Month: October 2021

Released: October 2021

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Rated PG-13

Run Time: 155 Minutes

Distributor: Warner Bros.

Genre: Science Fiction

Cast:
Timothee Chalamet: Paul Atreides
Rebecca Ferguson: Lady Jessica
Oscar Isaac: Duke Leto Atreides
Josh Brolin: Gurney Halleck
Jason Momoa: Duncan Idaho
Stellan Skarsgaard: Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
Javier Bardem: Stilgar
Zendaya: Chani
Dave Bautista: Beast Rabban Harkonnen

I WAS going to do a quick reaction to Denis Villeneuve’s Dune when I got home from the theater, but I decided against it, because there’s a lot here to unpack.  Movie adaptations of beloved science fiction and fantasy books are nothing new.  They’ve been attempting those for decades.  For most people, myself included, the best adaptation of the source material thus has been Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings.  It was a huge risk for New Line Cinema when they greenlit Jackson’s trilogy, especially since they had no idea if the first movie was successful.  What resulted was an Academy Award-winning series of movies that have gone on to become one of most beloved movie trilogies of all time, taking it’s place alongside the original Star Wars trilogy.  The most important thing to understand about adapting books into movies is knowing what to cut out and what to keep.  The reason is that there are things that might work in books that won’t work in a movie like certain characters or plot points.  It’s the nature of the beast.  If you were to try and adapt an entire book, the movie would be 5-7 hours long, and most people won’t sit through that, and most movies studios won’t those into theaters, because that would mean less showings and less butts in seats.  It’s not very profitable, so it’s a risk releasing movies that are upwards of three hours or more.  That brings me to Frank Herbert’s Dune and Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation.

The year is 10,191 and the most important substance in the known universe is the spice, melange.  This particular substance is responsible for all interstellar travel as well as enhancing abilities and extending life.  The only place where the spice is found is the planet Arrakis.  Duke Leto Atreides of planet Calladan is ordered by the Emperor to occupy Arrakis and mine the spice.  Arrakis was once occupied by the Atreides’ mortal enemies, the Harkonnens.  Along with his son Paul and concubine Lady Jessica, Leto takes possession of Arrakis, not realizing that the Emperor made a deal with Baron Harkonnen to destroy House Atreides.  That synopsis is an oversimplification of what happens in the story.  The book is notoriously dense and difficult to adapt.  Just ask Alejandro Jodorowsky and David Lynch.  There’s a lot of information that’s thrown at the audience, and not everybody is going to understand it.  I tried reading the book and I just couldn’t get into it, no matter how much I tried, and this is coming from somebody who has read J.R.R Tolkien’s The Silmarillion.  Dune is an incredible story, but thanks to the efforts of Denis Villeneuve, this film’s story is far more accessible than any other adaptation thus far.  Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff thrown at you, with different factions including the Bene Gesserit, an order of women who have been manipulating bloodlines to produce a super being called the Kwisatz Haderach.  While the story here isn’t holding your hands, it’s surprisingly easy to follow and understand what’s going on.  That is the mark of great film-making and great screenwriting:  Taking a dense storyline and making it approachable by the general audience.

David Lynch’s adaptation of Dune came with an outstanding cast including Kyle McLachlan, Patrick Stewart, and Max Von Sydow.  Denis Villeneuve’s version is no less impressive.  We have Zendaya as Chani, Josh Brolin as Gurney, Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, and Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto.  These folks are all outstanding in their own ways, and even the actors that don’t get a lot of screen time are pretty memorable like Stellan Skarsgaard as Baron Harkonnen.  He’s not over the top as Kenneth McMillan from the 1984 film, but he’s pretty intimidating.  Jason Momoa has always been a favorite of mine, and his version of Duncan Idaho is far more substantial than what we got in the original movie.  The real star of this movie has to be Timothee Chalamet as Paul Atreides.  Some YouTubers and various sources think that this kid could be the next Daniel Day-Lewis.  I’m finding it difficult to disagree with that assessment.  Timothee’s performance here is phenomenal.  He doesn’t look like much physically, but he’s got some serious acting chops.  His version of Paul isn’t quite as aloof as McLachlan’s, but there’s definitely a different kind of demeanor on display here.  The character seems to…KNOW things, as a result of his training under his mother’s guidance and that leads to some surprising events throughout the story.  There’s not a single bad actor on display here.

