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[Con 5,701]

La Llorona (2019)

 This is one of those legends that hits home because of how deeply ingrained it is within my Central American culture warning us about the  phantom woman named "La Llorona", the "Weeping Woman". The earliest texts to mention her were found in Mexico City, Mexico in 1550. The Aztec origins depict the woman weeping from hunger. After the arrival of the Spaniards, the tale changed and became about an indigenous woman who was seduced by a wealthy Spaniard who abandoned her after she had conceived two children with him. She was so distraught that in an act of revenge, she curiously drowns her children and quickly regrets it and drowns herself. But even in death, her grief is so immense that she becomes a ghost. The narrative I grew up with regarding the weeping woman was that she had caught her husband cheating on her and in a blind rage, she drowns her kids and regrets it and becomes the ghost legend.

 The earliest I can recall being warned about her presence was when I was 12-years old and we visited family back in Central America. The best thing about being there was the ability to light fireworks anytime you wanted, as fireworks were illegal in my state except on the 4th of July. I couldn't wait for nighttime in Central America just to be able to light them suckers up. When we wanted to hang out once the fireworks ran out, we were told not to stay out too late and not to walk the street because the weeping woman might get us.

 I remember being told that she is a beautiful woman, the most beautiful you have ever seen and she wears this white dress and she has long black hair. For whatever reason, if you see her, she will attract you either through a s*xy look, or you will hear her crying and that makes any man want to go ask her if she is okay. Men can't resist her. But when you get close to her, her beautiful face starts to change into the face of a horse and by then it's too late. The man who sees her face change, instantly goes mental and ends up living in an insane asylum because he will always see her after that. That spooked me but I always was curious if it was all true but it wasn't until I visited there again when I was 20-years old, that I think I might have seen apparitions of her, because on many nights I walked on this one road that I swear was haunted or something wasn't right, I encountered strange things, but I know if I start talking about them, I won't be able to stop. So let's get to the review. 

 

Positives: 

 This was not another "The Curse of La Llorona (2018)", that film is an insult to the legend and its audience through its ineffective jump scares.  What made this version of the legend so thrilling was the way La Llorona is introduced, she is drip-fed like the Tuner DLC vehicles and the payoff is awesome in the film. Instead of throwing the weeping woman phantom in our faces, we are forced to wait and learn why the principal characters deserve the haunting and danger of La Llorona. Once we get the full revelation, it is so well done and really puts us there at that cataclysmic moment where everything begins. The cinematography is beautiful throughout, especially inside the family's home, where everything looks so picture perfect. The camera placements and angles never distract and only enrich the frame each time. The direction is superb, with some of the most interesting blocking of actors I have seen in a while. The pacing of this is fantastic, the screenplay and editing should get a lot of credit and nowhere is that more evident as when we are introduced to Alma (Maria Mercedes Coroy) and you actually forget why she shows up in the first place. The acting was really top notch by everyone. I think Carmen (Margarita Kenefic) does a great job as the wife who has suppressed so much disappointment that anything else could break her mentally. This is an origin story, so I really enjoyed that aspect of it. A bit gut-wrenching is the fact that the war crime trial is based on a real life genocidal court case that is almost identical to what is in the film. I loved the very ending because while it feels like a nod to a sequel, I felt it was expertly done to possibly convey guilt by association. The jump moments are all justified and everything that goes bump, has a purpose and that was very cool. I literally felt my brains and eyes getting a workout because my mind was trying to figure out where La Llorona was going to come from, was she going to be summoned, or possibly created, or was she already in the house?? And then my eyes taking in everything on the screen, especially the protest scenes, I wanted to look at all the faces but you'd have to pause the film in order to see if you spot someone who didn't belong because the camera holds just long enough to tease your eyes. Listen, the story is simple but it is told masterfully. Wardrobe also gets a shout here since they did an amazing job in telling this story with the amazing garments worn during the witness testimony. 

Negatives:

 I think the main issue some people will have with this film is the slow burn, the origin story element, and the lack of  a visible La Llorona. But keeping her almost non-existent is done for a reason. Contrast that with how often we see her in the film "The Curse of La Llorona (2019)", and if that was your favorite part of that film, then this could disappoint you a lot. This is more about her arrival and it's unnerving because we the audience, are not given hints as to her arrival, we experience the story as being part of the family. Now while I didn't mind not seeing her throughout, I could have used a few more jump scares because this film really makes you put your guard down. I thought it could have been a bit more creepy in some areas. What I mean is that in the last act, there is a subtle reveal about something that permeates throughout the entire film and when it came time to be impacted by it, it almost went over my head, which would have been a shame since dissecting that particular element can get your analytical skills revving. In conclusion, if you came to see the Llorona, this may disappoint you. If you came to see characters get haunted by shadow figures or constant jump scares, you will find this mediocre and there is nothing wrong with that. I expected those things too but I really liked what was presented and what the filmmaker was trying to accomplish and he succeeds. Subtitles can be obstacles for some but they are important in order to get a feel for the character traits. No gore. But I do feel that if this film had gore it would have changed its tone too much. 

Final Verdict...4/5...I'm glad the legend of La Llorona is something I grew up with or I wouldn't have watched this, because you could describe this film on paper as a slow burn, family centered plot, with very few Llorona moments, and that would have put me off from watching this for a long time. But this is really good storytelling, nothing really new, but everything is just done very well. There are a few things I need to clarify for myself but as I sit here thinking about them, I can loosely form logic, but I think I will enjoy seeing if there is an actual explanation for my questions. Yes, I wish there were some Shutter (2004) moments in this film just to kick up the dread, but the anticipation the filmmaker builds in place, was quite enjoyable. Is this film scary? Not in a jump scare every other scene scary, but more of a cerebral and visual waiting game scary. If you like your horror on the tamer side visually, this is certainly for you, and you should watch it on the next really rainy night. 

