Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) is a comedy drama directed by Francis Ford Coppola — last time I watched a film of his, it was Apocalypse Now (1979). The fact that both productions are praise-worthy while being vastly different in their conflict, scale, and degree of intimacy fills me with new-found appreciation for the director.
Peggy Sue Got Married is a lot of fun. It is also, in contrast to many romantic or family comedies, very tightly-written. There is never the impression that you are watching what is technically a B movie (most of the genre falls under that category). Because you are not.
This film is genuinely consistently interesting: from the opening scene with the camera zooming out of the TV image — of Nicolas Cage, no less — through a mirror, introducing Peggy Sue (Kathleen Turner) as she is getting ready for a pivotal moment (the stakes are raised at once). The dialogue is great and comedy occurs naturally, as a 40-year-old women is reliving her senior high school year, armed with the attitude and experience of an adult.
This is less Back to the Future (1985) and more Quantum Leap (1989-1993). There are no morals, other than the suggestion that we do not know everything about other people and the opinions formed early and forever are often wrong. And you probably won't have any use for those algebra classes, so yeah.
Nicolas Cage was a curious choice for the love interest. He is not at all out of place in this film, although appears type-cast rather than chosen for his acting abilities. You can also practically see the plot of Vampire's Kiss (1989) writing itself, as Cage crouches while climbing over rooftops.
The Disaster Artist is a film directed by James Franco, starring himself and his brother Dave Franco in the main parts. (By the way, did you know that James Franco had a brother? You did? Well, you're still wrong, you cinephilic nerd. He's got two!)
The Disaster Artist is a fruit of love and care, and a painstakingly accurate recreation of what might have led to the emergence of the worst film ever made. The Disaster Artist is all about Tommy Wiseau, the person who once created The Room through the means of sheer determination and a few millions of dollars.
The Disaster Artist is about what happens when you hold onto your dream in face of reality. It is also about a huge ego, the lack of maturity, the inability to consider yourself responsible for your own actions. It is about co-dependence presented as friendship, about Hollywood and the world where everyone wants to be someone, and so everyone recognises that desire in others.
Franco produced a funny, precise, good movie that could hardly work as a stand-alone piece of art. It relies on your (perhaps retrospective) knowledge of the source material. The lines are not funny unless you've actually seen The Room. If you have though, you are in for a treat.
Also, James Franco is spectacular as Tommy Wiseau. I hope he gets an Oscar nod: while this is not the kind of film normally recognised by the Academy, it is still about Hollywood (which has always been a favourite subject with Hollywood). And there is some great acting there.
Contact (1997) by Robert Zemeckis turned out to be quite a different film from what I expected: celebrated as an intelligent take on the concept of alien life, the movie actually talks very little about alien life.
It is so much more about America, the question what place can religion have in a technologically-evolved society, whether science has the answers, whether there is objective truth — and so on. Contact manages to touch on all those topics without providing any source of stimulating progress or logical thought pattern.
Protagonist Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) starts out as a passionate, highly inquisitive scientist who has devoted her life to establishing contact (hehe) with extraterrestrial life, but, once succeeding, she arrives at 'Well, the world is clearly unknowable, every answer is valid so long as you believe in it.' Do you hear that noise? That is me screaming, as I run into the distance.
The actor credited second (and featured on the poster) is Matthew McConaughey. His character is the worst. The romantic link is forced, Palmer Joss (McConaughey) literally sabotages Dr. Arroway's (Foster) career because he cannot bear to lose her, should she die in the experiment. That is presented as love, not as a successful attempt to take agency away from an adult who, by all accounts, is much more capable than he is.
I wonder if McConaughey's character featured in the original book by Carl Sagan, and if so, what exact role he played.
What Contact succeeds in extremely well, is the representation of the glass ceiling (Dr. Arroway's former boss taking over her research once it is successful, talking over her, representing her as emotionally unstable or morally unsound) and of the American government (who start negotiations on the rights of selling alien technology, as if somehow that is an exclusively American claim; who suppress evidence during a crucial trial etc.). Jodie Foster is rather excellent, and both the intro and the opening are very well done. Too bad the rest of the film does not live up to the beginning.
This was a curious yet mildly disappointing film that was well-acted without being very well-written. As it is a book adaptation, I wonder whether original plot-lines were different: would we get to know the women of the family better? Would Gilbert not having an insurance have any weight? Would there really be that much of a romantic development? (For all the screen time dedicated to it, the relationship between Becky and Gilbert contains very little – apart from an early version Manic Pixie Dream Girl.)
Leonardo DiCaprio is great in the part of the younger brother. In fact, this film goes to prove my prior belief wrong: I have been under the impression that DiCaprio can only portray physical conditions (e.g. the suffering in The Revenant), not emotional ones.
Darlene Cates is a presence, with her silence or words always dominating the scene. I rather with we had more of her, as opposed to the repeated visions of Gilbert (Depp) staring soulfully into the distance, as the wind plays with his locks the fake shade or red.
Also spotted: a young John C. Reilly, a Nikolaj Coster-Waldau look-alike, and a town where getting their own Burger Barn just might be the biggest event of the year.
It is seldom that a film stimulates such a lively discussion afterwards and, while addressing the problems in detail, still leaves them without any clear solutions. I suppose, there are no clear solutions to the issues of parenting, mental illness, and survival.
Amazing performances from Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller – as well as the younger actors playing Kevin as a child. We Need to Talk About Kevin is both a very intelligent and masterful cinematic piece and a suggestion that placing blame on a single person (be they the son or the mother in this particular story) is a deeply flawed approach.
