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Tolkien & Lewis: Myth, Imagination & The Quest for Meaning (2017)
Pure rubbish
Lots of interviews with pseudo intellectual academics who have no idea what they are talking about. Watched 30 minutes and turned it off after realizing that this wasn't going to be about Tolkien and Lewis but about a bunch of people droning on about the "myth" of the Moses and Jesus stories.
Tolkien and Lewis were creating a mythology to explain real world issues, and in the case of Lewis, to make Biblical truth accessible.
Lewis would have taken this director and writer along with many of the interviewees, to the woodshed for devaluing the true Biblical stories by defining them as myth.
I do not recommend.
The Hiding Place (2023)
Compelling story of bravery and sacrifice during WWII
This version of The Hiding Place is a video recording of an exceptional stage play recounting the experiences of the Ten Boom family's efforts to save Jews in Holland during WWII. The story is well known to older generations but should be seen by younger folks to get a glimpse of the sacrifice this family, and many others in the underground, made to save the lives of thousands of Jews from the NAZI death camps. The Ten Booms themselves saved hundreds from certain death despite the risk and indeed, making the ultimate sacrifice.
The production is two and a half hours long but it moves along briskly. The stage production value is exceptional; great lighting, sets, and music. The acting is above average and it was a pleasure seeing John Schuck in action.
Though the recording of the play is directed in a somewhat amateurish manner with overuse of poorly framed and wobbly dolly shots, this can be forgiven because it is a live production. I would have preferred to see more of the play as experienced by the audience but, as is often the case with recordings of stage plays, video directors seem to think we would prefer constant close-ups even though the live audience would never be that close to the actors.
This same phenomenon plagues the recordings of even the largest stage productions such as Le Mis and The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (2011) (the latter of which is almost impossible to watch due to the poor camerawork and video direction). Fortunately, The Hiding Place is so well acted and staged, that one can overlook the camera work and video direction and just take in the pathos of the incredible story of this brave family.
Well worth seeing this high quality stage production.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Ad Astra Per Aspera (2023)
Completely unbelievable in the Star Trek Universe
This episode strained all credibility. Obviously, it was a hamfisted attempt to browbeat viewers about their bigotry against (insert name f currently favored virtuous group here).
In a world where we are constantly bombarded with virtue signaling about race and gender, why spend a single dime on a science fiction episode that only adds noise and hardens people on the issue of equality under the law? It's just dumb show-running. We don't watch Star Trek to see clichéd storylines about how misunderstood people of another race are. And we certainly don't want to see Star Fleet allow officers who lie deemed not guilty of doing so. Una should have been dropped a rank or two for what she did. As for Pike, he didn't grant her asylum. The civil rights lawyer used that as an after-the-fact fig leaf for his obvious misbehavior. Ugh. The writing in this show is so lazy and pedantic. Not sure how much more of it I can take.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The Serene Squall (2022)
Poor quality writing and even worse acting
Is this supposed to be a joke? The villain is one of the most laughable and poorly acted I've ever seen on any Star Trek episode. Wow was she/them/it/he bad.
A.) How does the flagship of the Federation get so easily boarded by a bunch of numbskulls?
B.) How does CBS justify hiring one of the worst actors available to be a guest star?
C.) The characterizations of the primary crew were cheesy and hard to believe.
I've enjoyed the series so far (despite some weaknesses here and there such as the snarky millennial at the helm and the doctor with marbles in his mouth) so let's hope things improve from this episode.
Attack of the Hollywood Clichés! (2021)
Netflix strongly recommends you cancel your Netflix subscription
Message: Hollywood makes the movies it does primarily to satisfy the public's taste for racist, homophobic, and women-hating movies.
THE GOOD
- Rob Lowe does a decent job as the snarky host. Either you like that schtick or you don't. I didn't mind it.
- The movie clips. This was a somewhat enjoyable romp through a lot of movie favorites, even if the choices failed to make the intended point (see below).
- Andie MacDowell. Always enjoyable to watch.
THE BAD:
- Doesn't know the difference between a cliché and a trope. Lowe begins the show saying there are only really 7 stories. Okay, sure. Maybe. But just because there are archetypal stories doesn't make them clichéd. Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces delves into the many ways that archetypical characters and stories are played out over and over down through the ages. That doesn't make them clichés though. AotHC mistakenly groups, for example, the trope of the macho hero single-handedly wiping out the enemy with the cliché of riding off into the sunset. Category error. It does this over and over.
