Coco - emotion and meaning
This review is pretty special to me for a lot of reasons. First and foremost, I did it at a pretty vulnerable time of my life. I am proud of it for a lot of other reasons as well. Discussion of the theme and musical ideas of the film, as well as its how it communicates its powerful message of family, are all things I think people can develop real relationships with this movie over. My hope is that this review might help a few people appreciate and value Coco as much as I do.
A Haunting In Vencie
The Poirot adaptations done by Branagh in the last few years have seemed to grow on me more and more as time passes. Part of this is my inherent fondness for the whodunit genre, but another part of this is the craftsmanship that seems to go into each one of these films. The ensembles are always impressive. The set design in Haunting In Venice was particularly well done. And the direction and camerawork grow more and more inspired with each successive film. In fact, as of right now, at least, this might be one of the only franchises where I would genuinely be excited whenever the next entry is announced, regardless of what work of Christie’s it might be adapting.
The genuine and sincere nature with with Branagh treats Poirot and his cases shines through in each of these films. And, although Haunting In Venice isn’t as personal to me as Coco, it is absolutely a review I had a great time making.
MALUM
A sneaky favorite genre of mine, recently at least, has been horror. And while my review of Malum doesn’t represent me talking about one of my favorite films in the field, it is on here for another reason.
Obviously, that reason is the very very very cool fact that one of the actual actors from the actual film watched my review and commented on it! That is simply insane (and also deeply embarrassing considering I didn’t give it the best rating) to me. Malum is genuinely super tense for a good chunk of its run time, but the main issue I had with it was that it seemed to wear itself out with the execution of its own ideas by the latter half of its runtime.
The unfurling of its mystery and answers to its questions make for an inherently less enjoyable experience than all the tension, suspense, dread, and horror that were so well done in the first half.
Everything Everywhere all at once
Not only was Barbie amazing as a movie on its own, but it was an incredible theater experience. Seeing how excited and into this movie everyone was on opening weekend reminded me of just how special movies can be. Along with a truly memorable viewing experience, Barbie knocks absolutely everything else out of the park. Performances, costume design, original songs, musical numbers, choreography, set design, themes, character arcs, everything. Just all so so well done. In a movie with as ridiculous a premise as this, it is simply incredible that so much depth can be put to screen.
This review is important to me because of how much of a standout this film itself was in 2023, and how excited I was to talk about it during the month it came out.