 I’m blasting David Bowie’s ‘Modern Love’ on repeat as I write this.
Anyway, it was late on Thursday, I hadn’t done much with my day (or my life), so to give the day some significance, I wanted to watch a movie before I hit the sack. Like I said, it was late, so I did a quick search for movies under 90 minutes (unfortunately, my viewing habits are often decided this way). I remember when ‘Frances Ha’ came out; it was the darling of the Indie scene, and film snobs were raving about it, which in itself made me want to avoid it (J'déteste film snobs). I’ve been talking to a lot of dancers lately (purely for research purposes) and one of them told me that ‘Frances Ha’ was about a dancer and that I should check it out. This was the perfect opportunity. I really liked it! The film is a kind of ‘slice of life’ about a ‘lovable loser’, which is a very tricky subject, but it works because Greta Gerwig is absolutely perfect in the role; she makes the protagonist so damn likeable! A great example of the power of collaboration, with a character crafted by the expertise of the actor playing the part! The first half of the film sparkles with verve and fizz, capturing the youthful ‘dream’ of what it is to be young and full of life in New York City. The second half of the film loses that sparkle, and gains a more wistful tone, as the reality of adulthood (without rich parents) sets in. The monologue that Frances delivers (at the dinner party) about what she’s looking for in life is so simple, and yet profound; I’m sure we’re all looking for the same thing, which helps us bond with her character. Not only was the scene effective, but it was completely necessary, because in the first ten minutes, all the characters in the film felt so foreign to me. I have absolutely nothing in common with these people! Any of them! Still, the film rekindled my lifelong desire to be a twenty-something living the life in New York City! I’m about twenty years late when it comes to that dream, but in mind, there’s always time for everything! I read a review that criticises the film for being a poor imitation of the French New Wave. I’d call it more of a love letter. Besides, the French New Wave was like a million years ago. In short, a great film, and definitely worth watching!
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 So I watched this for the first time, and I have to say, it was pretty good. I’ve known about the film since it came out, and of course I knew the music (The Heart Asks Pleasure First by Michael Nymen is an absolute CHOON!), but the film never sparked my interest.
This film is a great example of why female filmmakers are so necessary; simply because they tell stories that men probably won’t! Also, seeing a romance from the perspective of a woman is sobering stuff, and definitely a ‘red pill’ experience for those that still believe the male driven fantasy about romance and seduction. If you want an insight into what drives female desire, then I absolutely recommend watching this movie! That said, the protagonist, despite being an accurate depiction, was not to my liking (I like to cling to the ‘male fantasy’ version of women, if only to keep my desire of starting a family alive!). The fact that we don’t even see what becomes of Sam Neil’s character is proof that the protagonist’s husband doesn’t even warrant an afterthought in her story! Pretty much all (heterosexual) female driven romance movies revolve around her making a choice between the safety of the ‘provider’, and the ‘butterflies’ they get from being with the ‘untamed man’. The provider is the nice guy, who the woman will choose at first, and benefit from, but ultimately, she ALWAYS runs off with the ‘untamed man’; that, or they feel trapped in their marriage and resent their husband for not being the man they want him to be, despite making the choice to be with him of their own free-will. The ‘untamed man’ has no problem seducing women that already have a partner, whereas the nice guy would never dream of such a thing; the only way he can get a girl is by fulfilling that provider role, but in doing so, he always risks being boring, and thus, open to being a cuckold whilst his partner seeks excitement in the arms of another man... Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, The Piano. Good film, but not for everyone (the soundtrack is absolutely sublime though!).  A good film that would have been enjoyed more when it came out, back in 1971. It stills holds up though, even technologically, which is quite astounding.
The tone is very sterile, much like the information presented to the audience, taking an ‘unbiased’ perspective; so we don’t really get a character journey, but more of a run-down of events. The approach definitely gives the film a more realistic approach, and is more in the vain of a documentary, which is what makes the film so compelling and dramatic! It’s something that pretty much every ‘global pandemic’ film has since imitated, with time stamped sequences detailing the events. Because we’ve already seen the imitations, the original is not going to be as impactful for modern audiences; consequently, this film is probably best suited to die-hard fans of the genre, as well as students of cinema, rather a general audience. Nevertheless, it still packs a punch and is a good film.  I only watched this film because of Aubrey Plaza, and she’s barely in it!
