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Electric Dreams (2017)
Bloody Brilliant
Yes, each episode stands alone and one could nit-pick about episodic flaw but, as a collection, this is so much better than I imagined.
I cut my reading teeth reading Dick and other sf works. The only story/episode connection that I recall, though is in The Father Thing.
Is there to be a second season? I'll look around.
Really, this is enchanting to see stuff.
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
I only write quick and short reviews
This was Jake's film.
And Ford's.
And what I realized is...
..it's better to be passionate than practical.
And that Edward didn't show up for dinner because...
Ed's dead.
What a terrific - perfect - film.
The Invention of Lying (2009)
Really worth a second look
I couldn't really follow the film on my first viewing because I was naming every well-known actor playing a bit part and the horrible sets - but on my second watch I realised that these sets - with modern elevators taking a long while to ascend or descend three floors - might just be meaningfully absurd.
And speaking of the absurd... this is such a wonderful tale of the mythology of belief in a Judeo-Christian god. Nothingness is not an easy concept to accept and the promise of spending eternity in your own mansion with your loved ones is certainly reason to hasten one's death.
Ricky Gervais brilliantly ridicules the myth-construct of these religions that surround us... and his characterisation of Jesus is hilarious.
Just a wonderful and funny introduction to the world of atheism with the certainty that it takes lies to create myths and religions.
Chicago (2002)
Just one observation...
I so enjoyed seeing Chicago 14-15 (?) years back and I watched it again this morning. What I took away from the silver screen long ago and what repeated itself on the flat-screen this morning was how achingly beautiful Renée Zellweger was in the film.
Catherine Zeta-Jones was certainly lovely but Zellweger - oh, my - had those long and lovely legs and those slender yet toned arms. For me, this was the finest performance of her career. Genuine proof of her abilities to act, sing and dance - a rare combination these days.
Ah! I'll keep these images in my mind for a while, now. Just recalling her many talents on display in Chicago.
Melancholia (2011)
So beautiful, just so beautiful
I have long been a fan of Von Trier but Melancholia is such a strange and beautiful film that it ranks #1 on my list; maybe the #1 film of my lifetime.
We all die and preparing to die is no big deal; personal nihilism is no struggle (although it helps to have a terminal illness that leaves some time for acceptance) but annihilation of all? An apocalypse? Justine has accepted even that whilst her sister Claire cannot understand what that might mean.
Justine (part one) and Claire (part two) are quite different, as are their understandings of annihilation - Claire believes that there is life that will continue whilst Justine, the Justine that "knows things" knows that life will die out once the Earth dies.
The movie begins with the most beautiful (there is that word again!) scenes that have ever been filmed, scenes that foreshadow Things to Come, but there is some beauty in scenes to come, too.
It would be neglectful in failing to mention that the beauty of Kirsten Dunst as Justine enhances the beauty of some scenes. I always believed that Dunst had a great performance within her but until Melancholia she seemed to take the effortless roles that only required her to be Kirsten Dunst.
I don't know how von Trier did it but he put her in a film of great chance and he was returned with a characterisation that seemed to be written for Dunst - she is the centre that holds with a masterful performance. Dunst has always turned away from roles requiring nudity but the long shots of her nude body upon the riverbank brings together the elemental and reinforce her role of the dying Ophelia who rises again if only to toll the death of everything but is only a voice in the desert crying with no hope of salvation.
This is a masterful film from beginning to fiery end. Seeing Antichrist, Melacholia and then Nymphomaniac can be jarring. My long history of mental illness that featured a life of hypersexual behaviour created a more critical viewing of the last... and, maybe, Antichrist, too.
But, yes, the centre holds regardless.
What Other Couples Do (2013)
Personal and insightful
Like some others I found this while flipping through the available Amazon Prime videos... and I also found it delightful and insightful as I've had some of those conversations, too.