If there’s one thing that Dune knocks out of the park is its sense of scale.  This movie is epic in every single way, but the cinematography alone is worth the price of admission.  Looking at how and where the camera is set, you get a real sense of how large this story is.  The ships are massive, the explosions are even bigger when they happen, and the sandworms…oh, my.  Yeah, the 1984 had a decent understanding of scale, but Villeneuve’s film takes it to a whole different level.  I can’t even begin to describe how visually spectacular this movie is.  Dune is one of the most beautiful movies I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot.  From the set and costume designs to the locations, the grand scale of this project can’t be understated.  It really can’t.  Every planet has its own unique look and feel, and you can tell just by the color where these folks are.  I should warn people though: This is not an action movie.  It’s a science fiction epic that has action in it, but it’s more interested in its characters and the story.  That’s not to say that the action is bad.  Far from it.  The action in this film is crazy awesome.  The fight choreography with the hand-to-hand combat is fast and brutal, and obviously you have large-scale battles, but for this first part of the story, the action isn’t as pronounced.  No, they’re saving the heavy action for part 2.

The issues that I have with Dune actually have nothing to do with the film itself.  The movie is fine and absolutely worth watching.  No.  The problem here is that when the pandemic hit last year, movies got pushed back quite a bit including Dune.  But towards the end of the year, some studios took a calculated risk on releasing some of their newer movies on VOD instead of in theaters.  Some studios like Universal and Warner Bros. decided that they would release a number of 2021 movies on streaming services at the same time as theaters.  Warner Bros. got some serious pushback from film-makers like Christopher Nolan AND Denis Villeneuve about that, saying that doing so would undercut the movies that they were trying to make.  Well, it did.  While Mortal Kombat did alright in terms of box office numbers, James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad bombed at the box office, all because Warner Bros. wanted to release that movie on HBO Max the same day it hit theaters.  To be fair, The Suicide Squad had an uphill battle with people not liking the first movie and with the new one being rated R.  Dune was always going to be a risk because of the nature of the source material.  It’s been notoriously difficult to properly adapt into movie form, but I think that Denis Villeneuve did a great job.  The problem…is HBO Max.  The movie got released in Europe and around the world first before it was released here, so it managed to do alright overseas so far, but the real test comes from US audiences.  Are US audiences willing to go see this movie in theaters rather than at home on HBO Max?  Now, I’ve been hearing that Denis Villeneuve and the head honcho of Warner Bros. are going to greenlight Dune Part 2, but ultimately, that’s going to depend on how well this movie does in the box office.  I seriously doubt that it’s going to hit 100 million dollars in its opening weekend, despite the fact that the theater I was in was packed.  It’s clear that people want to see this movie, but the question of whether or not there enough people is up in the air right now.

Dune was a movie that should’ve been shot back-to-back with Part 2 following up in 2022, but if Part 2 DOES get the go-ahead, the soonest we could see it is 2023-2024.  Because of that, I can’t forgive Warner Bros. for what they’ve done to this movie, all for the sake of getting more subscribers.  It’s bad business.  But aside from that, I absolutely recommend people to go see this movie on the biggest screen possible, because the scale of the film makes it that more impressive.  Outstanding acting, visuals, and epic storytelling make Denis Villeneuve’s Dune a truly special experience.  He’s done it again, and I’m hoping he can really hammer it home with Part 2, if and when it happens.

I apologize for not doing a podcast last weekend, I was tired, but today, I bring you another episode and this is more my recent Blu-ray purchases: Schindler’s List, John Carpenter’s Halloween, Halloween II, Injustice, and Lifeforce.  So, enjoy, and I will be bringing you both a reaction to the new Dune, as well as a thorough review of the film.  Stay tuned.  In the meantime, enjoy the latest episode(It’s a short one, today):

Released: October 2021

Director: David Gordon Green

Run Time: 105 Minutes

Rated R

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Genre: Horror

Cast:
Jamie Lee Curtis: Laurie Strode
Judy Greer: Karen
Andi Matichak: Allyson
James Jude Courtney/Nick Castle: The Shape
Airon Armstrong: The Shape(1978)
Will Patton: Officer Hawkins
Thomas Mann: Young Hawkins
Anthony Michael Hall: Tommy Doyle

