Master Gardener (2022) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): The Gardener in the Room

Posted on May 7, 2023 by kaist455

Paul Schrader’s latest film “Master Gardener”, which was recently shown at the Jeonju International Film Festival in South Korea, is another typical drama of his which sadly does not work as well as intended for several glaring bad reasons. Again, Schrader attempts to tell the familiar story of a solitary man austerely struggling alone with his hidden dark sides, but his own storytelling story does not fit that well with the pulpy aspects of the story and characters, while also regrettably showing how out-of-touch he can be.

The titular hero of the story is Narvel Roth (Jeol Edgerton), who has worked as the chief gardener of some lovely Southern manor owned by a middle-aged dowager named Mrs. Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver). While he does not say much about himself, we get to know more about him bit by bit as he routinely writes his private journal just like Ethan Hawke’s priest character in “First Reformed” (2017) or Oscar Isaac’s gambler character in “The Card Counter” (2021).

As the important annual horticultural event for Mrs. Haverhill is coming, Narvel and his several fellow employees certainly have to pay more attention than before while expected a lot from Mrs. Haverhill, and then there comes an odd request from her. It turns out that she has a young grandniece, and, because this young lady is incidentally the only close family member of hers, Mrs. Haverhill wants Narvel to prepare her grandniece for taking over the estate and its garden someday.

When Maya (Quintessa Swindell) begins her first day at her grand aunt’s garden, she seems to be eager to learn one thing after another from Narvel, and everything looks fine during her next several days, but Narvel gradually senses that something is not all right with this young woman. After all, as his employer already told him, she had a rather troubled childhood due to her problematic parents who are already dead at present, and Narvel becomes more watchful when he comes to recognize later that she actually has an addiction problem just he did a long time ago.

Not so surprisingly, Narvel turns out to have kept something quite dark behind his back for years. While he simply wants to lead the quiet and peaceful life of a gardener as before, he also keeps reminding himself of his very troubled past, and that is quite apparent to us when he takes off his shirts while being alone in his small residence. Time has passed a lot since he decided to be a different man, and he is relatively safer than before, but, as a close associate of his reminds him at one point, he has never been forgotten at all due to his remaining notoriety out there.

In addition, Mrs. Haverhill and her grandniece cause more anxiety and uncertainty in Narvel’s life. Mrs. Haverhill actually knows a lot about Narvel, and that is how she has kept him under her power and influence for years. When Maya happens to be threatened by someone from her past, Narvel decides to be a little more active, and Maya surely appreciates that, but then she inadvertently gets Narvel into a big trouble between him and her grandaunt.

Now this sounds like your average pulpy Southern melodrama, but Schrader’s screenplay adamantly sticks to its calm and restrained attitude as before, and we become more aware of how the screenplay feels increasingly problematic in the handling of its three main characters. Narvel initially draws our interest as another interesting case of “the Man in the Room” by Schrader, but the screenplay fails to bring enough human depth and personality, and that is one of the main reasons why its supposedly redemptive finale does not work as well as intended. In case of Maya and her grandaunt, they are even less developed compared to Narvel, and Schrader’s rather superficial treatment of their supposedly complex relationships with Narvel indirectly reminds us of how insensitive he has been to gender issues during last several years. To be frank with you, many of female characters in Schrader’s works are more like story elements at times, and “Master Gardener” presents the worst recent example of that in my humble opinion.

Anyway, Schrader’s main cast members try their best. Joel Edgerton, who has been one of the most dependable actors in our time while steadily working here and there during last 20 years, did a good job of bringing quiet intensity and authenticity to his character as required, and his several diary scenes in the film may make you hope that he will get a chance to work on the audiobook of any good gardening book someday. While mostly stuck in her thankless role, Sigourney Weaver fills her character with enough sense of power and authority at least, and you can instantly see that her character is not someone you can easily mess with. Compared to Edgerton and Weaver, Quintessa Swindell, a non-binary performer who recently appeared in “Black Adam” (2022), is unfortunately under-utilized, but their acting is fairly good on the whole, and we may see more of their talent during next several years.

In conclusion, “Master Gardner” is two or three steps below “First Reformed” and “The Card Counter”, and that is a big disappointment to say the least. To some degree, I appreciate how Schrader keeps going as usual in his own artistic territory even though it has been almost 50 years since he wrote his first screenplay in the early 1970s, but the movie is misguided at best and gender-insensitive at worst, and I can only wish that he will soon compensate for this minor failure.

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Infinity Pool (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): Brendon Cronenberg strikes again

Posted on May 6, 2023 by kaist455

Brendon Cronenberg’s new film “Infinity Pool” is his another striking piece of work which is not only perversely provocative but also gruesomely violent. Like his previous film “Possessor” (2020), it often unsettles us a lot via a series of very disturbing moments of violence and madness, but it still engages and fascinates us under his skillful direction, and the overall result surely confirms that Cronenberg is indeed a talented filmmaker which may have his own genre territory just like his famous filmmaker father David Cronenberg.

At first, we are introduced to James (Alexander Skarsgård) and Em (Cleopatra Coleman), a young married couple enjoying their luxurious summer vacation at a resort located in the seaside area of some fictional Eastern European country. Nothing much has happened around them and many other guests, but we cannot help but observe how insular and isolated the resort really is. For their safety, the guests are not allowed to go outside the resort and its surrounding area which is heavily guarded to say the least, and we come to gather that they are not so welcomed much by those local people out there.

When James and Em later happen to get themselves involved with a young woman named Gabi (Mia Goth) and her older husband, we get to know a bit more about James. Although he published his first novel several years ago, he still does not know what to write next while going nowhere in his supposedly promising career, and it is clear that he feels rather ashamed about how he has depended a lot on his wife, whose father is incidentally the owner of the company which published his first novel.

