Political theory and practice

Blue Desert (2013) Deserto Azul 

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1h and 34m, rated 7.4 (!) by 52 cinematizens.  

DNA: Brazil.

Genre: Boring.

Verdict: Nothing comes from nothing.  

Tagline: Is this all there is?

A movie about the purpose of life and the meaning of human existence, modestly declaimed the writer and the director.  

With that pretension stated, what follows is an indulgent account of the angst of an adolescent posturing this way and that. In case it was all too deep for the viewer some scenes are repeated two or three times, and there is a narrative to guide the dull wits like me.  

He is a poor little rich boy who seems to have no responsibilities or ambitions.  He meets or perhaps dreams of a man even more useless than he is, painting the Atacama Desert blue.

It takes place in the Jetsons’ Brasilia, and is gorgeously photographed, preferable to turn the sound down and the subtitles off and watch the moving pictures.  

Malice in Wonderland (2009)

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1h and 27m, rated 5.8 by 3,400 cinematizens.

Genre: Fantasy; Species: Alice.

DNA: Geordie.

Verdict: It’s all about time.  

Tagline:  Go girl! 

Late at night the amnesiac Alice hitches a ride in Whitey’s (who is late, late) black London cab and nothing is quite the same again.  In a series of skits she and he meet contemporary updates of the Mad Hatter, Tweedlee and (very) -dum(b), Caterpillarman, Dormouse, The Cheshire Cat, The Walrus, and, of course, the Red Queen.  A few genders are bent along the way.

Alice moves things along by ingesting every illegal substance these creatures purvey in the struggle to regain her memory. She is the missing daughter of zillionaire Lewis Dodgson who offers a colossal reward for her return, and that lucre sets off even more scoundrels in pursuit to relieve Whitey of this fare.  

Fun follows. Lots of it. 

***

It makes no sense but it is a mile-a-minute with some engaging players like the Gardening Girl in the looking glass. Alice ends where she began and there is a charming resolution.

It seems there is species of Alice films.  All manner of them from Disney to anti-Disney from the silent era to today in many languages.  One review lists 33 without any claim to being comprehensive.  By the way, this title has also had many iterations.

Star Wreck in the Pirkinning (2005) 

IMDB meta-data is a runtime of 1h and 43m, rated 6.5 by 6,000 cinemtizens.  

DNA: Finland.

Genre: Sy Fy.

Verdict: A parody with laughs.

Tagline: ‘Deploy Windows 95!’  

Travelling by accident from the far future back to the 21st Century Earth, no one believes Captain when says he is from the distant future.  He’ll show them!  He sets about conquering Earth so he can save it from destruction.  Yes, he is a megalomaniac.  

When the going gets tough, the tough use the ultimate weapon: Windows 95!  It will destroy anything! 

***

This is a fan mash up of Star Trek, and it worked well enough to keep me watching.  There are others segments of different lengths. Click on.

Any Questions for Ben (2012)

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1hr and 54m, rated 5.6 by 1,800 cinematizens.  

DNA: Strine.

Genre: Neither Rom nor Com.

Verdict: Oh hum. 

Tagline: Is that all there was?

The tale of a poor little rich boy who has everything (money, cars, women, booze – who could ask for more?) and, yet, wants more.  

The best scene comes with the end-credits when our now reformed hero is leaving the country.  If you can endure the preceding drivel, stay tuned long enough to the see that.  

***

Overall it views like a Melbourne Tourist Board production of bright and beautiful young people basking in the hedonistic sun and fun (alcohol and sex) day in and night out in bleak city.  

It is accompanied by a deafening soundtrack that combines demolition work with peak hour traffic. 

In all it was about 1h and 54m too long.  

Witch Hunt (1994)

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1h and 40m (it felt longer), rated at 5.5 by 1,800 (drug-addled) cinematizens. 

Genre: Noir fantasy.  

DNA: Hollywood. 

Verdict: Skip it.

Tagline:  The tortoise outpaced it.

Intended as a sequel to Cast a Deadly Spell it suffices to demonstrate the superiority of that film to this one. Yikes.

This was watching cement dry, and wishing a dog would run through it to break up the monotony.  

The original pitch idea would have been interesting but the execution was execrable.  What idea?  Set in early 1950s Hollywood the unscrupulous Senator Joseph McCarthy campaigns against, not communism in La La Land, but magic. (See Cast a Deadly Spell.) He is so unscrupulous that he plans to burn witches alive at his campaign rallies.  (That might have seemed far fetched in 1994, but it is now all too easy to imagine this will appeal to the planners of the next Republican convention.)

I won’t labour the threadbare production values.  The non-sequiturs. The dead ends.  I will mention that a dead bored Dennis Hopper mouths his lines in a monotone, with frequent glances at his watch.  

There were some good moments, but too few for redemption.  The late Julian Sand as the Irish villain was a delight, perfectly polite and never threatening, yet menacing all the same.  Hypolyta Kropokin was a dignified witch who seemed to forget her hexography at the crucial moment.  And the female lead had a poignant backstory that emerged at the end, without any fit to the plot, such as it was, in which she got to act.  There was also a corker of a special effect at the Drive-In Theatre. In short, it has moments, but these dots did not connect up into a whole.