The Little Hours is packed with deliberate anachronisms and a surprisingly faithful look and feel of 1400's Italy. Its a bawdy comedy about unhappily cloistered nuns and the handsome stranger that disrupts their sanctuary that despite all the f-bombs dropped feels like an authentic sorta re-telling of what must have been the frustrations of a mundane medieval lifestyle. That its also frequently pretty funny is almost beside the point, as its more interesting as a successful experiment in contemporizing a very old story. I liked it, and the cast is killer. I now want Fred Armisen to play every exasperated Bishop part that comes down the line.
Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled isn't a very deep film, but for its purposes it doesn't have to be. Its a plenty enjoyable, simmering and sweltering bit of Southern Gothic, with great acting and astounding cinematography (worth seeing theatrically for the visuals alone). Its a classed up potboiler, one who's artistic intentions never get in the way of the good time it has to offer as it tells its story about unhappily cloistered Southern belles and the handsome stranger that disrupts their sanctuary. Colin Farrell should always keep his accent.
Baby Driver might end up being the best action movie I see all year, if not its a cinch to be the best musical tho. Like a version of Refn's Drive that wants to be fun and not disturbing, and like that kinda similar film its also a highly technically accomplished film. Its also very often laugh out loud funny without actually being a full-on comedy. Its a light weight but takes its goofy premise seriously, as fun (and very well selected) pop songs play over much of the film and syncopate to actions mundane and thrilling. Not only does the music gimmick work, the films sound design and editing is a wonder. And it took me this long to get to the perfectly pitched performances that invariably accompany some mind-bogglingly complex action scene that's well queued to a classic song by Queen, lets just say. Man, what a great film!