That aside, I have mixed-feelings. It’s not a bad movie, but it’s not great either. The protagonist, for instance, is a pretty accurate representation of an 18 year old white girl in ‘the West’, with her gender politics, sexual fluidity, promiscuity, and casual drug-use. So if you find the glamorisation of those traits annoying, then you probably won’t enjoy this film. That said, the film’s general coming of age themes about the burden of adulthood, appreciating your family (not something non-white people generally need to worry about), and the beauty of being young and dumb, are done very well. I did find myself pondering my own life, and how it has managed to fly by, without even a postcard to show for it. I mean, I do that anyway, but this film definitely made me more aware of that fact! So to conclude, if you watched this film purely for Aubrey Plaza, you’ll probably be disappointed, but if you want to see a coming of age story about a modern 18 year old Canadian white girl, who often acts like a brat, then this is the film for you!  I’m still trying to rinse my free trial of Apple TV before it expires. I got to episode 6 of ‘Bad Monkey’ and stopped midway. A storyline that would have been wrapped up in a single episode of Tom Selleck’s ‘Magnum P.I.’ (from the 80’s) had so far been dragged out to six hours!! Why? Because streaming services need to create hours and hours of content for people to scroll their phones to!! So the only story points occur at the start and end of each episode; the filler is for the audience to stare at their phones.
Because I actually devote 100% of my attention to what I’m watching (in my home cinema set-up), I find this type of storytelling infuriating! So I stopped watching and decided to watch the number one rated show on Apple, with a massive 8.7 on IMDB! Unfortunately, Severance also suffered from the same drip-feeding of information that seems to plague every show in the modern era. Before I got to the season finale, I was about to give up, feeling that the show should be called Contrivance, as that’s all this series is. The writing, especially, just seemed lazy. I mean, there’s enough to keep you watching, but it was by no means the masterpiece audience reviews would have you believe. For instance, a character makes a decision: they’re going to destroy a piece of information. Ok, so that means the story takes a different direction? No. They, later in the same episode, retrieve the information they discarded. So what was the point of discarding it? Just to misdirect the audience for twenty minutes. In the next episode, a character chucks a phone in the bin. Later in that episode, he retrieves the phone from the bin. The writers tease the possibility of sending the characters in an interesting direction, and then pull the rug from under you. Another example is when (SPOILER) a character supposedly dies at the end of one episode, which provides a good cliff-hanger, only for them to be completely fine in the next episode. As said earlier, movies, TV shows, even the news, is made for an audience that is only partially paying attention. But just when I lost hope, the final two episodes of Season 1 pulled it out of the bag. They say that the audience will forgive anything for a good ending, and they are right! The season 1 finale was damn good! Will I watch Season 2? Probably not. I expect the writers to simply undo everything that happened and return to the status quo. Also, this show reminds me of ‘Lost’ (a show built on J.J. Abram’s infamous ‘Mystery Box’ style of storytelling); meaning they will continue to convolute and contrive, without actually knowing the answer to the mysteries they’re creating. It can only end in disappointment.  Back to the Future is one of my all time favourite movies! I was around when it came it out, and have loved it since I first saw it back then. I also love Musicals, so I was eager to watch this ever since it took to the London stage.
I finally got a round to watching it, and was excited going in. What followed was a complete and utter travesty!! How do you take a stone-cold classic and turn it into some cheesy, mediocre piece of uninspired theatre? Go see this show to find out! Firstly, the songs. As a kid, I owned the Back to the Future soundtrack, because the film had some proper tunes! This ‘reinterpretation’ shuns most of that iconic soundtrack in favour of original songs, so the characters can sing and dance their way through the story. I love a good song and dance, so it could definitely work, if the songs were any good? Unfortunately, they were all terrible! Also, the show is reliant on the audience having seen the movie; it takes so many short cuts and liberties, that unless you’ve seen the film, you probably won’t follow the action very well. It should serve as a stand alone piece of theatre, and not act as a poorly performed tribute band. I could go on, but I feel like I’ve conveyed my disappointment. Unfortunately, we live in a world where the most successful theatre shows are those that are based on movies, and movies don’t get made unless they’re based on a book, comic, or video game. Audiences simply don’t show up for original work any more, and because of that, we keep being served this slop. The production design was great, as were the actors. George McFly stole the show, as did the backing dancers, one of whom was so heavily pregnant that watching her dance made me nervous for her safety! Despite its shortcomings, there were plenty of people in the audience roaring with applause at the end. It’s all so depressing. Do yourselves a favour and go watch ‘Operation Mincemeat’ instead.  Oh dear. So this is what a $320 million budget will buy you in 2025.
