Aquaman (4 Stars)

"Redheads! You've just gotta love em!"

I'm sorry. I couldn't resist heading this review with this photo of Amber Heard. She looks much better with her hair dyed red than with her natural blonde hair. But wouldn't the dye be washed out if she spends all her time underwater?

When I watched "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" last month I realised that I could hardly remember the first film. All I remembered was the excessive use of computer graphics. That's usually a sign that it was an average film, because I best remember good films and bad films. I made up for it by logging onto Amazon to order "Aquaman".

Is it an average film? It has its ups and downs. It's uneven. So much is packed into it. Maybe too much. It runs for 143 minutes, but it could have been shortened to 110 or even 90 minutes without weakening the story. There's an exciting fight in Sicily, the best part of the film, followed by a totally unnecessary attack by monsters at sea. Then there's a subterranean world full of flying reptiles that comes straight from the pages of a Jules Verne novel. It looks good, but the mood switches from one scene to the next are exhausting.

To be honest, "Aquaman" can be enjoyed better after seeing "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom". The same characters return, particularly Black Manta and Aquaman's brother Orm. Seeing how they develop makes their first appearance easier to understand. The second film develops the characters that we already knew.

One strange thing about the Blu-ray I watched today is the way the picture height varies. Was is this way in the cinema? I don't remember. It's possible that the pictures were resized for home cinema. I'd be interested in finding out the reason.

Here are two examples. In this screenshot of Aquaman and Mera the picture is full screen.

In this screenshot of Black Manta the picture is widescreen.

I've never been a fan of widescreen films, neither in the cinema nor at home. It's claimed that the widescreen format makes the picture bigger. That's a lie. It actually makes the picture smaller, because it has to be flattened to show all of it on a cinema screen. It's most obvious at home. The black bars at the top and bottom of the television screen are ugly.

"Aquaman" might not be a great film, but Jason Momoa is a great actor. The first time he won me over was his performance in "Fast & Furious 10", but after returning to "Aquaman" I can fully appreciate his acting skill. I look forward to seeing him return in the next two Fast & Furious films.

Success Rate:  + 5.2

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Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (4 Stars)

Aquaman has settled down and has a family? I had to look that up to see if it's canon. Yes, he has a son in the comics as well, with the silly name Aquababy. I suppose it fits. He was later renamed Arthur Curry Jr. Not very imaginative, but it's better than Aquababy.

Black Manta returns after being defeated in the first film. He has two plans. First, he wants to cause an ecological disaster by stealing orichalcum to rapidly increase the world's temperature. Second, he wants to kill Aquaman as revenge for the death of his father. He finds a black trident that makes him more powerful than ever. It was created by Kordax, the ruler of the lost kingdom of Necrus. It's an underwater kingdom, of course. Kordax has some sort of control over Black Manta, but he doesn't make him do anything that he doesn't want to do already.

I found it difficult to rate the film. The story is entertaining, and the action is thrilling, but the cinematography is confusing. It's often not clear what's happening. My overall impression is positive, but I may re-evaluate it next time I watch it.

The Northman (4 Stars)

"The Northman" is an epic Viking saga based on the legend of Amleth. The story of Amleth was the main inspiration for Shakespeare's "Hamlet". "The Northman" is a tale of men and gods. The obvious comparison is with the television series "Vikings", but the difference is that "Vikings" isn't supernatural. In "Vikings" the belief in the Norse gods is a matter of superstition, but in "The Northman" we see the gods directly intervening to guide Amleth's life.

As far as the chronology goes, "The Northman" takes place at the same time as the later seasons of "Vikings". Ragnar Lothbrok lived some time in the eighth Century. The events of "The Northman" begin in 895 AD, and King Harald is mentioned, a person who appears in seasons four to six of "Vikings".

In 895 AD King Aurvandill of Hrafnsey is assassinated by his brother Fjölnir. His young son Amleth flees and is presumed dead. He's adopted by a Viking clan, and he calls himself Björnulfr, which means Bear-Wolf. He becomes their fiercest warrior, but he has no ambitions to rule their clan. One day a blind seer tells him that she recognises him as Amleth, and he should stop running from his destiny. It's time for him to take revenge on Fjölnir.

