Is that the blue guy from the Guardians movies?

Anyway! Hi! I’m watching Dune, and I’m totally drunk. Welcome to the Drunk Dune Blog.

Oooh! Such minimal.

I think I’ve seen most of Villeneuve’s movies, and they’re all kinda “er… shouldn’t this be better?” So my expectations are lower than low.

And I haven’t read the books either, because all old sf basically sucks (but I’ve read all of the rest of the old sf books. Every one, just not Dune. And they all suck, except the Bester ones).

This looks very pretty, though. And I love that there’s no jokes? So far? He’s totally leaning into the seriousness of the concept? (Lynch didn’t. And I think that movie is very enjoyable.)

I like the character beats… Villeneuve gives the actors pose time.

See? Gorge!

It’s Dave Navarro! I mean Ronon Dex!

And Timothee. But I knew that already.

Pretty.

Man, Lynch’s special effects in this scene were 100000x cooler. But it’s more convincing in this version.

I’m really enjoying watching this! It’s like an anti-Marvel blockbuster movie — there are no jokes at all, and everything is played totally straight, so to speak. Which can be even more risible if the movie can’t support that level of gravity (see: All Nolan Batman movies), but Villeneuve is carrying it off.

I assume that all these scenes are greenscreen, but they’re pretty good. I mean, the bokeh looks convincing. Did this have All The $ as a budget?

It’s disturbing to watch scenes that are… kinda… word for word as they were in the Lynch version, like this one.

But without Lynch’s exquisite oddness. His version of this scene was mysterious and inexplicable, while this one was totally straight-forward, even if it was the same scene, line by line.

I love the scale of this. I know it’s just CGI, but it feels … big.

Is that Stellan in a fat suit? I think it is! Is it?

And no pustules!

I understand why Lynch dropped this scene, because it’s fucking stupid. They had a flying thing that could carry of the entire tank… harvesting thing? But it couldn’t take about 21 people?

But if you ignore the sheer idiocy of it all, it’s a good scene.

Timothee’s going native!!!

You can tell by the colour grading.

This makes the Dune book seems kinda cool? So I bought a copy now. It’s not gonna kill me to finally read it.

Probably.

But it probably sucks! Probably doesn’t even have Siân Phillips!

Yeah, that’s a budget. And Villeneuve shows all those mega-megabucks on the screen. But subtly.

I think this movie is like a local maxima? That is, if you wanted to make a movie like this, it’s could not be better than this. It’s kinda perfect as a movie of its kind.

It’s exhilarating in its calmness.

And I can see how much Villeneuve has struggled with (I’m assuming) the basic premise of “white guy goes to Arabia and becomes boss master” and is trying to obfuscate that as much as possible.

And he’s kinda succeeding? I mean, at obfuscating?

Ooops! And then it’s over!

Well, I’m definitely watching the next episode.

I’m giving this all my thumbs up. It’s Villeneuve’s best movie.

Dune. Denis Villeneuve. 2021. ⚄

This is the second movie in the trilogy that started with Pather Panchali. Which was a lovely movie, but I’ve put off watching the last two movies in the trilogy because… er… I dunny.

This is lovely. It’s so exquisitely picaresque, but in a gentle way. I love the wide depth-of-field shots he’s using in most of these scenes..

… but then dropping to these low-f shots in the closeups. It’s so pretty!

Action!

They don’t treat the kittens well in this movie either!

Oh! So that’s what a synecdoche is. This is very edumacational.

I love how this movie is without any real conflict. We’re just following this guy along while he’s growing up.

Aparajito. Satyajit Ray. 1956. ⚄

I’m halfway through the Queerty movie series, but I couldn’t face watching another one of those … er … worthy … movies tonight, so I’m watching a couple of blurays I got in the mail from Criterion instead.

I’ve almost forgotten how good blurays look after watching streaming movies for a couple of months. All that grain that’s been smoothed out to make the movie compress better, and correct aspect ratio, and no banding.

I mean, it’s 2-5x the streaming bitrate, so it’s just… prettier.

This is a very odd movie, though. I mean, I have absolutely no idea what it’s going to be about, and we’re ten minutes into the movie.

I just seen a couple of Ray movies before — Johnny Guitar and Rebel Without etc — but I think Ray was celebrated by the Cahiers crowd? And I can see why: This is very interesting. I mean, the framing of the shots and stuff.

This is very odd, though. It’s just about some random guy getting cancer? Or something? So it’s like a Sirk weepie, but without any… context?

I mean, it’s too bad that James Mason is all hopped up on cortisone… but… I feel like we haven’t really been given any reason to care? Douglas Kirk is always very careful to introduce the characters and make us feel for them. Ray seems to be taking it as a given that we’re caring about James Mason?

The cortisone’s kicking in!

The mirror shatter’d!

He’s so high.

Oh, OK, now I get what Ray’s doing — the more insane he’s getting, the more people agree with him. So subversive!

This movie’s got something for sure. But… it’s neither gripping not entertaining. It’s like the movie itself is an abusive spouse.

I love the cinematography and stuff, but.

Is Ray’s point here that American politics and religion is literal drug induced psychosis? Well of course it is. I guess this was a very subversive movie and all in the 50s, so you have to give props to Ray for that, but.

It just feels like a movie that’s making a point that could have been a tweet.

I’m such a Gen Z. Er.

Bigger Than Life. Nicholas Ray. 1956. ⚂