Anyway, Gabi and her husband suggest that Em and James should have some fun time with them outside the resort, and James and Em eventually go outside along with Gabi and her husband despite their reservation. While these four people are spending some time at a remote place, Gabi suddenly approaches to James when he happens to be alone for a little private business of his at one point, and he soon finds himself in a very embarrassing situation because of what Gabi commits without any hesitation.

However, that turns out to be almost nothing compared to another sudden trouble happening to James and others not long after that. While driving them back to the resort in the middle of the night, James, who happens to be considerably drunk, inadvertently hits some local person on the road, and he is thrown into more panic and fear when he is subsequently arrested by the local police on the next day. According to the local law, he must be executed even though his act of manslaughter was completely accidental, and it seems that there is no way out for him no matter how much he protests.

However, it turns out that there is actually a legal loophole ready for those unfortunate foreign people like him. All James and Em will have to do is paying enough for getting him cloned somehow, and the resulting clone, who is identical to him not only physically but also mentally, will be promptly executed instead as watched by him and several other people including the family members of the victim.

Once the execution is done, James and Em are ready to leave as soon as possible, but, what do you know, James finds himself stuck in the resort due to a small problem with his passport, and then he gets himself involved more with Gabi and her husband and their “special” group. They all had that weird experience of getting themselves cloned for not getting executed, and they are quite ready to make James embrace their depraved lifestyle which is probably resulted from how they have been able to get away with murder more than once.

While understandably reluctant at first, James slowly lets himself tumble into more depravity and debauchery along with his new friends, and the movie throws shocking moments of cruelty and violence to us. Totally free from their legal comeuppance, James’ new friends are willing to do whatever they are pleased to do right now, and they come to look more like monstrous humanoids instead of real human beings. At one point, they commit a heinous act of home invasion just for their twisted fun, and then they kill several persons as a result, but, of course, they soon get freed as their clones are quickly executed.

The movie begins to spin its wheels during the last act, but Cronenberg continues to generate more discomfort and nervousness along the story. There are several psychedelic hallucinogenic moments which powerfully reflect James’ growing confusion and implosion, and everything eventually culminates to a loony bloody moment as he is coerced to go through a sort of transformative act by Gabi and her gangs. Thanks to Alexander Skarsgård’s committed acting, this moment is delivered with full dramatic impact, and Mia Goth, who is no stranger to violent horror films considering her breakout performance in Ti West’s “X” (2022) and “Pearl” (2022), delightfully chews every moment of hers in the film while Cleopatra Coleman is unfortunately under-utilized in contrast as stuck in her thankless supporting role.

Although I think it could delve deeper into its story and characters, “Infinity Pool” is still impressive mainly for its style and mood, and it will be interesting to see what Cronenberg will do next after this film. He shows his considerable potential as he previously did in “Possessor”, and I can only hope that these two films will be regarded as the preludes for better things to come from him in the future.

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Crimes of the Future (2022) ☆☆☆(3/4): Cronenberg still has it…

Posted on May 6, 2023 by kaist455

David Cronenberg’s latest film “Crimes of the Future” is akin to a compilation album filled with his old hits. As usual, human bodies function as carnal theaters of horror to be sliced and then explored to the extreme degrees, and the movie certainly shocks and disturbs us a lot under Cronenberg’s cool and cerebral approach to its sensational story and characters, while also evoking numerous elements from his many other horror thriller films ranging from “The Brood” (1979) to “eXistenZ” (1999).

At first, it takes some time for us to get accustomed a bit to the strange dystopian background of the movie, where both humanity and medical technology are so weirdly and grotesquely advanced to our discomfort and fascination. While many people in this world are virtually impervious to physical pain and infection in addition to often randomly developing new organs inside or outside their bodies due to “Accelerated Evolution Syndrome”, advanced surgery technology becomes quite common and casual, so one can easily perform a surgery on oneself via widely available surgery equipments.

As one of the most extreme cases of Accelerated Evolution Syndrome, Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) has frequently done his own “performance art” along with his partner Capris (Léa Seydoux). Whenever new organs start to develop inside his body, they prepare themselves for their latest personal operating theatre, and many people willingly come to observe and record their “performance” as Capris has Tenser’s body get eviscerated here and there before eventually arriving at their finishing touch.

And then there come two unexpected changes into Tenser and Caprice’s barren daily life, which is as detached as the kinky private sex life of that bored married couple played by James Spader and Deborah Kara Unger in “Crash” (1996). They are approached by two different bureaucrats handling the registration of newly developed human organs, and one of them, a young woman named Timlin (Kristen Stewart), seems to be more interested in Tenser and Caprice’s artistic process than registering whatever Tenser is developing inside his body at present. Watching a long conversation scene between these two bureaucrats and Tenser and Caprice, you may scratch your head a bit for not fully understanding what the hell they are actually talking about, but Cronenberg and his performers keep us engaged as deftly conveying to us the main characters’ flat and detached attitude to their freakish matters of flesh and blood, and this will certainly take you back to how clinically intellectual many of Cronenberg’s physical horror films are despite lots of gory sights including that disturbingly fascinating genetic fusion of fly and human in “The Fly” (1986).

Meanwhile, Tenser is also approached by a detective who wants him to work as a sort of undercover agent. There is a group of subversive people quite willing to push their own accelerated evolution process all the way for some unspecified cause, and we later come to learn that their newly developed organs can actually digest plastic matters. I really do not know whether there is really any kind of evolutionary advantage on that, though I am sure that, as indirectly reflected by the unnerving prologue scene of the film, they are bound to be the ultimate garbage men for all mankind.

As expected, Tenser is soon approached by the leader of this subversive group, and we get to know more about what this subversive group has been planning in secret. Via Tenser performing his latest surgery show on a certain dead body, they are about to make a sort of reactionary public statement somewhere between “Videodrome” (1983) and “eXistenZ”. Although he is not so eager about this, Tenser lets himself get associated with this subversive group as requested by that cop, and he also gets himself involved with some shady doctor who asks him to participate in a sort of “inner beauty contest”, which may remind you of a certain memorable line from one of the twin characters played by Jeremy Irons in “Dead Ringers” (1988).

