It’s the best and biggest episode of the year when we countdown and reflect upon our favorite films of 2017!
Do you ever want to feel artistically superior to all of your friends? Maybe you are tired of your friends talking about how great the latest action film is and want to sound better. Maybe you want to impress your date with obscure film trivia. Maybe you think that knowing a lot about film history and art will somehow validate your meaningless existence and will replace that ever-growing pit in your heart that tells you that you don’t matter and no one cares about you. Well, don’t worry! Because I watch a bunch of art house films and can give you recommendations on what to watch and what to feel superior about! So without any delay, let’s get pretentious!
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There are certain aspects and functions of filmmaking that I often think can make or break a director. For example, the three-act structure is one of these traits. Directors that understand story structure and can experiment with the three-act structure can make that the best part of their films. An example of this is Quentin Tarantino with Pulp Fiction. I’m not the biggest Tarantino fan, but my god does he understand story structure. But you don’t even need to experiment with story structure to make it good. Recently Martin McDonagh recently released Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and that is one of the best-structured films I’ve seen in years. Doesn’t do anything weird with it, but it perfected it. With In the Fade I don’t know if the story structure is fantastically well done or poorly done. So that’s a weird thing for me to have to deal with.
In the Fade is a German film from Turkish director Fatih Akin. In The Fade follows Diane Kruger as a woman who’s Turkish husband and son are killed in a bombing perpetrated by Neo-Nazis. The film really follows a strange three-act structure. To the point where each act is almost a different film. It works systematically in the presentation of the story. It never feels jarring. But the tone of each act changes each time we move. The first act follows Kruger’s grief and struggles after her family’s killing. The second act follows the trial against the Neo-Nazis. The third act, without giving away much, is about redemption. Each segment works well on its own and I can see each one being its own film. And I guess my biggest problem is that the trial part of the film is so good that it made everything else feel a bit less than it actually was. And I’m not exaggerating. The trial segment of the film is so well written and so engaging that I wish the entire film was the trial segment and I wish this was just a punk rock inspired courtroom drama. It’s not, and the two other parts of the film are still good, it is just a double-edged sword that the trial segment was so great.
Diane Kruger won Best Actress at Cannes this year. Though it is important that even the Jury at Cannes said that the festival was exceptionally weak in terms of female lead films this year. This doesn’t take away from Kruger’s fantastic performance though. Kruger gives a stellar performance and is one of the highlights of the film. That being said, I was never quite wowed by her. She is certainly good, but I wasn’t knocked out of the park like I was expecting with all of the praise she has been getting. Again, she is one of the better performances of the year. But I wouldn’t go in expecting one of the best performances of the decade.
I think that is the films biggest flaw. The fact that it is good, but never gets above that. There is very little wrong with the film. And it is certainly in the upper half of the films of the year. But there was never a point in which I thought “This is one of the best films of the year”. This is a film that I will think about for a couple of days, maybe weeks if I don’t find another film to think about. But come June of 2018, I don’t expect to remember this film. It’s good and certainly not a bad film. But the film won’t stick with me. Again, not a bad thing. But something I thought I should mention.
In general, I think the film is pretty good. If you are looking for something with variety, this might be up your alley. And I would say the film is worth checking out for the trial segment alone. But if I wasn’t able to impress you with this review, I don’t know if the film will be able to do much either. It’s a good film. But not much else.
The Reel Nerds are going on safari when they review Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.
This won’t go the way you think when the Reel Nerds watch Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
The Reel Nerds are tearing me apart, Lisa!
With Ryan gone, the Reel Nerds flock to the arthouse for Lady Bird and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Do you ever want to feel artistically superior to all of your friends? Maybe you are tired of your friends talking about how great the latest action film is and want to sound better. Maybe you want to impress your date with obscure film trivia. Maybe you think that knowing a lot about film history and art will somehow validate your meaningless existence and will replace that ever-growing pit in your heart that tells you that you don’t matter and no one cares about you. Well, don’t worry! Because I watch a bunch of art house films and can give you recommendations on what to watch and what to feel superior about! So without any delay, let’s get pretentious!
