Martijn Doolaard makes the most mesmerising videos you’ll see anywhere. They shouldn’t be, but the tranquil simplicity distinguishes the content. And he’s doing something, not filming a cat with a selfie stick.
There’s a Robert Bresson quality here. An inspiration.
The Trinity Test is the centrepiece, and what a magnificent, wholly cinematic build-up and pay-off it is, pure controlled mayhem in its visuals and sound.
The rest? I was bored shitless. Most vexing, and this includes seeing the bumbling Tom Conti as Albert Einstein and Gary Oldman as Harry S. Truman in two of their most cringe performances to date, was the unbearable reliance on appointment hearings and that security clearance interview, and the incessant cutting back and forth, an overlong spy-chasing vignette which I found mostly tiresome. We all know politicians are vile; there’s nothing especially innovative in showing us all over again.
I craved more spectacle as well as insight into how this deadly weapon was actually made, that and a longing for a Terrence Malick approach to the material. It was so talky but with no memorable dialogue, and I got a bit sick of it – I was genuinely disappointed. As for the eponymous protagonist, I simply found him boring, and every time the camera lingered perversely on his sunken cheekbones a sense of resigned ennui is how I would describe the atmosphere.
A stunning technical achievement though it all is, I didn’t find it particularly revelatory, and I won’t be watching it again.
It also didn’t help matters that I was sadly sat beside a large, rather whiffy individual who breathed like an asthmatic hippo, ate like a gannet, and decided to take his shoes and socks off. I had to endure this for almost three hours.
This is why I rarely go to the cinema.
I know very little about any of this; I quite simply do not care for the yarn, and I never will. So such Biblical inaccuracies are of no concern to me, much as a filmic deviation from a comic book also rouses no faux-incredulity on my behalf.
Visuals here were impressive. The rest, absolute shite, from the horrible characters to the bombast, and the general tedium of it all.
Pish.
Bye for now.
Warren Beatty was/is a movie star powerhouse, combining glamour looks and supreme acting talent, a 2 in 1. His notorious obsession with control over projects is confusing here, as he didn’t direct this. Anyway, he is magnetic as always, charming and unnerving and frequently hilarious. From his tantrums to his child-like enthusiasm and naïveté, he is totally credible. I suppose that’s acting.
An impressive movie if not quite great, its best attributes are the pacing and the fact it trusts its audience. There are none of the usual biopic pitfalls of the lengthy exposition which explains everything, and the schematic insertion of historical facts for the audience.
A glossy borderline melodrama which does it just the right way. Worth a watch for Beatty.
Brutalist and utopia are never two words to be used in the same sentence without negative connotations, but it’s a recurring theme with these building projects. We did, however, experience the “aesthetically pleasing” luxuries of A Clockwork Orange (1971) because of these architectural faux pas.
Once again: “As we walked along the flatblock marina, I was calm on the outside but thinking all the time. So now it was to be Georgie the General, saying what we should do, and what not to do, and Dim as his mindless, grinning bulldog. But, suddenly, I viddied that thinking was for the gloopy ones, and that the oomny ones used like inspiration and what Bog sends. For now it was lovely music that came to my aid. There was a window open, with a stereo on, and I viddied right at once what to do.”
This has to be one of the ugliest and most depressing constructs I’ve ever seen. It defines ‘eyesore’. Some cursory research and I find it beguiling that this was once trumpeted as social housing magic, the architects banging on about it as a solution to societal ills. Architectural determinism is real, and this … thing completely disregards the ‘Eyes on the Street’ element to design as illuminated in Jane Jacobs’ masterful The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
It’s tragic how buildings like this happened.
This bloke, he nails it:
Further reading:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/dec/05/robin-hood-gardens-east-london
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 