[djw180 6,832]

Animals (2019) dir Sophie Hyde

Laura (Holiday Granger) is a 30 year old would-be author, living in best friend Tyler's (Alia Shawkat) Dublin flat. They live a very bohemian lifestyle. Just enjoying life to the full. Both work in a coffee shop, Laura working the bare minimum hours she can afford to so she can write a book the rest of the day, and then partying all night. This seems to be a story about friendship and changes, when you realise a particular period of your life is over and it's time to move on. Towards the beginning we learn Laura's sister was out partying with them every night a year ago but is now having a baby with the boyfriend she lives with. Then Laura meets Jim, a brilliant young pianist, and starts to realise she is falling in love and there is going to come a point when she wants to move of Tyler's Flat and into Jim's. Tyler reacts badly to this; she has far too much partying left to do and can't understand her friend wanting to be different.

It's a nicely made film, maybe a little slow to get going but worth it eventually and quite touching at times, but don't expect any great drama or thrills. It includes some good shots of urban foxes, which I think were there to show how they have adapted from being woodland animal to thriving in cities; sort of 'if they can adapt and change then so can people'.

8/10

[djw180 6,832]

Playing Away (1987) dir Horace Ové

When we had sports films as our Film Club theme this was a film I considered nominating as it featured on some website's 10 top cricket films and I thought I remembered seeing it once and liking it. It seemed very difficult to get hold of so I didn't pick it. But it was on Film 4 a couple of weeks ago so I recorded it. I think it was made for TV, and it certainly seems like a TV movie and I can't find a trailer for it. The actual quality of the picture is very poor, quite fuzzy like an old TV show. The cast is full of faces I recognise from TV but couldn't put names to other than a young Neil Morrisey.

It's a light comedy about a cricket match between teams from an archetypal rural English (Suffolk) village, all white, and one from inner city London (Brixton) drawn from the West Indian community, all black, mainly Jamaican.

It's an OK film, if it was indeed made for TV. The standard of acting and direction is what you'd expect for that sort of film. The plot does seem a bit flawed though. As someone who grew up in an almost 100% white village, like the one in the film, albeit I'm from further north, I was surprised by how un-racist the villagers are portrayed. But I guess the film makers didn't want to be too controversial. I was expecting it to tackle race issues more head on than it did. The cricket element is quite minimal, the match all happens in the last third, and at times it seems the film makers didn't actually know much about cricket. So it's more about the build up than the sport itself but then there's a couple of plot lines that are started but not really explored properly, which makes me wonder why did they bother putting those in?

If the actual quality of the picture was better I'd give it a higher score, but as it is 5/10.

 

( this was meant to have a bit more to it but something odd is going on and I can't post more!?)

Edited September 21, 2021 by djw180

[djw180 6,832]

Wild Rose (2018) dir Tom Harper

 

Jessie Buckley stars as Rose, a young Glaswegian recently released from prison with dreams of going to Nashville and making a career as a country singer. Julie Walters plays her mother, who has been looking after Rose's children while she's been inside and Sophie Okonedo plays Susannah, the wealthy woman who Rose gets a job with doing housework, who discovers and likes Rose's singing so, eventually, offers to help get her to Nashville. But it doesn't work out quite that simply. The actual story is as much about Rose facing the realities of being a single parent with a criminal record than it is about her music. But the music provides a great soundtrack. The more I see of Jessie Buckley the more I like her. She is a great actor and singer and perfect for this role. I've never been a fan of country music but I could get into the sort of songs she sings in this.

8/10

[djw180 6,832]

Woman at War (2018) dir Benedikt Erlingsson

 

 

Browsing films available to me and finding nothing that looked better I tried this. It was described as and Icelandic comedy about a middle aged woman with a super-hero alter-ego, so I thought it might be reasonably funny and watchable. But it was so much better. This is a brilliant and visually stunning film.

Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir plays 50 year old Halla (the main character) and her identical twin sister Asa. Halla works as a music teacher / choir conductor but has a secret double life as an environmental activist (not a super hero at all) waging an almost one-woman war against the government's plans to expand Iceland's aluminium industry.

I'll get the one minor negative point out of the way now. The film never explains what exactly Halla has against aluminium industry, and she is quite happy to drive cars and fly in planes (made from aluminium). But whatever her motives, and whether you agree with her, you just accept this is what she cares so passionately about she is prepared to break to law, sabotaging power cables in a similar fashion to her hero Nelson Mandella. A complication then occurs when an application to adopt an Ukrainian orphan, that she assumed had been rejected, is accepted. So she is conflicted but believes her war against the aluminium industry has to continue. I won't say too much more on the plot as that would spoil this for anyone who wants to see it. But a couple of highlights have to commented on. The main comedy element comes from the police continually arresting the wrong man, a Mexican (I think) tourist who keeps happening to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then there is the music. A 3 man oompah band and a Ukrainian folk choir not only provide the sound track but are actually in the film, mostly just there in the background but a couple of times interacting with other characters. There's one great bit where Halla turns the TV off and the band's Sousaphone player picks up the remote and turns it back on. The cinematography is stunning, many outdoor sequences of the Icelandic terrain and perfectly framed shots of characters against those back drops. The acting is very good – I've never seen any Icelandic films before so no idea who the cast are – but some of them certainly ought to be more widely known based on this. It's very good, original story.

 

Very worthwhile watching. 9/10.

[LimeGreenLegend 4,170]

Dune: Part One

dir. Denis Villeneuve/2021/2h35m

Dune is Denis Villeneuve's latest sci-fi epic, coming after films like Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, and is an adaptation of Frank Herbert's legendary novel (well, the first half at least), which has previously been adapted by David Lynch.  It stars Timothee Chalamet as Paul Atreides, son to Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) who have just been given control of the plant Arakkis, otherwise known as Dune, home to the spice melange and sandworms.  They are taking over from the evil House Harkonnen, led by the gross Baron (Stellan Skarsgaard), who is determined to get it, and control of the spice, back.  

