Lately, people have been stopping me in the street to say: "semiurge, July's almost over, where is your movie review post - the annual event that cinephiles the world over look forward to like Christmas, or Hanukah, or one of those other big ethnic holidays, the name of which I can't remember right this second - not Ramadan, I can't imagine that many people look forward to fasting, but other ones, you know?". Up until now, I've had to scream and soil myself to get them to leave me alone, but no longer. The 4th annual movie review post is here:
Heat
What a film, what a great damn film. All-star cast, Pacino & De Niro... my first exposure to De Niro was in Meet the Parents, a fine comedy, but my God, how much more depth he has to him.
GTA V is ripped pretty much entirely from Heat, it's almost scandalous how shameless it is.
Movies really went downhill after 9/11. My running theory is that the unprecedented military-industrial complex involvement disrupted the native ecosystem of Hollywood in ways it still hasn't recovered from to this day. But maybe I'm off-base with that. Just look into how involved the OSS/CIA was and probably still is with Disney.
The Matrix 4
I was day drinking & barbecuing with my buds the whole day leading up to watching this movie, so I don't remember a whole lot of it, but what I do remember was a disappointment.
My favourite part of the original trilogy is everything leading up to the moment Neo takes the red pill - solid gnostic horror. This movie tries to do something like that over again, but it's muddled and riven with cuts to the people already outside the matrix having fight scenes in trains or whatever.
The rediscovery of the relationship between Neo and Trinity is a workable central thread to this movie, but there's just so much uninspired cruft around it that drags it down.
Also they declined to have Laurence Fishburne reprise his role as Morpheus - weak!
Total Recall
A P.K. Dick adaption, so you know it's gonna be a real mind-bottler.
Practical effects, actual physical sets, that shit sells sci-fi. Miss me with that green screen, talking to a tennis ball on a stick shit. Bussin' no cap, fr fr. The Martian machinery at the end is probably the best megastructure I've seen on film.
Schwarzenegger - is he a good actor? I say yes. He doesn't have to do subtlety or whatever, he's simply got the raw charisma to carry an entire movie on his broad, muscular shoulders.
Terminator 2
Voiceovers have fallen out of fashion - there's a few long voiceovers in this movie.
Another essential piece of Schwarzenegger-core, with great sci-fi action scenes that put the current flood of Marvel-slop to shame. A pessimistic thematic end to the Cold War, where it's no longer a human conflict of good and evil (or whatever else) that brings about the end of the world but our own dumb technological systems running out of our control, inevitable and itself without end through the tangled tumbleweed of possible futures.
The bad guy in this one's a cop. Modern audiences should appreciate that more. I didn't think John Connor's actor was particularly good, and the "hacking" stuff was a clumsy way to make him practically relevant beyond being the emotional heart of the film, but I like what they were doing with the character, which is more relevant that ever today - a lonely kid without roots or role models, seen by the adults around him only as the troublemaker he is and the menace he could become, basing his personality on imitating faux-mature pop culture gunk.
Training Day
We're seeing a lot of wins coming Ethan Hawke's way these days, and performances like his in Training Day go to show that Mr. Hawke's deserved these big Ws for a long time.
A baptism by extended, anxious coal-raking for an idealistic cop on his first day on the job in mean & dirty L.A., under the eye of Denzel Washington's also excellent grizzled old wolf. Katabasis & anabasis, a real modern myth.
My sensitivity reader (unpaid) advised me to remove the following paragraph - I have simply modified it. I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide whether I should have followed that advice entirely:
Women may have trouble fully appreciating Training Day. This comment has no bearing on the moral or intellectual worth of women, which I consider to be equal to men and non-binary people in every respect. My sample size is two. I watched this movie with my girlfriend and my mom (I am an adult man who does not live with my mother. I was helping her with weeding earlier that day, in accordance with the principles of Confucian filial piety. Do not call me a basement-dwelling troll loser in the comments, as that is not an accurate description.), and throughout the film they were on their phones and asking for clarification of plot beats that had been explained less than a minute ago onscreen. This is not a misogynistic comment, I did the same thing when we watched Lady Bird (it was just me & my girlfriend who watched Lady Bird, as previously established I do not live with my mother). A good entertainer keeps their audience in mind when picking movies. Just something to keep in mind.
1917
Couldn't get all the way through this movie. It was decent when it was a "Sam & Frodo in Mordor"-type romp through the WWI wasteland, but (spoiler alert) the tubby one dies after a moment of mercy shown to the Germanic menace, and it's all downhill from there. The "no cuts" filming style works well when exploring blasted landscapes and packed trenches, but weakens tension when the action ramps up. By the time I quit the movie in boredom I was rooting for the good ol' English chaps to lose the war, and spare us a century of rule from the City of London - did you know they worship Gog and Magog there?
In The Tall Grass
I'm not the biggest Stephen King fan - too verbose - but this adaption of one of his novellas yanks the raw root of his horror from the weeds of wordiness.
Norman Rockwell Americana spooked up, that's In The Tall Grass. A grassy field where time and space don't work the way we expect - an alienation from the land, the breakdown of family, a stone in its center granting terrestrial rather than cosmic revelations that lead some to baby-eating madness and others to gentle, terminal decency.
Blood Red Sky
Another movie I couldn't get all the way through. I should have liked this one - freaky vampires are an easy way to get in my good books - but airplanes are just such drab settings that there could be no redemption. The movie's also German, and Germany hasn't had much of a domestic film industry since, well, history buffs will know the answer to this one.
If you need a freaky vampire fix, consider watching Blade 2, or The Strain.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
A modern fantasy classic. Guillermo del Toro's creature design sings here. Good action, good emotion, smooth pacing, sprinkles of comedy, tragedy, and freakyness. You don't need to watch the first movie to understand it, or read the comics, it's pretty self-contained. Watch it if you hadn't, or rewatch it if you haven't seen it in a while - it's worth your time, your precious, precious time.
My list of literally perfect movies:
ReplyDelete- a dark song
- a field in england
- tank 432
- we need to do something
I believe you watched and enjoyed A Dark Song, as mentioned in a previous post, not that I would read your crappy blog. Anyway you should watch these and enjoy them.
Hold on, that was my list of literally perfect "horror" movies. I forgot the crime thriller/philosophical epic Bullethead (with Adrien Brody and John Malkovich).
DeleteWell well well, the illustrious George Robert Michael finally deigns to grace my comment section with his presence.
DeletePerhaps I shall watch these movies, perhaps I shan't, though I'm pretty sure I've got a pirate stream of A Field in England with the first five minutes watched somewhere in my tab collection.
Again I say you should watch The Conspiracy (2012)
ReplyDeleteand everyone should consider watching Pleasantville.