F1

I don't have much to say about F1.  It's a nice, unassuming little movie, with some technically impressive Formula One (F1) race sequences.  Brad Pitt plays a nice guy, who you can feel good rooting for, but you'd also be OK if he doesn't win, because this is one of those movies where everyone learns that there's more to life than winning F1 races.  In no way do I mean to be dismissive of F1, it makes me happy to know that there are nice movies in the world, that don't hurt anybody's feelings, or challenge anyone's perspective, they're just nice to watch.  That said, there just isn't much to discuss after watching a movie like F1, so my mind wanders to other things...  Like, does it matter if they used practical effects for 84% of the film's visual effects, if I can't tell the difference between what is real, and what is computer generated?  Why not bump it up to an even 90%, or was 84% the sweet spot?  Then I start thinking about that Brad Pitt / Tom Cruise fight video from a few weeks ago, and wonder why Hollywood hates the idea of other people using computers to make movies, but the somehow are OK with 16% computer generated effects in F1 - isn't that a little hypocritical?  What if Youtubers promise to only use 16% fake Brad Pitt / Tom Cruise fights in their movies, would that be acceptable?  Then I think of Hollywood's adoration for Tarantino's Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, which featured Brad Pitt fighting Bruce Lee, and I wonder why Hollywood is OK with fake Brad Pitt / Bruce Lee fight scenes, but doesn't like Brad Pitt / Tom Cruise fight scenes?  I just established that it can't be only the computer generated element, so Hollywood must just have something against Tom Cruise - it's probably because he was in Eyes Wide Shut, and they don't like the attention that film has been getting as part of the broader Epstein dialogue.  And then I wonder, is perhaps Brad Pitt's character in F1 the same character that he plays in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, just later in life?  Perhaps F1 is worth a re-watch, to see if that hypothesis carries any water. 

Bugonia

I dislike Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia less than his previous films.  The Favourite, and Poor Things, were each atrocious, conflating ideas of beauty and goodness with reprehensible behavior and perversion.  Lanthimos dials things back a little for Bugonia, and by comparison to his previous work, this film feels tame.  

Bugonia is basically a post-modernist allegory; since we hurtled with reckless abandon past the point-of-no-return back in 2016, Lanthimos isn't sounding the alarm on climate change, rather he's letting us know what to expect.  But don't worry, everything will be ok, because the world will be better off without us.

Unsurprisingly, Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons both give great performances, playing their characters with serious intensity that would be perfect for a solid suspense film.  Unfortunately, the final few minutes that each actor has onscreen effectively disregard the preceding film, and we're left with a final impression that squanders all the work that the actors put in up to that point. 

If this had been my first Lanthimos film, I probably would forgive the goofy final act, but his past films tell us that this wasn't a misstep, rather he has contempt for his audience, and is a pessimist, so he believes that this is the ending that we deserve.  The question is, why do so many people seem to enjoy this type of film? - and perhaps a better question is, why do I keep watching them?