The movie is often a little too murky and confusing for us, but we can also sense that Cronenberg is having a little naughty fun with his old territory of flesh and blood after delving into the realm of mind during last two decades as reflected by “A History of Violence” (2005), “Eastern Promises” (2007), and “A Dangerous Method” (2011), which incidentally has Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung at the center of its story. I guess he simply demonstrates here that he has not lost any of his old artistic skills and touches, and that is probably more than enough for you if you have admired his distinctive artistic style and talent like I have since I watched “The Fly” for the first time when I was young and wild.

Three main cast members of the film ably dial down themselves for immersing themselves into the dryly drab environment inhabited by their respective characters. While Viggo Mortensen, who already worked with Cronenberg in his three previous films, dutifully holds the middle spot as required, Léa Seydoux and Kristen Stewart skillfully complement their co-star in one way or another, and Stewart, who has been one of the most compelling actresses working in Hollywood as distancing herself further from those disposable vampire romance flicks in her early career years, is particularly fun to watch when her character flatly gushes out her enthusiasm toward Tenser and Caprice’s artistic activity.

Although it is not exactly one of the better works from Cronenberg, “Crimes of the Future” is an interesting piece of work which will engage you enough if you are well aware of what you can expect from Cronenberg. I cannot say I was entertained during my viewing, but it is still worthwhile to check out for its indelible mood and style, and you will surely be reminded again of why Cronenberg is still one of best masters of horror in our time.

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Judy Blume Forever (2023) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): She still tells all

Posted on May 5, 2023 by kaist455

Documentary film “Judy Blume Forever”, which was released on Amazon Prime a few weeks ago, is a delightful tribute to Judy Blume, a famous American writer with whom I was regrettably not so familiar before hearing about the recent movie adaptation of her iconic middle-grade book “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” Besides wonderfully illuminating Blume’s interesting life and career, the documentary shows us why many of her works remain important and relevant even at this point, and Blume often shines at its center while quite frank and humorous about many things including herself.

The documentary simply lets Blume talk in front of the camera, and she certainly tells all as many of you can expect from her. Even when she was young, she wanted to be a writer, and she did not give her dream at all even after marrying her first husband in 1959 and then having two kids in their suburban house in New Jersey. She certainly tried hard to be a good housewife and mother to her family, but she always felt something lacking in her suburban daily life, and she eventually went for writing when she came to have more spare time later.

Her several attempts on children’s book were not so successful to say the least, but Blume was not daunted by these failures at all. As a matter of fact, she became all the more determined to succeed as a writer, and she instantly moved onto writing for teenagers once she came to see that she was not that good at writing children’s books. In 1969, she eventually came to publish her first book “The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo”, and its small but significant success soon led her to her second book “Iggie’s House” in 1970.

However, it was her third book, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” that catapulted her to much more fame and popularity in US. Via its ordinary adolescent heroine who becomes quite conflicted about many sensitive things including her sexual development, the book boldly and honestly explores what average adolescent girls experience as getting physically and emotionally matured day by day, and its very frank attitude was wholeheartedly welcomed by millions of young readers out there.

Emboldened by the enormous success of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.”, Blume decided to go further for more honesty and understanding, and she happened to be in the right time for that. As the American society went through a series of big social/political upheavals in the 1960s, many people demanded more changes than before, and this eventually boosted the female rights movement in the 1970s. People were more willing to talk about sex and many other things associated with adolescence, and Blume actively responded to that as writing a number of equally important works such as “Blubber”, “Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself”, and “Forever…”, which still draws the ire of some conservative people out there because of its very frank presentation of the carnal aspects of one plain adolescent romance.

Because I have not touched any of these and other works by Blume yet, I cannot say much about whether they actually have any artistic quality to admire, but I am touched nonetheless by how much Blume cares about not only her works but also her many young readers out there. As a matter of fact, most of her young readers often sent their personal letters to her, and Blume willingly corresponded with each of them for showing some generous support to each own personal matter. Some of these young readers interacted with Blume for quite a long time, and one of them tells us how much she was excited when Blume willingly attended her high school graduation ceremony as requested.

In addition, the documentary assembled a bunch of many different interviewees who gladly talk about how much their lives have been influenced by Blume’s works in one way or another. While Lena Dunham and Molly Ringwald are certainly the most prominent ones in the bunch, many of other interviewees including authors Jason Reynolds and Mary H.K. Choi also have some interesting things to talk about, and you can easily sense their respect and admiration toward Blume’s works.

As playfully pointed out around the end of the documentary, many of Blume’s works become dated to some degree as the products of their time, but they do not lose any of their importance at all because of being unfairly targeted by those unpleasantly intolerant conservative zealots out there. When Ronald Reagan entered the White House at the beginning of the 1980s, lots of backlashes against the progressive movements of the 1960-70s followed, and, as shown from a series of archival footages clips, Blume had to endure a lot just because she wrote quite frankly about teenagers in her books. As many of you know, this toxic social trend returned several decades later as Donald J. Trump deliberately opened the door for more virulent bigotry and intolerance, and Blume is not so pleased about that to say the least.

Nevertheless, Blume does not stand back as usual while fighting against censorship as before. While she does not write more after publishing “In the Unlikely Event” in 2015, she recently came to run a little bookstore of her own along with her third husband after moving to Key West, Florida, and, as far as I can see from the documentary, she and her husband are doing fairly well in their small business.

Overall, “Judy Blume Forever” is not only informative but entertaining mainly thanks to Blume’s ebullient presence, and directors/producers Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok present Blume and her works with lots of care and respect. I cannot be sure about when I will try on Blume’s works, but I must admit that I was charmed and entertained enough by the documentary, and I am certainly looking forward to watching the recent movie adaptation of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.”.

