Review of 'Trance'

Creepy and quite violent thriller, but well plotted and filmed - well, Danny Boyle, it's going to be good, isn't it? Hypnosis, false and unreliable memories, and so on. Set in London, but few recognisable establishing shots...I think I caught a glimpse of a familiar building once. Lots and lots of interiors with very shiny surfaces and moody lighting, and shots through narrow gaps. 

Watched on All4, which recommended this to us...I think the first time it's done that.

Review of 'Black Orpheus'

I set out to watch this mainly because it's the source of 'Manha Da Carnival', which I sometimes play on the trumpet. The song barely features at all in the film - the Orpheus character sings it once to a couple of small boys who think that his playing makes the sun rise. 

That said, it's a mainly interesting film with a lot about the life of a favela in Rio, and a carnival crew. It includes some reflections on the role of carnival in working-class Brazilian life (as a sort of bread-and-circuses distraction), and on the modernity and otherwise of Brazil...lots of the scenes where modern buildings are presented or used as backdrops are sinister, especially the hospital and morgue to which Orpheus goes to try to rescue Eurydice. 

There's also a powerful depiction of a candomble ceremony.

Watched via informal distribution, laptop and VGA cable - the Chromecast didn't want to play this one and its audio track and subtitles at the same time.

Review of 'The French Dispatch'

Some of Wes Anderson's films are great, and some aren't. This is one of the latter. It's beautiful, and that makes its failure as a film all the more depressing. It's like some beautifully wrapped present with nothing inside the box. It's a collection of stories, tied together through the theme of a fictionalised American magazine and its writers in an imaginary French town. And none of the stories have enough of a plot, or enough engagement with the characters, despite the beautiful cinematography and the good but stylized acting. I'm sure there are lots of clever allusions and homages to the greats of French cinema, but I didn't get them and it wasn't enough for me.

Watched via informal distribution, laptop and Chromecast - VLC quite happy to play this one.

Review of 'Germania' by Simon Winder

Well, I liked this almost as much as Danubia, but not quite. It's beautifully written, and good on some parts of the history, but as it gets closer to the close - which he takes as 1933 - I think it becomes less good. In particular I think he's bad on the shortcomings of Weimar and the defeat of the German revolution at the end of WW1 - having read Sebastian Haffner's "Failure of a revolution: Germany 1918-1919", I can't see the treachery of the Social Democrat leaders the way Winder does. There was a chance, in 1918-19, that the other Germany could run things now, in a way that was utterly diffeent from what the conservatives and the military had done before. And Ebert et al blew it, even with the popular support that they had. 

And once I'd noticed that, I started to notice other things that I didn't like quite so much...it's good the way he emphasises how much of the familiar had just collapsed for so many Germans in the Weimar period, but I think he downplays the continuity with pre-war Germany of the politics of the right (were the Nazis such a break with traditional German politics and culture?) and over-emphasises how much the Nazis stole from the left, so that it's almost as if they were a rogue variant of socialism rather than a traditionalist, business-backed variant of extreme conservatism.

So still lots in there to like, particular about art and architecture, and music and literature, but some things to not like so much.

Review of 'Bad Times at the El Royale'

On the surface a much more conventional crime/mystery/thriller movie, but actually really interesting and multi-layered. I can't stop thinking about this...I'm reading reviews and analysis of the symbolism and other elements in the film. Five strangers check in to a motel on the California-Nevada border in the late 1960s, and we get their backstories as well as a complex plot in which they all become differently entangled.

Lots of references to 1960s cults, politics and fabulous music...BTW, I noticed that in The Rest of Us the daughter is reading 'Helter Skelter', and in this film there's a Manson-like cult. Must just be a coincidence, or a reflection of how deep that runs in the American psyche.

Lots of violence, but it's never comic-book or enjoyable. Hard to say more without spoilers, so really just get this one and watch it.

We watched in on All4 but it's gone from that now, I think

Review of 'The Power of The Dog'

Really powerful, beautiful film - nice to know that there are still some really good ones being made. Atmospheric, menacing without any actual violence, fabulous acting and great cinematography without any gimmicks. Lots about suppressed and not-so-suppressed male homosexuality and toxic masculinity. Now I can't wait to read the book, though I will have to because I have so many other books stacked up waiting to be read.

Just wondering - it's set in 1925 Montana, so Prohibition is in force, but it doesn't actually seem to be. They are serving spirits in the hotel, cocktails at a party with the Governor, and Kirsten Dunst's character is drinking herself to death without a bootlegger in sight. Is that what Prohibition was actually like outside the big cities?

Best film watched on Netflix for years.

Review of 'The Rest of Us'

Quite good Canadian film about...well, it's not that easy to summarize. Successful divorced children's book author discovers that her ex has died suddenly, and then the women for whom he left her is suddenly broke because the now-dead husband was concealing his dire financial situation...and the bitter, broke widow and her sweet young daughter end up moving in with the author and her grumpy disaffected teen daughter.

It's well acted and nicely done, and though you couldn't call it enjoyable in a feel-good sort of way it's compelling enough to watch. Heather Graham has graduated nicely from so-nubile sexpot to still-attractive but fading divorced wife.