In many ways this is an incredible film, a visual spectacle with one of the best scores I've ever heard, certainly the best work Hans Zimmer has ever produced, and in other ways it's kind of boring and unsatisfying.   

So the good stuff first.  The best thing about this film is the score and sound design.  There's an incredible use of otherworldly choirs and throat singing, as well as extensive bagpiping which didn't make me want to stick knitting needles in my ears, which may be a first.  The production design matches the score perfectly.  This film is full of huge, brutalist architecture that gives the film a breath-taking sense of scale.  This extends to the ships.  Not only are they also gigantic but there are also some very unique designs.  The costume design is good, but it's all a bit muted for my tastes, I would've liked some more colour, but that's just a personal thing. 

The cast is great all round.  I think Chalamet is a great actor and he really portrays Paul in a sympathetic way.  Ferguson gets more to do than Isaac, so she left more of an impression on me, but Isaac has great father-son chemistry with Chalamet and their scenes together were all fantastic.  Skarsgaard plays the Baron like Brando in Apocalypse, Now and it's brilliant.  Out of the supporting cast my favourite was Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho.  He just comes across as Paul's fun uncle who lets him have a beer at the family barbecue.  He brought a real sense of fun and some personality to what can otherwise be a very serious and po-faced film.

My main problem with this film is that seriousness I just mentioned.  This is a very sombre film about very important things and it's going to take it very seriously and expects you to as well, and that's a lot to take for two and a half hours.  The thing about the Lynch version is that it was a Lynch film, and as such it was full of very weird things, which kept your interest through what was roundly a pretty boring film.  This version has some slightly weird things, but it has such a big budget and a huge studio behind it that it can't get too weird for fear of scaring off the norms, which results in a large chunk of the runtime being just boring.  It's nice to look at and listen to, but what's actually happening, and being said, is boring.  Not all of it.  But enough for me to get bored at several points.  

My second big problem is that it's half a story.  This is just the first half of Herbert's book and ends just as Paul and Jessica meet and team up with the Fremen, the native people of Arakkis.  They just walk off into the desert and it ends and I was left thinking "was that it?".  It's not a cliff-hanger.  It's half a story.  It's annoying.  Just make a 4 hour film that tells the whole thing you *sshole, but the studio wouldn't allow that, so instead we get this.  

It's fine.  It's not the greatest sci-fi film ever like so many reviews I've seen have said, like guys, watch more movies, please.  But it's decent.  It really is a gorgeous looking film and the sound dug right to the core of me.  Just go into it expecting to get half a story, and for it to drag in places.

 

[Sinister 2,578]

Halloween Kills. Just another addition to the series that will not die. This movie picks up where the one before ends. To the surprise of no one but the characters in the movie, Michael survived and escaped the burning house to begin another killing spree.  One hell of a killing spree at that. This movie is light on story but HEAVY on blood and gore. If that stuff offends you or just isn't your thing, I'd skip this one. Especially so if you have a soft spot for First Responders.

It digs into a little more backstory with flash backs while the characters figure out just what makes Michael, well, Michael. Overall it was pretty standard and boring so I just couldn't pay much attention to anything but the VERY high kill count. 

Those that love the originals will still watch it just to see what goes on and fans of gory slasher flicks should have a blast. 

2 Stars

 

Edited October 24, 2021 by Sinister

[Sinister 2,578]

Benny Loves You.

A British Horror Comedy completely made by just one person over a 5 year span. Not much to say but it has killer toys. Super low budget and not afraid to show it but enjoyable over all. Bloody and Gory but it shouldn't bother people because it so obviously fake, lol.

I love goofy movies. 5 Stars.

[djw180 6,832]

Ammonite 2020 dir Francis Lee

 

Kate Winslet plays the 19th century palaeontologist Mary Anning in a fictional story that uses an imagined relationship with actual acquaintance Charlotte Murchison (Saoirse Ronan) to show Anning's work. Anning lives in Lyme Regis on England's 'Jurassic Coast', where many fossils of various prehistoric creatures have been found in the cliffs after winter storms blast layers of rock away. She lives with her mother (Gemma Jones, who also played the mother of Kate Winslet's characters in the 1995 version of Sense and Sensibility) making a living selling the fossils, especially Ammonites, she is expert at finding to tourists with the occasional scientifically significant find sold for much more to museums. Anning ought to have been a very well recognised, and reasonably well paid, scientist. She was working at a time when we were starting to discover evidence of long extinct organisms, understand evolution and that the Earth was almost unimaginably older than had been previously thought. But she was pretty much overlooked because she was a woman and in 19th century England only men were supposed to have an interest in science.

 

It seems unusual to tell a scientist's story via a fictional romance. But for me it works. Anning appears as someone so dedicated to their work that a film just about that work would not be very interesting. So the writer-director has imagined a more interesting story. The two leads do a very impressive job, as you would expect and the story is well written. You get a sense of how hard and dangerous Anning's fossil hunting was and that she had a knack of spotting a rock that probably had one in it. It's one of those films without any opening credits that just starts with the actual action. But it also has very little music. In fact to start with there is none at all and it is very noticeable when the background music does come in to accompany Anning and Murchison's first day of fossil hunting together. I'm someone who really likes music in films, but I also really, really, like Kate Winslet. So the presence of the latter more than compensates for the absence of the former.

