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geezer cinema/film fatales #218: the outrun (nora fingscheidt, 2024)

It's easier to list the things that are good about The Outrun than it is to explain why it didn't quite make it for me, so I'll start there. And there really is nowhere to start other than with Saoirse Ronan. She's been nominated for four Oscars, and this should be her fifth, although I suspect she will fall short of winning once again. She has matched well in the past with Greta Gerwig, but she shines with other directors as well. She tends to be the best thing in any movie in which she appears, which is to say, she is better than her films (at least the ones not directed by Gerwig). Here she plays an alcoholic, Rona, which is always good for Oscar attention, and she finds interesting ways to make the character different from all the other alkies we've seen. She is convincingly an individual, not just a stereotype.

The setting is crucial and impressive ... director Nora Fingscheidt and cinematographer Yunus Roy Imer make great use of the Orkney Islands, an imposing location both inspiring and frightening (and thus a perfect place to work out one's alcoholism). The film is based on a memoir by Amy Liptrot, who worked on the picture and who knows the Islands well.

There is a bit of an inevitability to the narrative ... woman is an addict, she falls, she gets sober, she falls again. Fingscheidt addresses this with a non-chronological approach that simulates forward movement, but I found it more jarring than anything. It wasn't confusing, but neither did it seem necessary.

Having just seen Blitz, where Ronan's blonde hair stood out among a fairly drab-looking setting, it was interesting to see how in The Outrun, Ronan is often stripped of makeup, as if to emphasize how her drinking brings down whatever natural effervescence she might have. Rona frequently changes her hair color, and each time it marks her attempt to rescue that effervescence.

I can't find much in what I have written to explain why I wasn't overwhelmed by The Outrun. It's a worthy picture, about as good as the much different Blitz, but unlike her movies with Gerwig, I don't imagine returning to The Outrun for a taste of Saoirse Ronan. Don't get me wrong, though, she'll deserve that Oscar nomination.

geezer cinema: blitz (steve mcqueen, 2024)

Blitz carries an aura of prestige: Oscar-winner Steve McQueen takes on life in London during the German attacks during World War II. Saoirse Ronan has four Oscar nominations of her own, and although I think she's at her best in her Greta Gerwig movies, she certainly shines here. New discovery Elliott Heffernan as 9-year-old George is a real find who would seem to have a strong career ahead of him.

Blitz's look is eye-catching in an appropriately dreary way (Yorick Le Saux is the cinematographer), and Ronan's blonde hair stands out strikingly (as do the red clothes she often wears). McQueen presents the historical story as a personal one ... Ronan plays a young mother, Rita, who sends her son George off as part of an evacuation of children. George escapes that fate, and works his way back home to London. McQueen effectively moves between the various elements he has concocted, with just enough flashbacks to establish Rita's character. And the cast is filled with fun names: Paul Weller of The Jam plays Rita's aging father, poet Linton Kwesi Johnson turns up, and there's the ever-present Stephen Graham as a frightening stand-in for Fagin. We even get Christopher Chung from Slow Horses as one of Graham's henchmen.

Somehow it doesn't quite add up to a classic. Harris Dickinson is completely wasted. His scenes could have been eliminated without damage to the film. There is an inherent intensity in the situation, the incessant bombing, George's long trip home, but outside of a few strong set pieces, everything feels a bit slack. Blitz is a good movie that will probably earn a couple of Oscar nominations. But it's my fourth McQueen movie, and it falls short of the others (Hunger and 12 Years a Slave for sure, even Widows).

geezer cinema: the return (uberto pasolini, 2024)

It's easy to see why The Return was made. You've got a classic tale based on Homer's Odyssey. You've got two top actors in Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, appearing together for the first time since The English Patient in 1996. One of the screenwriters was the esteemed Edward Bond, his last film before his death at 89. The director was Oscar-nominated Uberto Pasolini.

