Today’s Post by Joe Farace
This year I got to see more bad movies than in any previous year. I’m not talking just about mediocre movies or films that did not live up to my expectations but movies that I hated more than The Last Jedi. There were several movies I saw that many people and critics liked but I found that while they had a few good scenes (look for Howard Hawks’ concept on that coming up) ultimately they were not great or even good films —in my opinion. Please keep in mind that this is my highly opinionated take on these movies; you may love’em and if so, I’m glad for you. But I didn’t.
Here’s a list of the stinkers I (mostly) sat through or in the case of one film that challenged my 20-minute rule (see below) and in that case I yanked the disc out well before the dénouement of the action. In others I sat there in misery, hoping against hope that something would happen to redeem what was happening on the screen but, alas, didn’t. Is this is how the pandemic affected otherwise creative filmmakers? Starting with…
Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel (2021) This is an overly earnest and somewhat overly long historical drama that, in many ways, reminds me of a classic Hollywood costume drama. Fine performances throughout, especially from Jodie Comer, but they’re overshadowed by the Roshomon-like script that doesn’t do any favors to what, in essence, is a simple story. The main stars, especially Matt Damon and Adam Driver do their darnedest to make you hate them but the weight of the script and its structure, ultimately fails the film. A violent, bloody fight scene at the end might put some viewers off; it earns it’s R rating. I watched the whole movie, something I haven’t been able to do with some movies that I recently borrowed from the library. (Two of’em are coming up…)
If you want to see a really good Ridley Scott movie about knights pick up Kingdom of Heaven—the Director’s Cut—a 2005 epic historical film. It is magnificent and is filmmaking at it’s best. The Director’s Cut on Blu-ray is only six bucks from Amazon, so you should own a copy.
The Northman (2022) Some critics called Robert Eggers‘ film “a powerful masterpiece” but I was powerfully bored by this dark, brooding film. I really like Alexander Skarsgård and love Ethan Hawke, although he is in the film for only a short time. Eggers is often called a “visionary director” and you can see all that creativity leaping off the screen, which kept Mary and I watching it until the violent and highly stylized ending but we both agreed left us cold. We thought it was an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (and still think so) but scholars tell us Shakespeare’s source for Hamlet was another Norse saga that is known as Gesta Danorum (History of the Danes) by Saxo Grammaticus. Saxo (1150 – 1220), also known as Saxo cognomine Longus, who was a Danish historian, theologian and author. And if all this historical blib-blab appeals to you, then you might like this movie. Mary and I didn’t and the public agreed with us: According to ScreenRant, “The Northman bombed at the box office this past April, failing to make back its budget with a $69.6 million worldwide gross.”
The Green Knight (2021) This was an epic medieval fantasy film that was directed, written, edited, and produced by David Lowery and was adapted from the 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In this case Gawain is a poor schlub who agrees to go on a quest to kill The Green Knight for reasons I quickly forgot and like the rest of the plot I could care less. I baled on this one about a half-hour or so in. Like other movies I kept watching and waiting to care about the people in it and also waiting for something interesting to happen but the “human misery*” hits kept a’coming… so I pushed the eject button. I love Dev Patel, he is normally a charismatic actor who you can root for as a character but here, it just doesn’t happen. The critics loved it; the people mezzo. There are many blog posts online “explaining” what this film is all about. I think if you have to explain a movie and write a thesis about it, it probably isn’t a good movie. According to Howard Hawks, who knew a thing or two about making films, one definition of a good movie is “three good scenes, no bad scenes.” All I saw in The Green Knight were bad scenes, but who knows after I turned it off, maybe it got better. Did it?
*I hate movies that feature what I call “human misery,” when bad stuff keeps happening to good people or even characters that you really don’t care about. This is seems true of biopics especially ones about musicians, although I liked Rocketman a lot. More fun; less misery. The Jacket opens with heaps of misery for poor Adrien Brody having so much terrible crap happen to him until one day he looks at a (no kidding) phone bill and has an epiphany and the movie gets extremely interesting. I love this film but all that’s available is an old DVD. A Region B French Blu-ray is available and one of these day’s I’ll get a region–free player. For details on all the Blu-ray and DVD regions, check out my video on my YouTube channel, Joe Farace’s Videos.