He’s off the charts in this, he really is. It’s the most self-effacing acting job in years. He defines scumbag ‘junkie’ but by the end you realise the bloke does have a heart and everything he does is for a reason, though he usually fucks it up. It’s a redempton story and one of the best because it’s REAL.
That last fight scene is the damage. It’s drama and technique. And it actually happened.
Let the clips commence!
And the perfect movie. Disturbing, very clever, incredibly paced. Acting off the charts.
It defines ‘slow-burning drama’, and there is a joy in every scene with its peculiarities and what-you-think-are-pointless details. The explosions of violence are exactly that because they rarely happen but when they do they … do. It’s a noir that like the best of noirs becomes more than a PI job, ’30s Los Angeles the personal and the metaphorical. Best scene – J. J. “Jake” Gittes winding up the batty secretary to no end with his seemingly … pointless questions. Nothing in this movie is pointless.
It’s cliché to talk about masterful portraits of ugly capitalism. But this is one of them.
Finally got around to seeing this having missed it on the big screen. Netflix would have to make do as it usually does these days. I suppose movies like this demand the theatre experience, but I’m not waiting a decade for a one-off re-release.
Cinema concerning The Great War is understandably not omniscient as affairs regarding WWII are. The former conflict as seen by contemporary historiography (at least on the Western Front) is more static, more simple, with less of a political and civilian dimension. There are exceptions in cinema – Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The White Ribbon (2009), but there are only a handful ever worth watching again.
I couldn’t stand this movie.
It’s appalling acting from many on display. The main bloke is good but the rest are phoning it in. There are so many annoying cameos from marquee actors who appear merely to boost the star names on the poster.
Bizarrely, it seldom feels like anything is at stake; I wasn’t bothered about any of the developments. One of the bloodiest and destructive conflicts in history is reduced to a bloodless, frankly boring episode which never once feels real or sincere. And as for the ‘one shot’ USP, it’s nothing more than a gimmick. But then a moment happens when it stops being a sequence shot by cutting to black, which negates the so-called perfectionism of the preceding exercise. It’s pointless.
And a lonely French woman makes an appearance, and she proceeds to shelter the protagonist. No cliché unturned.
Stick to Paths of Glory (1957).
Summer is officially over. Here’s to more miserable scenes on the Costa del Dull.
A good lad I know found this in the public library box … thing next to Harrison Park.
I thought Alan Clark was just a funny-as-fuck semi-cabinet minister who wanked to Maggie Thatcher. But fucking hell, this work was so fluid, shocking, actually intense (even if you know most of what he’s banging on about). It’s the measure of the characters which impressed me the most. The bloke’s ability to sum things up without waffling away like most writers.
This is how it ends:
I’m taking it back to the library next week with a wee appraisal on the inside sleeve.
There’s legit nothing else like it and it’s the most plodding movie ever. It just goes along at its own pace and takes its time with everything. Ryan O’Neal has to be the most uncharismatic and uninteresting actor to have ever starred in a masterpiece. Yet it’s his nothingness that makes the picture work. He’s a vacuum, a character we can superimpose ourselves onto. And those visuals! You often read in reviews that the film is “like a painting”, which is stating the obvious. It’s more a portrait of a repressive age, mostly static but with occasional exuberance and some avenues for advancement, And once again, Kubrick shows he is the master of assembling soundtracks.
Best quote:
‘It is well to dream of glorious war in a snug armchair at home, but it is a very different thing to see it first hand. And after the death of his friend, Barry’s thoughts turned from those of military glory to those of finding a way to escape the service to which he was now tied for another six years. Gentlemen may talk of the age of chivalry, but remember the ploughmen, poachers and pickpockets whom they lead. It is with these sad instruments that your great warriors and kings have been doing their murderous work in the world.’
Wow!