Epic story, honored actors and crew, what could go wrong? Honestly, nothing goes wrong. But after watching The Return, I'm not sure why anyone bothered. Oh, Fiennes and Binoche might get Oscar nominations, and cinematographer Marius Panduru will be in the Oscar discussion as well. Perhaps the problem lies in the decision to turn Homer's epic into a brooding character story. That gives the two stars plenty to chew on, and they deliver, but the action is pretty limited until an ending so violent it earns the picture its "R" rating. It takes forever to get things going ... Odysseus washes ashore on Ithaca, naked, unrecognizable, then for what felt like forever we go back and forth between Odysseus keeping his identity a secret and Penelope pining for the man who left her so many years ago. It's not boring, not with two actors as strong as the leads. But it did feel like it took ten years to get Odysseus, naked on that beach, to finally claim his identity. The Return is not a waste of your time or the talent involved, it's just inconsequential.

geezer cinema: conclave (edward berger, 2024)

Conclave is receiving a lot of Oscar buzz. It's already picked up a handful of awards on the festival circuit, with the acting in particular getting notice ... an ensemble award at Palm Springs, individual honors to Ralph Fiennes at Santa Barbara. Conclave is also the kind of serious drama that might seem particularly respectable come Oscars time ... I don't think it's better than movies such as My Old Ass, Love Lies Bleeding, or The Beekeeper with Jason Statham, but Conclave sounds like an Oscar movie.

And as prestigious Oscar movies go, Conclave is pretty good. The acting is indeed strong, and the film looks great, with what looks to my clueless eyes to be a remarkable recreation of the Sistine Chapel at Cinecittà Studios.

But the plot itself is too mundane for such grandiose possibilities. Conclave is in essence a mystery story about the politics underlying the selection of a new Pope, which sounds engrossing. But the film relies on stock narrative devices, such as the withholding of information until it will have the maximum impact on the audience, and the ways in which the various Cardinals fit into standard stereotypical roles: the devious one, the ambitious one, the humble one, and the unknown late-arriving one. The pieces fit together well enough to be noticeable, and I wanted to be more surprised. The final revelation also felt tacked on, as if to prove that the story wasn't as ordinary as we might have thought.

Conclave is not as bad as it might sound. It isn't boring, the acting draws you in, and even stock plot turns often work. When I say it's no better than My Old Ass, I don't mean it's worse. But it's got prestige, and that only goes so far.

boiling point (philip barantini, 2021)

This is the tenth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Week 10 is called "The Long Take Week":

Elucidation or ostentation? Substance or style? Art or amusement? The best filmmakers presumably revel in these precarious dichotomies as they strive to create something that captures both the singular kind of artistry cinema makes possible and a satisfying measure of meaning to go with it. And happily, what may be the most cinematic tool in a director's arsenal, the long take, when properly employed, can do just that. From Alfred Hitchcock's Rope to the legit one-shot Russian Ark, directors have been pushing film reel capacity and battery life to the limits for decades to bring audiences the special kind of magic only a moving picture can deliver.

This week's challenge is to hang in there with a film from kevinandrewrea3's One/Long take movies list. Whether you settle in for the slow cinema of Béla Tarr (as in Sátántangó) or opt for the intensity of traversing a crowded corridor alongside Oldboy's Oh Dae-su, here's hoping you experience that little jolt of excitement that comes when you bear witness to a captivating—and consequential—long take.

For much of the beginning of Boiling Point, I found its Long Take method irrelevant. But as the film progressed, and the restaurant workers get increasingly stressed over the course of a busy evening, I realized the Long Take was actually perfect. There is no escape for us in the audience ... like the camera, we can't take a breather, like the camera, the workers can't take a breather, either.

The cast is excellent, and the camerawork helps make them seem "real" more than just actors. Almost all of them were people I'd seen in other movies, but I only knew that because I looked it up ... I didn't recognize anyone as I watched, and even after reading the cast list, I was still drawing a blank (with the exception of Jason Flemyng, who I remember for a small, funny part in Kick-Ass). The one exception was Stephen Graham in the lead, and when is he ever bad? This is the first time I saw him as the main character, and he makes you wonder why he doesn't get more starring roles (maybe I've just missed them).

