But it is probably one of the more thoughtful movies I have seen in sometime about a real and growing problem in the world. People need family. What happens when for some reason or another you don't have one?
It is not a preachy movie or one with a "message" (much less The MESSAGE) but does present a solution that some people in Japan are using to fill the void.
Thanks. Rental Family is on my potential list; based on your recommendation, I’ll definitely go see it.
Hamnet is getting good reviews. I think I’ll see that one as well.
I’ve been pretty quiet on the movie ping list this year because the really good, “conservative” movies (broadly defined) that I’ve seen this year are indie character dramas that never register a pulse on FR.
But for those who can handle a quiet, introspective character drama with no toxic characters, everyone treating everyone else with care and respect, nothing freakish and with the drama coming from higher order questions (you know: boring stuff like death, loss/divorce, regret, finding the grace to forgive and the courage to move on, etc.), I will recommend The Friend, The Ballad of Wallis Island, Sentimental Value (squarely in the great Scandinavian tradition of “how can we depress you more than you already are”) and A Big, Bold Beautiful Journey (which is being poorly reviewed because of the toxicity of so many viewers and critics). So ... if you like Serenity Prayer movies, there are several good ones out there. All those I mention here were released this year.
Nouvelle Vague is a refreshingly old-fashioned, throwback film. It is totally apolitical, and a lot of it is funny in a subtle, understated way.
And I have high hopes for Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, which is supposed to hit the theaters February 13. This is a near future dystopian sci-fi comedy/action/drama/horror mashup about a man from the future who arrives late at night in a Norm’s Diner in LA to recruit an unlikely team of ad hoc absurdist operatives for a desperate, urgent mission to save humanity from a rogue AI ... with the job requiring them to cover a deadly six blocks of LA in the dead of night through escalating perils, and it must be done in the next couple of hours. Not all will survive. The man from the future knows this because there is a time loop involved, and this is his 118th attempt. And on this night, a couple of things will be different.
Based on two festival screenings, it’s said to be fast, crazy, wildly original, funny, and it’s a relatively low budget indie film because (I’m told) all of the major studios were scared off by some surprisingly dark subplots, which the film somehow makes hilariously funny.
Does anyone else have anything to suggest?