Reviews by neotheognis

Joe Wright is supposed to be a great director, although this is supposed to be a terrible movie and was a big set-back for his career; also, I haven’t seen any children’s movies in a long, long time: I saw some as a kid, of course, (although back then I would read Narnia as a handbook on how to rule a medieval kingdom), and when I was ill for those years there I would watch some children’s TV to escape, but most if not all actual movies made me afraid—Jesus, why is there conflict! I feel afraid!—and then when I got better, I started to become much more book-y, and since I’ve decided not to have kids, I thought I might never watch another kids’ movie, you know. 

But I was going through some John Powell film music albums, kids’ movie film music, actually, since I thought it would be delightful—I’ve given up mantra music, you know, since it’s…. monastic, basically, and now I would like to get married, even if I think that the time isn’t going to be right for kids—and then, wow: re-writing the lyrics of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”! That’s boss! And I was like: I’m going to have to watch this movie! 

And it’s good. addition to being boss, it has elements of vulnerability—your mother believes in you, even though she was never there for you; and religion/the nuns you only wish were not there when they are, and they Certainly Do Not believe in you—as well as elements that are, sure, primarily visually appealing: like, it’d make a good painting, like the RAF fighting flying pirate ships, which is kinda boss, you know…. 

And Peter Pan was kinda punk, you know. He’s Kurt Cobain. He’s the classically gendered male. He looks adorable and cute…. But he’s a pirate, you know. And a little crazy. Sometimes with movies from past decades, you lose that aspect of his character, because of how we put the past through this lens. Peter Pan isn’t Cinderella’s groom; he’s not Prince Charming. 

He’s boss. 

…. I think you can appreciate little things in a movie like this. Like on the soundtrack album, one of the tracks is, “Air Raid/Office Raid”, you know, like the association of those two things, the juxtaposition: your fight against the killjoy IS “the Battle of Britain”, you know. (Wink smilie) 

…. I could only watch twenty minutes at a go instead of thirty, but it is okay, you know. Enemies started out as friends; childhood isn’t a tea party—it’s scary; we dream a world a bit like this one, scary, only it’s better and more magical, but maybe it’s death—it’s all true, in a way…. “Real should be a very fluid concept for you right now”…. 

…. But I guess I have to take away a point for the White Tiger Lilly thing, which means I am admitting it’s the worst movie I’ve seen in awhile…. I mean, in an amusing if generic way they try, in the world building, to do the pirates (mean colonists) vs natives, but then  only let the chief of the natives be an Indigenous guy, and have their main fighter be Korean (all people of color are the same? Two Indigenous people representing an Indigenous plot line would be too much? “I just like people in general”, but I have no idea what the world is really like? Where are we going with this?), but then the one Native girl who has at least an important-for-a-girl role, Tiger Lilly, is Not Native, and Peter Pan’s mom is also a Native-just-kidding-white (although the amusing but generic world building was all a little hard to follow, and it came mostly in One Awesome Conversation, right), and so Peter Pan is actually half-Native (or is it half-Asian?), but, no just kidding, he’s 100% white, you know. 

So I mean, it is a racist movie. I guess we don’t know how to make these characteristically Anglo movies without being flaming racists, yet. The racism does have a different flavor from the 1950s animated Peter Pan movie’s racism—which bothered me even when I was an uncritical One Direction fan—but, you know, you know what that one tribe of white men says, La plus ça change…. Right? Racism has survived, children. (shrugs) I wanted to believe that it wasn’t as bad as I was worried it was, because it seemed like they were trying, a little, but…. You know, you try, until it gets hard, if you’re a saddie, right…. 

…. So, I’m going to keep the title the same from when I liked the movie, but you understand that now I hear “I know it’s day but it’s dark outside” as the characteristically elegant Anglo girl’s unconscious meditation on the survival of racism…. Or, as Paul McCartney once said, “Yesterday came suddenly”—a line that in my Beatle-mania phase, admittedly the same as my symptomatic period, when I had a thing about Hitler being everywhere—always made me think of the Nazis, you know. Why does love die? Well, you know, “yesterday came suddenly” (as Nazis do their thing in the video portion, lol)…. 

And, you know, I have memories of my symptomatic days, and 99.9% of those weird thoughts are a combination of unmerited fears/anti-social attitudes/racism-and-prejudice, you know, but every so often there’s a thought where it’s like, Yeah, pretty much. (laughs) “Something’s not right; because I know that it’s day but it’s dark outside….” (laughs) Gee whiz, I guess that Harry Styles didn’t really take down Adolph Hitler, after all…. “Yeah, kid, pretty much. (to someone else) What, what do you want me to tell him? Do you want me to make something up?” 

Yeah, that’s kinda what we do! 