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Retrograde (2022) ☆☆☆(3/4): The final months of the Afghan War

Posted on May 5, 2023 by kaist455

It is a sad and bitter experience to observe what is so vividly presented in Matthew Heineman’s latest documentary film “Retrograde”, which is currently available on Disney+ in South Korea. Closely following what happened during the final months of the Afghan War in 2021, the documentary reminds us of the sheer futility of this 20-year war, and it is really depressing to see how this war eventually threw Afghanistan back into another reign of terror by those cruel and barbaric religious fanatics.

After showing how the situation was utterly chaotic in Kabul right before its eventual fall by the Taliban military in 2021 August, the documentary goes back to how things were already falling apart for the US military as well as the Afghan government military. No matter how much they tried to get things back in control, the Taliban military continued to expand its territory here and there in Afghanistan, and the situation became gloomier when the US government was about to decide whether it would really withdraw all of its soldiers from Afghanistan.

In case of a young Afghan general named Sami Sadat and those soldiers under his command, they had struggled hard against those Taliban soldiers, and you can easily see how much he was respected and trusted by his soldiers as an exemplary leader, but they all knew too well that they would be quite vulnerable if the US government announced the total withdrawal from their country. In case of several US military officers who had worked with Sadat for years, they were willing to help Sadat as much as possible, but they eventually could not do anything at all when President Joe Biden officially confirmed their withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2001 May.

Once the US military left Afghanistan completely a few weeks later, Sadat and his soldiers had no choice but to defend their country and government for themselves, and we see how the circumstance became all the more frustrating and dauting from them. No matter how much he tried, he and his soldiers became more disadvantaged on the front line day by day, and they even did not get enough support from the Afghan government. Within next several weeks, many regions and cities in Afghanistan were occupied by the Taliban soldiers one by one, and now Sadat and his soldiers had to make their last stand in a city not so far from Kabul, but their government was already crumbling down as showing more incompetence and foolishness.

Meanwhile, we get to know a bit more about Sadat while following his increasingly desperate military efforts. As a strong-willed man of valor and integrity with considerable dedication to his men, he certainly came to worry more about what might happen to him as well as his men if all eventually fell down as he feared, but he still tried to maintain his leadership even things got all the worse for him and others, and we come to admire him more than before, though we all know too well how the story would end for him and many others in Afghanistan.

In the end, Sadat and his soldiers had to withdraw as being overmatched by their opponents, and that quickly led to the fall of Kabul only two days later. Heineman and his two co-cinematographers Tim Crucza and Oliver Sarbil put their cameras quite close to the consequent chaos in the city, and that often places us amid thousands of civilians attempting to escape from the Taliban military by any means necessary. Needless to say, everyone looks quite desperate and terrified, and there are a number of brief but undeniably haunting shots which will linger on your mind for good reasons.

Fortunately, Sadat managed to escape, and some of his men as well as his close family members also got away from Afghanistan, but the situation is not exactly good for him at present. Besides already having received a death sentence from the Taliban government, he is not even allowed to enter US, and now he is stuck in UK as an exile, though he still hopes that he and his comrades may return to Afghanistan someday.

The documentary mostly maintains its detached attitude, but its devastating chronicle of the last months of the Afghan War gradually has us reflect more on how wasteful and meaningless this war was in many aspects. It seemed to end the reign of terror by the Taliban government at first, and most of us were glad about that, but, as the US government screwed up many things just like it did in Iraq at the same time, the country was only left all the more damaged while eventually tumbling into another grim period of oppression and terror. Sure, it was supposed to be about capturing the man responsible for 9/11 as soon as possible, but, what do you know, the war did not help much that massive manhunt during next 10 years on the whole, and, above all, he was actually found and then eliminated in, surprise, Pakistan.

In conclusion, “Retrograde”, which was incidentally included in the shortlist for Best Documentary Oscar around the end of last year, is a solid piece of work, and Heineman, who has steadily impressed me since his Oscar-nominated documentary “Cartel Land” (2015), did an admirable job of filling his documentary with a considerable amount of verisimilitude. This is surely a feel-bad documentary, but it is still worthwhile to watch for its many harrowing human moments observed from another tragic historical moment in our time, and I assure you that you will not forget easily.

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): Save the Racoon

Posted on May 4, 2023 by kaist455

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is more or less than the extension of what we saw from the two previous films. This is another familiar product from Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), but it has some colorful style, personality, and sensitivity to distinguish itself to some degree, and the result is one of the more enjoyable MCU products during last several years.

Because I did not watch that Holiday special TV movie, it took some time for me to get used to how things have been changed for Peter Quill / Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and his fellow members of Guardians of the Galaxy. They come to settle in a place called Nowhere for building their little headquarters, and we also get to know a bit about two new members Kraglin / On-Set Rocket (Sean Gun) and a telekinetic dog named Cosmo (voiced by Maria Bakalova).

This time, the main focus of the movie is Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a smart and sardonic racoon who has been rather depressed as reflecting more on his identity and past. As “Creep” performed Radiohead is played on the soundtrack, we come to feel more for his melancholic status, and that makes Quill’s current emotional issues with Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) look rather trivial in comparison. As many of you remember, Gamora was killed by her father many movies ago, but her alternative universe version came some time later, and, to Quill’s frustration, this Gamora is not particularly interested in being around Quill or any other member of Guardians of the Galaxy, because, well, she was not involved with them in her universe from the beginning.

Anyway, the situation soon becomes quite serious when it turns out that there is someone looking for Rocket. There is a powerful and ruthless villain who is revealed to be responsible for Rocket’s longtime miserable existence, and now this figure is quite determined to get Rocket back by any means necessary. When Rocket happens to be seriously injured due to a sudden attack, his colleagues are certainly ready to save him, even though that means they will take a considerable risk in one way or another.

While Quill and his several colleagues bounce from one adventure to another as expected, director/writer James Gunn, whose status has been more prominent since he made the two previous films, serves us a number of odd and colorful moments which often shine with quirky humor and personality. I like the action sequence unfolded inside a huge database center which virtually looks like one big giant organism, and Gunn tries some naughty fun when Quill and his several colleagues attempt to infiltrate inside this weird place. In addition, he deftly utilizes a bunch of recognizable pop songs during many of key moments in the film as usual, and you will certainly enjoy how these songs are delightfully used throughout the movie.