Amleth/Björnulfr finds out that Fjölnir has fled from Hrafnsey and now lives in Iceland, where he makes a living from capturing and selling slaves. Björnulfr allows himself to be captured so he can be close to him. He makes a good impression and is kept by Fjölnir, not sold. He bides his time, gaining Fjölnir's trust, until he's ready to act.

My biggest problems are with the opening scenes, the first fifteen minutes. The computer generated special effects look artificial. Fortunately, less computer graphics are used as the film progresses. Or maybe the graphics improved so that they looked genuine. The best computer graphics are the ones that look real.

The second half of "The Northman" was filmed on location in Iceland. It's a stunningly beautiful country. This single screenshot isn't enough to do it justice. Next time I watch it I'll include more pictures.

"The Northman" was highly praised by critics, some of them calling it the best film of the year, but its performance at the box office was mediocre. Maybe it was released too soon after the Coronavirus pandemic. I personally wanted to see it in the cinema, but I was lying in hospital with a lung infection. I have the impression that it's a film that can be appreciated better on a big screen.

There's something I noticed about Alexander Skarsgard while watching "Infinity Pool" which is confirmed in "The Northman". Of all the actors in his family, he's the one who's the most similar to his father Stellan. It's not just his facial features. His voice is also similar to his father's voice.

Success Rate:  - 1.0

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Boy Erased (4 Stars)

Most times when I walk out of the cinema I already know how I'm going to rate a film. I already know if I love it, hate it or it's somewhere in the middle. I've given "Boy Erased" a preliminary four star rating, but it's possible that I'll increase its rating next time I watch it. It's definitely a film that I need to watch again.

The film is the true story of an 18-year-old boy who was sent to Gay Conversion Therapy by his parents. This is a programme that is carried out by Christians in the USA on the assumption that homosexuality is an illness that can be cured. I'd heard about it in the past and considered it to be harmless nonsense. The first ten minutes put me right. I couldn't believe that the Gay Conversion centre, Love In Action, could really be so bad. If it hadn't been a true story I would have accused the film of exaggerating.

When Jared Eamons checked into the centre all his personal possessions had to be handed over. He was told that each day someone from the contacts list on his mobile phone would be rung at random to check who he was talking to. That alone would have made me turn round and walk out. But it got worse as the film progressed. In one scene a boy who is considered unrepentant has to kneel while the centre's staff and his family members, including his young sister, hit him over the head with their Bibles. All I can say is that anyone who uses a Bible as a weapon has never read what's written between the pages.

Although homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of the Christian church that Jared belongs to – Baptists? – the emphasis is on its status as an illness which can be cured by a mixture of psychotherapy and Christian preaching. The centre's leader is convinced that homosexuality is the result of sins in the immediate family, such as drugs, alcohol, pornography and similar matters. He also insists that homosexuality is caused by hatred towards your father. As part of the therapy the young men have to sit and yell at their father (represented by an empty chair) to let their anger out. When Jared says he can't do this because he's never hated his father he's accused of lying.

Jared's father is the pastor in the church he goes to. He's not a bad man. In fact he's a very good man, not at all hypocritical, and he loves his son. He's just somewhat confused. When he finds out his son is gay he wants to help him overcome his illness. He means well. He wouldn't have hit his son with a Bible. He's not that bad.

When Jared enters the centre, one of the first things he hears is the leader saying, "You weren't born gay, that's a lie. It's a choice". I disagree with both of these statements.

In recent years it's become common to say that people are born gay because they have a homosexual gene. That's nonsense, from a purely evolutionary standpoint. Evolution is all about the survival of the fittest. The strong survive, the weak die. This happens through procreation. A homosexual gene, if it existed, would hinder procreation and only be passed on by a person acting against his genetic makeup or as a recessive gene. Any gene which makes procreation less likely is a weak gene, which might survive a few generations, but over the course of a thousand years it would die out.

The concept of a homosexual gene isn't the result of scientific studies. It was invented to make people accept homosexuality by saying, "Everyone has to accept homosexuals because they were born that way". I don't think the tolerance of one's fellow man needs such artificial props. The people who say that there's a homosexual gene don't realise that the existence of a weak gene would mean that homosexuals are inferior. I refuse to believe that homosexuals are in the least inferior to heterosexuals. They're in every way as valuable as everyone else.

