I like that the movie has both a dash and a colon in its name. That’s how you know it’s gonna be good.

Yes, of course I’m watching the Director’s Cut version, which is even longer than the original version.

It’s got er not glowing reviews.

But let’s see!

It looks very 2023. DESATURATE! DESATURATE!

If there are no colours, it makes it easier to match up the real beige footage to the beige CGI backgrounds.

EVILEST PERSON EVER

That’s how you make a villain. I just hope he doesn’t get a tragic back story.

Urrr… Oh, this is chapter one of part one? Oh, he changed the name of Part One: A Child of Fire to Chapter One: Chalice of Blood. Sure, sure.

And, OK, the movie is three and a half hours long, so.

Rebel Moon: The Beigining.

This movie so relentlessly beige — Snyder’s taking things to extremes, as usual. And more lens flares than a JJ Abrams movie.

The beige… the beige…

Allegedly Snyder has said that he wants to create a whole new “franchise” or something with these movies. I.e., something like Star Wars? But Star Wars became A Thing by being a pretty fun adventure movie for children in 1977 — and then grown people obsessed about it way to much for decades and there we are.

It kinda seems like Snyder wants to jump straight to doing one of the boring back-story Star Wars TV series? Because I’m 40 minutes in, and nothing entertaining has happened yet, really.

And it looks like dog shit. (Did I mention that yet?)

I’m hoping Snyder is using this colour palette as a contrast to the real one he’s going to use once we leave er these planets.

(Not holding my breath, though.)

Such beige.

This is possibly the stupidest shit I’ve ever seen.

The robot is pretty spiffy.

Wow! Snyder’s got it! That was the most satisfying action scene ever! It’s like… an anti Vince Vaughn action scene.

But now we get a ton of backstory, and it’s the most boring thing ever. That Snyder drops into slo-mo seemingly at random really doesn’t help.

That’s another satisfying scene of ultra violence! Both scenes were set up very similarly, though: First establish that the bad people are really really bad (both involving sexual abuse), and then having all the bad guys killed while the audience can go WHOA YEAH!

I like it, but is the entire movie going to be just this scene repeated over and over? I’m just 90 minutes in, so the movie has barely started!

Harsh!

Actually, I’m not hating this movie? I don’t mind slow movies at all — I’ve got my “I Watched Out 1: Noli me tangere And I Survived” button, and this is just a … quarter? … of that running length. And that’s an absurd comparison, but still — they’re both slow movies with occasional high intensity interest? Yeah yeah OK.

There’s quite a lot of really silly stuff here, which I appreciate. And I now see what the structure of the movie is, which wasn’t obvious: It’s about that woman going around the galaxy gathering up a scrappy gang of rebels to help fight against the evil, evil empire, to save her adopted agrarian moon.

Heh heh. The totally evil general guy is also a total perv! Into tentacle sex! And drugs! But no rock’n’roll.

So this is fun, but Snyder is really gonna film this entire movie in beige-o-vision?

I was assuming they’d be having a preliminary showdown with the Forces Of Evil in this movie, but perhaps it’s just going to be three and a half hours of gathering the Scooby Gang?

I like the sheer humourlessness of the movie. It’s rare to see somebody dare to be this dour.

But the movie has a problem of scale: Is this insanely eeeevil general the only guy they have to kill, and then everything’s OK? That is, they seem to be fighting an evil galactic empire, but this guy is going around and personally killing nice people… which seems kinda inefficient, evilly speaking?

Yeah yeah, the raze the planets after he’s tired of killing people personally. But still!

Oh, perhaps this movie is gonna end with them killing The Eeevil Guy, and then the next movie is gonna be about conquering The Eeevil Empire? That’d make sense.

[even more time passes]

OK, then.

29% tomatometer? I understand that. But I think that if this had been a four episode TV series instead of a three and a half hour movie, the TV reviewers would have been creaming themselves.

I liked this movie! Yes! It’s fun. But it looks like dog shit, and there’s parts that are really boring. But still. I liked it. So let’s go with:

Rebel Moon Part One. Zack Snyder. 2023. ⚃

This is a very French movie.

Yes, I’m continuing my 80s Arthouse Film Festival. It’s another Leos Carax movie, and I haven’t seen this before, either.

This is a lot more stylish than the first Carax movie.

Even on an 80s scale, this is pretty odd. It’s got a pretty high concept hook: It’s about a new mysterious retrovirus that infects everybody who has sex without loving each other. (Yes, I know.) But then it’s also about a heist? And then they’re in a plane? And why are all these guys topless all the time?

I’m just saying that it’s a lot.

Oh! This is the movie where Claire Denis got the idea for the astounding ending of Beau Travail!?

The scene is great here, too. But Denis improved on it.

Exactly.

When people are talking about French lingerie, I think this is what they’re talking about.

This is what I want my apartment to look like!

I really enjoyed this movie. It’s goofy and strange and funny. But I’m also not quite sure that it totally works? Perhaps it’s more of a ⚃ movie? But I’m going with:

The Night Is Young. Leos Carax. 1986. ⚄

OK, I’m doing an 80s Arthouse Film Festival thing here on this blog, and this movie is slightly off track. I mean, it was released in the 80s, but Tarkovsky was definitely huge at the Cinematheque at the time, so it’s technically part of that thing, but Tarkovsky is, of course, more of a 70s director.

But what the hey. I think I watched this on VHS at the time? I don’t remember anything about it except the final scene.

Ah, yeah, Tarkovsky basically used Ingmar Bergman’s team for this movie? At least that’s what I assumed when I saw it at the time…

Well, even though this has Bergman’s team, and they’re speaking English, it’s still very Tarkovsky. I’m riveted.

But this movie just reminds me of a rant I’m not sure I’ve typed before: Filming movies without sound and then adding the sound afterwards was OK in certain parts of Europe for a long time (*cough* Italy *cough*), but it makes audiences go WHAT!?!? When the lips don’t match the dialogue, it’s hard to get past that. And I know! There’s so many movies that was made that way, and it’s like dismissing all movies that are, what, black and white? But I think that’s a major reason why much of Italy’s cinematic history now isn’t part of what people are watching.

And in this movie — a Swedish movie from 1986 — it’s particularly disturbing. But many of the shots are done at a distance where you can’t even see their lips, so it’s less of an issue…

OK, *re-rolls*.

Allan Edwall is my favourite actor.

OK, I was totally riveted by this movie at the start, but now it’s all christianey and stuff? But there may be a twist.

If you want to be really really uncharitable about this movie — it’s about an old man who has to bang this young chick, and if he doesn’t, the world will end.

I know! Really uncharitable reading, but it’s such a cliche the entire thing. I mean, there’s certain (male) authors I’m following, and almost invariably when they reach their 60s, their books start being about older guys who bangs younger women. These younger women usually find these old guys mysteriously hot, but Tarkovsky takes the trope one step further: This time around, the young woman has to have sex with the old guy or (literally) the world will end.

It’s like… there’s not even a subtext? Oh sure, it’s all mystery and woo hoo and christianity and whatever, but the major part of this movie is about an old guy getting laid to save the world.

So the movie is basically bullshit, but I loved the start of this movie, and it has some really powerful scenes. And it has Allan Edwall! So:

The Sacrifice. Andrei Tarkovsky. 1986. ⚃