XMas Break: Dune [Part 1]

 2021, d. Denis Villeneuve - in theatre

[Toasty] OK, Kent opened this Draft waaaay back when, not long after we actually saw the movie in the cinema. But we didn't write about it. Perhaps it was the trauma of too many Hallmarkies. 

[Kent] That certainly didn't help.  It was late November 2021 when this post was started. Time has no meaning

[Toasty] Perhaps it was being overwhelmed by the novelty of once again having seen a movie in a cinema. Me, not Kent, for he has seen a few, but I hadn't been inside a cinema since mid-2019. Mostly its by choice, as my current limited vision makes watching a movie on a big screen, an act of constantly swinging my head back and forth. Eventually I just get tired, achey and cranky. But I had to see this movie on the screen, as the spectacle that Villeneuve provides is just pure grandeur, and I love it. And I knew I would like this movie, no matter what.

And I did.

The strongest recollection I have, and I said it out loud, when Kent and I had some grub after, is that the core of the movie, in all its 2.5 hours, is the same story as the 1984 David Lynch version. Of course it is, you say, but what I more mean is that the collection of plot points that are the core of the book are all once again used. Sure, there are plenty of differences between book and the movies, but the core elements are there, albeit curtailed in this latest version, as we have only see Pt 1.

[Kent] I wasn't certain myself how I was going to feel about this, particularly knowing that it's the first of two parts.  My only familiarity with Dune is the Lynch movie (which I like a lot), it's comic book adaptation, and the mediocre TV mini-series from the early 2000s.  But I knew in Denis Villeneuve's hands that it was going to be a spectacle.  I really dislike the original Blade Runner but I quite loved Blade Runner 2049, and Arrival was also epic but also so personal...so I knew Villeneuve would deliver something worth seeing, and making a big-screen worthy experience.

I don't think I loved this Dune as much as you Toasty but... yeah, it was good.  I think, when it's completed with it's second half, it will be even better.... probably amazing.

But talking of the Lynch version, that is an almost impenetrable movie.  It's trying to wrestle with so much plot, story, character, and world building that it really can't hope to juggle it all in its runtime, so it plays kind of fragmented.  And yet, it's such an ambitious spectacle, it's worth watching even if it doesn't make complete sense.  

But in having watched Lynch's Dune multiple times in the past few decades, I have a shorthand pass into Villeneuve's Dune... yet, there's a cleanliness to Villeneuve's storytelling that doesn't require familiarity.  He will immerse you in this world, and I was sucked in, only thinking about Lynch's Dune sporadically, but as a point of comparison, not as, you know, cliff notes.

[Some time passes as Toasty re-watches via download.]

[Kent] I said I was probably not going to watch Dune again until just before Part 2 comes out, and yet I've been finding myself with the inclination of giving Part 1 another go. How did it play at home Toasty? 

[Toasty] OK, I have started rewatching again. Sunday morning, rainy outside, laundry to be done, and a pork loin roast in the slow cooker. Marmy is asleep, so I watch with sub-titles on, riding the volume for the dramatic tension filled music and sound.

Part A, or at least what I consider Pt. A, is the intro, the setting, the character introductions, the world building. It all takes place on Caladan, the home of the House Atreides, a water-bound planet full of rocky outcroppings. And a bit of background establishment on Arrakis, or Dune.

The World Building, oh the world building ! The year is 10,000 far flung into a future where the trappings of scifi space opera are overshadowed by culture and the vastness of populating a galaxy, scale of a grand nature. Arrakis is a desert planet with a substance upon it called Spice. This spice allows the Spacing Guild to navigate interplanetary space, though not explicitly stated, but likely by way of folding or some other alternative to FTL method, but still requiring an ability to travel great distances fraught with peril, with speed. 

[Kent] I should note that the opening sequence is kind of the first time ever with Dune that I got the sense that this was set in OUR distant future, that there was even something recognizably human or Earth-like in all this.  I dug it.

[Toasty] Controlling the production of this Spice means great wealth. House Harkonnen, a brutal militaristic people from a planet corrupted by industrial waste, controlled Dune until the Emperor of All Known Space gave it away, to House Atreides. Why? Because Harkonnen was becoming richer than even the Emperor? For other reasons? We don't know but we instantly get hints of great machinations behind it all.

When we meet all the characters, Duke Leto of House Atreides (Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis, in gloirious bearded mode, contributing to my current man-crush on him) is accepting stewardship of Dune, and his family is preparing for departure. An advanced team, led by Thufir Hawat (Stephen McKinley Henderson, Devs), a human computer and logistics man, and Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa, Game of Thrones), a brash charismatic warrior, will clean out pockets of Harkonnen resistance and any other dangers left behind.  We learn that Leto is not sure about all of this but Atreides always steps up when asked, and that his son Paul (Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name) is not sure of his role in all of it, especially with the possibly prophetic dreams he is having of Dune. Also, it doesn't help that Paul's mother (resplendent Rebecca Ferguson, Doctor Sleep) has betrayed her own mysterious order of witch-priestesses by having Paul, and also training him in their mind-controlling ways. Is he destined to become some sort of galaxy wide saviour, like the Bene Gesserit have been trying to do? All these trappings of culture and religion boiling down to breeding and the manipulation of blood lines to just better control politics and people!

[Kent] Years of watching the Lynch version was good for short-hand on all of these characters, learning the names and roles, but you never feel particularly connected with any of them there, not like you do in Villeneuve's take.

[Toasty] Villeneuve loves his grand visuals and I love Villeneuve's eye. From such things as shape and movements of the large space ships, that must be propelled only by some sort of gravitic control, as they have no flaming engines, no rockets, no plumes of smoke. They just float from space to planet, settling onto massive empty places, and apparently at great cost. The ritual of Dune's transfer to House Atreides is opulent, but short, and Leto comments on how expensive it must have been. And the fact that Paul has never been offworld before tells us that while humans have populated the galaxy, interplanetary travel seems only to be done if it is cost effective, never for leisure.

But also the small things. Caladan must be lush for almost everything in House Atreides is of wood. Even when they pack up all their possessions, everything is packed into overly large wooden boxes that come together like perfect puzzles, fitting tightly and precisely. Again, vast wealth is apparent. And just because Atreides are the "good guys", we do not see them excused from the vulgarity of nobility, as a symbol of Leto's family is the bull that likely slew his father, a bull that the grandfather fought for sport.

But all of this world building is gentle, often in the background, matter of fact and presented as part of an aspect of such spectacular cinematic nature. The story telling is economic, just giving us all we need. I am only 30 minutes into the rewatch and I am once again transported into a story that fills me with awe. I am so glad I saw this in the cinema.

[Kent] You have to believe that Game of Thrones had some impact on how to approach rich, dense, complex prose storytelling and world building as a visual adaptation.  But Villeneuve here (with co-screenwriters Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth)  seems to have perfected it in terms of simplifying the groundlaying without losing the importance or nuance.

[Kent watches Lynch's Dune Again]

[Kent] I really dig a lot of Lynch's Dune, but I have to freely admit it's also a little boring and quasi-impenetrable.  I think it's only been repeated viewings of the film that make it really feel at all understandable.  But the aesthetic of the sets, costuming, make-up, effects all please me (and repulse me in a pleasing way) greatly.  It's a big movie, about a big story, that just doesn't.have.enough.time to do it justice. 

You can't really compare budgets and technological advances between the two productions, one is obviously superior to the other, but what Lynch did in 1984 really felt of another reality, one utterly unfamiliar.  Lynch's interest in the grotesque and off-putting make a lot of the designs in his film very alien and unfamiliar, thus continuing to remain very distinct.  I think in terms of what Villeneuve's production team did, they hit home on those familiar elements - brutalist architecture, technology influence by nature, that sort of thing - to connect the world of Dune to Earth but far, far removed.  It looks great.  

What I recalled coming out of Villeneuve's Dune was a sense of incompleteness, that at least Lynch's version was a whole story.  But what Villeneuve does in just under 150 minutes, Lynch does a decent job at with 90.  But in that time, Lynch really only gives you heaping plops of world building, while Villeneuve really gives you characters and relationships alongisde the world building, and, most importantly, clarity about what is actually happening without hyperexposition.  

[Toasty] OK, it took some times, and a few more sittings. What? It's a long movie. But again, totally worth it. And surprisingly, despite the length, this time it felt as if there should have been ... more. I mentioned already that the same beats of the Lynch movie are hit all over again, but I didn't recall how quickly this tune is played, how rapidly it moves the story along. We never learn much of life on Arrakis, not much beyond a reference to sietch and village, but really the only people of Dune the movie focuses on are the Fremen, the desert dwelling warriors who worship the sand worms. Duke Leto believes that where Atreides once ruled over air and water, they now need to rule with "desert power" and to do that, he must align himself with the Fremen. That whole scene, where the Duke and his staff meet with Stilgar (Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men), a leader of the Fremen is all, "Hello. Hello. Oh there's Paul. We will respect your people. OK, that's honourable, gotta go."

And then, BOOM, the Atreides are betrayed and the Harkonnen take back Arrakis, with help from the Emperor, in a single night.

