Summer-Fall 2022 Movie Preview

I'm not in the best period healthwise lately, and therefore, not in my best mood to restart blogging. However, I decided to make the traditional quicklist for this period of what's announced for big screen release during the the next half of year. As in my last enumeration of this type I'll go for the ultra-selective variant = let's solve this quickly.

As much as I liked the return to the "Jurassic World", as bad it seemed for me the sequel in "Fallen Kingdom". Still, I'd check on the list the third part of the reboot too = "Jurassic World Dominion" - announced for June. After all, if the expectations are low... who knows ;)

Also in June we have "Lightyear". How did we arrive from the "Toy Story" universe to what we see in the trailer seems to be a mistery deeper than the deep space itself. But I'm sure we'll get the answer in the movie (if it doesn't get swollen by some black hole).

In July, with a feeling of a mix between Tarantino and John Wick (hopefully closer to the second of the series), we'll get to see "Bullet Train". Surprisingly maybe, despite the clear looks of an action movie (with lots of action), this is apparently based on a novel. A Japanese one, as the setting.

I don't see anything else besides "Luck" to worth mentioning for August. Not that I'm expecting much from this one, but since I didn't write for quite a while about an animation, I thought it might be a good idea to check two in the current list.

"Don't Worry Darling", to be released in September, has a promising trailer, which doesn't spoil much of the story. That's the good part. However, I found some red flags looking at the screenwriters team, where the previous work is either in the light rom-com area, ranging towards "Titanic II". Hopefully the current one won't sink...

Unfortunately October-November are a bit blank at the moment regarding released trailers, and I don't have any of the titles announced on my waiting list anyway, so we'll stop here. Maybe we'll have a better "harvest" closer to the winter season.

The Age of Innocence (1993)

Most probably five, ten years ago, or maybe even two or three, I would've been terribly bored by two hours of romance-drama mix set at the end of the 19th century. Now, however, "The Age of Innocence" was... comforting; I guess that's the best one-word decription I could use.

I didn't read the novel, but I was expecting something between "Howards End" and any adaptation based on Jane Austen's works. It didn't thread far from that. The surprising part was to find this to be the most non-Scorsese movie out of all the movies I've watched directed by Scorsese. The cinematography by Michael Ballhaus, even though it's clearly not the single collaboration between the two ("Goodfellas", "The Departed", "Gangs of New York"), it's probably more close to the camera work in Coppola's "Dracula", and has some very peculiar nuances (e.g., without any specific reason, we're treated very often with frequent insertions of... food frames :)). The score by Elmer Bernstein fits perfectly, although if you'd separate the soundtrack from the movie it might seem very old school, more towards the '60s-'70s. Finally, the cast, excepting Daniel Day-Lewis, doesn't seem to have many other names in common with the usual list of actors we see in Scorsese's movie credits. What's certain is that all of the above, under his direction, sums up to a movie that doesn't really fit on a home screen. I didn't have the feeling of watching something so clearly made for cinema for quite some time. And considering my 27 inch screen + headphones, unfortunately the reason for that it's not that I have some cinematic experience conditions at my place and I can't make the difference anymore. It's strictly about how cinematic the movie is ;).

I sort of skipped the subject this time. Maybe because 'til the end of the movie what's above was more significant to me, and "the story" was left behind. Briefly, this is about a love triangle in the New York's pre-1900 high society - and all the context seems somehow supperficial. Upt to a point, where, suddenly, and again surprisingly, the development takes a very mature turn as reflection on life & relationships. But, probably that's where the movie's importance falls short, and the book prevails, which as I mentioned, I haven't read. A good extra reason to stick to my spoilers free policy and end this here ;)

Rating: 4 out of 5

Licorice Pizza (2021) ... and a pingback to 1917

I kept thinking if I should or shouldn't write a blog entry this month, not really knowing what movie to pick for it. "1917" was a good fit for the current times - not that much given its context, but more for what's expressing. But 1. I already wrote about it in another entry, a couple years ago and 2. I doubt anyway that my blog's audience intersects with whom I was saying there that should have it on their mandatory watch list. On the other hand maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea for more people to watch it or re-watch it. Although, again, it's debatable if the movie's not either too deep for some to get the actual sense in it, or too depressing for who relates too closely to an armed conflict context. So, I got to "Licorice Pizza" - or the first hippie alternative I could think of.

I don't intend to write a long review. Actually, I don't intend to write an actual review. "Licorice Pizza" is some sort of weird romance with lots of comic nuances set in the 70's California, and a much betted movie I'd say than "Inherent Vice", which takes place during the same time and was written and directed by the same Paul Thomas Anderson (more known probably for "There Will Be Blood"). There's a perfect chemistry between the actors, the writing is excellent and the story... not so important.

More important is that "Licorice Pizza" is what we could call a "comfort movie" as an analogy to a "comfort food". Something you really need from time to time. If not for something else, at least to find out if you didn't know that in 1973 (and a couple times after) there were periods of "oil crisis". And most probably that's something you can survive ;) - at least as long as the rest doesn't get much more close to "1917".

