I wanted to close the year with something a bit better than the disappointing of last time. So, between two cooking rounds, I decided to try a short entry for "Youth", although it probably deserves a more detailed review than the previous one. Who has seen "Il Divo" and "La Grande Bellezza" probably knows already the directing and writing style of Paolo Sorentino. For who didn't see "Il Divo" and "La Grande Bellezza" what I can summarize in two words is: chillout movie. Probably this doesn't cover all that should be covered = the drama part, the reflections over life part, the bitter comedy, and all else you can find in the two movies and even more in "Youth". But I think "chillout movie" catches the essential regarding the mood state where this movie fits. It's slowly advancing, and it might awake some strong feelings on the way, but nothing suddenly. It does it gradually, until the end credits roll over.
Technically, "Youth" is a remarkable achievement. I cannot tell how it is overall compared with "La Grande Bellezza", but for camera work what we have here is clearly better (and it wasn't bad in the other place either). There are many voices praising Michael Caine's performance in the leading role. I agree, but what I find overlooked is the character played by Harvey Keitel, who I think here has the best performance ever at least from what I've seen.
I'll wrap up with what I usually have in the introductory part. What's the subject in "Youth"? We have a snapshot from the final years of an orchestra conductor, while he spends his usual vacation in a mountain resort in Switzerland. That's it. Mainly a few days from a guy's life and what surrounds him. To conclude, starting from the subject description, I think "Youth" is actually recommended to watch until a certain age .. Don't know why, but I guess seeing it after you're 40-50 years old might gain a stronger depressing factor than what it already has. Even if, in the end, the final part can be seen as a metaphor of "you can stay forever young" :)
First thing: If you didn't see any "Star Wars" and you'd like to start with this one, maybe it's better to stop reading here. You're the fortunate case! You might not get many references from the movie, but you might still like it. And it doesn't make sense to alter your expectations by getting a couple spoilers, which I'll try to minimize, even though it's impossible for me to remove them completely...
Now let's get to us, the rest who had a piece of the SW universe before. If I would do a statistic of my blog entries and the associated ratings, I think what I'd get would be at least 2/3 in accordance with most of the professional critics related to the "fresh" vs "rotten" verdict for a move. That's for saying that I can't be accused of being against the wave just for the sake of doing so. This was a disclaimer for what follows ... Because I'm baffled by the appreciation "The Force Awakens" gets. I simply can't understand, and unfortunately I can't say that I've read many reviews to get it .. but the reason for that is that they don't present reasons! at least not objectively! Besides subjective awe and ecstatic appreciation like wow, we finally find out that Force is in anything that's living (no man, we knew that already!!! - and seriously, I've seen that in a review by a "top critic"), that stormtroopers have heart and are capable of feelings (we knew that too! at least literally speaking = they're humans for God sake!), and others like these ... I'll try to make an objective analysis of what we're served with (as objective as I can). And I'll start with the negative part, because ... the dark side is stronger in this one.
Let's leave aside the many parts that are too SciFi even for a SciFi, because that's what we get in pretty much any movie of this size. This is minor. Let's get to what's much worse than this, and a first mark to make is the negative character: Kylo Ren. The comparison with Darth Vader is unavoidable. Both the one in the original series, and also Anakin Skywalker from Ep. I-III. The difference is huge. Hayden Christensen got many critics for his acting skills when he played Anakin, but ironically exactly his lack of expression served him extremely well for a character who's slowly dehumanizing. The voice of James Earl Jones for the original Darth Vader is the definition of charisma. That's totally lacking in the new movie. Maybe it's not that much the actor's fault, but the script is definitely to blame. Let's move over the unknown reason why the guy wears a mask, which is also damaged (maybe the Dark Side lacks funds for renewing helmets). The character is hilarious ... it's prone to parody. His nervous breakdowns when he strikes everywhere with his sword like a spoiled teenager made me think on the "Spaceballs" Darth Vader version. There's needless to say that even the movie itself makes a laugh out of it with one of the many jokes that aren't at all fit in the script = we have a scene when during such a breakdown, two stormtroopers change their patrolling route which passes by the the angry wielder of the red laser. May the Schwartz be with us ...
