08 | July | 2011 |

July 8, 2011

Falling Skies – Grace

And so it goes that another very promising pilot quickly falters in the confines of full production. I know that it is only early days yet but the fact that this review is so late to being written speaks volumes on my level of interest; as does the fact that I, an avid watcher of first airings, waited until today to finally see this fourth episode of Falling Skies. I had reasonably low hopes for this show, just wanting from it something akin to Jericho – a pulpy but entertaining summer series with a hint of depth and darkness – but quite frankly it is failing to meet even those expectations thanks to minor and major failures from every level of the production team. I have previously spoken about those failures in a general sense but today I’m going to point out the specific area’s in which the show is weaker than a Skitters soft palate.

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July 8, 2011

Cookie’s Fortune

“He’s definately innocent.

How do you know that?

I fished with him”

I was beginning to wonder if I hadn’t had Altman pegged all wrong, if he actually wasn’t as set and standardized a film-maker as I had imagined, because the last two films from him that I saw have been exceptions to all my expectations. Thankfully though this film, Cookie’s Fortune, is another example of what it is that Altman does so well, of the unique style that he has made so memorable over his extended oeuvre. Which isn’t to say that this is pat or tired film-making, Altman’s trademark tropes are all examples of his experimental streak and there is no shame in repeating an experiment, if anything such a practice is scientifically more sound than the alternative. It is also a fitting approach for this particular film because it is one that focuses so strongly with returning to your roots and embracing the familiar.

The film tells the story of a small town in the south that is shocked, mildly, by the murder of one of its oldest patrons and the investigation that follows. I best not delve into the details any further because it is a plot best experienced piece by piece as Altman originally paced it, but don’t let that give you the expectation that this is a film driven by reveals or plot twists because the truth is to the contrary, this is no mystery movie. It is however just as apt to compare this film to a puzzle as it is some Midsummer Murder-esque experience; on the surface the connection is the same but the nature of the comparison is completely different.

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July 8, 2011

Agora

“You do not question your beliefs, you cannot. I must.”

Watching this film so quickly after, what I had assumed would be the very different Fog of War was interesting and also rather fitting. Wheras that film surmised and exemplified everything about modern warfare, this does the same for classical combat; though at their heart they are very much the same and driven by the same forces. McNamara’s (The subject of Fog of War) second rule of military command was as follows: ‘Rationality will not save us’; and this concept – which he used to illustrate how two sane men could through the pressures of conflict do something completely crazy like end the world – is perfectly illustrated here in a much more literal manner.

This idea lays in many ways at the centre of the film’s orbit; depicting as it does the bloody illogicality of war between brothers as one side of a city rises up to cull the others, the way in which religion gives these people ‘the right’ to enact such slaughter in the face of reason and the fall of civilization’s bastion of knowledge and logic, the Library of Alexandria, underneath the trampling hooves of these marauding masses. It is then an entrance into a genre that had previously been long abandoned, the historical epic, but despite the spectacular sets and special effects it is very much an intimate story of three beings, each equally alike and unlike, who are caught in the midst of this mammoth-esque context.

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July 8, 2011

Fog of War

6 – Get the data

War…war never changes, nor it seems do the people pulling the strings. In what is probably his most critically lauded Documentary Mr. Errol Morris, the teller of the strange’s stories, tackles ex-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara head on about his role and his thoughts on the military events that he was involved in. While this concept may seem a little niche at first one quickly comes to realize that there is no better man to talk to about such things because the history of modern warfare exists in the mind of this one man; not only was he there but he probably gave the order.

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