rzajac

I'm writing this review after scanning the negative reviews, here; those with ratings of "1".

And... you can see where those reviewers are coming from. More precisely, they range from folks who obviously don't expect much from flicks, to more discerning types who nonetheless weren't able to discern something redeemable in TBL.

So... I guess I got my work cut out for me. What redeems the act of watching TBL?

To me, it's about a time. It captures a time and collective head-space. And it does that so very, very well that the flick deserves to be put in a time capsule so future generation will understand that prior head-space better.

But... even better than that is how it seems to hint that the head-space has a univerality to it. The attitudes and lifestyles it depicts aren't strictly "dated". And perhaps that's the final beauty of the flick; what we expect from any/all narrative arts: On one hand, the characters are rooted in their milieu, but on the other, they reflect something universal.

And... I think I just did my job. I explain why I give it a "10" rating, and also avoid spoiling it.

...but that's OK because it was a belabored movie.

The flick goes through enormous exertions to incorporate images and scenarios that describe a complex plot; one that includes time travel, of all things.

And those exertions are truly impressive! I have to say that it sort of made the first half of the flick kinda hard to sit through. Some folks are sustained by cops-'n'-robbers action, and I'm not; I have to start seeing something indicative of a key to the mystery of a flick that would otherwise cautiously cloak it's mysteries: This flick was overcautious (I thought) in this regard.

And I guess I should just get down to the issues I have with the message of the movie.

And it's pretty easy to do this without spoiling, I think.

It's this: In the end, the message wasn't really satisfying. I expect a flick like this that seems to want to dangle realpolitik before us to shed light.

And I don't think this flick sheds light. It actually seems to want to say something about threats to sustainable republican self-governance, but it winds up being a distraction from these all-important things.

I give the flick the few stars I give it because it does try very hard to say something, and even something it deems important. While doing a few things artfully, the thing is held back by what the writers and producers must have imagined to be a kind of caginess, but which only winds up being in service to a dissatisfying take on political movements and/or confusion/ignorance.

The flick opens up with an extended segment playing out some skulduggery by ugly gangland types. While kind of interesting, it felt interminable at the time. That's the "uneven" thing I refer to.

But once that setup is established, it becomes an engaging flick, with a great moral lesson.

The lesson is this: The opposite of "fear" is *not* "bravery". The opposite of "fear" is "THE TRUTH".

And, personally, I really enjoyed how the flick explores that; and it does explore the forms which that "applied truth" can take, in practice--and tracking all that kept me on my toes for the duration of the flick.

Now that you know this, it's up to you. Sound like yr cup of tea?

It turns out Adam's a natural cusser!

But... let's get serious.

I've taken in the complains on the show, and I understand their provenance. But I give the show berth to find it's niche and then seek to try to stay true to that. I think it does.

It's fun, it's informative, and it does that (qualifiedly) propogandistic thing that it does; reminds us what on-the-ground, (small-'r') republicanism looks like.

It's a welcome thing to see at a time when the U. S. suffers under an enormous burden of popular public confusion about the idea that, done forthrightly, there are genuine downstream blessings to that decision, made so long ago, to eschew the crowned ruffians, and to self-govern.

Title pretty much sez all.

It's an amazing piece of work, and the writing and scenario work is astonishing; you can be quite taken up by the story and borne along to the end.

But the ending leaves a bad taste, in that it tries to cop something dignified back from the legacy of the U. S. Marine Corps by creating a mythos of a renegade jarhead who winds up serving the invaded people.

On one hand, it's a clever enough idea; why not tell such a story?

But there's just way, way too much bad karma on the Marines to just sort of blithely let them have this kind of mythic mulligan. It bugs me.

In light of that, that it gets as many stars as I give it tells you something.

I was... I guess... a *kinda* SubG.

Well... Guess I should admit: I'm an irredeemable pinkboy.

BUT!!! I certainly dug the SubG Church, back in the day.

And it was *great* to see the great patriarchs and matriarchs of the Church in all their glory!

I laughed out loud constantly during the viewing... while marveling at the wonderful *heart* the filmmakers brought to the enterprise.