- Doesn't differentiate between the early use of a technique when it wasn't a cliché to later when it became one. For example, the montage scene in Citizen Kane was hardly a cliché when the movie was released. In fact, it was groundbreaking - the opposite of a Hollywood cliché.
- AotHC doesn't realize that sometimes writers and directors use a cliché on purpose to be tongue-in-cheek. Spielberg having the hero's ride off into the sunset at the end of Raiders is only a good example of a Hollywood cliché because Spielberg was making a movie specifically combining a string of tropes and clichés into a single narrative. That's why it's fun! Though not referenced in AotHC, Blazing Saddles does the same thing.
- The cringe wokism. Other reviewers have pointed out the egregious virtue signaling of AotHC. It's actually pretty pathetic.
- The intercut "commenters". The majority of the interviewees in AotHC commenting on the "clichés" were random know-nothing "broadcasters" or critics we've never heard of. Few offered any insights and I'll bet most if pressed, wouldn't be able to differentiate between an archetype, a trope, or a cliché. Several of these people looked like they were fresh out of some 3rd rate college racial or gender studies program.
All in all, it appeared that Netflix was just reminding its viewers that you're a bad person for wanting to watch To Kill A Mockingbird. It would be best if you just cancelled your subscription to their service if only to prove you're enlightened enough to recognize that the movie-going public are a bunch of troglodytes with whom you do not wish to associate.
For my part, my Netflix subscription came free with my cell phone service, otherwise I WOULD cancel it.
The Usual Suspects (1995)
We'll crafted but that's about it
SPOILERS
This movie is back on streaming so I thought I'd watch it again having been 15 years since I first saw it. Yes, I remembered that Kint was not who he claimed he was (a dumb cripple".) But here's the thing, he's not Keyser Soze either. Why?
Because nobody is.
We are told point blank at the end of the movie that everything Kint has laid out is a fabrication. For this reason we shouldn't accept that his story about the mythical Turkish mobster is anything more than a lie as well. Kint is a conman and that's all we know about him. His story about Soze isn't autobiographical because it can't be. If he was Soze he wouldn't be in custody in the first place and beyond that, we would have been given some 3rd party corroboration as to his motives. Furthermore, we certainly should have been treated to more story from the "real" world of the investigators about what went down. But no, all we "learn" about the events leading up to the shootout on the ship are from an entirely untrustworthy source who spins a tall tale for reasons left unrevealed.
Therefore, everything Kint says must be discarded and assumed to have not happened at all.
So the complete movie synopsis: a ship burned, a bunch of guys die except for one burn victim who happens to mention Soze's name and is able to describe a bald guy to a police artist (good job dying burn victim!). There is a police lineup and later Keaton's lawyer gets shot. Otherwise, nothing else we saw actually happened.
Bottom line, it's a fun movie on the first viewing and enjoyable for about another 25 minutes - until you realize that you were cheated.
There was no Keyser Soze.
The Monuments Men (2014)
One of the most moving WII movies you will ever see
I don't say this lightly but this ranks up there with the very best war movies I've ever seen. Not for its action (though it certainly has some), or it's intrigue (has some of this as well), but for the realization of the true story of the people who saved much of what we consider western civilization's greatest artwork. The impact of what the Monuments Men and Women accomplished cannot be calculated.
Of course, the allied forces, in toto, made it possible for these men and women to do their job - so that reality should not go unmentioned. But through their heroic efforts, we still have millions of books and art that otherwise would have been destroyed by Hitler and his henchmen.
Ignore the reviews from those who apparently don't appreciate the story itself or the filmmaker's efforts in bringing it to the screen. It's a powerful film. Well acted and directed, with a fantastic score.
Banacek: The Two Million Clams of Cap'n Jack (1973)
Not enough investigation on the robbery
Lots of side story with various misc. Characters and not nearly enough of Banacek trying to figure out how the robbery was done. We see precisely zero investigation by our insurance sleuth of the underside of the elevator or the sourcing of the materials for the fake elevator. To top it off, Banacek doesn't even recover the stolen goods.
I like Peppard no matter what but I give this a "lame" on the mystery scale.
Sabrina (1995)
Much more satisfying than the original
Although Ormand does have the Hepburn thing going on, that's the only thing that matches the original. Ford is significantly better than Bogart in the role of the older and wiser Linus, and Kinnear is light years better than William Holden.
