{"id":12644,"date":"2023-01-15T15:17:50","date_gmt":"2023-01-15T20:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=12644"},"modified":"2023-01-15T15:21:01","modified_gmt":"2023-01-15T20:21:01","slug":"weekly-movie-roundup-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=12644","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Movie Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I watched 5 movies last week:<\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1879016\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/1-2-204x300.jpg\" alt=\"Operation Mincement\" width=\"204\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-12645\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/1-2-204x300.jpg 204w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/1-2.jpg 489w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 204px) 100vw, 204px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt14138650\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/2-2-240x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Pale Blue Eye\" width=\"240\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-12646\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/2-2-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/2-2-819x1024.jpg 819w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/2-2-768x960.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/2-2.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1534085\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/3-2-202x300.jpg\" alt=\"Beyond the Black Rainbow\" width=\"202\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-12647\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/3-2-202x300.jpg 202w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/3-2-691x1024.jpg 691w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/3-2.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 202px) 100vw, 202px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1879016\/\">Operation Mincemeat<\/a> is surprisingly tedious. It&#8217;s a fascinating story and well-stocked with talented actors, but it&#8217;s also desperately padded, even without the wholly invented characters and love triangle, even without the wink-wink of knowing what will happen to some of the real-life characters\u2014like Ian Fleming, who for no good reason narrates a chunk of the film\u2014after the fact. Maybe because we&#8217;ll never know the full extent of the operation&#8217;s success, but the resolution here seems awfully muddled.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li>Real-life characters also play a significant role in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt14138650\/\">The Pale Blue Eye<\/a>, but I found myself enjoying that a whole lot more\u2014maybe because Harry Melling is genuinely very good as the young Edgar Allan Poe. There are a number of good performances here, and while the plot twists might strain credulity by the end, this is a nice, winter-bound murder mystery.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1534085\/\">Beyond the Black Rainbow<\/a> isn&#8217;t (always) uninteresting, but writer\/director Panos Cosmatos would do a much better job of marrying plot and characters to his cosmological horror and aesthetic fixations in his second film, Mandy, almost a decade later. If this first film wasn&#8217;t almost two hours long, it might be easier to be forgiving of its faults, but it&#8217;s hard not think this wouldn&#8217;t have worked much better as a short film.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt4291600\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/4-2-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"Lady Macbeth\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-12648\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/4-2-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/4-2.jpg 675w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0045061\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/5-2-195x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Quiet Man\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-12649\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/5-2-195x300.jpg 195w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/5-2-666x1024.jpg 666w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/5-2-768x1181.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/5-2-999x1536.jpg 999w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/5-2.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 195px) 100vw, 195px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/emptymovie-1-206x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"206\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-12502\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/emptymovie-1-206x300.jpg 206w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/emptymovie-1-704x1024.jpg 704w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/emptymovie-1-768x1117.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/emptymovie-1.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 206px) 100vw, 206px\" \/><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s striking that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt4291600\/\">Lady Macbeth<\/a> was only Florence Pugh&#8217;s second feature film role, because it really is a star-making turn, a chilling and mesmerizing performance. Because of that performance, you deeply empathize with the character even when (spoiler) she does terrible things\u2014which is good, because otherwise this could become nothing but a portrait of a woman punished for her desires and sexuality.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li>John Wayne and Maureen O&#8217;Hara are often delightful together in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0045061\/\">The Quiet Man<\/a>\u2014which is good, because I&#8217;m not convinced their relationship is as endearing today as it might have seemed to a 1950s audience. There&#8217;s a lot to enjoy about the movie, down to the beautiful Technicolor of the Irish countryside, but times sure have changed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I also re-watched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0093437\/\">The Lost Boys<\/a>, which can&#8217;t help but feel like a <i>very<\/i> 1987 movie, but which mostly holds up as pretty good stylish fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I watched 5 movies last week: Operation Mincemeat is surprisingly tedious. It&#8217;s a fascinating story and well-stocked with talented actors, but it&#8217;s also desperately padded, even without the wholly invented characters and love triangle, even without the wink-wink of knowing what will happen to some of the real-life characters\u2014like Ian Fleming, who for no good &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=12644\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12644"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12652,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12644\/revisions\/12652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}