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-Sherlock Holmes, "A Study in Scarlet"
Reviews
The Discovery (2017)
Promising premise let down by its ending
I think this film had a lot of potential and dramatized its ideas effectively for the most part, but wasn't entirely successful at what it was trying to accomplish in the end. Aside from a couple plot contrivances, odd shifts in tone in some spots, and Jason Segel--who I felt was miscast and not entirely convincing in his role--I thought the first two thirds of the film were quite compelling in the direction it was going with its promising premise. The very last section of the film, however, shoots itself in the foot with a lazy, borderline incoherent exposition dump. The ending feels too rushed and its ideas don't feel fully formed, like the screenplay could have used another rewrite or two.
Westworld (2016)
Underwhelming
I thought the first couple of episodes were promising, but the show paid diminishing returns as it went along. I found myself much more interested in everything going on outside the actual park because there are a lot of action scenes where the stakes are inherently low/nonexistent... neither the guests nor the hosts can die (or die permanently) and the side narratives feel like they kind of stall the larger story rather than push it along, so I wasn't very invested in those parts.
So much of the show feels redundant from one episode to the next, like it keeps running over the same ideas but without expanding them... it just sort of repeats them and piles on more plot developments. There's also a ludicrous amount of twists that feel sort of arbitrary at a certain point and aren't always earned, like they're just there for the sake of shock value. On the whole, I just found this first season to be really muddled and overwrought at times (the finale in particular) and not as clever as it thought it was being. At times, the dialogue is too on-the-nose, obviously expository, or just flat out bad in its attempt to be profound (the maze is just a metaphor for an inward journey?). The acting from the main players is good, but I found some of the performances among the upper management/technicians/creative team to be either wooden or overly affected and it didn't help that some of them are kind of one-dimensional in their characterization and not particularly interesting.
I think Blade Runner covers the same thematic ground much more economically and I felt like this sort of material really didn't need to be stretched over 10 hour-long episodes.
Kis Uykusu (2014)
Thoroughly engrossing despite its length, thematically rich...
I agree with the critics that have compared it to something like an epic Russian novel with its penetrating observations on the human condition and philosophical musings. The film deals with a whole host of issues like pride, how we create our own prison, how we protect ourselves through self-deception, how ego can fuel seemingly charitable motivations, how we can suffocate others through good intentions, generational divisions, the notion of resisting evil in order to bring out the good in others (which sparks a darkly humorous debate among the characters).
I found the film to be very shrewdly written in how it constantly reinforced certain character traits in different contexts. As I stated before, the character of Aydin (even while instructing others that the road to hell is paved with good intentions) likes to justify himself with his good intentions and doesn't want to mislead people: he defers the tenant to his partner about the debt, he's always reading his articles on potentially touchy issues to his sister for feedback, and even little things like the way he expresses uncertainty to the client about the Omar Sharif movie that was filmed in the area and how he examines the pictures on his website after the client asks about the horses at the hotel (the horse being captured and subsequently set free was also a nice touch of symbolism).
I Origins (2014)
Interesting idea... execution lacking
I've thought about this film quite bit after watching it, so there's certainly something fundamentally compelling about it conceptually, but the execution was lacking for me. The movie feels like an ending with a movie attached in front of it. It's like Cahill started with this idea and struggled to flesh it out into a feature film, so everything that happens before the final half hour or so feels dramatically inert and overly distended. It almost feels like a movie that was written in reverse.
I like the sense of unpredictability that the film has... you don't know where it's going, but it takes too long for the film's conceptual backbone to emerge. The film raises these questions about spirituality vs. science... but doesn't really have anything particularly interesting say. It ends up being kind of hokey, with some occasionally atrocious dialogue: "Maybe the eye is a window into the soul," "My atoms have always loved your atoms."
Fanny och Alexander (1982)
Underwhelming, given its reputation
I've seen a good amount of Bergman's films - I love Persona, Cries and Whispers, Scenes From A Marriage, and the Virgin Spring in particular - but this is the first one I've watched where I kind of reacted with a shrug upon finishing it. I didn't dislike it exactly, but the whole thing seemed to evaporate from memory afterwards and didn't leave a lasting impression on me like some of his other films.
