Tag Archives: Denis Villeneuve

March 28, 2022 · 22:43

The stage selected

That is what I keep on seeing. Not the slap, not the presentation, not the conversations. The setting of the stage. For me the question remains why Dune was not an option for best Director. This is not the objection to who won, I never saw that movie. I am not debating the winner, not objecting to the winner, my mind is screaming at Dune becoming a non-nominee as best Director. And the competition was seemingly fierce this year. The mind screams when something happens that we cannot comprehend, or perhaps seemingly comprehend.

And the screams are oud within me because I am not the only one feeling this, the internet has been busy for a while on this and it is not the first time the Oscars are under debate. #OscarsTooWhite, is merely one of many objections over time. So when I see movie that blew me away, getting 6 oscars that it shined in and is a non-competitor in another category is just a little too weird. Denis Villeneuve outdid any other director ever involved with Dune, he outdid what we expected and he outdid what we could not grasp. So I am not opposing that Jane Campion won, merely that Villeneuve according to me and many many others deserved to be a nomination. It is that simple. When we are confronted with such a blow normality goes out the window, and there is no stopping the confused mind and it is also a larger station, I cannot debate that the others did not deserve to be nominated, according to many they really did, I do not oppose that, perhaps it was as simple as number of votes, and I am willing to accept that those who became nominees just had a few more votes. Still the boggled mind stares out of the window trying to make sense of it. Yet in all this, I also recognise that 007 fans wonder why they only won one of them, it is perhaps the setting of what we think should happen, to what we think does happen. A stage that overshadows us all. In the end we are all slaves to what the mind perceives and I get that, I really do, but the mind still screams and that is hard to swallow, especially when we see a movie that blows us away. Perhaps within ourselves we nurture the populist voice, it is something that is not easily stomped and it seemingly in charge of us to some degree.

Four days to wait

In four days people who missed the big screen release get to see it and those who saw it will see it again. For me it will be awesome. Dune (2021) was an amazing trip. ‘Ticket to Arrakis, one way please and make it a window seat’, but the masterpiece by Hubbard is to be read, to be seen on the screen and not yet seen and felt in person. I have several versions and I saw the other one too. Until this version arrived the SciFi channel edition with Alec Newman, Ian McNeice and Giancarlo Giannini was my favourite. It is a really good version, it felt real, it felt down to earth and told the story in an amazing way. So until I saw the new edition (which was always going to happen) I had my doubts, mainly because the SciFi edition was awesome and we all tend to resent anything troubling that view. It was nice to see the announcement that Thanos was coming, Bautista looked a lot more like the written monster Rabban then László I. Kish ever could. In all versions of Dune we see a slim man, so it felt right that Jason Mamoa was chosen. I was toiling on a lot of things, that was until I saw the trailer.

The trailer was the clear indication that this was going to be next level stuff. I knew nothing about Denis Villeneuve (other than he seemed to be that guy who won several GP’s in the 90’s), but the trailer put him on the map for me. Of course I realised later that he was Canadian, not a French racer and responsible for the Arrival and the Blade Runner sequel. They were good movies, really good, but it was nothing compared what I saw when the lights in the cinema turned off and Arrakis (Caladan too) was shown to us. The ornithopters, the machines, the works and especially the sands. We saw a new look on the Sardaukar and the Atreides family. In this Denis might have chosen Chalamet because he is a good actor and looks like a boy. The 155 minutes that followed blew my mind. The music was off and not from this world, it impacted the film in a massive way. The lighting and the stage of using lighting in this way was truly amazing. Dune rocked and ruled the world in unexpected ways, so as soon as possible I will get this movie and watch it again and again until part 2 arrives, which is set to be released on October 20, 2023, which is another 20 months of bloody waiting (not happy me). But that is how it is.

Dune (2021) has set a new level and set the bar for anyone else optionally much to high to ever attempt it ever again.

It is here that I need to take on critique “Stephen M. Colbert of Screen Rant noted that its complex story and Villeneuve’s directorial style were bound to have selective appeal, and that this is reflected in negative reviews thus far”, I disagree. The story starts on Arrakis (the Zendaya scene) and it sets a good tone, The story is clear and follows the book, it skipped one or two issues, but there is every chance that the second part will take these parts up, and lets be clear they are small issues, really small issues. As to the side of ‘selective appeal’ I cannot completely answer. The movie has an uncanny realistic approach towards lighting, it is seen in several ways and at times it makes you wonder what the appeals was of CGI lighting (like the Black Widow movie). This is not an attack on the movie Black Widow, it shows that Denis Villeneuve took the extra 5 miles to get it near perfect (perfection is an on location movie on Arrakis). The ornithopter scenes are unreal and the filming of Charlotte Rampling in the Bene Gesserit scene transgresses from perfection into overwhelming in a few ways. The movie checked all the marks and added a dozen more. This is one of those ‘must see’ movies whether you are into Fantasy/Science Fiction or not.

I really cannot wait to see it again, it will help pass the time until part two is here and the complete story is shown to us. This is more than the continuation, there is so much more to see, I cannot wait to see how Dennis Villeneuve brought them into the light. In this light I merely wonder to some degree how he was missed as Best Director in the upcoming 94th Academy Awards. I do get it, the other film makers did amazing work in the past, and optionally now too (I did not see all of them), but this time around he is up against Spielberg, Branagh, Campion and Anderson. So the competition was fierce, still Dune is on the list for best movie (and 9 other nominations), so there is that.

Salmon in the cinema

Yup, there is a new setting, not for food, but towards the entertainment. Even as we see Google allegedly miss the plank, the streamers are setting the stage to a larger degree. In streaming nature there is Disney, Stan and off course there is Netflix, so when the BBC gives us ‘Dune and Matrix 4 streaming plan prompts urgent talks from AMC cinemas’ is was not overly surprised, the Movie machine is on a tour and Corona slowed it down, but did not stop it and in this stage, too many vacant chairs remain in the cinema. We can feel for the cinema, but there are many places where the pain is coming, so the cinema is merely one of most. As such when we see “The move will enable film fans to watch the forthcoming sci-fi epic Dune and the Matrix sequel on HBO Max at the same time as their cinema release” (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55180055), we see a stage where the movie makers are maximising whatever they can, and I cannot blame them.

Consider that Cale Boyter, Joe Caracciolo Jr., Mary Parent and Denis Villeneuve allegedly pumped $200,000,000 into that movie. This I a risky business, moreover as SCI-FI made their version with Alec Newman in 2000 and it was an amazing piece of work, I still watch the BluRay nowadays at least twice a year. That does not mean that this Dune will not be seen, I look forward to it and I do prefer the big screen, but any next lockdown and Netflix or BluRay might be my only option, and I am not alone in this. The average number one movie in the US after the Cortona lockdown made 4 million, before the coronavirus lockdown $100 million (Bad Boys for Life), as such the sentiment of the producers of Dune and others are well understood. $200 million is nothing to sneer at and whatever deal they can make, they will. At present in 2020 Bad Boys for life leads the revenue charge wth $200 million, It should have been at least double that and as such Dune is in a dangerous place, not by choice and not by effort, the trailer blew me away and the stars involved make it shine even more, it seems only fair that the makers try to get the best deal possible. This is the stage here we merely see impact, we do not get to have too much choice in the matter, no matter how angry Glossu Rabban (Dave Bautista) gets. In the end I feel slightly less for Adam Aron than I do for the actors and actresses that put their sweat and blood into this movie, in other news, when did the cinema adjust (temporarily) their prices? In this setting as we currently see it, why would anyone take a chance at AU$18, when streaming is $15 a month and at present safer.

We want to be protective of the moviemakers, but in the end, at present, we are merely a Salmon that goes up against the streamer. In this setting I understand why AMC Cinemas wants to talk, yet in the present condition we face, is it a realistic step to take? As such, there is truth in the statement “We will aggressively pursue economic terms that preserve our business”, but consider that billions of people have been denied access to entertainment, I want to start that Adam Aron has the right setting and he has a right to be in this setting, yet in the stage we face, can he push for a setting that is not entirely realistic?

Tag Archives: Denis Villeneuve

The stage selected

Four days to wait

Salmon in the cinema

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