Martin Eden by Pietro Marcello

Pietro Marcello made an imperfect, tortured and boring but altogether wonderful movie by a literal--to the degree I can judge from the synopsis of the book I had never bothered to read--rendering of early 20  century novel and transmitting its imagery in Italy, which has historical references to pre-WWI and pre-WWII world but  with late 1940s or 1960-1970s car makes. Even the itinerant worker dressed as if he comes from the posh ready-to-wear stores in Milano is endearing. Nobody during, probably, a few decades of the movie story (several novels by the protagonist come in the interim) ages. How the story so anchored in the literary and social world of the late 19-early 20 century--socialism vs. anarchism, publishing houses as the towering pinnacles of public opinion, capitalists on the forefront of liberal reformism, war as "hygiene of society" borrowing Marinetti's expression, etc.--can touch us in the firth quarter of 21 century is a complete mystery but Marcello succeeded in pulling it off. The novel is semi-autobiographical and the actor playing protagonist has a definite likeness with Jack London but not so much as making it disturbing. No main character is played very well. Martin Eden and Elena Orsini are more of schematic cutouts than real people. Real depth of character belongs to Carlo Cecchi (Russ Brissenden) and barely touched Denise Sardisco (Margherita), Elisabetta Valgoi (Matilde Orsini), Autilia Ranieri (Guilia Eden) and Carmel Pomella (Maria Silvia). Acting predominance of the supporting cast is against all cinematic conventions but it adds to the movie's charm. 

Shanghai Triad.

 First, there are no "Shanghai Triads". Triads is the name specific for the Hong Kong mobsters. An original name for the movie was the beginning of the Chinese lullaby "Row and row, past the mother-in-law bridge", which, if my Western perception is correct, can mean either "Escape from the clutches of the family" or "You soon will be adult, girl". 

Roger Ebert with his characteristic dissing of good movies, which earned him a status of a sublime intellectual among Los Angeles crowd, noticed very uneven tempo of the movie. It has lengthy expositions of nature in the absence of screen action--though there are Chinese songs he cannot understand in the background--and the breakneck speed of the last 20 minutes. He is, of course, right. But this does not subtract from its powerful emotional message. 

This is one of the few movies, for which I wished if not the American-style happy end, but at list happier end, or at least the ending with more ambivalence. In the masterpiece of Coppola's "Godfather" there is a deliberate juxtaposition between Don Vito and Mickey Corleone. The first is a person of principles and honor, who can be generous without reciprocity, for woman who has to be evicted because of her dog, or for mob-loving artist modeled on Frank Sinatra. Mickey is a psychopath, who cares for nobody and nothing except power. Even his son, whom he adores, has to grow without his mother and without anything except material wealth and comfort--the only things Mike Corleone understands. 

The Boss Tang of the "Shanghai Triad" seem to begin like Vito--cruel, but following his own code of fairness and honor--but suddenly turns into psychopath who cold bloodedly executes his mistress, his hostess on his "safe house" island (and, earlier, her boyfriend) and makes her underage daughter into his sex slave. This can be very true--the world of organized crime is a magnet for violent psychopaths--though some, like Cheney and Stalin graduate into high politics, and useful in the sense that the movie does not romanticize the mob. However, because psychopaths are inscrutable--there is nothing to explain except that there are people who receive pleasure from hurting other people--no psychologic complication can transpire.

The Alienist

The show is good but my previous comment on the "Dark Materials" remains in force. Auteurs follow an absurd fashion which came with the GoT of the extremely dark palette that for minutes there is nothing to see on the screen other than a few reflections from random objects. Daniel Bruhl is a right typecasting but his acting is so overwhelmed by Evans, Fanning and even novice Rosy McEwen that otherwise well measured tempo and visuals miss the point. 

His dark materials.

Literally "His Dark Materials". The authors enthused by the GoT so much abused the flashback narrative and the dark palette that the story became incomprehensible for all but the most avid fans of Philip Pullman. 

Covid-19 Epidemic.

Movie theaters are closed. Have to review HBO and other TV shows. 

Undying appeal of the "Pretty Woman". Thirty years in the making.

The "whore with a golden heart" is as much of a Hollywood invention as a "gentleman gangster". Orson Welles who could not avoid knowing "the boys" as an entertainer in the 1930s New York had reported that compared with even smartest of them, a truck driver was an intellectual. I suppose that during after-Depression years, truck drivers were quite intelligent.

A real hooker meeting Richard Gere's character would probably concoct up a cockananny plot with her red neck boyfriend to part the amorous banker with his money. At least, a literary source for the Blau Angel, Professor Unrat, proposed exactly this outcome. Why then, with all its ridiculous improbabilities, the Pretty Woman remains a popular movie thirty years after the premiere? Obviously, because it is a Cinderella story sufficiently spiced for the modern audiences but insufficiently burdened with practical details to raise its parental warning label.

The New Pope by Paolo Sorrentino.

PS is simply genius, the only great Italian director who had burst out of confines of Apennines peninsula since the death of Federico Fellini 27 years ago. He is so weird, brilliant and nothing makes sense in these series until it finally does. Also he looks like a stray dog transmogrified into human form.

Uncut Gems

Perfectly made and flawlessly acted movie about people and situations you do not want to know anything about. Masterpieces of this genre were previously made by Charlie Kaufman ("Synecdoche"--a masterpiece, "Anomalisa"--well, not--come to mind) but above all--Gaspar Noe.

JoJo rabbit

I was extremely skeptical about the comedy on the subject of Nazism but the brilliance of Taika Waititi in telling this parable convinced me that it may be an ultimate humiliation for Hitler that in 75 years after the war he will is played by half-Maori, half Russian Jew.

Though not a forgotten masterpiece as his "Hunt for the Wildepeople", this movie is sufficiently sound to stand on its own. Even street hangings of the "enemies of the Reich", which happened in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus but never in Germany proper, are not terribly out of place because, otherwise, the tale of unparalleled brutality of Nazism had to be told by un-cinematic means. And this was accomplished in one stitch by the child recognizing his executed mother by her red shoes. There are other out-of-place relics like the provincial city half-occupied by Americans and half--by the Soviets in reference to post-War Berlin, which can be only understood as a parable but, magically, TW holds all this nonsense unevenly together.

Cats

I don't know what critics were upset about (20% on rottentomatoes.com). Either you like musical as a genre or you do not.