I watched just five movies last week:
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- Hit Man is very amiable, like a lot of Richard Linklater movies, and the two leads, especially Glen Powell, are very good. I’m just not sure it totally earns the darkly comedic places it winds up going.
- Frank is oddly endearing and often quite funny.
- The exceptionally creepy animation notwithstanding, I found Stopmotion mostly insufferable, and there’s never any surprises as to where this descent into madness story is going. As critic Peter Sobczynski writes, “Although it clearly wants to be seen as some kind of wild hallucinatory exploration into the heart of madness, [the movie] eventually reveals itself to be little more than a collection of barf-bag visuals and tired conventions that are occasionally enlivened by some nifty animation and the strong performance from Franciosi.”
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- Under Paris plays things very straight, which does not necessarily always work in its favor, given the ridiculousness of its premise. (Only Anne Marivin, as the mayor of Paris, seems to understand the over-the-top silliness that premise suggests.) The movie’s fun enough, but also a bit forgettable.
- Tension at Table Rock is a fun little Western.
I also re-watched The Wicker Man for the first time in some twenty years. The first time I watched it, back then, I remember not enjoying it very much, indeed finding the movie more quaint than scary. I enjoyed it a lot more this second time around. Which is odd, considering how this time I knew how it would end, for whatever reason—maybe Edward Woodward’s performance—the movie worked a lot more for me on the re-watch.