This seems to be one of those films where I can appreciate and admire many things about it: the performances, the elaborate production design, costumes, the ambition and scope ... but without any of it having any great effect.
I suppose part of my problem with it was that I felt it was somewhat uneven and lacking in focus. It's supposed to be from the point of view of a young boy, but I never felt like we were ever following him - his character only really becomes of importance in the second act ... the rest of the time, he seems to only wander into the narrative from time to time as if he were a secondary character. Because of this, I never felt like I knew him as a character or the nature of his relationship with the father before he died ... as a result, Alexander's pain and preoccupation with death/ghosts/visions never felt earned and just seemed contrived and out of place.
The first act reminded of the first third of the Deer Hunter where it's sort of a panoramic portrait of a close-knit group of people - this was interesting to me and I enjoyed the interaction between many of the characters ... but these relationships become minor subplots of little consequence or are left by the wayside altogether. So it's kind of like what's the point of introducing these narrative strands if they are not going to be developed any further? Basically, the film felt like Bergman had bitten off more than he could chew and wanted to throw everything he could into this story of a family (which was intended as his swan song), with several narrative strands that lack pay off or development - they're of little consequence and end up distracting from the subsequent focus of the narrative (the mother's marriage to the bishop).
The second act of the film was the most compelling for me: the conflict between the bishop and Alexander ... but this shift of focus was jarring because after the first act, I felt like we get very little of the rest of the family. It's as if Bergman really didn't know what he wanted this movie to be: a tapestry of a family that chronicles each member, a coming of age story focusing on the child, a smaller domestic melodrama with an authoritarian bishop parental figure ...
Overall, I suppose my main problem with the film was how Bergman chose to structure the narrative, which I felt was too broadly outlined ... which resulted in something very bloated and ponderous. Still enjoyed much of it, but not something I see myself revisiting anytime soon.
The Rover (2014)
A near masterpiece...
The whole film is just shot through with tension from start to finish, despite its bare bones narrative and deliberate pacing. The lack of back story for the characters somehow makes them even more interesting. I appreciate how they are almost like blank slates that we know very little about and we must fill in their history based on their actions and what little dialogue we are given.
It's sort of a no-brainer that this is the best performance Pattinson has ever given... he's just terrific in it. This is probably my second favorite performance from Pearce (after Memento), who is just instantly compelling from the first few seconds he's on screen here.
It's such a deceptively simple film... but it seems to be tackling weighty, if somewhat banal, themes of meaning and value (or lack thereof) that we place not just on our own lives and actions, but on other people and other people's actions as well. One review nails it by also saying that the film is about how man's destructive impulses will find him obliterating the very thing he's sought. It seems unavoidable that films dealing with dystopian futures, such as this one, touch upon these ideas to some degree and are often described as nihilistic, but here the ideas emerge organically from the set-up and aren't inflicted upon the viewer in a didactic way.
The themes are often addressed rather poetically in certain moments, and it's a testament to the sensitively written screenplay that the film's existential thematic ambitions do not come across as heavy-handed.
I'm thinking of the early scene where Pearce asks a creepy woman about his car, but the woman initially avoids the question by asking his name. She says something to the effect of, "It did as most cars do: it came in one direction and left in another... the only detail I can give you is the one that pertains to this place." The matter-of-fact way in which she tells him that there is nothing more to be gleaned from her perspective on his car serves as sort of a small metaphor for the limitations of human perspective in our search for meaning beyond the confines of our position in the world. Again, in a different context, this idea could easily have come across as clumsy, but here it's presented rather obliquely, almost cryptic. Ideas of the world as a prison and its indifference are again reinforced through the images of the caged dogs and Pearce and Pattinson's conversation about God.
