Adventures in Film: Part II (August 2022)
Welcome back to the monthly segment here on the blog where I take you through some of the filmgoing experiences I had! I really enjoy writing these monthly pieces, and I'm pleased that so far the response to them has been positive.
The most significant film moment for me in the month of August 2022 was the release of Jordan Peele's Nope. It was amongst my most anticipated films of the year ever since it was first announced, and the experience of going to see it not just once, but twice, at beautiful theatres with great friends, was a joy. I saw it on opening morning at the Ritz in Randwick with my brother, and then again the Monday after at the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace with mates. Both experiences were affirmative for me in the power of seeing films at the theatre with a payed audience - no pause button, no phones, just a room full of people dreaming together in time with the huge picture and immersive sound. In terms of the film itself, you can read my review of Nope here if you'd like to hear my full thoughts.
I rewatched Roman Polanski's Chinatown a number of times this month, first in preparation for the film club that I run, again at film club with my friends, and then again through listening to the commentary by writer Robert Towne and David Fincher. It's a film that I always loved despite only having seen it once when I was a teenager, but diving into it in great depth this month has been endlessly rewarding. I wrote a reflection on the film here on the blog, which you can read here if you're interested. Something I have always felt very strongly about is the idea that it is important to see films that challenge you, that aren't necessarily comforting and have all the edges sanded off. Chinatown is a film that is almost challenging the viewer to reject it by the final reel, and in a metatextual sense it is a film that carries a lot of cultural and social baggage around with it, given both the subject matter and the director responsible for it. In a purely surface, narrative sense it is as perfect a crime mystery as you could ever hope to construct; it's completely watertight, utterly compelling and confounding in equal measure, and remains shocking and disturbing in its nihilism and brutality even today. I highly recommend listening to the commentary track from Robert Towne and David Fincher, because even after rewatching and researching the film incessantly, there were details and thematic threads that I had missed that are discussed in great detail and with great eloquence by two absolute masters of their respective crafts.
Bullet Train is a film that I could tell was going to be divisive as soon as I saw it on release day. At first glance it's a perfectly harmless and entertaining action/comedy film with a clear, well-executed premise: Brad Pitt stuck on a bullet train with a bunch of gangsters and criminals all after the same thing. Where it starts to become problematic is in its depiction of Japanese culture, and the fact that I have seen numerous pieces and articles praising the film for its nuanced and knowing depiction of varying subcultures. I will be the first to put my hand up and say I know almost nothing about Japanese culture, but even I know that to call Bullet Train a measured and sensitive portrayal of Japanese culture is some uninformed bullshit. It just makes my head hurt that instead of being able to go and see a perfectly entertaining, if patchy, Brad Pitt blockbuster and then move on with our lives, we have to stop and make it a cultural conversation - as if Bullet Train has any substance to it whatsoever worth contributing to a wider conversation about cultural appropriation and representation on film. I don't know, maybe I'm just jaded and exhausted, but I just think that to talk about Bullet Train as anything other than dumb popcorn entertainment is totally missing the point and reaching for resonances that just aren't there.
I was excited to see Prey on Disney Plus, having heard that it was the best Predator film since the 1987 original - a film that I love. What I perhaps needed to remind myself of was the fact that none of the Predator films since that original have been particularly good (although I do have a soft spot for Predators), and so while that statement is probably true, that doesn't mean that Prey is groundbreaking in any meaningful way. It reminds me of the reception Terminator: Dark Fate received upon release, calling it the best film since Terminator 2: Judgement Day. That statement is true, strictly speaking, but that doesn't actually mean anything other than it is better than a handful of largely incompetent messes. I was impressed by how brutal the film was, and some of the set-pieces were deftly handled with satisfying setup and payoff across the film, but I do think that Prey is a victim of the huge hype it received. It's not a bad film by any means - in fact, it's a very good film. I was just slightly underwhelmed having been told that it was in the same league as the original Predator film. It isn't.
I'd love to hear from you guys! Let me know down below what you saw in August, and what you thought of the major August new release films.
Full List:
Saw: The Final Chapter (2010)
Chinatown (1974)*
Chinatown (1974)*
The Gospel According to St Matthew (1964)
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