alex

*“i wish somebody else had found that money.”* it all goes bad so quickly. you ever have an idea, and you know it’s a bad idea? i’m talking about how immediately the thought hits you. like, you’re in the middle of verbalizing the thought, and as the words are coming out, that little voice in the back of your head is screaming at you “this is wrong. you know it’s wrong. stop.” but before you know it, the words are out. the thought has been formed. a simple plan quickly unravels itself and suddenly, nothing is as simple as it once seemed. ***sam raimi’s *a simple plan **is a movie that explores just how quickly things can go wrong, and how good people can make bad mistakes, when faced with choices they would never logically make otherwise. what starts out so easily literally falls apart the minute our characters separate, and i think it’s one of the more depressing thoughts you can have when the films ends. amazing performances from *bill paxton *as hank and *billy bob thornton *as jacob, but *thornton *really is in a league of his own. i always think it’s wild how transformative and transcendent *thornton *is. he embodies so many different roles and each one feels so genuine that it’s kind of crazy that we don’t hear more people talk about how good he is. his role here as jacob is just more of that. he perfectly plays the “simpler” of the two brothers but what i really appreciate is that he’s not dumb. several times in the movie we see this inkling that jacob knows a lot more than the people around him seem to think. it’s what makes his character all the more tragic. jacob goes through so much in the film, from having to kill lou to being an outsider to the only family he has left in hank. it really broke my heart and made me feel so much angrier with hank’s character. something i thought about quite often was how the brother’s lost the farm, and in the end it was all for naught. i’m not trying to diminish hank going off to school; education is important and i think the boys dad definitely saw it as a gateway to a better life for his children. ultimately, though, what good did it do? hank is in the same situation as his brother, albeit with a wife and child. he’s still stuck in the same dead end town making NO money, looking for a way out just like jacob. the ending makes this film even more depressing, if that can be believed. that all of this was for nothing, that all these lives were lost and all these sacrifices were made, that lives were irreparably damaged, and no one is any better for any of it. it just sucks the air out of the room. great great film.

“*sometimes in an acute situation such as this, often, what is right can take on multiple interpretations.”* **stanley tucci **isn’t in this long enough and that’s a DAMN SHAME *demi moore *really hasn’t aged a damn day either wowowow honestly just kind of a really stellar directorial debut. it makes the stakes so easy to understand but you *feel *sleazy watching all of this go down. you, and i, as the viewer, aren’t even complicit in any of this. all we are are third party viewers to just exactly what goes on over the course of just one twenty four hour cycle at the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis. the ensemble cast in this is also pretty amazing. *jeremy irons*, *zachary quinto*, *penn badgley*, *simon baker*, *paul bettany* and even, sadly, *kevin spacey*. it’s so disappointing that *spacey *ruined his career and the countless lives of others because he’s *such *a damned good actor and that’s no different here. luckily, *paul bettany *is on par with *spacey *in this film and one could argue even better. *jeremy irons *is also really great in a very small role because he plays such an unlikeable person overall. his small monologue about the meaninglessness of money at the end speaks to not only how distanced he is from the average person but also really puts into light the hypocrisy of who he is. he’s literally playing with the livelihood of others knowing that it won’t affect him, outside of maybe in the views of others, and he’s fine with that. i also really enjoyed the scene where *bettany *and *tucci *sit outside of the brownstone and talk about the different ways in which they measure the successes of their lives. something so simple as a bridge, that many of us probably would take for granted, ends up being the crowning achievement of someone else’s life. it’s just crazy. just really enjoyed every moment of this, not sure what else to say really.

*“one thing is certain though: whatever we do in this life, no one gets out of it alive.”* i mean it’s fine? i don’t see what all the hype was about, i like it about as much or maybe a bit more than the american remake. any thoughts i have about that film similarly apply here. i think that’s a good thing, probably. sometimes, most times, american remakes are really bad but the difference between the two here is minimal at best what does work better in this film is a lot of the more sentimental moments. the flashbacks are better and more fleshed out and add a lot of depth to the character of ove. i also think there’s some thing’s in here that maybe don’t translate as cleanly to an american version. parvaneh being iranian probably is a lot more crucial to the story than marisol being hispanic, although they both do serve a specific function in the movie. just a simple movie

“*teenage girls are dangerous, jonathan. they’re full of emotional violence and vituperation.”* **jenna ortega **honey, we are going to save you i promise it’s just about the biggest, absolutely dogshit waste of time to watch this. *jenna ortega *is such an amazing actress but god this film is abysmal. the fetishization of young girls and the attempted romance between a young girl and a much older man is just so damn gross *martin freeman *just kind of sucks in this too. like i don’t care about him and i don’t feel bad for him either, but it is frustrating to see some of the hypocrisy that is prevalent in this movie. also the names in this movie are absolutely insane, like who thought these names were okay? cairo sweet? joyce manor? beatrice june harker? dear lord