Boomerang. Elia Kazan. 1947. ⚄

The thing with watching Kazan’s movies… knowing that he’d snitch on everybody at HUAC gives you a certain perspective: “How does this scene reveal that Kazan is a horrible person? How about this one? This one, then?”

Which is an exhausting pose to watch a movie in, which explains that I haven’t gotten very far in this lavish box set I bought… what… a couple years ago?

But let’s try to reset! I know nothing! Kazan who? I don’t know from no Kazan!

[rolls movie]

[one minute passes]

Hah! He paints small town USA as idyllic! That snitch! So evil!

Uh-oh.

Let’s try again.

[fifty minutes pass]

I’m kinda digging this. It’s a classic one-good-man-against-the-machine kinda thing, but unusually this time, that one good man is a prosecutor, risking everything because he has doubts about the case he’s prosecuting.

The cinematography is… there? It’s very traditional: Over shoulder shot / over shoulder shot / over shoulder shot / over shoulder shot. But the lighting is properly pretty, and the performances are very… 1947? But in a good way.

It’s totally without humour, but I guess that’s just Kazan being Kazan.

[the end]

Well, that was most enjoyable. It’s such an optimistic movie. Very… liberal: It just takes one good man; there’s nothing wrong with the system that a long courtroom presentation can’t fix.

Ender’s Game. Gavin Hood. 2013. ⚃

[an hour passes]

This is an odd movie. I mean, it’s supposedly about fighting an alien invasion, but so far, it’s all been about training these children in… er… playing games?

I kinda like it? The actors are good, and the effects are, well, 2013, but pretty good 2013, and there’s no overt Mormonism in here?

It’s kinda boring, but that’s how sci-fi is supposed to be.

[the end]

It’s really, really moronic (I used the word “stupid” originally, but that doesn’t quite capture the essence), and I guess that’s because the book is way beyond idiotic. But. It’s fun to watch, and doesn’t quite go where you expect it to go.

So… I guess you have to give the director a lot of credit: Managing to make this thing into something that’s watchable?

I guess people are kinda conflicted about this movie, which I can understand.

Dr Glas. Mai Zetterling. 1968. ⚅

[the end]

Wow.

OK, I’ve been doing er “liveblogging” of movies lately on this blog, but this movie was just so fascinating that I couldn’t really type anything while the movie was running.

At the start of this movie, I thought it was going to be a portrait of a misogynistic doctor… and then… it turns into something else. I mean, the storyline is pretty simple; straightforward even. But the way it’s told is just whooooa

I’m guessing this didn’t have a huge budget, so Zetterling made do, but the super-bright/infrared (?) bits are just sorta perfect. The actors are also incredibly… on… all the time, making this little period piece into something completely different.

It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s amazing.