Film Words

 We're in the doldrums folks, time to take a quick look at the kind of studio crap getting released between Christmas and the Oscars this year.    Moonfall Does what it says on the tin. Roland Emmerich has been floundering for some time now as the world grew out of his style of sub-Spielberg disaster porn, but he finds a streak of high camp here that must have caught me in a good mood because I was loving it. The film doesn’t try to hide or excuse its ludicrous premise, instead leaning in to the child’s brain science and conspiracy nonsense with a confidence that charms and delights; it doesn’t want to be taken seriously and I was more than happy to play along. The main cast share that sense of fun, doing sincere evocations of the kind of b-movie performances common in 1950’s films with a fraction of the budget on display here, and never giving in to overly winky parody despite clearly knowing the kind of project they’re in. Patrick Wilson is a standout as a square jawe...

 Gary Valentine is a hustler, a dangerous mix of both teenage and adult confidence, two slightly different qualities that Gary utilises to tear his way through Los Angeles’ San Fernando valley on a one man small business crusade. In a time (the tumultuous mid 1970’s) before home videogame systems or personal computers, Gary channels his boredom into an acting career, a waterbed business, an arcade palace, a romantic pursuit of a woman at least 10 years his senior. The valley he’s tearing through is of course the home of one Paul Thomas Anderson, who’s new film Licorice Pizza stars Cooper Hoffman as the young force of nature.  He is in many ways a classic Anderson protagonist, a relentless con-man, avatar of American capitalism, although at his age he’s not menacing as much as just a menace. Of all Gary’s escapades, it’s that strange romantic pursuit that forms the backbone of this particularly shaggy movie, more a series of memories than anything else. Gary meets and immedi...

 The thing I keep coming back to is that I can’t believe this exists. I have a hard time judging anything Jackson does here because it almost doesn’t matter; It’s The Beatles for crying out loud, The Beatles. What a treasure trove; Perhaps the most intimate and thorough document of the creative process of truly extraordinary artists ever captured. It’s hard to think of a way this footage could be presented that isn’t compelling; then again, Michael Lindsey-Hogg’s infamous whiff of a film somehow proves otherwise.   Mostly the credit lies in what Jackson doesn’t do; no talking heads, very little context outside of the first 10 minutes, leaving in as much raw footage as possible to complicate interpersonal relationships and deepen the personalities of the band. I rolled my eyes when it was announced that the film would be elongated to almost eight hours and presented in three parts, classic Jackson bloat, but it turns out the length is the films greatest strength. Sitting thro...

 Del Toro’s latest is dripping with the kind of prestige that comes when a great filmmaker has just bagged some hefty Oscar gold. Decadent décor and lush cinematography are draped around a cast of acting heavyweights all wearing their serious faces, backed by the kind of (mid)budget that is rare to see for a played-straight drama nowadays. The whole thing feels like a rich chocolate gateau, including the feeling afterwards that there might have been a bit too much of it. The aforementioned prestige stops this from being as lean as it needs to be, as the 1947 version was for sure, with a backstory/framing device for Bradley Coopers protagonist that doesn’t add much of interest, and extra bits of bloat hear and there that drag the pacing to a crawl at times, but there’s a compelling enough idea serving as the narrative backbone that kept me engaged throughout. As Coopers character climes up the rungs of society, from the mud caked carnival with one bath for all to share, to the bou...

 Some more little thoughts... The Matrix Resurrections Lana Wachowski continues to be the most interesting blockbuster filmmaker of the century, bringing back arguably the most visually impressive action franchise in history with an instalment that…has kind of weak action and doesn’t look that good. Genius! Honestly this doesn’t look or move that much worse than most other contemporary blockbusters and there’s definitely intentionality to the choices, but what is the point of a Matrix movie that cant distinguish itself visually. Dumb question; this series has always been jam packed with ideas about who we are and how we live in a world that increasingly seems designed to isolate and commodify us, with each successive instalment interrogating the previous entry and trying to find some new truth, something that the matrix cant take away from us. In Resurrections Wachowski continues to drill down into the core of the series premise, fully aware that 20 years on the original films...

 Brief thoughts on a couple of French films from '21 Annette Carax’s movies have often been exercises in Brechtian detachment, easier to analyse than get emotionally wrapped up in, but almost all of them contain individual moments of pure aesthetic bliss (the boat ride under the fireworks in The Lovers on the Bridge , Denis Lavant running to David Bowie in Mauvais Sang , or playing the accordion in Holy Motors ) based primarily around music, so the idea of a full on Carax musical promises much. It’s therefore both surprising and obvious that Annette finds Carax just as emotionally distant, a yet just as good, as ever.    The way this film plays with artificiality, in the music, the set design, the staging, the way characters perform and lie to each other, represents some of the most accomplished and intelligent filmmaking of the year, with every scene introducing new ideas or deepening themes, often purely visually. The cast, particularly Adam Driver, do excellent wo...

 The effortlessness of Steven Soderbergh is so pleasurable to me. It’s probably his greatest skill, making complex, star studded films with brains and style that glide along so smoothly that they’re often overlooked as quickly as he makes them. You never feel this film straining, and I love it when someone very talented makes hard work look easy, it’s a special kind of thrill. I love most of the super wide, nicely textured cinematography that has bothered some others; again it’s fun watching a filmmaking savant fuck around a bit, and Don Cheadle gives one of the year’s best performances, tempering ambition with desperation and commanding attention amidst a cast designed to get Letterboxed tongues wagging. The narrative game here is nothing that new, a twisty, initially confounding little equation that eventually solves itself into a big “Fuck Capitalism”, a message that has come to dominate most of Soderbergh’s mid to late career, but never feels like its being played for cheap...