While the emotions of the parents who had lost their children in the school shooting are to be expected, their treatment of Eva does not come across as just. Here is a woman whose son is alive yet lost, and her family is gone forever, and finding a scapegoat accomplishes nothing (but yet she welcomes that blame).
Parenting can be an isolating and unhappy experience, and We Need to Talk About Kevin is just a glimpse into the very traditional formula of Breadwinner Man and Homemaker Woman. The experiences of your partner might be different from your own, and you need to trust their word. When Eva's husband Franklin wakes up baby Kevin – after we had just watched the child cry incessantly for minutes, days, ages, after Eva pleaded with Franklin not to touch the baby – just because he's home now and he would like to play with his son, not taking into account what that means for the child and the mother later that same night – when that happened, I might have screamed at the screen in shared frustration.
I am definitely planning on reading Lionel Shriver's book as well. The popular joke going with this film is that you are supposed to never want to have children once you've seen it. Instead, it rather made me feel like I never want to not have a support system, should I be responsible for a child.
So good that postpartum depression is a recognised condition, so good that practicing self-care is gradually being accepted as the norm, so good that there are ways to prevent everything going so bad.
I really wanted to love this film. I remember seeing the trailer, and that trailer promised everything I enjoy about heist films, plus great music. It looked like Baby Driver would be an updated cheerful cross between True Romance (1993, written by Tarantino) and Drive (2011).
Baby Driver certainly references both, as well as an array of other films, from Singin' in the Rain (1952) to Bonnie and Clyde (1967). One of its first sequences also contains one of the most ingenious car chases I have ever seen on screen. The film's weakness though is that it hardly elevates above an homage. There are occasional brilliant lines, but every character is an amalgamation of other characters you had previously seen in that position. There is an inherent irony to that approach, but there is also the quality of being secondary, referential, original insofar as a collage can be original. Postmodernism gone mad.
Yet, Baby Driver is done with great love and care. It is enjoyable.It has style. It has a great cast. It's not too bad with pacing, although the emotional culmination happens long before the end. My favourite parts of the film were, in no particular order, the shot of three red cars on the highway, Darling, and Baby's adoptive father. Shame none of them were supposed to be of utmost importance. Shame some of the scenes looked like disregarded footage from Lana Del Rey's videos.
When my partner and I looked at each other after the end credits, his face shone with happiness and I said, 'Goddamn'. Goddamn, movie. You were supposed to be it. We had this beautiful date with white wine and oysters, and you stood up, like a gentleman, when I need to leave for the ladies to freshen up my make-up, and your fingers were not sweaty, but warm and reassuring. We look so good together, movie. I love your haircut. I just do not fancy you at all.
My opinion about Xala comes from someone who has been watching films regularly and extensively, undertook formal education on the subject, and yet has not really experienced African cinema. The productions coming from that continent remain for me largely unknown, as they are not well (at all) represented outside Africa. I did not quite know what to expect; I was half-wondering whether it would be like encountering Kurosawa's films for the first time and being surprised and transfixed by their pacing. Or sensing the difference between American and European cinema, where the former prefers epos and the latter favours humanism. (By the way, Soviet cinema was very much like American. The reasons were different, as Hollywood was trying to sell tickets as widely as possible, and Soviet system was ideologically set on social realism, but the results were alike.)
It turns out, African cinema is unlike anything else I know, very approachable, and somewhat disturbing. This is, of course, based on Xala; I am sure there is a great genre and tone variety within the continent.
The story told by Sembène in this film is quite simple and not at all the interesting part; the film is not about 'what', it's about 'how'. It is the combination of traditional local beliefs, symbolism used both 'as is' and in a cinematic fashion, and distinct characters which make Xala fascinating. While depicting a very patriarchal society (polygamy is at heart of one of the main conflicts), Sembène created a gallery of strong female types, each of whom governs the screen they share with the male characters.
There is a weird combination of a socially-conscious approach (Sembène was a Communist and trained as director in Moscow) and the grotesque. The editing leaves a few questions as the narrative seems to be cut and patched together at will, with some of the characters re-appearing in place B long after they had left it. The best feature, for me, was the gaze: we are seeing the characters at level with ourselves, there is enough detail to ground this in a very credible reality, the viewer is more of a witness than a spectator. That excludes heavy judgement even when that is suggested by the plot.
While not a perfect film (see David Thewlis’s head superimposed over an underwear model’s body and, more importantly, dramatic structure), Wonder Woman is so very good. Gal Gadot is lovely and credible, and I cannot remember when a female lead excited me that much — not since Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider (2001). Not that there is a strong tradition of female leads in action films in the first place, which is why Wonder Woman is so important.
Appearing at this point in the cinematic universe of DC, the story cannot escape the politics of gender, diversity (of all kinds), male gaze, and emancipation. There is an awareness to it within the film, but I wonder if the result is a first step in the right direction, rather than anything like culmination. Diana’s journey from adolescence (Themyscira) to forming and finding her destiny (the passage through No Man’s Land and the battle with Ares) is taking place in a patriarchal world, one that is necessarily at odds with her homeland. This is acknowledged to a degree (London scenes, the mention of women’s vote), but as a side-note. Diana is treated very much like an exception: she has to continuously prove more competent than the men to be seen as their equal. She does not really have a problem doing that, so the approach is not called into question.
