Image by Natalia Koroshchenko from Pixabay In some ways, 2021 felt like a return to form for cinema. With megahits like Spider-Man: No Way Home and No Time to Die raking in money at the global box office, there was a sense of hope as the year came to a close for what 2022 would bring us. And, in my humble opinion, this year in movies was much more defined by sleeper hits and indie cinema than it was by big-budget, franchise filmmaking (Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once arguably being the prime example of this). This sentiment is certainly reflected in my favorites of the year; only 2 superhero movies made it into my top ten this year (compared to four last year).
Admittedly, I have yet to see many of what are considered to be the year’s best films, including (but not limited to): Todd Field’s TÁR, Chinonye Chukwu’s Till, and Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans. Still, I want to use this opportunity to shine a light on some of my favorite movies that I haven’t blogged about before. While some are familiar among most moviegoers (casual or otherwise), there may just be one or two on this list you’ve never heard of that are worth checking out. That being said, here are my thoughts on some of my favorite films from 2022. KIMI If you had told me in January of 2022 that one of my top-ten movies of the year would be a Steven Soderbergh feature on HBO Max, I would’ve been the first to recommend you be admitted to a mental institution. Simply put, I’m not a huge fan of Soderbergh’s previous work (the Julia Roberts-led legal drama Erin Brockovich being a notable exception). In particular, I’ve found his two most recent films, Let Them All Talk and No Sudden Move (both HBO Max originals) to be so damn boring and trite. All that said, my expectations for KIMI were in the toilet. Thus, I was more than pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed KIMI. Unlike much of other Soderbergh’s work in the thriller genre, I greatly appreciated the lean and effective narrative that allowed the major characters of the story to shine while never boring me with tons of needless expositions about their lives. Specifically, if you appreciated Zoë Kravitz’s work as Selina Kyle/Catwoman in Matt Reeves’ The Batman then I highly recommend you check her out in this movie. Kravitz plays Angela, an agoraphobic tech support worker who unravels the mystery behind a recording of the murder of a woman named Samantha (Erika Christensen). In capturing the anxiety-ridden, lonely existence of Angela, Soderbergh’s direction and Kravitz’s performance combine to offer up an interesting protagonist that’s not wholly likeable but sympathetic nonetheless due to her desire to uncover the truth and oust those who have committed wrong (even at the potential cost of her own life). Beyond just the characters, however, I greatly appreciated how KIMI felt like a movie produced in the midst of (and incorporating) the COVID-19 pandemic without feeling gimmicky. On the one hand, the claustrophobic and paranoid atmosphere fostered by social distancing and working from home that many of us experienced as the “new normal” for months back in 2020 is Angela’s “normal” normal. Due to her agoraphobia and past experiences with trauma, her daily life effectively emulates what many of us went through mentally and emotionally in the midst of the pandemic. In addition, the overall tense sociopolitical climate of the last couple of the years (notably the mass protests around issues such as police brutality and corruption) is part of both the film’s backdrop and subplot without feeling forced or needless. Rather, it enhances the inherent tension of the film’s back half as Angela evades agents of her boss Bradley Hasling (Derek DelGaudio) in an effort to get the truth about Samantha’s death to the public. All that being said, as just a straight-up thriller film, KIMI does not disappoint. Its first act is direct in setting up the stakes of Angela’s mission while its second act evenly stretches out the tension. Together, it all builds up to a small-scale but engrossing climax in Angela’s apartment involving some smart writing and visceral action sequences. When the twist of modern, post-COVID life is injected, the film consistently immerses the audience in its simple yet engaging story. If, like me, you’re a Soderbergh skeptic or generally not a fan of movies like this, I encourage you to give it a chance (especially given the fact that it received virtually no online discourse this year). With a slim runtime under 90 minutes, KIMI will almost certainly not feel like a time-waster. You may even end up enjoying it as much as I did. 😉 Turning Red When reflecting on Pixar’s recent era of “non-sequels” (coming off of both Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4), I’ve generally enjoyed their movies from the last few years. Ironically (given the state of cinema in 2020), I really enjoyed both Onward and Soul, and was thoroughly entertained by this year’s Lightyear. However, of the two Pixar movies that came out this year, my favorite undoubtedly was Domee Shi’s Turning Red. As the studio’s first solo female director, Shi builds on the success of her 2018 Oscar-winning short film Bao by making a deeply personal coming-of-age story that still manages to engage a diverse audience due to grounding the narrative in powerful and universal emotions connected to the adolescent experience. While Shi’s protagonist Meilin “Mei” Lee (Rosalie Chiang), a Chinese-Canadian girl, has a very specific life experience on the surface, Turning Red does an excellent job of fleshing out the universality of her becoming a teenager. Shi accomplishes this by paying close attention to Mei’s relationship with her parents, her friends, and her cultural heritage in a way that makes her so endearing and relatable. Honestly, when this film came out, I was stunned by the more mixed response from general moviegoers. While I can appreciate some parents’ concerns over the movie’s (brief) inclusion of menstruation as a plot point, I think lots of people read too literally into both the title and the film’s use of an anthropomorphic metaphor. In my humble opinion, Turning Red handled its exploration of what adolescence is like for young women very sensitively and delicately without glorifying or romanticizing the uglier aspects in such a way as to minimize the struggles and triumphs of teenage girls. Does it reach the philosophical or existential highs of other Pixar films like Inside Out or the aforementioned Soul? No, but that’s okay because what the movie is trying to do it succeeds at with flying colors. If you sat on Turning Red and haven’t seen it yet but like most Pixar movies, I strongly recommend you check it out. And if you did watch Turning Red this year but didn’t connect with it, I encourage you to give it another chance. I think it’s easily one of Pixar’s best movies of the decade, and is arguably a contender for one of the studio’s best films ever made. RRR I’ll be the first to admit that I am not very well versed in Indian cinema. With the exception of Satyajit Ray’s “Apu Trilogy” from the 1950s, I haven’t really seen any movies from the subcontinent. And, honestly, I was hesitant much of my adult life to explore Bollywood and Tollywood movies for no particular reason. But, I heard enough good things about the action epic RRR to convince me to check it out (given the availability of the Hindi dub on Netflix, this was thankfully easy to do). So, please consider my lack of knowledge about Indian filmmaking style and sensibilities in my review. All that being said, RRR is easily my most surprising viewing experience of a film this year (somehow, even more so than Top Gun: Maverick). The film’s writer-director, S.S. Rajamouli, is apparently known to India as a crowd-pleasing, box-office-busting storyteller (alongside his Baahubali duology, RRR is one of his three movies in the top five highest-grossing films in India to date). Despite the film’s daunting, three-hour runtime and language/cultural barrier, do not be fooled: RRR is a movie that anyone (and, in my humble opinion, everyone) can enjoy. The movie has so many strengths that it’s genuinely difficult for me to narrow them down. I guess to start, the story being told and the themes being explored are compelling and universal in a way that I wasn’t expecting. But, defying all my expectations, RRR embraces