To End All Wars

Film: 1917
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I grew up watching war movies. My opinion on them has changed a bit over the years. I’m far less interested in the movies that glorify war than I was when I was a kid. These days, I still like war movies depending on the way they depict the conflict. I was interested in seeing 1917 for this reason. There is also some truth to the notion that, in general, Americans don’t make great World War I movies (Kubrick’s Paths of Glory being a notable exception). It takes a people who lost more and were in it longer to really understand the despair of trench warfare.

The selling point of 1917 is not so much the story but the way in which it is filmed. There is a single moment of unconsciousness, but the film is otherwise presented as a single tracking shot, or two shots total—up to the point of unconsciousness and after that point. Movies have been done this way, of course—some like Russian Ark are truly a single shot. Plenty of others, Rope, Birdman are presented as if they happened in a single shot. It’s always impressive. With a film like this one, involving dogfights, a crashing airplane, massive fires, and hundreds of men going over the top from their trenches to attack the enemy.

His Word is Bond

Film: Skyfall
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

When you play around with a legend, you always run the risk of losing a big part of your audience. Look at what happened with the Star Wars prequels. Look at what happened with the fourth Indiana Jones film. With Skyfall, the umpteenth James Bond film, the final product takes the entire franchise in a new direction. Risky, that. And yet, if it’s done well, the results are fantastic, as is the case here.

Skyfall is the 23rd official James Bond film, not counting the television and spoof versions of Casino Royale and the unofficial Never Say Never Again. As a film this far in the franchise would be, there are plenty of expectations from the viewers. Skyfall plays with many of these, and does so perfectly. In doing so, the film modernizes the franchise in substantial ways, opting less for traditional James Bond gimcrackery and gadgetry and more for modern reality and geopolitics.

Emotional Fight Club

Film: American Beauty
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

American Beauty is the angriest film I have seen in a very long time. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but it’s a true thing. This is a film that is fairly seething with violent emotions that then spend the entire film bubbling up to the surface and breaking. It’s the very opposite of a Regency era drama where everyone is buttoned down and afraid of doing anything that might cause offense. And the anger here is from everyone on all sides—our main characters and many of the secondary characters as well. In the world of the film, everyone is a seething cauldron of repressed emotion that needs only the right catalyst to come rushing forward.

Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is a middle-aged advertising executive trapped in what has become a loveless marriage with Carolyn (Annette Bening) and maintains a distant relationship with his daughter Jane (Thora Birch). For her part, Carolyn is an aggressive and somewhat successful real estate agent. She is constantly concerned with appearance—we’re asked to note in the opening few minutes that her gardening shoes and shears match each other. Jane, like virtually every teen in existence, struggles with her self-esteem, which turns her inward. Her friend Angela (Mena Suvari) has the same problem expressed through massively misplaced self-confidence.