That battle, the scale of destruction, is glorious and horrible, again on the grand visual level that Villeneuve loves. The massive interplanetary vessels being destroyed by the slow-bombs, exploding in fiery plumes amidst fields of soldiers fighting with... sword and dagger. This world bears an impenetrable shield, that only allows the "slow blade" to penetrate, so we don't see any guns other than the self propelling needler, and the thin, beam weapon obviously too large to be used at a personal level. It was as if we had only just been introduced to life on Dune before its all taken away, and we are left with Paul and his mother fleeing into the desert.

[Kent] The battle is the biggest difference between the Lynch and Villeneuve films.  It's just so much more epic in scale in the more recent production for so many reasons.  Lynch does what he could with 1984 budgets and technology and it's fairly good at conveying scale and threat, but it's no where near as harrowing as the Harkonnen attack Villeneuve presents.

[Toasty] That final act, one of visions and religious over tones, again the power of the Bene Gesserit witches, who have been manipulating not only blood lines, but an entire culture, the entire species, with their plans, creating prophecy and religion that Paul cannot avoid but be swept into. Most of this just tires me out, as to be honest, Paul usually does. I fully admit, to having more than a bit of irritation for everything Timothée Chalamet, including his name. Irrationality acknowledged and I don't let it impact me much, and he does a fine job, but the whole Kwisatz Haderach bit is tiring to me, mainly because there are so many layers and sub-layers to this aspect of the world building, and its depiction always comes with vagaries. 

That said, I did like the idea that even when presented with a possible future, one Paul sees through vision, where he is befriended and taught by Jamis the Fremen (Babs Olusanmokun, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds), it all changes with the effortless slash of a blade. Paul makes his own future, one he fears greatly.

[Kent]  So where this ends is where Lynch begins his remaining half-hour, which is Paul's journey with the Fremen. Villeneuve is getting a whole other film!  The resolution of Dune in Lynch's version is so abrupt, and this time watching it I became excited that someone (especially Villeneuve) is going to get to flesh that part of the story out.  

[Toasty] Another thing I noticed in this second viewing is just how utterly reserved everyone is. Every word, every utterance in the movie is quiet, still and focused. The few outbursts, such as the screams and raging of Rabban Hakonnen (Dave Bautista, Bladerunner 2049) or the joyous, boisterous hugs that Duncan Idaho gives Paul, and the barely let out, anguished cries Jessica Atreides (concubines get the family name?) lets loose when Paul is in danger, well they just stand out. Is this Villeneuve's style or commentary on life in this imperium? Even the mad Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård, Thor) is unexpectedly reserved compared to this familiar with the Lynch version.

[Kent] The thing about the world of Dune in Villeneuve's vision is one of tenterhooks.  Everyone seems aware that the continued status quo is just on the cusp of exploding and that the shift of Arakkis from Harkonnen to Atreides is the fuze that lights the powderkeg.  The unseen emperor of everything is playing a game with the galaxy, for the sole reason that their power is threatened.  I think Duke Atreides sees it all pretty clearly but is either being willfully naive or knows he's rather helpless in staving it off, while Baron Harkonnen is all too willing to play into his part, seemingly unaware of his manipulation.  I think in this presentation, there just a sombre sobriety to managing the spice trade.

[Toasty] My third viewing will have to be, again, in a single sitting as I think only then again will the awe settle in. I may even buy it for the shelf.

[Kent] I will probably have a second viewing late in the year this year, with a third as the next film dawns  Either way, it's safe to say that we're both eager for Part 2, the release of which feels interminably far away.

Enemy

Twenty-for-Seven #8 (Day 4)
2013, d. Denis Villeneuve - AmazonPrime

(I was hoping to do a trilogy of doppleganger movie reviews, but 2013's The Double, directed by Richard Ayoade, is unavailable on the streaming services I have, so for now it's just a duo, which is more thematic anyway)

Jakey G has Toronto and spiders on his mind

In the Letterboxd app's decade in review, Denis Villeneuve topped the list of top 100 directors.  Now, I admit, I'm very late to the game on appreciating Villeneuve.  There are many of his films I've wanted to see over the years, and very few I have actually seen.  I was years behind on Arrival and certainly many months behind on Blade Runner 2049.  Both of these films impressed me greatly yet I spent no effort to review his back catalog, so I became quite surprised to recently find that Incendies, Prisoners, Sicario and Enemy (all films on my "to watch" list) were all Villeneuve films.  I see the connective tissue between Arrival, Blade Runner and (forthcoming) Dune, but none of these seem to fit together as a "type".  But then I haven't watched all of them yet.

Enemy I was curious about years ago, mainly because I like the idea of discovering a doppleganger and then tracking them down.  I had forgotten that the film is set in Toronto... and not "Toronto posing as X" as it so often does.  It's exciting to see Jake Gyllenhaal jump on the 504 King Streetcar or to look up an address in Mississauga and actually go out to Mississauga (and see those salt and pepper shaker apartment complexes in the background).  Toronto never plays Toronto, so this is an added thrill.

Beyond that, the film is very curious in the way the lead character Adam gets so worked up over discovering his visual double, Anthony, after seeing him as a background performer while watching a video.  It becomes obsessive for him, and once they finally meet, Anthony is absurdly angry about the whole situation.

What we learn is Anthony is quite an asshole.  He's a member of some weird sex club, he cheats on his pregnant wife and seems completely self-involved.  Adam meanwhile is demure and reticent.  He has a fuck buddy but they don't seem very intimate or close.  Gyllenhaal does remarkable work differentiating these two in both demeanor and physicality.

The accompanying soundtrack by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans infers something very sinister, while the heavy shadows and yellowish hue Villeneuve applies provides and overbearing gloominess and weight to the world Adam lives in.  There's a repeating motif of arachnids, which seem to be weighing on both Adam and Anthony's minds, a web of deceit spun that they both get caught in.

The end of the film is a puzzle, one that I had to look up other reviews to make sense of.  This is a film about duplicity and deception, the lies we create and then fall victim to ourselves.  Adam and Anthony, you see, are the same person, and with this understanding the film becomes much less literal and far more metaphorical.  There isn't a twist ending, that reveals this, it's all still undercover and inferred.  I'm not sure if it helps going into the film knowing this, or if it's better to discover it after, but I think the film works in either situation.   In effect, Anthony has created a whole other life in order to conduct his extramarital affairs, so segregated that he's effectively bifurcated his personality into two distinct characters.

It's quite brilliant in its execution, but I needed that extra outside nudge to get the message.  I've been thinking and parsing out the film a lot since watching it, and I'll defintely need to watch it again. I see how Villeneuve went from Enemy to Arrival from here, if only in style.

(Toast's take circa 2014)

Arrival

2016, Denis Villeneuve (Sicario) -- cinema

My unwritten novel starts with cello music the same way this movie does, beautiful haunting and appropriate to the lonely locale. In a way, the music set the tone for the movie much more than any visual did. This looks like a Villeneuve movie, from his architecture shots to his not entirely sharp way of building wide shots. Sharp, as in exquisite camera shots. When someone like Michael Bay shoots a movie, most on the screen is CGI that comes out incredibly focused, so everything around it has to be shot as such. For Villeneuve, it's more about the story, so the mood has to be set. I am more appreciative of this camera work these days, as I find it very hard to view a very sharply shot movie, because.... well, focus, both visually and emotionally. Villeneuve made it so very easy for me to do both. He helped me hunch in my seat, ignore the people checking their phones and just be absorbed.

Aliens have arrived in big disks, like they always do. And like they always do, these disks float over our cities, but sometimes just over big empty fields in Montana. Unlike other alien movies, this is not just happening in the US, and there is not just a team of smart people in the US. There are smart teams everywhere and for them all to be smarter, they work together. Like many alien visits, the heptapods leave heavy lifting of First Contact to us. Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner are tasked with trying to understand & communicate with the Montana disk. Amy is language, Renner is physics. Forest Whitaker is the army colonel in charge of all this, because we know the military will always be in charge of it.

Everyone highlights how this is a smart science fiction movie, about smart people doing smart things. True, not denying it, but it's not what the movie is about.  In The Martian, much of what the movie was about was showing the smart science. The linguistic science of Arrival is presented only briefly under the microscope, and then becomes the backdrop to what our main character is experiencing. This movie is not about one person being the only useful one in the room, though it definitely starts that way, but about choosing the right path (in this case, science & understanding) vs the wrong path (fear and mistrust).

Arrival is a very beautiful movie, at its heart.

Amy Adams plays a character that just wants to connect with these visitors and she cannot conceive they are here to do harm, because if they wished to, they would have already. But the beauty doesn't really come from her drive, not entirely.

**SPOILER**

The core beauty of this movie comes with the reveal of exactly how different the aliens are from us. As Adams' character explores the language structure of these creatures, she begins to experience things, dreams and memories that seem, at first, like they are influencing her to remember and feel things she is repressing, memories of a daughter lost to cancer, on an uncaring husband who is not there. These memories distract her, overwhelm her, but don't deter her. The more she works the more the experiences these jarring happenings. Until a final confrontation with the alien she calls Costello (as in, Abbot and...) explains to her that the aliens feel time as a whole, not as a past, present and future but always as a whole now.

For them, a life is made up entirely of all of its parts. In much the way we faintly recall our past, they must faintly recall their future. So, the message to humans is for them to live life fully, to see all of it as beautiful, to accept the good and the bad as part of the joy of living.

