It's something of a mystery how this poorly scripted film with its weak dialogues has earned so much regard, then and now. The scant pitch of Grant's squeaky voice and his limited facial vocabulary, paired with the amiable but depthless antics of the lead lady (Bennett) are thankfully rescued by the natural flair of Roland Young (Topper), who fortunately occupies most scenes -- the lesson being that ultimately looks cannot make up for lack of talent. Lubitsch, Cukor and McCarey knew better how to exploit Young's abilities. The best lines lie in Mrs Topper's exchange with the butler (Mowbray): "Wilkins, after all these years, are you trying to be funny?" she asks. "No Madam, Mr Topper went with a suitcase in the contraption." And to "top" it all (excuse the pun), the good deed of our two reluctant ghosts comprises haunting a millionaire banker. As fake as the über-wealthy Americans' palatial houses styled like film-sets. Drinking, smoking, betrayal, absurd wealth: the American dream in a nutshell. In 1937 the USA was already at war with the "Japs", and then reluctantly quit its isolationism to join forces with the embattled Europe against the Reich. In this same year Hollywood produced dozens of much finer movies, and the further mystery is how this lackluster outing spawned two sequels.
Reviews
108 Reviews
Wonderful World
(2009)
More American self-worship
9 December 2023
This disneyfication of the Other with its cutesy storyline is an affront to Wolof culture, and notably never mentions the majority national religion (Allah forbid!) or former colonial administrative language (French). If you've ever lived or spent downtime with Senegalese people you'll cringe at every twist and turn, starting with the quietly "noble" intellectual Ibou who plays chess (egad!) and speaks in sapient aphorisms, to Khadi's dress style, of which the Nikes are just a further insult (brand salvation!). This is classic American redemption pap, and the casting choice of the left-handed Broderick underdog with his tiny eyes and sour little mouth is the perfect foil for an impossible tale: as represented here, Khadi is a gross travesty of everything Senegalese, even of the more westernized female subjects of the diaspora. And with his trite little guitar tune repeated three of four times, Ben confirms that he is a talentless misanthrope that probably deserves his fate as failed husband and fired proofreader. Just as things might pick up with the court case and Ibou's emergence from coma, the film stalls yet again, fails to gel: acting talent wasted, ideas wasted. Writing the entire story in reverse, focusing on Ibou, with Ben as a mere accessory, might just give rise to a movie worth watching, instead of this schmaltzy unauthentic dross of American self-worship that seeks "redemption" in every corner, in this case at the expense of anything Other. With the next presidential inauguration, the invocation should be "God Save America" (from itself).
Somewhat overdone fun
5 May 2023
Given the vitriol of the low-end reviews, perhaps these self-appointed film critics should state their age and country of origin, and also offer photos of their tawdry rooms littered with empty pizza boxes, ice-cream cartons, and smelly discarded clothes. Sure, the film was debatably trashy, sentimental, but American movies invariably leans on the defunct concept of "family", so the disgruntled (re)viewers should perhaps not be so indignant at the stagnant ideas and storyline, repetitions, overused CGI and whatnot. Like any child, Groot is either fondled or abused, perhaps an oblique comment on family omertà, just as supposed adults often exercise their hangups on their own progeny. The sisters were a mess, the father-son equation likewise; the real stars were Drax and Rocket. This sequel was stupidissimo, but fun.
Viking
(2022)
Homage to past classics
29 April 2023
The echoes of "Solaris" (the 1972 original Tarkovsky, not the remake) are hardly coincidental. The crew's moodiness, the claustrophobic interiors, and the "low-budget" effects here match those of the Russian masterpiece. That same year saw the cult classic "Silent Running" by the ingenious Trumbull, the guy who created the effects for "2001: A Space Odyssey". The notion of parallel worlds is a regular obsession in sci-fi and no less here, something Duncan Jones's "Moon" (2009) delved into with startling insights. For people who dislike unanswered questions and loopholes, this movie is not for you. It's part parable, part puzzle, part piss-take. Seriously unserious and vice-versa.