Meanwhile, the story occasionally goes back to Rocket’s past as his condition becomes all the more serious along the story. Via a series of flashback scenes, we come to learn more about his traumatic early years when he was incarcerated along with other animals not so different from him, and there is a poignant moment where they come to find some comfort from each other despite their gloomy circumstance. Thanks to the solid voice performance from Bradley Cooper, Rocket eventually comes to show more depth and personality along the story, and that is why one of the main reasons why the movie works even during its action-packed finale where lots of things get exploded across the screen as you can expect from your average MCU product.

The main weakness comes from its main villain character, and that is not entirely the fault of Chukwudi Iwuji, who really tries hard to chew every moment of his in the film in contrast to Jonathan Majors’ lackadaisical acting in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (2023). His megalomaniac villain character, who may look a bit like Peter Weller’s cyborg hero in “Robocop” (1987) but reminds me instead of F. Murray Abraham’s alien villain character in “Star Trek: Insurrection” (1998) for a good reason, is another bland stock MCU villain from the beginning, and Iwuji’s deliberate overacting feels rather jarring instead of being mixed well along with many colorful aspects of the movie.

Despite that and several other weak elements including its overlong running time (150 minutes), the movie remains effective thanks to Gunn’s competent direction as well as the fluid ensemble performance from his main cast members, who easily slip into their respective roles as before. While Chris Pratt shows more spirit and energy compared to his joyless voice performance in “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (2023), Zoe Saldaña, Karen Gillen, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, and Vin Diesel are fun to watch as their characters struggle to work together despite many personality clashes among them, and Sean Gun, Will Poulter, Elizabeth Debicki, Maria Bakalova, and Sylvester Stallone manage to leave some impression although their supporting characters are not fully utilized on the whole as the movie is too busy with juggling its main characters.

Overall, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” does not surpass its predecessors much, but it is still fairly entertaining enough for recommendation. As I said before many times, I have gotten quite tired about that seemingly endless supply of MCU movies these days, but “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” comes to enliven me a little as trying to do something different for a while, and that is a nice relief for now.

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2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) ☆☆☆☆(4/4): A monumental masterpiece by Kubrick

Posted on May 2, 2023 by kaist455

It is fascinating to see how Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” has remained a timeless masterpiece which dared to explore and present our endless sense of awe and curiosity toward the space out there. Although it has been nearly 55 years since it came out, the movie seldom feels old or dated at all mainly thanks to Kubrick’s sheer technical perfectionism coupled with his bold and peerless artistic ambition, and you will still be amazed and curious about how the hell it could be made at that time, even though you may often scratch your head about many questions raised from the movie itself.

Most of those questions revolve around that spotlessly smooth black monolith which appears more than once throughout the film. While the movie does not show or tell much about its alien origin at all, we come to gather that this alien object is a sort of facilitator for the next big step of evolution for the humanity as shown from the first act of the movie, which is incidentally set at in the middle of some prehistoric time. Although there is not any dialogue here during this part, Kubrick holds our attention nonetheless via his succinct but undeniably compelling visual storytelling, and we come to observe and then understand how a bunch of primitives have been quite desperate due to food and hunger before the monolith suddenly appears right in front of them at one night.

As watching the primitives getting scared at first and then finding themselves somehow being under the uncanny influence of the monolith, you naturally wonder what is really going on, but Kubrick’s sublime mix of visual and sound firmly commands your full attention. With the unsettling chorus performance from “Requiem for Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, 2 Mixed Choirs and Orchestra” by György Ligeti on the soundtrack, everything during this scene eventually culminates to a striking moment of precise alignment, which resonates with the similar composition of the opening scene accompanied with Richard Strauss’ “Also sprach Zarathustra”.

Thanks to the monolith, the primitives can jump onto the next of their evolution, and this subsequently leads to one of the greatest flash forward moments in the movie history. We are suddenly thrust into the middle of an advanced space exploration era which is still beyond our reach even at present, and then the movie gives us another mesmerizing scene as playing Johann Strauss II’s “The Blue Danube” on the soundtrack. As Strauss’s classic music swells, a spaceship from the Earth is slowly but beautifully heading toward the landing space in the middle of a big space station, and you will be surprised more how everything looks quite realistic detail by detail. The special effects in the film may look and feel old-fashioned at times, but they are flawlessly and realistically mixed into the screen due to the painstaking efforts of Kubrick and his crew members including cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth, and, not so surprisingly, Kubrick received his only Oscar for the special effects of his film.

While the movie has been well-known for its effective utilization of various pieces of classic music including the aforementioned ones, Kubrick actually hired Alex North, who has been regarded as one of the great Hollywood film composers, to write the original score at first. While North’s score, which has been available thanks to the 1993 re-recording version from his colleague/friend Jerry Goldsmith as well as the original recording version released in 2007, is not bad at all, it is easy to see why Kubrick eventually chose to throw away North’s score. While sounding considerably impressive on its own, North’s rejected score, which would be later utilized in his two Oscar-nominated scores (“The Shoes of the Fisherman” (1968) and “Dragonslayer” (1981)) often tries to illustrate or dictate what we should feel, and that is naturally bound to clash with Kubrick’s cold and detached storytelling. Having those various pieces of classic music under his total artistic control, Kubrick powerfully pushes his film onto the level of sheer transcendence, and it is no wonder that “The Blue Danube” and several other pieces of classic music have been inseparable from each own specific moment in the film since it came out.

After its second act ends with another striking moment with the monolith at a certain spot on the Moon, Kubrick and Clarke’s screenplay jumps onto its most dramatic act, though its narrative pacing is still slow and leisurely as establishing the three main characters in a big spaceship being sent to Jupiter. While their three fellow human crews members are put into cryogenic hibernation, Dr. David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) serve as the pilots of the spaceship, but almost everything in the spaceship is controlled by HAL 9000 (voiced by Douglas Rain), an artificial intelligence computer who eventually becomes murderous after trying to struggle with a little but significant logical matter put upon it right from the beginning of the space journey (“Well, I don’t think there is any question about it. It can only be attributable to human error. This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error.”).