I guess it’s just another example of the ‘paying for infinitely more for infinitely worse products / services / politicians / & everything else’ timeline we seem to be trapped in. Budget aside, this film was just bad; which is all the more disappointing considering the talent behind it. Both the writers and directors have shown us that they’re capable of great filmmaking (with their Marvel movies), so it’s quite mystifying what happened on this occasion. I mean, the whole thing is just completely uninspired. Like, seriously, how many times do we need to see Gustavo Fring being Gustavo Fring in EVERYTHING he’s in? How many times do we need to see Star Lord being Star Lord in EVERYTHING he’s in?? How many times are we going to make films warning about the dangers of Tech Billionaires, A.I. and the Internet, whilst simultaneously pandering to those people and technologies??!! Also, what the hell was the point of setting the film in the 90s, when all the tech on display was futuristic even for 2025?? It served absolutely no purpose and made absolutely no sense. There’s so much in this film that doesn’t work, I’m getting bored writing about it. Do yourselves a favour and avoid it.  I hadn’t seen this Robert Downey Jr. Film before, and I have to say, it wasn’t great. We’ve seen this all before, done so much better. Country boy escapes his small town roots, becomes a big shot, but becomes an ass-hole in the process, until he’s forced to return to his small town, where he reconnects with his family and lost love, rediscovering his humanity on the way.
The film juggles this story with a father and son reconciliation, as well as a courtroom drama, and unfortunately none of the stories satisfy. The courtroom drama is weak. The love story is weak, and even though most of the run time is devoted to the father and son reconciliation, despite some truly poignant scenes, even that ends up leaving the audience disappointed. Downey Jr. is always likeable, so I shudder to think how unlikeable the protagonist would be with a different actor in the lead; but at the end of it all, you can’t really say that he earns a happy ending. The whole thing just left me feeling unsatisfied. I’d rather re-watch ‘Doc Hollywood’ for the big shot in a small town story, or ‘My Cousin Vinny’ for the city lawyer / small town courtroom drama.  It’s no secret that when it comes to romance, I’m pretty jaded. Like all jaded people, I started off at the opposite end of the spectrum, full of wide-eyed optimism, and to be honest, that’s a state of mind I’d like to return to, but life happens and teaches you otherwise.
