and so anyway it turns out that the best thing about Tomorrowland (2015) is not the way it squeezes in an extra two or three acts in between the second and third act, nor is it the way the mathematics of it all make no sense if you have even the vaguest sense of how old George Clooney is, or the way in which he doubles down on his inability to spend time with women his own age – underscored a couple of years earlier by the extremes to which he went to get away from Sandra Bullock in Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón 2013) – by sharing some only slightly creepy emotional scenes with the one-fifth-his-age love of his life, but the way in which they left in the naff Indiana Jones jokes from the draft of the script before they decided Harrison Ford was too old for the maths of the film to make sense or to be having big emotional scenes about thwarted love with girls one-seventh his age cos that would be, y’know, slightly creepy…
Category: Film
Things I have learned from the movies: The Gift (Edgerton 2015)
That any two guys, no matter how big the differences between them – say, decades ago, back in high school, one of them lied about the other being gay, which resulted in endless bullying and the poor kid nearly being killed by his own father – can learn to get along. Even if the former victim must drug, rape and impregnate the wife of his former tormentor to make him confront the truth about the past and the flaws within himself.[1]
A heart-warming tale of two men learning to forgive each other and move on with their lives.
Notes
[1] But did he actually rape and impregnate her? Whooo-oooo, you’ll never actually know for sure. Which I guess makes it okay. Sort of. As long as, either way, the wife is always merely the mere terrain on which the two guys work out their conflict. Anything more would be political correctness gone mad!
Things I have learned from the movies: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (Lawrence 2015)
When you have led a successful revolution and deposed a tyrant, you should not unnecessarily reveal that you intend merely to replace the tyrant and keep his system of state terror in place, nor, when subsequently presiding over the public execution of the former tyrant, should you elect to do so from a platform that, however elevated, is nonetheless in front of the firing squad, even if the firing squad is just a girl with a bow and arrow…
(Also, if you want to get the girl you can probably get away with using a second bomb to target rescue workers as they go to the aid of those injured by the first bomb. But you need to make sure her kid sister is not one of the rescue workers, you lunkhead. That’s Friendzone 101, Gale, Friendzone 101.)
Things I have learned from the movies: The Machine (James 2013)
that it is not in any way at all gratuitous when, from Metropolis (1927) onwards, robots in films are given the appearance of sexy ladies, but actually serves a genuinely vital purpose – as the sinister head (Denis Lawson) of a shadowy organisation notes, when one of his genius scientists (Toby Stephens) gives their robot the external appearance of the recently deceased sexy lady genius scientist (Caity Lotz), ‘glad that we give her tits … we could have had some confused lady-boy robot on our hands’.
So glad that’s finally sorted out.
Things I have learned from the movies: Contagion (Soderbergh 2011)
that we are all at risk from capitalist-globalisation, from world-spanning connections of commercial networks, over-extended food supply chains and international jet travel, from Jude Law’s teeth, bananas, vampire bats, vampire piglets and asian cuisine, but not as much at risk as we are from Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina – even though at the time she was married to Chris Martin, and Coldplay surely pose an immeasurably greater threat to us all…
Apocalypto (Mel Gibson 2006)
and so anyway it turns out the best thing about Apocalypto (2006) is not the sensitive, respectful and not-at-all-made-up way Mel Gibson, the mullet-toting Donald Trump of 80s action cinema,[1] depicts an ancient indigenous civilisation, nor is it his bizarre failure to cast white actors in the lead roles (perhaps Tom Cruise, given how much running there is – although surprisingly there is a Stephen Yardley lookalike among Jaguar Paw’s Mayan pursuers), nor is it the way in which catholic cultist Mel Gibson depicts indigenous people as being so obsessed with having nine or ten kids each that they might just as well be catholics, nor is it the way he depicts them as already having violence, disease and slavery so that they might just as well have Europeans around to run all that shit for them, nor is it the way he crams in pretty much every cliché of colonial adventure fiction you can imagine (human sacrifice, escape from sacrifice courtesy of a well-timed solar eclipse, jumping off a waterfall, running into quicksand, pan pipes over slow-motion action, and so on and so on, though sadly there are no rivers full of ‘devil fish’ and no one gets their foot trapped in a giant clam as the tide rises or walks backwards into a giant spider’s web – or escapes from an erupting volcano in a balloon), nor is it the way the to-be-sacrificed captives get painted blue, thus inspiring James Cameron’s Avatar (2009), no, the best thing about Apocalypto is that this DVD jacket is so badly printed that on the back the film seems to be described as a ‘THRILLING FUCK’…
Notes
[1] Steven Seagal, of course, is the lardy, pony-tail toting Donald Trump of 90s action cinema.
