Film Review Corner II

[Guy Rowland]

Time for a new film review thread. Legacy thread in ye olde closed part of the forum here - https://thesoundboard.net/viewtopic.php?t=831

House of Dynamite
Netflix



A missile launch from somewhere in the pacific is detected within the US defence system. Time to impact within the continental US - 19 minutes.

That's all I'm gonna say about the story outside spoiler tags. It is directed by Katheryn Bigelow - Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty - so you know it is gonna have muscle and heft. It is shot by Paul Greengrass' cinematographer, so you know it's gonna look like realty a la United 93 and Captain Philips. It is scored by Volker Bertelmann, so you know it's gonna sound like the oppressive impending horror of All Quiet On The Western Front. It is written by Noah Oppenheim so you know it's gonna be fearless like Jackie. It has a hugely impressive cast list, and everyone is uniformly excellent.

I thought it was outstanding, likely film of the year. So why have many reviews and so much audience feedback been negative? I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you.

Or wrap it in spoiler tags. NB - I'm also going to have to touch on politics here, it's unavoidable. Sorry. If you disagree with my take, I still love you.

► Show Spoiler

The film's structure is teasing - the 19 minutes get played out 4 times, each time revealing another aspect of the unfolding terrifying events. For me it worked absolutely brilliantly and of course gets you absolutely desperate to know - WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN? Will Chicago get annihilated? Is all out nuclear war inevitable?

Your final warning - turn away now if you don't want to know.

And the answer is - you won't know. You will never know. The audience is right on the edge of their seats and the credits roll. Everyone has cried "cop out", felt cheated and lets the internet know about it.

I'm not saying this was a uniquely brilliant way to end the film, but I do think it worked phenomenally well. The final 19 minutes you spent with the president whom you have never seen, and they do a mean thing - they first make you think he's playing golf (ie Trump). Instead, it's Man Of The People Idris Elba and - just goona say it - it's Obama. And 90% of the audience around the world goes "oh thank God".

Then you realise - is it really "thank God"? This is the fantasy. This terrifying fiction is plausible, and Trump is the reality.

THEN you realise - no human being can make this call. The president is alone with the 32 year old with the nuclear codes, whose life up to this point has been spent understanding every option open to the president so he can calmly explain them and let the big guy make that final judgement. In reality, faced with not knowing for sure if the missile will pulverise Chicago and STILL not knowing who fired it, there are no good choices. He wants to hand it over to the 32 year old with the briefcase.

The effect of not knowing the ending left me deeply unsettled. What the lack of closure does is to rack up the tension even MORE. This stuff could happen at any second, and good options there are none. The entire world's fate rests on the CHARACTER of the President of the United States.

One of the scariest movies I ever saw.

[scherzo]

Been a while since we had some film chat here. Since I pretty much live under a rock inside of a bubble with my head buried deep in the sand, I somehow hadn't heard about this film until I saw it mentioned here. I quickly decided I wanted to see it, and very responsibly avoided reading the spoiler section beforehand.

So I finally got around to seeing it last night. Very much enjoyed it! Well, as far as 'enjoyment' is an appropriate descriptor for a film like this. Elba is very good, isn't he?

Some random comments below. I'll use the spoiler tags as well because, well, there's spoilers and minor political tie-ins, so folks who find that objectionable can just avoid clicking. Sorry about that but it's unavoidable here.

► Show Spoiler

I can understand why some don't like the ending, but I honestly don't see what they could have possibly given us that would actually feel satisfying and be as dramatically effective. Besides, to me, the terrifying uncertainty of it all kind of *is* the point. There is no closure, no satisfying payback. There are no winners. There can't be.

Of course it's hard to disentangle the viewing experience from contemporary world politics, and the subject matter hits particularly hard given the state of affairs today. I had the same reaction as you - these people are mostly acting pretty reasonably given the circumstances, and even then it's an impossible and terrifying situation. Then you start thinking about how this would have played out under the current leadership in real life. In fact, I've been worrying about that quite a lot for some time now. It's... concerning.

