Private Life, Influencer, Gran Turismo, Better Days, The Imitation Game, Twelve Monkeys, Hagazussa

I’ve uh… been very distracted by playing Baldur’s Gate 3, Armored Core 6, and planning a big woodworking project. So, here’s the stuff I’ve watched “recently”… it isn’t much.

- Private Life [2018] - 63
Private Life is one of those films that means well but doesn’t quite have the finesse to land any of its major points. It’s well acted, well researched, and well cast, but it’s story meanders for so long that, by the time the finale comes around, you’re already asleep on the couch. I’m sure that this story will connect to people who have gone through the rigors of IVF but, for me, that’s not what the intention of these films should be. Things like this should be appealing, upsetting, and endearing enough to engage those who have no connection to the subject and elicit empathy from them. As a good example of two films that do this well, I recommend 2021’s Together Together and 2019’s Our Friend. One is more directly related to this than the other, but both do a great job of drawing the viewer in and making them part of a world they may otherwise have never experienced.

- Influencer [2023] - 55
Film is generally trendy and horror tends to be the most blatant about it. I’ve watched three different films centered around the “influencer” concept just this year — one of which even starred an actress who plays a supporting role in this one. While there’s nothing wrong with playing on current popular trends and their spookier undercurrents [nearly all memorable horror plays on societal subconsciousness this way], there is a tact required to make it count. 2023’s Influencer lacks that in spades. More of a suspense than a horror, Influencer is a movie that just sort of happens to you and then ends; leaving you with nothing much to discuss, like, or dislike. It’s simple, it’s fine, but it’s totally forgettable and, writing this 3-weeks after watching it, I remember next to nothing specifically about it. There’s better movies, there’s worse movies, and they’re all more fun than this.

- Gran Turismo [2023] - 74
To put it honestly and immediately, this movie is exactly as cringe and stupid as you think it’s going to be. That said, it’s also a ton of fun and undeniably exhilarating. I’d most closely compare this to a lovechild between 2022’s Maverick and Hustle. It’s not quite as fun as Mav was, but it’s also nowhere near as idiotic, and it’s not as intriguing or touching as Hustle, but it is a more fun underdog story. The racing scenes in this are exceptionally well shot and definitely raise your heartrate, but you have to accept that there’s a lot of incredibly corny “gamer” lingo used throughout the film. The premise is to turn an xXElite420RAYc3RXx into a real driver and it does it’s absolutely best to make sure you don’t forget it. Like all biopics, I’d rather have just had a documentary, but at least I walked away with the knowledge of “When in doubt, throttle out.” So there is that.

- Better Days [2019] - 95
And then comes Better Days, China’s entry into the 2020 “International Film” Oscar category… and the one I would have chosen. Unfortunately, it lost the slot to the Danish Another Round. While also an excellent film, Better Days is a contender for top of the year on my current watchlist. This is a film about bullies, repercussions, and systems that are too myopic to care. While China may seem like a country that’s an ocean away, the issues present in this film and tackled by the book it’s based on are not. Better Days is smart, it’s tough, and it’s real. While a certain sub-character/ plot may make a little more sense within the culture the film takes place in, the entire journey is frighteningly relevant otherwise. This is an easy recommend when you’re in the mood for a serious drama.

- The Imitation Game [2014] - 77
This is a film that carries some serious critical acclaim — 8 Oscar nominations, winning for “Adapted Screenplay”. With that serious acclaim, however, comes what I found to be a fairly middling experience. Everyone in it is great, the score is absolutely fantastic, and the story is well written, but, similar to Gran Turismo above, I’m more interested in a documentary on the subject than I am a melodramatic retelling of historical events. It’s definitely a taste thing, I get that, but I’d always rather know what really happened than see a script formulated to turn those events into a yarn. I watched this only a few days ago and already remember very little about it beyond a vague impression that I enjoyed it enough and thought all the production and performances were great. Maybe it’s one I’ll have to re-watch in the future.

- Twelve Monkeys [1995] - 82
Twelve Monkeys is a good example of something held back only by the conventions of its time. This film is great in concept, handles the weirdness of time-travel well, is fun, nice to look at with its quintessential 90’s-scifi sets, and still stands as almost entirely original in 2023. Where Twelve Monkeys suffers is its pacing. Some aspects of the film take way too long, others aren’t fleshed out enough, and the whole things feels sort of sloppily chopped together. Granted, none of this is unique to Monkeys here; lots of film from this time period had this exact aesthetic and it feels very much like a product of said time. There’s a certain look to mid-late 90’s films that’s present in just about every frame of Twelve Monkeys and that’s endearing in some ways, and horribly distracting in others. Still, if you haven’t seen this, I recommend it.

- Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse [2017] - 35

Now for a movie that I don’t recommend to anyone anywhere: Hagazussa. While, despite it’s low rating, I don’t think that this will make it into my bottom 10 of the year, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if it managed it. At 1:42 long, a 15th century witch story, and set in the German mountains, Hagazussa had almost everything going for it. Where it went wrong was… well… everything. It starts interestingly enough and features some truly adept camerawork, but its story quickly turns both entirely incomprehensible and pointless. While it features a few interesting implied truths, the film mostly just wanders around and never sticks to any one concept long enough for it to matter. Yes, there’s a thread of classical witchcraft throughout and that strand is very strong, but that’s about it. Other than visual appeal and extremely vague conceptual rumblings, Hagazussa feels like a bootleg A24 greatest hits album that someone found in the bargain bin at a thrift store.