Movies!
I am dealing with Editing Hell, so, movies!
- Free Solo: watching this was a testament to recommendations and also press tours. I didn't have an interest in seeing it, but then I saw recs that told me that it wasn't what I thought, and I watched some press tour stuff that made it more clear that it was not what I expected from the one-sentence summary of it that I'd had in my head of "dude climbs really big cliff without any safety gear because it's there". The guy in it prepped for a long time and is clear about the prep, is an actual expert in it, is not reckless, has caution and an understanding of the risks, and does not have any falls or scary moments while doing the free solo. And that for all that I'd seen "this guy doesn't feel fear!" (...I think? I was definitely seeing that kind of stuff go around but for all I know, it was for another documentary), the press tour made it clear that he does get scared of stuff, he's just trained enough that he's confident and all that, which, removing fear through experience of a thing is how it's supposed to work??? Idk, I have anxiety, I'm scared of everything.
I was very worried vis a vis Dramatic Danger, I have zero interest in watching someone nearly die for my entertainment. But then on a press tour thing, one of the directors mentioned interacting with Alex near the end of the climb and Alex checked his phone while talking to him, so, you know, if he's not strained enough and holding on for dear life enough that he can look at his phone, I think I'll be okay with this.
In terms of intended audience, I feel like this may have been more focused at a crowd who already knows the basics of rock climbing. It did not explain a lot of stuff or define terms, like: what's a "pitch", precious? The movie never says, figure it out from context. Even some basic stuff that would explain things that happen in the film, like, there's a moment where he falls and gets injured because his new girlfriend, who is also new to climbing, messed something up, and I'm only vaguely aware of what happened, since all they said was "oh, the rope ran out". There's just a lot of climbing basics they assume you know. So I wonder if this film wasn't intended for a crossover audience of folks who know nothing about climbing, and was more to climbing folks/climbing fans/climbing-adjacent people. (My climbing "experience": when we would go to national parks as a kid, I liked climbing onto the rocks. I tried climbing walls a couple times, but I had serious problems getting down, it's probably the same thing that has me not like going down from any kind of height above, oh, maybe a foot and a half. It just always seems really far down, much further than it actually is. So I know nothing about climbing.)
Adding to confusion, there's also a lot of shots of Alex climbing rocks and I think we're just supposed to know from context which are El Capitan and which are not? Only a few are identified, but there are some that I feel, from press stuff at least, are different places (also if no ropes and it's not the ending, it's not El Capitan, this is like my only clue and I had to look for them; if there *are* ropes, it could be practicing on El Capitan or it could be another rock, the world may never know). But again, a specialist audience would probably recognize on sight and not need the chyron.
Overall: enjoyable, but somewhat confusing for a clueless audience. I can't imagine how badly I would have followed stuff if I hadn't seen press tour things. That's the issue with this kind of documentaries: it's entirely interviews, etc, there's no narrator and very little on screen text. So if the interviews/scenes don't provide context, you're not getting context. They don't even mention that the stuff he puts on his hands is chalk. - The Italian Job: 60's movie so it's luxuriously paced, so even though I was often confused by what was going on, at least I wasn't stressed about it. This movie is famous for the car chase scene but honestly I spent the whole time asking the screen why, since they had an inconspicuous van that was able to get out by a different route, why the gold wasn't in there, and why they didn't just get two inconspicuous vans and use those instead of the flashy cars, and just use the flashy cars to draw police attention but those cars didn't actually have the gold in it? Or maybe that was the original plan and the destruction of three cars made them have to reassess? But anyway, yeah, there was a lot I didn't understand about this movie, starting with "who is Mr Bridger and wtf is going on" and going from there. (Also, when they're driving onto the bus: yeah, sure, Rule Of Cool, except it would have cost them nothing to pull over and do it while the bus isn't moving since *there's no one else on the road*)
Also, "cliffhanger", very funny :P
Overall, better than the original Thomas Crown Affair, which I don't know if I wrote up, but I watched a couple years ago and oh my god, I was not impressed at all. All I can remember of it is the opening, which was fine, and then just an overwhelming feeling of "why did I just watch this movie". - Hot Fuzz: started it, enjoyed the cinematography, but had a lot of stoppings because awkward and various other. I'll probably try again. In general, this is much less my genre than Baby Driver was, so expecting me to get through it as easily as I did that one was likely wishful thinking. :P
This entry was originally posted at https://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/1034686.html.