I have come across criticisms of the romantic plotline, saying that the attraction to someone Diana spent a week with would not be her main motivation, when she had her aunt and mentor to avenge. Not to mention fulfilling the mission she had been training for her entire life. I absolutely agree, but the instant romance has been a plot device for a very, very long time. While it would be nice to have action films that are emotionally accurate, I do not think that the application of the trope in Wonder Woman is to undermine the protagonist’s independence and the suggest the overwhelming importance of dick.
I wish we spent more time on Themyscira. It looked like all the fun from Xena: Warrior Princess, plus armadillos.
It is a very good film. I recall originally coming out of the cinema theatre so thoroughly impressed and entertained; and that experience prevails, if at a lesser degree, during a home viewing.
One of the problems with the production (universally shared by all recent action adventures) is its pacing: there is not enough breathing time between sequences. While not necessarily suffering from lack of dialogue, Guardians of the Galaxy could spend a bit more time with its breathtaking space landscapes. This criticism comes up after a while though; the immersive quality of a cinema viewing provides a better vehicle for a roller-coaster ride. It is easier to ignore an absence when you are constantly bombarded by visuals and there is nothing between you and the screen that is as black and wide as the night itself.
If Social Network had a perfect trailer (that the film did not quite amount to), then Guardians of the Galaxy had a perfect soundtrack. I might have listened to it on repeat when the film came out in 2014. Where Suicide Squad went so very wrong, opting for the cop-out way of providing a massive hit after a massive hit (we are Warner Bros. and we have all the rights), not spending any time with the characters, relying on the external lyrics to provide their backgrounds, Guardians of the Galaxy was lovely, and clever, and delicate. Some of the tracks that had been chosen are cheesy and funny, but such is the nature of the film, too.
The best part Bradley Cooper ever played. My favourite demon tree. An homage to the 1980's without being an exercise in nostalgia or retrofuturism. Simply, a wonderful story about how a bunch of outcasts save the world. Gah, will happily watch again.
This was my second time seeing this film, and I have enjoyed it at least as much: the romance becomes less of a focus though, as the subplots and secondary characters become more of a nuanced revelation. It is a beautiful film, and a Hollywood companion to A Brief Encounter, in that both are delicate war-time pieces about unfulfilled relationship. An absence of a happy ending can still be light and satisfying.
The dialogue is superb, the acting is delightful. The sets bring to mind Indiana Jones and Poirot, rather than reality, but an authenticity is achieved through the plethora of languages and destinies thrown together in Casablanca. I think there are at least five different languages spoken throughout the film.
If Bogart in Big Sleep was a curious case for the attractive male lead, in Casablanca he is positively magnetic. Some of the acting does feel outdated and overdramatic, but the main turns and twists of the picture remain understated, balancing that.
I would like to see more of Ingrid Bergman and to find out who's responsible for that script. I feel like that could be a beginning of a beautiful friendship.
This was an experience of a film. The kind where, after watching, my partner and I both opened the relevant Wikipedia article with its very detailed synopsis to confirm: yes, that was, indeed, what we had seen. There was that bit with armpit hair, and that part with the clerics, and the stripy box, and–
Intended as a slap, a provocation, a smirk into the stupidly-round face of bourgeoisie, Un Chien Andalou is a technical feat and, in places, absurd to the point of being funny. Directed by young Luis Buñuel and written by young Salvador Dali, it is supposed to satirise the art contemporary to it, but ends up becoming a part of the cinematic canon.
It is great to once again see the diversity of silent film and the extent it had developed in the late 1920s. Another point is the fashion, the interiors, the French streets as they existed at the time. I am so used to seeing all of that recreated on film, but here is genuine article!
I have come across the notion that music videos owe their style to Un Chien Andalou. Perhaps. There, certainly, are similarities. In my own turn, I rather started thinking about David Lynch and his taste for the absurd and horrific.
An absolutely stunning film, where every frame is worthy of a central place on your wall. I am yet to see Virgin Suicides, but I expect it to have parts that mirror bits of Marie Antoinette (at the very least, Kirsten Dunst in the grass, looking at bugs, escaping people).
Sofia Coppola has a talent for giving you the emotional truth, for using just enough strokes to suggest the whole painting, for kickass soundtracks. It would be worthwhile to compare the historical narrative with the cinematic one here, to not treat the latter as factual, but Coppola's Marie Antoinette was never quite given the time or the reason to grow up. Life is beautiful and full of rules and restrictions, and your only freedom is in the matters which are considered frivolous.
The film was criticised for not providing enough of a historical background, for having the French Revolution just happen. I would think that is a conscious decision: whether the king and the queen were actually drinking tea on a lawn as the Bastille prison was taken over is irrelevant. It is through the omission of other characters, by surrounding the protagonist exclusively with aristocracy and servants (sometimes, aristocratic servants) that we recognise her isolation and the inability to comprehend what's happening outside the court.
The film plays around with the famous saying about cake, pointing out that Marie Antoinette had never actually said that, but providing enough images of pastries to preserve the connection. I love eclairs; should it be a wonder that I loved this?
What We Do in the Shadows is one of my favourite belated discoveries. A delightful mix of mockumentary and comedy horror, the film uses recognisable structural elements of both genres, while creating something fresh and very, very funny.
