Apples is one of those films I would have never even heard about if it wasn’t for Mubi. This review is not in any way paid by them (even though that’d be awesome) as I have been using this service for about four years now and still love it. Anyway, while browsing through their selection, this grabbed my attention – Greece, 2020, worldwide pandemic. When you see these words together, you think: “Really? Isn’t it a bit too early, random Greek filmmaker I have never heard of?” But this film isn’t about the real pandemic. This is a movie pandemic that causes people to suddenly suffer from amnesia. Only some of them. And we follow Aris, your normal Greek man, who just really loves apples.

Apples is an interesting movie that won’t be for everybody. Not because it’d be too complicated or some scenes uncomfortable to sit through. No, this film has its own pace, its own vibe, and it just flows. It isn’t concerned with the world, it’s a very “closed”, down-to-earth story about a man, who is dealing with this sudden amnesia, and we follow him, trying to get back, “live the life”. But if you suffer from amnesia, you don’t know/remember anybody, not even your name, it’s hard to get excited about life.

I loved the concept and how the movie went about its story. It’s minimalistic, it felt raw and most importantly, even though it doesn’t sound too exciting, the film knows how to keep your attention. Since this is a film not many people would see, I will put the spoiler tag soon, as I don’t want to discuss anything that might spoil the experience of this unique film. So before that, let me say that if you like dramas that deal with real people, going through real things (take away the “pandemic” aspect, and it’s as real as it gets), you might like this film. Now, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty…

Beware, SPOILERS are coming!

I liked the twist this movie took. With the subtle hints dropped throughout the film, you soon realise that Aris might not have amnesia at all. He just wants to start over, using the situation to his advantage. At least that is what he thinks. But the “deeper” into the rehabilitation program he is, the more he realises starting again isn’t as great as he might have thought. And I appreciated that twist within a twist…?

The movie didn’t have to have any surprises in store, and it still would play well, but that surprise adds an extra layer of reality, as that would have probably happened if there was that kind of pandemic. What I liked about this story was the fact we can only speculate, what pushed him over the edge. What was the last straw? What motivated his character to try and start all over again? Apples is one of those films that ask plenty of questions, but it doesn’t answer most of them. Oddly enough, that doesn’t bother me, as it gives us the freedom to come to our conclusions about what he might have been through.

I also loved how the social interaction was broke down to its bare bones. For example, when he was going through the program, that should prepare him to be an active member of society again. The program did it so “perfectly” it took away the spark of humanity, which makes life interesting. How everything was just lined up for him, where he would play a tape that would tell him: “Go to a bar. Meet a woman. Try to flirt with her, don’t be afraid.” That is encouraging, but once we get to known Sofia Georgovassili‘s character, who is “a few steps” in front of him, he starts noticing and questioning her motives. If you think about it, that is not the best way to be a part of society again, questioning every single decision made by everybody around. Or wondering whether somebody is with you because they want to be, or just because they were told to be with you?

Overall, Apples is a movie that you need to experience rather than read about it. You can almost say the story doesn’t matter that much here as it is more about the characters. For example, the fact our main character isn’t suffering from amnesia doesn’t mean that much. The movie is trying to take a look at what it means to be a human. Are we honestly just nothing more than a collection of our past experiences? Because that would mean having no memory at all would nullify us, making us almost non-human. Isn’t it sometimes better to forget everything and start again? That is what the movie is trying to explore here, and I think it does it brilliantly. I will be looking forward to what is next in store for Christos Nikou.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Like most movie goers in late 2019, I have seen this movie called Uncut Gems (2019), where I’ve learned 3 things – Adam Sandler can be a great performer, when he’s not making movies for the sole purpose of having holiday fun with his friends (and to be fair, more power to him, who wouldn’t do that, right?), anxiety can be made into a movie with no issues, as that film is what gives anxiety its anxiety attack (think of it like anxinception) and there is this woman called Julia Fox, who caught my attention for her striking presence, great acting and by looking unconventionally stunning. So yes, it was only her name alone that got me into watching PVT CHAT, as I wanted to see, whether I like her because of her talent, or because she’s not too bad to look at (yes, you can tell I am just a simple man, who considers Julia quite stunning).