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I consider tone to be one of the most important things in a film. I can look past poorly lit cinematography. I can excuse subpar performances. Hell, even piss poor writing I can look the other way. But if a film has an inconsistent tone, that can be difficult for me to ignore. And an inconsistent tone becomes deadly when it is partnered with pacing issues. And unfortunately, where I think Tom of Finland is something that I find fascinating, these two issues are present and difficult for me to look past.
Tom of Finland is the latest film from Finnish Director, Dome Karukoski, who I have never heard of and if I haven’t heard of him or his work, most likely neither have you. If you are aware of Dome Karukoski’s work, or you are Dome Karukoski, Hello! It’s nice to meet you! Sorry for insulting you right off the bat of this review! That was pretty shitty of me to do! Tom of Finland follows the true story of Touko Laaksonen, a Finnish artist known primarily for his homoerotic fetish art, which was highly illegal at the time in Finland.
Now, if you know me, you know gay dudes are right up my alley. I flock to gay dudes on screen as faster than my girlfriends question my sexuality. So when I walked into this film, I was predicting a movie of the year or something like that. But the first problem I ran into with this film was the fact that this film moves at a snail’s pace. The film covers a lot of ground. From the Winter War in 1939 to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. And usually, when a film covers that much ground, I tend to think that the pacing goes to quick. But somehow in Tom of Finland, a film that is just shy of two hours feels like twenty years. Cards on the table, I think I dosed off for a couple of minutes in the beginning because it takes its sweet time to get to the meat and potatoes of the story. The film doesn’t have any focus on Touko’s potential struggle with masculinity or questioning his sexuality, which are pretty standard themes in LGBT films. From the beginning of the film, Touko’s seems to have a pretty strong grasp on the fact that he is gay and is pretty accepting of that. The struggle he faces is less with him being gay and more with the fact that the world doesn’t accept that. Which is great! The problem is that the struggle doesn’t happen for what feels like forever.
The other problem I had with the film was this constant shift in tone. Because as much as the film is about Touko trying to succeed as a homoerotic artist, it is also about his struggle with PTSD from the Winter War. To the point where it makes this statement about one of his most famous characters in his art being modeled after a man that he killed in War. Both the struggling artist storyline and the PTSD storyline work if you view them separately. But the tone of each story is very different from one another. The artist storyline is filled with leather bars and muscular happy gay men in California. Where the PTSD is a dark, unsettling storyline in the winter with haunting images and hallowing scenery. This could have been an interesting contrast, but the real issue is that the two never seem to come together. They just kind of exist on their own, and neither concludes. Although Touko Laaksonen has now passed, and there should be some be some closure, there doesn’t seem to be any in the film.
The positives of the film do start with the acting. The film is very well performed with Pekka Strang playing Touko. Later in the story, Touko meets two Americans who help him with his work in the United States, and both of them are played well too. None of the performances is anything to write home about, but they are worth briefly mentioning in this review, so you know that the film does have some positives.
In general, the film is pretty average at its core, beyond the pacing and the tonal shifts throughout, there is nothing really awful about this film. But there is also nothing that really blew me away either. I wanted to like this film more than I did. And I certainly didn’t hate it. But it just left me feeling kind of unfulfilled. If you already are a fan of Tom of Finland and his work, I would check it out because, at its heart, the story is interesting. But if you aren’t a fan of his work or don’t really care for this kind of story, this film won’t be able to sway you the other way.
Do you ever want to feel artistically superior to all of your friends? Maybe you are tired of your friends talking about how great the latest action film is and want to sound better. Maybe you want to impress your date with obscure film trivia. Maybe you think that knowing a lot about film history and art will somehow validate your meaningless existence and will replace that ever-growing pit in your heart that tells you that you don’t matter and no one cares about you. Well, don’t worry! Because I watch a bunch of art house films and can give you recommendations on what to watch and what to feel superior about! So without any delay, let’s get pretentious!
