Indian cinema is underrepresented here as the country generally is not thought to produce great films especially in the modern era. Yet it would not do to skip over this particular title, a film that was far ahead of its time and underappreciated in India itself when it was released but achieved great international success and is now regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. It is certainly difficult to imagine any film that better encapsulates the conflict of old money versus new money and the passing of the aristocratic era.
Since this book won the Hugo Award for Best Novel for 2020, I’ll take that to mean that I’m finally current on new science-fiction releases. Another problem I’ve been having recently is that even as I continue to read at least one traditionally published science-fiction or fantasy novel a month, I’ve been liking them a lot less than the web serials or even the random fanfiction which I read a ton of. Here at last is a novel that I solidly liked and would recommend, even though I think it is closer to being space opera than science-fiction. Admirable work by new writer Arkady Martine.
As I mentioned not so long ago, Adam Sandler actually is a fantastic actor despite the trashy films that he is most known for these days so its great to see him in fine form as he is here. This is effectively an in-depth psychological profile of someone of who is addicted not just to gambling but to winning the big score no matter what it takes in order to defy everyone else. It was made by brothers Josh and Benny Safdie whose film Good Time I’d previously featured here.
As always, it is real pleasure to be immersed in the cinema of a country for the first time, in this case Romania, so long as they are decently made. This one with its slew of honors including ones at Cannes more than qualifies and looks like it’s a brutally assessment of modern Romania. However it also make some directorial decisions that makes it feel oddly paced and ends on a somewhat unsatisfying note.
Commandos was one of the series of games that intrigued me but I never got around to playing any of them and now they seem too old to go back to. So along comes developer Mimimi Games who seems intent on single-handedly reviving this never very popular genre. This is described as a stealth-oriented real-time tactics game. It’s stealth as your characters can’t stand up to protracted combat and must rely on quietly taking out guards without alerting others. It’s real-time so there’s no way to pause to consider the situation and issue orders without time pressure. And I suppose it’s tactics because you’ll often need to have your characters work in concert to get past different obstacles and situations.
This is a film that purports to be science-fiction but is probably best described as psychological horror. It looks reasonably realistic and features some well thought out details of how a near future in which space travel within the Solar System is commonplace might play out. However it plays fast and loose with scientific facts which seriously impacts some major points of its plot. Still it is beautiful and works very well as a very personal mood piece.
Orson Welles is a very inconsistent director to say the least as he is known for plenty of stinkers along some of the most celebrated films of all that time. This noir was at the time of its release considered one of those stinkers but opinion on it has improved since then. I don’t think I like it very much given that it tries too hard to be clever rather than to be true to its theme. But it is a fascinating film that uses some inspired and beautiful camerawork so it probably is worth watching all the same.
