News You Can Bruise for 2024 December

Sun Dec 08 2024 14:19 November Film Roundup:

• The Big Clock (1948): A great thriller driven by the grey-flannel trappings of postwar America. Having the detective lead a manhunt for himself is the sort of thing that feels like it should be a really common plot twist, but I can't think of another example.
• 90 Years Old - So What? (2024): A lighthearted movie about Aiko Sato, Japan's own Andy Rooney. Saw it on a plane and enjoyed how it sped along the passage of time. I didn't know this was based on a true story until the end of the movie. It just never occurred to me. If anything, I assumed it was a vehicle for the 90-year-old lead actress, Mitsuko Kusabue.
• The Asphalt Jungle (1950): Excellent heist film which blends in some noir, in that many of the criminals meet their Hays Code-required ends due to the humanizing weaknesses that made their characters more than cardboard thugs in the first part of the movie.
• Once Upon A Time in the West (1968): I liked this movie, especially the ballsy opening that introduces stars only to kill them off, but it was so long I started falling asleep in Act 3. I think there's a good 45 minutes in the middle you could cut.
• What If Tokugawa Ieyasu Became Prime Minister? (2024): It wouldn't be good, I tell you, and neither is this movie. I wasn't really following all of the historical heroes, but I recently learned about Ryōma Sakamoto, and when one of the samurai pulled out a revolver and started shooting I thought "That's gotta be Sakamoto."

  Emblematic of the conceptual problems with this movie is a scene where it's explained that the AI-generated heroes have been programmed not to pursue their ideological clashes/historical rivalries with one another. This would basically require removing their opinions about what is best for Japan--that is, their ability to do politics. It's a technocratic fantasy that, even though it falls apart inside the movie, doesn't fall apart quickly or disastrously enough to satisfy my cranky ass. To put it in American terms, if you brought back Thomas Jefferson and FDR and Ronald Reagan to rule the country, what course of action would they agree on?

  Nonetheless, I saw this film on an airplane, so it gets my near-universal bad movie pass.