Dune 2
Had a day off from work, so I went to the movies on this sunny day. It was Dune 2 in Boronia. I had planned to re-watch the first film to refresh my memory, but didn’t get around to it. I think a lot of people did that. I know the copies we have of the dvd in my library have been pretty popular lately, and that’s probably why. It didn’t matter anyway, I got up to speed pretty quickly once the film started. It was a 2:45 session and there were just four people in the cinema, including me. This is something I like a lot. Plenty of places to sit, no annoying people in your way. Of course the film was great, but I had some small issues with the story and character development. Stilgar comes off as a bit of a religious nutter, instead of the kickass warrior he is in the book. Paul’s surprising birth connection to the Harkonnens is given short shrift. And some of the staging of the final battle, I dunno, could’ve been better. Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica, seems to remain pregnant for a long time. Surely the action takes place over a period longer than nine months? That’s a long pregnancy! But I love the fact that Jessica’s unborn baby, Alia, speaks to her from the womb because the ‘water of life’ her mother has taken has awakened her mind. I wrote a brief review of the film on my Letterboxd channel. It was just this: ‘Must be the only film that features a main character who is a baby in the womb’.
Dune 2 is really trending on social media at the moment. I read a couple of interesting threads on my X/Twitter, which I retweeted. One post, from Pulp Librarian, looked at the early struggles to bring Dune to the screen. Another, by Moschindorito, pointed out the reasons why Star Wars is just a worse version of Dune.
The Dune 2 social media trends continue. Saw a fantastic video on Youtube titled The Real Stars of Dune, about the real planets featured in the novel. Great computer graphics, informative commentary. Apparently Arrakis is fictional, but Canopus, the sun it revolves around, isn’t.
A Rainy Day In New York
I watched that Woody Allen film I grabbed recently, A Rainy Day In New York from 2019. I actually liked it. Gave it four stars on Letterboxd. The other reviews were incredibly savage. Maybe I should have given it less? I have a complicated relationship with Woody Allen. I used to love his films so much for the way they championed the misfits (like me), the little guy who overcomes the odds (not always me). But the films got progressively more self-indulgent – bad even – with just the occasional gem. Then there was the whole Soo Lin episode, which came as no surprise to me, or anyone else who has seen a few of his films. He’s always displayed a fairly skewed morality about relationships.
I guess the thing I liked about this film was it was something of a return to the misfits, as played this time by Timothy Chalamet and Elle Fanning. They’re poor little rich kids going to an Ivy League school and having a break in a rainy New York. Tim’s character Gatsby has plans, but they are constantly thwarted by Fanning’s character Ashleigh, who is a budding reporter on the hunt for an interview with a famous director. Instead, Gatsby bumps into Chan (played by Selena Gomez), a little sister of an old girlfriend, and spends some time with her. Meanwhile, Ashleigh is being wined and dined by a series of older men, who each fall for her in various ways, and her loyalty to Gatsby is tested. Gatsby gets wind of Ashleigh’s encounters, but he’s also been avoiding his dominating mother’s soiree in New York. He eventually goes to it in the company of a prostitute he meets in a restaurant, pretending to his mother that she’s Ashleigh. But the mother (played by Cherry Jones) is wise to his ruse because, it turns out (plot spoiler ahead) as she explains to Gatsby, she started out as a prostitute, and that’s how she met her husband. This casts everything in a new light for Gatsby, and (plot spoiler) after reflecting on everything, he leaves Ashleigh for Chan.
So the film is part relationship farce and screwball comedy. But I can’t help thinking that Woody drops the ball a bit in the end. I think it would have made more sense if Chan was more of a working class girl and not one of his social set already. This would have jibed better with the revelation of his mother’s origins. After all, doesn’t every good Jewish mother want her son to marry someone exactly like her? The fact that Chalamet and Fanning would again play partners in the Dylan film, A Complete Unknown, added further interest to the film for me. There’s even a scene where Gatsby comes out of a Greenwich Village side street, and Cafe Wha? is in the background. I could go on and discuss how just about every character here represents bits of Woody Allen’s developing psyche and what that means, but I think I’m done here.