This Place Rules
(2022)
Americon psicko
28 April 2023
Don't you just love those worst reviews? Read them first, because it's like the doc's finger on your pulse to figure out if you dead or ain't. Opinion bias is inevitable, if you think otherwise go shoot yourself already. But bias does not entirely rule out pondered judgement. Despite his filtering of events and curated interviews, Callaghan's material allows the viewer to make their own assessment. The facts is, most of what happened in the build-up toward the 6 January jamboree most likely would not have taken place without today's social media. For a glimpse of how things were before all this hysterical online crap, delve into the numerous analyses of McVeigh's 1995 bombing in Oklahoma. The "right to revenge" in the American bloodline will continue indefinitely, be warned. The biblical western "eye for an eye" is also the root of Al-Qaida. The irony is that the violent takeover of sovereign indigenous territory (the whites bringing not only greed, but syphilis and myriad diseases with them) and the forced importation of Africans for the slave workforce, is the true legacy of the USA. Now and forever. The name United States itself is an oxymoron. God He don' "bless America", He look down an' weep.
Tetris
(2023)
Truckloads of American branding
25 April 2023
Fabrications don't get much more thorough than this. The parting fact is that Tetris was invented by a Russian gamer. What follows is "America saves the world" from the Other. Skimpy plot-line, wobbly acting, predictably drab grey buildings and driving rain in the Russia scenes. And yes of course the young Moscow "rebels" at the disco (with western music) believe liberation is having access to Coca-Cola and Levi jeans. Our director Baird's "Stan & Ollie" outing was more genuine, as was "Filth". Here he seems to be cashing in on the unmentionable "bad guy" who has invaded Ukraine and drives a ruthless, dead-end war with Europe and NATO. Where was Baird in 2014 with the annexing of Crimea? My friends from Kyiv found this movie misdirected and as drab and ambiguous as the overworked Moscow backdrops. And of course the American kino ditzes need a car-chase and a schmaltzy ending, with a fat cheque for 5 million dollars. Oh, let's not forget that America saved the Russians from themselves! Dio ci aiuti.
Worlds apart
16 April 2023
Despite the persistent Orientalist idea of the Other (read Edward Said on that issue), the glitzy bazaars, wedding ceremonies, and unlikely sanction of traditions and values, the wobbly female lead Lily James (whereas Shazad Latif is a delight), and not least, despite the awkward Thompson extended cameo, here we find a hearty Eid stew of halal beef kumin sumac and heady spices bubbling on the back hob with Kapur's authentic wish to merge worlds apart. His intentions seem genuine. More than once Kaz points out to Zoe that despite their contiguous terraced houses and lives, their two families are "separated by continents". Anyone with a bonce knew where this trip was heading, but that detracts nothing from the journey. Consistently enjoyable. Bravo Kapur.
Tár
(2022)
A gruesome caricature
7 April 2023
Hmm. In cinematic terms, reasonably involving despite its stagey and faux portentous evolution. Musically however, it is pretentious, and the delivery of lines is peculiarly uneven, brittle. Blanchett is perhaps the worst, and others are little better, so perhaps the script itself is at fault. Doubtless the cast all believed in the power of this "haute culture" tale (a bit like the travesty of Haneke's much-lauded "Piano Teacher"). Piling on every possible topic: cultural stereotypes, bullying, denazification, cancel culture, lesbian undertow, elite hierarchies . . . The only thing missing perhaps is fat-shaming and diabetes. The movie assays to transmit the realities of musical performance, and there's the rub: Tár's conducting is a gruesome caricature, the practice pianos are tuned incorrectly, the "snippets" of Mahler are like fake meringue on a cake-shop window display. The criss-crossing of languages and esoteric haute musical references evidently had many American critics creaming their nickers, but the relentless winding handle of the Adagietto will please a public that is for the most part musically illiterate: "Forget Visconti" she sneers, but one cannot unsee Death in Venice, a film whose very existence made Tár possible. And although Blanchett has to play a dominant sociopathic character, her lack of genuine musicality (as a person and/or actress) betrays her inflated sense of self-worth as a box-office draw, and her overacting verges on the obscene. As for the screenplay, the namedropping to lend gravitas is comical: the reference to Kalinnikov confirmed my worst fears. Stagey and stilted dialogues, abrupt shifts, convenient script apocopations. The line that sticks in my mind is delivered by Andris: "Nowadays to be accused is the same as being guilty." Despite the reversals and arrogant pastiche, hats off to all concerned for their efforts. Ultimately however, the whole is far less than the sum of the parts and results in a repugnant mess. If you have an iota of time after checking your TikTok and Twitter feeds, watch Claudio Abbado conduct Mahler's 5th at Lucerne: his agonising ecstasy makes our antsy Tár look like a jobless Bradford street mime; and Sheku Kanneh-Mason playing Elgar's cello concert with the hr-Sinfonieorchester under Collon's baton.
