I haven’t seen River yet, but I recently watched his earlier movie Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and I thought it was great. Has a lot of heart and is charmingly low budget, but impressively well made and executed, never feels “cheap.”
I also remember really loving Primer, if you haven’t seen that. It’s intentionally obtuse, but (supposedly) has a consistent internal logic and timeline, plus the the clinically realistic mumblecore-y approach to a time travel story is pretty unique. I think I’m due for a rewatch…
I saw Nosferatu and came away pretty medium on it. Despite it not being a particularly long movie I still felt like it was about 20-25 minutes too long. There were definitely some creepy scenes and good performances but I felt a little bored throughout. I think I just wanted to be more scared, or at least have things be a little more weird and cool. Felt pretty by-the-numbers I guess.
Frankly I liked The Witch and The Lighthouse but hated Northman and now medium on Nosferatu so for me Eggers is in a weird position. As his movies get bigger I like them less.
i felt this too. i haven’t seen the lighthouse or the northman but i walked away from nosferatu thinking that it was exactly what ‘remake of 1922 nosferatu in the style of the vvitch’ would be - not a lot about it surprised me.
As for movies I’ve watched, damn, didn’t expect All we imagine as light to blow me away in such a fashion. Probably one of the most beautifully crafted films regarding image and aesthetics I’ve seen in the latest years, and what is even more impressive is one of the few movies in which the aesthetics, the lighting and such has been really thought out. It’s not really groundbreaking in terms of narrative (few things are like that nowadays), but it was a gorgeous one.
I was on board at first but it just kept getting limper and limper as it went on. Ultimately, I kinda think it’s a movie about nothing because the issues it wades into (trans narrative; cartel violence/missing person crisis) the entire time I was just like “…I don’t think that that’s how that works”
funny you say it wasn’t particularly long because, while true, to me it felt like it dragged on for double its runtime. still a good movie, but by far my least favorite by Eggers
I think the first act of Nosferatu definitely drags but it picks up once Dafoe shows up. I enjoyed it but I’m not familiar with the original and I also don’t really care about horror films at all. I didn’t like The Northman so it was a bounce back for me however
i feel the opposite of the above, with the exception of the lighthouse which i haven’t seen. i found the northman to be fully realized and the only movie outside valhalla rising that really scratches that itch. i’d also say my favorite parts of both the northman and nosferatu were just the production and set design, which i think are pretty inarguably awesome. i’m a sucker for that sort of that thing.
the pacing of nosferatu was probably bad, yeah. frankly even the dracula book goes on a bit too long.
it’s that the films are fastidious portrayals of targeted settings and genre. I appreciate that The Northman was made as though credulous of 20th century Norse culture and cosmology for example, but even so it’s not like distinctively imaginative to me. You could say the same thing about The Vvitch but that particular setting was maybe just more novel to me. This isn’t to say the guy is bad at movies or anything they’re just kind of essentially inert imo
yeah that’s probably fair–tbh i don’t remember much of the northman details lol. i’m mostly coming at this from a dumb guy opinion of thinking it looks real good on screen and am saddened there aren’t more films out there to compare it to.
this made me curious to see what the a field in england guy is up to these days and apparently he directed Meg 2: The Trench staring jason statham?
so as not to be purely negative: re-watched a couple of John Sayles films. Men With Guns pretty good although perhaps a little Kirkland brand Central America, although the universality is the point. Then Lone Star which I think is one of my favorites. I like how slow and plain/low key it is you really feel like you’re in that town. It (like probably all his films) does get maybe a little too 90’s lefty and so perhaps a little simplistic but the hangoutitude is off the charts. And Elizabeth Peña is hot as hell I know we don’t talk like that here but I won’t apologize