The resulting tension between HAL 9000 and the pilots of the ship is subtly but effectively presented by Kubrick. With its flat and monotonous voice, HAL 9000 becomes more and more ominous behind his cool confidence, and there is a wordlessly intense moment when it smartly detects what Dr. Bowman and Dr. Poole are planning at one point. While Dr. Bowman and Dr. Poole are careful enough to shut off the microphones when they have a private conversation inside an extravehicular activity (EVA) pod, HAL 9000 happens to be able to read their lips via the window of the pod, and Kubrick trusts us enough to let us gather everything in that silent moment and then get more disturbed by that red “eye” of HAL 9000.

While it is one of the most infamous movie villains of all time, HAL 9000 ironically comes to show more “feelings” compared to any of those human crew members in the spaceship. When it is being eventually shut off by Dr. Bowman, who manages to survive alone and then does what should be done for his survival and continuing his mission, it repeatedly begs for its life while sounding as flat as usual in his electronic voice, and that is the most poignant moment in the entire film. Yes, HAL 9000 surely had it coming, but, like many movie monsters such as Dr. Hannibal Lector or Norman Bates, it simply follows its own twisted logics while trying to do the right thing, and you will surely feel sorry for it as observing its poignant last moment.

In case of the last act of the film, this part still dazzled and confounded me when I watched it at a big screening room yesterday (The movie was recently released in South Korean theaters along with Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” (1982), by the way). While this may be nothing but a series of showy lightshows unfolded onto the screen, you will still admire what Kubrick and his special effects technicians including Douglas Trumbull tried to achieve here – even when you are baffled a lot by what Dr. Bowman experiences at the end of his overwhelming journey across space and time.

As a matter of fact, Kubrick actually considered showing alien entities around that point, but he wisely chose not to do that. After all, it is highly likely that, if they really exist out there somewhere in our universe, alien entities are quite different from whatever we have imagined in one way or another for many years, and, as indirectly suggested in the film, their existence and intelligence may actually be beyond our meager perception.

On the whole, I cannot possibly say that I can understand and explain everything in “2001: A Space Odyssey”, but it has been one of my top favorite films since I watched it for the first time in 1996. At that time, I struggled to understand what it was all about (I feel a little sympathy toward Rock Hudson, who complained “Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?” at the Los Angeles premiere of the film in 1968), but, just like many of Kubrick’s works, it gradually grew on me during next several years, and I always watched it whenever I came across a chance to watch it at movie theater. Like many of memorable space films ranging from to Robert Zemeckis’ “Contact” (1997) to Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity” (2013), the movie makes us muse more and more on our tiny existence in the awe-inspiring vastness of the space out there, and that is certainly an achievement to be admired and cherished – even though it still stands enigmatically and monumentally in the middle of the movie history like the monolith itself does in the space.

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Blade Runner (1982) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): It still looks great, you know

Posted on May 2, 2023 by kaist455

Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner”, whose “Final Cut” version is currently being shown in South Korean theaters, has firmly occupied its own space in the movie history for its unforgettable futuristic city, which is one of the best cases to be compared to Fritz Lang’s great silent film “Metropolis” (1927). I must confess that I still see lots of plot holes and problems here and there in the story, and I also think the movie does not go deep that into its ever-intriguing matters of identity and humanity, but we can all admit now that it has always been timeless for those awesome visual details observed here and there in its vivid and impressive futuristic background.

The main background of the film is Los Angeles in 2019, which, considering it is 2023 now, looks more like a SF fantasy world to us as a colorfully messy mixture of past, present, and future. While the city in the movie is pretty unrecognizable to us as filled with lots of towering buildings under the dark, gloomy, and polluted sky, its streets and alleys are filled with big video billboards and shiny neon signs just like many modern cities of the 2020s of our world, but there are lots of shabbiness around every corner of this city with constant doses of heavy rain, as reflected by one key scene set in a big crowded marker area filled with various kinds of languages and ethnicities. Although there are lots of flying vehicles in the sky, the computer technologies in the film look now visibly retrograde, and they look much more dated compared even to Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), which I happened to watch right after “Blade Runner” at a local theater.

At the beginning of the film, the screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, which is based on Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, tells us a bit about “Replicants”, though it is often murky about what Replicants exactly are or how they are produced. Are they just biogenetically enhanced humanoids or actually robots with flesh and bone? All we can be sure about them is that 1) they are superior to human beings in many aspects, but 2) their lifespan is somehow limited to around 4 years, and 3) that is the main reason why a small group of Replicants led by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) sneaked into the Earth. Well aware of their impending mortality, these Replicants are quite determined to find any possible way for living longer, but that is not approved by the authorities on the Earth or a big powerful company which has made them and many other Replicants out there.

The authorities on the Earth have their own squad to handle those runaway replicants. They are called, yes, “Blade Runners”, and Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is one of them. Although he is officially retired, he is virtually forced to work again just because he was one of the best ones to track down and “retire” Replicants, but I must point out that he is not that smart or resourceful as far as I can see. Sure, he studiously keeps chasing throughout the film, but he seems to be in a situation way over head more than once. In the other words, he is no more than your average hard-boiled detective hero mired in constant anxiety and confusion, who comes with the territory in any kind of urbane noir flick.

Speaking of noir films, the story is surely shrouded in more darkness and murkiness than it is suggested by the moody landscapes of its city background. It looks like Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel), the CEO of that powerful Replicant company, has some secret plan behind his coldly benevolent appearance, and he shows something quite unexpected to Deckard via his secretary Rachel (Sean Young), who has had no idea about her true identity because of the implanted memories of her “past”. There is a sad, poignant scene where she visits Deckard for desperately proving her ‘humanity’, and that leads us to that longtime question surrounding Deckard: Is he also a Replicant just like her?

