"Bad Timing", Nicolas Roeg (1980) - Capsule Review

A masterpiece. An obsession story for adults, impossible to film in today´s culture, about a Manic Pixie Nightmare Girl called Milena and her psychiatrist lover. In a sense is the granddaddy of series like "13 Reasons Why" with tour-de-force editing and tonally emotive psychological flashbacks in place of cassette recordings. Outstanding performance by Theresa Russell, with her body in constant voyeuristic display to make the point even stronger. Exotic locations and Cold War paranoia add fire to the proceedings. Late 1970s style permeates the film in such a way that it becomes a quintessential example of the period. At its premiere, it could be seen as a critique of expected bourgeois relationships, but giving that Milena´s "lifestyle" has become mainstream in the second decade of the 21st Century, the film remains relevant albeit for different reasons. Plot resolution is shocking and will enrage viewers, both past and contemporary. A must watch.

TSPDT Number:  987 (2018 list)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080408/

 

"Design for Living" (1933), Ernst Lubitsch. Capsule review.

Sexual innuendo comedy about two guys in love with the same manipulative woman. It´s superb, but also completely immoral and very relevant to our day and age. As everything Lubitsch it is a funny affair, but the more you think about it the more it is provocative. It is based on a homoerotic play by Noel Coward, but the transposition to heterosexual polyamory makes it shocking. We are talking about a "Tinder-world" movie from 1933.

IMDb Link

"The Fountainhead", (1949), King Vidor. Capsule review.

Insufferable yarn penned by one of the worst individuals of the 20th Century, solipsistic Ayn Rand. An architect goes against the current and wants to build horrible modernist concoctions that ruin city skylines. Don't forget, one of those styles is called "brutalist" for a reason. Dialogue is robotic and heavy-handed, with that particular elitist view about rapey and terrorist Ubermensch that made Rand such a dispecable character. Direction by King Vidor is excellent as usual, with Langian landscapes full of clear cut lines.

Le Corbusier was a genius, but I have been in one of his houses, and while special, I shudder to think of entire cities built under the retro-futuristic coldness. Think of modern shopping malls. Superficial no-places disconnected from the local culture surrendered to commercialism, its function.

"Dunkirk", Christopher Nolan (2017) and "War of the Planet of the Apes", Matthew Reeves (2017). Movie reviews.

"Why so serious?" is the omnipresent question that every filmgoer must do to to the less talented brother of Michael Bay: a guy called Christopher Nolan.  "Dunkirk" is all problematic show, no substance.  A couple of scenes of grandeur does not save this movie from the smart-ass approach to the segmented narrative and the shallow level of characterizations.  As with almost all Nolan films, "Dunkirk" has an artificial heart, a few fake feelings that do not make up for the simulacra of great cinema.  Nolan is such a fascist that even the Nazis are not named.

"War of the Planet of the Apes" is a technological marvel that mixes Trump´s America War on Foreigners with the tale of Moises, the Egyptians and the Exodus, adding sprinkled scenes from the Vietnam War and Amon Göth.  The movie has its share of issues: resolution is swift as accustomed in modern blockbusters, ponderous scenes try to lend gravitas to otherwise popcorn entertainment, comedic character appears out of nowhere as a mean to let the audience escape gas, and trails for the sequel/remake of the sixties´ classic are too explicit to appear organic.  However, "War" is a step above its comic-book siblings by believing that its audience deserves a film and is smart enough to understand a story told by images other than colorful explosions.  The "Apes" series is what should be the baseline for mass entertainment, and we should only chose upwards as we buy movie tickets.

"Altered Carbon" (2018), Netflix, various directors. Capsule review.

Despite some middling reviews this Blade Runner-ish series is quite well constructed, from the neo-noir proceedings to the increasingly deranged ideas that come from its timely device. The rich can live forever, and immortality (as Asimov noted on one of his trilogies) provokes the stagnation of a reified social body and its decadence, both upstairs and on the smelly basement of human society. The tone is not for everyone, and the dystopian ambiance is a staple of the commentary on the current disarray. Still, it is said that the decline of a civilization stirs the waters of creativity. From a simple child´s song in Tim Minchin´s "Matilda" to a detective story set in the far future, artists use the oppressor´s own funds to scream that we must rebel in the end if we intend to survive. Is this a sublimation of our own desires, made to maintain us quiet? Or are these works of fiction the first salvoes on the liberation war to come?

"El Verdugo" (The Executioner), 1963, Luis María Berlanga. Capsule review.

A true masterpiece of black humor, this Berlanga piece is much more than it meets the eye. Done during the dictatorship of Franco, the movie is full of little details and commentary on the dichotomy of life under the iron hand of the "Caudillo". A man must take an immoral job to preserve his family´s living situation, and he will not go quietly to the guillotine. Popular and burgeois happiness are all over the place, but our hero has something more sinister in his mind. A must-see.

"Downsizing" (2017), Alexander Payne. Capsule review.

Disjointed and meandering, the last movie by Payne is preachy and ineffectual in equal measure. It does not work as science fiction, comedy, or social commentary. An initial burst of energy is derailed by a nihilist ecologist discourse that belongs in Greenpeace pamphlets. The high concept had an interesting potential shown in the socioeconomic variables in play, quickly hidden to bring up survivalist American progressive lunacy, even when is spew in foreign accents. Not recommended. And shame on Payne for ruining the concept in the first place.

www.imdb.com/title/tt1389072/

"Bad Genius" (2017). Capsule review.

The best heist movie that you will see this year was not directed by Soderbergh and has nothing to do with car races, jewels or banks. Thai director Nattawut Poonpiriya has created a spellbinding tale of deception, high stakes, and social class commentary in a movie about high school students and tests for acceptance into universities. A good fictional companion to the superb Korean documentary "Reach for the SKY" (2015). If only we did not know that meritocracy is a lie.
"Bad Genius", watch it however you can.

www.imdb.com/title/tt6788942/