What Women Want, by Josh Goldsmith and others

What Women Want, by Josh Goldsmith and others

                Mel Gibson…

Mel Gibson is an actor and director that has been through serious challenges and difficult periods.

He has had a tremendous success with Mad Max and some good consecutive performances that promised so much.

In addition, Mel Gibson has proved to be not just an accomplished, talented actor, but also a very good director.

Let us just mention:

Braveheart, Apocalypto and Hacksaw Ridge.

However, Mel Gibson has had a real life encounter with the law.

And what a disaster that was.

In consequence, it is hard to look at older films and ignore the knowledge that the actor said so much on that fateful meeting on the highway.

Granted, so many in Hollywood have such stupid ideas and attitudes off (and on) the filming set.

What Women Want could be seen as a harmless comedy.

If entertaining, one could even forgive the senselessness and lack of meaning.

However, it is not a certainty that you will like this.

It is often silly.

Moreover, it is not just the premise.

Nick Marshall aka Mel Gibson appears to be the figure of Weinstein, Louis CK and other celebrities that have been under scrutiny lately.

At least to begin with.

An accident in the bathroom gives him a terrible shock as he stumbles into the bathtub and is electrocuted.

Oh, and before that, there are so many long minutes wherein this advertising executive dresses as a woman.

And it is supposed to be funny, only it is not.

After the electric shock, Nick Marshal starts understanding:

What Women Want…www, but not from the internet

It is not that he suddenly becomes more sensitive and open to listen to qualms, desires and wishes women have.

He just hears their thoughts.

Hence, he knows what women want.

Nevertheless, even this premise is preposterous.

Consider this:

People, men and women do not know what they want

For real!

Just read an outstanding classic of Psychology, written by Harvard Professor Daniel Gilbert and entitled:

Stumbling Upon Happiness

It details the fact that we think that moving to California or Caribbean Islands, getting tenure, having this or that president, witnessing the favorite team win the championship will make us so exuberantly happy…

Only it does not, because we do not know what will make us so happy and ultimately what we want.

Apart from starting with a false premise, made ridiculous by the manner of getting the extraordinary powers, this comedy is a misfire, made worse by the falseness and artificiality of Helen Hunt, one of the worst actors around- in this viewer’s opinion.

Con Air with John Malkovich

Con Air with John Malkovich

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" - Hamlet

Therefore, there are two ways to look at this motion picture.

First, one can dismiss this show of pyrotechnics as just a silly fireworks...

Which is what this viewer did.

But second, as Shakespeare said, thinking can change all things...

"The mind is its own place, it can make hell out of Heaven or heaven out of hell". Paradise Lost

So let us just mention a few aspects that you may, with considerable effort, enjoy.

Most important, we have John Malkovich in this mega production and in a supporting role Ving Rhames.

There wonderful skills are not used properly, but they are a joy to watch.

John Malkovich plays a credible, if necessarily loathsome villain.

Then there is the super hero Played by Nicholas Cage.

One can be biased by details that come from off the production set.

And it seems Cage is as obnoxious as a celebrity can get.

Nevertheless, the problem for this film is his acting.

It is over the top, even in those "evil, self conscious" looks he keeps throwing around.

This action hero had been a very good fighter and a defender of the nation, until he has gotten into trouble.

Even this problem with the law was not exactly his own doing.

Feral individuals have attacked this championship and he killed one.

Or was it a few of them?

The sentence has been harsh and apparently unjust.

This superhero is anyway on the road to redemption.

When given the chance to get off this Plane of Vilains, the protagonist refuses.

He wants to save the world.

If not the whole planet, at least a friend, the prison guard and his image in front of his daughter.

He takes on the forces of evil, jumps through fire, fights some "real bad hombres" and does the usual super action figure stunts.

And then some more.

This is where much of the problem with this typical Hollywood fare lies.

They are overdoing it with gusto.

The acting of most of those involved is also super hyped.

