Category: Cinema

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Good Question!

I was 30 when I first saw this. The actor was two years younger than I am now when it was filmed. Oh, how time flies.

Points (and you will become a friend-for-life) if you can identify the film.

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Disappointing

We saw two movies over the holiday: Matrix Resurrections and Don't Look Up. The former was on HBO+, the latter on Netflix.

The best way I can describe my opinion of Resurrections was that it entertaining but not engaging. I appreciated the way it broke the fourth wall and basically poked fun at itself, but I was not drawn into the story, it seemed overly long, and by the time the fourth act rolled around I really didn't care what happened to any of the characters and just wanted it to be over.

While Jonathan Groff is always easy on the eye, I wish they'd been able to have the penultimate Agent Smith—Hugo Weaving—as well as the original Morpheus, Laurence Fishburne, return to reprise their roles completely instead of just as momentary flashbacks. Maybe the actors weren't available? Whatever the reason, in my opinion the film suffered because of it.

When it ended, Ben turned to me and said, "At least we didn't pay to see this." (Actually we did, but it's not like we dropped money at a theater.)

Don't Look Up came highly recommended via reviews and Netflix itself, but there were many times I just wanted to hit the "back out" button on the remote and call it a day. It's biting satire on the abject level of science-denying stupidity currently permeating our society; the obsession with social media and "likes." The cast—while all well known and definitely not D-Listers—prompted Ben to ask who they owed money to in order to have to appear in this film.

The premise is simple: there's an extinction-level event comet with a 100% probability of impact heading directly toward earth and no one can be bothered to do anything about it until halfway through the film, and then the plan is aborted when its discovered there are valuable minerals contained in the rock and a plan is hatched to mine the minerals rather than deflect the threat away from the planet. Needless to say—spoilers—meteor/asteroid hits earth and everyone dies except the ultra rich who escape via secret spacecraft to the nearest earth-like planet, where after traveling 24000 years in suspended animation, the president (played Meryl Streep), who personifies everything currently wrong with society—steps out onto the new planet and is immediately eaten by the native fauna. That at least was satisfying.

UPDATE 12/28: This actually sums up my opinion of the movie the best.

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Wow…

I was 25 years old when I first saw The Shining very late one night on cable in in 1983. How this film managed to fly under my radar when it was originally released in theaters is one of my life's great mysteries, because while disturbing, I loved this film. It was right up my alley.

I had been unable to sleep that night, so I thought that getting out of bed and watching some television might help. The apartment complex I was living in at the time had recently gotten cable and were providing it (along with one or or two premium channels) to the residents at no charge.

Never having had cable before, I'd already been shocked by seeing fully exposed breasts on my small television (Galaxina), but I was totally unprepared for the horror that was The Shining.

Needless to say, sitting on the floor and watching it in a dark, quiet apartment all by myself left me shook. (Especially since my friends and I were into the whole New Age/Spirit Guides thing at the time.)

While I know the film was only tangentially faithful to the source material, it remains one of my favorite films. Judging from the number of discussions and scholarly dissertations on YouTube, I'm not the only one. People attribute all sort of wild conspiracy theories to Kubrick's film—the most notable is that it was his way of letting the world know he'd been involved in faking the Apollo Moon landings. (Yes, Virginia, the rabbit hole goes that deep.) I watched a video the other day that made the case for the entire story being in Wendy's head after a psychotic break. Not sure I get that one either, but hey…whatever.

The video above does point out the masterful (if unintended—really?!) use of music to underscore various moments in scenes and I have to say it does resonate.

If you're a fan of the film, give it a watch and let me know what you think.

 

 

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They're Succeeding

"Please understand, they are safe as long as they are not discovered. That is their primary method of survival. Keep us asleep, keep us selfish, keep us sedated." – THEY LIVE (1988)

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DUNE…and Stuff

Let's get to the "stuff" first.

DUNE has been my favorite book for my entire adult life. As I'm sure I've mentioned here before, every few years I used to go through it—and in fact the entire series of Herbert's original six books—just to remind me why I love it so.

