djw180 6,846 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 El Conde (2023) dir Pablo Larrain A film with a very unique kind of plot. The two main characters were real figures, I assume some of the supporting characters too, and some of the actions they took in real life relate to the plot, but this is definitely not a true story. General Augusto Pinochet was, in real life, the brutal dictator of Chile from 1974 to 1990. With western backing he overthrew a democratically elected government and began a reign of terror in which thousands of opponents where imprisoned, tortured and murdered. In this film he is also a 250 year old vampire and its a dark comedy. The other main character, who narrates much of the film, is the former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who considered Pinochet a friend, is well aware of his true nature, just as she was aware of his crimes in real life. It takes place after Pinochet has lost power and after the unsuccessful attempt by a Spanish judge to bring him to justice. Unlike the classic film vampire he has aged, is now a frail old man, and although he could live forever, he has decided he has had enough and is attempting to starve himself to death. His children have all come to visit, to bicker over their expected, substantial inheritance. There are other vampires in the film too and they also differ from the classic type in the way they feed. Though they may occasionally bite a victim's neck their usual method is to cut out the heart, liquidise it, blend it with some sort of alcohol and then drink the cocktail, or just save it to eat later. So it is quite gory at times, but there are no prolonged bloody scenes. There's also a vampire-hunter nun, posing as a pro-Pinochet accountant, there to help sort of all the financial details. It is quite funny but still makes clear what sort of real-life monster Pinochet and his henchmen were. Him being a vampire is in some ways a metaphor for how he amassed a vast fortune by fraud from the people he claimed to be serving. The acting is good, especially Jaime Vadell as Pinochet and Paula Luchsinger as the nun. It is also visually stunning, shot in black and white, with an Oscar nomination for its cinematography, and includes a wonderfully choreographed scene where a newly created vampire is very clumsily learning to fly. 9 / 10 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,179 Posted February 18 Author Share Posted February 18 @djw180 El Conde has been on my Netflix watchlist for months and you just convinced me to watch it, great review. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,179 Posted February 18 Author Share Posted February 18 What I Watched This Week #109 (January 29 – Feb 4) No Dogs or Italians Allowed dir. Alain Ughetto/2022/1h10m No Dogs or Italians Allowed is a biographical stop-motion animation that tells the story of the director Alain Ughetto's grandfather Luigi (Stefano Paganini) who emigrated to France from Italy at the start of the 20th century and faced instant discrimination, hence the title. The film is narrated by Ughetto, who was only a baby when Luigi died, so everything he knows about him comes from stories told by his grandmother Cesira (Ariane Ascaride). Though these stories are tragic they are also incredibly funny at times, with the medium of stop-motion animation being used to its full effect to emphasise this. But what really makes this film stand out, and makes it feel intimately personal, is how we see Ughetto's hands constructing the sets and models and even interacting with them, handing them things. It makes it feel like he is connecting directly to his past and relatives he never knew through this film and he is letting us be a part of it. Innovative, touching and always entertaining. 9/10 The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's dir. Frank Launder/1960/1h34m (no trailer for this so here's the opening titles which contains the surprisingly catchy and violent school song) The law of diminishing returns is in full effect in this third instalment of the school based comedy series. The film starts off strong with the mob of fourth form girls on trial for burning down the school, but it soon turns into a rehash of the second film as the seductive sixth formers are sent off to the middle east looking for a rich man to exploit. It does end strong with the mob of younger girls saving the day in some stolen army vehicles, but it's too little too late. What made the first film great was the focus on this anarchic rabble causing havoc with gentle guidance from Alastair Sims' headmistress, but as each subsequent film moves away from that they lose that sense of fun. 6/10 How to Have s*x dir. Molly Manning Walker/2023/1h31m This coming of age film stars Mia McKenna-Bruce as Tara, a teenage girl going on a summer holiday with her two best friends who are looking forward to sunbathing, drinking and s*x. This is a big deal for Tara who is still a v*rgin and feels pressured to change that. While there she meets the sweet Badger (Shaun Thomas) and his friend Paddy (Samuel Bottomley) who sexually assaults her late one night. This is a film totally based in reality which makes it all the more hard to watch because you know that Tara isn't going to go on some violent rampage of revenge, she's just going to cry herself to sleep, try to pretend it never happened and never report it to the police. McKenna-Bruce is incredible in the lead role, her performance totally natural and nuanced. The way she is changed by what happens to her is subtle because she's trying to hide it, but is all there in just the way she holds herself or a slight change in expression. The direction from first timer Manning Walker perfectly captures the feeling of teenagers being let off the leash for the first time, it's vibrant and energetic and at times hectic. She is also able to capture the more serious moments with a respect for her characters that isn't exploitative or begging for sympathy. She also leaves us at the end with a sense of hope and solidarity that doesn't feel forced or sentimental. An excellent film, but an awful how-to guide. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Wonka dir. Paul King/2023/1h57m Nobody wanted a prequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where we learn the backstory of Willy Wonka, yet here it is. What gives it a fighting chance of being half decent is that it is from the same creative team that made the recent Paddington films and they are actually amazing. Timothee Chalamet stars as Wonka – more Johnny Depp than Gene Wilder – a young confection maker who dreams of having his own shop but is soon conned into a life in a laundry room thanks to Mrs. Scrubbit (Olivia Colman), a dim yet malicious landlady. While not as good as the recent Matilda musical this still has some catchy songs written by Neil Hannon who also wrote the brilliant My Lovely Horse. The script is solid with some pretty funny moments but it is very predictable, something which Willy Wonka should never be. What makes this film as entertaining as it is is the cast who are all great. Chalamet at first is a bit grating and it feels like he's trying too hard to be quirky but he soon settles into the role and by the end I quite liked him, he's much better than Depp in the role. Along with Colman the supporting cast includes Keegan-Michael Key, Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas and Hugh Grant as an Oompa-Loompa. The stand out though is Calah Lane as Noodle, a young orphan girl in the “care” of Mrs. Scrubbit, who soon becomes Wonka's accomplice. This isn't a patch on the Paddington films but director Paul King has pulled off a miracle here by making this as good as it is. 7/10 Bringing Up Baby dir. Howard Hawks/1938/1h42m This classic screwball comedy stars Cary Grant as uptight palaeontologist David Huxley, a man who gets caught up in a series of ever more ridiculous antics thanks to eccentric heiress Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) and a leopard called Baby. This is the epitome of the screwball comedy with a plot that moves just as fast as the dialogue is delivered and the entire thing hinged on the chemistry between the two leads who start the film hating each other and end it madly in love. My favourite of this type of film is His Girl Friday, also starring Grant, but this is up there with some of the best. I do have to say that the scenes with the leopard made me pretty uncomfortable, especially the one where it's play fighting with an actual dog, and the leopard looks pretty uncomfortable too. But when you have a leading pair like Grant and Hepburn you can't help but be enchanted. 8/10 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,179 Posted February 25 Author Share Posted February 25 What I Watched This Week #110 (Feb 5 – 11) Saltburn dir. Emerald Fennell/2023/2h11m Barry Keoghan stars as Oliver, a scholarship student at Oxford University who becomes obsessed with the incredibly posh Felix (Jacob Elordi). After a chance meeting Oliver is invited to spend the summer at Felix's family estate, the sprawling Saltburn. This is the follow up to Fennell's brilliant debut Promising Young Woman, and it shares that films style. This is a gorgeous looking film with some really nice direction taking us into the world of this palatial home, long single take Steadicam shots drawing us deeper into the estate. At times it has a sort of Hotel California “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave” vibes early on. Where the film really comes alive is in the second half when we actually get to Saltburn and things start to spiral downwards very quickly, with the set-up in Oxford dragging on a bit too long for my liking. Ever since The Killing of a Sacred Deer Keoghan has been one of my favourite actors and he is excellent here as the quiet and shy student who is changed by his exposure to this family. A few gross-out moments feel a little contrived and just there for the shock factor but they do go in some way to building up a portrait of this insidious, web spinning spider of a character. 8.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Bones dir. Cristobal Leon, Joaquin Cocina/2021/14m The Bones is a stop-motion short from the same directors as the brilliant The Wolf House (watch that, it's a 10/10 for me), and like that film it is an allegorical look at the political history of Chile. Here, we see a young girl performing a ritual using the corpses of two of Chile's former secretaries of state in an attempt to exorcise the country. In one scene we see her un-sign a marriage contract, freeing herself and the country from these abusive men. This film has an incredible tone, almost like a horror movie, with a style that reminds me of Jans Svankmajer's eerie stuttering animations. But despite being incredibly creepy this is still a film with a message of hope for the future, no matted how bleak things may get. My ignorance of Chilean history definitely took away from some of my enjoyment of this, but even if you know nothing about that you will still be blown away by the incredible animation. 