several structural and narrative tropes but utilizes them to full effect to give us a thoroughly entertaining and timeless tale of friendship, betrayal, war, and revenge. Don’t be fooled by the film’s long runtime; it never drags or bores and makes for a wildly enjoyable epic movie in every way that the best epics can be. Of course, the story only works on the backbone of its characters. In that sense, RRR works incredibly well thanks to its two lead actors. On the one hand, Komaram Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao, Jr.) is overly likeable without coming off as excessively or unrealistically charming. In a way, Komaram is the underdog with the very noble mission. He is tasked with rescuing Malli (Twinkle Sharma), a young girl from his village who was cruelly kidnapped by Governor Scott Buxton (Ray Stevenson) and his wife Catherine (Alison Doody) and, in the process, taken away from her mother (Ahmareen Anjum). This task, while daunting, takes Bheem on a grueling journey that puts the inhumanity of the British Raj on full display. The co-protagonist, Alluri Raju (Ram Charan), serves as the magnetically charming foil to Bheem as an aspiring Imperial police officer who goes undercover and befriends Bheem in an effort to learn the true identity of the person trying to free Malli from Governor Buxton and Catherine’s clutches. As a leading duo, Bheem and Raju have infectious chemistry. Their respective journeys intertwine beautifully with several twists and turns that uplift both their character arcs and the themes that the movie is exploring. Supported by a stellar cast, the brotherly bond forged between these two characters (in my humble opinion) competes with some of the greatest lead pairing in modern cinematic history. But perhaps the greatest strength of RRR is how effortlessly it mish-mashes a bunch of genres. While it remains a dramatic action epic from start to finish, its injection of political intrigue, romance, and even musical moments manages to elevate the movie to the point of exceeding even the most optimistic expectations that I could’ve had for it. By keeping me on my toes as to what was going to happen next, the film embraces the potential of what a truly fantastic epic can be. Even the best epic films can feel redundant or drawn out at times when they feel trapped within the conventions of a particular genre. Not in this case because RRR constantly entertains and surprises through its embodiment of defying such creative trappings. As a result, I would not be amazed if it ends up being one of the best epics for a lot of Western viewers who (like myself) are unfamiliar with the style of these kinds of Indian flicks. Simply put, RRR is one of the best films of the year. If it does not win the Oscar for Best International Picture (or, at least, get a Best Picture nomination), I’ll be very disappointed. I will be eternally grateful that I took a chance on it because it paid off handsomely. And, given a little time, I wouldn’t at all be surprised if RRR cements its status as one of the best action epic films of the century. 😊 Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood When it comes to animated movies this year, some will certainly argue that Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion Pinocchio for Netflix represents the most astonishing technical achievement of the genre in 2022. And while I won’t outright disagree, I do think that another animated movie of this year competes at least in terms of its narrative triumph if not its innovative filmmaking. And that film is none other than Richard Linklater’s Apollo 10½ (also a Netflix movie). I’m generally a fan of Linklater’s work. School of Rock was a formative comedy of my childhood. Boyhood is (in my humble opinion) one of the most interesting mixes of fantasy and reality in live-action filmmaking of the last decade. And several of his movies, like the heist flick The Newton Boys and the black comedy Bernie, are underrated gems if you ask me. That being said, I rank Linklater’s rotoscoped movies among my least favorite of his filmography (Waking Life was utterly unwatchable and A Scanner Darkly, while interesting, never fully gripped me given the talent on screen). So, going into Apollo 10½ I was cautiously optimistic but ultimately hopeful that Linklater’s storytelling sensibilities would outweigh his lackluster use of rotoscoping. Not only did Apollo 10½ exceed my expectations, but I found its use of rotoscoping to enhance the film’s narrative rather than distract or take away from it. If you ask me, Linklater finally found the right story for which this innovative style of animation is meant for. By crafting a reality-bending tale of growing up in suburban Texas during the height of the “Space Race” through the fantasy-filtered eyes of Stanley (Milo Coy and Jack Black), Linklater pulls off a charming story dripping with nostalgia for a time and place I lack any sentimentality for. And yet, the movie is surprisingly relatable and endearing despite its specificity due, in large part, to the universal themes of growing up, family dynamics, and the power of a young imagination that form the backbone of Linklater’s storytelling. There really isn’t much more to say about Apollo 10½, except that you should give it a watch. At just over an hour and a half, it’s a good use of a short amount of time. And even though it probably won’t beat other contenders in the Best Animated Feature category at the Oscars this year (like Turning Red), I do think that the film more than earned a nomination. Top Gun: Maverick I’ll get straight to the point: I’m not the biggest fan of Tony Scott’s original Top Gun film from the 1980s. However, the overwhelmingly positive critical reception for its sequel that came out this year intrigued me. Therefore, I was cautiously optimistic when I sat down in the theater this summer to watch Top Gun: Maverick on the big screen. I really wanted to enjoy it, but I knew there was a decent chance that I would walk away disappointed (especially given other Hollywood franchises, such as Indiana Jones and Bill & Ted, struggling with the “legacy sequel”). Fortunately, I’m happy to say that the film did not disappoint. Simply put, Top Gun: Maverick joins the pantheon of other great “legacy sequels” such as J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, Ryan Coogler’s Creed, and Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 (just to name a few). Despite director Joseph Kosinski’s obvious love for the original film (notably the nearly-shot-for-shot homage of the opening credits), he never let his personal nostalgia (or the fans’, for that matter) cloud his and Tom Cruise’s creative vision for a sequel that embraces modern cinematic style and storytelling sensibilities. The result? A movie that far surpassed its predecessor, and one of the best films of the year. 😊 Unsurprisingly, Tom Cruise brings his all as both producer and lead actor in Top Gun: Maverick. From the jump, his decades-long experience with the Mission: Impossible franchise shines through in how he and the creative team pushing themselves to wholeheartedly embrace practical stunts and effects. By doing so, they crafted a wholly immersive experience that requires virtually no suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience. With such dedication to the artistry of old-school filmmaking, the movie is simply magical. Its action scenes are intense, suspenseful, and breathtaking. The cinematography from Oscar winner Claudio Miranda, combined with the impeccable sound design, have set a new bar for capturing aerial combat in movies (as much as it hurts me to say, I don’t think I can ever watch modern Star Wars movies the same). Not since Avengers: Endgame have I had such an all-around euphoric experience in a movie theater (yup, an even better watch in many ways than Spider-Man: No Way Home). While Top Gun: Maverick is an exceptional action movie, it’s by no means a perfect action movie. If there’s one area of filmmaking on display here that doesn’t reach the heights of the others, it’s in the writing. Particularly, the romance subplot between Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Cruise) and old flame Penelope “Penny” Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly) fills the slower moments of the screenplay with a narrative thread that just isn’t as captivating as the main story. Primarily, the audience is invested in Maverick’s strenuous relationship with Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), son of his deceased best friend “Goose (Anthony Edwards) which makes any other storyline comparatively less interesting. However, what missteps the script takes in handling some of the characters it more than makes up for with the incredibly fulfilling payoff of a third act. With the heart between Maverick and Rooster at its core, the climax of the team’s dangerous and deadly flight mission is one of the most thrilling third acts in an action movie from the last decade (at least). And it heavily borrows (or, more aptly, rips off) the Death Star trench run from George Lucas’s original Star Wars movie from 1977, so I can’t help but love it! 