One of the most irritating critiques of Oppenheimer was its omission of the Japanese victims of the atomic bomb.  Christopher Nolan chooses to omit any images of their suffering beyond on off-screen newsreel.  It’s easy to imagine the worse version of the film that does include those images, just as it’s easy to conjure up the opposite critiques.  How dare a white Englishman appropriate Japanese misery for use in his blockbuster?  The best people to deal with the aftermath of the atomic bombings of the Japanese are the Japanese themselves, a truism that’s been enacted over and over again in countless movies made by Japanese directors, up to and including Godzilla, one of Japan’s most enduring 20th century cultural exports.  Godzilla Minus One continues in this long tradition as the latest version of the lumbering nuke-metaphor became an international hit and a critical darling.  Director Takashi Yamazaki expertly balances big-screen kaiju thrills while exploring and purging the strain of suicidal nationalism that infected Japan during World War II.  

​I haven’t seen the original Road House, though it gets mentally grouped in with the muscly action trash that dominated the 80’s.  Maybe it’s better than the Commandoes and Cobras of the world, but it sits comfortably alongside its genre buddies with their big body counts and hacky quips delivered in a Schwarzeneggar accent, Stallone mumble, or Seagal whisper.  Present-day action filmmaking is too cloaked in irony to pull off the same kind of tone, preferring a that-just-happened incredulity to the you’re-damn-right-it-did swagger of the Reagan/Persian Gulf era.  It’s therefore interesting to see what a modern remake of Road House might look like, and how that 80’s tone translates to current sensibilities and filmmaking trends.  However, Doug Liman’s adaptation is fruit of a poisoned tree.  As Hollywood moves away from superhero movies and is in search of its next big blockbuster trend, let’s hope they leave the 80’s in the rearview where it belongs.

​Of the major global outposts for movies, India is the one I’ve had the least experience with.  I’ve seen two Satyajit Ray films from the 50’s (both great), The Lunchbox starring Irrfan Khan (pretty good), and, most indicative of India’s cultural exports, 2022’s RRR.  That last one is what most think of when they imagine the work of Bollywood/Tollywood; epics with frequents musical interludes and intricate dance numbers.  RRR was a strong introduction to this kind of filmmaking, though it’s not the kind of cinematic empathy-building that I’ve found in countries as varied as Brazil, Romania, Iran, and South Korea.  Indian non-musicals, removed from the heightened nature of the genre, seem few and far between, and that’s generally what I want in my foreign film-watching.  Monkey Man, from actor/writer/director Dev Patel, isn’t exactly that, as it’s a bloody revenge flick with plenty of choreography, just not the kind that everyone dances to.  It does, however, give a peak into a culture and a nation that I feel like I should know more about, given its place in the world, while also delivering on the martial arts ultraviolence of its genre predecessors.

Cinema as a propagandistic vehicle got a workout in 2022.  Top Gun: Maverick venerated the US Navy and its fighter pilots, generating billions in box office and warm fuzzy feelings towards the most powerful military in the world doing whatever it wants, wherever it wants.  The Woman King rebranded a West African slaver empire as a bastion of gender equality.  RRR became one of the highest performing Indian films and the first in decades to break out with Western audiences, seducing them with a digestible anti-imperialist story while having a deeper read as a pitch for Hindu nationalism that runs counter to India’s secular founding.  Whatever queasy political meaning one takes from these and other films (China’s also figured out how to push a nationalist agenda through action filmmaking), it’s impossible to take issue with the imagination and audaciousness of what gets onscreen, especially with S. S. Rajamouli’s RRR.  In a rousing thrill ride, peak spectacle meets operatic storytelling in Rajamouli’s epic of Indian resistance to British rule.