The Little Girl of Hanoi (1975)
Even if you think you're open minded and liberal, it's unsettling to see war from the other side's perspective. TLGoH was shot in Hanoi in 1974 or 1975 when the last blobs of napalm were still smoldering in Vietnam. It looks and plays a lot like Czech new wave, and although it was locally produced, I think it had some technical help from commie bloc allies. The film follows a little girl about 10 years old, frighteningly good actor, who is looking for her family through what they call the fog of war.
The imperialist aggressor is bombing Hanoi, and although they are at pains to call it the most precision bombing ever, they killed thousands of civilians. The film shows the manholes that people jumped into accurately. For dramatic effect it's not a great film, but pretty interesting if your goal is to see something you've never seen before, which is usually my guiding principle. Full movie is on youtube.
Live By Night (2016)
Oh my god, somebody stop Ben Affleck. 1/10. Zero redeeming qualities. This film sucks brain cells out of your head.
Ex Machina (2014)
I don't know if this is true, but I read once that the Somali people consider it the gravest affront to show someone the soles of your feet, and when the Americans were buzzing Mogadishu in helicopters in that invasion during the Clinton admin, they were dangling their feet out of the choppers and in effect, flipping off the whole city.
In this film about Silicon Valley dickheads, Oscar Issac goes around barefoot the whole time, as Steve Jobs did in the Apple offices. It's a brilliant conceit. Going barefoot in the office is the ultimate California passive-aggressive power move; making people around uncomfortable and viscerally aware of the power distinction between you and the boss, and the liberty he enjoys. Granted, in the movie it's his house, but it also serves as an office/research lab, and it's very intentional and effective. I don't want to see your goddamn toes at work. The send-up of Silicon Valley behaviors in this film is pretty on point.
I won't repeat the plot blurb about this one, you can look it up, and there's too many spoilers to get into it. It's about artificial intelligence, jammed into an Alicia-Vikander sexbot in a c-cup. Thinky science fiction is my favorite genre, but this film is not very intelligent, and not nearly as intelligent as it thinks it is. I don't know about AI, but human intelligence has come a long way down since
2001 came out in 1968. This subject needs to be discussed and I recommend watching this, but it's pretty vapid. Ultimately it says nothing more than "AI bad." Well no shit. But this film is by the kind of people who say things like that on Facebook and carry on feeding the beast.
The idea is worth making a film into -- a Turing test on artificial intelligence and whether it develops the kind of human moral turpitude that defines our "intelligence." But the script is dumb. The dialog is bad, the acting is poor (not the actors fault -- Issac did what he could non-verbally, but bad acting is what you get when you have a bad script) and the directing is poor -- most shots are just like "why?" It's kind of sad that you have to pay $15 million budget for something that feels so amateur, when the best korean films were in the $1-$4 million range.
This is about the worst review I can give of a film that I recommend watching. I agree with those who think Ray Kurzweil is a moron. There will be no "singularity," and there is no such thing as artificial intelligence, only artificial stupidity.
The Hudsucker Proxy (199-smth)
Been re-watching some Coen bros films. Can't stand Tim Robbins and most of this film is pretty bad but Jennifer Jason-Leigh is just so fantastic in this, I sometimes just re-watch her scenes. Some of the best lady-banter ever filmed.
The Big Lebowsky (1998)
When I was younger I despised this film and it's ilk and the people that loved it. Now I'm a middle-aged man, I've retired from being cool, and it's funny. Smokey this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules
The Man that Wasn't There (2001)
Pretty sure this is the worst Coen bros film, and it's a six. It has some of the clever dialog. They have a good thing going, where they can write dialog by having one bro write what a character would say straight, and the other bro comes out with an off the wall line to take the piss out of him. I don't think an individual writer could make stuff like this.
A lot of the supporting acting in this is not up to snuff. You win some, you lose some. Frances McDormond deserved her Oscar for Fargo, but here it just feels like Joel was giving his wife a job and she phoned it in. Still, they won a prize at Cannes for this turd -- that's how badly people want their pictures taken with the Coens. I'm no fan of Billy Bob Thornton. At all. But he annoyed me only minimally by deadpanning. And why does Scarlett Johansson let herself get pervert-Director-fantasy-raped in just about every movie she does. Is that a career? My goodness, she was 16 when they shot this.
I liked that this one took place in Santa Rosa, CA. You don't see that every day. The Coens know how to write against sterotype and expectation rather than for it, which 99% of writers don't understand. Other than that, not much going for this one. I think most of their films start from a desire to get immersed in a certain time and place -- just this one didn't get off the ground.
I punted Ex Machina real fast a while back. And the bare feet played a role.