😊 Beyond just the opening credits (smartly set to the absolute banger that is Kenny Loggins’s best-selling hit “Danger Zone”), Top Gun: Maverick includes several homages to Tony Scott’s original flick that avoid feeling cheap or needless. Instead, Maverick and Rooster speaking to Goose at different critical points in their stories, the football game on the beach between Maverick’s team of pilots, and Goose uproariously playing “Great Balls of Fire” in the bar are just some of the superb tributes paid to the first Top Gun by simultaneously serving the narrative of this movie. Without question, Top Gun: Maverick is a sequel that far and away surpassed the original. More than that, though, it more than earns its increasingly growing reputation as one of the best action films of all time. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, find a way to watch it in a theater if you can (or the best home entertainment system that you can find). Trust me when I say that the sheer entertainment value is more than worth your time! 😉 Thirteen Lives One day, early in August, I had a day off work and thus committed myself to watching two—yes, TWO—films that debuted to streaming the day. In the morning, I pulled up Hulu and watched Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey (which, while I didn’t write about today, I do recommend people watching; fans of horror and the Predator franchise, in particular 😊). After finishing this breezy, intense, and overall enjoyable flick, I figured that the other one I planned on watching that same day would easily be overshadowed: Ron Howard’s survival drama Thirteen Lives. There were several reasons for my trepidation, but primarily I was concerned due to Howard’s general lack of quality filmmaking in the last ten years or so. Not since Rush, the sports biopic about Formula One racers James Hunt (Christ Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl), has Howard receive strong critical praise for his film work (although I remain a defender of 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story). Furthermore, I did not think that he could craft a suspenseful and compelling film about the story of Tham Luang cave rescue in Thailand back in 2018 due to the highly-publicized nature of the events in question ensuring that most viewers would know the outcome before starting to watch the movie. But all of my trepidations rapidly flew out the window very early on because I remembered that Ron Howard, when he really cares about the material, can put out a great film (remember that he directed such modern classics as Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, and Frost/Nixon). But what about Thirteen Lives makes it not only one of the (in my humble opinion) best films of the year, but my favorite film of 2022? Let’s dive in, shall we? 😊 First and foremost, Ron Howard is a great director whose best movies in my book are the ones based on true stories (like the four that I mentioned in the above paragraph). And that’s no exception in the case of Thirteen Lives. In making this movie, Howard leads a fine cast of performers (both lead and supporting) and crew working behind the camera to capture the gritty realism of such a dire situation as a dozen regular people starving in a cave system deep underground in the middle of life-threatening flooding and, in turn, the worldwide rescue effort to bring them out safely. Only the best talent in the business could pull this off, and I think this story was in very fine hands with both Howard and the team that he assembled to do it justice. I think “realistic” is perhaps the best way to describe Thirteen Lives. When it comes to the story itself, there seems to be no desire on Howard or his team’s part whatsoever to dress up, glamorize, or romanticize the incredible true story being filmed for the big screen. Despite knowing the outcome of the real events, the movie keeps you emotionally invested in every aspect of the rescue mission and the various individuals, communities, and nations coming together to pull it off. Which is another important strength of the movie: its celebration of hope and humanity. While I’ll be the first to admit that I’m generally a cynic pessimist, I do love when a film can inspire in me a belief for the inherently selfless nature of people. Is that the truth of the world we live in? While I don’t feel intellectually equipped to sufficiently answer such a profound question in a blog about movies, I will say that Thirteen Lives managed to strip away any doubt I might have had in our species’ capability to unite in the midst of a tragedy and give everything of themselves for the sole benefit of others (in this case, complete strangers to the people specifically involved with the rescue). If that’s not powerful filmmaking, I don’t know what is. But what about the technical craft of the movie? Does it make you completely suspend your disbelief that these actors playing rescue divers (like Colin Farrell and Viggo Mortensen) are actually in danger trying to save this soccer team from a cave? YES. IT DOES. Simply put, Thirteen Lives offers up some of the most immersive filmmaking of the year in that it fully embraces the urgency of the situation that both the soccer team and the divers are in. Furthermore, Howard’s control of the camera (thanks to the cinematography of Sayombhu Mukdeeprom) fosters a shockingly claustrophobic and suffocating atmosphere in capturing the Thai cave network that the movie simply wouldn’t work without. Ultimately, however, I think the greatness of this movie is best explained by the fact that it exemplifies the best elements of my other favorites of 2022. Simply put, Howard combines the meticulous attention to detail of Apollo 10½, the grittiness of KIMI, the emotional nuance of Turning Red, the immersion of Top Gun: Maverick, and the raw humanity of RRR. By doing so, Ron Howard and his cast and crew delivered a raw, emotional, and powerful two-and-a-half hours that celebrates humanity’s perseverance in the face of heart-stopping adversity. And the fact that these events happened in real life only enhances Howard’s artistic interpretation that, in my humble opinion, does nothing but realistically capture what that experience must have been like for everyone involved. If there’s only one film that I’ve written about here that you’re going to watch, let it be Thirteen Lives. I am certain you won’t regret it. So, those are my thoughts on some of my favorite films of 2022. Of course, there are plenty of other good films from this year that are worth checking out: Megan Park’s The Fallout, Carey Williams’s Emergency, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s The Woman King, Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front, and Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Just to name a few. 😉 For my thoughts on some other 2022 films, click on any of the titles below:
What are some of your favorite films from this year? What movies coming out next year are you most excited for? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Image by Tania Van den Berghen from Pixabay To close out the year, James Cameron (The Terminator, Aliens, Titanic) and Hollywood have delivered a film more than a decade in the making. Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron’s three-hour-long sequel to his 2009 smash hit, has a lot to live up to in terms of financial success (despite a brief knock in 2019 due to the release of Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame, Avatar retains the coveted status of being the highest-grossing film of all time with a total box office take of nearly three BILLION dollars).