The movie doles out that interesting possibility along the story. During one early scene, Deckard’s boss, who is played M. Emmet Walsh with his usual sleazy aura, says that six Replicants escaped to the Earth but two of them subsequently got killed later. It is quite possible that one of those supposedly eliminated Replicant was Deckard, and you may wonder more about whether there is any connection between Deckard’s seemingly redundant dream scene and a certain little object shown in the finale.

Anyway, as Deckard doggedly continues to look for those runaway Replicants, Scott and his crew members including cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth steadily serve us a bunch of stunning visual moments to observe and savor. I probably watched the film more than five times, but I always found myself amazed and enthralled by what Scott and his crew members so vividly and mesmerizingly achieved on the screen, and that is further accentuated by Vangelis’ electronic score, which feels a bit dated at times but still works pretty well in the context. I remember the overwhelming opening shot of the city landscape full of tall towers and buildings under the grim sky, which eventually leads to the big and imposing pyramid building which is the headquarters of Tyrell’s company. I remember how this great moment of sheer awe and grandiosity is contrasted with the shabby and melancholic lair of a young but miserable scientist who gets himself involved with those runaway Replicants later in the story. And I also remember how tragically powerful it feels to see the death of those runaway Replicants in the story, who are, ironically, the most emotional figures in the film like HAL 9000 is in “2001: A Space Odyssey”.

As Harrison Ford’s understated lead performance dutifully carries the story amid lots of stunning sights, the other main cast members including Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, William Sanderson, Brion James, Joe Turkel, Joanna Cassidy, James Hong, and Edward James Olmos inhabit their roles as convincingly as Ford. While Hauer makes a striking impression on us as the main antagonist of the story, Young, Hannah, and Cassidy are effective as futuristic noir female characters, and Olmos and Turkel ably suggest a lot about whatever their respective supporting characters are holding behind their back.

When it came out in the middle of 1982, “Blade Runner” unfortunately found itself overshadowed by the enormous success of Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982), but it has gradually occupied in many moviegoers’ conscience during next four decades, and it eventually becomes as influential as “Metropolis” and many other notable futuristic city movies ranging from Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” (1985) to Alex Proyas’ “Dark City” (1998). In case of Denis Villeneuve’s “Blade Runner 2049” (2017) which came out several years ago, it was certainly nice to see the extension of the futuristic world of “Blade Runner” on the screen, but that film is no more than a faithful homage to the visual greatness of “Blade Runner” as I reflect more on its equally clunky plot and thin characterization (Confession: I got myself carried away by the hyper-enthusiasm surrounding that film as writing my 3.5-star review at that time).

Despite some reservation I still have, “Blade Runner” is inarguably one of the best works from Scott, who has steadily worked during last 46 years since he debuted with “The Duelists” (1977). Although I did not like some of his films such as, yes, “Gladiator” (2000) and “Exodus: Gods and Kings” (2014), he also gave us “Alien” (1979), “Thelma & Louise” (1991), “Black Hawk Down” (2001), and “The Martian” (2015), and it is really impressive to see this legendary British filmmaker still working as usual although he will be 86 in this year. He is surely one of the best filmmakers of our time, and I can only hope that he will keep going during several years at least.

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Dream (2023) ☆☆(2/4): A coach for a bunch of homeless soccer players

Posted on April 30, 2023 by kaist455

South Korean film “Dream” is definitely not for me. As a sports drama film, it is so generic that I was not surprised or moved enough in any possible way. As a tearjerker, it is so artificial that any of character in the film did not have enough human quality to make me care about them in any conceivable way. As a comedy film, it is so silly that I was quite annoyed more than once instead of amused enough in any plausible way.

Perhaps, I am not an ideal audience for the movie from the very beginning, After all, I did not like director/writer Lee Byeong-heon’s previous film “Extreme Job” (2019) enough for recommendation, and my opinion turned out to be quite minor because that film made a considerable local box office success at that time. Considering what I observed from other audiences around me when I watched “Dream” during this Sunday afternoon, I think it will be another hit for Lee, but I still do not think the movie is better than “Extreme Job” or his truly funny film “Cheer up, Mr. Lee” (2012).

During the first half hour of the film, you can easily see through what the movie is about as well as how it is about. We have a disgraced star soccer player named Hong-dae (Park Seo-joon) as the central character of the story, and it is not much of a spoiler to tell you that he will eventually come to redeem himself despite one very unfortunate incident which jeopardizes his professional athletic career to a considerable degree.

For improving his public image more, Hong-dea agrees to work as the new coach for a little soccer team consisting of homeless people. Because there will be an international soccer tournament for homeless people in Hungary, Hong-dea must prepare and train a bunch of homeless people a lot, but, not so surprisingly, these homeless people are not so good at playing soccer in one way or another.

Nevertheless, Hong-dae really has to make these homeless people into better soccer players mainly because of a young female documentary filmmaker named So-min (Lee Ji-eun). Although she knows too well that Hong-dea’s team is pretty hopeless from the beginning, So-min is already quite determined to make a powerful narrative to draw more attention from the public, and Hong-dae agrees to go along with So-min’s plan because, well, that may help improving his current public image.

So-min goes all the way for anything to generate any pity or sympathy from those potential viewers out there, and those homeless players in Hong-dea’s team certainly have each own sad personal story. When one of more skillful players in the team gets seriously injured at one point, So-min instantly sees a perfect opportunity for engaging melodrama, and she manages to persuade Hong-dea to let this guy remain in the team even though he may not play that well during the upcoming tournament.

The movie could be much funnier if it just leaned more toward satire, but it instead lets itself bogged down by more melodramatic elements while also failing to develop its main characters into human figures we can really care about. To be frank with you, I found its main characters too broad to care about, and I was also quite annoyed with a number of underdeveloped subplots including the one involved with Hong-dea’s criminal mother.