Watched on Netflix.

Review of Kick-Ass

Superficially enjoyable, with nods in the direction of liberal sensibilities, but actually a more or less fascist film. Nerdy comic book fan Dave decides that he will live out his fantasy of being a superhero and fighting crime, but despite the suit he's still a nerd so he gets stomped and hospitalised after he tries to take on a pair of thugs. Then he's rescued by a father-and-daughter crime-fighting superhero combo who are much, much better at violence than he is - their whole lives are dedicated to training for violence and the acquisition of weaponry.

There's plot, and teen stuff (his nerdy mates convince the gorgeous girl at school that he's gay, and she wants him for a Gay Best Friend even though she wouldn't look at him before), and lots and lots of violence - real splatter stuff, made slightly easier because it's supposed to be comic-book. But really it's almost snuff-grade, and there are no problems that can't be resolved with the application of sufficient force, violence and weaponry. The film's sympathies are entirely with the use of more and bigger guns, and the more skillful use of them. Our (anti)hero's moment of redemption, when he finally steps into his own power and authority, comes when he uses a really big machine-gun enabled jet-pack.

Oh, and the villains are all caricature Italian-Americans in a way that would be grossly unacceptable if they were say Jews or Chinese.

Watched this on BBC iPlayer.

Review of Human Traffic

There's a lot that's annoying about the film...the sound quality is poor, so that I kept turning the volume up but there's music track playing over a lot of the dialogue. There are annoying 'arty' techniques of characters speaking to the fourth wall and so on, and spoof documentary inserts. 

But it's also sort of likeable. It's a bit like Trainspotting, only with MDMA rather than Heroin at the centre. So the culture and the drug itself is more benevolent - the scene is mainly quite nice with lots of hugging of strangers, and good-looking young people dancing ecstatically (well, obviously). The five young people at the centre of the film are a bit messed up, but mainly in the way that young people are - one is jealous when his girlfriend interacts with other men, one is anxious about his sexual performance, and so on.  

For the most part it doesn't imply that they are messed up because of the drugs, and there's a nice insert from an actual stand-up comedian saying that he used drugs, he enjoyed it, and it didn't mess up his life or his career. But the young peope are all existing rather than thriving, in dead-end jobs or no jobs at all, and not on any ladders - career, property, whatever. There's a strong suggestion, amplified in the long shots over drab Cardiff at the end, that taking drugs and raving is a perfectly sensible response to the grim dullness of everyday life...and the young people seem to mainly understand that it relates to period in their life, and that it's not something that they will do forever.

The most miserable scenes in the film are in the post-party weed smoking session, where everyone is tired, ratty and paranoid. 

Obtained via informal distribution, watched via a USB stick stuck in the back of the smart TV.

Review of 'Danubia' by Simon Winder

I so loved this book, which felt like it had been written just for me. Lots of stuff about architecture, and music, and even regions and nationalities that I'd never heard of. It's by no means mainly about Jews, but there's lots of interesting stuff about them, including an important short passage that situates Zionism in the context of the competing nationalisms of the late C19th Habsburg empire...I knew Herzl was a Viennese Jew, but didn't realise that his family, like Freud's, were from Galicia. 

One thing he doesn't explain is why there are two regions called Galicia in Europe, which at one time were both Habsburg possessions. Turns out it's really just a coincidence. 

I wish I'd read this before I wrote The Girl in The Red Cape - if only because I would have stolen bits from the story of the  1882 Tiszaeszlár blood libel episode and put it in the book. But he's really good on the politics and the aesthetics of the Counter-Reformation too, and it would have been good to have known more about that.

I now want to read all his other books (already on order), and to listen to all the music he mentions, and to visit quite a few of the places in the book too. There were passages that I had to read out loud to Ruth because they were so beautifully written or so funny...how often do you say that about a work of popular history?

Review of Love Hard

A mainly trivial but quite enjoyable (and for once actually quirky) romcom about internet dating and catfishing...which in this film turns out to be OK really because it ends in true love between the catfisher and his victim.

Most memorable for me for the alternate 'less rape-y' version of 'Baby it's cold outside' that the two not-yet-lovers sing as a duet.

Watched on Netflix.

Review of Sunset Boulevard

Another one of those films you think you've seen, but you haven't. 

And really good...about Hollywood, and faded fame and glamour, and inequality, and gender relations, and lots more. Gloria Swanson is brilliant as the faded onet-time star of the silent screen who never made the transition to talkies and a different kind of cinematic acting. She's completely past it, old and over the hill, because she's...fifty.

Eric Von Stroheim is particularly great as her devoted butler and chauffeur, who once had a career as a director but abandoned it to look after her. This is particularly poignant because it's almost his own life story - he had a career as a director but was forced to abandon it because absolutely no-one would work with him.

Watched via informal distribution, and laptop, Chromecast and VLC - working happily again.

Review of 'Some Like It Hot'

 

Can't believe that I've never seen this, but I haven't.