In weighing the pros and cons of writing this blog now, I considered the fact that I could wait six years when the supposed fourth Avatar sequel is set to hit theaters and do a retrospective on the entire franchise (which I might still do 😊). However, I threw caution to the wind and ultimately decided to dive into Cameron’s majestic, breathtaking, and immersive CGI world of Pandora now as well. Simply put, the time felt right for me to revisit the first Avatar movie before seeing the sequel in theaters. Having seen it back in 2009 when I was a mere pre-teen and then rewatching it at home on DVD multiple times, I have not gone back and revisited the original Avatar film with my matured cinematic sensibilities. Plus, I figured it’d be best to have the movie fresh in my mind before sitting down in the theater for three hours to take in the sequel. So, without further ado…LET’S GET STARTED! Avatar (2009) For a summary of the production and release of Avatar, click here. Upon a rewatch of a film that I haven’t seen start to finish in almost ten years, James Cameron’s Avatar (in my humble opinion) holds up as one of my favorite films of his. To be clear, I’m not saying it’s one of his best movies. By any inkling of an objective metric that can be used to measure a film’s quality and longevity, I cannot say with the utmost confidence that Avatar is one of the greatest films of the last decade (let alone of all time). But, since I lack any nostalgic sentiment for the Terminator series and his less iconic movies such as The Abyss and True Lies didn’t stick with me after watching them, 2009’s Avatar remains in my top-three favorite of Cameron’s feature films. To get right to the point, Cameron is undeniably a fantastic cinematic storyteller. In crafting his very own fictional universe in Pandora and a dystopian future for humanity, he manages to set Avatar apart from the “shared universe” trend rampant in recent blockbuster filmmaking. To do so, he fills his playbox with lots of exciting and unique creatures, environments, and histories while also leaving plenty of mystery to explore and expand upon in future installments of the franchise. At the heart of Pandora’s eclectic ecosystem are the Na’vi. A humanoid, blue-skinned species that serve as a great foil to the humans of Cameron’s dystopian future for a number of reasons. Primarily, they exist harmoniously with their planet’s environment and everything that inhabits is (at least everything native to Pandora). As a result, Avatar presents a not-so-subtle (but still pressing and narratively relevant) message about the importance of human beings devising a way to exist co-dependently with the natural world to avoid both the destruction of their own species and all others in the process. While this message is not presented in the most sophisticated or delicate manner, Cameron nevertheless makes the movie relevant to a modern audience and a modern world despite its reliance on well-trodden narrative tropes. But, before I get to that, I have to touch on the groundbreaking filmmaking on display in Avatar. Of course, I’m not the first one to say that this movie exemplifies technological breakthroughs in computer-generated imagery and motion-capture performance that continue to influence big-budget moviemaking to this day. Yet, when I sat down to rewatch Avatar only a few weeks ago, I was absolutely stunned how little I noticed anything akin to the visual effects in the movie feeling “dated” in any significant way. While I do have some issues with the film’s CGI of the late-2000s, it remains incredibly impressive given where most movies were at the time. Of course, Avatar was not created in a bubble. Quite the opposite; it built upon the progress made in motion capture used in movies like The Phantom Menace and The Lord of the Rings trilogy with characters such as Jar Jar Binks and Gollum, respectively. However, nobody can deny that Cameron took those improvements and crafted a process of capturing the actors’ performances and crafting a completely digital cinematic vista led by fully-CG characters for the big screen. In other words, very few movies managed to even come close to the achievements pulled off by Cameron and his cast and crew in Avatar for over a decade. But what about the story? Of course, any detractors of the movie constantly point to its derivative narrative as its major weakness and the thing that holds it back from greatness. And, upon rewatching Avatar, I can’t help but largely agree. While I do think some of the critics of this movie tend to downplay its awe-inspiring accomplishments just to tear it down and get attention for such negativity, I understand why some people find the story of Avatar boring or unoriginal. In a sense, it is. While its narrative structure is very reminiscent of other movies like Dances with Wolves and Princess Mononoke (the former of which is far superior to Avatar), such trappings were used for a very good reason: they are effective and powerful. Let’s start with the first act, which admittedly is a bit slow and weighed down by tons of exposition. Some of this is necessary to establish both important bits of world building for Pandora but also set the stakes of the journey of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington)—both physical and emotional—as he arrives on Pandora to fill his twin brother’s shores. Furthermore, the slow-build nature of the first hour of Avatar fleshes out the cultural intricacies of the Omaticaya. Through the eyes of Sully and his increasingly charming interactions with the fierce Na’vi woman Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), the audience falls in love with the natives of Pandora and, subsequently, becomes emotionally invested in their livelihood and their future. All of this occurs without ever realizing it due to the spectacle nature of the film. This, in essence, is the underappreciated brilliance of films like Avatar. Due to making us care about the Na’vi, we are emotionally heartbroken when the human military goons—led by Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang)—destroy the natives’ sacred place Hometree. All for the financial wealth they plan to harvest from the ground beneath the Na’vi land. In exchange for monetary gain, they burn parts of Pandora to ash. This heart wrenching tragedy that marks the height of the second act is where Avatar (in my humble opinion) is elevated from a good-enough blockbuster to a solidly entertaining and emotional film. From the low point of this loss for the Na’vi, Sully’s journey propels forward as he seeks to right the wrongs that both his species and he personally has committed against Pandora. The result? An