…. Although Zayn Malik could have played Smee: that’s progress, children. “What, you’re Pakistani? Get the hell out of here—I thought you were white!” (laughing cat emoji) 

…. Also: I don’t think there’s a Tinker Bell in this movie, since Tiger Lilly is white, and there’s not a big desire in this movie for female characters, so she got the ax, which I think is sad, because Tinker Bell is arguably the first Disney princess-type who had a real sense of agency, right. Three steps forward, two steps back: life is not a straight line, now is it. If God is a mathematician, he’s not a naive one…. 

…. This website needs to stop coughing up smilies and deleting shit automatically when I put them in. For real. 

Okay, again: 

As hard as it is to sink lower than the White Tiger Lily fiasco, I just feel like this movie got worse and worse the longer it went on. I mean, I’m not one to want a Sheldon Cooper Talk about fairy-dust, but as far as origins/backstory/explanation goes, are we Seriously walking away from this without explaining why Captain Hook: (a) is Peter Pan’s enemy, and (b) has a big HOOK for a hand? You’re going to call it a complete work of art, and not do that? 

And just more generally, I’d forgotten how clumsy, Pompous!, and superficial little British boys in magic movies can be. It’s like, why is Pan such a hero? What does he evolve into, aside from the beneficiary of special effects? And I’m not saying that the movie had to do something else, like with more flirting, although I think it’s bad how it makes flirting something that only semi-unlikable people do, you know, it’s like—be fair, or leave it alone. And it’s like, bloody hell, you know, if you’re going to take a little British boy and train him to be a hero, at least do it right, you know. If you’re going to do it, do it right—don’t lie to me! 

I mean, I did like Singin’ in the Rain, and that was fun—same director, same genre, same five-year period. And for the record, I haven’t seen “Don’t Worry Darling”. And Frank Sinatra is cool, you know. It’s just, I don’t know. I’m not a big stickler for realism, but it’s just so goofy for sailors to be…. I don’t know. I mean, it was a different time—the Jazz Age, the 40s, sure. It’s just that for me, I feel like if you let sailors loose in New York for 24 hours to take the city by storm and get lucky, it wouldn’t be, I don’t know, cutesy, you know. There’s not needing excessive realism, and then there’s…. Yeah. But like I said, it was a different time. Fulton Sheen and CS Lewis and so on hated the Jazz Age, and they probably thought that Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly were frivolous and indecent—and that would be what they’d say in a good mood, you know—so, sure, you’ve got to make it a little cutesy, you know…. But I mean, if Clint Eastwood were a sailor and he got let out in New York for 24 hours after not seeing a girl for six months, would “cute” be the word that would come to mind to describe the ensuing interactions? 

But anyway. I mean, I was also confused how it was billed as Frank and Gene being the guys, but then really it was Frank, Gene, and the guy who wasn’t famous, (shrugs), but that’s a minor point, a minor confusion for me. 

The main thing is just, it was a different time, you know, so it’s funny like that. Of course, I probably don’t watch enough romantic comedies, and “fun” movies; I’ve seen lots of, not so much war movies, as political/social commentary ones, so it’s nice to get one that’s a little hokey I guess, even if it’s, yeah, a little strange I guess, in a way. 

…. Of course, some of the choices they made in the anthropology museum were a little sketchy, you know: now that New York is here, man is white, although back in primitive times, man was an Easter Islander or something…. But back in those times, it was either Jack or Gene, Fulton or Frank, you know: there was nobody else to influence them, to play to, so the bad bits were a shoo-in, really. You couldn’t have even had a debate about it, in the 40s. That’s just how life was. 

…. But I guess that it is kinda cute how we have to run all over New York looking for the Perfect Society Girl (TM), who’s the perfect combination of sexy and cute—everything—and feeling rather ambivalent, in the end, about the more modern women, the working-class/independent one and the scholar/schooled/and (unsuccessfully, of course) monitored one, right…. It’s cute: in a discouraging kind of way. And that’s the best way, right, according to All The Best People (TM). 

…. It is kinda curious though, how essentially conservative most intellectuals are, although most people generally are that way, too, except for the very young (sometimes), and those conscious of being at the end of some great wrong (usually)…. Anyway, there is a sort of formalist crust and cant that the “bookish” sorts give to it, although most people pretend to be an intellectual, at least sometimes—and it’s easy, if you’re somebody’s father or whatever. But, anyway. 

…. But I guess that’s just how it is, future ghosts—I guess it just means that I’ll just have to see Don’t Worry Darling and see which movie brings me more pain…. 

Assuming Olivia Wilde has directed at least three movies, you know. 

Mister Monk: I like to watch movies in groups of three, but each movie in several short sittings, so that the whole experience is more like reading a book. I guess I’m little OCD like that…. Wipe! 

Sherona: (weirded out) That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. And I am not getting you a wipe. I quit. 

Natalie: (eager) Here, Mister Monk; I’ll get you a wipe. 

