Odysseus by Nolan

   

      The most criticisms of Nolan I observed dealt with his modernizations, "wokeness"-- the use of colored actors as Greeks -- and unfaithfulness to Homer. Indeed, Bronze Age Greeks were marauding bands of looters and rapists lacking any sophistication and culture. How, for instance, modern viewer would digest sadistic murder of palace maidens by Odysseus who had thus "cleansed" his household from their pollution. Of course, slave girls cavorting with Penelope's bridegrooms was about as voluntary as co-habitation of the Trojan women with their Greek conquerors. Even the classical Greeks understood the tension, heretofore "The Trojan Women" by Euripides. 

    On the contrary, I found putting Homeric epic in the context of the Bronze Age collapse, the distant echo of which were the "Iliad" and "Odyssey", as the only interesting part of the movie. These were Odysseus wanderings and monsters, which I found unconvincing. Also Matt Damon was miscast.  

Olivia Wilde. Invite.

    

      My old impression of Olivia Wilde: why this beautiful descendant of barronites and bankers would not land a job somewhere at CNN or Wall Street, or even Obama's State Department instead of toiling in Hollywood?

My new impression: she has done it. The movie is brilliant except for a predictable sweet family-friendly ending, which completely contradicts a ribald subject matter of the movie. In a similar spirit, "Sideways" ends in nothing, and O.W. could have invented a more suitable non-finale. 

Steven Spielberg. Day of disclosure.

     

      A pastiche of the past Spielberg movies: E.T., Close encounters of the third kind and his personal recollections where childhood memories play a pivotal role. Fast-paced and interesting thriller in its first half it loses its attraction through predictability and poorly planned episodes. 

Colors of Time.

    

    A French melodrama simultaneously played in two epochs: Paris' belle-epoch of the 19 century and the modern situation very much borrowed from Clooney's "The descendants". Namely, four grand-grand-grandkids of a long-dead village woman have to decide whether to sell her farm to the developers when it turns out that she may have left a multi-million dollar Impressionist painting in her possession. In the 19th century scenes one meets  Sarah Bernhardt, Felix Nadar, Victor Hugo and a score of other celebrities befriended by abandoned daughter of a society prostitute. Protagonists in the 21 century communicate with their ancestors with the help of hallucinogenic drug (ayahuasca). Lovely, but short on depth of characters. Lindon is luscious. 

A poet.

    

       Americans encounter foreign movies mostly during transoceanic flights. So was "A Poet", absolutely depressing saga of personal defeat and degradation spitefully called a "comedy" coming from Columbia. The movie is a series of unfortunate events in the tropics. The problem with its protagonist, the poet who published two thin books of poetry getting some critical approval in his younger years, was fired from the university for alcoholism and working in a second-rate school as a teacher of literature is that absolutely everything he attempts, usually with the best of intent, ends in disaster for him and the people who surround the misfit. When he finally decides to quit drinking and get a job, he is accused of molesting his student, the only one in class with whom he has any rapport. Only his mother who probably dies at the end of the movie unconditionally supports her ne'er-do-well son, honest and well-intentioned despite all misfortunes. The movie shows a bleak picture of Columbia, where kids in most ordinary families do not have a father or live with a random boyfriend of the nearest female relative. 

Sheep detectives.

 

Zany comedy-whodunit much more cohesive than the glorified fashion show with Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep. Much better motivated psychologically, too. 

Project "Hail Mary"

 

       As is the story goes with all movies made after Weir's books they are thick on technical details (hard sci-fi) and short on human conflict. But all cinematic stories, even the animal documentaries, are ultimately about people. The movie would benefit from a farewell sex scene between protagonist (Ryan Reynolds) and tough-as-nails captain played by Sandra Huller but, maybe, the need to keep it PG-13 precluded the producers from any hint of sexual nature of attraction between them. 

    Equally lacking is the alien contact story. It has no moral or conceptual divide between the world of the stone spider alien and a human. Yet, a burning of an alien in oxygen atmosphere is quite realistic and can be scientifically explained. Unlike the PG cartoon message of the movie. 

Hoppers

 

O'K movie with fine animation of nature. Some complexity is added because the villain is not a "capitalist" mayor or mad scientists but a nature queen who suddenly acquired human powers. 

Scarlet

 

Another "girl power" anime, probably reflecting powerlessness of women in the Japanese society. Yes, a current Prime Minister of Japan is a woman but Elizabeth I and Katherine II were absolute rulers, yet their position did not signify a feministic streak in 16th century England or in 18th century Russia. 

The movie is beautifully done and has a very interesting idea of an afterlife. In the afterlife, people die turning to "nothingness", achieve Paradise on the Gold Mountain, or remain in limbo continuing some version of their previous lives. 