 

8/10

 

Edited October 24, 2021 by djw180

[Schumi6581 833]

On 10/24/2021 at 11:32 AM, LimeGreenLegend said:

Dune: Part One

dir. Denis Villeneuve/2021/2h35m

Dune is Denis Villeneuve's latest sci-fi epic, coming after films like Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, and is an adaptation of Frank Herbert's legendary novel (well, the first half at least), which has previously been adapted by David Lynch.  It stars Timothee Chalamet as Paul Atreides, son to Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) who have just been given control of the plant Arakkis, otherwise known as Dune, home to the spice melange and sandworms.  They are taking over from the evil House Harkonnen, led by the gross Baron (Stellan Skarsgaard), who is determined to get it, and control of the spice, back.  

In many ways this is an incredible film, a visual spectacle with one of the best scores I've ever heard, certainly the best work Hans Zimmer has ever produced, and in other ways it's kind of boring and unsatisfying.   

So the good stuff first.  The best thing about this film is the score and sound design.  There's an incredible use of otherworldly choirs and throat singing, as well as extensive bagpiping which didn't make me want to stick knitting needles in my ears, which may be a first.  The production design matches the score perfectly.  This film is full of huge, brutalist architecture that gives the film a breath-taking sense of scale.  This extends to the ships.  Not only are they also gigantic but there are also some very unique designs.  The costume design is good, but it's all a bit muted for my tastes, I would've liked some more colour, but that's just a personal thing. 

The cast is great all round.  I think Chalamet is a great actor and he really portrays Paul in a sympathetic way.  Ferguson gets more to do than Isaac, so she left more of an impression on me, but Isaac has great father-son chemistry with Chalamet and their scenes together were all fantastic.  Skarsgaard plays the Baron like Brando in Apocalypse, Now and it's brilliant.  Out of the supporting cast my favourite was Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho.  He just comes across as Paul's fun uncle who lets him have a beer at the family barbecue.  He brought a real sense of fun and some personality to what can otherwise be a very serious and po-faced film.

My main problem with this film is that seriousness I just mentioned.  This is a very sombre film about very important things and it's going to take it very seriously and expects you to as well, and that's a lot to take for two and a half hours.  The thing about the Lynch version is that it was a Lynch film, and as such it was full of very weird things, which kept your interest through what was roundly a pretty boring film.  This version has some slightly weird things, but it has such a big budget and a huge studio behind it that it can't get too weird for fear of scaring off the norms, which results in a large chunk of the runtime being just boring.  It's nice to look at and listen to, but what's actually happening, and being said, is boring.  Not all of it.  But enough for me to get bored at several points.  

My second big problem is that it's half a story.  This is just the first half of Herbert's book and ends just as Paul and Jessica meet and team up with the Fremen, the native people of Arakkis.  They just walk off into the desert and it ends and I was left thinking "was that it?".  It's not a cliff-hanger.  It's half a story.  It's annoying.  Just make a 4 hour film that tells the whole thing you *sshole, but the studio wouldn't allow that, so instead we get this.  

It's fine.  It's not the greatest sci-fi film ever like so many reviews I've seen have said, like guys, watch more movies, please.  But it's decent.  It really is a gorgeous looking film and the sound dug right to the core of me.  Just go into it expecting to get half a story, and for it to drag in places.

 

Wel put to words Lime! I recognize a lot in your review. I liked the music and the visual spectacle. But I did not like that this whole movie was a clear build up to (I hope) a more exciting second part.

[djw180 6,832]

Interesting review @LimeGreenLegend & @Schumi6581.

It could be a while before I get to see Dune, but definitely will when I can. The length of the book is the problem, it was written in 3 parts. David Lynch's version skipped over the middle section very quickly and introduced the bizarrely silly 'weirding modules' to enable that. So that was too short. This one seems to have recognized that from the outset so split the story in two. The problem being the 3 original parts have to read / seen one after the other to make sense. It's not like a trilogy where each book can stand on it's own. It's probably a book that just can not be made properly as a film, more suited to a mini-series.

Edited October 25, 2021 by djw180

[LimeGreenLegend 4,170]

3 hours ago, djw180 said:

It's not like a trilogy where each book can stand on it's own. It's probably a book that just can not be made properly as a film, more suited to a mini-series.

This is the main feeling I had at the end of the film.  It's not bad, just not complete.  Maybe, as someone who has read the books, you might get more out of it.  One of the things I liked about it was they didn't feel the need to explain everything, so a lot of subtle references were probably lost on me.  

[Con 5,701]

On 10/24/2021 at 10:55 AM, Sinister said:

Halloween Kills. Just another addition to the series that will not die. This movie picks up where the one before ends. To the surprise of no one but the characters in the movie, Michael survived and escaped the burning house to begin another killing spree.  One hell of a killing spree at that. This movie is light on story but HEAVY on blood and gore. If that stuff offends you or just isn't your thing, I'd skip this one. Especially so if you have a soft spot for First Responders.

It digs into a little more backstory with flash backs while the characters figure out just what makes Michael, well, Michael. Overall it was pretty standard and boring so I just couldn't pay much attention to anything but the VERY high kill count. 

Those that love the originals will still watch it just to see what goes on and fans of gory slasher flicks should have a blast. 

2 Stars

 

So glad someone else thought it was rubbish. I started writing a review but it was so negative that I stopped and said, no one wants to read my displeasure as most people will probably like the movie for what it is and I also didn’t want to come across as some professional screenwriter wannabe but I know I could have come up with better story concepts or tweaked stuff to make the story better. 

From the start the whole thing has a B-movie atmosphere, that is great for films like Sharknado, but not for the legendary Halloween series. 
It is filled with characters that belonged in a Borat movie not in a Halloween one. 

