Oppenheimer – 7
Recently there was a poll on Facebook asking for the best lines in Movie History. There were hundreds of great lines but here’s a sampling: “You want me on that wall, you need me on that wall,” “You want the truth…you can’t handle the truth,”
Yes, there were several from one movie, one movie where it was great actors cutting loose. I watched it again just to be sure, but guess what isn’t in that wonderful courtroom scene – a thunderous soundtrack.
It’s a simple, great scene, with some background music that
only starts as Jack Nicholson is lead away.
Let’s give that movie the Christopher Nolan treatment. The courtroom scene would be 3 hours long,
with flashback scenes interspersed telling the story with black and white,
ghostly effects, a sex scene in the courtroom, maybe even the actual code red
acted out. It would be emphasized with a
thunderous soundtrack, a sonic boom after each Cruise line, and maybe violins screeching
over Nicholson’s speech.
Make no mistake, times have changed. The theater experience will never be the same. What could have been a straight-line story (God Forbid) collides with what I guess is the hyped-up expectations of today’s audience. Oppenheimer is a marvelized super hero movie, just without Batman. There’s a great movie here, certainly a great story, trying to get out. The effects and mostly the horrible soundtrack that dominate this movie are an assault on the senses. It’s a Nolan movie so it jumps around through time like a bumblebee looking for whatever it is they look for. There are some great scenes in the movie. I loved the story. I saw no reason for the show-off special effects, as entertaining as they might be. For example, the wonderful Emily Blunt has a big scene at the end of the movie where she’s being interrogated. There’s great byplay between her and the questioner, played by Jason Clarke (also great as the bad guy.) But, Nolan can’t just let it go and trust his actors. He has to juice it up with totally unnecessary rapid cuts. In fact, all the acting is great in the movie, but other than Robert Downey, Jr, Nolan just doesn’t trust them, particularly Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer who gets the brunt of the soundtrack where his pensive thoughts are accompanied by thundering herds, or those screeching violins. It’s like a fourth Batman, except you can’t tell the villain by his cigarettes. Everyone kind of looks alike and it’s hard to get a grasp on the many scientists. Nolan should have gone all the way, and played an individual theme song for each, like relievers coming out of the bullpen.
I fully understand that Oppenheimer has been a critical and commercial success, with many awards ahead for those who participated. Sorry, for me it was a 3-hour hearing test.
Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning part 1 – 7
There is no bigger fan of this franchise and Tom Cruise than me. He loves movies and is dedicated to giving the audience all he’s got. The last episodeof MI, “Fallout” is for me the greatest action picture I’ve ever seen. But I now realize that at the end of Fallout, Director Christopher McQuarrie uses a gimmick that he falls in love with – dueling action scenes. Thus, almost every action scene in this movie has one wild scene after another spliced together in a two-for-the-price of one adventure. It’s not enough to be on a zip line. There has to be crocodiles underneath with a helicopter about to crash into the zip line while the two operators of the line are slashing each other with butter knives. In the middle of the movie we are treated to two great fight scenes: Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in a tight alley with Pom Klementieff (she’s terrific, and we’d love to see more of her – but we won’t) and a very important and heartbreaking fight to the death on a bridge. The scenes are both critical to the story and I’d love to see them in their entirety, but no. Cutting back and forth, two fights at once. I just wanted to yell at the editor, “Stop.” The truth is, the alley scene had a lot of blurry motion that may have been telling us that those wonderfully choregraphed Cruise fights of the past are just too much for Cruise in his 60’s. Cruise says he wants to shoot these into his 80’s. He’s gonna need a stuntman. Ask Indy.
This goes on throughout the movie, and it’s just too much.
What else is over the top? Well, it’s time to retire the face-making briefcase. How does it make hair anyway?
It wouldn’t be a Tom Cruise Movie without him running. But his lungs must be phenomenal, because once again he’s running for miles at a full sprint, and not out of breath when he reaches his destination.