The story plays out impeccably with Ford at first having to step in to salvage both a marriage and a merger but as things progress, he ends up falling in love. He's too old for her of course but unlike the original, this Linus is not so far out of Sabrina's range that it does make sense that they would eventually fall for each other.
Love the mysterious romance of this film.
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021)
Art House-ish and Pretentious
As a Cumberbatch fan I thought I'd give this a try. However, even though I usually will watch even a mediocre movie all the way through, once I've started into it, it wasn't long before I could see that the director couldn't decide if he wanted to make a tragic tale about mental illness or attempt a quirky, Gilliamesque flick.
Cumberbatch is good, as always, but the script is boring, the aspect ratio is irritating, and the children are just annoying.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
Underrated CG masterpiece
This film sets out what it intended to do, which 75% of the stuff that comes to the big screen are unable to do. Look at feature SciFi like JJ's Star Trek where it just doesn't quite measure up to expectations. Meanwhile, this movie exceeds all expectations. Fun story, action packed, amazing production design, and all animated done with just Pixarman, Maya, and Adobe After Effects.
I only knock of a couple of stars because the character of Polly is just irritating all the way through.
Can't recommend highly enough.
Foundation (2021)
Low ratings by some are understandable, but still...
I can certainly see why the lovers of the Foundation books would be unhappy. This is a verrrry loose adaptation that certainly doesn't do justice to the source material. That does not mean it's not good - it is - and it certainly doesn't deserve a 1 star rating. Maybe knock a few points off the top for failure to be true to the source but that's it.
If compared to say, Peter Jackson realizing a screen version of LOTR, this falls way short. Now THAT was a faithful (yet abridged) adaptation and the lovers of the books very rarely had a bad thing to say about his effort, even though he changed many things, dropped significant story lines, and often put the words of one character in the mouth of another. The reason the LOTR book lovers also loved the movies is because you could tell that Jackson and co-writer Fran Walsh, wanted LOTR fans to love his movie as much as they loved the books.
And the fans did.
Turning to Foundation, the TV series, you can tell from the get-go that creators Goyer and Friedman had no intention of satisfying the fans of the books. This reminds me a lot of the situation with The Last Jedi, where the point of the director was clearly to upend expectations and even purposely piss off older Star Wars fan. Sure, the movie looked good but it wasn't made for the die hard fans, it was made for people who probably never saw the original trilogy.
Likewise, Goyer's and Freidman's Foundation is not made for Asimov fans. In fact, since those fans are largely of the Boomer generation they are not only more likely to be purists but also more traditionalist. One gets the sense that these two filmmakers recognized this and set out to purposefully make them unhappy. The fact that neither the story nor the characters are Asimov's is why many people will give this a low score. Maybe undeserved but understandable nonetheless.
Anytime a favorite story or characters are watered down or adulterated in a hackneyed way, it can easily be perceived as an intentional attack on the fans. This is especially so in a world that is ever more seeing traditions and culture destroyed around us on a daily basis.
So while this series is certainly well crafted and looks beautiful, it can only really be enjoyed knowing that it is loosely based on a series of books written a long time ago to a different audience. That audience was more grounded in culture and philosophy and for this reason, the books as written, would never appeal to the current generation. Old stories, to be popular today, need to be woke, diverse in the casting, and progressive-minded (ironically, Asimov in his day was considered quite liberal but today would be seen as fairly moderate).
I was always an Asimov fan - even met him once. But I recognize his stories have to be adapted for new audiences or they will never make it to the big screen.
So cut the Foundation book fans some slack - there is a reason they see this series they way they do. For my part, I dinged it a few points specifically because it failed to even attempt to satisfy those fans. Of course, not everyone can be Peter Jackson or Fran Walsh and Foundation is not Lord of the Rings. But still, a little effort to keep the spirit of the original might have gone a long way toward a better reception from fans of the original.
Fringe: In Which We Meet Mr. Jones (2008)
Nobel made a marginal episode watchable
SPOILER ALERT
Maybe it's just that I don't care for parasite-based sci-fi but this one was worse than most. Yes, Fringe requires a complete suspension of disbelief but a huge parasite like this goes unnoticed until the guy has what looks like a heart attack? Sorry, no.
Mostly my issue was the zinger scene at the end of the episode with the guy who had the parasite clamped to his heart (and who would have died outright except for heroic efforts by our Fringe team), says to his wife "did our plan work?" You know, the plan that would most certainly have culminated in his death except for the hope that a crazy scientist in a lab in Harvard might figure out a way to save him.