action-packed, tense, and altogether awesome climactic battle in the third act that brings both the major story threads and the film’s themes of environmentalism and redemption together in a very effective manner. Again, this narrative structure is by no means new to moviegoers but it remains a highly compelling story structure that provides opportunities for great scenes to show off acting, characterization, and action. In this respect, Avatar excels from beginning to end. All that said, I don’t think the unoriginal nature of the film’s screenplay is what holds it back the most. Largely because most viewers just want to be entertained, and Avatar certainly does that. Ultimately, the major narrative flaw which (in my humble opinion) keeps the movie from achieving the status of a “modern classic” is its reliance on the unsavory (no pun intended) “white savior” storytelling trope. While the film is obviously a fictional tale, the plight of the Na’vi (a blue-skinned alien culture being exploited and colonized by a largely homogenous group of trigger-happy humans) bluntly echoes the travails and tribulations of indigenous Americans that were colonized and brutalized at the hands of European explorers and conquerors. Furthermore, by transcending his own broken human body to earn the trust (and later on defend) the Na’vi by physically transforming into one of them, Jake Sully undoubtedly fits the definition of a “white savior” (despite the movie ending with him rejecting his humanity, and thus “whiteness,” by permanently becoming a Na’vi). In other words, Avatar meets most of the criteria of this device (see the above link to my blog on the subject back in February). To reiterate what I said there, however, a tropey movie can still be entertaining and interesting to watch. But, there is no denying that Cameron’s screenplay for the film is by no means its biggest strength. So, is Avatar a great film? Well, it’s certainly no Titanic. 😊 In all seriousness, the first Avatar movie is a thoroughly entertaining romp that lays a very solid foundation. The breathtaking environments of Pandora and groundbreaking use of visual effects changed cinema forever, and set a new standard for modern sci-fi films that took other studios many years to even come close to achieving (Josh Brolin’s Thanos in the last two Avengers films and Andy Serkis’s Caesar in the modern Planet of the Apes trilogy being successful examples of coming close). That being said, its structural and character flaws hold it back from true cinematic excellence across the board. However, after my rewatch of Avatar, I am far more excited to see the sequel than I was even a few months ago. Can it top Aliens as my favorite James Cameron sequel to date? Even more unlikely, can it surpass Titanic to become my favorite James Cameron film of all time? We’ll just have to wait and see. 😊 Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) [NOTE: This blog contains spoilers for “Avatar: The Way of Water.” You have been warned.] Walking out of the theater after seeing Avatar: The Way of Water, I was struggling to process my feelings about it. While I knew that it was a good movie, I was unsure if it met my expectations. And then I thought: could it ever meet my expectations, or anybody’s for that matter? Coming out more than a decade after the first Avatar film, the anticipation for what James Cameron cooked up throughout the mid-to-late 2010s was as high as it could ever be. Particularly after rewatching the first movie, I was very excited for what Cameron would do to craft a more original and compelling narrative while also continuing to innovate the technology needed to make such a film. To start with the biggest strengths of The Way of Water, it unsurprisingly ups the ante when it comes to innovative filmmaking from a technological standpoint. I won’t spend much time on this point because it will undeniably be a universal point in its favor, but Cameron continues to prove his ability to utilize computer technology in designing a visual spectacle. The most notable improvement on display here, in my humble opinion, is the advancements made in motion capture. Not only does it easily trump the first Avatar, but I think it will end up setting a new bar for capturing actors’ performances in this manner due to just how in touch the technology is now with every subtle emotion on the actors’ faces. Simply put, this movie doesn’t work without the motion capture and I think Cameron one-upped himself in that respect. Besides just the visual spectacle of The Way of Water, I personally appreciated Cameron’s willingness to flesh out the tribal cultures and histories of Pandora as proof that this world is potentially rich as a sci-fi fantasy cinematic sandbox. Akin to the Omaticaya’s intimate spiritual connection with their environment and all its creatures, the Metkayina that were introduced in this movie have an even more fascinating emotional bond with the reef and the creatures of the ocean (notably the whale-like tulkun). This serves an important narrative purpose, of course, but I just appreciated how Cameron doubled-down on the strong environmentalist bent of the first film without being as extremely in-your-face about it and making it about these characters connecting with the world. When it comes to the film’s structure and pacing, I definitely have my issues that I’ll get to later. However, I surprisingly found myself embracing the exposition-heavy first act. While most movies that do this frustrate me, I think The Way of Water needed this due to the fact that its predecessor came out thirteen years ago. Thus, it effectively serves to establish the various dynamics of Jake Sully’s family (particularly his and Neytiri’s relationship with their children and the kids’ relationships with each other). But it also does enough to explain away how both Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang’s characters are “resurrected” in new forms (with Weaver’s Grace being “immaculately conceived” by Eywa in the form of thirteen-year-old Kiri and Lang’s Quaritch having his DNA implanted into an Avatar like Jake did in the first film). Which brings me to one of the biggest surprises about the movie: Cameron’s use of Quaritch. To be clear, Lang is still very much playing a villain here. However, I think the creative decision to put that character into a Na’vi body is fascinating, and the execution somehow made the idea even better. Not only does Quaritch allow himself to be exposed to the traditions and language of the Na’vi, but his burgeoning protectiveness (and eventual love) for Miles “Spider” Socorro (Jack Champion)—who is Quaritch’s son—ended up being one of the more interesting