Even the tones of the kills were inconsistent. Some kills were for laughs and then some kills we were supposed to take serious and feel bad for the dead. And one last thing, I never want to see MM surrounded by enemies, in those moments I was like, “this isn’t Halloween, this is a damn Jean Claude Van Damme movie!” 
I hated Danny McBride’s writing and MM inconsistencies in the 2018 retelling and in this one he flips the MM story for him to be supernatural again, despite the fact that H-Kills is picking up where 2018 left off. Then he does what we see in 2018, one moment MM has superhuman strength and the next scene he is in arm to arm combat. Does that make any sense? He can stab a fully dressed firefighter and lift him in to sky with one arm but then is shown struggling to take a knife away from a teenager.  That’s f*cked. My brain cannot accept that kind of bullsh*t. And no one better tell me, “well Laurie does explain that MM gets stronger with every kill he makes.” 
Even if that were true, why do we see him struggling with a teen girl at the end of the film? Shouldn’t he have had Goku-like powers by then? And how the f*ck did Laurie even know that, how does she have that insight about MM when in this version of sh*t, Laurie is not related to MM and was just at the wrong place at the wrong time and is why she had to survive MM in the original. How about Laurie giving her self that injection, that sh*t was used as a jump scare accentuated by Karen’s (Judy Greer) top of her lungs scream, It was so stupid. Had Laurie stabbed someone else with the syringe in that manner, it would have been effective but she is stabbing her own *ss!!! Just ridiculous.
Nothing makes sense. 
 

Edited October 25, 2021 by Con

[Sinister 2,578]

5 hours ago, Con said:

So glad someone else thought it was rubbish. I started writing a review but it was so negative that I stopped and said, no one wants to read my displeasure as most people will probably like the movie for what it is and I also didn’t want to come across as some professional screenwriter wannabe but I know I could have come up with better story concepts or tweaked stuff to make the story better. 

From the start the whole thing has a B-movie atmosphere, that is great for films like Sharknado, but not for the legendary Halloween series. 
It is filled with characters that belonged in a Borat movie not in a Halloween one. 

Even the tones of the kills were inconsistent. Some kills were for laughs and then some kills we were supposed to take serious and feel bad for the dead. And one last thing, I never want to see MM surrounded by enemies, in those moments I was like, “this isn’t Halloween, this is a damn Jean Claude Van Damme movie!” 
I hated Danny McBride’s writing and MM inconsistencies in the 2018 retelling and in this one he flips the MM story for him to be supernatural again, despite the fact that H-Kills is picking up where 2018 left off. Then he does what we see in 2018, one moment MM has superhuman strength and the next scene he is in arm to arm combat. Does that make any sense? He can stab a fully dressed firefighter and lift him in to sky with one arm but then is shown struggling to take a knife away from a teenager.  That’s f*cked. My brain cannot accept that kind of bullsh*t. And no one better tell me, “well Laurie does explain that MM gets stronger with every kill he makes.” 
Even if that were true, why do we see him struggling with a teen girl at the end of the film? Shouldn’t he have had Goku-like powers by then? And how the f*ck did Laurie even know that, how does she have that insight about MM when in this version of sh*t, Laurie is not related to MM and was just at the wrong place at the wrong time and is why she had to survive MM in the original. How about Laurie giving her self that injection, that sh*t was used as a jump scare accentuated by Karen’s (Judy Greer) top of her lungs scream, It was so stupid. Had Laurie stabbed someone else with the syringe in that manner, it would have been effective but she is stabbing her own *ss!!! Just ridiculous.
Nothing makes sense. 
 

Glad I wasn’t the only one. Those group scenes were the worst and pissed me off.  At best he would kill one and wound a couple others before the rest of mob overwhelmed him and tore him to pieces. Especially so with all those fireman armed with objects that can cause immense damage. At the end I was yelling at the TV, don’t stop, beat him until he is mush, set him on fire and carve him like a Turkey. Yet they walk away.

Also hate how movies like this, that take place in the USA, forget that they are in the USA. 2/3 of the people in this country have at least one firearm in the house. It would be 3 fold in a town that has seen multiple murder sprees by the same guy over a few decades. Just imagine the amount of high powered rifles that would be carried by hundreds of people not to mention hand guns. MM would be so full of lead he couldn’t stand and would be considered hazardous waste. Instead these f*ckers show up with nothing but a baseball bat.

 

Im glad that F13 is stuck in lawsuits and stuff. Would hate to see them destroy that franchise like they are doing this one.

[Con 5,701]

14 hours ago, Sinister said:

Glad I wasn’t the only one. Those group scenes were the worst and pissed me off.  At best he would kill one and wound a couple others before the rest of mob overwhelmed him and tore him to pieces. Especially so with all those fireman armed with objects that can cause immense damage. At the end I was yelling at the TV, don’t stop, beat him until he is mush, set him on fire and carve him like a Turkey. Yet they walk away.

Also hate how movies like this, that take place in the USA, forget that they are in the USA. 2/3 of the people in this country have at least one firearm in the house. It would be 3 fold in a town that has seen multiple murder sprees by the same guy over a few decades. Just imagine the amount of high powered rifles that would be carried by hundreds of people not to mention hand guns. MM would be so full of lead he couldn’t stand and would be considered hazardous waste. Instead these f*ckers show up with nothing but a baseball bat.

 

Im glad that F13 is stuck in lawsuits and stuff. Would hate to see them destroy that franchise like they are doing this one.

Just seeing MM having to turn into an action star in those scenes just will never sit right with me. MM is a stalker not an MMA competitor. 

And that battle with the mob just gets so cheesy once he begins to kill everyone, those slow-motion action shots felt out of place and the only time the slow-motion should have kicked in was when MM finally confronts Tommy Doyle, that would have more effective and impactful. 

Yes, the gun ownership issue in America would end MM's life in a heartbeat. In Halloween Kills, people do get guns but they don't know how to use them, including the cops. One of the most head-scratching moments is when Karen hands Laurie a f*cking knife in the hospital. I was like, what the f*ck? isn't this a continuation of the previous film where Laurie shows us her extensive arsenal she has accumulated over the years to take out MM in her trap house but here the writers have the audacity to give Laurie a knife and not a gun? Again, the inconsistent writing is just brutal and I think it bothers me more here because I love the Halloween franchise concept. 