It's also foolish to call homosexuality a choice. Nobody chooses what he likes and doesn't like, whether it's music or food or sexual partners. Instead of choice I would use the word preference. Choice implies a positive action, whereas preference is something passive. Where does a preference come from? It can come from anywhere, except I would say it's post-existence. It might come from childhood experiences, it might come from pre-natal experiences, or it might come purely at random. These preferences only become apparent to others when they're strong enough to be expressed, so by then it's too late to change them. Brainwashing a person with Gay Conversion Therapy might work, but even if it does force a person to think differently it will do a person more harm than good.

Preferring sex with people of one's own gender is a sexual preference like any other. For instance, I have a sexual preference that leans towards masochism. I don't know where this came from. It's not a choice. The earliest I can remember is when I was eleven years old, and I found myself sexually aroused by comics in which Supergirl was hitting men. This feeling has remained with me all my life. When I was in my late teens I thought something was wrong with me and made a conscious effort to suppress these feelings, but I couldn't. It wasn't until I finally spoke to someone about it when I was 21 that I realised my masochism was normal. I learnt to accept myself.

Homosexuality is normal. Suppressing homosexuality is wrong. Suppressing homosexuality will make you ill. If you choose to be heterosexual when your natural preference is to be homosexual you will never be happy.

Destroyer (4 Stars)

This is the ninth film in the Stuttgart White Nights Festival.

"Destroyer" is a difficult film for me to rate. There's so much about the film that's outstanding, but it also has its weaknesses.

I've never particularly liked Nicole Kidman as an actress, but in this film she's spectacular. In my eyes it's the best film of her career. She's hardly recognisable in the role as the alcoholic Los Angeles police detective Erin Bell. It breaks the usual cliché that it's male detectives who have drink problems. She's a wreck. She's determined to hunt for the man who killed Chris, her partner and lover, 17 years ago, and she breaks all the rules set for her by the police department to get her revenge.

There's a side story that she's struggling to be accepted by her rebellious 16-year-old daughter Shelby, who despises her because she's always drunk. Shelby is Chris's daughter, but Erin didn't find out she was pregnant until after his death.

The story is told in two halves. We see her in the present trying to find the former gang leader, Silas. We also see what happened 17 years ago, when Erin and Chris went undercover in the gang when it was planning a bank robbery. The stories are skilfully interwoven.

But...

The director is unfair to the viewer. The viewer is deliberately misled by the film narrative. The story is told in two timelines, the past and the present. That would be good storytelling, but at the end we realise that the events didn't take place in the order they're shown. That's unfair. I know that it's done this way to spring a plot twist on us, but I think it's cheating.

The second time I watch the film I'll enjoy it more because I know what happens when.

This film will be released in England next week. No American release date has been set yet. I'd like to discuss it with my friends after they've seen it.

Aquaman (4½ Stars)

I have to admit that after the awful mess called "Justice League" I had low expectations for "Aquaman". It's a film I thought I have to go to just because it's a super-hero and I have a duty to see super-hero films. It's even a DC super-hero film, and I gave up on DC 50 years ago.

I don't want to go into the whole Marvel vs DC thing, because I've written about it elsewhere. I'll just sum up my attitudes, past and present, briefly. When I bought my first comics in the early 1960's it was a mixture of Marvel and DC. My choice was based mostly on the covers, and DC's covers were slightly more appealing to me as a child. As I remember, "Batman" and "Justice League of America" (JLA) were the DC comics I bought the most frequently. "Batman" had the flashiest covers, and "JLA" had the most heroes. Within a few years I realised that Marvel comics had better stories, so by the mid 1960's I only bought Marvel. By 1965 I was having passionate debates with my school friends about which was better, Marvel or DC.

In the mid 1970's I made two exceptions. I started to read "Wonder Woman" and "Detective Comics",  but that's getting off the subject. I'll stop here.

