Not exactly emptying the Netflix queue, or making a dent in the Letterboxd watchlist, but still productive, I think. I also half-watched Mad Max: The Road Warrior and A Year In Champagne, which I’ll try to knock over by the end of the week.
Primer (2004)
I’m still not entirely sure what to make of this film. I didn’t quite get it. But I really think that’s exactly the point. The dialogue is so obscure, so layered, so full of scientific jargon, but not at all in a deliberate, dramatic-concealment kind of way. If two dudes stumbled across time travel in a garage, I pretty much think this is how things would turn out. Give or take. I’ll let you know when I watch the film earlier tomorrow.
Seven Days in May (1964)
I expected something of a Cold War countdown, similar to Fail Safe, or its comic attache, Dr Strangelove. Instead I got a tensely-wound political thriller, quite simply detailed despite its tentacle-like story threads. Lancaster and March hold this up — and I say this in spite of the presence of Martin Balsam and Edmond O’Brien in supporting roles.
What struck me most of all today (and you may be sensing a pattern today) is the cinematography. The framing in some of the scenes of this film is phenomenal. Some of the editing, on the other hand (I speak for the sequence where Douglas watches Lancaster’s speech) is akin to proper ’70s paranoia films (I’m looking at you, Parallax View).
But this had me hanging, which is an achievement for films of this ilk. [cross-posted from Letterboxd]
Pandora’s Promise (2013)
Just to top off a day of science and paranoia, I finished up with this rather optimistic view of what nuclear power might offer a world aching for a clean and safe source of energy. I enjoyed this, despite its sometimes feeling a little like a Kickstarter promo video. [cross-posted from Letterboxd]
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