Personal Shopper, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Fallout S1, Strawberry Mansion

- Personal Shopper [2016] - 90

A movie I certainly couldn’t fault people for not liking, 2016’s Personal Shopper is almost certainly going to make it into my top 20 of the year. What feels more like a one-woman play than a traditional film, Personal Shopper tells the story of a woman reeling from the sudden death of her brother, while she works a job she hates, for a woman she can’t stand. It’s difficult to talk about the premise of the film without spoiling things, but know that I’d most closely relate this to two of my other favorites: Lars and the Real Girl [sort of], and Come True [very much so]. Led by the always impressive Kristen Stewart, nearly the entire runtime is watching her act against nothing more than herself. Though not quite as impressive as her performance in 2021’s Spencer, it’s still her screen presence and subtle sways from one form of humanity to the next that not only make Personal Shopper worth watching, but entrancing from start to finish.

- Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire [2024] - 40

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is most easily summed up with a question, rather than a single word or phrase; and that question is: “Why?”. Why is the title so long? Why are there so many pointless and cringeworthy lines of dialogue? Why is the editing so bad? Why wasn’t I bored out of my skull?

I can at least answer the last one, and that’s because I got to watch Kong both swing a little monkey around like a bag of potatoes, and got to watch him get his ass beat by Godzilla again. As for the others… I’m truly baffled. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is a genuinely terrible movie with vfx that range from “really quite good” to “wait, what year is it?”, a story written by an 11-year old who’s favorite words are “fight” and “fighting”, and enough meaningless characters and lines of dialogue to make an entire extra film. It’s a baffling ride not only in narrative terms, but in terms of how it was ever greenlit. The thing I would most closely relate it to in that way is Jurassic World and the depraved nonsense that came of the series thereafter. That said… somehow I wasn’t bored during my time here. Don’t get me wrong, this is a genuinely bad movie and one I don’t ever need to watch again, but I didn’t hate my time with it. As far as who would like this? Kids. Kids and fans of the Transformers franchise as a whole. Beyond that though… who can never be sure.

- Fallout S1 [2024] - 73

Set in the world of the videogame series by the same name, Fallout is an interesting show who’s weaknesses are that of its genre and format, but its strengths are entirely its own. It’s plot is poorly stitched together by snap scenes from one character to the next, making it difficult to gain any attachment or sense of longing to return to their story; but it’s production-value and recreation of the world it’s based on is absolutely immense in its perfection. The abovementioned characters are all flat and archetypal, meaning that you don’t really want to be any of their friends, you won’t fall in love with any of them, and you won’t hate any of them… so they’re just sorta boring and made to fit within the path the plot has put them on; but the world that plot builds is genuinely interesting and engaging… and all you want is to know more about it [also Kyle MacLachlan is in the show so… that’s good too]. The season is entirely too long and doesn’t start to make conclusions or say anything particularly meaningful until ep6, with most connecting threads and catalyzing realizations being made of the most convenient happenstances possible; but those conclusions are genuinely valuable and feel good once revealed… even if they took way too much time to get to that point.

So, all in all, Fallout is a show that I’ll likely return to unless S2’s ratings are significantly lower than the first. It’s a show that suffers greatly from the things that almost all shows do, but has unique strengths that someone who doesn’t mind show-style formatting will absolutely adore. My thoughts on said formatting are fairly well-known in these parts so, for me, Fallout was frustrating at times, boring at others, almost entirely unengaging, and not something I’m likely to carry with me… but the world is cool enough that I’d say it was “pretty alright” overall.

- Strawberry Mansion [2021] - 87

The second film I watched this week that I wouldn’t fault other people for not liking, Strawberry Mansion is weird, [overly] artistic, and an absolutely absorbing joy from start to finish. This feels like both the kind of movie I would make, and that someone would make for me. It’s a love story, it’s a weirdo adventure that feels very little reason to explain its wacky creativity, and it’s both touching and kind of confounding. Strawberry Mansion is the film Wes Anderson never made in the best way possible and I really can’t recommend it enough if you’re in for something a little [a lot] different. While not every scene is perfectly acted, it’s a little too long for what it is, and the audio mix is absolutely all over the place, there’s still very little that I would change about the enchanting world and fairytale-adjacent characters created by Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney. This was a great ride that I’ll be sure to remember for a very long time.