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Heart of Stone
Gal Gadot. Wanna know how shit n silly n cringey a female Bond would be? Watch this tosh.
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Yes Senegalese desert and Iceland looked impressive colours. But if "good scenery" is the only positive, then we've scraped the barrel, drained it out, and looked underneath it.
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MARLOWE (2022)
Have you ever heard or read the expression "This movie is so beautiful that every shot in it could be hung on a wall as a work of art"? I don't think that's much of a compliment. Nice-looking cinematography and production design is always great, but a film needs to be a lot more than that. They're called movies after all, not "still shots."
Marlowe, a Philip Marlowe yarn, based not on an original Raymond Chandler, but a more recent novel by Benjamin Black (which I have not read, and for all I know is a good pastiche of Chandler's style), is a very handsome-looking movie. But, boy, is it uninvolving and talky. It wants to be Chinatown or The Big Sleep, but it lacks the immediate, compelling aspects that made those past private eye films classics. The locations and sets and the overall look is so atmospheric that I kept wanting this movie to come alive, but it never did.
Liam Neeson is the Marlowe iteration this round; certainly no more unorthodox than Elliot Gould's early 1970s take in The Long Goodbye (another compelling, clever classic), but Neeson proves to be a bore - and makes Robert Mitchum's older Marlowe (more in the excellent 1975 Farewell, My Lovely than his weird London-set The Big Sleep) seem like a young sport. You've heard the snark "he sleepwalks through his performance"? That's Neeson.
Jessica Lange and Diane Kruger match up visually well as a shady mother and daughter double act, but their marcelled blonde wigs and painted faces do them no favors. More femmes null than femmes fatale.
I normally dislike Alan Cumming, but he livens things up as crime kingpin with an eccentric performance. I also like Colm Meaney as police inspector Bernie Ohls, looking remarkably like Regis Toomey, who played Bernie in the 1946 Big Sleep opposite Bogey.
If I view Marlowe again, it will be only to flip through the good-looking shots and scenes. Most of them good enough to be hung on a wall. Too bad the movie part is so disappointing.
4/10
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The Menu (2022)
One of those "dark comedies" about eating the rich that isn't especially witty or clever. But I like Ralph Fiennes enough that I won't rate it a 5.
6/10
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Posted: |
Dec 4, 2023 - 11:26 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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NAPOLEON (2023) – 8/10
This biopic gets points from me (a) for being a biopic (I love ‘em) and (b) for a great physical production. It does not, however, provide any new or enlightened take on the life of the ambitious Napoleon (Joaquin Phoenix) or his less-than-faithful wife Josephine (Vanessa Kirby). It’s been several decades since I’ve seen any film other than WATERLOO (1970) on Napoleon…probably Marlon Brando’s DÉSIRÉE (1954), was the last one. WATERLOO, of course, focuses on just a small part of Napoleon’s life, and Desiree Clary, who was engaged to Napoleon before he broke it off to marry Josephine, doesn’t figure into David Scarpa’s screenplay for NAPOLEON at all.
Except for the opening third of the film, set during the French Revolution, the film doesn’t focus much on politics, but instead on Napoleon and Josephine’s relationship. Then the latter half delves more into Napoleon’s military campaigns. We see Bonaparte in Egypt, without much explanation as to what he is doing there. Much time is spent on the Battle of Austerlitz, then it’s off to conquer Russia, with brief scenes of the Battle of Borodino, the burning of Moscow, and the winter retreat to France. Finally, Napoleon meets his Waterloo. The film also squeezes in Bonaparte’s coronation as Emperor and his two exiles—to Elba and St. Helena islands.
As for the acting, Phoenix is okay, but reports say that he was really floundering trying to find the character of Napoleon, so much so that he and director Ridley Scott had to have a 10-day sit-down on the subject, and Phoenix fell back on some comedic touches to inject some life into his portrayal. Nowhere can one find the dynamism that he brought to his role in JOKER. Vanessa Kirby is somewhat better as Josephine, often coming off as the more willful of the two.
Ridley Scott stages the battles well, so we generally know who’s who, even if some of the tactics aren’t always clear. Scott noted that the battle scenes utilized 11 cameras, to allow for maximum flexibility in editing.
Scott said he made a conscious attempt to keep the theatrical cut of the film as close to 2 and a half hours as possible. He said he feels this is the maximum length of time the average person can tolerate viewing a film without a break before feeling uncomfortable in the seat or starting to think a film is dragging. However, he did say he is planning a longer director's cut for the streaming debut of this Apple Studios production. The subject can easily use all the time that Scott can devote to it. For example, the 1987 television mini-series NAPOLEON AND JOSEPHINE: A LOVE STORY, starring Armand Assante and Jaqueline Bisset, runs nearly 5 hours.
Martin Phipps’ semi-melodic and chorus-infused score is a welcome respite from the pounding superhero/action scores I’ve been listening to in the theater most of the year. NAPOLEON cost $200 million, but with a two-week gross of just $138 million worldwide, the film will have to earn its keep as a big draw on the streaming platforms. But the picture, filmed in England and Malta, is best appreciated on the large screen.
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Posted: |
Dec 5, 2023 - 3:06 PM
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By: |
MusicMad
(Member)
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The Innocent (1993) ... 5/10
When I bought the CD of Gerald Gouriet's score ... nearly 22 years ago ... it was a blind buy - I knew nothing of the film and had (and still have) only one cue from another score by him. But for GBP 1.00 it was worth a try.
Only it didn't attract me, what with some dialogue (annoying!), a German language song and a tune which I thought I knew but couldn't place. After another play or two, I identified the tune as the English language song Answer Me, but didn't understand its relevance to the film.
I don't know the actor Campbell Scott and didn't recognise Isabella Rossellini but the storyline intrigued me and I wanted to follow the score. After 10 minutes I almost gave up as nothing made sense, there were numerous faces, voices and no coherence. Worse still there was Anthony Hopkins, one of my favourite actors, completely miscast as a ham-fisted American officer. But the story was now set in the early 1950s, in war-torn Berlin and appeared to be about the west's attempts to spy on the Russians. What not to like?
I'm glad I stuck with it: as a spy story there is great potential ... it doesn't hold, though, and I'm left wondering whether Glass/Hopkins set Leonard/Scott up with Maria/Rossellini or was this pure coincidence; as a romance there is great potential ... it doesn't hold, though, as Leonard's treatment of Maria doesn't ring true (even if he was that drunk); as a melodrama it works ... except that the events are so ludicrous that it loses any realism the story may have carried up until the dramatic event.
If a lightly built man struggles to lift the corpse of a heavy man will it be easier to do so if said corpse is now in two (or more) pieces? I hadn't allowed for the black comedy element ...
Whilst Scott played an Englishman far better than Hopkins an American, the latter still showed his strength as a brilliant actor such that I could almost ignore this. Rossellini was simply superb and made - almost - every scene enjoyable. Lovely period settings helped carry the story ... it was the story which let the film down.
As for the score: it works and I'll enjoy it more now.
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