Sara Watches Stuff

While  Project Almanac  lacks the cleanness, coherence and atmosphere of  Timecrimes ,  it at least has a bit of fun. Is it successful in at least that aspect? That’s a question I’m still unsure of the answer to. There are problems in this movie inherent to the major generic elements - not only is it a time travel movie, it’s also a found footage movie. On top of that, it’s about teenagers. From there, you should be able to work out whether or not this movie would be your cup of tea.  The first person footage is often unjustified or inconsistent (how is the video camera picking up audio of a quiet conversation metres away at a goddamn music festival?; about twenty minutes into the movie, a character finally says that from then on, they should record everything - so what was the beginning stuff?) and at times made me feel dizzy in real life. The time travel was atrocious. Even within the rules established in universe, it seemed to disregard logic at will, es...

The original Spanish title of this movie is  Los Cronocrímenes, so it will not shock you to know that this is a Spanish film about time travel! It's also directed by Nacho Vigalondo, whose 2017 movie Colossal is one I will not shut up about. Hector sees a woman undressing in the woods, goes after her, gets attacked and then takes refuge in a time machine. If you've watched any amount of movies concerning time travel, you’ll be able to see where that’s heading. Thankfully it doesn’t attempt to unravel too much philosophy in the way that time travel movies can, and it doesn’t get wrapped up in itself - it goes for a route that allows you to enjoy it without frustration, contrary to movies like  Looper  (which notably made me want to throw things afterwards). While it doesn’t break any new ground, it does do a good job with the framework that exists. The build starts slow but the strengths lie in the way new layers are revealed to the same story. The atmosphere is dist...