Super lame.
John Nobel salvaged the ep through sheer acting brilliance.
Elysium (2013)
White knight (literally) saves minorities
Blomkamp does a good job of depicting poor minorities of being unable to help themselves but must rely on a liberal white guy to save them.
The rich white people in the sky seem to have no real method to sustain their society except through forced taxation and oppression.
So you get a two-fer in this film.
1. A critique of the leftist state that takes advantage of minorities.
2. A critique of minorities who are seemingly unable to fend for themselves without the help of the white knight.
Good job!
Tenet (2020)
A Challenging Masterpiece That Expects Much of its Audience
Original, enthralling, challenging.
Nolan does it again. Like his other two time-bending masterpieces, Inception and Interstellar, Tenet asks a lot of the audience. You won't get the plot if you don't also grasp the director's approach to time as a literal physical property and that information is forever.
If you don't want to be challenged by a complex plot intertwined with a scientific "what if'", then this isn't for you. You'll leave the theater and write a one star review of the movie saying stupid stuff like "this isn't scientifically possible".
With Tenet, Nolan solidifies his status as Hollywood's leading auteur filmmaker.
By the way, Tenet gets better with subsequent viewings.
The Music Man (1962)
Far and away the best musical ever put to film
Nothing else comes close to The Music Man for sheer musical enjoyment. Let's bullet point this:
- There is not a single weak song in the entire film. Pretty much every other musical has at least one song that just doesn't work or is filler. Go through your favorites like Singin' In the Rain, My Fair Lady, Sound of Music, or West Side Story. We can easily pick out the clunkers in everyone of those. Not so with The Music Man. In fact, it has a wealth of gorgeous ballads and plot advancing songs like The Sadder But Wiser Girl and Wells Fargo Wagon (more on this in a moment) that are unparalleled in quality.
- In the 50s when Willson wrote this, the idea of a strong female lead who knows more than the leading man was a rarity. In fact, it is Marian the librarian who saves the hide of our anti-hero, Professor Harold Hill.
- The picture perfectly captures Middle America of the early 1900s. It's a slice of life that takes you back to an earlier era of ice cream socials and no electronics.
- The leads have perfect chemistry. We truly believe that the cynical salesman who ostensibly has a girl in every town, and the innocent librarian who has never had love, do get together realistically in the end.
- The music, lyrics, and book are all from the genius mind of one man. On this one factor alone The Music Man stands above all others.
-To highlight just a couple of examples of Willson's genius, he has his male lead sing the famous "76 Trombones" and his female lead sing the sorrowful "Goodnight My Someone" at different points in the film. Both songs use the same tune but on first viewing one wouldn't realize this. 76 is performed in an uptempo 4/4 meter while Goodnight is down tempo and set in 3/4 time. At one point in the film both are sung as a single interlude back-to-backand we still may not realize the musical legerdemain at work here by Willson. At another point in the film, we're treated to an antiphonal performance of two stand out songs, Lida Rose and Will I Ever Tell You, both eventually are sung over the top of each other in an exceptionally satisfying manner.
- The director of the stage play, Morton DaCosta, also directed and produced the film! To my knowledge this had never been done before or has been since. As a result, the film retains its wonderful stage play ethos and is extremely faithful to the Broadway version so many people enjoyed over its long, Tony Award winning run. Unlike recent travesty's such as the film version of The Phantom of the Opera, DaCosta managed to both leverage the medium of film while at the same time, occasionally taking the viewer back to the feeling of the stage version - with theatrical lighting effects that one would only see in a live production.
- The directing itself has an incredibly lyrical quality in the manner in which it is staged and blocked. For example, the Wells Fargo wagon number features a long dolly shot up the street where the individual members in the ensemble sing their brief solos as the camera passes by them. "Trouble" also features several enjoyable dolly shots following Preston as he pumps up the assembled crowd. These are just a couple of the many moments where we see the expertise of a stage director shine through on film.
- Speaking of the Wells Fargo Wagon number, this song features an emotionally charged moment quite unlike anything else put to film. At a point near the end of the song, the orchestra suddenly and unexpectedly swells, and in this moment, these few musical notes signal the altering of the plot. Up to this point, we assume Marian is going to expose the Professor as a fraud. With those notes, the plot spins around and goes the opposite direction. It's pure musical genius.
