Film Shapes

As opposed to F1: The TV Show, or F1: The Book, or F1: The Function Key. Yes, this is a film about Formula 1 racing and it really wants us to love it, the racing even more than the movie itself. Brad Pitt is Sonny Hayes, a grizzled driver who jumps around from race to race, a drifter, a mercenary. After one of these races, Daytona, his old mucker, Ruben (Javier Bardem) shows up and offers him the chance of a lifetime. Come back to Formula 1. Hitting all the right beats so far. And continues to do so. If you've seen any sports film, you know this film. Just for the record, yes, there's a cocky young pup co-driver, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) and a gorgeous (thankfully middle-aged) love interest, Kate (Kerry Condon). It's no surprise that the writer/director combo here, Ehren Kruger and Joseph Kosinski, was also responsible for the underwhelming  Top Gun: Maverick . This is a better, more grounded (pun intended) version of that film. It may be derivative but  F1 is pretty s...

Whatever else this film will be remembered for, it can't be denied that this is uber-confident, scintillating filmmaking from Damien Chazelle. It starts with an elephant shitting all over some dude and charges along at a pace that only allows a breath around 45 minutes in. This is a film that does not give one single fuck, and it's not like this Chazelle fella is Nolan or Spielberg or Cameron, or someone who can call the shots. I may be wrong (wouldn't be a first) but it seems like he had nobody to rein him in. Usually, that's a red flag (à la Tarantino) but here it works wonders.  Babylon is set in the early days of Hollywood - 1926 to 1932 for the most part - and it focuses on a wannabe actress, Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie); a matinee idol, Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt); and a young Mexican fix-it man, Manny Torres (Diego Calva). These three, and others such as gossip writer, Elinor St. John (Jean Smart), singer, Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li) and musician, Sidney Palmer (Jovan ...

World War Zed ? World War Zee ? I'm naturally inclined to go with the former but there's a fair reason to go with the latter, namely the book this film is based upon was written by an American, Max Brooks. Also Zee rhymes nicely with Three, suggesting this is the second sequel to 'The Great War' (aka WW1). Anyway, I digress. Onto the film itself. In preparation for this screening, I read the aforementioned book and quite enjoyed it. I was also ready for the vast differences between the book and the film. These didn't really matter too much in the wash up. The changes from the book to the screen were mainly due to necessity, with one major exception - that being the decision to finger China as the source of the zombie plague being carefully switched to the less lucrative box-office zone of India. Cynical? Maybe, but no real damage to the film. Other changes have created slightly more controversy. The major issue has been with the 'fast' zombies. This ag...