Nobody is as Bogart as Bogart.

Huh… it’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie with Bogie? *ponder* I’ve mostly seen hoiti-toiti films lately — did Bogie miss out on all those films?

I’ve missed him, I realise now.

I’ve seen this before, of course, but it’s been a minute. And I’ve recently seen Ray’s first three movies, and they all stunk. But this is as good as I vaguely remember.

This is so noir. All those sharp shadows everywhere, the meta qualities, and the cynicism pervading everything.

That’s some suit.

Ray is really subtle with the dick jokes.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Anyway… the first hour of this film is just kinda perfect. And then the last third alternates between boredom and exasperation — when it’s clear that Dix Steele is a psychopath, it’s not really interesting whether he killed Mildred or not. The excitement is then in whether Laurel can get away from him without getting killed or not, and that’s exasperating, because she’s just not trying that hard.

So the tragedy the film seems to be going for — with the resolution to the murder mystery that arrives too late to make a difference — dissipates completely. Instead Laurel getting out of the movie alive is the happy ending, which negates the tragedy I think Ray was going for with the end of the relationship.

*time passes*

I’m now watching one of the extras on the disc here, and Ray explains how they first shot this film with a totally different ending: Bogie kills Laurel, and the cops burst into the apt (which was Ray’s first Hollywood apt) and arrest him. But as he explains — romances (and marriages) don’t have to end in violence! (Gloria Grahame, who plays Laurel, had just divorced Ray, but nobody on set knew that yet.) “This is a very personal film.”

That certainly… puts another twist on the entire thing.

In a Lonely Place. Nicholas Ray. 1950. ⚄

This is the third and final movie in the Apu series (which started with Pather Panchali, which is usually on the Top 100 Films Ever lists).

Well, this seems like a perfectly nice “optimistic young man goes to the big city and gets his hopes dashed (before (presumably) becoming a famous author or something)” kind of film, but…

Nice bokeh.

This is a really sweet movie — it kinda reminds me of Italian cinema from around the same time? I mean, the slightly abrupt changes from comedic buffoonery (how Apu got married, for instance) to the good-natured scenes of domestic comedy… it works, but also feels like well-trodden ground.

It’s hard to stop smiling while watching this movie, is what I’m saying.

But if he’s following the set tropes, I’m guessing something horrible is going to happen about now? I’m guessing a childbirth death? (I mean, I’m only guessing that the wife is pregnant (or indeed has ever had sex) — they said “I guess you want to be with your parents at a time like this”.)

Indian movies take prudery to another level altogether.

Here it comes, here it comes…

*sigh*

I mean, I always hope I’m wrong about directors following these templates…

But now the budding author has learned about love and loss, so his journey can continue on. I mean, that’s what’s important, after all.

(Yes, I’m dissing a 1959 film for doing the Sensible Pixie Dream Wife plot.)

Oh, the baby survived? This is the first mention of a baby (or the possibility thereof) in the film at all.

OOPS SPOILERS

The plot is very childish — the magical wedding, the “ooh, if my wife died, I’d be so sad and deep”, etc. But plot schmot, who cares: It’s a very enjoyable movie on a scene to scene basis (looks great; good actors), and that’s what’s important, after all.

It does drag towards the end.

The World of Apu. Satyajit Ray. 1959. ⚃

Is that a balls joke?

Man, this is a dark movie.

Uhm. This is directed by Andy Serkis? Gollum? He’s making some really odd choices here — first of all, many scenes here are so dark you’d think they were episodes of that final Game of Thrones season. And when he’s not filming people in pitch darkness, he’s obscuring their faces behind all sorts of things. Is this all elaborate revenge for all the years Serkis were doing CGI capture and never got his face on the screen?

It might just be the normal strategy for hiding how bad the CGI is — if you film the entire film in darkness, the CGI will be dark, too.

It’s got a budget of $110M, and I’m guessing the stars got half of that, so it’s got a pretty small budget for the CGI.

I’m kinda enjoying the banter and the frenetic pace of this — it drops us into the middle of things and doesn’t stop moving. And some of the gags are pretty amusing. But still it doesn’t all seem to connect? And I think it’s perhaps because it just looks kinda… #000000.

Tom Hardy is really charming here (when you can see him on the screen).

I think there was a fight scene, but I’m not quite sure.

Little Simz!

OK, now it’s just boring.

I think this movie had something going at the start — it was pretty amusing, and the banter (while clumsy at times) worked. And then it mostly stopped being funny, and there wasn’t much there except a couple fight scenes in the dark.

Venom: Let there be Carnage. Andy Serkis. 2021. ⚁