Quick Shots - 18/Jan/2015

'The Ghostwriter'

I missed this one back in 2010. I let it slide because it looked not terribly thrilling.
Watching it now, it seems very prescient and relevant.
Basically, since the film came out it's become clear that the Coalition of Willing leadership of Anglophone nations - USA, UK and Australia - tacitly or overtly condoned torture. And so it is entirely within the realm of possibility that the said leadership might find themselves at the Hague.

The other interesting idea in this film is that the UK leadership was being manipulated by the CIA as a 'foreign asset'. The recent events in Australia surrounding the 'Rudd-Removal' in 2010 and the murky role of Senator Mark Arbib who, according to leaked documents was one of those foreign assets, makes this film a compelling bit of viewing.

It's a film that read the fault lines in politics very well. I was surprised.


'The Legend of Hercules'

Hollywood being totally unoriginal at times managed to come out with two movies about the muscle-bound greek demigod. This one is the lesser film which attempts a kind of super-natural events infused realism which makes no sense whatsoever.

It's a cruddy film. Only watch this film in a movie double with the Dwayne Johnson movie as a joke. Watch this first. Then watch the Dwayne Johnson. That way you're working up and not down.

If nothing else it tells me that I've become very jaded with the run of the mill action film and probably not the best person to be voicing opinions. But what the hey. It's a borderline terrible film, but straddling the side worse than terrible.




'Hercules'

A big Samoan dude playing a big Greek dude. this one is better than the other one in as much as the Rock is more interesting on the screen than Kellan Lutz. Same old stuff. Hercules is strong! No surprises.

Both films are beset by very strong oedipal complex story lines which culminate in the killing of fathers. I guess it's all the Greek thing that inevitably summons up the Oedipal complex as the central tragedy. It's very deep in Western culture. Both these Hercules films seem to drown in that depth.

If nothing - nothing - else, this film has a bit more joy in it.




The Grand Master

Wong Kar-Wai's kung-fu movie. Very arty, not very exciting. Has Ip-Man as a character in it but it's hard to say it's really about him. Wong Kar-Wai is a great director but that doesn't mean he can direct action. His own artistic instincts to work every scene for lush lighting and sensual visuals sort of undercuts the need-for-speed inherent in martial arts movies.

Tony Leung is very understated. He's quite like a Hong Kong Kevin Costner with the same kind of perpetual deadpan delivery. It looks like it works better because we're busy reading subtitles but maybe it's just something added (as opposed lost) in translation.


Zhang Zi-Yi is still the gal.