relationship dynamics of The Way of Water (despite how little screen time it was given). By the end, I’m more interested in how their connection to each other evolves over the next several sequels than many other relationships introduced in the movie. And, of course, Cameron knows how to make his third-act finales epic and action-packed. While the final battle of The Way of Water does not remotely rival the sinking of the famous cruise liner in Titanic, Ripley killing the Xenomorph Queen in Aliens, or even the sky battle in the first Avatar film, it is still a tense and thrilling action sequence that has plenty of fun bits to chew on from start to finish. Primarily, it manages to fulfill the promise of the movie’s first two acts by playing on the audience’s investment in Jake’s family to raise the stakes and put them all in lethal danger. There’s also lots of fun action moments involving the Metkayina and their animals deliciously murdering the human soldiers and whalers; what’s not to like about that?! 😊 I hope it’s clear that I liked a lot about The Way of Water. But there are some notable flaws of the movie that (in my humble opinion) hold it back from surpassing the first Avatar film and from being one of my favorite films of the year. And, unfortunately, a lot of my positives about the movie also have drawbacks to dive into (pun intended 😊). Ultimately, a lot of the things that don’t work about the film for me have to do with its runtime. Simply put, I don’t think Cameron’s screenplay or his team’s editing serves its three-hour-plus length and thus the movie doesn’t earn such a gargantuan runtime. For me, a lot of these problems should have been fixed in the second act by stripping down and shortening the amount of time that Jake’s children spend bonding with the ocean and its creatures. To be fair, some of the most breathtaking sequences in The Way of Water are during this portion of the movie (notably Kiri effortlessly bonding with the reef). However, I just think Cameron could have shortened many of these scenes and cut out at least twenty minutes of the movie to make it a little more digestible to regular moviegoers. Regarding the pacing, there is a lot in the film (particularly the second act) that feels like Cameron just setting up sequels rather than focusing on servicing the story he’s telling in this movie. From the teasing of the truth about Kiri’s origins to the dynamics between Jake’s family and the Metkayina—particularly his second son Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and the Metkayina chief’s daughter Tsireya (Bailey Bass)—I just think there should’ve been additional passes on the screenplay in order to focus in on specific relationships. Instead, the cast feels bloated and the filmmakers’ efforts to make audiences care about all of them end up falling short. In other words, there is no good excuse Cameron can make to justify me not caring at least a little bit about all of the primary and secondary characters given the film’s extensive length. While all of Jake’s kids get moments, they are not all equally interesting or compelling. Likewise, I felt that other new characters like Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and Ronal (Kate Winslet) were sadly underutilized (especially given the caliber of actors playing those characters). Again, this is most likely due to Cameron’s desire to set up sequels and thus maybe I’ll be more forgiving of this movie’s bloated cast in a few years. But, right now, I was quite disappointed in my lack of emotional investment in some of these key characters that clearly have more of a journey to go on in the future. When it comes to the film’s narrative structure, The Way of Water is simultaneously less and more derivative of its predecessors. On the one hand, it does not closely follow the “white savior” narrative trope by making the third-act payoff about parents saving their children (which includes Neytiri and Tonowari, both played by actors of color, leading the charge). As a result, it does feel less formulaic by leaning in on the family story. That being said, I was underwhelmed by how much this movie’s middle act so closely copied that of the first Avatar movie. Instead of Jake learning the ways of the Omaticaya by bonding with the forest creatures while falling in love with Neytiri and butting heads with her betrothed Tsu’tey (Lazaro Alonso), it is now Jake’s children learning the ways of the Metkayina by bonding with the sea creatures while butting heads with Tonowari’s sons and Lo’ak falling in love with Tsireya. Ultimately, my hopes for a story that was more unique while equally as emotional as the first film just weren’t satisfied with this sequel. All of this is to say that The Way of Water, while technologically superior in every way to the first Avatar film, still has a lot of the narrative baggage of Cameron relying too much on predictable narrative structure without injecting enough emotion or invoking enough empathy for these individual characters. Furthermore, the zany nature of the human villains (with the exception of Quaritch in this movie) went from tolerable before to a bit ridiculous now. So, do I think that The Way of Water is a better movie than its predecessor? Maybe it is, but I enjoy the first Avatar movie more. Overall, what are my thoughts on James Cameron’s Avatar films? Having seen the first two entries in this blossoming epic science-fiction franchise, I remain optimistic about its future. I think there is still plenty of promise in the world building of Pandora and this “dying Earth” that keeps getting referenced but never shown. Furthermore, I look forward to secondary characters in The Way of Water getting more of the spotlight in the next few movies. However, I worry that Cameron is too powerful for his own good. In my humble opinion, he not only needs a more merciless editing team but also a co-writer (or maybe two) to help him reign in his more novelistic tendencies in order to craft an effective screenplay for the next few movies. We’ll see if that happens, But, for now, we just have to wait and see what comes of the Avatar series. What do you like and dislike about both Avatar films? Are you excited for or dreading the multiple planned sequels? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst While I’m the first to admit that I’m not the biggest fan of Stanley Kubrick’s work, I also don’t hide the fact that some of his movies are fantastic. Films like Paths of Glory, Spartacus, and Full Metal Jacket more than deserve their reputations as some of the best in cinematic history. But what about his movies that, in my humble opinion, strive for greatness and get close but don’t quite get there.