Arrival
(II) (2016)
Roll out the big guns, boys
7 April 2023
Despite what seems like a sincere premise, upon second viewing the film's message proves to be yet another dubious attempt to lionise human capability to overcome its drive for destruction. For humans it's win or destroy, roll out the big guns boys; whereas an alien intelligence of this magnitude would most likely neutralise our weapons, rendering them useless, no fire-power, emasculating. So, between the three interpretations of the aliens' message (weapon, tool, gift), the last holds (time), though one wonders what might be the practical use of seeing into the future for creatures so devoid of common sense: seeing round corners to plan further atrocities? Ultimately, our very unlikely heroine's "humanised" view of life derives from losing her beloved daughter to cancer. The loss of millions of lives around the planet through human aggression (ca. 80 million in WWII alone), now through capitalist greed (environmental devastation), are less significant than the death of a single, white middle-class American child. If awareness and care depend solely on personal loss, then we are truly f*kd. As regards the hapless interpreter, having special linguistic abilities is not equivalent to intelligence, though it usually looks so to the monolingual masses of the USA. Here in Europe, though a great many people speak several languages, there's an idiot on every corner.
Pete's Dragon
(2016)
Ghastly beyond words
3 April 2023
Is this mawkish dross the American "lesson" to kids about the western destruction of Nature, which for the US largely consists of corralled parks with barbecue benches? If so, keep your bairns away from this horrendous endorsement of echt-white family values, oversized houses, cutesy kids, glossy saccharine mothers, men with obligatory facial hair to remind us of their threatened virility of guns and trucks, kiddie PJs and peanut-butter sandwiches. The token sheriff played by Whitlock Jr was the last straw. Sheeeeeit. Ghastly beyond words. If you want a thrill about imaginary beings, try "Trollhunter" by André Øvredal, whose genuine irony offers an antidote to this American weepie. By the way, at the age of fifteen Pete murders all the family in their sleep and then goes on a gun rampage at his school, meanwhile the dragons takes a royal dump on City Hall.
Songs My Brothers Taught Me
(2015)
Prisoners of destiny
26 March 2023
The prison of self-doubt we've made for our boys (with the "man-up" mantra) and the prison that men make for themselves and each other, might matter less if males didn't then imprison the opposite sex to bolster their vapid self-worth. Less pretentious than "Nomadland", this earlier outing by Zhao weaves so many strands and details it deserves repeated watching, though many will find it "uneventful" from the outset and likely switch off. Throughout the western world, alcohol is demonised, not as the outcome of oppression and social ills, but through religion as something sinful and curable through "community". Maybe if religion didn't promise the unattainable, there'd be less self- and social repression. The lesson of the boxing class is simple: often in life it is not brute strength that gets you through, but stealth: learn to outwit your rival, anticipate his or her moves. And above all, should it end in defeat, lean into your failures with renewed wisdom, not self-pity, just as Johnny "leans into the wind, so as not to get blown away".
Mr. Malcolm's List
(2022)
Loosen your corsets
26 March 2023
When Knightly says "Badly done, Emma, badly done!" his heart is breaking, but here Holly Jones's impish take on Austen (after Allain) is "well done", and ultimately honours how she devises events to converge toward a felicitous finale (happy ending for the uninitiated), while just steering clear of schmalz. The two leads are reasonably well matched -- he suitably haughty, she in enviable earnest -- whereas some of the other characters tend toward caricature. No matter. While Austen faithfuls may shrink and see only parody, my advice is to loosen your corsets luvvies, lie back and enjoy this vewy Bwitish pewiod fwolic.
