What can be said about Godzilla? It is an icon to name icons. Looking at IMDb, it is unfortunate, although expected, to find 2014 release of Godzilla has 10 times as much ratings as the original 1954 version. Even though some scenes do look pretty goofy, a lot of love was undoubtedly put into it. That love is not always felt when viewing with modern sensibilities. I attempt to remedy the poignant feeling by calculated and logical reasoning and arguments... or more so my own acuity of the work.
Steven Spielberg, who took a lot of influence from the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia by David Lean, said this is a kind of movie that would not be done these days. And he is not talking about the epic production, about the elaborate sets, and very complex sequences, that today in the age of CGI would totally be faked to one degree or another. What he is talking about is more political. Thomas Edward Lawrence was not necessarily a good guy. He murdered a lot of people, some in cold blood. As he himself states in the movie: he quite enjoyed it. And yet the film is an epic tale romanticizing this man as a sort of broken mythical hero. Which begs the question: why?
A lot of people are big fans of the Christopher McQuarrie movies in the Mission: Impossible series. A lot of more sophisticated movie goers prefer the more serious first picture directed by Brian De Palma. Some are the fans of the Brad Bird and J. J. Abrams installments. But almost everybody unanimously loves to hate on the John Woo second film Mission: Impossible 2. I frankly, don't get it.
Sex and love are hard to miss on present block-busters. Even topics such as love between a child and an adult are discussed. In early 1970s and before it was hard to find films delving into such topics. A nostalgia film of that. The movie may start out light-hearted, it went deep so to make the illustrious Kubrick cry.
Kristoffer Borgli's 2023 film Dream Scenario starring Nicolas Cage is a movie about a man, who is being dreamed about by a lot of people. At first his family have weird dreams about him. Then people related to them. Then the whole world. At first the dreams make him famous. But then they take a turn for the worst. At first he is just doing nothing in those dreams. Then he is being a creep. And then he literally murders people in those dreams. Which makes the public, in the real life, react to him with greater and greater rivalry. Apart from, for some reason, people in France.
17% Rotten Tomatoes score. The movie got to be shit, right? Well when it comes to the Eli Roth's 2018 Death Wish ( the remake of the 1974 film with the same name ) you are not quite correct. In my estimate the film should be no less than 60%, based on its execution. Eli Roth is a good enough director to pull something like this off. And you can see that he is trying. The actors are also good. And the music by Ludwig GΓΆransson is really fucking good. I mean this is the same guy who did the music for Tenet and Oppenheimer. He is really fucking good. Watching the movie, I saw that the movie is arguably a lot more watchable and a lot more satisfying than the 1974 original. What is different, is that the 1974 original was made in 1974. And since then the politics have changed.
A lot of people see the 2021 Adam McKay film Don't Look Up as something that fails to communicate the message of climate change well enough. McKay stated that the movie was written specifically to point people at the absurdity of the "climate crisis". And yet the film's allegorical comet / asteroid doomsday plot seems to fail at giving it justice. For once an asteroid that is about to destroy the planet is nobody's fault. While the climate change is somebody's fault. But if you look at the movie relatively to other disaster flicks of the same type ( like Armageddon and Melancholia ) you see something rather interesting.
Who is this character, who's family suffered from the hands of lawless criminals, and who wanders the nights in search for some of those criminals, to have his revenge? Who is this character, who is a wealthy gentleman during the day, while the "vengeance" itself during the night? Batman? No... it is Paul Kersey played by Charles Bronson in a Michael Winner 1974 film Death Wish.
This was the first time I've ever cried from a film. And that experience made me addicted, both to Steven Spielberg and A.I. and also to watching films seriously. Taking in what the directors is trying to do. Letting the film overwhelm you. Letting it break you. And perhaps made me a better filmmaker myself.
I reviewed a lot of films on this website and in almost every review I mention the name of Steven Spielberg. It's not because every movie I review is made by Spielberg. But it seem like every director can be viewed on a scale of Spielbergness. And the higher you go on that scale the better. At the top there is Steven Spielberg himself.
I was not sure if I wanted to see Barbie. I certainly didn't want to see it together with Oppenheimer. But the funny thing is, I still didn't review Oppenheimer, while here I am reviewing Barbie. I think I have the same reason here as with Nope as of why I avoided it. You know Nope was directed by a black man. And it was one of its main selling points. Barbie is directed by a woman. And everybody is talking about it. And it feels forced to watch a movie for that kind of reason. So I avoided Barbie until now. But since I had a Ryan Gosling marathon, I though that I might as well get into this film. And oh my god. I have thoughts!