8/10 Murder She Said dir. George p*llock/1961/1h27m In the first screen adaptation of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple character Margaret Rutherford stars in the lead role of the elderly amateur sleuth. When she witnesses a murder on a passing train but the police find no evidence of foul play Miss Marple installs herself as the maid of the Ackenthorpe estate in order to do some snooping. The only other Miss Marple film I've seen is The Mirror Crack'd starring Angela Lansbury, and she spends most of the film side-lined with a broken leg, so it was nice to see a story where she actually does something, and her play acting as a maid is just wonderful to watch. Rutherford is captivating as Marple, totally embodying the character of the ultimate busybody who just loves sticking her nose in to other people's business. She has a brilliantly expressive face which she knows how to use to it's fullest. The actual plot is a solid mystery with a nice resolution, but the charisma of Rutherford is what you'll be watching this for. 8/10 Four short films by Alice Guy-Blaché: The Cabbage-Patch Fairy 1900/1m The Consequences of Feminism 1906/7m The Race for the Sausage 1907/4m Falling Leaves 1912/12m These four short films are by Alice Guy-Blaché, the first ever woman filmmaker and a figure whose importance to film history was overlooked for a long time. Innovative and radical she made the first ever fantasy film in 1896, The Cabbage-Patch Fairy from 1900 being a remake of that now lost film. It is simple, a woman dressed as a fairy picks up some very unhappy babies from behind some cabbages, but that was enough to make it stand out from the bland films that were being made at the time. The Consequences of Feminism is something to show to those people who think that films have become “woke” in the last few years. Guys, films have always been “woke”. In this one Guy-Blaché imagines a world where gender roles are reversed, like a turn of the century French Barbie. Men fuss over their hats and outfits while the women knock back brewskis in the bar. The Race for the Sausage isn't another feminist film but rather a pure comedy. It is the simple story of a dog stealing a length of sausages from a butcher with it evolving into a ridiculous chase involving a dozen people and it has a fantastic punchline at the end. The final film here is a sentimental melodrama about a little girl who overhears a doctor saying that her sick sister probably won't be alive when the last leaf has fallen from the trees. This leads to a beautifully innocent scene of the little girl tying the leaves back onto the branches of the trees in hopes of saving her sister. What these four films show is the range of Guy-Blaché and her technical and artistic skill even at this early stage of cinema. The Cabbage-Patch Fairy 6/10 The Consequences of Feminism 8/10 Race for the Sausage 7/10 Falling Leaves 8/10 Sabotage dir. Alfred Hitchcock/1936/1h17m An adaptation of Joseph Conrad's excellent novel The Secret Agent, this Hitchcock film stars Sylvia Sidney as Mrs. Verloc, proprietor of a London cinema, who has no idea that her husband (Oskar Homolka) is a terrorist who has been ordered to bomb an underground station. Hitchcock is called the master of suspense for a reason and they are all on show here. His use of editing gives real energy to seemingly slow scenes, and the way he draws out the tension in key scenes is nail-bitingly good. Sidney is great in the lead, especially as she becomes more and more suspicious of her husband, with the climactic dinner table scene really giving her a chance to shine. The ending is very different from the novel, giving it a happy ending which does take the edge off of the story, but this is still a thrilling experience from start to finish. 8.5/10 The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery dir. Frank Launder, Sidney Gilliat/1966/1h33m The fourth and final film in the original run of the St. Trinian's series sees a gang of crooks led by Frankie Howerd hide their loot in an abandoned building. Unfortunately for them the building is soon occupied by the mob of violent schoolgirls after their previous school building was burnt down (again). Some fun stuff in the first hour here, especially when the girls find the hidden loot, and I liked how this film was actually set in the school making it feel more like the first film. This also allows for some funny gags to show what sort of school it is, like having a betting shop on the premises with counters low enough so that the younger kids can make bets. The final act is a pretty boring chase scene with a couple of trains going back and forth on the same bit of track. After watching these films I think their reputation as classics is totally based on the first one, The Belles of St. Trinian's, and a lot of that was down to Alastair Sim whose presence is sorely missed in the subsequent three films. 5/10 Daydreaming So Vividly About Our Spanish Holidays dir. Christian Aviles/2022/25m This ethereal short film is about British teenagers flocking to Spanish holiday resorts in order to sunbathe, but is told in a way that makes it into almost a myth full of rituals with the sun as a god that needs to be worshipped. It is dreamy and other-worldly but as it nears the end it gains a feeling of religious fervour that can only end badly. Viewed from the Spanish perspective this comes across as baffling to them, why can't these guys handle the heat? I don't know if the ending was meant to be funny but it got a laugh out of me. 7/10 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,846 Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 (edited) Two films from Netflix's Cult section. To me there are two types of Cult film. Some fall into the "so bad it's good" category. The others are decent films that due to their low budget, lack of well known star, lack of big studio promotional resources etc go relatively unknown for years. The Lure (2015) dir Agnieszka Smoczynska This is a good film. It's well acted, has an original, interesting, plot and spans a couple of different genres. Two mermaids, Silver and Golden, emerge off a Polish beach where a band are practising. The band plays in a Warsaw cabaret club and the mermaids join them as singers and strippers. There are some interesting aspects to the mermaid mythology in this film. Their very realistic looking fish tails turn to human legs if they dry out and back to fish if they get in wet again. But not all below-the-waist human body parts get formed, which causes problems for Silver in her relationship with the band's bassist. Another aspect, that Golden is more interested in, is that in this mermaids are monsters who lure humans to their death and eat their hearts. So this is a mix of fantasy and horror plus musical; because as well the songs in the cabaret show, the cast sometimes break out into big singing & dancing numbers like you would get in a traditional musical. The plot is a little confusing at times, I think somethings get lost in translation sometimes in the songs, and there are a couple of scenes that did not make sense to me. But never-the-less it is all very watchable. 7 / 10 Spaced Out (1979) dir Norman Warren This is not one of those so bad it's good cult films. It's just bad, very, very bad. It's a pile of crap with dire acting and a banal script. 3 very human looking aliens, all female, land on Earth to repair their spaceship. 3 sexually frustrated English men, and the finance of one of them, enter the spaceship thinking it's a mobile disco. The aliens have never seen men before and are very interested in studying these specimens they have acquired. The men are only too happy to demonstrate what makes them different from women in a very hands on way. You probably get the idea of what sort of film this is. Imagine the worst of the Carry On films, only not even that level of humour. It seemed at times like the producers where trying to make a soft-core p*rn film masquerading as genuine sci-fi (and the posters and Youtube's age restriction suggest that too), but it even fails at that level since there isn't really that much s*x or nudity. So I think they were genuinely trying to make a proper film, sexed up with some gratuitous nudity, and failed completely. 1 / 10 One final point with respect to both. The certificates. The first is a 15, the second 18. But the first has more nudity and more realistic looking s*x. But I guess that is to do with the intent. In the Lure it's all part of the plot. In Space Out it's clearly just for kicks. Edited February 25 by djw180 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,179 Posted March 3 Author Share Posted March 3 (edited) What I Watched This Week #111 (Feb 12 – 18) American Fiction dir. Cord Jefferson/2023/1h57m American Fiction stars Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious Ellison, an author who writes books on ancient mythology whose career has stalled because publishers don't consider his new book “Black enough”. Out of frustration he writes the most stereotypical ghetto novel he can under a pen name and it becomes a huge hit. This biting satire on the hypocrisies of the publishing world is something that can be applied to all aspects of life where people are pigeon-holed and told what they should be doing and even who they should be by clueless morons who don't really know what they're talking about. But this film also goes deeper in it's characterisation of Ellison who is not a likeable person for most of the film. He is pretentious and arrogant and a hypocrite himself. Wright is excellent in a rare leading performance, making you sympathise with Ellison despite how prickly he can be. What keeps the film from being as good as it could be is the half dealing with his family drama involving his ailing mother and recently out of the closet brother. It is well written and performed, but the serious drama is just a jarring tonal shift from the almost absurd satire of the other half. Both halves are extremely well done but feel like they could benefit from being their own movies. The direction from first timer Cord Jefferson is fairly decent with some nice touches like when Ellison is writing his ghetto novel and the characters appear in his study and interact with him, I would've liked to see more moments like that. The jazzy piano based score by Laura Karpman has a real character of its own and helps bring some cohesion to the two halves of the film. 8.5/10 The Marvels dir. Nia DaCosta/2023/1h45m The latest entry in the seemingly never-ending saga of the MCU sees the return of Brie Larson as the incredibly over-powered Captain Marvel. This time she must team up with Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) the grown up daughter of her 90's air force days best friend, and her teenage super fan Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) aka Ms. Marvel in order to stop baddie Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) from enacting the same evil plan from Spaceballs (really). The biggest mistake this film makes is that it assumes you've seen the TV show that introduces Ms. Marvel and it does nothing to re-introduce her or even explain who she is or how she got her powers. Also, why is Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) working on a space station orbiting Earth now? The chemistry between the three leads is pretty good, and the montage of them learning how to work together is a lot of fun but those moments where the three of them can play off of each other are too few and far between. The villain is an absolute nothing, one of the worst in the series. What makes this worth watching at all is Vellani. Her performance as Ms. Marvel is a lot of fun and I like the idea of a fan of superheroes becoming one and getting to work with her all time favourite. 5/10 How to Marry a Millionaire dir. Jean Negulesco/1953/1h35m This screwball comedy stars Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable as three single women who rent a luxury apartment in New York in order to find a rich man to marry. This is a very predictable film with a plot so obvious it could be on rails but it is totally carried by the three leads. They are all hilarious in their own distinct ways with my favourite being Monroe as the ditzy Pola Debevois who refuses to wear her glasses in front of men despite being blind as a bat without them. The more I see of Monroe the more I appreciate her as a comedian. One of my favourite moments in the film is late on where she finally feels comfortable enough around a man to wear her glasses, it's such a sweet moment of vulnerability and trust in someone else. But it is Bacall who owns this film, striding around with the biggest b*lls in the world and bullsh*tting her way out of every situation. This film also looks gorgeous with the colours really popping and some fantastic costumes. 8/10 Mary Poppins dir. Robert Stevenson/1964/2h19m Julie Andrews is iconic in the title role of a magical nanny who swoops in to bring the Banks family closer to each other, with a little help from d*ck Van d*ke's authentic cockney chimney sweep Bert. This is my first time seeing this film despite knowing the songs for as long as I can remember and I'm kinda bummed I never watched it as a kid because it is magical. The picture book Victorian London setting is like something from another world, my favourite example being the Step In Line sequence with all the chimney sweeps and we get some incredible shots of the rooftops bathed in the light of the setting sun. Most of the songs are classics for good reason, they are all brilliantly catchy and really capture the mood of the films and the characters singing them. The fifteen minute scene where Mary, Burt and the Banks children enter a chalk pavement drawing and are suddenly in an animated world is still incredible today, with the chemistry between Andrews and Van d*ke sparking between them. What I wasn't expecting is how emotional and sweet the ending is, with the character of Mr. Banks (David Tomlinson) having a really beautiful character arc. The film ending with him skipping off with his family singing Let's Go Fly a Kite is genuinely touching. The only thing that lets this film down is the boring banker song, cut that out and it's perfect. 