Uneasy is the head

Wow. OK. Gojira has had a tough slog at the movies (US, style) in recent decades. The Emmerich twins took a shot at it, and missed. More recently Bryan Cranston played crazy scientist in somewhat better recent take. Good but not great, many thought.

Then there is this mess. I really wanted to like "King of the Monsters" since it seemed like a natural follow on to the Cranston effort. But, maybe they could have taken baby steps, and done a Mothra or Rodan flick, first? But no, they had to bite off the full Avengers-style, the-gangs-all-here thing. And, therein lies the flub, to coin a phrase.

From its opening set-piece, involving a confusing visit to one of Monarch's many monitoring station thingys around the world, "King" moves breathlessly from one monster to the next, as they awaken, and tries to tie all of the madness together with two parallel story-lines. First, is the family story line involving the great Vera Farmiga (wasted here, IMHO) and the other a monster story line involving a three-headed beast trying to unseat our pal, Gojira as, well "King of the Monsters".

Meh. Too much action, too little thought on the story line and some terrible dialogue all add up to a disappointing result. The visuals are pretty spectacular, and the pace relentless. But, to what end?

Oh, the next Gojira film in the "GCU, Godzilla Cinematic Universe", not doubt.

Bad Timing (Roeg) in space?

Like many reviewers, I do pay attention to what is written by others, prior to watching a film. In this case, that was a good idea. I have rarely seen a film (at least on Amazon Video) that had such strong negative, and positive reviews. I do have to say, after watching this gritty "sci fi" film from French filmmaker Claire Denis, I side with those who liked it.

Now, I say that, agreeing somewhat with the idea that one has to take (some) French filmmakers with a grain of art-for-art's-sake salt. On the other hand, I don't agree that one is a Philistine if one doesn't like this film, doesn't care for Denis or French film in general. It is nothing, if not an acquired taste.

Make no mistake, "High Life" is hard to watch. Much is implied in its 'fractured time' narrative structure where flashbacks to previous occurrences take up progressively more and more of the real time present of the film, but much is also not clear. What is implied is that the interstellar spaceship carries a group of hardened criminals from Earth, and that strange experiments are being conducted on them, in space, by a cooly evil and sexually starved "Doctor," played effectively by Juliette Binoche. What is not clear is why these experiments are being conducted, what happened on Earth. Well, a lot is not clear.

And therein lies the rub, as the Bard would say. If you like ambiguity you will love "High Life", If you want your narratives, plot, characters, etc. straightforward, you probably won't. This film, for some reason, reminded me of Nicholas Roeg's "Eureka" in its relative impenetrability. Or perhaps Roeg's "Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession" in its deconstruction of Human Sexuality. Roeg has been vilified by critics and divided audiences in a similar manner that here Denis' film does.

And the debate about whether this is really a Sci Fi film is rather hilarious. Many Sci Fi fans reserve the right to decide what is, and what is not Sci Fi, while others agree that there are many differing types of the genre called Sci Fi. I think, in some respects, Denis is having us on, as the brits say, by using the Sci Fi form as a way to tell a larger, more difficult-to-palate story than most Sci Fi attempts to do.

The main narrative arc (pun intended) of “High Life” is a spaceship hurtling toward a Black Hole, and the ultimate experiment being some passengers taking the ship’s landing craft to try to cross the Event Horizon to determine whether it is possible to survive such a journey. Denis uses that through line, if you will, as a kind of laundry line upon which she hangs the more meaningful questions posed in High-Life. For example, if we could, would we send convicted prisoners into outer space and conduct experiments on the,? If we did that, would they survive, and more importantly, what would happen to their sexual appetite and drive?

Perhaps most importantly, if they had children, what would those children be like, and what would happen to them? While High-Life doesn’t answer these questions, it poses them in a film whose no-frills technique – the SFX remind me of 1970s era greats, like The Black Hole and Silent Running – succeeds despite itself.

You might like it, or you might not. You won’t know until you try.

It's not Marvel, it's Mar Vell

All I could think about while watching this solid entry in the MCU was the lyric from Outkast "so fresh and so clean clean." I wouldn't call this female-forward entry exactly a re-boot -- after all, it is not a Big Event Avengers movie, with a capital "A" -- but would call it a refreshing take on the 'Chapter 1' films that each character has gotten.