In his 60’s. Geez, my
standards aren’t that high, I just want a little believability, and there is no
“stunt” he does like the running, heavily edited. Here’s an idea. Mission Impossible: The Training Movie. This I gotta see.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - 7
What does it say about a movie that features an 80 year old actor doing such far-fetched action scenes that when the movie turns into a time travel saga, that’s the most believable part? Let’s just say I spent the first two thirds of this movie laughing at the ridiculous things Indy can still do. Or should I say, his stunt man does, and it’s pretty obvious. Here I am at 70 and if someone told me to “Run!” I’d look at them like they’d lost their mind. Having said that, in the last half hour there’s a time travel wrinkle that I really liked. The destination was a wonderous piece, and it only made me long for what could have been. Next up, Indiana Jones and the Wheelchair of Doom.
Asteroid City – 9
And the movie I expected to like the least was the one I liked the most. Wes Anderson has never been one of my favorite directors, but I love what he’s doing here. The first half is hilarious as you are introduced to a city like no other, where aliens seem to have dropped their asteroid. It takes place in the fifties, so a family is on vacation and their car breaks down in this magical town. Because back in the day, the annual road trip with a breakdown, and a search for a mechanic, accompanied by the exasperation of my father, was par for the course.
Luther: The Fallen Sun – 8
Idris Elba returns to his role as Luther, the London DCI, super “copper” who starts the movie by going to jail. Luther had made a promise to a mother to find her son and he had failed. So the killer is not only going free,but working quite nicely as a serial killer. So, what would you do? Well Luther breaks out of jail to continue to hunt, while being hunted himself. So, there. All the Luther touches are there.
What is almost funny as Indiana Jones, is that Luther is
always in this big heavy overcoat, fighting, even swimming and you want to yell
“take that coat off!”
Pretty much up to the standards of the series, while cashing
in on its binge popularity.
Memory – 8
Wouldn’t it be nice if we all found our mission late in life
like Liam Neeson has done? Here’s
another one of his churn-outs, but the surprise is, it’s better than most. He’s a hit man who is trying to face down
memory loss, and it’s actually pretty good.
The Mauritanian – 8
A true story about lawyers played by Jodie Foster and Benedict Cumberbatch getting ready to duke it out over Guantanamo detainees after 9/11 when they begin to realize some pretty nasty things have gone on. Wait for it. The closing credits where they tell you the stats. Unbelievable.
Extraction 2 – 8
This extraction is better than the last one. Surprisingly.
Creed III - 8
Creed has retired to a life of luxury when he gets challenged by a boyhood chum who’s been locked away in a prison, hitting a heavy bag with a lot of anger. No surprises here, as Michael B Jordan shows some promise as a director. Just as good as the first two, but let’s not beat a dead horse. It should be over.
The Trip to Italy - 8
Pretty funny. Two
guys travel and write about England, and Italy, eating the local cuisine and while
I wish they would talk more about what they are eating instead of Michael Caine
so much, I really enjoyed these. The
British sense of humor is on full display.
BINGING
The Blacklist – 10
I’m not going to jump up and down over the final episodes of this series, which just wound up season 10, other than to acknowledge the amazing storytelling and execution for 10 years and over 200 episodes. It held my interest until the end, and perhaps as people discover it streaming, like I did, it will become an American Classic, and James Spader’s portrayal of Red Reddington, whoever he was, will go down in TV history as one of the greats. I hope so.
Hijack – 9
Speaking of Idris Elba, here he is as a negotiator stuck on a hijacked flight
and having to lead the passengers in a quest to stay alive. This is a 7-episode
Apple series told in real time, which makes it interesting to me. It started off as good, and really accelerated
at the end. Apple TV is going to
challenge the other streamers for quality offerings.
Suits - 10 so far
How did I miss this? Why didn't anybody tell me? I'm only into season two but this one has the potential to join the pantheon of great law shows like from The Good Wife to Perry Mason. Really Enjoying it, every night.
