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Oppenheimer (2023)
Hold on to Your Oppenheimer Hat
I have given it 8 out of 10 because it held my attention and was pretty good. But some things really annoyed me about it.
Nolan has a problem with pace. Everything is unrelentingly frenetic. He seems afraid of the quiet and the slow. He doesn't do lingering shots like Tarkovsky. When characters decide to have important conversations, they walk quickly in large groups through corridors accompanied by loud intrusive music so we can't overhear them. Even when Oppy merely thinks about particles, we are assaulted by phantasmagorical images and loud unpleasant noises.
The centrepiece of the film, the detonation of the first atomic bomb, is surprisingly unconvincing and underwhelming. Nolan apparently doesn't like CGI but he should have used it here. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not depicted. A shame. I wanted to see spectacular nuclear explosions.
I don't think Cillian Murphy is as good in his role as some people are saying. He can't convey the depth and breadth of Oppenheimer's intelligence. He looks good when he puts Oppenheimer's hat on but any actor would. I felt he was outshone by Robert Downey Jr. Which slightly unbalanced the film in my view. This film should have at its heart the question of the morality of nuclear weapons. But Downey Jr is so good he makes it seem like the film is all about the petty grudges of a long-forgotten politician.
Tom Conti is preposterous as Albert Einstein. Conti always thinks that if he chuckles away to himself, we will be fooled into thinking he's a great actor.
And Nolan's non-linear narrative habit seems incurable now.
The Grey (2011)
Hackles Raised For This One
This is a failed attempt at some kind of bleak metaphor on our mortality. But to pull something as ambitious as that off, the first thing you must do is get the basic facts right about the world you're creating. The ridiculousness of the wolf behaviour and the preposterous way the survivors go about surviving are not only silly in themselves but undermine the deeper philosophical pretensions of the film. Didn't they have experts advising them on how to survive in the arctic wilderness? Didn't they have advisers on how wolves actually behave? This is not a film for intelligent adults. This is for kids who know nothing about nothing and get excited by growling noises and eyes that glow in the dark.
Denial (2016)
What Himmler Actually Said to Heydrich
The crucial scene is where Irving is shown to have mistranslated an entry in a log of Himmler's. And that it wasn't an honest mistake on Irving's part but a deliberate twisting of the facts to suit his thesis.
Irving is fixated on documents; he thinks the lack of any document showing that Hitler ordered the Holocaust proves it never happened. He ignores the cogency of other forms of evidence. Irving also states somewhere that estimates of the number of Auschwitz victims have been reduced over the years; this is true but does not justify Irving's conclusion that the whole thing is a hoax. The film could have tried harder to show Irving's side of the argument and why some readers are beguiled by him. But I suppose the film is saying it is not an argument; there aren't two sides to the Holocaust.
Irving is portrayed as the irredeemable baddie, full of antisemitic, racist and sexist attitudes. But when Deborah caricatures the judge as "this unbelievable character from Masterpiece Theatre" it is of course not to be regarded in the same way as Irving's ditty about Rastafarians. If we are all supposed to be equal, why are we appalled at the latter but not the former?
The Sounds (2020)
Pelorus Jack is Floundering
The scenery is great. Praise where praise is due.
The plot intrigues us at the start. Then we are let in on a surprising twist which leads us to believe it is a bigger and even more interesting story. So far so good. What the central couple are doing may be wrong but we're still on their side.
Then the whole thing falls apart. The characters have changes of heart. There is psychological collapse. Too many sub-plots start pulling the main story to shreds and playing havoc with the audience's sympathies. I stop identifying with the central couple and the story twists and turns to an absurd degree. I prefer my dramas to stay this side of believable. I no longer know or care about what's happening.
The NZ accents are unintelligible. Maoris speak in Maori a lot.
Yesterday (2019)
Terrible Writing
Fabulous idea totally undeveloped. How often have we seen writers not following through on their good initial idea?
It would have been much better if the main character hadn't been so guilt-ridden and had taken more selfish enjoyment from his situation. But you always knew this sap was going to confess in the end. They could have had more drama and more fun by making John Lennon into an obscure nut crazily claiming that superstar Jack Malik had stolen all his songs. But they played safe. Lennon was portrayed as a contented 78 year old artist given to gnomic utterances. So reverential. So boring.
All Is True (2018)
Brilliant Branagh
This is a good film about Shakespeare and Kenneth Branagh is brilliant and moving as Shakespeare. We have probably all got our own ideas about the personality of Shakespeare, but Branagh's portrayal comes close to what I've always imagined it to be. So of course I like the film.
Essentially it is a fine drama about a man returning to a family he has neglected. It would have worked almost as well if the protagonist had been Joe Bloggs.
The film unintentionally reignites my interest in the Shakespeare authorship question. How did Shakespeare spring from the Stratford depicted here, a small town of oafs and illiterates and puritans? Historically that has often been regarded as a mystery and even a miracle. And how could this commoner form an intimate friendship with the Earl of Southampton? (Great cameo from Ian McKellen.)
The film unobtrusively gives its plausible answers to these questions. I still think Will Shakespeare from Stratford was a front man for the real author but that didn't stop me from really enjoying this film.
The Northman (2022)
Viking Weirdness
I exited the cinema thinking I had just seen a heap of trash but I have to admit that many images have stayed with me. The weird otherness of the Viking world it recreates may not be the weakness I initially thought it was. It was a real cinematic experience. Many beautiful sequences. The shot from the riverbank when the longships suddenly appear was marvellous.
No Man of God (2021)
Not Dramatic Enough
This is a gripping enough film, especially in the first half. In the end, though, it fails as a drama because it doesn't spend enough time on the building of trust between the two main characters, which is the dramatic centre of the film.
