Unassailable

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Finally got to see Saint Maud last night. One of those I definitely would have seen in a theater in 2020 if things were normal but here we are. This film wasn't quite what I expected in some ways but I still thought it was quite effective and an uncomfortable experience. The ending is one of the most unsettling I've seen in a long time. I'd generally recommend it to those that enjoy a quality slowburn horror experience that's about setting a creepy mood rather than outright scaring you.

The Platform was tight.

It's:
A Snowpiercer meets Cube meets Human Centipede type beat with some of its own flavours. Even knowing the synopsis, the setting is fascinating enough to act as its own character. The screenwriter's wink that hey, maybe we're saying something about society here, breaks through the fourth wall like paper and almost becomes a character in itself too lol.

Like a lot of Netflix originals, it builds suspense really well by creating an absolutely unwinnable situation with no light that's almost cathartic when the way they get the protagonist out of the hole comes. Another Netflix original trend the movie fulfills is having a fine but underwhelming third act.

I also dug The Platform. Definitely a film that stuck with me, which is a rarity these days since I pretty much exclusively watch horror movies and many of them begin to bleed together when it's all that you watch

I'd watch a spiritual successor/sequel type thing for sure, I think there's more room to explore that universe

White Lightning was the precursor to Smokey. You can see where they reused a few scenes and refined them a bit.

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Also, Jerry Reed was quite the picker:


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Nocturnal Animals

I had high expectations because A Single Man is the greatest **** ever and they were met, mostly. Great on a visual level and very intense with excellent use of parallel storytelling. The editing was weirdly inconsistent—scene transitions were generally amazing, but there was also a lot of sloppy Marvel-esque overcutting. Comparison is a cop out but it really did feel like a mesh of A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Blue Ruin, Midsommar, and Phantom Thread (in a good way).

Excited for what Tom Ford does next. He seems to prefer adapting novels, I could see him being able to pull of Rings of Saturn or House of Leaves. With the Blue Ruin similarities, it makes me think that Ford collaborating with Jeremy Saulnier would be amazing.

I didn't connect with any of his work. Visually beautiful to look at but left me totally emotionally unengaged. He's an aesthete more than a dramatist methinks, which is natural being a fashion designer and all.

Interesting. A big part of what I appreciate about his work is the way he handles emotional devastation. I think he's very concerned with avoiding cliche, so maybe he cut out something that's fundamental to what you look for in movies.

Just watched "Goon" - gloriously stupid.
Have the sequel but haven't found time to watch it yet.

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This was pretty wicked. A mixture of ominous atmosphere, paranoia and humour that goes completely off the rails