One of those is Kubrick’s epic drama Barry Lyndon. Released in 1975, the film received admiration from critics upon release but financially underperformed. Given the pressures Kubrick was under while making it (including a potentially genuine threat to Kubrick’s life by the Provisional IRA), the efforts that went into it did not seem to pay off. Still, retrospective examination of the film has been more favorable due to its groundbreaking cinematography (particularly its use of natural lighting). Even acclaimed filmmakers like Martin Scorsese have named it one of their favorite Kubrick movies. But I have to ask…why isn’t Barry Lyndon great? [NOTE: This blog will contain spoilers for “Barry Lyndon.” You have been warned.] What’s It About Based on the 1844 picaresque novel by British author William Makepeace Thackeray, Barry Lydon tells the “rise-and-fall” story of Redmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal), an Irish rogue who seeks to improve his life by seizing the opportunities presented to him. After falling in love with his cousin Nora Brady (Gay Hamilton) and derailing her marriage proposal to Captain John Quin (Leonard Rossiter), Barry flees home and is robbed while traveling. Penniless, he joins the British Army to start over. After losing his friend Captain Grogan (Godfrey Quigley) during battle in Germany, Barry gets fed up with war and deserts. However, while en route to the Netherlands, he is found out by Captain Potzdorf (Harry Krüger) of Prussia who threatens to turn Barry over to the British unless he enlists in the Prussian Army. Barry reluctantly does so, and ends up earning a special commendation from King Frederick II for showing valor in battle. Upon the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War, Potzdorf’s uncle hires Barry to work in law enforcement. He goes undercover as a servant to the Chevalier de Balibari (Patrick Magee), a professional gambler suspected of spying for the Austrians. However, since Balibari is a fellow Irishman, Barry reveals everything to him and they work together to cheat at cards. This leads to Balibari getting into trouble but Barry is able to sneak him out of Prussia before he himself (disguised as the Chevalier) leaves the next day to reunite with his gambling companion. Spending the next few years trekking across Europe with Balibari, Barry eventually comes across and seduces the wealthy Countess of Lyndon (Marisa Berenson). They marry shortly after the death of the countess’s elderly husband’s death, and Barry takes her surname and settles in England with his new wife. However, tensions quickly boil over as Lady Lyndon’s ten-year-old son by her late husband, Lord Bullingdon (Dominic Savage), comes to hate Barry which spurs him to physically abuse his stepson. Despite having a son by her, Barry’s marriage to Lady Lyndon is toxic due to his transparent adultery and excessive spending habits. Upon the arrival of Barry’s mother Belle (Marie Kean) coming to live with him and the countess, she advises her son to obtain a title of nobility for himself to protect his inheritance of his wife’s wealth from Lord Bullingdon. He starts laying plans to ingratiate himself to high society (spending lots of money in the process), but it starts derailing when a now-adult Lord Bullingdon (Leon Vitali) crashes his mother’s lavish birthday party that Barry put on by publicly decrying him. In retaliation, Barry beats Bullingdon until he is physically restrained. This brash action ousts Barry from polite society for good. As their finances strain, Barry gifts his son Bryan (David Morley) a horse for his ninth birthday. However, after the horse throws Bryan (resulting in his death days later), Barry becomes a grief-stricken alcoholic and Lady Lyndon attempts suicide. To straighten out their accounts and comfort the countess, Lord Bullingdon is sent for. Upon arriving, he challenges his stepfather to a duel. After Bullingdon misfires, Barry intentionally fires into the ground but Bullingdon refuses to let the dual end. In the second round, Bullingdon successfully wounds Barry in the leg causing Barry to have his leg forcibly amputated above the knee. While Barry recovers, Bullingdon takes control over his mother’s estate and attempts to bribe Barry with an annual salary on the condition that he leave England permanently. Without credit or savings, Barry has no choice but to accept and resorts to his former life of gambling (albeit with minimal success). What’s Good About It Whatever I think of many Kubrick films, I will not deny that several of them are innovative cinema in more ways than one (most prominently, the Oscar-winning special effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey are a standout). And even though Barry Lyndon is a lesser-known movie within Kubrick’s filmography, it solidifies itself as one of his best cinematic achievements on a technical level. For one thing, the production design of Barry Lyndon appears flawless. From the costumes to the sets and environments, Kubrick’s creative team managed to seemingly perfectly capture the somewhat chaotic nature of mid-18th century Europe with the many wars and political unrest preceding the French Revolution. Even setting aside its revolutionary lighting techniques, the film remains (in my humble opinion) one of the gold standards of production design nearly fifty years after it came out. However, the most notable technical achievement of Barry Lyndon without a doubt is the cinematography. John Alcott, Kubrick’s go-to cinematographer from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, and his collaboration with the director on this movie managed to capture the landscapes of the European countryside in such a breathtaking way so as to make these environments feel both classic and lively at the same time. But it’s the film’s reliance on natural lighting that is truly a technical marvel and breakthrough for the industry. By utilizing candles to light many of the indoor scenes (and relying on Zeiss camera lenses developed for NASA to capture the dark side of the moon in the process), Kubrick and Alcott crafted some deservedly Oscar-winning cinematography to elevate this film as a breathtaking piece of visual artistry. Combining the immersive production design with the revolutionary lighting, Kubrick balances the epic with the intimate in order to craft an exceptionally well-made movie. Despite my gripes with the story, Barry Lyndon is worth watching for the technical craft on display alone. What’s Holding It Back While Barry Lyndon is an excellent film from a technical and visual standpoint, it’s not necessarily the most compelling narrative ever made for the silver screen. As a “rise and fall” tale set in Georgian England and pre-Napoleonic Europe, the film struggled to justify me being invested in the actual ascendance and downfall of its eponymous protagonist. Clearly, it isn’t Kubrick’s fault per se since he nabbed some career-defining performances from actors in his other films (Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory, Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange, and Jack Nicholson in The Shining; just to name a few). However, I feel like Ryan O’Neal take on Lyndon lacks any kind of charm or approachability. Even if I can’t empathize with him, I should be able to sympathize to some degree with his predicaments and his journey. But I never really did. On the other hand, maybe Kubrick can partially be blamed for my struggle to care about Lyndon’s ultimate failure to succeed in life. What I mean by that is his cold and detached approach to the story feels excessive. In other words, instead of showing me why I should despise Lyndon through his actions he makes me struggle to care much at all from the onset. All in all, Barry Lyndon is a movie that looks great but (in my humble opinion) doesn’t quite achieve the full potential of its storytelling by solidifying itself as one of the great “rise and fall” tales ever put to cinema. Is it worth watching? If you’re a fan of Kubrick’s other work, I do recommend it as a point of comparison. Furthermore, if you appreciate visually innovative cinema from the 1970s, it should rise towards to the top of your “to-watch” list. Otherwise, though, I’d recommend films like Scarface or Goodfellas before this one in terms of the kind of story that it’s trying to tell. But maybe I’m wrong, and Barry Lyndon is truly a cinematic masterpiece. I suppose you’ll have to convince me otherwise. 😊 What am I missing about Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon? Do you think it’s a great movie or do you agree that something’s holding it back from greatness? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay For the last time this year, I revisit the book “1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” by Steven Jay Schneider by examining Oliver Stone’s white-collar drama Wall Street thirty-five years to the day that it came to theaters back in 1987.
