da 5 bloods [film review]

I was most excited to see the new Spike Lee’s film, Da 5 Bloods, available on Netflix. As I had liked very much his much earlier films like She’s gotta have it, Do the right thing or Clockers. (Although I feel the original book had more impact, I felt.) But I was rather disappointed by this one. (Although I related with the few pictures taken at the War Remnants Museum in Ho-Chi-Minh City, which I visited in 2013!) As I felt it was wasting most of the story for the allegory… The heist story was implausible from start to end (which is admittedly an usual feature of heist stories), with the five guys going into the Vietnamese jungle on their own, 50 years later!, which makes them 70 years old at the very least, with a small back-pack each but enough to carry a complete metal detector, and finding gold and bones (not a true spoiler I think!), not worrying about mines (until it is too late). Some of the actors are terrific, especially the (PTSD) out-of-control Delroy Lindo who essentially carries the film and keeps it alive. But other characters remain dreadfully under-exploited, counter-productively for the story. Which (literally) implodes with too many divergent threads. All unraveling into botched conclusions and ending up into a mess of the movie, the message eventually shooting the messenger…

On top of this I also think the film is presenting a very one-dimensional view of Vietnam, from a postcard idyllic vision with buffaloes in rice paddies, to thugs working for a French crook. With the overused tropes of the faithful prostitute and the cigarette smoking femme fatale. Except the later is a propaganda speaker on the Vietcong radio and unlikely to smoke American cigarettes… And the 1950’s (pre-Điện Biên Phủ) attitude of the said French crook (including the “bad guy” Luger gun!) does not fit either. Of course, these anachronisms and clichés could be understood as a second degré choice, i.e. as a pastiche of earlier American Vietnam war movies, from Apocalypse Now (explicitly referenced at the beginning of the movie, copter, river boat trip and Khmer temple included) to The Deer Hunter (especially the Vietnamese xenophobia), to Rambo (with cartoonesque shooting scenes). Collating epoch newsreels with blurry and dreamlike recalls of the actual experience of the 4 veterans looking their present age is a stylistic choice, obviously, but its repetition does not help in creating structure or credence in the movie. Especially when the current day battles in the movie are not any further realistic, although intended to be so…

the sky that would not rise [film review]

My 2019 end-of-the-year-movie-with-my-grownup-kids was the final Star Wars episode, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, watched in a quasi-empty theatre with mostly young kids… Surprisingly no one left before the end, which frankly did not come soon enough! The three of us agreed on the appalling conclusion to the trilogy, which recycles about every possible trope from the first series, from the generation antagonism to the endless battle calls and boring space battle scenes (although including an extra that reminded me of the ludicrous first appearance of Radagast the Brown in The Hobbit!), to the compulsory bar scene where some character is faced with some unsavoury past, to a complete disdain for the most basic laws of physics (and swordplay), to humongous snakes that live out of nothing, and cannot produce anything even moderately new in its scenario, recycling an amazing portion of scenes with Carrie Fisher (who died in 2016) as well as involving about every possible former actor. (I am surprised they did not dig Yoda, must have forgotten where the box with his costume was!) The dialogues are incredibly poor and dull, even R2D2’s, there is no meaningful dimension in the relations between the actors, who even more than usual end up focusing on single-minded objectives rather than keeping the larger picture in sight (well-done, General!), and the final scene that relates to the early ones of the 1977 movie with a binary sunset over the Tatooine desert is unbelievably heavy handed. (The picture of R2D2 and C3PO above is taken from a exhibit by Laurent Pons  in Paris, where he included some Star Wars characters in iconic Parisian locations.) May the Force be gone once and for good!

Nature snapshots

In this 15 March issue of Nature, a rather puzzling article on altruism that seemed to rely on the Hamilton rule:

linking fitness and number of offspring and benefits through kth-order moments. In a stochastic environment represented by distribution π. Hard to fathom what comes from data and what follows from this (hypothetical) model. Plus a proposal for geoengineering meltdown delays on some Greenland and Antarctica glaciers. Scary. And a film review of Iceman (Der Mann aus dem Eis), retracing Ötzi’s life in an archaeologically acceptable rendering. Including a reconstituted local language, Rhaetic.

dimmed Star Wars

As a familial tradition of the end of the year movie, I went with my daughter to watch the second (or eighth) movie in the series. As I had heard and read several highly positive reviews on the originality of the scenario and the sharpness of the photography, I was expecting a lot from the movie. And hence was quite disappointed by the quasi-absence of scenario (never a major strength in the series anyway!) and by the pre-teens dialogues, some situations reminding me of the worst Star Trek episodes, like the very final ludicrous scene in the space shuttle… Some parts are total failures, like the expedition to the casino planet. Or the final battle scene that lasts for evvvvver… Or the initial battle scene that lasts about as long. Or the fight with the lobsters, endless! And do not even think of mentioning the Disneyian pongs. And as usual the utter disdain for any law of physics. Like a moon going from full to crescent on the same night (minor spoiler!).  Terrible, all in all, except for the scenery of the Irish island, Skellig Michael, with its very primitive monastery, which reminded me of St Kilda… And a few actors surviving the disaster.

blade runner 2049

As Blade Runner 2049 was shown at a local cinema in a Nuit du Cinéma special, my daughter and I took the opportunity to see the sequel to Blade Runner, despite the late hour. And both came back quite enthusiastic about it! Maybe the plot stands a bit thin at times, with too many coincidences and the evil ones being too obviously evil, but the rendering of this future of the former future LA of the original Blade Runner is amazingly complex and opening many threads of potential explanations. And many more questions, which is great. With fascinating openings into almost philosophical questions like the impossible frontier between humans and AIs or the similarly impossible definition of self… Besides, the filming, with a multiplicity of (drone) views, the use of light, from blurred white to glaring yellow and back to snow white, the photography, the musical track, almost overwhelming and more complex than Vangelis’ original, are all massively impressive. As for the quintessential question of how the sequel compares with the original film, I do not think it makes much sense: for one thing the sequel would not have been without the original, the filming has evolved with the era, from the claustrophobic and almost steam-punk film by Scott to this post-apocalyptic rendering by Villeneuve, both movies relating to Philip K Dick’s book in rather different ways (if fortunately avoiding sheep and goats!).