Boiling Point began as a short, directed and co-written by Philip Barantini and starring some of the same actors, including Graham. A sequel followed via a somewhat unusual route: it was a four-part television mini-series. Barantini had worked for a long time as a chef, which perhaps accounts for how accurate the film seems. Boiling Point is a showcase for cast and crew, and it benefits from the focused approach. Ultimately, it's a rather narrow focus, but a powerful one for the audience.

revisiting the 9s: once upon a time ... in hollywood (quentin tarantino, 2019)

[This is the twenty-second in a series that will probably be VERY intermittent, if I remember to post at all. I've long known that while I have given my share of 10-out-of-10 ratings for movies over the years, in almost every case, those movies are fairly old. So I got this idea to go back and revisit movies of relatively recent vintage that I gave a rating of 9, to see if time and perspective convinced me to bump that rating up to 10.]

In 2020, I wrote about Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood:

As the film moseyed along, I felt that rather than create tension, Tarantino was just relying on our knowledge of Manson, Tate, et al to give unearned suspense to his movie. As Mick LaSalle wrote, "It’s amazingly discursive. Tarantino knows he has our attention, because he knows that we know where the movie is heading, toward that fateful night in Bel Air. He also knows we’re not exactly in a hurry to get there." But the tension is real in the last part of the movie, partly because "we know where the movie is heading", yes, but also because Tarantino takes us there. And, of course, we don't necessarily know where it's heading, we just think we do.

I think I got this right back in 2020. Like all Tarantino movies, it has scenes that dazzle. Like all Tarantino movies, it has dialogue that sparkles. Like all Tarantino movies, it has an intricate plot that seems as if it will never come together, only then it does. And like all Tarantino movies, there's excess, which often seems like the point, and it's often the best part of his movies, but not always ... sometimes he misses. So, to reference the "is it a 9 or a 10" question, Quentin Tarantino may be the ultimate "9" director who could make a "10" only then it wouldn't be a Tarantino movie.

So he has a scene with an actor playing Bruce Lee, and it's a good performance by Mike Moh, and Tarantino gives him and Brad Pitt some fun dialogue. And the scene is satisfying for the viewer. But it's also so insulting to the legend of Bruce Lee that China wouldn't allow the film's release unless Quentin removed the scene (he refused). Lee's daughter found the scene offensive ... so did Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Tarantino says the daughter had the right to be offended, but no one else. Stop, they're all right ... well, China's ful of it, but Tarantino was right to make fun of Bruce Lee's image, and Lee's family and friends were right to defend Bruce's honor. The result is a fun scene that nonetheless leaves a sour taste, and that kind of thing turns up every once in a while in a Quentin Tarantino film, meaning his movies become "9s" rather than "10s".

I also noted in my earlier review that Tarantino put together a great cast for OUATIH, and five years later, it looks even better. Austin Butler was an up-and-comer ... in his next movie, he got an Oscar nomination for playing Elvis. Then, Mikey Madison was one of the girls in Better Things ... now she's getting Oscar talk for Anora. Then, Sydney Sweeney was little known, with her breakout role on Euphoria a couple of months away. Now she's in half of the movies that are released and she's the new It Girl.

The movie is on all sorts of lists, including #86 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of the 21st century (#845 on the All-Time list).

host (rob savage, 2020)

This is the ninth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Week 9 is called "Found Footage Week":

Popularized at the turn of the century with The Blair Witch Project, found footage is a genre/style with much older roots than you might expect. In literature we have a "found letters" or "found diary" form in the epistolary novel, which dates back to at least 1684 with Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, and horror novels have used the technique from Frankenstein to Dracula to Carrie. The first found footage movie was Shirley Clarke's The Connection from 1961, and Cannibal Holocaust brought the style to horror films in 1980. With low production costs, the potential profit margins are huge, as evidenced by the explosion that followed Blair Witch, most notably the Paranormal Activity franchise. The oft-maligned style spans all genres, from superhero sci-fi to comedy to more recent "screenlife" thrillers where the footage is on computer screens. What will we find this week? This is a fairly exhaustive list.

This week's challenge is to watch a previously unseen found footage film.

Whoa!

