two films

hey there


so, i've watched a couple of films, look you see. well, as it happens, there are a number i have watched since i last did this sort of post, but to keep it all on the pulse (so to speak) i thought it prudent, if not best, to use what (little) time i seem to have available to write of those most recently released.

much like the book reviews what i do here, how about a bit of a gander at what i watched, some spoiler free comments (or overview), and then a nice warning that spoilers may follow?

to start where that picture does, Rambo Last Blood is a hideous, vile, nasty piece of work that seemingly bears no thematic or characteristic relationship to the previous four Rambo films, unless i totally missed them. Joker, meanwhile, is a most impressive avant garde, postmodernist one man play which has somehow made a formidable amount of money for what is essentially an arthouse movie.

well, for the casual reader who for some reason wishes to see either (or both) of them films but for some reason wished to have my general opinion, there you very much have it. for all who have seen them, or are just not particularly bothered about such, do read on. if you wish to see either but have no interest in knowing much of anything of what may happen in them, consider stopping now, for from here there is a *** SPOILER WARNING *** in place.

despite the order in which the posters are presented above, it was Joker what i watched first, so that is where i shall start (or if you like commence) here. which is quite nice, as by some formidable distance it is very easily the better of the two films.

i had little or no idea of what to expect when setting off on the task of watching this one. from what i could gather, it was and was not a standard "origins" film of a character one would be hard pressed to deny as being best known as Batman's number one nemesis. the intention, evidently, was to explore the character with an ambiguous free hand.

with this in mind, a really, really bad way to try and watch this film is to do so in a way that you try and tie it into or link it with any of the cinematic Batman variations from over the years. it shall just lead to disappointment, and maybe some confusion.

ok, enough of what it is not, then, and more on what it is, if the italics i have used there make any sort of sense. and effectively this is one reasonably budgeted (i think the entire budget came in at just around the basic before profit percentages amount of money Jack Nicholson got for playing the same character 30 years ago) film of a one man play. yes, there are other characters in it, but make absolutely no mistake at all, they might as well not be, for the only thing you are ever watching is Joaquin Phoenix.

that the film has hoovered up in excess of US$1billion around the world probably tells you how good a performance Joaquin gives in this film, but for the sake of this being my blog, my views, etc, i can indeed tell you that he is truly exceptional. sure, i always thought he was very good indeed in things like To Die For, 8mm and so on, with me always having a soft spot for Buffalo Soldiers too. but, this is at a whole different level.

an entirely unsettling level too, of course. much has already been written of the way in which the film goes about addressing and depicting mental health, the lack of support and treatment in society, and of course the elements of violence which occur. let me not add waffle to this, then, except to confirm that this really is frequently uncomfortable viewing. but uncomfortable because of just how good and powerful the performance by the lead actor is.

yes, the film can instantly be grouped with those that dealt either with alienation or had the ambiguity presented well enough to allow an audience to decide themselves if what they have watched "really happened" or just occurred in the mind of the protagonist. without saying which group they belong to, films in such company include Taxi Driver, American Psycho, Fight Club, A Clockwork Orange, and, well, several others.

it is also true that Rambo Last Blood is frequently to be found to be uncomfortable viewing, but for really different reasons. this would be not so much that it is a masterpiece, as it is not, but very much due to the fact that it is a nasty, vile, graphic exploitation flick with a right wing slant that is as curious as it is disturbing.

plot? an apparently retired John Rambo lives on his deceased father's estate with his housekeeper. mostly he keeps busy training horses, and trying to rescue people out of floods. when the housekeeper's daughter(i think, could have been niece) goes missing, off he goes to find her. when it turns out something repulsive, ugly and vicious has happened to her, so he goes off on a quest for blood vengeance. and believe me, it is graphic. normally i am partial to gratuitous sex and violence, it is true, but this is just plain nasty.

the biggest problem here is that it simply never feels like a Rambo film, at all. for comparison, think Blade Runner 2049. whilst in that film there are considerable merits, the biggest flaw to it was that Harrison Ford apparently forgot that he was playing Rick Deckard and spends much of the film being some weird cross between Han Solo and Indiana Jones. you can get away with that when its not the main character of the film. Stallone electing to all of a sudden make his character some Charles Bronson or similar revenge vigilante type is very much at odds with the other four films featuring the character. 

one of the biggest issues for me is that this film exists at all. at the end of the fourth film there was a shot of Rambo "going home". there was an understated ambiguity to this, one could choose to see this as him going to a literal home, or at last being at peace with himself, either within himself or even by his passing. a rather eloquent end, but that ambiguity has all gone now.

i am not going to get bogged down with all the claims of racism, xenophobia, stereotypes and what have you that have been spoken about as being apparently integral to the film. but yes, such would seem to be there, along with the as mentioned staunch right wing view of justice. indeed, there is a logic one can see in being harsh, brutal and sadistic with harsh, brutal and sadistic criminals, and trust me you see such here. the judicial approach of an eye for an eye sounds good, but ultimately before long everyone is blind.

reflecting on the movie, this film is out of time. the best way to have watched this film would have been in the 80s, with a few mates and several cans of lager, on a 2nd or 3rd generation bootleg VHS as the BBFC at the time would have either banned this film entirely or censored it to ribbons. in the here and now, it is not a motion picture which makes any immediate sense to exist.

anyway, that's that. if any of this has been of any remote use or interest to someone, well then that's splendid, that is, to be sure.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!