Co-directed by Jemaine Clement (half of the Flight of the Concords duo) and Taika Waititi (who previously made Eagle vs Shark), the feature is an unusual take on the supernatural, vampires and werewolves foremost. When four undead with very different personalities are flatmates in a suburban house in modern Wellington, their life is full of problems: Who has been slacking on the house cleaning duties? Why the bathroom is still covered in blood? How does one go clubbing if one always needs to be invited to get inside a building?
The dialogue is full of gems, my favourite being 'Werewolves, not swear wolves', the line repeated by the pack of ordinary-looking supernatural beings whenever one of them says 'fucking'.
Concentrated on the domestics and the daily life, What We Do in the Shadows is also about friendship and romance. It succeeds in showing uncommon sides of both, while remaining delightful and universally mocking – the opposite of the 'vampires suck' criticism that appeared post-Twilight.
There is a rumour a sequel is in the making. I shall remain hopeful.
The film is based on a play of the same name (one that Denzel Washington and Viola Davis have already performed in), and that brings the quality of sharpness and precision to the dialogue, as well as constricts the settings. The acting in Fences is beautiful, but the picture ends up being a character study and social commentary, rather than a solid cinematic experience.
The emotional culmination precedes the finale by so much that the ending feels lacklustre and disengaging. The protagonist, Washington's character, is allowed the complexity that no one else in the film seems to have. While Davis's heroine provides insights into the position of a Black housewife in the 1950s Pittsburgh, her place is in the background, secondary, quiet and suffering. That might be a meaningful artistic choice in itself, but it creates imbalance as far as the main characters are concerned.
Two other works came to my mind during the showing: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and Solange's A Seat at the Table. Both are about the pervasive unfairness and inherited social structure of the Black slice of the American society. And while the men 'got a lot to be mad about', the women are not even allowed to be angry.
Certainly, a fascinating cultural work, but the uneven dramatic structure of Fences does it a disservice.
The film leaves a mixed impression: some of the battle scenes are intense and powerful, but the narrative seems lopsided. For a story about Andrew Garfield's character, it only follows that plotline when convenient, eagerly abandoning Private Doss for the aforementioned battle moments (in which, of course, he could not quite participate, refusing to use weapons).
The best-written arc is that of protagonist's father, played by Hugo Weaving. Acting pretty much starts and ends with him.
Vince Vaughn as Sergeant Howell is weird casting. I don't think it's bad, but it's Vince Vaughn and yet you are supposed to take him seriously, and that works about as well as an evil Charlie Chaplin.
Hacksaw Ridge is told as a story of simple people in difficult circumstances. No one grows, no one changes. Desmond Doss never doubts his faith, despite going through a slice of hell. He seems to be okay when attributing the 'Do not kill' commandment exclusively to himself. I wish we knew how he reconciled the war going around him and what the difference was, in his eyes, between the Americans killing the Japanese, and the Japanese killing the Americans.
Altogether, the film left me with a number of questions. As in, did the rats appear on battlefields so quickly? How come we (the American army) are the good guys, throwing napalm around? If the story is historically accurate, how come the troops were forced to take Hacksaw Ridge 8 (sic!) times? We saw them succeed on the 7th attempt, and then abandon the location again, not getting reinforcements. Surely that is some general somewhere being bad at their job. Were there really no women or people of colour in the American army? What did they do with them then?
While I can't say Audrie & Daisy is a cinematic masterpiece, I wish it were prescribed watching at schools. Maybe in colleges, too. Maybe further on as well, because rape culture is not a phenomenon exclusive to teenagers.
The subject of rape, while always horrible, is hardly surprising. What remains shocking, is the reaction so often exhibited by people in power, by strangers and by-standers. A vicious, toxic tradition of victim-blaming, of silencing the survivors, of refusing to hear, understand, empathise or change.
The 'boys will be boys' and 'she was asking for it'. The opposition of successful abusers, progressing in their studies and career, vs. struggling and often suicidal survivors. As if the tragedy that happened to those young women, that has once and forever happened to them, that changed their attitude towards everything, from life expectations to their very own bodies – as if that was not enough, and the lack of support from their peers is also, somehow, their fault.
In sex, only ever enthusiastic 'Yes' counts as 'Yes'. Taking advantage of a vulnerable person is not something that should be tolerated or encouraged, especially not when the effects are so enduring, dangerous, life-threatening.
I shall write about the film itself for Chance & Physics, but for now I am just angry and sad. We have so much further to go as a society, as a world.
I will carry my thoughts in my mouth for a while, until they develop further, but impressions will do for now:
I wish there was more than the 'rags to riches' plot. The journey is great, but the ending (entirely deserved and entirely predictable) should have also contained a reference to systemic problems. Not everyone can be a child prodigy. Not everyone is lucky enough to have support and encouragement to try — and keep trying! — their odd thing.
Extreme poverty. Being rich, on the other hand, automatically makes you an owner of all the comforts and commodities from the 1970's.
Am now reliving the days when I used to competitively play checkers, age 6 to 12. By the way, tournaments are not nearly as exciting for spectators as in the film: a single game can go on for up to 6 hours, and most of that time is spent thinking, no pieces moving at all.
Am also feeling extremely humbled, which, I suppose, is the idea since the film was produced by Disney and for young Western audiences. Undoubtedly, simplifying the narrative.
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Movie comment on Peggy Sue Got Married
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Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) is a comedy drama directed by Francis Ford Coppola — last time I watched a film of his, it was Apocalypse Now (1979). The fact that both productions are praise-worthy while being vastly different in their conflict, scale, and degree of intimacy fills me with new-found appreciation for the director.Peggy Sue Got Married is a lot of fun. It is also, in contrast to many romantic or family comedies, very tightly-written. There is never the impression that you are watching what is technically a B movie (most of the genre falls under that category). Because you are not.
