Change Your Image
Treammolb
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Begin Again (2013)
Surprisingly good
Begin Again (2013)
Viewed: 11/6/2020
Starring: Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo,
Directed by: John Carney
Written by: John Carney
Plot:
The film centers on Gretta (Keira Knightley), a songwriter. She can sing and has clear talent, but she prefers not to appear on stage or be recorded. The film opens with her playing in a small bar, however. It's evident she doesn't want to be there and that she has little stage presence. Following this performance, the camera pens to Dan (Mark Ruffalo). We then go back to Dan's past few hours: he was ousted by his record label, mocked by his daughter and ex wife, and is clearly down on his luck and an alcoholic. When he hears Gretta play, he sees an entire band appear around her: this is a star in the making. We then jump back to Gretta's past few days: her arrival in NY with boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine). Dave is hot new music star and has just signed with a major record label. Gretta, who has written Dave's songs with him, is along for the ride.
Soon, however, a fracture appears: Dave has fallen for someone else. Gretta leaves upset and ends up at the bar where she plays her song for Dan. This is where the timelines all converge. Dan convinces Gretta to make a music album all over New York: Central Park, on the rooftop, in the subway, etc. They also learn about each other's past: both of their exes had cheated on them. Gretta also has a positive effect on Dan, mending his relationship with his daughter. Through the music and they helping each other's career (Dan helping Gretta play her music live and make an album, Gretta helping Dan produce a great album and putting him back on the map) as well as their personal lives. Dave tries to reconnect with Gretta, but in a poignant moment, comes to realize that this new, confident version of herself, has grown apart from Dave, even though he is sorry for his mistake.
Review:
This is very cute and well-made movie. It starts off with multiple flashbacks, which works really well, without ever getting confusing. The chemistry between Ruffalo and Knightley is also palpable and helped by great performances from both. It's a really good decision to not make this a straight up romance, even though the story would lend itself perfectly for that. The writer-director could have easily taken the road of a love triangle and a big climax at the end where Knightley would have to choose between Levine and Ruffalo: the man who she loved as her past self, or the man who helped her realize her true potential. Instead, the story focuses on the growth of both of our lead characters. How they both try to begin again, after their careers and love lives have taken a nosedive and choose to let the parts they want to keep in the past in the past, and hold on to the parts they cherish. It's a story of overcoming inner demons and regret, and beginning again as their happiest most genuine selves. This comes to its culmination in its very strong ending which goes contrary to your standard Hollywood fare.
Tenet (2020)
A daring, but unintelligible mess
Tenet, the latest outing by director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Inception, Interstellar) presents an interesting and ambitious idea, that has been done amazingly well and attempted horrendously even more times: the concept of time travel. Tenet falls somewhere in the middle between these two maxims. The distinguishing element in Tenet as compared to other time travel movies is the world building: when characters go back in time, they have to abide by certain rules, such as that certain elements work in reverse (when hit by a flame, you get cold instead of hot, for example). It also seems objects can go back in time, meaning you can shoot someone, by having shot somewhere earlier, and the bullet then flying back in time. I say seems, because the concept is never very well explained. Early on one of the scientists who attempts to explain the mechanics says so early on "don't try to understand it, feel it." That message is apparently supposed to be taken literally, as you will often be left wondering what the hell is going on.
I will make a note here, however, that there is a chance the film does a glorious job explaining the mechanics. However, the sound mixing was horrendous. Ludwig Gorannsson (Black Panther) delivers the score, which aggressively pulses through the film at nearly all times. Nolan continues his trend of accompanying every scene with music: both a casual sitdown at a restaurant, as well as the action scenes. This works very well for the action scenes, but not for the dialogues, as the score drowns out the dialogue, making it increasingly frustrating to figure out what is going on. Sometimes the background noises in an environment add to the plight of trying to understand the dialogue; there is an unbelievably frustrating scene on a boat where due to the waves not a lick of dialogue can be understood. It is an odd choice in a film which requires the viewer to pay attention to try and figure out what is happening due to the novel time travel technology. Nolan also employs lots of crosscuts between scenes where mechanics are explained, plots are hatched, and put in motion, all in one crosscut. So, within 60 seconds, you switch between constant cuts of two characters discussing an important element of how the time travel works, the same two characters in a different location devising a plan to use this element, and then another scene intermixed where the preliminary work of said plan is put into motion. Combine this with the pulsating synths, and the viewer will have a wonderful time trying to keep track of what is going on.
