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Larry and Andy Wachowski’s The Matrix (1999) is a science fiction classic. The setting is a devastated Earth in the far future. The premise is that humanity has been enslaved by artificial intelligences. Human beings spend our lives in what are essentially coffins while mechanical vampires drain our energy. We don’t know it, because we are asleep, dreaming that we are in a radically different world. This is the Matrix. Today we would call it a multiplayer online game.
Like many dystopias, The Matrix is actually too optimistic. The Wachowski brothers thought the human race would have to be forced into the pods. (more…)
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House of Gucci is a highly entertaining combination of comedy, tragedy, and farce, tracing the decline of the Gucci fashion empire from an Italian family business to a global capitalist brand.
House of Gucci would have been the best Martin Scorsese movie in years — if it hadn’t been directed by Ridley Scott. It has all the Scorsese touches: lots of Italians (albeit Italian-Italians rather than Italian-Americans), a plush running time, studies of characters who are seldom admirable but always interesting, (more…)
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You have to give the Left credit. They never take a day off. The eye of Sauron never blinks. They are frenzied and relentless in their attempts to overthrow our civilization. They softened us up for a long time, rotting away our character and identity by promoting vice, cynicism, and nihilism — all while playing the victim. Now that we are too weak to resist and too deracinated to care, they have launched a ferocious campaign of iconoclasm against our forefathers’ heroes: Christopher Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, etc. (more…)
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Howard Hawks’ Red River (1948) is one of the greatest Westerns. Red River has it all: charismatic performances by John Wayne and Montgomery Clift, a solid ensemble cast to back them up, a beautifully economical script, dramatic black-and- white cinematography, and a surprisingly good score from Dimitri Tiomkin, who had always struck me as a hack. All of these elements are masterfully drawn together by Hawks. His sense of pacing and visual drama never fails. He grabs your attention with stark contrasts between dark and light, vast landscapes and closeups. He’ll sweep you up in action, then stop you dead in wonder. (more…)
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Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, Part I is now in theatres. I can’t recommend it. It isn’t terrible. It is merely mediocre. I found it dull to the eyes, grating to the ears, and a drag on my patience. Villeneuve spends 156 minutes and only gets halfway through the novel. David Lynch told the whole story in 137 minutes. Of course audiences are willing to sit through long movies if they are really good: Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, for instance. But this film isn’t in that league. (more…)
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No Time to Die is an excellent Bond film. It belongs in the company of Casino Royale and Skyfall and quite self-consciously reaches for the heights of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which is arguably the best Bond film ever.
I was especially looking forward to No Time to Die because — although it is very much a minority opinion — my favorite Bond actor is Daniel Craig. (more…)
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When I first saw Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987), it struck me as a remake of Doctor Zhivago. Both narratives begin in glamorous and archaic empires that fall to Communist revolutions. Of course, that could just be due to the fact that the Chinese Revolution was something of a remake of the Russian Revolution. But there are parallels specific to the two films, both of which depict Communism as recapitulating the old forms of despotism but as vulgar and brutal farces, stripped of all refinement. (more…)
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David Lean’s epic anti-Communist romance Doctor Zhivago (1965) is a great and serious work of art. Doctor Zhivago was initially panned by the critics — probably not because it is a bad film, but because it was very bad for Communism. Nevertheless, it was immensely popular. It is still one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, adjusted for inflation. It also won five Oscars — for Best Adapted Screenplay (Robert Bolt), Best Original Score (Maurice Jarre), Best Cinematography (Freddie Young), Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design. (more…)
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Brad Bird is the director of three classic animated films: The Iron Giant (1999), The Incredibles (2004), and Ratatouille (2007), as well as the blockbuster sequel The Incredibles 2 (2018). The Incredibles is a superhero film that also pays affectionate homage to the spy movies of the 1960s, especially classic Bond. (more…)
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English original here
Strážci (Watchmen) patří k těm nejpravicovějším – dokonce s fašismem flirtujícím – dílům popkultury posledních let, a to vše i navzdory řádně a plně v souladu s duchem doby levicovému smýšlení tvůrců původního komiksu: autora příběhu Alana Moorea, ilustrátora Davea Gibbonse i Zacka Snydera, autora filmové adaptace, již osobně považuji za ten vůbec nejlepší snímek o superhrdinech, který své předloze nejen že dělá čest, ale dokonce ji v mnoha důležitých ohledech vylepšuje. (more…)
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One of my all-time favorite movies is The Red Shoes, Michael Powell’s 1948 Technicolor feast about a ballet impresario played by the great Anton Walbrook and his ecstatic, obsessive, and ultimately destructive relationship with his art—and one artist in particular. So you can imagine how eagerly I sought out Powell’s first foray into Technicolor, 1943’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, also starring Walbrook. (more…)
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Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) was one of the giants of Japanese letters as well as an outspoken Right-wing nationalist. Mishima shocked the world on November 25, 1970, when he and members of his private militia, the Tatenokai or Shield Society, took hostage the commander of the Japan Self-Defense Force’s Ichigaya Camp. Mishima then delivered a speech to the assembled soldiers and press, exhorting the Japanese to turn away from American-imposed consumerism back to their traditional aristocratic culture, which prized honor above life and comfort. (more…)
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