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I’ve been very critical of this year. Primarily because I’ve found that almost everything in this year is good, but not great. There have been very few great films this year, but a lot of “yeah that was good” kind of films. And when I heard that one of the frontrunners for Best Picture was a film where Sally Hawkins falls in love with a fish, I thought “Yeah okay, I guess we’ll chop this year up to the black sheep of cinema”. Wasn’t super excited going in. Assumed it would be another one of those films that I would walk out and listen to everyone rave about while I just sit back and keep my criticisms quiet. *COUGH* lady bird *COUGH*. But I would only go this into detail as to how jaded and how much of an asshole in film taste I am if I was going to go the other way. So yeah. I loved The Shape of Water.
The Shape of Water is the newest film from Gothic Horror Mastermind Guillermo del Toro. And I should also preface, yes I know I’ve done that enough, but I have never been a huge del Toro fan. I’ve liked his stuff, and I do very much enjoy Pan’s Labyrinth, but all of his stuff is like I said before “yeah that was good”. The Shape of Water takes place or is heavily inspired by, the aesthetic of the 1960s. Following a mute janitor at a government facility, played by Sally Hawkins, who finds a creature from the black lagoon type monster in the facility. The creature and Sally Hawkins then fall in love. I’m aware that on paper this film doesn’t work. But take my word for it, that it is the best romance film of the year in a year that has had some pretty great romance films.
The first thing I would like to compliment in the film is the Production Design. If this year has been good for one thing, it’s Production Design. The film completely commits to its 1960s aesthetic as well as the monster film vibe. All of the costumes are perfect, all of the sets are perfect. Which makes sense. When you have a main character who does not have the ability to speak, you have to make the environment speak for them. And that is exactly what happens in this film.
The writing for the film is fantastic. For a film about a monster love story, the film manages to be shockingly human and relatable. The story also never slows down. And I don’t say that in a Mad Max: Fury Road kind of way. But what I mean is that the story never has any lulls. In most films, you have certain scenes that feel necessary, but not necessarily entertaining. The plot point scenes that aren’t the best executed. The pacing and the story of The Shape of Water is so well done, that I never felt bored. Everything felt necessary as well as entertaining. And it made for one of the best theater experiences of the year.
It’s time I get to the acting because that is where this film truly shines. It is no secret or surprise that Michael Shannon is a great actor. But I was thinking, and I am pretty sure that this is his best performance. I’ve never been as terrified of Michael Shannon as I have in this film. When he is angrily yelling and interrogating people, it’s amazing, and I was terrified. And if you’ve seen the film, you know that he does that thing with his fingers and oh my gosh. What a performance. But that was almost a given, and it’s rare that Michael Shannon doesn’t give an amazing performance. The surprise, for me at least, was Richard Jenkins who gives one of my favorite supporting performances of the year. His character is so well written, so likable, so lovable, that he knocks it out of the park. Does he make this character his own? I don’t think so, but that isn’t a bad thing. Jenkins took the character that del Toro gave him and made it one of the best characters of the year. And I think Jenkins does a perfect job being almost the opposite of Shannon.
But the real star of the film is Sally Hawkins. For an actress to give such life and emotion to a role that doesn’t include any dialogue, she knocks it out of the park. Hawkins, at this point of the year, is my favorite female performance and that is saying something because this year has been pretty heavy with female leads. The emotion she portrays with just her eyes is breathtaking and beautiful. When she signs, she does so with such emotion. And I’m aware that I’m swooning and sounding stupid. But I really can’t put into words how much I loved Hawkins performance.
And I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t mention Doug Jones. Every critic has talked about how great Doug Jones is in this film. And there isn’t anything that I could add to that. But his performance combined with the incredible effects and makeup team makes for one of the most interesting characters of the year. Another character who does not speak but conveys such high emotion. I won’t talk much longer, but when talking about the performances of this film, it is important not to forget about his performance.
In general, I think everyone should see this film. I think it will connect with you, even if you are skeptical. I’m a skeptical jaded asshole, and I loved this film. And I hope you see it too. Because I think you will like it.
Always strive for better work. Never stop learning. Have fun a clear plan for a new project or just an idea on a napkin? Sky, land, and sea disappear together out of the world. The Indian girls, with hair like flowing black manes, and dressed only in a shift and short petticoat, stared dully from under the square-cut fringes on their foreheads.
The Reel Nerds seize their moment when they review Pixar’s Coco.