- Unlike most musicals where the characters will suddenly just launch into songs without much motivation, the numbers in The Music Man are interwoven into the plot in extremely clever ways; most notably the songs sung by the fabulous Buffalo Bills.
- Shirley Jones is a joy to both watch and listen. Only Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music may be better.
- The story is just wonderful. Compare this one to other favorites and one has to admit The Music Man has a more satisfying plot than most. Yes it's corny but that's actually the point. It's supposed to be fun and silly - and it works fabulously.
- The "Marion The Librarian" number is one of the most clever and enjoyable songs ever put on celluloid. It alone makes the movie.
All in all, this musical tops them all. Sure, it has steep competition for the number 1 spot but I could watch this one over and over and never get tired of it.
Oblivion (2013)
One of the best science fiction films of the last decade.
A mystery that requires multiple viewings.
I've seen this film several times and enjoy it more with each viewing.
It's not for everyone - too complex for most.
Sting: Live in Berlin (2010)
Fantastic concert. Some of the worst video directing ever
This was a wonderful concert. Some of Sting's best - and the orchestrations are entrancing. Ten stars for that.
The only thing wrong with this, and it is a MAJOR ISSUE, is that the video directing by Jim Gable is literally some of the most amateurish crap I've seen since the terrible video directing done of the Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall by Nick Norris. I've seen better directing in college video communications programs.
Ridiculous high speed fly-bys of Sting, fast pull backs from close-ups (always a no-no), too fast of cutting from camera to camera that doesn't match the tempo of the music, overhead spinning jib shots (really??!!), etc. Pretty much unwatchable. After directing this Gable should have banned from ever getting in the video control booth again.
If you care about Sting's music, avoid this video. Subtracting 6 stars because Gable makes the production all about himself and not the artist.
The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (2011)
Great stage production, abysmal video direction
A fantastic show very much diminished by the amateurish and highly distracting video direction. This video production suffers from the impulse of "we paid to have all these cameras and operators on site so we better damn well use them, even if it means ruining the home viewing experience".
Director Nick Morris' shot selection was weak, the frenetic tempo of his camera-to-camera takes overshadows the stage direction. He manages to miss key actor entrances because he has a close-up on another actor. Other times he goes immediately to a close-up for what should be a subtle entrance. This is most obvious with the Phantom's entrance after Wishing You Were Here Again. Morris commits other unforgivable shot selections like fast cutting close-ups of the destruction of the chandelier rather than giving us the more awe-inspiring audience perspective.
And don't get me started on his coverage of "Masquerade". One of my favorite scenes on the show is completely ruined by Morris' quick cutting between medium and close-ups of actors, rarely showing us the stage-wide view of the choreography, which is so essential to the power of the scene.
The action on Angel of Music is almost impossible to follow, and so on. As I said, abysmal. I've seen better directing of local cable channel dramatic productions.
This is a stage play that is meant to be seen from farther away than the 6" from the Phantom's face this director felt we needed. Most certainly someone should have realized that close-ups of actors that included the LED scenic backdrop was just a bad idea. It looks terrible.
I've seen this show live 3 times but never from the most expensive seats. This video production could have given us the best seats in the house but instead chose to cut quickly between various odd angles that the audience would and should never see.
10 stars for the stage production and 3 for the video production.
Silverado (1985)
The absolute quintessential Western
There is simply no better traditional Western than Silverado. The film doesn't rely on a single star like the Eastwood movies, as good as those are. Instead, it takes an ensemble cast and thrusts them into a classic story of good vs. evil, revenge, romance, compassion, and protection for those who can't protect themselves.
Features a break-out performance by Kevin Costner with stellar efforts by a bevy of other great character actors.
The score and the script support one of Kasdan's best directorial efforts. Not to be missed.
Into the Woods (2014)
Phenomenal screen adaptation
The fact that Sondheim was able to develop music for the stage play and then director Rob Marshall managed to adapt the play so well for the screen is, in and of itself, worth 5 stars out of the gate. But then add pitch perfect performances (another star), phenomenal sets (an additional star), cinematography (another), and wonderful orchestrations and this is an easy 8 out of 10.
Reviewers who rate this a 1, are to be blunt, garbage people and need to be ignored. If you want to find a movie to rate a 1 go review a Fast and Furious movie or something. But this is a fantastic work of art and work and, at the very least, haters should appreciate the talent and care that went into this film.