9.5/10 Murder at the Gallop dir. George p*llock/1963/1h21m In the second of her Miss Marple films Margaret Rutherford returns as the busybody amateur sleuth who is this time witness to the heart attack of the reclusive, wealthy Mr. Enderby (Finlay Currie). But was it heart attack or in fact murder most foul? To investigate she goes to stay at the Gallop Hotel run by one of Enderby's heirs. I didn't enjoy this film as much as the first as I didn't really find any of the characters, outside of Miss Marple, to be very interesting. For the most part they are all just rich jerks. What you're watching this film for is Rutherford. She is just an entertaining character to watch with an incredibly expressive face that's like, and I mean this as a compliment, a bulldog chewing a wasp. She gets to do some fun stuff here like go horse-riding and dance the twist, but when the mystery she's investigating doesn't grab me all the dancing in the world isn't going to help. 6.5/10 The Red Shoes dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger/1948/2h13m The Red Shoes is the greatest film from legendary British filmmaking team Powell and Pressburger and is considered one of the best ever made and is Martin Scorsese's favourite film of all time. It stars ballerina Moira Shearer in her film debut as aspiring dancer Victoria Page who is caught between a love triangle involving composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring) and operator of her ballet company Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) and her obsessive need to dance. This is a lush and lavish production that is just a joy to behold. Every shot is so well composed with incredible colours and it also feels experimental and expressionistic, particularly when it starts to symbolise Victoria's declining mental state with her hallucinating these abstract fantasies. The centrepiece of the film is a twenty minute long ballet sequence where we see Victoria dancing the titular ballet. This was totally hypnotic and I would have been happy to see it go on even longer. It also foreshadows the tragic ending in a way that isn't obvious. All of the performances are excellent but Shearer is particularly good in the leading role especially since this is her first film. Every single aspect of this film has been executed to perfection, watching it feels like watching someone capture lightning in a bottle. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Past Lives dir. Celine Song/2023/1h46m Past Lives is a beautifully restrained romantic drama that explores the relationship between two people over the span of decades. Nora and Hae Sung are two childhood friends in South Korea who are separated when Nora's family move to Canada. We pick up after this prologue with them as adults (played by Greta Lee and Teo Yoo), Nora living in New York and Hae Sung still in Korea. First we see them twelve years later, they are both single but don't meet up. Another time jump of twelve years sees Hae Sung visiting New York to see the now married Nora. This is a drama without the drama in the sense that it feels real and uncontrived. This also isn't a conventional film where they're destined to be with each other. Nora's husband Arthur (John Magaro) isn't some obstacle to overcome or a third wheel to be discarded in the name of true love. This is mature and introspective in a way that a lot of films like this aren't. Love is complicated and this film really captures that in an impactful way with an ending that leaves you heartbroken but with no one to be angry with. No one does anything wrong here but it still hurts. 9/10 The Big Job dir. Gerald Thomas/1965/1h28m Remember the Martin Lawrence film Blue Streak? Did you know that that is a very loose remake of this British crime comedy from the 60's made by the team behind the Carry On films? Me neither, until now. Sid James plays the leader of a gang of crooks who have to stash their loot quickly after a heist gone wrong. When they are released from prison years later they go to retrieve their money only to find that a police station has been built around their hiding spot. Fellow Carry On regular Joan Sims also stars as the h*rny landlady of the boarding house where the gang hole up while trying to get into the police station. This is exactly what you would expect from this team with a load of slapstick and innuendo, though not as openly b*wdy as the Carry On films. In that respect this almost feels like a lesser Ealing crime comedy like The Lavender Hill Mob, which also starred James. Some of the jokes go on too long but a couple of them got me chuckling. A fun but ultimately half-baked caper. 6/10 Amblin' dir. Steven Spielberg/1968/26m Amblin' is the very first film from Steven Spielberg. It stars Pamela McMyler and Richard Levin as two unnamed characters who hitchhike to the coast, with her introducing him to pot and s*x and all that hippy fun. This is a film with a paper thin plot that is an exercise in atmosphere and feel and you actually get a good sense of that sun soaked 60's California vibe from this film despite the youth of the director. There are even some scenes where you can see Spielberg's filmmaking genius for camera movement and framing where he's able to change shots by the movement of the camera and actors rather than just cutting to a different set up. A film that's more interesting for who made it than entertaining in its own right. 5/10 Edited March 3 by LimeGreenLegend 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,846 Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 The Exception (2016) dir David Leveaux A Second World War drama that was interesting and taught me a couple things I did not know (after checking up in other sources, not just taking what happens in the film at face value). Having been wounded during the German invasion of Poland, Captain Stefan Brand (Jai Courtney) is assigned a new role away from the front line, as the head of security for Kaiser Wilhelm II (Christopher Plummer). Wilhelm was the German Monarch who abdicated at the end of the First World War and spent the rest of his life in exile in the Netherlands. The film takes place just after the German invasion of that country. Lily Thomas plays Meike de Jong, the Dutch, Jewish, maid, who gets romantically involved with Brand. The plot revolves around the hunt for a British spy and the visit of senior n*zi Heinrich Himmler (Eddie Marsan). It makes a clear contrast in the nature of the various German characters; Brand is just a professional soldier loyal to his country, Himmler and the local Gestapo chief are obviously ardent n*zis, and then Wilhelm is sort of in between. This then weakens the plot to me because Wilhelm and Meike get on really well, he becoming almost like a grandfather figure to her. The problem is whilst he may not realise she is Jewish, she certainly knows how anti-Semitic he is because we hear him express such views a number of times. It also does not build to the sort of dramatic conclusion I was expecting and after a brief bit of tension settles to a nice, gentle ending. If it were a true story then I'd say OK, but, as far as I am aware, whilst the basic facts are accurate, the main story and the characters of Brand and de Jong are fictitious. The acting is reasonably good though, Plummer is very good. 6 / 10 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spinnaker1981 974 Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 (edited) 14 hours ago, LimeGreenLegend said: Mary Poppins dir. Robert Stevenson/1964/2h19m Julie Andrews is iconic in the title role of a magical nanny who swoops in to bring the Banks family closer to each other, with a little help from d*ck Van d*ke's authentic cockney chimney sweep Bert. This is my first time seeing this film despite knowing the songs for as long as I can remember and I'm kinda bummed I never watched it as a kid because it is magical. The picture book Victorian London setting is like something from another world, my favourite example being the Step In Line sequence with all the chimney sweeps and we get some incredible shots of the rooftops bathed in the light of the setting sun. Most of the songs are classics for good reason, they are all brilliantly catchy and really capture the mood of the films and the characters singing them. The fifteen minute scene where Mary, Burt and the Banks children enter a chalk pavement drawing and are suddenly in an animated world is still incredible today, with the chemistry between Andrews and Van d*ke sparking between them. What I wasn't expecting is how emotional and sweet the ending is, with the character of Mr. Banks (David Tomlinson) having a really beautiful character arc. The film ending with him skipping off with his family singing Let's Go Fly a Kite is genuinely touching. The only thing that lets this film down is the boring banker song, cut that out and it's perfect. 9.5/10 “Finally, I want to thank a man who made a wonderful movie and who made all this possible in the first place…. Mr. Jack Warner!” These were her words when she recieved the golden globe for her perfomance in this movies except... Jack Warner didn´t produce this movie. He was actually the producer of My Fair Lady. And She was the leading actress in the My Fair Lady Broadway show, at the time, but he went and picked Audrey Hepburn for the role instead, being dubbed (songs) by Marni Nixon. It was said in a fit of humor instead of spite, and everyone laughed, including Jack Warner, who was present at the awards, but it is one of the funny stories of hollywood, as both movies were fighting for the same golden globe... She also won the Oscar, of course, though My fair lady won the best Movie award. Edited March 4 by Spinnaker1981 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spinnaker1981 974 Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 (edited) Dune Part 2 This has to be one of the best book adaptations I have ever seen. The main character is only decent, but it is very well backed up by Stellan Skasgard, Dave Bautista or Austin Butler, which are very good Harkonnen, as well as Josh Brolin, Zendaya, Javier Bardem and Rebeca Ferguson. This is a far better version than the original by David Lynch, and a far better adaptation from the book. Dennis Villeneuve did a very good job, and left the door open for adaptation of more of Herbert´s books on Dune. Still a couple of information was missing and, like in every adaptation, if you read the book first, it is always, always lacking, even if he devided the book in 2 movies and the second one is 166 minutes long! So I give it a solid 7,5/10 Edited March 4 by Spinnaker1981 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,179 Posted March 7 Author Share Posted March 7 (edited) What I Watched This Week #112 (Feb 19 – 25) All of Us Strangers dir. Andrew Haigh/2023/1h46m Andrew Scott stars as Adam, a writer living in a nearly empty new tower block in London, the only other person in the building seeming to be the very forward and flirty Harry (Paul Mescal). While taking a trip back to his childhood home for inspiration Adam is amazed to find his mother and father – who died when he was a child – still living there, the same age they were when he was young. This gives him a chance to get to know them as an adult while he also develops his relationship with Harry. This is a beautifully nuanced drama about how our childhoods define us and about loneliness and connections. This is a que*r film about gay characters but these themes are universal and will speak to all of us. The scenes between Adam and his parents (Jamie Bell, Claire Foy) are so natural feeling that it's uncanny. The scene where they are decorating a Christmas tree while singing The Pet Shop Boys version of You Were Always on My Mind really hit me hard. Just as well done are the scenes between Adam and Harry. Mescal, who was incredibly good in Aftersun from last year, is just as good here. Harry is the life and soul of the party who you can tell is broken and desperate for something real, which he finds with Adam. Scott is his equal in this film, becoming truly childlike when he's with his parents, but not in a cringy, obvious way. This film also has an amazing hammer-blow of an ending that left me sat stunned in the movie theatre quietly weeping to Frankie Goes to Hollywood's The Power of Love. This is a must watch. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Wildcats of St. Trinian's dir. Frank Launder/1980/1h31m (no trailer so here's a creepy behind the scenes clip that sums up the film perfectly) The first attempt to reboot the St. Trinian's series comes nearly fifteen years after the last entry but is made by the same creative team who have not kept up with the times. This feels like it wants to fill the vacuum left by the Carry On series which ended a couple of years earlier (only to have an ill-fated reboot nearly fifteen years later from the same creative team) with it's attempts to s*x-up the schoolgirls, and it's as gross as it sounds. The plot is ostensibly about the girls forming a union and going on strike when asked to do any work, a typical anti-union stance at the time much like Carry on At Your Convenience. None of the performances are any good, it looks like a cheap made for TV film, the music is awful and the script they used sounds like a first draft. 