As a personal view, anyway.

John Cusack and others confronting the cons have an artificial feeling in their acts.

The lines used to draw the prisoners are also heavy and too cartoonish.

Oh, but let us mention one feeble, less failed moment:

The killers place a transponder in a recreational, small airplane.

It is meant to confuse the possy sent to get them.

And the authorities, after argument and much stupid, useless hubbub in the economy of the film, decide to attack Conair.

Only they chase with a mighty force, Apache helicopters and heavy guns, the wrong target.

As they come on top of a cliff, they are aghast to see that they have been tracking a small plane...

If they have forty fugitives in that, then I am Elvis Presley!

To end this note, let us just consider two other positive, if not triumphant aspects:

Sweet home Alabama is part of the soundtrack.

More important, Steve Buscemi has a role in this and he plays with restraint and mastery.

However, he has a very short time on the screen.

If not a total waste of time, Conair could still be replaced with other, more meaningful entertainment.

Una Mujer Fantastica aka A Fantastic Woman, written by Sebastian Lelio and Gonzalo Maza

Una Mujer Fantastica aka A Fantastic Woman, written by Sebastian Lelio and Gonzalo Maza

                This film is…Fantastic.

A Fantastic Woman deals with modern, present day issues and it exposes prejudices and backward attitudes in society.

Chile has had a recent nomination for the Oscars and the film No was another memorable work of art.

No has a political subject and it covered the elections that followed the end of the Augusto Pinochet regime.

A Fantastic Woman has also been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, where it faces tough competition.

The Square and Nelyubov are both remarkable and this viewer has not yet seen The Insult and On Body and Soul.

Marina Vega aka the memorable Daniela Vega is at the center of this drama about a transgender person.

Actually, I would not be sure what the exact description of the protagonist is, since the hero is very sensitive about her privacy.

Only we have the title and that edifies the audience- we are about to see a Fantastic Woman and her suffering.

Early on, in the first ten minutes we get to the cause of all the turmoil, because we witness the fall of Orlando.

This man is the much older lover, who has a breakdown that necessitates transportation to the hospital.

He dies and that is the starting point of accusations, an investigation, insults and attacks from the family.

Even as she mourns the death of her lover, the police arrive at the hospital and start with their questioning.

What is the name of the person? This is already awkward, for the official papers have not been changed yet.

We understand- or better said: just guess- that the hero has been through a sex change and her new identity documents are still pending.

Marina meets the brother of the deceased first, a man who is more affable, if confused by the situation.

However, the contact with the other members of the defunct’s circle are hostile to outright heinous.

The ex-wife calls to ask for the car and speaks about the apartment where Marina is lodging and which needs to be emptied.

Soon after talking to the wife, the grieving young woman has to face the departed man’s son, who is ferocious and abusive.

To top this off, the police consider the death of Orlando suspicious, given the bruises and injuries on his body.

Furthermore, the policewoman in charge with the inquiry is questioning the age difference and affair.

She wants to know if Marina received money from the departed, much older man who could be her father.

When Marina fails to appear at the station for further inquiries, she is summoned and threatened.

The options are: either submitting to a medical checkup that would establish if she was herself injured – which would probably constitute evidence that a fight had taken place- or face serious, legal consequences.

All this must be a terrible ordeal for a person who had just been through sex changing operation that certainly affects the balance, perspective of the individual, and then had to experience the collapse and death of her lover, only to be later accused, harassed and humiliated by police and family.

Marina is even denied the request to attend the final rites and say good-bye to the man she has loved.

She wants only to keep the dog that Orlando had given her and refuses the money offered as some kind of compensation.

Marina Vega is not an angel and she has a rather hard to explain encounter with a man, in a rather disconsolate annex of a night club, where the oral sex she engages in might be perceived as a release of tension, an expression of the horror she has been through, but it looked outré to this viewer.