The F13 lawsuit was won by Victor Miller but he didn't win the rights to a masked version of Jason and only to his original story, meaning, he cannot write a screenplay depicting Jason Voorhees in a hockey mask. He is stuck with the original story. Sean Cunningham has the right to make more films depicting the masked killer we know today but cannot include anything to do with the original story. It's an interesting ruling to say the least. I'm excited about the future F13 movies, as long as Danny McBride isn't writing the story.  

Edited October 26, 2021 by Con

[LimeGreenLegend 4,170]

Cannibal Holocaust

dir. Ruggero Deodato/1980/1h36m

One of, if not the most controversial and notorious films of all time, Cannibal Holocaust is an Italian horror film from Ruggero Deodato.  It stars Robert Kerman as Professor Monroe, an anthropologist sent on a mission to the Amazonian rainforest, the "green inferno", to find a missing film crew who were there to make a documentary about local cannibal tribes.  He finds the tribe and after making nice with them by having a bit of a nosh himself, he returns to New York where a television network wants to broadcast the footage.  However, after reviewing the footage they discover that the film crew were just massive c*nts.  

Remember when Jake Paul went to that Japanese suicide forest all giddy and excited about the prospect of finding a corpse?  These people are like that but much, much worse.  Their footage shows them abusing the tribe, their guns making them seem like gods.  They burn their village, with them still inside the houses and they r*pe their women.  They are the literal embodiment of western exploitation of the natural world.  They are actual psychopaths and get everything they deserve.  I never thought that the big twist in this film is that the cannibals are the good guys!  I was really surprised with this story and how good it actually is.  I was expecting a total schlock fest and pure exploitation.  This is still full of exploitation, but it does have a message.  

The big problem I have with this film is that it just goes too far with the animal abuse.  There are several scenes of actual animals being killed and butchered that I nearly stopped watching during a few of those scenes.  It's just gross and unnecessary, nothing needs to get hurt just to make a film.  It's kind of hypocritical that a film which seems to be saying that it's anti-exploitation and abuse actually shows us the top of a baby monkey's head getting chopped off, among many other things which I just didn't need to see.  There are also several brutal r*pe scenes which again just feel hypocritical.  This is a film that wants to have its cake and eat it.  

The acting is also pretty wooden from most of the cast, but the film crew do a good job of being total *ssholes who you can't wait to see get killed.  The music is weird in places, like almost romantic, or the theme for a daytime soap opera.  But I did like the atmospheric synthy parts, very suspenseful.  This film is a hard watch and I wouldn't recommend it, mostly for all the animal stuff, but I do think it is worth a watch as there is more to it than its reputation, and title, suggests.  

 

[Sinister 2,578]

Black Widow.

Oh boy, yet another Marvel movie. This one was just another in a far too long line of carbon copy Comic Book Super Hero movies. Good guys, er, girls and a not so good guy, er, I'm not sure what the hell was going on to be honest. Some people defeated a bad guy, roll credits, cue end credit scene to set up even more CBSH crap.

1*

Makes me smile to see the reviews trashing the upcoming CBSH movie and have seen it called the worst one yet. Really hope this is a signal that the end is near for these damn things. While I have enjoyed some of the past ones, at their core they are all the same damn thing and we don't need this many of them.

[Con 5,701]

Damn, @LimeGreenLegend, with the amazing video nasty review. What drove you to watch that?

I used to like that movie until I realized they basically tortured and killed those animals just to add shock value to the film. I have zero interest in ever watching that again. 

Edited October 29, 2021 by Con

[LimeGreenLegend 4,170]

2 hours ago, Con said:

Damn, @LimeGreenLegend, with the amazing video nasty review. What drove you to watch that?

I used to like that movie until I realized they basically tortured and killed those animals just to add shock value to the film. I have zero interest in ever watching that again. 

It's just something I haven't seen before and I figured why not when I came across it on Mubi.  And yeah, the animal stuff is just so pointless and cruel that it negates anything positive about the film, and it does have some interesting ideas in it but that all gets lost under the controversy and cruelty.

[Con 5,701]

Malignant (2021)

I found it to be a hilarious concept for a horror story that somehow works…in places.
Good atmosphere.
Interesting monster —-until we see it choosing it’s wardrobe, while it makes sense in context, it was still funny to see and takes away from the threat, it’s like seeing Michael Myers stopping in at the Starbucks for a PSL before heading to Haddonfield.
 Anyways, the end was confusing because of the way it plays out so positively since surely there has to be legal repercussions for the behavior displayed throughout the film. It has a better creepy vibe than Halloween Kills (2021) and that’s a damn shame. I also couldn’t understand how the original medical procedure was so visually successful, when so many things had to go in one cavity. 

Final Verdict…2/5…Silly enough to be fun, but at the same time we are shown things from the monster’s POV that took away from the horror aspects and immersion. We also see body alterations, that are not explained and a realization that comes way too late in the story, as in the very end, when something of that magnitude should have already been contemplated naturally. 
It does have a better screenplay than Halloween Kills, but I’m in no rush to rewatch either one ever again. I also laughed too hard at the monster origin scene because it looked like something out of South Park. I have never seen a film with so many damned red light bulbs, they are everywhere, indoors/outdoors and there seems to be no real reason for them except for the film to say, “oh look at this red lit room, creepy ain’t it?”.
While I enjoyed it more than Halloween Kills (2021), it’s only because this film isn’t a complete visual and narrative mess. 