2/10 Ghost in the Shell dir. Mamoru Oshii/1995/1h22m Acting as a bridge between Blade Runner and The Matrix, Ghost in the Shell is a cyberpunk anime set in future Tokyo where terrorists are able to hack the brains of those with cybernetic augmentations and control them. When a new hacker called The Puppetmaster starts doing this to perform political assassinations Major Matoko Kusanagi (Atsuko Tanaka) from Section 9, a group of cyber cops, is sent in to stop him. This is a very basic summary of what I gleaned from a very dense and confusing film that I'm sure I don't really understand. You know that bit in the second Matrix film where The Architect starts blabbering on about a load of nonsense in that room full of TVs? A lot of this film felt like that, but not sh*t. What kept me captivated here is the amazing animation and design of a cyberpunk Tokyo. Along with Akira it feels like this film totally defined that style and genre. Lots of philosophising about the relationship between the soul and the body gets tiring at times but it never drags on too long. I can see why it's a classic but it just didn't totally grab me. 8/10 Lilo & Stitch dir. Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois/2002/1h25m An escaped alien genetic experiment called Stitch (Chris Sanders) crash lands in Hawaii and, thought to be a weird dog, is adopted by young Lilo (Daveigh Chase). While causing general chaos and evading capture, Stitch also mends the relationship between Lilo and her older sister Nani (Tia Carrere). A fun film with a great blend of 50's sci-fi style and the chill island vibes of Hawaii I really enjoyed this. I like how Stitch is kind of the opposite of the Disney animal sidekick, he's mean and violent and quick to anger because of how he was created, but because of his newly found family he's able to change and grow in a natural way. That growth is also found between Lilo and Nani, who is stressed out about having to look after Lilo after the death of their parents. The one thing I do miss about these 21st century Disney films is the move away from the musical style where the characters themselves burst into song. I blame Phil Collins and his Tarzan soundtrack, Disney films haven't been the same musically ever since. Other than that this is a great film with a lot of laughs and a touching ending. 8.5/10 Three short films by Georges Melies: The Kingdom of the Fairies 1903/17m The Impossible Voyage 1904/20m The Merry Frolics of Satan 1906/22m I always love visiting the wonderful worlds of George Melies, the man who put the magic in the movies – really, he was a magician and invented special effects by accident in 1896, mastering them over the next few years. These three films have a lot in common. They are all about incredible journeys of the imagination that could only be made as films; a prince journeys to a magical far off land to rescue his princess, a train takes a trip to the Sun, and some travellers are harassed by Satan before being dragged down to hell. Melies was really giving people things they had never seen before. What makes his films stand out from other films of the time is the incredible care and attention to detail in the backdrops and costuming, bought to life in amazing colour by hand-painting each individual frame of film. It's like watching an intricate picture book come to life before your eyes. I can't imagine what audiences in the early 20th century thought when they saw these scenes come to life, especially when Melies makes things disappear in a puff of smoke. If you've never seen any silent films before then I recommend you start with some Melies, he is the first great entertainer of the big screen and his films are just as magical today. The Kingdom of the Fairies – 10/10 The Impossible Voyage – 9/10 The Merry Frolic of Satan – 9/10 Murder Most Foul dir. George p*llock/1964/1h30m Margaret Rutherford returns as professional busybody Miss Marple for the third time and she suspects that an open and shut case of murder isn't so open and shut, and so must infiltrate a theatre company in order to root out the real killer. Better than the previous entry, this film perfectly balances the suspense of a well crafted mystery with some charmingly quaint comedy. It's fun seeing Marple, in disguise, being cast as a detective in the play. This film also has more energy than the last with some almost Hitchcock like direction to ratchet up the tension. Spending time with Rutherford is just a delight, it just feels all so cosy, like visiting your favourite aunt who's obsessed with murder mysteries. 8/10 Edited March 7 by LimeGreenLegend 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,179 Posted March 9 Author Share Posted March 9 It's the Oscars tomorrow evening and, having seen nine out of the ten best picture nominees and a boatload of films from other categories, I will now predict the results with perfect accuracy. Films in bold are what I think will win, films in italics are what I personally want to win. ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE: BRADLEY COOPER Maestro COLMAN DOMINGO Rustin PAUL GIAMATTI The Holdovers CILLIAN MURPHY Oppenheimer JEFFREY WRIGHT American Fiction ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: STERLING K. BROWN American Fiction ROBERT DE NIRO Killers of the Flower Moon ROBERT DOWNEY JR. Oppenheimer RYAN GOSLING Barbie MARK RUFFALO Poor Things ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE: ANNETTE BENING Nyad LILY GLADSTONE Killers of the Flower Moon SANDRA HÜLLER Anatomy of a Fall CAREY MULLIGAN Maestro EMMA STONE Poor Things ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: EMILY BLUNT Oppenheimer DANIELLE BROOKS The Color Purple AMERICA FERRERA Barbie JODIE FOSTER Nyad DA'VINE JOY RANDOLPH The Holdovers DIRECTING: ANATOMY OF A FALL Justine Triet KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Martin Scorsese OPPENHEIMER Christopher Nolan POOR THINGS Yorgos Lanthimos THE ZONE OF INTEREST Jonathan Glazer INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM: NOMINEES IO CAPITANO Italy PERFECT DAYS Japan SOCIETY OF THE SNOW Spain THE TEACHERS' LOUNGE Germany THE ZONE OF INTEREST United Kingdom MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE): AMERICAN FICTION Laura Karpman INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY John Williams KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Robbie Robertson OPPENHEIMER Ludwig Göransson POOR THINGS Jerskin Fendrix MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG): THE FIRE INSIDE from Flamin' Hot; Music and Lyric by Diane Warren I'M JUST KEN from Barbie; Music and Lyric by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt IT NEVER WENT AWAY from American Symphony; Music and Lyric by Jon Batiste and Dan Wilson WAHZHAZHE (A SONG FOR MY PEOPLE) from Killers of the Flower Moon; Music and Lyric by Scott George WHAT WAS I MADE FOR? from Barbie; Music and Lyric by Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell BEST PICTURE: AMERICAN FICTION Ben LeClair, Nikos Karamigios, Cord Jefferson and Jermaine Johnson, Producers ANATOMY OF A FALL Marie-Ange Luciani and David Thion, Producers BARBIE David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley and Robbie Brenner, Producers THE HOLDOVERS Mark Johnson, Producer KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, Martin Scorsese and Daniel Lupi, Producers MAESTRO Bradley Cooper, Steven Spielberg, Fred Berner, Amy Durning and Kristie Macosko Krieger, Producers OPPENHEIMER Emma Thomas, Charles Roven and Christopher Nolan, Producers PAST LIVES David Hinojosa, Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler, Producers POOR THINGS Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone, Producers THE ZONE OF INTEREST James Wilson, Producer WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY): AMERICAN FICTION Written for the screen by Cord Jefferson BARBIE Written by Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach OPPENHEIMER Written for the screen by Christopher Nolan POOR THINGS Screenplay by Tony McNamara THE ZONE OF INTEREST Written by Jonathan Glazer WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY): ANATOMY OF A FALL Screenplay - Justine Triet and Arthur Harari THE HOLDOVERS Written by David Hemingson MAESTRO Written by Bradley Cooper & Josh Singer MAY DECEMBER Screenplay by Samy Burch; Story by Samy Burch & Alex Mechanik PAST LIVES Written by Celine Song It's probably going to be a big night for Oppenheimer but I'd love to see Poor Things take home a bunch of awards. 2023 as a whole was a brilliant year for film, all of the nominees for best picture are well worth watching and cover a wide variety of styles and themes with the only "Oscar bait" type film being Maestro which, while still decent, is the weakest of the bunch in my opinion. But the main thing is that I'm Just Ken was nominated for best song so we get to see Ryan Gosling performing it live. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,179 Posted March 10 Author Share Posted March 10 What I Watched This Week #113 (Feb 26 – March 3) Sanshiro Sugata Part Two dir. Akira Kurosawa/1945/1h23m (no trailer or clips from this could be found so here's a poster) This film from Akira Kurosawa is a sequel to his debut and again follows the titular character, played by Susumu Fujita, as he continues to try and prove that judo is the best martial art, this time taking on some karate masters. What's most interesting about this film is that Kurosawa was forced to make it due to the success of the original, and they also wanted it to be made as Japanese propaganda to show that they were still strong after the war. To that end there is a subplot where Sanshiro defeats an American boxer, a sport that was seen as vulgar and violent in Japan. This is by far the weakest film of Kurosawa's that I've seen. There are a few touches of his trademark style like his use of weather and natural elements to make his scenes more dynamic, particularly in the climactic fight on a snowy mountainside, but it's clear that his heart wasn't in it. 5/10 Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds dir. Glen Milner/2023/1h This documentary follows the video game developer as he opens his own studio after decades working with Konami and starts work on his new game Death Stranding. There are some nice touches here like the brief animated sequences when he's talking about his childhood, but for a film about one of the most creative minds working today it all feels very conventional. Footage of Kojima in the office working with his team is intercut with talking head interviews from colleagues and celebrity fans but we never really get a true insight into either his personal life or his working methods. The special feature making of documentary that came with Metal Gear Solid 2 back in the day was much more informative in the latter respect. 6/10 Blue Streak dir. Les Mayfield/1999/1h33 Blue Streak is a very loose remake of 60's British crime comedy The Big Job (What I Watched This Week #111) starring Martin Lawrence as a jewel thief who has to stash his loot in a construction site after a heist gone wrong. Years later after being released from prison he returns to the construction site only to find it is now a police station. This was a random favourite of mine when I was a kid, no idea why, and over twenty years later it's still pretty good. Lawrence is annoying at times when he turns his act all the way up, but he does have good rapport with Luke Wilson who plays his naïve partner. Dave Chappelle steals the film as Lawrence's former partner in crime. The action scenes feel half assed here and I think the film would have benefitted from leaning more into the comedy and less on the action. 7/10 Strange Way of Life dir. Pedro Almodóvar/2023/31m This short film from Pedro Almodóvar is a western starring Pedro Pascal as Silva who has just ridden into town in order to see Sheriff Jake (Ethan Hawke), a man he has not seen for twenty five years. The two men were formerly lovers, but that's not the only reason Silva is in town. Challenging the masculinity of the genre and the gender expectations of men at that time this is a tender but not sentimental film that is shot through with tragic longing and a mourning for a life that could have been, especially in the ending and the last line. This is a gorgeous looking film with vibrant colours, the violent reds being an Almodóvar trademark, with costumes by Yves Saint Laurent. The two lead performances are excellent, especially Hawke who is just the portrait of supressed needs. I would love to see this as a full length feature. 