Feels like we're back in the Cold War again - except this time it's multipolar, everyone is stupid, and all the adults have left the room.

As a minor side rant: I've long been ambivalent about much of Bigelow's output. Particularly her most famous work. Hurt Locker felt to me like it was trapped in the Uncanny Valley of Seriousness: trying hard to be a gritty realistic military drama, but ruining it by having no shortage of unrealistic nonsense in the plot and character behavior (as the vets have written about at length). Zero Dark Thirty was pretty good as a movie, but did leave a bitter aftertaste because it felt like it was trying to whitewash the legacy of the Enhanced Interrogation affair as being crucially important to the investigation and probably not all that bad. Which I think is both historically and ethically questionable. But both are quite cinematically good and stylish, I suppose, so no questioning her abilities there.

Thus far my favorite is actually her golden oldie, the original Point Break - ridiculous 90s action blockbuster schlock in all its glory, starring none other than Keanu "Whoa" Reeves. Not exactly high art, but it's pretty fun! I believe James Cameron was involved in the script as well. Kinda makes sense. I always thought it felt vaguely similar in style and feel to his own work around that time.

Ah well... I guess I need to see Threads next to complete the circle, eh?

[Guy Rowland]

Loved reading the spoiler, scherzo!

I'm very excited, because tonight our little film club is going to watch WarGames. I have always loved that movie, and my enthusiasm for it is undiminished 44 years later. It's so entertaining, so cute, so nostalgic, so fun and actually when you think about it so utterly terrifying.

There is a case to be made that WarGames is the most important movie ever made, the one with the biggest real world impact. The story goes that ex-actor Ronald Reagen saw it when president, and at the next security meeting raved about it to his heads of department. You can see the sideways looks in the room - sheesh. And he asks them "it couldn't really happen, could it?" They humour him, say it's fine but they'll look into it. And they find out that yes, a hack into their nuclear defence system absolutely COULD happen. Right now. And this led to the first cybersecurity bill.

Who knows, if it were not for the likeable charm of Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy, none of us might be here now.

But while hacking may have got infinitely more sophisticated than the early 80s, some of the sillier aspects of the plot seem... well, a lot less silly. There are three key elements to the story of how the world nearly got annihilated:

1. REMOVE HUMANS TO KEEP DECISION MAKING AT THE TOP. All the strategic decision making and military hardware comes down to the fact that, in simulations, some high percentage of guys in the missile silos won't turn the keys when they have to. No amount of training can make those foot soldiers kill millions of people when it comes to it. It's 100% convincing that they want to take these guys out of the loop.

2. A KID WITH A CUTE DOG THINKS HE'S PLAYING A GAME. David thinks he's hacked into Protovision, who have teased a next-gen game. He can't wait, he hacks in and fancies playing Global Thermonuclear War. He and his wannabe girlfriend have great fun.

3. AI TAKES OVER. The genius who wrote the military's war simulation program was teaching the computer how to LEARN. How to THINK. He failed to teach it the lesson of futility- though this is Hollwyood, and in fact 44 YEAR OLD SPOILER! this is exactly what happens via endless repetitions of Tic-tac-toe (noughts and crosses to us Brits). The best and most chilling line in the film is earlier when David realises the routine is still running, and asks the computer "is this a game or is it real", and gets the reply "What's the difference?".

A House of Dynamite flips (1) on its head. Decision-making is indeed at the top, when the pres says GO they GO. How will that work out? UTTERLY TERRIFYING.

(2) is an utterly ingenious plot device, not implausible then but definitely implausible now. But is every part of the system secure from bad actors? WORRYING

(3) AI in the military is now science fact, not science fiction. Autonomous weapons systems are a reality. In Hollywood, the Terminator franchise played most obviously with this idea, and the jury is very much out in terms of where future AI development will lead. But never mind Skynet becoming self-aware, will AI be guiding critical decision-making in situations where our real life leaders have just minutes to make decisions on chaotic or incomplete information that could result in the apocalypse? TERRIFYING.

But gee WarGames is such fun. Can't say the same for Threads...