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Episode 037.1 - Reviews for 17 July 2024
19 Plays3 months ago
Reviews of Ti West's MaXXXine, Osgood Perkins' Long Legs, Mike Cheslik's Hundreds of Beavers and Levan Akin's Crossing
Opening music: https://pixabay.com/id/sound-effects/dramatic-reveal-21469/
Closing music: https://pixabay.com/music/id-11176/
Recommended
Transcript
Incoming Transmission
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Speaker
Incoming transmission. um
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Speaker
Two oceans.
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This,
Introduction to Film Reviews
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Speaker
our review episode, will be looking at Ty West's Maxine, Levan Aiken's Crossing, Mike Cheslick's Hundreds of Beavers, and Osgood Perkins' Long Legs. But we'll
Maxine Trilogy Discussion
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Speaker
be kicking off the Maxine first, because I think that's the only one that both of us have seen. yes Ty West completing his trilogy. Yeah. Well, yeah yeah that's true. like suppose if We start with the non-spoiler bit and then we can maybe dig in a little bit more. It has some great gore. Yes, it does. Some gore that got good good reactions out of the crowd I saw at the theater with.
00:00:55
Speaker
I think half of the audience were like, oh, and then the other half were like, hell yeah. Exactly. and Yes. Yes. There was a lot of that, but yeah, I mean, I would say just, you know, before diving in too deep and spoiler just to be upfront. I enjoyed it. I thought it was you know a good enough ending for the trilogy, which I never expected to be a trilogy. I think it's the weakest of the three, but I still think it's good. And when compared to the other two, it's not really fair. you know They're all equally good just on their own. like If you saw this movie just on its own, I think there might be a different
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critical take people would have for it than what is being given because of the strength of the other two. Now, the only thing is,
Maxine's Standalone Appeal
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you know, the the other two are not, you know, not what they purport to be either. And they're not, you know, they're related in different ways. It's not like, you know, there is some weaving together here that comes at the end a bit. I think it could have done a little bit more of that with the it use I mean all three films stand on their own. yeah like You don't have to watch the others. I think some people I've recommended Pearl to but would not enjoy X and likewise with so Maxine. it's um
00:02:11
Speaker
It kind of enhances it if if you watch the full trilogy, but not by much. No, no there's so there's a deeper thing in there. Again, when we get to the deeper part of it, i think there's a a certain thread that runs through there that you can you can connect the dots on some character parallels. so And for Cinephiles as well, I think there's a lot to to kind of chew on. completionist nerds as well. Yeah. Right. Right. I mean, Pearl was just, I mean, so different. Yeah. And the first two movies as well were set at the same location. They're both on the farm in different time periods.
00:02:48
Speaker
So this one took it out of that setting, which, you know, is a good thing, but it also, it's hard to keep that sort of coherence that you had and that focus. I think that that's one of the big things. The
Setting and Character Evolution in Maxine
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Speaker
first two, the focus was so sharp and this was a little bit more blurred. Yes. I would agree. Right. Shall we move into spoilers? Yes. Now it's the spoiler part. So if you haven't seen the movie yet, press pause should have a more dramatic sound to let's say that that's a fries are up. Yeah, that's order up. ah So yeah, they i mean there's some great performances, right? Gene Carlo Esposito and Kevin Bacon, I didn't quite realize how big their parts would be.
00:03:33
Speaker
Same. Yeah. Uh, I thought they would just be more kind of limited. and Well, not limited to cameos, but more like in the, uh, well, the cops, Bobby Cannavale and, uh, one hand kind of their thing, just a little more, not one dimensional, but just a little more limited, not as much as we saw of a more or such. I mean, I thought the first half all the way up until that war bit where the Buster Keaton guy really gets it from me, a goth, it was great. And I was expecting more of that as we went through. And I think...
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handing over some of that retribution to Giancarlo Esposito, as great as it was, felt a little bit weird in terms of you know the the the character of Maxine in the movie called Maxine, where it was kind of deferred to sort of secondary characters. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I do. it so There's a thing where it was for the other two movies just with the, you know, and again, it's this weird thing. We're also balancing in with Mia Goth playing these characters, but also being her story, you know, the things about, you know, it's like in this one at the beginning, the little video store guy, like, you know, names that she asked him to name off.
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actresses have made a crossover from horror, in which he and you know goes through quite a few, but but none from porn, which is another big and other big thing running through the whole movie that is the porn and sex running through these this trilogy. But you know there's that weird balance of of you know the this actress and the character she's created and the character she's playing and then and the different versions of the character that she's playing. Kind of all speaking to different, I don't know, tones or phases or something like that, but that line, the the quote now, the live in the life that she's deserved sort of thing.
Maxine's Themes and Mainstream Appeal
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So, you know, this this one seeks to, that's why I have to move it off the farm, I think too, from that setting to, you know, sleazy LA, which
00:05:36
Speaker
Again, this week, it looks, the sleaziness is on point in this, you know, visually, there's, there's a lot of good, a lot of goodness in this movie that you can't fault. That doesn't really get in the way, but I think you got to move it out of the form and onto that to try to show her. But yeah, there's this point where it was like, but it's all been Maxine doing this, right? Pearl and or Maxine and or Mia Goth, you know, again, kind of doing this on their own, you know, fighting against the, anything else. And just by sheer force of will, you know, carrying it forward. And yeah, so there's a couple points in here where that kind of felt distracted or shunted in some way. I mean, the fact that we got to see Pearl in the psycho house and how that scene actually works without it being like really cheesy.
00:06:19
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is you know quite a feat in and of itself. But I also found that Maxine was a lot more relatable in this. you know She's ambitious. She's trying to pay the rent. She's got her pals. And you know and it it it felt a lot more kind of down to earth. you know She's having to kind of deal with all of this corruption in the movie business as well. you know And she's trying to get ahead and you know she's juggling all these different responsibilities. She's got an opportunity, but then you know all this other stuff is going on around her. So I found her a lot more relatable that way. But by the time that it came to the final part of the movie, I think there were they were, I need to watch it again. But it felt like a lot of what happened wasn't really seeded
00:07:11
Speaker
into it. There's no way you can guess what's going to happen at the end. It's quite out there. It's funny because I've read some reviews that were blaming it that it was obvious. I was reading their reasoning for it and I was like, because of the way the film opens, in fact, this character's there. I'm like, okay, they're stretching, I think. I didn't agree with that sort of thing, but there are several critics. I never said that the ending seemed obvious or too obvious or something. it was like but i mean in Even if you kind of guessed the you know who wears the black gloves, right right you still don't know how it's going to end.
00:07:55
Speaker
why no yeah it it was is It's iss weird, but I agree with you. It's the weakest of the three. and I think and And had it been seen on its own, it would you know wouldn't be attracting as much negative attention as as it is. Yeah. i and And there's also, I keep up the thing with the stronger female characters that are kind of lighter alongside of her. That's been a hallmark in the in the three films. It's just you know in the previous ones It was you know her sort of driving the action right and then she kind of does here But she's a lot more victim here, and then the whole weird red herring of the Night Stalker case going on which just feels like it's more like supposed to provide more menace and that like maybe that's like maybe that's who's doing all this and it's not someone else, but it never feels that way and never
00:08:46
Speaker
You're never we like, oh, it's not going to be the Night Stalker. They're not going to do that. Like that never connected. I mean, my guess before even going into this movie was that it was going to be Maxine versus the Night Stalker, right? Yeah. i yeah and you know I kind of had that idea too. And there was like and again, another thing I've read in some reviews, a disappointment because they assume this was going to be an ode to 80 slatchers. Like X was an ode to West X is the Toby Hooper Chainsaw Massacre, that kind of Southern Fried horror thing.
00:09:21
Speaker
But then like, okay, but you you what was Pearl then? A tribute to 50s slasher, you know, Lizzie Borden, slasher kind of stuff. I mean, that doesn't exist. So, you know, that argument falls apart too. But also it's like, you know, none of them were were meant to be tributes or something like that. They could certainly evoke or use some familiar settings, you know, the with Pearl using almost um almost like the 50s movie musical kind of thing and and, you know, X using the Texas Chainsaw sort of setting. And this being, you know, Angel or any of those movies or and combined within all the jello aspects that he leans heavily, very heavily into in this with. But again, you know, again, my problem with the most jello films, again, I've stated this before, is that it's style over substance. And this one falls prey to that, but not in the way a typical jello does. I'd also say and like in terms of Maxine's character as well here, there's no nudity in this movie. I think that probably pissed off a certain part of the audience. you know There's implied nudity, like show us your breasts during the you know audition that she has to do, but they they don't need to show that.
00:10:32
Speaker
And so so Mia Goth feels like she's she's got her shit together in this one, if you know what I mean. yeah and And that sort of exploitation bit, she's kind of evolved beyond that. She's she's got this opportunity in mainstream movies. But yeah, i you know this whole fanboy thing, I mean, this is the thing about having a trilogy is that that you've accumulated these so-called fans over there. over there. I mean, look what happened with Star Wars. It just snowballs and gets worse and worse over time. I think Ty West has hinted that he wants to make more in this series, which I kind of want him to do so something fresh on his own, not hide down to trying to keep this thread going. And you know something that that's completely off the charts, like Pearl, would be would be terrific to see. But yeah.
