Kundun

And this week's Friday night movie has been... Kundun!

Original image located here. Accessed 15th May 2026

Over the years I have been slowly getting more acquainted with the oeuvre of Martin Scorsese. So let's take a look perhaps his most unique movie: A biopic on the life of the 14th Dalai Lama. 

Watching this movie I can't help but think of The Last Emperor. Sure such a declaration will be unfair to this movie but it isn't hard to imagine this movie looking over The Last Emperor's shoulder and taking notes. Both follow the pattern of a boy thrust into a position of power, not knowing quite how to handle it, and how it effects him into adulthood. 

Still this is still pretty good and quite an effective turn from someone who built their career from making New York crime dramas. But this isn't just Scorsese's show: he is backed with the staggering visuals of cinematographer Roger Deakins, the evocative score of Philip Glass and the editing of Thelma Schoonmaker. All four are bringing their A-game and the result is a truly a stunning movie. 
It's just a shame that the weak point of this movie is the narrative: It seems disjointed & plodding at times and proves to be quite the Achilles heel.

Nevertheless, this is an impressive movie and certainly a stand-out in Scorsese's filmography. 

Slumdog Millionaire

And this week's Friday night movie has been... Slumdog Millionaire!

Original image located here. Accessed 4th November 2024

Best Picture Oscar winner no.: 81 (2008)

Part of the reason I am doing this year long undertaking is that I am approaching these movies with fresh eyes, divorced from trends, politics and passage of time. Indeed, there's something to be said for watching a movie as just that: a movie.

However by watching this movie, it did occur to me that it's cut from the same cloth as fellow Best Picture winner The Last Emperor: Both are movies made with a non-white cast, telling a non-white story which is handled by a white director who is anything but an Oscar favourite. And, racial politics aside, both films come across as unique entrants in the history of Best Picture Oscars. 

On paper, this movie sounds awful: A movie that tells a story where Who Wants to be a Millionaire is utilised as a framework? Come off it. And the questions facing the protagonists are built around his life experiences? Are you joking?
And yet this movie works: It is well crafted, compelling and there are numerous nods to Bollywood (least not the dance sequence at the end). The cast is great and it is never once dull.

So yeah, it's a superb movie although I have to wonder that if it wasn't for this movie, Lion wouldn't exist...

The Last Emperor

 And this week's Friday night movie has been... The Last Emperor!

Original image located here. Accessed 4th November 2024

Best Picture Oscar winner no.: 60 (1987)

If the 1980s was the 'forgotten' decade of Best Picture Oscar winners then this must surely be the forgotten movie of the ten.
I will say this though: From the outset this has to be the most unique Best Picture Oscar winner: An all-Asian cast of no big names. A director who has hardly an Oscar favourite. An Asian story, told by Asian people in an Asian location. The sole Oscar winner in the cast playing a white man who disappears halfway through the movie. And an epic where the lead character is a passive one.

But much like it's fellow epics, this is staggering in its scale. The onsite footage of the Forgotten City as astonishing and the amount of extras used for particular scenes is unbelievable. Such visuals are worth the price of admission alone but what is of particular note is the narrative of a boy who is in command, for reasons he can't comprehend, over a region that has no purpose to exist. Thus the tragedy hits like a brick when our protagonist tries to assert some control over his life, well into adulthood, but is outdone at every turn. 

All in all, a triumph. So why is this forgotten? Buggered if I know.

And so, with that, we leave the 1980s behind. So what shall come next week....?