Not the extravagance and heavy philosophical trip that was the first Doctor Strange, but not as relatively light (pun intended) as Ant-Man, Captain Marvel I think strikes just the right chord. And, speaking of music, apparently the MCU is now surveying the decades: where Guardians of the Galaxy brought us back 70s Top 40, the playlist for Captain is, natch, decade-appropriate for a movie set in 1995. Tracks by Garbage, No Doubt and other female-fronted acts seem well matched to the subject matter here. Carol Danvers is "just a girl in the world" but, once she, in typical super-hero fashion, unleashes her powers, that is most certainly not "'all that (they) will let (her) be."

Note: the scene/music video where the fully-fleshed Captain Marvel kicks some Kree butt to the tune of the afore-mentioned No Doubt song is really marvelous.

I read a lot of highbrow film criticism and I know that, while critics take the MCU seriously, they are also pretty exhausted by its, well, corporate-ness. They bemoan the fact that, especially under Disney, it seems to have become something of a monster money machine, replicating itself seemingly for the main purpose of lining the parent company's coffers. I can't totally disagree, which is why Captain Marvel seems like an accomplishment. Especially as it came out right before the Epic Avengers: Endgame.

Here we have the origin story for one of the most powerful Marvel heroes of all. Starting in the present and both flashing back – through a neat trick of memory fragments – and recovering facts about her past, the film shows the present day “Vers” under the tutelage of her Kree special forces leader, played by the always wonderful Jude Law. Of course their mission will take them to Earth and of course it will involve trying to recover an important power source that if you have been following the complex narrative strands of the MCU plays an essential role in several of the films to date.

A series of plot reversals which I won’t spoil for anyone reading this review gets us to the Central Conflict of Captain Marvel: the Kree attempting to capture and wipe out the “terrorist” Scrolls and recovering the powerful power source. Resolving this, transforming Carol into Captain and having her fully unlock her powers is all accomplished nicely in just over two hours. That economy of story-telling should, itself, be cause for celebration.

Add to that the Oscar-winning Brie Larson who seems to really be enjoying herself, along with the usual cast of supporting characters and you have a solid addition to the MCU. Or just fun popcorn movie. Take your pick.

"Rebecca" and "My Cousin Rachel" it is not

I really wanted to like Jamaica Inn, considering that: 1) its Hitch; and 2) the source material is Daphne DuMarier. But, sadly, my second time watching this, Hitch's "last British film" my main reaction was Meh.

I guess I am not as much of a Film Classics expert as i would like to think myself. This is considered by many to be a Classic, and I guess if you really watch a lot of British films from the 30s and 40s, the over-acting and excessively stylized lighting, etc. makes sense. But, after just watching Hitchcock's next DuMarier entrant, Rebecca, and also the under-appreciated My Cousin Rachel i couldn't help but wonder what all the fuss is about Jamaica Inn.

I mean it is good, even great in some places. But, it is also kind of strange. I spent some time with the Criterion Collection DVD Extras for Rebecca, and learned that there was quite a lot of friction between David O. Selznick and Hitch over the initial treatment for Rebecca. Apparently Hitch and his writers wanted to do a lot of free adaptation, including having the opening scene take place on an ocean liner, where "I" and DeWinter actually meet before they spend time in Monte Carlo.

Maybe that explains what is going on here, where a pretty creepy, Gothic story about murderous "ship wreckers" on the Cornish coast is given touches of almost comic relief. The inimitable Charles Laughton, who could play comedy and drama equally deftly, seems to not be sure whether his Squire is a buffoon, or a murderous rich man. One of the early scenes in his dining hall plays like a combination of Downton Abbey and the Mira Nair Vanity Fair. And either the actor playing the "quasi-evil" (to coin a phrase) Jess doesn't seem to know whether to play the character slightly insane, or that was how the character was written. I haven't read the book, so I don't know.

The one really solid, positive point for Jamaica is the great Maureen O'Hara who, here is in her debut role, if you can believe it. But, actors and actresses have killed it in their debuts, as Audrey Hepburn and many others have shown. Weirdly, O'Hara's character falls for one of the smugglers who turns out to be a law enforcement agent (because that makes sense) and their relationship almost makes sense.

Almost.

It's not "High Noon". It doesn't need to be.

So, I went in to this superb "Western" with a kind of chip on my shoulders. Some reviewers on Amazon has compared it to "High Noon" which, IMHO is not only one of the best Westerns ever made, but one of the best films to come out of Hollywood's Golden Era. Now that I have seen "Last Train" I understand why one would see the similarity, but I don't agree. "Last Train" really stands on its own -- and no, it is not better than "Noon" -- but is really very different. And good.