00:11:27
Speaker
There we go. There we go. we We recommend it, but tempered. A tempered recommendation, yes. It's yeah still good. It's still better than a lot of, at least, you know, they choose an ending and they stick with it and it follows through and it is a follow through both for the trilogy and for the movie itself. Yeah. Which is more than I can say for a lot of the horror films that have come out lately. eggs or you know It's really like better expressed as a short film than it is feature length and then even then, follow through. So you so ah I think we'll jump straight to long legs off the back of that.
Exploring Long Legs by Osgood Perkins
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So I would describe it as just being extremely, extremely, very, very, very okay.
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right I think the hype does nothing for the film okay because people are going like, it's the scariest thing I've ever seen. It's not scary at all. It's got an app atmosphere. right but and The biggest jump scares are there are titles that come out throughout something like four chapters and there's a screeching sound and the screen goes black and you've got the title on screen. That's about 50 percent of the jump scares in it. But, you know, one caveat here, I know I'm in the minority. A lot of people are loving this movie, which is terrific, right? But for me, it felt very contrived, and I felt like I could see the seams when they made, you know, why they made that decision to do that, to manipulate the audience at that point. And the coincidences just started racking up.
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I think there are a lot of comparisons with Silence of the Lambs. If in Silence of the Lambs they suddenly said, oh, do you know when the crying of the lambs was Hannibal Lecter killing those lambs, you'd have been like, oh, for fuck's sake, really? You know, the coincidences just stretched a little bit too far in this for me, which is sad because like the first half of the movie is, is I found it really, really engaging. And the other thing is Cage and Nicholas Cage in this in the first half is only seen in these fleeting moments or you don't see his entire face. You just see his sort of nose downwards or or you know the back of his head and stuff like this. And it is creepy beyond anything. you know It's the same thing with any sort of monster movie, like keep him in the shadows. And when Cage later in the movie becomes more prominent,
00:13:56
Speaker
It doesn't work as well, and the makeup is pretty out there. I'll put it that way. okay it's it's It's probably too much time to sit there and look at it and go, oh my God, wow, okay. Micah Monroe, who's the lead, is really solid, but her arc as well feels weirdly flat. It's it's a strange one. I mean, it's got some clever ideas in it, but I think it jumps the shark a few times for me. and misses the misses the leap on at least one occasion. But like I said, a lot of people out there enjoying it. so Yeah, indeed they are. Yours was the first like non-enthusiastic.
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but what I mean, in the reviews were kind of saying like some modern horror classic and when I think of like a modern horror classic, I think of movies like It Follows, right? Which I could watch again and again and again, right? that that That movie just so awesome on so many levels and is genuinely scary. This is not that. Yeah. Anyhow, enough about that. On to something more cheerful. Mike
Hundreds of Beavers: A Unique Experience
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Cheslick's hundreds of beavers. This was a riot. Oh my God. I think it's important that you see it in a ah full kind of auditorium of people. Story of a 19th century Applejack salesman. Jean Kayak, whose farm is destroyed by beavers and
00:15:30
Speaker
There's kind of this love story going on, but it's very looney tunes, adult swim type feel. It has the best pole dancing scene ever in a film. Wow. Probably never be beaten, which is hilarious and arousing at the same time. But the audience that I was with, they're, When you go into a comedy and you've got particular people, there's probably three people, like i I almost felt like, were they planted in the audience? Who just tackled all the right moments and just got everyone else going. But yeah, it's it's a lot of fun. Maybe 10 minutes too long. But yeah, it's pretty out there. It's it's like a live action curtain.
Emotional Depth in Levan Aiken's Crossing
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And tonight, I saw 11 Aikens crossing.
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And actually, Leven Aiken was at the movie fest that I was at over the weekend, and I was gutted that I hadn't seen this movie yet. This is a Georgian-Turkish film about this estranged trans niece of this woman. this Georgian woman who goes to Istanbul to try to find this niece who is missing and she gets this teenage kid, this guy, to sort of guide her there and it's this amazing
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chemistry in the movie about people making connections across gender, across ah different generations, different cultures. And it it has a lot of the best bits of the Holdovers or Alice in the Cities or other Bimbenders movies. And it's got this emotional heft to it that is so satisfying. And it from what I can tell when The movie finished. Everyone seemed to have a positive opinion about it as they were leaving. So it's another contender for top movie for this 2024, which had been a few. But yeah, it's really, really good. Seek that one out if you can get a chance to see that. Okay. All right.
Conclusion and Time Management
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There's our review episode. Look at that. Look at us. Five minutes over. We're good.
00:17:51
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yeah And we're not here. We're on holiday, everyone.
00:17:56
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People still aren't engaging. You know, our milkshakes are not bringing anyone into the communication yard. So people kind of go into the... I mean, they're going on there. having impact People are looking at it. in yeah Maybe maybe we're we're scaring them away. We're scaring them away with our immense knowledge and personalities.
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our mass media consumption.
00:18:45
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a a
00:18:56
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I was just playing around. Well, we're playing now. two oceans