all. And as for the villain... is he even in this movie? I'm fairly sure you could remove him and not really notice.

It's too long, but this does sit in for a full story with Craig's Bond. That said, I did stay right to the end to see if they put the usual title card at the end...

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