Nomadland
(2020)
Oxymoron
26 March 2023
Despite the oxymoron of "nomad" and "land", Zhao has done a magnificent job of team-work with cinematographer Richards and production chief Godar, along with the actors led by McDormand and Strathairn, all credible in their roles. However, for those outside of the USA, the movie exposes the Americans' blighted idea of their country as the planet itself (admittedly, the land the settlers intruded upon is vast and varied), endorsing an isolationist view of the stars and stripes as the one and only. Yes, there are burgers on the grill, yes there are self-help groups, yes there are handcrafted pots and knickknacks (along with negative mortgages, politicians, loan-sharks and bankers lining their pockets). But the narrative here is largely all recycled Americana. True nomads live in movable structures and travel with their livestock from land to land, without need for flags, borders, or the retail markers of malls and franchise diners purveying cancerous foodstuffs (the Peul of Senegambia, the tribes of Mongolia are nomads, not the folks in this tale). Moving around with a gasoline-guzzling vehicle and available electricity, ready showers, and drive-ins, is not nomadic, it's just moving around. Sure, this kind of life marks a certain freedom, but it is still slavery to capitalist comforts: this "nomadic" illusion is only feasible because there are stationary services at their disposal. The reference points for African nomads are water (rivers, lakes, oases), not drive-ins where you can take a dump, nor camps with electricity to recharge your myriad devices. Although her van can move from place to place, Fern built her cramped interiors over time to suit her needs, they are fixed. She has a home, she is neither homeless nor hero. The projection of the idea of home/family onto the self-made tribe of assorted travellers is a glib fantasy that borders on insult to those truly uprooted: what about the people from the embattled south (violence, poverty) who migrate to America to create a new life? Ultimately, the places these "alien" newcomers settle in are mere film-sets for the supposed American dream and way of life. A centuries-old fiction. Despite all this, by using real individuals from the world of people "on the move", Zhao's lyrical film is gorgeous to watch, and as a tale might never be matched in its gentle honesty. The popcorn-munching American public in the theatre are unlikely to grasp its radiant message of hope. They'll waddle out and go off to stoke their obesity at the nearest McDonald's or Tex-Mex, whatever franchise offers extra-large portions of slaughtered animals and jumbo sugared beverages. When they emerge, a few movie-goers might look up at the sky beyond the mass of glaring neon, and ponder at the immensity of life. That said, Zhao's earlier "Songs" (2015) is less contrived, a glorious expression of youth, in every sense, the trials and wonder of life.
Tidal Wave
(2009)
Superbly ironic
25 March 2023
Superbly ironic, an affectionate yet thorough piss-take of modern humanity. It seems that many reviewers were expecting high-level CGI and the classic American-style "heroic" posturing in the lead-up to a gratifying grand finale (they had to wait an hour before the disaster arrived! So much of my life wasted! I want my money back!, etc., poor things). Instead of US-style "saviours of humanity and the planet", the S. Koreans know how to parody themselves and even their borrowed consumer culture, as they deftly braid romance, horror, poignancy, and humour in a way that eludes American disaster movies, in which the muscled hero "sacrifices" himself in the name of the Stars & Stripes. The hour-long build-up is both hilarious and poignant, and worth the wait: even amidst disaster, Korean irony dovetails with despair, as humans very realistically trample each other regardless of the fate of their fellow beings, and heinous self-interest becomes cardinal to survival (for instance, the woman who head-butts her naïve saviour in the sea in order to rescue her lover, who instead decides to save him and sacrifice himself). The scene on the bridge with shipping containers raining down from an upended transport vessel is a brilliant sequence of pure comedy; a situation that only gets better when our little hero accidentally sets alight the entire ship and bridge, with the containers becoming projectiles (basically outdoing not only Michael Bay but the entire explosive "Die Hard" franchise). Meanwhile, in the city everyone is screaming for a loved-one, hundreds are trampled, electrocuted, or drowned, folks are stranded and screaming, buildings are toppling. But let's not forget the clean-up operation after the 2011 tsunami in Japan, a rarely discussed operation that cost billions, and was effected even amidst grief and mourning, a monumental effort briefly captured here in the last minutes of the movie. The bard T. S. Eliot was perhaps mistaken ("Not with a bang, but a whimper"), since this is how the world will most likely end: a gruesome mash-up with everyone screaming their last words to their loved ones (spouses, kids), whom in actual life they ignored since too busy on their smartphones. And here on planet Earth, while island nations are disappearing thanks to western greed, it might be apposite if instead all the low-lying coastal capital cities of the developed world (New York, Miami, Seattle, London, Copenhagen, Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc.) were swallowed up by tidal surges, industrial filth, and carcasses of all the planet's devastated wildlife. What do they call this "settling of accounts" nowadays? Ah yes, karma. Do as you would be done by!