My kissing games, unfortunately, never ended with sex with my spouse, nor reconciliation. One would think that I would have been able to handle monogamy on the third attempt.
I didn't know what to expect from this movie, but I guess that I found it highly personal and terribly insightful. I've had those friends and, with a little too much wine, had the friend's wives that wanted me, too. Sometimes it was okay, but sometimes friendships and marriages were destroyed.
The screenplay, the acting and the direction is brilliant. And if you're in that 32-34 age group you'll recognize yourself in many of the characters. It's a shame that this wasn't a hit film... so much more than "The Big Chill." More realistic. More personal.
Ah, let the spoilers begin!
As wayward and screwed up as it may sound, I think that Bree is the most enlightened of any other single character. Her observation that "little white lies" can keep monogamous relationships afloat is spot-on. Looking back, had I kept many things unsaid I think that my relationships may have lasted longer, at least. I was too quick to be honest, too fast to share intimacies and it's only now that I realize that honesty in a relationship needs to be tempered, that holding back and telling the white lies is exactly what's required in a relationship.
Ryan and Bree have, it seems, the best marriage of the lot. And maybe Bree's observance is the lesson that should be taken away from the movie, the thing to be pondered.
Those of us of a certain age know these couples, and we've heard the dialogue from others. We know the woman who feels overwhelmed by motherhood and, yet, holds her children dear. She wants acknowledgment and appreciation and some help in parenting. And she really is the one who could be open for anything.
We know the woman who is belittled, whose husband lacks respect for the end of the bargain that she maintains. We feel so sorry for her each time her spouse is dismissive.
We know the Gingers, and how much they have been hurt and the Ginger portrayed in the film really isn't like the Ginger that we know - she wouldn't take her cheating husband back so quickly, particularly throwing a 10-year-old son into the mix: She would be careful so that her son would realize that cheating and leaving is not just something that men do.
The women are the most interesting characters, slightly stereotypical but with their twists. Brad is the least interesting character; followed by the equally boring Chris. Josh could be an obsessive Silicon Valley type, but he's an obsessive L.A. type and even the guy with the most screen time - Dave - is a vague shadow. Everyone wants to be Ryan although all of the women want Dave (for reasons that I can't fathom).
We know the women better than we know the couples because the men aren't too well represented here. That's okay, though. It's certainly possible that the women are more interesting than their spouses. Or that we know Michelle but have trouble identifying with Ryan, a stand-up comic(?).
Two things you should know before watching this movie:
The photo that is in place where a poster or DVD cover might go insinuates that there's a lot of sex in the film. And the 'also liked' films are for trashy sex films. No sex here, no nudity, nothing. Not a proverbial 'chick flick' but more of a couples film. Maybe. Who am I to judge?
You may not find the observation by Bree to be as thought-provoking as I did. I've never been in a long-term relationship. I only learned recently that honesty is disastrous for marriages. Find your wife's co-worker hot? Don't tell your wife! That mind-blowing sex that you had with a previous love? The same things that you'd like your wife to try? Keep it to yourself.
Lie when sex is the subject. Lie when you find Matt Damon attractive. Small white lies really aren't necessary, but maybe a little less honesty would be good? I'm the poster boy for the schlub thinking that honesty and intimacy were good things. My (last) ex-wife told me of a type of sex that she had with an old boyfriend - someone that she still socialized with and someone who became my friend, too. She didn't ask for a re-enactment, and my approach would have been very different than that which she experienced. I was baffled by what she shared. She wasn't the honest type, and I only found out years later that she would have found my approach strange and repugnant.
It's possible that this film has sex at the center. I'll need to think on that - maybe watch the movie again. Dave and Michelle seem to solve their problems with a short conversation and a night of sex - I found that ludicrous, one of two misguided scenarios in the film.
I highly recommend this movie.
Hamlet (1996)
Twenty years later... it is still the definitive version of Hamlet
I watched Branagh's Hamlet 3 times on the screen over a two-week period in 1997. I swore that I would never watch it on any television. It is simply too large a film (on many different levels!) to be seen outside of a movie theater.
