Summer 2022 diary of films seen but not reviewed

[Chris Knipp]

MOONAGE DAYDREAM (Brett Morgan 2022). In his rave review written after the Cannes premiere Peter Bradshaw calls this film "a glorious celebratory montage of archive material, live performance footage, Bowie’s own experimental video art and paintings, movie and stage work and interviews with various normcore TV personalities with whom Bowie is unfailingly polite, open and charming." His language is articulate and elegant too. The exploration of multifaceted creativity and daring to be different and androgynous could inspire many. The images are gloriously psychedelic, the sound spectacular. But it's visually sometimes all a bit of a letdown after the early, stunning "alien" Ziggy Stardust phase. Afterward there is a lot of Bowie's questioning and later of his seize-the-day positivity. A hundred and forty minutes is a lot of David Bowie without any private, non "artist" side or relations with other people. Toward the end it all begins to sound like a motivational lecture. Surely better in a theater - if there are a lot of enthused fellow-viewers, which there weren't at my 4:05 p.m. 10/6/22 Landmark Albany Twin show where only half a dozen showed up (a big problem). At home, when the critical raves fade, this will be mostly for Bowie or rock god completists. I like him, but I'm just not into his music or his prancing around or his eccentric costumes that much. Rock docs I liked more: METALLICA: SOME KIND OF MONSTER (Berlinger, Sinofsky 2004), which is as long as this; NEIL YOUNG JOURNEYS (Jonathan Demme 2012), a trim 87 mins. For a much more thorough, intelligent and appreciative description of Brett Morgan's "glorious celebratory montage" see A.O. Scott.

[Chris Knipp]

AMSTERDAM (David O. Russell 2022). It fails to live up to the romantic Hemingwayesque WWI opening of the odd three comrades, the beautiful mysterious nurse, the half-Jewish future Park Avenue doctor, and the Black future lawyer, and in fact loses touch with it. Years later a woman dies getting pushed under a car and the doctor and the lawyer have to prove they didn't do it - winding up re-connecting with the former nurse in the process - but it all gets lost in the details and the faltering pace. I could expect anything of Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington, as that trio. They're all engaging and good, especially Bale. Sadly, they get nothing. Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Shannon, and Mike Myers are almost unrecognizable, and Rami Malek escapes from weirdness into posh. Robert DiNiro blends in nicely. But so what? The screenplay wastes it all. Went to this even though it got 47% on Metacritic and I got my reward. I'm a fan of Russell, giving him points for going to my college, as did Jeffrey Wright and David Foster Wallace. But it's not just the school tie. I mean, FLIRTING WITH DISASTER, THREE KINGS, THE FIGHTER, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, and AMERICAN HUSTLE were all great. There's been a falling off in the nine years since that. I was hoping for individual scenes to be fun, to enjoy the A-List cast, who include Alessandro Nivola, Chris Rock, Taylor Swift, Zoe Saldana, Anya Taylor-Joy, et al., but they were just awkward, or not distinctive enough. Watched 10/9/22 at Century Hilltop 16, Richmond, California but walked out midway, my departure hastened by annoyance with scattered ticket holders with limited audience skills. An announcement before the feature for post-Covid viewers reminding them that they're not at home didn't sink in for everybody, or they came late and missed it.

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