Mister Monk: (distantly) Thank, thank you….

…. But yeah, it’s cutesy to the point of being insincere, you know: in the military, you briefly lead the fast life, you know; you’re not the perfect date for the Perfect Society Girl, especially since you’re getting paid a street cleaner’s salary and get one day off every six months, you know…. The way people talk about the military is always so strange; it’s like, you respect them to the exact proportion that you lie about them, right…. Anyway, it’s very cutesy, right, but like I said, a lot of it was set in stone before the screen-writer even accepted the job to write the script, you know. It’s like, convention, you know. Things have to be a certain way. Things are supposed to look a certain way. 

…. Although the song “You’re Awful” was good. I guess that the manliest men and the most feminine women needed music to give expression to the ambivalence/attraction they held for one another, lol. 

…. But I mean, I know this movie is from 1949 and propaganda is romantic, but let’s try to get a fucking grip, right: nobody misses military food. 

They just don’t. 

…. But when I told my mom I was watching a movie with Frank Sinatra, she insisted that my (departed) grandfather was “with” me, you know. I guess we’re all superstitious in different ways; she’s very attached to the family ghosts, you know. 

I guess you never know. 

…. I gave up gaming, you know, but you know what would make an awesome RPG: Off-Duty Sailors vs the NYPD…. I’m telling you, man; I’m telling you…. 

…. Anyway, I guess I’ll have to watch one more Stanley Donen movie; I wonder if it will be amusing like Singing in the Rain, or weird like this, you know. 

Although I have to say, this is better than those games I used to play: ‘The Conquest of the Earth: A “Culturally Inclusive” Experience’ (Conquest of the Earth series) 

—What’s “culturally inclusive” about the conquest of the earth, Loki? Doesn’t it involve, bombing, defeating, and shaming the other cultures? 

—Be quiet Hermes; shut up! (points at the price tag) 

…. I’m not sure how I feel about Miss Turnstiles being dependent on her girlfriend’s money, you know. They built her up in this goofy way in her intro song, and obviously everyone is a little bit more vulnerable than that, but I dunno; are we like afraid of success? Are people (girls?) less worthwhile and less worth spending time with (more threatening?) when they can pay their own way? (think-think emoji) 

…. And Obviously no comedy about men is complete without an unattractive girl who gets humiliated, lol…. 

…. So yeah, that happened. Hokey heroes, meet hometown heroes…. 

And of course: Off-duty sailors vs cops—the next chapter…. 

As entertaining as the ‘hot sins’ are, sometimes it’s good cinema to follow the book fool, mostly free of these popular sins, but just living a quietly unenlightened life. Society and the other book fools look up to him, but he hasn’t found the way to happiness. 

Incidentally I’ve also seen L’Avventura by the same director, although I’m not sure if I have a preference between the two. They’re both solid films…. This isn’t better or worse than a Greta Gerwig film; it’s kinda the 1961 version of “Nights and Weekends”…. Although obviously I understand what they’re saying because it’s subtitled—like Shakespeare, I could understand Greek if only it were subtitled—I have to say that it’s a nice touch that the movie isn’t solely driven along by dialogue. It’s a movie with physical intelligence, you know. 

…. It certainly has a quiet charm. It’s definitely not a plot movie, it’s rather character-driven or perhaps thematic, in a sorta roundabout kind of way; you can’t really say, easily, the theme is X, but they have interesting conversations, teachable moments…. It’s not about sweeping away pleasure or getting swept up into pleasure, but it is rather pleasant. In a dependable way. 

…. I guess you could say it’s closer to the stereotype of “European”—lazy afternoons in old cities eventually bleeding into evening parties—than the stereotype of “Italian”, you know—passion. 

…. Oh, I hate technology sometimes; but I am devoted. Again: 

This relates more to my division of things on LT than here, and I understand that you could disagree with this, but I have to say that, unlike ballet & opera, art films like this are more part of popular media than scholariness/humanities studies (and you know that there are three cultures and not two, since you can’t study Marvel movies in your Shakespeare class), you know. It’s just that art films are the popular mind being “good”, you know. Obviously there are many different sorts of things that are popular, or were popular, or are written in one or another sort of popular style, some of them more classically good than others, although I do draw the dividing line somewhere, you know.… 

Anyway, being classically good is one of the things that you can be, although here we are clearly dealing with “goodness” mixed with a dash of cinn—of cynicism, you know. I actually got the two lead actresses confused—ha ha ha, I am your brave leader!—but I did kinda get that it’s a sad movie, in a rather quiet way, you know. 