This issue is exacerbated due to the fact that not much time is given to actually process anything, because when the action kicks off, it all occurs at a breakneck speed. Nolan still hasn't figured out how to shoot action scenes, managing to film the action in confusing angles and make puzzling cuts that make the action even harder to follow. Due to the time element, where multiple timelines at times align, the action becomes even harder to follow, which is a shame, as some of the setpieces are amazing in scale and action. The time travel causes magnificent action to unfold, with timelines colliding, certain characters appearing both as their future and present selves, future selves going backwards, while present selves are moving forward, which all leads action scenes that have not been experienced before. Sadly enough, you're still trying to figure out what was done, well after an action scene is completed. You're seeing magnificent action appear in front of you, but you just don't know what or why it is happening.
It also feels the time mechanics were underused. Early on you see a a bullet hole from a bullet that had not been fired yet, and I was expecting tons of ingenious scenes playing with this idea and trying to push it to its limits. People managing to jump into planes (by somehow going back in time from when they jumped out of it earlier), characters littering a room with bullets, waiting for the impending arrival of the antagonists and then unleashing all the bullets back into the gun hitting the enemies, etc. Instead, this comes back very sparingly in the first half. This gets amped up a lot more in the second half, but, as mentioned before, you still don't truly understand what is going on, making the action feel somewhat dull despite how much of a technical feat it all is. In a sense, Tenet could have done away with the attempt at trying to appear as an intellectual movie and have just given the characters superpowers, instead of trying to come up with contrived rules on how the timetravel mechanics work, as you won't be able to understand the rules anyway.
There is a core issue at the heart of Tenet, however, and that is that it doesn't touch you emotionally: you don't understand the characters, and you don't feel anything for them. In Nolan's previous efforts, of which Inception is probably the best example, as it seems like Tenets spiritual predecessor, you care about the characters. Cobb and Mall had their tragic love story where they went too far with their powers and lost everything they held dear. Cobb's constant fear of getting lost in the dreamworld, or, perhaps, his desire to be there, warring against each other. His constant mission to be reunited with his children versus him missing his wife. Behind every action scene, there were high, personal stakes. This is the issue with most action movies: you don't care about the destruction of a skyscraper or the explosion of a planet, if there is no emotional connection to any of these events.
Tenet shares this problem as the characters all seem emotionally detached from the film's plot which centers around stopping an evil mastermind of destroying the world. The Protagonist (this is the character's name, he is never given an actual name) ironically is just that, an empty shell, an infallible character, with no emotional connection to the plot. Then we have Neil, a mysterious agent, so mysterious that you know nothing about him until the very end and so anything he does carries no emotional weight. Kat, is the only one with personal stakes as she is married to the evil mastermind and he is holding her hostage, but she seems more like a constant damsel in distress that just needs saving and actually seems to have nothing to do with the main plotline. As her struggles don't seem to connect with the actual plot of the film, the plot has no emotional weight to it. Even if it did, however, it still wouldn't help, as the film almost solely focuses on the Protagonist and his mission to save the world. Perhaps the film would have worked better if she was more part of the core of the film and got more agency, lending higher personal stakes to the overall plotline, but instead we follow the Protagonist and Neil completing action scene after action scene in an attempt to save the world from an evil mastermind whose rationale you don't understand, by using time travel mechanics that you don't understand, and saving Kat for a reason you don't understand.