OK, the aliens don't explain that, they are not platitude serving gurus leaving us with text over scenes of sunsets to post of Facebook, they just offer us what is theirs to offer. But the core (for me) is that, if you knew you would see hints of your consequences, that you could be tortured by your choices yet to be made, in much the way many of us are tormented by our past, wouldn't you start making better choices? You would see life as a whole, as  a long but finite period of time that is better filled with good memories (even those yet to happen) than painful ones.

Think of it this way. You are re-reading a book you really really enjoyed. It was filled with great parts, both painful and joyful. You cherish every bit of the book. And, as you re-read, you know what is going to happen but it doesn't diminish the act of re-reading, not experiencing the sad parts you know are going to happen, not experiencing the joyful parts.

Now, add in the mind bending time travel aspect that you can subtly influence what will happen by knowing what has happened, you can understand how this knowing this understanding of a new way of thinking is the true gift from the alien visitors. And this, this is what was so beautiful to me, that we can still offer a hopeful vision of a First Contact. We need a lot of hope right now.

KWIF: constant Crave-ings

KWIF is Kent's Week in Film where each week Kent has a spotlight movie of which he writes a longer, thinkier piece, and then whatever else he watched that week he attempts a quick wee summary of his thoughts (and fails...in the "quick" part).

This Week:
Incendies (2010, d. Denis Villeneuve - Crave)
The Witches of Eastwick (1987, d. George Miller - Crave)
Total Recall (2012, d. Len Weisman - Crave)
Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009, d. Garreth Carrivick - Crave)

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Denis Villeneuve made four films in his native Quebec before he transitioned into Hollywood fare with the star-studded Prisoners in 2013 and evolving into the preeminent director of science fiction over the past 8 years (Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, the Dunes).  Though I've yet to see it, I've heard Prisoners it's a bit of a rough watch. The Academy Awards-nominated Incendies, I can with confidence proclaim is an even rougher one.

The story of Incendies is an adaptation of the stage play of the same name by Wajdi Mouawad, partially based on the life story of Lebanese dissident Souha Bechara but with extensive liberties taken. It tells the story of Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal) who, upon her death, reveals in her will to her twin children, Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) that they have a brother.  The will provides a letter to each of them one for their father whom they always presumed dead, one for the brother. Once they deliver the letters, a third letter will be provided. Simon wants nothing to do with this game, clearly he has some resentment towards his mother, while Jeanne immediately ventures to her mother's homeland (unnamed in the film) where she starts to investigate both the whereabouts and identity of her father and brother.

The film cuts between Jeanne's steps through her investigation and each new location triggers another flashback to her mother's past. The bulk of the film is actually told in these flashbacks, with just enough of Jeanne and Simon (and their dutiful lawyer, played by Rémy Girard) to be invested in their response to their discoveries of their mother's history.

Needless to say, for Nawal to have hid her past from her children, it must have been full of trauma, and, indeed it is, starting with her brothers murdering her refugee lover, her grandmother forcing her to give up her love child and getting ostracized from the village. The latter is both the fortunate and unfortunate turn, as Nawal is forced to go to university and receive an education, but there she becomes further involved in fighting the nationalist discord that has erupted into violence, and she takes on the role of assassin, attempting to kill the leader of the anti-refugee government.

And that's just the starting point. Where it moves from there is deeper into a well of both survival and almost utter despair. I was reminded a lot of Park Chan-wook's Vengeance Trilogy though vengeance is in very short supply in Incendies. 

Villeneuve's direction, along with André Turpin's cinematography, show distinct signs of what is to come in the director's career. Impeccably composed shots, grounded performances in even the most phenomenal of circumstances, and being able to deliver a heavy, weighted tone while still being compelling and entertaining.  There is minimal score outside of the use of two Radiohead songs, "You and Whose Army?" and "Like Spinning Plates" -- both used to tremendous effect.

I have to contemplate representation with this film, as it's a curious issue. Nawal's home country, left explicitly unidentified, allows some wiggle room in the storytelling to play with details, history and culture. It doesn't have to answer explicitly to any particular gaffes in presentation. But would it be more potent if it were trading in very specific historical details, or would that just be even more problematic to base a fiction around it, especially given the dramatic extremes occurring. As well, it would seem none of our three leads, Azabal, Désormeaux-Poulin, and Gaudette, are of middle-eastern decent despite the film taking place in the aforementioned unnamed middle eastern country.  I'm not sure what the crossover is in French-speaking actors of middle eastern origin but, excellent performers all, I doubt that Villeneuve would make the same casting choices today with Hollywood money behind him.

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I have to admit I've spent most of my life not engaging with Cher... her music, her acting, her stabs at middle-aged sex symbol status...none of it I found appealing in my younger years, and everything she did in the 80's and beyond seemed to me to be trying too hard.

Now, in my very middle-age, I have to admit I was perhaps foolish to be so dismissive. I believe this viewing of The Witches of Eastwick will lead me to more peak-80's actress Cher: Moonstruck, Mermaids, Mask, MSilkwood and MSuspect (did you know that Cher voiced a role in 2020's Bobbleheads: The Movie, and did you also know that in 2020 there was a fucking Bobbleheads movie!?!). Cher is so compelling in this role, and stunning. I'm seeing her through much different eyes and I'm completely entranced. I've had crushes on her co-stars Pfeiffer and Sarandon for ages (duh, who hasn't) and yet I found myself captivated by Cher so much more.

The film, in general, perplexed me. From a gender politics angle I'm not at all sure what it's trying to say. Is it a feminist movie, or is it retrograde anti-feminist? It's based on a John Updike novel and I don't think anyone has ever confused him for a feminist. Jack Nicholson's devilishly horny Daryl van Horne is seemingly summoned to Eastwick by two divorcees and a widow who collectively want the perfect imperfect man, which describes Daryl to a T. He is a louse and a letch, but has a gift of saying exactly what each woman wants to hear as he sets out to seduce them all, and succeeds. His playbook is faux humility, negging, flattery and bribery, plus he's stinking rich. It's not long before the three women are ostensibly his harem, though clearly of their own choice.  It doesn't bode well for the town, or them, especially once they start rejecting him.

From a metaphysical angle it's a film that feels like it has no roots, no rules, no guiding principles. It's called "The Witches of Eastwick" and yet, Cher, Sarandon and Pfeiffer are barely witches at all. They certainly wouldn't describe themselves as witches in-film.  And who Daryl exactly is never is made clear. The actual devil, or just a devil? A demon? What?

George Miller, of Mad Max and Happy Feet and Babe fame has a gift for irreverently told stories with a different sense of timing. But with those films, Miller had the utmost creative control.  This being his first (and really, only) studio film, it didn't seem like he had full control over the story being told.  I think this should feel more Beetlejuice-like, but the pacing of the film just felt so off with so many takes seemingly lasting a couple seconds longer than they should, or shots that seem to imply something more worth looking at only for nothing more to appear.

It is a horny movie with questionable tastes. It didn't fully work for me, but it didn't not work for me either.

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I had dismissed Total Recall (2012) as a real "who asked for this?" movie, with the presumption of it being tired Hollywood remake garbage from a that b-movie action franchise director. But, when I spied Kurt Wimmer on the screenplay credit, I though maybe there might be some fun to be had. Not that Wimmer has the most stellar track record, and not that I've seen all of them (I have prejudged the Point Break and Children of the Corn remakes just as I have judged this Total Recall remake) but I think many of his B-movie scripts as elevated B-movies. And yeah, damn, it's a pretty fun sci-fi action movie with some big, big set pieces and Kate Beckinsale being a doggedly fierce antagonist. I think had this film just used a different title and character names, most people wouldn't have even noticed it was *that* similar to the 1990 Total Recall (though the three titty'd lady would have totally tipped it off).

The future tech on display in the film is pretty great. In one scene a security force breaks a small hole in the door and fires a small projectile in the room. The projectile explodes with dozens of self-adhering cameras affixing to every surface at all angles. The leader of the squad then rips down a flap off the back of one of his men revealing a monitor which projects every camera's view, each one selectible for a better view. This sequence later transitions into a foot chase through a very surreal and confounding cityscape that I would love to just sit and admire all the design work gone into it. This then transitions into a car chase which tries to one-up Minority Report and maybe doesn't succeed, but it also doesn't suck.  Even most of the fight sequences are quite entertaining. In the long pantheon of elevator fights, this one's not at the top of the top ten list but could easily be in the middle.

It's not a groundbreaking plot, of a man, discovering he has been living a false life, and that he has a greater destiny before him, and a hot girlfriend from another life, while his hot wife from his false life is on the warpath to kill him.  You know, that old story.

By no means is it a great movie, and no it is not as thoroughly entertaining or adventurous as the 1990 film (which, yes, had a sense of humour this one doesn't), but as a sci-fi action spectacle it delivered the goods very, very well and far better than its reputation would imply.

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Three British lads go to pub after work. Two of them are nerds, one of them's a jock, but they're all pals. One of 'em (let's call him Nerd 1, because I can't be arsed to look it up, as played by Chris O'Dowd) got fired from his job at the start of the film, but that's pretty irrelevant to the rest of the film. Nerd 1 goes to buy the next round and winds up having a chat with a pretty girl from the future. The other lads don't believe him until the Jock goes to the bathroom and comes out at a later time and everyone's dead in the pub. He goes back into the bathroom and returns to his regular time. Then all the lads go to the bathroom together and start time traveling to other times in the pub's future, sometimes running into time travel girl (Anna Farris). Over time (ha) the boys find them looping back around on the other times they've already seen until they solve the thing that they need to solve and save their own future. Or something like that. You know the drill.

