Off My List

I’ve moaned about this nonsense before:

Since hitting UK cinemas last month, the atomic bomb thriller Oppenheimer — which stars Cillian Murphy in the titular role — has been given a slew of five star ratings while critics branded it Nolan’s ‘best and most revealing work’.

However:

BBC News star Jane Hill revealed she walked out of Christopher Nolan’s film halfway through after spotting a major flaw that left her ‘disappointed’.

I was thinking “historical inaccuracy” or “gratuitous sex/violence”, but no:

It appears Jane was certainly not in agreement as she shared that she was frustrated at not being able to hear the film’s dialogue properly due to the loud soundtrack — and was even more astounded to learn that the issue occurs in almost ‘all’ of Nolan’s films.

She told her followers: ‘Saw Oppenheimer. Well, managed half of it. Disappointed that music & effects often drowned out the actors, I missed whole chunks of dialogue. 

Well, that takes the movie off my “to watch” list.

Till fairly recently, I thought that this degraded sound in movies was simply the result of my age- and tinnitus-ridden hearing, but now I know the truth.  It seems that the new trend in cinema verité  is now to muddy up the dialogue either by having the actors mutter their lines — and sometimes in thick, incomprehensible accents withal — or else to submerge the speech with over-loud sound effects and / or “background” music.  Or in the case of this weasel Nolan, both.

Sorry, but there’s not much verité  when you can’t hear it being spoken.

I know, the answer is to wait for the movies to appear on a streaming service, and then tap the “subtitles” button.

Nah I’m not going to do that.  If I’m going to have to use subtitles, then I’ll just watch furrin stuff like gloomy Scandi detective shows or Belgian whodunnits, which quite frankly are often better than their “English” competition anyway.

The Son&Heir suggested that I get a sound bar for my TV so that I can turn up the “mids” (mid-range audio) and compensate, but I’m not going to do that either.

This little trend is like an artist covering his painting with sheets of thick gauze so you have to strain your eyes to see what’s on the canvas.  I wouldn’t bother looking at those, and I’m not going to watch these shitty movies either.

A pox on all of them.


Related:  Oppenheimer  director Nolan tells us all to fuck off.

Wasted Money

I note this development with something approaching gloom:

Amber Heard has finally paid Johnny Depp the $1million settlement she owed him after their bitter legal battle – as the Pirates of the Caribbean star vows to split it five ways among his favorite charities.

Depp and his ex-wife eventually settled their defamation claims against each other in December after five years of furious legal battles.

I know, ’tis a noble thing to do, giving away that demented tart’s money to worthy causes etc. etc.  And I know that Depp has enough money so that he can afford to give a million spondulicks away.

But I also wish he’d spent just a little of that money on something completely frivolous — say, a flashy Ferrari with a custom plate reading “BYTE MEBTCH” — because there’s nothing like creating a constant reminder to all the other gold-digging whores (thank you, Bill Burr) who want to enrich themselves at their wealthy paramours’ expense.

Actually, it would be a public service.

Bullet Dodged

I have no interest, of course, in ever watching the Barbie movie, despite the casting of the comely Margot Robbie in the title role.

Nevertheless, I still got a queasy feeling in my stomach when I stumbled across this horrifying scenario:

Amy Schumer was originally to play the title role of Barbie in the live-action Barbie movie but left the project in 2017, citing scheduling conflicts.

Yeah, nothing says “Barbie”

…like this foul yenta:

You may all be excused for a bathroom / vomit break at this point, and please accept my apologies for the latter pic — but it had to be done.