#2,420: The Shape of Water
The New 8-bit Heroes - ★½☆☆☆
I stumbled a kickstarter campaign for a software toolkit for creating NES games. The creators said they came up with it in the making of their own game, and this movie is the story of how that went. Like most video game documentaries, it's deeply unsatisfying.
I think this movie is badly written, too long, and jammed too far up the director/producer/writer/star’s dream of being a reality tv star to focus on the interesting parts of his own story, but by the end of it I guess I can kind of admire his grit.
I, Tonya - ★★☆☆☆
I can respect the craftsmanship on display in this movie, but it is simply not for me. Give Allison Janney her prize, keep working on the computers to do that creepy face swap thing, throw in all of the cues to being a piece of scrappy, down-in-the-dirt filmmaking (with huge name actors and award season aspirations) you want.
I'm not saying you shouldn't see this, I'm saying I shouldn't.
The Shape of Water - ★★★★★
Do you want deep one hybrids? Because this is how you get deep one hybrids.
The Shape of Water is this year’s La La Land insomuch as all of the hype made going to see it feel like homework. Even more so because I don’t think of myself as being a fan of Guillermo Del Toro (or any movie Sally Hawkins has ever made), but he deserves that Golden Globe for directing and any other prize he can win. I liked The Post just fine, mostly because it looks like a Spielberg movie, but the shape of water looks like cinema. It’s a beautifully done adventure. And it had more in common with La La Land than I was expecting!
Octavia Spencer is getting to be as typecast as Jessica Chastain or Matthew Goode, but maybe not in as fun of a role. I guess if you have the opportunity to be in a good movie you take it, even if you have already played that character a few times. In fact, maybe she’s exactly the same character she is in Hidden Figures, just 10 years earlier. If that’s the case then it’s great to know everything works out for her. Maybe she receives a nice settlement so she doesn't tell everyone about her creepy boss and it puts her on the career path to middle management.