Maybe if I'd never seen a time travel film before, I'd find this clever. As well versed as I am in the milieu, I found it utterly predictable. 

I love Chris O'Dowd but his character here has no character, and even O'Dowd's considerable charms brought almost nothing to make the character more interesting or appealing. The other leads too are similarly lacking in anything of interest in their individual journeys. Just three lads caught up in something, yet there's no weight to any of it. And for a comedy, not much levity either, maybe the odd chuckle here or there, but little to stick out in memory long term.

3 Short Paragraphs: Enemy

2013, Denis Villeneuve (Maelstrom, Incendies) -- download

Double. Doppelganger. Evil Twin. It must be unnerving to look into the eyes of someone and see yourself staring back. The mirror is within your realm of control; you can just look away. But to unexpectedly find your own face worn by a low grade actor in a B movie would be way beyond strange. Adam Bell is a teacher at U of T, a man who constantly teaches the same lecture over and over, one of history and totalitarian societies, Romans and Circuses. He is bored, bored of his life and his girlfriend and the dusky city of Toronto he lives in. But when, out of that simple boredom, he watches a movie recommended by a fellow boring teacher, he catches himself playing the bellhop. And boredom changes into an obsession with finding out who this double is.

This is an artistic movie, well shot full of wide scenes that make Toronto urbane yet chilling, institutional. Like Prisoners before it, it is quiet and bleak, even in the brightest sun, the skylines tainted with brown smog. There is an underlying tension to everything and every interaction in the movie. Adam meets his double, and its is not enlightening but scares him. Daniel St Claire, the stage name of Anthony, seems to be everything Adam is not -- confident, wealthy, stylish and intimidating. They are not twins, they are not uncannily alike -- they are exact doubles, down to matching scars. But this movie is not about finding out why, its about becoming aware of something more in the world, and being terrified of it. Villeneuve does such a good job of keeping this tension tight as a guide wire, while seeding us with curiosity.

When I see a movie that is enigmatic, as drawn from symbolism, I like to pretend everything is exactly what we see. They are not scenes of giant spiders because the spiders suggest we are caught in webs of control that we are unaware of. I like to envision a true web, an alternate Toronto that is under the dark, smoke tainted control of an unseen force. That these forces are playing with Adam, or perhaps Anthony, by giving him something to upset his life. There is a scene of the cityscape, with a gargantuan spider in the style of Louise Bourgeois's sculptures, roaming the horizon. It is merely cinematic (merely?) but my scifi mind scans the plot possibilities, seeking evil overlords that ride spiders, playing with their inhabitants who are wriggling flies in their web. If Villeneuve wants to conjure spiders as a thinly veiled comment on how we live urban lives, he can do so, but I see things more plainly, and likely more terrifyingly.

Blade Runner 2049

2017, d. Denis Villeneuve - blu-ray

The dull poster designs didn't help in 
selling the film

I consider the original Blade Runner to be a sleep aid.  I've never made it through the film without falling asleep at least once, but, being a longtime sci-fi nerd, I've tried again more than a few times, with a few different editions, to the same effect.  So powerful is the narcoleptic effect that, years distant from last viewing, just hearing a few chords of its score in the trailer for 2049 started making me legit drowsy in the theatre (Every. Time.  Those trailers leaned hard on that classic score, treading heavily on nostalgia for Ridley Scott's original production.)

Put bluntly, I'm not a fan.  Don't hate it, but the property never resonated with me.

Blade Runner 2049 seemed like a weird and risky $150million+ gamble for Warner Brothers.  It's not like the original was ever anything but a cult favorite.  It's not like it has the mass cultural appeal of Star Wars, Star Trek or even the Alien franchise (of which it's loosely a part).  It's not adventurous enough, not action-oriented really at all to appeal to the broader range of moviegoing public.  It's a bleak and bleary future world that always feels heavy and uninviting.  It's inspired dozens upon dozens of impersonators, few of which have been successful. 

Somewhere deep down, the WB was thinking that The Force Awakens was such a smash hit primarily because it brought Harrison Ford back in the fold, and that doing so again with another sci-fi property would be a sure fire hit.  Nevermind that director Denis Villeneuve was just coming off the critically successful Arrival and a string of other sleeper hits, they must have thought they had box office gold forthcoming.

But the original Blade Runner hadn't ever transcended its cult status and the box office for 2049 reflected that quite handily.  It struggled to draw an audience beyond the fandom despite healthy critical praise (and a little cultural blowback, which we'll get to).  The excitement of Ford returning as Deckard was certainly nothing compared to returning as Han Solo.  I mean, I love big budget sci-fi (conceptually) and tend to gravitate towards it even when it's bad, but good word of mouth still couldn't draw me into this one at the theatre.  Not that I didn't think about it, figuring that I would have a harder time falling asleep watching it if I was at the theatre.  As much as Blade Runner's reputation is of that as a classic of the genre, I think there's probably more people who saw the original and weren't entertained or engaged by it than love it, and that reputation kept people away from this sequel. 

The thing is it's good.  It's really good.  It doesn't fundamentally shift away from its predecessor in tone, and it's a loving homage to its past, yet, to be perfectly honest, it's more than a few steps up in quality, and not just because of the money and technology modern filmmaking can throw at it (not that it doesn't help).  I mean, Roger Deakins cinematography is miles beyond Jordan Cronenweth's of the original ...not that it doesn't still hold up fairly well, all things considered, but it's nothing like Deakins, who is if not THE master of his craft today, certainly in the conversation for it.  This is just a flat-out gorgeous-looking film.  Villeneuve has a great eye to start and I think Deakins knows how to perfectly execute that intent (having worked with him before on Sicario and Prisoners, it's clear they have a compatible partnership).

With a script from returning Blade Runner writer Hampton Fancher (with Michael Green), the sequel more than understand its need to act as both sequel and stand alone story.  Although I've seen Blade Runner in full a handful of times, because I've fallen asleep so often during those viewings I really don't remember the specifics...it's like trying to remember the finer details of a dream.  Yet I was never lost with 2049.  I'm sure there were probably a few nods to the past I missed, but it's just savvy filmmaking to put the viewer into a very fleshed-out world and fill in any necessary details as you go.  It does so remarkably.  Honestly, had they called this something else other than "Blade Runner", a different title altogether, it probably would have pulled another 50 to 100 million in the box office.  It's certainly accessible enough to stand on its own while also carrying forward a story from 35 years ago.  Think about a gorgeous sci-fi epic starring Ford and Ryan Gosling that didn't lean so heavily on the franchise name, it should have been an much easier sell.

Much of the negative reaction has been around the film's troubling depiction of women.  As I watched, aware of the criticism, I found myself keenly observing how the women's roles are depicted.  There is certainly an awareness within the film itself of the troubling life for women in this dystopic future...I mean life is generally harsh, but the film is just that much harsher on its female characters.  Prostitution and subservience is largely their role, acting as sexual aggressors seems to be their response to gain control.  I found Ana de Armas' Joi to be the most fully realized female character, and seemingly most in control of her destiny, as a holographic artificial intelligence and partner to Gosling's K, a replicant, and hunter of replicants.  Joi expresses her desires, and establishes a sense of ownership over her limited detiny that was honestly surprising, moreso than troubling or like she was any less of a partner to K.  K is clearly in love with her, though as a replicant and blade runner, he seem keenly aware he's not supposed to be feeling any emotions.  But that sense of control Joi had really gets the rug pulled out from under it when K encounters a promotional hologram for the "Joi model", which creates a very thought provoking paradox about what's self-awareness and what's just programming.  Ultimately those criticisms of the film being sexist are accurate, but the rebuttal that it is knowingly so is also accurate.  What it's trying to say about the sexism as commentary on society is also obfuscated enough that it's easy to fall on the critical or defensive side and be right either way.

Problematic or not, 2049 is going to be another cult classic in time.  It's just too well crafted not to be.

3 Short Paragraphs: Sicario

2015, Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners) -- digital rental

Now, having seen all of Villeneuve's Hollywood endeavours, I can comfortably say I am a fan. Time to push back catalogs and see his French movies. But are there back catalogs anymore? This was my first official, legal digital rental. Having recently upgraded my Internet, I plugged in a credit card and "rented" this title in HD from my PS3. I had been waiting because I knew it to be an English language movie with Spanish spoken. Pirates tend to have all sub-titles or none. Finding a good English-only is a challenge, especially in today's world where the seas are losing their pirate ships. It was a proven success, but still begs the question --- how far back can I find movies? Are the days of flipping through the VHS/DVD boxes saying "saw it saw it saw it sucks saw it saw it" gone? Or is that what Netflix is for? We shall have to see.