PRAISE... ***"BOB"*** !!!

I read the book back in my teen years, and it blew my mind.

I suppose you could say I was an "impressionable youth"... but Vonnegut is famous for nothing if not being eminently readable. And I felt Mother Night was one of the best of his novels; from his earlier, "straight-up storytelling" period.

Then I saw the flick a few years after its release. Suffice it to say the flick does an estimable job of conveying the key elements of the written narrative, tying it all together amazingly well and true to the novel.

I'm sort of reminded of Pitt winning an Oscar for his portrayal of Cliff Booth in QT's "Once Upon...". The same idea holds in "Mother Night": As QT deserved a piece of Pitt's Oscar, Vonnegut's legacy very much deserves the lion's share of any kudos due to the film on account of its passion and resonance.

And I just watched it again, in 2022, and shed tears over its drama and overarching message. AND I noticed that... I'd never commented on it or rated it here on IMDb! At long last I do so.

I'll cut to the chase: The writing just sucks.

It comes across like they put all the events surrounding the real-life story into a blender and sieved the narrative slurry perhaps to capture the action bits, plus some "family man" romantic bits, then arrayed the bits consecutively, handed that rubbish to DePalma, and then he did, uh, the best he could.

People who think this is a good movie *don't give a flip about story*. A parade of disconnected emoting, white-/black-hat posturing, and gun play will do.

I've seen much, much better treatment of the crime genre, so I have standards.

The few stars I give are for valiant efforts by the actors to breathe life into something lifeless, and (as I say) the side-effect reminder of the primacy of artistic values.

It has its charms, but is pretty much a "product".

Folks go in for an evening of taking in something like this, so they will.

Here's why I rate it more highly than I normally would a formulaic concept action flick: The direction and acting are, frankly, gold. They're honestly impressive.

If you like concept action flicks, check it out. If you're leery of such fare, you might take this in just to see how fine acting and direction can well-nigh redeem the exercise.

Watching this again in Dec/2021.

And it hits me: It highlights something I saw in Trump-worship, back in 2016. The early scene where Brady (Scott) addresses the religious throng at the train station reminds me of the spirit of Trumpheads as described by Matt Taibbi.

And... it's THE SAME THING. It's the spirit that derives a sense of categorical righteousness from mere belonging... it doesn't really matter whether it directly concerns in-/out-group association based on creed, or finds an outlet in political hero-worship. It's the same thing.

It's an ante-republican (no typo, there!), no-nothingness, feeling the same sense of righteous indignation at the political out-group as was felt in times past over the impugning of religious doctrine.

All the usual fineries of production are in tow, here: The casting is marvelous, up and down the roster. Everyone acquits themselves more-than-ably. Costuming, sets, editing, writing, directing... the thing is a marvel, and a dignified,high-toned last hurrah for Scott; amazing for made-for-TV, eh?

Halloween is a weird artifact. I watched it last Wednesday, eager to see if it had bits of the kind of storytelling genius you could make out in "They Live".

Halloween is not worth watching. I'm glad I watched it, as it's regarded as somewhat canonical for the time/place. But in the end, watching it only serves to show how better filmmakers do it right.

There was one notable thing... NOT a spoiler... AND it'll help you understand my beef with it.

It's this: The ending was BRILLIANT.

The point is that it leaves a discriminating consumer of filmed narrative with a lament: If only Carpenter could've honored the brilliance of that ending with preceding story management and production values that measured up!

Come to think of it the flick is backwards from most other bad flicks: Quite often, bad flicks manage their storytelling admirably enough, then fail to engineer a decent end-game.

Halloween is exactly opposite: It's a sucky flick, then engineers a fantastic end-game. Weird!

But it's also *really* a shame. Don't bother watching it.

I can cut to the chase: In this film, Richie jerks off at the expense of ticket-buyers.

Choosing to make a film with crime as its theme--a "crime movie"--imposes a requirement: You have to make me care about the outcomes of stories involving criminals.

