A Ghost Story

And now I'm a ghost! Ooooohhhhh!!

I cannot even begin to tell you how long I have been wanting to both watch and review this movie, and after all this time since well post 2016 when the movie came out I can say it was worth the wait. I don't rightly know how the hell to recap this plot because it's one of those movies where you ain't got a clue how it will end and the subsequent series of events makes it even more of a mystery than life itself. But in a nutshell, a married couple is sadly torn apart when the husband gets in a car crash and manifests as the quintessential ghost form as he haunts his own home. That is all I dare divulge because for a movie 90 minutes long with credits by the by, it does so much that it left me flabbergasted, in awe, and completely entrapped in it's story. You want to talk about a whole different beast of a movie? I don't even know where to start. Not much dialogue to the point where it would be an interesting experiment to re-edit it into a silent film, black and white, all that good jazz. The aspect ratio is very akin to The Lighthouse which does lean it more towards arthouse film or college student project but it adds all the more unique identity to just the look of the movie. The soundtrack is really up my alley and I have zero qualms looking up the soundtrack later on, from ambient to slightly terrifying it brings so much flavor to each situation. Very basic editing but it has little moments of flair when it comes to cinematography and really has some damn good lighting too I must say. Since there's little dialogue and our main character is shrouded in a sheet you'd be surprised how much emoting comes through and you can just tell from body language and actions what the characters are going through. Since it deals with the afterlife the movie does get philosophical and surprisingly brings up a combined point from the Ghost movie Rite Here Rite Now, about how living in a house is a allegory for life and death as we see our main player stuck in this house for God knows how long. It's handled so well and has so many points of interest, you think it would be kinda dull but I assure you it is anything but. And I don't really mind saying this, despite the childlike depiction of this ghost there are moments of eerieness and even dread I dare say that I can't really even pin down as to why it effected me in that way. I am severely impressed and through all the twists, turns, and loop-de-loops I was with it every step of the way. I sure as shit know probably not a lot of people are gonna love it as much as me or maybe even like it at all for that matter, but it strangely worked for me. It hit all my buttons, I found it intriguing and boy it kinda hit a little too near and dear for my heart. If I can be cataclysmically honest here, that feeling of isolation, that feeling of never being seen or heard, feeling like a misguided ghost travelling endlessly to nowhere, only being acknowledged in moments of rage or outburst by the outside world, waiting for people who are long since gone...that is who I am. And with my luck even after I'm dead and gone, nothing will have changed much. On that brutal bombshell it is time to end, thank you so much for joining me, goodnight. 4 stars, 9/10!

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

This is one of the select few movies I have seen and yet remember hardly anything of it.

A long time ago when I was but a 16 year old wee lad, my mom actually took me to see this in theaters, I had no definitive drive to see it but went with an open mind. Ohhh.....yikes. Yeah, that was an interesting sit and it's been over 10 long years and I remembered hardly anything besides the obvious horrific, disturbing, f***ed up shit that occurs in a few scenes. So I was walking in relatively blind once more and found a pretty solid mystery thriller. So our handsome sexy man Daniel Craig, plays investigative reporter Mikael who is called into service by a wealthy gentlemen, played by Christopher Plummer, to solve a 40 year old case of his missing presumed dead daughter and this is the strangest prequel to Knives Out I could imagine. Meanwhile as that story plays out we meet Lisbeth, played incredibly well by Rooney Mara, who goes through some serious shit of her own before she also is roped into this murder mystery, putting her advanced computer skills and logical thinking to the test to assist. What I like a great deal is, this could so super easily be seen as two seperate movies haphazardly daisy chained together but it never breaks immersion or intrigue, you know these two characters will meet at a certain point but it gives each of them time for the audience to understand them before the dynamic shifts into a duo. And Daniel and Rooney have fantastic chemistry, quite honestly getting a few laughs out of me because of how these two personalities work in tandem. Lisbeth is very analytical, anti-social, and clearly different from the pack while Mikael is more normal leading man material but is given his own problems and personality while keeping him an average journalist. He's no Sherlock, or Bond action man, but needless to say Daniel pulls it off expertly. The mystery gains intrigue very quickly, and it is a somewhat methodical some would say boring form of detective work, connecting the dots of this family who are held suspect in this girl's death and who knows who considering the family is very seperate and hardly talks to one another. Now on one hand I can see that being a problem, juggling many characters and names and trying to keep all the strands together in your head, but even with my more lax viewing of this and forgetting who some people were it didn't negatively affect me. I was keeping up with it but not by much, this isn't the movie that points and shouts a clue, a clue! It doesn't hold your hand but I feel the movie is more about keeping your intrigue and attention instead of making you a junior detective who's trying to solve it first. It's directed well and no doubt many people can get super into it and piece together the puzzle which is great for this kind of genre. The interesting thing is when it seems everything is wrapped up, the truth is found, case closed you think that would be the end all be all. But in actuality the movie goes on for some time afterward, I can see people checking their watch like come the hell on the movie is over, but it gives some closure to Mikael and his crisis at the beginning of the film, some would consider it last minute payoff to a relatively unimportant set up but I got really into it. It shows our leads do more stuff after the fact, and they gain a quantum of solace before the credits. I know, I went there, and not to go on a tangent but the ending did kinda give me Quantum vibes. I may not have focused much on the more shocking stuff, and it is effectively disturbing, and I still somewhat question how my mom felt with me sitting next to her during such parts, but they are more a disgusting seedy seasoning and not the main focus. I enjoyed it, was engaged, and knew it was gonna give me a fair bit to talk about. 4 stars, 8.5/10, next week is more likely than not gonna be a short week of reviews but it's dinosaurs so it can't be all bad.

Kubo And The Two Strings

Not only is this one of the best animated movies I've ever seen in my life, but the story itself is one of the best I have seen.

Kubo And The Two Strings is brought to us by our friends over at Laika Studios, the same folks who brought us Coraline and the ghoulish brilliant Paranorman to the big screen, this particular movie follows a story, a tale, a legend of a young boy with a single eye on a quest to reclaim three pieces of armor in an attempt to defeat the Moon God. Not only is this beyond perfection in terms of animation, using the same style of stopmotion and models like The Nightmare Before Christmas and all their other films, not only is the story rich in potential and delivers, not only is the voice acting outstanding with Charlize Theron and Matthew McConaughey, not only is it rooted in a world of magic with a profound basis in Japanese culture and art direction, but this was a film where I had such slight, miniscule expectations and by the time the title popped up I knew I was going to watch a marvellous movie. I love the characters, I love the mythos, I love the magic element, the art is breathtaking considering how they achieved it, the comedy is fun but maybe a bit off in places, the movie just shapes it's own identity and there are no compromises to it. I have no idea if most of the story is original or based in Japanese myth and legends, I don't even care because it is so good. It's been awhile since I had a fun time watching a movie, and been awhile since a movie blew my expectations out of the water. I saw the trailer for it and was fascinated, but never saw it in theater's, and you better believe I am kicking myself in the ass because I missed it. What a wonderful movie, with enough to capture the imagination of a child and intrigue the parents. A grade A+ family film, 4 stars check it out!

Well that's all from the old Duder tonight, and tomorrow we have another venture into the Pixar realm with Finding Dory, so just keep swimming folks. Goodnight everybody!