A Complete Unknown
Today was the Australia Day holiday. A lot of us, me included, call it Invasion Day instead – for obvious reasons. It was heartening to see one of my neighbours sporting a flag on his front gate; and instead of the Australian flag, it was the Aboriginal flag. Good stuff. I actually had work today at the library in Ringwood. It worked out well, because I had planned to watch the Dylan film A Complete Unknown and it was showing at the cinema in the shopping centre adjacent to it. I saw it with my mate Lui, who is a big Dylan fan.
Lui and I chatted about the film at his place afterwards. Damn, it was good. I gave it four and half stars on my Letterboxd. Timothy Chalomet totally inhabits Dylan. The other support actors were good too, especially Edward Norton as Pete Seeger. I liked the way they used the music narratively. That is, for example, Dylan visits Woody Guthrie at the hospital for the first time, and he plays his own Song For Woody to him. Later, during the ‘64 Newport concert, he performs It Ain’t Me Babe with Joan Baez, a song that speaks to the end of their relationship.
Lui and I noted one strange thing about the film. Dylan’s old girlfriend, Suze Rotolo (played by Elle Fanning), the lady who appears with him on the Freewheelin’ cover, is referred to as ‘Sylvie’ in the film. I haven’t read up about it, but I speculated it’s because Suze’s family or estate did not give permission to use her name. Something similar to this happened with the film The Runaways, when bassist Jackie Fox refused to have her name and character used, so they had to invent a new character for that role, which was a bummer.
There were so many good scenes. One of my favourites was the scene where a drunken Johnny Cash tries to get his caddy out of a car park and constantly crashes it – right in front of a nonchalant Dylan. Boyd Holbrook, the actor who plays him was stellar. Of course, the Director, James Mangold, was the one who directed the earlier Cash biopic, I Walk the Line, with Joachim Phoenix playing the role. This version of Johnny, as some have noted, is sexier. There are also cheeky nods to many Dylan myths and legends, like Al Kooper showing up for the Like a Rolling Stone session and squeezing himself in to the recording by playing keyboard. And, during the legendary ‘65 Newport performance, we get a brief glimpse of Pete Seeger contemplating heaving one of those axes to cut the power. But my favourite thing about the film was the amazing recreation of the Times. It’s really like you’re back in 1961 with Dylan rocking up to Greenwich Village as a peek-capped lad. Later, he shows up at the Chelsea Hotel (a place I’ve been to) to visit Joan Baez, and everything in that hallway, the light fittings, the door handles, the carpet, is vintage. A terrific film. It’s early days yet, and the film is probably listed as a ‘24 film, but so far my film of the year.
A few weeks later, I was with Josh for our usual Sunday meal. After the meal, on the way back to the car, Josh suggested we check out what was playing at the local cinema, which is situated inside the Town Hall. I’ve never seen a film there and have been wanting to for a while. Old country movie houses are pretty rare these days and full of character. Turns out it’s playing the Bob Dylan film A Complete Unknown this week. That works out so well for me because I’ll be working at Healesville library on Tuesday. The library is right behind the Town Hall. So we’ve organised a movie catchup and meal for that day. I of course saw the film recently with Lui, but I wanted to see it again in the cinema anyway. Great!
Second time around the movie was a good time. Much of the dialogue is still shockingly hard to decipher, especially Chalomet’s Dylan. I want to watch the film next time with subtitles. I was a bit disappointed with the cinema, to say the least. It had this annoying feature where there were stage lights mounted above the screen and they obscured the top of the screen. The seats were pretty uncomfortable and the cinema didn’t have much of that old time town hall atmosphere, having been refurbished. But yeah, the movie and company was good. It wasn’t a bad way to finish off a working day.