Zootopia 2.

 

A long blue serpent is hardly a credible good guy in the animation intended for children. 

All You Need Is Kill

   

Enticing but totally forgettable anime with stock characters: lonely unrecognized girl with powers and lonely boy with less powers fighting interplanetary/supernatural invader Darol.

Housemaid

     

       This thriller, or maybe horror, is quite true to its genre and is well wrought. Why it was as well as "One battle after another" castigated as a comedy is a mystery. It turns out that MAGA doll Sydney Sweeny can act! And that is without any special education, which suggests that film courses for actresses may be a sham. Seyfried is also very good. There is a slight wrinkle: the villain did not even attempt to use pliers to remove the lock. 

Nuremberg.

       

              The movie on Nuremberg trials could not be anything but formulaic. But the wonderful acting by Rami Malek and, especially, Russel Crowe, despite poorly believable German accent and his unusual facility with the tongue of the Bard. An obvious defect is the Woodall's character who, after five years in America, speaks perfect English without any accent. Kissinger, who was a military translator during the WWII, never got rid -- or wanted to -- get rid of this German accent. 

    Hollywood orthodoxy imposes the judgement in Nuremberg as the story of Shoah. This is wrong -- Nazi atrocities against the Jews had much less significance for the Anglo-Saxon judges, civil servants and politicians among whom there were many anti-Semites. Much more significance for them held "violation of the laws of war", as if any ever existed -- such as murder and enslavement of the POWs, sinking of hospital and refugee ships and the "war of aggression". 

    Obviously, the thrust of the movie was directed against Trump (riding roughshod over the American laws and the Constitution) and Putin, in connection of "the war of aggression" -- no story could be made without him and if Russians did not exist they had to be invented. 

        But, all in all, the movie is better than can be expected given the straightjacket of the American public consciousness. 

      

Bugonia.

      

            A cool movie by Yorgos Lanthimos, probably helped by Ari Aster about an impending apocalypse. The ending is so logical that it is quite expected. Lying woman floating in the air is freely borrowed from Tarkovsky's "Sacrifice". Acting by the "evil witch" Emma Stone, Jesse Plemmons and the novice Aidan Delbis is impeccable. 

One battle after another.

     Inability of PT Anderson to create a normal length feature film probably is influenced by his love for his own cinematic proficiency and refusal to frugally cut his movies.

     This movie is advertised as a comedy-drama. There is nothing comedic in its turgid plot about impending civil war in America. It is positively depressing and after 2 hours 40 minutes of unrelenting angst -- though the latter half is more dynamic -- the viewer comes out as totally wasted. 

    Of course, what is considered a mediocre movie by PTA is unreachable heights for most of the current Hollywood directors. 

 

Ari Aster. Eddington.

 Weird and too long, it is still a wonderful movie. The movie shows an American dysfunction of the Trump era much better than the misguided (or decimated by censors) Alex Garland's "Civil War". The only defect is that Joaquin Phoenix playing asthmatic sheriff and would-be mayor imitates lisp so much that half of his monologues are barely heard.

Elio.

     

       Visually appealing and inventive, especially when alien lifeforms are concerned movie, which is pasted from already existent storylines (are not all storylines exhausted at this day and age?). For instance a conflict between a brutal, but loving father and a tender son was a centerpiece of "Shark Tale" where it was probably a coded language for gaiety. The pangs of adolescence were a part of great number of cartoons, for instance a brilliant "Inside Out". 

The Phoenician Scheme by Wes Anderson.

   

      The problem with Wes Anderson as is with his youth pal Noah Baumbach (and P. T. A. Anderson) is that they rarely leave their comfort zone with their subsequent movies turning into a replica of their previous masterpieces. 

    Great acting talents (Hanks, Johansson, Amalric, Cumberbatch) are wasted in the remaking of his well-beaten tropes. Cumberbatch is especially pathetic in his faux beard, obviously designed haphazardly for him not to look, well, like Benedict Cumberbatch. 

          

Accountant-2 and Fight or Flight

   

      Continuing my tradition of dual reviews I enter two decently rated thrillers: Accountant-2 and Fight or Flight. Accountant-2 -- bright characters, especially the brother of the protagonist, and believable villains. Also fair dose of ambivalence. Fight or Flight -- none of the above. 

Both movies deliberately end in the way to propose a sequel. 

Nocturnes.

      

       A wonderful and boring movie. I went to see it thinking that it will be a new "March of the Penguins" but nobody is marches. There is no storyline, only an endless search for one kind of moths, the tiger moths. Their settlement with elevation must indicate how the local biome reacts on rising temperatures.