In the end, the movie attempts to pull our heartstrings during its last act where Hong-dae and his team eventually go to that international soccer tournament for homeless people, but it does not succeed much in my humble opinion. Yes, Hong-dae and his team certainly try as much as possible while playing against several mighty foreign teams one by one. Yes, they are quickly overwhelmed right from the beginning as your average underdog team. Yes, they somehow find a way to distinguish themselves even though there is still not much chance for them to prevail to the end of the tournament.

The main problem of the movie is that none of the main characters in the film is believable enough to earn our support or sympathy, though it is inspired by a true story to some degree. While Park Seo-joon has several big moments as you can expect from his character, his character is still no more than a superficial caricature on the whole. In case of Lee Ji-eun, she surely tries as much as possible with her thankless role, but she is ultimately wasted a lot as her character is swayed back and forth between satire and melodrama without any gravitas at all, and the same thing can be said about several supporting performers in the film including Kim Jong-soo, Jung Seung-gil, Lee Hyun-woo, Yang Hyun-min, Hong Ahn-pyo, Heo Joon-seok, and Ko Chang-seok, who is sadly wasted even though he somehow manages to leave some good impression on us at least.

Overall, “Dream” is a big disappointment compared to another recent South Korean sports drama film “Rebound” (2023), which is as conventional as “Dream” but did a lot better job at least. I believed in the main characters of “Rebound” right from the start, and that was the main reason why I could root for them even while clearly discerning several rote aspects of the film. In contrast, I did not believe much in the main characters of “Dream”, and I remained quite distant to its story and main characters even while observing some positive responses from the audiences around me from time to time. They might have enjoyed the film more than me, but I think both I and they will not remember it that much around the end of this year, and that is all I can say for now.

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Rye Lane (2023) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): This eventful day of theirs

Posted on April 30, 2023 by kaist455

Raine Allen-Miller’s debut feature film “Rye Lane”, which is currently available on Disney+ in South Korea, is simply delightful from the beginning to the end. Yes, this is basically your typical “Boy-Meets-Girl” story on the surface, but the movie distinguishes itself to a considerable degree with lots of wit and style as well as an ample amount of life and personality, and you may want to revisit it just for savoring those funny and charming moments surrounding the two different main characters at its center.

Right from the opening scene showing many different bathrooms one by one, you can instantly sense something special about the movie, and it does not disappointment us at all with the following Meet Cute moment between Dom (David Jonsson) and Yas (Vivian Oparah). Dom is helplessly crying alone inside one of the booths of a gender-neutral bathroom at an art exhibition held in South London because he is still not recovering from his recent breakup with his ex-girlfriend, and then he finds himself in a more awkward situation when Yas happens to enter the bathroom. By coincidence, they later come across with each other again at the art exhibition, and then they are officially introduced to each other via their mutual acquaintance.

Although they are total strangers to each other, Yas and Dom gradually come to feel some mutual attraction between them, and, what do you know, they subsequently find themselves talking more with each other as walking around here and there in South London. Dom has been quite anxious and depressed because he is about to have a meeting with his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend who happens to be his best friend, and he confides to Yas about how he has been miserably letting himself stuck in his parents’ house without thinking much about what will be next for him. Feeling sorry for Dom because she also recently had a breakup with her ex-boyfriend, Yas decides to accompany him more than she thought at first. She willingly sits right next to him when he eventually faces his ex-girlfriend and her current boyfriend, and she even chooses to ignore an unexpected job opportunity just for talking more with him.

As Dom and Yas come to open themselves more to each other, the movie deftly establishes the vivid and colorful atmosphere around them. Allen-Miller and her cinematographer Olan Collardy frequently use extreme wide-angle lenses for emphasizing the heightened emotional status of Yas and Dom, and they also skillfully utilizes many distinctive locations in South London including Rye Lane Market, which are filled with vibrant colors and various persons to be observed (You will be surprised by the unexpected cameo appearance of a certain prominent British actor during one key scene – and how he manages not to overshadow the two lead performers of the film).

In addition, the movie gleefully wields its naughty sense of humor with lots of style and heart. We are amused by a series of cheerfully stylish flashback scenes which give more information about Yas and Dom’s respective problematic relationships, and you will also never forget that art exhibition which has the big photographs of many different human mouths. I do not know whether they are actually art or now, but they are strikingly silly and impressive in my trivial opinion.

The screenplay by Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia steadily keeps things rolling as its two main characters bounce from one narrative point to another. During its middle act, Dom and Yas find themselves in the house of her ex-boyfriend’s parents for a little hidden purpose, and the situation becomes all the more absurd when they later break into her ex-boyfriend’s residence.

Of course, there eventually comes a big moment of conflict between our two main characters, and that is naturally followed by a typical montage part showing the passage of time, but the movie is too smart and intelligent to succumb to its genre conventions. Sure, Yas and Dom come to realize that they really like each other more than they admit (Is this a spoiler, folks?), and they do not hesitate at all when one of them actively and humorously approaches to each other for confirming their love.

Like any other romantic comedy films, the movie depends a lot on the presence and talent of its two lead performers, and they effortlessly click with each other throughout the film while filling their roles with lots of human details to engage and touch us. Dexterously gliding along many different emotional modes, David Jonsson is alternatively funny and poignant in his witty performance, and Vivian Oparah flawlessly complements him with her equally engaging acting, and their comic/romantic chemistry is evident particularly when their characters face Dom’s ex-girlfriend and her current boyfriend – or when their characters come to do an impromptu musical performance later in the story. The movie also assembles a bunch of various supporting performers around Jonsson and Oparah, and they certainly bring some extra human colorfulness to the film.

In conclusion, “Rye Lane” is seemingly modest but quite refreshing for transcending its familiar gerne conventions in more than one way, and Allen-Miller, who previously made several short films before making a feature film debut here, surely demonstrates that she is another promising new talent to watch. In short, this is a small gem too good to miss, and I sincerely recommend you to check it out as soon as possible.

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