Into The Woods is actually not that listenable on stage because it's hard to separate the performances. Sondheim's music is so layered and antiphonal that it's difficult to follow when you see the show. But in the film, Marshall provides the texture the composer had in mind but radically improves the intelligibility of the lyrics and hence, the story-line.
Given that the story itself is a little contrived, I can't give it a 10 like I would for a few other classic musicals, but then, I knew what to expect story-wise, going in. To give this a low rating because it was "boring" or the "music wasn't good" means you're not the target audience. That's all.
Magicians: Life in the Impossible (2016)
Marginal because it missed number of opportunities
One has to rate movies like this against other documentaries. Its certainly better than the bevy of Netflix NAZI documentaries out there and it manages to hold up without a narration, which can be a test of documentary storytelling. So kudos for that.
It's well shot and has a modestly coherent story line following 3 "magicians" and one "illusionist". The movie has 3 major problems however:
1. It's a slice-of-life documentary, 75% of which could have applied to anyone in any occupation. Relationship problems, bankruptcy, dogs needing to be put down, living on the road, hustling for the next job, etc. Pretty boring and uninteresting stuff given that we're ostensibly following the lives of "magicians" who might have something interesting up their sleeves. But no.
2. The most interesting questions raised as we follow each of these guys is largely, if not completely ignored.
How did the guy who was "Johnny Carson's favorite magician" manage to end up broke, living in a studio apartment while his ex-lover/female assistant lives in a castle?
Why did the close-up card trick magician only really perform in magic shops and, although managing to "reach all his dreams" was dropped by his wife after only 2 years of marriage? Did she not know he was a road warrior?
Why didn't we get to watch all the preparation needed by the other close-up artist as he prepped for his breakout TV appearance - and then be treated to how it all came out? We don't.
And finally, what was with the whole idea of including a popular, gay illusionist in the line- up amongst the loser card trick magicians? Since he was the only one who had made it big, we have to assume the moral of his story is either a.) choose big production illusionist gags over close-up work to make it big or b.) maybe best to shack up with an aging ex- illusionist who can produce your shows? Who knows.
One thing that really irked me about the illusionist storyline was that we learn that apparently a rival stole his prestige illusion but had evidently never thought to protect the IP related to the trick. He and his "partner" go see a lawyer who nonsensically tells the pair that an illusion is only "owned" if it gets associated with a particularly big personality.
Obviously this is ridiculous.
Everyday, famous Hollywood producers have to pay off nobody screenwriters after stealing their intellectual property and making a pant load off of their screenplay. How is the illusionist biz any different? Just because someone is more famous doesn't mean they can steal then claim as their's, someone else's IP.
But the documentary makes no effort to follow up on this obvious intrigue. One is left to assume that our subject illusionist gave it up because he, himself stole the trick from yet someone else and that's why he didn't pursue the lawsuit.
All this to say, a whole lot of interesting subject matter was left unaddressed while we followed each magician from sad venue to sad venue and meanwhile, watched the rich illusionist and his lover do a great impression of the two gay guys in Best In Show. Blech.
All in all, could have been a solid 8 in the genre but it got caught up in the mundane and ended up a weak 6.
BTW, whoever rates most ANY movie a 10 much less a maudlin docudrama like the "Magicians" is just being dishonest.
Only a few movies rate a 10 (or a 1 for that matter) and this isn't one of them.
Arrival (2016)
Fantastic but not a 10
I really loved this film. It has an emotional impact that is rare in SF films these days. Contrast this with the awful "Passengers" and you can see how big of swing there is in writing quality in this genre.
Others have written eloquently on the quality of the music, cinematography, acting, story, and direction. I can't add anymore to those accolades.
*** SPOILERS FOLLOW ****
But here are a few reasons why it is only an 8 in my book.
1. This is not quite as good as Interstellar or Inception, which are the 10-star gold standard by which I measure other modern SF films).
Why?
a.) The score for Arrival is quite good but it is not of the Hans Zimmer caliber we hear in Interstellar or Inception. b.) The story, while very strong, still has a bit of the clichéd "Get your act together humans and work together or else" kind of feel. The Nolan films were completely unique and free of clichéd SF story lines.
2. The flashback editing is, in many places, a cheat. The entire film is actually a flashback starting from just a few minutes in but once in the main flashback time-line there are combinations of flash-forwards and flashback. It's easiest to visualize the time-lines as "Now" at the opening and closing of the movie with flashbacks from that time-line being the scenes where Hannah and Louise are having conversations about this and that. Meanwhile, the main story-line of dealing with aliens is actually a flashback at least 25 years in the past from the "Now" where the movie begins and ends. In that time-line the narrative is continuously interrupted by flashbacks from the "Now" time-line and then eventually we begin to see flash-forwards from the 25 year in the past time-line of the Arrival of the aliens.
