End Of The Week Shorts #65
I always liked Young Frankenstein for its 'original' narrative and characters, that is to say, I've always liked the film for its spin on the Frankenstein story. What comes with this story is an absurd lambasting of monster movie cliches and tropes, but primarily a mad-cap comedy. Blazing Saddles lacks this sensibility, opting to put commentary over narrative. And for this, I think the film suffers. This is all simply for the fact that most jokes, few of which land, amount to a "do you get it?" Behind the jokes isn't any real character or entertainment. Behind the facade of absurdity is primarily a commentary on the blind eye Westerns turned to the presence of race in their mythologising of the 'Old West' (there is also a lot said about women, a post-WWII context and more). However, without good comedy presenting this, and without particularly complex points made, I just didn't find much value in this film. There were laughs to be had, but the satire was too dry to do much for me.
A g-g-g-giant piece of shit.
Written by 13 year-old boy and a 16 year-old girl, Valerian and the blah, blah, is a cliched embarrassment built from a script that is so mind-numbingly poor that it becomes the greatest spectacle that the film produces. I can't point to a single film that has such a massive budget as this, yet also such foul dialogue. But, whilst just describing this film in detail would provide sufficient enough reason never to see it, I won't tire anyone. This is, in essence, modern trash about true love and the oppression of a perfectly utopian and innocent minority class that is meant to shake its fist at the patriarchy whilst basking in the glory of its young and dumb sensibilities. I'm sure this, if not the mindless spectacle that this is packaged in, will be enough for many, but, don't be sucked into this schlock. Objectively, it's just shit.
I hadn't seen this in a really long time until today. Almost all of the samurai (and samurai related) films I have watched since last seeing this have been from Japan; the likes of Sansho The Bailiff, Zatoichi, Ran, 13 Assassins, Harakiri, Kagemusha, Sanjuro, Onibaba and more. Having then become quite accustomed to a Japanese vision of samurai, a vision that is often romantic, sometimes comical or critical, but, in comparison to this, far less mystical and highly akin to basic war, action and adventure films, this was pretty jarringly American. In such, it seemingly wants to combine stereotypical ideas of Japan and the East and, even with some degree of accuracy (the historical precision of this film is questionable), explore its own vision, not tell its own story. As a result, this feels forced; a manifestation of infatuation rather than a story about anything particularly coherent beyond this foundation.
In the end, not particularly bad, but, I suppose my third eye is too open for this one.
Even though I'm not the biggest Carlin fan, maybe less so the more I watch from him, I always find myself returning to his work. What stood out to me with bits on soft language and the transformation of the way in which we say things (which, as Carlin argues, never does much to change true meaning), was Carlin's unrelenting allegiance to what he sees to be simple, basic truths. This seems to be the source of what makes him both funny and, as he would later describe himself, a grumpy old fuck. Not a bad re-watch.
It's not hard to point out, but it's far easier to overlook the fact that Rocky is a film of two parts. Fundamentally, it tells a basic story characterised by minor drama and romance. In addition to this, however, Rocky is a sports/boxing/fight movie. And whilst these two halves speak to each other rather succinctly, what always made Rocky for me were tiny moments such as Rocky calling out to Adrian when he's being interviewed on TV. This isn't played for comedy, even though it is slightly funny, and it isn't used to spark drama between Rocky and Adrian, even though she probably found the call-out rather embarrassing. This moment is accepted by all as a symbol of Rocky and Adrian's maybe peculiar bond - all except Paulie of course. But, the magnificence of this moment is its fleeting and inconsequential nature that nonetheless exudes character and heart. It is then for the little moments like this that I have to say that Rocky is a masterpiece of sorts and, of course, a personal favourite.
The Departed is, in my view, held together almost entirely by Leonardo DiCaprio. Scorsese does one or two interesting things with the soundtrack and his symbolism (his use of the X as inspired by Scarface being overt by now). However, whilst a few details reach out for attention, I can't say that Scorsese does anything particularly special here. The script, whilst solid, manifests as feeling too written at points - and it doesn't help this is supposed to be a remake of Infernal Affairs (a film I haven't many feelings about and that needn't be re-contextualised or attached to this movie beyond saving all involved from copyright lawsuits). And so this brings us back to the performances - of which, I think DiCaprio's is the most compelling. Without DiCaprio, even in what would be a relatively ok role, I don't think that this would work all too well. The thing I might then like most about The Departed is that it falls into a string of Scorsese-DiCaprio films that ends up in Wolf Of Wall Street.
I find Bruce Conner and most other found footage filmmakers that I have come into contact with to be of fleeting interest. In moving into the realm of found footage, one finds themselves dealing less with 'cinema', and more with modern art and the video installation looking at film. Bruce Conner emerges as a rather early American artist of this kind, and so his work sometimes feels that it should be playing against a wall in a room that people walk through, saying nothing of particular note about anything, before wandering off, soon to forget everything. (That being almost every experience I've had with video installations). Alas, if you take what may seem like a video installation and watch it as just a film, as equal in form and demand as a 'normal' piece of cinema, there is some things to ponder upon. And so maybe the best question I see in Conner's A Movie is of the hubris of cinema, its arrogance and foolhardiness - how this is both positive and negative, yet fundamentally human, film just a product of a person.
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