three films

hello there


i nearly called this post modern cinema, look you see. or contemporary movies, to be sure. but then a thought, or indeed a whim, occurred to me. rather egotistical perhaps, but what would happen, i feared, if someone somehow read this ten, perhaps twenty years after it was composed? the films discussed would be neither modern nor contemporary. so, three films it is.

moving on from such dilemmas, then, to the business end of why you are presumably here reading this (at whatever time in human history). recently i have watched not just one, not as many as five, not just two, nowhere near as many as six, but three (3) films. hence the title. as i have precisely nothing better to do with this than write of the movies watched, well, here we are.

for those who require such valid information, yes, the motion pictures were initially released during late 2019 and, in some instances and some areas, early 2020. a brief look at a (not really proper) collage of the posters for the movies, plus some spoiler free notes? surely.

above shows the posters in the order what i watched (or was witness to) the films. if you are in a rush, wish to avoid spoilers and for some reason consider my views on each movie to be of some relevance, very well. sadly, Terminator Dark Fate proved to be the hideous, ghastly, why bother rubbish all feared with a resigned groan the moment the film was announced. no such issues befall 1917, as it is a masterpiece, and every glowing review you have seen, heard or read of the film is quite accurate. happily, Doctor Sleep proved to be a superb film, somehow managing to pull off what felt to be impossible in being both a sequel to the novel The Shining as well as Kubrick's celebrated film of it. well, celebrated by quite a few people but not by one person in particular.

it may (very) well be that for some reason you would like to read my thoughts, be they considered or meandering, on each film in more detail. should this be so, then please, do read on. be warned, however, and note that a *** SPOILER WARNING *** is in place for the remainder of this post. although a Terminator film tends not to hold much in the way of surprises, and from what i recall of my (partial) education, how World War I turned out has been reasonably well documented over the years.

ever since Terminator 3 (which i happen to like a very great deal) there has been a resounding reaction to any further Terminator film that has been announced. never is it that the majority of the audiences express a hope of it being good; rather they now wonder just how bad it shall be. to this end, Terminator Salvation was rubbish, Terminator Gensys (or whatever) was f*****g rubbish, and now we have Terminator Dark Fate, which is simply terrible, awful f*****g rubbish. yes, no, really, it truly and quite remarkably is that bad. as in, if for some reason i was forced, i would watch either Salvation or Gensys again in full before i willingly watched even a moment of this.

plot? in truth i am not quite sure. for some reason it involved a lot of Mexicans and was in Mexico for a while, much like the similarly really bad Rambo Last Blood was. i guess the place is flavour of the month for film makers, which is a nice change as for the last couple of years movies seem to have been made in a way that appeases Chinese censorship requirements.

i think the plot is something about how "fate" cannot be avoided. which is kind of implicitly understood by using the word "fate", but anyway. for some reason Sarah Connor is alive and well in this film once more. indeed, so is John Connor, but only for a few seconds before he gets knacked off of a titular Terminator. if this was done as one of them "subverting audience expectations" moves, then once again it shows how much of a complete waste of time it is to do such.

anyway, off we go after that with the usual. something something Terminator sent back to kill the person that will win the war for humans (against Legion now, since Skynet will not exist), something something humans send someone or thing back in time to protect the person who will lead them to victory. so, yes, then, basically (or effectively) the shall we say familiar Terminator plot premise, with the one variation here being that Terminators can "get old" and (i kid you not) "learn to be a bit human".

why can't the people who make these films understand that the reason The Terminator and Terminator 2 were so loved, and Terminator 3 liked a little bit, was the gritty realism in the film which came from the fact that virtually all you saw on screen was "done for real" with practical effects? just about every fight scene or action sequence in the film is very visibly just a computer game. it is not interesting to watch, as it is just all tacky and rubbery looking. with the first films there was an element in awe at watching sequences and wondering how they were so creative to film them. i promise there is no similar sense watching something that the work experience kid at the film studio knocked up on his computer.

no, Linda Hamilton's return isn't particularly worth all the trouble and effort. and hell no, Arnold Schwarzenegger turning up after an hour does not make anything better, in fact that is when the film achieves the impossible and gets worse. please, if anyone in a position to do so is listening, just stop making Terminator films. i would ask to stop making bad ones, but it is patently clear that no one has any idea how to make a good (or average) one. all of the possible story was pretty much done in the first one, with large chunks of the second and a reasonable bit of the third adding some nice extras.

at what feels like the entirely different (or simply opposite, i suppose) end of the movie spectrum (or rainbow) one finds 1917, then. presented as being from the director of Skyfall, which is interesting. i guess they could not put from the director of Spectre, as that was a dull and dreary Bond film, and nor could they put from the Oscar winning director of that film that had Kevin Spacey in it for contemporary reasons.

