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What I Watched This Week #121 (April 22-28) The Housemaid dir. Im Sang-soo/2010/1h47m A remake of a 1960 film of the same name, The Housemaid stars Jeon Do-yeon as Eun-yi, a young woman hired by a wealthy couple to look after their child. Once in the house the husband Hoon (Lee Jung-jae) uses his position of authority to seduce and impregnate her. A psychosexual social commentary on inequality this is a beautifully shot film with a great lead performance by Do-yeon. The plot of this film does stray pretty far from that of the original. Here Eun-yi is the victim whereas in the original she is the one who manipulates and controls the family she works for, which I think makes for a more interesting story, very much like a prototypical Parasite. I do like some of the changes and appreciate the fact that they wanted to do something different, but this in no way matches the deranged insanity that the original spirals into. That said, this is still a finely crafted thriller with some well placed shocks. 7/10 Cries and Whispers dir. Ingmar Bergman/1972/1h35m A period drama from Ingmar Bergman, Cries and Whispers stars Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Thulin and Harriet Andersson as Maria, Karin and Agnes, three sisters, the latter of which is dying of cancer. Rather than coming together to comfort her, their reunion only brings up painful memories with only the maid, Anna (Kari Sylwan), offering any care to the dying woman. A film about how grief can not only bring people together but also force them apart, this to me makes up an unofficial trilogy alongside Persona and Autumn Sonata – Bergman films starring Liv Ullmann about women confined together in a single location getting heavy with the emotions. Bergman's theatre background shines through in his framing and composition, especially the positions of characters in his frame. His use of the colour red here would make Pedro Almodóvar jealous. An emotionally exhausting watch, this isn't quite as good as the other two films mentioned earlier, but when they are both masterpieces you can't be too upset. 8.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Jill, Uncredited dir. Anthony Ing/2022/18m You won't recognise her name or her face, but you will have seen Jill Goldston before as she has appeared as an extra in nearly 2000 film and TV productions between 1960 and 2009 from the Carry On series and Mr. Bean to Aliens and The Elephant Man. This short film takes clips where she is briefly seen and slows them down, zooming in on the more and more recognisable face as she brushes past Malcolm McDowall on the street or assists Anthony Hopkins with surgery. There's something of an ominous tone to this film as it at times feels like we're stalking this woman, piecing together her life from brief glimpses, never coming close to a full portrait. A mesmerising tribute to all of the people who make films feel alive, this has also made Jill's face as recognisable to me as any of the A-listers who were lucky enough to work alongside her. 7/10 Chicken Little dir. Mark Dindal/2005/1h21m Zach Braff stars as the titular character who becomes the joke of his town and brings shame on his father when he claims that the sky is falling. But what if there really is something else up there? This is f*cking awful. It's Disney's first fully CGI film – Dinosaur had live action backgrounds – and it's one of the ugliest films I've ever seen. All of the characters look like they should be in constant pain and there is nothing natural about their movements. The script is bland and unfunny and none of the lead performances stood out. Braff is a terrible lead with no charm whatsoever. The only bit I liked here was the film-within-a-film that had Adam West as a beefy Chicken Little. 1/10 Clowns dir. Marco Bellocchio/2016/18m (no trailer or any video at all about this film exists, so you'll just have to take my word for it that it does) Clowns is a short film about a rehearsal of the opera I Pagliacci and a dinner party at the rich backer's home afterwards where a hypnosis session brings up all sorts of family drama. There are some interesting ideas here and it does feel like it's building towards something, but ultimately it all just feels a bit underdeveloped and goes nowhere. Lucia Ragni gives the best performance as the cold and heartless matriarch of the family, and I loved the scene of Corrado Invernizzi singing the clown's part from the opera. Other than that this is sadly pretty forgettable. 5/10 The Red Sea Makes Me Wanna Cry dir. Faris Alrjoob/2023/21m Ida (Clara Schwinning) travels from Germany to a small town on the Red Sea in Jordan to investigate the disappearance of her husband Ismail (Ahmed Shihab-Eldin), who is presumed dead. A rumination on grief and the absence of a loved one shot on grainy 16mm film this is a haunting experience with a powerful lead performance from Schwinning. In a way this feels like a story about the living haunting the dead, following them just one step behind, wanting to inhabit the same spaces they used to. I would love to see a feature length version of this story. 8/10 The Lords of Flatbush dir. Martin Davidson, Stephen Verona/1974/1h26m The Lords of Flatbush stars Sylvester Stallone in his first lead role not in a softcore p*rn film as a member of a gang of teenagers hanging around Brooklyn in the late fifties, with Henry Winkler also in the gang. There's not much of a plot here, the biggest throughline was Stallone's character getting his girlfriend pregnant and being pressured into marrying her – the scene in the jewellery store where he gets pissed about the price of rings is the best scene in the film. This is like an east coast, working class American Graffiti. It's all about those last dying days of childhood before the responsibilities of the world smack you in the face and tells you to get a job. Apart from the novelty of seeing a pre-Rocky Stallone and a pre-Fonz Winkler there's not really anything to recommend this. Not that there's anything awful here, it's just all pretty generic. 5/10

The new Polar Patriots Warbond comes out next week.

Helldivers, you are needed!

Galactic War update. Day 79-81

Hey @vishesh.talwar, good to see you are well.