This film is genuinely consistently interesting: from the opening scene with the camera zooming out of the TV image — of Nicolas Cage, no less — through a mirror, introducing Peggy Sue (Kathleen Turner) as she is getting ready for a pivotal moment (the stakes are raised at once). The dialogue is great and comedy occurs naturally, as a 40-year-old women is reliving her senior high school year, armed with the attitude and experience of an adult.
This is less Back to the Future (1985) and more Quantum Leap (1989-1993). There are no morals, other than the suggestion that we do not know everything about other people and the opinions formed early and forever are often wrong. And you probably won't have any use for those algebra classes, so yeah.
Nicolas Cage was a curious choice for the love interest. He is not at all out of place in this film, although appears type-cast rather than chosen for his acting abilities. You can also practically see the plot of Vampire's Kiss (1989) writing itself, as Cage crouches while climbing over rooftops.
Movie comment on The Disaster Artist
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The Disaster Artist is a film directed by James Franco, starring himself and his brother Dave Franco in the main parts. (By the way, did you know that James Franco had a brother? You did? Well, you're still wrong, you cinephilic nerd. He's got two!)The Disaster Artist is a fruit of love and care, and a painstakingly accurate recreation of what might have led to the emergence of the worst film ever made. The Disaster Artist is all about Tommy Wiseau, the person who once created The Room through the means of sheer determination and a few millions of dollars.
The Disaster Artist is about what happens when you hold onto your dream in face of reality. It is also about a huge ego, the lack of maturity, the inability to consider yourself responsible for your own actions. It is about co-dependence presented as friendship, about Hollywood and the world where everyone wants to be someone, and so everyone recognises that desire in others.
Franco produced a funny, precise, good movie that could hardly work as a stand-alone piece of art. It relies on your (perhaps retrospective) knowledge of the source material. The lines are not funny unless you've actually seen The Room. If you have though, you are in for a treat.
Also, James Franco is spectacular as Tommy Wiseau. I hope he gets an Oscar nod: while this is not the kind of film normally recognised by the Academy, it is still about Hollywood (which has always been a favourite subject with Hollywood). And there is some great acting there.
Movie comment on Contact
kottonen
Contact (1997) by Robert Zemeckis turned out to be quite a different film from what I expected: celebrated as an intelligent take on the concept of alien life, the movie actually talks very little about alien life.It is so much more about America, the question what place can religion have in a technologically-evolved society, whether science has the answers, whether there is objective truth — and so on. Contact manages to touch on all those topics without providing any source of stimulating progress or logical thought pattern.
Protagonist Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) starts out as a passionate, highly inquisitive scientist who has devoted her life to establishing contact (hehe) with extraterrestrial life, but, once succeeding, she arrives at 'Well, the world is clearly unknowable, every answer is valid so long as you believe in it.' Do you hear that noise? That is me screaming, as I run into the distance.
The actor credited second (and featured on the poster) is Matthew McConaughey. His character is the worst. The romantic link is forced, Palmer Joss (McConaughey) literally sabotages Dr. Arroway's (Foster) career because he cannot bear to lose her, should she die in the experiment. That is presented as love, not as a successful attempt to take agency away from an adult who, by all accounts, is much more capable than he is.
I wonder if McConaughey's character featured in the original book by Carl Sagan, and if so, what exact role he played.
What Contact succeeds in extremely well, is the representation of the glass ceiling (Dr. Arroway's former boss taking over her research once it is successful, talking over her, representing her as emotionally unstable or morally unsound) and of the American government (who start negotiations on the rights of selling alien technology, as if somehow that is an exclusively American claim; who suppress evidence during a crucial trial etc.). Jodie Foster is rather excellent, and both the intro and the opening are very well done. Too bad the rest of the film does not live up to the beginning.
Movie comment on What's Eating Gilbert Grape
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This was a curious yet mildly disappointing film that was well-acted without being very well-written. As it is a book adaptation, I wonder whether original plot-lines were different: would we get to know the women of the family better? Would Gilbert not having an insurance have any weight? Would there really be that much of a romantic development? (For all the screen time dedicated to it, the relationship between Becky and Gilbert contains very little – apart from an early version Manic Pixie Dream Girl.)Leonardo DiCaprio is great in the part of the younger brother. In fact, this film goes to prove my prior belief wrong: I have been under the impression that DiCaprio can only portray physical conditions (e.g. the suffering in The Revenant), not emotional ones.
Darlene Cates is a presence, with her silence or words always dominating the scene. I rather with we had more of her, as opposed to the repeated visions of Gilbert (Depp) staring soulfully into the distance, as the wind plays with his locks the fake shade or red.
Also spotted: a young John C. Reilly, a Nikolaj Coster-Waldau look-alike, and a town where getting their own Burger Barn just might be the biggest event of the year.
Movie comment on We Need to Talk About Kevin
kottonen
It is seldom that a film stimulates such a lively discussion afterwards and, while addressing the problems in detail, still leaves them without any clear solutions. I suppose, there are no clear solutions to the issues of parenting, mental illness, and survival.Amazing performances from Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller – as well as the younger actors playing Kevin as a child. We Need to Talk About Kevin is both a very intelligent and masterful cinematic piece and a suggestion that placing blame on a single person (be they the son or the mother in this particular story) is a deeply flawed approach.
