Jack and I had avoided this, a story of a real WWII conscientious objector who saved many lives in Okinawa without firing a gun, due to its violent content but made ourselves go yesterday because of its many nominations. Andrew Garfield, as in Silence, plays another deeply religious man whom Japanese men want to kill. His performance as Desmond Doss has him high on the list of nominations. Trivia: raised in England by his British parents, he and his father were both born in LA. Many actors in the movie are Australian with mostly believable American Southern accents, notably Hugo Weaving (most recently in The Dressmaker), wonderful as Desmond's tortured father, Rachel Griffiths (came to my attention in Muriel's Wedding (1994), then was in, among others, My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), Hilary and Jackie (1998) (it's about two classical musicians, not two first ladies), 63 episodes of Six Feet Under (2001-05), and 100 of Brothers & Sisters (2006-11)), somewhat underused as his patient mother (but the movie was too long already at 2:19--I wouldn't have minded missing a half hour of battle scenes. More on that in a moment), and Teresa Palmer (new to me) is sweet as the love interest Dorothy.
I have seen three of the four movies directed by Mel Gibson, an American raised in Australia––The Man Without a Face (1993), Braveheart (1994), and The Passion of the Christ (2004)––and, despite what we think of him as a person (feh), he's proven his talent behind the camera. More trivia: Mel's son Milo Gibson plays Lucky in his screen debut. Co-writers Robert Schenkkan (co-wrote The Quiet American (2002) and solo wrote the TV movie All the Way based on his award winning play) and Andrew Knight (new to me despite a number of credits--I did like his now-cancelled series Rake) have given the director a first act that's about half of the movie (props to the production design team headed up by Barry Robison, designer of October Sky (1999), Wedding Crashers (2005), Pitch Perfect, Million Dollar Arm, and more) and the intense war stuff in the second and third act, with Vince Vaughn's (last blogged for Delivery Man) comic timing lightening up the drill sergeant's early scenes.
When we go to a movie of this length, Jack likes to consult the app RunPee. He told me when to run out for Rogue One and I did so, without reading it myself. Turns out the poster said it's "a rehash of information delivered earlier in the movie." Time to once again quote my favorite definition of a chick flick, courtesy of Sylvia cartoonist Nicole Hollander, "...too much talking, not enough hitting." It turns out that I would rather hear the talking and skip the hitting. So for those of you with a similar bent, here are my run pee suggestions for the longest fighting parts. Do be prepared to put your hands up, as I did, to shield your delicate eyes from gore even in sections I'm not suggesting you miss. My times are approximate. At about 1:12 there's a ten minute battle sequence and another from 1:30-1:35. There was no need for me to see them. The special effects with the flamethrowers are right at the beginning (don't leave, just put your hands up) and repeated throughout these battles. Once is enough. The part of this movie that Jack missed, at the guidance of RunPee, had the men sitting and sadly talking. I made the right choice.
Rupert Gregson-Williams (covered in The Legend of Tarzan) has composed lovely music that can be streamed from this playlist.
With 35 producers, this is going on my Producers Plethora list, though it's going to be hard for anything to win the top prize, which has been at 39 for three and a half years.
Award season has brought this movie back for a second run and Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences average 86 and 94% respectively. That said, if watching this violence is going to have a lasting effect on you, don't worry about missing it entirely.
I leave you with this cartoon, about birds of prayer.
No comments:
Post a Comment