by Dean | Mar 27, 2016 | General
I wasn’t always sure what was happening in 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), but I was entertained by it.
One thing is clear: Even a cruel lunatic like John Goodman‘s Howard can be right about something—in this case, the occurrence of apocalyptic events. But he’s still a cruel lunatic. Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is brought to his bunker, distrusting him, then trusting him, then distrusting him again. He’s smart but neurotic—far worse than neurotic.
The star of the movie, Winstead, even prettier than she was as a post-adolescent, is an agreeable heroine, while Goodman is expertly scary. 10 Cloverfield is sci fi horror, and for all its credulity-straining, it is every bit as good as the imperfect Alien. If director Dan Trachtenberg and his screenwriters push hard enough, they might come up with flicks which positively compete with our finer TV entertainments.
by Dean | Mar 24, 2016 | General
Season 5 of Game of Thrones is now on DVD and I saw the first episode of it last night.
Plot problems notwithstanding, I’ve had a good time with the series up till now, and currently, with Season 5, it feels like an old friend. At least the first episode did.
The chieftan played by Ciaran Hinds is burned at the stake, and serious Jon Snow (Kit Harington) fires an arrow through his heart to put him out of his agony. It makes me wish that people executed this way in actual history had been compassionately shot with fatal arrows. ‘Twas not the case.
Much earlier than this, Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) opines to the bald guy, the eunuch, that the future of their country is “s–t.” With the Trump-Clinton phenomenon going on, I am tempted to say I know how he feels.
by Dean | Mar 23, 2016 | General
Sunshine (1999 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Istvan Szabo film, Sunshine (2000), gives us a Jewish family in Hungary as it encounters historical events of the 20th century. This, however, is designer history meant to point up anti-Semitic politics and policy; history’s true density is missing. Small wonder that the characters succeed more as types than as human beings, albeit there are exceptions—e.g. Adam Sors, one of the three men played by Ralph Fiennes.
Adam is of limited interest, though, when he didn’t have to be. Of course he falls in love since falling-in-love is one of the very few values this movie upholds. Belief in God, on the other hand, it doesn’t know what to do with.
by Dean | Mar 21, 2016 | General
Cover via Amazon
Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Punch-Drunk Love (2002) is an existentialist romantic comedy. The protagonist is a severely frustrated misfit (Adam Sandler) who meets a girl who is gaga over him. What hinders it from working is a rotten subplot wherein Sandler encounters a crooked phone-sex girl and her unprincipled employer; naught but the lamest absurdism is in this. Virtues include Anderson’s jittery, intimidating mise en scene (the birthday party, the car wreck, etc.) and Jon Brion‘s strange, take-charge score. Also, the film is often funny but, to me, too eccentric.
by Dean | Mar 15, 2016 | General, Movies
In The Young Messiah (2016) Jesus, as a young boy, does not yet know that God the Father has predestined him to be . . . everything. Alpha and Omega. The Savior of the world. Cyrus Nowrasteh crafted the film in such a way as to suggest that the earthly existence of the child is relevant to all humanity, as when he shows Jesus looking intently at various individuals. And when he shows him intermittently doing what his parents generally oppose him doing: performing a healing. How could he not be the Anointed One?
Based on an Anne Rice novel, Christ the Lord Out of Egypt, the movie explores not only the theme of destiny but also the themes of family love and loyalty, the Fatherhood of God, and the actually inescapable nature of the invisible world. . . There is weakness in The Young Messiah, and the film can get confusing. But Adam Greaves-Neal is the right fit for Jesus, along with some fine acting emanating from Christian McKay as the boy’s uncle, Sean Bean as the Roman Severus, and Sara Lazzaro as Mary. It is an interesting work with many sapid touches, e.g. several Herod-sent Roman soldiers clearly disinclined to seize the young Jesus before whom they stand.
