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Queen of the Desert does not rule the movie releases
Take a look at Frantz, Mine, The Void, The Ticket, and Your Name
Nicole Kidman makes for an oddly chilly Queen of the Desert in the latest from Werner Herzog.
If you are a certain sort of enterprising soul — that is, the sort who doesn’t want to pay for stuff — you can find the video of Werner Herzog’s masterclass in filmmaking out there on the Internet for free. Or you can pay for it here. Or you can read about it here and then think about whether you want to pay for it.
Movie
Frantz **
At the close of World War I, a young French soldier, tormented with guilt, travels to Germany to visit the family of the boy he killed in combat. I’m all for remaking bad movies so long as the do-over team apply the right amount of creative glazing and spot putty to Bondo over the flaws of the original. But there was no pressing call for a remake of Ernst Lubitsch’s mournful and unjustly pushed aside anti-war drama <em>Broken Lullaby</em> aka <em>The Man I Killed</em>. Still, even if he can't improve on Lubitsch, director Francois Ozon remains faithful to the director’s vision — at least for the first half. Then things take an uncalled-for turn in the direction of a whodunit that left me looking at my watch more than the screen. The perhaps too-beautifully manicured black-and-white ‘Scope cinematography and Paula Beer’s bravura turn as the German girl who got left behind make it worth your while.
And if you do pay for it, it will probably prove a better instance of Herzogian spending than buying a ticket for Queen of the Desert. From Scott Marks’s review, it sounds conventional, even polite. Which is shocking. A man with Herzog’s track record is certainly allowed to experiment, but when your experiments start to resemble everybody else’s standard work you risk losing the audience.
Speaking of politeness, there’s a muffled accusation of it in Marks’s review of Frantz, the new one from François Ozon. Again, shocking, considering the source. Perhaps because he’s remaking the work of an old master? At least Mine sounds like it offers a little rudeness and grit, if not quite excellence.
Movie
Mine **
Mike (Armie Hammer) and Tommy (Tom Cullen) are Marine snipers who fail to neutralize their target. The disappointed voice at the other end of the walkie-talkie informs the pair that ground vehicles weren’t requested for their mission. The only way home is on foot through a mine-laden desert. For the sake of the narrative, talkative Tommy takes the false step needed to blow him to ghostly bits. (Though that doesn’t stop his footless corpse from doing most of the expository legwork.) Mike lands with one boot pressed firmly against an active mine, and it is in this posture that he proceeds to spend the remaining two-thirds of the running time. With nowhere to go but deeper inside Mike’s fevered fantasy world, the writing-directing team of Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro step on a couple of dud subplots involving an abusive father and turbulent romance. The script doctor in me dreamt of an exhausted Mike accidentally dislodging his boot, breathing a sigh of relief, taking two steps backwards and… BOOM! The actual ending isn't bad, but frankly, mine is better.
And speaking of rudeness (and grossness, and gooeyness, and gore and glop, and gloriously grotty practical effects), I saw The Void this week. Its sloppy viscerality made a neat contrast with the controlled formality of The Ticket’s moral fable. I don’t necessarily prefer one or the other, but in this case the latter was a job well done from director and co-writer Ido Fluk.
I also saw Your Name, which is the highest-grossing anime film ever. Perhaps this says something about anime, or at least the sort of audience it attracts. I’m puzzled — why this one? — but I think I get something of the film’s appeal: longing, longing, longing.
As for the rest of us, Scott hopes to have a review of Going in Style up before too long, so that’s something to long for. Maybe. We’ll see.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Queen of the Desert does not rule the movie releases
Take a look at Frantz, Mine, The Void, The Ticket, and Your Name
Queen of the Desert does not rule the movie releases
Take a look at Frantz, Mine, The Void, The Ticket, and Your Name
Nicole Kidman makes for an oddly chilly Queen of the Desert in the latest from Werner Herzog.
If you are a certain sort of enterprising soul — that is, the sort who doesn’t want to pay for stuff — you can find the video of Werner Herzog’s masterclass in filmmaking out there on the Internet for free. Or you can pay for it here. Or you can read about it here and then think about whether you want to pay for it.
Movie
Frantz **
At the close of World War I, a young French soldier, tormented with guilt, travels to Germany to visit the family of the boy he killed in combat. I’m all for remaking bad movies so long as the do-over team apply the right amount of creative glazing and spot putty to Bondo over the flaws of the original. But there was no pressing call for a remake of Ernst Lubitsch’s mournful and unjustly pushed aside anti-war drama <em>Broken Lullaby</em> aka <em>The Man I Killed</em>. Still, even if he can't improve on Lubitsch, director Francois Ozon remains faithful to the director’s vision — at least for the first half. Then things take an uncalled-for turn in the direction of a whodunit that left me looking at my watch more than the screen. The perhaps too-beautifully manicured black-and-white ‘Scope cinematography and Paula Beer’s bravura turn as the German girl who got left behind make it worth your while.
And if you do pay for it, it will probably prove a better instance of Herzogian spending than buying a ticket for Queen of the Desert. From Scott Marks’s review, it sounds conventional, even polite. Which is shocking. A man with Herzog’s track record is certainly allowed to experiment, but when your experiments start to resemble everybody else’s standard work you risk losing the audience.
Speaking of politeness, there’s a muffled accusation of it in Marks’s review of Frantz, the new one from François Ozon. Again, shocking, considering the source. Perhaps because he’s remaking the work of an old master? At least Mine sounds like it offers a little rudeness and grit, if not quite excellence.
Movie
Mine **
Mike (Armie Hammer) and Tommy (Tom Cullen) are Marine snipers who fail to neutralize their target. The disappointed voice at the other end of the walkie-talkie informs the pair that ground vehicles weren’t requested for their mission. The only way home is on foot through a mine-laden desert. For the sake of the narrative, talkative Tommy takes the false step needed to blow him to ghostly bits. (Though that doesn’t stop his footless corpse from doing most of the expository legwork.) Mike lands with one boot pressed firmly against an active mine, and it is in this posture that he proceeds to spend the remaining two-thirds of the running time. With nowhere to go but deeper inside Mike’s fevered fantasy world, the writing-directing team of Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro step on a couple of dud subplots involving an abusive father and turbulent romance. The script doctor in me dreamt of an exhausted Mike accidentally dislodging his boot, breathing a sigh of relief, taking two steps backwards and… BOOM! The actual ending isn't bad, but frankly, mine is better.
And speaking of rudeness (and grossness, and gooeyness, and gore and glop, and gloriously grotty practical effects), I saw The Void this week. Its sloppy viscerality made a neat contrast with the controlled formality of The Ticket’s moral fable. I don’t necessarily prefer one or the other, but in this case the latter was a job well done from director and co-writer Ido Fluk.
I also saw Your Name, which is the highest-grossing anime film ever. Perhaps this says something about anime, or at least the sort of audience it attracts. I’m puzzled — why this one? — but I think I get something of the film’s appeal: longing, longing, longing.
As for the rest of us, Scott hopes to have a review of Going in Style up before too long, so that’s something to long for. Maybe. We’ll see.
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