DOCUMENTARIES
The Luckiest Guy in the World - 10
Stephen Curry:
Underrated – 9
Quarterback – 9
Arnold - 8
The Luckiest Guy in the World is Bill Walton, or so he says over and over in the 30 for 30 ESPN 4 parter on his career and life. This is a terrific remembrance for me as I watched those dominant UCLA teams win title after title. Injuries derailed Walton’s career, but I remember his championship year with the Portland Trailblazers because I had never seen a center pass like he did as his team hit layup after layup.
Bill Walton was different, and this documentary got me
listening to The Grateful Dead channel on Sirius.
The Steph Curry piece is mostly about his doubters. The Walton and Curry docs have one thing in common. Feet. Their early NBA careers were derailed by injuries to the lower extremities, which is good to know for Pelican fans “Waiting for Zion” which would be a great book title. What I love about both of these is the brief glimpses we get into their workouts and what they had to do to overcome.
Quarterback is a Netflix coverage of 3 NFL quarterbacks throughout the 2022
season. The season ends dramatically different for each of the three, but unfortunately, you already know that. Again, the most interesting part is in the preparation.
And then there’s Arnold Schwarzenegger. His life story is pretty amazing as he came to America solely on the basis of the work habits that transformed his body. He then parlayed his success at bodybuilding into the movies, and then, in the most amazing of flukes, was elected Governor of California.
Obviously, I enjoy sports-related documentaries, and all 4
of these were more enjoyable than my movie theater sojourns.
Wham – 8
Music Box – Jason Isbell:
Running with Our Eyes Closed – 9
And as we all know I’m also a sucker for music documentaries, and here’s two artists that I wouldn’t have on my cassettes (call back) but they still have fascinating stories of perseverance, talent, and dedication.
CLASSICS
Jeanne Dielman -9
What, you never heard of this movie? Neither had I until it jumped to the top of
the Sound and Sight critics’ poll as the number one, best movie of all time. It’s basically a three-hour long examination
of a woman moving around her apartment.
Oh, and she’s receiving male friends if you know what I mean and I think
you do. And she’s tired of what she’s
doing for a living and seems to have had enough. But it’s pretty subtle, until a surprising
ending. It’s a good movie, and it did
hold my attention for 3 hours
Night Train to Munich – 8
There was a lot of cloak and dagger going on in the 40’s,
and here’s a pretty good movie about the lead up to WWII. Starring Rex Harrison with a lot of plot twists, it’s as good as any of
these you could catch.
Nights of Cabiria – 7
Fellini’s 1957 film about a young prostitute named Cabiria (Giulietta Masina, played by his wife) is an interesting character study. Masina won a Best Actress award at Cannes for this, and I didn’t even know they give out such awards. She’s a bright face in what was for me a sluggish movie.
Elevator to the Gallows – 9
As I try to work my way through many of the neo-noir classics as TCM is insisting, I found this one to be better than most. A guy commits a crime of passion and is then stuck in an elevator for hours while he gets implicated in another murder. Can he get away with murder? Will the police figure this out? Great story that would make a worthwhile remake.
Storm Warning – 8
A young Doris Day and an aging Ginger Rogers play sisters, great casting, and they are up against the KKK in a small southern town. Decent, and predictable.
Beau Travail – 8
This is a 1999 French film based on the novel Billy Budd that I had never heard of until it kept coming up on lists as the movie with the greatest ending of all time. I don’t know about all that, as I’ll stick with The Sixth Sense, but it is also ranked #7 on the Sight and Sound Poll of the all-time best. Don’t know about that either. It’s about the French Foreign Legion as they prepare to go to war. Maybe I just didn’t get it.
Here's the latest Sight and Sound poll by critics: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time
Here's the critics' poll: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/directors-100-greatest-films-all-time
Finally, if you've read this far, you deserve a special gift. Check it out because I promise you will never see anything like this again:
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