All in all, it's a daring attempt at a idea that has been done many times before, but not yet done in a manner so ambitious. However, the dumbfounding decision to play music over all expository dialogue, failing to make the viewer feel emotional connection to the characters, and subpar cinematography and editing makes this more of waste of potential than anything else.
Per qualche dollaro in più (1965)
Not as grand and entertaining as Leone's later works, but carries within a deeper, more touching story
The first in Sergio Leone's so-called 'Dollar' Trilogy (which isn't truly a trilogy, but more three westerns which star some of the same actors, the same music, and carry a similar aesthetic). 'For a few dollars more' hones in on Manco (played by Clint Eastwood), a bounty hunter in pursuit of the somewhat unstable and crazed criminal El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte). Quickly, Manco partners with a different bounty hunter Col. Douglas Mortimer (portrayed by an excellent Lee van Cleef, in a rare outing as a good guy).
The film seems relatively straightforward throughout, a simple hunt for a criminal, of course riddles with the typical Serhio Leone sound effects, shoot outs, camera shots, and Ennio Morricone's excellent music. Whereas normally Morricone's music elevates the material (for example, 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly'), here it at times hinders the scenes, detracting from the more touching moments, where the music invokes heroism, which just does not align with the film at times. This is most noticeable in the finale, where the scene already has a haunting theme playing, but this gets covered with Morricone's score, invoking the wrong type of emotion.
Preceding this scene, the relatively plain hunt for El Indio is interspersed with flashbacks which give hints to what caused El Indio to become what he is, adding gravitas and intrigue to the entire picture. His obsession with playing a tune from a keepsake, raising images of a nursery song, carrying notes of innocence, but above all give the moments a eerie and uneasy feeling. These flashbacks culminate in a slight twist making for a deeply satisfying and poignant finale which touches upon a variety of deeper themes, that I did not experience in Leone's greatest work (the aforementioned 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly').
All in all, it does not carry the scale and production values of Leone's later works, and is somewhat limited and simple in scope. However, the human elements throughout give it a deeper layer, which makes this for a thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying watch.
Per qualche dollaro in più (1965)
Not as grand and entertaining as Leone's later works, but carries within a deeper, more touching story
The first in Sergio Leone's so-called 'Dollar' Trilogy (which isn't truly a trilogy, but more three westerns which star some of the same actors, the same music, and carry a similar aesthetic). 'For a few dollars more' hones in on Manco (played by Clint Eastwood), a bounty hunter in pursuit of the somewhat unstable and crazed criminal El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte). Quickly, Manco partners with a different bounty hunter Col. Douglas Mortimer (portrayed by an excellent Lee van Cleef, in a rare outing as a good guy).
The film seems relatively straightforward throughout, a simple hunt for a criminal, of course riddles with the typical Serhio Leone sound effects, shoot outs, camera shots, and Ennio Morricone's excellent music. Whereas normally Morricone's music elevates the material (for example, 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly'), here it at times hinders the scenes, detracting from the more touching moments, where the music invokes heroism, which just does not align with the film at times. This is most noticeable in the finale, where the scene already has a haunting theme playing, but this gets covered with Morricone's score, invoking the wrong type of emotion.
Preceding this scene, the relatively plain hunt for El Indio is interspersed with flashbacks which give hints to what caused El Indio to become what he is, adding gravitas and intrigue to the entire picture. His obsession with playing a tune from a keepsake, raising images of a nursery song, carrying notes of innocence, but above all give the moments a eerie and uneasy feeling. These flashbacks culminate in a slight twist making for a deeply satisfying and poignant finale which touches upon a variety of deeper themes, that I did not experience in Leone's greatest work (the aforementioned 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly').
All in all, it does not carry the scale and production values of Leone's later works, and is somewhat limited and simple in scope. However, the human elements throughout give it a deeper layer, which makes this for a thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying watch.