Listen now | Hello everyone, and welcome to a new month! This week we watched Dune directed by Denis Villeneuve. This is probably going to be one of the more contentious weeks of Molly Movie Club, because Casey and Anna both dislike this movie. We know this is probably not the mainstream opinion, but hopefully in this podcast we do a good enough job of explaining why we feel that way. In fact, Casey goes into so much excruciating detail about why he dislikes this movie, that we ended up making an “extended cut” subscribers-only version of this episode.
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.
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 :)
I would definitely be up for an artsy month. It is challenging for me sometimes to find the positives in artsy movies, because I tend to be very concrete even when I am engaging with things philosophically :) But I would love to do a Bergman, maybe a Lynch, etc.? I think that would be very interesting!
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.
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 :)
I would definitely be up for an artsy month. It is challenging for me sometimes to find the positives in artsy movies, because I tend to be very concrete even when I am engaging with things philosophically :) But I would love to do a Bergman, maybe a Lynch, etc.? I think that would be very interesting!
The Arrival shot at 4:38 (the field with the alien spaceship) is located 15 minutes away from where I grew up. Clouds are real, it's not CGI :)
As you know, I hated part one, but even I would be tempted to watch part two if Christopher Walken is the emperor.
I show up for Walken.