725) CRUELLA
(2021 dir. Craig Gillespie) Date Seen: December 21 2021
I guess we can thank Wicked, OZ THE GREAT & POWERFUL, X-MEN FIRST CLASS, & MALEFICENT doing good box office for why we’ve been getting more villain origin stories like this. Only a few of these “misunderstood antagonist” backstories have been of any interest though to me personally, while the vast majority (e.g. CRUELLA & JOKER) have been desperately inarticulate. This one’s particularly frustrating to me because Craig Gillespie has shown he can actually be adept with the visual language of movies in the past (FINEST HOURS, FRIGHT NIGHT 3D) & here he’s just phoning in exasperating nostalgia wave with boilerplate caper tropes. All of the latter scenes especially feeling like Guy Ritchie by way of Disney Channel sanitization. I understand the filmmakers weren’t trying to make something as heavy as PHANTOM THREAD set within the world of high fashion (or ZOOLANDER on the other end of that spectrum) but the movie’s just too gauche for any of the intended dramatic parts to work and not clever enough to work as satire either. On the plus side though, it does have some American actors doing funny ‘Ello Guvnah accents;(aka Hedley and Wyche accents)
& it features some truly great (if not entirely period accurate) music on the soundtrack. But who’s the tosser that came up with the “I Wanna Be Your Dog” runway premiere? That was as bad as anything in the CBGB (2013) movie. We don’t want to reimagine Cruella de Vil too much as a punk anti-heroine, right? If I'm remembering correctly, the crazy broad ends up trying to kill puppies.
724) THE SWARM [LA NUÉE]
(2021 dir. Just Philippot) Date Seen: December 21 2021
723)
IT HAPPENED ON 5TH AVENUE
(1947 dir. Roy Del Ruth) Date Seen: December 21 2021
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