Identity Thief
(2013)
Maybe better than you think
3 February 2023
In time, this movie might be recognised as an evergreen classic. Maybe not on the level of Groundhog Day, but it offers nearly two hours of rambunctious fun. The word "chemistry" is sometimes shorthand for a certain critical illiteracy of actor involvement, but Bateman and McCarthy frequently defy gravity, and thankfully, various reviewers acknowledge this welcome knack that is just one of the perks of intuitive casting. One can easily imagine the two of them goofing off-set and roaring with laughter, and also improvising the script here and there just for the fun of it. My only gripe is how Peet's talents are wasted here.
Duplicity
(2009)
Great ideas don't always entail great art.
1 February 2023
Seeing this again a decade later, two things remain. One is the realistic premise of industrial espionage over the mindless British loop of M Goldfinger Blofelt Aston Martins and tarantulas on hairy chests. Second, wherever we have the likes of Wilkinson, Giamatti, O'Hare, and even Carrie Preston's tiny part filling in the yawning gaps of poor script and indifferent acting from the leads Roberts and Owen, then perhaps (perhaps) the product will hold together better than a Primark paper bag in a Leeds downpour. But you should guess that when "exotic" sets (the streets of Rome, sidewalk bars) stand in for sophistication instead of a tight script and well-delivered lines, then take your trough of popkorn and sneak out for a chat with the bored staff. With acting so crummy (the Rome hotel scene), these two leads have joined the trash list of sell-outs (don't ask what they were paid). That said, Elswit's cinematography is exceptional. The secret of the lotion is not revealed until 1:25 into the movie, and it's a SPOILER! Great ideas don't always entail great art.
Sybil
(1976)
Muddled and misleading pseudo-scientific dross
6 January 2023
Remember to read the low-rated reviews first, which in this particular case includes my own. Even accounting for its dated format and formula, this ghastly, over-simplified, processed-cheese movie about mental "disorder" with a confused script and incoherent acting is an accidental turkey. However, it bravely tackles issues which at the time were taboo: even the Vatican has accepted the detailed research data revealing that 70% of the abuse of minors occur within the family circuit. Omertà: the father with daughter, the uncle with nephew, the neighbour with both, relatives turning a blind eye, a deaf ear. Though she does her best, Field is a struggle to watch and barely capable of projecting variations between her personalities (her inadequacy means relying props like hair-style, glasses, and clothing). In later career, her "Brothers & Sisters" (2006-15) and "Doris" (2015) are proof of her acting limits. Meanwhile, despite her fame, Woodward is hardly better, and we'd best forget Davis altogether. In the 1970s folks were probing and analysing religion rules and regulation, and Sybil is a relatable offshoot of that surge of new awareness. Fifty years since the film's debut, abuse of minors remains rampant and is invariably a family affair. The closing shmaltz is ruinous.
The War Zone
(1999)
Exceptional dose of revelatory drama
31 December 2022
Blunt and in-your-face, from the sagging flesh and drab interiors to the relentless rain on sash-windows and landscape drained of all colour. The merciless trudge of life that ensues a near-death accident and the birth of Alice, miraculous survivor in the circumstances. According to various reliable sources, around 70% of abuse of minors takes place within the family orbit (even the Vatican has officially admitted it). Smiling relatives and nodding neighbours. Even Weinstein and Kanye and now such adorable icons as Andrew Tate will claw at the stock ennobling trope of how crucial "family" is to their lives. Ahem. Ironically, in Roth's WZ the isolated house down a dirt lane where nobody sane would wish to live frames his discourse around the virus of complacency and omertà regarding the abuse of the defenceless. The incest card gives it extra grist. As for buggery, it is the most profuse form of contraception worldwide (for millennia, practised in China and India), so not the exclusive province of homosexuals (ladies also have that "thing"). Roth is ruthless, and most likely has his reasons. Courage too. Ultimately the message is we need to figure out whether people like the Dad here are as much victims themselves as are the objects of his abuse. The issue is not the individual abuser but abuse itself, inevitable product of the contorted labyrinth of shame and taboo generated by religion.
