2019 movies watched - starting aug

Re-watched this film but I think I didn't find it as magical as the first time. Alice jumps into a mirror, ventures into another world and goes on a journey to save her good friend the madhatter. To do that, she has to go back in time via a time machine to different key episodes that resulted in his whole family death...to the bedroom where the white queen lied about eating the biscuits and caused the red queen to be scolded and ran to the town square and knocked her head causing it to swell to this size....when he showed his dad the first hat he ever made and thought he threw it away. This film is very rich in the vibrancy of the costumes and imaginative landscape and characters.

This film is one of those very slow and realistic film which I thought I would enjoy more. She went to work for a very bleak house and man, slowly cleaning and making the depressive place and her come alive through painting folk art on the walls, eventually displaying and selling them. They got married, and she got some success with her art and he cant handle it, lashed out and eventually went to fetch her back. There is very little conversation, not much depth or redeeming qualities about the man, not much connection or passion. It is just a portrayal of how one tries to live life as it is, age together day by day and eventually she dies. It is their life, in this nowhere town and place and they lived it. Perhaps a realistic depiction of many nowhere lives gone by, and it just is because there is no other way.

This has won the Oscars and apparently raved about and while I enjoyed the duration of the movie, I am not sure why it won. Basically Sally Hawkins acting was exactly the same as it is in Maudie....mute here and almost mute in the other one, same expression, some victimised look with the titled head and looking up meekly, it might as well have been she was playing the exact same character in different movies...im not really sure if she is a good actress anymore after this. What did i get from this movie....well she has the same routine daily...boiling eggs and masturbating in the tub (i thought the movie was off to a great artistic start by the beginning scenes), she works as a cleaner in this laboratory that just brought in this creature, she communicates with it by feeding it eggs, playing jazz music, saved it by stealing it from the lab and putting it in her bathtub with salt, have sex with it and eventually she got shot and injured severely by the man wanting to get it back (apparently this creature is much sought after by nations), and the creature carried her down to the sea and the last scene is the image on the cover....she opened her eyes and they hugged. So i have no idea why it won the Oscars and someone said it is the directors style and a novelty idea of human vs interspieces love.

A conceptual and clever movie which I thoroughly enjoyed. The plot is about this mundane couple - the wife lotte has pet chimps and lizards and Craig "works" as a failed puppeteer because he can be other characters. Then he found a job in a filing company, gets attracted to Maxine and discovered a secret door that he can go down and immediately see the world through an acclaimed actor John Malkovich for 15 minutes before being spit out onto the side of the road, and they start to profit of this discovery with tons of people paying to experience being JM. 1. The idea that it is so much more comfortable and confident being someone else, maybe because it is for a mere 15minute as a passive viewer, the excitement of living another persons life, the experience without the responsibility, a small piece of escapism. Somehow, I can relate to that in the identity of an aspie, the more you play it, the more it becomes a part of your existence and comfort. I find this an interesting concept that if we can adopt different personas to our advantages. Of course in the film, only craig and lotte manipulated JM, and im assuming the rest of the queue were just passive observers in his body.

2. There was a scene where John Malkovich himself went into the tunnel and became John Malkovich and everywhere he looked were different versions of JM doing different things and he was frightened and ran. To me, this is perhaps the fear of facing up to our own different personas and not knowing what to do, and running from ourselves. Its a poignant scene to reveal the discomfort in being ourselves vs the thrill of being another character.

3. Maxine was always and ultimately only attracted to JM's body when lotte is in it. The idea that it will always be the core and soul of the person one is attracted to. Craig invaded his body, fucked and married Maxine and had a successful puppeteer career using the fame of JM...he was afraid to leave JMs body because then who is he? In the end, he did. Maxine revealed to lotte that she was pregnant by her - sex while she was in JMs body and they raised a JM daughter together.

4. The group of old people continue to use the vessel of the malkovich line (in the daughter) to continue living and not die.....I take this to mean that everyone of us is a sum of other people in us.

5. I like that the title uses the actors real name John Malkovich as he is playing himself and it is a successful film vs his character Craig who is always trying to be someone else through his puppeting efforts or living JM's life and it was not a good ending.