This movie takes place in the same America-Mexico border crossing as the American version of The Bridge, Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. The plot & setting are a microscope on the current era of the Drug War, the one where Mexican drug lords kill their enemies in the hundreds, often dismembering corpses and hanging them for everyone to see. Emily Blunt is a doorkicker, a dedicated FBI agent working against the cartels in Arizona, but not really accomplishing much in the bigger picture. But her success drags her into the world of spook Josh Brolin. He has a goal and needs dedicated soldiers. He's not clear of what he needs her for, but it is going to be nefarious. Walking beside Brolin is Benicio Del Toro, an enforcer for the Columbia cartel(s). As the movie is called Sicario (assassin) you can easily guess what Benicio is and what Brolin's goal is.

We walk the plot of this movie beside Blunt, never seeing the full story of things but still tagging along to see where it goes. Oh, she has an idea that things are going to be nasty, from  the introduction to the world during a border crossing to retrieve a cartel member from Mexican authorities, but she is not exactly sure how far Brolin will go. Everything is nail bitingly tense. In most of these movies, the characterization happens in the rushed parts between the action sequences, but in a Villeneuve movie the action sequences are that which glue the characters together. In the end, we are left standing dazed as a single scenario in this vast epic that is the Drug War has passed us by, leaving us wondering what was the point of it all and what kind of creature do we need to be, to see all of it.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Dune: Part Two

2024, Denis Villeneuve (Sicario) -- cinema

Dune: Part One writeup. Wow, we did a back-n-forth post.

This one is still settling in. It doesn't have the visual cues that separate it into segments like the first. But for a few visits to Geidi Prime, home of the Harknonnen, and Kaitain, the home of Emperor Shaddam and his daughter Irulan. Its all sand sand sand, with a wee bit of a visit elsewhere. 

Almost a week later and it never settled in.

But for some butt discomfort (three hours in a seat does a number on my muscles) I was entirely enthralled all the way through this movie. So the "not settled in" kind of weirds me out. Nothing really stands out in my mind-memory as, "I loved that!" and yet I can say with (mental) comfort that I did love the movie. Maybe as I speak of it (as Kent said, this blog, for me, is more like us sitting at a table, chatting about it), more will come to mind.

So, the movie picks up immediately after the last. Paul (Timothée Chalamet, Lady Bird) and Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson, Silo) are escaping into the desert with the Fremen of Seitch Tabr, still carrying the body of Jamis (Babs Olusanmokun, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds). A Harkonnen patrol finds them, the Fremen scatter, Paul and his mother hide. There is a fight, high atop a rocky outcropping, and as the Fremen make quick work of the environment-suit clad Harkonnen soldiers, their bodies fall with booming thuds to the sand below. After, the Fremen collect gear from the vanquished, as well as water from their corpses, but only for cooling systems -- their bodies are too full of chemicals to be used as drinking water. But still, not wasted. 

Then, we are then introduced to Irulan (Florence Pugh, Outlaw King), who narrates into a recording device, giving us some more political tidbits of the situation in the Galaxy. 

Much of the early movie is Paul and Jessica finding their place among the Fremen of Seitch Tabr. Some are as Stilgar (Javier Bardem, Jamón, Jamón), beholden to the prophecy of the Lisan al-Gaib, an off-worlder who will bring back life to Arrakis. Others, such as Chani (Zendaya, Spider-Man: No Way Home) and her friend Shishakli (Souheila Yacoub, Le sel des larmes), don't believe in the prophecy and openly mock  the others. And many think Paul and his mother are just spies, but Stilgar knows she is Bene Gesserit, and has her replace their own dying Reverend Mother -- he has to play politics as well, to keep all on the path he wants them on. The ritual involves drinking the Water of Life, a blue goo taken from a drowned baby worm. The Water gives Jessica all the memories of previous Reverend Mothers but also transmutes her unborn daughter into... something more, something sentient & intelligent, while still in the womb. For Jessica, all of this is her manipulation to bring about the Bene Gesserit's own prophecy, of the Kwisatz Haderach.

Soooo much of this movie is about solidifying the utterly dense mythology of this book series in our minds. I am not sure how successful it will be to the wider audiences. I am decades past my reading, and only remember the loudest notes. I also have the two previous adaptations muddled in there. So, while I cannot speak to authenticity, I can say it is powerful. The metaphors of white saviour to a desert people, political machinations vs faith, the jockeying of power between patriarchies and matriarchies, and the desire to not be utterly controlled by a destiny that will bring so much ruin --- so much is covered, and it may be this volume of ideas that is supplanting the emotional weight that allows a movie to settle into my brain pan.

Paul doesn't annoy me as much in this movie as he did in the first. I really respect how Chalamet and Villeneuve handle the young man coming into his own, as he tries to adapt his own desires for revenge to the prophecy of the Fremen, and the machinations of his mother, but without taking advantage of the Fremen. He also has a budding romantic relationship, which fell entirely flat for me. I am not a Zendaya hater, but she did nothing for me in this role, and their relationship did not seem believable to me. Meanwhile Bardem utterly embodied his Stil(gar) suit -- (groooooan) wholeheartedly dedicated to his faith in Paul, but also ready to dispense with whatever didn't fit this square peg into the round hole of prophecy. He seemed a bit desperate, but also astounded at how much did align for him. And funny -- the only humour in the movie, if you didn't laugh at Gurney Halleck's (Josh Brolin, Old Boy) attempts at musical poetry.

But the story also has to fill in the gaps elsewhere: the Harkonnens trying to resurrect spice production after taking the planet back from the brief Atreides rule, and the Emperor (Christopher Walken, Gigli) himself, dealing with the impact of what he did (the destruction of a great house), and how it affects his daughter's respect for him, as well as her own insertion into the long game politics, as she is tied to the Bene Gesserit. I will definitely have to watch a second time to see if I end up caring about these other plot points. I mean, they are directly from the book, but I found myself not caring at all about them, but for the incredible imagery. Geidi Prime, the black & white oily planet seemingly without any colour, would make its own good story, but here, I just wanted to get back to Arrakis and see how they are going to get Paul along far enough to attack the Harkonnen. The years long passing from the books (he actually has kids during this period) is not possible in this adaptation, so I was curious how they would escalate Paul's rising in power among the Fremen. The movie uses the Harkonnen response, the arrival of psychotic Feyd Rautha (Austin Butler, Masters of the Air) who obliterates Seitch Tabr, forcing the Fremen of the north hemisphere to ride their worms south. This is what instigates the retribution against all the Harkonnen, a united people north and south, all under Paul, now Muad'Dib, who has to accept his role, embrace it fully, bitterly.

The "final battle" where Paul brings about the destruction of the Harkonnen strongholds on Arrakis, this is where Villeneuve's flair for vast scenes excels. The atomics tossed at the mountains, the arrival of the worm allies, the huge battle between Fremen, Harkonnen and the Emperor's Sardaukar. It all culminates with Paul confronting the Emperor and the castrated Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård, Thor). By now, Paul has fully accepted his role in all these plots, and schemes and stratagems. He has seen the future properly and how so many futures could only lead to numberless deaths, without resolution. So, he makes the hardest choice, that he will become the Emperor (in effect) by taking Irulan's hand in marriage. He will go against the other great houses. He will begin his Holy War proper.

If at any point, this movie, and this story, fails me, it is at this conclusion, because its not a conclusion at all. Most not familiar with the mythology would be "WTF?!?!" as Paul has gone from not wanting to be anyone's messiah to not only leading the Fremen of Arrakis against the Harkonnens, but now against the entire galaxy. Still not sure how these desert guys know how to fly a spaceship, but sure, whatever. We knew there had to be a third movie (at least) for the story to be told properly, but this whole scene feels... abrupt.

I guess, after all this writing, and all this muddling in the back of my brain, this movie refuses to settle. I don't have that impression that I did with the first movie. That could be explained down to simply that there was nothing new here, this is still Villeneuve in the world of Dune, so the wow-factor is not possible. I have already had that impressed upon me. Perhaps with further viewings, as I sink past the story I already know, and see the film making, it will once again come to impress me, to wow me, to astound me, as the first movie does. 

Dune, Part Two

2024, d. Denis Villeneuve - In Theatre

[toasty's review]

I felt like a loose beige scarf, flapping in a desert sandstorm while watching Dune, Part 2. I was not lost, as I was securely draped around someone's neck who was still forging ahead through the swirling grit with purpose, but I was ready to go where the wind was trying to takes me yet feeling the tug of resistance to stay in place.

I have a love for David Lynch's Dune, a brilliantly messy, often impenetrable film that looks like the product of a brainstorming lunch between H.R. Geiger and David Cronenberg. There's nothing like it. But I've never read Frank Herbert's novel, so the only think I have to compare Villeneuve's Dune(s) to is the Lynch movie. 

Most of Lynch's Dune is covered by Part 1 and the remaining final act of Lynch's version, I learned after watching Part 2 and having a detailed discussion with Toasty about his recollection of the novels, was largely constructs of Lynch, and not Herbert.

So I sat through Part 2 waiting for some iconic moments (to me at least) of the Lynch film that would never arrive because they were not from the source. Thus, pretty much of all Part 2 was surprising.

I'm so used to the idea of sequels picking up with time passing in universe (especially when years of real time has passed in between releases) that it's always a shock to me when the sequel picks up immediately where we left off, no recap or nothin. We don't have time to backtrack.

Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) is creating a stir among the Fremen. There are those who believe he is the Kwisatz Haderach, a prophecy that the Bene Gesserit witches have been seeding for centuries as part of their religion, and have been trying to make literal in this current age in a push for more power. But there are also Fremen who think him just an outsider and should be left to waste in the desert. Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), meanwhile, takes over for the ailing Reverend Mother of the Fremen, and has a powerful spice-augment witch gestating in her belly whom she already communes with.

The Bene Gesserit who have the ear of the Emperor (Christopher Walken) are uneasy with the Atreides' possible rise to power, have contingency plans for the Kwisatz Haderach with Fayd-Rautha of the house Harkonnen (Austin Butler), as cunning as he is sadistic. The Emperor already put the Atreides down because they were rising too high, and now things only seem to be getting worse.

But what Paul wants is not "destiny" or "power", he wants Chani (Zendaya), the girl he's been dreaming (/having future visions) about for years. She's reluctant at first, but does start to develop feelings for Paul, but is also very uncomfortable with all the prophetic worship he receives. With good reason.

At it's heart, these two pieces of one text are about whether destiny means that you have no control about where you wind up. It's about power, how to accept it, and how to use it wisely...and it's a warning about the corrupting influence of it. Where the first film was highlighting political intrigue, Part 2 plays with religious intrigue, and to be clear, it doesn't denote a whole heck of a lot of difference between them.

The acting in this is all pretty great, with one exception. Many people complain that Walken is "too Walken" and they can't separate Walken the pop-culture icon from the role. I had no such trouble. Cast the glance aside, though, and one of my favourite actor among the Millennials, Florence Pugh, has moments in her performance that made me wince. She's only in a couple scenes and I suspect the casting is largely in preparation for the next movie. If she spent more than a week on set I'd be surprised, so maybe she's not so heavily invested. I have to wonder if she was a late addition. Butler is the scene stealer, here, simultaneously repulsive and alluring. You hate him, but you can't look away from him.

Toasty said that he wasn't sure how Chalamet would pull off getting into the leadership role, as he seems so low key as a person, but time and again in these films he proves himself. Just as Paul has to prove himself to the Fremen, Timothee has to prove himself to the audience, and both are very big wins.  Unlike Toasty, I though Zendaya was remarkable. I think her whole deal is that even as she's falling in love with Paul, she's still wary of him, and though I haven't read the book, from what I hear it's in how this relationship plays out that is the biggest change. Just as Paul had visions of Chani coming into his life, and he was in love with her before he even met her, it's almost like she had visions of outsider bringing absolute ruin to everything she loves and holds dear. Her heart and brain are in conflict and Zendaya sells that throughout.  She never goes "soft" emotionally, she's always guarded, she's a warrior, so she not going to let her emotions get the better of her.

I'm talking a lot about themes, plot, and acting, which is testament to how involving a story its, and how well performed it is that I'm really not talking about the visuals, which are, as with the last film, epic. The visual tone of this film is daringly monochromatic. The only real colour seems to be the blue of the Fremen eyes, where everything else is browns and greys, blacks and tans. But it's richly realized and gorgeous. Everything fits, from wardrobe to makeup, sets and effects, creature design and sound design.

If there's a weak point, and even that is subjective, it's Hanz Zimmer's score. The chanting seemed...overused, and began to irritate me (if only because it was reminding me of the Snyder Cut of Justice League, bleh).

I rewatched Part 1 the morning before our afternoon screening, and as I mentioned in our review (yes, Toasty and I did a joint review which for a few glorious weeks in 2011 was going to be the whole deal blog) I didn't outright love it upon first watch. I did suspect, however, that "when it's completed with its second half, it will be even better.... probably amazing." and I have to say, that prediction bore true. I loved it pretty fully on rewatch and it had me so psyched for Part 2.

But with Part 2, I once again felt like I did when I came out of Part 1, that I didn't love it, but once it is more of a complete story with Dune: Messiah, as promised by Villeneuve, I will feel much more strongly about it.

3 Short Paragraphs: Prisoners

2013, Denis Villeneuve (Incendies) -- download

I briefly commented on my review of Starbuck that I liked the way it used its locations, but I never really said why. Most movies dispense with the characterization of a location, seeking either very generic or very obvious shots. A movie set in NYC is going to show Times Square as often as it shows a street of brownstones that could, and often are, from anywhere. But the Quebec cinema, both in its geographic confines and its choices, often makes the more interesting choice.  Yes, more interesting even in the depiction of the mundane. The first thing that caught my eye in Prisoners was the older neighbourhood the movie takes place in. This is a suburb that has grown slowly over 30 years, seen via the mixture of middle class split-level and upper-middle class two story homes. With this we are connected to the two families who live here, one working class, one a little better dressed. Instantly, Villeneuve has shown a choice which, for me, made this very mundane crime story stand out.

The Dovers (Hugh Jackman & Maria Bello) are friends and neighbours with the Birches (Terrence Howard & Viola Davis), spending the Thanksgiving holiday together in a rainy, tired subdivision. The kids are bored, either lost in TV or running around outside. Then, as the cliche goes, every parent's worst nightmare happens and the youngest children are abducted. An obviously out of place RV leads investigators to Paul Dano's Alex, an obviously damaged young man. They are convinced he took the kids but cannot get anything out of him. Thus begins Keller Dover's descent, as he takes the investigation out of the hands of Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) and into his own bloodied fists.

At its heart, this movie is a standard genre crime movie, investigating the disappearance of two girls with some frustrating police procedural tossed in. Loki is good, too good for this small police department and he takes his frustrations out by bullying the Captain. But it is how this movie is wrapped that makes it pretty damned good. The main characters are its centre. Loki, obviously a man of violence from his old, faded tattoos works the case chained by protocol and fact. The more he is stonewalled, the more he blinks. Keller, a good, right Christian man, finds the violence within to actually dig out the truth. It is as chilling as the wet snow they slog through. When truths finally reveal, they shock both men, if not the viewers -- we are jaded, crime junkies while these play the part of real people for us.

The Hiatus Post: Blade Runner 2049

I am taking a break from the web. Not being on the web, but contributing. I have been posting something to something blog related since 1999. I have had unintended extended breaks, but I always felt the pressure to do something. This time, I am under far too many other pressures and I just need one fewer thing that I feel compelled to do. The photoblog is paused, this blog will be paused. On my side, at least; Kent will do as Kent's life allows him to do.

2017, Denis Villeneuve (Sicario) -- cinema

Disclosure. I haven't felt compelled to watch Blade Runner in quite sometime. Disclosure. I actually enjoy the original version, with it's noir over-dub. Disclosure. I never really liked the idea of Deckard possibly being a replicant himself. Disclosure. While I never avoided spoilers, apparently I did because I never caught the first one, till the opening footage.

So, thirty years since the last movie took place, 35 years since the last movie came out. And Villeneuve still wonders why this movie didn't do better. To me its obvious; the original's fanbase was not only late in coming (the original didn't do well either) but they are now old & jaded. Sure, the younger fanbase of all things scifi and retro is there, but again... jaded. As for the rest of the world, the world that makes up the population that determines a movie being a success or not? Despite "hey girl" Ryan Gosling being the lead, its slow paced, atmospheric scifi. And it cost a fortune to make. So, really, not so much of a mystery Denis.

But still dude, I loved it. Fucking loved it. But get it, this is not big grins and rush-right-out-to-see-it-again loving it. This is knowing my expectations and having them met, if not exceeded. It is a lush, colourful (no, really it is) homage to the original while being a powerful, standalone movie. I just wish the plot had been tighter, as in the end, after all the exposition about the powerful central theme I still couldn't really tell you anyone's motivations beyond Joe's. Why exactly did the Bad Guy need Deckard? The replicant underground? Hell, other than the option of tossing the old pigskin back n forth, why did Joe need Deckard? But meh, who cares, I just watched the fuck out of this movie.

The visuals, the aging anachronistic world (remember, now was The Future of the original) where the decay of mother earth is apparent. Is that snow? Ash? Ashen snow? Isn't this LA ? No plants, no real animals no nothing but industrial decay and bodies everywhere. One can assume that the humans left on earth exist for no other reason than to fuel the off-world colonies exodus, through labour and spending. At some point that spending will be done, and ... abandonment.

Speaking of the visuals, I must admit, I am in the camp of being disappointed about the female centric sex machine of the movie. C'mon, I get it, you think the girls get Gosling so we get Joi, the Not Real Girl. But, what about the background? Wouldn't the Joi advertising try and appeal to all ? Unless they didn't want to interfer with the whole Joe-Joi unreal couple thing. The how about the pleasure droid brothel? There wasn't a single sexual exploitative male image, and that just seems ... unrealistic.

In the end, after two-plus hours, I was left satisfied. And more than eager for another part of the story, even moreso than after the dozen plus times I have seen the original. I want to see where the offworld colonies go, what is left with Earth, and now that Replicants know they can procreate, what is next for them?

