Gattaca (1997)

☆ ☆ ☆

Gattaca (1997) – A. Niccol

Surely “designer babies” were not too far-fetched an idea in 1997, but Gattaca takes this premise further and proposes a world where the technology has been so widely adopted that to be imperfect means to be discriminated against.  Members of this underclass (whose parents did not engineer them) work as cleaners and such – unless they use the black market to buy an identity from one of the privileged who has fallen from grace.  DNA testing is everywhere, used for job interviews, prospective relationship partners, and, of course, for the detection of crime.  To buy an identity means an elaborate and ongoing con to avoid being caught.  Ethan Hawke, an “invalid” who desperately wants to be an astronaut, purchases Jude Law’s identity (which he gives up after succumbing to the pressure of expectations to be perfect) and begins to work for the Gattaca corporation, assigned to visit Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.  When one of the company directors is murdered, the subsequent investigation (led by Alan Arkin) threatens to expose Hawke.  Uma Thurman, also working at the company, begins to suspect things but also falls in love with Hawke, thinking him as perfect as he pretends to be…  In the hands of first-time director, Andrew Niccol, this potentially intriguing and dystopian premise is rather glossy and flaccid.  The surfaces are gleaming and futuristic, sure, but somehow we only see these surfaces and not enough depth. A remake might better reveal the complex psychological tensions underneath?

Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)

☆ ☆ ☆

Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)—R. W. Neill

Another solid outing for Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson.  This time, there is a murder at Musgrave Manor in Northumberland where the Musgrave family has turned their mansion into a home for convalescing servicemen (the film is set in modern day WWII England).  The mansion is spooky and filled with secret passages (in which bumbling Inspector Lestrade gets lost) and has an underground burial crypt which holds the secret to the mystery.  But it takes some time before this secret is found – the Musgrave family members are murdered one-by-one and a ritual poem read at their funerals provides clues (with allusions to the game of chess) that enable Holmes to discover just what is going on.  There are a few too many minor characters and the major red herring is rather too obviously innocent but it’s all good fun.  I have fond memories of watching these films on Boston’s Channel 38 on Saturday nights!

  

711 Ocean Drive (1950)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

711 Ocean Drive (1950) – J. M. Newman

A take on the gangster film (wherein a naïve newcomer rises through the ranks to become the boss, losing his moral compass along the way) blended with elements from the “true crime” and police procedural genres.  Edmond O’Brien (with plenty of noir cred already) plays the lead role, starting as a telephone technician and then applying his knowledge of electronics to assist a “wire service” to help bookies keep up with race results.  When his boss is killed by a bookie under stress, O’Brien moves in, makes improvements, and starts raking in the cash while squeezing the bookies more.  Soon, the syndicate takes note of his West Coast operations and wants a piece of the action – O’Brien joins them but soon feels ripped off (and his burgeoning romance with the wife of one of the mobsters, Joanne Dru doesn’t make things easier for him).  By the end, both the police and the mob are after him and there is a final climax on location at the Hoover Dam.  All told, 711 Ocean Drive (the address of a Palm Springs hideaway for the gang) isn’t too original or striking but it’s a solid noir for when you want one.  O’Brien is always worth the price of admission.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) – M. Heller

Here we have a “small” film, of the kind that the big studios hardly make anymore, a character study of two lonely and rather miserable humans.  Melissa McCarthy plays Lee Israel, a writer of biographies down on her luck (partly because of her misanthropic attitudes), who pragmatically turns to forging historical memorabilia from famous authors (Dorothy Parker, Noel Coward) in order to pay her rent and her cat’s vet bills.  Richard E. Grant plays her only friend, Jack Hock, a gay man apparently living on the streets, living from drink to drink, score to score.  Both are sarcastic, cynical misfits (and perhaps pointedly, also sexual minorities) unwilling or unable to join in mainstream society. So, the film is also about loneliness, the kind of loneliness that you can only find in big cities, where the constant reminder of other people’s relationships is all around.  Not that either Israel or Hock would readily admit to needing others, but you can see it in their actions and in certain moments (that the script presents well).  Given that the film is based on a true story, of course, everyone finds out about the deceptions at hand – but this is all rather besides the point except that it seems to have lead to a redemption (of sorts?).   Apparently, some of the dialogue from Grant echoes Withnail and I (1987), his first feature, which I shall have to watch again.