8/10 The Commitments dir. Alan Parker/1991/1h58m In working class Dublin Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins), fresh out of school, has nothing else to do so he decides to put together a soul band. He's able to cobble together the makings of a band, including brash and drunken singer Deco (Andrew Strong) and trumpet player Joey “The Lips” (Johnny Murphy), who stand a chance of making the big time. This is a wonderfully feel good film with a plot that's unusual for this genre. The band doesn't form to win some competition or go on tour they just do it because there's nothing else to do in the slums of Dublin with unemployment through the roof. They're doing it just to bring some life and colour back into their world. The scenes of the band performing are full of energy and capture the vibes of a Saturday night down the pub. I also like the ending and how it's realistic yet still optimistic. The soundtrack is all killer no filler with all of the songs actually performed by the cast, with the biggest compliment having to go to Strong who was only sixteen at the time but can belt out these all time classics like he's been doing it for decades. Some of the characters are a bit one note and I could have done with more musical performances but this is still a blast. 8.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week! St. Trinian's dir. Barnaby Thompson, Oliver Parker/2007/1h41m The second attempt to reboot the St. Trinian's series is a loose remake of the original film and stars Rupert Everett as headmistress Camilla Fritton who is facing the closure of the school by the minister of education (Colin Firth) if they can't find the money to keep it open. When the students, led by head girl Kelly Jones (Gemma Arterton), find out they hatch a plot to steal and fence the painting Girl with the Pearl Earring. This is the most mid-2000's film I've ever seen, from the soundtrack to the editing and direction to the costuming and slang the girls use. The direction is not very good with some weird transitions between scenes and an overall feeling of a made for TV movie. Everett is a good Miss Fritton, very much channelling the spirit of Alastair Sim, and Firth is a good match for that character – their duet of Love is in the Air over the end credits being my favourite thing about this film – but the rest of the cast don't really stand out. My biggest problem with this film is how overly s*xual it is, even more so than the last one from the 80's. These are still supposed to be schoolgirls but there are scenes of them pranking a new girl by staling her clothes and forcing her to run through the halls naked, an*l and oral s*x innuendos and some of them hanging out in lingerie operating a phone s*x line. But when it's not being gross and creepy there are still some good things about this. 5/10 Self dir. Searit Huluf/2024/7m The Pixar SparkShorts initiative – in which animators who have never directed before are given a chance to make a short about any subject in any style – is back for the first time since 2021 with Self, a stop-motion film about a wooden puppet in a world full of gleaming gold puppets. When she makes a wish on a falling star she gets exactly what she wants in all the worse ways. A simple film with a simple yet powerful message my favourite thing about this is the animation which has a real tactility to it. There's a way stop-motion characters move that is unique from any other form of animation and it's used here to really emphasise the difference between the main character and everyone else. I would like for Pixar to go all out with a full length stop-motion film as I was left wanting more after seeing this. 7.5/10 Treasure Planet dir. Ron Clements, John Musker/2002/1h35m Disney takes Treasure Island to the stars with Joseph Gordon-Levitt starring as Jim Hawkins, cabin boy on the space galleon of Captain Amelia (Emma Thompson), who is in possession of a map to a mythical planet full of treasure. He is taken under the wing of cyborg cook John Silver (Brian Murray), who is actually a pirate waiting for the right time to mutiny and take the map and the treasure for himself. An excellent blend of traditional and CGI animation makes the beautiful spacescapes really pop in one of the best looking Disney films for a while. The aesthetic of ropes and rigging mixed with space exploration really works for me and feels like something out of Jules Verne or H.G. Welles. The chemistry between Gordon-Levitt and Murray is fantastic with him naturally turning into a father figure in a way that feels real and earned, giving a real emotional heft to the ending. The score is great adding to the feel of grand adventure but I'm still disappointed by the lack of a banger song, something these 21st century Disney films are lacking so far. 8/10 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,846 Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 The Battle of Algiers (1966) dir Gino Pontecorvo This is very unique, stunning film. The title refers to an uprising by Algerians nationalists, the FLN, against French colonial rule. There's not really any spoilers here, I am sure you are meant to watch this knowing what actually happened. Between 1954 and 1957 the FLN controlled the Casbah, an Arab part of Algiers, from where they waged a campaign of bombings and assassinations against French military, police and civilian targets. This was eventually, brutally, brought an end when the authorities sent paratroopers in with free reign to do what they like; and that involved torturing and murdering captured FLN suspects and blowing up buildings in the Casbah if any FLN were holding out in them. Ultimately it made no difference, Algeria won its independence in 1962. The film has apparently been screened by the Pentagon as an example of how you can win a battle in a way that ultimately leads to losing the war. It does not have a traditional type of narrative story. A lot is shot like you are watching news reports, but without any commentary, just scenes portraying events that happened. Whilst sometimes a little grainy, the cinematography is still great. Most of the cast, including I think all the Algerian characters, were not professional actors, and most of these were people who had lived through the actual battle. There is a main character, Ali la Pointe (Brahim Hadjadj), and it shows his rise from petty thief to one of the main FLN commanders, but much of the film focuses on other characters. It is even handed, just showing what happened. It lets you know what sort of methods the commander of the paratroopers, Col. Mathieu (Jean Martin, one of the professional actors) employed, without going into too much detail. It also portrays the FLN planting bombs in a café, disco and airport lounge. This was one of the best scenes. Three women are used to plant the bombs, since by dyeing their hair and dressing in a more European way, they are able to move about more freely than any of the male FLN fighters could. You can feel their nervousness, but also their determination and that they feel they have no choice but to kill the people at their targets. Then after the bombs go off and you see the dead and injured victims, Ennio Morricone's score comes in with one of his typical emotional themes. That was one of the reasons I wanted to see this, and was not disappointed. 10 / 10 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,846 Posted March 16 Share Posted March 16 Earthling (2010) dir Clay Liford A low-budget sci-fi set at the current time, based on a good idea but just not that well executed. It begins with the crew of space station encountering a mysterious object, followed a strange “atmospheric event” over the US. The main character, Judith (Rebecca Spence) crashes her car during this event and in the aftermath starts to notice skin from here scalp coming away and strange growths appearing. She is contacted by others who are experiencing the same things, and they come to realise they are aliens, stranded on Earth, having taken over human bodies and then forgot about their true origins. The acting is just about OK from the main characters but not so from some of the support. I think it is the script that really lets this down though. Some of the lines feel a bit banal, and many aspects of the story remain unexplained. Other than that it is reasonably well made and has a nice soundtrack (no idea who by, various artists judging by the credits). One thing I found very weird though was the colour and lighting. In some scenes everything is very pale, almost black and white (see start of trailer) and sometimes it seemed one character would be shown like this whilst another in the same scene was in normal colour – the reasons why or even if that was intentional remain a mystery to me. 5 / 10 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,179 Posted March 16 Author Share Posted March 16 What I Watched This Week #114 (March 4 – 10) La Pointe-Courte dir. Agnes Varda/1955/1h20m The debut film from one of my favourite filmmakers, Agnes Varda, is also the starting point for one of the most influential cinematic movements in history, the French new wave, often wrongly credited to Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless in 1960. It is a film of two halves. One a portrait of the titular fishing village where we take in the various local characters and their everyday problems ranging from government interference in their fishing operations due to pollution to the illness of a young child. The second half looks closer still at the troubled marriage between two unnamed people (Philippe Noiret, Silvia Monfort). La Pointe-Courte is his hometown and she is visiting from Paris to see whether their relationship can still work, paralleling the troubled community itself. A blend of fiction and almost documentary like observation this non judgemental look at the lives of the working class prefigures later documentary works of Varda's like The Gleaners and I made forty five years later. But that documentary style doesn't stop the film from being beautifully shot with some very striking compositions, especially when, during a conversation between the two, the two faces of the leads are blended together in a very impressionistic way that reminded me of a shot from Ingmar Bergman's Persona. There are times when the film feels a bit ponderous and it does lack a lot of the playfulness of Varda's best films but that is made up for by the sheer number of cats prominently featured. 8/10 Two George Melies shorts: The Man with the Rubber Head 1901/3m The Diabolic Tenant 1909/7m These two films from the man who put the magic in the movies showcase his talents but at two different points in his career and really highlights the progress he made in just a few years. The Man with the Rubber Head is a simple gag film with Melies playing a man who inflates a head (also Melies) to gigantic proportions before an explosive punchline. In The Diabolic Tenant Melies plays a devilish trickster who rents out a room, furnishing it all from one trunk like an evil Mary Poppins. His furniture comes to life and he is banished so has to pack up in a hurry before scarpering. Both these films make charming use of the camera trickery that he discovered by accident in 1896 which allowed him to make things disappear in a puff of smoke right before our eyes. We see him advance these techniques in these films with him playing with perspective and masking off parts of the film allowing him to pull off tricks that he could never do on the stage. That's what makes watching these films still so enchanting over one hundred years later, the wonder that Melies has at the possibilities of this new toy called film and the ways he could use it to make people gasp at things they've never seen before. The Man with the Rubber Head – 7/10 The Diabolic Tenant – 8/10 Murder Ahoy dir. George p*llock/1964/1h33m The last of the four Miss Marple films starring Margaret Rutherford sees the elderly amateur sleuth and professional busybody investigating an old warship, the HMS Battledore – which is now being used to rehabilitate wayward youths, after one of the trustees of the ship suddenly dies after a visit. This is the first film in the series not based on a story by Agatha Christie, but the writers did an excellent job in crafting a classic whodunnit in her style. There are a hatful of creditable suspects, a couple of extra murders once the investigation has started and a satisfying reveal which culminates in a swordfight between the murderer and Marple, who still has some moves. My favourite thing about this film is the interplay between Marple and the highly strung captain of the ship Captain Rhumstone (Lionel Jeffries), who can't get her off the ship quick enough, so naturally Marple delights in extending her stay for as long as she can. Rutherford is, as always, delightful in the lead role. Cunning and playful in equal measures with a startlingly expressive face she is just a joy to spend time with, so it was a little sad when the credits ran and our time together was over. 8/10 Poor Things dir. Yorgos Lanthimos/2023/2h22m The latest film from the director of The Favourite and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Poor Things stars Emma Stone - who recently won the best actress Oscar for this role - as Bella Baxter, a