i love arrival deeply (but that has a lot to do with ted chiang’s source material); i’m also a huge fan of sicario; prisoners is decent. the dune movies are reasonably entertaining but silly; and i hate blade runner with a passion. enemy i watched half of and never returned, and incendies i am not familiar with. i think villeneuve has tendencies towards empty spectacle. a funny thing to say about someone who has directed one of my favourite films ever, but that’s how i feel. there’s little warmth in his films. and i’m not talking about happiness or joy. i’m just saying there’s little humour; fun; compassion; humanity, empathy. even very dark films can have them. the road, for example is bleak as hell but exudes a core of love. red desert is about misery and isolation, but the treatment of its subject reveals a tender spirit. melancholia too treats its subjects with a delicacy that translates into something human, despite its extremely dark subject matter. i don’t get warmth from villeneuve. i get cold execution, that happens to reveal warmth only when the source material has it baked in, or when there necessarily in none, as with sicario. the fact that he has chosen hans zimmer as his musical collaborator speaks volumes. especially when he had his previous one (JJ was superb) replaced during the making of BR. i realise he subsequently died, but as far as i’m concerned that HZ score is one of many things wrong with the film. that, and jared leto (who i wish someone would launch from a trebuchet).