Film Review - Bad Times at El Royal Hotel
Oct. 14th, 2018 12:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Ugh, it happened again. Stupid DVR cut off the last five-six seconds of The Good Place. Anyone know what happened?
2. Review of Bad Times at the El Royal Hotel written and directed by Drew Goddard, starring Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm, Dakota Johnson, Chris Helmsworth, Cynthia Ervio and others.
It was okay. Saw it with Wales yesterday. Actually that was interesting in of itself.
We entertained ourselves at the start by betting on how many previews there'd be. I bet 10, she bet 7. Then after about four of them, I changed my bet to six -- mainly wishful thinking. It was eight with two commercials. So I guess I won by default?
Wales asked me if I knew what it was about. I told I didn't - it appeared to be about five people at a hotel getting into trouble, a sort noirish retro 70s flick. And had gotten great reviews. I thought it was okay. Wales liked it better than I did.
I know why the critics loved it.
Goddard has a blast playing with narrative devices and perspective in this film, he also demonstrates how not to do this and why (although I'm pretty certain that was unintentional.) It felt like Quentin Tarantino light. Lacking some of Tarantino's over-the-top violence, on-target pop culture humor and visual gags. OTOH - it was less sexist not to mention less racist than Tarantino, and really pushed a feminist message, with a lot of "Me#Too" moments, which Wales greatly appreciated, but I wasn't entirely certain were required and could have been toned down a bit.
I do however find it interesting how our media or cultural venues (film, books,theater, fashion, pop culture, etc) is swinging towards feminist and anti-racist messages, with a strong multi-cultural representation and anti-nationalistic theme. Also away from sexist, male jokes and privilege. Sort of the exact opposite of the last hundred some years, give or take. It's almost as if the poster child for white male sexist racist and basically all around asshole behavior getting elected to the US Presidency, was a HUGE wake-up call to the media to finally clean up its act. (I pick up on patterns, and this one is screaming at me from a rooftop. Look! Look! We've stopped romanticizing and focusing on the sob stories of white dickwads like Walter White and Don Draper, now we're focusing on tough cool ladies (POC and white), and POC men, who kick the Don Drapers and Walter Whites to the curb!) I mean, if you compare Bad Times at El Royal where the protagonist is a black feminist female lounge singer, to say, Pulp Fiction, where the protagonist is white balding ultra conservative sexist male dude on a Harley, it's pretty frigging clear.
Just wish Bad Times was a better movie. It drug. Wales felt the need to announce this to the theater multiple times. I remember looking at her at one point and snarking, yes, I know. For some reason the writer felt the need to give me a flashback into every featured character, and he did it right at the moment someone was in critical danger or about to get killed. Talk about slowing down the rising action. Oh no, will Miles get killed? (Now we shift to Billy's back story. By the time we return to Miles, I pretty much forgot he was in danger or why I was concerned.) Their flashbacks were mixed bag. The bank robber's was the best. The other's felt a bit cliche. I mean we have the aging bank robber (who has altzhiemer's which as a nice twist actually), the back-up singer who choose not to sleep with the sleezy British record producer (who I think was going for a Hugh Grant impression and failing badly) and was singing in a cheap lounge act instead, the hippie twenty-something gal who'd kidnapped her crazy younger sister from a deranged cult, the sharp-shooter from Vietnam (although it could have been any war really, Wales thought he was shooting his own side -- I honestly wasn't paying close attention - the moment I realized we'd flashbacked to Vietnam, my brain decided to wander off and ponder how this story was going to end and if it would end any time soon), and the fake vacuum cleaner salesman who's really an FBI agent cleaning the hotel of surveillance equipment (he was interesting, but alas short lived).
There's sly sense of humor in the story, and it did surprise me here and there. But outside of maybe two characters, I couldn't get emotionally invested. I did like the black lounge singer (Darlene Sweet, I think was her name) and the white aging priest portrayed by Jeff Bridges (Father Flynn). But I can't say I deeply cared about them.
Which is a difficulty I have with Drew Goddard's films -- they are almost too intellectual for their own good. They never quite engage my emotions. I had the same problem with Cabin in the Woods, it was great on a purely intellectual level, but I didn't care about anyone. And as a result was a bit bored. And the reason for that is all the jumping around. It's not told in a linear fashion nor from one specific point of view. Instead we jump from one character to the next. Often jumping backwards in time at critical plot point. Don't get me wrong, it's a cool narrative device and I've seen it done well elsewhere (don't exactly remember where at the moment but it may come to me), but I found it jarring here and it sort of disrupted the flow of the story in such a way that it was hard to care. I was pulled out every time I started to care what happened next or began to get invested.