Some fans of Arrival categorize all the flashbacks from the "Now" time-line as actually being the "memories of future events" (flash-forwards from the 25 year in the past time-line) and I tend to think that this is because the director makes very little visual distinction between what is a flash- back and what is a "future memory" flash-forward.
We eventually DO see Louise having flash-forward memories late in the film after her brain is "rewired" by the alien language. This is purposefully (and I think unnecessarily) confusing for the viewer. The flashbacks of Louise's interactions with Hannah start long before Louise meets the aliens and they are much more obviously flashbacks from the opening "Now" time-line.
It is only much later in the film that we begin to realize that the director is inter-cutting FLASH-FORWARDS (e.g. Louise has a premonition of a girl with a caterpillar, poking a stick into a creek, picking up a stone, etc.). In those scenes we sense that Louise is only getting fuzzy glimpses of future events - which are completely different from the crystal clear conversations such as we have seen earlier in the film (discussions of "win/win" term definitions, drawings by the young Hannah, why daddy left mommy, etc.). By mixing narrative flashbacks, intended as clues for the viewer (and not something that Louise is actually experiencing as future memories) it muddies the narrative - probably on purpose - to keep the viewer off-balance. Villeneuve could have, for example, made the future memory sequences desaturated and diffuse to make it obvious that they were different from the flashbacks. He chose not to hence, why I think it's a cheat.
3. There was never enough sense that Louise's study of the language was beginning to rewire her brain, as was implied that different languages might. Although we see the fruits of her labor, we never get a sense sense that Louise is living, eating, breathing, and dreaming in the heptapod language prior to starting to see the future (the aforementioned glimpses of the girl with the caterpillar and the stone in the creek). This would have helped us buy that she would eventually start having premonitions about the future.
I completely agree with other fans that the film is a thinking-person's movie and enjoyable for many reasons, not the least of which is because the twist, if you can call it that, is not sudden but a slowly dawning one.
What I think I most enjoyed about the ending is that it is so bitter sweet. The heroine is successful in one way but meets with profound sadness in another. She unites the world but ends up alone in the end.
BONUS CONJECTURE:
Learning a language that allows you to see glimpses of your own future would probably cause a human to go insane. What is now and what is in the future would become intermingled leaving the person who learned the language, a quivering shell of a human being.
The Heptapods know this. It is their weapon for conquering earth. They teach one very smart human who then deploys the weapon in the classroom and in a book (as we see happen at the end of the film). Engaged and intelligent humans learn the alien language and then slowly begin to go insane as they all start seeing their own future. This leaves only dolts and morons who could never learn the language, as the remaining population. Much easier to occupy a planet of idiot sheep than one composed of a certain percentage of thinking individuals who might fight back
Discuss.
Tomorrowland (2015)
Far from a 10 but still enjoyable.
Ignore the "10" star votes. Do reviewers think that Tomorrowland is on par with Inception, Minority Report, Interstellar, or Back to the Future?
Hardly.
But it's not as bad as Star Trek V either though some evidently think it is.
Tomorrowland is an enjoyable film on several levels and only really fails in a couple of ways related to thee internal logic of the science in this movie.
*** SPOILERS BELOW ***
The good:
Visually, this movie is stunning. One never gets the sense that the environments are CGI. They usually look like practical sets.
The acting is good. I bought most of the performances except for Britt Robertson who plays the young female brainiac. She doesn't quite convince us that she's The One®. Clooney does a decent curmudgeon and Laurie does what he needs to do in a role that is a bit thankless due to a lack of character development.
The plot is thin but the script is mostly free of clichés except when Laurie's character, Nix, does a monologue about how people of the earth don't care about things like global warming. Furthermore, the character is expected to explain the entire underlying premise of the movie in just a few minutes. Ugh.
Michael Giacchino, who I normally enjoy immensely, phones in the score and Bird's directing was lively as usual.
The High Concept was intriguing. But the execution was muddled. The notion of a parallel world and one that is in a different time domain is a familiar one but the idea that the way people THINK about the future can affect the present is an interesting twist.