While the emotions of the parents who had lost their children in the school shooting are to be expected, their treatment of Eva does not come across as just. Here is a woman whose son is alive yet lost, and her family is gone forever, and finding a scapegoat accomplishes nothing (but yet she welcomes that blame).
Parenting can be an isolating and unhappy experience, and We Need to Talk About Kevin is just a glimpse into the very traditional formula of Breadwinner Man and Homemaker Woman. The experiences of your partner might be different from your own, and you need to trust their word. When Eva's husband Franklin wakes up baby Kevin – after we had just watched the child cry incessantly for minutes, days, ages, after Eva pleaded with Franklin not to touch the baby – just because he's home now and he would like to play with his son, not taking into account what that means for the child and the mother later that same night – when that happened, I might have screamed at the screen in shared frustration.
I am definitely planning on reading Lionel Shriver's book as well. The popular joke going with this film is that you are supposed to never want to have children once you've seen it. Instead, it rather made me feel like I never want to not have a support system, should I be responsible for a child.
So good that postpartum depression is a recognised condition, so good that practicing self-care is gradually being accepted as the norm, so good that there are ways to prevent everything going so bad.
Movie comment on Baby Driver
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I really wanted to love this film. I remember seeing the trailer, and that trailer promised everything I enjoy about heist films, plus great music. It looked like Baby Driver would be an updated cheerful cross between True Romance (1993, written by Tarantino) and Drive (2011).Baby Driver certainly references both, as well as an array of other films, from Singin' in the Rain (1952) to Bonnie and Clyde (1967). One of its first sequences also contains one of the most ingenious car chases I have ever seen on screen. The film's weakness though is that it hardly elevates above an homage. There are occasional brilliant lines, but every character is an amalgamation of other characters you had previously seen in that position. There is an inherent irony to that approach, but there is also the quality of being secondary, referential, original insofar as a collage can be original. Postmodernism gone mad.
Yet, Baby Driver is done with great love and care. It is enjoyable.It has style. It has a great cast. It's not too bad with pacing, although the emotional culmination happens long before the end. My favourite parts of the film were, in no particular order, the shot of three red cars on the highway, Darling, and Baby's adoptive father. Shame none of them were supposed to be of utmost importance. Shame some of the scenes looked like disregarded footage from Lana Del Rey's videos.
When my partner and I looked at each other after the end credits, his face shone with happiness and I said, 'Goddamn'. Goddamn, movie. You were supposed to be it. We had this beautiful date with white wine and oysters, and you stood up, like a gentleman, when I need to leave for the ladies to freshen up my make-up, and your fingers were not sweaty, but warm and reassuring. We look so good together, movie. I love your haircut. I just do not fancy you at all.
Movie comment on Xala
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My opinion about Xala comes from someone who has been watching films regularly and extensively, undertook formal education on the subject, and yet has not really experienced African cinema. The productions coming from that continent remain for me largely unknown, as they are not well (at all) represented outside Africa. I did not quite know what to expect; I was half-wondering whether it would be like encountering Kurosawa's films for the first time and being surprised and transfixed by their pacing. Or sensing the difference between American and European cinema, where the former prefers epos and the latter favours humanism. (By the way, Soviet cinema was very much like American. The reasons were different, as Hollywood was trying to sell tickets as widely as possible, and Soviet system was ideologically set on social realism, but the results were alike.)It turns out, African cinema is unlike anything else I know, very approachable, and somewhat disturbing. This is, of course, based on Xala; I am sure there is a great genre and tone variety within the continent.
The story told by Sembène in this film is quite simple and not at all the interesting part; the film is not about 'what', it's about 'how'. It is the combination of traditional local beliefs, symbolism used both 'as is' and in a cinematic fashion, and distinct characters which make Xala fascinating. While depicting a very patriarchal society (polygamy is at heart of one of the main conflicts), Sembène created a gallery of strong female types, each of whom governs the screen they share with the male characters.
There is a weird combination of a socially-conscious approach (Sembène was a Communist and trained as director in Moscow) and the grotesque. The editing leaves a few questions as the narrative seems to be cut and patched together at will, with some of the characters re-appearing in place B long after they had left it. The best feature, for me, was the gaze: we are seeing the characters at level with ourselves, there is enough detail to ground this in a very credible reality, the viewer is more of a witness than a spectator. That excludes heavy judgement even when that is suggested by the plot.
Movie comment on Wonder Woman
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While not a perfect film (see David Thewlis’s head superimposed over an underwear model’s body and, more importantly, dramatic structure), Wonder Woman is so very good. Gal Gadot is lovely and credible, and I cannot remember when a female lead excited me that much — not since Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider (2001). Not that there is a strong tradition of female leads in action films in the first place, which is why Wonder Woman is so important.Appearing at this point in the cinematic universe of DC, the story cannot escape the politics of gender, diversity (of all kinds), male gaze, and emancipation. There is an awareness to it within the film, but I wonder if the result is a first step in the right direction, rather than anything like culmination. Diana’s journey from adolescence (Themyscira) to forming and finding her destiny (the passage through No Man’s Land and the battle with Ares) is taking place in a patriarchal world, one that is necessarily at odds with her homeland. This is acknowledged to a degree (London scenes, the mention of women’s vote), but as a side-note. Diana is treated very much like an exception: she has to continuously prove more competent than the men to be seen as their equal. She does not really have a problem doing that, so the approach is not called into question.