Child 44 (Espinosa 2015)
and so anyway it turns out that the best fackin’ thing about Child 44 (2015) is not all the proper fackin’ swearing Tom “fackin'” Hardy does, cos there is no fackin’ swearing in it, nor is it the unbearably cute juxtaposition of Tom “fackin'” Hardy and a puppy, cos there’s no fackin’ puppy in it either, even though Tom “fackin'” Hardy and his MGB goons raid the apartment of a fackin’ vet, nor was it Gary Oldman’s ridiculous fackin’ overacting because for once there is very fackin’ little of that either, which I guess leaves Tom “fackin'” Hardy’s fackin’ accent as the best fackin’ thing in Child 44 cos of the way it wanders right the fackin’ way across the Soviet Union, from the fackin’ Ukraine to fackin’ Vladivostok to South fackin’ Africa, which was, I fackin’ swear, secretly part of the Soviet fackin’ Union…
The final scene of the young Han Solo solo movie
INT: MILLENNIUM FALCON COCKPIT
HAN looks at counter on Millennium Falcon console. It reads 12.
HAN
Probably rounded it up. I’m gonna say less than twelve.
He slides out of his chair and struts out of the cockpit, a shit-eating grin on his face. The cocky motherfucker.
CHEWBACCA shakes his head. He leans forward and hits a button on the counter. The readout switches to one that reads to three decimal places. It now shows 12.499.
CHEWBACCA (in Shyriiwook, despairingly)
Rounding up includes rounding down.
He resets the counter, once more protecting HAN’s fragile little ego.
CHEWBACCA (in Shyriiwook, pedantically)
And it’s not fucking parsecs.
He rises to leave the cockpit.
CHEWBACCA (in Shyriiwook, definitively)
Asshole.
END CREDITS ROLE.
*****
No Bothans were harmed in the making of this film.
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Iñárritu 2014) ⭐✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩
1 star out of 10 for this awful film.
I only went to see it because Jason Wyngarde told me it was the best ever superhero movie ever. Apparently it deconstructs the entire genre – I’m not sure what that means, but I think it means what Zack Snyder does.
And he said it proves that there can be art in a world of commerce. (Jason Wyngarde is full of shit.)
I am not surprised the whole franchise was cancelled way back, and I’m amazed the studio let them use the character in this cheap rickety mess. They should sue. It is the worst franchise reboot ever. Worse even than Fantastic Four.
And there was only one action sequence. It was like watching Universal Soldier: The Return all over again.
I’m not sure what the subtitle even means, or why the brackets are where they are. And I’m surprised that they hired the guy who named Quantum of Solace, but at least he is having to work his way back up from the subtitle department. (Jason Wyngarde probably thinks it is ever so clever, but he is a jackass.)
And, Mr Fancy Pants Oscar-Winning Director, have you never heard of editing?
Stalker (Tarkovsky 1979) ⭐✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩
1 out of 10 for this awful film.
I only went to see it because Jason Wyngarde told it me it contained all the things I like in films: trains, dogs and monkeys. He told me that by putting all three together in one film, Tarkovsky transcended genre.
Jason Wyngarde is a fool.
The film earns its one star out of ten for the dog. He is pretty cool. He shows up about halfway through in what you think is a dream sequence but then sticks around when everyone wakes up and pops up again from time to time. He is affectionate and energetic, without being too bouncy, and he is still young enough that his paws sometimes seem too big for him. He is well-trained, unlike the rest of the cast, and gives the best performance in the whole film.
Tarkovsky clearly does not know what he thinks about trains. He sends mixed messages about them.
For a long time it feels like you are only going to hear them off screen, and then when you do eventually see them they are disappearing into the fog. But then the Stalker and his clients find a motor-driven buggy that travels along the railway line. The sequence is so exhilarating, capturing the real experience of riding the rails, that the film turns into colour to express how magical it all is. But then they ditch the buggy and for some reason, the inattentive Tarkovsky forgets to turn the colour back off.
And the rest of the film seems to blame trains for everything, from the polluted landscape to the glass the naughty girl carelessly breaks at the end.
From what I could make out from the people leaving the cinema behind me, a lot of people think that the dog, who is yelping offscreen, is moving it with his telekinetic powers. (Jason Wyngarde probably thinks that, too.)
Oh, and the monkey is not even a monkey.
1/10
Mark Bould 