justinwfirestone

We should all, as movie-goers, thank Director Brady Corbet for including a 15-minute intermission within The Brutalist, for it is the right decision not only for itself, but for all lengthy movies that expect us to sit still for them. Human bodies were not designed to sit for three hours, especially in those faux-leather recliners, which despite having two or three points of articulation, seem to have no comfortable position achievable, at least not for my body. According to a brief chat with a chatbot, the last major release to have an intermission was Gandhi in 1982, a movie that could have benefitted from having two intermissions.

The Brutalist is not so brutal, nor brütal, and Adrien Brody gets to dazzle us again with his top-shelf acting. Despite its depiction of the dreariness we feel after losing nearly everything we hold dear, there are a handful of well-timed attempts for humor. The lengthy runtime does not feel tedious, perhaps only so because of the intermission, which provided exactly enough time for a beer, a cigarette, a poop-nap, a churro, and some vaping (in that order).

Each scene, up to and including the end, is filled with a strange tension which usually does not resolve or explode. The final act is slightly superfluous and the 1:40 runtime before the intermission is arguably a good time to go home, but then you would miss some wonderful moments in Italy.

The whole cast is superb, but I would not venture that Guy Pearce deserves recognition for impersonating a wealthy Foghorn Leghorn.

Alien: Romulus is supposedly a bridge between the original Alien and the original Aliens. What is most amazing, perhaps, is that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation never seems or wants to learn from past (or future) mistakes. If you pursue the ultimate weapon, and the ultimate weapon is an extremely violent (and disgusting) alien which can evolve and adapt so rapidly that there is basically no chance at all that you could ever control it, the best option is to get one or two sample aliens and perform highly dubious experiments on them through a series of breeding attempts, hoping you can convince some androids to help because aliens do not lay their eggs inside androids.

There sure is a lot of messing around in space in Alien: Romulus. The story begins with people laboring hard on a mining colony, but they are not allowed to leave. It just so happens that these people also live in a spaceship, and before you know it, they leave. Then they dock on some space station that is really poorly positioned but that's just a plot crutch so no need to dwell on that. Then they get some pods and energy things but they also, and I do not think this is a spoiler at all, they wake up some of those really violent aliens who love to put (their) things in (your) mouths.

Despite a runtime of 1:59, it sure felt every minute of well over two hours. Because the movie is so dark, you might find time for a snooze during those scenes without chest explosions.

It's quite a bit of Deadpool vs. Wolverine, of course, because why would two egomaniacal creatures who can regenerate organic tissue, who are also quite skilled at cutting apart organic tissue, agree to work together unless there were some kind of common enemy? Deadpool & Wolverine is not so much of a movie, but a plain vehicle for delivering lots of sharp stuff into squishy, bloody flesh with the occasional shredding, ripping, and twisting.

As with most of the more lighthearted Marvel fare, we get another focus-grouped Soundtrack of Our Lives, with longing for salad days creeping in at every moment. However, just as the soundtrack represents a poor mix of retro pop, the movie itself is a poor mix of upbeat comedy with maudlin nostalgia.

It's hard to deny there are a handful of funny jokes or gags, and most of the fight scenes are suitably intense. They have made another movie, people are paying to see it, it was nice to see Logan again, and Ryan Reynolds is overmuch. Why not skip any attempt at whatever the plot might be, given that I think it's just another unfathomably powerful villain bent on destroying as much as possible.

Why not make a straightforward martial-arts movie, about 90 minutes, nothing but action sequences? That's all we want, no need to haplessly slap together such quotidian and ephemeral exposition.