Da Couch Tomato

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Highsnobiety

Da Couch Tomato Podcast, Episode 12, discussing The Irishman, the powerhouse cast, and how long running times and de-aging might be the next trends.

Background music used is "Theme for The Irishman" from The Irishman musical score by Robbie Robertson.

Hosts: Sting Lacson and Rachel
3:32 PM
The Economic Times

Da Couch Tomato Podcast, Episode 11, discussing Ford v Ferrari, the awesome sound design, and the importance of great story.

Background music used is the Ford v Ferrari musical score by Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders.

Hosts: Sting Lacson and Rachel
2:29 PM
Walt Disney Animation Studios on YouTube

Da Couch Tomato Podcast, Episode 10, discussing Frozen II, the importance of short films, and having black people in Arendelle.

Background music used is the Frozen II musical score by Christophe Beck.

Hosts: Sting Lacson and Rachel
4:31 PM
Inverse

Da Couch Tomato Podcast, Episode 9, discussing Charlie's Angels (2019), Elizabeth Banks's manly directing, and the girl power movement in Hollywood.

Background music used is the Charlie's Angels musical score by Brian Tyler.

Hosts: Sting Lacson and Rachel
12:15 PM
YouTube

Da Couch Tomato Podcast, Episode 8, discussing Netflix's Dolemite Is My Name, Eddie Murphy's stellar career, and Ruth E. Carter's costume design.

Background music used is Dolemite Is My Name's musical score by Scott Bomar.

Hosts: Sting Lacson and Rachel
6:25 PM
Now imagine this mug on an IMAX screen. 

Although not shot in IMAX, the trailers and previews kept promising how this movie should be seen in IMAX. Which I did. It actually made a difference, sure, because space movies are always more breathtaking in the IMAX format.

Okay, before anything else, let me just say this: I don't remember the film that much, because I may have slept through some parts of it. Well, I'd say my sleep lasted maybe five seconds tops, but there was a lot of it, so add that up and you get one hazy memory. Sorry, James Gray. It's not that your film was boring. I was just tired from work, maybe? I caught the last full show that day.

Anyway, let me try and give as objective a review as I can, discounting the fact that I slept through some parts of it.

Brad Pitt was good, as always. The thing with Pitt is that he always was a great actor, notwithstanding the fact that he was a Hollywood pretty boy. Since this film plays more on drama than science fiction, Pitt has had plenty of screen time to showcase his acting chops, and he did not disappoint. I think there's a subtlety required when acting in front of an IMAX camera, because even the littlest micro expressions will register on film, and overacting will be something very evident on the big screen. Brad Pitt, however, was superb.

I can hardly remember the other cast, though. I guess that's an effect of having Brad Pitt as the lead actor; he eclipses everybody else. I know Tommy Lee Jones was his dad, and that Donald Sutherland was a colonel or something. And also Ruth Negga was an astronaut on Mars or something. I don't know. I don't really remember, because like I said, I was really sleepy. Everything was like a haze.

Now let's just go to the cinematic depiction of space. Did it succeed in giving us the "most realistic depiction of space travel that's been put in a movie"? That would be debatable. In my opinion, Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity bags that title. Even Christopher Nolan's Interstellar and Ridley Scott's The Martian were better than Ad Astra. But this film does have something going for it, which is the excellent lunar chase sequence. That's something new I haven't seen before onscreen, so good job.

Anyway, I've run out of things to say. I'm just waiting for this film's video release, so I can rewatch it again. Who knows, it might actually be better the second time around.

This looks very Lego.



Ad Astra. USA/China. 2019.



Rating: 6.5/10
Lunar chase sequence: +0.1
Final rating: 6.6/10
4:25 PM
YouTube

Da Couch Tomato Podcast, Episode 7, discussing Netflix's The King, the importance of historical films, and how good special effects are those that go unnoticed.

Background music used is The King's musical score by Nicholas Brittel.

Hosts: Sting Lacson and Rachel
6:11 PM
YouTube

Da Couch Tomato Podcast, Episode 6, discussing Netflix's The Laundromat, underutilising the stellar cast, and the unusual approach used by director Steven Soderbergh.

Background music used is "Rodney Yates" by David Holmes, who also composed The Laundromat's musical score.

Hosts: Sting Lacson and Rachel
3:02 PM
YouTube

Da Couch Tomato Podcast, Episode 5, discussing Jerrold Tarog's Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral, this film's place in the trilogy, and Goyo as an old-timey fuccboi.

Hosts: Sting Lacson and Giosi Mendoza
1:12 PM
She could've come in handy during Hagibis.

Okay, so this is the new film by Makoto Shinkai, who's apparently a big name in Japan.

I guess you could say I am a casual fan of anime. Not a die-hard fan. But I do appreciate the beauty of the art form.

Story-wise, Weathering With You is a simple romance, about Hodaka, a runaway boy who becomes an apprentice in a publishing company, and Hina, an orphan girl with the power to control the weather. The film has just the right amount of supernatural to be considered as magical realism. The famous anime filmmaker, Hayao Miyazaki, has stories that are all-out in their supernatural elements. In "Weathering With You", the supernatural is subdued and dialled down, which makes for a more relatable movie, especially for older fans.

The animation is always a glorious sight to behold. Japanese animation has reached a point now where traditional hand-drawn animation and computer-generated imagery (CGI) have formed a perfect marriage, with the two different media complementing each other beautifully instead of clashing together horribly, like in the early days of CGI.

Apart from the visuals, the soundtrack also seems to be very popular, especially with the younger kids. Not a big fan of J-Pop myself, but my teenage son is, and he can sing along to the soundtrack despite probably not knowing what the lyrics mean.

All in all, a wonderful work of art, and I am seriously very curious about Makoto Shinkai's earlier film, Your Name, which I am quite eager to watch.

"I hope no one notices me scratching my butt."



Weathering With You. Japan. 2019.



Original rating: 7.9/10
Animation: +0.1
No animated sex: -0.1
Final rating: 7.9/10
6:59 PM
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