Since trust is established far too quickly, some viewers may have wanted more details about Bundy's crimes to beef it up a bit. I felt that but only because the tension had gone out of the film when the two guys became buddies.
There is one scene towards the end in which an attempt is made to describe the pleasure Bundy got from murder. I found it revolting. This is not entertainment and not why I watch films.
I feel this kind of material makes for a better documentary than a drama. The film is a sort of quest for the unique qualities of serial killers and how they think. What we now know is that they are not as mysterious as they once seemed. They are the unfortunate possessors of a rare combination of characteristics: Being sexually aroused by killing and having a complete lack of empathy. Add in high intelligence and a willingness to take risks, as in Bundy's case, and you have a very dangerous individual who, from his point of view, has no reason not to act on his desires.
The film ends by saying rather tritely that Bundy killed "because he wanted to". Well, true, as far as it goes.
A well-made film though which had good moments.
Dune (2021)
Absolute Guff
The effects are good. I will say that much about it. Everything else is bad. Everything that is bad about sci-fi is here. Corny character names. Borrowed religious ideas. Gigantic versions of animals you find on Earth. Banal, lifeless and cringeworthy dialogue. Why do the armies of civilisations that have mastered space travel still fight with knives? I don't know.
Overpowering music. The actors were often inaudible. Aren't they taught voice projection anymore? They were often invisible as well - half the film takes place in that semi-darkness that directors love. I wasn't grabbed by any of the cardboard cutout characters and I didn't care about the story. I won't be looking out for part two.
Sunset Song (2015)
Damn't to Hell
If you have never read the book, never seen the excellent 1970s BBC TV production and know nothing about Scotland, you might enjoy this film. It is beautifully photographed - who doesn't like shots of golden cornfields? It is also grim and schmaltzy - a winning combination for some people. Mark Kermode liked it.
The book has a strong sense of place but this film doesn't quite evoke the Mearns for me. You can tell they haven't done much homework. "Portlethen" is mispronounced and the actors can't even agree among themselves how to pronounce "Blawearie", the farm where most of the action happens. Apart from the actor who plays Chae Strachan, they have all got the wrong Scottish accents. The English girl who plays the lead imitates a Glasgow accent. Couldn't she have done some research or got better advice? (Try imitating Annie Lennox rather than Sharleen Spiteri.) If you're not Scottish maybe you will regard all this as nitpicking but if you are a Scot who loves the book, then the voices just grate on your ears.
"Damn't to hell" is frequently the curse of choice for the characters in the book but sadly I never heard it in this film. Nor much else of the "speak".
The music doesn't seem right either. English choral music? Eh? What is that doing here? "Auld Lang Syne", as others have pointed out, is a disgrace. Didn't any of the Scots on the set say anything? "The Flowers of the Forest" is certainly in the book but the director seems to be fixated on it.
Perhaps those like me who know and love the book and its setting are unable to assess how good a film this actually is because we can't see past what others might regard as trivial details. Perhaps.
But I wouldn't be surprised if non-Scottish viewers were repelled by this dour film about taciturn farmers whose days are filled with toil and their evenings spent in the long silences of Calvinist gloom, the boredom relieved only by raping their wives and daughters or partaking of a dram at Hogmanay.
It is the richness of the book that makes it Scotland's best novel - the language, the local colour, the author's intimate knowledge of the landscape and the farming community. For the movie to strip all that away and concentrate on the bare bones of the story seems a mistake in my view because the story is actually on the slender side. But, okay, it's a surprisingly modish story about a strong woman surviving in a world of brutish men so maybe to attract a worldwide audience they had to do something like that.
Marriage Story (2019)
Impressive But Unsatisfying
I enjoyed this film for the most part. It was intelligent, smart, moving and often funny. It didn't seem to know if it wanted to be a drama, a comedy, or a satire on the American way of divorce. There were serious weaknesses. I didn't care about the two main self-absorbed characters. Scarlett was actually very poor in some scenes where she had to spout interminable monologues. She doesn't do voluble anger or outrage very well. I found the scenes with the kid boring. Alan Alda and Ray Liotta were both great but neither had enough screen time. Rewatchability factor probably low.
Fatale (2020)
Ho-hum
Good acting and not without moments of tension. Promising start but quickly becomes standard Hollywood thriller fare. I like my thrillers to stay this side of believability but there far too many murders here. The end is just so predictable and formulaic. Don't waste your time.
Ad Astra (2019)
Sombre Sci-Fi
Although the scene moves quickly from the Earth to the Moon to Mars and to Neptune, this film attempts to be a quiet meditation on the search for meaning. Brad Pitt is searching for his father, his father is searching for extraterrestrial intelligence and the audience may think it is a film about the search for God. Essentially then it is only incidentally a sci-fi film. But the sets are great. I particularly liked the moonscapes and the surface of Mars. The pirate attack on the moon rovers was exciting. I think Brad Pitt is good as the introspective and unflappable astronaut. But something about it didn't quite gell for me. Too sombre to be an exciting sci-fi film, too much action to be a deeply satisfying contemplative film. But I can see myself watching it more than once.
Half Light (2006)
Suspenseful Little Gem
This film wasn't predictable. I liked the atmosphere it built up. It was convincing as a ghost story although at the very end I felt there was a plot development that let it down a bit. But I was gripped for long periods. And scared. And I don't usually get scared by scary films.
One point about the accents. This is supposed to be set in a Gaelic-speaking Highland community but when the locals talk in English they don't have Highland accents. They don't even have Lowland accents - they talk in a kind of Stage Scottish which doesn't exist anywhere except in films about Scotland. Still, I suppose this Stage Scottish keeps being used to signal to the rest of the world that the film is set in Scotland.