There is a lot of talent on show here, and yet altogether this is a rather awful, empty, and painful outing. Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, and Ana de Armas: each possess enough charisma and acting talent to carry a film. The directors, Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, we know for their contributions to the wonderful and much loved TV series, 'Community'. The photography in this movie is first rate and the direction slick. A few good wisecracks here and there. I watched 'No Time to Die' recently and both films share a great deal, not least an incomprehensible plot, and gratuitous action sequences that seem to have been shoved into the film willy-nilly.
Reviews
3 Reviews
Badlands
(1973)
Teasing to Deceive
9 August 2023
To be clear, I believe that this film has many impressive qualities, but I have a problem with its depiction of psychopathy. Malick takes the deeply poignant story of the Starkweather-Fugate murder spree in 1958 Nebraska and makes of it a pastoral. It looks at the murder spree from the disengaged, apathetic, and uncaring perspective of the killers. When I say poignant, I mean, of course, deeply poignant for the victims and the bereaved. The film conceals Starkweather and Fugate's intensely cruel actions and puts two very beautiful people in their roles: Sheen and Spacek have fine-looking, expressive faces, sympathetic, intelligent, and friendly. In a similar fashion, this was the case with 'Bonnie and Clyde' (1967) played by the exceptionally good-looking duo of Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. Their 13 murders are in effect airbrushed out of history. Their soulfulness is totally at odds with the 'actions' they depict, the actions of the originals, and this creates a sort of whimsical, trite frisson. This is the film's artistic alibi. In oil painting it is called teasing and is another word for deceit or artistic fraud. Check out the real photos of Charles Starkweather and Fugate. Charlie looked like a halfwit, Fugate, a complete dolt.
In a letter sent to the San Francisco Chronicle (dated May 8, 1974) the Zodiac Killer writes that that the newspaper's carrying "ads for the movie 'Badlands,'" showed its "poor taste & lack of sympathy for the public," that it was a "kind of murder-glorification."
The US loves its spree killers and serial killers. As with Bonnie and Clyde's body count, Starkweather and Fugate's 11 victims (including a two-year-old) are also airbrushed out.
A common assumption is that such killings have something to do with individualism and the exercise of sovereignty or something. In 1993, I read on IMDb, that 'Badlands' was selected for preservation by the American Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The American Library of Congress and the Zodiac Killer appear to agree on this one.
In a letter sent to the San Francisco Chronicle (dated May 8, 1974) the Zodiac Killer writes that that the newspaper's carrying "ads for the movie 'Badlands,'" showed its "poor taste & lack of sympathy for the public," that it was a "kind of murder-glorification."
The US loves its spree killers and serial killers. As with Bonnie and Clyde's body count, Starkweather and Fugate's 11 victims (including a two-year-old) are also airbrushed out.
A common assumption is that such killings have something to do with individualism and the exercise of sovereignty or something. In 1993, I read on IMDb, that 'Badlands' was selected for preservation by the American Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The American Library of Congress and the Zodiac Killer appear to agree on this one.
The Devil in Madame Dielman
5 August 2023
Many scenes use one-point perspective a la Kubrick, and checkerboard floors to emphasize depth. The scenes especially in the kitchen are suggestive of Vermeer's domestic interiors. But maybe that's just me on a bit of a stretch.
Slice of life drama? If one wants to use the term. It is a strange aesthetic to portray monotony by boring the pants off of your audience. But 'portray' is perhaps the wrong word. It is a representation or a portrayal only insofar as it's a film. There is little mediation. A scene where Madame Dielman ascends to her floor in the elevator is given in real time. Why? The 'Odyssey' does not take 10 years to read.
The film would benefit from an extreme cut from its 3 hours and 22 minutes to something like 90 minutes to satisfy the connoisseurs. I would suggest more radical fast cutting, and the use of hip hop montage, to get the film down to a manageable short of 15 minutes or thereabouts. And then it would be fixed.
It is an excruciating watch. I watched it over three legs. I was curious. But its inaction is depressing and vexing. To resolve this bout of nothing the writer/director Chantal Akerman resorts to melodrama.
I find films like this very hard to rate. It is difficult to say anything new or astute about 'Jeanne Dielman.' Unbelievable as it sounds this film was well-received, and is, it seems, objectively significant in the history of cinema. In fact, it has recently been elevated to Sight & Sound's "greatest film of all time." The emperor's new clothes, anybody? Of course.
I think it is awful. So a two. No, actually on reflection, a one.
The ultimate tragedy of the film is that everyone you see through its lens is trapped in the 1970s.
Slice of life drama? If one wants to use the term. It is a strange aesthetic to portray monotony by boring the pants off of your audience. But 'portray' is perhaps the wrong word. It is a representation or a portrayal only insofar as it's a film. There is little mediation. A scene where Madame Dielman ascends to her floor in the elevator is given in real time. Why? The 'Odyssey' does not take 10 years to read.
The film would benefit from an extreme cut from its 3 hours and 22 minutes to something like 90 minutes to satisfy the connoisseurs. I would suggest more radical fast cutting, and the use of hip hop montage, to get the film down to a manageable short of 15 minutes or thereabouts. And then it would be fixed.
It is an excruciating watch. I watched it over three legs. I was curious. But its inaction is depressing and vexing. To resolve this bout of nothing the writer/director Chantal Akerman resorts to melodrama.
I find films like this very hard to rate. It is difficult to say anything new or astute about 'Jeanne Dielman.' Unbelievable as it sounds this film was well-received, and is, it seems, objectively significant in the history of cinema. In fact, it has recently been elevated to Sight & Sound's "greatest film of all time." The emperor's new clothes, anybody? Of course.
I think it is awful. So a two. No, actually on reflection, a one.
The ultimate tragedy of the film is that everyone you see through its lens is trapped in the 1970s.
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