(Unfortunately I now have the attention span of a gnat and sitting down to read anything more than a dozen paragraphs causes me to fidget, so I'm long overdue for a re-read of the series.)

Reading aside, the more I learned of Villeneuve's vision for the film, the more excited I became.

I was seriously hoping that this would be the spark that ignited the same sort of passion for the story in Ben that I had been carrying with me all these many years.

Unfortunately, I fear just the opposite has happened. And after last night I think DUNE is going to be one of those subjects that just isn't discussed in this house.

Ben had no interest in seeing the film, yet he agreed to go with me on a date night nonetheless because I wanted him to see it with me. I verified that the time and place would work for him (keeping in mind his commute home from Casa Grande) and he said it was fine. This week he told me he had an IEP scheduled for 4:00 that afternoon but was fairly certain he could still make it back to Phoenix in time to make our 6:15 showtime.

And then life intervened.

Yesterday was a day from hell for my husband. Around 2:30 pm a kid threatened to self-harm, and during the interview it escalated, with him threatening to hurt his dad—and Ben. Crisis was called, and after waiting 20 minutes on hold, the team was dispatched. But because there's apparently one crisis intervention crew for the entire county, Ben had no idea when they would show up.

I'll spare you the details, but we didn't make the 6:15 show. We ended up at the 9:45 pm show, didn't get back home until after 1 am, and Ben had to get up five hours later to make it to a training class this morning that is located in Fountain Hills, affectionately referred to as halfway to New Mexico. We did have a nice, leisurely dinner before the movie, something we wouldn't have gotten otherwise because I misread the website and thought the multiplex was "Dine-In IMAX," when in reality it was "Dine-In and IMAX."

Speaking of the multiplex, once upon a time the theaters at Desert Ridge were nice, but it was obvious they are long overdue for an upgrade. The "IMAX" theater wasn't a true IMAX, but rather IMAX-Lite. It may have had the requisite sound system, but the screen was only marginally bigger than what you'd get in a regular theater, not the two story monster I remember from visits to IMAX theaters in San Francisco. The seats were incredibly uncomfortable. Ben was freezing. We were only two of a couple dozen patrons wearing masks. First time back in a theater in nearly two years and this was not a good first impression.

Add to that, technical difficulties prevented the movie starting at the scheduled time, so the trailers didn't even start rolling until after 10 pm. And all I have to say about those coming attractions is, "Can Hollywood come up with nothing original?"

The movie finally started and by the time it finished, I answered that question with, yes…apparently they can if they want to.

What can I say? DUNE was everything I'd hoped for. While maybe not one-hundred percent chapter and verse faithful to the source material, it is my opinion that Villeneuve hit all the right notes and has given us as faithful a telling of the story as we're likely to ever see.

The cinematography was gorgeous. The performances brought these characters to life. The set pieces—especially the personal shields and OMG the ornithopters—despite having already seen both in the trailers, blew me away. As other reviewers have commented, Villeneuve has hit it out of the park and is without a doubt his finest work to date. Denis has filmed the unfilmable and has made it generally—Ben did have questions—accessible to people who have not read the source material or have seen other adaptations.

My only complaint—and this can be laid squarely on my own shoulders—is that because so much had been revealed in the teasers and trailers that I eagerly devoured over the past year, there wasn't a lot that I hadn't already seen in one form or another. (The Hunter-Seeker was an exception, and I loved its depiction.)

The film ended at a good point in the story, but OMG I want more. Ben liked it, but it failed to ignite the spark I was hoping for.

It's going to be a long two years (or however long it turns out to be) before we see Part 2.

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Still a Month Out…

…from the DUNE premiere in the United States, but the first two of three soundtrack albums have been released. I have to say, they're giving me chills and making me cry tears of joy at the same time, especially this cut:

I have such great hope for this film.

Word has it that if it's as huge a success as everyone is anticipating, Villeneuve wants to not just make the second film, but make a trilogy, encompassing Dune and Dune Messiah; basically the life story of Paul Muad'dib.

I approve of this message.

I would love to see Children of Dune as well as God Emperor of Dune on the big screen as well, but I fear I won't live long enough to realize this, even if Denis decides to take up the whole series.