[NOTE: This blog will contain spoilers for “Wall Street.” You have been warned.] The History As far back as 1981, director Oliver Stone (Born on the Fourth of July, JFK) was thinking about making a movie about Wall Street loosely inspired by his stockbroker father Lou Stone. Coming off of the success of his Oscar-winning war film Platoon, Stone met with friend and screenwriter Stanley Weiser (Project X, W.) to discuss the idea of two investment partners using each other in shady financial deals while being pursued by a prosecutor. Specifically, Stone wanted to tell a story about “a boy…seduced and corrupted by the allure of easy money” who “sets out to redeem himself” in the end. At Stone’s request, Weiser read novels such as Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” as sources of inspiration. However, Weiser found the literature unfit as bases for the screenplay. Instead, Weiser conducted research about the world of stock trading and corporate takeovers; along with Stone, he also spent nearly a month visiting brokerage houses and interviewing investors. Weiser and Stone both wrote their own first drafts (during which they stripped away their protagonist’s Jewish heritage to avoid stereotyping). In crafting the antagonist Gordon Gekko, several real-life investors, bankers, stockbrokers, and financiers served as inspiration. According to Weiser, Stone’s fast-paced manner of speaking on the phone even helped influence Gekko’s speech patterns in the film. Stone always had Charlie Sheen (Red Dawn, Platoon) in mind for the lead role of young, naïve stockbroker Bud Fox because of his “stiff” approach to acting. However, there was some disagreement between Stone and the studio about who should play Gekko. The former wanted Richard Gere (Pretty Woman, Primal Fear, Chicago), who turned down the role, while the latter preferred Warren Beatty (Bonnie and Clyde, Heaven Can Wait, Bugsy), who also turned it down. Against the advice of friends in Hollywood, Stone ultimately went with Michael Douglas (Fatal Attraction, The American President) who really liked Stone and Weiser’s screenplay. For the character, Douglas read profiles of corporate raiders such as T. Boone Pickens. Principal photography began in April of 1987 and lasted until July. Due to Orion Pictures (the studio that distributed Platoon) deeming the project too risky, Stone and producer Edward R. Pressman (Conan the Barbarian, Talk Radio, American Psycho) took it to 20th Century Fox who authorized the 15 million-dollar shooting budget which allowed Stone to shoot on location in New York City. Stone hired multiple investment bankers, such as Jeffrey “Mad Dog” Beck and Kenneth Lipper, as technical advisors on the movie by offering insights about the characters and the production design. Lipper leveraged specific criticisms about the potential one-sided nature of the story, which Stone placated by allowing Lipper to rewrite the script (despite cutting the one scene from Lipper’s screenplay that he shot). Cinematographer Robert Richardson (Platoon, The Aviator, Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight) collaborated with Stone to make the camera “become a predator” because, according to Stone, they were “making a movie about sharks” and “feeding frenzies.” As a result, Stone and Richardson made the camera very kinetic in order to depict Wall Street like a “battle zone” by shooting conversations like physical confrontations and having the camera encircle the actors like “a pool with sharks.” In contrast, the film moves into the world of Bud’s father as a stationary camera to give “a sense of immutable values.” To prepare himself for Gekko’s fast-paced dialogue, Douglas worked with a speech instructor on breath control but also received immersive coaching from Stone himself. Notably, Stone entered Douglas’s trailer one day and insulted his talent (which shocked Douglas) just before performing the “Greed is good” speech. Stone was under his own pressures, such as having to switch from 12- to 14-hour shooting days in order to wrap up filming before the start of a Directors Guild of America strike (Sheen remarked that, while directing, Stone was always looking at his watch). With a final budget of 16.5 million dollars, Wall Street was released on December 11, 1987 to generally positive critical reception. While some reviewers found Stone’s preachiness a bit much, the performances (particularly Douglas) were highly praised. Going on to gross nearly 44 million dollars, the film also won Michael Douglas his first (and, to date, only) acting Oscar. Furthermore, the film went on to become representative of the virtues of greed and excess strongly associated with the 1980s. According to the director and lead actors, it even inspired some people to become stockbrokers and investment bankers. The Cons I made the mistake of watching this movie after already having seen Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. And, simply put, that movie supersedes Oliver Stone’s Wall Street in virtually every way possible. To try and address all of them in this blog would exhaust me. So, instead, I’ve narrowed down my critiques to a few key points. In a general sense, Stone and Weiser’s screenplay feels more like a “soap box” melodrama than a substantive drama. Its depiction of the greed of 1980s America possesses a rather preachy tone that takes away from its potentially compelling characters. Furthermore, the way that it subverts a well-structured narrative in favor of exploring themes that could make for interesting and important storytelling but never feel like they are being given the conscious attention that they deserve. In my research, learning that Stone cast Charlie Sheen in the lead role specifically for his stiffness as a performer confounded me. Maybe Sheen’s young, naïve presence worked for his role in Platoon. But, it just doesn’t work here. In my humble opinion, the lead character in this kind of story needs to be interesting. To be clear, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Bud Fox should’ve been portrayed as a charming and outgoing social butterfly. But he needs to be magnetic by making everything that he does convince me to watch what he’s going to do next. And Sheen just never really did that. Also, not to shit on Sheen, but his performance is simply outshined by Michael Douglas. The film also has a similar effect to Stone’s film Natural Born Killers. Essentially, in trying to satirize and critique an aspect of late-20th-century American society, he’s managed to glorify what he is trying to criticize. Whereas that movie takes aim at the mass media’s tendency to sensationalize violence by…sensationalizing violence, Wall Street tries (and fails) to warn Americans about the moral corruptibility of greed by showing what people can accomplish by being greedy. Are they good people? No, but it doesn’t really matter within the context of the story because the characters whose greed drives their actions don’t receive the punishments that they assuredly deserve. All in all, these are some of my specific criticisms of Wall Street. But, my general problem with it is that it’s just so damn boring. 😊
The Pros If there is one silver lining in Wall Street, it’s Michael Douglas. I know this isn’t news, but Douglas is a great actor (much like his father Kirk Douglas). And his portrayal of the megalomaniac stockbroker Gordon Gekko is easily the most interesting character in the entire film. Not only did he typify the greedy American banker for the time (and generations to come), but he more than deserved the Oscar that he won for his performance. That’s it. ☹ So, what are my final impressions of Wall Street? It’s boring and largely unforgettable, and is not worth watching since Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street now exists. Just go and watch that; it’s a far superior film that targets similar societal culprits but actually does so well. 😊 What do you think about Oliver Stone’s Wall Street? What’s your favorite (or least favorite) Oliver Stone flick? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst |
Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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