Now let's get back to Aquaman. I knew him from the JLA comics. He was the least prominent of the JLA members. As I remember the comics, Superman and the Flash were the main tier characters, Batman and Green Lantern were the mid tier characters, Wonder Woman and Aquaman were the minor tier characters. Please don't criticise me if you disagree, that's just my subjective impression based on comics that I read more than 50 years ago.

I liked Aquaman. He was a cool looking character who swam in the sea. I wanted to know more about him. I wished he could have his own comic book, which didn't happen until the 1980's when I'd already given up reading DC.

The next time I saw Aquaman was in "Justice League" in 2017. It wasn't just the film that disappointed me, it was the character. He was brash and arrogant, nothing like the quiet background guy from the 1960's.

Now to today's film itself. It should really have been made before "Justice League". DC doesn't plan film releases as well as Marvel. It shows Aquaman's origin story, which we should have known before watching "Justice League". Yes, he's still brash and arrogant, but the film tells us why. He was bullied as a kid, so he reacted against it as an adult. That makes his attitude acceptable.

I'm an outsider, as far as the Aquaman mythology is concerned. Never having read any of his solo comic books I don't know how he came to be. I can't compare the film with the comics, which is probably an advantage for me. It makes me less critical.

What I can say is that there are parallels with Marvel's leader of Atlantis, Namor the Sub-Mariner. The two characters are so similar that someone has to be accused of plagiarism. Only history can tell us who is guilty. Timely Comics (later renamed to Marvel) first featured Sub-Mariner in 1939. Aquaman was invented by DC in 1941. That answers the question: Aquaman is a Sub-Mariner clone. They're both half-human, they're both exiled rulers of Atlantis, they're both torn between their loyalties to the sea realm and the surface world.

Sub-Mariner is a character that needs to be added to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). We could have a film about him being sent on a quest to recover the trident that would prove he's the true king of Atlantis. That's not copying "Aquaman". Marvel did it first, way back in 1965.

The film is very well made. It's a glorious CGI feast. The underwater realms look surreal and enticing. The battles between rivalling kingdoms look confusing, but they don't take up too much of the movie. When Aquaman himself is fighting the battle scenes are spectacular. The film is enjoyable, even if it's a clone of Marvel stories.

The Beguiled (3½ Stars)

"Strong women with great passion".

That's the tagline of the film for the German cinema release. Obviously that's enough to draw me into the cinema, despite seeing Nicole Kidman's name on the posters. She's the A-List actress that I like the least, and I usually avoid any film she appears in.

The film starts on the same theme as "Wonder Woman", which I watched two days ago. A wounded soldier is found by a woman, and he's taken into an all-female community to be healed. That's where the similarity ends. From then on they're very different films. In "Wonder Woman" it's a British pilot fleeing the Germans in 1916 who accidentally finds his way to the island home of the Amazons. In "The Beguiled" it's a Union soldier in 1864 who has deserted after being wounded and is hiding in the woods near a girls' boarding school in Virginia.

The soldier is Corporal John McBurney, an Irish immigrant who enlisted to fight for the Union army because he needed the money. After being shot in the leg he has left the battlefield to avoid even greater injuries. A young girl called Amy finds him and takes him back to her school, the Martha Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies. Officially the school has closed down because the war is raging nearby, but five of the girls had no home to return to, so the school's owner, Miss Farnsworth, and one of the teachers, Edwina Morrow, have remained to look after them. Judging by their appearances, the girls are aged between 10 and 16.

The soldier's arrival in the school causes a lot of excitement. He flirts with Miss Farnsworth and Miss Morrow. All the girls are interested in him, even the youngest, in a childlike way. As he regains his strength it becomes more than flirting. At first this makes the women and girls jealous of one another, but then they unite against him to take revenge.

Are the women strong? (I'll use the word "women" to include all the females, even the youngest girls). For most of the film they aren't. They're creatures of a past age, enslaved by moral correctness. It's true that they have great passion, but they are expected to conceal it. They kneel and pray to God rather than doing what they want. Only the oldest girl, Alicia, has the courage to express what she desires, which is why the corporal finds her more appealing than the women. When the women turn against one another in jealousy they're weak. It's only when they finally unite against the corporal that they find strength in numbers.

