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I clashed with the people who I watched this movie with when it came out as they thought it was good. I had a hard time describing why I didn't like it so it's nice to hear you put into words whats wrong with it.

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Aug 6, 2022·edited Aug 6, 2022Liked by Anna Rettberg

Glad I'm not alone in seriously disliking this movie. And yes, the music was unbelievably bad.

I don't like Villeneuve's movies. There's this element of pretentious intellectualism in his work that doesn't do him any favors when his movies, once you strip away the fancier-than-average cinematography and VFX, are exceedingly conventional and safe but also, as the two of you repeatedly said in this episode about Dune, hollow(which perhaps accidentally works to his advantage on an emotional level with Sicario).

I re-watched Dune 1984 the other day and despite the unwatchable second half, I still like it. The first half has this strange and cheesy but at the same time mesmerizing fever dreamish vibe that seems to push all kinds of buttons deep in my psyche, and that alone makes it more interesting than Dune 2020 to me.

Random though: When the Baron Skarsgård float-lands in front Yueh(before killing him), I wish that he would casually bump into Yueh with his stomach. I feel like that would be such a perfect little moment for the character(as a disgusting, imposing bully) and I kept wishing for it to happen both times I saw the movie.

Finally if I could make a wish for an upcoming theme, then I'd love it if you'd take a month to watch some artsy movies. Bergman, Aleksei German, Trier, Haneke, Ozu, that kind of stuff :)

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deletedAug 5, 2022·edited Aug 5, 2022
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