10 for 10: too busy to review

[10 for 10... that's 10 movies (or tv shows) which we give ourselves 10 minutes apiece to write about.  Part of our problem is we don't often have the spare hour or two to give to writing a big long review for every movie (or TV show) we watch.  How about a 10-minute non-review full of half-remembered scattershot thoughts? Surely that's doable? ]

In this edition, some things I actually watched fairly recently but don't have a whole lot to say about:
Widows - 2018, d. Steve McQueen - netflix
Hustlers - 2019, d. Lorene Scafaria - amazonprime
Sicario - 2013, d. Denis Villeneuve - netflix
The Most Dangerous Game - 1932, d. Ernest B. Schoedsack, Irving Pichel - amazonprime
The Bee Gees: How Do You Mend A Broken Heart - 2020, d. Frank Marshall - hbomax
The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two - 2020, d. Chris Columbus - netflix
Juliet, Naked - 2019, d. Jesse Peretz  - netflix
Hotel Artemis - 2018, d. Drew Pierce - netflix
The To Do List - 201, d. Maggie Carey - netflix
Flight - 2012, d. Robert Zemeckis - netflix

....allons-y....

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 My intention was to do a big one-two punch of Widows + Hustlers, the former a movie I was very keen to see when it was originally released but never got out to see, the latter I was only mildly interested as a result of good buzz.  After watching them, and enjoying them both, I just couldn't connect the threads, other than being mildly crime related and being two films with a largely female ensemble cast.

Widows I wanted to love, based on its cast.  Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, and Elizabeth Debicki each heavyweight performers in their own right in my mind, and always make what their in better for their presence.  Yet, something about this film just didn't connect.  It's not a mess, it's not poorly told, directed, or shot, it just doesn't accelerate.  Is it as simple as the film brings Carrie Coon into the picture, another heavyweight who makes anything she's in better, and legitimately wastes her?  No, it's not, but it's kind of endemic of the film that seems to not know what to do with what it has.

I think this is the first Steve McQueen film I've seen, and he's a director with a solid reputation preceding him, but I'm not very impressed.  Davis is obviously the lead of the picture and she commands the screen but her character is left in sort of a confused limbo for much of the film as she tries to wrangle the other widows of her husband's gang into performing their last job.  She doesn't have a lot of options left to her, having become accustomed to a certain lifestyle.  Debicki has the biggest journey in the film, taking her character from abused spouse to sex worker to empowered force of nature and she walks away with the picture in the process.  Rodriguez plays demure, very against type for her, and it's rare to see such a softer side of her.  She's been playing tough girl since her debut.

I think this would have worked better as a pulpier, flashier movie, rather than attempting gritty realism which I hear is what McQueen favors.  The whole side angle of Colin Ferrell and Brian Tyree Henry's political aspirations gives a particular insight into tainted Chicago politics, but it's largely out of step with the rest of the film.  I just think it should have been more exciting, rather than striving for thought provoking...which it is, but only just.

[14:17]

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Hustlers though was more surprising than I expected.  It's a sort of friendship love story, about a woman with no options left it seems but to turn to stripping, and the star performer who takes her under her wing.  Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians) is the former, with Jennifer Lopez as the latter.  When Wu joins up at a high-end strip club in the late 2000's she feels like an outsider and doesn't know how to work the business.  Lopez is introduced via a pole dance sequence which somehow is shot avoiding the gross salaciousness of a strip club, and instead seems to admire and be in awe of her physical prowess.  Every time men in the audience creep into frame, to lob money at the dancer, it threatens to bring the performance down, but Lopez, in character, seems to be in a zone of her own.  It's something I think that takes a female director to pull off and it's what Scafaria brings, is such warmth, love and respect for these women and what they do.  There's no real judgement here.  It's a celebration of them. The backroom sequences early on, which bring together sort of a clan of women, including popular performers of the day Lizzo and Cardi B, are just so alive, and it's a pointed contrast to the future jump later on when the back room is populated by foreigners, possibly illegal immigrant, indentured sex workers (just watched season 2 of The Wire before watching this so it was prominent in my mind this possibility)

As Wu's character takes off under Lopez's guidance the two become fast friends and intimately connected.  They start a side hustle of getting their patrons, rich wall street assholes, too drunk and overcharge their credit cards.  Getting rich and moving up in the world.  But then the financial crisis of 2009 hits and the well dries up so their gamble turns more aggressive and serious, which winds up catching the attention of the police and a sting operation takes it down.

Based on a true story, but obviously loosely adapted, it's a powerful statement about the nature of wealth, and how it's obtained, as well as the different class and gender economies in the world.  It pokes around a lot of themes but doesn't extrapolate tremedously upon any of them.  It's a pretty good story though, and I think it hits in a more thought-provoking manner than Widows and is more fun too.  Lopez is great and talks of her being robbed for at the very least an Oscar nomination were bang on.

[30:54 - already 10 minutes behind]

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Sicario is one of those movies I had heard about when it came out, that it had one of the most intense sequences put to film, and that it had more than a few surprises under its belt.  I knew it was a movie about the cross border drug trade, but not much else... like, I didn't know until this past year that it was a Denis Villeneuve  film, nor that it had Roger Deakins as its cinematographer.  Those are two very key pieces of info that should have placed this much higher on my to-watch list years ago.

It's a film that had a modest amount of hype.  Not too overblown, but enough that kept the title resonant 6 years later, and obviously spawning a sequel that maybe didn't hit the same level of accolades but seemed to manage fine.  It was a film whose hype was modest enough that it could have easily lived up to it.  And yet, I felt kind of empty after watching it.  Like I wasn't quite sure what I should feel about it.

It's the story about a task force that doesn't so much as operate in the grey area as it operates rather illegally, dismantling drug cartels, but also working its own angle to keep supplies running -- the idea being that the drugs are going to flow anyway, might as well make it flow in the most efficient way with the least disruptive impact on society.  Emily blunt plays a New Mexico area FBI agent who gets recruited into this special task force (one blessed from on high), and she's never quite certain the role she's playing or why she's actually there...until she finally discovers what that is, and it's not good.

This is a hard film.  I mean it's really watchable and yes, there are some pretty intense moments, but it's a raw nerve, exposing the darker reality of our world in dramatically entertaining fashion, but no less makes for uncomfortable viewing.  The film's "good guys" aren't really that good, and the work they're doing makes sense, but it's without any ideals or scruples.  It's not even gray area, they're in the black, and the only thing that makes them the "good guys" and not the bad guys is that they're not really in it for the money.

I didn't feel the itch to watch the sequel after watching this and I'm not sure if I will.  

 

I probably will.  Although it won't have the Deakins-isms I so tremendously enjoyed in this.

[42:47]

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Another plan foiled from lack of time was the idea of doing a week long series of "to hunt man" reviews, spurred on by watching The Hunt .  The first film I watched after The Hunt I decided should be The Most Dangerous Game, the original hunting-man-as-sport movie (based on the original hunting-man-as-sport novel [novella?]).  

Well, you can't really even call The Most Dangerous Game a movie.  At about 62 minutes, I've seen TV episodes longer.  It falls in that weird runtime blank space where it's not a short film, but it's also not a feature.

What it most assuredly is is a truly goofy movie. 

A famed big game hunter is aboard a ship that crashes when the signal light that's supposed to guide them ashore is deliberately misplaced.  The lone survivor, he finds his way to a manor house where he's greeted by a cartoonish Cossack with extremely broad makeup and hair applied, like he's in a Universal monster movie.  A most ridiculously accented, highly theatrical Russian Count strolls down the stairs and introduces himself as well as his guests, a drunkard and a dame.  The drunkard is played by Robert Armstrong beautifully.  He's not at all "natural" drunk like in the recently reviewed Another Round but he doesn't quite play it like a cartoonish drunk either.  It's so far beyond that, that I could only applaud and be amazed by the choices he made.  Fay Wray (of King Kong fame) plays the drunkard's sister, and obviously the defacto love interest for our new hero (who, as a big game hunter, is, in modern eyes, a despicable piece of shit).  She tries to warn the new blood of the Count's intentions, but the Count makes them known on his own.  You see, the Count sees in him a kindred spirit, a man who understands the hunt, the thrill, but how the edge wears off after time, and you need a more dangerous game, one who can fight back with the same level of calculation... it's time to hunt man... are you with me, co-hunters, or against me , and be hunted.

Well, obviously it's no fun if they just hunt down people together so they square off in a tepid tete-a-tete that takes them through the jungles of the King Kong set.  Literally.  If you're at all familiar with King Kong you're going to recognize much of the terrain they traverse in this film's short run time.

Oh, this is a stupid, stupid story, and yet, it's kind of delightful to watch... like when the Count sics his dogs on the hunter and it's so very clear that the dogs are just playing and the man is holding treats for them to jump up on him.  And Fay Wray does what she's famous for doing, which is screaming, all the bloody time.  It's pretty grating, in a dumb fun way, both her screaming and the movie.

[58:25]

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How Do You Mend A Broken Heart is the subtitle of this HBO biopic of the Bee Gees, a sibling-led group whose legacy I don't think I've ever given too much consideration to.  The subtitle, one of the Bee Gees more popular songs, seems to indicate a sort of thesis for the film, but it's one that never comes to fruition.  Barry Gibb is the sole survivor of the trio, Robin and Maurice having passed away a few years apart in the past decade.  You would think this would be Barry, pontificating on what the loss of his brothers means as he reflects upon their 50 years in music, but no.  It's mostly a manufactured, talking heads retrospective that rapidly accelerates through their 60's and 70's discographies with a bit of dabbling in the 80's and beyond.  Because they were so prolific, having written thousands of songs, with dozens of hits (both to their name as a group and as songwriters for theirs), there's really no justice served here to any of it.  