Well, this movie might seem like it’s Peter Vack (quite talented guy, really liked his performance), who is the protagonist, but I would argue it stands and falls on Julia. She brings her own past into this role (for those unaware, she used to be an actual dominatrix) and makes the film so much more believable. She isn’t shy to take risks, or to reveal herself (I am pretty sure plenty of men and even some women will not mind those scenes in this movie) but for what it’s worth, it never felt cheap. While watching the film, I never got the feeling of “hey, we do have Julia Fox, so we should write a scene or two where she is naked, right?”, the nudity never felt gratuitous. As that is something I liked about PVT CHAT, throughout the movie, you can’t enjoy anything, even the nudity, as the film is dark. It delves deep into variety of issues (addiction, toxic relationships, depression, suicide), it feels really raw at places, you do feel quite uncomfortable. Which is good, as that means, the film is doing its job.

What I also liked about this story is nobody is black or white character. It’d be so easy to play into the tropes of “cam girl, who’s just trapped and looking for a way out” or “guy has a nasty realisation about his life and basically overnight decides to improve upon every single thing he was doing wrong”. Both our main characters have something about them, that can be redeeming and they also have darker side to them. Nobody is innocent, everybody is just playing everybody, until the ending comes and… this is where this film kind of fell apart for me. I think I understand what the director (Ben Hozie) wanted to say, but I was honestly not sure, how to process it. I really need to go into the spoiler territory here, trying to write it out, so without further ado…

BEWARE, SPOILERS ARE COMING!

This movie will throw some twists in your way throughout it. Plenty of them you will see coming, like the fact she actually lives in New York, or surprise surprise, she has a boyfriend, who kind of is the reason behind her being a cam girl (maybe not a sole reason, but the movie hints a lot at the fact, that she wants to quit and he persuades her not to, just to make a bit more money for “them”). What starts a whole chain of events (practically the entire third act) is Jack (our protagonist) finally finding out where Scarlet (Julia) lives and “kind of” breaks in. The scene, where he hides underneath the couch, is pretty nerve wracking. And then, Scarlet pays him a visit, and you just know, this will end badly. Well, it does, but also does not…? Sure, she is there to rob him, as she finds out he was in her apartment. At least I believe that was the reason? The movie kind of skips over that, as it might have been the fact they (Julia and her boyfriend) believed, he’s a really successful and wealthy guy, so he won’t miss some money. Anyway, they rob him together, he is now more desperate than ever, we know he knows where she lives, so you are expecting anything to happen at this point and believe me, you don’t know where this is going…

Basically, she reaches out to him, telling him she wants to meet up, because she feels bad and she tells him that she might know, how to get some of the money back. So, they meet at the motel, where they go through couple of different emotional stages (anger, sadness, somehow happiness), get drunk together and she finally lets him to fuck her. But he can’t get hard, so she stars to portray her character from the cam site. The movie finishes with both masturbating, but not touching each other… Yeah. That is it. Nothing about the money, or lack their of. Nothing about why is she there, we don’t get any hints whether she’s playing him again, or truly feels bad, nothing.

I think I understand the intent – she actually felt bad about what they’ve done, as she’s realised what she’s done wasn’t justified and her meeting up with him and eventually letting him being frisky with her would make them square…? The final shot of them being in the same room, both up for sex, but still tending to each other, not to the other person, was (I am guessing) meant to symbolise their inability of being properly intimate, as they both are working through some issues? Or maybe a comment about today’s day and age, where people would rather watch porn and masturbate, than had sex with their partner, who’s in the next room…? Either way, it didn’t work for me that much. I understand he’s obsessed with her, but don’t tell he’d not do something stupid, when she robed him of $10.000? As I have stated before, I have no issue with some films being more open-ended, where the director leaves it up to the viewers to decide, where the story/characters end up, but in this movie, it felt like a cheat (a bit). What I am saying is, I wanted more of final resolution, maybe a few more hints…? Wasn’t expecting anything wrapped up nicely with a bow, I knew this ain’t that kind of a film, but still, this didn’t feel like enough.