Overall, A Fantastic Woman is…”Fantastica”

Asphalte aka Macadam Stories, written and directed by Samuel Benchetrit

Asphalte aka Macadam Stories, written and directed by Samuel Benchetrit

                Isabelle Huppert stars in this film.

                In conclusion, this is enough to make this work worth seeing.

Moreover, she is watching with a neighbor scenes from her earlier work…for she is an actress in Asphalte.

Isabelle Huppert is one of the handful of Goddesses of cinema.

Her work includes chef d’oeuvres like:

The Piano Teacher, Amour, La Ceremonie, Story of Women, Loulou, Violette, Coup de Torchon…

It is an injustice, in this film fan’s view, to have an Oscar for the young Emma Stone and none for the Artist who sits at the very top of the pyramid.

Macadam Stories offers a tragicomic view of life in a city, the glimmering, glitzy, glamorous Paris.

In the first scenes, a committee meets with inhabitants of an apartment building’s staircase to discuss…the elevator.

Funds are necessary to keep it operating, repair and maintain it and everyone is asked to contribute.

Well, they ask for a vote first.

Sterkowitz does not want to pay his dues.

The others have to make a decision on that and they allow this “rebellion”, but he will not be allowed to use the lift.

In an absurd, cold atmosphere, the mutineer stays by his door and notes down the times the elevator is used.

He later engages in a sort of outré relationship with a woman, pretending he is a photographer.

At one stage, he admits his false pretenses and explains he does not even have film in the camera…

Another story on the macadam involves Isabelle Huppert aka Jeanne Meyer and a much younger neighbor.

After she forgets her keys, this young man helps her and then they watch some of her old movies together.

One is called The Woman With No Arms.

However, the narrative that appears the most charming and comical involves an American…astronaut.

Michael Pitt is excellent in the role of John McKenzie who has a problem navigating in the orbit of the earth.

He lands on top of the apartment building that is the scene of the film and two men sitting on the roof find the scene…stupefying.

All the rest of the scenes involving this man out of space are hilarious, for he asks where they are, then he meets a confused French woman of Algerian extraction and they have to use sign language.

John McKenzie has to call NASA and together they try to understand his location so that they come and get him.

However, this will take about two days, to the dissatisfaction of the astronaut who wants the Agency to get him now.

Well, you see, we can’t exactly let the public know that this flight was a failure so we will send someone else into space and when he gets back, you will have a hero’s welcome and all will be fine…this is the gist of it.

Who is going to get this welcome? Me or the other person…and the answer is the other man, but people would not know and therefore the funds will not be in danger…you see, this decision comes from the top.

In the meantime, while waiting for his extraction, the cosmonaut watches soap opera with his host.

They do not speak each other’s language, but the result is outstanding and extremely amusing.

The guest explains with amusing gestures how various characters from the show they look at die, kill, marry in most unexpected fashion, bedazzling the French woman who says she will stop watching the series…

Oh, I forgot- the soap opera had been on American screen earlier and this is how the man from space knows the plot and ending.

Full Metal Jacket, based on the book by Gustav Hasford, directed by Stanley Kubrick

Full Metal Jacket, based on the book by Gustav Hasford, directed by Stanley Kubrick

                Full Metal Jacket is a Stanley Kubrick film!

This is enough to say that, if we do not have a masterpiece on the screen, this is at least a remarkable work of art.

1987 was the year of Wall Street, Ironweed, Broadcast News, The Untouchables, Moonstruck, Fatal Attraction, Empire of the Sun, Throw Momma From the Train, The Last Emperor and a tragicomedy about the same war as Full Metal Jacket: Good Morning Vietnam.

We must add to the American movies those masterpieces nominated for a Best Foreign Film Award:

Babette’s Feast, Au Revoir Les Enfants, Dark Eyes, Pathfinder and we can see what a good year this has been for the cinema.

Nevertheless, this viewer feels that Full Metal Jacket should have been nominated for more than one Oscar.