Edit: And, incidentally, it’s an art film (I term I refuse to define and do not use precisely) because it’s by Mr Subtle Director, not because it’s not made in English in California. I don’t know how many blockbusters are made in Italian—probably none—but obviously it’s possible for a popular/non-intellectual film to come from outside the USA…. I’m not saying that the public has no bad habits: never watch movies in other languages; excessive loyalty to franchises; watch movies to gain valuable factoids about car brands and/or fictional science; and just plain ole, killing time. But this is still a movie, and not “a book”, right, and so I think it is popular in a way that even a middlebrow literary novel (say, an unknown girl trying to get compared to a Dead Russian), is not. (Incidentally, it’s easier for girls to be More intellectual or whatever, so long as it doesn’t involve, well, conducting people from one scene to the next.) Though obviously anything can be intellectualized. People watch baseball to brush up on their statistical analysis and fictional calculus, am I right? Actually science is a great example of that, intellectualizing the simple: you can write the most scientific things about the simplest organisms (or, if this is better, the simplest processes), since that’s all we pretend to be able to understand, right. And, of course, intellectualizing is also what I do, in my own eminently charmable way. 

Both L’Avventura and La Notte deal obliquely with the secondary place of the women in society, and subtle things like that—L’Avventura also deals with the feeling that midcentury moderns aren’t really living up to their Renaissance ancestors, for example—and are rather similar; I guess the differentiation in themes between the ‘Adventure’ which I’ve seen to the end, and what I’ve seen already of the ‘Night’, is that the Adventure is kinda about, I don’t know, I mean, they’re not druggies, and Sgt. Pepper hadn’t come out yet, but that kinda wealthy socialite with opportunities to have fun but no responsibilities (and also very flimsy relationships), and in the ‘Night’ more the kinda literary hypocrisy of this guy who’s supposed to be really smart, who doesn’t really know anything more about life, than anybody else. 

Additional comment: It’s not an inspiring movie, you know, because there’s no element of overcoming things, but the other side of the coin is that there’s really no element of destruction, except perhaps in the most oblique way. It’s interesting, teachable. 

As a film critic, my watchword is dignity; always dignity. Always the historical angle, the enumeration of the Classics. Psychology is the feel-good science; nobody puts any stock in it, except for the people who really wanted to be podiatrists. And the role of emotion in illness! The mind-body connection! Why, but that wouldn’t be dignified, somehow! Don’t ask me why, I’d have to figure it out! 

But enough about you, right. I’d had this movie on my list of things to watch for awhile and in ‘happened’ to be here for me today as I begin getting into this little novella, but it’s also a lucky thing. It’s easy for me to make fun of you, but I’m no better. It’s easy to draw back from things, not because they’re undignified, but because they’re uncertain, not plannable, and—I guess I don’t like it. Sometimes it’s possible to ask for a little less pleasure from life, to get what you ask for, and to feel contented almost to the point of feeling pleased, but then you feel so good you examine your repressed ideas, and unconscious rebels and you get sick—A story they began like mine could never end in love, life’s not worth it! And then pretty soon—  (sniffly emoji)

Of course, a movie isn’t everything. Comedies love to do those books-about-books, play-in-a-play things, (it’s /more common/ in comedies, at least—much more common; most dramatic heroes are a little less indecisive than Hamlet, although I like the neurotic Danish prince, you know), where everybody sits around reading Dickens and by the end they finally realize, (shocked emoji), Dickens is nothing like real life! It’s all a trope! A fiction! A schema! (And then they run off and make babies.) 

But it serves a purpose. If it makes you think that delight as a role in life, and not just dignity—or safety, you know, non-foolish-looking-ness; you know, and I’m a Six, on the Enneagram. Can’t be too careful! (nervous/anxious emoji) 

You probably think this review is foolish, although you can’t /really/ make yourself foolish /on the internet/, not even if you finish the review: blah blah blah, LOVE, you know. 

Love! 

“I love you, for who you are.” (tropical emojis) 

…. And so, you know, no Hawaiian shamans, no Japanese samurai guy saying, I am a girl, and you are a girl: now let’s have. A very good conversation! (I think it’s a good idea, but how they phrase is is a little off for me), but, you know. 

If your life isn’t military dignity, maybe you’re allowed to make a few mistakes. 

…. And, you know, it’s pretty. (girl dancing emoji) 

…. He’s a boy with a pretty soul. (boy haircut emoji) 

…. And, you know, I won’t tell you if one of the characters is a one-dimensional foil, and whether it’s Femmie or not, you know. (Hint: it’s Femmie.)

 Although, you know, there can really only be one girl, one real girl, in the picture, because there are just more men in the world; it’s science—and Femmie just doesn’t have a friend, you know, a girl-friend, the way that Herr Mann has a friend, and a girl-friend, you know. Femmie doesn’t know about having a friend—but she DOES know about having One Friend, a boy-friend! 

BUT DON’T WORRY, FEMMIE. WE LOVE YOU!!!! (love eyes emoji) 

And I have the skills of an artist, and the soul of a dancer. (artist emoji boy dancing emoji)

(So., There’s that.)