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tristanavakian
Reviews
Annette (2021)
Disappointing
I found "Annette" to be such a terrible film that I'm still recovering two days later. Thoughts:
Some of the worst songs I've ever heard. Painfully descriptive. The opening number is called "May We Start". The love song is called "We Love Each Other So Much" (and accompanies maybe the cringiest sex I've ever seen on film). The titles are bad enough, but dig this: they are also pretty much the whole lyric - sung tunelessly over and over.
And it goes from there. It's like someone took a musical that's barely started workshopping - with placeholder lyrics! - and put it on screen with a big budget and great actors. Frustrating and kind of weirdly horrible.
I love Sparks! I don't know how this could have happened. Ron Mael was always a Who fan - maybe this is his Tommy? (There are enough parallels - maybe he should've called it "Tammy".)
But he's not going with his strengths here. Best thing about Sparks were his lyrics - thinky but hilarious. Little evidence of either in this film.
Full disclosure: I bailed after an hour. Maybe it has a great ending, but at 2 and a half hours run time, I wasn't about to stick around to find out.
Could make a great game with your friends - see who stuck it out the longest.
But if you'd rather not (recommended), I'll just sum it up, so you don't have to:
La La Land with a lobotomy.
Stunt Rock (1978)
come for the dumb, stay for the crazy
I picked this up at the video store because of Tarantino's recommendation ("If you don't like (this), go f&^% yourself!") on the box... seemed like a ringing endorsement.... I was expecting something a bit more like "Death Proof"... not much actual violence in this one tho, or plot, of character, or dialogue.
Look at the poster. It's all there. Stunts, and rock. It goes back and forth. A week or so in the life of an LA band that does a crappy magic show, at a level that you'd maybe see in one of the lesser casinos off the Strip, and an Aussie stuntman new in town finding his feet... They work, they meet girls, they party. End of story.
The band obviously needed all that stuff because they are frankly second-tier, and playing a style that was already dated in 1978. It has to be said that the stunt bits in the film are genuinely spinetingling - that Aussie fellow really is something, and the film seems largely motivated by love and respect for the "art". I hung it there to see what crazy thing he'd do next. Just wish he could have found a better vehicle.