🎬 "You're live in two minutes, Your Royal Highness."
The King's Speech (2010). Welcome to the 33rd edition of The Reel!
Estimated reading time: 7m 40s.
The Reel recently moved to London, and the search is on for a favourite local cinema.
My all-time favourite cinema is called The Baghdad, in Portland, Oregon.
The food is grand (in the Irish sense of the word) but the setting is grand (in the British sense of the word), and something about the American overexuberance and enthusiasm during film screenings really adds to the magic of it all. Like in this example:
In Dublin, I have fond memories of the famously boujee Stella Cinema Rathmines before it gentrified to fuck. It was lovingly referred to by locals as “The Fleapit”.
My 10th birthday party to see Troy was among the final screenings there, and the following things happened:
The projector broke.
A section of the floor collapsed, sinkhole-style.
One of the children cut herself on a piece of metal protruding from the seat. (?!)
The lights came on 30 minutes in and never went off again.
All during one film. Unsurprisingly, it closed very soon after.
If anyone has any cinema recommendations for the East London area, or in fact cheap pub recommendations (my kingdom for a pint under a fiver) then hit your boy up. 🇬🇧
Time for some reviews!
This week: Lonesome ladies, isolated islanders, marooned models, and a jungle.
🔲 A pint of boring is your only man.
Banshees of Inisherin (2022), directed by Martin McDonagh.
Hot take alert! This film is not nearly as good people say it is.
Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson (writer/director Martin McDonagh’s darlings from the flawless In Bruges) reunite as two old friends living on an island off the coast of Ireland during the Irish civil war.
Inexplicably, a rift forms between the two men, and thus follows a maddeningly meandering movie where… not a lot happens.
Q: This isn’t as funny as In Bruges, as powerful as Three Billboards, and it is a lot less entertaining than Seven Psychopaths, so what exactly is it?
A: An amusingly acted, competently made, pretty boring tale of maligned friendship.
The setting is beautiful, we’ll give them that. Rarely has a lifestyle seemed so equally appealing and depressing, nor a scenery so breathtakingly barren.
But if this were written & directed, say, by Eli Roth, and starred Vin Diesel and Orlando Bloom, would it be getting the reception that it is?
(Now there’s a film I’d watch.)
A disappointment.
Look out for:
It was pointed out to me (not a spoiler) that the whole film is an analogy for the civil war. This makes it slightly more sensical, but no more entertaining. Barry Keoghan, as always, is the standout.
If you liked this:
Colin Farrell’s is a filmography to be proud of; The Lobster is a lot weirder than The Banshees of Inisherin, yet somehow makes more sense. Amused by quaint Irishness? It doesn’t get better than this iconic Harp ad… if you had an egg. 🥚
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
💋 Peace, pout, don’t freak out.
Triangle of Sadness (2022), film, directed by Ruben Östlund.
Would you rather be beautiful or rich?
How about both?
How about neither?!
Be you moneybag or fully WAG, socialist or American morally ambivalent, Triangle of Sadness will probably lampoon you in some small way.
King of the uncomfortable Ruben Östlund is back with another abstract, hilarious satire, this time on the pretty and the powerful. A consortium of the wealthy social elite embark on an obscenely luxurious cruise; they then crash and are stranded on a desert island.
Triangle of Sadness is brilliant and thought-provoking. It’s never less than entertaining (wish I could say that about a certain other island-based film 😒), and the gut-punch ending ranks up there with the best I’ve seen in recent memory.
Two things I’ve been thinking about a lot since watching:
1) Should I get my teeth permanently whitened?
and
2) I would die immediately on a desert island. Like when I land on the beach I would literally just become dead, I know that to be true.
Maybe I didn’t fully understand Mr. Östlund’s message.
Look out for:
Tragically, South African actress Charlbi Dean Kriek (who played model Yaya) died from a viral infection shortly before the release of the film. She is one of many talented performers in an eclectic international cast.
If you liked this:
Östlund’s last feature The Square is so, so random, but very much worth a watch. He broke down a key early scene from Triangle of Sadness in a fascinating video for Variety Fair — watch it here.
Ratings: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
👋 Well are you coming or going?