Moreover, other film fans agree, for this production is listed on IMDB at number 92 on the list of top Rated Movies.

This motion picture invites meditation on the Vietnam and wars in general starts with the training of the marines that would participate in the conflict, the humiliation, and brain washing that it involves.

It is very often so absurd as to remind one of Dr. Strangelove, only here we have another clinical case called Sgt. Hartman as an aggressive, yet comical trainer that addresses his platoon with “ladies, worms and other insulting names.

This Sergeant will have to pay a heavy price for his brutal and probably very common methods of intimidation.

In training, there is one interesting aspect that eludes most people, the fact that two infamous killers have taken the Marines training and one of them used the special skills acquired to shoot and kill the American president from a long distance and while the motorcade was on the move.

We find in this intelligent, meaningful motion picture quite a few questions and themes.

In one scene, reporters arrive on the front and they ask the soldiers questions about the involvement in this war.

Answers range from quotes on what American leaders have promised that they will not send their boys to fight in a conflict that is for Asian boys to fight, to proud declarations that the US is the best.

There are lunatics and murderous men that appear to enjoy killing human beings and one special case shoots from the helicopter.

As they fly over fields with civilians, this killer is using his heavy machine gun top fire indiscriminately over innocent men, women and maybe children.

He is proud of his record of having murdered about one hundred and fifty people and…some buffaloes.

When asked about women and children he admits that he had killed some of those too and he adds when questioned again about how he could have done that – “easy, you just fill them with lead” or words to that effect.

Joker is the protagonist of both parts of Full Metal Jacket, the training that results in a homicide and suicide and the covering of the war in his capacity as a reporter for Stars and Stripes.

The war is messy, sometimes appears to be pointless and wrong, although not on the scale that we see in other films, like Platoon.

Joker has a complex personality, a fact that is highlighted by his response when a superior officer asks him about his wearing both a peace sign and “Born to Kill” on his helmet-, “I was trying to suggest something about the duality…The Jungian thing…”

“Every good quality has its bad side, and nothing that is good can come into the world without directly producing a corresponding evil. This is a painful fact…”

The complexity of the hero is evident in other scenes from the film, from the beating of his companion to the compassion manifested first for the dying Cowboy and then to the attitude towards the sniper.

There are moments when one wonders what the best decision is: should they all try to help one injured soldier?

However, what if that plays into the hands of a sniper, who tries to drag them in, one by one, only to injure and then kill them?

“The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.” Jeremy Bentham

Johnny Guitar, based on the novel by Roy Chanslor

Johnny Guitar, based on the novel by Roy Chanslor

                Johnny Guitar is actually Johnny Logan

Nevertheless, this is not a film about false pretenses and the entertainment is authentic and appreciable.

Two great actors are at the center of the plot:

Joan Crawford is playing Vienna and Sterling Hayden is Johnny Guitar aka Logan, the hero of the movie.

This viewer had doubts about the latter.

After much thinking, one of the previous roles of this versatile, excellent actor who can play the tough man, comedy roles and anything else appeared on the inside, small screen of the mind:

He was the lunatic Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper who is on the point of launching a nuclear war.

When he gets insane and orders an atomic attack on the Soviet Union, the world may end in the formidable:

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

However, it was clear that the Sterling Hayden is familiar from other motion pictures, seen recently…

The Godfather- that was it! He was the corrupt Captain McCluskey, the one who kicks Michael Corleone and only lives for a few days after that.

Johnny Guitar arrives at this saloon, where the owner, a fierce woman called Vienna, called him.

We are right in the middle of the action, only a few minutes after the film has started, for a bunch of men enter the saloon, with a thirst for blood and revenge written on their dust covered faces.

They are led by yet another…woman.

This is Emma Small and it is evident that she is a rival of the owner of the bar since she accuses Vienna of trying to bring in unwanted people and being an accomplice for a band of killers.

One could muse and ponder the infamous “Big, beautiful, high, southern wall” that will be paid by Mexico (in the nest three thousand years maybe).