Defining irony: Me not liking the original 1978 Halloween film because it felt too formulaic despite reinforcing the formula that makes slasher movies what they are.  I love slasher movies.  I didn’t grow up with the Halloween movies.  Nope, I was more of a Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street fan.  At the time, I didn’t realize how much that those franchises owed to John Carpenter’s film.  While technically not the first slasher movie, the original Halloween cemented the tropes and story beats that would define the slasher film for decades to come.  Every slasher movie that you see today owes something to the original Halloween.  That’s not opinion.  It’s a fact.  Without Carpenter’s movie, the slasher film would not be what it is today, if it existed at all.  Halloween had enjoyed immense popularity, getting multiple sequels and remakes.  My first experience with Halloween was Rob Zombie’s first Halloween.  To this day, I still enjoy it.  It’s gritty, violent, and intense.  But it does make the mistake of explaining why Michael Myers is the way he is.  Sometimes you don’t need to explain pure evil.  After the disastrous Halloween: Resurrection and Rob Zombie’s second Halloween, the franchise took something of a major break.  It wasn’t until 2016 or 2017 when it was announced that a new Halloween film would be made.  But this new movie would ignore every sequel and remake.  THIS would be a direct sequel to the original film and would once again star Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode.  In 2018, the movie was released to mostly positive reactions.  Myself, I really enjoyed the hell out of it.  At the same time, it was announced that two more sequels would be made: Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends.  That brings me to Halloween Kills.

Picking up right where the previous film left off, Kills sees a badly wounded Laurie Strode with her daughter Karen and granddaughter Allyson as they head to the hospital.  They see fire trucks heading in the direction of Laurie’s compound.  As it turns out, Michael survives the fire set by Laurie and proceeds to slaughter all the first responders in grisly fashion.  A survivor of the 1978 incident, Tommy Doyle, is at a bar when he learns that Michael Myers is still alive and heading towards Haddonfield.  Along with a group of like-minded citizens, they decide to take the fight to Michael, but will it be enough?  It’s always risky when you make a sequel that takes place immediately after the end of the previous film.  It doesn’t allow for characters to deal with what they’ve gone through.  Because of the nature of this kind of sequel, certain story avenues are closed, yet others are opened.  Because of how the previous film ended, Laurie is sidelined for most of the film, allowing Tommy to take up the cause, which is pretty.  Seeing another survivor take the fight to Michael was not a bad idea.  I have to admit that I had no idea the direction this story was going and that’s also a good thing.  However: Because Hallween Ends was announced in tandem with this movie, we can surmise how this movie was going to end, and THAT almost ruins the movie for me.  There’s nothing that I hate more than blatant sequel-baiting.  Slasher movies can get away with it a little bit, but the movie has to stand on its own.  Halloween Kills pretty much requires that you see the next movie to find out how everything concludes, and that’s not good writing.

In terms of acting, Jamie Lee Curtis is awesome as ever, despite the fact that she’s in a hospital bed for the majority of the film.  Judy Greer is fantastic, as is Andi Matichak as Allyson.  Anthony Michael Hall almost steals the show as Tommy.  He’s a fantastic actor and to see him lead the charge against Myers is pretty awesome.  But for the most part, the acting is pretty much what you would expect from a movie like this.  Three actors played Michael Myers in this film.  The first was Nick Castle, who played the character in the original 1978 movie.  But for the stunts and majority of the film, the character was played by James Jude Courtney, while the flashback version was played by stuntman Airon Armstrong.  I believe that Nick was the unmasked version of Myers, so you really couldn’t see his face.  Characters like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees can be played by pretty much anybody, because the mask hides the performer, which mostly works.  For Michael though, it’s far more intimidating, because the guy is huge and he doesn’t make a sound.  The character is a force of nature, and the film kind alludes to the idea that there might be some supernatural element as to why Myers constantly survives being stabbed and shot.  It’s weird.

With the exception of Rob Zombie’s interpretation of Halloween, the violence in the majority of these movies has been fairly restrained.  Not in Halloween Kills.  This movie is fucking mean.  It’s one of the meanest slasher movies I’ve seen in years, and I LOVE IT!  While the kills aren’t super-original, the degree of brutality to which they are executed(pun intended)is off the charts.  The opening slaughter of the first responders was jaw-dropping.  THAT’S how you open a sequel like this.  As with many slasher movies, some characters end up making some really stupid decisions and they pay for it.  It’s par for the course with these kinds of movies.  But would I really do like is that some of the characters that you think would survive until the end, don’t.  I was legitimately surprised at how some characters fell to Michael’s blade.  The kills themselves are brutal.  I cringed at some of them, and I love a good splatter-fest.  The make-up effects are outstanding, as they are all practical.  For a mainstream slasher flick, Halloween Kills is gorier than most.