Edited November 5, 2021 by Con

[LimeGreenLegend 4,170]

Everybody's Talking About Jamie

dir. Jonathan Butterell/2021/1h55m

Everybody's Talking About Jamie is a musical based on a West End show that was based on a Channel 4 documentary about a gay high school boy who wants to be a drag queen and attend his prom dressed in the full gear.  It stars Max Harwood, in his film debut, as Jamie, with a supporting cast full of familiar faces from British film and television including Sarah Lancashire as Jamie's mother Margaret, Richard E. Grant as his drag fairy godmother Hugo/Loco Chanel, Ralph Ineson as his estranged father and Shobna Gulati as Margaret's best friend Ray.  It's a mix of Billy Elliot/The Full Monty style "Northern lads don't do stuff like that", High School Musical, and Ru Paul's Drag Race, and it's absolutely delightful from start to finish.  Y'all know I love musicals, which is why I judge them more harshly, and I can say that this is a great one.  

The songs are catchy and poppy, full of energy, and the production of the numbers matches them perfectly with some great routines set in classrooms and cafeterias and nightclubs.  The emotional songs are great too, full of heart without getting sentimental or schmaltzy, the highlight of these is Lancashire's solo "He's My Boy".  The performances are all great.  Harwood is full of both brash and brazen confidence and crippling self-doubt and straddles this line with skill.  Lancashire is the heart of the film, and really has some heartbreaking moments but plays it all with the strength of the best single mothers.  Richard E. Grant gets some time to really ham things up as Hugo/Coco, but also gets another of the films emotional high points with the song "Over The Top".  

You probably have to like musicals to really like this, but if you want a fun, uplifting and inspiring film that'll leave you with a smile on your face then you should check this out, it's absolutely fabulous. 

======================================================

The Revenant 

dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu/2015/2h37m

The Revenant is a revenge drama from Alejandro González Iñárritu which stars Leonardo DiCaprio in his Oscar winning turn as Hugh Glass, ravaged by a bear while on a hunting expedition and then left for dead by the men set to stay with him until he died and then give him a proper burial.  Sadly for them, he didn't die.  Set in the 1820s of the American west, this is a film full of wild and untamed landscapes shot beautifully by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki.  The best thing about the film is the way it looks.  I believe I read that this was shot using natural light only, nothing artificial, giving the film a real unique and painterly look.  If you've seen Kubrick's Barry Lyndon then you know how gorgeous a film shot with just natural light can look.  

DiCaprio is decent as Glass, but he never really sells how injured he is.  This may  just be a problem for me as I read the book not long before watching the film, but in the book he gets really f*cked up by that bear.  He has his scalp practically torn off, his throat torn open and deep gouges down his back from his shoulders to his *ss.  This isn't really the case in the film.  He also seems to recover pretty quickly, when in the book he spends days crawling on his belly through the wilderness because he can't stand.  They also add a son for the character to give more emotional weight to his revenge but it doesn't really work for me and wasn't necessary.  

The best performance comes from Tom Hardy as Fitzgerald, the object of Glass's revenge, and there is great support from Domhnall Gleeson and Will Poulter.  Iñárritu's direction is great as usual, and this film is full of brilliantly shot fluid long takes, but I prefer the kinetic, jazzy energy he had in Birdman.  This is a decent film but it does drag in places, and Glass comes across as too much of a superman at times, but it's worth the watch just for the amazing visuals.

======================================================

Nosferatu the Vampyre

dir. Werner Herzog/1979/1h47m

Nosferat the Vampyre is a remake of the classic silent film from German director (and star of The Mandalorian) Werner Herzog.  Starring Herzog's longtime collaborator Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula (Herzog apparently got the rights to the real names, unlike Murnau), this tells the classic story which I don't think I need to recount.  My favourite thing about this film is Kinski's interpretation of the vampire.  His voice is whiny and pathetic, totally not what you'd expect.  He really plays on the sadness and loneliness of the character.  His mannerisms, while taking inspiration from Schreck's original, are also his own,  there are moments of sudden, quick movements that feel almost violent and shocking when they happen.  

The supporting cast is good.  Isabelle Adjani as Lucy has more agency in this film than the character in the original and is more of a rounded character, and Bruno Ganz (Hitler in Downfall!) as Harker gets some really interesting things to do when it comes to the ending of the film, which differs from the original in some big and surprising ways, which alone would make this worth watching.  This film also has a great mood setting score from another Herzog favourite, the band Topol Vuh.  

This is a great film, and a worthy companion to the original while being it's own film.  It respects the original but also has original ideas, which is what a remake should do.  Like the original, I didn't find it scary, but Kinski's performance is always creepy, but the way it's presented makes it feel more like Gothic romanticism rather than horror.  A strong addition to the vampire canon.

======================================================

The Other Side of the Wind

dir. Orson Welles/2018/2h2m

The Other Side of the Wind is the final film from probably the greatest filmmaker of all time, Orson Welles.  Started in the early 70s, Welles worked on this film on and off up until his death in 1985.  The film was recently finished by director Peter Bogdanovich (who also stars in the film) and producer Frank Marshall, and released on Netflix.  The film shows us the last day in the life of an old and legendary director, Jake Hannaford (played by real life old and legendary director, John Huston) who is throwing a screening party for his latest film, The Other Side of the Wind.

Welles was always an innovator, and the fact that he was shooting this in 1970 is incredible.  This is an incredibly experimental and innovative film.  Mostly shot in a mock-documentary style the film is constructed in an almost kaleidoscopic way at times, moving through rooms, quick cutting between snatches of conversations, people flowing freely, snatches of colour and movement.  Other times it feels like Welles made this film instead of going to a therapist.  The similarities between Hannaford and himself are obviously autobiographical, almost painfully so, as he presents to us not a tortured genius but a cruel dictator.  

If you watch any of the films in this post, watch this one.  This is not a perfect film, but it's close enough that you couldn't tell.  Every time I watch an Orson Welles film that I haven't seen before I'm always surprised by how amazing it is.  