Host is an example of a movie where the less you know going in, the better, so stop reading if you haven't seen it. Hell, I'd never even heard of it, much less knew what it was about. I figured at best it would be OK-not-awful, like Smile, which was better than I expected. Well, Host was better than I expected. If The Babadook is the standard bearer for recent horror, Host is its equal, albeit in a different way.

Both films are more than simply scary. The Babadook is a crucial film about grief (and is scary as shit), Host is about the impact of social media (and is scary as shit). I'd say The Babadook has more depth, but Host has a lot to say without drawing attention to its arguments.

Host was made during the pandemic quarantine, and Rob Savage used the opportunity in a smart fashion. The entire movie takes place on Zoom ... all of the actors were in different places during filming, shooting their own footage with iPhones taped to their laptops, Savage himself directed from another location. The scenario is that a group of friends decide to have a seance via Zoom.

There is a reason this feature film is only 57 minutes long, and I'll avoid at least one spoiler by letting you figure out how the plot makes this necessary. Essentially, Host is just a scary movie, effective, a good scary movie, but even with the novel production, I don't know if I'd go further than that. Except Savage is really effective, and the setting invites post-mortem thinking about social media that is a little bit deeper than what you usually get after a good horror movie.

So consider this a big thumbs up. But if you are easily scared, avoid Host.

the spy who loved me (lewis gilbert, 1977)

Here it is, the pinnacle of the Roger Moore Era of James Bond movies. It's a good movie, and I don't mean that in a disparaging way. But at this point, it's hard not to think about how Bond was of his time, and how each generation had to come up with its own version. Moore seems like the worst Bond (except for those who grew up on him ... to them, Roger Moore is 007), but that wasn't how he was seen in 1977. He wasn't Sean Connery, but we didn't know how Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, or Daniel Craig would turn out. For that matter, we didn't know how the next four Moore Bonds would turn out. In fact, things went downhill after The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moore's reputation in the end is of a guy who got old and stuck around too long. Here, Moore was a fit 50, believable in the part. A View to a Kill was 8 years later, and it showed on Moore.

So let's remember him at his best.

the long day closes (terence davies, 1992)

The only other Terence Davies film I'd seen was Distant Voices, Still Lives, which I thought enough of to suggest it would warrant a second viewing (necessary since I didn't much like it but felt I was missing something ... on the other hand, that was more than a decade ago, and I still haven't gotten around to a revisit). The Long Day Closes has an autobiographical feel, even though I knew nothing about the actual life of Davies. As I described Distant Voices, The Long Day Closes is "an intriguing combination of English kitchen-sink realism and near avant-garde stylings." It benefits from a concise, 85-minute running time ... more and I would have found it pretentious, less and I would have found it lacking.

What I called an intriguing combination comes in part from the way Davies offers up a realistic remembrance of a young boy growing up in mid-50s Liverpool, but the film is clearly bound to studio sets. Davies effectively recreates the Liverpool of his childhood, but he doesn't hide the fact of the recreation ... we applaud the way he nails Liverpool, not the way he uses actual locations. This makes sense ... the young protagonist is infatuated with movies, he may see his own life as a movie, and so of course we get a faux Liverpool that is better than the real thing. Except Davies doesn't pretty things up, which is why it seems of a piece with kitchen-sink realism.

I hadn't heard of anyone in the cast ... they are universally good, but their unknown-to-me status made them seem "real". As far as I can tell, this was the only appearance of Leigh McCormack, who has the lead role. (Apparently, he found acting boring and instead became a fireman.) The Long Day Closes rests on its gentle qualities, and I don't need to see it again to say that it's a worthy picture. #603 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of all time.

the man with the golden gun (guy hamilton, 1974)

Roger Moore's first go-around as James Bond was a reasonably pleasing effort, Live and Let Die. By the follow-up, ennui was setting in again. The Man with the Golden Gun is about as good as Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery's last shot, which is to say it isn't very good at all. Moore wasn't the problem yet, and his best outing was still to come. But outside of Christopher Lee as the Bond Villain, there's not much to see here. At least there's this: