If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
December 29, 2018 2:41 AM - Subscribe

 
Best movie of the year. The acting, the cinematography, the costuming, the editing, everything.
posted by loriginedumonde at 8:23 AM on December 29, 2018


I don't know if I'd call it the best movie of the year but I did think it was exceptionally well done. The cast is stellar and the production values are impressive. At the very least Regina King should get an Oscar nod, and there will likely be other nominations as well. Barry Jenkins keeps bringing the heat.

I could see though how some older, more conservative Academy members might see this movie as Oscar bait.
posted by fuse theorem at 4:35 PM on January 3, 2019


this is a beautiful and aching movie. love the carry over of moonlight's lingering close-ups and the desperate need for human connection that they convey. intimacy separated by glass, framed by the hope or expectation of reaction

i will say it's maybe a little overly reverential of Baldwin's actual prose -- the majority of scenes that include it via voice-over already breathe better life into those words just with the cinematography, acting, editing, etc., and the couple of scenes that seem better built for the narration also feel a bit too didactic and broad in a film otherwise constructed so intimately communal and familial. (so basically they could have stripped the voiceover out entirely, changed nothing else, and it would only have improved the aspects of the film that already work well)

hard to think of another movie right now that better fits the term "bittersweet".
posted by Kybard at 6:12 PM on January 21, 2019


2018 was a great year for film but I can't think of a better one than this one. There wasn't one weak link: the acting, directing, the music and oh my god, the cinematography. This is the best photographed film that I've seen in so long. How James Laxton didn't get a nomination for an Oscar for cinematography is just baffling. This is a really nice interview with him talking about his inspirations for the shoot.
posted by octothorpe at 7:51 AM on January 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


I watched this yesterday afternoon, and although it didn't completely wreck me the way I expected it to (I didn't cry at all, actually, which surprised me), I will be thinking about this movie for months, the same way as I did with Moonlight.

I could've done without the several-minutes long sculpting scene, with shots of the wood and Fonny smoking cut with shots of him in prison (I understand the symbolism, I just wanted things to move faster at that point). Jenkins' sometimes tendency towards languid got to me a little bit, by the end.

But Tish standing in the could-be apartment with the light behind her? So, so beautiful. Broke my heart a little.
posted by minsies at 5:20 AM on January 28, 2019


Such a beautiful and heartbreaking film.
posted by orange swan at 9:08 PM on November 10, 2020


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