J.J. Abrams tried something that worked in "Star Trek". It made it more relaxed. And it worked because he had room to make it more relaxed (plus the crew of the original series fits with that). You can't do the same with "Star Wars". SW has already a wide target audience that's much less geek oriented compared to ST, and which includes also small age categories. There's no room, and in many situations as the joke above or other aspects it feels that "nope, that didn't work" ...
That's something more that Abrams got in "Star Trek", superbly I could say, and here gets close to embarrassingly bad. Trying to make key references through scenes close to the previous movies. Kirk's death scene in "Into Darkness" for instance, the exact opposite of the similar death of Spock in "Wrath of Khan" .. this was pure gold. Inverting the roles almost identically, the alternate timeline, the same negative character, the climax moment in the movie, there's lots of stuff that put together give a connecting point over years with the older movie, and it's impossible not to feel something about it if you know what dots to connect. "Star Wars" on the other hand is simply repetitive ... and that's it ... we start with a droid lost in the desert who carries a secret message (sounds familiar?) ... we have a bigger and meaner Death Star which does pretty much the same thing as the previous one: destroys planets ... and (spoiler alert) we have the climax scene as in "Star Trek", in which we also have here the role inversion, father-son with a reference to "Empire Strikes Back". Only that the symmetry we had in ST that hit you with a nostalgic feeling of "history repeats", that symmetry is really messed up here ... Ironically even if the symmetry is not that much there, probably unfortunately intending to obtain something original, this originality suffers of another huge problem: it's ultra-predictable! where ultra = you know what follows with something like 5-10 minutes before the scene's climax ... But, let's stop here and keep the "surprise" factor.
And still ... let's not drop it completely. Probably the scene wanted to be a key moment in the movie. A memorable one. It fails badly. Stuff that only happened (maybe) in "The Phantom Menace". In each of the other "Star Wars" we have at least a scene to remember. In "A New Hope" is either the first sight of Darth Vader, or the destruction of the Death Star. In "Empire Strikes Back" is the duel Darth Vader vs. Luke when the latter loses his hand. In "Return of the Jedi" is the death of Darth Vader and the first time when the mask falls down. In "The Clone Wars" is the duel Yoda vs. Dooku when we see for the first time why Yoda carries a sword. In "Revenge of the Sith" is the ending of the Anakin vs. Obi-Wan duel and practically the birth of Vader. In "Phantom Menace" maybe it wanted to be the death of Qui Gon Jinn, but that didn't work as it doesn't work now either ... you cannot have a key scene that looks like trying to repeat another key scene but it's also undecided about that ...
Let's move a bit to the light part ... at least a bit. The movie is long but you can't feel it. I have to admit this. And if one of the worst problems is the negative character, maybe the best part is the positive character: Rey. Finally, we have a girl as Jedi knight :) + the actress did her job perfectly. Unfortunately I can't appreciate much besides these. What I can, is to hope that "The Force Awakens" will be an Episode I "The Phantom Menace" comparing to what's coming after ...
Let's get into the subject: "London has Fallen" in March. I don't have much hope this will be less lame than Olympus, but I also don't have many trailers released for what's coming next spring ...
"Zootopia" seems a bit more ... no, actually a lot more promising. Even though we don't have Gerard Butler as a re-invented John McClane like in the one before.
DC Comics strikes back, with what it has more powerful: Batman and Superman in the same package in .. well .. "Batman vs. Superman" .. starring Ben Affleck .. as Batman .. (why I start having doubts that George Clooney is the worst Dark Knight? ...)
"Ratchet and Clank" is an animation getting out in April. I didn't like that much the trailer, but the synopsis was intriguing enough. Apparently with some PlayStation origins ...