But I succumbed. I actually purchased the Blu-ray edition last year but I did not watch until last night. Hamlet - the play - is so intimate to me that I know it line by line and while a few lines are placed differently or a couple of words of the play dropped (literally two) this is the most complete version of Hamlet ever filmed and absolutely the finest.
Branagh has such talent - as a writer, actor and director - and this interpretation of Hamlet is the best that I've ever seen.
If you've a nice and large television and a good sound system, I would certainly recommend buying the Blu-ray version of Hamlet. It may be even better than seeing it in a theater.
Boogie Nights (1997)
Could this movie be more stereotypical? Well, no, it couldn't...
PTA's Magnolia is one of my favorite movies so I naturally watched Boogie Nights after seeing Magnolia. Boogie Nights is a sex-negative morality play that teaches, like a Catholic nun, that sex is bad. PTA doesn't even include a monogamous married couple to portray the many blessings that are rained down upon a monogamous marriage between a man and a woman. But you'll quickly see that seems to be one of the takeaways from the conclusion of the film - and the more sexually active the person, the more likely that they will not be able to continue relationships with their biological families.
Stereotyping porn actors is just weak. The two youngest, Dirk (Wahlberg) and Rollergirl (Graham) are high school dropouts and not very bright. No one is very bright in the movie with the exception, maybe, of Reynolds' Jack Horner character but even he's out of touch with good taste as he naively calls one of his porn flicks a 'real movie' that will preserve his memory.
The first lesson we learn is that a marriage that is not monogamous can only end in murder-suicide. Little Bill (Macy - does the little moniker mean that he has a small organ unlike those in the porn films?) is shamed by his sexually active wife (played by real-life porn star Nina Hartley - a pro-porn defender and long involved with a man and another woman in an alternative relationship) so he naturally murders his wife and her lover and then commits suicide. Because, you know, that's what cuckolds do, right? Little Bill is involved in the porn industry and although Hartley is never seen as an actress in Horner's films, she's a serial adulteress and she gets her just reward.
Dirk learns his lesson when he thinks that his success is a result of his smarts as much as his organ size just when his organ is failing him because of drug use. He separates from Horner, taking a couple of his buddies with him but they leave him before he falls upon hard times. Hard times, we're to assume, means being picked up by men who want to watch him handle his organ as they handle their own. We just have to assume this as the only scene that indicates some experience in these matters is a single scene in which he is pummeled by guys in trucks who are just out for a night of gay bashing. Lesson? You might be gifted with a large organ but you'll never be smart.
Third and final lesson. This one is tricky - even those who are successful outside of the porn industry (by luck, theft, whatever) have been forever marked by their association and the artificial families that they have created are the only ones that they can depend upon. In the end they are all united under Jack Horner's wing to continue in the porn industry.
It's been 20 years since Boogie Nights' release. Pornography on the internet has become almost respectable with the 'amateur' streaming clips being popular and men by the millions having (to me, completely twisted) cuckold fantasies. Twenty years on anyone can be a porn star and hold a PhD in sociology. The aforementioned Nina Hartley began her porn career in 1984 and graduated from nursing school in 1985. In the little research that I've done it simply doesn't seem that the nascent porn film industry was filled with stupid high school drop-outs. Revisiting some of the most successful films of the time you may find more eroticism than in the 10-20 minute videos of today. And you might alternately find that there are very well educated men and women actually enjoying non-monogamous and non-traditional sex.
Boogie Nights just doesn't stand up to scrutiny or scholarship. It doesn't even present much in the way of the times when people had public hair.
One final note. The cuckold fantasy is one of those 'be careful what you wish for' fantasies. A real woman has fantasies of her own and - surprise! - they may not include you. Your fantasy may be just what she needs to have relations with another guy... as 10 other guys watch. Encourage a woman's lesbian fantasies and she might leave you for another woman. Each person is sexually unique - like a fingerprint - and before becoming involved with anyone in a sexual relationship you need to know a few things up front. Even if the person is fulfilling your sex with a stranger fantasy you need to know a few things. You won't learn much about sex watching Boogie Nights. The only history that you may learn is that when porn came out of the film theaters and onto home video, there was an explosion in sales and proliferation in product. Did the transition mean less artistic products? I don't think so... not every film of the time was a 'Behind the Green Door.'
Closer (2004)
Missing Mike Nichols, Mike Nichols Missing
I bloody loved Mike Nichols wearing each of his different hats but primarily as a film director who was so able at blurring the line between live theater and the screen.
Monogamy is, for me, a lie - I do not believe in monogamy anymore than I believe in religions built upon confounded myths. Monogamy is the non-existent unicorn and "Closer" certainly proves my point. It isn't the lie of monogamy that kills love but rather the truths - the most intimate truths - that kill love.
In "Closer" there are intersections of love and sexual intimacies and an ending that will leave you wondering if there was ever any truth in any of these fragile relationships. Clive Owen was the critic's choice for the film but, for me, this is Jude Law's grown-up role and, sadly, Julia Roberts' swan song. But if the swan must sing, Roberts hits the high notes with grace.
I will soon complete my Mike Nichols filmography and it will be a little sad for me. He taught me Virginia Woolf and the future in plastics. In "Closer" he taught me that true love may be a compromise - or that it may be a fabrication. Maybe both.
Love & Mercy (2014)
And in my endeavor to watch every movie...
...that I missed over an 18-year period, I am in 2014 and have finally seen "Love & Mercy" and wishing that I had started from 2016 and gone back because this is one helluva find.
I don't do reviews. I don't do reviews because I am an amateur movie-watcher. But when I come across a gem like this I just want to say "Damn. That was one good movie." Oh, Elizabeth Banks. I guess that this was the first time that I had ever seen her in anything. I couldn't help but think that I HAD seen her before... but I was thinking of Elisabeth Shue in "Leaving Las Vegas." I will be looking at some of her films and TV appearances, now. Banks, Dano and Cusack are just brilliant - but a special nod has to go to Dano: he's the sun and everyone else is a planet - brilliant planets.
And that's what I have to say about "Love & Mercy." For various reasons I've kept up with Brian Wilson's career as he returned to making astounding music and going from "Love You" ("The Beach Boys Love You:?) to "Brian Wilson." Is he a music genius? Probably -- If I were to meet him, I wouldn't tell him, though. I've never heard of anyone else write of Wilson as an influence on Steely Dan, but I hear it. I'm an admirer, a fan, and I see this as one of the finest biopics ever made... I know that it was Wilson-approved but I know, too, that the movie depicted Wilson's mental health problems realistically: watch some of the movements that Cusack/Wilson makes with his arms and there are the audio hallucinations, of course.
A damned good movie. I'm not sure how I missed it. So glad that I saw it, though.
Holy Shit (2015)
Father Jozef, priest and fact-checker
There were, to my knowledge and easily confirmed, only 3 episodes of Holy Shi*t that were produced. So... . The idea was, and still is, compelling and Father Jozef is so very likable... I believe that's something that everyone can agree upon.
I consider myself a doodler and there were multiple times during readings when I just couldn't help but doodle as "things" were being described. Episode 2 is a great place for beginning your own Church doodling and drawings. I will never be able to think of cherubs or cherubim the same again.
I'm betting that there are some amazing stories behind getting these three episodes produced. Maybe more amazing stories as to why production ceased after 3 episodes. I mean, you'd think that the Holy Sheet would have a little pull.
Such potential, such fun. Such a shame that the plug was pulled so early.
P.S. Kind of strange, but don't try to use the title of this series in your review. As a warning, though, it should be evident that every episode contains some real potty-mouthed dialogue.