THE MASTER (2012) movie review

 

I’ll admit it. I walked out.

 

It’s foul and endless. Pointless with a few poignant moments of beauty swallowed in so much sadness. It’s just the sort of film that makes me mad come Oscar season.

 

It will no doubt get nods galore. It may even win a few:

 

– for the director who dares shoot an entire film in 70 mm…

 

– for the actors who dare play believable cult leaders, boozers, and the women who love them.

I suddenly feel like the brave one though. I dared escape the dark theater when the screen looked too much like the ladies room of the YMCA on family swim day or when I heard enough language to take me back a trillion years to my time on the school bus. Those were the days …that I’d like to avoid reliving.

 

 

 

Brave retreat. Thai food. And home. The Master will not get my vote.

Charlie Chaplin’s THE KID (1921) movie review

In our era, we struggle to understand issues that people faced in bygone days. Charlie Chaplin understood and helped people emote to the harmonium’s repetitive tunes. He romanced the camera turning simplicity into hilarity and heartbreak.

2011’s best picture hit The Artist, gave modern audiences a sumptuous taste of film history. Oddly, it prepared me to watch this Chaplin film for the first time, and it was a lovely hour and a half spent.

 

I dare you to try it. Get to know the glorious black and white. Learn to read lips, facial expressions, and body language. Delight in young talent. Settle in for a short time at a safe distance from the chasm between poverty and prosperity that they knew too well in the 20’s. You may surprise yourself and fall for Chaplin’s flat feet, cane, and satche as I did.

 

WAR HORSE (2012) movie review

Spielberg, no doubt hoped for an epic. I’m sure that equestrians and fans of Spielbergian battle sequences will find this film perfect. A trusted, film-loving friend of mine dedicated herself to 3 viewings of this film in the theaters. She loves all things Cumberbatch and Hiddleston. Agreed. They are lovely. If only I could dream in such cinematography. Gorgeous in every frame, of course.

I however, found it lacking in story and character development…possibly my two great musts in film love. It was hard to empathize with the horse. The facial expressions were hard to read. Perhaps a method actor?

Other characters came and went so quickly, we barely had time to buy in. Most seemed interesting, but doomed. And, all were tragically doomed.

WWI feels redundant at best, neck deep in trench muck. Not even the great creator of Band of Brothers could make this war seem a worthy front for fighting.

One scene stood out from the rest, making a moment of life-changing film watching for me. It was worth the rental and the whole watch for me. The horse is tangled in barbed wire between the two front lines. A momentary truce is called, white-flagged to save the horse. Two soldiers, one German and one British, meet and greet and chatter congenially while working together to set the horse free. They wish each other well and walk back into battle reminding the other to keep his head down. The beauty of this moment, of peace and good will, mingles in the odd confusion of duty and conflict between brothers at war.