Brotherly love to brothers in arms...
Say what you like about Bottle Rocket (15) ★★★, it’s not your typical Wes Anderson picture. Bill Murray isn’t in the cast. Otherwise, everything Wes-worshippers cherish is present in this, his debut feature from 1996. A bunch of bozos on a dreamy journey to nowhere; and near mathematically precise compositions and tracking shots; Owen Wilson acting solemn and dumb: check, check, check. Wilson plays Anthony, a youth who busts out of psychiatric hospital to embark on a life of house-breaking with his best pal Dignan (Owen’s brother Luke). But no sooner have they robbed their first house than they check into a motel where Dignan falls in love with the maid, Inez (Lumi Cavazos). This relationship is the high point of the movie. And praise be for that, because from here on in, Bottle Rocket isn’t so much episodic as all over the place. Christopher Nolan is an ideas man, too. From Memento on, his big idea has been that movies are a toy for tinkering with time. The subject matter of Nolan’s latest, Dunkirk (15) ★★★★★, is ripe for the treatment. How better to convey the dread and drift of that ten-day evacuation than by making a Mobius strip of a drama about it? Watching this, you’re no more sure of what’s happening, and when it’s happening, than the soldiers are. It isn’t until the end that we get a shot of the area to give us some bearings. Long stretches of Dunkirk are dialogue-free, which means that more than most this is an actors’ movie. Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Jack Lowden and Harry Styles are excellent. For a real tough guy, check out the glittering 3D Blu-ray of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (15) ★★★★. Yes, the movie is half an hour too long, and goodie Arnie is never as much fun as baddie Arnie. But the liquid-steel FX still looks state-of-the-art.