Dune (1984)

☆ ☆ ☆

Dune (1984) – D. Lynch

I saw this on the big screen back when it was released – but I didn’t remember it at all.  Now that I’ve read Frank Herbert’s novel and well, because David Lynch, I thought I would watch it again.  And despite some surreal Lynchian passages (giant worms with giant mouths) and an overall dreamlike feel to the proceedings, the damn thing would surely be incomprehensible if you haven’t read the book.  Now, if you have read the book, you’ll find a strangely abridged rendering of the rather epic story, with a lot left out (and some tiny bits from other novels in the series seemingly added in).  Characters are barely introduced (occasionally by voiceover from Princess Irulan who also offers some similar overviews in the book) and hearing their whispered thoughts (also a feature of the book) is rather disorienting when we don’t really know them at all.  Kyle MacLachlan is Paul Maudib, the self-anointed (but true to prophecy) saviour of the planet Arrakis and its rebel group, the (blue-eyed) Fremen.  He is up against Baron Harkonnen (with nephew Sting) and Emperor Shaddam who are aligned with a big corporation that mines and profits from the spice melange (which is highly addictive).  The politics of Dune are rather lost in this version (truncated by the producers but unable to be satisfactorily reconstructed according to Lynch) as are the more-pertinent-than-ever environmental implications of a desert planet with no water.  The pre-CGI special effects are at times clunky and at other times just plain weird (a la Lynch).  You could watch the film and just marvel at its weirdness – there is probably enough to enjoy; but if you are looking for plot or substance, then look elsewhere (perhaps in Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming version that is currently in post-production). Also, for fans of the book, it does appear that Lynch has changed the ending.

  

Annihilation (2018)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Annihilation (2018) – A. Garland

Hahahahahahaha – what just happened?  Alex Garland’s follow up to Ex Machina (2014) is another sci-fi flick that echoes Tarkovsky’s Stalker (because there is a mysterious and dangerous zone called the “Shimmer” that the characters enter) but also hews close to certain horror genre conventions (characters are picked off one-by-one – we know this from the start).  Natalie Portman plays the biologist/geneticist whose military husband (Oscar Isaac) disappears on a secret mission (to the Shimmer, of course) – when he returns, damaged, she decides to join a subsequent party of women scientists (kudos to the writer-director) who are the next to venture to the lighthouse which is the epicentre of the Shimmer (and where a meteorite seems to have struck).  Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Dr Ventress, a psychologist who is the team leader, and Gina Rodriguez, Tuva Novotny, and Tessa Thompson round out the team.  As they trudge through the forest, I’m thinking Predator (1987) – however, things are far more psychedelic than that.  Plants and animals have all mutated – and our heroes may be mutating too.  Garland and his production team use CGI to good effect to make a bizarro (yes, lysergic) world that comes complete with some mumbo-jumbo scientific explanations.  Things do escalate to ultra-weird levels (and ultra-incomprehensible) but you can just lie back and let the images wash over you.  Perhaps there is something deeper here – a meditation on Thanatos or a puzzle about what or who is real and what or who is not – but figuring it out doesn’t really feel worth it to me.  A trippy but awkward mix of familiar genre moves and cracked philosophizing.

High Life (2018)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

High Life (2018) – C. Denis

With references to both 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Solaris (1972), Claire Denis’ latest is set on a space journey to the farthest reaches of our solar system (or actually beyond and directed toward the nearest black hole in our galaxy).  Robert Pattinson stars as one of the only survivors of the crew (the other is a small baby) and the film jumps around in time (and hurtles through space) as we find out how he ended up there.  He certainly isn’t the typical astronaut type.  Soon, we discover that this is all part of a program by NASA to send death row prisoners to space to collect data and to judge impacts on them (despite the fact that the astronauts will age much less quickly than those back home will).  In the flashback scenes, a doctor (Juliette Binoche) is seen attempting to produce babies in space via artificial insemination – usually they don’t survive because of the radiation; she is also seen pleasuring herself in the “sex box”.  As such, the film does have a bit of a Cronenberg body horror feel at times, though it never gets quite as gross as he does/did.  Still, with a soundtrack mainly of low rumbles/electronic sounds and a lot of lonely scenes in space, this is a nearly soporific film, although if you get on its wavelength (as I did), it can be strangely absorbing (in an ugly and beautiful, sad but hopeful sort of way).  Yet, one can’t help but think that the film falls short of the sci-fi masterpieces that it aspired to join…