Low budget, naturalistic dialogue, slice of life, nothing really happens. Mumblecore was an American style of filmmaking portraying the lives of young urban dwellers. The daddy of them all was this movie, a series of fragments in the monotonous daily grind of a girl from Generation X and her friends, barely graduated from college. I don't know how this was received when it premiered, maybe it was thought to be pretentious, maybe slight and useless. However, the river of time and technological change have given this film an unexpected present: perspective. We follow 23 year old Marnie through a series of parties, jobs, conversations with friends and prospective lovers. And there is no smartphone in sight, barely Internet, no distractions other than shooting the shit with the people you know. A boss innocently closes the door of his office to have an interview with the young lady; a girl is obsessed with the guy she has been friends with for a while, but has time to hang out with a guy falling for her; impromptu happenings start with people haphazardly meeting on the street: all impossible feats in the virtual era. Change made this movie invaluable, this was how life was: languid, warm and hopeful.
King Richard (2021), 2/5
Objectivist hagiography of self-made man that invests in multiple (meat) machines until two of them pay off, costs be damned. This Randian "hero" produces two juggernauts through cunning and perseverance. You see, he has a plan. And as shown, the only way Black people in the US have to stop being poor is to pull themselves out by their sport shoes and throw some balls for entertainment. This film thinks that it is a good idea. There's an appropriate famous song by Tones and I about this phenomenon.
Bodies bodies bodies (2022), 4/5
In theory I should not like this at all. It is a simple genre exercise, a joke, a Reddit tale. However, the Z Gen rich kids' obnoxiousness is hilarious, think about it like "Euphoria" with money and blood. It is a good time at the movies, one character worse than the other. The end is ridiculous and appropriate.
Babylon (2022), 3/5
It feels weird to give only three stars to such an endeavor. Orchestrated chaos containing a barely dressed sensual Margot Robbie implodes at the two hour mark due to unfocused plot and unearned grandiose pretentious. Chazelle could talk about The Hays Code vs. 1920s free-for-all, could talk about the technical aspect of filmmaking, could talk about power, gender and race (ugh). But not about all at the same time, in three hours, without a serious anchor. A wasted opportunity, a simulacra of better movies aided by good actors. Better watch "Singin'..." and "Cinema Paradiso" again.
Air (2023), 3/5
Corporate hagiography. The new fashion in American cinema seems to be the retelling of business lucky ideas finally succeeding into the famous thing we know from our youth. It is a sub-genre of the sport movie, the underdog that finally wins big. It is difficult to make such a movie about a big billion dollar corp. (back when a billion was a lot of money) so they take an everyman independent thinker that "gets it". This one has some good jokes and too much 1980s memorabilia thrown to the audience at every juncture. "Hey, remember this?" seems to be the mode of operation. It partially works.
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