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Maestro (2023)
A Message from the Surgeon General
Cigarette smoking can cause cancer almost anywhere in the body. Cigarette smoking causes cancer of the mouth and throat, esophagus, stomach, colon, rectum, liver, pancreas, voicebox (larynx), lung, trachea, bronchus, kidney and renal pelvis, urinary bladder, and cervix, and causes acute myeloid leukemia.
Cigarette smoking is the number one risk factor for lung cancer. In the United States, cigarette smoking is linked to about 80% to 90% of lung cancer deaths. Using other tobacco products such as cigars or pipes also increases the risk for lung cancer. Tobacco smoke is a toxic mix of more than 7,000 chemicals. Many are poisons. At least 70 are known to cause cancer in people or animals.
People who smoke cigarettes are 15 to 30 times more likely to get lung cancer or die from lung cancer than people who do not smoke. Even smoking a few cigarettes a day or smoking occasionally increases the risk of lung cancer. The more years a person smokes and the more cigarettes smoked each day, the more risk goes up.
Petulia (1968)
"You have a very superior pelvis ..."
Yikes! Huh, no thanks ... Too much going on, and none of it works. Much too clever dialogue (horrible sound, almost all of it dubbed), cinematography by Nicholas Roeg and even a score by John Barry of James Bond fame. None of it works. It's not George C. Scott's fault, certainly not Julie Christie's-even Richard Chamberlain manages ok. Joseph Cotten is sadly ridiculous, probably due to bad direction and Shirley Knight (the mother in As Good As It Gets) is well cast as Scott's ball and chain.
Films don't need to be this convoluted, especially when they're trying to be european-Ingmar Bergman springs to mind, so does Michelangelo Antonioni. But it's fun to watch them try. American film making didn't really get hip until the 70s (Director Mike Nichols excepted) and even then it took Roman Polansky and John Schlesinger to set them off.
Richard Lester's masterpiece is A Hard Days Night. I'm not much of a fan of anything else. A bit too wacky, silly for me. It's difficult to know just why this film fails-It's based upon a novel, and it's got two strong influences-Richerd Lester and Nicholas Roeg (About Roeg, I can't say it any better than Wikipedia, so here is a direct quote- "Roeg quickly became known for an idiosyncratic visual and narrative style, characterized by the use of disjointed and disorienting editing. For this reason, he is considered a highly influential filmmaker, cited as an inspiration by such directors as Steven Soderbergh, Christopher Nolan, and Danny Boyle.)
Yes, this film is very disjointed and idiosyncratic, and not to good effect, but whose fault is it? This film is busy, noisy, badly edited and badly written, but watch it all the same, if only for nostalgia's sake and a surprise visit from Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead (can you say Blow Up? I knew your could ...).
Tár (2022)
Classical Meets Whiplash
This movie tries a little too hard. The numerous classical music references are borderline obnoxious (the Jerry Goldsmith/Varése comparison made me laugh out loud) and the main character's lectures and instructions on music making were like Mister Rogers on steroids. But this was a movie about cancel culture and to that I cannot give much of an opinion, only to say that hyper creative individuals, egomaniacal geniuses have always been prone to excesses, for better or worse. The film mentions Leonard Bernstein and Herbert Von Karajan, while not being known to sexual oppress their coworkers (as far as we know ...) were to of the biggest egomaniacs of the twentieth century.
I think it's pretty obvious that the main character went too far, even to the point of threatening a child with violence. Some of the accusations were probably false or at least exaggerated, but the film does a pretty good job of portraying her guilt. Regardless of the films motives, it's well made and subtle, a welcome relief to the girth of Marvel monstrosities. At the very least you will come away with a decent appreciation of the music of Gustav Mahler, though I do not think that was the film's intent (I got the impression that whoever made this film hates classical music and thought that using the sometimes bombastic and overly dramatic music of Mahler might make his point for him-hence the Whiplash reference).
Mother! (2017)
A shaky hand-held camera romp through the old and new testaments
I don't mind all the hyper Judeo/Christian symbolism and clichéd analogies, in fact, i find it rather refreshing, but Aronofsky is an exceptionally tedious filmmaker and subtlety is not a craft he has mastered. But, if you're in love with the back of Jennifer Lawrence's head you will love this film. All hand held shaky camera shots, stiflingly tight and claustrophobic, super bad lighting and horrible sound make this film an exercise in self-flagellation.
Blood Father (2016)
the lost art of making a b-picture . . .
"hey man, where'd ya find her . . ?" says the 12 year old desk clerk at the motel to Mel Gibson's character, who looks like he could rip your lungs out with a dull soup spoon. who writes horrible dialogue like this? there wasn't one scene or one line of dialogue that i didn't want to re-write. hackneyed, cliché ridden action sequences and totally uninspired plot points and themes— and, oh yeah . . . remember how cool Mel Gibson was when he played a wacko living on the outskirts in an Rv??? i gave it a 6 because it seems like, sadly, this is the kind of fodder people watch today. IMDb gave it 7.7 . . . are you kidding me? and what is William H. Macy doing in rot like this? paying bills i suspect.