Richie's shorthand approach was the facile imposition of McConaughey's character as a de facto "good guy" anchor. The way, way, way overwrought brocade of morally "lesser" crime practitioners orbiting that calm center... Richie expects us to mistake all that heat as the shedding of light on the nature of criminal enterprise.

And I don't buy it. For one thing it was complex all out of proportion to the ostensible goal of crime stories to shed that light. The idea that such complexity will make us smarter on this is bogus. Like I say in my title, this generates lots and lots of heat. But absent the *light*, that heat is useless, and in fact a little insulting: Richie thinks I'm not going to notice.

I looked at the list of the movies that "made us"...

And the title of this series is a lie.

I think of the exchange from "No Country...":

Llewelyn: Is Carson Welles there?

Anton: Not in the sense that *you* mean.

These are NOT movies that were intended, from conception to execution, to "make" anyone.

Truth-be-told, it could be said that they range in quality in this regard, but they're hardly exemplars of movies which endeavored to shape society, or even did so as a side-effect.

Some of them are peerless examples of films that showcase what happens when producers take pains to ensure that their movies absolutely will NOT "make" anyone; that is, impart lessons about values beyond facile rehashes of reflexive, mainstream, middle-American "values".

So, in short, the title of the series insults the intelligence of thinking consumers of filmed narrative.

Normally, I write little "essay" reviews.

I'm not doing that with Barton Fink.

It'd be treading on folks' toes for me to do so. The movie, simply, invites folks to invite it in to the tabernacle of their hearts, on very personal terms.

Or not (you've got to suppose).

I know it did this for me... and did so on very personal terms.

What will BF mean to *you*?

Watch it and see.

The film is a bit of a mess.

It tries to hide that mess behind an unassailable righteousness of valiant service to the state, but if you take in all of what Hacksaw Ridge puts out there, that sloppiness shows through.

It's largely just another exercise in pushing all the "right" buttons to create something designed to get and keep your butt in that seat. And that's OK, as long as you understand that's what you're watching.

Bright notes: There is some good stuff in the flick; glimmers of good writing and scenario work. In general, the interactions between the lead and his fellow trainees and "betters" in the barracks was a passable stretch of decent film writing, directing, acting.

But too many balls get dropped. This largely shows up in scenarios where folks have to get down to speaking the truth about things. A good example of this is the court martial scene, where the writing and sequencing is muddied to the point where you feel a little insulted the writers figured you wouldn't notice.

Yes, there's all that interminable battlefield action, and indeed it does make it difficult to hold a narrative product up to artistic standards while men are being blown to smithereens at a mile a minute.

But... in the end, it *is* a movie. And it *does* all too often seem to want to hide a paucity of honest scenario work behind its sundry blockbuster bonafides, like the man-faces-death thing and the boy-meets-girl thing.

I suppose where this all comes from is... this is sometimes what you get when you have to stretch one basic--and interesting, surely!--story idea over a two-hour run-time.

You can riff off that one story in interesting ways, but in the end you're really just watching one story idea being developed. Whether the exercise was worthwhile comes down to how the writers (and downstream production participants) made things come alive in spite of that "limitation".

I'm saying I was a little surprised to see such an otherwise *very* well-meaning enterprise--telling Desmond's story--drop too many balls and produce something marred with a certain amount of artlessness.

I rate this flick highly because 1) it inhabits a tone management "space" normally associated with low-rate flicks; BUT: 2) Man! What it *does* with that selection of tone is amazing!

No question: It's boffo, to point where it's arguably outright ridiculous.

But... it settles comfortably in that zone and takes it about as far as you can go, given that constraint. You find yourself continuously having to admit to yourself that the Coens's make it work. They tell a story. Yes, it's over the top--on many levels!--but... you get a story, you get talented over-the-top characterization, you get... dare I say it, these days?... You get *entertained*.

And when it's over, you feel that the time viewing was oddly well-spent.

Besides being fun and funny and entertaining, all-'round.

It's worth watching, and I can recommend it with no guilt. If you go to watch it, then feel betrayed by this review, I'll personally apologize.