The “Dancin’Kid” arrives with his three companions, they are accused by Emma and the men she brought around of having killed a man to rob the stagecoach, and this explains the money they have.

The confrontation is tense, but remains somewhat calm and there are no victims at this stage in the narrative.

For 1954, it must have been a very progressive script, considering that not only one, but two very strong women dominate the motion picture.

Dancin’Kid hates the fact that he was wrongfully accused and he and his colleagues have to leave town in twenty-four hours.

Therefore, he convinces his team to rob the bank in the town and give some justification to the humiliation they had suffered.

While they attack the bank, Vienna was withdrawing her savings and tries to convince the leader of the gang to desist.

This is a vain effort, the criminals take the money and they try to run, only the road is blocked and they have to use their hiding place.

One of them is hurt and arrives at Vienna’s place, where she hides him and then confronts the posy.

In the meantime, we have found the real identity of Johnny Guitar- he is not a harmless musician.

Johnny Logan is his real name and the reputation he has appears to be equal to other shooters: Jesse James, Sundance Kid and others.

Both Logan and the Kid love Vienna, but it is not clear if she has feelings for any or both of them.

Obviously, near and at the end, much of the puzzle is solved, but we are not going to give the game away…

Are we?

Johnny Guitar is on the New York Times ‘list of Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made:

                https://www.listchallenges.com/new-york-times-best-1000-movies-ever-made/checklist/11

Tora! Tora! Tora! Written by Gordon Prange, Ladislas Farago, Akira Kurosawa and three other screen writers

Tora! Tora! Tora! Written by Gordon Prange, Ladislas Farago, Akira Kurosawa and three other screen writers

                Akira Kurosawa has worked on the script of Tora! Tora! Tora!

                Furthermore, Tora! Tora! Tora! Has won an Academy Award

                Having said that, one must add that:

One: Akira Kurosawa must have had a small contribution, for he was initially not listed on the writers list.

Second: the Academy Award was for technical achievement: Special Effects.

Moreover, it is a remarkable achievement, the film has been nominated for a further four Oscars, also in the technical domain.

This motion picture is about the attack on Pearl Harbor.

In addition, it is not only a gripping story, but it is also rendered from two opposite perspectives of the Surprise attack:

Japanese view point

American angle

The movie is even more enticing if we consider that the Americans produced their side of the war.

In addition, the Japanese were in charge of the Japanese presence, with own writers, directors.

Two different teams working on the same film could result in confusion.

Perhaps the film may seem fragmented for some viewers.

However, it is a tremendous spectacle, in large part due to the Oscar winning special effects that were stunning for that period.

This viewer was wondering about artistic license.

Early on, the Japanese have a discussion on board one of their ships.

The dialogue is something like this:

We have an unusual situation

Somebody strange leads the fleet

It was never under the command of a minister

This man was under heavy attack

Therefore, he is now on this ship, and all the navy has to defend it

It sounded very awkward.

However, it could be the result of consulting records of communication

On the other side, the American commanders had a very strange behavior.

One was walking his dogs when danger was at a peak- not that there is anything wrong with taking care of pets.

Other key leaders in the chain of command refused to believe the information intercepted from Japanese messages.

They had such a take on the situation that conspiracy theories supported the claim that important factors wanted the attack.

One –or perhaps a few- book even claims that the American president himself wanted the Japanese to provoke the US.

As a supporter of Britain and its allies, Franklin D. Roosevelt needed the ultimate act to join the war effort openly.

More likely, the commanders did not believe the Japanese would ever dare and do such a thing.

The raid on Pearl Harbor was not as deadly or as damaging as it was meant to be and the enemy fleet had a choice.

Hard liners wanted the attack to continue and produce more casualties.

The Japanese admiral ponders the options and decides that his country needs the fleet for future operations.

This aspect and the fact that they did not have enough fuel make the commander order the retreat.

We all know what happens after that.