Watched the most bizarre take on War of the Worlds last night; a Polish film on Mubi called THE WAR OF THE WORLDS: NEXT CENTURY. Not so much an adaptation as much as it is informed by War of the Worlds. And not just by the story itself, but by the story's lore, the fiasco surrounding Orson Welles' radio adaptation of piece in that THE WAR OF THE WORLDS: NEXT CENTURY utilizes the premise of an alien invasion to create a film about media and propaganda. It's like a War of the Worlds iteration filtered through an Eastern European Philip K. Dick. Bizarre stuff.
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Re-watching RUN LOLA RUN for the first time in over 20 years. So much stranger than I remember, with many odd narrative choices. Its cool factor is still very cool, but it's also incredibly ridiculous. The fact that the entire premise of the film stems from the anxiety of not being on time, makes it funnier than its meant to be, and also very German.
Still a lot of fun to watch, and oddly refreshing somehow.
On a completely different note, I recently discovered that before landing on BLADE RUNNER for a title, Ridley Scott considered calling his movie ANDROID. While not as inventive a title, it would've been particularly cool after having just come off a movie called ALIEN.
SCAVENGER'S REIGN on Netflix is very fucking good.
Also watched THE NINTH GATE which I thoroughly enjoyed. First film I've seen set in the world of antiquarian booksellers. Surprised to find it scoring so low across the internet, but I suspect that must have much to do with the director's name. I mean, clearly not something that would have mass appeal, but it's the sort of offbeat, eccentric film that would typically develop a cult following I think.
Or perhaps I just have strange taste.
Passed out almost immediately after child was picked up by his mother yesterday, leaving much laundry, dishes, and other messes to deal with this Monday. Not an ideal way to start the work week. Managed to ink a page of TSG nonetheless. On the second-to-last chapter as we speak. In that so-close-yet-so-far stage of finally completing the book.
Went to see Garland's CIVIL WAR not once, but twice. It is very, very good. Some of its flaws are rather noticeable the second time around, but it is still very good, very powerful. Manages to suggest a great deal despite a rather simple, straightforward plot. Something I oughtta learn to do myself sometime.
There's a side character in SNOWPIERCER, the movie, who is an artist. Living in the tail-end car, he does depictions of his fellow tailenders and what they go through. I couldn't help but picture a scenario where that same character's art was instead wholly different. Either:
a) Completely abstract line-work, things first-class passengers could precure and display in their car without it looking the slightest bit out of place.
b) Escapist stuff; him and his comrades rescued by mythical space heroes, or perhaps a family of tailenders fighting off all the other tailenders in the car who had for some reason been turned to zombies.
If we, as an audience, were to see that that's the kind of art this character was making, we would most certainly scream: What the fuck are you doing, man?
And that tells you everything you need to know about the state of [most] art today.
Woke up in the middle of the night and decided to crack open the volume of HITCHCOCK TRUFFAUT that's been jeering at me unread from my shelf for a while now. A few pages in and I was prompted to beam Mernau's DER LETZTE MANN on the projector, which both Hitchcock and Truffaut express their admiration for. First minute into this 1924 silent film and I was hooked! The framing and shots are just absolutely gorgeous, and the story intense, told entirely without words got me thinking about the big vacuum left unfilled by the absence of silent visual storytelling in today's world. The potential to reach people across borders regardless of language or culture is immense, especially if phones/social-media were to be utilized as the delivery mechanism. But that would necessitate coming up with short ultra-condensed narratives of about one minute or a minute and half tops. Which in itself is something of an attractive limitation.
Just finished watching LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND with very low expectations given some of the less than glowing reviews, but I gotta say... it's the best thing I've seen since DON'T LOOK UP. Both masterpieces, both receiving mixed reviews. Starting to see a pattern here: Americans don't seem to be ready for genuine sociocultural criticism, which ironically is a facet that both films thematically touch upon.
Kudos to Sam Ismail though. This is a big leap from anything he's created in the past and a true work of genius. Thoroughly interested in the novel it is based upon by Rumaan Alam.
Reminder to self to watch Tell Me Lies.