Film Shapes

A fairly packed house at Morley Event cinemas for this Saturday evening screening of Joker . Lots to chew over in this film and it's been fairly beaten around and praised in equal measure, from what I've read. Two people I know were pretty down on it and another really enjoyed it. Me? Kind of in the middle, actually. The best aspect of the film was the atmosphere, the look, the similarity, in this regard, to films from the American New Wave of the 1970s. There are lots of influences here - Taxi Driver , The French Connection , Blow Out (incidentally seen on a Gotham City cinema marquee, along with Zorro the Gay Blade ) and The   King of Comedy are just the ones I can think of. The performances are mint, especially Joaquin Phoenix, who is really staking a claim to being the best American actor going around at the moment. His turn in Joker put me in mind of a film he made recently for Lynne Ramsey called You Were Never Really Here . Both films required physical transfo...

I caught this oddity in Taipei at the Q-Square cinema near the Taipei Main Station. And the queue was actually a square, 25 minute waiting block. Just made it into the screening on time. Seeing a film in Taiwan was pretty similar to other countries, the main difference being the steep, stadium-style seating. And there were pricks with their phones on, just like any other place. Fucking philistines. So, onto  Ad Astra . This is one of those big(ish) budget 'indy' films so admired and supported by Brad Pitt and his production company, Plan B. Pitt stars in this one and James Gray directs, with Hoyte Van Hoytema as DP - and supremely well-shot it is. There are lots of things to enter in the positive side of the ledger.....and almost as many in the negative side. One of the highlights is the already mentioned cinematography. Vast space vistas juxtaposed with claustrophobic interior shots and weirdly tinted off-world living areas give  Ad Astra  a fairly unique look and...