 

 

[djw180 6,832]

Don't Look Now (1973) dir Nicolas Roeg

Classic 70's horror based on a Daphne Du Maurier short story. Donald Sutherland plays John Baxter, working in Venice on the restoration of some medieval churches, with his wife Laura (Julie Christie). At the very beginning of the film we see their young daughter drown after she falls into a pond. John has come to terms with this but Laura is still struggling. One night in a restaurant they come across a strange couple of elderly sisters, one of whom is blind but claims to be able to see and communicate with ghosts. She says she has seen their daughter and though she is happy she has a warning; they must leave Venice straight away. Laura is intrigued and wants to find out more. John dismisses it as nonsense. Then he starts to see strange things including fleeting glances of what appears to be a young girl wearing the same bright red coat their daughter was wearing when she died.

 

It's a good story and well acted, quite atmospheric but more eerie than scary. Venice is a great setting with all it's narrow streets and echoey passages. The canals are perfect for breaking up the action and scenery so that someone can just see something in the distance or sometimes quite close by but out of reach on the other side of the canal. The scariest part, for me, is when John is working high up on a wall inside a church on small, rickety gangway, and you just know that that a rope is going to snap or section of scaffolding collapse. There also seemed to be lots of shots of deliberately placed bright red objects that could be there for either of two different reasons. If you take a Laura's perspective it's their daughter's ghost warning them to get away. If you take John's more rational approach then it's just coincidence, there's bound to be some red items of clothing on washing lines, some red curtains etc etc in the city. The music is very, very 70s, almost sounds like cheesy pan-pipe versions of classical pieces at time, but it works and adds to the atmosphere. I remember this being mentioned as a very controversial film, but that's because of a s*x scene that was very explicit of the early 70s and got it an X-rating. Now that scene looks very tame and it is almost comical the way the director cut shots of John and Laura's love-making with them getting dressed afterwards in order to get the film passed the censors.

 

8/10

Edited November 7, 2021 by djw180

[djw180 6,832]

Falstaff (Chimes at Midnight) (1965) dir Orson Welles

Adapted from parts of three of William Shakespeare's historical plays, Henry IV pt1, Henry IV pt 2 and Henry V, this tells the story of the fictional Sir John Falstaff and his friendship with Prince Hal (the future King Henry V). It uses Shakespeare's actual lines, although, and I am no expert on his plays, it seemed to me some lines get said by different characters to those they were wrote for and even sometimes at a different points in time. So it's a very well written and clever script. But if you don't like the original language of Shakespearian plays this won't be for you. It's got a very good cast with the director as Falstaff and host of faces I recognise but didn't necessarily know the names of other than John Gielgud as Henry IV. It is a bit dated of course. There's one very amusing scene that I am not sure was meant to be; trumpeters at a castle heralding their lord's immanent departure keep interrupting the dialogue, and each time they interrupt there seems to be more of them. I'm not sure heralds were quite used in that way, but they are rather stereotypical of medieval films from that and earlier eras. I suspect it was a joke on the directors part.

 

Anyway I enjoyed it, thanks to @LimeGreenLegend for pointing this out to me a while ago, 8/10

[djw180 6,832]

Lancaster Skies (2019) dir Callum Burn

 

 

 

A mediocre WWII film about the crew of an RAF Lancaster bomber. Not an action film, it's meant to be a story about the crew and especially their new pilot. If you happen to come across this expecting an action film, watch the beginning and then fast forward to the end. Those are the only scenes with the crew on actual missions, and you would not be missing much in between.

This could have been good. I like films with a good story and I'm very happy to watch the sort of film this was supposed to be. It just wasn't very good. The plot is poor and confusing at times. The acting varies from OK for the main characters to very wooden for some of the support.

The crew's pilot is killed at the start of the film and his replacement, the film's central character (who's name I have already forgotten), is a bit stuck up at first, only wants to mix with fellow officers rather than his crew, etc etc. The new pilot has transferred from flying fighters. Why this is seems to be integral to the plot but is not well explained. Through a series of flashback scenes we learn his younger brother (a school boy) was killed and he wants to hit back at Germany more directly, i.e. by dropping bombs rather than shooting planes down. Except this does not make sense since it eventually appears his brother was killed in a traffic accident by a car driven by his new plane's flight engineer. So why does this motivate his switch from fighters to bombers? This and other poorly written, poorly acted elements really mess up the film. It could have been OK though. There was good potential material such as the rear gunner blaming himself for not spotting the enemy fighter that killed the first pilot and how the wives and girlfriends of the airmen coped with not knowing if their husbands and boyfriends were coming back from the next raid. But it was just all very poorly executed.

A couple of more technical points. The dialogue in the two airborne scenes was difficult to follow. I get that it would have been difficult to hear inside the plane when flying, but if you're watching a film you do need to hear what the characters are saying. Also the pilot refers to their 'bombardier'  but in the RAF the person who aimed and dropped the bombs was known as a 'bomb aimer'.

 

3/10

[djw180 6,832]

Anna (2019) dir Luc Besson

 

 

Action spy-thriller with s*xy female lead, just what you would expect from the director. Sasha Luss plays the title character, plucked from her depressing early 90s Moscow life by the KGB to become an assassin, set after the fall of the Berlin wall, but before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. She poses as a model to meet and seduce her targets. It's action packed, a little too many killings for my personal liking but not too over-the-top. Lot's of very well choreographed unarmed combat. There's a good support cast of Luke Evans and Helen Mirren as Anna's KGB handlers and Cillian Murphy as the CIA agent who gets involved as well. The plot is bit irritating at times as it repeatedly jumps back months or years to show you why the scene you've just watched happened the way it did. You expect lots of twists in a spy thriller but this is no John Le-Carrie and for me it would have been better to mainly stick to chronological order. One aspect of the plot I really did like though is the way Anna ultimately plays off the KGB and CIA against each other to get her own way.

 

7/10

 

Edited December 5, 2021 by djw180