I don’t mind it when a movie has a message, but it usually shouldn’t be so on the nose about it.  The message in Halloween Kills is about the dangers of mob mentality, and there’s a scene in a hospital where the mob is chasing down a mental patient that they think is Michael Myers, and it leads to one of the most brutal moments in the movie.  I get what they were trying to go for, but the film-makers didn’t trust the audience enough to come to this conclusion on our own, and that’s never a good thing.  Audiences aren’t that stupid.  You don’t need to spell everything out for us.  On top of that, the movie takes itself far too seriously, almost to the point of not being any fun.  One of the best things about slasher movies is how self-aware they are and roll with it, but still offering up enough chills to make the experience worth it.  Halloween Kills has no such ambitions, and that can be a problem.

Ultimately, this movie is a bit of a mixed bag, but overall, I actually really like it.  I think the good stuff in the movie outweighs the bad, but the issues that the film has are significant.  That’s a problem when the film is designed to be a second film in a trilogy.  That said, I believe it’s worth watching.  If you’re more interested in the carnage, and there’s a lot of it, this movie will deliver on that.  But if you’re hoping for a really compelling to go along with that carnage, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.  The speeches and the way the film ends don’t do the film any favors.  I’ll probably be picking this one up on Blu-Ray when it comes out, but it’s going to be another year before we see the conclusion and I don’t know how that’ll go.

Released: February 1994

Director: Steven Spielberg

Rated R

Run Time: 3 hours, 15 minutes

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Genre: Historical Drama

Cast:
Liam Neeson: Oskar Schindler
Ralph Fiennes: Amon Goeth
Ben Kingsley: Itzhak Stern
Caroline Goodall: Emilie Schindler
Jonathan Sagall: Poldek Pfefferberg
Embeth Davidtz: Helen Hirsch

I’ve always believed that certain movies could only be made by certain directors.  Only Ridley Scott could’ve directed Alien or Gladiator.  Only James Cameron could’ve directed Avatar or The Terminator, and only Stanley Kubrick could’ve directed 2001: A Space Odyssey.  That’s not to say that these directors are bad.  Far from it, but certain stories and ideas might be better suited for somebody like Steven Spielberg rather than James Cameron to tell.  The impact of the story might be very different for what was initially intended.  With Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg proved that he was the right person to make this movie, despite some of his earlier hesitations that he didn’t know how.  I’ll be honest with you: I never saw Schindler’s List before last night.  As someone who has never really shied away from controversial or hard-hitting movies, it seems strange that I had been skipping Schindler’s List for years.  I’m fascinated with that period in history, yet I’ve found myself simultaneously intrigued by Spielberg’s movie, but also afraid of it in some bizarre way.  Maybe it’s because I wasn’t emotionally ready to watch a movie set during the Holocaust.

Normally, this is point in my reviews where I would discuss the story that the movie is trying to tell.  Basically, the movie is about Oskar Schindler, an industrialist who would end up saving 1,100 Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust.  Instead of discussing the story, though, I want to talk about why a movie like Schindler’s List is so important.  There are other movies out there that deal with the Holocaust, but not with the same honesty and intelligence that Steven Spielberg brings to the stage.  While MOST educated people know that the Holocaust was one of the worst atrocities ever committed, most people are unaware that even during one of the darkest chapters in human history, there were elements of resistance by the Jews and attempts from other parties to try and save as many of these people as they could.  Schindler’s List shines the light on particular man who spent his entire fortune trying to save as many people as he could.  This movie is important, because not only does it not pull any punches when it comes to the brutality of the Nazis and their regime, but it also shows that even in the darkest of hours, there can be a glimmer of courage and hope.  One could say that the 1,100 people saved was a paltry number compared to the 6 million that were systematically murdered.  But for that group of people that survived, Schindler was a hero, even if he didn’t consider himself one.  That’s one of the points that this movie was trying to make: One person CAN make a difference.  Schindler’s List is important, because this really happened.  While certain details may have been altered for dramatic purposes, what you see is what actually happened.  These were real people going through Hell itself, yet the atrocities didn’t stop these people from giving up.

