Delayed Reaction: Exodus

Premise: Holocaust survivors being held at a British internment camp in Cyprus sneak on a boat headed for Palestine and help to establish a Jewish state once they arrive.

My god, I'm not a fan of this era of Hollywood movies. No wonder the "New Hollywood" wiped it out. This is from Hollywood's epic craze, when studios put down huge budgets on star-studded, 3+ hour movies in hopes of becoming the next Gone with the Wind. I respect some of these movies. Spartacus and Ben-Hur have their moments. Lawrence of Arabia is worthy of its place in the film pantheon. I'm getting to the second-tier movies now though, and I'm not impressed.

Sure, Paul Newman is a goddamn movie star. Eva Marie Saint holds the screen as well as anyone. It will never stop being cool to see some of the huge shots with hundreds of extras that I know a computer didn't touch. This movie is so god-damn long though. There's no reason for it. Few things kill my excitement for a movie more than finding out it has an intermission. The idea of an intermission is a welcome one. I have a poor bladder. A 5-minute intermission for any 2+ hour movie would be great (in the theater). Sadly, only a certain kind of movie in my experience includes an intermission, and those are movies of a certain era that seem to take pride in how ungodly long they are.

I'm not stupid. I understand that this is a reflection of the cinema I've been raised on. I'm used to shorter takes, more cuts, and constant action in movies. I'm annoyed by dull older movies the same way that my parents are annoyed by frenetic movies that refuse to take a breath. When it comes to classic cinema though, I'd rather devote my time to zippy 100-minute movies than learn how to set aside 3.5 hours to appreciate Cleopatra. It's just not the best use of my time.

So yeah, this isn't going to be a helpful Reaction for a substantive discussion of the movie Exodus (How many of many Reactions really are?). If I wasn't so committed to write something about every single movie I see, then I'd skip this. It's too late for that though. I've made my bed. Now I must lie in it.

I'm also not that excited to talk about this movie because it's a lot of the things that people most disliked about classic [and present Hollywood]. I mean, what percentage of the cast was actually Jewish? It was a lot of size for the sake of size too. I appreciate the "let's all just get along" ethos of the movie, but it sure felt reductive.

Mostly though, this movie was sand through my fingers. Almost as soon as I watched it, I'd forgotten everything about it. That's when I decided I definitely wasn't going to waste nearly 500 words on it.

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Burning

Premise: A possible budding relationship between and young man and woman gets complicated when a mysterious rich other man shows up with unclear intent.

I'm not quite one of those people who discovered Korean cinema because Parasite won Best Picture, but I'm close. I've had a lot of Korean movies in my assorted movie queues for a while. The Handmainden is one of my favorite movies of the last decade. I liked Oldboy too. I saw Parasite of course. That's about the extent of my Korean film experience though. The Parasite win has mostly just shamed me into checking some more Korean movies off my list.

Burning was an obvious pick as the next most recent Korean movie met with great critical acclaim stateside. The pretense of Steven Yeun offered an easy in as well, even though he also sticks to speaking only Korean like everyone else.

I think I watched Burning chasing the wrong high. The Handmaiden and Parasite both ramp up with twists that go in completely different directions and employ dramatic irony for some humor. Burning is not that kind of movie. It's slow and tense. It starts like a RomCom: Boy meets girl. Boy and girl hook up. Girl goes on trip. When boy picks her up at the airport, girl shows up with a guy she met. Boy gets friend-zoned hard. Even during that part of the movie though, something isn't right. The early scenes between Ah-in Yoo and Jong-seo Jun don't exactly feel romantic. When Steven Yeun shows up as this mysterious new guy, he immediately reads as a villain. It's pretty clear what happens to Jong-seo Jun by the end, but the movie never gives us the satisfaction of actually saying it So, when we get to that final scene, there's nothing cathartic about it.

Some of the things that make this movie refreshing and smart are also why I lack excitement about it. It subverts a lot of genre expectations, which only made me appreciate why some of those conventions are normally there. I didn't come away from the movie excited for the next time I'd see it. Not much about it has stuck in my mind in the couple days since I saw it. I think it's a terrifically made, written, and acted movie, but it hasn't been very sticky. Part of this is taste, I'm sure. I also think my lack of familiarity with the subtleties of Korean culture hurt my appreciation some. A lot of the class commentary in the movie I appreciated on a basic level. A lot was going over my head though. I even found myself pausing on occasion to look some things up on Wikipedia. However, I'm no less excited to dig into more Korean cinema.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Gemini

Premise: After her boss/friend (Zoe Kravitz) is murdered, the assistant to a Hollywood star (Lola Kirke) goes on the run when it's clear that the police think she's the killer.

There's a group of movies in my assorted movie queues that I cannot tell apart: Gemini, Fast Color, Little Woods, Vincent N Roxy, and a few others. I couldn't tell you what I find interchangeable about them - possibly that they all-star youngish actresses and I'd never heard of the movies until they popped up on a streamer. Regardless, I'll get around to these on occasion, not even sure which one I'm picking. When I watched Gemini, I sort of thought it was Little Woods, which made it a fun surprise, I suppose.

I feel like L.A. neo-noirs are becoming more or more frequent. They are cheap to make, since everyone is already in Los Angeles. By making it a noir, audiences are immediately 10% more likely to forgive if something doesn't make sense (I'm not sure why. It's just a fact). The performances don't even have to be very good. As long as everyone just acts a little distanced, like they just heard something faint that they can't make out, then the performances are easy to make look consistent.

That's certainly the case with Gemini. It's better the less you think about the mechanics of the story. The twists require a lot of suspension of disbelief. It's easy to be aware of the limitations of the location scouting (unless using the same two rooms in a mansion was a narrative choice).

I liked the movie well enough though. Lola Kirke is a good lead and does good work selling the story. Zoe Kravitz is giving the same aloof performance that every casting director until recently (High Fidelity) asked from her. The nature of their friendship felt like it came from experience. I like that John Cho shows up like he's the lead in his own movie.

I'm not sure if this is intentional or a happy accident, but I appreciated how little tension there was in the movie. The big twist is pretty anti-climactic, which makes the lack of tension feel right. Now, they could've been aiming for tension and failed, but I'd rather take the optimistic view. When the movie ended, I had a "what the hell was the point of all that?" feeling, which kind of matches Lola Kirke's position.

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend