darkthirty

Visceral black and white condemnation of the extraordinary potential for superstition, religion and rule by force to enact the most brutal treatment of others, from Russian brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, brought to the screen by Aleksei German. Will we ever reach that place so powerfully imagined by these people, where such a state as Arkankar is unthinkable? Still loved in Russia, during the Soviet period the dream of progress that caused the Strugatsky's to create the Noon Universe, of which the story for this film is one piece, must have been an achingly tangible and at the same time impossible fantasy. In any case, German has taken the idea and without flinching shown the worst of us, while imagining the best of us. Great cinematography, close quarters conversations a la Robert Altman, and images you won't forget.

Sure were some pretty shots in this thing, so many it's like the tonal palette was a fourth character, in the same way lens flare was a character in the recent Star Trek re-imaginings, reminding us to take note of how much care went into the colour correction. Why the need for this fourth character? Perhaps because the story is so needlessly, dog-walkingly banal, the colour manipulation could stand in for gravitas. Riding perhaps on the faintest memory of No Country for Old Men, a film that makes the much vaunted so-called art of Hell or High Water look like a pile of chocolate bar wrappers strewn on the floor, this exercise in stretching a fleeting moment of acting into a two hour migraine is, under all the tonal work, daft and missable.

Saw La La Land a week ago and I needed time to process how little impressed with it I ended up being. It is a sparkly superwhite depiction of LA in an utterly apolitical, hipster way that scratches it's soles to the beat of eras when most things were just that - self-centered posh people having "dreams." It is, underneath the personal story of two people trying to "be something", an embodiment of "make film great again" as the dictator down south's mean-spirited and ignorant slogan about America itself is. It is a throwaway film, most certainly does NOT deserve any Oscars, and is actually quite forgettable, except for the City of Stars song. The dancing isn't just off, it's terrible, dare I say, utterly lame. Emma Stone's charm only got me so far through this puffed up piece of cupcake dust. The use of Griffith Observatory becomes goofier than even the worst parts of Titanic. Arrival, Moonlight, even Manchester by the Sea are far, far superior films. This of course means La La Land will win big time. I enjoyed Warcraft more. Seriously.