Anarchist_Rationale

As a preteen I was obsessed with ALIEN and always took note of everyone involved, including the actors. Harry Dean Stanton’s most oft-mentioned film credits were always either ALIEN or Paris, Texas , so when he died last year I made a point of finally hunting down the latter which had been on my radar as long as my obsession with the former. I knew very little about the film, so when the opening credits said “written by Sam Shepard” I immediately became more interested. Then “directed by Wim Wenders” came up on screen and I was even more interested. I was pretty confident I was going to have a very good film experience. I was wrong only in that it exceeded my expectations. Paris, Texas is, in my opinion, beautiful, authentic, heart-felt, compassionate, moving and very mature: a great movie, in other words. The movie opens with Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) walking aimlessly through the deserts of Texas, apparently in some kind of mute daze. A local doctor finds him and a bus...

Alicia Vikander is the best and possibly only reason to see this movie. I’m not expecting Shakespeare from a film based on a video game, but I am expecting more action than dialogue. I liked the action sequences alright, but I don’t think there were enough of them, and the stuff between them I felt was kind of boring. Still, I did like seeing Alicia Vikander running and jumping and doing action-stuff, so the movie wasn’t a complete loss. I just wouldn’t recommend it. The film sets out to be an origin story for Lara Croft and a search for her lost father which is bound up in a lame Raiders of the Lost Ark –type race for a powerful magical maguffin. I really don’t mind the predictability of the plot, and there is an argument to be made that these kinds of movies are all about delivering what the audience expects, but I don’t want to put up with long, melodramatic scenes or boring expository speeches. I want to see Lara Croft raiding tombs. Alicia Vikander does a superb job wit...

For the first time that I can remember, I have seen all but one of the nominees for the Oscars, which were held last week. At the time, I had seen all of them except for The Post and The Shape of Water , which I finally saw after it won best picture. My thoughts on it and the rest of the nominees: The Shape of Water is essentially Splash re-imagined with the Creature from the Black Lagoon instead of a mermaid, but nowhere near as good. I was impressed by the creature design, certainly, but the rest of the movie felt frustratingly underdone. It was a very typical Guillermo del Toro film, in that sense: I think he’s a gifted visualist, but his stories and characters leave a lot to be desired. Get Out is actually my third favourite movie of 2018, behind mother! and Blade Runner 2049 , so if I had been an Academy voter, this is the one I personally would have chosen for best picture. It’s very smart, very funny and very poignant without being preachy. It’s really brilliant,...

Marvel’s latest superhero movie is, in my opinion, bright, bold and colourful, but ultimately just ok. I found myself quite charmed and won over by the initial stages of the movie, loving the design work and the characterizations, but by the second half I was nodding off as the film descended more and more into the Marvel cookie-cutter mold. It’s fine, nothing terribly wrong with it, but beneath the surface it’s just more of the same. I was very impressed by the casting of the film. Chadwick Boseman is T’Challa, king of Wakanda and the blank-slate hero archetype designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. He does have a charisma that makes you care for him, though. Michael B. Jordan is a compelling arch-villain as Killmonger, out to usurp the throne. Lupita Nyong’o is wonderful as T’Challa’s love-interest/partner Nakia and I really loved Danai Gurira as Okoye, the top general of Wakanda’s army, but Letitia Wright stole every scene she’s in as T’Challa’s tech wiz-kid si...