Miscellaneous Films 9
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
This is an absolutely hilarious, clever movie-cum-act of devotion. Young Nic Cage makes out with old Nic Cage. Old Nic Cage fights with young Nic Cage about the importance of stardom and art. Pedro Pascal is that annoying fan that knows and cares more about every tiny detail of your career than you do. The whole film is structured around re-creating scenes from Cage's work and the work that he admires. It's so well done!
My Father’s Dragon
If you didn't know going in that this was produced in part by the same outfit responsible for The Secret of Kells and Wolfwalkers you'd remark on the similarity of the art style, which is me and I did.
Like Ghibli films, no clear simple baddie but rather characters making the best of their circumstances. I enjoyed it, and it's well above Netflix's general fare.
Little Women
OK, so that doesn't narrow it down much; there have been more that a few adaptations of this book over there years. This is the 2019 version by Greta Gerwig, and featuring a number of her regular actors. I enjoyed it a great deal, and the L M Montgomery fan of the house found it a very good version of the story. One item of particular note is that Gerwig re-orders the telling of the story in a way which works very well for film.
It's worth watching some of the making of features that are available, because a number of (apparently) potentially contentious decisions are well-explained.
Hell Dogs - In the House of Bamboo
One of the oddest things about Japanese films, to my eye, is the number that kick off with a pre-cap of what's going to happen in the movie. I was surprised the first time I hit this, and it pops up. I’m not sure if it’s a genre convention, but thinking about it I’ve only seen it in crime films - and it makes sense as well the way that Yakuza games all open with a similar conceit.
This is not a stunningly original film - police officer motivated by fridged family to go undercover with the yakuza to go on a rampage of vengeance - but it’s well executed, with solid performances. Great way to kill a few hours.
Turning Red
In the tedious rage of “culture wars” we constantly have man-babies shitting themselves with anger whenever girls show up in “their” films, but of course when a classic Disney film is centred on a girl hitting puberty, that’s unacceptable as well. It’s not about staying in your lane, it’s about not being allowed any lane at all.
Anyway, that peeve aside, Turning Red is a well-done coming of age film (a term that I'm rather reluctant to use given how often it's coded as an excuse for an audience to perve at kids being sexy), exploring lead character Mei’s adolescent tension with her mother, dealing with menstruation, straddling her family’s Chinese heritage and being an American kid. Oh and the whole “turning into a giant red panda when I feel strong emotions” bit.
Well voiced, well written, it’s the right mix of funny and serious.
Knives Out
A glorious bit of whodunnit that allows Daniel Craig the opportunity to ham it up as a private detective investigating the murder of a publishing tycoon, possibly by his maid, possibly by his family members, most of whom are suspicious and suspect by turns. A remarkable cast, beautifully shot, and tremendously funny. It works equally well as a straight film or as an affectionate poke at the genre conventions.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
This makes an interesting pairing with The Menu; both are pointed social critiques, but while The Menu asks you to think about which character you are, Glass Onion makes fun of who you hold up as an icon. Daniel Craig returns with a different American accent for the same character as the first film. Janelle Monae is superb; Dave Bautista absolutely rips on self-styled “alpha males”, and Edward Norton is a delight. It’s been criticised by people for not being subtle, from which I infer it rubbed their noses in the crapulence of one or more of their faves too hard for them to ignore; it’s as excessive as the culture that it’s attacking, and it’s all the more delightful for it. And it’s one of the all-to-rare films that acknowledges that COVID exists.
Three Thousand Years of Longing
Glorious colour, absolutely glorious. Tilda Swinton as a rather cloistered professor of stories travels to Türkiye, encounters a Manic Pixie Dream Genie… actually that’s not really accurate. He’s more a World Weary Realistic Genie who both tells - in fantastic fashion - stories from his life, Arabian Nights style, while improving Swinton’s life. A wonderful spectacle provides scaffolding for a very human story.
The Gray Man
Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas, and Chris Evans? I should not be as bored as I was. It wasn't terrible, just by-the-numbers indifferent. Particularly jarring after seeing two of the three of them be brilliant fun in Knives Out.
It’s something special to have a script and direction that can make this level of talent boring.
