Reviews of the last thing you saw

May plan on going to see Glass Castle sometime next week. Not sure when exactly; probably when my schedule isn't in conflict with the movie's showtimes. I'm not exactly anticipating the movie, however; I just feel it can be educational. Though for the purpose of keeping the peace, I will post the review on Amazon instead of over here; my reasons for doing so have some political ties to it if you ask me. So I will see the movie and post my comments over there when the time comes.

In the meantime, let's revive these forums. I have three movies to review--Dunkirk, Atomic Blond, and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

Let's start with Dunkirk. Christopher Nolan has, ever since his beginnings, a master filmmaker when it comes to craft and technique, and here, Dunkirk is no exception. It's a war movie, but it's also PG-13. And less than 2 hours long. As such, instead of making the film extremely violent, gory, and shocking, the film instead operates more on tension. It took me a little while to figure out that this conflict occurred during World War II, but the nazis and nazi symbolism makes virtually no appearance at all. The enemy is in essense, invisible as it is instead made to make you feel like you are there.

Even though the film is edited in such a way that there are three pov narratives; One Week at the Beach, which follows two grunts trying to survive however they can (as well as the occassional glimpse at their general's pov); One Day at Sea, which follows a sailor (played by Mark Rylance) and his two teenage sons setting sail in a fishing boat to help rescue their soldiers awaiting a miracle; and One Hour in the Air, following a pilot played by Tom Hardy shooting down enemy planes. There's really nothing significant that you learn by gazing through these three stories like there was with the nonlinear and unreliable narrative in Memento (still Nolan's best film to date) other than the fact that Cilan Murphy's character--the first British soldier rescued by Mark Rylance and his kids--left a number of his own men out to sea to possibly drown, freeze to death or otherwise die of exposure, if not by the hands of the German forces.

The big problem with this film--and this is crucial due for anybody out there to understand--actually comes from its lack of content. For better or worse, Christopher Nolan's films are films of ideas. Nearly every one of his characters are either a mouthpiece or a strawman. Or at the very least, they are tools meant to convey such ideas in some manner or form, if said ideas are not spoken of directly--like with Memento or to a lesser extent, The Prestigue. As a reason, one of the least important traits that comes out of Nolan's films are characterization, since Nolan's films are plot based and thematic; not character-driven. As such, I can understand none of Christopher Nolan's lack of characterization or relatability in any way, shape, manner or form.

No, the problem comes from the fact that to my knowledge, Dunkirk is the very first time I have seen a Christopher Nolan movie scrubbed of any ideas to speak of. Granted, I'd probably hate the movie if it decided to go the way of The Thin Red Line and become needlessly philosophical. But at the very least, the ideas or the themes could still come out by the way the characters either talked or acted. Unfortunately, nobody in Dunkirk stands out in any way, shape or form. They never say anything notable or memorable--not even with the two grunts eavesdropping on a conversation between the general and his two officers since what is being discussed means very little to the grunts, and means even less to us. Cillian Murphy's character's recently perceived atrocities have no baring on anything that went wrong after his rescue (his irratic actions were a byproduct of shellshock rather any feelings of guilt he might be running away from--and this was straight-up stated in the movie); and Tom Hardy spends pretty much the entire film alone and without any direct interaction with anybody. He's just...there. The closest thing to memorable characters in this movie are Mark Rylance and his sons, and that's mostly due to the actions they've taken, and is the one time where a lack of backstory on who they were actually helped them resonate more when we got to know them more on their actions than anything else; they were the real humanity.

I think the only way this setup could have had any real weight to it is if Nolan included one more pov that could have helped us put all three of these stories in perspective; specifically, one following that of Winston Churchill. He didn't need to take over the film and become our main character; but I think we needed a most prominent political figures from back in home in order for us the audience to grasp at the film at a fundamental level; heck, they basically closed us off with Churchill's "We will never surrender" speech, as the characters recited it from their newspaper. How much more impactful would Churchill's presence be if he actually popped up once near the beginning, maybe once in the middle, and then again to close out the movie giving that speech? The beginning could still be kept in, but then you could switch to Churchill and see what was going on with him while the events at Dunkirk were beginning to escalate. Better than wasting Kenneth Branagh by having him say nothing of consequence and doing very little of consequence; not little as in he's a bureacrat, but as in within the context of the plot, he contributed little to nothing at all. He's just there.

In fact, the characters in general are just there. Because without any ideas or themes to work off of, this film would otherwise lean on its cast of mostly unknowns to carry the film all on their own based on their own acting styles. While speaking boring, generic dialogue that, just like the characters themselves, are mostly just...there. Then again, if you're looking more for the technical and some intensity, sure, this film may provide it. But suspense can only occur when there's something there to gravitate towards, and unfortunately, trying to emulate the feeling of being there isn't anywhere near the same feeling of actually being there. And the lack of any notable themes or ideas for mostly blank canvases to work off of means this film has the potential to bore.

On a technical scale, a 7 out of 10. As far as Nolan goes, at least it's not the mad ravings of Interstellar. Eh, 5 out of 10. Meh.

Watched most of the first "Ben Hur" a few days ago. Fantastic what they did without the benefit of CGI. I seriously wondered how they did the ships colliding and people jumping overboard. The chariot races in this film were probably as dangerous as the original chariot races were. The film was involving, much more than one would think. For the time it was made--5 of 5 stars.

I have no interest in watching Blade Runner 2049. For several reasons:

1. One of the producers is Sony, whose cinematic works I am boycotting. Because their films suck and they don't care that they suck. (There are exceptions, but they require some exceptionally talented filmmakers, like Woody Allen, Quentin Tarantino or Edgar Wright as recent examples--although you and I do seem to agree more or less with where we'd find most of Dennis Villanueva's films (never saw Incendies).

2. Based on the trailers, the narrative logic contradicts with specific details established in the original Blade Runner. For examples, Replicants were specifically established to have a 4-year life span, and the process is irreversible (and before anybody goes out of their way to correct me on this detail, I've actually heard of a few things--specifically that the newer Replicants are not only legal now down on Earth, but have prolonged lifespans in similar veins to that of humans, but the older models are still outlawed--which makes no sense because all the older models should have died out by the time the events of this film plays out).

3. The film clearly presents itself as dumbed down for the general audience, compared to the original film (either version--although I prefer the Director's Cut out of all of them). Like, they're clearly going to try to spell out what is going on for us and hold our hands. It may look and sound impressive, but at the end of the day, it's automatically going to be an inferior product to the original.

4. The film is co-produced by Sony. And again, I am boycotting their films because they're shit.

5. Did I mention I'm boycotting Sony?

There is one complaint that did not register to me right away, but I'll give the film one point of compliment--at least they're not setting up a new Cinematic Universe with these movies! Probably because Sony and Warner Bros. are going to try and push this film hard for Oscar candidacy, especially for Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and Best Picture. Personally, the 90th Oscar ceremony is going to suck ass, so frankly, I don't give a shit anymore.

Lost Horizon from Frank Capra was released on Blu-ray this week. This time around I think his politics got in the way of his filmmaking.

Without getting into spoilers, the film literally advocates non-interventionism, and the timing of the release of the film right before World War II makes that hard to swallow in hindsight.

Historically accurate to the sentiments of it's time, but I don't think in todays world there are many who think the US and UK should have sat out of WW2. This idea is laid on in a heavy-handed manner like in his subsequent film, You Can't Take It With you and is very distracting.

The theme of the movie is likely it isn't as well known as his other films,
since shortly after the US was in the war and there wasn't an appetite for a non-interventionism polemic.