This is an amazing labor of love.

Here's something to consider: I recently heard Quentin Tarantino say that he hated the fairly recent "biopic" genre craze because he felt that the biopic, as commonly understood and assembled, was a constraining format which only leads to cinematic disaster. His view was that if you want to regale us with the life of an amazing person, pick a key day or two in that person's life and tell the tale of that episode.

And I'm inclined to agree with him.

And... What She Said 1) manages to be a biopic, yet 2) cleverly, humorously, humanely uses an episodic treatment in order to sidestep the fate to which QT said biopics are inevitably consigned.

It... just... works.

And! It's enormously warm and darned FUNNY! If you love genuine, life-affirming wit, you'll be laughing from beginning to end.

...this flick *sucks*. And I suppose some may think it weird to judge it on the basis of a comparison against another film in which Pitt shines forth like the diamond he most certainly can be... but it can't be helped: That's just the way it is.

When the writing and direction is masterful, as it was in Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time ...in Hollywood", Pitt delivers, in spades.

And the ugly reverse corollary is that when Pitt fails to deliver--as he fails in "War Machine"--it only diminishes him by dint of his willingness to have taken on a project that he must have known wasn't really worthy of his talent. The larger point is that the abasement/abuse of Pitt most certainly reflects the fact that the project as conceived and developed was utterly lacking in the kind of artfulness that Tarantino exemplifies.

I can flesh that in a bit: The piece is horrifically larded with artless VO narration; It only barely tells a tangible, relatable story. Everyone else poses and grunts and spits out a few terse lines. That's a movie?

This analysis, of course, rests on the core principle that film, because of the visual aspect, affords an opportunity to *show* a story, not just *tell* a story.

I don't mean to say that words don't matter: I *did*, after all, refer to Tarantino's impeccable writing. It's just that, if the writing sucks, you have no excuse for using a feature film as a soundtrack of third-rate VO "writing" with the visuals serving largely as a kind of merely-not-incongruent slideshow.

If you want to maintain a positive image of Brad Pitt as a theatrical artist in your personal film pantheon, DO NOT watch this film.

Love fungi, love the photographic work in this flick, and very much appreciate where the folks who directed the production want to "mainstream" fungi.

More folks *need* to understand how important fungi are. It's also a wonderful ponder to reflect on how higher fungi grow and reproduce.

But... geez... did they *have to* inject specious pseudoscientific stuff about how a mycelial mass is like a brain, and trees use those masses to "communicate" with each other?

I'm about 99% sure the stuff they're implying is a weird romanticization of fungi... and that's (pardon the mixed metaphor) "gilding the lily", seeing how the "lily" (fungi) are deeply fascinating, without the added speculation.

Folks are also chiming in to deride the infomercial-ish 2nd half of the flick... but the stuff I describe just above--the stuff that rubs me so wrong--kicks in only about 12% into the production.

They could have kept it more grounded and scientific, and STILL been able to convey a scientifically grounded awe about fungi.

So... as much as I wished this flick could be the audio-visual poster-boy intro to that amazing world for the newbie... these affronts leave me unable to recommend it to those newbies.

And that's a shame.

It only gets as many stars as I give it because 1) the complementary payload of honest, scientific info is nice, and 2) Geez, but those visuals are amazing!

I hoped to see Hitchcock hew to his demonstrated ability to engineer a surprising-yet-inevitable denouement in this flick... but he simply fails. A skin-of-teeth extrication of Bergman's character from her posting simply doesn't cut it.

But you can't fault Hitchcock for not doing some serious homework and creating a rich, reticulated scenario. Not that the scenario, itself, isn't a little leaky.

But, again--and I don't consider this a spoiler--I'd be remiss not to point out that you'll be disappointed if you expect Hitchcock to deliver certain kinds of spy thriller goods. I would say he leaves you hanging out to dry at film's end.

If you find unstinting, unrelenting cloak/dagger moodiness fills your bill, check the flick out. Otherwise, skip it.

It's funny: When the flick was over, I racked my brain trying to figure out what I had witnessed. In the end, I formulated an essential question: Did I fail this flick, or did the flick fail me.

