tntmaharaja Reviews

The Vast of Night (2019)

Looked nice but the dialogue wasn't for me

[3 September 2020]

Watched this on recommendation from someone who loved it, but I had a hard time going past the sound of this movie. There is an apparent plan by the director to stir up a sense of excitement through the intense way the main characters talk to each other about everyday 50's teenager stuff, that just reminded me a lot of the annoying parts of Juno.

Later in the movie there are also a couple of long, ASMR-like monologues by older characters which felt like they weren't giving me the feeling they were supposed to, but were rather creeping me out in the way most ASMR does.

I respect the effort, as I liked the subject matter and the way it was filmed, and if you're already committed to the movie it is definitely worth staying to the end, but the highlighting of the actors' voices (as well as the too-serious and naive dialogue at times) made it far less enjoyable for me than it could have been.

Before We Vanish (2017)

Cool movie, just don't sit next to a sneezing man

[5 March 2018]

I very much enjoyed "Before we Vanish" at Serbia's FEST2018, the premise of an alien invasion allowing the film to stage an entertaining but believable depiction of humans robbed of very specific parts of their brains, namely the supposed segments which would contain ideas such as "property" and "self". Despite running for over 2 hours it stayed on course til the end, even against ever-escalating violence, and delivered a nice payoff with an ending worth talking about.

The predominantly youthful cast had fun with the script, in itself already full of laughs, though it never wandered off into goofiness for the sake of it. Really my only complaint of the whole experience regarded the person sitting next to my girlfriend, a college-student-looking dude who at first glance seemed like the best type of person to be sitting next to in the theater, making use of his time before the lights went out to read a very old looking book; only to disappoint us and many others in the venue by not making it more than thirty seconds without letting out a sneeze, cough or long sniffle. Even so, this seriously ill person managed to have a few chuckles of his own, supporting the film's notion that men left without crucial concepts like "contagion", "karma" or "decency" could still live enjoyable, if oblivious, lives.