Rating: 4 out of 5

Drive My Car (2021)

"Drive My Car" is a long slow movie. So long and so slow that the intro credits come after more than half an hour into it. But it's a "slow burn". In different words, I think it's worth getting to the end of it.

The movie's based on a short writing of Haruki Murakami. Also, it's very entangled with "Uncle Vanya" by Checkhov. Unfortunately, my readings never intersected with the two, and that I think made me lose some of the hidden meanings in the action. This is centered on a period from the life of Kafuku, a theater actor from Japan in his 40s, who's losing his wife in the beginning of the movie as a victim of brain hemorrhage. Fast forward two years from the tragic event, we find Kafuku as a director somewhere in a delegation, tasked with staging the mentioned Checkhov play. The rules of the theater company require him to take a professional driver, a young woman. Initially he's displeased with this, on the ground of breaking his habit of rehearsing the play lines while driving, but he's finally compelled to accept. From here on, the movie starts more often to signal the "slow burn" I was mentioning, delivering between periods of calm some scenes that are either thought provoking or their construction is sufficiently strong to keep you hanging on. Probably one of the first such scenes is when the casting of the play takes place, where a former lover of the deceased wife shows up, a character to whom Kafuku surprisingly decides to give the title role. But let's leave the rest of the story for the viewing I'd say. There's not much of a twist in it after all - the whole charm of the movie's set in its construction with all the details, and a summary in this case would not make justice on giving you the same impression as the complete package.

There's a symbolism in this movie from which you can understand more or less, either as you want to perceive it or how the director intended :) What's important is that's there and keeps your mind busy, from the red SAAB with the wheel on the left driven a lot over Japanese roads, only to find it in the end on a Korean highway where the rule is "drives on the right", up to the interference between Checkhov's lines in repetitions and the moments in the lives of the people saying the words, when you're not sure anymore what's part of the play and what's real. In brief, the direction and the script are top notch, although probably the most obvious contribution to the impact of the movie comes from the actors' side, in particular from the lead.

It's hard to qualify "Drive My Car" as a niche movie, because it doesn't move much beyond the usual pattern of a drama. One thing that's certain though is that's not a movie for everyone. I doubt that 10 years ago, maybe even one year ago, I would've had the patience to digest this properly. I'm not sure I did it now, or better said I'm pretty sure there are more meanings in it than I was able to discern. It's a movie that requires some dose of life experience to understand the feelings of some characters, to be able to empathize with them, at least in part. And if that doesn't happen there are good chances the movie will be dreadfully boring for you. Besides that, it's a movie that has a lot of the typical Japanese calm in its action development - which again you might be able to get a taste of if you're in a period when you unconsciously need it. Then, I can say it's relaxing, and you'll feel that stronger as you watch it. Otherwise, I guess I would've slept through it. But I didn't, and the ending, more or less bitter, brings you one of the best acted scenes I've ever seen in a movie, a dialogue from "Uncle Vanya" partly said using the sign language, and which in essence could be summarized in a line from a previous scene - "we must keep on living".

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Milagro Beanfield War (1988)

Three days ago, I was looking again for a cinematic "sleeping pill", and so I ran over "The Milagro Beanfield War". A totally wrong choice for the intended purpose, as I found out after watching it. And when I found out I decided I must write a blog entry about it. So here we are...

The movie is directed by Robert Redford, which "recommended" it for my search. With all respect for his acting skills, I don't think there's any other directing attempt from Redford to impress me in any way. It's true I've never got to watch "Ordinary People", considered probably his best movie, but out of the rest of what I've seen the script or the subject typically saved the movie, and the directing always felt somewhere between bland and absent. That's why here I had a shock, experiencing exactly the opposite.

There's no complicated subject in this movie. We're somewhere close to the US border with Mexico, in Milagro, a small forgotten town, with a predominantly hispanic population, close to its extinction being overshadowed by a residential complex in development. In this setting we find Jose aka Joe Mondragon who dares the unthinkable - to use water spilled from the property of the landlord who bought almost the entire region to irigate his own field of beans. People start talking, panicking and get close to rioting, splitting between the two sides - pro and agains the capitalst opression. And like that, we get a series of events that lead to a mini "revolucion". What's really catchy in the movie is how this series of events is staged...

I'd say that although produced more than thirty years ago, the movie fits quite well with the more recent trends, drawing some clear lines like anti-system and others. I'm more and more bored of overusing stuff like that in a media like movies, where in more than one hundred years propaganda was way too often present (whatever kind of that was), trying to overshadow the artistic or even the entertainment side. However, unlike the increasing accent on such direction in the latter years, here I can appreciate the fact that this comes second, much less obvious than in many recent movies, and that's thanks to the direction. The movie has a character and situation comic that's so present, fortunately raising on top of other nuances and preventing these to become too.. "aggressive" (maybe less in the end). It's an excellent mix between the acting, the symbolism, a bit of romance, a bit of fantasy, and lots of humor. The actors have a merit, the script has its merit, the score has a merit, but on top of everything, it's clearly, by far, the best movie directed by Redford I've seen by now, and I think the direction has the largest merit in the final result.

Rating: 4 out of 5