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CionaodMcGrath
Reviews
Predestination (2014)
Samsaric Clarity for the Perfect Script
As a scholar in religious anthropology, divinity, and depth psychology, this film was a "perfection" of the embodied story of bordering on the greatness of "2001: A Space Odyssey" in its alchemical experience. I loved this movie. The concept was inspired and structured to perfection. The performances by Ethan Hawke and relative newcomer Sarah Snook were mind-blowing in their interpretations.
Without giving away the "secret", the plot was reminiscent of only a few mystically charged movies of the past; "Dead of Night" for instance is one that has equally perfect recursion.
The team that wrote and directed this movie will have perhaps as their greatest challenge, writing something to surpass this film. I fear that it may be overlooked by some critics but I have equal confidence that it may join the likes of other movies that didn't make stronger, initial box office. Regardless, I think the team that made this movie have a great deal to be proud of and I'm definitely looking forward to more from Sarah Snook in the future.
This is an experience that I will recommend to others; a near-perfect "little" movie that delivers more that most. Well done!
Das Goebbels-Experiment (2005)
Reportage-Like Delivery on the Depth's of a Monstrous Soul
Directed by Lutz Hachmeister and narrated by Kenneth Branagh, this is such a direct and accessible series of insights into the psychopathy of Hitler's propagandist. I found it amazing to see just how narcissistic and arrogant this Goebbels really was and now naively he felt superior to others, despite the very clear limitations of his intellect. It's as if he had almost no interpersonal, nor intrapersonal intelligence whatsoever. How tragic when we see, throughout history, these men who think their grand schemes of globalism and corporate fascism, will amount to anything more than social oppression, violence, and destruction.
Carl Jung often mentioned this "idée fixe" as basis of neurotic dysfunction, the disintegration of human morality and concern for "others as self" in the interest of egomaniac self-preoccupation. Goebbels was not only the architect of the Holocaust, he embodied the male, monomania of racial superiority that clearly was driven by his early failures in the banking industry and his rejection by childhood peers related to the deformity of his paralysed leg. How tragic that such weakness becomes so much self-hatred served upon millions of other, innocent people.
This film depicted a truth that felt like reportage. I found that it worked extremely well as my understanding of the subject was both deepened and broadened. The production quality was excellent.
Interstellar (2014)
Disappointly Trying to Take On Kubrick's Masterpiece
Another Christological myth rendered in the form of science fiction but without the sophistication of Kubrick's masterpiece. The acting is marginal to good (these actors have all done better work) even if the visuals are impressive. Since they're mostly CGI and not practical effects, this is a movie that will always take a back seat to 2001. It's meant to have similar psychological effects but hasn't the intellectual presence to be even remotely as important either as a narrative or as cinema.
It's not a bad movie. It's actually a great movie that tries WAY too hard to be something more than the script's structure and devices will allow. If someone had shown me a treatment or outline for this movie, I would have said "Be prepared to write hundreds of drafts" because nobody wants to sit through a "2001 wanna-be".
Now I would recommend this movie to anyone who wants to enjoy a "space movie with some plot twists". If you can get past some of the exposition, even the sci-fi elements deliver something; just not the something that we haven't seen before in episodes of the Twilight Zone.
The poetry of Dylan Thomas is used so embarrassingly as a thematic device and tirelessly quoted to pull on the heart strings of the audience, that I am actually sickened by how unread the writer must consider them. We've all read that poem in high school... and we get the idea. Why beat it to death? There will be those who will watch this film and think it's brilliant but hopefully they will also be equally confused by their own unconscious disinterest because, honestly, as story-telling goes it's predictable to the well-viewed. There's a kind of unsettled quality to the psychological aspects of the film without the right tension, mystery, or even release.
What bothered me more than anything was the pseudo-intellectual musings on relativity theory and quantum mechanics and how they were woven into the psychical elements like some bad new age psycho-babble. The writer seemed to be treating the audience as if it hadn't read enough scientific material to distinguish that epistemological framework from a religious one. Frankly, that works for a mainstream audience but not for a hard core sci-fi audience.
I found myself, of course, watching the film and thinking "They're trying to make a 2001-esque movie here." It didn't work. For one thing, Kubrick's film is alchemical and embodies a mystical experience for the viewer him or herself that is based in depth psychology and structured in religious anthropology. This movie, on the other hand, is too mechanical as it tries to do something like that and it winds up leaving one feeling like "All is simulacra, so what's the point of even doing this?" It may seem unfair to make this comparison but it's the natural consequence of making this film so I won't apologize for making it.
I wasn't blown away by any of the actor's performances either with the exception of Mackenzie Foy, the girl who played "Murph". She delivered something stronger than the material.
Now, a lot of people will disagree with my review and that's because it is a good movie. I would recommend people watching it because it is entertaining but I'm not prepared to say it's an excellent film because I think that it tried from the script to the production to go somewhere that it didn't belong. Better than most of what we've seen this year but too ambitious and, for that reason alone, I've rated it accordingly.
The Guest (2014)
Two Promising Young Actors Perform Naturalistically
The film itself has decent structure, direction, cinematography and an unsettling performance by Dan Stevens. Adam Wingard clearly got the script filmed with exactly the right level of tension but the back story on the main character needed more to provide the audience with a better "reveal". If the script had inverted structure or more accessible exposition, I think this movie could have been more.
I think what caught my attention was the promise of the two younger actors: Brendan Meyer and Maika Monroe. These two made their characters seem completely believable even though the material wasn't challenging and I can envision them doing much more in the future. Brendan Meyer's performance was subtle enough for the camera that it played perfectly. I thought of his as his character and I believe that his character felt real. How much more can an actor deliver?
Maika Monroe's performance answers that last question. Hers was a completely believable young woman, navigating her small town life, except her depth and presence on screen was more than was was written. I think she will be an actress with a wealthy career composed by better projects.
Overall, the film was good, not great but it was entertaining.