I managed to go see Baby Driver. I had no interest in the movie at first. It looked like your typical heist film involving fast cars and stunt driving. Well, first off, I wouldn't call it a heist movie. The heists themselves were not very interesting, and in fact, the heists were barely shown. The director took great pains to gloss over the actual heist and focus more on the aftereffects. In one scene, the crew were hitting an armored truck. Baby (the titular character) pulls forward in the car so the armored truck is no longer in frame. A moment later, Baby backs up, and you see the criminals running back to the car with one of the guards killed. This was a sticking point for Baby, as he did not prefer violence.
Nothing in this movie is unpredictable. In fact, before we decided to see it, my wife narrated the film based on the trailers only. She was pretty accurate. But the movie is good to watch. The director put a lot of love into it. You can see it in each purposeful shot. In the laundromat, the wall was full of front-loaded washers where each washer contained only one color. You had this patchwork grid behind the characters. In another shot, the camera was at the base of a building looking up. A double yellow stripe running along the building made it look like a road.
The director blended music well into the movie. A friend of mine told us as we were going in to watch the music. It didn't make sense at the time, but it became obvious during the movie. Many scenes were set to the music. Even how Baby arranges four coffee cups in a carrier was done to a beat.
You'll see nothing new in the story of Baby Driver, but I think it's worth a viewing to appreciate the direction's love of cinema.
I also finally watched the Simpsons movie. First off, I can't believe it came out 10 years ago, but that's really a me issue. I found it rather lackluster. The production quality was nice. It had a polished feel compared to the weekly episodes, but that's not why I was watching it. The humor didn't really grab me. Honestly I can't think of a scene that made me laugh. I think I chuckled a bit at the penis scene because of how absurd and sudden it was.
But the movie's quality didn't really surprise me. Recent seasons have been mediocre. Some of those episodes do give me a laugh, which is why the movie was overall disappointing.