Arty-farty pub pic, Edinburgh.
American History X (1998). A modern tragedy.
Edward Norton was the last zeitgeist of the 20th century.
It sounds risible but it isn’t if you look at the body of work – he somehow captured everything, hit every nail. It was most likely by accident; that or he was incredibly good at choosing projects. He’s not really hit those heights since but the talent remains. He just needs a director to take a chance on him.
This is a sometimes horrifying movie and there are moments you almost have to skip. The film is biblical in its capturing of the transitory nature of happiness. These very real characters are stuck there with no escape. But they have a few wee happy moments. A few. It’s a long time since 1998 but not really, in the sense that someone said to me the Berlin Wall has been down longer than it had been up. You couldn’t make a movie these days with Ed Norton emerging from a cathartic shower with a Big Bertha-sized swastika on his chest. Today, this narrative would have the compulsory strong-willed female, a disabled character, obvious life lessons, and a happy ending. Cinema today is essentially and only social politics.
Derek Vinyard is the pre-eminent example of charismatic authority – everything he says at the dinner table is incorrect but he captivates through the intensity of the delivery. Bloody hell, who got Best Actor (when the Oscars were relevant) over this lad?! I think it was that exasperating Italian bloke who thankfully disappeared from cinema after his Academy Award.
And what the fuck was happening with the director calling himself ‘Humpty Dumpty’? My research is limited.
Dune (2021). It’s definitely not shit.
But I found it slightly disappointing and for a good 30 minutes in the middle I was bored beyond belief; I won’t spoil why.
I regret not seeing it in the cinema, though, as it’s better than most films of this … variety. To a large extent reliant on spectacle (for that’s what it is), I suppose these aesthetic qualities demand a big-screen experience rather than a god-knows-what-inch £55 second-hand Chromebook.
It gets a lot right – the stunning visuals, the world-building, the casting, sandworms that aren’t ‘Pure LOL’, and the spirit of the book. And most importantly, it isn’t the David Lynch version.
Thank fuck for that.
Howard’s End (1992). Oh my!
This movie quietly defines the quietly adventurous. It’s so basic Mise-en-scène and placid and it should be boring but it isn’t because there’s a reasoning behind the dull stylistics. These were Edwardian times; apparently you couldn’t say what you think and lived a life of repressed longings (to speak) or whatever.
Hopkins is out of this world here; he is incapable of ‘normal’. He can barely hold a conversation with another actor; almost everything he does is a monologue. He is unique and he didn’t become Hannibal for no apparent reason.
Despite their apparent quaintness, Merchant–Ivory did make some crackers. The Remains of the Day (1993) is their undoubted masterpiece, a Hopkins masterclass again. This is the prototype for these type of movies, of which there are more and more these days because they are a safe bet. None are any good, however. I took one look at a recent upstairs-downstairs thing and turned it off after 178 seconds.
Most of this shite is just … shite we send to our former colonial subjects. They think we are actually like this.
Nonsense.
Abbeyhill golden hour.
The ‘hood in all its golden glory.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 