Everything Everywhere All At Once

[Samwise]

Trailer.

Multiversal shenanigans from the directors of Swiss Army Man.  Features Michelle Yeoh doing kung fu stuff.  Looks fun.  I'm going to see an advance screening tonight and will report back.

[Hawkbit]

Looks like the exact right kind of fun and weird. please do report.

[Samwise]

It was indeed very fun.  

If you've watched any Rick and Morty, the parallels may be distracting, especially with one particular episode ("Rixty Minutes") that I swear they lifted specific scenes and lines of dialogue directly from as an homage.  Fans of Sense8 will also recognize the "aha, I have the perfect random life skill for this improbable situation" gag which that show was fond of.  That said, even though I couldn't not notice that stuff, it didn't feel like a pale imitation; it took the fun concepts and just ran even further with them.

The action set pieces are great.  The theater broke out in applause at the conclusion of each big fight scene.  The comic absurdity, the creativity of the fight choreography, the cinematography, all of it is great.

Short Round has better dramatic range that I would have thought for someone I haven't seen since "The Goonies".  Also really loved Stephanie Hsu (Mei from "Mrs. Maisel") in this.  Michelle Yeoh and James Hong were obviously great.

Anyway yes, recommend.  Good one to see in a theater IMO.

[lamaros]

Agree on all counts.

[Threash]

Yeah, this was an amazing movie. Best of the year so far.

[Surlyboi]

What the fuck is a Jobu Tupacky?

[Phildo]

What the fuck is a Jobu Tupacky?

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2022-04-14/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-explained-daniels-spoilers

What a fun word to say! Jobu Tupaki’s just a fun name to say. At one point we joked that we would name our baby that.

[Threash]

Oh wow, those guys directed the turn down for what music video, that makes so much sense.

[Surlyboi]

Does explain a lot.

[Khaldun]

Saw this tonight. Great film.

[MahrinSkel]

Telling a story that is deliberately disjointed and chaotic and having it just flow was quite a trick.

--Dave

[Khaldun]

Yes, exactly. There were a LOT of places where it could have gone wrong. I particularly thought the way it developed the whole "you have to do something really weird to connect to a self with a specific other aptitude needed in this situation" premise was terrific. There was a bit of chaotic, rushed exposition, some chaotic demonstrations of it that left the audience just as confused as the main character, then the main character gets the idea and starts doing it intuitively, then the hilarity of watching the Alpha team do their various weird things to power up, and then the spectacular butt plug fight.

The visual elegance of dealing with characters doing things simultaneously that affected each other in different realities was also just terrifically skilled.

I also thought the way they kept looping around and around visually and narratively to some ideas that at first appear to be random throw-aways (the awkward metaphorical reference to Ratatouille blooming later on into its sublime later development) was just sheer brilliance.

[Threash]

Raccacoonie is never going to get old.

[Surlyboi]

And the lame Chewbacca growl.

[Riggswolfe]

I finally saw this last night. One thing I wasn't expecting was the emotional impact the story had on me. I was expecting silliness and action and some mind bending stuff but I just wasn't prepared for how emotional the end of the movie was. That, to me, was the most impressive feat they pulled off. If someone told me I'd get emotional while watching someone try to stop Jobu Tobacky from going into an "everything bagel" I'd have scoffed but that's exactly what happened.

[BobtheSomething]

I finally just saw this, and I was blown away.  Easily my favorite movie in the last decade.

[Samwise]

Rewatched this recently and realized that in that first hibachi scene, well before we actually see Raccacoonie, you can clearly see the raccoon tail poking out from underneath the guy's chef hat.  I had totally missed it on first viewing because so much else was happening.

[schild]

I'm just gonna say the general Everything about this movie hinges extremely on your family and personal life.

It was fine.

Michelle Yeoh is great. Short Round was great. Stephanie Hsu was great. Jamie Lee Curtis was not.

The Hot Dog Hands evolutionary timeline is one of the worst examples of a Family Guy gag I've ever seen in a movie and people who complain about Family Guy really shouldn't have tolerated it, and yet.

Anyway, yeah. Like 7/10.

[lamaros]

I agree with all that, but still think it was better than you did

Hot dog stuff should have been dropped at the first scene at best.

The whole mother-daughter thing was played way too hard, and wtf do we care about her gf? Life isn't fixed by someone just deciding to give a shit about your first partner.

Movie was still great tho.

[Threash]

I disagree, all the absurdist stuff needed to have a payoff. Throwaway gags would have been much worse.

[Samwise]

I really liked how all the "throwaway" stuff came back.  She started out just picking the pieces out of those other universes that she needed to win fights and acting like none of the people in those universes mattered (you know, JT's whole philosophy, just not yet carried to its conclusion), and going back to those universes with the mindset that all those people did matter is what allowed her to crack through JT's all-consuming nihilism.  If it didn't have that payoff it wouldn't have risen above the level of a live-action Rick and Morty episode.

[lamaros]

Despite the hot dog hands, though. Saying a bit of it was shit doesn't mean you're throwing the rest out.

[Riggswolfe]

Despite the hot dog hands, though. Saying a bit of it was shit doesn't mean you're throwing the rest out.

Except even the hot dog hands had a payoff and arguably one of the biggest payoffs in the movie. And I'm not just talking about being able to use her feet to fight with.

[Cyrrex]

Yeah, it was ridiculous, but it mattered a lot.  I liked the movie maybe a little less than some of you, but still worth the watch.  Michelle and Short Round were excellent.

[schild]

I disagree, all the absurdist stuff needed to have a payoff. Throwaway gags would have been much worse.

The hot dog bullshit had a payoff. The ape scene. After that it became a terrible gag and engine for the mother accepting her daughter wasn't straight. A painful engine for a mid plot point at best.

Mattering didn't make it good. Chekhovs hot dog hands isn't good writing. They just really committed to the bit.

Anyway it was a fine movie, as I said before. It just wasn't a chapter in the comings of Christ as a lot of people have decided.