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dylanfellows-08204
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Road to Perdition (2002)
Not sure why this is so overlooked
ROAD TO PERDITION is an all time favorite of mine, and it's Sam Mendes at his best. For some reason, this film has eluded attention for nearly twenty years and I'm really not sure why. The cinematography is wonderful, and the lighting is top-notch. The story itself is engrossing and engaging, providing a perfect balance of introspection and character development alongside the violence that moves the story along. Thomas Newman's score is, as usual, haunting and memorable. If you haven't seen this gem, go out now and do it. Don't wait. It isn't just 'good,' I think it's Mendes at his absolute best.
Interstellar (2014)
Nolan is a victim of his own success, the wormhole doesn't work
I don't think Interstellar is *bad*, but it's perfectly mediocre for sure. Doubt anyone but Nolan could get this approved by a studio, and someone would have done well to challenge him and ask him if this is really the movie he wanted to make.
My main problem is the wormhole, which I've yet to be satisfied solves a circular paradox. Just about the entirety of the film's events depend on entering the wormhole, in fact even entering the wormhole depends on entering the wormhole. A lot of people say we are just supposed to accept the time travel (if that's what we call it) at face value. I'm fine doing that, until it's presented in a logically contradictory way, as it is in this film. Watch 12 MONKEYS if you want a film that handles time travel in a non-contradictory way.
The film is a bit too on the nose with its secular humanism, too. This is common to most sci Fi these days, though.
House of Cards (2013)
Typical Modern Serial from Netflix
Although not without appreciable intrigue, the show compulsively devolves into bizarre pornography. Evidently the creators have little self control and deemed the best way to keep people's interest was to shove degenerate sex in their face. Judging by the ratings, it worked.
King Lear (1970)
Nothing comes from nothing
This overwhelmingly bleak and desolate portrayal of my favorite Shakespeare play leaves little to be desired. I fashion myself a purist and am all but completely unbothered by the abridged nature of Brook's vision. Everything that should be there is. The transplanting of setting to some scandanavian tundra is little problem, for it provides the harshness and nothingness of Lear's pre-Christian environment to be all the more oppressive. Perhaps the most memorable scene is when Kent is out in the stocks, and in Brook's setting all the horror, pain, and humiliation of his punishment is put center stage. This is one of if not the best Shakespeare adaptations I have ever seen.
Cry Macho (2021)
Worst Eastwood, worst ever?
Rarely do I see films that are outright awful. Usually it's a case of just seeing films that are tepid or not memorable. CRY MACHO is outright awful. I would fashion myself a fan of Eastwood, but if there was ever a sign it's time for him to hang it up, it's this film.
I don't know where to start, the film is that bad. For one, the writing is hamfisted and awkward throughout. The acting is what you would expect from a hamfisted script: forced and melodramatic, like none of the characters are actually *in* character. Eastwood's character is no exception, by the way. Sometimes an otherwise bad film can be saved by one memorable or amusing
performance -- definitely not the case here.
The story is basically awful. Heavy expositional dialogue. Formulaic character development you can see from a mile away. Nonstop melodrama.
All in all, It's almost like someone challenged Eastwood to a bet to prove he wasn't a washed up old man, and in attempting to win the bet Eastwood inadvertently proves his opponent right: we are meant to believe that his decrepit character has sex appeal to basically every wan on screen? And that he can still wrangle a horse even though that scene was cut so obviously to obscure the fact that it was a stunt double? Clint is trying to hearken back to all the iconic moments of his career, and he falls on his face every time. It's pitiful.
Terje Vigen (1917)
A Must-See
For students of film, this is a must-see. Sjostrom proved to be highly influential in the development of Scandanavian and Northern European film. His output was prolific, but TERJE VIGEN is one of my favorites-- it captures well the angst and anxiety so pregnant among Scandanavian and Danish masters (Dreyer and Bergman come to mind as spiritual successors/contemporaries of Sjostrom). TERJE VIGEN, in particular, is one of those stories that will haunt but also reward. The cinematography is what one would expect of a film that is literally more than 100 years old-- innovative for its time, it is very subtle. Where this film really shines is in the phenomenal acting, especially by Sjostrom himself.
Henry V (1989)
Best Shakespeare Adaptation
Excluding Kurosawa's RAN, Branagh's HENRY V is, for my money, the best Shakespeare adaptation ever set to film (Brook's KING LEAR gives it a run for its money, though). Branagh is arresting as the titular King: noble, fierce, but not without compassion and care for his subjects. Brian Blessed is memorable as the imposing force of Uncle Exeter, and Scofield is fittingly depressed as the King of France. The set design is top notch, although the cinematography is very straightforward-- not bad at all, but also not particularly memorable. The actors treat Shakespearean as their native language, and the film is very easy to follow despite the retention of that language-- a true accomplishment!
Marat/Sade (1967)
A Fascinating (and condemnatory?) Expose of the Revolution
Brilliant, albeit your mileage may vary depending on how you interpret it. For my part, Brook seems most interested in documenting the maniacal, self-consuming character of the revolution and 'the point' seems to be something like 'with ideological friends like these, who needs enemies?' The 'debates' between de Sade and Marat are intellectually stimulating (I find both of their views abhorrent, but that does not mean they are uninteresting). The camera work is manic and unpredictable, fitting the setting perfectly.
Breaking Bad (2008)
Modern Macbeth
Breaking Bad is a protracted Macbeth. It tells the same story, it just takes much longer to get to the point: relatively average man by all accounts has the opportunity to benefit from an evil deed, so he does the evil deed. But then he learns that sin corrupts and blinds the intellect, and evil deed after evil deed, evil becomes more and more easy to commit, and eventually is just about the only thing the person is capable of.
The show-- although this goes unreported-- issues many challenges to materialist philosophies and the like. Although modern, it is also very anti-modern in important ways.
Took away one star because there's some smut the show didn't need. Otherwise, the gold standard.
Vikings (2013)
Trendy and offensive
Seems to me that this show is just trying to capitalize on the trendiness of Euro-paganism. It isn't historically accurate. I don't know where to start, but how about with the way that the Vikings are depicted as enlightened, tolerant moderns and pitted against the bigoted and dogmatic Anglo-Catholics? For instance, there's a scene (season two, if I recall) where one of the Vikings says to the King of Wessex, who is faced with making a ruling about a woman whose husband hit her, that in the Norweigan lands the man would be punished and the King remarks something about how that's not how they do it in England.
But, that IS how they did it in England. The Laws of Aethlebert-- preceding those events by about two hundred years, were quite forgiving to women. Allowed them to own property, file suit against husbands, etc. But of course the show had to take this insultingly anachronistic view because, well patriarchy?
Another example is when Ecgbert and Ragnar are hiding in the proverbial catacombs talking about Roman art and Ecgbert is talking about how he has all this Roman art and law stored away in secret because the Catholic bigots would burn him if they found out he had it. My goodness that could not be more wrong. The people of those time were proselytized by people like Saints Patrick and Bede, who were proliferately learned and accepting of Roman law and Roman art! If anything, Ecgbert would have been called out as a TYRANT for not allowing his society to benefit from such works.
I gave up some point in season two. The show could only move the plot along, apparently, by creating these very false images of the two cultures they are dealing with. It's not all the show's fault, of course. Modern people struggle to understand anything that isn't also insufferably modern. So naturally the producers made the show modern. But it's highly offensive to anyone who knows anything about the period and the people's. Do not recommend.