woman with the mind of an infant who is an experiment of the Frankenstein-esque Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), who she refers to as God. Wanting to leave the small, safe world that he has made for her, wanting to grow as a person and to learn new things and to travel and experience the world she decides to run off with the slimy lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), leaving behind Godwin's sweet assistant Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef). This is a coming of age story taking cues from Frankenstein, Pinocchio and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and shining it through the grotesque, absurd and sexually liberated lens of Yorgos Lanthimos. Stone fully deserves her Oscar. Bella is such a unique, fully realised character who grows throughout the film more than any other character I've ever seen. Starting as a literal baby we follow her through all of the stages of development and she embodies them so fully that it's totally disarming. The score also follows this development. It starts as discordant and atonal, like a child bashing tunelessly on a piano, but as Bella develops and grows the melodies grow more complex until, by the end, it is a fully developed and complex orchestral score. The direction is also unique and distinctly Lanthimos's own with the best use of the fish-eye lens since late nineties skate videos. The production design is just as unique, presenting us with a beautifully artificial world that feels like the perfect playground for Bella. The rest of the performances are excellent, with Ruffalo being just as good as Stone. His Wedderburn is like an evil David Niven, and it's so fun to see him break down more and more as he realises that Bella is a woman that he can't possess until he's just a shell of a man pulling out his hair screaming in the Parisian snow. This film is a lavish feast for the senses in every respect and one that will stay with you long after the final shot. 10/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Holdovers dir. Alexander Payne/2023/2h13m Winter 1970 in a prestigious private school, Paul Giamatti plays ancient history teacher Paul Hunham who has been chosen to stay at the school over the winter break to babysit the small handful of students who have nowhere to go. Pretty much universally disliked by both students and faculty, Hunham slowly starts to form a bond with smart but troubled teenager Angus (Dominic Sessa) and the school's cook Mary (Da'Vine Joy Randolph, winner of this year's best supporting actress Oscar) who is grieving the death of her teenage son who was killed in Vietnam, with the trio eventually forming their own found family. Giamatti really shines in a rare leading role, really taking the opportunity to flex his acting chops and carry a film. I always love seeing actors mostly known for supporting roles excel in the lead like Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas and Giamatti is just as good here. It's a testament to both his ability and the script that you want to spend as much time as you do with such a curmudgeon. But this isn't just a one note character, with more and more layers slowly revealed which leads up to a pretty heroic ending where he does more for this one kid than any teacher before. Randolph is brilliant as Mary, showing a different side to the world than you would normally see in such an elite setting and is really the heart of the film. Sessa is decent in his debut role, but I just didn't really like his character, which may be the point with him being like a young version of Hunham, but teenagers like that are just annoying as f*ck. This is a coming of age film, but it's the coming of age of a grown *ss man and a reminder that it's never too late. 8.5/10 The Iron Claw dir. Sean Durkin/2023/2h12m The Iron Claw tells the true story of the legendary Von Erich wrestling family who were huge in the 80's, the four brothers ruled over with an iron claw by patriarch Fritz Von Erich (Holt McCallany). Told from the perspective of Kevin Von Erich (Zac Efron) we experience the highs and mostly lows that this family went through. I had a little knowledge of this story before watching this film but I was not prepared for how sad it is, and the amazing thing is that the actual real story is even sadder. Kevin spends a lot of the film scared that he will pass on the Von Erich curse to his wife Pam (Lily James) and young children and when you see what happened to his brothers you might start to think that he's not just being superstitious. Like The Wrestler this is a film that has a love for the sport but portrays it as it really is. The scenes showing in ring action are really well done and the direction makes it feel like a TV broadcast from the period giving it a real feeling of authenticity. Efron and Jeremy Allen White and Harris Dickinson who play Kerry and David Von Erich all look like the real deal and could probably wrestle a decent match in real life. Also like The Wrestler, you don't need to know anything about wrestling to enjoy this film. If anything, I think you may get more out of it if you don't know anything because it really is quite unbelievable. The performances are all of the highest quality. I'm a big fan of Dickinson's from Triangle of Sadness and Scrapper and he continues a run of excellent and varied performances here, even pulling off a pitch perfect Texas accent, but the real standout is Efron who has left High School Musical long behind him, giving a performance here that had me in tears at the last scene. 9/10 The Champion dir. Charlie Chaplin/1915/31m An ambitiously long early short film from Chaplin sees his little tr*mp and his adorable bulldog companion becoming a boxing champion thanks to some luck and a horseshoe hidden in his glove. He is trained to fight the world champion, threatened to throw the fight and falls in love with the trainers daughter, played by Chaplin mainstay Edna Purviance, all within half an hour. It makes Raging Bull look dull and boring in comparison. Some fantastically slapstick fights are the highlights of this film with Chaplin coming out on top despite his clumsy awkwardness. What's great about Chaplin is how he hardly uses any intertitles, relying on performance to tell the story for the most part. He knows to keep it simple and relatable, and in his immortal character of the downtrodden everyman he is able to insert himself into any situation and we will cheer for him. When he becomes world champion we become world champion and life becomes a little better, even if just for a moment. This isn't a masterpiece like a lot of his other, later films, but here he is already a genius honing his craft to the finest edge. 7/10 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,846 Posted March 17 Share Posted March 17 Saltburn (2023) dir Emerald Fennell Barry Keoghan stars as student Oliver who becomes friends with the very wealthy Felix (Jacob Elordi) and gets invited to spend the summer holiday at his family's country estate, Saltburn. To me, Keoghan is most famous for his role in The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and that makes plot similarities stand out a bit more as Oliver works his way into Felix's family, in an increasingly creepy way. It's a bit nauseating at times, I assume intentionally. Two scenes in particular came close to being un-watchable for me as I have quite low tolerance for anything gross to do with various bodily fluids. Not one to watch while you are eating! I didn't see exactly where the plot was going but how it ended was not a surprise. However the actual last 10 – 15 mins seemed quite rushed, as if the writer wanted to include more but someone decided the film could not be any longer. The acting is very good, particularly Keoghan plus Rosamund Pike and Richard E Grant as Felix's parents. 8 / 10 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,179 Posted March 19 Author Share Posted March 19 @djw180 that bathtub scene in Saltburn was a lot of fun right? Slurp slurp yum yum 🤤 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,179 Posted March 22 Author Share Posted March 22 What I Watched This Week #115 (March 11 – 17) Expensive sh*t dir. Adura Onashile/2020/15m (no trailer for the film, so here's one for the play it was adapted from) Based on real events that occurred in a Glasgow nightclub, Expensive sh*t stars Modupe Adeyeye as an undocumented immigrant working as a toilet attendant. As well as being exploited by her boss, he is also making her help in his abuse of women via a two way mirror installed in the toilet and his plans for a more extreme act. This is a well made film with a great central performance from Adeyeye and some striking direction that's almost Lynchian at times, particularly the way the room where the men spy on the toilet is shot. What lets it down is how underdeveloped it all feels. There is a lot more to be said about this event and fifteen minutes isn't nearly enough time to say it all. There's also a moment where someone scrawls a racial epithet on the mirror and the room full of rapists suddenly take the moral high ground and act all offended. It just feels like a shoddy attempt to give some depth to these characters but it comes across as weird and tonally out of place. 6/10 St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold dir. Barnaby Thompson, Oliver Parker/2009/1h46m The final film in the St. Trinian's series – and I really don't see the need for another reboot anytime soon – sees the rowdy schoolgirls go on a search for the buried treasure of Headmistress Camilla Fritton's pirate ancestor Archibald (both played by Rupert Everett) while battling a secret society of misogynists led by Sir Piers Pomfrey (David Tennant) who want to erase all mentions of powerful and successful women from history. This is much more in the spirit of anarchic fun that defined the original film from the 50's but in a strange way it feels more dated than that much older film with how the girls are split into stereotypical cliques – nerds, goths, etc - rather than being one terrifying unified mob of hockey stick wielding maniacs, though of course they all work together in the end. The plot is very silly but it is all played with tongue planted firmly in cheek, especially any scene involving Everett who is clearly loving the opportunity to ham it up. 6.5/10 The Man Who Knew Too Much dir. Alfred Hitchcock/1934/1h16m This spy thriller from Alfred Hitchcock stars Leslie Banks and Edna Best as Bob and Jill Lawrence, a married couple whose daughter Betty (Nova Pilbeam) is kidnapped by the leader of a terrorist organisation, Abbott (Peter Loree), after they become inadvertently involved in a plot to assassinate a European head of state. This is a solid film with some flourishes of Hitchcock's classic trademarks, especially in the climactic assassination scene set during a concert in the Royal Albert Hall where his use of editing and composition just keeps cranking up the tension to breaking point. Banks and Best are decent in their roles, but their characters are just so bland, which may be the point as Hitchcock loved putting normal everyday people in extraordinary situations. Thankfully Lorre is incredible as the villain of the piece, using his unique physical appearance to his benefit in his slimy, insidious threatening performance. Not one of Hitchcock's best but this is still a fun and thrilling ride and it's made me interested in watching the remake that he made in the 50's starring James Stewart. 7/10 Brother Bear dir. Aaron Blaise, Robert Walker/2003/1h25m Brother Bear stars Joaquin Phoenix as native Alaskan teenager Kenai who, after killing the bear who killed his brother, is transformed into a bear in order to learn forgiveness and to look at the world from another perspective. This involves him looking after young cub Koda (Jeremy Suarez) who has been separated from his mother. This is one of the best looking Disney films for a while with the animation of the bears clearly being a labour of love with how much attention and detail there is in their movement and expression. This is matched in the beautiful, sweeping landscape shots of the Alaskan wilderness. Phoenix and Suarez are very charming together with their relationship evolving predictably but sweetly nonetheless. I was a bit worried at the start when I saw that the music was once again by Phil Collins – I thought we were done with him after Tarzan – but my dislike of him is offset by the fact that Tina Turner sings some of the songs and, for the first time in I don't know how many films, one of the characters actually breaks out into song themselves. Sure, it's quickly taken over by Collins, but it was still nice to see. 8/10 GLOW: The Story of The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling dir. Brett Whitcomb/2012/1h16m This documentary tells the story of the all women wrestling promotion GLOW that was a huge hit in the mid to late 80's and was also the subject of a recent Netflix show starring Alison Brie which is great. Films like The Wrestler and The Iron Claw and documentary series like The Dark Side of the Ring portray the wrestling business as something that will leave people broken and abused before dying an early death, which it does, but it's nice to see the positive side – for the most part – in this charming and heart-warming film. This is a standard talking heads doc with interviews intercut with archive footage, but it is really elevated by the magnetic and larger than life characters involved in the promotion like “Mt. Fuji” Emily Dole, “Matilda the Hun” Dee Booher and “Tina Ferrari” Lisa Moretti who would go on to wrestle in the WWF in the late 90's under the name Ivory, becoming their women's champion. The actual story of GLOW is also an interesting subject as it started with a casting call, a lot of the wrestlers seeing it as a stepping stone to a career in the entertainment business, some seeing it as a bit of fun and a few who actually took it seriously. A fun film that you can enjoy even if you know nothing about wrestling. 