I have come across criticisms of the romantic plotline, saying that the attraction to someone Diana spent a week with would not be her main motivation, when she had her aunt and mentor to avenge. Not to mention fulfilling the mission she had been training for her entire life. I absolutely agree, but the instant romance has been a plot device for a very, very long time. While it would be nice to have action films that are emotionally accurate, I do not think that the application of the trope in Wonder Woman is to undermine the protagonist’s independence and the suggest the overwhelming importance of dick.
I wish we spent more time on Themyscira. It looked like all the fun from Xena: Warrior Princess, plus armadillos.
Movie comment on Guardians of the Galaxy
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It is a very good film. I recall originally coming out of the cinema theatre so thoroughly impressed and entertained; and that experience prevails, if at a lesser degree, during a home viewing.One of the problems with the production (universally shared by all recent action adventures) is its pacing: there is not enough breathing time between sequences. While not necessarily suffering from lack of dialogue, Guardians of the Galaxy could spend a bit more time with its breathtaking space landscapes. This criticism comes up after a while though; the immersive quality of a cinema viewing provides a better vehicle for a roller-coaster ride. It is easier to ignore an absence when you are constantly bombarded by visuals and there is nothing between you and the screen that is as black and wide as the night itself.
If Social Network had a perfect trailer (that the film did not quite amount to), then Guardians of the Galaxy had a perfect soundtrack. I might have listened to it on repeat when the film came out in 2014. Where Suicide Squad went so very wrong, opting for the cop-out way of providing a massive hit after a massive hit (we are Warner Bros. and we have all the rights), not spending any time with the characters, relying on the external lyrics to provide their backgrounds, Guardians of the Galaxy was lovely, and clever, and delicate. Some of the tracks that had been chosen are cheesy and funny, but such is the nature of the film, too.
The best part Bradley Cooper ever played. My favourite demon tree. An homage to the 1980's without being an exercise in nostalgia or retrofuturism. Simply, a wonderful story about how a bunch of outcasts save the world. Gah, will happily watch again.
Movie comment on Casablanca
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This was my second time seeing this film, and I have enjoyed it at least as much: the romance becomes less of a focus though, as the subplots and secondary characters become more of a nuanced revelation. It is a beautiful film, and a Hollywood companion to A Brief Encounter, in that both are delicate war-time pieces about unfulfilled relationship. An absence of a happy ending can still be light and satisfying.The dialogue is superb, the acting is delightful. The sets bring to mind Indiana Jones and Poirot, rather than reality, but an authenticity is achieved through the plethora of languages and destinies thrown together in Casablanca. I think there are at least five different languages spoken throughout the film.
If Bogart in Big Sleep was a curious case for the attractive male lead, in Casablanca he is positively magnetic. Some of the acting does feel outdated and overdramatic, but the main turns and twists of the picture remain understated, balancing that.
I would like to see more of Ingrid Bergman and to find out who's responsible for that script. I feel like that could be a beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Movie comment on Un chien andalou
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This was an experience of a film. The kind where, after watching, my partner and I both opened the relevant Wikipedia article with its very detailed synopsis to confirm: yes, that was, indeed, what we had seen. There was that bit with armpit hair, and that part with the clerics, and the stripy box, and–Intended as a slap, a provocation, a smirk into the stupidly-round face of bourgeoisie, Un Chien Andalou is a technical feat and, in places, absurd to the point of being funny. Directed by young Luis Buñuel and written by young Salvador Dali, it is supposed to satirise the art contemporary to it, but ends up becoming a part of the cinematic canon.
It is great to once again see the diversity of silent film and the extent it had developed in the late 1920s. Another point is the fashion, the interiors, the French streets as they existed at the time. I am so used to seeing all of that recreated on film, but here is genuine article!
I have come across the notion that music videos owe their style to Un Chien Andalou. Perhaps. There, certainly, are similarities. In my own turn, I rather started thinking about David Lynch and his taste for the absurd and horrific.
Movie comment on Marie Antoinette
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An absolutely stunning film, where every frame is worthy of a central place on your wall. I am yet to see Virgin Suicides, but I expect it to have parts that mirror bits of Marie Antoinette (at the very least, Kirsten Dunst in the grass, looking at bugs, escaping people).Sofia Coppola has a talent for giving you the emotional truth, for using just enough strokes to suggest the whole painting, for kickass soundtracks. It would be worthwhile to compare the historical narrative with the cinematic one here, to not treat the latter as factual, but Coppola's Marie Antoinette was never quite given the time or the reason to grow up. Life is beautiful and full of rules and restrictions, and your only freedom is in the matters which are considered frivolous.
The film was criticised for not providing enough of a historical background, for having the French Revolution just happen. I would think that is a conscious decision: whether the king and the queen were actually drinking tea on a lawn as the Bastille prison was taken over is irrelevant. It is through the omission of other characters, by surrounding the protagonist exclusively with aristocracy and servants (sometimes, aristocratic servants) that we recognise her isolation and the inability to comprehend what's happening outside the court.
The film plays around with the famous saying about cake, pointing out that Marie Antoinette had never actually said that, but providing enough images of pastries to preserve the connection. I love eclairs; should it be a wonder that I loved this?