As Wales put it, it needed a good editor. Actually, I'm beginning to think this is true with most movies -- they need good editors.
Overall, okay. But not worth $12.
2. Review of Bad Times at the El Royal Hotel written and directed by Drew Goddard, starring Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm, Dakota Johnson, Chris Helmsworth, Cynthia Ervio and others.
It was okay. Saw it with Wales yesterday. Actually that was interesting in of itself.
We entertained ourselves at the start by betting on how many previews there'd be. I bet 10, she bet 7. Then after about four of them, I changed my bet to six -- mainly wishful thinking. It was eight with two commercials. So I guess I won by default?
Wales asked me if I knew what it was about. I told I didn't - it appeared to be about five people at a hotel getting into trouble, a sort noirish retro 70s flick. And had gotten great reviews. I thought it was okay. Wales liked it better than I did.
I know why the critics loved it.
Goddard has a blast playing with narrative devices and perspective in this film, he also demonstrates how not to do this and why (although I'm pretty certain that was unintentional.) It felt like Quentin Tarantino light. Lacking some of Tarantino's over-the-top violence, on-target pop culture humor and visual gags. OTOH - it was less sexist not to mention less racist than Tarantino, and really pushed a feminist message, with a lot of "Me#Too" moments, which Wales greatly appreciated, but I wasn't entirely certain were required and could have been toned down a bit.
I do however find it interesting how our media or cultural venues (film, books,theater, fashion, pop culture, etc) is swinging towards feminist and anti-racist messages, with a strong multi-cultural representation and anti-nationalistic theme. Also away from sexist, male jokes and privilege. Sort of the exact opposite of the last hundred some years, give or take. It's almost as if the poster child for white male sexist racist and basically all around asshole behavior getting elected to the US Presidency, was a HUGE wake-up call to the media to finally clean up its act. (I pick up on patterns, and this one is screaming at me from a rooftop. Look! Look! We've stopped romanticizing and focusing on the sob stories of white dickwads like Walter White and Don Draper, now we're focusing on tough cool ladies (POC and white), and POC men, who kick the Don Drapers and Walter Whites to the curb!) I mean, if you compare Bad Times at El Royal where the protagonist is a black feminist female lounge singer, to say, Pulp Fiction, where the protagonist is white balding ultra conservative sexist male dude on a Harley, it's pretty frigging clear.
Just wish Bad Times was a better movie. It drug. Wales felt the need to announce this to the theater multiple times. I remember looking at her at one point and snarking, yes, I know. For some reason the writer felt the need to give me a flashback into every featured character, and he did it right at the moment someone was in critical danger or about to get killed. Talk about slowing down the rising action. Oh no, will Miles get killed? (Now we shift to Billy's back story. By the time we return to Miles, I pretty much forgot he was in danger or why I was concerned.) Their flashbacks were mixed bag. The bank robber's was the best. The other's felt a bit cliche. I mean we have the aging bank robber (who has altzhiemer's which as a nice twist actually), the back-up singer who choose not to sleep with the sleezy British record producer (who I think was going for a Hugh Grant impression and failing badly) and was singing in a cheap lounge act instead, the hippie twenty-something gal who'd kidnapped her crazy younger sister from a deranged cult, the sharp-shooter from Vietnam (although it could have been any war really, Wales thought he was shooting his own side -- I honestly wasn't paying close attention - the moment I realized we'd flashbacked to Vietnam, my brain decided to wander off and ponder how this story was going to end and if it would end any time soon), and the fake vacuum cleaner salesman who's really an FBI agent cleaning the hotel of surveillance equipment (he was interesting, but alas short lived).
There's sly sense of humor in the story, and it did surprise me here and there. But outside of maybe two characters, I couldn't get emotionally invested. I did like the black lounge singer (Darlene Sweet, I think was her name) and the white aging priest portrayed by Jeff Bridges (Father Flynn). But I can't say I deeply cared about them.
Which is a difficulty I have with Drew Goddard's films -- they are almost too intellectual for their own good. They never quite engage my emotions. I had the same problem with Cabin in the Woods, it was great on a purely intellectual level, but I didn't care about anyone. And as a result was a bit bored. And the reason for that is all the jumping around. It's not told in a linear fashion nor from one specific point of view. Instead we jump from one character to the next. Often jumping backwards in time at critical plot point. Don't get me wrong, it's a cool narrative device and I've seen it done well elsewhere (don't exactly remember where at the moment but it may come to me), but I found it jarring here and it sort of disrupted the flow of the story in such a way that it was hard to care. I was pulled out every time I started to care what happened next or began to get invested.
As Wales put it, it needed a good editor. Actually, I'm beginning to think this is true with most movies -- they need good editors.
Overall, okay. But not worth $12.