8.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Lick the Star dir. Sofia Coppola/1998/14m This early short from Sofia Coppola centres around a clique of tweenage girls and how easily popularity is won and lost at that age. It perfectly captures that feeling that if you miss some time off school you would be left out of all of the new in-jokes or worry that your best friend would have a new best friend. It is very well shot but I found it funny at how effortlessly cool everything is presented as being, no kids are cool at that age. There's also a callousness and coldness to everything that also feels age appropriate to just how mean children can be, but somehow elevated, like these kids will grow up into the teenagers from The Craft or actually try to kill someone. 8/10 Priscilla dir. Sofia Coppola/2023/1h50m Based on the memoir Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley, this latest film from Sofia Coppola charts the relationship of Priscilla and Elvis from their first meeting and initial courtship when she was fourteen and he was in the army and ten years older than her, up to their inevitable divorce. Cailee Spaeny plays the title role excellently, coming across like a typical teenage fan of Elvis's at the beginning so it's sad to see her quiet resignation to his controlling behaviour in the service of first love and the only relationship she's ever had, which is with the most famous man on the planet. Jacob Elordi plays Elvis as a petty, pathetic figure, insecure and demanding, the charming façade of his public face quick to slip and fall. Once he's married Priscilla he has no interest in doing anything to have an actual relationship with her because he already owns her, he's won, so he just casts her aside and moves on, which she can't do, trapped as she feels she is in Graceland. This all culminates in a powerfully understated final act in which she reclaims her independence. My main complaint is that that restraint is prevalent throughout the film, making it at times feel too quiet, like there should be more drama here. 7.5/10 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,846 Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 Eyes of Fire (1983) dir Avery Crounse Set in 1750 in the North East of America, a preacher and a couple of families are run out of their frontier settlement, and flee into a haunted valley to put off any pursuers. The preacher is convinced he is leading them to a new promised land. Obviously, as it's a haunted valley and this is a horror film, that turns out to be a big mistake. 3 girls eventually make it out, to French territory. This is where the film starts with the story being narrated by the older of the girls. I picked this knowing nothing about it based on Amazon Prime's recommendation, and the fact it is free. I wonder if this is Amazon's way of telling me I need to pay to watch more decent stuff? It really is not scary at all, but I think it was meant to be. i.e. it's not one of those horrors that is more supernatural thriller, it's just not that good. I have seen muppets more frightening than the main monster that comes after them and the special effects, especially the sound effects, are like something from a cheap TV series, rather than a film of the early 80s. The acting is OK but nothing special. The story is reasonable though. The creatures in the valley kind of fuse into the vegetation when they want to disappear, and one of the characters is the daughter of a woman executed as a witch, who has clearly inherited her mothers powers which she uses to help the others. As well as being classed as a horror, this is also classed as Western, which seems odd to me. OK, it was on the western edge of the American colonies of that time, but it's still in New York / Pennsylvania/ Ontario – can that possibly be called a Western? 4 / 10 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,179 Posted April 1 Author Share Posted April 1 What I Watched This Week #116 (March 18 – 24) Zero Hour! dir. Hall Bartlett/1957/1h21m Dana Andrews stars as Ted Stryker, a WWII fighter pilot suffering from PTSD, who must face his fears when the pilots and most of his fellow passengers on his flight get food poisoning from some bad fish and he must land the plane. If that sounds familiar it's because this film was remade as Airplane! - with basically the same script, just with added jokes. They even kept the dramatic exclamation mark from the title! As a film this is totally bog standard b-movie fare that would be forgotten today if it weren't for it's famous remake. It's a quick and cheap production with flat performances from the cast, with one exception - Sterling Hayden - who plays Captain Treleaven, the man who talks Stryker through the landing from the control tower. He puts in way too much effort than this film deserves and is unsurprisingly the only actor here who went on to have a pretty big career, appearing in a couple of early Kubrick films – The Killing and Dr. Strangelove. His performance really elevates this film, and it is fun trying to spot all of the lines you recognise from Airplane! Those two factors are enough to make this worth watching. 6.5/10 Macbeth dir. Orson Welles/1948/1h47m Orson Welles directs and plays the lead role in Shakespeare's tale of murder and madness, a Scottish laird who conspires with his wife, Lady Macbeth (Jeanette Nolan), to kill the king (Erskine Sanford) and take the crown for himself. Shot in high contrast black and white on minimalist, expressionistic sets, this film captures the doom laden mood of the play to perfection, the heavy shadows laying on Macbeth like his guilt ridden conscience. Welles is not only one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, but also one of the greatest actors of all time (and a pretty good magician), and his performance here is incredible, his descent into madness played with real humanity that makes it all the more tragic. The supporting cast are all very good but Welles just fills the screen in every scene that they become almost unnecessary, and I have no doubt that he could have done this as a one man show and make it incredible. Along with Akira Kurosawa - who made his own version of Macbeth set in feudal Japan under the title Throne of Blood - Welles gets Shakespeare more than any other filmmaker, and even if you think you don't like these plays I bet you'd still be enthralled by the drama unfolding onscreen. I don't think this is as good as Chimes at Midnight, in which he plays Falstaff, a character that appears in several Shakespeare plays, but is still a masterpiece. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Drive-Away Dolls dir. Ethan Coen/2024/1h24m The solo directorial debut from one half of the Coen brothers, Drive-Away Dolls is a screwball comedy starring Margaret Qualley as Jamie, an impulsive, free spirited woman who has just broken up with her girlfriend, super aggressive cop Sukie (Beanie Feldstein), and decides to go on a road trip with her demure and shy best friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan). The only problem is the car they hired contains a hidden package that's being looked for by some gangsters. I'm a huge fan of the Coen brothers so I was disappointed with this film, which feels like a half-baked Farrelly brothers comedy. It's interesting to compare this with the solo directorial debut from brother Joel, a moody, stripped back black and white version of Macbeth (which I liked a lot more than this), because you get a good idea of what they contribute to their collaborative efforts. The mixture of light and dark is always present in their work, from Barton Fink to No Country for Old Men, but not having that more serious edge really exposes the comedy as the weaker aspect of their films – though when it hits it hits hard like Raising Arizona or The Big Lebowski. I also find it strange that a film about gay women is so obsessed with penises. 5/10 Richard III dir. Laurence Olivier/1955/2h35m Laurence Olivier directs and plays the lead role in Shakespeare's tale of murder and madness, the disfigured brother to King Edward IV (Cedric Hardwicke) who plots and schemes his way to the throne. A lavish production with vibrant Technicolor costumes and sets, like Orson Welle's Macbeth this is also dominated by a masterful lead performance from one of the all time greats. Olivier revels in Richard's maliciousness, his every line dripping with venom. I like his decision to perform his monologues directly to the camera, making us co-conspirators to his many plots and guilty by association, but it never feels too theatrical, Olivier's direction always making it feel cinematic. An all star cast of England's most revered theatre actors like John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson give fantastic performances that bring these characters to life. A much more complicated play than Macbeth, this does feel a little rushed at times, especially toward the end – more time could have been given to the “my kingdom for a horse” scene – but it still retains all of the duplicitous machinations that make Richard III one of the most loathed characters in the entire Shakespeare canon. 8.5/10 Silent Love dir. Marek Kozakiewicz/2022/1h12m A tender observational documentary, Silent Love follows Aga, a gay Polish woman living in Germany with her partner Maja, as she returns home to look after her younger brother Milosz after the death of their mother. Once there she must hide that part of her identity if she wants to become his legal guardian, scenes of her at this hearing are intercut throughout the film. This is very unlike any documentary that I've seen in that it's treated like a narrative feature. There is no narration or interviews with the subjects, who never even acknowledge the camera, which is kept at a respectful distance. While this is very interesting it does have the effect of distancing you from these people, at times I forgot that these weren't just characters playing out a scenario, this is their lives. There also isn't much meat on the bones here, I didn't really learn anything about this situation or the new anti-LGTBQ legislation being introduced at the time in Poland despite how directly it affects Aga's life. 7/10 King Lear dir. Richard Eyre/2018/1h55m Anthony Hopkins plays the lead role in Shakespeare's tale of murder and madness, an aging king who wants to divvy up his kingdom between his three daughters, the psychotic Regan (Emily Watson), the Machiavellian Goneril (Emma Thompson) and the sweet Cordelia (Florence Pugh), the only one who actually loves and cares for him, so of course he banishes her because he's insane. This is a made for TV movie so I was impressed with the production design, which brings the story into the modern era but retains the original language, looking so good. Gleaming glass and steel skyscrapers and sharply cut business suits fit this story of greed. Hopkins is as good as he ever was here, especially later on in the film when Lear has totally lost his mind, with an incredible supporting cast that also includes Jim Broadbent, Andrew Scott and Christopher Eccleston. What lets this film down is how truncated it is, with a lot of the play cut out. This does make it seem like Lear goes mad overnight and takes away from the emotional impact of seeing him so broken at the end. Akira Kurosawa directed a version of this story late in his career under the title Ran which is the best version of this story ever filmed and is also one of the most gorgeous looking film I've ever seen, so if you're hungry for some King Lear I'd recommend that one first, but this is still a very solid adaptation. 