Movie comment on What We Do in the Shadows
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What We Do in the Shadows is one of my favourite belated discoveries. A delightful mix of mockumentary and comedy horror, the film uses recognisable structural elements of both genres, while creating something fresh and very, very funny.Co-directed by Jemaine Clement (half of the Flight of the Concords duo) and Taika Waititi (who previously made Eagle vs Shark), the feature is an unusual take on the supernatural, vampires and werewolves foremost. When four undead with very different personalities are flatmates in a suburban house in modern Wellington, their life is full of problems: Who has been slacking on the house cleaning duties? Why the bathroom is still covered in blood? How does one go clubbing if one always needs to be invited to get inside a building?
The dialogue is full of gems, my favourite being 'Werewolves, not swear wolves', the line repeated by the pack of ordinary-looking supernatural beings whenever one of them says 'fucking'.
Concentrated on the domestics and the daily life, What We Do in the Shadows is also about friendship and romance. It succeeds in showing uncommon sides of both, while remaining delightful and universally mocking – the opposite of the 'vampires suck' criticism that appeared post-Twilight.
There is a rumour a sequel is in the making. I shall remain hopeful.
Movie comment on Fences
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The film is based on a play of the same name (one that Denzel Washington and Viola Davis have already performed in), and that brings the quality of sharpness and precision to the dialogue, as well as constricts the settings. The acting in Fences is beautiful, but the picture ends up being a character study and social commentary, rather than a solid cinematic experience.The emotional culmination precedes the finale by so much that the ending feels lacklustre and disengaging. The protagonist, Washington's character, is allowed the complexity that no one else in the film seems to have. While Davis's heroine provides insights into the position of a Black housewife in the 1950s Pittsburgh, her place is in the background, secondary, quiet and suffering. That might be a meaningful artistic choice in itself, but it creates imbalance as far as the main characters are concerned.
Two other works came to my mind during the showing: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and Solange's A Seat at the Table. Both are about the pervasive unfairness and inherited social structure of the Black slice of the American society. And while the men 'got a lot to be mad about', the women are not even allowed to be angry.
Certainly, a fascinating cultural work, but the uneven dramatic structure of Fences does it a disservice.
Movie comment on Hacksaw Ridge
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The film leaves a mixed impression: some of the battle scenes are intense and powerful, but the narrative seems lopsided. For a story about Andrew Garfield's character, it only follows that plotline when convenient, eagerly abandoning Private Doss for the aforementioned battle moments (in which, of course, he could not quite participate, refusing to use weapons).The best-written arc is that of protagonist's father, played by Hugo Weaving. Acting pretty much starts and ends with him.
Vince Vaughn as Sergeant Howell is weird casting. I don't think it's bad, but it's Vince Vaughn and yet you are supposed to take him seriously, and that works about as well as an evil Charlie Chaplin.
Hacksaw Ridge is told as a story of simple people in difficult circumstances. No one grows, no one changes. Desmond Doss never doubts his faith, despite going through a slice of hell. He seems to be okay when attributing the 'Do not kill' commandment exclusively to himself. I wish we knew how he reconciled the war going around him and what the difference was, in his eyes, between the Americans killing the Japanese, and the Japanese killing the Americans.
Altogether, the film left me with a number of questions. As in, did the rats appear on battlefields so quickly? How come we (the American army) are the good guys, throwing napalm around? If the story is historically accurate, how come the troops were forced to take Hacksaw Ridge 8 (sic!) times? We saw them succeed on the 7th attempt, and then abandon the location again, not getting reinforcements. Surely that is some general somewhere being bad at their job. Were there really no women or people of colour in the American army? What did they do with them then?
Etc.
Movie comment on Audrie & Daisy
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While I can't say Audrie & Daisy is a cinematic masterpiece, I wish it were prescribed watching at schools. Maybe in colleges, too. Maybe further on as well, because rape culture is not a phenomenon exclusive to teenagers.The subject of rape, while always horrible, is hardly surprising. What remains shocking, is the reaction so often exhibited by people in power, by strangers and by-standers. A vicious, toxic tradition of victim-blaming, of silencing the survivors, of refusing to hear, understand, empathise or change.
The 'boys will be boys' and 'she was asking for it'. The opposition of successful abusers, progressing in their studies and career, vs. struggling and often suicidal survivors. As if the tragedy that happened to those young women, that has once and forever happened to them, that changed their attitude towards everything, from life expectations to their very own bodies – as if that was not enough, and the lack of support from their peers is also, somehow, their fault.
In sex, only ever enthusiastic 'Yes' counts as 'Yes'. Taking advantage of a vulnerable person is not something that should be tolerated or encouraged, especially not when the effects are so enduring, dangerous, life-threatening.
I shall write about the film itself for Chance & Physics, but for now I am just angry and sad. We have so much further to go as a society, as a world.
Movie comment on Queen of Katwe
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I will carry my thoughts in my mouth for a while, until they develop further, but impressions will do for now:I wish there was more than the 'rags to riches' plot. The journey is great, but the ending (entirely deserved and entirely predictable) should have also contained a reference to systemic problems. Not everyone can be a child prodigy. Not everyone is lucky enough to have support and encouragement to try — and keep trying! — their odd thing.
Extreme poverty. Being rich, on the other hand, automatically makes you an owner of all the comforts and commodities from the 1970's.
Am now reliving the days when I used to competitively play checkers, age 6 to 12. By the way, tournaments are not nearly as exciting for spectators as in the film: a single game can go on for up to 6 hours, and most of that time is spent thinking, no pieces moving at all.
Am also feeling extremely humbled, which, I suppose, is the idea since the film was produced by Disney and for young Western audiences. Undoubtedly, simplifying the narrative.