The bad:
Execution of the High Concept. Given that this story is aimed at younger audiences Lindelof, Bird, and Jensen are too clever by half with the mish-mash of 1st person narrative (opening scenes), flashbacks, alternate perspectives, and moves between worlds.
The science. In all science fiction we are expected to suspend disbelief. Some, like The Martian or Apollo 13 don't force us to suspend too much. Others, like the Matrix, expect us to really suspend. For Tomorrowland, we're someplace in between. What I never like though, is when the science concepts laid out in the world of a film script are internally incoherent. Herewith the main spoilers:
The virtual reality pin that "transports" one to Tomorrowland is an entirely impractical invention. When glimpsing Tomorrowland while touching the pin, one apparently is not actually physically in that world, it's virtual - so one assumes it should just be a mental experience alone.
But no.
To actually explore that other world, you have to walk around blind in your own world! So you can be walking through a field in your virtual journey but be bumping into walls or falling down stairs in your own reality because you literally have no idea where you are in the real world. You could be walking along a sidewalk in Tomorrowland, enjoying the amazing sites but in your world you're stepping off a cliff, walking into traffic, or being impaled by some sharp object that you would normally just walk around.
So if you think about it for just a second this VR pin is one of the most dangerous inventions ever. What's more, at the end of the movie, these death trap VR pins are handed out to random artists and scientists, most of whom will probably kill themselves the first time they use it.
Further to this point, the idea of the VR traveller's proximity to Tomorrowland when first touching the VR pin is nonsensical. At the end of the movie, all these artists and scientists end up in the same wheat field (how are they seeing each of the other VR travelers BTW?). But what makes no sense is that earlier in the film we see the female lead figure out that she's too far from Tomorrowland to walk there from the field. She figures out she needs to ride her bike a fair distance in the real world (in the correct direction) and then when she thinks she's gone far enough, touch the pin and end up in the Tomorrowland city itself. At first I thought that the reason she always ended up in the wheat field was that she was in a location in the real world that was near to, but not quite in the extra dimensional Tomorrowland city. But no, ALL the artists and scientists who take their virtual journey end up in this same wheat field no matter where on the globe they started. Further confusing this issue, how do those people get from the field to the distant Tomorrowland city if say, they live in a place they can't ride a car or their bike for dozens of miles to get to Tomorrowland?
One would think that the VR pin would at least drop them in the Tomorrowland city in some safe lobby or better yet, write the science so that they are virtually seeing AND walking rather than moving at all in the real world.
Finally, related to this rant, at one point in the movie, our heroine takes a monorail to a different part of Tomorrowland during her virtual experience. How does this work in her real world? We know that one is moving in 3D space the same in both worlds so if you're on a high speed train then are you not also traveling at a high speed in your real world too? That is obvious suicide. (What would people see in our world as our heroine speed by up in the air going 100 mph toward the side of a building?)
As for other science in the movie, it was largely treknobabble, even including those mysterious tachyon particles popularized in Star Trek.
Solid 6 for fun quasi-SciFi.
Jerusalem Countdown (2011)
Better than expected B movie fare
MINOR SPOILER
I would put this at the quality level of your average SyFy channel flick. I give it an extra star for exceeding expectations despite a low budget.
This has been criticized for being pro-Christian propaganda - probably by people who think that Fahrenheit 911 and Syriana were objective. 98 out of 100 Hollywood films are overtly anti-conservative or secularist so it doesn't surprise me that reviewers who down vote this film have already been so indoctrinated that they can't appreciate a viewpoint film that explains the Gospel or prophesy. It's so rare to see a movie with a completely unusual premise like this, that some viewers recoil at the notion of a message movie of this kind.
I found this film to be a refreshing effort to dramatize the struggle that many non-Bible believers have in accepting Scripture. In this respect, non-Christian "seekers" may find this story hits close to home.
On a screenplay level, this is average thriller/spy fare, if a bit contrived but gets the point across without being ham-fisted. The prophetic aspects could have been explored better given that the Old Testament is pretty clear that there will be a major war against Israel in the near future (that it will win) as outlined by Isaiah in Chapter 53 - something that goes unmentioned in the script.
Meanwhile, the Ezekiel prophesy that IS mentioned in the movie is about an event that comes after the Isaiah 53 war. But this was not intended to be a lesson in End Times Bible doctrine, but rather, a think piece for those who may be noticing that world events are aligning with predictions in the Bible.
As for the terrorist angle. Who doubts that ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood would destroy the US and Israel if it could? So I have no issue with that story element at all.