Chorus.Fm Weekly Movie Club • Page 12

But I'm a Cheerleader was good. Well cast, hilarious, and moving. I also found myself drawn to the color palette and set design. The camp house is really well thought out. Everything about it, from the hot pink fence and trim, to the fake flowers, to the clear dead line of the lawn. It drives home the idea that this place is a facade, full of contradictions.

 

It's been a minute since I've seen The Brother's Bloom. I was going to give it a rewatch ahead of Knives Out but never got around to it. Guess now is as good of a time as any.

 

I thought the brothers bloom was a Will Forte movie, I don’t know what I’m thinking of. I’ve not seen this one

 

hahaha, he would certainly be an interesting addition to the cast/film, but nope!

 

Not necessarily implying that you’re unaware of these things, just furthering the conversation.

This was very much in the “all queer content is extremely explicit content” period of time. Which is part of why the sex scene is so interesting to me. You really don’t see anything. The sexiness of it is the mystery of what you don’t get to see.

I also just really believe that especially straight men generally just weren’t even ten feet away from thinking critically about gender roles and such. The comedy really hinges on an understanding of rigid gender roles being ridiculous. It’s not surprising at all (again, not saying you implied this) that make critics in 1999 would see how the boys were being “taught to be straight” and go “well yeah, why am I supposed to laugh at that?”

 

Wow, But I'm a Cheerleader was a delight. I love how it sits in a perfect sweetspot, beautifully balancing silliness and farce with touching sincerity. Seeing Megan step out at the end in her cheer garb and performing to win Graham over was genuinely so moving, lol. And, yeah, the sets and cinematography and whatnot was wonderful to look at. What a gem that I'm thrilled to have watched (and also melancholy imagining myself watching it at a younger age).

 

I actually think The Brothers Bloom is pretty underrated, only because it's Rian's least exceptional in a great filmography. It's a very fun watch.

 

The Brothers Bloom definitely holds up on a rewatch. I had forgotten so much about what happens, so it was kind of like watching it for the first time all over again. Like pretty much all of Johnson's films, it uses a genre to explore some other idea. In this case, it's a con man film that's really about the nature of storytelling. A con only works if the mark gets so immersed in the world that they can't pull away from it. In exploring the con man genre, Johnson is able to ask questions about what makes a good story, the tricks storytellers need to pull it off, and the relationship between them and the audience.

While I found all of the characters to be well-written and provided with depth and complexity, the real joy in this movie comes from Rachel Weiss as Penelope. This film simply does not work without her. She manages to balance this vibe of a sheltered rich kid stepping into the world for the first time while also not coming across as naive and dimwitted. There are a few moments sprinkled throughout where it seems like she's realized the brothers are not being truthful, but the excitement of it is too much to turn away from. The movie doesn't really take off until she shows up. Shout out to Rinko Kikuchi and the always-great Robbie Coltrane (RIP) as well.

It isn't a complete home run though. The ending does feel a little rushed. The ultimate villain is maybe the one character who has more cartoonish elements than actual depth. I also find the opening vignette of the younger brothers to be more grating than cute and quirky.

Overall, a worthy entry in his filmography. I'd probably put it above Glass Onion and Brick, but still below Knives Out, Looper, and TLJ.

 

The collage scene of all of her talents back to back is such a great scene

 

It's seriously fucked up how underutilized Rinko Kikuchi has been in American films. Her performance in Babel (I know, I know, some people haaaate Inarritu) is just fantastic.

 

I started Brothers Bloom last night and wasn't feeling it. It's a little too ~*quirky*~ for me. I was also very tired and hot and grumpy so that didn't help.

 

Cheer up, grumpypants!!

 

It's mostly just a Wes Anderson knockoff.

 

very much the vibe I got, and I’m not a Wes Anderson fan to begin with.

 

The dialogue and some of the costume design does feel very early Wes Anderson, but the visual language feels very different to me.

 

It's...not a Wes Anderson knock off. Not thematically. Not visually. Not in terms of style of humor. It's just whimsical.

 

Well Wes Anderson DID invent whimsy, so.....

 

Brothers Bloom. Did not enjoy. Poorly written quirk is extremely crating. This is going to feel like youtube nitpick criticism but here we go. It's no coincidence the best character didn't speak while Rachel Wiess announces “i'm bad at conversations” “Im horny” “im so happy”. Family guy references to literature.

After establishing Rachel is bad at conversations by announcing it instead of having a bad conversation, her arc to being good at conversations is resolved by her getting out of the car while someone else announces wow she must be great at conversations now to do that.

It didn't use the visual style of wes anderson but it did use the rhythm

My biggest take away and appreciation was how much of a progression it was from this to Knives Out. A much more cohesive style with massive improvement in all areas of writing; characters, plot, dialogue, and jokes.

 

It is clearly aping early Wes Anderson. Just a quick Google search of "Brothers bloom Wes Anderson" shows how often people made the connection.

It happens a lot when something different breaks out. There were a lot of Tarantino imitators in the 90s.

It is actually the best Rian Johnson movie I've seen, although that probably means something very different than from most other people.

 

@cshadows2887 picks tomorrow.

 

go on

 

Rather than pick something I've already seen and want to make everyone else watch, I figure we can all see something new together (and it'll make me pull the trigger on something I've been procrastinating).

Let's go with Ceddo by Ousmane Sembene in 1977. I know it's available with subs on YouTube currently.

 

I saw that this was translated as The Outsiders and I began to imagine an African soc's versus greasers but it was not quite that.

I had seen Moolaade but I can count the number of African films I've seen on one hand. What makes this film so interesting is that Sembene was trying to essentially tell the story of two centuries of religious and political changes within a smaller and more confined area. Even though the YouTube upload isn't the greatest quality, its bright colors pop more than most.

How would a person react if a state religion was suddenly imposed upon them? We all live with the reality that there is a soft Christian theocracy in a country that supposedly doesn't favor any other religion, but at what point would people actually pay attention? By that time it can be too late.

 

I haven't seen a ton of African film myself (part of why I'm excited to get this in this week) but I loooooved Yeelen by Souleymane Cisse. I didn't connect as much to Touki Bouki, but it was good. And if you count Egypt (which I guess you geographically would) Cairo Station is incredible

 

You’re thinking of The Brothers Solomon haha