The film has a certain appeal, but I found it overall dissatisfying. Wonder Woman is a powerful woman that I can admire. Miss Farnsworth, Miss Morrow and their girls aren't.

Eyes Wide Shut (4 Stars)

"No dream is ever just a dream".

This is the eighth film starring Leelee Sobieski. It was released in 1999, but she was still 14 when she appeared in the film because her scenes were filmed in early 1998. The film was shot over a period of 400 days and still holds the world record for the longest uninterrupted period of film shooting. That must have been a gruelling experience for the film crew and for Tom Cruise, who appeared in most of the scenes.

Despite being set in New York, the film was made in England. The Greenwich Village street scenes were painstakingly recreated in Pinewood Studios, including the accurate placement of items such as newspaper vendors. It was so accurate that anyone who lived in New York in 1999 and saw the film wouldn't be able to tell that it was only a film set.

Leelee Sobieski only appears for a few minutes in the film, as the promiscuous daughter of the costume shop owner Milich. This is the first of two films in which she co-stars with the prolific Croatian actor Rade Serbedzija. The other is "The Elder Son", made in 2006. In both films he plays her father.

The film is an adaptation of the 1926 book "Dream Story" by Arthur Schnitzler. The original story is set in Vienna, one of the world's most elegant but decadent cities at the time. I agree that New York City is a more appropriate setting if the story were to happen today. It's a city of contrasts. Dr. Bill Harford is a rich doctor who lives in a wealthy apartment and goes to luxurious dinner parties. The rest of the world lives in poverty, such as the prostitute Domino. When Bill enters her apartment he's speechless, he's never seen such squalor. After this he spends his time wandering the streets as if sleep-walking, stumbling from one situation to another. The highlight is when he gatecrashes the meeting of a religious cult where the members are practising free sex.

Is it real? Is it fake? At the end of the film many questions are left unanswered. Stanley Kubrick liked to leave ambiguity in his films. In the case of "Eyes Wide Shut" it's appropriate. When you're dreaming everything seems real. When you wake up and remember the dream you see contradictions that weren't apparent while you were asleep. What's real for a moment is fake afterwards.

There's a scene in which Tom Cruise reads a newspaper article about the death of a woman he recently met. The article is written in great detail. Unfortunately some of the lines are doubled. In the first column it's the 7th and 8th lines, in the second and third columns it's the 9th and 10th lines. You can click on the picture above to check for yourself. Sloppy.

Here's a full transcript of the article, not visible in the above screenshot:

A former Miss New York was rushed to New York Hospital this morning in critical condition after a drug overdose, police sources said.

Amanda Curran, 30, was found unconscious in her room at the Florence Hotel by security personnel after her agent asked them to check on her because he'd been unable to reach her by phone.

Workers at the Florence told police she had not been seen since 4 a.m. when she returned to the hotel accompanied by two men. The staff said the men seemed to be holding a giggling Curran upright as they brought her into the posh hotel.

Police have been unable to locate the two men, but a police spokesman said they did not suspect foul play in Curran's overdose.

"We don't believe there has been any crime against Miss Curran, but we would like to talk to those two men to see what they can tell us about her final hours before she was discovered", the spokesman said.

Officials decline to say what drug or drugs Curran OD'd on. It was unclear if there was anyone in the room with her at the time she ingested the drugs.

Her sister, Jane Curran, told The Post, "The overdose must have been an accident. Mandy and I were as close as sisters can get. If there had been anything wrong, she would have told me".

Jane, a 26-year-old perfume consultant, said that her sister was emotionally troubled as a teenager, but she managed to put it behind her.

"She'd undergone treatment for depression in her teens, but that was a long time ago".

She said that her sister was not totally satisfied with her career, but was still hoping to turn her beauty pageant success into an acting gig.

"Things hadn't gone as well as she'd expected after winning the Miss New York title, but she was considering several television offers.

"She has many important friends in the fashion and entertainment worlds and she believed she'd break through in the end. It was just a matter of time".

After being hired for a series of magazine ads for London fashion designer Leon Vitali, rumors began circulating of an affair between the two.

Soon after her hiring, Vitali empire insiders were reporting that their boss admired Curran -- not for how she wore his stunning clothes in public, but by how she wowed him by taking them off in private, seductive solo performances.