Darkest Hour
(2017)
Water Closet
29 December 2022
Though not always, Joe got it wright once again. No surprise that many (re)viewers home in on Oldman's performance, but how you "feel" this film depends a lot on your age. Who remembers Churchill's funeral, in its day the greatest ever televised event? The entire nation watched or listened on radio, in every pub, in every living-room and parlour across the Isles. The Queen may have left us, but Winston will outlive her in the country's political history. In my lively conversation as a journalist with Wright back in 2010, he mentioned his plan to continue the premise of Atonement and return to WWII. His parents were "war children" and knew rationing and the fear of invasion (along with the Bay of Pigs "duck and cover" scare), but also the kind of solidarity that rarely exists nowadays. Thirty years ago in Europe the threat of war was Yugoslavia, now all this is being played out in Ukraine. Beware the warring lunatics, they keep reappearing. Note the visual joke of "WC" as Winston retreats to the bog.
CAT. 8
(2013– )
Undiluted American guff
29 November 2022
Seeing is believing: hilarious version of Thunderbirds with a team of wooden actors led by a defunct Modine (b. 1959, here with dyed hair) taking the place of the puppets (alas, without Penelope). In this cardboard effort even the interiors and set-designs were lost for words, as were the prozac-fuelled out-of-work white actors pissed as hell that all the decent movies are packed with African Americans professionals and this was their last shot, because they had promised to take their kids to Legoland. Rarely was so little owed to so few for so much, as Winston might have said between cigars and whiskey. But let's dispense with the words, since the Americans' language is one of bullets: Shoot 'em up, Scotty! Thank heavens we can always rely on the USA to save the entire frigging planet, while joining up all of humanity in a chorus of unity, right? This movie is so inept it really deserves 10 stars.
Ordinary Love
(2019)
Entering the void
24 November 2022
This may sound insensitive, but (upper) middle-class people are allowed to wallow in their dilemmas, whereas 90% of the rest have to get on with life. Not regardless mind you, just they're too busy for self-pity. True, there's a degree of chemistry between the two leads, but their dialogue is didactic, unnatural and crafted for theatre, not veracity. Furthermore, talking to grave-stones is barely a couple of steps behind praying to an imaginary deity. Humans' incapacity to cope with the void and their own extinction is unfortunately alive and kicking in the form of religion. For which millions, yes millions, have died, even before the Nazarene walked the Earth, whose disciples just made things worse. But back to the script. The first half hour is anodyne, then reality kicks in: anyone who has undergone chemotherapy or suffered severe disease will recognise the ignominy of being stuffed with tubes and chemicals. Serial nausea is no joke. In the case of this tale OL, truth rudely barges in with the head-shaving scene, the isolation of pain and the pain of isolation with one's own disease. The message is that ultimately we are all alone, as Joan admits to the former teacher of her dead daughter, a dying man with whom she forges a grim alliance. We are all ordinary, as is our love. Let's not forget "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" (2015), and "Other People" (2016). The young refugees who live with me saw their parents executed by the Taliban, my neighbours are ailing, on the way out. As the great man Franklin said, in this world nothing is certain except death and taxes. The lesson is: make the best of what you have, now.
Starship Troopers
(1997)
Waiter, there's a bug in my soup
13 November 2022
At the time, Verhoeven's gorgeously inane wet-dreams pic didn't go down well with the US public and reviewers, perhaps because as an outsider, his exposure of the ever-present undertow of fascism in the US was too close to the bone. Americans never know who they are, so we get actor profiles listing half a dozen racial backgrounds to bulk up the void (Cherokee, Estonian, Singhalese, and invariably part-Irish). The narrative drags, but the UCF swearing-in crap will remind every non-American of the obligatory morning allegiance to the Stars and Stripes at school; they're just kids, how more fascist can you get? We outsiders find it creepy, along with the US obsession for flying the flag on every verandah, as if to ward off the terror of non-identity. In ST the ironies flow aplenty, and with what squeamish glee we learn that Mormon "extremists" were promptly snuffed out by the alien arachnids (by the way, spiders have eight legs and every bug here seems to have only six). Hilarious interweaving of campus college romance, penile deficiency bromance, shoot-em-up nomance, and oodles of green sludge. As noted above, Verhoeven's stab at Americana didn't go down well, yet if he had gone further and turned parody into ruthless satire he'd have scored higher amongst anyone without a Confederate flag in their sitting-room. As always, Americans (now joyously including Blacks, Asians, and Latinos, etc.) compensate their inadequacies with guns, big guns. Did I say big? Sorry, I meant humongously big guns, in case you didn't get the point. Square jaws and perfect dentures are a metaphor for manly prowess downstairs (and cost as much as a mortgage). Nowadays, this arid pap would have been compressed from two hours into a sappy 50-minute episode of Black Mirror. Copy that. Let's not forget that when humans finally push that big red button and annihilate their inept species, a billion bugs will heave a sigh of relief.
