Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Fascism and Feelgood

The Dictator: A biting, pull-no-punches satire on dictatorship, democracy, management, neo-liberalism, the other sort of liberalism, conservatism, anti-Semitism, Judaism, racism, tolerance and refugees. No wonder the Guardian was completely confused by it.

Iron Sky: Nazis-on-the-moon crowdsource film. Very funny, with some good performances and some nice satires on the US and the UN, and riffing pointedly on the similarities between neoconservatism and fascism and on why both appeal to politicians and people. Let down a bit by some bad performances (mostly the Sarah-Palinesque American president), but don't let that put you off. A region 2 DVD is £10 from Play.com; buy it and keep these people making movies.

Prometheus: Hard to review this one, since Scott is visibly setting up for a series of movies here (you don't cast a young guy in makeup as an old character unless there's going to be some sort of payoff later on). I will say for the moment, though, that it's rather like a big-budget version of Terry Nation's pilot for a Dalek TV series, 'The Destroyers', albeit with dodgier characterisation. Michael Fassbender's worth the price of admission alone, though.

Singin' in the Rain: A movie about two gay men making it in the late silent/early sound era. Although Debbie Reynolds does turn up to provide an ostensible love interest for Gene Kelly, she's actually just a metaphor for his relationship with Donald O'Connor.

Quantum of Solace: Just boring.

Movie count for 2012: 42