Movie Nights #1

No Time to Die, Dune, The French Dispatch.

A few thoughts on the movies I’ve seen recently. Happy to hear what you thought below.

No Time to Die

My first time in an actual cinema in over a year and a half (and I used to be a twice a week guy). So, I was excited, and disposed to like whatever was put in front of me, and more interested in entertainment than art. Having made all those caveats, I’ll also say that I enjoyed the film hugely, and didn’t even mind that it was three hours long. I’ve not been the biggest Bond fan in recent years, I haven’t rushed to the cinema to see the Daniel Craig incarnation, but this won me over. I liked the new-style action-hero Bond women, it was great to look at, and wow, that ending. How will they follow that?

Dune

Well, I didn’t love it, I’m sorry. It looked astonishing, but is looking good all we need now? It almost (I said almost) made me nostalgic for the David Lynch version, which at least was genuinely oddball and, well, strange. This felt conventional, and, at approximately the same length as the Bond, felt much longer. Dune fans, don’t hate me. Your disagreements below.

The French Dispatch

And this was a complete delight. Wes Anderson has made his own world by now, in which deadpan humor mingles with a hyper-detailed visual universe that approaches high camp but is somehow more elegant and makes you want to see the film again at once, and star actors come and go while you blink. (Did anyone see Edward Norton?) Interesting that Anderson insists it was based on the early days of The New Yorker, because I thought a lot of the early days of The Paris Review was in there too, Bill Murray as editor seemed as much TPR’s Plimpton as TNY’s Ross or Shawn. But who cares. It’s a film to surrender to, because its purpose is the creation of joy, and goodness knows, we need some joy right now.