well...

lily
Aug 4, 2019
4 min read

are you proud of me?

enjoy this series of me trying to avoid posting anything:

So as you may have noticed, I ain't been posting lately. The reason for this would be my infatuation with the deadly sin of sloth. After week three of my 100 movie adventure I said "no thanks" and just stopped, because I am what? Lazy. I honestly don't really care that I gave up so like whatever, but I did think I owe it to you to update you on the pitiful amount of films I've seen since week 2. Of the 8 (?) movies I've seen, some of which have been fantastic, only a handful were worth giving a full paragraph of my incompetent analysis to. So I'm just gonna review what I want and rank the rest, a practice that aligns with my new sloth positive attitude.

ok?

1. The Souvenir (Dir. Joanna Hogg, 2019)

All I have to say about this movie is Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes. This is easily my favorite film of the year so far. I'd been looking forward to The Souvenir since I saw the trailer back in May. I was excited to see what Ms. Hogg could do when she had the power of A24 coursing through her veins and film. And what we got was a cool, sensitive, and very British, semi-autobiographical movie. The film centers on Julie, a film student attempting to make her magnum opus that legit no one but her is interested in. We support u Julie. She meets Anthony, the posh version of the characters of Trainspotting, and the rest of the film details their "relationship". And like, y'all, this shit was soooo good. Like, fuck. Making her film debut is Honor Swinton Byrne, the daughter of our God Tilda Swinton, which makes Honor the Messiah of Hollywood. And she's great, like when we gonna be friends miss HSB. She does a really great job of bringing Julie to life and making her feel real. Some might take ish with the film's pace, and I will admit I remember checking my phone at one point during the movie thinking it was almost over and learning that I still had over an hour left. But regardless of how slow/interesting you find Joanna's masterpiece to be, you have to admit it all pays off in the end. Because in the end The Souvenir is an extremely personal film about a potentially real wack as af relationship of Joanna's. I guess my only flaw with the film would be its ending. I wish it had ended with that almost eye-contact shot of Julie looking at us instead of her walking out of the studio. That shot felt so much more vulnerable and personal as opposed to the metaphorical going outside ending that the film decided to go with. I clearly didn't have that much of an issue with it because it's been 2 months since I've seen it and I'm not still pissed about the ending, but I digress. Also there's a Souvenir II coming out at some point and I might kill myself out of excitement. Though Robert Pattinson, who was slated to play Anthony 2 had to drop out and now he's dead to me (at least until The Lighthouse comes out, so October). I wish I'd written this earlier so you could still go see this in theaters where it deserves to be seen, but shit happens and my loss is also your loss. Please go stream this movie wherever you can so we can support our British Queen, JoHogg. But don't watch it illegally because the FBI is always watching...

The Souvenir gets 5/5 Oks

2. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Dir. Joe Talbot, 2019)

I guess the only way to describe this film would be as lovely. Like our last film The Last Black Man in SF is another poignant, personal story, this time chronicling Jimmy and his bff Mont as they try to save Jimmy's historic family home. What ends up playing out is a quirky and sweet film about how much gentrification sucks ass. Also like The Souvenir, this film took some time to get going, but once we got to the third act I was like "holy shit am I crying right now? I think I'm crying" and it was just really really really great. You could tell that this was a first film for everyone involved, but somehow they were able to pull off a debut with a strong voice that separates them from the hoards of shitty pretentious first films. The cinematog is great, the score... y'all, and the story/writing is totally unique in it's own perfect way. I think Last Black Man is still in theaters, because if it is you havvvvve to go see it, in theaters that is. We gotta get this film to Oscar season so please go see it and do believe the hype.

The Last Black Man In San Francisco gets 4.5/5 OKs

I've reached the end of the films I care about, so now please enjoy some brief words on some good/okay other films.

3. Under the Skin (Dir. Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

Weird as shit. Scarlett Johansson stars as a sex addict alien, cruising around Scotland in a panel van trying to pick up guys that she can lure back to her apt where she gets em necked and then sends them to the sunken place. If that sounds like a lot, I promise it is. There's lots of guy "stuff" so be take caution.

Under the Skin gets 3.5/5 OKs