Overall, PVT CHAT is definitely an interesting watch. If you are fine with such topics like cam girl(s), domination, nudity, different forms of addictions etc., you might enjoy this movie. If you seen Uncut Gems and thought Julia Fox is stunning and you would want to see more of her (both acting and nudity wise), you also won’t be disappointed, as I do believe she is the main star of this film and somebody, who is a really interesting actress to watch out for, as I think she’s really talented and we haven’t seen the best of her acting yet. As mentioned, the only issues I had was with the last 30 minutes or so, where I wasn’t sure, what was I meant to think, to be perfectly honest. Or more importantly, I believe we have not been more hints, to build our own conclusion(s). But I would cautiously recommend this.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

You know when you are watching a trailer for an upcoming movie, and you can just tell it’s one of those films, that’s only been made because the main star is “so hot right now, like OMG, easiest money ever made, LOL” and everything about it looks really, really fake/digital, it hurts? That’s how I perceived Dolittle. Everything from the generic looking posters to generic looking trailers, screamed disaster to me. But here is a brief inside into my mind – even though I’ve heard after it came out that it truly was poor, bad, generic etc., I still wanted to know/see it for myself. Because, how bad can it really be? Unfortunately, after watching it, I know the answer to that question.

Really bad. Like, this is the type of movie, that makes you hate the executives in Hollywood, that thought this was a great idea. I understand the entire Hollywood is money making machine. But there are movies that are trying to be more than that and they give you something – they make you laugh, cry, make you cheer for different coloured aliens and superheroes in spandex, all that is great, when done right. They entertain you. Then, there are some other movies, where you can tell the money, the desire to cash in on some famous names was the number one, two and three concern and everything else was pushed aside. Try to guess what category this film falls under…?

And to think when it started, I was actually interested. I really liked the first 5 minutes or so, the simplistic, yet beautiful animation style that was used to clue us into the movie, really worked for me and I wished they’ve done the entire movie like this, instead of everything (background, the animals) looking faker than Robert Downey Jr.‘s enthusiasm for the actual movie he was in. I swear you can tell in some scenes even he knew that he’s doing it for the money and best he can hope for is his fans not watching this film, or quickly forgetting it. Because that is what this film is, if you boil it down – looks fake, forgettable and most importantly, boring. There are bunch of funny people voicing the plethora of animals (from Kumail Nanjiani, Tom Holland, Craig Robinson to John Cena just to name a few) and the script doesn’t give them anything remotely funny to say, mostly it’s the same jokes you know or would expect from “family movie of 2020s”.

I think the only chance this movie had was do something bold, like having this stellar cast and instead of investing time and resources into the bad CGI, have the entire movie animated, like the opening sequence. Then, you would at least had something, you can somehow enjoy it visually, even if the screenplay is weak and the story is predictable. But since the movie managed to pay a lot (I presume good chunk of the movie’s budget went to Downey) to have Iron Man on the screen, they needed to showcase him as much as possible. And yet again, studios have learned the lesson that we didn’t like “just” Robert Downey Jr. (even though he seems to be a pretty likeable guy) but we like him in movies, that give him something to do. Building a movie around one person and banking on “he’s the hottest thing, his movies are making bank, this sure can’t fail” is just a flawed technique that yet again, led nowhere and ultimately lost a lot of money. According to BoxOfficeMojo, the reported budget for this movie is around $175 million. These budgets usually do not include the massive marketing (and this movie was advertised everywhere pretty heavily) so I believe it’s safe to assume the actual budget was easily over $200 million. And it made $245 worldwide. That sound good, right? Well, around half of the gross goes to the cinemas. And the rule of thumb is the movie only becomes profitable (because you don’t just want to break even, you want to make money, as with any business) when it earns roughly 2.5x its budget. So yeah, I can see this film loosing the studio around $200 million easily, as even if we just take the $175 million, it would have to make more than $500, and that’s being conservative.

And honestly? I know we should be rooting for all movies to succeed, as plenty of people worked really hard on this one too, I am sure of it. And I don’t want to slam their hard work, no. But this movie was bad. Everything about it was lazy, it felt rushed almost like they made it in 30 days just to get it to the cinemas as soon as possible. The only positive thing I can say about Dolittle is it was fairly short and the opening sequence was cute. The rest of the movie… just didn’t work for me at all.

Overall, Dolittle is one of those films, you just can see fail from the first moment you hear about it. But if you are like me, the curiosity gets the better of you, because you don’t want to judge something based on how it looks (after all, I am strong believer in “don’t judge a book by its cover”) so I needed to see this for myself to know, how bad can it get. It can’t be that bad, right…? Yeah, it can and what’s worse, it can be a really boring film, that’s not saved by anything – Downey, bunch of celebrities voicing animals, the action, that just doesn’t look real. I can’t see a world where I would be in any rush to re-watch this.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Onward is a really fascinating movie to me. First of all, it’s one of the two movies Pixar released in 2020 (the other being the Oscar winning Soul (2020, my review here)) and I remember when it hit the VOD (as this was also one of those movies, that because of the pandemic, was simultaneously in the theatres and also available online) everybody seemed to love it, until Soul came around. That is when I have noticed almost a shift, where people felt the need to compare these two vastly different movies. And I even though I understand that impulse (after all, it makes sense, as Pixar is such a great “brand”, and they don’t usually release two movies in one year) I don’t think it’s necessarily fair. Even though it needs to be said, Onward is slightly weaker, than what we are used to from Pixar (oh shit, I am doing too, aren’t I)?