I’ve not had any luck with dating apps, and can attest to the fact that Indian men have the lowest rate of matches; still, it’s so late in the game, that I have to keep all options on the table. Consequently, I downloaded Hinge. Again. Anyway, back to the movie. I needed some escapism; something from a simpler time. So I put on this film from thirty odd years ago, which I’d never seen before, and I have to say, it hit the spot, and then some! It was SO damn good! I loved it!! I think mostly because it was so unexpected! The film’s genius is that it taps into every singleton’s subconscious belief in ‘destiny’, or ‘fate’, that out there, there is someone you’re meant to be with. What separates the protagonist of this film from the rest of us, is that she actually steps outside her everyday life, travels to a foreign country, and actually tries to meet the person she believes she’s meant to be with! Whereas people like me can’t even be bothered to travel to the other end of London! What follows is a visual delight, as we get to see Italy looking exactly as we imagine it to look. Seriously, if ever a landscape was made to facilitate romance, then Italy must be it; which makes their collapsing birthrate all the more mystifying! Another genius aspect of this film’s storytelling, is how they delay the introduction of the male lead for as long as possible; usually ‘boy meets girl’ at the beginning of the film. The result is, the audience longs for his introduction as much as the girl! The icing on the cake is the chemistry between the two leads; honestly, after watching this, I felt like Marisa Tomei and Robert Downing Jnr, were made for one another; it also adds a new dimension to their on-screen ‘reunion’ in Avengers Civil War. By the end of the film, I felt a renewed sense of optimism; romance is still possible, you just have to get out there and make it happen! Travel if you need to, but do something! You see, that’s the power of a good movie: it transports you mentally and emotionally, and can give you hope in dark times. I felt good. It was close to 3am, and I had just received a message from a girl on Hinge! Man, she was a stone cold stunner! I could scarcely believe how instant a change of perspective could take effect! The next day, this beauty and I went back and forth, exchanging messages. None of this ‘waiting for two days or a week to respond to messages’ that girls usually do. In fact, by the end of the night, the girl said she was free tomorrow, if I fancied meeting? WTF? This was all too good to be true. In the back of my mind, a voice was telling me that life is never this easy, and that like ALL experiences with girls from dating apps, this too would do a 180 and become something negative (call it the ghost of trauma’s past). I did my best to overpower any doubts, and maintain my new found romantic optimism! The next morning, I messaged this beautiful girl: “You still up for meeting later?” No response. The problem with dating apps is that every person you chat to, is also chatting to other people, so the minute they get a ‘better offer’ or match with someone closer to their ideal, they ghost you. This experience was nothing new, unfortunately, so I went about my day, grateful for the brief flutter of butterflies. At this point in my life, that too is something to cherish, because it literally never happens any more. Then, in the afternoon, the girl responded: “I am if you are??” Ah, the flood of endorphins and optimism washed over me completely. We exchanged more messages, and it was hard not to let my imagination run away with the possibilities; after all, I am nothing if not a dreamer. It had been a while since I was this excited to meet someone, and I was enjoying that feeling. With an hour or so until we were meant to meet, the girl asked if we could talk on the phone first? I hate talking on the phone, to anyone, from my parents right down to my lifelong friends. When it comes to having a ‘chat’, it’s either real life or messages for me. But if a beautiful girl asks to speak to you on the phone, you don’t wanna come off as a weirdo and say ‘no’. In retrospect, that’s exactly what I should have said! So I call her, and she doesn’t pick up. She phones back a bit later, telling me she’s just going to the gym, and that I should find somewhere in her area to meet, and message her when I’m there. “Flat Iron are giving out coupons for free Ice Cream. Should I get one?” She mentions, off the cuff. “You probably have to buy a steak.” I respond, without thinking. “It says free?” She adds. “Check the T’s&C’s” I laugh. “Besides, I’m vegetarian” She hung up. Within the space of a few seconds, she had unmatched and blocked me; a few seconds for everything to come crashing down. So much for my renewed romantic optimism. I was so high with imagined possibilities, that I sunk equally low with actual realities. Why would a beautiful girl like that wanna go out with a guy like me? Because I’m fcuking awesome!! ...well, turns out, it wasn’t my awesomeness that she was after, but a free steak. How can one not be cynical in a world like this? Sigh. Anyway, the point of this story is simple: don’t believe everything you see in the movies!  Another film I’d never heard of until I saw it on IMDB. It had decent reviews, and starred RDJ, so I decided to watch it.
It was alright. Kind of ‘Ferris Bueller’ vibes, with the popular kid that everyone loves, and the antagonistic relationship with the school’s headmaster, but nowhere nearly as iconic, and a bit more of a serious tone. What made the film enjoyable was the likeability of the protagonist. The late Anton Yelchin does an amazing job in the title role, and makes what could be a ‘spoiled brat’ into someone that the audience is rooting for. In fact, the whole film is a great showcase for Yelchin, which makes his untimely death all the more tragic, as he clearly had a lot to offer. RDJ is great, as ever, playing a more mature role than we’re probably used to. I don’t think the film reaches the heights of the teen fiilms of the 90s, but it’s definitely worth watching, especially if you crave something ‘new’ in the genre (this film came out in 2007!), as they don’t make these types of movies anymore! |
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A chronicle of films, shows, and theatre I've seen, as well as books I've read, and talks I may have attended. ArchivesCategories |
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