Decision to Leave (2022), film, directed by Park Chan-wook.
It always amuses me that there’s a genre of film called “international cinema”, kind of like “world music”.
What does that mean?!
Are not all films international?
How is the place of origin a genre?
Aren’t genres themselves inherently reductive?
How do you reverse a receding hairline?
These are the questions we need answered!
Decision to Leave has been winning critical praise left, right and centre (east, west and north?), and it justifies the hype. Park Hae-il portrays a celebrated detective who begins to fall in love with the prime suspect (played by the mesmeric Tang Wei) in a murder case he’s investigating.
It’s well acted and beautifully shot. Director Park Chan-wook is methodical, and he takes his time with a unique, surprisingly comedic story and setting. Like McDonagh in Bansees of Inisherin, he makes the South Korean setting simultaneously attractive and yet kind of awful.
As seems to be the general trend in cinema these days, it’s too long. 20 minutes off the end and this might even be close to perfect.
Alas, it’s probably the influence of TikTok but I can’t do the long films anymore. I’m probably just jealous, or impatient, or easily distracted, or swimming, or tennis, hey whatever happened to Andy Murray? I’m more of a Federer fan. Did you see the photo of him and Nadal? It was so sad. What a career though, he should be proud. I wish I had that many trophies! I have a silver medal for high jump from when I was 15. High jump is so random when you think about it—
Wait what were we talking about?
Look out for:
The music. 😩 I’m no musician but my oh my, the score from Jo Yeong-wook deserves some sort of award recognition. Then again, I’m also no film critic but here we are, 33 editions later. Give the Oscar to Jo Yeong-wook!
If you liked this:
Chan-wook’s 2003 thriller Oldboy is infamous for its wild story and ending; it’s an amazing trip of a movie. Check out Oscar-winner (for Parasite) Bong Joon-Ho’s early effort Memories of Murder for an even better South Korean murder-mystery.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
⏩ Quickies
Short and snappy reviews for a short and snappy time:
Nope (2022, film, dir. Jordan Peele): ⭐⭐⭐
The Reel doesn’t like horror, but Jordan Peele’s now legendary Get Out is the kind of shit I can get behind. Intense thrills, welcome humour, minimal paranormal happenings. Nope somewhat ticks these boxes, but with a slightly weaker pen. Maybe a pencil. A faint, gentle scratch of a pencil.
The Lost City (2022, film, dir. Aaron Nee & Adam Nee): ⭐⭐
Watching hot people get steamy in a dangerous jungle is one of the oldest forms of entertainment — I’m A Celebrity… is the the modern incarnation of just general jungle living. Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum are hot as fock, but The Lost City is not.
C’Mon C’Mon (2021, film, dir. Mike Mills): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
What a lil’ gem — and only 108 minutes? Now we’re talking! This touching tale of a man and his nephew is short, simple, warm, sweet but not too sweet, heavy cream, a sprinkling of flour and then in the oven for 15 minutes at 180°. Wait what were we talking about?
The Favourite (2018, film, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos): ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A five-star banger to finish us off. Lesbian chicanery, ersatz camera angles, preeminent parliamentarians using words like “c*nt-struck”: this ain’t your granny’s period drama. Masterful black comedy and universally excellent acting, led by the predictably powerful Olivia Colman.
📃 Quote of the Week(s)
“Some wounds do not close; I have many such. One just walks around with them and sometimes one can feel them filling with blood.”
Colman in The Favourite. Her Queen Anne at first comes across as petulant, even pathetic, but a tragic and complex character is slowly revealed.
✅ Th-th-that’s all, folks.
Thank you very much for reading!
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Thank you very much again, and see you next time!
Gogzibear
xxx
📅 Previous Reels:
🎬 Jul 27 - Thor: Love & Thunder, Everything Everywhere…, An Cailín Ciúin.
🎬 May 12 - The Worst Person in the World, The Northman, Mystic River.
🎬 Mar 30 - The Power of the Dog, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Licorice Pizza.
📒 Catalogue:
You can find a list of all film review scores (and opening movie lines!) here.
🎙️ Podcast:
I’ve also published 10 episodes of a film review podcast Movies (And A Rap) — you can listen on Spotify here.