The acting in this film is some of the best that I’ve ever seen.  Liam Neeson is incredible as Oskar Schindler.  He brings the right amount of charm to the role that requires the character to be manipulative, scheming, and at times, greedy.  But you see him change over the course of the film when he witnesses a ghetto being “liquidated.”  But you also got to see other sides to the character.  His charisma also allowed to be a bit of a ladies man, as you see in  scene when he’s trying to hire a secretary.  It’s really one of the funniest moments in an other-wise serious film.  But the best moments come when he’s dealing with Ralph Fiennes’ Amon Goeth, the head of the forced labor camp.  There’s a reason why Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes were nominated for Academy Awards.  Ralph Fiennes is also charismatic in the film, but his character uses that in a very different way.  It’s a very interesting contrast between two powerful men, yet Neeson still managed to manipulate Goeth into him take 1,100 people to a different location.  Make no mistake about it, Amon Goeth was total sociopath in real-life, and apparently even worse than how he was portrayed in the movie, but Fiennes does an outstanding job bringing such a despicable human being to life.  Ben Kingsley is also incredible as Itzhak Stern, the Jewish accountant that works for Schindler.  It’s not just the talent in front of the camera that’s extraordinary.

If there’s a name for someone behind-the-scenes that you should remember, besides that of Steven Spielberg, it’s Janusz Kaminski, the Director of Photography.  This guy is brilliant for his cinematography.  Most of the film is shot in black-and-white, which adds to the despairing and oppressive feel of the film, but he adds some color here and there for a reason.  For instant, the little girl with the red jacket stands out from amongst the crowd?  That’s for a reason.  Not only does she catch the eye of Schindler, but it draws the attention of the audience.  There are multiple interpretations for what that means, but the image lingers on long after the movie ends.  Because the film is mostly black-and-white, it allows for certain manipulation of lights and shadows which can heighten or lessen the atmosphere of a particular scene.  The entire film looks like a history book come to life.  But that kind of cinematography also enhances the more horrific parts of the movie.  It makes the more bloody and violent moments stand out even more.  I don’t think the movie would have worked as well if it had been shot in full color.  It might have come across as more cartoonish.  As it is, it has a more documentary-style feeling throughout the film, and it’s all the better for it.  It makes it more realistic and haunting when something terrible happens.  Spielberg and Kaminski would work together on more films like Saving Private Ryan, War of the Worlds, and Lincoln.

Steven Spielberg knew, as a director, that his responsibility for telling a story like this was to get it right.  That means not pulling any punches when it comes to the horrors of the Holocaust.  He doesn’t show everything that happened, but he shows enough of the brutality to drive the reality home.  This period in history was incredibly brutal and violent.  There are some truly haunting moments in the film.  The violence in particular isn’t over-the-top, but it is shocking in not just it’s callousness, but the casual way that the Nazis just kill people and move on about their day.  Spielberg, knew, along with the rest of the crew, that they were heading into some incredibly dark territory, but it’s a necessary part of telling this story.  In fact, there were stories about Spielberg and company having to watch episodes of Seinfeld and listen to stand-up comedy from Robin Williams to decompress and unwind from an incredibly exhausting and downbeat production.  When you’re making a movie about the Holocaust, you have to be truthful about what took place.  You can’t sugarcoat it and you can’t sweep it under the rug.

Schindler’s List would go on to win seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director(Steven Spielberg), Best Cinematography(Janusz Kaminsky), and Best Music, Original Score(John Williams).  There’s a reason for that.  Everything about this film is top-notch.  The story is compelling.  It’s heart-wrenching, but at the same time there are glimmers of hope and human dignity found throughout the entire film.  The acting is among some of the finest that I’ve ever seen in a film, and the pacing is perfect.  For a movie that runs 3 hours and 15 minutes, it doesn’t feel that long, because you get invested in the story and the events of what took place.  THAT’S what made Steven Spielberg the perfect guy to direct this movie.  Is Schindler’s List for everybody?  No.  It’s hard to sit through and some of the imagery can be too much for some people.  But I would still recommend this movie without hesitation.  It’s one of the most important movies ever made, especially about an event that took place less than a century ago.  So, keep that in mind if you decide to watch this movie.  Personally, I wouldn’t go right out and immediately watch it again, but I will probably return to it from time to time.