The eminent, and still-living Patriarch of Hollywood Actors, Kirk Douglas, plays a man who's Native American wife is raped and killed by the not-so-young and definitely foolish son of a Cattle Baron. The son played by a young Earl Holliman and the Cattle Baron an always excellent Anthony Quinn. The twist is that Douglas's character used to be friends with Quinn's which sets up the straightforward but substantive conflict that shapes the last half of the film.

Where the comparisons with "High Noon" come in are that Douglas's character journeys to the wonderfully named town of "Gun Hill" to exact revenge on said Cattle Baron's son, and states he is going to leave on the 9 pm train, killer-in-tow. So, there is a deadline that itself becomes a motive force in the narrative. The difference with "Noon", though is that the Threat comes from the good guy, Douglas's character, not the Bad Guy(s) as happens in the great Fred Zinneman classic starring Gary Cooper.

Story, direction, and acting is all superb, and the music is done by Dimitri Tiomkin, who did the score for "Noon." But, the score for "Noon" is IMHO one of the best ever penned for a Hollywood film. Here it is great, but merely incidental to the beautiful VistaVision photography ("Noon" was shot in glorious Black and White, of course). Great stuff.

Nazis. I hate these guys.

Not sure what to make of this fast-paced and violent gore-fest produced by impresario JJ Abrams. On the one hand, it is a quasi-horror film set in middle of Nazi Germany during the fiercest fighting of WWII. Om the other hand it kind of meanders a bit, especially in the first 30 minutes trying to set up what ends up being a not-entirely-satisfying final act, where the, ahem, monsters appear. On the other, other hand the cast of mostly unknowns is pretty good. On the other other other hand the plot is almost impenetrable. Some not-so-evil Nazi Doctor from Central Casting is doing some unexplained experiments on French townspeople, turning them into 1000 year soldiers? Say what? Meh.

A Beautiful Film

It is so interesting to go back to a film that one loves after a long absence. It offers one a chance to re-assess the film, and to some extent gauge whether initial enthusiasm was warranted.

In the case of "A Beautiful Mind", it was. Big time.

I was fortunate to have been able to see this Ron Howard gem when it first came out, in the theaters. In fact, I can remember where I saw it, the Century Theaters in Mountain View, California when I was living in Sunnyvale, California. Not that any of that matters, but the film had such a profound effect on me it is important to remember where I was when I first saw it. That profound effect was produced both by the mastery of the film-making and acting, and also by how deeply it affected me.

Despite its detractors -- and there are some -- I really don't understand how anyone cannot find this to be a stunning, remarkable film full of passion, meaning and artistic beauty. It starts with the story, which is probably largely true, concerning the descent into the Hell of severe mental illness that Nobel-prize winning Mathematician John Nash experienced in the 1950s. It continues with the light but expert hand of filmmaker Ron Howard who, IMHO is one of the most under-rated filmmakers working in this country. And it continues with a lovely score by the late, great James Horner and ends with remarkable, memorable performances from an A List cast, including the Oscar-winning turn by Jennifer Connelly as Nash's long-suffering wife, and a great group of supporting players lead by another criminally-underrated actor, Josh Lucas, Ed Harris, Paul Bettany and the wonderful Judd Hirsch.

The main event here, is the story of Nash, and his Character, played with almost Shakespearean power by previous Oscar-winner Russell Crowe. As much as Crowe's star has faded a bit in recent years it burns "with a hard, gem-like flame" (John Ruskin) here, as Crowe takes on a very, very difficult task: to morph from the arrogant intelligence of a younger Nash, through the Hellish flowering of Schizophrenia - perhaps the worst of all emotional disorders - and finally emerge triumphantly on the other side. Not so much at the Nobel Awards ceremony, which is of course his triumphant public moment, but in his ability to come to terms with his illness, accept that he does need medical treatment but also that he needs to fight the demons that besiege him for himself, for his wife and for his students. This is what great film-making is all about.

Why this actually made me cry upon re-watching is because my Family has had its own share of Mental Illness. It is not appropriate to share the details of that (out of respect for their privacy) in a Public Blog, but sufficed to say I know very much what those who knew and loved Nash went through watching him struggle with this terrible disease. The film tugged at my heart strings not in any cliched or manipulative way, but in a very powerful and personal way.

Thank you Ron Howard, Russell Crowe but most of all John Nash.