7/10 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,846 Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 (edited) Nocturne (2020) dir Zu Quirke A fairly mild horror (don't let the trailer fool you) set in a performing arts high school. Sydney Sweeney stars as Juliet, a reasonably gifted pianist. Her twin sister, Vivian, is better though; and everyone knows that, but there is no jealousy. The film starts a few weeks after another student killed herself at the school. Juliet finds the dead student's notebook, half full of sheet music and half full of weird, occult imagery. And as she studies this, and tries to work out what it means, her piano playing improves, various accidents or other misfortunes happen to others, and she finds herself in prime position to capitalise on her new found talent. I think the general idea is that Juliet makes some sort of Faustian pact with the devil, selling her soul in return for her improved talent, except that is not made at all clear in the actual plot. The ending is ambiguous, maybe intentionally so, or maybe just not that well written – it's hard to tell. It's OK, but nothing special. It does feel at times a bit more like a high-school based TV drama than a feature film. The plot does not go into enough depth. It looks good though and has some nice music. 4 / 10. Poor Things (2023) dir Yorgos Lanthimos A stunning film with a magnificent, worthy Oscar winning, performance by Emma Stone as Bella, a woman brought back to life by Victorian scientist Godwin (Willem Defoe). The reanimated Bella is essentially a child in an adults body and through the course of the film she slowly learns to walk, talk, think and do everything else adults do as she taken on a journey of discovery by a cad played by Mark Ruffolo. The support cast is great all round. It is visually stunning with amazing sets and a great score (also winning Oscars for makeup, production design and the score) . It feels like a fantasy, but without all the magic and goblins. I found similarities to Wes Anderson and Terry Gilliam films and I also think to the Final Fantasy games. It's very funny at times, one of my favourite lines was something like (I never remember them word for word) Bella's would be husband - “You gave your love freely” Bella - “No, I charged 30 francs a time!”. I can't say much more without spoilers. Just a very, very good film. 10 / 10 Edited April 1 by djw180 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,179 Posted April 1 Author Share Posted April 1 @djw180 the way Mark Ruffalo said "I will kick your f*cking dog to death" will live rent free in my head forever. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinister 2,578 Posted April 2 Share Posted April 2 Went to a movie theater last week for the first time in years. The 8 trailers shown before the feature reminded me of why I stopped going. Every last one was either a remake/reboot or a sequel to a movie from the 80s and 90s. So sad. Anyways. Son wanted to take his parents to the movies. Got us tickets for the latest Godzilla/Kong installment in IMAX. Enjoyed the movie even though it was mostly a CGI affair with giant monsters fighting one another. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of human casualties but no mention of it, lol. 3 stars 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djw180 6,846 Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 U-Turn (1997) dir Oliver Stone Bobby (Sean Penn) is getting together the money he owes a gangster. Passing through Arizona his car breaks down and he gets stuck in a small town whilst it is fixed. He then gets involved a series of un-planned events with various other characters from the town, mostly of an illegal nature. The support cast is full of well known names, some hardly recognisable such as Billy Bob Thornton as the mechanic and John Voight as a blind veteran. He catches the eye of Grace (Jennifer Lopez), unhappily married to Jake (Nick Nolte). Joaquim Phoenix and Clare Danes play another couple he crosses paths with. Ennio Morricone wrote the score, why I watched this, which is good but to me did not fit the nature of the film. It would have gone well in some of the 70s Italian films he wrote for, but seemed a bit strange in a 1990s, American crime film. The acting is fine, but nothing outstanding, although Joaquim Phoenix steals the scenes he is in, playing a young guy who thinks he is really tough, strutting around trying to start fights, but really he's a bit of a wimp. The style of the film seems to change half way through. Early on there are some bizarre bits of direction in flash back scenes of Bobby playing tennis and other things. Then late in the film there's some really good scenes just showing individuals around the town or with nice scenic cinematography. So this is one of those OK, but nothing special films. 5 / 10 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LimeGreenLegend 4,179 Posted April 8 Author Share Posted April 8 (edited) What I Watched This Week #117 (March 25 – 31) Seven short films by Suzan Pitt: Crocus 1971/7m Jefferson Circus Songs 1974/19m Asparagus 1979/20m Joy Street 1995/24m El Doctor 2006/23m Visitation 2011/9m Pinball 2013/7m These seven short films span the entire career of American avant-garde animator Suzan Pitt whose experimental works used different mediums and techniques to explore female s*xual liberation, personal struggles with mental health and the abstraction of animation itself. Crocus and Asparagus are both similar in theme and style, the first making surreal the very boring night-time routine of a normal housewife, the latter a purely symbolic work using the titular vegetable as a ph*llic stand-in. Meanwhile, Jefferson Circus Songs is a mixture of live action and stop-motion and made in collaboration with a bunch of children from a local school who all created their own characters and scenarios which Pitt transforms into a surreal carnival that feels like an acid trip. After nearly twenty years of inactivity due to severe depression she returned with Joy Street, a deeply personal work in which a suicidal woman is given renewed hope for life thanks to a cartoon mouse. El Doctor, set in a Mexican hospital, follows an alcoholic doctor who is presented with a series of strange patients in a darkly comic parable. Her final two films, Visitation and Pinball are purely expressive and symbolic. Visitation imagines a world of bizarre charcoal creatures where heaven and hell, life and death are the same thing. Pinball is an amazing, abstract work that flashes through her paintings, focusing on minute details, twisting and distorting them and transforming them into a totally new work. All of these films showcase a passion for animation and a need to push the boundaries of what you can do in the medium. Both unflinchingly autobiographical and universal at the same time these are totally singular works by a criminally unknown artist. Watching them in order like this really gives you an insight into this woman and how her life changed over the years. I'll give one score for the entire collection as I binged them all in one go and it feels like one complete work to me. 9/10 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider dir. Simon West/2001/1h40m Angelina Jolie stars as the titular tomb raider in this first film based on the video game series. Here she races to find a powerful artefact before it falls into the hands of evil illuminati d*uche Manfred Powell (Iain Glen), who is being helped by rival tomb raider and former lover Alex West (Daniel Craig). For being based on such an iconic game and character it's kinda funny how bland and forgettable generic this is. The globe-spanning locations are shot with all the originality of tourist board ads, all of the characters are cookie-cutter and have zero depth and the score is just awful. There are some fun action sequences and some laughably cheesy lines which saves it from being a total mess, and the film knows what it is and never aspires to be anything more than a hot chick running around tombs shooting stuff, but all that does is stop it from being so bad it's good and renders it just alright, totally fine, smack bang middle of the road and thus, totally unremarkable. But it does also star Arnold Rimmer himself, Chris Barrie, as Lara's butler, so I did enjoy all of his scenes. 5/10 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life dir. Jan de Bont/2003/1h57m The second and final Tomb Raider film starring Angelina Jolie sees her searching for Pandora's Box at the request of MI6 before it falls into the hands of evil scientist Dr. Reiss (Ciaran Hinds), assisted by her old flame Terry (Gerard Butler). This somehow manages to be even more brainless than the first film with worse action scenes that are poorly shot for the most part. While watching this I came to the conclusion that these films are a failure because they in no way come close to capturing the atmosphere of the source material, especially the original game. In those Lara was alone, it was just her against the environment and that feeling of oppressive loneliness was integral to the game, making you feel like you really were exploring something that no human eyes had seen for thousands of years. These films are just generic popcorn action films. There's nothing wrong with those if they're done well, but these just aren't. Chris Barrie's still great though. 4/10 You Were Never Really Here dir. Lynne Ramsay/2017/1h29m Joaquin Phoenix takes the lead in this brutally violent thriller as Joe, a veteran with severe PTSD whose life changes when he is tasked with rescuing a young girl, Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov), from a p*dophile ring. Directed with an art house sensitivity that makes the bloody violence even more shocking, this is a very different film from your usual revenge thrillers like Taken or John Wick. Phoenix has always been an incredible actor, but in a role like this you can really see how he does so much with so little, tiny micro expressions, posture, the way he delivers the few lines he has. A masterclass in building tension, this is a film without an ounce of fat and is perfectly paced. It's a credit to both the screenplay – also written by Ramsay – and Phoenix's performance that you never know what's going to happen right up to the end credits, with the final scene being the perfect example of this and one that had me holding my breath in shock. 9/10 What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? dir. Robert Aldrich/1962/2h15m Former child star Baby Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) and her sister Blanche (Joan Crawford), whose acting career eclipsed that of her sisters until a car accident left her confined to a wheelchair, now live in their late middle age practically as recluses in their gothic home. Fuelled by hatred and jealousy Jane exerts extreme control over her sister, tormenting her at every opportunity. This is an amazingly deranged film with two brilliant lead performances from Davis and Crawford, their real life hatred for each other helping no end. Baby Jane gives Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard a run for her money when it comes to insane has-beens and is both one of the most entertaining and terrifying performances I've seen in a while. Crawford is just as good but her character is very different, her insanity only showing toward the end but for the most part playing the victim. The heightened style of melodrama may not be to everyone's tastes, especially these days, but I think it adds to the sense of almost surreal theatricality that fits the character of Baby Jane perfectly. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! The Wiz dir. Sidney Lumet/1978/2h14m Adapted from a hit Broadway musical, The Wiz is the Black Wizard of Oz. It stars Diana Ross as Dorothy – here a shy and timid kindergarten teacher – Michael Jackson as Scarecrow and Richard Pryor as The Wiz. Very different from the original, this is set in New York and imagines Oz as this surreal urban landscape with nightmarish subway stations and a yellow brick road that leads over the Brooklyn Bridge. The weakest aspect of this film is the character of Dorothy who is too much of a wet blanket here and feels like she has no agency over what's happening. Thankfully she's surrounded by a supporting cast of fantastic characters. Jackson is brilliant as Scarecrow, who is stuffed with philosophy books which he keeps quoting and I love Nipsey Russell as Tinman, a carnival worker who spent the last god knows how long trapped under his massive wife Teeny before Dorothy came along. Being a musical the most important thing is the music and there are some bangers here, my favourites being Ease on Down the Road and Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News, the big number from the wicked witch Evillene (Mabel King). A fun film that's a good time from start to finish. 9/10 Edited April 8 by LimeGreenLegend 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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