The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

I didn't see a movie for about three weeks. And three weeks ago I've chosen a short one - recommended somewhere as the most non-Woody Allen movie by Woody Allen: "The Purple Rose of Cairo". I've said a couple times already that I was never very attracted by Allen's typical genre of light comedy alternatic with drama and romance, but I've also had surprises from time to time. And this was on my list since long ago... but there was something telling me that's not as non-Woody Allen as advertised.

Indeed, the subject leaves a bit the space of the typical group of family/friends/relations/discussions mostly central in Woody Allen's work. We have a "SciFi" element - a character from a '30s movie reacts unexpectedly when he gets a crush for a woman in the attendance, who, unhappily married, finds repeatedly refuge at the cinema - precisely, he steps out from the screen with a clear intention to spend the rest of his life near his new found love. Which leads to a surreal situation advancing in cascade, the studio starts getting trouble with the movie also in other cinemas, the rest of the characters are annoyed by not advancing with the action in the movie, the real actor in the role finds his career endangered, and so on.

I won't say where this goes - all I can tell is that we're moving back evetually to a sort of triangle of relations with a typical script by Woody Allen, and with an ending that drags us out from the SciFi, turning the tide to the cold reality. This is less disconcerting though. My main disappointment was that up to some point, the movie actually creates a context original enough to have potential for much more than it finally offers. But, as I said... it's short :)

Rating: 3 out of 5

Star Trek: Picard

About four years ago, I was quite happy to hear about a new Star Trek series: Discovery, after a 10+ year break from the former, Enterprise. However, I turned unhappy only after 5 episodes - that's the amount I beared watching, given the senseless development and the bunch of cliches typical to the latest years trend to turn pretty much each production into a manifest for current social issues (but it mainly was the lack of sense). That's why I didn't expect much last year from the release of Star Trek: Picard. Now, I finally decided to give it a chance...

I'll try to be brief - the first season is too after all. You can feel the same trend as above, but here is kept within some decent limits in comparison to the SciFi contents, which is probably the main reason to choose watching Star Trek (unlike for instance the latest nominees list for Oscar best picture). The subject revolves around a secret plot of exterminating an entire "race" of androids, starting from a pair of twins seemingly spawned from the "genes" of Data, a familiar character for anybody old enough to know about "The Next Generation", or the Star Trek movies of the 90s. Actually the current series seems to be a tribute for the TNG fans, bringing back to screen many of the original crew members on that Enterprise, besides obviously Patrick Steward, acting again as Picard, ready to come back from retirement for a last mission. Add to that also Seven-of-Nine from Star Trek Voyager, and we have a clear homage to the ST period before year 2000.

To move also a bit beyond the above, what ST: Picard tries, is probably to make the chronological step to the next Next Generation. We have a new crew, this time with a longer mission, about 10 episodes time, but, spoiler alert - apparently ready to take new steps to "where no one has gone before" in the next season. Somehow this blending between the old and new formula works this time, mostly because the new cast, or actually the characters seem much more... "Star Trek" then the Discovery attempt (just looking at the new ship captain, a guy with multiple virtual clones as crew members it's already enough to catch your attention). Another good point about ST: Picard is that the writers of the first season seemed to know from start how the whole thing should end, which brings a certain coherence in the action development, not like other cases where it's obvious that the script struggles to move on by adding new random stuff from episode to episode, just to make it somehow to the end. Anyway, there are parts here too that are far fetched, but still safely far from ridiculous. In any case, after watching "The Expanse" it became quite hard for me to accept the attention (or lack of it) given to details in other SciFi series, so probably I'm not objective enough.

Overall, ST: Picard is not a masterpiece, but it's quite refreshing in the Star Trek universe, despite the contradiction with recycling old characters. As production value, it has enough budget to satisfy the most exigent expectations. And also the nicest score I've heard in a series for quite a while (not that I'm watching too many). Hopefully it won't go bad during season 2... Fingers crossed.

Summer-Fall 2021 Movie Preview Part 2

I avoided last time to mention future box-office hits, favoring some titles that seemed more entitled to steal a couple of hours from the viewer's life. Lately, at least for me, it became harder to allocate time for watching a movie, so I care more if it's worth doing it. Therefore, despite the "classic" preview split = part 1 - summer, part 2 - fall, I decided to ignore what's currently announced for September = "Shang-Chi" (yet another Marvel movie), "Venom" the second (still featuring Marvel in its credits) and "No Time to Die" aka Bond the 25th, and instead to move back to August. Because, since my last entry, there's a new trailer out for this month - "Reminiscence" - which looks more promising than all the three above (and yep, I know I'm biased :P).

Risking to contradict the initial idea above, in October we have "Dune". Honestly, most of the cast seems miscasted to me, and my feel is that this won't surpass my preference for the mini-series produced in 2000 + mostly its sequel in 2003, which completes that adaptation so well that any other version limited to the first part only probably won't feel complete. I couldn't skip though mentioning one of the biggest "SciFi" events of the year. Besides that, Denis Villeneuve as director might count in this equation, although both "Arrival" and "Blade Runner 2049" were below my expectations.

"Ghostbusters: Afterlife" is scheduled for a November release. I've never been to fond of this series, and I skipped the latest reboot. The trailer here, however, has a more retro feeling, which resembles a bit the feel of "Super 8", another production that can make you nostalgic of the '80s. Besides that, it's probably interesting from the direction perspective - Jason Reitman, the son of Ivan Reitman, who was behind the original "Ghostbusters".

With that I'm closing the series of titles that seem worthy of attention for the next half of the year (at least what has a trailer out). I'd say it already looks better than the previous half ;)

Summer-Fall 2021 Movie Preview Part 1

I didn't watch any movie for something like three weeks, and I doubt I'll have time during next one. Which already doesn't look good, lacking other "drug" to bring balance to the mind while alternating between a critical deadline + some neverending dental issues. So I told myself to at least deal with the mid-year traditional entries, short format, and check what looks promising for this summer-fall season.

In June, "Monuments" is a release that seems to get a bit out from the box-office summer hits area, where typically we have lots of actions and explosions and the subject is very thin. I'm not really fond of comedies either, especially when there's a romantic angle, but apparently my subconscious won this round...

"The Green Knight" is telling an episode from the Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table saga. It's an episode that in its original version, unlike others, has a less dramatic ending, which makes it somehow less promissing for screen if you stick to the classic story. But, as in many other cases, the movie might change the story a bit... We'll see in July.

I was thinking to let the summer pass without referring to anything in the comics/super-hero area that moved, for a while already, from overrated to hyperrated, or whatever's worse than that. There are though some small exceptions, and the most notable is James Gunn who managed to make "Guardians of the Galaxy" (both 1 and 2) to stand out, comparing with the classic Marvel pattern. It's just something different. Maybe we'll see this in August also for DC Comics in the reboot of "The Suicide Squad".

Lasam toamna pe data viitoare. Cand o fi asta...

Boss Level (2021)

It's been a while since a I posted at such short intervals, but that will compensate a longer pause following this entry. Besides, for some time the interval between watching the movie and writing about it got longer and longer, and I start forgetting what I want to say. "Boss Level" was also too "motivating" too lose it among the messed up neurons and lack of lecithin.

Roy is a guy in his 40s, an ex member of the special forces, with an ex wife working in a super-secret lab for another ex military. A dude who fits very well the arch-villain pattern with a wish for world domination. In all this context we have a phenomenon going on that resembles Groundhog Day = each morning Roy wakes up at the same time, in the same place, and spends his day with an army of assassins chasing him and trying to shorten his suffering of non-stop repeating the same activity. Obviously this happens just for Roy, who struggles to advance in his last 24 hours as much as to be able to understand how the visit he paid his ex wife a day before fits in all this story. And I won't say more about it. The trailer reveals already enough, and I was inspired not to watch it before the movie.

From start I probably had a positive subjective approach on this, knowing from the two lines describing it on IMDb (very underrated there by the way) that's a time travel movie, subgenre on which I have an obvious thing for. In a different context I might've been bothered by the lack of rigor, and I would've looked for loopholes. It's however obvious from the first scene that the movie doesn't take itself too seriously, and you shouldn't to it either. It's built as the title suggests, like it's video game adaptation, although it's not. It's very very fresh though, and the script construction is just simplistic in appearance. Indeed, it won't tell you much about the time technology behind the Osiris spindle that creates the phenomenon and which looks as a new Stargate. But it will take enough time to build a solid puzzle that Roy has to solve in order to reach the "boss level". And the twist there, which you might not feel as a twist, so I'll endulge myself a spoiler, is that the "boss level" it's actually a different one. "The secret level" :-) - for which Roy needs even more repeats to figure it out. Moment where the movie does what I was complaining last time that "Love and Monsters" doesn't - a short exit from the light area more towards drama, but with enough force here to feel it. Or, well, being about passed time, turning points, and what could you do with a time machine, I might be subjective again ;-)

Rating: 4 out of 5