Persuasion
(I) (2022)
The torment of expectation
8 August 2022
Austen-lovers seem a little harsh on this foray, with its modernised take on the folly of social mores and gentle nudge toward youthful courtship (in those days a fifteen-year-old female of any social class was leagues ahead of today's thirty-somethings). There are countless movies charting the attempt to revive long-lost passions (Young Adult), not one comes close to Austen's accurate account of the extenuated anguish of unrequited love. Cracknell evidently relishes in this frequently misunderstood last novel of the writer genius. Attempts in film versions of "Persuasion" vary in quality, which makes each viewing so entertaining. Early on, this one explains to its audience (readers and non-readers alike) what the title actually means: Anne was persuaded by outside forces, against her own better judgement. Frankly, this edition brings out succulent details of the core discourse ignored by other more pointedly "erudite" outings. Here we have "colourblind" casting (Arnold's "Wuthering Heights" is a unimpeachable sortie into a known unknown), gorgeously endorsed by the emphasis on living by candlelight, which was the norm at the time. Today's society lives in extended daylight by artificial means, and perhaps forgets that 90% of artworks (western and Other) were executed in half-light (Balzac, Dickens, Dostoevsky). Reading, writing, sewing, drawing, were all performed in whatever scarce light was available (Rembrandt, Goya). Small wonder therefore that French artists later fled to the south for their plein-air landscapes (Cézanne, van Gogh, etc.). In Austen's day England was at war with France, and the British navy spawned a new aristocracy that competed with landed gentry (homework advised), that is earned vs. Inherited, an insult Anne's father so cogently inveighs against barely ten minutes into the film, expressing horror at renting their ancestral manor to a seaman, whatever his rank: "What use is a title if you have to earn it?" Indeed. The many cases of licence taken and countless loopholes in the rendering of Austen's masterpiece are forgiven, thanks to the excellent casting: Jarvis's pained features alone embody the torment of suspended expectation more than any words, and Johnson's mixture of wisdom and insouciance encapsulates the couple's uncanny stoicism. Those self-defined diehard Austen fans perhaps need to adjust their corsets and remember that "an egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome" (Mr Woodhouse). Notably, god is not mentioned as the invisible hand of personal destiny, only the "universe" and providence. Those who have postponed reading "Persuasion" should turn off the wi-fi, cancel the milk delivery, and isolate themselves as if infected by Covid until they've reached the last page.
7 Days
(I) (2021)
Arranged lockdown
19 July 2022
The initial exchanges between the two youngsters are depressingly true to the vapid nonspeak that passes for conversation amongst the accidental denizens of the Disunited States, young and old. Even those with mixed ancestry croak and dither, their intellectual constipation producing a plethora of platitudes. Fortunately, under Sethi's agile handling things soon slither sideways into a layered piss-take of this social ineptitude, thanks principally to Rita (Geraldine Viswanathan) and her erratic command of herself and life(style), reversing parental control and manipulation so as to be (true to) herself. Her recognition of life's unpredictability gradually levers the hyperverbal Ravi (Karan Soni) into the concept of "doing less", and even having "fun": he is the product of his talkaholic mother, whereas Rita is her mother's corset-free nemesis. For millions of people around the world, lockdown knocked normality for six, and in this case it is hard not to hope the two realise their luck at confinement. Sethi's directing is occasionally Allenesque (notably the opening and closing sessions with elderly married couples talking about their unions), but refreshingly imaginative. Give it a try.
Man vs. Bee
(2022– )
Bee-lines
18 July 2022
As always, it's worth reading the worst reviews first for a cringing glimpse of the unhappy streamers who whinge yet can watch whatever they want at whim. Sure, this MvsB is clumsy in places, but pushes no real message beyond the vain hope that super-rich upstarts will get the comeuppance they deserve. Now 67 and counting, Rowan has not lost his goofy verve. Frankly I couldn't wait for the house and its fake artworks to burn to the ground.
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