Here's something you might be interested in.
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Pictures at a (Movie) Exposition
Visuals are the story in this week’s new movie releases, including Dunkirk and Lady Macbeth
Dunkirk: You. Are. There. Well, not really. But it gets at the feeling.
Director Christopher Nolan wants to remind folks why they go to movie theaters — instead of, you know, watching a movie on a telephone. In this critic’s humble opinion, he succeeds admirably in that effort with his retreat-as-victory war movie Dunkirk. (The link takes you to showtimes for the regular release, but I highly recommend seeking out the biggest format — IMAX, 70mm, the broad side of a barn, what have you — you can find.) The poster might as well have a You. Are. There. tagline. It’s good, is what I’m saying.
Movie
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets *
Utterly unreal space story from Luc Besson (he of <em>The Fifth Element</em> fame), who seems to have watched James Cameron’s <em>Avatar</em> and decided he could make it sillier, more scattered, and less emotionally engaging. (Score one for Cameron’s brand of painfully earnest sentiment?) So once again, we are treated to a lithe race of CGI natives, living in harmony with nature and one another, whose planet is ravaged by cavalier, warmongering humanity. And once again, it’s up to a plucky, lovestruck white dude (Dane DeHaan) to save them. This time around, his sweetie is also his partner (Cara Delevingne), but the sparks between them are as artificial as the banter, the physics, the drama…you name it. The film wants to be madcap, screwball, swashbuckling, and moving. It winds up chaotic, dizzy, plodding, and hammy. But if you’re the sort who insists on looking for bright spots amid the endless blackness of space, there is, admittedly, a measure of day-glo visual razzle-dazzle, a smattering of not-terrible comic relief, and a riot of invention for its own sake.
Visuals also rule the day in Luc Besson’s sci-fi romp Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. As in, the visuals are just about the only thing that’s interesting or engaging. In happy contrast to that is the fine debut drama Lady Macbeth, which keeps its words to a minimum and lets the pictures (and facial expressions) do much of the talking. (Coda for the unreviewed: The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography is also big on pictures, as the title may have indicated.)
Of course, sometimes the most powerful pictures are the ones that never show up on screen. Case in point: Kôji Fukada’s Harmonium. As Scott notes in his review: “There are moments when you’ll feel inclined to look away, but don’t; what Fukada shows is nothing compared to the pictures his sly visual foreshadowing has already planted in your head.” And other times, there are pictures — indeed, whole scenes — that we would be better off not seeing. Case in point: Oliver Hirschbiegel’s botched-Hitler-assassination story 13 Minutes. As he notes in his review: “It puts one in the mind to make a meme: Hitler reacts to Oliver Hirschbiegel’s prosaic flashback transitions.”
Also opening but unreviewed: ladies’ Big Easy road-trip comedy Girls Trip and art-imitates-life-imitates-art Shakespeare riff Hermia and Helena.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Pictures at a (Movie) Exposition
Visuals are the story in this week’s new movie releases, including Dunkirk and Lady Macbeth
Pictures at a (Movie) Exposition
Visuals are the story in this week’s new movie releases, including Dunkirk and Lady Macbeth
Dunkirk: You. Are. There. Well, not really. But it gets at the feeling.
Director Christopher Nolan wants to remind folks why they go to movie theaters — instead of, you know, watching a movie on a telephone. In this critic’s humble opinion, he succeeds admirably in that effort with his retreat-as-victory war movie Dunkirk. (The link takes you to showtimes for the regular release, but I highly recommend seeking out the biggest format — IMAX, 70mm, the broad side of a barn, what have you — you can find.) The poster might as well have a You. Are. There. tagline. It’s good, is what I’m saying.
Movie
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets *
Utterly unreal space story from Luc Besson (he of <em>The Fifth Element</em> fame), who seems to have watched James Cameron’s <em>Avatar</em> and decided he could make it sillier, more scattered, and less emotionally engaging. (Score one for Cameron’s brand of painfully earnest sentiment?) So once again, we are treated to a lithe race of CGI natives, living in harmony with nature and one another, whose planet is ravaged by cavalier, warmongering humanity. And once again, it’s up to a plucky, lovestruck white dude (Dane DeHaan) to save them. This time around, his sweetie is also his partner (Cara Delevingne), but the sparks between them are as artificial as the banter, the physics, the drama…you name it. The film wants to be madcap, screwball, swashbuckling, and moving. It winds up chaotic, dizzy, plodding, and hammy. But if you’re the sort who insists on looking for bright spots amid the endless blackness of space, there is, admittedly, a measure of day-glo visual razzle-dazzle, a smattering of not-terrible comic relief, and a riot of invention for its own sake.
Visuals also rule the day in Luc Besson’s sci-fi romp Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. As in, the visuals are just about the only thing that’s interesting or engaging. In happy contrast to that is the fine debut drama Lady Macbeth, which keeps its words to a minimum and lets the pictures (and facial expressions) do much of the talking. (Coda for the unreviewed: The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography is also big on pictures, as the title may have indicated.)
Of course, sometimes the most powerful pictures are the ones that never show up on screen. Case in point: Kôji Fukada’s Harmonium. As Scott notes in his review: “There are moments when you’ll feel inclined to look away, but don’t; what Fukada shows is nothing compared to the pictures his sly visual foreshadowing has already planted in your head.” And other times, there are pictures — indeed, whole scenes — that we would be better off not seeing. Case in point: Oliver Hirschbiegel’s botched-Hitler-assassination story 13 Minutes. As he notes in his review: “It puts one in the mind to make a meme: Hitler reacts to Oliver Hirschbiegel’s prosaic flashback transitions.”
Also opening but unreviewed: ladies’ Big Easy road-trip comedy Girls Trip and art-imitates-life-imitates-art Shakespeare riff Hermia and Helena.
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