After some time to reflect on the nature of the production and directorial decisions, I think I can say with some assuredness that the flick failed me.

Black Panther is operatic, played out in a big budget Hollywood flick.

This means that a fairly simple mythology--and scenarios which play out modestly reticulated developments stemming from that mythology--are stretched out over a skein work of standard-issue over-the-top action sequences.

So, in the end, I think I "got" this flick. It's just that I'm 1) not an opera buff, and 2) tend to not be impressed by CGI and interminable over-the-top action.

While I can see ways that direction/production may have thought they were "throwing a bone" to snobs like me (e.g., cleverly down-to-earth writing style), it wasn't enough to redeem the exercise.

It also niggles because of the way real artfulness in filmmaking has been taking it on the chin lately. The idea that films like Black Panther represent the kinds of money-making stuff that sop up all that money... just rankles.

It's weird: If you're a Woodring fan (like me) then this movie doesn't really add much info to what you already know. If you're NOT a Woodring fan, this flick could be irrelevant, or just mystifying. I guess there are a few folks out there who'd be permeable to a stream of info on an artist's life experiences and his interesting process. If that's you, then CONGRATS: You've struck gold. I enjoyed it well enough; tho there were few surprises for me. Oh: I think he's backed down from a technical "art pen" back to a "crow quill"... just one that better suits his interest in control of line. Odd observation: Watching this reminds me of Viv Stanshall (RIP). Jim's fine command of English, and interest in speaking from a lexicon normally associated with the *written* word, is interesting to me. You?

...is that Rodriguez makes you believe in True Love. I mean... REALLY...

...*believe*... in genuine TRUE LOVE...

...in a fuek1ng ZOMBIE MOVIE.

What more do you need to know? I mean, really?

This is pretty plainly a case of the mythic payload at the end--grand as it certainly was--still definitely not making up for the preceding rubbishy story management.

The movie spends way, way too much time in interminable nail-biting, will-they-or-wont-they races against the clock to overcome tech issues... where the depiction of said issues will certainly make thinking people cringe at those depictions and (again) the way they're gratuitously shoehorned into the exposition to (I guess) kill time en route to a feature-length runtime.

By the time you wade through all that crap, the denouement--while well-meaning--can't undo a knot of artlessness tied that tight.

I liked it! I just (finally) saw it (in 2020), and was struck by what seemed to have been a gutsy, straightforward adaptation of a tough novel to the screen.

On the plus side: Loved the technical production work. I was really struck by an amazing thing; an odd balancing of music against dialog: The tech folks must've worked something out with the director/producers where they agreed to do something starkly against standard practice: The music and dialog are at about the same volume level, but they worked it out so (I guess) timbre contrasts allow us to focus on dialog and make out what they're saying, just fine. This was surprising. Also, editing and occasional montage work was balanced and added an artistic flair.

The direction and acting was amazing. Below, I'll have some remonstrances about the story and its assumptions, but... this is one of those cases where direction and acting well nigh compel us to embrace a myth of an Ultimate Unconditional Love.

But what *about* those storyline assumptions?

Here's one way of putting it: Rousseau forwarded his myth of the Noble Savage. In his "Cannery Row", Steinbeck forwards a myth of the Noble Bum. Do you resonate with those myths? No? Yes?

In LLV, a myth is forwarded of a Noble Suicidaire (suicidal guy). Do you buy that?

To be fair, the myth is hazily articulated, to the point that it's a bit of a Rorschach: You decide what Cage's character is. Is his trajectory willful/volitional? If so, what's noble about that? Is he compelled by forces over which he has no volitional control? If that's the case, then upon what can he spar in a bid to showcase a nobility of spirit?

This is why I take away a few stars. It's that juxtaposition of the message of Unconditional Love AND the haziness of the Cage character's presumed plight that makes for a somewhat confused message. If you're going to show folks struggling, then at least I want light shed on something. And this contrast takes away from a claim of an insight payload.

But... even with those remonstrances in-tow, I can recommend this flick.