Spoilers ahead
In their conversation, Pearce's character imposes his philosophy on Pattinson's character, his sermon on indifference leading to Rey's disillusionment, the effects of which emerge as a theme later. Rey becomes convinced that he means nothing to his brother because he left him to die at the beginning of the film. Why does Rey choose to risk his life to save Eric after Eric is captured... because Rey possesses utility for Eric and feels empowered by their relationship while he seemingly has no utility to his brother.
One reviewer describes the film as something like if Cormac McCarthy had written Mad Max and McCarthy indeed sprang to mind as I was watching. It plays like some kind of stark fable.
Inherent Vice (2014)
The first Paul Thomas Anderson film I've ever disliked
Before seeing the film, I was told that it's much better if you just try not to piece everything together and just kick back and watch it all unfold. I definitely went into the film with this on mind. I expected a borderline incoherent plot based on many reactions I read and told myself to sit back and let it wash over me... and it still did nothing for me. I was strangely disengaged throughout the entire film (aside from a couple amusing segments, one of them involving Martin Short), something I've never been while watching a PTA film.
For me, it was just scene after scene of talking talking talking... and none of it seemed to carry any weight or significance. Because so much of the movie is spent focused on the labyrinthine plot, it was really hard feel invested in anything that was happening. I wouldn't have minded so much if the movie actually had more humor. There were funny moments, but for me they were very few and far between... embedded in long stretches of tedium. I would have liked it better if perhaps the film took some more weird/bizarre detours that didn't have anything to do with the plot... that at least would have been more enjoyable.
The pacing of the film felt so sloppy to me also... it moved in fits and starts. Long, drawn out scenes that never led anywhere interesting. Early in the film, I was waiting for the movie to sort of find a rhythm or a groove.... and it never happened. So many individual scenes felt like they existed in a vacuum and disconnected from anything else. I'm sorry to say, the movie feels sort of pointless and unnecessary, and I thought I'd never say that about a PTA film.
The whole thing feels too literary if that makes sense and I feel like PTA wasn't very successful in translating this book to screen. It felt like I was watching a filmed novel instead of, you know, an organically flowing movie. I don't know, maybe Pynchon really isn't filmable. My disappointment with this film makes me wish PTA would have used this world, the character of Doc (or a similar character), and conceived his own original story.
Whiplash (2014)
Satisfying on a visceral level, but overcooked and conceptually absurd
Saw the film this past weekend and, after mulling it over, ultimately came away liking it
. but not quite loving it. I think the movie is superbly made on a technical level: it's tremendously edited, the use of sound is terrific, the whole thing is incredibly kinetic, has great energy, and is an absolutely enthralling, gripping experience
. But on a conceptual level, it's just so preposterous and absurd, I had a lot of trouble taking it seriously (and maybe I'm not supposed to(?)). But for this film in particular, it was problematic for me and kept me from embracing it completely.
This is going to sound harsh, but the movie played to me like a really, really good student film. It just feels overcooked, sort of "show-offy," but without much justification for all the razzle dazzle. It's set at such an outrageously high pitch from the outset, but the dramatic beats don't feel earned or believable in any way. It makes me wish the film were set in a different world where the character dynamic is still the same, but credible in a different narrative context. I get that part of the appeal of the film is that it's set in this world where you wouldn't necessarily expect this kind of tension and intensity to be wrung out of it
but that's part of the problem for me. It's like Chazelle started with this idea and setting and graphed the drama onto it so forcibly that the whole thing just feels inorganic and overtly "concocted" if that makes sense.
So much of it works incredibly well, but it just lacks a convincing conceptual backbone
This may seem like a strange comparison, but I enjoyed the film for the similar reasons that I liked Blackhat (another film I saw this past week)
I found both films to be very engrossing and satisfying on a purely visceral level, in spite of their shortcomings.
Chazelle seems like a promising filmmaker, and this film is impressive on a craftsmanship level, so I look forward to whatever he makes next.
Again, I ultimately liked it
but not enough to call it one of the best of the year. I feel like I'm in the minority in saying that because I've seen it on so many people's top ten lists.