If you don't know anything about the Bee Gees, and really I didn't, it does serve as a really good primer to their career, with a modest amount of insight into the influence they wielded, and the emotional highs and lows they experienced.  It attempts to get to the heart of the group, but it always seems a bit cold and distant whenever they try.  There's a lot more drama that could have been teased out, but with 50 years to cover there was no time.  It's like "hey we had drug habits...and then we didn't" and "we were married, and then divorced, and married again" with no real emotional connection to these events in their lives.  

A lot of the talking heads comes from interviews with the brothers from older interviews, and it keeps them at a distance, knowing that they've already passed and yet the film is trying to recontextualize their insight into this new narrative.  

My biggest takeaway was that I the Bee Gees had a very long career, but in that very long carreer, they produced only a small window of music (at pique disco) that I actually liked.  I kind of wish they just set the whole doc in that era and dove deeper into the making of their biggest hits.

[1:09:44]

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The first Christmas Chronicles movie debuted on netflix during our "dark year" here at T&KSD.  I know I watched the film, as I distinctly recall viewing it my phone during a stupidly long bus ride across town as we tried to deal with my daughter's lice problem at a professional facility.  You don't really forget something like that.  The film was quite fun, with a sort of Adventures In Babysitting (but with christmas and fantasy) kind of vibe, but far from perfect.  Kurt Russell definitely sold the damn thing with his gusto.  I was hoping for something bigger, more adventurous, and actually more action heavy...I wanted Russell to be "action Santa".  

So with the promise of a sequel, I was hoping that the 80's influence would spin it into something more James Cameron-y (as much as I dislike how the man directs, I like his idea of sequels going bigger)...alas Part Two is too much of a sequel, bringing back the character Kate from the first film, now an awkward pre-teen, and her new, soon-to-be stepbrother with her. 

By tying the film so closely to the first it does lend it a sense of connection that I think worked in favor of the overall film, but also set it on a path that I didn't personally want to see it go on.  It gets very magic-centric, which isn't ostensibly a bad thing, but director Chris Columbus brings to it everything you would expect him to, given his track record.  It's a family movie, and it's okay, but it doesn't stand out or apart in any way beyond Kurt (and the stunt casting of Goldie Hawn as Mrs. Clause...but it's not stunt casting if she's great in the role, right?).  I hope they keep making these so that maybe they'll eventually get a really good one.  Kurt and Goldie are awesome, and their wardrobes as Mr and Mrs C are my favourite Santas ever, so I can't not want more, even if what we've gotten so far has been mediocre at best.

[1:21:43]

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I was a big fan of Nick Hornby in my late teens/early 20s.  High Fidelity was my obvious gateway.  Being a music fan, but moreover just an obsessive nerd, I felt seen and understood by his novel, and the film made from it.  Fever Pitch was deep in the weeds about very specific British football obsession, and yet I could relate to that too, and About A Boy perfectly encapsulated white male ennui which I've been know to indulge in.  I followed Hornby on his subsequent two (maybe three?) but they stopped speaking to me.  He was eminently readable, he's got a very fluid style, but I didn't connect with what he was saying anymore.  It's like what he wanted to explore wasn't personal, so much as intellectual to him, and that created distance.

I didn't really want to see movies based on his books, I felt I had moved past him, his work, and derivatives thereof.  But, with Juliet, Naked, I mean...Chris O'Dowd.  I love Chris O'Dowd.  His Isrish accent and way of elocuting is one of the most soothing and enjoyable things on Earth.  Even though this film seemed to come and go without any fanfare at all, I was excited when it popped up on nextflix and it jumped to the top of my list. I just had to convice my wife that the O'Dowd factor would overrule her dislike of Ethan Hawke. (She left the film early, not because it wasn't interesting she said, but she had a book she was more into reading)

Well, damn if this wasn't just a complete joy for me to watch, and if it's true at all to the book, it returns Hornby back to the type of personal, nerdy storytelling I originally liked about him.  In this case O'Dowd plays a man obsessed with a musician of nominal cultural impact, played by Hawke.  Along with a few hundred others online, O'Dowd is constantly deep in the weeds, talking bootleg concerts and the intricacies of songs with strangers for hours. Rose Byrne plays his long suffering girlfriend, whom he constantly tries to engage in his passion, and over the years his distraction has turned her off of him completely. 

But in the mail comes a cd with raw studio recordings of his "perfect album", Juliet.  Byrne discovers it and listens and is, frankly, non-plussed.  She inadvertently strikes up an email friendship with Hawke, and then suddenly we're introduced to Hawke's character and his life today.  He's now a loving and devoted father to a 10-year-old son, but there's other kids, from one night stands in the reaches that he's not connected with, including a young woman who is visiting him for the first time.  

Oh boy, I could talk at length about this film.  It stuck with me, and the beats are perfect.  There's not really heightened drama, it's too aware of itself to do that.  The characters are in a place where they want to have something real and nice, and with that in mind, they just try for nice, even though it might not always work out.  This isn't riveting cinema, but it's subtle, pleasant, and seems made for me.

I'll watch it again. And maybe read the book, get back on that Hornby train.

[1:38:56]

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I should be done...

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I don't know how Hotel Artemis came and went from theatres without making a single blip on my radar.  When it popped up on nextfilx, I had to search the inner reaches of my brain long and hard to figure out if I'd ever heard of this film before.  I mean, the cast is outstanding, with Jodie Foster, Sterling K Brown, Brian Tyree Henry, Jeff Goldblum, Dave Bautista, Jenny Slate, Charlie Day, Zachary Quinto, and Sophia Boutella.  I mean, that's a cast of characters you want to see no matter what the setting.

In this case it's a near-future dystopia where water supplies are managed by corporations and they're starving (dehydrating) out the citizens of LA, as they protest these entities which now can decide who lives or dies by who has water.  But this is literally just background.  In the fore is the titular hotel, where bank robbers Brown and Henry wind up when Henry gets himself shot up.  The Hotel is acually a hospital, with four beds, that services the criminal, the rich, and the criminally rich.  It has a definitive rules of operation/code of conduct, that the nurse (Foster) holds as gospel.  But with the events going on outside, her faith in those rules is doubly called into question, first when the Hotel's patron needs to check in (with no beds available) and the second when an childhood acquaintance of Foster's son (Slate) winds up on her doorstep severely injured.

It's a film that works only because it believes in its internal consistency and the world in which it operates.  The style is shadows and neon, such that it feels like it's an outside part of the John Wick universe... and even though it never directly connects to Wick, it at the very least owes it a debt of gratitude as inspiration.

It's fun, engaging, and full of neat, clunky, near-future tech that's equally possible and improbable.  I see Toasty is sitting on a review of this.  Can't wait for his thoughts.  I bet we agree.

[1:50:36]

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Is The To Do List an earnest homage to horny teen movies of the 80's and 90's or is it a satire of them? 

I mean, why can't it be both?

I think it would have made for, well, maybe not a better movie, but maybe a more impactful movie had it picked a lane. It's spends more time in the homage lane than the satire but this could have been Wet Hot American Summer level great had they flipped it into satire, especially with this cast.  I mean, the bulk of this cast playing teenagers is in their late 20's or even early 30's, so they don't look the part.  Why not play into that?

The crux of the film, though, is that it's a female-led, sex-positive, "horny teen" comedy so if it spent too much time satirizing the genre, then maybe that point of giving a teen woman's POV sex comedy wouldn't come across as hard. 

I liked the resolution of the film, which has nothing to do about landing one guy or another but rather reinforcing the point of one freely and openly exploring one's sexuality without guilt or shame. I can't help but think that making it set in the early 90's just makes the whole endeavour seem strange though (mercifully the 90's jokes aren't so dominant or overpowering).  It's really just....why? There's nothing about this story that really needed the setting to be the '90's.

I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it.  It should have been far funnier than it was, but not for lack of trying.

[1:56:34]

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Oh, Robert Zemeckis.  Why, why do I even bother?

Because they were covering it on the Blank Check podcast and I thought, surely with Denzel, it can't be *that* bad right (for the record, the Blankies weren't really panning this film, they were actually fairly positive about it all things considered).  I basically watched the film on 1.5 speed, and was intercutting watching the film with listening to the podcast, so I may have tainted my viewing experience a little... but being semi distracted is pretty much the only way to watch a Zemeckis film that's not BTTF or WFRR?

Denzel drops his usual rocksolid, watchable performance, (although I have to compare his drunken acting against both Another Round and The Most Danger Game and Denzel's drunken acting doesn't feel real or natural like Another Round, but it's not funny like TMDG, nor) but this is the typical manipulative and laborious tripe from Zemeckis which reminds me why I stopped watching his movies. I laughed, inappropriately, often.

The idea of a very flawed man doing something incredibly heroic is compelling but the story doesn't negotiate it in a satisfactory manner. If anything it's played too subtly and via relationships that don't really seem to matter to the character or the viewer.

Like so many Zemeckis films it tries so hard to play for realism but then has moments (or sometimes just production decisions) so broad or ridiculous that it's like the director is self-satirizing his own story.  It's not good.  The Blankies pointed out the frequent on-the-nose musical cues and yeah, I just had to roll my eyes.  Feelin' Alright, indeed.

And even without looking it up, I just know that rolling a commercial passenger plane is just impossible.

[2:00:54]