Clifford -- it's a family movie that doesn't feel anything like a family movie, it's a comedy that doesn't feel anything like a comedy, with a sweet message about Clifford being an example of a bad child, as in the thing is don't be like Clifford who pushes people away when they interfere with his dreams, and occurs to Clifford on account of his wanting to go to Dinosaur World so badly, and you do watch him break apart older men who themselves become awful, and Mary Steenburgen is the only light in the tunnel, which is why Clifford carries his dinosaur figurine bestfriend who is also a touch wild, plus now and then Clifford plays a recorder he carries in his magical pockets. by the end of the movie he goes through a roller coaster loop without wearing safety straps and it's like goddamn i wish i had been Martin Short and the star of that movie, everybody dreaming this with me. a true, honest-to-god champion in the manchild subgenre
Palm Springs -- traditional love-conquers-all propaganda, but, also, in the timeloop subgenre . i can be seduced by niches and science shit (quantum theory here). i like the sideplot involving the sister betraying the sister. that was "successfully developed." how successfully developed is this movie? well in the big picture life is bullshit and don't die alone, so it's a less-funny-Clifford that's strong-on-romance, and both as good and bad as movies are. the highest rank in the timeloop subgenre is Groundhog Day
Je t'aime, je t'aime -- this is my own Groundhog Day, one that inspired Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and i watched it owing it to feeling lukewarm after Palm Springs, but now i can actually be easier on Palm Springs too, because they do hit differently. Je t'aime, je t'aime pretty much kills it by employing an editing method i've seen in Muriel, or the Time of Return and Don't Look Now too. the protagonist's psychology is being organized by quick-witted editing, and this is a scifi movie in which okay but get this--get this--scientists, because they understand science more than people, they consider it a good idea to test time travel that might kill somebody on a person who isn't afraid to die, so they handselect a person who recently attempted to kill himself, to relive his past year of life, thinking he isn't afraid of death, but somehow not a goddamn scientist in the room considers that he might not want to relive this particular year, and by the end he rediscovers the reason he wanted to kill himself. this also means the movie ends problem oriented rather than general existential
later i: edited out certain outlandish typos