Let start with the good things first – I really liked the overall ideas here (magical beings got lazy, so the magic is almost gone) the overall message about how you don’t need a dad, if you have a pretty great brother that steps up and is there for you was also heart-warming and something, that’s on point with Pixar’s “branding” – stories, that deal with really serious, adult themes, told in a form everyone from your family can enjoy, doesn’t matter if they are 5, or 65.

I also liked most of the voice over casting – Tom Holland was great, I couldn’t recognize Julia Louis-Dreyfus, but the moment I realised (well, looked up) who voices the mom character, it clicked and Octavia Spencer was also a delight to listen. The brighter readers might have noticed, that I didn’t name the fourth main actor, and that is because he is the reason behind “liked most of the voice over casting”. Chris Pratt seems like a chilled dude, who I really like and enjoy seeing. I don’t think his voice is annoying, no. But I don’t think he was the correct choice for this character (brother who is supposed to be only couple of years older than Tom Holland’s character) as he sounded way older. And that is because he’s 43 years old (so he was around 41 when he voiced this character). Which is not old by any stretch of imagination, I am not saying that. But to me, this was equivalent of seeing a high school comedy, where all the characters are portrayed by actors in their mid 20’s, early 30’s. Some can pull it off better than others and even though I usually am down with anything Chris Pratt is doing, in here, his voice didn’t jive with me. Maybe it’s because he has such a recognisable voice, you know he’d his way, way older brother…?

But he’s not the reason why I think Onward is weaker of the Pixar movies, even though it’s weaker by a speck of dust. The main thing that bothered me a bit more was the predictability of the movie. If you think about it, Pixar is known for having ordinary stories told in extra-ordinary way. For example, Inside Out (2015), one of my absolute favourites done by them, is a pretty simple idea (emotions having emotions) done in extra-ordinary way (it’s colourful, out here and the main story is about how it feels to grow up, feeling all alone, dealing with a lot of complicated feelings in early age). And this film seem to have swapped the formula around – they started with extra-ordinary premise (magic exists, but it’s hardly used, as with technology, magical beings just got lazier) told in pretty ordinary fashion. Because nothing in here will surprise you. There is no unexpectedly great joke, there is no sneakily great scene or lesson. And even the story follows quite straightforward formula, where you know exactly what will happen in the next 5 minutes. The problem with your narrative being as predictable as it was here, you need to something, to blow us away with, the “big pay off”, the climax of the story. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. I did say the ending was heart-warming, but I didn’t say you couldn’t see it coming miles away. And that’s something that usually doesn’t happen to me with Pixar movies. Yeah, I am doing it again, comparing Pixar movies against each other. In my defence, it’s hard not too, when they have a really great track record.

Movie like Onward fall into something I call “the Pixar paradox” – if the exact same film with the exactly same story came out from a different studio (like DreamWorks or Illumination) we would be all over it, praising it for being “Pixar-like”, without being the same and it would have been pretty much the highlight for that studio (maybe not for DreamWorks, but definitely for Illumination). Instead of that, since this film is associated with the power house of Pixar, it allows us to compare it “like for like” with their other movies, and unfortunately, even though it’s still pretty outstanding movie, it just doesn’t compare with their “big boys”.

Overall, Onward is worth seeing. Especially if you are into Dungeons & Dragons or fantasy movies, as this film is definitely inspired by plenty of elements from modern fantasy/magic pop-culture. It’s also a cute story about what it means to have somebody by/on your side, even if that somebody isn’t your dad. If you judge this film on its own, it’s definitely a great animated movie with a nice message. If you judge it against most of Pixar’s movie catalogue, it would probably be in their bottom half of movies, quality wise. But as I mentioned before, even that half is exceptionally great. After all, Pixar’s “pretty good” is another studio’s “excellent”.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke