tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17937287924734268772024-03-18T16:25:53.616-07:00CinésthesiaFeelings. On film.Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.comBlogger4373125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-15466579189438721702024-03-18T11:41:00.000-07:002024-03-18T16:14:10.907-07:00O brother, where art thou?: "Drive-Away Dolls"<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlBnMPxr9D3OQDcb7VWnQrSXAvBigv4pPeX3IOXrV8mhiHgZ5tahcnmhczI_neCC4TnEABukA60PKogXf_90_MLsT9s8wqf6DvAZZbzd-kdlVAYUHIEbtxTl3QA1ZxXUOTB7yebI1tI_z6Wu1g6hggMG0trWg7kXAwY9p1J1yvVgc4ASQ6hyvfgqrMOEw/s1200/DAD.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1200" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlBnMPxr9D3OQDcb7VWnQrSXAvBigv4pPeX3IOXrV8mhiHgZ5tahcnmhczI_neCC4TnEABukA60PKogXf_90_MLsT9s8wqf6DvAZZbzd-kdlVAYUHIEbtxTl3QA1ZxXUOTB7yebI1tI_z6Wu1g6hggMG0trWg7kXAwY9p1J1yvVgc4ASQ6hyvfgqrMOEw/w400-h240/DAD.webp" width="400" /></a></div></span><b style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div>Drive-Away Dolls</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> is simply trying too hard. For his first film since a (reportedly amicable) parting of the creative ways from brother Joel, Ethan Coen has paired up with writer-editor-spouse Tricia Cooke, and contrived a would-be romp about odd-couple young lesbians (uptight Geraldine Viswanathan and DTF Margaret Qualley) making their way across pre-millennial America in a hire car that - unbeknownst to them - contains sensitive equipment: a case full of dildos modelled on the members of the country's most powerful men. If you think that sounds forced, you ain't seen nothing yet. The girls' haphazard progress, pursued by goons, is set out in wonky camera angles and crash zooms even a first-year film student might find gauche; these are linked by clangingly wacky or pointlessly trippy scene transitions. Plentiful girl-on-girl activity, meanwhile, indicates this is the work of middle-aged creatives who've watched queer-themed material break out at the box office in recent times and hoped they, too, might get in on the action. One oddity - one area where Coen and Cooke really weren't trying hard enough - is that no attempt is made to situate the heroines' sapphism in the context of post-kd lang, pre-Peaches America; it's all tongues, no trousers, and given how cheap and naff much of the film looks, it forms the basis of a movie that often resembles the American equivalent of a British sex comedy made with National Lottery funding in 1999. Was it that the Coens operated their own, sibling-exclusive system of checks and balances? (The goofball Ethan grounding the higher-brow Joel, whose solo debut was that chiaroscuro redo of </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Macbeth</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">; Joel conjuring memorable images from his brother's</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> yaks and yuks.) Either way, there are no memorable images in </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Drive-Away Dolls</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, and the actors seem to have been left to themselves for the most part: Qualley affects a bouncy Southern twang that only ever strikes the ear as rehearsal-room put-on, while the supporting cast contains a one-for-the-ages rarity in a bad Beanie Feldstein performance. Tricked out to a flimsy 80 minutes, it isn't long enough to irk and irritate as it might, and I quite liked the flickers we hear of Carter Burwell's score, though I suspect these were sparingly applied, lest they remind us of all the worthwhile Coen endeavours we could be watching instead. It's bad enough that Hall and Oates have undergone a separation, but these guys too?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Drive-Away Dolls is now showing in selected cinemas.</i></span> </div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-81323588103986449092024-03-16T05:15:00.000-07:002024-03-16T05:15:56.022-07:00Devil's advocate: "Shaitaan"<div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3gyfpJ4XVSPOv7CTzE7Y6CU6LZvMdITKWK-eiQywo6ln00bGPatlvrVf2gtaCNL9C993elUNOURJuVir1hYbQ1Hz_QMNb8mqPtabdDkOCIr0WqHONYIXPo2BX67jk7wv0Ds0zPzwbZb89yOQMIlfQN221orHxdaq7QF2ggUAefXEr7NzIiHlCfa8vKi0/s1200/Shaitaan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3gyfpJ4XVSPOv7CTzE7Y6CU6LZvMdITKWK-eiQywo6ln00bGPatlvrVf2gtaCNL9C993elUNOURJuVir1hYbQ1Hz_QMNb8mqPtabdDkOCIr0WqHONYIXPo2BX67jk7wv0Ds0zPzwbZb89yOQMIlfQN221orHxdaq7QF2ggUAefXEr7NzIiHlCfa8vKi0/w400-h210/Shaitaan.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><b>Shaitaan</b> finds the Hindi mainstream cribbing ideas from elsewhere again. In this case, it's from last year's <i>Vash</i>, a well-received Gujarati horror flick seized upon by producer-star Ajay Devgn as an opportunity to once more inhabit the role of hypervigilant patriarch with which he's enjoyed some success over recent years. In 2015's clever thriller <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2015/08/drishyam-guardian-030815.html"><i>Drishyam</i></a>, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/preview/1793728792473426877/274700747715307561">itself a remake of a noted regional title</a>, Devgn took extreme measures to protect his offspring's virtue; now he's a bejumpered paterfamilias trying to halt the malevolent force that gains entry to his household via a suggestible teenage daughter. (If any of this sounds overbearing, we should give Devgn credit for being one of the few Indian stars of a certain age who appears genuinely comfortable playing dad roles, rather than initiating onscreen romances with actresses young enough to be his granddaughter.) The set-up here is basically Pasolini's <i>Theorem</i>, with a dash of <i>The Vanishing</i> at the start, and a fiery <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2018/01/padmaavat-guardian-260118.html"><i>Padmaavat</i></a> flourish towards the end. Pausing at a roadside eaterie en route to a family break, Devgn's four-strong party - made up by wife Jyoti (Jyothika), daughter Janhvi (Janki Bodiwala, a holdover from <i>Vash</i>) and son Dhruv (Anngad Raaj) - is approached by one Vanraj Kashyap (R. Madhavan), a fellow traveller who appears personable enough until he slips Janhvi a sweet that is clearly some kind of gateway drug; soon, she's eating uncontrollably, letting this charmer into the family's well-furnished holiday home (uh-oh), and making novel use of a swing set to terrorise her sibling. At first glance, it's a standard-issue good-versus-evil fable with a moral as simple as <i>never take sweets from a stranger</i> or - for any onlooking dads - <i>keep a close eye on those with designs on your daughters</i>. Gradually, however, <i>Shaitaan</i> reveals itself as altogether more complicated, not least because this isn't just an Ajay Devgn star vehicle.</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 2018, <i>Shaitaan</i>'s director Vikas Bahl <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/archive/in/entry/queen-director-vikas-bahl-sexually-assaulted-me-phantom-films-did-nothing-survivor-speaks-out_in_5c11ff1be4b0508b213720d1">was accused of sexual assault by a former employee of his production company Phantom Films</a>; <a href="https://www.news18.com/news/movies/vikas-bahl-would-hold-me-tight-smell-my-hair-says-kangana-after-woman-accuses-him-of-sexual-harassment-1900969.html">this allegation was followed by further accusations of sexual harassment by actresses Kangana Ranaut and Nayani Dixit</a>, who'd appeared in Bahl's putatively feminist 2014 travelogue <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2017/04/at-bfi-queen.html">Queen</a>. </i>No charges were brought, but the ensuing furore resulted in Phantom Films' dissolution. (This process in itself proved messy: after Bahl's partners in the company, Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane, provided formal statements on the matter, Bahl threatened to sue for defamation.) The director has worked steadily post-lockdown - signing off on three films in three years - but <i>Shaitaan</i> is Bahl's first big hit since his return to action. You can see why: this is a proper horror movie, as opposed to the militaristic flagwavers currently being shoved down the mass audience's neck, and one with both a well-rehearsed premise and a sly, insinuating performance from Madhavan to recommend it. (The latter really is good, feigning sincere hurt whenever anyone accuses him of being the Devil incarnate. Compared to Madhavan, the other performers strike the eye as a little bland, mere puppets.) Without the backstory, <i>Shaitaan</i> might have stood as the kind of modest, manageable genre proposition by which a troubled creative might well rehabilitate himself within a forgiving industry.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Except something genuinely malevolent seems to be lurking beneath the film's inch-thick surface: it shows through not just in the name attached to the villain (no coincidence, surely), but in the numerous scenes in which Madhavan's seducer persuades the entranced Janhvi to slap herself, or dance for him, or cry harder and louder - giving this captive soul direction, as in an audition that's got completely out of hand. Here, <i>Shaitaan</i> appears to be openly mocking anyone who's been tracking its maker's progress. <i>You want to see what an abuse of power looks like?</i>, these scenes cackle, <i>I'll show you what an abuse of power looks like</i>. This is a reach, granted, but Bahl's film kept reminding me of those Bergman movies that centred conjurors and hypnotists because its maker realised they were an allegory for the control we can wield over our fellow man. <i>Shaitaan</i> isn't <i>The Magician</i>; at best, it's unusually potent hackwork, a B-movie that benefits from an A-movie budget and a metatext that pulses like a migraine. Yet it falls closer to the dark side than one might prefer from a Friday or Saturday night entertainment, leaving us with much the same queasy feeling we'd get from sitting through another Woody Allen comedy about a middle-aged man mooning over a teenager. It's certainly committed to what it's doing and showing - <i>hellbent</i> would be another word, its maker palpably more defiant than contrite - but if you come this way hoping to separate the art from the artist, or the undeniable force of a movie from its unseemly context, forget it: a director accused of sexual impropriety really has made a big hit movie that is unmistakably premised on the pliability and susceptibility of young women. Don't bring popcorn; take all available precautions.</span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Shaitaan is now playing in selected cinemas.</i></span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-40815879213946811462024-03-15T07:03:00.000-07:002024-03-16T05:16:24.435-07:00For what it's worth...<div><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhumzbWA5qs98uVz6qTXziUUUkHnmesZ-bDZvvEpoLnVBvsQAy-we7TzZfBqZOOQKMwT78TPYb16RhTYAdOz0oQz-hE3qDFLGrt_MBHk5gZcHWHcFed51BzvXjHrVplsE6gNjjcsOhqE17WzM9qhOSum55JNvu91BZICr4RwY3SGjk5-k7saSaUeubZZww/s1024/OOS.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="1024" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhumzbWA5qs98uVz6qTXziUUUkHnmesZ-bDZvvEpoLnVBvsQAy-we7TzZfBqZOOQKMwT78TPYb16RhTYAdOz0oQz-hE3qDFLGrt_MBHk5gZcHWHcFed51BzvXjHrVplsE6gNjjcsOhqE17WzM9qhOSum55JNvu91BZICr4RwY3SGjk5-k7saSaUeubZZww/w400-h214/OOS.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia;">UK box office Top Ten</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (for the weekend of March 8-10, 2024)</span><b style="font-family: georgia;">:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1 (1) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/lost-in-spice-dune-part-two.html">Dune: Part Two</a></i> (12A) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2 (3) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Wicked Little Letters</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3 (2) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Bob Marley: One Love</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (12A)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">4</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Migration</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5 (new) <i>Imaginary</i> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">6 (new) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/devils-advocate-shaitaan.html">Shaitaan</a></i> (15) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">7 (new) <i>Titanic: The Musical</i> (PG)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">8 (6) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">9 (10) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Sami Swoi. Początek </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(12A)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">10 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">5) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Madame Web</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (12A)</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(source: <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/industry-data-insights/weekend-box-office-figures">BFI</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">)</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia;">My top five:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/inside-out-our-body.html">Our Body</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/punchdrunk-love-fight-club-at-25.html">Fight Club</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/an-education-origin.html">Origin</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">City of God</i></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/anatomy-of-fall-manjummel-boys.html">Manjummel Boys</a></i></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">DVD/Blu-Ray/Do</b><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">wnload top ten: </b></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1 (4) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">2 (new) <i>Migration</i> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">3 (5) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2021/10/on-dune-part-one-and-why-movies-now-suck.html">Dune: Part One</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">4 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">1)</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Anyone But You</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">5 (3) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/goo-goo-dolls-poor-things.html">Poor Things</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (18) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">6 (</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">7 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">6) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/boom-oppenheimer.html">Oppenheimer</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15) ****</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">8 (13) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/its-doll-revolution-barbie.html">Barbie</a></i> (12) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">9 (new) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/not-tonight-napoleon.html">Napoleon</a></i> (15) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">10 (16) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2022/08/there-goes-my-everything-elvis.html">Elvis</a></i> (12) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(source: </span><a href="https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/film-chart/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">officialcharts.com</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><b>My top five: </b><br />1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/nobody-knows-anatomy-of-fall.html">Anatomy of a Fall</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/bloody-noses-empty-pockets-royal-hotel.html">The Royal Hotel</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/bodies-rest-and-motion-how-to-have-sex.html">How to Have Sex</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">5. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/overnight-sensations-dream-scenario.html">Dream Scenario</a></i></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Top five films on terrestrial TV this week:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2013/12/from-archive-anchorman-legend-of-ron.html">Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy</a></i> (Friday, Channel 4, 11.05pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. <i>Out of Sight</i> [above]<i> </i>(Saturday, BBC1, 11.35pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. <i>Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines</i> (Saturday, Channel 4, 11.10pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2018/02/in-stitches-phantom-thread.html">Phantom Thread</a></i> (Sunday, BBC2, 11.40pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2019/01/woman-of-letters-can-you-ever-forgive-me.html">Can You Ever Forgive Me?</a> </i>(Sunday, Channel 4, 12.50am)</span></div></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-83721238535775646952024-03-15T06:19:00.000-07:002024-03-15T06:19:27.371-07:00Punchdrunk love: "Fight Club" at 25<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjfT3wuA_AbCZbdkYl-aLMGd1wPsyi95MJo9NOvTOX-GOL3lqKfgzh-nKo5Hf7yRF4JEYpQuAqkDaLJZ624dnko-0DecjtoJkBijYjmz4rkyK_OEFmVKOw4nvzHlZGSiywHXGjwIUwiTw3ScW0N-iOxLB4rDZrmWrJMERQSzn4C03N4NDKw8YaV2P8nuU/s780/FC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="780" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjfT3wuA_AbCZbdkYl-aLMGd1wPsyi95MJo9NOvTOX-GOL3lqKfgzh-nKo5Hf7yRF4JEYpQuAqkDaLJZ624dnko-0DecjtoJkBijYjmz4rkyK_OEFmVKOw4nvzHlZGSiywHXGjwIUwiTw3ScW0N-iOxLB4rDZrmWrJMERQSzn4C03N4NDKw8YaV2P8nuU/w400-h225/FC.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>I saw </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Fight Club</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> for the first time on the morning it opened in Paris in late 1999. Queuing up for a 9.30am screening in Pigalle: my fresher-faced self, a clutch of burly bruisers in leather jackets set to be palpably disappointed by the film before them, and an elegant, Deneuve-like older woman in furs who wafted down to the front row and spent the entire movie laughing like Juliette Binoche. It was a screening that more or less crystallised early responses to David Fincher's film, not least because the six of us were just about the only folks in the world paying to see it that weekend. After taking a notable box-office dive on first release, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Fight Club</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> would eventually be reclaimed, first by film buffs waving the DVD as proof as Fincher's emergent virtuosity, then by online edgelords, trolls and incels, reframing a black comedy as the bloodiest of red flags. The question of who should really be laughing at </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Fight Club</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> abides. As Mme Deneuve doubtless understood, the varyingly grim jokes of the film, ripped from Chuck Palahniuk's cult novel, come at the expense of men; it's alpha lone wolf Fincher, a director who'd likely refuse to join any club that would have him as a member,</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> seeking to skewer masculinity much as he'd done in 1997's underrated </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Game</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> and would do in 2010's </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2010/10/comment-like-share-social-network.html">The Social Network</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> and the shortlived Netflix series </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Mindhunter</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For any newcomers, this is the story of a perilously lonely boy (with "a house full of condiments, but no food", as Jim Uhls' script has it) who starts listening to an inner voice urging him to give into his worst instincts. (Fortuitously, this reissue lands between <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26658104/">two high-profile films</a> <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11152168/">centred on protagonists with imaginary friends</a>: we've been primed.) Beating himself and others up in underground gladiatorial arenas hardly improves his condition: he's soon homeless, bleeding, being cuckolded by his own subconscious and well on his way to becoming public enemy number one. His downward spiral allows Fincher to flag just how easily certain men are misled towards violent, (self-)destructive activity. Yet one reason this late 20th century endeavour has endured so is that it feels very much of the 21st century: simultaneously doomy and snarky while ambiguous and slippery, bound up with cults of personality (for Brad Pitt's Tyler Durden, the film's strutting imp of the perverse, read Tate or Trump), a broadly despairing view of the state of play between the sexes, and the misplaced anger that follows from our understanding that we need to shake off capitalism but haven't quite figured out how best to achieve that aim. And that's before the collapsing buildings the movie arrives at, a trailer for non-movie spectacles to come.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think we might still concede <i>Fight Club</i> is less forcefully of a piece than it seemed a quarter-century ago, when the critic Alexander Walker was driven to declare its nihilism a danger to civilised society. Time and a clearer eye reveal the film to be composed of showoffy segments, overlaid with Ed Norton's droning voiceover and a pounding Dust Brothers score, which highlight Fincher's unarguable camera and editing prowess: the plane crash, the sex scene, the soap making, the fights. Nothing really connects; only in its final act does the film gather real momentum, rather than circling a drain while gurgling loudly. At this point, Fincher was still thinking in grabby setpieces, trying to make a name and a career for himself; we may all of us prefer the subtler, sublimated craft and guile of <i>The Social Network</i> and <i>Mindhunter</i> over these barely controlled explosions. Fincher's business here was provocation: though the twist ending loosely ties <i>Fight Club</i> to late 1999's runaway hit <i>The Sixth Sense</i>, for most of its running time, it feels closer to an American translation of Lars von Trier's <i>The Idiots</i>, another study of a fraying collective conducted with cackling intelligence. (Either that, or it's <i>Drop Dead Fred</i> rewritten by the Unabomber.) </span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">All that said, it is often wildly funny, or howlingly inappropriate, its tossed-off wisecracks pushing some way beyond those of, say, <i>South Park</i> or <i>Family Guy</i>; you can see why the edgelords seized upon it, but also why Fincher wound up making the comparably distasteful <i>Gone Girl</i>, which I half-suspect may be <i>Fight Club</i> for girls. And Fincher was always good with actors, driving them to commit and subvert as befits. Incels seem to miss this, but wiggly Norton - one of the great worms of 1990s film - only becomes heroic late on after trying to take responsibility for his crimes; Pitt remains a pretty terrific articulation of a pose most men will have wanted to throw at some point, even if it stands for nothing and might get you killed. The bonus is Helena Bonham Carter at her most withering; you have to overlook her Marla if you want to appropriate <i>Fight Club</i> as an unapologetic push for men's rights. (Further down the callsheet, two from the funny-how-things-turn-out file: a TV news reporter is played by Lauren Sánchez, newly prominent as the main squeeze of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos; and it still strikes me as faintly ironic that our hero should be seen to bottom out upon beating Jared Leto to a pulp, "I felt like destroying something beautiful" <i>et al</i>.)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even after 25 years, we haven't yet fully metabolised <i>Fight Club</i> - what it means, what it represents, where it ranks - which probably accounts for the ongoing arguments. Fincher pushed on regardless, but Uhls has had only one more script produced in the years since, 2008's bland Hayden Christensen vehicle <i>Jumper</i>. Like an off-colour joke, it might just be unrepeatable, although elements of the film seemed to factor into the following year's <i>American Psycho</i> (another droll rendering of a notionally unfilmable novel) and the <i>Jackass</i> series (first transmission: October 2000), which was - <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2022/02/balls-of-steel-jackass-forever.html">which <i>remains</i>, somewhat implausibly</a> - <i>Fight Club</i> reenacted by clowns for shits and giggles. But extinction was where everything was heading: within ten years, and after a decade characterised by insecurity on various fronts, American movies had been reduced to childproofed superheroics and digimated cutesiness, with barely a single Tyler Durden around to splice a welcome transgression or two into the mix. Raw meat stuffed with gelignite, Fincher's film still requires marking as dangerous - I wouldn't take a date to it - but we'd do well to reclaim some of its swagger from the nuts on the Internet. Peer beyond its sloganeering and sixpacks, and you can spy a moment when our movies still took risks, and revolution of multiple kinds remained some sort of possibility.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Fight Club returns to cinemas nationwide from today.</i> </span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-49459046467656278602024-03-14T07:43:00.000-07:002024-03-18T16:25:19.214-07:00Anatomy of a fall: "Manjummel Boys"<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4_bvyq6UXc8NZlPqjrU3D08zQD-HRmVPRB1MXwFkySQGOj7hhdjOC5BYJVjLXWFpoIfsGUIhIfxGI1rd5mnnNAWySnhzedJ1zIpEHy-E1Ws0EHACDWEJvDU_M_syHTdYYykXY5RN6w8TjOabU6sn72gFck2jSdbj4-FWRDjRnnnhwERQx2yXLPvtVVvE/s1248/MB2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="1248" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4_bvyq6UXc8NZlPqjrU3D08zQD-HRmVPRB1MXwFkySQGOj7hhdjOC5BYJVjLXWFpoIfsGUIhIfxGI1rd5mnnNAWySnhzedJ1zIpEHy-E1Ws0EHACDWEJvDU_M_syHTdYYykXY5RN6w8TjOabU6sn72gFck2jSdbj4-FWRDjRnnnhwERQx2yXLPvtVVvE/w400-h209/MB2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>Though the Malayalam word-of-mouth hit </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Manjummel Boys</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> tells a tale of fortitude, resilience and heroism, it distinguishes itself by putting precisely zero of its leading men in military khaki. (One obvious reason for its success: it's offering moviegoers a break from the grunting norms of the current Hindi mainstream.) Recent films and events to commemorate 2018's Tham Luang cave rescue may well have inspired the writer-director Chidambaram to dramatise a local variant - another nervy true-life descent, dating back to 2006. The most immediate difference is that those at the centre of this rescue weren't lithe, slender kids, rather ten headstrong, fully-grown men: balding, paunchy loafers, tailchasers, drunks and other troublemakers who, as we join them crashing a wedding, have seen their Keralan workers' collective split into two factions, a source of ongoing conflict seemingly only exacerbated by regular tug-of-war contests. Already, you can spot how some facility with a rope - a capacity for taking the strain and working as a team - might be of benefit when, during a seat-of-the-pants lads' trip to Kodaikanal, the ground opens up beneath one of their party, sending him tumbling down an especially deep and dark abyss. In the rescue effort that follows, we possibly find another reason for </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Manjummel Boys</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">' success: almost shruggingly, with the insouciance of any other genre film, it presents a vision of unity that may be difficult to see anywhere else in the India of 2024, a narrative about disparate folks putting grudges aside and pulling together in a common cause.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">While this narrative throws up idiosyncratic regional variations - the Boys come this way to pay homage to a musical number in a Kamal Haasan movie - it's an example of a film where both the trajectory and structure are, from an early stage, reassuringly predictable. Simply put, the Boys spend the first half getting into a tight spot; they spend the second trying to get out of it. For a while, Chidambaram treats this story as the basis for a hangout movie, observing his leads chatting shit and roughhousing one another. (The stag-party abrasiveness is smoothed by a soundtrack that forsakes bangers for jams: ambient beats you might stumble onto on pirate radio at three in the morning.) So relaxed is the opening movement it comes as some surprise when the film suddenly snaps to and gets serious. Asked whether their pal could conceivably have survived his drop, a passing guide peers into the void and mutters "It's Satan's decision". (This particular crevice, we learn, is known locally as "the Devil's Kitchen".) We don't have to be told the significance when the heavens open and the cave begins to flood with sheet rain. Having handed these characters a dire problem, Chidambaram nimbly, briskly sets about solving it, and there is undeniable interest and pleasure to be derived from watching that, as the long tradition of disaster movies would indicate. Yet <i>Manjummel Boys</i> isn't just nuts, bolts and winches; there are appreciable character beats, too. It's a smart move on Chidambaram's part to withhold the fate of the fallen, adding one genuine note of uncertainty that is sustained with tremendous skill through the second half, an agonising descent into a suffocatingly serpentine sinkhole that either represents inspired location work, superlative production design, or a bit of both. This, finally, is what audiences have been talking excitedly about: as taut and fraught a suspense sequence as you'll witness in the months between now and <i>Furiosa</i>, nailing us to our seat with the sight of lives and bonds hanging in the balance. Through to the deft coda - a signature dash of edit-suite craftsmanship after all the heavy lifting - Chidambaram gets the best out of his terrific ensemble, set to convey a steadfastness in the face of adversity that shows up the haphazard, frankly half-arsed response of the authorities and might just serve as a lesson to others besides. At the very least, there is more sincere and stirring brotherhood on display throughout <i>Manjummel Boys</i> than one could discern in the last half-dozen Salman Khan pictures.</span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Manjummel Boys is now playing in selected cinemas.</i></span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-1155833295065497572024-03-13T05:03:00.000-07:002024-03-13T05:03:43.208-07:00An education: "Origin"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcTSMnv-owiKDc5aw_9EfgYn9XuBkoTt7p2GSRXdkt4Srq9GKPXtI9wIGiIw0KT9YWC_coBooIyNBWZPqquQQ5sDvtnimsnN8orb7sDgwGGSXeACOnkDWSFFmVtqlEzUKsf2NdKnM-QmAwzErmK4C-Q6i9bBaLMFh5vn4eP1szMvS_elDzw0nU7QqBA-Q/s1000/Origin.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcTSMnv-owiKDc5aw_9EfgYn9XuBkoTt7p2GSRXdkt4Srq9GKPXtI9wIGiIw0KT9YWC_coBooIyNBWZPqquQQ5sDvtnimsnN8orb7sDgwGGSXeACOnkDWSFFmVtqlEzUKsf2NdKnM-QmAwzErmK4C-Q6i9bBaLMFh5vn4eP1szMvS_elDzw0nU7QqBA-Q/w400-h225/Origin.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://variety.com/2024/film/obituaries-people-news/david-bordwell-dead-film-scholar-1235928350/"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The eminent film scholar David Bordwell may have passed</span> <span style="font-family: georgia;">last month</span></a><span style="font-family: georgia;">, but pressing questions of film form linger on in his wake. Kaouther Ben Hania's recent Oscar nominee </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/quartet-four-daughters.html">Four Daughters</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> demonstrated - unintentionally, I suspect - how the hybrid commingling of drama and documentary can do as much to obscure as reveal the truth of any matter. Claire Simon's </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/inside-out-our-body.html">Our Body</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, by contrast, suggested old-school observational documentary craft remains as vital as ever to our understanding of ourselves and the world. Now we have </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Origin</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">, in which Ava duVernay - a filmmaker with form in both drama (2014's </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2018/04/from-archive-selma.html">Selma</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;">) and documentary (2016's </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2016/10/on-demand-13th.html">13TH</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;">) - sets out to film what she's described as "the biography of a book". The book is </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, a non-fiction bestseller of 2020 in which the Black academic and writer Isabel Wilkerson argued it was caste rather than race (and, a corollary, casteism rather than racism) that most closely governs how society operates. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Arguably, Wilkerson was splitting hairs - that most academic of pastimes - but her theory pushed beyond skin colour in search of something more deeply rooted yet: the discontent that would explain both the white-on-white hatred of the Holocaust and contemporary anti-Semitism, and the brown-on-brown atrocities of latter-day India. Her fieldwork now yields a drama describing the process whereby Wilkerson (played in duVernay's film by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) - an observer as we join her, "on hiatus" in her own words - was first persuaded to put pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard, a mixed bag of circumstances that include the Trayvon Martin shooting, much bathtub and bedtime reading, the loss of her partner and mother in quick succession, and subsequent research trips to Berlin and Delhi. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is an unconventional way of approaching the material, to say the least. Non-fiction books such as Wilkerson's, steeped in theory and historical analysis, tend to generate non-fiction films; it would be neither inaccurate nor strictly a diss to describe duVernay's film as soap-adjacent. With that comes an element of creative jeopardy, for </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Origin</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> risks interpretation not as a text on how we might collectively negotiate and resolve the issues under discussion, but something far more niche, borderline narcissistic: how a tenured Black creative - be that Wilkerson or duVernay or anyone with money enough to travel and test a theory - negotiates such issues. Could it be that </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Origin</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> is less interested in how society is reformed and redeemed than in how publishing advances are earned?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well, nope - or not entirely, and therein lies <i>Origin</i>'s odd sort of success. Granted, duVernay's film may still be primarily of interest to writers, historians and the chattering classes. What we're watching is, after all, the construction of a grand unifying theory, an idea that might connect the Berlin of 1939 to Charlottesville in 2017. (The movie is <i>A Beautiful Mind</i> with hate crimes in place of equations.) Yet the risk pays off in scenes you wouldn't normally see in this kind of prestige statement drama: Wilkerson calling in a plumber (Nick Offerman, glowering under a MAGA cap) to fix a blocked pump, or attending cookouts with best pal Niecy Nash-Betts, a surrogate for those of us without an MA. The scene where Wilkerson first arrives in India may be the most accurate filming yet of what it is to be a Westerner arriving in India for the first time, but then, at all points, duVernay is interested in the ways theory gets developed, tested and refined in conversation with the wider world. A lot, then, depends on the writing, which is passionate, if every so often on the nose: as the inspirational ballad poured over the closing credits like treacle underlines, <i>Origin</i> was conceived not as a rigorous Straub-Huillet interrogation of our shared past, but rousing awards-season product, no viewer left behind. Yet scene-by-scene, the actors sold me on it, particularly Ellis-Taylor, who's been quietly excellent for a while (<i>Ray</i>, <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2019/02/pride-and-prejudices-if-beale-street.html">If Beale Street Could Talk</a></i>, <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2022/04/on-dvd-king-richard.html">King Richard</a></i>), and here really does seem to be pulling something notable together: a theory, a life, a way forward for her fellow man. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If you find the film working for you in any way, it's almost certainly because duVernay prioritises human experience over the abstract and conceptual: what she's chosen to film is how the facts Wilkerson unearthed affect the characters, realising that that's what will most forcefully affect us in turn. This director holds to a sentimental view of history and class relations, but much as Wilkerson's theory can be boiled down to our old friends love and hate, concepts beyond colour, so too casteism invites description as irrational and emotive - an arbitrary imposition that arguably merits dramatising as much as it does documenting. In its second half, <i>Origin</i> alights upon a rather brilliant thesis: that just as hate spread across the world, from Jim Crow-era America to Nazi Germany and back to our Trump-haunted present, so too might love and resistance, much as the reformist Indian politician B.R. Ambedkar drew strength from the resilience of the African-Americans he observed on one U.S. trip. Within the narrow corridor of awards season 2023-24, this heartfelt, all-embracing film by a noted Black creative was clearly outmanoeuvred by <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/negative-space-zone-of-interest.html">a far cooler, more rigorous proposition by a middle-aged white bloke from North London</a>, yet it struck me that both duVernay and Jonathan Glazer were working towards much the same goals of engagement and enlightenment. By going a funny way around, by refusing merely to stripmine its material for a rollcall of astonishing and/or alarming truths, <i>Origin</i> stands alone as a sort of prologue or prequel - its own origin story, directing us back towards the book and the possibility it holds of becoming better citizens in a kinder, more just society.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Origin is now playing in selected cinemas.</i></span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-54670509276725633212024-03-12T07:03:00.000-07:002024-03-12T07:51:58.476-07:00Inside out: "Our Body"<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUqk-IgCsg5tWfYGncxrShR_rm5CXDgNuXkrq0qWuAoOYu_heqwGrMKzVLV-uO-zYxGqUX9gCqW55M5lVciPVVE4uqKE3yoNtqQZPoYsxabjCjtd_HALbbtHjtHyGmlRJIQCZ6faSZamCyOgPbm_abOv88MUbkUT2n2vSlqZHv-_4boeLF8B4UFXkKTEU/s2200/OB.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1238" data-original-width="2200" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUqk-IgCsg5tWfYGncxrShR_rm5CXDgNuXkrq0qWuAoOYu_heqwGrMKzVLV-uO-zYxGqUX9gCqW55M5lVciPVVE4uqKE3yoNtqQZPoYsxabjCjtd_HALbbtHjtHyGmlRJIQCZ6faSZamCyOgPbm_abOv88MUbkUT2n2vSlqZHv-_4boeLF8B4UFXkKTEU/w400-h225/OB.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>The methodology is embodied in the title: to set the singular alongside the collective. The French filmmaker Claire Simon has come to specialise in studies of institutions: a sister to Frederick Wiseman with - perhaps inevitably, given the provenance - a touch of Agnès Varda in the mix, she broke through internationally when </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Graduation</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, her study of the national film school La Fémis</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">, won a documentary prize at Venice in 2016. With </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Our Body</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">, Simon spends nearly three hours observing daily life on the women's wards of the Hôpital</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Tenon in Paris, starting with very specific case studies before broadening and heightening her focus as her own body becomes a subject for investigation. She opens, however, with a longish sequence - longer than many of us might expect to spend in a doctor's surgery - in which a female physician questions a 15-year-old Muslim girl who's fallen pregnant after having unprotected sex with her boyfriend. The doctor's line of questioning extends beyond bare-bones medical detail to ascertain how the news of this unplanned pregnancy has been received by the girl's parents; just by sitting and watching, Simon establishes how this child finds herself at the centre of a conflict, her inchoate form already subject to the claims and concerns of others. This theme recurs as </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Our Body</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> moves from consultations to operations and recuperation, as it hops between transitioning teenagers, menopausal women and mothers-to-be. Even before anybody on screen can be seen reaching for the speculum, the body - and the female body in particular - is presented as a battleground, with doctors on site as arbiters, peacemakers, rebuilders and caregivers.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">What's extraordinary about Simon's film - and much of it does seem extraordinary - is that it shows us next to nothing that might be deemed extraordinary. Although this camera briefly notes the presence outside the hospital gates of women protesting against the more heavyhanded forms of gynaecology - establishing some boundaries, if you like - Simon doesn't come this way to expose any medical scandal or shortfall; instead, she films exactly that treatment we'd hope to receive in any enlightened healthcare system. A male physician speaks with admirable frankness and clarity to a 17-year-old transitioning from female to male about their options, should they want to have children in later life; a woman facing a mastectomy is guided through the finer points of reconstructive surgery. Set against this reassuringly ordinary chat, there is the grand science fiction of the Tenon's operating theatres, where lasers are steered and activated remotely by surgeons working beneath giant hoods to shut out any external distraction. Again, the sight is both ordinary (standard operating practice for any 21st century hospital) and extraordinary (a setpiece extracted from one patient's endometriosis). Yet even the film's quieter, more humdrum interactions set you to thinking about the nature of the institution, and our place within it. I spent some of the film wondering whether there would be time and space in our stressy, rickety, maxed-out NHS for any British filmmaker to attempt a comparable study, or whether the need to get one patient out the door and another one in would preclude it. Would the cracks immediately start to show, as they never seem to do here?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">At every stage, the trust Simon established with subjects from evidently diverse backgrounds appears as great as that these patients place in their doctors. Maybe we're all just loosening up around cameras, but it still seems an uncommon feat on Simon's part to have gathered three hours of acutely, often uncomfortably personal testimony: words and emotions pulled from the very heart of fearful and/or exhausted human forms. You may not know what it is to endure fertility problems, hot flushes or skipped periods, but you'll remember what it is to feel unease in some core part of your being; and while you're unlikely to know how to carry out the radical vulvectomy one doc mentions in passing, you'll already sense the pain, both physical and psychic, lurking in such a phrase. Yet <i>Our Body</i> goes about its rounds with the calm bedside manner of a gifted med student, sitting just off-centre of the patient-doctor axis, watching and learning, and somehow even seeing past everybody's facemasks, because Simon was filming at the tailend of Covid, that moment when we all suddenly became ultra-aware of our own bodies, and the impact they can have on others. The result counts among the most profound examples of pandemic cinema, as the existential threat is front and centre - and never more so than when Simon herself receives a diagnosis of breast cancer. This really is an extraordinary development: it's as though the filmmaker was so in synch with her subjects that her body decided it was her turn. Yet Simon affords herself the same dignity as any other of the Tenon's patients, and presents her body as one among many, in much the same boat as the young Spanish woman informed she has ovarian cancer via a translation app, or - the real heartbreaker here - the bedbound greyhair whose chemo has failed to take. The singular and the collective; the miracles of life, and its myriad miseries. In such sequences as that in which a sperm is injected by hand into an unfertilised egg, and again as a new mother greets her mewling child with a line no scriptwriter could have landed on ("after nine months of complicity, we meet at last": <i>our body</i>, indeed), this generally unprepossessing-looking film starts to feel major indeed: a prequel to every documentary, every film ever pushed into the world. Art, cancer, conception, compassion: it starts with us and within us.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Our Body is currently streaming via MUBI.</i></span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-63514658994581676842024-03-08T04:51:00.000-08:002024-03-14T07:44:54.217-07:00For what it's worth...<div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBNSi3tfS30NJcMgy5UnmBCX0Sn2mLc8tmcTqwGJ_Wiig_o6mP9KTruv1Z0u85vCa6p5Tfm9dpVm43GEWKawYGHGhQR3LKTSyDXM9zy0BMZWtfNTZSfVc_6LqX0xmpuZtnkNUmI02B7oBJzUFz9XVyyC_ytHGIHZ1kjuM5pRIxiJaBBCuj7fnbz6s0v00/s640/FF.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="640" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBNSi3tfS30NJcMgy5UnmBCX0Sn2mLc8tmcTqwGJ_Wiig_o6mP9KTruv1Z0u85vCa6p5Tfm9dpVm43GEWKawYGHGhQR3LKTSyDXM9zy0BMZWtfNTZSfVc_6LqX0xmpuZtnkNUmI02B7oBJzUFz9XVyyC_ytHGIHZ1kjuM5pRIxiJaBBCuj7fnbz6s0v00/w400-h216/FF.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: georgia;">UK box office Top Ten</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (for the weekend of March 1-3, 2024)</span><b style="font-family: georgia;">:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1 (new) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/lost-in-spice-dune-part-two.html">Dune: Part Two</a></i> (12A) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">1) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Bob Marley: One Love</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (12A)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">2)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Wicked Little Letters</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">3) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Migration</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5 (5) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Madame Web</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (12A)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">6 (8) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">7 (14) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/anatomy-of-fall-manjummel-boys.html">Manjummel Boys</a></i> (12A) ****</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">8 (10) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/negative-space-zone-of-interest.html">The Zone of Interest</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (12A) ****</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">9 (13) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/02/happiness-is-easy-perfect-days.html">Perfect Days</a></i> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">10 (new) </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Sami Swoi. Początek </i>(12A)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(source: <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/industry-data-insights/weekend-box-office-figures">BFI</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">)</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia;">My top five:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/inside-out-our-body.html">Our Body</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/an-education-origin.html">Origin</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">City of God</i></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/anatomy-of-fall-manjummel-boys.html">Manjummel Boys</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/on-demand-spaceman.html">Spaceman</a></i></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">DVD/Blu-Ray/Do</b><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">wnload top ten: </b></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1 (1) <i>Anyone But You</i> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2 (5) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">3 (new) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/goo-goo-dolls-poor-things.html">Poor Things</a></i> (18) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">4 (3) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">5 (10) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2021/10/on-dune-part-one-and-why-movies-now-suck.html">Dune: Part One</a></i> (12) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">6 (4) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/boom-oppenheimer.html">Oppenheimer</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15) ****</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">7 (re) <i>Thanksgiving</i> (18)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">8 (6) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">9 (9) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Wish</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">10 (new) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/happy-now-color-purple.html">The Color Purple</a></i> (12) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(source: </span><a href="https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/film-chart/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">officialcharts.com</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><b>My top five: </b><br />1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/bloody-noses-empty-pockets-royal-hotel.html">The Royal Hotel</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/bodies-rest-and-motion-how-to-have-sex.html">How to Have Sex</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/overnight-sensations-dream-scenario.html">Dream Scenario</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">5. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/versatility-femme.html">Femme</a></i></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Top five films on terrestrial TV this week:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. <i>Funny Face</i> [above] (Sunday, BBC2, 2.25pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/04/on-demand-never-rarely-sometimes-always.html">Never Rarely Sometimes Always</a></i> (Sunday, BBC2, 11.40pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2022/02/its-my-life-souvenir-part-ii.html">The Souvenir: Part II</a></i> (Sunday, BBC2, 10pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-deep-end-bigger-splash.html">A Bigger Splash</a></i> (Saturday, BBC2, 12.15am)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. <i>Chicken Run </i>(Saturday, BBC1, 3pm)</span></div></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-67436687648218179912024-03-05T13:28:00.000-08:002024-03-05T14:21:47.797-08:00Lost in spice: "Dune: Part Two"<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilxHXq3UP_0gwErmgpdPuvhMZ1zPE2b9ipBXJSjq5f1TcUTv66ADmCg_EWfHza-6yW6gkjRgtl5LlKxJPiHafYRlExbEZn4YUk2Jxarv5KZ3UaES6fHlJ0JcqkxlvXvDt7WS5TmPoq-jpGExk2kioWZAj9i50BhSZ33TtaKUeahMymJjg1QKm9mKvKPB4/s2560/DPT.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="2560" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilxHXq3UP_0gwErmgpdPuvhMZ1zPE2b9ipBXJSjq5f1TcUTv66ADmCg_EWfHza-6yW6gkjRgtl5LlKxJPiHafYRlExbEZn4YUk2Jxarv5KZ3UaES6fHlJ0JcqkxlvXvDt7WS5TmPoq-jpGExk2kioWZAj9i50BhSZ33TtaKUeahMymJjg1QKm9mKvKPB4/w400-h200/DPT.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>Enough sand has passed through the hourglass to merit a recap. In 2021's </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2021/10/on-dune-part-one-and-why-movies-now-suck.html">Dune: Part One</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, Deadenin' Denis Villeneuve, the most militantly overpraised of Hollywood's latter-day visionaries, spent three hours flooding the screen with silica and concrete, on top of which he planted hot stars in perfume-ad poses. This construction job - all it was, really; worldbuilding pushed to a laborious extreme - was paused five minutes before the end, when Little Timmy Caramel turned to the camera, winked at those still awake, and invited us to come back next time, when Villeneuve might actually have a story to tell us. As an experience, it was dreadfully empty and often painfully joyless, but the nerd squad milling outside the IMAX deemed it Spectacle+</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">™, which helped make it a megahit at a moment the movies needed one. The first spot of good news with </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Dune: Part Two</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> is that Timmy wasn't teasing: this time, Villeneuve and co-writer Jon Spaihts have indeed exhumed a narrative of some kind from Frank Herbert's novel, and with it traces of action, romance and forward momentum. The second is that we've left behind the municipal car parks </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Part One</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> moped around, and are instead heading out into a desertscape that promises to let an arid air in on proceedings. It's here we rejoin Chalamet's Paul Atreides in exile, plotting revenge on those who did for his father, preparing to overhaul the spice trade we're somehow meant to be fascinated by (perhaps because there are so few other industries on screen for a lad to go into), chastely spooning with fellow refugee Chani (Zendaya), and wrestling soulfully with the prospect of becoming a prophet in his own lunchtime. "I must sway the non-believers," Paul earnestly declares early on, possibly speaking for creatives aiming to convert those of us left cold first time round. Was I swayed by </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Part Two</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">? Not at all, alas: three further hours left me more certain than ever that </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Dune</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> is a cult that's got absurdly out of hand, a </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Battlefield Earth</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> with better publicists.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Before the fanboys go for me once more, I'll concede this: Warner Bros. and Villeneuve are demonstrably committed to this mumbo jumbo. However many hours we're fated to waste watching this series, they are as nothing compared to the time and effort these creatives have spent extracting Herbert's spare parts, slotting them together and buffing the whole to a dully burnished sheen. These <i>Dune</i> movies have unarguable scale, if no depth, and after years of event movies offering thin gruel, I can see why cinemagoers have happily settled for that. Mumbo jumbo it remains, though: semi-impenetrable messianic claptrap, stubbornly sealed off in its own universe (which explains the free pass Villeneuve has enjoyed on the films' orientalism), shuffling out of one bunker and into another, stuffed end-to-end with dialogue that sounds no less pompous in American English than it does in this script's elaborately invented mother tongue. Few recent blockbusters have seemed this much of a grind; Villeneuve's vision, this time round, involves purging anything that might resemble colour, kinetic energy or fun from the frame. Yes, he's taking his work seriously, as the fanboys are keen to point out and talk up - but then you could say the same thing about the Boston Strangler. <i>Part Two</i> picks up when the much-trailed sandworms finally wriggle clear of the scenery, because after four-and-a-half hours of scenesetting, we finally find ourselves sat before moving pictures rather than a well-lit slideshow of monuments and monoliths. It's a clear dramatic problem, though, that despite this exhaustive rigmarole, the characters doing that funny little heel-toe routine across the dunes emerge as no more than tousle-haired beach rats, raggedy dots on the landscape.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In contemporary film criticism's gushier quarters, Villeneuve is often bracketed together with Christopher Nolan, although - in his strongest films - the latter has demonstrated a facility with actors Villeneuve has yet to match. I might have embraced the idea of Paul Atreides as a potential saviour were he played by anyone other than posterboy <i>du jour</i> Chalamet, who continues to be extravagantly overfilmed and lionised for someone who seemingly represents the human equivalent of a cheese string. (A snack, at best; no more substantial or mysterious than that, and I've spent at least six hours now looking for hidden depths.) Zendaya really is hot casting, though it seems a regrettable failure of the cinematic imagination to bury one of the world's most beautiful women under a series of beige tarps; in and of herself, she appears far too contemporary for a world that means to be mythically dusty, her scowl suggesting a PA snatched the Pinkberry from her hands mere seconds before the cameras started rolling. (Pity: this dour film cries out for sugar and sprinkles.) Not guilty: Dave Bautista, who gets to bash some underling's head into a console, rightly grasping that this franchise could do with a touch of the Royal Rumbles; and Stellan Skarsgård, who now seems cosy - nay, positively <i>toasty</i> - inside his Harkonnen fatsuit. Yet there are plenty of folks waiting around for something to do in a later instalment (Christopher Walken, Florence Pugh), and in the role made campily infamous by Sting in the David Lynch version, lucky Oscar winner Austin Butler may as well be a computer effect: an etiolated, slack-jawed spectre, part Voldemort, part <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64N2e75ufZs&ab_channel=b0guslaw2">Matt Lucas as George Dawes</a>, he's emblematic of an aggressively bloodless endeavour. Even armed with a plot, Villeneuve's <i>Dune</i> remains largely elephantine: grey, lumbering, stunning when viewed from distance, best dodged by those with any sense of <i>joie de vivre</i>. Yet its trumpeting loudness is that of flatulence - and there was a time when faced with such guff, such naffly old spice, critics would blow a few raspberries back at the screen, rather than huffing it deep into their very souls, as if it were nitrous, or life itself.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Dune: Part Two is now playing in cinemas nationwide.</i></span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-20661791043772088592024-03-04T13:28:00.000-08:002024-03-08T04:03:10.953-08:00On demand: "Spaceman"<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_iRfNOb1nksSlRkY94-lQOJu8XxfB4_izrY2ds1NmcLFaGnIHO2bpZxn48D9gTDkXMRPwFZT0nyaR6zjFM88raIcSaK6kUS1GDbjZVw1U1mFINGp9h_h_dPnCJQSD3iORYGD8h96LLcFFIOb4Tzn3Uv7RfchRBBbxKUA2avGfBPORCNX7EK_qqOp0bHE/s1296/Spaceman.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1296" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_iRfNOb1nksSlRkY94-lQOJu8XxfB4_izrY2ds1NmcLFaGnIHO2bpZxn48D9gTDkXMRPwFZT0nyaR6zjFM88raIcSaK6kUS1GDbjZVw1U1mFINGp9h_h_dPnCJQSD3iORYGD8h96LLcFFIOb4Tzn3Uv7RfchRBBbxKUA2avGfBPORCNX7EK_qqOp0bHE/w400-h225/Spaceman.webp" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>Belying its straight-ahead title, <b>Spaceman</b> is a strange one. It's not so odd that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGNK-cOtxSs">the artist formerly known as Stakka Bo</a> - the Swedish director Johan Renck - should have chosen to follow his outstanding work on TV's <i>Chernobyl</i> with an adaptation of <i>Spaceman of Bohemia</i>, Jaroslav Kalfař's well-reviewed 2017 novel. What's peculiar, possibly perverse, was the decision to film it as a megabudget Netflix option, with the central role of Jakub Procházka, lonely astrophysicist orbiting the moons of Jupiter, occupied by no less a figure than Adam Sandler. To be fair, Sandler takes the assignment wholly seriously. As well as working up some sort of Slavic accent, he credibly suggests the pallor, lethargy and general dishevelment of a uniquely isolated individual learning his marriage is crumbling while living miles from home in a clapped-out tin can with malfunctioning toilet. As in <i>Chernobyl</i>, Renck has a sharp eye for conspicuously careworn Iron Curtain-era production design; here, he tethers that design to the inner workings of a spiralling, unravelling protagonist. (Any honest man will admit they have at some point made their home in a comparable squalor.) Within the haphazard ranks of the Sandler canon, <i>Spaceman</i> is roughly explicable as 2007's <i>Reign Over Me</i> in zero gravity. And yet nothing - not even a line or two in a film review - can truly prepare you for the sheer strangeness of the scene in which Jakub realises he has company up there after all: namely a giant space spider who functions like an emotional support pet and talks like a therapist. (Paul Dano provides the creature's eerily calm tones.) Ladies and gentlemen, now we really are floating way out there, suspended somewhere between news reports of Michael Collins (the pilot left behind in the Apollo 11 command module while Messrs. Armstrong and Aldrin golfed on the moon, emotively dubbed "the loneliest man in the universe"), the fiction of Franz Kafka, and the legend of Robert the Bruce. I warned you it was all a trifle bizarre.</span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Famously, 2019's Brad Pitt vehicle <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2019/09/houston-we-have-issues-ad-astra.html">Ad Astra</a></i> was sabotaged to some degree by studio Fox, juicing up writer-director James Gray's largely interiorised scenario - centred on an astronaut working through daddy issues - with setpieces involving marauding space apes. <i>Spaceman</i> feels like the moodpiece Gray might have turned in had the Fox execs left him alone; in places, it's not so far from a <i>Solaris</i> (either version) reconfigured for streaming purposes. For starters, much of what we see is apparently taking place inside the Sandler character's head. No-one at mission control clocks the spider: an unnervingly precise CG creation with Honey Monster eyes, it serves chiefly as a repository for Jakub's fears, and a means of getting our guy to talk and reconnect. These stratospheric sitdowns prompt flashbacks depicting how Jakub met, wooed and distanced his wife (Carey Mulligan), and glimpses of his father's torturous relationship with the Communist Party, the sort of subplot that traditionally bolsters acclaimed European literature but seems incongruous in a Netflix Adam Sandler movie. Max Richter's stilled score - the sonic opposite of Hans Zimmer's recent parping - reminds you <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2020/09/night-music-max-richters-sleep.html">Richter once wrote a symphony specifically orchestrated to lull the listener to sleep</a>; Renck looks to have made it his mission to see how far a movie can travel on ambience alone. The answer, I think, is surprisingly far, although <i>Spaceman</i> plays as so weird it's difficult to grasp what its ultimate metric of success would be. This is unarguably a very male vision of the cosmos, its stellar women (Mulligan, Lena Olin as her mother, Isabella Rossellini as the <i>chef de mission</i>) mere satellites revolving around the protagonist, and yet this narrow focus allows it to be oddly potent on the subject of self-induced male solitude. Of all Sandler's films, this is the one most likely to languish unfinished in the "continue watching" folder, and yet <i>Spaceman</i> may equally end up beloved of those of us who had any time for Darren Aronofsky's <i>The Fountain</i>. Fair play to its leading man, observed taking a wilder swing than he ever did as Happy Gilmore: if you'd told me as late as 2015 - the year of <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-ridiculous-6-guardian-161215.html">The Ridiculous 6</a></i> - that Sandler would soon be seen finding sincere solace in the limbs of a sentient space arachnid, I still wouldn't have believed you. Honorably strange, and sometimes transfixing with it, <i>Spaceman</i> is a gamble surely only a streamer would now be prepared to take.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Spaceman is currently streaming on Netflix.</i></span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-37752613039645438992024-03-01T07:11:00.000-08:002024-03-04T13:29:03.887-08:00For what it's worth...<div><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6SDGFGQ27Uu45Q7q08H02jfaailxM03seWXRCMB6O_dP_CVrW46XVHoXW-cQ6nvVjNCxtGQUo_MYom3FNBi6Ovgo8U7_s3d00p4H7tUeWFcIqAY0bmhJ3fioWtLdbqYb1pushgshJxHF9kn4aOAh39AVwnK9MBnKm6Ag7TUU2CxV3_MZtmnQFjXAzRog/s1641/mother.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1641" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6SDGFGQ27Uu45Q7q08H02jfaailxM03seWXRCMB6O_dP_CVrW46XVHoXW-cQ6nvVjNCxtGQUo_MYom3FNBi6Ovgo8U7_s3d00p4H7tUeWFcIqAY0bmhJ3fioWtLdbqYb1pushgshJxHF9kn4aOAh39AVwnK9MBnKm6Ag7TUU2CxV3_MZtmnQFjXAzRog/w400-h244/mother.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia;">UK box office Top Ten</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (for the weekend of February 23-25, 2024)</span><b style="font-family: georgia;">:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1 (1) <i>Bob Marley: One Love</i> (12A)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2 (new) <i>Wicked Little Letters</i> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3 (2) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Migration</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4 (new) <i>Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba - To the Hashira Training</i> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">3)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Madame Web</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (12A)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">6 (new) <i>Vanya - NT Live 2024</i> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">7 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">4</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Argylle</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (12A)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">8 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">5) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">9 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">6</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/02/three-falls-and-submission-iron-claw.html">The Iron Claw</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (15) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">10 (11) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/negative-space-zone-of-interest.html">The Zone of Interest</a></i> (12A) ****</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(source: <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/industry-data-insights/weekend-box-office-figures">BFI</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">)</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia;">My top five:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/at-play-in-fields-of-lord-days-of-heaven.html">Days of Heaven</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. <i>City of God</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/03/on-demand-spaceman.html">Spaceman</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/negative-space-zone-of-interest.html">The Zone of Interest</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/02/happiness-is-easy-perfect-days.html">Perfect Days</a></i></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">DVD/Blu-Ray/Do</b><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">wnload top ten: </b></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1 (2) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">2 (1) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">3 (4) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">4 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">3</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Wish</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">5 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">5) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/its-doll-revolution-barbie.html">Barbie</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">6 (8) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Trolls Band Together</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">7 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">6) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/boom-oppenheimer.html">Oppenheimer</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15) ****</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">8 (11) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/07/holding-on-for-life-mission-impossible.html">Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1</a></i> (12) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">9 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">7</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Five Nights at Freddy's</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">10 (40) <i>One Day</i> (12)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(source: </span><a href="https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/film-chart/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">officialcharts.com</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><b>My top five: </b><br />1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/bloody-noses-empty-pockets-royal-hotel.html">The Royal Hotel</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/bodies-rest-and-motion-how-to-have-sex.html">How to Have Sex</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/overnight-sensations-dream-scenario.html">Dream Scenario</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">5. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/versatility-femme.html">Femme</a></i></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Top five films on terrestrial TV this week:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. <i>The Third Man</i> (Saturday, BBC2, 2.15pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-house-divisive-mother.html">mother!</a></i> [above] (Saturday, Channel 4, 12.50am)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2015/10/at-lff-brooklyn.html">Brooklyn</a></i> (Sunday, BBC1, 12.20am)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2018/02/fly-away-home-lady-bird.html">Lady Bird</a></i> (Wednesday, BBC1, 12.25am)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2019/12/on-demand-souvenir.html">The Souvenir</a></i> (Monday, BBC2, 12.10am)</span></div></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-26225524211057664312024-03-01T06:28:00.000-08:002024-03-01T06:28:13.319-08:00Quartet: "Four Daughters"<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmP2UlOHprk6qJrwNi_Ej1tXYhU9CVpPFHxVXczts5OLO8VDdAUyAKBsqkND3H8edlN7oxSPGuPz6vGrMHdYwdD1NlcoCKtnhJ8EMJeXQCIOgBvN6zJyeaLV3oRYLDRyP1N7hr1sZyknm0Dh-GbBz8s9SPnx_uM8IHPPTNpoU_CDVFSHUXgUJWwrVnLj0/s1024/FD.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmP2UlOHprk6qJrwNi_Ej1tXYhU9CVpPFHxVXczts5OLO8VDdAUyAKBsqkND3H8edlN7oxSPGuPz6vGrMHdYwdD1NlcoCKtnhJ8EMJeXQCIOgBvN6zJyeaLV3oRYLDRyP1N7hr1sZyknm0Dh-GbBz8s9SPnx_uM8IHPPTNpoU_CDVFSHUXgUJWwrVnLj0/w400-h225/FD.webp" width="400" /></a></div></span><b style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div>Four Daughters</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> is another of those fiddly docudrama hybrids that requires some parsing and explanation. Director Kaouther Ben Hania has taken as her subject Olfa Hamrouni, a Tunisian woman - and mother of four - who found herself caught up in a media storm some years back. Olfa and her two youngest daughters, Eya and Tayssir, appear before Ben Hania's camera as themselves, but we learn in the opening moments that two older daughters, Rahma and Ghofrane, were "devoured by the wolf" - this script's roundabout and fairytale way of saying they were recruited by ISIS. Other documentarists might well have made that the whole picture, seeking to explain just how a couple of carefree teens ran off and joined a notoriously repressive terror organisation. Yet the phrasing isn't the only roundabout element of Ben Hania's film. The accessible members of Olfa's family have been gathered on a bluetoned set that stands for the homestead, with a couple of actors subbing in for the runaway contingent, and Olfa herself offered a double (the storied Tunisian-Egyptian actress Hend Sabri) for any sequences that threaten to get too intense. What Ben Hania ended up filming was these women talking frankly among themselves, telling their own stories, and eventually restaging pivotal scenes from their lives for this camera. As suggested by the sisters' matching leisurewear, the whole is part pyjama party, part theatre workshop - a sleepover put on for the benefit of </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Sight & Sound</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What we come to watch, then, is reenactment - and a form of reenactment markedly different from that deployed in, say, Errol Morris's documentaries, at all stages foregrounding the processes of rehearsal and blocking out. Along with the obvious theatre, there is an element of therapy in the mix, as if Ben Hania's original pitch to her participants was <i>show me how and where the bad men of this story </i>(who extend beyond Daesh, encompassing absent fathers, indifferent boyfriends and shrugging, brutish police) <i>hurt you</i>. This wave of hybrid films predates the #MeToo movement, but you can see how its methods marry up with that movement: they allow a filmmaker to show their working and demonstrate consent. No-one was strongarmed into doing anything unwanted or untoward on this set - it was a collective effort, completed under the most collegiate of conditions. (Ben Hania affords her girls a freedom that may well be lacking elsewhere in Tunisian society: her mock-up of the family home could serve as the dictionary definition of a safe space.) Yet here the result is</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> a perilously talky sort of film: we hear first the women's testimony, then witness it converted into lines of filmable dialogue. It also, I think, generates needless obfuscation and confusion: two speakers are often heard to represent the same voice, and scenes go awry in the filming (as when an actor or participant breaks character), carrying us even further away from the crux of these matters.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I emerged from <i>Four Daughters</i> wondering anew whether the movies haven't been badly misled by modish academic notions about performance - and more precisely by the idea we're all of us acting, even when appearing in a documentary and being specifically asked to speak our truth. I can see why certain colleagues continue to swoon over the hybrid form: it's easily described as clever, new and/or headily postmodern. Yet its cleverness strikes me as counterproductive in the main, setting layers of overthinking between the viewer and the truth of these situations, while allowing artifice to overshadow a film's subjects, and whatever they have to impart. (These films aim for transparency, and land on opacity.) That's some achievement here, given that Ben Hania is filming possibly the most photogenic family in the Middle East - a clan whose cheekbones, flowing hair and gleaming teeth would give the Kardashian-Jenners a run for their covergirl money. (The real daughters become indistinguishable from the actors, and vice versa.) I suspect this may well be one reason for <i>Four Daughters</i>' festival success, and its Oscar nomination: these girls would look great on any red carpet, and have clearly now been well-schooled in the photo opportunity. But how much of their story, and their suffering, can we honestly take away with us, when the storytelling is aiming for a fudge and a muddle?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Four Daughters opens today in selected cinemas.</i></span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-17889200285666052322024-02-29T09:32:00.000-08:002024-03-01T15:45:12.475-08:00Happiness is easy: "Perfect Days"<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOyDC1uWHA-Y1cef3C-w8DGGZPAixZX1msLgn3_khxBRL4xQSwKrjCMHtEWEQLtybwXYStaCIhYT7xbDeF75pjoZGEVhCsRtW1yuFEYBzXhyeuX4dXXSGmm7DDoEEERFmdSr1XjFpfuJAHuE0PyUAJ-lxmubAbHgxvBdONaNZUNReYMVsdl74gDodQNR4/s1200/PD.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOyDC1uWHA-Y1cef3C-w8DGGZPAixZX1msLgn3_khxBRL4xQSwKrjCMHtEWEQLtybwXYStaCIhYT7xbDeF75pjoZGEVhCsRtW1yuFEYBzXhyeuX4dXXSGmm7DDoEEERFmdSr1XjFpfuJAHuE0PyUAJ-lxmubAbHgxvBdONaNZUNReYMVsdl74gDodQNR4/w400-h300/PD.webp" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>The Wim Wenders filmography has grown rather wild and woolly over the course of the 21st century: several dramatic misfires, </span><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2011/04/mysteries-of-motion-pina.html" style="font-family: georgia;">lots of non-fiction free-roaming</a><span style="font-family: georgia;">, </span><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2022/07/from-archive-salt-of-earth.html" style="font-family: georgia;">much of that worthwhile in some way</a><span style="font-family: georgia;">. Right from its opening image of a woman brushing fallen leaves from a path, </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Perfect Days</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> is Wenders tidying up, the authorial equivalent of bonsai. Neatly composed Academy frames, occupied mostly by the one performer; a wispy narrative line; an editing strategy in which each shot is inserted seamlessly into the next, like a key in a lock; a quiet but insistent emphasis on everyday pleasures, scored to a handful of old familiar rock songs; a pacifying sense of everything in its rightful place. In its diligent neatness, Wenders' direction mirrors the film's protagonist Hirayama (Koji Yakusho), a Tokyo toilet cleaner observed as he goes about his daily rounds. The first revelation here is that public toilets would appear far more salubrious in Japan than they generally are elsewhere: architecturally striking, emblazoned in bold colours, boasting state-of-the-art privacy features, Ozu-like sliding doors, and a dedicated support staff - including Hirayama, on this evidence the most assiduous of them all - polishing each surface and checking under every rim 24/7. This camera's yen for tidiness means the film often resembles last year's stealth blockbuster </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/splashback-godzilla-minus-one.html">Godzilla Minus One</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, albeit translated into a becalmed arthouse idiom. If Wenders deigns to identify an antagonist at all here, it's not a 50ft mutant sea lizard, but that which floats up from the bottom of the bowl - though these frames are kept so militantly pristine we never see the worst of it. Back at Hirayama's apartment, meanwhile, we start to get an idea of why the film has inspired the five-star responses it has. Looking around at the stuffed racks of yellowing secondhand books, cassettes and VHS tapes, any self-identifying culture vulture's dream, one realises </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Perfect Days</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> is at heart a fantasy of having just enough resources (financial and spiritual) to get by, and of leaving the messes of this world behind us when we shut the door for the night. It's well-scrubbed escapism, where a charmer like Kaurismäki's </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/modern-times-fallen-leaves.html">Fallen Leaves</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> - with its puncturing bulletins from the Russia-Ukraine war - had a dash more salt, grit and shit in the mix. (</span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Perfect Days</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> got the Oscar nod; </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Fallen Leaves </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">didn't.)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Still, since globalisation has exported on-your-knees drudgery to the four corners of the Earth, the fantasy is apparently a universal one; <i>Perfect Days</i> has handed this most cultured of directors his first real round-the-world crowdpleaser since 1999's <i>Buena Vista Social Club</i>. Coming along some while after the film received its first bouquets on the festival circuit, I was struck by just how little there is to it. Minimalist to the max, it feels like Wenders' response to the hypercomplicated worldbuilding so prevalent elsewhere in the contemporary cinema - some kind of fresh air in the context of so much boysy braggadocio and BO. (<i>Dune: Part Two</i> opens in cinemas everywhere tomorrow.) What it has above all else is Koji Yakusho, foursquare in his solidity, showcasing a politesse we can't help but admire in our moviestars because we so rarely witness it elsewhere, and a twinkle in his eye that is sometimes revealed to be a tear of either grief or gratitude. Beyond him, the rest is mostly minutiae. Around its supporting characters, <i>Perfect Days</i> keeps lapsing into Zen baby talk (<i>now is now</i>), as if adapting <i>Spiritual Contentment for Dummies (with Dunnies)</i>, its ricepaper script resistant to anything that might disrupt its hero's carefully tended inner peace. (I make no attempt to synopsise the plot, because the film doesn't really have one: it makes Hirokazu Kore-eda's famously sedate dramas seem like rollercoaster thrill rides.) With the grand romantic gestures of <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2019/05/1001-films-wings-of-desire-1987.html">Wings of Desire</a></i> now long behind him (another country), Wenders keenly encourages us to take refuge in the simple things - a good book, friendly faces, the morning coffee - though these particular examples can't sustain a two-hour running time, and everything is wrapped up with another of awards season 2023-24's Clangingly Obvious Soundtrack Cues. What's going on here? Has even the arthouse sector </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">decided its halls have been overrun with nuance-missing idiots? Much as Andrew Haigh resorted to "The Power of Love" to underline whatever points </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/living-in-another-world-all-of-us.html">All of Us Strangers</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> had to make about, you know, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">the power of love</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, Wenders means to send us out feeling good by turning to - yes - Nina Simone's "Feeling Good". At the last, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Perfect Days</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> demonstrates all the complexity and profundity of a fortune cookie - but then I guess folks can't resist gobbling those down on a night out, too.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Perfect Days is now playing in selected cinemas.</i></span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-14170194891712913422024-02-25T04:55:00.000-08:002024-02-25T04:55:02.795-08:00Dream kitchen: "The Taste of Things"<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9dAISKVt-5p1b7hqFFpfU65gN5tZoAj38_oWlvMjhBig7RpHXQN2-NnlMDbqd2z5jXwIfycaMVXOLTfKXR3Y3Mfbt2La3w7hf0bCr2Su4F6s7rw-a5-Xms1apOoAXZsff6E6KkkRvxiXGXQNSLOQwQiVLFnRNzNm1hMZb6j-3JoRcKyLcvJCfebad-cY/s1656/TTOT.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1060" data-original-width="1656" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9dAISKVt-5p1b7hqFFpfU65gN5tZoAj38_oWlvMjhBig7RpHXQN2-NnlMDbqd2z5jXwIfycaMVXOLTfKXR3Y3Mfbt2La3w7hf0bCr2Su4F6s7rw-a5-Xms1apOoAXZsff6E6KkkRvxiXGXQNSLOQwQiVLFnRNzNm1hMZb6j-3JoRcKyLcvJCfebad-cY/w400-h256/TTOT.webp" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>Future historians will have a quirk to ponder when revisiting this year's Oscars: how France ended up with a strong Best Picture nominee, but <i>rien</i> to show for itself in Best Foreign Film. The faintly banal answer is that the national committee responsible for nominating titles for consideration in the latter category plumped for another film altogether, and their choice found itself crowded out in what proved an ultra-competitive year for subtitled items. The element of surprise is that where the determinedly slippery </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/nobody-knows-anatomy-of-fall.html">Anatomy of a Fall</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, the aforementioned Best Picture contender, might once have been considered too ambiguous for Oscar recognition, the film that reaches UK screens this month as </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">The Taste of Things</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> would seem exactly that baity treat Academy voters used to gobble up: an exquisitely appointed, elegantly sedate period drama in which top-dollar dishes, more common to an awards lunch, are lovingly prepared and set down before the camera. (Foremost <i>hors-d'oeuvre</i> in this field would be </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2019/06/1001-films-babettes-feast-1987.html">Babette's Feast</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, which took home the Foreign Film Oscar back in 1988.) A comeback of sorts for the elusive Vietnamese writer-director Tran Anh Hung</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (</span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Scent of Green Papaya</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Cyclo</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Norwegian Wood</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">), the new film intends us to rethink our idea of stars along Michelin lines. For a long time - the duration of several courses - flesh-and-blood leads Juliette Binoche and Benoît</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Magimel, cast as late 19th century chefs and occasional lovers, are deemed of less note than a well-turned omelette, vast steaming pots of vegetables, a sizzling rack of veal, and the greatest baked alaska ever conceived for the screen. A warning to anyone who made New Year's plans to eat more judiciously in 2024: once again, the movies have cancelled those plans for you.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yet Tran's true subject - what we're <i>really</i> meant to coo at and swoon over here - isn't consumption, rather the more delicate business of craft and care: what we learn when young, develop as an adult, and ideally pass on to others in our wake. (The scenes of food preparation will shame anyone who's ever reached unthinkingly for the Pop Tart and the Cup-a-Soup.) That sense of craft informs the film as much as it does the food the chefs whip up. Binoche and Magimel, erstwhile lovers in real life and ever-precise actors besides, spoon baby potatoes onto a plate as though handling radioactive material - but then that's what it takes, <i>Taste</i> insists, if you want your late 19th century dining experience to go as these do. It makes for a deeply finicky film, hung up on the bearing of chefs' hats, the sight of men drawing their napkins over their heads to better inhale the scent of freshly broiled game, and the sound of the birds and bees hovering just beyond an eternally open kitchen door. (The sound design here achieves the inverse of <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/negative-space-zone-of-interest.html">The Zone of Interest</a></i>: it lulls us toward drowsiness, by underlining how everything Tran puts on this table is entirely natural.) Yet just as each dish lingered over proves finite, so too craft itself can disappear into thin air. One look at a suddenly breathless Binoche coming over all faint at the stove, and we know where tonight's menu is leading us: towards a last supper, and the baked meats of a funeral. At which point, having done everything possible to nourish us visually, Tran floats a piquant, emotive question: can there ever be anything left over that might warm us anew?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">As a two-hour sit, <i>The Taste of Things</i> is equal parts gorgeous and preposterous, which may explain why it fell at the final Oscar hurdle: more or less completely detached from the modern world, it makes a bold reach for the infinite while still wearing pinny and oven gloves. Whatever you finally made of it, <i>Anatomy of a Fall</i> speaks to a moment when nobody knows what to believe, truth has become a moot point, and conspiracy theories abound. For all its fine, doubtless meticulously sourced detail and kitchenware, Tran's film puts up nothing so bracing, instead pitching itself squarely at the romantics and nostalgics among us; the nostalgia it evokes is for an era when some folks had nowt more pressing to do than cook and eat, to do one thing very well. Baked into this scenario is a poignant awareness that time is a luxury we so often lack: that those we love disappear from our lives before we've had chance to tell them how much we love them. Food here is offered as a sublimated form of affection - a small but sustaining gift to give - but the emotion has been kneaded in deep, and in his fussiness, Tran sometimes threatens to undercut his own argument. (You wonder how much more intimate the chefs could get if they weren't spending all day faffing around in the pantry with shallots.) The drama is at least well served by Binoche, to the end exquisite, albeit in a role that only ever asks her to be exquisite; and by Magimel, so compelling in last year's <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/04/trouble-in-paradise-pacifiction.html">Pacifiction</a></i>, and here just about managing to nudge us past his character's alarming physical resemblance to Noel Edmonds. (Like I said, some of it verges on the ridiculous.) It is finally a film about cooking that perhaps only the French could produce: lofty, snobbish (watching its gathered gourmands dissect the pros and cons of an <i>eight-hour</i> meal, you remember why normal folks find critics insufferable), reliably po-faced about <i>l'art de la cuisine</i>, lacking the gentle humour that leavened <i>Big Night</i> or the agreeable saltiness of Ang Lee's rarely revived <i>Eat Drink Man Woman</i>. I learnt one thing (omelettes are best eaten with spoons), sat before much of it as one would a Saturday morning cookery show (and the Waitrose and M&S ads that season them), and then treated myself to a bag of chips on the walk home.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Taste of Things is now playing in selected cinemas.</i></span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-32589760602304784142024-02-23T04:49:00.000-08:002024-02-23T14:00:34.958-08:00For what it's worth...<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0UV6hlqpibsLP4_46c0H-3iKeBd38x6rZ8mlg3DsZOq7SuFwLQLHD0Zg0_OLYfIkGQze9JYzhyNxR3XWoGDnqYLw-_AlpHaf9igoGtJX7Ma5kctK45SRBt33BTVbrjkhY56qeRqVQQ4Ui8kf98zdLgbi2fy2KDmg7_xgSxCF_rsBau_8wt5MnO5gn4n8/s1280/COG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0UV6hlqpibsLP4_46c0H-3iKeBd38x6rZ8mlg3DsZOq7SuFwLQLHD0Zg0_OLYfIkGQze9JYzhyNxR3XWoGDnqYLw-_AlpHaf9igoGtJX7Ma5kctK45SRBt33BTVbrjkhY56qeRqVQQ4Ui8kf98zdLgbi2fy2KDmg7_xgSxCF_rsBau_8wt5MnO5gn4n8/w400-h225/COG.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: georgia;">UK box office Top Ten</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (for the weekend of February 16-18, 2024)</span><b style="font-family: georgia;">:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1 (new) <i>Bob Marley: One Love</i> (12A)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">1) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Migration</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3 (new) <i>Madame Web</i> (12A)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">2) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Argylle</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (12A)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5 (8) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">6 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">3)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/02/three-falls-and-submission-iron-claw.html">The Iron Claw</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (15) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">7 (6) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/fetch-lives-mean-girls.html">Mean Girls</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (12A) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">8 (5) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Peppa's Cinema Party</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">9 (7) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Anyone but You</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">10 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">4) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/living-in-another-world-all-of-us.html">All of Us Strangers</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (15) **</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(source: <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/industry-data-insights/weekend-box-office-figures">BFI</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">)</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia;">My top five:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/at-play-in-fields-of-lord-days-of-heaven.html">Days of Heaven</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. <i>City of God</i> [above]</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2017/03/1001-films-monty-python-and-holy-grail.html">Monty Python and the Holy Grail</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/negative-space-zone-of-interest.html">The Zone of Interest</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. <i>10 Things I Hate About You</i></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">DVD/Blu-Ray/Do</b><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">wnload top ten: </b></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1 (2) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">2 (1) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">3 (4) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">4 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">3</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Wish</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">5 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">5) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/its-doll-revolution-barbie.html">Barbie</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">6 (8) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Trolls Band Together</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">7 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">6) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/boom-oppenheimer.html">Oppenheimer</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15) ****</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">8 (11) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/07/holding-on-for-life-mission-impossible.html">Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1</a></i> (12) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">9 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">7</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Five Nights at Freddy's</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">10 (40) <i>One Day</i> (12)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(source: </span><a href="https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/film-chart/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">officialcharts.com</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><b>My top five: </b><br />1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/bloody-noses-empty-pockets-royal-hotel.html">The Royal Hotel</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/bodies-rest-and-motion-how-to-have-sex.html">How to Have Sex</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/versatility-femme.html">Femme</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/let-em-in-totem.html">Totem</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">5. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/10/troubles-dead-shot.html">Dead Shot</a></i></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Top five films on terrestrial TV this week:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2017/01/american-honeys-loving.html">Loving</a></i> (Tuesday, BBC2, 11.15pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. <i>In This World</i> (Saturday, BBC2, 1.05am)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. <i>The Commitments</i> (Saturday, BBC2, 10.15pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-gift-guardian-070815.html">The Gift</a></i> (Saturday, BBC1, 11.40pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-witnesses-apostasy.html">Apostasy</a></i> (Monday, BBC2, 11.15pm)</span></div></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-84960599022721263022024-02-16T04:00:00.000-08:002024-02-22T03:38:52.206-08:00For what it's worth...<div><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyhRtfaZoN5S5ANOJ7tnJnckpjx56cmvYAnoi1gnL-NQgG7FLeJpX9t4f-mYpMLdc_7bIsIbgkzVm1qmAR7o5XuVyv6EB4pHqvs6zzLIOM75UihQN4uQSJVFzGDkEjEXeo8DiIYLthuJoVF_7h_4BcSXIvdrQ3uWCY8yYNZi6DBbh1iZSNPXn61sCjm8I/s4500/IWTV.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3045" data-original-width="4500" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyhRtfaZoN5S5ANOJ7tnJnckpjx56cmvYAnoi1gnL-NQgG7FLeJpX9t4f-mYpMLdc_7bIsIbgkzVm1qmAR7o5XuVyv6EB4pHqvs6zzLIOM75UihQN4uQSJVFzGDkEjEXeo8DiIYLthuJoVF_7h_4BcSXIvdrQ3uWCY8yYNZi6DBbh1iZSNPXn61sCjm8I/w400-h271/IWTV.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia;">UK box office Top Ten</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (for the weekend of February 9-11, 2024)</span><b style="font-family: georgia;">:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1 (1) <i>Migration</i> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2 (2) <i>Argylle</i> (12A)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3 (new) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/02/three-falls-and-submission-iron-claw.html">The Iron Claw</a></i> (15) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4 (4) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/living-in-another-world-all-of-us.html">All of Us Strangers</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (15) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5 (new) <i>Peppa's Cinema Party</i> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">6 (3) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/fetch-lives-mean-girls.html">Mean Girls</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (12A) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">7 (6) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Anyone but You</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">8 (7) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">9 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">5)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/negative-space-zone-of-interest.html">The Zone of Interest</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (12A) ****</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">10 (re) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2021/10/on-dune-part-one-and-why-movies-now-suck.html">Dune: Part One</a></i> (12A) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(source: <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/industry-data-insights/weekend-box-office-figures">BFI</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">)</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia;">My top five:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">It Happened One Night</i></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2017/03/1001-films-monty-python-and-holy-grail.html">Monty Python and the Holy Grail</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/negative-space-zone-of-interest.html">The Zone of Interest</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. <i>10 Things I Hate About You</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. <i>Interview with the Vampire</i> [above]</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">DVD/Blu-Ray/Do</b><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">wnload top ten: </b></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1 (new) <i>Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom</i> (12)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">1) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">3 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">2) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Wish</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">4 (10) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">5 (7) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/its-doll-revolution-barbie.html">Barbie</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">6 (6) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/boom-oppenheimer.html">Oppenheimer</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15) ****</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">7 (</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Five Nights at Freddy's</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">8 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">4) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Trolls Band Together</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">9 (8) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">10 (30) <i>Meg 2: The Trench</i> (12)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(source: </span><a href="https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/film-chart/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">officialcharts.com</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><b>My top five: </b><br />1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/bodies-rest-and-motion-how-to-have-sex.html">How to Have Sex</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/boom-oppenheimer.html">Oppenheimer</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/10/troubles-dead-shot.html">Dead Shot</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/separate-rooms-eternal-daughter.html">The Eternal Daughter</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">5. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/mutant-cinema-scala.html">Scala!!!</a></i></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Top five films on terrestrial TV this week:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2012/11/from-archive-40-year-old-virgin.html">The 40-Year-Old Virgin</a></i> (Friday, ITV1, 10.45pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2022/05/siegfried-benediction.html">Benediction</a></i> (Sunday, BBC2, 11pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2019/02/pride-and-prejudices-if-beale-street.html">If Beale Street Could Talk</a></i> (Tuesday, BBC2, 11.15pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. <i>In the Loop</i> (Sunday, BBC1, 12.20am)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. <i>Eastern Promises</i> (Saturday, BBC1, 11.55pm)</span></div></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-65935452640133626522024-02-16T03:21:00.000-08:002024-02-16T03:21:24.274-08:00In memoriam: Don Murray (Telegraph 14/02/24)<div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguFSREo0TOSegy_aTcKV7wJ11-HFeIU3gk5EL4211yKk0K2-_tQvv62fMQX8Q_PF3SJxBYwHeOmFnA0Zab_RV-ff5wIh4QxVIayZRG4R7iYiheFJPJR7bEoRrvkY-dHQPe7igeX5_QT2i4fwu9JXKa8QHKpy4QQ2XPJtLQrUKyGt-H_lzu2gvmumtxRDM/s680/DM.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="680" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguFSREo0TOSegy_aTcKV7wJ11-HFeIU3gk5EL4211yKk0K2-_tQvv62fMQX8Q_PF3SJxBYwHeOmFnA0Zab_RV-ff5wIh4QxVIayZRG4R7iYiheFJPJR7bEoRrvkY-dHQPe7igeX5_QT2i4fwu9JXKa8QHKpy4QQ2XPJtLQrUKyGt-H_lzu2gvmumtxRDM/w400-h250/DM.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><b>Don
Murray</b>, who has died aged 94, was a seasoned American stage, film and TV actor
who earned BAFTA and Oscar nominations for his debut movie role as Beauregard
“Beau” Decker, the unworldly cowpoke who treats Marilyn Monroe’s singer Cherie
like cattle in the grabby Fox melodrama </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Bus Stop</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (1956).</span></div>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ripped
from William Inge’s Broadway sensation, the story was just seamy enough to ensure
box-office success, and the tall, athletic, conventionally handsome Murray
found himself squarely at its centre. “Hollywood’s newest hunk of man!” boomed the
film’s lustiest trailer. Yet it was fanciful casting, by Murray’s own
admission: “No-one could have been less equipped for the job. I was a New
Yorker who’d never ridden a real horse and had tackled football players but
never a 500-pound steer.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As
Murray maintained, Monroe was “very supportive”, even while succumbing to
nerves herself: “We did a bed scene, she was actually naked under the sheets,
and I could see her body covered with this red rash. She got so nervous that
she’d break out… and she had to cover it with make-up. She had done so many
films, and yet she was so frightened.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He
worked consistently thereafter, earning his Walk of Fame star as early as 1960,
without ever becoming a household name: “I came to Hollywood, and they said I
needed to establish a persona that the audience could relate to and would be a
reliable thing for them to get behind. I did the exact opposite.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Initially,
he sought out ambiguous parts in trickier projects: a morphine-addled veteran
in <i>A Hatful of Rain</i> (1957), the student pulled into the Irish Troubles
(and armed conflict with professor James Cagney) in <i>Shake Hands with the
Devil</i> (1959), the closeted Senator in <i>Advise & Consent</i> (1962).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By
the 1970s, Murray was settling into patrician roles, notably the authoritarian
Governor Breck in <i>Conquest of the Planet of the Apes</i> (1972), the fourth
in the enduring sci-fi series. As dealership owner Sid Fairgate, he was an
early pillar of <i>Dallas</i> spin-off <i>Knots Landing</i> (1979-93), only to
quit after two seasons.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In
the Eighties, he played dad to prominent younger stars: Brooke Shields in <i>Endless
Love</i> (1981), Helen Hunt in <i>Quarterback Princess</i> (1983), Kathleen
Turner in <i>Peggy Sue Got Married</i> (1986). He earned a Daytime Emmy
nomination in 1994 for an episode of ABC’s issue-driven <i>Afterschool Special</i>
strand, playing an ageing rancher resisting relocation to a nursing home.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Murray
announced his retirement from acting in 2001, before a touchingly unexpected
comeback as Bushnell “Battling Bud” Mullins, former prizefighter turned chipper
manager of an insurance firm beset by supernatural forces in <i>Twin Peaks: The
Return</i> (2017). He’d travelled some way from <i>Bus Stop</i>: as the show’s detective
hero Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) declared in Murray’s final scene, “You are a
fine man, Bushnell Mullins. I will not soon forget your kindness and decency.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Donald
Patrick Murray was born on July 31, 1929, the second of three children to Fox choreographer
Dennis Murray and his wife Ethel (<i>née</i> Cook), a sometime performer with
the Ziegfeld Follies.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
following year, the family relocated to New York, where the young Donald
attended East Rockaway High, excelling in gridiron, track athletics and theatre
club. He studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan,
making his TV debut as Biondello in a 1950 adaptation of <i>The Taming of the
Shrew</i>, opposite Charlton Heston as Petruchio.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After
graduating, Murray made his Broadway debut in Tennessee Williams’ <i>The Rose
Tattoo</i>, but his career was paused as military service loomed. As an Anabaptist
Christian – guided by a strictly pacifist doctrine – he was spared the Korean
War; he was instead posted to an internment camp in Naples housing those
displaced during WW2, where he helped build a school and taught the locals
basketball (“I had the toughest time getting them to use their hands, instead
of feet!”).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Following
honourable discharge in 1954, he founded the non-profit HELP (Homeless European
Land Program) with his first wife, the actress Hope Lange; they raised $100,000
and bought a plot of land in Sardinia to establish a farming community for
refugees. Murray returned to the region in 2013, when he was made an honorary
citizen of Simaxis. One resident told Murray’s actor son Christopher “if it weren’t
for your father, I’d be a grain of sand.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Murray’s
faith informed his directorial debut <i>The Cross and the Switchblade</i>
(1970), a drama about the real-life bond between a pastor (Pat Boone) and a gang
member (future <i>CHiPs</i> star Erik Estrada); later efforts – such as <i>Elvis
is Alive</i> (2001), which found the King working as an Elvis impersonator in
Paris, and <i>Breathe!</i> (2008), a subaquatic thriller written by another son,
Mick – were less favourably reviewed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With
the passing of Tony Curtis in 2010, he became the last of Monroe’s leading men
still extant. He signed off by returning to the range, cameoing in low-budget
Western <i>Promise</i> (2021).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He
is survived by his second wife Betty, whom he married in 1962, and five
children, three from this second marriage, two from his earlier marriage to
Lange.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Don
Murray, born July 31, 1929, died February 2, 2024.</span></b></p></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-1445573067865975612024-02-13T12:41:00.000-08:002024-02-13T14:35:30.246-08:00On demand: "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine"<div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9yRAJk5uzKpVIbwzsCR4y3p7mrb01OwtHReF5DiIQZvN5UFTFuQ7y7Jn8u9lX1jvNFYkIxqJxzBFmg2AaTZ8cVELROJ9EICRiTKVO9wLqxyRjodQ7QoVuukRSIsfQ54J0q0_4k6XWtiew08EUGUkq8F1agYiJ4xeFjp-74xlysgvF30bcyAE2bYmZ6Q8/s1280/SJ.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9yRAJk5uzKpVIbwzsCR4y3p7mrb01OwtHReF5DiIQZvN5UFTFuQ7y7Jn8u9lX1jvNFYkIxqJxzBFmg2AaTZ8cVELROJ9EICRiTKVO9wLqxyRjodQ7QoVuukRSIsfQ54J0q0_4k6XWtiew08EUGUkq8F1agYiJ4xeFjp-74xlysgvF30bcyAE2bYmZ6Q8/w400-h225/SJ.webp" width="400" /></a></div></span><b style="font-family: georgia;"><div><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div>The Man in the Machine</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">, </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Alex Gibney's made-for-CNN overview of the life and career of the Apple co-founder and holistic business guru Steve Jobs, comes from a place of appreciable scepticism. Why, Gibney asks, was there such a collective outpouring of grief upon Jobs's passing in October 2011? (As the filmmaker adds, it was the sort of outpouring he'd only witnessed twice in his lifetime, after the deaths of Martin Luther King and John Lennon.) But Jobs was that deeply embedded in our mental firmware and pockets; the grief his passing inspired - amply illustrated in the opening moments here - was much the same as the grief cult members must feel after their leader has burnt down the compound and hightailed it with everybody's life savings. What the public was mourning, of course, was the forward-facing Jobs: charismatic, eloquent, driven, visionary, the Jobs who assured us the 21st century was going to be all jetpacks and limitless leisure time. (Even we hardened Android users might feel a pang of sadness at how capitalism continues to deny us that future; instead, it's just neverending system updates and drawers full of leads that don't fit your technology.) Gibney, for his part, proves too smart and sharp - too much the seasoned investigative journalist - to be lulled by that carefully curated public image. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Man in the Machine</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> pulls back the curtain and follows Jobs behind the scenes, asking such critical questions as "did he know what he was doing?" to those who knew Jobs, were impressed by Jobs and/or found themselves varyingly screwed over by Jobs. Some of these interviewees speak more euphemistically than others; yet their answers lead us towards the terrible grind, hurt and sacrifice required in the hyperaccelerated creation of our new digital gods - or iGods, if we must.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gibney himself is putting in quite the shift, and while operating at a similar speed to that of his subject. In a little over two hours, he sets out the great tech leaps forward and gleaming design, but also the betrayals involved, the contradictions within this personality, and the mish-mash of Dylan songs and New Age belief systems that were always part of the sales plan. As ever, the Gibney net is cast far and wide: it hauls in testimony from a monk who accuses Jobs of misreading Buddhist doctrine <i>and</i> an unexpected Wim Wenders nod. Editor Michael J. Palmer's sly juxtapositions further underline the editorial assertion that this was a phenomenon with an element or two of the con job about it. As one associate says of Jobs, "he was the kind of person who could convince himself of things that weren't necessarily true". (And thus, we surmise, as much an architect of the 21st century as anyone.) The result is a greatly more complex picture than <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2015/11/chips-on-his-shoulders-steve-jobs.html">the Sorkin/Danny Boyle fiction that emerged around the same moment</a>, even if it places the same piercing anecdote at the heart of the film: how Jobs spent more time fussing over a console he called Lisa than he ever did over a daughter with the same name. Arguably Jobs realised home computers are just easier to deal with than human beings: the former are sleek and clean, they can be switched off when they overheat, and sent away whenever something needs repairing. (We sometimes cry when <i>they</i> die too, irrationally.) The Jobs that Gibney reveals here emerges as a little of both, the kind of fundamentally weird, questionably wired nerd who now routinely hacks and reprograms society: a Musk or Bezos 1.0, a manbot who deserves fealty, worship and tears far less than he merits close and rigorous study. As Gibney frames it, acknowledging the compound of silicon and bullshit that took Jobs to the top, "He is one of those mythic characters." As Apple designer Bob Belleville responds: "And they're not that much fun on the ground most of the time. And they change us."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine is currently streaming via NOW TV, and is available to rent via Prime Video and YouTube.</i> </span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-17824974116674022592024-02-12T11:41:00.000-08:002024-02-12T11:49:33.939-08:00Chewing the fat: "Your Fat Friend"<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI-9pokLUy6G8G57HlSCeWmeQ6EN-g1hp4trAOOVf5T1uRaaO1BusXu39hk8dSYadT1y05n-_q1nLp2f5f_V9lfK8Qplsmu3V-rrrX02OPKFJXGaEpDycOmNWO3QDBPRT9ySCqhPZQ463i-dTIPFknK6G8cfBAkIBtHXp6bZ-egOR2lNzNhxkgVOQLs1w/s1850/YFF.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1233" data-original-width="1850" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI-9pokLUy6G8G57HlSCeWmeQ6EN-g1hp4trAOOVf5T1uRaaO1BusXu39hk8dSYadT1y05n-_q1nLp2f5f_V9lfK8Qplsmu3V-rrrX02OPKFJXGaEpDycOmNWO3QDBPRT9ySCqhPZQ463i-dTIPFknK6G8cfBAkIBtHXp6bZ-egOR2lNzNhxkgVOQLs1w/w400-h266/YFF.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don't know how she does it, given the British film industry's byzantine financing and distribution models, but the documentarist Jeanie Finlay retains vast reserves of patience, curiosity and empathy. The empathy is wide-ranging at that: so far within this filmography, it's been extended to the stressed proprietor and ragtag clientele of a County Durham record shop (2011's <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2011/11/vinyl-sound-it-out.html"><i>Sound It Out</i></a>), assorted pranksters and famehounds (2013's <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-hip-hop-hoax-guardian-060913.html"><i>The Great Hip Hop Hoax</i></a>, 2014's <i>Pantomime</i>, 2015's <i>Orion: The Man Who Would Be King</i>) and a trans man giving birth for the first time (2019's <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2019/09/on-demand-seahorse-dad-who-gave-birth.html"><i>Seahorse</i></a>). Evidently, Finlay is a mighty shrewd judge of character: she picks subjects she senses she'll enjoy spending years following, and whom she's confident we'll enjoy spending at least ninety minutes with. The result of all this interpersonal groundwork has been a run of films that feel like records of real-world friendships, and that sit as distinct from the more transactional end of modern documentary practice, where established brands (feted filmmaker, famous interviewee) are paired by producers to polish some official record. Funnily enough, Finlay's latest <b>Your Fat Friend</b> centres on someone who's almost famous when first we meet her: Aubrey Gordon, the size-26 fat activist who came to online prominence while blogging anonymously under the handle @yrfatfriend and urging her fellow humans to embrace the three-letter F-word as a value-neutral state of being. Finlay caught up with Gordon as the latter underwent a very modern, recognisably haphazard rite of writerly passage, attempting to convert Internet fame into a viable publishing and media career. The peril is that she's doing so at a moment (2016 onwards) where the American political context meant women's bodies were falling subject to renewed scrutiny and public relitigation.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Like <i>Seahorse</i>'s progressive figurehead Freddy McConnell, Gordon quickly proves an ideal match for Finlay's sensibility: someone in the process of overcoming whatever shame or anxiety they might once have felt about their physical form, who presents as determined to occupy the space they inhabit with neither fear nor apology, and yet is also vulnerable to backsliding into old patterns of thinking. (A Finlay subject typically has off-days, wobbles, doubts - as do we all, you might say.) It feels crucial that Gordon has a background in social activism: having campaigned on behalf of others, she now strives to make a case - and a better life - for herself. She knows as well as anyone how bound up food, diets and the swelling wellness industry are with corporate capitalism, ever-keen to set us to consuming or not consuming, and to pay through the nose either way. But Finlay is just as interested in who Gordon might be away from the blog and the keyboard; the film quietly binds the political with the personal in the hope of fostering a more forceful resistance. Some of this story is thus told first person, in Gordon's own, thoughtful words: upon hearing her hypersensitivity around flying, and airlines' anti-fat seating policies, you may well be persuaded those policies are good for neither the fat nor the thin, nor anyone save the company standing to make a packet by cramming as many paying customers as they can into the same finite space. More subtly revealing, though, are the candid chats Finlay records between Gordon and those in her immediate vicinity: her doting mum Pam, obliged to reflect on her previous devotion to all things Weight Watchers, and her old-school engineer dad Rusty, who may just provide 2024's greatest example of nominative determinism.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Often framed against that most fraught of domestic spaces, the kitchen, these back-and-forths not only speak to the very great trust Finlay continues to build with her subjects, they also demonstrate how it is more than possible to have enjoyed a comparatively stable and loving upbringing and still feel - as Gordon once did, and may still, on those off days - that you are unworthy or too much. They also, I think, serve as a constructive contrast to a parallel online debate, permitting differences of opinion (and even the odd off-colour thought or sentiment) without descending into vicious sniping or doxxing. I sometimes wondered whether - again, like so many of us - Gordon was too online for her own good: this camera frequently alights on a woman staring at a phone heating up with shows of celebrity solidarity and naked aggression from passing trolls. Yet Finlay equally makes good contextualising use of Gordon's leafy part of Portland, a city <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apq9dfNKMWU&ab_channel=PortLandia">several seasons of cable sitcom have already established as a refuge for refuseniks and free thinkers</a>. Big, meaty, frankly <i>super-</i>fat themes - the body, the self, and their relationship to an insecure world - are here chewed over with the breeziness of an old pals' picnic in the park. (It feels unimprovable that Gordon's progress should draw towards a conclusion with the arrival of cake, imperfectly finished - the frosting's not gluten-free - yet offered with love.) As elsewhere, Finlay both opens up a new front of conversation and reasserts the power of film to gently recalibrate viewer perspectives, inviting us to change our mind fully, reconsider our words and actions or simply think twice - as any good and true friend might.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Your Fat Friend is now touring selected cinemas - details <a href="https://www.yrfatfriendfilm.com/screenings">here</a> - and is also available to rent via Curzon Home Cinema.</i> </span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-42035838454039010142024-02-12T05:44:00.000-08:002024-02-12T05:44:37.098-08:00Three falls and a submission: "The Iron Claw"<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi88wEkalAS8zGzPuSC-Vq1d3WD02EE4ojPoHzGOgTRsIpe6JJyggz6Oy_OouxQJ0pFexstJYvYsm1SPtleIUhqGiNtX2ARVu4f0szq83X2KL8-t2-UrWXF9BPkbB_6XC2B_E4giJJxlzQovuhs6W9O8vii3AN4TdEWw_k6X03drOkR5OfwupAtt-c8DH8/s1200/TIC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="676" data-original-width="1200" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi88wEkalAS8zGzPuSC-Vq1d3WD02EE4ojPoHzGOgTRsIpe6JJyggz6Oy_OouxQJ0pFexstJYvYsm1SPtleIUhqGiNtX2ARVu4f0szq83X2KL8-t2-UrWXF9BPkbB_6XC2B_E4giJJxlzQovuhs6W9O8vii3AN4TdEWw_k6X03drOkR5OfwupAtt-c8DH8/w400-h225/TIC.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>The writer-director Sean Durkin was a shade unlucky with 2020's </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-money-pit-nest.html">The Nest</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, a sinuous dissection of Thatcherite greed that found itself caught up in the bottleneck of post-lockdown releases; one of the strongest British-shot films of the past decade, it went largely overlooked at the time, but its doomy mood has lingered over and arguably intensified with every hamfisted cashgrab made by the current Tory administration. (If ever a film was a warning from history</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.) Durkin has picked himself up, dusted himself down and returned to the fight with a project that, on the surface, might appear a solid-gold crowdpleaser. </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">The Iron Claw</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">'s subject is pro wrestling, and more specifically the von Erich dynasty, a real-life grappling empire of the 1980s headed by gruff patriarch Fritz (Holt McCallany), a former heel whose skullcrushing signature move lends the film its title, and extending to a clutch of brawny, blonde, distinctly all-American sons (played here by Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson and Stanley Simons) obliged to jostle for pa's attention and affection. Yet if you're expecting another </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2020/01/on-demand-fighting-with-my-family.html">Fighting with My Family</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;">-style romp, as several patrons at the public screening I attended last night clearly were, think again. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Iron Claw</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> could only ever be classified as a Sean Durkin idea of a crowdpleaser, its constituent elements these: a family who were tougher on one another than they ever were on their opponents; kids chock full of testosterone, with a sketchy sense of where fakery ends and reality begins; talk of a curse; brief, jolting establishing shots of a visibly unhappy family portrait, a crucifix mounted to a wall, and a fully loaded gun cabinet; and a pre-film BBFC card warning of strong language, drug misuse and suicide to come. The template, then, isn't the cheery, Stephen Merchant-directed </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Fighting</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> - or David O. Russell's boisterous </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2011/02/brothers-in-arms-fighter.html">The Fighter</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> of a decade or so ago - but Bennett Miller's stark, brooding </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2017/07/from-archive-foxcatcher.html">Foxcatcher</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> of 2014; you find yourself adopting the brace position long before Durkin drops <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy4HA3vUv2c&ab_channel=MadFranko008">"Don't Fear the Reaper"</a> on the soundtrack twenty minutes in.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The first question here is what kind of tragedy we have been gathered to receive, and American audiences may have had the advantage of prior knowledge in this respect: here is a story that made barely a dent in the British news media at the time of Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks. I don't know how reassuring it is that Durkin has tamped down the overt stylisation that some found so alienating in his earlier work. Gone are those tics and tricks half-inched from Herrs Haneke and Tarr - the long, glacially slow tracking shots leading us inexorably towards some new and unexplored darkness - in favour of an approach that is more upfront formally; an opening credit reads "inspired by true events", and those events are broadly what Durkin films. Nevertheless, he does something interesting and distinctive (if possibly counterproductive) with his fight scenes. Rather than tossing us pell-mell into the middle of the ring - as, say, Darren Aronofsky did so effectively in the course of 2008's <i>The Wrestler</i> - Durkin stubbornly stands back from the off, the better to expose the pulled punches and prerehearsed smackdowns. This is a very strange way to make a living, <i>The Iron Claw</i> ventures, and an even stranger path to the American dream of self-realisation: actual, perishable flesh-and-blood recast as unstoppable he-men whose wins and losses are entirely arbitrary, decided by the toss of a coin or promoter's whim. I say counterproductive, because there are expectational dangers that follow from assembling a photogenic cast and then peering at them as though through a microscope. One is that <i>The Iron Claw</i> begins to feel like a film about sports made by a social-sciences major, albeit one who maybe knew monomaniacally focused jocks like this at college and had every reason to maintain some distance from them. Another risk is perhaps best expressed as a question: are we ever going to get close enough to these characters to feel their very real pain when it comes, as von Erich lore dictates it must?</span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">You will formulate your own response; mine would be yes and no, a mixed result I put down partly to the still semi-clinical handling (forever eliding the worst of these events, perhaps out of respect to the von Erichs who survived) and a growing sense this tragedy was born out of a freak, near-unrepeatable set of circumstances, foremost among them the US boycott of the 1980 Olympics. (Try as you might to take this dive, it couldn't happen to you.) It's no fault whatsoever of this ensemble, a living-breathing redefinition of tightknit. We note how, despite their pronounced physiological differences, these brothers act and feel like actual brothers. We can't fail to spot the odd note of dissent in the ranks, like the aside from ma Maura Tierney (shrewdly cast for her resting sour face) about the music her husband used to play for her, a road not taken as Fritz backed the family into a corner that looks indistinguishable from a dead end. We may well notice Efron acting his heart out from beneath the dermal equivalent of a Ninja Turtles costume. But it feels like a stretch to claim <i>The Iron Claw</i> as some clinching treatise on performative masculinity when it retains such a slender grasp on the world beyond the gym, the locker room and the ring over there in the distance. (Durkin is so uninterested in the options represented by the Efron character's wife that she's ended up being played by Lily James.) What we end up watching is a ghostly, closed-off case study, as much a movie about a cult as was <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2012/02/funny-games-martha-marcy-may-marlene.html"><i>Martha Marcy May Marlene</i></a>, even if its closing bout of sentiments suggest its maker is older, wiser and better prepared to express himself than the macho martyrs he's burying. Durkin remains an intriguingly oppositional imagemaker, celebrating a full decade of showing us what's wrong with the world without ever once letting slip what he's truly passionate about. There is undeniable fascination in encountering a work so obviously critical of the dads-and-lads axis that has dominated American cinema for decades - and also in seeing a film in the multiplexes that patently doesn't want to be there. But I could equally understand why certain cinemagoers were themselves beginning to shift so uneasily in their seats. A movie like <i>The Wrestler</i> sends us out into the night high on the scent of popcorn and embrocation. <i>The Iron Claw</i> arrives bearing only the deadening stench of embalming fluid. Enter the Undertaker.</span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Iron Claw is now showing in cinemas nationwide.</i></span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-33667031894115340542024-02-09T07:53:00.000-08:002024-02-12T11:47:51.730-08:00For what it's worth...<div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8qj01egCz3J62FfcvpMeZsxSe-Gz7E4RSpRqmeGFyAAmpeyq6eEEEN-0UkuDX01_gFIviC_6LIGldl-ztzLz_5AiwR16OX1Ngs9em7dHzB1vPI4C3O_RJP3Wo3ERHk1iOa51UuSd1QfdQ2eWO7GVMy91nY5iLSEMqNC5Krm_yhIpRe6GARzX1C9thhOA/s3481/IHON.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2579" data-original-width="3481" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8qj01egCz3J62FfcvpMeZsxSe-Gz7E4RSpRqmeGFyAAmpeyq6eEEEN-0UkuDX01_gFIviC_6LIGldl-ztzLz_5AiwR16OX1Ngs9em7dHzB1vPI4C3O_RJP3Wo3ERHk1iOa51UuSd1QfdQ2eWO7GVMy91nY5iLSEMqNC5Krm_yhIpRe6GARzX1C9thhOA/w400-h296/IHON.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: georgia;">UK box office Top Ten</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (for the weekend of February 2-4, 2024)</span><b style="font-family: georgia;">:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1 (new) <i>Migration</i> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2 (new) <i>Argylle</i> (12A)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">1) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/fetch-lives-mean-girls.html">Mean Girls</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (12A) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4 (2) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/living-in-another-world-all-of-us.html">All of Us Strangers</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (15) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5 (new) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/negative-space-zone-of-interest.html">The Zone of Interest</a></i> (12A) ****</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">6 (4) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Anyone but You</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">7 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">3) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">8 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">5</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/goo-goo-dolls-poor-things.html">Poor Things</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (18) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">9 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">6) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/old-school-holdovers.html">The Holdovers</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (15) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">10 (new) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/02/how-to-get-ahead-in-publishing-american.html">American Fiction</a></i> (15) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(source: <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/industry-data-insights/weekend-box-office-figures">BFI</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">)</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia;">My top five:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/at-play-in-fields-of-lord-days-of-heaven.html">Days of Heaven</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. <i>It Happened One Night</i> [above]</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/negative-space-zone-of-interest.html">The Zone of Interest</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. <i>10 Things I Hate About You</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/02/chewing-fat-your-fat-friend.html">Your Fat Friend</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">DVD/Blu-Ray/Do</b><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">wnload top ten: </b></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1 (1) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2 (2) <i>Wish</i> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3 (6) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Five Nights at Freddy's</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">4 (4) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Trolls Band Together</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">5 (3) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/enter-void-marvels.html">The Marvels</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">6 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">5) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/boom-oppenheimer.html">Oppenheimer</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15) ****</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">7 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">7) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/its-doll-revolution-barbie.html">Barbie</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">8 (12) <i>Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie</i> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">9 (9) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/10/roots-killers-of-flower-moon.html">Killers of the Flower Moon</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15) ****</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">10 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">8) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12)</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(source: </span><a href="https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/film-chart/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">officialcharts.com</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><b>My top five: </b><br />1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/bodies-rest-and-motion-how-to-have-sex.html">How to Have Sex</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/boom-oppenheimer.html">Oppenheimer</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/10/troubles-dead-shot.html">Dead Shot</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/separate-rooms-eternal-daughter.html">The Eternal Daughter</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">5. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/mutant-cinema-scala.html">Scala!!!</a></i></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Top five films on terrestrial TV this week:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. <i>Notting Hill</i> (Wednesday, ITV1, 10.45am)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2016/07/on-dvd-zootropolis.html">Zootropolis</a></i> (Sunday, BBC1, 2.50pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2018/04/from-archive-selma.html">Selma</a></i> (Sunday, BBC1, 11.30pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-first-picture-of-you-photograph.html">Photograph</a></i> (Saturday, BBC2, 1.35am)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2019/09/on-tv-thelma.html">Thelma</a></i> (Tuesday, Channel 4, 2.20am)</span></div></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-65024637350966132582024-02-09T07:15:00.000-08:002024-02-10T03:25:19.266-08:00It happened here (and here and here): "Occupied City"<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6KtUylonkrG2MQOYByXzfbUEJiGvzChNtLu05UreVMK68Om_HAgeUDyY-tGYOxTFVZLfWJNrsKWNVsmzoyL_10-scA5GteHb2A565MLUT8qtac-tS5qpajCFrACZwOwXiWJVfrm7n41ts2ZvJ-A2S-jAyyRj706jmSTQsq31GRfCoz-VGNTff5rYj-90/s1600/OC.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6KtUylonkrG2MQOYByXzfbUEJiGvzChNtLu05UreVMK68Om_HAgeUDyY-tGYOxTFVZLfWJNrsKWNVsmzoyL_10-scA5GteHb2A565MLUT8qtac-tS5qpajCFrACZwOwXiWJVfrm7n41ts2ZvJ-A2S-jAyyRj706jmSTQsq31GRfCoz-VGNTff5rYj-90/w400-h300/OC.webp" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>Last week I mentioned the critical debate that has sprung up around Jonathan Glazer's <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/negative-space-zone-of-interest.html"><i>The Zone of Interest</i></a>. Steve McQueen's new WW2 doc <b>Occupied City</b> really <i>is</i> one tactic from start to finish - and one that, when stretched over a full four-and-a-half hours, becomes trying indeed. This was McQueen's pandemic project: in early 2021, the artist and filmmaker had just begun shooting around his adopted city of Amsterdam when the Dutch government announced the country was going back into lockdown. (For long stretches of the film, you imagine him pottering around town with his camera, trying to keep himself busy, as most of us were at that time.) What McQueen was filming, steered by his wife Bianca Stigter's non-fiction tome <i>Atlas of an Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940-1945</i>, was any location with a story to tell; more specifically, the story of the Nazi occupation and the subsequent purge of the city's Jewish population. For a minute or two at a time, we bear witness to shots of these streets, shops and tourist hotspots as they are now (or were during 2021-22), some of McQueen's subjects (the Rijksmuseum, the canals) more or less the same as they were during wartime, others (the Prada boutiques, fun pubs and domestic spaces) new or notably different. These largely static shots have been assembled one after the other, with a voiceover (credited to Melanie Hyams in the English-language version, and Carice van Houten in the Dutch cut) set over the top of them like an audio guide, cluing us in to what happened, house by house, sidestreet by sidestreet, district by district. In its essence, <i>Occupied City</i> is <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2019/01/1001-films-shoah-1985.html"><i>Shoah</i></a> without the onscreen presence to point something out, redirect the gaze or interrogate. Where Claude Lanzmann - for virtually his entire career - was involved in reportage, attempting to nail down the barbarous and banal detail of Nazism, McQueen comes this way as an artist, at every turn leaving the precise correlation of sound and vision, past and present, open to viewer interpretation. He believes the free hand offers the best resistance to the iron fist of tyranny; but as <i>Occupied City</i> demonstrates, this approach presents its own risks.</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">All of which is to say <i>Occupied City</i> is a film riven with problems, some of which are interesting enough on a conceptual level to merit wrestling with. In <i>The Zone of Interest</i>, image and soundtrack achieved a brilliant parity: two distinct elements, telling two equally dreadful stories. In <i>Occupied City</i>, McQueen's sharply framed, crystalline imagery simply rolls all over Hyams' voiceover like a tank - and that <i>is</i> a problem, because so much of the film's rhetorical power is invested in the latter's words. Would it help to have a different narrator (or narra<i>tors</i>)? We surely need something forceful from this testimony, someone capable of punching through the sensation we've been gathered for an artist's open-top bus tour of a major European metropolis; but Hyams has been encouraged to adopt a posh-adjacent, unvarying tone that suggests someone impassively reading a run of Tweets from one of those On This Day in 1940 accounts. And even if this ultra-engaged camera keeps moving forward, consistently alighting upon atmospheric, eyecatching material - a montage of shots from the upper decks of the city's gliding trams, kids taking advantage of a viral pause to go sledging - there's never much sense of how one shot relates to the next; for much of these 266 minutes, we appear to be bouncing around the city at random, scattering Lanzmann's formal rigour and geographic precision to the winds. In as much as McQueen looks to have worked up an editing strategy, it hinges on an unrelentingly facile contrast between, on one hand, the grim historical facts of territory that was once life-and-death and, on the other, the recorded sights and sounds of contemporary Dutch leisure and pleasure (coffee shops, nightclubs, etc.)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There's one final issue, and that's the complication of Covid. This part of the film is, I think, intended as the artist showing his working, which is to say the circumstances in which <i>Occupied City</i> was produced. (It is as the date a painter might sign in the corner of their canvas.) Yet early on in the film, McQueen introduces footage of an anti-lockdown protest, and the toing-and-froing that resulted. Are we meant to infer some parallel between germs and Nazis? Or between the onlooking police presence and the Nazi occupation Hyams has been telling us about - and thus to conclude that lockdown was its own form of tyranny? It could well be that McQueen intends to convey flux, the many ways in which a city and its people shift and lurch - how Amsterdam can find itself subject to fascism in one historical moment, mobilise en masse against it the next, and then <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/30/geert-wilders-win-far-right-western-europe">elevate a wingnut like Geert Wilders</a> to power a heartbeat later. But it's dangerously unclear and imprecise in this cut: these are vague gestures towards commentary and meaning, never once as powerful as Lanzmann's endeavours in a similar field, nor truthfully enough to hold the attention for four hours straight. What's semi-interesting here is that after <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2012/01/limited-release-shame.html">several supremely assured</a>, <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2017/05/from-archive-12-years-slave.html">much-garlanded features</a> <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2018/11/girls-with-guns-widows.html">that integrated elements of his erstwhile gallery career</a>, McQueen is still visibly learning the difference between video art and cinema - notably that the latter requires even closer direction and greater shape, the better to prevent the viewer from wandering off either mentally or physically. There have been many less admirable and worthy lockdown projects than <i>Occupied City</i>, yet it has to count as both an artistic and ideological failure when the principal takehome from your lengthy film about the atrocities of Nazi occupation is how nice Amsterdam looks once the sun comes out.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Occupied City opens in selected cinemas from today.</i></span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-72605658754446671752024-02-08T11:01:00.000-08:002024-02-08T11:03:32.679-08:00How to get ahead in publishing: "American Fiction"<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNQAmRbpZw_JBJPRsX0WQWuTIIzarvS45Jfd0wI5P2cYhZ4p8Ix_IqagVkR6zNklyCiE1KmdHz7lgQ2S1Ac7WVYaHbwivlZcJyOyggzEjghPmGiO-pvKNGKRKblAnAn2xrNaRPIDPFwGLRRjUfiYrVI8MVROdI5bi6OSCzRxDwAKaqE57-IwqT1wwnjKs/s3996/AF.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2997" data-original-width="3996" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNQAmRbpZw_JBJPRsX0WQWuTIIzarvS45Jfd0wI5P2cYhZ4p8Ix_IqagVkR6zNklyCiE1KmdHz7lgQ2S1Ac7WVYaHbwivlZcJyOyggzEjghPmGiO-pvKNGKRKblAnAn2xrNaRPIDPFwGLRRjUfiYrVI8MVROdI5bi6OSCzRxDwAKaqE57-IwqT1wwnjKs/w400-h300/AF.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>Among this year's Best Picture contenders, Cord Jefferson's <b>American Fiction</b> most readily tessellates with <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/old-school-holdovers.html">The Holdovers</a></i>, and it isn't just the two films' shared backdrop of fraught academia. So primed is this comedy-drama for its eventual small-screen debut (on Prime Video, no less) that it comes as faintly surprising that it doesn't come with a closing-credit dedication to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/dec/19/norman-lear-obituary">the recently deceased Norman Lear</a>, who spent the 1970s and 80s perfecting a blend of sitcom and soap that, in the face of a wider indifference from white network chiefs, aimed to communicate something astute and non-prescriptive about African-American lives. Jefferson's film starts out funny, introducing Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, exasperated lit professor and blocked writer, as he struggles to come to terms with the kinds of stories the mass market wants Black authors (and, we infer, Black writer-directors like Jefferson) to tell. These are not the highbrow modern riffs on the classics Monk and his agent (John Ortiz) reliably fail to sell, but the crass misery porn being churned out, to great acclaim and greater riches, by a younger, camera-ready rival, Sintara Golden (Issa Rae). Monk, in short, is a shade precious; the market merely wants another <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2010/04/heavyweight-contender-st-310110.html">Precious</a></i>. With this established, <i>American Fiction</i> shifts sideways, into a notably more sincere key. Jefferson relocates everyone to a Boston shore, where Monk's mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams) is slipping into dementia without the necessary funds to pay for round-the-clock care; he does this in order to get Monk to take the desperate measure of bashing out another, more saleable manuscript - headed "My Pafology", heavy on the street slang - and assuming the new and wholly false identity of fugitive voice-of-Black-America Stagg R. Leigh. This mix of exaggerated literary satire and downhome drama has apparently been a tough sell itself in certain quarters, yet I felt the actors smoothing over most of the joins. Take</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> the look Tracee Ellis Ross, as Monk's sister Lisa, shoots our hero as she realises he's been caught moving his books to a more prominent position in the bookstore </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">again</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">: a character beat that also happens to be supremely funny. You can hear Lear applauding from the rec room of TV Valhalla.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jefferson, it turns out, both knows the kind of story he wants to tell and, crucially, how best to tell it. Even as "My Pafology" becomes America's foremost literary talking point - doubly so upon being retitled just "Fuck" - the writer-director never forces the shifts of scene and tone; rather than ramping up the action, he sets it on a determinedly low simmer and to a mellow jazz score, allowing time for Monk to eat ice cream in the dunes with widowed neighbour Coraline (Erika Alexander). He has an ally in Wright, who can nudge the material back-and-forth between its constituent modes subtly and thoughtfully, yet with a gravity all his own. His Monk is recognisable as a comically frustrated creative, both as a writer <i>and</i> the actor this plot requires him to become, but also as a weary citizen, and a loving, helpless son. The underlying assertion is that if a film can be multiple (perhaps sometimes contradictory) things at once, there's no reason we can't also appreciate that Black lives are many lives simultaneously, and that each of them matter. As a thesis-movie, it is, granted, far more writerly and inside-baseball than the broadly universal <i>The Holdovers</i>, careful plotting steering everyone towards a (choice) punchline about the lip service paid to "listening to Black voices", and beyond to the least demonstrative of its own multiple endings. As cinema, <i>American Fiction</i> is so anti-"Pafology", so insistently adult-oriented and MOR, that it can't deliver the gutpunch of a <i>Precious</i>, dishonest as that film might have been, nor the irrepressible bellylaughs of a full-on satire like Spike Lee's <i>Bamboozled</i>. (There are echoes of <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-boys-in-hoods-blackkklansman.html">BlacKkKlansman</a></i> in the subterfuge of this plot, but Jefferson isn't yet in a position to cut loose as Lee now routinely does.) The consolation prize, and it's an acceptable one, is a constant stream of chuckles and titters, and an understanding that, for once, an American fiction is pandering to what remains of our intelligence. Jefferson's playing a slow and steady game here, and his stealth pays off as often as not: for one, his supporting characters emerge as far better rounded and nuanced than the role for which Da'Vine Joy Randolph is surely about to win the Oscar.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>American Fiction is now playing in selected cinemas.</i></span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-24015054677524443752024-02-06T08:01:00.000-08:002024-02-06T08:01:49.599-08:00Panda pop: "Turning Red"<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4psPrgaQKZeKK1h-3d0AUVvlwGme1bIeODG7_ioJa-cfJo1g4RqzFNxL1wlHKlgFRam-nMcSv0_8V33PJNHjX0b2wpFejgVwPQxubqP4xU_4daCGemqWp4X3rAub9Zb841m-QyBhaYs-lIfyFmpN6xt72l-RdqvFZxLzzSn07gMbwZEI5FEjS8bTfv6Q/s1600/TR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="901" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4psPrgaQKZeKK1h-3d0AUVvlwGme1bIeODG7_ioJa-cfJo1g4RqzFNxL1wlHKlgFRam-nMcSv0_8V33PJNHjX0b2wpFejgVwPQxubqP4xU_4daCGemqWp4X3rAub9Zb841m-QyBhaYs-lIfyFmpN6xt72l-RdqvFZxLzzSn07gMbwZEI5FEjS8bTfv6Q/w400-h225/TR.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Disney are giving a handful of their pandemic-era straight-to-streaming offerings a belated theatrical release in coming weeks, perhaps with an eye to picking up the commercial slack after the underperformance of <i>Wish</i> and the most recent Marvel spinoffs. The project begins this Lunar New Year weekend with the relaunch of 2022's Oscar-nominated <b>Turning Red</b>, one of Pixar's livelier digimations of late, and further evidence of that great boom in Asian-American creativity that in the past few years has given us the so-so <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2020/09/china-girl-mulan.html"><i>Mulan</i></a> redo, but also the excellent network sitcom <i>Fresh Off The Boat</i>, the much-garlanded <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2022/05/in-mood-for-lolz-everything-everywhere.html"><i>Everything Everywhere All at Once</i></a>, the bestilled <a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/09/another-time-another-place-past-lives.html"><i>Past Lives</i></a> and the current Netflix fave <i>The Brothers Sun</i>. Yet in following up her weird and wonderful short <i>Bao</i> - a fully-fledged Oscar-winner back in 2019 - co-writer/director Domee Shi has been encouraged to find the difference within the difference; demographic representation isn't all the feature has up its sleeve. For starters, she alights upon a fresh-looking setting in the closeknit streets that make up Toronto's Chinatown (some wag has to have made the crack that even our entirely pixellated productions are now heading north for tax breaks), and a distinctively gawky and maladroit heroine in pre-teen high-schooler Meilin (voiced by Rosalie Chiang): bespectacled, unruly of eyebrow, unable to sit still for a minute of screentime, and about to hit puberty in a spectacular way, after she wakes up one morning transformed into a giant red panda. It is at once the kind of batshit conceit - part <i>manga</i>, part Kafka - one might only film as animation, and even then after a long struggle to sneak it past the various straitlaced committees and moneymen involved. Yet as Shi must have realised while rendering sequences of the newly hirsute Meilin running across the city's rooftops, it would also be pitchable as a distaff variation on that Spider-Man legend the men of Hollywood have been profitably labouring over for two decades now - a film about finding one's power in menstruation rather than ejaculation.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The limitations here are down to <i>Turning Red</i> being PG-rated Disney product: there's only so much it can show and do. Meilin's transformation into a furry, growly, stinky mess is literally framed as, in large part, a reaction to the terse conservatism of her family. (An opening photomontage shows her and her parents clad in matching Mr/Mrs/Miss Entrepreneur T-shirts, defining a more stereotypical outlet for Chinese creativity.) Yet the alternatives the film presents us with aren't as radical as they might have been. Even the riled-up Meilin is still a cute talking critter, positioned in a long tradition of shapeshifters both within and without the narrative; her residual (and, it's implied, lifesaving) boyband worship is played straight (<i>contra</i> the more satirical "Boyz 4 Now" gags in <i>Bob's Burgers</i>), such that <i>Turning Red</i> often seems to be counselling not to let Mother Nature get in the way of being a good little consumer. There's some tail-off, then, the initial eruptions of transgressive energy proving more memorable than what follows: one of those knotty-plotty Act Twos that come as standard with mid-period Pixar, and a stompy showdown between rival pandas that was at least conceived with the big screen in mind. That visual dynamism is the consolation prize, and keeps the film engaging over its 100 minutes. These characters move like few others in the Pixar canon, equally uneasy on foot and paw; while a flicker or two of surrealism (like the forest dreamscape that suggests <i>House of Flying Daggers</i> redesigned by Dali) bodes well for future Shi/Pixar work. Even the Toronto scenes display that heightened sensitivity to light and texture that distinguishes the best Pixar films: the corrugated cardboard panda costume Meilin knocks up, Peter Parker style, to contain her outbursts is a wondrous, quasi-tangible object, while the roseate sundown glow of Shi's exteriors thoughtfully recontextualises the heroine's condition as a wholly natural state of affairs, a circulation change that may be an inconvenience but can also ultimately be endured and lived with. Such choices indicate <i>Turning Red </i>has been lovingly fussed over rather than simply knocked out; and its feminist elements ("my panda, my choice" and all) feel integrated rather than merely cosmetic. For youngsters approaching this pivotal moment, the whole would make a sound double-bill with the recent <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/06/in-blume-are-you-there-god-its-me.html">Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret</a></i> - the same underlying story, only paler and with a dash more storytelling assurance.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Turning Red is currently streaming on Disney+, and opens in cinemas nationwide from Friday.</i></span></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793728792473426877.post-39706505211854689472024-02-02T11:57:00.000-08:002024-02-08T11:01:59.159-08:00For what it's worth...<div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM5yoeOzP7YfUw6rMLqpfGvxkMnXYj4vl__8jgXqrza0tB0ESZAWg2CoE1XbmAkZ1BthopRKwWkYA5YneNsTbBCCMBliElNTDD7MVWkXkMIl8zEVOCegvyiHPSxHlt_6Qu62YqGeE8UCF0g52T4-mg_kmD5GZE_xKtK6g346oQu3oxSX-Wzhl3ETkJURc/s900/10TIHAY.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="571" data-original-width="900" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM5yoeOzP7YfUw6rMLqpfGvxkMnXYj4vl__8jgXqrza0tB0ESZAWg2CoE1XbmAkZ1BthopRKwWkYA5YneNsTbBCCMBliElNTDD7MVWkXkMIl8zEVOCegvyiHPSxHlt_6Qu62YqGeE8UCF0g52T4-mg_kmD5GZE_xKtK6g346oQu3oxSX-Wzhl3ETkJURc/w400-h254/10TIHAY.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: georgia;">UK box office Top Ten</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (for the weekend of January 26-28, 2024)</span><b style="font-family: georgia;">:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1 (1) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/fetch-lives-mean-girls.html">Mean Girls</a></i> (12A) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2 (new) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/living-in-another-world-all-of-us.html">All of Us Strangers</a></i> (15) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3 (2) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4 (4) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Anyone but You</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">3</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/goo-goo-dolls-poor-things.html">Poor Things</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (18) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">6 (6) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/old-school-holdovers.html">The Holdovers</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (15) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">7 (new) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/02/mid-gun-fighter.html">Fighter</a></i> (15) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">8 (new) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/happy-now-color-purple.html">The Color Purple</a></i> (12A) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">9 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">5</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">) </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">One Life</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (12A)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">10 (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">7</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Beekeeper </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(15)</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(source: <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/industry-data-insights/weekend-box-office-figures">BFI</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">)</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia;">My top five:</b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/at-play-in-fields-of-lord-days-of-heaven.html">Days of Heaven</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/negative-space-zone-of-interest.html">The Zone of Interest</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. <i>10 Things I Hate About You</i> [above]</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2013/07/mystery-man-enigma-of-kaspar-hauser.html">The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/02/how-to-get-ahead-in-publishing-american.html">American Fiction</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">DVD/Blu-Ray/Do</b><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">wnload top ten: </b></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1 (new) <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/pick-n-mix-wonka.html">Wonka</a></i> (PG) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2 (new) <i>Wish</i> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3 (1) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/11/enter-void-marvels.html">The Marvels</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12) **</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">4 (3) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Trolls Band Together</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (U)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">5 (4) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/boom-oppenheimer.html">Oppenheimer</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15) ****</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">6 (8) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Five Nights at Freddy's</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">7 (9) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/its-doll-revolution-barbie.html">Barbie</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12) ***</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">8 (6) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (12)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">9 (10) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/10/roots-killers-of-flower-moon.html">Killers of the Flower Moon</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15) ****</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">10 (5) </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The Equalizer 3</i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> (15)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(source: </span><a href="https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/film-chart/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">officialcharts.com</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><b>My top five: </b><br />1. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/08/boom-oppenheimer.html">Oppenheimer</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/12/separate-rooms-eternal-daughter.html">The Eternal Daughter</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2024/01/mutant-cinema-scala.html">Scala!!!</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/09/lust-caution-passages.html">Passages</a></i></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">5. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2023/10/one-foot-in-grave-great-escaper.html">The Great Escaper</a></i></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Top five films on terrestrial TV this week:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. <i>Don't Look Now</i> (Friday, BBC2, 11.05pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. <i>Mission: Impossible</i> (Saturday, Channel 4, 7pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2021/06/breaking-dad-nobody.html">Nobody</a></i> (Saturday, Channel 4, 9.10pm)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. <i><a href="https://cinesthesiac.blogspot.com/2014/10/northern-soul-guardian-171014.html">Northern Soul</a></i> (Saturday, BBC2, 12.40am)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. <i>Sister Act</i> (Sunday, Channel 4, 4.20pm)</span></div></div>Mike McCahillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04422740293868518305noreply@blogger.com0