It was more fun than I was expecting...the main joke is that the two main characters are dressed as women (because they are hiding out from prohibition-era mobsters in an all-woman Jazz band), and that no-one notices that they are men. It's done well and doesn't feel daft within the limits of the comedy genre, helped (as others have said) by the period setting. The jokes are mainly anti-sexist rather than sexist...the two men have difficulty walking in heels, and they can't believe how drafty it is wearing women's clothes.

And as soon as they adopt the female gender other men think that they are women and make passes at them.

I quite like the fact that George Raft is sending up his own gangster persona from his other films - another hood does his coin-tossing thing, and Raft's character says "where did you learn that cheap trick?".

And Marilyn Monroe is much more beautiful and sexy than I would have guessed, at the same time as not really being pretty. It's striking the way she absolutely shines on the screen, more than any other character...is it to do with lighting, or was she really that special? Also clear where Debbie Harry got her character tropes from...I sort of knew that, but much more striking seeing it for myself.

Obtained via informal distribution, and watched using VLC/renderer and Chromecast, which is now working well again.

Review of 'Falling for Figaro'

A poor rom-com, short on the rom and on the com. Millie is a fund manager but she dreams of being an opera singer...even though there is absolutely no sign of any other involvement in singing in her life. She's not in a choir or singing group, she doesn't sing with a band, nothing. It's just her dream. Which she then realises by going to a posh conservatoire where one of the tutors recommends her to a faded singing tutor in a remote part of Scotland. The tutor is mean to her - another one of those films, like Whiplash, where talent in developed through abuse and she blossoms into a reasonable successful singer, while developing a fragmentary and unconvincing romance with fellow-pupil Max. 

Another rubbish film on Netflix.

Review of 'The Incredible Jessica James'

Half way through watching this I realised that I'd started watching it before, and given up. I could see why, even though its heart is mainly in the right place...it's feminist, a little bit edgy, features a strong black woman as the lead...it's just a bit boring as a rom-com. Towards the end I was checking my phone quite often.

Watched on Netflix.

Review of "Frozen 2"

We had a little girl visiting us, and and a friend who has decided to watch only Disney films because everything else is so feel-bad, so we watched this. We watched Frozen four years ago (and I wrote a review at the time), and it was much better than I expected. I'm sorry that I can't say the same for this one, even though it was much more self-consciously inspired by good themes - eco-feminism, and anti-colonialism, for starters. 

But it felt much more of a mish-mash, with too many story lines, and too much going on. And I didn't think the music was so good either, though I rather liked the song the Sami-like people sing about half way through. Still visually impressive, with lots of good Sami-inspired graphics, and I suspect that the look of Arendelle is inspired by National Romantic architecture, which I've always liked.

Informal distribution, a USB stick and the new projector in the Springhill Common House.

Review of 'If Beale Street Could Talk'

Based on the James Baldwin novel, and really good, though hard to watch because it's so grim. The acting, the dialogue, the cinematography is all excellent, though I did miss occasional bits of speech.

The poster is very misleading, it's a story about racism, not true love. The love between the two main characters just makes the racism and oppression harder to bear. Impossible to watch without putting yourself in the shoes of the main characters - in my case, particularly the two fathers, knowing that the system of oppression is going to grind your children to powder, and that playing within the rules affords you no chance of coming through with either fortune or dignity intact.

Watched on BBC iPlayer.

Review of Cruella

This was more fun that I expected - I liked the music, the clothes, and wondering where the locations were (some of them weren't anywhere but had been created with CGI, bah!). The acting was sort of camp - especially Emma Thompson as the villain, but I didn't mind. And I'm sure the art directors must have a lot of fun...I was especially pleased to see the packet of Golden Wonder crisps with appropriate packaging. Because of the 1970s setting there was less product placement - no Apple laptops prominently in shot. 

I thought Emma Stone's english accent was perfectly good too.

Watched in the Middle Floor at Springhill, having been obtained by informal distribution. Loaded on to a USB stick, played on the new DVD player which has a USB slot, quality was really good.

Review of New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson

I enjoyed this more than I have his other books - it's not only optimistic and left-wing (don't often go together, do they?) like his other books but also has decent, interesting characters and a few enjoyable plots. The bad guys are a bit vague and not so fully described or defined, but the good characters are likeable and interesting (again, that is not often a common pairing).

And I like the descriptions of future NY - the super-Venice of drowned downtown, the superscrapers with farm floors, the vaporettos and the hydrofoil yachts of the rich, and blimps and sky-villages...beautiful and possible.

Oddly it made interested in the geography of New York, and even made me want to go there, which is not likely to happen.

Review of Palm Springs

Sort of a second-rate, updated version of Groundhog Day, with the time loop theme, but without any of the poignancy or thoughtfulness. This time it's a family wedding in a ghastly Florida resort, and it's not just the main character who has to repeat the day, but also a woman (the bride's wayward sister) who follows him into the cave that is somehow the source of the time loop - and also another man, a grumpy vindictive sort who chases and wounds/kills the main guy, but it doesn't have any consequences since everything is reset whenever any of them goes to sleep.

Just about watchable, and the occasional funny groundhog-esque gag (he knows what's going to happen next so can anticipate it), but not a great film or a great use of time.

Watched on Amazon Prime.