If we have a fight between Batman and Superman, we definitely needed something from Marvel too ... "Captain America: Civil War" = Cpt. America vs Iron Man in May. In DC Comics' defense their subject has some older roots and was actually very well depicted in an animated version (probably one of the best Batman versions ever) ... Marvel's thing smells too much as marketing response for me ...
"The Nice Guys" seems for now the most interesting title announced for next spring. Shane Black is back after quite a while to the genre where we had the best from him as director, but even more as screenwriter: crime/thriller (as references every "Lethal Weapon" + the masterpiece: "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"). Sounds promising ...
"X-Men: Apocalypse" ... no Wolverine ... too much Marvel, too many superheroes, enough said ...
That's about all for this preview round. Finally managed to finish it, a bit rushed it's true. Now' ... to take a vacation from blogging, not to take, to take, not to take ...
Yup, I know it's nearly the end of December, but better late than never. So let's see what we have this winter in cinemas. Starting with the already released "Star Wars". Not seen yet, and I must say that I don't have ultra-high expectations ... We'll see ...
"Youth" is not actually released this month, but this month it got the big prize on the European Film Awards. A co-production directed by Paolo Sorentino, which looks as a must see (at least if you liked "Il Divo" and "La Grande Bellezza"):
I don't trust much what I see in the "Point Break" remake trailer (plus it sort of reminds me how much older I am compared to when the original was released... OMG...), but I don't have any other option for this end of month ...
January starts with "The Hateful Eight" the 8th movie by Tarantino. Apparently more confined in terms of action space than the previous two, it somehow makes me think on "Ten Little Indians" by Agatha Christie. Let's see what we'll have there ...
"The Revenant" by Inarritu reminds me a bit of Gibson's "Apocalypto". Probably with comparable more chances on the Oscars though ...
"Synchronicity" seems to be a low budget indie. Since I love the subject, I said whatever, let's add it to the list. Maybe it's not bad after all.
In February we have... "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". Oh yeah... Well, if Abraham Lincoln hunted vampires (and actually the movie was ok), why not? Let's keep an open mind :P
We didn't get rid of super-heroes... Marvel gets out a new one: "Deadpool". Hmmm.. maybe we should give it a chance, maybe not, maybe yes, maybe..
To wrap up with more serious stuff, Jean-Jacques Annaud returns in Asia with "Wolf Totem". Considering that since "7 Years in Tibet" I didn't see anything to be indeed interesting from this guy, this one got my attention.
That's it for the winter. I hope I'll be back sooner with Part 2.
At this time of year (actually already gone) I was doing a preview of the following Winter-Spring season. Obviously I don't have time for this. But I've noticed that's been a looong time since I've had a philosophical entry on the issue of chasing rabbits ... (did I write about this in English? I don't even remember ...)
As I'm getting older, I'm also getting more convinced that the optimistic idea of my youth of running after more rabbits to catch at least one is awfully exhausting. I'm thinking if it isn't maybe more comfortable to become a vegetarian and stop running after anything ... Where's the thrill then, you would say? No adrenaline ... Wrong.
Slowly, as time goes by, I tend to conclude that life offers you so many and diverse problems, that you could definitely consider a peaceful gardener career. You'll have anyway rodents in your yard to chase for, so many maybe that you won't even have time to gather the carrots crop. Now, well ... that rabbit that you want, might be or not be there ...
I'm writing somewhere in transit, in a hotel room, trying to decide between half a Stilnox or an enhanced Ibuprofen for my back pains. Target: to sleep three hours until my next connecting flight. So maybe I'll better stop here, otherwise I'll only have two left ..
... & don't worry, that movie preview entry will come ;) If I could play with my time as in the shot took below where you can count the blades of a turboprop's propeller while it's in full ascension speed ... That would be something. Unfortunately it's not that easy ...
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