one is, or i am, always a little hesitant about watching a film that has met widespread critical acclaim before the chance to see it comes along it can somewhat cloud your thinking. are you going to spend time trying to pick out elements which dispute the praise lavished on it, or are you just going to sit back and endure the running time, just to go "yes, it is indeed that good". well, neither in this instance. the film is so mesmerising, immersive and captivating that your focus is completely on the film itself. and what a film.

plot? it is set in what would be the middle of World War I. specifically, the date mentioned at the start is the day the USA officially "joined in" the war, but that is of no relevance to the film or plot. the allied, predominantly British, forces believe they are on their way to victory, pushing the German army back. it's a trap, though, and if the British army advance as planned they shall be slaughtered in a most decisive way for the Germans. with no other form of communication (apparently the carrier pigeons off of Blackadder Goes Forth were not actually used so much), it is left to two soldiers to rush to the forward line to pass on the instruction that the planned advance must not go ahead.

much has already been made of the 24 like "real time" presentation of the film, with some deft editing making it seem not like one big long take but two quite long ones, with the break in it making a good deal of sense as and when you see the film. this is indeed how and why the film works. with (and this is no criticism) what is essentially a very basic and simple story premise, it was how this story was told which would lead to success, and succeed it does.

the greatest strength, arguably, of 1917 is that it keeps it simplistic. at no stage does the film overtly get itself bogged down with any sort of discussion, debate or statement making about the reasons for war, the failings or anything like that. rather like two other World War I films, Gallipoli and All Quiet On The Western Front, it allows the audience to make of such what it will on the basis of the as objectively as possible presentation of the basic level human face - and human cost - of the war.

finally, then (at least in respect of these films i watched this time around), is a brave move. adapting a Stephen King novel is a daunting task as it is, but to have a go at Doctor Sleep struck me as quite tricky. we are, after all, talking about someone having a go at adapting a sequel to the novel of The Shining, yet somehow doing it in a way that appeases the author's frequently expressed loathing of the Stanley Kubrick adaptation of that novel, yet somehow also works as a sequel to that film. and, also, whilst at it, do it all in a way that is mindful of being a sequel to a Stanley Kubrick film. something not tried, i believe, since 2010, or ten past eight as most refer to it.

considering the remarkable scope for failure (i am sure there were a few, or even many, assuming it would all fail the moment the novel was published, never mind the film announced), happy days that Doctor Sleep turns out to be, well, brilliant.

some qualification. i appreciate that when the novel came out a great many people considered it that "middle ground" sort of thing, meh, that in this golden age of extreme opinions ruling we no longer have. well, i really, really enjoyed it. on a similar note, this film too experienced a bit of a "meh" revival amongst critics and audiences. that's fair enough, but i go full tilt great with both novel and film.

plot? a continuance of the story of Danny Torrance, or if you like what happened to Danny when he grew up. of course he remains troubled and scarred by the events at the Overlook Hotel as depicted in The Shining, yet meanders through life. then he connects with a young girl who is also either cursed or blessed with "the shining". and then he becomes aware of a band of quasi immortals (yes i know that is an oxymoron but it makes sense on page and on screen) who seek out those with the shining, so as to feed on them for their own lives.

not since The Descent have i seen such high quality production values in a horror film, or been quite so terrified. this in itself is a "neat trick" with Doctor Sleep. i can vividly recall the novel, so i knew what was coming and when, and yet i was still petrified, terrified and jumpy when some things happened. and yes, i am a sort of grown up partially educated gent who is normally enthusiastic about gratuitous sex and violence in movies.

applause, ladies and gentlemen, for the cast. when reading the book i didn't ever really picture Ewan McGregor as ever likely to play Danny, but he does, and does so exceptionally well. best of all is Rebecca Ferguson as the evil Rose The Hat. superb, perfect casting and a sublime performance. somewhat more restricted in the film than i expected, but hats off too to Emily Alyn Lind as Snakebite.

great appreciation, too, for the work by director Mike Flanagan. he wisely skips both trying to mimic a Kubrick style and just trying to do anything overtly non-Kubrick, instead just making the film in the best way possible. infrequent nods to the original film of The Shining exist as they make sense to.

there is a limited audience for this film, i guess. you are looking at a demographic that either liked the book, or feel prepared to give a chance to a sequel to a Kubrick film. anyone prepared to give it a go will, i hope, be rewarded for such with the same astonishing viewing experience i had. in terms of just Stephen King adaptations alone, it stands very comfortably indeed with The Dead Zone and The Shawshank Redemption as being blissfully note perfect from page to screen retellings.

right, that shall do. hopefully i have not said too much on each film, or too little. should any of the comments (or notes) be of any use to anyone at all, well then that's just top class.

viddy well.




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