Change Your Image
Emptylord
Reviews
Primos (2019)
Chemistry carries the film
I was completely captivated by the chemistry between the two leads and they carried me all the way to the end of the film, even through the really contrived final act.
In my opinion, Julia's character's nose-dive at the end almost ruined the film for me. I would have personally preferred that her character was either cut or they'd pursued the fact she was aroused by the couple rather than the bizarre voodoo/satanist ritual she performed. I feel the conclusion of the film should have been an intimate scene between the couple and their aunt with them coming clean as they are kicked out due to the pre-established debt (and needing a reason for Mario to come with them) or even getting kicked out after the reveal for the same homophobic reasons as in the film, but without the melodramatic confrontation scene that undercut the moment.
Also, the sound track was amazing - I've added every track I can find to my playlist.
PS One thing that put me off ** a bit ** was the decision to have full-frontal nudity during their first sex scene. I'm not a prude ... it's just-- how to put this: they're meant to be horny teenagers and yet during this big passionate scene you can clearly see they're just not into that it.
At the End of the Day (2018)
Kind of bland. Undeserved reconciliation.
Act 1 never established the main character as being religious. He was set-up as being a depressed divorcee who's in a financial rut, who gets offered a job by someone who's presented to be a family/personal-friend and, due to his financial problems and his employer being a friend, agrees to perform some espionage to improve his financial status.
I knew nothing about the film other than I got it from a gay film distributor, and so when he asked his boss "did you know?" I honestly thought the main character was gay and that his boss had just tricked him into joining a support group. Alas, apparently the main character wasn't gay and the "new campus" plot device was real and so we continue with the espionage.
We then get our first scene of the main character actually teaching and we then learn this is a religious school that pushes anti-gay narratives, but the main character never seems to believe a word he's saying - and since we know he only got the job out of desperation, we have no reason to believe he believes a word he's saying. Nate, his student and antithesis, seems to actively enjoy tormenting his wayward professor and so I assumed this was all in jest. It wasn't until the conflict in Act 2 that apparently the obviously depressed and dispassionate main character was apparently taken seriously for everything he's said.
This isn't so bad, but then the resolution to the conflict is only resolved due to the white straight guy's rich aunt dying and leaving him a sufficient amount of money to make a big financial gesture "in apology".
Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho (2014)
Could have been a TV series!
Charming little film. The plot is significantly different from the short film it's based on that, aside from the direction of the ending, you'll not feel like you're repeating yourself by watching it. The short is definitely worth the watch as well, though, because the ending is... more cute?
My only critique with the film is how many plot-points begin but don't resolve or even explore all that much during the feature-length time limits.
Being in love with the TV series, Please Like Me, I couldn't help but imagine The Way He Looks as a similarly formatted TV series. The film was segregated quite neatly into micro-plots and settings that may have functioned better in an episodic format, as well as getting the potential for a season two (whereas I'm not certain a sequel film would be as good).