Stoker (4 Stars)

Sometimes you need to do something bad to stop yourself from doing something worse.

The Stoker family is a wealthy family that lives in Conneticut. Richard, Evelyn and their daughter India. How wealthy are they? They have a large house, and they have a maid who lives with them to do the cooking and cleaning. Any family that can afford to employ a servant to live with them must have a lot of money. The house looks like something out of 19th Century England, but it's 21st Century America.

On India's 18th birthday news comes that her father has died in a mysterious car accident. His car swerved off the road and burst into flames. At the funeral Richard's brother Charlie arrives, a brother that none of the family have ever seen because he's been travelling the world on business since before Richard and Evelyn met. Charlie says he feels like it's his duty to look after the family, and Evelyn gladly gives him a room in the house. He soon becomes too comfortable. India is shocked to see that her mother is flirting with Charlie only days after her husband's death.

Charlie seems to take his responsibility as the new head of the family seriously, although it goes to the point of obsession. He drives India to school, then stands outside the school waiting for her to finish so he can drive her back home. When he sees boys bullying her because she won't talk to them he beats them up brutally. India slowly becomes fascinated with him.

This is the first English language film directed by Park Chan-wook, best known for "Oldboy". The film moves slowly, gradually building up suspense. When the film began I assumed that it was just about a creepy uncle taking over a family, but as it progressed it was gradually unveiled that the whole family isn't quite as harmless as it seems. India tries to find out Charlie's secrets, but she also has to find out about herself.

Paddington (3 Stars)

This is a live action film based on the stories of Paddington Bear, who first appeared in a children's novel by Michael Bond in 1958. There have been three television series featuring Paddington, in 1975, 1989 and 2008, but this is his first appearance on the big screen. It's fortunate that we've waited so long, because the state of computer animation is finally good enough for a miniature bear to look realistic.

The film begins with Montgomery Clyde, an English explorer, visiting the "darkest jungles of Peru". He discovers intelligent bears, that he teaches how to speak English. He also teaches them English culture, including the love of marmalade.

50 years later a young bear decides to travel to England to see the wonderful country that his aunt and uncle have talked about. He arrives at Paddington Train Station and meets the Brown family. The Browns can't pronounce his name, so they call him Paddington. Things aren't as perfect in England as expected. Paddington is hunted by Millicent, an evil taxidermist who wants to stuff him. That's such a strange concept for an arch-enemy that I'd be tempted to ridicule it, except that Millicent is played by Nicole Kidman, who looks bizarrely sexy in her blond wig.

I was rather surprised to see Peter Capaldi. I hadn't heard he was in the film, and I almost jumped out of my chair when he first appeared on screen in a phone box. That was a nice touch.

As a children's film, I couldn't really relate to it. But take your kids to the cinema with you, I'm sure they'll enjoy it.

Before I go to sleep (3½ Stars)

Nicole Kidman, who appears in almost every minute of the film, stars as a 40-year-old woman called Christine Lucas. When she was 26 she was the victim of a violent assault that involved blows to the head. Ever since then she's unable to retain new memories. Every day when she wakes up she has forgotten everything that happened on the previous day, and she thinks that she's 20 years younger. Every day she wakes up next to her husband Ben, who she doesn't recognise, and he has to explain who he is before leaving for work. Every day she receives a phone call from a man, Doctor Nash, who says he is trying to help her retrieve her memory. The doctor instructs her to make a video diary on a camcorder every day. Every morning she has to watch the previous recordings, and every evening she has to record the new things she has learnt during the day. As she struggles to find the truth about her past she doesn't know if she can trust the doctor, her husband or anyone at all.

The similarity with "Memento" is obvious. Rather than dwell on the similarities I'll point out the one major difference. In "Memento" the emphasis of the story is Leonard Shelby trying to find his wife's killer, despite being hampered by his repeated memory loss. In "Before I go to sleep" the emphasis is on Christine Lucas trying to regain her lost memories.

This is a good film with a solid performance by the three main actors, Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth as the husband and Mark Strong as the doctor.

Eyes Wide Shut (4 Stars)

Dreams in the night. The mysteries that ensue when a righteous man strays.